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Let Them Eat Cake....and Blog About It!



If someone says they're a true Auburn fan and says they'll pull for Alabama except when they play Auburn, or if someone says they're a true Alabama fan and they'll pull for Auburn except when they play Alabama, then they'll lie about other things too.

--Unknown.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

The Cement Swinger

One hot, sunny, sticky, sweltering Sunday afternoon in the not so distant few weeks past I heard a knock on the door. My neighbor, we shall call him J. came over to see if the kid would like to go swimming at their pool.

DW said sure and took the boy over. I informed her that I needed to work on my fence and didn't plan on making an appearance. As I worked my fence posts in my back yard, I could hear the splashing and the joy coming from my boy as he cooled off in the above ground pond half encircled by a sun weathered deck.

I was noticed and called so I went over to say hello and brag on my "big" little feller in the big boy pool. After listening to a brief but disconcerting discourse on Nascar and Alabama football, I politely excused myself to continue my toils.

No sooner than I had gotten back into the details of my task, I heard J. yelling my name from across the way. So I trekked back over. Apparently J. had been pestering DW to get in the pool so she told him to "tell the boys daddy to come get in the pool" with the kid. She later informed me that J. had to ask what my name was.

Now back over at J.'s I began to notice two things. One, J. was rather rapidly consuming more than his share of adult beverages and two, he would stop asking my wife to get in the pool, clothes and "everything".

I tell "guy" that she isn't going to comply. I remove my shirt (easy ladies) and jump in the pool. I play with Jackson. Its fine, fun even however I was never quite comfortable making this visit. J. goes into depth on an array of pointless topics, constantly repeating himself in his progressive stupor until he makes the oddest of comments. Ol'J. starts telling me what a good woman his wife his and so forth and so on.

Now I am starting to question what the ol'boy's intentions are. If he says the first danged word about being swingers I'd have punched him in the gullet and calmly walked back to the safety of our own domain. Somehow the conversation reverts back to the repetitive jibbersh he spewed earlier.

Once again he mentioned to DW that she needed to just go ahead and get in the pool and at that point we made and executive decision on our end and began to leave. In my haste to leave, J. who was quite drunk by this time made reference to my work ..ing my fence. He pledged right then and there his devotion to help me with my fence if I'd help him with his.

Granted, I am more than happy to help a neighbor, but this son of a gun watched me build the fronts and sides to my privacy fence last summer. He watched and made comments as I hit and dug up boulders in my attempt at setting posts. So my work on the fence at this point in the story was rather minor. It was the last hurrah to tie the back of the fence together as to enclose that baby for future dogs and whatever else you do with a completely closed in back yard. Suffice it to say, I needed zero help. Also dear reader, I am not sure if it's been mentioned but I like things my way. I am quite particular about how tasks get completed, very picky you might say.

I left and told J. that sure, I'd help "him". Next thing I know as I am beginning to set posts is that I see J. sneaking into my back yard, shirtless and shoeless, to help a brother out.

He caught me at a bad time. A few of you may be aware, but I have constant nagging knee problems. I was bent over clutching a knee that appeared to have locked up on me. So J. assumed that I really needed help at that point. He picked up the post hole diggers and started wailing on my previously completed and tamped holes. As he raised the height of the holes and ignored my pleas to stop, his wife came over and scolded him for not wearing shoes. She also asked him to watch their baby.

I tried to convince him that I was at a stopping point but instead I wound up watching a baby and a drunk. He asked if I was going to sink the posts in concrete. Why oh why Lord did I not simply say, "no".

So he walked over to pick up and place an 80 pound sack of concrete in my wheel barrow. My yard has some crown or slope so when he attempted to grab the sack he and the wheel barrow went tumbling. It was pretty funny except that he was mucking up my whole operation.

