An Angel Passes

It is a macabre, cruel power we humans have given ourselves over the lesser beasts in our midst. I mean, specifically, our pets.

I wrote last year of the impending demise of my beloved dog, Angel. I made the decision last weekend to finally put an end to her struggles and indignity…this weekend.

I won’t lay out any more details of her troubles; she was an old dog and had old dog problems. What struck me through the week was the pervasive acknowledgement that these were her last days. It was like a person in the room, an invisible, unpleasant, unmentionable character who waited patiently for the appointed time to take Angel away from me.

Frequent bouts of tears and doubt, and an evil prescience about her future battered me while she blindly went about the business of being a dog, blissfully unaware that she was doing these things for the last time.

But don’t we all? We never know how many beats our hearts have left, or when the car rolls off the assembly line that will be shipped, delivered, purchased and driven into ours. But it was the knowing how much time Angel had left, the scheduling of her final heartbeat, the complicity I felt doing it “behind her back” that wrecked my thoughts and interfered with my work.

And the tears it caused, tears she didn’t understand were for her, let alone understand at all. The mourning process started a week before the vet came to the house. It was mostly at night, bed time, when she always would look at me with those doleful eyes, pleading silently with me not to go upstairs, to stay with her downstairs or to take her up with me. But maybe the week of agony was best.

Not long ago Mrs. Farrago and I had two Dalmatians. Cosmo was hers since he was a puppy. Angel was mine since she was a puppy, and moved with me into Mrs. Farrago’s house back in 1998. Cosmo, two years older than Angel, developed his own set of age-related problems and, in late August of 2004, Mrs. Farrago decided the time had come for him to be done with it. We had consulted weeks earlier with a traveling vet, and on a Saturday we called her. She was available to come the following day, in the early evening to put Cosmo down.

This gave us little more than a day to make our peace with it, to say, hug and kiss our good-byes to him. And he was gone. He wasn’t really my dog, having lived more than half his life before I ever met him. But on that, his last day, I bawled my eyes out as if I had known him since the day he was born. And the next few days were especially difficult.

Angel had been mine since her eighth week of life. She had no concept of life without me; despite my frequent travels, I always returned home. Her appointment set, I was able to ease into the grief a little more, each day becoming a little easier to come to terms with my decision, each day making me, if only slightly, able to grasp the reality that I would soon see her take her last breath.

It didn’t make the very moment any easier to take, as the life left her eyes and her body went slack, but I had, to a degree, prepared myself for the moment. Cosmo helped me get through it, too.

That she go peacefully and calmly were all I could ask for her last minutes, and that’s how she went.

I will remember her and miss her forever.



Angel For Now
October 31, 1993 - April 21, 2007

Bezbol? Yoo Bet!

So Tuesday night Mrs. Farrago said to me, “Wanna do something outrageous tomorrow?”

Immediately my thoughts jumped to Swedish folk-song karaoke, or nude skydiving, or going to church on the south side, but then I said, “Sure! What?”

“The Cleveland Indians are playing their next few home games in Milwaukee, until the snow stops falling in Cleveland. We could go see a night game!”

Mrs. Farrago has joined a Fantasy Baseball league over at Flashback Alternatives, and has become acutely aware of Baseball in general. One of her players is a member of the Cleveland Indians, and she thought it a good idea to go and keep an eye on her boy.

I thought for a moment – not exactly outrageous, but certainly spontaneous and fun – and said, “Sure!” I was taking the day off anyway for a dental cleaning appointment in the afternoon, after which was Mrs. Farrago’s cleaning, so we were getting free at about the same time. We briefly planned our moves for the day and made ready for bed. When I came upstairs, she informed me of Wednesday’s weather forecast: snow.

A brief aside here: we live in Chicago. There are a lot of people around here, in Chicago. They’re mostly all Chicagoans. Spring is an arbitrary word to mark a period of time set off by a fairly pagan observance called the Vernal Equinox, the day in March when sunrise to sunset takes the same amount of time as sunset to sunrise, on the way to longer days and shorter nights. The first day of spring does NOT magically convert the weather from nasty cold and rain or snow to birds chirping and flowers blooming. In Chicago that transition period can last into the first days of June. So yes. Sometimes in April it SNOWS, people! You (Chicagoans) KNOW this. It isn’t a surprise. So SHUT UP already!

Okay, snow. Not a big deal…unless you’re anticipating a 90-plus mile drive in it.

As it turned out, Wednesday was mostly a cold, slushy affair. I headed out to Macy’s on State Street to buy some luggage (they’re having a sale! Have I ever mentioned here that I travel a lot?). I picked out a set of three pieces. We’ve never purchased a set before. Seems kinda silly to me, but then I thought, “What the heck! We’re a team; we might as well have team ‘stuff.’” The salesman went off to the bowels of the store to get it and then, ten minutes later, informed me that he didn’t have that set complete in red. I was about to be late for my appointment, so I asked him if he had a complete set in the black. He said yes, but he would have to go in back again to get it. I asked him to pull it and put a hold on it, and I would come back in about an hour and a half to get it.

Of course, coming back for it threatened to delay us in getting to Milwaukee in time for the 7:05 start of the game, but if I ran back to the store during Mrs. Farrago’s appointment, purchased the luggage, ran it to the car in the parking garage, and then drove the five blocks back to the dentist’s office building to pick her up, we could be on the road by 4:30.

On my walk to my 2:30 appointment Mrs. Farrago called with unhappy news: she was misled on the game’s start time. It’s 7:05 Eastern time; 6:05 central. We lost an hour of time to get there!

Now we had only an hour and a half to get there, the usual amount of time it takes just to make the drive from Chicago to Milwaukee. We were guaranteed to miss the start.

When I arrived at the dentist’s I was asked if Mrs. Farrago was on her way, as there had been a cancellation, and they could get her in at 2:30! We got our hour back! I called her, and she said she could definitely make it there by 2:30, and at 2:29 she walked into the office!

We got through our cleanings and were on our way back to Macy’s. The luggage had indeed been pulled, and we were on our way back out the door by 4:00.

We ventured out into the early rush-hour Kennedy Expressway traffic, which, in the downtown area was not bad at all. A couple miles out into the neighborhoods it slowed down, which was to be expected. Switching over to the Edens Expressway, the artery to the north, it was much the same, but, as usual, it opened up around Old Orchard road and the town of Skokie.

It was breezy for a while, despite the wet roads and the hesitant snowfall. Then we saw a traffic status electronic sign that gave a 61-minute travel time to Gurnee, Illinois, at a point where it should only take about 25 to 30 to get there.

There is no agony quite as acute as when you are on a time deadline and there is an unexpected slowdown of traffic. The cars are moving, but at 12 miles per hour you want to crawl out of your skin. I assumed that there was some sort of accident blocking a lane or two up ahead.

