I was taking down some banners from a recent promotion outside the tiger yard. Two adults were sheparding a group of obnoxious four and five year olds (they were!). The kids were hollering stuff like "Hey Mr. Tiger! along with a combination of bathroom euphemisms. Real Alqonquin round table stuff.

The Tiger was staring at them and occasionally looking my way to see what I was doing. After I finished removing my second banner, I swear she was looking at me as if to say "Can you shut those ankle biters up????"

Picking up our story from the Meltdown post, I tell my lovely children that we'll do dinner together once I get out of my Thursday meeting, which of course is running long.

My phone rings with my eldest saying her friend who actually went in for surgery on Friday, wanted to catch a movie that night for being laid up. Since the two of them had the good taste to pick the Ricky Gervais movie, I relented. Right at the same time, the 15 year old accepted an invite from a selfish friend and a ride without checking with me, or her mom out of town, or well anybody. This would have left the mighty number one son to fend for himself. I was not cool with that. Apparently, I can be pretty scary, as I told her she doesn't leave until I get there. "But so and so are already on their way" In my best Will Arnett/Alec Baldwin voice, I replied I didn't care.

Having read the riot act in that voice, I sent her on her way with the warning that if we have this discussion like this again, it will end in her not going anywhere.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.

Having reasserted my Dad-itude, I was almost ready for Friday. I hadn't written about it for fear of jinxing something, but I struck up two friendships in late July early August with two women around my age. One is a platonic sort of thing, we get together once in awhile and enjoy having a modicum of a social life -- but she was clear about a nonromantic thing and that was fine. The other resulted in a fix up from an old college acquaintance and I guess my radar must be off for such matters. That seemed to be scooting along in precisely the right direction. We had a good time, seeing a couple of shows, had similar outlooks, enjoyed some of the same stuff, I even charmed her daughters. I'm thinking, yee ha, finally, been awhile and all that. Might even have a date for the (e:Ladycroft) nuptials. Room for perhaps a little optimism. But, no.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

I get this note yesterday. The ex and I went to dinner, had drinks.....blah, blah, blah madeuphangovercakes. For crying outloud, I know shit happens and it ain't the end of the world, but just like the moment your hair starts to grey you should be zit proof, there should be an age moratorium for games playing. There ought to be some cosmic ordinance that mandates a distinct cutoff in crapola in relationships. You'd think people who've been through kids, failed marriages, etc would be immune or at the very least a little sick of the nonsense.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit drinking woodgrain alcohol.

As the song goes, alone again naturally.

And then, that football game today?? what the hell was that? If you are on twitter, follow Daryltalley and pthomas, funniest parts of an abysmal piece of tv.

Got to get some hockey tickets soon.

where I sound like a real, genuine,...tool

It's surprising what can make you raw, or then again maybe not. Whenever the ex's job takes her out of town or vice versa, the other steps up and runs the child show solo for the duration. Been doing it long enough that I really don't think about it.

The young man is bunking on my couch, while the girls are holding court at the house. They get a little taste of responsibility and independence, but close enough I can smell the smoke. The kids and I fall into a pretty great flow and as everytime their mom goes away, she returns to see all three still alive, fed, etc, so I think I'm doing pretty good.

We're in day 2 of a 3 day stint. My mother in law calls and wonders "What are they doing for dinner?", meaning the girls. Now, she is one of the most giving, good hearted souls that I know, but the way she managed to ask the question felt like somebody starting pouring bourbon in an open wound on me.

I sat there in my car outside number one son's guitar lesson and just ate that feeling of upset. I know she didn't mean anything but the way it sounded was nausea inducing, like I was less of a parent because I don't reside at the house anymore or that my parenting involvement is suspect since my ex is out of town. "Can he handle it without the former Mrs?' I sat there in a numbed stupor texting this to the lovely mother of my children who talked me back down. I don't know if it is a feeling of spinning my wheels a little bit at work or just remembering what it was like in the eye of the gossip hurricane at our church a few years ago or just being overtired in general. But I needed a moment.

She called, we chatted, and I felt better after initially feeling worse. I started to tell a tale and couldn't get to the end of it. What makes that silly is what provoked it was nothing by comparison to some of the sins that I've already strode through. I'm not sure if that is making any sense. I know my Mom-in-law wasn't out to upset, just to help, but sometimes something benign can start a whole sordid turn. I vented, I baked (cookies) and am better now.

Show's over, move along folks...

Didn't have to be anywhere yesterday, so I wasn't. The weather was so god awful, I didn't feel real guilty about it. Told the former Mrs. Mike that if the laundry facilities in the basement were free, church was going to have to wait. It did. I came, I saw, I laundered. It was good thing, got caught up on some the hard work that my DVR had been doing during the week.

With the local professional football team having me consider becoming a CFL fan with their epic badness, I appreciated the BBC showing a handful of episodes of "Top Gear," easily the most fun car show ever. Between laundry loads, I caught the pilot for "Eastwick" which shows a little promise. The people who used to make "Scrubs" are split between "Cougartown" and something with Patricia Heaton, which was so memorable I dove back into my book pile for save my intellect while the Bills continued to hurt my feelings.

