I don’t believe this. I had not checked this since February!?!?!?  And I had some nice comments, too. Man did I blow it. I apologize profusely and profanely. I have been very sick – since late June – but even so… okay will have to remedy this instanter and write something good for tonight.

Mea culpa, and former readers – I have approved all comments, please come visit again soon!

Anyway, the adventure begins…

I started in our driveway this morning with 4″ of snow on the ground and will probably close with same according to current long term forecast! It’s been a good day so far. Nice checkin people, Steve ecstatic just not to be working and my psychic vibe pretty good. Interesting to watch all the people checking in. Average of three large bags and a carry on, bluetooth devices – laptop, pda, phone, iPhones, MP3, even one badass iPad. Entertainment culture indeed, one lady here challenged a checkin guy for daring to inturrupt her with a checkin when she was in the middle of an important cell phone call. Easy to tell too who is off on a vacation, who is a seasoned business traveler, and who is an American. I am also struck by the difference in passenger composition since I last flew (say 1991 or so). I am seeing a lot more single females, and a lot less just white people. Mixed couples actually predominate here at GSP and most of them are younger. When last I traveled it was well to do WASP baby boomers. And there is a lot more small tech in evidence. Me, I can’t wait for a direct neural shunt. Jack in, and go gargoyle, online 24/7/365. The primary difference between me and the rest of this herd is that I can talk and walk at the same time. And already the stupidity begins – a guy at the Delta desk asks if this is the Delta desk despite the huge corperate logo, a woman asks why she must chech her VW sized bag, The kinesiologies are interesting too – from macro to micro gestures. I find it deeply interesting that people keep a better eye on their luggage than on their children – usually a hand, foot, toe, or some peripheral contact to the bag, and the kid is 600 feet down the concourse kicking someone else’s bag. A very sick or sad woman with her hand pressed to her side, a kid staring at everything, a woman who is all but pushing an elderly lady in front of her, tapping her foot, sighing, checking her watch, flashing her papers and expensive briefcase in a subliminal semaphore of her perceived importance. And there goes someones small toddler. Really little guy, maybe a year and a half – here comes mom. She looks harried, tired, and even a bit angry. Hmm, opera goer. Wearing a Georgia State opera tee under a business casual shirt with a tasteful gold willow leaf lapel pin. Lady of the species, mid-forties with a high shine on her shoes. The tee is a bit weird unless she is a singer or board typr promoing something nearby. Have to look that up. Uh-oh, tourist for sure, large woman, rubanesque to be kind, wearing a shirt that reads “I go from 0 to horney in 2.5 beers.” The shirt is flourescent green, the pants orange, too tight and complete with thong line. A preview of things to come and one of the reasons I speak a good deal more Spanish south of the border. American, who me? [sigh] Grody to use an older term.

Stage 2: On the plane and at the hotel:

 Is this Tampa? As in Tampa, Florida? I guess so as it’s where the plane landed. The weather here is 47 degrees farhenheit and raining and I am trapped in an elderly and careworn HoJo with a busted TV and no books cause Steve was worried about the packing weights – may the flies of a thousand camels infest his armpits. Thank god for wifi and the internet and that I stuck to my guns about the laptop. If not for the wet and abused palm tree outside our grungy window, I could still be in SC waiting on the plane.

To prove that the world is a small and perverse place the woman on the plane in the aisle seat was from less than five miles from our house. She is seeking a teaching gig in Clearwater where (theoretically) there is less freaking snow and stupidity. She might read this someday, if so, yes, you were a very nice lady. Other behaviors on the plane involved cheap romance novels, or poorly folded newspapers, or open mouthed snoring. There was also the option of a cheap romance novel and an alcoholic beverage. Talk about a recipe for nausea. Ach, ach, ppfffbbttt.

