Repost
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The Weekend
It has been a little quiet around the homestead the last couple of
months. The Lovely Sharon and I have been in different cities for about
43 of the last 50 days. We were together in Salt Lake for 3 or 4 days in
the end of October and together in Nebraska for 3 or 4 days before
Thanksgiving. I was in Salt Lake for Thanksgiving and she was in
Nebraska. So with that limited one- on-one time, I sent her an email
yesterday morning, Saturday December 5th. Knowing that she was going to a
holiday gala at our Palm Desert country club Saturday night and knowing
that I was going to thaw out a frozen meal for dinner and then watch
the dust in the Salt Lake house grow (it kinda looks like a Chia Pet -
one of the plants advertised on TV that grow to look like the head of
Abraham Lincoln), I asked her to send me a sexy email that I could read
on a lonely, cold night in Salt Lake. (Hey I might be 57 but I am not
dead yet). So yesterday evening I opened my email and sure enough there
was one from the Lovely Sharon. I thought oh boy this will be great.
Well the email consisted of a normal greeting, then a 5 or 6 word “come
hither” type message and then ended with a reminder to deposit funds
into her Salt Lake bank account. That was it.
I thought man, that wasn’t quite like I had hope for. It was kind of like a husband giving his wife a romantic anniversary card accompanied by a vacuum as a gift. It was kind of like someone giving you tickets to an NBA game and you discover that your seat is three rows from the top. It was kind of like a beau taking his best girl on a long promised romantic picnic but first having to stop to rotate the tires on his car. I mean it was nice, but not quite what you had hoped for.
I mean for gosh sakes, the only visitor I have had in this house in the last seven weeks was the furnace repairman who visited me three times over the Thanksgiving holiday to repair a broken furnace. I am telling you it has been so quiet here that I found myself looking at his butt crack above his belt line when he was bent over working on the furnace. (OK that may be an exaggeration but I think you get the point). By the way, for three days it was so cold in the kitchen that I could store the uncooked meats on the granite counter tops. When I cooked, I wore an overcoat, gloves, as scarf and a hat. But the furnace is now fixed (thanks to Manwill Plumbing owned by my friend Jim Manwill). I am shamelessly hoping that this plug of his business results in a reduced bill.
The other night I got a phone call from a telemarketer in Florida wanting to sell me a cruise. I asked him where he was from, where he went to high school, the names of his wife and kids. It was nice to talk to someone. After our lengthy conversation, none of which involved the cruise, I think he put me on the “do not call” list. I stopped paying bills on time just so the bill collectors would call.
I bought a new IPhone last week. Just for fun I put it on vibrate, put in my pants pocket and called myself from my home line. After seven calls I started to feel like I was stalking myself so I stopped. Although the vibration in my pants was nice.
I suppose the good thing with this time apart from the Lovely Sharon is that I have had time for productive things. I have been using Photoshop to take my friends heads off of photos I have stored on my computer and put them on animal bodies. That is a good use of time. My friend Gordon looks great as an armadillo. My friend Steve R. looks very loveable as a llama.
It has also been fun to stack books all over the floor of Bud Cave. It looks like stalagmites growing from the floor to the ceiling.
One thing that has been a challenge is that I am reading one book, listening to an audio book in my car and listening to still a another audio book on my Ipod when I walk on the treadmill. Usually it is not a problem for me to keep all the plots and characters straight but in two of these three books there are characters named Jenna. I have never known anyone in my life named Jenna and now two of the three books I am involved with have a character named Jenna. In one book Jenna is the heroine, a nice woman who won the lottery and collected $290,000,000 ($150,000,000 after lump sum discount and taxes). The other Jenna is a scheming little trollop trying to steal the husband of some poor woman. I find myself confused over which Jenna is the rich one and which one is the trollop.
Yesterday I did one thing that, I must admit, was wonderful for me. I delivered poinsettia plants to my beautiful daughter-in-law (and held grandbaby Kendall Marie), to my friends Norm and Terry, to my sister and to my parents. I was lucky enough to find them all at home so I visited a few minutes at each house. That was really nice for me.
