Rock et al are back now, so the grampsanity is over. It is an anecdotal goldmine that will be missed:

2:00AM:

phone rings 4 times before I wake up ...

'Hello?'
'David, can you bring me a cookie?'
'What? Uhhhh, yeah, sure.'
'A pill got stuck at the bottom of my throat, and now it's dissolving, and it burns.'

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I’m not really good with unstructured time. Case in point: these last 2 weeks I have had about 22 hours of free time per day, yet I have done nothing but drink iced tea, eat chicken wings, and watch Monty Python and The Holy Grail (“Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”). Remember on The Simpsons when the comic book guy has a wheelbarrow with 100 tacos in it, and he is going to watch a Dr. Who marathon? That’s basically me this summer. This is more or less OK, though, because my sloth will surely cease when we leave for Montreal next week (with a stop in 100 Mile Monday & Tuesday).

I’m listening to Gnarls Barkley now, because everyone tells me I should be. When I say: “everyone tells me,” I mean: I read on the Internet that they are good. People don’t actually tell me things, because I don’t actually talk to people, except for grandpa, but the only music he likes is Jingle Cats—personally, I only like their older stuff, you know, like Meowy Christmas and Here Comes Santa Claws, pure gold. Gnarls Barkley is good too, though. It makes me bob my head spastically, as I rock back and forth in my computer chair, which I assure you looks, and is, very cool. St. Elsewhere has a bit of a The Love Below feel to it, can’t be bad. Plus, I am all for nonsensical pun-names, especially this one. For some reason, Charles Barkley is hilarious to me. (For those of you who pooh-pooh sports [and sport pooh-pooh], Barkley is an NBA commentator who used play the four spot for the Phoenix Suns) He has no neck and he's always saying crazy things like: "I'm rich, man. I can't be hitting people. It's a liability issue, especially with all these white people in the crowd at golf tournaments. I can see the headlines: 'Charles Barkley kills white dude with a golf ball." He’s like the black Don Cherry, but less old, and beefy (Charles Barkley cannot be described without the word beefy). I always expect him to jump up and start beating on someone, while yelling and/or laughing.

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Speaking of old, have I mentioned Grandpa McLeod? He is pretty funny, clothed or otherwise. I don’t really know where to start. Maybe I’d better just use point form:

1. He wakes up when it’s still dark, thinks it’s morning, and phones me to come downstairs and have Raisin Bran with him. Actually, it’s Raisin Bran mixed with Shreddies and All Bran. It’s impossible to have too much fiber when you’re almost 91.
2. Actually, he phones me all day long. He’ll tell me about what he is reading in the newspaper, or how he’s watching Dr. Phil and how he can’t understand kids these days, or he’ll ask me to come downstairs to read a telephone number for him, or find his pen, or fill his water bottle.
   
3. Speaking of water bottles, I’m not sure that he’d ever used one before last week. He asked if he could use “one of those water bottle things Roxanne uses,” as if they had just been invented. Now he carries it from place to place in the room with him. So cute. Strangely enough, he understands computers and all sorts of mechanical things that are beyond me. One story I have heard at least 3 times is how the first iron bridge was made (“200 years ago, and it’s still standing!”).
4. His eyebrows can literally touch the tip of his nose.
5. He is still quite sharp mentally, but he does tend to tell the same stories over and over. For example, the story of how he met his second wife: “Gladys was standing at church greeting people, holding 2 balloons. I took the pin out of my lapel—I carried a pin in my lapel in those days, but I don’t anymore, because they’re too sharp—and popped her two balloons. She said: ‘young man! I’ll have you know those balloons were for my nephews!’ I was a bit embarrassed. So, the next week I learned her address, and I sent her two balloons—or was it 10? I don’t know, some number of balloons—in the mail. She must have thought: that young man is on the ball.” On the ball? Balloons in the mail isn’t on the ball. Balloons in the mail is balloons in the mail.
6. “Terrorists are always trying to take over some country” (this was passing commentary while watching the news).
7. The best trips are when we visit the doctor. The appointments have never been longer than 10 minutes, but for some reason the trip is always 3 hours long. It might be because we usually have to stop at 2-3 places, and each stop takes at least 30 minutes, even if it is just to use the washroom. This is mostly because he tries to make friends with every single person who gives him the chance (i.e., by standing beside him, or by looking at him). He usually succeeds, too. He is full of puns, and combo-puns, which he has memorized for specific situations, such as ordering food at a restaurant. These are all probably funny, if you haven’t heard 10 in a row. The best, however, is when we go to the old folks’ diner, “Rickie’s”. It’s like a black hole for old people. It pulls in every old person in a three-mile radius for lunch, even if it's only 11:15. We are old, you will be assimilated, resistance is futiiiiiile. Then, he introduces me to everyone he knows: “this is a choice young man, he is courting my granddaughter.” Hahaha! He really says that. I don’t even know what courting is.
   

P.S. For the record, G-Pa is really nice and sincere in every way, and none of this is meant to reflect negatively on him. I wrote, and embellished, it only for the sake of humour and because everyone can relate to old people stories, except for old people, because they are forgetful.

