| The Chronicles | Cherry & Grape Suck (Bubble Gum Rules) | ||||||
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 Lucas says, "Long entries are rad. And so are comments." Cuando Yo Era Joven... One time when I was really little, I got quite sick. I'd caught croup. You may not be familiar with it but Merriam-Webster describes it thusly: "a spasmodic laryngitis especially of infants marked by episodes of difficult breathing and hoarse metallic cough". Rough stuff, that is. I had to be put under an oxygen tent in the hospital. My dad was out of town when he found out. He rented a car in New Orleans and drove through the night. I think he averaged about 100mph the whole way. I was really too little to remember any of this, but for years afterwards, I was warned to make sure I put my hood on or I might catch croup, and the story was retold. Another time as a toddler, I almost drowned. Being a stupid baby, I apparently walked off a dock into a lake. I sunk into the water until I was no longer visible from the surface. By God's providence, my dad's searching hands rescued me. I don't really remember that either, but I guess when I think about it...wow...it's significant. Having had my life directly saved by both my parents really makes me grateful to have them. I certainly couldn't have made it this far without them. Many years later, in fourth grade, I got much sicker than any other time I recall. A grey Wednesday morning, I arrived a little early (as adults still took me to school). When I got there, I was reminded that Wednesdays were Choir Day. I wasn't too fond of choir. In fact, I disliked it so much that I wanted an excuse to miss it. A melodramatic idea struck me. I walked outside and asked God to make me sick - "a cold or the flu or something" - so that I could miss choir, the last class of the day. I went back inside, mostly forgot about my plea, and went through a normal day. Eventually it was time for choir and I started feeling a bit bad...but not bad enough to get out of it. A couple hours after I got home, I became quite violently ill with a stomach flu. I threw up every fifteen minutes or so for quite a few hours. All in all, a very miserable experience, and one of those "careful what you wish for moments of my life". Spewage Verbage Referencing back to vomit...anyone notice how many words and phrases there are for the act? Steer clear of this next bit of you've recently eaten, but here are all the ones that I can think of (in alphabetical order of course): barf, blow chunks, come back up, heave, hurl, lose one's lunch, puke, spew, spit up, throw up, toss one's cookies, upchuck, vomit. Why in the hell does English need that many words/phrases for that? Heck, good ol' M-W's thesaurus even offers a few more. This is the type of thing that makes me realize how difficult it would be to be truly fluent in a language. Contemporarily Sick So why this fascination with sickness this entry? Well, I've been pretty sick since the morning of Thursday the 17th. I woke up with pretty bad shakes and shivers despite having several layers of blankets. Never really detected much of a fever and a lot of the normal cold/flu symptoms weren't there, but I was quite achy and tired. Lots of meds helped out though. I think I'm finally recovering considering I feel pretty decent and haven't had much medication in quite a while. It still hurts to swallow, I have a bit of a cough, and my voice is shot, but other than that, I feel good. I hope one more night of sleep will be enough to mostly fix it. I've been really impatient about the whole thing. I keep wanting to go down to work, or go swimming, or play tennis. Friends call and ask if I want to hang out and I have to inform them that I'm recuperating. Distractions It's all kind of frustrating, but I have managed to finally catch up on the journal, watch a few Braves games (this is the year), and play some old school video games. You really should check out that link...it has some really really funny articles about 80's stuff (Saved By The Bell, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT), He-Man, etc). If I could model my entries after anything, it'd be those articles. I particularly liked the recent review of Nintendo's film starring Fred Savage, "The Wizard". I remember that film quite fondly. "I love the Power Glove...it's so bad!" In fact, we had it. We still have it. It is quite bad, if by 'bad' you mean 'sucks'.  Lucas, the "cool" kid, looking "bad" in "The Wizard". I wish I could be as cool as Lucas. Speaking of old video games, we pulled out a bunch of them on July 4th. Wow...I haven't updated in a long time, huh? I guess I've driven a lot of you away. That story last entry about me driving home was pretty bad, eh? I noticed a huge drop off in comments. I guess everyone felt it better not to say anything about how horrible it was. ;) What The Founding Fathers Had In Mind Okay...so July 4th. As usual, we had gobs of fireworks. Unusually, our pool still wasn't open (though it is now), and we didn't have near the usual crowd. I'd still call it a success though. I was a little disappointed with the fireworks show. Most years, I have lots of little helpers. This year, I only had two and had to do a lot of lighting myself. I pretty much missed all of it while concentrating on lighting things. I was frustrated with some of the longer gaps between fireworks too. We bought a whole bunch of those artillery shells. They're pretty and all, but they're a pain to set up when you're short-handed. They did make a pretty good addition to the "Flaming Bag of Doom" though. I can't recall if I mentioned that last year or the year before, so I'll just recap. Basically, it's a brown paper grocery bag with a bunch of various fireworks in it. I light the long-fused artillery shell and run. The bag lights up from the inside, the fireworks goes off, the bag catches fire, and everything else lights. Really, it's my favorite part of the whole thing. Overall, any