Whatever.

Preliminary testing shows that Blake's favorite band is the Beatles and his favorite album is Sgt. Pepper's. Percy had a thing for Phish, but he never insisted on sitting on the speaker's knee like Vera, Chuck, or Dave either.

That was a little Beatles trivia for you. Vera Chuck and Dave are the grandchildren on the knee in "When I'm Sixty-Four." RDC once won a rock and roll trivia game with that answer.

In other Blake news, I suggested and he wanted and I provided quite a shower today. He was extremely enthusiastic, much more than usual, and what with how he flexed his feather follicles (or however it is he gets them to flare away from his flesh) and how drenched he was, I got an eyeful of his skin. What a chicken he is, except his skin is pink. Disgusting, anyway.

Ceej is considering getting a parrot as a child substitute. I must have words with her on this. A human needs direct parenting for 18 years, more or less. She's considering an African Grey, which can live to 75 years or more in captivity. A parrot is not a child substitute--it is a child, grandchild, and great-grandchild substitute, one with the emotional stability of a two-year-old and the intelligence of a three- or four-year-old for its whole needy greedy life. She should get another cat.

RDC borrowed a digital camera from work. That will be fun this weekend, if he can figure out how to delete the old photographs from the card.

It is actually humid today, which is highly unusual. Just a minute ago I shucked off one dress, grabbed another, cooler one, and came out of the bedroom flipping it rightside out and met a flash in my eye. RDC was taking a picture of Blake in his cage, but that's not all he got. He also got an eyeful of skin (less chicken-like than Blake's). That's one picture I shan't post: me, in nothing but tan lines, silver, and glasses with a billow of chartreuse fabric in front of me.

Chartreuse really should mean pink. It looks more like a hot pink kind of word than a green one. The dress I wasn't wearing was fuschia, if you want to reorganize your mental picture with the proper color. Aha! It's a trademarked name for a liqueur. Whatever. It's still pink.

Which reminds me of a psychology experiment I participated in (as a requirement for psych class). I read aloud and I named colors. I read aloud words for colors printed in other colors and then I named the colors of letters that spelled other colors.

First I read the words: Red blue yellow green black yellow brown grey violet

Then I named the colors: Yellow blue violet red brown grey black purple green

(Both lists were several pages long with one column of generously sized printing.) I was much better at the first part. I wonder if a less fluent reader--a native reader of English but less experienced (younger)--would be better at the second half. A six-year-old's sight recognition is likely very much stronger than its word recognition.

Yesterday evening at Bonnie Brae Ice Cream, sitting outside on a bench with RDC, I watched a little boy playing and straying to a long bike rack on the edge of the sidewalk. Spokes of the rack were missing, so first he put his head through and made monkey faces (I presumed from the noises) to the invisible zoo-goers. Before he inserted his whole self through the gap, I had stood up and nonchalantly stood on the sidewalk a pace away. I didn't know where his keeper was, but just in case, I could snag him before he spanned the gap between habitat and zoo-trolleys (by which I mean cars zipping off the main road onto our side street). An instant later, his keeper fetched him and thanked me. He had been momentarily distracted by his other monkey dropping her cone, but he well knew a moment is all an accident needs. So we parted smiling at each other, and that made me happy.

A few days ago when I was riding home from work, on the section of trail that runs sidewalk-wide along Speer since the Denver Country Club owns that section of Cherry Creek, I passed a woman who stood by her dead car with an infant in her arms. I offered to place calls for her, but she declined with thanks--it was an SUV and she had a cell phone (what the first has to do with the second is only my expectation).

Yesterday I biked over to the pool all stoked for my first long swim in over a week and gasped in horror at the drained pool. A rec center clerk told me emergency grouting. Goodness me, emergency grouting? He also said "two weeks." I grit my teeth and turned for home. A couple of people who didn't look like they knew what they were doing sat on a bus bench looking up and down the street. They were indeed waiting for a bus and did not know that here stopped only a commuter bus headed downtown, only in the morning. I told them they could pick up a bus for downtown on this other road less than a mile north, at the third light. They didn't look very happy at having to walk three-quarters of a mile, but to me they looked like they needed the exercise. Anyway, I could spare them more waiting.

I notice that all my attempts at being a friendly passerby are tainted with some degree of disdain. Well, I do attempt.

A friend and I popped out for lunch and found fruit salad at the Corner Bakery, pineapple and grape and kiwi and no stupid cantaloup or nasty grapefruit. She also wanted to go to Starbucks because she is addicted to their cinnamon scones (I prefer maple oatnut) and I spotted a brownie I needed to eat. As we waited to pay, I lapsed. I made an impulse buy of a cheap unnecessary geegaw, a point-of-purchase sale for Starbucks.

Its name is Clyde. It's a bottle opener, and I thought I might start to drink beer if I could open bottles with this. At home, I discovered that Clyde's wide smile is not meant for beer bottles but the whole circumference of his face is meant for wide-mouth soda bottles--are plastic caps that difficult to remove? But I love Clyde anyway. It makes me very happy. I was in a pissy mood and neither my friend's suggestion of lunch nor the finding of succulent fruit salad nor even spotting of the brownie made me smile. Clyde did, so I named it after my oral surgeon.

The brownie was yummy though. Espresso, chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate chips.

So RDC called in the afternoon. He said he was bringing me home a present but I couldn't keep it (the camera). I told him I had bought myself a present too and that its name is Clyde. He started a dialogue like the one with the guards in Swamp Castle (?) in "Holy Grail" that incapacitated me with giggles, that I can't reproduce, and that even if I could reproduce would still be a "You had to be there" kind of thing.

Speaking of had-to-be-there jokes (that I can reproduce), yesterday my coworker Bob (she belongs to Babes On Bikes), the one with the laugh louder than mine, and I both needed water from the breakroom. As we filled our bottles, I asked smalltalk-wise if she was going to the company picnic next week.
"Yep."
"So'm I."
We raised our eyebrows together.
She continued, "I didn't go last year."
I responded, "Neither did I."
We widened our eyes at each other.
Again, she continued, "I was out of town."
Again, I responded, "So was I."
At which pointed we simultaneously deedled the "Twilight Zone" theme and cracked up.
Someone's going to post a sign on the breakroom door: Lisa and Bob may not be in the breakroom (with its amazingly reverberating acoustics) together.
Then I asked her what her spouseling's name is because I always forget.
She told me, and finished, "But he has a different last name than mine."
And I responded, "So does mine."
We pretended great fright at these eerie coincidences and parted.

So today I was strolling down the hall with an editor, discussing a publication that is, at long last, getting a bottle of the champagne smashed against its prow soon, when I saw Bob again. I jumped alongside her, imitating her stride and her arms akimbo. "Look! We're twins!" We were both wearing short celidon dresses and brown sandals, and her reddish-brown hair is quite short but I had mine up and off my face (as usual). Naturally we had to tell the editor yesterday's episode too. She pretended she couldn't tell us apart.

I need to find a career that exploits my talents and interests better, but I really do love Dot Org.