Fast Eddy and the Four Shots (or a New Years that only I might Remember)

It's 10.58 as I start this post on this New Year's Eve, and let me tell ya, the fun has already happened and is now being put to bed.

You see, I made the mistake of inviting my good friend Eddy, a young fellow PCT at my hospital who has a knack for making people like him simply by being so damn frigging likable, over to the hold to meet The Evil Twin on his way home from work. I should have known he'd bring a bottle of Jose Quervo with him, and it all went downhill from there.

Three, no, make that four, I think, shots later (I only had one because I don't do straight hard liquor but was bullied into it by the others, and I have to admit it DID go down alot smoother than I anticipated), Eddy said his good-nights, seeing that he, like myself, have to work tomorrow, and besides, his wife and kids were probably wondering where he was by then. It was shortly after Mr. instigator left that the full effect of the tequila began to make itself known by the increasingly strange behavior of my Soul Mate and my Offspring, Goddess bless them both.

The wife began a non-stop cacophony of laughter whilst sitting on her ass while the daughter struck up an online conversation with a girl friend she had left back in Arizona, who was obviously much more sober than this crowd and was enjoying the spectacle, via webcam, of my two drunk relations, while I, THE very much sober and ever-responsible Man of the Manor looked on and shook his head.

It is yet another hour before 2008 sashays its way into our time zone, and already the Daughter has emptied her stomach on our porch and THE Wife, Bob bless her, has passed out cold in the bed room, in the bed I somehow managed to get her into before she lost consciousness. My only regret is that the battery in our camcorder hasn't been recharged, robbing me of the opportunity to gather mucho blackmail material in living color.

As I type this and get ready for the New Year, THE Daughter is still upchucking in her bathroom quite loudly, and I am almost tempted to feel sorry for her. I won't, tho, because I am sure the fun she had tonight was worth every heave she is now experiencing. Would any of us in our heyday give back the experiences we enjoyed that led to our worshiping at the porcelain Goddess? I think not.

If this blog had been an enterprise that measured it's success by the numbers of faithful readers or some amount of money it might have garnered, you know and I know it would have been a roaring failure of utter proportions. Since you nor I have measured this vessel by visitations to ports of such kind of worth, I am proud to say that in such case this blog has been a success beyond measure, in that it has allowed me to vent my inner demons, tell a few tales, and share what makes me THE Michael with folks like YOU, my few and faithful readers who have stuck with me through thick and thin and allowed me to think of all of you as some sort of brother, sister, drinking buddy, or fellow sojourner, and I want to thank all of you for the pleasure of your company.

So, go forth and welcome in one more year, a year we are becoming fortunate to experience, as each one that now comes along might very well be our last as a species. Go forth and do what you can to somehow hold onto what made this planet the oasis in space that it has been for millennia, and still can be with a bit more careful stewardship. And last but certainly not least, may you all be blessed by whatever department in this universe has been handed the unenviable job of even considering such a thankless task. Blessed Be!

Not ANOTHER Blog......sheesh!

Hi guys, if you would all (three of you) glance over at the links, you will notice a new addition, "The Perfectly Proper Pagan". Now, if you put two and two together, you might arrive at the suspicion that I have produced yet another blog bound to meet the same sad fate as all the other literary experiments I have engaged in, and you would be right, at least concerning the existence, however brief that might be, of another blog. There, you will be greeted by an examination of my experiences with Wicca, the path I have chosen to take me towards my own personal fluffy cloud complete with optional stereo harp, endless supply of fat free cream cheese spread, and genuine faux leather lazy boy. If anything I say there makes you angry or want to riot in the street, please move to Pakistan where rioting in the street is common and perhaps even encouraged.

Oh, and remember, the views and opinions expressed within the hallowed pages of The Perfectly Proper Pagan are strictly those of The Perfectly Proper Pagan, and have nothing whatsoever to do with These Thoughts Escape Me, the management of Blogger, or the United States Department of the Interior. Void where prohibited. Opinions may differ in Alaska or Hawaii. Read with care as contents may be hot and pose a scalding hazard.

See you there!

