Coming to the Close

The work day is almost over. About 10 minutes from now there will be another Monday in the books. Also, I will be 50% of the way through my 40% in the office mandate for this week. That’s nice. It’s also probably confusing if you don’t know what I am talking about but I do know what I am talking about so it is not confusing to me which is why I wrote this epic run on sentence about it.

Here is a picture of a cat that I took this morning before I left for work. She was confused and upset because I made the bed and messed up her hiding/napping spot/plans. Sorry, cat.

What else can I write about before the work day ends? A Red Sox win tonight and a Yankees loss will move the Red Sox into first place in the AL East. Yes it is only the 11th game of the season, but after the last few years of baseball futility combined with the Bruins suck fest of late, I will take a first place moment with a smile on my face. The Yankees and Tigers are playing right now. In the bottom of the eighth inning in Detroit, the Tiggers are up 6-2. Thanks, Detroit.

What else… I haven’t worked on anything musical since the RPM Challenge wrapped up at the end of February. I am a failure at musical life. Just saying.

Okay, I got distracted by something at work and now the 10 minutes have passed and it’s quitting time. Wish me luck on my evening commute home. Jen picked up something nice for dinner tonight. We have dinner together whenever humanly possible and I always love it. I love her, I can’t help it. The heart wants what the heart wants and my heart wants silly little domestic time with the woman of my dreams. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. Civilization coming to a crashing, idiotic, tariffed end doesn’t change the way I feel.

Cake

I mentioned in this morning’s edition of The Daily Writing Prompt that Jen baked me a sugar free cake over the weekend and it is wonderful in both the figurative sense (how great is my wife for doing that for me and my weird, redesigned, stomach pouch thing) and the literal sense (de-freakin-licious chocolate cake!!!).

I had a second piece tonight. Just a sliver. I can’t take much more than that. The downside is that I will never be able to eat the whole thing at this rate. Some of it is going to go to waste. That is sad, but I will never not be grateful for the gesture, and I will eat a little bit each day until it goes stale and can’t be eaten any more.

Like I said, how amazing is my wife? Amazing! I think she might actually like me. Insert a gigantic happy grin here.

In other news, I also mentioned earlier that today is my father’s birthday. 82 years old and still going strong. My sister setup a birthday party for him this coming Sunday. I’ll go to that in the afternoon and then go to band practice. It’s going to be an epic Sunday. Maybe I can talk Jen into going to New York on Friday after work and then coming home on Saturday after dinner. Let’s make the epic Sunday a full on epic weekend! There’s zero chance of that, but a boy with cake in his rewired innards can dream, right?

Friday

It has been a pretty quiet day at work today (JINX!) apart from my brief stomach rebellion. I have 32 minutes to go until I can punch out for the day. I am starting to day dream about the weekend a little.

Music. I recorded a vocal track for one song on Thursday. I have a couple more songs that could do with some car music vocals. I have to practice for Sunday’s band rehearsal as well. I have nine songs to brush up on. I don’t know if we have a working PA system or not, but I did pick up a replacement for my dead Shure SM58 microphone. If our old, dinky little PA still works I’ll take it for a test drive. My Vox AC15 amp is in the rehearsal room along with my great big use-with-the-band pedal board. It’ll be nice to visit with my sweet RYRA The Klone overdrive pedal again.

I suddenly find myself in the middle of a whole bunch of TV shows. The X-Files epic rewatch continues, and we’re in season seven which means the quality is taking a steady nose dive. Uh oh. Only a few episodes to go until we reach the two season mostly-Mulder-free stretch. Yikes. I have a new episode of Star Trek Discovery (Disco) to watch. I have a new episode of Manhunt to watch. I have 6-7 episodes of Fallout left. I’ve watched the first two. I didn’t expect it to be so… goofy. I never played the video game so I really didn’t know what to expect. Silliness was not on my menu though. I like the show so far even though I don’t really know what’s happening yet. I’m caught up on Star Wars The Bad Batch. There are only a few more episodes left and I am thinking about rewatching the whole final season. I don’t know. There’s so much else to watch. I’m in the middle of Ripley on Netflix too. It’s pretty twisted. I never read the book or saw the movie so this one is all new to me too. I am enjoying it in a sick and twisted kinda way.

What else is going on? I am hoping to spend some quality time hanging out with my wife, of course. That’s the best part of the weekend. She mentioned she’s going to have to work a lot, which is a bummer, but we’ll make time. I hope to cook for her now and then. Lunches and maybe dinners? We use one of those dinner delivery service things. You know, where they send you all of the ingredients and a recipe with (somewhat) detailed instructions and you prepare the meal yourself. We are supposed to get a delivery today. I like it best when we cook those together. I find that both less stressful and generally enjoyable. Mostly. Some of them are still stressful even when we gang up on them. Does everyone think they are stressful or is it just us?

I did not promise myself that I would avoid the sugar free bakery in Salem, NH this week… so when I go out to do errands… yeah, I am probably going to buy some cookies there. I can stop any time, really. I promise I can stop any time. Totally.

