Big Plans

Every year in the city of Dublin Ohio they hold the Dublin Irish Festival. I myself am descended from Irish people (as well as many other people). The truth is that after a couple thousand years of being conquered and invaded by many different people, Ireland has a wonderful culture. The Dublin Irish Festival celebrates that culture, with drinking, food, music, goods, and services.

I first went to the Dublin Irish Festival back when I was still in high school. I remembered it being a good time and I had always wanted to go back. I never did quite make it back until this year though. I really wanted Missy to go, as she was new to the area, and I knew that she would love it. I asked my bros if they wanted to go as well but only JC was able to make it.

You see, I also had an ulterior motive for wanting to go. I wanted to ask Missy to marry me at the event. We had already talked about getting married, but I wanted to actually officially ask her, ring on the finger and all. Of course that posed a bit of a problem as I hadn’t even found a suitable ring yet.

Engagement rings are an odd thing really. Most women place such a high importance on them without really knowing their origin. You see back almost a hundred years ago women had a tendency to not spread their legs for a man unless she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with the man. Any wily man knows the answer to this, ask a woman for her hand in marriage, fuck her brains senseless (or for most guys I know pump three times, get off, and fall asleep) and then once the deed is done call off the marriage. Apparently this problem was quite rampant, men getting engaged only to get some sex and then bolting.

So someone devised a method to safe guard against this. Engagement rings. If a man had to plop down money for ring first, he would be far less likely to get engaged just for the sake of sex. Jewelers became rich, and men became sad.

I actually had seen some poor schmucks spend a fortune on some ring and for what? To prove that you love a woman? I can spend my month’s salary on a high priced call girl to bring home to entice Missy into a ménage a trios; does that mean I love her more than if I didn’t spend that money?  It is absurdness to the highest degree. If you have to impress a woman by throwing money around, just prepare yourself, because she will never be happy and within a year or two she was will be wearing that high priced ring while some unemployed loser who lives in his dad’s basement fucks her retarded.

So I wanted to put a ring on her finger, but I didn’t want to go for the typical and played out diamond solitaire. It requires so little imagination that if I was a chick and a guy gave me that I would fuck his grandpa just to make him cry. I had a few months back seen a beautiful celtic knotwork ring. It stood out to me because I just hadn’t seen something like it before. It was nothing over the top, it was simple but impressive.

So what better place to find a beautiful celtic knotwork ring, than the Dublin Irish Festival. The only problem was that I had to find a way to buy the ring without Missy seeing me buy it. As we looked over the different booths I seen the perfect ring that I had in mind. I looked at it and made sure that JC seen me looking at it. About five minutes later while Missy was looking at pendants I leaned over to JC and asked him if he remembered the ring I had just looked at while handing him the money for the ring.

There was only one problem, JC had been drinking beers since we arrived to the festival. With the 90 degree heat combined with a dozen Irish stouts JC was a bumbling mess of shitfacedness. It had started about an hour before we had looked at the ring. He started stumbling around a bit. Then came the light headedness and slight drooling. Next came uncontrollable gas and a really foul body odor because he forgot to shower. Then there was the last phase, the blank stare.

So when I asked him, quietly, if he remembered the ring we just looked at he replied in as loud as voice as he could “What ring?” He looked so drunk and confused.

That is not him, that is me, but you get the idea of what a drunk and confused look is. Anyways lucky for me but Missy did not hear him due to a mass of drunken Irish people chattering away. So plan A failed and I had to move on to plan B. I made up what had to be the most unbelievable excuse ever and somehow got JC and I separated from Missy and back over to the booth with the ring. I only had a limited amount of time so I quickly told the old man the one that I wanted.

The old man happened to notice that JC was wearing a Manchester United shirt and started talking on and on about soccer. Here I am about to have a panic attack trying to hurry this shit up and somehow JC went from night of the living dead style drunk zombie to Talker McGee. In the calmest voice I could I told the guy “Hey I am not trying to be a dick but I trying to buy this before my girl gets back.” I thought I had said it as nice as possible.

The old man didn’t though. He snatched my money out of my hand with a scowl and tossed the ring on top the glass counter.  I am sorry, I thought you would treat someone spending his hard earned money on your stuff a little bit better but I really didn’t give a fuck. He probably had a small penis and hated life. I sometimes forget that people with small penises are sometimes real bitter and grumpy. I guess I would be too under those circumstances but thankfully I am very happy and cheerful (oh yeah I implied it motherfuckers!). So I shoved the ring box in the pockets of my shorts just in the nick of time (what the fuck does that even mean by the way?).

