After far too much not-blogging, I think I’m hitting the point where the withdrawal is really starting to bug me, so I guess I’d better take care of that.
Work is fairly unmentionable; I pulled a few 12-hour days last week, which I should probably stop doing if I’m going to be the only one (as usual) trying to put in the extra effort to keep the project on schedule. Hah. I am Jack’s insane work ethic.
Far more mentionable is the weekend that just whooshed by in a bizarre combination of gosh-that-went-too-fast and cheerful, languid laziness.
Friday started out with one of the few rare instances in which I am proven right, but I was unfortunately too right. I don’t know crap about cars, but I’ve listened to enough “Car Talk” to recognize the clicking sound that Liz’s car was making every time she turned left as her CV boot. I felt somewhat vindicated when the issue turned out, indeed, to be her driver’s-side CV boot, but as it happens I am karma’s bitch–she needed to get both of them replaced. Somehow the old “why buy one when you can have two for twice the price” philosophy doesn’t really feel so great in practice. Not the most auspicious start to the day, and it’d come at the end of a week far too long.
Liz quickly turned the tables on my week, though, starting with dinner at Nemo. We sat in the tiny little “Lover’s Lane” nook, an odd little space barely large enough for a two-top table, and strangely, delightfully echoey. We had a great conversation, luxuriated in the sensations of food and wine (my Sangiovese was utterly fabulous with rack of lamb and mushroom risotto), and enjoyed the tumult of rain, thunder, and lightning outside.
We spent Friday night, Saturday night, and half of Sunday parked in front of the TV, breezing efficiently through the final season of “Six Feet Under” on DVD, a sudden arrival on seven-day loan from the library. The season had some weak spots, but overall it was a fitting conclusion to a great show, and a nice farewell to characters that have managed to become like family. It’s definitely worth your time if you haven’t seen it; if you can put up with the ever-present background morbidity, it’s quite interesting, often hilarious, and surprisingly uplifting.
Much of Saturday managed to be simultaneously relaxing and off-kilter. Now, Liz and I had laid out a moderately elaborate plan for Saturday, consisting of all of our necessary and desired weekend errands in the proper order of timing and fuel economy, but the cats managed to completely throw it into disarray by nine o’clock in the morning as Julia came bounding up onto the bathroom counter, leaving a path of bloody pawprints in her wake. Realizing what was going on came in little quanta of sudden understanding: there is a cat here; there is something on the counter; the something on the counter is blood; the blood is from the cat; the cat is bleeding; oh crap oh crap the cat is bleeding all over; what has the cat done now? Liz was a shower and full set of clothes ahead of me, so after we corralled Julia in the bathroom to assess the damage and clean up her wounded paw, Liz and Julia zoomed off to the vet while I stayed behind to get dressed, look for more blood, and be someone for Valentine, the likely culprit, to howl confusedly at. Luckily, the bleeding–caused by a puncture wound to one of the pads on her left hind paw, either claw or fang–had stopped fairly quickly, and no stitches were required. The patient returned home promptly, along with a prescription for a week’s worth of liquid antibiotics. The details of administering liquid meds–specifically pink liquid–to a fussy cat are best left to the imagination, but suffice it to say that Liz is now down one white shirt, and we had to add a trip to the dry cleaner to our Saturday agenda.
But! Our bloody cat had the good taste to get hurt, get better, and get home in time to let us get to our 10:30 appointment to peruse tile flooring options for the laundry room (a moderately long story in its own right that I won’t get into here). From there, though, all of our errands seemed to start getting out of order, and the flow wasn’t working, which unfortunately makes me a tiny bit fussy, even though I got a bunch of CD’s from the library, got a haircut, and spent some nice time wandering around shops in Rocky River with Liz.
What really got to me was Liz’s suddenly-announced, last-minute need to be on a conference call at two PM, right in the middle of when we were supposed to be tasting wine and getting groceries. Which then got rescheduled to three, allowing us to stop by Grady’s to taste wine and nosh on little wine-friendly nibbles. But the vital trip to the grocery store had to be deferred. I sat upstairs and listened to music while Liz waited for her call. The cats hung out with me in the open window, relishing the fresh spring air and staring greedily at passing birds. When three o’clock came and went, I went downstairs to harass Liz about this call–shouldn’t she call in or something?–and, rebuffed, I retreated back to the office to sulk and ponder whether we’d ever attend to the rest of our errands while I listened to Jethro Tull and Peter Gabriel. Slowly, there came a deep rumble, as the biggest semi I’ve ever seen trundled cautiously around the corner. Great, I thought, who’s the asshole driving a giant truck through our neighborhood and ruining this perfect spring day? The truck pulled a little further around the corner, and I was able to see the Room and Board logo on the trailer. Liz and I had spent a day in downtown Chicago last winter trying to find a leather chair for me that was up to Baby Bear’s “just right” standards, and had after several hours succeeded in filing an excellent candidate away in my permanent wish list. Swell. Somebody’s getting awesome furniture and it’s not me. I’m never going to get my chair.
Right about then, a lot of things happened at once. First, the truck whuffed and sighed to a stop directly across from our driveway. Valentine and I shared a dumbstruck moment of incomprehension; according to Liz, the look on my face was priceless. Liz closed the office door to keep the cat contained. And then, to my complete and utter astonishment, the delivery guys started unloading my chair, while, by complete coincidence, the Peter Gabriel CD I’d picked up at the library blasted out “Shock the Monkey.”
After assessing that all was well and functional in the land of new things that recline, we did a quick furniture rearrangement in the living room, and since then I’ve been taking every opportunity available to test out my new manly man chair. I’ve covered one of the really long chapters of Head First Design Patterns; I’ve chilled with the iPod; I’ve enjoyed sitting by the open window with the cats; I’ve sipped wine and listened to Pink Floyd; I’ve passed out and drooled on myself; I’ve (now) blogged. So far, it has passed all of the important tests with flying colors. Well, almost all–the cats are still a bit scared of it, but I expect that with time they’ll show it the same indifference that they usually show me.
So, yes, Liz’s “conference call” was a lie, a ruse, a deception, a clever means to have me home so that she could see my reaction, and I completely, totally, thoroughly fell for it. In a way, that makes it all the sweeter. (Right?) In case I haven’t correctly sung the praises of Liz lately, let me declare here that I totally love my wife, that she knows exactly how to spoil me, and that she is damn good at being awesome. My silly manly man chair is beyond excellent, unneeded, and unexpected. Thanks, hon!
Other than that, life is quiet here; lots of work, lots of studying, and as mu
ch slacking and irresponsibility as we can get away with. Gotta keep things in perspective, after all.
- Mood:happy
- Music:Peter Gabriel – “Shock the Monkey”
books, cars, cats, dates, food, house, life, liz, naughty-words, tv, weekends, wine, work
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wolffire and 
