The things I carry

I don't actually keep a cup of coffee in my purse - or my foot for that matter - but when I did what I call a "core dump" the other day, David took a picture of the stuff that I consider essential for daily life. I could still weed out a bunch of that and get through the day, but the reason I carry as small a purse as I do is because of my tendency to fill it to capacity whatever size it is. Whenever it won't close, it's time for another dump-n-ditch. The one thing missing is a script - I usually have one with me, but Chuck gave me mine in a binder which won't fit in my purse.

Years ago, Leslie, Naomi, and I wandered around San Francisco and by the end of the day my left shoulder was aching. I figured out quickly that the reason was the eight-pound textbook hidden in the much larger purse I carried back then. My current purse - and all its contents - weighs just under four pounds.

When we went to one of the Smithsonian museums recently, the guard was impressed with how orderly and efficient my purse was and asked if I could teach his wife my purse management system.

Squirrel rampant!

Brett is concerned that we are going to be subjugated by the family Sciuridae. His posts about our "mutant squirrel overlords" can be found here. And you know, Brett is a good guy and one of my best friends and if he wants to have paranoid fantasies about cute little woodland animals, I'm totally willing to back him up on that. Of course, considering how many things one can find on the net, or even on Wikipedia, merely by typing in the word "squirrel" perhaps "paranoid" is an ill-chosen word here.

Anyway, David and I were at the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge yesterday and we learned about the endangered Delmarva Fox Squirrel. We saw them scampering about and, because they are both cute and endangered*, we found adorable Delmarva Fox Squirrel objets d'tourist in the gift shop. At David's prompting, I purchased a Delmarva Fox Squirrel stuffed animal/finger puppet.

I found the fiercest, most terrifying, one they had - you'll note his agressive and warlike demeanor in the picture (left) - and named him Rampant. It is impressively easy to make him look as though he is about to, oh, savage an innocent family. In fact, Rampant really looks as though he is about to burst out of the computer and savage anyone reading this post.

Our original intent, and the reason that we leaned more toward the red of tooth and claw look than the wearing a sweater look - and there were sweater-wearing stuffed animal squirrels at the BNWR gift shop, make no mistake - is that we were thinking of presenting Rampant to Brett as a gift. But as we rode along homewards, Rampant and I bonded as I showed him the rest of Dorchester county and allowed him to make bone-meltingly terrifying faces at the truckers we passed. So now I'm not sure that I want Rampant to go live with Brett. Especially as there is the possibility that Rampant would be used to provide some kind of horrible example to the big city squirrels of P.G. County. I can just see some form of gibbet in Brett's backyard with Rampant swinging in the breeze after he'd been given to 'Jira (Brett and Cate's 600-foot-tall-fire-breathing-lizard disguised as an elderly black lab) as a plaything. No kind of fit ending for as noble a warrior as Rampant.

Besides, did you see how cute he is?

*My own first law of zoology is what I call "Survival of the Cutest." Species that are cute have a better chance of having stuffed animal avatars in the gift shop than icky, scary ones. Which means that they get more fundraising dollars, their kids go to better schools, etc, etc, etc.

Anton in Show Business

In response to urgent questioning of the masses:

I'm appearing as Casey in Jane Martin's Anton in Show Business at Port City Playhouse. We have performances January 19 - February 3, with an "actor night" on Tuesday, January 30.

The show satirizes the conflict between art and commerce in theater and is lots of fun.

Y'all come!

Why David is my man

Because at 8:25 in the morning - before coffee - he says things like "Ahh, that's better. [X] and [Y] constellate more closely."

No. Of course, he doesn't say things like "[X] and [Y]." Don't be silly. He says constellate.

Baby did a bad, bad thing

Some years ago I was in three shows in short succession that all had lots of glitter in them. Not glitter as in the shows just sparkled, they were so good, but actual, little shiny gritty dust, glitter. So I learned a fair about about the theatrical and real life properties of glitter:

1. It won't stay on and it won't come off. So I left a trail of glitter everywhere I went, but when I tried to remove it, nothing worked. I could take a good, long, exfoliating shower and still emerge looking like an amateur Cher.

2. It ends up everywhere. After a cast party at the house, we found a smear of glitter on the wall and the dog sparkled, too. I found it on my phone at work.

3. Put glitter on your face and it's just a countdown until you glitter in your eyes. Glitter suspended in gel probably doesn't do that, but we were using loose glitter. Getting *that* behind a contact lens is an experience I won't forget. Especially as it happened more than once.

