End of my weekend

Well, its the end of my five day weekend. I really, really needed this time off. I'm not really sure why, but last week really tired me out. Maybe I hadn't fully recovered yet from the crazy last month and all the stuff leading up to and including peacefest. And I do feel a little guilty saying that the kids really wore me out, meh, oh well. I think I knew that I hit my limit and that this would be a good recharge.

Yesterday was fantastic, a nearly perfect day. I woke up early to catch a metra train to the Chicago Botanic Garden's on the north side. The weather was perfect, there was even some good cloud cover to keep it nice and cool. The gardens are beautiful! I think it might be one of my new favorite places in the area, and I only saw about half of it even though I was there for over three hours. I really got a kick out of the fruit and vegetable garden that they had, it was on a four acre island and very well designed. Gave me a lot of inspiration should I garden next year.

After that I went with Mike to a Russian grocery where we got some fantastic food to dine on. We got a loaf of heavy dark rye bread, pickled herring, black sausage, and ate it with good cheese and mustard. To finish it, we had some gin that he has, which I didn't like at first but I'm starting to like it more and more. When I drink it, it smells like a juniper bush. Very fun. AND to top it off, the "Mighty" Ducks won game one of the Stanley Cup Finals, which I was very happy about.

I want to write another little story. I had a lot of fun writing the one about the kid on his bike, but haven't found inspiration yet for what to write about next. Maybe I should just start typing and whatever comes out of my fingertips will be it. I am reading a book right now that must have been made for me, in fact I'm convinced it was. It is a collection of short stories from a farmer in Vermont. How cool is that!

Right now as I type this, there is a grown man in my apartment looking at Josh's futon, he's going to buy it for his adopted son. He has two adopted children with a third one on the way. Very respectable and admirable.

I'm icing my thumb right now, burned it real bad making a batch of fried rice tonight.

Peace all.

Funny how this works, my mind has been full or stuff for the last "long time" or so, and I wanted to put some of it down on my blog. Its 12:59 a.m. and day two of a five day weekend. And for the life of me I can't think of anything to put down, I just emptied out my brain in a long email to a friend.

I guess more reasonable writing will come soon as my brain "reaccumulates" fresh material and needs the pressure valve to be released. For now though, I'll leave you all with the cool Bass line of a Miles Davis jazz beat I'm listening to right now.

Boom ba boom boom, da da booom yeaaaa.....

Bike at dusk

When I was eight years old, I was biking with some friends late on a free saturday. The sun had just dipped over the horizon and I was third in line on the darkened sidewalk, underneath a canopy of thick leaves. Bugs were already sticking to the sweat on my skin and I was pushing hard to keep up with my friends, my lungs burning with each breath of humid summer air. Suddenly my shoelace got stuck in the bike chain and I stumbled to the ground, scraped up my knees and bloodied up my palms. Not to be deterred, I reached back and furiously tried to untangle my shoelace from the bike, but was unsuccesful as my friends bike ahead without noticing my accident.

Then I started to panic. I was in an unfamiliar neighborhood, my buddies had left me alone on the sidewalk with blood trickling down my scraggly legs, and my attempts to get untangled only seemed to be making my problem worse. I thought, I would never get out of this! The howling dog that I hadn't heard before was probably on its way over to bite my arm off, leaving me deformed. Maybe it would eat my leg, and I'd be stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. After struggling for another minute, I gave up and slumped on the sidwalk in front of an empty house with darkened windows.

For what felt like eternity, I sat there and picked at the gravel in my palms. The last remnants of daylight finally gave way to darkness and the scattered clouds shone pink from the city lights. Small bugs crawled on my skin, probably waiting for me to die so they could devour my carcass. How long would it take for them? Would bigger bugs come and eat me? Neighborhood pets, would they come and feast on my bones? Then out of the blue my two friends came back, from the same direction the left me from. One shouted out as he sped down the sidewalk, "Are you coming?!?" I responded, "Uh, yea... hold on!" and somehow magically was able to untie my laces from the bike in one easy attempt. They flew by me on their bikes not noticing my earlier fall. I jumped on my bike to follow them as fast as I could as we headed back home.

Looking back at this year so far makes me think of a Weird Al song called "Everything You Know is Wrong". While the song is a joke, that's how I feel at this point. How could I be so wrong on so many things? On so many "issues"? Have misjudged so many people? Wronged them because of how I have judged them? And how do I make it up to them? I need to find answers to these questions and am not entirely sure where to begin.

Today I spend some time downtown just enjoying some free time that I haven't had much of this week. I walked around enjoying the sun and the cold wind on my face and arms. The great lawn was open and I lay down on the grass with my sweatshirt over my face, the sun shining down on my body keeping me nice and warm. At one point I heard little kids voices asking, "Mommy, is he dead??" Hehe, I was very tempted to sit up and shout like a zombie, but was able to resist the temptation. I then walked over to Buckingham fountain which was going and it was a beautiful sight. Finally I walked over to Panera for a quick snack where I ran into a friend, being surprised I blurted out a few unintelligible things, and ran off. Silly huh?

Tomorrow I need to get my life in order. Clean my room, the kitchen, the living room. Spend some time to make a decent meal in the evening, hopefully socialize some. I have too much going through my head with work. I have too much stuff going through my head outside of work. I need to get my thoughts centralized and back into one place, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to do it these last couple of weeks.

A haiku to end this post:

Mind awash in thoughts
Distant lands beckon to me
No end is in sight