Month: April 2012

It’s Going To Be A Beautiful Day!

Is it possible to have a pleasant flashback to an acid trip that was never taken?

We watched Sunday’s episode of Mad Men last night, and in it, Roger Sterling and his young, former secretary of a wife Jane, take LSD with some other Manhattanites under the “supervision” of her psychiatrist. We get to watch Roger’s slightly humorous and hallucinogenic evening that ends with he and Jane lying on the floor of their apartment discussing their mutual feelings that their short marriage is over.

Whether it is was the idea of this upcoming smooth and amicable separation or a residual acid high that causes Roger to proclaim brightly to Don at the office the next morning, “I have an announcement to make: It’s going to be a beautiful day!“, I’m not sure, but it had a strange effect on my day.

For no apparent reason, everything seemed brighter and shiner today. All things went smoother and easier too. On the way to work I either made it through all the traffic signals with only brief slowdowns or passed through unhindered. And even though this week I’m working 9-hour days for that free Friday afternoon off, today at the Valve Store(R) just flew right by.

So, is it possible for me to have a happy flashback to an acid trip that I never took or was it just the high dose of sugar from the DD Coffee Cake Muffin I had for breakfast?

Counting

These pilings are all that is left of a couple of nice seafood restaurants that were situated on the West End of the New Orleans Lakefront pre-Katrina.

We stopped at the bank on the way home to deposit some checks and get a bit of cash back. One of our co-workers is turning 60 this weekend and we thought it would be a cool thing to get 60 quarters, 60 dimes, 60 nickels and 60 pennies, place them in a small Mason jar to give him. We deposited a nice round number, the majority of the money, and got $40.63 cash back. Of that, we wanted the sixty of each coin thing.

The two tellers up front were busy, but the woman handling the drive-up said she’d take care of us. We explained what we wanted and Donna asked how much all those coins would be worth, the teller replied $24. (This should have been our first clue as to what we were up against, its $24.60.) She brought over the quarters first, a $10 roll with 23 more loose ones and off she went to get the next denomination. A roll of dimes and 10 more. Good. We gave her back the 3 extra quarters. The next trip back she brought us a roll of nickels and ten extra. Um, wait a minute, we need ten more nickels, that’s only 50 of them. The second to last trip back she brought the 10 nickels, a roll of pennies and 10 extra pennies. Pheewww, right. The final trip she brought us 3 pennies and the bills, which she started counting out for us beginning with the singles, $25.63, $26.63, $27.63, and five makes thirty-two sixty-three and ten makes…wait, wait, that’s not right. We tell her she just owes us sixteen dollars more, finally we get a single, a five, a ten and exit the bank.

Did I forget mention that there was a gap of about 2 minutes between each trip to the counter to bring us money? It was no wonder wonder the fellow next to us wanted to close out his safety deposit box, I’m betting he is starting to keep his important stuff in a Chock Full o’Nuts coffee can under his porch.

Flash Fried Squirrel For Brunch

They must have done a prescribed burn not too long ago on the Gopher Tortoise Nature Trail in Seminole State Park in Georgia. You can tell by the proliferation on nothing but bright green ferns with not much else for underbrush. Plus the blackened lower bark on the pine trees pretty much gives it away.

This past Sunday we got up and did the pay the bills by bicycle thing and stopped at Atlanta Bread Company for breakfast and a paper at an outside table. When we got home and typed in the code on the garage keypad, nothing happened. At first I thought that Donna had punched in the code wrong, but on further review it looked like the keyboard was dark, maybe indicating the batteries were dead. We don’t carry a key because this entry method has never let us down in the decade or so we have had this option of getting in the house.

Another look at the keypad and the lights were on, but the remote still wouldn’t open the door. It was then that we noticed the light at the end of the driveway that we always leave burning (so we know which house is ours) was not lit. That meant the power to the house was out. The neighbors kitty-corner across the street were out on their porch, so Donna went over to ask what happened. The neighbor said that she heard the transformer pop, so she walked outside and was just in time to see a smoking squirrel fall to the street. Poor thing must have stepped in the wrong spot and completed a circuit.

Not longer than 15 seconds after our cooked critter hit the ground, a neighborhood cat darted from under an azalea bush, picked up the fried squirrel and carted it off.