Category Archives: Night Life

Hair today

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In my life I’ve had maybe five hairstyles. When I was a tyke my father bought some electric hair clippers, but the only style he ever learned was a buzz cut, which was what I had until about first grade (and for a short, traumatic time in 8th grade).

In first grade I made a stylish leap forward — a “regular boy” cut, parted on the left with a slap of Brylcream to make a debonair wave back from my forehead. Eventually I ditched the Brylcream and let the hair fall over my forehead, permitting the classic head-snap, shoulder-shrug move to clear it out of my eyes. By the time I got to college (and out of my father’s sight) I let my hair grow out to about shoulder-length and even tried the part-in-the-middle thing. My hair was naturally wavy and drove the girls mad with jealousy but not much else.

I’d grown out of that by the time I went corporate and was back to the low -maintenance, part-on-the-left, just-over-the-ears-and-collar look. It was pretty much wash-and-wear, with no mousse or gel (or moose-and-squirrel) and definitely no Brylcream. It must have been ok because I was able to induce the not-yet-Reverend Mother to marry me. When I went to get my hair cut on the morning of my wedding day the stylist (perhaps at the behest of my bride) suggested I try something different.

Sure, on the single-most important day of my life, let’s take a flyer — maybe it’ll keep people from paying too much attention to the rented tux. On that day I converted to a no-part, combed straight back and moussed look, and I stuck with that for the next 19 and a half years. It may have even been stylish for a year or two of that period, but it was always neat and tidy and responded well to my comb. My hair was so used to that grooming that even if I skipped a day without the gel it would still go back that way; my wife called it “memory hair.”

Naturally, life with a hair-stylist in the family brings a certain dynamism to the home that means change is inevitable. Last week I sat down in the Mall Diva’s styling chair for a cut and mused that maybe I should try something a little diff- … well that was about all I needed to get out before the she went into a blur of hands, clippers and scissors. Fortunately she knows a few more tricks than my father, but I ended up with short hair on the sides and a little bit longer than that on top. Instead of moussing it straight back however, I was told to put the gel on my finger tips and poke it into my hair, then tousle everything back and forth once or twice, leaving it standing up and pointing in every direction.

Wow. I figured people would think I’d either paid $90 to have my hair professionally zhooshed — or they’d think I’d just gotten out of bed. It’s kind of hip, kind of now…and by the end of the day it’s a little droopy. My daughter says that is because I’m just using styling gel; I need to switch to pomade. Pomade? I could see myself going into the drug store: “I’m a Dapper Dan man, I don’t want Fop, I want Dapper Dan!”

It also feels kind of funny, especially when the breeze blows. When I catch sight of my shadow or my reflection I reflexively reach for my comb to get the strays back in formation before I remember there are supposed to be strays; if I’ve done it right I’m supposed to look like a durian fruit, or Sonic the Hedgehog. I leave my comb in my pocket, though truth be told I could probably just leave it at home.

I’m getting used to it, though, and no one’s said anything to me about it. They probably figure it’s just some mid-life crisis and they don’t want to get involved.

Another slice of Night life

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This morning I trimmed my beard, and apparently some of the hairs escaped both the newspaper I placed over the sink and notice by my presbyopic eyes. A short while later the Reverend Mother gently chided me for leaving a hairy sink. “Face it,” she said good-naturedly, “you’re a slob.”

“Be precise,” I said. “I’m a hairy slob.”

“Ok,” she said, “to be precise, you’re a big, hairy slob.”

“Still not quite there,” I said. “I’m your big, hairy slob.”

“Yes, you’re my big, hairy slob.”

And what can be better than that?

Wash my eyes

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Thursday night I was giving Uncle Ben a ride home to the monastery after a fairly successful trivia challenge evening at Keegan’s (one first-place victory and a finish just one point out of the money in another). We drove past a night club that had a huge line of young people waiting to get inside. Suddenly, we were assaulted.

Standing in one group was a blonde Valkyrie with her back toward us. Ben estimated her at 240 pounds. She was “clad” in a plaid mini-skirt that might have been modest on Renee Zellweger, but was more of a sash on Brunhilde as it did an inadequate job of covering her thong – or anything else. Ben was thinking cottage cheese, but I think a more apt description would be a topographical map of the, er, moon.

