Water Polo Practice has been put off for a bit...

The other day I was minding my own business and craving a nice bowl of tomato bisque from one of the local establishments by the office and decided to stroll down there rather than take the drive. This restaurant is really only about a half a mile away, but little did I know that there was much danger to avoid. While crossing in the crosswalk, a man in a SUV decided to make a left-hand turn without looking to see if there were any passerby's obstructing his march to Wendy's. Unfortunately, I was there to check if his bumper was clean. I didn't know if it was in my job description, but I did try and avoid any more responsibilities than I could afford at the time. I was blindsided in the back, and ended up on the hood of a mustang. Fortunately, the generous man did get out of the car and asked if I was "ok". Hindsight is 20/20 when telling him that I was and hearing the screeching wheels as he pulled away. White, early model 2000(or so) Ford Explorers are a bit hard to find, apparently. After a quick field check-up, I knew exactly what was wrong with me, and went in for a quick x-ray to make sure that my lungs were in stable condition. I didn't have the time to stick around and chit chat with the Dr. on call, so I made an appointment to speak with him later after work (fine... call me a dork for going back to work). Honestly, I had a few big deals on the line that day, and I couldn't let them go. Diagnosis? I've got two broken ribs with a 4-6 week healing time and slim to nothing on the SUV. I showed my new E-Dr. my old charts and he renigged on his earlier diagnosis and told me that there could be a full recovery within 2-3 weeks. GOT MILK?

Freedom's Vacuum

I have been on the fence, for a short while, about rolling over and exposing my own soft pink underbelly to a group of people, whom for the most part are comprised of those I have not yet met. A few of you know about this dramatic change in my life, while most of you have been in the dark. I have decided to pull the lightchain looming in the vacancy of my closet.

Not too long ago, my father asked me out to dinner. We ended up at a place that you could not supersize it, the napkins were actually folded into little hats, and there was more than one kind of fork to use. My father usually won't spring for more than a foot long sub from subway unless he wants something... I knew that I was in for something big.

My family, with exception to my aunt and father, have rooted themselves sporadically throuought the nation; whereas my father, my aunt and myself are really the only people close in proximity to aid in the care of my grandmother. My eighty year old grandmother as a variety of health complications, with the most sever being Diabetes, CHF (Congestive Heart Failure), and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). Over the past year, she has been in and out of treatment facilities and because the constant hospitializations, has had experenced a large degree of muscular atrophy. Although my aunt does have a big heart and a will of ample size, she does not have the best bed-side manner to accompany her willfull givings.

Over crab legs and a coule of beers, my father asked if I would move in with them to educate my aunt on how to procede with the physical therapy for my grandmother, to help around with the daily labor associated with home living (i.e. yard maintenance, repairs, etc...), and try and give my grandmother a new perspective about her medicines/treatment. At first, my selfish instincts were to say "No" because I did enjoy my freedoms. Instantly I felt as if my independence would be lost to a vacuum of famillial aid. Even though I knew that my cost of living would dramatically go down, I could not help but weigh it against of what I felt was the cost of loosing my freedom. I was shocked at my casual manner in saying "Ok". I understood that I would have to start assisting my grandmother with the most menial of activites, all of which we take for granted on a daily basis, and that upon my arrival that my aunt would become overtly passive in the care of her mother. Although I did not bring up the subject over a such a nice dinner, and did not want to break a smile of relief from my father, I knew that I would have to sit down with him over another meal to discuss further options if more active degredation of my grandmother's abilities became apparent. I knew that I would sit him down over a schooner and a couple of pickled eggs to discuss whether family home care would be too much of a burden and to have her taken care of with exterior resources.

Now that I've been here for a short stint, I have noticed a change in my grandmother's health and have been able to retain most of my freedoms that I thought were to be lost. She has been more responsive to her physical therapy, and we seem to have been able to take the word "can't" out of her vocabulary. Things are looking better as of now, but with her fragile health conditions can change direction like a tornado at any instant. She told me the other day that she was not ready to kick the bucket just yet, so not to get my hopes up of laying claim to the plastic cowboy boot cup that I used to covet as a child. I guess that a couple months of observation wouldn't hurt.

Yo, Jesus! Pass me the ball!

