Late February – The order arrived at work for the Girl Scout cookies I bought from a co-worker. I ate an entire box of the darn things at work; they never even made it home.
Mid-March – Liz and I drove up to visit her parents in Ada, MN, a small farming town northeast of Fargo. The reason for the trip was that Liz needed to get her hair done, and Brian, “the guy”, is in Moorhead. Now while I don’t claim to understand women, hair, or women’s hair, I can safely say that once a woman finds “the guy” to do her hair, the loyalty he inspires is comparable to nothing else on earth. I’d even venture that the loyalty to “the guy” is comparable to the planet itself; Earth wouldn’t run off and orbit some other star in the galaxy, would it? Her hair looked pretty darn nice after the trip, so I can’t complain.
An integral part of every visit to Ada is a pilgrimage to the TJ Maxx in Fargo, which is probably the finest TJ Maxx anywhere, according to Liz. She goes with her mom, and they spend hours there. At least it feels like hours. So I went with them, being the kind and benevolent guy that I am. And I attempted to be the voice of reason as they shopped by talking Liz out of a bunch of unnecessary stuff. Unnecessary to me, anyway.
I did find three kitchen knives on clearance for her (I forget if they were Wusthof or Henckels, but they were German and marked way down.) Liz had been using a horrendous Chicago Cutlery set, and had not yet known the joy of cooking with good knives, so I offered to buy them for her. Apparently, I had made such a nuisance of myself talking up these knives and trying to dissuade her from buying anything else that karma caught up with me: immediately after I had checked out, I read on the back of the knives, “German quality. Made in China.”
Late March – My 1996 Corolla got its 120,000 mile maintenance done. Belts, fluids, all that good stuff. The mechanic called and said that the next time I bring it in, I might want to have my brakes checked. They looked fine for now, but he thought that in another 5,000 miles, the brake pads could use a checking. I told him that was pretty funny, since they’ve told me the same thing for the last 30,000 miles. I also told him that the car still has its original brake pads – 10 years and 120,000 miles! – and the guys in the shop probably wouldn’t believe me unless they looked for themselves. Which they did. And they reported back to me that they’d never seen a pair of still-functioning brake pads that were so old! And people wonder why I’m such a rabid Toyota fan! Or, it might just be that when I’m driving, I never feel the urge to slow down…
Late March – Invented the Hambrella. Still don’t know what it does, but it’s got a great name. Also invented the Wineosaurus, but it’s not nearly as catchy as the Hambrella.
Early April – As you know, my hair has been fairly short for a few years now. Specifically, it’s been about a 1/16th of an inch at its shortest, which I let grow out to about an 1/8th of an inch at its longest. Every two weeks, it got mowed down with a pair of clippers, which was a major ordeal that involved vacuuming up the hair fuzzies. A gigantic hassle, to say the least.
So I decided to take the short hair to its logical extreme, by shaving it down to the scalp. It went quite smoothly, and I don’t think it really looks much different from before. Now I shave my head with a blade every three days or so, instead of every two weeks with the clippers. I did learn a few things, though, that most haired people don’t know:
- The grain of your hair is radially outward from the bald spot on the top of your head. Specifically, the grain on the top of your head is toward your face, the grain above your ears is downward, and the grain at the back of your head is also downward. This piece of knowledge is completely useless to most people, but is extremely important to those of us that need to shave with the grain, not against it.
- It’s a really bad idea to try and shave your head at the sink, unless you enjoy mopping up your bathroom floor regularly. Better to shave your head in the shower, with the water pressure turned way down so you don’t waste water. There are shower heads that come with an intensity button on them, so you can shut off or turn down the water pressure without changing the temperature.
- It is quite difficult to shave the back of your own head. It’s completely impossible to see what you’re doing, unless you’ve got a complicated series of mirrors in your shower stall. You will almost certainly miss one spot, and the trick is to be able to find that spot and fix it with the electric razor before you leave the house.
