There's a man at the doctor who complains of his sudden urges where he will start singing at the top of his lungs. Hmmm... the doctor says, it sounds like Tom Jones syndrome. The man asks if it is very common.
The doctor sings: it's not unusual. Today the Netherlands have a new King. Long live the King, strange to say King, it has been 130 years of female rule. Koning Prins Willem Alexander van Oranje, his birthday is April 27th, 1967. A year and a day after mine. He has a beautiful wife, 3 daughters, and his own kingdom. No sense in comparing myself to the Jones but I too have my own kingdom, 2 dogs and 2 tractors. Suck on that Willem! The Dutch national color is orange, so therefore this. Long live the king. More unusual things: my mother and step mother here at the same time. Unusual. The toilet paper inventory management has to be adjusted, pronto, and oops, or maybe I should have gotten up sooner. And then this, I have never in my 47 years of dreaming, dreamt a smell. I was dreaming, snoozing if you may, and I smelled garlic, fresh roasting garlic. I was sleeping in the bus, no garlic around, no one baking it, and I swear my olfactory glands sent the signal. Color, sounds, feelings, flying, swimming in dreams, sure, but a smell? Joey calls to ask if I want to buy any day old Cornish Cross meat birds. The husband of the milk lady had made a trade: 1600 day old chicks for something. Delivery: now. His wife can't be too happy with that deal. Oh no, doghouse! Those things are voracious eaters, they need everything, and they need it now. Talk about highly perishable goods. And shit, I can just see where this is going... Just what I don't want to mess with: more chicks, bet they are cheap and, most unusual, the longer you wait the more expensive they will be to buy. The weather.... not unusual, just screwed up. 88 and T-shirt weather today, and Thursday, drizzle and 50. Steve Wood, he who could, sent me the coolest birthday present in the mail: a Coleman lamp, made in April 1966, it has a glass light cover and it arrived in one piece. Seriously impressively packaged. Thanks. The greenhouse management is a big challenge for me these days, there are piles of transplants, and they look really good. But with the sun coming in and out it can go from 50 to 100 degrees in a couple of hours. Watering is critical, and yesterday it slipped some some and all was wilted to a pulp. I tried to mask my incompetence by blaming others for not paying attention, but no, manning up, biting the bullet, instant watering and praying and bettering my life. They did perk up, but the water stress inducement will cause plants to bolt very quickly now. Roger came by out of the blue and has been working on the little cabin. Shows up from Columbia with a truck full of tools, and he just settles in and starts hammering and cleaning away. First night he moved in, it will never be a Hilton, but It may just get ready to house a volunteer, or two, to futz around here. And then this local friend came by and parked his ass on a riding mower, and it sure is starting to look nice. The grass, not his ass, that is. Making strawberry picking crates for the near future and now off to the races and going to get more chicken feed.
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Pieter,
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AuthorPieter Los, born in Scotland, raised in the Netherlands, lost in the USA. . Archives
May 2015
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