Eons ago

Wow it feels like I last posted years ago.  Obviously with a ten or so day hiatus there are tons of things I could cover.  Instead of going day by day I am going to try to just cover highlights and not necessarily in chronological order.  Otherwise this thing would just ramble on forever.

Dad, Teresa and their two dogs, Maggie and Clara rolled into town Friday afternoon.  We figured Nicki would go through her normal process when someone/thing comes into the house, bark like mad and be scared.  However we must have spent enough time with them when we were out west for Nicki to permanently register them on the “good” list. She remembered them right away and within minutes she was out back playing with the two other dogs in the yard. Nicki also warmed right back up to Dad and Teresa.

We intentionally didn’t have tons of activities already lined up.  We have found in the past that if we have guests down with a long agenda already in the works it makes for a less then enjoyable time where both the guest and ourselves are stressed and tired by the end of it. The tentative list had these items on it, go the casino and take the dogs to the beach, that’s it.  After that we figured the seven days would take care of themselves.

The dogs provided quite a bit of entertainment themselves.  Taking them out and playing with them was a regular activity that we spent quite a bit of time doing.  Maggie is a ball retrieving fiend.  She will play ball till she literally falls over if you let her.  The one gift we bought for their dogs came in handy, a Chuck-it. The device functions as a long extension to your arm, allowing you to throw a tennis ball quite far with little effort.  It also has the bonus feature of allowing you to throw a dirty, slobber coated ball without touching it.  You simply press the scoop onto the ball and you are ready to go.

Clara is the more mischievous of the two dogs.  Maggie, while she is very high energy, is also very obedient.  Clara is even higher energy but lacks the obedience aspect.  As soon as she arrived she decided to use our small pond as psuedo drinking fountain and tub.  She came out of the pond covered in sludge from the bottom.  I quickly erected a make shift barrier made out of posts, screening and landscape fabric.  It did nothing to keep her out.  During their visit she had to be chased out of the pond at least a dozen times.

One of the things we typically do when we have guests during the winter months is turn on the pool heater since although the air temperature is warm, the pool water can drop into the 60’s.  This time was no exception and I had the heater running for most of the week cranking the pool water to over 90 degrees.  We just happened to get our electric bill a couple days ago.  It almost crossed 300 bucks just from running the heater for that time period, crazy.

The only dog that would willingly go into the pool was Maggie.  She would dive into the pool after balls repeatedly.  Clara fell in accidentally and after that she was scared to go in. Nicki watched all of the craziness safely from the pool deck.    I believe everyone used the pool at least once during the week so I guess it was worth it.

Patrick arrived on Saturday.  He just graduated from Pitt a couple weeks prior and had some dead time before starting up his new job on January 19th.  Pat is funny.  Around me he is typically very reserved and quiet. However from being on his Facebook friend list I have been witness to the many crazy things he has been involved in.  Evidently alcohol is the key to unlocking this aspect of Patrick’s personality.

The first couple days we did a lot of just hanging around at the house, eating meals there, playing with the dogs and things of that nature.  I introduced everyone to the Wii as well.  Pat and I had some good tennis and baseball games going and I even got my Dad and Teresa involved in both a game of bowling as well as boxing matches.  The Mii I made of my Dad is funny as hell, it’s all moustache.  I demonstrated some Wii Fit activities to them as well but none of them seemed that interested in trying it out first hand.

Dad and Teresa got the official guest bedroom.  Patrick got to stay in the hobby/workout room.  We slid the treadmill over to make room for the two blow up mattresses we stacked on top of each other.  It wasn’t so bad for him, he even had a tv in there.

One of the things that occupied a lot of time over that first weekend was watching the NFL play offs.  We watched most of each game and of course the Eagles win.  That game was a nail biter back and forth for quite awhile.  In retrospect I don’t know how close it should have been considering how terrible the Vikings QB appeared to be.  It was a great win where the Birds did what they had to to close out the game when it mattered, something I am not accustomed to.

We decided  to make Monday our casino day.  Ali volunteered to stay home and dog sit while we indulged our vices.  Patrick never gambled legally before so this was a first for him.  I set my limit low, withdrawing 100 bucks and vowing to not go beyond that, Pat had 100 to spend as well. Dad took out much more although I’m not sure what number he allocated to gambling.

I hadn’t been out at the casino for a long time, well over a year.  Since my last visit the casino has gotten Vegas-style slots as well as blackjack which I was excited about.  They also are in the middle of a big renovation in anticipation of bigger crowds as more table games are brought into the casino.  Patrick got carded instantly as we entered the door.  Not only do they look at your license, they also scan it on some machine that I guess validates it.

One thing I didn’t miss was the smokey haze in a casino, it just reeks.  So after some circling we found an empty table.  The lowest table they had was the $10 variety which I wasn’t thrilled with.  I much prefer $5 dollar tables.  With a $10 minimum my 100 dollars would not be able to ride out any substantial cold streaks.  It turned out my worries came to fruition.  We had a lot of just plain bad luck.   I don’t think I won more than two hands in a row.  The dealer was constantly getting 3,4 and 5 card 21’s.  Even when the dealer was showing a terrible card like a 5 or 6 she would quite often wind up winning.  It was maddening.  I played the odds all the way but it did me no good.  Within 20 minutes I had burned through my $100.  I actually reached in my wallet and snagged a 20 that was not allocated to gambling and lost that instantly after two consecutive losses.  It was frustrating.

