5/21- A Wander Around Town

Gus had a life to continue in the morning, so we rose and fled the house in good time. On his way to work he dropped me off at the Springfield Library with no clue as to what would be going on that night. It was a nice day of quiet and taking my time in the way of getting those minutia things done that need be done from day to day. You'd think this sort of lifestyle would skirt the issues of chores, but alas they just take new form.

I was allotted an hour on the computer at the library which I used for writing out a post to try and keep myself caught up on here. That would prove to be a difficulty in the coming days. Following that I moseyed downtown to a place called City Jake's Cafe for lunch. This was a half nostalgia kick as I had never been there, but first heard about through my old roommate, Vid, back in '94. Finally I was taking the time to go down and eat there.

It was good food, cheap, and a nice place to just sit and write for a while. Breaking out my ole Route 66 mug I slurped bottomless coffee for another hour or two watching people and probing my thoughts through the new journal I got in Jersey. In my world, that's some good productivity for a day. When I left I figured I'd finally check in on Verizon to see what the damage was on leaving my contract to go to a prepaid service and save myself hundreds of dollars on bills I can't afford these days. First step was finding an outlet.

Dull as this task may be it lead to a nice walk. Using my years of expertise in trying to find out where things are in the towns of D&D fantasy worlds I swung by the nearest hotel for local information. The only store around was about 4 miles away on the other side of the river, so I spent the next hour or so heading to it on foot. Once in the store I did my business, looked over a few hats in a neighboring army/navy surplus store, then called my Dad.

The day before, while sitting around the table after mowing, he had told me Dan wanted me to go to his baseball game. I wasn't entirely sure what was happening for the day, but now being out at a stripmall with no calls coming in I could see I was clearly available to have another visit. It also dawned on me that going to a game with my Dad could be a perfect way to visit with him given the lessons of the previous day; that just time together where words aren't required was golden. Sitting next to him in the bleachers of a little league game sounded ideal suddenly, and I was surprised I hadn't seen it before.

The strip mall I was at is right next to I-91 which runs north, toward where the game was going to be. My Dad and his wife, Barb, are invariably late to everything so I felt this location was ideal for picking me up as well. I made a bit of a shady arrangement with them to pick me up off the shoulder of the highway on their way up to the game, and in the meantime I'd just linger around the area for a bit. This would save them the time lost in pulling off to get me, driving up and down the busy, traffic light laden street that is Riverdale Drive, and avoid them having to haphazardly navigate pulling a U-turn around the highly inconvenient median that runs down the center. This plan was likely born to fail.

Pulling off these finagally pick ups is something quite common to friends of mine, but illustrating the details to Barb and Dad was not so successful. It seemed everything was understood, however. I was plopped down under a big blue exit sign in a good pull off spot where I could just dart out and jump in the car with as slim a chance as possible of a trooper spotting it and hassling us for stopping on the highway to pick someone up. There is also a very distinct curve about half a mile up the road that's a perfect landmark for calling me to let me know when to stand up and show myself so they could get me. The call I got, however, was that they had passed two big blue signs with no sign of me at all and they were wondering where I was. They had passed me completely while I'd sat below the guardrail awaiting their call to pop up so the only alternative was to encourage them not to turn around and try again, tacking on 20 minutes likely, but to go on with out me. Another time. I called Gus after that and arranged to have him pick me up.

Reaching only Gus' voicemail I just started trekking toward his house. Refering to another hotel guy I got a map, located his address, and just started walking. A little while into it he called back, scooped me up, and on the way home we decided we wanted to brain out completely that night and a movie sounded good. Terminator: Salvation here we come.

Awful. I'm not sure how they managed to screw that movie up at every step, but it was among one of the more horribly done things I've seen in a while. Particularly dissappointing because I generally put a lot of faith into Christian Bale, and the previews made it look so damned good. I have little forgiveness for films that stay inconsistant with previous story layouts as well. It just bothers me endlessly. We returned home that night disappointed and tired and just passed out.