Pantalot, Aprilcot 30, 41 A.B.
A busy weekend here. Too busy to allow for an entry yesterday. Too busy for me to even think about finding a new background for today's entry.
In fact, be right back - need to catch my breath!It all started Saturday morning just after breakfast when I got into an argument with my wife over who was going to do the dishes. She had started them but I had taken over when she left the sink to answer the phone.
"What are you doing?!" she scolded me when she came back.
"The dishes," I meekly replied.
"I said I was going to do the dishes!" she yelled.
"But I like to do them, too," I tried to defend myself.
"Out of the kitchen!"
Ok, fine. I went and cleaned the bathroom instead.
"What did you just do?" my wife demanded to know when I entered the kitchen to get my coffee.
Fool that I am, I told her the truth.
"I said I was going to clean the bathroom!" she wailed.
"The correct thing to say at this point is 'Thank you'," I meekly reminded her.
Life is so much simpler during the week when she leaves me home alone to clean to my heart's content....Our busy weekend continued last night as we went out to dine at a place we'd never eaten before - a small mom and pop restaurant about 20 minutes to our northwest. In fact, it's such a small place that I think it's probably better described as a mom or pop restaurant. And last night a simple "left hand of mom restaurant" would have been enough to describe it.
My wife got the salmon. I was going to get the salmon but she ordered first and we have this policy of never ordering the same thing when we eat out. This way, if a certain entree proves deadly, one of us will be left to take care of our cat, Jester.
The question became: What do I get instead?
I got a club sandwich.
As luck would have it, we both survived.
But it took us the rest of the night to discover this.
Today has turned out to be even busier (if you can believe it).
It's been a Sunday chock-full of information. Seems I haven't been able to get from one hour to the next without having to hastily ponder a whole slew of facts I didn't even know existed before.Did you know that there are more millionaires in America than there are Irish people in Ireland?
In fact, there are a million more millionaires in America than there are Irish in Ireland.
It's a wonder there's any room left here for trees and dogs....Did you know that food in Spain is nothing like Mexican food?
No tacos, no salsa, no hot sauce.
And the tortillas there are like omelets. Often made with potatoes. And never eaten for breakfast.
In fact, breakfast tends to be a simple coffee and bread ordeal.
Lunch isn't until 2 p.m. at the earliest. And then it can take several hours to get through it.
Restaurants don't serve dinner until 9 p.m. - and the first hour is pretty much given over to foreigners. Spaniards prefer dining after 10.
And all in all, the food is rather bland.
How I wish Hemingway had spent more time telling me all this and less time on those damn bulls....But speaking of bulls - did you know that bulldozers don't doze bulls?
And that backhoes don't hoe backs?
And steam shovels don't shovel steam?
I spent a good part of the afternoon on the couch, feeling my head spin....Perhaps the most surprising things I learned all day, however, concern cartoonist Lynn Johnston.
Although her comic strip, For Better or For Worse, is often praised for its realism and enjoyed for its rather pleasant portrait of family life, the fact is that Johnston's own life has been far grittier and less pleasant.
Her own mother beat her badly. When mom passed away, she thought "The Wicked Witch is dead."
Her first husband left her when their son was just 6 months old.
And in her strip, she had Farley the sheepdog die from exhaustion after rescuing the youngest child, April. In real life, she had to give Farley away after the birth of her first child when he became increasingly aggressive towards this "intruder".
It's all almost enough to make me think that maybe - just maybe - Charles Schulz didn't have a dog that fought air battles with the Red Baron when he was a boy....Thank goodness this wasn't one of those 3-day weekends.
I just don't think I would have survived one more day of this vigorous pace.
Back To A 100% True
Slice Of My Own Life
Forward Into The Future
(Or At Least A Reasonable Facsimile Thereof)
(©41 A.B. by Dan Birtcher just before the 5-pound sack he'd been using as a head exploded from being stuffed with 10 pounds worth of knowledge)