No Regrets, Coyote...

A little over a year ago I began the practice each day of listing things I’m grateful for in my journal… Each morning with a cup of coffee, pen and paper… Old school… In cursive… Sister Mary Miserable would be proud… Even if it’s messy sometimes…

It’s been an eye opener and life changing as there are always things to be happy for… Taking the time to think about them to start the day sets the tone for the rest of the day…

Using different methods to provoke good thoughts and to get the ink flowing… This morning I started with the five senses… Sight, Hearing, Smell, Touch and Taste… Felt so good after words I thought I’d share some of the good feelings here…

Sight… The blue sky and all that is good… The trees and the leaves that have already begun turning yellow… Mountains… Sunrises and Sunsets… Smiles… And the wag of Simon’s tail…

Hearing… I’m looking forward to hearing nature again… Three more weeks before Simon and I are alone in the wilderness… The sound of a stream and the wind through the trees… The song of the birds and sounds of the forest… Laughter… And silence, my favorite sound, it’s the sound that speaks the loudest…

Smell… Campfires and good food cooking on the fire… Wild flowers… Simon as I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in the fur of his neck… Smells like love…

Touch… The touch of a friend… Near, far, new, old… A handshake… A hug… Or even a text from afar… The feel of a cool stream to put my feet in… The splash of cool water on my face… The warm sun on my face… The morning dew and the wet grass on my bare feet…

Taste… Good food… Meat off the grill… Fresh fruit and vegetables… Strong coffee… Red wine… Cool water… Good beer…

Warm bed… Good rest…

Time to think… Time to listen and time to hear… Yes, there’s a difference…

No regrets… Life is good…

South By Southwest...

With still some months of summer left to be spent in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington… Plan A is evolving to drive down and camp along the Oregon and California coastline… Stay tuned for plenty of pictures…

Work has just been started on a possible Plan B... But it's not far enough along yet to decide if it would be an alternative to Plan A or to mention it here...
"Too soon" as they say...  

Often accused of being Psycho and with the screenplay of my life already like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie…  If we stick with Plan A... Maybe we’ll make a stop at the Bates Motel…

Oregon coastline… Then California… With stops planned to see the Redwoods, Point Reyes National Seashores and Big Sur… A stop in Ventura to see some friends… Then Slab City… At least to say I’ve been there… One of these winters I’d like to spend the whole winter there…

Then Arizona and into New Mexico… A stop in Roswell, NM for a “family reunion”. If I don’t trade the RV for a UFO… Then we’ll finally get to this winter’s stop in Alamogordo/White Sands, NM…

Already planning on taking a tour of the Trinity Site in White Sands next spring… One day a year the site of the first atomic bomb test is open to the public… Which brings me to one of my favorite quotes… Ironically made during an election year… “Built in America, tested in Japan.” – Ross Perot

I’m psycho, remember…

There’s more stops planned and research continues on other interesting things for Simon and I to see and do along the way and this winter... 

While Simon and I are enjoying our time together as the "Last of the Moheathens"... There is also the possibility of finding him a new brother this winter in New Mexico... 

Though I haven't been blogging as much as I should or would like to... I'm still filling journal notebooks by hand... Turning the scribbles and sometimes random thoughts into readable and hopefully entertaining blogs hasn't always come easy... 

So stay tuned faithful readers... You, Simon and I will fight through some writers block together and share our adventures...  

Priceless Freedom...

"My story isn't sweet and harmonious, like invented stories. It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves."

- Hermann Hesse

It's not just about what happened... But also... Why did it repeatedly happen??? From one bad relationship to the next… Well, finally the universe has shed the understanding I have been searching for...

Long ago... In a galaxy far, far away... It was ingrained in me that what I wanted never mattered as much as what everyone else wanted... That well, I just didn't deserve the things and the life I wanted...I finally know now it wasn't true...  

