Well fans, I am back from vacation.
(Physically, that is. Mentally is a different story altogether.)
I will write about the trip in more detail over the next few days. Suffice it to say, we had a great time, did lots of great things, spent too much money, and even managed to get our luggage back.
Wind Pressure Humidity Dew Point | Nada Dropping Dripping More like "don't point" |  Crappy | 83°F Feels Like SHIT |
Ms N and I have a short list of vacations we'd like to take in the reasonably near future. We're going to Alaska in a few weeks (which for me is a trip home), we'd like to get down to Puerto Rico to visit her homeland, we'd like to get over to Europe at least twice (once to Spain at her request, once to Germany and Denmark for me).
But after a bit of surfin' the web, I've stumbled across a new destination to add to the list ...
Waco, Texas.
Waco is not on my list because of the two infamous centers of cult activity nearby (the Branch Davidians being just to the northeast and Crawford being a bit further to the west). Nor is it on my list because of Baylor University, either, even though after 151 years they have finally allowed dancing on campus.
(Do you know why Baptists don't allow couples to have sex while standing up? It may lead to dancing.)
Nope. It's because of this museum:
Sorry, Walker fans. It's not the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. Why would I travel half way across the country to see that?
I want to see the Dr Pepper Museum. I would like to be a pepper, too.
Oh, those 23 flavors of carbonated out-of-the-ordinary goodness. I love me some Dr Pepper!
I even love me some knock-off brands, like Dr. W and Mr. Pibb.
Ms N, of course, thinks I am insane. She is decidedly not a pepper.
Dr Pepper makes up half of the duo of soft drinks that she won't touch on cultural grounds. Having grown up in the mean streets of Brooklyn, she insists that Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew are the beverages "only white people drink."
Naturally, I take exception to that statement. Granted, Dr Pepper was much more prevalent in the Redneck Riviera than up here. And although I've never seen it myself, I'm sure somewhere out there is a non-Caucasian Dr Pepper drinker. Come to think of it, I once saw an African-American enjoying a can so much that he immediately started dancing with joy.
Oh wait, that was in a commercial.
I'm not complaining. Her refusal to imbibe simply means more bebida de blanca for me. And if she never gets to enjoy the wonders of the post-Pepper belch, well, that's her loss.
Now all I have to do is convince her that Waco is a place we should visit, which may be a tough sell. After all, the lure of free Dr Pepper is enticing to only one of us.
... to be inside.
The first heat wave of the summer is here, and I think I speak for almost everyone in the Delaware Valley when I say:
UUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH!
The kids are off on their annual summer vacation with Grandma and Grandpa. That means that for the next four weeks or so I am free from my parenting responsibilities. (Now I know what life is like for their mother!) (Oops ... did I type that out loud?) So now Ms N and I have the whole place to ourselves with no concern about the babies' momma dropping them off early.
Wo-hoo!
So Ms N and I have taken this opportunity to do what we never really could do with such freedom ...
Sleep.
This, of course, is aided by the fact that the two of us are exhibiting flu-like symptoms. I think it's my cousin's fault. He came down from NYC to spend the Fourth with us. We had a barbecue, went to see Transformers (an excellent movie!), watched some other movies like Stripes, and had Mr. and Mrs. CWV over as well. All was good.
But my cousin had made several comments to the effect of "I'd better keep my distance. I've been sick lately."
Apparently, my cousin left something behind and we found it. So we've been congested, sore throated, and miserable. (Normally we're miserable without the congestion and sore throats.) And with the ailment has come lethargy.
Much more than my normal lethargy.
I think I have slept more already this weekend than I have in any whole week in the past six months. I am taking medication (viva las drugas!) that is supposed to be non-drowsy, but I haven't been able to stay awake long enough to feel if I'm drowsy or not.
So now that the hour is getting late, I have a bit of a problem. I need to get up early, but I have been sleeping all day. I may not be able to get to sleep tonight, meaning I'll be tired all day tomorrow.
Fortunately, they make a night-time version, too. I just took some. Let's see how long it takes to get to sleeeeeeeeeee
I feel so rejected. My car failed its biannual inspection.
I have not had the best of luck with these things. I've probably been through 12 New Jersey inspections and I think I only passed on the first try three times. And I have never failed because of emissions - the whole reason why inspections started in the first place.
It's always stupid crap, like that third brake light up in the back window. Those damned things must be designed to go out just before inspection time. Thanks to the state of New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission, I now know how to replace the friggin' third brake lights on Windstars, Chevy Luminae, and Chevy Celebrities.
