Hi ya’ll, I just thought I would check in as it has been awhile since my last blog posted back on 12/6/13. I still have plenty of stories and thoughts roaming around in my head, but I have been so busy with the holidays and work that I have not had much time to sit down and write one. So instead of a story I will take my lunch hour here to update you on what has been going on the last month.
After recovering from the fiasco that was Thanksgiving (a blog-worthy story that is better left un-written), the next day my wife Nadia, my 4-year old daughter Autumn and my 2-year old son Jack set our sights on Christmas. We dragged the fake tree out of the garage, decorated that and the house, hung stockings, and bought a blow-up family of snowmen for the front yard...but the highlight was when I carefully strung a large but old set of lights on the back deck, carefully weaving the 50 feet of lights around and through the posts while only shattering 2 bulbs in the process. Our entire neighborhood is absolutely nuts with outdoor lights and decorations, the next house more lavishly decorated and lit up then the last, so I thought with my house on the corner lot I should participate as well this year. So when I finally finished I triumphantly plugged the lights in and voila! All of seven bulbs on the entire string came to life! Three in a bunch right in the first 2 feet, and then the other four bulbs lit up sporadically along the remaining 48 feet. It was quite an unspectacular sight next to all my neighbors whose lighting displays can be seen from outer space, but I was cold and fed up and left the lights as is. They are still plugged in to this day as I have not had the heart to unwind them or even unplug them, but we are down to about 3 or 4 working bulbs now.
Next up for the Sneaky Sweets household was Autumn’s very first Christmas program at church. At the age of 4 she was the youngest there, but she practiced hard and seriously knew the words better than anybody there. At the end the pastor gave her a shout out, saying he would especially like to thank Autumn for taking the lead on vocals. From the front row I was filming her during the program, and dressed as an angel she was right up front smiling and waving to me and singing loudly and doing little impromptu dances with the songs. She was so insanely cute, and thinking back to how fast the 4 years have gone by I had tears running down my cheeks while trying to film her.
The following weekend had our family going to an old-fashioned Christmas party at a snowmobile clubhouse, complete with food, cookies, a hayride...and a visit from Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus. The photo above is a picture of my two kids just as the Claus’s are making their entrance into the building. For the first year ever Autumn worked up the nerve to go sit with Santa (and asked for a Barbie-playhouse) but Jack would not go near him. He stood a safe distance away tucked in between my legs, but he kept peering out in awe and wonder at the big hairy dude and his wife.
After posting the above picture on Facebook with the bit about the Barbie-playhouse, my friend Kara Marshall let me know that her and Mitch had bought their daughter Savannah a playhouse and she almost never played with it and it was just collecting dust in the basement. Hurray! Nadia and I were already done with our Christmas shopping except for the playhouse, so the day before Christmas I went over to Mitch and Kara’s to pick it up. Holy moly, the thing was a huge 3-story mansion complete with an elevator and tons of working gadgets. In addition to that they gave us a car-load of other little-girl stuff including a trunk full of princess clothes. It was awesome, but as we loaded item after item into my SUV I noted with a bemused smile how disappointing next Christmas will be compared to this year. How is Santa going to top this? Needless to say, Autumn was overjoyed with all of the incredible loot and she still plays with the Barbie house and dresses up as a different princess every day. Thanks Marshalls for helping to make it “The best Christmas ever!” as Autumn put it.
The following weekend it was time to say goodbye to the H.H.H Metrodome, the home of the Minnesota Vikings since 1982, to make way for our new billion dollar stadium being built on the same spot. On that Saturday the Vikings invited season ticket holders to an open house from 4-7pm. So I drove Autumn and I to the Cabooze Bar, parked for free and then we took the train to the Dome. Autumn was beside herself with excitement from both her first train ride and first (and last) trip to the Dome. We ran down to the field, chased each other around, took turns tackling each other in the endzone, went to the locker room, talked to ex-player Rickey Young, got pictures of Autumn on the Vikings bench and by the goalposts and endzone, saw ourselves on the jumbotron, and I also found my name on a hallway wall listing all of the season ticket holders.
While rolling around in the endzone I filled my pockets with astro-turf, some glitter that Autumn found, and a very well-manicured fingernail. I brought it all home and have it in a baggie. In 20 or 30 years when they finally get this DNA cloning thing down I am going to have them make a person from the fingernail so we can see just which Viking it is, or I suppose it could be from an opposing team. Either way I will have my very own NFL player to hang out with!
After we had enough of the Dome we took the train back to the Cabooze and then she picked Applebees to go to dinner. It was a great daddy/daughter date. It was 44 degrees out. Then the next morning I went to the final Vikings game at the Dome and it was suddenly -9 degrees (-30 with the wind-chill). The Vikings won which was rare but nice. There were TONS of security there to prevent the riot that took place when the old Met Stadium hosted it’s last Vikings game in 1981 and the fans tore the entire building to shreds. On my way out of the Dome though I grabbed a large purple sign that said: “This Way To Gate G” and I will hang it on the door to my bar in the basement.
Next up was New Year’s Eve, which was a non-event. Nadia and I had some champagne, she went to bed and I stayed up watching the awesome movie ‘Dazed And Confused’. I paused at 11pm to watch the ball drop on Times Square, then back to the movie and then to bed at 12:01am. One weird thing happened earlier that day though and I am not sure what to make of it. I was in the locker room at work on my lunch break getting ready to work out. I was undressing when a plastic knife that I was using earlier to eat with flew out of my shirt pocket and landed on the floor...on its edge. This was a flat plastic dinner-ware knife that flew out from a height of 5 feet and landed on a hard tiled floor and stuck the landing right on its edge. I just stood and stared at it for about 10 seconds, not believing what I had just seen. Then I tried to recreate what had just happened. I dropped the knife over and over and after about 50 tries from a height of maybe 2 inches I finally got it to land and stick on its side. Is this a good omen?
A week later I went to the awesome ‘PINK’ concert at the Target Center, and this Friday I am heading to New Orleans to see a couple reunion shows of my favorite band ‘The Radiators’. Me and a few hundred of my best friends are flying in from all over the country to see the Radiators play 3 nights at Tipitinas. Yeah baby!
Last night I also had a lifelong dream of mine realized. I got to work at home, with a beer in hand! We have been so swamped at work for the last 2 months that they finally agreed to let me work overtime from my home computer. My friend Dave Malone the guitar/singer from the Radiators always says that he only drinks when he works and I have always been jealous of him. Finally, I got to have what he has! (Minus the throngs of adoring and screaming fans). I only had 1 beer just to say that I did it, but I think tonight I am going to bump it up to a new level and a new dream: working naked with a beer in hand! Top that Dave.
Well that is it for now. I have plenty of more stories and I will get them on here one by one as time permits. Hopefully work will eventually die down a bit and I will get a chance to write some more. In the meantime have a great day, and remember that everything will work out if you let it. Oh, also, I just had the juiciest pear I have ever had in my life. It was so ridiculously sweet and wet that I had to run from my desk to the kitchen here at work to eat it over the sink. When I was done I was out of breath and covered with juice. I felt like I’d just had sex with it. It was orgasmically good. Anyways back to work, and in the words of one of my new favorite performers:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years from now
I hope I'm still getting down
I hope I'm still around
But 6, 7, 8, 10 beers ago
I had a revelation all is well right now
It's all good right now
It's all good right now
It's all good right now
These are the good old days
These are the good old days
These are the good old days...
