Pilot's Log

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of October 3, 2013

To give you the oracle that best matches your current astrological omens, I've borrowed from "Sweetness," a poem by Stephen Dunn. I urge you to memorize it or write it on a piece of paper that you will carry around with you everywhere you go. Say Dunn's words as if they were your own: "Often a sweetness comes / as if on loan, stays just long enough // to make sense of what it means to be alive, / then returns to its dark / source. As for me, I don’t care // where it’s been, or what bitter road / it’s traveled / to come so far, to taste so good."

Dad bought us a bag of Cinnamon Mini-Donuts this morning. I'm wondering if I should have a couple with my next cup of tea.

I seem to be practicing good temperance everywhere else today.

Sagittarius Horoscope for week of July 25, 2013

I suspect that you are longing to take a quantum leap of faith, but are also afraid to take that quantum leap of faith. You sense the potential of experiencing a very cool expansion, while at the same time you hesitate to leave your comfort zone and give up your familiar pain. In light of the conflict, which may not be entirely conscious, I suggest you hold off on making a gigantic quantum leap of faith. Instead, experiment with a few bunny hops of faith. Build up your courage with some playful skips and skitters and bounces that incrementally extend your possibilities.

Last few weeks Dad tried to talk me into applying for a mental health disability. I have a job possibility in the works, so I had an excuse to forgo the application this time, but I fear there will soon come a time when I can't.

--Or my father buys a convertable in January.

Again, he makes a purchase without consulting me, at all.

This afternoon, he went on an errand, and I called his cell phone to relay somebody else's phone message and find out why he had stayed out longer than usual. He tells me "Come over here to the bank and pick me up."

And so I go there and he tells me to leave Moonshine there and come with him in the truck...

...We go to a used car place in Morristown that is an apparent subsidiary of Fox Motors of Clinton. And I watch him sign paperwork to take delivery of--

--A 1998 Volkswagen Golf Cabrio. White paint and white top. Lower mileage than on my own car.

He took a test drive in it, and then eventually I got the keys to drive it back to Rather Manor, and then he took me back to the bank to get Moonshine back as well.

He didn't trade in his truck either. We're back to being a three-car household.

Pictures to come.

http://www.bmh-ltd.com/midget.htm

Or BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL II?

My research addiction led me to British Motor Heritage, which produces repro parts of British cars from the Sixties and Seventies. As my father had two MG Midgets in his driving lifetime, this has immediate appeal to me...the possibility of buying a brand new body of a classic sports car and making a 21st century iteration.

Maybe something to add to the "if I win Publishers Clearinghouse" wishlist.

(I'm "relieved" they don't have TR7/TR8 bodies in white yet. That would really bend some minds.)

FP

And my apologies to all my readers who haven't seen much of me lately.

This blog, and likely the ones after it, will only be personal by degrees. I'm still dealing with the aftereffects of the death of my mother back in April; life with Dad is kind of strange. It's hard to tell when Brave ends and Numb begins. Neither of us is self-medicating, but aside from brief bursts of humor we are neither happy nor super-depressed.

I'm trying to remember how I coped long ago when my grandparents died. But that was decades ago. I don't know how different I am today.

* * *

I'd had this grand idea to poke through Wikipedia at the history of television and about my own relationships and fandoms with the shows. I realized that making it a regular series, year by year, would take quite a piece and a lot of text. So I'm going to take something of a middling approach.

I'm starting with the season BEFORE the first one I was old enough to watch primetime programming: 1972-'73. Lots of shows that were in primetime that year became staples in syndication, of course. Also, there was a mechanism between primetime and syndication that the networks had well into the Eighties but dropped when syndication companies got big enough to produce so much of their own content. They re-ran primetime show episodes in daytime (or late-night) slots, often only the following year from initial broadcast. This was how I saw things like Sanford & Son, The Partridge Family, The Brady Bunch and some others before my parents would let me stay up past 8PM. In fact, my elementary school used to let us students watch some shows between classes, while the teachers and their aides graded papers.

1972-'73 Season
*Favorites At-The-Time: Emergency!, The Wonderful World of Disney
*Eventual Favorite: M*A*S*H (tho' it was YEARS before I was allowed to watch it!)

The following season would bring in two shows that would engage my fandom and set a lot of my psychological tendencies for life: Happy Days and The Six Million Dollar Man.

People who weren't alive back in the early Seventies don't realize what a cultural phenomenon Happy Days was and how much something like it was needed at the time. It was like a national reset button, a reminder of what America is and is supposed to be, and the American character. Yes, it was silly, and much too aware of its impact on pop culture for its own good. Heck, that's why the show HAD to Jump The Shark.

What little kid in the Seventies did NOT want to be The Six Million Dollar Man? While Happy Days looked to the past for its optimism, this show built it into an action hero's anatomy...piece by piece. We had a lot of problems, but maybe technology could solve them. What if everybody had telescopic vision and parabolic hearing? What if we had power-boosted limbs and super speed? What if we all had COMPUTERS? Was this the future we wanted?

1973-'74 Season
*Favorites At-The-Time: Emergency!, Happy Days, The Wonderful World of Disney
*Eventual Favorites: M*A*S*H, The Six Million Dollar Man

MORE TO COME.

Dad has plunged headlong into his gardening and landscaping this summer. I fear he feels obliged to garden for two, and at his state of health I worry.

When we were living in a suburb of Erie in the 1970s, one of his co-workers, a fellow named Schroeder, came and worked on our garden because he didn't have one of his own.

I think we need somebody like that now.

I was wondering where Mum's Kobo e-reader was so this morning I got Dad to find it. It turned out that he had set it on his dresser without knowing what it was.

Tonight I finally figured out what I did wrong when it came to uploading Mum's books on it. Now they work.

It would have made her so proud and happy to see her own books on its screen. But she never got the chance.

I'm going to have a lot of times like this, I think.

Mom passed on today just before 1PM local time. She had taken a bad turn overnight. I was with her at the end, along with a family friend who is also a retired nurse. I don't think I'll get into details here, and if I'm out of circulation for the next few days I hope you'll understand.

Dad's replacement for DodgePodge, which he sold to my Brother-In-Law last fall. It needs a lot of little fixes but is otherwise in splendid shape for its age.

It also needs a towel.