One more day…

Easter has come and gone, and besides the 12″ of snow that was recorded from my town near the Wisconsin border, it was quite uneventful.  Which, compared to last years Easter debacle, is a blessing in itself. 

I was upset to have spent some of my time researching where we might enjoy an Easter Brunch with my Father in Law.  When we arrived at his house on Easter, my wife asked him where he wanted to go for lunch, and I was shocked to hear him say IHOP.  So, IHOP it was.  I can’t honestly say that IHOP even entered my mind for an Easter meal.  I would imagine that after you have celebrated 85 Easter meals, IHOP would be a change of pace.  What I did learn this Easter holiday was that I take leftovers for granted.  When we headed home it dawned on me that there wouldn’t be a leftover ham sandwich in my future.  I love ham sandwiches. 

Speaking of meat, within the next 24 hours, I will begin my quest to put every single pound back on my frame that I have worked so meticulously over the past 2 months to lose.  I have 4 full days to go nuts in Vegas, and I am drueling at the thought of putting so much garbage in my body.  I love to eat.  Which is why I decided that I was never meant to be skinny.  I don’t do many things well in life, but I am proud of my ability to eat.  I have tortured myself for almost 70 days for this trip, and there are no holds barred.  I anticipate hearing an oriental guy yelling at me for being at the buffet for 4 hours and that I am not allowed to come back.  My favorite dining place in Vegas is the Rum Jungle at Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.   http://www.chinagrillmgt.com/rumjungle/main.cfm?pp=0 There is just something about all you can eat meat (some bacon wrapped) that makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.  I type this as I nibble on a Crispy Chocolate Peanut butter meal replacement bar.  (that might be the gayest thing I have ever written and I have omitted the brand name) I don’t care what the box says, but it isn’t chocolate, and doesn’t even taste like chocolate.  It should really be called Peanut butter Ass…as in “I can hardly taste peanut butter through the strong dirty Ass flavor.” 

Filed under: Easter, In laws, bachelor party, ride the snake, stupid

The storm has passed

Superbowl sunday has come and gone.  I missed the entire first half of the game as well as the first three quarters of the commercials. 

I was hired for an attractive sum of money to entertain more than 20 children for two hours and in hindsight, it was a bad idea.  I truly believed that I would at least have an ear shot or an angle to view the game, but I didn’t.  I was in a large childs bedroom very far away from any television with a room full of children and Moms.  I thought that I might even be able to hear cheering, but the television that was playing the game was in the basement, therefore occasionally I could hear all of the guys cheering loudly about an awesome play.  For every muffled screem that snuck up through the vent in the bedroom, a little tear would form in my right eye. 

It was tough. 

By the time I had been paid and passed out business cards to the raving moms and dads, it was half time and snowing very hard. The usually 45 minute drive in the snow turned into an hour fifteen and by the time I walked into my own house it was the beginning of the fourth quarter.  I listened to the third quarter in my car. 

My only saving grace was that the fourth quarter was the best part of the game.  Had I missed that, I might have been heard crying myself to sleep last night. 

I did manage to make it over to my brother and sister in laws house prior to the game to take in the typical gassy superbowl food.  Chili, dips, and appetisers galore.  That also made missing the superbowl a little less hard. 

I have a new agreement with myself that moving forward I will not accept any balloon party requests during the holiest of football days during the year.  I hope that I remember how I felt about all of this next year when I get that email from someone asking me how much I would charge to entertain a group of children during the superbowl.  I might want to send an email to myself with a future delivery date of January 12th, 2009 with a link to this post so that I can relive exactly how much it sucked for a huge football fan to be twisting a Valentine Racoon for a 4 year old during the SuperBowl. 

Saturday night I entertained for a different group of children and followed it up with a surprise visit with my friend Tom www.stupidtom.com for beers at the local neighborhood hangout The Crave.  (“To the bat crave!” as I have heard Tom refer to it after many a church meetings.)

What do you get when you mix 8 guys with 12 or 13 buckets of beer(6 bottles per bucket)  with 3 other drunk ass idiots that don’t know how to keep their retarted comments to themselves.

A really weird hour of our group all looking at each other wondering who is going to be the first to swing.

A funny moment was overhearing the bartender warn the three dumbasses that even their biggest isn’t as big as our group’s smallest and that they would regret any decision to start something upon seeing all of us stand up from our seated postions.

It also helps to have someone as intimidating as Tom is sitting at your table. 

I never know what is in store for me when I go out with those guys. 

One of the other funnier things that I remember was taking off my shirt in a weird moment to settle a bet between a couple of guys who were arguing over neck sizes that stemmed from some weird sleep apnia debate and then seeing Tom button the shirt around his neck without miraculously popping a button and modeling it as a cape. 

