Raw Fish

I had Raw fish for lunch on Saturday and it was fucking delicious! I enjoyed it even more than the cured beef and bagel sandwich I had for breakfast Saturday morning, and lunch Friday afternoon.

You probably had a bologna sandwich for lunch on Friday. At the very least I hope you put a piece of cheese on it. But really... you can do a lot better than bologna. Treat yourself to something nice for lunch today. You deserve it and- you're totally worth it my friend.

Yesterday was the first time that Allyson has been able to eat raw fish since she pissed on that marvelous stick way back during the first weekend of November 06. I think I had sushi one time after we found out that Max was on his way(besides that one lost week in March where I ate sushi with every meal). I think I can safely speak for Allyson by saying she was in heaven yesterday.

The cucumber roll you see on our sushi platter was ordered by Max's Auntie Cindie. Despite the fact that she desecrated our beautiful platter with that vegetable, it's really nice to have her in town and it's been great spending time with her. My sister and I have gone through our rough patches in the past, but I've never met anyone who appreciates Television more than I do except for maybe her. Last night we watched at least 4 episodes of the Honeymooners, quite possibly the greatest sitcom in the history of television. Believe it!

Besides watching TV, we've been feeding Max, changing Max's diaper, eating and shopping, shopping and eating, and shopping while we eat and, eating while we shop. Lot's of great new stuff for Max including some more action figures for his collection and formula for his gut.

Weekend Plans

For some inexplicable reason I never get tired of posting new pictures of Corky Jr... More than one of you have asked me to keep them coming, and of course I always oblige my readers. Without you I'd be the only one reading the log. That would suck, and trust me, it's a lot easier to talk to myself than write to myself.

I've got a big weekend planned. Grandma Tina (my mom) and Aunt Cindie (my sister) are on there way from Jersey with TWO POUNDS of Corn beef and 12 bagels. I think they got a bunch of shit for Corky Jr as well, but I'm more concerned with the food that's going to be digesting in my stomach in less than 12 hours. Yum.

After a nice nap, and maybe an episode or two of Star Trek we're going to go for Korean food tonight. Unfortunately Corky Jr is still drinking formula so he'll have to settle for four ounces of the same shit he eats for every meal. Something in my gut (and not the corn beef because I haven't had any yet) tells me he'll be okay though. Korean food is my absolute favorite food of all time and unlike most other foods it's pretty good almost everywhere you live. The same can not be said for Chinese food, Italian food or bagels.

Saturday morning I hope to have breakfast with the family at Cracker Barrel. Mama's pancake breakfast comes with, 2 strips of either bacon or sausage, 2 eggs and 3 pancakes. I'll probably swindle my mother or sister out of one of their sides. I just have to have grits with my Mama's Pancake Breakfast, and that's all there is to it! I'll also have a coffee with my breakfast and use Splenda instead of sugar. I'm trying to watch my figure.

After that I'm pretty much plum out of ideas. We'll probably go to the mall and Target after we eat breakfast. I prefer to eat lunch at the mall and then get a snack at Target. Probably a pretzel with a coke.
Dinner will be a big deal Saturday night. My wife's parents Al and Sharon will be joining Cindie, Tina, Allyson, Corky Jr and myself. I'm not sure where we'll go but I do know that I'll probably have a steak, and a baked potato. By dinner time Saturday night I'll be fucking hungry!

Sunday I plan on cooking dinner at home. Nothing special, just two trays of baked Lasagna. I'm sure we'll go downtown Sunday morning for brunch or something, but I'm not too concerned about that.

All of this writing has made me really hungry. I hope everyone has a good weekend. Any plans?

Testimonial

I don't think Max understands my schedule yet. I generally like to write three posts a week. Sunday night/Monday morning, Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, and Thursday night/Friday Morning. Sometimes I'll throw an extra post up on Saturday morning before I scrub the toilet or clean out my tackle box. The kid is almost three weeks old already. He should be able to grasp how important it is that I get these posts out in a timely manor. By 9:00 am people are stuffing their faces with Pop Tarts, drinking coffee and ready to get their bi-daily Corky fix. I can't let down the masses. People count on me!

I bet you can't even remember what your life was like before you invited me into your hearts. You probably felt very lonely and empty. Trust me folks, I understand. If you would like, feel free to write a testimonial about how much your life has changed, in a positive way, since you've come to know and love me.

