The kids spent the weekend with their dad, so Anne and I got to hang out together the entire weekend. It was hawesome.
During the day on Friday, I played poker and Anne headed to
downtown with our friend Stephanie (who introduced us, and was part of
the best man triad in my wedding, with Dave and Darin) to enjoy the
insane bargains and donut-throwing crack whores that can only be found
in the garment district.
Around four in the afternoon, they called and said they were finished, and wanted me to join them for dinner and drinks in Old Town. I successfully lobbied for a change of venue to Dave and Buster’s, and we rolled in just after five. Over the next five hours or so, I had . . . a few . . . Newcastles and Guinnessessessssses, and had an absolute blast playing Dayton Racing (the trick is to completely spin around when you miss a turn, and take out a computer car if you can. You may not win the race, but you look so cool doing it! And don’t drink and drive, unless it’s in a video game. Duh.) and the coin-shooting game with them. (Yeah, check me out: I have 17000 tickets on my D&B card, baby. One of these days, daddy is going to get a Yacht.)
Remarkably, when Saturday morning rolled around, my body gave me just enough of a headache to remind me that I’m 33, not 23, but apparently the fifteen gallons of water I drank between pints did something to ease what could have been a repeat of an incident that is just called The Hangover of ’97.
Anyway, we met some friends for lunch on Saturday afternoon, and stayed in on Saturday night, watching Cops (guilty pleasure) and A River Runs Through It on DVD. You know, I am a huge fan of Robert Redford’s work, as an actor and as a director, and I’m an equally big fan of Brad Pitt’s work, yet somehow I’d managed to never see this movie.
Wow. Quite an incredible bit of filmmaking there, and one of the very few movies I’ve watched at home that I regretted not seeing on a big screen.
Yesterday, we both woke up at 8 (WTF?) and spent the entire morning pulling weeds in the front yard, and cleaning up leaves from our neighbor’s oak tree that her idiot gardener blows into our planters. Can I just say how fucking sick to death I am of cleaning up other people’s messes? She pays the damn gardener to clean up her yard (she’s 900 years old) and this jerk takes her money, and makes the clean-up my responsibility. Guess who’s getting a cockpunch next time he turns on the leaf blower on her driveway?
After we completely filled our yard cans — all six of them — with leaves and weeds and junk, we took the dogs for a nice long walk, then did our weekly grocery shopping. This week is going to be filled with insanely good meals, because we spent a lot of time with the Whole Foods Cookbook and Sunset Magazine, planning out some —
Okay. It’s just occurred to me that this is an incredibly boring, dry, and uninteresting factual recounting of the last three days. I mean, I’m writing the goddamn thing, and I’m already bored with it. I chalk it up to a bad night of sleep, incredibly sore muscles from working in the yard all morning and the fact that my heart just isn’t in this right now. This is the downside of committing to ten minutes a day: sometimes, it just sucks.
I guess the important thing to take out of this, and the reason I even felt like writing about my weekend in the first place, is that even after ten years together, I look forward to, and totally love spending a weekend hanging out with my wife.
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Wil,
When are you going to have another podcast? Any good book reading?
WIL!
Never EVER apologize for writing about a wonderful weekend. This is your blog and we read it because we like you and want to know you better. Also some of us arent as lucky and rarely have an hour or two with our loved ones, due to opposite schedules. A sunday with my husband pulling weeds sounds like heaven (did I just say that?).
I felt jerked out of the story that I was living thru you vicariously (sp?)
Damn it you know what I mean.
Keep on
I laughed a few times and even read a few bits to my boyfriend, who couldn’t care less, and got a reaction out of him. The only boring part was you complaining about it being boring. So there.
As long as you don’t get a form letter from D&B’s saying; “Mr. Wheaton
Since you have not accumulated any tickets on your D&B account in the last 30 days, your tickets have been erased. Thanks, and come play again soon!”
Heh. Enjoy the cooking – nothing like a meal you made together.
Wil, I have a friend I e-mail throughout the day during the work week (this is how I maintain my sanity). Your account of your weekend sounded like one of my Monday morning e-mail messages to my friend, or one of hers to me. So reading your blog, I felt like I was catching up with a friend instead of being entertained by an author. Not a bad way to start a Monday morning.
Dammit Wheaton, you are starting to piss me off. Haven’t you ever heard the truism, “It’s not what you say, but how you say it”? Your descriptions of your weekend weren’t particularly boring, dry or uninteresting. So sorry that you bored yourself, but I was enjoying it until you pulled the plug in the middle of a f***ing sentence! Next time complete the thought, at least, will ya?? Sheesh.
Oh yeah, give the neighbor’s gardener a kick in the junk for me too, just on principle.
Not bad Wil. I just think if you’re trying to communicate how much you love spending time with your wife, your writing should reflect that instead of telling us in the last paragraph.
Rewrite paragraphs 7 and 8 with that in mind and the entire post improves immeasurably.
