This Perplexing Life

24 hours in the life of...

2008-06-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

Sunday was moving day. Here's the timeline of how I spent my day:

9:30am - pick up 17ft moving truck from U-haul
10:30am - load truck full of stuff to go to Ex's
1:00pm - drive to Ex's
1:30pm - begin unloading
3:00pm - finish and drive home
3:30pm - talk to friends who live 2 hours away who were supposed to arrive about 5 to help me load my stuff, find out they can't leave until about 4:30, putting them right in the middle of weekend traffic, plus right in the middle of some nasty thunderstorms
3:40pm - eat lunch
4:00pm - run around house packing various loose stuff
7:45pm - guys finally arrive, begin packing truck again
10:30pm - finish and drive to apartment
11:00pm - begin unloading
1:00am - finish unloading, say goodbye to guys, return truck
1:30am - get McDs so I can finally eat dinner and drive car back to house
2:00am - shower
2:30am - load a few other essentials from kitchen, fill coolers with stuff from the fridge
3:20am - drive back to apartment
3:50am - unload car
4:19am - head finally hits pillow
6:45am - "WTF is this alarm making noise for?" (turn alarm off)
7:37am - (waking up again) "Holy shit! I've gotta turn the truck paperwork in by 8am!"
7:59am - arrive at U-haul
8:20am - arrive back at apartment, get ready for work
9:29am - arrive at work

Time flies when you're busy as hell

2008-06-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

I just completed 11 days of vacation and today’s my first day back at work. I wish I could say I had a relaxing time hanging out on a beach somewhere, but that wasn’t in the cards for me. Instead I spent my time packing and preparing to move. Back when Ex and I realized we would be going our separate ways, she moved first, in order to allow Azure to get settled into a new school over Christmas break. Now, it’s time for me to move. I’ve never been more appreciative of having lived in a big empty house as I have over the past couple of weeks as I’ve begun packing.

I’m excited about the new place. It’s just your standard apartment community, but it’s a decent size place, and it even has a sunroom which I can use as a separate play area for the kids to spread their stuff out in a little bit. Plus, the kids and I should be able to take advantage of the onsite pool, and I can hit the fitness room and sauna whenever I want too. Maybe the best thing of all will be that I can take advantage of the free bus pass that my work provides and begin taking the bus back and forth to work, effectively parking my car except for the days I need to do something with the kids. That will be a huge advantage over the 45-minute one-way commute I had previously.

I also just completed six days straight with the kids while Ex went out of town. Her trip was planned before we realized I’d be busy packing during the same week, but it worked out ok anyway. My mom was kind enough to come down for those 6 days to help out with the kids as well as help me pack the majority of my stuff.

In other news, I started seeing someone a few weeks ago, so the very few free moments I’ve had recently have went her way. So as to not tempt fate, I’ll just say that things are going really well so far and leave it at that for the time being.

Life Keeps Moving Along

2008-05-16T20:15:00.000-07:00

Not too much going on for me lately, but there has been lots of excitement in the kid’s lives. The biggest news is that Bronze graduated from preschool today. Strangely enough, I’m not feeling the typical “it feels like she was a baby just yesterday” thing that so many people express at a time like this. Instead it feels like she’s had a pretty full life already. Since she was born, she’s lived in 4 different houses, attended 2 different preschools, and just all the general turmoil that happens with a separation.

I can only hope that the commitment to these kids that Ex and I still have will be enough to carry her and her brother through and not have any lasting damage. We’ve all been through a lot lately, but the Ex and I are trying really hard to keep things as normal as possible.

Today, all four of us went to the graduation ceremony together and it was fine. Bronze was too shy to take part in a lot of the activities, but it was still good. This is the same preschool that Azure went to, so we’ve known these two teachers for a long time. It was a little sad to say goodbye to them, as they’ve been so great for the kids.

The other big thing that happened is that Azure lost his first front tooth yesterday. He’d already lost 4 across the bottom quite a while ago, but both front teeth have been loose and he’d gotten excited about it again. It finally popped out at breakfast yesterday.

Here’s a shot of them in the backyard today, Azure showing off his missing tooth and Bronze sporting her graduation cap.

Have a great weekend!

Catching up

2008-05-13T17:57:00.000-07:00

I'm still having a little trouble getting back into the swing of posting regularly. Unfortunately I got out of that habit. I hope to get better about it soon.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about how much I'd already written previously, so over the next few days?, weeks?, I'm going to be adding my old posts. I've got everything saved as word docs, so it shouldn't be too bad to add them. And just in case I pick us any new readers, it'll give them a chance to get caught up.

Driving The Economy

2008-05-01T23:49:00.000-07:00

Today as I was leaving work, I decided to act on an impulse I’d been having all day. For one day only, I would pretend that spending my money was ok. It’s never easy for me to part with my money. However, paying for 2 households sort of takes care of it for me each month, regardless.

The thing that started all of it was that I’ve got a work conference coming up Sunday through Tuesday, and I wanted to get a haircut before then. The difference was that I splurged and went to a salon to get my hair cut, instead of just having it cut at the local Fantastic Sam’s (cheap, serviceable haircuts for those who aren’t familiar with them). Then, while I was there, I also purchased some leave-in conditioner, which I was nearly out of. With tip, my total was $53. Comparing this to my haircut I’ve been getting at $18 including tip had me taking a few deep breaths as I paid my bill.

Walking out, I felt good though. I deny myself many times, always just get by with what I’ve already got or take the cheapest route all the time. I felt so good, I decided there was only one thing I could do: hit the mall!

I wanted to get myself some kind of cool new shirt to wear at the conference. Also, I’ve been contemplating starting running, and was thinking about getting some new running shoes. I started out with looking at shoes. As I was trying on some, walking around to test them a bit, I saw a pair of tan casual shoes on the clearance rack that were calling to me. I tried them on and they fit fine, and were only $19.99 too. I left the running shoes behind and paid for my clearance shoes.

As I wandered around, I tried, I really did, but not much was appealing to me. I found a clearance shirt for $2.60, the boxers I wear were on sale, so 2 pair at $5 each, and the big purchase, the new shirt for the conference, was a whopping $13.99. At least it matched the casual shoes I got and could be part of having a new outfit to wear. I even went into the higher priced stores, to see what they had to offer, but again, not much looked good to me. I did see one cool lightweight sweater, but the clearance price was still $56, which even this new carefree me couldn’t justify.

I left the mall, glad that I hadn’t lost all my senses. I decided that I could make do with the 2 pair of running shoes I already own and just wear for everyday use until I prove to myself that I might actually stick to running. So, with the day’s total at just under $100, I figure I’ve done my part for the new few months to keep this economy moving.

Love, Not Like

2008-04-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

When I wrote my welcome back post, I sort of got myself stuck because I immediately started thinking all philosophic about life and what not. I just didn’t quite know where to begin. Thankfully, my daughter, Bronze, had her 5th birthday party this weekend, so I’m going to ease into this again by starting with that.

