Bluebird Singing in the Dead of Night

The line from a comedy show and a song cracked me up tonight…

“If you follow your dong,

It can do you wrong.

Don’t just worry about the ends,

Never let women come between you and your friends,

Otherwise your night could be long.”

I think I got it right and this was NOT on cable TV, per se.

NOTE: THIS was a draft I was interrupted during by other things, and I don’t even remember what show I was watching. I tried searching, but I just couldn’t find it, which means I hacked it somehow. Sorry. My gist is right and I know it’s almost correct, because I did it in real time.

A federal prosecutor talking about how to prove a poison case:

“I call it ‘the triangle of poison for a conviction.’ The points have to relate to each other. You need motive, means, opportunity and evidence of poison. Those four things make the triangle for conviction.”

I spit beer up my nose it was so funny. I just wish it hadn’t been said four years ago.

It took me a day to figure it out, but while I was getting on Big A about being distracted from one project and playing with something else, she gave me a great idea. Then we tried it and it worked. I’m giggly. I kept trying it, and it kept working. We were practically doing slow low fives over it when we were done.

Her fiddle faddle and playing with random stuff made me see something I hadn’t thought of before and how it related to a project I’ve been toying around for a few months. I felt like Dick Van Dycke in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…

The summer wind, came blowin in - from across the sea
It lingered there, so warm and fair - to walk with me
All summer long, we sang a song - and strolled on golden sand
Two sweethearts, and the summer windLike painted kites, those days and nights - went flyin by
The world was new, beneath a blue - umbrella sky
Then softer than, a piper man - one day it called to you
And I lost you, to the summer windThe autumn wind, and the winter wind - have come and gone
And still the days, those lonely days - go on and on
And guess who sighs his lullabies - through nights that never end
My fickle friend, the summer wind

I just always really liked those lyrics.

But Big A’s school district is officially on strike and there will be no classes this week for sure, and there isn’t much hope for what’s going to happen over the long weekend in terms of negotiations.

This puts a serious crimp in my plans for the next 10 days regarding work and play. P and I had already worked out heavier than normal workloads. Doh!

But we are very, very lucky. We can adjust and bitch about it to no real affect on our overall income for several days. Thousands of families can’t do that, and I know it. Hopefully this is just a minor pissing match between the union and the district. If not, I’m seriously going to look for family donations to send her to a private school so I can get to work.

In fact, the only year I went to a private school wasn’t because my teacher’s were on strike, it was because my district was ordered to take kids from a striking district. Can you say 50-kid classrooms? So my parents got me out of there.

Three moments that I am glad to remember even though I was less than ten years old regarding Saturday Night Live.

This is why I let Big A watch TV that she shouldn’t, because someday it’s going to be a cool thing that she saw them in realtime. And it’s not horrible stuff, but it’s funny. She doesn’t get most of it, but no problem, neither did I get it, honestly, at the time.

So here is three moments I can tell you exactly where I was in realtime that are SNL history:

1) Bees in bunkbeds at my grandparents house. I might have been seven. But I remember they were laughing so hard they couldn’t botice I was watching. I don’t have a clue about what it was about exactly, but I know I crawled back in the family room, I could tell you the rug design, and snuck a peek at it.

2) I was in Wenatchee at the end of the very third season and hearing that it was the end of the original cast. I can remember the whole layout of the house we were staying in that night. They acted like it was the end of the Mary Tyler Moore Show or something.

3) I can tell you to within yards where my bus was when the death of John Belushi was a bulletin on the radio. No kidding. I know exactly the stop sign the bus was backed up on, and I remember it all being announced by the guy that did Big Blue Marble on Saturday mornings.

Most of the rest is just stuff from over the years from the first five years of SNL.

But I started thinking about it yesterday, and watching Sen. Larry Craig’s aweful press conference this afternoon, I have to say it.

It all seems to hinge partly on his foot wondering into a neighboring stall and touching a cop’s foot.

What if he had just said he fell asleep on the can and suffers from restless legs syndrome?

If he had immediately gone to the doctor and asked for something like Requip to take care of the problem?

I wasn’t thinking about that as funny at first, but it would have been no worse than his performance today, which was so funny that RLS would have been a great defense. Long flight. Fell asleep on the toilet. Legs were restless.

What made me think of it originally was when I fell asleep on a trans-Pacific flight and groped the female total stranger next to me while I was asleep for about two seconds. Grope is a strong word. I rolled over and put my arm around her…that’s more accurate. Anyway, before it became a big deal I woke up and was horrified I was THAT asleep…and we kind of laughed about it, because who would have thought you could get that comfortable in coach on a 747-400? She was a great sport about it, but I burned red the rest of the flight from feeling silly.

Anyway, RLS…that’s what made his feet wander.

OK…now it is just a funny thought.

OK, I have stayed up all night and it was pretty cool. A total eclipse of the moon with volcano ash high in the atmosphere, a cloudless, warm, night, and a deck to lay on to watch it all at 3 a.m. It burned red and orange. But only to the naked eye…none of the cameras I own seemed to capture it.

Bummer on the photo-thing. But thumbs up for the show. I was also amazed how every dog and their buddy went crazy as the eclipse took place in full force. It was the doggy “something’s not right here” bark, I guess, and it spread through a huge amount of property all around.

Other observations:

Venus and Mars were brighter than even a new moon.

