11/8/08

This miserable post has to be prefaced by an acknowledgement that my hosts in Boston showed me an absolutely rip-roaring good time last night. I am now certain that Irish girls can definitely be attractive. You just need a higher quantity of them. They have that higher quantity here. Wow. What a night. I had a blast.

Then there's today. After rolling out of bed and finding my bearings, I headed out to a local bar for some lunch. Then I was perfectly content to sit on the couch and watch football. The other guys had a better idea, so we went to Suffolk Downs. Boredeom for me ensued. I was a good sport though. Not really any point in sitting on the couch all day, right? Then a seagull flew overhead and shit on my shoulder. Ahh yes. One of those days.

Then we went back to my buddy's brother's place to shower and (allegedly) head out for some tailgating. They came up with a different plan though. We headed over to Newton to visit a bar for dinner and drinks before heading to the game. Fair enough. After circling around and looking for a parking space for a half hour, we settled on an illegal one and headed inside. Nowhere to sit. So we walked over to a local food place so everyone could get dinner. Then we would drink at another guy's house for a few before heading to the game.

The local place was a barbecue establishment. I'm told that the food is pretty good there. Beans, barbecue sauce, cole slaw, etc... I don't eat that shit. So I was a little hungry, but I could grab something at the tailgate once we headed over to the game. As long as I could knock back a few beers, I would be good to go. We sat down and, while the other folks in the group enjoyed their dinners, I reached for a beer. Warm as hell. Nice. So, no dinner and no beer for me. Whatever. The barbecue enthusiasts wound up drinking Jack Daniel's for a while. I had a bit of whiskey backlash following last night's festivities so I chose to pass on the Jack tonight.

Long story short (or at least a little less long)... they killed time for a while and we never made it to the tailgate party. One guy's girlfriend dropped us off at the game just in time to catch the kickoff. [Common decency now requires that the section related to the football game be redacted.]

So that was that. Depressed and dejected, we needed to find a way home. We walked... and walked... and walked. My colleagues unsuccessfully tried to hail cabs. I observed that I don't think it's legal to hail a cab on the street in the suburbs. So they kept walking and trying to hail a cab. We got on the Green Line train and headed toward Boston. That was the wrong direction, so we got off the train. We spotted a cab coming around a corner. A guy came walking out of a pizzeria, most likely to get in the cab that he had summoned. Oh no, my friends. He was approaching a cab that we had called (as far as the cab driver knew). It's a dog eat dog world there. What can I say?

So... there we were in our cab heading back to Newton. The guy to whose house we were going didn't know how to get to said house. Sweet. Then we got back there and drove from Newton to Southie and called it a night. A shitty, shitty night.

11/7/08

Turbo post today. The pubs are calling...

It was just about thirteen hours of driving, plus another half hour of searching for a hidden street. Good enough.

The lads had better appreciate the effort.

11/6/08

Damn dude. I knew I had stuff to do, but damn. That whole procrastinating thing doesn't seem to be paying off. But my laundry is done and my car is reasonably cleaned out and I don't think I have anything else to do before I get rolling in the morning.

It's beginning to sink in that I drive for a living and now, on a break from work, I'm about to drive 800 miles each way for a football game. Weird.

Hopefully a quick six pack will help me get a little sleep before long. If not, we'll go the Tylenol PM route. It looks like about a thirteen hour drive is in store for me. Better get moving early.

11/5/08

Another day that seemed to fly by. I guess that's a good thing. After spending the morning downing Advils and weeping for the future, I headed out to face the day.

Today was my sister's birthday so I drove around a bit to find her a card and a gift. There's a longstanding tradition requiring that I buy a card making some kind of humorous reference to boobs. I honestly can't recall how it began, but sometimes it takes a bit of searching to keep the tradition alive. I found one though. Mom made dinner for everyone tonight, so it was nice to get a chance to visit with my niece and nephew.

Then I had to tend to a few personal affairs before calling it a night. Probably a little more running around in store for tomorrow ahead of the trip to Boston. This trip home has definitely seen a lot less lying around on the couch than the last few did.

11/4/08

Through the course of my rather uninteresting adult life, several chapters of my story have seemed to involve cute little bartenders. Some chapters were happier than others, but the bartender/waitress angle seems to be a recurring theme. Last night, following the Redskins' effort to disappoint an entire nation... no new chapter was written. Damn. Can't blame a guy for trying.

So instead of a lovely nightcap for the evening, I did what any mildly buzzed 32 year old man would do. I started driving around and placing political signs on the lawns of unsuspecting relatives. Hey, what can I say? I'm easily amused. Once I made my way back home I was ready for bed, so that worked out pretty well.

The voting lines today were not nearly as bad as advertised, but definitely longer than usual. I think I was voter #110 last time around, at 6:30pm. Today I was #419 at 12:30pm. After standing in line for an hour and a half, listening to my fellow voters discuss the issues, I'm pretty sure higher turnout is not such a great thing for this country. Those who were voting the same as I was... sounded completely stupid. Those who were not voting the same as I was... sounded completely stupid. Some people probably should just stay home. It was truly troubling to me, so I disappeared into a game of Monopoly on my cell phone and tried to tune them out. I guess that makes me a political snob or something. I don't know.

Now I suppose I'll head over to my brother's house and watch the returns coming in. If I'm gonna be crying in my beer, I might as well be among friends.

11/3/08

Well, I'm about to head out for the evening so I guess we'll get this sucker posted early. My father got his quarterly statement from his retirement account yesterday... and I got a phone call today. So I'm gonna head over there and have a look. He's retiring with a full pension in five years, so his annuity shouldn't have been terribly exposed to the stock market in the first place. From the sound of his call... I don't know. Sounds like somebody had him a little off the mark. I'll get him squared away though.

Then it's off to the pub to watch my 'Skins. For the politically savvy among you, the whole nation should be rooting either for or against the braves on the warpath tonight, depending on one's desired outcome tomorrow. 2004 broke the streak, but they're still accurate predictors in 17 of the last 18 tries. That's something like 94% accurate. Me... I'm on their side.

11/2/08

On the heels of last night's miserable drive home from South Bend and the sorrow-drowning barrage of beers that followed, I felt good and shitty this morning. I soldiered on though. Although I can't say that I did a whole lot today, I managed to seem busy for most of the time.

I got a chance to see An American Carol at the cheap show. Eh, not so terrible, but not too great either. About as expected I guess.

Then I stopped by to see an old friend and his parents. His mother is 98 years old (or thereabouts). Since she calls me "very handsome," I'm willing to disregard the doctors' claims that she's legally blind. Then my friend and I went out for a ridiculously overindulgent dinner. I swear I need to go without eating for two weeks after every trip home, just to get back on track. That's the standard routine for everyone you haven't seen in a while - "Let's get some lunch" or "let's get some dinner" or "let's get together for a drink" or whatever. Man, I fatten up in a hurry around here.

Anyhow, we shot the shit for a while before I drove him back home. He is a semi-retired minister, so I hold out a little hope that he can compensate for some of my personal lack of goodness. Probably not, but it never hurts to hang around decent people once in a while.

Now I actually feel like I could sleep for a few days. Guess I'll see what frosty cool refreshment might remain in the fridge. There has to be something good in there.