It's not a bong, it's not a pipe

Turn down your speakers, the train was going by when I took this...

I'm posting this one

I start so many posts. Then I delete them.

What have I been up to lately...

We made one last trip to the water park and splurged again on the cabana (and cabana girl). Once you've done the park that way, you're spoiled.

We spent Labor Day weekend in Arkansas, visiting Court's family. We both picked up colds while there, and then I got even more sick once we were back. I'm better now (after a trip to the MD), but still very tired. Fortunately I don't have a lot of work happening right now.

We had a good visit with Court's family. There were more than enough reasons to be worried for the kids. I'm relieved to say that despite all the adult dysfunction in their lives, the kids (ages 16, 13, and 10) are doing okay. One good thing going for them: they are involved in a really good church. People are looking out for them.

Court deserves sainthood for being nice to her parents and other sister (she's 25). And that's all I'll say about them.

We did our every-second-Saturday gay cafe this past weekend. We splurged on one of these. OMFG was it good.

Church is in full swing after a summer hiatus, and that has me busy. I edit the newsletter, I'm a trustee, and I'll also be leading a few services this year.

My mother called me the other night and we had a very positive conversation. This is really good. She and I have so much anger. It's time to just get over it.

So far so good with Amanda and her move from high school to the community college. The newness has worn off and now she's getting into the hard slog. She's upbeat. My days are filled with driving to campus to pick her up or drop her off.

We have a busy fall coming up. We'll be in Pennsylvania in a couple weeks to celebrate my mother's 80th birthday. We also have plans to go to the State Fair in Richmond, the Wine & Garlic Festival in Amherst, the Apple Harvest Festival in Winchester, and we'll be camping at Martinsville for a weekend of racing.

I'll also fly to Kansas City next month for two days of staff meetings. I'm not looking forward to that.

I'm excited for the Chase, NASCAR's version of a playoff, which begins this weekend. My driver, Tony Stewart, is second in points. He's had a bad month, and does not have good momentum going into the final ten races. I hope he turns things around. I'm really excited for the fall race in Martinsville. Hopefully Tony will still be in contention by that race.

Of course I'm loving football now that it's back. I married a Razorback, so they are a sentimental favorite, along with Pitt and Penn State. And then there are my hometown Steelers, who I think are the worst-looking good team of the bunch. I have a hard time watching them play.

I guess that sums things up for now.

End of summer purge

I'm sorry to see summer come to an end. It's been a good summer. It's the easy time of my calendar. Soon financial aid season will be upon me and I'll be at my laptop for hours upon hours, days and weeks at a stretch. Not looking forward to that. In fact, I'm dreading it.

I had my annual physical last week and though I don't have all the lab results yet, I don't expect any surprises. I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. The coughing that had me down during spring (likely allergies), is long gone. The nausea that began last year and worsened this past spring is also gone. It left with Celexa.

Speaking of Celexa, I think I'm finally through the withdrawal. Looking back on it, the process probably hit its apex when I was in Oregon in June. I was so miserable that weekend I wanted to die. I wasn't depressed or suicidal. I just wanted to die. Hard to explain. It's all behind me thankfully. I feel great, both emotionally and physically.

I think my thyroid may be off kilter a bit, so I half-expect to get a call from my doctor to change my Levoxyl dosage. I say half-expect because if my thyroid was off like I think it is, I'd be dropping a lot more weight. I have been dropping weight, but it's because I've been working at it.

After a seven month stretch when I took a break from weight loss and rarely exercised, I picked it up again, in earnest. I came off a stressful winter/consulting season with a serious case of cabin fever. When work wound down, I busted out. I've spent every possible minute of every day this summer outside (or in the pool), doing something.

The batting cage is the perfect compliment to Frisbee golf [I throw from left-to-right and swing from right-to-left]. Just saying.

I've had a lot of time for the outdoors because this is my off season. I've not been especially busy with work. I do a different kind of modeling in my off season. I do these cookie-cutter, assembly line, predictive models. I get a fixed price per model, and there are enough to do that I earn half of my year in my off-season. Yet I hardly work at all.

Unfortunately, the rest of my year doesn't come so easily. I haven't figured out how to adapt my econometric models to an assembly line system so that I can get the same price-to-effort ratio. I need to work on that.

When one can't work, one must play. Playtime aplenty has had its rewards. I dropped 10 pounds over the summer.

I've dropped 50 pounds since quitting my day job 14 months ago. My knees are a lot happier and I no longer suffer from GERD.