year free of firework related injuries is a good one. Too bad David A burned his arm really badly at a different show. I still don't think it was very intelligent to use a road flare to light fireworks. A box of shells went off on him. Luckily he was at least wearing goggles. Right before the show I was surprised when Patrick and Stephen showed up. Only the second time I'd seen Patrick in over a year and the first time I'd seen Stephen in a really long time. After I was finished indulging my inner-pyromaniac, we sat out at the pool house and talked for quite a while. It was good getting to catch up with them. After a while, they left, and I went back inside to find a rather large group of teens, Glenn, Jeremy, Zac, and Travis playing Encore. With teams that big, the game goes on forever, but it eventually ended and I roped everyone into playing Mafia. It'd been months, and I had to get my fix, you know. Most people liked it...a couple people that sucked hated it. Guess that's always the way it goes. After that, we played some Catch Phrase, and then...here's where we get back to the old school video games...we realized that the GameCube and Dreamcast were down at StarrGate. Therefore we rummaged through some boxes and found our NES and SNES. Ira and I pretty much beat TMNT 2. I think I slept for a little while before the other people in my room woke me up. I wanted more sleep, but with a Glenn in your bed, you're a bit wary. When I woke up, the gaming continued. Zac quickly beat Super Mario Bros. 3 (with very little help from me), and I finally managed to beat a friggin' hard and tedious game called Mystery Quest that I'd never beaten before. The story sucked, the controls sucked, but I still felt a sense of accomplishment. Then it admonished me at the end as not being good enough and told me that I should try again. I researched, and it turns out that this particular game requires you to beat it four times in a row to get the "good ending". No way I'm blowing six hours of my life on something that unfun. Vacation From Vacation I don't really recall anything of much note happening that weekend or next week aside from having another somewhat sucky bowling night. However, that Wednesday, I drove down to Auburn with my brother since he had to go to Camp War Eagle (orientation). Now, I'd left my keys with Kevin and the girls so that they could housesit, hang out, and play DDR. I was a bit curious to see what kind of shape my place was in. Turns out, it was cleaner than I left it. Natalie did a bang up job of cleaning. Aside from an uncooperative lock, broken down DDR pads (which were easily fixed) and a missing globe (the glass things that cover the bulb on a ceiling fan), the place was great. Who says you can't trust friends? They even left a signed "guest list". I planned to get a little more done in Auburn than I did, but it was nice seeing Scotty, Paul, Amber, Natalie, and Rusty. On Friday night, Scotty and I went to dinner with Elisa, Kiki, and Brock. It was nice seeing them too. Then we caught "The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen". I really liked the literary references, the "unique" super heroes, the cast, and the action, but I can understand how it might not be everyone's "cup of tea". Get it? Ha. Cup of tea. See? Forget it. Saturday, Scotty and I met Ros and Mike for lunch before heading to Kevin's bachelor party. It wasn't quite your typical bachelor party. Kevin's dad threw it and his grandfather and future father-in-law were there. Basically, they rented a lake house not far from Auburn and about a dozen of us just hung out. We played some ultimate in the lake - running through water really tires you out - before heading back to the house for dinner. I was asked if I wanted my hair cut. I said that I didn't...that I'd get one the next week. They informed me that I might as well say, "Yes," because it was going to happen even if they had to hold me down. I felt it wise to retire to the bathroom with some scissors. For cutting my own hair (with a small assist from Kevin), I think I did pretty well. The back of your head is particularly tricky to cut...I think I need to get that evened up a bit before the wedding. Anyway, the point is...no more blue. Kiki, Elisa, and Mallory can let out a collective cheer. I don't think I'm "allowed" to do it ever again. My mom and sister might support me, but pretty much no one else. I think I've got it out of my system, but I'll just have to wait until next spring to see. The first part of the week was rather ordinary. Oh, I did manage to tie my high score in bowling though! I know a 168 is a bit sad for a high score, but hey, I did have six strikes in eight frames and my second turkey ever. Both times they were to start a game. I was pretty pumped. Actually managed to beat Jessica and almost beat Glenn. Closing Remarks A final thought to leave you with...I noticed something about myself that I'd never really taken the time to examine before. If you're expecting something particularly deep or introspective next, I'm sorry to disappoint. Have you ever looked at the second knuckle on your pinkies? Am I unique in having one hair follicle on one and two on the other? It's just weird having one or two tiny hairs...they seem so...lonely. Strange? Yes. Disturbing? Perhaps. Amusing? I hope so. Once again, I'm reminded why I don't wait two weeks. This entry is extremely long-winded and all of you will probably doze off with so much text. As usual, give me a day or two to get all the links and pictures working. It's time for me to hit the hay. Oh, and the quiz for this week...what's the significance of the title? I almost forgot...one more thing. Read this site about "The Ladder Theory" which examines the relationships between guys and girls. It's really funny and a lot of it is true. Steer clear if you've got sensibilities that might be shocked by some cursing.  | |||||||
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