Long weekend, long post
On the way home from work on Friday I stopped at Sam’s for some of our bulk items, just like I do every other week. Typically my shopping trips at Sam’s end in similar way, I am checked out by an individual that has as much personality and energy as a storm drain. This time was different. My clerk was a thin lanky Hispanic guy. He seemed incredibly upbeat, energetic and happy. He was the type of guy that you couldn’t help but want to engage in conversation.
After he happily greeted me I noticed that he had a bandage in front of his one ear. I wondered if he just had it pierced or something. I asked him what the deal was. “I had a cyst removed, I had the same thing on the other side too.” He continues “at first I was bummed out about it but now I have a matching set! You can’t let stuff get ya down, ya know?” I just smiled and shook my head in agreement. I was a bit stupefied that the kid was just so upbeat. I wondered how in the world someone with such a positive, infectious attitude was working at Sam’s Club. If he could jam some of positive attitude and energy into a pill I would be first in line to buy it. What a cool kid.
Saturday morning I knocked out most of the stuff I wanted to get done for the weekend. My massage was scheduled at 1 pm. I arrived a couple minutes late. I was a bit mad cause I didn’t want to waste one minute of being rubbed down. The last massage I had was with the same woman a year or two ago. Since I was a return client she didn’t have to go through the awkward “you can leave underwear on or take it off” discussion. I took it off like last time.
She asked me if I had any trouble areas I wanted her to work on. I mentioned the tendonitis in my right arm as well as the normal stuff most people complain of, a tight back and shoulders. I started face down and she went to work. It is truly a head to toe massage. It’s a bit awkward for me having a woman other than Ali rubbing my rear end and upper thighs so I tried to break up some of that with minimal conversation. However the majority of the time was quiet other than the serene music playing in the background. It felt great, it was all over too soon. I tipped her 20 bucks. No Randall, I didn’t ask for a happy ending. 🙂
By the time I got back home I only had an hour or two before I had to head right back out to Ali’s recital. She was doing the same performance I saw at the end of November but this time it was in the new building the dance school just opened up. I was sort of rushing to get Nicki’s supper prepared before heading out the door. I gave no thought to any sort of prep I needed to do to attend a dance recital.
Well once I got there and walked up to the building where other people were waiting to get in I realized I was under-dressed. I was wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I also had nothing in my hand other than a camcorder. I was surrounded by men in sport coats and women equally dressed up. There were a handful of low brow, casually dressed people like me but we were severely outnumbered. I mentioned my empty hand because many of the people were carrying flowers to give to the performers after the show, doh! I had no idea that this was proper dance recital protocol
I felt like a bit of a dope as I paced around waiting for them to open the doors. I wasted the time by posting to my Facebook page about my situation vai the Iphone. Finally the doors opened up about 15 minutes later than I expected them to at 6pm. I saw Ali as I came in and I mentioned to her I felt dumb for not dressing up more. I’m sure she didn’t care, she was glad I was there to watch her.
I found an open seat on a bench. On my right was a younger guy that spent more time on his Blackberry than watching the performance. On my left was a guy whose wife was performing with Ali’s group along with their two children, a young boy and a younger little girl. The girl was a bit rammy, anxious to see her mommy go on.
So the director of the school, a Russian guy with a VERY thick accent comes out to start the show. The amplification and echo from the PA system made it nearly impossible to make out a single sentence. Finally the show begins. I sat through several performances by the kids. They ranged from the very young that can’t follow a move but look very cute trying to do so, to girls in their teens, some of which were pretty good. Ali’s group came out towards the end of the first set. Her adult ballet class ranges in age from 20’s to 60’s with all sorts of body types in the mix. I shot the performance on the camcorder again. However when you are shooting an event you find yourself concentrating more on keeping the shot in frame as opposed to taking in the performance. After watching the video back I confirmed that Ali once again did a great job.
