Larger Than Life

Woke up at 2 am with the song, Larger Than Life, by the Back Street Boys, on a loop playing in my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEb2CecR11I

Now I love the sound of harmony, vocal or otherwise, from back in the day when Crosby Stills Nash and Young blew me away in their Woodstock performance. Yes, I’m that old. No, I wasn’t there. Yes, I knew people who were. Woodstock and Teach Your Children were awesome. Of course, I think Carry On may be the best example of their harmony.

A good album is a singer/musician/songwriter’s way of telling a cohesive story. They usually have themes and the individual songs are like chapters in a book.

In my day, you placed an album on the Victrola and let the needle play from the wax perimeter to the core. You absorbed the entire experience. Like a book.

But, getting back to the BSBs. My unsettled mind kept trying to sort out the underlying meaning of their refrain

“All you people can’t you see, can’t you see
How your love’s affecting our reality
Every time we’re down
You can make it right
And that makes you larger than life“

When I finally dragged myself out of bed, after checking on the level on the overnight refilling of the now shifted placement of the grans pool, and getting some awesome grounding in under The Old Man and a Waning Moon, while the Beagle Brothers relieved themselves, I sat down and did a little research, and what I learned then made sense of the nocturnal score.

According to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larger_than_Life_(song)

“The song is a ‘thank you’ for their fans’ encouragement and devotion.”

Now, I don’t consider The Claire Saga as rising to the level of success the BSB record catalogue, and I would never consider my readers “fans,” I’m just too old and too ugly to have fans, but I do understand the concept of appreciating each and every one of the people who have picked up a copy of The Wise Ass, An Alien Appeal, Kissing My Ass Goodbye, Finding Jimmy Moran and Where The Ley Lines Meet and then enjoyed the experience of reading it enough to leave a positive review. Each one of those reviews provides a reason for a writer to keep telling stories. It’s a psychological boost, a little bit of love that feeds our creative raison dêtre.

“And that makes you [the reader] larger than life“

With that great mystery solved, let me return to one of my days at Casa Claire where I really came close to wanting to murder my wife (before she actually kills me).

Now, if you have not just arrived at this blog, you will have read about my trials and tribulations – imposed upon me by my better half – Lisa (nee Wallen) McCaffrey – who, yes, is the basis for the character Gina Moran.

The most recently relevant of stories appears in my July 4th Blog –

https://thewisenovelist.com/backbreaking-days/

which is not that long ago. And certainly not long enough to recuperate the resulting decimated 69 year old human body.

But that July 4th blog documented my Casa Claire version of Fitzcaraldo – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzcarraldo – in purchasing and then having to move, construct and fill a monstrously heavy aboveground pool. It was totally Lisa’s fools errand, and I was her fool to execute it.

Now, Lisa will do anything for her grans – Lucian, Scarlett, Savanna and Stella – all central characters in TCS – but Lisa is a “big idea” person. Doesn’t matter how insane the idea, or how impossible the task. For almost five decades she has just repeatedly turned to me with the confidence of Mother Mary at the Wedding of Cana and commanded “next miracle.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_at_Cana

And don’t think I didn’t understand that her instructions to build this monstrosity directly below the most shaded and energetic part of the toroidal canopy under The Old Man was her incursion on the spot I spent so much magical Ju-Ju over the past eight years developing.

Basically, “what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable.”

But, as with all of her commands, I – kicking, screaming and cursing – completed it.

Retrospectively, the only way I can explain where I continue to find this Herculean motivation is, that for the last half century, the sex has been that athletic. It could be nothing else. But I digress . . .

So, it seems that Lisa has offered the use of the Casa Claire grounds for our oldest granddaughter – Scarlett’s – ninth birthday party.

If it was just family, I really wouldn’t give a shit, because I wouldn’t be forced to clean the basement – my concept of living hell. But these are going to be my gran’s school friends and their families, which means Lisa cannot risk any embarrassment by her husband’s total “fuck-all” attitude towards habitat cleanliness.

But Lisa had more than cleaning the basement on her mind.

She informed me that the pool’s present location was totally inadequate because it was on a slight decline which made it look like a settling birthday cake.

My expected, knee jerk, lifelong retort – “And why do I give a fuck?!” – didn’t seem to alter her mission. She directed me to empty the pool – and let me remind you, we pay for our water – and shift this monstrosity to a new, more level place, out by the smaller copse of trees I recently have been turning into my latest mystical hotspot – having lost the lions share of The Old Man tree canopy to the flesh devil urchins that claim a distant biological relationship.

After my threats of rather hanging myself from the upper branches of The Old Man before I surrendered to this folly didn’t dissuade her, I, again cursing and screaming, began to move this Steamship sized pool back over another Andean mountain.

From here

To here

For your viewing pleasure, I documented part of the after the fact ordeal while catching my breath under the recently installed bench under my new cove and praying for a massive coronary to save me from this woman.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FHPCSaFDz

But to make matter worse, she actually started second guessing the move half way across the mountain and when I finally dropped the structure on the spot that I had cleared of all brush and on top of a thick (and heavy) base tarp, she asked if it would not be better six inches closer to the front fence.

Read the fucking room! I am moments away from justifiable homicide.

https://youtu.be/OSy-P6f7VHw?si=fHb5Z3mRMw9Siei5

But in the end, the pool got moved to its new location, where archeologist will find it 1000 years from now, or, as an alternative, the burial sight of a revered and beloved Queen, who demanded one too many pyramids be built during her dynasty.

Doesn’t seem that far, but you try it.

Smokey expressing my sentiments about the entire ordeal.

But I will begrudgingly admit, it is much more level.

And don’t get me started on blowing up those floaties. Almost finished Lisa’s attempt on my life.

But then, while I was sitting there afterwards, feeling completely put upon by the Universe (in the form of my wife), the Universe sent me a little reminder that life on Casa Claire remains perfectly magical.

Yes, purely for my entertainment, the largest Tiger Swallow Tail I have ever seen alighted in the Jack The Spruce Grotto for a quick nosh and rest. So, life is good.

Well, having wasted Saturday on this fool’s errand, I now have to spend my Sunday doing real chores. Despite every muscle in my body telling me to rightly fuck off.

But I hope my fine, five readers get their Day of Rest as ordained by I Am That I Am.

And no matter what else we get up to, let us make today a great one.

And Lisa, despite my complaining, which is the Irish’s favorite form of therapy, let me close the way I opened, harmoniously, with a song from the BSB.

https://youtu.be/0Gl2QnHNpkA?si=w2iAh-Zwnu-ZtA6d