Ponderings and Musings

Before I get into this latest entry, in case you haven’t heard, Apple releases the iPhone this afternoon at 6 p.m. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about this latest gadget as the media has been very, very quiet about this technological breakthrough so I thought I should warn you that things might be a little crazy around your local Apple and /AT&T retailers. By the way, I’m not getting one, he says rejoicefully.

I am sitting in Panera while en route to my sister’s to do the brotherly chore of mowing her lawn. Since my sister’s boyfriend is a Canadian Hockey Player, she ends up spending a lot of time north of the border in Prince Edward Island. Stateside she has a townhouse in one of those sort of snobby developments so there is much pressure to keep her lawn under control. Therefore, I must drive 100 miles round trip to do this.

This is what older brothers do.

I always find a trip to Panera to be a fascinating experience. I don’t know if it’s the effect of Baby Bush and his cast of idiots or what but there seems to have been a general dumbing down of the American public since the dawn of the 21st century. Panera does a great job of posting their menu in bold print, using words with no more than three syllables to describe what they have to offer. The prices are available to all, there’s no secret handshake required.

Can someone please tell me why almost all customers have such a difficult time ordering at Panera? To begin with, they stand 10 to 12 feet away from the counter, seemingly like they’re fearing an appearance of Barbara Eden (in the dark wig) smoking out of a jelly roll or something. Secondly, those waiting their turn at the register make no attempt to sort out what they desire prior to getting to their turn. They talk on their cell phone, scratch their nuts, leash their kids, lash out at their kids and “ooh” and “aah” over the pastries in the display case but by all that is holy they DO NOT make any decisions or try to figure out what Asiago Cheese is. Why is this?

I would bet one thin dime that they know what they want when they’re ordering a Burger Bomb by yelling into the clown’s mouth.

I don’t feel I’m unreasonable. Perhaps I expect too much from people. Is it crazy of me to wish that people stand in line, formulate their order in advance and move through the ordering process in a timely manner?

Perhaps Panera should install a clown’s mouth on the counter.

Yesterday afternoon I was working on homework when the phone rang. I picked up the receiver and politely said “Hello”, as more normal Americans would do. Was I greeted with a pleasant voice in response? In this day and age, the answer is unsurprisingly no. In response to my pleasant greeting I received three blares of touch-tone goodness followed by a garbled recorded message ordering me to call DirecTV immediately at a toll-free number. Never one to jeopardize all things techie, including incoming satellite signals, I hung up the phone and called them right back.

Them: “Thank you for calling DirecTV, may I help you please?”

I responded by pressing several buttons on the telephone. I figured if DirecTV can greet me with touch-tone noises then I shall do the same forever and ever amen.

Them: “Is someone there?”

Me: “Hello?”

Them: “What is the name on this account?” (Ooh, a psychic, she already knows who I am.)

I gave her Earl’s name, since his name is on the account.

Them: “Is this Earl?”

Me: “Yes.” I love impersonating Earl.

Them: “How can I help you?”

Me: “I was told to call you.”

Them: “By whom?”

I responded with several blasts of the aforementioned touch-tone before I meekly said, “A recorded voice.” Having been in radio for several years I’ve always tried to be armed with a wide selection of character voices, but they all boil down to one: something that sounds like Bea Arthur constipated, so I settled for my regular voice with a meek twist.

Them: “Sir, your account is up to date. There was no reason to call.”

Me: “So this has been a waste of my time, your time and the time of anyone eavesdropping on this conversation.”

Them: “Yes.”

Me: “Goodbye.” I considered playing the first line of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” on the 3-2-1 keys of the phone but I opted to just hang up instead.

And the good times keep comin’! This week it’s all about the intermediate algebra, as I have two major tests, four homework assignments, a paper and a final all due before July 6. My desk is cluttered with scraps of paper with algebraic equations and my head is cluttered with variables dancing and passing like strangers in the night. I have noticed that my professor and the text book are both obsessed with mixing 20% acid solution with 60% acid solution to come up with 45% acid solution in varying amounts using various methods.

