I Continue To Miss Soccer Goals

I've started my day on Apple TV watching the MLS Toronto-Colorado Match while thinking up what I want to blog post about.  And with the Rapids up 2-0 and this being, well, soccer, I let my attention wander, both to my phone and also to this laptop.

I have spoken before about missing Goals because I was looking at my phone.  Well, Toronto scored while I was looking at my lap (specifically theoretical high-speed rail networks in the Midwest), then they tied it up while I was looking at my The Athletic app.  And I'll be goddamned: That is when I finally got the inspiration to blog post, and as I started this blog post, TFC scored again to take a 3-2 lead.

This would have been a sensational Game to pay attention to.  Instead, I saw none of the three Goals of this comeback, and right now, I want to kill myself.

It's July 2025 All Over Again

So last week I was at My Favorite Coffeeshop doing, among a couple other things, going through my receipts.  Serves me right to get them all in order but not bring my day planner so I could write the amounts down.  Anyway, I have this leather pouch from culture and lifestyle magazine Monocle, which I bought when I went to Hong Kong, that I purchased just so I can shove all my receipts in it.  I haven't done a good job of cleaning it out, though, because as I was doing some digging, I saw a few receipts that were in there should have been accounted for.  They were from July 12 of last year.

In my day planner, I write down all the things I paid cash for, then see whether I spent more money than I got from the bank or not, and by how much.  To be honest, and this may not make sense, in all but, oh, three months since I started this way back in my twenties, I have finished a month taking out more money from my account than spending it.  Anyway, at the end of every month, I make a table and write all my cash transactions (what I spent and what I took out of an ATM) down.  For the month of July, I now had to re-do that table.  Moreover, I am rewriting it for a third time; it turns out there were some receipts from July 12 of last year I found, presumably in that pouch, after I did this month-end table the first time.

It's all done.  Wait -- I can't say that with any conviction.  There could be other receipts.

OK, So We Have A Date My Parents Will Finally Leave ...

... and it's about a month from now.  Oh, well. ...

Thing is, they wanted to leave next week.  I would've loved it.  It just so happens, however, that was the same day of the memorial service for the family friend who died a week ago.  I asked my boss before I left work yesterday/Friday if I could take that afternoon off; even though it was short notice, he said yes.  And so I assumed that my folks would want to pay their respects, too.  Besides, it was going to be short -- an hour to mill around and say hi, and then an hour for the service, and I guess there will be stuff to eat afterward, but that's when we could just go home.  But Mother was looking for flights on that day because they were going to be as cheap as they would be before prices went up for the holidays.

Honestly, this was a dick move by them -- and not surprising.  They don't want to be here, especially in the cold.  And when Mother got the all-clear from the physician who performed knee surgery on her, I knew it was going to be a matter of time before they were going to skedaddle.  And still I thought they were going to listen to the angels of their better nature and go to the service.

Was I going to push this?  No.  Technically, the flight Mother was looking at was going to fly out around noon.  I could take them in the morning, come back, get dressed and go to the service by myself.  That would have been fine.  I think that if my boss let me go for the afternoon, he'd let me go for the whole day.  Also, I think it's important that someone from the family go to the funeral.  Ideally it should be all of us, but if my parents' friendship with her was fake, whatever.  What mattered to me was that I go to the service to pay my respects to the lady who lived just a couple houses down from us and who was always nice to us.

Now, I guess I could have headed this conflict off if I knew before yesterday/Friday that next week was the service, but I kept forgetting to check the date.  Also, it is a bitter irony that the day they were going to leave just so happened to be the same fuckin' date of the service.  If the service were the day before, it would've been perfect.  Alas, I am trying not to be angry.  This is about saying goodbye, after all, and this neighbor's death has me thinking about how my parents are still around, though not forever.

So, my ever-parsimonious Mother decided she would look for the next date with tickets as cheap as the one next week.  And that date is ... the first week in January!  Because of the funeral service, my parents will be here for another 3 1/2 weeks!  Like I said, I'm trying not to hate God for this.  There are some plusses to them staying.  For example, even though Mother has been cleared to get on a plane, her doctor advised her to continue walking because the threat of blood clots is still there.  However, the doc also said that risk decreases over time, so I want to think that the chances of her getting a blood clot will be notably less in January than next week.  Also ... well, I guess it's alright that I can be with my folks for the holidays, even though that wasn't their initial plan.  (When Mother bought the tickets, she said Father wanted to spend the holidays with me.  That's ... well, bullshit.)

