Friday is Catch-up Day
I normally LOVE Fridays, but I found a sure-fire way to hate them with the heat of a thousand fires in Phoenix, ...just wake up CONVINCED that it's Saturday.
Hard to be a dedicated Japanese worker bee with that type of disappointment slapping you in the lip at 7:20am. It's worse than the dream I had often when I was single, the "oh,-so-I'm-NOT-dating-the-super-sexy-nympho-who's-perfect-in-every-way" dream. That's a can-crusher, too.
But, I have the kind of life that makes it very difficult for a normal person to complain about. As for me, I have no problem complaining, but I do not feel it in my heart.
The daughter goes through growth spurts, attitude spurts, and learning spurts. For several weeks in June she had an emotional spurt that forced me to consider re-naming her "Insane Screech Monkey", but she's past that now.
Now she's in a learning spurt. After her vocalubary remained static for several weeks, she's now picking up a couple of words a day. Most recent additions:
Baby: or bea-ba as she says it.
Nino': or nyan-no. It's spanish for child, pronounced neen-nyo.
Balloons: or ba-brrrlrp
Pooh: or Pouh, for Winnie the Pooh
Two: or tso
Diaper: or da-pa
She's also taken her first few steps.
She's keenly aware of everything around her and can't seem to get enough stimulation.
Good timing, because I'm taking a few days off next week and I'm planning something that I've been looking forward to for a long time. I'm taking her on her first trip to the zoo.
Right now she only knows cats and dogs, and she's totally obsessed with them. If a dog barks somewhere in the neighborhood, she points to the window and says Wa-Wa (wan-wan is Japanese for "doggie"). She LOVES animals, which I why I can't wait to see her expression when she sees all those new animals.
She's going to have quite a day, ...petting goats and rabbits, seeing things she's never seen before. I'm looking forward to seeing her experience all that, but mostly I'm looking forward to the time spent.
Just think, ...a whole day with the family in the beautiful summer sun, no work in sight, ...just blue skies, shady trees, petting goats, and no hurries.
No worries.
Heaven.
All Things Packers
I've been pretty silent about the Green and Gold this off-season, even though it has been a relatively newsworthy offseason. They drafted a QB, got a new defensive coordinator, had their star RB facing domestic violence charges, had their only good defensive back facing possible rape charges, their top wide-out refusing to report for camp, their star TE still not under contract, and their top defensive lineman refusing to report to camp.
I did comment breifly about some of these issues, but in past years I would have had lots of profane things to say. Not this year.
You see, it doesn't really matter. Ted "Teen Wolf" Thompson doesn't care about winning now. He's rebuilding, ...Favre be damned.
This season is already lost (by "lost" I mean no playoffs).
Teen Wolf knows this, and for that reason he's not breaking the bank on any of these hold outs. His reasoning is, if we ain't going anywhere anyway, why not go nowhere at a lower price?
And I agree.
As long as he is rebuilding (an idea I think is stupid beyond belief), there is no point in giving Javon or Grady what they're looking for.
I'd throw all caution to the wind and play tough with them, make examples of them. We don't need them to go 8-8, we can do that just fine with Lee and Chatman.
Still, the wet socks in the local news sports departments continue to treat this like a big story, it's actually just a smaller consequence of the real story here. That we have a hall of fame QB, had one of the best offenses in the NFL, and were a handful of defensive veterans away from a legitimate Super Bowl opportunity. Facing this great, once in a lifetime opportunity, our new, dunderheaded GM decided to scrap the team.
Like I said before, ...at least we have our Sunday's back. For the first time since 1992 I will actually be able to get something done on the weekend!
I'll still watch, but my mind won't be running the "Packers.exe" process at 99% CPU for months on end.
With all those resources freed up, who knows what I'll be able to accomplish.
The sky's the limit.
I was in the mafia ...
Apparently, ...or so the dream went.
My memory picks up when I am caught in a garage by the cops. I hide some implements, ...a drill, a piece of wheel assembly. I act innocent and the cops leave the garage without arresting me.
It seems that myself and my two closest friends, Van and Deac (from the shortlived FOX show Fastlane), were breaking down stolen cars and selling them for parts. Deac and I worked directly for the mob, but Van did not. He was just our weird friend. We were doing this "on-the-side" without the knowledge of the mob, ...and also without splitting the profits with them.
