So Long, Grandfather

My maternal grandfather passed away last night.

While I am saddened by this, I am utterly unsurprised.

Gramps was 91, and had been failing ever since spring. He last looked like himself eighty-one days ago.

Gramps went to sea when he was very young, served in the Navy through the Second World War and afterward, and raised my mother and all of her siblings along with Granny. He knew how to fix almost anything. He was working on the roof of his house when he was over eighty years old.

I am descended from one tough, tough, tough, IRON-tough old man.

I have no regrets about my relationship with my Gramps.

He has been a part of my life since well before I was born, and I don't see how that's going to change now. What he taught me and what he gave me will always be with me. If I'm supremely lucky, I'll be able to pass some of it along, and if I really outdo myself, I'll be half as capable as he was by the time I die.

He gave me a pocketknife... a little one... that I had on me today, before I'd heard. But I've been thinking of him.

He taught me to drive a boat. Some of the highest praise I've ever received in my life was when I heard from someone else that he thought I'd brought it into shore properly (which is to say, jumping over the side and hauling the bowline in with me). He taught me to drive his old Toro tractor. He drove his dog-infested RV back and forth across the country year after year, getting the hell out of Indiana for the winter.

He made sure I always had an air conditioner in working order when I stayed at the farm.

He was one of the few people I could shut up around, simply because I knew he didn't need me to say a damned thing.

I'll miss you, old man.

But I also know you hated being fussed over, and you'd be downright irritable if I moped around because of you, so I'll carry on as I always have.

Thanks for all you taught me.
Thanks for all you gave me.

Godspeed.

A Tribesman Far From His Tribe.

"Parting from friends is a sadness- a place is just a place." - Dune

So, my sister and I watched Blazing Saddles again tonight, and while I enjoyed it, it brought home a simple, unpleasant truth.

I miss the FUCK out of my compadres.

Where I used to be able to drag my broke ass across town and always find a couch to crash on and a place at table, I now find myself more or less trapped at home until I head for Kobuk.

The little things- casual abuse shared by people who knew better than to be offended by it. Someone to bitch about things with who didn't feel the need to solve my fucking lame-ass problems.

A shared sense of identity, honestly. When in the company of my weird, heavily-armed family, I always know where I stand. I belong as I don't think I ever have before (which speaks volumes about just how fucked up the folks I run with are). I can truthfully say that they are "home" in their own twisted way.

I miss the hell out of 'em, but I'm taking the long view- I may be in Kobuk for just two years, or I may live there for twenty.

But whether I'm thirty and bored with it or I'm sixty and the thought of an Alaskan Arctic winter is more than I can stand, I know some folks who'll put me up.

And that's worth remembering.

On Comic Book Nerd Rage

So apparently, someone is tweaking Wonder Woman's costume and origin.

This, of course, has the nerds who care in a frothing rage.

Which is funny, since, speaking as a comic book geek myself, I have the following observation to make-

Scarlet Spider/Spider-Clone- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Superman Red/Superman Blue- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
The Eric Masterson Thor/Thunderstrike- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
The Arrowcar- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
The High Lords in X-Force (you know, immortal mutants as a community) - It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Azbat- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Superman's Mullet- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Iron Spider Armor - It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Avengers Disassembled- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Spoiler's Death / Leslie Thompkins' Character Assassination- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
X-Corps- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Punisher versus Demons- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
The Kinder, Gentler Magneto- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
The Punker, Edgier Storm- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Nightcrawler the Priest- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
The offscreen death of Sebastian Shaw- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.
Hal Jordan as the Spectre- It sucked, people hated it, it went away.



This too shall pass.

Traps and Tricks

So, the old cat died a while back.

For all of her faults, the old girl did one thing, performed one service we kind of miss these days.

She provided guilt-free pest control. No voles could survive in her radius, and her mere presence was a deterrent.

Now that she's gone, the duty has fallen upon me- because neither my sister nor my mother have the stomach for it.

And thus it is I who bait traps with tasty treats for the little creatures. It is I who place them in locations of value. And it is I who haul the little corpses outside and dump them for the shrews and carrion birds.

It's funny.

My sister flat-out refuses to bait traps. She claims it's too "serial killer" for her.

I can try to explain that there's no malice in my heart when I set these traps. I sincerely wish these rather dim-witted little creatures would simply stay away from the trash can and the flour and the rice on their own... But wishing doesn't feed me.

But I doubt she'll ever grasp that.

This wouldn't bother me, except that she wants them gone more than anyone.

After all, I'll be gone in August. I can only hope she figures out that what we need to do often has no emotion connected with it at all.