A Dog, A Burger, Stuffed Sole and the Hippies

Thursday, June 15, 2006We interupt the on-going story for: A dog, a burger, stuffed sole and the hippies Current mood: creative Category: Blogging Figured today I'd take a short respit from detailing a life I lived for so long to bring you another event. Its one that I couldn't make up if I tried...it happened tonight (mostly)...So, my lovely Mary and I are on our way home from a long day at work. It was especially tough for Mary because plans she has are not coming easily (more next week) and art she composed in Photoshop was not saved properly on a CD. She brought this CD to work with her in hopes of being able to get an 11x17 photo collage printed. She discovered though, while at the print shop, that she had never finalized the CD burn, the disk remains open and, therefore, unreadable.Thankfully, our IT guy lives close by, has the program the disk was created in, and sends Mary to his house so he can remote in to his personal machine, close the disk, make it usable and thereby keep Mary on her tight schedule. 2 trips later (Mary initially grabbed the wrong disk from the office) she comes back and says, Joe (Mr. IT), tried and tried but couldn't close the disk. The disk ended up being bad. Mary at this point is nearly in tears. The day ends shortly thereafter and, as mentioned above, we head out and start for home.Conversations we partake in during commutes are always interesting when I'm around. I find the obscure and inane totally entertaining, which typically forces us to have wild conversational topics spew forth in unrelenting fashion. (She's a saint for putting up with me.)So, the conversation transitions into me describing my travel home yesterday without her. I had been but a few miles from my house when I turn onto a local bi-way and merge in behind a white Mercedes Benz, with sun roof. I'm a bit far behind this car to make it out clearly, but with a little push of a trusty pedal catch up to it. What peaked my interest was a 'blob' of sorts that was stuck to the top of the Mercedes. (I'm always up for answering the unanswered, even if the unanswered questions are a overactive and very creative imagination.) As I get closer to this car I realize this 'blob' is not a piece of space junk or horrific leftover from a bad 50's movie, but in fact it's the head of a beautiful grey weimaraner. The dog seems to be perched on the center armrest between the two front seats with its head out the top of the car. The ears are flopping wildly in the 50 mph wind. I imagine they're making a thip thip thip thip sound as the car travels down the road. After a few seconds I'm trying to find a way to grab my trusty digital camera that's in the backseat directly behind me. No luck, damn. The dog seems to be very behaved and not acting uncontrollably at all. It doesn't have its tongue out flitting in the wind dropping slobber all over the white car. It's head is pointed straight, mouth closed, ears continuing to thip thip thip all along the road. The driver then made a small gesture with his hand and down came the dog. It remained standing for a couple seconds and then sat straight upright in the passnger seat. The driver kept his arm across the armrest and continued to pet this very masterful and well behaved beast. A couple minutes go by and suddenly the turn signal starts to blink. As if the dog was also electrically tied into the car, he pops up on all fours, stands on the armrest and props his head into the wind. The dogs ears begin thipping again, and the car makes a turn off the road onto a side street. As I pass by the intersection I catch a glimpse of the master and dog continuing on their way, towards home I would imagine. The dog again removing his head (and thip thip thipping ears) from the wind and taking his place on the passenger seat waiting, with growing anticipation, for yet another turn to come.Burger, stuffed sole and the hippies.After I finish relating this colorful story to Mary we break into the inevitable discussion - what do you want for dinner tonight? Tonights an especially heavy traffic night on the Southern State. We find, 30 minutes later, what caused the delays as we pass the remnants of police and tow activity at the site of a car crash. (Damn, I think. Another crash got passed me.) Now I must say, I love traffic. When I say I love traffic, I mean I LOVE traffic. I can't do without it in my life. It's my sustinance, my air, my water. I mean, what do other people do who aren't sitting in traffic? I don't get it. Everyone should be as lucky as me and avail themselves to sit in endless, hours long, traffic each and every day of their life. People can't have anything better to do with their time than sitting in traffic, can they? (Obviously my passion for traffic is driving me nuts. I believe I am the antithesis of traffic. I loathe traffic, in all its forms - sunshine traffic, rubber-necking traffic, sympathy traffic (you know, the type of traffic created in the HOV lanes, where the lone - and typically smallest - car has sympathy for everyone else who can't drive in the HOV lane, and as such needs to drive at the same speed, start and stop, along with the single occupancy brethren 5 feet away.... love those people) hill traffic, flashy