Boring post!

Hi. I don't have much to say, but I thought I'd blog a bit and say hi. Went out for drinks last night with Dennis. Good to see you. I had a dream last night about a hot dog in 3D made in Illustrator. Weird. We might be looking into buying a new/used car soon, as Jay's car is a piece of poop and we don't like it and it needs lots of new things and the 'check engine' light will never, ever go off. Ever. I woke up with a bad song in my head. "Ride, Captain ride, upon your mystery ship..." That's the only lyrics I know, but the tune is damn near burned into my brain. I'll try to get the "Reading Rainbow" song in my head. Ah, much better...

UPDATE THIRTEEN MINUTES LATER: Now I have "The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain" stuck in my head. Don't know why. Oh, Audrey Hepburn/Julie Andrews...

It's sure gonna be a hot one!

I think I know the key to successful blogging. I define successful blogging as a blog that your friends and family enjoy visiting every day and that elicits insightful discussion amongst them. I'm sure, you know, those "other" kinds of blogs (like the political ones, ones with commentary on, what, world news and such) have completely different criteria, but I'm just talking about little old blogs like mine or Pat and Kate's or Dennis's.

The key(s) is/are: (1) To post about something not too personal, but something lots of people can relate to, like a movie you've just seen; (2) To stick to that one point and not go off on a tangent; (3) Links help, just 'cause they're fun!

I don't follow these three criteria, and for that, I apologize. I tend to just post about what Jay and I have been up to, and I don't post all that often, so my posts tend to cram a bunch of info in with no theme throughout. But hey, that's the way I work, so deal.

CASE IN POINT: Jay got back from his Bailey Boys Weekend and was sick with the same thing I had. We both spent the rest of the week recovering. We're slowly getting back to 100 percent, but we're still not there yet.

We ALMOST flooded with all the rain that's been coming down, but no water actually came into the basement. The cement covering the sewer pipe just got very damp and wet.

Last night we went to Blockbuster and rented Grizzly Man, a documentary that takes the footage of a psuedo-bear expert who lived with grizzly bears in Alaska for 13 summers and edits it into a documentary about the guy - the guy and his girlfriend were mauled and killed by a bear. That's the kicker. We thought it was a really good movie - it's a fascinating look at a man that's a bit delusional but with good intentions, and you kind of get mad at him for being such an idealist and having such delusions about nature, but he's not such a bad guy - he just really, really loves animals, but still, nature is nature and you can't think wild animals actually have human feelings, because hell, they'll kill you if they're hungry.

And today we're going disc golfing, I think. I'm very proud to say that we planned ahead and bought beer yesterday - ah, planning for the future! The earmark of human evolution! Not sure what's going on for the rest of the weekend, with Father's Day and all... I know we'll be putting in the AC soon, though, since it's going to be super muggy and hot.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Fever all through the night

Dammit, I'm sick! I woke up this morning with a sore throat (thought it was because I left the fan on low even though I hate the fan, but Jay sleeps with it on so now I find the sound comforting), but my sore throat wouldn't go away. Then I got a headache, then body aches, and now I just feel icky. I haven't been sick in a really long time (except for when I got cold sores, but that wasn't really sickness, that was just grossness). I'm not used to it. I bought myself some chicken noodle soup from Friendly's, which is my favorite kind. I know, it's Friendly's, you wouldn't think it's good, but boy, is it ever. Try it next time you're sick. So I'm just going to chill out with the pup tonight on the couch, maybe watch some TV, and hit the sack early.

On a side note, I found my glasses! They were lost in the house for a few weeks. They had fallen into a storage box that Jay put downstairs. I know this is real important stuff, guys.

Another side note: here's a pic of babies. Jackson (my mom's cousin's daughter's son - whew!), Mason (my nephew - he's the cutest!), and Matthew (my mom's cousin's daughter's son [not the same cousin]). Mason's only a month older than Matthew, and he's so much bigger.