I had a blast Saturday night and all of that came to a screeching halt Sunday morning when my wife became upset that I refused to join her at 6:00am to do things around the house before we left for Church.   A roller coaster of a weekend, if I do say so. 

Happy Monday!

Filed under: Church, In laws, Punch, balloon, beer, fight, train wreck, weekend, weird, wife

Blindsided

I pulled up this site a bit ago, and kind of sat back and reflected upon some of the craziness that is my life.  I don’t like to bore people to death on here, even though I am very guilty of doing so on a frequent basis. 

I wrote earlier this week about this past weekend when my brother and his wife and their 5 children (my nieces and nephews)  came up and stayed.  My younger brother as well as my mother came up, too.  It was a very interesting visit since this would have to be the first time that our whole family had been together for no reason other than to visit.  Typically it takes a holiday to rope me into hanging with the crazies, but for once we all just came together to enjoy a weekend.  Rare, but it was nice in a screwed up way. 

I just got news from my wife that my brother is leaving my sister in law.  My sister in law emailed my wife to give her the news.  They are calling it a seperation, but child support and visitation has already been settled, so I would call it more than a seperation. 

So, right now I sit here….shocked and feeling really sick to my stomach.  My older brother seemed at peace this weekend.  I thought it was because he had finally found happiness with his wife and family, but now it would appear that the happiness was because he had already made a mental decision to cut ties and move on.  Wow.  I didn’t see this coming. 

Pretty ridiculous weekend ahead for me.  Four different balloon events (www.misterd.balloonhq.com) combined with loads of church activities and amongst all of this punishment I am doing to my body, I fear I have been neglecting time with my wife, so I will try to make up for that all the while still getting to the gym on Saturday and Sunday.  What ever happened to a relaxing weekend? 

61 days until my goal expires.  I am 15 days into my new lifestyle and as of last night I have dropped 15 pounds already.  15lbs down, 25 still to go.  I think I should be able to hit the remainder 25 within the next 61 days.  Hopefully they will come off as quickly as the first 15 did.  My wife is in no way excited for me since she is concerned that it’s happening too fast.  This leaves me with no one to celebrate a milestone with except me and this forum.  I am very proud of myself.  Not just for the lifestyle change but also because yesterday was the one month anniversary of my last cigarette.  I haven’t gone this long without a smoke since I picked up the nasty habit during college over ten years ago.  Hooray for me.  Once again, something that I can’t celebrate with my wife because for over 7 years I hid the fact that I smoked on a regular basis from her. 

Hooray for me and the therapy this forum brings with it.  Have a wonderful weekend. 

Filed under: Brother, Church, Exercise, In laws, Resolutions, balloon, body, ride the snake, weekend, wife, work

Hiroshima, Singing Guy, and one last drilling

So much to say, with so little time.  Last night my little brother dropped the biggest bombs on me.  I have not always been proud of his decisions in life since he got mixed up with the wrong crowd growing up.  He has a history of being weak in regards to choosing who should or should not be his friends.  These decisions in life led him to a life of drugs, crime, and even jail time.  So, when I heard that he finally decided to straighten out his life and join the military after graduating high school, I thought that it would be the perfect way for him to grow into a strong disciplined young man.  I have watched him mature over the last year and a half in the military, but there is still a long way to go. 

Anyway, now that you have some sort of back story, here is the news.  This weekend my brother, sister in law, and their five children are coming to stay with us.  My older brother is a 3rd degree nationally ranked black belt and has a tournament up in Kenosha Wisconsin this weekend.  Kenosha is only 45 minutes from my house so they are staying with us for the weekend.  Well, since they are coming up, I thought it would be a good idea if my little brother would come up as well since the three of us hardly get to hang out together.  As I was talking with my little brother he eased on in a story about how when he was in Texas a month ago he met a girl.  This girl aparently dropped everything a week and a half ago and drove from Texas to Illinois to stay with my brother.  He is in love with her.  Cool.  I was excited for him.  Then he goes on further to explain that she has a child.  O.k.  No biggie.  I have dated women with children.  At this point I am starting to get that he wants to come up, but in order for him to come up, he wants to drag his girlfriend and child up with him for the weekend.  “The more the merrier!” I said to him.  He said that if I wanted to talk to Jeanne and get back to him he was fine, but I said that she would agree with my decision.  He became so excited and went on to further expalin how much he cares about her, how they met and so on.  My wife asks me how old she is, and I follow suit.  My little brother says that she is 35.  “THIRTY FIVE????” I said. …”And she is from Thailand…”  o.k.  At this point I only care about seeing my little brother and am willing to deal with this.  I explain to him that if they stay with us there will be rules about what goes on in our house.  I don’t have to go over these rules with my older brother because he and his wife hate each other.  My brother has been guilty of banging an ex girlfriend in my old apartment and then lying about it after I found a condom in the trash. He doesn’t have a good track record of honesty.  So, he told me to go and check out his myspace page and see photos of how beautiful his girlfriend is and I will understand when he says that she only looks like she is 24 years old.  O.k.  I tell him that I am looking forward to seeing him this weekend and hang up. 