Taught that other’s needs, wants and the chaos they create to get it were more important... Taught this from early on by evil and reinforced by evil and bad relationships throughout my life... From one bad relationship to another… Taught to falsely believe that if I gave and met others needs mine would be met as well... Evil people feed on that... Makes you think and believe that initially… Then it overwhelms you with chaos to maintain the control it fears it will lose if you finally get what you want... Evil never was intending to really lend support to my wants and needs… It was only constantly feeding the lie that they were…

It leads to a stolen life... I’ll never get back the hours spent working jobs that I hated chasing paychecks long since spent to trying to appease, please and in the end trying to buy myself peace from the controlling chaos… Controlling chaos that I mistakenly repeatedly opened the front door of my life to… Finally understanding this is part of finally being free of it... Of never repeating it again… 

Yes, youth… And its years of earning power and money has been lost… Pissed away on ungrateful evil… Ungrateful evil only interested in what can be done for them today… Chaos interested only in control… Narcissistic in its need for it…

Now finally understanding this… There’s no more need to talk about what’s been lost… It’s time to only focus on what’s been gained… Certainly there’s been a life time of experiences… In the end, though not all the experiences have been positive… There’s been more good ones than bad ones… Certainly some I’ve had experiences only a few people get to have… Certainly, some hard lessons were learned along the way… But we’re not talking about the cost of those lessons any longer…  

Looking back… What’s been gained??? Yes, a lifetime of experiences and adventure… Yes, certainly some dreams fulfilled… I have seen just about all corners of this world and this country… I fulfilled a dream to tour as a road comic and have lived adventures only a few people get to have…

I have had the love of many a fine dog and we’ve shared adventures some dogs only dream about… I have friends near and far across this land… New friends and old friends…

What have I gained??? One word… FREEDOM… A price tag can never be put on that… 

Even The Locals Are From Somewhere Else...

Is it a precursor to Alzheimer’s??? Lately, I have been amazed at some of the things surfacing from the depths of memory… Songs, stories, events, etc… Sometimes with little to no connection to what might be happening around me… Be it working, walking, talking thinking…

Like this one today…

I think anyone who has been a regular reading of my blogs, facebook posts and tweets knows how much I am enjoying life and the freedom of the road in my RV…

Now work kamping in the mountains of eastern Washington… The Comedy Dog House is down to one dog… Well, yeah… Two, if you count Simon… We like it here…

So what happened today??? Get to the damn point!!!

Everyone who works here is from somewhere else… Even the locals are from somewhere else to me… A pretty cool thing…

So yeah, the point and how to Segway into it…

Well, I was going to write a blog about telling someone I work with that his personality, attitude and constant complaining about the job was just like the “drip, drip, drip of gonorrhea”.

There’s wheels on your RV… If you don’t like it here… Drive the fuck away… Or shut the FUCK UP!!

But it might be too negative to blog about that…

So I’ll write about how amazed I am at what surfaces from the depths of memory sometimes, instead...  

https://youtu.be/QFl3T9Asw7Q

Hammer Time

So for a long time… With many starts and stops I’ve tried to put old columns together and piece together a book… I’ve even written about those efforts here… Yes, they are stopped again…

Stopped again… Maybe each time for the same reason… They weren’t saying what I wanted to say… Well, at least not “cutting to the chase” as fast as I would have liked… Oh yes, eventually they may have told the story… Maybe… Maybe it would have been missed??? Maybe eventually they’ll finally make it into a book??? Maybe it’ll finally be made into a movie???

Maybe this column will finally put into words what I have wanted to say all along… Hopefully it’ll make the book that much easier to write… The message will have already been said…

There’s a saying that the “Lessons in life will be repeated until they are learned”. 

Maybe… Just maybe I’ve finally learned what the lessons (over and over) had been trying to tell me for so long…

I worked a long time at jobs filled with unhealthy hours and stress… Unhappy while doing it… But doing what I thought I was “supposed” to do…

The only ones benefiting from those efforts being those who in the end gave no damn about me… Except when it was time to ask again… “What are you going to do for me today???”

