Ponderings and Musings

It’s easy to tell that winter is just around the corner here in Upstate N.Y. Everyone’s driving skills have gone from “asshat” to “unbelievable asshat”. Now mind you, it’s not snowing or hailing or anything like that today. It’s raining. While not a torrential downpour, the rain is steady and does warrant some extra caution on the road.

That does not mean slowing down to 35 MPH in the middle of the freeway.

I find it remarkable that some people drive around in a light drizzle with their windshield wipers set to “hysterical”. There’s maybe 50 rain drops on their windshield and their wipers are whipping back and forth as if they’re trying to flag down a funnel cloud or something. It’s crazy. I have noticed that the bigger the vehicle, the more apt the wipers are to be hysterical, so maybe there’s a correlation between small genitalia and fast windshield wipers. After all, the bigger the car, the smaller the dick.

I am not a perfect driver by any stretch of the imagination. However, I am a confident driver. I know what I am capable of and I know what my car is capable of. Regardless of the vehicle I am driving, I consider it an extension of my own body and awareness. It’s not a difficult thing to do; just feel the road and be aware of your surroundings and you’ll be good to go.

And while I’m on a rant, I think the “lights on when windshield wipers are on” law is stupid. The government has no business trying to legislate common sense. However, turning your lights on when your windshield wipers are on is good sense, since its usually darker when its raining outside. If you have to squint to see your speedometer, it’s too dark to be running around with your lights off. If people would think for themselves, the government wouldn’t have to do it for them.

So drive carefully today, regardless of the weather. And more importantly, be confident and drive sensibly.

Thank goodness it’s the weekend. I’ve been in the mood for it since Monday and now it’s finally here. Earl and I are headed to Buffalo in the morning for the monthly bear night. We’re looking forward to meeting up with our friends Tim and Steve. I think there’s a diner stop in Rochester on the way out there too.

I just received my copy of Motion 2 so that I can get snazzy with my little video projects. I’m really enjoying this creative outlet. I hope I don’t wear out my PowerBook G4. That would mean I need to buy another computer! The horrors!

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Here’s a hottie for your weekend enjoyment. It’s comedian Zach Galifianakis. I haven’t heard his standup, I’ve been too busy finding his pictures on the internet. He’s not on the team but not bad to look at nonetheless.

I spent most of the night last night doing my on-call duties. I tried to take several catnaps in between the phone calls to, well, a really big, disorganized telephone company that rhymes with Horizon. But several catnaps joined together do not equal one good night of sleep. Thank goodness tonight is the last night of on-call for the next week and a half!

Quick bursts of sleep in the middle of the night are quite fascinating. With each successive catnap, I find that my dreams get more and more vivid. Then they just start getting weird. The final dream last night involved my calling Earl out onto the back deck to watch the new space shuttle land (three times as big as the old one with big bay windows on the side) at the local Air Force Base. We watched it fly over the house. We waved at the astronauts. The dream was in vivid technicolor. I was amused when I awoke. I don’t know where the heck that dream came from but it was the second space shuttle related dream I’ve had this week, the first being that Earl and I went to watch a space shuttle launch in Florida that was subsequently aborted during lift-off. To abort, the astronauts threw it in reverse and landed back on the launch pad. There were even backup lights on the back of the space shuttle. I have no idea what this all means.

Perhaps I’m reading too many sci-fi stories again.

After the storms that passed through last night, I was sure that it was going to be a typical cold November day here in Upstate N.Y. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with a sunshine filled sky and temperatures in the mid 50s.

The sunshine has done wonders for my mood.

Earl left for a business trip this morning around 5 a.m. I’m on call through Thursday, so I didn’t have to get up until 7:30 a.m. Usually “sleeping in” like this puts me in a good mood, but not today. I woke up as one surly bear. I don’t know why. I was just cranky. Wisely, I decided to mind my own business at work instead of spreading my bad mood. Thankfully, around lunch time I snapped out of my funk. I guess a good turkey on wheat sandwich will do that to a mood.

Speaking of food, I have rediscovered a delicacy that I haven’t had in a while. Friday night I had sushi. I love sushi! Earl is not fond of it at all, so it’s rare that I have the opportunity to enjoy some sushi, but while we were at the casino on Friday night (with Lady Luck on our side, I may add), I found myself some sushi and gobbled it right up. While Earl was grocery shopping yesterday, he surprised me by bringing home some sushi for me to enjoy while he’s out of town.

Mentally I’m ready for this latest round of on call. Physically, let’s just say I hope I don’t sleep right through my trouble calls.

This morning I awoke feeling refreshed, centered and absolutely excited about the prospect of going to work this morning. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but I hope the feeling doesn’t go away.

The reason I find this is odd is because I am working the 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift today and I usually don’t do well in the morning. I also offered to take a few days of on-call next week for a co-worker because she is working on getting her graduate degree and is a bit swamped in school work.

It could be because of the date I have with my best beau tonight (that would be Earl, by the way). We’re going out to dinner and a movie and then perhaps try our luck at the casino if we feel so inclined. We’ve been going at 1,000 MPH for the past month or so, often in different directions, so this time for just the two of us is a welcomed experience.

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?

Just Like Daddy.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Last night Earl and I went shopping at a locally owned supermarket which is, sadly, the last one left in the area. Have I mentioned that I’m not a big fan of the huge behemoths that have taken over the grocery market in the area? You think if we were going to have chain grocery stores here, we’d have a quality chain like Wegmans here, but no, we’re stuck with a bunch of Super Wal*Marts (Always White Trash, Always).

Unfortunately the locally owned market doesn’t have a huge selection. They’re trying desperately to compete with the glutton of chains in the area and for the most part they do an admirable job. But when you’re looking for a certain item that you’ve seen advertised or in one of the bigger stores, it’s a crap shoot as to whether it’s going to be there or not.

I had to pick up some cat food for Tom while we were out. He told me in no uncertain terms that he does not enjoy the prescribed food from the vet. If you’re wondering how he told me this, he demonstrated his dislike by backing up to the bowl of food and acting like he was burying something in his litter box. He’s inherited his sense of comedy from me, I guess, because I did the exact same thing on a blind date once.

But I digress.

So we went looking in the “pet” aisle and found a choice between Fancy Feast at two for $1.49 and this Figaro at two for $.69. Trying to save money, I figured I’d get a couple of cans and see how he did with this before I made a commitment and bought a bunch of it.

I served it up for his supper last night and he wolfed it down like he hadn’t been fed in days. Fair enough. I gave him a little more for breakfast this morning with the same results, he gobbled it up like there was no tomorrow and then looked at me and begged for a little more.

I guess Figaro brand is the “diner” brand in the cat food circles, it’s basic, cheap but tastes great. Tom is just like his Daddies when it comes to food.

We’re so proud of our son.