OK, I can't think of too many upsides to them being here for the holidays.  I would like to them to be gone.  With my parents out of the state, I could go out to this bar on Christmas Eve, but that would be too weird now.  And I guess there are 3 1/2 more weeks of us starting a fight over something or other.  Whatevs.  They've been here since April, I think, so what's another month at this point?  Besides, and I hate to say it, I'm scared that another member of my family is going to fall ill this month.  If that's the case, and if they're off wintering, they'll just have to fly back home.  They might as well be here and save themselves the trip.

Oh, by the way, it looks as though Father will accompany me to the service but Mother won't.  That ain't her bag or some shit.

Now This Is Best Laid Plans Ruined

So I am looking up light rail times because I plan on taking the Green Line from St. Paul to Palmer's, like I said I would.  And goddammit, light rail service is shut down for a good part of the route from Cedar-Riverside.  So if I am going to pull off this plan, I have to either just take this replacement but to take me the rest of the way to Palmer's and then start off my way back eastbound on this replacement bus, or drive to Palmer's and then to downtown St. Paul.  The former sounds really hectic because I don't know where this bus will drop off or pick up, plus this is another transfer for which I have to worry about time.  The latter ruins my plans of parking before the Nine Inch Nails crowd in St. Paul, or I will probably have to duck out early (while they are playing the hits) to catch the last light rails out of downtown.

Wow, this fucking sucks.  I need a nap to figure out what I am going to do.

Outdoor Baseball? Mmm, Sorry

I was invited out to a Saints Game that took place last/Thursday night by alumni groups that we are trying to build relationships with.  As much as I wanted to go, I didn't think I could because work would probably make me late for First Pitch, and as a general rule, I don't want to go to a Game when I know I can't get to its very beginning.

I had other reasons I didn't want to go.  Another of my principles is that I will not pay for parking if I can help it, and St. Paul extends their street parking well into the evening.  That meant that I would have to park out of the downtown zone and then ride the light rail in, and that means I would have to figure out, build in, and get out of work at a fairly early time (as it is nowadays) to factor in public transportation and to make First Pitch.  Also, yesterday was a humid day, and I was not feeling hanging out in outdoor stands getting sweaty (and possibly with the sun beating down on me) trying to get to know people in order to organize more alumni events.

So I decided on Wednesday that I probably couldn't attend, and I let the lead organizer know.  And then the damndest thing happened.  I don't know what was up at work, but the heavy workload that I anticipated, and that has reliably been overwhelming ... wasn't there.  As many forms came into the building as it usually has, but apparently nearly all of them had the complete and correct information.

So, did I decide to go to the Game then?  Nope.  I realized that while I couldn't make it to the Saints Game if I got out of work too late, I didn't want to go to the Saints Game if I got out of work too early.  I had no interest yesterday to think of something to do for 90 minutes to two hours before I made my way to St. Paul.  And there was still the weather, which, admittedly, was not as sweat-inducing as I thought it would be, but was in no way comfortable for me to hang out for a 2 1/2-hour baseball Game.

So I went home.  And ate dinner (alone; I thought that since I got home at a not-insane time, my parents and I would eat dinner together, but alas).  And then I fell asleep for about an hour.

I hope these organizations have another shindig I can get to.  I really do want to try and attend one.

You Know, i Wonder If I'll Just Get Fired One Day

So yesterday/Monday I got to work late because I took my parents to the airport.  Since I got to work two hours late, I had to stay two hours later than I would ... if it were an eight-hour day, which it most certainly is not these days.  I stayed pretty late, but considering how late I started, my overtime was pretty modest compared to the ten-hour-plus days I've been hauling in in weeks past.

I thought the new person was supposed to start today, but I didn't see her/him at where her/his desk would be.  I surmise that she/he is back in human resources getting onboarded, and she/he will be there today/Tuesday or, at the very latest, tomorrow/Wednesday.  Or, this person just flaked and it'll still be the four of us doing everything.