After I placed the sack in the wheel barrow I watched him try to tear into the bag with his bare hands. It got worse. He started mixing the cement with his bare hands. I could not get a hoe in the wheel barrow to save my life. Wonder what he did next? He started scooping the cement with his hands and dumping it in my holes where the posts sat waiting. Dude's wife came over and said "honey, use a shovel". I informed her that apparently J. didn't believe in shovels.

I think she realized how perturbed ol'RW had become so she scolded J. and made him go home, but not before I hosed concrete off his face, arms, chest and legs.

He came over the next day to apologize, admitting that he didn't really remember what had happened. And praise be to the Lord that he hasn't attempted to assist me in my further tasks even though I caught him watching, longing to help.

Why didn’t you get your own fries?

Sunday, April 20, 2008

we trotted over to BK to get a quick bite for din din. my hands were stained from potting soil. i could have cared, but i didnt (and yes i was wearing my shorts).

so i get a burger and some fries. i dont even want a burger and some fries. i really dont want the fries expessially. But when my wife who didnt get any fries starts eating fries off of my laid flat burger wrapper / plate substitute, i friggin lost it.

i didnt really lose it so that you would notice. i cut my eyes and asked why she didnt get her own fries. she acted like i lost it and threw three (count them, one two three) french fries at me. it was priceless. we looked like we belonged, what with me in my shorts, us with landscaping stained hands and throwing fries all willy nilly at each other.

on the inside yes, i was really peeved at her grabbing my fries.

she said that was selfish and rude. i said that it was a normal guy response. guys' minds if not kept in check revert back to teen age fight or flight mentality over food. my mind says " yo rob, you know we need two burgers, not just one burgers and dont forget fries or we will die of starvation, jess saying".

to bring this story to a quick close, i would like to finish by saying that we didnt even finish the fries. we didnt want those nasty things in the first place.

we might even kiss and make up later...hubba hubba.

Spectors in the Morning

Wednesday, April 09, 2008


Lots of ppl that i have heard or read that see ghosts, see them in the early morning when the sun is shining through the windows even though the drapes are closed and the ppl are still sleepy.

this morning as i walked from the laundry room back to the bedroom i saw an image slowly turning its head towards me. it was my wife on the potty. i exclaimed in a shriek, "why you gotta sneak up on me in the mornings?".

she had no reply as she was sleep walking and probably didnt even hear me.

a few minutes later, dressed and getting ready to go, i was searching through the very top cabinets for my various vitamins. on my tippy toes reaching for a bottle of vitamin C, i saw something float towards me. again, it was the wife coming around a blind corner.

i yelled at her, "geez, i thought you were a spector! you almost gave me a heart attack woman."

"A spector?", she questioned.

"yeah, like a ghost or a demon or something."

She punched me in the arm.

i left for work.

Maid Close to Manhattan

Tuesday, March 25, 2008


Maid Close To Manhattan? A play on the movie title "Maid in Manhattan"...get it? Yeah, it didn’t really work for me so much either.

I am between NYC and Englewood NJ this week. The maid at my hotel spent time lounging in my room today. How do I know this? Read the following true life story of one Rob Wylie.

I arrived back to my room this evening about 6:30pm. The maid knocked on the door almost as soon as I closed it. She handed me a bottle of Saratoga natural spring water and two chocolates with a smile. This water comes in a fancy blue-ish purple bottle. Its quite stunning for bottled water actually. As I drink it I imagine that I dipped it from an actual natural spring....nah not really, but you get the point.

So the maid gives me the chocolates, winks, says "ok" in the form of a question and walks away. "Ok" I say back in my best spanish accent.

They are supposed to leave the water and sweets in the room when they clean. They usually clean the rooms around midday. I thought that was a tad fishy but whatever, my feet hurt and I wanted to rest.

The night before I had been watching television and turned the closed caption off because it was bothering me. Tonight when I turned the television on, the closed caption was on again, but now in espanol. "Aha!", someone had been watching television in my room. I put two and two together. The maid is hispanic. The television shows were in spanish. Who else could it be?

