We got back home today just in time for me to turn on the TV and see Ryan Fitzpatrick complete a short pass over the middle to Donald Jones. It seemed like a relatively insignificant play until Jones slipped a tackle, cut upfield, and turned it into a 68-yard touchdown. Just like that, the Bills had a 21-7 third quarter lead over the hated Patriots. Ralph Wilson Stadium was rocking, I was smiling, and life was good. Then the wheels fell off.
Today's game may very well have been the most pathetic performance by the Buffalo Bills since the first of two Super Bowl losses to the Cowboys. My weekend, which had been going so well, had hit a major speed bump. Since 3PM, I've been sighing heavily, groaning loudly, frowning continuously, and cursing (mostly silently). Kim and Jay are sick of me. Who can blame them?
Anyway, I'm going to try real hard to start thinking positively. I'll start by recapping my favorite three things about our trip up to Penn State to see Nick for Parent's Weekend.
- Visiting the Sigma Nu basement. I'd forgotten how awesome the smell of cheap stale beer in a fraternity basement can be. I'd also forgotten how great it is to have your sneakers stick to the floor with each step you take. Now, If only they had a real pong table.
- Seeing the Corolla parked in the lot at Hannah's dorm, freshly adorned with a '409' sticker. I just love her passion for JVP.
- Watching the Penn State - Illinois in the basement of Nick's dorm with him. Nobody's as passionate about football as Nick. Hearing him call for the return of the first-string defense as Illinois drove down the field, down 28 points, in the final minute of the game, sums it all up. High-fiving him after the second-teamers made a touchdown-saving tackle on the goal line on the final play was the capper.
I lied about covering only three things. I've got to add a fourth. This morning, I went for a run in State College. I left the Ramada on South Atherton Street and headed towards campus. (As an aside, do yourself a favor and never stay at the Ramada in State College -- it's the grossest hotel I've ever seen. Mind you, this is coming from someone who's also stayed at the Ramada in Altoona. I didn't think anything could be worse than that.) I ran into town, through the campus, and then decided to take a spin past the Paterno's. Wouldn't you know that SuePa has one of those cheap plastic holiday screen door liners adorning her front door? It's a Halloween one that shows a black cat peering out from behind a pumpkin. You've gotta love it.
I just sat down to write a farewell post to Andy Williams. Before doing so, I quickly checked e-mail. There waiting for me was a message from my mother. She'd beaten me to it with her own message, titled entitled "RIP, Andy."
Andy Williams was the male equivalent of Karen Carpenter with a voice that was pitch perfect and completely pure. But, before reading his obituary just now, the only song I was sure that Andy Williams sang was "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Of course, that just happens to be one of the greatest songs of all time, all because of that voice. In fact, whenever I want to demonstrate how completely awesome my own voice is, that's my go to song. It beats out "My Heart Will Go On," "The Greatest Love of All," "Beautiful," and even Ariel's theme from The Little Mermaid.
I'd forgotten all the other Andy Williams songs I used to hear in my house when I was little, songs like "Moon River," "Where Do I Begin," "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You," and "The Impossible Dream." Yes, they were my mother's favorites. But, hey, I liked them, too. It would be easy to say that I ony liked them because I was an impressionable 5-year old. But, I just listened to a couple of them again on YouTube. You know what? They're still good.
Tonight, I'm going to break one of my golden rules. I don't allow anyone in our house to listen to Christmas songs any earlier than the day after Thanksgiving. But, tonight, I'm going to listen to "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." I might even listen to it twice.
Last Wednesday was "biometric screening" day at work. Each year, Quest Diagnostics comes into the office, draws some of my blood, and measures my waist. It's all part of the annual process that the company follows. Each employee, and their spouse, has to get an annual screening to determine their cholesterol levels, waist circumference, and blood pressure. You not ony have to get these things measured -- you have to actually pass three out of the five items.
Last year, I passed with flying colors. So, when the e-mail with my results showed up on Saturday morning, I didn't think much of it. What could I possibly have to worry about, right? In fact, I forgot all about the e-mail until Sunday night. That was when I decided to catch up on a little work while waiting for the Ravens game to start.
As I started plowing through e-mails, I came upon the note from Quest Diagnostics. "I wonder how well I did this year?" I asked myself. As I opened the e-mail, I contentedly rubbed my belly, which was full after a nice meal of take-out Chinese (pork lo mein, pork egg foo yung, pork dumplings, and pork fried rice -- notice a theme there?). I clicked the link to the Quest Diagnostics results site and looked at my results. Big mistake.