But if there is a new person ... I apologize if I've blog posted about this before, but once this new person is fully trained ... why in the hell couldn't I be fired?  I've been pulling OT money since the New Year, so to a higher-up's eyes I'm just a money drain.  If someone can work faster (and thus cheaper), they obviously would go to that person and cut me loose the first chance they get.  And I still go back to my former co-worker who immediately and mysteriously got let go around summertime.  Why was he let go?  Was it a personality issue?  If not, then it was a work-related issue.  Maybe he wasn't doing his job.  Or ... he was seen as too slow and just racking up the money, thus becoming, to their eyes, a "liability."  I could be wrong about his departure, but unless and until someone tells me the real reason he was let go, I will assume the worst, which was he was fired because the company didn't want to pay him anymore.

Naturally, if the company didn't want to pay him anymore, and I have to stay late and get overtime in order to get my work done, thus getting paid more than others ... and if there are enough people there for the work to get done in some sort of timely manner ... why wouldn't they let me go?

That thought just came across my mind while I was working.  That's all.

Won't Miss/Will Miss/Both

Things I won't miss about my parents:

• Having them tool around the house when I want to tool around the house, usually naked;
• Being asked by them for things, in particular the way Mother asks for me: "Nee hauw, nee hauw!" (that stands for "needs help," if you couldn't decipher that);
• Being force-fed so much food that I have ballooned in weight (even though I probably will balloon in weight if I find food for myself; this is more a complaint that I don't want food forced in me)
• Being force-fed that I have never tried, or even am able to describe;
• The questions about where I'm going, why are you doing this or that, etc.;
• Mother criticizing me -- I haven't really understood how much that has affected my life;

Things I will miss about my parents:

• If something in the house breaks, Father usually can fix it;
• I'll have to do all the chores around the house;
• I now have to worry about the house -- it'll be empty now for a part of the day;
• I now have to worry about my parents' real estate ventures;
• I have to open up all the mail and, if necessary, act on them;
• I need to look at my parents' e-mail in case there's something they will miss now that they're globetrotting again;
• How it'll get too quiet around the house;
• I'll be scared if they get hurt while they're travelling;

Another thing I won't and will miss about my parents that I have to worry about as soon as they leave:

• All the food that they have left me.  I need to quickly triage the foods I need to eat immediately and what can wait.  It looks as though I have to worry about the bananas and the lettuce first, followed by the leftover rice and the egg.  But it'll take weeks to get through everything they have left for me in the fridge that is in danger of spoiling.  And that's not even taking into account all the stuff in the freezer.  Hey, I love them, and I appreciate them leaving all this food for me.  It'll save me money, no doubt.  But I will be spending money today/Monday and tomorrow/Tuesday because the former is Cinco de Mayo and the latter is Game 1 of the Timberwolves in The Western Conference Semifinals vs. The Bastard Philadelphia Warriors.  A-wooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad Last/Sunday Night Is Over

So after lunch and learning that I'm helping Father stick an EKG monitor on his bare chest, I hear Mother screaming at Father, over something.  I have never known what they've ever argued over, but I haven't heard Mother yell like that in a long, long time.

We eat a very early dinner (four hours after lunch, which is insane).  I was the one who attached this EKG on Father; Mother was in her office doing her own thing.  I go up to my bedroom and eventually take an early-evening nap before going out to exercise.  Mother bangs on my door to wake me up.  I'll expound on this hopefully in a different blog post, but never wake me up from sleep.  I hate that.

She gets me out to the dinner table.  She needs help booking their flight, although she actually said, "You promised to help me with my frequent flier miles," which is something I don't ever remember her saying.  It was obvious she was in the kind of mood she has often been in after yelling at Father -- wounded, feeling like a victim and lashing out because she felt entitled.  And this type of thing My Fucking Mother ropes me in to doing for her is the type of thing she usually ropes me in to do for her, which is something that has to do with not understanding English words and some elements of the task I believe she knows how to do, but doesn't want to do them because she wants to act helpless.  Besides all that, I feel like I've been dropped in unfamiliar territory, and so I'm figuring what the hell I need to do, but, and this is also typical of her, whenever I run into a roadblock or something I don't understand, she goes, "Well, what are we going to do?"  And I've gotten a little better at pointing to her, "Um, we are not doing anything.  You brought me into this because you don't want to do this.  I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do."  (She also has this tick where I say something to her and she goes, "I know."  She clearly isn't using that phrase when she's supposed to, but I still get triggered because I take her literally at her word, and I want to say to her, "No, you don't know!"  But that's another blog post.)

