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Archives : Jan’04 Feb’04 Mar’04 Apr’04 May’04

Thu May 20 15:30:43 2004

Party pictures are up. Sorry it took so long. Enjoy.

Mon May 17 14:22:42 2004

The party on Saturday was a raging success. The food was good, the drink copious, and the company outstanding and in good spirits. The topic of much of the night was the second degree burns on my chest, so I'll take a minute and tell that story first.

This was Friday night: I had a two pound brisket that I wanted to sear. I had it on the end of a fork, with my arm covered with a dish towel (to protect from the spattering), which I began to slowly lower into my 1/4 inch of hot oil in my cast iron skillet. In my other hand was the lid which was to cover the meat. As soon as the tip of the brisket touched the oil, the spattering triggered one of those damned reflexes which caused me to drop the brisket splashing forth several ounces of hot oil onto my chest. I quickly covered the skillet, used the towel to wipe off my chest, and cussed. I was rather surprised that it didn't hurt too much, kinda like hot water maybe. But after a few seconds it began to burn, and hurt. So, I dumped some cold beer on it (the first thing handy). That worked for a few seconds, but then the pain returned. So I remembered a bottle of aloe in the fridge from ages past. I smeared a handful of that all over. That worked long enough for me to flip the meat to the other side (without incident). Again the pain returned. I began to realize that topical chemicals alone weren't going to do it, so I took my last three aspirin, and chugged my beer. I don't keep anything stronger than aspirin in my house because I think pain serves a useful purpose. In this case it was my brain's way of telling me, "DUMBASS, wear a shirt when you cook with grease!" Which I think was an important lesson at this time. I tried calling the new GF to take my mind off of it, but I wasn't getting the level of sympathy that I was looking for, so I gave up (to be fair, I think I grossly understated the depth of my injuries.) The uncontrolled writhing was unbecoming, so I had to lie down and disengage my brain and sleep it off until morning.

The next day I spent a great deal of time cleaning and getting ready for the party. The new GF (Michelle) showed up early to help out with that effort. After a while she finally asks, "So, show me this burn that you were going on about last night." I lifted my shirt, to which she exclaimed, "Oh my God!" and nearly drove off the road. You know you've got a good injury when you can make a nurse exclaim, "Oh my God!" She apologized profusely for doubting my reasons for calling her and made it up to me.

Back to the party - Michelle brought some excellent cookies and brownies, Maxwell brought an outstanding cake made by Karen, and Adrian gave me The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating and Sex which was funny not only because of the subject matter, but the fact that most of the advice would probably really work. It covered topics such as, "How to have sex in small places", "How to tell if your date is a transsexual", and "How to survive waking up next so someone whose name you don't remember." I made some shrimp, chicken and beef kabobs, and also 12 pounds of deep fried wings that came out excellent. (Made sure to wear a shirt while operating the fryer) The whiskey inspired some stair-sledding latter in the evening, but details on that are a bit hazy... Also hazy is my reasoning behind putting in Cemetery Man. Anyway, that wound the evening down, at an hour unknown to me.

Wed May 12 11:27:38 2004

The gavel has fallen.

Well, metaphorically. The judge didn’t actually have a gavel, but the divorce proceedings concluded successfully. The lack of a banging gavel denied me the opportunity to jump around and play my air guitar, or let out a Homer-Simpsonesque "WooHoo!" but that might have been a good thing. The whole thing was rather anti-climatic, actually. We got there early, fetched our file from the bailiff, got it verified by someone whose job I don't understand, and then returned the file to the bailiff. Then we waited in the courtroom to be called. We were first. The bailiff swore us in, and the judge asked us each three questions (paraphrasing): "Are you the person described in this document?" "Do you live where this document says you live?" "Are you the parent of the child described in this document?" and with that he said, "OK, well you both already agreed to live my the terms of this (separation agreement) document, and the court finds this document to be fair and equitable (as he flips the pages with his thumb), and so your divorce is granted. I wish you both the best of luck." And with that, there was nothing left to do, but say, "Thank You" and exit the courthouse a free man. The meter that I parked my car at and put an hours worth of change in still had 20 minutes left on it. So ends a chapter of my life that can best be described as a comedy of errors, and a new chapter begins (hopefully with a different theme this time).

Listening to: "I'm Free" by The Soupdragons

Thu May 6 17:15:15 2004

I have to give props to Maxwell for today's post. A little respect and effort can go a long way when it comes to maintaining relationships. You get out of them what you put in. I recently used the analogy that a relationship is a lot like car maintenance. You can do nothing, and drive the car until it breaks, and then you're left without a car, resenting the car, while you go through great pains to get it fixed. Or, you can use the preventative maintenance approach, and give it some care and feeding from time to time. You'll get much more out of the car (and the relationship) that way.

Mon May 3 15:03:57 2004

The Subaru is not invincible. I managed to get it stuck in the mud yesterday. I had previously driven through my rather rough yard in order to back up to my woodpile with no problems. However, yesterday, it was raining all day before I tried said same maneuver. I backed up to the woodpile, unloaded my firewood, and when I tried to go forward, I went down instead. All the way down to the frame. I spent some time digging and stuffing gravel and blankets under my tires to no avail. I called a tow service which hemmed and hawed a bit and threw out the number 100 plus tax, if I'm lucky. The phone conversation was rather short after that. "Um, No." So, I swallowed my pride, and crossed the street to talk to my neighbor whom I've only ever waved to before. He has a nice big-ole-tractor sitting in his driveway. I introduced myself and he was more than happy to help out. (What guy with a tractor would pass up an opportunity to do something cool with it?) The tractor easily pulled the Subi out, and in exchange for his help I gave my neighbor 15 eggs. Funny how 15 eggs + good neighbor > 100 dollars.