Day 48

Glad to be back home. Leah and I got up and out pretty early yesterday morning. We were out of the house by 7:45 CST and were back in the house by 1:15. It was perfect. We missed all of the traffic and cruised home in 5 and a half hours. Some weekend highlights I didn't get to in the blog entries from the weekend:

1. Wednesday night Cousin Steve came over to see us after dinner at his mom's. He had all of the solid material working. He really knows how to lighten my mood. I wasn't really feeling up to it, but my boys Gregg, Dave, and Rafal called and said I have to meet them out. So Steve and I went. We met at the bar at Moxie with a few people including of friends Jodi and Jason who had a baby recently. My boys loved hanging with the infamous Cousin Steve. We had a few drinks and I was ready to bounce. I ended up going out to the new sceny spot, Sushi Rock. The place is so Cleveland-trying-to be-hip. Ran into a ton of randoms of the old school. I was a mess, I hadn't planned on going out so I didn't shower and had on my black beanie. I'm sure I was getting a few comments on that. Anyways, I had a real solid time. The highlight was running into my boy Ags' new girlfriend, who I knew from years back but hadn't seen probably since high school. I probably spent 20 minutes talking to her. She was very cool and down to earth. I definitely approve. All in all there, there is still nothing better to me than hanging out with my old school crew from ctown. When we are all together, its like we get right back into the old routine.

2. You cannot go anywhere in Cleveland without running into someone you know. Leah and I were in Knuth's and one of the woman working there went to my high school. Also saw two other random mothers that I knew from growing up.

3. Friday night we had dinner with our good friends Jeremy and Amy in Ohio City at a place called the Fulton bar & Grill. I had a dish that was the whup - Penne Pasta, carmelized onions, and Blue cheese. It was real solid. Jer and I had a solid 10-15 minute Beatles discussion in which MD, Leah, and Amy seemed really uninterested. On that same note, Leah got real tired of me listening to the George Harrison CD everytime we were in the car this past weekend.

4. After dinner, Leah, MD, and I met Cousin's Julie, Kathy, and Steve and some of Julie's friends. Again, cant go anywhere in ctown without running into someone I know. First it was a table of a girl I worked at Hawken Day Camp with and her two friends, one of whom I knew from Chicago. Then on the way to the bathroom, I ran into a table of 8, 6 of whom I knew, including my future brother in law Justin's sister and her husband. Ok - everyone follow that? Steve was killing me. Nobody has better material just by being them self quite like Steve.

5. After a large double Belvedere, Rafal picked me up and we headed over to another weak ctown bar, Bossanova, or as I like to call it, the place where 45 year old divorced men come to try to pick up 20 something women. This was where a bunch of people were meeting after their 10 year reunion, including Dave. Random's here included the great Reality TV star from For Love or Money, my old neighbor Mike Deatly. Mike spent a lot of time at my house growing up, especially in high school. The random of all randoms is that his girlfriend is none other than the Swedish meatball herself, my ex-high school girlfriend Lara. All I know is that she gave me the "I meant to call you last year about your father" routine. Do me a favor, save it. Just say I'm sorry about your father and move on. The other classic is that she had asked about Leah and said "I can't believe you were cheating on me with her and now you guys are married." I told her is was 11 years ago and she needed to get past it. Lara and Deatly together was too much. Another classic was seeing former OHS track star EJ Martin in his fur coat. How solid is that? There were some seriously inebriated people in this crew. I stayed there until around 1:30 and went home. Great time though.

6. Leah, Mom, and I went to Fleming's steakhouse with my Grandmother. What a great restaurant. Gets my seal of approval. What great steaks they have there. A tad on the pricey side, but as steakhouses go, it is definitely worth it. Had a wonderful time with my grandmother. She and my mom both had these Peach Martini's that were pretty good. She was really in good spirits.

Lastly, again, I want to thank all of my friends who called this past weekend to check to see how we were doing. Nobody let me down. I cannot begin to describe how lucky I am to have such great friends. As I said the other day - onward and upward positively from here on out.

Song of the Day: "Friends" by Snoop Dogg, Warren G, and Nate Dogg. An Ags "Head bobbing" track.