You wrote …..”I guess the important thing to take out of this, and the reason I even felt like writing about my weekend in the first place, is that even after ten years together, I look forward to, and totally love spending a weekend hanging out with my wife.”
That is just the sweetest!
Oh, and keep us posted on what happens with the leaf-blower guy……;)
A river runs through it: one of the best movies ever. I refused to see it for a long time because I was sick to death of how popular Brad Pitt was. But then it turned out he actually COULD act and I watched it and loved it.
Whole Foods is evil.
Well, if you work there. Which my fiancee does. They treat their employees horribly. But it’s great if you don’t know about all the BS behind the scenes. 😀
Wil, my man, this is a completely pleasant post. From unassuming start to unassuming end, it describes to a T what a good weekend is like. May you have many more. Even if you have to cockpunch the gardner. Or repeat the Great Hangover Incident of ’97.
That all being said, I really really miss your politically-themed posts. I enjoy a call-to-arms for us left-wingers every so often.
Not boring at all. I was thinking about how cool it would be to walk into D&B and see Drunken Wil high-fivin’ his Drunken Friends over crashing a car in a video game. Too bad D&B use those cards ’cause the visual is even better imagining Drunken Wil with 17,000 little yellow tickets oozing from every pocket. I can see the little nerd boys following behind Drunken Wil trying to step on a trail of yellow tickets, clueless that they’re stealing tickets from King Nerd…Wesley Crusher.
Hey Wil… I was not bored in the least. I love reading about time with Anne and the kids, no matter what you are doing. And you have the gift of a storyteller – both captivating and intimate. You could describe cleaning your nails, and to us, your devoted readers, it would probably be very “interesting”!!! lol
This is off topic, but reading your blog made me think of it. I know you are a Kings fan, and if you would like two seats for Saturday, March 4th, they are yours. We have season seats, but our whole family is going to Vegas for my daughter’s 21st birthday – and anyone I would normally give the tickets to will be in Vegas. I hate the seats to go to waste and they are terrific – right on the floor. Let me know if there is somewhere I can mail them to you. [email protected] Did you see the game last night?? It was amazing!!
It sounds like you had a great weekend. It wasn’t boring at all. It’s blogs like this that make me want to come back and read more.
Aw heck.. I WISH I had a weekend that simple (except for the yard work part). I spent most of my weekend taking one kid to Karate while the other was being tutored, then we did homework, I made dinner, more homework, etc. Spent Sunday driving to Palm Beach to see an Expressionism exhibit at the Nortoln Art Museum. Monet Rocks! But I’m pooped.
Try Guinness with a shot of Chambord.
No, really.
Delicious!
Your title is from one of my favorite songs.
strange. i didnt find it dull at all. We have a D&B here in Charlotte. OKay, actually its in COncord, but whatever. It used to be Jillians. I didnt even know someone took over till pool wnt from $4/hour to $6/hour. Havent played regularvideo games in awhile.
Wil — I found myself engrossed with your weekend. I’m serious. I research families and kids and learning what people do, the quotidian details, is fascinating to me.
so, don’t apologize.
Margaret
I liked your post about the weekend. On the east coast we got pounded with a blizzard so a lot of people stayed home with their families this weekend. I’ve been reading similar posts on other sites all day. Yours was particularly sweet.
Did you watch family guy last night? I had to work but my boyfriend told me that it had Next Generation parts in it again.
The last paragraph says it all. Beautiful.
do you have any wedding pictures online? for some reason, I’m terribly curious about this whole best-man-triad thing…….
my body gave me just enough of a headache to remind me that I’m 33
Wait until you’re 38. :=)
Boring post? Nonsense! I’ve now added “cockpunch” to my daily vocabulary.
Once again Wil you end with a statement that just has to make one say, wow.
If more people in this world would learn to stop and actually smell a rose, or taste an apple, or enjoy and even look forward to hanging out with their spouse, what a better world it would be.
Now, about this gardener…
Wil, I would do anything for a “boring” weekend with my husband of mundane weed-pulling, grocery shopping, and flipping through cookbooks. My husband (a soldier) is in in Korea. Has been for the past 7 months, with no end in sight. I have to throw in my own “I love reading how you speak just as much as what speak” comment. I find you to be a very interesting person, and from all these comments, I’m not alone. So slap yourself for us and finish telling us about your weekend. 😛
Shauna
“strange as angels dancing in the deepest oceans”
I did a “Find (on this page) and no one mentioned the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” reference/title/thing.
Looks like I win the big ol’ plate of nuthin’! Woot.
It’s those snapshots of daily life that I find so intriguing in other blogs. We can all write the witty essay, the political rant or the inspiring story, but I love reading about all the normal stuff that people do. It’s another connection to the human race.
Besides, you broke it off just as you were about to go into the food pRon portion of the post! We want to hear the menu! And we want recipes dammit!
