July 10, 1997
Dear Everyone:
The problem with buying a
bagel for breakfast on
the way to work in the morning is knowing how much
cream cheese to
purchase. A 3 ounce
container is good for 2 days (assuming one bagel per day).
This works best in the middle of the week.
Or, on Monday, you can get an 8 ounce container, at a better
overall price, assuming that you are going to be in the mood for bagels
every day that week.
But one never knows when the next Sausage
McMuffin Attack will take place, which may explain why I had some
cream cheese sitting in the refrigerator at the office last Friday when
I went down to do some work on
Versatile.
The work didn’t take long (Friday was, after all, a national
holiday) and I remembered the leftover cream cheese.
So I decided to stop at the bagel place on the way home and pick
up a bagel or two for the long weekend.
I thought “Jeannie” would like some bagels, too, so
I got extra and stopped at her place, thinking that by 10:45 she’d be
awake. She was, more or
less, and I decided to have one of my bagels while waiting for her to
pull herself together.
The interesting thing about “Jeannie’s” kitchen is
that you can never quite get to the counters.
This is because there always seems to be something on the floor
right in front of each counter.
A paper plate, containing cat food.
A water dish. Or the
waste basket. Always
something. One must be very
careful where one puts one’s feet in “Jeannie’s” kitchen.
So I got out one of the bagels, got a paper towel
to serve as a “plate”, turned to get a knife for the cream cheese and
(this is where I made my fatal error)
forgot whose kitchen I was
in. In my kitchen, turning
and taking a step is perfectly safe.
But I wasn’t in my
kitchen. I turned, stepped
directly into the cat food (not the hard crunchy kind, no, the soft,
gooey, icky kind), reacted violently (as anyone would), and lost
complete control of my fresh-baked bagel which executed a perfect
one-and-a-half gainer
into the waste basket.
There are primarily two reasons why “Jeannie” is
still alive:
1.
I had more bagels.
2.
It was her turn to pay for the movie.
And I did get the satisfaction of tracking cat food
all over her kitchen floor.
The movie was
Men in
Black, in which
Tommy Lee Jones
and Will Smith
play secret government agents assigned to oversee
extraterrestrials hiding out on
Earth.
These are the guys who just finished cleaning everything up when
Special Agent Fox
Mulder of the X-Files
arrives. It’s a one-joke
movie, but we found it delightful. There
are a lot of sharp lines in it.
I especially liked the one about
Elvis Presley.
And it ends with an absolutely charming “You Are Here” kind of
scene that puts everything into its proper perspective.
Definitely worth catching on a hot afternoon, then seeing again
when the video comes out, by which time you’ll have forgotten all the
jokes.
In other news...
I spent all day Saturday cleaning out some closets
in preparation for cleaning my condo before showing it to a
Realtor.
I nearly filled one of the dumpsters by myself and made two trips
to Goodwill.
However, I still have several more closets to go.
Obviously, I tend to be a
pack rat.
I confess to finding cleaning supplies that I think I brought
with me when I moved in ten years ago.
In my own defense, I think it’s genetic.
I’m sure Mother still uses margarine tubs that date back to the
Carter
Administration. I’ve
seen them.
On Sunday, “Jeannie” and I visited two townhouse
developments in
Dublin.
One was way too expensive.
The prices had clearly gone up since they printed their
brochures. But the other has
definite possibilities. I’m
going back to take another look at a 2-bedroom, 3-story townhouse with a
garage. If I can get enough
for my place in
Concord,
I just might be able to swing it.
And it’s only 10 minutes from the office.
Love, as always,
Pete
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