Mistakes (Version 2.0)

Following is a list of not-so-common mistakes:

• Renting a room to someone learning to play bagpipes.
• Using your hand as a hammer.
• Following my lead in the precious metals market.
• Aliens from outer space seeking signs of intelligent life at a four-way stop.
• Starting a do-it-yourself plumbing repair project late on a Sunday afternoon.
• Using laundry detergent in a dishwasher.
• Watching the space shuttle Challenger lift off again and hoping it will achieve a successful orbit this time.

—Mitchell Hegman

Round Two

My corner of the valley has experienced near non-stop winds for a week.  The wind has been persistent enough and strong enough to keep me from my daily walks.   Looking out through the glass at my back door, I see the long-needle pine trees in another bout with strong gusts.  The branches look as if they are taking punches at the wind.

Hooray for them!

I am about ready to trot out there and land a few punches myself.

—Mitchell Hegman

Catnap

Yesterday afternoon, the urge to catnap caught hold of me as I stood in my sunroom soaking in light after our days of cold weather.

I asked myself: “How would a cat nap?”

The warm sunlight was my answer.

I immediately fetched a soft cover pad from one of my deck chairs and a couple pillows from my sofa.  I flopped everything onto a patch of light my sunroom floor.

Within a few minutes I was blissfully napping in a sort of nest there on my sunroom floor.

I woke something a bit over a half-hour later.

I was not alone. 

After fluttering my eyes to focus, I found a yearling mule deer standing immediately outside the sunroom glass looking in.

“Hey buddy,” I said.

The deer remained there even as I pressed my smarter-than-me-phone against the window for a photograph.

Ta-da!

Sunroom Nest

My Visitor

—Mitchell Hegman

Bad Hair

Forensic Files is one of my favorite television programs.  I appreciate the deep dives into details and science.  I am also impressed by the unwavering perseverance of the investigators.

While binge watching a pile of episodes from the 1990s, I observed something curious.  A majority of the prosecutors featured appear to be wearing toupees.  Sometimes, poorly fitted toupees.

This has become a distraction for me.

Why are the prosecutors wearing fake hair?

Is that a thing?

I am reminded of another weird hair element from the 1990s.  During the long Montana Freeman standoff in 1996, I noticed two weird details when reporters interviewed locals from Jordon, Montana.  First, if they were standing outside, you could hear geese in honking in flights overhead.  Secondly, all the local men had horrible haircuts.

I mentioned this to my sister, Deb.  “Have you seen their hair?  They must all go to the same bad barber.  Check it out when you watch the news.”

My sister called me sometime later.  “You’re right.  Their hair is awful!  I didn’t notice before.”

“It’s crazy,” I said.  “Now that I noticed, I don’t pay attention to anything else.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Something Voltaire Said

I recently posted what are purported to be among the last words spoken by the French thinker and writer Voltaire.  Today, so we can get to know him better, I am sharing a few other Voltaire quotes from his journey through life:

—"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

—"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”

—"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.”

—"The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”

—"It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.”

Flirting

I will soon refrain from flirting entirely.  I don’t engage in a lot of flirting these days, but I still have a moment now and then. 

My flirting is an activity related entirely to shopping for groceries and was originally prompted by the loss of my wife to cancer.

After my wife’s passing, I found myself shopping for groceries alone.  Shopping for only me implanted a deep feeling of isolation within me.  I found myself wiping away tears on my first two solo shopping trips.  My next few shopping trips improved only slightly. 

Somewhere after my first half-dozen shopping excursions, I decided to change my attitude.  Just for the sport of it, I began taking every opportunity to tease other shoppers or flirt with women while I was shopping.

As far as the flirting went, age was not a thing.  I engaged in conversation with women from the age of 18 to 88.

“I saw that!” I would say if I saw a woman drop something, or tear two bananas from a bunch, or sneak a grape for a taste-test.   I didn’t refrain from asking for advice when purchasing items that strayed from known quantities. 

My interactions and flirting led me to tolerate and sometimes enjoy shopping.

Now, almost eleven years later, I still tease other shoppers and occasionally (harmlessly) flirt with the occasional woman, but I will have no need for that soon.  If my calculus is correct, Desiree will be here within a couple months.

