wht th hll ws tht?

I started my day with the SNL that had Steve Martin uttering the one line, in multiple inflections and different word stressing, over and over... just to kill time until the broadcast was done.

And he did, out there solo on the stage, pacing about, until his signalling had convinced Bill Murray to join him and to occasionally say the line, too.

And just what was that utterance?

"What the hell was that?"

They may well have been referencing this skit, shown moments earlier.

Dressed as some lyrical fairy, with plenty of extra flora to mask his manly portion, Steve had danced about to distract Gilda Radner's damsel in distress from the fate which awaited her from the guards.

Magnificent fun!

That was s5e1, for those wondering, in which Steve played host and Blondie was the musical guest.

To my mind, that pairing had to be an inside joke for the producers!

Speaking of such things, I have one of those for the physicist and I've made sure to place it by my keys so I won't forget!

What's that?

Let me clarify!

It's "Le Chat Noir", a hand-cranked music box to appeal to his Luddite soul - hahaha!

And what song does it play?

Why, a hurly-burly, burlesque, French tune, of course: "The Cancan", heard wherever skirts are raised and pantaloons are flouted!

In fact, here he is, cranking the the little handle to hear the song as it tinkles out!

(Hahaha! That sounds a bit bawdy, doesn't it?!)

As I told him, I thought it would bring a nice moment of lighthearted mirth into his day, as well as encouraging him to smile and take a break.

He agreed wholeheartedly.

He even said he already knows exactly where he shall place it on his desk!

That's most excellent!

I had thought of him the moment I saw this in the gift shop at the Cici And Hyatt Brown Museum; I had thought of dear Contessa, too.

It isn't that she was a black cat... but she would have appreciated burlesque, I just know she would have; I think the bfe would agree with that point, as the little music box made him think of that tortoise-hued beauty, too.

Perhaps that's what had me tearing up, there in the parking lot.

He had said that maybe next time we met we should have some activity, like mini-golf or something, rather than just dinner.

For some reason, batting cages popped into my mind and I started looking for the "mini movie" I have of Mulder teaching Scully how to hit a baseball.

As I'm looking, I start telling him about that episode of "The X-Files", the one called "The Unnatural", and how much the alien had loved that game and how, when he died, he did so as a real human, not an alien... and my voice cracked and I started to cry and he waited patiently for me to pull myself back together... but I don't know that I quite did.

That is, until I got home and my house was dark and I could not get into my driveway.

In fact, every house on my side of the street was dark.

That's because the top of a tree had broken off, landing on the power line, where it began to smolder.

Thank God someone noticed it, starting to burn in my neighbor's back yard, and called the fire department, which had called Georgia Power.

By the time I arrived, the fuss was almost done.

The burning branches had been doused and removed, the power line had been checked for damages, and the three-truck crew had contacted the powers that be to see about turning back on the grid.

All told, I was only out there about thirty minutes.

It did give me a chance to talk to my neighbors, and to talk to a young couple with their toddler (who refused to eat his dinner with no lights in the house), and to talk to the fellows working with the utility department.

That was good, all the way around.

And to think: I had almost gone to a movie after dinner with the bfe at Red Lobster.

If I had, I would have come home to the flashing light on the stove and wondered what had happened to the power on such a clear, warm, day as this has been.

Funny how things work out.

As for the tree, the crew said it was not dead, but was alive.

My guess is the tree had sustained windshake damage during Hurricane Matthew; now, five years later, it had grown past the point where that damaged area could support the weight of those lofty branches.

I wonder if they do autopsies on such trees to find the weak spot?

In other words: what the hell was that?

(smile)