The 2004 Christmas Shopping Crusade is in full swing, and Jen and I have our marching orders. I’ve got my sister, ¾ of Jen, and my mom covered; My dad is in the works and I’ve got Jen’s brother partially done. Problem is, we’re picking up the slack for Jen’s parents while they attend to other matters, so there’s an extra five people to shop for this year. (I just got part 2 of Jen’s gift today—hee hee hee!)
Meanwhile I kicked up about a pound of dust last night in the first round of sanding in the stairwell. I had to pull about 32 square feet of plaster down and replace it with ¾” greenboard, which was lots of fun and involved much hammering. There’s still much to be done, but we’re making progress in there.
Swell day. Just swell. I am in a rotten goddamn mood today, boy. Merry goddamn Christmas. I think I may have had a better day if I just jammed a pencil in my eye.
Meanwhile, the long bloody crawl to the 15th of the month is almost over, and I can relieve some of the holiday strain on my credit card. Although, now I can’t relieve as much as I thought I could. Hence my rotten mood. I think I’m going to have a few of those chocolate cookies Jen was writing about when I get home, because we’re out of pumpkin pie.
Heh, heh. This story just gets better and better, folks. Note to self: when the Man has you dead to rights, and you’re facing some jail time, and your dying mother is in the damn hospital, it’s probably best to arrange for a public defender, instead of smoking crack, or whatever you’re doing at the time.
Enjoy that prison shower, kid. I hear it’s a load of laughs.
Music Of the Day. Vince Guaraldi, A Charlie Brown Christmas. Because I need a little Christmas, right this fucking minute.
Brighten The Corners. I spent about five minutes locking and unlocking the Jeep with the keyfob buttons this morning. I’m sure it would have made a great picture—the first time the village idiot sees fire. It honks when you’ve locked it, so you don’t have to walk back and test the doors. It’s the small stuff, people.
Yesterday we headed to the LP City to see Jen’s Mom, who has been bedridden for the past three days in slowly worsening condition. I’m going to let Jen explain the situation in her own words—but suffice it to say when the patient is burning through enough Percocet, Oxycontin, Neurontin, and Tylenol to bring down a charging elephant and still unable to lay flat on a bed—that’s not a good place. Most of the afternoon involved hoisting her from the edge of the bed to the commode and back again, making sure she was drinking water, and convincing her that the hallucinations she was seeing were not actually there. Toward the evening, it was decided that she was better served being admitted to a hospital, so we carried her down the stairs, out to the car, and in through the big sliding doors. Let’s all hope she gets the care she needs there.
My wife is one of the strongest, bravest people I have ever met. Her grace in the face of all this shite leaves me awestruck, and I am a lucky man to have her as my bride. In the past week, I’ve seen her deal with more stress, worry, and abuse than any one person should have in a month, and she hasn’t failed herself or her family—at great cost to herself. I spent a good deal of time yesterday quietly stewing on the sidelines, watching her deal with the situation, and it made my blood pressure spike. She shows no emotion in the moment (emotion is weakness on that particular battlefield) but I see the toll it takes on her daily. Were there one thing I could give her for the holiday, it would be the most peaceful, worry-free, uninterrupted month of sleep and relaxation possible.
Today has been a day of mental and physical recovery—after yesterday, my heart is heavy and my back muscles are tighter than piano wire. We’ve been screening calls, getting some minor work around the house done (some wall patching in the stairwell, a new color in the kitchen), got a few minor surprises (two commercial potting tables from the garden center clearance sale, the missing key remote for the Jeep) and generally taking it as easy as we can.
Clue. You know you’re near a Naval Air Station when a Landcruiser passes you with a license plate holder that says:
TOO CLOSE FOR MISSILES
SWITCHING TO GUNS
Reality. Discussing bowel movements and Rush Limbaugh in front of Mrs. Lockard (who was convinced a tiny Rush was crawling around the carpet by the closet), and trying to get her to laugh about the situation:
Jen: (relaying earlier conversation with her mom, which probably brought about the Rush sighting in the first place): I’d never get addicted to Oxycontin. Look at Rush Limbaugh; no wonder he’s so puffed up all the time–he’s upset because he can’t take a poop.
