April 2009

Drip, drip, drop, little April shower...

April showers bring May flowers, right?  Wrong.  April showers bring muddy, swampy backyards.  It's been raining like mad and my backyard is a right mess as a result.  I cannot tell you the amount of mud I have to wipe off the dogs every time they come in from the yard.  It's so gross.  If we get much more rain, I'm going to have to get the dogs little dog kayaks so they can navigate their backyard world. 

Aside from the monsoon backyard conditions, April's been pretty alright.  As opposed to golf and tennis, you're going to get a lot of golf and babies this month.  For those of you who get all persnickety about the golf and tennis, this should at least be a step up for you.  There are also a couple of things that are those famous so-funny-that-they're-happy items.  I think you all know the drill by now.  Oh, there's also a fair bit about geese.  You'll see.  That being said, let's get to it.

10.  I still have a job.  For those of you who are somewhat up to speed on the hellish nightmare that's been my company these past few weeks, you know the significance of that statement.  The atmosphere in the office is still really tense and unhappy and morale is super low, but I'm still here....and in this job market, that's a blessing.

9.  Deadliest Catch is totally back on The Discovery Channel.  For those of you who live in a complete and utter cave, Deadliest Catch is this supremely awesome television show about Alaskan crab fisherman.  It's one of the coolest shows ever.  I go through serious withdrawals when it's not on.  In all honesty, it's the same theme every single show -- the fishermen go out in crap weather on the Bering Sea, they catch crab or they miss the crab, they get all sleep deprived, there's all sorts of danger, etc, etc -- but it never gets old.  It's so awesome.  The only downside is that every time it's on, I totally crave crab legs for like weeks on end.

8.  Okay, this is a funny thing.  It's also a friggin weird thing...but funny nonetheless.  A couple of weeks ago, I went to a baby shower in Woodridge.  The location of the baby shower was in one of those sections of Woodridge where there are a lot of ponds and little lakes and general outdoorsyness.  Where there are ponds and little lakes and general outdoorsyness, there are also geese.  So, I'm at the shower and I'm sitting and chatting and nibbling some sweets when a friend of mine comes in from having a smoke outside and says "hey, you have a gray Toyota right?  Um, there's a goose on your car."  Wait, what?  A goose on my car?  Shut up!  So, a couple of us got up and went outside and, sure enough, there was an enormous goose on my car.  Swear to God!  There was this humongous goose standing on the roof of my car making all sorts of fuss.  He was standing up there, big as day, honking his fool head off as he unloaded mass quantities of goose poop all over the roof of my car.  When the torrent of poop finally stopped, he walked forward a bit and situated himself on my sunroof for a snooze.  I went back inside.  A little while later, I gathered up my shower favors and whatnot and headed back out to the car to go home.  The goose was still there, relaxing on my sunroof.  He had, apparently, claimed my car.  He wouldn't let me anywhere near it.  I waved at him.  He hissed and flapped his big wings back at me.  I set the alarm off with the panic button on my keys.  He hissed and honked and squawked.  I yelled "shoo goose!  Get off my damn car!"  He hissed again.  I threw a pastel-colored peanut M&M at him.  He hissed yet again.  Finally, I got an umbrella from a friend's car and opened it at him and he took off, honking the whole way.  It took me something like 15 minutes to get in my car because I was having this battle of supremacy with the damn goose.  Only me.  Things like this only happen to me.

7.  Baseball has totally started.  In all truthfulness, I'm not really in the baseball mindset yet.  I mean, there's still hockey on.  I'm not at the point where I'm watching full baseball games.  I'll follow the scores and watch a few innings here and there when the Mets or the Red Sox are on but I'm not in a mode where I'm getting a beer and sitting down to watch the game.  Not yet, anyway.  Nevertheless, the Red Sox are on a friggin TEAR.  I think they've won something like 11 in a row, which includes a three-game sweep of the Yankees.  One of the games against the Yankees was won by a dude stealing home.  Beating the Yankees is always a good time.  Totally embarrassing the Yankees is like a holiday. 