Now I know the proper response to such an exposure is to look away, and believe me, we did. We looked away so firmly that I think my car almost jumped the curb and hit a streetlight. I also know there are many forms of beauty and appreciation for such (when in the proper context), and I try hard to refrain from making judgments about people based on their physical appearance (comely or otherwise), but such a deliberate “in-your-face” display suggests a certain aggressive, anti-social attitude. I don’t know what she was thinking, but I don’t imagine it was nice.

I’m telling you, the streets aren’t safe.

At home in the Dome

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I’ve made passing mention here a couple of times that I used to be a scoreboard operator at the Metrodome, working games for the Twins, Vikings and Gophers as well as working the odd (some odder than others) concert, tractor-pull or pro-wrasslin’ match. I only mentioned it before to add context to whatever else I was writing about at the time, figuring some time I’d get around to dedicating a post to the experience and offering a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes at major sporting events. I don’t know that there’s ever a perfect time to write something like that, but an e-mailer did ask for more Dome details the other day, so here goes.

Back in early 1982 I was an over-extended single guy looking for a part-time job to supplement my income, but I didn’t want to work at McDonald’s or someplace where someone I knew might see me. Perusing the want ads one day I saw an ad that went something like this: “Part-time opportunity, evenings and week-ends. Must be knowledgeable about football and baseball, able to type 50+ wpm and not afraid to perform in front of large crowds. For more info contact…” There was no mention of what the job was, and I almost dismissed it. The more I thought about it, though, I realized that there wasn’t anything in the ad that didn’t apply to me…even the large crowds thing. I applied, was interviewed, given a typing test and, obviously, hired.

There were 8 scoreboard operators plus Dick Davis from the Metropolitan Sports Commission who was in charge of the scoreboard and us. We were divided into two four-person teams and I was the only person who wasn’t a school teacher; six of the others, in fact, where coaches or had experience coaching as well. The system was all computer operated (though our first computers were very large and almost primitive) and there was a minor stink in the Strib before the season started because the new computerized system meant replacing the old groundskeepers from the Met who had been hanging the signs for the old board. Whatever.

The two crews alternated games, and within the crews we rotated through the four scoreboard positions on a game-by-game basis. Originally the job required someone to register balls, strikes, runs and the line score; someone to type in and display advertising and other messages during the course of the game; someone to keep track of and update out of town games; and someone to operate the sole video camera, perched on the second-deck fascia above third base. Unless the game was televised (and a lot of Twins games then weren’t) this was the stadium’s replay camera, beaming images to the black and white (black and yellow, actually) board, to be displayed through thousands of lightbulbs (“fuzz-dots” we called ’em). Resolution wasn’t very good, but you could see things well enough to recognize yourself if a crowd shot was put on the board.

The first balls & strikes console was a twitchy piece of dreck that didn’t have all the bugs worked out. Often you’d push the button for a ball or strike and it would delay the display long enough that you’d think it hadn’t registered the input, so you’d push again – only to see double strikes or balls suddenly go up. Push the button too hard to ensure it was registered and the same thing could happen. This was very frustrating to the operators and to the people in the press box, who were always looking for something to criticize.

Sid Hartman, the grand old man of Minnesota sportswriting, was especially incensed by this type of malfunction. The press box was immediately outside the door of our room and any time a “double-clutch” occurred he’d jump up and storm in to announce that the count was wrong, as if we didn’t know it. I was working the out-of-town board one evening when Sid made about six trips into our “office”. When another glitch occurred he was on his way in again. I happened to be standing by the door, however, so I innocently turned my back to it as if to look over the shoulder of the guy working the message board, while casually flipping the door lock into place. There was much door rattling and cursing; muffled as it was by our air-conditioned booth, but I think I did hear mentions of my parentage and my own capability to ever father children, but he finally went away and didn’t come back the rest of the game.

That was actually kind of a fun memory. One of my worst moments, however, came before a game against the Blue Jays. Tony Kubek had recently been demoted from the “Game of the Week” and was working the back-up GOTW. He was also the main broadcaster for the Jays, which I didn’t know at the time. Anyway, I’m walking through the press box and here comes Tony Kubek! I say, with some amazement, “Hey, Tony Kubek!” He smiles. I then blurt, “Are we the back-up game today?” I wasn’t trying to bust his chops; I was just surprised that the Twins of that era might be considered for a national broadcast (even if as a back-up). Mr. Kubek was not pleased. Dick Davis, however, witnessed the scene and thought it was one of the funniest things he’d ever seen and would never let me forget it, especially any time Kubek returned to the Dome.

