I had an EXTREMELY busy Saturday. It started with me going to get my
oil changed, followed by getting a hair cut. Then, it was home to
shower and wrap Addison’s birthday gift.

I had 2 parties yesterday, Addison’s b-day and Danielle’s housewarming
party. Both started at 2 in the PM. I looked in my email to get
directions to Danielle’s, but as it turned out, she didn’t give me her
address. So, I called her and left a message, hoping that she would
call back to give me her address. I waited for 15 minutes before
calling back, still nothing. Finally, about 5 minutes later, she called
back and I had all I needed. I arrived at her house about 2:15ish. It
was nice, pretty much exactly like Dave and Kelli’s, which made sense,
since they are in the same subdivision. Nice house though, very spacey
and with a half finished basement. I was one of the first people there,
her mother was there along with another guy. I’m pretty much going to
skip the rest of this party, it was cool, but I was only there for
under an hour, so not much to talk about.

A lot of people were already at Addison’s party. My cousin was there
which was a surprise because his mother just died the other day. She
was in Phoenix, but is going to Florida for the funeral and to be
buried, so they don’t need to go there until Wednesday. Still, he
seemed to be doing good.

Of course, everybody was playing beanbags. Matt and Allison were
rolling over everybody, so my  many cousins name John and I
challenged them to a game. It was very close, but somehow, we managed
to comeback and win. It was a while before we played another game, in
fact, not until after dinner and by this time, I had a new partner. Ok,
nobody wants to hear anymore about beanbags

The food was catered from some place, which I can’t remember the name
of. It was pretty damn good, they even had lasagna, which was awesome.
Its not often that people have lasagna catered, but what can I say, it
has always been Mark’s favorite (and mine too).

A while after dinner, we had cake. Addison was placed in her high
chair, but being about 6 in the evening and not having a nap, I could
see she was fading fast. I kept doing things to try to keep her awake
so that she could partake in her first birthday cake. Finally, the cake
was cut, and she was given the first piece, it was yellow with vanilla
pudding and a buttercream frosting. Of course, she was making a mess,
so I decided to make things worse by trying to place frosting under her
eyes like it was eye black that a baseball player would wear. As I was
putting it under her right eye, she moved and I got it directly in her
eye! She looked funny, though.

As the night went on, we found ourselves all around the fire pit. Mark
and Amy’s two friends, Jeff and Dan, are a gay couple. Jeff is really
cool, he and I often talk music and pop culture. Dan, on the other
hand, is kind of an ass. First of all, he is a bitch. Secondly, he
seems to be kind of a self centered know it all. Amy has told me that
Dan knows I’m gay, but wants to ask me about it. He picked last night
to badger me about it. He was telling a story about how is brother
knows he is gay, but he won’t have that conversation with them, even
though its something that they seem to want to talk about. This is the
same type of relationship that I have with my brothers, so I don’t
think that is the situation he has with his brother, but instead, was
just saying it to try to get me to say something. Later, he pressed on,
making comments and asking me pretty much if I would just come out and
tell him and blah blah blah. I don’t know, I really don’t remember much
of what he was saying. I told him that I generally don’t talk about my
private life, or anything about my life for that matter, with people. I
said that although I share my opinions and beliefs and things I do with
people, I don’t generally talk about my feelings or relationships or
anything like that with anybody, especially with some guy I barely even
knew. I mean, I’m not going to go into things about my family or
anything like that with anybody. I also don’t discuss sex with anybody
in my family, that sort of thing is creepy, at least in my view. I
don’t need to discuss my sex life with my family, nor do I want to know
anything about their sex life. Its just gross. But, still, this dude
continued on, but I just wasn’t going to go there with him.

