Halloween

Apologies for the lack of posts lately. We've been busy.

If You've Got it, Flaunt It

Both of the gentlemen who live in the houses directly across the street from us have sizable beer bellies. Coincidentally, they both spend a lot of time without their shirts on. Last evening, the southernmost of the two neighbors was standing in his living room, shirtless, facing the street for at least half an hour.

Why?

Unwanted Advice

It happens to everyone, I'm sure. But I'm getting overtired of well-meaning people telling me how badly I'm screwing up and how I can fix it.

If I occasionally get a Snickers bar from the vending machine, I don't really need 2 or three overweight biddies telling me how many calories are in that thing. I ran 4 miles this morning, how about you?

Yes, I drink coffee. I drink a LOT of coffee. Yes, I am aware that I probably drink too much coffee, and I know all of the potential pitfalls of my addiction. Clear?

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On a completely unrelated note (heh), the NBC early news showed a graphic headline this morning reading something like "Such and Such Asks for the Withdrawl of Iraqi Troops"

"Y'all gwonnow. Git outta heeyah."

Chicken and Grumblings

A person learns many, many things when they hang out with a three year old for a while. Over the weekend, A and I hung out together while my wife took C to a friend's birthday party. A spent about an hour cutting out little scraps of construction paper and gluing them to another sheet of paper. After a while, she told me that she had made a scarecrow. It was a pretty decent scarecrow, all things considered. I told her that it looked very nice. She picked up her scissors and began mowing through some more paper. I asked what she was doing. She said she was making food for the scarecrow. I asked her what scarecrows like to eat.

"Tacos."


A has never been a particularly good eater. It's almost always a struggle to get a couple bites of dinner into her. Yesterday was an exception. She asked for a second helping of grumblings. Yup, chicken and grumblings. One of my favorites, too.

Smashmouth

I spoke with A's dentist yesterday. It's looking more and more like she's going to be missing both of her front choppers for a couple of years. It's way too early on to see if her adult teeth will be affected.

The dentist sort of rubbed me the wrong way. He was a tad on the arrogant side. When my wife said she wanted to contact a friend who is a speech pathologist, he said "I don't mean to dismiss speech pathology as a profession..." and then pretty well dismissed speech pathology as a profession. As a former mild stutterer, I tend to disagree with him in that respect.

We're going to see if he can score us a referral to one of the pediatric dentists in town, mostly because I'd just like to get a second opinion. I'm sure her dentist is very good at what he does (the amalgam repair job he did on A's split tooth was pretty close to incredible), but it can't hurt to get a second point of view.

I'm thinking about buying a helmet (with facemask) for that kid.

Another Day, Another Day

My youngest daughter, A, has always been a bit of a klutz. She's a leftie, too, so the world just isn't built right for her. In combination, these two factors have resulted in her having a few accidents. Quite a few accidents.

One of these accidents happened about two years ago, when she was just starting to walk. She fell down on the sidewalk in front of our house and split one of her front teeth right in half. The dentist patched it together as well as he could, but the possibility that she would lose that tooth was always there.

Three weeks ago, she was playing at a friends' birthday party and managed to get smacked in the face with a pogo stick. It happens to kids, you know. The pogo stick loosened the bum tooth, which worried us a bit.

Last week, she fell facefirst onto the ceramic tile floor in our kitchen while running in socks.

Today, she had her first dentist visit in six months. She has a fistula and abscess above the broken tooth, and she may have to have both of her front teeth pulled.

As you might imagine, this has my wife in a bit of a state. I had a genuinely crappy day at work today. Ours is not a happy house this evening.

Spewing Forth Various Opinions

I happened across a blog last year written by the aunt of one of the other runners who was killed in the same accident as my brother. I stumbled across it again last night. Sometimes it's interesting to read things from a different perspective. The blogger in question is an ultra-conservative, ultra-Christian woman who repeatedly voices outright hate for my home state. A very different perspective, indeed.
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My wife called a little bit ago. She had spoken with her mother. On Sunday afternoon, her parents went and bought a new desktop computer. In any other household, I would consider this to be a happy occasion, ranking somewhere slightly below the birth of a baby. But, the in-laws are the sort of people who should not be allowed to own or operate a computer.