I go onto his myspace page and am suddenly horrified by this girlfriend.  I start going through his pictures and he was wrong.  She doesn’t look like a 24 year old, but she looks like a 35 year old woman that wishes she was still 24 years old.  Partying like crazy and obviously enjoying the company of 21 year old men who love to bang a pretty Thai lady.  I also find pictures of my brother and his friend with what looks like a joint in his friend’s hand in my mother’s living room.  His girlfriend posted a comment from her Myspace page asking “without me?  Hehe..”  I also find pictures of her on my brothers page of him making out with her in her bra and her thong hanging out of her pants.  

I immediately became furiuos and called him back saying that she is not welcome in my home for many reasons.  I also confronted him on the photos of his buddy smoking week in our mothers house and why the fuck he as a soldier of the united states army would be caught dead in the company of somone who appears to be smoking pot knowing that it could lead to his being dishonorably discharged from the military.  He was upset and an hour long argument ensued.  I hurt my little brother pretty bad, but the bottom line is that as much as he thinks he has a woman that is falling for him, what he has is a Foreigner in this country that has a 6 month old baby, no ex hubby, no job, no insurance for her or her child, and a naive 21 year old stud who likes sex and can not see the big picture. 

As a comprimise I have bought a hotel room for my brother and his girlfriend and they are welcome to stay there.  I know that they do not have money so that is the least I can do after hurting my little bro so bad.  Honest love.  That’s what I call it.  I will never lie to my little brother and I will always give it to him straight.  A shit load of other stuff came out as well, but too much and too personal to cover in this forum.  

He also told me that he has gone from Reserves to Active Duty and ships out on Monday.  Talk about another bomb.  So after all of that, I will not likely get to see my little brother for another year and a half.  Great. 

Today I have hopefully my last dentist trip for another six months.  Today I get a filling for the first time.  It can’t be as bad as the root canal. 

This morning at the gym there was this bald chubby guy wearing tight everyghing that would dance while he walked.  I got caught walking behind him on my trip to get a towel and it had to have been the most uncomfortable thing I have experienced in quite some time.  As I did cardio I continued to watch him walk around and dance at one point literally acknowledging one of the gym staff who gave him a weird look.  As I was walking out of the shower this morning and getting dressed, he walked in to the locker room and kept singing loudly to the song playing over the speakers in the locker room.  Never in my life have I contemplated punching someone in the back of the neck and dumping on his ears to make him stop singing.  I think my blood level is still sky high from my talk with my brother last night.  Are all of the chemicals I have consumed in my quest starting to give me roid rage?

Have a wonderful Thursday and sorry for such a long post. 

Filed under: Brother, In laws, Punch, Roid Rage juice, dumping, fight, grouchy, mean, pain, poop, scared, shower, stripper, stupid, train wreck, weekend, weird, wife

Two things I want to be when I grow up

1.  A Mystery Discount Obtainer

2.  A Fake Bum Spyer

I don’t know why, but I would.  Recently my brother in law had found a business for sale onlin and emailed to to me saying that I should look into it.  There were a few holes in his email, and honestly it downright angered me since it showed that my brother in law knows jack shit about me.  I conveyed my displeasure to my wife and she became upset with me since he was only trying to be nice.  I say Bullshit! 

The business he emailed to me was a shitty party place where they have built themed rooms that you can rent out for birthday parties.  You book the room they provide the costumes (fireman, princess, makeup, etc) and one party person to run the party.  They have like 8 rooms.  Well, my brother in law thinks that just because I twist balloons, that I am inspired to run a crappy birthday party day care for a living.  Not only did he think that I should buy it, but his logic was that I could entertain for the parties and my wife could run the business side of the house with her teaching/organization skills to manage the party part.  WTF?  I couldn’t run the organization part? 

The other reason that I was offended that he sent over the business for me to buy was because it cost 100K.  Once again, he obviously doesn’t know me because if he did, he would know that I don’t have 100 thousand dollars.  Not only do I not have a hundred thousand dollars, I don’t have one hundred thousand of anything.  I don’t even think that I have a hundred thousand pennies, much less nickels, dimes, quarters, or dollars.  Him emailing me to buy a business worth 100,000 is like me emailing him the link to a Russian Bride site (http://www.chanceforlove.com/) (it’s my favorite for anyting Russian Bride) to find a nice new Russian Bride fully knowing that he is married to my sister in law saying “Here, marry one of these women.” 