6.  Again, this is a funny thing.  Okay, so, there's this chick, right?  I'm not a big fan.  She's not a big fan either.  She's got some issues with me and I've got some issues with her, yadda, yadda, yadda.  I'm not going to bore you with the gory details.  The people who need to know already know and the chick in question, well, I'm happy to tell her if she feels like asking.  Anyway, that's kind of beside the point.  Like me, this chick likes to write blogs, which is totally cool.  She wrote a blog about me a few days ago, though, that was seriously one of the funniest things I've ever read in my entire life.  Let me set the stage a little.  Facebook, for those of you who don't use it, has changed formats and is now more akin to Stalkerbook than Facebook.  You get to see pretty much everything your Facebook friends do.  If they write on eachother's walls, comment eachother's pictures, take a quiz, play a game...anything....it'll pop up in your news feed.  The thing is, if you're not friends with someone but you have a mutual friend, you get to see everything they send to the mutual friend.  Basically, you get bombarded with comments and things from people you're not friends with whether you want them or not.  It can get a bit grating.  Right, so, being that we're not fans of each other and not Facebook friends anyway, I put the girl on my blocked list so that I could be spared from her and she could be spared from me.  Win - win situation, right?  Wrong.  Apparently this little attempt to maintain my sanity didn't go over very well.  She got really bent out of shape about it and wrote this blog about how I did it deliberately and how it hurt her feelings and how I'm really mean and unkind and angry and unforgiving and a bad friend...and my favorite part...how I need to grow a heart.  Like, you know, the Grinch or something.  In and of itself, that's pretty damn funny.  It totally cracked me up.  I mean, I don't think anyone's ever called me 'mean' in my whole 32 years of life.  That wasn't the best of it though.  The best was that she didn't want to call me out by name for all of Facebook to see....so she named me 'Bill.'  That's me.  Bill.  My sister got a look at the blog later in the day and called me up almost hyperventilating with laughter.  She's been calling me Bill ever since.  In fact, most of my immediate family is now calling me Bill here and there, including my mother.  I have a lot of nicknames.  I answer to all sorts of monikers.  I never thought one of them would be Bill but hey, I'm a laid back chick.  I can dig it.   

5.  And let the golf segment begin...  You all know how I have my golfers that I'm all crazy about.  Sergio and Ian and Henrik and the rest of them.  One of my favorites is Paul Casey.  He's this little English dude who's almost more American than he is English.  He went to college here, has been living in Arizona for something like fifteen years, and is married to an American girl.  Like the rest of my favorites, he's fun to watch because he's got personality and spunk and a really good golf game.  He's won several times on the European Tour but had yet to win in the states.  Ladies and sirs, Paul Casey is winless in the US no more!  The first week in April, he won the Shell Houston Open in a playoff with J.B. Holmes.  It was nice to see him win because it was his maiden win on the US tour and he was all smiley and emotional about it.  They brought some bagpipers out and the little dude wept like a proper Brit.  It was good stuff.  I like watching any golfer get their first win...but when it's a golfer I root for, it's extra special.  Here, lookee:

See?  Isn't that nice?  :-)

4.  Okay, I've brought this point up on a previous list because it made me laugh...but there was another sighting so I'm bringing it up again.  There are a few golfers on the Tour that are a bit festive with their apparel.  Most notable of these golfers is Ian Poulter.  He's like the Liberace of golf.  He's very flashy and ridiculous and absolutely rocks the plaid pants.  He can totally pull it off.  As I've mentioned before, my boy Henrik Stenson can't.  You remember Henrik Stenson.  He's that lunatic who played a shot in his underwear a couple of weeks ago.  Normally, Henrik is a pretty snappy dresser.  His clothing sponsor is Hugo Boss so he usually looks pretty suave.  Every once in a while, though, he'll try to do the plaid thing and it's just an epic fail.  Some guys can do the plaid.  Some guys can't.  Henrik falls in that "can't" category.  Behold:






Just no.  I don't know what it is about Henrik but he just cannot pull this look off.  Bless his heart, though, because every time he tries, it is just a comedy moment for me.  I think he's just got too much Plain Jane going on everywhere else in the outfit and that's what throws it off.  When Ian rocks the plaid pants, he's usually got a whole rocking outfit going on.  He'll have the color coordinated shoes and belt, the stylish shirt, and the crazy spiked up hair with the visor.  It's a whole look.  It's ridiculous...but it's a complete look and he totally pulls it off.  Henrik, as I've said before, kind of half asses it.  He'll wear these out of control, loud as hell pants with plain white shoes, a boring baseball cap, and a typical golf polo.  I don't know what he's trying to do but whatever it is, he's not doing it.  He'll have one of these outfits on and then pop on the TV and I just lose it.  In all honesty, it's kind of endearing.  It's so cute that he tries.  I mean, he fails...but it's totally cute how he tries.  He's a super good golfer though...so he can wear (or not wear) anything he wants.  I found that you can get away with all kinds of ridiculousness on the golf course if you've got the game to back it up.  Hen's got the game, so, you know, he can have the occasional epic pants fail and we'll still love him.

3.  Last weekend, I totally golfed.  It was rainy and windy and I lost three balls, hit a goose with a tee shot, and fell out of the golf cart once.....but I totally got on the golf course and played nine holes and it was AWESOME.  I hadn't played since September and I so missed it.  I'm not very good.  I'm not even marginally good.  I'm better than I was when I first started but, you know, it's a work in progress.  I don't care how awful I am.  I love getting out there and knocking a few golf balls around.  It's phenomenal.  I golfed like a 73,000 last weekend but it was great anyway.  :-)

Just as a side note in case any of you were concerned, the goose I hit was unharmed.  He was hanging out with a couple of other geese on the 6th hole by one of the sand traps.  I hit my drive and the ball flew and then bounced once, bounced again, and  bounced a third time on the goose.  Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of momentum behind the ball by the time it got to the goose.  The goose, however, was none too pleased about getting a golf ball to the ass.  When I got down to where my ball was to hit my second shot, the goose was all pissed off and did the same honking, hissing, wing flapping thing at me that the goose on my car did.  I apologized and the goose went on his way.  I don't know what it is with me and geese lately.  It must be a thing.

2.  The pregnancy parade from 2008 is beginning to bloom.  My friends Jay and Yvonne welcomed their first child, a boy called Colin Anthony, on April 27th.  Somehow, tiny little Yvonne managed to squeeze a 7 pound baby out of her tiny little self.  I got the text at like 5:20 in the morning that the baby had arrived and couldn't go back to sleep because I was all giddy about it.  I love babies.  The more babies, the merrier.

1.  Speaking of babies, BEHOLD!






That's totally my niece.  Her name is Alyssa and she was born in the early evening of April 6th and she's awesome.  She makes the funniest faces and little noises, half of her body weight is easily made up of hair, and she's got the longest baby toes.  She's got, like, little monkey feet with those long, long toes.  I'm expecting her to start swinging from things by her feet any second now.  I was honored enough to actually witness her birth.  I didn't know that was going to be the case when I left work to head to the hospital that day.  Had I known, I think I would have worn something different but that's irrelevant.  My family and I were all in the birthing room at the hospital hanging out with my sister and her husband.  When the time came for the pushing, my sister asked for some of us to stay to be cheerleaders for her.  So, I got to be there to help and cheer and see a child be born to the world.  Let me just tell you, it was pretty damn amazing.  It was one of the wildest things I've ever seen but amazing nonetheless.  You haven't seen incredible until you've seen a living, breathing person come out of another living, breathing person.  I mean, yes, it's graphic and all that but the whole process is just off the charts incredible.  I was blessed to have been there.  So, now I have a niece and the family has a new 'show' to watch at family gatherings.  My sister will bring the baby over and we all just kind of sit around and watch her do stuff.  Being that she's not yet a month old, she doesn't do a whole lot but it's still awesome.  She's a little peanut.  A little peanut with monkey feet.  :-)

April's been a full month.  I like full months.  Makes a person feel really alive and part of the world, you know?  Yeah, you know.  Hopefully May will bring more delicious happiness for me to report on.  Until then, my little pretties, I bid you farewell!