Up til today

I'm at the airport at the moment after working last nite and a 3 hour nap. I'm flying home for one day, my Dad's birthday. 70 years ago in a tiny town in the near third world Portuguese island territory of the Azores, Papa Alfredo was spit out into the world. It proves to show that nobody knows where they're going to end up being in life down the road. I should probably thank him for getting out of that backwater island town or I wouldn't exist today.
So, tonite, we are having a small dinner with two of his brothers and us. We're making a ham and some sides, and we ordered him a nice birthday cake. It will be a long day for me today since right after I get off the plane and in the house I will be cooking and prepping. I shouldn't be able to relax until about 11pm, and then its off to sleep before coming right back here to Phoenix tomorrow. It will be worth it though.
Mom decided to get him a nice watch for a gift and I booked all of us a trip to Kauai in March for a long overdue, relaxing family vacation. Unfortunately due to a unforeseen credit card hiccup, the surprise was blown for him as he got wind of what I was doing. He doesn't seem to be putting up a fight for right now, but I'm sure he will try to be pessimistic about it. He's already tried to drop the "we can't make far future plans because we don't know when doctors appointments are going to be" excuse. I told him to shut it, seeing that the trip is 5 days and he can schedule around it.
I think its a trade off now days for what we have to give and learn from eachother. He's shown me temperance, financial smarts, do-it-yourself skills and determination. I think it's my job to show him how to enjoy life a little. Outside of roadtrips to Arizona or southern Cali ( which usually always have a tie-in to a business agenda), the last vacation, or family vacation at that too, was in 1994 when we all went to the Azores. Over 14...FOURTEEN years ago. There's something inherently wrong with that.
Outside of plans for today, this week has been a, um, average week with some interesting nuances. It's been week two of being off my vitamin supplements, and my sleep has continued to be better and more resting. The awkward part about it is that as I sleep, my dreams have gotten exponentially more vivid and intense. The strangeness of the dreams varies, but two nights ago I had a strange dream about a lobster king disguised as a human attempting to kill us all. With the assistance of my boss, some of my work crew and my ex girlfriend, we lured him into a steam tunnel with abandoned cars in it and "steamed" him to death.
Crystal has been making near nightly cameo appearances in my dreams. Some are disturbing, most of the time we have an argument in the dream and things are just awkward for the mostpart in them.
Work has been good for money this week, unfortunately the clientele has been lackluster. Assholes and elbows mostly. There was a pair of fights last night, including one outside that starred a chick vs a dude. I'll give the dude some credit, he let her wait on him for a bit before common sense clicked in his head being..."alright, if your talking shit like a dude, starting a fight, and hitting me like a dude...it's on." He ended up hitting her a few times in the face, giving her a lump on the head, a busted bloody nose and a fat lip. Some customers and employees broke up the fight, but no repercussions were made on the dude seeing that everyone agreed that the girl was deserving of him defending himself.
I made 30 clove garlic chicken Thursday. It was delicious.

A grand experiment

It was a bit strange not having people over or to go out for Sunday football today and not tearing it up. I did have a productive and as ease day off however. I got up at 11:30 after a 6 hour sleep feeling refreshed. I put some ball on as I got a light breakfast together and defrosted a steak for dinner. After that, I gathered a bank deposit and walked Jenny on a 4 mile walk to the bank and back. I took my time and even drained my iPod battery on the stroll. I got back, paid my bills off, finished laundry, had some lunch, picked the last crop of my peppers before winter claims back the plants, reorganized the patio and played some games before having dinner and watching discovery tv.

The past few days I've been working in the garden, planted a tree, baked some banana and cranberry breads, tidied up the house some, Christmas shopped and other small stuff too. I was wondering how I suddenly got enough energy to do things again this week.

Well for one, I wasn't hungover after a Sunday party day, so yes, the refrain from liquor is definitely a plus, but I experimented a bit further. For the past few months I had been maintaining a steady regimen of supplements for my meals (or lack thereof). I was taking a daily dose of Vitamin B-12, echinacia, DHEA, and another multivitamin. The echinacia and the DHEA aren't the problem, but the vitamins, I feel, were throwing my body even further out of sync. The B-12, while not harmful to your body, effectively acted like a energy booster. Unlike a drinkable energy drink like Redbull or Rockstar which have a heavy vitamin and sugar crash, usually B-12 doesn't have that serious of an effect.

