This Wagon Sucks

Not sure whose idea it was for me to go on the wagon but let me tell you it sucks. After some of these days at work I really could use a drink. Not a stiff drink, just a drink. Give me a good solid hoppy ale and I'd be a happier man. Some days I can't begin to describe how difficult it is to deal with human beings. Here is a typical conversation I have some days:

Person: I have poop on my ass and pants. Please let me know of your availability.

Me: Did you try wiping your ass after you get off the toilet but *before* you pull your pants up?

Person: Why would I do that?

Me: Have you considered that there are penguins smarter than you?

Person: Naturally.

Me: I'd like to use a lifeline.

Ok, so maybe I give the user a little more credit than they deserve.

I have really bad BO so I'm sure this woman next to me is blogging about how the guy next to her stinks and keeps lifting up his arms and smelling his armpits.

Walrus

One of the train conductors on my normal 6:58 train to NYPS* is a big black Chris Rock "baking bread pump fat" woman with an attitude that stretches from Gladstone** all the way to NYPS. If I wasn't on the BB I would try to find a youtube link of the Chris Rock episode. To get the gist, I think his quote is something like this: "You know who I love? Big fat black women. Because they don't give a fuck what you think." He then goes on to talk about how they dress, and the pumps with the fat legs and how it looks like they're baking bread in their shoes. Good stuff.

* New York Penn Station

** Gladstone is where this train starts.

Anyway, this woman not only has an attitude, she's dumb as bricks*. I can only guess that this is why she puts so much perfume on that I can smell her half a train car away. That equates to something like 30 feet, which is quite a lot in a highly ventilated space. When she gets next to you it's like nothing you can imagine. Well, that's not true, since there are women like this all over.

* not Mensa bricks either.

So what would cause you to wear so much perfume? If you were a walrus, ok I get that. I can see that if you woke up in the morning smelling like sea water and kelp* you might think that you smell so badly that you have to do something to cover that stink. My first thought would be to move out of the ocean. But if that's out of your control, I guess copious amounts of perfume is your alternative.

* yes I know that's a sea lion but I have no idea what a walrus smells like.

I don't think this woman is a walrus at all. I'm not sure, but I don't think walruses* are indigenous to New Jersey. So I tend to doubt she migrates and/or commutes from Canada** every morning. So I guess maybe she just stinks? Another guess is that she has decided that certain body parts are going to be covered in perfume, period. Say we take an arm, for instance. Maybe she wants her whole arm covered in perfume. Now on any non-pump fat woman this is a fair amount of perfume. But on the walrus it's double or triple. Or maybe she just keeps going and going and can't stop, I don't know. It's a mystery to me why some women use that much perfume save for those unfortunate souls who have no bowel control.

* walri?

** or wherever they're found. Canada makes sense right?

As you may have noticed*, I'm employing the asterick footnote method** to go on tangets***, ask less than pertinent questions**** and say something somewhat related to but not precisely in line with the narrative*****. This is a popular Internet trend right now that I sometimes like, but sometimes don't. I'm not sure if it's useful or not but I think it's one of the things that you see too much of, much like the expression "not so much". If I hadn't overused the astericks in this paragraph, it would beg for a footnote to allow the narrative to continue on perfumed walruses******. But that story is over so it's ok. Anyway, it goes like this. Some people like perfumed walruses*******. Me, not so much. The problem here is that "not so much" is so 2005. It's 2008 people.

* I'm sure you did.

** like this.

*** or cosines.

**** what time and how burnt?

***** I have never eaten walrus meat.

****** walri?

******* ok I'll stop.

So no worries, I'm sure the asterick footnote method will end soon*. Until then, feel free to come up with your own alternate theories as to why someone would douse themselves with perfume as such**.

* or not

** the excuse, "I was on fire and had no water" is not passable.

Losing My Touch

We got to Lin's Palace to eat dinner at 6:10. It took me 26 whole minutes before I could get my mother-in-law to start slagging the Chinese. I'm really disappointed in my skills here, as I though 15 minutes would be a no brainer, especially with the opening of being able to talk about the Olympics. Man, I must be losing it.

Funny that the conversation that triggered it was me commenting to my father-in-law about China beating Taiwan in baseball. Ok, yes I admit I was trolling with that one. So sue me. But Nat's dad said the reason they lost was political. The new Taiwanese government wants to kowtow to China, so they let them win the baseball game.

I am 100% being serious. So, as you can see, the fact it took me 26 minutes to hit that button is pretty poor on my account. Oh well, I'll try better next time.

