Go Fish...Cutthroat Style

The other day I was engaging the girls in a rousing game of Go Fish, when the game turned decidedly ugly. Kailey apparently felt the game was being played a little too nice, so she took it upon herself to turn up the heat by adding a little smack talk to the conversation. "Say goodbye to yer hopes!" she declared while laying a pair of 7's on the table. A moment of silence followed.

"Say goodbye to your hopes?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Yep." Kailey replied as she stifled a giggle with her remaining cards.

"Don't you think that's a little drastic, saying goodbye to your hopes? And over what? A pair of 7's?"

Kailey held firm. "Yep. SAY GOODBYE TO YER HOPES!" she cackled. She had thrown down the gauntlet. We could either rise to the challenge or slink away, tail tightly tucked between legs. And I wasn't about to cave to an eight year-old.

"Oh yeah? Well say goodbye to YOUR hopes!" I declared after collecting a 2 from Kyra and slamming the pair on the table.

In retrospect, I realize that there's something fundamentally wrong with a father instructing his young children to kiss their hopes goodbye. I mean, they have their whole lives ahead of them. I should be helping them realize their hopes and dreams, encouraging them to pursue them; not dash them to pieces. But in my defense, Kailey started it.

The tone had been set, and that's the way the rest of the game played out, each of us trying to dash the hopes of the others with each play of the game. The girls got creative with their taunts. They weren't limited to the collection of a pair. "No I don't have a Jack," Kyra taunted. "So say goodbye to your hopes and GO FISH!"

This game was beginning to head south and quick, and I was to blame since I had propagated the whole thing, as dads are prone to do. The game ended and I decided to refocus the girls' riotous energy on something a little more productive:

Full contact tiddlywinks.

'Cause I Don't Feel Like It

Have you ever had one of those "'Cause I Don't Feel Like It" kind of days? Yeah? Me too. Like right frickin' now. Ta-day.

It's raining outside this morning, which doesn't help the problem, otherwise I'd be out there working on the patio right now. But though the rain has offered a welcome reprieve from manual outdoor labor, there is still a mile long list of indoor projects clamoring for my attention. Maybe I'll get to them, maybe I won't. Why? 'Cause I don't feel like it.

I watched The Exorcist on Bravo earlier this morning. Why Bravo was airing The Exorcist at 8:00 in the morning is beyond me. Perhaps they're launching a new campaign to scare the hell out of the little kiddies who are channel surfing whilst Mommy and Daddy prepare themselves for work. I had nothing to worry about today because I'm off work today and the kiddies are in school, so I watched it. Why? 'Cause I'm stupid and didn't feel like doing anything else, including changing the channel. How lazy is that?

After the priests were dead and Linda Blair was restored to her perky self, I strolled into the den, picked up my guitar and played through a half-dozen unfinished songs, half humming and half singing them (half-assedly, I might add), but then put down the guitar. I should have picked at least one of the songs and worked on it a little more, but I didn't. Why? Say it with me: 'Cause I didn't FEEL like it.

I didn't even really FEEL like blogging, but once I started, the feeling followed. So here I am. I highly doubt the desire to vacuum will follow once I start doing that, but here I go anyway.

Responsibility beckons.

Flagstone & Fatigue

The other major project I've been working on, or rather "helping out" on, this week is constructing a flagstone patio on the side of the house. My father-in-law is the brains of the operation; I stick around to learn and help with the grunt work. We laid the concrete foundation a couple of months ago, before the summer heat came, and on Monday went back to work. On that morning I had a special delivery: a pallet carrying over 2 tons of flagstone.

A dude pulled up in a flatbed truck with a gargantuan forklift in tow and asked me where I where I wanted it. I pointed to the back gate. He did a quick survey of the land and then asked if I thought the neighbors would mind if he drove through their yard. I thought, "Probably", then said, "I'll check", and rang their doorbell, twice. Nobody was home (or nobody was answering the door), so I told Dude that it was easier to get forgiveness than permission. That was good enough for him. He hauled the pallet to my back gate, I covered up the track marks in my neighbor's "yard" (it's all rock, not lawn), and we bid one another good-day.

Then my father-in-law came over and the real fun began: unloading the pallet. There were 23 large cuts of flagstone, each weighing around 200 pounds. Armed with only a hand truck and our cunning to guide us, we set to the task of unloading the pallet one heavy chunk o' flagstone at a time. We rolled each piece into the back yard and cautiously leaned them up against the wall. Needless to say, I was sore for a couple of days.

The rest of the week we spent chiseling, laying out, and cementing down the flagstone. It's coming along quite nicely. Our next steps are to fill in all of the cracks with mortar and then build a brick border along the outside of the patio.

Then begins the next leg of the patio project with the remaining 14 slabs of flagstone: extending our back patio which runs the length of the house. That should be fun.

A Tribute

I didn't know Larry, but through my in-laws, was recently introduced to his artwork, some of which greatly moved me. A few weeks ago, Larry lost his long battle with colon cancer, which brings me to my connection with him. My mother-in-law asked me on behalf of his wife to arrange a portion of his work into a slide presentation for his memorial. I've spent the better part of the past week working on the project, and it finally came to completion this morning. Diane and I found ourselves a little misty-eyed as we previewed the finished DVD, even though we'd never met the man behind the camera. So tonight, in tribute, I share a few of my favorites.

Godspeed, my friend.

General Foo

I've experienced a lull of "blogging inspiration" this week. Sometimes you just need to take a bit of a breather. And sometimes life is just plain boring. I think this week was a mixture of the two. In an attempt to write myself out of this funk, some random snippets:


C'MON CUBBIES!!

OK. I admit it. My last public rant against my beloved Cubs two-and-a-half months ago was a little premature. They are the hottest team in baseball over the past month and are now only 2 1/2 games behind the Brewers in the NL Central. They've lost two straight though, and while I know it's not time to panic, I'd much prefer them not to do that anymore. They just need to keep winning series to keep pressure on the young Brewers. Hopefully, we'll get a shot at the post-season.

I hope I didn't jinx them with this post.

GO CUBS!


Rub-A-Dub-Dub

The monsoon unleashed its full fury on Tucson today. Of course it waited until I was on my way into work, where I discovered that if it rains hard enough, the roof of my convertible leaks! Right into the driver's seat! My ass was soaked before I even got to work! Monsoon storms are usually 10-15 minute downpours that clear up shortly thereafter. It's been raining for 3 hours straight with no relief in sight. Tucson is going to get washed off the map.

I arrived at work in about the fifteenth minute of the storm. A couple more minutes and this'll be over, I thought. After sitting in my wet seat for another five minutes, I came to the realization that it wasn't going to let up anytime soon. So I made a break for it. It wouldn't have been so bad had there not been a raging river running through the middle of the parking lot. And it was too wide to jump. So I stood there in the pouring rain measuring where the best place to jump might be. There was none. My best hope was to plant one foot in the middle of the river and clear the rest. Better to enter into work with one soaker than two (that's what I always say), so that's what I did.

When I finally got through the door, I looked like I had run through a waterfall: a waterfall that concentrated all of its natural force on my ass and right foot. And now I get to sit in a control room where the climate is a carefully-monitored and balmy 68 degrees. I should be experiencing full-blown pneumonia by the 5:00 newscast.

I hope you're having a good Saturday.