16

May

Road Trip Diaries: Homeward Bound, Part II

Dad’s Version of Events (and only version because Daughter had to finish finals):

Ah, Day Two — the day everything becomes clearer; the day when the meaning of the Road Trip we call Life is revealed; the day when. . . .  Nope.  I was going for a vibe there and it just wasn’t happening.

Cut me some slack, please.  I’m cooped up in a pickup truck for 10-12 hours with Daughter, but the insight we provide each other is priceless!

For instance, we made a commitment last night to wake up bright and early and get on the road before everyone else.  You might have guessed what actually happened.  We hit the Interstate at the crack of dawn about 9:30 a.m. again.

See a pattern here?

And horror of all horrors, the closest Starbucks was eight miles back to the east from whence we came yesterday.  For foo-foo coffee, we’ll divert, we’ll get lost, we’ll sidetrack five miles out of the way (on occasion), but we never, ever go backwards.

That would go against the Prime Directive.

So, I we made a Command Decision and took off without our standard boost of high-octane caffeine and soy peppermint non-fat, non-dairy, non-human crapolatte.  Which, of course, meant that Daughter could immediately embark on her first nap of the day — at 10:00 a.m., no less.

I suppose it’s the Road Trip version of Pajama Day — an art perfected by the females in my house.

To recap, on our first day we managed to drive from Philadelphia to Bristol, Tennessee.  Right around six hundred miles.  Today our goal was Memphis, and depending on the Tarpaulin, Caffeine, and Latte Gods, perhaps even Little Rock.

Making Little Rock would almost, almost be like a Moon Shot for us.  So in the spirit of the moment, and to make the miles pass a little quicker, I began to sing random songs (not hits) that I find curiously enjoyable and which Daughter finds endlessly annoying.

In short order, she turned on the radio, and when we entered the blank coverage zone in the mountains, she turned up her iPhone.

I love Quality Family Time!

My feelings are not that badly affected by any of this, because I have heard myself sing.  But, still, it’s a little hurtful Daughter chose not to join in to a rousing chorus of whatever New Christy Minstrels (google them; they are still around) tune I was chopping.

When we finally did manage to find that first magical coffee break and switch roles (Me – Passenger; She – Driver), the next phase of the day’s drive began:  Dad, Keep Me Entertained While I’m Behind the Wheel by Asking Me History Questions.

I will not recount Daughter’s performance during said quiz.  Let’s just say that being “one or two years off” or “being in the right century” would not pass muster for most Jeopardy contestants.

Of course, I only asked questions from subjects I either knew fairly well or could fake knowledge of even better, but some of the responses I received from Daughter made me question our investment in her prestigious Lesbian Cult College over the past few years.

Maybe she didn’t take any History classes.  I don’t know.

But to be completely fair in this regard, let me offer a personal, revealing example of ineptitude from my own place of employment, where I find channeling Michael Scott from The Office to be an especially effective method of figuring out what’s going on with our financial performance.

When reviewing our revenue numbers, it is not uncommon for me to say to our Accountant Muggles, “Imagine you are explaining this to a fifth grader.”  And when that doesn’t work and I still don’t understand, it becomes, “Imagine you are explaining this to a third grader.”

If I don’t get it by then, we all agree to simply move on.

Maybe some of this stuff runs in the family.  I hope not.

Anyway, after Daughter’s less than stellar performance today, I have decided to scrounge up an elementary school history book from somewhere and give it to her for her birthday this year (instead of an iPad).

That should teach her!

And what of our favorite tarp and the resident zombies beneath?

I am happy to say that we nearly got it right today.  That is to say, we did not need to make any unplanned readjustment stops.  We figured out that if we sorta tucked everything in and kinda piled a bunch of junk on top, it only fluttered mildly and acted like a jib instead of one of those billowing big sails that I can’t remember the name of.

Now whether the stupid thing provides any sort of weather protection for the crap junk belongings in bed is another matter altogether.  I suspect not.

And the tarp was put to the test late this afternoon as we powered through a mild rain shower.  Our suitcases came out a little wet, but we didn’t really check anything else out back there.

After all, how much mold can form over the next four or five days?

We did have two significant accomplishments that I must report.

