We left on Thursday in white-out conditions -- it was fucking insane. 'Twas a blustery day to say the least, silly old bear, and I was white-knuckling across the Michigan tundra for a solid coupla hours. I would've had the old lady spell me after awhile, but I wanted to make it to Chicago alive. Don't get me wrong, she's a great driver, she's just from the school of I-drive-ninety-regardless-of-conditions-so-hold-on-to-your-asses-fuckers. It's a great school from which to be an alumnus when the sun is shining and the roads are dry, but wet and blizzardy, fuck no. So yeah, drove through the arctic circle while Mr. Z and Miss O watched the "They Might Be Giants" dvd and one of the discs from "The Electric Company" box set. They did a stellar job and, when the snow stopped and the sun peeked out near the Skyway, I surrendered the wheel to A.J. Foyt and shoehorned myself into the shotgun pod:
There's your car photo, anonymous -- best I could do.
Got to the 'burbs by 9ish CST (yes, Mr. Z and Miss O were once again treated to a "real-live sunset" -- now they've seen three) put the kids to bed and hung out with my 'rents and my sister until too-fucking-late-o'clock in the morning. Couldn't sleep in on Friday thanks the itchy sheets on the bed and the GODDAMN SYNCHRONIZED LEAF-BLOWER SQUAD that apparently only had from 8-8:30 a.m. to blow every leaf in the world into a giant pile right outside my fucking window. Excuse me, but what the fuck happened to the rake?! It's just like that Billy Idol cover of "Mony, Mony." When I heard it in high school, he'd just sing it and people would listen to it. Jump ahead to my sophomore year in college and every starts shouting that "get laid, get fucked" shit during the verse. From whence the fuck did that come?! It's like I went into suspended animation and then there was this big all-Earth meeting where everyone got together and decided that from that moment forward, people would shout this shit during the verses, then they reanimated me and everyone's shouting this shit and I'm sitting there like an asshole going, "Wait... what? What wall did that bounce off of?!"
I don't know why I just went off on that tangent but... oh yeah, the rake. Same thing as the Billy Idol story but just substitute "leaf-blower" for "get laid, get fucked."
Yeah, so... Friday was fine. The old lady went off to Anthropologie to buy herself a $9000 blouse or something and I took the kids to the park with my mom. Very wholesome fun but it was kinda windy and cold and after about five minutes, my ears got that cold-wind-throbbing-thing and I was ready to go home. I did manage to snap a pic of Mr. Z right before he was ingested by a wild, stoned, hydrocephalic lion:
The rest of the day was fine, the kids played nicely with their cousin and I ate a shitload of not-shitty food for once. Stayed up really late again, but at least this time we were playing the greatest game in the world. By the way, what's up with those cretins playing on the web site?
Now THAT'S a party.
Saturday, we had a brunch/early birthday party for Miss O with my brother's family, sister's family and the rentals. The old lady birthed an incredible confection for the occasion:
Her talents never cease to amaze me -- she can bake the shit out of a chocolate cake, that woman. Mighty tasty (and the cake was delicious, too. HELLO!). We played some party games, Miss O opened some presents and all in all, it was a mother-fucking Norman Rockwell painting. Here's Miss O rockin' out with one of her gifts:
It's this incredibly cheap, yet way awesome microphone that has built-in applause FX and an "echo" button and she's been singing these hilarious tunes through the thing. I've got to record some of the shit she's coming up with. Classic.
Okay, this is getting way too fucking long. Let's wrap it up, who needs a ride home? Uh, the old lady and I went to visit a friend of hers with a new baby downtown and we had dinner and chatted and the kids weren't there and it was most excellent. My sister and her husband went to her 20th high school reunion and they came home all tipsy and regaled us with all the sordid details and then her drunk husband fell down the stairs. It made me do a blow-snot-outta-my-nose-laugh, which I haven't done in months. And I thank him for that. What else? Oh, when we got back on Saturday night, Miss O had somehow contracted the cold/cough/phlegm/fever thing she gets once a month, so I got to do the 1:30 in the morning run to Walgreens for cough medicine, which was fucking GREAT! Then we got up and drove home. The end.
All in all a great trip, except for the Miss O is now sick part. She'll probably stay home from school tomorrow and, of course, the old lady teaches on Monday, so my day will be fucked. Hoorah. And I've actually got an appointment with the reflux doctor, so I get to take along Miss O and her full-body snot chrysalis. Excellent.
Ah, it's good to be back.
8 comments:
For what it's worth - we (your devoted fans with no life) hate it when you have to sum up several days because you didn't blog (we hate the not blogging for a few days, not the summing up part). :-)
Glad to hear the trip went well!
yeah, what Rose said (she's the official spokesperson for CDAA).
I'm glad the trip went well.
So we all hate the sum-up. Agreed. The only solution is to never travel anywhere again.
That was easy.
Yeah, you should DEFINITELY just never leave your basement again, ever. Oh, but then maybe you wouldn't have as funny stories. OK, go out, see the light of day on occasion, but then run right back and tell us what it was like... ok??
Okee-doke.
All-Earth meeting. Great image. What year do you think they decided that people should only use one backpack strap? And was "only use one shirt sleeve" also on the table, but didn't get enough votes? Hmm, maybe that's not really the same as your great Mony Mony example. Oh, if you want to see some interesting mass trends, go look at baby names on the social security administration site and look at a name's trends. It's almost always uniform how they trend more and more popular or unpopular over decades. OK, your name is sort of consistent, but look at mine or my wife's and it's... interesting. And if you only knew the names of all of my nieces and nephews and siblings, man would you have a lot of data to back up these not-as-interesting-sounding-as-they-really-are claims. Me and the Mrs. have to come up with a female name by early February.
Yeah, EOB, that one backpack strap kinda snuck up on me, too. In my day, if I wore my backpack with only one strap, I'd receive numerous "flat tires," the odd noogie, and I'd be victim to many of those situations where one kid would kneel on the ground behind me (unbeknownst to me) and another kid would push me from the front, sending me flipping backwards over the kid on the ground. I don't think that thing ever had a name, but it was brutal.
How 'bout the name "Edweena"?
Edweena? That's as crazy as giving her the last name of O'Llande.
Oh, sorry, I forgot you... uh....
Yeah, I'll consider that.
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