Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Almost Turned a Profit

Over the weekend, the gardening ALMOST turned a profit. We have been plucking tomatoes like nobody’s business. Cucumbers and peppers too. So my parents came to visit over the weekend. They hadn’t been down in a while but must have feared for the kid’s safety. They knew I was alone with them all weekend and wanted to make sure I had not killed them yet. So my mom saw all the great tomatoes we had. She made herself at home and prepared a to-go basket. I pulled out the produce scale to give her the weight and price. Cha-ching. Then she started in on the whole ‘gave birth to you’ and ‘carried you around for nine months’ guilt trip. So I had to give her a discount.

I survived the weekend without the wife. I even got along with the kids most of the time. We went to the pool, hung out at the house, picked dozens of apples from my apple tree. Their new thing is to have one child climb to the top of the tree and shake it like a friggin ape until a couple dozen apples fall down. Then they walk all around the house eating apples and leaving half eaten apples everywhere. The baby now walks with her apple and, imitating her older siblings, spits apple peels all over my floors. Awesome. The kids were surprisingly good and it was a good weekend. I figured I had this parent thing down finally.

Then came yesterday. The wife went to work and I only had TWO hours to watch the kids. We finished dinner. We did baths. Things were running smoothly. Then the wheels fell off. In the span of one hour, all went to hell. The baby would not go to sleep, opting instead to scream like she was in a slasher film for forty minutes. If that wasn’t enough brain trama, I had to correct some of the kid’s math problems. Somehow they forgot everything they knew in a span of one hour. It was like pulling teeth. After my second attempt to get the demon spawn to sleep, I attempt to say prayers with the kids only to see one of the cats has decided to use my carpet as a launching ground for his puke. After cleaning that up and getting all but one kid to bed, I try to finish her math with her and give up a couple problems short around thirty minutes after I had planned on freedom. A quick kiss goodnight and I am free. But no. The little demon boy needs me to sleep with him. I pass out in his room and wake up around 10:30, go downstairs to close up shop and the wife is getting home from work. She inquires about something not done and I go up to bed.

On a much, much lighter note. I got a call from Nosaj. Seems the shoutout about the pregnancy last week got him scared. Nope buddy it isn’t your old lady this time.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Cheese and Whine

I must start today off on a sad note. Nosaj’s grandmother passed away this week. She has moved on to the great cheese shop in the sky. Our prayers are with Nosaj and his family.

While I am speaking of cheese, I would be remiss if I did not mention this story I saw yesterday. Here is a link to the story from Yahoo. This is from Deadspin. Basically it breaks down to this. Packer fans lock up their kid so they can go to casino to watch Packer games. AND WE LET LUMPY REPRODUCE????? This cannot end well. It just cannot.





Since I had bad news earlier, I must also mention that Captain Redneck had a second grandchild. Congrats. And a family member of mine is also in the baby way. And this time it is not my wife. The circle of life. And, probably more shocking than anything else, Sandwich Artist, has a girlfriend. I will keep you posted on that developing story. How long will she put up with a PS3, X-Box 360, addicted soul? That is the question of the day.

On the homefront, things have actually been quiet. The wife actually worked again last night. Since the baby has begun sleeping through the night and in her own room, it seems like the wife works every night. She is always gone. I can only hope at some point there will be a paycheck. Just two days ago she had to run to the store. It went a little something like this.


5:30 PM – Dinner with the family.

5:45 – Gone. No cleanup, no hesitation. Gone.

5:46 – Calls from the cellphone. Easier to escape and then let me know the plans so I cannot shackle her to the kitchen sink. She is going to STOP BY her sister’s Tupperware party. STOP BY and let a friend peek at a book she has purchased. Run to Walmart and come home.

7:30 – I call to find out where she has hidden something I need. She is done stopping by her sister’s and will soon be in route to the friend’s house. What???

9:30 – I call to let her know her spawn are sleeping and I will soon be doing the same. After, of course, I clean up the house and get stuff ready for work the next day. She is getting gas on the way to come home. Right?? No. She is getting gas on her way TO Walmart. Mind you. Walmart and Casa Jiggy are no more than 10 miles apart. I could have driven cross-country by now.

10:00 – My slave work complete, I retire to bed.

1:30 AM – I awaken to an empty bed. Oh no. She is dead? Broken down on the side of a deserted road? I frantically call her cell phone. She is just downstairs surfing the web. Ah the joys of not having to get up at the crack of dawn.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Funny For Friday

I found this to be rather amusing. It only takes two minutes. Enjoy.


Thursday, July 19, 2007

Rolling in the Dough

It finally happened. My wife got a job. Of course I will soon be rich. I might even be able to afford my monthly bills AND eat. I won't forget about all the little people when I am disgustingly rich. I have already forgotten about you. So this is a little story of the wifey and her first day back on the street.

She decides she spends so much of my money at one particular children's clothing store that she should get a job there to get an employee discount so that she can, no doubt, spend more of my money there. Last night was the first day of income. Or as it has been referred to at home up until now as 'The day hell freezes over'. She is on the schedule for four hours, six to ten. I tell her to call me after work so that I know she is on her way home. Meanwhile, I clean up the dinner mess, the dinner that I cooked. I entertain the children. I take care of yard work. I take the trash to the curb. I bathe the kids. I get the kids to bed. I finally get downstairs to watch my man Rock on Hells Kitchen. The phone rings at 9:45. Here is our conversation.


Me - Hello bread earner.

Her - Hi.

Me - Why are you off early? You are cutting in to my profit. (Me being silly and joking her about being off at 9:45 instead of 10:00.

Her - Oh. I got off at 8:15.

Me - WHAT?

Her - Yep. They let me off early.

Me - WHAT?

Her - Yep. My sister met me up here and we went to Starbucks and then back to the store to do some shopping.

Me - So let me get this straight. You worked TWO HOURS? Then bought a drink that probably negated 1/2 of an hour. THEN you went back into the store and spent over a hundred bucks? Am I getting this right?

Her - Basically.

Me - OK.

Her - OK. I am going to Walmart to get some groceries. See you in a couple hours.



Such is my life.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Updates

Let me get this out of the way first. Nosaj beat me in tennis the other day. I wanted to get that in print because, one, it almost never happens and, two, he won't stop asking when it will be in the blog. Enjoy your day and your mention Nosaj.

Today the family comes home. The wife and the chillins have been out of state for the last four days. A little free time for me. I had a poker game on Saturday night and got some much needed rest. I also managed to get a little yard work done and a water softener replaced. Whew. I need another vacation.

I assisted the father-in-law with his new computer and some router issues. It seems that his router has been down for months and he has been tapping in on the neighbor's signals. I told him to just cancel service and keep mooching.

Here is a picture of the beer and food Nosaj brought to the poker game.





Didn't catch that? That is because the skinflint brought nada. Oh wait, he brought his buddy Mr. No Taste. At least he brought some nasty beer. Must be nice to just show up with an appetite.

Here is a picture of some beer I bought the other day. This was a cooking beer purchase. Never to be consumed as a beverage. But since Nosaj came empty handed, I offered him one of these to quench his thirst.



Here is picture of a recent crab feast at the inlaws. I can show up more often at their house when they serve crustaceans.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Birth of a Nation

This is a great week. Work two days, get a day off and work two more days. They should look into this option every week. This past weekend, we actually hung out at the pool on Saturday and Sunday. But before I get into all those festivities, let me tell you about the morons I saw on Friday.

Of course the wife had me and the herd out shopping. We went to Kohl’s again because at least one of the brood must have been wearing rags and needed new clothing. I did find a shirt for myself too. So we drive past the AT&T (formerly Cingular) store and see a dozen or so retards sitting in lawn chairs, under a canopy, waiting for the privilege of buying an IPhone.

I found out later, however, that most of the people in the front of these lines were selling the phones on EBAY for twice the price. Who is the retard now? I guess instead of dropping cash on clothes I could have been pocketing $600 bucks for sitting in a parking lot. Who knew?

The pool activities consisted of several key phrases. “Daddy look at me”, “Daddy watch this”, “Daddy he/she is hitting me and/or taking my raft”. Nothing a little brown bottle couldn’t remedy. The major excitement happened when our little 5 year old saved the 3 year old from drowning. She just grabbed him up from under the water and held him until the wife pulled him out. Once he had his senses about him again, I asked the little man if he had leaned over and fallen out of his floatie. Nope. “I was swimming”. Ah, I see. Nice job of it too.

We took in the fireworks display on Saturday night. I guess my sun dial was not working because I thought the Fourth was on Wednesday. Regardless, they shot em off and we watched em. Sunday the in-laws bought a bushel of crabs. That was a nice gesture. At least until the father-in-law ran around with a camera and took pictures of us eating them, threatening to create his own blog called moochers.com. Entirely unnecessary if you ask me. Funny yes, but unnecessary. Fortunately I was only filmed eating crabs while the Nosaj family had the unfortunate timing of having the inlaws do their damn laundry over the weekend and have that filmed too. Now THAT is mooching. I always send my laundry over on WEEKDAYS.

Nosaj and family had just returned from the great cheese state visiting the entire Nosaj clan. I am sworn to secrecy about the events that unfolded in the great Midwest but let me just say there were brats eaten, lots of beer consumed, cheese eaten (of course cheese eaten), beer consumed, an arrest, family infighting, and the old not-good-enough-to-play-horseshoes bean bag games played. Whew. Sounds like a whirlwind week.

In one last bit of Nosaj news. I am planning a poker game in two weeks at my house because rumor has it, I will be solo. Solo as in Macaulay Culkin solo. And the rumor is the plane might fly again that day. As a little warm up to the card playing festivities, what better than seeing a grown man throw his toy in the air and have it crash into some of my wildlife at 50 mph? Well, of course, the answer is all the above while drinking beer. Winner.

We learned something at work last week. The Wendy’s food challenge is off the Summer Olympics. When none of us could knock out the Arby’s 5 for $5.95 special we decided that 13 Wendy’s menu options was just going to mean trouble. Which gives me renewed respect for my man Kobiyashi. He is injured and still might compete tomorrow in the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Although I think I am going to cheer for the American, Joey Chestnut this year. USA. USA. USA.