blastall

9:10 am, saturday, 4-16-05. i'm headed south on meridian. going to the fairgrounds to experience VICTOR BEAN'S SOUTHERN CLASSIC GUN AND KNIFE SHOW. vic brings his traveling merchants of individual and mass destruction to tally 3 or 4 times each year. thank you so much. we were running low on bazookas. unless you are a law enforcement officer, it will cost you $6.00 to check out the latest in guns and pigstickers. the price of entry has gone up a buck since my last visit. as the many customers jamming the aisles will attest, it is a small price to pay for personal protection. i don't really need any small arms, as miss amy always notes, i have two already. however, i'm always in the market for gifts for my weapon impaired friends. who doesn't appreciate a nice automatic paragon blade or a serrated airlight beretta. deputy pat k is at the door to make sure nobody gets unduly shot or stuck while buying stuff to shoot and stick. top of the morning to you pat. yes sir, i'm here to see my future in forensic weaponry. slip the ladies a five and a one, get my shooting hand stamped and i can stay all day and enter to win a knife that is surely to die for. an exhibition hall full of camo and denim clad guys with baseball caps on backwards. this is the 2nd amendment in the flesh. who needs the dept of homeland security? truth is , from the looks of this crowd, i wouldn't trust them to propel any object harder than their spit in a styrofoam cup or to handle anything sharper than a rubbermaid spatula. my usual supplier from port st.joe is nowhere to be found. after 20 minutes, i decide that there is nothing for sale that i can't live without. i take my angst elsewhere. 10:45. time to attend the art festival in the chain of parks. this is the big one. not like last week when the arts only took up one link in the chain. no sir. this week we get three links plus vendors in the streets beside the parks. first stop. i spy some neat jewelry. copper and brass earrings. how convenient, the girl of my dreams left the house without lobe attire. gee, they just fit the holes and i might say they look sharper than a shiv at vic's show. $15 plus tax. well spent. darlin has dangles and a smile. at the end of the first link, i get lucky. the kettle korn guy is here. small bag $3. i finish the "old maids" as we approach the lemonade wagon. small lemonade $3. today, it seems, the world can be bought in threes or multples thereof. miss amy takes a sip of the lemonade and pronounces it unfit for human consumption. too sweet and besides the label is still on the hunk of lemon in the cup. i am not human. it is the best i ever had. the label just provides a twist on the toast: here's looking at you--it actually appears to be looking at me. my drink toasts me. 12;30 a slow lunch outside at andy's place on adams. i order a cheeseburger with extra onions, steak fries and a bass ale. lovely lobes has a ginger ale and a salad with fried chicken chunks on top. there were no extra onions. the fries were a nice addition to the 57 sauce. the salad was fit for human consumption. if the human is real hungry. no complaints, just observations. great spring day. the place is busy with fsu fans getting ready for the 2pm garnet and gold spring football game. to the seminole football fans it is foreplay. a taste of things to come in the fall. what a waste of time. in five months when the actual season starts, it will be time to fall in love. a lot of these fans are not very loyal. lose two games and these fans will be talking separate bedrooms. 1:30 and it is time to head to po'boy's for the annual crawfish festival. one half of college ave between monroe and calhoun is blocked. got cops. got a barricade. got ticket sellars. $8.00 to get in and $7.00 for the right to suck the heads and tails off a mound of crawfish imported from nawlins' for this event. i once ate a crawfish at the old goodtime charlie's on w. tenn st.--a place on the giant bag's farewell tour. the memory lingers. today i will save 15.00. who cares anyway? you can watch the whole show from the street. the band we want to see and hear is to sart at 2. the sound check never ends. at 2;30 we leave. i guess we will have to see wb's guitar teacher and his zydeco band another time. miss amy observes: how come the roadies can never set up a show on time? the answer is simple. a roadie is a wannabe. his time on stage moving mic's and wires is his time in the spotlight. as long as the real show never starts, his show never ends. one monkey can't stop the show but one monkey can sure keep a show from starting. today it did not matter. spending a hour watching half-naked coeds stumble down college ave. to attend this event, was more than worth the price of admission--that i didn't pay.