Wagons and sedans.
I miss the old Alaska inspection. Back in the day, Alaska didn't actually have an inspection, it was Anchorage that did. And that inspection was a breeze. The car could have no doors and be on fire, but so long as the flame coming off the engine block was burning clean, you passed.
In Jersey, I fail for everything. Brake lights. Alginment. Enlarged prostate.
So once I pulled into the inspection station with a car that I knew would fail for everything. This car was so crappy that I was able to pay for with a single personal check. The inspector hit the horn and nothing happened. No noise, no squeak, nothing.
A functioning horn is not only mandatory to pass inspection, it is also an essential part of the New Jersey driving experience (especially if you hold your cell phone in your finger-flipping hand).
The second inspector (New Jersey vehicle inspection is a two-person job) didn't even realize that my car was on its way to his station because he was relying on the noise from the horn to wake him up. And yet that car passed.
So this time I failed because of insufficient tire tread. Oh well. At least my engine meets pollution standards.
And my third brake light works.
The following story is true.
Names have been changed to protect the (allegedly) innocent.
Everybody has their own personal pet peeves - those often commonplace things, events, or situations that for some reason grate on a person's nerves like a microplane separating the zest off a lemon.
(Wow ... I've got to stop letting Ms N use the remote. Way too much Food Network!)
I was reminded recently of an old high school buddy of mine - let's just call him "Jim" - who had two of the peeviest pet peeves I have ever seen.
Even though Jim was a male teenager in high school, he was actually a reasonably smart guy. "Raul," he'd tell me, "it really does no good to change your own name in this story. I mean, my identity will be safe with the name change, but people already know who you are!"
Jim could be smart that way.
But those peeves ...
For normal people, pet peeves cause unreasonable and irrational reactions. For Jim it was far more. They weren't just the fingernails on his chalkboard, they were his Kryptonite.
They weren't Jim's pet peeves, he was the peeves' pet Jim.
(Special thanks to the late Johnny Cochran for inspiring that one!)
In retrospect, Jim's one unreasonable, irrational peeve was at least reasonable and rational at its source. When Jim was a kid he was riding the bus to school. A tractor-trailer driving next to the bus ran over something sharp, puncturing the tire and causing it (the tire) to explode. It was right next to the young Mr. Jim, and it scar(r)ed him for life.
Ever since then, he has had a "thing" about big-tired vehicles. The kind of thing that would cause him to change lanes, accelerate, decelerate, or even change roads rather than drive next to a semi.
Jim's other unreasonable, irrational peeve had nary a reasonable nor rational explanation.
Jim hated Jesus sandals.
Anytime Jim saw anybody who wasn't Jesus (or at least an apostle) wearing sandals, he got irked.
It wasn't that Jim thought that sandals were so special that only a messiah was worthy to wear them; that a mere mortal having the audacity to don a pair holy flip-flops constituted blasphemy of the highest order. It was more that he couldn't stand seeing anyone wearing sandals, but Jesus - with the whole "son of God" and "dying on the cross and then overcoming death just for us" thing - gets a pass.
Jim, being an Army brat, lived wherever his dad was stationed. As a result, he spent some of his younger years in the Middle East. Jesus sandals were everywhere there, and most of the people wearing them were by no means Jesuses.
Moving to Alaska, a place where you would more expect to find Jesus snowshoes, Jim was still unable to escape the dreaded footwear. This was the early ninties. Once clear of the snowy and slushy months, people would put on their Berkenstocks (and white socks!).
And Jim would stew.
Boy would he stew. Were a family to walk by with Mom, Dad, and the kids all wearing Jesus sandals, Jim would pop out a dumpling.
"One of these years," Jim would, ahem, allegedly tell us, "you're going to turn on the news and see that a Jesus sandal factory has been blown up, and you'll know it was me!"
I have no idea where Jim is now. It has been many years since last we spoke. I still have yet to see "Explosion Destroys Jesus Sandal Factory" scrolling across CNN, which I take to be a sign that he has found something better to do, like date.
I am curious to see what's become of him.
Then again, this past weekend I bought myself (by which I mean "Ms N bought me") my first ever pair of Jesus sandals (or as I've been calling them, chancletas de Jesus).
After wearing them around a bit, I think I am hooked. To be honest, I really wish I had gotten these things a long time ago. Of course, having just come to this revalation, this might not be the best time to suddenly run into Jim.
If you see him, tell him Raul moved away ...