Wow, I am glad that I got that out of my system. 

Let me get back to the two things I would drop everything for at a moments notice to do for a living granted I was given a contract for a lifetime of work. 

1.  Mystery Discount Obtainer is someone that a department store or shop might hire to test the security people who are in charge of catching shoplifters.  Basically a mystery discount obtainer’s job is to walk around a store and steal as much shit as possible without getting caught.  This person would show where the security people need help to become better at catching shoplifters.  How awesome is that?  I get paid to steal?  The only downside would be the highs and the lows knowing that you just stole something and you have to give it back. 

I think if I were to ever decide to take up stealing and get caught, I might use this line:  “Congratulations on catching me!  I am Dennis with your local Mystery Discount Obtainers International.”  “I was hired by your corporate office to come down here and steal as much as I could and see if you would catch me.” “Way to go!” ”Here is everything I have stashed in my underpants…ooOOoops…one thing snuck to the back of my drawers…here ya go. ”Have a nice day.”  “Buh-bye.” 

2.  A Fake Bum Spyer.  I don’t know if I would enjoy this as much as the mystery discount obtainer but it would be a fascinating profession if I do say so.  What you  do is you get paid to observe people who beg for money on the street and then watch to see if they proceed to walk around the corner and get into their nice BMW or Lexus and drive to their family house.  I think watching homeless people all day might get a little depressing, though. 

If any of you come across businesses advertising the need for such individuals, please let me know. 

Filed under: Cry baby, In laws, confused, grouchy, mean, stupid, wife

Thanksgiving eve

For the first time in over five days I have a moment to sit back and reflect upon what was my Thanksgiving.  Like a fine wine, my thoughts about the past five days are getting better as they age.  It is hitting me this morning just how F’d up the holiday started and how I still can’t believe that my wife and I pulled it off.  We had never hosted Thanksgiving before for the whole family and I think we did a damn good job.  Here are some of the funny ass highlights to our crazy Thanksgiving.

Wednesday night I was prepared to go crazy ass in the kitchen since I was in charge of everything.  I decided to brine the turkey this year, which meant bathing the turkey in a solution for around 24 hours.  My older brother, sister-in-law, and my 2 nieces and 3 nephews were coming up on Wednesday evening so that they didn’t have to drive on Thanksgiving day.  They left from Bloomington, IL around 6:00pm and we expected them to arrive at our house around 9:30 pm.  The house was fully prepared for the assault that would be 5 children and two additional adults.  The inflatable mattresses were set up, the hide a bed couch was pulled out and the guest bedroom was all set.  All I had to do was cook while I waited.  I started pulling stuff out to start cooking at 8:00pm.  I started late because of the drama that was my mother and younger brother.  My mother had come home Wednesday after drinking and in her drunken state decided that she wasn’t going to come up for Thanksgiving after all which left my little brother out of a ride up to the northwest suburbs of Chicago.  I had to work with him on calling her bluff and we agreed that he would not make any sudden plans and would wait out our mother’s wrath and see how she was in the morning.  If she had not changed her mind by then, he would drive up alone Thursday morning. 

Once we were done with all of that (which took over an hour and a half of phone calls) I made my way to the kitchen.  Upon entering the kitchen my wife’s phone rang.  It was my older brother. (I am going to switch to the present tense to describe the following story to fully capture the moments of the messed up story) 

Wife:  Your brother is on the phone.  He has a flat tire.       

Me:  Tell him to change his tire.                                                

Wife:  (after asking if he is able to change his tire)  He doesn’t have a spare tire.                                                                       

Me:  (use both hands to cover my face to conceal the anger that is shooting through my body) He doesn’t have a spare tire????  He is driving a family of 7 in a van up to Chicago without a spare tire????  Give me the phone!                             

Me:  Chris, you mean to tell me that you drove all this way without a spare tire?                                                                   

Chris:  I just bought new tires for the van.                               

Me:  Where are you?                                                                   

Chris:  We are on 53N.                                                                 

Me: Where at on 53N?                                                                

Chris:  I don’t know.                                                                        

Me:  Can you give me any idea from a street sign or anything?                                                                                    

Chris:  NO.                                                                                      

Chris:  We are where 53N Splits between local and express.  We are on the express side.                                                             

Me:  Let me call you back in a few minutes. 

