The Smudge

We were at Huber’s Restaurant in Portland last weekend watching the magician perform sleight of hand at the table next to us and discussing nicknames.

I will digress here and mention that Huber’s is Portland’s oldest restaurant, opening its doors in 1879. I had the roast turkey, for which Huber’s is famous, and it was as tender and succulent as any I have ever eaten. I finished my meal with Huber’s other specialty: Spanish Coffee, a choice that delighted my daughter during its table-side preparation because it is set aflame.

But back to the nicknames.

My daughter asked to be called “Rose,“ as she was pretending to be a pirate. I had bought her a pirate hat and an eye patch at a toy shop in downtown Portland, and she figured “Rose” was a great name for a girl pirate.

I then told my daughter my nickname (which I made up on the spot): “From now on,” I announced, “you must call me The Smudge.”

My daughter despised the very idea of calling me The Smudge, moreso after I told her what a “smudge” was.

“That,” I said, pointing to a smudge on my sneaker, “is a smudge.”

“I am not calling you that,“ she flatly declared. And each time, during the weekend, that I brought up the subject of my wanting everyone to call me by my new nickname, my daughter stubbornly refused to even discuss it.

And so it was.

I walked into the house after work last night, passing my wife and daughter, who were seated together in the kitchen.

“Hello, everyone!” I cried.

“Hello, The Smudge,” my daughter shot back, without so much as a smirk or a sideways glance.

Dinner Like Real People

That's what Mike said last night at the Buenos Aires: We're having dinner like real people.

And we were.

Once upon a time, the four of us would often have dinner and socialize as two couples when we all lived in the Capital Hill neighborhood of Seattle.

"Before we all moved out to the 'burbs," I said.

"Before we started popping out babies," my wife pointed out. Amy laughed and nodded in agreement.

My wife has popped out only one baby. Amy has popped out three. That's four between them.

Mike reminded us all that it had been five years since the four of us had dinner together without the kids in tow.

Sober nods of agreement; time was surely passing, wasn't it?

The Argentine restaurant was well-chosen. Mike and I had celebrated our birthdays together at the Buenos Aires in November, but our wives had never dined there.

A pocket of foreignness in the Pacific Northwest was how Mike described it. The atmosphere was removed, stylish without being trendy, lighting low but not dim, the aroma of succulent grilled beef permeated the room. The food was fabulous from the get-go. The chimichurri sauce (an Argentine salsa) served with bread set the stage for a mixed grill feast that was complimented by a well-chosen, full-bodied Malbec.

According to my wife, the highlight of the evening was watching a beautiful young couple (professional dancers, without a doubt) perform the tango not only throughout the restaurant but on top of the bar.

"When they jump up and start dancing on that bar," our waitress told us in her thick Argentine accent, "you don't want to miss that."

We didn't.

Readings: Convergence

I suppose I am officially on a couple of kicks at the moment, having begun reading Goldfinger, my sixth Ian Fleming James Bond novel this year (fifth in a row). The Bond books are easy reads and very enjoyable.

The other: my daughter and I are also reading our third book in a row by Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

And speaking of Dahl, I’ve also picked up a book of his short stories to read whenever the mood strikes me.

And besides juggling the reading of Fleming and Dahl books, I have numerous James Bond movies queued with my NetFlix service, and am watching the Bond titles after reading them.
The DVD of Ian Fleming’s YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, starring Sean Connery, arrived the other day in my mailbox.

Imagine my surprise to discover that, after having recently read five Ian Fleming Bond novels and three books by Roald Dahl, the screenplay to Ian Fleming’s YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE was written by…

Roald Dahl.

Perhaps it’s time to move on to something else.

More Readings

I recently read Roald Dahl's classic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my daughter and we both enjoyed it immensely.

My wife had purchased a nice, hardbound edition that contained the original illustrations to the story. We are both anticipating Tim Burton's new interpretation of the story, and we like the 1971 film starring Gene Wilder. But we had never read the book until this month.

