Non Labor Day weekend

Not much time to put anything up today, but it’s the friday of a three day weekend and while that would usually have me skipping and doing cart wheels, I find myself scared as shit since my wife will be having surgery today.  I mentioned this before, but for the first time in all of our 8 year history together, one of us is going to be having surgery.  It’s not me.  I would honestly feel better about this whole thing if it were me since I wouldn’t have the ability of being the brave one, but I have to sit back and watch her be brave and I am still preparing my “brave face” game plan.  I am scared, I shouldn’t be.  I guess it’s human nature to be frightened any time your best friend and the person on this earth that you care for more than any other has to be taken to unconsciousness for any length of time.  I am sure that this isn’t going to be the last time this happens to one of us, but that doesn’t help me get through the first.

So, today I am looking for some humor.  It’s days like this that I am extra observant for something that I might not normally notice that will put a smile on my face.  Almost one week until my unhealthy obsession with the NFL begins and it is starting off in a sublime fashion.  Tomorrow night will be my fourth of five total fantasy football drafts and I am finding it difficult to even get excited for that until later tonight when the doctors get me the “all clear” message. 

As an adult I am still trying to wrap my head around the concept of Labor Day.  Most national holidays have a reason for the celebration, but not really Labor Day.  It’s a day of laziness.  We owe a big thanks to the Central Labor Union who in 1882 decided on that day that they just didn’t want to work, therefore they called it “Labor Day”.  Doesn’t make sense does it.  I vote that we rename it “Non Labor Day” or “Lazy Day”.  Oh those wacky Union guys.  They must have had some mad pull with Congress to make Labor day a federal holiday. 

In not so Debbie Downer news I haven’t followed up on my garden experiment in a while and in an interesting turn of events, it turns out I am not that bad of a gardener.  I think when I picked out the plants, that I must have picked a couple out of the “iron plant” section because in all of my traveling this summer and my craziness that led to a lack of hydration, I managed to be a week away from a crap load of veggies.  In all I began with roughly 80 plants total.  I don’t have exact numbers, but I planted tomato, cucumber, jalapeno, cilantro, radishes, and onions.  My rough investment was around 40.00 total for this deck top gardening experiment.  As of right now, I am down to like 6 tomato plants and 4 cucumber plants.  The rest had succumbed to my busy lifestyle and the fact that it had rained so much while we were out of town that when I arrived home everything was virtually under 6 inches of water.  That was the big killer.  Not my lack of hydration skill, but the fact that I forgot to  punch holes in the bottom of the damn storage containers thinking that if I didn’t, it would allow what water I did provide to stay in longer.  Big mistake number one.  That would easily be my greatest lesson learned. 

So, as of right now I have around 40 tomatoes nearly fully grown and roughly 60 cucumbers well on their way.  I don’t know what I am going to do with all of those cucumbers.  I am thinking of the many things you can use cucumbers for and if the bags under my eyes begin to disappear, know that it is not because I am getting two additional hours of sleep each night. 

My wife’s surgery calls for her to have someone with her for twenty four hours after the surgery and in typical balloon guy fashion I have a ridiculous schedule tomorrow.  I will be the featured entertainment tomorrow at the Main Street Market in downtown Roselle from 9am til noon.  www.iloveballoonanimals.com Then I have two other events I have been booked for throughout the day leading up to my fantasy football draft tomorrow night.  Instead of doing the draft in person, I will be doing it over the internet, which is a small price to pay for everything the wifey is going through.  Then my weekend begins on Sunday and Monday and it will be pretty low key. 

Happy Non Labor Day weekend!

Filed under: Friday guy, Gardeny goodness, balloon, fantasy, romance, sadness, scared, weekend, weird, wife, work

Some quick highlights from this week

My monday and Wednesday night softball teams came through big and each pulled off upsets.  For the first time all season, both teams won in the same week.  I’m sick of losing.  Wednesday night was especially entertaining because of the loud mouthed douche captain of the opposing team who couldn’t shut his mouth about anyting.  This guy bitched more than any grown man.  He made fun of our 1’st baseman for being so thin, made fun of our captains tie-dyed softball socks, made fun of us for hitting BP on the field before the game, mocked our bucket of balls, and was an overall jagoff. This motivated us to dominate them with a final score of 12-2.  My lowest earned run start as a pitcher yet this season.  I had 6 put outs on line drivers back to me on the mound, and the loud mouth on the opposing team went 0-3with 4 errors at third base.  Victory is sweet.  My wife met up for drinks before the game with the other wives and they were supposed to come and watch us play for the first time this year, but apparently the appletini’s tasted too good and we didn’t see them until after when we went to the bar. 

Tuesday night was interesting.  By the time I made it home from entertaining at the restaurant around 9pm I decided that it was time to clean my turtle tank since I have one turtle still hanging around.  Bruno is going on 26 years with me and I am in the process of upgrading his condo to a full fledged mansion (moving from 20gallon habitat to a 75 gallon).  I went to work on getting everything set up, when around 11pm my wife mentioned something to me about the garden.  This is what she said:

“The plants aren’t looking so good out there…they look like they are all dead…”  My focus went from the turtle tank to the pseudo garden where I discovered that I had almost killed every single plant already.  I hadn’t transplanted any of them from the containers I had bought them in or watered them in two days.  Apparently plants like water.  WTF?  So, at around 11:15 I moved to the patio where I worked on replanting and watering everything.  As of this morning, it looks like everything is making a full recovery and I have no less than 60 plants all in two plastic totes, so when everything grows up, it should be downright funny looking.  I can’t wait.  My wife almost fell on the ground from laughter when I looked at the dying plants from inside and ran outside and mumbled the phrase…”man…i’m not very good at this…”  I was talking to myself, but apparently my self statement was loud enough for her to get a good chuckle. 

