Sushi, Sentimentality, and Saturday Morning Cartoons

Out here in the desert, there doesn't seem to be the same sense of seasonal change like I was used to back east. September had a completely different feel to it than August. Even if the temperatures was still above 80, there was a certain smell in the air, a feel to the atmosphere. Summer was over, even if the calendar told you otherwise. Time to go back to school, shake off the frivolities of the past three months, and harden yourself for the winter that would inevitably come.

Here in Vegas, it just feels the same. The air is the same. My life is the same. I yearn for change.

Something is definitely up with Lucky because he's been acting fairly contrite without any prompting from me. On Tuesday, he promised to take me anywhere I wanted to eat for dinner. Just to torture him, I said we should go to Sushi Roku in Caesar's Palace. Oh, how I wanted to see him struggle with raw tuna and seaweed salad. Of course, he wimped out and got the grilled filet mignon. I still enjoyed myself, though. It's the first time in awhile that we've actually acted like a real couple.

This isn't Lucky's fault entirely. Trying to seduce strange men on my computer has me split emotionally. I know, it's just a cover, blah, blah, blah...not really helping me, sorry to say. My client, Hommecornee, has become quite fond of me even though he's scouting women for his boss, a major arms dealer. They are supposed to be in Vegas the weekend of the 25th, and he wants me to visit them. This could finally be the big fish that could get me out of here. I want this job over with so much, but I don't know where that leaves Lucky and me. Just like Denise Richards's colon, it's complicated (yes, I'm a Joel McHale fan).

Speaking of complicated, my mom called the other day and told me that she had spent the night in the emergency room with Mr. Huggins. At first they thought he was having a heart attack, but it turned out to be just an anxiety attack. This is when Mom ventured into the TMI zone. Contrary to my suspicion, she and Mr. Huggins hadn't yet slept together, but they had decided to cross that bridge Tuesday night. Apparently, Mr. Huggins had not been with a woman since his wife died and, before they got very far, nervousness got the best of him. Having to listen to all this from thousands of miles away was really too much. I can't wrap my mind around the idea of my mother being with anyone but my father, and I never wanted to think about my mom and dad in any context remotely related to sex. As my mom soldiered through the conversation with an attitude like, "we're all adults now," I just wanted to crawl back into my childhood when everything made sense.

I guess that's why I found the following YouTube clip so funny. Remember those Saturday morning preview specials they would show on the Friday night before the new kid shows premiered? The new Saturday morning season usually started right after the first week of school, and these preview shows on Friday night were a happy glimpse of the weekend ahead. This one starred Larry and Balki from Perfect Strangers, whom I thought were hilarious back then. Now, not so much. Anyway, the clip brought back memories of struggling through the first days of second grade and looking forward to Saturday morning cartoons as a reward for my hard work. That September smell was in the air, and I was filled with that sense of exciting possibilities a new school year would bring.