1. On Sundays, I like to go out, if the weather is good, and listen to a favorite podcast. I have a few spots I tend to visit that are quieter, shady, and relaxing. The podcast I listen to is usually about 2 hours. Keep that in mind. I went to a recreation area and parked in a nice shady spot and had my windows down. It was perfect weather. The local bike trail goes through this recreation area, so there was a string of riders and runners going by. Also, there was this one guy. When I first got there, he was standing by the bathrooms. He had a backpack and a sweatshirt on and looked a bit scrubby. Within minutes of my parking, he walked over and sat at a picnic table right in my line of sight. He was eating chips and just staring mostly at people going by, but also down at the ground. I’d say within an hour of me sitting there, he had put his head down on the table and seemed to have fallen asleep. How do I know he was asleep? Well, because he left his bag of chips on the ground, and a hungry squirrel was able to come right up to him and start ransacking the bag. Sure, if the guy moved the squirrel would scamper off, but it would inevitably come back and go for the chips. I honestly thought it was going to try to get into the guy’s backpack, or bite his ankle, which would have been even funnier. In all I stayed in that parking lot for over an hour and a half, and when I left that guy was still face down on the picnic table. Even starting my car didn’t wake him.
2. Monday Runday is a fun tradition. I meet my friend Mike, and typically his wife and kids, at a local track. We run, we walk, we chat, it’s always a good time. Sometimes we’ll see other people walking their dogs, or playing baseball on one of the fields. This week we had a first. From out of the woods, well the woods that divide the track from the pickleball courts, came a group of men. There were probably 6 of them, all over 60, and all at least 50-75 pounds overweight. Were they there to walk the track? No. They stood around a plastic merry-go-round for probably 20 minutes and then retreated back into the woods. I mean, come on. At least ride the merry-go-round if you’re going to hang out on a playground.
3. I am now at the age where I have to go on the internet to find out what certain slang terms mean. I’m from Gen-X, so we have our own slang that I’m sure my parents didn’t understand, but to me, that all seems normal. The term I had to look up was ‘rizz.’ What the hell does that mean? Well, apparently it’s the middle of the word charisma. Okay, that makes sense. I’m trying hard not to say how dumb that is. Much like in sports, they now say ‘chip’ for championship. Shouldn’t it be ‘ship?’ Oh well, I’ll keep saying wicked, awesome, chill, and whatever. You young folks can have your rizz, chip, cap, and sus. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going outside to yell at clouds.
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| Me in the not-too-distant future. |
4. When you have friends who want to see your mom when they are on Cape Cod, it just goes to show that you have a good mother and good friends. In the last few weeks, I’ve had 2 people ask to see my mom, 1 of whom I wasn’t even there for. I know for a fact that a handful of other friends would visit my mom if they lived closer. It’s the same for me. I can name off a bunch of friends whose mothers were positive presences in my life as a kid up to now. It’s a good feeling all around.
5. Hanging on a branch pretty much above the mailbox at work is a giant hornet’s nest. It is pretty intimidating to stand under it to take a photo since you can see all of the hornets on it and flying around it. Luckily, it’s just high enough up that the insects don’t seem to care about people below. I will be honest, though; my first thought was to throw rocks at it and then jump in my car and drive off. If I were 14, I would have but growing older made me think of the consequences. I didn’t want someone walking by having a nice afternoon when they suddenly get ambushed by hundreds of angry hornets. Plus I guess these particular hornets are pollinators and eat other insects so we’ll keep them around. Of course, now that I say that the damn nest will fall into my car when I drive under it with my roof open.
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| Yeah that looks safe |
6. Some days are better than others. And then some days are all-timers. It’s not every day that I get to spend time with one of my oldest and dearest friends. Hasan and I go back 35 years and my life is immeasurably better for having grown up with him. Now, as guys in our late 40s, it is so much fun to reminisce about those days. It’s even better to tell stories of growing up to his 9-year-old son. We played mini golf and went for ice cream. It was a perfect summer afternoon with perfect weather. I wish we lived closer so that these times would happen more often, but I cherish them when they do.
7. Speaking of the mini-golf game. I hadn’t played in many years so it was fun to get to do it. Luckily, Hasan had 3 free game passes, we literally scored a free game. I arrived at the place first and was getting out of my car. I took my keys and went to go put them in my back pocket. It was then that I felt something. I thought the pocket was inside-out. Nope, I had done laundry that morning and a sock was stuck to the Velcro of the pocket. I was so glad that there was nobody around to see me with a sock stuck to my shorts. I quickly threw it back into my car and laughed because it just fits with my life, and obviously made for a good blog post.
8. The mini-golf game itself was a blast. I grabbed a scorecard and a pencil, but never used it. Once I realized that I wasn’t going to set the course on fire with my play, I switched it up. To seem like his dad’s fun friend, I started hitting the ball like Happy Gilmore to make Hasan’s son laugh. The funny thing was I actually played better like that. If you don’t know the Happy Gilmore putting form just Google it. The majority of the game was spent reminiscing about the old days as we took 5-6 strokes for most of the holes. To be fair, Hasan’s son did make several great shots. This included a no-look putt, which once he made it became his go-to for all of his shots.
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| My putting form |
9. You forget just how crazy summer traffic on Cape Cod can be until you drive Route 28 (the main road) for more than a few hundred feet. Going from mini-golf to ice cream was less than 3 miles and typically would take 7-8 minutes but it took at least 15. It was worth it since I haven’t gone out for ice cream in a long time as well. The highlight of this part of the day was teaching Hasan’s son about the ‘5 Second Rule.’ He spilled a cup of M&M’s at the table and I grabbed a few off the seat and ate them. He was laughing, and I said to Hasan that I would forever be known as the guy who ate M&M’s off of the ground. It was that and trying to toss M&M’s into a practice hole for mini-golf. Fun all around.
10. All it took for me to be over summer on Cape Cod was driving on Route 28 in Hyannis one day, and driving on Route 28 in Harwich the next day. The number of bad drivers and brainless pedestrians was staggering. Stop signs mean ‘stop’, not roll through, or stop with half of your vehicle in the intersection. Also, crossing the street is fine, but there are reasons why crosswalks exist. When a bunch of beach ‘bros’ just decide to cross wherever they feel without looking, they deserve to become a hood ornament. Oh, and to prove I wasn’t a hypocrite, I did use a crosswalk when I stopped to go into a store. But yeah, Labor Day can’t come soon enough.
11. The most notable example of bad drivers was when I was on a relatively clear back road. Up ahead, I see a car literally stop in the middle of the road and begin to perform a terrible three-point turn. This was as vehicles were approaching. I mean, seriously? You are that stupid and selfish that rather than finding a road to turn down to do a turn around you put others at risk to feed your sense of entitlement? Then the idiot waved to us like he appreciated us ‘allowing’ him to be a total sack of garbage. Like I said, Labor Day can’t come soon enough.
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| The countdown is on. |