After feverishly discussing with the wife our options, she thinks we need to find someone that can bring a van tire out to the scene and put it on.  I have never heard of such a service.  I started calling tow services and even triple A to explain the scenario and the best solution that anyone can come up with is to tow the car somewhere that they can fix the tire.  But the problem is that it is now 8:30pm on Thanksgiving eve.  There will not be a tire place open for another 38 hours.  On top of all of that, they are in the express lanes of one of the busiest highways in the suburbs and they have 5 children in the car.  It is not like the children can jump out of the car and walk off the side of the road.  A towtruck can only seat two adults.  What the hell are we going to do with all of the children? 

After I call my brother back to address these concerns, he tells me that he does have a spare tire but does not have a tire iron.  A cop pulls up as I am talking to my brother and I ask him if he can borrow a tire iron from the cop.  As the cop walks up I ask Chris to hand the phone to the cop, and the cop tells me that they have to drive a mile and get the hell out of there because the officer says, and I quote “They are going to get killed if they don’t move the car”.  My brother will not drive on the flat because he doesn’t want to ruin the rim.  I told the officer that I would call a tow truck, and he said that he would since he can get someone there very fast.  My brother does not have a credit card, so I told the officer to call me for payment.  I get back on the phone with my brother and now the challenge is the children.  What do we do with all of the children.  Oh, and it is now snowing very hard out.  I grab some pants, gloves, and a jacket and jump in my car to drive down to where they are.  The officer said they are right above Algonquin road on 53N.  That is a 45 minute drive for me.  So much for sleeping tonight since I haven’t even begun to prepare for the Thanksgiving meal.  By the time I see them on 53N the tow truck is there and my brother tells me that they are going to the Walmart auto center at Algongquin and Golf road.  The officer has 5 kids in his back seat and will follow the tow truck.  I meet them there and thanked the officer.  He laughed because he had never had so many children in his car before.  The children were all excited because they got a free ride in a cop car with the lights on and everything.  After the officer left we pulled all of their bags out of the van, and loaded everyone into my little chevy prizm.  3 adults and 5 children in my little car.  I felt like I was back in college.  The worst part of the drive home was that I had to drive slow and the fact that it smelled like the whole family had not bathed in a month.  It was snowing out, but I still kept my window down to combat the smell.  At 11:00pm we finally arrived at my place.  The children were so wound up at this point that they didn’t end up going to sleep for a few hours after they arrived. 

I hit the kitchen and began to prepare the meal.  I have so much more to write about but I will split this into several posts so that I don’t waste my whole day on this.  Some funny shit went down.  I don’t know if my post truly captured the essence of the situation, but I can say that I became angrier than I have ever been no less than 4 times throughout this process.  I would guess that I easily doubled my previous blood pressure record. 

To be continued…

Filed under: Blood, Cops, In laws, body, excuse, grouchy, mean, smelly, thanksgiving, train wreck, wife

Superholidayjinx

Moving forward I will never post about my family again. 

After reading that line, one might assume that something horrific happened and it had.  When you blog about how you feel about your family many bad things could happen.  Like they stumble upon the blog and read about your feelings that you might not ever say to them in person.  Would I ever tell them that I have an issue with their bathing frequency or infrequency?  No.  But I would tell any stranger that does not know me or them.  Until now. 

Yesterday I wrote about how rednecky my family is.  I wrote about my older brother’s family.  How he and his wife are anything but in love and how they might be required to bathe prior to a prolonged visit over the holiday.  I exaggerate sometimes.  Sometimes it isn’t as bad as what I write, but none the less it is bad.  I believe my blog yesterday may have triggered something somehow without directly being known by anyone in my family….I could stall longer, but I bet it’s getting annoying by now…

Last night, before my pool league, I received a call from my wife.  She said that my sister in law had just called her, and explained that DCFS had been called on them.  They were threatening to take away my nieces and nephews.  The DCFS worker was going to go back to their house Friday morning and then to the children’s school on Friday to interview the children.  Not to go too much further with this story, but now my sister in law is attempting to leave my brother and take the children and move out of their house and my brother had some sort of tae kwon doe touney that he chose to go to instead of staying home with the possibility of their children being taken away by DCFS and he doesn’t seem to care and they do not love each other and they have 5 children and they live in squalor.  Whew!  What a mouthful.  F’d up if you ask me. 

The scariest part of this whole issue was that if DCFS actually took away the children, they wouldn’t have gone to some home, they would have come to us.  My wife and I were about one ill tempered DCFS worker away from having all of my nieces and nephews living with us.  Wow.  I almost went from having no children to having a new household filled with 5 children a wife and a sister in law. 