Once in Tampa, a man in a van that was painted with the logo, X’s Limosine Service drove us into Tampa proper and told us how great it was to live here and especially to drive a cab. Interesting actually, and he stated that he once got tipped in lap dances. Hmmmm. Well, you go, Dude. He left us at this godforsaken HoJo which I am simply grateful that I shall never see again in this lifetime after tonight. Steve has gone for a walk to find food. No surprise. He intends to come back with Hawaiian, I understand. Should be interesting.

Right, Steve back and he ate almost all of the one serving of dinner he bought and is now in bed with a bad tummy ache. I’m hungry and he’s sick and we have not even made it to the ship yet. No that is a horror left until tomorrow’s installment.

Night all, from a HoJo on weak feedings where it all began…

Been awhile since I last posted anything here but my life has been full of all kinds of news both good and bad and this also tends to be the busiest time of the year for me.

Oh yeah, just logged in and found some comments in my SPAM that were not spam – I have moved and posted them as appropriate. Thanks for the input! Sorry you did not get credited for it earlier, I am unforgivably lax here of late – New Year Rez: Keep blog updated.

For the chap who asked about my facts – I am a professional writer and my fiancee’s brother is a libel/slander lawyer. I try to make sure I have at least two sources and list them before I write anything up. If you need those sources, i.e. If I forgot somehow to list them, please let me know and I’ll get them to you ASAP.

I am still working on the audio book project, mostly writing stuff for the project so that my reader – who I hope and pray will be Mr. Richard Brown of Rutherford County – sheer vocal pleasure, but I am also working on another collection of shorts and a not short which I will not name at all for fear of killing it in it’s infancy!

The graphic novel is on hold -the artist is having some mental health issues that she most work through first.

And my publisher is declaring bankruptcy and I apparently am going to have to work my way through the courts to retrieve the rights for my book and also to get the royalties I have never received. Lovely.

The opera starts week after next – Don Pasquale this year; and I am looking forward to it, despite my usual nervousnesses and fears about seeing the conductor again. Robert Hart Baker, symphony and opera conductor extraordinare, shall be down for several days and as usual I have placed my self at his beck and call. I am proud to claim him as a friend, but he can be so very intense that I feel intimidated.

And if he has a fault it is that he does not seem to be capable of planning anything but how to get where he is going and when the downbeat will be. Questions about scheduling, when, where, or how to meet always hit a brick wall and he seems so vague at times that I (who cannot remember what I was doing five minutes ago) sometimes despair. Aspies like me HATE/LOATHE/REVILE/DESPISE such a lack of rigidity in temporal matters. I always feel uncomfortable and upset, but it is something I am willing to deal with for the benefits.

He’s a sweet, intelligent, witty, and emphatically bright man and his company is a treat and a pleasure.

And does he know his music? Hell yes! I have never stumped him with a question in any genre. And he’s a bloody genius in a number of other fields as well.

So I tend to feel confused and outclassed until I relax a bit. But then I always learn more in his company in a minute and a half – even if I am just watching – than I did in all of my formal school years. And he seems to like me and to be a true friend.

Acceptable trade.

Then in February, I might be going on a cruise. The chosen ship is the Grandeur of the Seas and the itinerary includes Tampa and Costa Maya, Mexico. I might even get to swim with dolphins! At the moment I am refusing to get my hopes up because it might all fall through, but if it happens, well, I’ll bliss out entirely.

March will bring a visit from Steve’s sister in law and from his nephew. Monica and Mateo are expected to stay only a couple of days and we hope to make them very welcome and show them a good time.

Travel and swimming beat sex and even white chocolate raspberry cheesecake. Add dolphins and I’ll be in Heaven.

There was some bad news as well, but it mostly was of a more personal nature and I do not intend to share it here in so public a forum. Instead I intend to take life one day at a time and enjoy what comes. I also intend to aim for quality of life over quantity of life, so don’t be surprised if you catch me at the Olive Garden sampling that cheesecake or at Fatz eating the cheese fries. I intend to sing in the rain and drive very fast with my top down and try to listen to everything Beethoven ever wrote. Lorenna McKinnit, too, for that matter. Life is for living, right?