My daughter and I talk about Charlie and his golden ticket often. We have even made a date to go out and purchase another box of Wonka's Everlasting Gobstoppers. Those rock-hard, chameleon-like candies have become a favorite in our house. The great thing about my daughter's perspective on the book is that she has not seen the 1971 movie, and I do not yet know if the upcoming movie will be suitable for her. Her enjoyment of the book is pure, untainted by "Wilder vs. Depp" discussions. Or, which Oompa-Loompas are better: the 1971 Gene Wilder Oompas or the 2005 Johnny Depp Loompas?

The answer, for my daughter, are the ones in her head.

Last weekend my daughter and I went to the bookstore to pick out a new book to read and for no particular reason we settled upon another Dahl book, The Twits, which, like Charlie, I had never read as a child. Two days later I received a call from my friend Gary. "I have got a funny book for you and your daughter," were the first words out of his mouth. "It's called The Twits."

I received the call right after reading in a magazine that Monty Python alumnus John Cleese was working on a film version of The Twits.

The Twits is a very funny book. I had to assure my daughter that getting a bad case of The Shrinks is a purely imaginary condition. Otherwise she enjoyed it very much.

And it looks like we're sticking with Roald Dahl for the time being. My daughter wants to know more about the adventures of Charlie Bucket, and my wife just happened to puchase a nice hardbound copy of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

Up and out.

Readings

“Good old Gleaner.” - Ian Fleming, The Man with the Golden Gun

In high school I had a friend named Blake who was a fan of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels. Fleming also wrote the children’s book Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, so there was more to him than just a preoccupation with espionage and the most famous member of the British Secret Service. But James Bond is without a doubt his legacy, and what Fleming will always be remembered for.

Blake loved the Bond movies, too, and he and I had actually watched a couple of James Bond flicks together at his house on videocassette. Blake was a Connery man, and he pointed out to me how different the Bond movies were from the Bond books.

Having recently read five of the Bond novels, and having seen DOCTOR NO on Spike TV seventeen times in the last thirty days, I realize how right Blake had been. The movie Bond and the book Bond were often very different characters.

I first read Fleming -- and Bond -- when I was in high school, and until this year I had not read him since. I had read a couple of James Bond short stories in 1985, which were published in For Your Eyes Only, a collection of five short adventures bearing no resemblance to the movie of the same name.

Anyway, it had been a while since I had read any Bond, and after Blake’s name came up in a conversation with another old friend a month or so ago, I decided to pick a James Bond novel as my next read. I chose Doctor No, a 1958 first edition which had been sitting on my bookshelf unread for a couple of years.

(I will interrupt myself at this point to note that, as I write this, McCartney’s “Live and Let Die” is being played on the radio. Ironic, no?)

I also find it ironic that my friend Tim and I managed to read Doctor No at the same time: me, in Seattle and while on vacation in South Carolina, and he while on vacation in Jamaica, which is where Doctor No is set.

As a gift, Tim brought back to me a copy of The Gleaner, "the Caribbean’s great newspaper" (Fleming's words), which has some relevance to the plot of Doctor No. The Gleaner is also the catalyst in The Man with the Golden Gun which leads Bond to his prey, Scaramanga, at 9½ Love Lane early in that novel.

In fact, Jamaica and The Daily Gleaner figure prominately in Bond lore. When Fleming first introduces James Bond in 1953’s Casino Royale, Bond is working undercover in a French casino, but we learn that he has been previously stationed in Jamaica, and that he is currently being run by a “control” who works the picture desk of The Gleaner in Kingston, Jamaica.

I am very pleased to have my own copy of The Gleaner.

Several James Bond adventures have been set in the Caribbean: Live and Let Die (1954), Doctor No, Thunderball (1961), The Man with the Golden Gun (1965), and the short stories “For Your Eyes Only,” “Quantum of Solace” and “Octopussy.”

Having recently experienced Doctor No both on the page and on television, I am torn between which I like more: the book or the movie. Normally the book wins out in these comparisons, but the movie has Connery, so the comparison is more difficult.

