Ponderings and Musings

Earl and I decided that we wanted to have a date of sorts tonight, so after working out at the gym this afternoon we made ourselves presentable, threw on some duds and headed to a local steakhouse.

The steakhouse is neighbors with the local theatre, and this week Cinderella: The Ballet is in town. Since I work right across the street from the theatre, I should have remember this from passing under the marquee all week, but I didn’t remember until we got to the area and saw that it was quite busy. The street traffic was a welcomed change for the usually dead Saturday night in this area.

We were pleasantly surprised to be seated immediately, having arrived about 20 minutes before curtain time. Along side of us was a party of about ten, including three young children, roughly early elementary school age. They were accompanied by their mothers, who appeared to either be friends or sisters, and an elderly couple that we deduced were somebody’s grandparents.

The kids were hedging into holy terror territory running around the tables of others, taking their shoes and socks off and storing them under the table, ripping loaves of bread in half and making like Hansel and Gretel. In the sad fashion on today’s parental generation, the mothers apparently couldn’t of cared less, save for the one that started counting “one, two, three” as if the Sesame Street numbers routine was going to scare the wrath of God into the children. Amongst all the noise from the table, the kids were screaming about how excited they were to being seeing Cinderella. Except it was 7:15. And curtain time was 7:30, and they were just being served their salads.

“This can’t be good”, I whispered to Earl.

Around 7:20, Count Monster Mom started flapping her arms like a demented windmill in an effort to flag down the waiter. “You need to bring the kids their food right now, they don’t need to wait for the other meals to be served.” Why discipline when you can stuff their mouths shut? Small wonder today’s youth is fat. Nevertheless, the waiter brought the kids their food.

It was nearly 7:25 when the remaining meals were brought to the table. At 7:30, as they were still digging in to their meals and undoubtedly the curtain was going up next store, Count Monster Mom did the windmill routine again and then snapped her fingers in the air (I’ve never seen that before in real life; how rude!) in a stereotypical “Garçon!” move, demanding the check. She then asked for the manager to come to the table.

I couldn’t hear the entire conversation, but Earl and I did our best to Gladys Kravitz what was going on next door.

“This restaurant is next door to the theatre, we thought a 6:00 reservation would give us ample time to eat before the show started. You should be taking 15% off the check.”

“Yes ma’am, I understand, but you arrived at 6:45. We’ve been located next to the theatre for a long time. One and a half hours before curtain with a party of ten is cutting it rather close.”

“But we have to take most of our meals with us since the show has already started. You really should take something off the check.”

“I’m sorry ma’am, but I can’t do that, as you were 45 minutes late for your reservation.”

Count Monster Mom then got all huffy and started shoveling her food into the take-out containers, gathered up her gaggle of monsters and headed for the door.

The grandparents decided to stay and finish their meal in peace. Earl and I enjoyed the silence after their departure as well.

As more and more sound invades our space these days with the increasing number of advertisements, gizmos, technological marvels and what not, I began to wonder if it’s possible to experience silence these days. I’m not talking about awkwards gaps in conversation or people not speaking, but rather just an absence of sound.

I know that total silence is theoretically impossible. After all, if you’re engulfed in total silence, you’re probably going to hear the sound of your own heartbeat. But what’s it like to listen to nothing? No sound of a ventilation fan in the background; no hum of a computer system; no melodies of wind chimes dancing in the wind. Would I feel completely at peace in total silence or rather completely frustrated because one of my senses was not being stimulated.

There are people that don’t like silence. They walk into a room in their house, hear nothing and know that the kids have moved on to their adult lives. Others with younger kids may take silence as an indicator of mischief occurring elsewhere in the house. Some can work with a radio in the background, others can’t stand the distraction. I find it all quite fascinating, but then again, I feel humans fascinating in general.

Sometimes I think the whir of machinery and the bells and whistles of technology, always present in the background, subliminally annoy us in this whirlwind we call life. These ambient noises just add a little more steam to our tea kettle of a mind, causing it to be that much closer to speaking out and letting off some steam. Perhaps I need to find a nice comfortable spot in the woods or in the desert during our upcoming trip and just do nothing except enjoy the silence.

Earl is out of town in New England tonight on business. Suspiciously, when I called him to see how things were going, he informed me that he was currently winning at Foxwoods Casino in eastern Connecticut. “I thought your meetings were in Massachusetts and Vermont.” “They are.” I guess the casino was a stone’s throw away or something.

But that’s another blog entry.

Since Earl was out of town and my sister is back from Russia, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to meet up with my mother and her for supper tonight. So I trekked off to Syracuse after work.

