Jefke.com

And so it has come to pass, that the captain moved from babyhood to toddlerism on this
the 17th of july 2006. As  mentioned the big to-do was on Saturday and while I think
overall, there was no panic moment-we still rushed around like crazy to get everything
done before the guests arrived.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it, but everything cost roughly 3x’s what it should have
cost(ed). Not to ruin the end of the story,  but this was due to the fact that we purchased
roughly 3x’s as much shit as we needed to feed, beverage and entertain our guests. I’ll
freely admit that I typically over buy for  parties, but something went pretty haywire for
this one. Oh well better to have too much than too little.

Friday, bday minus 1, natty wsa chopping some parsley for something, I don’t’ even
remember anymore and she came pretty close to loosing the top of her left index finger.
She was using the sodoku, err, Japanese chef’s knife she got me a years back. If I said it
once I’ve said it at least 3 or 4 times, that one must curl their fingers under and cut up
agains the knuckle, but she never listens.

So she was pretty much howling from the pain frustration of cutting herself the day
before the big day…and was thinking of just wrapping the thing up and carrying
on…when I saw that she got through the nail bed (eww) I told her to go to the emergency
room for stitches. She refused, then after some calls decided to go. The capt and I hung
out until she got back with 2 stiches and her finger bandged like she was in a roadrunner
cartoon. She can’t get the cut wet for 10 days, which is making for some fun times at the
fort. But hey, at least she’s ok and there’s no permanent damage.

Just to make things interesting, natty’s mom’s hot water heater decided to crap out and
flood her basement. Oddly enough the valve that controls the water to the refill the heater
also crapped out. So in spite of it being closed, water still poured out of the bottom of the
heater. Good times. Having some experience with water mains and flooding basements
(long, but good story, for another time).  I headed over to identify the whole house water
valve and turn it off.  which I did, I then helped bail out some water.

Got home around 10:30, sat up for awhile, then went to bed. At 5:30 henry gave me my
courtesy wake up bark. After tending to the zoo, I thought about going back to sleep, but
instead whipped up a very nerdy, but helpful task list/project plan. Yes, that’s right, at
5:45 am I was working in excel to list, prioritize and capture the  “cannot start before”
and “must be completed by” attributes of tasks. The capt’s nap was a bitch of a
constraint, as it shut down all noisy or upstairs tasks. With this completed I showered,
gathered up henry and headed to home depot for propane—you can’t have a BBQ if you
run out of gas.

After a successful run ot the depot and mcdonalds for provisions, I was able to knock out
several ‘straighteing’ and yard taskes before the capt work up. Then I set him up for
breakfast and then the sitter arrived., god bless her. I need to come up with a name to
protect her from all you-but it was completely weird to have someone there to, you know,
babysit. I started vacuuming, getting chairs from the attic, and all sorts of shit,  and she,
you know, watched the baby. Fucking crazy. What a concept. Fucking brilliant.

Around 11 I headed out to get the booze, I was in a pretty good mood, shit was coming
together, the fort was looking ok, I was pretty relaxed to slide in to host mode. As I
pulled away from our block, I passed a classic WT woman wandering up the middle of a
cross street holding a super slurpee side cup and apparently crying. Oh right I can’t wait
till people come to our neighborhood. Wonderful.

I headed to rite aid to pick up some toys for the visiting kids to play with in the back
yard, as  in all reality, we don’t ever go out there.  At the light to get in to the parking lot,
I watch 2 sterotypical meth head looking local women, stagger around and, I’m pretty
sure, offer to suck a guy’s dick for money/drugs—excellent.

In rite aid, there were roving packs of locals, talking in their dialect, apparently just
hanging out. An employee, tony, received a phone call, as I wait to cash out. You see,
tony was technically not on the clock, but he was still at the store. I know this because my
cashier, instead of ringing me out, stood by the phone and yelled across the store for tony, oh 4 times. then muttering, to herself, or perhaps the live studio audience, that tony was not really working, but she didn’t want him to ‘flip out’ because he didn’t get the message about his call. eventually tony did show up, in his wife beater, and took the call. it woudl appear that there is only 1 phone in the store–fascinating.

i hightailed it out of there and headed tothe booze store, for what should have been a joyous event–buying tons of beer and not having to feel bad about it. instead, i hemmed and hawwed up and down the cooler isle, trying to decide how much was enough and how much variety i owed my guests. I decided long ago that i’d be using cans instead of bottles. i’m all over cans lately. they’re smaller, the get cold faster, the can be compacted when empty. and assuming that my recyling actually gets to being recycled, they’re supposed to be easier to, err recycle.  however, cans have a stigma and well, i’m overly conscious of such things, so i thought i’d make up for the non bottle situation with vareity. so i loaded the cart with a coupla suit cases of yuengling, some lights (miller and amstel) some corona for the ‘corona is the only real summer beer, and those stories of the workers pissing in the vats is not true’ crowd, some heinies because i’m a sucker for the keg can, and some wittekeirke, err, wittekerke (wow check out the para about miss belgium– “of course, she drank the dark table beer as a child at home”….i love belgium) well for old times sake and the joke of it.

As i was cashing/checking out or whatever there was a guy buying a keg, and naturally the though passed through my mind earlier, but now, seeing it there before me..i was tempted. but i withheld and bought my beer and some ice. good thing too, as inspite my best efforts, it seems like no one drank anything. well they did, but we have a crap load left over. SO much in fact that i actually sent some peopel home with beer doggies bags. natty almost passed out from shock. but really it’s true.

over all it was about 137 degrees all afternoon, and our tiny house really didnt’ have enough room for everyone to stay inside. so some unlucky souls were stuck outside, under the shade thingys we bought. no one passed out from the heat, (which i feared) but man, it was hot.

all in all the party went well i think, i made about 5x’s the baked beans that i neede to make, but we’ll see if they freeze well and i’ll break them out someother time.

They capt received some pretty cool toys, and, i shit you not, and i don’t know how to bring this up without offending our god fearing readers—a prayer book. a book that is full of illustrated pictures and prayers. i’m not kidding. it’s called “my first prayer book“, and it’s got jeebus on the cover, being all jeebus-y.

it may not seem like it, but i’m a pretty laid back person–almost libertarian i’d say, do what y ou want to do so long as it doesn’t fuck my shit up. but giving someone a religious book for their kid–doesn’t that cross teh line a bit- i mean there are 2 angles i suppose,

1. “hey- everyone’s aboard on the jesus train, right, here’s a little book with the dogma-you know, we’ll save you a coupla bucks by picking it up for you..”
2. “you know we’ve never seen these people in church, and i don’t think that kid is baptised–maybe they don’t know how to get started, lets give them a prayer book, perhaps they’ll all come back in to the flock”
3. “those peopel are evil, i know it, let’s introduce our lord the saviour into their home. his light and power will spread and cure them of their post moder secularized lifestyle just like a combat roach bait station gets to the source of the roach problem, and knocks out the whole next”

fucking crazy. i’m actually a bit riled up by this shit. i can tell you this, if, and this will be a big if, we see these people again–the capt’s gonna be rocking a danzig or slayer tshirt. and i might have to say something like “wow, ____thanks for having us over–but we have to run, the captain has missed his 2 pm goat’s blood, and if we don’t get home in 15 mins, we might have to kill the rest of the chickens to get back to level 7 with the dark one–that happened last month and if it happens too many times, i’m gonna have to get a virgin and sacrifice her, and–[nudge] you know what a hassle that can be”

well anyway, tonight being the offical night of the birth and all, we’re gonna get the capt some ‘za and watch him roll around in it.

cheers