4. Unless you use the exact right amount of glitter - an amount, by the way, which is a deep secret to all but stage make up professionals - it will either not read from the audience or will look like sweat.

5. If you are a man and are in a room where glitter has been used, even if days earlier, you will end up with a piece or two on your face, deeply reducing your Gary Cooper/Clive Owen brooding masculinity. Don Knotts in "Three's Company" had more testosterone-driven animal magentism than a guy with a couple of specks of glitter on his face.

With all of this experience I have developed a, well, let's call it a desire to keep a healthy distance from glitter. So this next is all the more tragic.

I needed some wrapping paper and picked up a roll with narrow pretty stipes of blue, green, and red at Target. When I got home and long past the hour when I was willing to go back out into the fray for other paper, I discovered that the paper had glitter embedded in one of the stripes.

I wrapped carefully, but that glitter was leaping off of that paper like Titanic passengers who've just spotted a coast guard cutter in the swimable distance. I've swept up the glitter here, but I'm taking a bag of festive, ** sparkly ** presents over to my Mom's, where they will be opened rather than simply piled up and admired, so a couple of tablespoons worth of shiny will transfer to Mom's carpet. And onto my mother, aunt, nieces, brother-in-law, and nephew.

Good thing that my aunt is visiting. She's German enough that she won't rest until it's all vacuumed up or removed by tweezer or simply willed out of existance. But Travis (my nephew) is in danger. Travis is 23 and lives in Luray, Virginia where straight men don't encounter glitter outside of strip clubs.

I was able to locate some other paper for Travis's present and I even put it in a separate bag from the others, but the danger was still clear and present (not to mention sparkly).

Angela and Travis were helping me carry stuff in and when I mentioned the one of the bags of gifts had glitter, you'd have thought that I had told him that it was radioactive. Angela carried that bag.

I think he left Mom's without any glitter on him, but I won't know for sure until tomorrow when I see him at Dad's because his immediate family has enough interest in teasing the life out of each other that I can't imagine that they'll let that pass.

Viral Blogging

VLOC is in rehearsal for Ruddigore right now and Rand, one of the castmembers is starting to tune into the 24-hour in-head G&S feed that always affects me, but what really caught my eye was how Rand was pulled into the internet version of getting lost in the dictionary. I can look up a word and go on about my business in a just a few seconds on dictionary.com, but I can spend 45 minutes with a paper dictionary. Mousing around on the internet has the same effect on me. I just wander about from site to site and pick up more little bits of information, like trolling the buffet at a wedding.

Yesterday I was dutifully working on memorizing the first act finale of Ruddigore and as is often the case, it had a strange effect on my mind. My wife wanted to get shoes and unable to find what she wanted in her size here in Aspen Hill, wanted to go to Laurel. So my wife, my daughter Amy and I went off to Laurel.

While there we stopped for burgers and fries where Amy proposed we should lie about something to her sister Sarah. Without thinking I responded that if she did so she could bid "adieu to her morals, her morals sententious". Of course, my wife immediately responded by asking me what sententious meant and while I have a sense of its meaning I wasn't sure I could define it so I promised to look it up when I got home. After returning home, I went to the computer to use dictionary.com to look up sententious. Having shared the definition with my wife I noted that the dictionary site's word of the day was flibbertigibbet. I had a sense of what that meant as well but looked at the definition anyway. I'd heard that word somewhere. My daughter Sarah said it was in a song and we tried to think of which one. Sarah proposed "bippity boppity boo" but that wasn't right. I proposed "googling" it and Sarah said "why?". I thought it was something from the "Sound of Music" and my acute senses soon honed in on a "will of the wisp, a flibbertigibbet a clown". So Sarah went happily out of the room gaily chirping "what do you do with a problem like Maria". As many of you know, she chirps very nicely.

Well, I decided to "google" it anyway just to see what turns up. Interestingly, I came upon a blog entitled "The Flibbertigibbet" and the Google listing included of all things "Gilbert and Sullivan" and "Savoynet". My curiosity was aroused. I clicked on a link and was greeted with "I'm in a play!". So, who'd refer to themselves as a flibbertigibbet? She's 29 and from Aspen Hill, Maryland. Oh - this is getting too weird. Check the profile. Favorite movies - ah, Sound of Music, that makes sense. Favorite music: Gilbert and Sullivan, etc. Back to the main page. Look around, ah here are some links. Only one seems to pertain to Gilbert and Sullivan and it is very familiar. Click! There it is - a black screen with Ruddigore with large, rather strange letters in the center.