First, we learned a valuable lesson five months ago during our trip east, when we encountered an incredibly messy section of I-40 that is under construction between Memphis and Little Rock.  Duly prepared and remembering that nightmare, we detoured early and took a State Road that paralleled the Interstate and avoided the worst construction delays.

Taking the two-lane back road was something of a revelation for Daughter who, I take it, is really only familiar with Superhighways and suburban thoroughfares.

“What’s the speed limit here?”

“It’s forty, but be careful when going through town because it drops to twenty-five,” I replied.

“This is a town?  It’s so depressing.  Oh, wait, there’s a Taxidermist Shop.  That’s cool.”

I guess it was a little educational, but not much.

And our second accomplishment?  Daughter Yelped a gluten-free eatery for supper tonight, and it turned out to be both crowded and hip.  The food was really good, but we went home disappointed because the wait for the pizza was forty five minutes.  We settled for Za Za salad and dairy free ice cream.

Did I mention it was expensive?

Finally, I am happy to report that we did, in fact, arrive in Little Rock this evening, which means we have a much shorter day tomorrow, terminating with family in Dallas.

I also have to report that I will be the only Blog Writing Muggle today, as Daughter is busy finishing her final essay for the semester — due tomorrow.  I think she said it is about Buddhism, but at the time she was describing it I was singing pretty loudly and couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.

Namaste.

- Dad

About these ads

9 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/Lesbian Cult/Road Trip/The Daily Trip

///////

12

May

The Best Intentions

pine

If you are expecting a smarmy, heartfelt Mother’s Day tribute, please google elsewhere.  Instead, stand by as I battled it out for most of the afternoon today with the after-effects of unsupervised lawn maintenance.

You see, through no one’s fault except exclusively my own, I have allowed part of the lawn to become completely overgrown with dozens of pine trees.  For the better part of three years, I have turned a blind eye to how high and invasive these trees have become on the side bank.  Heck, I welcomed the shade they provided and focused most of my household efforts elsewhere — pruning roses, repairing sprinklers, and adding to the Hoarders collection in the garage.

In other words, I haven’t done a lot of heavy lifting lately.

Well, that’s all about to change.

Several weeks ago one of our neighbors had some random guy over to cut down a pesky tree that was too close to their house.  One thing led to another, and my Spouse worked out a deal with the gentleman to selectively cull our own forest.

Notice that I don’t use the term, Arborist, when describing the tree cutter.  Probably a more appropriate description is a dude with a barely functioning pickup truck, a chainsaw, and an assortment of funky trunk climbing utensils.  I think, repeat, think, he had Workman’s Comp insurance, but I couldn’t be 100% sure because there were so many handyman services with the same name in the State Contractor Database.

But as you might have guessed, his price was right.  Or close enough to right that we could afford him.

The idea was he was supposed to selectively take down a few trees, under the careful supervision of my Spouse, carefully avoiding those areas where we suspected birds might be nesting and leaving enough foliage in place for some needed shade.

I left the house the morning of his appointment to go to work, confident that we had the situation under control, and we were launching the first step in our efforts to reclaim the bank.

At the end of the day, I returned to a scene out of Apocalypse Now. 

I knew the guy had saws; I had no idea he used napalm, as well.

I mean he absolutely, positively denuded the hill.  All that was left were a few forlorn, nondescript sage palms and a couple of unidentifiable sticks with leaves on them.  And pine needles.  Lots and lots of pine needles.

Did I say lots of pine needles?

The conversation I had with my Wife was straight out of I Love Lucy:  “Ay Yi Yi.  Wha happened?”

“I don’t know.  When I left, everything was going fine.  When I came back, everything was gone.”

“I thought you were going to stay and supervise?” I replied.  “Luuucyyyy!”

I guess running some errands was more important for her, but what was done was done, and it was time to deal with the aftermath:  Pine needles, and bare dirt, on a slippery bank.

And multiple broken sprinkler heads.  Multiple.

As I’ve already used two trash/recycling pickups to take away sixteen collective bins of detritus, I figure I won’t have all the underbrush cleared for another month or so.  It’s a lot of junk.

