I like sitting on my fat tuckus (tuches), especially on Sundays, but instead I made some progress in my fight against the gingko tree in the back yard. Well, the fight against many of the trees in the yard that my dad planted. I think he got some of the plants in our yard from actual projects for customers when he realized he’d ordered too many plants. So why didn’t he realize the same thing at home? In any case, some of the trees had to go, like the fruit bearing trees with fruit no one wanted to eat, or the one blocking the whole front of the house, or the ones that are planted too close to the exterior walls.

In any case, I did finish cutting down the tree and I did end up hurting myself. It was before I got out the 9HP wood chipper and even before I got out the chain saw. In fact, it was early on, before I even tried to push down the tree that was much bigger than I was thinking (I can’t lift the lower four feet by myself). I did it when I was first cutting some small branches when I smacked my elbow up against something.

An even bigger disaster was when my mom and I went out for dinner. The place we usually go was closed, and I was so tired I couldn’t think where to go next. We tried the Widmer Gasthaus but it was so crowded I couldn’t find parking. Then I drove to Belly and it was closed. We ended up having great food at Tasty and Sons (a burger for me and chicken strips for my mom) and I even had the excitement of getting carded for the first time in years. I mean, really, I’m a little old for that.

Not sure why I figured that attending a funeral would mean I would allow myself to get loaded, but I thought I might. But instead, I had some things to take care of at the gym and I ended up eating 3/4 of a pepperoni pizza instead. Sometimes being the one living in a city the longest means you know where to find odd things (like fire extinguisher brackets) and end up being the guy who has to go out and get them.

That’s pretty much my whole day. Gym, gym maintenance, funeral, gym movie, back at home wishing I had some single malt Scotch whiskey. Not very exciting but who says everyone has to be super-interesting?

I’ve been pretty tired this week and, of course, getting to bed late. And as soon as I get my tired ass into bed, I toss and turn for a while. Not really sure why. Stress? Not really. Wanting to play more Plants vs Zombies? Maybe.

Actually, I was almost late to the gym because I was in the middle of killing zombies. And like I said, this is the FOURTH TIME I’m going through adventure mode. Once on my sister’s iPad, twice on my iPhone, and now on my own iPad. Too bad this thing doesn’t sync with some server somewhere.

Oh, I went to my doctor today and he wants me to consider a clinical trial that would mean new drugs when the old drugs seem to work fine. New drugs mean new side-effects too. I’ve been up late researching that in my limited way, basically using google and chuckling about how one of the main side effects of the drug I’m on now is DEATH. Sheesh.

Oh, and the doctor today wanted me to see a dermatologist. The next available appointment, however, was on JANUARY 26th at 7:10AM! What’s that, 55 days from now? So nice to feel special in life, isn’t it?

I know where the day went and you know where the day went. If you need a hint, I’ll tell you: my iPad arrived a day early. This is the third time I’ve started Plants vs. Zombies from scratch. When I was at the gym my mom was playing Little Things non-stop. I don’t think it will be that much of a waste if I buy a second iPad since my mom can be mesmerized by the first one. Yow.

My sister sent along a picture of me after my last haircut. Megan used my grandmother’s old Oster Progenic and said it cut like buttah. I think it’s because the blades were new. Here’s Megan, me, and Nadeem. The reason for the short hair is that Megan’s still doing chemo and kicking ass, I’m listening to my gay friends for hair advice, and I’m not really sure why Nadeem got his hair cut so short. Just trying be cool, I guess.

I finally took the plunge and bought an iPad last Friday and it’s due to arrive in a couple of days. I’ve been waiting for an iPad with a camera for videoconferencing, even though I never videoconference. Well, OK, I’ve used FaceTime with my sister a couple of times and once with my buddy Sean across a room but that’s about it. I waited and waited and never heard any rumors about a new iPad UNTIL THE DAY I ACTUALLY BOUGHT ONE. Sheesh. Now I even see the rumors about what cameras they’re using.

Oh, well, I can always get a new one and give the old one to my mom if I have to and it doesn’t look like the new one will be out soon anyway. Probably around WWDC-ish (June).

My sister got me some compressions sleeves for my calves since I’ve been having trouble with them cramping up. They look rather silly, but they seem to work. That, and rolling my IT band, which is supposed to be tight but doesn’t really hurt when I actually try to roll it. Funny that, but it seems to help. My body remains a mystery to me sometimes.

Like why couldn’t I sleep last night? I was tossing and turning and I wonder if the dark beer I had with dinner was really just a coffee drink in disguise. Maybe I should give up drinking; my buddy Sean, a fellow burger connoisseur, is back to being a vegetarian. Actually, that sounds like a reason I need to drink more. Maybe I should follow up on that email that says it’s a job interview from Google Japan. If nobody will have a burger with me here, I can leave the country and have burgers on another continent. That’ll show ’em.

Every time I stand at the bathroom sink now, I seem to feel a sense of accomplishment. It’s not because I spent 10 minutes scrubbing the toilet and wiping down the sink and shower, but just because I increased the temperature on the hot water heater. I’m not sure why that makes me feel like I did something. Heck, I spent four hours raking leaves and cleaning the gutters (of leaves) and made a huge pile that filled the recycling yard debris can and two compost piles with some left over and still the hot water heater is the only thing that makes me feel like I did anything. It’s probably because the bathroom will get dirty because I use it and dusty even if I don’t use it, and there are still leaves falling from the trees. Come on, it’s almost December. Plus, in the spring, more frigging leaves will grow on the stupid trees.

