Monday, December 12, 2005

"Zippy" #3

Zippy and I were room mates, and were in the process of moving. A high school friend, Craig, was visiting from Virginia. He had come to California to climb various mountains as he was trying to locate his "spot", or something. He had long hair and wore a bandana as a headband.

I drove out to the new place (about 30 miles away) to drop off a load of stuff, and then was going to drive back to pick up Zippy and Craig, and be out of the old place. However, I got tired so I called Zip and told him I'd come get him first thing in the morning.

So, I wasn't at the old place, but this is how the story goes: Zippy and Craig were in bed, meaning they were in their sleeping bags. Except Craig was in his underwear doing his nightly yoga before retiring. The landlady (of the old place) came over with her Hungarian gardener/boyfriend, knocked on the door and demanded to know why people were still there. Zippy tried explaining, several times. Craig just ignored them all and kept on with his yoga, in his underwear. The landlady persisted, and got more vocal. Zippy kept trying to explain, and finally became frustrated.

Pointing to Craig (in who knows what position) Zippy yelled, "The Maharishi must not be disturbed!!". The landlady shut her trap, and she and her gardener/boyfriend promptly left.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Pompeii

When I was 13 we were in Naples, Italy. Pompeii is close by, which is at the base of Mt. Vesuvius.

As you may not know, Pompeii was wiped out by lots of hot lava when Mt. Vesuvius erupted. After looking at the artwork and what-not still lying about you come away thinking: "Not only were these some degenerate spaghetti-wrastlers, but stupid too". (Why build a town at the base of a volcano?).

Anyways, we took a tram to the top of the volcano and hired a guide to, uh, well, I'm not sure. We were standing on some rock, looking down into the crater.

There was some steam wafting upwards. In his best English our guide points into the crater and says, "Datsa bigga hole!".