Ruddigore to Ruddigore via dictionary.com. Almost as mad as singing choruses in public. I know what you're all thinking. He'll tell taradiddles when when he's a bad Bart and you all think I've gone over the edge. But it is all true!

-- Rand

I'll leave it to Ali to rell Rand that while I remember being 29,that actual year has passed me by. Or, better yet, I'll agree that yes I am 29, for sufficiently large values of 29.

I'm in a Play!

Like everyone, I'm good at some things, bad at others, and I have been reminded that one of the things at which I really, really suck is predicting the future. I was having brunch with Laura and Sally on Sunday morning and told them that I was thinking of doing this or that because I was "going to have a lot of free time" in the next few months. That was Sunday. On Tuesday, I got a call from Chuck asking if I could replace an actress who had to drop out in the show that he is directing. I promptly accepted and now my schedule is f-u-l-l until January 19th, opening night.

Yep, that's right - I'm walking into a show that opens in less than a month and my character is off stage for about 5 pages. Now, I'm not the first person that this has happened to: Some years ago, Todd stepped in to play Hamlet on, like, three weeks notice, and the Divine Laura and I got to know each other when she stepped in to play Ouisa in Six Degrees of Separation three weeks before opening night. So I'm in pretty good company.

My company shuts down during the last week of December. We save up all the little holidays and use them at the end of the year, so I'll be celebrating, say, Columbus Day on December 26th and I'll be celebrating it by sitting on the sofa memorizing Casey's dialogue. (Memorizing dialogue is my absolute least favorite thing about theater, so let's see if it's any more fun when done as a 5-day intensive. Maybe.) Normally, I'm pleased to have that time off and fill it with errands and lunches with friends and household projects and such. This year I am deeply grateful to have those days to cram those words into my head.

Being pulled into something this way is a not uncommon actor fantasy. It combines all of the riding in to save the day, the show must go on, and props for being pretty much everything an actor wants props for all in one basket. It is also a little daunting. You see, cast bonding is more than just going out drinking after rehearsal and joining a cast that has already been together for 7 weeks can feel like transferring to a new school during senior. And the actress I am replacing is both very talented and a really nifty person. Big metaphorical shoes.

Luckily for me, the cast and crew of this show welcomed me with open arms and I'll pick up the in jokes and dynamics as we go along. It's a challenge for them, too, because acting is often less about delivering dialogue to the audience and more about the agreements between cast members and between actors and the director. So introducing a new cast member is like finding the supply cabinet at work unexpectly reorganized. Some things are where you left them, others aren't.

My calendar was what I like to call "misleadingly empty" for the next several weeks and now it's full. Rehearsal is on holiday break which gives me time to learn lines and to have tablework time with Chuck, but we start back up with a vengeance right after the new year. The few plans that I have made will have to be scrapped or rearranged. I won't be going to New York to see The Rose of Persia, for instance, because I'll have rehearsal that night. In fact, I'll have rehearsal almost every night between New Year's and opening, for which I am grateful as that is still only a couple dozen and I learn by doing. It also means that I'll be posting less and spending less time at home with Pekoe, who was getting used to having me around and is going to start thinking that he lives alone. The sign language class that I was considering is now on the back burner for another semester.

But this is a great part! In a great show! I loved this script from the moment I read it and Casey has a couple of really great speeches that I am going to enjoy memorizing, dammit.

I'm in a play!

Hanging out with Ben and Chris

Bill and Em went to Bill's office Christmas party Saturday (at the very yummy Normandie Farms, whose popovers I remember fondly) and so I hung out at the their place with their sons Benjamin (13) and Christopher (7).

Ben*, of course, is pretty self-sufficient and doesn't require lots of babysitting, except for his teenage belief that if his father is not home to stop him, a given activity is no longer forbidden. Like most of the rest of us, as an adult Ben will speed except when he actually sees police cars in the area.

Being seven, Christopher requires more active adult supervision. So Christopher was reminded that as Friday was only the 16th, he could not open the little box on his Advent calendar marked "18" until Monday. I have this theory that the number of times that little boys must be told "no" roughly compares to 18 minus the child's age, so Christopher needs to be told "no" about 11 times before he determines that this answer will not change. Emily had already told Chris "no" on the Advent calendar thing a few times, so I only had to pick up the handful remaining.

