Boy, it's been tough to catch my breath this week. This week saw a LOT of words go to NBA articles of mine. Two ended up getting published - this one and this one - and a third one hasn't yet seen the light of day because it needs to be reconfigured after the NBA trade deadline. The three of them were about 4500 words total, so that's something.
Additionally, we've been dog-sitting for a german shepherd who spent her first 18 hours in our home strengthening every negative connotation I had of german shepherds. She effectively didn't stop whining even once the first night, while also occasionally barking like a lunatic and keeping us up all night.
She's also super-high energy, which is fine if you're not used to having a dog that's part dog and part ottoman, like this angel.
At any rate, the week has turned into waking up earlier than normal, throwing a ball 20x in the backyard, going for a 2+ mile walk, throwing the ball again as soon as I get home, and then starting my day 90 minutes after I woke up by eating breakfast. It's not my ideal situation, but I'd be lying if I said she isn't growing on me as the week goes on. How could she not be? She's a dog. I love dogs.
Perhaps more importantly, I've added to my desk-space cache of wonderful/dumb sports memorabilia. Remember when I set up my new desk area and put a few Cleveland-based sports figures on the top to...iduno, inspire me? Thanks to the going-out-of-business sale at Big Fun on Coventry (Big Fun is a toy store that's been on an artsy/hip street in Cleveland for the past 28 years), I've been able to scoop up some really delightfully dumb toys.
I'm proud to add two Dennis Rodman headliners (one blonde, one red hair), Randy Johnson, Mo Vaughn, Chipper Jones, David Justice, Drew Bledsoe, Brett Favre, Jerry Stackhouse, Hideo Nomo, and two Boobie Gibson bobbleheads. Why two Boobie bobbles? Because they had two and they were $3.50 each. How could I possibly pass that up? The whole lot of this stuff - with the Gibson bobbles being the most expensive by a longshot - was about $18.
The moral of the story is that if a toy store is going out of business, you'd better get in there while the getting is good, and maybe even work part-time so that you have the flexibility to do just that.
In other news, I'm starting to think about other places to go in the world besides the wonderful, gives-me-chills-to-think-about list of places I've already been. The questions have basically inspired my wife to be afraid of Zika virus again, because the two most likely places to go on a long trip would be Asia and South America - both of which are highlighted on most Zika maps you find online. This is particularly concerning for her as we've considered having a child in the future, and Zika is bad for that.
I, as usual, am downplaying the risks of any/everything. I don't really know how to handle this one though. I don't believe that we'd really be at any risk as long as we behaved responsibly. We went through this before going to Costa Rica 15 months ago and Tanzania 3 months ago. In both cases, of course, we were totally fine. Particularly notable is Tanzania because Zika maps show it as dangerous and yet the country has reported 0 total cases. How can that be? Because it's in the right climate for Zika. That's all.
I don't know what will come of this, but it's an interesting conundrum as of right now. The fallout could be that we go somewhere entirely different or that we refuse to go anywhere tropical until we're well into parenthood, but that seems insane and unlikely. Perhaps it means coming up with a wholly new plan or visiting a place similar to somewhere we've already been because known commodities can still be a good thing.
For example, I would love to go back to Italy. I miss it all the time. I miss everything about it except the fact that we were living illegally within its borders - and frankly, I even kind of miss that part. If we took a few weeks and went back to Italy, we could recreate all sorts of experiences we had before or we could go to all the places we thought about going but didn't have the chance to go (an amazing thing: we lived in Italy for 9 months and traveled almost every weekend [to other countries and within Italy] and there are plenty of places that we didn't go. Siena? Nope. Assisi? Missed it. Parma? Bologna? The Dolomites? Nope. Uh-uh. Couldn't swing it. Isn't that crazy?). I want to find the nooks and crannies of the country that we only just began to explore by taking weekends to places with 1 lodging place, like Avio.
I might just need to email our former boss in Milan and ask if we could be hired legally and, oh, I don't know, move back there and teach English more often than we did before. What could go wrong? We couldn't get deported if we were there legally, so who cares?
The moral of the story here is to do what makes you happy. Buying dumb little sports figures for very cheap is fun to me, so I did that today. Going to Italy makes me happy, so maybe I should look into being back there more often or full time or something. Being with dogs makes me happy, so we're dog-sitting - even if this particular dog made me crazy for a short stretch. Life's too short not to do or see or get what you want out of it. Go have fun.