This was the first party that Ex and I have planned since the separation. Before, the parties were sort of her element. The highlight of a birthday had always been making some sort of a fancy cake though. We’ve had Dora, Cinderella, Blue, etc. Ex has all sorts of cake decorating supplies. We used to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning the night before each party, her doing the cake, me mixing frosting colors, washing dishes, and hanging decorations. So, since I’ve helped, or rather, witnessed it plenty of times before, I volunteered to make the cake this time.

Ex was glad to let me do it. She planned the party, which was to be an outing at a nearby park, and took care of inviting a couple of friends from Bronze’s preschool class, along with family. I took Bronze to the party store and let her pick out the My Little Pony themed plates, cups, etc. she wanted. We got some My Little Pony pencils, stickers, and bubbles for some of the favors, and I printed out a few coloring pages and word searches to include in the goodie bags as well.

As a kid, my mom would always make really cool cakes for my brother and I. That, combined with the awesome cakes Ex had made, made me feel like I had a lot to live up to. I designed what I thought a My Little Pony cake should look like, how I’d need to cut it, and how to decorate it. I borrowed the decorating supplies from Ex and went at it.

I baked the cake mix, cut it, and got it all laid out on a piece of covered foam board. However, one thing I hadn’t considered was how incredibly difficult it would be to spread frosting onto the side of a cut piece of cake! The frosting just kept grabbing onto the cake and trying to crumble the pieces instead of spreading nicely. I finally came up with the idea to stick the frosting into the microwave so that it’d almost run onto the sides instead of me needing to spread it. Brilliant!

I amazed myself with how well that worked out, so much so that when it came time to do the blue frosting I’d mixed up for the eye and the butterfly, I thought I’d try it again. Except I forgot to consider that instead of having a huge bowl of pink frosting, I was only working with a tiny bowl of blue, so I ended up boiling it. Not sure if anyone realizes what happens to frosting after it’s been boiled, but it sort of crusts into lumps of very hard frosting. And trying to squeeze hard lumps of frosting through a small frosting tip is nearly impossible. I kept having to clear the tip with a toothpick and what should have taken about 5 minutes, took nearly 30! Eventually I managed to get something resembling a butterfly and an eye though. Bronze helped place the licorice hair while I sprinkled on the red sparkles, and it was finished. Bronze said she loved it, which of course made all the effort worth it.

While I cleaned up, Bronze insisted on licking the knives and spoons clean, and I let Azure have a couple too, which they went to town on, getting frosting all over their faces.

After a quick bath for them, we were off to the party store once more for balloons. I had decided to splurge on the giant $10 mylar heart shaped pony one, along with a few pink and red regular ones to go with it. Driving after that was quite difficult, as the balloons took up most of the inside of my car. I’m sure it made for quite a sight, as I was leaned over close to the drivers window, a balloon pushed up against my side, unable to see either kid, only able to get a clear view of the front of the car and my driver’s side mirror. At one point, I even had to ask Bronze if she could see any cars out of her window next to us! I was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone in the next lane, but still, there’s nothing like letting a 5 year old check your blind spot.

We got to the park and the kids took off to play. As I carried the cake to the seating area, the incredibly strong wind was whipping all around me. I went back to the car to get the balloons and just as I got back to the picnic table, a big gust came along and pulled the giant one loose from it’s string. I watched in horror as it swooped down and away, unable to do anything to save it. I couldn’t believe my luck though as the wind carried it directly into the next picnic table over, where it lodged itself safely up against the end of the table, with the seats holding it firmly in place. I ran over and grabbed it, took the entire bunch back inside the car, and retied the string with about 15 knots.

The kids played for a while, then had cake and ice cream sandwiches. Bronze was the last one at the table, as everyone else had finished and went back to playing. Finally she looked up at me and said that she wanted to be done. I said sure. It was then that I noticed that she’d eaten all of her ice cream sandwich and all of her licorice, but only one tiny bite of cake. She said, “Sorry Daddy, but I don’t like the frosting.” I assured her that it was ok, and to just go enjoy herself. I chuckled to myself though, thinking about how just a few hours earlier she’d been licking the frosting off of everything, with a pink nose to boot. Oh well!

The kids had a great time playing, climbing, swinging, and digging while I just enjoyed my time with them. Ex mostly sat at the table with her family, talking etc. while I stayed with the kids. Toward the end, once just the 4 of us were left, she spent 10 or so minutes on the phone with her new boyfriend. I was at the other side of the park, in the sandbox with Azure, while she was pushing Bronze on the tire swing, so I’m not sure who called whom, but either way, it felt odd to me on so many levels, especially watching her tell the kids a couple of times that they needed to wait a minute for her since she was busy on the phone.

Once it was time to go, I went with them back to Ex’s house to play with the kids and try out a couple of the new games she’d got for presents, while Ex’s parents were in the backyard assembling the sand and water table they’d purchased. I didn’t realize it at the time, since I was playing, but they ordered pizza. Once it came, before I even had time to think about it, Ex and her parents started saying goodbye to me. I gave my hugs and kisses to the kids and slinked out the back door while they all sat down to eat together. What a strange feeling. I’m not sure how long until it isn’t so weird, but for now, I just had to chalk it up to another perplexing experience.

It doesn’t matter though, as Bronze had a happy 5th, and we managed to not screw it up with any grown up drama.

Welcome Back

2008-04-17T20:21:00.000-07:00

The time has come for me to attempt this once again. For too long, I’ve been hiding in the shadows, still reading a few blogs, mostly through my feed reader, only leaving an occasional comment to let you know I’m still here. Yet like the spring flowers, I find myself being drawn out, wanting to put myself out there again. I have so many thoughts, so many fleeting words and ideas that roll around in my head without an escape. I need to put the thoughts down here, if for nothing else than to clear the clutter that is my brain.

I’ve held on to this domain name for a long while, wondering when it might finally be time for me to talk again, finally be time for me to discuss what it is to be living This Perplexing Life. Now is that time.

Just so everyone’s clear, I’m Delton. I’ve got a son, Azure*, 6 1/2 and a daughter, Bronze*, 5, and a soon to be ex, Ex*, formerly referred to as The Wife*.

Welcome back.

* Not their real names.

This is a placeholder

2007-07-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

Tom

2007-01-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

I started out High School Memories by talking about one of my favorite teachers, Mr. M. This time, I'd like to talk about my least favorite teacher. What's the big deal about that you might ask? Didn't everyone have a teacher that they didn't like? Sure, but did you also have that teacher for a class that you really wanted to like? Did you also have that teacher singling you out to mock you in front of 60 classmates? Did you also have so many run-ins with that teacher that you still have monthly nightmares about him nearly 18 years after graduation? Ha, I knew that last one would get ya! (If you don't watch Law & Order, please skip to the next paragraph.) Gong, gong. This is that story.

I started playing musical instruments when I was 4. Over the years, I learned to play piano, organ, accordion, drums, and trumpet. I liked band, especially marching band. I marched in a Drum & Bugle Corps for 2 summers. I won awards for being the best marcher. I was the drum major of marching band in High School (and again in college) cause I was the best and I knew it. Unfortunately, Tom (Yes, it's his real name, I refuse to cover up who he is since he still haunts my dreams after so many years. And, yes we called him by his first name as a sign of disrespect.) Tom decided to make my life hell.

