Following my 20 year class reunion, excitement ceased for a great while. I had been doing a lot of traveling and having fun, spending great times with Erin, seeing the world, meeting celebrities, eating my way through the restaurants of America, and spending money like water. But once we hit the dog days of summer, it all came to a crashing halt. Worse yet, it became all-too- clear that a long-distance relationship wasn’t going to work. Erin and I were a great match for the times that we were together, but by August 1, we had decided that the distance and circumstances were going to mean that we would have to call it quits. I still haven’t quite been able to reconcile that one.
So what have I been up to amidst the general exhaustion, laziness, and moping? Mostly TV, trying desperately to catch up on this website, with a little bit of laying out in the sun thrown in. After I returned from Florida, I had come up with a new ‘program’ of films to watch. Hoping to find an orderly and somewhat random way of catching up on some of the classics I’ve always wanted to see. I decided to randomly pick years and view all of the films nominated for Best Picture Oscars, and the films of the winners of the actors, actresses, and director. Since the first part of July, I’ve done this for 1980, 1928-29, 1958, and 1955. In addition, I began watching the Laurel and Hardy films after the convention. I also started watching the Harold Lloyd, Harry Langdon, and Tom & Jerry shorts chronologically at the beginning of August. All this in addition to finishing up Weeds and starting Two and a Half Men at the beginning of August as well. Quite a mind melt.
So here is a breakdown of anything that might laughingly qualify as excitement during these so-called dog days:
The week following the July 17 reunion was Employee Appreciation week at work. We had a couple of casual days, with an indoor carnival on Wednesday. On Friday the 23rd, we said goodbye to one of our coordinators Dan Coletta who is moving on to General Office. We had a nice pizza party to celebrate his time with us.
I didn’t do much that weekend, but Christi came over on Sunday, July 25, to stay with Ashleigh and take her to Ohio State the next day. Ashleigh is planning on enrolling there this Fall – so we got the ball rolling with her student loans over the next month for that. Christi and I started to watch Whip It, but she was more interested in going outside with Ashleigh and Stephen so I just went to bed.
We opened a new store in Mariemont that week on Thursday, July 29. That night Stephen’s dad came over and took away his car. On Friday, July 30, I went over to Mom’s house to eat some LaRosa’s flesh-covered pizza. Denise and the kids were over there, getting ready to set up for a big garage sale. Megan just keeps getting cuter every day. We played a bit of Farkle and I was doing amazing, until Denise decided to do even more amazing and win the game. The weekend saw more movies, moping, and mowing of the lawn. I had put on a few pounds from all of the eating on vacations and gave a half-hearted attempt at a new diet regimen. Over the next month, I lost about five or six pounds.
Sorry Megan, but this doesn’t really qualify as ‘helping’ to get ready for the garage sale
This qualifies even less
As the weather got to the hottest temperature I can remember, approaching 99 degrees the following week, most of the excitement during the heat wave came in the form of food. We had a pizza party / baby shower on Wednesday, August 4, for our co-worker Shane, who was about to become a pop for the first time.
On Thursday the 5th, Heidi and I met up at Sake in Kettering to share a huge batch of sushi. They have half price sushi rolls during the weekday, so we ordered an array of rolls: Birthday, Sunshine, Dragon, Lobster, Dynamite, Jaguar, Philadelphia. I hadn’t actually hung out with Heidi in exactly three months, with the exception of the time that she drove me to the airport in July, so this was a lot of fun. Now it’s time to be her relationship tutor as she makes a go at being someone’s girlfriend.
Getting ready to devour a large platter of sushi
I spent that weekend either in front of the TV or laying out in the sun – kicking around on a piece of ground in my hometown. It was hot and the ants liked to bother me as I laid on my towel, but otherwise, this is what the dog days of summer are for. And of course, more food as I went out to eat with work vendors to TGI Friday’s and the Macaroni Grille, on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively.
It was back over to Mom’s on Wednesday, August 11, as she was getting ready to open the big garage sale the next day. I did some pre-shopping and came away with one of Bev’s History Channel DVDs. Ashleigh and Stephen came over as well and we all had pizza. Diana & Tom and Debby stopped also. Debby and her husband Mike are expecting their first child together and I hadn’t seen her since the announcement was made.
Sunday, August 22, was my Dad’s 63rd birthday. We celebrated by having lunch at Applebees on Miller Lane. I had some sort of spicy burger. Vicki and Bill & Dottie came along for lunch as well. I gave him a gift card to Olive Garden. Speaking of birthdays, Erin’s daughter Chloe’s was coming up on the 26th, so I spent part of the weekend putting together a photo album of pictures of her from our Disney World trip to mail to her.
