Only 28 shopping days until
Nice try. “Only 28 shopping days until the, now-annual, 29th birthday.”
“That one didn’t even fly.”
Unrelated family noise:
“What time is it?”
“It’s about ten in the morning, why?}”
“Plus or minus two hours for a margin of error?”
At the Opera:
(I was busy trying to explain that, to my wee Scorpio mum, the idea of her children going to the opera is almost the same as us going to church. For me, the opera is much more entertaining. Although the service does tend to run a little long.)
It was Carmen, and the local newspaper had pretty much glossed over the opera. But I rather enjoyed it. In part, with my sister on one side of me, and us making jokes along literary levels, fraught with deep historical meaning, the bawdy humor probably escaped some of the folks sitting the same row with us.
“Carmen,” I explained, “it’s based on that Bugs Bunny cartoon – the one about the barber….’
“No, they did a different source for that one, that’s the Barber of Seville, and it was used for a different opera.” Sister assured me, “But you’re right, the cartoon came first.”
Dinner
I know it looked like roast, but I kept assuring Sister that it was nothing more than a special Tofu thing we make, just for folks from California. Looks just like roast. Made from Tofu. Trust me.
Halloween:
The weather cleared off, we had a snack after the matinee, and then the kids started coming by. Suddenly, Ma Wetzel was running desperately low on candy.
That’s how I found myself in line at a Tom Thumb supermarket – I didn’t know they still made those places – and I was grabbing a few boxes of candy. Face-to-face with a half-dozen other males, one joked with me, “Yeah, they’re killing us out there,” as if I, this long-haired, barefooted freak in black trunks and baggy sweatshirt belonged to their fraternity of suburban-dwelling fathers and homeowners.
Which was made worse yet, because I had to make another run to same grocery store, and the girl behind the check-out line says, “Not you, again, didn’t get enough the first time?”
I had Sister in tow the second time, nothing like a little verification.
“Yeah, where are they all coming from?”
I would like to think that we were the most interesting people around, especially given the dry surroundings.
“C’mon, let’s get a quick latte, before we go back to the house.”
Her idea, not mine.
Never did quite get to that high-pitched maniacal point, but it was a close one.
