the tonedef blog

…can end up on crutches from skipping rope!

Ok…that isn’t exactly how it happened, but its close.

Monday at after school Thing 1 was playing with a Skip It. You know the toy…you put the circle around one ankle and swing you leg so the ball circles around and you hop over the rope and ball with your other leg. Well this was obviously way too much coordination for Thing 1. The ball cracked her in her ankle. So I picked Things 1 & 2 up at the school instead of them riding the bus, because the call Band Mom got was that Thing 1 couldn’t walk. Well she could but it was obvious that it hurt like hell.

We got home and there was a little swelling. She could put a little weight on it. Band Mom wrapped the ankle and we went about our day. We ended up heading to Wal Mart. Thing 1 didn’t walk while there she sat in a 2 seater cart. When we got home Band Mom made steak and eggs for dinner and then the kids went to bed.

In the morning on Tuesday, Thing 1 was in some serious pain. She couldn’t walk at all. So I took the day off work and took her to Med Express. She got examined and x-rayed. Nothing broken just a deep bruise. So she got her ankle wrapped and a set of crutches. It took her a while to get used to the crutches.

We headed home and she put ice on her ankle and flopped onto the couch. I tried to do some work from home, but my computer was not cooperating at all. Then I headed to the doctor myself. I’ve been putting off going for ever, and since I was home I finally went. It was nothing major, just a check up and trying to get some new prescriptions for my asthma. That didn’t take long and I was soon back at home. Thing 1 was doing better, but still couldn’t walk.

Well now its Wednesday and I had to drive Thing 1 to school on my way to work. She’s on her crutches. Hopefully she can handle the day at school with her crutches…

Sunday, Band Mom and I both slept in. Things 1 & 2 were up though. They got themselves some breakfast and entertained themselves for a while. I got up and jumped into the shower. By the time I was done, it was just about time for kickoff. I grabbed some food and settled in to watch the Steelers take on the Vikings.

I watched the first half at home. At halftime, I headed out and met Double D at Old Trails to watch the second half. We enjoyed the game and a couple of beers. The Steelers won the game thanks to a couple of 4th quarter pick 6s.

After the game Double D wanted me to come with him to his brothers new bar for a quick visit. We both put in an order for some wings to take home to our respective wives and then went to visit his brother. We had a couple of beers there and then headed back to Trails. We waited a little bit for our wings and then both went home.

When I got home Band Mom had made meatloaf for dinner. So we all sat and ate that (and Band Mom some of her wings even though they weren’t the ones she wanted) and watched some TV. After dinner the kids got themselves showered and ready for bed. Band Mom sent me to Wal Mart to get some flea collars for the cats and some other little stuff.

After I got back we got the cats in their collars and I headed to bed myself.

Friday night the fam just stayed in. It was chilly and rainy out so we decided to just stay home. Band Mom started her latest project though. She is painting the living room. She only did a small section of one wall as a test area to make sure she liked the color before having the whole room painted. It actually looks pretty good.

Saturday we all got up and moving early (for us anyway). Thing 1 had a game at 11 o’clock. We all headed to the game. The weather was decent. The rain from the past couple of days had finally stopped and the sun was out. Her team lost but she so enjoys cheering. She doesn’t even pay attention to the football game.

After the game we all were hungry. So we headed to Waffle House for brunch. Thing 1 demolished her some steak and eggs. She claimed she didn’t like Waffle House food, but her opinion has changed now.

After eating we headed to Target to look for costumes for the girls. The selection was lousy there. We then headed over to Wal Mart to check their selection. Both girls ended up going with a witch costume. Band Mom got herself a cat palm for the house. Then we all headed home.

After a little putzing around everyone ended up taking a nap. Once we were all up, Band Mom resumed painting. I jumped in the shower and got myself ready. I was heading out for the evening. Around 8:30 Scooter picked me up and we headed to RPM’s. We were meeting up with Trav and Scooter’s brother to check out the KISS tribute band, Black Diamond.

It was a pretty good time. Scooter’s brother was much better behaved than the last time we all saw a KISS tribute. After the show Scooter took me home.

While I was gone Band Mom had painted most of the living room. The new color looks pretty good. She would have finished but she ran out of paint. There’s only a small portion left. Band Mom was up when I got home and we soon headed to bed.