The other bit of business I have today concerns something Jay wrote on Sunday over at Cynical Bastard. At the end of his Sunday night post, after talking about Harry Potter, he posed this question to his readers, "So what do you think? Superpowers .... or ... Magical Powers?" It was almost unanimous, everyone but yours truly, picked Magic Powers. So I want to hear how you guys feel about this. Don't let your passion for Ron Weasley cloud your judgement folks! Here's the thing, if Magic wins over here I'm going to devote my next post to Green Lantern's Power Ring, and then maybe you'll understand.

Don't forget to write your testimonial folks!

Home

Although I'm going to miss Mary Ann, Amy, Tiffani, Lisa, Kim, and a plethora of other extremely helpful RN's at Baptist Hospital East, I am beyond happy to announce that WE ARE FINALLY HOME!
Baby is happy, healthy, and has almost gained a pound in two weeks. He was born 6 pounds, 9 ounces and is now 7 pounds, 6 ounces. The little shit is already eating me out of house and home and we just got here about three hours ago.

To learn more about Max and other babies born in the state of Kentucky you can go here.

Now that we're home and everybody is happy and safe I can get back to writing about my favorite subject on Monday... Me.

X-Factor: Chapter 3

The deviant you see holding Max, in this very dark camera phone picture, is know around these parts as the Birdman. He's an integral character in the story of my life. He's also the first person from my side of the family to see and hold Max. Good Job Matt! Kim Jong Ramone will never live this one down. More on the Birdman in a second...

After Dr Devil told me that Max might have Herpes I had a text book reaction to her absurd accusation. I told her that it was impossible. And she gave me the typical health care worker response, everybody's at risk and Herpes can lay dormant for 10 years blah, blah, blah. So preoccupied with the fact that it might be Herpes, I didn't even think about Meningitis, an infection that killed my friend's sister. Like I said in the prior post, I needed to be angry to keep it together.

Erika and Allyson's Mom were there helping me calm Allyson down. Erika and Allyson's mom have been really great through all of this. Two real troopers! I was pretty angry most of that Saturday night, but the next morning I lost it and had my break down. Allyson became the strong one when I broke down. I felt foolish and guilty for being so upset. Tons of emotions that I really don't want to experience again anytime soon. Hopefully never again.

I did not share any of this news with my friends back in NJ, because It hurt to much to talk about it, and I didn't want them to worry about us or Max. I did tell my mother though. I leaned heavily on her for support, calling her every couple of hours anytime I talked with a nurse or a doctor. Having Mom to talk to really helped!

Then I got a text message from the Birdman. He informed me that he was going to leave directly after work Saturday night and come down for a day and a half to see Max and hang out with us at the hospital. A 12 hour drive folks. Kind of makes up for having me spend a week of my vacation last year painting a chick's house that he broke up with a couple months later. Shit I might even paint his next girlfriend's house for pennies on the dollar.

Having the Birdman there really made all the difference while we waited for the results of the spinal tap cultures. We ate really shitty cafeteria food, which we both really enjoyed. We talked about hookers and made fun of Kentucky and the fact that the Birdman had to drive through the Daniel Boone National Forest to get here. I always get Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett confused for some reason.

On Monday morning a doctor, with a much better bedside manor, informed us that the first cultures had come back and were negative. They watch the cultures for 6 days or so to make sure no bacteria grows. Every day the culture came back negative. Thank God! Still, the Doctor wanted to keep Max in the hospital for 14 days and treat him with antibiotics to be safe.

Allyson was discharged from the hospital around day 4 or 5. The hospital is very gracious and has let us stay every day since, for free! Last week was a very busy week for babies and the baby ward filled up so we had to spend a night in Pediatrics. We've been in 5 or 6 rooms and when we move from room to room we look like we're homeless with all of our shit on a cart. I've been sleeping on a plastic pull out bed, and have spent a small fortune in the cafeteria. Still, the baby is happy and healthy and we're coming home on Friday. That's really all that matters! I could go on and on, but then what would I talk about tomorrow?

By the way has anyone seen Scott Baio's 45 and single? I hear it's pretty good.

X-Factor: Chapter 2

The Nurses in this hospital are amazing! If it weren't for them I would have lost my mind in this joint somewhere back on day 2. Today is day 11 for those of you who are keeping score at home. The last time I spent this much time in a hospital I was in detox, but that was in 1991. Still, I think I'm becoming institutionalized. A big night out on the town is a trip down to gift shop on the 1st floor. A lot of the nurses here are pretty decent looking and I've even fallen in love with one or two of them. I think they call that the Florence Nightingale affect or some shit.

After the C-Section Allyson and I went into a recovery room for roughly 45 minutes. Basically the nurses poked and prodded Allyson the entire time and kept on asking her to rate her pain on a scale from 1 to 10. A question that we would here for next 5 days every couple of hours or so. Then she would receive her percocet. I tried to get some for myself, but no one would take me seriously. Imagine that...

