BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I was going to call this “It’s Just An Egg Sandwich…”, but then I had one of those moments of inspiration. Either that, or gas, I’m not sure which. In any event, I’m hoping Kurt Vonnegut will forgive me for throwing down some massa-cree on his title. After all, I did use the short version*. That should count for something.

So it goes**… Why was I going to call this entry “It’s Just An Egg Sandwich…”? Well, that’s fairly simple, actually. Mostly because I happened upon the idea of writing it while I was in the middle of fixing myself an egg sammich… On whole wheat… With cheese… And ‘mater. Kinda makes you hungry, eh?

So it goes…  The whole egg sammich thing was one of those, “Oh yeah, that again… maybe I should write about it,” moments. You know, sort of like Deja Vu, but not. Mostly because I don’t allow my deja to be vued.  It’s way too personal.

So it goes… I was standing there fixing myself an egg sammich when it suddenly dawned on me that at some unknown point in the future I would be doing something equally mundane, but that I would just as suddenly flash on the fact that I had once been standing there fixing myself an egg sammich and thinking about the fact that at some unknown point in the future I would be thinking about this moment in time and wondering where all the time that was in between had gotten off to; whereupon I would then think about the fact that I was standing there fixing myself an egg sammich and… Well… I think you get the idea.

And why did I suddenly flash on all that? Well, because in the instant prior to that flash there had been another flash. Not the expose yourself kind, mind you… Although, in a way I suppose it was. Nope… This was another of those flashes in the brainpan.

So it goes… I was standing there fixing myself an egg sammich and thinking about the fact that at some unknown point in the future I would be doing something equally mundane, but that I would just as suddenly flash on the fact that I had once been standing there fixing myself an egg sammich and thinking about the fact that at some unknown point in the future I would be thinking about this moment in time and wondering where all the time that was in between had gotten off to, because I had just flashed on something I had done in the past that was equally mundane while having the very same sort of thought…

And… So it goes… My world falls in upon itself like a shattered mirror, reflecting back what was, what is, and what will be.

Maybe I should change my name to Billy Pilgrim… But then I’d have to get killed by a gullible moron – of course, that’s Kurt’s story, not mine…

I think maybe I should just keep writing. It seems Kurt and I have a lot in common where style and satire are concerned. Hell, we both even have critics that hate us because we don’t follow their rules, and you know what? That suits me just fine… I bet it did Kurt, too. I’ll ask him when I get to the other side. I suspect that is a ways off yet, however, I’m willing to bet I’ll by lying there in my bed thinking about the time I was fixing myself an egg sammich and flashing on the thought that I would one day be doing…

So it goes…

More to come…

Murv

* The actual full title of Slaughterhouse Five is: Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death.

** “So it goes” is a commonly repeated expression employed by Vonnegut in the book, Slaughterhouse Five.

As promised, I am throwing together a few blogs about our adventures on vacation. Please make note that they won’t necessarily be in chronological order as far as the vacation itself went. They are actually in “transcribed jotted down note order,” which makes sense to me, but not really everyone else. At any rate, this is number two in the series…

You just can’t trust anyone these days… Not even family. Seriously. They will rat you out on something in a New York Minute. Which begs the question, what exactly is a New York Minute? Is it slower or faster than a regular minute? If so do they have to sell special watches and clocks in New York? If it’s faster, is that why they have the New Years celebration there, so they can get it over with quicker? Do you have “time lag” if you go to New York then return to the temporal dimension that governs everyone else?

Could make you crazy just thinking about it, ya’know?

Anywho, back to the ratting out thing.

Gratuitious "Tourist Snapshot" of walkway atop Signal Mountain

After our Snake River Adventure with Philosopher Steve (which is on my schedule to blog about) we took his advice and went up to the top of Signal Mountain. Great view, but why is it called Signal Mountain? Well… I don’t know quite how it originally got its name, but there does happen to be a rather large cell tower on top of it, and you can definitely get signal there.

However… After going up a mountain there’s very little left to do other than go back down, which eventually, we did. On the way we kept on the lookout for wildlife so that we could go “Ooh, Ahh, never seen one of those…” and then take pictures like typical tourists. In point of fact, my Brother-in-Law was on a mission to take pictures of a Bear (or three, or four, or five…) He had come to Wyoming, as he said, “Loaded for Bear”… Judging from some of the lenses he was packing, I certainly couldn’t dispute that.

And so, as we traveled down the mountain, watching out the windows, we eventually came upon some wildlife. This particular wildlife took the form of a small clutch of German tourists. They were stopped along the side of the road snapping pictures, so we pulled up slowly so as to not spook whatever it was that happened to be the subject of the picture taking. This is when we discovered they were German. By this I mean, one of them stood there nodding her head and smiling at us, while a couple of the others kept saying to us, “Ja… Ja… Das Cinnamon Bayer…”

The other few behind them were also nodding and saying, “Ja… Ja…”

It was sort of sad. Not them. I mean us. Why? Because none of us could speak German. Well… THEY could, but we couldn’t…

From lookout at end of walkway: Jackson Lake with Grand Tetons

Either way, we parked, climbed out, and milled around waiting to see if we could get a picture of “Smokey the Bear.” Unfortunately, if Cinnamon (Nutmeg, Turmeric, Ginger, or even Mary Ann) bears were in the vicinity we never got to see them. Why? Because of the horn honkers. But we’ll talk about them in a different blog. Right now we need to talk about me being ratted out.

And so… Due to the horn honkers we climbed back into the rental Jeep and started back down the mountain. We hadn’t traveled more than 200 yards when the seatbelt chime began to ding, dong, squeal, and otherwise demand we pay attention to it.

E K, who was in charge of driving (as we’ve already established, what with her control issues and all) said, “All right. Who doesn’t have their seatbelt on?”

Our Sister-in-Law replied, “It’s John.”

John, being my Brother-in-Law you understand, announces, “Neither does Murv!”

Guess which one of us got smacked by the redhead…

Okay, guess I should wrap it up for this installment… Gotta go get the stitches taken out in a bit…

More to come…

Murv