So, anyway…

As I was saying, I had all this mess typed up in the most dangerous fashion possible (on the Blogger interface, on a timed connection) yesterday afternoon, working without a net, and I fell off the wire with a most horrible and ghastly result.

Much like Humpty Dumpty, there was no putting it back together again—all the magic sparkly stuff has now vanished—and it was one of those posts that people would have passed all around the world, a post that would have won a prize, a post that would have made grown men weep with its beauty, a post [it should be noted here that just like the fish that got away, the size and fight of the thing increases markedly in the retelling—therefore, the pages of glowing self-praise that followed this will be excised in order to go on with the normal allotment of tedious recitation--Ed.]

Before I left yesterday, I tried to do an emergency repair on my glasses to keep from having to drive all the way back out to Trussville clenching the individual halves in my eye sockets like dual monacles. This is not a good way to drive, especially when you weave in and out and tailgate. The secretary had a nice little pen of super glue with the handy dispenser tip, so I got that and set up a work spot at the front counter on top of a couple of city directories.

The pen has one of those neat little plunger spigots on the end so you can holllllld the left piece jussssst so and presssss just a teeeeeeeny littleGLOB-OH CRAP-ohcrap-ohcrap-ohcrap all over your hand. Quickly lifted my halves up so as not to glue the side of my hands to the counter and stuck the tiny wire together. Wait. Hold. Unstick right pinky from ring finger. Wait. Blow on glue. Watch as the glue refuses to dry except on the webbing between your left thumb and forefinger. Move glasses ever so slightly. Wait. Blow. Hold out frame, left side drops off. ::sigh:: Just give me the derned Scotch tape…::grumble::swear::

Managed to get a piece wrapped around the bridge well enough, then hit the road for T’ville managing to simultaneously avoid several tractor trailers and give myself a raging ill-fitting-eyeglasses headache. Got to the Wallyworld optical shop and dealt with The Guy Who is a “Character”.

Imagine a cross between that guy you met in 1978 at the Flora-Bama and your friend’s brother-in-law who works at Wal-Mart. Always cutting up, running a line of BS, joking about his drinking problem, drops a screw and loudly complains that he can’t help it because they just transferred him that morning from auto parts. Quite the character. But a decent fellow.

Look through some frames, and of course, mine is no longer in stock. Have to make do with a close-enough pair that he hand grinds my lenses to fit. I wait in the chairs just long enough to drift off, and even though I try mightily to think of sitting on a beach watching cavorting supermodels, all I manage is a fitful, slobbery half-sleep in which I am stuck in the feminine hygiene product aisle at Wal-Mart.

He comes back out, tries the new frames on me, asks me how many fingers he’s holding up, I say “One and a half, chief.” The last two joints on his index finger are amputated, you know—gets a hurt look on his face, says pitifully, “Well, you know, I didn’t make fun of your ears…” Hearty laughs all around, tell him since he pulled that crap when I brought the kids in that I figured he wouldn’t mind. He doesn’t, torques on the earpieces some more, charges me a hundred bucks and I walk out.

Not too bad, maybe thirty minutes worth of my day—it’s now exactly too long to go back to work, not quite time to go pick up the kids, so I figured I’d kill an hour at the library. Sat down and as I mentioned typed out the stuff above, plus all the stuff that happened over the weekend.

Which by now is way past its expiration date, but what the heck…

Like I said, we went and saw TRON Friday (man, that Cindy Morgan girl is HOT!) then I was jolted awake by the chipper voice on the other end of the phone--“Hello! It’s your SISTER!”

“Mwuh, glah. Gulflsmah?”

“Did I wake you up?”

“Myeah—wahn sla mov lanah. Dnah gebeh til wun.”

Translated it means the same thing so don’t even try.

Went on and had some sort of a conversation with her, and wrote stuff down that I cannot now read and hung up. Turned over and Reba had gotten up. $@#&*^#!! Danged telephones. Got up, got dressed, puttered around and went and got the kids from the inlaw's house.

Got back home and Tiny Girl made a beeline for the rug hooking kit that Mommy bought her the other night. It’s a 12 inch square picture of a butterfly. We had to put her off a bunch of times to keep her from taking it out and starting it right in the middle of eating or of leaving to go somewhere, so she was bound and determined she was going to start it. ::sigh::

This is one hobby that I never did as a kid, and what surprised me is that she and Rebecca both seemed to know exactly what to do. They had watched one of the kids at school do it, but had never done it themselves, but they were sitting there whipping those bits of yarn around like they’d been doing it forever. It was sorta odd—I still find it hard to accept that they know how to do things that I didn’t teach them. Which is obviously a great blessing for them.