This morning I had to drive John to the airport. I love airports. I
also had an idea that I’m looking to have stolen from me. That is, in
this day and age of tough airport security (ok, so its supposed to be
tough) and pain in the ass terrorists, its harder and harder to board a
plan what with carry ons and checked baggage. My idea is being able to
rent clothes and other things you would take with you on a plane. In
other words, you don’t pack anything, and therefore, don’t have the
needless hassle of waiting in long lines. You just show up at the
airport and when you get off the plane, you rent all your clothes and
anything else you might need. Ok, so you have to purchase a toothbrush
and toothpaste and things like that, but everything else you rent. You
don’t have to worry about packing, don’t have to worry about not being
able to take something on a plane or waiting to check baggage. You just
rent everything. Something has to be done, people, we can’t bring much
on planes and security should only be getting tighter.

Today was Addison’s first birthday, so Mark and Amy had us over for a
birthday dinner (the bigger party is to follow on Saturday). Amy’s dad,
Ron, made the coolest thing, it was a little tiny chair that he made
himself from scratch. Its made with cedar, so its a pretty good
quality. He said he started making it right after Christmas and didn’t
finish it until February. She looked adorable trying to sit in it.

As many of you know, I have been trying to get somebody to replace
shingles and siding on my garage. Well, back in the end of May, I had a
local guy come out and look at it, he told me that he would give me a
quote within the next day or so. Well, perhaps contractors and normal
people have a different concept of time, because today, after nearly 3
fucking months, I got the quote. Shit, I knew contractors were usually
late, but this is fucking ridiculous. And, to make matters even worse,
it was double every other quote I had gotten. That’s right, it was
$9575! On the other hand, it was typed out real nice with everything
broken down and he even typed on the envelope. I’m thinking that it
must have taken 3 months to add up all those totals. Now, here is an
idea, maybe I should take 3 months to get back to him. You know, maybe
the day before Thanksgiving I give him a call and say “Sorry, not
interested.”

I’m SOOOOO glad the heat has broken………..at least for now. Turns
out the AC aint working, so the house has been hotter than shit. Sears
is supposed to be out to fix it on Thursday, but I’m never confident
about them being able to fix it. They have been out lots in the past
and not been able to fix it.

Went back to work today. This vacation was long enough that it didn’t
leave me begging for more time off, although, if I could have taken
another few days off (I guess I could of, I have the time) I wouldn’t
have minded.

I’ve noticed a new fad. Ok, so it might not be new, but its new to me.
I seem to find out about the fads just as they have reached their
halfway point. This new fad is the big glasses fad. It seems to be, for
the most part, only with sunglasses, but please, what are you fucking
fad people thinking? I mean, these fucking glasses are HUGE. They take
up most of upper 1/3 of a person’s face. Now, I can see if somebody was
ugly or old, but this is not the case. I see young and hot people
wearing these damn things. These things are so huge, they might as well
just run around with a couple of Frisbees on their face. Sure, they
might think its cool now, but 10 or 20 years from now when the fad is
gone, they are going to look back at pics and say “man, what the fuck
was I thinking, these damn things look ri-damn-fucking-diculous!” I
mean, I had sorta big glasses in high school and I thought that was
bad. But, these damn things that people are running around with are
obnoxiously big.

On the other hand, this is a fad that had to be started with the old
and/or ugly. Which, if the case, than good for them. After all, they
never start fads and nobody ever listens to them. And this is kinda
their revenge for people treating them like shit. Its like they said
“we are going to get those evil fad people, they are always making fun
of us and ignoring us, we will unleash such a horrible fad and that
will show them!”

Another one that has been around for a long time is the winter hat that
teens wear. It doesn’t look too bad, but how the hell could they wear
that shit when its over 70 out? How could they not be sweating their
asses off? It must hold in all the heat, and how lame is it to be
walking down the street, talking on your cell phone and all of a sudden
pass right the fuck out due to heat exhaustion?

