Life, art, etc.

A comment by Misplaced to one of my earlier posts reminded me of a true tale, which I will present in the form of one-act play.

The scene: LDP toils in the fields beneath a blazing Cincinnati sun. His broad back strains as he labors and he sweats the sweat of a working man. Buzzards circle menacingly overhead. Somewhere, a phone rings, and LDP turns his square-jawed face toward the sound. Reluctantly, he drops his tools and paces across the estate and through the back door of his house.

He picks up the phone.

LDP: Hello?

Misp*: Hey! What are you doing?

LDP: I'm cleaning dog crap out of my back yard. What are you doing?

Misp: I'm at the beach.

LDP: The what?

Misp: The beach?

LDP: You're at a waterpark?

Misp: No, a real beach. In Nice!

LDP: What's Neaps?

Misp: No, Nice -- in France.

LDP: Wait, you're in the south of France?

Misp: Yeah!

LDP: (bewildered silence)

Misp: And guess who I just met!

LDP: I -- uh --

Misp: Pete Townshend! I just met Pete Townshend!

LDP: I have to go now. (He gently places the phone handset in its cradle as a single tear rolls down his cheek.)

Curtain.

*Back then, Misplaced was still known as Misp, which is what we called him on the rough-and-tumble streets of our childhood, when we attended the school of hard knocks.

Get Sick, Get Well.

What a crazy, crazy summer. When it began with my getting in a fistfight at the pool on Memorial Day weekend, I knew I was in for a strange few months. I told that kid at the snack shack I didn't want my fried cheese microwaved, but he just wouldn't listen.

I have many rare allergies, so you can imagine what a mess I am during June in Cincinnati, what with my wheezing and my spitting and my crying.

July was all right, except for the fireworks mishap. At my age, learning to write left-handed is quite time-consuming, to say the least.

In August, the temperature here didn't drop below 105, not even for a moment, but we Cincinnatians love our weather-talk, so I wouldn't have had it any other way. Towards the end of the month, my family and I went to King's Island, an amusement park. This was cool for any number of reasons, not the least of which being that they have their own Eiffel Tower thingy out there, so now I don't have to go to Italy to see the real one. Plus, I guess it was muscle shirt-and-tattoo day for the men, so that worked out well for me.

And best of all: corndogs!