Yes, it is a slow day here at the House by the Parkway. I haven’t done my morning walk for two days. Seeing as how that’s when my muse usually speaks to me, I find myself without any real content or any particular desire to strain my cruller to dream something up.

Instead, here are a few random notes and observations spawned by the goings-on of this happily lazy day:

1. Writing the Quarterly Bartending Schedule. As many of you know, I hold the dubious distinction of being the Bar Chairman for my American Legion Post. The following “perks” come with this awesome title:

(a) I get the seat at the bar closest to the television; and

(b) I get to make sure that we don’t run out of stuff; and

(c) When we are about to run out of stuff, I get to go buy it, hump it into the place and load it into the cooler or onto the shelves; and

(d) As was the case today, I get to write the quarterly bartending schedule for our bartenders, all of whom are volunteers (myself included).

While I would gladly forego my seat nearest the television in exchange for not having to do the other things, it will not happen, for it appears that my position is a lifetime appointment. It’s sort of like being a federal judge, except that I don’t get paid and I don’t get to wear a robe.

It’s OK, though, because the other “volunteer” bartenders know that theirs are also lifetime positions, which provide them with the security of knowing that they cannot be fired. The flip side is that they cannot quit, the Thirteenth Amendment be damned.

2. Gray hair. Today I spent some time watching the funeral services for President Ford, and I noticed that it seems that only men have gray hair these days, except for Barbara Bush. I wonder how much of the gross national product is made up of hair coloring products and services.

3. Setting up the New TV. One of the Christmas gifts I purchased for Mrs. Parkway is a very nice 15” flat screen television for the kitchen. I believe I could sell tickets to those prone to Schadenfreude to watch the spectacle of me trying to follow the directions to set up and program a new television, which, by the way, is pitched as being “Plug and Play”. I particularly liked the part where you have to select “video source” (or some such thing) from jumbles of letters such as IRD, SPX, HDC, AFLCIO, AA, USMC, or LSMFT, without any explanation of what any of those farookin’ things mean.

Of course, every time something didn’t seem to work exactly right, I was convinced that I am the one in a thousand people who bought a defective widget and will end up talking to someone in Calcutta. After about an hour of aggravation and bitching about the people who “write” instructions, I managed to get it programmed and working. I’m afraid I don’t have the stones to even think about hooking up a DVD player to it. – not today, anyway.

I just re-read this, and I’ve decided that I had better get my sorry ass out to walk tomorrow.