Hey, that wasn’t a bad weekend.  Sorta relaxing, but at the same time we actually left the house a couple of times.  Mixin’ it up a bit…

Friday evening we didn’t have anything going on, so we walked over to Waldo Wine around the corner from our house and hit the wine tasting that they have every Friday.  I don’t know why we don’t do that more often; It’s a rather fun diversion.  Take a little sip of this and that, mingle with the neighbors (if you’re Doni) and they usually have some type of live music too.  Plus it’s free, which adds considerably to the allure in my book.  After that we met Ed and Kim at Jalapeno’s for dinner, then they came over to the house and played some cards.  Went for a round of euchre and a game of 10-point pitch.  I think euchre has taken over pitch as my favorite game, but Doni doesn’t like it.  At any rate, between the two games, we managed to stay up slightly past the 9:00 time frame that’s marked our last few Fridays.  Can’t really remember who won, and I don’t suppose it’s really important anyway.

Saturday morning another “window guy” came over to quote some new windows for us.  Holy smokes, they do not give those things away.  Geez, it’s just a window, give me a break.  Oh well, they need replaced, what can you do.  After that my Mom came and picked us up and we went for a late breakfast at Sharp’s.  Good stuff man.  Maybe not good FOR you, but that’s OK.  After that we kicked around a few other places, then ended up at Tanner’s for dinner.  We had thoughts of actually venturing outside “the circle” and going out to the big bowling party in KS, but we were quite content watching some insignificant basketball game at Tanner’s, so there we stayed.  After a while we did get bored, so we headed home and watched Shark Tale.

Sunday morning we got up and went to good ol’ Perkins for breakfast.  I don’t know why we like that place so much.  Cheap and a lot of food, I guess.  We seem to go there a lot, so it must hold some kind of draw for us.  After breakfast we did a little light shopping, then I met Todd down at Tanner’s downtown to watch the big KU game.  I should have called it weekend right there, but against my better judgment I went to an Oscars party over at Susan’s.  The upside of this is that there was a ton of really good grub, the downside was that they actually had the Oscars turned on.  I can honestly say I was just a bit embarrassed to even be watching it.  Now THAT’S some bad TV right there.  A bunch of drug-addled freak-shows, parading around in bizarre clothes gushing about all the other drug-addled freaks.  Sad stuff.  I made it an hour or so though, and the spaghetti made it worth the effort.

Well, Wednesday we head out for Cabo San Lucas for 10 days.  We’re flying standby courtesy of our N.M. friends, so hopefully we get there with no trouble.  The place we are staying looks very cool, but of course they always do in the pictures.  What the heck, they have a swimming pool and beach access; can’t really go wrong.

Do not let the mal-contents out on the message board fool you… Yesterday was a federal holiday, and I am not required to post anything on holidays.  Think of it like your garbage collection;  During a week containing a holiday, the entire schedule is pushed back one day.  This includes every single facet of my routine, website updates and all.  Now, it would be a reasonable expectation that, given a weekend with an extra day in it, I would have more content out here.  One entire extra day of fun-filled activity.  Such is not the case though; I loitered at the library all day, accomplishing nothing.

I’ll label our weekend a “fair.”  We seem to be stuck in a “boring” rut.  I blame the new TV.  Once we get sucked onto the couch and pop a movie in, it kind of sets the tone for the whole weekend.  That’s how we started off Friday; I wanted to do something, but we ended up just watching movies.  Apparently not very engaging movies at that; I can’t even remember what they were.  Saturday we at least managed to get out of the house… I hung out at the gym for a few hours, and then we went shopping.  I got my new coat finally… A Columbia something-or-another from Dick’s Sports.  It’s not exactly what I had in mind… Much heavier than what I’d been looking at.  But, it is waterproof and was marked way down, so I altered my criteria a bit.  It remains to be seen if I actually wear it on Float Trip, which was the main driver behind a new coat.  I’d hate to wear my spiffy new coat down there and have it smell like a campfire for the rest of the year.  Decisions, decisions.  After our shopping trip, we picked up Doni’s nephew Josh and headed back home.  He spent the night us, poor kid.  Nobody should have to endure our lifestyle.  We sat in front of the TV and watched movies, again.  All the way up to 9:00 anyway, then I went to bed.  Sigh.  I’d say Sunday was the high point of the weekend as far as entertainment goes.  All things being relative, that’s not saying too much.  We took Josh down to the Brooksider and watched the Daytona 500.  That says something right there when a car race is the highlight of my weekend.  But, gotta take what you can get.  Munkirs and Martin headed into the ‘hood for the event, and Todd was there for his usual 45 minutes.  I actually stayed for the entire race.  That paid off, since the last minute or so was actually entertaining.  After that, our neighbor had a surprise birthday party at his house (ANOTHER 40th) so we hung out over there for the rest of the evening.  Then, blissfully, the weekend ended.