Traffic oozed and gushed in an accordion bellows fashion, crawling for a mile, and then spurting forward quickly for about two miles before grinding to a crawl again. This went on for about 45 minutes when, suddenly, we were in the clear. Without a massive exodus of cars from the highway at one or two exits, the congestion ahead of us was broken. No accident. No construction. Just people collectively brain-farting at the same place and causing a 15-mile logjam.

Finally, at about 6:00 we entered greater Milwaukee. Another electronic sign told us that Miller Park traffic needed to take the I-894 bypass in order to avoid a closed exit. There was some other information there, but it was too much to gather at 60 miles per hour. Really, they need several signs along the way to convey that much information.

Before you could say “wild goose chase,” it was quite evident we weren’t going to see any more signs about Miller Park. At the next exit we pulled off and stopped at a gas station for directions. A customer there told me she lives right near the park, so I trusted her words completely. I think she had red hair. I can’t remember because her cleavage got in the way. It’s a wonder I remembered the directions.

We arrived at the park around 6:25. Finally! We opted first to park in the $8 general parking lot, a seven dollar savings over premium parking. But the line into general parking was so very long, and I had just about had it with sitting in a line of cars and waiting. So we turned around and headed for premium parking. As it turns out, premium was only $8, too! And being about a quarter-mile closer to the park, saved us another ten minutes from missing more of the game, not to mention surely saving our bladders!

We found our upper deck, behind-home-plate-to-the-third-base-side seats…in the top of the third inning. The Angels were already ahead 1-0. Miller Park is a beautiful stadium, designed for baseball, with a retractable roof. The management of the park certainly knows a lot of tricks to keep people – especially kids – entertained when the game itself isn’t doing the job. However, the fans proved themselves capable of some entertainment of their own, as some on one end of the grandstands began a session of waves that lasted fully five minutes, with nearly everyone participating! The funniest part was when one section slowed it down, and everyone else followed suit for two passes of slo-mo wave!

So, 30 dollars for two beers, four dogs and a brat later, the game was over. Cleveland never caught up, despite the excitement of a solo home run in the sixth(?) inning. Mrs. Farrago’s boy wasn’t even in attendance, instead preferring to be with his wife as she delivers their baby. Was the two-hour drive worth it? Hell, there have been days my drive to work has been two hours. For a pleasant evening of baseball? You bet it was worth the drive!

Final score: Anaheim Angels 4, Cleveland Indians 1. And I don’t care! Any game where the Cubs don’t lose is a good game!

Follow-Up

The latest word on my father is that the cancer has definitely not spread to any other organs. All of the lymph nodes they took and tested were clean.

Now he has to strengthen up for the radiation therapy and, possibly, eventually, surgery to remove the upper lobe of his left lung.

I wish to extend a heartfelt word of gratitude to those of you whose kind words and warm thoughts reached me and my dad. It's odd, this blog thing, that a loose -- if small -- network of strangers can care about another stranger in a dark hour.

Thank you.

That Time of Job, Again

I've been sentenced to Death By Work, again. This month has taken me away from Mrs. Farrago for more than two weeks, already. In addition to the trip to New Hampshire and Philadelphia earlier in the month, the latest has been a marathon affair.

I was off Tuesday, March 13, for Goleta, California, about 15 miles north of Santa Barbara, and the ridiculously ritzy resort called Bacara. It was five days of a paranoid meeting planner, a competent-though-clueless photographer and June Gloom three months early.

On the night of March 17, the client had their final night dinner party, for which I had to be around. Nothing like being at a party where you can neither participate nor vacate. Finally, around 10:00 I was cut loose...to pack my suitcase and make the 2-hour drive with a co-worker to Los Angeles.

You see, I had to be on the Sunday morning 6:00am flight from LAX to Chicago in order to make the two-oh-something flight to Toronto for the next meeting. So we left Bacara about 11:00pm, and arrived in the area of LAX around 1:15am. We did the math at that point and it was this: arrive to hotel around 1:25am. Check in, get to rooms around 1:45am. Prepare for bed, lie down around 2:05am. Wake up around 3:00am to shower and dress, and drive to the airport in time to turn in the rental car and be to the ticket counter by 4:30am. Grand total hours of sleep: approximately one.

So we said a mutual "Fuckit," chose not to even find the hotel, and just stayed up the rest of the night, seeking out a Denny's not too far from the airport to chew the fat and chug down coffee until it was time to turn in the car. One hour of sleep would have been infinitely more difficult to deal with than none.

As usual, when I most need it on a plane, sleep escaped me. I dozed for an hour at most, and arrived in Chicago feeling like I had ridden in the cargo hold at the bottom of the piles of luggage rather than in First Class. Honestly, I can't remember any part of the layover in Chicago, except the excruciating part where we taxied out to the runway only to be called back to the gate for the airline to rectify a "cargo discrepancy" that no one could figure out why they didn't fix before we left the first time. Only when you're sleep deprived....

Toronto is a pretty city. Cold while I was there, but pretty in the sunlight. I discovered the next morning, in the view from my room, an ice-skating rink and a building that looks like a docking site for UFOs.

I did my usual thing there, making the people happy, or at least appear so. And Wednesday morning I was off to the airport again. After a brief delay I was on my way to Chicago...but not home.

I went to baggage claim, retrived my luggage, and caught a cab for the office. There I swapped out a few things between my large suitcase that had been with me to California and Canada, and the small suitcase I had pre-set at the office to take on the last leg of the journey. I packed the one remaining shoot package (the other was sent to Canada), and put everything in the cab, which had waitied outside while I turned everything around.

Back at the airport I was witness to one of the worst weather-related travel days I've ever experienced. I'll just keep it short: scheduled departure on flight A, 5:45pm. Actual departure on flight B, after A was cancelled, 10:40pm. Arrival to hotel in Houston, 2:00am.

The client for whom we were shooting was kind enough to let us start an hour later than originally planned, which allowed us one more hour of sleep. Then it was a day and a half of rigorous shooting.

Finally we were on our way home, but not without more weather delays, only this time it was only a matter of about 90 minutes.

I was home by 11:00 Friday night, all of Saturday when I got to visit my father at the hospital where he's been kept since Tuesday while they cut out parts of his body and run tests on them (hasn't spread so far...), and Sunday morning, when I departed for yet another trip.

Tonight I'm back in southern California (San Bernardino). Shoot tomorrow. Fly home Tuesday. Fly Wednesday to Tampa, shoot Thursday. Fly home Friday. Sunday night to Raleigh, North Carolina. Shoot Monday morning, and go home in the evening. Drive Tuesday afternoon to Springfield. Drive home Wednesday night. Then I'm done. I think.

If I think about it all, I'll go crazy. If I just do it, I'm fine.