No more shopping for one of this or one of that.

—Mitchell Hegman

Voltaire’s Last Words

I will be sharing what are purported to be among Voltaire’s last words.  There exists some room for doubt these words can be attributed him.  But Voltaire (pen name for French writer François-Marie Arouet) is a good match for the words considering his stance on some matters.

Voltaire was a noted historian and philosopher.  He advocated for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state.  He levied particular criticism against Christianity—especially the Roman Catholic Church.

Voltaire died at the age of 83 in 1778; just as his tenets for freedom were being realized in America.  While on his death bed, a priest in attendance called upon Voltaire to renounce the devil.  Voltaire considered his advice, and then said, “This is no time to be making new enemies.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Morning Report, February 21, 2022

As I write this, more than 15,000 pieces of deadly space junk larger than 4 inches in size are whizzing through prime orbiting space above Earth.  An additional 200,000 pieces sized between 0.4 and 4 inches accompany those.  

Closer to home, winter has returned to the immediate area around my hot tub outside.  No morning soak is scheduled at this time.

A public service reminder: Since December 21, 2012, we have been living within a new 5,126-year-long cycle in the Mayan long count calendar.

The song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from the movie “Encanto” is presently number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 Chart.

I am still holding out on watching the movie ‘Frozen.”

Broccoli is number one on my breakfast menu.

Salma Hayek is still hot.

End of morning report.

—Mitchell Hegman

An Unexpected Savior at Sea

A few days ago, while boating alone late at night in the Santa Barbara Channel, a man named Scott Thompson somehow managed to fall out of his boat.   He was wearing only a t-shirt and shorts when he was pitched into the chilly water.

Thompson was out far enough that he could not see the California coast.  And he watched helplessly as his boat motored on into the black of night without him.

With no other options, Scott Thompson started swimming.  He feared he would die lost at sea.  But he kept swimming and swimming.

Steadily, the grim reality of his predicament settled over Thompson.  And then—as he treaded the water and considered giving up entirely—he heard a splash in the water nearby. 

The splash, he soon discovered, was made by a harbor seal.  Upon reaching Thompson, the seal repeatedly dove under water and nudged at his legs as if urging him to swim on.

Scott Thompson saw the appearance of the seal as a divine sign that against all odds he could make it.

After being nudged by the seal, Thompson swam steadily toward to the nearest oil platform, which was far off but closer than land.

Some five hours later, the crew the oil platform fished Scott Thompson from the water.

—Mitchell Hegman

Source: Leo Stallworth, ABC News

A Correction

A correction.  We are not filled with light.  We are filled with sound.

The sounds within us are soft, but steady enough to part waters and bring down mountains if we persist.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Skating Scandal

When I was young man, I put women’s figure skating on par with watching the Lawrence Welk orchestra playing a polka or replacing a dead battery in my car.

As a boy, I watched figure skating just long enough to see someone fall after turning a double axel into a two-day-old jelly roll, and that would satisfy me.  Last night, the skating at the Olympics was filled with enough tension to keep me fixed on the sofa.

Really, we all witnessed a full-on tragedy.  Kamila Valieva, the fifteen-year-old Russian phenomenon (presently entangled in a doping scandal), crashed out of her long program.  She was expected to win gold, and was obviously crushed by the weight of the world put upon her.

Kamila Valieva is not an adult.  She is a child—a child manipulated, and now (in my estimation) abused by adult coaches.

This morning, I find myself wishing I had changed the battery in my car last night.

—Mitchell Hegman

Sunroom Sunsets

I am all about sunsets.  Lately, I have been enjoying them from the vantagepoint of my sunroom.  Oddly enough, I never considered sunsets when planning or building the sunroom.  But as good fortune would have it, there is no better place to be as the sun sizzles down against the Rocky Mountains.

I am perpetually on the hunt for a great sunset photograph.  I have hundreds upon hundreds of sunset images saved on my computer.  My wife took pleasure in teasing me as I scampered from window to window, camera in hand, waiting for the perfect time to dash outside and bracket a few images.

