manlycornhusk's blog post - Calm before...during..after the storm

It's been a while..I know. I apologize. When I'm working my butt off, it seems I'm all out of energy when it comes to extracurricular activities and when I have some time off..well...so much gets squeezed into those few days that I envy people at work..lol.

July 4th..early morning. Had some sleep to cap off the one down day in the 5 I have off. Up to now, it's been run, run, jump, run, run, run.

Friday and Saturday kept the wheels of the old pickup tearing up blacktop. Living in a small town is nice but it has its trade-offs. One of those is "beyond basic shopping". If you don't want apples and oranges, you head for the big city. If you want some fancy kinda hardware..you know, the kind that makes the hardware guy frown and scratch his head, you motor an hour away to find what you need.

The upside of that....eating somewhere other than a mom and pop diner. Even that's a crap-shoot. I let my wife choose where we had lunch the last two times and she's in my dog house for a while. The first time was some preppy, California barely cooked veggie w/ unidentifiable sauce place that left me eyeing the burger joints as we left town. The second was a small "Indian" cafe that seemed to cater to the ethnic community in the area. Now, I love curry and have no problem with minumal meat and overabundance of rice and five-spice but it was overpriced and my wife obviously didn't have a clue what she was getting into. Two bites in, I noticed her fork on her plate and a glassy stare. Two minutes out the door and she needed and emergency curry toilet stop....not good. Next time..I choose.

Sunday...hot, humid..typical July. A birthday picnic in the park for my grand-daughter. Plenty of good people, food and oooohs and aaaaahs for a one year old beauty. Being a grandpa is like no other thing in this world. I don't know what it is..your children take over the parenting role and you get to sit back and enjoy the scenery. Of course...grandma goes nuts with spoiling them while grandpa pulls his hair out and reschedules his payments..lmao.

Finally...4th of July, Independance Day: Birth of a Nation...wow...awesome still after hundreds of years. My youngest daughter marches in her second parade of the holiday and afterwards we head to a family bbq. It's going to be close...we're going to have to practically pull her off the street and fly north so that I can stoke the fires and grill some meat for the starving masses....no pressure.

Oh, did I say finally...my bad. The 5th is my wife's birthday. That means a small, more laid back celebration with some good food and for two months, I get to be married to an older woman...woohoo. And then, that night...back to work for some well deserved rest...sheesh.

There's a line from one of my favorite movies, Apocolypse Now, where two of the characters are chased out of the jungle and back to their boat by a tiger. The one keeps repeating, "don't ever get out of the boat!". Well....if life is like a boat...don't ever get out of it...forgetting to live is the dangerous part. So what if you're exhausted from it, wink.

Peace and Love and Life's Surprises for all.