How to Create a Forest

Heidi’s first Christmas.

The spirit of Christmas has always filled my heart with hope and love. Becoming a grandfather this year added more zest to my life than I could have ever imagined. I love that child. She fills my soul.

This year, I started a new holiday tradition... all to celebrate Heidi. Each year, our decorations will include a live Christmas tree. Once all the presents are unwrapped and the holidays are complete, I’ll plant each year’s Christmas tree around the ranch.

I look forward to Heidi and me walking around to see all of her trees. Maybe, we’ll even decorate a few each year with glittery jingles, homemade ornaments, and blinking lights. Then the two of us can sit together, celebrate another new year, and watch Heidi’s trees reach just a little closer to the stars than they did the year before.

I love helping Santa.

I hope the holidays fill your soul with love and happiness. Neither requires a fancy ribbon, and they are absolutely the greatest gift you will ever give or receive.

As a side note, since this was the first year of my new holiday tradition, I began this year by purchasing three trees. I couldn't help myself. They were all just too perfect. And technically, one is a rosemary bush tree... a large, beautiful, and fragrant rosemary bush Christmas tree. And c'mon... honestly, how could Heidi and I begin her forest with just one tree?

Merry Christmas, love, and goodness.

A Throwaway

Meet Chipper. He was a throwaway and labeled for euthanasia at the pound before a rescue group rushed in to save him. Someone shot him before the pound picked him up. He was a throwaway. He still had the bullet in his leg when he visited the rescue clinic. The vet surgically removed the bullet, nicknamed him Ammo, and also treated him for a tick-borne illness. He was a throwaway.

Chipper is Home

We met him on an incredibly hot summer afternoon. An hour later, he jumped in the truck and sat next to me. As we drove east, he watched the trees zoom by. Then he'd look at me with his big, excited eyes. He was a throwaway. He was a little nervous about his very first warm water and soapy suds bath. But he soon relaxed as the water ran down his back to his feet and the red clay soil stains on his paws disappeared. He was throwaway.

I named him after the dog my grandfather had when I was a toddler. He was the first dog I have any memory of. I adored my grandfather, and I loved his dog.

Afternoon Naps

Chipper now has his own food bowl and a comfy bed with a fleece blanket. He has four siblings that he runs and plays with for hours around acres of shade trees, singing birds, and mischief squirrels to chase with his gunshot wound limp. He was a throwaway. He enjoys taking naps in the sunshine, walking side by side with me to the studio, and he has a fondness for sweet potato French fries. This pup loves today more than yesterday, even though others kept saying he was just a throwaway.

Meet Chipper. He is finally home. #adoptdontshop #mansbestfriend #meetChipper

Fine Tuning A Creative Life

New day shines

Exploring and learning are the center of my constant personal creative path. I live there. As a lifelong music fan and collector, I've wanted to play guitar for more than four decades. Seems it's time.

With plenty of encouragement from a great friend over the past couple of years, I got the bug that I've been waiting for and finally committed to playing just over a year ago. His friendship has been so influential, with hours and hours of teaching me a wide range of guitar technical skills, sharing musical influences, and showing me how to maintain my instruments. There is still a mess load that I need to learn, but I'm now making sounds and much further along than I've ever been. I'm thrilled to have finally added this 6-string creative outlet to my artistic journey.

Takamine

Over the past day, I fully detailed several of my guitars. I even went as far as to challenge myself to break out the tools to make a few truss rod adjustments. My uncharted challenge worked like a charm. Measuring now at 3/32 on the 12th fret, the action is perfect on both guitars. I was so jazzed about my learning escapade. For you longtime players, this task probably seems like a minor feat. For me, though, it was a proud win and reminded me of the feeling that I had when I changed the motor oil in my very first car all by myself. Yeeeeessss!

Oh, and that car… it was a chocolate brown 1965 American Motors Rambler Classic with mini chrome tail fins and a 3-speed manual transmission on the column. It showed its 12-year share of dings and mileage, but yes, I detailed the heck out of that $300 ride every weekend. Every weekend.

I am such a goober for self-maintenance projects. Ask anyone who’s known me through the years, and they’ll tell you that I have been a detail-focused geek all my life, perhaps even a bit anal retentive about it. Okay, I proudly own that... but for now, it’s time for a bit of practice. Missed chord or not, get that tour bus ready. I dig this stuff.

Guild Champagne Sparkle

A Pup Story. One More Time.

It was one year ago today when she and I took a long ride through the countryside, just for the sake of one more time. I added several more miles to our usual route and also drove a bit slower, all to add a few more minutes of just one more time. She was weak from her years-long battle with cancer, but sat tall with stature and presence as she stared out the open window at every passing tree, signpost, and cloud. Unlike all of our many previous road trips, she took in every moment on that chilly morning. Everyone.

