When I worked at the university, one of their benefits was free tuition for your children. When I left the university in 2016 to start my company (and when Bella was a high school junior), I walked away from a million-dollar tuition benefit. In fact, the benefit was so valuable, there is an employment syndrome there called the golden handcuffs. This happens when someone no longer likes their job b...
in addition to the box of awesomeness (yesterday's family gallery), the weekend/week of my 50th was delightfully decadent and had multiple exceptional moments that blew me away.
BLOWN AWAY I
my celebration began officially at 3:30 on friday, or birthday-eve if you prefer, with a massage. the masseuse asked if i needed something specific worked on. i said not really. she asked why i was there. i told her that i always get a massage on the last day of the decade of my life so i was there to close out my forties. she said fair enough and we got underway. at the very end she said something really cool but i was so comatose i can't remember precisely what she said but it was something like "i hope this marks the end of one great decade and the beginning of an even better one". i loved the touch and thought she gave to the moment (pun for anthony).
i left there and went to one of my favorite meals in the country, stuffed atlantic salmon from mccormick and schmick's (originally Jake's Seafood in portland Oregon and still #2 on this list).
then i headed home to meet up with the family for an a cappella holiday concert. we have been going to this event, run by a friend, for almost two decades and it has always been conveniently scheduled near my birthday. on this day, due to the massage and dinner, i was running late. because of this marty went out to pick up some other people who were going with us, friends of the kids, and said she'd swing by the house to get me after getting them. i got home and knowing we were now pinched for time, watched for the car. when marty pulled up, i trotted towards the car. as i approached alex, through a cracked window, said i would have to drive. so i ran around to the driver's side. i opened the door ready to apologize to marty for being late but instead of seeing marty in the passenger seat i found one my best friends, bookpimp, from north carolina. *
i should add, our being late did not derail the evening as our friend had roped off a section of seats for us. so our party of eight was able to arrive at a packed auditorium minutes before showtime and slide into a protected run of third row seats. thanks e-lo!
BLOWN AWAY II
the weekend was a lock after that and we enjoyed the concert and then some lion's choice and capped the night off with some ted drewes custard.
the next morning bookpimp and i went to southwest diner for some mexican breakfast burritos and then spent the rest of the december day in front of a fire trading stories and one-liners. for dinner we went to my favorite eatery in all the land and where i spend every birthday dinner, cafe natasha (still #1 on this list). they were totally full up and i failed to make a reservation (we rarely go on uber-busy saturday nights). the hostess was about to shuttle us out when the owner saw us. she came over and gave hugs and the situation was explained. she told us to wait while she checked things out. she returned and said if we could wait ten minutes she would take care of us. so i got my syrian kabobs after-all. there were two other birthday groups there, one of which was a table of about twenty people who turned out to be some sort of choir because when they sang happy birthday to their person they lit the room up with a rendition of happy birthday fit for a royal. later when the owner surprised our table with a piece of candled-birthday pie and started singing happy birthday, the twenty person choral group joined in and it was a most lavish moment.
BLOWN AWAY III
we then went home, re-stoked the fire and gathered round for presents. anthony got me a mug that said essentially that i only urinate glitter and defecate gold, something i may have been known to say around the house a time or two--anthony felt it only right to commemorate my personal position in ceramic form. aleo made a video for me where he modified the opening credits to calliou (pronounced kigh-you) to instead say troy-you as i had always told the kids that show was about me but i wouldn't give them the rights to my name which is why they had to call it calliou but it was originally named troy-you and every time the song played i would replace the word accordingly, much to my childrens' agitation (i also may have told a very young bella that high school musical was about my life--that time i let them use my name because it was cooler than some whiney cartoon kid with a perfectly round head). bella gave me a "missing-bella" kit to help me after she leaves for college (it included a generous quantity of her hair which she had cut a few weeks prior in support of this gift).
then marty closed the affair with her mic-drop box of cards (discussed yesterday).
