Ohhh, I don’t feel so whippy.  The first cold of the year.  Ohhhhh.  Yesterday I was too agonized to even type;  Today is marginally better.  At least I made it through the weekend before crashing and burning, and with any luck will fully recover before the coming weekend.

I started off last weekend with a trip down to the Brooksider.  Haven’t been there in a while, and they were having their annual “customer appreciation” party, so it sort of came together for me.  I didn’t stay too crazy late though, not remarkably.

Saturday we had an early Christmas get-together out at Mom’s.  Lots of delicious food, nice weather, and presents for me.  All good things.  As little Teagan hasn’t gotten much exercise lately, I even opted to take her along with us.  (Surprise, everybody!!)  She did very well actually, maybe a touch overwhelming with the youngest niece but at least she didn’t jump all over everybody.  She scored some presents too, which kept her occupied.  (So did Kane but he had to wait until we got home to open his.)  We were out there most of the afternoon, then headed back home to hunker down.  We spent our evening playing “picture match” on the Wii, obliterating our previous high score.  Wild night at the Kenagy house!!!

Sunday I was a bit sluggish;  Felt the cold kicking in.  I did make the long trek out to Shawnee Mission Park with the dog for some playtime.  I’m sure that didn’t contribute positively to my waning health, but it was a decent day out so I figured what the heck.  We had a pretty good time.  Teagan took her first few plunges into the lake, which she didn’t seem totally adverse to, but she didn’t strike me as a very strong swimmer either so we limited that to a few tosses of the tennis ball.  We did have to cut our recess time a little short though when she busted her lip open playing fetch with a hard rubber ball.  She was quite oblivious to the injury, but having her bounce all over the park with a bloody froth all over her jaws didn’t seem like the best of ideas so we called it a day.  By the time we got back to the house my illness was definitely kicking in, so we spent the rest of the day on the couch watching football.  Not unlike any other Sunday really.

Looks like the season of holiday parties is upon us.  Full fiesta mode.  Nonstop spirited celebration even.  I eschewed my regularly scheduled trip to the Brooksider on Friday and headed over to our friend Susan’s house for her semi-annual Christmas party.  This used to be an annual event, then was changed to semi-annual, then completely nullified for some period of time.  Since she hosted it again this year, I’ll go back to calling it “semi-annual” for the time being.  It was quite a return to its former days of glory too.  We shut the party down, much to Donette’s dismay.  Hey, I was on a roll, gotta go with those rare occasions.  I don’t know what time Susan finally threw us out, but it was crazy late.  (“Late” on my time-table being anything after 9:30.)

After my wild night out, I slept in late Saturday morning.  (“Slept in” on my time-table being after 5:30.)  I knocked off a few menial chores around the house, then Teagan and I drove out to Shawnee Mission Park for a little exercise.  Despite being relatively close to us, the drive out there took for-freaking-ever.  I was quite out of sorts by the time we finally made it.  And, if I wasn’t rattled enough, I couldn’t find the off-leash area once we finally got there.  Man, that place is huge.  I finally gave in and called a buddy who steered me to the right place.  Once we finally got there, I think it was worth the trouble.  Lil’ Teagan had a big time running around.  One part of it backs up to a lake, and she took a few tentative dips in the water.  Had I thrown her ball out into the lake, I’m pretty sure she would have swam out and got it, but we’ll save that test for some warmer weather.  Most of the time we just played fetch, which is her favorite game.  (To the point of obsession, one might say.)  Granted, we can play fetch right down the street at Penn Valley park, but there was a lot more grass at this place.  (Penn Valley, being much smaller, is pretty much all mud and…  Other stuff.)  Having sufficiently worn out the pup, I went back home and picked up Donette, and we headed out to another Christmas party.  It was another fine event, and I got to see a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in a long time.  We didn’t make it quite as late though, I think I was still a bit worn out from the Friday night revelry.

Sunday, I was about half tempted to drive back out to the dog park.  She certainly did have a big time out there, and I don’t think there are going to be many warm days left.  But, in the end, I couldn’t take the drive again, so we just hunkered down for some football watching.  Probably should have opted for the dog park, as the few football games I got at the house weren’t exactly entertaining.   Just to pass the time, we did whip up a big pot of chili and lit the fireplace for the first time in our dozen years there.  I was pleased to find the house still intact this morning when we woke up.  (Well, not really, but I have to say that for insurance reasons.)

So, the wife has been out of town since Friday evening.  It’s a semi-well-known fact that, left to provide my own amusement, I will sit on the couch and stare at the TV for days on end.  That makes for mighty slim pickings on the update material, especially when you factor in our lack of cable TV.  The extent of my weekend entertainment consisted of meeting a few guys down at the Brooksider for a few hours Saturday afternoon.  Oh, and I cleaned out the garage a little bit.  Aside from that, I logged 32 episodes of “Gunsmoke” and “The Rifleman,” 14 bad Netfix movies, and 6 college football games.

Hey that weekend wasn’t so bad.  Actually I’ve had several “events” lumped into the last week, so I’ll throw out a brief overview of them all.  Last Wednesday, as mentioned a few posts below, was our annual AKL Alumni luncheon at the Brooksider.  Organized by our former social chairman James Munkirs, this is always a well-attended event.  Unfortunately I think some have chosen to substitute it for Float Trip, but I guess we all have choices to make.  At any rate, we all had a good time.  After lunch I migrated out to the patio to join the “regular” crowd and stayed a few more hours, making for a fine mid-week break.