We slowly drove up the lane to our home, where her veterinarian met us.

I cried this morning. Not because today reminds me of a morning drive that we shared a year ago, but because I’m thankful for all of the unselfish strength Pita offered me. Like me, Pita expected order in our home. Her home... and she was dedicated to always keeping her siblings in line. After deciding I wanted to return to school, she sat with me in the quiet light of my home office during long hours and years of study. She had so much patience, helping me through not just one degree, but three. During those years, she was also the one closest to my side when I decided that sobriety was a necessity for me. She never once wavered. She was always there. Always.

That girl also had an impeccable taste in music, too. Or maybe it was her tolerance for my deep appreciation of the eclectic. We were always listening to music. Classic rock, jazz, cocktail lounge, country, not to mention all of those out-of-tune nights of guitar practice. She was good with all of it. Every moment. It was our time together, and we shared plenty of it.

I rescued Pita when she was a puppy, just a few weeks old. Her Dumbo sized, pointy ears outlined and framed her bright eyes. Those ears pointed straight up to the sky. In time, she would finally grow into those pretty ears. Rescuing her and placing her small, round puppy belly on the truck seat on that hot, dusty August afternoon is one of the best things I have ever done.

Life’s path always provides a remarkable way of healing. I recently committed to donating my skills to assist with a non-profit dog rescue organization. This coming weekend, I'm jumping back in my truck to volunteer time and miles for a transportation run to drive a rescued senior pup from a kennel in Georgia to his loving Forever Home in northern Virginia. I have always been a believer in second chances, and I do not doubt that Pita would graciously approve of this weekend's road trip. One more time.

Keep running, pretty girl. I am.

A Wish for the World

Christmas Eve is here. Here is Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Instead of preparing my traditional fare of holiday aromas and deliciousness for the family, I'm sitting in a relaxing leather chair with dark wood armrests, atop the crow's nest of the M.S. Zuiderdam.

The room is filled with plenty of suntanned faces I've never seen before. With a joyful announcement from the bar at the other end of the room that two-for-one happy hour specials are now in effect, several faces look even happier than they had minutes ago. I, too, am happy.... and sober. My tall glass of iced water is sweating on the wet and wrinkled cocktail napkin beneath it. In six days, I'll be toasting my 7th anniversary of sobriety. I may even get fancy on that day by adding a lemon slice to my water glass.

From the looks of the room, as we leave the port and head in the direction of the sunset, tall sweating glasses of iced water are the only thing that don't quite qualify for the two-for-one festivity. Seems they're even void of the complementary bowl of mixed nuts. Still, with the singing laughter coming from the bar, I raise my glass with a festive cheer and a smile that is all mine.

Bon Voyage, Merry Christmas, and Peace for a world that could use more than its share of two-for-one servings of love as we close out this year and begin 2017. Do whatever you can to make a difference in someone's day, even if only to share an eye-to-eye smile with a stranger. Open your arms... the world could use a hug. Love to all.

Farewell Token With a Wink

Blackstar

Just as it does each morning, my alarm woke me at 5AM. Lying in bed on that Monday morning, just before my feet hit the cool floor, I laid in the dark while reading the message in my day's first email. In an emotional awe, I again read and reread the short email over and over, "Have you heard the news about the passing of an absolute genius and legend?"  I was stunned.  Just hours after I had spent most of the weekend listening to several albums from his classic library, David Bowie was dead.

David Bowie's Blackstar album arrived in the mail yesterday afternoon. This morning I carefully unwrapped the cellophane from the CD and paired it with a fresh cup of coffee for my 6AM commute. I was not disappointed. Blackstar is an album of incredible artistic integrity, beauty, voice, and pure creative experimentation. Plenty has been written following the news of Bowie’s passing about this being his planned farewell gift to his fans. In hindsight, Blackstar certainly plays out in that fashion, and it does so as only Bowie could deliver with genius vision and originality. Blackstar is a masterpiece.

My long commute was nearly the same length as the cd. As I was nearing the campus-parking garage, I noticed the car a good distance in front of me, wondering if what I thought I saw really was. With the red traffic light ahead, I closed the gap between that car and mine. Just as I was the week before, I found myself in awe once again before the sun had a chance to rise. It turns out that my distance vision hadn’t played tricks on me after all. Reading the license plate, I shook my head in disbelief, turned up the music just a bit more, and smiled.

Tokens are gifts. Thank you, Starman.

Ziggy