A Roger Moore man once pointed out to me that Connery was not an ideal movie Bond because Connery is Scottish and Bond was English. But in fact Bond was Scottish, and at the conclusion of The Man with the Golden Gun (Fleming's final Bond novel), 007 refuses knighthood by Queen Elizabeth on those grounds. “I am at home being a Scottish peasant,” he cables M. from his hospital bed in Jamaica, declining the honor, “and I will always feel at home being a Scottish peasant.”

So there you have it, Moore fans. Put that in your gun and shoot it.

I, like many Bond traditionalists, have always preferred Connery’s Bond to Moore’s. At least, I have thought so these many years. Roger Ebert agrees that Connery's Bond was best, and that man knows his movies. Yes, I would describe myself as a Connery man. But the irony is (more irony, folks!) that I involuntarily picture and hear Roger Moore in my head when I read James Bond books, try as I might to see and hear Connery in my imagination. Roger Moore has been in my head now five books running, and I don’t think he’s going anywhere.

You figure it out.

The Bond of the books exudes a calculated coldness that Connery captured well, but Bond’s cool-cat exterior masks inner-conflict fueled by indecision, missed opportunities and an aversion to killing in cold blood. The Bond of the books is often vulnerable and makes many mistakes. He’s much more human on the page than he is on celluloid.

Taking Bond’s humanity and vulnerability into account, perhaps Timothy Dalton was closer on film to the Bond of the books than any of the others.

And let’s not forget George Lazenby, who did one turn as Bond in the film ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE. People are surprised to find out that it’s actually one of my favorite Bond films. People are often more surprised to discover that many critics consider it to be the finest Bond film ever made. It is, however, little seen, mainly due to the fact that nobody knows who George Lazenby was and no one particularly cares. But the film was solid and very entertaining. I find it interesting that the character of Bond actually married (anybody remember that?), and his bride was murdered on their honeymoon by agents of Bond’s arch-nemesis Blofeld. ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE contains that tragic scene.

Little-seen, too, is a tepid Bond spoof from the 1960’s called CASINO ROYALE, which was the title of Fleming’s first Bond book. In it (the film, not the book) actor David Niven (who is incidentally mentioned by name in Fleming’s You Only Live Twice) plays an aging, retiring James Bond, and Peter Sellers is selected to succeed him as agent 007. The film, despite a stellar cast that includes Orson Welles, Woody Allen and Ursula Andress (who, coincidentally, played Honey Rider, Bond’s love interest in DOCTOR NO), is a mess.

And if it’s true that the Bond movies are different from the Bond books, then it is also true that there are Bond books that are different from the Bond books.

Earlier this year I read The Spy Who Loved Me, which again bears no resemblance to the film of the same name. The imaginative story, told from the perspective of a woman, follows young Vivienne in her quest for independence. She ends up working at a resort in the Adirondacks. As soon as the resort closes for the season, it is set upon by a group of mobsters and Vivienne finds herself in dire straights. In the last part of the book, a man shows up looking for a room for the night (it’s Bond, of course) and he ends up rescuing her from the gang of thugs.

That’s it. The whole book, part and parcel. No SPECTRE, no Blofeld, no Russians or cold war. No plans for world domination, no twisting, turning plot. Just the story about a woman who finds herself in a world of trouble in the Adirondacks and happens to be rescued in the end by a passerby who happens to be Agent 007 of the British Secret Service. He’s barely in the book!
Spy was the first of the five Bond books I have read so far this year.

Which brings me to a question that has occupied my mind since I finished the final chapter of Casino Royale a few hours ago: what next? More Bond?

I wonder what Blake would recommend?

CATCHING UP

Back in May and early June I wrote a few blogs while attending the Seattle International Film Festival. But in juggling work, family, and some times three films a day, I never got around to posting them.

There does not seem to be much of a point in posting them now, though I will make a few quick observations, including notes about my cinematic choices for Memorial Day, which were rather appropo: MISSING IN AMERICA and LAND OF PLENTY.

