Day 290 - Jedi Ninja

Nedi Jinja

1986 was a notable year for a number of reasons...

I had a fairly new job in IT, as a Trainee Systems Programmer...I was married, with a car, a house and a cat. 

The cat was a stray my mum had adopted, then become wary of after it bit her.  I took him on, and he was so awesome I didn't even have to name him - he was simply The Cat. 

He behaved like a dog in many ways.  If I walked to the petrol station 100m up the road to buy a pack of cigarettes, he'd walk up with me, and sit outside, waiting patiently for me to walk back home with him.

Whenever I arrived home, I would whistle and within 5 or 10 minutes he'd be home, poking the letterbox in the front door, knowing this would prompt us to let him in.

We lived on a dual carriageway, and for reasons I can't now fathom, I wasn't at all worried that he'd get run over...I think I just thought he was too cool to be anything other than immortal...

Alas, one day (8th June, as I recall), I whistled him upon arriving home, and 5 minutes later there was a (human) knock on the door...I answered it to find a worried looking lady asked me if I had a black and white cat...

He'd been hit crossing the road to come home to my whistle, and his back was broken.  

I carried him home, and within another 5 minutes he died in my arms...I was gutted, and writing this, I realise I still am, to some degree.

How I loved that Cat.

The same year, continuing the practical module of my ongoing education in mortality, a colleague died on my arm at work one day.

He was a Kenyan named Subash, and he'd been overseeing my technical development...these days we'd call it mentoring or some such, I guess.  Despite being African, Subash spoke with a markedly eastern accent, similar to Indian...I liked him a lot.

He was in his mid 40's I suppose, and he'd long been ill with heart issues of some kind.

One day he wasn't feeling well and we decided to take him to hospital...I walked him out of the office and along the corridor towards the exit, when he suddenly grabbed my arm tight and went down on one knee.  I realised he was collapsing, and lowered him to the ground.  

I ran to get my boss, who tried to revive him, but he died there and then, of a heart attack.  I had the strongest sense that he was tired of struggling and suffering with ill health, and he didn't even fight it. 

When Death came calling, Subash just opened up the door and invited him right in. 

It seemed to me then, and still seems now, an entirely reasonable choice under the circumstances.

It was, however, quite a shock to my system - seeing human death so up close and personal. 

Those two dramatic and traumatic experiences left my world somewhat reeling...

Yet unbeknownst to me, a little later that year, a doomed experiment to create a Jedi Ninja was initiated by our Evil Alien Overlords...

It's not clear exactly what went wrong, but rumours suggest that the Jedi mind tricks were simply too powerful a force for his lithe Ninja physique to contain.

Nobody knows whether the mind broke the body, or the body broke the mind...

But in any case, all that remains is the Raving Matt Man, entrapped in an urban cage...unable to go out for fear of the devastation his Jedi mind tricks could cause, and refusing to be photographed for fear of coming to the attention of the Evil Alien Overlords, thus reminding them of the need to terminate their failed experiment.

This evening, we went to visit the Matt Man to collect the latest data samples, exactly 28 years after inception...but as imprisoned as he is, his Jedi Ninja skills still help him evade our every attempt.

Reasoned questions invariably run into the brick wall of the just because argument...

And just try to photograph him...somehow his Ninja speed enables him to blur the light around his hands and face, thus obscuring his visage and rendering his image unidentifiable and untraceable.

Nice moves, Matt...

;-)

Day 269 - Ode to Jazz

RIP JazzyB

This evening, we bade farewell to our lovely old boy Jazz, with a little remembrance ceremony up in the woods he so loved.

I carved his name into a tree, just below the carving I made for his brother, late last year...we lit a candle, and crouched in the fading light, weeping as we reminisced over JazzyB, the happiest, friendliest dog you could wish to meet. 

slippery

Sprinkling some ashes (to join with his brother in nurturing this fine old tree), we told tales that reminded us how much we love and miss him...so many tales...

Anna wrote and read these lovely words, which somehow get to the heart of who Jazz was...