I don’t know where I am going with all of this, but the preperation for my first time hosting Thanksgiving is getting better by the day.  My right eye twitch is pulsating as if it’s a McRibb and will only be around for a limited time.   From here on out I am going to keep the crazies in my family out of the blog world for fear that I have the feds reading every word I say.  Did I mention that I love the IRS?  I really, really do. 

Happy scary friday to all.  At least that was what it has been for me.  I spent an hour and a half denying family issues today by submerging myself in new home office furniture.  Amazing how spending money on me makes me forget about everything else that is wrong in my life.   The children get to stay with my sister in law, so that is good.  Big Gorilla off my back.  Boring weekend ahead.  Nothing too exciting going on except I anticipate grocery shopping for Thanksgiving and cleaning in preperation of the holiday.  Shopping for Thanksgiving might not be so bad after all since it is possible that no one will come.  Just so long as I have my hour two traditional hours with the turkey fryer and Captain Morgan, I won’t care about anything.  Captain…take me away…or is that Calgon…

Filed under: Cops, In laws, achy, confused, fight, grouchy, mean, pain, shower, sleepy, smelly, stink, stupid, train wreck, weird, wife, work

The Countdown begins…

…to Turkey day, that is.  One week away.  Last night I had my first of what will likely be many panic attacks this coming holiday season. 

I don’t know what hit me last night, but I was in desperate need of a big brown bag for the first time in my life.  This whole episode was brought on by a phone call from my little brother explaining that my mother will not be joining the rest of the family at my house for Thanksgiving this year.  Oops…there goes my first eye lid twitch.  The eyelid twitch is a common holiday tick of mine as well…

This will be the first year that I have hosted all of our family at my home for Thanksgiving.  I would like to say something about wanting a perfect holiday, but who am I kidding…?

When I think of my family, a distant sound of banjo music comes alive in the very back of my brain.  It’s like a family soundtrack of sorts.  The two go together.  Dueling banjos and my family.  Communication is funny with them as well.  Let me run down the trainwreck last night as all of the gossip spread around the family. 

Call 1:  I get a call from my little brother saying Mom isn’t coming up for Thanksgiving because Grandpa didn’t enjoy coming up to our house last year. (Gee, thanks for uncovering the lie that was how much fun it was last year)  If Grandpa doesn’t want to come, my mother will not leave him alone on Thanksgiving since my Grandmother has passed (Debbie Downer sound effect here).  My little brother needs a way up to my house for Thanksgiving.  I instruct him to call our older Brother to see if he can ride up with the village that is his family. One minivan, two adults, five children. 

Call 2:  I call my mother to confirm my little brother statements.  I get what I believe is a lie from my mother about why she isn’t coming up.  She has concocted an elaborate story about how she has been asked to work on Friday and that it isn’t that my Grandfather didn’t have a good time last year, he just wants to enjoy Thanksgiving with one of his girlfriends. (Yes he has a girlfriend now, my grandpa is a pimp at age 83.  Last I heard he has like 3 different girlfriends.) For every objection I overcome, I am hit with another.  After 10 minutes of objection body slamming, I have uncovered and overcame at least 10.  If you have never tried the “Feel, Felt, Found objection technique on you mother, I highly recommend it.  I even pulled out the OREOA (Objection, Restate, Empathize, Overcome, and gain Ageement)  method which had been gathering dust in a deep dark corner of my mind.  Finally, I just ask my mom if she just doesn’t want to come.  Once again she denied. I gave up.

Call 3:  Keep in mind that all of these calls took place within one hour.  Call again from my brother while I am wrapping up my call with my mother.  Shawn has confirmed that he can come up with my Brother and Sister-in-law and my 5 nieces and nephews.  I feel sorry that he has to endure the minivan of terror for 3 hours.  He told me that my brother’s family only plan on spending the night on Thanksgiving night and coming home on Friday.  I had invited them to stay for the whole weekend.  I have now become upset because I really wanted to see my nieces and nephews all weekend. 

Call 4:  Call to my Brother’s house in Central Illinois.  I ask my sister-in-law why they are going home on Friday.  She said that they didn’t want to impose since they will be bringing a village.  Cool by me.  Once again, I bust out the Feel, Felt, Found, and lock them in for the whole weekend.  Samantha (Sister in law) has concerns about where everyone will sleep.  Now that Mom isn’t coming, we have an open guest bedroom.  I ask if she and my brother would like it (snickering under my breath since I know that they don’t ever sleep in the same bed…that’s a whole different story about how much they are repulsed by the other…) and she quickly responds that my little brother can have the bedroom to himself.  Call ends. 

