August 1, 2025: “Japanese-American Farmhouse, California, 1942,” Juxtaposing, “August 31, 1997”

Okay, so I have been inconsistent in blogging recently.

I find trying to write daily posts has been challenging since President 47 took office.  You see, he throws so much shit at us every day that it’s difficult to know where to focus.  I know that’s his political strategy:  overwhelming his detractors.  It’s difficult watching the country in which you live just crumble to morally bankrupt cowards.

Yet, I write every day in my journal.  Or, at least I try to.  That saves my sanity a little bit.  However, juxtaposing my daily life with the horrors being wrought by President 47 and his followers on the poor and working class . . . well, let’s just say that my preoccupations seem almost trivial.  Thus, I haven’t been posting a whole lot.  It seems too self-indulgent.

Sharon Olds juxtaposes her birthday and a picture of a sewing machine . . .

Japanese-American Farmhouse,

California, 1942

by: Sharon Olds

Everything has been stolen that anyone
thought worth stealing. The stairs into the grass
are scattered with sycamore leaves curled
like ammonites in inland rock.
Wood shows through the paint on the frame
and the door is open--an empty room,
sunlight on the floor. All that is left
on the porch is the hollow cylinder
of an Albert's Quick Oats cardboard box
and a sewing machine. Its extraterrestrial
head is bowed, its scrolled neck
glistens. I was born, that day, near there,
in wartime, of ignorant people.

That’s life, isn’t it?  While a tragedy occurs in one place, a baby is born not far away.  Grief and joy within miles of each other.  Or, as Mary Oliver says, housed in the same body.

This week has sort of been up and down for me.  A juxtaposition of struggle and happiness.  Of course, nothing in the news is good, so I’m not even going to go near that.  Smoke from Canadian wildfires has been clinging to the Upper Peninsula all week long, making the air smell like ash and turning sunrises/sunsets into glorious orange skyscapes.  But, I also hosted some great concerts and author readings, including Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

In the space of four days, I hosted a total of six programs.  In case you’re wondering, that’s a lot.  Therefore, I took today off work.  I did have a dental procedure done in the morning.  Did practice music at three separate churches.  Met my good writer friend/colleague Matt for a couple beers.  Then picked up my wife at 5 p.m..

I’m ready for a quiet weekend.  Unfortunately, that’s not what I’m going to get.  I have to play three church services, mow my lawn, meet with my book club, and lead a poetry workshop.  (If you’re wondering, that’s pretty much describes every weekend for me.). 

But, juxtapose that with sleeping in tomorrow morning.  Going to a birthday party for a neighbor who’s turning 100 years old.  Spending quality time with my family.  Maybe watching a few episodes of Schitt’s Creek with my wife.  It’s going to be a pretty good couple days.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about juxtaposition, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:  

On this day in 1960, Chubby Checker released “The Twist” while on the same day in 1936, Adolf Hitler opened the 11th Olympic Games in Berlin.  Write a poem that takes two completely different events and juxtaposes them.  Find the similarities in the events and connect them in your poem.

August 31, 1997

by: Martin Achatz

Both a little tipsy driving home

from Mike and Tracy’s wedding

reception, my wife and I held

hands, listened to the radio,

some oldies station that was playing

Janis Joplin, if I remember right.  

We didn’t talk, just basked

in the smell of sweat and joy,

my shirt still damp from the last

dance, “Paradise by the Dashboard

Lights,” and a world away she

was dying/was already dead

while our newlywed friends

unlocked each other’s bodies,

held each other the way

she probably tried to hold

onto each breath she took

that night in that tunnel, somehow

knowing they would be her last

and wanting them to go on and

on because the world was just too

beautiful to leave without saying

to someone, My God, what’s happening?

February 18, 2025: "Rite of Passage," Gray Day, "Oyster"

It was kind of a gray day--nothing out of the ordinary happened, which is a good thing.  As you know, I don't like surprises all that much.  I prefer days that are . . . predictable.  The only surprises I like are ones that I know about.  You see, in my life, I've had too many . . . bad surprises.  Thus, I have become a creature of habits.  Even my wife knows my aversion to the unexpected.  That's why, I think, she's only thrown one surprise party for me.  It was for my 50th birthday, and she threw it on my 51st birthday.  Surprise!

