Good Sunny Day

Saturday was spent driving through perfect weather and scenery to my hometown one hour and 15 minutes away from here. At the park there, there was a lot going on and I ran into a whole bunch of people I haven't seen in awhile, and a few more people I'd seen more recently. It all happened so fast. All of the sudden we were at a Mexican restaurant eating burritos and drinking margaritas in a big, colorful courtyard where each wall was painted a different, bright color in pure Mexican style. Then I paid a visit to a relative, and after I left there I went to a friend's house, where I wandered around, went on a pontoon, listened to the Rubber Band, and had some good food and saw friends. At the end of the night I was going to drive the hour and fifteen minutes back, but it was dark and one of those technologically advanced warning signs related to tire pressure appeared on my dashboard. I decided to wait until morning. I tried to sleep but I was wide awake almost the whole night for some reason. I came back the next day, glad to have had a change of scenery this weekend. Nothing remarkable happened, but it was enough to make me happy.

Adventures in Sandwich Land

Again I awoke to the harsh chirping of the parakeets. I decided to face them, to stare them down and try to figure out why one or both of them was in distress. Once I walked in, they both stood still and went quiet. After a few minutes of our stand-off, the nice boy bird chirped gently and quietly in a little song, while the vicious girl bird continued her high-pitched berating. I gave her some more food and she seemed satisfied for the moment.
Yesterday I found out that the Subway I complained of recently has been robbed by two of its employees. As if I weren't already afraid to go back. Now I really am afraid to go back, except that I'm wondering whether the sandwich guy who gave me trouble last week is still employed. Last week, I wrote about my misadventure in trying to get my roast beef sandwich on whole wheat. I made him mad at me for several reasons, even though I had the very best of intentions. This week, I learn of the robbery.
Today I went to the old standard Subway I usually patronize, where there are outdoor tables and a nice view of the river and the trail. The same familiar guys were there. They're always kind, quick, and make good sandwiches. The sandwich guy said to me, "Oh, I haven't seen you in awhile. Where've you been? Good to have you back!" Not really.
My friend The Film Geek had a funny post today about giving up his car. I listened to the whole five-minute long performance of Neil Young's "Long May You Run" he had posted there with it. It was funny at first, and then as I got halfway through the song, it brought back memories from 1993, having absolutely nothing to do with a car. I had memories of the record player at my house, the reckless abandon of youth, and thinking that the sun rose and set in the eyes of that guy I just met.

Inside and Outside

I awoke to the parakeets chirping wildly and harshly as they do, their sounds filling the house with noisy chatter. Long ago, purchasing a parakeet or two seemed like a great idea when we were not able to have other pets. That was before I discovered how messy and loud they are. I'm sure I'd miss them if they were gone. One of them keeps laying eggs. She has a certain chirp she makes when she's getting ready to lay eggs. This is a new thing. It's a softer, quicker chirp that has one tone, a lower tone than the usual high pitch. Do we want baby parakeets? Do we really want baby parakeets? Some here in the house really, really want them. I don't. The female and the male reside in separate cages. The female seemed to have butchered the last male she shared a cage with. We're not really sure why he died, but I'm pretty sure she had something to do with it. She's the aggressive one. Apparently, male parakeets are nicer than the females. He doesn't bite (well, at least, not too hard and not too often), and he jumps on your finger or shoulder sometimes. The female will reach out and bite you, hard, and keep as far away from you as possible.
Last night I read about some super-achievers from my small hometown. One is a professor for MIT, teaching classes along the lines of a combination of architecture and engineering, and has studied all over the world about maintaining the integrity of historical monuments, bridges, cathedrals, and other structural relics from the past; I also read an article about how he and his "team" created the plans for the building of a structure (in Spain, I think) that is supposed to last 5oo years or more. He has degrees from Cornell, Princeton and the University of Cambridge in the UK. I ask myself, how does one, who doesn't come from a wealthy or even upper-middle-class background, do that from our little, rural, removed town? It makes me believe anything is possible. He has five other siblings, each of whom is doing amazing things.

