Posted by FRT on Jan 31, 2006 in
Uncategorized I was reading my favorite news site (Fark dot com) this morning and stumbled across a story from The Smoking Gun (who broke the James Frey / Oprah scandal) about a guy in Iowa who was being held in jail for assault and robbery.
Then they showed his mugshot:
And then I’m thinking to myself, what do his parents think? Do they ask him to step out of family photos? What about conferences at his kid’s school? How do the teachers respond to that?
And then there’s the whole “of course he’s a criminal!! Where’s a dude with “Fuck You!!” on his forehead gonna work? Chik-fil-a? Blockbuster?
Anyway, this made me laugh so I thought I’d share. I hope he enjoys his time in PMITAP prison. (For those that don’t know, that means “Pound Me In The Ass” Prison). Maybe some big fella will knock the fuck you off this guy’s face.
Later.
Posted by FRT on Jan 31, 2006 in
Uncategorized I was working on the laptop of a guy at my office and we were talking during the “work,” when he said something like “How many jobs have you had?”
“A lot,” I replied.
“I’ve had a lot too,” he said.
I always thought that I’d had a lot of jobs. Then he proceeded to show me a list of all of his jobs. He is a little older than me (maybe five years), but his list of jobs was extensive.
See, since I was 25 years old, I’ve only had two jobs. But between 13 and 25 years of age, I had jobs o’ plenty.
And that got me thinking. How many jobs have I actually had?
And the thing about looking back and trying to remember jobs is that it’s similar to trying to recount or remember sexual partners (I assume). A job / person or two always gets overlooked.
Anyway, just to get the ball rolling, I am going to list jobs that I had over the years to the best of my recollection. If at some point I remember more, I will simply copy and paste the old list into a new entry and add the recently recalled job.
Enjoy everybody!
(I am going from most recent to oldest as best I can).
- Hardwood Lump Charcoal Sales and Distribution
- Catering
- Computer Systems Consultant
- Network Administrator for world’s largest condom manufacturer
- IT Tech Support rep for worst RF equipment manufacturer in America
- Customer Service rep for Primerica Life Insurance
- Telemarketer (for about 30 minutes)
- Customer Service Manager for phone-based job listings search company
- customer service rep for 800 and 900 number service provider
- Bouncer and Waiter for Atlanta sports bar
- Customer Service Rep for Mitsubishi in Irvine, California
- Customer Service Rep for Toshiba in Irvine, California
- Bouncer and Waiter for Atlanta sports bar
- Waiter at Buckhead Mellow Mushroom
- AP clerk for the IRS in Atlanta
- Stocker for Turtles records and tapes
- Pizza kitchen and appetizer”chef” at Denaro’s Restaurant in Auburn, AL
- Pizza Delivery guy for Morton’s Pizza in Auburn, AL
- Shift Supervisor / area designer for Pizza Hut Delivery
- Stock boy at Bargaintown in Opelika, AL
- Landscaper / shrub planter / pinestraw spreader
- Order taker at Pizza Hut delivery
- Busboy at Fuddruckers in Atlanta
- Runner / cleanup guy at J.C. Penny’s in Atlanta
- Bagboy at Kroger in Atlanta
- Dishwasher at Mario’s Italian Ristonrante
- Dishwasher at Swenson’s Ice Cream in Atlanta
I think that might be it. Actually, I’m fairly certain that’s not it at all, but until I hear from someone who hired me or fired me or laughed when they heard about either, this’ll be the list.
How about you? How many jobs have YOU had? Can you list them?
Posted by FRT on Jan 30, 2006 in
Uncategorized There is no fear like the fear of something happening to your child. There simply isn’t. I worry every day when I leave the house and I worry every time I put the girls to bed. It’s my nature. I’m a worrier. I’ve always been a worrier.
I’m better about it now than I used to be, but it’s still there.
You try not to think about it and you think to yourself in quiet moments that it can’t happen to you. You believe that you’re a good parent and that you follow all of the instructions and make good decisions and do all the right things. You think and worry and plan and about the future.
Only sometimes all of that is not enough.
Today I found out that my dear friend Lisa and her husband lost their baby last Thursday.
