10 June 2008

With a little Ketchup

Part the First

I was sitting at home after work eating some watermelon chunks (cold, sweet, delicious) and flipping through the channels on the teevee, when the remote control slipped down into the sofa cushions. As I fumbled around in the gap trying to retrieve the remote, I must have hit the slow-mo button on the thing because the picture on the screen... well, it went slo-mo... and then it suddenly froze.

On this:

Now, I don't know who these people are, but apparently they are part of some local government board and whatever it is they oversee, they are not amused by it. Just look at them! I haven't seen anything so frightening to behold since Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on the air. If these people were capable of smiling, they might look something like this:

And then, even though the teevee was on freeze frame, the dude in the picture suddenly shifted his head to the right as if to say, "We r in ur teevee, pwning ur teknologeez."

Very, very frightening. I think I will sleep with the lights on tonight.

Part the Second

Saturday was the first official party of the summer - okay, the summer season, since the actual summer is a couple of weeks away yet - in the form of a housewarming at the new house of Elboo, a friend and co-worker. Naturally, since Zeeba was up here that day, there was a downpour of the cats-and-dogs variety just as the party began. There were even tornado sirens, but they were difficult to hear over the loud tattoo of the rain on the roof. Besides, I really doubt a little noise from a horn on a pole is going to scare away a tornado, anyway. They should make them sound more like the Tasmanian wolf, or whatever is the natural predator of a tornado. Or perhaps just paint on big false eyes. It works for various fish and butterflies.

As for Zeeba and me, We had fortunately already made the decision to be fashionably late, and were able to ride out the storm in my apartment making cucumber salad and wrapping bits of cantaloupe in prosciutto before getting into my rental car and driving north to the party.

NOTE: Continuing the theme of technology kicking my ass lately, my car suddenly became possessed by a poltergeist or perhaps Satan himself, and was in the shop for an exorcism and oil change. Because personal jet packs are still not a reality, I was driving around in some crappy rental car which itself seemed mildly possessed judging from the loud thundering rumble that erupted from the undercarriage when the speedometer hit 40 mph. Either that or there was a flux capacitor hidden somewhere in the vehicle that was just getting warmed up at 40 mph, and if I had just put the pedal to the metal and got that baby up to 88 mph I could have gone back in time and warned myself not to... um... that's curious... not to... hmmm? Wait! I never did! That means the time machine worked! END NOTE

Other people were not so lucky, and managed to arrive at the party at the height of the downpour, including my boss, his girlfriend, and their new baby. I've seen pictures of the baby, and I met him once briefly at work, but I don't think I was prepared for the magnetic draw of his mad baby mojo. It was like a tractor beam - I zeroed in on him from across the room and in minutes I was holding him, only reluctantly passing him over to Zeeba after a good long while in which he smiled and cooed and acted adorable in that way only babies know how.

And the best thing was that the whole time he was at the party, little dude never once cried or fussed. I'm sure his parents will say that he's not always so well-behaved, but mad props to the little guy who seems to already know that in public, the child should not embarrass his parents; it is the job of the parents to embarrass the child. Well played, sir.

The party was a good time, although it did split along - heh - party lines, as it were, with Elboo's friends from not-work hanging out in the garage, and her friends from work in the more civilized part of the house, as it should be. At one point those blasted tornado sirens belted out their cheery klaxon, but it was largely ignored in favor of continuing to eat and drink and drink and drink. And also, eat.

I also discovered that I have fathered a good many more people than I ever realized. Sure, there's my buddy Johnny K's son, Jack. I've claimed him as my own from the beginning (except that when you realize that this kid is freaking awesome and a total little stud, he couldn't possibly be mine. Or he is, and Nature has had its ass handed to it by Nurture.) But at the party I was also accused of being my boss's son's father (because we both have the blue eyes and dimples, which look much better on the boy, natch.) AND, I met the new boyfriend of another work friend who is apparently my son, as well. We have similar beards, for one, and as we were sitting on the sofa having a chat, we both kept sitting in the exact same positions as one another with no conscious decision to do so. First it was the right foot on the ottoman, pointing in the same direction; then both feet, left crossed over right, and then blah blah blah, etc. It was like synchronized sitting, an event which I hope makes it to the Olympics some day because A) I might have a fighting chance at a sport like that, and B) the Olympics suck.

Gradually people filtered out the door, leaving only a few of us to build a fire in the back and sit around drinking and telling stories and, if I remember correctly, knock-knock jokes.

Eventually, the wind picked up and the fire went out, and although negotiations were entered by representatives of all remaining parties to placate the need for more drinking (except I had switched to water hours ago in an attempt to be a righteous human being and non-killer of my girlfriend in a drunk driving wreck), the bar position was weakened by the fact that we all just wanted some face time (face-sucking time!) with our respective honeys, so with a cheery, "Hi-Ho!" we parted company.

And drove home.

In another deluge.

Part the Third

There is no part the third, unless you count this picture of a smirking monkey.

Smirk, monkey. Smirk!