- M.I.A. stars Danny Glover as Jake, a Vietnam vet who has retreated to Washington's Cascadia and lives the life of a lone survivalist. After a shaky start, during which Glover's dying war buddy strands his half-Vietnamese daughter with Glover at his remote mountain cabin, the film hits its stride as Glover struggles to cope with having a young girl to care for and with the backlash her presence in these woods has created by another survivalist vet played by Ron Pearlman. I found Glover's performance convincing and at times powerful leading up to the film's tragic end. There is one scene that takes place at The Wall which I found very moving. Linda Hamilton also stars.

- Wim Wenders's LAND OF PLENTY was a disappointment. Set in L.A., this post-9/11 drama about a lone, confused, self-proclaimed pro-American militant who sees terrorism brewing in the city all around him was heavy-handed and left me ultimately unfulfilled.

- Also disappointing was an early cut of a romantic comedy starring Julianne Moore and David Duchovny called TRUST THE MAN. Oddly, I like this film less and less every time I think about it. When it comes out this fall, I will surely despise it. Avoid it.

- I thoroughly enjoyed THE THING ABOUT MY FOLKS, a warm-hearted and very funny movie about a father/son road trip. The films stars Peter Falk, Paul Reiser, Olympia Dukakis, and is written by Reiser. In the film, Reiser's Ben Kleinmann takes a journey with this father, played brilliantly and hilariously by Falk, after his parents split up under dubious circumstances. The journey is one not just across upstate New York but into Ben's family's past as well.

- Of the low-budget indies I saw, there was one that exceeded my expectations. I chose to see NOVEMBER only because I wanted at least one thriller thrown into the mix of films I attended at the festival. It stars Courtney Cox, and frankly, going into it, anticipated some B-move, horror film wannabe. My skepticism was quickly displaced by an intelligent script about a random murder told via several perspectives. Think RASHOMON meets THE OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK and you'll know what I'm getting at.

The Rains

Seattle has experienced such a dry winter that the governor of the state has already issued a drought warning.

The past three days have seen something of a deluge here, with heavy showers coming down from the great Pacific Northwest skies instead of the usual Seattle drizzle. When I first moved here, someone described the rain as spit. And that's what we normally see in wintertime: the gray Seattle sky will spit intermittent drizzle off and on all day.

But not this past winter. We've had plenty of magnificent sunshine and very little snow in the mountains, and the region is expected to pay for it this summer.

This was my planned summer for a glorious, golf course-quality front lawn. I had been reading up on lawn care, and had even considered hiring an expensive lawn care service to trim, mow, fertilize, aerate and pamper my lawn until fall. And I would keep the sprinklers going daily. (I was even going to give up espresso just to fund the expected astronomically high water bills this summer.)

But the county is already talking about a moratorium on lawn watering this summer.

I suppose I will have to settle for brown patches of dead grass and spots of bare soil in my front yard. It should be fertile ground for wretched dandelions, however. Which, when I think about it, is perhaps not all that bad. At least the dandelions may lend a certain greenness to the lawn when the grass itself cannot.

Back to Steve Johnson

I received in the mail this week a CD entitled Bluestoons, by Steve Johnson. I was pleased to receive the unexpected disk, and listened to it right away. (The prolific Johnson just does not slow down!)

It’s a solid blues album with catchy rhythms and some nice blues riffs. It’s solidly produced, the gratifying “East West” being my favorite cut on the disk. After two listens I can say I truly enjoy it.

Which is saying a lot. I know my own taste in music, and most of the CDs that I buy I know I am going to like. But I have received numerous recordings and CDs as gifts, and I am not always as pleased with such gifts as I was after receiving Bluestoons. For example, I am unable to locate my Zamfir album, with apologies to my friend George. It has not stood the test of time as far as my musical tastes are concerned. (Also, Shawn Drover with Megadeath gave me their Countdown to Extinction album while I was in Los Angeles in 1992, and I think I passed it on to someone months later with the cellophane still on the cassette.)

But there have been times when others have shared their musical tastes with me and the album has stayed with me over the years and remains a favorite in my collection.

