Maybe I'll edit them a little -
She finished the dishes and decided to take a nap before starting dinner.
She finished the dishes and decided to take a nap.
She decided to take a nap.
I like that last one.
We have what are called "affinity groups" at work. I was thinking about starting one for people who like to take naps. Jack's nap club. Would you like to come over to my house and sit in a recliner or lay on a couch and take a nap? Maybe you take the recliner and I'll go lay down in bed? Whatever works for you. Maybe a noontime nap? Afternoon siesta?
I can't sleep at my desk, or generally sitting up anywhere (except in my recliner). No sleeping on an airplane for me. I've known a couple of people who could sleep sitting up at their desks. I guess you either are born with that skill or not.
My opinion of naps has changed over the years. I liked them okay in kindergarten. Having my blanket and my friends to talk to was nice. As I aged I started to hate not only naps but pretty much sleep in general. Sleeping seemed like a waste to me.
I had a college roommate as a freshman who was a football player. He was a pretty big guy. Not just muscular but heavy. He would take a nap after supper. I thought that was so uncalled for...I'd look down my nose at him, thinking what a lazy bum. There's all this partying/studying/talking/laughing to do and you go to sleep?
Now I like naps. I can take multiple naps on the weekend. I can nap in the evening. I take a nap before work. I love it.
-----------------------------------------
That discussion of the words for a story, which then devolves into a discussion of me, reminds me of something I've noticed myself doing that I would like to knock off (at least a little).
It's my "it's all about me" outlook. If someone says something to me I use the autobiographical response mode a little too much sometimes. Not quite as bad as this but something like -
Joe says, "I found out I have to have a heart bypass."
Jack, "Oh?"
Joe, "It's a triple bypass."
Jack, "I hit a triple in peewee baseball one time."
Joe, "They are doing an angiogram first. I have to be awake for it."
Jack, "I had some nitrous oxide once, it tasted like bubble gum."
Sort of like that.
----------------------------------------------
Have you ever taken a karate class?
I did once. Literally once (or maybe it was twice). It's been a long time. Me and a friend from Boston named Howie were stationed in Pennsacola Florida at a base that had Marines, Army, Navy and Air Force people. They were all young, pretty, smart, types (with the exception of me, Howie and a few others). It was the electronic warfare school. They teach cryptography, signal identification stuff at that school.
Howie and I signed up for an after-hours karate class. It turned out there was a lot of stretching involved and not so much "hai karate!" board-breaking type stuff. We got bored quick. So did two attractive Air Force girls. The details must be kept short to protect the innocent, but in lieu of going to class we started hanging out at the beach and having drinks and stuff with those girls. The highlight (for me) of that relationship was the time we rented a motel room.
And all four of us jumped on these big beds. I don't mean we jumped on them and layed on them or anything. We jumped up and down on them like little kids. It was fun.
-----------------------------------------------
Those days in Pensacola were nice. Beautiful area.
One other short Navy story. When people got in trouble at that base the punishment was to stand gate guard duty. You had to stand at the car entrance gate in a little shack and come out and make sure cars coming through had a pass. You also had to be in dress uniform and give the driver a snappy salute.
One of my friends used to catch local lizards and put them on top of his hat while he was greeting people at the gate. He (and we) thought it was funny to be looking so official and have a lizard on top of your head.
---------------------------------------------
I had a roommate down there who was a really nice guy, but obsessed. He kept everything neatly arranged. I don't mean just neat, but really neat, to the point of having his clothes hung a certain distance apart in his closet. Another friend of mine used to move one thing on Steve's desk or move a hanger a half inch in his closet...so we could see how long it would take him to notice when he got back to the room. Generally it was within a minute or so.
They were both good guys. You could have a lot worse traits then being too neat.
---------------------------------------------
Had some great times in Pennsacola. One time Howie and some of us spiked a watermelon with Everclear (high proof grain alcohol). We were at the beach or jumping on beds in a Motel room...I forget. Anyway we didn't finish the watermelon. I put it in the trunk of my old car after the party for us to finish later.
After sleeping it off and getting back to the base I had to leave town for a couple of weeks using Navy transportation. Forgot all about that watermelon. If you've never smelled a watermelon that's been sitting in the trunk of a car in the Florida sunshine for a couple of weeks...let me tell you. It smelled like something had died. Bad smell. Very bad, and hard to get out of that car.
----------------------------------------------
That car reminds me of another little tale..or two.
I had it in the Great Lakes Naval Station. I packed my stuff out of the dorm I lived in to move to San Diego. I'd filled the backseat and passengers side of my car with my stuff the night before in preparation to take off. The car was parked in an area that had public access.
When I went down to get in my car early in the morning there was a guy inside (with a coat hanger beside him that he'd used to jimmy open the lock) rifling through my belongings. He was blocked from getting out of the passenger side because of the stuff I'd packed.
