Don't celebrate the Fourth with a fifth

Every year near the Fourth of July I get all excited because hell, I love fireworks and barbeques and stuff! But then I get sad because it never fails that I neglect to actually plan anything out. And thus it goes this year, as well. I know most people have plans already, so trying to plan a party this late is just futile. Maybe I'll just get drunk on gingerbread beer and light off some firecrackers. Weeee!

In other news, Jay and Matt watched the NBA Draft this past Tuesday. I can't believe how EXCITED they were! If I didn't know better, I'd say they were so excited they peed their pants. SO excited. I didn't really watch, because hell, I don't know anything about any of those young guys, so I really couldn't get into it. But man, were Jay and Matt excited!

In other other news, I'm drinking a Coke Zero, which apparently has zero calories. Tastes kind of funny, but it's not too too bad. Matt told me about it when we were at his place picking up the AC (which we still haven't put in), so I decided I'd try to be less tubby and get a twelve-pack. Gut be gone! ('cuz I know the soda's the only thing makin' me tubby... ... that's sarastic.)

This past weekend

This past weekend, we had Mr. Kozlowski over. He was visiting from Hawaii and had his new wife and baby with him. He's not Mormon anymore. We also had some other people over, and we had ourselves a little barbeque in the 98-degree heat and humidity. Man, grilling in that kind of weather shouldn't be allowed. It was H-O-T. Later on we headed over to the Corner Pub for some personal pitchers. What a good time we had! I love weekends.

Cuddy's eyes and making food

Yesterday Cuddy came over. She had just come from an eye doctor appointment where they put those drops in your eyes that makes your pupils dilate. Man, were her eyes dilated! She looked either wicked high or wicked evil. You choose. But we had a good time. Jay's friends Carrie and Will stopped by with their new baby. I wish I had pictures to link to, but our camera batteries are dead.

Today we're having a BBQ for Kozlowski. He is up visiting from Hawaii where he now resides with his wife and baby. (Everyone's havin' babies!) I just finished making some food (potato salad and pasta salad) and now I'm going to make more (shisk-ka-bobs and veggies & dip). I enjoy food.

Another day off... must be productive!

I know it's bad to call in sick when I'm not really sick, but if I do go into work, I'll have absolutely nothing to do. Nobody else is going to be there, and I have nothing to work on. So I called in sick. Next step is to get my ass in gear and actually accomplish something! Here's my list:
(a) Clean the house. (hahaha.)
(b) Get laundry done. (I can do that.)
(c) Shopping?
(d) Brew beer. (haven't done that in a LONG time, so now I think I'm scared to.)
(e) Yardwork. (even though I have no idea exactly WHAT work in the yard to do.)
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UPDATE: It's 3:44, and I haven't really done much at all. Some laundry, definitely no cleaning, and I'm starting to brew beer.
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Jay and I went for a nice swim last evening. The state park "closes" at 6:00, so we just waited until around 6:45 to go down there. The gates were still open, and there were a few people fishing and milling about. So I don't really know how well they enforce the closing time - because last time I was there, a ranger guy was yelling at everyone to leave. ::shrug:: It was a nice swim nonetheless! Then we had tasty corn and salad for dinner. Jay's a good griller :)

I do believe the Koz is coming over on Sunday, but I'm not really sure. Guess we have to figure that out.

Ohh, I almost forgot, if anyone reading this wants to go to a funny puppet show tonight, let me know! It's Cuddy's last puppet comedy show at ImprovBoston, and I plan on going. It's BYOB, people!

Return to the Alley

Last night, Jay and I went up to Lowell on a whim to pick up an air conditioner from Matt. We met up with Jodi and Felix and Julie and Derek and Ryan and Max and Matt and Lisa for some Dos Equis at Sangria's. Ah, it brought me back to simpler times when we'd spend too much money on beer every other night at the bars... it was good to hang out with everyone. Hopefully we'll be able to make it up there more often this summer and revisit some Alley parties.

I, uh, really don't have anything else to say.