My Brush With Science Fiction

Today I worked like a machine cranking out matchbox cars or microwave ovens. My productive day had me feeling somewhat good about my work, which is a rarity.
Many days I go completely without phone calls (personal calls, that is), and today I received a handful of calls from people calling to talk just to me, and not having to do with work. I wondered, is this "Remember Your Isolated Friend You Hardly Ever Talk to Day"?
I had the funniest dream of all time this morning about my friend, who I have previously referred to as Yousiphanes (long for "you"). In my dream, I traveled back in time to a party that was going on 20 years ago in my town at an unknown person's house. I saw Yousiphanes standing on a porch, talking to some other people, but, because in real life I've only known him for a year and a half, he didn't know me 20 years ago. I walked up to him and introduced myself. I said, "You don't know me, but you invented a time machine to send me back in time to tell you that you'd meet me in the future. You wanted me to tell you that you helped invent a time machine. You also wish you could have met me 20 years ago." Yousiphanes looked at me quizzically and with natural skepticism, as if he wondered if I was all right, or if I was just trying to be flirtatious in a pathetic way. "I assure you, it's true. Let me show you my time machine. You'll love it."
I know, my brain stole this dream's storyline from a recent Lost episode, when Desmond visits Daniel when he's a professor studying psychology and time travel (it's unclear whether the time travel is in Desmond's own consciousness or not). I woke up laughing.
I don't know, maybe it's just one of those dream things that seemed really cool for a few hours or a day, until it wore off, and then the next day it sounds totally idiotic.

More Batman

I spent a few hours watching Batman Begins at home today. I already had one nap, but I went to sleep during the slow part anyway. After the movie ended, I went back and watched the part I missed and then it made a lot more sense. I didn't catch the part about Ra'l Salz ... Whatever dying and then being replaced by the goatee guy at all. I read about it afterward when I tried to figure out who Liam Neeson played in the movie. That scarecrow villain guy was way cool. The actor was delightfully psychotic and the scarecrow mask was workably scary. The actor reminded me of a young Rob Lowe. I wish I would have seen Batman Begins before I saw the Dark Knight. It's not that I missed anything in the storyline by not seeing it first; well, perhaps I did, I just didn't know it. I would have already understood who Commissioner Gordon was, and a bit more about the feeling of the movie.

Baby night

I was blessed by the company of a family, albeit a family of strangers, who entered, exited and shopped alongside of me this evening, as I had the good fortune to pay attention to my surroundings because I was sans children, at the grocery store.
I say blessed because the family consisted of a dad (he was wearing a tie-dye T-shirt, which also caught my attention, and he looked like he was in his 40s); a girl of about age 8, and a newborn baby that screamed mindlessly and uncontrollably unless her dad was holding her. Blessed to be taken back to the early baby days of my early, early, early adulthood. The baby didn't look much bigger than a sack of flour and it knew it didn't want to be in the seat. As soon as we checked out in adjacent check-out lines, the baby was strapped back in and wailed, and wailed, and wailed, and wailed, so that it could be heard throughout the store and within a three-mile vicinity (that is, if you happen to have very excellent hearing). At one point, the baby was screaming so hard that its feet were turning purplish pink. I looked over at its baby carrier and all I could see were the backs of tiny little reddish feet.
At the end, in the checkout line, when the dad put the baby back in the seat and the all-consuming wailing commenced again, the checkout clerk commented, "That makes me not want to have children."
I thought, "That makes me not want to have more babies." I remember the feeling of being a new mother, and one of my worst fears about the whole baby experience was not being able to make a baby stop crying in public at places like the grocery store. Feeling helpless and like I and the baby were bothering everyone around brought on extreme anxiety at the time. I can't really recall that ever happening to me more than once. I was shocked that in my first experience with a baby, I got a good one. She hardly ever cried. If she cried, it was easy to figure out what was wrong. Once I figured it out and fixed it, she laughed and smiled and seemed content.
The dad with the baby tonight looked completely unfazed with all that misery the baby was projecting. He obviously had been through all this before. Or, perhaps, mom had dealt with Wailing, Virtually Inconsolable Baby all day and he was giving her a break after getting home from work at 5:45 p.m.
Shortly after that, I met another new baby. She was peacefully sleeping in her seat and she looked beautiful and peaceful, like a painting of a baby, someone's ideal.

Feverfew

While we wish that every post on this blog could be about cool stuff or exciting news, we admit that sometimes our posts are full of mundane drudgery like commenting about one's own headaches.
By the way, feverfew works! (For me, anyway.)



Editor's note: This post was inspired in part by blogger.com's post about technical difficulties today. Thanks for the inspiration.