Monday, October 28 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning, everyone! Happy Monday. I'm feeling very rested this morning. Marissa and I went to bed at a pretty decent time, and on top of that, I spent most of this weekend on the couch. As a result, I'm looking forward to getting back to work this morning.

Yesterday was pretty much a repeat of Saturday. We all slept in, I cooked breakfast, then Rodney and I walked to the grocery store to pick up dinner. Since there was a Bears game that day, we both wore our hoodies. A few cars honked at us walking along Atwood. I'd like to think it was a friendly honk. We only needed a few things at the store, so we were in and out of there pretty quick. We walked briskly down the bike path, trying to make it in time for kick-off. We were stopped by a small baby that wanted to see Rodney's car stroller. "Nice ride!" the mom yelled. "Yeah, there's not too many days left where we can take out the convertible," I joked. I didn't come up with that one on the spot, that's just my go-to. Standing around other parents while our kids interact can get awkward, and that's no time to try out new jokes.

We got home just a few minutes after kick-off. I turned the game on the TV and grabbed a beer out of the fridge. Rodney dumped his lego's on the ground in front of the TV. Marissa was on her way out of the house with the dogs. "Good luck, Ziggy," we yelled as the door closed behind her.

Yesterday's game was pretty rough. Our offense still wasn't clicking, and even though we had several drives into the red zone it felt like we still just couldn't score. And Eddie Pineiro missed a game winning field goal. That one really hurt to watch. I guess as a kicker, game winning situations don't find you very often, and perhaps after he won the game for us in Denver I may have had him on a bit of a pedestal, but part of me is glad he missed that kick, because we didn't deserve a win. Marissa and I watched some post game interviews when she got home. Normally I just blow right past those, but Nagy made a lot of calls that were under fire, and it made for an interesting Q&A time. He even got a little heated. Nagy was mostly getting blasted for taking a knee with almost a minute to go, leaving it up to Eddie (instead of running one more play and getting closer to the goal line).. I hate to say it, but he made the right call. You can knock him all you want for not having any faith in our offense, but I didn't have any faith in them either, and the ball was spotted well within Eddie's scoring range.

Last night as we were eating dinner, we got into an 'argument' with Rodney over what animal was on his Bears hoodie. "Tiger," he stated, pointing at the orange Bears logo. "What animal is that?" Marissa questioned. "Tiger," replied Rodney. I decided to take a crack at it.

"Hey dude, what game did we watch today?" I asked. "Bears game," Rodney said. "And you're wearing your Bears hoodie, right?" Rodney nodded. "Bears hoodie."

"What animal is that?" I asked. "Tiger," replied Rodney. "Well, tigers are usually orange," Marissa added.

After dinner, Marissa put Rodney to bed and I cleaned up after dinner. We made deep dish pizza, and packing deep dish leftovers is always kind of a riddle, and I have yet to solve it. The best I've come up with is cutting individual slices after it's cooled, arranging the slices opposite and adjacent to each other forming a parallelogram, then wrapping the whole mess in a glob of foil. I try to even crimp the foil around the crust so the pizza keeps its shape, then slip the whole mess into a plastic bag. It works, but I'm always a little ashamed keeping my wad of plastic and tinfoil in the fridge at work when there is so much pressure around recycling and keeping a small waste footprint.

On a high note with regards to storing deep dish leftovers, I invented a new way to cut the pizza. I used to saw the slices, which would crack the delicate crust and sometimes even snap it off, but last night I got my biggest, sharpest knife, put the pizza in the middle of the cutting board, and chopped it in a swift motion. The slice separated cleaning, crust in tact. "Somebody's you just gotta 'fruit ninja' it," I laughed.

Marissa and I finished watching Living with Yourself, then we tidied up the house for an hour or so. We finished the night by watching my movie pick Back to School. It's part of the series of movies I've found that were filmed in Madison. We're only about a third into it, but this light-hearted Rodney Dangerfield comedy is hitting the spot. In the movie, UW Madison is renamed "Great Lakes College".

That's my time. I have to head outside and catch a bus. Hope you have a great Monday, and don't forget that Halloween is coming up this week!