Mid-May; Mother’s Day Sunday, actually – After having brunch with friends at Key’s, an awe-inspiring greasy-spoon breakfast place in St. Paul, then meeting friends on short notice at El Meson, an awe-inspiring Spanish/Caribbean restaurant a few blocks from Liz’s house in Minneapolis, Liz and I ate dinner at Cosetta’s, an awe-inspiring Italian place in St. Paul. Any one of these restaurants will render a mere mortal completely immobile from overeating, because they’re THAT GOOD. And Liz and I hit all three in ONE DAY, leading to exclamations of disbelief from friends. In my little world, where I’ve defined myself based on how much I can eat, it’s nice to know I still got it…
Late May – I heard that Thomas Dolby was coming through town on a tour! That’s the guy who had a novelty hit with “She Blinded Me With Science” in 1983, and he’s been a pioneer in the field of electronic music ever since. So when I found out that Minneapolis was one of the stops on his brief one-man show tour, I was elated!
And since I am a radio guy, and a big Thomas Dolby fan since I was 15, I rang up his press agent and asked if I could do a radio interview with Thomas. He would be playing in town on a Sunday night, and my weekly “Crap From The Past” show would fall on the Friday night right before that. I told him I would devote the whole 90 minutes to Thomas Dolby and his music.
Well, it’s hard to turn down publicity like that, and they agreed. I got a half-hour on the phone from Thomas on a Monday afternoon, which I edited into segments and padded out with songs to fill the entire 90-minute show on Friday. A ridiculous amount of work from my end, but it sounded terrific.
His live show was pretty good. It was just him onstage with his array of keyboards and sequencers, next to a gigantic video screen. He had a camera mounted on his head that was originally developed for the military, and at certain times he projected on the screen what he was watching, so we got to follow his hands on the keyboards as he played and twiddled knobs and buttons. Fascinating stuff. Plus, afterwards, he signed autographs, shook hands and posed for pictures. He even held up the three things I brought in for the other members of his tour – I had The Nerdiest loot, and I was never prouder of my geekitude.
You can hear the full 90-minute interview on the May 19, 2006 show. Truly a high point for “Crap From The Past”!
This is a picture taken during the show. You can clearly see me in the audience, with Liz in front of me to my left (facing away from the camera, unfortunately), my friend Carla in front of me to my right, and my friend Graham just behind me. Fun!Mid-June – We had our annual camping trip to the Peshtigo River in Wisconsin. That’s about six hours due east from Minneapolis into the middle of Wisconsin, almost to Michigan. There were 19 of us this year, up from about 10 last year. This is the third trip I’ve been on, and since I met Liz on that first trip, this year’s trip marks a 2-year anniversary for us. Awwwww…
The weather cooperated quite a bit more than the past two years. It was dry the whole time we were there – amazing! – so we got to throw around a Frisbee and bat around a volleyball in addition to the non-stop eating. A little chilly at night, though; it got down to 38 degrees on Friday night and 46 on Saturday night. That’s a little too cold for my tastes, but it sure beats getting rained on.
And the non-stop eating was exactly what it sounded like. We went down the river on Saturday morning, and from noonish on Saturday until the wee hours, we cooked and ate and cooked and ate and slept and ate… I made the mistake of buying bacon at Sam’s Club, which came in a 3-1/2 pound brick. It was pretty decent bacon, but it was WAY too much even for 18 people, and I won’t be repeating that next year. In keeping with the tradition of unintentionally destroying some of Kelly’s camping gear (I threw a set of her plastic utensils on the fire last year), I ruined her frying pan this year. I’ll be replacing it, of course, but it’s still bad policy to keep ruining a friend’s equipment.
The big hit this year was pie-irons. You put two pieces of bread and filling in the pie iron, then cook them on the fire. The filling can be pie filling, or pizza sauce and cheese, or nutella, or bacon, or whatever else you can think of to put in a sammich. Crazy tasty! I bought one of my own for the trip, and now it’s part of my extremely limited camping gear, along with a tent, an inflaty-mattress, and two old sleeping bags. We also found out that the pie irons themselves melt if the fire gets hot enough, so we’ll be a little more careful next year.
We also brought a 7-pound can of chocolate pudding, as demanded by tradition. Finished it, too!
Late June – I went with Liz to her all-school reunion in Ada. It was kinda fun, and although the specifics were far different than what I had for my own high school reunion (in a large public New York school), the fun parts were the same. She got to hang out with some of the high school friends she still keeps in touch with, and reconnect with some that she hadn’t seen for years. A lot were engaged or freshly married, some had kid(s), some were expecting. I was just along for the ride, and was more than happy to be “arm candy” for Liz for the weekend. Trophy boyfriend? I can do that.