So we ended up making our way back to the front of the festival. There was a huge stage area and some Irish band was belting out some okay tunes. A bunch of middle aged women stood around drunk and dancing like a packet of retards. Here is a bit of rant, but you know what act your fucking age. If you are some middle aged woman don’t get some drunken delusion that you are some 19 year old girl who guys want to see bouncing around. You look so bizarre and out of place that it is pathetic. Nothing is worse than drunken fools who act immature. These people are starting to become grandparents and for some reason think it is a good thing to go through life being a drunken slut. Oh well embarrass yourself if you want to but don’t look at me nasty when I laugh at your old ugly ass dressed like a damn pre-teen.

Okay, rant notwithstanding, there we stood listening to the band.  JC went to get a beer so I decided to make my move. I used sleight of hand to wrest the ring from the ring box and then I did it. I put the ring on her finger while asking her to marry me. Missy of course said yes and kissed me and I am pretty sure I heard some people whistling or cheering us on or something.

Blog is Now Re-Open

So I haven’t made a post on this blog for several months now.  The truth is that when I started the blog I intended it only as an outlet to write about powerlifting and weight training. I wrote about a couple of funny incidents that happened at the gym and people seemed to really enjoy them. Then I started writing about some of my whacky neighbors and people really really really enjoyed that.

There is no doubt that after a couple weeks of writing entries, I would of lost interest and the blog would have died a quick death. However, it just so happened that I gave a link to my blog to a girl that I had been writing to back and forth (just as friends). To my surprise she was incredibly impressed by my writing and she herself was quite the writer. Well next thing I know I was writing almost an entry a day.

The more I wrote the more we talked (and soon texted) to each other. Pretty soon it became evident to myself that I writing solely for her. While other people read the blog they were simply observers to what was more so a one person show. Then a hurricane hit my life and the entries started getting fewer and far between, as well as getting much more serene and reflective, and much less humorous.  Once the storm had settled down the girl I had been writing my blog for was now living with me.

Well since my main reason for having been writing the blog was now living with me I found I had much less motivation to keep writing entries. She was now living out the stores that I would have been writing so the blog basically died off right around the time my father passed away.

After having spent some time apart from my blog I decided to start writing on it again. So much of my life has changed and I have much to tell.

Sorrow and Joy

The last month of my life has been filled with the greatest joy and happiness of my life and also a tremendous amount of pain and sorrow. One chapter of my life had come to a close and another had began. My marriage of five years had come to an end. At the same time a new relationship began that brought with it a happiness I had not felt perhaps ever in my life. I met someone I related to in so many ways and it truly has made me a completely different person. We went through hell and back to be together but in the end none of that mattered, all that mattered was we made it.

 

So then why the feeling of sorrow? Well just over a week ago my father took ill with labored breathing. He had been a heavy smoker for years so this was not too strange. He had some health problems on and off for the past couple of months but nothing too serious. This however was bad enough that he decided to call an ambulance and go to the hospital. They ran some tests and eventually the next day transferred him to another hospital. The signs were initially promising in that he did not seem to be in any immediate danger but we all suspected it may have been the beginning signs of cancer. 

On Wednesday I went to see him with Missy. Though she had lived with me for a month now he had yet to meet her. I had on a couple of occasions thought about taking her to see him but something had always came up and it didn't seem like there was a huge rush as we were still getting to know each other in many ways. How was I to know what was going to happen? So he met her for the first time with a breathing machine on his face getting ready to have a ventilator put it. Turns out he was taking a turn for the worse and the beginning signs of cancer now appeared to be stage four cancer. 

After the ventilator was put in he was put under heavy sedation. He would not be coherent again. He slipped further and further until it became apparent the ventilator was keeping him alive. By time Sunday came we made the decision to remove the machines and let him pass. It was a tough moment to say the least and Missy was thrust in the middle of this situation with someone she had just met. I felt bad for her as she comforted family members and was there for me in one of my toughest moments. I had wished he could of met her under different circumstances but how was I to know. 

He passed away at 3:15 PM on Sunday January 30th, 2011. He had just turned 59 a little over a month ago. My grandpa had died of cancer when he was 73 and I guess I always assumed I would have at least until then. As my old calculus teacher in high school was fond of saying, never assume anything. Smoking three packs a day will eventually catch up with you but you never really expect it to happen that quick. With my grandpa we knew he had cancer for months before he passed. For my father I never had a chance to even know it was the end until after he was incoherent. I assumed the ventilator would just be temporary and they would tracheotomy him and he would go home under hospice care to pass on eventually.

