Excellent Fourth of July

I had a pretty decent weekend. I am feeling like I am pulling out of the funk I have been in over the past few years. I am not totally inserted back into life but can see myself moving towards that state. Not living is a little peaceful, in a stale, dead, kind of way, and a little sad.

The weekend was mostly spent exercising and playing with the kids. You heard right. I probably spent more time outside this weekend than I have in a long time. Friday the whole family went to the track. I ended up walking a mile, then jogging for a quarter mile, and finishing up with a quarter mile cool down walk. It felt good to be ABLE to run a quarter mile. Even a month ago I would have probably passed out at the first turn. I realize I have not been doing this walking thing very long but I have seen a lot of improvement in my health along with dropping six pounds.

Saturday we all went to the sporting goods store. My son wanted a new bat since his coach told him he should be using a 28” one. I also wanted to buy the boy a new glove. His old glove is not broken in very well and has a Pawtucket Red Sox signature. I did not want to ruin the signature. Of course if my son gets something my daughter also needs something and we ended up getting batting gloves, balls, bats, and a whole lot of other stuff.

On the way to the track for the second day of family fun exercise this obese lady pulls out in front of us without even looking. I say to my wife that her eyes must be swollen shut by the fat. The kids start chuckling and the wife says "Her BMW SUV costs more than you make in a year". I have no idea what the correlation is but I go with it. "I am glad she is rich" I say, "That way she can hire someone to wipe her ass because obviously she can not reach". The kids start cracking up. The wife can not stop cracking a smile between calling me an uncouth barbarian. I go with it and start imitating the fat women calling Tina her butt maid. The kids are howling by the time I finish. I may be a little inappropriate as a dad but we had a good time.

I did my usual mile and then the kids and I went off to the field. I pitched a bit, and then started nailed shots into the outfield for fielding practice. I really dialed into the ball and was hitting some really long shots into deep middle field. I did not realize how much my body would pay the next day. We started playing a 2 on 2 game once the wife was done walking. We were going to play three innings but we ended up playing just one. Running the bases was fun. Something else I probably could not have done a month ago.

At the end the boy child melted down. He felt cheated because we did not play three innings. The kids were all arguing and it was starting to rain and the wife and I had enough. He really started getting angry and freaking out. I was kind of split about how I felt about this. In one way it is great that it is so important for him to play and have fun with his family. On the other hand he really needs to be more appreciative of everything he has and gets. He really gets angry when he does not get things his way. After he calms down he usually can talk about things reasonably.

We made plans to go to the Hancock building and watch the fireworks that night but I ended up puking my brains out on the way. I kind of knew I was going to get sick but tried to force myself to go anyway. So we are driving to the train and I am like “Roll down the window quick!”. The wife rolls down the window and I start hanging out puking and flapping in the wind like some dog. I yell at her to pull over but apparently there is no safe place to stop. Finally she gets pulled over and I get out of the car letting everything spew out into the grass. We had to head home after that.

I am not sure what caused the stomach to revolt. I am leaning toward dehydration from all of the exercise. I did drink down a huge bottle of water on both days I exercised but I can not think of any other reason to be sick. I did not even have a single beer to drink.

Sunday was a little more of the same with the family hitting the track for the third day. I was entirely sore by this time and could not play catch very well as my arm felt like spaghetti. We did get in a water bottle fight which was fun. I yelled at him to stop soaking me. I guess I should lighten up a little. He enjoyed that a ton though.

We decided to give up our cats since they were causing massive damage to the house and were a pain to take care of. The wife and I had discussed this and decided together to place them in a no-kill shelter. I personally would not have minded placing them into a glad bag but I regress. The kids were upset at the cats being removed from the family so my wife decided to keep the less destructive one.

The wife and kids left to drop the one cat off and come back a while later with everyone in tears. So of course the wife tries to comfort the children. Here is a pro tip for women: YOU CAN NOT MAKE EVERYTHING BETTER! I know you got that warm mothering instinct but some sadness just has to be experienced. The tears got to her enough that she sold me down the river. Now the whole family hates me for getting rid of the cat. It is totally and completely my fault. It is fun to be Waffles.

I remember when my family got rid of our dog for much the same reasons. I did not realize that "We took Charlie to the Farm" meant euthanized until twenty years later. I still recall just bursting out in tears in class the day after. It is a hard thing to lose a pet. I understand that. I also understand that you just have to let time take care of the pain.

All in all the weekend seemed to last forever and despite the status quo of everyone hating me I think we had a good time. I guess for the first time in a while I am looking forward to the future and seeing a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. Hope you had as good of a weekend as I did.