Sharon Olds throws a birthday party for her son . . . 

Rite of Passage

by: Sharon Olds

As the guests arrive at our son’s party
they gather in the living room—
short men, men in first grade
with smooth jaws and chins.
Hands in pockets, they stand around
jostling, jockeying for place, small fights
breaking out and calming. One says to another
How old are you? —Six. —I’m seven. —So?
They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other’s pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you
up, a seven says to a six,
the midnight cake, round and heavy as a
turret behind them on the table. My son,
freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,
chest narrow as the balsa keel of a
model boat, long hands
cool and thin as the day they guided him
out of me, speaks up as a host
for the sake of the group.
We could easily kill a two-year-old,
he says in his clear voice. The other
men agree, they clear their throats
like Generals, they relax and get down to
playing war, celebrating my son’s life.

This rite of passage is, I would say, pretty typical for typical boys doing typical boy things.  Talking smack.  Threatening each other.  Going for shock and awe.  Acting nonchalant.  Six- and seven-year-old boys learning how to behave like "men"--which, in this case, means they're tiny Russian oligarchs, I guess.  Pretty normal, even for the son of a poet.

I was not a typical six-year-old boy.  Or seven.  Or eight.  And I'm not a typical adult, unless you consider being a poet a typical occupation.  Most people wouldn't.  Even my "normal" jobs aren't that normal for most people--library programmer, college English professor, church organist.

So, I guess I don't like normal, which is different from not liking surprises.  You can be atypical and still not enjoy a group of people shouting "Surprise!" at you when you walk into a room.  (The one surprise party my wife threw for me was lovely--a room filled with individuals I care about deeply, and who obviously care about me.  I enjoyed myself immensely once I got over the initial shock.)  

But, in my normal atypical life, I try to plan my days so that I know exactly what is going to happen, from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed.  It's how I keep my mind from exploding.  The most excitement I want in a day is getting KFC for dinner when I was expecting Taco Bell.  

Saint Marty wrote a poem about a typical, gray day, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:

Write a poem in the key of gray.  Begin by looking up synonyms for gray.  Examples:  ashen, argentine, leaded, pewter, slate, hoary.  Gray is also associated with cheerlessness, depression, and dreariness.  Write a poem that strikes a dismal, dreary tone, or write a poem that uses synonyms for gray about a joyful topic.

Oyster

by: Martin Achatz

At the end of this hoary day,

when the muscle of time

flexes with leaden snow,

clouds hunched together

like the backs of so many

mice chewing the horizon,

I drag myself into silvery

dusk, my brindled dog

sniffing, digging, as if

she's a bloodhound chasing

escaped chain gangers.

Winter's iron thumb presses

down, makes each breath

a frozen dime of air.  I tug

on the leash, impatient

to retreat from this livid

landscape.  Above me,

the oyster sky opens

its mouth, sticks out

a tongue where a pearl

moon balances, a fragile

cocoon ready to hatch 

into light.

July 7: "In the Moment," Here and Now, Tiny Life Moment

Billy Collins lives . . .

In the Moment

by: Billy Collins

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky,

the kind that gives you no choice

but to unbutton your shirt

and sit outside in a rough wooden chair.

An if a glass of ice tea and a volume

of seventeenth-century poetry

with a dark blue cover are available,

then the picture can hardly be improved.

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist,

and two black butterflies 

with white and red wing dots

bobbed around my head in the bright air.

I could feel the day offering itself to me,

and I wanted nothing more

than to be in the moment--but which moment?

Not that one, or that one, or that one,

or any of those that were scuttling by

seemed perfectly right for me.

Plus, I was too knotted with with questions

about the past and his tall, evasive sister, the future.

What churchyard held the bones of George Herbert?

Why did John Donne's wife die so young?

And more pressingly,

what could we serve the vegetarian twins

who were coming to dinner that evening?

Who knew that they would bring their own grapes?

