And We're Back...

Vacation is officially over…we’re back in the saddle and ready for a long summer.  Two thirds of DDS spent the time off on the left coast (Ducky in LA and San Diego and Me and the Wife in San Francisco), Paul and Scott actually played a couple acoustic shows (I guess that qualifies as a “working vacation”), John worked on his golf game – which I understand is actually going quite well…I’m really happy for him but for me, watching golf is like watching grass grow – and Dave, by coincidence, actually spent vacation watching grass grow.  San Fran is a beautiful city and, other than 24 straight hours of violent vomiting due to food poisoning, I had a great time seeing the sites and enjoying the local cuisine and libations with the Wife.  However, while there (our first night in fact), we heard one of the dumbest things we’ve ever heard anyone say.  While having a late dinner at the bar of a restaurant in “The Wharf” area of the city, a server walks over and, within ear-shot, laments to the bar tender about how busy it was.  She then asks if it’s Memorial Day weekend or something (it wasn’t), to which the bar tender responded, “I don’t know” – but that wasn’t the dumb part.  The dumb part came when I said “No, Memorial Day weekend is next weekend”, to which she responded (and I swear this is true) “Oh, thanks…I wouldn’t know because I don’t celebrate Memorial Day.”  Huh???  What the hell does that mean?  It’s not the kind of Holiday that anyone traditionally “celebrates” – I mean you don’t put up a tree in your house or carve up a watermelon like a jack-o-lantern or anything – it’s really about remembrance, recognition, and appreciation.  The thing is…if you live in this country, regardless of your politics or your religion, you are the benefactor of the sacrifices made by all the men and woman who serve, or have ever served, in our military – and you better damn-well understand that…and appreciate it.  To say “I don’t celebrate Memorial Day” is to say “I’m an ignorant, ungrateful ass-wipe”.  Anyway, while on the topic of dumbest things ever said, in a close 2nd place would be me, a couple days later, when the words “Sure, I’ll have a raw oyster shooter with a raw quail-egg in it” spilled out of my mouth.