How it all turned out
I'm sure you're all wondering. I think I have a readership of one (me). I will even formalize this relationship by going back and commenting on my previous entries. Just kidding. However, feel free to jump in and vote on my beard, or whatever, at any time.

I wish I'd saved the magazine article, tongue-in-cheek, about the guy who put himself on the big board as a public company. He was initially very pleased, as his investors demonstrated great confidence in his ability to turn a profit. One of his early disillusionments with the process was when the board informed him that his choice of girlfriends left a great deal to be desired and that he really had to give up his reading habits as they did not translate into bottom line profits. His final paragraph relates how, through a series of stock swaps and takeovers he becomes a very small, almost valueless, subsidiary of a huge Japanese conglomerate. Anyway, vote on the beard with complete confidence that I won't be afraid of such an outcome.

I still want the PDA that maps my day's activities. It's coming closer, as they now have several with integrated GPS. So I'll know where I went, and if there's a camera that downloads wireless to my PC, I'll know what the environment looked like as well. That still won't tell me what I was thinking, or even necessarily what I was doing, but it would certainly be closer than what I have now.

OK, so how it turned out. I went to Cincinnati with great fear and trembling, as you know. It's a 30 minute drive, so I left myself my typical 30 minutes to get there, and arrived 10 minutes late after parking and getting to the correct courtroom. I had on the wrong pair of shoes, brown, with black slacks (I can't find the correct slacks for my suit), my suit jacket (about 10 years old), a white button-down shirt, my best tie, and my totally untrimmed, unmodified, very long beard. Not to mention my hair, which has also not been cut for about the same 9 months. I parked in the nearest parking lot, and debated putting on a pair of ~$350 shoes that I bought when I was making lots of money, which have never yet been worn. I had put one on at a stoplight, and noticed that the sole was so slick that it slipped off the brake pedal. The shoes are *that* unworn! I just couldn't put them on for something as mundane as a traffic ticket, so I put them back in the box (they are now back on the shelf; I wonder if I will ever find the correct occassion for wearing them ;-? ). So I get out of the car, walk to the courtroom, and (my fear is that I will now have to wait until 5pm just to have the judge say "You were late. We've decided to burn your license in front of you and have you pay court costs for all of the cases that were presented here today, including $700 for yours. Off with his head!" the last spoken to a card soldier posted to my immediate left), at which point I feign fainting while I try to figure out what to do next) discover that court has not yet convened, I am in no respect late (in fact, about 30 minutes early since my name (alphabetically speaking) is late in the roster), and the judge could care less what people are wearing. All he wants to hear (I glean this from watching the A's, B's, etc. go forward) is "guilty, not guilty, or "may I request a continuance". To make an obviously long story short, I choose continuance, it's granted, and I'm free for two weeks to do whatever I want. Reappear on the 24th, same time, to make a plea.

I love the way the world works. I found that I owed $11 to the parking lot (0-30 minutes, $3; 31-45 minutes,$9, everything else, $11), and I didn't have any cash with me. To save the 3.50 or so that an ATM would charge me for getting money out of my California account, I went looking for a grocery store that would advance cash with a purchase for no charge. The grocery store is recently rearchitected and very nice in the middle of an area that is so blighted that fully 2/3 of the businesses have boarded up windows in a couple of blocks. The very nice white ladies who told me that that's where the grocery store (Kroger's, for those who know the name) is located also told me that "It's not a very nice neighborhood", with the clear message that only a madman (remember I have an 8.5 inch long beard...) would even consider walking into *that area* (unless they had the right skin color (sub-subtext)). I, of course, had no problem walking to the store, but I did notice that the normal friendliness that greets me most everywhere I go was notable missing. Cincinnati sucks integrationally; that shouldn't surprise anyone!.

It was about an 8 block walk, so I had lots of chances to smile at people. Not many smiled back. It took a little longer than I thought it would, so that's how I got back to Mason too late to make the next appointment which resulted (indirectly, of course) in my deciding to take a hike with Star which took me past two mulberry trees where I feasted to my heart's content (almost) before returning to the "real" world where I live most of the time. Time out of time. Feasting on nature's bounty. Good (excellent! superb! magnificent!) flavors, a lovely spring day (yes, I haven't seen summer yet here), and all was right with the world.

That's it from Lake BrainBeGone! As Walter Cronkite or someone like him used to say, "Filled with those events which alter and illuminate our times", or as I've been known to say "falter and eliminate". I like Garrison Keillor. I like mulberries. No one needs to know anything else about me. Right?

Stay tuned.