Day 87, 88 and 89

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

Thats a catch phrase that all parents have used at least once and that has been the theme for the past couple of days for me.  I don't have a single f _ _ _ing nice thing to say, so I have remained quiet as my parents advised.  I can remain silent no longer, so I pray that this doesn't head down the wrong path.  I want to keep it on the possitive and share with you some of the randomness that has been floating through my shallow thoughts over the past couple of days.  Poopin has been a subject that I seem to have returned to a time or two and would like to re-visit once more.  We are a house full of manly men.  Poor mom is woefully outnumbered.  That being said, we make a manly mess and leave a manly stench wherever we go.  The downside to this is that there seems to be something in our biology that makes us all have to take an earthy shit at the exact same time.  They say that females that spend alot of time together, "cycle" together.  You will have to excue me, I just vomitted in my mouth a little.  I think it is true however, in that everytime I steal away with a magazine for alittle alone time, there always comes a knock on the bathroom door.  Annoying to say the least.

You see, there are two kinds of poopers in my estimation.  Power dumpers and Reflective dumpers.  I fall squarely in the second grouping and do not like to be disturbed.  I have a dear friend that can take care of business inside of 30 seconds.  That is from the time the door closed to the time it re-opens.  He is truly an olympian.  If there was a gold medal for power dumping, he would be the Michael Johnson of the sport.  I have a theory that the difference between the power dumper and the reflective dumper is their tolerance for their own stink.  I find that reflective dumpers actually enjoy their own aroma.  While I think the smell of fecal material as a whole is repugnant and we would all agree that we would just as soon do without it, there is something to be said for our acceptance and, even more so, our enjoyment of our own odor.  To me, all poop stinks except my own.  This is clearly where the phrase " you think your shit doesn't stink " comes from.  I don't think it's original intent was to convey arrogance, but rather a simple statement of fact.  For I, would certainly answer in the affirmative . . . I really don't think my shit stinks and I am one of the most humble individuals you will ever meet.

Ok, ok, enough about pooping.  If my wife is reading this, she is likely red with embarassment.  She is a power dumper by the way.  So is my youngest.  One log hits the water and he is done or at least so he says.  Me, I know better.  That first one is just a warning shot across the bow and if you exit too early, you will miss the war.  That first log is truly the head of the class.  Did you notice that no matter how rough the entirety of the experience, that first soldier on the battlefield is always well formed and a prime specimine.  Never a good litmus test for how the remainder of the regiment is going to look.  Ok, I promised to stop talking about pooping, and here I am, carrying on again.  There are other topics I wish to discuss, so lets get this train back on track.

It was a very busy day here at the house as we had every tradesman in the south of France come by to look at this or that.  A plumber, a carpenter and a candlestick maker.  Ok, not a candlestick maker, or a butcher of baker, but you get the point.  First it was the plumber, then give an estimate on the replacement of our kitchen window and finally our old friend Smokey returned to finish painting the wall by the pool.  These visits are becoming somewhat less stressful in that I speak just enought French now to be polite, but when talk gets technical, I still feel like a retard.  Actually, that is an insult to retards, for which a must apologize.  The final visitor was Smokey the maintenance man.  I am officially changing his name to Sweaty.  We will get to that soon enough.  I want to preface these remarks by saying that I can't help buth think of Mr. Miagi or more recently Mr. Han when Sweaty comes calling.  I very seriously doubt however that Sweaty knows any Karate or Kung Fu, and trying to picture such makes me giggle like a school girl.

The maintenance man arrived in enough time to make sense of the debate that I was firmly entrenched in with the window guy.  I greeted him at the door with a warm handshake.  Warm and  . . . moist.  Smokey was sweating profusely and shaking his hand was like submerging mine into a puddle of teppid water.  Yummy.  By his appearance, I would have guessed that he ran to my house  . . . from 26.2 miles away.  By the time he reached my scorchingly hot kitchen, he was at full purge.  All the valves had been opened and I couldn't help but think that he must have been floating in his own shoes.  Soon he was out of the house and off to work.  The heat isn't a problem if you shed enough garments and much to my horror, shed he did.  Sweaty has healthy growth of man fur on his chest that was matted flat from the massive perspiration.  Removing the garments let the aroma run free.  Something I hadn't necessarily noted yet since, despite the name change, he is still absoutely stank with cigarette smoke.  Soon, however, the smoke would be given an assit.  A good shot of B.O. to play a strong second fiddle.  Fortunately, as the afternoon is winding down, it doesn't appear that he is going to be finished with this project this afternoon, so perhaps we will see him again soon.  I do so enjoy his visits.

All the conversation about odor is a good segway to my final topic for the day.  Spray on deoderant.  After a solid week or two of giving my pits the KRYLON touch, I realized one thing . . . something has to change, cause I am starting to smell a little too FRENCH for my taste, if you know what I mean.  That coupled with the absolute horrific cloud of mace created when applying said spray on, is enough to blind a weak man and make a strong man puke in his shoes.  Fortunately, I have visitors arriving soon from the States and have put out and SOS for some armpit perfume.  Soon I will be back to smelling my old self again.  The reference to "SOS" gives me one last thought that I would like to share and is actually somewhat educational.  Just the other day, my eldest son was reading a book and ran across the term SOS and asked what it meant.  It is clearly an abbreviation of some kind, however, my vast knowledge of useless facts failed me and I was not able to give him an answer.  Some investigation lead me to this answer:  SOS in the sailing context is often associated with the phrase "Save our Ship" or "Save our Souls".  The truth?  Neither of these are the root of the SOS abbreviation.  Apparently, this is no abbreviation at all.  Simply a matter of convenience and recognizability (is that a word?).  It is an easy Morse code sequence to remember and it is VERY recognizable by telegraph workers due to its distink series of beeps and pauses.  No clever phrasing, just simplicity by necessity.  There, a quick piece of history for you to store in your collective minds.

I will leave you today with a description of the music to be posted.  I am going to post three since that is how many days I am behind.  I hope you enjoy them all.  I intended to save one of them till much later, but since I am currently listening to him I thought is best to share it now.  First up is "Pretty Things" by Jay Nash, Matt Duke & Tony Lucca.  As solo artists, they are OK, but together they are fantastic.  Second, lets go with "El Camino" by Amos Lee.  Just a great song which is made even better if you pick up the duet version with Willie Nelson.  Last but not least, and probably getting the most playtime at the moment is "Hell or High Water" by William Elliott Whitmore.  An unmistakable voice that doesn't quite fit with finger tattoos.  He is undoubtably one of my current favorites and I hope you enjoy.  Wanted to save this song for Christmas time, but I can't wait that long to share.  Enjoy them all.  Talk to you tomorrow.  Maybe!