Ode To Jazz   By Anna, aged 34

our boys

My Jazzy boy

When I first met Jazz, I found it hard to tell him apart from his brother. I chose to distinguish them, initially, on physical characteristics. Think of stiff legs, a tucked in tail, submissive posture, noisy snuffle when playing 'hunt the treat', and you have Jazz...but also think of a dog that was so gentle, so pleased to see people and loved to demonstrate this by bringing you the oldest, smelliest slipper he could find and it'll bring a big smile to your face when you think of the real Jazz!

Jazz lived up to his name! He was the life and soul of the party, mostly because the party had lots of food and he wanted to be in the middle of it...but also 'cos he loved everybody and everybody loved Jazz, how could you not? If we took him for a walk in the woods he'd launch himself into any pond or water body he could find. Sometimes without even checking if there was any water in it first! Then he'd find a scrappy old stick and carry it all the way home, all the while being super impressed with himself.

Jazz would be happy with you, he'd be excited with you, he'd chill out with you and he'd be sad with you. Jazz loved company and he especially loved Tony. Jazz was Tony's shadow. If Tony was sat in his chair, Jazz would be lying by his feet...unless I was in the kitchen cooking dinner!

Jazz had this uncanny ability to fall asleep on anything, anywhere...quite often with his eyes open, with his head hanging off the edge of the sofa, snoring. Sometimes he did the same things whilst awake, cos who cares, right? Even Loz didn't mind as they would often curl up on the sofa side by side, tails touching.

Jazz didn't bark much, that was Bluez' job. Jazz was smart, he'd just join in when it really mattered...or otherwise barely raise an eyebrow.  "No need to move from this comfy spot just yet, is there? No, didn't think so...Bluez is onto it...I'll wait here for a bit, see how things pan out".

Sometimes Jazz would just know what you were thinking. It's like some kind of mind meld; it was surreal and I loved it!

All food was Jazz's favourite and to Jazz, all people were brilliant.  But only now do I really understand why Jazz and Tony were best mates...it's because they both live life to the same mantra:

"everything can be improved with cheese"

Thanks for being my awesome Jazzy boy.

me and jaybles

Day 263 - Mobius Loop

deadmau5

Much as I love the cats, the constant death gets wearing by the time September comes around.

This is the cutest little baby mouse that was dumped unceremoniously by the back door this evening, by the Killer Queen herself. 

There was another one at the top of the stairs, by our bedroom door, so I guess this one was left out as a warning to the others...kinda like Omar's boyfriend in Season One of The Wire.

Have you seen The Wire?  Best TV show ever...in fact it's an insult to call it a TV show. 

Although set in Bodymore, Murderland (Baltimore, Maryland), it's Dickensian in its keen wit and sharp societal observation, epic in terms of both scope and drama, and packed with some of the best characters ever written...

There's Omar of course, and Bubbles, and McNulty and Bunk...Avon and Stringer Bell, Prop Joe and Cheese...Ziggy and Prez, Herc and Carver and Kima, Daniels, Rawls and Burrell...D'Angelo and Brodie and Poot and Wee-Bey and Wallace...

Not forgetting Slim Charles, Cutty, Marlo, Bunny, Carcetti, Snoop and Freamon.

Oh man, what a great show, I'm so nostalgic for it. 

Going full circle, who remembers the episode where a drunken Bunk is recounting the tale of how his wife had called him home because there was a mouse in the closet?   Bunk ended up shooting the poor little thing with his service handgun (and taking out one of his wife's shoes in the process)...

Now I think about it, that's where I got the line above from, the one about leaving it out as a warning to the others.

How odd that this post has gone on such a curiously circuitous route, only to end up folding back in on itself....from dead mouse to The Wire to The Wire to a dead mouse...it's like one of those endless mobius strips, looping in on itself into infinity.

Best not go back to the beginning and start reading again - you could be here until eternity...and whilst this blog can provide a moment's fleeting amusement now and then, there's definitely not enough substance to last you forever.

Just don't do it...

:-/

Day 260 - In Remembrance

jazz pots

Having bought some memorial plants for Bluez, today we went shopping for something similar for Jazz...

We wandered around our local gardening centre looking for inspiration, and in the process discovered that, for some reason, in our heads, where Bluez was blue and green, Jazz is red and orange...warm colours for the endlessly loving being that he was.

I'm not generally very interested in flowers, but Fuschia is one I know and like...when we happened upon them they immediately seemed right to both of us...

