Ponderings and Musings

For the past several years, Earl and I have celebrated the Easter holiday by going on our first picnic of the year. We normally make ham sandwiches, bring along some salads, chips and iced tea, and go to a state park to enjoy the springtime sunshine and perhaps walk around a little bit.

Today we woke up to over an inch of snow and temperatures in the mid 20s. While we are both quite adventurous, we really didn’t feel up to a picnic in that sort of weather.

Instead we invited my Mom to the local casino where they were having a wonderful brunch for thousands of their closest friends. We ran into my cousin and her family and chatted with them for a few moments and ended up having a wonderful meal and leaving some of our hard earned money in the process.

I guess Mother Nature isn’t quite ready to bless us with full-time spring yet, as it looks like it’ll be late February like for the next couple of days. Earl thinks our first picnic of the year will be to celebrate Independence Day.

I’ve been mentioning to Earl on and off for the past couple of weeks that I was thinking of ramping back considerably on my blogging habits. I don’t know whether it’s a case of finding interests elsewhere or just sheer boredom, but I thought that reading my blog had become as interesting as watching paint dry.

That was until today.

One of my reasons for having a blog is to show the world, through my experiences, a different perspective on life. I don’t really see “the big picture” as many see it. I don’t think I’m even looking at the same wall as most. Sometimes it seems like I’m looking at the back of the big picture. Sometimes it seems I’m out in the bathroom while everyone is gazing at this big picture. Perhaps it’s educational to some that there’s these whacky people out there that look at the world a little differently and maybe any given topic can’t be pigeon-holed into black or white.

In addition, I don’t believe that Earl and I fit the stereotypical image of a gay couple, and by sharing our experiences and viewpoints on here, it shows the world the diversity that exists in this little subculture with sparkles.

Anyway, after a lively sociology class at school today I decided that I need to hang around in the blogosphere a bit and keep doing what I’m doing. Today’s topic in class was “Education and Religion”. We started off by being asked to draw a person, much like they do to screen students for kindergarten. I apparently would have been sent to summer school if I was to attend kindergarten today because I drew a stick figure. I was generous enough to include hair, ears, shoes and a smiley face. I guess I haven’t changed much since kindergarten age, because my kindergarten teacher told my mother that I was learning disabled and should be in special ed because I couldn’t color between the lines. They later decided that I was “beyond” coloring between the lines and had more important things to do. I guess that still applies.

Anyways, the conversations started up during the lecture. I enjoy this class because about half the class (the sleeping half) has pretty much dropped out and now people actually participate. Since returning from spring break I’ve become increasingly participatory in class and today I was running at full tilt.

The 20s-something woman two rows back, the one happily married with four kids, was giving her viewpoint on the separation of church and state in the schools and how it was just awful that there was discussion about taking the Pledge of Allegiance out of the schools because of the words “under God”. Several of our classmates agreed with her, saying that our Founding Fathers put “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance for a reason.

“Whammy! Thanks for playing, here’s your lifetime supply of bleach.”

Before the instructor had a chance to jump in, she looked at me, smiling knowingly as she read the expression on my face as I said, “Actually, the Pledge of Allegiance wasn’t around until 1892 and the ‘under God’ part wasn’t added until 1952. I think the Founding Fathers were long dead by then.” I don’t know what it is about adding a little zinger to the end of my arguments. Perhaps too much Golden Girls or something.

“Well I don’t know why people have to come into our country and force us to endure their religious beliefs. This is a Christian nation.”, another student said.

“I’m sure the Native Americans loved us forcing Christianity upon them when we arrived in North America”, was my reply.

I guess I was a little worked up today.

The discussion continued, including my defense of people who need to take time off from their jobs for religious purposes (Jewish holidays, Pagan celebrations, etc) and how they shouldn’t have to bring in a note from the coven. I think the Pagan part spooked some.

Perhaps I should wear all black on Tuesday or something.

Anyway, the paint has finally dried and I’m still here.

* addendum, I was wrong in class, “under God” was added in 1954 per Wikipedia.

Today I came to the realization that I’m not even halfway through my life yet. I fully intend on reaching that century mark and I’m well under that dreaded “50”, heck, I’m not even touching 40 yet. Nevertheless, I think I’ve been having a midlife crisis of sort over the past month or so, hence the intense working out I’ve been doing (and subsequent weight loss and muscle gain, whoo hoo!) and the change in my appearance a bit. I figure I’ve got the rest of my life to cruise through drive thru restaurants, watch television and be lazy, so for now I’ll eat healthy, workout, be active and embrace my 38 years of age by feeling young.

It may sound like I’m feeling down in the dumps. Quite the contrary; I actually feel great. I guess I’m eager for spring weather to return, as the temperature fell 25 degrees today and it’s been raining to the point of flood warnings again. Maybe I need to get out on my bike and ride to Binghamton and back or something (200 mile round trip).

Too bad my road bike doesn’t have water skiis on it.

I certainly miss the days of decent television show opening themes. This is one of the best, EVER! I’m inviting everyone to sing along with the song that has been going through my head today.

Every once in a while one needs a Sunday where you can kick back and just relax. And today we did just that. Outside of needed laundry, a quick trip to the market and fixing supper, today was about doing nothing but regrouping. And playing Xbox.

Life is good.

After watching the woman ahead of us wash her car in the manual car wash down the street, it was finally time for us to pull the Jeep in and do our thing.

Mind you, this woman needed to put more quarters in the car washing control box that beeps a lot, and to get said quarters she needed to get them out of the car. So she had opened the door and jumped into the car while still holding the spray nozzle and squeezing the trigger at the same time. Yes, she sprayed the inside of the car with a lot of water. She seemed unfazed, though I noticed she obsessed over the foaming brush quite a bit.