There were other hero-sightings as well. In the early days we actually had to go down to the locker rooms to get the lineups, which were posted on a corkboard in the home and visitor clubhouses. I remember that Reggie Jackson, in boxers, tank-top and beat-up flip-flops, looked really old and that his calves seemed impossibly skinny. Ted Simmons wearing nothing but a jock is not a sight I’d wish on anyone. Another time I was writing down the visiting lineup, my piece of paper pressed against the wall under the corkboard. I finished and turned around to leave – and almost hit Sparky Anderson in the nose with my elbow. He’d walked up behind me and was eating a bowl of vegetable soup and watching me write down the lineup, or was perhaps just pondering making a change, and I’d never heard him approach. At least he laughed about it.

Another time I got the hairy eyeball from Don Drysdale when the White Sox were in town. He was standing in the back of the press box eating a hot dog when I came out of the scoreboard room about 20 feet from him. All of a sudden a fan in the row in front of the press box reached over the divider and grabbed my shoulder, shoved a baseball at me and said, “Hey, buddy – get Drysdale’s autograph for me.” It happened so quickly that I just obeyed, somewhat stupefied. I approached DD with the ball (he was close enough to hear what was going on) and he glared at me but took the ball and signed it (later I’d hear from others what a tough autograph he was). I barely got a “thanks” from the guy who gave me the ball. I should have kept it.

In addition to working World Series and ALCS games and an All Star game I also had the privilege of working Scott Erickson’s no-hitter and I got paid to see Dave Winfield’s and Eddie Murray’s 3,000th hits. I was also there the night Dave Kingman hit a monstrous foul ball straight up that never came down. The ball went into one of the holes stitched into the underlining of the Dome roof and disappeared. The funniest thing was all the Twins infielders (including shortstop Houston Jiminez – all 5′ 3″ inches of him) gathered in the middle of the infield, looking up at the roof in the hopes of fielding the pop-up. As the seconds went by, though, they started to get really nervous. All of a sudden they all simultaneously ducked and scattered in different directions expecting to be struck by the phantom ball that was never there. The next day someone in the Twins front office got the bright idea that before the first pitch of the game they’d have someone drop a ball from the ceiling and Mickey Hatcher would catch it and the umpire would call “Out”. Someone got up on the catwalk, Mickey and the ump positioned themselves near home plate, and the ball was dropped – by the guy above and by the guy with the glove.

One of my all-time favorite memories, however, came when I was working the camera back in the fuzz-dot days and doing crowd shots between innings. As I panned over a boy that was about 10 years old he saw he was on the board and then thought it would be funny to flip me off. Dick was in my headset saying, “Get off him! Get off him!” but I said, “No, just stick with me here” and I zoomed in on the kid, who immediately got very shy and embarrassed. He walked over a few seats and sat down low, trying to get out of sight. He looked up at the board and saw he was still up there. He slunk down even further and moved over several more seats, and I again followed him. By this time the crowd was laughing so the kid got up and ran up the stairs to the concourse. About that time the inning was beginning and Dick said, “OK, back to the game” but I suggested he take the camera shot off the board but to stay with me. He agreed and sure enough, a few minutes later the kid stuck his head back in from the concourse and looked to see if the coast was clear. Seeing the line score on the board he stepped back into the aisle. “Now!” I said and Dick immediately put the camera shot back on the board — the crowd roared, the players on the field (I was told) started turning around trying to figure out what was going on, and the kid high-tailed it back out to the concourse and has probably never gone to a ballgame since.

The camera also helped me get published in Sports Illustrated! Back in the day when Bob Uecker was doing his “I must be in the front rooow” commercials for Miller Lite, the Brewers came to the Dome for a series. Ueck’s commercials, if you recall, ended with him way out by himself in center field, hollering to the nearest guy, “Great seats, eh, buddy?” As the game went on I saw some guy sitting in the upper deck, center field, all by himself. I zoomed in on him (showing plenty of empty seats) and asked Dick through the headset, “Is that Bob Uecker?” He thought that was pretty funny so he told the guy working the message board to create a 1/3 board message with the words “Is that Bob Uecker?” to go alongside my camera shot. A couple of weeks later SI came out with a story about Ueck and the article started off by referring to my caption and camera shot from the Dome.

