Painting, fantasy failure, Four Christmas, 34th street, unreal outcome
So Ali was out of the house all day Saturday at her dietary association meeting. This meant I was left to my own, demented, impulsive, work now, relax later vices. I kept myself very busy all day long. After ripping through various routine outside maintenance duties like weeding, trimming hedges and spraying the garden for pests, I turned my attention to the party van. The van typically sits dormant for months on end. As a result one side of the beast sees no direct sunlight. The lack of sunlight encourages the growth of green algae on the party van. I decided I was tired of one side of the van looking like it sat in a field for years so I gave it a quick bath. In reality, there is no “quick” way to wash the party van, there is a lot of surface area to cover. Scrubbing off algae takes more than a quick swipe of the cleaning mitt. I had to scrub quite vigorously. The cleaning mitt quickly became a baby poo green color as the water mixed with the scuzz. I was pleased with the outcome. The party van will never look “good”, but it felt good to give it a bath for the holidays.
Back in October my brother and brother-in-law helped me install a new front door to our place. It replaced a leaky, drafty, rusty, poorly builder installed, paint peeling mess. I painted the exterior of the door a week or two later so it matched the rest of the house. However the interior of the door and the associated trim around it has gone untouched since the installation. The door and trim was in primer and the drywall around the door looked like a mess since the new frame did not match up with the old frame outline.
With company coming down for the holidays I had mentioned to Ali that maybe we need to get the dining room painted before they arrived so it didn’t look shitty. Well instead I thought a wiser, and less labor intensive plan would be to just paint the door and area around it the same builder’s white the room currently is. It would only require hours instead of days of labor. So I bought paint Friday to do just that.
Ali felt bad about the prospect of me doing it all myself since she would be gone all day Saturday. So I went half way, I did all of flat white painting, namely the drywall around the door. I left the actual door and the immediate trim for her to work on. Once I got started I decided to put a layer of flat paint on the frame to cover up some of the imperfections. I figured it could serve as a primer for the semi-gloss paint.
The color wasn’t a perfect match for what was on the walls, the original paint seemed just a shade darker. Maybe it was just the result of it being on the walls for 8 years. I did the best I could to blend the two, making the line between new and old paint blurred. Just getting the flat paint on the wall made a difference. I
didn’t realize how much having the inside of the door look unfinished annoyed me until I cleaned it up. I took the flat paint and went around the house and touched up several battle wounds through out the house as well. I even repainted the shelf in the bathroom that was a ugly shade of gray from years of abuse.
Saturday night Ali and I went out to the movies. Before going there we stopped and ate a new Chili’s that opened a few months ago. It is relatively close to us, only 12 miles away. The layout in there was nice. I tried something different and had grilled salmon. Ali’s vegetarian options were rather limited, she could have had salad, soup (mostly creamy cheesy goop) or a vegetarian bean burger. She opted for the burger. I like the place.
We decided to make the effort to drive up to Coconut Point to the Muvica theater. We knew if we went to the big Naples theater we would have been treated to big crowds, crowded theaters and sub par accommodations. Ali said she wanted to see Four Christmases. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect crowd-wise since it was a Saturday night. Our extra driving paid off. The huge theater had maybe 25 people in it. The movie was good. It was downright hilarious during the first half to two thirds of the flick. Then regrettably they decided to throw in a serious, unfunny section right at the end. Nobody has been able to capture the Christmas Vacation formula exactly, although this came quite close. Keep the movie light hearted and funny the entire way through. I’d still recommend it, it has tons of laugh out loud moments. I’d give it an A-.
With as much work as I did on Saturday I would have thought that my Sunday would have kind of laid back, Somehow it didn’t wind up to be that way. While Ali started work on the door I found myself sweeping floors, doing laundry, cleaning counters right up to game time almost. Let’s talk about the game.
