Sunday Morning

It is a balmy morning, well above freezing, easily the warmest day of this year. The sun was shining brightly as I made my way through the quiet streets of Strašnice; the only others out at this time on a Sunday morning are the old men and their wiener dogs.

What is any right-thinking non-wiener-dog-owning person doing out on a Sunday morning, no matter how bright and shiny it may be? What Siren song drew me from my home, my fortress of solitude, my haven in the hurly-burly world that is Strašnice? Fast food.

It was late when I got home last night. Really late. I was at Roma with fuego, and we all know how that can go. It was a night of Pirates and hockey. Pirates of the White Sand, I’m happy to report, is making progress. The version fuego brought back from the secret underground laboratories of North America is good enough we can actually show it to people, and many of the tweaks to make it even better are quite simple. Last night we worked up a list of improvements, and except for one really stupid bit that fuego seems to find delightful we’re in good shape. The last hour of the evening was dedicated to me finding new ways to explain how stupid that bit is.

I staggered home as the wee hours of the morning were growing up. I mounted the stairs and when I opened the door I was not hit by the blast of tropical air that Soup Boy prefers. He was still awake. Well, moving, anyway; awake might be a bit of a stretch. “Heater’s not working,” he managed to mumble. “No hot water, either.” I tried pushing the reset button on the heater, just as Soup Boy had already done, but you never know. He might not have pushed the button correctly. In this case, my button-pushing was no more effective than his, so I shuffled into my room and flopped into bed, too tired even to plug in the electric heater in my room.

This morning I awoke, perhaps a little later than usual, but usual is difficult to define. I shuffled around a bit, found a valve on the water heater to allow more water into the radiator system, and groped my way to the kitchen for some tea. Ah, tea, the leaf that built an empire, where would I be without your magical alkaloid? As the kettle hissed and burbled I stood, semi-conscious, contemplating the paper bag on the counter. Slowly the friendly logo and happy marketing slogans sank in. McDonald’s. As I looked at that bag the craving started, the conditioned reflex born of forty years of exposure to relentless marketing. I wanted some of that.

And so now I sit, far from home, tired, muddled, sated, nibbling the last of my fries, watching parents struggle with children who are not yet finished crawling through the giant hamster tubes. Man, I wish they had those when I was a tot.

19 thoughts on “Sunday Morning

  1. so I just read this and see that perhaps you are sitting down with your brother and compairing thoughts, but how could I get two different sets of notes? I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical excuse for that. Guessing that anchor hitting the deck is the really stupid bit. If it’s any consolation the outcome of some battles is totally inconsequental. You might feel offended by the shot, but I can guarantee that the audience’s perceptions won’t mirror your own. Bear in mind they aren’t familar with your story and consequentially are trying to follow, and not so much analyze.
    Though you do raise a very compelling argument, that whole pandering to the audience thing. Show of hands, how many people actually like the films of Esteban Spielbergo…
    Do yourself a favor and prove it to Fuego. Pull down a couple of random stray drunks and force them to watch it, take a poll, first ask them what they didn’t like about the film and then try to force them to tell Fuego that they hated the anchor. That oughta work

  2. Nico, I suggested the same thing about the Izzy speed-up right when the floggin molly kicks in, he didn’t go for it. Suddenly his perception of that “really annoying bit” faltered when he had to put it in the hands of the viewers…

  3. On another note, Andy the Useless Fryer needs to put an act into effect that the MOH actually needs to do something. Sure, John H, set a precedent, but it’s become even more meaningless than Shrub diversion into renewable energy. MOH used to mean something…now it’s just a couple of centimeters on the sidebar.

  4. Hey, I resemble that insulation!

    I vaguely recall posting one or two cleverish (if I do make up words myself) parodies of Shrub addresses, and, um, a lame poem or two before I descended into silence…

    That is, before I anticipated the current political fad of not sayin’ nothin’ no matter whut.

    Pay no attention to man tweezing rock-salt out of his keister behind the curtain!

  5. It was standing room only in every bar in the republic tonight; I was at a place with a slovak leaning, but there were still plenty of czech fans there. Got almost the whole way through the night without arguing with my brother until I pointed out the perfectly obvious fact that humanity would be the first species to replace itself by design.

    The Slovaks pulled into tonight’s contest undefeated in Olympic play, ready to outskate you if you want to skate, and if you’re in a hitting mood, bring it on. The Czechs brought a lineup of some of hockey’s greatest, and now that the formalities of the first rounds were out of the way, it was time to play.

    I was, I admit, pulling for the czechs, much for the same reason I harbor fond thoughts for the New England Patriots. How can you not root for a team with a player named Brewski? (Sure, it’s not rally spelled that way, but don’t tell me you don’t think of beer whenever you hear his name.) Well, on the Czech team there is a guy named “Excellent”. How sweet is that? Every time he touches the puck, the announcer says, ‘Excellent…’ NHL followers may have heard of him as Vyborny. And of course there’s my main man Prospal, who raises everyone’s game when he’s on the ice. I first came to know them last winter, when the NHL was on strike, and they were playing for the Bily Tigry, my adopted home team.

    In goal for the czechs tonight was a Tigre who has been on the national team for three olympics, and tonight he gave up his first goal. (Although on the team, he only played for the first time in the game two nights ago against Canada, when he played two scoreless periods after the starting goalie gave up three swift points.)

    The czechs won, and the only shame was that the Slovaks didn’t get to eliminate some other teams before this contest. It might have been the championship.

  6. Yeah, losing Hasek in the CR’s first game dealt them a rough blow. A big fat congrats to the Czechs. Looking for them to go gold but wary of those Finns.

    I didn’t expedct much from the US team but Canada losing was not entirely expected.

  7. NOt as much as they are thinking they are a hokej mation! I mean, Gerry Bettman is AMerican, and we’ve seen what he knows about hokej!

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