Clouds over Hoover

The days are starting to slow down. I was home before dark tonight. That’s a tremendous moral victory. Never mind that it is still daylight after 7:30 in the evening. That still means I’m home before 7:30 in the evening.

Today, despite the feeling of a slowing of the Pace of Things, was a full one.

There was a termite inspection. (There are no termites.) A very nice gentleman walked around, through and under every thing, just to be certain. He gave me his paperwork, “I’ve been here, the termites haven’t” to sign and off he went, into someone’s home for half an hour.

You wonder if he wonders about these people whom he meets briefly each day. As I might have mentioned here before I worked at Stanley Steemer during high school, cleaning carpets, complimenting people on their pets and the fine pictures of their children and selling things. It must have looked odd. “Nice picture of your son and daughter there, sir. You must be proud.” I am 16. His kids were older than me.

I always wondered about these people, whom I got to meet. I often think of the guy who told me, between puffs of his cigarette, that he’d just been diagnosed with cancer. The lady that was obviously in a bad domestic situation, what ever became of her? The wealthy family with two kids in college? What achievements of their children are they boring their friends with down at the country club? People’s photographs say a lot, of course, and they are often willing to brag about this or that. It was an always changing adventure to meet five or six families a day.

This guy though, the termite guy? He’s more concerned about a snake falling on his head. In all of my tales from the high school carpet cleaning days — and I’ve got great stories — none of them start with “One day this snack just dropped out of the rafters … ”

There was the purchase of a gift card. (The only way to shop.) Walk in to Best Buy, wave off the gentleman who’d like to give you a flier. Pick up the appropriately themed plastic card. Tell the cashier how much you want on it, zip, beep, done. The cashier and I were both on the phone during the entire transaction. It was beautiful.

There was the picking up of a handsome framed piece for the Crimson’s outgoing editor. We took the newspaper plate from one of the year’s issues, had it matted and framed and gave it to her tonight. The people at the Framin’ Shoppe know me. We do this project, and a few others together every year. They notice the subtle changes in the order before I do. We don’t do a great deal of business with them, but they have a great eye for detail.

I love framing things. I wouldn’t mind if it were a bit cheaper. If I could afford it I would cover every inch of wall space with neatly framed photographs and profoundly important looking shadowboxes. I’d have more floorspace because everything would be hanging up. People would come visit us and think “This is a life invested.” Or “Quick! Invest in matting stock!”

I placed an order for the catered dinner I’m throwing tomorrow night. I visited Roly Poly, as that is the tradition I established. Order a platter, share it with the student journalists.

This is a very hard order for me to place. I’m not fond of even picking restaurants — my reasoning is sound, whenever I pick a place something goes horribly wrong with the dining experience — and now I must order for a group of people with different tastes.

Fortunately Roly Poly names their platters. Since they don’t have the Roly Poly Platter (when in doubt, order the thing named after the restaurant, you know that dish works) they have the All American Platter. Problem solved.

I taught a class for two hours. The students have been laboring away in our sweltering Mac lab (I wonder if they have given it a creative name this spring) learning how to build themselves a portfolio website in Dreamweaver. Some of these pages are really quite impressive.

And then we had the annual Journalism and Mass Communication Barbecue Picnic Awards Banquet and Hootenanny. They just call it a picnic because that fits on the program better.

We give out awards and honors and scholarships. Students are recognized. We eat. The dean tells great jokes. The students then make fun of the faculty. Everyone has a nice time.

And after all of that I still managed to make it home before dark. I had to help The Yankee find her cell phone. This took about 35 seconds. For my troubles I was able to remind her to not lose her cell phone for the rest of the night.

We watched 24 a couple of characters didn’t see that coming, did they?

There is a reasonable discussion going around that this is the best season of 24. I’m not sure if I have a favorite — and the common subplots of the series are too rampant at this point for me to pick this as my favorite — but it is an entertaining ride, these last few weeks.

I’m being vague in case you are behind, dear reader.

I almost wish I didn’t know that a Jack Bauer movie was forthcoming. That’d let the danger and the ambiguity and the concern over Jack’s stability linger in the air. Since a.) Kiefer Sutherland is the executive producer b.) Jack Bauer does the clock narration c.) We see him in next week’s previews and d.) there is a movie coming we know that nothing fatally bad happens to our hero. A little suspense at the end wouldn’t hurt.

My (this week’s) prediction: The series ends with Jack soaring down a zip line into Vladimir Putin’s office and screaming at him. Putin, or his composite character facsimile, pulls off a rubber mask to reveal that he’s Charles Logan. Logan pulls of his mask to reveal that he’s Logan’s ex-wife. She pulls off a mask to reveal that the person really throwing the switches is Teri Bauer.

Jack will have an emotional breakdown, black out and wake up on the set of Lost. He quickly deduces that the smoke monster is really just the steam from the Hot Tub Time Machine movie. He will be transported back to the set of Lost Boys, but with all of his knowledge intact, so that he can avoid making The Cowboy Way and Cowboy Up.

Write it down.