I was approaching the car from the back, and he didn't see me, so I just moved to the drivers door and tapped on the window and said something like "you're screwed buddy." He was a skinny little runt. I calmed myself down and called to a guy I saw in the parking lot to call the police, I'd caught someone burglarizing my car.
To make a long story short when the police showed up they let the guy go. He hadn't stolen anything (yet) and the fact that he had a coat hanger wasn't sufficient proof to show he'd broken into my car. Or maybe just breaking into a car isn't a crime in North Chicago. I guess he was lucky...and me too that he didn't have a gun. North Chicago has some sort of unsavory characters out on the streets sometimes.
-----------------------------------------------
That was quite a trip West from Chicago. It was around Thanksgiving. I was driving across South Dakata in that old Maverick. It was a pretty good car. 302 V8 with good power. Only problem was it had a lot of rust. It was fine transportation though (except for the faint smell of rotten watermelon). My younger sister inherited that car, and named it the "blue mamoo".
Back to South Dakota. It was cold. I kept getting slight indications of gas line freeze-up even while driving. The car would start to die a little. It was exciting. South Dakota in the winter can be an inhospitible somewhat desolute place.
The weather that day was crazy. It started out around freezing and it rained. The pavement was perfectly black and perfectly slick. There were semis, cars and even highway patrol cars in the ditches. There were cows who died because of the rain that froze and stuck to them. Freeky weather.
I remember driving by a highway patrolman who had gotten out to help someone and seeing him slip on the pavement as he walked to their car. I think I might have had studded tires on that car...either that or I was lucky as hell.
I ran out of money for some reason in Eastern Montana and traded a guy a tool kit for a tank of gas....ahhhh the good old days.
---------------------------------------------
I saw an article that chronic back pain causes your brain to shrink up to 20%. Verified by MRI scans so they say.
Great...
First the tofu shrunk my brain, now the back pain.
Crap. My brain is like a BB in a boxcar as it is. Just rattling around like a dried up pea. Just wonderful. The straw stuffing is coming out of me and now I have to live with a shrunken brain?
I'm telling myself I never had chronic back pain...or that much tofu. Yeah that's it. The drinking, drug use...gas and glue sniffing, tofu, that wasn't so bad on the old brain.
---------------------------------------------
I got to hang around and work with, a wild guy in India for a while. He was pretty much an alcholic I guess. Whatever that means. He was really smart in a street-smart and technical can-do sort of way.
Fascinating story teller. He told me he found jobs all over the world in Trade a Plane (it's a plane selling magazine). He had worked internationally as a technician/trouble shooter, liaison, consultant. Year's before I met him he had worked in come capacity for Air America. I'm not sure if his background was in the military or not. He was interesting. That's a tough life though. He lived in hice Hotels, but didn't have much recreational activity other than drinking...working, and maybe some sight seeing.
He used to say he hoped the last two brain cells he had would reproduce. He also had a saying about not wanting to be in a room taking up valuable oxygen (in reference to wasting time). He was cool. Jesse. One time we walked around New Delhi looking at the sights. I remember the air was so thick with pollution it made my lungs hurt. We were joking that it was a bad sign when we saw some big black birds that looked like vultures circling overhead...maybe we would die in New Delhi.
You could buy long strips of prescription medicines like Valium in India without a prescription. Jesse or his wife would always share.
-------------------------------------------
I met a pilot in the middle east once. He was a professional traveling pilot who did special work all over the world. He was pretty wild too. We were talking about how he would smuggle a bottle of whiskey under his seat into some countries where you couldn't buy booze. They never searched the cockpit.
He was actually above the retirement age when I met him. Commercial transport pilots have to retire at 60 under FAA rules. Heck of a nice guy. And really interesting. I got to fly on board some training flights with him.
He told me he had a special charter flying mission once to bring some heads of state to a meeting. He had three "bad guys" on his jet. I mean like Khadafi, Amin and Saddam...not saying that was the three, but it was three internationally known bad guys.
Anyway he told me he thought hard about auguring into the ground. He thought he would be doing the world a favor.
-------------------------------------------
Pope John reportedly said "any day is a good day to be born and any day is a good day to die."
This writing from Saint Jerome's University has a longer quote -
It was Blessed John XXIII who once said that any day is a good day to be born and any day is a good day to die. I think you can only say that with faith and hope. Gravely ill at the time, Pope John hastened to reassure his doctors and told them not to worry that they were bringing him bad news about his cancer. "I always have my bags packed," he said with a smile.
--------------------------------------------
Not much else going on in the old Cafe this morning. Just drinking some coffee and laughing and thinking to myself.
Rachel got home from College last night. Sure is good to see her. She's really taking to the school life. Lots of things to learn and people to meet. Life is good.
--------------------------------------------
I hope I never lose my sense of wonder.
But if I do I hope I can meet some people to help me get it back.
Maybe a baby or a little kid? Old person, a special person, a shaman, holyman or woman....maybe a little dog.
Maybe.