All the stars were brighter than even a new moon.

We saw more satellites than even a new moon.

See the theme…I can’t wait to understand that phenomenon from an expert. I have some guesses why so much stuff got so shiny, but I’ll wait until I can ask an expert.

My dogs hunt. And I am happy to say that very, vrey few references have been made to hunting dogs over the football player stuff.

Not that I would expect it, but it was a nice piece of refrain on the part of animal rights people to not connect his barbarism to hunting with a dog for game, and not other dogs.

That said, I am not as impressed with my friends in the hunting dog world that say this is just going to mean another attack on using dogs to hunt game. What planet are these guys on?

I think it’s been a pretty retrained argument that it was a bastard thing to do, and he is getting punished. It’s also been restained to not make it some left-wing fringe cause against pet ownership.

I’m done with it.

The football player should serve enough time to destroy his NFL career for what he plead guilty.

Moving on…

Here’s a tea-brewing trick I’ve been playing with…

I put the tea bags in bottles of water and let them heat up and brew in the truck during the day, and after they cool at night, I bring them into the fridge. It’s red-neck green tea. How I never thought of this before a few weeks ago, I’ll never know.

Quick! What countries border Paraguay? I bring this up because someone who had just been there was talking to me on the phone and I, thinking I was ok at geography, couldn’t name the three countries. In fact, I only got one of the three off the top of my head. Math and science…and geography needs to be worked on, by me.

Try it. One of the bordering countries is the largest land-locked country on the whole continent…I needed that clue to name that one.

Speaking of things educational…

Man, does my handwriting suck. I was taking some notes today and I realized I had slipped the surely bonds of penmanship and touched the hand of useless. I couldn’t read my notes. I could intepret them, but if you asked me in front of a jury to read what I had written, and I was sworn in, no way. Now, my reporter notes that look like hell from 20 years ago, yep, but my phone conversation notes that I handwrite or my notes from a meeting today…Bzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Speaking of alarms…

When are the going to come up with an alarm, when activated, will wake the person up who is on the wrong side of the bed and taking up too much space? There has to be a way to combine laser and blue tooth or something. You know, an earpiece that screams at you when you cross the line on nights you just want to sleep. I was thinking about this today when I saw a commerical for one of those beds that changes firmness on each side. And then the very next commercial was a laser level-thingy.

Love that dirty water…

The Phantam Diner, or whavever it’s called on WSBK in Boston, did the North End Sunday morning, and nailed it. But I was shocked, SHOCKED at the prices at some of my favorite haunts from 15 years ago. I’m sure it’s all well worth it, in fact, I know it is, but remember the old days when you clammered over there from Haymarket , nobody took credit cards, and they all remembered you? Thwack!

Which brings me to my finale…

Mr. President was in town today. And people that watch such things were completely surprised he flew into SeaTac airport. No president had not flown into Boeing Field since senior didn’t do it 15 years ago. I have so many weird theories on this politically, well, not weird, just interesting observations….but I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt it had more to do with on-the-ground logistics than airports or companies they are named after.

Everyone seems to be amazed by the scars on my knees and shins. I get asked about them all the time and again today. By a doctor who I didn’t know, no less…

For the record…I have beat the living shit out of my legs. I could, to answer your question, bore you to death with each and every scar, if you want.

They don’t want that.

So I just say sports and fishing, which is almost all true, except I fell once on a log when I was seven and a couple of other pokes here and there. And I might have a few scars on my hands and a crooked finger or toe.

But people seem to think there is something wrong with me because I just never got stitches or worried much for bloody injuries from the mid-thigh down. Mid-thigh up…it depended.

That’s not saying I have some super pain threshold, it just says that any pain was drowned by the fun or what I was doing when I was doing it. I’ve been badly hurt doing not fun stuff, and then it REALLY hurts. There is a good hurt and a bad hurt.

But when I wear shorts, my legs look like I was storming some beach defended by a group of kids defending it with rock throwing and pellet guns.

And my knees have just never been good. That’s why I was a soccer goalie for so long…I couldn’t do all that running. They hurt like a bastard and swell up like nobody’s business, thank you for asking.

I have ugly, scared, swollen legs that look like hell.

And I’m pretty proud of it.

Everyone seems to be amazed by the scars on my knees and shins. I get asked about them all the time and again today. By a doctor who I didn’t know, no less…

For the record…I have beat the living shit out of my legs. I could, to answer your question, bore you to death with each and every scar, if you want.

They don’t want that.

So I just say sports and fishing, which is almost all true, except I fell once on a log when I was seven and a couple of other pokes here and there. And I might have a few scars on my hands and a crooked finger or toe.

But people seem to think there is something wrong with me because I just never got stitches or worried much for bloody injuries from the mid-thigh down. Mid-thigh up…it depended.

That’s not saying I have some super pain threshold, it just says that any pain was drowned by the fun or what I was doing when I was doing it. I’ve been badly hurt doing not fun stuff, and then it REALLY hurts. There is a good hurt and a bad hurt.

But when I wear shorts, my legs look like I was storming some beach defended by a group of kids defending it with rock throwing and pellet guns.

And my knees have just never been good. That’s why I was a soccer goalie for so long…I couldn’t do all that running. They hurt like a bastard and swell up like nobody’s business, thank you for asking.

I have ugly, scared, swollen legs that look like hell.

And I’m pretty proud of it.