Slowly Creeping Up On 2000

Perhaps it's my imagination, but 2000 seems to have taken longer since 1000 than 1000 took from 0.

I have let you down. You are not reading me with the same passion you read me before. Perhaps it is because I have not written with the same passion?

I will try.

An Innocent Man

My father was diagnosed yesterday with lung cancer. Early prognosis is Stage 2 to Stage 4. I don't know exactly what that means. It has not spread to any other organs.

He’s 83 years old. This early in the discovery a treatment has not yet been prescribed It appears that nothing aggressive will be attempted, but rather he will undergo a milder radiation therapy.

He was a smoker, but he quit in the mid-1970s. He was surrounded by smokers just about every day of his life until he sold his barber shop and retired in 2004. So who knows? What if it’s polyester fumes?

So, we – the whole family and I – are in limbo. We don’t know. We don’t know what’s next. We don’t know what’s in store.

I don’t know what to do…what to say.

All I know is that he doesn’t deserve this. He is the most generous, truly genuine man I know. Life has already dealt him a lousy hand with a body that is breaking down years before the mind inside. Why does he have to now face inconvenience and discomfort in treatment, and untold pain and agony if and when he goes beyond treatment?

What hurts me more at this point is that, when my sister – with whom he lives at the moment – broke the news to him, he cried. He’s not supposed to cry. Retirement was supposed to be a time of relaxation, of ease, of a lack of want. A time to reflect upon his long life and feel pride in the part he played in bringing up seven fairly successful, fairly level-headed children.

But instead he has dealt with retarding mobility, embarrassing incontinence, nerve damage in his outer extremities… and now this. A prisoner in his own body; and now his prison is threatening to crumble on top of him.

He doesn’t deserve this. He’s supposed to live out his last years in dignity and comfort and peace.

Hasn’t he earned that?

I Think, Therefore I Blog

(written 3/13/07)

It seems a rare occasion, in this lot life has cast for me, to find a moment of peace at the airport while waiting for my plane. Such was this morning. Granted, it took being slammed with a 6:00am flight, and thus a 2:30 wake-up and a 4:30am arrival at the sleepy airport to achieve such serenity, but please! I’m trying to make this a happy post.

Unlike so many other times, this morning’s routine was peaceful and pleasant. No lines awaited me, there were no problems with my reservation or tickets, the security guards weren’t surly, and the McDonald’s kiosk in Concourse B was open before 5:00!

While I sat in my gate area and dined on my Sausage® McMuffin™ with egg©, I faced the burgeoning bustle of the concourse corridor, and a thought occurred to me: at a busy airport in a major city, one could almost quite literally sit and watch the world pass by. Even at 5:00 in the morning, one can, in the span of as little as half an hour, encounter people from a dozen different countries, three times as many ethnicities, and a handful of languages. Just think what a whole day of delays and cancellations could do!

There’s the older lady who looks like she has a head full of short, white plastic spikes and Grace Jones makeup…who happens to be on my plane and in my row on the opposite side of the plane from me (no…NOT Grace Jones, but that lady with the spiky hair). There’s the family observing the Islamic faith, the women all wearing the traditional style of dark, shapeless dresses from the high neckline down to the ankles, following several steps behind their men. And then there was the attractive, tall young woman wearing a tight-fitting tee-shirt and short shorts, displaying her long legs right down to her low-rise, high-heel boots. Can anyone say “Fishing trip?” And I mean she was attractive despite the hooker wear.

I did my good deed for the morning…for the month…so I can relax until April. A young black woman was struggling with a pull along bag, a baby seat, walking behind an aimless toddler walking every which way, following whatever shiny thing, any baby in sight, any smiling face that caught her eye. The toddler waddled into my gate area, and the mother could only call to her. The woman finally got her daughter’s attention, and they made their way at the toddler’s meandering pace. My flight was to board in ten minutes, but I’m traveling light – another rarity for this trip – so I wasn’t worried about being at the front of the line this time.

So I acted on the whim that struck me, and caught up to the woman and asked her if she needed any assistance. At first she seemed as though she was going to refuse, but when she saw my empty hands (my backpack was slung over my shoulder) she accepted, handed me her crap, and picked up her daughter. Her flight was to board at the same time as mine, but at her daughter’s pace she likely wouldn’t have gotten to her gate until Thursday.

Every time I’m able to upgrade my seat to First- or Business Class, I’m always struck by the same thought: When is the last time you ever hurt yourself with, or felt threatened by someone wielding, a butter knife? What’s that? Never? I thought so. If a loved one was being threatened by a violent person, and you had two choices before you – a butter knife and a fork – with which to attempt to thwart the attacker, which would you choose? Come again? The fork? I thought so.

It is almost comical how our government, in the guise of the Department of Homeland Security, has knee-jerked and hind-sighted our travel industry into what has to be the laughing-stock of the free world. I received my First Class breakfast on the plane. I opened the nice, linen napkin to get to the silverware. Out rolled two heavy, stainless steel forks, a spoon of the same quality…. and a plastic butter knife.

I’m sorry, but a highly trained commando could do more damage with a spoon than a determined amateur could ever do with a butter knife. Do you suppose the DHS thinks people will feel safer if anything associated with the word “knife” is eliminated from a plane, despite that it won’t make them any safer? Will a black man feel any less oppressed by our society if the word “nigger” is erased from our cultural vocabulary?

Several years ago a would-be terrorist from England was foiled by a defective lighter and an alert passenger who saw the man struggling to light what turned out to be some sort of wick dangling from his shoe, which itself proved to have been reconstructed with some sort of explosive. In one of its more sensible actions, as a result of that attempt, the DHS now prohibits travelers from carrying cigarette lighters onto aircraft. Halleluiah!

Because of a more recent, though never-realized plot in the works by terror cells in England to carry onto planes volatile liquids in innocuous containers, and then wreak havoc in the skies, the DHS, in its inept wisdom, has restricted the amount of liquid one can carry on his person through the security checkpoints to three ounces, in small, clear containers inside a clear zip-lock bag. This makes sense at first, but do the Transportation Security Administration guards perform sniff checks on every bottle? Does gasoline or kerosene or grain alcohol in a three-ounce translucent bottle look any different than perfume or cough syrup or mouthwash? Can you differentiate between them? Can the average TSA guard?

What’s that, you say? “What danger is three ounces of gasoline or kerosene if you don’t have a lighter to light it with?”

So there’s nothing flammable in a plane’s cabin now that the little, tiny butane torches have been eliminated? Here’s a startling little fact: in order to appease the arriving smokers who must immediately dart from their flight to the nearest patch of outdoor space or other authorized smoking area to get rid of that awful, clean air in their lungs, the DHS and TSA still allow passengers to carry matches onto planes!

