More bad dreams

I had another bizarre, terrible dream last night.  I only remember bits and pieces of it.  Some how again it was criminal in nature but I’m not sure if I was the criminal or was trying to defend myself from criminal activity.  All I know is somehow I wound up shooting several people, including Rich.  I remember the terrible weight of the reality that I just ended the life for several people.  I felt like I wished it was all a dream.  Then I came to enough to realize it was actually a dream, which was an extreme relief.  Damn this shit has got to stop, it is disturbing.

The latest version of Heroes wasn’t that great for me.  The scene with Syler at his mom’s was a big waste of time and the rest of the episode not a whole hell of a lot happened.  There are only two episodes to go so there should be a snowball of action coming down the pipe.

On Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday they had Muhammad Ali in the audience watching his daughter.  I cringed when they announced he was there.  Throughout the show they mercilessly kept showing the poor guy unable to react, unable to stand, unable to clap for his daughter.   It is just so damn depressing to see him this way.

 Barry Gibb was the guest advisor on American Idol.  He is old and he talks funny, almost like his dentures were loose.  The show wasn’t great either.  Jordin was the best of the four.

This morning when I was doing my morning routine, I didn’t have the familiar, droning sound of Buttons meowing at my every move.  Instantly I went to the sliding door and sure enough she once again got locked out all night in the wilderness of the lanai.  She came prancing in, meowing her head off.  Maybe I can convert her into an outside cat and then she can get eaten by a snake.  Just kidding, just kidding…

Awhile ago I posted what my normal morning routine is and when I did I got a lot of comments about how crazy it was.  So I thought I would follow up with the normal evening routines.  The evening routine varies quite a bit more than the morning routine but there is still a core set of things that normally happens.

We get home and we hit the ground running.  Monday nights are the worst because we have to get the trash and recycling together to put out.  Also many times we run the dishwasher Sunday night so it has yet to be emptied out.  The same thing for Thursday nights but we only have trash that day, no recycling.  On Thursday nights we also normally make up our grocery list. 

The core parts of the routine go like this.  Pull in the garage, Ali goes inside and starts unloading the car while I walk around with Nicki.  If I didn’t get the mail from the car, we walk down to the mailbox and get it.  If it is trash day, I walk down with her and then roll the carts back up the driveway while holding on to her  leash, which can be a trick if Nicki is in the mood to pull me around.  Then we get inside.  I take Nicki off her leash and her first move is always to go into the middle of the great room floor and wiggle around on her back as she kicks her legs in the air.  I’m not sure if she is trying to get her dog smell onto the carpet or get the smell of the carpet onto her or it is just her way of celebrating being home. If Nicki went to the bathroom while I walked her around I toss her a treat from the kitchen. My goal is to have it land and stay on the big ottoman in the great room.  I would say I have a 50% success rate.

The mail we brought in is plopped on the counter and it is separated into Ali and Shawn piles.  My piles I normally go through immediately, throwing out the junk mail and putting any bills into the bill box.  Ali’s pile normally grows throughout the week until she goes through it.  The lunch boxes get plopped on the counter and then our gym bags go back to the bedroom.  I pull the stuff out of my gym bag and put the shorts and t-shirt back on while dumping my work clothes into our snazzy laundry sorting cabinet. 

Next we begin dinner preparations, well Ali does.  Normally she will start making us both salads, which she is very good at.  While she does this I do my quickie nighttime fitness routine.  I drop down and do my set of push ups and then flip onto my back and do a set of abs.  By the time I am done Ali normally has the salads done.  I get my big glass of ice water and plop down in front of the computer to read email, headlines, and the digital newspaper.  Ali does the same.  After I am done with my salad, I go back into the kitchen to decide which gourmet South Beach Diet frozen meal I am going to have.   I normally eat faster than Ali so I am always the first one to have the meal in the microwave.  Three minutes, stir and another two minutes and my meal is done.  Portion controlled with a good blend of meat and vegetables, high in protein, low in carbs.  Back to the desk. 

Normally by the time I am done with my meal I have caught up on my electronic correspondence.  At this point I will either take my dishes out and clean them all up while emptying my lunch box or I will just leave them out there and either Ali or myself will clean them a bit later.  Then if there is nothing else I need to get done, I will fire up WoW and play it for maybe and hour to an hour and a half.  The length of time varies depending on what time we get home and if there are any shows on the docket that night that I am going to watch with Ali.  Most nights there is a show we watch and we let it get approximately halfway into the broadcast before we start watching so we can ff through the commercials.

Sometime either right before or right after the shows, Nicki’s supper is prepared.  Normally it is a two person operation.  Ali does the the main prep which consists of mixing dry food with her two dollar a can wet food, along with various supplements.  After Ali plops that down my role is to take a can of wet cat food and take out about a third to give to the cats and then a couple forkfuls that I plop into the dog food.  Normally when I am done I bang the fork on the plate so Nicki knows that the final ingredient has been added.  It is also my job to give Tuki fresh water and food at night.  When I give him the food, I put a handful of peanuts into the crock and then put a scoop of food on top of it so he can dig for the peanut treasures.

I am responsible for Nicki’s nighttime walks.  Ali doesn’t like walking her in the dark.  It’s annoying at times for me because sometimes I am so tired that I just don’t feel like walking circles around the yard until Nicki decides to do her business.  This is the time of day that I can lose my patience with her dilly dallying.

  Normally Ali takes her shower at night before me.  While she does this I am normally on the bed, navigating through the bedroom Tivo, normally watching one of many UFC or other fighting related shows.  When she finishes her shower sometimes I will pause and take my mine right away.  Sometimes I will finish the show and then jump in. 

After my shower I brush my teeth and slap my retainers in.  Then depending on my level of tiredness, I will either go right to sleep (rare) or watch more stuff on TV until I pass out.  If Ali is awake and reading magazines I will watch tv with the volume up.  If she is trying to sleep I put on my wireless headphones and watch TV without bothering her. 

That about covers it.