Oliver Stone

12 June 2010

Got a lot done today, which is funny, because today marks the first day this month that we had nothing written on the calendar.

Jennifer spent a good chunk of the day reorganizing Owen’s room. That boy has a lot of stuff. I repotted some of the plants we bought at the farmer’s market yesterday: cilantro, basil, and some random flower. It was raining, but our deck is covered, so it was kind of fun to be out in the rain without having the rain actually get me wet. Owen “helped.”

I dropped two Netlflix DVDs in the mail today: Inspector Gadget and Holy Smoke. They wee both really lousy. Holy Smoke, I think, qualifies as the worst Kate Winslet movie I’ve ever seen and Inspector Gadget was just plain dumb.

13 June 2010

Today we ventured down to the sleepy hamlet of Kilkenny. My sister and her husband live there and out on their property they have a pet cemetery. We buried our cat Oliver there nearly a year ago and today, finally, we set a stone at his gravesite. We also brought along a packet of wildflower seeds. According to the packet, they’re a hardly lot of flowers and are perfectly comfortable in a xeriscape environment. Which is good, ’cause, you know, I’m not gonna drive down to Kilkenny every other day to water the things.

Anyway, the hope is, the flowers will grow and our late decomposing cat will become fertilizer for the plants. Last year, the day he died, Jennifer helped make a list of ten good things about Oliver, inspired by the book The Tenth Good Thing About Barney. The tenth item on our list (and on the list from which is was inspired) is that the cat will help to grow the flowers. So, let’s hope he does. My sister plans to take a photo of the flowers growing around the stone and send it to us, especially if we don’t make it down there later this summer to see them for ourselves.

14 June 2010

So, last night, I pretty much didn’t get any sleep. I mean, I maybe fell asleep for ten to fifteen minute intervals, but that’s all. I kept waking up. I had these really weird dreams – filled with grotesqueness and apocalyptic scenarios. They don’t make any sense, but they don’t make for restful sleep, either.

I think this has to do with the food I eat. Earlier this month, I had some sauerkraut with sausages (while at the casino), Blue Moon beer, and I just in general overate. So I threw it up. Then I hardly got any sleep, though I think part of this was due to lying in a hotel bed.

Yesterday, after leaving my sister’s place, we went out to eat with her and her husband and I got the salad bar. I put some bacon bits on my salad, and there were some large bits of chicken in the wild rice soup. All in all, though, not too much meat. Still, it continued to affect me for the next 16 hours.

So, I’m gonna limit my meat intake even more. As it is, I hardly ever consume red meat (twice only this month – and in the small quantities listed above), but I should just not have it at all. Birds seem okay, but I should probably have even less. I’ll just limit my meat to fish, I think.

Also today: after a week-long delay, Owen’s toy bear Hop-hop has finally come home again, thanks to the good folks at UPS. It was a grand reunion.

Finally: For the second time in as many work days, a co-worker sent me THIS VIDEO. It’s funny. Watch it. It’s certainly waaay better than those two piles of crap I listed above.