The past future

I record a lot of TV on my HDD recorder. Sometimes it's because we will be out during that time, sometimes it's because there are good shows on simultaneously, and often it's a ball game I will watch later, before the wife gets up/after the wife goes to work. I don't necessarily watch them in the order I recorded them in. Which leads to the phenomenom of seeing preview ads for things you have aready watched. The past future, if you will. It is, as the Aussies unexplicably say, cool beans.

The guy who gets my vote for sainthood is the guy who came up with clumping cat litter. I will admit that, at first, I didn't fully understand it. I kept asking the wife how such a little cat could pass a turd almost as big as himself and not be at least a little tore up for it. After a while I came to understand that it was clumped up pee. That's about the time the light bulb came on as to why it was called clumping litter. Well, no matter all that. All is right in the world at this time.

I heard the phrase "...and beaten with a sack of pineapples". For some reason, it spoke to me. Can't you just see Bruce Willis, in Die Hard VI, after being beaten bloody by goons with a sack of pineapples, dragging his battered carcass upright and uttering, "Aloha.... scumbag", as he drives a shiv into said goon's heart/crotch/eye? Well, can't you?

Back to recording. I seem to watch NBC and Fox sitcoms. I tend to record ABC sitcoms. I actually feel that that ABC's fare are a kind of second class citizen in the TV sitcom world. Of course, your experience may vary.

Having been married twice, I am skilled in the art of deception. Unless, that is, I'm just fooling myself.

OK, raise your hand if you are one of those people that extends the antenna on your cell phone when you use it. OK, I'm having a little trouble here. Someone tell me, is my hand the only one that's up?

It was a commercial. It was for a show. I forget which show but prefer not to be sued over it. All I remember was hearing someone say, "Feliz Naviblah".

Randal won on the Apprentice. When Donald asked him should he hire Rebecca also, which by the way, he should have because she was good, Randal surprised me, even though I had to smile at how he phrased it. He said, No, Mr. Trump, you should not. The show was called The Apprentice, not The Apprenti."

So I went to the movies. I saw Narnia. It was good. Real good, in a two and a half hour way. Upon exiting, I stopped in the restroom. Now the story could end right here and certianly be entertaining enough. But there is more stuff. Amazing stuff.

I had on a t-shirt from one deployment or another I had made on a previous ship. It was one of those darn Middle East deployments where we got to pretend that Bahrain was a good liberty port and that Saudi Arabia was a "normal" country.

Now when I pee, I normally face in such a way that I am facing towards a wall (should I have just said wallwards?) and have my back to the sometimes patient, sometimes jeering crowd. This was my position on that night, in the theater after watching Narnia. So you can see, the suspense is building.

So, as I am concentrating on the bidness at hand, I hear a voice. It was a male voice, but that makes sense since we were in the men's room. Although, technically he was more a boy than a man. (Must investigate that later.) He simply said, "Bunker Hill? My dad was on Bunker Hill." I asked him when and he said during the Gulf War. I told him I got off the ship right before the war, washed my hands and left.

But then I got to thinking, which yes, is indeed a sort of delayed function for me, if his dad was on during the war and I got off only two months before the war, there is a good chance I know the dude.

I waited until he had finished and returned out. I didn't shake his hand because I had not actually seen if he did or did not wash his hands, but, since he was a boy, he likely did not. I asked, "Who's your dad?" You must note at this point that to have asked, "Who's your daddy?" would not have been proper.

As it turns out, I did indeed know his daddy. Like me, a retired Senior Chief Fire Controlman from way back. I used to go to his house for beer drinking and football watching, back in the day. Heck, I still have one of his sweaters in my closet, but since he probably doesn't remember loaning it to me, we'll just let it be. I mean, it's a real nice sweater. The kid is fifteen years older now, which is why I didn't recognize him. It is a small world, after all.

OK, last on today's list of things you need to know. I have a clock that chimes on the hour. Or at least near the hour, depending on my accuracy are setting it. It has always played a clip of music, but I have kept the volume very low on it for years. Well the wife made me turn it up, even though when she told me to I looked right at her and said, "Yes, dear." Now, instead of a faint chiming sound in the background, I can hear the tune. It is kinda eccentric. It is kinda cool. It's at least 3 fifferent songs. They are: OH MY DARLIN', CLEMENTINE; 10 LITTLE INDIANS (one little, two little, three little indians, four little....); and ROCKABYE BABY. Like I said, there may be more, I'm not sure. But think for a moment, aren't the first two songs a strange choice for clock chimes?

For the next song, I have made the title a link to the song as it was recorded, should you wish to hear it that way. My request, however, is that you read it first before you listen to it. C'mon, humor an old guy.

Wings That Won't Hold Me

I stopped by this evening
Just to pick up the pieces
Just to see what was shaking
If it's shaking at all

If I were a gambler...
If I played with fire...
If I knew my desires,
I wouldn't even have called

Touch me and make me a ghost in the gallery
A free rambling mem'ry where you no longer go
Then send me flying on wings that won't hold me
Crashed like you told me such a long time ago

I wanted you badly
Back when price was no object
I had money to give you
Oh, but you wanted more

You wanted my heart, girl
You mined me for feelings
Then you wanted my time
More than I could let go

Touch me and make me a shadow that's fading
A small patch of dirt where there won't nothing grow
Then send me to fly off on wings that won't hold me
To crash down and burn just like you told me so

There's nothing worth saving
There's nothing worth having
There's nothing I'd miss
If it all went away

There ain't no stories I'm saving
To pass on to no babies
Who'd just grow up without me
Anyhow. Anyway

Touch me and make me a fire in the distance
Burned out so long that no embers still glow
Then make me fly on those wings that won't hold me
I believed in you once, and that's a hard way to go

Ed
Yokosuka, Japan

Hamsters,and gerbils, and rats. Oh mice!, out
Ramblin' Ed