Feb 06

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Happy Monday everyone. I know that I didn’t post a blog last week, but I have a very good excuse. I was very sick. That’s the second cold I’ve gotten this winter. Usually if I get sick it’s only once, but I guess it was just my turn. This one was really bad. I thought I had it licked over the weekend. I stayed in bed all day Sunday and Monday. I took all kinds of day and night time cold stuff. But, Monday night and Tuesday it came back with a vengeance. The worst thing was that it got into my eye. All last week it looked like I was walking around with a black eye. I thought about telling everyone that my wife beat me up, but she didn’t like that idea. It’s much better now. It’s still red and it looks kind of droopy and it leaks like a faucet, but it doesn’t hurt or anything. All of the swelling is going down too. I think there was a sty in it or something. Maybe a spider bit me while I was in a drug induced stupor. Whatever it is, I can’t wait until it goes away. On Tuesday or Wednesday, I got off work and mixed up some Theraflu. I thought it wasn’t working because I expected it to knock me out. Trying to sleep, I ended up watching TV and tossing and turning. I know it was after ten when I finally fell asleep, but when I woke up, my cold was gone. That Theraflu worked like a charm. I took some more the next day, but I don’t think I needed to. I felt great. So, if I can just get my eye to work I’ll be at one hundred percent. I need to stop wiping it with my fingers. But, it’s hard to remember to grab a napkin all the time. My wife put some drops in there yesterday, and made me start carrying a napkin around. I’ve been pretty good at it today, but it is so much easier to just wipe it with the back of my hand.

It snowed big time over this last week. (Two days straight without a break) I had a great time getting off work and then spending the next hour and a half shoveling the sidewalks at the house. The first day, the roads were miserable. Thank goodness for four wheel drive. My wife got stuck in front of the house when she was trying to drop my daughter off at work. The ice and snow was sooooo bad, she couldn’t get any traction and slammed into the curb. (Better than slamming into a car or person) She had my daughter borrow a snow shovel from the corner store because neither of them wanted to go back to the house to get ours. They dug themselves out and by then the main roads were plowed.
The way we work out our car situation, because we only have one at the moment, is my wife takes it to work at seven. I get off at six, so I wait over at her building until she gets there. I take it home. My daughter takes it to work and parks in my wife’s garage. My wife takes it home at three. I take it to work when I go in at ten and park in my garage. Then, when my daughter gets off at about midnight, she comes and gets it from me. Then, we start the cycle all over again. But, since it was snowing like a monster out there, I didn’t want my daughter to drive home in the middle of the night with icy roads. So, I brought a blanket and pillow to work with me and made her sleep in the car until I got off at six. She said it wasn’t too bad, but very cold. (Before I get a bunch of nasty emails, it is an enclosed underground garage and I had a camera on her the whole time.)
We went over to my brother’s house for the Super Bowl yesterday. I’m not a fan of either team, but I just assumed that the Patriots would blow away the Giants. (That’s why I don’t gamble) The Giants ended up winning. It was a fun evening. While we watched football, the girls and the kids were playing some dance game in the other room. And, I have to tell you, that dance game was one of the better inventions of the year. It kept the wife busy and she didn’t complain about having to watch the game once. Someone should have thought about that years ago. We had finger foods and tacos. My mom brought some bacon wrapped chicken which was a big success. There was a whole platter of them and they didn’t make it until everyone got their plates ready. I know I nibbled on quite a few of them. The game pool was of course rigged. I don’t know how he did it, but my brother’s son won the first two rounds and nearly took home the big score at the end. My wife won the third round, so that means we stopped off at McDonalds on the way home. I wanted to get an ice cream, but somehow I missed out and only got an ice tea. My niece took home the big prize and my nephew didn’t even get a shout out for being close. (He wasn’t a happy camper) My other brother and his kids didn’t make it. Someone said something about him taking his wife’s birth mother to the airport. It’s too bad he didn’t show up, I had some money to give to him. Now, I’ll have to find some time to get to his house. He lives up north and I don’t get out that way very often. Actually, I don’t get anywhere very often. That’s the problem with graveyard shifts. When I wake up, the wife and kids are getting off of school and work, so I want to spend some time with them before I go to work. But, since I’m just waking up, we don’t go anywhere, or they went somewhere before they came home to wake me up.
While I was sick this last week, I had a little trouble walking and fell down the stairs at my house. There are nineteen of those bad boys and they are rickety and dangerous. But, that’s not the bad part. The bad part came as I was falling. Since I was on my way to work at the time, I was carrying the stuff I usually bring to work. One of those things is a book. The one I was reading at the time belonged to my brother. It was number three in a series and he graciously let me borrow it. So, when I was at his house on Sunday, I made sure to borrow a new book before I told him what happened to the old one. As I was falling, everything in my hands flew up into the air. Somehow, when it landed, it lost most of its back cover. I would have taped it back on or something, but I couldn’t even find the ripped part.
My granddaughter discovered knock-knock jokes. She’s only four, and she doesn’t quite get the idea of a joke. For some reason, the end of the joke always ends with poo poo or something like that. But, she’s so cute when she says them that I still laugh. She was very disappointed that one of my brothers didn’t make it to the game on Sunday because my brother has a daughter that is just a year or so older than my granddaughter. For the last two weeks, she’s been asking about her and verifying that she would be at the party. It was like her only reason for going. Then, they didn’t show up. There were still other kids to play with, but she always seems to fixate on my brother’s youngest.
My wife is working the six to two shift for the next couple of weeks. It’s throwing our schedule off, but it gets her away from her boss which is nice.
None of the kids are doing anything interesting, or I’ve been too sick to notice. I should probably ask them.
The River of Magic should be done this week or next week. I thought it was going to be finished by the end of last week, but I added a bit that I wasn’t planning on putting in it. I think it’s better for it though. We’ll see what everyone else thinks. So, on that note, I better get busy and finish it up. I’m putting Pink Floyd, Night Ranger, and the Steve Miller Band in the playlist tonight for background music.
-Thom