Mom had a hair appointment after work, so Jennifer and I met up and caught up over a couple of beers and some munchies. She told me about living in Russia for eight months and all that entailed, I shared with her stories about recently traveling to Virginia and what’s been going on while she was gone. Mom joined us a little later (with a spiffed up ‘do) and we enjoyed some good conversation over supper. I know Tully’s is a chain of restaurant, but they seem to have a stamp of “Syracuse” on them, and I’ve mentioned before that I’m very “Syracuse Proud”.

It may be the beer in me that’s getting me all sentimental but I guess I’m a lucky guy to have a sister that I can call one of my best friends. When we were growing up, she always joined me on my little schemes, whether it was rearranging trees in the woods behind the house, jumping over the electric fence to do our own version of running with the bulls in the pasture or setting up a play grocery store, complete with express checkouts, in the basement. Hell, she even sang Linda Mc Cartney’s part in “Silly Love Songs” when I decided I want to sing a number one track while using the wood pile as a soundstage. Now that we’re adults, we tell each other just about everything and still giggle and laugh at the same things. And my mom joins right in with the conversation; she’s always been her own person and still lives up to that – I mean how many 50+ year old women decide to dress up their Saturn sedan by having flames added to the door panels?

While I miss Earl tonight as he does his business trip, I’m glad that I was able to hang out with a couple of my friends, who just happen to be family.

Mother Nature threw us a curve ball today in an effort to remind us that we live in Upstate New York. It’s currently in the low 30s and there’s a mix of rain and snow falling.

Such a lovely day in April.

Since I woke up so cranky this morning, I was extra determined to get myself in a good mood. So on my way home from lunch I cranked up a spring-type classic track from the 60s.

“Grazin’ In The Grass” by the Friends of Distinction.

Grazin’ in the grass
It’s a gas
Baby, can you dig it!

It might not feel like spring outside, but I have spring dancing around in my head today. And this has improved my mood immensely.

Can you dig it!

Sometimes I get a little freaked out when I find out who exactly reads my blog. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a welcomed boost to my ego when I get comments and whatnot about my little ponderings and musings about life, but once in a while I’ll meet up with someone that recites verbatim something I’ve written and I have to stop and say “whoa”. Then I feel a little bit of pressure to come up with something even more witty or inspiring than previous entries and then it happens.

Brain freeze. Creative Seize. Help me, help me, please.
Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight.

I know that there’s a few people the read my blog on a daily basis. And I think that’s great. I don’t know who you are, but your little IP address pops up on my monthly report that gets e-mailed to me and I hope that you enjoy my little missives. But then someone (we’ll call her Maude) has to chime in, “say something nice about (so and so) in your blog, they love it so much.”

I just can’t do that.

It throws my chi and my creative flow in an awkward direction and then I don’t know what to write about. You see, if I’m going to do homework of sorts, I want it handed to me on purple ditto paper so that I can get high from the fumes. It’s not that I don’t like so and so or whatever, it’s just that my blog is a form of my creative expression and I can’t use it to do “shout outs”. I had enough of that back in my radio days.

“Justin says nighty-night to Amber and hopes you’ll go steady with him after lunch tomorrow.”

Yes folks, I had to say things like that on the radio on a nightly basis. It was vomit inducing. I hated that more than having to say “Thank you for shopping at Wonderful Hills” to every customer back when I was working as a cashier. Hills was a fine department store, but I can’t think of one person that could say “Wonderful Hills” with a straight face.

So if you enjoy my blog, I’m happy. If you have something to say, by all means say it. And if you want to acknowledge that you read my blog when you meet me or see me, just say “Thank you for shopping at Hills.”

Yesterday I stopped into a brand new Rite Aid in our area to pick up a few things. I’ve had this little dry skin thing going on under my right eye and on the bridge of my nose for the past couple of months and I wanted to zap it with a little cortizone cream and get rid of it once and for all. I also had to pick up some shaving cream for my head.

I always find it such fun to browse through the Men’s toiletries area of a store. Over the past couple of months Earl and I have been using Axe shower gel to get ourselves presentable. We both enjoy the scent, it’s clean but not overpowering. Well I was delighted to find that this Rite Aid had a new scent of Axe shower gel called Snake Skin. This stuff is da bomb! It has a little bit of grit to it to help shed dead skin cells (hence the name) and it smells fantastic. I love the stuff.