Thursday, as you might recall, was Thanksgiving.  As we usually do, we headed out to Mom’s for the holiday feast.  Donette’s cousin Haleigh joined us this year.  She’s a student at UMKC and wasn’t making the long drive home, so it worked out well.  We had a grand spread.  I am quite a fan of the Thanksgiving staples, with the exception of cranberries.  In the spirit of the season, I thoroughly glutted myself.  After eating I joined my nephew in the front yard to toss the ol’ pigskin around a bit.  I can honestly say I haven’t thrown, or even held, a football since the demise of the Turkey Bowl series some ten or twelve years ago.  So severe was the taunting of my peers that I haven’t been able to even look at a football since then.  Luckily my kind-hearted nephew was more forgiving of my unique throwing style than those other bullies.  Plus, there was a 30 mph wind blowing, so I could reasonably blame much of my failure on that.  Given the unseasonably warm weather, I was almost tempted to go battle the crowd down at the Plaza lighting ceremony later that night.  Just almost though, I didn’t end up following through on it.

Friday was a regular ol’ workday for me.  Bummer.  Kind of broke up the tempo of the pseudo-vacation.  Had to be done though.  I put in my time, then ventured on down to the Brooksider for my regularly scheduled Friday gathering time.  Didn’t stay too long though;  The cold weather is kicking in.  Given the early ending to my day, and still in search of more entertainment, we headed over to our friend Susan’s house for some dinner.  After eating we settled in and watched “Hall Pass,” which provided some level of entertainment.  Pretty darn funny, actually.  It must have been relatively engaging, as I actually stayed awake for the entire movie.  Actually I was so wide awake that when I got home I decided to fire up another movie, despite the rather late hour.  I made a brief run through the Netflix listings and settled on “13 Assassins.”  I can’t offer much of an opinion on this one;  I think I was actually asleep before the opening credits were finished.

Saturday I can’t seem to recall what I did all day, leading me to believe it wasn’t terribly exciting.  Given the lack of cable TV at our house, I did wander over to the neighbor’s and watch the “Border War” football game, which despite the favorable outcome pretty much defined “not terribly exciting.”  I’m going to throw out an educated guess that the rest of the afternoon was spent playing Angry Birds on my PS3.  Luckily after dinner a friend from out of town called and rescued me from absolute boredom.  He and another guy were up at 75th Street, so I headed up there to catch up on the latest news in their lives, which, not remarkably, are somewhat more eventful than mine.  I headed home when they decided to move the party to Kennedy’s, as it was getting rather late in the day;  Well past my bedtime.  (This might explain their comparatively eventful lives…)

Sunday I made my long-delayed return to the gym.  Given the end of cycling season, I’ve been meaning to actually go get some use out of the money I give them every month.  So, we headed up there about 10:00, workout equipment in hand.  I’ve always found it best to ease into these things, so we spent the first 45 minutes in the hot tub, then another 20 or so in the sauna.  Then we went home.  Didn’t want to hit it too hard and pull a hammy right off the bat.  The remainder of the afternoon was wasted in typical Sunday fashion, watching football games I really had no interest in.  Donette’s parents came out for dinner, so that broke up the boredom nicely.  She whipped up a fine batch of red sauce with meatballs, which came out quite well.  Heck, she even made some bread pudding for dessert, my favorite.  After that I turned on the Chief’s game.  It was pretty evident how it was going to end up though, so I quit watching it at halftime.  Sounds like they made a run at it, but the end result was as expected.

Wow I’m slumping.  I’ve been on vacation since last Wednesday and haven’t really done a whole lot.  But, as the saying goes, it beats working I suppose.  We originally had a trip planned, but it ended up not being in the cards.  (Or the budget, as the case may be.)  So instead, I spent the last five days “relaxing,” which is code for “laying on the couch watching kung fu movies.”  Good grief, I guess I should be rested if nothing else.  I’ve also considerably expanded my Chinese vocabulary.

I left the house on a few rare occasions.  I made a long overdue trip out to Mom’s on Friday for lunch.  Teagan went with me and got to play ball in the huge back yard, a nice lil’ treat for her.  Had a tasty lunch too;  ham and beans, one of my favorites.  Then Saturday, I spent the whole day up at Martin’s house watching the smoker.  He fired up his cooker and invited everybody over to cook their Thanksgiving birds.  I didn’t take a turkey myself though, just hung out.  I took Teagan up there too, which she thoroughly enjoyed.  Heck I think the dog enjoyed my vacation more than I did.  In another fascinating use of my time off, I drove out to Microcenter on Sunday and picked up a free router they were giving out, then spent the rest of the day trying to get it to work.  (With some success, remarkably.)  And, well, that pretty well covers my five day vacation.  It ain’t over yet though, I’m still off today.  I’m planning to wrap things up big today;  So far I’ve planned to 1) caulk a crack in the stucco and 2) have spaghetti for dinner.  There’s just no slowing me down.

** Edit!!!  I’ve added picking up dog poop in the back yard to this almost impossibly full itinerary.  Considering frying an egg for breakfast but just not sure I can fit it in.