Ponderings and Musings

I’ve been speaking with Earl throughout the afternoon today. He’s been sitting on his flight bound home. It’s been sitting on the runway in Indianapolis for approximately three hours. No food, no water, no deposit, no return. That’s right, the average American pays hundreds of dollars for the privilege of sitting in a aluminum paper-towel tube in the middle of a runway without amenities.

It’s is one of my greatest hopes that the airlines permanently go bankrupt. Perhaps then we’ll all slow down just a bit and drive an electric car to our desired destination.

Always fascinated by the mundane, I’ve noticed for the past year or two that this rather attractive young man turns up in commercials all over the place. His face has been caressed by an Italian bombshell in a shaving cream commercial, he’s been enjoying pancakes at IHOP and now he’s seen eating Hidden Valley Ranch dressing while the world changes around him.

Who is this man and his he vying for the Guiness Book of World Records title of “Appeared In The Most Commercials?”

Technology is fascinating. A few moments of intimacy with Google and I found out who this person is. He has a nifty name, as his name is Michael Spellman. From what I’ve read he’s very active in the theatre, has appeared on ER and has been in countless commercials.

I find him rather woofy as well.

Anyway, I can now get back to life now that I’ve solved that little mystery.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Earl is out of town on business this week. He’s in the beautiful city of Indianapolis. I am resisting all urges to drive out and visit him after I finish my classes for the week on Thursday. It’s not really that realistic for me to hunt him down and barge in at the high point of his presentation to the corporate ladder. They’d probably poo-poo that sort of thing.

When Earl is out of town I’m usually on call for work, but since I’m unemployed and relatively caught up with my schoolwork, I’m finding myself with a lot of time on my hands. I decided to venture out into the snow and eat and surf at our local Panera. It’s rather deserted tonight, most likely because of the weather. There’s not a lot going on to entertain me, but I’m enjoying myself nonetheless.

After standing at the empty front counter, waiting for someone to appear out of thin air and take my order, a young woman walked around from the bakery area and asked, “would you like something?” Doing my best Bea Arthur imitation, I asked when the next Irish jig on the counter was to start. Being a redhead and all, I’d like to join the troop.

She didn’t find the humor in the sarcasm.

Everywhere you look in this restaurant are banners proclaiming the return of the “Chicken Bacon Dijon Panini”. Wickedly unhealthy, I decided that I would give this a whirl since I hadn’t tried it before it left.

“Oh, we’re all out of that,” was the curt reply to my request.

I settled for the hot turkey and artichoke panini. It’s rather good and doesn’t have any hints of microwave involvement, though I suspect there’s an Amana crankin’ around here somewhere.

I’m terribly lonely tonight. I’m thinking of going back home and getting a jump on the homework that’s due next Tuesday. I have to draw a survey map of the college campus. The instructor recommended that we wait until daylight to make the initial assessment but I’ve found a crystal clear satellite image online. There’s enough information available for me to get the basics, then I can fill in the fire hydrants and other small stuff later. I must be a really big geek or a really good student, because I’m looking forward to doing the assignment. It’s what I’ve wanted to do all my life.

Now if I could just get a heart stopping Chicken Bacon Dijon Panini with an Irish Jig on the side.

I have spent the entire afternoon and evening working on engineering drawings for my Drafting class. This is quite a challenge because I have absolutely no artistic skill whatsoever. I can barely draw a stick figure. I avoid the game hangman at all costs because it involves drawing said stick figure. The last time I played Pictionary with my family I drew a lightsaber and half the room blushed and my aunt made an “ahem” noise as she choked on her cocktail.

And now my professor wants us to draw houses in an isometric view.

I thought that’s what we got when we watched guys warm-up in the locker room.

In less than three weeks my Drafting class will be all about computers. I am counting the minutes until that time. But for the first three weeks I feel like I’m stuck in some cryptic boot camp trying to draw lines and circles and make my letters look like an all caps Helvetica font. Every time I discard another attempted drawing, all I can think is “15 cents, 15 cents” as we have to use this fancy engineering paper. I think I threw away at least $5.00 today.

I guess it’s all about the learning experience. I should have spent $5.00 on a Big Mac or Taco Bell. It would have given me less gas than my homework did.

When I’m folding laundry I enjoy turning on the television to make the time pass a little quicker. Can someone please explain to me that while we have over 400 channels in a wide selection of languages, why can’t we have a 24/7 classic sitcom channel? “TV Land” doesn’t fit the bill anymore, since they show lots of Gunsmoke, Bonanza (which does fill the woof requirements with Pernell Roberts) and the A-Team, but gosh I want to see more Green Acres, The Munsters and Leave It To Beaver. What happened to “Our Miss Brooks”? If we can have a channel dedicated to documentaries, we certainly can have a channel dedicated to classic sitcoms.

I’m just saying. Tinka-tinka-tee, me. Please.

Well now it’s looking like January. We’re under a Lake Effect Snow Warning through tomorrow night. I’ve heard expected snow accumulation of anywhere from one inch to at least a foot. Only Mother Nature knows, so I figure why worry about it. We’ve got a snowblower, I’m capable of running it, and we like being snuggled up in the house, so what’s there to worry about. Hell, we’ve even got powdered milk that we can mix with snow if things get really tough.

Since I’m a relatively smart cub, I have today and every Friday off from school. I’m using the time to catch up on my assignments, catch up on laundry and clean the house from top to bottom.

