Smelly old goats

Well, we are off tomorrow, to the annual ‘guys’ camping trip. It’s ‘guys’ because the women really don’t want to come.
No running water, no showers, no flush toilets. Just the river and ‘pit’ toilets. No wonder the gals don’t want to come.
Three days of fishing in the stream and camping in tents. Always a good time.

So it’s Al and his three sons, Bill’s son and there may be a few guest. We will find out when we get there.

With any luck well catch some fish, not stick a fish hook in any important body parts.

Poor Wonder Girl will be left all alone, in a house that for three days, won’t get dirty. She and Al’s wife will probably go out for drinks one night or see a movie. WG has other friends to shop with. Then there is yard work to help pass the time. She may not miss me.

Al’s wife has one little weakness. She is uncomfortable staying by herself. She knows there is no reason for it. So she will bring the dog into her bedroom, lock the bedroom door and snuggle up with Betty. Betty is her little 9mm handgun. She’ll be fine.

Of course, the dangerous time will be when Al and I arrive home Monday afternoon.
No showers for three days, sweat, dust and fish essence. Three days growth of beard.
Our women will not want hugs from their long lost men. At least not until we smelly old goats have gotten in the shower.

And the Muse dances away.

You have to hate it sometimes. You have a thought, a story jells. You dictate it into the recorder and get the gist of the story pieced together. Worry about part two later. Get some of it written, and the Muse, like a will ‘o the Wisp, dances away.
And the Fourth Monkey story stalls.
And you can’t force a Muse. I tried that with ‘Just a Touch III’ and had to abandon it.

So I wait, as pieces of the story, other stories, dance in the periphery of my mind. A Darkness of Auntie, A Goddess walks among Us(just a touch 4). Ideas, but just bits and pieces. They taunt me, tease me; but I just don’t feel like sitting down and pounding them into the computer.

Blogger-buddy mentioned I may need a pen name.

I don’t feel clever tonight, I’ll think about that tomorrow.

Take the Lawn way Home

When you are a homeowner, you lawn for a power mower.

Different from when you were younger and long for a paramour.

And not to be confused with a poker hand of a pair or more.

Generally, if you have a paramour, you at least have a pair.

Of course, if you’re like Cousin Becca, who may have dabbled with a pair or more.
(makes me wonder what women think of twin guys. But I digress)

Still, it may explain why she's in Paraguay. She probably thought they said pair of guys. And she said, ‘I’m there!’

But then, Cousin is so much like her mom, and has a fondness for men.

And someday I may write, “A Darkness of Auntie.” And tell you about it. But it will take some obfuscation.

Airport Laptop

I was sitting in the Oakland airport, waiting for my flight to Boston. A couple walk up, drop their stuff. “I put your laptop in the duffle.” He says.
“I already did.” She says.
He opens the duffle. “Isn’t this yours?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, I guess I grabbed someone else’s laptop. I’d better take it back to security.” And he walks back to security.

I can’t believe it. How do you forget your laptop? I am so paranoid about mine and it belongs to my company! Can you imagine how stupid you would sound, telling your boss that you lost your laptop?

Morons.

Now we go back three years.
Wonder Girl and I arrive at the Oakland airport, for a flight to Vegas. After passing through security, we walk over to a bunch of empty seats. I see a laptop sitting on a seat. I walk over, drop my jacket on top of the laptop, drop my backpack on the ground and sit.
My mind slips into overdrive.
I open my backpack and get out a book. My wife sits down next to me and does the same.
I open the book and pretend to read as I discretely scan my surroundings. No one seems to be watching me.
Or so I think.
Any moment now, someone is going to come running over, looking for their laptop.

Should I keep it? My luck, someone will come and get it. Or worse, as I enter the plane, someone will see it and denounce me as a thief.
Or there is something wrong with the laptop. Perhaps it is meant to be taken aboard the airplane. Then as the pressure drops as the plane climbs, a sensor trips and one of the battery packs is not really filled with batteries. The resulting explosion takes out the plane, or at least the greedy bastard that kept what did not belong to him.
And out there, somewhere, is the moron who misplaced his laptop. How would I feel if I lost a laptop? And you know, it’s not like finding a twenty on the ground. With no name on it, you can keep the twenty. But you know a laptop belongs to a specific person.

And what if the terrorist comes back for his laptop? What data is on it that he wants?
Or a drug dealer?

I sigh, pick up the laptop, turn to my wife and tell her what I have found, then I get up, walk over to the security desk and hand them the laptop, explaining that someone left it.
Security calls for a police officer.

I explain to them what I found, we boot up the laptop(maybe stupid?) But nothing blows up.

I give them my info and write down the serial number of the laptop. I also find out that if no one claims it in thirty days, it is mine.

I walk away, feeling okay. Maybe I’ll get a reward? Maybe a laptop?