I can't book a flight online.  Mother asks me to call for her, fuckin' A.  The call wait time is 2 1/2 hours.  They invite me to text instead, so I tell My Mother I'm going to leave for the gym and just text the airline about this.  So as I'm putting on my shoes, my sister calls My Mother.  There is another matter my sister wants to talk to her about.  "Has Unforgivable Wetness talked to you about it yet?" my sis says.  "No," Mother replied, "He doesn't want to talk to me about it."  And I had to shout from the bottom, "That's not true!" and I went back up to the dining room to get my face on Mother's phone to tell my sister Mother's lying, and then to tell Mother that if she wants to talk about this other matter, she should talk to me, otherwise I'm assuming she's handling it herself.  Goddamn.  I've always thought I've gotten my self-pity from Father.  But I might be wrong.

Anyway, I got the gym but had to delay exercising because I was busy texting with the airline rep, or the bot, who knows?  There are no flights available.  So I come home, see Mother at the other side of the front door ... and she's all calm and stuff.  If she weren't calm, she wouldn't even look at me.  So maybe she's gotten over what she needed to get over.

At any rate, this was a Sunday that was a little too eventful.  Glad it's over.

Addendum To: I Played Myself

As paying ten more bucks than I needed to wasn't bad enough, I saw something at the X I didn't think I would see.  There was a merchandise stand there, selling several items related to the conference (the NCHC) and the event (the Frozen Faceoff), but not as many items as I would expect for an event of that size.  Two of the items, a shirt and a pint glass, commemorate the fact that this is the last time (or so they say) the conference will have its tournament in St. Paul (and for the first few year of the NCHC, it was at Target Center in Minneapolis)/neutral ice; starting next year and for the foreseeable future, the conference tournament will be played on campus sites.

The tag line for the event was "Last Call In St. Paul," and that slogan was on a shirt and a pint glass.  I saw the shirt (but not the pint glass) while I was walking the concourse inbetween the Semifinals on Friday and thought, "Hey, that's kind of cool."  And then I saw there were a few people at the stand, so I figured that I would continue to get my steps in, buy food (a pizza slice because it was the shortest line) and, once I got done with that, go back to the stand to purchase something.  Swear to God it was maybe 25 minutes at the most.  But once I went back to the merch table, the "Last Call In St. Paul" shirt was gone.  I never thought that, what, 5,000 people would buy enough shirts to sell out, but it sounds from the merch people that they didn't have much to sell.

What did catch my eye was a scarf.  It had the NCHC logo, the year of its birth ("Est. 2014"), and the 2025 Frozen Faceoff logo.  It makes no mention of the fact that this is the last neutral site Frozen Faceoff, but shit, this is as close to marking this "end of an era" as I'll get, especially if they don't make this scarf anymore, which, in hindsight, I doubt.  But I bought it, for $30.

I went back there last/Saturday night for the Frozen Faceoff Final.  (By the way, Western Michigan came back from a 3-0 Second Period deficit to win it in Double Overtime, 4-3.  Some kid from Prior Lake potted the Game-winner, his second of the night.  I didn't see it in person; I left early because I had to catch the last light rail, at a quarter after 11 [which got pushed back to 11:25 or so -- damn, Metro Transit has to be more accurate with that stuff], to get back to where I parked my car at Midway)  No new shirts or pint glasses.  But they still had scarves.  And now they were selling them for $25 apiece.  I looked at the sign with the price; someone printed out "25," cut it into a square, and taped it right in front of the "30."  I have no fucking clue why someone suddenly discounted the scarves by five bucks, but I feel cheated, and I feel so goddamn impotent because I want to complain to someone about it, but I don't want to come off as a whiner.  But why in the hell did they knock off five bucks on the scarf?!

So now, not only did I overpay for the ticket to that Game by $10-3, it looks as though I paid five bucks too much for that goddamn scarf.  So that's $15-8 I feel like I need to make up by not spending on something I would spend money on, like coffee and breakfast before work.  Man, that shit just pisses me off.

Am going downtown to catch the First Half of my alma mater's Game, then leaving at Halftime to eventually take my parents to the airport today.  I don't think there will be any issue, but I am using my car a lot, and for somewhat superfluous reasons.  The thought that my car will break down downtown scares me all of a sudden.  Hope that doesn't happen.

