Archive for the ‘Nonclassified Nonsense’ Category

Anyone out there want g-mail invites? We have bunches between us now.

This may be the weirdest thing I’ve happened upon in quite some time. The following is an excerpt from a recent Amazon.com spam that made it’s way into my inbox:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

Is “Anna Karenina” one the best novels ever written? Decide for yourself by diving into Tolstoy’s classic tale of doomed love, newly anointed as the latest selection in Oprah’s Book Club. Set against the cultural landscape of 19th-century Russian high society, it’s the book Nabokov called “one of the greatest love stories in world literature.” You can order your copy of “Anna Karenina” at a savings of 40% by following the link below.

I’m not sure if Oprah just acquired taste, or what. What’s even even more baffling is the edition she’s chosen is the recent translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky who just might be the best translators of Russian Lit ever.

I have the choice (presented by Berck) of journaling or cleaning the kitchen.

Berck is making sweet tea and possibly dinner. The tea is imperative for the caffeine… to crowd out the sleepy chemicals in our brains. We didn’t get much sleep the night before (having to get up early for the pre-memorial service breakfast at some kind Richmonders’ house… delicious, far better than the complementary hotel food) since Berck couldn’t sleep and kept me awake half the night talking. When he’s like that, he’ll wake me up several times after I’ve finally drifted off to tell me how much he loves me… sort of verbal white elephants; the gesture is appreciated, just not the timing.

Then, of course, we went to bed rather late last night and had to get up rather early this morning. Berck slept quite a bit on our double flights back home to Oklahoma, jerking awake everysooften to elbow and apologize to the guy sitting on the aisle. I love flying with Berck because he lets me sit by the window, so I don’t have to sit next to a stranger. Berck sleeping on airplanes is better than Berck awake, because he doesn’t bother me as much as I’m trying to read. He doesn’t like to read in the air for some reason, and the only other way to distract him is to give him a pair of headphones, though he pokes me every so often to make me to listen to some particular country song.

So we came home this afternoon and took a long nap. Berck woke me up around five, wisely deciding we wouldn’t sleep at all tonight if we didn’t get up then. Getting up out of bed proved to be too difficult right away, so we took turns drifting off and reawakening the other.

I think I’ll post this and start on another exciting installment of Berck and Joanna’s sleeping habits.

I’m not really sure that it’s of any great benefit, since the number of people waiting for connections in RIC is pretty small. But it’s a nice idea, free wireless. It does mean that in the few minutes we have before our zone gets called, that I get to post about RIC having wireless.

We’re very tired. It’s entirely too early to be conscious. Jonah’s Dad was able to change our ticket to this flight because it was later. Only 45 minutes later, but I suppose it’s worth something.

Jonah’s eyes are glazed over. Zones 1-4 are welcome to board.

I think I’m going to let Jonah journal about the rest of the weekend. It’s her job, really.

So we’re here in Virginia. As usual, I cannot sleep. So I read over the last entry and realized that I really do need to proofread. I’ll try to that. I need to find a client-side editor for this since WordPress does not come with spell check. And we all know that I need spell check. Sometimes Joanna reads my posts and complains, so I go back and try to fix them.

Hmm… Bishop lurks! Fa!

The $%#@ing clock radio went off at 0830 this morning, and we didn’t have to wake up! Jonah said that she wanted to make use of the free breakfast in the hotel, so I told her she could drag me with her if she did. I didn’t realize she was going to set a bloody alarm.

I put on my dirty clothes from the night before and my hat and stumbled downstairs to breakfast. I took some of the eggs which looked scary and quite a few biscuits and gravy.

The gravy was pretty good (much better than Jonah’s which for some reason tends to be greasy and brown), but the biscuits were mediocre. Jonah makes MUCH better biscuits. Especially the last ones. I don’t know which recipie she used, but she should stick with it. (I feel compelled to point out that I walked in to discover her cutting biscuits with a glass. In spite of the fact that someone gave us biscuit cutters for our wedding gift, which I knew that I would probably never use, but hoped that maybe Joanna, the biscuit-maker, would. Unfortunately, she didn’t remember we had them. Maybe she will next time.)

After a breakfast, which was very good for a free hotel breakfast yet not worth getting out of bed for, we went back to sleep. And slept until some very late time when Joanna’s parents called to say that they were in Richmond and not to get lunch, because they would take us out to lunch. (We were clearly in much danger of self-feeding at this point…) We showered, and Joanna’s parents did indeed take us out to lunch.

Jonah said we had the choice between Mexican and Chinese. She seemed to be equally at ease with either. I pointed out that the Chinese was quite possibly very bad, but that in Virginia the Mexican was probably El-chico like and overpriced for Mexican but yummy. She agreed, and so Robert and Sarah took us out for Mexican.

It wasn’t as El-Chico-ish as I expected (this is a good thing), but it wasn’t authentic either. It was, in short, good Tex-Mex. The salsa had too much cilantro for me, which probably means everyone else liked it. My burritos were very good Tex-Mexish burritos. They even came with a nice tasty red sauce on top, which is how I like them. And they didn’t come with rice and beans, presumably because the rice and beans were inside. But we were in no danger of winding up with Tortas de Milenese de Res. (I’m sure my Spanish spelling is even worse.)

Then we came back and I toyed with the internet while Joanna’s parents napped. Then we went downstairs and drank free beer with the freely available “dinner”. I didn’t go near the soggy looking chicken or roasted potatos, but the only beer available was Yuengling! Yuengling, while it’s not exceptional, is one of the few widely available good beers produced in this country. And it tastes so good when it’s free.

After beer, we went and watched Shrek2. I couldn’t talk to Joanna during the movie (something I like to do even though it drives her crazy) since her mother was talking to her during most of it. It’s deffinitely one of the better sequels out there.

I was just ecstatic over the endless Disney cracks. If they missed a good opportunity to take a shot at Disney, I don’t know where it might have been.

And it featured Tom Waits! In what may be the most appropriate place for his music that I’ve ever seen.

Before Shrek (but after beer), Sarah dragged us to the mall so she could buy a T-shirt. I kept trying to convince her that one of mine would do nicely, but she couldn’t be convinced and had to spend money on what appeared to be one T-shirt sewn inside another. Thankfully this task wasn’t nearly as painful as I thought it might be.

Before the T-shirts (but after beer, as well as after Shrek) we drove all around downtown Richmond reliving Sarah’s childhood.

We also barged into the Jefferson Hotel wherein Robert asked where “the staircase” was. The concierge responded, “It’s a legend. Read about it in the book over there.” So we did.

And then came the never-ending sojourn to acquire Berck food. The Brenners have this uncanny notion that a bowl of popcorn counts for a meal. It really doesn’t. Fortunately, they were willing to provide me with Wendy’s, but first we had to drive through every other fast food joint only to discover it was closed. Wendy’s is “Open Late”.

And that’s my day condensed. Maybe Joanna will fill in the witty details later.

And now I’m too tired to proofread. Oops.