And I think that will do for today – take care y’all…and cross your fingers for me. I want to swim with those dolphins!

Oh well. Got my box of fruit. Note the heavy, heavy sarcasm.

And my boyfriend and a good friend are doing the macho thing at high noon (is there a low noon?), a modern day face off with {gasp} email, to see who is lying to me now. Gods. WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST TELL THE TRUTH? I’ll forgive anything but a lie…even a dissing.

And now our Christmas roundup…

Saint Who?!?

Here is one that has me fuming…Pius the II (Eugenio Pacelli) is up for sainthood. I will not even dignify this doofus with the “Pope” before the name. Now before anyone flames me as anti-Catholic, I was raised and educated as a Jesuit Catholic after age 11. My objection to this man is not that he was Catholic, but rather that he was Catholic in name only. As well as “Christian” and possibly “human”.

With a reign from 1939-1958 and a very probable sexual relationship while in office with his housekeeper, a woman called Pasqualina, he was also in all the more probability a Nazi sympathiezer. (Not that he was the only one – the book, Secrets of the Vatican by Cyrus Shahrad, Acturus Publishin,2007 indicts and lists several others including the current Benedict (XVI).)

But Pius was likely an informer and spy according to many books, and definitely a conscious down player of the Holocaust. In a 1995 interview with Holocaust survivor, Settimia Spizzichino, the BBC allowed viewers to hear the following seminal quote.

“Pius XII could have warned us what was going to happen,” she said, “but he was an anti-Semitic pope, a pro-German pope. He did not take a single risk. And when they say that the Pope is like Jesus Christ, it isn’t true. He did not save a single child.”

And on Mar 14,1939, Pius II met with Nazi affiliates and reaffirmed both his and the Vatican’s support for the Nazi party.

Bugger, anyway here is the story link:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2009/12/holocaust-pope-benedict-pius-xii-/1

Paid baby rapist…

And in Delaware, a pediatrician stands accused of raping or molesting about 100 of his underaged patients. Dr. Earl B. Bradley , the accused, is currently under indictment for just 7 incidents but the local D.A. is hoping to up that number as more and more come forward to testify. And as more video tapes show up. Yup, tapes. Guy apparently liked to review his work afterwards.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/us/24pediatrician.html

Original:

A pious man in the Vatican,

Is a rare thing indeed,

It seems the name of Pius

Brings on a special need.

(Specifically to wield power mad.)

A man in Delaware,

Hired to aid kids to grow,

Had a liking for snuff flicks

And his private TV shows.

(Here’s a guy who really does bad.)

And all over the world

And in the name of God,

Insults and money are hurled

And we all get nailed, yes, poor sod.

(Doesn’t it sincerely seem kinda sad?)

The first occurred at a local port of commerce of the dollar or less variety packed full of the usual and the unusual Christmas shoppers all hustling and bustling and squabbling over gifts. Ill feelings ran high and people were visibly on edge. There was a far amount of swearing, kid smacking, and the other usual signs of irritation.

In the line about three ahead of me was a quiet older black gentleman. He had only two items in his cart, both less than a dollar, and he was digging in his pockets one after the other and counting his change. 

Finally he looked at his two items –both food items of the poorest sort and reluctantly took one out of the cart and put it aside.

So between his body language and his dress and where we were what logic suggested was an older man, single or widow, no cellphones or gadgets, no wallet, probably of the poorer classes buying his evening meal…and having to forego some of it at that.

So I handed him back item no#2 and a dollar bill and wished him a Merry Christmas.

He thanked me, bought his supper and left.

The atrocity lies in the response of the other people in line. A whispered “n*ggerl*ver” from a fat lady with a very full cart. A woman who pushed a young child behind her to my left. A man in an expensive leather jacket and snake skin boots who left the line for another. A sudden stoppage in all conversation. And a sudden empty patch all around me.

So what the hell, guys? What am I missing here?

