Author: Brian

Smacky is excited at having the house to himself. Can you tell?

Next week I’m on vacation. Yes, the planned road trip to Vegas. In fact, I’m leaving tonight, this evening.

I’m ready for the vacation, definitely. I re-watched “Swingers” this week. I’ve been running. Got some money saved up. Packed my sunscreen (according to Weather.com it’s freakin’ 99° as I type this).

Smacky’s got food to last him ’til I’m back. Bills are paid. Yup. I’m ready to go.

Of course I’m going to blog while I’m gone. Duh. But if you need a quicker hit of some of that Lunar Obverse magic, I’m going to be using Twitter for my trip.

Twitter is a new social page that lets people text or IM short messages and have them posted on the internet. I can update Twitter from my phone, using the unlimited texting that T*Mobile graciously provides me for a nominal fee.

I may or may not figure out how to send phone pics to Twitter. I’ve already made my phone pics available publicly here, so you may want to check there next week to see what I can capture with my cruddy phone cam.

Sometimes, the best show of one’s strength is to admit weakness.

So weird.

Walking back from Video Lair (I rented “Swingers” and “Tideland”) I saw white-haired Dave, tall, tanned, handlebar mustache, sunglasses, baseball cap. He saw me and laughed.

“Ol’ Ben is still trying to figure out that lottery machine,” he said.

“Oh, man. I’m sorry!”

“Oh, it’s OK. See, normally, if we run a mistake like that, we have to buy it. But Dave” by which he meant the other Dave “ended up buying it.”

“Awesome!” I said.

“He was sayin’ that he hopes you don’t think he was mad at you.”

I thought about how we’d yelled at each other, in public, and how he’d stormed off into the back room and slammed things around. “Oh, no, it was all just a silly mistake.”

So his name is Ben. I’ll have to buy him a beer or something.

After my run, I walk down to Foster’s Market. The Oregon Lottery Megabucks prize is up to over $18 million and I want to play.

White-haired Dave, the one who always wears sunglasses, is behind the counter, helping a black lady. I wait my turn while I look at the reader board to confirm that no one won the Megabucks prize, that it’s still a huge amount. I calculate in my head that if the “prize” is $18 million, that after splitting it in two to take it as cash, and after the mandatory tax withholding, that’s still a lump sum of over $6 million.

A shorter, dark-haired guy is behind the counter, beside Dave, talking to me. I’ve seen him before but not often. I think he’s new. “What can I get ya?” he asks quickly.

“Megabucks, Quick-Pick, five plays, plus kicker. Total of ten dollars” I say, just as I’ve said for every drawing since the prize when over $2 million. I’ve learned, through rote, how to say it, just like my Starbucks coffee order, just like ordering my burrito at Taco del Mar or my sandwich at SubWay, I’ve learned exactly how to say it through repetition.

The man, shorter than me, goes back to the lottery machine, punches numbers, pulls out a ticket, comes back. He hands it to me.

I expected a longer ticket. It doesn’t look right. There’s only two lines on it, instead of ten – two plays per dollar should be ten lines. “This… this isn’t right.”

“Sure it is!” he says. “Five plays.”

“This is only one play.”

He points at the bottom of the ticket. “No.” He cranes his head around because the ticket is still on the counter and facing my way, he turns his head to read it. “See? Five plays. Just like you asked for.” Printed on the ticket is a series of five dates, the next five drawings for the Megabucks lottery.

He’s given me one chance for each of the next five drawings.

I look up. He looks me in the eye.

“This isn’t right. I wanted,” I tap my hand on the counter, lightly, but assertively, emphasizing my point, “five plays for the next drawing, plus the kicker.”

He slams his hand down, still not touching the ticket. The black woman and Dave are silent, watching us. “That’s what you asked for! You have to buy this ticket!“

Firmly, I say, “No, I don’t. It’s not what I wanted.”

Panic rises in his voice. He picks up the ticket and displays it to me. “I have to eat this!”

I just stand there. It’s not what I wanted.

“You have to get a separate ticket for each chance!” He’s upset and his voice is almost, but not quite, yelling.

