Basic_B

It’s Christmas Eve, and Marcella and I have been watching It’s a Wonderful Life on DVD. We’ve had a fairly quiet day. We each ran a few very quick errands, but for the most part we stayed at home, listened to Christmas music all morning, took a nice walk around the neighborhood, grabbed a couple lattes at Starbucks, and stayed relaxed and just enjoyed the time away from the office and the frenzy.

I think a little later tonight we will likely watch Little Women (1994), which is our own little Christmas tradition. I know it isn’t strictly a Christmas movie, but it somehow seems to capture the same sort of spirit of the season that makes it a favorite for me at this time of year.

I hope all of our friends and family out there are having a wonderful evening and are preparing for a great Christmas tomorrow.

For the past week my driver’s side headlight has been non-functional on low-beam. Now, I’ve replaced this myself before, well actually my friend Chris did most of the work, but what I mean is I didn’t take it to a shop just to replace a bulb.

But this time I didn’t feel like being bothered, so I drove down to the auto shop this morning to have them look at it. Of course, they can’t look right away so I have Marcella pick me up so we can run some other errands. Finally the guy gives me a call back and what does he tell me? “It’s working now…seems fine.”

“Of course,” I think to myself. It’ll only NOT work at NIGHT! I mean, why not? Why wouldn’t it work when I take it to the shop?

So tonight I’m going to go out to my car after the sun has set. I’m going to turn on my headlight, and when it doesn’t work I’m going to walk around to the front of my car and I’m going to bang on the headlight once or twice with my fist to see if it will flicker on, and when that doesn’t work I’m going to smash my headlight with my bicycle pump and then take the car to the shop again on Monday and have them check it again.

I was listening to music on my iPod this morning while also doing chores and housecleaning, and I found myself following many different streams of thought triggered by the different songs one after the other (I had the iPod set to shuffle). It occurred to me that doing this intentionally from time to time while also writing about whatever came to mind triggered by the music might be an entertaining experiment.

I was toying with the idea when the song, Lou Reed – Satellite Of Love, came on. And what was triggered in my mind was a memory, not related to this particular song, but related to another song by Lou Reed. I remembered stopping by the place where my friend Finley worked years ago in Warrenton. I forget exactly what the place was called, but the gist of it was that it was a convenience store that you drove up to and the cashier came to the door and took your order and then got what you wanted. You didn’t have to get out of the car, although you could walk up too.

Anyway, in my memory I was just hanging out there and drinking a soda and the song, Lou Reed – Walk On The Wild Side, came on. I don’t have any idea why this memory sticks in my head. It wasn’t the first time I ever heard that song, but for whatever reason I just remember being in that place and hearing that song on the radio.

So there I was this morning, listening to Satellite of Love and thinking about Walk on the Wild Side and recalling that memory, when what should come on next but Walk on the Wild Side. Now, I don’t know what the odds are of that—I’ve got over 600 songs on my ipod at this moment, so I guess the odds are somewhere in the range of 1 in 600 when the iPod is set on shuffle, which it was.

I’ve decided to take this as a sign that I should do what I was thinking about and write and let the music lead the flow. Right now this isn’t a true example of it, but I thought I’d recount the origins of the idea, and I expect I’ll try and do a true instance of it in the very near future.

But right now I’m going to watch some more of this football game. Panthers are up 14 to 3 over Green Bay at the moment.

Damn, Rickrolled by the Thanksgiving Day Parade!

Sometimes you forget just how bizarre the Thanksgiving Day Parade can be.

We’ve been watching it some this morning. I don’t think I’ve paid much attention to it the past few years, but it is kind of fascinating me today.