I'm working hard to drop 25 more. Then my plan is to clean up the rest of my act just long enough to pass a physical for affordable health insurance. The difference between Fat Trop and Lean Trop is about $200/month in premiums. Cha-ching.

I've blogged enough for now about banjo, except for this cute thing. The kid in the lesson before mine is an 8-year-old girl learning guitar. She's just starting out and already she's doing a respectable rendition of Walk the Line. When her lesson was wrapping up, I overheard her tell the instructor "They're going to make a movie about me, just like in Walk the Line." So. Cute.

If there was a movie about your life, what celebrity would play your part? No clue who would play me in a Trop biopic.

Another reason I'm sad to see summer end: Amanda. I enjoy being home with her through the day. I'm so lucky to have that. We'll still have it after school starts, but it won't be the same.

Amanda has been pumped for school after her first two orientation classes; her full schedule starts tomorrow. I hope she takes to college the way I did. I hated high school so much that I almost skipped out on college. As it was I delayed college until I was 20. That was the right thing for me. I hope this is the right thing for her.

I am so desperate to see Amanda blossom.

Courtney and I spent a lot of date nights this summer at city stadium, where the Hillcats play. Minor league baseball is a lot of fun. We went to the game last night and saw a great fireworks show afterward. I'm going to miss nights out at the stadium.

NASCAR has been SO much fun this summer because my guy has been at the top of the charts most of the season. He had a bad night last night though. Hope that's the last one. NASCAR lasts until November, so there's a lot of racing left.

Finally, I'm sorry to see summer end because with fall comes another birthday (October). I'm going to be 49 this time, and that's hitting me HARD.

What it's like to be married to Courtney

My keg party TO DO list:
Mow the lawn
Rake leaves
Hose out coolers
Put up the screen house
Set up the grills
Gather the firewood
Pat out 48 beef patties


Her keg party TO DO List:
Put out the frozen cream puffs
FB people with directions to our house

Apologies

Had I known it would be five days until I got back here, I'd have never left that depressing post hanging out there for so long. Sorry.

Saturday we hosted another every-second-Saturday cafe. We had low turnout, which wasn't unexpected given that it was a holiday and a lot of people told us they'd be out of town. Nonetheless, we ended up with about ten more than expected, so that was great. We had a few first-timers, and that's always VERY encouraging.

It always surprises me that people come early and stay late... to a church, where there is no alcohol, on a Saturday night.

Who'd have thought it?

It just shows ya how desperate gays are to find other gays... so desperate that they go to a church on a Saturday night.

Despite the lack of booze, we can get down-right nasty. Wound up on gallons of coffee, we had a mean game of Apple-to-Apples going most of the night... a table of mostly lesbians and our minister, who is a fun guy and a good sport. There was a lot of harsh humor going on. The minister got an earful.

I came to realize that I say "fuck" WAY too much.

It was all very silly. Who doesn't need a little of that these days?

The cafe scored it's first official pick-up, when newly-single Zack rubbed arms with a new guy. I know they left together because I was on bouncer greeter duty at that time.

We didn't have our usual cafe clean up crew, so that left all of the clean-up to us, and made us very late getting home. Worse, we had to be back early the next morning to unload the dishwasher before Sunday coffee hour.

After church, I made the mad dash to load up Judy and hit the road for Savannah, where I am as I write this. Amanda and I left East Jesus at about 2:00pm yesterday and reached our downtown hotel at about 10:10pm last night.

About fifteen minutes after we checked in, Court sent a text asking if I'd seen her car keys. I have them. Oops.

We're here in Savannah for the day. Tomorrow we drive to Naples, FL.

Where some of the stimulus money ought to go

Three years ago, when I went with Court to city offices to apply for her name change, I was appalled that staffers there were working on PC's still operating in DOS.

Government PCs haven't gotten much better since then. Court started her city job this week, and she's having to re-learn Windows 93. She says her PC crawls.

That would drive me insane.

If you do it....

...they will come. I feel like Ray Kinsella.

Last night was the inaugural Cafe and people came. Court worked her butt off to bring it to life. I did my fair share of the heavy lifting, but the kudos really go to her.

Somehow the word got out and people came. We had about 45 throughout the night, and very few were people we knew from church. People came early and stayed late.

A couple of gay LU students came, and they shared their tales of de-gayification. Horrendous. Talk about brave people.

Things are off the a great start, and I couldn't be happier. An organized gay community is long overdue in East Jesus, and we are smack dab in the middle of it.

Life is good.

Happy dance time

Court got a new job! It's a full-time job, and a good paying one at that.

She first interviewed for this job in October. Then there were several follow-up interviews. Then there was a delay. Then another interview.