Yes, yes, I know, you don't have to tell me (and, incidentally, nobody did) that it's been more than a few days since I posted last. Well, c'mon, I was injured, and my life is sooooo exciting that I've been spending so much time living it that I haven't had time blogging about it. Would you believe I was too busy reading YOUR blogs to post to my own? Would you........oh, never mind.

Fine then, I'll post. I'll tell you that the evil twin is returning from her aborted adventures in internet romance and will be nesting here for awhile, all to the tune of "we told you so", which really pisses her off when she hears it more than once in the same day from the same person. I don't blame her, though. She's not the first person whose fallen for the soul-mate-on-the-other-side-of-the-monitor, and she won't be the last, and if I was her age (or younger) and alone I probably would have taken the same chance. That's life. And we ALL get to live it.

Back here, our new baby goat Pepper is settling in and learning how to outrun Billy, who's being a jealous bastard and trying to butt the poor little thing every chance he gets, just to show the little guy who's boss, who's got the horns, and who outweighs everybody else by about a hundred pounds. One day, Billy, one day......

THE Witch, also known as THE Wife, is spending all week preparing for our Winter Solstice/Yule celebration. There's this one part of the ceremony I have to memorize because mainly it will be done in the dark with no light to read by. I HATE memorizing anything these days because one, my brain is old and shriveled, and two, I thought I didn't have to study anymore. Then I married a Witch. Sigh......

The workman's comp quack has put me on conditional full duty, allowing me to return to work and still get in my last visit to the physical terrorpist. I really do not like being on light duty, since all they allow you to do is baby sit crazy or old and senile patients, and sitting on your butt for 12 straight hours staring at a TV is not all it's cracked up to be, let me tell you! Now, if I can just avoid another back injury this year........

The good folks in Ireland have named one of my favorite libations after none other than me, THE Michael. Yes, folks, you can now purchase "Michael's Celtic Irish Cream" at your local liqueur store and spirit emporium! You'll love it, or my name isn't.......ah........wasitsnameagin.....ah, YES.....THE Michael!

I am so jealous of THE Wife, though. This new job of hers is just fantastic. The two Eye doctors who own this place hold a Christmas party every year for all the employees and it is one fine shindig. It's a formal party so of course all the men folk (just about all the employees are female, so they get to drag their other halves to the party with them) wore suits, except me and a couple of others, because I, THE Michael, wears ties for NO ONE. I DID wear a corduroy sport jacket, though, so I wasn't a total slob. There were games, a really nice buffet, a gift exchange, and something I thought went the wayside of employers who actually gave a damn, a Christmas bonus check! Wow! This party was held in the Doctor's mansion down by the river, by the way. However, what really impressed me the most was the champaign toast he gave to all the employees. He really made them feel as though he credited THEM with all his success. MY Job? I get to keep my job.

We here at Pendragon Hold, being Pagans, do not celebrate Christmas, however, we do wish the best tidings of the year to all of you who do, and truly hope the new year approaches your hearths, holds, and homes with good fortune and bright blessings. May YOUR Deities smile upon you all, and may your path towards whatever nirvana you strive to find be smooth and worth every step you take towards it. For myself, THE Wife, and all our family, HAPPY YULE, and BLESSED BE YOU ALL!

Dying in the Winner's Circle

I doubt very many people, if any, are going to like me very much after they read this post. There is always a great big downside to complete honesty, which is why I suppose we tend not to practice it very often. Admit it, the way your husband snores at night makes you want to choke the life out of him, but he makes up for it in the waking hours which makes you grin and bear it. And you don't share your homicidal fantasies with him, now do you? The feeling could be mutual and you really don't have time for a petty war, not with the kid's soccer and the holidays coming up.......

Apparently, the human race could never function under a cloud of brutal honesty; never has and never will. Governments all over the world throughout history have done things to their own citizens, as well as those of others, and then have attempted to cover up the fact these things ever happened, hoping that no one will have to deal with the painful, ugly truth until such time everybody would just as soon let sleeping dogs lie, much like the Turkish Massacre of Armenians that has strangely shared very little of the the spotlight the jews enjoyed for THEIR genocide. How many people know that the United States conducted over 300 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests before we quit doing it? Have any idea how much radioactive contamination that poured into our biosphere? Do you really care these days, since your children aren't glowing at night? I didn't think so.