My memories of the rest of that day are kind of cloudy, and it was only 9 days ago. Max was moved into the Special Care Nursery immediately. Besides having a fever his respiration was extremely high. He was breathing 80 to 100 breaths per minute and it should be somewhere around 40 or 50. He got hooked up to a monitor, and it was scary to see him like that. Especially since I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that my son, who was only a couple hours old, was struggling to breathe...

The Special Care Nursery is a pretty desperate place. You can feel and see how scared all the new parents who have just been ushered in are, and you just want to reach out and comfort them and or cry with them all. At this point at day 11 I'm pretty much a lifer around the Mommy/Baby ward and the Special Care Nursery, but on day 2 I didn't know diddly squat (remember that old corny expression?).

The next day (the baby's second day and our third day, also a Saturday) the doctor on duty, who we'll call Doctor Devil, decided that Max would need a spinal tap. Later that day she called us with the results of the test. She said that his white blood cell count was too high and it looked like he either had bacterial Meningitis or Herpes. Then she told my hysterical wife on the phone that Herpes can be devastating to a baby born with them. Dr Devil than told us that we wouldn't know the result of the spinal tap for at least 48 hours because it was the weekend. Needless to say, I wanted to rip the bitches head off and shit down her throat. Probably just a defense mechanism though. It's probably a good thing that I was so angry because Allyson was so upset. We needed some kind of balance.

To be continued...

X-Factor: Chapter 1

My son pissed on me today, and my mother and father and wife were all there to see it. Everybody got a good laugh out of it. It's nice to be laughing, because 5 days ago Allyson and I were doing a lot of crying...

I've had so many different emotions over the past week. I naively came to the hospital, last Thursday, wearing a Superman t-shirt. I called all my friends and family and everybody was really excited. But from the moment we got to the hospital everything went wrong.

First they couldn't register Allyson's contractions. It took 4 hours to admit her into the hospital. 4 hours of me promising her she would get an epidural for the pain... 3 different nurses telling us three different things. Erika (our good friend) and Allyson's mom joined us in the delivery room and both were a great deal of help.

The next thing we found out is that the baby's heartbeat was getting weaker when Allyson contracted instead of stronger (yes people, I'm now a fucking expert on child birth). Also, her contractions were way to weak on the Rictor scale so they gave her contraction enhancement formula. Allyson's cervix would never dilate past 4 centimetres. It's supposed to be 10. Like I said, I'm a fucking expert now.

Somewhere between the 9th and 12 hour Allyson grew a fever, and we were told that she had an infection. Allyson laying in her hospital bed asked me if everything was going to be ok. "Of course it is honey". I can lie to myself with the best of them, but I have to be honest, I was a little more than worried and not for the baby, but for Allyson.

Finally the doctor was called and she decided that a C-Section would be necessary. She came in and told us about the possible, but highly unlikely risks of a C-Section, like bleeding to death and blood transfusions etc. Then I was given full surgical garb and was instructed to wait outside while they prepared my wife for surgery.

All of a sudden I'm holding Allyson's hand behind a sheet and I can see her blood traveling in a tube to my right. Not fun. The doctor than says to me, "Get the camera ready Dad" and holds up a naked blue Corky Jr. And then a new doctor called a Neonatologist tells me that Corky Jr has a fever of 101.9 and is not being as responsive as he should be. Meanwhile my wife is sitting on the table gutted open. Luckily, I did not piss in my pants and somehow I kept my composure during all of this. Pretty impressive considering I panic sometimes when I have to order pizza.

To be continued...

Max

Thank you very much for the kind comments folks! Allyson and I were very touched by all of your kindness. Max is getting better and better everyday. We should be home sometime next week. I've got tons of stories about the experience that I'm just dying to write.

This is a picture of Max from two days ago. Lots of wires just to make sure he's ok. And please don't be alarmed by the tube coming out of his head. That's just how I was downloading information about Superheroes and television to him (IV). It's out of his head now.

He is spending most of his time with us now, and is out of the Special Care Nursery except for when he's taking his meds. We can't wait to bring him home and show him his room.

Much more about Corky Jr coming from Captain Corky very soon.

7/06/2007

Two or three hours after I posted on Thursday Allyson started having contractions. At 10:17 on Friday morning Corky Jr was born. For some reason the nurses and Allyson are insisting on calling him Max (Not short for anything). Of course I call him Corky Jr.