While I was browsing about I also noticed that Rite Aid carries the Headblade line of shaving supplies for men that are BBC (bald by choice) like me. I tried the Headblade a number of years ago and never really got the knack of using it, opting to stick to my Mach III instead. I had never seen any of their other products; they have a shaving cream and a moisturizing cream to use after you shave your head clean. The name of the moisturizing cream?

Headlube.

I love it. It comes in matte or glossy finish. I opted for the glossy since my uncle commented on the glare of my head at supper the other night, I thought I might as well go for the gold. The Headblade shaving cream is pretty good too and has earned a place in the shower, replacing a long legacy of Kiss My Face hypoallergenic stuff that I’ve used for the last couple of years, except when I was out I’d grab a can of trusty ol’ Barbasol that has lived in our bathroom since we moved here.

No one has commented on my shinier head today, but I have noticed a little bit of glare from my reflection in the window near my cubicle. It’s pretty cool.

Front Porch.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

In celebration of the sunshine, Tom and I sat on the front porch together for lunch. For some reason he doesn’t feel the “Thou shall not nudge the PowerBook” rule applies when we’re doing a little sun surfing. Perhaps I’ll have to remind him how these things work.

It’s always so refreshing to sit outside and just listen to the sounds that ride the breeze. A crow screeching about something in the back lawn. Song birds tweeting a sweet little tune. The sounds of the New York Thruway off in the distance, the warning signal of an Amtrak train. I could just sit back, make myself comfortable and listen and observe for hours. I find it so peaceful.

A great way to recharge the batteries in the middle of the workday.

As I’m sitting here at the kitchen table getting ready for supper, I look out over the patio and notice a jet contrail in the sky. Normally I wouldn’t pay much attention, except the contrail is dark. And the jet is apparently doing a U-turn.

Undoubtedly the trail is dark because it’s nearly sunset and the sun is creating some odd shadows in the sky.

To the right of this little spectacle we have two smaller contrails, presumably further away, that are running in parallel with each other, same direction, same speed. That strikes me as odd too.

Now I’m going to have to pay attention to the sky and see what’s going on.

Now that the sun is actually showing itself and it’s starting to feel a little like spring in these parts, I’m noticing more and more people are coming out of their hibernation and starting to walk the streets around downtown. You can always spot the winter shut in type, they are still wearing a heavy coat while others around them are making due without a jacket. And they look very, very pale.

When I was growing up my sister often referred to my coloring as “lily white”. Now that I look back on it, I think that was kind of rude. Nevertheless, while I wouldn’t paint me in the same corner as Casper, I will admit that I don’t get much color on my skin. I’m the type that burns and then peels, rinse and repeat. I go from “lily white” to shocking red to yuck and then back to pale white.

I think my sister hogged all the tanning genes in the family. I don’t think she’s ever had a sunburn in her life. But then again, I’m the only redhead of my generation so maybe I just got an extra helping of the low sun tolerance genome.

I’m going to attempt to get a little color this year without getting all sunburned. That way when Earl and I go traveling this summer, I won’t spook everyone at the beach.

Eating healthy has been the name of the game in our merry little home and Earl and I have been joined by another family member in the quest for a better body.

Our cat Tom is now on the bandwagon.

Tom has his annual trip to the vet a week or two ago. It was the usual routine, he sees the cat carrier and jets underneath anything that would restrict access to him, be it the bed, the couch or the piano. Being the mean ol’ daddy that I am, I coax him out by pulling on one his paws until he follows along, literally kicking and screaming all the way. Then I give him a shove into the cat carrier, in which his paws spring out in every direction but “in”, so I end up turning him this way and that until he finally admits defeat and actually gets in the carrier. On the ride to the vet, anything that will come out of cat, except blood, will. He must figure that it’s easier for him to give all the samples in the car instead of the in the exam room.

It’s such a lovely experience.

Anyways, since Tom has been with us he’s weighed between 10 3/4 and 11 1/4 pounds. This visit he clocked in at 12 1/4 pounds! I resisted the urge to point out to the vet that he was on a different scale for the first time and that he had hit “stop” when the dial was turning and it had stopped on 12 1/4 pounds. Perhaps he was secretly saying “no whammies, no whammies, no whammies.” Who knows.

So he suggested Tom get away from the moist food we were giving him as a side dish to his kibble. He wanted to recommend some expensive, prescription required food but I told him the last time we tried that Tom refused to eat for three days and made everyone’s life miserable until he was served something with flavor.

So we’ve found this light kibble for adult cats. Unlike human food that’s branded ‘lite’, I don’t think there’s splenda in it.

So now that Earl and I are eating heatlhy, we have Tom joining in on the group effort. We’re going to be a fierce looking family come summertime.