Wednesday, December 15, 2010
When I walked into Mike’s room today, he had his nebulizer in his mouth, his headphones on his ears and a song in his heart. He was humming out loud.
He burst into action the second he saw me. He’d been given even more CDs—one for each year of the 1940s—and one of the songs, he said, was guaranteed to crack me up. He cued up the song, handed me the headphones and waited for me to erupt. It took a minute. At first, the song sounds like any typical ‘40s fare—belting brass, trilling clarinet, serious backup singers—but then I really listened to the lyrics: a 303-pound gal (a “baby blimp”), and when you hug her, you have to use chalk to mark where you’ve already hugged. The horrifying denouement: On his preproposal hugging trip, the singer runs into another fella with chalk in his hand coming around the other side.
“Oh my God,” I giggled to Mike. “Can you imagine if someone tried to make this today?” (Seriously, how is it not a rap song?) He laughed and laughed. He said he’s been sharing it with a lot of the staff, “but only the skinny ones.”
We had no idea who’d written or sung the song, so I promised to investigate once I got home. Which I did. For such a totally inappropriate song, it’s called, appropriately, “Huggin’ and Chalkin’,” by Hoagy Carmichael. And here’s a link, so you can experience some good old-fashioned political incorrectness yourself: http://bit.ly/MikeSong.
That mission accomplished, Mike and I went to a packed Trivia session, where he nailed the “Alaska” questions and I surprised everyone, including myself, by correctly offering up “Eisenhower” as a president born in Texas.
On my way out, I stopped at Gary’s room, hoping to buy another of his beautiful planters as a Christmas gift for some friends. He wasn’t there, though, so I tried the woodshop—and learned Gary is in the hospital. This scared me, and angered me, because yesterday afternoon I’d called the nursing station to try to reach Gary, and they merely said, “He isn’t in his room.”
I immediately called the hospital and got Gary’s room, and was thrilled when he answered the phone. He didn’t want to go into detail about his condition, but he sounded good and said he’s scheduled for release by Saturday, so I told him I’d work with that and assume the best. Which I am trying very hard to do. Get home for the holidays, Gary.
When I walked into Mike’s room today, he had his nebulizer in his mouth, his headphones on his ears and a song in his heart. He was humming out loud.
He burst into action the second he saw me. He’d been given even more CDs—one for each year of the 1940s—and one of the songs, he said, was guaranteed to crack me up. He cued up the song, handed me the headphones and waited for me to erupt. It took a minute. At first, the song sounds like any typical ‘40s fare—belting brass, trilling clarinet, serious backup singers—but then I really listened to the lyrics: a 303-pound gal (a “baby blimp”), and when you hug her, you have to use chalk to mark where you’ve already hugged. The horrifying denouement: On his preproposal hugging trip, the singer runs into another fella with chalk in his hand coming around the other side.
“Oh my God,” I giggled to Mike. “Can you imagine if someone tried to make this today?” (Seriously, how is it not a rap song?) He laughed and laughed. He said he’s been sharing it with a lot of the staff, “but only the skinny ones.”
We had no idea who’d written or sung the song, so I promised to investigate once I got home. Which I did. For such a totally inappropriate song, it’s called, appropriately, “Huggin’ and Chalkin’,” by Hoagy Carmichael. And here’s a link, so you can experience some good old-fashioned political incorrectness yourself: http://bit.ly/MikeSong.
That mission accomplished, Mike and I went to a packed Trivia session, where he nailed the “Alaska” questions and I surprised everyone, including myself, by correctly offering up “Eisenhower” as a president born in Texas.
On my way out, I stopped at Gary’s room, hoping to buy another of his beautiful planters as a Christmas gift for some friends. He wasn’t there, though, so I tried the woodshop—and learned Gary is in the hospital. This scared me, and angered me, because yesterday afternoon I’d called the nursing station to try to reach Gary, and they merely said, “He isn’t in his room.”
I immediately called the hospital and got Gary’s room, and was thrilled when he answered the phone. He didn’t want to go into detail about his condition, but he sounded good and said he’s scheduled for release by Saturday, so I told him I’d work with that and assume the best. Which I am trying very hard to do. Get home for the holidays, Gary.
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