“Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes;
and adversity is not without comforts and hopes.”

- Francis Bacon

The Mall Diva and I went grocery shopping together Monday evening for our sustenance. Usually the Reverend Mother does this after first drawing up a very meticulous list; she doesn't deviate from the list and prides herslef on getting in and out of Cub in less than an hour. The Mall Diva also created a list, which we followed, but I'm more of an impulse buyer. This explains the chocolate-flavored Cap'n Crunch cereal we (I) bought.

I'll try just about anything once if it's chocolate-flavored, so I poured my first portion of this breakfast confection this morning. It wasn't bad, but as usual I can't eat Cap'n Crunch without remembering a certain incident that happened 20 years ago. As it turns out, this incident wasn't "about" 20 years ago — it was 20 years ago today.

I was working for an advertising and promotion agency in St. Louis Park and on that Thursday evening we managed to finish our Ad League co-ed softball game under ominous skies ahead of The Storm. I even got home before the highway flooded so I wasn't greatly inconvenienced and none of my property was damaged. Things were a bit different at work, however.

The good news: we'd just recently landed a large account to promote Quaker Oats cereal in the institutional market. The bad news: the "product" didn't come in cute boxes like in the grocery store, but in large plastic bags almost as big as me. Many bags of "product" had been delivered for a catalog photo-shoot and were waiting patiently in our cool, dry storeroom. A cool, dry storeroom that happened to be at the lowest corner of our building and was no longer very cool and definitely not very dry.

Picture, if you will, the image of several hundred pounds of Cap'n Crunch and other cereals swelling and bursting out of its containers and washing across the floor like a great, rising, golden wave of something that looked rather like hominy. Do you have a picture in your head? Great. Now, imagine the smell.

Fortunately I already had scheduled the day off from work, so I'm not sure how long it took others to shovel out the effluent blob of not-so-goodness. I do know that the scent lingered well into winter.

The Reverend Mother and Tiger Lilly are gone (see previous post) and the Mall Diva went to Duluth Friday afternoon with some friends for a weekend women's retreat, leaving me to kick around the big house by myself.

What to do...what to do...what to do...

I might take myself out for dinner and movie tonight if I can decide what I want to eat and see. Tiger Lilly also emailed to remind me to pick up the new Harry Potter book for her since she's not going to be able to get one herself for awhile (unless she wants the Transylvanian translation, that is).

I went out earlier this afternoon and picked up the book from the big stack at Walmart, along with a few bachelor snacks (mmmm, pork rinds!). I suppose I could spend the evening reading the book.

Or, I could just read the last few pages ....

*flip, flip, flip*

Hmmm. Mmm-hmmm. Huh. Well, that's certainly interesting! I never expected Harry and Voldemort to suddenly apparate in the midst of the Soprano family in a New Jersey diner in order to fight their last duel!

Tonight normally would have been my night for going to Keegan's for trivia, but I'm holding off on that (and the delicious cheeseburger and potato wedges) until Saturday night and the MOB's grand summer event.

I expect the entire Night Writer blogging consortium (Reverend Mother, Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly) to be there as well so I'll be easy to spot. Not because I'll be wearing a Hawaiian shirt, but because I'll be the guy surrounded by beautiful women. Unless, of course, I actually do wear a Hawaiian shirt, in which case my wife will come nowhere near me and the Mall Diva will likely just stay in the car. Tiger Lilly would probably come in, but mainly for the possibility of carrot cake.

See you there!

In the last five days I've accomplished the following:

• Mowed the grass


• Did laundry


• Shaved twice

Oh, and I moved the piano out four feet from the wall and later moved it back again so my wife could paint the music room, an enterprise for which my main contribution, besides moving the piano, was to say, "It looks lovely, dear." I've also read most of Steven Pressfield's "The Afghan Campaign" and two comic books that Tiger Lilly checked out of the library. All in all I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

The last four months have been very busy at work and at home. Well, home has been about normal, but I've been arriving there so late most evenings and working so much over the weekends that it seemed as if there wasn't much time to do anything. I love those mid-week holidays, though, especially when I can extend the time off through the weekend with a couple of vacation days. I promised myself that I'd simply veg on the 4th and then maybe just check office emails on Thursday and Friday; as it turned out, vegging out felt so good that I never got around to the emails until earlier today. I know, I'm a slug.

I also got in some golf one day and this afternoon the family went out for a movie and pizza. We saw "Transformers" which was a high-octane, super-frenetic film perfect for getting my heart-rate back up to work-speed. The previews before the movie, however, suggested to me that Hollywood is even lazier than I am. I'm not sure I even remember the names of the coming attractions, but they all struck me as formulaic rehashes of other movies.

Let's see, there was a "Napoleon Dynamite" rip-off called "Hot Rod", and what looked like another by-the-numbers movie starring The Rock and an impossibly cute and precocious little girl about a pro football player who discovers he's a dad when the said little girl shows up unexpectedly at his door. Comedy presumably ensues but I didn't even bother to remember the name of that film. Next was a Will Smith vehicle that looked like a cross between "War of the Worlds" and the old Charlton Heston flick, "The Omega Man"; I think they're calling this one "I am Legend." This preview was followed by one for another apocalyptic "thriller" that may have been the same movie except it didn't show any scenes with Will Smith. As either an oversight or a bold marketing ploy, they never gave the name of the movie. Ooh! Ooh! I'm intrigued — not!

As for "Transformers," it was pretty good overall even though there were logic gaps large enough to drive a Decepticon through. The best part of all, though, was that I didn't have to think or work too hard in order to enjoy it, which fit perfectly with my holiday weekend strategy.

Now it's back to work tomorrow and, perhaps, more regular blogging.