I’m going to be boring here for a while, folks, because I’m juggling about 50 projects at once. The kitchen has been moved back three weeks due to some discussion about the cabinet color. I’ll have more on all that later, because right now I’m too swamped to sit still.
By the way, for all you comment spammers out there: Comments on posts more than a few days old have all been turned off. You may bite me.
I love you, shmoopy.
Million Dollar Baby: Worth every Oscar they gave it. Great movie.
Hitch: That rarest of species: the funny, watchable, engaging romantic comedy.
Our house: Not nearly enough progress as I’d hoped, but it’s getting a little closer. There’s a coat of primer on the back atrium windows, the attic window above the stairs, and on the fascia board over the peak of the atrium window. (That was an interesting feat of acrobatic skill, hanging my stupid ass over the side of the roof to slap a coat of paint on a board. It’s funny how fearless I get with heights as the summer progresses…)
Life: We spent Saturday evening with R&K on their deck in Canton, overlooking the neighborhood, harbor, and city skyline. As always, it’s great fun to relax with the two of them and enjoy cocktails on the cheap. The pair of all-weather couches and comfy pillows up there is a testament to their excellent taste—sitting on their deck is like being in a private club. Jen and I spent last night poring through the IKEA catalog over furniture we can’t afford. How coincidental was that?
…back to work…
The past couple of weeks have been kind of slow here at Idiot Central as well as elsewhere on the web. It’s not that there’s nothing happening and we’re lounging around in our underwear watching reruns of Dr. Phil and swilling lite beer; both Jen and I are stupidly, numbingly, unaccountably busy. It’s just that I’d like to write about something other than the color we painted the hallway last weekend, or the eggplant growing in our backyard, or what we had for dinner last night.
I realized last night that I’ve been working like an absolute retard since the end of spring and I have nothing to show for it, except a pile of debt. I’d like to say that our brief sojourn to Ireland was paid for, but the harsh fact is that it was put on credit, and I feel that credit hanging over my head like a noose. (I don’t regret going, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.) I dislike debt about as much as I dislike foreign objects in my eye, pro wrestling, and tequila hangovers, so this situation has me a little stressed out. My lovely wife listened to my worrying last night, and was remarkably understanding and calm about the whole situation. I suspect she’s just as tired, worried, and concerned about all this crap as I am, but she’s learned how to keep me from completely wigging out. Thanks, baby.
It’s not like we have a Ferrari in the driveway, or a plasma-screen TV, or closets full of clothes—I’m currently wearing a threadbare shirt I’ve owned since high school and a five-year-old pair of shorts—I’ve just been socked with dumb one-time bills ever since we got back, and it seems like I’ve been writing newer and more expensive checks every day. And that shit is getting old.
Perhaps, then, it’s fitting for me to post these pictures I took a while back of a house in Ellicott City: The owner has covered the outside with handmade signs (and some of you may know that I have a certain love in my heart for homemade signs) talking about Jeebus, his government, his neighbors, and other assorted subjects. I don’t know what the whole story is, but I present our own local oddity for your viewing and reading pleasure. Maybe this guy has the right idea.
I think everybody’s bored with the internet these days. Ms. Lis is looking for questions, as is Todd; Molly seems to be fighting off the boredoms. So I’ll try to make my stupid questions as interesting as I can.
If you could put two people in a ring and have them fight to the death, who would it be and why? (Neil Diamond vs. Barry Manilow? Your shop teacher vs. your math teacher? Charles Nelson Reilly vs. Paul Lynde?) Who would win?
What’s the last life lesson you learned, and why did it take so long?
You have a vehicle with a full tank of gas and an empty weekend. Where are you going to get away from the (heat, people, job, family, ex) within a 250-mile radius of where you live? (and what are you driving?)
Sum up the thing you wish you could go back and do over in your life with one word.
What’s the dumbest thing you never got caught doing?
What should you have accomplished in life by now, according to the 18 year old version of yourself?
This weekend, through an unspoken agreement, my bride and I did about as little as we possibly could. Sure, we hit the Hahn Ah Reum (sp? who cares) for cheap vegetables and the Lowe’s for some discounted plants, but otherwise we subsisted off leftover food from the party last weekend and laid around the house.
Saturday morning we tackled the Sleep Number bed, which was out on the front porch in four boxes waiting to be assembled. We had to run out and pick up a Hollywood frame for it after we realized it wouldn’t fit in our existing frame. The base is basically a big plastic Lego set that snaps together, and the top half is a glorified air mattress. Stick in some foam, zip it up, inflate to the desired pressure, and you have a bed. I’d like to say our first night was a dream on a cloud, but it felt more like insomnia in the Arctic. Repeated attempts to fine-tune our Sleep Numbers proved fruitless. (When sleeping flat on one’s back, the Sleep Number is, say, 50. When sleeping on one’s side, the number goes to 55, which is harder than 50, due to the change in surface area on the air chamber. This little fact is not publicized by the salespeople.) This morning I think we both slept much better on the new bed—not having the air conditioning blowing directly on my face and using a comforter made a difference for me, at least.