Amelia would have been three months old yesterday.
I don’t have all the details at this point. Hell, I have very few details at this point. All I know is that one of the best people I know on this ball of dirt is right now, as we speak, enduring a pain that would leave the vast majority of us completely shut down and unable to function.
Lisa was and is a dear friend who worked hard and is one of the most generous people I know. She worked and put herself thru grad school to become a PA so she could do what she wanted more than anything else in the world to do: help people.
When she told me she was pregnant she was absolutely beside herself. She and Greg were very excited and looked forward to their lives and what the future would hold.
Amelia was born just as I was starting my cardiac deal and the day she was writing to tell me about Amelia’s birth, she read my blog and found out what we were dealing with and immediately emailed to see if she could do anything, even though she’d just given birth.
And thru my recovery we talked a few times via email and we both sounded great and happy. Lisa graduated from school with honors AFTER having the baby, a feat that few could ever pull off I would bet.
And then out of the blue, she calls me today, and I cannot even understand her to tell who it is on the phone.
But I heard her next words as clearly as any I’ve ever heard:
“My baby’s gone.”
I felt like I’d been hit in the chest with a sledgehammer. I still do.
There are no words of comfort for a woman whose lost a child, especially an infant. Her faith is strong and she is a great person whose done the right thing more often than most. Yet here I am having a totally surreal and devestating conversation with her about how her only child is gone.
I feel like I’m tied to my chair. I can’t remember the last time I felt this sad for another person.
The combination of sympathy and emptiness I feel for her and her husband Greg is almost a bitter taste in my mouth and I can’t make it go away.
I only hope that she can somehow find comfort and peace and in time, can start to live again. I have no idea if I could.
I love you Lisa and I am so sorry for your and Greg’s loss.
Posted by FRT on Jan 30, 2006 in
Uncategorized You know you’re doing something right (or wrong) if you’re more tired from your weekend than your work week.
Friday we had a bunch of stuff going on and got delayed and distracted and didn’t eat dinner until nearly 10:15. I know that’s not healthy, but I didn’t fill up on crap. Dinner was as good as it gets in my opinion. Care to guess what it was?
Ribeyes cooked on the Big Green Egg and eaten on paper plates. No muss, no fuss, no loading baked potatoes, nothing. Just a couple of guys (me and my brother in law) with a steak on a plate with knife and for in hand. Oh, and more than a few cold beers, which is what made Saturday morning’s start so rough.
(That said, I laughed Saturday since what the three of us drank Friday was not an uncommon amount for me alone pre-bypass. Guess I’m getting to be a cheaper and cheaper date now).
Oh, I nearly forgot and how could I considering how exciting it is / was. We got a new car.
I know what you’re thinking. “Didn’t you just get new cars a year or two ago?”
Yes we did. The Trailblazers were 2004 models and are both two years old right now. The problem was that when we got them, urchin 2.0 wasn’t even in the discussion phase, and now that there are two of those things, getting them all in and out of the car with the appropriate accoutraments has gotten difficult, and taking anyone else with us is all but impossible.
Combined with the thought of more extracurricular stuff for Lauren and a family vacation pending, we decided to start sniffing around the (get ready now) minivan market and see what was out there and whether we could swing it or not.
The wife contacted Bill Heard Chevrolet of Buford, site of the purchase of our previous three vehicles, just to see what they had and what they’d cost. It didn’t look good.
But she worked and worked and worked and bothered the guy and finally, when it was all said and done, we got to within $15 of our old payment, so we bought a minivan. (Aye carramba. We now own a minivan).
It’s actually pretty cool as it doesn’t look like a traditional minivan, especially from the front. And the way they are designed now is more like the thought that goes into building boats, maximizing all space for storage or some other purpose. The days of the 3 rows of seating and two cupholders being the whole package are long over.
Here’s what we bought:
2006 Chevrolet Uplander
It’s really pretty cool. It’s got the on-board flip down dvd screen, great stereo, power sliding passenger side door, 3rd row seating so it can accomodate seven passengers, a built-in child seat for Lauren, removable second and third row seating, and much more. Oh, it also came with two infared headsets for listening to horrifyingly annoying children’s DVD’s so I don’t have to hear them. And the guy gave us four sets instead of two, so when the inevitable breaking of a set or two happens, we’ve got replacements for free just a step away in the basement.
