snoring to make friends and influence the neighbors

i spent the weekend with helen keeping her awake with my snoring. sorry, helen: i hope you can get some sleep now that i’m not there.

she and i did a little caching around san jose and grabbed a couple of pies (one, a pizza, with sausage, onion, mushroom and pineapple; the other: peach, from marie callender’s, to bring home to ron).

after i got home i hid my first cache in over a year, the first since moving back to california. it is also the closest cache i have ever hidden to home, at about 250 feet from the front door. actually, i hid this cache a little over a year ago in carson city. it was designed by my friend kathy (kacky) in maine. it is a highly camouflaged little piece that looks like a wad of chewed gum. the cache container, itself, is only about the size of two watch batteries. yeah: it’s pretty small. in its original hiding spot, it was awarded micro cache of 2006 at january’s gbes 4^th birthday party.

i’ve been back on ebay doing a little purchasing over the past few weeks.

i received “swimming to cambodia” a couple of weeks ago, which i have already written about.

on friday, i received “my favorite year” starring one of my favorite actors: peter o’toole. helen and i watched it saturday before heading out to go caching. i was living in portland, maine the first time i watched this movie. my landlord came up from the basement to see what i was watching because i was laughing so hard.

when i got home, king crimson’s “eyes wide open” concerts dvd was awaiting me. i say “concerts” because it has performances from the “construKction of light” tour from 2000 and from the “power to believe” tour from 2003. i have watched the set several times when willy owned it. but, after he moved away to colorado (he’s now back in fallon living with mark and my dad) he took it with him.

the other dvd is still en route. it is “the big empty.” this movie is so original and unique i wish i had written it. it cannot be described without misdescribing it or telling the entire story. it is bizarre (but not too bizarre for your average-run-of-the-mill-movie-watcher), funny, sexy, suspenseful and takes place in the desert. what more could you ask for? rapidly becoming one of my favorite movies, it joins another of my faves which features bowling (“the big lewboski”); something i have not done for over 40-years and have very little interest in.

i got to see scott gahagen (of the former “scott and monty show”) last week. waj, the group of which ron is president, had an alternative fuel and propulsion exposition in south san francisco. scott, just in the last couple of weeks, moved back to san mateo from carson city. we needed a sound system for the featured speakers and scott does the portable dj thing for a living. so, we hired him to provide dinner music and mics for the speakers. it was the first time since the baboon killer bought kptl that ron, scott and i have worked together. it was nice seeing scott again and it’s way cool that he lives just up the road. he and terri and helen and i are supposed to do a double date sometime soon. maybe we can go to the winchester mystery house... if we can find the door.

except that the banana sticks to the wall

last night, as i was finishing up the dinner dishes after i made tacos, ron asked if i’d like to join him on a ride over to pacific grove.

as we left, we took ocean road down to the 17-mile drive to catch the sun halfway down the horizon. there were no clouds to accentuate the scene, but it is always a great sight to see the sun set into pacific!

as we drove around lands end, on which p.g. sits, the rising full moon came into view!

and what a view it was!

it was hovering over north monterey and salinas beyond, its reflection shimmering across monterey bay as we made our way around the north side of the peninsula and down to cannery row.

it was such a lovely sight that we parked just above the marina and watched the last of the sailboats catch what little breeze they could in the gathering dusk.

as we watched the moon rise and the hills disappear in the dark, ron enlightened me on a story susie told him about an alleged shopping cult that is hitting all the upscale boutiques in northern california.

apparently, this cult is based out of norcal in some unknown thriving community near the oregon boarder.

i say thriving because: this so-called cult allegedly has no leader and the members just go from boutique to boutique trying to outspend the other. therefore, in order to spend the kind of money it would take to buy some of the merchandise in some of these shops (i was looking at a really lame yellow on yellow plaid – god, i hate plaid – sport coat hanging in susie’s shop with a $3500 price tag on it, wondering who would pay that kind of price, let alone wear the obnoxious thing), the cult members must be independently wealthy.

as spalding said in “swimming to cambodia”: “all of the stories i’m telling you tonight are true. ah, except for one. except that the banana sticks to the wall. that’s it; all the other’s are true!”

or, as ron would, and did say: “you think i make this shit up!”