And why was the driver of that pickup

flying down the road toward the lone railroad track?

And so the priceless moments of the day

were squandered one by one--

or more likely a thousand at a time--

with quandary and pointless interrogation.

All I wanted was to be a pea of being

inside the green pod of time,

but that was not going to happen today,

I had to admit to myself

as I closed the book on the face

of Thomas Traherne and returned to the house

where I lit a flame under a pot

full of floating brown eggs,

and, while they cooked in their bubbles,

I stared into a small oval mirror near the sink

to see if that crazy glass

had anything special to tell me today.

Living in the here and now is a good way of being.  If you get stuck in the past, you will spend your life grieving for what or whom you've lost.  If you live in the future, your existence is defined by fear, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The present it a different thing.  By relishing each moment as it comes your way, all those pesky regrets (from the past) and worries (about the future) melt away like an ice cream cake on a July afternoon.  What is left is gratitude for what is in front your face.  People you love.  Music you dig.  Food you crave.  And laughter and laughter and laughter.

My here and now today consisted of a birthday party for my nephew who just turned 13 years old.  It was a wonderful time of games and food and (as I said above) laughter and laughter and laughter.  Then, this evening, I led an online poetry workshop.  Two of my closest poet friends Zoomed in.  We wrote Pablo Neruda odes to the things in our lives and homes.  So, in a way, we celebrated the present with words and language.

Poetry is a very immediate kind of art form.  Each poem preserves a tiny life moment--its emotions and physicality.  Perhaps that's why I fell into this poetic life I lead--because I want to deeply observe each of my experiences.  To find meaning and, when available, revelation.

Saint Marty's biggest revelation today:  never let a stranger pick out his corn on the cob.

July 14: Father's Birthday, 91st, "The Quiet Man"

You will excuse me if I step away from Moby-Dick for this post.  Today would have been my father's 91st birthday.  Last year, on this day, we had a huge birthday party for him.  Relatives drove in from out of town.  My dad's sister was there.  They hadn't seen each other for a few years.  He was smiling more that day than I'd seen him smile in a long time.

So, this evening, I give you a poem that I wrote for my father.

Saint Marty wishes his dad a happy birthday.

The Quiet Man

by:  Martin Achatz

Last night, I dreamed my dad and John Wayne
were sitting around a campfire, eating
peaches out of a can.  Stars thick as cattle herds
milled above them, and the prairie grass
hummed some sweet old song like "Red River Valley"
or "Shenandoah."  I'm not sure if was heaven,
but my father was young and perfect, the hook
of his back as straight as a railroad spike.
Duke was young, too, the retired prizefighter
who chased Maureen O'Hara through the green
Galway countryside.  There weren't any Nazis
crawling along the ground in ambush, no
Richard Boone-faced kidnappers, skin
leathery as buffalo jerky, trying to steal
their sleeping horses.  I'm not sure
if you can smell in dreams, but I remember
smelling manure and smoke and something else.
Maybe the coming of rain.  My dad and Duke
didn't talk, just forked golden crescents
into their mouths, looking as if they were eating
solar eclipse after solar eclipse.  Their forks
made hollow cowbell noises in the dark.
When they were done, they tipped the cans
to their lips, drank the syrup inside
until it ran down their chins.  I kept
waiting for something more to happen,
a runaway stagecoach to crash through
or a baby elephant nosing for hay.
Instead, my dad took a deck of cards
from his pocket, started dealing.
They played gin rummy, hand after hand.
My dad let John Wayne win, because he was
John Wayne and because that's what
my dad did every morning with my mother
for years and years.  He did it because
it was a habit of love.  Maybe that's the name
of this movie:  Habit of Love.  It starts out
simply enough.  Two cards.  Dealt face up.
The king and queen of hearts.

December 3: Birthday Party, Classic Saint Marty, "Age of Miracles"

Today, we are having a birthday party for my daughter.  On Tuesday, she will turn 17 years old.  That makes me . . . ancient.