I don’t think I’ve ever mixed acid before.

The bright side of the week is the morning weather has been absolutely perfect for cycling. I’ve been getting myself up out of bed early enough to enjoy breakfast with Earl and then jumping on the bike for an hour or so. I’m loving the bike riding again and that’s keeping my head clear and my anxiety of acid solutions low.

Time to go study!

Earl and I made what is becoming a somewhat yearly trek to my alma mater for the annual “Alumni Banquet”. This gathering is a tradition at my high school; alumni gather for a banquet and typical assembly afterwards, where we honor the current graduates and hand out almost $10,000 in scholarships. Tonight’s banquet was the 118th. The oldest alumni in attendance had graduated in 1933.

My father is currently the president of the Alumni Association. This is his first year in the role. He’s going to do it for one more year and he hinted that I should take over the duties after he’s through. Apparently no one else wants the job.

I did take the opportunity to stand up and make an announcement about my efforts getting the Alumni Marching Band together for the parade in August. It’s coming together slowly but surely. Several people are excited about the venture, so I’m glad there’s some interest out there.

I had the opportunity to visit with one of my favorite teachers from high school. Miss Chontosh (though that’s not her name anymore) joined the faculty as an 8th grade math teacher when I was in 8th grade. Today she’s the department head for the math department. I told her about my current intermediate algebra challenges in college and she told me I’d do fine. I also snuck a peek in the gymansium for the first time since graduating in 1986. It looks the same aside from a paint job or four.

It was good to walk through the old halls and reminisce a little bit.

It’s been a year and a half since we welcomed my grandmother’s piano into our home. Even though the piano sits proudly in our front room, the “formal” living room, and is rightfully our piano, in my mind it shall always be my grandmother’s piano. I believe my grandfather bought it for her new back in 1949. When I sit on the bench, I can still smell the scent inherent to the instrument. I can still hear my grandmother playing her favorite song, “My Melody of Love”, made famous by Bobby Vinton.

I have played the piano on very few occasions since it’s come into our home. It didn’t survive the transport as well as I had hoped; several keys ended up in the “down” position and it hadn’t been tuned in at least two decades. But the keys that worked sounded strong and overall the piano is in otherwise great shape, so Earl and I decided it deserved a little TLC.

The kind man from Stage Music made two visits this week. On Tuesday morning he spent two hours assessing what needed to be done and he also brought the piano back to pitch (it was considerably flat). It turns out that there had been quite the family of mice living in the piano at one time, and they had snacked on the felt pads that raise the keys to their proper position. So Mr. Stage Music came back today and replaced all the felt and tweaked the pitch to perfection. To test the piano, Mr. Stage Music played a melody of lounge favorites. I noticed that he gave the piano the firm touch that it requires to make beautiful music. I’ve always been rather timid when playing this piano. This was a result of my playing the piano when I was in elementary school. I was having a loud, boisterous, joyful time with my sister, when grandpa came over and in his stern, rather bull-hornish voice proclaimed, “Do you know what refrain means?” We suspected it meant “stop and move your fingers”, as the lid to the keys was brought to a close.

We used a timid touch when we played the piano after that encounter. Thank goodness Mom and Dad babysat a piano for 20 years so that we had something to bang on.

So now my grandmother’s piano is back in her beautiful glory. I’ve never had an official piano lesson (thank god… we won’t mention the town minister that gave piano lessons only to ‘special young boys’), aside from the piano classes I didn’t finish at SUNY Fredonia. But I can plunk out a few tunes like a drunken fool from time to time, even though I can’t separate my left hand from my right hand and I don’t use the correct fingerings. See if you can identify the two songs I’m trying to play here.

It’s never good to see “You have one voicemail” on the cell phone after math class. Those who would call me know that I’m in school and would usually call me after school, plus I don’t think there’s that many people that would call me anyway, so seeing that I received a voicemail while I was sitting in class gave me an eerie feeling.

