These are photographs which I took on Tuesday morning, mostly while on Skyline Drive. The weather a few hours earlier had been clear, but then some storms came in. We avoided the rain for the most part though, and it made for some interesting looking clouds. My grandmother accused me of taking photos of the clouds instead of the landscape, and from reviewing these I see she is right.

I have returned from Virginia, more about my trip is likely to follow in the days to come.

I had a package waiting for me when I arrived. It contained four (4) bottles of Classic Prell shampoo. That’s right, four glorious bottles of the bright green shampoo that has been around forever but has, within the last month or so, disappeared from store shelves in my area. I found I could order it through Walgreens; the shipping cost was up to 10 lbs. hence the multiple bottles.

The fact is I liked this shampoo enough to remember the brand and then it disappeared. I’m set for awhile now, but there’s something a little weird about ordering shampoo through the mail. I can almost hear the voice-over, “Her neighbors described her as quiet and amiable, but they noted she received mysterious packages in the mail. The investigation later revealed that these shipments were from pharmacy warehouses and contained bottles of a discontinued brand of shampoo.”

I drove down here on Monday. One of the things I brought with me were some ‘Honeycrisp’ apples for my grandmother to try. As I was packing them I realized that bringing apples to Virginia is kind of like bringing lobsters to Maine or mobsters to New Jersey.

I stopped at an Arby’s in Damascus, Maryland to get something to eat; and while I was not confronted by a blinding light on the way there, once I arrived I was confronted by a huge poster advertising something that can only be described as deep fried macaroni and cheese. It is macaroni and cheese breaded and fried, sort of like a mozzarella stick. This is the kind of food that could only have been created by a focus group. Also, but not equally, disturbing was the fact they call their horseradish-like sauce, “Horsey Sauce”. Still the roast beef sandwich was pretty good and they had Dr. Pepper in the fountain machine. A perk of being south of the Mason-Dixon is that Dr. Pepper is available almost everywhere.

It is difficult to express the freedom contained within a full tank of gas. On Monday, I am headed down to Virginia to spend a few days with my grandmother, the changing leaves and the autumnal night sky. While it is true that there are trees in this godforsaken state, they do not exist in great swathes here nor are there any mountains to thrust their hued leaves into view. As for the night sky, I suspect it does exist somewhere directly above, but the urban sprawl and its incumbent streetlights prevent one from catching a glimpse of what may or may not spread out beyond their hazy glow. That said, I’m mostly looking forward to seeing my grandmother.

I have a neighbor who, six days a week, is an early riser. On Saturdays though, on my way in from work, I reach her newspaper before she does. It is usually lying in the middle of the hallway, just far enough from the doorway to require one to actually step outside of the apartment to reach it. So every Saturday I move the paper closer, to directly in front of her door. It strikes me that she probably believes she has a different delivery person on Saturdays.

This is a link to a very literal interpretation of the music video for A-Ha’s “Take On Me”.

This is a link to a very literal interpretation of the music video for Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels”.

So there I was doing my best Gladys Kravitz imitation … actually what got me to look out the window was that over the music I was listening to and the conversation I was having with Daniel, I could hear screaming from relatively far away. I stopped the music and listened, trying to pinpoint the source. The screaming stopped. It started up again a few moments later and this time there was crying, and finally I could see figures moving in and out of shadow in the parking lot of an office building down the street. I called the police. I called them again when the figures left the parking lot and began tussling in the middle of the street, causing vehicles to swerve around them. By the time I got off the phone with the dispatcher the second time there were units pulling up. They were on the scene for over fifteen minutes, and while I’m not sure what the outcome was, I was pleased that EMS was not called.

Daniel suggested that I needed a spyglass, which lead to my describing what I was seeing in a very poor imitation of a pirate. Daniel then suggested that I might not want to speak in that particular manner to the dispatcher. I noted that that too would get a quick response from the authorities but then they’d be coming to take me away … ha ha hee hee ho ho ….

This morning I found myself browsing through field glasses and binoculars on Amazon, L.L. Bean and REI. Though I abandoned the search when I realized a decent pair would set me back at least 60$ and the pair I really liked was more still. In the end, it would make me feel just a little too much like L. B. Jeffries and it is only very rarely a good thing to find oneself in the position of one of Mr. Hitchcock’s characters.

