Time to Catch Up--Part I

You know how it is when you haven't spoken to somebody for a long time, a couple of years maybe, and you call them out of the blue. After the initial "Oh my God--where the hell have you been?" and the "I can't believe you called me, I was just thinking about that time we went to (insert your own memory here) and you molested the baby goat at the petting zoo." After those valuable moments of catching up, you generally find yourself grasping at strands of conversation. You know that the other person has had countless experiences over the past few years and you have as well, but for some reason you can't think of any of those things right now. The big things get covered--career, location, family, etc., but none of the details that make up our everyday existence.
Conversely, somebody you speak to every day, let's just say Kim speaking to Meemaw or Krissy perhaps, you can carry on with three 45 minute conversations per day. It would stand to reason that catching up with an old friend after several months or years would take much more time, but for some reason, the conversation is generally pretty short and sweet and either you end up not speaking to them for another three years or they feel obligated to call you back the next week out of pure guilt.
This blog has devolved into that old friend that for whatever reason has been neglected for the past several months. I could spend the next sixteen hours of my life trying to recount every event that took place since the Trauma in Sedona postings, but those events would not be given the proper depth and perspective that this blog was once known for (OK--this blog is actually only known for rambling on nonsensically with absolutely no direction, story line or purpose, but humor me for now as I attempt to make a salient point.) I get e-mails, phone calls and downright threats regarding my lack of posting over the past few months, but it would be unfair to try to catch up on my life. Instead, it would make more sense to just fast forward through the key points over the past three months in a Cliff's notes version of my life and proceed with future postings as if we haven't missed a beat.
Speaking of threats and comments from the peanut gallery out there, here are a few of my favorites:

That's right, I'm a little pissed off right now....................
I am so freaking sick of that STUPID LITTLE EFFING DOG.
Why don't you just change the name of that so called blog to
"everythingbutafreakinupdateihopeyouenjoylookingatthesamestupidpicturethatismakingyousocrazythatyoumightjustsnapandkillsomebodyandthenidhavesome>thingtoposthahahaloser blodgspot.com"?

Josh, You need to stop shopping for Mav's Finals paraphernalia and stop hoping for Game 7 tickets (that's right I'm bringing that up again) and get your lazy ass on the computer and post. I don't need to see that dish rag of a dog anymore.
Is life in Dallas that boring? Is there just simply nothing there torant about? I know you have a lot of built up emotion.... It's time to waste a little of it.

61 days and waiting...... You look at the Blog site and you noticeone thing. As you review the archives you see that you can search by month.February..... March..... June???? Hey did we miss April & May.
Do you think these might have been traumatic names from a Young Joshua's love life? Did these girls spurn him so badly that he could not come to be creative until June? Perhaps there is a special place in his heartfor a young lady by the name of June. Could it be thoughts of Leave it to Beaver's June Cleaver? Who knows what goes though the mind of a man trapped in Suburbia with the nuclear family and all of that crap.
Anyway 61 days..... I've done it before, I can do 61 days standing on my head.

I do want to thank all of you for your entries. Some were not necessarily fit for printing, but were certainly passionate in their message. As you might imagine the judging was very difficult, but the winners can look in their mailboxes for their 25% off coupons to Piccadilly Cafeteria (not valid on weekends, holidays, limit one per customer, not valid with any other offers, does not include chicken fried steak night). Very exciting indeed.

The reasons for my ineptitude are countless, but it probably boils down to my uncontrollable desire to be absolutely useless and lazy. Let me see if I can catch you up to what is going on in the world of the EBTPF. I'll try to keep it on some sort of a timeline, but most of it is a blur.

1. Selling the House to DJ--Deciding to move back in October seemed like a pretty solid idea. The market was still strong and the value of our house had consistently gone up about $5K a month for the entire time we lived in it, so we were confident that it would continue for the next six months or so until we were ready to depart for Dallas. Part of the reason we chose to build a house rather than move into an existing house is that we felt like we could lock in the price of our new house while its value rose and get another $30K out of our current house as the market in Phoenix steadily increased. A funny thing happened somewhere between October and April and the once stout Phoenix housing market began to peak and started to regress. Suddenly houses that were once on the market for a couple of hours were staying on the market for a couple of months. You actually had to show your house and keep it clean for people to walk through it. I believe I made mention of this in Yessir That's my Dog at some point, but trying to keep the house picked up with two insane children and a large shedding dog is never easy and doing it at a moment's notice for a two month period will drive anybody to drink.
Fortunately, as the panic began to set in and the weeks turned to months and the offers were nonexistent, we were rescued by DJ who decided that it would be an ideal time to invest in the Phoenix real estate market. In one of the greatest coups of all time, we were able to sell our house to a friend with no realtors involved and get what we needed in order to afford our house in Texas. Saving $20K in commissions always helps. Now from what I understand, DJ has yet to mow the backyard and more than likely there isn't a living plant anywhwere within a five mile radius thanks to DJ's black thumb, but as hard as it is for Kim to come to grips with, it isn't our concern anymore. I just hope that the housing market in Phoenix turns around again before DJ decides he doesn't like the commute from South Flagstaff to East LA every day.

