"The Incident"

I haven't posted anything in a while as my hands have been a little achy and I didn't want to overdo my typing while off the job. "Need that cash to feed that jones" after all. But for my own personal journaling I wanted to write about something that recently happened to me. I will call it "The Incident".

Last weekend we had our good couple friends over, J & L I will call them. I think married people reading this can appreciate that there are some people who fall into the "couple friends" category that you treasure. These are those rare couple where you like him and she likes her, and you can spend a good time together and everybody is friends.

We are lucky to have such friends and we really love them. We hang out often and its great that I am comfortable enough to enjoy a pleasant conversation with his wife, and him with mine and we are all just good friends. I value their friendship almost enough to call it an asset.

So the other night we were just hanging out, and we all had had a few beers, and to be course I had gone to the bathroom to make room for more. It was after all Friday, and we had our "drinking pants" on. I came out and walking back into the room, being the sorta frisky guy that I am, I gave my wife a little slap and grab on the ass when I came by her standing in the hallway. Now, my head was down at the time but it only took me about two steps to come to this realization: that wasn't my wife's ass.

It wasn't really the feel of it or anything that clued me in, it was a much too quick and fleeting an experience to have resulted in a positive qualification of that fact based upon previous handling, or rather lack their of, as it happened to be. It had been after all an almost reflexive action upon an impulse that just popped into my brain at that particular moment. It was the mounting horror at the realization when I THEN remembered who had been standing in the doorway of the room that actually clued me in.

It was not my wife, it was good "couple friend" L, the esteemed Dr. L. I thought "Oh shit, J is gonna kick my ass!". But I immediately turned a very dark shade of beet red and started apologizing. I was positively and absolutely mortified by this little chain of events to be sure.

But that is the great thing about great friends, if they are worth keeping the small and casual infractions are quickly forgotten (if they are rare enough). They knew how out of character it was for me to just casually grab a woman-not-my-wife's butt and that it was totally an accident. After all, you just can't fake that freaky combination of shame, embarrassment and stupefying laughter-fit that follows such an absurd circumstance when that is the case.

I'm so glad that J & L saw it that way too. When you are married or seriously coupled, it really means something to find other couples you can relate to together. We are very blessed to have met J & L. And if I can refrain from grabbing my good friend's ass in the future, hopefully they feel the same as well.

It's just that now all of our friend's wives are on the alert that I am a molesting ass grabber and they, to their credit, are quick to bring it up, perhaps as some prophylactic measure against it happening to them. I can only assume that is the case. Such now is my bane in life.

To that end I can only say: There are much worse fates to be had. ;-)

Weekend at the WigWams

I spent last Friday and Saturday night in Cave City Kentucky at the world famous WigWam Villiage. One of only two (or maybe three) of the remnants of a chain that marked the glory years of car travel. They are by no means fancy accommodations but there is something so Americana-ish about the experience. We met up with family and friends there. Friday, we sat around the campfire, drinking too much beer, with me annoying the neighbors with my alchohol addled renditions of some old Gordon Lightfoot song on the ol' six string.

Saturday we got up and did a little caving, then looked around at the antique shops there. I added an item to my compulsive collection of antique juicers. Yes, I have THAT monkey on my back.

Back at the Wigwam we grilled up some burgers. After that, we sat around the campfire, drinking too much beer, with me annoying the neighbors with my alchohol addled renditions of some old Gordon Lightfoot song on the ol' six string. It was like deja vu, all over again.

But I will say a good thing about those massive concrete Wigwams is that they can block the noise. My wigwam neighbors were most grateful I'm sure.

My Kitchen Remodel

Here are the pictures I have been threatening to put up somewhere of my latest project on the house.

So It Goes

I've dreaded the news I heard yesterday, ever since that time a long, long time ago when I first picked up this particular novel "Hocus-Pocus". I read it fast, from cover to cover, and had an epiphiny: here at last was THE novelist who most expressed the things I wanted to say in the way I would want them said.
Here was the perfect combination of rightous smartass and reflective philosopher for my liking. Since finishing that first book, I have regretted finishing every other Kurt Vonnegut novel that I have read, only because that meant that there was one less Vonnegut novel to discover and the appeal of literature was somewhat diminished for me because of it.
I was even thrilled to see him in that Rodney Dangerfield movie where he played himself writing a book report on one of his books for the Dangerfield character. Rodney is later told by his professor and potential love interest that "Whoever wrote that book report doesn't know the first thing about Vonnegut". I'm sure ol' Kurt loved that bit. He probably have even agreed with her.
What I took from Vonnegut was mostly this: we are all crazy. We are crazy for paying any attention to that crazy world outside of our homes where the people we love and all that is important resides. We are crazy for not paying attention to that crazy world outside our homes where fellow people suffer, where if we can do anything to stop the madness, as we see it, we should. Above all, Vonnegut said we should be nice to one another and that made him a radical.
Of course, some crazy Jew out in the desert said the same thing two thousand years ago, and we keep ignoring Him. We will probably keep on ignoring Kurt Vonnegut asking us to as well.

But thank you, Mr. Vonnegut for trying. I will surely miss you.

So it goes.

Christmas Pictures

So the other day, my wife and I went down to this thing at the library where the Calloway County Humane Society was taking Christmas Pictures of people and their pets as a fund raiser. We took our dog down there thinking we would at least get some cards out of the deal to send to all the relatives. Well, we just got them back yesterday.

I could be described as 'less that satisfied' with how I might have turned out in the photo, and I suppose I could have shared the picture with you. As you can see from the previous post, I am capable of uploading an image. But believe me, gentle reader, I spare your delicate sensibilities by leaving it to your imagination, at least with regards as to where my own participation lies.

Few people I know would describe me as a vain man. But I must confess that the full extent of my current creeping baldness has some how eluded me until now. That is, until I got that Christmas picture back. The first thing I thought when I saw it was "Oh, my Gosh, I have turned into one big forehead!" So I ended up dwelling on this a little bit. I actually got out the wife's hand mirror so I could take a good look at the top of my head. Flash back to high school and those early Rush albums that I haven't heard in years: "I think I'm Going Bald". Then on top of this issue of the exposure of my scalp to ever increasing sunlight, I've noticed that my winter beard is suddenly awash with gray hair that wasn't there the last time I had one.

Not like I was depressed or anything, but the next night I say to my wife something about my ever increasing forehead. She says something about what she didn't like about herself in the picture. Then she says to me "But you know as much as you don't like that about you and I don't like that about me, the only thing anybody else that I showed that picture to said was 'You both look so happy'".

Like an epiphany I was immediately hit with the realization that 1) I was being very, very shallow, 2) bare scalp or not, I am still a very, very, lucky man, and 3) my wife is a wise, wise, woman.

Well, a lot of the time she is, anyway. She did marry me after all.

Saturday Night with Buddy Guy

Last Saturday night I had one of the best times I have had all year. I went to see Buddy Guy at Harrah's Casino in Metropolis. I managed to get backstage and get in on the "meet & greet", got his autograph and Dad and I had our pictures taken with him. They allowed the fans to take pictures for the first ten minutes of the show, which I thought was neat. My buddy John took the following:

A good time was had by all. It was an awesome show, if your into that kind of thing. I wouldn't mind seeing him again.