Tag: Country

  • Another Monday, Dog Grooming Edition

    Yet another Monday, and I am looking at a blank computer screen. At least I was until I just forced myself to start typing something. Because this isn’t writing, it’s typing.

    What I am really doing at this hour is waiting for the dog groomer to call so I can go get our dog. (I have mentioned before that I am not a huge fan of the word “grooming” when it comes to dog hair maintenance, but I may need to just accept that this is the term that everyone has decided to use.) They said the dog would be ready, at most, in three hours, and now that we are at the three-and-a-half-hour mark, I have started to wonder at what state is the progress in? No matter what, I will call them at the four-hour mark, as I have to pick up a kid from school, and I have some other things that I need to accomplish today as well.

    As such, I am here on the couch in a holding pattern on this rather nice day. No rain for this Monday, as compared to the last few. No, this is an actual Spring day, windows open due to the sixty degrees outside. It is the type of weather that makes me optimistic, and forgiving.

    And I think about the things that are coming for me. That taxes are due tomorrow, and we need to pay down some more of our debt. There is a college fund that should receive some additional dollars, and most importantly, I try to stay positive about owning a home one day. A home out of the City, in the country, but not too far away so I can live a lifestyle that is aggressively just beyond the touch of my fingertips.

    Then my wife texts me to say that she hasn’t heard from the groomers, and that I need to call and go get the dog.

    Such is this Monday.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Vacation, Euro Final, and The End of the World

    (And I knew there was no turning back…)

    I had been out of town for the past week and a half. You could call it a vacation, in the sense that I left the place where I lived and went someplace new. I was Texas, but it was a new town in Texas that I had never been to before. It was Sanger, TX which is small town country Texas. It had been over twenty years since I had been in a region of Texas that was so far removed from everything else in the world. Though that far out in the country is not a place I would like to live (I am a City kid, after all) having grown up in Texas, there is something comforting and reassuring about being in that world of Texas. Not that I even spent a huge amount of time in the country, but if you dive an hour in any direction from the DFW area, you hit flat land, dusty winds, and a feeling that the world goes on forever. I enjoyed my time in Sanger. Yes it was small, but it was small town friendly, and a good place to have a wedding. (I was there for a wedding, if I didn’t say that yet.) It was also fun to show my daughter, who is a real City Kid, what the country is really like.

    And as I was in Texas for a wedding, I wasn’t able to finish my Euro Cup observations. Well, though I was rooting for England, I never really thought they were going to win. Spain just looked dominating, and they seemed destined to win it all. Now, I will say that England put up a hell of a fight (at least that’s what the highlights I saw showed) and it was entertaining, but England will always be the bridesmaid of international football. England had better players, but Spain was the better team. I have a very odd feeling that this was Harry Kane’s last international tournament. With Southgate resigning, which was expected win or lose, I don’t see Kane wanting to stick around. Not that Harry wouldn’t make the squad, but something strikes me that Kane is ready to pass the torch, so to speak. Botton line, I thought the Euro Cup 2024 was exciting and fun and well worth paying the cable fees so I could watch all the matches.

    I don’t like being this guy, but lately, it does feel like the world is coming to an end. Hopefully, it will pass after November, 5th.