I'm eating cold Chinese food

Happy Fathers Day! Is it Father's Day, Fathers' Day, or Fathers Day? Hmmm...


Last night I went out with Dennis and Erik for some Chinese food down at the Cherry Blossom. We asked the waiter what he suggested for an alcoholic beverage, and he immediately answered, "Mai tai. Definitely mai tai." So we all got mai tais. They were really strong. So I had two. Now I'm eating the leftovers (Dennis and Erik were nice enough to let me have them - thanks, guys!) -- [ewww, as I'm proofreading this, I just bit into the tangerine peel from the tangerine chicken! I thought it was beef! Groooosssss!!]

It was a pretty uneventful weekend. Jay is away on his second annual Bailey Boys Weekend with his bros and his pops. They went to Warren Island in Maine. Jay was nice enough to call me yesterday to check in, and they're having a good time. So when Jay's away, I get all these ideas about all the different fun things I could do, but then I get overwhelmed with all those things and I can't decide what to do, so I end up staying home and watching poker on TV.

I actually did go see my pops for fathers day. My family lives far away. I drove out at 7:30 this morning to get to the Harvest Moon Cafe (formerly the Top Hat) for breakfast at 8:30. My old music teacher, Mr. Rees, was there! I hadn't seen him in, oh, gosh, like 10 years! He's a real nice guy, that Mr. Rees. It was good to see him.

That's about it. (I do think it's actually "Father's Day".)

Here's an entry from a random blog I saw:
"My friend Rachel came over last night for help on her scrapbooking. I didn't know how to help how she wanted help. I have no problem making design and product suggestions, but she wanted her pages to come out looking like mine. I wasn't doing the work, she was. That doesn't work very well.
I did give her some suggestions and I sat next to her for most of the time that she was working. The mood was pretty mellow. She probably thought I was bored or annoyed. I wasnt. Yesterday was a long day and I was tired.
Jen and Steve stopped by with the kids and I came alive. I was laughing and talking and teasing the kids. I didn't mean for my mood to be so 'night and day' like that. I really hope Rachel doesn't think anything of it.
I'll have to give her extra attention at work today...."

What?? What?? People like this should get a lobotomy! "I'll have to give her extra attention at work today"?? As if you're that important!

So I just was reading other people's blogs, and it struck me that lots of people are really self-centered. Like literally self-centered, completely lacking empathy, and that everyone else is just a little less capable than them. Hey, we're all egocentric; that's sort of what defines humans. But when grownups don't mature beyond a 4-year-old child's mentality when it comes to empathy, that just is not good. Not good at all.

ADD post

Okay, things I want to post about: Google maps; grammar; keyboard shortcuts on programs other than WordPerfect; (shit, what else??); oh, contact lenses; hmmmm... wait, I think that was it.

Okay. So I got contact lenses today. (Takin' 'em out of order here.)

I decided to try them out because I don't want my lame Wal-Mart glasses in my lame wedding pictures. I know that's narcissistic (yeah, I had to look it up even though I spelled it right), but honestly, my glasses weigh probably 4 oz. Which is a lot, considering my little serving of Crispex today was .81 oz. That's a lot of weight on my precarious nose. So I'm nearsighted, which I think means I can't see far away, so it's now strange to look someone in the face and then look behind them and see the leaves on the trees clearly... without 4 oz. glasses on!


Google maps: I visited Dennis today for a bit after I picked up my contacts, and I was talking with Skip (D's dad), and he was saying he used Google maps recently. I didn't even know Google did maps! It's really cool, though: you can zoom into anywhere in the country, click and drag through the map instead of clicking on an arrow and waiting for it to reload, and you can click on "satellite" and get a satellite image of what you're looking at. Eff'd up!! Above is the street I grew up on in West Brookfield.

Keyboard shortcuts on programs other than WordPerfect, if you hit Ctrl+backspace, it deletes every word before the cursor, but in WordPerfect, it deletes the whole line of text. Good or bad? You decide! (Now, I'm not talkin' PCs vs. Macs, here.)