i guess you have to know susie to really “get” this story.

a few weeks ago, ron and susie went out to eat at the spanish bay club, just around the corner from here. susie ordered chilean sea bass. ron informed susie that it is on the endangered species list. susie’s reply was: “but, it’s already dead so it o.k.”

her grandmother passed away a few months ago and susie inherited, among other things, a mink coat. she’s having it adjusted to fit her, which is going to require the furrier to add a couple of pelts to it. ron suggested that she not say anything about the additions, as there are so many p.e.t.a. members around here who would take exception to the act. susie’s reply: “these things are raised on ranches, so why should they care?”

you think i make this shit up, don’t you?

ron has rented a condominium-villa for late october in newport beach for him, susie, lulu and one of lulu’s mutant friends. susie is insisting that the shitsus go too. but, the villa doesn’t allow pets.

do you think that’s going to stop susie?

She says she’s going to smuggle them into the suite in her luggage, sneak them out and drive a few blocks away so they can “do their business” (certainly they’ll “hold it” out of respect of the villa, being the classy mutts that they are). nobody will hear them as they don’t bark (too much) and the maids won’t know they’re there because the dogs are so quiet (sure they are!) and won’t shit or pee on the floor like they do at the dollhouse because the only reason they shit and pee on the floor at the dollhouse is because the loganator won’t let them out to “do their business.”

right!

i can see that i’ll be running down there to bailout the piss-machines to bring them back up here so the loganator can dogsit between classes, football practice and watching the simpsons.

you think i make this shit up, don’t you?

speaking of the loganator: he’s off of the injured list and played in every offensive play last saturday in their game against solano, which the team won by a score of 54-34. the lobos have only lost one game this season and it looks like they’re on their way to another win as the team they’re playing this saturday is 0-4 for the season.

logan’s birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks. ron wants to get him a new suit. logan wants to go online with ron’s credit card so he can order more simpson action figures.

during the move to the dollhouse, logan used an entire roll of bubble-wrap to protect his simpson action figures; all unboxed for superior presentation as opposed to keeping them in the original boxes for collectable value.

you think i make this shit up, don’t you?

and just so you know: all of the above stories, except for the banana, were suggested blog material by ron!

coffee for dolphins

some uninvited, yet very welcome guests interrupted our morning meeting on the beach this morning: a pod of at least 4 dolphins of unknown species.

what a wonderful sighting this turned out to be!

ron and i were discussing the october newsletter for waj when i noticed a dorsal fin about 300 feet offshore. moments later we could see them spouting and porpoising about 50 feet off of the beach! except for seaworld, this is the closest i’ve ever been to dolphins.

they were, apparently, working over a school of fish as they swam in and out and across the beach.

at one point, 3 of the beautiful creatures surfed a wave into the beach.

i drank my coffee with great enthusiasm as i watched the masters of the ocean swim just feet from where we were parked.

speaking of coffee: if you are not familiar with mike keneally and his band “beer for dolphins”, the title of today’s blog may have slipped by you as just another attempt at me being cute. well, it is a cute title, but with porpoise . . . i mean purpose.

eventually, 3 women walked by and we pointed out the dolphins to them. it turned out that one of them is a professional wildlife photographer who had a camera with a lens on it that could bring in saturn up-close-and-personal. i gave her my email address in the hopes that she might send me a copy or two of the mammalian sea creatures as they corralled their breakfast.

having a great interest in wildlife, i hope to become much more acquainted with diane, as she seemed quite knowledgeable of the various seabirds that passed over as we observed the dolphins.

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i watched my new copy of spalding gray’s monologue “swimming to cambodia” last night. this is the 3rd or 4th copy of this incredible video that i have owned; the first was a copy i recorded from a bravo showing; the second was one dubbed from a vhs tape i rented while living in maine; the third was a vhs copy i bought from ebay a few years ago and is now hidden somewhere at my brother’s.

the clarity of this new dvd is better than i had hoped.

my brother and i were lucky enough to see spuddy perform this, his most famous, monologue in san francisco a couple of years before he died.

i miss spalding almost every day!

it is a high mark for which to reach, but i aspire to be as good and as entertaining as he was at telling stories!