And curiously, I don't know many trees either, but Rhus is one I'm both familiar with and fond of...its leaves turn a glorious orangey-red at certain times of year...and when we found a few small ones in pots, we were both immediately happy to have one to match Bluez' Rowan.

So we found a couple of nice pots in warm earth colours and brought them home.  We'll plant them in their new pots, complete with a sprinkling of Jazz-ash, when we have a little ceremony for the old boy in a week or so.

With Bluez we had our funeral ritual within a week or two of his death...with Jazz, it's taken a lot longer...I'm not going to analyse that to work out why - it is what it is, and these things happen in their own good time. 

For now, suffice to say that we still miss him keenly, every day...the plants (both Jazz and Bluez') will come with us when we move home, and we'll plant them as a permanent memorial to two of the best friends we ever had. 


In other news, it's the end of August!

I've been thinking about how the fitness training and Font preparation has come on, especially since realising how tired I've become as the month has drawn to a close. 

I had a look back at how much I've done over the last 31 days:

• Number of climbing sessions = 6
• Number of Pull-up Challenge sessions = 11
• Number of Push-up Challenge sessions = 4
• Number of Tai Chi sessions = approx 15.
• Number of non-rest days = 26

I don't think I've lost any weight, and I may even have put some on (although I don't trust my scales at all, so I'm not really sure)...but I do feel that I'm stronger and overall in much better shape. 

I'm fairly pleased with all of that, and I reckon I've earned a bit of an easier time over the next couple of weeks...I certainly won't get an easier time at work, but I'll ease up on the exercise and let my body recover a little.

Recovery certainly takes longer than it used to, as you get older...I probably shouldn't have waited until I was in in my mid-40's before I started doing any sort of exercise!

Still, I think I'm in reasonable shape for a 50 year old...I'm even considering doing the Insanity Workout 60 Day Challenge in the New Year...more on that in due course!

Otherwise, it's been a somewhat dramatic and fairly stressful month:

• Traumatic times for my nephew and his family...
• The constant frustration and disruption of the drainage contractors saga...
• Dealing with the loss of Jazz, and missing him every single day...
• Learning to live with no dogs at all, and realising how wrong that is...
• Busy and difficult issues at work for both of us...
• Skateboarding accidents...
• Annoying telecomms supplier issues...

But alongside all that, there's been lots of good stuff too:

• Learning Tai Chi...
• Meeting random dogs here and there...
• Sticking with the Pull-up Challenge...
• Chris making miraculous strides in his recovery...
• Bouldering lots...
• Meeting some very old trees...
• Fun on skateboards...
• Deciding to buy a new house...
• Getting fitter and stronger...
• Receiving a bunch of cool new 2117 clothes (absolute bargain!)...
• Starting to look for a new dog...
• Paying off all my debts...

On balance, it's been a typically hectic, mournful, active, stressful, chilled, engaging, sore, positive, sad, frustrating, painful and happy month!

Here's to a new one, starting tomorrow...

Do you remember?

;-)

Day 233 - Death By Cat

deadvol3

Cats are great and all, but they do have a bad habit of assuming you want the same things that they do. 

Anna was away overnight, so I got up and fed the cats before work this morning.  They were both hassling for breakfast, and once I put their bowls down, they went after it with gusto.

Not five minutes later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a cat wretching, and found Loz being sick in the doorway to the lounge.  I shooed her outside and set about cleaning it up.

Not five minutes later again, and I sat in my chair briefly to have a slurp of coffee...as I turned round to stand up, I found this poor, dead little vole slumped on the carpet behind me...

No cat to be seen.  

Picking him up, it was immediately obvious that he was very freshly dead.  As I took him out to the garden (for the crows), there was Loz, back on the hunt again around the borders of the lawn. 

She must have gone out and chanced upon the vole, and quickly taken it...as it was an easy kill, she then decided to present it to me before nipping out to pick up another one...

I know she's just a cat being a cat, and that the local vole population remains as healthy as ever, despite Loz's voracious kill rate...but I still feel bad every time, and rescue them when I can. 

It was too late for this little one...if it's any consolation, at least in death it provided me with a photo of the day (once my brain kicked into gear).

Voles are the most common prey for Loz, but there have occasionally been more impressive (sort of) kills.

Once or twice she's brought a baby rabbit home, looking immensely pleased with herself.

