So, so weary!
It wasn't a physical day -- not with the damned latest wind storm in progress. Can't play or work outside, too much dust in the air.
However, mental activities can be tiring, too. I worked on the Press this morning; except for the cover image, which should be done tomorrow, it's ready to go. (No Fever Dreams cartoon this week; there's a limit to how many articles I want carrying my byline. It's the Piker Press, not the Sand Pilarski Dog and Pony Show.)
When I had a few minutes to spare, I had a look at the Belmont Stakes site. The race is tomorrow, and Big Brown is the favorite. I'd looked at the Kentucky Derby on line some weeks ago, and Bernie had told me he'd seen an impressive clip of the Preakness. (Note: The horse races "Kentucky Derby", the "Preakness", and the "Belmont Stakes" comprise a series of grueling races called "The Triple Crown." When I lived on the East Coast, coverage of the races was huge; out here on the Other Coast, it's lucky if I see anything in the newspapers at all.)
So as my morning break, I Googled the Derby again, and then the Preakness, and was truly impressed by the performance of the favorite. He's not Secretariat, who, back in '73, stole my heart in the Derby post parade, before I knew anything about him, but Big Brown is a looker, and he pulled off that Preakness sprint with a lot of class.
The video I saw online showed the horse after the amazing surge of speed in the Preakness, after he'd won, with the jockey trying to slow the horse to a jog. Big Brown was fighting like a son of a bitch -- he wanted to keep on running. It was at that point that I suddenly had hairs turning gray remembering that our television was DEAD.
Bernie had just crawled out of bed and was feebly drinking coffee when I hit him with, "Dammit, the Belmont's tomorrow and we don't have a TV!!! And Baffert says he thinks Big Brown is a freak of nature and can pull off a Triple Crown!!! @!##!#!"
"You have got to watch your mouth when Lillian is home from school," he suggested groggily. But after I provided him with a sumptuous lunch of pork steak, parsley potatoes and butter, and white and yellow corn (mmm, sweet) he fired up the erstwhile "good" laptop (I still haven't forgiven it for eating 1100 words I wrote) and did the final research on TV's. "If you want a TV, you can go get it. Otherwise, you can wait until tomorrow and we'll see if we can get it before the race."
I was dressed and out the door before he was even ready to take his shower in preparation for work, stash dollars in pocket.
Never in my entire life have I bought a TV by myself.
Keep in mind that over the years, I've not gone anywhere by myself if I could help it, and since last summer's traumas, I couldn't go many places by myself, let alone spend multiple hundreds of dollars.
But I did. The new TV is in the living room now, functional, beautiful, bigger than I ever imagined a TV to be. Bernie said to me on the phone after I checked out and was on my way home, "Now I know how much you love the Belmont."
Yes.
And then I came home and made my first foray into experimenting with PHP! While cooking party chicken wings for snacking on during the Belmont! I was successful in my attempt at PHP, and the chicken wings are great! I am a GENIUS!!
Fine, not a genius, but wow, I stretched myself today.
Nice TV.
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