In about an hour, people will start to descend on my home.  I spent a few hours last night cleaning.  This afternoon, it's all about final preparations.  Frosting the cake.  Clearing off the dining room and kitchen tables.  Setting out plates and silverware.  Going out and buying some pop (that's soda to you non-Michiganders). 

It will be a good afternoon, full of laughter and good-natured teasing.  My beautiful daughter will smile and accept the attention, for once.  Generally, she avoids being in the center of any gathering.  She prefers to lurk in the corner, hiding behind her red hair.

A Classic Saint Marty from two years ago, where I was trying to come to terms with being the father of a 15-year-old . . .

December 5, 2015:  A Good Son, Daughter's Fifteenth Birthday, Peter Thabit Jones, "Birthday Walk"

He prayed for a good son, and when he was born named him Robert, after his adoptive father.

Ives lives for his family.  Nothing is more important to him.  His wife, Annie.  His son and daughter, Robert and Caroline.  They give his life meaning and joy.  His favorite times are going on walks with his kids, holding their hands at busy intersections.  Jumping in the car and taking day trips to upstate New York, sight-seeing and dreaming of homes with gabled roofs and gardens.  Ives starts planning for his happily-ever-after the day his son is born.

Today is my daughter's fifteenth birthday.  A decade and a half ago, at 7:29 a.m., she came screaming into this world, pink as a summer sunrise.  Up to that moment, I wasn't sure about being a father.  I thought of myself as a basically selfish person, unwilling to give up my late evenings with friends, movies every weekend, short and long trips with my wife.  No strings tying me down.

And then I held my daughter for the first time, and I felt my heart cracking open like the San Andreas Fault.  I had no idea that my life had been missing something.  She was beautiful, smiling and calm, for the most part.  I didn't mind changing her diapers.  At bath time, we would sing songs and splash each other.  Halloween was candier.  Christmas was brighter.  The world was, somehow, larger and smaller at the same time.

So, today, I celebrate my daughter.  Fifteen years young.  Dancer.  Flutist.  Singer.  Gamer.  Sulker.  Eye-roller.  Early Christmas present.  My wife will be battling the bell ringers and Christmas crowds this afternoon to finish our birthday shopping.  Tomorrow afternoon, we will have cake and ice cream after church.

Now, if Saint Marty could just get her to make her bed...

Birthday Walk

by:  Peter Thabit Jones

Walking the dazzling rim
Of the Pacific,
The Grecian-blue sea
And mythological rocks,
I feel the mortal
And sense the eternal.

I am a child
At the window of wonder,
A man spellbound
By a living prayer.

To begin
To imagine
Just one breath of God
Is to attempt
To place a tiger
On the back of an ant.

I stand and I watch
The ocean
Making love
To the humbled bay.


And a poem for this birthday party day . . .

Age of Miracles

by:  Martin Achatz

My daughter has reached that age

when her body unfurls

gospels of growth all night,

psalms filled with arm, leg, hair, sweat,

breath staled by the tilt

from girl to woman.  She will soon

inherit gifts.  Blood.  Ovum.  Creation.

Then she will be lost to me.  Gone

on a long journey across desert, mountain,

to a distant Bethlehem.

This December, she tells my wife

she doesn’t believe in caribou

flying over glacier, tundra.  Questions

things like seraphim choirs,

kingdoms at the North Pole,

donkeys that sing “Dona nobis pacem”

on the winter solstice.  I know,

she says, nods as if she’s accomplice

to some divine conspiracy theory.

So I write her this poem

about last Friday, when twenty inches

of snow fell in Cairo, Alexandria,

Jerusalem.  Brought the entire Middle East

a silence it hadn’t heard in 112 years.

Children in refugee camps danced

in the blizzard, made rosefinches

with ice bodies, palm frond wings.

No bombs.  No bullets.  Just white.

Everywhere.  White upon white.

From the Mediterranean to the Mount of Olives.

It’s a miracle, little girl,

like the smell of baked ham and cloves

on Christmas Eve, or the sound

of your first breath

the morning you were born.