“No I don’t!” I point at Dave, from whom I’ve bought countless of these tickets. “He knows how to do it!”

“Fine, have him do it!” the man yells at me, and he turns away from the counter, angry and upset.

Mildly, Dave says to his co-worker, “You advanced it.” I have no idea what this means but it’s apparently related to how to run a ticket on the machine. Dave looks at me. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” He finishes up with the black lady.

The shorter man goes in the back. I hear a slam. Probably a fist into a door or wall, or a door slamming shut.

The black lady takes her items and walks away. A tall guy in black shorts and black t-shirt with a cast around his right hand is next in line.

“I’m sorry,” I say, not really that sorry.

Dave shakes his white-haired head. “It’s been that kind of day.” Another slam from the back. “Sounds like he’s trying to put his fist through a wall.” He looks at the guy with the cast. “You know how that feels, right?”

The guy raises his cast and laughs softly. “Amen.”

Dave looks at me. “You want a Megabucks ticket, five plays… for the next drawing, right?”

“Right,” I say. I’m kinda soured on the whole playing-the-lottery thing. If I win now it’s going to be bad news, I think.

On my way back from my run. Tired, sweaty, it’s been hard and slow because of the heat, and because I can literally see the pollen in the air, feel the grittiness in my nose and throat and eyes, in spite of the drug I take to combat my allergies. Have you ever seen a picture of a pollen? It’s all spikes and hooks and sharp edges. It’s no wonder they’re irritating. I’m surprised more people aren’t allergic to them.

I’m three blocks from my finish line, and I’m passing a blue car I’ve seen before. On the back is an oval sticker for the Rose City Rollers, a local group of hot women roller-derby-ists. Derby-ers?

As I’m approaching the car, an attractive brunette girl is walking out of the house this blue be-stickered car is parked at. She’s wearing a flowing long skirt in a tie-dye pattern, and a loose shift open in the back showing her tanned back. She’s wearing the huge round sunglasses that are so fashionable right now, white plastic rims. And she’s leading a tiny little dog on a leash.

I slow to a stop in the middle of the street and look at her. She’s walking the dog and ignoring me.

“Is that your car?” I ask, loud enough to catch her attention.

“It’s my roommates,” she says cautiously.

“Oh, I just saw the,” I make an oval shape with both hands “sticker on the back.” She smiles, I continue. “For the Rose City Rollers.” I smile now that she’s not so guarded.

The girl nods. “Yeah, she used to be on the Guns N Rollers.” A chirping starts and she pulls out a cell phone, checks the screen, starts to open it.

I give her a thumb’s up and start running again. “I just wanted to say I’m a fan!” I call over my shoulder.

She waves at me as I go.

Out the door in running clothes (including my trusty Brooks shoes – I’m still getting used to the new Nikes), as I pass the house two doors down, I see two ladies standing in their driveway. In their late 50s or early 60s, they’re dressed in simple cotton skirts and blouses, and each has a scarf covering their hair.

They’re part of several families where the men always dress in slacks and white shirts, and the women always wear dresses and scarves on their heads. I’ve seen them on Friday nights, joining the other families from my block and elsewhere, going to the fenced-off building at the end of the street.

The building is large, with a large parking lot, but there are no signs or other markings to identify it. I’ve often thought it was a church, or a meeting hall of some kind, and have been curious, intensely curious, about the private people that march in, and dress so… antiquely. The younger generation talk without an accent, so they’re not immigrants or an isolated ethnic culture. The house on the end of the block, with another family of similar fashion and habits, often emanates piano music, but I can’t say that I’ve ever heard the sounds of a radio or TV from it. But they have cars; I’ve seen the young girls, or an older woman I take to be the mom, out washing their mini-van, but still in a dress and with a kerchief over her hair.

I’ve nodded a hello in the past, sometimes in my street clothes, sometimes, as today, in my running clothes, and I’ve often wondered if they think me immodest in shorts and a t-shirt.

Today, though, on my way past them, the two ladies are standing in their driveway. One of them holds a pair of field glasses, and on a tripod there sits a small telescope, pointed at the sky. It’s about 5:00 PM, and still daylight, and warm. I notice them, and they smile at me.