Anyway, I was getting myself ready to wash the Jeep when she stopped just outside of the exit door and got out to tell me something.

“Don’t use the foaming brush”, she cautioned.

“Why?”, I asked as I glanced at the brush that she had just used. “Is it scratching up the car or something?”

“No, a lot of foam comes out.”

With that factoid she jumped into her wet car and sped down the road.

Earl and I decided to take a ride this afternoon. He was feeling a little better (he’s been under the weather for the past day or two) and the weather was gorgeous, so we jumped in the Jeep and drove through the countryside. We ended up at a Red Robin for supper. It was delish with a capital “De”.

Afterwards, we continued our trek and ended up driving through some rural country on the way home. There was a car ahead of us on this lonely stretch of road. We had seen deer left and right for the past 10 miles when we spotted a deer approaching the road ahead of us. There it was, plain as day, obviously thinking about crossing the road. We slowed down accordingly.

The car in front of us did not.

The next thing we knew, the deer was airborne, the car was swerving all over the place and then limping to the side of the road and smoke appeared to be coming out the windows.

We pulled up alongside the now disabled car and found one occupant with his little puppy. The “smoke” was from the deployment of the air bags. The front end of his car was totaled. The deer was dead. We asked if he was alright, luckily, he and the dog were both fine but they obviously weren’t going anywhere. Earl pulled out his cell phone and called 911, and then we stayed with the guy and his puppy until the cops came. I cleaned the debris, except the dead deer, off the road so other cars wouldn’t hit it, Earl chatted with the guy while they sat in the Jeep, apparently the dog was recovering from pneumonia and couldn’t be outside. He appreciated the gesture.

After getting the driver acquainted with the police, we continued on our way home. I laid back in the seat for a few moments to close my eyes (Earl was driving), when I hear three loud bangs, Earl dropped a few f-bombs and then we swerved all over the place. We were in downtown Rome and a minivan headed in the direction opposite us decided that he didn’t want to turn left from the left turn only lane, so he headed straight for us, mowed down a few signs, jumped the island in the middle of the boulevard and went up on two wheels before coming down on all fours.

The smoke came out of the windows as their airbags were deployed.

Since it was a busy section of town full of cars and there were plenty of witnesses, we just headed the hell home. We didn’t want to see what would happen on the third time.

Earl gave me a Christmas present this week. He came home with three new pair of underwear, which were originally intended to be a Christmas gift but have been back-ordered all this time.

In case you’re curious, this is the style I wear, though I am not the person modeling them in the picture.

I grew up as a tighty-whitey sort of guy, switched to boxers for a bit a couple of years ago and then went back to the reliable tighty-whiteys. I’ve tried thongs (which did nothing for me), I occasionally wear bikini briefs and I can often be found going commando in the summertime, but for the most part it’s tighty-whiteys all the way.

And these Baskit briefs are just so comfortable.

I believe that having a comfortable, confidence inspiring, sexy pair of underwear is an important part of the foundation of a productive, self-assurance inspiring day. Let’s face it, if you’re not comfortable in your underwear, there’s a good chance that your day is not going to get off on the right foot.

With a little help from Earl’s gift, today I feel like a million bucks.

When I’m writing in my blog or doing school work I usually need to have relative silence. Many will listen to their iPods or watch television but lately I’m not able to handle the distraction of noise, be it music, television, airplanes, thunderstorms, whatever, while I’m concentrating on a task.

I find this relatively new development to be surprising. Before working for the telephone company, I worked for a radio station where there is constantly fifty things going on at once. People are walking in and out of the studio as you’re talking on the air, phones need to be answered while you’re loading up the next CD and thinking about what happens next and the radio is obviously constantly on while you’re doing your work. When I went to the telephone company, there was an unspoken rule that “music shall not be heard within these walls” in the tech support center I worked in, so the only sounds one heard was the ringing of telephones, little murmurs of conversation, a network trouble signal that sounded like an air-raid siren and the occasional f-bombs from nearby co-workers. Compared to the radio station, the telephone company was pretty quiet.

Now I find myself easily distracted by noise.

I can’t write in my blog if Earl has music going on his computer. The cat is constantly trying to jockey a spot on my lap to the point where I have begun locking him out of the room when I’m trying to work and I’m falling behind on my podcast listening because I’m spending more time on the computer doing actual work so I can’t concentrate and listen at the same time.

So with it being springtime and the ensuing changes (“My you look much younger without your mustache!” was a common theme at school today), I have begun “distraction training”, where I listen to music and do a given task at the same time.

If my blog entries are a little more incoherent than usual you’ll know why.

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before, but when I was a wee lad I was a tuba player. From fifth grade through my senior year, I proudly played the tuba with the concert and marching bands. In fact, I went to SUNY Fredonia for music education as a tuba player, probably because we tuba players are rare and the college was desperate.

When Earl and I were on vacation last week, we had occasion to watch several marching bands and I found myself eager to start playing the tuba again. I haven’t played the tuba since 1988 or so but I still remember all the fingerings and how to do it.

I wonder if I can find a tuba on ebay. Then I’ll just be a tuba player in search of a marching band. 

Because we all know what happens at band camp.

Here’s a picture of me (on the left) as a freshman in high school at band practice. Band was the last period of the day (the geek remembers: 8th period, 1:49 to 2:30), that’s why I had my coat on because I had an irrational fear of missing the bus.

Here, enjoy one of the songs we used to play (though this is the demo version). It’s called “Aztec Fire”.