I’m still not thrilled about driving it, but I can already tell you that getting two girls plus their crap and any guests into the car is far far easier than it ever was with the Trailblazer.
Oh, and when we went to dinner Saturday night, we made Uncle Todd watch this year’s Auburn-Georgia game on DVD during the trip, and I kept the remote with me so he had to watch it. That was worth it for sure.
(Sorry about that Saturday evening spoiler. Let’s get back to the weekend).
Saturday was soccer day for urchin 1.0 which meant a 6:30am pop-in visit from her since that’s her new thing. It’s fine if we’re already up but it blows if you’re getting meaningful sleep.
We were up and out and took our nephew with us to soccer and, as usual, had a nice time with all of the other soccer parents. (In case you’re wondering, yes we are all huge dorks).
Then it was thru the Chik-fil-a for lunch and back home, followed by a panicked trip to Sam’s Club for rack of lamb, sodas, beer, diapers, and paper plates.
they had no beer for me since we’re a Bud Select house now and they didn’t have the right size diapers for urchin 2.0: The Titanic, but they had everything else.
Deal of the day? 165 Chinette white heavy duty dinner sized paper plates for $12.88 plus tax.
Then it was home for my workout (75 minutes, 4.2 miles covered, and I burned around 700 calories and 80 carbs).
The exciting part of the day was that Mee-mee was coming over to babysit so we could go out to Macaroni Grill with the Thomas’ and the Zanettis.
Dinner was awesome. I ate way WAY too much but felt better about it considering I had been dioligent in getting on the treadmill this week and had been maintaining my Hasselhoff-like 210.5 pounds all week long. I figured a few drinks and a self-indulgent dinner wouldn’t kill me.
We got home about two seconds after Sophia apparently stopped crying (which sounded like perfect timing to me) and hit the hay around 11pm. Good thing too, because urchin 1.0 was up once, then got up at five freaking thirty Sunday morning.
Why? Because Mee-mee told her we were going to Cracker Barrel with Caca, Wivia, Max and Feff.
That settles it. No one tells her anything until it’s the day of the event. When the time comes for us to leave for the beach in May, she’s gonna think she’s been kidnapped because we’re not divulging the destination until she can see the fucking ocean.
We hit the Cracker Barrel at around 8:30 and I was torn. My usual order was the Old Timer’s Breakfast:
Old Timer’s Breakfast
Two Eggs cooked to order with Grits, Sawmill Gravy, Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits, real Butter and the best Preserves, Jam n’ Apple Butter (on request) we could find.
~plus~
Fried Apples or Hashbrown Casserole
~and~
Choice of Smoked Sausage Patties, Turkey Sausage Patties or Thick-Sliced Bacon
Grandpa’s Country Fried Breakfast:
Grandpa’s Country Fried Breakfast®
Two Eggs cooked to order with Grits, Sawmill Gravy, Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits, real Butter and the best Preserves, Jam n’ Apple Butter (on request) we could find.
~plus~
Fried Apples or Hashbrown Casserole
~and~
Chicken Fried Chicken or Country Fried Steak
or Uncle Herschel’s favorite:
Uncle Herschel’s Favorite®
Two Eggs cooked to order with Grits, Sawmill Gravy, Homemade Buttermilk Biscuits, real Butter and the best Preserves, Jam n’ Apple Butter (on request) we could find.
~plus~
Fried Apples or Hashbrown Casserole
~and~
(choice of one)
Hickory Smoked Country Ham Grilled Pork Chop
8 oz. Hamburger Steak Farm-Raised Catfish Fillet
(cooked to order)
Sugar Cured Ham Fried Chicken Tenderloin
What to do? What to do? What to do?
And what DID I order, you must be asking yourself? I ordered this:
Oatmeal Breakfast
Served warm with your choice of one of the following toppings, Fried Apples, Pecans, Raisins, Fresh Sliced Bananas or Pure Maple Syrup.