Call 5:  I get a call within 10 minutes from my older brother. That whole repulsed by each other thing is illustrated by the fact that my brother called me and wanted to ask me if it would be allright if they came up for Thanksgiving and stayed through Sunday.  I now go on a fun little mind adventure trying to figure out if Samantha told my brother to call me without telling him anything we had just talked about or if she is playing mind games with him.  I have deduced that he asked her what we talked about and she just shrugged her shoulders as she walked by and he wanted the details.  He, too, is excited to stay with us for the weekend.  We have hot water.  Last time I was down there, they did not due to their gas being turned off. 

One hour on the phone with my family is mentally as fun as the root canal was.  I’ll take another root canal please!

My wife and I have predicted that the children’s favorite part of the trip will be bathing with hot water.  We have actually scheduled a bath and shower party for Thanksgiving evening for my older brother and his family.  If you saw their house, you would understand.  I love them, but they are a very stinky smelly family.  I just mentally debated the question as to whether feelings would be hurt if upon arrival I pulled my brother and sister in law aside and asked for a mandatory bath/shower from the children before the Holiday festivities commence.  I will have to work on this…

Wow, that is just the beginning of the stress that will be my holiday season.  This isn’t even taking into consideration all of the cleaning, shopping, and cooking that I have.  I guess that what I am experiencing is pretty normal for adults on the Holiday season.  I would imagine that this is only starting to be a pain in my ass because I am getting older.  I wine more.  I can’t forget to add one supersized jug of Captain Morgan to my grocery list.  I have a feeling that the Captain and I will become pretty close this holiday season… 

Filed under: In laws, achy, beer, body, confused, grouchy, mean, pain, scared, shower, sleepy, smelly, sore, stink, stupid, train wreck, weird, wife

Your average everyday weekend fall guy

 

I am happy to announce that I am back at my desk and working hard on this Monday morning.  Something doesn’t work about that sentence since I am at work and actually typing on this site.  I am actually blessed to be here since I had a run in with the law this weekend.  Here’s the story:

Saturday evening my brother and sister in law bought tickets for my wife’s birthday to go see Josh Kelly and Sister Hazel at the Morton Arboretum.  On Friday I went onto the Arboretum site and was unfortunate enough to notice the fine print where it said “no alcohol is allowed to be brought into the concert, the Morton Arboretum will have beer and wine for sale at locations throughout the grounds….”  I questioned this little fine line since it was a very small and fine line.  Could they possibly staff the required amount of people to go through everything?  So, on the way to the concert we stopped by Jewel and I bought some Champagne, beer, wine, and a big bag of ice to go into my roller cooler that I won at a golf outing earlier this summer.  The cooler looks more like a rolling bucket with pockets galore.  Anyway, I filled it with booze, dumped ice on top as if I am trying to hide it all, and then covered everything with layers of subs from subway, taco dip, and snacks.  “Let’s see if they uncover any booze through all those layers!” I thought. When we arrived I decided to go even deeper with my mission to break the rule by stacking 4 of the chairs that collapse into the bag on top of my roller cooler and I even covered everything twith two blankets and a tarp.  By the time I was done, you couldn’t even tell that there was a cooler below everything.  As we neared the ticket takers I realized why the line was going slow when I saw tables set up beyond the gates.  I started to get a lump in my throat as we neared because out of the four of us, I had almost all of our stuff stacked on top of my cooler and I had gotten caught up in a very tight line 5 people back from my wife and the inlaws.  By the time I made it to the gate, they had all gone through security and then it was my turn.  The lady was checking everything.  She made me take my mountain of picnic apart so that she could get a glimpse inside my cooler.  After a minute of huffing and puffing on my part we finally got down to the cooler.  She opened it and went through it as if she were looking for a chemical agent that might be used to blow up the concert.   After she removed my layer after layer of food, she rummaged deep into the ice to find 12 bottles of beer and two large bottles for the Champagne and Wine.  She looked up at me as if I had just attempted to kidnap her first born.  With a disgusted face she looked over at a tent and screamed “This WHOLE COOLER!!!!  CONFISCATE THIS WHOLE COOLER!!!!”  I looked over at a tent that was 20 feet away and a cute old lady was there waiting for me to haul my bucket of happiness over to her.  On the tables surrounding this old lady was what I can only describe as what I hope heaven is like.  Liquor spread everywhere from all the dumbasses like myself who thought they would beat the system.  I was given a sticker and told I could come back after the concert and collect my cooler.  At least they allowed me to take it home.  Now I have 40 bucks worth of booze to enjoy alone in the comfort of my own home.  I acted as if I had no idea when the old lady took the cooler.  She felt really bad and apologized for having to confiscate my alcohol as I continued to feed her lines about this being my first time (which it was) and how I thought it was like ravinia (which it wasn’t).  So I guess it was only half lying. 

Let me just add a bit of commentary to the whole experience and policy of the Morton Arboretum. 

