With my miracle of modern technology and by the power of George’s infatuation with our town’s mayor I bring you pictures fresh from this morning’s parade. I will try to post them in order because that is extremely important to this photo essay.

George gets her attention

We Take the Creepy Stalker Shot

The Mayor calls George over

CONTACT!

Really no matter what happens I do love this weekend. The parade in our town is awesomely ridiculous. I am not normally a parade guy because parades usually contain clowns and everyone knows that I have a strong aversion to adults disguising their identities but this one gets me out every year.

George stalks our female mayor and he is a big fan of the whole experience. He makes one of those giant water coolers that you usually find on golf courses or bolted to the back of construction trucks filled with Bloody Marys. There is a little trouble in our area because people go mark their spots days before the event (us included) but this year we are all being held to a seven o’clock tonight honor system.

Later that day we have neighbors who throw an insane neighborhood fourth party that I look forward too every year. Good food, good friends, cold beer, and I don’t have to clean it up. a perfect party in my opinion. Then the holiday mood continues throughout the rest of the weekend. I need to trim the clover patch (awesome, that sounded like some kind of perverted code) and I don’t even mind doing that.

Tonight is the big fireworks show and we have somehow weaseled out way into a party that happens directly under the show. They are going off so close it gets a little freaky at times but way cool. I’m going to try and get some pictures this year but I usually forget my camera. We shall see.

The other good part about us not hosting the fourth events is that George and other friends who shall remain nameless don’t feel the need to entertain the crowd with explosive devices. They all have a true passion as well as a horrendous safety record. Running, ducking, diving, and hose work are all standard operating procedure when my friends start lighting ordinance. I am not a fan of home show pyrotechnics myself but I am always ready to laugh at the misfortune of others. In fact I wrote one of those pithy tag line things that I just need to put under a picture of a firework injury.

Fireworks; leaving permanent reminders of poor decision making since the twelfth century.

I started to write a post about how behind I am with all of my computer to do stuff but I bored the living shit out of myself so I slammed on the brakes. Big effing shocker that with the weather being so beautiful and the house completely torn apart I can’t find time to plant my fat ass in front of a computer. I really need to shut the eff up. And speaking of up shutting…

I got to a weird irritation point on Monday where I needed to close my office door and not speak to anyone for an hour. It was weird but the day went so extremely poorly that I couldn’t stand the sound of a human voice. I still don’t know what was going on but everyone that I encountered was a contender for asshole of the year and they just kept coming. The straw that broke this camels back was my genus HR guy trying to sneak in a superweekend which is against company policy during season.

It seems petty but this asshole has had to sit through hours of me lecturing other employees and even formally writing them up for pulling similar things. We all work in a business that has to make a years worth of money in a couple of really busy months two times every year. It’s a seasonal weather dependent business. Vacation days are blacked out and very hard to come by during this period and you would not believe some of the shenanigans that my people try to pull.

I have had people actually stop by funerals around these holidays and grab programs and prayer cards when they had no relation to the deceased. I have had doctors notes forged for everything you can think of only to have the whole thing retracted when they were asked for the name and phone number of the scribbled doctor’s name at the bottom. Broken vehicles and houses are usually used with confidence until I want to see the repair. It’s a never ending battle for me to keep my people in their jobs and one of the folks that is supposed to be helping me with this fight tries to sneak one past.

I am now torturing him. Mercilessly. Like I have nothing better to do. I really should stop but I’m still pissed and the humiliation is slowly making that go away. After he went around and apologized to the rest of the team for his transgression I got worse. I keep getting to the point where I’m going to stop and then he opens his mouth and I get angry all over again. During my hour of silence I was supposedly contemplating the future of his employment. By the time I came out of my office he had completed a weeks worth of work and volunteered to complete some much needed building cleaning and maintenance.

I need a couple of days off myself but like every other ahole that works here my rest will have to wait. I need to move to one of those European countries where they take a months worth of “holiday” and when they come back their jobs are waiting for them.

The house is still in disarray and it has everyone just a little off. In an effort to slow our current economic downslide Liza has taken a couple of part time summer jobs and that has the kids thrown a little off. Work is not going as well as could be expected so I myself am, as always, a little off. To sum up, things around Casa De Stupidtom are just a little off and it’s beginning to get annoying.

The weirdest development in the whole refinish the floors experience has been our bedding situation. Our footboard and bed frame were stolen by scrappers. Max’s bed didn’t survive disassembly and his hand-me-down mattress finally had to go. Maggie’s bed that I had been keeping together with minor engineering miracles finally revealed itself as an unsolvable puzzle of wood floor destruction so it got a one way ticket to the curb. This puts Liza, Maggie, and I on floor mattresses in our respective and now looking like we have twelve foot ceiling rooms. Max is a sleeping nomad choosing one of the downstairs couches as he has now skirted the no TV in the bedroom rule. At some point I am going to make a cheap furniture salesman very happy.

And speaking of happy today is our nineteenth wedding anniversary. Nineteen is the bronze anniversary for those of you who are out of the loop so I have been working for months hand hammering some armor for my bride. I decided on a breast plate and shield because all good anniversary gifts should benefit both parties. I left the spear out on purpose because at various moments in my existence I am justifiably killable so why tempt fate by arming the woman who is shackled to me until death I do part.

Everyone have a great day because I have a feeling that my own is going to be just a little off.