There went a weekend that I will never get back.  A total waste of 2.5 days.  I have nothing to report.  If you want to know what I did, get a copy of the TV guide and read the lineup for the last few days, mostly TBS.  That pretty much covers it.

Actually we’ve been sick.  Whatever it is that’s going around, we’ve got it.  Some type of plague, I’m sure.  Most likely bubonic, but we haven’t been fully diagnosed.  The sort of odd part is that I have a different symptom every day.  Friday was fever, yesterday my nose was dripping like the leaky kitchen faucet, and Saturday… you do not want to hear about Saturday.  At least it didn’t all hit at once I guess.  So, at any rate… not much to tell.  Friday night we watched “The Recruit.”  A little too “busy” for my taste, but it was OK.  Saturday we did actually step out of the house for a few hours, but not for long.  We had a little soup at On The Border and then I shopped for a new Float Trip jacket.  (I didn’t find one.)  Then we went home and turned the tube back on.  Sunday was an all-time low.  I got up about 7:00, made some coffee, read the paper, and popped in an “Andy Griffith Show” DVD.  Watched a few episodes of Andy, then switched over to the TV.  The worst part is we don’t even have a decent cable package, so there’s not much to choose from.  We ended up watching a Julia Roberts movie and three Meg Ryan flicks, back to back.  Just kind of sat there next to the growing pile of kleenex and suffered.  Believe it or not, I found the stupid “TBS, Very Funny” commercials the most annoying part of the day.  The movies themselves were “tolerable.”  I should certainly be in touch with my feminine side for Valentines’ Day, after that run of chick-flicks.

Speaking of the pseudo-holiday, I expect we’ll have to take a pass on celebrating.  Doni is still a bit under the weather, and I’m not exactly 100% myself.  This is disappointing to be sure, because I had big plans for the evening, which I put considerable time and effort into.  I won’t bore you with details, but it was a very romantic, lovely evening in which I had devoted much effort.  Oh well, maybe next year.

Wow, that was a boring football game.  Painfully boring.  Went to a good party though so at least we had some measure of entertainment.  I think both teams were using the proven “bore them into submission” technique, perfected by one Mr. Frerking.  Oh well, I had a big bowl of funyuns and some spaghetti, what else could I ask for.  As for the rest of the weekend, it wasn’t too bad.  Friday night we watched “A Mighty Wind” and ate pizza.  Good wholesome entertainment there.  Saturday night we went to the big UMKC basketball game with a bunch of people, and managed to jinx them into breaking their big winning streak.  I will say it was a heck of a lot more exciting game than that lame Super Bowl though, complete with an exciting, if rather disappointing, finale.  If you missed the game, Chicago State hit two impossible, Hail Mary 3-pointers in the final 1.9 seconds of the game; the first one tied it and the second won it.  Jinx of the Kenagys, I tell you.

Well, I’ve finally come to terms with my sissy gym.  (Actually, not a “gym”, they prefer to call it a “club.”  Strike one right there.)  I’ve made it up there at least four times a week now for the last several weeks, so I think I’m officially back in the swing of exercising.  Unfortunately 10 pounds crept back on my gut during my little hiatus, but I’ll live.  That place is just not my style though, whatever my style might be.  Maybe I don’t have one and that’s the issue… Anyway, we’ll see how long this run lasts.  The list of things that annoy me about the place is quite long, but at the end of the day it wins out over my other options with location and price.  I’ll jot down a few of the things that I find bothersome about it, so that way in case you’re ever up there you’ll know how to act.  The first thing I would do is get rid of the telephone.  Why in the world do you need a telephone right there in the middle of all the equipment?  You don’t.  I have seen people walk in, use the phone for 20 minutes, and walk out, never touching a single piece of exercise equipment.  Why???  I don’t get it.  The second (and this was a very close race for first place) is to cut off access between the sauna room and the workout room.  I do not need to see a bunch of flabby old men parading around half-nekked.  (Usually standing there talking on the stupid phone.)  In the unforgettable words of my drill instructor, good ol’ Sergeant Whassisname:  “#*%&^, SON, YOU ARE NOT ON A #*$&%&^ BEACH, PUT YOUR #*%&@$ SHIRT ON!!!!”  (I was always fascinated how they could compose a sentence with more expletives than actual words.)  If all else fails, just refer to one of the many signs hanging everywhere politely reminding you to wear a shirt and shoes.  Good grief.  The third thing I’d do would be to throw away all the magazines.  People will sit on the benches and read those magazines more than they actually use the equipment.  There’s a library right up the street, folks.  And I swear, I was up there the other day, minding my own business on the elliptical machine, (actually if I could mind my own business none of these things would bother me) and this guy gets on the one next to me and starts reading some magazine that no self-respecting male should read.  I don’t remember the name of the publication, but it was embarrassing.  “Hollywood Insider” or something like that.  Dude.  There’s a copy of “V-Twin” right over there on the rack, shall I go get it for you?  Lastly, and some of you might find this one odd, they need to kick out the all the hot chicks that insist on working out in some kind of freakishly modified lingerie.  It’s distracting.  You’re supposed to be working out, not modeling for S.I. swimsuit edition.  Put your clothes on.  That one is pretty distant from the half-nekked old guys in terms of annoyance, but it’s on the list all the same.