The first is Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales, which my roommate brought home after its release in 1993. (I had been a fan of the Police, but had not followed Sting’s solo career unitl that point.) We listened to the songs on that album together that night, and there was not one on the disk that did not immediately capture my imagination. Sting has been a favorite of mine ever since.

The other is Now is the Hour by the Charlie Haden Quartet West. Joining the jazz bassist on the disk are pianist Alan Broadbent, Ernie Watts on sax, Larance Marable on drums as well as a string orchestra filling out the cuts on this CD. It’s good jazz, but mellow, West Coast jazz, and was a gift from my friend Mike in 1996. It remains one of my favorite disks to this day.

Honorable mention goes to Tim for Sam Phillips’ Martinis and Bikinis and to Curt for Cachao’s Master Sessions.

Will Steve Johnson’s Bluestoons stand the test of time and rank as one of my favorite CDs years from now? We’ll have to wait and see. In the mean time, might I recommend the book Show Me Microsoft Windows XP by the ever-versatile Steve Johnson? The man just will not slow down!

Sun Breaks

This weekend seems to be going remarkably well, and I think the reason is that I awoke yesterday morning to a whole lot of blue in the sky and a very bright sun.

Seattle this time of year is typically gray and rainy. I heard Sting comment once that Seattle reminded him a lot of home, meaning England. I have never been to England, but I hear it’s often grey and rainy there, too.

I had not heard “sun breaks” forecast by TV meteorologists until coming to Seattle. Sun breaks are short periods of time during the day when the gray ceiling opens up a tad and actual sunlight breaks through the clouds. It can be a glorious thing after six or seven straight days of drizzle.

When much-needed sun breaks do happen, they are always commented upon, with gratitude, by appreciative Seattleites.

Sunshine often provides amazing restorative physical and psychological properties to Seattleites. I heard somewhere that Seattle sells more pairs of sunglasses per capita than any other major American city. I don’t know if that’s true, but I personally have gone out and purchased sunglasses because of an unexpectedly sunny day.

Here is a rundown on my sunglasses:

Pair 1: Cheap drugstore variety. $8. Plastic tortoise shell frames with very dark lenses. I carry them in my laptop bag. They are with me almost always, serving as my emergency redundant backup pair.

Pair 2: Foster Grants for about eighteen bucks, metal frames, modern design, purchased while out of town and finding myself unexpectedly bathed in sunlight. This pair is kept in a little case in my wife’s car.

Pair 3: Very similar to Pair 2, purchased at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, SC, under similar circumstances. I keep them in the sun visor of my car.

Pair 4: My “good” sunglasses, purchased at the Bon Marche in downtown Seattle after someone had placed a $70 pair of sunglasses on the “$14.99 or LESS” rack. It is without a doubt I chose the best pair of sunglasses on the $14,99 or LESS” rack. I was too embarrassed to tell the cashier of the mistake and went ahead and paid for them. These I keep in their case in my car.

The other sixteen pair I have purchased since moving to Seattle are spread out across Seattle in a variety of restaurants and coffeehouses, including the Broadway New American, B&O espresso, the Elephant and Castle, the late Minnie’s Cafe and the now-demolished Palmer’s.

The blue sky and sunshine I woke to yesterday are gone. Forecast for today? Rain. All day. But I am still hopeful for a few sun breaks.

From a Post Card

Steve Johnson loved ketchup. "I love that rich tomato flavor," he once said. We had been discussing the double-LP Peter Gabriel Plays Live. Steve would spread ketchup on toast. "Why not?" he replied when I called him on it. "It's the jelly of the tomato family."

Steve used to keep ketchup packets in the pocket of his waistcoat. He called it his packet pocket. "In case I get an itch for a tomato shot," was his explanation. "It's that pick-me-up that gets me through the day."

Others disagreed.

"That's pointless," Tim H. told me, about fifteen years ago, when confronted with Steve's penchant for tomato shots. Steve would tear open the ketchup packet and squirt its contents into his mouth, an act that Tim found mildly revolting.

Tim would take "salt hits" before exams from little Morton's packets he would pick up at Hardee's.

