Drinks With Doug

Odd Ends

Thursday's Weather: wet this morning with sprinkles, which the herbs drink up; sunny and most righteous this pm. Can't wait to take STG out for a walk.
Thursday's Drink: I drank too much last night, to my discredit. One glass of Tanq and tonic, and then to seltzer.
Thursday's Link: What?! Boomerangs work in space?!

A little less lofty tone tonight. Back from work, STG fed and walked, the dishes from last night's macaroni & cheese scoured, lists made of what we need for Saturday's Kentucky Derby party. Quiet, save for the sounds of kids on the street here. Whooooo, whaaaaa, "Oh my God, he's doing Great! Eight weeks old on Tuesday!" My little piece of Sesame Street.

Here's something you may not know. I'm told (I don't remember much, if anything, of my childhood) when I was just a boober I wanted to run away and live with Mr. Rogers.

Yeah, Mr. Rogers. He of Pittsburgh and PBS fame. Perhaps this is something we of our generation share; perhaps this is far too intimate a revelation. TV was still something odd and special growing up - certainly as a child. I still was lucky enough to have yards and fields and neighborhood candy stores (Pucksty's!) and a school close enough to walk to (which no longer exists save for Friendster searches.) I remember snow storms and milk delivery and Halloween and the scary lady who lived at the end of the block by my brother S always used to tell me she wasn't scary at all and mostly the smell of leaves. Leaves in the Spring, the Summer and the Fall. My sensory memory.

Anyway, I was just a niblet and, I'm guessing, not terribly happy at home. The whys to that are why I pay a therapist $165 an hour to niff-naw around the issues there. Regardless, I'm told that sometime around 4 or 5 I wanted to run away and live with Mr. Rogers. Apparently I had my mind made up: I was going to pack my bag and go outside (the world will protect me) and hop a bus or something and end up on that street Mr. Rogers lived on - the one us'uns of a certain age all remember: the T-Street, the cars and buses, the celesta banging out the familiar welcome. I don't know what he was to me, but obviously I wanted more of it and was ready to leave mom and dad and brother and Heidi-dog to get it.

I was only dissuaded from my adventure by mom, or so I'm told. By mom. Apparently she tried reasoning with me, which didn't work at all I guessing because what could be more real than TV? In the end, as she tells the story, she told me "...Mr. Rogers isn't real. He's only make-believe." I'm also told at hearing this I cried for a day or more.

Like so much of my youth, I have no memory of this. (That's why I'm in therapy, folks.) But it seems more than plausible. I was a soft child: a goopy, sensitive, emotional thing who as prone to crying or throwing up as to running about and pinching the girls and sharing my building blocks at school. All to the aroma of vegetable soup, which I think they made every day. Still to this day I can't smell vegetable soup without flying back to Paul L. Best Elementary School.

These days my neighborhood is more likely to smell or Ethiopian or Greasiopian or just plain gutter-booze-alkies. But there are trees and lamp-lights at night; little gardens out front and colorful townhouses all 'round. It's really quite cozy. My tiny bit of what I imagined Sesame Street would be...and here it is.

Thursday night and already the bar traffic hoping. Maryland-douches and Virginia-blobs prowling for parking so they can spend LOTS of money at one of my neighborhood trendy bars. (By the way: the bars are douches, too and the waiter hate you and the bartenders water your stupid drinks down, and you're better off saving your money and going to H Street NE.) I hear sirens, again, off to the east it sounds - Howard University area. C is downstairs unwinding. Coffee's made to start at 5am, and the kitchen is more clean than dirty.

I'm very happy with this life.