This morning I woke up early, I put a load of wash in the washing machine at 4:45 and watched from my window as the snow is falling, covering the street in front of my house in white. The only light outside at this hour is a single street lamp and the two lamps on the columns at the end of my sidewalk. There is something nice about the look of snow falling with no one around and the dim street lamp illuminating the snow, the street and the lawn.
Today I will pay the bills, and yes I will write a check for the Lovely Sharon’s account, put a few more friends heads on animals and watch NFL football. But for now, I am going to make me a cup of coffee and read about Jenna, the rich one (I think it is the rich one but it might be the trollop).
I thought man, that wasn’t quite like I had hope for. It was kind of like a husband giving his wife a romantic anniversary card accompanied by a vacuum as a gift. It was kind of like someone giving you tickets to an NBA game and you discover that your seat is three rows from the top. It was kind of like a beau taking his best girl on a long promised romantic picnic but first having to stop to rotate the tires on his car. I mean it was nice, but not quite what you had hoped for.
I mean for gosh sakes, the only visitor I have had in this house in the last seven weeks was the furnace repairman who visited me three times over the Thanksgiving holiday to repair a broken furnace. I am telling you it has been so quiet here that I found myself looking at his butt crack above his belt line when he was bent over working on the furnace. (OK that may be an exaggeration but I think you get the point). By the way, for three days it was so cold in the kitchen that I could store the uncooked meats on the granite counter tops. When I cooked, I wore an overcoat, gloves, as scarf and a hat. But the furnace is now fixed (thanks to Manwill Plumbing owned by my friend Jim Manwill). I am shamelessly hoping that this plug of his business results in a reduced bill.
The other night I got a phone call from a telemarketer in Florida wanting to sell me a cruise. I asked him where he was from, where he went to high school, the names of his wife and kids. It was nice to talk to someone. After our lengthy conversation, none of which involved the cruise, I think he put me on the “do not call” list. I stopped paying bills on time just so the bill collectors would call.
I bought a new IPhone last week. Just for fun I put it on vibrate, put in my pants pocket and called myself from my home line. After seven calls I started to feel like I was stalking myself so I stopped. Although the vibration in my pants was nice.
I suppose the good thing with this time apart from the Lovely Sharon is that I have had time for productive things. I have been using Photoshop to take my friends heads off of photos I have stored on my computer and put them on animal bodies. That is a good use of time. My friend Gordon looks great as an armadillo. My friend Steve R. looks very loveable as a llama.
It has also been fun to stack books all over the floor of Bud Cave. It looks like stalagmites growing from the floor to the ceiling.
One thing that has been a challenge is that I am reading one book, listening to an audio book in my car and listening to still a another audio book on my Ipod when I walk on the treadmill. Usually it is not a problem for me to keep all the plots and characters straight but in two of these three books there are characters named Jenna. I have never known anyone in my life named Jenna and now two of the three books I am involved with have a character named Jenna. In one book Jenna is the heroine, a nice woman who won the lottery and collected $290,000,000 ($150,000,000 after lump sum discount and taxes). The other Jenna is a scheming little trollop trying to steal the husband of some poor woman. I find myself confused over which Jenna is the rich one and which one is the trollop.
Yesterday I did one thing that, I must admit, was wonderful for me. I delivered poinsettia plants to my beautiful daughter-in-law (and held grandbaby Kendall Marie), to my friends Norm and Terry, to my sister and to my parents. I was lucky enough to find them all at home so I visited a few minutes at each house. That was really nice for me.
This morning I woke up early, I put a load of wash in the washing machine at 4:45 and watched from my window as the snow is falling, covering the street in front of my house in white. The only light outside at this hour is a single street lamp and the two lamps on the columns at the end of my sidewalk. There is something nice about the look of snow falling with no one around and the dim street lamp illuminating the snow, the street and the lawn.
Today I will pay the bills, and yes I will write a check for the Lovely Sharon’s account, put a few more friends heads on animals and watch NFL football. But for now, I am going to make me a cup of coffee and read about Jenna, the rich one (I think it is the rich one but it might be the trollop).
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