In a stunning defeat over the children, Jesus performed yet another miracle in the 4th quarter....

Now I have seen it all

Implications? Discuss

Blind Date (Yeah Sarah I know I lagged on this one)

A recent fly fishing trip, with my buddy Chris, was the beginning of one of the most interesting dates that I was ever so fortunate to take part in. Mid cast, I hear Chris protest, "We need to find you a woman.". The shock from this statement ran the length of my pole, whipping the fly from the end of its leader. Bye Bye Lucky Fly. Feeling a little irked at the loss of my favorite fly, I reached down into the leg of my trusty waders and produced a cold beer. Even though I lost my Lucky Fly, I was destined to catch something that day.

"You keep your beer in your waders?"
"Yep, it keeps 'em cold that way and I always know where I left 'em."

Unbenounced to him, I had put his beer down the other pant leg of my waders, while he was upstream, just to see how long he would commit to an exercise in futility looking for the runaway Silver Bullets. As he was so elegantly bouncing from rock to rock, looking for his libations, I bellowed out, "Why do I need a woman?" That was enough for him to slip and have a quick dip in the icy waters. "Cuz it's going to be cold this winter," he professed like I lacked the skills to operate a thermostat, let alone a book of matches. "She's got personality!"

Great... Something for me to ponder on the trek back to camp. "I'm going to head back. Here's a beer while you keep looking for yours." My good friend already had someone in mind for me. He and his scheming lover had conspired to find me a match. How much faith could I put into someone that couldn't remember what rock he left his fishing beer by? Later that night, I would tell him about how bears have adjusted to human intrusion, digging through trash, licking empty fishing beers, scavenging and such, and how they are also attracted to shiny objects (much like their distant cousin, the racoon), and must have found a goldmine in his secret stash. Hook, Line and Sinker.

"Sinker"... A term which brings me to this blind date that I agreed to go on. For two days, all he would tell me about Angie is that she "had a personality". Paper has a personality--FLAT. He asked me to trust him, that I would love her when I saw her, yada, yada, yada. Just to get him to shut up about the whole subject I agreed to go along with his plan. All of this did make me wonder what charity he was acting over to execute this plan. I think that I am a fairly decent looking gentleman, if you can get past the egg-shaped melon, and conversations with women go well as long as just nod my head and keep offering drinks! Whatever his intentions were I figured that you only live once, so I might as well give Angie a shot.

On the way home, when we entered back into civilization (i.e. cell range), Chris immediately got on the horn with his co-conspiritor to rattle off the good news. She wanted to talk to me and told me stories of beauty, fame, and the like. It were those last words from her that were drumming through my mind as I pulled alongside Angie's curb. I ran over my mental checklist to make sure that I was fashionable for Angie's expectations. Do my shoes match my belt? Check! Good watch on? Check! No squirrelly eyebrow hairs that might attract unnecessary attention? Check! (And you girls don't think that us guys pay attention!) I rang the doorbell and could hear a brief bit of rustling from emerging deep within the house. As the door opened, I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. My innards were reduced to that of elementary youth passing a note for the first time in class-- Do you like me? Check the box "Yes" or "No". Angie was two scoops of hotdigittydamn alongside a nice slice of aaaaaalright! For a brief moment I could actually hear my brain's bulb pop and any intelligible light fade out, "Uh, I'm here to pick up Angie,". Yeah--Smooth Move, ExLax... How many other people live in a one bedroom house. After quick introductions, and a jaunt down the walk to my car, I opened the door for her to start off our evening. She paused, and tossed those amber waves over her shoulder, giving me this blank stare, and looked a little perterbed as she sat down in the passenger seat. The sound of the car door closing snapped my instincts into play. What was that look for? Did I do something wrong? Do I smell funny? I had to walk around the back of the car so that I could perform the quick predate doublecheck smell test. Nope, I was just fine in that department; it must be my eyes playing tricks on me.

I decided to park my car a block away from this privy little restaurant so that we could walk through the various shops and strike up a little conversation along the way. We talked about past experiences in school, what work was like for us, likes, dislikes, just your random rigamarole of first date discourse. We stopped and looked at different gifts from the stores, picked up some flowers at the corner vendor, paused to watch some children playing in the midsummer night air. Everything was picture perfect until I reached out for the restaurant door handle...

