Monday, January 19, 2004
Welcome To The Oughties
...
Welcome To The Oughties
it was Sunday. January 18, 2004.
4 years in. 4 years in to The Oughties.
if it was a Sunday about twenty years ago, i would have been at my grandmother's house getting ready to eat pasta with the whole family.
my grandfather's brother would be there, always good for some engaging stories and many laughs.
my father's brother would always be there, too. and probably so would my uncle's latest hot girlfriend.
my girlfriend would be there, too. and on rare ocassions, one of my best friends would join us.
my sister, her kids (and once in a great while, even her usually-too-busy workaholic husband) would be there. their kids likely goo-ing and gaa-ing the rest of us into silly amazement.
and every other couple Sundays or so, other assorted friends of the family would have popped in to join the weekly feast.
some would do so weekly, sometimes for months at a time.
but one constant would be my grandfather, sitting on the living room couch with his two or three radios going (and the televison tuned to one of the other live-broadcasted games of the week). and at some point during the visit he'd be involved in some sort of Sicilian argument about the value of various sports' statistics and what to do with them. (arguing with my father and/or one or both of my uncles).
my grandfather's brother, my great uncle, always seemed to have the best sense of humor about it all. with his trademarked mini-cigar just barely lit.
meanwhile, my mother blissfully ignored all the usual comical bickering while helping my grandmother get dinner ready.
this was a tradition that had been going on for decades.
long before i was born, i would think. perhaps centuries.
the dining room was a very functional room.
multi-functional, actually.
it's where we all finally assembled and ate.
and shared experiences. and laughed.
...
so anyway, getting back to yesterday afternoon.
getting back to The Oughties.
there i was, standing there in the hallway... in such a way as to be able to look inside several different rooms at the same time.
my children were there, and so were my parents.
however, my younger sister, her nearly adult children, and her new boyfriend (who all live within easy driving distance), were not in attendance, as usual. (not for any reason of malice, mind you. it's just somehow become part of the new routine).
my grandfather and his brother have been dead for what seems like six or seven years now.
my father's brother? he's married now, but that's not why he wasn't there on Sunday.
years ago, there had been one argument too many.
...
anyway, standing in the hallway, when i looked to one side, through the open door, i could see my mother in the spare bedroom, her face facing a computer screen, her back facing me.
she sat in the swivel chair, facing directly west.
and then i turned my head to the other side of the hallway (without having to stretch my neck at all), and looking through a similarly open door, i could see my father in his bedroom, his face facing a computer screen, his back also facing me.
in a former living-room chair, he was facing directly east.
both of their backs faced the hallway (where i was standing in front of both doors).
...
suddenly, i heard my mother giggle (followed by the sound of her typing).
almost simultaneously, my father said "Shit!" outloud.
and then i heard him start typing. and laughing.
i thought to myself, "what a funny coincidence."
ironically, it turns out that they both happened to be playing online games.
actually, even more ironically, it turns out that they both happened to be playing online internet card games.
but even MORE ironically, it turns out that they were both playing gin rummy. against eachother.
this amused me rather profoundly. so i started commenting outloud about how all of this looked from where i was standing. in the hallway.
see, on top of everything else, earlier my father had asked me how he might be able to configure his system so he could go online without tieing up the phoneline.
heh.
we wouldn't want anyone to NOT be able to get through to us, now, would we? *
particularly since we all have our very own cellular phones.
* this ironic statement will become more understandable as the story goes on.
...
anyway, as i tried to get both their attentions with my description of this ironic scene (while never moving from the position i was holding, standing in the hallway outside both rooms) i happened to look straight ahead down the hallway and saw my son sitting in the living room.
as it happens, his back was also facing me.
and likewise, his face facing a large tv screen of video animations which he was shooting at with his video game controller.
sitting in a new lounger. he was facing directly north.
so i raised my voice a bit, "hey, kiddo, are you paying attention to what i'm saying here?!"
he said, "No." to indicate that he was.
in fact, he answered before i ever finished my question.
he shares my sense of humor somewhat.
