Weekend Plans Post: Saying Goodbye
Warning: Undefined array key "title" in /home/ordina27/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/wp-youtube-lyte.php on line 530
I was in a play in 8th Grade. It was one that our Music teacher told us that we would be writing ourselves. We decided that it was going to be at a Summer Camp and half of us would play counsellors and the other half would play campers. Like, I came up with a camper that quoted Shakespeare all the time. I gave him an arc and everything. As it turns out, he got a Shakespeare line to introduce himself and then a Shakespeare line to establish the pattern and then, when one of the female protagonists had a moment where she was going wobbly, he shouted “METHINKS SHE DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH”. It was one of the biggest laugh lines in the play. (Yes, I know.)
I had one line in the play. I played a counsellor who was asked if I remembered a particular camper and I said “yeah, last year he laughed so hard his milk came out of his nose!”
The girl who played the lead counsellor in the play was someone that everybody knew would be a star someday. We were class of 1991. She won a Tony award in 2003. (That’s something that I only learned just now! Holy cow! Good for her!) And the thing that I was shocked to see was that she was responsible for one of the biggest laugh lines in American Beauty. (She was the senior drive-thru manager at Mr. Smiley’s Burgers.)
In 12th Grade, I moved to Colorado and one of the things they did toward the tail end of the year was called “Kadet Gladiators” as a tribute to the television show American Gladiators. This is where the coaches picked the student athletes who would be the gladiators and asked for students to put together teams to take them on. Me and my dorky friends put together a team called “Blaze of Glory” and it was my job to take on Tyson in “Breakthrough”.
They gave me a football and told me that I had to get past Tyson. I weighed about 125 pounds but I was two inches taller than Tyson who happened to be a linebacker for the football team. I figured that I just had to build up enough speed and I would get past him, easy peasy. As it turns out, I may have been correct about that but I did *NOT* pick up enough speed in the 4-5 feet I had to run. He picked me up and body slammed me. Afterwards, I took about two minutes to stop gasping for air.
Before Kadet Gladiators, I was merely the new guy who hung out with the D&D kids. After Kadet Gladiators, I was the guy who got killed by Tyson. Tyson and I would say hello to each other cheerfully for the rest of the year. As I recall, most of us got more hellos even though our team didn’t do *THAT* well, all things considered. (We didn’t come in last, for what it’s worth. Second to last.)
I note this because we are cleaning house and found a box. We opened the box and it was chock full of VHS tapes. There were a bunch of movies that I enjoyed back in the late 80’s and 90’s. Turner and Hooch, for example. There were a bunch of tapes that were just Simpsons tapes and X-Files tapes. A couple of tapes that had the sole purpose of being recorded over. Like, you had to go out to Chili’s but still wanted to catch Jeopardy.
And, yes, at the bottom of the box were the two tapes for the school play and Kadet Gladiators.
I don’t have a VCR. I don’t know anybody who has a VCR. Even Mom has gotten rid of her old VCR.
I could get a VCR for ~$40 from Ebay…
But, instead, we just threw the tapes away. Maribou assured me that I had made her watch both of them.
Ave atque vale.
This weekend we’re going to do some more cleaning.
So… what’s on your docket?
With this last move, there was a lot of purging of stuff that had been held onto for sentimental reasons. However, despite keeping it for sentimental reasons, the only time I had looked at any of it was when I was packing to move and deciding whether or not to keep it. I got rid of a lot of it. There were very mixed feelings about it, but I’ll probably forget what I got rid of or that it ever existed.
Tuesday was my wife’s birthday, so we’re going out to dinner this weekend to celebrate.
Saturday we have a vet appointment for our older cat, just a checkup. I am also past due for a haircut, so hopefully I can fit that on the schedule.
Not too sure what else we are doing this weekend. There is a pretty good list of stuff to do, so it’s just a matter of selecting what gets done. We’re also getting ready to tackle the job of painting the house in the next few weeks, so we’re probably going to pick out some colors and get the supplies we need.Report
I actually have a VCR!
I cleaned out my closet a couple of weeks ago and found a DVD my drum instructor had loaned me a couple of years ago. He had since moved out of state but I still had his number, so I got the joy of contacting him and reuniting him with his DVD. But more importantly, I found my juggling balls, which I now have at work to occupy my mind/hands while I’m waiting for things to happen!Report
I have a box of bad compact VHS tapes from when our kids were little. For years I had a VCR, on the off chance that I would find the interest and time to rip the tapes to digital. Now, if I wanted the conversion done, I’d find a place that has all the nifty hardware/software to deal with VHS jitter and color problems, and pay them to dump everything to digital files.
It’s unlikely that I’ll ever bother. As the kids have gotten older, they aren’t interested in more than old still images.Report
On a somewhat related note, one of my uncles became the unofficial historian of the tiny (now defunct) Iowa town where he, my mom, and their sisters grew up. He died a few years back and my aunt sent his source materials to my sister. When she came to visit in March, she brought all of them from Omaha and dumped them on me. Down in the corner of the basement I have eight large plastic containers full of old pictures, documents, and notes.Report
I am also doing cleaning and pitching. I finally found a general contractor and will rapidly empty my savings account into his pocket as I get the roof and siding replaced, and some interior repairs done (including replacing some damaged drywall on the low sloping ceiling in my sewing room)
I have already taken multiple boxes of books to the library for their fall used-book sale (though one of the librarians who accepted them said a few might go into their circulation collection) and have another large box I could take. I’ve been filling my wheelie bin totally full every week (usually there are only 1-2 bags of kitchen and bathroom trash in there). I found a shocking amount of fabric and yarn I purchased through the years. That’s partly good and partly bad. I found a vest’s worth of yarn that I love and can’t believe got buried. But I also have to find out if there’s anywhere local accepting donations of unwanted quilting fabric because I really do have more than I will ever use. (I mailed some yarn to knitting friends but postage is incredibly awful – in one case I sent it as a pure gift to someone who was having an absolutely miserable week but in the other two cases the people offered to pay postage and I took them up on it)
Tomorrow morning I’m going to try to do more brush removal from around the foundation; I signed a contract yesterday for him to start on the roof as soon as a team and supplies can be assembled, and I know it will be easier for his guys to work if they don’t have to bushwhack through the truly repulsive amount of wild grapevine and so-called honeyvine (It smells like BO, not like honey) and blackberry that’s come in while I was too busy to keep up with it. I’ve got the south side of the house and most of the west side done, and some on the north side. I’m trying to match where I work to the time of day – so this morning I worked on the west side; yesterday evening I worked on the east side. I would like it all to be done by next week (when they might come) but I doubt that can happen; in this heat I’m good for at most an hour and a half of work before I have to quit.
I also am going to take a quilt top in to be quilted (yes, maybe money I shouldn’t be spending, but it wont’ be much more than $100) and ask the quilt shop owner if she knows a place accepting donations of fabric.Report
Sunday we are flying to LA and spending 4 days at Disneyland (I do love military discounts at Disney!)Report
Oh, she was once your classmate? She also won the first American Big Brother celebrity season. (something CBS put together to counter the Winter Olympics that year, and got good enough ratings that they have kept doing it). She’s, like, legit famous, imo.Report
She was!
She and I weren’t close. If someone asked “Do you remember Jaybird?”, she would either say “no, not particularly, sorry!” or, being a total professional, would say “Of course! He played a counselor in my 8th Grade play!”
But, like, she wouldn’t say “oh, yeah, he and I hung out”.
Because we didn’t.Report