mcgrew's Journal: Father's Day

Tami's been divorced for a few weeks now. Apparently, the alien she'd been married to found out that if you were in the military you could get citizenship. Since she realized well over a year ago the he didn't love her and that it was a "green card marriage", she "moved on" and found a boyfriend. She agreed to the divorce after being offered a very generous bribe.

We drank at my house Saturday night, but I hardly touched the whiskey, although I had a few beers. She was shitfaced drunk when I took her home. It was actually a fairly early bed time for me; she wanted to get home before her BF got off work.

I got up Sunday to find two text messages from my youngest daughter apologizing because she had to work -- she'd planned on spending Father's day with her old dad. I poured a cup of coffee and called her grandfather, to wish him happy birthday and happy Father's Day. We must have talked for twenty minutes, and he made me promise to tell Leila and Patty to call him.

The phone rang, and it was Charlie. "You son of a bitch!" she bitched.

"Huh? Wha'd I do?"

"Goddamn it, you didn't tell me he died!!"

"Huh? Who died?"

"Clint Eastwood!"

It finally clicked - she was talking about Gran Torino; she'd called me the night before saying she'd bought the DVD. "I didn't want to spoil the ending. Anyway, you can tell all the way through the movie he's going to die. I mean, he's coughing up blood."

"That was a damned good movie!" We talked a while longer, and I reminded her that she owed me money, so she got mad and hung up.

Women.

Patty called a couple of hours later, seething. When she gets mad, she gets MAD. She was so pissed about having to work she gave them notice. Halfway through the conversation it dropped the call, and I had trouble getting the connection back. Network congestion is a bitch, but then that's probably why most cell phone plans sell airtime by the minute, rather than unmetered like mine is. I seem to remember having the same problem on similar days with my old metered phone, too. I don't think I ever had that problem with a landline.

Leila called later to wish me happy Father's Day. I told her to call her grandpa and wish him a happy birthday.

I washed some dishes by hand, as the damned dishwasher is broken, and watched some DS9 I taped back when the show was still on the air. Avast, me hearties! I be stealin' yer shows wit' me VHS, and yer can't do nuttin aboot it! Arr, ye scurvy scum, we be gettin' yer shows! Now beat it before yer hangs from the yardarms!

Show over, I surfed through the channels. Fred Thompson, the actor whose impersonation of a legislator is really bad, was on some news talk show talking about health care. "I don't want government rationing of health care, I'd rather the free market take care of it."

What free market? There is no "free market" when it comes to health care in the US. How in the fuck did this dimwitted classist idiot ever get in congress?

He's from where? Oh, well maybe that explains it.

At noon I poured a glass of beer and set it on the table on the porch, and backed the car into the driveway and cranked up the radio to listen to my friend Mike King's blues show on WQNA. That lasted about ten minutes before I went back inside. It was muggy as hell, way too hot to sit on the porch. I hate sweating. I skipped the blues and boredly watched more TV.

Thinking pizza with my beer sounded good, I went to Felber's. Felber's is a working man's bar, where most of the guys there are construction workers and retired alcoholics, and a few ugly women.

Ruthie, the bartender, had brought in biscuts and gravy, so I had breakfast for lunch instead of pizza. I'd had lunch for breakfast, a bowl of leftover chilli.

Bria was there. She's a curiosity, a crack whore who isn't skinny. In fact, she's decidedly fat, and not very attractive at all. She'd propositioned me before, but damn, she's not that good looking. "So where's your old man?" I asked. I don't know if Billy knows his girlfriend is a prostitute or not.

"He's supposed to be on his way here," she said. I chatted with the whore for a while until her boyfriend showed up, and moved down a stool to let him sit by her.

BJ came in. "Hey! Alright! Somebody uglier than me is here!" Bria gave him a dirty look, not realizing it was me he was talking about.

"Hey BJ," I replied, "where's your pet snake, did you get rid of her?" I was referring to his girlfriend Robin, AKA "Snake" and "Bighead" in earlier journals. Snake is another crackwhore, the skinniest woman I've ever seen. When I'd first met her she'd propositioned me in the street after I hadn't had sex for months, and I couldn't get it up for her -- the woman had absolutely no breasts at all. Now, I always say that whatever won't fit in your mouth is wasted, but this girl has NO tits. None. Funny looking nipples on no breast. You'd have to be bisexual to want her.

"Nah, she still comes around."

But not to Felber's, as Mike (not the radio Mike) had barred her a week earlier after Ruthie's husband (I think they're still married; he had her jailed for beating the shit out of him and putting him in the hospital) overheard snake plotting to rob me. Fat chance of that happening, as I won't let her in the house.

I had a couple of beers and went home, back to space, where Quark and Nog and Rom somehow wound up becoming the Roswell aliens and Odo became a police dog.

Patty came by with burgers, dead tired. She'd worked her waitress job at Denny's Saturday night before and worked her GameStop job afterward. She fell asleep on the couch as we watched an Earl DVD. She had to give her friend a ride home, so I woke her up and made sure she'd call me when she got there, as driving while that tired is as bad as driving drunk.

This morning at work, Tami called. "He was there when I got home Saturday night. Boy, was he pissed! he wouldn't even talk to me. I was really drunk and I just passed out on the couch."

Everybody thinks I'm fucking their girlfriends. I've come a long way, for a nerd.

WQNA Online?

[sjaskow]

You got good enough broadband to listen to WQNA online http://www.wqna.org/ [wqna.org] ? It'd be a way to listen and get out of the heat.

I really like Blues and I'm always looking for a place to get my fix. I'll mark this one down for a listen next weekend. Thanks!

Re:

[mcgrew]

Yeah, they're on cable channel 18 as well as on the radio, whenever they're not having some political stuff on that channel. There's another blues show on Monday nighst, I'm not sure when it starts, I think 5:00 or 6:00.

They do belly dancing music on Wednesday nights.

"WQNA, with roughly the power of four light bulbs!"

VAr

[Falconhell]

G'day Steve,

Glad you mentioned Gran Torino, on your reccomendation I got it from the vidoe store on the weekend. Absolutely loved it, an excellent movie, Clint is awesome.

Regarding radio, I guess you dont have a portable around the house, you know that old analog tech?

(-:

Regards

Falc

You scared me for a moment

[Abreu]

Dang Steve, I thought for a moment that Clint Eastwood had died in real life!

That man has no permission to die until he stars and directs "The Dark Knight Returns"!