As the weekend approached it felt like there wasn’t anything going on and it would be a pretty relaxed, stay at home kinda weekend. On Friday this was true. The family ate at home and we stayed in for the evening. Watching TV and doing things around the house. Then Saturday came and it all kinda changed…

It didn’t change right away. The early part of the day was pretty laid back. The normal fuss of a Saturday morning. Then Thing 1 had to do the cheerleading thing. So I took Things 1 & 2 and headed to the game. Band Mom stayed home to get some stuff ready for the rest of the day. It was down right miserably cold. Band Mom definitely picked the right gig. She didn’t have to spend a couple of hours with her ass on a freezing metal bleacher seat…Did I mention it was COLD! Well Thing 1′s team won and we finally got to leave.

Thing 2 left the game with my folks and was going to spend the night with them. I took Thing 1 to Walgreen’s on the way home so she could pick out a birthday card for a sleepover party she was going to. We then went home and she changed and I took her to her party. Then I headed back home and waited for Band Mom to get ready.

After she was ready we headed into the ‘burgh to visit Pooh. Pooh’s been having trouble with some classes so we were going to pick her spirits up and help her out a bit. We got there and spent the next hour or two in her dorm room trying to tutor her a bit in chemistry. I quickly realized how long its been since I’ve had chem. It took some book reading to remember some of this stuff. After college I quickly dumped the stuff I don’t use out of my brain… I think we got her on the right track at least and hopefully she’ll have a little more confidence as midterms quickly approach.

After our little tutor session, the three of us decided to go grab some dinner. We ended up deciding on going to Teh Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner. I ended up missing a turn and crossing a river and circling around the stadiums before we actually getting there. Yeah fun. (Side note: Don’t ever let Band Mom use the GPS on your iPhone to help with directions. As the dot representing us moved farther and farther away from the colored route marking on Google Maps, she continued to tell me I was heading the correct direction…)

Dinner was good after we finally got a table. I don’t know why we thought dinner would be quick on a Saturday night in the city, but it was all good in the end. After we finished we took Pooh back to her dorm and dropped her off (no drama on this trip except getting stuck in a little bit of traffic from the Pens game. By this time it was after 11.

We originally were going to stop in and visit some friends at a bar back home but by the time we would’ve gotten there we wouldn’t have had much time to hang out. So Band Mom decided we’d just stop at the casino on the way home. We ended up staying there for a few hours having fun pissing our money away. Finally we headed home and to bed.

Sunday I got up and had some breakfast. Then around noon I headed out to wrangle up the girls. I picked Thing 1 up at her party. Then we headed across town and got Thing 2 from my parents’. Then home in time for kickoff. I settled into my spot on the couch and watched the Steelers beat the Browns. Like that was a surprise, but its always nice to beat the Browns.

Actually, I didn’t get to watch the whole game. Late in the 4th quarter, we had to leave the house again. We loaded up the van and headed to the airport to pick up Band Mom’s Mom. She had spent the weekend in DC attending a college reunion. We picked her up and then headed back towards home. We were going to stop at Wai Wai for some dinner on the way home. When we got there though, the place was packed since there were like 6 buses in the plaza where its located. So we bailed on that idea and ended up going to Evergreen instead. We ate and then took Band Mom’s Mom home.

Finally we headed home. The girls got ready for bed and I got caught up on some DVR. As I was going to bed Band Mom headed out to Giant Eagle to get a few items that we needed to get through the week.

That was a lot of stuff for a weekend that we weren’t going to be doing much…

Okay not so much about the iPhone as about the app, I ♥ Radio. Okay, probably not so much about I ♥ Radio as about the NFL.

Sunday morning, Band Mom and I got to sleep in after being out late last night. I finally got moving around noon. I got ready and sat down and watched the beginning of the Steelers game against the Lions. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to watch the game in full. I had to go to Thing 1′s game at 2 o’clock. Band Mom needed to take care of some stuff with her mom and a friend of hers so I was solo to the game. I was meeting my folks and the girls there.

During the week I had been listening to the Penguins games on my iPhone using I ♥ Radio streaming 105.9 The X. I was all set to listen to the Steelers using I ♥ Radio streaming DVE. I was listening to the game on the radio in my car on the way over. As I was walking to the gate of the stadium for Thing 1′s game, I took out my iPhone and started up I ♥ Radio. I selected DVE and was all set to listen to the game.

What do I hear? NOT THE GAME! Just some music. Now I know the game was on DVE because that’s what I was listening to in the car. I double checked that I had tapped the right channel. I exited the app and tried again. NO LUCK! WTF?

