July 23, 2007

-- I’m getting an incredibly late start on this one, so it’ll probably be brief. Although you never can tell… My booger-hooks sometime have a mind of their own, and set their own agenda. We’ll just have to see how it goes. Pass the brown gravy.

-- Toney and the younglings made it home without incident on Saturday. And the trip sounded exactly like the nightmare we’d predicted. Apparently they spent 22 to 23 hours every day inside Sunshine’s apartment, while she nodded out on “antibiotics” and bitched about “the Mexicans,” and how the “rich bastards” deserve to have their houses burned to the ground by wildfire, etc. etc.

Good ol’ Grandma.

I’m sorry they had to endure such a thing, but I’m also celebrating my decision to stay home. My participation wasn’t necessary to satisfy the obligation, and the whole thing makes my butt cheeks sink-in just thinking about it. I don’t believe I could’ve made it for five days, I really don’t. I think all three of them deserve a medal from the Pentagon, or something, for their courageous sacrifice.

When I talked to Toney Saturday morning, while she was still in the Reno airport, she said the Secrets requested we have pizza from a specific shop for dinner that night. Needless to say, I had no problem with this. In fact, I decided to go above and beyond, and whip-up a big salad to go with it.

I went to a giant grocery store nearby, one of those places where you can see the curvature of the Earth inside, and grabbed one of their red plastic baskets. I’m always convinced those things make me look like I have a sweet-tooth for the man-ass, but they’re just so damn functional.

I wanted the salad to be loaded with stuff, not just some limp-wristed lettuce and tomato deal. I hadn’t seen my family in a week, and was making an effort to turn our take-out pizza dinner into something at least semi-special. So I bought lots of ingredients.

And it cost twelve dollars! I couldn’t believe it. I admit that I don’t buy groceries very often, but don’t think I’m completely out of touch. Since when does a single tomato cost a buck fifty? The hell, man?? Are they bringing them in on Carnival cruise ships or something? Sweet Jesus.

I returned home with my vegetable gold and got down to washin’ and choppin’ and spinnin’, and all that crapola. And during the celery portion of the program something went horribly awry, and I thought I cut off the tip of my accusatory finger on my right hand.

It looked like O.J. had been over to play, and I wrapped a paper towel around my wound and ran upstairs to look for a Band-Aid. Toney keeps them in a closet in the upstairs bathroom, and I looked inside and didn’t see a damn thing.

Grrrr… I began moving stuff around and finally located a box of off-brand bandages. I grabbed it and there was one end of a Band-Aid stuck to the bottom of the box, and the other end was attached to a bag of “flossers,” which dumped at my feet, roughly a million of the things.

Screw that, I think I just cut my finger clean off! I started pawing through the box, and the only thing in there was a huge bandage that looked like something to be used after open-heart surgery. Why in the hell do we even have such a thing?

I never found a normal real-people Band-Aid, and just had to keep a wad of paper around it until it stopped bleeding. And, to my amazement, when I wiped the blood away I saw that the wound wasn’t as bad as I’d originally thought. It was just a shallow slice across my right pointer finger, I hadn’t sawed my shit off, after all. Whew.

And when I finally got everybody home from the airport, Toney took her suitcase upstairs and said, “What’s all this crap on the bathroom floor? What were you doing up here?!”

-- While the family was out of town I learned that Weird Al Yankovic will be doing a show here in August. The Secrets love Weird Al, and Toney and I like him too. We’ve pretty much decided we’re going to go, and it’ll be our kids’ first concert.

My first “concert” was Steve Martin, back during the white suit, arrow-through-the-head, wild and crazy guy, King Tut era. It was at the Huntington Civic Center, and the place was sold out and absolute pandemonium. It was a blast.

My first music concert was just a few weeks later: Billy Joel.  Also at the Huntington Civic Center, but the stage was on the opposite end of the room. Wonder why? The dude just sat behind the piano most of the night, and crooned. If it hadn’t been my first, I probably wouldn’t remember much about it.

My first real rock concert was Cheap Trick, at the old Charleston Civic Center . It was shortly after Budokan was released, and before it had turned into a cultural phenomenon. It seemed like there were only about 200 people there, and every one of them was a scary-ass gas-huffing hillbilly.

That show was so loud my ears buzzed and whistled for a week, literally. I wondered if it only seemed loud because I didn’t have much concert experience. But I saw the band two or three more times after that, and they just about made my brain explode on every occasion.

If they ever toured with Dinosaur Jr. folks would probably be lapsing into comas, all willy-nilly. Maybe the government won’t allow such a lineup? I just don’t know.

Anyway, that leads to my highly predictable Question of the Day: what was your first concert? Was it any good? Did anything especially memorable happen? Use the comments link below to tell us all about it.

And I’ll get back on track tomorrow, my friends. Or at least try to...

See ya then.

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