The drugs took my calendar and they won't give it back...

How did this happen? How is it August 17th already? The last 3 weeks or so have been a blur, a drug induced, swollen, sixties absorbing, hill billy praising blur. Where the hell has the time gone? Let's look at the highlights...

July 22 - Hernia Surgery

Ah yes...hernia surgery. This experience was about as much fun as a rectal examine performed by Captain Hook...and probably just as painful. The day of the surgery went well. They got me in, knocked me out, cut me open, patched me up, then waited until I pissed in a quart jar. Once my urine filling obligations were complete, I was given a prescription for Percoset and then sent home. The next five days were an odyssey of swollen testicles, drug induced constipation, rapidly cooling ice packs, and the not quite unpleasant fuzzy brained addledness that comes from the joy of two percosets taken every four hours or so. I won't make you loose your lunch with specific details of my experience such as the rapture of the first bowel movement I was able to have in DAYS. Percoset apparently stops the works in the large intestine. I am not quite sure why this happens and I am too tired to read up on the inner workings of my bowels. Just take my word for it when I tell you that lot's of percoset = a New York City sized back up of your inner workings. It took three days for the jam to resolve itself but when it did, it was one of the most joyous occasions in my life. It occurred on July 25th and I am not kidding...it was practically a religious experience, one which my limited writing skills would never to be able to do justice. Let's simply leave it at saying that hernia surgery was an experience I would pay great deals of money to never have to go through again.

July 28 - August 1 - University Project

I then spent the next week (still pretty heavily doped up) at the University working on a history project for teachers. It involved "modern history" which in this case meant primarily talking about "The Sixties". I found this amusing as I myself was pretty heavily drugged for most of it. It was a great week (except for the pain and my persistently swollen left testicle...which made sitting for hours at a time a very unpleasant experience) and I did really learn quite a lot, drugs or no drugs.

August 2 - August 11 - Trip to the Midwest

Every other year my wife's family has a reunion in Branson, Missouri. Up until two years ago I had never even heard of Branson. I was struggling for a way to describe Branson for those who have never gotten a chance to visit. I decided to use two quotes from The Simpsons instead. First are the lyrics to a song sung on the Episode called The Old Man and the Key in which Bart is dragged to Branson by Grandpa.

Ode To Branson

Remember the stars, you loved yesterday?
Where did they go? Did they all pass away?
Was it drugs or a car crush,
or a face lift gone wrong?
No they're right here in Branson
and they're singing, this song!
My name is Charo, I shake my maracas.
Remember me foo, I was BA Barachas.
We're the performers you thought were dead,
like Bonnie Franklin and Adrienne Zmed.
Branson's the place we can always be found.
They took NICK at Night and made it a town.
You can call me Ray or you can call me Jay.
Just don't call me washed up, I do three shows a day.
Charlie Callas doesn't sleep in the ground.
Yes I'm still alive an I'm making me sound.
vup hi vup hala voop voop.
So sit back, relax, and watch our review!
In Soviet Union, review watches you!

And second is a quote by Homer on that very same episode...

"Branson is just like Las Vegas would be if it was run by Flanders."


Oh. So. True.


We didn't only go to Branson. We also visited Wichita, Tulsa, and the long stretches of highway between them. It was a nice time spent with family we almost never get to see. The roads in Tulsa are epically horrible. For more on that click here.

Also in Tulsa we spent some time (almost an hour) at a great bookstore called Gardner's. I am usually not a huge fan of used book stores but this place is awesome. It is a huge store with the largest selection of new and used books I have ever seen in one place. And they don't just do books. They also sell comic books, graphic novels, and VHS and DVD movies. There is a coffee shop in one end of the store and a Mexican restaurant in the other. They are an independently owned bookstore which makes them cool as cucumbers in my book. If you are ever in Tulsa Oklahoma, looking for a relief from the brain rattling roads, Gardner's needs to be a stop. I truly wish they were closer to Delaware.

All in all it was a great vacation.

And now here I sit, at the beach, with the start of another school year just three days away. You will be happy to know that the pain from the hernia surgery is pretty much gone, the giggle berries are back to their proper size and proportions, the nightmares of an all night Yakov Smirnov, Andy Williams tag team show are fading, and I did not pull a Favre and get addicted to my pain meds. Life is pretty much back to normal.

Which begs the question...


It's late...why am I still awake?

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