Was the problem the gentleman’s color? The whispered word suggests it was for one lady. And how wrong is that? I can’t stand prejudice. It’s not really that I place a value judgment on it, it’s just that it’s stupid. Race is relative as any white person who has ever visited Africa (or Harlem, for that matter) can tell you. And almost all of us are mongrel breeds at this point. I’m a half-breed myself, Cuban American – but I almost never think of myself as Cuban, White, or even American. I am just me.

Or was the problem simply the act itself? A random act of kindness in a sea of greedy squabbling? Did I make some of those people feel ashamed of themselves with their full carts and full bellies?

Or was there something else I was missing?

And I am not feeling terribly creative or funny today…

I am feeling badly hurt – the Aspie me is having social crises again, and what it boils down to is why do people have so much trouble just telling the f*cking truth? If you have a problem with me I’d rather you be honest than to blow smoke up my ass and tell me my underwear is on fire. I am currently in at least two relationships where I am pretty sure that the parties involved have serious issues with me but in one case the guy says absolutely nothing – just a blank silence; and in the other the female tells me I am the greatest thing since sliced bread but avoids all dinner invites or offers of chats, etc…

If you don’t like me tell me! Losers and hypocrites, come on! Why all the mind games, huh? Especially as you both know that as an autistic I am not equipped to deal with them?

BAH HUMBUG and f*ck you.

Boiling Baby

 A Haywood County woman who put her toddler in a pan of boiling water and burned his foot with a cigarette will spend at least 3 and a one-half years in prison, a judge ruled on Monday.

Tabitha Ann Rich, 22, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of inflicting serious injury to her son.

A social worker called police after Rich’s son was treated at Mission Hospital for third-degree burns on his buttocks and scrotum in October 2008.

The 33-month-old child also had injuries to his head and eye and cigarette burn on his left foot.

Assistant District Attorney Reid Brown said during the hearing that Rich put her son in the water as punishment because he was constipated.

Doctors later found that he had a bacterial infection of the bloodstream because of an injury to his anus.

Police last month arrested Rich’s boyfriend, Travis Hensley, on felony assault with a deadly weapon and first-degree sex offense.

Brown said police believe he put a toothbrush in the child’s bottom, possibly to alleviate the constipation.

The child has been in a foster home since the incident. The foster parents have become the child’s legal guardians.

“We feel very comfortable with where the child has been placed now and getting the love and affection he will need,” Brown said. “The child is beginning to thrive and doing real well.”

Brown asked the judge for an active prison sentence for Rich.

Bill Jones, Rich’s attorney, asked for probation.

He said his client has a low intelligence level and has behaved in jail, where she has been since her arrest. He said she completed a GED while waiting for trial.

And she has cooperated with investigators by making a statement about the injuries to her son’s anus, Jones said.

Rich has no criminal record.

“She understands she is not going to see that child again,” he said.

Superior Court Judge Dennis Winner ordered that Rich complete parenting training after she is released from prison, saying he had concerns about her having more children.

She is also ordered to have no contact with the victim and she must pay the state $2,000 for attorneys fees and court costs.

DMV meet Truck

(AP)  CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) – Arapahoe County officials said a disgruntled driver crashed his truck into a DMV because it was closed. Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder Nancy Doty said she thinks a driver was upset because he didn’t make it to the office in time to get in. The sheriff’s office was investigating surveillance video of the crash that happened at about 4:30 p.m. Friday.

The truck broke two office windows and damaged a window frame but no one was injured.

STOLEN XMAS GIFTS FOR NEEDY KIDS

Authorities say thieves have stolen Christmas presents bound for dozens of needy South Carolina children. The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reports Tuesday about $2,000 worth of toys and bicycles were stolen from a storage unit in Myrtle Beach sometime between mid-September and Sunday, when organizers went to retrieve the gifts.

A few bags of smaller, cheaper toys were left behind.