Unfortunately, unlike the younger girls, some of which perform in 6 or 7 different acts, Ali’s group only did the one performance. That meant I had to sit through more than half of the remaining show. Part of the remaining show was performances by two professionals from 
the Orlando area, a man and a woman. Their dance performance was good but the adjective I would most likely use for the performance would be “disturbing”. The male dancer had on white tights. I just don’t get it. The tights leave nothing to the imagination, as I told Ali, if he had a pimple on his ass we would have seen it. Then of course you have the package in the front that looks like it is neatly stuffed into a ballet version of a jock strap.
It was just visually disturbing. As I looked at the crowd I saw many people, both women and men looking away as I was. At one point the little girl next to me said to her daddy, “I can see his privates….” Like I said, the couple were great dancers but I know for me personally I never need to see another male ballet performance for the rest of my life unless he is wearing sweat pants.
The show wound up and I greeted Ali. I told her she did great. I apologized for not having flowers, again blaming my lack of dance recital experience. They had a spread of food they set up as part of the grand opening. However most of it was meat based so Ali wouldn’t have eaten it. Instead I told her I would pick up Carraba’s to go on the way home. She headed home in the Camry while grabbed the food, gas for the truck and some roses at the local Publix to atone for my oversight. She appreciated my belated offering.
Sunday morning I had to get up hella early to go work at the half marathon. Although I wasn’t timing the race, I was was there to assist with the timing and do whatever else was needed. It was chilly but not raw like it was last year. I decided to dress for the temps this time so being cold was not an issue. The winner of the race was an Ethiopian that covered the 13 + miles in 1:03:45. The finish of the race was actually a two man sprint to the finish, something that is rare. The second place guy was only a second or two behind. It’s incredible just how fast these guys can run distance. They run their 13th mile tons faster than I could ever run a single mile.
I was at the race site late until after 11 doing disassembly of various parts of the race. I didn’t expect to be there quite so long. The last people crossed the finish more than four hours after the start. On the way home I grabbed lunch as well as stopping to pick up Super Smash Bros for the Wii. My brother-in-law has been wanting to get some online gaming going with me and this looked like as good of a title as any to try out.
I was quite tired by the time I got home. It was nice to see that Ali had been quite busy while I was at the race, knocking out almost everything that was left to do around the house. I greatly appreciated her efforts. It meant I had a clean slate until the Eagles game at 3.
I think I jinxed the team. I have been very careful to not speak of the possibility of the team going to the Super Bowl. I didn’t want to overlook the Cardinals although it was hard to not overlook a team that you stomped by four or five touchdowns on Thanksgiving. I was running scenarios through my head about what we would do if the Eagles made it to the Bowl, maybe go up to Tampa and try to score tickets or at least tail gate outside the stadium with other Eagles fans. I thought these things but did not say them out loud. Well before the game I mentioned these ideas to Ali. It must have been the kiss of death.
The game was an emotional roller coaster. The first half the Eagles defense was just plain bad. When they blitzed Warner beat them every time. The Cardinals also were able to run the ball effectively, something most teams haven’t been very good at against the Eagles this year. The Philly offense moved the ball but again fell into the pattern of not being able to cash in with TD’s at the end of drives, instead settling for field goals. After allowing a ridiculous drive at the end of the first half giving the Cardinals another 3 points, the Birds were down 18, ugh.
I of course was pretty upset with the way the Eagles were playing. They allowed Larry Fitzgerald to just run wild, even with mentioning before the game how stopping him would be such a focus. I saw any Super Bowl plans going out the window. Well during the second half the Eagles did something they don’t normally do well, make adjustments. They came out and controlled the ball on offense and defensively stuffed Arizona. By the time mid fourth quarter rolled around the Eagles had erased the 18 point deficit and were leading 25-24. The odd total was a result of David Akers having a shitty day with a missed field goal and missed extra point. (along with a kick off out of bounds)
All of a sudden a Super Bowl berth was once again a real possibility. All the Eagles had to do was have their defense stop the Cardinals like they had been doing all second half, get the ball back and run out the clock. It didn’t happen. Instead of delivering in the clutch, the Eagles defense fell on their face allowing the Cardinals to march down the field while eating up tons of clock, culminating in a touchdown and two point conversion that gave the Cardinals a full touchdown advantage with a little more than two minutes remaining. The D really, REALLY choked hard on that series.
