Whatever Happened to Joey Banana?

 

This morning I still felt kind of off, but not as bad as yesterday. Fortunately I slept well last night, and it was my day to work from home anyway. Travalon didn't have to work today, so he walked with me at lunch on Governor's Island. That was about as exciting as my day got.

Travalon had a more exciting day. He had lunch at the bookstore in Watertown and then went to Oconomowoc. He fished but didn't catch anything. He met an old buddy to go swimming, and then they had a very late dinner. When he texted me that he was just leaving after dinner, I had already come home from Adoration and finished leading Night Prayer. I was a little short on steps, so I put on my high vis vest and went for a walk out in the dark. Now I am sitting on the porch, and a huge orange and brown moth is flying around outside. All day while I was working, hummingbirds came to our feeder. It was a good porch day.

Since I don't have anything else to say, I'll talk about my most popular written work, "Joey Banana." That's not the whole title, but offhand I can't remember what the whole title is, and anyway that's how people refer to it. I asked a couple of children years ago what I should write a story about, and one said multiple universes, and the other said a banana peel, so that was my inspiration. Joey keeps waking up and realizing he's in a parallel universe where bananas are round, where they live under water, etc., and then at one point all the Joeys converge. I think people just like the story because all the characters (including his brother Danny Banana) have Brooklyn accents. People would insist on doing dramatic readings of "Joey Banana" at Rich's house, and Tiffy's nieces, when they were little, said we should write a sequel where Joey goes to Banana Disney. That was a group effort, and my big contribution was that in the Enchanted Forest the birds don't sing, they play the saxophone. This story is old now; one of the little kids I originally wrote it for now has a little kid of her own. Maybe I should try to get it published. Which reminds me, the guy in Minneapolis who is so enamored of that choral work based on my poem "The Mystical Rose" sent me the sheet music he had prepared, and it looks great. Still, neither work will be the first thing of mine that was published, because I did have that article published in Guidepost magazine about our refrigerator. I even got paid! So no matter what happens with "Joey Banana" or "The Mystical Rose," I am a published author.

Famous Hat

True Adventure: B-Boy Wedding!

This weekend Richard Bonomo, A-Fooze, her Mexican fiance, and I drove two states south to attend the wedding of one of the B-Boys. (That's right, ladies, there is only one totally available B-Boy left! Supplies are limited so hurry on down!) We took Erin Caitlyn O'Honda since she is younger than the Bonomobile and gets way better mileage, and El Fiance's truck probably would have broken down before we got to the border of our own state. On the way down we ate lots of junk food and played games like "Twenty Questions" and the one where the first person thinks of the name of a city and then the next person has to think of a city starting with the last letter of that city's name. Unfortunately, we quickly found that most cities seem to end with A, O, or S, while only a limited number start with those letters. I said, "We should do countries, since they end in more letters. Like you could do England-Denmark-Kenya-Argentina-" and A-Fooze interrupted, "No fair playing with yourself!"

The tiny town where the wedding was held is most known for being the birthplace of Walt Disney, and loudspeakers at the corners of Main Street USA blared such songs as "It's a Small World" and "When You Wish Upon a Star." When I commented to the owner of a local bed-and-breakfast that she must get tired of hearing that, she said she turns it on for the tourists. Oops! Open mouth, insert foot. The bride's family hails from Hawaii and so they had imported all the flowers and the priest from there. Because this town was too small to accomodate two weddings, and another one was happening in the afternoon, the wedding was in the morning and the reception was in yet another town which is most well known for having a name that rhymes with "bacon." The reception was lovely, with a gorgeous orchid at each table in a glass vase full of black Hawaiian sand (imported, natch). Then Rich, A-Fooze, El Fiance, and I got back into Erin Caitlyn O'Honda and drove two states north, arriving home after midnight.

Yesterday I slept through Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Sobriety but did wake up long enough to go to the Lutheran Church and sing the Bach cantata/train for the triathlon. (Same thing, right?) As Florita (who was at the wedding) would say, "Iguanitas, las ranitas," which translates to "little iguanas, little frogs" - it's all the same thing. Then I went back to sleep until evening Mass at OLPS. At no time yesterday did I go grocery shopping, so this morning YES, there were no bananas! Charlie doesn't mind, since he likes broccoli and carrots, but Cashmere was quite put out. I gave her a bunny treat and explained that I had no bananas to give her, but she sat giving me the stink eye as I ate my breakfast grits, so I did what any mature human would do - I swiveled my chair around so my back was facing her. There isn't a rabbit on the face of this earth who can glare at you like old Cashmere can! Shh, don't tell her, but I just bought a banana at the cafeteria and ate it.

Famous Hat