This is week 148 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 1029): Rug Stalker

I woke up in the middle of the night dreaming that zombies were climbing up from the bottom of the bed, under my sheets. I remember saying, “this is stupid” and trying to hold the blankets down so they couldn’t get out. It was probably the lamest nightmare ever. After that, I spent the rest of the night dreaming that I was watching the baby. Between all the zombie combat and baby care, I had a hard time getting up when the sun was finally up.

I got up and groggily made breakfast for #1GF!. I smelled beef while I was cooking, but there was no beef on the menu. That’s when I realized that I had completely forgotten to put on deodorant the day before. I grimaced and shook my head. The slide to senility is a slippery one, and I believe that forgetting basic hygiene is step one.

#1GF! and I got dressed (including deodorant) and went out to a large local furniture store in the afternoon. It wasn’t like we needed anything more than a way out of the house. We picked up some coffee on the way to make it feel like we were actually doing something fun.

We wandered into the store’s warehouse sized discount area, and I started flipping through a rack of hanging rugs. When I came to something ridiculous, I’d turn to #1GF! and say something like, “What about this? Tiger stripes and leopard spots in one rug? For a mere nineteen hundred bucks, this Liger pelt could be the centerpiece of our home.” #1GF! would shake her head, and the baby expressionlessly chewed one of her toys.

When I was about halfway through the rack, a woman walked up and started looking at rugs about three rugs away from where I was flipping. There were two other racks that the woman could’ve browsed on, but she needed to look where I was looking. If you’ve ever looked at rugs on these racks, you know that you need five or so feet of room to flip each panel so you can the rug.

The woman quickly got even closer, before passing me and then slowing down. I gave #GF! a WTF? look by opening my eyes wide and shaking my head slightly. #1GF! curled her lip and shrugged.

I didn’t need a rug that badly. “I’m done,” I mouthed to #1GF! a couple of rugs later. She nodded and we walked a few feet away. The woman suddenly appeared less interested in the rack.

I shook my head. “I had to get out of there before that woman hugged me.”

“Or worse.”

“I’m not a hugger.”

“That was a little weird.”

We roamed the store for a while, but got bored and headed for home. Even though it was only midafternoon, we stopped into our local restaurant for dinner. People were smiling at the baby non-stop.

I was sitting in a sturdy, low-slung, brass studded leather chair that looked like it had been swiped off of pirate ship long ago. I was slowly sipping coffee out of a brown diner mug and happily slipping into a coma. The waitress disappeared for a while, and #1GF! was itching to get going. The baby wasn’t too far behind.

#1GF! picked up the baby and walked into the bar to find the waitress. The Sunday crowd at the bar suddenly exploded into laughter and kuchi koos. I took another sip of my coffee and smiled. We got the check soon after.

When we got home, I made mini cheesecakes that fit in muffin tins. I have no idea why. They weren’t the best things that I’ve eaten, but they were certainly easy enough to put together.

We ate dinner, put the baby to bed, and sat down to watch The Weather Girl, where Tricia O’Kelley tried to convince us that she could play a thirty-five year old. I kept looking at her face and thinking, “there’s no way. No way.” The whole movie was a steaming pile of crap. I wrote in my notebook and waited for it to end. I took a look over at #1GF!, and her eyes were closed. “NO!” I said. “Uh uh.”

“What? What? My eyes were closed for a second.”

“No way. You are not leaving me here to sit through this crap. This is your movie. We can shut it off, but don’t make me sit here watching this crap alone.”

#1GF! wasn’t really happy about it, but she stayed awake for the rest of the movie.

Monday (Day 1030): Eye Of The Tiger

I did the typical baby care routine until noon, and expected to be able to sit down and write once the baby went in for her lunchtime nap. Once I got everything cleaned up and got her to bed, she slept for a grand total of forty-five minutes.

I spent the day thinking about how I would explain why I’m a stay at home dad to people without sounding like a total failure as a writer. I didn’t come up with many answers that didn’t involve a followup shrug.

It had been raining all morning, the baby wasn’t giving me any writing time, and I was feeling like a bigger failure than usual. Fuck. I ate a mini cheesecake. Then another. Some days you need something to get you through your thirty-fifth reading of A Fly Went By.

Sometimes you’re itching to write, but you know there are more important things to take care of. And by the time you can, you’re so tired that you’re pressing your pen through the pages like it’s a mortgage closing.

And just when you’re ready give up and turn “stay at home dad” from primary objective to solitary objective, a wormhole opens up, and an “Eye Of The Tiger” 45 launches itself out of 1982 and into your mailbox. It comes with a protective record sleeve and without a return address. Some people might take it as a sign to put on their American Flag shorts and listen to James Brown, but I didn’t take it that far.

I put the brown blister envelope on the counter and returned to my primary objective, who was into fussy territory. She was an hour late for her nap, but when I’d put her down, she’d want to be picked up. When I picked her up, she’d want to be on the floor. There was no way to make her happy, and I tried everything. On a whim, and as no result of anything I did, the baby finally fell asleep.

I went back to my desk and sat for a second. I smiled at the 45. Rather than trying to locate one of those yellow plastic discs that go in the middle of 45s or digging out the record player from whatever pile it might be hiding under, I put the record next to me on the desk and listened to the song on Grooveshark. It was cheating, but the result was the same.

After the song was over, I used whatever derivative energy to check the basement and attic for water. Both were holding.

Although I really wanted to just chuck it for the day, I went back into the office and made it through one editing pass of LOR 141. I only edited Thursday through Saturday, so it was no big achievement.

The baby was up soon after, and I fed her. I wasn’t frustrated with the way the day was going, but it had grated down my will to write.

#1GF! came home and took over the baby care, and I made leeks, bacon, parsley, and pasta with a cream egg sauce. It’s one of my favorite meals. By the time it was cooked and the pans cleaned up, it was already 8:15 PM. The baby wouldn’t go to sleep, so it sat on the stove congealing until much, much later.

Tuesday (Day 1031): Suck This Crack

I dreamed that I was in a leaky, 1970s car in Chicago. It was leaking Coca-cola into the interior and I couldn’t stop it. When I woke up, I wondered where my brain got the scenery for Chicago, considering I’ve never been there.

Once #1GF! was off to work, I got the baby in for her morning nap. I made the bed, cleaned the sink and counters, brought out the baby’s tub, and prepped her bottles. By the time I was finished, her nap was over.

I played with her, fed her, and put her down for her midday nap. It was still raining for the second day in a row. The ground was saturated and there was no place for the water to go. I checked on the basement, and the walls were subtly weeping like a psycho ex-girlfriend right before she takes a wild swing at you.

Around 2 PM, I had a pond forming outside of my front porch that was trying to link up with the lakes in the back of the house. There was no place for the water to go. I checked the window well from hell, and it was full and threatening to overflow into the basement. I went out and emptied it, and ended up soaked within ten minutes, despite my Gor-Tex.

Thirty minutes later, I had to empty the window well again because it was still pouring out. The basement walls had sprung leaks that were quickly siphoning the yard’s pools onto the dusty concrete floor. There wasn’t a lot that I could do. There was no way that I could start playing around with concrete mix when I was taking care of the baby, even if there were a way to leave the baby alone for thirty minutes.

“Robot.”

The robot rolled over.

“I need you to suck this hole.”

The robot rolled back a little and flashed a very small question mark on his screen.

“The crack. I need you to suck this crack.”

The robot pretended to fall asleep.

“Holy crap, robot.” I rubbed my face and pointed to the wall. “See this liquid pouring out of the foundation here? See that? That’s the stuff you’re down here to protect against. What I need you to do, is just sit here and suck up any water that comes in. ”

The robot’s screen flashed green.

“You will be unmanned.”

The robot flashed an exclamation point.

“Don’t start. There’s nothing I can do. You have to do this on your own. Your like a sentry and this your domain.”

The robot rolled over and I set him up in front of the fastest flowing crack. He sucked it up faster than it came in, but I had the feeling that he’d be floating around the basement fast asleep ten minutes after I left.

I went upstairs and the robot droned through the floor. I fed the baby and tried to get her to sleep, but she wasn’t interested in napping. I put her in her crib to keep her safe and then went back downstairs to check on the water. The rain wasn’t letting up, and it was getting worse. New leaks had sprung up, and the old leaks were increasing their flow rate. The robot flashed an exclamation point.

“I know, pal. You’re doing great.”

He flashed a sergeant’s patch.

