A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
We ran out of drink boxes, so I prepared Amy’s apple juice in a plastic container with a built-in straw.
Dad: "Amy, this is your drink for lunch. Please don’t throw it away."
Amy, 4 years old going on 14: "Dad! I’ve only done this a thousand times already."
Yesterday Cathy and I were discussing how it may have been uncomfortable for a 16 year old boy to watch a movie with sexual and drug related themes with his parents. We started talking about how Tommy requires a more direct approach with such things than other teenagers. Tommy does not get the benefit of friends gathering around and sneaking a watch of a dirty movie or one that your parents would disapprove. I know that I innocently got together with a bunch of friends in high school only to discover they had arranged to watch Caligula.
This version contained many scenes with extremely taboo, sexually, and violently explicit content, including … (see second bullet under "Multiple Versions" for the full description) [Source]
In the course of a couple of hours, my knowledge grew exponentially! (the curious can find pictures buried here) These are certain rites of passage that we assume everyone experiences but some people just miss out due to helicopter parenting or special needs. I am by no means suggesting that I sit down and watch porn with my son. I am suggesting that some people have gaps in what otherwise is common knowledge because that knowledge (slang, taboo subjects, etc) is taught through peer relations, relationships that simply do not exist in certain circumstances. I digress.
My real point is that from this discussion Cathy mentioned that "girls don’t watch porn." And added jokingly, "because they don’t have to!" She is right though. Girls could have the real thing anytime they want but hold back. Guys want it all the time but cannot get it. Funny how some things never change.
One of the children..I am guessing that it was one of the children..sat on, leaned on, or otherwise put substantial weight on the door of our dryer. The metal at the hinges bent enough that the door will no longer stay closed. I am about to get creative with a drill and a latch like on our refrigerator. If this gets worse, we won’t be able to dry clothes. That will teach the kids! "I understand that it is snowing. Perhaps your panties will dry by lunch. Don’t mind the jokes from the other children."
My head feels clouded today. The sky is overcast. I have no clear mission for the day. Seems like I have 100 little things that I need to do for other people. I have not heard a word back since my interview and that disappoints me as I was/am thrilled with the company. Christmas lurks. I want to be working on the house. And time keeps on ticking…
Oh, speaking of fuzzy, Tommy likes Pink Floyd, as he should, so last night the other kids were away so Tommy got to see The Wall (wikipedia entry) for the first time. As Cathy and I watched it with him, I had this strange realization that last night was possibly the first time I have ever seen the movie sober. I have a list of things that I almost did. Rather than regret not doing this things I remember them to prevent hesitation in future opportunities. One of my big almosts came in 1990 when I had passport in hand, credit card at the ready, and I almost flew to Germany to see Roger Waters perform Pink Floyd’s The Wall in celebration of The Berlin Wall being torn down.
So, Cathy has this collection of Rodney Reindeers from Hallmark. They have been discontinued. We had 6 but now there are seven people in the family. I offer to help her find one more but she wants to take care of it. Several days pass and I hear nothing about it so I decide to take some initiative and check eBay. Rodney has about 85 auctions. I exuberantly relay the information to Cathy who responds with, "shutup!"
Apparently Cathy discovered Rodney on eBay on her own. And lost her first auction. In an effort to not lose again, she bid on 6 auctions! She won 3 of them. So, if the number of Rodneys are supposed to match the number of people in house, Cathy had better get to work because it appears we need to more than double the size of the household.
The cat cam is on. Twopaws is trying to attack the swirling leaves through the glass.
Every now and then I get these killer leg cramps in my sleep. My calf muscle will tighten so much that I spring to wakefulness. The calf is so tight that you could break a board across it and feels like it wants to rip from my leg. It can hurt so bad as to bring tears to my eyes. The biggest challenge is riding it out without waking others in my bed. I am helpless to voluntarily relax the muscle. The only thing that can be done is grip it firmly, apply pressure and massage. Pointing the toes and relaxing the foot then repeating that motion sometimes helps. The calf will be tender all day.
