October 2005

Last night as I was driving the mundane New York State Thruway towards Syracuse, I passed several school buses that were packed with students, presumably en route to a football game. It’s a common occurance in these parts, there’s a small convoy of school buses, one or two for the team members (and a few loose cheerleaders), a third bus for the cheerleaders (and one or two loose players) and a bus or two for parents and student spectators.

In the past when you looked into these buses, you’d see signs of rowdy activity, a football player’s ass aimed at you in a moon, cheerleaders bouncing around to practice their ‘perky’, etc. However, looking in these buses I didn’t see any such activity. Instead I saw iPod buds. In almost every set of ears.

How depressing.

When I was a student I looked forward to traveling with the school, the bus ride was a great place to hang out with your friends and you got to experience different things, even if it was just another school across the county. You interacted with others. But now it seems that everyone is turning inward and instead focusing on the latest track from Britney Spears.

After noticing the iPods on the bus, I began looking in other vehicles and noticed a lot of the same; people talking on their cell phones (which didn’t anger me for a change), surly teenagers with their iPods, young ones in the back seat of the family environator (my new word for the day), engrossed in a Disney DVD on the monitor hanging from the ceiling. There appeared to be no interaction among the passengers of any given vehicle. Hell, the father didn’t even seem to be yelling at the mother about directions or anything.

What happened to “count the cow” or “license plate BINGO” or “The wheels on the bus go ’round and ’round”? I would find the prospect of driving across the country with little regard of what was going on around me to be lunacy.

I am a loner. I enjoy being by myself from time to time. But I would hate to live in a world of isolation. Sometimes you need to just turn off the technology and engage in some good old observation and conversation.

Here’s my new motto to share with the world. Feel free to duplicate at will.

“Going somewhere? Just go ‘click’.”

I continued the productivity trend of the weekend by completing all the laundry today. All six loads of it. Everything will be folded neatly or hung up by the end of the night and I will have met my goal of going to bed with the washer and dryer empty.

Sometimes I make myself sick with the mundane nature of it all.

Earl passed the afternoon by cheering on the Eagles. He cheered very loudly. But they won and that’s what’s important of course.

I have a video project formulating in my brain. I hope to have something together by the end of the week. Something flashy.

It’s an on-call weekend in our merry little household and surprisingly, Earl and I were very productive around the house today! That makes almost two weeks in a row of domesticity. Before you know it, we won’t be peeing in the shower anymore.

Kidding. We’ll never stop that.

Earl kicked off the morning by getting his haircut in an ultra-short flattop that I must say looks positively fierce on him. FIERCE. Still not as short as my hair, but then again, he has hair he can ‘flat’ whereas I can’t. While he was having fun at the barbershop, I dealt with a few troubles for work that sailed along to resolution quite nicely.

We then decided that Mother Nature has made a statement with all the rain and wind and the promise of snow within the next day or two, so we packed up the camper and camping equipment and took the camper to the dealer for winterization and storage. Such a deal. They’ll make sure it makes it through the winter unscathed and get it ready for camping season with just a few days notice next spring. What could be better?

When we got back home, we cleaned the garage from top to bottom, complete with sweeping, and made room for the Acura so that it would be as snug as a bug in a rug this winter. I found it rather shocking that both the Jeep and the Acura fit in the garage after we took an hour or two of cleaning up the junk. Before we started our project, the person in the Jeep’s passenger seat always had to thread themselves out the window, over some garbage pails, around the snowblower, under the push mower and through the cat’s travel case just to get to the pathway that went to the door to the house. Now you can open doors and everything. Wow!

Earl then took a nap while I worked on some websites and then finished setting up a computer for my cousin that I promised to deliver a month or two ago. Since the day was just whistling along it didn’t even bother me that I had to delve into Microsoft hell and install Windows 98 on it for her. I even fired up the old computer in the basement that has Windows XP to download drivers. After spending a couple of hours using that software I don’t know what in the world was holding me up from switching over to my Macs and OS X. Computing life is so much better now. Since I was done with the Microsoft project, I wiped out Windows XP from the Intel machine in the basement and installed Ubuntu Linux. The computer may be old but at least it can maintain its dignity!

We just got done watching a chapter of “Angels in America” on DVD and now we’re parked in front of our computers catching up on our day. It’s all been good today.

Now I’m thinking that I need to change my beard style soon. I’m getting bored with it. I don’t know what to do though – I’ve never tried a mustacheless beard or goatee before, maybe I should give that a whirl. Anyone have any comments? Maybe I should put it up to a poll and let the masses decide.

I’ve discovered why I enjoy eating out so much. It’s not that I don’t appreciate home cooked meals, because I absolutely love Earl’s cooking (and my cooking too if I do say so) and I have the poundage to prove it. No, I enjoy eating out so much because owning groceries is so stressful.

I just can’t take the pressure.

Last Friday night we went grocery shopping for the week. During the excursion, we picked up a bunch of bananas and a package of individually wrapped carrot packs, which would be perfect for lunch. The carrots were stamped with a “best if used by 10/21/2005”. The bananas were as green as the lawn, I figured they had a good 10 days before they’d get funky.

I figured wrong.

The bananas made a hasty retreat to the brown side as of Monday. I’ve had a banana everyday. I don’t like bananas that much but I can’t bear to throw them out and I can’t stand looking at them so I’m eating them even though they’ve turned their back on me.

The carrots have been yelling my name from the veggie drawer in the fridge. I’ve had carrots everyday with my lunch, regardless of what I was eating. In the mood for chocolate chip cookies? Have some carrots! Want some Doritos? Have some carrots. Thank DIETY$ that I just polished off the last pack this afternoon. So they smell like dirt. At least they’re GONE.

It’s not that I don’t like carrots or bananas, it’s just that I don’t want them everyday. But there they are, aging by the second and making me feel guilty for not consuming them before they go bad.

I won’t eat or drink anything that is one second past the date stamped on the packaging. Earl is constantly reminding me that the date is a “sell by” date, not a “rancid” date, but I don’t buy a word of it. Someone at the dairy knew that something awful was going to happen to that bottle of milk on Oct. 23 at 2:36 a.m. and no one is going to convince me otherwise. Drink it or dump it before that drop dead date. To do otherwise is too risky. It’s funny to look back and think that I when I was a kid I used to drink milk out of pail after skimming the heavy cream off the top so we didn’t get chunks on our cereal.

Our team leader at work brought two bushels of apples to share at the office this week. I think I’m going to lose my mind.

Applesauce anyone?