A Memory - or, "Ain't No Wheatgrass at Our Bluegrass"

"I'm going to get us a drink", he whispered, climbing past me to the aisle and disappearing into the darkness of the theatre. The song ended, a second was sung, and a third. A piece of the darkness took on human form and a paper cup was thrust into my hand as he clambered back into his seat. I took a sip, then another. "What is this?", I asked, thinking, It tastes like pop, he knows I don't drink pop. "Sprite" was the reply, and I looked over to see one eyebrow raised mischievously, and a smile on his lips. Noting my confusion, he reached over and twirled the straw around for a few moments, sending the ice cubes crashing against each other and the sides of the cup. I took another sip and grinned in recognition. "...or, more accurately, seven and seven," he said happily.

Perfect!

So it was being a rotten Sunday - one of those days when I am SO tempted to break that little I-will-never-smoke-ever-again promise to God, buy a pack, run the g&t fixings upstairs to my room, lock my door and get happily smoky and tipsy and lie on the floor - and then I saw this in the paper:
...And suddenly it didn't matter so much that I'm unemployed, desperately poor, ready to throttle my mother, powerless to move out of the house, and very unlikely to have little dark-haired babies any time soon. Well, not quite. But at least I could chuckle about a comic strip while internalizing my rage at the injustice of the world.

P.S. Had a nice little gin&tonic anyway.

Survey

After years of receiving gifts of orchids from my father's Chinese customers, I finally decided to find out what this Chinese New Year thing was all about. Or at least, which year I am. Now I'd like you, my faithful readers (yes, both of you), to go here: http://www.holymtn.com/astrology/year.htm and tell me how accurate you find your years' descriptions. Mine is eerily so. Not perfect, but pretty durned close. On all the good bits, anyway - of course the criticisms are all wrong. And of course these things are written using such ambiguous terms that each could apply to anyone with a gullible enough mind, yada yada yada, but still...
Anyhoo guess what my year symbol is? http://www.weebls-stuff.com/wab/anywhere/ Crank those speakers, ladies, and boogie.