And then?...

And then another weeks goes by and still no posts. Sorry 'bout that. But I have been writing a bit. Not blogging, but actual writing, like what might become a short story or something. That's a big deal for me.

Anyway - things are good, or at least good enough.

I will get around to getting caught up. I will start with when Paul's mates were here and go from there- that's a good 6-8 weeks of pictures to get caught up on. But I also want to get the painted body parts on our Golf Cart so it's done. I think I finally put the 15th "last coat" of paint on the body parts we are stealing from cart #2 on to cart #1 - The "Hotel Yorba Courtesy Car," and I'm ready for Jake and I to finish this project.

I'm really looking forward to getting up early, hopping in the cart, going fishing, and playing the front nine, then coming home and going to work before 9:00 A.M.

More to come. And I promise I will "publish" my short story here before I do anything else with it.

Here's what I've got so far...

“It ain’t right. I mean, it don’t matter so much when it’s a Friday and then Monday, you know? But this middle of the week sheeee…it just ain’t right.”

And you’d expect someone to nod in agreement and respond with appropriate sympathy or even maybe empathy.

“I know, sweetie,” said his comely wife over the drone of the television, looking up from solving the T.V. Guide crossword puzzle.

Or

“Yep. I might as well sleep here in place of driving an hour home and an hour back. I don’t know why they have to keep changing our shifts anyway,” said Tom, red in the face, struggling over his gut to reach his feet and unlace the required steel toe work boots, for which the company still had not reimbursed him.

Or

“Yeah, but it will be nice to be back on days. I hate third shift. At least I’ll get to see my wife for a change,” said the new kid, still unsure of where he stood with him, and managing to sink even lower in his esteem with this insensitive comment about having a wife at home.

Or just

“Yeeahup,” said Farley, as he smiled politely, raised his eyebrows, and signaled with his good left hand to Marla at the end of the bar to bring them two more two dollar drafts.

Or perhaps you’d expect a boss figure to chastise him, saying, “That’s just the sort of attitude that keeps you on shift work.”

Or his dog looking up at him with sympathetic eyes saying, “Woof!”

But there was no one. He was not at work or in a bar, but at home, alone. His wife had left him 12 years ago, ran off with a transgendered optometrist. He couldn’t recall or never knew if it was a man who became a woman or a woman who became a man. But he often wondered aloud, to no one, “Which would be worse, do you think, would it be if she ran off with another man or with another woman?”

If a sensible person were around, that person might have responded, “Well, if you think about it, Bobby, you got what you could call one of them worst case scenarios since she sort of run off with both of ‘em at once.”

If a witty person were around, that person might have responded, “An optometrist, huh? Bet you didn’t see that comin’.”

And if Farley were around, he would have said, “Yeeahup.”

Over the course of drinking in bars from 4 P.M. until closing four nights a week for over 46 years, Farley had mastered his “Yeeahup.” It was the perfect response to almost every bar room lamentation, conveying the exact right amount of sympathy and empathy, implying he was possessed of a deep wisdom that was, in reality, altogether absent. Farley liked people, and was well liked, but he did not like talking. Many people remembered long talks with Farley as some of the best conversations they had ever had without noticing that Farley didn’t say much of anything.

But Farley was not around. And Bobby Ray didn’t have a dog.

There was no one.

He sat, tonight, alone, on the steps of his back porch, weeds occasionally tickling the backs of his calves and the back of the bends in his knees. This was the site of his ritual.

I'm gonna move some things around, but that's definitely how it starts out.

More to come...