Hereunder

At least you don't have to shovel the heat...

Yes it has been a bit warm here lately. But that's how we love it here in the capital of the free world. Hot and humid. The sweat rolling down the pale parts of the flabby forearm as we attempt to type in our un-air-conditioned house. Is that Faulkner's ghost in the corner? No, he would never come this far north. More likely an long dead fortune cookie author.

There is no real theme to this post; I told the wife at 5 30 am this Saturday morning that I was going to gas up the mini van for our pilgrimage north to land of the crooked river. Saw the computer still on and checked masstimes.org then clicked the link to the JP2 website which has a link to a nun's pope blog where I posted a comment about the NASA budget. Its not that I felt guilty, but rather bankrupt or slovenly in my duties to the Hereunder. So Hereunder I be.

To clean up some aging business, a word of thanks to all of those who sent me comments about the words I had regarding my late brother. Last week while visiting my dear ailing dad I stopped by the cemetery to make sure brother had not moved. To be sure he had some new neighbors, but it looks like his tombstone is exactly where we left it a quarter century ago.

The night storms have cooled off the northern reaches of the Old Dominion but have spared this author by allowing him to continue to receive power for this post. I understand several thousand customers of our utility services have not been so fortunate. But they promise dryer cooler air as a result of the tempest. It should be a little bit easier to move around today.

Aurora's rosy brush strokes paint the eastern sky and so I must be on my way on this 142nd anniversary of the second day of Gettysburg. Perhaps on July 2, 2147, they will celebrate the 142nd anniversary of this post. Mark your calendar. (All calculations of anniversaries are subject to the author's feeble math skills. If you find an error in my numbers keep it to yourselves)

Goodbye and happy holiday. As I will be in transit I will miss Live8. Que lastima! If you can make it, throw a dollar in the hat for me when they pass it around. R-man, please PM me with instructions for doing spell check on this thing.

Bye bye

Hiatus Ended

Gentle visitors, what an ordeal you have been through:  each day checking these pages for a fresh post, and, finding none, each day your anguish mounting.  What if? you ask yourself.  What if it's not really dead?   What if the stake is not fully driven through it's WYSIWYG heart?  And, now, witnessing it's binary fangs emerging from its virtual coffin.  Oh! The horror.

But, what conjuring or resuscitating force brought it back.  Was it the waving of Old Glory alongside the front stoop?  Perhaps.  Your humble Contributor had -- amid a harried and unseemly schedule -- found time to affix a proper receptacle for a pole and, thereby, hangs the Stars 'n Stripes standard.  After all, it is Flag Day.

Or, perhaps, it was the mysterious package received today from a poor relation on America's North Coast containing the following items:  a shoulder patch styled "Cleveland Chapter"; a dated taxi receipt from Car No. 321 of the Metro Cab fleet, piloted by one Felix Payne; and an advertisement for a concert featuring the unsurpassed artistry of Charo at the Parma High School (and, sad to say, too late for the Judy Garland/Liza Minnelli impersonator show at the Croatian Ballroom).  And, the covering though obscure missive not explaining the significance of these enigmatic artifacts.

Or, perhaps it was the sad expression of the canine that somehow counts as one of your humble Contributor's fellow Householders -- ah! the tawny mongrel in her tick collar; the servile, wagging appendage (and, thereby, hangs a tail); the Pavlovian response to the utterance "Walk".   Well, all-right... he must arise and take hold of the leash and lead this beta specimen in some fitting perambulation. 

So be it.

A Bad Habit Is Hard To Break

File this under "Has Been A Nun."

Originally posted by Palinurus.

Mistaken Mystique

Most of our gentle visitors believe that these pages are little noted and visited -- something like a wonderful little field they find themselves looking upon, having taken the wrong exit off the interstate and driven miles down a lonely state route and broken down, and now awaiting the tow truck. We have wanted to keep it that way: for their returns visits are a classic sign of instability, and we wish to spare them any unnecessary alarm or disturbance.

Truth is, however, on the clandestine, encrypted, and ciphered networks, these pages have created quite a stir. Some have suggested the your humble Contributors are members of the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Knights Templar, and even the Knights of Columbus. We've been able to keep most of these stirrings under wraps, with the occasional, minor eruption.

But, now, our Echelon-like surveillance service has uncovered this latest and most outrageous claim, which threatens to engulf the web: namely, that we are post-Soviet Fifth Columnists. So, we must respond -- and, of course, first to our gentle visitors.

The alleged reported referenced there is obviously a hoax. Note that it attempts to mimic the MI-6 style for such reports, but omits certain key phrases that one would expect to see, such as "tally ho", "jolly good", and "capital! old chap". The false report also makes much of your humble Contributor's names -- but, their true meanings (and their Christmas wish lists) have been covered exhaustively in a prior post -- with specific reference to English bricks and the Common Law. And, speaking of anagrams, it turns out that the name "Gone Away" (our flattering accuser) lends itself quite readily to the enigmatic phrase "Age? No Way!"

Think about it: the whole British connection is a bit suspicious, wouldn't you say?

Why We Keep the Mutts Around

Selvakumar -- the Tamil version of Lassie.