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Miss Carol and me, we had to attend a black tie gala affair to benefit the foundation that does whatever good things for the hospital on Saturday night.

I always feel spotlighted at these kinda things. Like a big turd. Like I don’t belong. Like at any minute someone will point at my Wal-Mart dress shoes or my JCPenny tux shirt and tie and call me out.

I hate stuff like this like a root canal.

But we had to go.

We were the guests of one of the vendors that Miss Carol works with and there weren’t no gettin’ around it. All week long, I envisioned a huge room full of self important muckedy-mucks clustering in small clusters and talking quietly and importantly to one another while a string quartet played annoyingly quiet music in the background and with me wondering how I’d get a second beer without them staring down over their narrow noses at me. You know, with distain?

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

But then again, I’m wrong a lot.

It was a blast.

Sure the bar was closed for fifteen minutes or so during the invocation and the CEO’s speech but other than that? Full time, full throttle party. I didn’t know that men in tux’s and women in beautiful gowns could be that much fun.

It was almost like there were regular folks underneath all that finery.

Who  knew?

I was being yanked around on our nightly walk and between the herking and jerking and the panting and the cursing Cutter and Tug I got to thinking that I was getting to wear my raincoat WAY more than I’d ever dreamed I’d wanted to.

I was thinking that maybe if it keeps raining all hope will disappear and I’d just somehow get used to the soggy existence that’s been our unending evermore.

Maybe dry, maybe warm, is overrated?

And so I splashed through the road lakes, dodging the spray from cars and trucks and hurrying behind the twin turds.

I know there are way worse places during the winter than our little island I gotta admit age and pussiness are rapidly converging to make me long for sunnier and warmer. And bikinier (new word)

Cause honestly? There’s times, lots of ’em, that I’m over it. Times that I wanna just grab Miss Carol and Cutter and Tug and head south. Waaaaay south.

But then I think, and I remember. And the decades and centuries all pile up and crest over me and I know I’m luckily stuck in a deep mire of old friendships, inescapable.

And so, I’m just keepin’ on as winter grinds on churning ever endlessly and my Cutter and Tug pull me down the road twice a day whether I want to go or not.

Things could be worse.

I loves me some Stephen King.

I loves his storytelling and I really loves his length. There’s just something about settling in with a thousand-plus page book that just makes me want to put life on hold and curl up and grab a beer and just read ’till my eyes bleed.

His newest, Under the Dome, is all about a small town in Maine that’s suddenly cut off from the rest of the world by a huge, impenetrable, semi-permeable, invisible dome. Think of the world’s biggest salad bowl slam down, cupping your world.

At first, the inhabitants of Chester Mill treat this weird anomaly as a strange, larger than life, mostly unbelievable, novelty. But then, it begins to collectively dawn on them that they are well and truly trapped like specimens in a jar. And that’s when Stephen King weaves his magic.

I’ve always loved the way Stephen King’s books feel and read like a long story told by an old and loving grampy.

If I ever had me an old and loving grampy.

But I didn’t and that’s a hole nother story.

Anyway.

I loved the book and while I wasn’t real crazy about the ending, maybe at 1072 pages Stephen King got a little tired and just needed to wrap it up. Or maybe that’s the only way the story could end. I don’t know and don’t really care.

The story was that good and that fun and just get it and go baby.

What to say?

I stumble and fumble for words, knowing none are even close to adequate.

Imagine, just imagine, your world turned upside down, strapped in, and sent for a bonus ride on the world’s worst roller coaster that demolishes everything you’ve ever known and kills just about everybody you grew up with.

And then.

Imagine being slapped in the face with the reality TV event that Haiti’s suffering has become. Imagine, instead of food and water, you get a steady stream of reporters, correspondents, photographers, videographers all angling for the best victim shot or story. Media trucks and satellite dishes elbowing for space, focusing on the need but doing nothing about it.

If you don’t believe me watch one of the network segments with the sound off.

Over the years, we’ve been through hurricanes and storms and while nothing like what hit Haiti, there have been events that’ve left us powerless, in the dark, and cut off for days. And since we’ve surfed the way outer fringe of something like what they’re enduring our empathy and sympathy gush like a fire hose.

I can’t even imagine what it must be like in Haiti.

And I wonder what’s going on.

I wonder, why, after six days, aid is still just “dribbling” into a country less than a hundred miles away from the US. Why, after six days, news correspondents are still forlornly wringing their collective hands and posing with the hurt and torn for their photo ops but doing little else. Why, after six days, it’s looking more and more like fun times in news story land.

Hell, they can milk this baby for weeks. Or months. Ain’t nothin’ better for the six o’clock news than bad news.

And meanwhile the people of Haiti suffer. Truly suffer.

And I wonder- WTF?

Things are accelerating rapidly downhill in oceandoggy postingville.

Tonight I bring you Poo-Pourri.

One of Miss Carol’s sisters gave us this at Christmas. I’m not quite sure what the motive was but we laughed wholeheartedly, guffawing in a friendly, familial way knowing all the time that MY poo doesn’t stink.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, that’s one of them there goodun’s

Anyway.

