davethegrinch.net

Sarah says:

I wonder how many times I’ve flown in and out of Sea-Tac airport. Over the past 10 years, hopping on a plane for everything from same-day business trips to our three-month life break in New Zealand, I’m gonna go ahead and average maybe 5 round-trips a year which has my tally roughly at 50 take-offs and landings in and out of Seattle. And each and every time I see those gorgeous mountains, those amazing lakes and that beautiful city skyline, it takes my breath away. It doesn’t matter what kind of excitement I’m flying off to, I’m always sad to be saying goodbye and it’s the view that is the first to welcome me back home. No matter how many times I see it, the awe never wanes. It is simply stunning and it means home.

Of course my last take-off out of Seattle was January 8, 2007 and I have since had 33 take-offs and landings. THIRTY-THREE! Our carbon footprint this year is absolutely enormous and this number is really nothing to be proud of but my point is this - not a single one of those take-offs or landings had the spectacular view out of the window that you can have from Seattle and certainly none had the same feeling as flying home but that’s OK because not one of those flights was actually returning me home. That is until my flight on September 25th and my eight flights since then.

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Dave Says:

Keys
I have decided to title the paragraphs. The last literary affair rambled, so by now titling the paragraphs I’m hoping to give the reader a clue to the general thrust of the upcoming diatribe so easing the demands on my long, comma ridden sentences. In the long run, this will save us all time although it may be a while before that investment is realized. So, keys. I have them. They serve as a metaphor. They lock things up whilst reminding me I have things that need locking up. Locking my things up protects them from people who would like them for some nefarious gain of their own and so depriving me of my ever so important things. I have seven keys: bike front, bike rear, door up, door down, card key for work, key for the locker at work where my laptop lives and the ubiquitous mystery key. I’ve always had a mystery key. I don’t look for it, it just appears on the key-ring one day. Instantly I cannot remember quite what it (un)locks but I’m scared to dispose of it in case I can no longer (un)lock something I think is important. This too is a metaphor but of what I have yet to deduce.
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Sarah says:

My parents’ love of American football did not rub off on me. Their pilgrimages to the Super Dome, their New Orleans Saints shirts, hats, all around color coordinated outfits, the non-stop football on television, both college and pro – none it made an impression on me. In our house, football was not only on the television but simultaneously on the radio as well. In fact, it was not at all uncommon to find my dad sitting with headphones on listening to one game on the radio while watching a different game on TV. You could hear him yelling at the TV down the street. He was religious about his college game statistics. I liked for my Dad to teach me about football, but not really because I was interested in the game. It was just fun to see my Dad get so excited. I also secretly liked that my Dad had football on the TV all the time. Again, not because I was at all interested, but because it was one of our family traditions and I liked that. To this day, the sound of football reminds me of my Dad.

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Dave says:

I’m literary impotent. Please reread the first sentence in case you interpreted the second word to be literally. I should be scrawling a dozen notes concerning the daily deltas of living in Amsterdam but all I have managed in the last three weeks are these last three sentences. It cannot be something in the water that causes my dereliction of duty – it is the best in the world. This I know from my latest faux-pas. Whilst checking into our new apartment, the conniptions caused by my mere suggestion that a water filter be made available were quite hostile. Two real estate agents, the landlord and the previous tenant all took offense to my question in a choral unison of “Nee, Nee” (pronounced “nay” like a horse). An equine harmony of incredulity and offense as a response to my implication that Amsterdam tap water is not the finest in the entire world. Our 1705 apartment overlooks a canal so my mind forces me to glance first at the tap, then to the canal and then worry as to the degree of technological advancement of early 18th century plumbing. The same process happens in reverse whenever I walk into the bathroom.

See, one paragraph in and all I’ve been able to talk about is tap water. My malady? Oh yes, the pressure of maintaining a blog when nothing of great excitement is occurring. Usually I would refrain from posting because I am, as I have repeatedly prattled about, a great believer in self moderation concerning contributions to the public internet. There is an inordinate amount of mis-focused photos and mis-directed opinions in the cybersphere that do nothing but clog my google with irrelevance. I wish not to be one of the cloggers but, I have an audience, they demand to be entertained and so the show must go on.

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