And each time I busy myself raking more needles down the bank, occasionally sliding down with them myself, I’m discovering additional hidden damage.  Unbeknownst to me, the accumulation of pine droppings over the years was slowly acidifying and killing all the other plants on the bank.

So, as I rake and claw, I find more dead plants, rocks, dirt, and sprinkler pipes.

Rather than get upset, however, I am now facing the bank as a challenge.  I envision a terracing project that will rival Macchu Pichu, flowing ice plants providing nectar for the Gods (and the bees and hummingbirds around here), and a fully functioning sprinkler system that’s both water conscious and appropriately targeting my nascent plantings.

Of course, I realize Macchu Pichu took hundreds of years to build, and based on our recycling trash schedule, I figure it will only take me fifty or so to complete this work, more or less.

Something to look forward to in my Old Age, unless I decide to hire someone to do it for me.

Supervised, of course.

Happy Mother’s Day!

- Dad

13 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

/

11

May

I Am Not Worthy

2013-5-hour

“What is that, a size Small? Nope. It’s Extra Small.”

T Minus Three Days and counting until I take that Big Jet Airliner back to the East Coast for the Father-Daughter Road Trip, Part Two — The Journey Home!

In the meantime we are toiling mightily here back at the homestead to prepare Daughter’s old room for her return.  In her absence, Her Space has been transformed by my Spouse into an Herbal Mad Scientist Laboratory, complete with potions and ingredients worthy of any Harry Potter movie.  Plus, it features “The Mat,” an in-bed device that would be right at home in Frankenweenie, which produces magical healing gamma rays and also doubles as an electronic termite deterrent.

But we all swear by it!

So in the midst of these busy preparations, I decided to take a full timeout today and head over to the foo-foo coffee place by myself.  Though I would really rather make these visits more of a family affair (so that I have someone to complain to), this morning I went alone.  After all, Daughter Number Two was in Full Recovery Mode after spending the past week at Sixth Grade Camp.  Translation:  She was still fast asleep at 10:00 a.m.  And in honor of this unexpected quietude, my Lovely Spouse unilaterally declared a Partial Pajama Day.  Translation:  I performed the morning dog walk, followed by coffee for one.

No matter, I had decided ahead of time to ride my bike for foo-foo, but I thought better of it when I realized I might begin to sweat at some point over the quarter-mile trip.  Thusly recalibrated, I zipped down the street in my car and ordered a large, black coffee.  I then parked myself on the sunny patio, and watched  the world go by.

As is typical around here on the weekends, the roads are filled with bicyclists.  Today was no exception.  They range from the Ultra Serious, to the Near Serious, to the Look Serious.  I usually fall somewhere between the latter two categories, and I am forever diligently trying to solidify my position in the middle.  However, it’s my own “middle” that seems to be solidifying these days, so I usually have to settle for giving it the old college try on those occasions when I am actually engaged in riding a bike (and not just thinking about it).

Well, I was a fairly happy camper there, drinking my drink and checking my email, until I glanced up and spied what appeared to be a professional bicycling racing team powering down the road in front of me.

They were a sight to behold.

And they just reinforced my own perception of cycling.  Although I might be a rank amateur, and getting “ranker” by the week, at least I look like a serious bicyclist, damn it.  I can drape spandex over my body with the best of them, and I am not too far gone that my gut hangs lower than the bike seat, like many my age.

These guys were spiffy.  Really spiffy.  And colorful.  Wow.

Much to my surprise, minutes after I first glimpsed them, the pro’s rode up the sidewalk and clambered off their bikes wearing their clip-in shoes, and ordered foo-foo coffee, just like me.

These guys.  They are really like me!  I love them, but not in a “man-love” sort of way — not that there’s anything wrong with that.

They all grabbed their foo-foo ice drinks, and parked at a table next to their bikes outside.

I got a really close look at them, and I then I sadly realized just how far I’ve fallen since my college days.

You see, back in Ancient Times, my primary mode of transportation was my bike.  And my first really solid road bike was a Fuji Gran Tourer SE that I bought from a guy who was short of rent money, when I was a sophomore at university.  Compared to what I had owned previously, it was akin to trading a Ford Pinto for a new Tesla.

Yep.  It was that good, and it made me good.

I loved that bike and had no fear of taking it anywhere.  And just to prove that I’m not making any (or at least most) of this stuff up, as a celebration for finally finishing graduate school, one of my college chums and I decided, on a whim, mind you, to take a hundred mile bike ride the last Saturday we were in school together.  Go ahead and ask him.  He’ll verify.

No preparation.  No special diet.  We just got up early and took off.

Admittedly, it took us all day to make the trip, but we did it and lived to tell the tale.  My butt was sore the next day, but it wasn’t like I was completely wasted or anything, or I needed a week to recover.  I just did it.  No worries.

That’s the kind of shape I used to be in.  No fear.

So keeping that kind of personal history in mind, I’m looking at the professionals today, and the differences between them and me (now) are striking.  First, their bikes are ultra clean and look like they were built by NASA.  I know for a fact that I could buy four of my beater Miatas for the cost of one of their rides.  That’s a little demoralizing.

And the guys themselves?  Other than being ripped and thin, the biggest one couldn’t have weighed more than 90 pounds soaking wet.

These days just my legs weigh 90 pounds.

Combine a light, muscular rider with a bike that hits the scales at, let’s say, two grams or so, well, it’s no wonder they can ride the Alps and get by on 3,000 calorie-a-day diets.

I guess the part that is most disheartening is that they make it all look so easy, and that has a tendency to make me sick.  Because these days for me, it seems that every waking moment my stinking knees and hips remind me of the glory years of physical prowess gone by — way by.

But all is not lost.

Though dusty, I have a five-year-old state-of-the-art road bike hanging in the garage, and a never-opened stationary trainer, as well.  Plus, Son still has in his possession my trusty Fuji from so many years ago.  It’s still providing yeoman service.

What value, and what a reminder that Hope does, indeed, spring eternal.

Maybe I’ll go for ride tomorrow.  Maybe I won’t.

And though I Am Not Worthy of comparing myself in the same sentence to the professionals, I do take confidence in knowing myself and recognizing my painful physical limitations.  I may not be completely at peace with them, but they are a part of me now.

I am 100% confident in one thing, however:  Tomorrow, I will get coffee.

- Dad

14 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/Road Trip/The Daily Trip

//

08

May

You, Too, Can be a Podiatrist!

foot

“Damn, that’s a good looking foot, dude!”