We got back home and eventually we took the Christmas tree down and moved the gifts around, slowly absorbing them into our lives and our little home and we came across our Poo-Pourri.

Miss Carol put it in one of the bathrooms and later that following day I test drove it.

And guess what?

It actually works just like it says it will. Amazing.

Who’d a thunk it? and who thinks up this shit? er, I mean, stuff?

I was working today and I went out to my truck for yet ANOTHER effing tool and while I was crossing the parking I passed a young woman and her father (?) (hopefully he wasn’t her husband) headed into the building.(lots of Doctors offices)

I didn’t want to eavesdrop but her conversation was crystal clear in the early morning air. The old guy was doin’ that half step shuffle that old folks do and she was telling him that after they got his teeth to fit right she would take him home and shave him.

And at first I thought, wow that’s cool that she’s taking care of her dad.

But then, hot on the heels of  that sunny happy thought was one much more disturbing about the old dude. Why? Why would anyone want to get old? Why do we yearn to add the years to our resume like yearly accomplishments to breathing and staying alive?

I climbed up into Big Black and sat for a time behind the wheel pondering.

I mean really WTF? Life starts to suck at a certain age so why keep pushing it along uphill like a rusty creaky wheelbarrow? Getting sicker and sicker and forgetting shit and doddering around looking surprised all the time.

A depressing thought for a Monday. I know. But, honestly? Isn’t Monday when this shit hits?

Fuck.

This is just good. Really good.

At first shallow, cursory, glance Richard Russo’s Bridge of Sighs is just another longish (600 some odd pages) story about a fairly unremarkable man whose sole claim to fame is that he lives his entire life in the same small town in upstate New York.

But, on a deeper, more introspective level we find it’s all about, um, well, er, you know, deeper more introspective stuff. Stuff I don’t have but let’s don’t worry about all that right now. I mean, one doesn’t necessarily have to understand EVERYTHING about sumpin’ sumpin’ just to enjoy the sumpin’, now does one?

Right?

So anyway, this is one of those books that book lovers love to read and hate to have end. From the very start Richard Russo pulls you into a story that’s as comfortable and comforting as your favorite pair of jeans, or that warm blankie on a cold day, or maybe the soft embrace that rubs away, at least for awhile, the sharp corners of life.

It’s that damn good.

Adding to the book’s readability is the book itself. Printed in a font on a type of paper that just makes it a big ‘ol floppy book begging to be read, it just kinda sprawls all over you, limply wanting.

Sometimes a book is not solely about content but also about the feeling it evokes and this one’s a warm fuzzy one.

Get it and read it and you won’t be sorry you did.

Really.

This was my Me Only Room.

It was a dark dingy disturbing place crammed chockablock full of books and notes and pictures and work stuff and post ideas and crap. Every horizontal surface had stuff on it that you had to move to get to the stuff underneath which was usually stuff that I had forgotten about because it had been buried for so long.

I’m not sure how it got this way, but the worse it became the more it resisted cleaning and straightening and the more I dreaded even touching it.

It was easier just to close the door.

But then, this past weekend, inspired by Miss Carol’s burst of housecleaning energy (she had to-we hosted an impromptu New Years Eve party) I decided enough was enough and waded in.

Armed with a six-pack and a Lethal Weapon marathon on Spike TV (who knew there were 4 of them?) I spent an epic day cleaning and sanding and varnishing and filing and did I mention cleaning?

When I finally staggered out, buzzing a little bit and a little bit tired of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, my Me Only Room had been transformed.

It’s still full of crap, but it’s clean, good-smelling, put-away crap.

So it’s a new year.

And hopefully your new year will be better than the last, or if your last was so good you can’t stand another that good, than maybe worse.

But for most of us I reckon it’ll be maybe more of the same grindingly sameness that is our lives on the day to day train.

Which isn’t a bad thing. Be glad of it. Rejoice in the bland uniformity that coats and comforts most of us. Take heart and remember to focus on the little shit that makes you happy.

Whatever it is.

Whether it’s the coolieo tune played loud or a cold beer or the pretty girl in a bikini or a dog’s smile.

Revel in it and be glad.

HAPPY 2010.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and Feliz Navidad and Super Kwanzaa and whatever.

I hope your oh-nine was the kind of wonderful year full of the happiness that makes us turn our faces up to the sunlight and that 10 is even better.

Lift a bottle, a glass, a cupcake. Celebrate.

And since we’re celebrating, here’s the annual, repetitive, rendition of the oceandoggy apple crack recipe.

It’s highly addictive and so easy it’s scary. Did I mention it’s scary and addictive?

Here goes-

4 bags dried apple chips- any kind without cinnamon

walnuts

craisins

raisins

24oz box of Quaker Oats cereal-the blue box

1 stick of butter

1 stick of margarine

3/4 cup brown sugar

3 tsp cinnamon

Melt the butter, margarine, sugar and cinnamon.

In a separate bowl mix everything together and then drizzle the buttery goodness over it. Mix it all up with a big spoon and give it away.

Really.

Otherwise, you’ll wake up from your apple crack induced coma on the couch with an empty bowl sitting on your greasy chest and Cutter and Tug licking your fingers.

Not that that’s ever happened to me.