My Year of Meaningful (2011)

It's like you get right up there on top and somehow something's gotta knock you down....

Ugh, so like as soon as I'm getting back into the picking, I set aside a nice relaxed saturday afternoon AND MY D STRING BLOWS UP IN MY FACE. and of course I don't have another spare, and of course there is no music store in Botswana selling banjo paraphernalia, and of course that means I have to put an emergency plan into action whereby the earliest I'll be able to be re-strung is what, early next week???

The emergency plan is that I called my dad on his cellphone and begged him to buy me strings first thing in the morning on Monday, and have them FedExed to me right away. Well, he was on the way back from florida at the time so he wouldn't be able to do the FedEx thing til today (tuesday). Which he's gonna. Which is fine. Except....

Except for the fallout.

1. The fallout like "dad can't keep his mouth shut": Calling cellphone-to-cellphone. Ooops. Big mistake. Something I told the mominator that was implausible from Botswana. Now she knows. Email today: "now that we know you can call us for banjo strings, we'd love to hear from you some time when you want to chat. When you call the house we can put you on speaker phone or use 2 different extensions and make the most of the long distance minutes. We called you on Christmas and again with the G's, so hopefully you'll return the favor and call us sometime soon. We would love to hear from you both!!!!!!!!!!!!!....Glad you received my thank you note for our Christmas/Anniversary gift. On that note, assume you've already acknowledged the A's gift, they are in Texas now? The $500 from the O's might even deserve a personal phone call to your Grandmother. (She has told me of her phone calls from the 3 grandsons regarding Christmas checks)" Gag. GAG.

2. The fallout like, "now that dad's opened his big fat mouth that I called him, I can expect the following:" Future emails about how the least I could do would be X, Y, and Z... (phone calls, emails, and faxes maybe??) seeing as "THEY" helped me out with The Great Banjo String Drama of '08. Or, using my clairvoyant talents now: how about something to the effect of "it's nice how you always call DAD, but never MOM...." or "it's nice how whenever you NEED something, you come to us, but when we just want to hear how you're doing, you never write or call..." blah dee blah dee blah.

nice GOING, DAD!!!

This compounded with the fact that at the gym today at lunch some brain child gym-hand plugged in the broken treadmill I was standing on, as I was waiting for him to fix the one right beside it. When he plugged it in, it zapped into overdrive (something like 15km/p/h) and WHOOSH! Threw me halfway across the room, where I landed on my arm and ass, looking like a total dickwad and eating shit right in front of 10 other people. &$%£*! not to mention the really painful flesh wounds I now have on my left arm!!!!

Just what I need from this week!!!!

Well, at least I'll have new strings next week.

Oh, here's an interesting tidbit from last weekend.... we had T & L in town, staying with us friday night. We were gonna braai, but it was raining. So I was gonna use the George Foreman. No problem. Until we were all standing out on the back stoop looking at some bird or something and I come back inside and find SECH in the dining room EATING 3 RAW LAMB CHOPS that were supposed to be our DINNER! That bastard! So now anti-kitchen training is underway. The other 3 dogs arent allowed in the kitchen so why should he? No longer a foster dog, no longer allowed in the kitchen. The End.

To make an already out of the ordinary night even weirder... how did we end it? Drinking a butt-load of red wine and playing BRIDGE!?!?!??!?! I had never played bridge before. Talk about feeling 65!?!?!!? Whatever... it wasn't that bad. I kind of enjoyed it. But I'll play any game. Except Monopoly. bleh.