Bill, Dottie, Vicki, Dad, and me – out for Dad’s birthday at Applebees
On Wednesday, August 25, I met a friend and co-worker named Misty at the Silver Spring House in Loveland, where she introduced me to the delicious and intoxicating world of blueberry lemonades. This was the first time that we got to hang out outside of work and I had a swell time. Silver Spring House gives you free popcorn, incidentally.
On Saturday, August 28, I got my first Big Seven concert fix since the Morrissey show I attended back in 2007. Cheap Trick was playing a joint headliner show with Blondie at the Fraze Pavillion in Kettering and Heidi and I attended. Before we went to show, we went for a nice dinner at Red Lobster for some salmon and coconut shrimp. We got to the show just as Blondie was taking the stage. Although it took a while to find a parking spot across the street at the high school, the Fraze is a great concert location – with free parking. I had just found out earlier that day that my Aunt Darlene is working at the Fraze and she was the one how ‘wrist-banded’ me for alchohol consumption. I only had two beers though.
The shrimp delights of Red Lobster
We had lawn seats and by the time we arrived, the lawn was mostly full. We found some spaces on the far right side, but much to our chagrin, found the lawn completely soaked. We hadn’t brough blankets and it wouldn’t really have mattered as evidenced by the many wet butts we saw when other folks stood up. We mostly either stood or sat on the cement blocks below the fence railing.
It was great to see Blondie, who opened the show. Back in 1979, I adored several of her songs, particularly Heart of Glass. I can distinctly remember a guy named Roland Rhodehamel prodding me to name a favorite band and at that point I had none (this was between the KISS and Beatles obsession), so I gave Blondie the kudos. I didn’t recognize most of the songs she performed at first, but enjoyed them nonetheless. Debbie Harry sounded great and didn’t look to shabby for being 65 (at least from what we could tell from our distance), although she could no longer quite hit the high notes that she once did. By the end of the show, she got around to her standards like Call Me, Heart of Glass, The Tide Is High, Rapture, and One Way or Another.
Heidi liked Blondie infinitely more than Cheap Trick
These days, Blondie’s entire face is white, not just her hair
Seeing Cheap Trick take the stage brought back a lot of memories of the many times I had seen the band live – the most notable being the show at McGuffey’s in 1992 at which time I was able to meet them. They had gotten through a good portion of the show before they introduced the members and oddly enough, it wasn’t until then that I realized that their drummer Bun E. Carlos was not with them. From where we were standing, I couldn’t see the drummer so just assumed that Bun E. was there. The current drummer is actually guitarist Rick Nielsen’s son Daxx. Lead singer Robin Zander, as always, was in fine form and Tom Petersson quietly laid down his signature 12-string bass.
I must say that their line-up of songs was a bit offbeat. As a longtime fan, I enjoyed hearing some unusual choices for them to perform live, but I felt a sense of the crowd getting a bit restless. Even though they only played three tracks from their latest album – appropriately titled The Latest – the so-called classics that they played were not some of their best-known.
Hardly qualifies as a celebrity encounter, but that’s Robin Zander and Rick Nielsen in the background
The following was their set list: The Way of the World, Hello There, Elo Kiddies, I Want You To Want Me, These Days, Lookin’ Out For Number One, The House Is Rockin’ (With Domestic Problems), If You Want My Love, World’s Greatest Lover, Magical Mystery Tour, The Ballad of TV Violence (I’m Not the Only Boy), Baby Loves To Rock, Sick Man of Europe, Closer – The Ballad of Burt and Linda, and Surrender. For the encore, they performed Dream Police and Goodnight Now.
It was obvious from this line-up that they were only performing for fun and their own amusement. It was all good stuff, but to leave out The Flame, their only #1 hit, it was clear that they weren’t trying to win over any new fans – and it certainly didn’t help to win over Heidi. All in all, it was great to see Cheap Trick again and it was fun to be out with Heidi.
Cheap Trick performs their encore
On Tuesday, August 31, I met up with Kristy and Sly, whom I hadn’t seen since Sly’s birthday in March. We met at their house and went over to Elsa’s restaurant for dinner and some Bad Juans. I had a great seafood chimichangas and two of those pain-numbing beverages. You can feel those things hit you after two sips. We went back to their house afterward for an additional beer and I checked out their two new dogs and the giant fence that Sly had built in their backyard.
The blistering hot weather only lasted a couple of days into September. Once it broke, it signalled the end of the dog days of summer. Fall was on its way in, and with it, a bit more excitement than the last six weeks of summer had held.
2010 will continue…
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