So now the Eagles had their back against the wall in a situation Donovan is typically pretty terrible at, the two minute drill. The Eagles have never been good at running a hurry up offense. They also have a bad habit of burning timeouts early, leaving them short handed when they need them the most. I knew the Eagles were in trouble. To my surprise they actually moved the ball and made it across the 50 into Cardinals territory. Then the drive stalled and the Birds found themselves in a do or die 4th & 10.
Donovan threw to Curtis who appeared to be more or less dragged down by the falling Cardinal defender. Curtis couldn’t make the catch as he fell to his knees. The gutless official kept the flag in his pocket on what appeared to be pretty blatant pass interference, game over. My instant emotion was anger. I was pissed off at the official, I was pissed off at the Eagles defense and the team in general for once again ripping my heart out. I really tried to temper my disappointment, reminding myself that a month ago the idea that the team would even be in the conference championship game seemed like total lunacy.
Now that a couple days have passed I am better. The team went on an incredible run and also benefited from some incredible luck along the way to get there. The team provided lots of excitement for me over the past month. It just would have been nice to see the fairytale played all the way out to a joyous, miraculous conclusion. Oh well.
There was plenty of blame to be passed around for the loss. It is hard to point a big fat finger at the defense that was primarily responsible for getting them as far as they have. There is no way to deny that they came up small this time around and totally whiffed when it mattered the most during that last crushing Cardinal drive. Like I mentioned before, David Akers dumped 4 points in the shitter and kicked out of bounds allowing the Cardinals great starting field position. Quintin Demps, wtf were you thinking on that late hit? It was so blatant it was ridiculous. Ditto for the lineman who almost caused a disastrous turn over trying to field a short kick off sailing out of bounds. He had no business being anywhere near that ball.
As Troy Aikamn repeatedly pointed out, McNabb’s accuracy was once again put on center stage or lack there of. His inability to lead receivers on his passes turned potential game breaking plays into short gains instead. However this has always been Donovan’s MO, he will never be a pinpoint passer, especially on crossing routes, he is dreadful on those. Of course his receivers dropped very catchable balls on several occasions so the fault does not sit only in his corner. Brian Westbrook came up very small in this game as well. However he has basically been injured the entire season, what can you do?
Oh well, I’m over it. Another near miss season, we have had a whole bunch of them during Andy Reid’s tenure, I’m used to it by now.
Our Monday was very low key. I wanted to accomplish one project, cleaning out the inside of the storage shed which we knocked out in a couple hours during the afternoon. Outside of that project I played games on the computer, Wii and Iphone (damn you Homey for telling me about Fieldrunners) and watched tv including episode 1 of the new Battlestar Galactica season (fantastic) As usual, a day of not doing much of anything productive left me feeling a bit glum.
Last night I finished Too Fat to Fish. I would say overall I am disappointed in the book, I expected more. Yes it is filled with some very graphic details of just how bad Artie’s substance abuse problem is. However the book has huge gaps in the timeline that are annoying. The book certainly can’t be termed a biography in my opinion, far too much is left out. For some reason I expected Artie’s writing style to a bit more polished than his speaking style. I know even though he is not college educated, he is an intelligent guy with a borderline incredible memory. For some reason I expected his writing style to a be a bit better for some reason. It’s a quick read so at least I didn’t have to invest tons of time into it. Many of the stories I had already heard recanted on the Stern show in slightly less detail. That maybe contributed to my lack of enthusiasm about it. Artie will surely be dead within the next few years if he doesn’t wake up.