friday, 4-15-05 at about 3. she is in the yard pruning a plant that was cloned from the eggplant that ate chicago. it is big. it probably is providing a home for creatures i pay to have gassed every 2 months by mr. blair. i won't go near it. she is in it. what does she care? she has her tunes and is thrilled to risk it all inorder to improve her little plot of paradise on everett lane. she grins at my arrival and announces that she hasn't made any provision for dinner. she bets that sonny's will provide our evening meal. she wins. when it comes to chain restaurants, sonny's is one on a very short list that will regularly cause me to part with cash for food. i try never to charge my meals. if it is bad, i don't want to relive the experience at the end of the month. at 6:30 on friday, there is a short wait for a table at the sonny's on timberlane. there are three sonny's in tally. one on north monroe st. one on apalachee parkway and the one where we are waiting. the timberlane store has always been smoke free. having never served bar-b-q with bull durham, if you have a nose for food, always go to timberlane. two sliced pork dinners with fries and slaw. a side of fried okra, a goldfish bowl of diet coke for me and a water for my blue-eyed pal. that will be quite enough, thank you, the salad bar would too much--we came in a small car. here it comes and the tradition continues. miss amy gives me her two slices of garlic toast. in trade, i make sure she gets most of the okra. armed with four pieces of garlic toast, i make two sliced pork sandwiches with slaw on top and well coated with sizzlin sweet and smokin bar-b-q sauce. i mix a small ponds' worth of the same, for fry dipping, and i'm 4 napkins happy. eat your heart out, matt. hard to get a bad meal at sonny's..but just in case...always carry cash.

11:10 on monday. floppy drops by my office and inquires; "are you down with the loop"? oh, these youngsters. they speak in tongues. i'm in. i'm down. yes i would like to go. at 11:30 doubleo, floppy and i head to the elevator. since i know that the loop is mainframes favorite and since i know that floppy and mainframe are an item (in old folks talk) i ask if she will be joining us. she will meet us there after a trip to blockbusters to drop of some videos. floppy asks: who is driving? doubleo quickly replies: you are. the rule is: you pick it you pedal it. floppy announces that he is in the parking garage behind the bank and across from the courthouse. he has a free space on the bottom level but he is paying for a space on the street level. i suppose it is more important for mainframes beau to save his energy and not his money. floppy has a BAD RIDE. he is down with a four door camry. doubleo hops in the back and i go shotgun. before i can actually be seated, floppy has to clear the seat of debris from his weekend trip to sumpter sc for a family wedding. floppy is a high-tech guy. he has a satellite radio that will pick up 150 stations, but, he can't pick up the refuse in his BAD RIDE. he and mainframe went to the springtime parade. they collected enough beads to buy manhattan twice--and at todays prices. they are on the floor along with a big can of nuts and other items. i carefully place my feet on the floor. i don't want to disturb his treasures. the only remaining loop in tally is on w. tenn. st by fsu. we pull in as mainframe arrives. go inside, grab menus and queue up to order. the place has a overwhelming stench of disinfectant. i don't want to know what happened here last night. apparently, whatever happens at the loop stays at the loop for a long time. you can't kill it. it is already dead. the noxious coverup exceeds the original need. we don't slow down. mainframe orders a tuna sandwich--well done with fries and a drink. doubleo gets a salad and a drink. floppy orders a small pizza-thin crust-five toppings, fries and a drink. i order a small-thick crust-five vegetable-pizza, a drink and a c-chip to tide me over. at the loop, they give you an order number and holler it when your food is ready. no need for fake names. a table with four. you dine in shifts. doubleo your salad looks good. eat up. don't wait on us. the salad and the pizza and the fries and the drinks were fine. the c-chip was ok, at best. there is a problem with the tuna sandwich. it is rare. mainframe did not order a sushiwich. she returns the offending item and eats her fries and awaits a call back that never comes. she gets a refund. even though the loop was her choice, it won't be soon again. i suspect that floppy won't be down with the loop for awhile--out of respect for mainframe. back to the parking garage. floppy parks in his free spot. i note that, at his suggestion, we walk up the ausley steps. it wasn't the ladies in heels who want to avoid the short one block hill to the courthouse. heaven forbid that he work off his fries and pizza with a stroll up mount jefferson. gotta save energy for mainframe.