So far I think I have the OK from the family to get rid of yet another tree. My mom doesn’t like tall trees and my sister didn’t even know it was in the backyard, so the gingko tree that’s growing STRAIGHT UP is probably going to hit the wood chipper soon enough. Ahahahaha! Well, first I’ll have to get a wood chipper, but you know what I mean.

Woo! Long weekend and I’m finally sleeping in a bit. I also had an awful calf cramp that kept me out of the gym. Either way, lots of rest and I finally caught up with all the stuff on my DVR. Well, I suppose I didn’t start Rubicon or Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives but other than that it’s all done.

This weekend of gluttony lead me to several new places. Thanksgiving Dinner was take-out from Irving St kitchen. Half-a-turkey, stuffing, gravy, two types of winter greens and mashed potatoes and I think my sister told me it was only $60. It fed four of us and we had leftovers. I also finally went to Little Big Burger and I think the trick is to just get two sliders. That was quite tasty as well, and I think I’d rather go there than Violetta. Neither place beats Killer Burger.

The worst part about having vacation time, especially around Black Friday, is I have extra time to buy things I don’t need. I bought a set of DVDs with Frosty, Rudolph, and Santa (which I haven’t opened), a hard drive that didn’t arrive in the 2 days that Amazon promised, and new blades for my grandmother’s old barber clippers. The clippers work great, by the way, and Megan was in town trying them out.

So my calf feels better and I think that massage from Heather at the Body Bar helped. I made it to the gym today, but fortunately I didn’t participate in whatever this was:

because it looks like that one guy is going to be pretty sore.

So I’ve had this weird thing on my face (it’s not just the rest of my face) that I wanted the doctor to look at.

It’s not easy to see in the picture, but it’s a weird thing that was kind of freaking me out. So what did he do when I got there? He stuck his finger up my ass.

OK, so I’m leaving out the part where he looked at it and said, “something something” not skin cancer “something something” and then reminded me that I need a prostate exam because my dad had prostate cancer. Not what I was expecting, but better safe than sorry, I figure. I also asked about my calf cramps and he said, “You think it might be because you’re 46 and jumping around a lot at the gym?” It sucks being old.

Yesterday I woke up incredibly tired and wanting just to go back to sleep. I did drag myself to the gym and wasn’t all that clear-headed afterwards. I had a short list of things I wanted to do and it seemed like I’d never get them done. The list wasn’t that long: laundry, haircut, rake the leaves, clean the gutters. I postponed the gutters but got everything else done, including getting a haircut that I’m really not that happy about. I just get my hair buzzed very short so it doesn’t take all that much skill, but there’s a stripe of longer hair that I can see. I mean really, it’s just clippers, guard, and five minutes. Sheesh.

Not much to say about today, either. Cleaned the gutters right before it started raining.

I remember when I was a kid, I’d watch the weather reports hoping that it would snow. Now I’m the opposite. I watch the weather report hoping that it WON’T snow. Snow makes it hard to get to work and also gets all the yahoos out on the road. I know I sound like a boring old man, but you are who you are.

There are a few songs I try to sing along to in my car, and I really can’t remember all of the words to most of them. Fortunately, I don’t feel the need to do this when anyone else is in the car. The songs I can’t completely remember (I get the verses mixed up most often) today are “The Humpty Dance”, “Blue Monday (New Order)”, and “Oh Sherrie (Steve Perry)”. But I did find a song where I knew almost all of the words: “Message in a Bottle (The Police).” I’m not sure why that is. I had some grand theory about the songs of my youth, but they’re all from when I was a lot younger. I suppose “Message in a Bottle” was from high school while everything else was from college on, after I was permanently mentally scarred by my institutionalization at MIT. Or I could just blame it on Differential Equations or Organic Chemistry. It’s just as well. The fewer songs I know well, the less likely I am to torture anyone at karaoke.

I also realized I’m intolerant of certain vegans eating certain vegan foods. I don’t care if they eat vegetables or whatever odd things that are their own thing, but when they start eating “fake meat” products like Boca Burgers, it pisses me off. I don’t care if other people eat them, so I tried to figure out why I felt this way. I think it’s because I don’t like anyone tricking me, and that includes religions and other cons, and most vegans have their own fake food religion and use their tofurkey and such to try to fool omnivores into their way of thinking. I honestly don’t give a crap that an animal had to die for my dinner, and I’m a Buddhist, not some pasty white boy who thinks it’s cool to have self-imposed limits on his diet. OK, so that’s not quite true, I do feel some guilt from time to time, but I’m still going to eat whatever it is that I’m eating. I don’t care how many Twinkies had to die to provide my dessert.

The other thing that pisses me off is vegetarians/vegans who hate tofu. Tofu is tasty and I’m not sure what’s wrong with them. So is lard and bacon. We’re all going to die and all life is suffering, so why not have some tasty pork products?