When Matt was taking the MCAS tests last spring, he said they were so easy, he finished with hours to spare. Pencil down and up and out of the classroom. Diane and I looked at each other and back at Matt, and as fatherly as possible, I said, ìYou know, there is such a thing as checking your answers.î As he often does, he shrugged me off.

His test scores arrived today. The scores are ranked from Failing to Needs Improvement to Proficient to Advanced. He placed in the advanced category for both English Language Arts and Mathematics.

Poker at my house last night. Chris, have you played recently?

About a quarter of a mile from the Queijo’s house you’ll drive through a puddle. Mark includes that puddle when he gives out directions. Itís always there and it only varies in size. Stop at the puddle, look left and right, and youíll see vast stretches of water on either side of the road. If you put a canoe in the water there, and paddled down stream you’d eventually get to the hundred acre pond on which his house sits. Eventually I say, because you’d have to portage that canoe around the beaver dam.

The water that creates that puddle.
Mark is a doer. He never stops and probably canít. I could list all the things heís accomplished recently, like the construction of his deck, but I wonít. Because it doesnít matter. The point Iím making is that of all the building and chopping and creating he has done around his house, none of it impresses me as much as what he did near his house. He got rid of that puddle.

by rakkity

Once upon a time in the days of yore (2002 CE), in the little borough
of Bowie in the kingdom of Maryland-sur-le-Bay, a father and son
started going to the court to practice their skills in the ancient
sport of racquet-le-balle. They did this on a regular basis,
usually twice, sometimes thrice (rarely frice) per fortnight. In the
beginning, the son made all the errors he was prone to: standing too
far back in the court or too close to the side, leaning in one
direction or the other, a little off balance, or showing by one sign
or another that he was expecting a shot from a certain direction. The
father duly noted these mistakes and took shameless advantage of
them, hammering the ball into untoward places, with unhappy effects on
the son’s composure. Every time, he gently pointed out the son’s
mistake, but took advantage to go onto win anyway. When the son leaned
north, the service ball passed south, and when the son leaned south,
the ball passed to the north. When he stood in the rear of the court,
the ball landed in the front, and when he stood close to the front,
the ball bounced behind him. And the scores were always lop-sided in the
father’s favor.

Initially the two played with the old-style racquets of base metals,
and the son won an occasional game due to his speed and strength. But
the two players happily found newly-forged racquets of magical
lightweight metals, which increased the velocity of play. But with
these new racquets, the player’s strength and speed made less of a
difference, but scheming play worked even better. After that, over
the weeks and months, the father ruled the court, losing not a game
during the subsequent year of play.

The situation changed when the teen-aged daughter, newly enscholared
at the local college, asked to join in an occasional game. Thence
forth, the games became three-somes, and the son and father played
left-handed, so as not to overwhelm their winsome partner. With this
arrangement, the daughter was competitive, but the son and father
still won a reasonable fraction of the games, and kept their right
arms rested for the occasional right-handed battle, which the father
persisted in winning.

Two years into these games, the son left the borough to seek his
fortune, but returned to town every Friday to test his mettle on the
court. During that year he seemed to grow still taller, and his arms
longer. He learned not to stand too far back or forward in the court,
and showed no tendency to lean to one side or the other. In the
father-son games, he commanded the center and, with his height and
reach, no corner of the court was safe for the ball to pass him by.
Still, by hook and treacherous crook, his old father managed to sneak
the ball around him, using wall-grazing returns with twisty spins and
semi-magical back-wall drops that eluded the son’s reach.

Over time, the son developed a powerful back-hand, with all the
practice of returning balls that fell elusively to the back wall in
the depths of the corners, in such a way that only a back-handed smash
off the back wall had any chance of returning to the front wall. His
leaps and upward stretches made it almost impossible to loft a ball
over his head. His speed and lack of fear at crashing head-first into
the side walls made it difficult for the father to get a wall-grazer
past him. But the father just grew more cunning, and never repeated
exactly the same kind of shot in sequence.

The scores of these father-son games grew ever closer, sometimes with
the son losing only 10-15 or 11-15, and occasionally games would start
off with the son winning four, even five, serves in a row. But the
father knew the son’s few remaining fatal weaknesses, and he would
proceed to win several points in a row, eventually pulling ahead and
going on to win. He played these games like chess, serving often to
the corner deeps, and sometimes making a surreptitious slow serve
right after a series of fast serves. He served shots that traced a z,
or a backwards z, making the ball apparently curve through the air,
re-bounding parallel to the court’s back wall. In the early months,
serves like these used to bedevil the son and drive him to swing
futilely and miss, or if he didn’t miss, return with a weak parry that
led the father to a kill.

The increasing skill of the son would have led inevitably, if only by
random luck, to a win against the father, except for the
fortuitous appearance on the scene of the old master Zarro.

———————To be continued—————————-

More Noland

“Today, they’d probably throw me in jail.”

Noland doesn’t add history to his stories. Or background. But I do know he used to drink, and I do know both of his wives were alcoholics.

“David’s mother, she put a burning cigarette in my face. One punch, and she went down.” He’s a large man, with large fists and he jabbed the air, once, stopping right where her face might have been. “She was out for five minutes.”

“My second wife, she threw a glass ashtray that hit me in the face. Cracked a bridge and split my lip. I hit her and she was out for half an hour. I thought I killed her.”

When Caera walked in and sat down on the piano bench with her Celtic Harp, I thought, Boy does she look Irish. Irish like Eileen Foley, with black hair and blues eyes. When she sang in Gaelic, I thought, I wonder how long she’s been in this country. After a song or two she talked about having just flown back from Ireland where she played in a village of Gaelic speakers. She wanted so badly to go back, she’d even written a sad song about her longings. I thought to myself, Why not just go home?