BLOWN AWAY IV
then on sunday bookpimp and i drove to central illinois for a horseshoe at d'arcy's pint and then on to the video game museum in mclean illinois for some 80's arcade ambiance. after a good number of quarters we made the two hour drive home. the four hours we spent in the car magically felt like twenty minutes which bookpimp astutely called amazing and terrible at the same time (amazing how time magically passes and tragic that it seems to end so soon). we returned home for sunday dinner and some more fire time.
in the morning i drove him to the airport and he was off. for the record bookpimp made a surprise visit twenty years earlier for my thirtieth birthday.
BLOWN AWAY V
two days later i drove back to the airport to pick up my other best friend, bookguy, also from north carolina, who flew in for a quick visit and we shared a lovely day together. that i have two friends of this caliber at this point in my life (three if you count marta) is not something lost on me.
marty, my children and my closest friends went to great lengths to make me feel special and valued by them. at the end of my birthday, in front of a warming fire i told the people circled around me that they would never know what their love and support meant to an only, adopted child who lost his mother eight years earlier. short of having my mother as part of that circle, i can't imagine a better way to greet one's half-century mark.
* when i say "one of my best friends from north carolina" i'm not saying that that is my, like, best north carolina friend and i also have a best pennsylvania friend and a best ohio friend in some bubba-gump shrimp sorta way. i was simply saying this is one of my best friends and he lives in north carolina. i see that it reads a bit funny. though to be comprehensive here, it is equally curious that my other best friend also lives in north carolina. so my two best friends in the world both live in north carolina a few hours apart, for reasons that are in no way connected (neither grew up there). and for further curiosity my mother's best friend also lives in north carolina and is situated perfectly between my two best friends. so on my road trip east every summer, sometimes referred to as the best friends tour, i visit my first best friend, then my mom's best friend and then my other best friend. that they all clustered themselves so conveniently close just ups their best-friend stock all the more.
just another piece of the puzzle showing why troy studied english and not math
i received the following from e-love regarding last week's post about aleo turning 8.
as your math dork friend, i should make sure you know something about the way we americans (and most westerners) do age. this past year was actually alex's 8th year (not 7th). most westerners wait until we've completed our year to say how old we are. that's why in your 1st year outside the womb, we call you zero and wait until the end of your 1st year to say you are 1. incidentally, my understanding is that the chinese do it the other way. they exit the womb and are called 1 in the sense that it's their 1st year on earth.
a true teacher is always teaching, especially when they are friends with me.
i don't want to say i was first, but ... uhhmm ... i was first
last month i talked about my friend e-love and what a special teacher he is. yesterday the Milken Family Foundation was talking about him when they recognized him with a national educator award and a check for $25,000.
i don't want to call the milken folks a johnny come lately but me and my people have already been there. sure they came with an extra 25 large but to me that kinda smells like someone trying to assuage their guilt for not being the first to applaud my man's gifts.
and as if the national award, the check, and the troy shout out weren't enough, the dude also welcomed his second child into his family last sunday.
kudos on all your successes my friend. there isn't a soul who knows you who would say you didn't earn or deserve this recognition eric. although, if i may make a suggestion, you might want to spread the props out a little more evenly. you're creating a pretty high stick for your next twenty years in the classroom.
From the pressline: "the Milken award is so prestigious it's been called the oscars of teaching." love it!
a good friend of mine teaches high school math. but he's not that math teacher. he's the math teacher who for class takes his kids out out to the track field and asks who in the class thinks they can run faster than him. he says this in a tone that reveals he doesn't think any of these young, lithe, athletic bodies can outrun his older, balding frame in a hundred yard dash. hands start ener...
bookguy calls it noun-challenged. to be noun-challenged is to be someone who can't remember people's proper names. between he and i, it's unclear who is more severely afflicted. as per usual, he would claim the title and i would claim he is wrong. either way, it is a fierce race.
as evidence to my condition allow me to turn to my proclivity for nicknames. i give people such monikers for three reasons; (1) to insulate them from embarrassing things i may say about them online, (2) because i can't remember their name at all, or (3) because i can't remember the version of their name (mike, michael, mikey, m-bag) they prefer or more importantly, they greatly dislike. and on that last item, i've argued many a time that mike, michael, mikey and m-bag are entirely synonymous and should be freely interchangeable.
to recap, some of the past characters, several of which you've heard of countless times ...
bookguy
bookpimp
e-love
man who screams like woman
doctor j
the way with words girl
chavez
smart ryan
buddy james
thin when tan girl
the why the hell wouldn't ya guy
the doctor of diss
guy with mussed hair
and of course, girl who dates guy with mussed hair
here's a few i've never shared online and use mostly when talking with walt (or rather marty) ...
