Beefcake Bernie
Bernard isn’t dead, to my knowledge, because I don’t think many things could take down that monster of a groundhog. I’ve obviously used the term Beefcake Bernie in a variety of posts for 2020, but that’s kind of because, he was the bane of my existence in 2019. A monster unleashed on my garden, forged in the fires of Mordor, and trained by George Foreman. Bernie was a true nemesis and pushed me to my breaking point.
But since this year is a garbage fire, I figured I would share a heart warming story of how I didn’t murder the fucker but eventually triumphed. Obviously, if I wanted to, I could have killed Bernie; to do so, I would have needed the Infinity Gauntlet, all the Infinity Stones, and the will to wipe out half of you, but eventually I would have gotten him. Now, since I don’t want to kill 50% of the people on the planet, I went a different route – trapping and relocating.
Before we get into the End Game, I want to give you a little taste of Bernie’s appetite. Beefcake started his life out as a tiny little groundhog. My backyard is fully enclosed, no gate, nothing, just a tall wooden fence, and in that fence there are some gaps that I’ve never seen anything slipped through. My friend however, in 2019, was out back reading and noticed that a baby groundhog is the perfect size to get into the garden.
They’re adorable.
But they’re assholes. Beefcake Bernie made his debut as a cute little nugget who came upon the Garden of Eden by chance. I had 60 plants, all heirlooms, and he loved them.
At first, I wasn’t worried. He eventually would grow to big to fit through the fence. My only hope was that this growth spurt would happen when he was on the other side of the fence. I lost a couple of peppers, a whole tomato plant that Bernie knocked over trying to get to a fruit, but then his reign of terror ended. With relative peace in my homestead, I went back to tending to my young plants. [For more on Bernard, click “Read More”]
Read MoreThe Storm of Death
I’ve lost a lot of people in the last year around me, and awhile ago, I lost my brother. Whenever I mention my brother, I don’t pull my punches and say he “died” instead of “passed on”. Mostly because I think we need to be faced with the harsh reality of death and that we are mortal pieces of flesh. Now, I wrote my first manuscript (Primo Capite and the Others) and used terms like flesh, corpse, or meat in order to drive home the fact that we are mortal – for certain reasons that book will never be released (mostly it isn’t written well and it has some mistakes due to the use of tropes). However, the terminology was to drive home the reality that we aren’t immortal… but our memories are. [click “Read More” to get my personal philosophy on how to handle death]
Read MoreMy Condolences
This will be a quick one, stop saying “I’m sorry” unless you add in “I’m sorry for your loss”. However, that still isn’t a great way to speak to someone. The reason is simple, saying sorry is an implying of fault; you say sorry when you step on a toe because you did something to the other person. You say sorry when you cheated on someone and ripped their heart out of their chest. So, unless you have the cure to the ailment the person is suffering from but didn’t give it to them or you actually caused their death, don’t say “I’m sorry”. Instead, might I suggest you say “my condolences” as it is a far superior term. As someone who had to hear, “I’m sorry” about one hundred times in a single day, I find the phrase false and empty – but the fact that you were there to say it means more than anything else.
So, just show up and be present, share a memory and if you say “I’m sorry” that’s okay too (but you should choose a better phrase).
Read MoreNew Category – In Memoriam
Writing is how I deal with loss and questions. I don’t know why, but when I hear of loss, my first thing to do is write haiku; perhaps it is me attempting to emblazon my feelings into a notebook at that moment in time and never let them slip away or be corrupted. Now, I’ve shared these haikus before but didn’t call them out as being for a specific person or the passing of that person. Moving forward, and with heavy heart, I have created a new category: In Memoriam to better help me tag and organize these memories. I have been contemplating this for a couple of years and finally decided that I would be implementing the new category due to losses around me recently. I don’t want to use it much and I may not use it at all (these feelings tend to be raw and I am not sure I do want to share them).
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