Yes, I’m reading The Fourth Hand. I love John Irving, Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Ciderhouse Rules and the earlier Watermethod Man are all favorites. But this book. What a piece of crap. He even has a little blurb at the end about why he wrote the book. Almost an apology. And he should apologize. I don’t think I’m going to finish it. Hollow characters, clunky self conscious prose, it’s supposed to be funny, but the only thing that amusesd me was the doctor who went jogging with a lacrosse stick so he could fling dog turds at the rowers on the river. I think that’s a metaphore for Irving’s flinging this turd at the reading public. Otherwise, be warned, stay away.

I’m getting a new iMac! How can I get Becky to agree to spending the extra $300 for the one with the BIG screen. It’s so pretty!

My computer went belly up on Sunday night.

What’s the deal? I take a huge risk to my ego, getting up on stage with some of the best players in town, not even knowing a single song, train wreck right on stage, get a huge adrenalin rush and make a life changing decision to move to Nashville or maybe Memphis and no one, no one but my dear friend DNW can muster a comment? People, remember, it’s all about me!

Went shopping for Prom Dinner tonight. Ceasar salad, grilled marinated pork tenderloin with mango chipotle sauce, pasta with grilled vegetables and for dessert, assorted ice creams.

Gotta go practice now!

I went to the jam again last night. This time I brought my guitar. You have to understand that I’m a complete closet musician, I play along with CDs and record rhythm tracks and play along to them. I’m pretty good at playing with myself. I’ve only performed in public once before and that was about 15 years ago. Also I’m a blues guy and this is a country jam. My pal is the leader of the session and he assured me that they wouldn’t go out of my depth.

We started out with a couple of three chord rockers that were close enough to the blues that I had no problem, except I did manage to hose up some of the changes. I think my rhythm playing was pretty good, nevertheless. I also dropped a couple of notes on my solos. Then they played a simple two chord country song and I got totally lost. I’m sure it sounded like a train wreck. The last song was a country song which was in E with an F#minor thrown in, and with Clay leaning over and whispering the changes to me I finally got it by the last chorus. When I came off the stage I was soaked with sweat. Everyone is very supportive, but I still kind of felt like a schmuck. Although it was really fun and a huge adrenalin rush….which of course meant I pretty much didn’t sleep last night.

I’m going to contemplate the insides of my eyelids over lunch. It’s great to live close to work!

Observations:

Iowa not only has a lower speed limit than Minnesota, it has a lot more highway cops.

My new car cruises easily at 90, and only turns 4000 at 110. I was tailing a 325i at about 80, knowing that the cops would always stop the beemer first, when two guys came up behind us in little sporty cars, a chevy and a toyota of some kind. We were passing slower traffic and things got a little crowded for awhile and then they blew by us on the open road. I couldn’t resist so I went after them and blew by them in about a mile. I then pulled over and let them go by. OK so I’m immature. But the car can do that AND fit all of Lucia’s stuff in the back for the ride home. Sport Wagon indeed!

I’ve heard the story a hundred times before. Lucia says that most of her male friends are missing at least one body part. One of her friends lost his foot up the the ankle. Seven, auger, shoelace. He was on the ISU football team until he decided he needed to hit the books harder if he was going into Vet Med.

Lucia had just come off her first all nighter. I’m amazed she got through all but one night of freshman year. She must be better at planning than I was. She was putting her portfolio together for her design school application. She gashed herself with an Exacto knife. When she dropped off the portfolio, the faculty that was taking them in tood one look and identified the wound. I guess that it’s a designer’s rite of passage.

One of her friends bought a goat for her brother’s birthday. They had to smuggle into the dorms and keep it hidden for four days. It’s a baby goat, three months old. It’s a breed that’s known as a fainting goat. When they’re startled their legs go stiff and they fall over. They were trying to get it to faint but they were the one’s that ended up rolling on the floor with laughter.

We are hosting Quinn’s prom dinner. I haven’t figured out the menu yet but it should be a lot of fun. Maybe I’ll rent a tux and play a high class waiter.