A week after the trip, I call up the lost and found. The conversation went like this.

“Hi, I am calling about a lost laptop I turned in at the airport a week ago.”
“Are you the officer who turned it in?”
“No, I am the guy who found it.”
In an extremely hurried voice she said, “It’s been picked up.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
I hang up. The bastard officer took it for his own and she knew it! I should have just kept the damn thing!

Addendum.
I was chatting with cousin some months later and mentioned the incident. Still pissed that I passed up a free laptop.
“Oh.” She said. “You did the right thing. And not just because it’s the right thing. Yes, a terrorist might have used it to plant explosives. But it has been used as a way of passing information from one group to another. I would not want some criminal group coming after you, trying to recover it. They are not nice people to deal with.”

I feel better. Cousin deals with people like that. Better her than me.

Reunion?

Heard from my friend PB a few days ago. Looking to see if I heard from anyone about a 30 year High School reunion. Nothing. But not surprised. PB is my conduit to that world. I have thought of signing up on one of one of those ‘reunion websites’. Not sure I would like my email address out there. But you would think there would be more info out there. I do find it amusing how there is so much information out there, but not what you are looking for.

Maybe lots don’t care?

Where the bad girls are.

A three hour layover in Las Vegas. As I get off the plane and walk into the terminal, I can smell smoke! It’s nice to catch a whiff in a terminal today. That means I don’t have to go outside, go through security again This is good.
A leisurely cig, walk to the Taco Bell, a bit of lunch. Then I remember the nickname DT thought of the other night, ‘Gillette Girl’. It oh so works.
I know where the bad girls are, where they hang out. When I turn from my desk at home, I sometimes see a young High School girl, standing across the street, smoking.
At the hotel this week, I spied two of the front desk ladies standing by the back door, cutting a butt.
And in the terminal smoking room, there are bad girls and bad boys. And it stinks in here. I have grown so accustomed to smoking outside, even at home, that I really don’t like it indoors. If it wasn’t so quiet, I could probably get away with letting a fart go. Maybe not.
I had dinner with DT on Wednesday. I have not seen her in almost two years. DT is a good girl.
DT and I have a odd friendship, in that we were friends long before we ever met. We are friends still, and we always try to get together for a dinner, when I go east. She is much younger than I, twenty one years, but when you become friends over the phone, email, who you are is what is liked, not what you look like; or how old.
And DT is fun, fun to talk to, personable, and has good laugh.
And yes, she is pretty too!
When Wonder Girl and I were in Cebu, so was DT. WG and DT became friends and when the restaurant woman mistook DT for our daughter, we all thought it was so funny. DT began calling us mom and dad. So for the few weeks we were there, we had a daughter to watch over and take care of.
DT and I share the same birthday, hence, The Daughter-Twin.
So, last Wednesday, as I told DT about the strange tale of EL, DT coined the nickname.
The story of EL.
Years ago.
EL arrived at the plant for two weeks of training. EL was young and hot. Everyone noticed her and it was more than the ‘fresh meat syndrome’. It wasn’t just her looks and the way she walked. She picked up on the office banter immediately. And she was one of those people who exuded sensuality. (and yes, my ‘gaydar’ hummed a little)
After getting settled in, she mentioned to a group of us that she did not have a computer to work at. Being the gentleman that I am, I offered her the use of my spare laptop.
The next day, as I was in the hall talking to RM, describing this saucy little number that was here for training, EL walkup. Eyes sparkling mischievously, in a loud voice she said, "Good morning, Laptop Sugar Daddy."
And walked on, laughing.
You could see the surprise and a bit of jealousy in RM’s eyes. For here was a young hottie paying attention to me, instead of him and he knew he had been outmaneuvered.
It was fun, those two weeks, seeing guys checking her out, and then having them hear her call me her LTSD.
Most of us at the plant had worked there for over ten years. We gently teased each other about things. We knew each other pretty well and were like family.
Monday rolls around and EL finds me and wants to tell me about her weekend. Her girlfriend had flown out from the east and the two of them rented a room in the city. They had a blast!
I remember her saying, "You would not imagine the things we did!"
‘Sorry darlin’, I thought to myself, ‘you don’t want to know the workings of this perverted mind. You can bet you tight little white butt that I CAN imagine!’
The week ended. EL gave me back the laptop, gave me a little hug, a big thank you and returned to the east.
And the story seems to end, as it should.
Weeks go by and I we did exchange a few work emails, as she still had some questions and sometimes, I was the right one to ask. She always addressed me respectively as ‘LTSD’.
And then I had cause to fire up the laptop to retrieve a file. The laptop was a little sluggish, so I checked the hard drive space(back then drives had limited space). There was almost none left! I went right to the explorer cache and found gobs of files there.
Well, my computer, I can look. Most of the stuff was pretty normal until I checked the pictures!
Seems that she had spent a lot of time surfing the ALS website, and she had good taste! Oh? You say you don’t know ALS? It may still exist.
All Ladies Shaved
Nuff said!
So, my first impression was correct, as was my imagination when EL talked about her weekend.
DT loved the story and immediate suggested that I give her the nickname of ‘Gillette Girl’. And I could immediately picture EL, Razor in one hand and a wicked hungry look in her eyes and saying, ‘Any young ladies need a shave?’
I never saw EL again, and a few years later she was laid off. That was too bad, but I always have the fun story to tell people.