"Ok, you can stop there. Opening the car door for me was a complimentary gesture, spontaneous flower buys can make any woman smile, but you don't have to open that door for me. I am a LIBERATED woman."

I could feel the brain firing back up again.

"I just want you to know that with every door you open for me, with every coat that you offer against the biting cold, that I am your equal. I can open my own doors. I have my own coats. I don't need a man to assert his dominance over me devaluing all that women have fought for, understand?"

Chivalry said what?

Oh yeah, I understood. I understood that we might be taking a cab home after I get a little sauced up to make it through this one. Note to self: steal Chris's beer on next year's trip as well. I let her open the door, and she smiled. AHHH, I got her to smile. I just wish that I had one of those Rainman moments so I could count how many rows of teeth there were. I don't want to give people the wrong impression here. I am all for equality among the sexes, but really now, did she have to take it that far? We proceded to the bar to have a cocktail before we were seated. I made feeble attempts at idle chit chat but really wanted to head off to the bathroom to find out how far the emasculation went. I felt like a jerk, but could find no reason to validate such a feeling. We were seated by the waiter and told that he would return with some water and bread. She asked me if she could order anything on the menu that she wanted. I had no objections, knowing that with a question like that she was going staight for the golden ticket... I thought I might be going straight for Mr. Daniels. Needless to say, I am glad that the food came fast, and there was plenty of it. It's rude to talk with your mouth full, so I made a point to keep filling mine. Waiter? More bread, please. This date went down faster than Divine Brown and Hugh Grant in a limo. I was relieved to see the waiter approaching with our bill. As he started to make his gesture of handing me the bill, I slyly pointed over to Angie. I had to fight the urge to compare the size of one of the dinner plates to the gaping hole of her mouth in the shocked slackjaw expression so liberally painted across her face. Exit waiter, enter utter shock.

"You expect me to pay for dinner?!?"
"Um, I think I might have lost my wallet."
"Where? On the way to the bathroom?"
"Yes, on the way to the bathroom." I didn't think that she was buying it.
"I didn't bring my wallet OR my credit card."

The waiter was approaching again in the middle of our little tiff. "Sir, we found your wallet by the bathroom door." Whew, giving this guy an extra $20 in the washcloset hallway to help facilitate my exit strategy was well worth it. I thanked him and offered a reward, but he refused. He knew better after our little pow wow.

"So I take it that you don't want to go dutch then."

Her eyes hit the floor and I could feel the earth start to rumble beneath my feet. She couldn't stand it that she had made a faux pas. I could see the colors fading on the tile from her piercing stare. It was time to go home.

No radio, no words, just the hum of my tires on the highway... and a small squeek when I hit a red light. Note to self, check brakes in the morning. There was a sense of deja vu as I pulled alongside her curb. I was not going to make a move to walk her to the door, that's crossing the line, big time! After what seemed like an awkward century passed with no movement from the passenger seat, I decided to remove myself from the vehicle and open her door to check and see if she had turned to stone. She said thank you and gestured for me to accompany her along the journey to her door. Under the soft light of the moon I caught a glimpse of what drove me to those earlier sophomoric feelings that I had upon her reception. We made it to the door without injury, and as I started to turn away, I heard a small "m orry"

"What?"
"I'm sorry."
"That's O.."
"No! Uh, sorry for interrupting, but you don't know how hard this is for me to say. Look, I was a true bitch to you tonight. I make messing up an artform. I'm sure that you and Chris will have a good laugh about it later."
"Angie, what happened tonight stays between us. Thank you for the apology. It's ok... I understand."

I started to make my way down the steps and,

"Wait!"
Good gawd, what now.

"Can I make it up to you? Would you like to come inside and have a couple drinks?"
"I appreciate the offer, but I have to get up pretty early tomorrow. Thank you for the evening."

Whoa! What a turn of events! The thought had crossed my mind to tell her about a Lifetime special that I had to get up early to watch so that I could get my sensitivity training in for the week, but I'm not one to throw salt in any wounds. I almost accepted her offer of a nightcap, but after an entree of emasculation, I didn't want to take the chance at having my hoodaddy stuck in a pickle slicer for dessert.