Culinary quadfecta occurred yesterday when all four Neill family food critics enjoyed their meal at a restaurant. Oddly enough, each critic ordered exactly the same dish: four number #14’s – raw beef pho. For dessert, the Neill’s enjoyed a hot one and a cold one, as in:
Waitress (owner): You done?
Father critic: Sure. What’s for dessert?
Waitress (owner): We have a hot one and a cold one.
Father critic: Then I will take one hot one and one cold one.
The kids are back in school, so it’s back to “work” for me. This year I will be making some improvements to the basement. Nothing fancy, just a recording studio, a game room, a place to work out, a movie theater, a laundry room and a bathroom with a Jacuzzi. But before any of that can happen, I have to raise the boiler pipes so that they are no longer at (my) eye level. What good is any of that bling if pipes be wackin’ me in the forehead? No doubt the short man who built this place back in ‘33 didn’t consider these things. Probably all he was thinking about was why on earth was he building a giant house in the middle of the great depression.
The problem with performing major surgery on a boiler system is that while you are working on the boiler system, it follows that you cannot use the boiler system. With Old Man Winter just around the corner, this pipe-raising business is not a job with which I may dilly-dally. The situation is serious enough that I WORKED last Saturday. The Jews are totally on to something because let me tell you I had no fun WORKING on a Saturday. But you know what is way less fun than WORKING on the Sabbath? Freezing to death, that’s what.
Well, here’s a picture of my new office for the next 8 months. In a week or so, the pile of copper pipes should be gone, at which point I can quit worrying about frostbite. Tonight it’s supposed to get down to 45 degrees. Yowzers!
September 8th,2011 |
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There was something I wanted to tell you, but memory fails. Such is the life of an old man. It had to do with some random skill, something that would take a monumental effort to master. While perhaps plausible, mastering random new skills at my age can feel remote. When I was a young man, anything was possible, simply jump on board the ship! With age, ships fade into specks on the horizon. They’re still there, but geez…
Two years ago the dream of getting back into shape and feeling healthy again had all but slipped away. One day I found myself unable to even stand up. Seriously. I could walk, albeit in pain, but I could not stand in one place. Laying in bed was worse. Diagnosed with sciatica, I began a regiment of physical therapy. Exercise made things worse. Due to my pain, I was in a perpetual rotten mood. As a stay-at-home-dad, one of my primary functions is to be a patient, understanding soul. Alas, pain has a way of compromising patience and understanding.
I decided to lay in bed until further notice. Part of the problem with laying in bed is guilt. Shouldn’t I be doing something? What kind of man lays in bed all day? The kind of man who can’t stand being in a rotten mood around his kids. For three months I laid in bed, guilt-free, catching up on Curb Your Enthusiasm, and all six seasons of Lost (dumbest show ever?). And at the end of three months I could walk again. And a little while later I could do a few PT excercises without hurting my back.
These days I work out like a gym rat. I could probably even beat up bad dudes if I had to. Anything feels possible and within reach. No ship seems all that far away.
After 25 years of jonesing for a game of pick-up baseball, I got my fix in Paris. For three Sundays I played ball at Bois de Vincennes. In the first two games, I reached base eleven times in a row! Let it be known that I have a big bat.
We played in front of where Napoleon used to tie up his horses when he went hunting. This picture is terrible. I would get so into the games that I wouldn’t remember to snap a pic until the game was over…
On my final Sunday, things went south. While Zach and I were walking to the park, we noticed hundreds of people lining the streets.
And so, just like two years ago, we once again accidentally saw those Tour de France kooks peddling by.
Having got caught up in the bikey hoopla, by the time we got to Napoleon’s hut, we were an hour late. And what strange things were afoot at the hut…
Amidst a cloud of smoke, men in robes were waving flags, beating drums, and singing/chanting. The robed men had kicked my teammates off the field, insisting that 500 fellow Rastafarians would be joining the party (more like 20), and that they specifically needed the hut so that their backs would be facing the White House. So there’s that.
I don’t know if it was the contact high, the bicycle chaos, or the slight change in venue, but I fared poorly both at the plate and on the field. Somehow I even managed to let some Italian character wearing a Yankees uniform strike me out. So there’s that too.