My room is at the very end of the hall so I imagine that she sat in here, supervisors unaware and watched her spanish soap operas for a while. There are like four spanish channels on this television. Unbelievable.

I feel as though my privacy has been invaded. I unadvisedly left valuables in the room but they appear in order. Who really knows til I discover something missing though.

I leave for Alabama tomorrow, but before I jet out of here, I am going to try and catch her. I will update on how that turns out...maybe.

Ski Trip

Thursday, January 24, 2008


I am the most humble of persons, but to tell the truth, I am a natural skier. I am being sarcastic (not the good skier part, thats true). That's not very humble is it? Well, you know that old saying, "humble is as humble does". I made that up, I think.

We went to Beech Mountain in North Carolina recently, very recently actually. I had never skied before. My name is Rob. I am 31 years of age and I had never skied. I don't know why. I stand before you, a man, transparent. Go ahead and judge me.

I digress. We get the skiis and lift tickets and with such arrangements taken care of, off we go. I strapped on the skiis and bent over to grab my ski pole. As I did, I started to fall, caught myself and felt like I dislocated my shoulder. No biggie, I am not a girl. "Suck it up Sally", I told myself.

I watched a few people falling on the low grade bunny slope. I shook my head in disapproval. "Losers", I thought.

My turn. I stepped out onto the snow and bam. I fell so fast and hard that I didn't know what happened. I stood up pointing in two different directions screaming, "who hit me?" No one noticed or cared for that matter.

I played around on the bunny slope for a while. I helped kids, showed off my skills and started giving tips on how to slow down and stop. Sure, I'd had absolutely no formal lessons or any lessons at all for that matter, but that didn't stop me from telling people where they zigged when they should have zagged.

Really and truly, I started to get the hang of this "skiing". Another member of our posse finally asked me if was ready to step up my game, to which I said, "Ready? I was born ready!" (yeah, I am that smooth, I know you were thinking it).

Up the chair lift I went. The first slope was a lesser difficult intermediate freestyle slope. It was fairly steep enough grade with one curve. "I got this!" And I did. "Not a bad job sailor", I said to myself.

I went down that slope a few more times and began to manipulate the downhill with the greatest of ease. Back and forth I went. I was infact, King of the Mountain.

Now that I was a professional skiier in just a few short hours, I went down with the posse again and watched Holly pick up too much speed towards the end of the slope. "Slow down Holly", I screamed. "No CRAP", she screamed back (I am fairly certain she didn't say crap, again I digress).

She fell and we were terrified. She laughed after the fact. I didn't see how. It wasn't a graceful tumble. She is a real trooper.

We stood around the entrance area for a few minutes. My poor old left knee started aching so I tried to pop it while standing on the aforementioned skiis. Yeah. I fell. DW's Uncle approached me with a smile. "Rob, they are having tryouts for the Olympic ski team right over there, behind us. They said you shouldn't waste your time thinking about 2010." I gave him the thumbs up.

Larry Paul who had skiied once before asked me if I was ready to take on the big mamma jamma slope, thats right, it had a sign that said "more difficult".

"Sure, (again not tryin to seem redundant) I was born ready!"

As I started to ski over to the chair lift I felt I needed to stretch out my tired bum knee. I fell. I lost a pole. My ski came off. I was embarassed. I ski down the hill so good, but I dont stand around so well. I stood back up, gathered my equipment and slipped into the lost ski. I turned to find Larry Paul and I fell again. Awesome!

As we took the lift to the top of the mountain, I began to entertain thoughts as to how crazy this was. We were skiing at night. It was almost ten p.m. and we started around six p.m. My knee was bothering me. And we could begin to see how high up the mountain we were going. These slopes were steep. People were flying down. They looked experienced enough and BOOM, they would wipe out.

As we hopped off the chair lift and I attempted to clean the icicles and fog away from my goggles, I wondered how I would make it down without dying. What would happen if I did? How long would it take someone to find me? This probably wasnt such a good idea, but it was too late. The only way down was, well, to go down.

