Please try to make my friend feel welcome!

 

                                                                                         . . .. no excuse for knaught , ,,,,

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This will aid your fact-finding.

 

                                                                                                ....When . . ... Knot?

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BUFFER ZONE! (Bufher's Own?)

 

                                                                                                   ...Till ..... when...

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Hiatus announcement.

 

To all the discerning and courageous individuals from all around this planet who peruse this blog, please know that there will be a hiatus while I change locations, that is to say, I'm moving. This will take all my time and energy, and so I won't have the opportunity to provide the high quality, family-friendly entertainment which you've come to expect.

In the meantime, I invite you to continue your exploration of the over 500 posts of writing, art and music. Also, would it be too much to ask at least some of you if you might possibly post a comment to this entry? The only 'return signal' I receive (if you could even call it that) is the number of 'clicks' from a particular country during a particular time period. (the 'number one' country for viewing this blog is, believe it or not, Singapore).

I'd really like to know something more than nation-of-origin of the folks who look at this. For example: Why do you come here? Who are you? What about your creative endeavours? Is there anything you'd like to share? Or just say 'hello'. Don't worry, something will come up. It always does.

Even if you choose not to comment, I love you anyway. Anyway, hopefully I'll be in a position to continue posting sometime early in 2026. Until then, I wish all of you a wonderful everything!

Ciao! (Chow)

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A pictorialized diagram of the hidden ruling cabal.

 

Lerwid & Me.

 

One time--this was years ago--on a morning when I was attired in a brightly fubescent Collier shirt, I was granted a rare and precious audience with a party known to me only as Mr. Lerwid. He was curious about my participation in the local Youth Stringball League and whether I'd noticed anything in some of the young people which would otherwise fail to be mentioned. I opened up my case and removed a swifter monitoring device than some had thought current at the time. He expressed a modicum of dismay and requested that I retreat to just within earshot. As I departed toward a nearby lounge, out of the corner of my eye I spied one his hands--I believe the left one--make an evasive gesture before resuming its prior position near an unusual lamp.

As I moseyed along an accented corridor, my thoughts turned to a delightful episode that I'd seen on TV the night before. The less said about that the better. But I will say this, if you still haven't seen it, perhaps you should consider how you prioritize your viewing time. You can thank me later. Once I reached the lounge proper, I felt remarkably composed and realized that the personality I'd concocted out of 'whole cloth' could be a real asset on a par with a dazzling ability to convey a wholesome anecdote. As I sat and listened for any potentially fatal clues emanating from the office just beyond the atrophied brink, it occurred to me that most of this was the fault of someone with whom I'd engaged in a minor tiff. At the time I thought nothing of it, but I was plainly deeply mistaken. Once I'd removed my shoes an attendant approached and handed me a manilla envelope, a small glass ring and and empty almond package. When I looked up quizzically, he just snickered and left the area at once. I got the not-so-funny idea that they were just playing with me to check my reaction time. The joke was on them because by then it was already next Wednesday and I was about to depart for my annual hermitage in Brussels, Oregon. HA!

The next time I encountered Mr. Lerwid it was at the 1964 World's Fair in Flushing Queens, NY. He was sitting alone in a stall near an evacuated nursing home crying softly into a monogrammed hankie while humming what sounded like a sedimental ditty. I didn't want to interrupt his precious reverie and so retreated to a storage area in a local used car dealership. There I was introduced to my infant stepson for what seemed like the seventh or eighth time. I had the impulse to greet him by saying 'Hi Billie!' I squelched that idea because I knew for a fact that his name was 'Marvin'. Yes, you guessed it: he was named after Marvin Hamlisch. I think you can see why I was upset. At this point any normally senescent person would opine: 'It just goes to show you!'. And that person would be tragically correct, I'm afraid.

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The young lady in question has been requested to refrain from commenting on the following account. Can you blame her?

 

In the event that she is asked to gather our final things and lurk on one of the lower levels where a miniature finely woven brass basin holds a place of honor in the absence of former lurid affairs, I am warned once too often for my taste to take care that baked goods are supplied for the pleasure of our enemy. There is no position that I could take, either physical or psychological, that would allow me to ignore the directive, now that the very lives of community leaders hang in the balance; the time of playing with inflictable grains is at an impasse and all of us are bushed.

As I withdraw the remaining needle from its case and trace an intractable oval gently on her forehead to remind her of a time of fewer cares and stochastic obfuscations, there seems to be some trouble in the back where a bentument announces its disrepair with a yawning gap of function. She rides in the wagon that I've inserted into the pledator device and tries, without much success, to match her hair to the whispered lyrics of a song that we can hear from a neighbor's casual get-together. There is, however, an audible lump in my left clavicle. Each time she casually moves one of her hands in a display of rank defiance, I feel it right here where I've been sitting since I got home last year.

When I first met her in a State to the east of this one, she claimed to remember me as the person who once loaned her Uncle one of my spare winter jackets during a cold snap that had us breathing in a new direction. I told her then and I insist to her on this very day that I've never owned even one cold-weather out garment, let alone had a spare, since I've spent my entire life until the previous month in Tampa Bay, Arizona and have the documents to prove it. She is unmoved. I stare past her into a trapezoidal seating area now filling up with smartly attired guests who ignore our every request for aid initiating a bon fire in a cup-shaped bantry pit over which we, for some reason, seem to have sole jurisdiction.

As a paltry dose of fluid finds its target in the waves of the mind, some honorable bureaucrats are encumbered by a feeling of wistfulness for a time when dully colored plastic placemats were all anyone could count on to bring a small bit of levity into a vain and pointless affair. Nevertheless, if our muted expressions of concern fail to do the trick once again, the host who has betrayed us to the authorities will be awarded a vintage spring-loaded ice-folding packet and sent on his way. You will know him by the way he hums in the dark. During daylight hours, though, you might notice him whistling. Or maybe not, since he does it very quietly. All we can ask is that you try to see if that will get you anywhere. Then you'll know.

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