THE FAKE MOMS
a group of highly augmented ladies who hang out at our pool.
NEWSPAPER DAD
a guy who sits at the park with his four young children reading the ny times and shooing his kids away anytime they near him.
HOLD MY BABY
actually bookguy-coined this gem but it is a fast staple in our home and i'm not really in a position to speak to its origin.
SMILING LADY
i see this lady all over the place and she makes the joker look morose.
BAD, DRUNK MOM
she's not just bad and she's not just drunk, she's both and therefore gets the double-bill.
YELLING MOM
the yelling mom scares me and is not too surprisingly married to ...
THE QUIET GUY
i got ten bucks that says this fella comes out soon.
rain, sleet nor vomit could keep me from an e-love affair
last night e-love's acapella group had its first concert of the season. the whole family was slated to attend until alex puked, or as bella would say, choked-up, all over the arm of his coat an hour after waking up. later, while walking bella home from school, i explained that alex was sick and i would stay home with him so she and mom could go to the concert. she turned to me and pleadingly exclaimed ...
but father, e-love is your best friend! you MUST go to his concert!
she's a smart girl and alex is a fake choke-upper because we collectively got green-lit for the show by our medical staff. a few songs into the performance bella got my attention and over the applauding audience screamed in my direction ...
father! thank you for inviting us to your show. i'm having so much fun i'm about to fall asleep!
and, that was not facetious. bella doesn't yet know how to be facetious. it was a four year old girl's unadulterated and delirious gratitude towards a father who snuck her into a concert under the hem of his coat.
and, wondering how one climbs the ranks of troy-peeps to hold the number one slot? a sure-fire way is to not only get a gaggle of guys to sing my all-time favorite christmas song but also to dedicate it to me every time you sing it at your christmas concerts. and i imagine e-love wouldn't mind my sharing it with you all. i hope you enjoy it, but not to bella-like levels because that would mean seventeen otherwise productive people would be sprawled back in their padded work chairs in blissful, flatulent slumber on the clock and how could the world's economy possibly hope to ever again right itself?
i'm not the hugest fan of extreme home christmas displays but gotta say, if i lived near this guy, i'd camp out in front of his home every night.
dancing christmas lights (and, there aint much point in viewing this if you computer doesn't have sound.)
and, i'd appreciate it if someone could tell me the title/artist of this music. UPDATE: trans-siberian orchestra's Wizard of Winter. me and my OCD thank dionna and kix for solving that mystery. it is appreciated.
sadly, i wasn't here for the original conversation or even the retelling. i heard about it third-hand from marty so the players will have to forgive any kluged details (and, should that happen, walt is to shoulder the blame).
e-love and dr. j have a dog, hattie. they also have a new baby, alison. trying to gauge his wife's commitment to their family members, e-love recently posed the following questions to her.
if crazed terrorist broke into the house and said you had to cut off your pinky finger or they would kill hattie, what would you do?
if crazed terrorist broke into the house and said you had to cut off your baby's pinky finger or strangle hattie to death with your bare hands, what would you do?
let's just say you don't want to be hattie, or any other canine for that matter, on dr. j's watch should crazed terrorist break into the home looking to grow their collection of finger-pieces.
sorry i've been away so much. the olympics are on, like don't ya know, and i have tivo which means the olympics are actually watchable.
for instance, with tivo:
i can watch a 3 hour football game in 50 minutes.
i can watch a 30 minute episode of friends in 18 minutes.
thin when tan girl and i can watch an hour long episode of america's funniest home videos in 8 minutes.
and lastly, i can watch a six hour block of olympic coverage in 1 hour and 30 minutes.
if you're not up with the new technology and not really tracking my vibe, think of it this way, the networks are satan and tivo is the "kick satan in the nards" box.
viewing disclaimer: if you are watching tivo'd programming at e-love's house, cut all times in half.
so not even 10 minutes after making yesterday's post about how i'm sick and it's because i haven't got my iPod yet, my FORMER friend e-love sends me the following email and picture.
