You know, gently, when a foot slips from beneath the sheets?

Change is inevitable. Unavoidable. Hard.

I left a job I’d been at for almost a decade. I had to. I hear they replaced me with a ringer. That’s good.

Some days are productive and sometimes I never shuck my robe. I try to always brush my teeth. And write. My robe stinks.

Obama parked a dozen balls tonight with a Gibson Flying V plugged into a wall of Marshall Amps. Iowa. People with televisions heard it all over the world. The grace he exhibited when talking about the pantsuit was mesmerizing. It’s already been said and it will continue, yet I must; Barack Obama is as fine an orator as seen for generations. If he means what he says, and I believe he does, he will be the finest President in generations.

I try not to fire up the plasma too early. It’s been warm and she runs hot. It’s an anesthesia I need to monitor the consumption of anyway.

Bad news about Teddy huh?

My mother is so cool. She packed a grocery bag full of food for our train ride back from Yuma. Chicken salad sandwiches with fresh lettuce, water, juice, stawberry pie with an Oreo crust, rhubarb cake and potato chips.

We hung out under the awning of a palatial coach and a bigger thing on a slab with a structure of steel and a skin of white aluminium siding. We grilled and ate. We cruised the neighborhood in a Subaru to look at my uncle’s properties and where their friends live. Cocktailed and watched election returns. We drank good wine with stellar pork chops and a fantastic corn casserole. We drank better wine with a giant tin of Stouffer’s Mac & Cheese and Cesar salad.

There’s a bay on the side with a sliding platform. It has a refrigerator full of beer and sodas as well as my brand of gin. There’s satellite tv.

A three legged black lab named Billy who never met a man she didn’t like. She’s about as sweet as a domesticated animal gets. I think of her as Tripod. She enjoys licking and tug of war with toys.

Maybe we’re not supposed to live as long. After the age of fifteen or sixteen, how pure can your soul be?

We all lost consciousness. The train was to leave Yuma at 4:15 a.m. She must have been up for the better part of an hour. Everything in individual ziplocks or perfectly sized tupperware packed neatly into a grocery sack with a pristinely folded top. I have to tell you, that was the least of her kindness. My mother is very much the matriarch. She takes it seriously. She does whatever she can possibly do to help her children, her husband, her brothers and sisters and their children.

She will cook, clean, do laundry and ride a white horse over the horizon waving a broadsword.

She decides where everyone sits in the car.

I had a scrape with the law twenty years ago and could very well have ended up in prison for possession. She bailed me out of jail, took me home for a shower and change of clothes and we got down to business. Within a few hours and after a pleasant meeting with a very prominent attorney, my worries were over.

Too bad it made the front page.

My old man had that paper in his hand when he hugged me and told me he’d done a lot worse. My folks rock.

My mother is whip smart. An intellectual without the hubris of her son. She and my father are ardent NASCAR fans. Democrats who pay attention. She can cook. All her sisters can cook. Her brothers are awesome whackjobs. She comes from a family of eleven, all good people.

The in-laws are somehow crazier. Just about every man or woman selected by my mother and her brothers and sisters is arguably even crazier than his or her mate. Family reunions are an absolute blast. The amount of chaos is impressive.

By the way, my sister can really cook. I mean really.

She once showed up at my house with her entire family for Thanksgiving. They drove five hundred miles on a few days notice with an entirely prepared Thanksgiving meal save for the turkey languishing in brine.

In my family, if you get sick, you won’t spend a day alone in the hospital. If you’re down and out, someone will take you in and help you find a job. Be a shithead, and all will be forgiven.

These are my people.

It’s intimidating. I think I might be the lamest of the bunch.

Drinks for my friends.

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