Grammar: now I don't want to get into it... although even as a court reporter, it stumps me sometimes. Mostly, the hyphenated and nonhyphenated things get me. That's why I consult this book.

K. That's it. Now it's bedtime. God bless the statue of Samantha Stevens in Salem.

amazingbiblestudies.com

Now, I haven't posted in a few days because every time I type in "indianspring.blogspot.com" into the little internet bar up top there, I get directed to this bizarre site. I can't really figure out why... I've been accessing my blog successfully that way for many months now. Suddenly, I have the Mega-site of Bible, Christian & religious information popping up on my screen. I'll have to look through my previous posts and see if there's anything damning in what I've said...

Ah, yes. A typo is what is happening. I keep typing "blogpsot" instead of "blogspot." Even my court-reporting eye (the left one) found it difficult to pinpoint the boo boo. It even happens when you type jasonrbailey.blogpsot.com!

Anyway, it's Wednesday, not much going on. Hmmm... something interesting... hmmmm... Hey, did you know that amazingbiblestudies.com suddenly pops up when I try to access my blog??

Potato salad and other exploits

I had a few college friends over last night, and we had a good time. I made way too much food, some of which I'm eating right now as I type; specifically, cold remnants of chicken-ka-bobs and potato salad. And Coke. Mmmmm. And before that, earlier in the day, I had to drive out west to a florist appointment in North Brookfield. Flowers are frivolous! And why must one's godparent have a corsage??

I must say, living next to the state park is fan-tastic! We've been swimming pretty much every day since it started getting oppressively hot, and it just feels great to break up the day with a nice swim. Weekdays are much better than weekends, because on the weekends there's 12-year-old children who throw large rocks in the water quite close to your head. Okay, my head.

Today, Jay's 'rents are driving on out here to visit. I think they might be bringing a kayak, which will also be too much fun. Seeing as how it's another 90-degree day, we might just kayak and swim and kayak and swim! God bless government-run recreation areas...

Still out of breath

I'm trying to get in better shape, so instead of running, today I took a long swim. I guess I always thought swimming was easy and didn't require much physical exertion, but I'm pretty winded after 3 or 4 laps between the bouys. I mainly stayed with the breaststroke and switched it up a bit with what I thought was a backstroke, but now I don't know what the hell it was.

Jay made dinner last night on the grill. He came up with the idea that we should each make up a recipe for something on the grill, and his idea was the first to be cooked: orange vegetable burritos. He roasted sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and carrots on the grill (they had been marinated in a pineapple-y marinade), and then we made black beans and rice and stuffed it all into burrito shells. It came out really good, except the sweet taste of the squash and potatoes is not my favorite, and I felt really bad because I said that to Jay, and I should have just not said anything. So I hope I didn't hurt your feelings too much, sweetie! You did a great job!

Tonight's poker night; maybe I'll not lose tonight. I just gotta play smart and don't play against Josh because he always gets good cards. ::shaking fist:: Damn you, luck of the deck!!

Trial run

Abe and I just went for a run just now. We ran a mile around the Ashland High School track. Well, I walked probably a quarter mile of it, but it still totalled a mile. Plus the walk to and from. Abe was a very good sport about it. He's in much better shape than I am. Must be from when he freaks out and runs maniacally around the house over and over.