On a more serious note, the baby was born with a slight fever and has a little bit of an infection so we'll be staying at the hospital for a little while longer. The doctor said that Max is doing really good and is off of his IV and his temperature and respiration have all stabilized.

This kid is so amazing! Usually bullets bounce off my chest and I just laugh, but for some strange reason which I can't explain, I've been nothing but a blubbering fool these past two days. I haven't been this emotional since Paramount announced the release of Star Trek on DVD.

I'll touch base with everyone very soon.

Craps

Corky Jr, or Craps as I now refer to him by, will be here no later than 7/11/07. What a great birthday for Craps. It was such a relief when the doctor told us to pick a day to induce. No more pulling my hair out and asking Allyson every 5 seconds if she's in labor yet. She could still go into labor on her own before the 11th and if she does that would be a nice little treat.

Tonight is my last night of work for two weeks which totally kicks ass! This basically means that I have 6 days to get completely ready for the arrival of Craps. We do have mostly everything done, but I wouldn't mind giving the kitchen and the toilet bowl one more good scrubbing. I'm pretty happy about the way things have gone.

We are very, very excited folks, and I appreciate everyone's continued well wishes and enthusiasm towards Craps.

Stay Tuned!!!

Week 39

Despite what you see in front of your face, I am not a total and utter freak. Also, I moved out of my parents basement way before I was 35, and obviously I've been getting laid, off and on since 1989. I just happen to like action figures. A lot. The action figures in this picture are actually mine and I've had all of them since elementary school. It's OK to be jealous. I completely understand.

The kid still hasn't come out of the womb yet, but any second now... Allyson and I spent the morning driving over pot holes and walking around department stores in search of action figures for Corky Jr's Justice League collection (that he can't touch until he's 4 for safety reasons). We were also kind of hoping Allyson's water would break on the white tile floor in target. Unfortunately, it didn't happen so it was back to the lawn chair in the kitchen for Allyson when we got home (we plan on keeping water damage to a minimum).

So far we have 11 figures for Corky Jr. (All DC for those in the know).

They are:

Superman

Batman

Aquaman

Supergirl

Steel

Green Lantern (John Stewart)

Green Lantern (Tomar-Re)

Green Lantern (Kilowag)

The Atom

The Huntress

Dr Light

A nice little start to an action figure empire if I do say so myself. In other news tomorrow is the 4th of July. What's everyone doing? We don't really have any plans except for Allyson to go into labor. Maybe. I wrote a guest post over at Modern Mommy's blog this morning and urge you to check out her blog. She's a really good writer and her blog is very entertaining.

Happy New Year

Of course I'm using this picture to usher in July. July is my new favorite month. When I think about July I think about fireworks, picnics, watermelons spiked with vodka, and vodka. You know, the good stuff in life. It's really hard to concentrate on anything right now... I'm basically just standing at attention and waiting for Allyson to make the call, "It's time Corky" (Yes folks, Allyson gets to call me Corky instead of Captain Corky, or Darth Corky, at least when we're not in public that is).

When we were deciding when to have our baby we flipped a coin. Heads the baby would be born in December and tails the baby would be born in July. If you think about it those are really the only two months that make sense for a birthday. My birthday is in October which makes perfect sense if you're me, but would make no sense for Corky Jr or anybody else for that matter.

I've touched on this a little bit before, but here's why July makes perfect sense for Corky Jr's birthday: The new Year for me has always started in September. This year in particular on September 6th. Football season. Then in October I turn 37 on October 22nd. Also, October is the second month of Football season. Next comes November, and that means Thanksgiving. It's also known as the third month of Football season around these parts. The fourth month on my calender is December. December=Charlie Brown Christmas specials, and the final month of the regular football season.

January is a big fucking deal around here and pretty much used to be the most important month of the year for us! The 5th month of my year starts off with Allyson's birthday on the 4th. Every weekend is consumed by playoff football and our wedding anniversary is on the 10th. Most of my lottery numbers come from this month, obviously.

The final month of my year starts in February, and the Super Bowl is basically my New Years eve party. I pretty much have a hangover that lasts from Super Bowl day night until September. At least that's how shit used to be.

From here on out my year will start in July. Not sure of the exact date as of yet, but next year on my calender there will be a grand celebration in July, with fireworks, birthday cake, and crazy fucking sales at malls. I'm also going to have figure out a way to work August back into my life, and I know most of you are thinking, preseason football. Preseason football drives me nuts. It's such a dirty tease. But I do love to draft for my fantasy football teams in August. So August will now be known as fantasy month around here. It won't really exist, but it will. Now do you people understand?