My child
do not forget my teaching.
Let your heart keep my principles. for these will give you lengthier days,
longer years of life, and greater happiness.

Let kindness and loyalty never leave you,
tie them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.

from Proverbs  3: 1-3

Congratulations my beautiful daughter.
Your mother and I are so very proud of you today and always.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Keep the Proverbs verse as close to your heart as you are to ours.

with much love . . .

Dad

Looking for something that resembles the sentiment in this picture.
My Wednesday has been the polar opposite of anything even close to equilibrium, saved by Zero.
Will tomorrow be any better?
Time and a  decent nights sleep will tell.
Stay tuned.

I walked on all these streets in victory and defeat
gathering the fragments before the sky turned grey
but always in my mind, you’re with me all the time
and every while now Lord I take . . .
I feel you like the rain . . .
And from this windowpane the world feels like a dream
the lights shine on these streets where you and I have been
sometimes I think I see . . .  you looking back at me
‘cause loving you has been a story without end
a river running through,  my heart and back again
A place where I was safe,  when the world felt like a knife
loving you has been the best part of my life

Your arms gave me faith, to reach out for the light
and although I was lost sometimes I ran to you each night
and if these wounds could speak they’d cry your name out loud
and if my heart had wings I’d fly beyond the clouds
I’d carry you away beyond this maddening crowd
‘cause loving you has been a story without end
a river running through,  my life and back again
a place where I was safe, when the world felt like a knife
loving you has been the best part of my life

From this windowpane the world seems like a dream
the lights shine on these streets where you and I have been
sometimes I think I see you looking back at me
to a place where I was safe when the world felt like a knife
loving you has been the best part of my life . . .

~m

A co-worker was walking back to the store last week after lunch when he was approached
by a grown man dressed as a Girl Scout.
Dress, hat and all.
Around Park Square in Boston, freaks like this elicit little but a glance.
This freak spoke to my colleague in passing and said,
“I always wanted to be a Girl Scout. If you could buy a box of cookies you could make me really feel like one.”
Really?
These people exist, folks.
We get phone calls from people looking for K2, Salvia and numerous cannabis alternatives.
The latest is ‘Kush’.
I took a call yesterday from some bonehead that asked, “You guys have any kush?”
I said, “Try ‘Bed, Bath and Beyond. They sell it by the boatload.”
Click.
Dial tone.
I think BB&B sells bath salts too.
We hear you can smoke those and get off with the right pipe.
Christ save us all.
Off to snort some totally rad solid Degree deodorant.
Pass the aaa batteries . . .

~m

There has been a question that’s been rolling around in this head of mine for ions now.
I asked ‘said’ question to a fairly close friend of mine recently and was a wee bit startled by his answer.
It was the total opposite of mine.
Know that this friend of mine is an MD and a highly intelligent individual.
I would have thought that everyone would see it my way but that is obviously not the case.
While the question is illogical, hypothetical and a virtual unfeasibility,
I found it mind-numbing nonetheless.

If you came upon a celestial tollbooth in your life where you were told:
You need to give up either your sight or your hearing, which one do you choose to lose?

My answer was almost immediate which was no shock to me and possibly of little shock to you.
So as not to sway anyone this post will be in two parts, this one being the first.
What would you choose?
Sight or Sound/Hearing?

My answer will follow next week.
If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter there will be a link there soon.
Think about it people.
Give me your best shot.
I already have my answer locked and loaded . . .

~m

When I first started working in Boston nearly 8 years ago little did I know of the cast of characters that would eventually cross my path.
At the cigar store where I work I have come to believe that every day is just like Halloween.

There were people like Bill the tobacco eater.
His name will tell you all you really need to know about him. And no, I’m not lying.
Bill has always been partial to McClelland pipe tobaccos.
Don’t know why but I guess they just taste great.
Not sure how the people at McClelland would feel about that.
Bill also had the facial pallor of a year old corpse.
Maybe you’re not supposed to eat this stuff.
Then there’s Snuffers, a strange ogre-like man that snorted more nasal snuff than any human being on the planet.
During the summer months he would come into the store wearing sandals on his feet displaying brownish toenails that were not unlike box cutters.
I remember thinking that the guy could climb trees with those toenails.
There’s Mr. D who depending on the day of the week would speak with a slow southern drawl, ala Colonel Cornpone (even though he had a regular Boston accent)
On his Colonel transformation days he would call me, ‘Maakul’. [Michael]
Sounds almost exotic, doesn’t it?
D has admitted to us that he sometimes wears panty hose around the house when he’s alone.
Bet that does wonders for the property value of the neighborhood should some unsuspecting eye see him traipsing around the house wearing a sexy pair of black fishnets.
I know, TMI.