Somebody, please explain these fads to me? They make no or little
sense. And its not like I’m really old or out of touch with the times.
I have never been a fad person, even as a teenager. When all the kids
were walking around with their pants rolled up, I left them down. When
they all started wearing flannels and going grunge, I still wore my
Cubs shirts and listening to Poison. I’m not saying that I was rebelling
against the fads, but I just never followed them, they didn’t interest
me. Its like cell phones. I still don’t have one and I don’t know if I
ever will have one. I just don’t see a need for one. I have to have a
need for something and be interested in it, like my HDTV or the
internet. So, when the next big fad comes along, I don’t know,
something like only shaving the left side of your face, or wearing
diapers to work, I probably won’t be on board with it.

Friday afternoon, I hung out with Dori, her kids, and her sister in
law. Her 5 year old daughter was VERY excited to see me, she kept
wanting to play with me and loved being around me. Later I was
mentioning this to Keith and Heather and their 6 year old daughter
Nicole, who loves me too, got a little jealous, it was funny as hell.
She said to me “but I thought I was your boyfriend. Does this other
girl dream about you, because I dream about you.” It was cute, in a
disturbing kind of way.

Friday night was the Shotgun weekend at Keith and Heather’s, and to a
lesser extent, Rene’s (for those of you that don’t know, they live
right next to each other). I decided to drink rum and Pepsi for the
night. I bought the smaller of the 2 bottles that Meijer had and was
told by everybody that I would not finish it even over the course of 2
nights. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, I came very
close to finishing it the first night alone. The whole night was a bit
of a blur, except that we found out that Scooty shot and scored one in
Kris, she is due in April. Or is it March? I’m not sure. Anywho, about
3:45 in the am, I somehow managed to make my way downstairs and onto
Keith and Heather’s couch.

For some reason, whenever I drink, I wake up early and this was no
exception. In fact, both yesterday and today, I woke up at 7:55 in the
am. Don’t ask me why, I have no idea. All I know is that yesterday was
tough. I didn’t have a headache, but was VERY queasy and a bit dizzy.
For a good portion of the day, I thought I was going to hurl, but
fortunately, I didn’t, which is good what with my fear of vomit.

Yesterday morning, Keith and Heather got a phone call that I answered
in a female voice. The guy asked for Heather and I asked who was
calling. Here is the conversation:

Narq: “My name is Annoying Dumbass, from the Drug Enforcement Agency.”
Female Mike: “Just a second, let me see if she is available”
I put the phone down and asked Heather if she was available.
Heather: “Oh, he wants money”
Keith: (in a loud and booming voice, but kidding around) “I TOLD YOU NOT TO ANSWER THAT!!!”
Female Mike: “No, she is not available right now”
Narq: “Wow, who was that? How rude, why is he talking to you like that?”
Female Mike: “Oh, that’s just my neighbor.”
Narq: “Wow, he must be very loud for you to hear him all the way over here.”
Female Mike: “No, he is here at my house right now”
Keith: yelling “GET OFF THAT PHONE! I TOLD YOU NOT TO ANSWER THAT!!!”
Narq: “He is really rude, maam, are you ok?”
Female Mike: (in a nervous voice) “Uhhhhh, I have to go now.”
And with that I hung up the phone. Yeah, I know, you are impressed with the maturity level of my friends and I, aren’t you?

Later on that afternoon, I went outside into the backyard to see a pile
of wood by the fence on fire. For some stupid reason that I still don’t
know, I asked Heather if this was a planned fire that Keith had done,
which, of course, it was not. Quickly, Randy ran over there and started
to spread the wood while Heather came over there to pour water on it.
For some stupid reason, I just stood there watching. Its nice to see
that in the case of a fire, I don’t panic, but instead just try to
admire the flames as they burn. Again, this is very adult of me.

Later on, everybody showed up, and I mean everybody. For the most part,
it was wonderful. We had a great time, sitting around the fire playing
“I Never” and the Question Game. We also played beanbags, and Mark and
I rolled over everybody. The funniest moment of the night involved Dave
somehow, in only a way that Dave can, breaking the swing on the
swing set and falling hard on his back, once again demonstrating the
extremely high maturity level of my friends.