Well, those are some of the baseball memories. There’s more I could write about some of the amazing things I did and saw at football games, tractor-pulls and the Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones concerts, but I’ll save those for another time.

Dying easy

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When I walk outside to get the newspaper in the morning I never think to check first for skulking lions or packs of wolves. I drive to work with my seatbelt fastened and six airbags surrounding me and don’t bother to keep an eye out for bandits. I go to work in a building that’s never had a cave-in or been attacked by a whale and doesn’t even keep a tally board of how many accident-free days in a row have gone by. I come home to a delicious dinner that I didn’t have to risk life and limb in acquiring (and we haven’t bought any hydrogenated foods in years). If one of my children develops a cough I don’t worry that it’s the plague. My government hasn’t threatened to drag me away in the middle of the night for years.

Yep, our lives are pretty easy and danger free these days — or so I thought. I mentioned to my wife the other day that I had a case of bottled water in the trunk of my car if she needed any. She said I should be careful not to let the bottles get too warm because she heard they’ll release a toxic gas into the water. A few weeks ago I was eating with a group of folks and the discussion was about how cooking food in a microwave alters the molecules and destroys its nutritional value. This is supposedly especially true for vegetables, which I generally avoid anyway, but it makes me wonder what would happen if I microwaved a Twinkie. It seems to me as if the only way to go is up in that case, nutrition-wise.

Now when I was growing up I often heard that if you sat too close to that new-fangled color television set it would make you sterile (today they say that about laptops). I sat close to the TV anyway and it doesn’t seem to have had any effect. Of course, as a kid, I also drank out of the garden hose all the time — something else they now say you’re not supposed to do. The TV didn’t stop me from having children, and the laptop came along too late to impact our family planning (bringing one home all the time, however, does seem to have an affect on my sex life).

It’s hard to tell just what to take seriously anymore. I suppose anything that makes our life easier has just naturally got to have some insidious, toxic trade off (if only Eve had paid attention to the warning label on that apple!). I did some on-line research on the always reliable internet and there might be something to the microwaving thing (here, here and here, — oh, and don’t use one of these to dry your pet after a bath) and to the toxic water bottles, though there appears to be more concern about reusing bottles than the amount of PET that might leach into your premium H20. Still, it’s got to be safer than drinking tap water, right? Maybe not, unless of course you’re trying to avoid the harmful effects of fluoridation.
It’s enough to make you want to get your water direct from a clear mountain stream, as long as you don’t think to much about what all those fish and ducks have been doing in it.

I don’t know, I suppose the next thing they’re going to tell us is that watching television makes you fat.

Water-break in the salt mine

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I’ve been cranking along doing two jobs at work for a few weeks now. It’s meant limited time for lunch and longer hours (well, technically, it’s meant more hours; it’s just that I wish the hours could be longer somehow in order to squeeze everything in). Most nights I’m either bringing work home or I’m too tired to put a lot of time and research into a new post so I’ve just written some things off the top of my head to keep Tiger Lilly from taking over. I also haven’t had as much time to cruise through the MOB and my blogroll, which is what I really miss.

The pace at work has been kind of invigorating (yeah, I think that’s the word to describe the constant squirts of adrenaline and caffeine), and the end may be coming into sight. The light isn’t on at the end of the tunnel yet, but we’re getting real close to flipping the switch, I think.

There have been a number of things I would have liked to have written about lately but couldn’t get to them. Fortunately it hasn’t been hard to find others who are doing a better job on these topics anyway. Earlier this week Nick Coleman had a column saying that the rich aren’t paying their fare share in taxes in Minnesota. Coleman’s rant was about as predictable as worms on a sidewalk after a soaking rain, and it was just as easy pickings for my eagle-eyed friend Jeff Kouba at Truth vs. The Machine who (and Nick, you might want to consider this) actually looked up numbers and knew what they meant. As John Adams said, “Facts are stubborn things.” They can also be fun!

Also, it’s baseball season again. My joy at the return of the Twins is nearly equaled by the pleasure of being able to read the post-game analyses and musings by Bat Girl and her all-star roster of designated hitters as they follow the adventures (real and imagined) of our favorite team. This is good stuff, folks: funny, fresh and often surreal. If you’re only reading about the Twins in the newspaper you’re missing at least half of the fun.

AAARRGGH! There’s goes the shock collar again. Back to work!

You don’t have to be a weatherman

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You just have to have lived here for awhile.