If I really thought about it I could come up with many more names of folks that should honestly be living in the Odd Fellow Home.
There’s Bucky the gap toothed hooker, Head Wound Harry and Creepy Fedora Boy and on and on.

This brings me to Mr. B.
I met him in the first month while working at the cigar store. He was an older gentleman in his mid eighties by the looks of him and was an avid pipe smoker (of the meerschaum variety), a ladies man (really) and one great joke/story teller.
On one particular visit he pulled out a magnifying glass from his old leather satchel, winked at me and said, “Watch this.”
He stepped outside of the front door of the shop into the sunshine and proceeded to light his pipe with the magnifying glass as curious passersby pointed and smiled at the most peculiar Mr. B.
There was something really likeable about the guy, endearing even.
If you didn’t know him you would swear he was deaf as a haddock but it was usually because he often forgot to turn his hearing aids on.
Before he would leave he would always tell us a joke.
In his later years he would pull out a tattered wallet for his ‘cue cards’ as his memory was slowly going south.

A Mr. B joke he once told me:

A woman comes out of the shower and looks in the mirror.
She’s real flat-chested and says to her husband ‘What can I do to make these bigger?”
The husband says, “Get a little piece of toilet paper and rub it up and down between your boobs for a month and they’ll get big.”
“What makes you think that will do it?” says the wife.
The husband says, “It worked for your ass . . . “

I wish this little story had a happy ending and who knows, maybe it does.
I found out the other day that Mr. B died a year ago in December.
He was 91 years old.
I hadn’t seen him in a while a thought about him the other day.
Google confirmed my suspicions when I found his obituary still online.
I’ll remember him for many things but mostly because he never failed to make me smile.
I have a sneaking suspicion that many people felt the same way.
Funny that I’m not calling him by his full name.
He has more videos telling his jokes on YouTube than I will ever have. [Truth]
Farewell, Norris, my old friend.
I tip my baseball cap to the ever present one on your head.
Heaven just got one hell of a cool guy.
Rock the white clouds, you sweet bastard, rock the clouds . . .

It is currently 9:16PM here in Massachusetts.
The countdown is on as are The Three Stooges.
2011 was a year to remember for many reasons and a year to forget as well.
As I get older the passing of time seems to take on less significance than it once did.
Seems it should be the opposite but personally it’s just another year.
Another chance to get it right, another chance to possibly mess the sombitch up.
The house is warm and filled with all sorts of wonderful food and drink.
Jonathan (Sarah’s fiancee) and I just got done smoking a very nice cigar on the deck and for the moment life is good.
Hopefully 2012 will be as good as tonight seems to be.
I wish all of you peace, joy and more happiness and good fortune than your lives can reasonably handle.

For myself, I ask for the grace and peace of the One high above me;
To do more for others than I do for myself,
To smile more than frown,
To love deeply and give freely,
To find the words that move me and the music that inspires me,
and to finally give myself a break for a change.
I am too damn hard on myself.
A few sent angels would be nice as well.

So Happy New Year to you, my dear friends.
Thank you for making my life so worth living.
Here’s to another year of whatever it is that makes all of us tick . . .

~m

The next several days are going to be somewhat hectic as I sell the masses cigars, humidors,  pipe tobacco and everything you can possibly smoke to make the holidays memorable.

I want to thank all that have visited and commented here in the past year.
Although I have been a slacker in the ‘Department of Replies’ know that I have read each and every comment left and that I really appreciate your visits.

I will be celebrating the holidays with family and many close friends and consider myself  blessed.
This is a time for the celebration of love.
And there is so much that I love.

I wish for all of you, tender and sweet dreams, hot chocolate memories, stockings filled with holiday confections and joys of heaven, healing conversation and the ultimate love of a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes asleep in a manger.
Somewhere in Bethlehem . . .

I even wish for you some snowflakes on Christmas Eve.
Just not too many.

“One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don’t clean it up too quickly.” ~Andy Rooney

A Merry Christmas to all,

~m

Don’t know why but this innocuous Facebook pic kinda spoke to me
(not like, face to face but . . . )
Lord knows, I am guilty as charged.

How about you?

~m