It was Earl. He fell asleep while driving on the Thruway today, with the cruise control on, and was awakened by the sound of his car sideswiping a guardrail at 72 MPH.

He’s not hurt and the car has an interesting pattern scraped down the entire length of it but it’s perfectly driveable. It just looks a little ghetto or white trashy right now.

My partner never gets enough sleep and he didn’t eat breakfast this morning. Instead of scolding him, well, maybe I scolded him just a little bit once I knew he was o.k., I told him that I’ll be joining him for a bowl of Cheerios and a glass of juice every morning.

I’ll even be chipper when I do it. Anything to avoid voicemail messages like that.

I’ve often complained about the conduct of the general public at the large movie multiplexes. People chat and send text messages on their very bright cell phones, have discussions as if they were sitting in their own living room and in general show a basic disregard for the others around them that are trying to enjoy the movie.

Luckily, there’s two solutions to this problem. The first involves waiting for movies to come out on DVD. With much of the junk that Hollywood serves up unapologetically cold these days, this is usually not a problem, however, there are movies that sometimes you just can’t wait for. Which brings us to our second solution, and that’s the local drive-in theatre.

We are fortunate to have a drive-in theatre within 10 miles of our house. “The West Rome Drive-In” has been serving our community since 1951 and is still packed on summer nights. During the daytime hours on the weekend, the drive-in doubles as a flea market. The sound system was upgraded a couple of years ago. They occasionally repaint the screens. The concession stand is delightfully dirty.

There’s nothing like sitting in the comfort of your own vehicle with the one you love watching a great movie being piped in over your car stereo system in glorious Dolby digital.

By the way, I really enjoyed “Fantastic Four”. I found it to be far superior to Spiderman 3. Get to a drive-in this summer!

When I was a wee lad I was very active in the musical programs in my high school. (A gay teenager, active in the music programs, go figure!) I was in the concert and marching bands playing tuba, I participated in all the choruses I could singing baritone and I was in the yearly high school musicals. I even ventured out on a limb once or twice and participated in community theatre as well.

My high school band director was a notorious perfectionist. An amazing musician, he demanded the best performance possible from all his students and had no qualms with dismissing those that weren’t making the grade. He was fair but very demanding. I had the utmost respect for him and looking back I guess I learned a great deal from him, which shaped my personal demand of perfection when it comes to performing. I think that’s why I’m so critical of today’s vocalists and I can’t watch American Idol anymore, audiences are all too eager to give standing ovations to mediocrity these days.

On the flip side of the high school music program, we had three different vocal directors during my school years. I found one to be considerably more demanding than the other two and I think she made a considerable impression on me in the perfection department as well. She didn’t believe in putting mics on us when we were on stage, we were to fill the auditorium with our voice and sing to the back wall. A tank of a woman, she also had no problem telling you when you weren’t fitting the bill. I’ll never forget the time that she told me to “butch it up and walk like a man” in 10th grade during a rehearsal as a knight in “Camelot”. Mortified, to this day I still suck in my gut and square my shoulders when I walk.

I’ve been doing some random searches of high school and college stage performances on YouTube, more specifically “Godspell”, “Fame” and “Pippin”. Wow, there’s a lot of crap being performed on stage these days and yet audiences are going wild. Now I’m not saying that what I sing or play is the bees knees of high school performances. I was never destined for Broadway. While my hearing is pitch perfect and I can sing a song in the proper key without a pitch pipe or accompaniment, I know my limitations and accept them and that’s why I often choose not to perform when prompted by family members. If I can’t make it perfect, I’m not going to do it.

I am quite content on my educational path to a civil engineering degree and have no desire to teach music on a regular basis (been there, done that, no thanks), however, I can’t help but think that there must be way for me to contribute to the musical arts in the community. The Alumni Band (up to 20 members so far!) is one step in that direction. But looking at these performances on the internet, I think I’m alarmed that what could be excellent performers are instead floundering performers that have no sense of the time signature of a piece while they bounce around the melody doing idiotic “runs” that would make Randy Jackson swoon and Paula Abdul giddy. I think it was Barbra Streisand that told Rosie O’Donnell, as Rosie was blaring out a tune like a fog horn, that “less is more” when it comes to singing a song.