Last week:

Uh-oh, Tom Waits. What had been perfect musical accompaniment on a cold, rainy night last week seemed jarringly out of place on a soft spring evening. Of course, Tom Waits can be jarring anytime. There was an amusing incongruity, however, in hearing him croak about something being as cold as a gut-shot wolf-bitch with nine sucking pups pulling a number 8 trap up a mountain in a snowstorm in the dead of winter with a mouthful of porcupine quills. Now that’s cold. And that’s probably the forecast for next week.

Yesterday:
Cold wind, rain and 11 inches of snow in Brainerd.

Today:
High of 30.

Who needs Paul Douglas?

Too old to rock and roll

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I haven’t used my bedside clock-radio as an alarm for a couple of years now, but most days I still wake up with a song in my head. I don’t know why I have words and a tune in my head when I open my eyes. Often it’s a song that we sang in church that week, but sometimes it’s a surprise from the vaults – an unexpected appearance of a song I haven’t heard in 20 years. I did download a bunch of Jethro Tull songs over the weekend, though, so this morning I wasn’t shocked when the first thing through my head was “He was too old to rock and roll, but he was too young to die.”

The very next thing through my head was, “Hey – it’s my birthday!”

I tipped my mental hat to the sense of humor of my internal DJ, then tried to reassemble myself for the shuffle/limp/crick-crack into the bathroom. Time was when “it’s my birthday!” would be the first thing I thought of, and I’d be out of the bed like a skyrocket. Now I’m more like a NASA rocket straining to break free of the earth’s gravity, while dropping parts behind me. I still get there, though.

For all the anticipation I had for my birthdays when I was a kid, there’s not too many that stick out in my memory today. That will happen, I suppose, when there’s been so many of them. There was the party I had when I was in first grade when one of my strapping classmates bodily lifted my mother off of the ground. As I further recall, I think he was shaving by sixth grade and doing time by eighth. That was also the party where one of the girls in attendance threw up on the table during the cake and ice cream.

Another time I had the honor of sharing my birthday with the Tornado Super Outbreak in 1974 that ravaged the midwest. I think that party might have been held in our basement. Later, April 3, 1996 was also the day when Unabomber Ted Kaczynski was arrested in Montana, which explains why he didn’t make it to my party and never called. Perhaps most ingloriously, though, is that I share the same birthdate (day and year) with Hollywood nutjob Alec Baldwin. And I thought my inner DJ had a sense of humor.

Anyway, this morning I made it through my morning toilette without any especially profound thoughts or insights on mortality and went downstairs where my daughters soon joined me for their tributes (see Tiger Lilly’s previous post). The Mall Diva is still especially giddy about giving (and receiving) gifts, but it was nice to note that she has gained more self-control since the time when she was four-years-old and burst into my room with a gaily-wrapped box and a hearty “Happy Birthday, Daddy – it’s a camera!”

Of course, the girls are the two best presents I’ve ever received and are the gifts that keep on giving (and not just with presents). Watching them grow up has been a tremendous return on the years I’ve paid into the process. If I can no longer lift them over my head by their ankles it is only because I’m saving myself for more prodigious feats of strength such as walking them down the aisle or launching them into the world. And I wonder what the musical accompaniment to that will be.

We were young

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Last night after I finished my blog post I decided to do a little channel surfing — but I didn’t get far. My thumb was barely warmed up before I came across FSN re-broadcasting Game 5 of the 1987 American League Championship Series between the Twins and the Detroit Tigers. By the time I tuned in the game was in the bottom of the 8th inning but I settled in to watch the exciting conclusion because I’d never seen it before.

Yes, Twins fan that I am, I had missed one of the seminal moments in Twins history; had, in fact, missed all but a few innings of this series. “What, where you out of the country or something?” you might ask. As a matter of fact, the answer is “yes” and “something.” I was honeymooning in Puerto Vallarta with the not-yet Reverend Mother, having gotten married on the same afternoon that the Twins played game three in Detroit (which fortunately caused me to miss the otherwise demoralizing Pat Sheridan homerun off of Jeff Reardon in the 9th).

I knew this team very well, however. I’d been working as a scoreboard operator for the Twins since the Dome opened a few years earlier and had watched this squad come together, working 40-50 games a year and watching most of the others on television (didn’t have a blog to take up my time then). I was the same age as most of the guys on the team and felt a certain identification with them as we came into our own in our respective careers. I could sense there was something coming together with that group, but never anticipated playoffs in the early days of 1987; hence wedding plans were made for October with confidence.

