Where do I begin to describe yesterday? A day completely engorged
with activities from oh dark thirty to my late night semi-conscious ramblings
on Keene Friend’s couch. My wife would only permit a long delayed thunder run
north to Keene if we accomplished several tasks she deemed necessary as we prepare
to sell the house.
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| The Needed Repair |
I had to repair the lattice under the front porch which the
despairing winter winds blew out at some point. This involved crawling under
the porch with the obligatory multiple head strikes as bending over becomes
increasingly challenging with each year. Buddy squirmed his way under the porch
with me to offer his expert advice on the repairs. I was able to put the
original lattice back together well enough that a trip to Home Depot to buy a
new panel wasn’t needed. I was relatively proud of my accomplishment until my
wife pointed out that was just the beginning of our morning. I was soon
engrossed in myriad tasks in the basement as I moved deck and porch furniture
out of winter storage and then helped sort through the debris of ten year’s accumulation.
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| Buddy Assisting Under the Porch |
One of the good things about the constant military moves was
the need to jettison un-needed items when the time came to move each couple of
years. We’ve been here for ten years now and everything that moved down the
food chain of necessity invariably ended up in the basement, hence our task
yesterday. We’ve lived in thirteen different houses during our marriage and we
always seem to expand or contract possessions to fill whatever size house we
were in. Unfortunately this is a very big house and the expansion continued unabated
until last year’s decision to sell.
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| Repair Completed |
We made a sizeable dent in the stashed items yesterday rightfully
consigning some to the rubbish while others will achieve new lives as donations
to several charities. While my wife was toeing a very strict line on getting
this work done I knew she was also psyched to see Keene Friend after her long
absence and in no small measure also re-acquaint herself with tax free TJ Maxx.
The Keene Friend and I were summarily deposited at the Elm
City Brewery while she set out for her reunion armed with a bevy of birthday
gift cards. I think we felt a slight tremor in the earth when TJ Maxx first
sighted her entering the parking lot. The Elm City bar was full and ably “manned”
by the very comely best bar tendress in Keene. She had Keene Kolschs served and
ready without even hearing our order as Keene Friend and I took up station on
one of the walls. The Red Sox and Yankees game was playing on the huge
television so we were able to follow that while also continuing our usual
highly intellectual conversation. A young guy asked the television be switched
to a soccer game which didn’t go over very well with the room. I think he heard
my rather loudly stated opinion of the switch and of soccer in general. He
asked the television be returned to the Sox game to stave off the lynch mob
which was gathering. The kolschs slid down with their usual ease as the Sox pummeled
the Yankees which were almost as much fun as spending time with Keene Friend.
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| The M.I.A. Birthday Boy |
We reached out to the Cantankerous Friend (whose birthday is today!) but he was
being a dutiful son and squiring his dad around to some racing venues. We
passed on our intended itinerary for the rest of the day to his mother hoping
he would catch up with us. We were equally unsuccessful in reeling in Keene
Friend 2 from his Saturday pursuits. We did engage with another high school friend,
my college roommate, from his Pittsburgh haunts. For some reason he was on a
Billy Jack rant and we were forced to remember some of the more obscure lines
from that 1970s masterpiece of filmmaking. As the Sox game wound down we
reluctantly bid adieu to our favorite bar tendress and wandered into downtown for
our next destination, Scores sports pub.
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| Keene Friend At Scores Yesterday |
This place has become our go to terminus since it arrived on
the scene a few pub crawls ago. Keene State College was having an alumni event
in the back room but we were able to get our usual table right in the middle of
the main room and additional beers were soon flying down range. The owner of the
bar knows Keene Friend and wandered by to spend some time with us and told us
why so many beautiful young ladies were massing as more and more walked in.
There was a reunion for the college’s lacrosse team scheduled for the evening. At
certain points we were literally surrounded as crowds of beautiful young ladies
swirled around our table. We were properly respectful, trying to keep our eyes
raised to the dozens of televisions but this was not easy.
Keene Friend and I astutely observed that apparently all female
lacrosse players are incredibly lovely, at least that was definitely the trend
last night and this was well before beer goggles were in place. We considered
this an education in the importance of Title IX in college sports and were
asking where we could sign up for season tickets. I dutifully reported, via
text, to my wife that we were surrounded by beautiful women hoping this would
bring an end to her shopping but this information was not enough to thwart the
siren call of TJ Maxx. We were thus forced to endure an extended time in the company
of the ladies. I was beginning to wonder what the hell was wrong with the male population
of the college since there were twenty females for each male. Eventually word
must have leaked out as desperate bands of young men started to enter the fray
which made for very interesting spectating.
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| A Panoramic View of Scores Yesterday Which Does Not Do Justice to the Assembled Pulchritude |
Ultimately my wife did deign to bless us with her presence.
Interestingly she didn’t even come in to Scores but summoned us across the
street for dinner at Margarita’s for our usual fare. It was a fitting end to
the day as both Keene Friend and I had to decompress from an afternoon/evening
of sports, beer, and beauty. My wife conducted a very thorough de-briefing but
this was superimposed on her knowledge we are completely harmless.
After this very long day we ended up back at Keene Friend’s
couch where he prepared a birthday brownie since my wife’s birthday passed while
she was dodging the winter in warmer climes. The length of the day and the serious
amount of beer donated to my afternoon caught up with me as I spent most of the
end of the Bruins season napping on the couch while Keene Friend and my wife
caught up with each other. I learned today that I did wake up a couple times to
offer some rather profane opinions which I was thankfully forgiven for although
I am paying for today on a number of levels. A great thunder run for the
company of Keene Friend and our indoctrination into the college women lacrosse phenomena.
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