actually, i was kind of surprised that he heard me above the "cool" "surround sounds" of the video game. but not really, he's always paying attention to me. i think he's hoping that someday i'll make some sort of sense. poor kid.
anyway, myself, still marveling at the visual of what this all would look like from an imagined sky view (everyone's back facing eachother's, staring into video screens, separated into partitioned rooms), i headed to the empty kitchen to get a couple decks of playing cards.
there were several old decks in the drawer of the cabinet which faced the empty dining room.
i walked into my mother's isolated cubicle first.
once she sorta realized that there was another live human being in the room with her, she asked me to go sneak a look at my father's gin hand for fun. i declined while laughing.
i told her that, if she really wanted, i could rig up the tv (which is right next to her computer screen) so that she could monitor his cards, LIVE, while he was playing against her. we bothed laughed at that thought. my father tends to use interesting curse words whenever he loses a hand. he just can't get over that he's lost. but my mother continued laughing after i had stopped, apparently seriously expecting me to start wiring it all up.
then i said, "ma, here's a gift." and extended her a deck of cards.
that got her attention for a split second.
she looked at the deck for a moment and then immediately refocused back to her monitor while whispering, "shit, i accidently threw away my queen of diamonds instead of knocking! damned mouse. and it's broken up the lay in my hand. now i'm stuck with a useless jack and king of diamonds."
but somehow, her mistake ended up being advantageous, because my father picked up her queen of diamonds, and his very next (internet) discard gave her gin.
i could just barely hear pissed ramblings from the other room, so i went in there to give my father HIS gift.
"dad, here's a gift."
as he momentarily held the deck of cards in his hands, he looked up at me (sincerely bewildered) and said, "what am i gonna do with THAT?"
then he immediately refocused back on his internet screen.
it was then that i insisted that my son swap places with me in the hallway.
"ok. ok. ok. just wait until i finish this board."
i reminded him about the pause feature and then i showed him exactly where to stand in the hallway.
once he was properly positioned, i headed for the lounge chair in the living room. i sat down, mimicking his slouching, mostly-motionless body, just as it behaves when he's playing those useless games.
anyway, i gave him a little time to scan the whole scene. and when i heard him laughing hard enough, i got up and went to the hallway to share the rest of the experience with him.
because i knew he couldn't possibly have heard what had happened when i was in their respective rooms, i told him what my father had said when i had handed him his gift of the deck of cards.
"and your grandfather said: 'what am i going to do with THAT?'"
my son said, "no way."
i said, "yep."
he knew i wasn't kidding by then.
my son broke out into even deeper laughter.
and i said, "so, what do you think of THAT?"
well, that's when my son made me proud. he didn't say a thing. he just quietly moved towards each room and slowly closed both of their doors.
and we had the laugh of a lifetime.
anyway, he soon went back to the living room and unpaused his video game.
and me? i went into yet another room and sat down, facing exactly south, and started typing up the keywords of this story.
and as i did, i imagined the skyview of all of this.
there we all were. it looked like a giant mouse maze.
with each of us lab rats in a different part of the maze.
each facing a totally different direction.
everyone's back to eachother's.
one facing west, one facing east, one facing north, and one facing south.
each perched satisfyingly in their mouse-trapped chairs.
each clawing at the flickering images of cheese coming out of the monitors we each faced.
(using our mouse-pointers to claw at these flickering pies of cheese, of course).
meanwhile, the rushed-but-still-delicious buffet-styled Italian-American dinner's aroma made it's way through the maze to all of the rooms. past all the noses of all the lab rats.
the dinner sat there, mostly-uneaten, in the empty kitchen/dining-room -- next to a pile of paper dishes and quickly-piled silverware and napkins.
...
and now, here YOU are, your face facing a monitor (or two), reading this blog submission, facing north, or perhaps south, or east or west, or where-ever.
with your back turned to your family and/or friends.
and you're probably finding all of this somewhat amusing.
convincing yourself that you don't really "overdo it."
...
earlier in the week, because my mother was afraid of the icy roads, i was called upon to drive my grandmother to the doctor.
and when we got into the examination room, the doctor asked her, "so, how are you?"
he had to ask a few times. and she finally replied...
"i can't see very well anymore, and my hearing is real bad. i wish God would just take me."
which made me feel like shit.
i mean, here i am, mister funny.
mister creative-genius.
...
and still, when i drove her home and helped her to her couch (knowing that i had to leave within fifteen minutes to go work on some pressing project or another), i asked her, "do you want me to turn on the tv?"
she said, "no."
and not the radio either. and she didn't want to read the paper. nor a book.
she said she just wanted to sit there.
we talked for awhile, but it was kinda strained.
some creative-genius i was.
the generation gap had been thoroughly forged.
by time... and amusing gadgets.
The Oughties had made their mark.
the question now is, will i ever be smart enough to do what i ought to do?
The Oughties had made their challenge.
i really ought to stop goofing off so much.
there's way too many silly distractions.
and not nearly enough silliness.
anyway, Sunday had one more surprise. a color-penciled drawing that my daughter had made on Saturday which i stumbled upon in the living room on my way back to talk to my son in the hallway. it was a colorful drawing of the jack of hearts.
and Sunday night, my parents, after finally tearing themselves away from their cubicles, drove over to my grandmother's in their separate vehicles, to bring her dinner. as they always do. and, unfortunately, as has become the custom, my kids and i didn't join them.
The Oughties had definitely made their challenge.
-$Zero... ThankYouForReading...
ThisFreeBlog... (PunchlinesAreExtra)...
care to comment?
Welcome To The Oughties
it was Sunday. January 18, 2004.
4 years in. 4 years in to The Oughties.
if it was a Sunday about twenty years ago, i would have been at my grandmother's house getting ready to eat pasta with the whole family.
my grandfather's brother would be there, always good for some engaging stories and many laughs.
my father's brother would always be there, too. and probably so would my uncle's latest hot girlfriend.
my girlfriend would be there, too. and on rare ocassions, one of my best friends would join us.
my sister, her kids (and once in a great while, even her usually-too-busy workaholic husband) would be there. their kids likely goo-ing and gaa-ing the rest of us into silly amazement.
and every other couple Sundays or so, other assorted friends of the family would have popped in to join the weekly feast.
some would do so weekly, sometimes for months at a time.
but one constant would be my grandfather, sitting on the living room couch with his two or three radios going (and the televison tuned to one of the other live-broadcasted games of the week). and at some point during the visit he'd be involved in some sort of Sicilian argument about the value of various sports' statistics and what to do with them. (arguing with my father and/or one or both of my uncles).
my grandfather's brother, my great uncle, always seemed to have the best sense of humor about it all. with his trademarked mini-cigar just barely lit.
meanwhile, my mother blissfully ignored all the usual comical bickering while helping my grandmother get dinner ready.
this was a tradition that had been going on for decades.
long before i was born, i would think. perhaps centuries.
the dining room was a very functional room.
multi-functional, actually.
it's where we all finally assembled and ate.
and shared experiences. and laughed.
...
so anyway, getting back to yesterday afternoon.
getting back to The Oughties.
there i was, standing there in the hallway... in such a way as to be able to look inside several different rooms at the same time.
my children were there, and so were my parents.
however, my younger sister, her nearly adult children, and her new boyfriend (who all live within easy driving distance), were not in attendance, as usual. (not for any reason of malice, mind you. it's just somehow become part of the new routine).
my grandfather and his brother have been dead for what seems like six or seven years now.
my father's brother? he's married now, but that's not why he wasn't there on Sunday.
years ago, there had been one argument too many.
...
anyway, standing in the hallway, when i looked to one side, through the open door, i could see my mother in the spare bedroom, her face facing a computer screen, her back facing me.
she sat in the swivel chair, facing directly west.
and then i turned my head to the other side of the hallway (without having to stretch my neck at all), and looking through a similarly open door, i could see my father in his bedroom, his face facing a computer screen, his back also facing me.
in a former living-room chair, he was facing directly east.
both of their backs faced the hallway (where i was standing in front of both doors).