And who needs to smuggle flammable liquids past security? The flight attendants sell alcohol to the passengers right on the plane! In First Class, it’s FREE!

How much clearer should it be? NO FIRE ON PLANES!

If we must appease the smokers, erect smoking rooms (as some airports have), and install wall-mounted, automobile-style electric cigarette lighters so smoker passengers don’t feel the need to carry incendiary devices on our aircraft.

There must be other, better ideas out there. I can’t be the only one thinking about it.

It’s clear that our president has not appointed the office of Homeland Security with an experienced, proactive leader who examines a situation and makes changes based on common sense, or who hires those who do, but rather with a crony who learns too late why you shouldn’t touch that pretty blue flame.

Great! Now I’ve ranted myself right into a rotten mood!

And is Steve Martin getting any residuals from the makers of the movie Happy Feet for titling the movie with the phrase he coined?

Saturday Adventure

It started off as a typical Saturday… a few commitments in the morning, and then I met up with Mrs. Farrago at the local Fivebucks for coffee. Oops… make that Starbucks….

And then we commenced with our plan… earlier in the day she had suggested that we go down to the lakefront to snap pictures of the thawing ice, and the late-winter lakeshore in general. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day, so there was no reason not to agree.

We rode a city bus down to the Nature Museum, which was the closest point to where we wanted to go. I don’t think there’s a spot along the lakeshore where you can’t get an awesome shot of the skyline.



We walked our way down past Fullerton Avenue, among the beautiful people working on their beauty,



happily snapping photos of things and of each other.







And then tragedy struck.

While I was snapping a series of photos like this one

atop one of the many breakwaters, Mother Nature’s evil nature blustered toward me. While I lay prone to snap the photos, one of her dastardly fingers lifted my beloved hat into her air, over my back and legs and into the water many feet below.




Fighting panic, my mind raced for a solution. I remembered one of the photos I had taken earlier

and realized that the subject within was my potential savior! I sprinted …well, sorta walked fast… back to the beach. It could be considered vandalism in the eyes of the casual observer, but a life… nay, a lifestyle… was at stake, and drastic times require drastic measures and whatnot, so I acted!



At first it seemed to be beyond my reach, but the slat was longer than I realized – or the water was closer than I realized, and rescue seemed achievable!



Alas! The water proved too adhesive for me to hook the brim with the slat, so, improvising yet again, I pulled the hat to the wall of the breakwater and slid it up to my other, eagerly waiting, hand. Triumph! My hat, my image, my iconic lifestyle, SAVED!


Later we were accosted by Canada geese.



Normally when they approach like these two did, it’s because they perceive a threat, either the male perceives a challenge to the rights to his mate, or both perceive a threat to their nest. We backed off to maintain a respectful distance, but they just kept advancing!



And then, within mere feet of us they simply stopped. And honked.



These Canada geese, it appeared, are permanent residents of our fair city. It would seem that other humans have given them food in the past, and these geese were begging. And they probably have no intentions of ever returning to Canada.



That was our day of adventure in Chicago. I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

(some scenes are dramatized recreations to enhance the story and make it seem more dramatic than it really was)
(click the post title to see all of my photos of Chicago and of the geese and Mrs. Farrago!)

O Little Town(s) of Littleton....

On the road again. Two nights. Flew Sunday night to Philadelphia and rented a way cool Volvo Cross Country wagon, drove 30-some miles to Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.

My colleague, The Producer, made a minor error in the meet time with the client. We arrived at 9:30am at an office complex which the Hertz Neverlost™ GPS system in the rental car couldn’t quite narrow down to exactly which building we were supposed to enter. My colleague whipped out his handy-dandy book with all the dates, times and locations, and discovered that we weren’t scheduled to meet with the client until 12:30pm.

So, with three hours to kill, and too late to go back to bed at the hotel we had just checked out of, we looked up local attractions in the Hertz Neverlost™ GPS system and discovered that we were only 10 miles away from Valley Forge National Monument and Park! Never fearful of soaking up some American History, we ventured out to see where the ragtag rebels of the colonies were whipped into shape through one cold, hungry winter, into a disciplined army that kicked some British arse!

In the evening we returned to the Philadelphia airport with plenty of time to spare, so of course our flight was delayed. There was no clear explanation…the gate agent kept announcing over the intercom that our plane from Chicago had landed, and would arrive at the gate any minute. “Any minute” expanded to 25 minutes, and still there was no plane. Finally, a half-hour after our scheduled departure time, we were told our plane had arrived at the gate. Instead of a flood of people gushing out from the jetway, the gate agents started loading us on…to an empty plane. I still can’t figure out what happened.

We flew, about 90 minutes late (thank you, US STUPID Airways), to Manchester, New Hampshire, the first time I’ve ever set foot this far northeast. We arrived just before 11:00pm, and looked ahead to a 110-mile drive to a place that was equidistant between two major airports. Manchester was the lesser of two evils. How less evil I don’t know. Our rental this time was a Ford (Ugh!) Escape. I hauled ass up I-93 north, pushing about 80 most of the way until we entered the White Mountains. I imagine in summer they’re green mountains, but I’m sure they’re still called White Mountains, no matter how un-white they might be. I don’t know if it was a weather system that had moved through at the same time, or if it was just mountain weather, but it sucked. Snow and strong wind. The roads weren’t slippery, though the snow was collecting there and they looked treacherous.

Ever since I’ve been with this job, there seems to be some peculiarity each year that stands out. One year it seemed like a dozen trips to Orlando, Florida. I HATE Orlando, Florida. You should have seen the size of this one Mouse I saw there! Another year it was the three trips to Hawaii in three months! I know what you’re thinking, but I was working and got no beach time. And that’s practically a whole week on a plane when you add it all up!

This year it seems – on a minor scale, at least – to be shoots in towns called Littleton. In January I arrived at night in the mountain town of Littleton, Colorado. Tonight I arrived in the mountain town of Littleton, New Hampshire. Odder still is the layout of the hotel where we’re staying. The building is a three-story hotel, up on a hillside, facing the town. It’s bitterly cold, as it was in Littleton, Colorado, in January, and it’s snowing. Or I’m having the strangest, longest dream about two months of my life, and I’m still in Littleton, Colorado. Somebody wake me up and tell me the Bears haven’t actually made it to the Super Bowl, yet, because, in my dream they do, and it isn’t pretty!

I wonder if there’s any rivalry between the mountain-Littletons. You know, some “my-mountains-are-bigger-than-your-mountains,” “oh-yeah-well-we-never-had-a-massacre-at-our-high-school” kind of thing going back and forth.

Probably not.

My coffee-for-the-road caffeine buzz is wearing off, now. Funny that it kept me awake long enough to write something that certainly must have put you to sleep!