September 24: Birthday Party, Richard Brautigan, "Storm Over Fallon"

Monday is my son's eighth birthday, and my wife has insisted on throwing a party at the local bowling alley for him and his friends.  That means buying cake and ice cream, sending out invitations, worrying that nobody is going to show up, assembling gift bags.  It has been an ongoing assault for about three or four weeks.

Today, we have to take care of last-minute details.  Pick up the cake.  Stuff gift bags.  I've never understood the whole idea of giving presents to every child that shows up for a birthday party.  I would like to know what brilliant parent came up with that idea.  In my day, the highlights of going to a friend's birthday party were the cake and ice cream.  I didn't expect to receive any present for attending.

Yet, my wife and I cave to the modern practice of gift bags for my son's friends and cousins, because that's what is expected.  And we don't want my son to be known as a birthday party loser.

 It is now the Twelve Days until Saint Marty's Day.  Sing along:  "On the first day of Saint Marty, my true love gave to meeeee . . ."

Storm Over Fallon

by:  Richard Brautigan

Thunder roared
across the sky
like the voice
of an angry man.

Rain started falling,
slowly at first,
then faster and faster,
and louder and louder.

The man became silent.

The voices of the rain
chattered like
little children
at a birthday party.

Saint Marty's Day in Rome

May 17: Trying to Work, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

I'm trying to concentrate.  Trying to get work done.  I've played for a worship service this morning.  Cleaned two bathrooms.  Now, I'm sitting down to get this post done.  Tonight, I'm going to work on my nature essay and read a book for my upcoming book club meeting.  Problem is, I can barely keep my eyes open at the moment.

Just drifted for a moment.  It's been a long, busy weekend.  Late nights.  Chorale concert.  House cleaning.  Tonight, a birthday party for my sister.  If I'm still conscious after I get my son to bed, my plan is to sit down and write.  Something.  Anything.

Sorry, just drifted again.  Maybe I should just give in for a little while.  Close my eyes and . . . float until dinner.

Today's episode of Classic Saint Marty first aired almost three years ago.

May 23, 2012:   A Cousin Rant, Jealousy, Ugly Side

Yesterday at work, someone attached the newspaper clipping below to the refrigerator door:

Yes, the gentleman in the center of the picture is my famous cousin, Grant, who has won some kind of James Beard Award.  Again.  One of my friends at work said to me, "The James Beard Award.  Isn't that like the Nobel Prize for chefs?"

I will not, in this post, drag my famous cousin through the mud.  He is famous for a reason.  He's a genius chef.  He's a millionaire.  He was named one of People magazine's sexiest men alive.  He got mouth cancer.  He almost lost his tongue.  He didn't lose his tongue.  He survived mouth cancer.  He wrote a memoir about surviving mouth cancer.  He just opened up another restaurant, and it's even more successful than his first restaurant.  And now he's just received another accolade from the James Beard Foundation.  I salute my famous cousin.

Yes, I do have an ugly side to my personality.  I'm a little prone to jealousy.  I tend to make fun of people whom I really envy.  I make disparaging remarks about their successes or looks or personalities.  I do everything I can to shift the spotlight to myself, including being mean, cruel, vindictive, and, above all, funny.  I mean, yeah, Grant has a great story.  The whole mouth cancer thing is worthy of an Oscar-winning film starring Meryl Streep as my cousin.  (Hey, she's already played Julia Child, for God's sake.)  But, c'mon.  Another James Beard Award?!

I'm done.  I promise.  I will not say another word about Grant Achatz.  In this blog.  Today.  I'm not jealous.  I think he deserves all the success he has achieved.  I admire his good looks.  They run in the family.  I, myself, will one day receive the "Sexiest Blogger Alive" award from the crew at Blogger.

Grant Achatz has nothing on Saint Marty.  Except millions of dollars.  And international fame.  And bestselling cookbooks.  And five-star restaurants.  Aside from that, they're pretty much the same.

Confessions of Saint Marty

December 13: The End of a Long Day, Birthday Party, Hilaire Belloc, "Lines for a Christmas Card," New Cartoon

"Perhaps," [Charlotte] said, wearily.  "But I feel like the end of a long day."  Clinging upside down to the ceiling, she settled down for a nap, leaving Wilbur very much worried.

