Category Archives: Animals

Cats Cradles, Communities, Hungers and Bokononism

Posted on November 19, 2012 by | 9 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for the visit.

Cats Cradle

I’m rapidly developing an overweening pride in this.  15-18 pounds of cat slept on it last night, and it’s no worse for the wear.

But, I’ve digressed.

Maybe it was inevitable.  While I was doing other things over the past weeks my mind began toying around with abstractions involving communities and the attraction human beings have for them.  I’d been reading some Jack London and found myself sticking pieces of his thinkings off in the side of my mind, observations about the packages of community he experienced and wrote about.

But on the side Slab City sneaked into my mind occasionally, and the attraction I’ve no intention to indulge, that remains despite my intentions. 

Or the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous RV and van dwellers are going to stage in Quartzite, Arizona in January.  http://cheapgreenrvliving.com/Rendezvous.html 

Evidently thousands of RVs and van dwellers converge on the spot every January for a big RV show, and the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous takes place concurrently.    50-100 people who live in RVs or vans or wish to live in them, and feel the need to be part of a community of a sort they didn’t find surrounded by RVs, campers and vans in RV parks, State Parks, or in National Forests.

Are the people occupying those dots down there different than the ones you’d meet if you went knocking on doors at the Take It Easy Trailer Court in Kerrville, Texas?  I dunno.

But something in my mind connected the concept of community and the human need for it with Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and Bokononism:

Bokononism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bokononism is a fictional religion invented by Kurt Vonnegut and practiced by many of the characters in his novel Cat’s Cradle. Many of the sacred texts of Bokononism were written in the form of calypsos.

Bokononism is based on the concept of foma, which are defined as harmless untruths. A foundation of Bokononism is that the religion, including its texts, is formed entirely of lies; however, one who believes and adheres to these lies will have peace of mind, and perhaps live a good life. The primary tenet of Bokononism is to “Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”

Bokononism encompasses a number of unique concepts expressed in the San Lorenzan dialect:[1]

  • boko-maru – the supreme act of worship of the Bokononists, which is an intimate act consisting of prolonged physical contact between the naked soles of the feet of two persons.
  • “Busy, busy, busy” – what a Bokononist whispers whenever he thinks about how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.
  • “Calypso” – song from The Books of Bokonon. Eight such songs are cited in Cat’s Cradle, some of them are presented with a title (i.e. On Dynamic Tension or The Boko-maru Calypso) and others are presented with a number (i.e. The Hundred-and-nineteenth Calypso). The Calypsos illustrate various aspects of the teachings of Bokonon.
  • duffle – the destiny of thousands of people placed on one stuppa
  • duprass – a karass that consists of only two people. This is one of the few kinds of karass about which one can have any reliable knowledge. The two members of a duprass live lives that revolve around each other, and are therefore often married. “A true duprass can’t be invaded, not even by children born of such a union.” The novel cites the example of “Horlick Minton, the New American Ambassador to the Republic of San Lorenzo, and his wife, Claire.” The two members of a duprass always die within a week of each other.
  • foma – harmless untruths; lies that, if used correctly, can be useful.
  • granfalloon – a false karass; i.e., a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist. An example is “Hoosiers“; Hoosiers are people from Indiana, and Hoosiers have no true spiritual destiny in common, so they really share little more than a name. Another example is a Cornellian, a student or graduate of Cornell University.
  • kan-kan – the instrument which brings a person into his or her karass
  • karass – group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God’s will. The group can be thought of as the fingers that support a cat’s cradle.
  • “Now I will destroy the whole world” – What a Bokononist says before committing suicide.
  • pool-pah – wrath of God or “shit storm”
  • saroon – to acquiesce to a vin-dit
  • sin-wat – a person who wants all of somebody’s love for him/herself
  • sinookas – the tendrils of one’s life
  • stuppa – a fogbound child (i.e. an idiot)
  • vin-dit – a sudden shove in the direction of Bokononism
  • wampeter – the central theme or purpose of a karass. Each karass has two wampeters, one waxing and one waning.
  • wrang-wrang – someone who steers a Bokononist away from a line of speculation by reducing that line, with the example of the wrang-wrang’s own life, to an absurdity.
  • Zah-mah-ki-bo – fate, inevitable destiny

Brought me to realize these cats around here are all Bokononists.  They’ve been sneaking around here converting me to their religion all these years without me knowing it, superimposing their viewpoints over my natural ones.

Forcing me to have a community with them.

But at least I don’t have to go to Quartzite, Arizona to have a community.  Bokononism is a big step up in life if I can look around inside the RV and find a community without having to go all the way to Quartzite, or Slab City, AZ.