Another marry weekend

Yesterday was Mike and Dani's wedding. Jay was the best man. Since the wedding was at 5:00 o'clock, Jay and I had to keep Mike occupied during the day. We all slept over Jay's parents' house the night before, so when we woke up we decided to take a walk to the ArtsFest Beverly. It's an artist-y festival they have downtown. First we stopped by the Atomic Cafe for a cup o' joe. Jay asked me if my friend Justin was still living in Beverly; I said he wasn't. Jay said, "That kid looks just like him!" I turn to see my friend Justin sitting in a booth! I hadn't talked to that kid in ages. Good to see him. Then we walked over to the dollar store and told Mike he could pick out anything he wanted that was $1 and we'd buy it for him. He chose a four-pack of punching balloons. Good choice. We walked around Beverly looking like morons as we punched the hell out of our respective balloons. It was fun. Then we had some lunch at Acapulco's. We ordered a pitcher of margaritas. Mmmmm. Then Mike and Jay played some hoops while I napped. Jay decided it'd be a good idea to make Mike submerge himself in the ocean before he had to get ready for the wedding. The tide was out, so the water was really really shallow really really far out. They were probably a quarter mile out and the water was still only to their knees. But they jumped in anyway. Rocks hurt bare feet.

Then for the wedding, which was held at Hammond Castle. It was a really great wedding. The ceremony was in the great hall, the dinner was outside in the tent, then the dancing was back in the great hall. The castle is right on the ocean, and let me tell you, the view from the ladies' room was breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking. Jay, being the best man and all, had to make a speech. I knew he was nervous, but you wouldn't know it by the way he delivered it! He did a really great job, and he even made people cry.

Then we went to the Ocean View Hotel to hang out, and we ended up getting a room there. I stayed up way too late and partied with everyone, and I had to get up at 6:00 a.m. for a bridesmaids brunch in Natick. (I won a DJ!) So all in all, it was a really really fun time!

I won a DJ!

Sometimes I hate coming up with subjects

Dennis made a good point about sometimes neglecting to post for extended periods: it's 'cuz there's no pictures to go with the entry. So here is one from Gould's Sugar House. It's a delicous bowl of pickles.

I have the day off today, and am going to go to Filene's with my mom and she's going to help me register for more wedding gifts. I don't know what normal people need in the course of everyday life, so I need a grown-up to guide me. What's flatware? There's TWO types of wine glasses? Serving bowls, schmerving bowls! So I'm very grateful for her help, because otherwise I'd be opening gifts of Real Genius on DVD or something.

Getting into the swing of spring

This past weekend was a long weekend of too much partying, indeed. Partying's fun, no doubt, but there's always a little bit of the doldrums when reality hits and you have to go back to work.

I counted down the days until our wedding: 94. I went one lame step further and actually listed each day of the countdown on each calendar day in my PDA. I know, I know, I'm lame. But as I was getting to like 10, 9, 8 days before the wedding, I started getting nervous! If I'm getting nervous over putting stupid text in my PDA, imagine what I'll be like when it actually IS 10, 9, 8 days before the wedding. I think the main reason I was nervous is not because I'm nervous to marry Jay; I'm nervous because I don't know what the hell I'm doing in regards to the wedding. But we've got more plans nailed down, which is good...


So it's 94 days before the wedding - I plan on joining the Y and getting in shape. I'm going to stop smoking and cut down on drinking and get in shape. Hopefully. I did a mile and a half on the elliptical machine yesterday. Guess I should actually figure out what I'm doing exactly before I go back... Any exercise suggestions are more than welcome! I'd like to mainly lose my gut, but also build more muscle tone in my arms. Y'know, so I can look good on the beach. And fit into my dress.

Weather: Poopie!

What poopie weather! It's icky. But not as icky as Abe getting sick off of too many biscuits. Which is what happened last night... I accidently knocked over a box of Alpo treats, and Abe freaks out and wolfs half the box down in 3.4 seconds. A few hours later, up come the biscuits! And back down they go, as he quickly reingested what he had just regurgitated. Then he got sick again... and again... and again... and again. Icky!

So tonight is my pal Courtney's bachelorette party. I don't know what girls are supposed to do at bachelorette parties, but ... well, I have no 'buts' to speak of. I just don't really know what girls are supposed to do at bachelorette parties... Her wedding is on Sunday, the day that Jay is actually having a bachelor party for our friend Mike.

And that's about it, folks. One of these days we'll get to break in the new grill... hopefully when all the weddings end and things aren't so busy, we'll have a nice backyard party with horseshoes and homebrew and the new grill. We'll see...

