The Old Nixon Attack

 

My dad got me pretty good today.  He called to arrange for our regular Friday hike and asked if I had heard that G. Gordon Liddy had actually faked his death.  He did it as he knew that his obit had long ago been written by all the papers and now they’d have to redo it.  I suggested that this now increased my respect for the old Nixon attack dog.  And my dad laughed and reminded me of the date.  Dead then.  To be buried at St. Mary’s over in Poughkeepsie. 

I listen to bee bop when I want to write and do emails.  The swingin’ high hat keeps me nodding along, apace, moving forward, getting things done.  If there are lyrics.  Lyrics in English at any rate, I can’t concentrate.  My nephew is swinging by today and will spend the night.  This office space will become the guest room tonight and I’m on strict orders to get it cleaned up.  This requires a different sort of accompaniment.  Just before I got to cleaning I was chatting with a colleague in Auz, who mentioned that rather than freaking out he responded to his college aged daughter’s suggestion about a tattoo by suggesting he might like to get one along with her.  We talked about this and I asked if he was familiar with The Who’s song with the same name.  He’d never hoid of it so I sent on the link. 

 

Well, I played it too, as I cleaned off my cluttered desk and soon I turned the modest speakers on my desk to up to their full capacity and was air-drumming along with “Amazing Journey”, and windmilling about to “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere.”  Classic rock seemed to fit like a puzzle piece with cleaning ones’ room.  Similarly but less dangerously to the way it fits when you’re driving along in a car.  Cream, Traffic, Hendrix, ahh, it was a fine clean up. 

I have not played Dungeons and Dragons in, let’s see, in thirty-seven years.  I used to have all the books.  The “Monster Manual” in particular I can remember pouring over, considering Beholders, (I built one in art class, as I recall) and Carrion Crawlers.  My nephew aged thirteen was keen to play and my younger one, aged sixteen was willing to give it a go.  I found the Gary Gygax original “Dungeon Masters Guide” and Monster Manual from 1977 and although there was a mountain of new stuff to consider on line, I figured I could get them started on a little adventure and after a not inconsiderable amount of time, creating characters, I had them on their way to the abandoned monastery with a shifty guide they’d met in town.  

Thursday, 04/01/21