Is your little poodle gaining as much weight ...

... as our little lummox is? Well, Clemens and Carmen have the solution for you.
Just check right here.

I'll probably wake up screaming tonight dreaming of hordes of regimented little lummoxes coming towards me, grinning like Richard Simmons.

Here is one of the pictures by El Greco we saw...

.... at the Nasher Museum at Duke: "Saint Francis at prayer before the crucifix."

Carmen and I went to the Nasher Art Gallery at Duke University ...

... to see the exhibit of Spanish art from the reign of Phillip III. It was very impressive to see original El Greco's on this side of the Atlantic. It was worth the drive, even on a gray rainy day. Carmen even bought a bottle of very fine Spanish olive oil in the museum shop.

The day before we had driven down to Greensboro and had dinner with our Korean family, Yu and his kids. Yu's little girl, who is 11, wanted to know why I was her 'uncle.' I told her that it was because her father and I, and 'Uncle' Jed (the Mountaineer) were out in a big thunder storm one dark night and a bolt of lightning hit us and somehow made us all related, so she was my niece.

She demanded to know if that were really true. I said no, it was just that the three of us were just such good friends. Then she decided she like the lightning bolt story better. She likes to write stories and that was a good one. I thought so too. It was a parable.

After dinner we went over to the hospital to see their mother who is a nurse on the night shift. We had not seen any of them for almost three years and it was very good to meet all of them again.

Leo the little lummox went to the library yesterday ...

... and was a big hit. Laurie the Librarian told Carmen to bring him in, so we walked him right through the middle of the library to the elevator to take him down to the ground floor to see Laurie. Everyone looked at him and waved - he ignored them as is only understandable for a celebrity. And he's a dog. Then we got him on the elevator ... which for you and me is just a normal conveyance, but for him it is a Star Trek transporter. He goes in to a little room, and when the door opens he is somewhere else! It confuses him but he has learned to take it in stride.

When the door popped open he trotted on out like he owned the place. Little kids came up and wanted to pet him. He wanted to sniff their toes.


I think what he really wanted was a treat.

An unexpected conversation at the new coffee shop ...

... here in Wilkesboro, the one I like to take my papers to grade in the afternoon. The last time I went there was a band performing for high school students ... loud but good I thought - whatever it was they were playing.

This time Carmen met me there after she was done in the library. My attention was caught by too young men in t-shirts and old jeans talking about writing a book when one of them said that the publisher would ordinarily pay an advance of $35,000. I must have misunderstood because they were talking about a text book one of them had agreed to write on the philosophy of ethics.

He was talking about the various sections he would have in the book, one on the value of existence and challenges to morality, a section explaining the three basic moral systems. Then he got an idea, "Ah! You know what? We can use Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics from I, Robot." He got excited about this idea and went on with it, citing other examples of Asimov stories that would work to explain principles of moral philosophy to students.

It was not quite the type of conversation I had expected down on the main street of Wilkesboro, the Not-Mayberry of the foothills. Perhaps we are a more sophisticated place than one might imagine.

Way back when I was working on my dissertation ...

.... a friend of mine let me use the family cabin by the lake (every Minnesotan has one). It was at a place called Lake Chetek, Wisconsin. Someone over on Andrew Sullivan's blog sent in a picture looking out through the fall trees to the lake. It looks like it is very near the place I stayed at, which was called Trollheim. I spent several long weekends there and got an enormous amount done.

Pleasant memories.

I dined at a Cuban restaurant in Boone today...

... called El Tropical. It was good. I had pan y bistec con papas fritas. Better know perhaps as a steak sandwich with fries. I recommend the place. Now I just have to get Carmen up to the High Country so we can both enjoy it.

I went with my friend, the former Republican consultant. He told me has secretly been volunteering for the local Democratic party. Ah well. I think I have talked him into voting against Liddy, but I don't think I can talk him into voting for "that one."

But you never know.

.

Things are beginning to look pretty grim for my least favorite Senator...

... Too bad. Seems Liddy Dole is not doing quite as well as she might wish down here in the Tar Heel State. Here's a quote from an article in Salon.com.

Polls show she’s likely to lose her Senate seat to Democrat Kay Hagan, after doing little during a single six-year term to distinguish herself. (Even the two years she spent as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee ended badly — she presided over the Democratic takeover in 2006.) Though many observers thought Hagan’s campaign was stalled over the summer, national Democrats didn’t give up: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has been hammering Dole with folksy, catchy ads featuring cranky old white guys complaining about her (“What’s happened to the Liddy Dole I knew?” is the tag line) that stand out from the usual political fare. The economic meltdown has been cataclysmic for Republicans everywhere, and now it seems to have helped put Hagan in a position to win.

They left out the part about her staff being totally uninterested in the fact that the State Department was doing their best to destroy families like Máeráed's by not allowing their adopted children to come to America, but what the hell.

I am so looking forward to writing a sarcastic letter to her office staff if she loses. Not that I am bitter or anything.

.

Well it looks like brother Jesse, the self-styled 'old man' ...

... has become a published author. Of course it was in the Old Port City Tribune and evidently they will publish anything*. Here's what he had to say about a local election issue:

Advertising Campaign

My wife, daughter and I received a letter from Buddy Johnson containing voter information and an application to register to vote if we were not registered. Since it was two days' past the cutoff date to register, I would judge it a total waste of money and a total lack of being on top of the situation. The only thing it has done of any value is put Johnson's photo in everyone's mailbox and have taxpayers pick up the tab.

I have to point out that not only are they all already registered, his daughter is busy running around Argentina learning to be an architect (no - that's what she told her parents, honest).

*Carmen and I watched one of the Trib's ace reporter's discussing national politics several times on the Jim Leher Newshour. It was an embarrassment. I almost felt sorry for the old Port City.

Here's someone you can vote for ...

... right here in Wilkes county. Kay Hagan, niece of Gov. Lawton Chiles of Florida. At least Matt Yglesias likes her, especially for her support of mass transit.

Best of all: she is running against absentee Senator Liddy Dole, the one whose office simply refused to help out little Máeráed when she and her little brother Mr Miggs were trapped in Vietnam by the American Embassy.

Just click here and donate to her campaign. As far as the Mellow Mushroom Family is concerned, it's the worthiest of causes. Besides, I want to send an immature, gloating, and personally insulting letter to the guy who runs Liddy's office.

no sense acting like an adult in American politics.

.

We went to a colleague's retirement party ...

... up in the mountains between Foscoe (my former hometown) and Blowing Rock at the Crestwood Inn. Here is a scene out on the patio. It is a gorgeous view and while we there the guest of honor came to our table and urged everyone to go outside and see the sunset.

It looked like a Maxfield Parrish painting with deep indigo blues fading to a lighter glowing tone over the mountains, all lit by an impossibly bright sliver of a moon and one star. We had a great time.

The most interesting thing about the place is that it was formerly the home of a noted architect and many of his architectural renderings are hanging on the wall as works of art, which they are. Wonderful detail and design, all done by hand. Someday maybe Carmen and I can get niece Jen to come up and see it. If she is not too spoiled by all the good food and fun in Argentina.