National Lampoon's Miller Family Gathering
Retreating to the Hobbit Hole am I. Yes indeed folks, it's Saturday evening, and I'm at Rainey's, in the midst of a familial sendoff in her honor. It's your typical rural Iowan family get-together, complete with really good food and fairly claustrophobic midwestern conversation. The women have retreated to the kitchen, the men retreated to the TV room; I was there for a while, but got to feeling like I did on the plane to Amsterdam, and decided to retreat and write an online entry. And I get to sit here with Buddy, one of her four cats. He's a big dumb sweetheart, and he's currently up here keeping me company. That's just sweet. In all honesty, this reminds me a lot of my dad's family gatherings, only I'm not connected to them by lineage, and therefore the little quirks and oddities are less endearing. The one interesting thing is, members of both sides of her family are here, Millers and. . . holy shit, I don't know the other folks' last name. Sad, huh. Anyway, that doesn't really happen in my family (besides my folks' wedding, or my senior recital, etc.), so it's interesting to see. Kind of makes me wonder, should this get so far as being a long-lasting relationship, how the members of my family would interact with the immediate members of her family. Scary man.
So, we got the Beck tickets. In fact, we got them Thursday afternoon, two days before they officially went on sale. Since I've contributed to Minnesota Public Radio, and have signed up for their newsletter, I recieved a great tip via email, giving out the password for Ticketmaster's online presale. It started Thursday at 4:00; my buddy Rob and I literally sat at the computer pushing "refresh" over and over until the sale began, and snatched up four tickets the first thing we could. It was excellent; we have floor seats, at an auditorium less than five minutes' walking distance from my place, and we'll be seeing Motherfucking Beck. Talk about yay. (Well, actually, we'll be seeing Beck. Were he to change his name to Motherfucking Beck, there might be some questions raised, although I wouldn't necessarily put it past him. Or at least, I wouldn't have ten years ago.)
Alas, the family has now retreated to the TV room to watch a movie. This might be my cue to join the masses and watch whatever cinematic classic they've selected; even better, this might be our cue to make a break and go hang out with some of her friends tonight. Her friend who goes by the name of Jesse (whether it's really his name or not remains to be seen. . . perhaps he's the elusive Bamboo I've sought for three and a half years now) is having a party in honor of his condo, which he recently purchased because he's pretty damn well-off having been selected by NASA for something. I don't know what it was, I was a little tired when Rainey explained it to me, but what I do know is, whatever the job was, he was NASA's No. 1 pick out of everybody else in the entire United States. That has to count for something. Even if it means he's the guy who puts the little ball in those Guinness bottles. I'd do it, if I were the No. 1 pick.
I'm just going to go now. Tootles, McGee.
So, we got the Beck tickets. In fact, we got them Thursday afternoon, two days before they officially went on sale. Since I've contributed to Minnesota Public Radio, and have signed up for their newsletter, I recieved a great tip via email, giving out the password for Ticketmaster's online presale. It started Thursday at 4:00; my buddy Rob and I literally sat at the computer pushing "refresh" over and over until the sale began, and snatched up four tickets the first thing we could. It was excellent; we have floor seats, at an auditorium less than five minutes' walking distance from my place, and we'll be seeing Motherfucking Beck. Talk about yay. (Well, actually, we'll be seeing Beck. Were he to change his name to Motherfucking Beck, there might be some questions raised, although I wouldn't necessarily put it past him. Or at least, I wouldn't have ten years ago.)
Alas, the family has now retreated to the TV room to watch a movie. This might be my cue to join the masses and watch whatever cinematic classic they've selected; even better, this might be our cue to make a break and go hang out with some of her friends tonight. Her friend who goes by the name of Jesse (whether it's really his name or not remains to be seen. . . perhaps he's the elusive Bamboo I've sought for three and a half years now) is having a party in honor of his condo, which he recently purchased because he's pretty damn well-off having been selected by NASA for something. I don't know what it was, I was a little tired when Rainey explained it to me, but what I do know is, whatever the job was, he was NASA's No. 1 pick out of everybody else in the entire United States. That has to count for something. Even if it means he's the guy who puts the little ball in those Guinness bottles. I'd do it, if I were the No. 1 pick.
I'm just going to go now. Tootles, McGee.