As we enter the second half of January, things remain dark, dank, repetitious, dark, and dank. Except for last Saturday, when the Weather Dogs actually blessed mid-Michigan with our first day of sunshine in 2023, 14 days into the new year. Of course, roughly 24 hours later, it was gone, and Dankuary continues on.
With my sun-starved skin now resembling that of a bloated river-bottom corpse, I continue to do my near-daily hikes. In fact, in just a couple days, I will be celebrating the 4-month mark of the 2022 Not Dead Yet Comeback Special turned 2023 Soil The Woods Tour, and I’m looking forward to more miles in the coming months.
Despite my continued woodsy walks, there is only so much I can write about in regards to my daily lumbers through the local woods alone, and I don’t know enough about podiatry to ramble on about my calluses, so today I have decided to share a few random real-life interactions from the past couple weeks along with some recent photos from my hikes. Consider this another scheme to lose more readers and drain a little more from my shallow pool of self-respect.
First rays of sunshine in 2023. 1.14.23
RANDOM SCENTS
Me: I think I smell dog shit.
Wifey: Did you check your slippers? It’s easy to step in it out there right now with all the mud and leaves.
Yeah, there was a hint on them, but I deemed it an acceptable level of dog shit; they’re over by the door.
***many seconds pass***
Me: What?
Wifey: Sorry, I’m still processing that the person who makes my dinner has an “acceptable level of dog shit” in his life.
Eaton was nowhere to be found, but he’s been active.
WHEN DOGS DON’T GO
Me: Check out my new t-shirt; it’s the cover of Go Dog Go!
Wifey: [somewhat blasé in my opinion] Oh, yeah, cool.
Me: That was my favorite book!
I don’t want to say the look on Wifey’s face was pained, but there were some thoughts being thought, I know that much!
Me: Like when I was a little kid, not now! Eeesh!
Wifey: Yeah, yeah, I know, sweet shirt. I said it was cool.
I sort of wanted to defend my choice in literature, but seeing that Wifey was about to make a real breakthrough in realizing the sort of person she’s been married to for the past 25+ years, I just left it. Still a great fucking book, though.
FRESH CUTS AND DEAD HAWKS
I was in my local barbershop (West Side1, represent!) getting a cut the other day (fade with the 2, leave a little on top to play with), and one of the other customers was an old man that looked just like the old guy from the movie Up, except he had no front teeth.
When it was his turn, he got up, put his cane to the side, and shuffled over to the barber’s chair in his tan, velcro-laced orthos. Before he got in the chair, he handed his glasses and hearing aids to the barber, who quick-mindedly grabbed a paper towel for the hearing aids, thus avoiding any earwax-to-barber-hand germ transfers.
As he sat in the chair, apparently now toothless, immobile, blind, deaf, but increasingly well-coiffed, he loudly said he found a dead hawk in his backyard. He called the DNR and asked what to do with it, and they told him to throw it in the garbage. So he called the biology department at the university and asked if they wanted it; they said no.
With his frustration over the departed hawk now resurrected, he asked if anyone in the shop wanted it; I assume for practice taxidermy purposes (beats using grandma, I suppose). There was a resounding chorus of “no, no, thank you, I’m good” from everyone.
“Well, it’s in my garage if you know anyone.”
I admit I was sort of bummed when the Up dude’s cut was done, and he was replaced in the chair by a grumpy old dude who just removed his ugly made in China American flag hat and apparently missed the memo on not being a political dickhead when you up in the West Side, launched into a diatribe about “missing COVID relief money that the government is (allegedly) hiding” before his ass even hit the chair. To which the barber politely said, “Oh, I didn’t hear that; what sort of cut are we doing today?” Meanwhile, my barber and I continued talking about the early releases of Elvis Presley.
Later.
THE SOILED SOUNDS TRACK OF THE POST
At the risk of turning into one of those food bloggers who blathers on for 20 paragraphs before sharing the goddamn recipe for Instant Pot Hot Dogs and Rice Casserole, I’m attempting to tone down waxing poetic about the stuff I shoved in my earholes. So today, I will just say that I am keeping things “down under” with one of my favorite songs from the Australian band, The Chats and possibly my favorite “doo-wop” songs ever; Struck By Lightening off the album Get Fucked.
Got lightning bolts running through my veins
(Doo-wop, doo-wop, doo-wop, doo-wop)
Electric shocks deep-fried my brain
(Doo-wop, doo-wop, doo-wop, doo-wop)
- West Side Barbershop is the only shop in the tri-county area without a dead animal head hanging on the wall or Fox News playing on a waiting room TV. There is, however, always a great mix of tunes on the hi-fi that range from The White Stripes to ragtime blues, as well as friendly conversation, great haircuts, and a picture of Deputy Barney Fife on the wall that says “MAN UP!” under it, that may or may not have been there when the dude bought the shop. It took me 10 years to find a Michigan barbershop shop like this!