I didn't need those fingers anyway...

What a couple of days it’s been…

Started out pretty good actually. Snow fell all day long on Saturday and provided a fantastic opportunity for my kid to play outside with her friends while myself and my recently retired from the U.S. Navy brother in law fetched 14 sheets of drywall from Home Depot and hung it in what will soon be Gray Cat Sound’s isolation room. All went extremely well with the exception of getting my thumb smashed into a door hinge while foolishly attempting to hoist two sheets at a time up the back stairwell. Since there were youngsters afoot, I was unable to unfurl my usual and legendary string of vulgararity, but managed to narrowly avoid throwing up by sticking my head out of a window into the fresh winter air. Chuck and I wrapped up the project at about five o’clock and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I had completely forgotten what it was like to have competent male help for a project like this (no slag against my wife and sister who helped hang all the drywall back at my old house, they were a great help back then). I will certainly be there to reciprocate when we sheetrock Chuck's garage in the near future. I've decided to hire out the tape and finish work on the isolation room in order to get a better result and speed the project to completion. I’ve also decide to install an IKEA lock together faux hardwood floor myself and am targeting completion of the whole project by mid Feb.

My luck however would run afoul Sunday morning as I was awaken to my wife hauling ass out of the bathroom to tell me that the exterminators efforts to capture a furry little visitor underneath her side of the sink cabinets was successful. There was a “HUGE” rat stuck to the sticky pad traps she told me as she begged me to get up and take care of it. First off, I knew it wasn’t a rat or a mouse since it was on the second floor and my wife keeps a house so impeccably clean that there’d be no reason for a mouse to risk the venture for just a mere chance of some food. I was correct, it was easily identified as a squirrel of some variety and much to my sadness, the poor thing was still alive, but completely stuck to the sticky trap. Nothing I could do for him. After taking care of that untidy little mess, I thought I was ready to plunk down and prepare for a serious couch potato growing session ahead of playoff football on TV.

Ah, but the Godz were not done with me yet. While attempting to help my overfed and notoriously curious fat cat (Fiona Bologna) onto her perch on top of the refrigerator, she dug her back claws into my left palm launching herself into position. Unbeknownst to me, she had already been hitting the catnip stuffed fat rat toy and was pretty fired up. Nice Bologna. About the time I was finished dressing that wound, my brother in law called and asked if I still had some bed frame rails that went to a head/foot board set we’d given them when we moved in a few months ago. Since he was such a great help to me the day prior I decided there was enough time in my loafing schedule to load those metal bed frames into the ole Jeep and take them over to him saving him the trip. Well, sliding one of the rails in through the back window opened up two slices on my right hand fingers, blood everywhere. “Probably need stitches”, was what I said to myself, but rejected the notion of sitting in an emergency room while the San Diego Chargers pull off the upset of the century (a guy can wish!). So, tape it up I did (see picture above). This will mark me as probable for guitar playing when I travel to NYC next week which really bums me out. The rest of the day was injury free and while one segment of the NFL Axis of Evil beat the Chargers, the New York Football Giants earned a bid to the Super Bowl.

Monday was better. After reflecting on MLK’s greatness and reading some great pieces about the man in the AJC, I dropped Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream” into the player and my wife and I watched the whole thing. Wow. What can I say that Jackson hasn’t already said. Hit after hit. Wisdom far beyond that of the ancients. Two highlights amongst many: A small segment with David Grohl in which he describes what it was like to get a call from Tom asking him to play the drums for a Saturday Night Live showfollowing Stan Lynch's departure from the Heartbreakers. His reaction is as funny as it is humbling. Great guy DG. The other was some wild footage of Tom in the studio after being called by his long time idol Roger McGuinn. Seems Roger wanted Tom’s feedback on some songs Roger’s record company was attempting to get him to record for an upcoming album. Tom is incredulous but keeps his cool while explaining to the gaggle of assembled record company hired producers that the songs they’ve given him to record are crap and insulting to a national icon like McGuinn. At one point, one of the producers says, “Well, let’s rewrite some of the lyrics, and Tom responds, “Fuck that, you need to write better songs for this guy. Are you even familiar with this guys body of work?”. Amazing. It’s sad that the film only confirms that rock and roll really is dead. I hate being right about this as does Tom.

Woke up this morning and rolled the alive/dead squirrel filled trash can out to the curb and beat a quick path to work. As I was pulling out onto the main thoroughfare, some 16 year old rear ended me causing me to spill my coffee all over parts that hurt a lot when coffee is spilled on them. I got out of the car and asked if she and her younger brother were alright. They were. Not only did they not ask how I was, neither one of them said a single word to me as coffee created steam plumed off of my Dockers while dialing the police. Once my wife arrived to switch cars with me, my first thought was to call Jackson and talk about “Runnin’ Down a Dream”.
He didn’t answer, I left a message.

And so goes the shitty days of the gloom period for me. Spring cannot come soon enough