An ad for a prescription drug called Chantix caught my attention, primarily because the side effect that clearly was of the most concern was suicidal ideation, though the advertisement didn’t put it quite that way. Still the commercial noted and then reiterated that if one found themselves having suicidal thoughts while taking this medication they should notify their doctors immediately. The website plays this down a bit, instead focusing on things like digestive tract issues and sleep disturbance; but more than once there is a warning that those with a history of depression or other mental health should talk to their doctors about it before taking the drug.

A few years ago, someone I’m no longer in touch with, introduced me to the comedian, Patton Oswalt. A few weeks ago I was in a used CD shop and found a copy of his album, Werewolves and Lollipops. There is no mention of either werewolves or lollipops, but while listening to it I have gotten the hiccups — twice. The first time I thought it was a coincidence. There I was sitting alone in my apartment laughing so hard that I started to hiccup, it was a strange moment and stranger still the second time around. Everyone has a “surefire cure” for hiccups, and this seems like as good a time as any to note that mine is to have an orgasm.

While I’m on the subject (of laughter, not orgasms) I’ve begun watching the second season of Pushing Daisies by way of Amazon’s video-on-command feature. I fear that this is a show that will fail because, in spite of a very different stylistic approach, much like Arrested Development it does not give its audience a chance to catch the joke. Personally I think that’s a superior form for comedies, in part because the shows then bear repeating; but clearly a lot of people dislike that sort of rapid fire, dead pan delivery. The actors aren’t mugging or winking at the camera to point out in a way as subtle as an H-bomb that the previous line of dialogue was, in fact, a punchline. Also there is no god damned laugh track.

Having managed in recent years to find a number of television comedies that I like that don’t have a laugh track, the use of one now sets my teeth on edge even though in the past it didn’t bother me much. It is kind of like many people’s reaction to smoking nowadays. Whenever I see someone smoking out of doors now there always seems to be someone at the very edge of a twenty foot radius wrinkling their nose in disgust. Smokers have already been pushed out of restaurants, bars and even casinos, it’s interesting that these people, who must have tolerated it when the smokers were still indoors, are now pitching a facial fit if the wind blows in the wrong direction.

An aside, sometimes I think my keyboard is possessed. I reach a period and then the cursor begins to move across the screen propelled forward by a whole line of spaces even though I’m not touching the keys.

This has been the week of Facebook, perhaps just because the site has reached a tipping point, but on three separate occasions in less than 48 hours someone mentioned it to me. First there was a discussion of how it was being used by many people primarily as a way of “hooking up”, like eHarmony without the fee and bias against homosexuals. The second mention was while I was on the phone with my mother, her friend who was visiting wanted to know if I had a Facebook account (I do not). The third mention was a friend telling me she had been “friended” on Facebook without having one which resulted in her receiving an e-mail inviting her to join. That’s not really all that notable except that the invitation came from an unexpected source. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Facebook is over if people, including my mother’s friends, are talking to me about it.

My night began with a bang, or, perhaps more precisely, a blare. We were flooded with phone calls from annoyed residents and an adjacent department (also receiving annoyed residents’ calls) regarding an event taking place near the campus. The other department was calling to see if we had any information about what was going on and for how long. As the site of the event was not technically on our turf, we didn’t know anything except that somewhere it had been described as a “Mexican fiesta”. (For the record, angry callers demanding to know what in the bloody hell is keeping them awake in the middle of the night are not much comforted by the answer, “All I know is that it is a fiesta and I don’t know how long it will continue.”)

The aforementioned adjacent department (and the rightful overseer of the turf in question) asked us to take a look in spite of the fact there isn’t much to be done when a festive group takes over an entire stadium and proceeds to blare mariachi music over the sound system twenty minutes before the noise curfew is in effect. Still a couple of our officers went to see if the organizers could be located when lo and behold they found officers from the other department already on site and, further, assigned to be there. It speaks volumes that their officers were assigned to be there, and they were calling us to find out what was going on.

I got a package from Daniel today that included a few things including a travel mug from one of the coffeehouses he frequents, a new headset for my cell phone and a stuffed penguin notable because of the distinctly peeved look on his face (caused by a bit of crooked stitching at the mouth, and, yes, that is why Daniel chose him).

This is what “Chill” is supposed to look like:

This is what mine looks like: