Small Talk

Hello World, Happy September! I hope that your Labor Day weekend was long and relaxing, so you could rest from your labors in the spirit that the holiday was intended, and God bless Samuel L. Gompers. Of course, it is axiomatic that there is no rest for the weary, and if it was up to the merchants, the long weekend would be nothing but a 3-day shopping spree, and no rest periods permitted until every last hard-earned dollar had been wrung from the steely grasp of the brow-beaten working stiffs, leaving behind empty gaping shelves and echoing showrooms picked clean. I doubt the late and lamented Samuel L. Gompers would approve, but it would certainly make the President's economic advisers positively euphoric, proving once again, in spite of what the Holiday Police might want us to believe, that there is no wrong way to celebrate special occasions. Bill and I were both off from our jobs on Monday (HOORAY!!!) but The Flag Brigade was hard at work, running up the colors upstairs and downstairs, gleaming brightly in the morning sun, like the rockets' red glare of lore and legend, great Scott. Unfortunately, the weather became changeable later in the day, and even sprinkling a little, and there was no alternative but to bring the flags back in again, where they would be safe and dry for another illustrious day. And that's not just Betsy Ross whistling Dixie, believe me. If this is September, it must be time for pennant fever, with heart-pounding see-saw races going right down to the wire, and every game is a must-win battle of wills where only the strong survive. Not so fast! With a mere handful of games left in the regular season, what should be pennant races, for the most part are pennant sleep-walks instead, without a hint of surprise or excitement about them. In 4 of the 6 divisions, the first-place team is ahead by at least 6 games, or as many as 14 games on their nearest rival, and woebegone clubs on the bottom of the standings have long since been mathematically eliminated from contention. It's only in the AL West and NL Central that the top two teams are within a single game of each other, and still battling it out for supremacy at the top of their division, when the final out is recorded that signals the end of the line. For everybody else, it's "wait until next year!" and a long winter ahead to plan, reorganize, commiserate, make trades, spend money, have surgery, renegotiate, get in shape, or get out of town. Mudville, that is. On the local scene, alert readers may recall that although we gave up the Escort and paid for the Aveo in early May, it took over 6 weeks of driving a precarious loaner to finally get the car from the dealer, and 4 months later, we still don't have the registration for it. So when they said they wanted the car back temporarily to straighten out some mix-up with the paperwork, and would give us a loaner in the meantime, we figured that would be the last we would ever see of it, and just give it up as a lost cause. So one night they picked up the Aveo and dropped off a shiny white Nissan Versa, which I took to work and back without incident, although it had that same ominous clunking sound and jittery handling of the previous loaner I had gotten from them. Incredibly, they returned the Aveo in a couple of days, after having it cleaned and washed and detailed - which was the incentive that had turned the tide for me, because the car was all full of dirt and twigs from my camping trip, and really needed some sprucing up. It came back looking better than ever, although whatever they used on the upholstery made it smell like a French bordello full of lighter fluid, so I've been driving around with the windows wide open, but I can tell you that if anybody strikes a match, all bets are off. The smell was immediate and impossible to miss, but it took a while to notice that it's also slippery all over, no matter what you touch on the outside, from the top to bottom and front to back, even the windows and door handles. Last week at work, I put my backpack on the hood, as I sometimes do, and it slid right off onto the ground before I could even reach out a hand to stop it. I don't mind saying that I can take a joke as well as the next fellow, but frankly, those French prostitutes laughing it up in the backseat were just too much to bear, zut alors. It was during the time that the cars were being swapped back, that Bill had my car (which I am calling Captain Scarlett in honor of its candy-apple hue) and accidentally set the alarm off, which is apparently a lot easier to do than you would expect for a car that is still safely in the secure hands of its owners, and not being hijacked by juvenile delinquents on a joy ride. Bill did exactly the same thing I did in reverse, when it happened to me on my vacation, and that is that he called me this time, since I previously had this same experience, and he already discovered that the owners manual is no help, thanks not. I recognized the persistent honking of the alarm over the phone, and heard a familiar litany of all the things he had tried, in order to make it stop, all to no avail - and which was in no way news to me, since I had already "been there, done that" as the saying goes. Fortunately, I was able to cast my mind back to that fateful day in July at the campsite, and reconstruct the steps that I took that finally succeeded in resetting the alarm system back to where it was supposed to be in the first place. Bill turned the car over to me later, holding the offending keys away from himself as if with a pair of tongs, and I can't say that I blame him one bit. On the entertainment front, last week we finally got around to watching the DVD of "Captain America" in 3-D, which was interesting on many levels, especially as it tied in with later Marvel Studio features, such as "The Avengers." Unlike contemporary super heroes, the roots of Captain America go back to the World War II era, so that part of story is told in period costumes, intertwining actual historical facts with fictional characters, improvised events, and dramatic fantasies. The narrative pulls you right along and never lags, and it's a bumpy ride with more than enough explosions, crashes, storm troopers, dogfights, and ray guns to satisfy even the most hardcore adrenaline junkies out there. To keep the proceedings from degenerating into cartoonish insignificance, there's the formidable Tommy Lee Jones on hand in a take-no-prisoners performance that demands to be taken seriously. The special effects are all that could be hoped for, although at its heart, this is a tale about real people, and not some supernatural, futuristic fairyland full of aliens and magic. One of the most interesting special effects is the use of computer technology to make hunky Chris Evans look smaller than he actually is, in the opening segments of the film, so that his later transformation to the full-blown super-human upholder of justice has even more impact. In fact, one of my favorite moments is when he teams up with his childhood pal behind enemy lines, and exclaims happily: "I thought you were dead!" To which his somewhat bewildered chum replies, "I thought you were shorter." Of course, nowadays Marvel comics are just a license to print money, and we can look forward to movie sequels of "Thor," "The Avengers," and yes, even "Captain America" later this year, and can "The Incredible Hulk" be far behind? I'd say it's sure-fire, but since I'm driving around in a French bordello full of lighter fluid, fire is about the last thing I want, and the French prostitutes doing the Can-Can in the backseat even less, so please don't light those Crepes Suzettes! Elle