Charlotte is nearing the end in the above passage.  She has only a few days left to live.  Her job of saving Wilbur's life is almost complete.  She is weary, fading.

I'm fading tonight, but not because I've just spun a web or made an egg sac.  I'm fading because I am exhausted.  Last week's activities are catching up with me.  Of course, the glass of wine I just drank isn't helping, either.

It's been a busy day.  We had a birthday party for my daughter this afternoon.  It was for my wife's side of the family.  It was a lovely, low-key celebration.  We sat around, eating cake and ice cream, telling stories and laughing.  And then I went to my parents' house and put up Christmas decorations.  Oh, I also played the organ for a Saturday evening Mass.  I got back home a little after 8 p.m., turned on the TV, and promptly dozed off on the couch for about an hour.

I feel a little refreshed now.  A little.  I'm totally ready for bed.

But first I owe you a Christmas poem and a new cartoon.

Saint Marty always makes good on his obligations.

Lines for a Christmas Card

by:  Hilaire Belloc

May all my enemies go to hell,
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel

Confessions of Saint Marty

 































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July 6: Birthday Party, Classic Saint Marty, New Cartoon

Welcome to my Sunday afternoon.  In a little while, I will be going to my nephew's birthday party.  He's three years old, and the party is being held at the local children's museum.  Two floors of interactive displays, turtle and snake tanks, and noise.  Lots of noise.

It will be fun for my son and daughter.  They love the place.  And it will be good to see all the family.  The only occasions for which we really get together are birthdays, Thanksgivings, and Christmases.  Easter is hit or miss.  Halloween, we stop by some family houses for candy and pictures.  So, we will get caught up on all the gossip and news today.

Today's Classic Saint Marty comes from two years ago.  There's a little trick to reading it.  Start with the final sentence of the post and work backward.  It will make sense then.  I promise.

July 6, 2012:  Backward Reading, Catching Up, Beginning

Finger lickin' good

He wants to eat it.  Saint Marty doesn't want to meditate on Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I'm still hungry.  I think it's a crock of shit.  By going through this meditation, the craving is supposed to dissipate.  Afterward, think about being finished eating the food.  Every little bite.  Then, go through the whole process, in your mind, of eating the food.  The article said to think about the food, all the details of taste and smell and texture.  I'm a little hungry right now, but I read an article recently about how to deal with cravings.

I just really want to be able to take a big, deep breath before the craziness of tomorrow.  It's an indoor pool, so I don't have to worry about the weather.  It would be nice to kick back and relax, though.  That's only if I can get the housekeeping done first.  I'm hoping to be able to go swimming with my daughter and son, as well.  I'm doing my normal Friday tasks--grocery shopping and cleaning the house.

My day has gotten a little less stressful, even if my poet friend is as directionally-challenged as I am.  (That was a joke.)  At least, if I run out of gas in the middle of the wilderness, I'll have a food source.  Well, I got in touch with my poet friend, and she's going to be driving with me tomorrow to the poetry panels.

It doesn't have to make sense.  If it doesn't hold together, think of this little exercise as language poetry.  I'm not sure if what I write is going to make a lot of sense.  Therefore, with this blog post, I'm going to start at the ending and work my way backwards to the beginning.  It always seems like I'm trying to play catch up, all day long.

Confessions of Saint Marty

April 21: Playing Organ, Birthday Party, New Cartoon

I like playing the pipe organ.  I like the instrument--its sounds and mechanics.  I've been playing the organ for close to 30 years at two different churches.  Recently, I have been filling in for the senior organist at the United Methodist Church.  The senior organist had a heart attack and a stroke last week; she's was sick the week before, and, the week before that, she was on a trip to Maryland or something.  That's three weeks thus far.

I never aspired to be a church organist.  It just sort of happened.  I learned on the job.  I remember the first Mass I played at Saint John's in my home tome over 27 years ago.  It was simple.  Four standard hymns, no liturgical music.  Quick and easy.  I got sick to my stomach before I sat down to play.

