:: Scuff Productions ::

We have talked about the ’3-legged’ coyote that’s been in our neighborhood all summer. Eventually almost everyone’s seen it and often more than once. At first you’d feel sorry, then the longer you look you realize it’s completely healthy and that fact even more amazing when you’re realizing watching it move that the missing leg is a front leg, the very leg needed to “pounce’ on the prey.

AND as you will see, the leg seems so smoothly covered, it “appears” to be a genetic birth defect, not an injury……..

Well, we finally have a neighbor story moved down to our block that’s the best of the summer, I think, and the “guilty” shall rename nameless to avoid …. some perhaps wanting to dine on what “R” is placing on his compost heap.

So. Yes, the coyote’s been doing well. “R” greets morning one day last week…. and as he looks out his back window realizes there is a coyote lying on its back in the middle of some tall grass….. Then he realizes it IS the very 3-legged Coyote that’s gotten all the attention. He grabs his camera….takes a couple pictures…

“R” realizes the animal seems perfectly content laying there, rolling back and forth some, looking at the trees & sky…..even looked at “R” a few times.

“R” gets out to his shop and works a bit…comes back in to see the coyote’s still laying there. Concerned he wonders about calling for help…..rabies? ill? Sad, that the animal hasn’t left.

As he calls for help, “R” remembers the KEY element that may just explain it all! ***Yes, he’s put out lots of food scraps out back, a perfect place to compost and yes, it might feed a lovely wild animal or two.

BUT, a light dawns! “R” just remembered finding that ‘stale’ batch of marijuana brownies in his fridge yesterday. Guess where he tossed them last night? Yep. Right where Mr. Coyote seems to be unable to move. ….. It appears we “KNOW” who ate the entire batch….this poor 3-legged guy who needs to eat EVERYTHING he finds along the trails………..

Oh, the mystery of those brownies! We’ve all experience it at least once! So. A VERY stoned coyote it seems that took most of the day to get itself together and wander off……about 5:30 that afternoon.

We’ve laughed and laughed…….I can only WISH “R” would have called me to some see the scene……

Do you ever become suddenly AWARE that inside of you there’s a song groaning along, and then once you actualize its presence, you’re stuck…..

I’d sure like to know what triggered the rising up of this old country song this morning. I had to hear it over and over when I was just a young boy on a Mormon mission in the hills of Kentucky & Tennessee. Now, for about 2 hours, Skeeter Davis has been calling to me.

You have NO idea how many times I had to hear this in the late 60′s while “serving my time” in those poor country places:

Why does the sun go on shining
Why does the sea rush to shore
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world
‘Cause you don’t love me any more

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything’s the same as it was
I can’t understand, no, I can’t understand
How life goes on the way it does

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye

Now ain’t that just a purty little whistle on your tongue? Ah hope you’uns don’t get li’l Ms Skeeter’s words up and dancin’ in your head…you’ll be stuck like me…….

Ah! I feel a change comin’………….maybe this one will get my mind off of Tennesee…....………………

Poor little Brenda Lee. God was SO Cruel.

WELL! I feel better now……….and I hope I have transferred these sticky songs to YOUR head……. go ahead, start humming these little ditties along…… Hah! I’m FREE!

Well, quite liked this. I could see why I left the religion I grew up in as soon as I realized I was NOT annoying.

……..

found at: Scott’s Abode Thanks, Scott……he and partner Mark are soon moving from Australia to England.

Perhaps, in a distant café,
four or five people are talking
with the four or five people
who are chatting on their cell phones this morning
in my favorite café.

And perhaps someone there,
someone like me, is watching them as they frown,
or smile, or shrug
at their invisible friends or lovers,
jabbing the air for emphasis.

And, like me, he misses the old days,
when talking to yourself
meant you were crazy,
back when being crazy was a big deal,
not just an acronym
or something you could take a pill for.

I liked it
when people who were talking to themselves
might actually have been talking to God
or an angel.
You respected people like that.

You didn’t want to kill them,
as I want to kill the woman at the next table
with the little blue light on her ear
who has been telling the emptiness in front of her
about her daughter’s bridal shower
in astonishing detail
for the past thirty minutes.

O person like me,
phoneless in your distant café,
I wish we could meet to discuss this,
and perhaps you would help me
murder this woman on her cell phone,

after which we could have a cup of coffee,
maybe a bagel, and talk to each other,
face to face.

by
George Bilgere

This gives me hope for what I see as old age beginning to appear in the distance. Life is going to take every one who lives through peaks, valleys, forests, deserts, riches, droughts of pain and loneliness, but isn’t the LIFE experience missed entirely if throughout that trip you don’t occasionally experience pure JOY?

I’m only hoping that, if I make it to this age, I can be doing something like this on our little piano:

The fun these two are having should be that “something” you touch on throughout your life. It is NOT just for the young.

**The video was taken by the daughter of a patient at the Mayo Clinic …..just watching in the lobby….. Fun, huh? **Thanks, Karen.

I LOVE singing dogs………and hoped you could feel the cheer Buddy here brings to the new year. Since he’s a chesapeake bay retriever, I think of MAC when I see this.

MAC CAN be vocal, but I can see we need to get HIM to sing. HOPE you are ENJOYING your new year!

Hm. Is this the Adam and Eve YOU imagined when “they” taught you about that Magical Garden and how you came to be?

***Added saturday nite: Our local rag The Portland Examiner‘s review called Robin Williams the “Funniest Man Alive”.

I mentioned we were going to see Robin Williams this week ………….. then realized after going that a simple “mention” of “maybe” going to see this guy was NOT nearly adequate.

I have followed with much adoration this insane comic since the early 80′s. I was annoyed Rodger bought tickets to this show since he was now nearly 60, and such a familiar comic to me I could NOT imagine his doing a NEW show, new material after all these years that could possibly match the wild show that launched him: Live at Carnegie Hall (so MANY years ago). These tickets were my birthday ticket in October………. Oh well, I DO love his talent and the joy he’s brought me over the years. So off we went. If you KNOW Robin Williams, you KNOW it will be bawdy show.

Here Robin peeked out at the end of the show as a newborn…………..can you imagine what the little baby said?

We were both astounded. He arrived on stage hoarse, and obviously not that well….a bad cold he said. Then he proceeded to ROCK that sold out hall as if her were 18. I just assumed with that voice, he’d sign off in about an hour, and we’d forgive him. NO. He went 90 minutes at about 80 mph….went off stage as the crowd stood and cheered, came out and did another 30 minutes impromptu beautifully.

DO NOT MISS this tour if he’s coming to your city……………..I haven’t laughed that hard in years. Wait until you describe how ridiculous the Fundamentalist objection to Prop 8 is based on HIS view of the humans….as part of “intelligent design”.

I love Robin Williams,

I can hardly believe we made it home. Last night 10:30. LOTS of work today beginning on sorting “stuff”.

BUT.

Our friend Drew, in San Diego, you know where life is beautiful, let me know, that not ALL of the Olympics are boring. Some of the real obscure countries have athletes that seem to perform as maybe I could. I gave me hope. I hope you enjoy Mr. Hunt’s performance on the balance beam JUST UNTIL I can get some moments to gather thoughts together about our California work mission.

Does that give you hope on your own athletic abilities?