Emotional trauma is too much and I end up drinking on Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Wednesday saw another lost ice hockey game.
Friday is to be a big day - we should be finishing the EOS-PM1 verification loads cycle Craig-Bampton model. But we discover a slight problem at 3:30pm - but certainly before we have sent the model out. As the hour grows later, I start writing my home and mobile phone numbers down for people to call me over the weekend if necessary. And discover that I cannot remember my home telephone number. The home telephone number that I have had for 13 years (with three different area codes as I keep getting split). I know that it starts with a 4 and ends with a 7, but I'm missing the middle 5 digits. I think about calling Bobi who should have my home telephone number. But then I realize that I have it on my other business cards in my wallet and all is saved.
I go home, lift weights, and prepare for a 10:30 ice hockey game in Torrance. (Actually called the Bay Harbor ice rink on Western just south of Sepulveda.) We win the game. But the other team's best player takes a slap shot and hits me in the right elbow - just to the side of the padding. And for the next 30 seconds I have no feeling in my lower arm and hand. Our goalie, recognizing that I am hurt, is yelling at our players to ice the puck. But we cannot seem to get control of the puck and ice it. I have picked myself up off the ice and my defensive partner gets the puck and, instead of icing it, passes it to me! I use my good arm on the stick to sweep the puck to a teammate and I am able to get off the ice. The feeling in the arm and hand comes back quickly and I re-join the game a bit later.
After the game, just past midnight, the truck must be feeling the effects of the impact because the truck does not take the 710 north to head for home. It continues south on the 405 to the 22 east and parks across the street from the Frat House. Well, seeing that I am here, I might as well go in. I join the activities at 12:30 and hang out until closing. ChiChi is not there. I end up at home alone at 2:30 am.
The alarm goes off at 5:45am. I hit the snooze button and sleep until 5:55 am. I get up, seeing that there is nothing left to accomplish in bed, and start the day's activities. They include laundry, a good bicycle ride, a haircut, mowing the lawn, wiring an in-car camera for the racecar, and building some storage racks in the garage. I pretend to be a construction worker and use terms like 2 by 4, joist, girder, and claw hammer - though Nopey is the only one around to hear me use these terms. Now I am tired. I start a nap at 2:09pm. At 3:10 pm the telephone rings with an important question about...EOS. After taking care of the question, I almost fall asleep again before the telephone rings with an important question about...EOS. After answering that question, I get up and lift weights. And get ready to head to a new club in Long Beach called Fire Island. A must attend club according to Thomas – who does my hair.
I get to Fire Island near 9:30 and have no trouble getting in – there is no line. The club is nice with a great sound system, though they play crappy circuit party music. The crowd is mixed race, mixed gender, and mixed gender identity. But every last person in the club is a yuppie or wanna be yuppie - every one has a designer label on the outside of their clothing. Guess, Hilfiger, CK, Armani, Versace, Sketchers. I manage to stay for about an hour and a half. But only because I hang out with the lesbians at the pool table. I consider whether to throw in words like joist, stringer, I- beam, and gypsum board, but I do not. As I leave, there is a line 50-70 people deep trying to get into the club. And they are probably wondering "Why is this guy leaving?"
Sunday I get out for a good bicycle ride before it rains. And then lift weights and comb the Sunday newspaper – looking for insurrection around the world. And then I start drinking. But quit before too much damage is done. Later Nopester and I get out for a walk. We take a different route and come across a house that has statues of lions guarding the walkway. The neural net in Nopester's brain processes the data and comes up with a near match to "cat". And he wants to attack the lion statues! But I subdue him and we continue walking - just barely getting wet when it starts to rain.
I have a dream. With a recurring theme. The Lizard people have kidnapped the Boss. Last time they tortured him by making him listen to Garth Brooks' music and making him watch frog-based television commercials. This time they make him watch videos of grown men racing riding lawn mowers and grown women have a log throwing contest. Seeing that I have probably known the Boss the longest of anybody in the department, I felt that it was my duty to tell his wife that he had been kidnapped. So I drive over to their house and find that she is gone also. And there is a ransom note from the Mushroom people demanding a wetter and warmer environment. It has words to the effect of "Stop researching global warming now. Or else." I wake up in a cold sweat and have trouble getting back to sleep.