Comedy is funny

So Friday night, me, Jay, Erik, Matt, and Lisa went to see Cuddy in the Lowell Comedy Festival. A troupe that she's a part of, The City That Sleeps, performed upstairs at the Old Court. The first two groups, eh, mildly funny. But The City That Sleeps was hilarious - they did a mix of sketches and films, and it was very, very good stuff. If you go to their website, you can click on "Menino for President" at the bottom of the homepage and you can see a very funny film. They have other films up there, too.

We ended up going to Sangria's afterwards, always a great place for a cheap beer and some townie amusement. I love random mediocre bands that play at bars - I think they know about 14 chords, and you can play a lot of standard rock tunes with those chords. If I could sing, I could be in a mediocre townie band... oh, wait, those guys can't sing anyway, so I guess I COULD be in a mediocre townie band!

Anyway, we decided to trot around Lowell in the rain trying to figure out what to do next. Jay, Erik, and I ended up over at Cobblestones for the afterparty. Jay made friends with a nice townie lady with 4 teeth named Kathy whose husband had fallen asleep so she snuck out to go drinking. My kinda lady. We hung around there for a few beers, and then ended up at the hotel where the performers were staying at. Cuddy was kind enough to let me and Jay crash in her hotel room. We stayed up very late and Cuddy had to get up early to get her hair done in Framingham.

And today Jay left super early this morning to go on his annual Bailey Boys Weekend, a.k.a. Father/Son Weekend (I prefer the former, only because the latter sounds a little like a Hallmark card). We spent last night preparing delicious foods for his trip, packing up a bunch of stuff, and doing laundry. Quality time! He'll be gone until Tuesday. They go up to Warren Island in Maine. They kayak out then sleep in hammocks. Sounds good to me! I guess they have prisoners chop firewood there, so there's tons and tons of free firewood you can use. I smell bonfire.

Today I get to go to my mom's cousin's daughter's baby's christening. (?) I have a very large family, and some of these people I don't really know, and my mom's cousin's daughter is one of those people. I went to the baby shower, so I guess I should go to the christening. Then later on I'm going back to my hometown to visit Laura who's home from Chicago, and she's having a little BBQ at her parents house. Should be a good day.

The weather's beautiful! Everyone should stop reading this post and go outside and do something! I mowed the lawn this morning! Fun shit, man!!

Lowell Comedy Festival

Details are mildly sketchy, but from what I can gather, the specific show that Cuddy's going to be in is actually at 9:30, but she's part of a bigger group of people that begin performing at 8:00. I think we'll probably try to be there for the show starting at 8:00.
Click here for some details. It'll be fun!

Cuddy's funny

Cuddy has a comedy show tomorrow night in Lowell at the Lowell Comedy Festival. Anyone want to go? I'll post more about it tonight.

Spelling?

We just watched the spelling bee on TV, which was pretty interesting. I have to wonder how smart these kids are beyond knowing origins of prefixes and countries of origin and whatnot... They should have a "one word, two word, hyphenated" contest where kids have to figure out if words like "backyard" or "streetlight" is one word, two words, or hyphenated. I have lots of trouble figuring those things out.

I've heard the word "xenophobia" and its derivations (correct usage of a word?) many times recently, mostly (okay, exclusively) on NPR/WBUR. I've never, ever heard that word used in any new story or conversation or anywhere else, and they've been using it like it's going out of style on NPR. Which made me feel stupid, because hell, I didn't know what it meant. So I looked it up in the dictionary I won back in high school for being a good English student (it's a funny dictionary, because it brags about being the best dictionary for the 1990s), and now I know what it means. I thought it meant something much more complicated... but I guess it's just fear of foreign things, such as people or cultures. Woo wee, so exciting...

Also, Dennis and other polker folks were wondering where the term "cold turkey" came from, and from two of my court-reporter reference books, I found two different explanations. One had something to do with cold turkey being a bland meal without side dishes, and one had to do with "talking cold turkey," like talking about something in a blunt way. And both references were pretty believable and trustworthy, but I have to go with the latter, since I can't really wrap my head around the concept of the whole bland meal thing. It just didn't make any sense, for God's sake. Come on!

Quick post before I brush my teeth

Played poker last night for the first time in a while and lost... but it was okay because I came home and out in the backyard there were a bunch of lightning bugs, and that made me happy.