I wasn’t really sure what he meant. “Sure, pal. We’ll talk about that later. Right now you’re going on break.”

I mixed up a small amount of hydraulic cement and backed off the robot. The water was moving so quickly that it washed away the cement as soon as I applied it. I could hear the baby whining in her crib. I turned the robot back on and moved him back into position.

“Sorry, pal. You’re back on.”

I went back upstairs, scrubbed my hands, and picked up the baby. I don’t like asking for help with anything, but I was out of options. I called #1GF! to ask her if she could come home from work. I couldn’t take care of the baby and the water at the same time. #1GF! headed home, and I mentally went through a plan of action so that I wouldn’t lose a minute after she arrived.

#1GF! got home faster than usual even though a lot of streets on her way were detoured because of flooding. I lifted the baby over my head to kiss her before handing her over. “FUCK. I mean, Fuuudge. Is that a brown spot?”

“What?” asked #1GF! “Where?”

I pointed. “Shit. Shoot. Right there. On the ceiling. The attic is fucking leaking.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“I’m sorry I had to call you home, but this is ridiculous.”

I grabbed a flashlight and went to the attic to find the source of the leak. I crawled through insulation, and located a small drip that had found its way through to the plaster. There is at least a foot of insulation up there, so the odds of a small drip starting right above a two-inch spot where there was no insulation were astronomically low—unless, of course, you were me. I couldn’t go out on the roof, so I laid out some plastic to at least prevent the water from doing any more damage. In the ten minutes I sat there waiting, only a single drip fell. It was just bad luck.

I came back down and put some ribs into the oven for dinner. I had just caught oxygen having a three-way with the hydrogen twins in the attic, and by the time I got to the basement, it was a full-on orgy.

The rain was letting up a little, and I worked in hydraulic wherever I could. I knew that all the work I was doing was a stopgap because I was going to have to chip out all these cracks and refill them once it stopped raining.

By the time I emerged from the basement, it was 7:30 PM. The day was gone. A fire truck showed up at the neighbor’s house, so I went over to make sure everything was all right. I came back a few minutes later.

“How’d it go?” asked #1GF!.

The firemen are pumping out their basement.”

“Did they need any help?”

“I offered, but they already had firemen.”

“Good point.”

We ate dinner and watched the Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day, which sucked. And I say that as a fan of the series.

We went to bed soon after the movie, with the uneasy feeling that our water problems weren’t over.

Wednesday (Day 1032): Stuck Inside The Screen

After #1GF! left for work, I put the baby in for a nap, prepped her bottles, and had fifteen minutes before she woke up. There’s not a lot you can do in fifteen minutes, so I checked my e-mail.

When the baby got up, I changed her, fed her, played with her, cleaned the stove, fed her again, and put her down for a nap. That’s called “How to time warp to lunchtime,” and it happens nearly every day.

The basement was drying out, so I put on the dehumidifier to speed things along. The robot flashed a little broken heart on his screen when he thought I wasn’t looking. It’s those times that I think that spending a little extra on a robot would’ve been a good idea.

I sat down to write, and was still working on my first post of the week. I was a day behind schedule, and couldn’t wait until I was back on a one post per week schedule.

The baby eventually got up, and had been rolling and pushing herself backwards around the floor. Today, she tried to pull herself up on a basket. I thought it was cool, but I could sense that the crib would need to be lowered before she managed to climb out of it.

I spent a lot of time trying to put her down for her afternoon nap, but the baby had no interest in sleeping. She eventually drifted off, and I got a little more writing in. When she got up, she was just as fussy. If I put her down, she wanted to be picked up, and if she was in my arms, she was twisting to get out. Some days are like that.

#1GF! came home and took over, and I made some notes about the day. I took the baby back so that #1GF! could sit down and pay some bills. I lay on the bed with the baby standing on my stomach. She was holding onto my knees and laughing hysterically while staring at her mother.

“Look out for any projectile barfs.” said #1GF! without looking up from the bills.

“What?” I said between baby squeals.

“Projectile barfs. Watch them.”

As if on cue, I heard a squelch from the baby. She turned around smiling, and there was a small brown barf sitting on my knee.

I wiped off my knee, changed the baby, and eventually handed her back to #1GF!. I sat down at the desk to write while #1GF! put the baby to bed. My heart wasn’t into writing, but you can’t always wait around for the perfect writing moment or for something inspiring to happen. Sometimes you have to just have to sit down and type and hope that inspiration shows up later.

I wrote until 10 PM, finishing LOR 142 , completing a first pass on LOR 143, and getting my notebook fully transcribed.

Now, there are times when writers get “in the zone” where a singularity of focus takes over and the world drops away. Sometimes, the words are pouring out, and when I’m asked a question, it takes me a few seconds to drag myself out of my writing to comprehend that someone is actually there before processing the question. It’s a similar feeling to when you’re watching TV, and someone drags you out of your favorite show.

Supposedly while I was writing, #1GF! came to the doorway of the office and asked me a question. I sit less than three feet from where she was standing. Supposedly, I leaned back in my chair, ran my hands through my hair, and went back to typing without even looking at her. I was so far into the zone that I not only don’t know what was asked, but I have no recollection of her being in the room. I’ve given unrelated answers to questions while writing, but I’ve never been so far behind the screen that the real world faded away completely.

Thursday (Day 1033): Adriana Steffy & The Bloody Hammer

The sun was finally out, and the rain had created a mud glaze on our windows. I tried to clean them while the baby was awake, but only got one done because she had a fit.

When I finally got her to sleep, I wrote out an April Fool’s prank. In 2008, I was shutting down the blog to go down on corporate America, in 2009, the blog was ghost written by Wil Wheaton, and this year, I typed out an apology from a UConn student (get it? U Con?) named Adriana Steffy who had been blogging as Jon Dyer as a school project.

I even went so far as to post the story on Facebook, saying that I would be transferring the Facebook accounts back to the real Jon Dyer. I wish I went even more meta and involved other sites, but there wasn’t a lot of time. I didn’t think I’d get anyone with the prank, but it was sort of cool to have briefly snagged even a couple of my older readers in my web of deceit.

Once #1GF! got home, she took over the baby, and I spent the evening chipping out the heaviest leaking crack in the foundation to keep it from leaking at any point in the next thirty years. You can cover cracks with as much waterstop concrete as you want, but they eventually leak through unless you widen the cracks and jam the cement down their jam hole.

I was pinging away at the crack, for a while before I whacked my thumb joint with the hammer. It hurt enough to stop me for ten seconds while I shook out my hand and watched a thick, deep red bubble of blood form. The second whack put a slight pause into the rhythm of the masonry chisel. If you were a spider in the insulation for the third, you would’ve heard a monotone ow in the beat between pings. After that, the swelling protected my hands from further pain.

By the time I was done, my knuckles were bleeding and the area from my index finger to my thumb were the color of cheap rawhide. I thought about putting up a Facebook status that read, “Now how did all this blood get on my hammer,” but didn’t have time for playing around.

I chipped until 10 PM, took a shower, and had some leftovers.

Friday (Day 1034): Shots, Grinding, & The Power Of Greyskull

#1GF! had the day off, so she handled the baby care after we got up. I had a bowl of Cheerios, and went to the basement to vacuum up the mess from chipping out a crack in the foundation the day before. Once it was clean, I wet that crack down and filled it in. I dared that crack to leak again, but I knew that the water was already looking for a less fortified point of entry.

It was still early, and as I was cleaning up, I looked out one of the basement windows. I could see the individual dew drops on each blade of grass sparkling in the morning sun. Steam was rising off everything. If I was a photographer, I would’ve grabbed my camera. Since water is my enemy. I shook my fist out that window like a crazy old man stuck in the basement.

Once the basement was in reasonable shape, I went up to the attic to see if I could find the spot where the flashing around the chimney was leaking.

I took the screen off the window, carefully crawled out onto the roof, and climbed the slope to the chimney. The flashing around the chimney flashing was sealed, and everything looked surprisingly normal. I awkwardly crouched under the eave to see if I could find a problem there. There was a shingle that was a little loose, but it didn’t seem to be in the spot where the water was coming from. Awkward positions and roofs aren’t the best combination, so the look ended up being quick. That shingle was the only issue in the area, so I decided that it couldn’t hurt to hit it with a little roofing cement.

I cautiously got off the roof, told #1GF! that I was going to the home megastore, and went out to the car. As soon as I sat in the driver’s seat, I realized that we were going to visit some friends who live near a home megastore later in the day, making this trip more of a time waster than it needed to be.

I got out of the car, went back into the house, and asked #1GF! to get me a mirror so that I could investigate our leaking window well. I was sure that part of the problem was the sill, and the mirror would make it easy to see up under it without laying in the mud and sticking my head in the well.

#1GF! brought me the mirror and I went back out. I knelt down next to the window well and used the mirror to look under the sill. After a quick, “You fucking dumb fucking shitheads,” I went back in to see #1GF!. “Hey, hon?” I called from the doorway to keep from making muddy lug sole footprints all over the house.

“Yea?”

“Can you bring me my phone? You’re not going to believe this.”

#1GF! brought my phone. She was holding the baby, who was in a diaper, but no pants. The baby rolled around in her arms like a monkey on a leash.

“What’s going on with the baby?”

“I was changing her.”

“Oh, sorry. You didn’t have to stop mid-change.”

“Well, I thought you needed something.”

I smiled. “Thanks. You’re sweet. I’ll be right back. You need to see this.”

I went outside and snapped a couple of shots of the caulk job that the old contractor did. I brought it in to show #1GF!.

“What am I looking at here?”

I pointed to the sill. “That’s where the sill meets the foundation. That line two inches below it is where the contractor thought a caulk line should go to seal the sill to the foundation.”

“But it doesn’t cover the crack.”

“Right.”

“What an idiot.”

“Oh, it gets better.” I flipped to the next picture. This is where the caulk line stops six inches away.”

#1GF! stared at me.

“I think the guy couldn’t fit his caulking gun in the window well and just shrugged and said ‘Fuck it,’ and gave up. I mean it’s not like he was caulking anything anyway.”

“Moron.”

“Exactly.”

“Well how are you going to fix it if the caulking gun doesn’t fit?”

“I’ll just use my finger.”

“You can do that?”

“Sure. No problem. I think it’s interesting that a contractor didn’t know that though. Maybe the guy didn’t have opposable thumbs, and right after he started caulking he got the urge to throw his own shit at something that made him mad.”

“Or maybe he smelled banana.”

“We’ll never know.”

I went out and put a bead of caulk along the window. It took about, oh, three fucking minutes. The basement crack was filled, and the sill was caulked. Two small projects were down. I took the hose out to clean off all the cement and caulk from my tools and ended up hosing down the front windows to get some of the mud off of them. I thought it might make cleaning them a hell of a lot easier. As I was spraying them, I was concerned that somehow the windows were going to leak. They didn’t, but water and I haven’t been on good terms lately.

When I finished up, I put the tools away, and went around the front of the house to get the hose. #1GF! and the baby were sitting on the steps with a neighbor. I stopped to talk to them a while. That’s sort of a cool thing about being in a neighborhood.

The party soon broke up, and #1GF! went to feed the baby. I walked around back to enter the house through the service entrance, and ended up looking at the rusted chain link fence going around the property. I was supposed to be looking at the leaking mortar above my bulkhead, but I had looked at that cracked mess enough times to know that I needed to chip it out and seal it. Looking at it again wasn’t going to do any good. My chisels were toast from chipping out the crack in the foundation, and I needed to ask a friend to grind them before I started any new masonry projects.

I looked at a spot in the fence that had eroded enough that the seventy-five pound cement ball was completely out of the ground and sitting on a steep hill. The only thing stopping it from bombing down end over end into a neighbor’s retaining wall was a rusty section of chain link. Normally posts hold up fences. Vice versa doesn’t really work too well. I was going to remove that post before I was an unwitting participant in a game of medieval siege with the neighbor down the hill.

I clipped the fence, shoveled out a small amount of dirt, and dragged the post up the hill and into the yard. After you haul a hundred or so pounds out of the ground, you inevitably think you’re fucking He-Man, and the power of Greyskull courses through your veins. It happens. And that kind of power doesn’t let you stop at one post.

I clipped fifteen feet of rusted fence that was so old that it had been literally absorbed by a couple of trees. After a fair amount of cutting, I rolled up the section and threw it next to the post. Yea, I threw it. I told you about the power of Greyskull and all. What could I do? It wasn’t like Battle Cat or Man-At-Arms was going to show up to help. It was a holiday.

