My Field Trip

This weekend I had a most welcome excursion - I got to go on a field trip! To B'burg, courtesy of Mr M. This was especially welcome when I realized my pedicure was moved till tomorrow (the pedicurist was sick). Mr M, in a move of true best-buddydom, came to the Poderosa to get me, then took me to B'burg to his humble abode.

Yesterday was beautiful, and we went speeding down Rt 460 east. He kept quoting lines from WC Fields (who he knows I don't think is funny), in what I hope wasn't a WC Fields impersonation. He kept saying that 460 looked so weird, but he couldn't figure out why. Finally it hit him - normally when he's driving 460 towards B'burg, it's dark. He wasn't used to it in the daytime.

I sipped pink lemonade all the way to B'burg, and when we got into town, we stopped first at the video store for essential provisions for the night. I'd originally picked out a documentary on rebellious Amish kids (wooo!), but both the actual DVDs behind the picture case were different movies. This is from the same video store that set us up with the wrong movie in the case some months ago. Anyway, after that disappointment I kept looking and found "House of Sand and Fog."

Then it was on to Kroger. for secondary provisions. Then on to Poderosa East.

Boy, was it good to be at Mr M's again. The familiar smell of pipe tobacco, the clarinets lined up in a row in the kitchen, the endless textbooks and papers stacked around, and the big leather couch. I rested up a bit after the trip, and it was clarinet duet time. I'm still woefully behind on clarinetting, though, and it was missed notes and screaming and getting tired way too soon. So we decided it must be dinner time (I mean, after all, the baby gets cranky, you feed it dinner, right?) I had some baked potato with cheese.

Then it was movie time. I really enjoyed "House of Sand and Fog," I'm not sure if Mr M did because (as always) he wouldn't sit still long enough to watch it. He kept leaving and coming back asking what happened. It didn't matter though. At this point I was already starting to hit OSM. Obligatory Sulk Mode. This happens often, it can be attributed to what I call "the same old thing," and I always let it get in the way of the matter at hand. Therefore, I sat there silently, watched the movie a little harder than I probably should have, and took it a little too much to heart.

Afterwards, in a remote control-fest, I found that the movie "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" was just coming on TCM (the thing Mr M has that I covet the most), so I thought, "Woo, what a hoot, let's watch this!" (I saw it years and years ago, when I was a kid.) And even though TCM said it was the funniest movie of the 60s, and even though it starred Alan Arkin and Carl Reiner, I found not much to laugh about. I was asleep about 20 minutes before the end, thus rendering it ineligible for the movie list. It was OK, though. I was bleary-eyed and needed sleep.

After I'd been asleep about 40 minutes, the most amazing thing happened. I had been sleeping with the door open, and I roused a bit to feel a very cold wind in my face. I opened my eyes to think about closing the door, and there, hovering before me bathed in a halo of light, was the spectre of a woman who appeared to be from Victorian times! She spoke not a word, but motioned me up to follow her. I rose from the couch, as if not under my own power, and walked to the door, where I suddenly became very frightened of the vision. As I hesitated and started to move backward, the apparition disappeared, leaving me confused and scared.

OK. Actually, all that was a total lie. I was just thinking about how ordinary everything was sounding, and thought maybe a nice punch-up of the story would keep yall interested. Sorry.

Anyway, this morning was more practicing, more screaming, more cursing, more getting tired, and more whining about not being able to play up to par. Then I got to watch Mr M work on one of his school projects, what amounts to a giant scrapbook of family photos he's required to make. This was all kinds of fun for me, because I love looking at old pictures, and he has a boatload of them. I watched him paste photo after photo in his "timeline" (from before he was born to the present), and got to ask him about all the photos and the stories of the people. Interesting family he has.

Like his grandmother's sister, Emma. I know all of you in your lives have heard at least once, "No you can't play with a BB gun, you'll put your eye out." Well, Emma actually got her eye put out by a BB gun. She's the reason none of us had any fun as kids!

Then it was a quick jaunt to Barnes and Noble to look at DVDs. I was looking on the offchance they might have the "Freaks and Geeks" set, but no go. As I was leaving I noticed Rhino has now reissued "Trust" and "Get Happy" by Elvis Costello - CD with bonus tracks. Still, I gave them both a pass and left empty handed.

Then it was a little more playing, a little more scrapbooking, and time to come back to B'field. It rained hard on us on the way home, so hard at times I was sure it would turn to hail. Mr M deposited me safely back at the Poderosa, where I loafed for a while and watched "Kill Bill, Vol 1" before I called Granny to tell her I was home.

Now I'm back at their house (the Annex), and, well, I'm tired. But, as they say, it's a good kind of tired.

It's a very good kind of tired.