I have a new collapsable hat! Did I write about this yet? I lost my red one last summer to the Ashland reservoir at the state park, but Jay's parents spied one at Target recently. It has flowers on it. Jay bought me two. Jay surprised me by stealthily forcing me to go to Target and I was all, "Why the crap are we here?" And then he found them. Weee!!

Why is it that when I try to post a quick post I keep hitting all the wrong letters and I have to keep hitting the backspace key almost every other character?? Oh, such keyboard problems...

Misery Island

Yesterday we went up to Beverly to visit Jay's 'rents. We had a great time - they grilled up some great veggies and steak, and they had bought a new fire pit that we got to hang out around. And today we went out on Jay's dad's rowboat (Jay kayaked) out to Misery Island off the coast of Beverly. It's a beautiful island with lots of cool ruins of old water tanks and club houses. I got a bit sunburned even though I put on SPF 48 sunblock. Our camera got a big wave on it so now it doesn't work, otherwise I'd-a posted pics. Okay, I probably wouldn't have posted pics 'cuz I'm too lazy, but it's okay to blame it on the waves, right? Jay and his pops ate lots of hot peppers stuffed with cheese off the grill, and they burned their faces off, but they loved it.

I have the best husband

Jay bought me rib-eye steak (otherwise known as Delmonico) even though he doesn't eat meat, and he bought me tasty beer, and he got me very pretty flowers. Methinks I like this man! In fact, methinks I love him! Thanks, sweetie!

Another half day

So the courthouse closed early again today, so I got to leave at 1:00. And now it's a little after 3:00 and I'm bored. I went to Home Depot, picked up a couple of gift cards for some family members, and I was going to pick up a seed spreader thingie and some grass seed, because our lawn is looking like it has male pattern baldness. But the seed spreader was 10 bucks more than I expected, and I couldn't seem to find the grass seed (all I could find was a bunch of peat moss and topsoil and fertilizer), so I got ansy and just left with the gift cards. I also was going to go grocery shopping, but I might save that for later... I'm nervous about this yard thing, because I would sure love to have a beautifully landscaped and manicured lawn and garden, but I really don't know what the hell I'm doing. No matter how many books or magazines or online articles I read, when it comes time to actually doing something, I get all paralyzed with fear. I don't know exactly what I'm scared of, but I guess I feel like I'll mess stuff up or do a terrible job, and after working that hard and having it come out bad, I would be depressed. BUT, I am going to get off my tubby bum and at least attempt to dethatch the front yard, so that we'll be able to put some lawn seed down.

So Jay has his first Celtics rookie card! I put his new greenceltics site over as a link - keep on checking in as his collection grow! It's like sea monkeys!

So how's everyone doing? I bet you're all much happier now that the rain has finally stopped. Am I right? I mean, I was ready to build me an ark! Come on! Seriously, though, I'm hoping to get some grilling in sometime this weekend. Perhaps we'll have a small shin-dig on Saturday if the weather forecast stays the same as it is now. Check back, as I will have more details as the day approaches.

I wanted Cool Ranch Doritos for a snack today, so I put $.85 into the vending machine. The bag got stuck. So I put in another $.85 and hit C5 again (the Cool Ranch Dorito button) to dislodge the first bag. That bag, too, got stuck. I was pissed, man. My belly was growling something bad! I figured it was just my luck that something so terrible would happen to me. Why did I have to pick the Cool Ranch Doritos? I could have had some Sun Chips or something! Man. Then I got back up to my office, all in a bad mood, and one of my coworkers told me his wife was very sick and in the hospital and was not doing so well. Then I felt guilty for being so mad about my Doritos. Ah, perspective...

Lake Ogallala stops by for a visit!

