Band Hallucinations

This morning I'm in my back yard, watering my grass and playing Frisbee with Rio when I hear this very loud fart noise. As if a giant were standing over my house and cut one loose. I'm sitting there contemplating the realistic causes of the sound when suddenly I see movement on the hillside behind my house. And there, walking along the ridge of the hill, silhouetted against the morning sky, was a man with a marching-style tuba. It was one of those rub-your-eyes-and-blink moments to make sure what you were seeing was really what you were seeing. I cannot offer an explanation of why a man was walking along the top of a hill at 7:30 in the morning playing a tuba when he was a) not a kid in band and b) there are no schools in my area.

Nothing like taking a morning stroll with your tuba. It was so completely random.

Six Degrees of Randomness

Since I was tagged and challenged by Jen to write 6 random things about myself, I decided to take this Friday night to reflect on all things random, so here goes.

1) I love the smell of tar. It's about my favorite smell for a very weird reason: in high school our marching band practice field was next to the gym, which was getting a new roof. For some reason, I smelled that tar and since then I've always associated that smell with those crisp November days out there on the field. Good memories. Some people find the smell horrible, but it brings back great memories for me.

2) Even though I'm in my mid forties (can that be true???) I still have celebrity crushes. My current crush is Hugh Laurie. Those eyes! And he has perfect hands, which leads to Random Fact Number Three...

3) The first thing I notice about a man is his hands. There's a certain type I like. Please see Hugh Laurie for an example.

4) I really miss old people. My entire life I've been around them, since my mom had me when she was 46, which made my aunts and uncles nearly 50 years older than me. In the past 6 years, 11 of them have died, all in their 80s and 90s, and I really miss old people. The other night I was in a restaurant and the table next to me was full of elderly couples and I kept listening to their conversations and wishing I could go hug one of them.

5) The weirdest things make me inexplicably happy. A local nursery had aspen trees on sale for $24.95 for little ones and I went with the intention of buying one aspen tree. I came home with three, because once I set them all together they looked like a little baby aspen grove and it just symbolized the entire reason I moved to Colorado. I used to daydream about walking around in an aspen grove back when I lived in Texas, and even now, when I am among the aspens, I am so happy it's ridiculous. So, now I will have my own aspen grove. Now granted, it is only an aspen "grove" you can walk among if you are one of the Borrowers, but one day they will be old enough for me to really enjoy. And the leaves quaking in the wind fill me with such ridiculous joy, it's a little embarrassing. Last weekend I bought a decent-sized aspen tree with orange leaves and they said they really preferred mates, so this is why I bought more.

6) I believe I might be inherently lazy. There. I said it.