DAMN You, Zyrtec! Damn You All to Hell! Oh, and You Too Umbrellas!!!

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Been awfully busy lately. Despite the early arrival of the dude I was replacing at my contract job, they like me enough to keep me on for the next 3 months and they have mentioned finding room for me in the budget to bring me in on a more permanent basis. So that's good, right? I also won huge raves for helping support a business development manager there last week.

Yay me!!!

So today it rained all day. Now being a new urbanite to the working classes in Minneapolis, today was the first day I noticed the widespread breakout of umbrellas, bumbershoots and parasols.

Now, I may have missed a meeting in City Life Orientation, but when did everyone get so frightened of getting a little wet? I mean the way these people gripped these umbrellas, it seemed like it was life or death. Has acid rain REALLY gotten that out of hand?

This afternoon, I walked to the bus stop in the rain and watched the rest of humanity in Minneapolis cringe underneath their umbrellas.

Has everyone forgotten how refreshing and uplifting being in the rain can be? As a child, I always ran out in the storms, pranced about in the downpours, feeling the cold rain pelt your head and back, experiencing the feeling of your clothes suctioning themselves to your body. It's cleansing in a spiritual way.

But then again, maybe I'm just weird.

TRANSITION.

New topic. Allergies.

Is it me, or do the pharmaceutical folks invent fabulous allergy medications that work one year, get into your system and then develop an immunity the following year in anticipation of the next gen version.

To be clear, I have DIRTY, ROTTEN, FILTHY allergies. They begin exactly on Memorial Day Weekend and last until July 4^th. That's roughly a month of absolute, nightmarish allergies. To be descriptive, in the morning after a fitful night's sleep, I wake up to eyes crusted and swollen shut and immediately after I stand up, a faucet in my sinuses turns on and water, yes, water, runs straight out of my nose. No joke. I can actually here it splattering on the carpet as I run to the bathroom. After blowing a gallon of water out of my head, the itch begins.

Now, I know what you're thinking. It's an itch, deal with it. Let me put this in perspective. Imagine a surgeon removing your brain, rubbing the bottom of it with poison ivy and poison oak, then putting it back in your skull and closing you up. The itch exists somewhere in the middle of your skull and no amount of rubbing or itching your face helps. I have even resorted to rubbing my tongue on the top of my palate to try and itch my way to that part of my brain to get relief.

So to the makers of Zyrtec – make a better batch, because the stuff I used last year ELIMINATED my allergies and this year it feels like I keep buying the PLACEBO version. SUGAR PILLS DO NOT HELP!!!

Oh and another related to being a child again. Today on my nightly bike ride, I drove through each puddle on the path, even the dirty ones. I came home with a dirty shirt and shorts, but nothing is better after a summer rainfall then the ZZZIIIIPPP sound of bike tires through a fresh rain puddle.

Getting New Glasses and Booking Passage on the Flying Dutchman

I missed yesterday.

After work, we went straight to the optometrist to get an eye exam (right eye is lagging as usual – thanks eye surgery) and pick out some new stylin' frames. I get them next week.

When picking out frames, I wanted to get plastic frames. Yeah, I know. Those are so eighties.

My problem is my face breaks out in a crustacean like reaction a la Davy Jones' crew on the Flying Dutchman when I have metal frames. I've tried everything.

Two pairs ago, they said, “Nickel frames. You can't react from nickel!”

I did. My face broke out into out into udder redness, it looked like I'm angry all the time.

The last pair, I told them about the nickel reaction. “Well, try these stainless steel frames. You can't react to stainless steel!”

I did...short of growing barnacles under my eyes.

So this time, I was determined. Plastic frames. I've never broken out from those. So I was looking and the choices for plastic frames are really lame. But I'm a writer and most writers have lame looking glasses, right? Besides, I'm not winning any beauty pageants in the near future, so these are purely functional.

You can't polish a turd (thanks for that one, pops).

So what does the eyeglasses salesperson say when I tell her I can only wear plastic frames because I break out from metal.

“Try these titanium frames. You won't break out from those!”

Ahem. Last I checked titanium is a metal. I need plastic.

So after a long search over the four different plastic frames available, I made a decision. Tune in next week...maybe I'll post a picture.

So today I did two things that reminded me of being a kid again. The first – I was doing the dishes and dropped a bowl on the dishwasher rack.

CLANG!

For some reason we had a lot of bowls. Lots of cereal being eaten in the Welvaert house. When putting bowls in the dishwasher, their design is such that they make a lot of noise with the silverware and other dishes. After a series of clatters, my wife says, “Jesus. That's the noisiest batch of dishes ever!”

Oh, yeah. That's my cue.

So I purposely started clanging silverware on dishes, dishes on dishes. Plunking silverware in the silverware holder-thingy. I made quite the ruckus. The wife was NOT amused. Maybe she should do a blog about felling like a kid again, then she could have banged dishes with me.

So I made some noise. Big deal. I think as we get older, we're trained not to make noise for fear of something. I forget what it was. Maybe it was waking the baby, or the neighbors. But I was just clattering dishes. Sometimes you have to make a little noise to realize you are standing in this real world, doing real things, watching the clock elapse on our time here. What if we were to make no noise for our life? Here we are living, quiet as a mouse, not disturbing a thing. Mouse-mouse here. Mouse-mouse there. No one can hear you. No one cares.