If you want a great sunset, you need to monitor the sky closely.  The colors are ever-changing and they don’t last long.

“Don’t you have enough pictures of sunsets?” my wife would ask me.

Short answer: “No.”

Today, I am posting images captured from my sunroom.

Sunset 2-7-2022

Sunset 2-14-2022

Sunset 2-16-2022

—Mitchell Hegman

Dedicated

I have been watching the Winter Olympics.  I particularly enjoy the skiing and boarding events.  The skill and perseverance of the athletes is astonishing.

Downhill racers are especially dedicated, if not reckless.  Almost all of them have sustained and overcome serious injuries in pursuit of a gold medal.

Winners need to walk through the proverbial fire to reach the victor’s podium.

I got to thinking about other events.  You can bet the curling team lead player is dedicated if they have broken seven bones and torn three ligaments in previous curling matches.

—Mitchell Hegman

Perpendicular

Retirement is great.  No doubt about that.  But I can honestly say I loved working as an electrician and I miss some aspects of working on construction sites.

Number one, I miss my coworkers.  My buddies.

I also miss some of the daily silliness we cultivated on the jobsite.

I can illustrate what I am talking about with one of my journal entries.  This is what a wrote on September 17, 1997:

I guess you might say I’m ‘chirpy’ while at work.  I sometimes, for no valid reason, blurt out nonsense as I tour around the jobsite on my way to one place or another.  While you might argue successfully that most all that I say and do at my job is nonsense, the stuff I am referring to is wholesale nonsense.  Sometimes, I simply let out a “whoop” as I whisk by a room where a plumber might be soldering copper pipe or the tin-bender is banging his head against a duct.

I have a litany of phrases I like to blurt as I waddle along.  “It’s a heartache,” I may sing, or, “Go away little squirrel.”

The sprinkler fitter foreman on this latest job is nearly too friendly and an obvious drug abuser.  I like him a lot.  He smokes a pipe, which refuses to stay lit for him, and he stares at the framed walls for a long time before drilling the holes required for his system.  I often walk right up to him, say “perpendicular” with raised eyes, then walk away without another sound.

Much of what I say is participatory.  For example, I regularly yell out “What’s the hub?” and a chorus of my coworkers will reply “Bub” from the various rooms in which they are working.  I might holler out “What’s it all about?” and hear a voice or two answer “Alfie.”  One of my coworkers, a giant man to my short stature, always says “Buddy Little” upon seeing me.  “Buddy Big,” I sing out in response.

I miss that goofy stuff.  My days were better for it.

My 20 pounds of housecat and I just don’t connect on that level.

—Mitchell Hegman

A Day on the Ice

Yesterday, with sunshine and temperatures scratching at the 50s, my mountain cabin neighbors came out to spend some time on the ice at my lakefront.  The ice is something near 18 inches thick at present—thick enough for any activity.  While my friends fished through some holes they drilled through the ice, I tended a fire on the shore and spent time padding around on the ice.

The ice is displaying unusual patterns this year.  The patterns resulted from harsh weather when the lake froze.  The first inch or so of ice formed during an arctic impulse.  That ice was partially broken up during a brief warm and windy spell.  The broken ice and open water then refroze quickly, creating the patterns seen today.

Our sunshine day ended with one trout pulled up through the ice (and released to live another day) and grilled bratwurst at the lakeshore.

Unusual Ice Patterns

Fishing on the Ice

Sun and Ice

A Trout on the Ice

—Mitchell Hegman

A Roadside Kevin

A Kevin, if you are unfamiliar, is anything that supports one end of something or temporarily holds something in place.  Kevins are named after my neighbor Kevin.  He is particularly good at holding stuff in place.

We are, in fact, surrounded by Kevins.

While on a walk along my country road, I paused for a moment so I could remove my jacket.  Before removing my jacket, I peeled off my gloves.  As good fortune would have it, I found a stand of rabbitbrush just off the edge of the road to serve as a Kevin for holding my gloves.

A Rabbitbrush Kevin

—Mitchell Hegman

A Curious Flaw

Back in my early days of bachelorhood, I survived on a diet consisting of three food “groups.”  Top Ramen Noodles made up one group.  The second group was comprised of fast food.  The third group consisted of canned goods.