Previous administrations here in the good old U.S. of A. have kept their dirty secrets close to the vest lest those uncomfortable truths resulted in some serious head bowling. Usually our heads of state are dead before the records are unsealed and we find out how close we came to Armageddon or why half our families came down with strange cancers. So, can anybody tell me why state secrets ARE state secrets? You, in the back, shut up. No one cares.

And that's the crux of the matter, really. Nobody cares. Not really. This administration has lied through it's teeth to us for two terms now and we KNOW they've been lying to us. Sure, we like to think that so much of this bullshit has been overlooked because we WANT to believe the fantasies the Bush administration has been weaving for us, or because we've been afraid, or because most of us HAS ours and we could care less about those who don't. We eat our young, and we spoil our own nests like there's no tomorrow, and guess what.....there really might NOT be, thanks to our rampant consumption of everything we can get our mitts on to sell to someone else so that we can drive our expeditions and live in McMansions and wear lots of bling because frankly we seem to have so little else to do with our empty lives.

I would give us all the benefit of the doubt if the nature of intelligence was such that it's really not all it's cracked up to be, but for Bob's sake, I have seen the paintings and sculptures, I have heard the music, I have read the poetry and that crap Shakespeare wrote and I have had the pleasure of owning an Apple computer, and to me all that adds up to so much wonderment..........

So why do we do what we do? Why has it turned out that evolving into sentience has become our very own frankenstein moment? How is it possible that we can commit the atrocities we do and witness what we do and not be driven instantly insane? Or ARE we insane, only we are too smart to realize it?

I have been watching that show Heroes on NBC about a motley group of misfit genetically advanced human beings who are attempting to not draw unwanted attention while at the same time either trying to do evil things or save the world, who wants to do which not always being clear. As the season finale draws to a close, we find out who wants to release a killer virus which promises to wipe out the human race, and why. He's been alive for over 400 years and has become fed up with watching the human race continue year after year avoiding it's potential while dragging the rest of the world down with it. Now, you're usual response to such a person is that he's the bad guy and we have to rid ourselves of him, this evil judas creature out to destroy mankind.

Why?

Tell me exactly what makes him wrong, about what he's trying to do, and why?

Why DO we deserve some special consideration?

The dinosaurs were pretty damn successful for their time and certainly weren't doing anything in particular to deserve the world getting whacked with a big rock and ending THEIR reign.

So what makes US so special, especially considering the fact that we can build and detonate nuclear weapons, change the very climate of the world, and poison the rest of it with all manners of chemicals and waste products? We can create the Sidney Opera House, the Statue of Liberty, Michaelangelo's David, A River Runs Through it, etc.........Big deal. We can allow one tribe in Africa to wipe out another tribe and not raise a finger to stop it because, DUH, they don't have oil. Feeling sick yet? Not in the slightest? Well, there you have it.

Fifty two years; that's how long I've had to grow and learn and experience and fail and succeed and fail again and observe and laugh and cry and somehow get to where I am now which is somewhere between the Buckingham Palace and the Shanty towns of South Africa. I am well fed yet maybe a couple of paychecks above abject poverty. How I got here has as much to do with my own efforts as much as the conditions I grew up in. It is what it is.

And I am so angry, so disillusioned, so fed up with what this species has done with it's potential that I have lost that basic species specific loyalty everybody takes for granted. The aliens invade, we stand together and fight back.........right?

Maybe not. Maybe some of us think we are on the losing side no matter who wins.

Because, after all, winning is everything, right?

Yea..........right.

Introducing PEPPER, THE Wonder Kid!



You are now free to ohhhhhhh and ahhhhhhhhh.

Thank you and Blessed Be!

A Little Pepper, Please.........

How long's it been since my last post? I lose track. It has been an interesting week here at Pendragon Hold. Lessee.....where to start.

Trying to be a nice guy and help even out the schedule at work, I moved my days around to help fill in the short ones and get out of the overstaffed days, only to find afterwards that I had scheduled myself for four shifts straight. Uh-oh....... Big deal, you think, a lot of people work more days in a row then that. Well, these are four TWELVE (12) (XII) (One Dozen) hour shifts, friends, and even though I thought it wouldn't really be so bad, I changed my mind about that by the morning after that fourth shift. The morning I woke up with shoulders and neck so sore I seriously thought I might have contracted meningitis from a patient. Well, no, I didn't pick up some deadly bug; it's just that I'm not the spring chicken I used to be and that four day stretch was something I wasn't used to. It's even rare that I find myself ever working three shifts in a row; I usually work only two with a few days off till the next run. I think I learned my lesson. No more mister nice guy.

