Best and Worst Things I Acquired This Year

Best:

• Sink wrench - I got this a few weeks ago when I was replacing our kitchen faucet.  I could not believe how well it worked.  It literally turned faucet replacement into a 20 minute job.  
• Our new back patio furniture.  Patio tables are for chumps.  And I was a chump until this year. Now that we have lounge-y furniture back there, my only regret is that we didn't have this setup while I was a smoker.  
• Oscillating saw - What do you want me to cut?  Because I can cut any fucking thing with this saw. I cut the shit out of all kinds of shit after I got it.  
• ipod nano - Anyone who works out should have one of these.  So light and small and has a little clip on it.  I can't believe they redesigned it this year.  That was dumb.
• Booze caddy - I actually got this from Dave back in 2005, but it was at my parents' house until this year.  I finally set it up, and now I don't know what I would do without it.  It measures out shots.  It rotates.  It keeps the bottles off the counter.  Genius!
• G.I. Joe Classic bound copies of the original G.I. Joe Marvel comic books.  I read damn near all of them. Childhood revisited.  Hooray.
• Faucet - the aforementioned kitchen faucet was a real lifesaver. Now we have way better water pressure, and the sprayer works like a champ. Voosh!
• Baby Bjorn - I could take Edith wherever the hell I wanted, and no one could say shit.
• Rain Barrel - Technically Chelsey picked this thing up, but Chuck and I installed it.  Having a rain barrel and using it to water your garden means you can be as smug as you want about things.  The Kosterpeldings are part of the solution.
• Stratus Pro Basketball Game from 1988 - I had this as a kid and overpaid to re-acquire it off of eBay  Childhood recaptured again.  
• Gas grill - This summer, Chelsey and I paid $15.00 for a nice gas grill at a garage sale. I have always been against these, but as expected, now that I own one I love it. Grill goes on. Grill goes off. Terrific.
• Blue glass figurines from my Grandma - When she moved into her apartment, I got the shadowbox that she used to hang on the wall in her house.  But she took the blue glass items it used to hold with her to the apartment.  When she passed away this year, I got most of the blue glass back into her shadowbox.  Now it's all hanging in our living room.  That's pretty great.

Worst:

• When I got the ipod nano, I decided to wear it like a watch with this dumb wristband.  It was a horrible decision.  For like two weeks I looked like a huge douchebag.  Huger than normal.
• New Balance 840's.  Purchased a week before the half-marathon for way more than I normally pay for shoes.  They didn't work out, and I felt like a moron.
• Tilly & the Wall - Heavy Mood and Cat Power - Sun.  I can't believe we paid for these crap-ass albums. 
• Maroon button down shirt. I got this from H&M, and for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to to wear it and not feel like a putz. Don't know why.  I just can't do it.  I think I'm a light colored shirt wearer.  That's just the way it is.   
• A bright blue sweater vest with a Goodwill logo sewn on.  I feel like I'mrepresenting a car dealership or a printing company at a trade show whenever I put this on.

Three Bike Accidents

This past week, my nephew (Wendy's son Jude) had a pretty crappy bike accident.  I wanted to pass along my own bike disaster memories so that he could see he wasn't alone in his struggle to stay on two wheels.  Here is the email I sent to Wendy.  After re-reading it, I decided that I wanted it to share it for posterity.  It's cleaned up a bit.  In the first story, I actually racked myself severely, but figured there was not delicate way of saying that.  And in the last one I was at least a little drunk.  No need to share that. 

First, when I was his age, Chuck and I were jumping our bikes at the churchyards in Logansport.   We had a ramp set up, but I guess it was too close to a shed that was on the parking lot.  I had made the jump several times, but on my last jump, I struggled to land, and ran straight into the shed.  It threw me off my seat and into my handlebars.  I hopped up from the wreck, and ran straight home, I was so mad and embarrassed and hurt..  Bad day. 

But not the worst bike accident I ever had.  The one that hurt the most happened in New Orleans.  I was biking home from the grocery store in the street, when some lady opened her car door in front of me without looking.  The door took out my bike and I flew straight into the side of her door.  The main impact was on my shin.  It split the skin wide open, and my leg swelled up so it looked like a tennis ball was underneath.  So much swelling I could barely walk for the next week.  I had to have the welt lanced to relieve the pain and pressure.  When the sore finally healed (it took the whole summer) the scab that fell off was big and thick as a thin mint cookie.  It was incredible.  I still have a lump there on that shin.

Still not the worst.  The worst was actually pretty similar to Jude's.  I was biking home from my job on St. Charles Avenue late one night, and I must have hit something or something hit me.  It was very dark.  I don't really know what happened, because I lost consciousness.  When I came to, I woke to the feeling of my chin dragging along the road.  I had been knocked off my bike and basically landed on my face.  I got to my feet, and tried to ride home.  It felt like my face was on fire, and little drops of blood were accumulating on my shirt and bike on the way home.  By the time I got home, my whole front side was bloody.  I took a look at myself in the mirror that night, and I couldn't see any skin on my chin at all.  Just blood and scab.  I had a concussion from the accident, so I threw up after that.  Then I went to bed.  NEVER DO THIS.  I WAS LUCKY.  You aren't supposed to fall asleep after a concussion, but I was super-loopy from the crash.  The next day, I tried to go to school, but I was in a fog.  I got to class late, and everyone gasped when I opened the door.  But my fellow students were very kind.  They helped me get to the Medical Clinic on campus, where the staff diagnosed my concussion, and told me it was too late for stitches.  When I got home from school I discovered that I had gravel embedded in my chin.  I spent several excruciating minutes digging it out, but I did a lousy job.  I would find little pieces of concrete in my chin over the course of the next few months.  I had a very deep cut on my chin which took a log time to heal.  But I also had a great story.  Sometimes I would make things up when people would ask me about it.  And then, when I met Chelsey, we discovered that both of us had a scar in that same spot on our chins.  So maybe it was meant to be.