Less than one week until I will get my first lifetime dose of Disneyworld.  Since we flipped our vacation plans to flying to florida instead of flying, I am getting a chance to hit Disney for the evening of the 4th and all day on the 5th. I think we are just going to hit Pleasure Island on the 4th and stay away from the parks and then do the touristy thing for one day before we pack up the car and drive down the coast to our beach destination.  Just one real day in Disney.  I am so torn as to which part of Disney world to visit.  If you ask adults what they would do if they could go without children, you will find that everyone has a different opinon.  I can only do so much research and I am sure whatever we decide will be fun. 

This weekend is full of balloon twisting as are most weekends.  I’m hoping that the cubbies can sweep the sox again this weekend, but I won’t hold my breath. Have a great weekend!

Filed under: Disney, Gardeny goodness, balloon, stupid, wife

I know that

I love it when someone points out how incredibly dumb I am while responding to one of my dumb posts. 

I prefaced my garden idea yesterday with a trainwreck statement.  I have planted no less than 80 plants.  I have no real estate to grow them.  My wife and I just bought this super nice patio furniture set so that we can entertain on the deck and now I have to align my excuses as to why I should have the entire balcony for the rainforrest I am about to produce.  “Sorry honey, but the new table and chairs we bought for the deck have to stay in the basement until I sow my tomatoes, radishes (WTF?), onions, jalapenos, and cilantro. I can spare enough room for one chair, but the rest of the deck will become my garden.   This could possibly be the funniest thing I have done in a long time and I am quite excited about my garden adventures over the coming months. 

I will post some photos of my pseudo garden soon so that you can join in on the joke.  I can’t believe I haven’t taken pictures of the critical steps taken thus far.  I already have seeds that are sprouting out of the dirt in less than 48 hours.  I am also baffled that I haven’t killed anything yet. 

This morning finds me giddy not only for my garden, but also at the fact that my wife and I are offically going on a 10 day road trip to Vero Beach Florida in 16 days.  We have been teeter tottering for the last six months about a vacation over the 4th of July but were unsure if her graduate school and my balloon business/day job would allow it.  I definitely could use the mental break from life and sitting on a beach in Florida is just what I need to recharge my batteries and finish summer with a bang.  Nothing like celebrating a 5 year anniversary by spending 4 days in a car and 6 days on a beach.  I wanted to go to North Carolina, the wife wanted Florida, so I negotiated Florida with a day at Disney World since I have never been. 

I win. 

Filed under: Car, Gardeny goodness, balloon, stupid, train wreck, weird, wife, work

All over the road

A Happy Belated Fathers Day to all dad’s out there.  I called my dad, got voicemail, left a message and that was that.  I’m not very close with my father, and I have learned that it’s not really my fault, so I am fine with that.  The only real thing we have in common is a gene that makes us both addicted to fishing, and we make amazing fishing partners, and that’s about it.  I love the guy to death, but we have nothing else in common.  My father doesn’t know it, but he taught me probably the greatest lesson any father can teach their son, and that’s what not to do when I myself am a father.  To celebrate fathers day, I was able to plant my ass on my couch at 10:00pm last night and watched There Will Be Blood.  Not knowing much about it, I would have to say that Daniel Day Lewis portrays a father that closely resembles my father in many ways.  I highly recommend the movie.  I am a huge fan. 

In other weekend news, Directv decided to torture me by offering every single movie channel for free.  I would image this would be good for dads that want to spiderhole themselves in a basement recliner for the entire weekend, but for me it just reminds me of what I am missing on a regular basis as well as the fact that it’s not really my decision to not have all the movie channels. 

Friday night I realized that I am 31 going on 12 when at 10:55pm at Great America, my friend and I actually starting running as fast as we could to try and get in line for the final rollercoaster that we absolutely had to ride before they cut off the line for the 11:00 closing time.  After running harder than I had in a very long time, we arrive at the roller coaster only to be denied by two girls that might have been 19.  I don’t know whether I was more embarrased at the fact that I was weezing from running so hard for a roller coaster, or the fact that two girls just told me no four times overcoming each of my objections with a response of “thanks for coming to great america”.  I assume that was one of the first training classes they had to go through when working there.  It might have been titled “How to tell a fat overweight old guy, who will not accept no, that it’s time to go home.” 

If my summer wasn’t absolutely busy enough, I had the genius idea yesterday during our trip to home depot to start a garden on my balcony.  This has trainwreck written all over it.   I like tomatoes and our balcony is all of 10ft by 6ft, adorned with a grill and new table set with chairs and umbrella.  I am going to attempt to grow 8 tomato, 2 jalapeno, 18 cucumber, 36 radish (don’t ask) , 6 onion, and 12 cilantro plants.  Do you see a theme here?  I am thinking that I will be able to produce no less than 12 gallons of salsa from my fancy little garden.  I anticipate that I may need to move my operations under my balcony due to space.  What’s funny about that is my association allows nothing to be grown anywhere that’s not planted by the landscapers so I will harvest my garden under the balcony late at night under the cover of darkness as if I was involved in an illegal marijuana operation.  My balcony is surrounded by large bushes, so I have already plotted out a way through the bushes to begin my evil plot to produce healthy veggies. 

 

 

Filed under: Fatty, Gardeny goodness, Overcommitment, dad, stupid, train wreck, weekend, wife