The Weekend Project

I did a week-end project at my house recently, a DO-IT-YOURSELF project. I finally laid the tile in our upstairs bathroom. Weekend project my ass! Let me tell you, those home improvement shows lie like dogs. Everything is sooo easy and absolutely anyone can do it. Well my wife couldn’t so it was all me. My father-in-law, thank God, helped me out. He’d done it before and knew all the pit falls. I didn’t ask him how he knew but we can probably assume that it was from making all the mistakes himself.

Anyway, the weekend project started one weekend and wasn’t finished until almost eight weeks later. It looks great and I’m really proud of the work I did, but it’ll be a cold day in Hell before I do another project around the house.

Those home improvement shows have staffs that do all the prep work so the on air personalities look good. It’s like putting together a plastic airplane model once it’s time to film. 90% of the job is prep-work, the rest is just follow through. Now when I watch the shows, I just laugh.

Time is short today so I’m posting an entry from my writing journal from last year about a friends divorce.

Tom’s Divorce

When he came to the door he looked distracted. Not in a scatterbrained, daydreaming way, but in a deep concentration, as if his subconscious was desperately trying to make some sense out of everything that had happened and was happening in his life.

What first struck me was his appearance. He was the same man I knew and had seen just one month earlier, but his ever present smile was replaced with thin, tight lips. The eyes that usually squinted and displayed crow’s feet from laughter were now open and wetted with reality. The most startling difference was the deep lines running across his forehead, as if some sculptor had slipped with his chisel while working on a statue and ruined it. I was amazed how much emotional upheaval and stress a divorce could cause in such a short period of time.

I had received his phone call earlier that day, just after returning home from grocery shopping. We began the conversation pretty much the way small talk does with the obligatory “Hi, how are you? Long time no see” script. When my turn came for asking those questions, the answers became complicated. He told me he was leaving his wife; there was a long pause. That they were getting a divorce; there was a longer pause. He wanted to know if we could go out, get drunk and talk.

Later that day we met. The bar we chose was loud and crowded, but it was handy. I’d known him and his wife for more than two years and still couldn’t believe this all happened in a month’s time. He started his story as soon as the beer arrived.

The downslide had started several months earlier. He decided to leave a reasonably secure job with no future other than a paycheck for another job at a higher risk, with advancement potential and future money. It was a sales rep job that would have produced hefty commissions given time and patience. In order to make ends meet his wife took a job. This was the first job she held since she was single. When his money began to whither and hers became more important, her priorities changed. She now wanted a career; he was stifling her; she wanted control over all her money and refused to pay bills. She maxed out all the credit cards, hid them and items she had purchased for herself. Then he learned about the affair.

Little bits and pieces of information began to slip from the mouths of his children about mommy’s new friend. His four-year-old son was even able to show daddy where the friend lived.

As the story progressed with more sordid details, I kept wondering what kind of pain he was feeling. How does it feel to be totally betrayed? What words of comfort could I give that wouldn’t sound grossly inadequate? He was looking for answers. I had none. He was looking for help. I couldn’t offer any. There we sat, two pathetic individuals in a bar, one wide eyed with pain and frustration, the other wide eyed with astonishment.

Marriage was supposed to be sacred. A spouse was someone who made life that much more bearable. Someone you could emotionally and physically grow old with. For him marriage had now become a demon that held him in a headlock and was preparing to throw him in a pit from which he could not escape; the pit of emotional turmoil, of bankruptcy and whatever else he could not yet know because of lack of experience.

When I dropped him off it was two in the morning. He didn’t want to go back, but he went anyway. He opened the door to find a babysitter in the living room and his wife out again for the evening.

I went home, hugged my wife and kissed my children.

My Last Restaurant Meal Was 1200 Calories!

My wife and I went to church with the family today. After church we went to eat at a local family restaurant, IHOP to be exact. After we were seated by the hostess and handed our menus we also received a surprise.

“What’s this?”, I asked.

“It’s the nutritional information menu,” said the hostess. “The new law started and all restaurants have to give these out to the customers. “

I said, “I don’t want to know.”

She said, “We have to.”

My wife told me to shut up and take it so I did. I told her I just wanted one of the salads.

OH MY GOD! The salad that I order is 1200 calories! There wasn’t a meal on the menu that was less than a thousand and there were others that were a lot worse! WHAT A DEAL BREAKER!

If this is one of the new ideas our government is using to stimulate business it’s the dumbest I’ve ever seen! How are restaurants supposed to survive this one? My wife, the thin as a rail, veggie eating, “The whole world should go GREEN” freak insists that this is a great thing. It’ll help people make better choices and force restaurants to make better meals.

I said, “NO IT WON’T! It’ll make people order and eat out less!” I don’t want to know what’s in it. I WANT IT TO TASTE GOOD! People don’t go to restaurants to eat stuff that’ll taste worse than what they get at home. They go out to enjoy something and have an experience that they don’t ordinarily have. It’s supposed to be a special occasion. I asked her what she’ll think when we go to one of her really high priced restaurants and find out how bad a lobster bisque is or a real, authentic Caesar Salad, a couple of cocktails, the entrée, and her crème brû-lée?

No answer.

This is just another example of people sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong. There are no substitutes for sour cream, real cream sauces, BUTTER, a good dark beer, a good wine, A GREAT SCOTCH, or a thousand other ingredients that will now be on a hit list of things in recipes to change.

Before all you health nuts out there start screaming, “Oh yes there are, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Let me just say, “You’re full of it!”

There are substitutes but that’s all they are. SUBSTITUTES! They make a dish passable if that’s what you’re looking for. They do not replace the original ingredients that have been perfected, sometimes over hundreds of years, in a traditional dish, drink or desert. If I want to get thinner, I’ll eat less and exercise more. If, as a nation, we choose not to, well then that’s our own stupid fault if our arteries clog up isn’t it? Having the government get in our face and tell us we’re being bad people just sucks and it’s bad for business.

If it’s good enough for us why isn’t it good enough for them? Hey Government! Your Budgets and spending are FAT and BLOATED! You need to CUT BACK! You’re killing the country with your FAT programs, PORK and excessive SPENDING! We need to pass a spending menu law because you’re too STUPID to make an intelligent decision!

I ordered and ate what I originally wanted, the salad. But I will admit, I will never enjoy it as much again. Thanks a lot!

Marriage and the Concept of Time

I have a friend who introduced me to his friend who is getting married. We talked about many things but the one thing that struck me was a comment he made about his time and how he and his new wife would be sharing their time with each other. Oh, that poor naive fool! I gave him the truth, and my friend whole heartily agreed.

Marriage Truth About The Concept of Time
When a guy gets married, your time becomes our time. But it’s not really our time, it’s her time. It’s her time to decide what you are going to do, whatever that may be.