My Wasted Weekend

Watching as Bubba manages to topple his free-standing tent/basketball court (will those maniacs at IKEA never stop?), trapping himself under it, I muse upon my wasted 48 hours:

- For one thing, I tore almost all of one of my toenails off; left foot, third from
big toe.I didn't intend to. I was picking at it (my wife always bugs me about
using a nail clipper, but I'm a lazy guy when it comes to nail care), and the
next thing I know it was over halfway off when the pain kicked in. I had to
finish the job, and that was really fun in a more painful sense. It still throbs.

- My wife's friends (Gigi) husbands (Brian) father died. Normally, this would
mean nothing to me as I usually could give a damn about such things but I
had met the old man a few times: at Gigi and Brian's wedding a few years ago
and most recently at a housewarming in Connecticut. He went on for about 3
hours on the subject of work ethic and job satisfaction. And although usually
thins sort of thing would have driven me to either extreme sarcasm or the
nearest alcoholic drink I found myself charmed by this gruff old guy espousing
so... earnestly. It was refreshing.

The other thing that was kind of funny was that he kept trying to 'butch up'
this one weinerdog who was either related or a friend of the family (dunno
which). Think of the show "Friends". Now think of Ross. Now... think of Russ,
the Ross clone. This guys was Russ. No lie, down to the whine. Plus he was
allergic to cats, of which Brian and Gigi have 2. Hilarity ensues.

So, there will be a wake this weekend and me and the Mrs. will go, her because
of her relationship with Gigi but me... I'll go because I liked the old man. He
was, as they used to say, a "good egg". I wish I could have heard him talk more,
on other things. We had a lot of opinions in common, so I guess that has
something to do with it. But not all.