I just took a few moments to reflect back and realize what a super busy weekend I just had! It all started with a great blast from the past as one of my really good friends came to visit from California. She was really here for a conference but we took the time to re-connect. I picked her up at the airport and we stopped by to pick up Amy after she had gotten off work. Andrew was spending the night over at his friend’s house so we headed downtown. I think I should take the time to mention that my friend and I were high school friends and while we have talked online and such for the past few years, we hadn’t actually seen each other since high school. (For you math geeks, that’s 14 years). We had a great time. Chatting about old times, talking about what we are doing now etc. I think Amy and I got home at close to 12:30.
At 1:40am Saturday morning I got a phone call from my nephew Noah. Keep in mind that I just got to sleep at like 1am. So I pry myself awake and grab the phone in time to see the “New Voicemail” light. I check it and it’s just the usual:
“Hey Uncle Stephen. It’s Noah, give me a call when you get this.”
Yeah, I am not going to call anyone back at 1:40am so I toss the phone back down and role over thinking it was all done. Oh how wrong I was. It’s so very appropriate that my phone rings with the song of Yakkity Sax. It’s Noah again.
“Hello?” I mumbled someone un-intelligibly.
“Uncle Stephen, are you asleep?” You could hear him suppress a giggle at this point
“I’m not now Noah, what’s up?”
“Mom had the baby, it’s a girl!” He was so very excited
Another interjection here, my sister was pregnant (obviously she’s not anymore). They had been trying for a while and the whole thing was touch and go for a while. I know, for Noah, this was a very exciting thing as he didn’t have a sister and they were all excited about the new arrival. Here is the problem. I talked with my sister later on Saturday and learned that the baby was born at 6pm. That’s pacific time, which would be 9pm eastern time. Yet, here we are back at 1:40am, close to 4 hours later.
“Noah, it’s almost 2am, give your mom a hug for me and I will call her later on” mumble mumble mumble
“What’s the matter Uncle Stephen, you don’t like phone calls this late?” Giggles are no longer suppressed.
“I will get you back for this, good bye Noah”
The next morning I wake up and am sitting on the couch surfing the Tivo. (This is my usual routine when I wake up on a weekend). It wasn’t until I was up for a long while that I turned to Amy and said, with a very curious look on my face.
“Noah called last night?” The memory of this flooding back
“Yeah, your sister had the baby” Amy says this like I am crazy and don’t remember the last 12 hours. (She is probably right)
I made the mental note to call her later in the day after things have calmed down for them and then turned back to the Tivo and un-paused the Myth-busters episode. After the episode Amy and I went down and got some Chai and I came back to finish up my homework. Thankfully all my homework assignments lately have been writing papers. And we all know how much I enjoy writing. It wasn’t long until my paper had practically written itself and I was done. I had a few hours to kill off so I went down to a local pub where they do a weekly poker tourney. I have a few friends from work that go there to play. I had made plans for the evening so I knew I wouldn’t be staying long. They do a “freeroll” tourney where you can win gift certificates and such so I wouldn’t be loosing money.
I got in and sat with some of the guys from work. I am the type of player that likes to joke around. Probably too much of watching the celebrity poker tourneys. I just like to have fun, it is a social game after all. The game started at 4pm and I knew I needed to leave around 5ish. There was a point where I was pretty short stacked, but I have always learned that it’s possible to come back. I did. The sad thing is that I was purposely playing sloppy. I knew I wasn’t staying so I made some bad calls. Some of them worked out to my favor, the rest made for good comedy. Around 5:20pm I was doing decently, but needed to get going so I was dealt my hands and just left them face down. When the guy across the table raised, I threw my chips in and went all in. He flips over and had an Ace King. I flip over and sure enough, King Queen. (I swear, I didn’t look prior to that) The flop came out with a King and some other crap cards. The whole run was crap save for the king and I lost to his Ace kicker. But it was still fun. I grabbed my stuff and said good bye to folks on my way out the door.
I called up my friend again and asked if she wanted to hang out this evening. Amy and I had already talked about it, she was going to be out with her friends practically all day so she was fine with it. Only this time I had an extra plan in mind.
The friend that was in town was one of the girls in high school that I had always had a crush on. We joke and flirt online all the time but nothing had ever become of it. But, now was my chance to do something that I never got the chance to do back in high school. I threw what I needed in my bag and headed off to the metro. There was a big storm and lots of traffic, they even had one of the freeways blocked off. This wasn’t going to stop me though, I had waited 14 years to do this. I took the metro to downtown and walked through the rain to her hotel. She opened the door to her room and invited me in. I was so excited and nervous all at the same time. I walked in and set my bag down on the chair while she sat down on the couch. I reached in the back and pulled out what I needed and joined her on the couch.
“Will you FINALLY sign my yearbook!”
I am not sure what you were thinking, little potty brains. She was a really good friend all those years ago but she had never signed my yearbook. I had always given her crap about it so I thought it would be fun to have her sign it now. We spent the evening going from front to back through the yearbook. She knew about nearly everyone. After that we grabbed some food and met up with Paul at a pool place. I smoked him on two games and then it was time to call it a night.
The rest of the weekend went as usual, with one major exception. Charlie is sick. We have been keeping a close eye on him all weekend. He did some throwing up on Friday, and hasn’t really eaten much, if at all on Saturday and Sunday. He drinks water and is still pretty alert. And he isn’t peeing anything but pee at this point. But we are really worried about him. We have an appointment today with the vet so we can get him properly checked out. Poor little guy. Please send him your happy thoughts and I will post an update about him as soon as I have more news!
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