Realized I Am Doing Stuff Every Day (Just About)

I am working the Golden Gophers Game, well, this/Saturday afternoon, and I am supposed to come in way earlier than I think I should.  That makes me think I am actually doing a job contrary to the one I was initially asked to do.  Oh, well, although my alma mater is playing late in the evening.  I thought I would have plenty of time to get to that Game after leaving the one I worked.  But if I am going to be worked over like a mule, there's a chance I'll have to miss it.

And then, while I was out last/Saturday night, my cousin texted me saying that his mother (my aunt) wants to visit my other aunt as she's doing rehab.  I was the one who thought it would be a good idea to see her now that she's rebuilding her strength, but then I totally forgot I did when I got so bummed out when he said he wanted to see her.  It's probably for the best, but I had plans to, well, do nothing.

And nothing is not what I will be doing for some time.  I work, of course.  Next weekend I have to take my parents to the airport and work the Vikings.  The weekend after that I have to go into work to cover for someone and work that Week's Vikings Game.  In the following weekend, I have that huge annual Arrows watch/dinner with my friends.  I have nothing to do the day after, but knowing my luck that's when a blizzard will hit and I will be busy plowing and shoveling.

Now, yes, there is Thanksgiving this week.  Also, I think it's a relative slow day if all I do is go to and come from work.  But dammit, I just want to ... not do anything for one day.  No work, no chores, and even no pleasure.  And that won't be happening for some time.

Hell, I'll just say it: I kind of resent my sister being here.  I feel as though she's horning in on my space, and that she's staying for only a little while before I have to readjust to her (and my brother-in-law) leaving is only aggravating me even more.  But it's the car that bothers me.  I finally realized something obvious: When I was out in Hawai'i, I never asked to use their car to just drive around.  But while they're here, they're driving my car, and they're driving it everywhere, and they will be driving it so much I am really, really bothered and scared that, at worst, they'll get into an accident and, at best, they'll be tacking on miles and bringing big repairs that much closer to today ... and that will be crap I will have to clean up.

Come to think of it, I gave her use of my car for some, if not most, of the days the last time she visited here, which wasn't too long ago (a year ago?  Two years?), by herself, while the parents had started wintering in Las Vegas.  Does she now feel, for lack of a better word, entitled to the use of my car whenever she's in town?  That cannot be the way this works, and I feel bad if that is the impression I gave her.  But she is coming off as if she can just waltz in to the house and use my car willy-nilly.  I really don't mind if those two tool around the metro area -- within reason.  But going outstate every day while they're here?  Hell no, but that is impression I am getting from her, and I don't know if I need to set her straight.

Anyway, I need to get up in several hours to pick them up at the airport.  Hope the car stays in one piece.

Beyond yesterday's inexcusable Loss, I checked one of my e-mails just now and saw that a fellow alum had a layover at MSP and wondered if he could come up to downtown to watch with us.  He e-mailed just as I was preparing to leave, and frankly, it never dawned on me to check that e-mail all day.  But dammit, I feel so bad not returning his e-mail until now.  I hope he's not mad.

And Now My Right Knee Hurts

It has traditionally been my left knee, which I think I got on that long road trip I took by myself from here to St. Louis to see the total eclipse in 2017.  But now my right knee hurts more than my left (even though both hurt).  It's been hurting for some time.  I think it began over the summer when I started wearing my Chaco sandals around.  They say they're supposed to be good for flat feet, but if so, why do my knees hurt, and why is my right one, which is supposed to be the "better" one, hurting worse than my left now?

Even though I wear my Docs at work, my right knee noticeably aches me.  I hope that my insoles would make it hurt less.  I should be wearing them every time I go out; I'm sure that my knee pain would go away if I dutifully used them.  But hey, those Docs are pretty chunky to wear when it's hot out, so I don't.  Maybe once the weather turns more seasonal and it makes no sense to wear sandals will I go back to using them full-time, and maybe then my knees won't stop hurting.

Knee pain is a definite sign I'm getting old.  I don't think I complained about knee pain beyond falling and getting my knees scraped.  Now, I bend or squat and I'm scared I'll snap them.  Dang it.

This Is Not A One-Person Job

So I used to love The Third Department.  It seemed really easy, and all the tasks I learned I seemed to have done pat in no time.  That allows me to sneak in some downtime, and since I'm tucked away at a back corner, I feel as though I can do that without prying eyes.  It was absolute bliss.

Was, because since my co-worker was laid off/fired (or both), and everything fell to the only person now in that department, I could sense that all the work that was easily covered by two people easily overwhelms one.  No wonder why she wanted to take a couple days off.  And so, for yesterday and today, that whole department falls on me.  And, it sucks.