I may be alone, but I am never lonely.

I don’t see anyone online, and I have time. Where is my Pip? My TLS? Skinner is too busy, I doubt DT goes online, she has a life! Well, so does TLS; as does Willow and Pip. Rich can't get his nose out of a book.
Perhaps I need a few more occasional friends that are sometimes available for a chat now and then.
I don’t want to work, I don’t want to write, wrong, read, watch TV.
Perhaps I’ll just let my brain spin and go nowhere.

A Cold Day North of Boston

Well, this morning did not start out well. I woke up at 3:30am and struggled to get another nightmare out of my head. A little variation on the usual plant closings ones.
This time, I was the only one left in the Hudson building(I wonder how many Bostonian even know where that is?), working away at my desk. I left the little office to get some lunch and when I came back, my desk and laptop were gone. Rushing downstairs, I found the moving people loading the last of the furniture into a big moving van. They all claimed that they never touched my office. Then they left and I was forced to try and walk home. My car keys were in the laptop case.
It was a long walk home and the whole time I was worried about trying to get another laptop and rebuild my lesson plans for the new people I was training.
People sprayed hoses at me, dogs tried to bite me, it was a long walk and at some point, I woke up.
I tossed and turned for an hour and finally managed to fall back asleep.
The alarm woke me up at six, and when I tried to take a shower, there was no hot water! I called the front desk, and I guess when the changed one of the water heaters the day before, someone didn’t turn something back on.
I was not about to take a cold shower, and I didn’t know if any of my coworkers lived nearby. I think DT is not to far away, but I don’t have her phone number. I know she would have let me use her shower, but I would have had to make sure no one ever heard about it! It just wouldn’t sound good, me taking a shower at her apartment!
It sure seemed like it was going to be a bad day, but I was pleasantly surprised. The sky had cleared from the night before. The people I was supposed to train seemed eager and attentive. The lesson went well. The afternoon meetings went well. Okay, I only got to see Prada-Girl just long enough to get a hug. It would have been nice to at least sit and chat over a cup of coffee.
Back to the hotel and a light dinner. Phone call with my sweetie and now I can relax a little. All in all, not a bad day.

Monday notes

Well, the rest of the flight was uneventful and I was able to sleep. This is good because I have been trying to get over the Flu for two weeks! Finally went to the Doc about it(after being prodded by Wonder Girl, and then my sister(the Doctor). The Doc thought I might have the beginnings of a secondary infection, so I am now on antibiotics. Fun, one more pill to remember!
But I am feeling much better

It was nice, see my coworkers again. It has been over a year and a half. I still have to make arrangements to see some friends. DT will meet for dinner one of the nights, but I fear I will not have a chance to drive into Boston and see Skinner. Perhaps not even Prada Girl. It can be tough, decentralized.
Good or bad, sitting in a hotel room does give one a chance to go over notes, finish up a few projects, write some emails.

I talked to my sweetie, and all is well at home. That’s probably what I miss most, just the quiet companionship of the one you love.

Phoenix

"Dive! Dive! Dive!"
Amusing, the announcing voice at Phoenix airport is one of those computerized voices that has not changed in twenty years. It sounds just like the voice in the old submarine game I used to play on my old MAC Plus!
"Should we abandon ship, Captain?"
No, I think not. This is just a layover to Boston. But I shall at least add it to the list of cities I have touched for a moment, then leave it unchanged.
At least there is civilization here, you can sit in the bar can cut a butt. Amusing, now everyone carries matches.
I check the cell phone, there is a message from Wonder Girl. She tells me she loves me, it’s so nice to hear. I have not been gone for more than a few hours, but I miss her already.
They have started calling boarding, I have a few minutes to wait. It is so much more, hurry up, than wait. Security this and that. Ignore(mostly) the repeated warnings. We all know the these and those.
It was a bit of a walk, from one gate to the connecting gate. I welcome the walk. I didn’t have my walk this morning, and I think I have confused the poor Tommy-dog more. He is such a creature of habit; terribly broken routine, since I have been sick these last two weeks. No walks at the regularly scheduled time with the big guy. Just the walk with WG, but at different times every day. Tommy dog likes a proper routine.
And now I am gone for a week, further changing the routine. He will soooo not be talking to me when I get home!
Oh, time to go!