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My Memorial Day

Yesterday, I felt like I should've done something profound.

I woke up in the early a.m. to walk my doggie, and then fell back asleep until 11:30 a.m.

I was returning a call on my answering machine as I turned on the TV. I saw a story about Pat Tillman and made the mistake of ranting about him to my friend. I could hear my girlfriend on the couch and my friend in the phone, both calling me an idiot for my take on that (which is basically, that a guy giving up a million dollar career in the NFL to go fight a war and die -- leaving his wife a widow and his kids without a father -- was a stupid move). Before you guys post telling me how I'm a cruel jerk, just think about what your first responsibility is. I say it's to take care of your immediate family, before worrying about what you think is best for the country. And making that decision wasn't in the best interest of his family.

I looked at the white maltese on the couch, thinking about what to do with him. He was playing with one of his toys. And, I heard the bugle from the TV set start to play "Taps." The dogs head immediately went down on the pillow. It was the weirdest timing ever. A video I would've surely sent to America's Funniest Videos (is that show still airing?).

I had seen two bad movies in a row. A few days ago, it was "The Girlfriend Experience." A real life porno star, proving that porno stars really can't act, doing a Steve Soderberg movie (he did Oceans 11; Sex, Lies, and Videotape, which I remember a dumb friend of mine at the theatre asking if it was a triple feature).

The day before my friend had rented the Liam Neeson movie "Taken." It was fun to watch, but so implausable and cliche, that I ended up not liking it. My friends didn't like my running commentary as I made fun of scene after scene.

So my girlfriend and I went to see "Management," which looked cute enough in the commercials (goof ball Steve Zahn working at a hotel, and asking Jennifer Aniston if he can touch her butt).

It had it's moments, but was disappointing.

Also disappointing that the theatre we saw it in had a broken air conditioner.

Although, I thought that would keep the old couple in front of us quiet enough. I mean, how many times do you hear them say "It's awfully cold in here, isn't it?"

Instead, there were at least four scenes where one of them had to explain something to the other. The first was when Zahn was smoking, with a clear "non smoking" sign in the background. But after a while, it actually was cute listening to them. And they seemed to enjoy the movie, which was surprising.

The night was ending with us having dinner at P.F. Chang's in UTC. As lots of students having graduation parties filled the place, I complained to my girlfriend about how we should've done something for Memorial Day.

And as the words were leaving my mouth (which really shouldn't have been open, as I was chewing beef brocoli), I saw an old couple sitting at the next booth over. They looked to be in their late 80s.

I had seen them earlier, but the guy wasn't wearing a cap. I see the cap on his head has some military thing on it, like a ship that he was stationed on. I said to my girlfriend, "I got it! I'm going to pay for their meal. I'll tell the waitress it's for Memorial Day."

I then decided that I'd do it anonymously, so neither of us had to deal with the uncomfortable moment where he comes over to thank us. And it would also not appear that I was doing it just for that reason.

We didn't see our waitress (it was that way all thru the meal), until she brought the bill over to that couple. I watched as he put his credit card back in his wallet and signed the bill.

I said, "Dang it! I'm too late."

My girlfriend joked, "Oh, come on. I know you. You're partly relieved that you don't have to pay."

I laughed, because she was partly right. I said, "Well, no. Unless I found out after the fact, that they had some expensive bottle of wine. I wouldn't have minded. I wanted to do that."

She jokingly suggested I go over and give them the cash equivalent.

After a bit of a pause she said, "I can just see that. You hand them $40, and see the bill is $38.62. Your hand would go up expecting the change."

As we went to go find some Ben & Jerry's, I realized that spending the day with her (and watching the Lakers lose)...couldn't have been more perfect.

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Yesterday, I felt like I should've done something profound.

I woke up in the early a.m. to walk my doggie, and then fell back asleep until 11:30 a.m.

I was returning a call on my answering machine as I turned on the TV. I saw a story about Pat Tillman and made the mistake of ranting about him to my friend. I could hear my girlfriend on the couch and my friend in the phone, both calling me an idiot for my take on that (which is basically, that a guy giving up a million dollar career in the NFL to go fight a war and die -- leaving his wife a widow and his kids without a father -- was a stupid move). Before you guys post telling me how I'm a cruel jerk, just think about what your first responsibility is. I say it's to take care of your immediate family, before worrying about what you think is best for the country. And making that decision wasn't in the best interest of his family.

I looked at the white maltese on the couch, thinking about what to do with him. He was playing with one of his toys. And, I heard the bugle from the TV set start to play "Taps." The dogs head immediately went down on the pillow. It was the weirdest timing ever. A video I would've surely sent to America's Funniest Videos (is that show still airing?).

I had seen two bad movies in a row. A few days ago, it was "The Girlfriend Experience." A real life porno star, proving that porno stars really can't act, doing a Steve Soderberg movie (he did Oceans 11; Sex, Lies, and Videotape, which I remember a dumb friend of mine at the theatre asking if it was a triple feature).

The day before my friend had rented the Liam Neeson movie "Taken." It was fun to watch, but so implausable and cliche, that I ended up not liking it. My friends didn't like my running commentary as I made fun of scene after scene.

So my girlfriend and I went to see "Management," which looked cute enough in the commercials (goof ball Steve Zahn working at a hotel, and asking Jennifer Aniston if he can touch her butt).

It had it's moments, but was disappointing.

Also disappointing that the theatre we saw it in had a broken air conditioner.

Although, I thought that would keep the old couple in front of us quiet enough. I mean, how many times do you hear them say "It's awfully cold in here, isn't it?"

Instead, there were at least four scenes where one of them had to explain something to the other. The first was when Zahn was smoking, with a clear "non smoking" sign in the background. But after a while, it actually was cute listening to them. And they seemed to enjoy the movie, which was surprising.

The night was ending with us having dinner at P.F. Chang's in UTC. As lots of students having graduation parties filled the place, I complained to my girlfriend about how we should've done something for Memorial Day.

And as the words were leaving my mouth (which really shouldn't have been open, as I was chewing beef brocoli), I saw an old couple sitting at the next booth over. They looked to be in their late 80s.

I had seen them earlier, but the guy wasn't wearing a cap. I see the cap on his head has some military thing on it, like a ship that he was stationed on. I said to my girlfriend, "I got it! I'm going to pay for their meal. I'll tell the waitress it's for Memorial Day."

I then decided that I'd do it anonymously, so neither of us had to deal with the uncomfortable moment where he comes over to thank us. And it would also not appear that I was doing it just for that reason.

We didn't see our waitress (it was that way all thru the meal), until she brought the bill over to that couple. I watched as he put his credit card back in his wallet and signed the bill.

I said, "Dang it! I'm too late."

My girlfriend joked, "Oh, come on. I know you. You're partly relieved that you don't have to pay."

I laughed, because she was partly right. I said, "Well, no. Unless I found out after the fact, that they had some expensive bottle of wine. I wouldn't have minded. I wanted to do that."

She jokingly suggested I go over and give them the cash equivalent.

After a bit of a pause she said, "I can just see that. You hand them $40, and see the bill is $38.62. Your hand would go up expecting the change."

As we went to go find some Ben & Jerry's, I realized that spending the day with her (and watching the Lakers lose)...couldn't have been more perfect.

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