Unfortunately mixing the supplements with a hangover caused a very ugly rollercoaster ride that made me even more moody than I usually am. So this week, without taking supplements and not drinking, I am sleeping less but with more rest and have been very productive this week.

I'll see how this next week progresses going into my Dad's birthday next Sunday when I go home for a day.

drudging up the past

I was digging around for old photos of family to make presents for some of my family when I dragged up some pics of Doug, Dirty Ryan and I from well back in high school. It's amazing how fast time passes!

At Pescadero beach in January of 94

Ah, Dirty Ryan on one of our many bike rides back in the day. I bet Dirty missed that good ole bike.

Ryan and the Dog Broad Izzy at Pescadero

Douglas "reflecting" on something at Bean Hollow beach

Ah, the infamous trizan hack pick in front of Ryan's house after a hacky sack session back in 93. I really...really miss those shorts. I literally wore them until they were nothing more than ripped strips.

Making it look like Christmas threw up in my house

There, that's catchy! Raaaalph!! Or should I say Rrruudoooolllfff Christmas all over my house!

Besides that, I really do love the Christmas season. I had a productive day today on my day off getting the house ready for the holidays. It's always ironic though that in my 13 years out here in the valley, I've only decorated and stayed here for Christmas one December 25th. On a side note, I'll never do that again because that year was the last Christmas my grandfather had alive, and I missed spending it with the family.

So, the house will get all decorated up and have nobody here for the holiday as I always go home for a week. I do put up a mean little tree though.

I do have 2 traditions here at my house for decorating. One is that every year I buy one new ornament for the tree that has some kind of meaning.

I think I have 10 years of unique ornaments on this tree this year. This year's ornament is a red, green and silver handpainted glass ornament I got at the Phoenix art museum when my parents and I visited it in October. Most of them have a small story behind them, good or bad.

Secondly, I am unique with my outside lights. All my neighbors have a constant theme, either all icicle lights, all multicolored lights, all white lights, stars, blow-up snowmen, or those damn automated wire reindeer. Me, no...I go for the tackiest house on the block. I got them big old-school, suck the power company and my wallet dry colored bulbs right next to a rouge string of white mini-lights, next to a bunch of flashing blue & white minis, next to solid blue big lights, next to a bunch of oddball placed lights. It's organized chaos.

It looks good. You know why it does? Because its different, yet traditional. Here's how its going to play out. The Smith family is going to be rolling around the town one night looking at light displays in their mini-van with little Jessica and Thomas in the back, and they'll be saying, " There's another house with all icicles...there's another blow up Tigger Santa Jes....WOAH! Hey, there's a different house guys!"

Point for me. Take that you icicle whores!

So yes, productive day, woke up at 10:30, had a cup of coffee and some cinnamon toast then spent the next 7 hours decorating the inside and outside of the house. At 6pm I headed over to Sam's club after a brief phone call to my Godfather to get a bag of Jenny food and a take and bake pizza for me. I had a few slices for dinner, went through the mail, started writing blogs and Christmas cards while keeping the Christmas music channel on til my ears bled red and green.

Funny, I walked into Sam's club and everyone I passed looked at me kinda funny. I thought I had a stain on my shirt or a booger bungee jumping out my nose, but when I checked, the only thing I found was a big smile to give to everyone from having a good day dealing with Christmas stuff.

Climbing out of the rabbit hole for a dose of reality.

I had a tiny experience of a moment of clarity last week. Now, as it's widely known, I like to drink from time to time. Lately it's been getting not only boring and repetitive, but the next day gets rougher and rougher as I get older and it isn't that I do anything stupid, damaging or bad when I do drink (with the exception of occasionally lifting a bottle of hot sauce from the local bar). In fact I'm usually a happy, entertaining, accommodating and sociable drinker, but it's more so the likelihood of what I may likely become as the years creep up on me.

As my family's history dictated, my father's side is Portuguese-so we not only drink a good amount, but we also are known for making our own booze to support our habit. On my mother's side is French Canadian, and believe me my grandfather and my uncles (who were all in the services) loved and still do love their beer and whiskey in grandiose amounts. I remember tales of my father meeting his brother in-laws and tearing it up around town back in Rhode Island in the 60's.

I tend to stay closer to the flock on my Mother's side. Not only to I look more like my deceased grandfather who died with a pickled liver, but I may be his soul re-born as per a tale my father told of he and I in his truck when I was 3 and talking to dad like said deceased grand-dad whom I never met...but that's another story for a later time.

Am I using heredity as a crutch? No, of course not, but it helps to know where one comes from.