In the morning, I was talking to Rene. I won’t get into details of the
conversation, but it has me thinking and worried about certain things.
In short, I just wish everybody in our group of friends could just get
along with out all this extra drama and conflict. I think we all just
need to have a huge sit down in which we all discuss our differences
and hash out our problems. Of course, I know that this is something
that probably won’t ever happen. But, all I want is for us to all get
along and have fun. I want desperately to bring my friends together and
us all to have fun and be carefree. Damn, that really made me sound
like a hippie.

I am home now and have been for a couple of days. I guess I should write about the rest of the trip. I also guess I should be brief, yo. Tuesday, we went to the zoo. I’m not a big fan of the zoo, but my sister had planned for us to go and my nieces really wanted to go, in fact, the first few days I was there, they talked A LOT about the zoo. I have never been an animal person, but that being said, I can’t help but feel zoos are bad for animals. I don’t want to sound like a hippie PETA person, but honestly, are animals really meant to be caged up like that? Anywho, it was ok, its not like I had a bad time, except that towards the end of the day, it started fucking pouring out.

Wednesday, my train did not leave until later in the day, so it gave us time to do something else. We went to a place that had dinosaur footprints and what not. It was pretty cool, but probably not worth going into too much detail here. We also went to Red Rocks, which for those of you that don’t know, is a really cool natural amphitheater. Again, not much to talk about, but I will have lots of cool pics to post.

All in all, to be partially honest, for many reasons, I think it will be a long time before I visit my sister, I won’t go into too many details, but although its not like we fought, she and I have nothing in common and there were a lot of other things that make me think twice about going out there.

My train was supposed to leave on Wendesday night at 7:25 in the PM. When I arrived, I was promptly told that it would be at the very least 3 hours late. This gave me lots of time to spare, and so I didn’t feel like calling my sister, I walked around downtown Denver. The Rockies were playing a game a couple of blocks away, so I walked over there. It was before the game started, so I walked around the park just to take in the atmosphere of a MLB not at Wrigley Field. The game had not yet started and there were a lot of people moving in and around the park.  It was cool.

After about a half hour, I headed back in the direction of the train station, walking around downtown some more. The train station did not have air conditioning, so I spent my time in front of the station, where I met a nice old man and a 17 year old hot loser. The old man was going back to Syracuse and the loser to Lincoln. This old man was kinda fun and had some cool stories, he was probably in his 60s and the type of old man Kelli would love. The 17 year old was a high school dropout who supposedly had done time in juvie and throughout the night had talked about the drugs he had done and the various crimes he had committed. What a fucking loser.

Finally, our train came. I had a sleeper room, which meant that I had a VERY tiny room with a bed. Ok, it wasn’t even a room, to be honest, it was about the size of a closet. The bed was comfortable, but the constant shaking of the train made it hard to sleep. It was ok, though, because I spent most of my time up and about talking to people. I had found the 17 year old who had made friends with another funny looking 17 year old who seemed to be full of shit. We were down in the lounge/snack area when another cute guy came downstairs. Of all the people on the train, he was the most interesting. He was from California and was headed to Lollapoluza (spelling please) in Chicago. After that he was going to be going some where out east, but he didn’t know where. He said he wasn’t planning to go back home until the start of September. He describe himself as a leftist hippie, and I think that was right on, the next day on the train, he offered me some pot.

I really loved traveling  by train. Everybody has a story. There are people traveling from all parts of the country, and most of them alone, which means they have to find a way to entertain themselves, so they talk to strangers. We had one hippie guy (who didn’t know there was a shower on the train and didn’t believe in deodorant) who was going from Oregon to Maine. An older lady was going from Denver to Washington DC. Some gay guy and his elderly father were heading back home to Greenville NC from Seattle by way of Sacramento. Another guy was going to Chicago from Reno. A couple of young and cute girls were going to Lollapoloza from Des Moines. At first they seemed like complete and utter flakes, but later I found out that one was in law school and the other was a village planner. With the exception of the not sleeping and the delays, train is a wonderful way to travel, especially if you are a people person.