...
suddenly, i heard my mother giggle (followed by the sound of her typing).
almost simultaneously, my father said "Shit!" outloud.
and then i heard him start typing. and laughing.
i thought to myself, "what a funny coincidence."
ironically, it turns out that they both happened to be playing online games.
actually, even more ironically, it turns out that they both happened to be playing online internet card games.
but even MORE ironically, it turns out that they were both playing gin rummy. against eachother.
this amused me rather profoundly. so i started commenting outloud about how all of this looked from where i was standing. in the hallway.
see, on top of everything else, earlier my father had asked me how he might be able to configure his system so he could go online without tieing up the phoneline.
heh.
we wouldn't want anyone to NOT be able to get through to us, now, would we? *
particularly since we all have our very own cellular phones.
* this ironic statement will become more understandable as the story goes on.
...
anyway, as i tried to get both their attentions with my description of this ironic scene (while never moving from the position i was holding, standing in the hallway outside both rooms) i happened to look straight ahead down the hallway and saw my son sitting in the living room.
as it happens, his back was also facing me.
and likewise, his face facing a large tv screen of video animations which he was shooting at with his video game controller.
sitting in a new lounger. he was facing directly north.
so i raised my voice a bit, "hey, kiddo, are you paying attention to what i'm saying here?!"
he said, "No." to indicate that he was.
in fact, he answered before i ever finished my question.
he shares my sense of humor somewhat.
actually, i was kind of surprised that he heard me above the "cool" "surround sounds" of the video game. but not really, he's always paying attention to me. i think he's hoping that someday i'll make some sort of sense. poor kid.
anyway, myself, still marveling at the visual of what this all would look like from an imagined sky view (everyone's back facing eachother's, staring into video screens, separated into partitioned rooms), i headed to the empty kitchen to get a couple decks of playing cards.
there were several old decks in the drawer of the cabinet which faced the empty dining room.
i walked into my mother's isolated cubicle first.
once she sorta realized that there was another live human being in the room with her, she asked me to go sneak a look at my father's gin hand for fun. i declined while laughing.
i told her that, if she really wanted, i could rig up the tv (which is right next to her computer screen) so that she could monitor his cards, LIVE, while he was playing against her. we bothed laughed at that thought. my father tends to use interesting curse words whenever he loses a hand. he just can't get over that he's lost. but my mother continued laughing after i had stopped, apparently seriously expecting me to start wiring it all up.
then i said, "ma, here's a gift." and extended her a deck of cards.
that got her attention for a split second.
she looked at the deck for a moment and then immediately refocused back to her monitor while whispering, "shit, i accidently threw away my queen of diamonds instead of knocking! damned mouse. and it's broken up the lay in my hand. now i'm stuck with a useless jack and king of diamonds."
but somehow, her mistake ended up being advantageous, because my father picked up her queen of diamonds, and his very next (internet) discard gave her gin.
i could just barely hear pissed ramblings from the other room, so i went in there to give my father HIS gift.
"dad, here's a gift."
as he momentarily held the deck of cards in his hands, he looked up at me (sincerely bewildered) and said, "what am i gonna do with THAT?"
then he immediately refocused back on his internet screen.
it was then that i insisted that my son swap places with me in the hallway.
"ok. ok. ok. just wait until i finish this board."
i reminded him about the pause feature and then i showed him exactly where to stand in the hallway.
once he was properly positioned, i headed for the lounge chair in the living room. i sat down, mimicking his slouching, mostly-motionless body, just as it behaves when he's playing those useless games.
anyway, i gave him a little time to scan the whole scene. and when i heard him laughing hard enough, i got up and went to the hallway to share the rest of the experience with him.
because i knew he couldn't possibly have heard what had happened when i was in their respective rooms, i told him what my father had said when i had handed him his gift of the deck of cards.