Let me say there is nothing glorious about death. Sure some people throughout history die for a noble cause and that is honorable but what history doesn't show you is how the poor bastard looked when he was dead. Even the greatest martyr hardly looks all that great full of bullet holes and disfigured from a violent death. Even someone dying in a modern hospital with the best care available has a macabre look of death dancing all over their face once they die.  My father died with his mouth gaping open as he desperately gasped for air with what little life he had before going. A doctor tried closing his mouth but it just fell back open with two attempts. That image is now burned into my fucking head and I hope one day I can forget that I ever seen it.

I didn't cry, I am not sure I can anymore. Sure some tears fell down but even that I tried to keep to a small amount. I remember when I was 11 or 12 I rescued a gerbil from science class. It had been abused by some punk ass student and was in rough shape. With in a week of taking him home we had to take him to the vet and the vet decided he needed to be put under. I remember crying over this gerbil I had for no more than a week. Years can change you though, and you can see and experience things that harden you. That boy who cried over a gerbil needing to be put to sleep was long since dead replaced by someone who death does not carry the same weight anymore. It still hurts but you come to accept it.

Since then I have had a few moments I felt a bit overwhelmed. I was driving to a local grocery store and passed by a Kmart department store and remembered that my father used to always go to Kmart and take me with him. We must of went to Kmart hundreds of times while I was growing up. I never really thought about it till this time and for a brief moment I felt my eyes grow heavy but I steadied myself and went and got my groceries.

Just earlier today I was going through my land line checking my caller ID for any numbers I needed to save to memory. As I flipped back I saw my dad's name and his number from the last time he called my house phone about 2 weeks ago. It hit me right then that I would never again see that name or number on my caller ID. Something so simple but it hit me harder than any punch I ever took. I put my phone down and steadied myself again. Life is hard but I am harder. I still feel emotions but I don't let them control me anymore, I control them.

Writing this entry has been hard onto itself. I feel such a range of feelings. On the one hand I am sad for the lose of my father, something I never thought I would experience at this age. My own father was almost 50 before he lost his father. On the other hand though I am thankful for Missy being in my life during such a difficult time. She has been there for me every step of the way. I am regretful and sad my father didn't get more time to know how much of a wonderful person she is and what a blessing it is to have her. She has made me feel like the happiest and luckiest man alive even during one of the saddest moments of my life. How amazing can a person be to do that? I don't think I can ever do for her what she has done for me.

Could she look anymore like an angel than she does in this pic?

I would like to thank my both my families and my friends for being there and offering kind words. It means a lot to be surrounded by people that care. There are so many people I know who have lost people close to them and know the same feelings I go through. In the end outside of your circle nothing else really matters.

My hand and random thoughts...

 

This is the story of how my right hand became what you see in the picture above. I will start off by saying vodka and wooden steps were involved. You see one night I decided that taking a few shots of vodka was a good idea. Most certainly taking a few shots is a good idea, it can loosen you up and make you feel pretty good without making you feel crappy the next day.

The problem is that a few shots tend to lead to a few shots good friend "alotta shots" and that is exactly what happened. Now I can't be completely to blame for this. I was on vacation from work and enjoying a great night with the new love of my life Missy. We had been getting along great and decided to have some drinks this night. Like the big buffoon that I am I went a bit over board and started knocking back the shots.

I am not really accustomed to taking shots believe it or not. I honestly had not drank straight liquor for years and before Missy moved in I had only drank alcohol maybe 4 times in the past 4 months. My home life was a mess and I simply lost interest in it. Now that I felt alive and happy again drinking became enjoyable again. Not that Missy and I were running around in a drunken stupor, we actually had only drank a few nights and even then it was not very much. Seeing as how we were on a vacation and still in our "honeymoon" phase that is really not out of the ordinary. 

Somehow to the rumor mill we were just partying it up every night which is funny in that the three or so weeks she has been here we have been to exactly one party on New Years Eve which you know, makes fucking sense. The rest of the time we have spent doing crazy activities like doing the dishes, going to doctors, the library, an antique mall, hobby lobby once, and the grocery store about a dozen times. I know that is just living it up and all, I mean fuck I can scarcely believe we are still alive leading such wild and crazy lives. But lets not let the truth get in the way of a good rumor so please you internet gossipers continue.

So in this particular night, by ourselves, we decided to tie one on and let loose. Things were going absolutely great. The shots were going down and we were having fun doing such crazy activities as watching t.v. and listening to some music videos on youtube. At some point, having to take a piss, I walked up my steps and went to the bathroom. The steps are bare wood and quite small and I was wearing a pair of socks. As I came back down I slipped on the top step and my feet went out from under me. I came crashing down and attempted to post on my right hand landing with all my body weight on my right thumb. Three hundred or some odd pounds against a thumb and guess which one wins.

I actually proceeded to land on my butt then slide all the way down the steps. Had I just landed on my butt I would of been okay but it is a natural instinct to put your hand down. As I stood up at the bottom of the steps I felt an intense pain but figured I could walk it off. As I moved forward I realized I was probably not going to be able to walk it off. Missy was understandably in a bit of a panic at this point as it was clear even through my drunken mess something was seriously wrong. 

Realizing she had drank too much to be able to drive Missy, went over to JC's apartment to wake him up. His son answered the door and she told him that she needed JC. This was around 2 in the morning and JC came outside to hear me screaming in pain leaning against my car. We ended up loading up in JC's truck and heading to the hospital. Upon arrival at the hospital we had a bit of an adventure in itself. There was a welcoming sign in the lobby and for some odd reason Missy decided doing a jump spin kick on it ala Chuck Norris was the proper thing to do. While JC and I found it funny the woman working the front desk did not and alerted on site police. 

Seeing as how it was almost 3 in the morning at this point I was quickly taken in the back and there I was swarmed by three police officers wanting to know if I was going to be a problem. I had of course sobered up by this point (for the most part) so I was able to talk my way out of any possible problems. Knowing that JC was completely sober I figured he would be able to handle things in the waiting room. The cops soon left and the next thing I remember I was getting x-rays done on my hand. The X-ray technician looked at the pictures and said the good news was that nothing appeared wrong with my thumb. I told him I felt like a bit of a pussy but that that was good news at least.

After leaving the x-ray room I was taken back to my room at the ER. Eventually the Doctor came back and told me my thumb was severely broken, dislocated, and the tendon was ripped off (or a ligament or some shit I can't fucking remember). So I loudly exclaimed that the x-ray tech was a moron and the Doctor said he was not qualified to give a diagnosis and should not of said anything to me. The Doctor then said I would need to see an Orthopedic Surgeon and put my hand in a brace. 

As I sat there waiting to be discharged JC came back and told me the cops had tried to take Missy away but that he had talked them down. Apparently they don't like displays of Karate Mastery in the lobby but it beats the hell out of me why. That front desk clerk should of appreciated the level of chi Missy displayed as she spun backwards, launching herself in the air, and then kicking her leg out with pin point accuracy and striking the welcoming sign dead center sending it flying through the air. If Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris had a love child it would of most certainly been Missy.

 

This is an artist rendition of Missy's kick to the Welcoming Sign

So I ended up having to see two different Orthopedic Surgeons and eventually had to have surgery. I now have pins placed in my right hand to keep my thumb from continuously dislocating. My hand is even more useless now with the pins in it. It is amazing how difficult simple things like putting your socks on or wiping your ass is with only one hand.

Missy "not being allowed to use the phone"...

Moving Forward

Well Well Well. It has been sometime since my last blog entry and before that they were few and far between. There was a reason for this, and while I cannot go into all the details, I can explain some of it away. My life has changed so dramatically in the last 2 weeks I could fill an entire book, but for the sack of my poor fingers I will give the "cliff's notes" version.

It should of been apparent to the readers of my blog that someone new entered my life a couple of months ago. I all but spelled it out in several different entries. In fact it kind of surprised me that only a few people ever questioned me about it, and even then it was only after I went over the top with it. People sometimes tend to overlook things right in front of their face.

Some time back I went on and on about how I had met someone new who I was basing a character I was writing off of. I had tried for sometime to write for the character and found that I simply could not. Then I met this person and everything started to make perfect sense. We had actually met briefly back in March at a show but did not talk again until September. She instantly struck me with her complex personality and intelligence.

As I got to know her better, we found that we had quite a bit of things in common. It was almost to the point of being freakish how many things we had in common. It did not take me long to realize that I did not have to base the character in my story off of her, she was in fact that character. When thinking up this character, all the traits, both physical description and personality, I wanted it to be everything I pretty much wanted. It was there the entire time and as I talked to her I realized she was everything I envisioned that character to be. Everything that character was to be, was what I wanted.

I could go on for pages about how complicated things were and how crazy the situation played out. Suffice to say that a couple of months ago I realized I really wanted to be with this new person but never thought in a million years it would ever happen. There were simply too many things standing in between us. I could honestly write a book about it that would rival anything Shakespeare ever came up with.

Here is the really crazy thing though. This girl, the one who I wanted to be with so badly but knew could never be with, is sitting right beside me on the sofa as I type this.

Not really much else to say to be honest. This person I wanted to be with so badly that seemed to be so impossibly unattainable is sitting right beside...