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>I've noticed that about you.
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Dan,

Sometimes it is an incredible challenge.

We have this project to replace an eagle's head on a sculpture in
Newark, NJ.

Tuesday when we are supposed to be going to Newark David got the load of
tools & materials ready, that is after we re-insured the car that had
insurance cancelled on Halloween, while we were in Canada drinking beer
with the TFG. Cancelled due to my forgetting to pay the payments that I
only remember to pay when I get the first notice. Fortunate that my
ticket for crossing six lanes in front of the Verazzano tool booth on
the way to the IPTW with trailer in tow was not yet recorded on my
license -- WARNING -- if you spend the last umpteen years with EZ-Pass
it is too easy, like a missing bar of soap, to forget you no longer have
one. Wednesday we went to a funeral. My former partner's mom died... she
was special to me. A Polish Catholic who always made sure the priest
sprinkled me when he sprinkled her house. Damn if I don't feel like I
could use a bit more sprinkling... don't forget to hug someone special
today.

The stone fabricator, whom we are working for, had sent us a styrofoam
head painted a limestone color.
I leave the house at 6:00 AM and at 8:00 AM, not very far from the house
but still driving I suddenly realize I left the head behind in our
bungalow office.
I call my son and I backtrack and we meet in front of Walmart and
exchange the eagle head.
I go to Manhattan to another job to pick up the step ladders we had left
there and also I pick up my associate.
We go to the Holland Tunnel but they won't let us through with a trailer
(I don't want generator with gas tank leaking in the car so I brought
the trailer). Bad enough the catalytic converter is doing a jig under
the car and we sound like a used boat crossing the Delaware during an
ice storm. So we go up north out of the way to the Lincoln Tunnel.

Get to Newark and I'm lost finding the friggin eagle. I always get lost
in NJ.
We find the bird & park. Windy as hell today. The head of the eagle, the
missing head, is only about 9' off the ground. We are fortunate I
suppose in that... but the eagle was not so fortunate for the vandal
that went on a spree in Newark cutting statuary, including the head &
hands of a Virgin Mary. Probably a pervert Islamic terrorist.

Turns out the eagle head sent to us is like really too big... like a GI
Joe condom left on the Ho Chi Minh Trail sort of disproportionate size.
So we fiddle with that and trim the stone to fit an appropriate size of
head, trim the neck of the bird smooth as a baby's ass and my associate
mixes up silicone mold mix... but it sets before he can get it out of
the bucket. So he goes to mix the one remaining container of very
expensive white goopy stuff that reminds one of a used... forget the
military similes here for a minute... he sets the box for the styrofoam
head down outside the carso that he can get his senses of proportion
between catalyst and goop out of the wind and mixes the next batch of
mold "cream" and as he spreads it on the stump of the stone eagle it
sort of drains down like extra-wet cake icing and does not set very well
at that.

Some really nice and informative black lady comes up to me and tells me
all about a big pile of dirt down near the river with rats so large they
are like toboggan riders charging to the river shore at night. I'm
supposed to be handling the "politics" of the situation so I am the
designated talk-to-her person while my associate gets his hands sticky.
I don't know what to tell her just then.  In the meanwhile out of the
corner of my eye I see drippy white stuff dripping on the PSE &G
corporate stone plaza reminding me of Rousseau's autobiography with
fireplaces... So my associate grabs a towel rag and gives the
decapitated eagle a bandana neckerchief.

In the meanwhile I go to load up the car and trailer and suddenly
realize we do not know where the eagle head in the cardboard box has
gone. He and I -- we look all around the car and we cannot find it
anywhere. It is gone. We run aroud the car a few times and check in the
trailer and look under everything. Then we check the direction of the
wind and run off towards the street in the direction of the pile of dirt
with the big rats and then we see that some decent citizen has stuffed
the box into an overturned trash container. It is laying out in the
street ripe for a wallop of traffic. Rescued. What a relief... it would
have been like having to explain where the baby chipmunk went.

We cannot stand our integrity any longer for this day and the whtie
goopy slime of mold mix seems to have stopped dripping so we shut
ourselves in the car, grumpy and upset, and head off to Manhattan and
points east... again trying to sneak through the Holland Tunnel with
trailer in tow... hell if the wind is not bad enough on a bridge
crossing without a trailer... but getting caught at the toll booth we
act dumb out-of-towners lost in the urbs when the really nice cop
explains to us how to get more lost in NJ seeking an alternate route.

I'm home by 8:00 PM. Life in America is grand!

][<en

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