saturday at 4pm, crank up the civic. miss amy all gussied up and riding shotgun, we head east for a wedding at willow pond. callie and mike are tying the knot at 5. it has been a full day. 7 to work. 9 to borders to meet dd for hot cocoa and a chat about his new venture. if his plan works, he will help some local business folks grow and he may make a buck or two for himself. 10:10 head back to the house with click and clack dispensing wisdom on the radio. honey wanna go to the farmers market at timberlane? i hear they may have some animals to see from the humane society. sure. the market in the pavilion at timberlane is in a saturday duel with the market in the park downtown. produce, arts, crafts, music, food. try to make you think of a slower and simpler time before the invention of kettle korn. only one giant animal at timberlane. it was probably a dog but it was the size of a small camel. you would qualify to adopt this lovable creature, if you lived on a veldt. eastside of the pavilion--3 or 4--"farmers" with a variety of goods. miss amy says she would rather get her tomatoes at tomatoland on thomasville road. a place of permanent fixtures and reliabilty. westside of the pavilion--3 or 4--"merchants" selling used crap. books, jewels, plates...it ain't flying off the tables. we head south to the market in the park. my heart is broken. the kettle korn guy is nowhere to be found. why did they even open up? a quick trip around the market. the farmers have the same produce and the same prices as just seen at timberlane. conscious parallelism? not likely. just no fair trade in tally today. two forlorn looking cats in cages with a much better chance of being adopted than the THING at timberlane. at the west end of the park there is tango music from a cd. this should be good. one guy in designer jeans is dancing with two ladies. one at a time. one can dance and the other needs to see mr. murray before she goes public again. not quite hungry yet, we head to southwood to scope out lady k's new house and to see if we can locate wb's townhouse. lady k's was easy to find but wb's was only spotted cause he parked in the street and not in his garage or in the alley. we don't stop. he is a single guy--it is saturday--it is 11:30--he might be busy--nah--he ain't that lucky. but just in case, we still don't stop. we decide to eat at hopkins eatery on north monroe st. there are two hopkins in tally and the other is on market st. the food is the same but the diners are not. market st. is a photo-op for YUPPIE WORLD MAGAZINE. no. monroe st has a greater mix of humanity--tattoos--bones in the nose --but even so--they still mostly have cellphones. we dine on the patio and it is nicely done by a company that is advertised in the window. i eat a guac. it is a very tasty sandwich with guacamole, turkey and other stuff on warm zebra bread from tasty pastry. a big bag of jalapeno and aged cheddar chips with all you can drink diet coke. a large heath cookie bar for dessert. miss amy has her usual mediterranean tuna salad and a drink. the price for our feast among the pierced and painted was about $17.00. the show would run you about $20. the meal is a bargain. amy needs some mascarpone cheese for her sunday dinner so we go to the midtown manor to visit luna's italian foods. they have the cheese and give us a free sample of gelato. it is really good. the bad news--they close at 5. no moonlight gelato at luna's. they need to rename the place--dayo's italian foods. you want to liven up midtown, don't lock up before dinner. at 4:30 we circle the courthouse in monticello--25 miles east of tally and head north. 9 tenths of a mile and the wedding sign points the way down a paved road. soon another wedding sign and a turn down a not so paved road. drive awhile in a mixed-use area. giant new french provincial on the right. small vintage airstream on the left. at the next wedding sign we turn right down a road that can only dream of pavement. it is swampy. i'm starting to hear banjo music. check the door locks. then we see it--willow pond. a pastoral place for a wedding. as i park the car, we can see the crowd down by the pond and surrounding a gazebo. grooms fans to the left and the brides to the right. kids are fishing while they await the real action. i love weddings and this one is neat. the bride gets a ride to the scene in a horse drawn buggy. she is escorted over the willow pond bridge to meet her soon to be hubby at the gazebo. the ceremony is short and sweet. the kids can't keep from grinning. here is the best part: as mike and callie head back over the bridge, they do so to the strains of the original version of ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST. these kids got humor. after almost 39 years with miss amy, i do believe that humor will help keep you together better than anything else. if you don't think i'm right, just ask amy. she has me to laugh at.

you're a kid in the late forties and fifties. you grow up in and around new york city. the street is your playground; stoop-ball, stick-ball, dodge-ball, kick-ball, football, anything with a ball. you learn the rule of the street. momma doesn't say, don't play in the street. the rule is simple: WATCH OUT FOR CARS. you see one coming, you stop. sometimes you holler at the driver; CAR CAR C-A-R DRIVER'S FROM THE LOCAL BAR. for your rhyming brilliance, you may get a smirk, a smile or a single digit. you don't see one coming, you get a horn if you are lucky or smacked if you are not. don't go crying to momma--you broke the rule. there were no signs on the street saying; "SLOW KIDS AT PLAY'. if there had been, it would have been a reference to mikey's lack of speed and not a warning to approaching vehicles. we have traveled the road from personal responsibility to political protectiveness. here is the progression in tallahassee. we, as elected officials, are going to do everything we can to protect our constituents; let's build a sidewalk. nice thought but not the final solution. a pedestrian-a person going on foot. you ever see a jogger or a runner on the sidewalk? never. they run in the road and usually right at you. now if it is against the law for a pedestrian to use the street if a sidewalk is available, why not enforce this rule? be kinda like how they enforce the laws against driving while black ( need to stop this guy..looks suspicious..might have a joint..think i smell a funny blunt..might have a rock..heck even if i'm wrong, this guy might just need a good tasering). i'm thinking it goes something like this: running while white ( whatsa matter white boy, you too good for the sidewalk? whatcha got in them cute shorts, you holding some altoids? gotcha a starbucks card? did your i-pod slip or are you just happy to see me?) ok, sidewalks didn't work, so we, as elected officials, are going to calm the traffic by erecting signs that say;TRAFFIC CALMING AHEAD and we will toss in some really swell concrete obstructions in the road. gee, that didn't work too well, but we got a lot of tire tracks on the concrete and a fine collection of scarred hubcaps. so we, as elected officials, are going to treat the street to some speed bumps. about seven per mile ought to do the trick. oh my. we, as elected officials, find out that our soon to be former constituents, really don't like speed bumps. what to do? what do politicians always do? they go to conferences on political illusion. this time they come up with a dandy. remove the speed bump signs and replace them with speed hump signs. thank you so much commissioners. why just this morning, on my way to work, i had j-lo,penelope cruz, sandra bullock, pam anderson, paris hilton, carmen electra and faith hill and that was just on trescott drive. golly. that worked out well. now our fickle friends are too tired to campaign against us. we have finally screwed them senseless. call our buds at the asphalt company, it is time to work on the southside.