I forgot to mention, but my beard was covered by real icicles. Right before I was seated on the chair lift the attendant asked me if I was cold. I replied with a no and asked why? "Because you have icicles all over your face, man" he laughed.

Anyway, as Larry Paul and I headed down the mountain I tried to maintain somewhat of a controlled speed. Unfortunately it didn't work out so well for me. My knee buckled and I came a crashing down.

I found myself alive and stood jubilant that I might not die. Larry Paul would surely be much farther down by now. As I redonned my skiis, I saw someone waving like a madman. I waved back thinking it had to be Larry Paul checking on me. It wasn't.

I started back down. I skied thirty five feet or so and fell again. The snow was really hard at this point and I couldn't slow down. The harder I tried to slow, the more my knee quit. Yeah, I fell again.

A small girl, probably a pre-teen, stopped to help me gather my poles and skiis. I think she had witnessed the back to back wipe outs and was a tad concerned. Almost as though she was a worried parent I pleaded with her to go ahead and not be troubled with me. She finally left. I am sure she sent the rescue team after me on a ski mobile when she arrived at the bottom. I know this because as soon as I actually made it down, I saw them rush off in a fury as though there was a body to recover. Those ski mobiles look like big fun.

Finished for the night, I turned in my equipment. I had stared death in the face. I conquered Ski Beech. I was my hero, surprised?

I have not had so much fun in a long long time. It was the best vacation of late that I can recall. I want to go back and ski once or twice more again this winter so let me know if you would like to come with.

While on the trip Jackson became the champion of sledders like his old man. He gives it that old college try. I couldn't be prouder. Several times he just closed his eyes and yelled at the top of his lungs, "make way!"

DW was so good at the sledding that she bounced right off the sled. I gave her style points for her landing. Ask her about it.

We also had to purchase snow chains. Why you ask? While the main roads were kept in impecible condition, the "other roads" were not. We almost slid off into oblivion. That of course was the first time during the trip that I stared at death and laughed, ha...ha, harumph. I turned my nose at it. I looked the other way and just ignored it. What a snob. Jackson didn't feel the same though. He had decided temporarily that this trip was a bad decision and that we needed to get on home. He did later change his mind.

In all honesty, this trip was a blast, one of the best ever. We really appreciated the invite and the hospitality shown to us. Thanks to Eddie and Sandra and Amber and LP and Lee and Holly and Rick and Jennie and all the kids. We can't wait til next year!

Perfectly Fitting

Tuesday, January 08, 2008


I think it is perfectly fitting that dw's new nickname is Judge. Her name is Dana which of course is derived from the name Daniel. It is of Hebrew origin and it's meaning is "God is my judge".

I give my dear heart plenty of flack for an exaggerated legalistic, judgemental worldview. The exaggeration is due on my part; she is infact a sweet and extremely compassionate individual,I digress.

Judge only shows her judge side to me and the family and it has made for lively banter between us. She is very much a stellar conservative. I am a mixture of conservative and libertarian perspectives.

I informed her just last night that I was considering voting for Obama. She hit me square in the mouth. I was in fact joking. You have to love her.

She is as american as apple pie but I am corrupting her, to be sure.

Judge laughs at all of my jokes. Jack is exactly like his daddy, so it seems that all she gets nowadays is funny business.

Judge tells me how to drive and always alerts me as to my speed whilst traveling down the highway. I don't have to worry about whether or not the vehicles in front of me are slowing down, Judge tells me. Sometimes I thinik that I could drive the car with my eyes closed as long as she's in the the passenger seat.

We make a great team.

Judge loves to play games and thinks that the Waltons was the best tv show ever made. I won't disagree.

She is opinionated. She is smart. She is a teacher by trade and a wonderful mother. She is funny. She is beautiful. She is confidence and self doubt all rolled into one. She is mine and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Hey Judge, I love you.

rw

p.s. its Roscoe P. Coletrane, NOT Roscoe Peko Train.