Starting straight at me were two big red ALERT messages. My total cholesterol was 239, up from 222 last year. My LDL cholesterol was 148, up from 131 last year. Immediately, the denial started. "You've got to be kidding me," I yelled. Kim asked what had happened and I told her. "This is ridiculous," I explained. "No one better tell me what to stop eating. And, there's no way I'm taking any medications. I hate medications. They're the tools of the Devil."
No matter how much Kim tried to calm me down, all I could see was a life of misery:
- No more large orders of fries from McDonald's.
- No more evening snacks, standing at the kitchen counter, eating half a family-size bag of chips.
- No more roast chicken followed by a dessert of roast chicken carcass.
That was yesterday. I've calmed down a little bit. But, while the thought of my newly-diagnosed high cholesterol is still fresh in my mind, I've decided to have one last hurrah. I got home from a meeting at 1:30PM and still hadn't had lunch. I opened up the refrigerator to see what we had and found two small leftover steaks. "Yummm -- red meat," I said to myself as I threw both of them on a plate. For dinner, I had a big plate of leftover egg foo yung. Still hungry, I decided to cap my meal with a big piece of apple pie smothered in ReddiWip. Ahhhh!
Maybe I'll take my head out of the sand tomorrow.
Truth be told, I'm right 99.9% of the time. You know it and I know it. And, on the off chance that you don't know it, I'm bound to tell you.
Yesterday, at Jay's soccer game, the officiating was horrible. He's only 6 games into his varsity soccer career but I've already come to realize that high school officiating just stinks. Now that I think about it, it used to stink back when I played, too. At least, that's what I used to tell the refs who were on the field with me. You would have thought I'd know better, given that two of the guys who used to ref most of our home games at EFA were teachers at my high school. But, I just couldn't stop myself.
Anyway, now that I'm no longer on the field playing the game, you would think I'd be more relaxed. Not quite. I do OK at Jay's club games but the high school scene is altogether different. The refs don't run. They have no clue how to gauge offsides, even on a field that's lined for football! Best of all, there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to the fouls that they call. Boys get stomped on while they're down -- no call. Boys trip over their own feet -- direct kick. It's maddening.
After one particularly egregious offsides call during the second half yesterday, a call that thwarted a sure scoring chance for Jay's team, I had had it. I cupped my hands to my mouth and half-screamed, half-shouted "Booooooo!!!" I held it out as long as I could. Then, after taking a quick breath, I finished with a "You're horrible!" for good measure.
Kim was mortified. Now that I think about it, so am I. But, I have to admit -- it felt good. As much as I don't want to ever do it again, I'm not going to make any promises.
By the way, just 6 games into his varsity career, Jay's already won more games than me. We were 2-17 one year and 1-18 the next. He's sitting pretty at 4-1-1. I hope it doesn't go to his head.
Last time I sat down to write a post, I had good intentions of writing about the transition I've recently made from hand-me-down's to hand-me-up's. Instead, I took a bit of a U-turn and ended up telling a story about cat-heads. Let's get back to hand-me-up's.
One of my mother's friends from nursing school was a nice lady named Mrs. May. Every year or two, Mrs. May would pay a visit. Mrs. May had a couple of kids who were a few years older than me. One was a boy. I used to look forward to Mrs. May's visits. It wasn't because she was bringing her son along for the trip. In fact, I don't think I ever met him. No, I looked forward to those visits because it meant I might be getting some hand-me-down's.
Based on the clothes that showed up with Mrs. May, her son appeared to be quite a bit taller than me. That didn't matter. Remember, it was the late 1970's. Rolling up your jeans was fashionable (I think). I'd tear through the bag of hand-me-down's that Mrs. May left behind, grab the jeans, put them on, cinch my belt, roll the cuffs up a couple of times, and loudly announce "Yes, they fit perfectly." Without those hand-me-down's, I don't think I would ever have had a pair of jeans, at least not until I started using my paper route money to buy my own clothes.
I know most people probably don't like to wear other people's used clothes. When I was growing up, I never had that problem. And, I still don't.
You see, a couple weeks back, Nick was cleaning out his closet. Whenever that happens around here, we end up with a pile of clothes in our bedroom closet. Kim then bags them up and off they go to AmVets. This time, before she could get Nick's old clothes in their bags, I walked into our closet and saw a huge pile of clothes just sitting there on the floor. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "Some of those clothes don't look that bad. Nick's bigger than me now. If these clothes no longer fit him, I bet they might fit me."