I now had a couple of aluminum fence posts sticking out of the ground for no reason. I grabbed a couple of shovels out of the basement and started digging them out. It took me a half hour to dig one out, and I was having trouble dead lifting the second one out of the hole. It was close to the base of a tree and wasn’t budging.

#1GF! came to the window. “What are you doing?” she asked in the sing-song way that women ask questions when they know the answer, but want to hear it coming out of your mouth. I thought if I didn’t look at her, maybe she wouldn’t see me. She continued. “I didn’t know you were taking down the fence today. It’s holding up the land. It’s probably not a good idea to take it down.”

I remained motionless. Was it the whites of my eyes that she could see or motion? I could never remember. I turned to the window. “It’s rusty,” I said just short of a grunt. I pointed as if it would help my case. “It needed to come down anyway or we have to pay someone to take it down, so…”

“So, take down the fence in the front. That thing is rusty.”

“I didn’t think that you would want holes in the front yard before we had a plan.” I leaned on my shovel. “I’m doing these two posts and that’s about it. I’m wearing out.”

“Are you coming with us later?”

“I want to. When are you leaving?”

“As soon as the baby wakes up.”

“So, a couple of hours maybe?”

“Maybe.”

“Yes, I’m going. I’m just going to get this last pole out.”

“Meow.”

“Of the ground.”

“Booooo.”

I shook my head. “The longer I talk—”

“Okay, okay, Sweaty McNofun” #1GF! closed the window. I spent another half hour digging out that post before dragging it to the pile with its fallen brethren.

I banged the mud off of my boots with an old window weight I found, and then went inside to shower. We left the house a little behind schedule, but not too bad.

We went to our friends’ house and the men went outside to talk water mitigation and landscaping, while the ladies stayed inside and played with the baby.

We went in the house a little later. You could tell that the ladies were having a great time with the baby. She’s such a happy kid.

“You want a drink?” the man of the house asked.

“No, thanks. I’m good.”

“I have water, soda, juice, iced tea…”

“Really. I’m good.”

“What about a meatball sub then?”

I smiled thinking it was a joke. “No thanks.”

The man of the house walked over to a heated serving tray on the counter and proceeded to make a meatball sub. “They’re really good…”

I had met a new level of food availability. “Seriously. Homemade meatball subs on the counter just waiting to be eaten. This house offers the best food. Come to my house and you’ll be lucky to get a couple of Pringles. They might not even be broken.”

Their daughter stepped in. “If you don’t take something, they’re just going to keep offering.”

“I know. I’m hoping that this is like Let’s make a Deal, and they just keep upping the ante. I’m really hoping that there’s a chicken parm and some mini cheesecakes waiting for me in the next round.”

They thought that I was kidding.

We didn’t stay long, and I completely forgot to bring over my chisels to sharpen. As a result, I got a grinder on loan. Knowing someone with a grinder is almost as exciting as owning one.

#1GF! and I headed for the warehouse food store and decided to pick up coffees on the way. We headed for the drive-through, and a woman in a speeding minivan blared her horn and cut past us to stop short at the speaker. #1GF! had to stomp on the brakes to keep from hitting her. The woman rolled down her window and asked for a cup of hot water.

“What?” I said, “She honks at us, cuts us off, and she’s not even buying anything? What a bitch.”

“She has a crying baby in there. She’s probably frustrated.”

“Wait. She screamed in here like she was on fire and blared her horn to get a free cup of water and you’re making excuses for her?”

“Screaming baby.”

“You heard it.”

“Yes.”

“Through the window.”

“Yes.”

“And Mr. Uberhearing, king of your hearing world, didn’t.”

“I guess not.”

“Fine. She gets a pass, but it was still a crap move in my book.”

#1GF! shrugged and pulled up to the giant coffee selection board. The speaker crackled and asked us what kind of coffees we wanted. The weather was warm, so we got iced. I saw a sign that read “Try an iced coffee flavor”, so I shrugged and told #1GF! to make mine a caramel iced coffee.

“Really? asked #1GF!.

“Sure. Why not? It might be fun.”

The speaker came back asking if I wanted a shot or a drizzle. #1GF! turned to me. I shrugged politely, mouthing “I don’t know,” as if #1GF! were on the phone and I didn’t want to interrupt. Had I spoken, I just would’ve said “caramel” anyway, which would’ve been no help at all.