One of the planned events was a parade through town of all the alumni. The floats threw candy at the crowd as they drove by, and the kids in the crowd stayed pretty busy scooping it all up for later. Sort of a weird cross between Mardi Gras and Halloween. Liz’s class had a major flood during their senior year that caused an immense amount of damage in the whole town, so their float had sandbags around the outside. Very nice! We threw candy at Liz’s float as they drove by.
Late June – “Crap From The Past” picked up an affiliate in Germany! One more country to add to the list (US, New Zealand, UK, and now Germany!) It’s amazing that the foreign stations like the show so much, since I still can’t get arrested in Minneapolis.
Late June – I needed a new driveway, since my old one was 30+ years old and had pretty much crumbled to dust in places. That’s actually being started as I write this, and should be done in a week or so. Driveways are expensive, if you didn’t know. I went with asphalt. Concrete driveways are ultra-expensive, and actually are less desirable than asphalt out here because of their light color. The dark color of blacktop helps melt off some of the snow and ice in winter. If you’re having your driveway done, I’d recommend getting lots of bids – probably more than you’d get for your average contracting jobs, because the amounts they quoted me varied by as much as factor of 2. I’d also recommend going with a small operation, like a guy who does just blacktop for a living. In this case, small is good, and you want a guy who uses his kids for help, and doesn’t contract it out or use help from a big firm. I’ll let you know how it goes in the next Big Life Update.
Liz’s cats, Poohead and Noodge, are doing just fine. (My cat, Stinky, is fine as well.) The last time I wrote, you heard about Noodge, the hyperactive kitten. So hyper, in fact, that we could get him to run around and play until he panted like a dog. Sticking his little pink tongue out, gasping for air, short of breath, looking like he was gonna die. We’d cast the little toy fish down the hall and reel it back, he’d chase it and chase it and chase it, without the good sense to stop when he was exhausted. We were a tiny bit worried that his little heart would explode, but it was just too funny to stop. I’d do this about once a week, just for laughs.
Since then, Noodge has outgrown his kitty-dom and is now a huge, fat orange cat. He plays, but not until he pants anymore. He’s huge, and looks a lot like a fuzzy basketball, with legs. He’s even inspired me to write an award-winning song about him: “Who’s big and fat? Noodge!” Liz says it’s more of a chant than an actual song, but who says a song can’t be two seconds long? That’s right, award-winning.
His personality is still a well-meaning dingbat. We’ve affectionately dubbed him The Ruinator, since he’ll show up and ruin everything. For instance, if Poohead is sleeping and Noodge wants to play, Noodge will just attack him: pounce, MEOW, fur flying… Truly, The Ruinator. I think a good comparison for Noodge would be Chris Farley or John Belushi – big fat guy shows up and ruins everything. Or better yet – the Kool-Aid pitcher from those old commercials: “BLAM! Oh yeah!” Once, as I was typing on the laptop, Noodge walked across the keyboard and typed “nnnn”. Liz thinks he was trying to spell “Noodge”.
Liz is a big fan of the digital camera, and has taken hundreds of pictures of her cats, since the 0’s and 1’s don’t cost anything. I’m sure she’d show you pictures of the cats if you were here, so I’ll take care of that for her…
Here’s one of Liz and Poohead:
Poohead has a thing for sleeping on the couch in the sun, as you’ll see from these action shots:
How good it must be to be THAT blissed out.
Liz also had some work done on her bathroom and her kitchen, so they look pretty nice now. I’m certain she’d want to show you pictures of the construction, so here’s one of her new kitchen sink. There are about a dozen similar pictures of her bathtub, cats included. We’re all doing our best to keep Liz from becoming Crazy Cat Lady!As for upcoming travel, my own high school reunion is coming up this summer. In principle, anyway. I found a website online that says the Clarkstown South Class of 1986 reunion should be on Saturday, August 19th, but I have yet to hear a peep about it from anybody. And I had to dig pretty deep to find the website itself. So, I may be coming out east for a week or so around August 19th. Liz loves Manhattan, and I’m sure we’ll be spending a few days staying in the city proper, in addition to the usual visits with family and friends. Details to follow.
Stay cool and dry,
Ron and Liz