I agree with the seven-bajillionity people above that your writing is never boring which is why wwdn:ix is a daily stop-esp. since you are writing daily. It’s like getting to look at an artist’s sketchbook or getting to peek at the personal shots of a photographer I admire.
rock on with bad-ass self yo yo.
Dude, I had another chuckle the other day from Love Machine. That was some serious fun-nay.
Wait… what were you planning out?!
Oh, and in case no one up there said it (yeah right!), sooooooooo not boring. It’s the little things that tell the most about people.
So, I was reading an essay today (a seemingly random one at that, I must say, considering the context I’m going to be quoting it in now; it wasn’t so random while I was originally reading it–I had a reason at one point) by Erich Auerbach. In referencing this to your blog, your blog is the “random occurrence”. Now, it said, “The more [the random occurrence] is exploited, the more the elementary things which our lives have in common come to light. In this unprejudiced and exploratory type of representation we cannot but see to what extent–below the surface conflicts–the differences between men’s way of life and forms of thought have already lessened… It is still a long way to a common life of mankind of earth but the goal begins to be visible.” Though he was referring to Hemingway, it struck a cord with me about your blog, or just blogs in general. So, I thought I’d share that little piece of someone else’s insight so you can be reassured that we, your readers, will never bore of reading the daily-happenings of your life you may consider mundane or “boring”; and it’s because of the connection we find in it that we won’t. So, uh… there.
On a different note, I’m jealous of your Whole Foods excursion. I love that store when I’m able to get to it, but unfortunately the closest one is about a 45 minute drive from my house, so I go up going to the Kings Soopers 5 minutes away, where I end up getting food I feel slightly less than 100% assured is safe to eat.
Wow, that was really unnecessarily long. I apologize.
I really didn’t think that was a boring post. I mean, write whatever you want, it’s your blog. I write incredibly boring stuff in mine all the time but sadly, it’s just because my life is that boring. 😉
I think it’s hawesome that you had such a great weekend.
A River Runs Through It is a really great movie. Glad to hear that you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Dave & Busters, ahhh, my old stomping grounds back in the day. I still have a card from there that may or may not still have credits on it. If they don’t expire, then I still have credits. If they do, then I’m screwed. ::Sigh::
Wil, what you said in your closing statement about yours and Anne’s relationship was absolutely beautiful. Happy Valentine’s Day to the both of you!!
Wil, I ran across a post on MAKE that I thought you might be interested in, it’s a Google Maps hack that allows you to track your runs. The post there says, “Google Running Logs is a software package that lets you automatically upload your runs from a GPS watch (like the Garmin Forerunner 201 or 301) to your web site to be displayed in a nifty Google Map. The map will show an animated view of your runs showing mile markers, pace per mile, and distance travelled. It also creates a KML file for viewing in Google Earth.”
I thought I would point it out incase you didn’t see it and were interested.
I think it’s absolutely awesome how he literally loses interest in the middle of the post. Made me laugh out loud.
MORE PODCASTS, WIL!
These slice of life type posts are really cool, Wil, because it’s obvious how much you love spending a weekend like that with Anne. I’m all for people in a happy marriage expressing that – there needs to be more of that in this world. 🙂
Meh, I tend to agree with the crwod here. Your regular readers think of you as a friend, probably as the distant friend they sort of grew up with. Writing the big emotional piece is fun and cool, but it’s always cool to just catch up with what an old bud did over the weekend.
…even after ten years together, I look forward to, and totally love spending a weekend hanging out with my wife.
True love!
I feel the same with my fiancé and we have been together for seven years.
Happy Valentine’s Day Wil and Family. I hope your Valentine’s Day is great. Actually I enjoy reading about what you’re doing, expecially if you get to spend the whole weekend hanging out with your wife.LOL. Oh yeah I might watch MR. STITCH this week. (I got the VHS on EBAY about 6 years ago?) LOL. Don’t worry about boring us,cause it’s these kind of entries I enjoy. I also like it when you write about the kids.
The normal routine of your life is only boring if you’ve already been there. When you take us along for a recap, it’s fun (at least if you write well, and you know you do).
When the kids are gone, parents can look at each other and say “hey, I remember you!” That re-connecting is vital. My kids visit their grandma for two weeks each summer and my husband and I cook weird food and do repair or renovation projects. Or I landscape and he comments. It’s nice to know that other people take such joy in doing routine things together.
Ah, “boring” accounts of everyday life. This is the stuff of dreams my friend.
It might seem boring to you, but hey, it sounds like a real fun weekend. I really enjoyed reading it, I love your way of writing.
Oh, and I just love Newcastle. Good taste, mister.
“even after ten years together, I look forward to, and totally love spending a weekend hanging out with my wife”
DUH! You’re married to a hottie who is totally into at least one geek I can think of… what’s not to love??
Glad someone mentioned the Cure song in the comments. It was killing me I couldn’t think of the song! thanks.