2000-12-01 - 4:26pm

On the internal soundtrack: "For What It's Worth", again. This time it's because I saw a snippet of lyrics in a headline. Last time I was listening to the Forrest Gump soundtrack.

So, did you catch the Britney Spears concert last night? Poindexter sure did. He sat there, all agog, when she came out in that flesh-colored sparkly outfit. He spent the entire concert waiting, mostly in vain, for a good butt shot. I think he got one, some hip swiveling with her back to the audience in the sprayed-on purple outfit. She's got a good butt, but the camera people weren't interested in it, alas.

(Incidentally, Christina Aguilera has NO butt that I can discern. Disappointing, considering how short her shorts were at the awards show.)

There doesn't seem to be a thinking person inside Britney Spears's head. When you see her talking for the camera, she seems mechanical (StepfordBritney!) and her eyes look dead.

Nevertheless, I have a strange fascination with Britney Spears. I like looking at her. I can't figure out why. Poindexter says brightly, "Because she's America's Girlfriend!", quoting some ad he saw a while back. I don't think that's it. I do know I appreciate that she hasn't completely starved herself. She's got a little schmoo around her hips that I like. Maybe that's it.

I'm grumpy this morning. I got up at 7:30 (well, 7:20 since my bedroom clock is fast) and got to work by 8. But I forgot my lunch, and am out of cup o' soup, and I have what feels like a little scratch on my left eyeball that is driving me insane. It doesn't hurt, really, it's almost an itch. Very, very annoying. I had an eyelash in it last night so that's probably what caused it.

A little background on my grandfather: He is a very meticulous person. When we tell him a family gathering starts at 3pm, he is there at 3pm ON THE NOSE. Every time. He dislikes wasting things. When he asks you a question, he wants answers in excruciating detail and will repeat the answers back to make sure he understands. He also is very careful about pronounciation -- you'd think English wasn't his first language, he's so careful.

So you might guess why I laughed when I got this email from my mother this morning:

"They moved Grandpop last night for rehab. Dad got a call at 4:30, saying that they were moving him at 6 p.m. We had to run down and take clothes and stuff over. He seems much more like himself. As soon as he looked at the mail, he was telling us step by step what we had to do with the checkbook, etc., including in what files at home to find all the info for sending the auto registration renewal, which doesn't expire until Feb. 28."

I am not the least bit surprised he's already concerned about his auto registration, three months in advance.

The language thing is funny. He has an interest in words, nuances of meaning, grammar, and spelling that my brother and I have inherited. He's the reason I know how to spell "supersede", and over Thanksgiving we were discussing what the definition of a "pun" was. I don't think he has ever come to visit without bringing up something that necessitated cracking open the dictionary.

He also is not terribly colloquial and can sound rather formal. He says "Many happy returns of the day" and other quaint phrases on birthdays. He is fussy about referring to things by their proper terms. Rather than say "the hospital", for example, he insists on referring to it by its full name every time -- "Smallville Memorial Medical Center", or whatever it was. He also pronounces each word very precisely -- he'd never say "gonna" for "going to".

The other night when we talked on the phone, I asked if he had gotten the NY Times that day (he reads it every single day). He told me a long, mundanely detailed story (whom he asked about getting it, delays in newspaper delivery to the hospital, etc.), concluding with the fact that he picked it up in the hospital lobby.

If I said "hospital lobby", it would come out like "hospitalobby". The L at the end of "hospital" is the same one I am using at the beginning of the word "lobby". Not so Pop-Pop. He says "Hospital Lobby". His emphasis on the Ls made it come out "hospitalll lllobby". He cracks me up.

He's so much fun. I'm glad he's feeling better.

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