Meet Sparrow, an average man passing an average life…
Thursday, January 2
I went to the big city on New Year’s Day…There was no Veterans Service Office (VSO) that day, of course, so I had the next couple of days off and I really wanted to do more than lay on the couch and read and with The Wife still off tending to her sister and with the weather not too bad I was off as soon as my shift at the hotel was over.
Lunch was at the Burger Haven…Some might recall I discovered this crown jewel of restaurants when I was in the big city last August for VSO training…As good a burger as I’ve ever had tho, tragically, the fries and onion rings are without merit…That’s all right, you don’t’ go to a burger joint for fries and onion rings.
The big news is I bought some new gloves…My current gloves, after several years, are starting to show wear on the fingers and I’ll need new ones sooner or later and I had the C note we got from Scott the owner of the hotel burning a hole in my pocket and the Trading Company has a store in the big city…They’re world-class pieces of gear…Warmer than the other ones, which were pretty warm themselves…In fact, I did a field test on the drive home…I rolled the window down a bit and stuck a gloved hand out…It was 20 degrees or so and I was driving about 60 mph and the old gloves held up well, but the hand felt it…The new gloves, tho, good gravy, they were warm for the entire field test.
Dinner was with some Legion comrades…I think I need to stop drinking…I had a couple of Scotches with dinner and I could not get to sleep…This is the third time in the last couple of weeks this has happened and even a blockhead like yours truly can spot that trend…Recall I had a few at the hotel Christmas party and couldn’t sleep…Then this past Tuesday morning I had a shifter – the fabulous, complimentary well drink we get at the hotel bar after a shift – and couldn’t sleep.
I was back in the hotel room by 1800, good because I was, of course, exhausted and ready for bed…I had been upgraded to a modest suite because I checked in early and joined the rewards club, so I laid on the living room couch and watched the end of the Rose Bowl and the start of the Sugar Bowl and then headed into the bedroom to get some sleep…Didn’t work…About 2230 I took some Zzzzz-Sleep and still nothing, at least not for a while…Eventually, I drifted off but at 0230 I woke up suddenly…I actually felt pretty rested and wondered what the time was and was surprised to see it was only 0230…I thought it would’ve been later…I rolled over and might have fallen back asleep or might not have and was out the door a bit before 0500.
I stopped at the lobby for some coffee…The doors were locked, tho, and I was about to use my room key to open it but their night auditor waddled out, presenting the general appearance of someone who had just been rustled from his nappy-poo, a condition I have some modest experience with…His coffee service was second rate…There was only one pot out, there were no cups and the creamers were low…Fortunately, I had my travel mug and had the impression a breakfast attendant was due in later to take care of everything.
I stopped for breakfast at an old joint on the way out of town…Actually, it’s not a joint…They do have a counter, but it’s a family restaurant that’s been around for years, next door to a cheap national chain motel I stayed at in 2014 when Sparrow of US Senate had a TV appearance…They weren’t that busy at 0520, but outside of an older lady probably killing time as much as eating, the few other customers were unaccompanied adult males, like the other times I’d visited, which is the sign of a place that has really good food.
I got home about 0930 and was greeted at The Shire by a driveway that had between six inches and two feet of snow on it…Six inches in the driveway proper and the usual berm left by the town snow plowers…Fresh off getting stuck on one of those bastards, I didn’t even bother…I parked on the street and trekked thru the snow and after feeding the cat and unpacking a bit I dove in on it…Our snowblower is a trooper, so I was able to blow most of it, however, it protested when I asked it to attack the berm at the edge of the driveway, but it was a simple matter to shovel back into the driveway and then blow it away.
The big news in the small town is there are now (ugly) curtains over the windows at the closed diner!!!…I am not making that up…I don’t know if a new lessee is up to something or maybe the owners want to reduce the heating bills…I noticed it when I drove to the market to get some of their orange chicken for lunch.
Sparrow’s Sleep Log: 29.0 hours for the week…Regular readers of this crap know this is a depressing total…After Wednesday night’s lousy, alcohol-induced three hours, ol’ Sparrow came back strong with eight hours Thursday night…Still tho, the new sleep year/decade is off to a slow start…God bless all of you.
The Diary of a Nobody is a novel. All elements are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Anything else is a coincidence.
It was inspired by the 19th-century British novel of the same name.
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