I don't get physically ill any more when I play the organ.  I get nervous.  I make mistakes.  But I don't vomit.  Haven't in years.  I've played for bishops and at cathedrals.  I've played funerals and weddings, first communions and Easter Vigils.  I've never played for a cardinal yet.  If I was asked to play for the pope, I'd probably blow some chunks.  Aside from that, nothing rattles me too much.

I'm going to be filling in for the senior organist for a while.  She's in physical and speech therapy now.  About the only thing that causes me stress is playing anthems for the chancel choir.  That music is complicated and requires hours of practice.  At the moment, I don't have hours to practice.  I'm going to have to find them, somehow.

Yes, playing the pipe organ is one of my favorite things, even if it causes me some anxiety. 

No more anxiety for me today, however.  It's my sister's birthday, so my wife is cooking dinner for her.  It will be a good time.  My kids will eat cake and ice cream.  They'll probably fight with each other, and my son or daughter will end up crying.  Good times will be had by all.

Saint Marty is ready for some good times.

Confessions of Saint Marty

November 30: Can't Afford, Idle People, P.O.E. Day

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge.  "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.  I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry.  I help to support the establishments I have mentioned:  they cost enough:  and those who are badly off must go there."

I understand how Scrooge feels in the above passage.  I don't want to be around people.  I've had a pretty crappy day, and I want everyone dead at the moment.  Idle people.  Merry people.  Fat people. Skinny people.  I'm not discriminating here.  Like Scrooge, I wish to be left alone.

Today is traditionally P.O.E.T.S. Day.  That stands for Piss On Everything Tomorrow's Saturday.  For this week only, however, I'm proclaiming this Friday to be P.O.E. Day.  Piss On Everything Day.  I don't want to do anything but go to bed tonight.  I don't want to type this blog.  I don't want to drive my daughter to the birthday party she's been invited to attend.  I don't want to give my son his bath.  The name says it all:  piss on everything.

Everybody goes through moods like this.  There are reasons behind my crappy attitude.  I don't want to discuss those reasons right now.  I'm cashing in my Scrooge bucks.  If you meet me, don't talk to me.  If you have my phone number, don't call.  If you're tempted to send me a personal e-mail, don't do it.  I find it best to follow my instincts here, and my instincts tell me to have as little human interaction as possible.

Maybe Saint Marty will talk about what's on his mind in a future post.  Or not.  He needs to go to his safe place for a little while.



Even Dickens had bad days



July 5: Presents and Parties and Fireworks, Oh My!

Yes, you read correctly.  I did include the word "fireworks" as part of my title, yet again.  You see, last night, the July 4th fireworks got cancelled due to the rain.  (My wife and daughter also got drenched and had to huddle under a tree during a lightning storm.)  Therefore, the fireworks are rescheduled for tonight.  As of an hour or so ago, things look like they're on track.  After 5 p.m., there is a 0% chance of precipitation in the forecast.

The problem now is that we have to go to a birthday party this evening, as well.  That kind of sucks.  The temperature is pushing ninety degrees, and the last thing I want to do is go to a house filled with sweaty people and sing "Happy Birthday."  It's for my nephew's 18th birthday, and he has officially reached the "all he wants is cash" stage.  Frankly, when kids reach that stage, I reach the "I only want to send a card" stage.  However, I will dutifully show up at my sister-in-law's house; watch my nephew open his envelopes of cash like a scene out of one of the Godfather films; and then see my nephew disappear with his friends to spend his newly acquired cash.

The party itself will be hot and uncomfortable, unless it's held in the backyard.  If it is held in the backyard, I'll guarantee that my son will end up stepping in a pile of dog crap.  At t the very least, I'm hoping for some barbecued bratwurst.  It's the only thing that will salvage the entire affair for me.

Then, at dusk, my wife, daughter, son, and I will be sitting on a blanket, which will still be damp from yesterday's deluge, and watch the fireworks.  My son's first fireworks.  Hopefully, I will be able to get all the dog crap off his shoe by the time of the rocket's red glare.

Saint Marty is trying to remain positive.

Oh-oh, say can you see...