My parents do not drink, or at least any longer. That stopped years and years ago before I could remember.I can recall though, my father buying a case of Lowenbrau and trying a sip of beer when I was 5. I hadn't had my first full taste of booze until I was 20. I didn't get drunk until I was well after 21. So it's not that I was a rebellious kid in high school, or even fully through college. The irony of it is that I've worked in a bar for almost 12 years and have half my kitchen turned into a full bar.

The question I have for myself is, do I have a problem with it? No, i do not have an addiction, nor am I dependant on liquor to have a good time. When I come home from a day of work I do not have a drink. After a closing shift when everyone else on duty has a cocktail or four, I have none. I don't crave liquor nor do I need it to function. I DO like to have people over and have fun on my days off if I so elect to do so.

When I do get that one or two days off, I decompress so fast from not being able to let go all week or two that I really tear it up in one day. Its the next two days after that hurt. Lately that's been wearing on me.

When I do not drink for a while, not only do I drop weight, feel more energetic, become less moody and save money faster, but I generally feel healthier, motivated and more centered instead of being on a rollercoaster ride of a good high to await the crash and burn low.

Accepting and realizing the possible future physical ramifications as well as the cost of a good time, dealing with the dregs of a progressively worsening next day hangover, I wish to leave the secondary rabbit hole world for a while and balance out a bit. I'm going, to the best of my ability, take a break off drinking for a while, at least 3 months.

Maybe I'll go for a hike instead.

Advents of Technology

I have reasons for my impulses most of the time. Yesterday my impulse was to upgrade my TV to a 46 inch LCD HDTV and to get a Playstation 3/ blu ray player to go along with it.

It's nice, beyond nice, and my old TV is very jealous right now after being moved into the bedroom.

The methods to my madness? Simple self indulgence for my birthday.

Not that I'm hunting for attention or goodies, but outside of my parents getting me a few gifts, love and affection, my buddy Ryan sending me a box from Japan, and a few cards and happy birthday wishes from friends and family, my birthday wasn't much more than another day. In fact, my day, and entire weekend was spent working my ass off. So, in a nutshell, it was a Happy Birthday to ME day yesterday.

I do have to give credit where credit is partially due though. That goes to my pop. He instilled money management, working and saving cash to me. What he doesn't grasp yet is, what are you doing with all that money if you can't enjoy it from time to time? Can't take it with you when you go right, so may as well live a little while you're here.

I'm pleased with it, and its paid off with cash, cash that will be replaced within a month. Now if you would excuse me, I need to watch I am Legend in Blu Ray.

A lost weekend

As expected, I worked my entire birthday weekend on Halloween. My work decided to throw a block party that weekend, so all hands on deck. The idea was a good one, but as usual with a block party, everyone gets overworked and some kind of drama usually happens. At least this party went a WHOLE lot smoother than the super bowl debacle back in February. I dressed in my western outfit for Halloween propper, and it was the busier night. It was insane Friday night. I got home at about 430 am that night. I expected Saturday to be a lot calmer of a block party than Friday seeing that most people went all out then and wouldn't have much left in the tank for a second night. I was right, Saturday was far less crowded, even slow at times during the night. I dressed like one of my bosses, Capt. Mike that night. I fooled everyone, it was freaky. Its an easy enough get-up, and I had all the things I needed just laying around the house. I stuffed a pillow under my shirt and stuffed my old pony tail under my hat to replicate my boss, got his mannerisms and shuffle walk down. It was actually a fun night.

Only thing I was not looking forward to was the breakdown of the outside. After breaking down fences, tarps, tents, decorations, lights, trash and sweeping the street, I got home at 6am. I had Sunday off, but after working today (Monday) I'm still sore and very tired. It will be an early night as I will need to catchup on my sleep.

The mystery box

I received a box in the mail the other day all the way from Japan and Dirty Ryan. The irony is that I was prepping a box of stuff to send to him, so it was a bit eerie to get one for my birthday. Ryan did listen to my holiday requests in that he sent me a bunch of exotic foods and a recipe to try. They're all laid out above, and as a running joke, that small can in the center is of course...horse cock. Ah the memories of our last escapade in San Diego a few years back wherein Ryan was able to convince a drunken Marc and Doug one night in the hotel to take a big bite of a canned mystery meat. Tasty horse cock...yum!

It was a pleasant surprise to get it, and I thank him immensely. I will be trying his wares this week at some point in time. Maybe this weds or Sunday as Doug has the day off and we can both revisit the horse meat.