It was spell-binding last night, however, to have those heady days brought back to me on the big screen, to see Rat and Herbie and Puck and Bruno all young again and mighty. To be reminded again of how smooth Gags was in the field and to see Dan Gladden and Steve Lombardozzi on the same field — and to laugh again at the memory of how Gladden would eventually punch Lombo out for being such a putz. Watching Stevie run home with a clinching run in the ninth last night I found myself thinking, “the guy even runs like a jerk.”

I also got a little misty at how natural it seemed to see Kirby at the plate, lashing those practice swings, and to see Joe Niekro on the bench as the camera did a slow and unintentionally nostalgic pan through the dugout: hey, there’s Mark “Country” Davidson, Sal Butera, and Bushie, Baylor and Gene-O, and there’s Al “No-No” Newman (the nickname was one I used whenever Newmie had to come to the plate) and Bert Blyleven when his hair and beard were still orange, watching intensely and, uncharacteristically, not trying to give anyone a hot foot or a shaving cream facial. Finally, the crusty old skipper, Tom Kelly, not looking old and crusty at all back then.

Then there were the shots of the Tigers. My God, did the Twins really beat Jack Morris, Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammel and Lou Whitaker, while Sparky Anderson watched? Did anyone, even Gaetti, look more like a rat than Darrell Evans? And yeah, Sheridan, I saw you, too, you stiff prig with your ridiculous glasses, acting as if you belonged on the same field.

It was a strange sensation watching those two innings. Even though I knew the outcome of the game already there was still a lot of drama — probably because I knew of so many other outcomes still ahead. I also remembered what that time in my life, watching these guys in those seasons leading up to ’87, had meant to me, and I thought about how one of the greatest things that could happen to them was about to happen, just at the time that one of the greatest things that ever happened to me happened. And we were all so young!

Driving in my car, I turn on the radio

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It was a beautiful spring day – temperatures in the 70s, sunny and still too early for bugs. Of course, I was stuck in an office building all day, but once I got out to my car I wantonly rolled down the windows in wild abandon. I kept my hand near the window button, however, because it is March in Minnesota and it could start snowing in five minutes. Not today, though.

That’s not to say that there weren’t white-out conditions, however. I drove home via the University and those crazy kids there couldn’t wait to bare arms, legs and pasty torsos to the thin sunshine. The co-eds had that kind of vulnerable, bedraggled look of a Monarch butterfly just out of the cocoon. A sign of spring, all the same, and I can’t blame them — around here if you get a nice day this early you’ve got to jump on it.

I had in mind to blog about something much darker today, but I’m going to let that notion pass for now. It’s been too nice a day and I don’t really feel like going to that place right now. We’re sure to have rain sometime this week, and maybe I’ll do it then. Driving home today about the only metaphorical cloud in the sky was the fact that I couldn’t seem to find a radio station that wasn’t in the middle of a bank of commercials.

Normally during my evening drive time I bounce between KFAN, The Patriot and KTLK. I’ll listen until they come to a commercial and then my itchy finger moves on down the line. Today, for some reason — perhaps a meteorological one that delivered us an unseasonably warm day but also mysteriously synchronized radio signals — every station was paying bills, and two of them were playing the same commercial. It was like being chased through Dinkytown by Tom Shane. Now I’ve been told that I have a face for radio, but if there’s anyone who does not have a voice for radio it’s Tom Shane. I know it’s hard to hear that, Tom, but you’re my friend (albeit in the diamond business) and I’ve got to level with you. Your voice is scary, and the only way you’d sell me any jewelry is if you cornered me in a dark alley, which by the way, I wouldn’t be surprised to find you in.

Ok, switch to plan D — rather, plan CD — to get some tunes going lest I be seduced into getting my basement waterproofed. I couldn’t remember what the last thing was I had playing in the CD player, but I figured I’d give it a shot. Uh-oh, Tom Waits. What had been perfect musical accompaniment on a cold, rainy night last week seemed jarringly out of place on a soft spring evening. Of course, Tom Waits can be jarring anytime. There was an amusing incongruity, however, in hearing him croak about something being as cold as a gut-shot wolf-bitch with nine sucking pups pulling a number 8 trap up a mountain in a snowstorm with a mouthful of porcupine quills. Now that’s cold. And that’s probably the forecast for next week.