Each semester, Tom would hold tryouts where you would have to play your instrument in front of the entire class to see who was the best and would therefore get the most challenging parts. No big deal, every band does that. However, not every bandleader chooses to make fun of a student for doing poorly because of nerves when playing in front of the entire class. I could do the parts. He knew I could do the parts. I just couldn't handle the pressure of that situation. His history of making fun of me just made it worse each time tryouts would come up again. I finally started just playing what I could and told him to give me whatever part he wanted.

My junior year, Tom changed his grading scale "to deal with people like me." (What kind of teacher talks this way to his students?) See, it was his view that the reason I couldn't play well when singled out was because I didn't practice at home, and it had nothing at all to do with nerves. While it was true I didn't practice, I didn't need to and could play just fine as part of the band. Anyway, his new scale added weekly times for us to play in front of the class and get graded on. You can imagine the joy I felt over this. So, instead of band being an easy "A", like it's supposed to be, I started getting "B's", which then brought my GPA down and got my parents on my case. Of course, they thought he was a great teacher and that I just wasn't applying myself again, since they too knew I wasn't practicing at home. But this post isn't about my parents, it's about my old buddy Tom.

As I said, I liked being in band and had a ton of friends in there, but it made putting up with Tom all the more difficult. I was also a member of the Pep Band, which was a group of us who'd go to basketball games, etc. to play the fight song and stuff. Each year, the Pep Band got invited to go play at the local minor league hockey team's game, which I went to and enjoyed. However, my senior year the game was on a Friday evening, which was also when the theatre group was going to be working on building the set for a new play that I was the student director for. I've already discussed how much I enjoyed set building.

Since going to this hockey game was a volunteer activity after school, I told Tom I didn't want to go. Unfortunately for me, the only other person who played first part trumpet was on the girl's basketball team and had an away game that night. Tom and I argued at length about whether I should have to go to the hockey game or not. I kept trying to remind him that it was a volunteer organization and he couldn't make me go. He talked to the girl and found out there was a chance she'd be back from her basketball game in time to catch the bus to the hockey game. With that, he got me to agree that if she didn't make it back in time, I'd go to the hockey game.

Well, after school that Friday, I started working on building the set with my theatre friends and before I knew it, it was time to get ready for the hockey game and there was no sign of the girl's basketball team being back. I lost it. All the hate I had generated toward Tom over the years came bubbling up and I decided there was no way he could force me to go. (Try to look past the fact that I game him my word. I absolutely hated this man.) It was a volunteer group and so I knew that there couldn't be any repercussions to my not going. I did the only logical thing one would do when faced with this situation. I hid.

Since I was in the auditorium all the time as part of the theatre group, I knew my way around the passages under our stage. I crawled my way into a dark, remote corner and waited. I could hear various people from the Pep Band coming into the auditorium asking for me. Everyone from theatre gave conflicting stories, but it basically boiled down to yes, I'd been there, but no one had seen me in a while, and maybe I'd left. One slight problem with this excuse was the fact that my car was parked in the very first spot outside the doors near the band room and auditorium, and everyone in both groups knew it was my car.

More time ticked by and Tom finally came in asking for me. He asked Mr. M where I was, and Mr. M gave the same response everyone else had given. I could hear the steam pouring out of Tom's ears before he stomped out. I thought I was golden until one guy from band started crawling around under the stage, thinking maybe I was under there. At this point, I'd been hiding for around a half an hour. My eyes were completely accustomed to the dark and I knew there was no way he could see me from his vantage point. I held my breath and waited. He peered in my general direction for a moment and then looked a different way for a moment before giving up the search.

I heard the commotion die down, gave it about 15 more minutes until I was sure that the bus had left for the hockey game, and then came crawling out of my hiding spot. Everyone from theatre started cracking up. I was filthy! I had dust and dirt all over my clothes and there were spider webs all over in my hair. But, I got to stay and had a fun evening working on the set, just like I'd wanted.

[TO BE CONTINUED...]

P.S. Here's my senior picture, since I mentioned my hair. It deserves it's own post someday, but ever since I started talking about high school, I've been dying to come up with a reason to link it. Crazy, I know, but it was the late 80's, so I would have fit in with the MTV crowd at least.

Tidbits

2007-01-11T12:15:00.000-08:00

Quick update. It turns out the violation was simply one of my coworkers who needed a copy of a file I'd emailed her the previous day which she'd accidentally deleted. She went to my machine and decided to just start poking around trying to find it while I was at lunch. For whatever reason though, when she saw how I was reacting yesterday, she panicked and felt the need to lie instead of coming clean. I had a nice long email apology waiting for me this morning and things are fine again. Regardless, my screensaver lock remains on, just in case. It was stupid of me to not have it on in the first place.

Also, I see that it's National Delurking Week. Please leave a comment. I'd love to hear from my millions of readers! Ok, I have yet to break 20 on the site monitor, but still, say hi!

We now return you to the regular programming of High School Memories...

Violation

2007-01-10T22:55:00.000-08:00

We interrupt the regularly scheduled broadcast of High School Memories for this important announcement. Whoever in my office felt the need to be poking around on my computer today at lunchtime needs to LEAVE MY MACHINE THE HELL ALONE!

When I came back from lunch today, I went to start up MS Word, when I noticed that it was already running. I am 100% certain I hadn't used it before lunch. I looked and saw 2 documents on my recent files list that had been opened on today's date. Both files were things I had on my desktop but hadn't even needed recently. The first was just some notes I had written prior to composing an email over a month ago. The second was a "lessons learned" follow up to a project I finished working on 6 months ago. So, as you can see, not any big deal, except for the fact that SOMEONE WAS USING MY MACHINE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION.

I've tried using screensaver password protection at past jobs, but I always found it annoying when the screensaver would popup and require my password when I was just sitting in front of my machine without interacting with it for 5 minutes. This would happen all the time, such as talking on the phone, having a conversation with a coworker walking by, or even reading some PDFs online.

Since our office requires a keycard anyway, I figured for security reasons, I didn't need to worry about being that secure. I started asking around, but no one saw anyone come into my cube at lunchtime. I immediately turned on my screensaver password protection and setup a hotkey to turn it on anytime I want to. I'm sure I'll get annoyed by having to type my password again and again, but after today, I feel violated.

Spirit Week

2007-01-09T22:50:00.000-08:00

As we continue this stroll down memory lane, the next story I'll share is about my school spirit, or lack thereof. Each year, my high school would have something called Spirit Week, which consisted of a variety of activities for students to participate in and earn points for their grade, culminating in a pep rally on Friday afternoon.

This pep rally was simply the most idiotic thing ever created. First, the winners of a ~~popularity~~ school spirit vote taken during the week for each grade would be named the spirit squad. These 4 guys and 4 girls in each grade would then get to take part in a bunch of games while the rest of the school was forced to watch and cheer them on. Mind you, there were around 250 people per grade, so there were 1000 students watching these 32 popular people. Each game would also have points awarded to each grade, and the class with the most points from all the week's activities would earn the "spirit jug". This old brown jug would then get handed to the spirit squad and they would run around the gym whooping like assholes.