Where am I going with this thought? I have no idea. I do know that when I performed “We Beseech Thee” from Godspell for an audition at SUNY Fredonia in 1987, it was much better than this (he says, with a smug look on his face).

Perhaps when I go for a community theatre gig, someone can post my performance on YouTube so I can inspire someone else’s blog entry and critique.

Earl and I have lived together for nearly 11 years. In that time we have had two beds. The first bed was Earl’s queen sized bed from his wild days, a hand-me down from his oldest sister. While quite functional, we opted to buy a new bed when we moved into the new house in 2003 and did the proper thing with the old bed, we gave it to his brother Rick. When we spend the night visiting his family, we usually stay with Rick and Helen and sleep in our old bed. My butt still fits and my leg surrounds the springs like it was yesterday.

It’s familiar and comfy.

When we first slept on the new, king sized bed, it felt foreign. It wasn’t all worked in like a hotel bed, it was shiny and firm and new and felt like we were sleeping on something that bent our backs in the wrong direction. After a few weeks and a few rides on the bed, it finally felt familiar.

This feeling didn’t last as long as I thought a new bed should.

I’ve played by the rules. Every three months I turn, rotate, flip, spindle and attempt not to mutilate the mattress as directed by the wise sage at Raymour and Flanigan. Sometimes I achieve this feat alone. Do you know how hard it is to turn, rotate, flip, spindle and attempt to to mutilate a king sized mattress alone? It’s a daring feat, what with the threat of the mattress falling out the window, scaring the cat and/or falling on me while I plea “help me, help me” in a pitiful voice. But the wise sage said you had to do this to the mattress, so I did.

When you look at a picture of Earl and I, you may notice that while we were are two bear sized guys, I’m a little smaller than he is. Can someone please explain to me why I have the bigger, deeper crevice in the mattress? Regardless of which way the mattress has been turned, rotated, flipped, spindled and hopefully not mutilated, there I am lying approximately one foot average sea level lower than Earl.

I have affectionately named this crevice “The Ditch”.

“Sweetheart, it’s time to get up!”, comes the voice from above, as he peers down into the ditch prompting the serfs out of slumber. “The cat says it’s time for tuna.”

I tell the cat to “go tell it on the mountain.” I have noticed that while Earl does have a smaller version of The Ditch on his side of the bed, mine is deeper and stretches from sea to shining sea. I like to think that the cat sleeps on the Continental Divide between us.

Truth be told, I guess I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I can’t think of the last time that I was up at 4:30 in the morning and not growling at people. Here I am, wide awake and actually making myself a “to-do” list for the day. I have included the obligatory nap for 2:30 this afternoon so I can be refreshed for a rousing episode of “Leave It to Beaver” on TV Land.

My sleeping habits have been oscillating back and forth between “sloth” and “zombie” for the past couple of weeks. Usually I try to be in bed by 11 and up by eight, but when we went camping a couple of weeks ago I stayed up until two or so and then slept in until ten. This seemed to work reasonably well, but it’s not something that I can do during the week as I would then miss my college classes.

Sunday night I went to bed at two and was up by nine, even though there were several attempts from a certain cat to get me up way before then. “Thou shall get a paw in the eye and claws across the beard until thou serves tuna.”

On the other hand, last night I went to bed at ten and was up by 4:30 this morning, as I was awoken by the delivery of a very large aircraft to the local airliner maintenance center. So much for noise abatement. Last night’s turning in early was entirely due to my recent attempt at eating healthy, as I was so hungry I was ready to gnaw on my desk so I thought I should either go to sleep or eat a half gallon of ice cream.

So now I’m patiently waiting for Earl to get up in an hour so I can rip the sheets out from under him and start the ritual I call “giddy with laundry”.

They’ll be done just in time for my mid afternoon nap.