mandate
Women talk about their girlfriends but men have guyfriends, not boyfriends. Is it insecurity? Homophobia? Maybe it just sounds dumb. Because guyfriends sounds so much cooler? Regardless of the semantics I have Man Dates. And they are awesome. Last weekend I had three in 24 hours.
Friday my friend Sean came over for lunch and to check out the wheel I had built under his tutelage. Good news, the wheel passed. (I’ve since stuck a freewheel on it and put it on an old schwinn €“ it’s a blast €“ I think I’ll go hang out in dwntn mpls with the 1×1 crowd. Hand me my chunky glasses.) As we were eating and talking about the frame he had just ordered (surly cross check) he mentioned that Iron Man was out. I wasn’t sure what Iron Man was but I figured it was a video game or a movie. Turns out its a movie. Turns out we went to a matinée. Turns out it was awesome. Jodi and I rarely go to movies and when we do they never involve guns and explosions. So I got my action fix for the decade. Yippee! Then on our way (not really but kind of) home we stopped by hiawatha cycles which was nothing short of amazing. Great shop, great people, great vibe. Someday I’ll make a lot of money and go back and spend spend spend. Till then I’ll go back and hangout and drool.
Home for dinner, put the girls in bed and then what? Marty came to pick me up for the Kathleen Edwards show. Yes, yes, yes. Best rock and roll show I’ve been to in forever. Great sound and site lines (Varsity €“ first time). What a crazy cool privilege it must be to be in a band like that. We followed the show with a pint at the Spot €“ which is a whole ‘nother story. Off to dreamland.
Saturday morning I biked up the hill to Bill’s. We cut down a tree. On purpose. Excel was supposed to come out and shut off the power because one branch was around a power line. Excel even gave a time frame when they’d be there. When they were an hour late we called and they said ‘we don’t come out on Saturdays.’ Then why the heck did you say you would? Nimrods. So we did what any dedicated logger would do. We cut it down anyways. We threw a rope around the offending branch to see if we could pull it away from the line. As I pulled the branch started to crack which meant I had to pull harder so that it wouldn’t fall on the line. It worked. The branch cleared the line and fell to the ground. I didn’t even have time to yell timber. But Bill did show me how to use the chainsaw. It had a loose sparkplug wire and I learned that you shouldn’t hold the wire on the sparkplug while you pull the starter chord. Even with thick leather gloves, you will feel a bit of a hand numbing tingle. Good to know.
All that in 24 hours.
Later our family met up with some other friends at the Living Green Expo. In some way that balanced out the tree felling. I’d say more but there were women there too, so it doesn’t fit under the title of Man Date. Stay tuned for Coupledate.