So when Carrie's in town and buys an iBook, guess what $200 off promotion she decided to let her brother-in-law participate in? I'm so happy. :)
i was clear on the FORMER friend bit, right? and the sister-in-law ain't so high in my book either. granted, i'm five months delinquent in responding to an email from her, but still!
e-love and dr. j are expecting their first child. congratulations e-love and dr. j.
with that out of the way, let us now move to the interesting part of the news.
e-love describes the vaginal sonogram instrument as highly phallic. i'm not sure what he or i expected from such a tool but we agree it seems like they'd try to do something to make it, well, less obviously phallic. we surmise they feel they're dealing with childbearing age adults and should be free to let such a detail slip by. e-love and i further surmise, they assume wrong.
now in the application of the sonogram, at least they use protection. i mean of course they use protection. this is america, you know, the styrofoam country. but the question is ... if you were a medical professional working with reproductive systems and had to sheath an item that was the shape, of say, a banana, what do you think you might use?
and before you answer, let me assert that these folks are on the baby birthing side of the fence and not tooting the prevention horn as much but i gotta think they're hip to the fact that a condom just might fit this tubular rod like a glove.
can we agree on this?
well, we may, but they do not. instead of getting something to fit the instrument like a glove, they instead use A GLOVE. and when does a glove not fit something like a glove you ask? when that something is shaped like a penis.
and for those who are as inquisitive as me, they use the pinky finger of the glove. and like me, that poor vaginal sonogram device just can't catch a damn break.
there have been points in my life where i feared a man's sperm supply was finite. i mean, i know everyone says this is not the case, but i also knew if there was a bottom to the bucket, i might be on a pace to get to it. i can even tell you how the imagined conversations played out in my adolescent brain between myself and an as of yet unidentified future wife.
the scene always starts moments after the doctor informed us that i had somehow used all my guys up, even though it has never been proven to be a scientific possibility. the doctor would then explain to my wife how it's really quite impressive that i found the energy, compunction and alone time necessary to entirely deplete my stock. my wife would not be moved or wowed by the doctor's opinions on the matter or that i'm, by his estimation, a medical marvel of sorts. she would instead be totally absorbed on how she was going to explain to her friends, family and as of yet unidentified second husband that the man she initially chose to spend her life with squandered all of his gametes before he was ever handed a high school diploma.
if i were an animal i would not be a lion. there are a number of reasons for this. for one i could never contort my face into such a fierce countenance. i am also not the king of anything. i came close once. i was jake at tetris for the gameboy, but then e-love showed up and made me his lioness (i.e. bitch). i think i recall that lions like to run around and piss or spray on things as to say "hey,...
all the wash u college students left over the last few weeks. this begins our quite season. during this period, there's all sorts of folks trolling the alleys scavenging for the goods rich kids don't feel like carting back home. just another luxury of those who don't have to pay for what they have.
as for me, their used and soiled housewares hold no appeal, but that is not to say i don't take advantage of the mayhem. it's more than typical to stumble across some morsel that is curious not for it's monetary value but for other, better reasons. and, i have come to ritualistically look for one memento each year to remember the esteemed students by. this season's trinket was a note i found on the sidewalk while walking home one night. it reads.
----------< begin note >----------
Hi Just, here's the hey. See you soon!! Tess.
(the above words were written in very big text at somewhat of an angle and there was an elongated heart in front of the 'Tess'.)