Old Jules

9 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Relationships, Solitude, Spirituality, Transportation, Trucks

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Smug Self-Congratulation and Slow Rapid Advancement

Posted on November 18, 2012 by | 38 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

When I brought up the screen to post I noticed it’s November 18.  Old Sol’s muttering to me that he’s becoming bored with all my scurryings and goings on every time I go around him again without becoming a bit wiser in any way discernable by alert human beings.

But tomorrow I’ll have gotten by with it 70 times despite a persistent, continuing foolishness and determination to smack head-on into heavy, solid objects.  One such object I’ll be telling you about here, but that’s later on in the post.  But first, a few other matters. 

My friend Rich and his wife Lisa came to visit a few days recently.  We spent a lot of time just savoring the company, hours and days flashing by in such rapid sequence I’m reminded of those strobes a person used to have a to deal with on dance floors during the 1980s when I try to remember the details.

All I can say for certain is the time passed more as a pleasant dream than some feet-on-the-ground experience anchored in reality.

But somewhere during all that Rich fixed my computer so’s it connected online through WIFI.  When I left one evening he was downloading several years of updates to Windows Vista and AVG, which turned out to be a considerable task.

Rich has an amazing music collection and he brought along an 8gb flash drive loaded with some I didn’t have.  Took a T-drive back with him I’d freed up 600 gb from and he’ll be sending me the rest of what he has.

Amazing times we live in, where a thing such as that can happen.

Reality did rear up and whinny, however.

The second night I was driving home, moderate speed, and saw a dim shape in the oncoming lane ahead.  Thought it might be a deer and moved my foot to the brake, but before I could press the pedal it became a frightened, full grown buck.

I stood the RV on its nose while the deer ran in front, reversed himself, ran back, then back again before the WHACK.  A catastrophy for the deer, but a wild stroke of luck for me.

The incident revealed all the cabinet doors in the RV suffered from metal fatigue.  Every item I’d carefully arranged in those cabinets, securely stored, came down, forward, cans of cat food hitting the back of my head, all manner of articles filling the floorboard underfoot.  A crucial piece of knowledge I’d hate to have learned under different circumstances.

So the past few days have been spent scratching my head about the best ways for securing belongings in a vehicle destined to travel at highway speeds with the potential for sudden stops.  Studying those cabinet doors for ways to lock them shut. 

Trying out cargo nets as an option.

Installing recycled refrigerator shelves and ways to secure what’s on them, along with a platform from a grader-ditch cooler-top for the comp to sit on when I need it as a GPS, a place for incidentals the rest of the time.

Which is all to say, these are things I needed to know, bought at the price of minimal damage to the RV, the life of a buck deer, and enough expense making repairs to cut into the gas money I’d been hoarding.

Well worth the cost of setting back departure clock enough to accomodate it.

I’ve been waiting almost 70 years for this trip and the cats assure me a few more days won’t matter.

Old Jules

38 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Emergency Preparedness, New Mexico, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Senior Citizens, Texas, Transportation, Trucks, White Trash Repairs

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Rain, Feral Swine, Leaks and Yankee Soldiers

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | 6 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

We were blessed with a few days of rain here, beginning with a frog strangler during the night.  Most of the cats and I were in the RV when the tree fell on the roof of the cabin, but it made enough noise to satisfy our needs to hear something.

I made a run for the cabin to see how bad things were, but it turned out nothing came through the roof this time.  Just a wake-up call, though.  Lots more dead trees around the cabin.

After the big rain came a day of light, intermittent rainfall which allowed me to chase down and caulk various roof leaks in the RV roof I’d noted and I plugged a good many of them.  Found a few more when the rain began again, but it’s coming along.

Second night after the rain the feral hogs came in, snorting and banging around between the RV and the cabin.  I just ignored them, let them do their own thing because I wasn’t needing any altercations with that sort of individuals. 

Meanwhile, the neighbor up the hill was able to burn a lot of the piles of cedar he’d been pushing up, clearing it.  Looked like a thousand campfires across there.  Beautiful sight in the dark.  Must have been the way it would have appeared for a Civil War army looking across the landscape at the enemy camps the night before a battle.

Next morning the cats and I had our muskets loaded, bayonets fixed crouched in our hidey holes, waiting for all those Yankee soldiers to swarm across the meadow, but I reckons we scared them off.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Country Life, Human Behavior, Texas

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Perfect Man Shrine – Columbus, NM

Posted on September 12, 2012 by | 18 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Someone during the 1960s built this, put up a small RV park with water and electrical connections around it, evidently for potential pilgrims.  It’s on the boundary between desert and Columbus, New Mexico.  I used to go hang around there most times when I’d visit Columbus for other reasons.  Never saw anyone there, though the shrine did have palm leaves fresh every time during the early 1990s.