The good twin and hubby came up to visit, and they got us a nice gift we had been lusting after for some time.......one of those metal fireplaces. It is painted black with moons and stars cut into the side, which is PERFECT for our shade garden/magik circle. We love it!

The Focus (our car, not a visual exercise) had been acting up electrically, so after a few episodes of having to beg for jumps after listening to the radio while parked, I bit the bullet and got a new battery. Five years plus is not bad for a battery, I suppose. The eighty bucks I had to pay for that new one kinda hurt, though.

The Wife has been after me to check into getting some stud service for our pygmy goats, the ones we affectionately refer to as "the twins". No, not THOSE twins......
Anyway, I was asking around at the feed store, then a local Veterinarian, and was directed to a dog grooming store which JUST HAPPENED to have a note advertising baby pygmy goats for a very reasonable price. I called the lady selling them and we'll be heading out to look at them when THE Wife gets off of work. I'll stop this post long enough to report back later as to what transpired.

Speaking of THE Wife and her work........I knew from the git-go that anyone who wanted an excellent employee would be very happy with this woman of mine. Her employer has become so impressed with her in the relatively short time she's been with them that they already want her to train hard to be promoted. One of the Doctors spoke to her of "being the future of the business....". Wow! Pretty heavy compliment! I'm so proud of her!

These Thoughts Escape Me almost disappeared from the netscape this week when Yours Truly, in an attempt to remove duplicate files and extra stuff from his hard drive, wiped out almost everything including passwords, preferences, photo's, a ton of music, etc. At the same time our backup hard drive decided to go on the blink, leaving me with an emasculated iMac.

So, after figuring out that the power supply to the hard drive was the real culprit, I invested in a couple of hard drive enclosures, and was able to get at all that data held hostage by these drives back into the computer, and now everything is exactly as it should be, including a much smarter, wiser THE Michael who has learned not to throw away things without much MUCH more careful consideration. I only know enough about computers to be dangerous. If I wasn't so math challenged I WOULD be a geek.

We Wiccans do NOT celebrate Christmas.......however.....we DO celebrate Yule, and the Winter Solstice, and this has given THE Wife an aggravating excuse to drag out all these Christmas ornaments and decorate the whole interior of the house with them...grrrrrrr. Yes, we used to do the Christmas thing, but long before I embraced my inner pagan, I was getting fed up with "tis the season to spend spend spend...". She has lot's of secular christmas stuff like snowmen and claims the Santa ornaments are actually the Holly King....sigh.......as long as she doesn't have me up on the roof stringing lights, I guess I can grin and bear it. If only it would snow..........

OK, this is all I can think of for now, so hang loose till I get back with THE Wife, and I'll let you know if we adopted any more babies.

Time passes....................

I'm back. There's tilapia baking in the oven, while Prairie Home Companion is playing on the radio. I went and got the Wife and took her to go hunt down this metaphysical shop we had learned about. What a find! This place has everything and then some, and the prices are very reasonable. So THE Wife acquires a new silver plated chalice for the alter and a new tarot deck. On the way back to the part of town we live in I called the lady with the goats and got her answering machine. Darn! I think we were running late so perhaps she had left. Then, after we got home we tried again and it turned out she was waiting on my call with her cellphone while I had her home phone number. Minor mixup, but we ended up at her place and boy was it a ZOO! On top of having a decent HERD of goats, mostly pygmies, she had geese and chickens and turkeys and donkeys and.......well.....who knows what else.

So, now we have a new member of the family here at Pendragon hold. We brought home a tiny, cute as hell little guy whom we've named Pepper. I would show you guys a picture but it was getting dark as we got him home and the camera battery died on me. Maybe tomorrow. Hopefully he'll be the future Poppa of our herd. Sorry, Billy, but I guess you are regulated to big bad protector.

Yes, it's been an interesting week here at Pendragon Hold. Thanks for stopping by. Blessed be!