I’m writing this part earlier in the day than usual. I just had such a great emotion that I felt compelled to write about it. My day thus far:

I woke up this morning with Amanda, having gotten back in bed, snuggling against me. We joked around then made love. She made me cheese toast.

Amanda went to do some running around. I put on my iPod and mowed the lawn. It was oppressively hot and sweat was dripping down my face, hanging from the tip of my nose. I could wipe a finger across my brow, flick it and sweat would fly off it.

I finished mowing the lawn, smelling of gas and sweat then I swept the patio and the front porch. I sat down in the porch swing or a minute to rest when Brick by David Gray started to play. I closed my eyes and let myself swing gently back and forth. At first it seemed like there was no breeze at all, but I realized that with the way the wind was blowing, when I swung forward I felt nothing, but as I swung back I felt a strong breeze at my back.

I closed my eyes, listened to the music and felt the nothingness then somethingness. It was just such a beautiful sweet moment and it felt like everything was right. I was tired and sweaty and totally relaxed and everything lined up and made sense. What a beautiful morning.

Picking up now at the end of the day.

Amanda came home with jewelry she’d made for Hannah Frazelle’s high school graduation from Hoggard.  I worked on a special project for her myself, the results of which are to the left just now.

A while back we joked around with Peggy and Earl Lemons, Amanda, Michael, Hannah and Kirsten’s grandparents, calling them E. Diddy and Pegalicious.  Well, I Photoshopped their gransprents heads onto pictures I found of Sean “Puff Daddy/ P. Diddy/Diddy” Combs and Fergie.  Earl turned out particularly well I think.  E. Diddy that is.  Pegalicious is okay- the face stands out a bit too much.  Anyway, I worked on that.

Karen, Amanda’s mom, got here at a few minutes before 3:00.  Anna had told me last night that they were planning on having everyone over at their place around 3:00, so Amanda was stressing about getting there (as she absolutely hates being late).  Turns out it was 3:30.  I could swear Anna told me 3:00.  But no matter.

So we got there, Earl and Peggy got there and then Barry’s parents got there.  Michael, Karen and I decided to explore the humongous house being built next door.  While we all marveled at what has been done so far with the third floor, a vaulted ceiling with a large pen area for the kitchen, living room and dining room, the second floor was just too packed with rooms and awkwardly slices up at that.  While I understand the reason for putting so many rooms in a house you intend to rent out to large families, it was just too much.  The middle floor seemed to cramped.  The bottom floor was a garage.  Two garages, actually.

We went back over to the house where everyone was ready to eat.  We had sandwiches and chips with a blueberry pie and an ice cream turtle cake for dessert.  It was all very good.  All the older people ate in the dining room while the rest of us; the aforementioned grandkids and myself, ate in the spare room.  Michael joked that in twenty years we’d all be sitting down and talking about diabetes, which is what the older crowd tends to do when they sit down together.  We then talked about other cousins and relatives and just generally had a good time.

Part of our discussion went to a word Kirsten used earlier in the afternoon without fully realizing, I think, the vulgarity of.

Hannah had already opened the jewelry Amanda made her (and decided to wear that evening to her graduation) but we told her she had to wait to open the other gift until everyone was around.  She asked if it was funny and, wanting to throw her off, I told her it was “heartfelt”.  When she did open it she laughed a little, but then she saw the words on the picture, took a second look then cracked up.  She passed it around to the rest of her immediate family, who were all right there, and once it sank in for everyone everybody was rolling.  Barry was particularly tickled by it.  Earl and Peggy thought it was pretty good as well.

The only bad thing about it is that, since the main images came from the web, the picture itself can’t be made very large.  I think just about everyone wanted a copy.

After all that Hannah and Kirsten went to change and I introduced Barry, Michael and Earl to the video for Reh Dogg’s hit song Why Must I Cry.  Jason Revill showed it to me and I posted it on Hannah’s MySpace profile.  That song and video are both so horrible that you’ve just got to love Reh Dogg.

Pictures were taken with Hannah in her gown then everyone departed for the ceremony except for me, Amanda and Michael.  Each graduate only got a certain number of tickets for family and friends.

On the way home I talked to my friend Joey Palieri, who had come to town tonight.  He and some friends were going to eat at Chili’s then go out from there, but since we had just eaten I told him to call me after they ate.

Back home I watered the plants.  It wasn’t quite so stifling hot anymore.  In the front yard, when I walked up to our porch I saw a squirrel by the water hose.  He hesitated, but jumped through the railing.  He stayed under the pine tree, just a few feet from me, digging up and eating food that I guess he had stored.  I started watering the plants and he didn’t run away.  In fact, when I watered the butterfly bush, at first he jumped onto the butterfly house we have but then he climbed down and started, I don’t know, showering.  I think the squirrel was thirst and was trying to get some water.  Amanda came out and saw him and got Michael to come take a look as well.  Michael threw some peanuts to him and he ate a few.

I went in to find my 10D (which I couldn’t!) to take some decent pictures.  In that time Mooo! had gotten outside and chased the squirrel further up the tree.  He didn’t come back down while we were there after that.

Joey called after a while and said they were going to Hiro’s for a few drinks.  At first I declined, making plans to see him for breakfast tomorrow morning at least, because I didn’t much feel like going out.  But then I thought about the fact that I haven’t seen Joey at least since my hair was long and how I often wish I had people to go and hang out with more, so I left Amanda and Michael watching Ice Spiders (a cheesy Sci-Fi Channel flick where mutant spiders attack an Olympic ski team) and headed out for about an hour and a half.

Joey was there with Danny, a friend who works for him; Michael, a female friend from high school; and another girl whose name eludes me.  I had a bit of conversation with everyone, mostly Joey of course, but enough with Danny as well to realize he seemed like a pretty hiv guy.

Joey seems to be doing well.  Joey worked for me at TWG Marketing.  I trained him myself, and although he was never the best at sales he was a good guy and a good friend.  I’ve kept in touch with him more than anybody else I worked with.  Amanda doesn’t count- she was in a different division.

I came home to find Karen watching Ice Spiders with Amanda.  I smelled of smoke so, since we just washed all the sheets today, I took a shower.  Karen was going to bed by the time I finished and Amanda was about to as well.  I played a little Global Conflict and wrote all this, and now it’s bedtime.

Oh by the way, on the Paris Hilton news front: she was released to house custody the other day as I’d mentioned, but between the DA (I think) and the public outcry, she was sent right back  Apparently the sheriff there has a habit of taking gifts and going extremely easy on high profile inmates.  I don’t know a whole lot about the situation, but from what little I read the guy should either be forced to resign or flat-out fired.  Paris, by all reports, was screaming and crying when she was told she’d have to go back.  For crying out loud, it’s not like she has to be there long, and i’s not like she’s in a maximum security prison.  She was in for driving with a suspended license due to a DUI or something like that.  Not only that, but it was the second time she’d been pulled for driving suspiciously while her license was suspended.  Seriously, if it was a normal person they’d have been in jail the first time, most likely.  The fact that she blatantly violated the terms of her suspension, MORE THAN ONCE, showed that she thought her social status put her above the law.  I, for one (in agreement with the bast majority of discussions I’ve seen on the topic) am glad they’re throwing the book at her and sticking to it.

I’ve wasted too much time on something so worthless.  I’m going to bed.

I can’t wait until tomorrow’s series finale of The Sopranos.  The season hasn’t been great, but they set the finale up very well with the penultimate episode in my opinion.

Zach Dotsey
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