On A Dime…

Today’s Music: Soulive – Soul Serenade

I’m sitting back at home right now. I’m pretty relaxed. The errands and chores for the day are pretty much done.
I’ve had some time to poke around the web, read some blogs, laugh at twitter.
I’m listening to some good music.

Yes. That grumpy.

My week didn’t start off that good. NYC was ridiculously hot and humid for about a week, and everyone was just miserable. I had Trombone Shorty tickets Monday night, with Soulive opening, promising to be a good show.
Soulive was great. Trombone Shorty was on fire. The crowd (as it did most of the times I’ve been to Central Park Summerstage) sucked.
It’s a personal thing, but my friends and I go to concerts to see the music, not to try and talk loudly over the music and pretend the venue is our living room.
Then it started to rain hard. So we left about twenty minutes into Trombone’s set.
Tuesday was a pain in the ass – email problems, computer problems, Big Red having issues with his computer stemming from the fact that he doesn’t know how to read what’s on the screen, other people having problems because obviously the instructions to do this and not that don’t apply to them because they’re special.
I kept thinking that the best solution would be to just throw their computer in the river, with them right behind it.
Wednesday was the same. New coworker thinks his job is 8 to 5. So any testing or maintenance or other work on weekends isn’t his problem.
I don’t mind doing the work because it has to be done, but it would be nice if there was someone to split the load with.

I was grumpy.

Then I got to Thursday.
I had a doctor’s appointment at 0930, and since I’d be out all morning, I figured I’d take the rest of the day as a mental health day.
My wife (The Most Wonderful Girl In The Universe asked if she should take the day off too.
Sure! I said, with one condition – it couldn’t be a chore day, and we had to go out and play.
She agreed (there’s a reason she’s TMWGITU!).

So we made a reservation to go stand up paddleboarding in lower Manhattan (Pier 40) in the early afternoon. Because it was late when my appointment ended, we drove in. On the way, it started raining. then it started raining harder.
We found a spot as the rain dwindled away and made it to the place (N.Y. Kayak).
25 minutes later, we were changed, on the dock, and ready to slide the boards into the water and shove off.
In we went. Kneeling as we paddled out, I felt the beginnings of a smile on my face.
10 minutes later, I stood up, took two strokes and with a shout of “GOING ON!!!” completely lost my balance and flopped backwards into the Hudson River off West Street.
I surfaced with a big grin on my face, no trace of grumpiness, and pleasantly untensed shoulders.
And my mood turned on a dime.

That’s fun right there!

The rest of the day was a blur of fun – two hours in the water, finishing with a fantastic foray into the river itself, with a current fast enough that it was all I could do to paddle and keep my place…a trip to Chelsea Market for one of the best burgers I’ve had in a while (it was a lamb burger, but still, delicious!) and a delicious bottle of ice cold American Ale (this wasn’t gluten free, but apparently that’s available these days too), followed by some incredible freshly made mini donuts and then a stroll along the Highline park, built on an old elevated freight line along 10th avenue.
My mood couldn’t be broken, not even when the guy from NY Kayak called and told me I’d left our bag of wet clothes behind. We laughed as we flew back down to get it.

Grumpy? Yeah, I can fix that…

Friday was a quiet day. Dealt with whatever came up (which wasn’t much), mostly sat at my desk and caught up on blogs. Then for the evening, we went out for a nice dinner and saw a great set by Paula Poundstone, along with a few bottles of the ever satisfying Rogue Dead Guy Ale, a beer that will always have a special place in my heart.

Now I’m sitting at my computer writing this, and in a few minutes, I’ll pick up my guitar and a beer (Blue Moon, I think) and spend a quiet evening with my girl.
I don’t know when the next time I’ll get to go out for an adventure, but I’ll start planning another mental health day as soon as I feel the grumps coming on.

Makes me wonder, how do you deal with them?