3 weeks are winding down and I just can’t believe how fast its gone.
The biggest part of me feels sad that Maureen and Mark will be flying out on Friday afternoon,
the smaller part feels very happy that they will be going home to family and friends.
(I know, a bit selfish)
This is a picture post of some of the places we’ve seen and things that we’ve done these past 3 weeks.
Look for more pictures and many future posts about this most special of vacations for
Pamela, me and the girls.
This has been like a little slice of  heaven . . .

Yet to see . . .

Pretty simple post.
Get here.

The blog may be a bit quiet for the next several days.
Hoping you all understand.
Will be back next week with my Akubra on.
Promise.
A future youtube video is not out of the question.
Stay tuned, folks

~m

ps.
Mark, watch out for the flying  bullwhistle . . .

I am: in transition and wondering about my future
I think: the world went to hell in a hand basket . . .
I know: I miss writing
I want: new teeth
I have: questions, too many
I wish: I could find some answers
I hate: goodbyes and temporary crowns
I miss: the old me
I fear: insomnia and more root canals
I feel: like I’m on the verge of something, maybe good, maybe bad
I hear: a fan cooling my sweating cueball head (I shaved this  morning)
I smell: a lit cigar
I crave: being 8 years old again running through my neighborhood
I search: for signs of my Mom and Dad everyday
I wonder: about my new neighbor next door and the fact that he wants to swindle me (NOT)
I regret: not finishing college and working retail. I’m so much better than that
I ache: for calm, for indigo breezes and purple sunsets
I care: about the future of my three wonderful girls (I am: so lucky)
I always: look before crossing  Boylston Street
I am not: perfect
I believe: in dreams
I dance: when I’ve had too much Maker’s Mark
I sing: because I can
I cry: more often than I believe I should
I don’t always: look before crossing Boylston Street
I fight: to stay alive
I write: because I can’t afford therapy
I never: wanted to be President
I stole: my wife’s heart
I listen: to things no one else seems to hear
I need: a creative kick in the ass and to play my didgeridoo more
I am happy about: my dear friends from Australia that will be here in less than 3 weeks.

Just updating my life status is all.
This post may turn out to be a monthly occurrence.
Tanks for the nudge, M

~m

It is an impossibly gorgeous day today.
There’s copious sunshine, more than ample warmth, stuff growing and skies bluer than blue.
We haven’t had a spring here in New England for about 15 years.
I am overwhelmed with gratitude to be alive and enjoying a day off such as this.
Life is good . . .

M

There are ephemeral moments in life that defy description and reason simply by lack of concrete definition.
Although they are minute slices of microcosms in time they occasionally scream at me
to look more closely at them.
These serendipitous moments come random and unannounced;
I have missed many because I wasn’t paying attention,
too preoccupied with some other curious ripple in the darkest oceans of my life.
Today was different.
I was listening.
What happened today was a very short and simple conversation with a woman I have never met before.
I don’t make this stuff up it just happens.
A Godwink?
Perhaps.
She came into the store early this morning wearing a long black parka with a fur-lined hood.
The icy Boston rain had her wearing said hood, therefore hiding her face.
She told me she was hoping to find some empty cigar boxes outside the store but that she was sad because there were none.
(We always put the empties outside where passersby can just take them)

Hang on, I said, I think I have a few in the back.

I went and came back with two small wooden cigars boxes with sliding lids.
They were made out of Spanish cedar and smelled wonderful.
Looking back on this morning, it’s ironic that one of the cigar boxes had the name ‘Illusione’ on the top of it.

I have these, I said, handing her the boxes.

Oh, my, she said, this is just what I wanted.
Thank you so much.

No problem, I said.

Before she turned to leave, she looked up at me.
Under the fur-lined hood I saw a distant and almost yesterday version of my mother’s face.
She smiled and softly said, ‘love you’ and made a *mwah kissing sound as she left.
Love and free cigar boxes usually do not go together.
I stood there in the middle of the empty store with ridiculous goosebumps.
She even sounded like my mother, for Christ’s sake.
I could see what I wanted to see and hear what I wanted to hear.
Maybe I’m going out on a limb here making all these iffy connections,
seeing and hearing things that may not even be there.
To think and believe the actual possibility is dreaming and maybe sadly inconsequential is justified
but this morning I was a true believer in existential possibility.
I ‘heard’ the voice of my mother say ‘love you’ for the sake of two wooden cigar boxes.
Some days you have to take what life gives you and today,
I think I did just that . . .

A dear friend of mine died last Sunday.
I just found out about it today.
Ironic that I was looking for something in my closet just the other day and
looked up on my bookshelf to see my old copy of
“Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”,
the cult novel by Robert Persig.
Its pink and black cover reeking ‘classic lit’.
Rod had given it to me many years ago during one of my visits to see him.
I thought, “I should really call him one of these days.”
Looks like I waited a bit too long.
His last words were supposedly, “With a little more time, I would’ve gotten it right!”
You were wrong, HRB.
You got it right this time, from where I’m standing.
Although there are no calling hours I thought some music would be appropriate.
He loved music.
This is your swan song, my dear friend.
I will miss you.

Out on the street I was talkin’ to a man
He said “there’s so much of this life of mine that I don’t understand”
You shouldn’t worry yes that ain’t no crime
Cause if you get it wrong you’ll get it right next time (next time).

You need direction, yeah you need a name
When you’re standing in the crossroads every highway looks the same
After a while you can recognize the signs
So if you get it wrong you’ll get it right next time (next time).

Life is a liar yeah life is a cheat
It’ll lead you on and pull the ground from underneath your feet
No use complainin’, don’t you worry, don’t you whine
Cause if you get it wrong you’ll get it right next time (next time).