And one memorable day two years ago, I got home to find spots of blood here and there on the carpet, and this very dead weasel in the middle of the rug in the lounge...

deadweeze1

Weasels commonly take prey such as large rabbits, many times their size...they're ferocious warriors - it must have been quite a battle!

Beautiful animal, in any case...I still have guilty pangs about his unfortunate demise...

Still, the price of every life, and all that...

:-/

Day 217 - Goodbye, My Friend

the legend

Two hours ago, the legend that is JazzyB - our friend, my faithful companion for the last 13 years - had to take his leave, and say farewell to us for the last time.

He's been on his last legs for a few months, and old age has been rapidly catching up with him...tonight, suddenly, his time came, and once more I had to make that painful decision, and let him go play with his brother Bluez in the Big Meadow in the Sky...

My boy Jazzer was always the smartest and most insightful of dogs...he knew it was his time, and he accepted and maybe even welcomed it...

But we're distraught, and have much grieving to do...I'm gutted...

RIP JazzyB, I love you buddy...

See you and Bluez again in the next world...don't be late...

:-(

Day 212 - Life in Death

 broiling insect ecosystem

Whilst wandering in the meadow down the lane this evening, we came across this gruesome hive of activity. 

The dead sheep is piled in a mound of manure that's been left in the field, and was a writhing mass of maggots, beetles, flies and who knows what else.

In this case, it seemed like the close up image was not going to be particularly palatable, so I didn't bother...and I'd probably advise not clicking on the photo to see it in more detail.

The shepherd seems to do this - just leave a dead sheep lying around in the field to rot away.  I don't know whether there's any purpose to it, but I've seen it before.

It's not very pleasant, I know, and I'm sorry to subject you to it...but it does make an interesting addition to my ongoing dead animal series, and it's not every day you come across a dead sheep!

Without human intervention, this would happen all the time, and is part of the natural order of life...it's fair to say that this carcass alone is supporting a diverse colony of life of myriad form and number...death always feeds new life, when allowed to...

It's curious (or maybe not, but it is interesting at least) to note that the closer a non-human animal is in size and shape to a human, the more we find its death disturbing, upsetting or simply distasteful.

Nobody cared about the dead giant woodlouse thing I found by the sea, and nobody thought much about the dead pigeon whose foot featured a while ago. 

But there has been much concern about merely the possibility of the death of Frankie the horse...and I anticipate that the image above will be treated with an element of upset...poor lamb. 

I somehow doubt if anyone would be particularly concerned if we now burnt this carcass, brutally slaughtering whole colonies of beetles and maggots in the process...

And yet, the price of life is the same for all of us, animal or plant (human or not)...and the price is precisely one death. 

No living thing can avoid the inevitability of this debt, which must in all cases be paid in full, upon completion. 

So I suppose it's understandable (and acceptable), that death should crop up every now and then on my blog.

We should neither shy away from it, nor glorify it, nor turn it into something wrong, taboo or distasteful...

...but we should always remember that every other living being, no matter how big or small, is worth exactly the same as each of us...one life.

As we value our own lives, so we should afford the same respect and concern for all life. 

Hmm, that one went off in an unusual direction...I'll shut up now!

Peace, out...

B-)

Day 181 - Friday Night Light

me tree

I think I've spotted a bit of a Friday night trend...my blog posts are a little, shall we say, light...

Not in tone, but in content and quality.  By Friday evening, I'm often tired, especially mentally...my brain can feel so woolly and vacant I find it hard to put a coherent sentence on the digital page.   More often than not, I've had to go food shopping after work, or maybe mowed the lawns...or maybe both...and walked the dog and looked for a photo, of course...

As in the case of this evening, when I've done all of the above, I've sometimes just run out of steam.

It's just as well that very few read Friday nights blog post!

Earlier, whilst mowing the lawns, I realised that I'm in something of a blue funk tonight.   A fog of melancholy seems to be following me round like a little black cloud...I seem to be surrounded by reminders of the fragility of life.

...someone I used to know, my age, died suddenly earlier this week...

...in the six months since my boy Bluez left us, his brother Jazz has aged markedly, and seems increasingly frail...he's had a difficult day today...

...a colleague is anxiously watching over a poorly spouse in Myton Hospice...my thoughts are with her...

