There are some shows during which it is acceptable to fall asleep. MST3K¹ features these films. Tradition in my home is to watch a MST3K program during the middle of a Saturday afternoon. Yesterday was different. There were doctor's appointments to keep, shopping and work to finish, first.

I loved the day for the most part because two of the three activities concentrated on another person, not me. I enjoyed staying home and relaxing after playing chauffeur and going blonde, again. Unfortunately, after keeping the home fires burning (clean linens, hot food, happy cats), I wound up enduring an evening showing of MST3K in order to accommodate my man (the hazards of being with a younger man, adolescent programming ... no secret here, I am an ageist). Worth it especially now that he is giving me a lot of the money he is making ... to manage.

It's not enough.

I continue to badger and bully him to make more. Shameful, I know, but he won't leave me, and this puts me in the position of having to behave the way I do because 6' something and 240 pounds cost a bundle to feed (no, not me, him). I am no good being "the man". Yes, call it a double standard, but I believe it should be "I" who maintains the home while the "man" goes out to slay the dragon.

It probably goes way back to my upbringing. My mom never had to work. If she worked outside the home it was because she wanted to work not because my dad couldn't earn enough to support the home. MST3K guy grew up without a mother for several years, and when his widowed father remarried, (the new wife) ended up being a powerhouse business woman. It wasn't so much that his father couldn't support the home, she worked because they enjoyed a lifestyle involving a certain social structure which is not necessary to discuss with the exception of how MST3K guy is accustomed to a strong woman.

The problem is "strong woman" is not me.

I don't know that I could have taken on a man, his kids, and then turn around and raise two more brand new male children, from scratch, all the while working in an executive position in some New York high rise international corporation; though, nannies do seem to come in handy not to mention maids ... but I can't stand strangers in my home. I mean, when the carpet cleaner guy came, or when, over the past three days, I was expecting the maintenance guys to invade with their annual inspections, I was a nervous wreck.

One pair of ball busting at a time, for me, because it is torture for me to have servants. I am more the servant type than an overlord. Which is probably the reason I defer to my man in spite of all my bullying. MST3K? Sure, honey (which I never say, but "honey" sounds right in the flow of words).

Skipping the robots giving themselves belly buttons to ponder, the show within the show starts with ruffians chasing a punk who dumps his wallet which winds up being found by a drifting railroad hobo, a good-looking James Dean-type skimming the confidence of Gregory Peck. The idiot punk turns out to be a naive Tyrone Powers (oops, I mean Montgomery Cliff) wannabe only way more gay. Turns out, the hobo has a heart of gold and returns the wallet to the kid. The kid turns out to need a daddy figure so he adopts the hobo as his money manager. They have a whole $100.00 dollar bill to burn.

I'm getting bored writing about it. And if I'm bored, I am sure I lost you way back before "home" and "servant". So I'm gonna speed this up like a train passing and Dopler this to its overdue grave:

In God We Trust. I have been narrowing down my plan to carry out for the year. While doing so, I have been pondering the cross-world Toyota-driving art director who now reminds me of the drifter boy and his $100.00. I hope the man doesn't fall into some Celestine Prophecy trap or become a prodigal son or that other story that slips my mind about a traveler who sells his goats and climbs a beanstalk. In the end, it's probably not a bad idea that he sell his story, especially if he can do it in such a way that creates jobs and helps other people survive without his being sacrificed.

¹ Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Don't worry about the photo being small and out of focus. The focus is worse the larger I make it. I am using it to represent a plan. The goal was to paint a two story gigantic house with five bedrooms and four bathrooms by the end of thirty days. We planned correctly to start the painting there, at the side of the house seen by the cars approaching from the side of the street heading toward the house. After finishing the side, we disassembled our scaffolding and reassembled it in front of the house. Painting the deck and pulling up dandelions and riding our bikes through the reservoir (Alberta, Canada) took up too much time to leave enough time to paint the back and other side of the house.

It was also summertime and we did nothing during the above 100 part of the day.

The house belonged to the sister of my artist friend. The photo doesn't show the deck, but I found the inspiration for the sun design he outlined in tape. I was made to feel special like Huck Finn or something given that I had the pleasure of stain-painting it. We did all this after renting a power sander, sanding and umpteen million trips to Home Depot.

I knew we would run out of time before the job was done. I know how these things work. My artist friend was more the type to get lost in the time and goof off, which is why we did too much bike riding and daisy sniffing. And fighting. I was frightened his sister would think we were losers for doing a lousy job. He didn't seem to care, and in fact, made his sister love him even more with his clever words. Hey, she knew him better than I did. Though I did know his art was drama. He was a master dramatist with 10 years of schooling including graduate school behind him. A local celebrity who was on sabbatical due to experiencing a melt-down after his boss vandalized his stage ("vandalize" was my friend's perception of the white wash painted over the graffiti the street kids he found to paint it, painted).

I can't go into too much detail because I am unsure of how far is too far and whether it will really drive the plot of my own article here to necessary completion.

Which brings me to the guy who is going on a car journey around the world. He claims he has no sponsors because he isn't doing the trip for any worthwhile cause except to be able to have a fun story to tell his children and grandchildren. Currently, he has no children making it easier for him to quit his job. I smell something fishy like Good Morning America and book deal in his future. Which are fine and great, but he comes across a tad disingenuous not to admit he thought of these.

If I am going to emulate him, not so much driving around the world for a year, giving myself a year to accomplish some goal, I feel I must have a reason other than "it was there" and "just because". There will be no kids in my future if I can help it (not for lack of ever wanting any; I'm just at the risk of giving them Down's Syndrome stage of life). No kids mean no grandkids. I do have nieces and nephews and cousins, but I keep my distance given their parents. I am afraid I will not seek to publish a book or accept an invite on the Today Show (it's pure flattering myself to even hint at the zero possibility of being interesting enough for these), but I won't kid you. If I am pleaded with enough, I might cave to the temptation of marketing my story.

And what story would this be? Diet and exercise have been done to death. It also seems that any story that has already been done might not be very marketable. I'd have to come up with something no one has ever seen, and why would I care whether anyone sees what I've done and what I am doing? I think bottom line it would have to be something that would help people like my artist friend who helped teenagers see the dangers in bullying.

(oh god ... stop. NOW)