Bill Murray, get off my beach!
Yeah, okay. Not my favorite holiday. Then again, I'm not a holiday person. At least not in the good ol' American holidays sense of being a "holiday person." Hallowe'en, very cool. I'm down with Hallowe'en. Wait. Are kids still saying "down with" to mean "I approve"? Anyway, I do St. Patrick's Day, because...and I love the food, though the very lapsed Catholic thing brings a certain degree of guilt to the affair. Then again, guilt is part and parcel of the non-lapsed Catholic experience, so never mind.
I'm kind of more into things like Darwin Day and the International Day for Biodiversity. Yeah, I know. But whatever. Point is, I'm not into the Fourth of July. It's one of the most annoying holidays ever dreamt up.* Shit explodes for a month before and after, at all hours of the night. Fat men in flip flops slathered in sunscreen and wearing baby-blue flip-flops while they barbecue and drink cheap beer and watch baseball. To me, this is the Fourth of July. So, yuck. Also, not so big on the nationalism thing, so I can't come at it from that angle, either.
However, on this day in 1911, my Grandpa Gordy Monroe Ramey, was born. He was possibly my only positive male role model when I was growing up. Even though he was a drunkard. But he'd worked for the Civilian Conservation Corp and had been a hobo during the Great Depression. He was a brick mason. He traded hunting dogs and guns with other men who liked trading hunting dogs and guns. He let us ride in the back of his huge green pick-up truck. One time, one of his kittens was bitten in the face by a copperhead, and he nursed it back to health. He once spent a winter feeding a colony of ants sugar; the ants lived under the telephone. He only ever read two books in his life, The Old Man and the Sea and The Book of Matthew (or was it Luke?), and thereafter declared he didn't need to read any more books. He was the first person to take me fossil hunting. He made muscadine and dandelion wine. He chewed Red Man tobacco and dipped wintergreen-flavored snuff. He'd been in knife fights and had the scars to prove it. He died of emphysema in 1977, at the age of 65. He was like a living Tom Waits song. So, for me, this is Grandpa Ramey Day.
Also, happy birthday to Malia Obama. I know she reads my LJ. For sure.
Oh, and the Higgs boson for the win!
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Yesterday was mine and Spooky's tenth anniversary. I took the day off, though I can ill afford such luxuries right now. But, fuck it dude. I get ONE tenth anniversary with Spooky. Ever. Editors can fucking bite me if they don't understand. We went to Thayer Street and saw Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom at the Avon. It was unnerving. The whole film was shot in Rhode Island, and mostly on Conanicut Island. There are scenes set in West Cove, our favorite beach-glass collecting spot. I took pictures during the movie (behind the cut, below). It was a delightfully sweet movie. Then we went to What Cheer, across and down the street to get one another gifts. I got Spooky an Edward Gorey print, and she got me a 1939 Nancy Drew novel - The Clue of the Tapping Heels - and an embroidered handkerchief (I'm guessing circa 1950 something, though it was brand new). Then we had dinner at India (our favorite Indian restaurant), which sits directly across from Swan Point Cemetery, where the earthly remains of Lovecraft reside. And that was Anniversary Number Ten. And, as I said, photos behind the cut.
Yes, I will be writing today. Tomorrow, I get my first tattoo (yes, there likely will be photos).
West Cove "in 1965."
What Cheer!
Now We Are Ten,
Aunt Beast
* Note that "the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776," not on July 4, 1776 (source, Wikipedia).
I'm kind of more into things like Darwin Day and the International Day for Biodiversity. Yeah, I know. But whatever. Point is, I'm not into the Fourth of July. It's one of the most annoying holidays ever dreamt up.* Shit explodes for a month before and after, at all hours of the night. Fat men in flip flops slathered in sunscreen and wearing baby-blue flip-flops while they barbecue and drink cheap beer and watch baseball. To me, this is the Fourth of July. So, yuck. Also, not so big on the nationalism thing, so I can't come at it from that angle, either.
However, on this day in 1911, my Grandpa Gordy Monroe Ramey, was born. He was possibly my only positive male role model when I was growing up. Even though he was a drunkard. But he'd worked for the Civilian Conservation Corp and had been a hobo during the Great Depression. He was a brick mason. He traded hunting dogs and guns with other men who liked trading hunting dogs and guns. He let us ride in the back of his huge green pick-up truck. One time, one of his kittens was bitten in the face by a copperhead, and he nursed it back to health. He once spent a winter feeding a colony of ants sugar; the ants lived under the telephone. He only ever read two books in his life, The Old Man and the Sea and The Book of Matthew (or was it Luke?), and thereafter declared he didn't need to read any more books. He was the first person to take me fossil hunting. He made muscadine and dandelion wine. He chewed Red Man tobacco and dipped wintergreen-flavored snuff. He'd been in knife fights and had the scars to prove it. He died of emphysema in 1977, at the age of 65. He was like a living Tom Waits song. So, for me, this is Grandpa Ramey Day.
Also, happy birthday to Malia Obama. I know she reads my LJ. For sure.
Oh, and the Higgs boson for the win!
---
Yesterday was mine and Spooky's tenth anniversary. I took the day off, though I can ill afford such luxuries right now. But, fuck it dude. I get ONE tenth anniversary with Spooky. Ever. Editors can fucking bite me if they don't understand. We went to Thayer Street and saw Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom at the Avon. It was unnerving. The whole film was shot in Rhode Island, and mostly on Conanicut Island. There are scenes set in West Cove, our favorite beach-glass collecting spot. I took pictures during the movie (behind the cut, below). It was a delightfully sweet movie. Then we went to What Cheer, across and down the street to get one another gifts. I got Spooky an Edward Gorey print, and she got me a 1939 Nancy Drew novel - The Clue of the Tapping Heels - and an embroidered handkerchief (I'm guessing circa 1950 something, though it was brand new). Then we had dinner at India (our favorite Indian restaurant), which sits directly across from Swan Point Cemetery, where the earthly remains of Lovecraft reside. And that was Anniversary Number Ten. And, as I said, photos behind the cut.
Yes, I will be writing today. Tomorrow, I get my first tattoo (yes, there likely will be photos).
West Cove "in 1965."
What Cheer!
Now We Are Ten,
Aunt Beast
* Note that "the legal separation of the Thirteen Colonies from Great Britain occurred on July 2, 1776," not on July 4, 1776 (source, Wikipedia).