Saturday, October 12 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning everyone! Happy Saturday. It felt good to sleep in a bit and wake up to the first day of the year that really felt like fall. We just finished breakfast, and my family is patiently waiting for me to finish up a journal entry before we head outside to clean the garage. There's something about chilly fall days that make you want to throw on a hoodie and work outside, and that's probably what we're going to do.

Yesterday was a great day at work. We spent most of the day investigating some weird events in our service that happened the day before, but I took a break to grab lunch with Rob and Josh at the Old Fashioned. Rob and I were grateful that had our favorite beer on tap. The beer is called spruce juice, and it tastes like a tall cold glass of George Clooney chopping firewood while wearing a sweater. We split a whole pitcher. "It's cheaper that way," said Rob. "We're saving a whole three dollars." "Not to mention the added camaraderie of drinking out of the same vessel," I added.

When we got back, Zendesk was setting up for their national "Coming Out Day" celebrations. I picked up a rainbow sticker and rainbow pin, and proudly donned it over my Bears hoodie.

While finishing up work, I got a message from Marissa saying that she had to take our car in the shop. It turned out to not be such a big deal, but that meant that Friday night Sfincione was probably at risk, since she normally starts the dough in the early afternoon. To add to that, she and Rodney were pretty exhausted from occupying themselves at the Honda dealership for so long. We decided to scrap a homemade pizza this week and just order something when I got home.

I got home before Marissa and Rodney did. I let the dogs out, then crawled under the blanket. We had forgotten to turn the heat on in our house, so I wanted to enjoy the last few minutes of indoor mid sixties climate that's just ideal for dog snuggles.

After Marissa and Rodney got home, we ordered Portillo's. I ordered ribs, and finished the whole slab. That was probably the first time I've finished an entire slab of their ribs since I was in gradeschool. Food has a powerful way of activating memories, and wolfing down the tender ribs slick with buttery barbecue sauce took me back to eating out with my family after fall hockey games.

After I put Rodney to bed, Marissa and I settled in with some drinks and snacks. Last night the Breaking Bad movie El Camino was released, and we were pretty excited to take us all in. We were sucked in for two hours. I probably shouldn't have had control of the remote, because I kept pausing the movie every fifteen minutes. The movie made me so excited that I felt like I wanted to talk about it, but half the time I didn't have anything to add. I think the works of Vince Gilligan have that effect on me, and that applies to the whole movie as well. I loved it, and I don't have anything to add or expound upon. It's probably better that way, I don't want to spoil anything for you. It was just absolutely perfect, and a wonderful way to end the work week.

After the movie ended and we were finished reeling about it, Marissa and I played some video games. I set up Steam to work with the tv, so we took turns playing Super Meatboy. "I'm so bad at this game, I feel like I should get my tattoo removed," joked Marissa. She was referring to our matching tattoos we have on our ankles, the one that everyone teasingly refers to as our Spongebob tats. She raises a good question - how good to you have to be at a video game to be worthy of getting it tattooed on your skin? We certainly didn't think it through that much at the time.

Like I said, today we're going to work outside. Marissa and Rodney are getting ready for the day, and once I publish this entry, we're going to empty out the shed. We're going to eat some leftovers for lunch, then I'm going to take Rodney to the grocery store and pick up some stuff to make deep dish pizza. I think it's going to be a great day.

Hope you have a great relaxing weekend. Grab a hoodie, clean your garage, eat pizza, and go watch El Camino.