We got a grill yesterday

It's a Consumer Reports Best Buy. Sweet! It's got cast-iron grates. Sweet! It's got a side burner. Sweet! It is a fancy-schmancy grill, and we be cookin' all night long.

So much shopping...

Whew! Yesterday sure was a whirlwind of consumerism. Well, partial consumerism, I suppose, if that's even English... but I'll get into that later.


First stop was to get Jay a suit. He needs a suit for Mike and Dani's wedding, in which he is the best man. I think we might also use it for our wedding, too. The last suit he says he owned was a heavy wool one from Sears. He wanted a suit that was on the informal side, something not too heavy, something snazzy. Well, we got helped by a guy named Lenny, and I don't think he liked me all that much, but that's beside the point. Jay bought a suit! They need to do mystery alterations to it (some guy whisked in from a back room, started putting pins all over the suit while it was still on Jay, and whisked back into the back room), so I guess we can pick it up Friday after 6pm. Lenny told me they don't charge for storage (with a hint of sarcasm) when I asked if I was allowed to pick it up for Jay.


Then we went to Target and used one of those scanner guns to register for lots and lots of stuff. We didn't really have any idea what we were doing, but it was fun to point and shoot at the bar codes... We spent a lot of time doing that.

Then we went to Home Depot to register for more stuff. Jay wanted some decent tools, so that's what we registered for, I think. I don't think I was paying attention. Then we went over to the grills and admired big fancy grills.

We realized we really needed a lawnmower and a grill, so we decided to go to Sears and buy at least the lawnmower.

We held off on the grill because it wouldn't fit in the car. I also ran into an old FSCer named Jeff who I remember lived in Horace Mann back in the day. He works at Sears part time, and he actually teaches just a rock's throw away at Ashland High School. Weird.

Then we... what'd we do? Oh, we went to the movies to see Star Wars: Episode III. I thought it was much better than the last two - the acting was a little bit better, I thought, and the action sequences were pretty cool. I still have no idea who anyone is or what the whole plot line is, but at least we saw it in the theaters, right? ...Yeah.

So all in all, a long day. We got our chance to play mega-consumer. That's not a video game, kids.... that's real life.

Gardening

I'll post a picture as soon as I can, but I wanted to post about my little garden. I'm pretty new at this gardening thing even though my dad always had a garden when I was growing up. I'm realizing now that he did most of the work, and I just picked the tomatoes. Oh, if only picking were the most laborious part...

So Jay told me the next door neighbors said the previous homeowners had their garden over next to the spring. I said to myself, "That spot too wet!" And I noticed it wasn't getting any sun after 4:30. So I decided to rip apart the top of the railroad bed and do the garden there. Well, yesterday I realized (after I had mangled the soil) that the railroad bed gets NO sun midday, when the sunlight is at its strongest, and I also notice the spot over next to the spring was drenched in sunlight. So I decide to put the garden there.

There was lots of weeds and thick grass, so I had to rip all that up - it came up in chunks because all the roots were grown together - and then I had to turn the soil. I did that by taking a flat-headed shovel and digging a little square and turning the soil upside down. There were many many ugly earthworms in the soil. I think I chopped lots in half. But they regenerate, so I actually probably ended up doubling the earthworm population in one afternoon...

So now I'm in the middle of planting. I found out I don't have room for two cucumber plants. They look sad, anyway, since I had them in their tiny cardboard pot indoors for about a week. But I have about 12 different tomato plants (mmm!!), 6 green and 6 yellow peppers, a red pepper, some zucchini, some squash, some broccoli, some snow peas, some corn, a hot pepper plant... and I think that's about it. Now we fertilize and wait...

Happy anniversary

So it's May 17th, one year after the legalization of gay marriage in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Happy anniversary to all gay couples who got married. There's a statistic out there that lesbian couples marry twice as much as gay men couples. They interviewed a guy on NPR that said, "We gay men have the same commitment issues as straight men," as an explanation. Which I thought was amusing.