The Big Joe Polka Show. It’s a television show from the midwest - Iowa, IIRC? - which features an obese “Big Joe” music emcee, several successive polka bands, and a lot of folks dancing the polka. It’s cheesily filmed in some kind of big Elks’ ballroom or something. Most of the dancers are middle-aged and older, and sometimes they’ll slip in a clip of film of polka dancers which was obviously made in the 1970s, to judge the women’s hairstyles and the clothing styles. Big Joe’s been doing this show for awhile, seemingly.
I was raised in southern California, so this culture is almost completely foreign to me. But my parents were from the midwest, so the people dancing have a familiar look. It’s like watching home movies of my family from the 1970s, so it’s mesmerizing to me. And the polka music is kind of fun, too.
Airplanes.
I live in an apartment complex on a hill near a small aircraft airport. So I have a good view of the valley I live in and the in coming planes fly through the view of sky I can see out of my living room window. Most times I don’t notice them but someimtes I do I watch them until they starting landing and go out of sight and it makes me think, "Damn how cool are we that we can make a big heavy metal thing not fall out of the sky.
Birds.
There is a flock of birds that fly almost daily right above my apartments. In the morning they fly to the west and in the evenings they fly over heading east. Sometimes I go out on my walkway and watch them until they go out of sight. Nature is cool.
Rain.
I grew up in the middle-ish of Oklahoma and we had a good healthy rainy season. I’ve lived in southern California for the past 15 years and it only rains like 10 days a year. So when it does rain I love it and it puts me into a good mood. Over the years I have taken many days off when it rains just to stay home and watch and enjoy it. In fact it was raining this morning and I was thinking of taking today off but since I get two days off next week I figured I would come into work.
Baby Einstein DVDs. I’d occasionally put one in the player intending to give myself 30 minutes of time to do chores while the little one was mesmerized…but somehow I’d find myself sitting and watching the DVD too.
I once watched the Teletubbies after staying up all night partying. I was in a cold dark house and it was raining outside. I achieved a moment of perfect clarity as they giggled and danced on an artificial hillside.
Watching turtles. I took my honeymoon in Kauai this summer and every morning the turtles would swim into the little cove near our building to have breakfast. We were on the third floor and could see them remarkably well. I would have to tear myself away so we could go out. Graceful, fascinating creatures. Even cooler snorkeling with them. A big one swam right up to me, scared me a little he got so close. Then we just floated there, facing each other for a few minutes. Then a crowd of people spotted us and swam toward us, scaring him off. But those few minutes of just him and me were really cool.
Me too. Campfires, or fires at home. Not the flames so much as the little, I don’t know what to call them, little coils of fire? sort of sparks? Anyway, those. I can watch those all night.
Ooh, fire. That’s what I was going to say, but then it didn’t really seem to me to be that unexpected. Also, looking straight up into the snowflakes, at night.
The flock of birds just flew over about 5 minutes ago. They are a noisy lot. I had the front window open and my kitty ran and jumped to the sill to watch them. I joined her and petted her as she purred. Good times.