-They will not connect their computers to the internet for fear of the machine getting a virus.
-They have absolutely no idea what the mythical virus might do to their computer.
-They will pay for antivirus software for the computer that will never be connected to a phone line.
-They only use the computer for bookkeeping.
-They will never update the software, not even security updates to the operating system.
-If they have any problems with the machine, they will call me.
-If they have any problems after they have called me, they will blame me.


They now own two laptops (both less than 2 years old) and the new desktop. It has never occurred to them that they could also use one of the laptops to do books. They use the laptops exclusively for storing their digital photos.

While I was helping my father-in-law Saturday morning, he wanted me to install a new DVD/RW drive in his clinic computer. I did the installation. My mother-in-law became very angry that I had "added new software" to the computer. What I had added was the software driver for the new DVD-ROM drive.

I rest my case.

Geeklife v1.1

So I survived the weekend.

Truth be told, it was surprisingly pleasant. The weather was nice, the in-laws were relatively well behaved, and no one got sick.

Sunday afternoon, we stopped by my parents' for lunch and a quick visit. While there, my assignment was to find my old skateboard for C. She loves her scooter, and has been wanting to try a skateboard. I failed on my mission. I went through my folks' 30'X60' outbuilding from top to bottom, but I couldn't find the board.

I found something better!

I opened a plastic bin and found my old Nintendo! When my dad saw how excited I was, he said "We still have your brother's too." So, I now have two old, classic NES, complete with controllers and a wide assortment of games. I tried them both out last night, and they still work. My wife and I spent an hour playing Punch Out, Tiny Toon Adventures, and 1943. Too damned cool.

Oh, and I now have 11 pumpkins sitting in our basement. The van was a bit cramped on the trip back.

Over the River and Through the Desert

This afternoon, we'll be loading up the minivan, popping in a DVD for the kids, and heading out for my wife's parents' house about 2 hours up the road. We're going to celebrate Grandpa Ernie's 93rd birthday. Ninety-freaking-three years...That is a long time for a bourbon-swilling, pipe-smoking, likeable curmudgeon to be on this planet.

I like Grandpa Ernie a lot. He's still very sharp. He follows sports rabidly and can still rattle off stats with the best of them. He's an interesting character, and who knows how much longer he'll be around.

We're also going to stop by the pumpkin patch. My parents (who also live in the same town as my wife's parents) live just a half mile or so up the road from a pumpkin farm. We've made a point of stopping by there every October for the last 4 years. It's a neat place. They sell pumpkins and bales of straw, host corn mazes, and all kinds of other autumny stuff. I hope we can pick up a good load of pumpkins this year. There are very few areas where I have a real talent, but I can carve a pretty mean pumpkin. I get one chance a year to show off my worthless skill, so I like to take full advantage of it. I carved six of them last year (the wife carved a few too), and I'll probably do at least that many this year. I've gone so far as to take the 30th and the 31st off from work. I should probably see a doctor or something.

I RUL

Last night, C sat on the kitchen counter and wrote me a letter. In between all of the illegible parts and barely readable scrawl, I made out that she thinks I am a GRAT DAD. She likes it on the days that I leave work early and pick her up from SKUL. She also likes it that I PLA with her. It was entirely too sweet.

I've always hoped that we would be able to provide kids with happy childhood memories and a sense of security. I hope that they feel loved. There are always going to be bumps in their lives, but little indicators like C's note make me think we might be doing okay.

I am the Wrench in Their Cogs

The other day I read that Netflix was offering big bucks to whomever could improve their method for movie recommendation. It really would be nice if they could come up with a bit more reliable system, but I don't know if there's any hope for me.

ptooey, the following movies were chosen based on your interest in:

End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones

SpongeBob SquarePants: Absorbing Favorites

Son of Godzilla

How do they hope to come up with anything with THOSE to work with?

Like Locusts, Only Surlier

Saturday -

Mother-in-law: You look different. When did you grow that moustache?
Me: 1991.
Mother-in-law: No, really. When did you grow it?
Me: 1991.