Visit New Hampsha! Its Littleton is littler than the bigger Littleton in Colorado!

Blag-Togged

Wow! I’ve been tagged!

While reading Irb’s blog, I was shocked, appalled and thrilled when he told of his being tagged and, in turn, tagged me!

So now I’m supposed to tell five little known things about me, and then I have to tag five people. I think I can muster up five things no one in the blogopolis knows about me, but I don’t know if I can scrape together five bloggers who read me and whom Irb hasn’t already tagged.

Here goes, Five Little-Known Facts About Me:

1. I once “peeped” on a neighbor boinking her boyfriend. It was entirely by accident (the peeping, not the boinking…though I guess I wouldn’t know about that) as I was walking my dog off-leash in the field beside the apartment complex where I lived at the time. It was raining pretty hard that evening, so I hugged close to the building. I walked past her first floor bedroom window, the light was on, and something in my peripheral vision caught my eye that resembled a guy’s hairy ass in the air. So I looked. And then I watched. Hey, they were the ones boinking with the blinds wide open!

2. I am blind in my left eye. It has nothing to do with Five Little-Known Facts About Me #1 above. At least I don’t THINK it does. I HOPE it doesn’t! CRVO, ensuing retinal hemorrhage, surgery, 95% (my estimate) blind in the eye.

3. I never drank until I was over age 20, and I’ve never done any recreational drugs.

4. I didn’t have sex until I was 21, which has given me second thoughts about my life choices detailed in Five Little-Known Facts About Me #3!

5. I have performed onstage wearing only a towel, socks and shoes.

And there they are, five things you didn’t know, didn’t care to know, and can’t possibly forget about me, no matter how hard you try.

Claire, Chloe, Trina, Toast and Random Squeegee, it’s now your turn.

Pride Run Amok... or, "Would You Like Fries With That Smirk?"

It was one of those moments where I didn’t know whether or not I was supposed to be angry.

I was at a McDonald’s restaurant yesterday morning. Okay, say what you will, but I had to be to the job extra early, and I had no time to eat breakfast while standing still.

In the Chicago area there is a large number of Hispanic immigrants. I’m sure a significant portion of them are here illegally – probably not the majority, but a significant number just the same.

So I got to the counter at this McDonald’s just as an older white guy – say mid-50s to early 60s -- finished ordering his breakfast. The young woman behind the counter – Hispanic, most likely Mexican, who seemed to speak and understand English well enough – misunderstood something the man said, or he misunderstood something she said, and she had to recount his change. Then he said, quite loudly, “Do you have a green card?”

The woman again raised her eyebrows, at first not hearing or not understanding, perhaps as if she didn’t quite believe what she heard, and then she nodded vigorously and said, “Card? Yes, I do,” while she absently patted her chest near her name tag.

He responded with an “Uh huh” that resonated with doubt, almost contempt.

She went to retrieve his food, and the man said, “Do you like working in my country?”

She didn’t respond, either unhearing, or ignoring.

She brought him his food and his drink, and said, “Have a nice day.”

The man said to her, “Oh, I’m certain I will!” as though he was certain he had ruined hers. The woman didn’t appear to have been offended or rattled. He walked away moments before my food was handed to me.

On the rest of the drive to work the scenario kept eating at me. Did that guy – or does ANY of us – have the right to ask someone who’s apparently or even obviously not from this country originally for their green card? Other than if that guy – or any of us – is an employer interviewing a prospective hire, I mean. She didn’t show him her green card, nor did he actually demand to see it. It was more as though he was just fucking with her, but he did it with the attitude of subtle intimidation.

On the subject of illegal aliens in our country, I feel I stand pretty firmly: the important operating word in the term is “illegal.” If they’re undocumented and are here illegally, then they should be deported. The argument that “this country was built by immigrants” holds no water in this particular argument; my great-grandfather came here, spent ten years of his life here working to get his family here and working toward citizenship. Documented. Resident Alien. Naturalized Citizen. He earned the right, as did the rest of his family, as did hundreds of thousands like him after they arrived here, to stay here and raise their families with all the freedoms and benefits a United States Citizenship affords.

The argument gets deeper, of course, but it’s not my topic.

In the car I kept addressing the ass-wipe.

Her answer to your green card question was “Yes.” So she’s here legally. She has the right to work in “your country.” She’s most likely working toward citizenship, which should make your bigoted ass proud that you live in a country for which so many are willing to leave their homes and much of their family and try to make a new life. Where did your family come from? What twisted arrogance makes you think we should have shut the gates after your exalted heritage slowed to a trickle? You smug prick.

But then I got to thinking…what if I had misheard him, and he had actually asked her, “Do you have a green car?” And what if he had actually said, “Do you like your McNuggets crunchy?”

It was early, after all. I was still pretty tired.

So I’m not sure if I should be angry with the guy.

To Chloe, If You're Reading

Chloe,

I'm still reading "Moo Deux," however, it seems there is no longer an invitation to comment on your blog. I wanted to let you know I still click on you just about every day to see if you've posted.

Thanks,

Farrago

Does It Understand You If You Scream?

I almost wet myself watching this.

Don't throw away your keyboard yet!

A Kick in the Can, The End

Washington Junior High School was the flagship of its school district. The only junior high in the district, it took in all of the students graduated from the elementary schools and prepared them for high school. What this meant for a lot of students – myself included – was first experiences with lots of kids of different ethnicities and races and skin colors. Most notable for me were the black kids.

A certain relative, who will remain nameless, had warned me in the final days of the summer before 7th grade to “watch out” the black kids at Washington Junior High…only this relative wasn’t so kind as to use the term “black.”

Innocent that I was, I took my relative’s advice and I “watched out” for all the black kids. And while I watched out for the black kids I had my back to all the white kids and Mexican kids and whatever other non-black kids there were back there, and they were kicking my ass! That was when I learned a life lesson: kids are kids. People are people. Take the time to learn which ones to trust, and which ones to avoid, and you find the two groups are not separated by color.

Unfortunately, not everyone learns that lesson.

As happened in a lot of schools, certainly during the time I was at Washington, the black kids and the white kids just didn’t hang out together. The black kids always occupied the northeastern half of the playground while the white kids and the Mexican kids stayed closer to the main building and the Kick the Can court. (In the photo above, there can be seen a fair amount of landscaping in the northeastern corner. Back then there was no landscaping, just a chain-link fence and gate enclosing the playground at the edge of the sidewalk.)

One day, in the middle of a game, one of the black kids showed up at the side of the court and asked one of us why we never let the black kids play. It was almost a chorus of voices as we told him that everyone was welcome to play. For some reason, the more kids playing, the more fun it was! We invited him to join us.

