Remember when the weekend was to relax from a hard week of work? This weekend was anything but, and I am going into work Monday not anymore rested than I was after the workday ended Friday. I”m actually more work out both physically, and as well as mentally.

FYI, for parts of this think of the song “Jump into the Fire” by Harry Nillson as you read this entry. Those who get what I am referencing to will laugh. Those who don’t obviously do not watch Scorcese films. No, I didn’t see any helicopters, by the way

Friday night I went to do “things” with my cousin (the cover story for preparing for his wife’s surprise baby shower). We had to go to the site where it was going to be set up and start putting the tables and chairs out. We get that done and put all the covers on the tables and all that fun stuff.

I figure after that and hanging out at a friends house I can get some rest. Well, I knew I had to be up at 8:30 to get stuff for the shower itself and get some personal business done, so naturally with that on my mind, I didn’t sleep at all. When the alarm went off, I got up, took a shower, downed as much caffeinated-filled things I could find, and headed out. I go pick up a friend who was helping organizing this shower to pick up the cake. Along the way we pick up her cousin who was helping with setting up the place. We had to go back to my friend’s place a second time to pick up the party favors, meaning in a half-hour I travelled about 10 blocks in Astoria-in a circle. We then go to the place where the party is, open up the room and start setting up. I hang around for a little while as my friends and another cousin of mine set things up. Then I jumped back into my car and went to my house to get my mom and sister to bring to this party. We get back, help get people into the room where we were, and then when the food arrived and was being set up, the beans were cold. My cousin told me to go to her place a block over and get her microwave. I run over to get it, which included me getting my balls broken by her husband that I was really manly doing this shower. I bring it into the room, noticed there was a microwave on top of the fridge.....

Anyway, it was time for the moment where the surprise is revealed. At this time looking at the room and it being a surprise, I had the vision of a scene from “GoodFellas” where Pesci thought he was going to be “made” and was killed. I should show you pics and video of this room and you will get the same impression. But as I had this thought and was trying not to laugh out loud, the door opens and everyone screams surprise. Had the surprisee say “oh no”, I would have been on the floor laughing.

So the shower went on, and I will not go into details as far as my commentary since it isn’t relevant and not accurate as to how nice of a day it was-She was happy, everything else doesn’t matter. One funny thing came from my mom, asking my if my friend who also was pregnant was married to my other friend who was gay. After almost laughing from the question (needed given what how things were with me at the moment), I explained things to my mom.

OK, so after all the gifts were packed into cars and things were cleaned up, I took my mom and sister home. Rest of the night was not a nice person to be around, and thank God I called my cousin. Had I not, things would have been done and said that would have done a lot bad than good. I really don’t want to get into details why I was in the state I was, since it is irrelevant, but I disagreed with a few things that day, and I felt like what I did to resolve said disagreements were ignored. That’s all I have to say. Anyone wondering what happened exactly, don’t bother asking. As I said it’s irrelevant and over with. Anyone still going to be a pain in the ass about it, ask me directly, other people were told not to say anything. OK, I know now I have a few things that i have to work on, and that was pointed out. I’m trying, that’s as much as I can say.

Well after the talk and cooling off a bit, I dozed off for a bit. Now, what happens when you sleep for a little bit before you actually go to sleep?? YOU CAN’T SLEEP RIGHT WHEN YOU TRY TO. I went to bed about 11 that night, and woke up at 4:30am. Since then I just laid there not really sleeping. the alarm went off and now it was time to get the last leg of this weekend off.

My cousin picks me up to get the van at U-Haul. We get it and I drive his car home while he drives the van back to his place. Today’s task is to take the futon in his place down to his in-law’s in Central Jersey and bring back a bed. This futon is the infamous cursed one, where the past two owners, who didn’t have kids nor really planned on any, ended up getting pregnant. I was offered it at first but I can’t even type what I told my cousin when he offered it.

So somehow we get the thing into the van (actually the frame was easy, the mattress was the pain in the ass). the trip to Jersey itself was...weird for me, to say the least. It was sorta fitting how the weekend was going, but still it was just weird. First, I was reading the directions to get to where we were going and the exit we had to take off of the NJ Turnpike, and some of the route after, sounded familiar to me, but I blew it off. As we were driving, I gave my cousin the grand tour of where I dated people. I pointed out a couple exits in Brooklyn I had taken to meet up with some of them. It felt like this route was made exactly to take us through this...Google must be pissed I don‘t use my gmail account as my main email address anymore. We get to Jersey and closer to the exit we had to exit off, and I kept saying “Well, this looks familiar”. We exited off the turnpike and seeing the direction we were going I said loudly “Oh boy, I know where we are...wow”. God can really be a prankster can he??? All this time my cousin smiled, but was silent, probably just to not make me feel more weird, and I think he knew who exactly I was talking about as far as who lived over in that area. By “weird” I mean in the “what are the odds, all this would line up like this?!?!?” As we traveled down 18, I pointed out the exact turnoff I used to take to go to where I used to go to down there. One bright spot was the emergency stop I had to make into a restaurant and left what I felt about the state of Jersey there.

We get to his in-law’s place, switched a bed with a futon, and after realizing we are old and broken down, head back to the city. I believe I made the most poignant and succinct statement about my feelings of Jersey. My cousin took a turn a little too fast getting on the Gothells Bridge, and I mentioned I rather if he rolled the van and kill us to do it on the other side of the bridge. He asked “In Staten Island?!?!?” I responded “yeah, at least it would be in New York”, and he agreed. Yes people, I put even Staten Island above New Jersey.

Finally after another stop to get more furniture from some relatives, we hike all the crap into my cousin’s place and then my weekend of work was over.

Time to start to rest and enjoy the weekend!!!! What? it’s 5pm Sunday?!?!?! damn!!!!

In the end I got a back that’s killing me, splinters in both hands, and one hand was almost crushed, and my arthritis in my ankle was acting up. But it was all worth it since the soon-to-be mother got a kick-ass shindig and was still smiling today over it.

Plus, down the road I can hold all what I’ve done to help this couple and kid over them at some point. Hey, it was done to me a few times!!!!!