Yeah, don’t get excited. Just because it’s the first doesn’t mean that it’s going to be any better than last year’s drivel.
And now it’s nearly the end of the day and I’ve got a rehearsal tonight, so let me just try to go over the last 5 or 6 days quickly and get out of here.
I guess, for starters, I must admit that I relapsed on the damned cigarettes last night. I swear, I can be such a dumb ass at times. See, I entered a “blind draw” dart tournament (something I haven’t done since before I was married and had to do it to pay the rent, and I drew a really bad partner. Truth be told, I haven’t been much of a darter since I quit drinking, either. So I don’t know if it was to try to capture lightning in a bottle or trying to calm down or what, but I told myself, “Don’t smoke. Don’t smoke. Don’t smoke.”
And then, naturally, I bummed a couple of smokes off of my partner.
We got killed, by the way.
At any rate, my new quit date is now the evening of January 4, 2009. Which was 5 weeks after my original quit date.
Dammit.
Let’s see. My last entry before this one was on the 30th, huh? Well, the 31st being New Year’s Eve, I spent it wondering if my neighbors would succeed in burning down my house with their fireworks. They shot them off at random intervals during the day; then inexplicably missed their opportunity at midnight. It was about 12:20 when they uncorked the bulk of their assault – which was the biggest one yet. I stood on my deck taking pictures of their pyrotechnics, certain that one of the pine trees in my yard was going to start flaming. Nothing happened, however. Might have been nice if it had. Then my insurance company would *have* to put a new roof on the house.
Betsy Jones and I went to the zoo on New Year’s day (I’ll upload some pictures at some point). Unfortunately, it was fairly cold and none of the primates were allowed to be outside. We got in for half price because of that, so I won’t complain too much. We’d been trying to get to the zoo for nearly a year, so when we finally both had a day off we weren’t about to let some cold weather get in the way.
Went to the Oakland Cemetery after the zoo (they’re right next to each other), but it was a bit too cool to spend much time there.
Actually, it’s been quite cold for quite a while in and around Atlanta. When I drove in this morning, it was 18 degrees out – and I don’t believe it ever got above freezing last Sunday.
Speaking of Sunday, my terrible church orchestra may be coming to an end. Got an email from director last week stating that the church has decided that 1}They don’t have enough money to run a decent music program, and 2}They’re not sure they like the way the music program is going under his leadership. Admittedly, it’s a terrible church orchestra (and the choir is worse), but it’s still light years ahead of where it was when I first started playing there 15 or so years ago.
You got that part, right? I might have to start looking for Easter and Christmas gigs for the first time in 15 years this year. Maybe if the church hadn’t spent untold millions of dollars to construct a new – and completely unnecessary – wing of classrooms and offices two years ago, they’d have enough money to adequately fun, say, a children’s handbell choir. Instead, I’m going to have to find a freaking Easter gig. Merry Chrimmus to me.
As I mentioned, I’ve got a band rehearsal tonight. First one in several weeks and I’m pretty sure we’ll be rusty. And my horn’s at home, so I need to get going.
TWD