Van and Deac bolted when the cops came, so the cops don't know who they are. They know who I am, but did not obtain any physical evidence to take me in on the spot. Also, they believe that this was a mob operation and I am just a small fish. They want the big fish. So, they are pressuring me to give evidence against the mob, even though the mob had nothing to do with this act.
Of course, the mob finds out about my little operation, and they want to know who is responsible. They believe I am responsible, but they aren't sure. They are sure that I know what's going on, that I was involved, and that I'm being asked to flip on them.
Meanwhile, Deac is telling me that we should stick together because we're in the mob and they will kill us if they found out. He suggests blaming Van for the whole deal, knowing it would result in Van getting whacked.
Van pleads with me to spare him. He emphasizes that we've been friends for a long time and we were in this together.
So, I'm basically screwed and scared as hell.
If I blame Van, a friend dies for my crime.
If I blame Deac, a friend dies for my crime.
If I blame the mob, they get put away and a price gets put on my head and my family's heads. I think about my daughter and my wife and fear for them.
If I don't blame anyone, the cops put me away and I probably become a target for elimination by the mob. After all, I know a lot about their business. If they fear I will sing, I'd be dead.
If I take the blame, the cops put me away, ...same thing.
Each of the people in this drama come to visit me. I have to answer the cops questions tomorrow. The mob boss visits me, speaking in an angry, threatening tone.
I ponder my options, wandering around the garage. My cell phone rings, it's the mob boss' lawyer. I don't answer. They call again, I don't answer.
I wake up. Sweating, frightened. My heart racing. I feel nervous and anxious. I realize it was a dream and start to wonder what I would actually do in that situation.
I still don't have a good answer.
Smooth Me
Mr. Dorksalot here, entering a fresh exhibit into the court record in the case of Life vs Me. Or Me vs Life, I can never remember which.
The floor of my office building contains several men known to be of the "no-hand-wash-after-potty" clan. There's some in every building, I'm sure. More disturbingly, this floor also contains at least one member of the "piss-on-the-floor-it's-close-enough" clan. And on at least one occasion I discovered evidence of the "why-flush?" clan.
Now, to give you a better picture of the situation, combine these facts with some amusingly faulty plumbing. On a seemingly random intervals, the urinal stalls fail to stop flushing. You hit the plunger, the water wooshes down, you walk away, the water keeps wooshing, keeps wooshing, and soon enough water is pouring out all over the floor. It's no more than 5 seconds from flush to flood.
So, we're not talking about a very sanitary environment here. I've brought up the flooding problem to the building maintenance guy several times, but I get no reply and there has been no effort to fix it.
Last week one of the nice, young hispanic girls who clean up the office building after hours was waiting for me to exit the restroom so she could clean it. Wouldn't you know that the urinal would overflow at that moment. I got to be the lucky jerk to leave a huge mess for her to clean up.
Anyway, the point of all of this is to explain why I refuse to open the door to the rest room with my hands. I press the little handicapped button with my elbow and the door slowly opens automatically.
This morning while leaving the rest room, I pressed the button and the door began to slowly open. Because the door was opening on it's own, I had to stand to the side of the doorway as it opened.
The door had opened wide enough for me to sleek through, so I stepped forward into the breach, only my big clod-hopper of a shoe hit the edge of the door square on.
Undeterred, I continued pushing through the breach, expecting the door to continue opening so that I could fit through. But this didn't happen.
The door opening mechanism must have been reversed by my big clumsy feet and had now started to close. Like I said, I did not step back from the door when I bumped it, I continued through.
And, of course, this meant that the door closed on me, pinning me in the doorway.
I could feel the weight of the heavy wooden door push againt me, and the weak door-opening mechanism churned away as if it was feebly trying to crush me. Slightly exasperated, I stood there for a moment and let the door try to crush me. I figured the mechanism would eventually give, but it just churned away. It must have really hated me.
Anyway, ...so there I am, a grown man trapped in a simple doorway that a retarded chimp could navigate.
Fortunately it was easy to get free, I just grabbed the door handle and pulled it open like normal people do. And no one saw me, so I didn't suffer any embarrassment. But it was just one of those very stupid things that happen to me reasonably often.
And I knew you would all want to know about it.
