the 41st week

I've been REALLY sucking at updating this blog. Sometimes the only thing keeping me accountable are these weekly recaps. I don't plan on forsaking this blog forever: several posts are in formation, just be patient with me as I seek to be patient with myself. The upcoming posts could be quite weighty, so I'm trying to word everything as best I can. Okay, here's the last week:

Monday. I finished Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great at The Anchor before closing shop with Amos. When we got home he lit a fire in the backyard from the refuse dug out of the flower-bed (Andy and Ams planted flowers sometime last week), and Isaac came over and we sat around the fire 'till sunset. I made nachos and some chamomile tea and talked to Cat before bed. She ran off to North Carolina after her last day last week, and going from seeing her five days a week to not at all is pretty weird. Somehow I miss that little Asian Islander. 

Tuesday. Emily and I closed together, and we went back to her place in Northside for a bit and hung out with her fiance Gabe and they're pal Kelly. Pat D. came over later in the evening, and we drank beers and played Mario-Kart and watched the 412 2003 V.M.A. DVD: hilarious or humiliating? I'm not sure which. Those days are so long ago, an entirely different life with different faces and places, different values and convictions and beliefs, different views and aims and goals, different hopes and ambitions, different fears and insecurities. Back then I assumed that by age 25 I'd be married, maybe have a kid, and be working at a small church somewhere. I thought it was a good assumption, and I had God working behind the scenes to make it all come together. Just goes to show that things change, and any prophesying regarding the future is as much guess-work and wishful thinking than anything else.

Wednesday. Tiffany and I opened the store, and I went in early to make sure the patio got set out, and I stayed late to make sure the closers (Amos and Brandon, who's with Tazza Mia full-time now) didn't get stuck with our tasks (as tends to happen). The evening was quiet: drinking some beers and hanging out with the housemates. Andy and I shared some of our shared frustrations with Tazza Mia, and we talked about how when you get a new job, you think it'll be perfect in every way, or at least you'd like to hope that'd be the case. But every job has its frustrations, though I'm not sure that's a good reason to just let come what may.

RED'S OPENING DAY (practically a holiday in Cincinnati). Amos tagged along for my habitual pre-work trip to The Anchor, and when we drove downtown, we found the place a hot mess. Downtown was swarming with red, traffic was backed up, everyone was honking, pedestrians couldn't figure out how to use the cross-walks, and country drivers confused in the city kept backing up the intersections. Parking was jacked up double, too, and that sucked. After work I drove up to Dayton to see some old pals from Spring Valley: Jessica C., Abby, and Mandy M. Annie, who has run between several different coffee shops between Dayton and Cincinnati, joined us, too. I had an Irish coffee and two tall drinks of Guinness before we bar-hopped out to Lucky's across the street. I ordered another beer but was feeling quite drunk, so I offered it to Abby and she gladly accepted. Jessica showed me her place afterwards, it's super cool. We smoked cigarettes and caught up for a while, and I got back down to Cincinnati around 2:00 AM. I'm really glad I got to see all of those people again, especially Jess. Reconnecting tends to be a fun thing to do.

GOOD FRIDAY. I still felt queasy from last night's drinking (I don't drink a lot, so a decent amount of alcohol ravages my system), and I took the edge off with coffee and cigarettes at The Anchor. I went to Mount Aries for a bit after work, it's always good to get out of the city and into the woods for a while, and then I drove up to Centerville to see Tyler in his new apartment behind Archer's. It's a kick-ass place. We sat on the deck and watched the sunset, and we spent the night watching Workaholics and playing video games. We called it a night early, around 12 AM, but I was okay with that: my body was still recovering from last night.

Saturday. Tyler and I went to Scrambler Marie's by Spring Valley for breakfast, and when I returned to Cincinnati Ams, Andy and I went to the Museum Center at Union Terminal. Andy wore a Tyrannosaurus skull for a head, we marveled at the giant sloth, and we went caving. "It's so crazy they built this museum on top of a cave!" I got my socks wet and let Andy and Ams do most of the exploring: I didn't want to get turned around deep in the labyrinth. After spelunking and exploring Cincinnati in the 1900s, we had a picnic out at Rabbit Run Park. Blake went to Tennessee for the weekend, and Amos spent the day with his parents. I spent the evening hanging out with Ams and Andy, and Amos for a bit, too, when he returned.

EASTER. The Anchor was crowded, since a lot of local restaurants were closed, so I didn't stay too long. Mom, Dad, Ams and I went up to New Carlisle to celebrate Easter with Dad's side of the family. As expected there was a fantastic meal that left me bowling over with a swollen stomach. I retired downstairs and accidentally fell asleep. Cate woke me wanting to be read a story, so I played with her for a while and we tried to teach her how to play catch, but she's only three so it was pretty slow-going. She did learn how to teach catch, by way of imitation, but the actual act of catch remains yet to be grasped. When we got back to Mom and Dad's house, Ams and I headed out to see Tyler, and we watched B.B.C. Life and had Wendy's for dinner. We got back into Cincinnati around 10:30 and called it a night not a few minutes later.

There's that. Now: what should you be expecting on the blog this week? I'm going to try and be super diligent, and we'll see if we can't wedge a three-post series on The Quest, a casual mentioning of my current zombie adventure, and (if I'm super diligent) some reviews of the books I've been reading on this so-called quest: The God Delusion, The Dawkins Delusion, and God Is Not Great. Let's see if I can't pull this off. Here's to hoping (but not too much).