There is too much... let me sum up

There's been a crazy couple of weeks in my life. I won't lie to you, it has been fun. Let me try to debrief y'all as best I can.

First off, my typing is extremely hampered by a finger injury. We were playing softball on Monday and I happened to catch a ball, throw it to the pitcher and head back to my position at 3rd base, when I looked down and saw something like this:
In case you haven't picked it out, my middle finger, once bent, does not straighten back up. It makes for an interesting party trick, but also makes using said finger, well, not really painful, but definitely inconvenient.

And yes, I am planning on going to the doctor, but not today. Maybe tomorrow.

A second, rather interesting story is that I finally met the Assassin's father. We had been avoiding this for some time, as we figured the Muslim father probably wouldn't appreciate the white, atheist boyfriend with the shaved head and penchant for, well, let's say things father's don't like.

We loaded up the Assassin, her sister, and myself into the Assassin's Champagne Monster, her massive Toyota 4Runner, and we headed south. Very south. Like 159th street- some 199 city blocks from my street. We were heading to a family barbecue, so we packed extra hunger. One thing I learned about their family- they sure love to eat. Second thing I learned- they think I haven't had Pakistani food before. Third thing- her aunt makes the best Biryani I've had yet.

The Assassin's father has a firm, friendly handshake. He gave me one, and patted me on the shoulder as he invited me into his house. The inside exploded with the smell of great food, so we had appetizers and pico de gallo. One was made by him, the other by his wife. He made me try both. I answered completely honestly when I told him I liked his better- then I told him about how much I love garlic. The main course wasn't served until much later- after I met more cousins than I have (and nowhere near all of them). We ate plentifully. We talked at length.

In the end, her dad was interested in my cycling hobby- he's thinking about getting another bike, but doesn't want to go into the bike shop because he's intimidated. I told him I'd go anytime. He likes the fact that I raise money for MS. He likes the fact that I'm the new voicemail voice of my company. He even make me play it for him, then asked me if I'd be willing to record his voicemail system.

How could I say no?

At the end of the night, he gave me another warm, friendly handshake. And a fatherly chuck on the shoulder. On the whole, I think things went rather well. I even liked him a lot- he was fun and jovial, even self-defacing at times. I got a kick out of it.

Recently, I had a chance to take a couple walks down memory lanes- visiting places I haven't been in literally years. One of the places served me well by giving me bowling shoes than can only be described as day-glow clown shoes. We proceeded to visit various bars around the legendary bowling alley before I started getting uncomfortable, and worse, recognized. We high-tailed it out of there, and went for some Karaoke, my first time going in more than a month.

I miss karaoke.

I have another amazing, silly, reckless story that involves my friend from this story, three states, and this picture: