Zona

Remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy

Part one of the grocery store and a couple of memes lie awaiting below.

Since most of you are into playlists......

He moved through the fair, Sinead O'Connor
Possession, Sarah McLachlan
I can't see New York, Tori Amos

Short, but oh so very sweet

Why you should never go shopping on an empty stomach.

God rested on the 7th day but when he got hungry he created one thing. His creation snowballed into football and baseball and basketball and cartoons and.....

The guy who invented Jello sold all his rights to his invention for $50.

The best advice I ever read was from GQ magazine.

I shall paraphrase.

When you've dated a woman a few times and she offers to make you a home cooked meal, accept.

When she asks you to go to the grocery store with her, go.

If you're standing in the checkout line and she says "oh, I forgot to get chocolate syrup", DON'T ASK, just go get it.

Meme off Vesper. It just seems incomplete to you guys but it isn't to me.

I AM
I WANT
I WISH
I HATE
I MISS
I FEAR
I HEAR
I WONDER
I REGRET
I AM NOT
I SING
I CRY
I AM NOT ALWAYS
I MAKE
I WRITE
I CONFUSE
I NEED
I SHOULD
I START
I FINISH

ABC Meme (Thank you Jen)

Accent: Arizonans don't have accents.

Booze: Straight bourbon whiskey.

Chore I hate: All of'em.

Dog or cat: Dog.

Favorite cologne(s): On me, Giorgio Aqua. On her, Dolce and Gabana Light Blue

Gold or silver: Silver.

Hometown: Tucson, Arizona.

Insomnia: Never

Job title: Officer

Kids: Four.

Living arrangements: Wife and the two youngest kids.

Most admirable trait: Generosity.

Number of broken bones: Zero.

Overnight hospital stays: Birth, Typhoid, Hepatitis A.

Phobias: The dark.

Quote: You can never go home.

Religion: Not currently.

Siblings: Two half-brothers, One half-sister, Two sisters.

Time I wake up: 3:00 am.

Unusual talent or skill: None that I will mention here.

Vegetable I refuse to eat: Eggplant.

Worst habit: Spending.

X-rays: Chest.

Yummy foods I make: Lasagna.

Zodiac sign: Leonard.

Can I get an AMEN?

I saw a girl who was just drop dead hot hot hot and I asked my lesbian friend what she thought.

"I'd do her" was the reply.

"What a lovely thought" was my comment.

"That's a guy thing I guess" she came back.

"Yes yes yes".

As you see here I just refurbished my Bose headphones. They cost $300 and are worth every dime. Through thousands of air miles and many hours of shutting off the world in places from Aruba to Philadelphia to my house they have been life savers.

Thank you Bose

BULLSHIT!!!

I just watch "Listed" on much more music. The list was 20 hottest men in music.

George Michael was not on the list.

I think that George Michael is one of the hottest men on the PLANET and I'm STRAIGHT.

What is the frikking infatuation with Robbie Williams??? He was #3. Robbie's one of the biggest wankers I've ever seen.

Vacation poem.

by Zona Boy.


Hurry Thursday.

I fly on Thursday.

Today is Saturday.

Saturday aint Thursday.

FORGIVE ME!!!

I can't hold it any longer because there are just TOO MANY dumbass people and I have to VENT!!!

A lady asked a judge to award her 1.2 MILLION dollars as compensation for the humiliation she suffered when she was SPANKED at work in some IDIOT'S attempt to foster workplace camaraderie. (CNN)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/04/26/spanking.case.ap/index.html

A man was arrested for going door to door posing as a doctor and giving women free BREAST EXAMS! (CNN)

Me and a coworker at the airport were examining a sealed commercial box of candied fruit that we could not recognize from the picture. The guy told us that they were very delicious but the bad part was that they smell like farts.

And for godssake will SOMEBODY declare that ALL those frikking crunched up straw cowboy hats OFFICIALLY OUT OF STYLE!!!

whew

I feel better. I would write more but I must now make my rounds of the neighborhood.

XOXOXO

Dr Zona

I received a hug from a young woman who was returning home after a long time away.

I beautiful young woman whom I barely know.

I cannot remember a nicer hug.

It was a hug that said "come with me" or "I wish I could stay with you" even though that was in no way her intent or thinking.

A soul hugging another soul.

Although she will never read this post, it is very dedicated to her.

My life is a river

I am on the flatlands now flowing through a sea of wind bowed grasses. I move slow and deep with time to reflect on my journey. Meandering was the right word for the authors to come up with because I am in no hurry. I am supposed to be wise and profound but many times I resist those things to thrust myself like a struggling salmon back to the time of my youth just one last time before I reach the sea.

Back to the time of my youthful headwaters when it all moved fast and glorious. The days tumbled over rocky places and laughed over the drop offs into pools deep and clear before rushing onward under the branches of tall trees where birds sang morning songs.

The summer shown down on me and I reflected bright into the sky. The fall rained leaves down on me and they joined in the laughter as I raced down hill in such a hurry. The winter struggled to slow me down but I continued on hidden under a blanket of white.

Through the valley I became boisterous rapid taunting all who dared me. Confident enough to tumble the banks and carry them down with me. Strong and loud diving deep and jumping high, white foam adventure.

I rested through meadows while small feet tickled my edges and skipped stones across. I nestled them as they waded and warned them at the deepness. I glided around long bends of changing directions. Days became long and tranquil and the evening moonlight caressed the ripples of the surface.

But now I flow smooth to the coaxing of late summer laziness. Knowing that one day I shall reach the sea I have decided not to lash at the shore like a desperate soul when I arrive. I think instead I shall flow far into the deep blue and dance along with a ship with wind swollen sails seeking adventure into an eternity of horizon.

Song of the day: Jeff Buckley, Last Kiss Goodbye.

Zona Boy's House of Style part two

1) Golf

2) Golf

3) I have two great great uncles who died fighting in the revolution with Zapata. It is HE who said "it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees". There are some who would have you believe that Che Guevara said it but it was Zapata.

4) Scottsdale Community College is legendary for this. When the school was first opened the students were forced to attend school in temp classrooms in the 100+ degree heat because the real classrooms were not finished. The sports facilities however, were another story. They were finished and they were IMMACULATE. You see, Scottsdale CC was meant to be a feeder school for athletes into AZ State U in nearby Tempe. The administration of the school decided to let the students pick the colors and the mascot for the school. An organized and angry and sweaty student body came up with pink and green for the colors and the Artichoke as a mascot. It stuck. It became world famous, and it stands to this day. You can buy little artichoke plush toys with arms and legs and a face in the bookstore. His name is Arti.

I wish I'da had a camera

I'm in the airport at 4:50AM standing at the ATM waiting for my money when I hear a woman's voice behind me.

"Excuse me, are you using the ATM"?

I look back over my shoulder.

"ATM??? I thought this was a URINAL!"

Three other shots from Pub 340. Just playing around with my baby. I really like these shots.

Zona Boy reviews Memoirs of a Geisha.

Enamoring


five fistfulls of popcorn.

Post for Pitt

Dude,

I found myself working with the flights connecting in from all parts of Canada. I would say that these people came in from a place called Bumfuk but that's the American version.

Canadians add words to Bumfuk to put their twist on, so it is fair to say that these fools came in from places like Bumfuk River, and 100 Mile Bumfuk.

So they come down a long glass hallway and can see the luggage carousel and the stop and point like they were at some freaking aquarium or penguin exhibit and many of them try to go through a locked door that says "authorized personnel only" which should be translated to stupid traveler language and say "not through here asswipe".

Of course they wouldn't read that either so the damned door should just be wired with enough electricity to instantly evacuate their intestines.

Of course it's the only freaking luggage carousel they see but they all have to ask if that's where their luggage is. They get the classic "bitch slap" glare from me.

Air Canada hates when I work this area because a number of bags somehow always get left behind.

Stupid Bumfuk Riverites.

The Johnsons. Pub 340, Vancouver, BC.

All photos by D. Lilly and are property of The Johnsons. Copyright 2006.

ZONA BOY'S House of Style

I wear tee shirts almost exclusively. Here is part 1 of my favorites. Blogger takes so long to upload and I'm tired so it'll be in two parts.

1. Lil' Abner's Steak House. Tucson, AZ. My favorite steak house on the planet. It used to be in the middle of nowhere but the city caught up with it. They have menus now but it used to be when you asked for one the waitress would say "steak, chicken, or ribs". That's STILL all they have. You get beans, salad and bread with your meal. It used to be a stagecoach stop on the Butterfield Stage Line. It was owned by two mafia wannabes but now it's owned by their lawyer. I think they're out of prison now though.

2, Canadian Football League. My wife hates this shirt. I have it because I couldn't find the one that said "wider, longer, faster" in my size.

3. Big Nose Kate's saloon in Tombstone, AZ. My wife hates this shirt too.

4. Lilly Harley Davidson. I'll let you guess why I have this shirt. The place does not exist anymore. The shop was seized when the DEA sent the owners to prison for life for dealing meth and handguns. Nope, not related to me as far as I know.

5. Arizona Wildcats shirt. Us hip people just call them "The Cats".

6. One of my raid shirts. Not that I ever go on raids.

7. You tell me. Isn't that the coolest mascot name ever? The Blue Ponys. Havre (HAV ur) Montana High School. I love this shirt and I really should stop wearing it so much because it's probably impossible to replace now.

If you were ever to come over to the house in the evening when I was lounging and watching TV you would more than likely see me in my favorite sweat combo.

Go Flames Go!!

Midstream change of direction

I just over two weeks I leave on vacation with my camera, my printer, a bunch of stamps, and EIGHT addresses.

So here's the deal.

The software to upload photos from my camera is on THIS computer.

I'm not taking THIS computer.

The only thing I will post

on my trip

are

cards.

So if you receive a card from me you may post it on your blog as a psuedo "guest post" or you make keep it for yourself because I will be treating them like posts.

Sign posts from the road

What a cool idea.

The second night I returned.....

to find myself standing on a ledge staring into a lithium horizon of pastel wavelengths. I looked behind as a wall of eight doors withdrew leaving an emerald carpet of summer prairie. A velour lawn chair appeared by my side and I was dressed in a green fleece sweatsuit bottom and a gray cotton tee shirt.

A man appeared and told me to take my seat so I did. He explained that I would spend eternity here alone. I would have a perfect memory of everything I had done in my life. Everything I had learned. Every person who I had met. Every song I had heard and every food that I had tasted. I though of a song and it played. I thought of a dish and I was savoring. I longed for a person and she appeared in my mind and smiled for me.

I had reached heaven in my mind.

The man touched my shoulder and the song stopped, the flavors subsided, and the image went away.

"I must go now but you will stay here. You will always have the ability to hear and feel what you have just experienced. You will also always be alone here. That is what you wished for in your life. To be alone. To feel things alone and to have a calm silence about you and a nice breeze in your face. This is your eternity".

I asked. "Is this heaven"?

"You will decide that. It is what you wanted and your life was such that in the overall judgment it was what you were given. Maybe you deserved more, maybe less. There are an infinite number of possibilities. For some there is God and for some there is Satan. For most there is a somewhere in between".

Then he went away.

I have never been awakened by a more peaceful morning.

In a dream I died....

but it was not the end of the dream. I died at the beginning of this dream. I was escorted by a man in a long robe through a dimly lit hallway. The hallway was like no peace I had ever felt in my mortal life. I knew that I was dead but I was not sad for those I had so suddenly left behind. I knew after all that I was going home. The only thing though was that I had a clear vision of all of the good and all of the bad that I had done in my life.

I have a personal belief that we are our own judges when we die. With a true knowledge of what the plan was and who God is and that life is eternal and that our life on earth is but an instant.

I thought that there would be a lot of people around since so many die on earth every instant but I was alone. We reached the end of the hallway and came into a round room with eight doors. On each door was a picture of a person whom I recognized but who I was not related to.

Jimi Hendrix
Groucho Marx
John Lennon
Frank Sinatra
Rodney Dangerfield
Richard Pryor
Raul Julia
Lou Gehrig

The man told me that I was to choose one of the doors and that my eternity waited behind. All of these men had profound effects on me in as far as I wanted to live my life like theirs. I wanted to have their talent, their personality, and in some way and mix it in with mine to make myself better or cooler or well liked by others.

Then I thought about how I had lived my life and how they had lived theirs and what I thought was sin and what was glory. What was known and what lay unknown about them. Had I lived good enough to go through a door into a happy time of their life or a time of deep despair. This would, after all be my eternity. My reward or my punishment. A cry of joy or of sorrow.

Had each of these men found any piece and comfort that I would share? Had I found any true joy or enough good that would balance out the bad in my life?

I chose.

I reached for a door knob and as I touched it I felt a current of electricity rush through my body like some incredible high. Bright light began to rush out but as soon as it had started it ended with dark blue stillness.

Almost instantly I was staring at the ceiling of my room and gasping through a dry mouth to breathe. By the time I got out of my car and began to walk into work I had rationalized it all away.

My national protest.

The United States is being invaded by a flood of people through a border that is open for some and is not open for others. I don't use the word closed because it is impossible to close the border. The wealthy and the white cross the border legally. The brown and the poor cross the border illegally. Both groups then find ways to stay until they have something in common. They're in the U.S. illegally.

I've dealt with illegal aliens by the hundreds and I have to look far and wide to find the few that I didn't like. The migration of people on this planet goes back a few years. The flow of Mexicans into the U.S. is more recent and is something I have seen all my life. As a young boy I remember a cleaning lady that my grandmother employed one day a week. When I spent time with my grandmother I used to ask the woman to make tortillas and she would. I used to love watching her slap the dough from one hand to another until it was flat enough to toss on the flat cast iron skillet and cook. Then I happily spread butter on the fresh tortilla and ate it while she smiled and made another.

The cleaning lady was illegal. She crossed the border legally with a border crossing card but she was not legally allowed to work.

I've witnessed first hand the flood of illegal aliens and I've laughed with them and cried with a few. I've even been invited to their homes if I were to make it down deep into Mexico where most were from.

Now the U.S. is a rich nation and the news often shows our generosity when a gravely ill child is flown to one of our state of the art hospitals from some far off country for operations that grab them back from the brink of death. Many times the story is on the TV news and we all glow with joy to see a life saved. Yet some people cry out in anger because a critically ill premature infant is allowed to cross the border in an ambulance to receive life saving treatment at a local hospital. They're angry because the parents of that child have no money to pay and the hospital and the taxpayers are left with the cost burden.

Is any infant worth more or less than any other infant?

It's an argument about money. How much does it cost ME is what is being pushed into our faces. Nobody thinks about what is gained or what the alternative is. I just heard that assuming we could get our hands on the estimated 12 million illegal aliens, and that 25% of them went voluntarily, it would cost 12 billion dollars to deport them all. Of course that won't happen.

We hear that illegals do work legals won't and I immediately say that the truthful terminology is that illegals do work that legals won't do at the wage the employer is paying.

Something must be done and two things suggested are just plain impossible.

1) You can't seal the border.
2) You can't deport all the illegals.

There must be a way to legalize the illegals who have woven themselves into our society and have broken no other law.

We can't make this problem go away. We can only ignore it or fix it. Ignoring it will cost more money.

I support any law to be passed that allows good people to work toward legal status and eventual citizenship of the United States.

Zona Boy reviews the movie True Grit.

The movie was released in 1969 and John Wayne won the Academy Award for his portrayal of Deputy Marshall Ruben J. "Rooster" Cogburn.

Rooster is the type of lawman I want to be.

Also in the movie are the very young Robert Duval, Dennis Hopper, and Glen Campbell.

But what is MOST significant about this movie is that it features Hollywood's first openly lesbian character. Played brilliantly by Kim Darby, Mattie is a strong young lesbian woman who isn't afraid to go toe to toe with the male characters as they try to put her in her "place".

The genius of this story is the director who certainly knew what he was doing and craftily pulled the wool over John Wayne's very conservative eyes. I'm certain that the word "tomboy" was used but if you watch this movie you just have to look at Mattie's wardrobe and attitude and you will say three words.

Lezz Bee Un.

This is a bold, groundbreaking movie, and for that I give it 5 fistfulls of popcorn. (out of 5)

Saturday trip to Seattle with the missus. The line at the border moved fast which was a nice start. Gray day all the way down. Breakfast at Denny's, lunch at the Chinese place in Pike's Market and dinner at chez mc'deez. Nice fun day that ended when we got home and back to teenage adventures in child rearing. sigh.

Two of Seattle's most photographed landmarks. Scroll down and you'll see the third.

A still shot promo from the movie, The monster that invaded Seattle from Japan.

Oh my GOD!! He's spotted us. Pull up before he swings that bat at us again!!!

Two blocks from Pike's Market. I told the wife I'd give her $100 to shop while I just stuck my head in the door to say hello but she wasn't having any.

Of course if you get to Seattle......

....you're a big boob if you don't get down to Pike's Market. Meat, seafood, fresh flowers, and produce as well as a large selection of top shelf handicrafts. My wife always ends up with a pair of earrings when I drop by and yesterday was no exception.

Can you guess which pic I posted just for my bottle blonde buddy from Greece? They filmed a scene from Sleepless In Seattle in that restaurant.