By my senior year, I'd really had enough with spirit week. I got together with some of my friends in the theatre group and we decided to try to steal the ~~popularity~~ school spirit vote. We all voted for 1 guy and 1 girl from our circle of theatre friends and we spread the word to as many people as we thought we could influence. More on this when I recall what happened at the pep rally.

Another of the activities that took place during the week was called the penny drive. There were 4 collection buckets, 1 for each grade, where money was collected for charity. The trick of the penny drive was that pennies collected in your grade's bucket counted as positive points, while silver coins and dollars in your grade's bucket counted as negative points. So, you'd put your pennies in your own grade's bucket and put everything else in some other bucket. Of course the winning grade was always the one that had the total closest to a positive number.

Each morning during announcements, the principal would give the penny drive totals so far. After the Thursday announcements, it became apparent that the seniors were going to win the penny drive unless something drastic changed, and a scheme began to develop in my mind. I decided that I would collect silver money from seniors and tell them that I was going to put it into the freshman's bucket. I talked to all kinds of people, collecting money. Of course, the people that I normally never talked to and actually liked spirit week thought this was a great idea and contributed heavily. The problem was, I didn't put the money into the freshman's bucket and instead put it into the senior's bucket. Yes, I am a liar and was stealing these people's money, but I figured all the money went to charity anyway, so that eliminated any ethical dilemma I may have been feeling.

There was just one little problem with my plan, which came up the next day at lunch. I was sitting in the cafeteria eating my lunch with my friend Kirt, who knew nothing about what I'd done, when 3 rather large football players approached me. Keep in mind, I was a scrawny 125 pound member of the theatre and band. All thoughts are included in parenthesis for comedic value, including Kirt's, which he told me after lunch.

Jock : "Hey asshole, we saw what you did and we want our money."
Delton : "What are you talking about?" (Shit, how'd they find out?)
Kirt : (Why are these dude's demanding Delton give them money?)
Jock #2 : "Don't mess around, we want our money."
Delton : "I'm not giving you any money." (This doesn't look good.)
Kirt : (This doesn't look good.)
Jock #1 : "Listen jerk, you lied and now you owe us money."
Jock #3 : "Yeah!"
Kirt begins to stand up.
Kirt : (Hmmm, this sucks that they're picking on my little buddy Delton. If this gets out of hand, I'll just punch #1 as hard as I can in the face and hope Delton can keep #3 busy while I work on #2.)
Delton : "Kirt, sit down and let me handle this." (I wonder how much money I'd have to give them to get them to leave?)
Kirt sits down and looks at me like I'm crazy.
Delton : "Here's a dollar, now get out of my face."
Jocks take the dollar and leave.
Kirt : "Why in the world are you giving those guys money?"
Delton tells Kirt the story of the penny drive scam.
Kirt : "You idiot, you mean I almost got into a fight with 3 guys because I was going to defend you after you stole from them???"
Delton : "Yeah, thanks buddy, you're a good friend...Uhhh, sure glad it didn't come to that!"

You'd think that was the end of it, but you'd be wrong. Remember when I said I'd recall the story of the pep rally later? Well, that time has come. The pep rally started and the first thing was for the principal to announce the winners of the vote. Both of my friends from the theatre group were voted onto the spirit squad. What joy I felt at helping to displace a couple of the popular people. They participated in all of the stupid games and finally finished that part. Next, the other week's activities results were announced; with the final thing before the awarding of the spirit jug being the results of the penny drive. "In fourth place, the freshman. In third place, the sophomores. And the winners of the penny drive...the juniors!"

Talk about elation, I couldn't believe I'd done it. I was grinning from ear to ear. A couple of seconds later, a chant started up from the senior's section of the gym. I look around, and see Jock #1 talking with a few of his friends and they're pointing at me, leading the chant of "Delton, Delton, Delton!" Of course, my friends from the theatre group had no idea what was going on, they just thought it'd be fun, so they started chanting my name too. Suddenly, half the gym is chanting my name in the middle of this pep rally. Needless to say, I was a little worried.

After the chanting died down, the principal gave the totals. The seniors had enough points overall and were awarded the spirit jug. So, our spirit squad still got to run around like assholes, and no real harm came from my scheme. However, I snuck out the side door of the gym after the pep rally and walked around half of the school building to get to where I needed to be next, just in case.

Nothing more ever came of this, but it was certainly one of my crowning moments from my senior year. I'm sitting here laughing again just recalling these events.

Updated to add: Got an email from Kirt after I told him to read this post. He said: "The only correction I would make to your blog is that I wasn't counting on any help from you in the fight."

Mr. M

2007-01-07T23:52:00.000-08:00

Since not too much has been going on around here this weekend, I've been having trouble thinking up content. Before the holidays, as I was going for the promotion at work, they brought in a couple of external candidates to interview for the position. Somehow, a friend and I started joking about how we should start a fight when the person came through our room to make them think it is a bad work environment here, thereby increasing my chances. I know, kind of childish, but it was simply a joke and it seemed funny at the time. Anyway, that reminded me of a story from high school that I thought I'd share. Stick with me; I'm going to give a little background before I get to the story eventually.

My freshman year of high school, there was a new theatre teacher, who I'll call Mr. M (not his real name, it was actually a really long name that just happens to start with the letter M) who had just graduated with his teaching degree. As he was only a few years older than us, everyone hit it off pretty well with him. We had a lot of fun over the years, hanging out in his class and doing plays.

My best memories from school are from the times when we would work over the course of a couple of weekends building the sets for the plays. We'd start after school on Friday and work until around 2am. Then we'd all go to the local 24 hour diner and have breakfast together. Mr. M would buy a big banana split for everyone to share. There's nothing quite like the taste of bacon and pancakes and ice cream. After the diner, we'd go home to sleep and then be back at school around noon. We'd work all day Saturday until around 2am when it was back to the diner again. Sunday we usually spent a few more hours working, depending on what was let to do on the set.

I spent so much time with that group of people over the years. My parents allowed me to host 2 cast parties in our basement. Mr. M's house had a pool which he invited us to a few times. (Don't even start thinking inappropriate thoughts, you perverts! It was all completely harmless.)  He also had a large backyard where we had countless bonfires into the night. I was student director for the 3 shows we did my senior year. My senior year, I was also on the yearbook staff, which meant I had a standing hall pass. So, what did I do with that hall pass 90% of the time during the hour I was supposed to be in yearbook class? I spent it in Mr. M's room doing whatever the theatre class was doing. Looking back now as a parent, I'd be mad if I found out a teacher was allowing this kind of stuff, but it seemed fine back then. We all just had a ton of fun together.