#1GF! shook her head and turned back to the speaker. “I don’t know what those are.”

“A drizzle or a flavor shot. The drizzle goes on a latte and the shot goes in coffee,” said the speaker.

We both looked at each other wondering how a latte got in the picture. If a shot goes in the coffee, why didn’t she just do that? Maybe I didn’t fully grasp the concept, but I felt like I was being asked if I wanted steak sauce on my sundae.

“A shot?” asked #1GF!.

The speaker went dead. We sat there for a minute trying to figure out whether to drive up to the next window without the customary command to do so. We crept along like there were actual consequences to violating drive-through protocols.

“You know,” I said to #1GF!, “I thought having a caramel coffee would be fun. It’s not. It’s not fun at all. I think I’ll just stick with black. It makes life simpler. There are no options to black coffee.”

“Come on. You have to live it up once and a while, fancy.”

And live it up I did. That sweet iced sugar-water was gone by the time we got to the warehouse store.

Despite my caffeine soaked brain, we didn’t crack a hundred bucks at the warehouse store. The baby was awake for the whole trip, but getting fussy. She wasn’t bad, but #1GF! had to hold her in her arms while I navigated the cart around all the human snack pylons at near top speed.

We loaded up the car, and #1GF! pulled out.

“Hold on, hold on,” I said.

#1GF! pulled into another parking space across the lot. “What’s the matter, she asked.

I looked all around the car. “I can’t find my sunglasses.”

“Well they have to be around here somewhere. You just had them hooked in your pocket five minutes ago”

I got out and looked in the back. “They’re not in here.”

“Well, they’re not on the ground,” said #1GF!.

“How do you know?”

“I looked in the rear view as we were driving away.”

I got back in the car. “Eh, fuck it. Two for twenty. I’ll get another pair.” I looked over my shoulder down the lane we had just driven down. There was a black speck on the cement thirty yards away. “Wait, what’s that black speck down there?”

#1GF looked. “I don’t know.”

We looked at each other and hopped in the car like we were in a 70′s cop show and a perp was getting away with a handbag. I had the strange urge to slap a red light on the roof. #1GF! power reversed all the way down the aisle. “Wow. It is your sunglasses.”

#1GF! She stopped the car, and I opened the door to retrieve my ten-dollar blackout shades. I put them on and reverted to my bearded biker looking persona. “Right on. Now, let’s go get the bikes and go for a ride.”

“Seriously. That beard is out of control.”

We got out of there and went home. #1GF! fed the baby, and I brought in the groceries. The last thing in was the borrowed grinder, and I brought it directly to the cellar to avoid getting the counters dirty. I didn’t return. The sparks flew as I grunted and ground my chisels to sharp points. What took me ten seconds would’ve taken an hour with a sharpening stone. I ground them again and again because it was so much fun.

I called our friend. “I just wanted to thank you for the grinder, but I had one question: how do you stop yourself from grinding everything in the house down to tiny, sharp nubs. It’s so, so awesome.”

He laughed. “It’s difficult to resist the power of the grinder.”

I hung up and looked at the kitchen. I had completely forgotten to put the groceries away. There were giant boxes and packages all over the counter. As I put the groceries away, I wondered what amount of caffeine had possessed me to buy a package of thirty-six eggs.

#1GF! and I played with the baby until it was time to put her to bed, and I went into the office to write down the days events. I didn’t emerge for two hours. #1GF! made dinner at 9:30 PM and we sat in front of the TV and ate it. I hadn’t published a post all week, which was way behind my three post per week goal.

Saturday (Day 1035): The Shopping Wizard

I took a shower and then ran out to do the food shopping in the morning. On the way, I picked up some roofing tar to finally fix that loose and possibly leaking shingle on the roof.

I had no idea that so many goddamned people went to the supermarket on Saturday mornings. It was unreal. And despite the volume, they didn’t get in my way like the Thursday morning crowd. On the other hand, I was a guy with a giant beard, bombing through the store and mumbling to himself about what he had to buy, so maybe the path was pre-cleared for me as I passed through.

The shopping was quick, and I was back home with #1GF! and the baby in no time. I started putting the groceries away and #1GF! came in. “How’d it go?” she asked.