As there were few rules to teach him, and the game was learn-as-you-go, he was on a team and playing inside of two seconds. It was hindsight then just as it is sad hindsight now that we should have told him it was a brutal game, and that capturing the can the first time would be quite an eye-opening experience. But we failed to tell him that. We just figured he’d get it. Someone eventually passed him the can and he captured it, and was immediately pounced upon by five or six kids gripping his shoulders and kicking at his feet and shins.

A minor, angry scuffle ensued as the can was wrangled away from him, and he singled out one of his opponents and tried to strike back. But his opponent, seeing the can kicked away, chased after the can and left the fight behind.

The new player then just disappeared, and my friends and I laughed him off as a sissy.

The very next day the same kid showed up with a couple of his friends and asked if they could all play. Looking back at it now, it was the kind of formula action movie foreboding we all recognize when we see it. But we were just kids on a playground, not in a movie. And we just wanted everybody to play and have fun. So we said “Sure!”

Play resumed for a few minutes until one of the new players captured the can. I remember the absurd moment when he bent down and, in flagrant disregard for the rules, picked the can up in his fingers and ran. A bunch of us started screaming, “Foul!” or “No fair,” oblivious to the fact that he wasn’t running toward his opponent’s goal, but rather OFF the court and bearing northeast! Quicker-witted kids – like Lu, for instance – caught on to what was happening, and someone shouted, “Get the can!!” We took off after the kid, who ran between the friends he had brought along, who then turned and acted as though blockers on a football field. They stuffed the first couple of guys nearest the culprit, but Lu got past them as the can thief tried to disappear into the crowd of black kids.

Tenacious Lu chased him around until he snagged the kids shirt and started to reel him in. The rest of us caught up, and a few ran to help Lu, who was by that time grappling with the kid.

There had been, a few years earlier, what were termed “race riots” at the high school, where my older siblings had attended, which had started as a singular fight between a white teenager and a black teenager, and then escalated. On the playground I saw my friends converging on the mad scuffle to help Lu. And then I saw a couple of the black kids doing the same to help their friend. In essence, I saw our own race riot in the making, whether or not it was truly racially motivated.

I have the distinct image in my head of a pile of kids grappling, swinging fists and shouting, and Lu at the edge of the pile, head down and driving into it, his hands still gripping the kid who took our can. But I saw it turning ugly and, rather than jump in and exacerbate the situation, I thought it was time to get an adult’s attention before anybody got hurt. I wore a zip-front hooded sweatshirt that chilly fall day, and I had my hands in the shirt pockets, covering my belly. I turned to get the attention of one of the deans who, since it was so chilly outside, had chosen to monitor the children’s behavior from inside the doorway to the cafeteria.

I had made no more than one step toward the school building when another black kid, who had been standing behind me, quickly wound up and punched me in the stomach! My hands were already there and, in reflex, I had tensed my arms and hands inside my pockets, so all he hit were my fists. It was then that I realized this whole fracas had been highly organized by the culprits who took the can. They had the forward operating team, which had seized the treasure, then acted as first line defenders, and then baited the rest of us to pursue. They had a rear team to join the fight when we arrived, as they quickly piled on to Lu and the kid in possession of the can. And they had containment sentries to seal off anyone’s escape to the south to get help!

I was actually impressed! To this day I am still impressed with the seeming precision with which they pulled off the event! They were just 12 and 13 year-old kids! I don’t know what their motive was, if it was just simply to fuck with us and take our can, or if it was more sinister, and truly a ploy to lure us into a huge fight.

So I stood there, glaring at the kid who punched me, who must have at that moment regretted that he hadn’t hit me in the face instead, seeing as how his gut punch hadn’t hurt me. I didn’t strike back, so he didn’t continue.

The next thing I knew I heard someone shout “GET HIM!” and Lu went streaking past me – can in hand – and headed back to the Kick the Can court! Only one or two kids chased after him, and then there were the rest of the Kick the Can players in the mix. The race riot that was to be... wasn’t, so life was returning relatively back to normal. We just wanted our can back. The kid who had punched me drifted back down to the northeastern corner, and I trotted back toward the court, smug for having "blocked" that guy's punch. I was about 20 feet away from the game which had already resumed in earnest when a voice somewhere cried, “[FARRAGO]! LOOK OUT!” I turned just in time to see two sneakered feet filling my vision and connecting with my chest! I hit the asphalt hard, shoulders and chest first, the rest of me flopping down gracelessly. I didn’t swear as a general rule back then, but I do recall that when I hit the ground, I shouted, “FUCK!” Then I got up and learned what I was made of: anger spiked in me so fiercely that I faced the kid, one of the crowd from the northeastern corner of the playground, and suddenly… a lump formed in my throat… I was... in tears?! What the…?! And then I turned my back on the kid, determined to tell a dean. At first I walked, but then I felt a jolt in my legs, and they were suddenly very limber! In what I now know is the “fight or flight” reflex, the adrenaline pumped into my legs and I was inexplicably compelled to sprint, with much agility and more speed than I ever had before, to the door behind which stood the dean of 7th grade boys.

Flight.

I blubbered incoherently for a few moments until one kid, a black girl, shouted “David W. did it!” She used his full name. It was the first time I had ever heard it. When the dean waded out into the playground and called out David W., I recognized the kid as the one who had knocked me down. The dean dragged us both back to the cafeteria door and started yelling at both of us to the point that even David was crying. He forced David to apologize to me, which, even then, seemed macabre. We were forced to shake hands, and then we were sent back out to the playground.

I can remember moments of that day so clearly, and remember so clearly the helpless feeling after being slammed to the asphalt of the playground. As a boy, as a man, I wish I could have had the balls to immediately give back what I had gotten, but as a clear-headed adult, I am glad I didn’t react in that way. What I wound up doing, though embarrassing in the eyes of male culture in our society, was exactly what I should have done, and may have prevented me from turning a corner I’m better off not to have turned.

Perhaps the events of that day signaled the start of the end of Kick the Can at Washington Junior High School. Perhaps it was the advent of the soft-drink industry’s “progress” to an all-aluminum can the next year, which doesn’t flatten as well, nor does it fly as well or as far, and without the kind of control the original cans did. Whatever the reason, well before the end of my 8th grade year, Kick the Can was “outlawed” by the powers that were. My father may have invented it (or not), but I and my friends ended it.

Long Live Kick the Can!

New Link

As a regular reader of my blog, you may notice a new link to the left among my "Better Blogs Than Mine" list. "Sons of July" is an excellent writer, a poet among us who writes from a point of view most of us can't. He is (yet another) writer who makes even the best of my efforts appear a shameful bile of blather and random punctuation. Please pay him a visit.

As a new visitor to my blog, what the heck are you doing reading this shit?! Jump directly to the list of "Better Blogs Than Mine" and read some good stuff!