John T. preferred tartar sauce.

What did Jay K. prefer? "Mayonnaise. In packet form. Preferably Duke's. I cannot abide Hellmann's," he told the Post and Courier.

As Big as Four

January 22nd. Today is my daughter’s birthday -- she turns four!

This morning I woke her up and held up four fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?“ I asked. Big, wide grin. She doesn’t miss a thing.

She got up and stood in front of the mirror and asked me if she were bigger. I told her she was as big as a four-year-old today.

And she is.

We are having a birthday party for my daughter and her little friends this afternoon, and the children want to dress up and pretend to be princesses. So my wife made some little princess skirts out of colorful material, and the kids are going to make little crowns to put on their heads so that they can pretend to be princesses.

There will be only one prince at the party. His name is Miles. He will be here with all of these other little girls. But he can hold his own.

For her birthday I bought my daughter a big house for her Barbie dolls to live in. (Right now, Barbie is living in a cardboard box with a window cut into it.) The new Barbie house is pretty neat. It has lights and a doorbell and a shower and furniture and everything. I know she will enjoy it. She already enjoys playing with her Barbie and Kelly and Wonder Woman dolls and dressing them up.

Wonder Woman is my favorite.

My mother-in-law came into town for the birthday party, and she and Caryn made a birthday cake. I think everybody will have a good time.

Even Miles.

Sunday: Penguins, Loaves and Fishes

I have just concluded Sunday breakfast with a steaming cup of chamomile tea.

This is day three without coffee, and no headache yet. Since becoming ill with an upper respiratory infection Thursday, I have given up the coffee in favor of juices, chamomile and green teas, and have yet to experience any adverse effects. So far so good. Let's see how long I can last...

I always enjoy Sunday breakfast. It is the one day of the week my family is together during breakfast time. (We are often together Saturday mornings, but not always). Sunday usually means the biggest breakfast of the week, and sometimes my wife will fry bacon or sausage or cornedbeef hash and make homemade biscuits and we will eat so much that we don't want lunch until two in the afternoon.

Sunday also means Sunday paper, and I have been pleased with the return of the penguin Opus to the Sunday funnies. I was a huge fan of Opus in the 1980s, when I was in high school and college. Steve Dallas, the womanizing lush of an attorney from the 1980s comic strip "Bloom County," has appeared recently in Berkeley Breathed's "Opus" Sunday strip. Seeing attorney Steve Dallas back in action -- now graying and raising a son -- reminds me that 1985 was twenty years ago, and that I, too, am graying and raising a child.

And on Sundays I often take my child to Sunday School.

Recently, the Three-Year-Old class learned about the loaves and the fishes. In the story, Jesus is preaching to a huge crowd of people and everybody gets hungry. So a couple of fish and five loaves of bread are gathered by the disciples and Jesus then performs a miracle by feeding everyone with such a small amount of food.

The miracle did not register with my daughter, but the gathering of the loaves and fishes did:

DADDY: What did you learn about in Sunday school today?
HARPER: About Jesus.
DADDY: What did Jesus do?
HARPER: Jesus talked some kid out of his lunch.

Lost on Gilligan's Island

My friend Michael pointed out to me on the telephone yesterday that "Gilligan's Island" and "Lost in Space" were essentially the same show.

I added that among the obvious thematic similarities there was another aspect to both shows to consider:

One show was supposed to be funny, but usually wasn't.

The other show was supposed to be quite serious, and was often unintentionally funny.

A Bitter Pill

On October 10th of last year my friend Peter and I attended a St. Louis Rams game at Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks. By the middle of the 4th quarter, the Seahawks were up 27 to 10 over St. Louis. But the Rams pulled it off, spectacularly, winning the game 33 to 27 in overtime. Seattle crumbled in the fourth quarter. The Rams stepped up and did what they had to do to win the game.

Peter and I were bitterly disappointed.

The Seahawks fell to the Rams again five weeks later, this time in St. Louis. The final score was 23 to 12, Rams over the Hawks.

