Black Monday

That's what I'm calling the Monday after Thanksgiving break. Everyone is walking around here in a fog. 4 days ( or more) of sleeping in and gorging yourself on turkey is no preparation for an overcast Monday morning sitting in a cubical. Add to that the fact that here in Pennsyltucky its the first day of buck fever and the door never beeps and the phone never rings and you have a recipe ripe for violations of the companies internet use policy.

I hope your Thanksgiving holiday went well...mine did.

As Mrs. Flick is still laid up I made my first turkey ever for the big day. I started around noon right after a hard bike ride and a 4 mile run, which left me as hungry as a Rastafarian in a Whole Foods store. The result was a 15 lb bird, 3 lbs of marshmellow yams, 16 biscuts, etc etc capped off both a pumpkin and a coconut cream pie....for 5 of us, three of whom are under 10 and one of whom is a skinny woman. Needless to say that I've eaten nothing but leftovers for the last 3 days. FYI, 3 day old yams are disgusting no matter how much marshmellow to bathe them in.

Friday I took the kids downtown for the tree lighting ceremony and annual Mayoral season greeting, this year titledm, please-buy-some-stuff-downtown-instead-of-the-mall-so-we-can-hang-onto-the-last-of-the-white-people-who-haven't-pulled-the-the-chute-yet, or something like that. I'm not really sure because I didn't get one of the programs.

The whole city scene fascinates me. You have some modestly affluent baby boomers who are really committed to saving the city. They're the ones supporting ( or opening) the shops. They're the ones keeping the nightlife afloat. They're the ones drawing in the likes of me and my family to participate in things like the tree lighting and first Friday artwalk. But the city is also composed of a fair number of half-way house type crazy and infirmed people as well as a stunning number of feral 12 year old boys with improbably large puffy jackets and nicer cell phones and sneakers than I have. This all creates a surreal mix in the town square with the boomers in their camel hair jackets and wingtips trying to act dignified while crazy toothless people try to protect their shopping bags from wandering packs of PhatFarm puffballs screaming at each other with a 3 to 1 obscenity to english ratio. At least the event was capped with ( literally) 200 tuba players, tubas fully decorated in Chirstmas regalia, playing silent night an a Bowser-like octive, to keep everything anchored in normalcy.

Me ? I bought my kids some hot chocolate then we hightailed it outta there and back tot he suburbs where we like our dysfunction the old fashion American way...surpressed in a haze of prescprition drugs and deviant sexuality. In that I can trust.

The rest of my weekend was spent running, and riding, and swimming, the same as the last 6 weeks. The result of this concerted effort toward fitness and good health has yielded me a net loss of exactly 1 whole pound depending on whether or not I weigh myself pre or post dump. People keep trying to say encouraging things like " maybe you gained muscle" or " hang in there" but I suspect that in their heads they're finishing the sentence with the phrase " ...you fatass". No matter what the outcome, at least if my car breaks down I should be able to run, ride, or swim to the closest donut shop, so it all works out.

A very short conversation Saturday night.

The boy: ( something insulting to the youngest girl)

the girl: I'm not impressed

The boy: Well then maybe I'll call you a therapist

The girl: Then maybe I'll bleed you again.

Last night the youngest girl had a friend over for a sleepover. Around 1:00 am I heard some comotion and I got up to find her friend crying. " I want my mommy, I want to call her". I told the girl that I didn't think that it was a good idea to freak her mom out by calling her at 1:00 am, but that I'd sit with her until she fell back asleep so she wouldn't be scared. Then the youngest girl woke up and asked what has happening. " Your Daddy wont let me call my mommy, he wants to sit in bed with me instead", which, while accurrate, would look a lot less magnanmous if written out in a police report. I woke Mrs. Flick and let her manage the sitation.

OK, I realize this is post is starting to get a little out of control. Happy Monday.