All in all, a pretty basic evening watching some kids that I like, except that Ben is into anime. We watched several shows ranging in sophistication from roughly Speed Racer to Spirited Away. Chris likes Pokemon, so we watched that for a while, but Naruto had to wait until after Chris was asleep - or as close to asleep as Chris was willing to get. The two episodes that we saw involved some kind of arena-based fighting.

Interestingly, one of the voices for Naruto is Robbie Rist, who I remember as Cousin Oliver from post-shark episodes of The Brady Bunch, proving that what goes around comes around with a vengence. Anyway, Naruto was really cool and I found myself enjoying the all the anime stuff that I had forgotten in all the years since I used to watch Robotech: large, round Walter Keene eyes; short, sharp gasps punctuating dramatic moments; nutcracker jaw motions ----- ahhh, good times.

So anyway, back in the day, I would watch Robotech with Brett and the rest of our crowd. Minmei was my favorite character because she was a complete - com plete - Barbie doll. And she had this little song that she would sing. I claimed, when asked by Ben, not to be able to remember the song, but actually I do remember some of it. If you think that the lyrics to modern pop songs are inane, you have not experienced the song stylins of Lynn Minmei. Ceirdwyn detested Minmei's song, not just for artistic reasons but because it offended her feminist sensibilities. This meant, of course, that once I learned to imitate it, it had to be sung to her as often as we thought we could work into a conversation. Or more often, really, just to push her buttons.

The tune was this gawdawful light pop tune sung about 20 octaves above middle C (remember those little bitty women in Godzilla vs. Mothra? Like that.) and the lyrics that I can remember are: To be in love, must be the most important thing a girl can ..... At which point things get a little fuzzy. I think the actual next word was "be," but we re-wrote the song just a bit to make it even more annoying to Ceirdwyn, so our next word was "do" so that we could make the next line "except to screw" (you can see why I claimed lyric amnesia with young Mr. Benjamin). Sing this around Ceirdwyn and the fun just never ended.

I didn't see enough Naruto get completely hooked, but now that damned Minmei song is semi-stuck in my head. What goes around, indeed.

*Ben also, by the way, likes to wear black clothes and a black fedora. If he had any idea that his doing so makes middle aged ladies clutch their hands to their (still admirable even if middle aged, thank you very much) bosom and call him adorable, he would probably stop it immediately. So don't tell him.

Maybe it *is* both a floor polish and a dessert topping

When I went into the kitchen at work this morning someone had spilled a bunch of sugar (or creamer). Instead of cleaning it off of the counter, the miscreant largely swept it onto the floor. Not only did the mess crunch noisily underfoot as I was getting my coffee and making my morning grits, I left a trail of footprints on the carpet going back to my desk.

And all those years ago I thought the SNL folks were just making stuff up.

I thought as much

When I started listening to NPR, Corey Flintoff used to start the news by saying "This is NPR news and I'm ..... Corey Flintoff." This drove me slightly nuts. Was he assuming that someone was plugging in a drumroll? Was his name on the next page and he had to turn the page to read his name? Did the page say "This is NPR news and I'm [insert your name here]" and he couldn't remember his name? Was he in the Witness Protection Program and was mentally sorting thorugh his various aliases? Was he imitating Paul Harvey just to push my buttons? Aaaaarrrrggghhh.

So one day I asked a certain NPR staffer*, "So, uhm, what's up with the big pause before Corey Flintoff says his name? Can't he remember it?" The question was passed on and Corey - who I admire and who has a lovely voice, by the way - said that it was a dramatic pause. "Well, at least one of your listeners thinks that you can't remember your name." The pause went away and a grateful nation still sends me flowers and chocolates. Or at least thinks about doing that, but never quite gets around to it. After this blog post, of course, I'll be carried through the streets of Montgomery County on the shoulders of NPR geeks, I'm sure.

So anyway, today Michele Norris started the broadcast by saying "This is All Things Considered from NPR and I'm Robert Siegel." Then Robert Siegel, sounding very amused, said "And I'm Robert Siegel." It was sort of like a radio version of To Tell the Truth. (Sadly for those of you who missed, it'll probably be cleaned up before the repeat, so St. Crispin's Day-like, you will just have to call yourselves a-cursed who did not hear it.)