Got two reminders about age this weekend. An attempt to go see Living Color was belayed by the fact that they were playing in a Toronto club and not starting till after 11. Both my potential traveling partner and I realized that neither one of us was 23 anymore. Neither one of us was really keen on tackling the Queen E at 3 in the morning either. Instead, I went with another friend to support her daughter at a bar on Chippewa. The bar's owners are depending on the bartenders to bring in the trade. There's a recipe for long term success (please note sarcasm). She did well, despite an owner giving her cues as to when to this or that. Dude, let the employees do the jobs you hired them for, there is plenty of time to run the bar into the ground. She has the right attitude, get some experience and bolt for better surroundings with time. The bar itself caters to the early drinker crowd, so I felt a little out of place, not nearly as much as the skeevy perv who sat at the bar all night, eyeing the bartenders, but a merry time was had. Made me long for a nice unpretentious old man bar, though.

got a twitter account and some of the followers make sense (including some of you nice folk), others I have no idea who the hell some of them are. That along with the fact that "Follow Friday" is all the rage and I don't know the point of that have left me a little bumfuzzled. If I'm to be collected, there better be something in it for me.

Maybe it was because summer was such a nonstarter, but it seems like comfort food season got here quicker than usual.

I think it is great Rio got the 2016 Olympics. It's good for it to move around as that is the true Olympic spirit. I'm a little confused at the amount of people who rooted for Chicago's failure simply because the President tried to help the cause (like leaders too). I understand, hell I respect, polite disagreement, but this sniveling resentment is a crappy lesson to exhibit. It's a crappy example to set and makes me think Maureen O'dowd had a point a few weeks ago in writing that there is a faction of the population that had just lost its collective shit about the current office holder. Lousy state of affairs.

Where my head is at the moment.

And so it goes.

It felt a little weird to be off from work today. It was a previous scheduled day off and my being in the office wouldn't have changed a thing from what occured, but it isn't often that you lose a colleague and it gets picked up by the AP.

I love my job, but I haven't been in it long enough to form any kind of special bond with the living collection other than I think I'm an accepted part of the fabric. I have a great appreciation and a tremendous amount of respect for those folks who work directly with the animals. It's a tough job under the best of circumstances and when an animal gets sick, these guys are rock stars.

Our friend Buki was a favorite with visitors and staff. She had a playful manner and a sense of fun that put everybody at ease. A case in point, I occasionally am pressed into service in a spokesperson role, which is no big deal, I'm fairly comfortable in that role. That is kind of ironic as school oral reports were always moment of fear. In any case, early last summer, I came down with Bell's Palsy. I've since beat it back, but for a time the right side of my face was frozen in a bit of scowl. That is kind of handy when you have teenage daughters, not so much when you are representing your institution.

Anywho, when the terrific public relations coordinator is out, I get the call. She was away for a live shot on one of the local morning shows. The day before my boss told me nobody could see anything from my affliction. While that was nice to hear, it didn't stop my worry. I'm irish, it's how I roll.

The butterflies only amplified when the reporter asked me to face to the right (my afflicted side). I knew my talking points and whatnot, but I was having a tough time concentrating on my answers thinking that I must have looked, I dunno, scary or something. Trying to remember myself, I think I sounded nervous the first time out despite the reporter's kind words. I should mention that Buki was sniffing around a little behind us while we were talking. I think mostly to see who had the jelly beans, an occasional treat. The initial segment finished and I felt a breeze behind me. I don't know if she sneezed, exhaled or just sighed at the silly visitors, but whatever it was, I like to think the old show business pro was telling me to chill.

So I did. The rest was easy



Thanks, friend :)

Actually, walking the bounds of the marina last night, when it was cold and whatnot -- when better to go? No lines.

Caught some interesting images



I can't decide if that cloud looks like the Milennium Falcon or Underdog.







My creativity was a little pushed as it was getting chilly out there, but something about the color of the sky made me wish to be a sailboat owner. The races were going off in the distance.

Looked nice.

Joe Wilson revealed himself to be a real twit. Yelling "You Lie" during the President's speech the other night was the second most childish thing to happen in the news this week. The first being the hullaballoo about the President talking to school kids. I have a hard time fathoming that, remembering by sent to classes to hear Nixon for pete's sake. The whole week makes me think there is some truth in Maureen O'dowd's column in yesterday's New York Times.

Not sure what to make of the whole Mickey Kearns vs. Bryon Brown dustup. I went to a function and Kearns did listen to one of my long held gripes that what is working in the city is largely in spite of City Hall. I came away certain of only that the Irish Times knows how to properly pour a pint. The whole scene reminded me of a scene in "The West Wing," where President Bartlett maintained that the one thing government can do well is collect money then put it back out in the community. First guy to have that attack of common sense can have my vote. I am a little bumfuzzled at our current leader who went confronted with a question, concern, etc, his first reaction is to disavow any knowledge of the incident. That just ultimately breeds suspicion and eventually even contempt. Either case, Kearns' suprisingly strong polling as made it an entertaining race. Thanks for that Carl.

I'm thinking good thoughts for an ailing friend.

A week of meetings, essential and otherwise has otherwise fried me. I've spent the first part of the morning with coffee and ironing. Tomorrow, I slept to better get my mojo working for Tuesday. Enjoy opening day, everybody as Tom Brady will force home some harsh realities on us Western New York Football fans tomorrow night.

Things have to be looking up. I have dibs on a Springsteen ticket