A motorcycle rights group had planned to distribute the gifts throughout Horry County in their annual Toys for Kids program. More than 700 kids received gifts last year through the local chapter of A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments, or ABATE.

Coordinator Rebecca Rowan said donations were already down due to the economy, and the theft makes goals even harder to meet.

ORIGINAL:

Trust no one, said Cladius to the King,

Unwelcome word’s with an unwelcome ring.

What, not mom and pop?

Or the guy at the auto shop?

Nobody, sad, but a true thing.

(Fuck you, you lying hypocritical slut!

Come and kiss my butt,

You said you were “friend”

but then in the end

you were anything but!)

Santa will get his feet wet, and might require a good house boat in the near future according to some research being presented this week…new computer modeling being shown off at the Copenhagen Climate Summit suggests the Arctic Ocean may be very nearly ice-free in the summertime as early as 2014, says American eco-spokesman Al Gore at the U.N. climate conference. This new estimation, following several years of retreat by polar sea ice, suggests that the ice cap may nearly vanish in the summer much sooner than the year 2030, as was forecast by a U.S. government agency eight months ago. At least one U.S. government researcher questioned the new prediction as being a bit too drastic, but other researchers previously have projected a quicker end than 2030 to the Arctic summer ice cap.

One report, on the Greenland ice sheet, as issued by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, an expert group formed by eight Arctic governments, including the United States, and another, commissioned by Gore and Norway’s government, was compiled by the Norwegian Polar Institute on the status of ice melt worldwide.

The studies cited at the conference state that average global temperatures have increased 0.74 degrees C (1.3 degrees F) in the past century, but the mercury has risen at least twice as quickly in the Arctic. Scientists say the makeup of the frozen north polar sea has shifted significantly in recent years as much of the thick multiyear ice has given way to thin seasonal ice. They also say that in the summer of 2007, the Arctic ice cap dwindled to a record-low minimum extent of 4.3 million square kilometers (1.7 million square miles) in September. The melting in 2008 and 2009 was not as extensive, but still ranked as the second- and third-greatest decreases on record.

Counter arguments? Well none at the conference but see

www.switched.com/…/epa-may-have-suppressed-anti-global-warming-study/

or

blog.heritage.org/…/scientists-make-their-anti-global-warming-case/

And for the Christmas tree controversialists (real vs fake)

It may not sound like “tree-hugging,” but cutting down a real tree for Christmas is actually greener than going with the artificial kind, one scientist says.

“It is a little counterintuitive to people,” said Clint Springer, a biologist at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. The reason the real thing is a better bet is because most Christmas trees for sale these days are grown not in the forest but on tree farms, for the express purpose of being cut. Moreover, from a carbon emissions perspective, real trees are “the obvious choice.”

Live trees actively photosynthesize as they grow from saplings, which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and adds oxygen back into the air. After they have been cut and Christmas is over, they’re usually chipped for mulch. As mulch, the bits of tree very slowly decompose, releasing carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. So in the end, a real Christmas tree is carbon neutral, putting the same amount of carbon dioxide back into the air as it took out but at a slower rate which is a good thing. The tree farms that grew the trees also replant after the trees are cut.

BS trees, however, don’t come out even. Petroleum is used to make the plastics in the trees and lots of carbon dioxide-creating energy is required to make and transport them.

Because these trees just end up in landfills after a few years’ use, “those greenhouse gases are lost forever,” Springer said. “There’s really no opportunity to recycle those.”

And in the news of “Yet more things that can kill you” Here’s something for the Holiday Traveler. Verbatim.

Crowded planes, lost luggage and a severe lack of elbow room likely rank high among most travelers’ worries about flying. Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs), however, probably do not.

In a fraction of a second, these gamma-ray flashes produced by lightning could expose airline travelers to 30 times more radiation than they should receive in an entire year.

Professor Joseph Dwyer of the Florida Institute of Technology led a study analyzing the mysterious radioactive anomalies that appear to originate inside of thunderstorms. Dwyer investigated whether these flashes could expose airline passengers and crew to high gamma-ray doses.