Now the story I was reminded of... One of the productions we were doing had a fight scene in it. Mr. M decided it would be good to spend a little time in class going over the correct way to stage a fight, so that everyone could practice the safe way to do it. We practiced various types of fist and sword fighting for the next couple of days in class. Two of my friends decided it would be fun to stage a fight and see if they could fool everyone. They made a plan to do it in the hall outside of a teacher's room that everyone hated. There were about 10 of us in on it, and we were to spread the word that these guys were really going to have a fight. The appointed time came and they started going at it, fists flying everywhere, a couple of blood packets for good measure, and lots of us gathered around in the hall cheering them on. The hated teacher heard the commotion and came into the hall AND JUMPED INTO THE MIDDLE OF THINGS TO STOP THE FIGHT! It was one of the funniest things ever. Of course, the crowd quickly dispersed, leaving the 2 guys to fend for themselves. They tried to explain that they were just practicing for theatre class, but the teacher was so pissed that he dragged them down to the principal's office.

The principal was not too pleased by what had transpired either and decided to make an example of them. They each got suspended for 3 days for fighting, because as he put it, "The rules for fighting don't differentiate between pretend fighting and real fighting. Someone still could have been hurt." In addition, Mr. M was called down to the office, got a slap on the wrist, and was told not to teach stage fighting anymore.

I've got lots more stories from my high school days. Maybe it would be fun to relive more of my youth, instead of the normal day-to-day stuff. I'll try to get to them in the days ahead...

Sheesh!

2007-01-04T22:12:00.000-08:00

Enough with the bitch fest. I just reread my last few posts and I started feeling depressed just hearing about all the crap this poor sap has been whining about. Even if anyone does happen across my blog and give it a shot, they won't stay after reading all this depressing stuff. Time to move on and get over it. I need to shake the fog that's been surrounding me for quite a while now. So I'm offering a 2 for 1 special on posts today to make up for all the negativity.

Now how about some good news? I talked with my Dr's office today and the stress test came back clean. Not too surprising, but glad to get that reaffirmed anyway. They said it might be next week before I find out about the 24 hour heart monitor though.

Also, a little more on work. My title at work right now is Developer. We have 3 development teams related to 3 product lines. The promotion I tried for was as the Supervisor of my team, who oversees 3-5 Developers and/or Senior Developers. The guy who got the job was a Senior Developer on a different team. So, now they posted his old job. I talked to our Manager today about possibly being promoted to a Senior Developer, as my current team doesn't have one, instead of me applying for the other guy's old job. I don't really want to switch to a different team, but I told him to let me know before Tuesday, as that's the deadline for me to apply if I need to. He was laughing about us all playing musical chairs, since if I applied for the other job and got it he'd have to post my job then, so he seemed receptive to the idea of this smaller promotion instead. He needs to talk it over with HR first, but hopefully things will work out.

I tried to go into work today with a positive attitude and it was nice to get a couple bits of good news to reinforce my new attitude. As I said last time, I'm tired of being depressed.

The Origins of Depression

2007-01-04T19:17:00.000-08:00

I don't want to be depressed. I used to have a positive outlook on things. Nothing really got me down too bad. I was able to roll with the punches. Looking back, I think the first time I dealt with depression was in college. I was being pressured to graduate early by my parents even though I was on my third major, because I was their "gifted" child,. I was due to graduate halfway through my senior year with a degree in philosophy and had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I didn't think grad school was right. I was lost and started shutting down. I stopped going to classes, sleeping all day, playing computer games all night. I ended up failing all my classes that semester except for marching band. That was one way to not have to become a grown up. They couldn't force me to graduate at age 20 when I didn't pass my classes. Unfortunately, they also couldn't justify paying for me to live on campus and fail all my classes.

I got lucky that my music professor could see someone who was losing his way and took pity on me. He put me in touch with another professor who lived near him who was going on sabbatical and needed someone to housesit second semester. I met with her, and I'm sure he must have vouched for me and promised to look in from time to time, as she agreed to let me stay at her home the following semester. I could only afford to pay for one class on my own, and rather than taking something to fill a requirement, I took another music class.

During this time, I was also working a DJ business that my parents had cosigned on a loan to help me purchase. I thought I'd like it, but after a couple of years, I was miserable doing it. I still had the loan on it, along with the standard 3 credit cards that I'd acquired during my college years. As I was working a business I didn't like, I probably wasn't very good at it, so I wasn't getting many referrals, wasn't able to make enough extra to pay for the advertising that was necessary to get new clients, and was falling behind on my bills. I would scrape together every dollar I could each month to pay for the loan my dad had cosigned on, as I wasn't about to incur his wrath about that as well. However, I soon started getting phone calls from the credit card companies at the professor's house. She got a couple of them on weekends when she'd return home. I was so embarrassed.

That spring, my girlfriend at the time and I convinced her parents that I should live at their house for the summer. They agreed as long as we both found jobs, which we did. At her house, I finally began to emerge from the hole I was in and resolved the issues I was facing. First, I found out we were not meant to continue as a couple, second, I fixed my relationship with my parents, and third, I got my parents to cosign on a consolidation loan, fixing my money problems at the time. At the end of the summer I moved back to my parents house and quit school. I was able to transfer my job and JCPenney ended up being my employer for 6 years. There, I became eligible for health insurance, which was important, as I wasn't covered by my parents plan anymore because of quitting school.

I didn't know it at the time, but looking back now, it's easy to see how depressed and stressed I was feeling about my life as a grown up. I wasn't ready to face any of it. Luckily, my parents stuck by me regardless of the disappointment I caused them by not finishing school. It took another 3 years and meeting Becky before I decided to go back to school, starting over with my fourth major. I still don't feel like a grown up a lot of the time, but now I've got 3 other people in my life depending on me to get my shit together. And so, the battle continues.

Joe Versus the Volcano

2007-01-03T23:57:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note tonight before I head off to bed.

I had a little better day today. I got to talk for a while with the person who got the promotion at work. He's a friend, so that makes things a bit easier. It wasn't any problem with him that I was feeling yesterday. He understands some of the issues I've been facing at work and is willing to work with me to help solve them. I can't ask for much more than that.

I decided to watch Joe Versus the Volcano, my favorite movie, this evening to bring my spirits up. I was in college when I first saw it, and even then the story of Joe's struggles resonated with me. Not much has changed in how I react to it even though it's been 16 years. I knew then about the office Joe worked in, wondering how to avoid losing one's soul as he almost did, trying to find the right clothes, taking the leap of faith like they do, and trying to get away from the things of man; these are the things I somehow knew back then were the issues I'd struggle with my whole life.

Here I am at 34, with a great family, a good, stable job, a nice home, etc. Yet I'm still lost, still searching for the right clothes, desperately clinging to my soul. Only difference is, instead of Joe's "brain cloud", I'm having heart palpitations.

Thank You Sir, May I Have Another?

2007-01-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

I don't know how much detail I can go into today, but I've got to at least give a little overview of what's going on. I've been up for a promotion at work and found out today that it's been given to someone else. There's nothing I love more than life kicking a guy while he's down. I felt like crawling under my desk and waiting for the day to be done. This is the second time I've been passed over in the past year. I guess they're trying to tell me something. There's such a dichotomy here. On the one hand I get these glowing reviews of my good work, but on the other hand, I'm not competent enough to move up the ladder. I'm really bummed. That's probably going to have to be the end of the story. I'm the sole breadwinner for my family, can't go getting dooced.

