Today was a friend’s 50th birthday and he usually keeps that sort of thing quiet. I call him on his birthday every year, though. Who else is going to do it? I’ll buy him breakfast tomorrow (today).

I had what I thought was a huge list of errands today and I didn’t finish them. I never do, really. But I did finish most of them, even with my poor start. I usually mop the gym floor but when new mop heads can leave a lot of lint on the rough rubber surface. Instead of mopping, I vacuumed. It can take me 45 minutes to mop the floor if there’s a lot of equipment out of place, but vacuuming took me an hour and a half. I almost missed one of the time-constrained things on my list: buying more cardboard boxes, but I made it with half-an-hour to spare.

I got lunch and when I got home my next door neighbor needed help with his garage door. Fortunately I had the wire strippers, crimps, crimp tools, and staple gun necessary to fix it all. After that, it was list time. I should have been like my brother-in-law and put “eat lunch” and “shower” on the list so I could cross them off.

The big item on the list was the only non-house-maintenance chore that my mom wanted me to do while she was gone: washing her car. She parks it in the driveway where it gets little winter sun, and it grows algae in the winter. The algae dies and turns black. I went to the “Washman” carwash and got the $49 package with extra external cleaning. It takes an hour, but my neighbor was there doing the same thing so we sat and chatted and the time passed pretty quickly.

Then it was time for easier items like “laundry”. My sister added “buy a new kitchen table” to the list. I’m spending a lot more than I’m making lately. Stupid renovations. Well, that goes on tomorrow’s list which, by this time, is today’s list. I better hit the hay.

I’ve been told by several people that the Lovely 50-50 is their favorite pizza in Portland. I can see that. It was really good as was the huckleberry ice cream I had for dessert. I would put it above Apizza Scholls, where they’re too popular and go out of their way to let you know how special they are even though I think the pizza at Apizza Scholls is just a little tastier. But I’m not sure if I put it over Pizzicato because the pizza is a bit too fancy for me. I had a pizza with wild nettles with taleggio & salumi pancetta and I had to ask what each one of those ingredients was. The cheese was a bit too salty for me but the nettles tasted like nori. I tried my a bit of my friend’s margherita but the best was an asparagus and something-or-another-I-never-heard-of-before. I also liked the morel pizza. But really, I don’t like to think that hard when I’m hungry.

I suppose what I’m saying is that the reason I like Pizzicato is that I’m simple-minded and I recognize everything on the menu. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t go back to Lovely 50 50 the next chance I get. It’s close and it’s very tasty.

Yesterday I skipped the gym because of a continuing stomach ache and worked on the house. Or so I thought. I’m not really sure what I did. I do believe I should be working on the wiring right now but my drill batteries were out of juice and I’m tired and busy at work. I need to get some sleep.

Oh, and genius probably figured out that the multivitamins he quit taking in the past were causing his stomach aches.

So in summary, have to wire the house. Don’t know when. Maybe Jay the Contractor will have to do it.

I spent half the day yesterday finishing up the demolition of the walls, in a room sealed off with plastic. I ddn’t think I was that tired, but after going out to dinner (and having three beers) I came home and passed out on the floor. I woke up four hours later at 1AM and finally put the sheets on the bed and went to sleep. I didn’t get up until 8AM.

So what does this mean? Not a whole lot. My stomach has hurt all day (hooray for that) and I’ve done some more cleaning on the room. The problem is that there’s a lot of airborne dust and mopping every few hours still shows a lot of crap on the floor. I did finish my laundry and now that it’s time for bed I realized that I have to rewire the room. Double hooray. Time to obsess about proper outlet placement.

I had plans of a nice leisurely (and lonely) dinner tonight but I decided to get a head start on my weekend project instead. Yesterday I was discussing the lath and plaster walls in the kitchen with Jay the Contractor and he was trying to see if the plaster was sturdy and he accidentally stuck his finger through the wall. Obviously, this shouldn’t have happened and so it was time to remove the lath and plaster and put up sheetrock. Anyway, it was time to tear down all the crap to start over. I thought I’d better not spend the time on a leisurely dinner and should get to work.

So, I decided to go to McDonald’s and have a Big Mac or two. There used to be a deal where one BIg Mac was $3.59 and two were $4, but that deal wasn’t valid any longer. I had a Big Mac, fries, and drink and it was as good as I remembered. Unfortunately, Big Macs also give me stomachaches.

So I have most of the walls torn down but now I have to get the crap out of the house. My sister asked why I started Friday night and besides having nothing better to do, I have to clear this crap out of the kitchen dining nook I can get to the washing machine and start doing laundry. I have an exciting weekend planned and it involves folding clean laundry.

Woo, it’s tomorrow already. I better get some sleep.

I just sent my last work email of the day, which is more like the first of today. I was busy trying to figure something out, which I finally did. I am a big moron.

I’m still busy and to op it off, I had a tummy ache today. The kind where I’m either feeling fine or doubled over wondering when it’ll be over. It usually goes away after a few hours but today it kept coming back. I didn’t go to the gym and felt odd about it because I was either feeling sheepish about sitting in front of my computer, or holding my stomach remembering just why I didn’t go. I probably need more days off anyway. I’m old and tired.