~and~
Choice of Apple Bran Muffin or
Wild Maine Blueberry Muffin
For the record, I got the sliced bananas and the blueberry muffin. I also got to eggbeaters scrambled with cheese. The eggs were surprisingly good, as were the bananas and the muffin. The oatmeal sucked, but it’s my fault for not getting cinnamon, but it didn’t matter much. They didn’t taste bad. They just didn’t taste. That’s one of the sacrifices you have to make…I guess.
We headed home, and that’s when the wife, Mee-mee and Caca decided that it was a good day to take all the kids to the movies to see that nanny movie.
YAY!!!
Whatever was I going to do with three uninterrupted, childless and wifeless hours?
Easy. Clean up and work out, of course. (WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING TO ME?)
I also got word that a neighbor of a friend is selling a Bowflex Pro something (retail $1400) for $100 bucks, and I think I’m getting it. (Like I said before, WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING TO ME?)
The family got home and shortly thereafter the Cashions (Kurt, Bonnie, Amelia and Charlotte seen here) arrived for an afternoon of haircuts, cold beers and a dnner of rack of lamb prepared on the Big Green Egg.
See, it seems that the Cashion clan had never had lamb. No leg, no rack, nothing. We were dumbfounded but committed to introducing them to this delicious meal.
We used our standard marinade (which we use for ribeyes, flank steaks, chicken, or whatever else) which consists of extra virgin olive oil, “fresh” minced garlic, kosher salt and Montreal Steak Seasoning.
Then, on a 500 degree grate, put the racks on and flip them every 2-3 minutes until they are to your liking. Medium rare / medium takes us about 20-25 minutes.
The result? Amazing.
And all the while we’re having cold beers and the kids are going nuts out and non-stop.
The Cashions took home their exhausted brood around 7:15 or so and we worked to get a destroyed urchin 1.0 to bed as well as to get urchin 2.0 (who didn’t sleep but about 15 minutes all day) to sleep for the night.
Sophia fell out a little before 10:00 and we both did shortly thereafter. Since she’d eaten at 9pm, I expected a 1am-2am wakeup. I got a 4:05am wakeup, which kicked much ass.
And today I got to work expecting to run errands (like getting diapers, formula and gas for my car) only to find out that I’d left my wallet at home. Nice.
I’m exhausted and need to find out if we won the megamillion Friday. Then I won’t need my wallet. I’ll buy a new one and fill it with all my new jack.
Hope you all had a great weekend. I’m already looking forward to the next one since it’s a week closer to the Daytona 500 (which is February 19th).
Shalom everybody…
Posted by FRT on Jan 26, 2006 in
Uncategorized I had my second follow-up appointment with my cardiologist today. Actually, it wasn’t MY cardiologist but rather A cardiologist from the same practice. Tuh-may-toe Tuh-ma-toe if you ask me.
Anyway, I was told initially by my thoracic surgeon that I would have these meetings every month for one year and then I’d have a treadmill stress test every year after that.
Well, this is one of many instances where your thoracic surgeon and your cardiologist may contradict one another.
My blood pressure was 110 over 80 (kickass) and my resting heart rate was 62 bpm, down from a startling 9o bpm just 3 months ago. Apparently this exercise thing is really working out for me.
Speaking of which, I took in a spreadsheet where I track my exercise, calories and carbs burned, etc. and showed it to her. I did so to confirm that it was okay that I was pushing this hard.
She looked at the sheet and said “WOW!!! You’re really burning a lot of calories! You are, at this point, free to do whatever you’d like or feel like you can do athletically.”
Not bad for a mere 10 weeks after bypass, eh?
She then said that they’d like to put me on Zocor or Lipitor or some drug in the “or” family apparently. These drugs are meant to lower your LDL (bad cholesterol) and increase the amount of HDL (good cholesterol) in your system all while helping to prevent hardening of the arteries.
I asked if there were any side effects, and not the television commercial litigation prevention kind, but the actual kind, and I was told there were none to speak of. However, I found this on a drug website:
· gas, bloating, nausea, stomach upset, heartburn, abdominal pain, constipation, or diarrhea;
Red flag everybody. Turns out that Zocor is in the same family as Lipitor, which I took while in the hospital in addition to Zocor. That event is covered in this blog and more in this blog.