A Kick in the Can

At Washington Junior High we played a playground game in which a group of us daily split up into two teams, flattened an empty pop can (soda can to those of you on the eastern seaboard and abroad, “Coke” can to those of you west of the Mississippi…even though it was usually a Pepsi can) and kicked it back and forth trying to get the can to hit the opposing team’s wall. The game was called, quite imaginatively, “Kick the Can.” It was a game I thought we kids had invented, but when I began to describe the game to my father, who had also attended Washington, he said he knew all about it, and that HE invented it. Yeah, right, Dad.

Someone would procure a can, usually from home, as the school then didn’t allow children access to vending machines, and would step on the middle of the can and then fold the ends over and flatten it further. It was necessary to do it right, as a properly flattened can, when kicked just right, would spin like a frisbee and become airborne and, potentially, score on a team’s wall above anybody’s reach to block it. My game was back in the waning days of the heavier cans made entirely of tin; they flew better and lasted longer. It was truly an art form, as some kids were much better at shaping and smoothing a can than others.

Of course, looking back on it, Kick the Can was a pretty dangerous game, not to mention brutal. Girls didn’t play. They were welcome to play – everyone was welcome to play – but after one or two minutes they realized that we boys were just stupid.

The game was very simple: the court lay east-west (see photo). Either team had to kick the flattened can to the other team’s wall for one point. It was forbidden for a player to pick up the can in his or her hands during play, except after scoring a point, when someone from either team could carry the can to the middle of the “court” to have the face-off and begin play to the next score.

To block the can with any part of the body was allowed, but to catch the can was forbidden.

Common techniques during play were:

-The Capture – a player would step on the can to control it and keep it away from opposing players. This technique was effective for finding teammates to pass the can to them. The drawback to the capture was the opponents surrounding the player, placing their hands on his shoulders and kicking at his foot, ankles and shins in an effort to dislodge the can from beneath his foot…or his foot from his leg.

-The Slide – a player, having captured the can, slides the can beneath his foot to perform a rearward pass. This technique was effective for faking out opponents and sending the can quickly across the court without having to lift the foot off of the can to kick it – which could afford opponents the opportunity to kick it away – and, if lucky, nailing the nearest opponent behind him in the berries.

-The Sail Kick – a player would kick the can, contacting the edge of the can nearest his body with his foot, which would lift the front edge of the can as it gained momentum, causing it to become airborne. An agile, experienced player could apply some English to the can and cause it to spin rapidly as it sailed, which greatly enhanced accuracy, as well as improving the odds for serious bodily injury to anyone attempting to block the shot.

-The Ground Kick – a player kicked the can, contacting the middle of the can with his foot, keeping the surface of the can flat to the ground, causing it to skitter across the court. This kick was the easiest to block and intercept.

There was only one recess period at Washington, and that was after lunch. The lunch period was 45 minutes, and the die-hards among us saw lunch as an obstacle between us and Kick the Can. The number one fastest eater of lunch, and I mean the whole lunch, was always my best friend, Lu, at an average time of five minutes. The second fastest was usually me, usually around five and a half minutes. I still remember chugging my chocolate milk from the little half-pint cardboard carton every day while speed-walking from the table to the garbage can to the dirty tray stack, and then dumping my emptied carton into the last garbage can before the door to the playground. How I never threw up on the Kick the Can court, I’ll never know.

As one might imagine, you had to be a pretty tough, hardy kid to play this game well. I could withstand only a moderate beating about the ankles before I coughed up the can, and I always managed to pass to the wrong players.

Lu was one of the best Kick the Can players. He was always a short, chubby kid with a bilateral lisp. To this day, he’s short and chubby, and he still talks funny. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but being a short, chubby Mexican kid with a sideways lisp must make one tough, because Lu was always a tenacious guard dog type of kid. If he was your friend and someone was threatening you, Lu had your back. Actually, he had your front, because he didn’t let anybody mess with his friends.

On the Kick the Can court he was The Intimidator. One of the top scorers, he was the most accurate passer and he was unflappable when he captured the can. I think Bigfoot himself, wearing steel-toed boots, could have been kicking at Lu’s feet and never gotten him to cough it up.

For such a rough and tumble game, one might think our matches often dissolved into fights, but that just wasn't the case. We all knew what the game entailed, and what to expect when playing. If someone didn’t like how the game was played, then he didn’t play.

And it was always that way with Kick the Can, but for one very notable exception….

(…To Be Continued)

Linda E.

I dreamed about you this morning. Again. After so long, now, it seems my mind just can’t let you go.

It was a different setting, but the usual scenario. If memory doesn’t fail me, as it can with such dreams, this time you were working in the office to where I had traveled in the process of doing my job. That’s how it always is: the chance meeting some place where I’d never imagine finding you.

You were cordial, nice. You acknowledged that you knew who I was after so many years, seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see you.

It was the moment I’ve been waiting 25 years for, yet I couldn’t blurt out in front of your co-workers, nor in front of mine, the words that I want to say to you. We know our history; they don’t need to know about it.

And yet you seemed keen to avoid getting into a situation where you would be alone with me. Was it in my eyes? Did I telegraph to you that I had something to say?

You left the room and were gone so long I feared I wouldn’t get the chance to say it to you. Why do I wish to say it? Is it a hope for getting you back? Of course not. We’ve each lived a lifetime since we last saw each other, and our lives have followed their courses. It didn’t work 25 years ago; why would I ever think it could work now?

Is it to save face? No. What I did then was so stupid, even I am disgusted with myself. Maybe I’d let you have your say about it. Do you still care?

What is it then? Why do you still haunt my thoughts and dreams?

I think I know. In this morning’s dream I said it aloud to someone in the room, told her why I wanted to see you, why you animate my waking thoughts so often, why I fantasize about the moment.

It’s because I want to tell you that I’m sorry for my actions on that day 25 years ago. I know; no one was hurt or damaged, but I sure didn’t shine in my best light then. That’s not who I am, or was, or aspire to be. It couldn’t possibly be.

I want to tell you that I hope your life has turned out as you hoped it would and, wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, with whomever you’re doing it, I hope you have found the happiness I couldn’t bring you.

Maybe then, if I knew that you knew, maybe then I could go through a day without thinking about you at least once, wondering if you ever think about me, if you ever wonder what I’m doing at this very moment, just as I wonder about you. Maybe, if I could close that door that’s swung open for 25 years, maybe you wouldn’t visit my sleep any more.

And then you appeared in the hallway. In the psychedelia that is a dream, now you wore what resembled a wedding gown. You were alone. It was my chance. I approached you from behind. I spoke your name. Your cell-phone rang. You held up a finger and took the call.

And then my wife’s alarm clock sounded, and you faded into the murk.

The dream was over, but you’ve haunted my thoughts all day. Again.