Now, with the Rams returning to Seattle for the NFC Wild Card playoff game, I thought it fitting that Peter and I attend together, and offered him the ticket.

All week meteorogists had been calling for a winter storm in the Puget Sound region. We’d had snow in the North Sound, and in the mountains and foothills, of course, but nothing in Seattle but a little rain. As of Wednesday, they were calling a game day forecast of low-30’s and snow flurries and a wind chill in the 20’s.

Peter grew up in North Dakota, and I was sure such bitter temperatures for a football game were not intimidating to him.

But in the end the weather forecasters were wrong. It was cold, but not bitterly so. And we of course saw no snow. (We did see a bit of rain, which, interestingly enough, marked the first time it had rained on the Seahawks at home in Qwest Field.)

In the end, however, it was Peter and I who were bitter: Rams 27, Hawks 20.

Maybe next year.

Excuses and Dead Dogs

I have not posted anything in some time, and it is mainly because I have had little to say.

Or perhaps what has been on my mind translates poorly here. I have become less than an intermittent blogger. I have become a lazy one.

Besides, what else can be said about the tragedy in the Indian Ocean?

In November I traveled to South Carolina for nearly two weeks, leaving me rather busy at the office the remainder of that month. I posted nothing in November.

And in December I was occupied with completing a short story called “The Third Christmas Tree,” which is the fifth in my Christmas series, behind “The McBeezles and the Christmas Tree,” “The Mean Spirit of Christmas,” “J.T. Thornton’s House of Freaks” and “Merry Christmas from Medford Orchards.” I send these stories to members of my family as Christmas gifts.

A few friends in Seattle saw this year’s story well before most of my family on the East Coast. Problems with the mail. Also, I think I inadvertently sent most of them Media Mail instead of Priority Mail. I should have double-checked with my postman, Juan, but I did not.

I received a call yesterday that brought me some cheer. A friend named Danny had loaned “The Third Christmas Tree” out to someone at a Christmas party, and I guess the thing had gotten around. This woman in his office had asked Danny for more Christmas stories, and Danny obliged her. He reported to me on the telephone yesterday that his friend said she read the one from two years back very, very slowly, so that it would not end too quickly.

For any writer, that is a fine complement.

(This is the same Danny whose wife would not allow “Merry Christmas from Medford Orchards” read to their small children. She’s right. The story is PG. The death of the dog is rather traumatic, even for me. Furthermore, Danny‘s Labrador Retriever and my Labrador Retriever are sisters, and the dog that dies in the story is a black Lab, and was based on our two dogs.)

Speaking of dead black dogs, I have just completed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a novel by Mark Haddon. The book opens with the night-time discovery by an autistic boy of a murdered poodle on the lawn of a neighbor. The book is presented as the boy’s own diary, and his investigation into the death of the dog leads him to uncover family secrets that turn his world upside down.

I do recommend the book. Its power is in its unique point of view: that of a fifteen-year-old autistic boy who fears the colors yellow and brown, cannot relate to other human beings, and whose life must be perfectly ordered. I recommend the book unless, of course, you are bothered by the image of a black dog on a lawn with a garden fork through its chest.

Snow

HALLOWEEN CONCLUDED

Things are now running a bit more smoothly. I have the dog in check, and have learned that it is easier to distribute candy by the handful, instead of straining to carry the handle-less cauldron to the door with each ringing of the bell.

I have systemized the quantity distribution of the candy. Most kids get two. The kids with the superlative costumes get three. Older kids who barely try only get one. (In 1995, when I lived alone, I gave teenagers who did not bother to wear any costume at all single-serving packets of Sanka, out of spite.)

I must admit I am enjoying the costumes. I find it refreshing that the costumes thus far have not all been licensed by Disney. Not a single “princess,” thankfully. (I could go on at length about the “princess” craze, but this is neither the time nor the place.)

Mostly tonight I have seen more traditional Halloween costumes: a legion of witches, three devils, a lion, a horde of ninjas, seven Spider-Men, a parrot, two bears, one Super Man, a mish-mash of zombie types, a few vampires, more than a handful of masked ghouls, and most peculiarly, a kid in whiteface with fangs wearing a Spider-Man costume. I guess the idea was that somehow Peter Parker, having already been bitten by a radioactive spider, was also bitten by Lestat.