But the RV park is grown up with cactus and creosote, doesn’t appear to have ever been used.  The power boxes are full of mud-dobber nests.  I’ve been thinking for some while about the place as a winter refuge.  I gather the place changed hands after someone died, the new owners live across the street and aren’t followers of Meyar Baba.  They work for USFS in Arizona several months a year. 

I was talking to one of the cats about the place last night when I was trying to sleep and she was trying to keep me from it by kneading her claws on my chest.  She likes the thought of it being somewhat remote, while having the potential for desert mice and lizards.  Probably fairly warm, too.  Suggested, once I get footloose, if something else doesn’t get in the way, that I try chasing down the current owners.  Try to get a feel for whether they’d take kindly to having someone park in there occasionally.

I’m thinking that cat might be onto something.

Old Jules

18 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Country Life, Human Behavior, New Mexico, NM, Outdoors, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Tolerable Tolerance For Intolerance

Posted on September 11, 2012 by | 3 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning. 

I entered a friendly discussion yesterday about the particular issue everyone’s bathing in today, yesterday on Cheaprvliving forum, so I’m cleansed of any temptation to discuss it here.  

 http://www.cheaprvlivingforum.com/post/Remembering-911-6005480

I’m gratified to have certain suspicions confirmed regarding a particular sort of individual in the virtual bathtub, but the thread got locked before all the usual suspects came up out of the woodwork.

Anyway, we ain’t going to discuss that here. 

Been doing a lot on the RV, filling in voids with insulating foam, preparing to lift the rearend to install the shocks and helper springs.  Devising a means of keeping the cats in the overhead during travel, and sleeping inside it nights with one, or another cat as company.

The felines tend to become a lot more affectionate when I’m trying to sleep in there, I’m finding.  I attribute it to a recognition we’re going to be on the road together soon and they figure I might put the top-cat position up for grabs.

They’re running for election, in other words, telling lies, saying lies about themselves and telling the truth about the others.

But Hydrox is savvy.  He knows Top Cat is a position comes without anyone having to vote, without me having to lift a finger or make any contribution to the process at all. 

So, shouldn’t be any reason at all for Jeanne to have to lock this thread.  I’m staying low-key, not planning any bathing in synthetics or simulations to influence the outcome of the Top Cat issue.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Government, Human Behavior, Senior Citizens, Solitude

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Escape Route [or Rout] Projects and Such

Posted on September 4, 2012 by | 10 comments

Good morning readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I suppose any vehicle as old as this one and built as this one was built would inevitably require some fixup before becoming a cabin on wheels.  I mentioned in an earlier post about the springs sagging, and the springs have arrived, waiting for the new shocks to get here.

But I’m going to remove that AC unit up there to get rid of the weight, replace it with a roof vent, which is in transit.    That’s a lot of weight up there to be carrying around for something I’m unlikely to use much.  And there’s evidence the roof structure doesn’t need the challenge it provides.

I covered that crack in the front window with Gorilla tape for now, but ultimately I’m thinking I’ll cut a flat piece of panel to place behind it and fill in the bubble-void with insulation foam. 

Probably put a compartment in it for a GPS receiver with a better view of the sky than I’d get from the dashboard.

I’ll run Delorme Street Atlas on the laptop when I’m trying to navigate around towns, but I truly love Terrain Navigator where there’s enough variation in the terrain to justify using it.  I’m rigging a stand for the laptop to swivel from one of the passenger-side neck-support posts.

This thing just posted by itself.  I’m just going to finish it, editing in the rest, I reckons.

Anyway, once I get the AC off I’ll do a complete over on the roof with this stuff, and new caulking anywhere my imagination leads me.  The critical path on this part is that I can’t pull off the AC until the 14×14 roof vent arrives to replace it.

I’ve been feeling the walls and ceiling inside and out, drilling through and squirting in a lot of that Great Stuff foam where I find a void, of which there are a sufficient number to allow me a sense of accomplishment.

Then there’s the matter of the cats.  I’m making that overhead into a travel space for the cats to enjoy themselves in while we’re on the road.  A place where they can’t contrive to get underfoot, or jump out at a gas station to find a new life for themselves.

Once we’re parked somewhere it will go back to being a bed, whatever, but on the road it will be a cage.  They won’t like it, but they’ll like it better than all the alternatives they’d find in the alternative Universe they’d be choosing for themselves if they got loose.

And against the advice of people who know a lot more than I do about these matters, I’m going to find, or construct a small trailer to pull behind for large bags of cat food, tools, extra clothing, and probably some prospecting gear.

This thing’s for sale in San Antonio [Converse] on Craigslist for $100.  If I weren’t so far from SA I’d snap it up, gut it and convert it to a light haul trailer with a top to pull behind the Toyota.  Might be a ragged out popup is sitting behind someone’s house within a 40 mile radius they’d part with at a similarly righteous price.

But I’ve messed this post up enough for now.  Maybe I’ll go into this more later on a post I haven’t already posted.

Old Jules

10 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, Animals, New Mexico, NM, Prospecting, Redneck Repairs, RedneckRepairs, Texas, Trucks

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Silky Rooster’s Been Raptured Out

Posted on August 31, 2012 by | 8 comments

I told you that silky rooster was intelligent, but I thought he’d outsmarted himself by getting loose and left behind here.  All those hens he came up with as a chick, the surviving rooster.  Kay’s hens and rooster.  All now joined with a free ranging flock somewhere else.

And he was sorely depressed being alone here.

But he must have known faith would see him through.  A lady down the road with 17 hens and no roosters emailed me after I listed him on Kerrville FreeCycle.  We arranged to meet yesterday at a pullover midway between her and me.

“What a beautiful rooster!”  He preened.

“What’s his name?”

“I’ve never given him a name.”  She scowled and stroked him.

“I always name my chickens.”  Attractive pucker.

To which Mr. NoName Silky replied, “I’ve been to the wild wood, mither.  Mak my bed soon.”

All’s well that ends well.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Human Behavior, Outdoors, Texas

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Teetering on the Brink of a New Era – May My Flock Decrease

Posted on August 26, 2012 by | 21 comments

A friend of Linda’s [the lady who runs the Habitat for Humanity Thrift Store in Kerrville] has agreed to take my flock of free-ranging chickens.  As well as Kay’s smaller flock.  He’s been taking care of Linda’s free-rangers when she isn’t home, lives adjacent to her, and Linda vouches for him being a responsible person.

So it’s one more bug on the windshield of this old life, thinks I.

Sometime today he should be coming out to pick them up.   I’ve kept them caged so I’ll be able to catch them.

One small step for a man, one giant step for mankind, I figures. 

I’ll miss them, but you can’t take them with you, as the saying goes.  Once the Great Speckled Bird joined the Great Rooster Fight In The Sky things haven’t been the same around here anyway.  A lot of the joy that came with having the flock around went away, and the hens quit behaving themselves without him to keep them in line.

Old Jules

11:00 am addendum:  The birds are history, except for the silky rooster commie pictured above.  He got loose and I’ll never catch him today.  But a silky of his stature oughtn’t be too difficult to find a home for.  Everyone wants a chicken with his kind of class, thinks I.

21 Comments

Posted in 2012, Animals, Chickens, Country Life, Free-ranging-chickens, Homesteading

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The Opera Ticket, The Backpack and The Feline Asylum

Posted on August 20, 2012 by | 7 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

Elroyjones and others who’ve asked for pics,  I don’t have this miracle out here yet so I can’t provide you pics at the moment of that specific one.  But the cool thing about living in the 21s Century is a person can meet himself coming the other direction down the road he’s going on.

Someone on Craigslist is selling one so much like it I had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t the same backpack.  http://sandiego.craigslist.org/csd/rvs/3189851591.html

image 0

image 1

A couple of things are different, but generally the same animal.  The Craigslist one’s 21′ and the Opera Ticket’s 18′, I’m thinking.  Same model, same engine, interior design somewhat different – this guy claims 18 mpg on the road.  The one I’m getting has a generator mounted below on this side, while this one doesn’t.

But the Feline Asylum’s got 76,000 miles on the 22R engine, sat up a decade after the man owned it was killed in a plane crash.  Then another man bought it, worked on a lot of it for five years, put a new set of tires on it, and before he was finished decided he has to move to Arkansas.  It has a few things to be done before it’s ready to head off looking at operas.

I’ll be back and forth this week getting things arranged while the cats chew their toenails and stomp around complaining.

Old Jules

7 Comments

Posted in 2012, Adventure, America, Animals, Senior Citizens, Transportation, Trucks

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Philosophy by Limerick – Necessary Evils

Posted on August 7, 2012 by | 4 comments

Providing for continuity
Needs high salaries and ingenuity
Retirement and health care
Assurance of wealth care
And uniformed Homeland Security.

Old Jules

Incidently, notice the other cats under the cars.  Snitches, most likely.  Especially the one peeking out from behind the front tire.

4 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Animals, Current Issues, Government, Human Behavior, limericks, Poetry

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