My Memorial Day Week

On Sunday, we went to my aunt and uncle’s for a barbecue. It was a beautiful day and the baby birds, eager to see it, were peeking out of the birdhouse. I found out that one of my cousins is getting married this June. Given how difficult it is for gay men to marry in this country, it amuses me that he’s getting married before me. I wonder what else will happen before I get married. Pigs learning to fly? Hell freezing over? President Bush admitting he was wrong and asking the scientists of the world to work together in developing a time machine so he can go back and undo all the damage he’s caused? Hmm. All three of those occurrences would be interesting, possibly also good, and yet I hope I get married first!

On Monday, which was Memorial Day, I didn’t do much of anything. It’s good to sit back and do nothing sometimes, so I make no apologies even though I feel slightly guilty about not commemorating our war dead. You wouldn’t be able to tell, because the text looks uninterupted, but I just devoted a moment of silence to them.

On Tuesday, which was discount day at the local movie theater, we went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. —<spoiler alert>—It was fun for a while. I liked the way they introduced the fedora first, followed by Jones’s shadow, then finally the man himself. That’s good, old-fashioned moviemaking. As the movie progressed, the whole Erich von Däniken thing started to get annoying (Von Däniken wrote a book called Chariots of the Gods? in which he theorized that aliens visited ancient cultures such as the Egyptians and ancient Peruvians). Having heard those theories before, there were no revelations for me in this movie. I knew the characters were headed for the Nazca Lines before Dr. Jones did! The movie was predictable throughout and the ending was silly, but I was nevertheless glad to see Indiana Jones back in action again.

On Wednesday, Z (our cat) followed me out onto the deck while I was watering my bonsai. We live on the second floor and since I thought there was no way for her to get to the ground, I didn’t worry about her being there. I guess I should have. The foolish kitty fell victim to her curiosity. Well, she fell, anyway. One minute she was on the deck, the next she was on the ground, meowing pathetically. I took her to the vet’s office where X-rays revealed that she had broken a toe. They wrapped up her paw in a splint and gave me one of those silly funnel-shaped collars to put around her head. She should consider herself lucky not to be hurt worse. It was a long fall and there was nothing to land on but blacktop and concrete.

Now she is the image of ridiculousness as she walks like a pirate on her little purple peg-leg (thump, thump), but at least she has been spared the collar. After watching her inadvertently scoop up dirty litter with it (after inadvertently wetting it in her water bowl), I decided she was better off without it. The vet says it will take 4-6 weeks for the bone to heal. I hope she can leave the splint alone for that long.

On Wednesday night, I bought my first 100 shares of stock. The company that I bought has been hurt by the subprime mortgage crisis and is consequently dirt-cheap right now. Buying it was like a spin of the roulette wheel. Will my long-shot investment end as disastrously as Z’s outdoor adventure?

On Thursday, I watched my stock go up and down all day. When you buy 100 shares of a stock, a one-cent change in the price is equal to a dollar. I never took such delight in a penny before. By the end of the day, I was up by 30 bucks!

On Friday, I went to CT. It was a long day and my stock went down. I barely had the energy to drive up to Wallingford to have dinner with my friend, but dinner was decent and the conversation was excellent and before I knew it, it was almost 11:00. Uh-oh. And I still had a two-hour drive ahead of me! I don’t know how I managed it.

On Saturday, which is today, I blogged. Obviously!

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