Saturday, we went camping up in the mountains. Ok, my brother in law said they weren’t actually mountains, but instead foothills, either way, they were big as hell. This is the first time I have been camping without my camping friends and not at Shotgun. My sister and her husband belong to some sort of group in which they play dress up and party like its 499 AD. They wear old clothes from then and give themselves nerdy little names. I guess, the best way to describe it is, its kinda like real life Dungeons and Dragons, but without the magical powers. They have a king and queen and a whole royal court and sparring with people. Honestly, it wasn’t my cup of tea. It wasn’t like I had a bad time, but I can’t see myself doing this again. John would like something like this.

A lot of the people here were pagans or wiccan. Pagans are friendly, kinda like the Amish, except they shower.

Something’s remain true no matter where you camp. For example, we were there for a couple of hours and it got very cloudy as we were still setting up a porch to our tent. Soon it started lightening and thundering (although, that goes without saying, they go together for those of you that aren’t Al Roker) and was followed by rain and hail. That’s right, we were it the mountains and it was not only pouring out, but also raining, proving once again that it “NEVER RAINS AT SHOTGUN!!!”. 

The oddest thing about camping up there, though, was that this was at higher elevation, actually close to 8000 feet. This was different for me. If I moved my head too fast, I would get dizzy and lightheaded. Also, walking up hill for a few minutes I would get out of breath. My brother in law said that if I were to drink up there, I would be drunk after half a beer. And being that I was going on about 6 hours sleep TOTAL for two nights and also being Two-Can Sam, I knew it wouldn’t take much, but I still didn’t drink, mainly because we didn’t have any beer.

Another thing that was very much like something we would do at Shotgun (although, we have never done this, why I don’t know), for some reason, at night they taped a drunk guy onto a tree wearing only his underwear. He had a decent body, but by all means it wasn’t perfect. Anywho, they took turns not only doing body shots off of him, but pouring other things on him too.

Yesterday, we went to a water park. It was cool, I always love water parks and haven’t been to one in a few years. My nieces wouldn’t go down the water slides, so it left me to go by myself. They had a slide that you go down on your body and another one that you go down in a tube. Both were fast, but the body one just might have been the fastest one I have ever been on, it was fucking awesome. One time, though, I was going down this slide and towards the end of it is a tunnel. Every time I went in the tunnel, I would scream to let people know I was coming in case they were in front of the slide when I came out. Well, this particular time, as I got to the end, I saw a little girl (probably about 9 or 10 years old) right in front of the slide. I screamed “LOOK OUT!!!” but I don’t think she ever saw me. I shot out of there so fast, there was nothing I could do. I smacked her right the fuck in the head with my foot. At least, I think I hit her head. I plunged under the water and quickly came up, searching for her. I was worried that I had knocked her out or done other damage. Her dad (or other adult male she knew) was right near her at the time. I turned and saw him asking her if she was ok. She was crying, but not bleeding and as he said, she was fine, but just scared. She wasn’t the only one, for a few minutes, I was afraid to go back down the slide for fear of hitting somebody. But, since I’m a little guy, I knew that if she could take my hit, I wouldn’t do considerable damage to anybody.

After that I headed for the hot tub where there was a, well, for lack of a better term, hot guy sitting in there. It was just me and him and we kept eyeing each other. My niece Rachel came up to me and asked me if we were going to have lunch, I told her 5 minutes and she walked off. I turned to the cutie and said “kids” and with that, we started what amounted to about an hour long conversation about all sorts of things, including things one should never talk about, such as politics and religion. I have to wonder if he was gay, but I will never know now, because he was………….well, he was like 17, I didn’t pursue anything any further.

That’s all for now, its almost breakfast time.