...we are a few short weeks away from the tenth anniversary of the time when I stepped out of the world for a while (also at Myton), to walk with my sister Debs to the very edge of this life, to try to see her safely on her way to the next...it was a tragic, profound, wonderful experience, that suddenly seems closer than it has for years...


I've been meaning to get a photo of this tree for a while now, and tonight seemed like the night...

For some reason it reminds me of me...perhaps it's that it's tall and gangly, a bit ragged around the edges, and looks as though it's seen a few things in its time, and is sometimes weary as a result...

The evening was grey and overcast, so the light was poor, but it seemed to suit my mood.

Turning around, I was struck by the rays of pale sunlight filtering through the grey, troubled sky...it felt like a metaphor for something, although I'm not quite sure what...and I'm not trying too hard to work it out, as I'm wary of allowing my sombre vibes to twist more gloom into a brightening scene.

It seems far more likely to mean something spiritual and uplifting, so I will try to get back to it when I'm less tired, and a little less emotionally raw...

Actually no, I'm going to deal with it now...it's just hit me - it's the bright, warm light of the next world, tearing through the veil of this world, to welcome those that we call the departed, but they'll call new arrivals...

It's where I last saw Debs...

:'(

Day 101 - Restless Tides

purple with shiny bits

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun.
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides.
That it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth reclaims your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran


This small jar of nail varnish belonged to my big sister, Debs. 

Debs died of (complications arising from) breast cancer 10 years ago, give or take a couple of months.  It wasn't a sudden death, and Debs had time to plan a little, and to make some final requests.  

One such request was that people should not wear black to her funeral.  Debs was a little flamboyant in her dress sense, and often dressed from head to foot in a single bright colour...orange and blue (with sequins and shiny stuff, natch) seemed to be common favourites. 

For her funeral, then, it must have seemed a wonderful opportunity to pull everyone else into the game, and so she insisted that everyone must wear something pink!

Being well known and much loved, Debs funeral was indeed very well attended by several hundred "mourners", and the packed-to-overflowing church was a sea of pink hats and shoes, pink scarves and socks, pink flowers, wreaths, bouquets and blouses...

For my part, I had nothing pink to wear(!), so I went and found Debs big box of nail varnish, always full of a whole rainbow of colours, and requisitioned a couple of jars. 

This purple jar for some reason reminded me of her at the time. 

I also took a jar of bright electric pink, and painted a single dot on the little finger nail of my left hand, as a symbol of my love and respect for her.

At the funeral, I (somehow) read the beautiful words above.   I'm not religious, but I do have strong spiritual tendencies.   I find these words immensely spiritual - they have a profound depth that makes me dizzy and brings tears to my eyes.

Struggling to hold myself together enough to cope with not only the intense grief of my loss, but also the raw, piercing beauty of these words was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do...and yet I remember being so happy and honoured to have the opportunity to read this aloud, at that time, to that audience.  

And equally, I remember being angry and upset when the Minister followed the reading with, "Well, of course, he didn't really mean that your soul goes straight to God, because as we know, the only way to God is through Jesus Christ, our saviour...".

I wanted to get up and shout, "No, has it occurred to you that he said what he meant, and meant what he said?!   We are free to commune directly with God, no intermediary is required!"...

But of course, it was Debs funeral, and otherwise much more pink and upbeat than you'd generally expect...so, I bit my tongue, and swallowed my pride, and let it go, as I felt Debs would prefer. 

Anyway, for several years afterwards, on the anniversary of her death, or on her birthday, I wore the same bright pink dot on my pinky finger nail. 

Sadly I eventually lost the jar (I think it's in a box or a drawer somewhere), but the purple jar sits on my desk to this day.

This morning, reading a sad obituary of a climbing legend who has just died, I came across these words again, and it all came flooding back.

So Debs is on my mind again...10 years...where did it go?  I can't believe it's ten years since I last spoke to her...since that conversation, a couple of days before she died, when she needed me to tell her that it was ok for her to let go now...

So much has happened that I wish Debs could have seen, that I'd love to tell her about. 

Perhaps I will tell her myself, one day, when I melt into the sun, and truly dance...


For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and melt into the sun.
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides.

That it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth reclaims your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Kahlil Gibran