I was so enamored by this Irish musician – I guess I’d been traveling vicariously with Susan- that my brain almost seized when, about midway through her gig, she said, “My first trip to Ireland was five years ago after I began exploring my heritage. After all, three out of my four grandparents are Irish.”

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Flo told Caera about her own daughter’s fascination with Ireland (Diane chimed in with, “She too has three Irish grandparents”) and after the recital, Flo hurried up to her room, and returned to show Caera Susan’s printed itinerary.

Flo’s friend, Lois, enjoying the music, but secretly wishing Caera would sing in French.

“Photo of pas des deux is from Le Corsaire – Semyon Troyanoff with Anna Liudmilla, c1927, Paris, costumes by Georges de Pogedaieff. ”

Semyon Troyanoff is Steven’s father’s stage name.

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Steven Varga-Golovcsenko’s parents – Semyon and Margit Varga-Golovcsenko
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Rakkity sent me this link . It’s one friendly American’s view of Germany, or more specifically, the Germans. Insightful and amusing, and if you read only one of the four pages he’s written, I’d start with the last : Tuesday, September 21, 2004.

“…Germans (or maybe Europeans, I’m not sure everyone here is a German) are not the most outgoing people in the world. In the village, no one looks you in the eyes as you pass on the narrow path. There are no quick smiles from young girls on bicycles that stir an older man’s imagination. There are no cheerful ìGuten Morgens!î among strangers waiting at a bus stop. To have a conversation you almost have to be in a business transaction with someone. “

From Sunday’s Globe Magazine

Squash, Green Bean, and White Bean Casserole

“Set the oven at 425 degrees. Spread the squash, flat side up, in a baking pan and sprinkle with olive oil, salt, and black pepper. Add 1/4 cup of the water to the edges of the pan. Roast the squash for 30 minutes or until it is almost tender when pierced with a fork. Set it aside to cool completely.”

And that would be about it for me. If I were the cook. But Diane is fearless, always has been, and she chopped and peeled and seasoned her way through the remaining six paragraphs as effortlessly as I click through web sites. Too me, cooking is like waiting in line. If I can throw a sword fish steak on the grill, flip it once after five minutes, then fine, I’ll do it. But paragraphs of instructions raises the same hackles as “Some assembly required.”

It’s worth a closer look

While Diane cooked, I played grease monkey. I came home early to work on Diane’s overheating Mazda, and after a call to Peter, my all knowing brother-in-law, a hunt for the right tools inlcuding my not oft-used Ohm meter, and two trips to auto parts stores, with one stop at the library to scope out what Chilton’s Auto Repair recommends, I fixed it. The fan wasn’t spinning at idle, but now, with the newly installed coolant sensor, the temperature gauge no longer registers – Bail Out, The Car Is About To Explode.

However, the best thing is not the repair. I was ready to let Diane deal with that. Nope, it’s The Enemy. Rakkity told me he had just finished Lee Child’s latest book, but because it came from his library, he couldn’t send it north. I assumed there would be no chance of finding it at my library until half the town had read it, but no, it was right there on the Popular New Fiction shelf.

Speaking of rakkity, I asked him two questions we’ve all been scratching our heads about, and I could either paraphrase his answers or reprint, without his permission, his email.

> Whatever happened to this year’s Beartooth saga?

“Yeah. That’s what I’d like to know. Captain Phil and Surgeon
Reed have disappeared into the woodwork, and I can’t do anything without their photos. Obviously they have different priorities than you and me. Sheesh! Don’t they know the blog needs content?”

> You still playing racquetball with Patrick?

“Are you kidding? Does the pope drop trou in the woods? Do bears swing from the balconies of the vatican? Is rakkity named rakkity?As a matter of fact, last evening I started work on a new racquetball story, “The King is dead, long live the King.” But, what with 25th anniversary festivities and all in the Schmahl house from Thurs to Sun, I may not get it posted till next Monday, but I’ll sneak a few minutes to
at least write it on my laptop (when my sweet S.O. isn’t looking).”

Welcome Back From Ireland, Susan.

Saturday, we (Dan, Mark, Mark and Adam) all met at out favorite haunt, La Provence, in Concord. We’ve occupied tables there for hours at time, mostly in the back room which is offset from the main dining area. The last time we met for lunch, the back room was closed, and because it was so busy, we were eventually evicted by the owner, Robert Didier. Politely, to be sure, but nevertheless, told to take our garrulous butts and go elsewhere.

Though it wasn’t as busy this day, Robert was again stalking our table. Or so it seemed to me. He’d look out the plate glass window, then back at our table. Finally he walked over and asked, “Does anyone own a Jaguar?”

Adam and I simultaneously replied. “I wish.” But the couple sitting at the table behind us, closer to the window, offered, “We do.”

“I have some bad news, “ Robert said as the male half of the couple got up from his table. Robert put his arm on the concerned customer’s shoulder and walked him to the window. “You have a flat.”

Clearly relieved that someone hadn’t sideswiped or backed into his car, the Jaguar owner sat back down at his table and said to his wife, “It could have been worse.”

Adam, who rarely includes himself in strangers’ conversations, turned to the couple and said, “Yeah, it could have been a Corolla.”

The Full Story

Pumpkin, Dolly Smith’s cat, was our cat’s best friend. She’d frequently sit somewhere on the lawn and look at our house, waiting for Skunk to join her. Skunk displayed little interest, but I’d always open the door and let him out. He would then stretch, lie on the deck, lick his paws, gaze at the sky, or occasionally run off with Pumpkin.

Skunk died in our house two years ago while we were in Hawaii, but Pumpkin still appears in our yard looking for her buddy to come out and play.