In what is fast becoming a never-ending pursuit of better health, I was recently referred to a Podiatrist – the reason being during my last regular doctor’s appointment, my feet became one of the primary topics of discussion.  You see, I have experienced some days over the previous three months when I, no kidding, have a hard time walking because my damn doggies hurt so much, and the good ole General Practitioner thought it might be a good idea to refer me to a Specialist.  And based on some of my recent medical escapades, I felt that this referral might grow some legs, if you pardon the expression.  There was no blood or icky fluid work involved, and I could look forward to finding out once and for all:  1)  Were my feet really flat? 2)  Was arch support everything Martha Stewart claimed it was? 3)  Did having a longer second toe mean I possessed innate intelligence, far beyond others? 4)  Would it be possible to receive a recommendation (or even a prescription, pray tell) for regular foot massages? Yep.  I could really get excited about this one.  But as I’ve learned on life’s journey, very rarely is there a simple, single cause that will explain whatever ails you.  In my case, I always wonder if my ongoing physical issues are related to something more internally ominous, or am I drinking too much coffee and not getting enough sleep — or am I simply growing old, and none too gracefully?  My suspicion was that whatever was going on with my feet had something to do with all of the above, but I was definitely holding out for some type of physiological explanation that might generate both sympathy and great seating at public venues simultaneously. So it was with something akin to great anticipation that I motored up to the hospital, hindered only slightly by dilated eyes courtesy of the ophthalmologist that morning.  I had purposely chosen an appointment very late in the day, because I could thusly ensure that there would be ample parking available, and the odds were the medical staff wouldn’t keep me long because their tummies would be rumbling for supper.  I was close on both accounts.  The parking lot was almost empty, and the Foot Clinic was only 30 minutes behind the appointment schedule.  That meant there was plenty of time for me to go steal borrow some 30-year-old fiction from the book carousel that was always sequestered in Treatment Area One.  Note to Self:  Good God, the Foot Clinic is like Oz compared to Area One.  Do everything possible to stay away from being seen in Area One.  Unless, that is, you have three legs, or three eyes, or enjoy clothing ensembles consisting of gray sweat pants and flannel shirts — long on comfy, short on personal dignity.  When I returned with my free books (yep, I took two), I was quickly ushered back to the examination room, where the doctor told me to get comfortable (take off my shoes and socks) and just hang in his cool adjustable chair.  ”Where’s the pain?” he asked. ”My feet,” I replied. ”Understood.  You’re in the Foot Clinic, but where on your feet?” ”Everywhere.” I got the feeling it was going to be one of “those” visits.  He looked over my now naked feet, made sure I had circulation down there (yes, yes, I did), and proceeded to tell me that everything looked normal.  I simply explained I was not looking for a miracle; I just wanted some relief from the pain so that I could run around on the soccer field for more that an hour at a time without it resulting in extreme agony later.  ”You see,” I said, “I look around this hospital and see these guys in their wheelchairs, and their motorized wheelchairs, and I just don’t want that to be me.  Not yet anyway.” My comment caught his attention.  “Let me tell you about those guys.  I see a lot of them, and they live for those chairs.  And once they get in, very few ever give them up.  It’s just too comfortable.” ”Exactly!” I exclaimed.  “I don’t want that chair.  I want to live, damn it!”  And with that, he left the examination room for a few minutes.  As I soon found out, that guy wasn’t a doctor at all.  He was either a nurse, or an orderly, or a hospital Food Service Worker.  Because the next guy that came in was, in fact, the doctor and a Podiatrist, to boot.  ”I read your case notes,” he said, while checking for circulation in my feet.  Well, I figured that, no matter what, I had good circulation down there.  “Your feet look normal to me, and the pain is all over?” ”Yep.” ”Let’s give orthotics a try.  I’m sending you down there right now so you can pick them up.” ”But my feet look okay to you?  Nothing structurally out of whack?”  That seem like an impressive question to ask him, I thought. ”Nope.  You’re getting older.  Let’s give the inserts a shot.” But I had so many other questions, except he wasn’t that interested. ”Look, I’m going to give you directions to get to the orthotics department, but you have to hurry.  They close in about five minutes.” And he was gone.  Almost. Total doctor/patient time:  3.27 minutes.  Diagnosis:  Age.  Remedy:  Insole Support.  As I hustled down the hallway, the Doc called after me to come back and see him in six month’s time if things didn’t improve.  Well, I just barely managed to pick up the orthotics before the attendant there headed off to dinner somewhere.  ”Are these things washable?” I asked. ”Dunno.  Let’s look at label.” Confidence inspiring, indeed. Funny thing, though.  So far I have only worn the inserts while playing basketball because I’m not supposed to wear them all the time at first, and my bball shoes are one of the only pair in which they fit. Damn if my feet don’t feel better.  And after this episode, it seems to me that a Podiatrist more closely resembles something like an Insert Technician.  Granted, my experience is extraordinarily limited and one-sided, but it has opened up entirely new vistas for me. For instance, next week I had intended on pretending to be an Architect.  No longer.  Now I’ve decided I’m going to be a Podiatrist, and you can, too! Namaste. - Dad

17 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

///

05

May

I Miss My Truck!

yakima

“Yep. I think that will fit.”

In about one week’s time, I fly back to the East Coast to retrieve Daughter and My Truck from college, in that order.

Before abandoning leaving Daughter at her Lesbian Cult School in January, we spent many hours together behind the wheel of my crew cab pick-up, which theoretically should have translated into a modicum of familiarity and experience for her with a larger vehicle.  Unfortunately, the master plan failed to deliver, resulting in episodes such as this one, and another, and another.

In other words, I try not to think about how my truck has fared in the hands of Daughter during the last five months.

I am hopeful it is in one piece, is relatively clean, and hasn’t begun to succumb to the salty winter roads of Philadelphia.

But then again, who am I kidding other than myself?  I’ll be very, very happy if it’s almost in one piece.

Upon my arrival, I expect:

1)  The gas tank to be empty.