They played with that, we did some laundry, then it was time to head over to the house of a friend from church for a cookout for our youth group. Got there early, found her dad holding forth on the porch with a couple of visitors, her crowd-averse husband making himself invisible, and two big drum grilles full of chicken breasts and hunks of smoky charcoal and a hickory log. “Please—would you please get the meat cooked—Daddy’ll sit there all day and talk.” ::sigh:: Get a fork and sally forth to the grilles, open them up and get the meat arranged right and nearly choke to death on the smoke. Friend brings me some marinade and a brush, which I accept with smoky tears in my eyes. “Just can’t get away from this smoke…” “Well, you know, smoke follows beauty!”

Hee. Toil in the hot sun and smoke some while longer, her dad FINALLY quits jabbering and comes over to help, grilles open up again, turn meat, complain about the smoke going to kill me in a few short moments if I am unable to get away from it—“Well, Terry, you know what they say, ‘Smoke follows beauty.’”

Yep, seem to recall hearing that.

Got that chore done, and if I do say so myself, that was some really good bird. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it, too. I chalk it up to my stunning beauty.

Finished up and corralled the young’uns back into the van and went home to give them baths and soak my eyeballs in a nice cool bowl of Visine. (It gets the red out, you know) Kids to bed, I hose myself off and fall into bed, nodding off before I hit the pillow much like my hero Lil Abner.

Up the next morning, get them all dressed for church, and head for the building. Beautiful, beautiful day. Nothing like early summer in the South—and with all the rain we’ve had, it just makes it even prettier. Hard to believe that even roadside weeds can be so attractive. Turned out to be a great day all around, and I even got to take a nap of sorts between services, which hardly ever happens. Went back early for a meeting, then after evening services went and had supper with Jennifer the Perfect Waitress, and to make it even more betterer, a further fulfillment of my Corvette omen of a few days ago—you might recall that I saw a pristine ’65 white roadster parked along Main Street, which I assumed to be an indication of an impending wish-granting from two Saturdays ago when I gave the kids money to throw in the fountain. Well, friends, as we were leaving the restaurant Sunday night, what should be idling toward me on the service road but ANOTHER ’65 roadster, but this one in BLACK with a WHITE TOP! That cinches it! It has to come true now! Just park it on the driveway, fellows.

Went home, put the kids and the wife and the self to bed, and then I woke up and it was Monday, and ever since then it’s been a cascading string of jumps and starts and stuff left unblogged. Until now, that is.

So, seeing as how I have FINALLY managed to slay a few alligators which heretofore had been nipping at my buttocks, and put out some brushfires, and run several things up the flagpole to near universal salutes, and even managed to get this thing typed up and posted, I guess it’s time now to head for the house again.

But, just to add a bit of fresh ingredients to keep the old stuff from seeming too far past the expiration date, here’s a few comments on the stuff in today’s news—

Sosa’s corked bat. Just a practice bat? Uh-huh. A tip here--why don’t you save yourself some grief and take a great big Sharpie and write “THIS IS A CORKED PRACTICE BAT” on the barrel and MAYBE you won’t have such a problem keeping it out of the legal bats. Just a thought, dude.

Miss Universe—Miss Dominican Republic’s nice, but I still think Daisy Fuentes was prettier than anyone else in the whole competition, and she doesn’t look like she has an eating disorder. On the other hand, The Donald is a frightening, frightening looking man with a Traficant-quality rug. He should take a cue from Howard Hughes and be rather more reclusive.

Barry Manilow—woke up disoriented and broke his nose? Surrrrre.

Saddam's Suspected Hiding Place Excavated Cool. Who knew they had a shovel that could dig all the way to Hell!

Hillary’s admissions of anger toward Bill’s indiscretions—You all know I don’t like these people, but I still think that for all of their venality and ambition, they actually do love each other.

Martha Stewart—I wonder what sort of window treatment is appropriate for a 6 inch high horizontal opening? I wonder if they French fold the towels in the prison laundry? I wonder if the canteen will have Belgian truffles?

Anyway, that’s it for today—see you all in the morning!
posted by Terry at 5:03:00 PM