I feel bad that I have nothing to relate from the weekend. Really, I do. Believe me, the pain of a wasted Saturday weighs just as heavily on me as anyone. But, it happens. I worked all day Saturday, into the wee hours of Sunday, which pretty much shut me down for the remainder of the day. I’m not a young man anymore; Can’t deal with those all-nighters like I once did. The mortgage department at Wells Fargo will stay happy for another month though. What can ya’ do.
So, having no material to work with, but not wanting to “mail in an update” for two weeks running, I shall resort to random babbling.
Falling squarely into the category of worthless news: I’ve started going back to the gym again. After roughly a three month hiatus, I actually made it up there three times last week. The latest iteration of my sporadic fitness phases started last Tuesday. I pounded out a hard 45 minutes on the elliptical machine… Worked up a pretty good sweat. I was feeling good; Back in the swing of things. On the way out the door, I ran into Todd, and we retired to the bar to go over our workout schedules and watch TV. Three hours later, we wrapped things up and headed home. Hmmmm… 45 minutes on the exercise equipment, 3 hours in the bar… Ohhhhhh the irony of it all. Thursday was my second attempt; relatively uneventful, save the stop by the Brooksider on the way home. Hey, it’s half-price burger night… That’s a gimme. The third trip was Sunday afternoon, when we met the Munkirs at the gym for the breakfast buffet they put on. I never touched the exercise equipment but put down about 2 pounds of bacon. Again… Ohhhhhh the irony of it all.
Monday was my third week of doggie school with Gabe. I won’t say what class we’re taking; I don’t want to jinx us. Suffice to say it’s a lot harder than our last class, and I’m not holding my breath for a diploma. Honestly though, we’re doing pretty well. I would go so far to say that Gabe is the star pupil, not withstanding a few “incidents.” Sure, there’s only four dogs in the class, but a star is a star. Since the “Great Poodle Incident of ’05” he has been pretty well behaved. His bad mark came the first night, during introductions. That’s when you go around the room, introduce yourself and your dog, tell where you got your dog, blah blah blah. I was well into my patented speech, which consists of “I’m Phil, this is Gabe” when this big 80 lb. standard poodle next to us growled. I am not exactly sure what the poodle said, but it didn’t go over real well. To quote “Apocalypse Now”, Gabe moved to “Terminate with extreme prejudice.” Worse, he kinda took me by surprise and I didn’t react very quickly. I chose the tact of reasoning with him, which he was far beyond.The conversation went something like:
Phil: “Now Gabey, the puppy just growled at you, are you really sure you need to hold onto his throat like that?”
Gabriel: “#()%*&^$ SON OF A #$)*($ MUTHA #)$(&$^&”
Phil: “Easy boy, easy, it’s OK fella, good puppy”
Gabriel: “##@*% RIP YOUR @**%^&* THROAT OUT ##*%^&”
And so on and so forth. Yeah, not working. It wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t that good either. I’ll tell you, the boy looks a lot bigger than 60 lbs. when he’s pissed off. For some reason nobody sits on our side of the room any more. That’s OK, ol’ Gabe works better without distractions.
Lastly, I’m well into my latest artistic creation: “Fat Boy Phil In Black, III.” That being, of course, my latest Johnny Cash compilation. I have collected no less than 65 Cash tunes, including three versions of “Long Black Veil.” I am now engaged in the rigorous process of weeding out the “not worthy” tunes, if there are any. Looks to be a double album at a minimum… More to come.