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Zinedine Zidane is the Jean-Luc Picard of soccer. They are both French, bald, sexy, and you’d better not mess with them. Seriously, “Zizou” is my hero. He is a class act in a sport where many stars are cheaters and crybabies. His outburst came under extreme pressure and mitigating circumstances, and, though unfortunate, it was an appropriate response, all things considered.

I have been wrapped up in the high pop-cult drama of that incident since it happened. I’ve read all the theories about what Materazzi said, and I’ve been patiently waiting for Zizou to tell his side. Finally, today he did. Materazzi denies that he said (and repeated) anything about Zidane’s mother (who is presently in the hospital, although Materazzi seems not to have known that); so technically it is one person’s word against another’s. But I believe Zidane 100%. For one thing, Materazzi refuses to admit what he actually did say. But it is less that I disbelieve Materazzi, and more that I believe Zizou.

So much of Zizou’s conduct throughout his career stands in direct opposition to foolish, selfish, violent acts; he would never have done such a thing had he not been very seriously provoked. Zidane has long been considered one of the best players of his generation, and, importantly, also one of the fairest. He has born the pressure of the captaincy of a soccer powerhouse for a good decade, and has thrived under that pressure, almost always showing extreme focus and cool-headedness. He had nothing to gain by head butting Materazzi at that point, and everything to lose. The final was his last international game; he had born so much pressure already. The hardest parts were over already; it would have been completely senseless for him to act in the way he did had he not been severely provoked. Therefore, it must be that he was severely provoked. Materazzi is the primary culprit. Zidane has apologized, and he ought not to be vilified. Contrary to the safe, politically correct stance of many media commentators, there are some things that warrant the response Zizou gave. Vive Zizou!

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This week I am house sitting, since Rock and the family (no stone) have left for Vancouver. (By the way, Vancouver is much more polite than NYC, no matter what any stupid-ass, unscientific Reader's Digest survey says.) Actually, it’s not really house sitting; it’s more dog-cats-garden-grandpa sitting. It’s pretty fun. Mrs. McLeod maintains an apocalypse-ready pantry (a whole room, actually), so I am well fed. I have eaten an entire box of Buffalo wings, half a box of chicken nuggets, and about 12 cans of iced tea (well, those I drank). There is also a level-40 garden, just in case I feel the urge to eat healthily. I don’t actually know if it is level 40; I don’t know how gardens are graded at all, for that matter. But it seems big to me, and the number 40—being the biggest number I know—is the best way I can convey that. Actually, I have eaten some of this garden food: strawberries (less strawy than you’d expect), huckleberries (surprisingly twainy), and radishes, at least a rasher of them, if radishes come in rashers. Oh wait, that’s bacon, isn’t it? Well, they should change that. A “rasher of radishes” sounds much better. In fact, I think I'll make that my motto. Yes, I know it is not a complete sentence, but mottos are so much easier to live up to when they don't contain verbs.

Gardening is pretty fun when you don’t have to do the hard parts, like weeding, hoeing, and spraying DDT out of crop-dusters. Mostly I just run sprinklers and spray with the hose for an hour or so each day. The best part about this is spraying animals—don’t worry, they like it, probably. So far I have sprayed 2 toads, a robin, a squirrel, and a fish. It’s usually from a distance, so the water pressure is minimal. The animals mostly just hop about confusedly (story of my life). I don’t know if the fish really counts, since it was pretty wet to begin with. Oh well, who's counting? A neighbour said there was a bear in the neighbourhood yesterday. Lucky thing it didn’t come by this yard. I was ready. It would have gotten a face full of hose water. I was even prepared to yell: “That’ll learn ya! Bear!” Not that such yelling requires extensive preparation. Still …

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‘Justify your existence, Infallible Plankton.'
‘I don’t have to; I’m infallible.’
‘Actually, you’re not really infallible. You’re only infallible in a comical, ironic sense.'
‘Oh yeah Einstein? Well then how come I’ve never been eaten by a whale?’
‘Because you’re not actually plankton either. That’s just a word in your title.’
‘Right, sure, next you’re going to tell me that Sea Monkeys aren’t really monkeys at all.’
‘They aren’t.’
‘Crap.’

This is the conversation I have with my blog every second Monday, when I remember it exists. I should have given it an essence before I gave it an existence, then it would be able to write itself. But it has no essence. Always a problem. Infallible Plankton needs direction, a raison d’être (translation: a raisin for being). Well, “need” is an overstatement. It is better to say that it would be better if it had a focus, or even foci, or even uneven foci. But it will probably always be purposeless (and porpoiseless). This is fine. Actually, it has a purpose of a kind.

When IP was born (a small squeaky sound was heard), my purpose was just to practice writing, since I had recently declared that my third (and hopefully last) attempted major would be English. And English majors are sometimes required to write, or so I was told after I sang my first essay to my teacher. So, in that sense, it is doing what it is supposed to do. Furtherbore, this is a good reason for anyone to write, no matter how crushingly nonsensical his or her writing might be. Writing is improved by practice. There is even research that supports the view that text messaging and instant messaging boon writing, despite their haphazard punctuation and bastardized spelling. Language is important (and not only because it rhymes with sandwich). So write wrong, because any writing is better than no writing.

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