So now I’m torn. I don’t want to put myself thru that, but it could have been a by-product of the narcotics that I’m no longer taking as well. We shall see. If you are reading 3am posts that include grunting noises, then you know I’ve made the wrong decision and that I will be off this Zocor in short order.
So now that I’m free to do “whatever I want to do,” the question becomes this:
What do I want to do?
p.s. for those of you that are already somewhat frightened by my entry into the kingdom of exercise, here’s another nugget for you to choke on. After my treadmill work last night, I hit the floor and did 10-15 minutes of serious ab work. Like crunches that saw me laying flat with my feet straight up in the air Roger Clemens style. (I saw these on ESPN one night and I figured if they kept Roger in baseball, they could help me).
I also, along with the creative genius of Specialist Cashion (82nd Airborne, Ret.) have come up with a way to make the playing the X-Box portion of my workout exercise as well. See, if I put velcroed wrist weights on while I am holding that controller, I can also do curls, arm extensions, or just carry the extra weight for extra benefit.
I love that my friends are actually helping to validate the fact that a 37 year old needs a video game system to exercise well.
In exchange for this brilliance, Mr. Cashion and family will be dining on rack of lamb Sunday afternoon as they try lamb for the first time. Their life is to be changed forever.
I’ll talk to you soon, people. I have to go walk a lap around the office….
PEACE!!!
Posted by FRT on Jan 25, 2006 in
Uncategorized Since I recently posted photos of me looking like a dork on my new treadmill, I started thinking about what I looked like before, including my time in the hospital.
I’d like to say that there were a bunch of pictures of me before, during and after the operation, but as it turns out, no one in my family thought it was a particularly great photo op. They apparently were too busy being concerned that I might die.
Anyway, I wanted to post the few that I have so you can see how fun it was.
I’ve also included a couple of photos of my “scars,” including an R-rated picture of what I refer to as my goiter and my wife refers to as “ewww…that’s just gross.” It is (or was since it’s 90% gone now) the hematoma at the site where they connected me to the heart-lung machine. It’s my left groin. There’s no dirty stuff, but it is an adult male groinal region, so I recommend that you take the necessary precautions.
This might spill into two blog entries, but if it does, I’ll just copy this intro to both of them so they’ll be easily identifiable.
Enjoy everybody…
I call this one “The Chin.” I look like Frank Beamer in this for heaven’s sake.
I call this one “eggplant arms.” I think this was the result of surgically installed arterial IV’s, but either way, it stayed for a few weeks and was nasty.
Hang on to your hats, people. Here’s one for the ladies that I call “For the ladies.” These are the only scars on my chest from the surgery provided me by Number 5.
This one is entitled “The Chin, part II.” I mean, this really looks like my chin just ate my neck. Absolutely awful.
And here’s a G-rated version of the photo two up from here showing my scars. These were actually taken in late December, but they never really looked bad. The one at 3 o’clock was the worst, but it was where the big ass chest tube was, so that’s understandable.
If you can stomach it, there are more photos to be found in part II of this entry…
Posted by FRT on Jan 25, 2006 in
Uncategorized Since I recently posted photos of me looking like a dork on my new treadmill, I started thinking about what I looked like before, including my time in the hospital.
I’d like to say that there were a bunch of pictures of me before, during and after the operation, but as it turns out, no one in my family thought it was a particularly great photo op. They apparently were too busy being concerned that I might die.
Anyway, I wanted to post the few that I have so you can see how fun it was.
I’ve also included a couple of photos of my “scars,” including an R-rated picture of what I refer to as my goiter and my wife refers to as “ewww…that’s just gross.” It is (or was since it’s 90% gone now) the hematoma at the site where they connected me to the heart-lung machine. It’s my left groin. There’s no dirty stuff, but it is an adult male groinal region, so I recommend that you take the necessary precautions.
This might spill into two blog entries, but if it does, I’ll just copy this intro to both of them so they’ll be easily identifiable.
Enjoy everybody…
Here’s me in the ICU (the second ICU which was a private room) just a snorin’ away.
Here’s me in the same ICU but awake. You’ll notice the dried bloody area on the right side of my neck. That’s where the line went in and straight into my heart for accurate BP readings during the surgery. YIKES!!
Here’s me and my dad. I couldn’t decide which one to post. One has him smiling and me blurry, and this one has him not smiling as much and me blurry. This was taken right before the Auburn – Georgia game was set to start (I believe). I would soon be asleep thanks to my friend percocet.
And now, one final warning. Don’t scroll any further if you don’t want to see my groin. It’s the next picture. ( I feel like Grover in “There’s a monster at the end of this book.”) This was taken in late December, so the swelling had gone down some. The day after I got home from the hospital, this “thing” was about half again as big as a roll of quarters and hard as a rock. (Insert your own joke here).
By this time, it was about the size of a roll of nickel thickness wise, but had shortened up a bit. It’s still not very attractive, but I’ll trade a groin scar for still being alive. Plus, I think I can work the three chest wounds plus the groin into some sort of Fitty Cent hip-hop thug life gang bangin’ attack. You know, like I got shot three times in the chest and stabbed in the groin (in the femoral artery no less) by a dude with a butcher knife, but they still couldn’t take my ass down.
Word.
Hope you enjoyed my little photo essay. Hopefully I’ll remember to start taking some more pictures for the blog to help draw attention away from the fact that I’m an idiot.
Peace out!
Posted by FRT on Jan 24, 2006 in
Uncategorized I am a reader. I enjoy reading immensely. I seldom if ever go anywhere without the book I am currently reading. If you know me, you know this to be true. Whether it’s to work, the grocery store, the butcher, the park or anywhere else, I always have my book.
I used to be a voracious reader. That is until the surgery and “the baby.”
Now, I read more at red lights than I do at home or anywhere else. I can’t read on the treadmill because I KNOW that I will catch the siderail and get myself hurt, and then everyone will think I’m an even bigger dork than I already am.
Anyway, since my friend the Madsapper is currently doing this on his website, I’ve decided to review books as I read them and tell you what I think of them. Like I said, there was a time where you’d have gotten a review a week. Now, you may only get one a month. It really depends on the kids.
Right now I’m reading a book I was very much looking forward to called “Sunday Money” by Jeff MacGregor.
Jeff is / was a writer for Sports Illustrated, and in 2002 he and his wife sold their home, bought a 27 foot motorhome / camper and decided to follow the Winston Cup tour for the entire 2002 season (it wasn’t yet the Nextel Cup tour).
While there are parts that are entertaining and funny, for the most part, the book was a waste of $24.95 plus tax.
See, in magazines, I think guys write more when less would do to attract attention to themselves and their style. There are way too many cases in this book where the author takes a page to say what one word would have said. Here’s a paragraph that’s a fine example:
“NASCAR’s success may be the story of how far we’ve all spun past the deep old identifiers, about how millionns of us all over the rolling belly of America are looking for something to do with our Sundays, trying to find grace and sensation at the racetrack, not distraction but definition, then transcendence, in the cars and the drivers and the carnal carnival divine, those long, strange raing weekends at once as fixed and unchanging as the Tridentine mass and as hopped-up with improvised jitterbug mysticism as a Pentacostal prayer meeting, a quarter of a million people all speaking in tongues at once.”
Notice anything funny about what you just read?
IT’S ONE FUCKING SENTENCE!!! 103 words and only one period among them.
Once in a while, that’s okay. But over and over and over again, it gets to be too much. It gets to be tiring to read 300 pages like that, regardless of what it says.
For those who don’t know much about NASCAR, I think this book would be a total waste of time. Hell, for someone that does know alot about NASCAR, this book is pretty much a waste of time with some funny little moments spread throughout it.
I liken it to a movie that uses all the best scenes in the credits, then you find out the movie sucks ass. This book doesn’t suck ass, but suck ass should be it’s neighbor on the shelf.
I give this book one star on a scale of one to five with five being the best. Actually, I will give it two stars. One for the writing and one for doing what I’ve always wanted to do, which is follow “The Show” for a year just to see what that’d be like.
Next up in the reading room is going to be Reckless Abandon by Stuart Woods (A Stone Barrington novel that will absolutely start with the line “Elaine’s…late..). or one of a few others I’ve recently gotten from the hardback bargain bins at Walmart or Barnes and Noble, or else a paperback from the rack at Kroger. Either way, there’ll be more to come.
Posted by FRT on Jan 23, 2006 in
Uncategorized But it’s not supposed to be either.
Saturday night was date night. Thanks to the kindness of my company and co-workers, the wife and I had a little motivation to go out and eat somewhere nice, and just the two of us.
Since my mother-in-law couldn’t make it to babysit, my folks graciously accepted our “offer” to come over and “play with the kids.”
Right. Urchin 1.0 had about seven hours of sleep and urchin 2.0 was 7 weeks old. Fun times.
So we spent most of Friday and Saturday trying to figure out where to go. What we found out was, if you wait until Friday night / Saturday to decide what nice restaurant you’re gonna eat at, you are going to have SEVERELY limited your choices. Stoney River couldn’t seat us until after 9pm, and the same went for Garrison’s. Even PF Chang’s said it’d be at least 8:30 until we got a table. So it was either Outback Steakhouse or California Dreamings. Since we’d already had Outback before, we decided to try something new and have dinner (not snacks) at California Dreaming.
So we got there about 6:25 and hit the bar. We figured there was no rush, so why not have a couple of cocktails and wait for our table?
Which came available (thanks to the coaster buzzer) at 6:31pm.
We took our time (or so we thought), and got the seafood nachos and brought our beers, and then we finally settled on the fried flounder and the fried crab claws and finished with a nice piece of cheesecake.
We also had some great conversation, which you take for granted a lot when one of you is constantly saying “Lauren…no. Did you not hear me? You’d better…..” You get the point.
Anyway, for the first time we really talked alot about what we’ve been through since Halloween. I mean, we had talked before, but it was more on a surface level. After all, it’s not like the wife got to sit at my bedside and dote on me. She had a daughter to take care of and she had to get ready for urchin 2.0 whose arrival was far more iminent than we’d thought.
So we took our time and really enjoyed our dinner and especially the conversation. I don’t know how we waited 8 months to go out with urchin 1.0, but this was our 3rd time out with this one, and I’ll not refuse a babysitting offer ever from now on.
We talked about everything, but then we finally boiled it down and talked a lot about mortality, fear of death, luck, karma, fate, etc. Ultimately we kind of decided that there had to be more in play than dumb luck and anything like it. There’s a reason I got a pass, and we don’t know what it is.
But I’ve decided that I think I want to try going to church.
I’ll give those of you that know me fairly well a moment to either get up off the floor courtesy of some smelling salts or to wipe the beverage remnants off of your computer monitors and screens.
Now there are two things you need to know about me if you don’t already.
1) Organized religion makes me nervous.
2) Singing in public with strangers makes me very VERY nervous.
That said, there’s this. Although I’ve never been a big believer, I see the benefits of church. It’s great for the kids. I think it’s healthy for kids to try to get a belief system developed as well as a sense of fear of something bigger judging them for their actions. I don’t mean an angry God. I just mean it’s good for kids to be held accountable (in their own minds) to something bigger than mom and dad.
Also, I think there’s a lot to be gained by going to a church in your area as it relates to being involved in the community. Like them or not, churches do good work. It’s funny (in my twisted brain) that the Catholic church does so much good around the world yet can’t stop hurting their little parishoners, but I digress…
I’m sure that you (and my parents and my wife’s family) are wondering what church or religion we’ll pick. After all, I was raised Lutheran and my wife was raised Catholic. In the end there were a couple of things that swung the vote to the side of the folks who confess everything:
1) There are no Lutheran churches near us that I know of and I haven’t found any Lutherans (practicing anyway) in our area. I’m sure they’re there, but if I don’t know them by now, it’s their loss.
2) Lutheran and Catholicism are very similar. Lutherans just do less kneeling and more singing. I think drinking is a wash.
3) We know of a good Catholic church that’s very nearby that is highly thought of by a number of our friends. Oh, and did I mention that the Catholics offer Saturday afternoon church, leaving your Sundays free for football and the races and such? That’s a good marketing point. They oughta work that into their brochures.