Each time I would finally put my foot down to end the drama and to ask “What about what I want??? I would become the bad guy…

Repeatedly making bad choices in people to trust… Repeatedly trying to “earn love”… I’ll probably be faulted for quoting some scripture here… But I never said there isn’t any wisdom to be found there… 

As a matter of fact, this bit of wisdom is found twice in the Book of Proverbs… Proverbs 21:9 and 25:24

“Better to live on a corner of the roof
    than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.”

Just wish I hadn’t been repeatedly fooled by those pretending not to fit the description…  

Repeatedly, repeating the lesson… Until it was learned… I’ve experienced lots of loss in this life… All those years of work with little to nothing material to show for my efforts…

It’s safe to say the lesson will not need to be repeated again… The lesson??? What’s important??? 

I finally have it figured out… And I’m living it now…

Living “small” now with the boys for the last two years, mostly out of my RV… Stress and drama free with an abundance of wisdom, better health, love, quality relationships not built on what someone can get from me, adventure, insight and freedom…

I’ll dip into the scripture bag one more time… Proverbs 15:17

“Better a small serving of vegetables with love
    than a fattened calf with hatred.”

The Universe was trying to teach me this for a long time…. And yes, many of those old columns would have rehashed the lessons… But not moved me past them…

Yes, sometimes we just need to be hit in the head repeatedly with a bigger and bigger hammer until the lesson sinks in… Okay, I get it now…

How Much Is That Doggy In The Window???

I wrote this 12 years ago… Seems like a perfect time to re-post it… If you don’t cry you might be a terrorist…

Having just completed two weeks of evening and midnight shifts, I ventured out this morning headed to the country garden store. A time to reacquaint with myself as I loaded up on cat food, dog food and rawhide bones. I must have taped a sign on my back as I entered the store… "Bad A$$, but Soft Heart".  Hmm.....

As I checked out what should appear?  But a miniature Jack, so young and so pure.

We're looking for a home for this guy, said the checkout girl.  As I stopped to say hi and ogle the puppy. 

How old is he?

Six weeks, we call him JJ.

Of course he was cute, most puppies are. But a puppy was NOT on my shopping list this morning, so I proceeded to the door. Almost out to the safety of the truck, the big invisible hand held up a stop sign. Turning me around it drew the words right out of me.

How much is he?  Expecting to hear a figure high enough in the hundreds to justify NOT getting him.

Free, to a good home!

Put the dog food in the truck... I'll go buy some puppy chow.

So now Riley had a brother, JJ (for Jack Junior?) was here. Doolittle that is, so he was talking soon enough...

And talk he did for 12 straight years… Goodbye JJ… You were the best ever…I’ll be forever grateful to that big invisible hand that knew I needed you much more than you needed me… I will always love you… 

Requiem for a Heavyweight

Started this journey across America with 3 dogs and a cat…  The cat and a dog occupy two shallow graves in Idaho… Like the pioneers of yesteryear who left shallow graves across the American frontier… We dug another one today in the mountains of Central Washington…

Like the pioneers of old... He traveled west from NY to Idaho... Northwest to the Washington coast... Back to Idaho... Southwest to Southern California... Back to Idaho... and finally the mountains of Washington... Mountains, Deserts, Oceans, Rivers and long ago in a galaxy, far, far away a Great Lake...  

He lived a long… Though are they ever long enough??? A happy, adventurous life… No dog enjoyed this adventure like JJ… Always in the co-pilot seat… Scanning the horizon for danger and adventure as though in the front seat of a pioneer’s covered wagon…

Mischievous, fun, full of love… Though at times a “boog-a-loofer” not wanting to admit he loved the attention…

He went bravely and bright eyed today… With Riley, Jack and Buddy and all those before him there to greet him… The smallest of the three… He leaves me with the heaviest heart…

A heavy heart and Simon… “Heavy Si(gh)”… Long considered the “slowest” of the bunch… He continues to show how in tune he really is…

Leading him quietly to the grave site… Not saying a word… Sitting on the ground beside it… He walked over… Sat directly in front of me… Looked into my eyes and slobbered kisses all over my face… I think I might have to get Simon a kitty…

JJ’s pain is ended… Our love for him goes on…    

"Sugar" Jay