{"id":30848,"date":"2026-06-11T11:02:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T16:02:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=30848"},"modified":"2026-06-11T11:02:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T16:02:25","slug":"closing-out-may-with-some-fun-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=30848","title":{"rendered":"Closing Out May with Some Fun Events"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>May was a super miserable month for me. I was experiencing some really terrible abdominal cramps all month, starting with <a href=\"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/?p=30766\" >Parker&#8217;s wedding weekend<\/a>. I didn&#8217;t let it cramp my style, though. Pun intended.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55287643943\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55287643943_de1e08428a.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I played in the final <a href=\"https:\/\/pb.brubakers.us\/2026\/06\/11\/what-is-friday-night-fiesta\/\"  rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Friday Night Fiesta<\/a> of the month with Zach Young. Well, kinda sorta. I played in a couple of games until my back could no longer handle it. Thankfully, Heide Bartel was there fill for the rest of the games.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55288046165\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55288046165_503f07bd6b_c.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I ran the <a href=\"https:\/\/inpicklenation.as.me\/schedule\/764a2b77\/?appointmentTypeIds[]=77887466\"  rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">weekly InPickle Nation mini tournament<\/a> at Tap on Saturday afternoon. Thankfully, we had enough players signed up so I did not have to play in it.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55289129693\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55289129693_a182ee974e.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Afterwards, I Brian and Chris at Nails and Beyond for some much needed self-care.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55289432834\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55289432834_f6b2ae28b9_b.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Then Brian and I went to Fong and Josh&#8217;s annual crawfish boil shindig. It was Brian&#8217;s first time attending. <\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55288549657\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55288549657_2d727d098e_c.jpg\" width=\"500\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I was supposed to go to O&#8217;Brien&#8217;s for Monica McGehee&#8217;s (on the right in the pic below) birthday celebration but I wasn&#8217;t feeling well (as I hadn&#8217;t been all month) and that was pretty much all the activity I could muster.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55289608548\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55289608548_8b1dfe5401.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I spent all day Sunday vegging out. I was super &#8220;crampy&#8221; and maybe spent all of two hours upright. I think this was the weekend that we were supposed to have brunch at HomeGrown but I woke up just not feeling great and went back to bed. Brian was really looking forward to HomeGrown (it&#8217;s his favorite breakfast spot) and I felt bad for disappointing him. <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, Brian got up me for breakfast later that morning, and I spent the rest of the day in our recliner with my heating pad. I don&#8217;t think I even showered at all that day. I wondered (besides calling it quits in the middle of FNF on Friday) if people could tell how very miserable I felt inside. I didn&#8217;t feel 100 percent all and was barely keeping it together.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/ching\/55293807929\/\"  title=\"Untitled\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/55293807929_152a8c870c.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Untitled\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Monday was Memorial Day and we met some friends (Susie and Grant Ternes and their three kids, and Keith Lietzke) at Hikari for dinner. It&#8217;s a sushi and ramen place in Haysville that our friend Keith constantly raves about. I&#8217;ll write a separate post on it later because I took a bunch of food pics. <\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll also fill you all in about my ER trip last week which helped me figure out what has been making me miserable all month. I was down a significant amount of blood and was practically &#8220;walking dead&#8221; (I had 6.5 hemoglobin according to my ER labs). ER doc was amazed I even went to work that morning. He said if I were a man, I would have been bed-ridden. Nope. I was still walking around, doing stuff, and even &#8220;trying&#8221; to play pickleball. How I didn&#8217;t pass out at any of these places was beyond me. More on that next time though. Until then, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>May was a super miserable month for me. I was experiencing some really terrible abdominal cramps all month, starting with Parker&#8217;s wedding weekend. I didn&#8217;t let it cramp my style, though. Pun intended. I played in the final Friday Night Fiesta of the month with Zach Young. Well, kinda sorta. I played in a couple [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1340,403],"tags":[28,191,2498],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30848"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30861,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30848\/revisions\/30861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brubakers.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}