The pictures embedded in this entry are from a disk I found that was labelled “Desktop/My Documents, June 2004.” Just so you know.
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| Bo’s first day at home – August, 2003
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That post title refers to a 1983 song by Talking Heads. It (the title) popped into my head at about 7:00 last night after I put too many duraflame logs in my fireplace. I wanted to have a nice roaring fire going when Chris got here. Instead, she arrived to find me standing on my deck staring at the chimney, carrying a pulse rate of about 220. The roaring fire had been reduced, thanks to a couple of coffee pots of water, to a steaming pile of wet duraflame logs. The living room, which had until moments earlier smelled like Christmas cookies (no, I wasn’t baking – I had a scented candle), was permeated by the festive odor of burning tires (did you know that wet, semi-burned duraflame logs smell like 18-wheelers in flames?).
After a few much-needed hugs, I calmed down.
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| All the excitement of the move tuckered Bo out |
I must make a special explanatory foray here for any members of my family who are reading this, because our house really did burn down in 1967 – and everyone except for me probably remembers it and would rather not. The above story is not meant to imply that I actually did set my house on fire last night. Rather, it illustrates that I’m an incredibly cautious (probably overcautious) guy when it comes to having fires in my fireplace. The flames got higher than I wanted them to get, so I doused the fire. That’s it. No real drama. In fact, I later got everything burning again, chopped up the logs so that they’d burn faster, and sat and watched everything until I was satisfied that everything was going according to plan. I’m paranoid about chimney fires, so when my flu starts to get too hot, I tend to freak out a bit. No crisis, no story, no nothing. Just something to fill space in this here blog.
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| Bo’s first bed and his first bunkmate. |
Dinner, after the smoke cleared out of the kitchen and the stench of liquified rubber lessened somewhat, was quite good, if a bit on the garlicky side. Chris likes garlic. I like garlic. We had so much garlic going on that it was nearly too much for me….and necking on the couch was out of the question.
Instead, we attempted to watch the movie Final Countdown, then gave up on that and instead watched a few episodes of 30 Rock. Later on, we did indeed make it through Final Countdown, then slept from about 1:30 this morning until 2:00 this afternoon, at which time we finished off the leftover garlic and attempted to watch the first Lord of the Rings movie. Chris is a big L.O.T.R. fan. I, frankly, have never really gotten into it. Not the books, not the movies and not the books on tape. It is interesting to note, therefore, that Chris slept through most of the movie while I fought off sleep and watched it. I won’t say that I followed it. I mean, it ended about 4 hours ago and I couldn’t give you a plot line right now; but I did stay awake for it.
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| Vermont Christmas, 2003 |
I’ll try again with it some night this week. I feel at times like I’m really missing out on some of the “classic” literature that I just don’t enjoy. Tolkien has never worked for me. Neither has Faulkner. I’m just about ready to give up on Emma, the first book by Jane Austen that I’ve ever tried to read. The book 1984? Never read it, although I did enjoy Orwell’s Animal Farm. Other books that I probably should have read, but just never did: Fahrenheit 451. The Iliad. Ulysses. Anything by Hemingway. Anything by anyone named Bronte.
I blame Cy. She got me hooked on children’s literature when I was a child, and that’s still my favorite genre.
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| Took this while camping in TN in January, 2004 |
Great Expectations, however, is a major kickass book. Does that fulfill my “classic” quota? I’m also rather fond of Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye, if that means anything.
I am now officially off of the Georgia Brass Band’s board of directors. It was announced via email yesterday that the sitting board (which I was on) approved the election of the new board (which I am not), by a 5-3 margin. As should be expected, even this announcement resulted in a virtual shouting match between a few folks. I wish it to be known that I do feel bad about throwing in the towel with the BOD. I’ll continue to do what I can for the band – I’ll run the website, I’ll pitch ideas to the director, I’ll push our CD wherever I can and I’ll do whatever I’m asked to do (within reason). I might even still attend some of the board meetings. Life is too short, however, for me to get my blood pressure jacked up because one or two people don’t understand that a community band isn’t the place for petty politics and ego. What type of person thinks that arguments about nothing of substance are enjoyable?
I certainly don’t.
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| Jenny holds up Bo in September, 2003 |
Temperatures around the area were close to 60 early this afternoon, but plummeted at around 4:00. Currently, we’re in the high 20s, and it is expected to remain cool for the next several days. Maybe that snow actually will come. That’s okay. I’ve got a house.
Until I burn it down.
TWD