Just in case and b/c my mom is making me, here's our address:
(address inserted here)
if you take a taxi tell them to take 91st st on the south side of edith dr to get to greenbelt. you'll recognize the house. oh! and here's bo's cell phone which my mom is also making me give you:
(phone number inserted here)
mine is:
(another phone number)
much love!
be safe!
(next to the above two lines is a drawn box and inside it is written 'We're on a mission from God'.)
tessa
oh! and there will also be a hidden key which i will tell you about.
----------< end note >----------
it is quite fortunate this scrap wasn't found by some freak who would:
a. pick it up and put it in his pocket.
b. later read it while sitting on his front porch, twice.
c. post its contents on his website.
d. or call the number pretending he's 'Just'.
now i know you're thinking the last item might just be a little risky. i thought the same given caller id, star 69 and the constant fbi surveillance i'm under, so that's why i made the call from e-love's house.
toodles jen and justin. i'll call before i arrive. and i'm axiously awaiting my 'hidden hey!'.
a favorite pastime of mine is to get people talking about, in public, things they ordinarily would not talk about in public. over time i have found a few topics which make even the most stalwart squeamish, but conciliatory all the same. i'm not sure how this came to be. i think in that people seem more authentic (not to mention interesting) when you can get them off of their typical and canned con...
at a chili-fest over the weekend it was e-love and not me that got the conversational ball rolling when he first admitted to taking leaks in the back yard when walking the dog. it was also elove who when trying to tell a story about the breath freshener binaca, accidentally said Bianca, as in the p*rn star, and as in she is what he was occupied in the night before. and then he admitted that, yes, his mom had done time but he would only specifically speak to the incident involving a peace rally and left the drug and prostitution rumors to the listener's imagination.
elove was so busy entertaining the masses i was never called in to pitch. in some ways i felt unnecessary, useless, but in others i felt proud. i felt pride at seeing a comrade not only ignore but actually combat the typical small talk that looks to overwhelm such gatherings and to thwart the mindless prattle that can dig into your chest and remove your desire to continue in the facade. for me, elove has become the guy sitting in the missile silo through the night making sure the world stays a safe and enjoyable place so i don't have to.
although, in leaving the affair it's safe to say that dr j, elove's life partner, does not share my giddiness towards e's maturation. i guess he still has the ever conciliatory Bianca.
even though there's a gob of movies out i'm jonsin' to see (comedian, bowling for columbine, fat greek wedding, auto focus), i've been drawn into two that weren't on my list. first i went to red dragon with elove b/c he wanted to catch it before it left the theaters. as a rule i dislike remakes of movies i like and i've been a longtime fan of the original manhunter (starring to live and die in la's, william peterson) so was suspect of this treatment. but, red dragon is what a remake is supposed to be about. mix it up. make it different. respect the original. dragon handled all of this quite splendidly. kudos.
the second film i didn't really think i'd catch, in the theater at least, is jackass. bomber convinced me to go with about two hours notice, on a weeknight, with he and King. not having the cable i've seen approximately seven minutes of this show so knew the basic premise but am not a closet fan or anything. and surprisingly to all i tell as well as myself, after all the antics these guys went through, the one that sent me scrambling over people's knees and out of the theater was their bit with intentional paper cuts. aaaahhhhh! my back tenses and cramps uncontrollably even thinking back to it. i couldn't cope. the guy drinking his own urine in the form of a snow cone came close, but could not touch paper cuts in the corners of one's mouth. damn. Damn! DAMN!
and the four guys sitting behind us said "oh man, that boy's trippin'" approximately 46 times.
i mentioned earlier that a new super mall opened in saint louis. while i don't usually commit cycles to mall happenings, this one had special import in that it brought an apple store to saint lou. another goodish effect of this opening is that all the other respectable malls got face lifts and new stores were introduced to the market to keep shoppers tantalized given the new player in town. our snob mall even got a tiffany's, which is great because i obviously do a lot of business at tiffany's.
