Beginning to Reflect
June 26, 2007
A new week begins. The countdown is on for Vegas bachelor party which will be taking place this coming weekend in...Philadelphia.
What city were you expecting?
I'm travelling to the Jersey Shore on Friday to visit with the Politician, and then we are hoping Gian gets out of work earlier than he is presently expecting so the three of us can hang out for the night. Then, the next morning I will travel to the City of Brotherly Love with Gian to meet up with Vegas and the gang to catch Mets and Phillies. This will be my first ever trip to Philadelphia, but unfortunately there will be little tourist action. This will be all about baseball, the boys, and having a good time. To be quite honest, I'm looking forward to have a "guys-only" getaway.
Don't get me wrong; I enjoy the time I spend with Batgirl, but my nights out with the boys locally seems to be getting more and more scarce now with Nern's entry to fatherhood, Ren being a husband and still preferring to spend his weekends out late with this hot wife and living the good life, The Attorney doing what he always has and that is disappear with Kat for the weekends, and Master K in hiding where he lives in NH with his fiance. The times they are a changing.
My brother, his girlfriend, and the rest of my immediate family left for their Mediterranean cruise on Friday. I opted to not go as far back as the day my mom asked me if I wanted to go. #1, I was looking for a new job at the time and didn't know what my vacation time would be if I landed something, and #2 was the amount of money. I was looking at being committed to just under a grand to go somewhere I just have no desire to go: Europe (no offense to my UK readers, I just prefer a cruise in the Caribbean). Not to mention, some of Batgirl's co-workers from the school were going to be on this trip as it was organized by a faculty member my mom is still friendly with. Obviously Batgirl, being such a private person who prefers to keep her personal and professional life separate, was not excited with the opportunity either.
So, here we are, stuck at home watching over Batgirl's black lab who had two fatty cysts removed from her side and neck. Because the neck incision is in a spot where they can't put a cone to keep the dog from reaching it with her hind leg to scratch, we had to watch over the dog like a hawk. Sure I didn't have to, but I felt bad my girlfriend was going to be chained to her house. We took shifts doing our errands, one sitting with dog and the other doing their own thing. It's actually going to be this way through the next two weeks, so thankfully I won't repeat another dull weekend in the house making sure the dog doesn't pop her stitches.
We did have an episode with the neck incision late Saturday night after we finished an awesome steak dinner cooked on the grill. We were getting primed for a long overdue night of sex, when Batgirl noticed blood could see the flap of skin jutting out. Thankfully, there is a 24-hour veterinarian hospital we could go to, but unfortunately it was over 25 minutes away. What a looong ride that was! Obviously the need for the babysitting was made clear by that event.
Oh, and we didn't get to have hot sex until Sunday night.
In any event, having the house to myself got me to start thinking about my time here. I regret how I never pushed myself to put the work into it that my brother has become more motivated to do. I'm not handy by any means, but I should have been smart and forced the issue to get working on the place last summer. However, it was a busy summer with many weekends of weddings and other plans, and I just wanted to have me a good time with my girlfriend on the weekends we could reserve for us. Now, my pleasure seeking summer of '06 will hit me in the wallet due to the fact the house's value isn't what it could have been had we worked through the last several months. I haven't had a summer to really speak of since I was in college, and put that priority in the wrong place. My old job's busy season was every summer, and I often put in late hours each night. The weekends were such a blessing, who wants to spend them doing shit I don't really enjoy or get much out of.
Funny how more things change, the more they stay the same.
I think for another post this week, I'm going to talk about the memories I've stored up in living here the last 4 years. The reality started hitting me when I was at the supermarket about 2 weeks ago. I worked around the outside of the house then drove around the neighborhood Saturday, I really began to start thinking to myself, "Wow. I'm really going to be closing a chapter in my life."
It's a bit scary to be perfectly honest with you. I always hoped that my brother and I would be able to stay put right up until it was time for the other to move in with his future spouse. The option would be to either by the other out, or sell the place outright. In a way that is what we're doing, except I'm going back to my parents because renovations are about to begin and it makes no sense for me to invest my $14K-Plus of equity if the real estate market sucks right now. Even if I was moving in with Batgirl, I'd still be giving up my independence. At least with my parents, the most questioning I will probably get is from my mother and that is whether or not I will be home for dinner on a given night.
So, I'll continue to think of that list that already began to register through my mind over the weekend (believe me, I had a lot of time to think when I was sitting with the dog). Anyone else been through this nostalgic phase when moving out or moving on to live with a love interest?
posted by That 30's Guy @ 12:01 AM,
