Friday...uh, Saturday...Earworm (guess where I ate supper last night)

FYI - Changing a Watch Battery in Beaumont

WalMart in Beaumont no longer changes watch batteries unless you bought the watch from them or as the girl behind the counter said, "...unless it's a WalMart watch." I don't think I've ever actually seen a "Walmart watch." I wonder if it's like a Mickey Mouse watch but with Sam Walton's arms pointing to the semi-accurate time. Maybe it has a little alarm to let you know when the lawn furniture goes on sale.

Nederland Jewelry (in front of Hobby Lobby), however does change watch batteries for $10 including the battery. $10 seems a little excessive to me, but they were nice about it and a lot quicker than the poor bastards at WalMart who used to change my watch batteries.

From my mom - Tattoo You!

1. Click here.
2. Type your first name on the first line.
3. Type the name of a friend on the second line.
4. Skip the e-mail address.
5. Click on 'Vizualizar.'

Bad Week

Mad Men Season Premiere

Mad Men season premiere this Sunday, 7/27/08, on American Movie Classics. Take off your girdle, grab a scotch and a pack of smokes and turn off the phone. Don Draper. Mmmmmmm...

Local Music Blog

Here's a good local blog (click here) to help you keep up with the live music in our area. Now, step away from your computer and go do something!! Take a walk. See a show. Join a band. Hell, form a band.

Whew, that was exhausting. I need to lay down. Where's the remote?

Friday Night!

I've been in a couple of blog/e-mail conversations the last few days with folks who share the same confusion as I do wondering why more people in this area don't get out and watch live music. I've lived here my whole life and this has always been a very music oriented culture.

However, most of the people around here only see live music at Mardi Gras or some sort of seafood oriented outdoor festival. I've narrowed the problem down to lack of advertising on the part of the venues and lack of a network of friends dragging each other off of their couches. When people get well past college/high school age, they just don't have that "What's going on this weekend?" network anymore.

Well, here's something for you to do this Friday night. My friend is in two bands and both bands are playing at Changing Times.

I wonder if I served pork-ka-bobs and shrimp-on-a-stick if I'd draw a crowd.

I'm really a nice person, but damn.

As you will recall from this post, I had an interesting exchange with a less than adequate office person at my optometrist's office last week. Today, I went in to pick up the contact lenses I had ordered and there was the less than adequate office person, standing right in front of me, live and in person. I would recognize that voice anywhere.

I told Barbie (not the blond Barbie, but the porn star looking Barbie with the long brown hair) why I was there and she slowly opened the drawer to look for my lenses. Then, without looking at me she said, "Wait a minute."

She then stopped a co-worker and asked the co-worker a question about a patient chart which was sitting on the counter. From the co-worker's reaction, I could tell that this wasn't the first time this chick had asked that particular question.

The chick didn't quite seem to understand the answer she was given, but soldiered on anyway. The phone rang, she answered and put the person on hold, then looked at me. "Ah, contact lenses," her blank eyes seemed to say.

She found my contacts, entered things into her computer and handed the lenses to me without speaking a word. I asked, "Don't I get a receipt or something?"

Without speaking, she looked at the papers in her hand, tore off my receipt and my copy of the invoice, handed them to me and turned away. She never spoke a word or made eye contact. She never said, "Oh, here it is," "Sorry, here's your receipt," or even "Here you go, bitch. Have a nice fucking day."

She acted like I...was bothering HER...for asking for...MY...receipt.

Oh.

My.

God.

By the way, she never did go back to the person on the phone that she had put on hold. Big surprise.

A touch of weirdness, perhaps

Today, my mom, sister and I went to one of the casinos in Louisiana. On one of my trips to the bathroom, I got locked in the stall. I seriously thought I was going to have to crawl out under the door. Eventually, the little slide thing on the door gave way and I was able to get out.

When mom and Bonnie dropped me off, I couldn't open my gate. Bonnie unscrewed part of the gate opening thingamajig and I was finally able to get in. True, it's an old gate opening thingamagjig and I've been needing to replace it for quite some time, but still. To get locked in/out twice in one day. That's weird.

However, getting locked in/out isn't the weirdest part. Today is the birthdate of my uncle who passed away in March.

Read here and here for more weirdness about my uncle and my grandma. I've been looking for the post I thought I did about the weird things that happened on my grandma's first birthday after she passed away, but I guess I didn't do one. On her birthday that year, I didn't get locked out of anything, but my computer died, my living room curtains fell and a Tabasco hot sauce sign in my kitchen fell off the wall.

My relatives don't let a silly thing like dying keep them from being part of the action. This is all fine by me. However, even though I'm an amateur ghost hunter, I repeat my request to all dead relatives that I don't actually want to "see" you, if you get my drift.

I realize that might not make sense to any of you (alive or dead), but I never said I was an uncomplicated person. Lock me up, set off my smoke alarm, knock things off the wall, but please stay invisible.

Oh, and don't touch me.

Thanks.

Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular

I just got home from the Pink Floyd Laser Spectacular (click here) at the Ford Park Amphitheater here in Beaumont and it was...spectacular. When it was over, the announcer said, "See you next year." I hope they do come back next year. If they do, I guarantee twice the crowd because everyone there will surely talk at least one person into giving this great show a try.

Some suggestions for next year:

1. Skip the tribute bands. I'm sure the promoters were attempting to justify the $25 admission fee, but the tribute bands were totally unnecessary. Of course, I might have felt differently about that if it wasn't 95 degrees outside. (The tribute grands were very good, by the way...Kiss and Led Zeppelin. I love tribute bands.)
2. Speaking of the 95 degree heat, booking this show in the spring or fall would help draw a larger crowd and the show could start earlier because we wouldn't be on daylight savings time.
3. If the promoters insist on having an opener for the laser light show, how about a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show or some trashy horror movie like Eraserhead or Night of the Living Dead?

By the way, you don't have to be a Pink Floyd fan to be amazed by the show. However, do yourself a favor and read up on the amazing Syd Barrett, NetFlix some Pink Floyd (Pulse, Dark Side of the Moon, Live at Pompeii) and, most importantly open your mind and give their music a try. If you don't like their music, you've wasted a little time. If you do like it, you'll wonder why you waited so long.

Here's your Friday earworm...

Because I know you like weird or you wouldn't be reading THIS blog

My son and his family have moved home to Beaumont. They still have things at their house in Houston so it'll look lived in until it sells. I rode with him back to Houston last Sunday to pick up a few things from the house. The main thing he needed was his social security card for his new job.

When we got to the house, he went to the place he thought the card was and it wasn't there. He told me to check in a file cabinet in one of the bedrooms while he looked somewhere else. Neither of us could find the card. We went on to load up other things from his list and, from time to time, we'd look for the card.

After packing and shuffling around for a half hour or so, I decided it was time to get Saint Anthony involved. In case you don't know, St. Anthony is the patron saint of lost things. I said, "St. Anthony, something is lost and must be found." My son, being used to his saint obsessed mother, moved on to other items on his list.

Right after I said the prayer to St. Anthony, he said, "Check that file cabinet again." This time when I checked the cabinet, although I still didn't find the card, I pulled four folders that I thought he might need later even though they weren't on his list of things to bring home. He said, "I don't really have a place to keep those." I said, "I'll keep them at my house. It might save you a trip to Houston later. You never know."

Eventually, we gave up on the card. Cory decided it might be in his truck. On the drive back home, I again mentioned the file folders I had insisted on bringing home. I told him, "You know, you just never know when you might have an emergency need for your marriage license or that other stuff I grabbed. Maybe you'll just have to have a passport or something."

Those file folders kept nipping at my brain. I didn't think the social security card was in them, but I was certain he'd need something else in those folders before his next trip back to the house in Houston.

When we got back to Beaumont, Cory checked his truck and the card wasn't there. We went to my mom's for lunch and when he was leaving to go back to his in-law's house I told him, "When you find that card, let me know where it was. I'm dying to know." He said, "YOU'RE going to find it." Though that was an odd thing to say, being from a fairly psychic family, we don't question little outbursts such as that.

When I got home that evening, after leaving my mom's house, I unloaded all the things I brought back from the house in Houston to keep at my house. I put the folders upstairs and didn't give them much thought.

When I finished putting things away downstairs, I went up to my office to check my e-mail and saw the folders. Instead of putting them in the file drawer in my desk, I decided to look through them first.

The first folder I opened, the "Wedding Stuff" folder, had an envelope in it. Inside the envelope? The social security card.

St. Anthony rocks.

"What number is that?"

I just called my optometrist's office. When I told the girl who answered the phone that I needed to order some contact lenses, she put me on hold and never came back. When I called back and she realized she couldn't get rid of me that easily, she took my order. Here's the conversation:

Operator: What is your name?

Me: Laurie Anderson

(She put me on hold for a while to get my chart.)

Operator: What is your name again?

Me: Laurie Anderson

Operator: Oh, Anderson is your LAST name?

Me: Yes

(Put me on hold again.)

Operator: Okay, I found it. How do you want to pay?

Me: My debit card.

Operator: Um, okay. What's the number?

Me: (blahdy, blahdy, blah...giving her my number)

Operator: Expiration date?

Me: October, 2008

Operator: What number is that?

Me: Excuse me?

Operator: October. What number is that?

Me: Um, ten?

Operator: Okay. October...ten. 2008?

Me: Uh, yeah.

Operator: Hold on.

(Put me on hold for the third time in about 2 minutes.)

Operator: Okay, we'll call you when they come in. CLICK.

Me: (hanging up the phone mumbling to myself) Oh...my...God. What number is that? WHAT NUMBER IS THAT?! Oh...my...God...

New Orleans Running of the Bulls

I am SO going to do this next year!



No, silly. I'm not going to do the running part. I'm going to do the standing on the sidewalk drinking a beer laughing my ass off part.