our prior alpha mall got a, brace yourself, cheesecake factory. like the apple store, this is our first. so last friday night while out with elove and dr j we decided to give it a tryst. we swung by at 9pm figuring that most people would have eaten by then. i think most had but i got to make a new facial expression when the hostess looked at me and said it would be two, possibly two and a half hours for a table. so it appears you have to make a reservation and then go eat somewhere else and just about when you're ready to eat again, a table may, possibly, be available for you at the cheesecake factory.
two and a half hours?!?! it would take me two and a half hours to list the things i could achieve in two and a half hours. and it was 9pm! i don't even think they were open two and half hours from then. how pissed would you be if you sat around all that time and they would just call your name to say that the kitchen is closed and they were going home but if you put your name in they may, may possibly, be able to seat you by 4pm the following day. she didn't even laugh demonically or scoff or mock me when saying this. two and a half hours! two and a half hours my ass.
the market may be down but marriage is booming. three of my finest friends have either gotten married or engaged this year. as you can imagine, with them being friends of mine and all, this is quite the thing.
as mentioned previously, doctor stevie, is to wed the marty-troy girl. while most would think this couldn't be beaten given her likeness to walt and i, you would be right.
then bookguy tied the knot in a hippie free love kind of ceremony in his backyard. don't believe me? e-love and i both wore shorts to the affair. granted we were the only ones not wearing dry-cleaned garments, but neither of us were willing to turn down an opportunity to wear our bermudas and daisy dukes to a wedding. i'll let you guess who wore which.
and now michaelcosm joins the ranks of the soon-to-be betrothed. when chavez reminded him that this means christine is the only girl he will ever know in that way again, michael reminded him that christine is the only girl who ever expressed an interest in knowing him at all. so in the end, i guess everyone's happy.
i wish them all great humor and hope that they don't wake sweating and screaming in the night at the realization of what a terrible and irreversible mistake they made years ago. oh, i don't mean i do that. i was thinking/talking about someone else. actually, i was speaking hypothetically. marty and i are very happy. marty is very supportive. and nice. she's pretty too.
Someone told me this funky thing about breathing air previously breathed by others. because our atmosphere is finite, air moves around the world, gets used, recyclyed and used again. Given this, if you are 30 years old you have most likely had air that Einstein, Shakespeare, Ceasar and JFK breathed coarse through your own body. Pretty cool eh.
after getting home from our nightly trek to girl fighting park, bella and i were met at the door by a sour-faced marty. e-love can't play tennis tonight, she told me. suck. do you want to know why? damn straight i want to know why his slacking ass is dogging at the last minute on a previously scheduled tennis night because i'm getting a little fed up with it. he's at the hospital. oh.
it seems that while at an outdoor event earlier in the day e passed out in the bleachers. while his wife was tending to this he started having seizures (allow me to add that he wasn't off the hook on tennis prior to this). it would also seem that a byproduct of said seizures is he made a little wee-wee in his shorts*. later at the hospital as the doctors were in e's room discussing the issue, they repeatedly used the phrase "urinary incontinence" in discussing his condition. every time the white coats referred to this love frustratedly proclaimed from his bed, "hey guys, it's called pissing my pants, you can just say 'he pissed his pants' or if you prefer, 'the subject then pissed his pants'."
man do i adore e-love.
* now something to understand about my friend is that he rarely wears underwear. i am a great proponent of this behavior and know few sound reasons to refute the practice, until now. had e been wearing an appropriate undergarment, it would have added some bounty-like absorption power to the equation, but with this missing apparel his shorts were forced to shoulder the full aquatic burden thus making the mishap appear a little more voluminous than may have been necessary. note to self, wear thick cotton boxers when going to an outdoor dog show in st louis during the summertime.
as a side-note and to add scientific validity to this story (b/c this site is all about scientific validity), it was explained to e that the seizure occurred because after he passed out he was in a sitting position and when blood could not get to his brain, his body freaked out in attempt to get him flat. furthermore, this particular doctor said that this is also why you don't see standing, enclosed phone booths anymore. because, people would pass out in them due to heat, stuffiness, whatever and then would go into seizures because they couldn't lie flat and would oftentimes hurt themselves by hitting their heads against the glass/metal. fact, fiction or urban legend. that's for you to decide.