Rhymes With Time

"Eenie meenie minie moe
Catch a tiger by the toe
If he hollers let him go
Eenie meenie minie moe..."

That is about the extent of my memory of playground rhymes employed to choose team members or first player or whatever, “randomly.”

Even as a grade-schooler I could never remember any of the other ones, and there were some I thought were really neat. Some of the other boys remembered some of them and we used them to pick who would be “it” first, but the more mathematically adept kids knew how to manipulate the rhyme and willfully affect the outcome to pick one of the slower runners (me) who would then be “it” for the entire recess period. And there were some girls I went to school with who could remember and recite vast libraries of them. And, for whatever others I could remember then, “Eenie meenie minie moe” is the only one left with me.

Well, there’s just part of another:

“One banana, two banana, three banana, four
Four bananas make a bunch and so do many more.”

Oops! Wrong playground! I meant:

“One potato, two potato, three potato, four…”
…and that’s it.

On this past Christmas morning Mrs. Farrago and I went out for breakfast at a local 24/7 place. Being The Holiday, we were delighted to be seated immediately in a calm, quiet, peaceful restaurant. As we ate (no, I did not conduct any research that morning), a family was seated in the booth across from ours. Well, it was portions of a family. It was a somewhat older couple with a small child – their granddaughter, I’m guessing. She was a cute, chatty little thing and her adult companions seemed to delight in her every word. Then the child spoke in a rhyme that brought back a flood of …not memories, necessarily, but the sense of being a vibrant child on the playground at school, with one foot jammed into a circle of feet, while one kid rhythmically tapped each toe consecutively to the beat of the rhyme, a rhyme I hadn’t heard since at least the sixth grade:

“Bubble gum, bubble gum in a dish
How many pieces do you wish?”

“Seven.”

“One, two, three…..”

I seem to recall there was more to it than just that, but it has all escaped me again. How enthralling that something so simple could spark so sharp a feeling in my gut!

I tried to remember to Mrs. Farrago any of the others I used to hear, but “Eenie meenie” was all that came to me.

I know I have a few of you who pop in from time to time. I couldn’t have reached 1500 hits just by posting and editing (…or could I?). Dig deep into your memories and share with me the rhymes you used to employ to build playground teams or who had to sit with the ugly kid (me again!)

I’ll follow up by letting you know which ones bring me back, and which ones I never heard – or don’t remember.

Back To The Grind

Well, the party is over. Barely a week into the new year and I’m back on the road.

It was a nice break over the holidays; a much unexpected one, at that. One year ago today, I was just a few days back in the States after the company I work for took its employees to Paris for a week. This year October went by, November went by, and there was no announcement of a week-between-the-holidays trip. And that’s okay: a gift should never be expected.

Instead, this holiday season we were treated to the usual holiday dinner for the employees and their spouses at a French-themed restaurant. On the evening of December 21, we played a silly little grab-bag game where the owner of the company read “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” with a few phrases added, that had us passing gifts around the room left and right around a circle. It was wacky and fun, and Mrs. Farrago and I came away with a bottle of Glögg and a bottle of a very nice, tasty Spanish red wine.

Shortly after dessert, the party was over. Some were heading to a bar across the street, but Mrs. Farrago and I had a 25 mile trip in the rain ahead of us, so we opted just to go home. The owner of the company was handing out gift bags to everyone, and with holiday wishes and hugs and handshakes, we took our bag and headed home for the welcome, eleven-day break until January 2.

We arrived home and, almost as an afterthought, we opened the gift bag to see what was inside. By the weight of it I expected a bottle or two of wine, as is a frequent gift from The Big Boss. Instead there was a bottle of Young’s Old English Ale. We unwrapped the next, and it was a bottle of Bottle-Aged Vintage Ale. Another wrapped bottle was another English Ale. I like beer, but this seemed a little ridiculous. There were a couple of other wrapped items in the bag, but we got to the holiday card and opened it. It was a fairly bland greeting that read “Happy Holidays from everyone at” the company. But there was a printed piece of paper inside the card, and it was a doozy of a surprise, a gift that was NOT expected.

“You are invited to join us and your co-workers in London…!” (If you missed it, like I did, the ales were A Clue.) He did it again! He managed to catch us all off guard! This time we’re traveling sometime around the end of July or early August. Dates are pending on a possible client commitment that has yet to be confirmed.

LONDON! WOW!

So, that was our big, generous, fantastic gift from The Big Boss. Christmas in July, indeed! In the meantime it’s business as usual, with that big, juicy carrot dangling from the end of a seven month long stick! And business as usual means tonight I’m writing in a hotel room, this time in a far distant suburb of Detroit. Tuesday I’m in Joplin, Missouri. Wednesday, Miami. Thursday, Los Angeles. Friday, Denver.

And the wheel keeps turning…

Occupant

I've witnessed the passing of 2006 and, unlike so many other bloggers and TV networks and countless online entities, I have nothing much to say about it, really. Lots of other bloggers are fantastic chroniclers of their lives and can look back on the year that was and see the progress they’ve made, or the ground they’ve lost. TV networks concern themselves with the big news stories that shook their respective corners of the world. The web world concerns itself with whatever niches their people care about and what the year meant to them.

Not me. Nothing happened that seems to matter to my progress from womb to tomb. I started 2006 married to the wonderful Mrs. Farrago, and I ended it with the wonderful Mrs. Farrago…and yes, it’s the same woman.

Oh, lots of stuff happened, but where am I now that I wasn’t one year ago? I traveled to Europe twice (thrice if you count the Paris trip that ended January 2, 2006); Canada twice; Costa Rica once; The Bahamas once; and dozens of other places I’ve likely been to a dozen times before.

We got a new bird – a lineolated parakeet – that’s the cutest little bird you ever saw…if you like little birds.

Mrs. Farrago and I finally took a proper vacation to San Francisco and the wine country of Napa Valley.

Mrs. Farrago’s father moved out of our house. And I did finally manage to sell his car, just a few days before Christmas.

Mrs. Farrago was laid off from her job, and we spent a frugal three weeks on a tight budget, eating through our freezers. But she’s since landed a nice freelance gig that challenges her and pays her a better hourly wage.

I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t meet a supermodel and subsequently jeopardize my marriage with a torrid affair. And I didn’t spiral out of control and ruin my career in a haze of booze, drugs and hookers. But I didn’t discover a cure for cancer or AIDS or erectile dysfunction, either.

Nope. I just conspicuously consumed air, food, water and beer from the world, and I conspicuously added my own share of pollution to it.

In short, I occupied space for a year, and I have nothing to show for it...except for that disgusting, huge pile of garbage.

So, here’s to 2007. May I move an inch forward; may I climb an inch upward; may I accomplish something toward doing something that matters to someone.

And may you, dear reader, do the same.

Happy New Year!