The next thing I knew, I was standing there in my underwear, trying on Nick's old shorts, t-shirts, and sweatshirts. It was like Christmas morning (if you spend Christmas morning in your underwear, that is). After going through everything, I ended up with four pairs of shorts, a bunch of shirts, and a really nice Bucknell sweatshirt. Yes, the shorts are a couple years out of style. No, I don't care. I'm wearing my hand-me-up's.
Just think. In a couple more years, I can do it all over again with Jay's clothes. I can't wait.
When I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of money. That meant that new clothes were a bit of a rarity. And, when you did get something new, it was almost never the same brand that all the other kids were wearing.
Up until I was in high school, each August I used to go shopping with my mother for a back-to-school "outfit." An outfit most likely meant a new shirt with color-coordinated corduroy pants. I still remember one pair of new pants that my mother picked out in one of my last elementary school years. They were Wranglers from Sears. Better yet, they were rust-colored. I think I wore them once and then stuffed them as far back in my closet as they would go. They may still be there for all that I know.
I remember another time when I needed a new pair of sneakers. This was 7th grade but I remember it vividly. At the time, everyone's sneakers were Nike's, Adidas, or Converse. I, of course, had a pair of cat-heads.
I have no idea why my sneakers were called cat-heads. I just know that's what junior high kids in Elmira called any sneakers that weren't one of those name brands. Nobody wanted to have cat-heads. But, that was my fate at the time.
Soon enough, my latest pair of cat-heads had worn through. So, my mom took me downtown one evening for a new pair of sneakers. I was determined not to get another pair of cat-heads. I couldn't imagine getting a brand new pair and sporting them in the halls of Ernie Davis Junior High School. It would have been the ultimate humiliation.
Anyway, my mom took me straight to a shoe store that sold absolutely no name-brand sneakers. I was in turmoil inside. How was I going to convince her that none of these were right? While I tried to figure that out, she had the salesperson pull a couple pairs of shiny new white cat-heads out for me to try. I sullenly began to try them on. Just as I got my first foot in, who should walk in the store but some girl from my school. I remember to this day that her first name was Laurel but I've forgotten her last name. I think it was Smith. Even if I'm wrong, you have to admit that Laurel Smith is such an Elmira name.
So, there I was. I had one foot squarely in a new cat-head. The store was so small that there was no way Laurel couldn't see me. She was with her mom. That didn't stop her from looking at me, seeing the cat-head on my foot, and loudly pronouncing "Meow."
That was it. There was no way in hell I could let my mother buy me those cat-heads. I couldn't face an entire school day of meow's from my classmates. I can't remember if I said anything or if my mom could just see the look on my face. It was probably the latter. In any event, before I knew it, we were in Harold's Army-Navy, the only cool store in downtown Elmira. My mother walked right over to the sneaker section with me and we pulled down a pair of Nike low-top canvas shoes. They were the cheapest Nike's in the store but, by God, I was going to get them. Within minutes, we were out the door, new Nike's in hand. It was at that moment that I decided that there actually was a God.
The next day, I saw Laurel in school. "I saw you trying on those cat-heads," she said with a smirk as she looked down at my new Nike's. That was it. Nothing more. She just wanted to be sure that I knew that she knew. Isn't middle school awesome?
You know, I had an entirely different story in mind when I sat down to write this. It had to do with clothes but, somehow, this came out. I'm not sure how that happened. I'll get to the other story eventually.
There are some negatives to only having one kid at home:
- The audience for my evening comedy routines is smaller.
- I have fewer opportunities to ask "Who are you texting?"
- I actually have to take my turn bring the garbage and recycling down to the curb.
Of course, there are also some positives:
- I have almost exclusive control of the family room remote.
- There are fewer light switches for me to turn off as I walk around the house.
- There are fewer stools for me to push back into their proper position around the island each time I walk into the kitchen.
The best thing, though, is that Kim is still making the same size desserts even though the head count in the house has fallen from five to three. Early last week, I had razzleberry pie three nights in a row -with Cool Whip, nonetheless. Then, it was on to Kim's world-famous lemon bars. She cut them in extra-large portions and it still took me almost a full week to finish them. In fact, I polished off the last square at lunch today.
Fifteen minutes ago, I just had a slice of cherry pie. That was slice number three. And, believe it or not, there's still a slice waiting for me to finish off tomorrow evening. I may need another pair of shorts with an elastic waist band before summer's officially over.
... of losing. I'm tired of Penn State losing. I'm tired of the Bills losing. But, mostly, I'm tired of losing to Jay in Ping Pong.