Anyway, now we know that the piece of paper - or more likely the monitor - said "This is NPR news and I'm [the actual name of the host or newsreader]. Glad to have that settled.


*The downside to working at NPR is the sheer amount of off work time that you have to spend explaining and hearing about your workplace from geeky listeners. I have been assured that I am not the only one who does this.

Totally non-manipulative mother-daughter exchanges

Leta: If you really loved me, you'd go put on hot water for tea for me.
Mom: Hmmm. Too bad that I don't love you that much.

* * * * *

Mom: If you really loved me, you'd be home when I call you.
Leta: If you really loved me, you'd call when I'm home.

Fairy Lights

Today in History:

In 1882, Boston's Bijou Theatre, the first American playhouse to be lighted exclusively by electricity, gave its first performance, of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Iolanthe."

And even then, the fairies were wearing battery packs so that they could have lights in their hair. Really and truly.

Via the Washington Post.

Break a leg, Casey

Casey is the second of my friends, after Darius, who has recently moved up to New York to begin a professional career in the theater market. It's a big decision and it takes a lot to uproot everything and move somewhere else in order to compete in a very competitive field, so Break a Leg, Casey! We'll miss you down here, but I'm sure you'll do well.

Tags

When I created my Technorati profile, I was asked for some ways to describe myself. So I listed a few, but I'm allowed up to 20 tags and I've used 8 and maybe those 8 create an inaccurate picture. So, readers, if you were to chose some tags for me, what would they be?

The hard parts are going to be: 1.) figuring out how to add more tags; and 2.) explaining how I failed to include "Flibbertigibbet," "Gilbert and Sullivan," or "Savoynet" in my tags. Any good advice on how to crack that tag list back open? By which I mean advice in simple language that a humanities major can understand. Because I'm still all excited about learning repeating until memorized the html code for striking through, so we know that I am no internet genius.

I think that what we are seeing here is the downside to blogging, template updating, and profile creating during lunch. Post in haste, repost at leisure? Sigh.

Releasing the spiders

Just claiming my blog.

Technorati Profile

29 - why?

I have a birthday coming up at the end of the month. (The 31st, actually, for all you fans of the IRS.) The Washington Post apparently is aware of this and ran a graphic showing that, as Bette Davis used to say, getting old ain't for sissies.

Leta and I share more than just a name

From Heather's Month Thirty-Four letter to her daughter:

I have noticed this month that you are not at all fond of wearing coats, and either you are learning this from watching me or my DNA is finally kicking in. This worries me because I think I’m going to have to start wearing winter clothing to set a good example for you, and sometimes the thought of wearing a coat is enough to make me stay inside. For a whole week. Coats and mittens and scarves make me claustrophobic, and usually I don’t wear them because modern cars? They come with heaters.

Doing my de-uty as a Humanities major

I started my college career as an English major and eventually became a Humanities major. I like to describe "Humanities" as the study of the things that we assume separate human beings from other animals - literature, politics, art, religion, math, languages, etc. In its best sense, it's the true liberal arts education. More prosaically, "Humanities" is probably the upgraded name for "General Studies." Or possibly even "Undeclared."

One result of my background is that I hold organizations like the Modern Language Association in particular regard. I cannot prove this, but I believe that members of the MLA do not say "myself" when "me" would be more appropriate, nor do they use "impact" as a verb, nor do they use "unique" as anything but an absolute. I'm also sure that many MLA members would be happy to get into a lively debate about the dynamic nature of living languages (Did you know, for instance, that "gossip" used not to be a verb? Gossip was a noun, specifically a person who .... well, gossiped. Things change.), but they understand and know how to apply the rules that they consider obsolete.

David, via 11d, found a meme from Scott, who is, in David's words, hoping to crash his own computer. Scott, on the other hand, insists that he is collecting data for a paper for an MLA conference. Please help Scott.

Why Scott Simon is in my top 5

Very important announcement first:

I am copying this directly from the program for Blair's current production of A Christmas Carol, which I saw (and greatly enjoyed) last night. As Brett can tell you, Blair is my own beloved high school, but as he may not know, I was also in a Blair production of Guys and Dolls way back then. So without further ado:

The Montgomery Blair Players on Channel 26!

