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Enough already with the rain! *sheesh* We've had a grey, gloomy holiday weekend and I am more than ready for some warm temperatures and sunshine. Good thing that TROLLOP-FEST 2003 begins on Friday!
For those of you not familiar with Trollop Fest, it is the annual gathering of me and my friends - Hey! Yes, I do HAVE friends! - for a weekend of hilarilty and low-scale debauchery. Last year Steph and Laurie came here to Philly, but this year we - along with Sarah - are returning to the original scene of our crime: Napa Valley.
[Heh.]
Speaking of Trollops, I had a weird "Six Degrees of Separation" moment this week. I received an e-mail from someone I didn't know, asking about a friend of mine, Bill Parsley, in California. This person had known Bill in college, but had lost track of him and said that he had found Bill's name on my website and wondered if I had his contact information. I know Bill through Laurie, so I dropped her a note - as it happened, she was at his birthday party last week, so she sent a note to this guy and let him know Bill's number.
Now, what I couldn't figure out is *when* I had mentioned Bill on the Blog. When I "Google" his name, my site doesn't come up, so I went back to day one and tracked it down - Saturday, February 23, 2002 - when I wrote about the passing of the great animator, Chuck Jones:
He lived in Corona Del Mar, California, an coastal community between Los Angeles and San Diego. He used to visit the Ritz Carlton Hotel down the road in Laguna Niguel where my friend Bill Parsley played piano in the lobby. When Bill saw Chuck walk through the lobby, he would break into a medley of Warner Brothers music, just to let him know that he was spotted. One time Chuck sketched Bugs Bunny playing a piano on a Ritz cocktail napkin for Bill - it is framed and hanging in Bill's house.
How 'bout that? From my deciding to write about Chuck Jones, and my only "six-degree" story about him, someone else is able to make contact with a friend whom they have been seeking.
[Ain't life grand?]
Anyway, boring weekend overall. Did a little shopping, did a little cooking, did a little reading, yadda, yadda, yadda. Turned off the TV and hit the "Random" button on my 100-disc CD player and listened to songs that I haven't heard in a long time, and some I don't remember hearing at all.
I'll leave you with another Bill Parsley story - just in case he has other friends looking for him. When I have the opportunity to come home to Southern California around Christmas-time, Laurie and I always try to get together, and include whatever friends we can trick - oops, I mean invite - to join us. Several times, we have met Bill at the Disneyland Hotel for lunch or dinner.
One year, I was waiting for both of them for lunch near the little boat pond. I waited and waited, and then noticed a man in a trench coat moving surreptitiously near one of the buildings. No, actually he was moving pretty much like Inspector Clouseau. He came around in front of me and proceeded to do a little "schtick" for my benefit:
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