Originally discovered in 1994 by NASA’s orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, TGFs most likely occur during lightning flashes, which generate electric fields.

These fields, Dwyer explained, accelerate a large number of electrons up to nearly the speed of light. The high-energy electrons then collide with atoms in the air and emit gamma rays that can be observed from space.

Researchers are unsure how often TGFs occur in Earth’s atmosphere. In the 1990s,

NASA’s observatory recorded about 70 TGFs over eight years. Meanwhile, commercial aircraft endure, on average, one to two lightning strikes a year.

Dwyer and his team analyzed orbital recordings of TGFs. On the ground, they also observed both naturally occurring lightning and artificial lightning summoned through the use of wire-guided rockets.

TGFs typically occur at the same altitude as commercial airline flight paths, leading Dwyer and his team to explore the risk to human crews. Based on their findings and current scientific understanding of thunderstorms and lightning, the researchers suggested that airline passengers and crew occasionally could fly into harm’s way.

“One-tenth of a rem per year is about as much as anyone should get,” Dwyer told Discovery News. “It is feasible that someone inside an aircraft, who is in the wrong place at the wrong time, could receive 30 times more than that (dose) in just 0.0002 seconds.”

Despite the high levels of radiation involved, Dwyer insists that there’s no call to panic.

“At this time, more research is needed before we say that people should worry,” Dwyer said. “For instance, I still feel comfortable flying with my family.”

That’s a sentiment shared by Professor Chathan Cooke of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s High Voltage Research Lab, who told Discovery News that he is critical of both the study and its media coverage.

Cooke said he wasn’t convinced that the evidence from this initial study warranted TGFs being raised as a public issue. He also said that talk of gamma radiation will only alarm and confuse people.

ORIGINAL:

In the holiday season,

There were words that once were blessed.

But today

In my car I saw

Many with faces as dark as fall thunderheads.

They were angry faces

Hurt and slashed

Thru with

The peevish knowledge

That they had just bought a gift for someone they hate.

Guilt, fear of inadequacy,

America

Sine qua non

They will all

Go home and kick their cats, they will yell at the kids.

Because this is a holiday

And they must

All of them

Meet the expectations

Of all the ghosts of injuries and hurt feelings past.

Merry Christmas.

Okay, I am not going to jack this guys writing – Slate’s a big deal, but if you want to read a very intellectual Christmas rant, try out this link.

http://www.slate.com/id/2132806/

And now in the news…

STERLING, Conn. (AP) — A holy cow in Connecticut, perhaps? Or maybe a divine bovine?

A calf with a white marking on its forehead in the approximate shape of a cross was born last week at a dairy farm in Sterling, a small rustic town on the Rhode Island border.

Owner Brad Davis tells WFSB-TV he thinks the marking may be a message from above, though he’s still trying to figure out what that message might be.

The mostly brown calf is half Jersey, half Holstein. Neighborhood children have named it Moses.

The chairman of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Dairy Science tells the Norwich Bulletin newspaper it’s not unusual for a Holstein cow to have a white marking on its head. But department chairman Ric Grummer says the cross shape is unusual.

Original:

Have a holly jolly Christmas” This is the worst time of the year.

I don’t know any one who’s in a mood of “cheer”.

“Have a holly jolly Christmas” songs all make me disappear.

And if Christmas is the best it gets, just pop me one right here.

“Have a holly jolly Christmas.” The parents run in fear.

“Have a holly jolly Christmas” What if they can’t find what the kid holds so dear?

“Have a holly jolly Christmas”, Thank god there are no zhu zhu reindeer.

And if Christmas is the best it gets, just shoot me above the ear.

“Have a holly jolly Christmas”, plays on some asshole’s cell.

“Have a holly, jolly Christmas”, I think I am in Hell,

“Have a holly jolly Christmas” I hear it in my sleep, how swell,

And if Christmas is the best it gets, you can slash my wrists as well.

