Self-Indulgent Ramblings

Okay -

I have recently joined a gym and made the decision to be a work out person. So, now at the end of my second week as a work out person… I had an interesting morning. I arrive at the gym at about 6:30-6:45 in the morning… and the TVs are always set to different channels. This morning, the one in front of me was on The Discovery Channel, and there was a children’s show called Hi-5 playing. Now, I bring my iPod (I hate my iPod), so I don’t actually listen to the TV, but it gives me something to stare at other than the meatheads, so I let my eyes wander from screen to screen. But today, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of this show. The obligatory multi-racial cast was painfully chipper, of course. Nothing outrageous. Then… they performed a song that involved each of them moving a different body part. I can only assume that they each made a different note when they did their move and it created a tune. Anyway, the hot, skinny blonde chick’s move cracked me up. She touched her elbows together. She did it in front of her, not the traditional “can you touch your elbows behind your back?” But just wondered if it was a little shout out to the parents. Of course, then she hosted a section on musical instruments. What were her instruments? A slide whistle (ahem), a kazoo (ahem) and finger cymbals. Now, I know the non-phallic finger cymbals seem harmless enough, but she was holding them right at boob level, so when they zoomed in on her hands… the frame was just full of boobs.

Kids’ shows are messed up.

Okay - I’m in Tarrytown, NY for business. I had to get up early to move my car so they could refinish my parking lot. So that started the day off with that odd feeling that comes from getting up a little too early for no real reason. Then - I had to take two little planes. I hate little planes. But at least the first one was a CRJ - a good Canadian jet. Then we hopped onto a propellor plane - a Saab. Yes. I flew in a Saab 340B. Did you know Saab made planes? Because I didn’t.

Anyway, after flying in what can only be described as the most uncomfortable plane ever - we finally landed in White Plains, NY (home of Snapple… but that’s not our client). We went to dinner at this great little Italian restaurant. Then we came back to the hotel… and I turned on the TV… and found Comedy Central. It was South Park. Now, I haven’t seen South Park in years. But it just happened to be one of my all time favorite episodes. There are some things that are just funny.

“I had this crazy nightmare last night… I went up on the ship and Scott Baio gave me pink eye”

“No kitty, this is my pot pie!”

I mean… man… that took me back.

I almost want to go buy Travelers Insurance.

Of course… speaking of traveling… I’m about to start another massive business trip-a-palooza. I leave today for the thriving metropolis of Tarrytown, NY - and we return tomorrow night. (Of course, we return 15 minutes after the end of the 2 hour LOST season finale… which is gonna make my head explode.) Then, next Wednesday, I fly to New York, NY (I hate it when people call it “The City” as if New York is the only city on the planet that could possibly be worth remarking on) and return on Monday. Then, when Wednesday comes around again, I fly to San Francisco (ding ding!), returning on Saturday. Then I may or may not be going back to New York the following week.

Ugh.

Ah well. At least I have my lucky soy keychain. (I’m a vegetarian. I couldn’t very well carry a rabbit’s foot, now could I?)

For some reason, while I was asleep last night, people were out to kill me. I had some guy who was after me, so I had other people in my life trying to protect me. I remember being in a hotel room with a glass door, but a curtain you could draw across the door from the outside. And I was in that hotel room talking to my body guard when this guy dressed like room service came in and started talking. I knew that he hadn’t knocked… he had just come in. So he was a bad guy. So I told the body guard. And they struggled and the bad guy stabbed the body guard to death. And I ran. Then I would just be other places - a bar, my apartment (which actually looked a lot like this coffee shop I used to go to in Portland… not like my crappy, sterile apartment in Greenville)… there were all these people. And for some reason, people who knew that I was being threatened kept giving me these bracelets made of very thick beads to let me know that they were thinking about me. All these different people - some I remember, some I don’t - kept showing up… and I was always a little suspicious of them until I would realize who they were. Mostly it was women coming over to protect me from the evil man who was trying to kill me.

And at one point, I tried to escape in this giant ice cream truck thing that had an airplane wing on one side… but I decided it was too large to maneuver… so I just walked home in the dark. Which was probably not a great idea, knowing that someone was trying to kill me. But I did it anyway. I think. That’s where it starts to get fuzzy.

Dreams are weird. Particularly when I think about the few distinct and mis-matched people I can remember from the dream. They just don’t belong together. And there’s no reason I can think of that these particular people would be on my mind. {shrug}

I just wanted to share before I lost the dream entirely. I hate that, don’t you? When you know you had a dream but you can’t remember what it was about?

Weird.

You know, I read articles about people and governments spending far too much time on things that are just completely useless to the average human being (or even the average small government)… and I just have no idea what the hell all these people are thinking. You know, I am of Canadian descent… and I love Canada… but WTF!!!

This weekend, my Great Uncle Jim passed away. He was 92. A life-long bachelor. Very devout Catholic (his birthday was Christmas!). He continued to ice skate and ski well into his 70s. I think he gave up the skiing before the skating. And he didn’t stop skating until his eyes started to go. He had cataracts, which could have been easily corrected with a little surgery. But he said it was God’s will and he wasn’t going to tamper with it. He was a sweet old man; always pragmatic, always caring, always active. He didn’t even stop mowing his own lawn until a couple of years ago. Now, as they’re going through his house, they’ve found that he had already laid out the suit he wanted to be buried in. And he had stashed money all over the house. He left everything to some local nuns, so I’m assuming that money (about $5,000 Canadian dollars) will go to them as well.

I haven’t seen him in probably about 13 years. There were occasional holiday phone calls and letters, but even those haven’t happened as much in the last few years.

For the last several months, I have had an envelope on my desk addressed to Uncle Jim, just waiting for me to put a letter into it. But I’ve been too busy. I just never found the time.

Today is his funeral.

Okay… Tuesday and Wednesday I was on a business trip (when I should have been in town for the final two rehearsals of the show I’ve been directing… but no one cares about my schedule) to Washington DC. I was grouchy. But hey, that’s a grown-up job for you. But there was a highlight to my visit that ended up being worth the high price of admission.

The president of the organization (who is about 183 years old) was not supposed to be in our presentation today… but he showed up anyway and sat in the back - sometimes leaning forward with stoic interest, sometimes staring off into space and playing with a plastic fork. Anyway, after a while, he had to leave for another meeting, which was fine with everyone in the room. Time passed. We continued the presentation and discussion, when the president of the organization returned and said, “We’ve got a special guest here today.” In walked Barack Obama. YEAH! He walked around the room, shook each of our hands, made eye contact, asked our name and where we were from (living in a red state, I’m sure he quickly forgot my name and face… but whatever)… it was pretty darn cool!

He looks just like he does on TV - great smile, very approachable, very soft hands.

Now I have an even bigger crush on him! He is definitely someone I could add to my list of people I want to marry so that I can collect interesting last names to hyphenate. Jennifer Goff-Obama-Garfunkel-Spacey-Stephanopolous-Perry (that’s just because I love Matthew Perry… even though he’s not in the cool last name club) has a pretty good ring to it, eh?

I’m not sure if I wrote about this before… but my grandmother has been trying to wrap her head around the upcoming election. So my aunt was explaining some of the candidates. My aunt is a particular fan of Barack Obama. So my grandmother made the special effort to write down his name on an index card so that she would remember. She wrote:

Barack O’Bama.

So now we call him “that nice Irish boy, Barack.”

I kinda wanted to tell him that story… but alas, twas not to be.

Still… way cool, right?