Patrick had a bit of a run of beginner’s luck and was still playing after I was relegated to spectator duty.  His luck eventually ran out as well.  Dad’s luck was as bad as ours, the only difference was he had a bigger bankroll.  By the time we stopped for lunch he was three bills in the hole.  After lunch he sat back down at a different table for a bit while we cheered him on.  He managed to get 70 bucks of his losses back.  Teresa stuck to playing slots and had zero luck there as well.  Our total time in the casino including lunch was maybe two hours.  None of us left there feeling great about the experience.

 Our next big event of the week was going up to Sanibel to a dog friendly beach.  The party van repeatedly was a life saver during their visit.  It was the only vehicle that could have possibly accommodated five human beings and three canines.  The drive to Sanibel was very long, over an hour, but it was scenic.  Finally we arrived and made our way down to the water.  Sanibel is a beautiful, natural location, devoid of much of the beautiful but man made landscaping that adorns much of the Naples area, instead Sanibel relies on Florida’s natural habitat. We walked by a shark sighting warning on our way to the shoreline.

We found a suitable place to set up and before long Dad and the dogs were walking down the beach.  Sanibel is a dog friendly beach with the only rules being the dog has to be leashed and you have to pick up after it of course.  Well it didn’t take long for Dad to ignore the leash rule as I knew he would.  He walked well down the beach before allowing Maggie off the leash.  She was free to swim in the gulf.  Dad brought a rubber frisbee along for her to play with. Unfortunately it didn’t float and he lost it out to sea after a little while.

For the majority of the time we just sort of hung out  on our blanket/chairs and enjoyed the fact that we were on a beach, in January.  The weather was perfect with low humidity and temps a hair over 80. We set up a makeshift dog shelter by draping a big blanket over the backs of the chairs.  Black labs get very warm very quickly in those sort of conditions.

Two and a half hours at the beach was plenty, all of us were starting to bake.  We headed back to the van and went to an eating establishment Ali found online that was dog friendly.  We had a very enjoyable meal there and then afterward headed right next door to a dog store Ali also found online.  The place boasted of dog bath facilities which we thought would be a good idea after time on the sandy beach.  None of the dogs were thrilled with the impromptu bath session but they all tolerated it.

On Wednesday morning Pat, Dad and I went to my gym.  Pat has developed into quite the fitness nut over the years.  During his visit with us he went out on a couple of runs.  He has had some recent knee problems and spent a lot of time tending to them.  He was constantly alternating between icing the knee, wrapping the knee and stretching the knee. He also is quite strong.  Dad said he has benched over 300 pounds, quite a feat for a kid that only weighs around 170.

Anyway, we had good workout session although we each mostly did our own thing.  Pat does a rapid fire, somewhat random routine where he tries to cover all of his body parts.  I did some benching with Dad but then also tried to hit most body parts since it was my only official work out of the last 10 days.  We spent over 90 minutes and all had a good sweat going when we were done. When I lived up north, Dad and I would work out together on a semi-regular basis.  I sort of miss that.

On Wednesday evening we all went out to Carraba’s for a meal.  I paid for 95% of it with gift cards I received for Xmas and my birthday.  My Dad ALWAYS wants to pay for everything.  It was nice for him to be able to keep his wallet away for once.  We even had the wait staff come out and sing to him for his birthday since it was on Saturday.

Patrick flew back out on Thursday afternoon but before he did we had our last “big” thing, a trip to nearby Corkscrew Sanctuary. Both my Dad and Teresa are into nature so we figured they would like it.  I’m not sure how into it Pat was.  Ali and I had just been there a few weeks prior.  It turned out that for what it would have cost us to buy 5 individual entries, we were able to instead by a one year family pass that will allow Ali and I to go as often as we want over the next year, pretty sweet.

We took our time walking the boardwalk, taking a lot of pictures along the way.  Just like the last visit Ali and I had, the wildlife was not all that abundant.  For the first time we didn’t see a single adult alligator, only a couple babies three feet long or shorter.  Still, it was a nice relaxing way to wind up the visit. I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

After dropping Pat off at the airport for his trip back to cold Pittsburgh we headed home for another evening at the homestead.  I made burgers on the grill and we enjoyed some salad with lettuce from our garden.  I watched some of the BCS championship game with Dad.  I only stayed up for the first half, he watched the whole thing.  Good for Florida I guess.  I didn’t care all that much who won, especially after watching Penn State get marauded by USC.

Friday morning Dad and Teresa got all packed up and were on the road somewhere around 10 am.  They both said they had a really good time.  Although the dogs couldn’t talk, we knew they had a lot of fun as well.  I think Dad was somewhat remorseful heading back to New Mexico and all the work that awaits him there as well as the cold temperatures.  I felt pangs of sadness as the crew all loaded up into the truck and slowly pulled away. It’s tough only being able to see them annually at best.   On their trip home they plan to make a pit stop in New Orleans for a little sight seeing. They will probably pull back into their place 2000 miles away later this week.

Both Ali and I really enjoyed having them down.  It was the first visitors we hosted in quite awhile outside of my mom.  I’ll cover the few days since their departure later, it will give me something to say. Pics are coming.  I have many more topics to cover like the third huge Eagles win in as many weeks, more Best Buy bullshit, de-Chrismatizing and “My Fitness Coach”….