So Xmas news…

In our continuing Christmas Infocalypse, some news, some views, and a brief original…

Too much eggnog has landed one woman on the cops’ — if not Santa’s — naughty list.

A Tennessee woman was charged with being drunk in public after passing out on a horse during a holiday parade, cops say. 

Police were called about a possibly blotto rider, clad in a red coat and riding a white horse, participating in Saturday night’s Shelbyville, Tenn., Christmas parade. 

Arriving on the scene, cops say they had to catch her twice after she nearly plummeted from the pony.

The unidentified 46-year-old posted a $500 bond on the public drunkenness charge.

And a 98 year old woman has been indicted on murder charges for killing her 100 year old roommate with a plastic bag.

Apparently the root of the quarrel was who would outlive whom.

Original:

My husband is made up of parts,

He resides on the material plane,

He has arms and legs and he farts,

He waits tables and cleans drains.

He plays flute and bass,

And guitar and makes lots of noise.

He likes movies with a car chase.

(And also the ladies with toys.)

Sometimes he cooks dinner;

Sometimes we go out,

Sometimes the dinner’s a winner,

Sometimes you just want to shout.

But what makes him up is not

The sum of his parts,

He’s a sensuous who not a what,

It’s his mind as it flashes and darts.

It’s his scent in the bedroom

And that he can’t leave a joke or a pun,

And all the weird stuff he gives headroom,

And the fact that he’s still fun.

It was not the Amityville House but it certainly was a horror. It was a nineteenth century farmhouse with add-ons that ate paint and was reputed to be infested with rats that ate everything else.

It was also located in what the locals referred to as B.F.E. when in polite company. In less rarified company that translated out to Bum Fuck Egypt, a lovely little largely social colloquialism that takes the average Yankee a little time to get used to.

I was here looking for a man who said that he had seen a fucking reindeer. One with a red nose, no less.

Swande Salo was a grim faced, furrow cheeked ex-Yankee of Finnish descent who had come down to Old Fort by way of Mackinaw Island, Upper Michigan. Where he comes from and where his family comes from there are actually winters. Where his Dad was from there are actual reindeer.

Down here we don’t see either one.

We just have your basic garden variety split hoofed, road crossing, car-accidents-waiting to happen that the local hunters refer to as deer. White tail deer to be specific. And whilst they will eat an orchard down to stumps and a garden down to the ground, they don’t fly and they certainly do not have glowing red noses.

We just wish they did as it would make shooting them a whole lot easier.

So here I was way out in B.F.E. because the local paper saw some benefit to be reaped from a personality piece about some local codger and Rudolph.

Swande met me on his front porch, wearing a classic red plaid wool hunting jacket, a pair of boxers, and about twelve days worth of household grime. His eyes and cheeks were ruddy with the cold and the local antifreeze and his nose was nigh on sleigh beacon bright in and of itself.

I figured that what we had here was a classic case of cold weather, moonshine, and a white tailed deer romping in the man’s front yard.

I was dying to go in the house despite the reputation of the rodent population, it was an extremely bitter afternoon and fading toward a colder evening, but old Swande was having none of it.

He wanted to show me the reindeer poop. In his boxers.

I braced myself, pulled out my little voice recorder, and prepared myself for a tour of the anal expulsionary efforts of all of regional dog population.

But it was not dog shit, he showed me. It was much larger deposits. It was not deer scat either. I’ve killed enough of them to know. I was looking around for cows but not seeing any.

And one has to admit that on top of an old Plymouth Fury is a really weird place to find cow dung. So are gutters and hedge tops for that matter. I was beginning to think of my teen aged son’s kung fu monkey shirt with it’s classy “Who Flung Poo?” legend, when the old whacko grabbed me and threw me down behind a hedge and face first into the evidence.

I was some pissed let me tell you, but when I got up the old fool was shaking one fist at the sky and cursing up a blue streak.