In other news, I got to leave work early to go take my stress test. That seemed to go pretty well. I never felt anything strange and got my heart rate going pretty high. Not that I was expecting things to go wrong there. I already know it's not exercise that's the problem. I should find out the results of that and my 24 hour monitor in a couple of days.

When I left the hospital, I wanted nothing more than to stop and pick up a new game for my computer or PS2, go home, tell the family to leave me alone, and play the game until I couldn't stay awake anymore (usually 3-4am is an early night when I'm feeling like gaming). Instead, I didn't stop to buy a game, as I knew I couldn't justify spending the money. Then I arrived home and found The Wife and the kids in the middle of purging toys to make room for the new ones they got for Christmas. So instead I started pitching in on that right away. She told me a couple of times I didn't need to help, but I couldn't just blow them off when they were in the middle of a big project like that.

Anyway, the point I really wanted to get to (about damn time!) is that I'm tired of worrying about money. Trying to get more money was part of the reason for putting myself out there 2 times for the promotion. Never having enough is certainly the "heart" of the heart problems. And not being able to justify spending a few bucks on a game for myself is just shit. I have a VERY good job. I make lots of money. Unfortunately, it's still not enough. I know the holidays puts a crimp in everyone's cash flow, but for the past week and a half, every dime we spent had to go on a credit card. Then, I come home after The Wife balanced the checkbook this afternoon, and she tells me "If you can avoid going out to eat for the next 2 weeks, that'd be good." WTF? It's only been 3 days since I got paid. I am so sick of this.

It's just been a really crappy day all around. I just want to curl up and sleep and pretend none of it matters. The burden of these responsibilities is killing me.

Updated to add - I can't even sleep to ignore it all. I woke up around 5am and couldn't move my legs since the cats had taken over my half of the bed. By the time I woke up enough to realize what was going on and push them out of bed, I was awake. I stayed there about 20 minutes until I finally gave up, came downstairs, and spent a couple of hours killing Nazis on my PS2. That didn't help much.

Happy New Year!

2007-01-01T00:04:00.000-08:00

I’m sitting here on New Year’s Eve, listening to a thunderstorm rolling through. I can’t believe it. This sure has been a strange winter so far. Today was another Lazy Sunday. I may have to get a copyright on those, because they sure work well for me.

Yesterday we went to visit my Mom for the day. She’s about an hour and a half away. The drive was pretty easy and with the good weather, it went quickly. I hadn’t yet told her about my trip to the ER, since I’d talked to her on the phone 3 times since my heart issues and not once did she bother to ask how I was doing. It’s been a point of contention between us for a while now. Whenever we talk on the phone, she rambles on for 15-20 minutes about every little detail of her life, not even pausing to allow me to take part in the conversation, until she finally runs out of steam. Sometimes she remembers to ask about us, but usually not. You’d think that her position as a grandma would mean that she’d be asking all sorts of questions about what the kids are doing, how school is, whatever, but that just isn’t the case. I’ve mentioned it several times, but I don’t seem to be getting through to her. It seems that she’s just too caught up in her world to care too much about us. It’s odd, because if you ask her, we’re the most important thing to her. I don’t mean to complain about her too much, I mean of course I love her. It’s just a bit of a sore spot.

Anyway, about 2 hours after we’d arrived at her house, I still hadn’t gotten any sort of query into how things have been for me. I figure maybe I’m just being bullheaded about this. So, I finally blurt out that I had a bit of excitement this week, and go into my whole story of the trip to the ER and the other tests I need to have on my heart. I got a moment of concern, but then before I really even finished my story, she turned it around and started telling me about one time when she was having some chest pains! I mean come on! Show a little compassion toward your son. It will most likely turn out to be nothing, but to be having any sort of heart concerns at 34 is just a bit unnerving.

On some levels, I wonder if she’s still burnt out from dealing with my dad’s cancer for 8 years. Who would want to have to deal with any other health issues after giving so much of herself to his care? I’d be willing to accept that excuse, except for the fact that on the telephone, when she’s not giving me the rundown of what she had to eat, or what errands she went on, she’s filling me in on what illnesses my uncle, or cousin, or great-aunt, or whoever is dealing with.

The phone calls have changed so much since my dad’s been gone. When he and I used to talk, somehow he’d get me talking about whatever was going on in my life, whether it was work, the kids, places my family went, stories from the past. It was very strange, as whenever we’d get together, it wasn’t like that, but on the phone, it was an easy conversation.

Well, I hear a bunch of the local yocals shooting off fireworks, so with that, Happy New Year!

I'm Dreaming of a (Hospital) White Christmas

2006-12-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, here comes my big confessional. I worry about a lot of shit. I don't often come out and say it; I just keep it inside until my body finds some physical way of manifesting the stress instead. I've kind of always expected to end up with an ulcer. My body's preferred way of showing stress is to attack my weak neck vertebrae. The doctors have officially diagnosed me with a herniated disk in my neck. However, the 2 times it got so bad that I had to wear a neck brace both were very stressful times in my life. The Wife and I were responsible for quite a few expenses of our wedding. One month before our ceremony, we got a bunch of bills in the mail, and I got my first attack of neck problems. Strangely enough, the second go around was 1 month before our first child arrived.

Now, I can only wish for something as simple as a pain in the neck. Instead, on December 26th, I got to have a trip to the ER for what has so far been diagnosed as heart palpitations. We were out running errands and I felt a little fluttering of my heart. The Wife noticed that something was not right and I told her what I was feeling. Over the next hour, the intensity rose and fell, but never quite went away. Finally, I was feeling a little tightness in my chest, so with a little prompting from The Wife, I called my Dr's office. After describing the feelings to a nurse, she advised me to get to the ER.

The triage nurse could feel some irregularities in my heartbeat at check-in. They took me into a room, gave me some baby aspirin, slapped a heart monitor on me, drew blood, and did an EKG. The Dr said that if I was having a heart attack, it wouldn't show up in my blood right away, so I'd need to stay and have blood drawn after 3 hours, and again after 6 hours. What fun! The Wife had taken the kids home to give them dinner, so I called her and told her to make arrangements, since I wouldn't be getting out until after 1am. I just about developed bed sores from lying on the stupid bed watching crappy TV. Of course, nothing showed up on any of their tests. I'm sure it was just my body's new way of getting the stress out.

On the 27th, I went to my regular Dr for a follow up. He gave me the paperwork to schedule a stress test. Finally, yesterday morning, I got to return to the hospital to get fitted with a 24 hour heart monitor. There were 10 little pads that had to be attached all around my chest to listen to every little blip of my heart. I had to keep a diary of anytime I felt any strangeness so that they could try to cross reference my activities with any abnormal readings. We'll see. I felt a few flutters that I noted, but the worst one was when I was on the telephone scheduling the stress test. Just thinking about the issue set me off.