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As much as I hate to fall into the stereotype, the mother-in-law and I have a few problems seeing eye to eye.

My wife's parents came to visit us over the weekend. This particular visit went smoother than some visits have gone in the past, but there is invariably some degree of tension when they descend.

It's not just me. Years ago, we were expecting a visit from the in-laws at any moment. When my wife got home from work, she RAN to the liquor cabinet. I asked how her day went, and she could only say "Can't talk. Must drink."

Her mother is a very strange one. She is quite possibly the most selfish person I've ever met. She rarely wants to be bothered by trivialities like her child, grandchildren, or common courtesy. My wife and had been dating for nearly 2 years when we were dining in a restaurant with her parents and her mom tried to get the waiter's phone number for her. I was not impressed.

I don't really know what her problem is with me, other than I think she just generally likes to be confrontational. She once told me that I was too 'scruffy.' At the time, I was 21 years old and had just gotten home from my work - as a mover. Neckties and button-down shirts generally aren't considered acceptable attire for a mover, you know. Now that I am a respectable, well-dressed, well-groomed office drone not much has changed. I mean, I figure I'm a decent husband for her daughter. We almost never fight. We have fun kids. We're happy.

Her relationship with her husband is plenty bizarre as well. They fight almost constantly. The bickering makes everyone around them uncomfortable. Our kids don't know how to react to it. My wife admits that she can't understand why they're still married.

So what are we going to do next weekend? We're driving over to THEIR house for my wife's grandfather's 93rd birthday. I like her grandfather just fine. He's a nice guy. But I'm considering packing a flask of bourbon for sanity maintenance.

Heathens

This is Broomhilda. She crashed into C's basketball pole this week. She used to crash into the tree in our front yard before I cut it down. Before that, she crashed into the tree in front of our house when we lived in Colorado. This is the first time she's paid us a visit in 6 years, and I've missed her.

I love Halloween. It's just a lot more fun than other holidays. It's a great excuse to do silly things like build fake witches, watch dozens of bad monster movies and scare small children.

While we were hanging Broomhilda up Sunday, I jokingly remarked that I hoped she doesn't offend our new neighbors, who have virtually covered the backs of both their vehicles with all manner of Christian paraphernalia. She responded that "We let THEM have Christmas."

Sedaka Clears the Cobwebs

My father likes to tell me that when I was a baby, he would put headphones on me while I was being fed so that I would associate music with good times. I guess it worked. Maybe it worked too well. I have been an avid music fan and wannabe musician for my entire life. Many of my memories are linked somehow to a particular song or album.

When I was very little, we lived in a run-down rental house less than half a block from Main Street in Riverton, Wyoming (it was torn down 6 or 7 years ago.) We moved away from that house shortly after my sister was born, which would have put me at a shade older than two. As one might imagine, I have very few memories of that house.

One day a few years ago, I was listening to the radio and Neil Sedaka's "Laughter in the Rain" came on. For some reason, hearing that song triggered something in the back of my mind, and I could recall the interior of that old house in pretty vivid detail. It was clear enough that I could draw out the floorplan and my dad said that it was correct.

I don't have any idea why that particular song would have done that. It was released after we had moved out of the rental house, but there's some association lurking in the dark recesses of my brain.

Weird, eh?

Keepin' on Keepin' On

Why are the weekends always so short? It was beautiful here both days, and we were lucky enough to get to be outside for a good part of the weekend. Both girls had soccer games on Saturday, so my parents drove over to watch. Both kids got to go to a birthday party Saturday evening, and my wife and I stayed to help with the party. Yesterday, we did some work for some people that my wife does books for. We also brought what should be our last load of firewood down from the mountain.

Yesterday it was over 80 degrees, sunny and perfect. I know we're not going to get too many more days like that, so it was nice to be outside enjoying it.

We picked up the paper Sunday morning and saw this on the front page. I can't believe it's been ten years. Berry was the sister of my brother's best friend. I didn't know her well at all, but she seemed like a very pleasant sort. Her little brother was over at our house a lot. He was (and still is) a good kid. How he has managed to cope through losing a sister an a close friend by the age of 21, I'll never know.