Additionally, we've been dog-sitting for a german shepherd who spent her first 18 hours in our home strengthening every negative connotation I had of german shepherds. She effectively didn't stop whining even once the first night, while also occasionally barking like a lunatic and keeping us up all night.
She's also super-high energy, which is fine if you're not used to having a dog that's part dog and part ottoman, like this angel.
At any rate, the week has turned into waking up earlier than normal, throwing a ball 20x in the backyard, going for a 2+ mile walk, throwing the ball again as soon as I get home, and then starting my day 90 minutes after I woke up by eating breakfast. It's not my ideal situation, but I'd be lying if I said she isn't growing on me as the week goes on. How could she not be? She's a dog. I love dogs.
Perhaps more importantly, I've added to my desk-space cache of wonderful/dumb sports memorabilia. Remember when I set up my new desk area and put a few Cleveland-based sports figures on the top to...iduno, inspire me? Thanks to the going-out-of-business sale at Big Fun on Coventry (Big Fun is a toy store that's been on an artsy/hip street in Cleveland for the past 28 years), I've been able to scoop up some really delightfully dumb toys.
I'm proud to add two Dennis Rodman headliners (one blonde, one red hair), Randy Johnson, Mo Vaughn, Chipper Jones, David Justice, Drew Bledsoe, Brett Favre, Jerry Stackhouse, Hideo Nomo, and two Boobie Gibson bobbleheads. Why two Boobie bobbles? Because they had two and they were $3.50 each. How could I possibly pass that up? The whole lot of this stuff - with the Gibson bobbles being the most expensive by a longshot - was about $18.
The moral of the story is that if a toy store is going out of business, you'd better get in there while the getting is good, and maybe even work part-time so that you have the flexibility to do just that.
In other news, I'm starting to think about other places to go in the world besides the wonderful, gives-me-chills-to-think-about list of places I've already been. The questions have basically inspired my wife to be afraid of Zika virus again, because the two most likely places to go on a long trip would be Asia and South America - both of which are highlighted on most Zika maps you find online. This is particularly concerning for her as we've considered having a child in the future, and Zika is bad for that.
I, as usual, am downplaying the risks of any/everything. I don't really know how to handle this one though. I don't believe that we'd really be at any risk as long as we behaved responsibly. We went through this before going to Costa Rica 15 months ago and Tanzania 3 months ago. In both cases, of course, we were totally fine. Particularly notable is Tanzania because Zika maps show it as dangerous and yet the country has reported 0 total cases. How can that be? Because it's in the right climate for Zika. That's all.
I don't know what will come of this, but it's an interesting conundrum as of right now. The fallout could be that we go somewhere entirely different or that we refuse to go anywhere tropical until we're well into parenthood, but that seems insane and unlikely. Perhaps it means coming up with a wholly new plan or visiting a place similar to somewhere we've already been because known commodities can still be a good thing.
For example, I would love to go back to Italy. I miss it all the time. I miss everything about it except the fact that we were living illegally within its borders - and frankly, I even kind of miss that part. If we took a few weeks and went back to Italy, we could recreate all sorts of experiences we had before or we could go to all the places we thought about going but didn't have the chance to go (an amazing thing: we lived in Italy for 9 months and traveled almost every weekend [to other countries and within Italy] and there are plenty of places that we didn't go. Siena? Nope. Assisi? Missed it. Parma? Bologna? The Dolomites? Nope. Uh-uh. Couldn't swing it. Isn't that crazy?). I want to find the nooks and crannies of the country that we only just began to explore by taking weekends to places with 1 lodging place, like Avio.
I might just need to email our former boss in Milan and ask if we could be hired legally and, oh, I don't know, move back there and teach English more often than we did before. What could go wrong? We couldn't get deported if we were there legally, so who cares?
The moral of the story here is to do what makes you happy. Buying dumb little sports figures for very cheap is fun to me, so I did that today. Going to Italy makes me happy, so maybe I should look into being back there more often or full time or something. Being with dogs makes me happy, so we're dog-sitting - even if this particular dog made me crazy for a short stretch. Life's too short not to do or see or get what you want out of it. Go have fun.
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