This all started about a month ago when I was at my Dr for a routine visit and I was told that for the first time ever, my blood pressure measured high. I immediately started worrying about it, as I have a family history of high blood pressure. The Dr asked me to go the pharmacy a couple of times to use their blood pressure machine, to keep an eye on the levels. So, for the last month, I've been thinking about it every single day. Of course, each time I'd actually stop and check it, it'd still be high, and I'd be worrying more. The entire time I was in the ER hooked up to all the machines, I was registering a high blood pressure as well. However, to top everything all off, when I went to my Dr's office the next day for the follow up, my blood pressure reading was normal. So, I have no idea what's going on. Here's hoping I can get some answers next week as test results begin to come in.

The Pursuit of Happyness

2006-12-23T11:32:00.000-08:00

I started a post early this morning bitching about starting my vacation with Bronze waking up at 4 am and not going back to sleep. I’m glad I didn’t get a chance to finish it, because it ended up not being a very big deal. The Wife got up with her until a little after 5, then I got up and came downstairs with her and let The Wife go back to bed. We had a nice morning coloring and then watching a little TV. Finally, Azure woke up and joined us. He was wiggling his loose tooth and went into the kitchen to get a little bowl to carry around, just in case his tooth came out. It was a silly sight.

Breakfast time came and Azure’s tooth was so loose and wobbly that it was making it hard for him to eat. He agreed to let me try to get it out for him. I started moving it around until the whole tooth came out of the socket, turned completely upside down, and was just hanging on by one little thread. Of course, Azure wanted me to stop right then. I had to convince him that trying to eat with an upside down tooth was not a good idea. He sat back down, I got a wet washcloth, yanked it out, and dabbed at the little bit of blood. He was quite excited and ran into the bathroom to look at his mouth in the mirror.

Once The Wife got up, we started cleaning the house, and cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning. It went on nearly all day. We finally finished around 4pm and started getting ready to go out. Yes, that’s right, we got to have another date! The sitter arrived at 5 and we went for dinner and to see The Pursuit of Happyness. It was an inspiring story. Makes me think I need to stop whining about every little thing and get out there and Just Do It. Carpe Diem. Pursue Happyness.

We got home from the movie, had a visit from the tooth fairy, and went to sleep. All in all, it was a very good day.

Conkerdoodle

2006-12-20T22:26:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was having a conversation with The Wife and we were recalling funny things that the kids say. There was one odd word that Azure had made up a couple of months ago that I was trying to remember. Then today, after I read this post about yumpindumpin, I forced myself to dig into the depths of my brain and find the word. It’s conkerdoodle. What’s a conkerdoodle you might ask? Well, that’s the fun of made up words, they can mean anything you want.

For us, conkerdoodle was a funny little name Azure had for some of his stuffed animals, or his sister, or us. Of course, who was a conkerdoodle changed from moment to moment, according to his whims. The funniest thing happened one morning when I went into Azure’s room to wake him up for school. I went into the room and he was still asleep, so I leaned down by the bed, pretty close to his face, to admire him while he was sleeping. There wasn’t any movements, smiles, snickers, or anything except regular breathing, so I figured he was in a deep sleep. After about 10 seconds of watching him, he suddenly says “conkerdoodle!” and then opens his eyes and starts laughing. Needless to say, I was a bit startled. We had a good time laughing about that one.

Another odd word that’s managed to stick in our family’s vocabulary is shou-shou. For the kids, it’s always been a traumatic experience when The Wife “disappears” into the bathroom for a shower. There have been many battles between them and myself about whether they can “tell Mama one more thing”, or just leave her alone for 10 stinking minutes. So, it’s little surprise that one of the first few words that Bronze started using was shou-shou, for when her Mama was in the shower.

The other day, I was dropping Azure off at school and his best friend wasn’t there that day. He was feeling sad since she was gone on vacation and didn’t want me to leave to go to work. He started to cry just a little as I went out the door. Through the window, I quickly flashed him the sign for “I love you”, which is a staple in our household. This immediately diffused his sadness as he smiled and gave me the “I love you” sign back. I was able to turn and walk away, knowing that he would be ok without his best buddy by his side that day.

I love having little inside jokes, words, signs, etc. with my family. It’s such a powerful feeling to share that connection with them. Find that special someone in your life and give them a big conkerdoodle! You’ll be glad you did.

Celebrating the Birth of the Baby Cheese

2006-12-19T20:20:00.000-08:00

The Wife and I are heathens. Let me just clear the air on that concept right now. My mom is, and my dad (before he died) was, convinced that we’re going to burn in hell. That’s ok. I’ve accepted that. I spent most of my childhood attending a religious school and going to church each week. I was even active in my church’s statewide youth fellowship program. I thought I knew what I believed about God, etc, but also it was just a fun outlet with cool kids that I got to know from attending church camp each summer.

When I got to college, I got exposed to what other religions believed and began to question myself. I finally opened my eyes to the inconsistencies in the story. I refuse to believe that Jesus would have condemned a good, loving, caring for others type of person to eternal damnation just because that person happened to follow a different idea of a god. What I think Jesus wanted was not for people to blindly follow him, but instead try to live their lives like him, caring for the needy, loving their family, etc. A Buddhist, a Muslim, a Jew, or an Atheist are all equally capable of living their life as Jesus tried to exemplify.

The Wife has been going to a local Mothers Of Preschoolers (MOPS) group this year that she got introduced to by a friend. This group is affiliated with a local church. No big deal. The Wife enjoys the company, the kids are in a safe environment, and it gets them all out of the house a couple times each month. However, since we don’t attend a church, our kids have no concept of who Jesus was.

The activity for the kids last time at MOPS was to make an ornament for the tree. Sounds fun, right? Well, the ornament had 5 pieces: one egg holder from an egg carton, some cotton, a small piece of fabric, a tiny baby doll, and a pipe cleaner. The idea was to glue the cotton to the egg carton piece to make a bed for the baby, cover it with the fabric to make a blanket, and poke the pipe cleaner through to hang it on the tree. The kids seemed like they enjoyed making the ornaments, as they were very excited to show them to me. Bronze got to show me her ornament first. She hid it behind her back and told me she wanted to show me her “Baby Cheese”. She brought her arm out from behind her back and showed me the ornament. I told her how great her Baby Cheese looked. We headed right over to the tree and I held her up nice and high to hang Baby Cheese out of the cats reach. I just about lost it laughing to myself. That ornament quickly shot into my top 10 favorite ornaments, which include various snowmen, glass balls, and the ship from Star Trek Voyager. So yeah, maybe we are going to burn in hell.

Lazy Sunday

2006-12-18T21:04:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a nearly perfect day. One of my favorite memories from my childhood is when there wasn’t anything that we had to do on the weekend and we could just relax. Yesterday was one of those days again. Lots of sitting around relaxing, playing games with the kids, watching tv, and best of all, napping.

The thing I miss most since the kids have gotten older and don’t take afternoon naps anymore is the chance to take a nap myself. This was always a big part of those weekends of my youth and my pre-kid adult life too. Napping is a great way to recharge and get ready to face another week of the grind. To me, not getting a nap on the weekend is on par with getting shoved down and kicked repeatedly. To say I miss my naps is just not getting to the root of it. Yes, of course I love my kids and enjoy playing games with them. Also, the dishes and the laundry and the countless other chores I do each weekend have to be done. But the endless stream of these things just wears me out.

