2004-05-03 - 9:43 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Maybe I'm Amazed", Wings, which P is playing on his computer right now.

2004-05-03

Um.

Good grief, I'm behind. I just found a journal entry that I wrote ages ago (like, 2-3 weeks) but never posted. I guess I'll have to post that in a little bit.

In catch-up news:

- The end of last week was hellish work-wise and I also was waking up too early (thinking about work) and not getting enough sleep. Friday I had to go to DC for a meeting and woke up at 7am (I didn't NEED to get up until 8:30) and couldn't fall back asleep, resulting in me sitting up in bed and crying from sheer frustration. At least the subsequent endorphin rush made me feel less angry about missing out on sleep.

- On Saturday, things started improving considerably. I went to my cousin Stacey's house for a big family party. I was with my family from about 1:30pm until 9:30pm and I had a freakin' fabulous time.

- I brought bigass pruning shears with the intent of stealing as many of her lilac blooms as I could fit into my vases (she has two huge bushes). Then she wanted some, and then our aunt wanted some, and I'm amazed there are any left on the tree. We had a great time out there snipping them off and smashing the stems with a hammer.

- My wonderful mother also brought me a surprise vase of some white lilacs off her own tree. :)

- In case you can't tell, lilacs are my favorite flower ever. When I got married (March 7), the florist had some white ones shipped up from Georgia to put into the bouquet. My mom got teary when she saw them.

- At the party, my mom and her sisters and my cousin and her four girls and I all got out on the patio and did little dance routines together. I don't know what they were -- I was just copying Stacey and the girls -- but they were Electric Slide type dances and it was fun. There was also a lot of singing. One sister will be reminded of a song, start singing, and the others join in.

- Before I went home, I went over to my youngest aunt's house -- she's been living there for three years and I hadn't seen it yet. I fell in LOVE. Her house is over 200 years old and all the trim and all the doors are solid old, dark-finished wood. *weep* She's done an incredible job decorating it, too.

- Yesterday I did absolutely NOTHING that could be called "work" or a "chore". I didn't even fetch. We ordered takeout and POINDEXTER FETCHED IT. Now THAT's a day of rest.

Background: When I don't have my hearing aids on, I ask Poindexter yes/no questions to communicate, and he squeezes whatever of my body parts he's got his hand on at the time. One squeeze means "no", two squeezes means "yes", and three squeezes means "maybe" or "I don't know".

Also, when I first fall asleep, I sleep REALLY hard. As long as I'm not stressed (which makes me sleep lightly), and the room is completely dark (light wakes me up) you can literally pick me up and move me somewhere else in the bed and I will have no recollection of it in the morning.

Anyway. As you know, Poindexter is a huge Sharks (hockey) fan. Last night, the Sharks were playing Game 5 of their series (they were 3-1 going in). I went to bed at midnight, after two periods, and Poindexter came to bed after the game was over. When he comes to bed after staying up late to watch a game, I want to know if they won or not, but I can never wake up enough to have a coherent conversation.

Last night, when I realized he was getting into bed, I said, "I'm gonna go pee." Then I asked, "Did we win?"

He squeezed my leg to tell me, but I lost track of the squeezes and thought I got three, which didn't make any sense, so I asked again. "Did we win?" I got two squeezes. Then I honestly think I fell asleep again for a second, and he woke me up by shifting position to spoon me better, and I said, "I don't think I'm going to pee after all," and immediately passed out.

Poindexter says, "You're fun when you're sleeping."

Another time, before playoffs, I think, he came to bed and I was on his side, and I couldn't wake up enough to roll over and get into a spooning position. I knew I was supposed to be doing something helpful, and I knew it involved moving, but I couldn't figure out what it was. So I said, "I'm so confused."

Yesterday I went to Jim's to get us some cheesesteaks for dinner. Jim's is one of the more famous cheesesteak places, and it has celebrity photos on the walls with autographs. A lot of them are old, but Bruce Willis is up there, from when he was filming his M. Night Shyamalan movies, Holly Robinson Peete, and some sports folks I don't recognize since the only sports players I know are the cute hockey players who never spit, like Paul Kariya.

Anyway, I was standing in line, and noticed a guy and his wife in front of me. He was in his 50s or thereabouts. He looks familiar, I thought. Where have I seen him? Some sitcom, maybe? Maybe he just resembles someone famous. He looks like a cross between Robert Guillaume or John Amos. He's kinda short, though, and his features are very strong ... would that translate well to TV? Well, maybe he's just rich. They look rich and upper-crust. Especially next to all us South Street slobs.

By the time I'd decided he wasn't somebody famous after all, and just a charismatic man, the people who work at Jim's started to notice him. The people in line were buzzing. The employees gave him two pieces of paper to autograph and all the employees were standing around watching him sign, and I saw him mention that there was a cab waiting for him outside.

At that point I was going nuts, trying to remember sitcoms in the 70s and 80s where I might've seen this guy. I practically ran home and went upstairs and started looking them all up on the IMDB -- "What's Happening!", "The Jeffersons", "Good Times". I looked on the African American Registry. I looked on "Hey, It's That Guy!". No luck.

Then I chatted with Brian on IM and forgot about it for a couple of hours, but when he went to get dinner I started looking again. I wasn't going to be able to sleep if I didn't figure it out, and I was afraid I'd forget what he actually looked like and replace him in my mind with Benson. In desperation I typed "african-american actor" into Google and scanned past entries about Denzel Washington and Bill Cosby. One of the pages that came up said something about a sitcom set in Philadelphia, so I clicked on that.

BINGO! I'm fairly certain it was Clifton Davis, who played the preacher on "Amen!" The thing is, I don't remember ever watching that. I watched more teenybopper shows and Fox shows -- "Living Single", "Martin", "A Different World", "Fresh Prince", stuff like that. I was aware of the show, mainly because Sherman Helmsley was in it, but I don't know that I ever saw an episode. He was also in "Any Given Sunday", though, so maybe I remembered him from that.

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