Dear Friends,
The “I” on my keyboard is sticking like a mofo. It really pisses me off. Every time I type an “I” it feels like I am also adding an exclamation point to it. I popped the bastard off with a plastic fork and now it feels like home again. Problem solved.
The plan is to see the Northern Lights tonight. They show themselves every so often over this area and it’s supposed to be pretty darn great this evening and tomorrow. The boys and I are heading up to the cousins’ condo on the mountain to get a better look. Rhondi has to work early tomorrow, or I’m sure she would want to join us, but I’m guessing she is ready to have the bed to herself again.
I see twin beds in my future. Maybe two double beds…like a motel room.
Why is it that when you get older the idea of sleeping close to someone else is just not so great? Is it the biological thing inside us that says, “you have made your babies and you are old. No need to snuggle anymore.” I think I like the idea of snuggling more than the actual act of it.
My brain is all over the place today. Maybe it is the atmospheric battle happening in space that brings us the lights? I have no idea. I read yesterday about why the Northern Lights happen (and no, I’m not avoiding trying to spell Aurora Borealis). It was pretty interesting. We are getting bombarded by an extra amount of electrically charged particles from the sun. They call it a “solar storm” but I think “atmospheric battle” is much cooler.
It’s warm again here, speaking of “cooler.” Today is about 85 on the hill, but there is a breeze. Why do I feel like I am becoming a weatherman on the Dick Van Dyke show? Is that all there is?
Peggy Lee is stuck in my head, apparently. Oddly enough, Michael sent the PJ Harvey version of “Is That All There Is” to our group chat yesterday or the day before. It’s out there in the universe. Maybe it is electrically charged particles.
*****
When Marcy got back from dropping the kids off from school, Paul’s car was already gone so he must have gone to the office. She had wanted to try a quick “bet” experiment with him to see if she was right about Jimmy’s gift, but that would have to wait. She noticed, though, that their neighbor, Paul’s older buddy, Jonathan, was taking his garbage can out to the street.
Here was her chance.
“Hey Jonathan!”
“Morning, Marcy. How’s it going?”
“Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. I bet you got that thing full of beer bottles again, huh?” Marcy laughed at end of her question to try and sound like she was just teasing.
“Nope, no beer bottles in there. I take them to the recycling place. You know that.”
Marcy walked over and, doing her best to sound like she was teasing, she said, “Sure. Lemme see.”
Jonathan smiled until Marcy opened the lid.
When she lifted the green lid on the large trash bin, it was clearly filled with amber colored bottles.
Marcy looked at Jonathan and saw the shock on the man’s face and quickly shut the lid and thought to herself, “I bet the bottles are gone” and lifted the lid again. The bottles were still there. She tried to play it off.
“Looks like your memory is not so great today, Jonathan. You feelin’ okay?” she said.
“I feel great,” Jonathan said defiantly. “I don’t know where those came from. Did Paul put them there?”
He stared at the bottles. They were the brand that he and Paul liked to drink when they were palling around working on cars, but that didn’t help him feel any better.
“How did I not hear them when I rolled the can down the driveway?” he asked aloud.
“I don’t know, Jonathan. Paul did say he might play a little joke on you, but I’m not sure,” she lied.
“Fuck it,” Jonathan said, and he promptly turned around and waved goodbye by shaking his right hand in the air as he walked away.
Marcy turned toward her own home and if Jonathan could have seen her face, she would have seen a huge smile on it.
“So, I have to say it out loud,” she thought to herself. Her mind went to Billy. She wondered if anything awesome had happened to him yet. She also wondered what all of this meant.
*****
See you tomorrow.
Another Aurora. This movie effed me up when it came out.
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