Watermelon Shoes: Can I tell you 2 Secrets?

First, this is a repost from 2010 but I think about this guy frequently.

Secondly, I obsessively read obituaries.

I've done this since I learned how to read. I stopped reading them for a while after my Uncle Steve died unexpectedly because I was chicken. Now I'm back to reading them and thinking about what a gift every darned day is.

So there I was, reading the obituaries on Saturday night, in the New York Times. (I am so Tim's dream girl!)The Saturday death notices are easier to tackle and I can read them with less "short attention span theatre" in my brain. At the end of the section was an obituary that commanded me to get up and do something IMMEDIATELY. That's  a new one- when have you been commanded by a recently passed away person to get up and do something- do not pass go- do not collect $200 just go do it right that very minute. 

The direction? Google "Watermelon Shoes." Fine, I'll google Watermelon shoes.

The first article that pops up is a NYC blog from May, 2009 about a cool old guy from Manhattan that wears shoes decorated like two watermelon slices. Eccentric, yes, but here's the best part, he only wore them 13 times a year.

Tim said, "Maybe he should have bought more than one pair and he could wear them as much as he wanted."

I guess, but that's not the point. He savored his watermelon shoes and wore them only on very obscure days that meant only something to him.  The last sighting of the shoes appears to have been some time in August of this year.

Riveted I plastered the instruction"Google Watermelon Shoes" on my facebook page. Not many people saw it or, knew quite what to do with it. I am strange like that. My friend Dan wrote back and asked "what would your 13 days be?"

In my tracks I stopped cold. I have no idea. Boxing day? My birthday? Or something pedestrian like Thanksgiving or maybe historic like April 14th when Lincoln was shot.   Or is every day special enough for watermelon shoes?

Got to get me some of those shoes.

The Watermelon Shoe guy just died of a massive heart attack. He was so proud of his shoes and the blog about him that he commanded everyone he met to "Google Watermelon Shoes."

Do it. Now.

Love from me and mine to you and yours.

The Boast & the Cocktail Toast

I don't enjoy tall tales.

Paul Bunyan makes me nervous because he's got the ax and the blueness of his ox must be an optical illusion.

Stumbling across Mr Bunyan at a cocktail party would result in all sorts of problems, especially if he's hogging the cocktail toasts and drinking too many Manhattans.  He would probably greet me with a gregarious guffaw and slap me on the arm, invading my personal space. If I can see the rings of your contacts, even in a dark room, you are too close. The hide color on your ox is not found in nature and that's suspicious.

The ax is swinging precariously close to the picture on the wall- someones dad painted it of a covered bridge. Paul doesn't care and he's got a story- probably a story about the time he invented a super ox feeder or cheese cuber. Even better he's founded something like the Unified Northern Indian Topographical Ermine Development Corp, LLC. (Interestingly, that's UNITED).

I need to found some kind of entity and brag about it at parties.

I think about asking him for cash or cut lumber or even a chance to fondle the ax, but he's pretty wrapped up in the greatness that is Mr Bunyan. He works his way around the party talking to other tale tellers like Mr Worm. This Mr Worm will overpower just about anyone and he's usually manhandling you and trying to kiss you on the mouth despite your repeated warnings that the lip fungus is still pretty active under the lip gloss.

You know you have a situation when Paul and the Worm can't see eye to eye on their carnivorous, competitive cocktail toast eating. But Paul has an ax and he might just use it on something other than the cracked acrylic "Sunset over Covered Bridge" by someones Dad.

The Worm drinks and texts. Maybe there's a better party out there somewhere with no competitive foundation stories and more finger food. (Note to the Worm, we can see these because we share them with the other party goers.)

I knock over a cup of cocktail onions.

Bunyan loudly regales us with his tales of the formation of UNITED making everyone, including the Worm wonder why he's bothering with our little party anyway. It must be exhausting to remember all of those details about stuff you make up and I can independently verify on the Internet- remember though that Al Gore invented that last item.

It's unlikely that  Mr Worm or Mr Bunyan will find my little blog.

Or that I picked their pockets when I knocked over the onions.

Hey Kid

I have no idea where I've been. That's a lie. Sorry.

Why did I start this line in November, 2012...

You know which one you are so sit down and listen. First, you're killing me. Your eyes

I know exactly where I've been. I started to be afraid of writing and of words. I was afraid of my punctuation and sentence structure.

I was actually more afraid of what you might think about what I said.

The neighbors are watching, I thought. If there was something wrong with the kid's eyes, then everyone at the high school would know and that's about the least cool thing ever.

Maybe I was trying out some kind of wacko poetry. In fact, this is why I like Twitter so much. If you only have 120 characters it is kind of hard to offend some one or get in any kind of trouble. Although there was that one girl that threatened the entire city of Dearborn on Twitter.  Note to self: don't threaten cities.

Let's just get out with it. I've been hiding - living in the pictures posted on Facebook and in 120 character tweets in a massive tableau of generally useless missives. I did hear recently that you can order a pizza with it though so I don't think that's a useless exercise if your blood sugar is low and your really want pizza.

Back to the kid, whomever it was, I don't know what you did but we obviously moved past it. I'm not in prison and neither are you.

Did you sit down to listen? This is highly unlikely, but our household has tended to be loud so I'm certain that I got my point across. I wonder if I actually got up mid sentence to holler at you. You know what? Let's go with that and then I disappeared.

But I'm back.