little italy is on magnolia drive. it is in the courtyard of the winn-dixie shopping center. the same winn- dixie that was the focus of a tv story about how they repackage meat with new dates on the label but leave the same old meat inside. no wonder w/d is going belly-up. little italy was one of the first places in town where you could go out to eat and eat out. it has been a favorite place for family and our extended office crowd. it was a mid-tour stop on the giant bag's farewell tour. it was the final stop on the doughboy's final tour. it had the best waiter ever. his name was jason and he never forgot your order. little italy has always accommodated us on short notice. when the doughboy left the building, we went to little italy two nights in a row . one night we had 17 and the next night 21. jason did the whole group. he got all the orders right and didn't even appear to write the orders down. the first night we started a tradition. the doughboy always ordered unsweet iced tea and filled it with tons of sweet and low. sometimes when he left the table, we would dump 4 or 5 more packs into his drink and he would never notice. we ordered an unsweet tea and loaded it up with sweet and low. we left it alone as a silent tribute. the second night jason did the set up on his own. until he left little italy, jason never forgot. office crowd, set up the doughboy. the food at little italy is good but their bread is some of the best. hot, dense and crusty. it is served with REAL BUTTER. the caps are a nod to miss amy . you do not want to see her displeasure when she is served gobs of oleo goo. three weeks ago, the bumpkin asks me to commit a marriage for her in may. i didn't think she would ever do it again but she has fallen for ron. i agree to renew my notary seal. in my capacity as a notary, i can commit any fool to any fool forever. i have done so many times. i gotta tell you there have been more fools than forevers-- tuesday, a knock on my office door and there standing in the shadows of love are the bumpkin and ron. can you do the wedding on saturday? of course. right away i'm thinking--jackson by johnny and june. nah they have a good reason. where we gonna do it? her place is too small but the courtyard at little italy will do just fine. three days and the bumpkin has got a dress, a cake, flowers, a photographer and a venue. tell me the girl can't get it together in a hurry. friday the weather goes way bad. had lunch with dg at po'boy's. the blog has worked it's magic. the condiments and bottles are antiseptic. the elbows don't stick to the table. the c-chip is hot and huge. on the way back to the office we run into cm and her crew. i tout todays cookie. later she tells me that her cookie was apparently not as good as mine. of course not. she thinks the best cookies in town are the oatmeal at bagelx2. the wind is howling and the rain is sheeting to earth. by saturday morning the front is gone and the back is gorgeous. clear, cool and windy. a perfect day for a wedding and for SPRINGTIME TALLAHASSEE. springtime tallahassee is an annual event where white folks dress up like really badly dressed white folks. there is a parade and arts and food and music and it drags a lot of fun-seekers downtown. they flee at 5--just like everyone does during the week. the big difference is they leave tons of trash behind. i arrive at the courtyard at 5:55. round up the participants and do a quick run-through. i mingle til miss amy arrives at 6:15. looking good--really hot red leather jacket. 6:25, i dial up the j-boy on my cellphone and slip it into my suit. the j-boy lives in ft. myers. he can't be an eyewitness but he will be an aural one. 6:30 on the nostril, the groom and his bestman and i make our way to the concrete dais. tammy is being delivered by her son's best friend. while en route to seal the deal with ron, she is kissing all her son's other friends. vows sworn and rings worn, tammy is smiling and happy. ron seems to worship her and she deserves it. her son SPC ROBERT ALLEN WISE AND HER FRIEND THE DOUGHBOY can't be here today but they are with us always....