Me: That’s what I love about being a Democrat: Loose stools!
For the people out there who ride motorcycles, can you please tell me what the deal is with “pocket bikes“? They’re these teeny versions of large street bikes that people buy for some reason. Jen and I were driving through Ellicott City a few weeks back and some guy was selling them in an empty Royal Farms parking lot. He was riding around in circles, and he looked like a Russian circus bear riding a tricycle. Why would anybody buy one of these? All it says to me is, “I’m too poor/stupid/gullible to afford a real crotch rocket, so I’m going to buy this minibike and ride it around my neighborhood to annoy the crap out of my neighbors.” Am I missing something here?
Charlie Brown Christmas, 12.7.2004
This is your Secretary of Defense. “Support the Troops” my ass. What a dick.
(I think his technique is a little aggro, however—throwing those elbows around in some of the pits I’ve been in would have earned St. Nick a punch in the back of the neck.) Substitute a little S.O.D. for the supplied soundtrack, and you’ve got yourself a whole bootful of Christmas cheer!
As you may have read elsewhere, Jen’s Mom is fading pretty quickly—the feeling in her legs is gone and she’s now on heavier meds (the stuff Rush Limbaugh was addicted to), which means Christmas is definitely not at our house, and we’re most likely going to have a very subdued holiday.
Kick Myself Dept. Two points down in the karma category this morning, and it’s not even eleven o’clock. Sorry, friends.
Printer Update. After some consultation with the generous Kristen last night, I’ve decided against the Epson printer for a couple of reasons:
- The printer is $400, and the prepress RIP for CMYK files is another $500. Booting into OS9 to print an EPS file from Quark every five minutes does not appeal to either of us.
- The printer model is now discontinued by Epson, and probably due to be replaced with something new.
- Consumables are expensive, don’t last very long, and aren’t UV-safe.
Jen and I tried an offering of sweet & spicy chicken from the new asian cafeteria on Rolling Road last night as an experiment. Usually I stay away from most Chinese food, especially the fast-food variety, because it has detrimental effects on my gastrointestinal system. Let me just say for the record that this experiment was a failure.
Crap. It’s still boggling my mind how much Windows XP sucks. In the month I’ve used it, the computer has been brought to its knees twice by malware clogging up the whole system. After I switched to Mozilla, the problem went away. Now, programs that used to work fine are crashing and burning repeatedly—Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and random bullshit processes in the background. It’s a miracle I can get through a day without clicking through a bug report window at least once.
I should clarify something: I’m using this computer at work, which means the nastiest site I visit is Slashdot. Simply opening Explorer on this machine means the floodgates of crap are open.
Christmas Hints. Model Kit. (While you’re at the hobby store, there’s this one as well…) Light summer reading. iPod accessory.
Changes. This page is now at least halfway coded with CSS instead of nested tables; I made a few changes to the column width for easier Powerbook editing and readability’s sake, reduced the size of the pictures and generally scraped another 20% of gunk out of the HTML. Next up is a redesign of the calendar nav to the left to further reduce the pageload. Let me know if you find anything ugly, and what browser you’re using on what platform.
RIP, Mrs. Betty. Jen and I got out of bed early on Saturday so that we could check out an estate sale in the neighborhood. We didn’t recognize the address, but when we followed the signs, we pulled up in front of the tidy house down the street from Jen’s old apartment building. (A little history: Jen’s old apartment building was one of the original estate mansions in Catonsville. The caretaker’s house, set off and to the east of the main building, later became a private residence, and the house in question.) Jen may write about this at some point, so I won’t go into too much detail here, but she knew the woman who owned the house, an elderly lady known as Mrs. Betty. A sweeter, kinder woman has never walked the earth (except, maybe, my two Grandmas). We looked through the house and picked out a mirror in an upstairs bedroom, then got to talking with Mrs. Betty’s son, who let us know that she passed a couple of days before our wedding. Having never taken her up on a standing invitation to stop by for tea, both Jen and I left feeling guilty and sad.