"and your grandfather said: 'what am i going to do with THAT?'"
my son said, "no way."
i said, "yep."
he knew i wasn't kidding by then.
my son broke out into even deeper laughter.
and i said, "so, what do you think of THAT?"
well, that's when my son made me proud. he didn't say a thing. he just quietly moved towards each room and slowly closed both of their doors.
and we had the laugh of a lifetime.
anyway, he soon went back to the living room and unpaused his video game.
and me? i went into yet another room and sat down, facing exactly south, and started typing up the keywords of this story.
and as i did, i imagined the skyview of all of this.
there we all were. it looked like a giant mouse maze.
with each of us lab rats in a different part of the maze.
each facing a totally different direction.
everyone's back to eachother's.
one facing west, one facing east, one facing north, and one facing south.
each perched satisfyingly in their mouse-trapped chairs.
each clawing at the flickering images of cheese coming out of the monitors we each faced.
(using our mouse-pointers to claw at these flickering pies of cheese, of course).
meanwhile, the rushed-but-still-delicious buffet-styled Italian-American dinner's aroma made it's way through the maze to all of the rooms. past all the noses of all the lab rats.
the dinner sat there, mostly-uneaten, in the empty kitchen/dining-room -- next to a pile of paper dishes and quickly-piled silverware and napkins.
...
and now, here YOU are, your face facing a monitor (or two), reading this blog submission, facing north, or perhaps south, or east or west, or where-ever.
with your back turned to your family and/or friends.
and you're probably finding all of this somewhat amusing.
convincing yourself that you don't really "overdo it."
...
earlier in the week, because my mother was afraid of the icy roads, i was called upon to drive my grandmother to the doctor.
and when we got into the examination room, the doctor asked her, "so, how are you?"
he had to ask a few times. and she finally replied...
"i can't see very well anymore, and my hearing is real bad. i wish God would just take me."
which made me feel like shit.
i mean, here i am, mister funny.
mister creative-genius.
...
and still, when i drove her home and helped her to her couch (knowing that i had to leave within fifteen minutes to go work on some pressing project or another), i asked her, "do you want me to turn on the tv?"
she said, "no."
and not the radio either. and she didn't want to read the paper. nor a book.
she said she just wanted to sit there.
we talked for awhile, but it was kinda strained.
some creative-genius i was.
the generation gap had been thoroughly forged.
by time... and amusing gadgets.
The Oughties had made their mark.
the question now is, will i ever be smart enough to do what i ought to do?
The Oughties had made their challenge.
i really ought to stop goofing off so much.
there's way too many silly distractions.
and not nearly enough silliness.
anyway, Sunday had one more surprise. a color-penciled drawing that my daughter had made on Saturday which i stumbled upon in the living room on my way back to talk to my son in the hallway. it was a colorful drawing of the jack of hearts.
and Sunday night, my parents, after finally tearing themselves away from their cubicles, drove over to my grandmother's in their separate vehicles, to bring her dinner. as they always do. and, unfortunately, as has become the custom, my kids and i didn't join them.
The Oughties had definitely made their challenge.
-$Zero... ThankYouForReading...
ThisFreeBlog... (PunchlinesAreExtra)...
care to comment?
Welcome To The Oughties
...
Welcome To The Oughties
this particular blog entry is going to be about The Oughties.
it's gonna tell the story of what happened to me on Sunday and how funny it all was. it involves the internet, a colorful hand-drawn picture, a friendly family get together before Sunday dinner, two decks of cards given as gifts, a card game (gin rummy), and how thoroughly ironic modern society is evolving during The Oughties.
but i'm too tired to flesh it all out right now. i need some sleep. it's too good of a story to rush it through. check again later to see if i've posted it yet.
-$Zero... ThankYouForReading...
ThisFreeBlog... (PunchlinesAreExtra)...
Welcome To The Oughties
this particular blog entry is going to be about The Oughties.
it's gonna tell the story of what happened to me on Sunday and how funny it all was. it involves the internet, a colorful hand-drawn picture, a friendly family get together before Sunday dinner, two decks of cards given as gifts, a card game (gin rummy), and how thoroughly ironic modern society is evolving during The Oughties.
but i'm too tired to flesh it all out right now. i need some sleep. it's too good of a story to rush it through. check again later to see if i've posted it yet.
-$Zero... ThankYouForReading...
ThisFreeBlog... (PunchlinesAreExtra)...