Maybe I was dragging yesterday/Thursday because I had to take my folks to the airport.  Or, I needed to make sure I got to work on time (after doing the McDonald's drive-thru; I thought I would have enough time after dropping my parents off at the airport, but for some goddamn reason I missed the 55 exit and had to take 35WN all the way instead, and that took extra time) because the new tardiness rules kicked in yesterday/Thursday.  Or, I was flummoxed when I was told I now take the seat vacated by my laid-off/fired co-worker. 

Probably all three factors conspired to start me on the wrong foot.  I have a checklist of things I need to do and when, but there was just so much stuff first thing in the morning that I didn't make headway.  Then, the big task with this department dropped on my head like an atomic bomb: Testing samples that came from a different lab.  There is a long list of things to do with each sample, I got more than a half-dozen of them.  They are such a high priority that I am supposed to drop everything and do those stat.  And since there were several of them, that took the majority of my day.

My supervisor had to bail me out by stepping and doing some of the work.  And yet more of these important samples that now have to be sent to other labs pretty much eliminated any chance that I would get to finishing all the things I was supposed to finish.  In fact, I had to leave one sample undone because I was under strict orders from my supervisor to not stay past 6.  I shrugged as I left.  There were messages in the inbox I hadn't even looked at and calls that needed to be made but weren't.  I didn't have the time to get to everything I needed to do before I was told to leave.  That doesn't make me feel any better.

This department is not a one-man job.  It simply isn't.  There was slack when two people shared the load, but it feels as though one person now must do the work of, like, 1 1/2 people.  And so it stands to reason that work will be left over for the next day ... when more work might pile on at the end of that day, and so on and so forth.  Things could snowball so badly that I would be so triggered and snap over the burden I am being told to carry.

I really don't like this.  I got help and the work still wasn't finished.  Am I expected to do everything by myself, especially when I only work there some of the time?  I can't believe my boss thinks that should be the case.  Because if he does ... well, another reason to look for another job!

I'm Everywhere This Week And I Don't Wanna Because It's Too Darn Hot

It's hot out there.  Humid, too.  Just spent an evening outside at Allianz Field.  I checked my Weather application in the Second Half; the damn dew point was 71 degrees.  And this was past 9 p.m.!  It was so frickin' hot and humid out there I had thoughts that I wouldn't make it.  I did, and it helped that the Loons won their Leagues Cup Match over Necaxa, 1-0, on an unreal 16-Save performance by Dayne St. Clair in goal.  But it wasn't comfortable, by no means.

It's been steamy the past several days, and that is affecting what I want to do.  There were a couple concerts last weekend that I thought about going to -- Dawes on Friday, Big Head Todd and the Monsters Saturday, both in the western suburb of Plymouth -- but that was in an amphitheater setting, and I didn't think I wanted to spend several hours in the haze and the moistness of the outdoors.  A part of me thought I was being a wuss, but spending about three hours at the Match has convinced me I made the right choice eschewing those concerts.

Unfortunately, I have already bought a ticket to the Vampire Weekend concert for tonight/Wednesday night, the second of two nights in downtown Minneapolis for the band.  It's at the Armory (the old home of The Minneapolis Lakers), so it's indoors, but I still don't relish finding free parking downtown and then taking a long, long walk to get to the venue, let alone the long, long walk to get back to my car.  It'll help that I'll be returning to my car under cover of night when the oppressive Sun is beating down on me as I try to make it to the Armory, but the air is going to remain so thick it's not going to be that much of a relief.

It's impossible to predict the weather months out in advance, like I did when buying the concert ticket, but if I knew it was going to feel this soupy, I wouldn't've bought it.  Maybe the younger me would've been gung ho about going.  But I'm just not.  I don't think I can tolerate this type of weather now that I'm as old as I am.  (There's another wrinkle: Just saw the forecast on the rerun of the nightly news and there's a storm that will blow through here in the evening.  It looks as though it'll be done around here by the time Vampire Weekend starts their set.  I'll wait out the storm and head downtown when the coast is clear.  And if I miss a good chunk of VW, so be it -- I've already sunk money into the ticket.)

Add to it that I'm taking my parents to the airport tomorrow/Thursday morning and this would've been an ideal time to just get home from work and wrap myself in my bed until I have to get up in the morning.  I'm just so darn busy in the evening this week when I don't want to deal with this exhausting weather.  But I must, even if I'm dead tired when the alarm wakes me.