And be damned if following his gaze I did not see a freaking reindeer, not a cute cuddly little reindeer from a Disney flick, but a big old mangy, heavy horned big shouldered Laplandic deer of the reindeer variety standing on the old man’s porch roof.

The thing was as big as a good sized horse, and as ill-tempered as a mule as it demonstrated by lifting it’s dingy brown tail and pissing a stream of rancid yellow into poor Swande’s otherwise pristine rain gutters.

“ All right,” the old man said, “That’s it, by gum. I’m going to kill that critter right now.”

And he stomped off into his living room at full old man shuffle. The reindeer pawed the shingles once and then jumped down off the porch roof to land with all four hooves on the top of my Chevy Tahoe.

The Tahoe rocked beneath it and it took a few mincing steps to gain its balance as the roof of my vehicle began to sag beneath it.

I did not even pause to think (should have though), I just grabbed a stick from near the hedge and ran at the thing.

“Get off of there. Get off of my truck.”

The reindeer gave an alarmed bleat and damned if it’s nose did not suddenly take on a ruddy red glow in the fading light.

Then it crapped all over my truck.

I threw the stick at it and was yelling some more when old Swande arrived back on his front porch, this time with his four-ten in hand.

The first shot damn near took my head off. The second sent the reindeer into terrified flight. Literally.

I do not mean it ran away. I mean it took off. Straight up and the next thing you know it was actually and actively flying off across the road toward the wooded ridge across the fields on the other side.

I was still standing there gape mouthed when old Swande fired again. The reindeer jinked in midair, it’s nose as bright as an aircraft’s beacon lights, but old Swande must have done a fair amount of duck hunting in his life because he was already correcting for the new flight path, and leading that horrible bright red nose a little bit in the bargain.

I took off toward him at a run.

“Hey! No! Don’t!” I shouted, but he had already leveled off and pulled the trigger.

There was a stupendous crash behind me as my Tahoe absorbed the extra kinetic energy off about seven hundred pounds of reindeer.

I froze wincing. And for a moment time just stood still.

Then the old Finn, apparently, having figured out exactly what he had just done, looked at me and said, “ I just shot Rudolph.”

“Yeah, I know. Way to go, man.”

“I figure that gets me onto the naughty list for sure.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“What do you think I should do about it?”

“Damned if I know.”

We both stood there looking at the mess that was my truck. Blood, reindeer poop, dead reindeer, broken glass, bent metal.

“You can use the phone in the house, you want.” Swande said to me.

“What for?” I asked.

“Call your insurance company. Call the police for the accident report. Get a ride home.”

“Accident report?” I asked. I felt completely blown away and there was a huge space between me and the words I was saying. It’s not everyday Rudolph totals your truck.

“Yeah,” Swande says, “Way I figure it, you hit this here deer and it rolled up on your roof. You might want to call an ambulance too, seeing as you must have been going pretty fast.”

“What?”

“Well, the truck’s a total loss, you must have got out of the passenger door. Other side is completely crushed in. Looks like a beer can.”

I looked at him, reason dawning.

“You complete bastard.” I said.

“Too bad I had to shoot it. Poor thing was suffering pretty badly, though.”

“You complete and total bastard.” I said as I went for him in a low body hit.

That must be when he clocked me with the gun.

When I woke up the driveway was full of cops, reporters taking pictures, and insurance people. An EMT was standing over me with a worried look on his face.

“Damn, my man, good to see you open your eyes. I was really worried for a bit there. I’m going have to take you out to Marion though, I’m pretty sure you have a concussion. Lucky that’s all you got. You must have been doing sixty at least when you hit that thing.”

And so it went. I was in the hospital for awhile. My Tahoe was totaled out. The reindeer was presumed to have escaped from some ranch or farm nearby where the farmer, not having an exotic animal permit, had never bothered to report it, and for all I know Swande Salo is sitting on his front porch, sipping shine, and smiling to himself over his very narrow escape. The bastard.