I left the driveway at 7:20 this morning and pulled into a parking spot in Westwood at 9:34. Two hours and fourteen minutes. Only one minute shy of the Methuen->Westwood record. So close!
Again, any of you singing the praises of September can kiss my enormously fat ass.
We celebrated my mother’s 75th birthday today. Everyone wish her a happy birthday!
My Aunt brought a couple of old pictures with her. There is a red head in this one who is the spitting image of my nephew…
Look at that handsome devil! He and my nephew could be twins! Who is that fine looking dude? It’s me! Can you believe it? My sister’s son and I are twins, just 40 years removed. Not sure how the logistics work there though.
Now check out this happy family snapshot…
The fine looking dude in the coat in the center of the pic is once again your humble narrator. I’m standing on my dad’s lap. My mother is to our right. My sister is photo bombing on the lower right corner. Behind me is my aunt Nancy. I assume the guy whose face is blocked is Uncle Tom. The other happy couple is the really important part of this picture. They are Nana and Papa. My mother’s parents.
I was at Middlesex in my late 20’s when my grandmother passed away. I was fortunate enough to have such a stellar person in my life for a very long time. My grandfather however passed away in 1972. I was only a year old. Obviously I have no memories of him, but I knew that I had met him at least. I always had that.
Now thanks to this picture I have proof. Aunt Nancy brought this today to show how much my nephew resembles me. I don’t think she realized that it would mean so much to me for another reason. I’m very thankful she brought it. It’s got to be one of, if not the, only picture of me and my Papa.
Here’s something to think about when you want to make yourself throw up.
Have we as a society ever produced anything that smells worse than a leaky garbage disposal?
I just emptied the bucket.
Oh my poor, poor nose.
We started watching Parks and Recreation a while ago. At some point the kids got way ahead of me and I can’t remember where I left off. So I have started binge watching from episode one.
One of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces. (Commence head banging)
Today is one of the worst days of the year. It’s the first day of Autumn. That means Summer is officially over. It’s all down hill from here. Everything is going to die and turn ugly brown and then freeze. I hate this time of year. I mean, there are a lot of things to love. Leaf Peeping is great. Sleeping with the windows open and the blankets pulled up to your eye brows is sweet. Baseball playoffs. Hockey. There’s a lot to love. Still, I find the fall depressing. It’s not a season of it’s own, it’s just the ramp up to Winter. I loathe Winter.
This time of year the traffic is unbearable and you can’t get anything done without suffering through a mass of people who seem to have forgotten how to pay attention to what is going on around them. My 8.5 hour work day becomes 12 hours because it takes so damn long to get there and back.
The trees die, the flowers die, the grass dies. The only thing that doesn’t die is the effing garter snake I just found in the cellar. I was really hoping we were finished with those slithery little assholes. I didn’t have anything down there that I could kill it with. I tried squashing it with the cat’s old scratching post but it just lay there takin’ it like it was nothing. I actually heard it say, “That all you got, fat boy?” The little asshole. Hey, why don’t you use your arms and legs… oh… sorry. You don’t have any! BAM! Sick burn you little reptilian puke.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, here’s a big hearty double freedom rockets right up in your ugly face, Fall. Kiss my incredibly fat ass.
You too, snake. You suck.
Average speed? 19.687 miles per hour. Bad, but better than the last two days. Today had the added bonus of a trucker actively trying to kill everyone, including me.
Every time I hear some one say how much they love Autumn I want to just scream at them. “You wouldn’t love it so much if you needed an hour and 50 minutes to drive 30 miles!”
Maybe I should just relax. Maybe I shouldn’t let it bother me. I was actually doing okay with it until today. Something changed this morning. I don’t know what, but I went from passive resignation to teeth grinding frustration. Damn you, traffic. Damn you to hell!
The really pathetic thing is that it always feels like it’s as bad as it could possibly be. “I’ve never seen it this bad” is a thought that runs through my noggin’ a few times each morning. But when I stop and think clearly, I remember that I said the same thing over and over again last year. I also begin to recall multiple days with two hour drives. There was even a two hour and fifteen minute drive once last year.
So while it’s soul crushing to have to drive half way from New Hampshire to Rhode Island at an average speed of less than 20 miles per hour. I cannot make myself feel better by thinking it’s as bad as at gets…
Because I’ve actually seen it worse.
Summer can’t get here fast enough.
When I pulled onto route 213 on the way to band practice last night, this was what I saw…
When I pulled onto 495 it was still there.
When I exited off of 495 it was still there, but getting closer and closer.
Youtube provides us with some better video than what I got from far away. It was a seven alarm fire in an abandoned warehouse. Some of the news reports look like a major inferno.
Inside the Red Head's Head 