Ode To Gray Skies

One mid-afternoon, all gray and dreary

My monitor just went all smeary

My eyes were definitely bleary

My mood? Unequivocally weary

The blues were bound to be my song

The blahs were coming on real strong

The week had grown to be quite long

Though, scientifically, that's wrong

Each week has but seven days

The same for straights as it is for gays

You can be adorned with Hawaiian leis

But time marches on always

We're all time travelers, you see

There's nothing else that we could be

Time can't be stopped, from sea to sea

The seconds tick; the lifetimes flee

And still we grumble, gripe, and shout

Frustrated fools who have no clout

And just the time I've figured it out

I forget what it was I was talking about

Things I Learned While Beloved Couldn't Walk

Since February 19th's surgery, Beloved (She Who Must Be Obeyed; The Woman To Whom I Am Weddeth) has been forbidden to put any weight on her right foot. This requires, obviously, a lot of time in bed for her and a lot of working from home for me. But the time hasn't been wasted. I've really learned a lot during these weeks.

• Advertisers apparently think that everyone who watches television during the day is old, sick, needs additional life insurance, and has been injured in an accident and is looking to litigate.
• Making a fruit-and-spinach smoothie isn't as easy as it looks.
• Being in bed for three weeks isn't as fun as it sounds.
• Hallmark movies all pretty much have the same plot; the characters just have different names and occupations.
• When using a walker, go up the stairs backwards, or don't go at all.
• Essential Everyday (Cub Foods' store brand) Cheddar Cheese Macaroni & Cheese Dinner delivers the overwhelming taste of the cardboard box it comes in.
• White Kit Kat Minis are awesome. (Thank you, Derrily WeRollAlong!)
• Watching an episode of TLC's My 600 Pound Life is an extremely successful appetite suppressant.

If You Have To Explain It, Maybe It's Not All That Funny

Not everybody gets my sense of humor.

Big newsflash, right?

I understand, though. I really do. I've got these parallel trains of thought running all the time and they very easily jump the tracks and interfere with each other. It's seeing connections between things that normal people don't really see connections between. It's having a cranial database of songs and catch phrases and classic television that refuses to keep things compartmentalized.

But the clerk at my local drugstore has set the record for not getting it.

Because Beloved recently had foot surgery to repair a major bone spur, she was taking Happy Pills. A not-uncommon side effect of Happy Pills is a jolly jaunt through the Land of NotDiarrhea. To combat this duodenal dam, I went to the drugstore to purchase some stool softener...which sounds like a person has a three-legged, armless chair that's too hard, but I digress.

I walked up to the counter with my bottle of ColonBlow and DrugstoreClerk asked me, "How's it going?"

Well of COURSE I broke out laughing...wouldn't you?

But even after I pointed out to DrugstoreClerk the connection between my laughter and my purchase, he just nodded once and said, "Oh."

Well gee...have a nice day, Mortimer.

Awesome Road Songs - But NUMBER FOUR??!?

Some of the best songs ever written refer to life on the road...bringing to mind America's obsession with independence, travel, and putting the pedal to the metal. And sometimes, expressing a longing to NOT be driving down the road.

Exhibit One: Simon & Garfunkel's Homeward Bound (Written by Paul Simon)

And each town looks the same to me

The movies and the factories

And every stranger's face I see

Reminds me that I long to be

Homeward Bound - I wish I was

Homeward Bound

Home - Where my thought's escaping

Home - Where my music's playing

Home - Where my love lies waiting silently for me

Exhibit Two: Jackson Browne's Running on Empty 

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels

Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields

In 65, I was 17 and running up 101

I don't know where I'm running now, I'm just running on

Running on - Running on empty

Running on - Running blind

Running on - Running into the sun

But I'm running behind

Exhibit Three: Eagles' Take It Easy (Written by Dorothy Fields & Jimmy McHugh)

Well I'm a-runnin' down the road, tryin' to loosen my load

I've got seven women on my mind

Four that want to own me, two that want to stone me

One says she's a friend of mine

Take it easy, take it easy

Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy

And finally, Exhibit Four, from one of the most-celebrated songwriting duos of the past century, Lennon and McCartney.

Why don't we do it in the road?

Why don't we do it in the road?

Why don't we do it in the road?

Why don't we do it in the road?

No one will be watching us

Why don't we do it in the road?

Wait...what??!?