“You know, I got so many smiles from people that I started getting paranoid. People smile at the baby a lot, but the baby was with you. I started to think that I had a glob of peanut butter in my beard. Or a spike of hair that I had unconsciously twisted while writing and forgotten to comb down. Or a full oven-stuffer roaster.”

“Well, you’re a good-looking man…”

I pointed to my beard.

“Okay, I don’t know. Maybe your beard made them think that you were some sort of shopping wizard.”

“Alrighty. I’m all set.” I went back to putting the groceries away.

“When is that thing—”

“Don’t ask me. You know the rules. The more you ignore the beard, the faster it goes away.”

“Alacazam.”

“The more you ignore the beard, the faster it goes away. Alacazam.”

We were having Easter brunch at our house, so I cleaned the bathroom while #1GF! dusted and swept. Cleaning killed what was left of the morning.

The baby wasn’t eating or sleeping, so we took her out for a walk in the nice weather, hoping that it would relax her. Even though I positioned myself at the front corner of the stroller to keep the sun off of her, she didn’t sleep at all. She rode along in her floppy hat, with her feet up on her tray, babbling like she was catching up with an invisible friend that she hadn’t seen in six months.

The beach was crowded, so I called Macoosh, and left her a message saying that if she was coming to the beach with her man, she had better wear blinders because the floppy man boobs were out in full force. I also told her about the token dildo sitting on the wall, gearing up to play some love songs on his guitar.

Hey. Mr. I Play The Guitar On The Seawall. Yes, all of you. Lean in here. I’m not telling you this to be mean or to crush those gossamer musical wings, but it doesn’t work. Without the guitar, you look like a dork. With it, well, you look like a desperate dork. And no one wants to hear you jam. That’s why boom boxes faded away and now everyone has an iPod or Walkman. If people want to listen to music, they wear headphones. Leave the guitar at home and get a puppy. Chicks love puppies.

When we got home from the walk, Macoosh called me back to tell me that she was in the area with her man. I invited her over so that we could finally meet him. I was pulling out pans and prepping recipes for the night of Easter cooking when they pulled into the driveway.

I put a mason jar under the water dispenser, and continued looking over recipes. They knocked at the door just as the jar was full, and I stupidly opted to get the door. The first thing the new guy heard out of me was “Oh hi, shit fuck, oh goddamnit. Hold on.” I dove to take the overflowing jar out of the water dispenser and they stood in the doorway while I wiped the water off of the floor. Hey, I claim to be amusing, not smooth or cool.

We hung out for a bit, and I was drinking out of a mason jar because that’s what I’ve been drinking out of for since I discovered that Classico pasta sauce jars hold a lot of water if you peel the label and chuck the lid. It’s been going on for so many years that I don’t think of it as abnormal. I have company so infrequently, that I usually forget that the rest of the world might think it’s a little odd to be talking to someone who is drinking out of a jar. Especially if he has a huge beard. And crazy eyes. And spills water all over the floor and swears like mad when you first meet him.

Once Macoosh and her man escaped, #1GF! and I started cooking. We made fruit salad, apple cake, two quiches, and baked french toast, and a dozen mini cheesecakes. #1GF! thought we should make a couple of different breads, but I reminded her that there would only be five adults at brunch. We finished cooking at 11:15 PM, and stayed up until the quiches were cool enough to put in the fridge.

What I Learned

• Some people are really fucking competitive about bargain rugs.
• A Sunday afternoon bar can be enlivened with the sight of a baby.
• An anonymous “Eye of the Tiger” 45 can make a day way more awesome.
• The firemen will bring pumps if you flood?
• I can get so far into my writing that the world falls away.
• Some of my readers can still get caught up in a prank.
• My contractor didn’t caulk my basement window.
• Grinders rule.
• Homemade meatball subs gently warming on the counter on a Friday afternoon is a new level in hospitality.
• #1GF! will make excuses for bad drivers if they are transporting screaming babies.
• Saturday morning is more crowded than Thursday morning, but there are a lot fewer human speed bumps slowing down the aisles.
• Drinking out of mason jars all the time is probably weird.
• Mini cheesecakes can be so easy to make.

Share, Bookmark, or E-Mail This Article

Posted in Life of Riley