This All Happened Saturday

First thing this afternoon I walked out to my car, all set to go to the gym (had ponytails in and everything) and saw that my back right tire was about flat.

Damn.

Except that I figured by the time I got the tire plugged I'd be too hungry to work out so then I'd get to eat lunch. Jackpot!

Stuck in the tire was a big silver screw that'd I'd picked up somewhere, so I drove the Blue Angel over to Art Miller's, who told me to drive it down to Tom's Tire Service on Stanley Avenue.

While the Blue Angel waited her turn, I walked over to the Starbucks on Columbia Parkway, where Blow-Dried Guy is always working. His hair looks like he just got it did at the beauty salon. It's highlighted, blow-dried up and sprayed. Very strange looking.

"What are you up to today," he asked.

"I'm getting my tire plugged over at Tom's Tire Service. He said it'd be a few minutes," I told him.

"That place is weird."

"Oh yeah. How so," I asked.

"It's really politically incorrect."

"How?"

"He has, like, calendars up, not like Playboy, but like girls in bikinis and stuff," Blow-Dried said.

"Well, it is a shop. He is a mechanic. In fact, I'd be kinda suspicious if he didn't have that up. It's not like Tire Discounters."

"Yeah. He can plug your tire, though."

"Yep. That's all I need him to do," I said.

When I went back I made a point to look around for half-naked calendar girls. Mostly there were just pictures of people's kids stuck to the walls and corkboard. But there was one picture of a Ben-Gal sexing it up and another of a mostly naked woman just standing there. Nothing I hadn't seen before.

Picked up the Blue Angel and decided lunch was in order, so my Tall Drink of Water and I went over to Moe's in Newport. (Even though that's the crappy Moe's. Everybody knows the Moe's in Crestview Hills is way better, but we were hungry.)

After we ate we went over to Barnes and Noble and all be damned if Rocco wasn't there doing his book signing. Hilarious! TDW and I scurried to the top of the escalator so we could spy on him. Mostly he harrassed people as they came in and then sucked them into having 10 minute long conversations with him. How painful for them.

Sample Conversation:

"Hey Rocco, I'd like to work out my abs. Got any exercise suggestions?"

"Um yeah, fat ass. Uh, get off your ass and stop eating donuts and exercise."

"Wow. Thanks Rocco. You must be a fitness expert."

I tried to get some photos of him in action, but my camera phone doesn't zoom well and I didn't want to get too close. Know what I'm sayin'? This was the best I could do while laying low.

In other odd news from the day, I'm finding bruises and sore spots from morning my at Christ Hospital yesterday.

There's a hole in my cheek where I must have bit the inside of my mouth at one point. And there's a nice little bruise on the top of my hand from where the IV was pulled out and the nurse didn't put enough pressure on the vein. (It causes bruising when they don't.) And my nose is sore to the touch, probably from the mask they had strapped to my face, not to mention the bruise marks under my chin and on my throat. God knows what that's from.

I also got a postcard from my friend Aaron today, who is in Iceland, which was such a pleasant surprise. Except I can read only about half of it. His handwriting and the inky pen he used doesn't translate well. At the end of the postcard it says "Wish you were here... Think of all the fun we'd have making fun of _______" together.

I can't read the last word. It looks like Germans, but that doesn't make any sense. And he'll have probably forgotten by the time I talk to him again in November.

Kind of a strange day.