2012 - The Year of Clean(er) Floors

In the deep pile

I recently celebrated the 49th anniversary of my birth. The week between Christmas and New Years is a perfect place to hide your birthday if you want to discreetly celebrate. But, I do have family and friends who are quite good at remembering the date. I began my celebration the evening of December 29 at Tir na Nog (discovered a great local band Wylie Hunter and the Cazadores), where I kicked into high gear at midnight with a few shots generously provided by my favorite bartenders. The celebration continued the following evening with friends, culminating in a quite festive celebration of New Year's with Niki and Steve. So, for me, this year's birthday was a bit of an extended celebration punctuated throughout with well wishes by phone and Facebook.

To make the day even more special, some exceptionally generous family and friends also remembered my birthday with Amazon gift cards. For friends and family in far away places, these gift cards are my gifts of choice. You can get anything from Amazon and after the holidays, the shipping was free. I pooled together my gift cards and purchased a robotic vacuum (Roomba) as a means to stay on top of Roxy's continuous shedding. 

Alert? Looking for an escape plan? Or plotting revenge?

And, several weeks later, I am still thrilled with the purchase. 

Roxy on the other hand is not so happy that her afternoon nap time is promptly interrupted at 2:00 PM each weekday; however, I am very happy not to see tumbleweeds composed of white, fluffy hair rolling along the floor two days after I have cleaned the entire house. So, Roomba does a great job of maintaining the floors in a hair-free state during the week.



There have been a few times when Roomba has stranded itself in the deep pile area rug, or driving over the back of a chair support. I have rearranged a few pieces of furniture to clear its preferred paths a bit. I have also set up a virtual wall to keep Roomba from straying onto the area rug.

Since its arrival, I have been trying to come up with an appropriate name to bestow upon our new family member. A friend named his "Rosario," and while I appreciate the Will and Grace reference, I am afraid that there is something just a little too stereotypical in that choice. I was thinking perhaps "Rosie," which was the name of the Jetson's robotic maid, but that sounds a little too close to Roxy. Then I had a brainstorm - how about Robby from Lost in Space? Robby Roomba.

Lost Weekend Recounted

I found myself a bit over-wrought and over worked when the weekend finally started last Friday. My lovely boss encouraged me to start my weekend early, so I packed it in around 3:30 and headed home. Once in the welcoming confines of my abode, I packed up my gym bag, prepared a snack, and then curled up on the couch for a nap instead of heading out for a workout.

I blamed my general malaise on the summer's first sustained heatwave.  It had been bumping up against 100 degrees for several days in a row.  Not to mention that I had been busy all week at work, trying to get in gym time, and attending meetings for the International Festival.  So, I tossed all care to the wind, turned on the TV, and had a lovely nap.  Of course, the plan was to sleep for an hour of so, and then head to the gym. Instead, I laid a few more paving stones on that famous road, but the rest was quite nice.

I finished off the evening by watching True Grit. It left me strangely empty. The film included all the quirky characters for which the Coen brothers' movies are famous.  However, for some reason, I felt a little empty at its conclusion.  It was well-crafted, beautifully filmed, rather violent, but for some reason there seemed to be a disjointed feel to it.  More like a series of vignettes strung together into a revenge/quest movie than a coherent film.  It reminded me a bit of O Brother, Where Art Thou? With that said, the actor's performances were all quite impressive - Matt Damon's dialog was quite humorous, particularly after the scene where he bites through his tongue.  After the movie, I was off to bed for an early night in.

Saturday started out as a normal "chores and errands" day. The house was cleaned, the shopping list was composed, and the gym bag was again brought downstairs. Then I got a text from my friend Dan who was having a Saturday brew at the Flying Saucer.  Which, sounded like a lot more fun than a sweaty workout. So I joined him for some carb loading. After a couple of pints, we decided that some pool time was necessary to beat the heat, so we headed around the corner to his place at the Hue. Dan pulled out some bathing suits for me to try on (too gay, too gay, just right...) and we spent the afternoon swilling PBR at the pool - topped off by a Manhattan and plans to meet up later.

When I left Dan's, I proceeded to place a few more pavers on my road to Hell, as I had planned to at least get my shopping done, but my friend Arjay texted that he had finished up the release we have been working on for so long and that he was at Tir Na Nog having a celebratory pint.  Of course, by this time, I had no self control left, so I headed over to the pub and had two more pints. Yum Yum. 

There are some advantages to living downtown. You can walk, or stagger, everywhere....and by this time, I was pretty buzzed, so I headed home and had a nap. Do you detect a theme here?

Anyway, the Temper-Pedic mattress worked its magic and I woke up refreshed. A quick dinner, shower, and I was off to meet friends at Flex. My friend John, who documents all details of his life here, was there and we talked about the passing of our friend, Joe's mother. We also discussed our respective blogs and had a few laughs.  His dedication to his blog is an inspiration to me, he can also always get a laugh out of me, so it is always a special treat running into him. And, did I mention it was underwear night at Flex? 

My friend Dan arrived shortly after my first beer. Suffice it to say that the evening devolved quickly into beers, shots, a skinny porn star, shirtless dancing, jock straps, and other sorts of minor debauchery. Why? Why? Why? 

So, my weekend pretty much ended the way it started.  I was up around 9:00 on Sunday, did a little reading, made brunch, retrieved my gym bag from upstairs, had a nap instead of a workout, skipped Sunday-Funday with Arjay and Cathy, cooked dinner, watched a little TV, and went to bed early. All in all, a weekend of relaxation and napping. I am definitely caught up on my rest.

And, I have a date scheduled for Friday. I guess I didn't leave all my integrity on the dance floor... or did I?