Now mind you, I am not putting total blame for everything on everybody else.  Oh, no, I’m making changes too.  Yesterday I reloaded my MP3 player with some “cheerier” tunes, and it did seem to help a bit.  I don’t know where I got that junk, but most of the songs I had on there really had little value outside of perhaps ritualistic animal slaying.  So I dumped all those in favor of more “traditional” tunes.  We’re not talking KUDL stuff, just a little “tamer” so to speak.  And, what do you know, not once during the whole time I was there did I have to fight the urge to throw a dumbbell at somebody.  Things are looking up.

Now that was a good weekend.  We did one super-size bunch of nothing at all.  Quite relaxing really.  Doesn’t provide much material for the Monday update, but I’ll take it.

For the most part, it was a weekend of cinematic appreciation.  We had a few movies backed up on us that we hadn’t gotten around to watching, so we hunkered down in front of the TV and switched into “turbo-slug” mode.  I didn’t take it to quite the extreme that Donette did; She put on her jammies when she got home from work Friday, and didn’t change until Sunday afternoon.  Now that’s a professional relaxer at work there.  I at least made it to the gym for a while on Saturday.  Of course she did get some stuff done around the house between movies… I didn’t do anything of actual use.

So, bottom line, we did nothing so I can report nothing.  Best I can do is list off the movies we saw.  We started Friday night with the classic action movie, Dodgeball.  Good show, highly recommended.  It had all the mind-numbing qualities in a movie that I like; action, tasteless jokes, cheesy subplots, and a wholly predictable ending.  Five stars.  Saturday morning we had a 9:00 a.m. showing of “Swordfish.”  That one was a little “busy” for me… Still not really sure what the heck happened.  But, you know, Halle Berry and all… four stars.  Saturday evening we watched “About Schmidt.”  I’m still thinking on that one… I kept seeing myself 30 years down the road, which was monumentally depressing.  Maybe if the protagonist would have gone on Float Trip it would have been better.  Sunday morning we switched back to the mindless genre, with “Uptown Girls.”  Hmmmm.  I suppose I’ll get heckled for even admitting I watched that one.  I don’t know where the heck the rest of Sunday went; Aside from Doni making some soup I really don’t know what we did.  Anyway, around 3:00 we met Susan and Todd down at the Brooksider and went to see “Million Dollar Baby” in a real live theatre.  We haven’t been inside a real movie theatre since we saw “Austin Powers III” several years ago.  This time Susan hooked us up with tickets to the V.I.P. room, which we’ve been saying we wanted to go to for a long time.  That’s the way to go there; big ol’ reclining chairs, and a wait staff to bring you drinks and food and stuff.  The movie itself was pretty good too.  Todd gave it a resounding two thumbs down, but I kinda liked it.  It was just too darn sad though… I guess I’m more of traditional happy-ending kind of guy.  Since I actually might have beat a few people to seeing this one, I won’t go into any details; Suffice to say I could script a few much more “interesting” endings though, most of them revolving around Hillary Swank and swimwear.  Personally I would rather see “Dodgeball” up for the Best Movie award than this one, but that’s just my opinion.

After that, we went over to Susan’s and watched Sopranos, and called it a weekend.  Wow, what a huge waste of a perfectly good couple of days.  Quite relaxing.  I’m for it.  We don’t get to do that very often.  Oh yeah, Doni yelled at me last week for not mentioning that we are down to one pet again.  She gave Malachi (the obese black and white one) to one of her co-workers on a trial basis, and reportedly they are getting along just famously.  The other one, Kane, is more than pleased to be the lone cat again.  I still plan on getting a dog some time, but haven’t been able to pull the trigger.  Too much effort.  For the time being, dumping the litter box every several days and throwing a scoop of food in a bowl is about all I can handle.