Why does the NFL not allow I ♥ Radio to stream the games. If I had a crappy old transistor radio like my dad brought I could have tuned into the game on DVE. I mean that’s all I was doing except the iPhone doesn’t have an actual FM tuner. So my $300 piece of advanced technology was worth less than my dad’s $5 piece of shit radio on this particular day. Wow!

At first I was mad at my iPhone. Then I placed the blame on I ♥ Radio. But then I realized this was not either of their faults. It had to be some stupid restriction of the NFL. Since the NHL obviously allows their games to be aired in this format, it had to be the NFL. Oh if I had a subscription to DirecTV or Sirius and had one of their apps then I could get it.

You’d think the NFL would want their product being available to as many consumers as possible. Wouldn’t that make sense. Obviously not to them. Its not like I was trying to listen to some bootleg account of the game. The game was already on the radio station I was trying to listen to. The only difference is that instead of being over-the-air FM it was 3G cellular streaming. If the group with the biggest problem with alternate methods of distribution, the RIAA allows these stations to play music via this medium, what’s stopping the NFL?

I kid…

Saturday our house got up and moving at a laid back pace. There was nowhere to be early. There was no football game (for Thing 1 to cheer). Plans for the day included sending Things 1 & 2 to my folks’ and going to Rocky’s wedding (hence the forecast in the title). Well my folks came and picked up the girls around 1. I jumped in the shower and got ready. While Band Mom jumped in, I went and got a card. If you read yesterday’s entry you know our gift was destined to be cash.

Of course like any time we’re going out, Band Mom was having issues. With her clothes, her hair, her makeup…whatever. Nothing major, but putting us close to being late. We left the house finally and I drove to ensure that we weren’t late. We finally got to Rock’s parents’ house which is where the wedding was going to be held. Luckily the weather held. Everything was outdoors. The ceremony itself had sun and was very nice. I’m very happy for Rock and his now wife. They both seemed very happy (but then again who doesn’t on their wedding day?) After the ceremony itself the reception started.

Band Mom and I found a couple of friends that we knew were going to be there and the 4 of us (and their daughter) found a table for the reception. There were drinks and a veggie tray to start out. Another friend showed up right before dinner. He and his wife would probably have been there earlier, except his band played a gig earlier in the day and they had one later as well. Dinner was good. After dinner, KJ and Double D showed up. They were the “bartenders” for the reception. And all the way from Ohio, Keyz showed up for the reception.

After the sun went down it started to get chilly. Band Mom decided she was going to head home for a while, but later we all were going to go out somewhere. So I hung out for the rest of the reception with KJ, Double D, and Keyz. The DJ was a friend of Double D so we hung with him as well. Close to the music and the booze, where else would you expect to find us. The DJ was done at 9 and the bride and groom were also leaving at that time.

Around the same time Band Mom came and picked me up. She stopped on the way to get another friend. Then the 3 of us and Keyz headed out to Rinky Dinks to see Ruff Creek. That’s the band that our one friend who I mentioned earlier is in. Later Double D and KJ joined us as well. We hung out there until around 1. Then we took our friend home and said goodbye to Keyz who headed back to Ohio.

To end the evening Band Mom and I headed to the casino. We both had okay nights. At one point we were both back to even money, but were having a good time so we stayed. We should have gone sooner. We both left on the down side. Not busted, but on the down…Finally it was home and to bed.

CONGRATS TO BRET AND MICHELLE!

Friday, Pooh and her boyfriend were both home from school so Band Mom and I took them out to dinner. We ended up having a nice dinner at T.G.I.Friday’s with them and Things 1 & 2. After dinner, they went there own way and then we headed to the mall to go shopping for a wedding gift.

We were shopping at Macy’s we ended up looking at the crystal. Band Mom totally liked this crystal wine glass. We figured 2 of them and a nice bottle of wine would be a very cool wedding gift. There was no employees anywhere near the section of the store we were in to wait on us. We’d been wandering around for close to half an hour and no one. So I went on a quest to find an employee. I finally found one from another department and she came over to help us. She took the display glass we were looking at and went in the back to look for it. When she came back she informed us that there weren’t any in stock. Bummer…But it gets better. When she found out we found the glass on the wall of all the crystal stuff, she informed us that they don’t carry any of that stuff in stock. It has to be ordered and takes like a month to come in. YOU THINK MAYBE WE COULD HAVE KNOWN THAT BEFORE WASTING OVER A HALF HOUR ON A FRIDAY NIGHT AFTER 8 O’CLOCK WHEN STORES ARE GOING TO BE CLOSING SOON! I mean at least a sign saying that the items are for order only and not available for immediate sale so we didn’t waste all shopping time trying to decide which ones we liked better.