Yeah, right.

I stopped in at my old office and gave them a loaf of raisin bread to share and then I’ve been working on websites and doing road geek things all day. I am doing laundry too, but that doesn’t really require a lot of effort. I do think that I’ll have to get up and chase the guts of the washing machine down the hallway some time soon because those bearings that have been making noise for the past four months or so are getting really, really loud. Let’s all say a prayer to Mother Downy Tide that we don’t have to buy a new washer for a while, because fixing this beast is more expensive than buying a new one.

Tonight we are scheduled to go to Syracuse for dinner with my sister. I think we’ll brave the storm and go unless it gets too out of control on the Thruway. After all, that’s why four-wheel drive was invented.

Earl and I have decided that we are not going to watch “American Idol” for a while. I was fully prepared to jump onto this latest season in full snark mode, but last night’s auditions in Seattle were just too mean spirited. The judges were pretty mean spirited on Tuesday, last night they were just downright mean. We weren’t entertained at all.

Now I don’t consider Earl and I to be ultra politically correct guys. Once in a while we may snicker privately when we shouldn’t or we may tell a joke that’s a little rude. However, we know the limits of good taste and last night a line crossed. The three judges on American Idol hit a new low. Three people “in the business” really have no business making fun of a contestant’s physical apperance by calling him a monkey. Paula Abdul, regardless of her state of inebriation, should not cheer a contestant on when they’re in the room and then laugh uproariously when they’ve left. That was just humiliating for all involved. The judges and the producers should be ashamed of themselves.

We’re not watching the rest of the audition process. We may boycott the rest of the season. It’s just become too mean.

Earl and I decided to treat ourselves for lunch today and go to the Applebee’s that’s not too far away, using one of our holiday gift certificates in the process. Trying to stay within the realm of good health, I ordered a “Confetti Chicken” dish from the Weight Watchers menu, Earl ordered a grilled chicken salad from the same selection.

Mine was quite yummy.

Earl wasn’t as thrilled with his dish.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect a fresh selection of vegetables in a salad. Unfortunately, Applebee’s felt differently because Earl had an assortment of wilted and browning salad greens in his dish. The very kind server came over and asked how we were enjoying our meal. Earl’s first response was “Honestly?” I then gripped the table in preparation for what was to follow. Actually, I was expecting his standard, “This is the worst meal I’ve had in my life”, but he didn’t say that, instead he expressed his understable disappointment with his meal. The server looked as if she had been stabbed but she apologized for the meal and offered to get another; Earl replied that he would just pick at what he had since he was pressed for time.

We were expecting the manager to come over after the server flew back to the kitchen, but the manager never arrived. The server even asked if we had talked to the manager as she had requested their presence, but apparently they don’t work during the busy lunch hour or something.

After the initial discussiong with the server, Earl and I continued to eat in silence. It wasn’t that I was embarassed or upset by his honesty with the server, quite the contrary, I’m glad he had said something. It was just that I felt that this was another notch in what I was sensing to be a bad day for him. So I broke the silence with a simple question.

“Do you think you’ve had a mid-life crisis, are having a mid-life crisis, or haven’t had one yet?”

I don’t know why I asked that, as he’s probably one of the most grounded people I’ve ever met in my life, but he shot me a look that said, “I’m am not having a mid-life crisis”, before he calming said, “Why do you ask?”. Not knowing how to gracefully dig myself out of that conversational vacuum, I simply replied with “oh, I was just curious.” Things were fine after that.

Small wonder I played it safe tonight and served up a pancake supper. There wasn’t a vegetable in sight.

When I resigned from my job at the end of this past year, I thought I would have a lot of time before school started to get some things done. I had visions of multiple blog entries everyday, following the important matters occurring in the news and accomplishing tasks on my “to do” list with unprecedented time to do so. Classes start in less than a week and I’m finding that I’m busier now than when I was working. I think I’m a little surprised by this.

I can say without hesitation that my priorities have changed considerably. Back in the “old days” I was happy with the state of the kitchen floor if we didn’t stick to it. This morning I found myself armed with the broom and dustpan waiting for the cat to finish his kibble so I could scoop up his mess. I stop Earl at the door when he comes home from work and before he gets his kiss, I insist that his shoes come off. The washer has run more cycles in the past two weeks then it did the entire month before. I’m looking forward to stopping at the dry cleaners tomorrow morning.

What in the heck has happened to me?

I used to yak on and on about how I was turning into some domestic god because I vacuumed a little bit and shoved things under the bed. Yesterday I moved all the furniture in the bedroom so I could thoroughly clean everything. It paid off though; Earl didn’t sneeze once in bed last night.

See, there’s always a bright side.

Just to keep Earl on his toes I left a voicemail at his office telling him to stop at the store on his way home as I was fresh out of bon-bons.

He brought home some mop-n-glo. He knows his way to my heart.

I think I surprised Earl a little bit today. When he got home from work, I was in the basement pulling wire through the framing for the new rooms we’re having built down there. There was also a meatloaf in the oven, ready to enjoy as soon as he had decompressed from the day’s activities.

Who knew I’d have a few tricks up my sleeve after all these years.

When all was said and done, we survived the meatloaf just fine (it was my first attempt at meatloaf) and no one was electrocuted when I finished hooking up the wiring.

It’s the little things that make life interesting. Wait until he sees what I do tomorrow with a naked chicken.