In perfect English, the lady with the binoculars says, “Do you want to see something? There’s a science lesson going on.”

Because of my previous assumptions my first thought is that this is some kind of religious pitch. But since I’m still learning to say “yes” to the universe, I nod and approach them.

“Just take a look there,” she says, pointing at the telescope. I move around. It points up and to the south and east. I look up in the sky but see nothing. “Just put your eye to the scope,” the lady says. “I’m not going to say anything until you look.” She seems to be enjoying this.

I look, and see, not the Moon, or some celestial object or event, but a large bird of prey, on top of a telephone pole.

“Oh,” I say, astonished. “An osprey!”

“Yes!” the lady says. “You missed him eating his dinner. He had a salmon, a big one,” she holds her hands two feet apart. “He was tearing into that!”

“That’s awesome!” I say. I point west, towards the river. “He has a nest down in Oaks Bottom. I’ve seen it.”

“I wonder what he’s doing up here? And why is he eating it here, and not in his nest?”

“I don’t know.” I want to get going on my run, start to walk away, laughing at myself and my weird notions about these ladies. Other than their way of dress, they seem quite ordinary. “Thank you.” I’m thanking them for the opportunity to see the osprey, and for the opportunity to talk to them, all at the same time.

How much more clean can one get than “squeaky clean”?

None more clean.

It’s the most clean one can get.

Hearing that there’s going to be a film adaptation of “Where the Wild Things Are”, one of my all-time favorite children’s books… my breath catches in my throat, and my mind flashes on all the various ways it could all go horribly awry, and fail to capture the slew of feelings I have of reading that book.

Maurice Sendak’s art is what made the book come alive for me, though the story is also a simple one that should be familiar to any child or parent – young Max is making trouble around the house, and is sent to bed without supper. In his room, a forest grows, and the forest is populated with monsters. Max conquers the monsters, being half-wild himself, but eventually grows bored and lonely. Upon his return to his room, his supper is still waiting.

“And it was still hot.”

The monsters in Max’s forest look very much like Muppets; the Muppets originally appeared in the 1950s, and Sendak’s book was published in 1964, so there may be some influence there.

There are few directors that I would trust with material that holds such emotional appeal to me; Terry Gilliam, though his production would be way over-budget and take forever to produce; or Tim Burton, though he’s a little too slapstick; or Michel Gondry, actually, might be perfect.

My anxiety was relieved, however, to hear that Spike Jonze is directing. *Phew*. Someone who handled the material in “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” so well, will do a good job of translating the story of Max to the medium of film.

It doesn’t hurt that Dave Eggers is writing the screenplay, though. Mr. Eggers’ novels appeal to the little kid in me – or the little kid who likes to read at a college level, at any rate.

The part that makes me saddest is that I know people who haven’t even heard of the book! Tracy gave me a blank look when I excitedly burst into her office with the news. I asked Stacy, who works in the cafeteria here, about it, and got the same non-reaction.

I’m not even going to ask Ken about it… Though he’s free to comment if he’d like. Kevin? Have your kids read “Where the Wild Things Are?”

I’m tempted to draw a line from the lack of knowledge of this wonderful book, and the terrible state of affairs in the world today. Doesn’t President Bush, strutting around in his flight suitseem exactly like Max, running around in his wolf suit, scaring the dog and knocking things over? President Bush thinks he’s the King of the Monsters, but we’d be so much better off if he would just come back and finish his supper…

At any rate, I’m very much looking forward to this movie now. I’ll be sure to see it with my youngest nephew… also named Max.

One day, I post about going to Chicago instead of Vegas. And within days, I meet and spend an afternoon with a woman originally from Chicago, who’s traveling back home at the same time I’m going to Vegas.

She had just watched “The Man With The Golden Arm”, a Frank Sinatra movie. And while spending time with me, we had gone to a music store, on my suggestion. And she was floored when, as we approached the check-out, she spotted a postcard bearing the poster for that movie, by itself on a rack of postcards. She purchased it, to send to the friend who had recommended that movie.

When that friend receives that postcard, what event will happen shortly after that shows the connection continuing?