I feel no shame for being lazy and unfocused, though I should.
Time has gotten away from me. I realized this week is my dad's birthday, so I got a birthday card for him this morning. This is an extremely onerous yearly chore. My dad's family does not show emotions. We'll joke, but that's it. So picking out a birthday card is just awful. There are the religious cards, which are completely out of the question. Then there are the sappy cards. Not only would those make him a little uncomfortable...they're just not something I would say. I do sometimes buy them for my mother because her family is over-emotional and she wishes she would get sappy cards, but Dad? No. And the funny ones were just all a little too flippant, this time. Can't they make birthday cards that have non-cartoony, non-flowery pictures on the front and just simply say, "I love you and I'm glad you're my dad"? Simple and exactly the amount of emotional display he could deal with.
I finally settled on a neutral birthday card that plays "Dance To The Music" when you open it. He pretty much only listens to the music of his youth, and everyone will want to hear it play, so it will be kind of like a toy. (Dad loves toys...I think that was the best thing about my nephew being born for him, it meant he could play with toys and claim he was only doing it for his grandson.) Now I just need to go to Sears and get him a gift card, so he can buy more tools for wooden-toy-making purposes.
Also, I was looking for something to have on in the background while I wrote my review this afternoon. My choice was: Heroes season 2 reruns on G4...or a football game involving two teams I don't give a crap about. I chose the football. I am becoming seriously emotionally disconnected from that show right now. This cannot bode well. Though, on the other hand, I just got to see the most spectacularly hilarious two minutes of football, ever. It was capped off by a Viking field goal attempt that fell short of the goalposts and was returned for a 109-yard touchdown by the Chargers. I wonder if Brad Childress is going to cry? Minnesota is the new Cincinnati, I think. Thank God.
OK. Need to finish the review, and then go put in an hour raking leaves.
ETA: Actually I will NOT be raking leaves, because it turns out I don't have any garbage bags, even though I would have sworn I had a half-box of them. Well. I guess I will be getting up at dawn for the next few days to rake. (Of course dawn is now like 7 am, so it's not as big a hardship as I'm making it sound...)