Happy Friday.

193. I feel like I need to write something today. Problem is, I have nothing to say. So I’ll give a quick update on the state of things.

Looks like the puppies have a home. That makes me happy.

Handy Week has snuck up on me this year. I say that like I always look forward to Handy week. Not true. I really kind of hate it. For those of you unfamiliar with the Shoals, The WC Handy Festival is an annual, weeklong celebration of the life and work of jazz musician WC Handy, who was born here in Florence, AL. It is a week of music and festivities through out Florence, Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia (The Shoals).

How could I hate that? Handy Week (henceforth HW) is little more than an excuse to have live music anywhere and everywhere all week long. HW makes it almost impossible to go out and eat anywhere. There is music everywhere. Literally. Everywhere. Churches, restaurants, the side of the road, Wal-Mart, the mall. Everywhere! It really is annoying. Especially when the music is not very good.

For example, 2 years ago. We were going to eat lunch and couldn’t decide where to go. We came upon Sidelines Sports Grill. It was relatively new and we had never been there. The parking lot was not very full. We parked and walked into the building.

Upon entering, I noticed a skinny white guy sitting off to the left. He looked no more than 18. He had an electric guitar, an amplifier, a stool, and a microphone: The only essential tools of a HW entertainer. A few seconds after we walked in and before we could even tell the hostess how many were in our party he began his performance.

When I mentioned the only essential tools for HW above, I was serious. One tool that is conspicuously missing from that list is talent. Over the years I’ve learned that talent is not essential to landing a HW gig.

The song began with a broken chord played on a cheap guitar. He obviously bought his amplifier from Spinäl Täp. It definitely went up to 11. He was a blues song as best I could tell. Then he began to “sing.” I’m not the best singer. I’m not the best judge of vocal talent. I will give it a shot. He sucked. Bad. Imagine metal gears grinding together and rubbing against a chalkboard while one of the gears pulls a fork roughly across a china plate. That is roughly what we heard.

We promptly turned and left the building. That is what I equate with the Handy Festival. Gears on a chalkboard dragging a fork across a plate. I don’t like it.

When I realized today was the beginning of Handy Festival, I remembered that the band talked about doing some sort of Handy event this year. Oops! I guess that slipped through the cracks of our various busy lives.

A quick story before I’m done.

We have a small garden at our house this year. We have cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes. We also have a small herb garden. I would call the garden lush. Our squash plant produced 3-4 large yellow gourds, but then it kicked the bucket. They were tasty. The cucumber plant continues to put out 18-24 inch cucumbers. They are, no doubt, the largest cucumbers I’ve ever seen.

The tomato plants are doing well, but we have yet to benefit very much from their effort. Early on both plants produced abundant fruit. One tomato grew large and plump. We anxiously awaited the day when it was red and ripe for picking. (Actually in all honesty, I wasn’t that anxious. I don’t eat tomatoes.) It began to turn yellow. A few days later it gained a hint of orange. The next day it was gone. Someone took our tomato.

We were disappointed, but luckily we had many more coming along behind that one. So, again, we waited. 3 others were ripening at about the same pace. Finally they were ready. When Misty went to pick them; two of them had holes in them. Someone or something had already sampled their flesh.

We had a tomato bandit, but we could not quite solve the mystery of his or her identity. Finally our patience was rewarded. The mystery was solved. Misty was in the kitchen and frantically called for me to join her. When I entered the room she was looking and pointing out the window above the kitchen sink. I moved up beside her and looked in the direction of her gesture. There in on our lawn was a squirrel crossing our yard carrying a medium sized green tomato in his mouth.

I watched him for a while as he slowly tugged and pulled the tomato to the front yard. He carried under a tree and, I thought, was preparing to climb. He decided, as I had already, that that would never work. Apparently the journey across the yard left him famished. He began frenetically eating the tomato.

I watched for several minutes. I even took a few pictures. Finally he had his fill. But he was not done with the tomato. He took it a little further in the yard to one of our flowerbeds. There he buried it in the mulch for later consumption.

As I watched I was reminded of the vegetable-stealing gophers of Loony Toons fame, Mac and Tosh (thanks interwebs!). They were extremely polite and slightly effeminate. Mostly, though, they were industrious in their hording. Of Bugs Bunny’s many nemeses, they were two of my favorites. I imagined our little squirrelly friend laughing with the same sputtering giggle on of them employed.

That made my day. Indubitably.