Maybe we need to make more noise in our lives.

The second thing I did was raced Christa home on our bikes. Now I know most of us our racing to and fro each day – trying to get to work on time, trying to get to school on time. But what to do you win when you get to school on time or before anyone else? Nothing really.

Now, tonight, I let Christa win. That's what parents do sometimes to foster a competitive edge. I would have smoked Christa easily, but she's at that point in her life where she needs to know what it's like to win, or to even believe in winning. Where I am at in my life, I have a very depressed attitude about winning. I try and stay positive and say, “Hey, you have contract work, you still have your house, you still have your family.”

After I think about it, I'm a lot more fortunate than others, I suppose. I should be more grateful for what I do have, but I'm a competitive creature at heart, so when I stumble and see others rushing to that finish line without me, it gets me down, because I know I'm better than this. I know I can win. But I'm coming to terms with the idea that not everyone wins all the time. You take your victories where you can get them.

I have contract work.

I have a house.

I have a family.

I have a rash on my face that could book me free passage for 100 years at the mast of the Flying Dutchman.

Roy Orbison Does NOT Like Cocoa Puffs!!!

I'm not even going to bother to explain. Busy, busy and EXHAUSTIVELY busy the past few days. Let's do a rundown:

WEDNESDAY – American Idol and the sheep of America again voted for the cute face and NOT the best artist. Spent hours fuming and ranting about Promking Syndrome and its effects on the youth of America. And before you even say it, I know Crystal Bowersox will do just fine as a professional artist, but that's not the point! The point is even my dog knows the difference between a talented young lady and a guy who literally could not sing better than Bono's underwear. My god. He turned A BEAUTIFUL DAY into IT'S KIND OF AN OKAY DAY.

THURSDAY – Work in the city. Came home and changed pants for the wife's birthday party at the in-laws. Ate some great chicken, artisan breads and a WHOLE mess of strawberries (Kudos to Jill closs for the spread!) After stuffing myself to the point of being a wood tick, I watched the season finale to Flash Forward and then a riveting Hollywood affair titled The American Cinematecque Honors Matt Damon. Yeah, you heard me right. Matt Damon. I couldn't help but sit glued listening to greats like Clint Eastwood and George Clooney basically telling America they think it's kind of lame to to have an honors banquet for someone Damon's age. He's like thirteen now, right?

FRIDAY – I decided Friday morning that I needed to be a kid again and had a bowl of Cocoa Puffs for breakfast. An hour later on the 24^th floor of a high-rise in Minneapolis, the Cocoa Puffs find their home in a freshly cleaned toilet after a maneauver I can only compare to the shaving cream splatters. After work, we drove up to the cabin safely. And I need to take some time here to brag about this new route I found around every speck of traffic in the cities to ensure a smooth, fast, clean ride to the big lake. I'd tell you where it is, but I don't want you on my road...so suck it!

SATURDAY – Wow. Let the festival begin! Started the morning off lumberjacking a few dead trees on the cabin lot. Hard work in the hot sun. The smell of melting fat guy wafts around the lake. At one point, my life flashes in front of my eyes when, as I held the ladder for mt chainsawing brother, a thick branch plunges through the rungs of the ladder and spears me in the chest. I thought I was done for and half expected blood to spurt from my mouth like those orcish weirdos in Lord of the Rings. But, I did not perish on Pelannor fields that day. Heck no. We had DodgeKickBean Ball to play (yep, invented another cool game for the kids), hours of tennis to play in the hotter sun and night of fishing (snagged a limit of walleye). Oh, and while netting a fish for my sister, I lost my glasses and her cigarette lighter to the briny deep. Captain Klutzmeister. It isn't a Welvaert weekend if someone isn't screwing something up.

SUNDAY – I gained a new moniker. Since I left my glasses at the bottom of the lake, I must go through the rest of weekend wearing my prescription sunglasses and thus my new name is Roy Orbison. The weather was a bit cooler today, so more DodgeKickBean Ball was in order, followed by an afternoon campfire and roasted marshmallows. In my quest to be like a kid again, I eat 4 roasted marshmallows. An hour later, I'm performing the Shaving Cream Splatters...again. I'm starting to wonder if the sugar-related events of being a kid aren't trying to tell me something. Ended the night with another limit of walleye (Way to go pops – lighting up the yellow hook).

MONDAY – Drove home from the cabin. Caught up on yardwork. Caught up on gardening. Caught up on laundry. Invented a new hamburger (put the barbeque sauce in the hamburger instead of an egg and make your patties – YUM). Sat down to write the blog and realized with great pain that everything for the last 5 days: DodgeKickBean Ball, Cocoa Puffs, marshmallows, tennis, lumberjacking, fishing...everything had made me absolutely exhausted. I wrote two sentences of tripe and hit the sack.

Exhaustion. It comes a lot quicker and sooner as I get older. Today, I was hopped up on allergy meds and not challenged at work today, so it took Green Lantern like strength to just keep from collapsing in my cube. On Saturday, I was exhausted but I kept chugging. Today, I got home and instead of napping, I cooked dinner and then grabbed the kids for a bike ride. Now, I'm up blogging, applying for jobs and got a headful of ideas brewing.

I think I'm going to continue trying to do the opposite, despite what everything is telling me. Good job, Roy.