i am typing this post one handed from my couch. guy is curled up againt my side, his head atop my hand. i’m manuevering my thumb to scratch him behind the ear while his claws extend and retract against my hand. I’m pretty sure he’s drooling. wish I had my camera.

Rather, numbered.

1. I’ve got a bike. Well, not yet — wouldn’t fit in my Celica, so my dad is bringing it up on Saturday. The backtire needs to be replaced, and I think the front needs to be looked at too, but the important thing is that I’ve got a bike, and I spent $0 to get it. I actually had it before, but that’s when I was in my studio apartment, and it took up too much space, so I gave it back. Now I need to buy a helmet, and a rack for my car to transport the bike to the NCR trail, and I’ll be all set. (It’s a Schwinn, by the way).

2. My sister got back from Hawaii very early this morning. I was a little surprised to pull up in front of my parent’s house this afternoon and see a black VW Beetle with Hawaiian tags this morning — what’d she do, stick it in the plane? — but it turns out Sis had it shipped about five weeks ago in anticipation of her return. She’s looking to get a job with the Montgomery County school system and move down thereabouts. My cousin M., who was living with my sister in Hawaii (they were teaching at the same school also) has decided to remain at least one more year (she’d earlier said she would be returning to Connecticut).

3. I swung past Best Buy on my way down to my parents’. Last Christmas, I bought my dad a record player, and once he had it working, we brought his old record collection up from the basement and went through it. He’s sold off most of his records years ago — I can, as a child, remember half a dozen boxes filled with records. I think it got cut down to two. One of the records was The Who’s Tommy. Unfortunatly, the records were warped and unplayable. Anyway, Best Buy, Rock & Roll aisle, The Who, Tommy on Compact Disc. It played during dinner as we ate homemade lasagna and blueberry pie.

4. I panicked because I realized I wanted to take a bottle of wine down for father’s day, and of course, Baltimore County blue laws leave the county devoid of places to buy booze (well, there a few). Der! My parents live in Howard County — no blue laws. Of course, I turned 21 after I moved to Baltimore County, so I had to drive up and down Rt. 40 looking for a liquor store, which I finally did. In admiration of my dad’s wonderful job raising me (and mom too, but mom, today isn’t mother’s day), I bought a bottle of Cheap Red Wine. No, really, that’s the name of the wine, plastered on a rough khaki label in big block letters: CHEAP RED WINE.

Thanks to a British shipwreck finder, the U.S. Navy has located a sub missing for sixty years, the USS Lagarto, lost in the closing months of the Pacific War.

The Navy wouldn’t do anything with the ship even if it conclusively determined it was the Lagarto, considering the sea to be a proper final resting place for “our people who are killed in action,” he said.

Good. I think its criminal when people go down and poke around shipwrecks. It’s one thing when you’ve archeologists trying to determine how a ship was sunk — such an expedition proved the German claim that the Bismarck was sunk by the ship’s crew, and not by British torpedoes — but totally another when treasure hunters loot and pillage, like what happened to the Titanic.

Anyway, I found this to be an interesting nugget of information, particularly in light of my recent reading material. I’ve been reading Flyboys, about nine US Navy and Marine Corps airmen shot down over ChiChi Jima, a Japanese communication post serving as a relay between their Pacific fleet and the mainland, and also a feared target of a US invasion, boasting a large garrisson of troops. The book discusses a lot of the history of Imperial Japan, beginning with Commodore Perry’s sail into Tokyo Bay. Of the nine airmen who survived being shot down while trying to take out the communication towers, only one evaded capture and survived: George H.W. Bush. I’m not a particular fan of either President Bush, but just because I don’t agree with a man’s politics doesn’t mean I can’t respect the courage and determination displayed against such a ruthless adversary.

I had been about to buy “Old Fart”, but then I saw a wine called menage-a-trois. I saw it and thought of Zebulon. I’m still “WTF?” about that.

So I went to a house-warming thing — brought a house warming bottle of wine, the menage-a-trois — and drank last night and slept on my buddy’s couch. I never sleep good when I’ve been drinking, and doubly so when in a bed (couch) not my own. The couch was comfortable in its own right, but the strange noises of an unfamiliar house took a little getting used to. Also, I got up around three and ate all — or at least a good chunk of — your chocolate chip ice cream. I was drunk, or at least buzzed, and didn’t know what I was doing (it was really really really good).

It’s almost too bad I’m not scheduled to work today — I’ve never called out “drunk” before, and while I’m not, I’m a little hungover and tired. Mmm. Eggo waffles. Mmm!

They provided me a pillow and a blanket. I wound up using the blanket as a pillow, but I didn’t use the pillow as a blanket. Y’know, I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell him I was leaving — just got up about eight, put on my shoes, said goodbye to the other couple that had spent the night, and was gone (like the wind). So, uh, dude, when you read this, I thank you & your wife for having me over, thank you both for the booze, thank you both for letting me spend the night, and last night, when I was drunk, did you really let me handle a double-barreled 20ga. shotgun with no trigger guard, or is my mind just making shit up?

(Also: watching jarhead while drunk leads to strange dreams).

Anyway, so I’m out the door, turn my car around, and head up York Road through Towson. Shortly thereafter, I’m heading up Dulaney Valley Road trying to avoid a bunch of runners near Goucher. They’ve got a lane blocked off, and cops trying to keep things safe, but a bunch of these runners kept running out into the street, and not like a “oh, I didn’t realize I’d stepped into a lane of traffic” but “hey, let’s bolt to the island and see if those cars stop!” way. Go. Brake. Go. Brake. 200 points! Shit! Go go go!

Anyway, planning on running DVR to Ol’ Bosley home. Right past Pot Spring, when DVR cuts down to one lane in both directions, a jackass in a Ford SUV who just had to get where he was going faster than anyone else forced himself into the gap between the car I was following. I flicked him off. He saw it and returned the favor.

The light at Old Bosley was red. He stopped, I was behind him. I put on my blinker. The light isn’t even green, a dude behind me, driving a big landscaping truck, cuts to the right as far as possible, he’s half on the lane, half off, and as soon as the light is green, this landscaping truck accelerates it, getting in front of the Explorer, then cutting him off. I see the guy in the Explorer flick the guy in the landscaping truck off. So I flip the Explorer off — seriously, dickhead, you just did that to me! — throw in a gentle honk for emphasis, and made my turn.

What a wonderful start to the day.

Things I have to look forward to later in the day:

changing the litter box
home-made lasagna
surprising my dad with his father’s day present
seeing my sister (she comes home today, then expects to live with parents rent free. sweet deal)

Late last night I thought I should take a bottle of wine down to my parents’, but then I panicked because I live in Baltimore County and all of the liquor stores are closed — blue laws, don’tcha know. Then I remembered that my parents don’t live in Baltimore County, and even though I’ve never bought alcohol in Howard County before, I’m sure I can find a liquor store. I mean, c’mon, all those poor people in Columbia? They gotta be drinking a lot (I would, if I still lived there).

EDIT: WTF was I thinking with the title? Oh, right, the bozo in the Explorer. YEAH MOTHAFUCKA!