The biggest disappointment of the year: not a single Bat Man among them!

Halloween - 6:26 PM

The first Trick-or-Treaters have arrived! I was alerted to their presence on the stoop not by the doorbell, or the taunts and giggles of mischievous children without, but by the low growling of the black Labrador standing watch in the living room.

With great enthusiasm I rushed to the front door, the growling Labrador in tow, and was greeted by witch, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and a well-attired toddling bee, all of whom excitedly cried out, “Trick or treat!”

Taking the giant, over-full plastic cauldron of candy in my hand by the handle, I opened the door.

Two things, then, happened simultaneously, both of which got tonight’s Halloween festivities off to a poor start.

As soon as the door was open, and I was hovering over the stoop with my cauldron of chocolate candy, the dog went for the bee.

I cannot blame the dog entirely. I myself dislike bees and their cousins, hornets and yellow jackets, and I can only assume that Polly was attempting to protect her master, as all good dogs should.

At the same time, the cauldron’s handle, stressed as it was by the enormous weight of the candy within, gave way, and all nineteen pounds of chocolate bars spilled out onto the stoop.

I then attempted, at the same time, to both control the dog and to rescue the grotesque mound candy from a possible rush by the witch and the turtle; the bee, sensing that it was the focus of the 75 pound dog’s inner rage, took flight.

Chaos ensued.

It is 6:30 PM now, by my clock. Things have been more or less restored to normal (I have all but abandoned trying to re-attach the handle to the cauldron) and Polly and I are awaiting our next group of unsuspecting costumed freaks.

Halloween - 6:06 PM

Tonight is Halloween, and I am alone in the house with a large black dog and an enormous kettle of chocolate candy. My wife and daughter have elected to drive to the home of friends in another neighborhood to have chili and dress in costumes and Trick-or-Treat.

I am therefore on my own, tasked with the dissemination of nineteen pounds of candy to any and every errant costumed kid that might ring my bell.

To enhance the mood of the occasion, I have illuminated a jack-o-lantern that I carved just this afternoon from a pumpkin, and have dug up John Carpenter’s soundtrack to the film Halloween which I have on vinyl. A few carefully placed candles have completed the mood I have chosen for tonight’s costumed Trick-or-Treaters.

So far, business has been slow. Nonexistent, actually, and that worries me. Though it is just after six o’clock, it has been dark for some time now, and the costumed candy hordes have yet to come. The reason I am concerned at this point is that I went a little overboard while purchasing the treats. Safeway had them on sale, and I loaded the cart with every conceivable chocolate bar - Twix, Payday, Butterfinger, Hershey’s, Nestle Crunch, Baby Ruth, and so on.

There is a lot of chocolate here.

More than I could consume in six months if the costumed rascals fail to turn out in great numbers.

I hope they come.

The Verdict

Sitting on a jury was, for me, a humbling experience. A form of service to the community that is vastly under appreciated. Many people gripe and complain about jury duty, or joke about it, and I suppose I, too, have been guilty of the same. But the simple fact of the matter is: while I and my eleven colleagues on this jury in King County, Washington, may have found ourselves inconvenienced with the time we spent away from our jobs and our homes, and while we may found ourselves woefully underpaid for what is such an important obligation for society, the fate of a defendant was solidly in the hands of myself and eleven others.

How can anyone take such a grave responsibility lightly?

In our criminal case, the accused had already been arrested and charged. He had one shot at justice: the twelve men and women in the box, listening to the evidence.

In the end, the prosecution failed to prove its case and the defendant was acquitted.

After the trial, the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney spent a few minutes in the jury room with us discussing the trial. Both the prosecutor and the defense attorney were candid in explaining their strategies to us, and were interested in how we as a group went about coming up with our verdict.

The conversation was informative and enlightening, and I was reminded again that the process works in this, the greatest free society in the history of the world.