In 2001 The Montgomery Blair Players produced Guys and Dolls, with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser. We are happy to announce that video clips from that Blair production have been included in the new documentary on Mr. Loesser that will air Sunday, Dec. 3rd (this Sunday) on WETA Channel 26. We have not seen the show, but the producers tell us that Blair is featured and named in the broadcast. Please consider tuning in, and feel free to forward this note to anyone you feel may be interested in watching, especially alumni.

http://www.loessermovie.org

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog post.

NPR geek that I am, I happily spend my Saturday mornings listening to Car Talk, Weekend Edition Saturday, and Wait, Wait. And like most NPR geeks, I have favorites. I love listening to John Burnett, Wade Goodwin, and Julie Rovner's stories; I adore Robert Siegel's warm, engaging laugh; Beej is just a lovely person to know; etc. I'm fickle enough that people drift in and out of my favorites list - which I will never be foolish enough to laminate - but a couple of positions are pretty solid. My pal Stacey is my all-time, no holds barred, favorite NPR staffer.

But Scott Simon is never out of the top 5. Warm laugh, goofball sense of humor, and he runs stories that apparently were chosen just to reward me for listening. This morning we got stories on famous poisonings in the Classical era; an interview with the author of a book about diagramming sentences, a school activity that I used to enjoy; an interview with Frank Loesser's daughter about the documentary which will feature the above-cited Montgomery Blair Players; and (oh my beating heart) an update of Ko-Ko's list song from The Mikado making fun of the new airplane security watch lists.

He likes Gilbert & Sullivan!! (Note to Scott - I was in the chorus of the Victorian Lyric Opera Company's production of Iolanthe from which the late Chief Justice Rehnquist got his robe stripes. I'm just sayin'.)

I wrote to Scott and asked for permission to post the lyrics. When he wrote back (!!) he pointed out that "since I did not sing, I did not exactly follow the rhyme scheme, but merely used it as a suggestion" and gave me the lyrics. Yes, yes, they can also now be found on NPR's website, but I got them directly from Scott.

All in all, a fine day for radio.

--The Transportation and Safety Administration, which is often assailed for wasting resources by checking infants in strollers and grandmothers with walkers, faced criticism this week for trying to focus its efforts by keeping a list that apparently assigns some kind of Threat Assessment Level to each passenger.

By now, probably every flier has a favorite story of what looked like an absurdity: a toddler who was made to take off his tiny rubber shoes and get wanded; an elderly war veteran who had to remove his plastic leg.

The wife of Senate Commerce Committe Ted Stevens, Catherine, was questioned at an airport because her name is the same as singer Yusef Islam, who used to be known as Cat Stevens.

But you ought to hear Mrs. Stevens sing, "Moonshadow."

There are also complaints that many lists do not contain the names of more plausible terrorists--because investigative agencies don't want to tip off people that they're being scrutinized.

The alarm over each flier being assigned some Threat Assessment level is that inaccurate or misleading information could lay around for years in some data base. Could an employer refuse to hire someone because they had a high Threat Assessment number? Could a bank turn them down for a loan? Will young couples in coffee bars ask, "What's your Threat Assessment Level," instead of "What's your sign?"

A lot of us who fly may have our own lists of people we'd like to leave at the departure gate:

As someday it may happen that a Watch List must be made
I've got a little list! I've got a little list!
of irritating passengers I'd choose to barricade
And who never would be missed! Who never would be missed!

There's the fellow with a backpack
that's the size of Zanzibar
He slings it o'er his shoulder and
leaves your nose all scarred

All people who just want to chat
when you just need to sleep
who tell smutty jokes about acrobats
rabbis, nuns, and sheep

And those who eat burritos
just before they board
they think they are discreet-o
but burp like harpsichords

There's the man with travel luggage
he dragged through yellow snow
who puts his grimy wheels on your coat
and crushes your hat like a bus rolling over a banjo

All people who shout into Airphones
"I'm calling from the plane!"
What was so damn important?
They never do explain.

And pilots who must point out--
"Uh, folks. Flying over Toledo now,"
as if beholding the Taj Mahal
Each access road and shopping mall
holds them in a thrall.

There's the man who has six martinis
and crawls on the drink trolley
Then sings drinking songs from Rawalpindi
all the way to Bali.

But it really doesn't matter whom
you put upon the list.
They'd none of them be missed.
I'm sure they'd not be missed.

I thought that instead of Toledo he said "Silver Spring," and a reference to my hometown would probably have pretty much cemented him in the #2 slot, but perhaps I misheard...