The Terrible Catsafterme

Okay, it’s official. Summer is over. Vacation season is over. Sigh and a half. It has been an unseasonably cool early Fall, so over the past month there has been nothing but indoor activity to keep me occupied. It’s quiet around the house mostly since Yaht spends all of her time at Stephen’s. The Bengals are enjoying their first winning season in many moons. The black and white Andy Griffith Show episodes play every night on DVD in my living room. I eat salmon and drink red Cabernet. My car crossed over 200,000 miles on September 18. Double sigh.

So the only real excitement – if you can call it that – comes when I can get out on the weekends, usually not doing much but going out to eat. So let’s call this the restaurant report. Not much else to say…omitting the sordid details of my bachelor pad lifestyle and secret rendezvous of course.

Saturday, September 19, 2009, saw a bit of excitement as Briana’s Westerville Central volleyball team came to Lebanon, Ohio, for a match against their high school. Christi, Creed, and I made the journey using my brand new $50 GPS system. It was good to see Briana play, even though their team lost the 3 0ut of 5 contest. They were the victors in one of the games, so we saw four in all.

With my Little B

Christi and me with our nachos, pretzels, and hot dog. That’s what volleyball games are all about, Charlie Brown

Creed momentarily focuses

Briana, good old #7, steps out for her team

Briana looks alive

That night we all went out to Bob Evans to see Ashleigh at her new waitress job. It was cute to see her fumble though her early stages of work, but of course the service was terrible. Didn’t stop me from leaving a big tip though. Christi, Creed, Briana, Ashleigh, and Stephen all stayed over that night, but I was largely ignored so I had my own solo adventures.

A shoe mishap as we head out for Bob Evans

The customers

The waitress

Despite the service at Bob Evans, it didn’t stop me from returning again that week on Thursday, September 24, for dinner after work. I met my Mom and Grandpa Murphy there to check out that cute waitress again. This time Ashleigh seemed a bit more relaxed and into the groove and even sat down with us for a bit.

The next weekend was a desperately quiet and lazy one, but the oddest mood struck me to go clothes shopping at Kohl’s on Saturday the 26th. I picked up some new shoes, shirts, pants, socks, and ties – mostly snazzy work attire. Okay, you are right. Summer needs to roll back around. This is getting desperate.

As soon as we roll into October, trouble always begins as I inch my way closer to inevitable death. I turned 38 on Friday, October 2. So what did I do to celebrate such an auspicious occasion you ask? Um, how does four meals and a cake strike you? Yes, despite the fact of wanting to keep my birthday low-key, forces were at work to get me out of the house.

On Thursday, October 1, Heidi took me to dinner at Mimi’s Cafe at the Greene, where I enjoyed a nice shrimp picatta fettucini dish. On Friday the 2nd, my Mom and Bob took me out to O’Charley’s for a mushroom and swiss burger. She also gave me an Ohio State t-shirt. And on Monday, the 4th, Dad took me to Applebee’s and I had a great shrimp salad and got a card and some cash. Ashleigh was particularly industrious and got me two great bottles of red Cabernet, Clos Du Bois and Twin Fin.

Out at Mimi’s with Heidi

O’Charley’s with Bob and Mom

Applebee’s with Dad

But the cutest of all birthday highlights was when Heidi and her three girls prepared a little party for me at her house on Saturday the 3rd. She made a project out of the day and had Lola, Jayne, and Madeline, help bake a cake and make birthday cards. They wore hats but I passed on that. We then got some Papa Murphy’s pizza and had a great pizza dinner (seen at the top of the posting). It was such a sweet gesture and meant so much coming from one of my best friends.

Madeline and Jayne tend to the baking…

…while Lola tends to card detail

 ”It was the best party ever!” Heidi’s girls said

Blowing it

Ah, but the food didn’t end there. The next Saturday, October 10, Christi, Creed, and I went to visit Christi’s dad “Big Daddy” Bob. He took us out for a nice lunch at TGI Fridays, where I had a delicious Jack Daniels burger. That sauce is simply incredible. We then went back to his place for a while and played on the Wii. He had just gotten an amazing mobile home that he let us tour before we had lunch. I capped off the evening by meeting Heidi up at The Pub at the Greene for a couple of Strongbow ciders. Although the Funny Bone beckoned, I never made it over there.

TGI Friday’s with Big Daddy and the Gang

A stong boy with a Strongbow and a pretty girl

And as a parting shot, I met up with Mom, Grandpa Murphy, Ashleigh, and Stephen for dinner at Frickers for some teriyaki drums and Pabst Blue Ribbon after work on Monday, October 12. It is becoming a rather rare thing to spend time with by beautiful 19-year old, so I’m trying not to miss any chances to meet up with her.

So yes, that was a lot of food. It’s amazing that I’ve managed to drop about five pounds over this time period. (Psst. It’s the salmon). Things would get a bit more exciting as we end October, including what will most certainly be the last mini-trip of the year. And then it will be time to fling ourselves headlong into the holidays. Yikes!

2009 will continue…

My friend David Rodriguez created this for me for my birthday

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 6:40 am and is filed under 2000's - Late, Family Life, On the Town. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.