According to the secondary causes, I appear to be in the late stages of pregnancy.
Nothing hurts like the sound of a counter sink bit breaking in the wood.
You know that old adage about "measure twice, cut once?" Yeah, it’s like that.
Math is so fun! I love days when I am a programmer and not a script monkey.
Yes, yesterday I selfishly used my wife’s boobies. You know how your SAM’s membership card has a picture on it? (Costco is the same I am sure) And they get a little particularly if you get to the checkout and the person pictured is not standing with you. Our SAM’s card has my wife’s beautiful picture on it. I wanted to do the world’s fastest SAM’s trip to get some ground beef and still make it out in time to pick Noah up from karate. To do this meant leaving Cathy, Amy and Evan in the van so I could run through the store. At the checkout I get quized, "Is she [pointing to Cathy’s picture] in the store?" I respond, "she is breastfeeding the baby in the car." They let me complete the purchase.
This morning Noah explained told me he wondered if the school would have another chorus separate from the 5th grade chorus. I proceeded to ask if he liked singing and so forth and what came out was "I am not in fifth grade chorus because they practice during recess [the Friday recess] and we only get like two or three recesses a week." Sigh. He has to walk his own path and make his own choices.
So this past weekend we got the Christmas tree up and I actually got all the lights working instead of taking a month to light the tree and finishing on Christmas Eve as has become our tradition. Of course, I had hoped to really impress the wife and kids by getting the lights on the house too. Now last year I bought three extra strands when they went on sale so we could do twice as much of the roof as we did last year but I could not break those open until I found the old lights…you know, on a matter of principle. I tore the garage apart and much of the rest of the house only to find them when I wasn’t looking. Apparently for an entire year, the outside lights have been sitting beside my desk.
I don my headlamp, you know, because it is 10pm at night, and after sweeping the leaves off the front half of the roof, I proceed to string the outside of the house. Half way through I have to start reattaching the clips that I halfway took down last year. After the first 3 strands of lights (3×300=900 lights) are up, the house is looking pretty good but I am not satisfied. A glass of wine later and I am back on the roof.
Now, we live in a split rancher. What that means is that our house is built into a hillside. The front of the house is 1 story tall. The sides and back are two stories tall but the hill continues downward giving the illusion that from the roof you are about 9 meters above the ground. Of course I started taking down the gutters years ago so while we still have gutters on the front of the house, the back has no gutters so the dark roof just blends nicely with the blackness of the night. One big lesson of the night is that as you back up on a roof, even if you are sitting on it, you are not necessarily backing up in a straight line and that vast emptiness you feel under your toes isn’t roof.
Now, running the next 3 strands of lights is a little more heart pounding and shortly after getting over the peak of the roof I hear a disturbing noise as if I were sliding down the roof just before dropping into the great abyss. But I am not moving so I quickly turn my head to see what I might have knocked down the roof. My eyes are just in time to see this gray blur of fur leap from the roof, missing anything resembling a branch, and get absorbed into the blackness. Seconds later I hear a resounding thud and rustling of leaves as the thing hits the ground. Apparently I scared the holy sh*t out of one of the squirrels living in our attic. I have to admit, I almost laughed myself off the roof as I watched it propel itself into nothingness. I have seen squirrels fall from trees, shake their head and run off; I am sure this one will be back in the attic shortly.
Did I mention that I only swept leaves from the front half of the roof. Man leaves are slippery! Being on the roof at night was very enlightening. I was able to listen to something large and not domesticated tromp through our backyard. The crisp air was exhilirating!
Molly had to go to the pet ER and vet while Noah and I camped in the Smokies. We just heard yesterday that she is ok! The vet feared cancer but it turned out to be an inverted papilloma (that’s a great link!) I am very relieved!
I don’t wanna but I gotta. Time to wade through the spam.
Why do I hate email?
Gmail: 416 unread; started at 3:16pm; finished 3:24pm
Personal account: 253 unread; started at –interrpted for voicemail and phone calls–
