Dan & his sister Lilly. In the background, Lin’s brother, Andrew, his wife, Barbara and Griff, Linda’s brother-in-law.
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Rachel and Rebecca
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Non Sequitur is one of the Boston Globe’s better comic strips, but for some reason I don’t always read it. Thanks to Adam for alerting me to Monday’s cartoon.

You might have to be related, or you might have to have been there, or you might have to be in the mood we were in yesterday, to find these funny. So be it.

Cell phone call to Matt.

“Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

ëWhere are you?”

“In the Garment District.”

I hung up and turned to Diane. “The Garment District? In Boston? Where is that?” Give the boy a car and you never know where he’ll go. It wasn’t until Matt and friends arrived home late last night, and Hil Burgin walked in wearing a satin red jacket with pink sunglasses, that I learned the Garment District is a store that sells clothes from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.

“I was talking to Lois today. I asked her, ëWhat do they call us?’ “
Flo could hardly end the sentence, she was laughing so hard, and she almost couldn’t get the punch line out.

Diane and I were both thinking, “residents.”

“Lois said, ëInmates.’ “

We put the old pads back on, promised to get together next Saturday to finish the job with the correct pads, and then I took the Honda out for a screeching skid test. Just to be sure we put them back on correctly. They are, after all, my son’s fu*king brakes, and he was about to drive all the way to the Garment District.

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We were standing with Adam, waiting for a table at Travis’s favorite sushi restaurant, Fugaku.

“I’ve got a good one for you, Adam. Cheezits seem to be the snack food of choice lately, and we’re all eating out of this one box from our nifty food cupboard. However, I know I am the last one to have any, and I’m thinking to myself as I bite down, darn these things are soggy, which makes no sense given how quickly they’re consumed.

Two days after my last Cheezit, Diane pulls the box out of the cupboard, and then the wax paper-like bag out of the box, and plops it on the counter. I’m standing a few feet away and I glance back at the bag and see something small and dark nestled among the orange. My brain begs to process the small and dark as something, anything, other than a dead mouse, but fails. Of course Diane then asks the question I didn’t want to hear, ëWhat killed the mouse?’ I figure that’s what’s going to kill me.”

Adam sensing my anxiety, charitably responds, “We know what the mouse died from. He caught old-age from Mike.”

Vice President Dick Cheney told viewers Tuesday night they could verify his claims from the vice-presidential debate at an independent Web site — factcheck.com — but visitors to the site found a searing anti-Bush message. Cheney accidentally said “.com” instead of “.org” during the televised debate. Internet surfers who visited factcheck.com were redirected to the home page of billionaire anti-Bush activist George Soros, with the statement “Why we must not re-elect President Bush” at the top of the screen.

Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six
feet from the house …
Thoughts that go so far.
The boy gets out of high school and reads no more
books;
the son stops calling home.
The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no
more bread.
And the wife looks at her husband one night at a
party, and loves him no more.
The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls
leaving the church.
It will not come closer
the one inside moves back, and the hands touch
nothing, and are safe.

The father grieves for his son, and will not leave the
room where the coffin stands.
He turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

And the sea lifts and falls all night, the moon goes on
through the unattached heavens alone.

The toe of the shoe pivots
in the dust …
And the man in the black coat turns, and goes back
down the hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away,
and did not climb the hill.

Robert Bly

Seven o’clock in the morning and the refrain | Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang | is rattling around in my head. Go figure.

Witch Doctor
by David Seville

I told the witch doctor I was in love with you
I told the witch doctor you didn’t love me too
And then the witch doctor, he told me what to do
He said that ….

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang…
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang

I told the witch doctor you didn’t love me true
I told the witch doctor you didn’t love me nice
And then the witch doctor, he game me this advice
He said to …

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang…
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang

Now, you’ve been keeping love from me
Just like you were a miser
And I’ll admit I wasn’t very smart
So I went out and found myself
A guy that’s so much wiser

And he taught me the way to win your heart
My friend the witch doctor, he taught me what to say
My friend the witch doctor, he taught me what to do
I know that you’ll be mine when I say this to you
Oh, Baby ….

Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang…
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang
Ooo eee, ooo ah ah ting tang
Walla walla, bing bang

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“Noland, I’ve got question for you.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll do my best. Where are you?”

“I’m over at the golf pro’s condo. I’m working on his bathroom and his fire alarm is beeping. He tells me It has been for ten days, and he doesn’t know why. Can you believe that? Anyway, I want to change the battery, but the alarm is hard wired. If I disconnect it, will it alert the fire station?”

“No. I don’t know why it’s hard wired but we’ve changed our battery without fire trucks showing up at the door.”

“That’s good, I didn’t think it was, but I wanted to be sure.”

“What are you going to do when I’m gone?”

“Gone? You’re not going anywhere.”

“Oh, I’m not huh? Well, that’s not the way things work. I’m getting to the end of this trip. Let me tell you something else. I talked to an old friend of mine in California. He had one of those mini-strokes. He’s three years younger than me. He says he’s tired all the time. I told him that’s the way it is with these things. It takes time to get better, but he can’t see it. I sat down and wrote him a four page letter. I gave him my thoughts… “

“I hope you made a copy of that letter for me. I know how hard it is for you to write these days. I’d love to have a copy.”

“Aaa, well, I put it in the mail yesterday.”

“What did it say.”

“I told him about the good lord’s plan for us and what happens afterward. Where we’re going. As I said it was four pages long.”

Sounds like you think it’s more that just the stroke that’s bothering him. He must be afraid of dying, no?”

“Death happens to all of us. You know what my father used to say? You’re not afraid to be born, why should you be afraid to die?’ “

I was aware that this could happen because ten years ago, while I was working in Kathy Solterís kitchen , an electrician told me a similar story. And, I write knowing that shinydome will be sitting at his computer, shaking his head.

A condo owner up the street asked me to install two bathroom fans. One with an attic above, the other without. I began with the easy fan, the one I could install from above. First, I flipped the fan switch on, listened to it whir, flipped it off, and heard it stop. I then climbed into the attic through the ceiling panel near the bathroom door. I located the fan and pried it off the ceiling joists. I tried to disconnect the electrical wire that powered the fan – except it wouldnít budge. So what, I thought, Iíll cut through the wires with my snips. Iíve done it before, and I had, after all, turned off the electricity.

Let me pause and say, even without shinydomeís admonitions, Iím careful doing any kind of work that might put me on the other side of the grass. I shiver when I flashback to the live wires I cut through last winter. Thatís why after I flip a switch or even a circuit breaker, Iíll strip the black and white wires separately and then touch them together. No white flash means Iím safe to work.

While Iím struggling with this wire, dust mask on, sweating in the hot attic, I hear the home owner walk up the steps, peer in the bathroom, and then retreat back down to his study. I assumed he was checking on my progress.

I pulled out my wire cutters and because Iím the nervous nelly I claim to be, I clamped down slowly on the wire. Probably nothing would have happened : had I not been holding onto the blue steel body of the fan; had my wire cutters not been bare metal; had the condo owner not flipped the light and fan switch on as he peered into the bathroom.