1.  The TSA should recruit each and every security volunteer from the Morton Arboretum.  These women were only volunteers and they did their job better than TSA workers who actually get paid to identify contraband.  If the TSA catches wind of this and decides to make a move, it is offically documented that it was my idea and I fully expect an recruiting finders fee of 20 percent of the annual salary. 

2.  The purpose of not allowing alcohol in, is not for the safety of the guests, or because it is a state run park, but purely greed.  They want the revenue from sales.  Well, screw them.  I came to the park to watch a concert and drink… not support an arboretum.  This is difficult for me to comprehend since Ravinia welcomes you to get smashed on your own dime.  So, to fight “the man” I didn’t drink one ounce of anything alcoholic the entire time I was there.  I think they call that “cutting off the nose to spite the face” or something like that.  Also we had very minimal cash and there was not a single mobile ATM to be found outdoors near the vendor tents.  If you will not allow credit card for liquor sales for a concert venue, then a cash station should be mandatory.  Charge people 3 bucks to withdraw twenty or forty…or whatever, but at least give people to get cash to buy your overpriced alcohol. (Which I still would not have done even if their was an ATM.) 

3.  The security people didn’t check inside the bags that held the folding chairs.  Anyone who wants to sneak alcohol into the park must simply just hide a good bottle of something strong (Captain preferably) into a chair and then fold it up so that everything squeezes nicely into the bag.  I couldn’t stop my thoughts throughout the entire concert about how I could sneak stuff in.  It was like a scab that I couldn’t stop picking at throughout the entire time I was there until the point that I went to get the cooler for our exodus. 

4.  Josh Kelly and Sister Hazel would have sounded a lot better after a few drinks.  Don’t get me wrong, they were very good but what doesn’t look, sound, taste, feel, smell better after you have had a couple of drinks?  (this last contention actually worried me about myself after I went back and read it…the fact that I didn’t change anything shows how much I give a damn.) 

Josh Kelly can not say “Arboretum”.  He kept calling it an Arbortorium.  He even confessed when doing a commercial for the “Morton Arboretum” at the beginning of his set that he was sorry for not being able to say the word Arboretum and went with “Arbortorium” another 3 or 4 times. 

Enough of this.  I have gone way too long.  Welcome to the last week of the summer month that is August.  Can’t wait for the 3 day weekend!

Filed under: Cops, In laws, beer, scared, weird, wife

Swimming in sewers

 

This morning I find myself feeling giddy about the weekend that is to come.  Nice little weekend ahead. 

Tonight I will attempt to go to Great America with my friend Mike and his children and utilize my new season pass.  This visit will depend a lot on the weather, of course.  If you have been in a coma and just woke up and stumbled upon this blog as your first internet site, you will be surprised to hear that Chicago and it’s suburbs pissed someone off to the point that we have had 8 straight days of horrific weather.  I think the longest I have gone in the last week without seeing a lightning strike or hearing thunder is around the 6 hour threshold.  If you would like to see Mother Nature make the city of Chicago and all it’s suburbs her bitch, go to this link:  http://wmaq.weatherplus.com/weathernews/13965125/detail.html?dl=mainclick  Over 500 photos of uprooted trees, impaled and crushed cars, lightning strikes, funnel clouds, collapsed buildings, flooded roads and stupid children who think flooded streets are sanitary to swim in.  Seriously though, who not only lets their children go out and play in a flooded street during an electrical storm, but also takes their picture?  On top of that, don’t they realize that they are “swimming” in sewer water?  The water would go into the sewers, but the sewers are maxed out allowing a direct path for all the crap that is in those sewers to spread into the wonderful water that your children is playing in.  Nice.  I  hope those kids didn’t have any open cuts or wounds or there could be a case of gang green in their future. 

As I mentioned tomorrow morning I am golfing with my brother in law, afterwards we have outdoor concert tickets and I am not trusting any of the weather men that say we are not going to get any rain this weekend.
On sunday I head down to central Illinois to enjoy the first of five fantasy football drafts.  And LaBambas.  I am almost looking forward as much to the burrito as I am the draft. 

On a random note, I have a company that wants to hire me to twist balloons for a family event.  Not really surprising but when I found out that they are approximately 250 miles away and willing to pay for my travel, I was pretty shocked.  I have submitted my costs for the trip.  I think I was fair, but wouldn’t they just want to hire a twister from their area and save a couple hundred bucks?  I’ll do it if they are willing to fork over the money.   

History tells me that I will have some interesting stories to tell about my time with my brother and sister in law this weekend on Monday.  Have a nifty weekend!

Filed under: In laws, balloon, beer, fantasy, scared, weird