I can't remember the last time I beat Jay in Ping Pong. Perhaps there was one time in the past twelve months where I came out a winner. But, I'm not sure. We've probably played 150 games this calendar year alone. He's beaten me every time. It's usually not even close.
I just played him five times -- twice before dinner and three times after. The closest I got was 16-21. By game four, I was calling out to God (literally). "Where are you, God? Why aren't you helping me?" I shouted. "Are you even paying attention? You were there for the Eagles and RGIII earlier today. Where are you now?" It did no good. I got no answer. All my shouting did was reinforce to Jay that I'm unstable.
By our last game, I could tell Jay was taking it easy on me. That just made me angry. Of course, that didn't help my concentration. I hit a ball long. Then I missed the table with a forehand. My next return hit the top of the tape and fell back to my side. Before I knew what was happening, I was down 12-20. Then I won two points in a row. Perhaps this was going to be it -- my amazing comeback victory. No such luck. I hit another shot into the net and that was it.
"Well," I told myself, "at least I'm losing to the Corolla Light champion." Somehow, that didn't make me feel too much better.
Today, I drove up to Blue Bell for the day. Normally, when I head up there, I don't pack my lunch. When I opened the refrigerator for breakfast this morning, though, I saw a couple pieces of leftover pizza already sitting in a Ziploc bag. "Hey," I thought. "I can save a whopping $4 if I bring this for lunch today." That did it for me and into the bag went the pizza.
Traffic wasn't bad and, after a couple of conference calls on the road, I got up to Blue Bell around 9:30AM. I headed into the building, turned on my laptop, and officially started my day.
Everything was going fine -- until 10AM, that is, when I realized I'd forgotten to pack a snack. For the past year or so, I've found it increasingly difficult to get through the morning without a mid-morning snack. Usually, a granola bar is all I need to get me through til lunch time. But, there I was -- stuck in Blue Bell, on calls, with nothing to eat. I figured I could tough it out. After all, I had my leftover pizza to look forward to for lunch.
I wrapped up my morning calls promptly at 11AM. I was supposed to be free from then til 1PM. That should have left plenty of time for lunch. But, as more people found out I was actually in the office, I started to find a line at my door. One after another, co-workers showed up to ask a question or just chat. My stomach was growling but I couldn't break out my lunch while holding court, could I? There were only two pieces of pizza and I wasn't in a sharing mood.
Before I knew it, it was 12:45PM. I was starving. But, the line had finally come to an end. I had 15 minutes to eat my lunch. That should be plenty of time. I pulled the Ziploc bag out of my little lunch container, opened it up, reached in to grab a piece of pizza, and promptly dropped it on the floor.
I don't know how it happened but it did. There sat my beautiful piece of pizza, directly on top of the dirty carpet in the shared office that I'd claimed for the day. It had landed crust-side down. Could I still eat it?
In a split second, multiple questions popped into my head:
- Had anyone besides me actually seen the pizza hit the floor? A quick check of the doorway indicated that the answer was "no."
- How dirty could the floor really be? And, if I didn't look at the pizza to see if anything was now stuck to it, did it really matter anyway?
- If I decided to eat an entire piece of pizza that had fallen on a dirty office floor, would anyone ever find out about it?
The answer to my dilemma was easy. I was hungry. There was no way I was going to spend $4 on another bad sandwich after schlepping my lunch all the way from Dayton to Blue Bell. I was eating that piece of pizza.
Well, here I sit, almost 7 hours later. I haven't had any negative side effects yet. I'm thinking I made the right choice.
When Hannah was home this summer with control of the family room remote, the odds were pretty good that she was watching one of four shows:
- Anything starring a Kardashian
- Million Dollar Listing Los Angeles
- Any of the Real Housewives sagas
- Law & Order:SVU.
I'd like to take this time to thank her -- other than the Kardashians, all those shows are winners. And, now I can say nothing but good things about new friends like Madison Hildebrand, Josh Flagg, Aviva, Ramona, and Detective Benson
Right now, I'm sitting here watching an episode of Law & Order: SVU. And, yes, I'm locked in til 9PM.
The first few times I saw the show, I made fun of it. I had a long list of complaints: the story lines were too predictable, the dialogue was laughable, and the characters were too one-dimensional. But, as I started to watch more episodes of the show, I began to realize that these things were actually what appealed to me.
You see, sometimes, what I really want from my TV viewing is a simple story that doesn't require much thought and neatly resolves itself in one hour. That, my friends, is Law & Order: SVU in a nutshell.
I'm not proud to call myself a fan but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't one.