2. Golfing on Mother's Day--To be completely fair to those of you out there who actually still check on this site once in a while, you deserve a complete recap of this absolute miracle. This capsule of a story will in no way do it justice and it is unfair of me to try to capture the incredible confluence of events that came to be to make it happen, but I wll do all that I can to describe what came to be that glorious Sunday morning.
First of all, Mother's Day is one of the three busiest days of the year for Phoenix area resort restaurants. For the past four years, the thought of not working on Mother's Day would have been absolutely laughable. Knowing that the dad's are ultimately responsible for making plans on Mother's Day, it always (and I mean always) comes down to last minute reservations. One week out, the restaurant will have 150 covers, three days out, there will be 200 and you start to look at who deserves to get the day off and then suddenly by mid-afternoon on Saturday, you somehow have accumulated 600 more reservations and you are trying to figure out how to knock out a wall to accommodate all of the people who are going to be swarming your restaurant. For some reason, the geniuses at my place of employ didn't get that dynamic and when they saw that we were somewhat limited in reservations early on, they decided to close down my restaurants for the day and only offer lite fare for the golfers. As the reservations started to pile up at the last minute, they were forced to turn away dozens of people willing to shell out $75/person for brunch because they had no room. Good times, good times--more about the geniuses later.
So instead of working on Mother's Day, I was able to take the day off--no small feat by any stretch. Over this same weekend, we had invited Kim's friends Diane and Louie down to visit Arizona for the first time. I had promised Louie when we visited them in Ohio that I would take him golfing when he came out to Phoenix. With my management coverage nonexistent for the last two months at the club, getting any days off was a luxury, and there were two large groups playing golf on Monday, so there was no way for me to get out that day. This left us with only Mother's Day to take Louie out on the golf course.
As these were Kim's friends from her childhood, she was intent on making sure that he got out to golf while he was here. Recognizing that this had to be one of those "tests" that wives are known to give us so they can check off the A box on their latest Cosmo "Is he likely to leave me for a Swedish bikini waxer" Quiz, I tred cautiously. I told her that I wanted to spend the day with her, that it was here special day and it would be unfair to the kids to not make her breakfast in bed--you know, all of that good husband stuff that lets her check off the D box (which will later determine that I would only leave her for a Swedish bikini waxer if she turned out to be my soulmate, and not for any kind of shallow reason). But she was insistent--let me repeat that for those of you who have been lulled to sleep--Kim insisted that I take Louie golfing on Mother's Day.
And the real beauty is that no other husband in the world gets away with this--golfing on Mother's Day--are you on crack? You just don't do it. We ended up getting the first tee time at 7AM--nobody in front of us, nobody behind us, guilt-free on one of the most spectacular courses in the world on Mother's Day for free. If this wasn't the greatest victory for sons and husbands everywhere, I don't know what is. Louie--I may never fully repay your visit.

3. The final Day at the Rockpile--I don't write much about work, because there is always that fear that somebody out there will read it, get offended and I end up losing my job. Since I am no longer there, I will just copy an excerpt that I wrote from an e-mail on my last day that will hopefully sum up my time there. I hope this doesn't illicit reprecussions, but it needs to be said:

Here is the Genius Leadership Move of the Day for May 19, 2006
(or GLMD 5-19-06 as it has come to be known)

Now realize that I have tormented myself here for the past several months, knowing full well that I was leaving, just waiting for the moment that they would escort me to the door and finding out that it wasn't going to happen. Having done all that, I didn't want to burn whatever bridges were worth salvaging, so I made as hearty attempt as I could to say my goodbyes to the evil ne'er do well's at the Lodge.
When I entered by security and made my way out to see Kelli and Bug Killer to say my farewells, I saw Chef P working the expo side of the line (and he was not majestically cutting starfruit by the way) and made a mental note that something must be going on. I did my best to circumvent any eye contact before realizing that he very well didn't know what I looked like and had no real reason to avoid him at all--live and learn. But I was successful in making my way to the BKB's office and chatted with him for a few moments.
We wandered back to the cancer deck as BK is known to do and did my best not to demoralize him as he was on his 14th straight day and seemed that he didn't need much of a push. After wishing him the best of luck, I wandered back into the kitchen and peered down the line to see a vast array of breakfast items plated up. Chef P was clicking photos like a champ, proud as a new papa with his bounty, and I must admit some of the items looked pretty damn good. In fact, they really stepped up the plate presentation, offering and product. I even understand that they had organic eggs for the 8 or 9 items that had poached eggs as part of the party.
This being the first time I had seen him involve himself in anything other than starfruit, I took a closer look and he had gotten pretty damn creative. It turns out he had just stolen a menu from some place in New York, but hey let's face it, everything is somewhat derivative (Even the Pope steals his ideas sometimes). What made my day was that we are quickly approaching Memorial Day weekend and the scent of the low-budget FITs making their annual trek to the resorts around the valley fills the air with its all too familiar stench. Could there possibly be a better time to roll out a breakfast menu with prices upwards of $25 per entree? I don't think so.
Let me think. . . If I am a guy living in Mesa trying to get away from my kids for a weekend and I find a way to not use as much A/C for a month so I can afford that special romantic getaway on my $40K salary when the resorts finally lower the rates to $129/night, am I the guy who is likely to shell out $75 for breakfast for my wife and me? How much a freaking dolt do you have to be to not realize that the bread pudding french toast and poached egg stuffed artichokes with the porcini mushroom sauce is not going to be the breakfast of choice for Vern and Louise. How about the genius involved with the bagel with dill cream cheese, pickles and capers covered with the sliced salmon, so that you can't get to the bagel without pulling the pink drapes off the top and covering your fingers with that slimy salmony residue for the next 36 hours?
I freaking love it. I'm not saying that the menu won't work. Hell, there were some pretty incredible looking items (that will look like absolute shit in a week when Frenchy returns to his 10 AM arrival pattern), but nobody without an expense account is going to eat any of that shit and definitely isn't going to pay for any of it. Nobody here who makes any decisions has ever spent a summer here, so it is just comical to watch them, and there is no point in trying to dissuade them.
Here is my prediction. They roll out this menu and give it three months to work. By September 1st, even Chef P is convinced it is a colossal failure and returns to "How'd Ya like them eggs, honey?" service and quality, just in time for the arrival of those bastards who don't care how much anything costs. DZ comes in to see the prices, blows a gasket, they change back just in time for the holiday FIT travelers and the hotel goes down to 5% occupancy by Jan 1 when the membership organizes a nude protest on the Duck Pond. Why the hell am I leaving again? You just don't get this sort of thing anywhere else!
3 Hours 9 Minutes 4 Seconds

