Today was a lovely, warm fall day. Between bouts of yard work I went for a bike ride. No one screamed at me from passing cars, which was nice. The bike lane, however, contained many broken bottles. Apparently the locals don’t like bikes. However, the saying has it that it’s the broken glass you don’t see that you should fear, so I rode with confidence. I wondered if I should worry about the hypodermic needle I rode over, but I suffered no flats, so apparently the saying applies to all sharps.

I think Lessing might turn out to be an inspiration to all authors.  Besides her admirable disdain for the Nobel Prize and its process, apparently lately she has been writing “fourth-rate science fiction”.  Does that mean third-rate or better SF will become deserving of wider acclaim?  Perhaps not, as the quotation is from professional cultural scold Harold Bloom, and is meant by him as proof of her unfitness for the award.  On the other hand,  who gives two shits what Harold Bloom thinks?

I’ve not read anything by Doris Lessing that I recall, so I don’t have any opinion whether or not she might be worthy of the prize announced today.  However I do have to wonder if any writer still alive really deserves the Nobel more than John Updike.  I recently read The Collected Henry Bech and clever man that he is, he had the foresight to award himself the Prize fictionally; he probably figured he’s useless for their purposes and won’t be so honored in real life.  I share a birth-date with Alfred Nobel, so exploiting such propinquity where I find it, I hereby award Updike a half-share.

Updike has to wait another year to be rejected again, but we only had to wait a day for the resolution of the Cookie Controversy. 

The lyric quoted above gives a different connotation in context, but my appropriation of it is still apposite.  I’m not one for the rash move, at least while sober.  Why, my first date with Mrs The Fyd was initiated by an email from me.  Even then I was apparently characteristically ambiguous, because she at first didn’t realize I meant it to be a “date” date.

Not that this observation leads to a whingeing post about my need to make precipitous changes to my life.  The internet’s full of those moaning calls to drastic personal re-evaluations and I believe self-improvement is best served privately.  Further, I am well aware that there’s plenty of hardship in the world and I needn’t complain.  Finally, to quote Hemingway, “Never mistake motion for action.”

That said, it is good to remind oneself occasionally, that, in the words of Rhett Miller:  “The time you lose, working for the Man/The time you used to have is never comin’ back.”

Last of all, the real reason for this post is to use a phrase I just came across: Word to Big Bird!

Earlier this month Mrs The Fyd and I took the dogs for a few days of vacation at the coast.  The place we rented was rather more rural than where we have stayed in the past.  At night I heard the howls of coyotes in the nearby hills.  Across the gravel road was a swamp, or bog, or marsh — I don’t know how they define it.

If the dogs weren’t functional parasites, but were instead used for the purposes of centures if breeding, they would have been right in their element:

Instead, they were allowed to indulge themselves on the beach.  
Since by law all dogs are required to be leashed on Oregon’s beaches, 
this makes me feel a little nervous about the prospects of running afoul 
of the law.  However, dogs gotta run.  Perhaps there are designated 
off-leash beaches.

Boris found a bottle with a message:

The message inside was that apparently of two young lovers who had 
finished the contents and decided to send it to the waters as a token 
of their love.  I hope they didn’t  drink the whole bottle in one night, 
because a whole bottle of Jameson’s will not lead to good love-making.  The young lovers didn’t have the sense to date or give a place 
from which they threw the bottle.  It was probably tossed in the surf the 
night before about ten yards away.

I attempted to send it back, but the dogs kept fetching it:

A woman we met on the beach pointed out bear tracks to us.  We were glad to get home without losing a dogs to bear or coyote.

Yesterday was a busy Sunday.  Additionally it was somewhat emotionally fraught for me.  So this morning I was very tired.  That tired as to require more caffeine, in addition to the iced mocha Mrs The Fyd made for me this morning (thanks! and also thanks for driving me to work!).  I went and purchased a mocha from the coffee shop downstairs (sorry, Mrs The Fyd!).  The coffee is fine, but as I was waiting some wretched Phil Collins song began playing on the PA and the annoying chatter of other patrons was not enough to obscure it from my hearing.  God damn it, Seattle’s Best Coffee!  I’m paying you money, please do abuse the holy rituals of commerce with this assault on my ears and intelligence.

 Once I got back to my desk I needed something to scour the foul sound before it might prove impossible to dislodge from aural memory.  Trusting in the serendipity of Shuffle, I hit play and The Prodigy’s “Diesel Power” began.  That cured what ailed me, but it was a close call.  Fuckers.

When a cartoon cat says it better than you can, stand back and let the big cat speak.

In other news, the ugly pickup I bought in July actually passed its emissions test this week.  My mechanic probably thought he was gonna get rich making it street legal, but I took my chances on limiting his work to a tune-up. 

Yeseterday was very warm, as if making up for the impression that we had an attenuated summer this year.  Previously I had discovered, growing right next to the trunk of the dogwood in our back yard, a maple sapling.  With the welcome assistance of our plant expert neighbor, we transplanted said sapling to the parking strip out front.  In another twenty years or so we’ll have a nice shade tree to protect the west-facing side of the house from the cruel globally-warmed sun.

Despite the warmth I took the dogs out on a couple of walks.  On the first we came across a shiny pickup truck with a couple of interesting bumper stickers.  One read, “Masturbation Is Not A Crime”.  I wasn’t aware that it was.  The other read (with suitable alteration to avoid even more comment spamming), “I Watch A Lot of Pr0n”.

Finally, yesterday evening we were on another walk when we skirted the edge of a local Alzheimer’s care facility (housed in an interesting building that used to be a convent and then a monastery.  A reminder that this area used to be rural and suitable for a religious retreat).  A couple of employees were sitting on the curb on a break, and one said, “Those are beautiful dogs!”  We get this a lot, since they are handsome indeed.  I  thanked her.  Then as we passed she said in shock, “They’re neutered!”  I stopped and said yes.  “That’s awful!” she cried.  For a moment I was speechless, then, trying not to be pedantic, mentioned how neutering them now spared killing unwanted dogs later.  She accepted that, doubtfully, and I walked on.  For how many people is the experience of a neutered dog that singular and upsetting?  I should have suggested she volunteer at an animal shelter if she wanted to see something awful.

Today we are due 95 degrees of dog-oppressing heat.  I hope I see no stupid bumper stickers or encounter other benighted enfants.

Tim Pratt has won a Hugo for Best Short Story 2007.  I don’t know Tim, but back when he was editor of Star*Line he accepted a poem of mine.  I haven’t read this particular story, but I have read a lot of  his other work and he is a very good writer indeed.  Much deserved congratulations on the award.

This evening I took the vicious beasts out for a stroll.  While walking behind McDonald’s a Chrysler 300 pulled up into the parking lot, stopped, and disgorged a prostitute.  The driver then backed out of the lot, almost hitting the woman as he turned onto the street.  Then he drove to the end of the block and made an illegal left turn.  Go figure.