Tomorrow I’m driving down to Ames to pick up L and bring her home for the summer. And now we wait until mid June to find out if she got into the Graphic Design program. I’m betting on her, she made the Dean’s list this semester and she seems to be doing well in drawing studio class she has.

Today is the twentieth anniversary of my last drink.

I stayed calm (not my strong point) and called the manager of Quinn’s manager. I started out asking about the incident of the shirt. She started to tell me the details of the events, which Quinn already had. I interupted her by saying, “I really don’ need all the details,” I told her what FB was threatening to do and she blurted out, “Oh no, we can’t do that. We’ve been running this place for umpty up years and we know that we can’t do that?”

Then I questioned her about the high turnover rate of her teenage employees and wondered if it might have something to do with FB. She informed me that they had several girls that worked all through high school and have only had problems lately. She got very defensive about FB and told me all of her good qualities. How they would never let her go. Sounds like maybe she’s been down this path before. I never mentioned anything about letting FB go. And anyway, I think FB might be in deep trouble if she were out trying to compete in the job market. She might have to start brushing her teeth more than once a week.

Anyway Quinn had already put in her notice followed in short order by her only other trained co-worker. Quinn is much more calm. Before we went to bed last night I asked her what she wanted to do, go confront FB herself or have me intervene. I told her I didn’t care which, but whatever happened she would not be taking the docking. We decided to sleep on it. When I got up in the morning she agreed that I should handle at least the initial contact. But she expressed in her dramatic way that she was nervous about me flying off the handle. I’m kind of volatile and I have a ferocious temper. I have these out of body experiences. It’s a family thing. My dad, both my Siblings. My sister is really volcanic. Red headed fury. This is were she gives me a dirty look and says, “Auburn.” I think she’d work a tssk in there somewhere too.

I promised to stay calm. Later in the day she called me at work and on my cel to warn me that her business teacher told her that businesses could actually dock employees checks. Now I’m going to have to straighten her out too. I assured Quinn that was not the case and told her that I had talked to the uberboss and everything was hunky dorey. We had a nice convesation.

Quinn is cool. Quinn is a force of nature. The Mighty Quinn.

I’m steaming. Quinn works at a dry cleaner part time, after school and Saturdays. Her boss is a total bitch. This fat, lazy, nuerotic, holier than thou Christian bitch who drives the high school kids who work there away within a couple of months of their hiring. Quinn put in her notice last week because she wasn’t going to let them off on the day of prom.

Awhile ago there was a squabble with a customer over some damage to a shirt. Quinn was there when he came in to complain. They told him there was no guarentee on damaged buttons, but they took the shirt back with the understanding that they were going to fix it. According to Quinn, there was no mention that it was going to be done for free. The customer assumed that it was, the store assumed that it wasn’t. There was a manager from the plant in the store at the time. The customer came to get the shirt and refused to pay. They wouldn’t give it to him. A month passed. He came in when Quinn was working and asked for the shirt. There was an invoice on it that said “No Charge.” It was stapled over the invoice for alterations. Quinn didn’t see it and assumed that the manager and customer had come to some kind of agreement.

When Quinn came into work today, bitch woman tells her that she’s docking her paycheck $30 for letting him have the shirt. And that she’d just cash her paycheck and pay her in cash out of the till, minus the thirty. From my bartending days I knew that was totally illegal in Minnesota. If I’d had to pay for breakage, I would have owed the bar money. It took about two minutes to find the law on the Department of Labor Website. Not only that, for that woman to “cash” her check and pay her out of the till smacks of check fraud to me.

I’m just furious. I think the bitch isn’t doing it as a representative of the business, but simply planning on pocketing the thiry herself. Or is afraid to tell her boss that the shirt left the premises and was just going to ring it up as a cash transaction to make herself look good. My first temptation is to go in there tomorrow and plop the printout from the Website down in front of Jabba the Manager and ask her to read it out loud for me. And then if she gives me any “I’m just doing what I’m told” bullshit, I’ll ask her to get her boss on the phone so I can explaing the law to her.

But I suppose a wise parent would just let the kid work it out for herself.