Sunday, June 15, 2014

I love you--Don't Harsh My Vibe

April 8th, 2005. Friday. I took a left hand turn out of Maestro Fates Florist's horseshoe shaped driveway onto East Brainerd Road to deliver several floral arrangements. The front right passenger door would not latch. I don't know what the problem was. I steered the van with my left hand and held the door shut with my right hand.I did but I did what I had to do.

Arriving back at the shop--with one time sensitive delivery not happening because the intended recipient had the day off--I told one of my five self appointed bosses about the car latch problem. She solved it somehow by wiggling a screwdriver--Every April 8th when blondes think you get the impression that they are high functioning asperger aliens channeling from Sirius, the Dog Star.(Robert Anton Wilson's Coincidence Control Center.) Then she when back inside the shop and exploded/really had a cow, man. Definitely more than a hissy fit. She directed her wrath in the general direction of  her mother but I knew her anger was meant for me. Then she decided to do the last two deliveries of the day herself. I gave her the keys to the delivery van and took the bus home to Highland Park.

The next few days I was a total wreck, lots of insomnia and fatigue. Did Blondie commit a civil tort--negligent infliction of emotional distress? Waiting for Godot to show up and tell me what's what.

About 10:30 a.m. on Friday April 15th the telephone rang at my home. It was one of my five self appointed bosses wondering why I had not shown up for work. I told him I was behind on my sleep. I don't think I said I was running a sleep deficit. He replied "you might as well not come in to work anymore." Pink slipped via a Southern Bell landline. What is the frequency, Kenneth. Dan Rather does not know.

I did not tell him that I thought it was Thursday. I only worked Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays.  I was too embarrassed to tell him that I had lost track of days. It was five years later that I learned the word zietgebers--inputs that affect circadian rhythms.

A few days I sent an email to my favorite Hoosier from the computer at Poindexter Library. I entitled it *36 Wheels.* Two 18 wheelers in a head on collision at the flower shop. No more tip toe through the tulips. Joreena asked me about the damage to the flower shop, bless her heart. Actually my son is my favorite Hoosier, but he only spent the first 17 months of his life there.  In 1997, we visited the family living in the house he was conceived in and born in. He was 15 years old.

  A few days before arriving in Indiana with me in June 1997 my son threaded a small worm on a fish hook and caught a small fish.We were at a campground not to far from the Corvette factory in Kentucky. Later we checked out some limestone caves and he made some remark about a cute girl on duty there at Mammoth Cave. "Hormones," as Will B Dunn liked to say.

Back to the small worm catching a small fish.  "He [that] soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly." (2 Corinthians 9:6 KJV)  I might have read The Magic of Thinking Big at some point, but then I never drove an 18 wheeler through Tiny Tim's timorous tulips before. Tip toe through labia majora or you might end up paying child support until you can send a photocopy of Junior's high school diploma to Child Support
enforcement.

Exactly fifty years before that Friday in 2005, Americans began facing a new deadline. April 15th became the deadline for filing Federal tax returns.The man who became my high school biology teacher turned nineteen years old that day. I suppose preparing tax returns must be something like preserving frogs in formaldehyde so teenagers  can cut them up and hope for a B plus and look forward to taking chemistry next fall with Mr. Cook the baseball coach. Maybe cutting up pickled frogs is less gruesome then threading wiggly nightcrawlers onto a fish hook bass ackwards. Toad the wet sprocket.

On April 15th 1862 Emily Dickinson sent a letter and four poems to Thomas Wentworth Higginson--after reading a  recent issue of The Atlantic Monthly featured something Thomas wrote entitled Letter to a Young Contributor.

Events  did not go turn out well. Emily was devastated by Higginson's response to her letter and 4 poems. Higginson felt that her poems lacked form and were technically inept. She took to bed for a week and then responded to his critique.

My devastation took during the seven days preceding April 15th --after Tina Simpson uberscrewed the doorlatch van/doorlock and volcanoed her Grand slam Homer Simpson seriously having a cow and milking it too.One tit for whole, one for 2%, one for skim, and one for buttermilk. Emily, on the other hand was devastated for seven days after April 15th because Higginson did  not pot latch with her but probably pulled a 420 friendly with some Boston Brahman. . Or maybe he was sucking some other lollipop.and neighing after his neighbor's wife a la Jeremiah 5:8 KJV. I think he lived in Philadelphia.

Emily had miscalculated. Nonetheless, she and Thomas developed a long lasting friendship, although she seldom followed the advice he gave her. I bet in that seven day purgatory she might have consoled herself that Higginson Thomas Wentworth was worthless even as my Hoosier friend probably considered her former boyfriend as worthless, and his surname of Hayworth to be God's way of saying don't believe sweet talk on April Fool's Day.

1865......2005.....143 Years. /// 11 times 13 ///    I   IV   III   ///  ONE--FOUR--THREE  ///  In the online Urban Dictionary defined as *I love you.*  Etiology--(One letter, four letters, three letters)---[December 2017 insertion herewith---I have heard that when people had beepers----before cell phones that 143 meant I love you.]

A few days ago I received a message from a woman who had a profile on an internet dating site. I read her profile after reading her message. In the profile she stated that she was looking for a church .Being a Unitarian Universalist since 1992 when aliens crashed in Area 51 in Roswell, Georgia, I directed her to Holston Valley UU Church near Johnson City, Tennessee, the Northeast Passage where LBJ announced he was not running for reelection back in the 20th century. According to the Holston Valley UU Church's website they have 143 members.There's the good old 143 again--I love you.

I love you.

 Whatchagonnado?

Whatchawantme to do?

Help you determine what your standing will be with the Inferno Revenue Service next April? Tell you which frogs to kiss, which ones to consume, which ones to put in formaldehyde?

After Otis Lord's wife died Emily Dickinson sent him a note. [I]  confess that I love you.

Even cowgirls get the blues. Don't harsh my vibe.


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