4. Moving Day Poppy Joe Style--Before I get into this epic, I have decided to break this posting up. This story could very well be 5000 words by itself and even in its edited version, I don't want to make this posting into a repeat of that never-ending one from last December, The Lazy Bastard Returns.

Those of you who have been loyal followers of my postings understand the dynamic that is my relationship with Poppy Joe. Those of you who are new to the site, hopefully you will understand after reading this. Joe told us months ago that when we were ready to move, he would come out, load up the truck with us and drive it to Texas. Anybody who has experienced moving days knows that there are few things in life as generous to offer somebody as your time and energy on moving day. If there are things that are more unpleasant to endure than moving day, I pray that I never have to experience them (and don't pull that childbirth or kidney stone crap, either--moving day trumps them all).

When it comes to moving with Poppy Joe, however, we enter a new dimension of tortured existence, especially when it comes to him and I working together on such a monumental task. In my world, getting all of the crap out of the house, loaded on the truck and getting the hell on the road is all I am interested in on moving day (notice that it is a singular term--moving day, not days). You get up in the morning, pick up the truck, start loading your boxes, get the heavy furniture wedged in there, fill in where you can, lock that bad boy up and hit the road. Joe lives his life a different way than I do and his idea of moving day is trying to develop the perfect plan for loading the truck, revising it, unloading the truck, revising it, reloading the truck, revising it, pulling everything off the truck again, planning, go to the hardware store for something else to ensure perfection in the loading process, planning, reloading the truck, stopping to admire his work every 8 minutes, ask what I think of how the truck is packed, tie everything down with rope, start on the next section, repeat. We were moving out of a three bedroom house, and we spent over 20 hours loading up the freaking truck.

Over that 20 hour span, we took turns getting pissed off at each other. He would get pissed at me because I kept putting stuff on the truck and interrupting his planning sessions. I would get pissed at him because we should have been done with the loading process 15 hours ago. Now in fairness to him, I don't believe that there was any possible way to get another Q-tip onto that truck after we finished packing it. He had utilized every square millimeter of that 27' Penske beauty, but by the time we finished I was ready to leave his rotting corpse in the master bedroom as a welcome to your new house gift to DJ, and I am certain that if he had the strength to lift his arms he would have clubbed me with one of the remaining items that wouldn't fit onto the truck, no matter how many more planning/strategy sessions Poppy Joe wanted to enjoy.

We would have been completely screwed without his assistance. In fact, we would have had to hire a moving company and probably forked out $7-8K more for them to move our things. That being said, the entire drive out to Texas, I couldn't think of anything other than how much I was dreading unloading this monstrosity with him when we got there. Carrying all of those things upstairs, Joe telling me all the things wrong with the new house, being instructed how to properly unload a truck--the idea of it all was overwhelming. It is a pretty simple deal. Grab whatever you see and can carry, pick it up, bring it into the house and ask Kim where the hell to put it--problem solved. For some reason, Joe has to constantly slow down the pace and plan everything out regardless of how simple it is. It isn't a character flaw as much as it is an obsession--everything has to be exactly the way he envisions it. Following a different logical progression just will not work under any circumstance.

It took us two days to unload the truck--well we didn't really start until Friday evening, and there were lots of projects along the way--putting desks together, constructing beds, hanging pictures, assembling the grill, etc. The house was large enough that I was able to keep my distance from Poppy Joe. I am grateful for his assistance, but holy crap, I hope to God we never move again, we probably won't have a friend buy this house and the poor bastard who buys this place might freak out when they discover Poppy Joe's severed head in the pantry.