Good morning. Hello. How are you? #882
Surprise birthday visits, Tom Petty cover bands, Genie Superlift Advantage SLA-15's, Frankie reunions.
Good morning! Hello! How are you? Did you have a good weekend? Mine was just great. It was my birthday. I am fifty-one years old. I had four lovely out-of-town friends come visit me, one of which was a surprise. It was just great.
First: I would like to welcome Nick and Jen into GMHHAY Platinum. Two more GMHHAY readers that have come to visit and have experienced several of the frequent topics here in the column. They both participated in Daddy Jane Dance Party. They both saw the legendary Care Bear Sweater. But they took it up a notch. Jen participated in a Walmart run and a breakfast with Jane, and Nick was the first reader ever to accompany me on a legendary trip to the local recycling center. Good times.
Second: Public Service Announcement. As part of their slow, tentatie reunion, Miranda Sex Garden are now selling official T-Shirts.
Third: RIP to Newton Minnow, former FCC chair for JFK who pronounced American television a “Vast Wasteland,” and kicked off a reckoning, sort of, for how garbage the idiot box was. Poor guy got to live long enough to see the Internet and the idiot-box 2.0 make things even worse.
Fourth: Last night Frankie Goes to Hollywood reunited for the first time in thirty-some years and played a single song at the opening ceremonies for Eurovision. Does this presage a larger reunion? Could they come to America, mayhaps? That’s a thing I never realistically considered. Or maybe a London field trip is in order.
What a great weekend. Nick, Henry and I went to a mead factory and I bought myself a Genie Superlift Advantage SLA-15 for like 1/5th of its list price. So if you need a palette lifted up and moved to the height of 16 feet, give me a call, I’ll come on over.
Sean and I drove to Cary to look for a Star Wars action figure that was supposedly in stock and exclusive to Target but it was not in fact in stock. We will try Burlington later today.
Nick, Meghan, Sean, Emma and I had a late night party in the disused accupuncture office in the basement of the new house while their son henry slept uptstairs and it perhaps the best party I’ve been to in five years.
Jen, Jane and I assembled a squirrel picnic table and mounted it to a tree visible from our house so we can spy a squirrel eating a meal. We have not yet seen a squirrel eating a meal but it is early days. Jane used a power tool and I was all proud of it and I told Emma that I taught Jane to use a drill and she told me she had already taught her so I felt like a chump but also, fantastic.
I accidentally knocked a bird’s nest out from under our porch, I thought it was a hornet’s nest in the making. I felt awful, Emma felt awful, Emma went out and reassumbled the nest and put (all but one of) the baby birds back in the nest. We will not speak of what happened to the last baby bird.
Sean, Jen, Emma, Jane and I went to a Tom Petty cover band concert in the park Sunday evening and it was just lovely. Jane got to stay up late she was very excited. She did a lot of dancing.
We went to Med Deli for lunch one day and Cholonad for dinner another day and Cookout for lunch another day. Sean at a Doritos™ brand “walking taco” which is one of the weirder pieces of food I’ve ever seen.
Ricardo and Levi came by, got to meet Nick and Meghan and Henry, and helped Nick and I get the Genie out of the truck and also helped bring this giant metal work table that was down in the crawl space up and around the house to the garage. I gotta clean it up and wash it down and refinish the top but the thing is a majestic beast and I am very excited about it.
My tennis elbow is slowly recovering. My mom called. Henry got to ride in the Lightning when I floored it. I went to the doctor and got a shingles vaccine. That hurts. Still. Three days later. Garlic takes so long to grow these thing are huge how do they take so long seriously do they take an entire year? How do you know when to harvest wheat? I do not know. I have so many educational youtubes I need to look up. How do I widen the feet on the genie? How do I transplant grapes? How far back can I trim my rose bush? Can an oven vent be vented horizontally? Why did I forget that Bob Dylan was still alive?
I am into fifty-one so far. Life is okay. There can be overwhelming sadness. There can be absurd horrible political situations. Our state is on the precipace of theocracy. But also I can, like, hold a conversation and I have friends and I can write and read and my daughter is amazing and Frankie is back and I love all these people getting their bands back together after their kids grow up it really is awesome and the ground is still fertile.
Punkish mix today man this one has been going on for, like, three months. And yeah, it ends with a ten minute song but my god that sadness song is insane. It is death metal and goth and pop punk and three other genres in one. Highly recommended.
All the world sings a sadness song. Current 93 joke there.
Back to work today which is mildly stressful. I wrote a giant presentation on Friday — it was really important to get it done before the weekend. But then I got feedback from a bunch of people and now I need to incorporate that and get it out today. Plus three meetings on a Monday which is, you know, not cool. Painful. But we will persevere. Until tomorrow.
Wow, that Frankie Goes To Hollywood was... I am literally in awe and about to start crying. And they played "Welcome to The Pleasuredome" instead of "Relax"... (fingers crossed for some full shows)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, rick! so glad you had a rad party. xoxoxo