Busy Weekend:
- Haircut. I was reaching Art Garfunkel stage again—bad scene, man.
- Consulted with the Cauzzis about some home improvement projects. I’m going to give Todd a hand with some house upgrades.
- Raked and bagged leaves in the backyard. Good timing, because it’s raining this week.
- Laundry. Our water is stained with rust while the DPW replaces valves or some bullshit in the neighborhood. Memo to the Baltimore County folks in charge: next time, wait until the day after Thanksgiving before you poison my water. Washing a turkey with water from a Brita pitcher is a pain in the ass.
- Washed the walls in the downstairs hallway. The wierd concrete fill on the wall was covering a PVC pipe behind the lathe, most likely a new drain for the upstairs sink.
Last night Jen and I drove into the city to watch the Washington monument be lit for Christmas. As mentioned before, we’re both struggling to get into the holiday spirit now that Thanksgiving is over, so the offer to enjoy some fireworks and hot chocolate was a welcome one. Cabbing up to Charles street, we walked to the base of the statue and found ourselves in front of the Mayor, who was surrounded by two burly security guards and quietly talking to a couple of mounted police.
We decided it was time to get some warm drinks, so we looped around the museum and waded into the square in front of the stage, which was ringed with booths selling food and drink. After buying a couple of burritos (nothing like a burrito in December in front of a gospel choir singing Christmas carols to get you in the mood!) the Mayor led the crowd in the countdown, and they shot off fireworks.
After the celebration was over, we walked back down Charles street and bumped into a friend of Jen’s, whose boyfriend runs a new restauraunt downtown, and decided to join them for drinks.
Now, a little Baltimore history here: Back in 1989, when I was new in town and wanted to go out drinking without getting carded (before I got my in at the Tavern), my roommate Pat and I would wander down Charles Street to a little jazz pub called Buddies. I don’t know how we found the place, or how we knew it would serve us (although I suspect it was through our friend Jay, who had already scoped the entire city’s offerings in an alcoholic haze), but there was Guinness on tap, the lights were low, and the barmaid on Saturday nights was beautiful. The band was anchored by a ruddy-faced drummer named Bing, and he was usually accompanied by a guitarist named Steve, who had a wide Magnum P.I. moustache and an old hollow-body Gretsch. There were a revolving group of horns who came to blow—an alto sax one night, a trumpet the next, and usually they were joined by a student or two from Peabody down the street. We saved our money and drank Boh all week just to afford a pitcher and some nachos (dinner), we tipped well, and always staggered home happy.
Fast forward to 2004; Buddies is gone and replaced with Copra, a complete gutting and rebuilding of the old space. The vibe is very much like San Francisco without the uptight more-beautiful-than-you attitude; the menu is upscale comfort food, and the drinks are poured well. Upstairs is normal dining, and downstairs is a wide room ringed with comfortable couches, a fireplace, and four plasma screens. We relaxed and caught up with some old friends, enjoying our evening.
I pulled into the driveway last night to find the tent I’d put up over the Scout upside-down, wrapped around the corner of the house due to the high winds. I put on some gloves and a hat and straightened it out, but found that two of the poles got bent all to hell and some of the grommets pulled out of the canvas. I’m going to have to anchor the thing down further with some sandbags and tent stakes, especially now that the trees have all lost their leaves. Obviously this is a temporary situation, and we’ll have to switch to Plan B. When I determine what Plan B is, I’ll bore you with it here.
Then I went upstairs and put some candles in each of the front windows to get some christmas frickin’ spirit up in this be-yatch. The house looks a heck of a lot friendlier and I’m considering leaving them in there year-round. (Our house needs all the friendly it can get.) Tonight, in a further attempt to get into the spirit of Christmas, we’re meeting my best man and his wife in the city to watch the lighting of the Washington Monument and catch a drink or two; I’m looking forward to seeing them and taking some pictures.
True love.
Jen: If you ever buy me anything from a store calling itself “a galleria of jewelry“, I will divorce you.
Me: Duly noted.→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.