Sooooo Tired

If I were the man I was 20 years ago, I don't think I'd be as tuckered out as I am now.  But I'm not, so I am.

Nevertheless, I'm glad I did it.

Sorry to be so vague, but I want to get the blog post in.  Plus, I want to wait to talk about this till, oh, Saturday, if not later.

Don't tell anybody, but I'm supposed to take my aunt and her sister -- which I guess makes her my aunt too -- to the airport today.  I am not supposed to tell my folks.  I can do that.  I hope that it somehow doesn't make it back to them.

The problem is the luggage.  I have not asked how long they'll be gone (my aunt's son, my cousin, will pick them up), but I had to ask how many suitcases they are bringing.  I think it's four, and I think -- I think -- I'll be able to shove them all into my small car.

They offered the use of their car, which is a bit bigger.  I told them that's a problem because I have a barbecue to go to after that.  That's not necessarily true; I plan on having dinner close to the Megamall after this, just in case their flight gets cancelled.  I'm scared that the luggage in fact won't fit.  I'll gladly take their car to "the barbecue," if they're cool with it; I'll just pray the car isn't too tall for me to drive.  I just won't drive their car there and back because, well, I want to eat stuff on my own today.

We'll see.

Nightmare

I thought I was on a long highway, and I was driving on it.  And then it went up.  And then it turned into a rollercoaster.  And I thought I was driving on it, but I then was grabbing onto the rail with my whole body.  And this rollercoaster became an actual rollercoaster, where it was going real high and there were loops way ahead of me.  And I was somehow moving forward on this rollercoaster, but then I looked down and looked up and saw what the hell I had to go through in order to stay on this ... thing.  And I got scared that I won't be able to stay on, but I won't be able to move forward, either.

And then I woke up.

Nightmare: Circumnavigating The Globe ... By Car

So right after work I stopped by a pub for a co-worker's retirement party, and then I went to a monthly dinner of my social club (for the first time ever for this particular club), which I was able to attend because it was very close to the retirement party, and that party's pub is not too far away from work.

It has been at least 15 years, at least, since I've had Mongolian barbecue.  Does traditional Mongolian cuisine consist of heaping bowlfuls of frozen meat and banging a gong once you're done?  Anyway, I thought I could go through three servings, but I only got to two, neither of which were that big (or tall; I saw these expert customers pile their modest bowls taller than the bowls were wide.  Oh, and I didn't wear gloves for my first serving, whoops).  My stomach got rumbly, left the social dinner early, went to Target, got home and quickly did my business, then decided I was tired, changed into my sleepwear, and turned off the lights.

I think I went to sleep around 9:30.  I think I woke up around 6:30.  Probably slept for less than nine hours, but it feels great.  Energizing, too, even though I didn't plan on waking up this early to finally see Grandmother's friend.  But at least I have time to blog post for the day, and I have one hell of a nightmare to blog post about ...

... as far as I remember, I was running hurriedly from place to place, even though I don't recall whether I was running around different places or different areas of this huge space.  I knew I had to leave, or "leave," because, I think, I needed to watch the Super Bowl.  At home, at a party, or somewhere else, don't remember.  So I'm looking at my watch and seeing on Google Maps how long it will take to get to my destination, and all this running around is eating into my drive time in order to get to where I want to go in time to watch kickoff of the Super Bowl.

Here is the thing: I think my drive, and I'm pretty sure in my nightmare that it was a drive, was taking me from Japan to Hawai'i to ... well, I don't remember.  I remember looking at Google Maps mapping out my "drive" from Japan to Hawai'i to my final destination, with direct lines charting my path on a picture of the world.  I remember that there was a Japanese pagoda in one of the places I was running around in.  And I also remember that I thought I had 4 1/2 hours before the Super Bowl started, and then all this running around meant I had only 3 1/2 hours before the Super Bowl started.  How am I going to drive from Japan to Hawai'i to wherever in only 3 1/2 hours and get to see kickoff in time?

And then I woke up.  This nightmare stands out in that even though I was running around, I know that I was not running away from anything or anyone.  My heart was beating, but not as hard as in other nightmares because in this nightmare I know that I wasn't being chased.  I was just ... annoyed, I guess.

(shrug)  What does this mean?