Gray Skies...

Well, now. The weather is back to normal for March, the June-like lull is over. Gray, cool, bordering on cold, it is. Not all that bad, actually. Better than no weather at all, right?

The laundry is done, for another month or so. I searched the blog to see when it was I last did this hated chore and was dumbfounded to see it was December 28^th, well over two months ago. No wonder I was out of clean clothes. And when I say “out,” I mean out! Nothing unusual to report from the laundromat…no big women, no unruly children, not much of anything, actually. I was disappointed. I was expecting to get some good blog-fodder out of laundry, but no, it was not to be. I did get the usual and perennial laundromat earworm, though, and it’s still playing in my head:

I got the all night Laundry Mat blues
Washing everything I own except my shoes
I got makeup round the collar
And it smells like sweat
A dollar in the drier
And it ain't dry yet

If you wear clothes, you got to pay the dues
Sing the all night Laundry Mat blues
Yes you do
Sing the all night Laundry Mat blues

Remember that one?

Apropos of nothing…here’s a cool site: Word Spy. Actually, it’s parce que I googled “earworm” and found it on Word Spy. Here’s a great quote from the site:

Unlike French — credited with a mere 100,000 words, each authorized and sanctified by the Academie Francaise gatekeepers — English gathers new words with the gusto of a bag lady.
—Graeme McRanor, Canadian journalist, 24 Hours Vancouver, February 20, 2006

English is the ultimate “living language.” While there are some regrettable excesses (think hip-hop) in our ability to add to and modify the language, it remains the most expressive of all languages. It’s nearly impossible to think of a single object that does not have a corresponding English word (or three) to describe it.

Trivia I meant to include yesterday, but forgot… From the History Channel: The average American uses 20,805 sheets of toilet paper per year. That’s an incredible 57 sheets each day! I find this amazing because I am way, way below the average. I have a good idea about my TP consumption, and it’s because I live in an RV. Early on, and before I bought the RV, I was cautioned about the on-board septic systems and how susceptible they were to clogs, etc. Now that’s something I absolutely do not want to deal with, ever. The biggest source of RV septic system problems? Too much TP…

I said yesterday’s song of the day was probably gonna be Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Wrong. There were two songs of the day, and it’s because of the great segue Bill at RP engineered with this:

REM - Losing My Religion, then
Grateful Dead - Uncle John's Band

Oooh…perfect. Just frickin’ perfect! The lyrics to “Losing My Religion,” coupled with those of “Uncle John’s Band” just struck a chord with me (no pun…). I love good segues; they are SO hard to pull off consistently and well. I know from whence I speak; Your Humble Scribe did a stint as a DJ (and later as Station Manager) at KBOK, a closed-circuit radio station for the population of TUSLOG Det. 4 (Diogenes Station), Sinop, Turkey in 1970 or ’71. That particular “job” was one of the most rewarding and fun things I did in the military. There wasn’t any monetary compensation involved, but I did my level-best to tape the station’s entire music library and that was more than enough compensation, in and of itself. I use quotes around “job” because DJ’ing was a volunteer thing, my real job was fixing electronic spook stuff, or attempting to, anyway. More trivia: “KBOK” is a play on words, “bok” being Turkish slang for “shite.” GIs. Gotta love ‘em!

And so it goes…