A Van and Some Rugs

The three day weekend was really freeing for me. Of course any time away from work is always welcome. True, it wasn't filled with any of the traditional holiday trappings such as cooking out or a large number of relatives coming over to visit, but I still enjoyed it. All that mattered to me was that I was completely relaxed and got to watch quite a few movies to pass the time.

The rental selection included Heavenly Creatures, Sense and Sensibility, Night Falls on Manhattan and LA Confidential. I rented the first two, because of Kate Winslet who I find attractive. I should also mention here that Brenda has about the same build as Kate and has said so herself. This means that she is not offended by me liking Kate. Winslet debuted in the first and had a major role in the second and obviously both of them were done before she made Titanic. Personally I think that she did a better acting job in these two films than she did in Titanic. The other two movies were of the corrupt cop type and were rented for contrast to the Winslet movies.

Memorial Day has never really been that big of a holiday in my family. This is probably because none of my immediate family has ever died while serving their country. One uncle was in the Navy years ago and now his son is in the Marines, but both of them are alive. As sad as it may sound to those that do have relatives that died in war, the holiday has very little personal meaning to me.

Speaking of the military, I neglected to mention that my brother went off to boot camp last Friday. The military is his life for the rest of the summer and I still can't get over it. Going into the military was never an option for me. I know that he is doing it to pay for graduate school, but its still not an easy choice to me.

Since I didn't write individual entries for the weekend, I want to write at least a brief paragraph about both Saturday and Sunday. I mean something did happen both days.

Part of Saturday was spent downloading more files for my computer at work. My plan is to fill the hard drive with as many personal enhancements as possible, because I need something to pass the time at work. At the insurance company the computers were shared in my department and this kept the personal modifications to a minimum because its hard to get a group of people to agree on the same configuration. Now I have complete control over the machine and I am going to push it to its limits.

Tensions have eased between Brenda's aunt and myself, so we spent part of Sunday afternoon and most of the night there. What had been intended as a twenty minute visit became a five hour event. The bulk of our time there consisted of playing the game Trivial Pursuit and drinking, which I didn't mind. Trivia is something that I know very well and it makes me look good at the same time. Yes, there were still some awkward moments of silence, but everything seems to be better than before. Its not as though I have anything against her aunt and uncle its just that sometimes I don't have anything to say and this is interpreted as negative. I guess that the phrase silence is golden does not apply here.

The new cd by Garbage carried me through most of the morning. Brenda had bought it for me last Friday, but I wasn't able to listen to it until today. Their second effort has to be the most dance oriented album that I have gotten in a long time. The only other dance stuff that I own is New Order. Actually the album isn't really much of a change from the first album, but its better than what I hear on the radio during the commute.

For being a Tuesday, work was relatively painless. Of course everything was exactly the same, because a three day weekend doesn't really change the routine. Maybe my body didn't know what day it was when I woke up this morning.

A sure sign of summer for me is the guy selling rugs from his van. I am sure that most people have seen this guy or someone just like him. He'll be pulled over in an abandoned parking lot preferably one with a chain link fence to help display the rugs. The rugs will be emblazoned with either Elvis, Jim Morrison, a tiger or maybe even a beer logo. They have to be the tackiest pieces of furniture that I could possibly own. The only time that I ever saw someone who owned one of these rugs was when I was in college. The two individuals who lived across the hall from me used one of these rugs as a second door inside their room. They had hung it from the ceiling to block out any possible glimpse as to what they were doing in the room. Gee, I wonder if they were smoking something illegal?

I can still hear one of them playing the opening notes to Dust in the Wind over and over. I don't think that he ever got it right.

In his defense, it was a nice change of pace from the Grateful Dead that used to come out of that room the previous semester.