So last year during the 'wet season,' we found out that our backyard likes to flood and make us a nice little lake. I thought I had some pics of it, but they were probably bad anyway because it was dark out. But today, after almost a week of steady rain, our backyard has brought us the infamous lake-of-chocolate-from-the-original-Willie-Wonka-colored Lake Ogallala!
Anyway, I was 98 percent ready to post some pics of the current flood, but our computer sucks and told me it had low CPU space or something, so I had to quit Photoshop. I think I saved one:

So yeah, our backyard is a huge wet puddle of icky-colored water, but our basement's not flooded! Yet. As we've told many, many people, our only real wish when we bought a house was to have a dry basement. The previous homeowner swore, SWORE that the basement hadn't flooded EVER. Well, it hadn't flooded because they had a septic system until a year before they decided to sell, and when they decided to hook up to the town sewer, they comprimised the waterproof basement's integrity by jackhammering a trench through the floor and laying a sewer pipe pretty darn close to basement-floor level and putting some rock filler around it and then filling it with cement. Cement doesn't bond to cement, and somehow a few cracks appeared in the newly laid cement, and now the basement floods. Ah, homeownership... Luckily we have stuff on pallets (not that anything in the basement is super valuable or anything), so we just take it as it comes.

I hope everyone else's basements are dry so far... I guess Romney declared a state of emergency and there's lots of dams about to fail 'round these parts. Who'd-a-thunk that only a few weeks back there were brush fires galore because of lack of rain?

Jay's new hobby

Update on ants: there's no more of them. I think the ones that survived the Raid went and told all their little ant friends to not mess with 8 Indian Spring Road. ::flexing muscles::

So anyway, Jay decided this past weekend that he is going to start collecting the rookie cards of important Celtics players. He's created a new blog about it: Greenceltics.blogspot.com! It's a cool idea, I think, and I'm excited to see what kinds of cards he ends up with. I just really like the old-school graphic design from the early '70s. Late '70s not so much... but early '70s is definitely cool.

And it's supposed to rain right through the weekend... boo hiss, ninny! I guess people's lawns need the rain or whatever, but man, that means we can't do anything outside. And I like being outside. Hopefully the weather will be super nice once all the rain ends...

Rants about ants... oh, that's right, it rhymes

This past weekend I noticed a few ants strutting about the kitchen. Oh, sure, we don't have the cleanest kitchen on earth, in the US, in Ashland, or heck, even on Indian Spring Road, so sure, I can expect some... but I just hate ants! There wasn't a swarm, just three or four puttering about. So I killed 'em. That's right. No Buddism here; I killed them ants dead. Today I come home to more ants... but y'know, only four or five just hanging around, not looking like they've come in from any specific spot. So for the past two hours, I've intermittently been killing one or two ants, leaving the kitchen area for a while, coming back, killing two or three more, leaving, coming back and killing two more... and so on. I can't figure out where they're coming from, as it's not like a big line of ants following the leader. I suppose some ant traps are in order, as now the house smells sickeningly of Raid. So that's my big story.

Dennis had a very fun party on Friday - except it totally wiped Jay and I out for the rest of weekend. We can't party like we used to, no way, no how. I think we went to bed about 4am, and man, we were exhausted the rest of the weekend. I used to stay up all night, drink too many Pabsts, figure I shouldn't sleep, and go to work at Starbucks at 4:30 a.m. And back then it was okay. I was young. Now I'm old and tubby and just plain sleepy.

Now I have to go kill one or two ants. Yech.

Minor thoughts on major issues

I bet no one really thinks to look to see if this blog is updated regularly, and heck, I can't blame them. I don't update it regularly. I can't really come up with much stuff to say on a regular basis. If I did, I feel like I'd be posting mostly compalints about humankind, and we all know you can get that anywhere on the Internet. And plus I only hop on the computer only once a day, and it's only for a few minutes, and to compose a coherent and interesting post is just too much work for me most times. So I'll just post a little update about Jay and Erin these days:

Jay's been working on a crazy project at work, so he's been working long, weird hours the past week and a half or so. In the meantime, I've been going to work and doing the same old thing (you know, typing, talking into a mask, looking up hyphenated words... the usual). I've had my eye on going back to school, but I'm not sure for what yet. Jay accompanied me to an open house at Lesley University - I was looking into the expressive therapy program there. However, I'd like my job to pay for grad school, and that limits me to state schools. That's where my school search stalled... It's tough trying to figure out what grad progam you want to enroll in when you just don't know what you want to do for a career!