So there it is. Over some fried seafood, the wife and I decided to drastically change the course of our lives, at least religiously speaking.
I don’t know if this adequately explains why this came up at our house. I can only say that thinking about your own mortality is drastically different than facing your own mortality. It’s very easy in the abstract to have a set of beliefs, but when put to the test, they might not hold up as well as you might have thought. Not to get too deep here, but I also think that facing one’s own mortality at age 77 would be a good deal easier than facing it at 37, which I did and continue to do.
I only hope if you see us there, you’ll keep your eyes on your own hymnal and not worry about what I’m doing. I’m probably reading a book. And not the one that they give you there.
p.s. Robert, you can keep your cakehole shut. No one wants to hear from you. Besides, you’re Catholic anyway you heathen bastard.
Oh, I guess I should finish the story.
After making such a potentially life-altering decision, we looked at the clock and realized that it was 7:20pm.
Seven freaking twenty. We had babysitters lined up for the night, and we were finished with our dinner like two Amish teenagers rushing to get home for a milking. And no, that’s not a euphamism for anything.
We called the Gwinnett Arena to see if the Gladiators were in town, and we called a few friends, but we ended up…
Going to the mall. For walking shoes. You know, for the treadmill. Of course, you can walk in them anywhere, but I needed new shoes for my exercising, which is walking, ergo walking shoes.
Oh, and we bought some cute shoes for Sophia at Nordstrom’s and then some great (but rather expensive) fabric softener. Then it was off to Barnes and Noble for the live Big Head Todd and the Monsters cd and a couple of discount hardbacks. For an avid reader, there is nothing quite like the table that says “former best selling hardbacks at discounted prices,” and then finding interesting books for $5.88 and less.
For those of you not familiar with BHTM, you’re not alone. But they are the performers of my favorite song whose CD I did not own…until Saturday. You can read about the band here:
Linkage
I also bought a fabulous cd I’d never seen before with five songs from both Cinderella and L.A. Guns. And before you ask, yes…it TOTALLY RULES!!
Then, it was back to the car and home by 9:30pm. Nice job, old people. Maybe next time we’ll catch a movie first and THEN eat dinner. Otherwise, we may end up home before dark.
So in summation, we had dinner, decided to change our life’s direction spiritually, and then bought some hair-metal cd’s. How’s that for odd?
Posted by FRT on Jan 23, 2006 in
Uncategorized I don’t do this much, and not nearly as much as I did right after my surgery, but sometimes I look at someone who’s a) still alive and b) still walking / waddling around and I think “How on earth did I need bypass surgery at 37 (despite being ‘so young and thin’ according to my surgeon) and THAT guy/girl just goes thru life shoveling it in and has no worries.
I say this because I’m about to toss out a big BIG caveat:
Unless I’m watching celebrity Fit Club 3 on VH-1.
I don’t wish ill on most folks (notice I said most), but I am shocked at the number of people that just say “whatever…” like I did and not worry about their body or their health. Kelly LeBrock saying that she got fat to “stop men from thinking of her as a piece of ass” is plain laughable.
Anyway, the point of this blog wasn’t to review or critique the show, which my friend Ethel and I will most assuredly do at one point this season. The point is that comedy writer Bruce “center square that replaced Paul Lynde as the token gay guy on Hollywood Squares” Vilanche is not only still alive despite his being 58 years old and 5’10″ and 327 pounds, but his heart was declared “fine” on last night’s episode.
My question is simple:
HOW IS THAT FUCKING POSSIBLE?
I know I didn’t exercise proper, but I did yard work, played basketball and football with the nephews, etc. Yet I am told I’m “lucky to be alive” while that fatass Vilanche just gets to continue on thinking “well, if my heart’s fine, I must be in fine fine shape.”
I’m not jealous or envious or anything. I just think these things sometimes.
I hope to have more crap later. Like how the Broncos finally got to see the tru Jake Plummer while the Panthers were trying to keep Steve Smith from killing his entire team and especially his QB while on the sidelines having a hissy fit that would make my 3.75 year old proud.
Later.