Finally, today, she got the official word. Start date is January 21.

We are over-the-top excited.

My secret

Court LOVES to read Post Secret every week. This week as she was reading it, she accused me of sending in this postcard.

Happy Birthday Courtney

Join the group hug for my wife

The poor woman saw a trouser snake today.



She just told me all about it, and I'm in tears laughing.

[snicker]

How can I pass this up?

Cowgirl up

Friday night I discovered just how serious my wife's weakness for cowgirls is.

She took me to my first-ever rodeo. And she bought me my first-ever cowgirl hat. And she drooled at me in that hat.

There was only one small problem. Even with the hat, she couldn't keep her eyes on me.


Court: Look. She's wearing a dress AND boots.
Me: I see.
Court: [drooling] She's so hot!
Me: Oh yes, she is hot. I love her dress.
Court: OMG she's so hot.
Me: I get it. Tonight when we kiss it's not me you'll be thinking about, eh?
Court: Hey, if it's good for you, will it really matter?
Me: I reckon not.

Still finding my rhythm

I'm still adjusting to life as an employed stay-at-home mother. I suspect my adjustment will continue for a long while.

I enjoyed mothering all the kids while they were here. And now I am enjoying the last couple of weeks with Amanda before she goes back to school on the 25th.

I had a stretch of 12-hour days with nine projects due in the last two weeks of July, and now I am coming off seven days of no work. Yesterday I was given three projects, all due on Wednesday. More will come.

We've been doing SO much driving. We rented a Grand Caravan for the trip to Little Rock, and turned it in having driven 2,099 miles in five days. While the kids were here we made day trips to Greensboro, NC; Virginia Beach; Lexington, VA; and Natural Bridge, VA (sometimes in two cars).

This past Tuesday we drove to Charlottesville to meet the very fine Ms. Chapin. She says we cooked dinner for her. The truth is, we took her to a fondue restaurant.

We're not done traveling. My paternal family reunion is tomorrow in PA. We're driving up early in the morning for the afternoon picnic. Afterward we'll head over to BFF Tina's for Karaoke night at Johnny Angels.

Tonight for date night we are going to the Pittsylvania County rodeo.


Court and I had an anniversary on Sunday, while we were in Little Rock. It seems impossible that she and I have been together only four years. We fit like time-tested precision, well beyond our years as a couple. Nevertheless, it was just four years ago, on Aug 3, that I drove to Little Rock to move her to Radford, VA for graduate school. That was also our first face-to-face meeting.

Yes, Court and I started out as an Internet romance.

So. Tawdry.

Our first year was rocky. I was still smarting from my divorce. I was broke and demoralized. And I wasn't out to anyone that mattered. The first night she was in my home, I looked at her and said to myself, "She's going to break my heart."

She hasn't.

Ever.

Near the end of our first year I panicked. I had doubts. I suddenly felt like life with her was not what I wanted. And I told her so. It was honest, it was the right thing to do, but it was a brutal blow to her. The woman NEVER wavered. And she impressed me. My panicking wasn't an attempt to test her, but in that crisis, she proved herself a keeper.

I've not doubted since.


I have to be the luckiest, and happiest, woman alive right now.

Vacationing Dave Ramsey style

Take a look at the cash cache for the three weeks the kids are with us:

Everything is done with cash in this household, including vacations. The cash budgeted for each of our various activities while the kids stay with us has its own envelope.

Court broke in a new teller at our bank. This one barely masked her contempt as we withdrew more than $2K in cash, with Court requesting the money in specific denominations, including 249 one-dollar bills.

The teller needed more than 20 minutes to count out the withdrawal. Customers behind us in line FUMED.

I just chuckled.

My wife is a perv

Feeling silly this morning, I decided to don a dress with pearls and pull a "June Cleaver" on Court when she came home for lunch.

The perv took a picture.



Edited to add: Okay my pervy minions, how many of you got caught in my boobie trap? Fess up!

The boss-in-law

Trop: Did your boss ask how our date went last night?

Court: She just asked if we burned our knees

Trop: LOL

Court: I laughed but wanted to say, "if you count carpet burns"

Trop: HAHAHAHA!

Overheard @ Trop's

Court (to Kim): "I can't imagine being older than you."

It looks disgusting, but how does it taste?

This is the third and final installment. Part one is HERE. Part two is HERE.

Now for the taste test. This is a perfect time to involve Trop. She's grumpy on account of getting only three hours sleep...




Now the ever-perky Courtney...



Court's green smoothies are delicious. REALLY. We've been drinking them every morning this week.

How did it turn out?

Part one is HERE.



To be continued...