I gave the Eagles little to no chance to beat the Giants. The Giants were 11-1, The Eagles were 6-5-1. The Giants were unbeaten in the division, the Eagles were winless in the division. The last time they played in Philadelphia, this game was in New York. The Birds just had a ton stacked against them. Now on top of all that, if I told you the Eagles had TWO chip shot field goals blocked, one of which was returned for a touchdown, committed a ton of penalties and executed a prevent defense that allowed the Giants to drive the length of the field and score in a minute and a half with no timeouts you would think there was no possible way the Eagles would be victorious. They were.
In reality, the game could have/should have been 26-0 instead of the 20-14 final. The combination of bad weather and a stiff Eagles defense prevented the Giants from getting anything going all game long (except for the stupid prevent D touchdown) It was amazing. During the second half where the Eagles have made a habit of collapsing, they instead executed a wildly uncharacteristic ball control, grind it out on the ground, time eating drive after drive. The Giants hardly had the ball during the second half of the game. It was a fantastic win and totally unexpected. The Eagles still are on the outside looking in as far as a playoff berth goes. Perhaps my eulogy was premature?
Staying on the football topic, my fantasy football season came to a fitting end during my playoff game. Just like the last two months, once again I couldn’t catch a break. Before the game I pulled off a wise move when I saw that Marion Barber was not going to play, picking up Tashard Choice off the free agent list. That move actually wasn’t bad as Choice scored more points than Barber has gotten me in the last few weeks. However my “studs” let me down once again. I mean the Colts score 35 points and somehow Reggie Wayne manages to get me 4 lousy points. Likewise with Anquin Boldin, the Cardinals scored a bunch and he delivered next to nothing in fantasy points. Tony Romo put the final nail in my coffin delivering an anemic 5 points after committing 5 turnovers. It has really been annoying for me to witness my teams drive off the cliff during the second half of the season. I have scrambled week in and week out to try to plug holes. I believe I have made the most transactions of any owner in the league. In the end I was just crushed by both injuries and inconsistent performances from my “star” players. Marion Barber was supposed to be a monster this year, instead he was only slightly above average. Romo being out for four or five games hurt me badly as well. Having to rely on Justin Stinking Fargas as one of my running backs is not a good thing. Oh well. I guess I’ll stay in the league next year although I’m not quite sure why right now.
Sunday I downloaded Miracle on 34th Street. I originally thought it was the original from the 40’s or 50’s. It turns out it was the updated version from the mid-90’s. I was disappointed when I saw the opening in color. I almost decided to not even watch it. However Ali said she was fine with seeing it so we stuck it out. It turns out I’m glad I did. It was good. Having never seen the original I have nothing to compare it to, however I found myself wrapped up in a ‘feel good” story that is meant to warm the heart of the Scrooge in all of us. We both liked it. B+
So due to my chronic forearm issues, last week I decided I was going to lay off all upper body work for a period of at least two weeks. Instead I figured to just do legs, abs and cardio to fill my gym quota. Well after four days of the plan I have managed to open up a new list of ailments. When I was doing squats on the smith machine early in the week I felt a pull in my lower left abdomen. At the time I figured it was just my abs straining to stabilize my core. Well as the week progressed the area hurt more. It’s location and sensation made me concerned that I could be experiencing the start of a hernia type deal. So no more squats for now.
On Friday I decided to run 3 miles on the treadmill. My muscles and joints were still sore from my leg workouts earlier in the week. I had second thoughts about running with my legs in that condition but I hoped running would be just fine. Well a mile and a half into the run I had to stop when my left knee started shooting pain that could not be safely ignored.
To say I am frustrated would be a big understatement. I have been trying everything to get my aches and pains under control. Hell I have been even trying some of the techniques outlined in my Power of Subconscious book to address the problems. Basically you are supposed to try to impress upon your subconscious the thought of healing. I guess I am not doing it right. So this week the exercise plan is to do whatever doesn’t hurt. Today is my normal chest/back day. My current plan is to do no back exercises since gripping and pulling is a forearm burner. For chest I am going to do the one exercise that so far has not caused any forearm pain, push ups, lots and lots of push ups. I’d like to do at least a couple hundred total. With whatever time is left I’ll do some sort of non-impact, non-standing cardio.
I shouldn’t be taking on this negative outlook regarding my body issues, it seeds my subconscious with negativity that is not beneficial.