Saturday, August 17 2019

Dear Journal,

Yesterday was wonderful. I got to work at my usual time, had a few meetings, then caught a ride to the company picnic. It loosely followed a "county fair" theme, but in a very cool, laid back kind of way. Besides a few games to play and a giant slide, it was pretty much a time to drink beer, eat some food, and hang out. Among the selections was PBR, so it turns out I didn't need to follow my rigorous, fool proof system for staying sober after all.

I had some good success with the carnival games! I rang the bell with the mallet, played some ring toss, and almost guessed the mystery beer down to the brewery and type. The drinking and standing around in the sun must have made me more upfront than usual. When the person running the beer guessing game asked me if I knew who the brewery was, I yelled out "because Capital Brewery SUCKS." I don't know if he worked for Capital Brewery, but it got a good laugh out of him. And it's true, they do suck, so I stand by the exclamation.

We made our way back to the office and I caught my usual 4:30 bus home. Marissa was all packed up and ready to leave, so after a quick farewell she hit the road and Rodney and I started on our pizza. We had a good time. Rodney kept eating the cheese that we grated and set aside for the toppings, and he thought it was pretty funny and kept sneaking bites even after I "yelled" at him. We also used the dough trimmings to make some breadsticks - well, Rod took some creative liberty and mashed them into little patties. So they were like little biscuits, and they turned out pretty good, he might be on to something.

I put Rodney to bed, then worked a bit on the computer. I set up a wallpaper randomizer for the dining room computer, and as I was populating with images I got to just browsing old photos. It's fun to look back and see everything that changed - especially how things were 2-3 years ago. It's a bit of a nostalgia blind-spot for me. We were in the same house, and we had a kid, and for the most part did all the same things we do today, but the little things jump out at you - like the color of the walls, what you were eating, and how you had things organized.

It was a pretty quiet, lonely night without Marissa. It sucks spending the night apart from your spouse. We met up around 11:20 for a minecraft date, and that was a highlight. It was fun to get back into minecraft and use the downtime of waiting for the virtual sun to rise to just catch up with the built-in Minecraft chat.

I called it sometime around 1:00 AM and turned in for bed. The puppies were really bummed that they had to go to bed without their momma.

This morning, Rod is watching Spider-Man - the 2002 Toby Maguire movie. He's really taken with it lately. And I don't know what he sees in it - don't get me wrong - it's a great movie, but it's just way more Toby Maguire and not really that much Spider-Man. And it's a lot of Willem Dafoe. I find it so funny that Rodney is sitting on the couch with a toy in his lap, absent-mindedly watching Willem Dafoe perform a dramatic monologue in an old mansion.

After journal & coffee time, Rodney and I are going to walk to the grocery store, checking out the construction on Oak street along the way. Don't tell Mom, but when she comes home we're going to have prepared an Italian feast!

Hope you have a wonderful Saturday today. In the words of Willem Dafoe, "You are who you choose to be - NOW CHOOSE!"