We have a big comfy chair in our living room that Azure dubbed the “thinking chair” from his Blue’s Clues days. When the kittens joined our family, they quickly decided that the top of the chair was their personal bed.

Yesterday afternoon, when the kids were in their rooms for rest time and Becky was in the office, I sat down in the thinking chair, rested my head up against Grumpy Sparkles and quickly fell asleep. Soon, Gilbert joined us. It was a cozy place for a nap. At some point, I woke to Grumpy giving my hair a bath. A little gross, but I was too sleepy to care and fell back asleep. I got to nap for almost an hour and a half, so I was pleased.

The Wife has wanted to get a cat for years, but for one reason or another, I always found an excuse not to. However, I love the addition that the kittens have made to our family.

Every day, I find myself laughing at some silly thing they’re doing. Even the fact that they’re tearing up the bottom row of tinsel and ornaments on our tree is humorous. Hopefully, our tree doesn’t end up looking like this. Just in case, we decided to leave the glass ornaments in storage this year.

Anyway, I love and I enjoyed cuddling up with them for my nap. Hope you can enjoy a lazy Sunday once in a while too.

Catching up

2006-12-15T18:26:00.000-08:00

With each passing day this week, I found myself falling a little further behind on my great plans for this blog. I have all these ideas that float into my head throughout the workday. I’ll quickly jot the idea down and go on with work, with the intention of writing a post based on the idea in the evening. However, by the time I help get the kids into bed and have some dinner and clean up a little bit of the disaster that is our house, I have no energy left for thinking coherent thoughts and putting them down here. With that in mind, I’ve got a grab bag of topics to cover in this post.

I’ve had to use 3 sick days over the past week or so to help care for various sick people in my family. Azure and Bronze have both been fighting colds. Add that to the fact that I invited the plague into our home by having my childhood friend come visit from 2 hours away with his kids, one of which got sick and was throwing up in the car on the way here, therefore cursing The Wife and Azure to a day and a half of throwing up from the stomach flu. I cannot begin to explain the guilt that I feel, even though the only way of avoiding this would have been to turn my friend Beege away and force him to drive 2 hours back home with his sick child covered in throw up. Just not possible.

Also this week, I had the pleasure of watching The Lost Room on SciFi. What a cool show. I mostly gave it a shot because of Peter Krause. I really liked Sports Night and he played by far my favorite character on Six Feet Under. I don’t know what, if any, plans SciFi has for repeats of this mini-series, but if you’ve got 6 hours to burn, I’d definitely recommend it.

Put it all together and you’ve got a wonderful recipe for a blog without new content for almost a week.

There’s one other thing I wanted to talk about this time. I was very involved in theatre in both high school and college, and a fair number of the dates The Wife and I went on in the early days of our relationship were to various stage productions. So, when she surprised me a month ago with tickets to see Escanaba in Love at The Purple Rose Theatre, I was very excited. We went to the show last week and had a wonderful time.

Making these kind of plans is a big deal for us. For whatever reason, we were the type of parents who forgot to be a couple once the kids were born. We’ve never had a regular sitter. Maybe twice a year, we’d get some family member to watch the kids so we could have an evening out. Needless to say, after 5 years, this has been a strain on us. Just recently, we’ve finally been able to establish getting a sitter once in a while. What a relief!

We were a little concerned about how the kids would react to having someone sit for them. The girl we found came by for a short visit (interview) and to meet the kids. Things went well, so we made plans for her to watch the kids so we could do dinner and a movie. After we told the kids, they wanted to draw pictures to give her when she arrived. We thought this was kind of cute. The big day arrived and the kids were so excited they hardly gave us enough time to go over things with her before they dragged her away upstairs to play. The Wife and I went into the garage to leave and I realized the sitter’s car was in the way. I ran back in the house to ask her to move her car to the side of the driveway. As I was approaching the room where they were playing, I overheard Bronze telling the sitter, “I love you.” Mind you, Bronze had only known this girl for about 30 minutes total!

It started to sink in that the kids are craving attention from other people. Maybe, just maybe, it’s even a good thing that we’re exposing the kids to some other influences. Gasp! Regardless, the most important point of the sitter is that I get to start going out with my wife again. I was nearly to the point of leaving the kids with some homeless guy on the street, just for the chance to be a couple again. Thankfully, they can stay with someone who we trust and we still get to have our fun.

D-day (not for weak stomachs)

2006-12-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

Once a month, some friends and I get together for a guy's weekend. This consists of my 2 best friends from high school, who live around 2 hours away, and me. This weekend however, I couldn't leave home because The Wife's out of town and Bronze had a birthday party to go to today that we didn't want her to miss. So, rather than missing out on guy's weekend, we decided to turn it into Dad day or d-day as we joked about during our planning emails. We had no idea what we were in for!

One guy couldn't make it because of work, so it was just me and my kids ages 5 & 3 1/2 and my friend Beege and his 4 kids, ages 7, 4, 2 1/2, & 1. My kids were looking forward to having someone new come over to play and around 8:30am starting asking when they'd be here. I tried to explain how difficult it was going to be for them to get here. "Think about how long it takes us to get ready to go somewhere. We just have 2 kids. They have 4 kids! Plus, they have a long drive. It's going be a long time before they make it to our house." I might as well have been taking to the cats. The kids were just too excited. Every 5 minutes, they're looking out the window, checking to see if anyone's here yet. Finally, the phone rang around 11:30am. Beege just finally got his kids all packed up and was starting the 2 hour drive. Of course! I knew it wasn't going to be easy. I fixed my kids some lunch and they had a little rest time, then I sent Bronze off to the birthday party with her grandma.

A little while later, Beege called again, this time he said he's about 10 minutes away, his 2 1/2 girl just threw up all over herself and her car seat from motion sickness, and could I please start running a bath for her. They got here, he cleaned her in the bath while I got his other kids settled in, I hooked up the hose outside, and he took apart the entire seat so he could spray it down. Then we put a load of laundry in to wash the car seat cover, her coat, and her clothes. By the time all that was finished, he got to give his baby a bottle. We actually had a few minutes of conversation during that time, but I was still running around keeping an eye on 4 kids and 2 over stimulated cats. Bronze got dropped off from the birthday party and all the kids got to play together for a while.

Soon, it was time for a snack. I got it ready, corralled the kids to the table, and as soon as we sat down, Beege's girl turned to him and said she needed to throw up again. He managed to grab a bowl just in time. They spent the next hour or so sitting on the couch with her throwing up numerous times. She managed the hit the bowl every time except once, when she completed nailed Beege's shirt, socks, a bunch of the floor and herself. So, off to the shower they both went. I had to get him a clean shirt and socks of mine and an old shirt of Bronze's. At this point, we were completely caught up in the comedy of the situation.

Meanwhile, I fixed some dinner for everyone who wasn't sick. Beege still had to put the car seat back together after it came out of the dryer. His girl managed to pass out on the couch for a little while before waking up and getting sick a few more times. Finally he got them all packed up and loaded up in their car. As we were saying goodbye, we laughed about how much we enjoyed talking to each other this time. I promised that if we ever have another d-day, I'll drive to his house next time.