Obviously, the entire diet centered on ease of preparation.

Most of the other young men I knew survived on the same diet. 

A particularly curious flaw existed within the canned goods group.  One of my friends discovered the flaw a day or so following his hosting a small party at his bachelor pad.  Upon opening his cupboards to retrieve a quick meal, he discovered that on the night of the party his drunken friends had removed the labels from every can in his food stock.

For the next few weeks, his meals were something of a blind can lottery.

—Mitchell Hegman

Shadow Abuse

Even on our best days, if we walk too close to the street the sun will throw our shadow under a passing bus.

—Mitchell Hegman

Grouse Soup

Four of us gathered at my house to make grouse soup with birds harvested last fall.

Producing the soup necessitates big pots because the first stage requires dumping whole grouse (minus the breasts) in the pot along with whole carrots, celery stalks, halved onions, peppers, and whatever whatnots you prefer.

After cooking the mix down, the broth is cooled, separated, and then mixed one more time with only the meat stripped from the birds, freshly chopped vegetables, and a mix of spices.

Making grouse soup is a lot of work, but it’s good work. 

Kevin and a Full Pot on the Stove

Cooling the Batches Before Separating the Broth

String Beans and Carrots Ready for the Final Mix

—Mitchell Hegman

Bette Davis and Freddie Mercury Eating Hamburgers

Bette Davis invited Freddie Mercury to her house for a grilled hamburger.

“I must admit,” Freddie remarked as they sat down to their burgers under a palm tree near Bette’s grill, “I never imagined you the type to enjoy a grilled burger.”

“I appreciate a hamburger fresh from the grill,” Bette admitted.  “As someone similarly famous, I am sure you understand the myths and misconceptions that accompany your fame.”

Freddie nodded.

“But it is also true that fame makes us strange.”  Bette sipped at her iced tea, and continued speaking.  “I often played to my critics.  I nurtured a reputation for being difficult.  When I traveled, I took a ridiculous number of bags.  One of the smaller bags I filled with sand.  Two larger ones were stuffed with pillows I never used.”

Freddie laughed.   When he followed that by biting into his burger, a pickle slice ejected from his burger and unceremoniously flopped onto his plate.  “Well,” he said, “that was rather bull elephantish of me.  My apologies.”

Bette Daves waved her hand.  “No need for apologies.  Pickles are tricky.”  She issued a laugh.  “Tell me, what makes you strange, Mr. Mercury?”

Freddie Mercury answered without hesitation.  “I am not strange for what I have done, but strange for a peculiar genetic twist.  I was born with four extra teeth in my upper jaw.  I was opposed to having them surgically removed for fear my singing might be altered.”

“So, you embraced your strange?”

“I did.”

“Excellent.  We can do no better than that.”

—Mitchell Hegman

Note: One of the admissions expressed above is true.

Tidbits

• You can’t fool gravity forever.
• If your dreams aren’t really weird, you’re not doing it right.
• You can leave the state of Montana, but you can’t leave the Montana state of mind.
• An idealist is someone who will stab you in the back and the front.
• My grandmother was correct.  I needed to find a career.
• Toenail clippers are never misplaced.

—Mitchell Hegman

To Walk Away

While out on an afternoon walk, I stopped near a stand of long-needle pines to soak in a little winter sun.  The sage and juniper and pine are presently free of snow, but snow remains in patchwork fashion across the terrain.

I thought about bluebirds as I stood there looking out over rumpled, wintery landscape.  Bluebirds will be returning at some point next month.  Their return is meaningful to me.  They carry spring on their electric-blue wings.

A breeze sieved through the pines as I stood there with the sun feeling like a warm arm resting on my shoulders.  My mind, which refuses to tether to one thing for long, soon fixed on the murmuring sound of the wind caught in the branches above me.

If you listen to wind in pine trees for long enough, you begin to hear whispering voices there.  The trick is to walk away before the voices make sense to you.

—Mitchell Hegman

Growing a New Leg

I recently read an article titled “Growing it Back” by Matthew Hutson.  The piece explores the concept of triggering the human body to grow back missing fingers, arms, legs, and so on.

We are not talking science fiction.  Much of the work revolves around research conducted by a man named Michael Levin.  He, and many others, contend it is not a matter of “if” we can do this, but a matter of how soon.  Among many other things, they have successfully triggered a frog to regenerate a missing leg.

Most interesting to me is the way the researchers prompt the regrowth of missing body parts.  They are not tinkering with genetics.  They simply use electrical impulses at the cellular level to urge regrowth.  Levin considers what they do as something akin to reprograming the cells.

Weirdly enough, my response to the article was to shed a few tears.

I thought about my departed wife.  She spent the last sixteen years of her life disabled and suffering from chronic pain due to a damaged spinal cord as result of transverse myelitis.

For a while she tried controlling her pain with a TENS unit.  The TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) machine injected electrical impulses into the small of her back by way of electrodes placed on her skin.

For a while that seemed to work.  But soon enough her body selected pain again.

After finishing the article, I sat there thinking about some of Uyen’s lousy, especially painful days.  How different our lives would have been if a modified electrical signal could have spared her from that.

 

—Mitchell Hegman

My Reward

Yesterday, I painted some trim in my sunroom.  I did so without having a single conniption fit.

That’s a pretty solid performance for me.

Upon the calm completion of my work, I figured I deserved a reward.  So, I did what any other kid from East Helena, Montana, would do.  I baked myself a huckleberry pie with the last of my harvest from the summer of 2020.

My shortbread pie crust topping turned out a bit like something I made from scraps I found in my garage (with plenty of mismeasurement).  Or, as Desiree put it when I showed her the pie via my smarter-than-me-phone: “What happened to the top?”

No matter how it looked, the taste proved bright and upright.

Prepping the Pie

My Pie Cooling Outside   

—Mitchell Hegman

Two Wasgij Puzzles

I recently completed two Wasgij puzzles.

“Wasgij” is jigsaw spelled backwards.  Wasgij puzzles are a challenge in that no image of what the cartoon puzzle will look like when complete is provided with the puzzle.  The picture on the front of the box will only give you a few hints of what to expect.

I enjoy a difficult jigsaw puzzle and I get a kick out of cartoon puzzles.

The puzzles I completed were titled Wasgij 16: The Christmas Show!   A single box contained two 1000-piece puzzles.

When pieced together, one puzzle depicted children on a stage performing their Christmas program.  The second puzzle featured parents and other family members watching the show.

If you have read my blog much, you know I regularly prove I am an idiot.

Thanks to the Christmas show puzzles, I managed to prove so one more time.

I have done enough Wasgij puzzles that I don’t bother looking at the box cover, instead I flip the box over and use it for sorting pieces and storing some of the sorted pieces.  It wasn’t until I finished both puzzles that I realized this box, for the first time, imaged one of the two puzzles.  Apparently, I ignored the banner on the box informing me so.

Wasgij Box Cover

Puzzle #1

Puzzle #2   

—Mitchell Hegman

Somebody That I Used to Know

There are times when I need something to lift my mood a little.  On such occasions, YouTube is often my go-to place.  Once there, I will seek either short videos about animal rescues or certain music videos.

Today, I am posting one of the videos I regularly watch.  The song, performed by Walk Off the Earth, is a cover, but the performance is unique and (for me) mood-altering.

—Mitchell Hegman

Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9NF2edxy-M

Soothed

Sometimes, I think a whole year of stress might be soothed by that one afternoon when you arrive home from a day of grinding human activity and find your cat peering up at you from a nest of clothing within the laundry basket. 

—Mitchell Hegman

I Dreamed of You

I dreamed of you last night, island girl.

I found you after wandering through a cobalt night.  You stood in bright light under a white canopy.  The music of simple instruments and bamboo drums filled the air as I approached you.

We didn’t need to speak.

Instead, we danced close, merging into a gathering of people with kind but unfamiliar faces.

Your black hair smelled of orange mist and mango.

When you finally fixed your dark eyes on mine, I understood why kittens purr and the first birds of morning sing from the highest points.

 

—Mitchell Hegman