emergency lights traffic, broke down traffic, ran out of gas traffic, kid puking on the side of the road traffic, rainbow siting traffic, rain, mist, snow, hail, blowing leaf traffic. Traffic of all sorts. I've made, and buried, my point.) So, my blood pressure now elevated about 3000% from traffic and not having the inkling to stay on the road any longer than I need to, I decide we'll eat at home. I move to the right lane, slow down a bit and move through the continuing merge passing the Sunken Meadow pkwy exit, and head towards Hecksher Park and Sunrise Hwy. As I get to Sunrise, what do I find clogging that roadway? More traffic. Aren't I a happy fellow. I merge onto Sunrise and then figure I'll take the 2nd exit and get on the service road passing the Toyota dealership. Hey, this is moving pretty quick. I get back onto Sunrise near the 7-11 in Oakdale, stay on the on/off ramp and get back on the service road, thereby by-passing the traffic light and a whole bunch of stopped cars on Sunrise. I make it through the next light without stopping (this is cool), and then get back onto Sunrise at the carwash, where luckily I find.....the traffic has let up... wow. This is very fortuitous. Thereafter its a cruise all the way towards home. I'm feeling better. A tap on the brakes near 112 and then keep going, full speed ahead. I'm feeling fine again. My blood pressure is down, my anxiety level has subsided, I'm one with the world. At Peace, in total harmony with my surroundings. I'm happy. I decide (because Mary didn't make a definative dinner decision she only offered more choices) that we'll eat at the Royal Oak diner tonight. Bop off sunrise at Hospital Rd and we're there. We walk in and the place is empty. I mean 6 out of 45 tables are taken. Hmm. what's up with this. (Turns out business is down sharply because of all the other new restaurants opening in our neck of the woods.) Anyway, we're here to eat and the lesser people mean faster food.Get a table, sit down and figure our order. Mary - burger (what's new). Me stuffed sole. The waitress is nice, but a bit young. She takes our order and leaves.In walks a mother and three kids (I'd guess 2-1/2, 3-1/2 and 5). I hear her ask the host for a table 'far removed from other patrons.' Where do they put her? 2 tables away. Go figure. (This doesn't look to be shaping up like anything good.). 2 high chairs later, the young mother and 3 kids out to the diner for dinner are seated and a bit noisy. I like kids, get along with them, so its no biggie. Having disorderly kids (sometimes, not all the time, is a part of parenting) As long as they don't START the food fight, I'm okay.My salad comes. Out of the corner of my eye I see a man and woman walk in following the host. Okay, nothing out of the ordinary, just a couple of cool cats dressed in tie dye and sandals. They're being shown my way. I don't pick my head up enough to take in the entire situation. I'm reading an engrossing story in this weeks Dan's Papers. Its a story relating a third hand experience involving a 1990 George Plimpton, at a fundraiser in Montauk, who's waxing rhapsodic on a true tale about a guy in the early 80's (following?) who ties a bunch of helium ballons (the weather type) to a folding lawn chair, and begins to fly into the air. If you get a chance to read it, definatly do, while not the best and a bit scattered, its an interesting story. I'll try to scan and post it here shortly.Having finished the story, Mary and I start talking about the woman embezzler from LI who turned in her boyfriend (I read between the lines as 'ex' boyfriend) who purchased a bunch of US Marshall paraphernalia and was posing as a marshall. He was subsequently arrested (and so was she). As the conversation was getting interesting, I look over and see a table full of hippies. I nearly choked (food actually fell out of my mouth).It was a gaggle. 7 in total. 3 men and 4 women. Seated along the wall were the three men - end guy was a balding thin man in his late fifties, very statuesque. He was wearing a blue tie dye shirt, black hemp pants and open toed sandals. Next to him was an older gentleman, probably in his late sixties/seventies, glasses, full head of grey hair, yellow tie dye shirt,couldn't see what he was wearing for pants but did see the shoes were again, sandals. That's when I noticed everyone was wearing sandals. Next to him was another late 50ish man, full head of black hair, glasses, formalized throw back pressed shirt of wild design, black parachute pants, sandals. Across from the men were the women. On the right end was a woman looked to be 60 with slightly greying hair, airy very light chiffon looking ribbon tied around her head. She was wearing a flowing and floor length period (60's) hemp dress. She also had a colorful riboon tied about her waist. Next to her were three similarly clad woman, with varying degress of tie dye coloring in their dresses. Each though not wearing a similar color to the others. I got the impression the women had either set this dinner up or at least spoken about what they were wearing so as not to clash (if that could be said about tie dye).If a picture could have been taken and cropped, you'd never have imagined that this wasn't taken in the late 60's...........more later.....