Abe's doing much better. Oh, sure, he's still insane and likes to lick his paws and nuzzle a little too close, but after his surgery, he's 100 percent better. We got those trees down, which makes the house look like it got a haircut. We're looking forward to Dennis's Cinco de Mayo party. That's about it!

There's lots of stuff going on in the news, and I think I can honestly say I don't have a firm viewpoint on much of it. Take the immigration thing, for instance. I don't like the idea of people circumventing the legal system; but when the legal system just can't work for you, your only option IS to circumvent... and the trial of the 9/11 conspirator (I can't spell his name, and I'm too lazy to open a new browser window and look it up), he got life in prison instead of the death penalty, and I really don't have a view on that - the jury found what it found, and that's that... and the National Anthem being sung in Spanish (I guess that goes hand in hand with the immigration thing), I just don't have a viewpoint - when it comes down to it, it's only words, and whatever language it's in, it's still just words, and you know what they say, sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me. So yeah. Maybe I've taken the easy way out and become noncommital or nonconfrontational or something, but I feel like I've got my own things to worry about, and if something comes along that affects me or people I love, then sure I'll take a stand, but now I'm too busy wondering if my laundry will be too wrinkled if I leave it in the dryer for too long.

The next big thing for 8 Indian Spring Road is a new roof. That's coming up this fall, hopefully. So exciting! (That was a little sarcastic.) Oh, did you guys hear about the Nyanza thing? I just heard today that the findings of the report might be overstated. Which buffered the bad news that cancer abounds in Ashland, but still... cancer still could possibly abound in Ashland. Hey, as long as we've got John Stone's Public House!

A whole new house

We got a bunch of trees removed today, and it's like it's a whole new house! I will post more pics later when I get better ones, but here's something:


It's really unbelievable. We got some pines down that were super close to the side of the house, and that whole area is so big now; we got a pine in the backyard out near the shed; we got the maple tree behind the porch out; and we got the big huge oak tree in the side yard taken out. It's really crazy. I can't believe how much more light there is!

Cleaning my parents' basement

Today I went to my folks' house to sort of help clean out thier basement. Their basement is totally full of old crap, and lots of my stuff from high school and college was oncluded in it. So I didn't really help clean; I just went through all my old stuff. I kept a lot of cards from people I don't remember now, birthday cards and such, and I also found lots of old photos anf videos and lots of other stuff. Kind of scary, the stuff I found, like old newspaper clippings from when I helped paint Quaboag Regional High School's rock in support of the vice principal who was accused of sexual misconduct. (What??) And I found my SAT scores, which I calculated could have gotten me into MENSA, but I actually calculated wrong, because I added my math score too high. I can't do math; therefore, I can't join MENSA. Damn you, Geena Davis! I found an old video that my best friend Laura had made me from my high school graduation. I laughed out loud at that... So anyway, it was a trip down memory lane over the past ten+ years, and it's weird to look back at your life like that. I wonder what kind of stuff I'll keep from now on, and where exactly I'll keep it.

Abraham update!

Well, the outpouring of concern over Abe was touching, so I felt the need to share with you all that Abraham is doing much, much better. He's pretty much back to his old self. Instead of whimpering and sulking, he's running around and playing with his blue octopus toy. So we're very happy he's feeling better - it was so sad to see him in pain! You'll all have to give him a big hug when you see him this weekend. 'Cause you're coming to the party. Right?

The woes of being Abe

So I say again, yes, I certainly don't post all that often, but I did want to share the sad news that Abe is sick. Well, his bum is sick. We're taking him to the vet tomorrow morning to get his anal sacs fixed. Ewww. I know, it's icky, but he's certainly in a lot of pain, and it makes me and Jay very sad to see him in so much pain. He's been a good sport, though - so he'll probably be feeling under the weather for about a week, but next week at the Marathon party, he hopefully will be better. Well, once he sees all the people and gets all excited for everybody to pet him, he'll feel better instantaneously. So we'll see... poor, poor puppy...