Oh, Neil...

10-20-14

The Neil Patrick Harris “Choose Your Own Autobiography” sits inches from my hand which I will admit will make today very difficult simply because I want to be lost in it.

Saturday was much less chaotic than expected despite the heavy itinerary. We did the soccer thing, which resulted in a tough loss for the team. There was a slightly sluggish issue along with the recent loss of our goal keeper. Sadly, the referee was making some questionable calls which had Lou in a tizzy. I agreed that there were several things wrong with the center ref, but I wasn’t about to make this a vocal thing. Plus, I was a tad upset when Dax came off the field at the end of the game saying, “We would have scored three goals but there were bad calls by the referees”. He may have been right, but at 8 he shouldn’t be saying those things. Plus, you really should not only blame referees for a loss. Trust me when I say our team made way more mistakes than even the worst ref. I had to pull my boys aside after the game and explain to them about how referees are just people and if they make mistakes we cannot blame them for the outcome of a game. There are too many other factors. I know this came from Lou getting worked up (which was kind of funny since it was due to Lou yelling at the ref that made them miss calls). Either way, it worked out as a good teaching moment.

After soccer we went and visited Riley to check on her for Sarah. Normally when I go over, Riley doesn’t exactly warm up to me, so it was nice that she was out and more than willing to be loved. The boys also enjoyed seeing this cat that they remember as a tiny kitten.

We dropped of the boys with my folks and we headed home. Since it occurred to us we had not eaten, we stopped at this little place we had been meaning to try called Yellow Fever. Really, the name it what cracked me up. It was essentially this Asian cuisine that was rice or noodles with meat and veggies. It was tasty, but pricey for what it was. I am glad we checked it out, but I don’t see any need to go back. Plus, I am glad we went without subjecting the boys to it.

Since our next outing was scheduled until 6:30, we mostly sat around the house for a few hours. We had to be at Frank’s house between 6:30 and 7:30. It was a surprise party for what turned out to be Frank’s new boyfriend. We took a Cars2Go car so that we could call for Uber in case we both drank. It was an intimate affair in the backyard. We were two of the first to arrive. We chatted it up with the bartenders a bit since we really didn’t know anyone. We knew Brandon, so that was nice to have a friendly face.

Of course, I think we were there for less than 30 minutes before I injured myself. I tripped over the back of a bench. Luckily it didn’t result in pushing Ken into the pond that was next to us. I was somewhat vindicated when I watched two other people trip over it later. Of course, they didn’t do it with as much pizzazz.

Frank had gotten Vic’s (the boyfriend) favorite singer to come to the house and he played a bunch of songs for the party. Vic even got to sing with him, which was very sweet to watch. That being said, in a lot of ways I felt almost like I was intruding on this whole scene. We sat on one side of the yard with a bunch of client/friends of Franks who did not know Vic. We talked with this one couple who has known Frank since the 80’s, which was cool. I was very touched that Frank wanted us there and I could tell it meant the world to him that we showed up. We didn’t stay too late, heading out at about 9:30. We could have probably gone and done something else, taking advantage of a Saturday night with a sitter, but I think the clear advantage was being able to go home and sleep.

We had a few errands to run on Sunday, but most of yesterday was actually spent making Steve all Halloween ready. We put up decorations and used our new spider web gun, which looks really cool. Andy sent us some cool zombie and demon flamingos along with a zombie gnome for the yard. He also sent this cool doormat sensor that has screams and other things when you step on it. I wired it up to make it look like this ghoul I hung by the door was making the noises, which is awesome! I really enjoyed all the people driving by the house that would slow down, smiling at the decorations. Some of them even yelled out how cool it looked. Yay!

I let the boys eat dinner while watching their computer videos so that Ken and I could watch Clerks. It was 20 years ago yesterday that Clerks came out, so it was nice to sit back and enjoy a movie that in so many ways really transformed me. It was a totally different kind of movie for me to completely enjoy and want to watch over and over again. The dialogue, although rather raunchy for me at the time, was incredible and smart and it made me want to hear or read anything that came from the writer, Kevin Smith. I could truly listen to Kevin for hours on end. He is amazing!

It looks to be a pretty basic week with no extra activities for school or soccer. Our game is at noon on Saturday so I am thinking of taking the PLAYSO costume down to Torrance El Saturday morning to hang out with the U5 game since I know the little kids would love the costume guy.

I now have to continue to resist NPH staring at me and get some form of work done. Maryann is back today so I am not responsible for her portfolio anymore. Trusty will hopefully keep away from me today since I am rather annoyed with him right now after he released an order to a brand new customer that has never paid any of their invoices and they are now 120 days out. Yeah, that happened. It is a long story, and really by telling it not only will annoy me further, it will simply make anyone reading about it want to come down here and kick him.

Here we go.