So we quick hit some other stores in the mall, but came up empty. Looks like a cash gift for the wedding tomorrow…

After shopping we headed home. Nothing else going on for the night so we settled in and just hung out around the house. Band Mom and I ended up watching the last 2 episodes of the new SyFy series, Stargate Universe. We weren’t sure how we’d like the show. We were both fans of SG1 and Atlantis and weren’t sure how a new spinoff was going to go. However, we were both immediately sucked in and had to watch 3 hours straight and wanted more. Hopefully it stays as interesting…

Sunday, Band Mom and I got to sleep in since the kids were at my folks’. We finally got up and got moving…slowly. Band Mom decided we were gonna take her mom grocery shopping to get it out of the way for the week. So we got ready and in the afternoon went and picked up her mom. We all headed to Wal Mart to do the grocery shopping.

Somehow, Band Mom stuck me with her mom to help her, while Band Mom did our shopping. Its not that I mind helping out. Its just that that is a painful experience. We moved so slow I thought we were actually traveling backwards through time. And Band Mom’s Mom is worse than Band Mom in the circle back to get something I forgot style of shopping. There were points where it felt like European Vacation…”Look kids, Big Ben, Parlimant…”

After a while that was finished and we took Band Mom’s Mom home and unloaded her groceries, then headed home to unload our own. Then I watched a little DVR and ate. My folks dropped off Things 1 & 2. Then it was just waiting for the Steelers game to start.

After the past two weeks disappointing losses to Da Bears and the Bungles, I was really hoping for a better game against the Chargers. For the first half I thought that’s what I was getting. The Steelers were up 21 nil at half time. Then in the 3rd quarter scored again to make it 28 – 0. Then like the last few weeks the defense just disappeared. San Diego managed to get back into the game. Thankfully the Steelers managed to maintain and win 38 – 28, but boy did the defense ever try to give the game away.

After the game Dorka left and I headed to bed.

Saturday. Nothing was going on early. Band Mom did some cleaning. The rest of us just slowly got ready to go. Thing 1 had a game at 2. The weather was kinda questionable. It was cool, but sunny. Then windy, then cloudy. Anyway Things 1 & 2 and I headed to the game around 1:30. Band Mom opted out of the game to stay home and get some more cleaning done.

Luckily we dressed in layers. At the start of the game it was warm and sunny. A few minutes in and I had to run to the car to get hoodies for Thing 2 and myself. The sun hid behind clouds and the wind was cold. It wasn’t awful, just cooler than the start of the game. Thing 1′s team ended up winning the game in the last few seconds of the game.

After the game, Things 1 & 2 went home with my folks. They were going to head to an apple festival or some such. This worked out well, since Band Mom had planned a birthday get together for later for Princess’ birthday. So I made a quick stop at the store then headed home. Band Mom was just finishing up cleaning. We hung out and chatted for a while then both started getting ready for the evening.

We headed to the store and Band Mom picked up a gift for Princess. Then the 2 of us headed to dinner. We weren’t paying attention to the time and it was getting late, so we decided on a quicker dinner at Waffle House. It ain’t fancy, but it was yummy. After we ate we headed to the bar to meet up with the crew.

Princess and KJ were late for Princess’ birthday party. And somehow no one was suprised…Anyway, M came out and Dorka finally found a sitter for the kids and came out, and eventually Princess’ sister and brother-in-law also came out. We had a blast just hanging out at the bar drinking and bsing for hours. And Princess even got an added bonus as we were entertained by the drunk guy dancing topless around our table. OK, maybe bonus is a sarcastic over statement…Dude had man boobs bigger than any of the girls at our table…Funny, but a bit disturbing.

We ended up closing the bar, and afterward all headed our own direction. For most that was to their homes. For us that meant it was time for the casino. Band Mom had a good night almost doubling her money. And that made up for the money I lost. I didn’t get any love from the games that night, but still had a good time. We finally headed home after a few hours and hit the sack…

Friday we didn’t have much on the plans. Band Mom made dinner and after dinner we all just kinda hung out around the house. Around 10:30 I decided to go and visit Double D at Old Trails. He was working at the bar and I figured I’d go give him some company. We hung out and watched Coal Center String Band. The band was good, but over all it was a slow night at the bar. When the band finished a little after 1, I headed back home.

Wow, when I decided to write this entry, it seemed like it was gonna be longer…oh well.