Sunday we farted around in the backyard gardening and generally did as little as possible. We did try to measure out the boundary lines of our property to see if we’re on the hook for removing the huge dead tree on the back corner of our property, and our measurements came up about ten feet short of the trunk—which made me feel great. Later, our neighbor’s son stopped over and tried to show me where he had surveyed the land in one of his previous careers, and in his memory, the pegs are behind the tree trunk, placing the accursed thing directly on our property. I’m just going to have to break down and hire a surveyor to get the official word, and then sell some plasma to afford a treecutting service. (A fellow came over this afternoon to look at the tree in the driveway, which he quoted us $1500 to trim back. Right. I’ll stop off and make my first blood deposit this afternoon.)
It looks like one of the 100+ gladioulos we planted is finally blooming, and there are two more on the way. However, the rest of the crop is still sort of leafy but not throwing up flowers. However, there’s an eggplant starting in the greenhouse, as well as the first of (hopefully) several tomatoes.
Today is one of those days I wake up with a random song stuck in my head, courtesy of an overactive subconscious. This happens to me on an average of about 4 days every week, and it gets annoying quickly, as the songs are usually bad ones. This morning’s Soundtrack of Doom: “Philadelphia Fever” by Elton John.
The Fourth of July party was successful this year; Jen and I worked hard to get the house ready for visitors, make food, and stop to enjoy ourselves. Friday we put off the inevitable one more day and I took my bride to see Episode III, which we both enjoyed. Saturday and Sunday we moved furniture back into the living room (for what felt like the 15th time), organized all the piles of stuff that had been thrown in random places before the floor sanding, and attempted to make the kitchen look as pleasant as possible. During one of my trips outside to the garbage cans, I found our sleep number bed stacked neatly on the exam room porch (we have two small porches off the back of the house, and the exam room porch seems to be the Universal Deposit Area For Unannounced Deliveries) and moved it inside. It could have been around this time that I pulled the Achilles tendon, but I don’t know for sure.
The parade itself was longer than last year’s, and the overall tone was a little more PC than last year’s: there was no POW-MIA float with a bamboo cage and coolie-hat, AK-toting ‘Vietcong’ guard. The huge Reagan stuffed puppet did not make a return appearance. However, the Governor and his lousy hair showed up with a gaggle of sign-toting supporters and three Secret Service Suburbans in tow (no doubt scanning the crowd for hidden Catonsville sleeper cells) and there was a ‘float’ sponsored by a local Gentleman’s Club: a six-wheeled, shit-brown Hummer H2, followed by the Hustler Honey or whatever they call the local talent, astride a Harley chopper with a huge “FOR SALE” sign on the side. There’s nothing like free publicity, even when your model is three sizes too big for her leather ass-chaps. A wholesome family event, indeed.
Overall, though, the parade was fun, and it felt good to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the day.
* * *
I finally took five minutes to figure out why the detail popups on my design pages weren’t working; some bad CSS implementation and a gremlin in the HTML b0rked the script, so the page hasn’t been working for about six months now (d’oh!)
This weekend was a blur of preparation for the annual 4th of July parade barbecue on the Lockardugan Great Lawn. The challenge was to get everything ready for the party and put our house back together in three days’ time. I’m pleased to say we got it all done in time and had a great afternoon to boot, but there was one casualty: I pulled my Achilles tendon at some point on Saturday as I was moving furniture around. Sunday morning I woke up to a swollen ankle and a day of hopping around on one foot.
I wish I could tell you exactly how it happened, but there was no Joe Theismann moment when I heard it pop. The nurse practitioner couldn’t really tell me much yesterday, so I have an appointment to see a ‘specialist’ today who can diagnose any major problems. In the meantime, I’m not driving anywhere (it’s the right foot, naturally) so I’m playing hooky.
It’s 7:53. Jen and I were both awake a full hour early, laying in bed together and trying to wish away Monday morning. Having three days to basically fuck off before returning to work was good; it would have been better if Baltimore wasn’t a hot sweaty armpit and we hadn’t just returned from the land of sunny 60° weather. (Waaaah waaaah waaaah.)
I love my wife for many reasons, one of which is that she made coffee this morning, another of which is that we both took a groggy minute to write about the impending sense of doom we’re both feeling. (Imagine two adults in an empty room, sipping coffee and typing on laptops. It looks like a spread from a high-concept design magazine, except for the piles of unopened mail, dust bunnies, and socks laying around us.)
The lawn is finally mowed, the garden has been partly weeded, and we moved the dining room table back where it belongs. Jen’s raised bed is out of control. We have a tomato plant that’s 6′ high. Other than that, we’ve been deliciously lazy: a vacation from our vacation. Last night, my bride treated me to a dozen crabs and a couple of Coronas, and that made Sunday night a lot brighter.
More trip updates are forthcoming; I took yesterday off.