a bad day driving

I met my friend Jill for coffee this morning a little after ten o'clock. We talked until almost one. Regis is always amazed that we can gab for so long and wonders what women talk about for hours. He told Tom once that I wanted to know if men talk about their feelings when they get together. Tom said, "Yeah, I feel like having a beer."

I was going to stop at two music stores to hang signs on their bulletin boards about my for sale piano. I didn't have any trouble with the first one but the second one was on a frontage road bordering Highway 14 where they were doing some road work. I got into the right lane but they had dug a big trench down the center of the road so there was no going back, no turning right, and no getting into the music store so I went on up the hill. It gets better...keep reading.

I stopped to ask a road worker how in blazes I would get out of there. He pointed and gave a long-winded explanation that I knew I wouldn't be able to follow but I thanked him and on I went. Road construction workers give some real disgusted looks when you get in the way of their diggers and scoopers, let me tell you.

I ended up somewhere behind Loyola High School and the nun's place. I couldn't find a way out and kept hitting dead ends, and of all things, the nun cemetery. Dead end...nun cemetery...get it? It was like a bad science fiction movie. I didn't see a person (a soul) but there were lots of cars so I knew people had driven there and therefore, there had to be a way out.

I think I have figured out how the Catholics increase their fold: trapping Lutherans with the old road construction ruse. I was desperate and ready to do anything, conversion included, when I found a tiny road down a steep hill that led to the Thompson Ravine Road. Whew. To hell with the piano.

We're watching No Country for Old Men. What I'm doing is not exactly watching, as I peered through my fingers for most of what I saw in the first five minutes, then left the couch and moved across the room. I don't like to see this ugly side of humanity. Unless the sounds get worse, I'll watch it from here. Those Coen brothers have some weird shit in their heads.

The sounds are bad: gagging, retching, broken glass, gun shots, squealing tires, heavy breathing. My 4th of July chicken is on the table so when I look at the television, I bend down a little so the chicken's head on the tv screen. I recommend it.

There have been some great stories in the paper lately. One about a week ago included a picture of a couple in their 80's posed in an old wooden canoe. They had a wind-up record player on one of the seats that he had used to court her when they were young. I can't copy the photo because it's in Flash but you can try to see it here: WOODEN CANOE.

The story today that caught my eye was about a 74-year old man from Fergus Falls who caught a 46-pound muskie in a river. He said it was the fish of a lifetime. Here's his picture and here's the story. That's my kind of news and that's some fish.