Okay. 20 minutes until quitting time. I haven’t had anything to eat in two hours and 56 minutes and my stomach is starting to ask me why it’s empty. Three hours is usually how long it takes for my stomach to wake up after a meal. We’re pretty much right on target. Here’s hoping I don’t mess up with my snack on the drive home. A repeat of The Foamies… in the car… yeah, that would be annoying. I keep a spit up cup in the car, though I have never used it. Here’s hoping we keep the streak alive!

TMI?

Productive Evening

I punched out of work tonight at a little after 5:30pm and started my long weekend! I took Monday off because I am going to max out my accrued vacation time next month if I don’t take two days off this month. Monday is the first of the two which means I have a long weekend.

I plan to get shit done. Get. Shit. Done.

I started tonight by writing lyrics to three RPM Challenge songs. Also, Jen and I did some work to plan for the upcoming kitchen remodeling project. When I say Jen and I, I mean Jen did planning stuff and I watched and threw out occasional comments. However it happened, I think we got some stuff done and that is good.

Car vocals tomorrow? I hope so. Run some errands? Sure thing. Play some guitar? I hope so. Repeat the whole thing on both Sunday and Monday? You betcha!

The best part about the now current three day weekend? Next weekend is a three day weekend too! My second February day off is next Friday. One week from today. I am going to Kick. RPM’s. Ass*, babie.


*Dictionary.com defines “bravado” thusly:

bravado

[ bruhvah-doh ]

noun,plural bra·va·does, bra·va·dos.

  1. a pretentious, swaggering display of courage.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bravado

Sixteen Years

Sure I had a migraine this morning and sure I had super bad foamies after only 1.2 ounces of chicken at dinner and sure I was nauseous and sure today was a hectic day at work and sure I had traffic going to and from the office and sure I am somehow sick to my stomach and hungry and my head is still a little off. Sure, all of that.

But you know what the biggest take away from today is?

Sixteen years ago tonight, Jennifer and I went on our first date.

Happy first date-aversary to the love of my life. Best first date ever, and the first day of the happiest and most wonderful time of my life. Good heavens, do I love her.

Back to Work

Well, my four day weekend is over and I am back at work. Oh well. It was a very good weekend all around. Lots of photography exploring, some guitar playing, some new furniture, a couple of trips to see Mom including one where my father, brother, and sister in law all visited too, lots of fun spending time with the love of my life, a quick visit with the kids in Vermont, and lots of resting and relaxing and being calm.

And it’s over. I’m back to work. My next time off is for a doctors appointment on October 18th. Bring it on, let’s go.

New episodes of Andor and Handmaids Tale tomorrow, I think. A She-Hulk on Thursday and a Rings of Power on Friday and a House of the Dragon on Sunday. Also, most importantly, the final eight episodes of The Walking Dead kick off this Sunday. I don’t want it to end, really, but I think it’s time. Not sure about the 13560823467 spin offs on the AMC agenda though. There’s a Rick and Morty from this past weekend that I haven’t seen yet, but I as of this morning I am caught up on Archer.

And that, my friends, is where we’re at.

Birthday!

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear Jen-the-love-of-my-life,

Happy birthday to you!

It’s my beautiful, brilliant, amazing wife’s birthday! Wish her a happy birthday!

I love you, sweetie!

Almost There

The work day is more than half way done. Just a few hours to go until the weekend. Solving the equation and making use of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity shows us that a five day week that follows a four day weekend that followed a three day week is going to feel like a 20 day week. Do the math. It totally checks out.

After this impossibly long work week, the weekend shines like a beacon in a dark and stormy night. There are a lot of things I want to do this weekend. Christmas lights, a little cleaning at my parents house, cleaning up the post-decorating mess we left in the living room, and music music and more music.

There may be an alternate plan though. One inspired by the love of my life. This morning, I got out of bed a few minutes before she did. When I got up, the cat immediately took my place. Actually, she was on the bed before I got up, sort of willing me to piss off and leave so she could be alone with Jen. As I was starting to make the long journey to the bathroom Jen told the cat that she was just going to spend the entire day in bed. She wasn’t going to get up at all.

Now THAT is a plan!

I could not live that particular dream today, but tomorrow? And Sunday?

Bring it on!

Thanks, Jen! I love you!!!

Clawing Back to Life

Just another one of those days where the brain doesn’t want to function and something that feels like what the rumors say is the blues tries to take over. I have three things that are helping me claw my way back to life.

First, Jen. As always. As far as my mental state goes, I really don’t know what I would do without her.

Second, nowhere near as important as item number one, the Bruins are kicking the shit out of the Sharks right now. It’s 4-1 about halfway through the third period. Thanks, Bruins. I appreciate it.

Third, probably more important than number two, but still nowhere near as important as number one, I spent the last hour+ playing guitar. I put leads on the three songs that got vocals this morning, and then put rhythm guitars onto two more from the current batch of songs to re-record for the 2015 re-recording yadda yadda blah. My playing wasn’t great, but it was okay.

Now I have to get some exercise in. Ugh.

Obligatory guitar pics: