The semi-drizzle of Seattle

By Jack Brummet

I've been loving the rain in Seattle tonight. Actually, it's not rain, but a notch below a drizzle and a couple of slots below a sprinkle. . .that misting, intermittent precipitation where you can almost count the raindrops. In the rain hierarchy, something between Defcon 4 and 5, where DefCon 5 is maybe a light fog.  (A friend wrote to me: That's the rain I loved when I lived in Seattle and have missed ever since. Never happens in Spokane).

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Gratitude Challenge day 5

By Jack Brummet

Gratitude challenge, day 5

1)  Mites live in your eyelashes.  At least they are ectoparasites (they don't burrow in); they stay on deck.  And they're slow moving—it would take half a day for one to walk from your ear to your nose, not that you would notice even if they were whizzing around at 100 MPH.  Demodex mites colonize the eyelashes of more than 80 percent of people over the age of 60 [source: American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology]. I'm their target demographic.

I'm grateful they keep to themselves and that I don't sit up night fretting over just what ARE they doing on my eyelashes (hatching, eating, having sex, laying eggs, dying, and then releasing the defecation they store during their two weeks of living.

I'm grateful I don't notice the the cooties on my face.

2)  I am grateful for my 18 nieces and nephews, and humbled by their approach to life and the world at large, their will to seek out detours and different paths, for their brains, good looks, warmth, sass, and overall hugability.

3) I am Grateful for The Dead.

Faces #914 - dazed

By Jack Brummet

[Sharpie on wood scrap]

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Gratitude Challenge, Day Four

By Jack Brummet

1.  The bounty of the sea: Oysters, Black Cod a/k/a Sablefish, Sockeye Salmon, Halibut, Trout, Rockfish, Cod, Scallops, Shrimp, Mussels, Squid, Clams, Barnacles, Crab, Lobster, Abalone, Mackerel, Tuna, Ahi, Steelhead, Octopus, Catfish, Grouper, Monkfish, Sardine, Sea Bass, Skate, and Bluefish.

2.  The Birds.  I love them all--their songs, their flight, and their antics--but then, I've never been dive-bombed by a P.O.'d crow. My son Colum told us a story tonight about how he had to change his walking route home a year or two ago, because one crow had him in its gunsight.  He literally had to start walking home on a different street.  Then Del told us that a professor at the U (I don't know if it was his professor) has studied crows, and they actually meet up and somehow trade notes on people.  He also said that if a crow has it in for you that the crow's offspring will also seek you out, given the opportunity.

3.  Folks who work to keep people alive at Crisis Clinics and on hotlines.  I did this at The Sixth Chamber and the Crisis Clinic for a year and a half, and it was maybe the hardest thing I've ever done.  But when you reel one person back, or at least buy them some time, it makes your heart sing.  The hard part was that most of the time you never knew if you made a difference or not.   Thank you to all those people who keep on keeping on. . .especially those of you who come back from the brink.

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The DEA's Cocaine Intelligence Unit

The Drug Enforcement Agency uses some strange patches in its divisions. The Cocaine Intelligence Unit's patch includes an image of the Grim Reaper, holding an hourglass into which cocaine is being poured. There's also a depiction of an old school, cartoon-style bomb underneath the Reaper.

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The gratitude challenge, Day Three.

By Jack Brummet

Gratitude day three:

1). Bird a/k/a Charlie Parker; 

2) Everyone who has ever picked up a pencil, pen, paintbrush, airbrush, palette knife, computer, sculptor's chisel, crayon, pastel, spray paint, scratch pen, lithograph crayon, charcoal, or silk screen to commit life or their imagination to paper, screen, canvas, wood, Masonite, clay, or stone; 

3) You, friends, associates, co-workers, neighbors, and friends of friends.

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Drawing: Faces No. 913 - Sharpie® on stone

By Jack Brummet

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gratitude challenge, day two

By Jack Brummet

There is a "thing" going around social media circles, where you list three things you are grateful for for a week.

The gratitude challenge was assigned me by Pegeen White.  I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to do it, give it a shot in the comments here, or on Facebook. today I am grateful for:

• My mom, Guy, Loa, Cathy and Jeremy; my surviving Jones and Brummet cousins, James, Jimmy, Kevin, Leslie, Laurie, David, and Susannah.

• The Currans, too numerous to enumerate (around 130 people or so).  My entire Brummet/Jones side includes just the twelve people named above (plus my nuclear family, listed yesterday).

• Puget Sound, an every day presence in our lives in North Beach, with the crisp salt breezes, foghorns, sea lions barking, Olympic Mountains, boats, and heartbreakingly beautiful sunsets.

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62 Lego pieces and somewhere between 143,000 and 17,500,000 ants for each person living on earth

By Jack Brummet, Cooties Ed.

I just saw on Mashable that there are 62 Lego pieces for every person on this sweet green sphere.

This made me wonder.  Not from Mashable: There are 10,000,000,000,000,000 ants alive at any time, or, roughly 143,000 per person.  Insects.com and answer.com say there are at least 1.5 million ants per person, according to various scientists.  Info.com says the number is one million.   Chacha.com says (with no supporting facts) that "For every 700 million ants that come into this world, there are only 40 human beings," or, 700,000,000 / 40 = 17,500,000 a/k/a seven teen million, five hundred thousand.  

Whether it's 143,000 or 17,500,000, that's a buttload of cooties.

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Painting: The time tunnel

By Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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The gratitude challenge, Day One

By Jack Brummet

There is a thing going around social media circles, where you list three things you are grateful for for a week.

The Gratitude challenge was assigned me by Pegeen White.  I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you want to do it, give it a shot. 

Day One is easy: 

1) Keelin:

2) The Brummet-Curran Youth:

3) Music:

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Sara Palin slurs out a speech to the Western Conservative Summit

By Jack Brummet

I don't know how widely this has been passed around, but this speech is pretty stunning. It almost seems like she's riding a poly-drug cocktail, maybe a couple of Xanax, a few martinis, and God knows what else.  Early on, she makes a joke about "inhaling" in Colorado. And it just came out yesterday that she and some family members were at and involved in a drunken brawl in Wasilla, where Todd got a broken nose and some other family members engaged in fisticuffs.

Sarah Palin appears starting at 3:40. . .

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