Off To See the Wizard

Jumped out of work early today and took the 4:50 out of Penn Station to mee the family and the in-laws up in Morris Plains for dinner. My father-in-law is off to see the wizard tonight, where the wizard in this case is his mother in Taiwan. My mother-in-law will follow him in a few weeks but until then she can enjoy some relative peace before heading off to the chaos of having to tend with Nat's grandmother for 2 or 3 months or however long they stay.

Looks like they will be back for Christmas this year which is slightly less convenient for us, since it's always nice to not have to squeeze in both sides on Christmas day. But whatever, hopefully they enjoy the grandchild opening presents this year, assuming they make it early enough. It's always possible their plans change. Planning is vague at best with them. Also vague at worst. It's just vague, ok?

Nat asked me to talk with her parents more because I never say anything when I'm there. It's true, I admit. They really don't much talk about anything anymore other than how good Taiwan is and how bad China is. Kinda monotonous, you know? But I'm dedicated to talking to the in-laws more. All praise the Chinese gymnasts!

Ok, over/under on how long it takes Nat's mom to complain about China? I bet I can make it happen by 6:15.

Peaches and Corn

I have nothing of particular interest to say today so I'm going to make sure you all go out and get the following 2 locally grown things as soon as you can:

1. Peaches
2. Corn

It's high time in Jersey for both of these, so do yourself a favor and go buy some. I just had half a peach that Nat picked yesterday and it was outstanding. Not as good as a nice soft stick of butter, I'll grant you. But pretty damn good nevertheless.

Sometimes life can be overly complicated. But it doesn't need to be. Eat a peach!

The Miserable Weekend Finally Ends

It's Tuesday morning so the events of the weekend are now starting to fade to an extent. Life moves on, good or bad. Not really much you can do about it. I'm not feeling all beat up but I am somewhat tired, which isn't surprising but it may mean this week is a bit longer mentally than I would hope for.

Anyway here's the rundown on the weekend. I'm too tired to give an over-written blog post so let's cut to the chase and make it quick. Friday morning, wake up and stay home since I'm working from home. At this point in the story Nat is about 6.5 weeks pregnant. Gee I wonder where this story is going.

There was a failblog.org image of a book called Getting Pregnant in the Diseases section. I was excited that when I finally blogged about it I would be able to use the picture. Here it is anyway.



Well I get on the bike Friday morning and I'm having the ride of the year. Less than 30 minutes in and I'm at 19.5, which is way, way faster than normal. I'm starting to think I can try to hang a 21 average on this ride. Then the tire blew out. Well it didn't exactly blow out, it peeled away because I was about 500 miles overdue on changing it.



So I booted it up with a pair of dollar bills and got home ok. Then Nat went to the doctor that day for a normal pre-pregnancy checkup. All good, and so on.

I was supposed to go to a race Saturday but it turned out that nobody was going, so I bagged it because I didn't want to drive solo. Well it turns out that was a good thing because that's when Nat started bleeding. At first it was light, but then she started cramping and blah blah blah - I'm going to spare the gory details for everyone. She knew the game was over then. While it happens and some people stay pregnant, you get to the point where you no longer delude yourself. Chances are you're not in the 5% who bleeds yet stays pregnant. I'm telling this story to a bunch of people who ride and race bikes. I'm going to assume you can fill in the blanks.

Rest of the day is just around the house. Nat is bummed but we also know that miscarriages happen because something is wrong. Do you want to go through the process if something is severely wrong? This is an intellectual way of looking at it, of course. And Nat is rational enough to know this. But she was also bummed at the same time. Not as much as the time 6 years ago, which was a major trauma. With a little monster child running around the house it makes it a lot easier to focus on her.



Anyway, that was the weekend. I didn't ride Saturday. I rode Sunday then again yesterday when I stayed home from work. Nat got bloodwork done Sunday then went to the doc yesterday and they confirmed that yup, she's not pregnant as such. It turns out that on Friday the numbers were super low so I guess that means it wasn't going to happen anyway. But it's still a mental thing to go through.

So that's the weekend, and I'm back to work today. I almost broke this weekend and busted open a beer or bottle of wine, thus ending my quest to make it through the rest of the bike season alcohol free. But I held on, which is good because I'm letting things slip a little these days so I need a bit of discipline back in the fold.

So there's my half-assed weekend story. This isn't a particularly fantastic entry but it is what it is. Hopefully tomorrow I can return to my normal idiotic posts about whatever it is I'm doing at the moment.