You gotta grow, you gotta learn by your mistakes
You gotta die a little everyday just to try to stay awake
When you believe there’s no mountain you can climb
And if you get it wrong you’ll get it right next time (next time).

“Get it right next time” by Gerry Rafferty

Chill.
Grab a coffee, English Breakfast tea, Chai, cognac, scotch, bourbon, water and maybe a smoke,
all depending on where you are in the world of time zones.
Plug in some decent headphones and give yourself 7:40 minutes to just . . .
Chill.
This is ‘Both Sides Now’,  Herbie Hancock from River: The Joni Letters
Hancock is and has been a jazz piano God to me.
Forever.
And believe it or not he is 70 years old. (born in 1940)
At any rate, get a drink, perhaps a smoke and just
Chill.
for 7:40 . . .
Your brain will thank me.
This is musical/cerebral Zen at its finest.

Enjoying a bit of badly needed time off.
I will be reading and checking in but won’t be posting until next week sometime.
Have some personal things that need some attention.
Thanks for stopping in.
Now back to my fine Montecristo No. 2 . . .
(and no, that’s not me sitting in the comfy chair.
I am in a dark cellar with a rocking chair and three cats. But somehow that’s okay)

I am quite sure that there are many people that live in a fantasy world
and know little to nothing about the real one.
They seem stuck in a time and place where common sense is about as real as the tooth fairy;
a really dumb tooth fairy.
I’m not telling you something you probably didn’t already know but when you run into these jamokes
(and I do, multiple times, daily)
you want to whack them in head with one of those huge Acme Co. (Wiley Coyote) hammers.
Then there are those that are in the real world but seem almost oblivious to the obvious.
I was working last Sunday when the phone rang.

This person asked, “Are you open?”

I said, “Hmmmm, hang on, let me check.” (5 second pause)
“Yeah, we are!” I said trying to sound almost surprised.

If a retail establishment answers the phone on a Sunday afternoon chances are pretty damn good that they’re open, capice?
And I’m pretty damn sure that when I hung up the person was thinking one of two things:

Wow. What an asshole.
Or . . .
Wow. I’m a ding-a-ling for asking such a dumbass question. Of course they’re open . . .

Now and then I have to blow out my retail pipes because if I don’t . . . well, let’s not go there just yet.
I sell tobacco and all things tobacco.
Here are some questions that I am just plain sick of answering:

Q. “You guys got Cubans?”
A. Obviously J.F.K and the Cuban Missile Crisis wasn’t covered in your American History class.
We haven’t traded with Cuba since February of 1962.
A huge mistake for the USA, as we continue the endless Cold War.
We’ve lost out on an incredible island and amazing people but a country governed by Communism will never be accepted here. Long story.

Q. “How much for these bad boys?”
A. You are a douchebag of magnificent proportions for calling them ‘bad boys’ to begin with.
They’re called cigars.
That’s one strike.

Q. “How come these ‘bad boys’ are so expensive?”
A. Ask the new administration, the change you can believe in thing.
Does the word“ ‘tax’ mean anything to you?
Do you ever read a newspaper or anything on the internet regarding tobacco/cigar regulation and the unfair taxes levied against this industry?
You, my friend, are a super douche for having no clue about the things the liberal wing has done to screw up this industry. I won’t even get into the debacle regarding the new  FDA’s regulation of tobacco.
Yes, we can!
No we can’t, my  brothers.
That’s two strikes.

Q. “Do you guys sell blunt wraps, digital scales, screens, glass pipes, Salvia, Black & Milds or Dutches (Dutch Masters)?”
A. Uh . . .  no.
Strike three, douchebag.

Innings over.

For today . . .

Many a hot summer night will find me on the back deck with my laptop,
a cold Guinness and a nice warm cigar.
It’s what I choose to do during this season.
I dream about it at work, on the train back home and make the dream come true when I get there.
I’ve been known to choose the back deck and a cigar over a Red Sox game. (oh, the horrors!)
My daughters will come and go during the night passing me on their way in and out of the house.
They usually wave their hands in a back and forth fashion in front of their face to let me know
that my cigar stinks like poop.

I usually turn and say, “Someday, when I’m gone-” (and I get cut off)

“We know Dad, when you’re dead and buried we’ll be walking down a street and smell a cigar and think of you.
How nice. That thing stinks.”

“Gee, thanks, hon. Love you, too.”

I usually utter that to an empty backyard because they’ve already gone back into the house.
I smoke some very nice cigars, folks.
I have 12 year old Cubans in my humidor, for God’s sake.
These ain’t your Daddy’s Phillie Grape-flavored Blunts.
I’m thinking Pamela actually likes the aroma of at least a few of them.

Last Sunday, a woman came into the store,
stopped in the middle of the floor and closed her eyes, inhaling deeply.
She opened her eyes, smiled and looked at me.
She was crying.

She said,
“I hope you don’t mind but I’m taking a walk down Memory Lane here.
Places like this just remind me of my Dad. It’s almost like he’s here.”

“He is,” said I.

She looked around as she was leaving and almost lovingly said,
“Thank you so much.”

If I had a dime for every time someone said, “this place reminds me of my grandfather,”
I would be a very rich man.
I usually smile, nod my head and think, same old, same old.
Been there, cut the cigar, smoked the cigar and bought the T-shirt.
For some reason, this woman seemed different to me.
Maybe it was the fragments of truth that seemed to hang on her every word.
She was moved to tears by the aroma of a century old cigar shop.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised.
I can only hope that years after I’m gone, my daughters can still find a special shop that offers up the unique and precious memories that mine currently does.
They may just have to settle for the aroma of some fine Cuban cigar wafting through the air
of some distant and special summer night in the distant future.
That will be Dad, girls . . .  that special kiss on your cheek.
It’s me.