Category: Daily Life

Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.

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The scream was like a banshee in pain

The house quieted. Evan declared, "Give me bop. I go bed now." And with a little reluctance, he put himself to sleep. Noah coaxed Amy to bed but she sprang back after he slipped out to read a book. In the meantime, I took the dogs outside and sat on the porch, shirtless to enjoy the cool evening air with no mosquitoes and chant. Shortly into chanting, the peaceful neighborhood with its waxing gibbous moon (96% full) being sung to by crickets erupted into a cacophony of barks and howls. I continued to chant and Dharma and Molly, my German Shepherds, sat silently alert. Then there was the shriek! Altogether to close! Thanks to our camping in the Okefenokee, I am quiet familiar with the sound of fighting raccoon and I do not want my dogs tangling with one of those. Chanting ends. I usher the dogs inside to find Amy having trouble sleeping so we go to her bed and chant together until she is calm enough to sleep.

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And the girls are gone!

Cathy and Sarah along with Missy took off this morning in a decked out Saturn Vue loaned to them by GM to attend BlogHer in Washington, DC. Today was also my deadline for getting my IRS paperwork straightened out before they begin levying bank accounts again. Despite my pleas for one more week, they wouldn’t budge. Fortunately since today is a Sunday and tomorrow is a federal holiday, I have until Tuesday to turn the papers in. For a variety of reasons from "I didn’t feel like it that year" to "Cathy’s name didn’t match the records at the Social Security Department," I had missing or rejected IRS tax returns from 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2006. This makes Uncle Sam not like you. And when Uncle Sam doesn’t like you, he takes away a bunch of your money in fees, interest, penalties, and brute force.

The paperwork is straightened out. Amy has been to a birthday party. Evan and Noah to the circus with the grandparents. Noah is nursing a migraine. Amy and Evan are playing. And I’m programming (think I’ll slip some dinner in somewhere).

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Of Being Dad

This morning was cool…until I got up. Cathy swapped roles with me this morning and got the children ready for school. What a relaxing way to start the day! I allowed myself 20 extra minutes of sleep then calmly got dressed and went upstairs to lend a hand by making Amy’s lunch. We were right on time to make the bus but pushing it. I had a simple plan: Amy and I run to the van and get to the bus stop. I remind the air, "Don’t let Dharma out!" It has been raining and I don’t have time to clean her feet for a van ride and still be able to get Amy to school. Then Evan runs into the kitchen with sticky buns caked to his hands. I exclaim, "Go wash your hands" but he needs help and no one is moving his direction. Cathy and I simultaneously take him to the bathroom and wash his hands. Suddenly Evan is to be a passenger. I’m watching the clock tick knowing that we are at a coin flip on making the bus or not. We rush to the front door and it magically opens and Dharma shoots out. I lunge for her and miss and she lands paws in the mud then digs in to race to the van. I lose it. I engage chase and booming voice (sorry neighbors). Dharma does something new, and hides under the van. All I picture is a dog that now needs a bath on a day that I don’t need distractions. She won’t come out so I honk the horn (sorry neighbors), yell, toss some rocks, why am I still trying to make the bus, the neighbor returns from the bus stop, the children are out trying to help so I yell at them to go back inside, Sarah gets Dharma out, I smack the dog and drag her by the scruff of the neck back inside, children are crying, dog is scared, and everyone is mad at me.

How could this have gone differently? All I had to do was close the front door. Within 15 seconds, Dharma would have been scratching to come inside. We could have said something witty and laughed instead of cried. And who cares if we missed the bus. I want to be that perfect tv dad. Can I have take 2?

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State of Me

Ouch! I just sneezed and I think the left half of my skull fell to the floor. I’m afraid to look. Cathy says my cough has worsened and insists I go to the doctor but she has it too so we have that stubborn Mexican standoff martyrdom don’t waste money on the uninsured adults thing going on. We don’t get sick that often so I guess we are due. All of Knoxville has this so I’ll start into my Oak Ridge secretly testing non-lethal severely debilitating chemical weapon conspiracy theory after I make more progress on today’s programming. Coding stops for no cough!