Laboring Sleep

Refreshed from the holiday weekend?

My body doesn’t agree that I had more then the usual sleep this weekend. Something about a toddler getting up every night while we were up at the cabin threw my dozing patterns for the past four days into a series of naps rather then nights of dreaming about Lindsay Lohan dealing in a Hooters uniform while staring down John Juanda at the final table of the Hooters’ Casino daily fifty dollar tourney.

Dreaming big time indeed.

Besides the lack of Hollywood party girls in skin tight fluorescent orange shorts, the weekend up at the cabin was the detachment from wires and monitors that many working stiffs yearn for. Reclined on the dusty, aged deck that connects the trailer to the screenhouse, I looked up to lose myself into the twinkling stars and non-planets floating above. Of course Wyatt decided to mimic his oblivious dad while running around in his white PJs with little bicycles on them causing the other two couples to have a laugh at my expense. The therapeutic effect of the campfire on the three sets of newer parents was as serene as the night’s sky was clear; the air was cool but not cold, and the conversation of my sister-in-law’s previous night’s lets-pretend-we’re-in-college-still drinking impersonation brought a couple of memories of past parties.

The men would get a morning to themselves the next day. A golf tournament, with between holes beer runs, and cigars which brought an excellent detachment from reality for three hours. Again the weather cooperated with wispy clouds and just enough sun to warm but not burn. The rum dipped cigars, plus a couple of stiff Cap’n Cokes and bottles of Guinness made for an interesting four man best ball tournament. Because of my lightweight status, by the seventh hole and second beer run completed to fill up the Calaway golf cart cooler (that I received three years ago and finally had a use since buying the cart recently) I was feeling the effects of the drinks. But, that did not deter our group’s effort towards a 2nd place finish out of 25 teams. Thinking we’d just won enough to justify the girly victory dances, we were quickly put back in our place after being handed enough money to cover the ten dollar green fee and six dollar entry fee (again its small time because just how I roll).

Let’s see what the juice was or WWFD if she disagreed with the payout.

There were 25 teams of five paying six dollars a piece, so using my shaky math skillz that’s 25 X 5 X $6 (we paid the extra $6 despite only having four people on our team) for a prize pool of $750. The tourney paid out five places, first only got $100, we received $71, and the drop off was significant after that as a total of $300 was paid out between the five teams. Some of the money was to go back into the course for further improvements, but the over 50% juice seemed a little excessive for not telling everyone how much was raised. Nonetheless, we went back to the cabin victorious, until the wives took our “winnings” to some Avon/Tupperware/Scrapbooking show and managed to spend our three hours of labor on a 2 oz. tube of foot massaging lotion. It better come with a “will make foot massage recipient so horny she’ll think your dick is a candy cane” guarantee or there will be a very disappointed husband when that package arrives in two weeks.

The final day brought a penny carnival. And for ten dollars I managed to have Wyatt slide down a twenty foot tall inflatable Titanic, got a bag of oh-my-god-these-taste-so-good-after-drinking-too-much-last-night mini donuts, and several assorted toys from “winning” some physically imposing carnival games like a bean bag toss, pool bank shot, and a baseball throw to knock down some metal milk bottles stacked in a vertical pyramid.

Now, if you think that someone who once threw a no-hitter and a one-hitter back to back in high school could managed to hit a three foot tall stack of bottles standing no more then 15 feet away...

… you would be wrong and my father in law was kind enough to snap a picture of me missing completely. After my Timmy Lupus-like toss I managed to snag a paper bag being used by a Red Soxs fan to hide my shame (this concludes my Red Soxs ripping of the week).

Once all the cheese curds were demolished and root beer floats emptied we headed home for a few hours of normalcy (naps) before heading off to the one live fantasy football draft that I’ll endure because its all close friends. The only thing worth noting was how quick it took (and my friend BJ’s excellent salsa). In years pasts we would wait for people coming home from their cabin, or some other Labor Day vacation despite setting an afternoon time slot for people to be ready at. And after some fifth string tight end from the Chargers got drafted it would be 11:30pm or past midnight. But this year we managed to get thru 12 rounds of a live draft (with two keepers from the previous season) in a sliver under two hours and still get home in time to watch WifeSwap and SuperNanny (which is a definite eye-opening show for parents of younger kids, WifeSwap I could do without however). Being the draft guru I am, I managed to draft a team without a backup quarterback while drafting a quarterback who is coming off major knee surgery (don’t go gimp on me again Culpepper!!!).

I’d note something about my poker play but there just wasn’t time to give away more moneys to the wonderful people on the internets. This week I promise to draft something about making enough money to cover the trip to the Bash or gloriously flushing a percentage of my bankroll down the tubes on a straight flush draw.

Thanks for dropping by, now if you ask for Arby sauce at a drive-thru window and do not receive said Arby sauce but do not realize this oversight until you’re half-way home (5 minute trip) do you go back and risk looking like a tool for a couple of packets of the mouth-watering chemical goulash?

Does it matter if what you ordered?

Do curly fries need the Arby sauce more then the home-style fries?

Regular roast beef versus a melt?