I also have to work from home tomorrow, which I’m allowed to do, because I’m getting a delivery tomorrow. It’s the company’s fault. Recurring prescriptions from our health plans have to be from an online pharmacy, and you have to get things delivered to your house. So I have to be around to pick up my prescriptions. It was so much easier when i was allowed to go to the Fred Meyer Pharmacy.

And I’m up way later than I should be. Just like always.

Work is still busy. Busy busy busy.

I took my broken Honda in for another recall today and they took a lot longer than I expected. I dropped off the car before work and picked it up on my way home. And when I finally got going, I noticed the radio wasn’t working because it needed a security code. So the ride home was silent. Even better, there was an accident on the freeway that funneled traffic down to one lane so the silent drive also was excruciatingly long.

Of course I’ve lost all the paperwork from when I bought the car and I don’t know where in the hell the radio security code is. I finally found a page on the Honda web site where you enter a VIN, a radio serial number, the original owner’s (my) phone number, the original owner’s zip code, and it spit out the security code.

I also found a new scratch on the rear bumper, and I’m pretty sure it’s new. Like the dealer put it there new. But they also washed the car, so I’m not sure if it was hidden by the layer of winter grime I had built up.

So, basically, I’d rate the whole experience as negative. Nice way to end the day.

Not really sure why, but today just felt like a Monday to me. It’s just as well, because it was Monday. I just got through tearing down about a quarter of an exterior wall. The current lead laws make it ridiculously difficult for a contractor to do work on walls painted with lead-based paint, which is most paint before 1977. I’m not all that worried about it myself because we don’t have any kids in the house and I’m not likely to start chewing on paint chips. In any case, I most likely read the wrong part of the applicable laws and did the wrong thing, but the wall is no longer there and neither is the blown-in insulation which is much more annoying to me.

There was something else I was thinking about but I’m probably much too tired from this Monday business to remember what it was about. No, I don’t think it’s the effect of the lead paint in the house.

I was busy trying to remember what I was forgetting to do today, avoiding things I ought to be doing. It was a beautiful spring day and the park was so full I wondered if there was some sort of festival going on. I was in the attic making a mess when I remembered it was the day for Mrs. Lachman’s memorial service. Well, it was a wake and she wanted us to remember her happily and we tried that. I met lots of her family who looked more familiar than I’d expect, but it’s Portland and I’m sure I’ve met them in the past.

On my way home I realized it’s May already and I missed a friend’s open house. I guess I was double booked. Most of the time I’m just avoiding the realization that I have nothing to do.

Why is it that when I’m eating alone, I end up near first dates? On the plus side, the Asian woman was going out with an Asian dude. Good on you dude. On the minus side, she was facing me and now I know she’s a 29YO first year resident, graduate of Cornell Medical School, minutae about residency that I already know, what she thinks of chocolate, and what she thinks about certain hipster bands. That took over an hour. I think he said he’s 23 and bum rushed the stage at some hipster show. He didn’t talk much (or couldn’t get a word in edgewise) and he was facing away from me so I couldn’t hear him very well.

OK, let me tell you the real plus side, the food at Olympic Provisions is spectacular. I don’t think my sister would have liked the steak because it was fatty and the salsa verde was filled with onions. They cooked the steak very rare for me and salted to perfection. The salsa verde was surprisingly spicy and tasty and went with the aged meat quite well. The Blood and Sand cocktail wasn’t the Manhattan I was imagining but was a nice sweet start to dinner.

The dessert, a rhubarb tart, was similarly well done. Crispy and fresh.

So, it wasn’t for everyone, but it was another big win for me. So what if I eat dinner alone if it’s going to be this tasty?

My neighbor passed away recently at the age of 86. She was a runner who started after she retired in her 60’s and she was always out at the track. I was looking forward to springtime, when I’d see her running up the hill at her own pace, always with enough time to stop and chat for a bit. Her obituary said she died of liver cancer, which she hid from her friends.

I know her son from back when I was little, and her grandsons as well. I had a crush on her niece in high school. I hope her family well.

My buddy Greg and I went on a long adventure this morning, trying to find places that were open on Easter. This is heathen Oregon, and everywhere we went was open. Anah at the he Industrial Cafe even talked us into drinking early in the morning. Harbor Freight, Home Depot, and even a couple of OLCC Liquor Stores were open.

I spent most of the afternoon pulling TV cable through the attic and when I was finished I found out that the cable was really meant for direct burial and was full of sticky goo. This slowed me down a bit and I have to figure out how to strip the cable properly. I’ve been told that I need trichloroethylene to clean off the goo and that’s going to be a hassle that my liver won’t appreciate.

Speaking of liver, I went off to get dinner after finding the goo, and I met a friend at the pub as I was eating. She introduced me to her boyfriend, who is probably 10 years her junior. She’s probably 10 years younger than me, so that means I spent several hours talking guns with a bunch of 20-something cooks. I shouldn’t complain, because I had a good time, but 20-somethings with guns are different than 40-somethings with guns. Either way, an amusing evening and I got to avoid thinking about the goo I have to deal with soon, unless I don’t want TV.