2)  The cab to be filthy — choose your definition here.  To me, that includes lots of scattered foo-foo coffee stains, discarded paper products, hair, miscellaneous make-up items, and a fair share of unidentifiable, miscellaneous crap.

3)  The tires to be low on air.

4)  Other things to be wrong that Daughter “conveniently” forgot to mention during our many texts and conversations since January.

I guess I am anticipating disappointment, and I will be genuinely happy if I turn out to be overstating my anxiousness and fears.

On the other hand, since I have been without a pickup for quite some time now, I have been required to “improvise” when required to carry large and bulky items here at home in SoCal.

So without a proper truck, I have been required to improvise.

You see, the nice thing about a convertible is that with the top down, it has no roof.  Literally the sky’s the limit if you can fit something in.  In many respects, using Daughter’s Killer Cabrio for hauling has been a better alternative than my Spouse’s van.  Earlier this week, for instance, I picked up a used bicycle and retracted the convertible top so that I could neatly lay it over the back seat.  And in a fit of Middle Aged Bravado, I even went home via the Interstate, just to tempt fate.

I can happily report there was not a single instance of a flying bike, though I did notice I had very few people following closely behind me on the highways here for once.

Maybe I’ve hit on something.

But today marked the Mother of All Cabrio Hauls, as pictured above.  I have been looking for a large Yakima car storage box for months, and my  diligence was rewarded with a Craigslist purchase no more than ten minutes from the house.

I really didn’t put too much thought into how large the thing was.  The guy was selling it so cheap I had to hustle over to his house as quickly as possible and figure it out when I got there.

Well, the box was exactly what I was looking for, but it was big.  I mean Denali National Park Mount McKinley Big.

As I pulled into the seller’s driveway, he waved and said he’d already had three other emails about the carrier.

It was a good thing I hurried over.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll take it.”

“In what?” the seller replied.

“Oh, I’ll put the top down, and we’ll just wedge it in there.”

“I think you’re going to need some help,” he offered.

“You’re right.”

And we proceeded to scoot the front seats forward and cram the box between the back seat and the sky above.

“I guess I’ll head back home,” I said.  “Thanks.”

“That looks kind of funny like that.  You sure you’ll be okay?”

“Yep.  I’ve got experience with this kind of thing,” and I slowly drove away.

I can happily report there was not a single instance of a flying Yakima storage box on the way home, though I did notice very few people followed closely behind me once again.

I definitely have hit on something, I’ve discovered.

I definitely need my truck back!

- Dad

 

 

20 days ago Short URL Comments

College/Embarrassing Stories/Family/Humor/Lesbian Cult/The Daily Trip

04

May

Weeding and Thoughts of Hell

clover

No matter how many you pull, there will always be more, and more, and more.

In at least one of her posts, Daughter has likened our garage to something out of Hoarders.  To a great degree, she is accurate, but I take some solace when wandering the neighborhood and realizing many of us here carry the Hoarders gene.  It’s the hantavirus of our struggling suburban enclave.

It is not without just a twinge of envy, however, when I spy a clean, well-lighted garage space where it’s clearly within the realm of possibility that an automobile will, in fact, fit neatly, without the necessity of wedging boxes, bags of clothes, and yard implements out of the way.

Creating such place is certainly a goal to which I aspire, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon, for a bunch of reasons, most of them either lame or bad or both.

In the meantime our tiny Southern California postage stamp of a yard offers a blank canvas for striving for the kind of perfection we cannot even fathom within our own garage.

In other words, the grass looks pretty good after I mow it, providing instant gratification with the added illusion that I’m actually accomplishing something.

Of course I’m not, and all anyone has to do to confirm said conclusion is to look a few inches beyond the blades of grass.  Therein lies the subterfuge that thwarts my best intention:  Weeds.  Any not just any weeds — Black Medic Clover.

Sounds like something Professor Snipe might conjure up to mess with us here Muggles.

This clover is insidious, omnipresent, and green.  That is to say it’s perfectly camouflaged within the lawn until one day I look up and realize I am not mowing grass any longer, but pure clover.

Mass hysteria.  Dogs and cats sleeping together.

Next thing you know there will be termites.

Oh, wait a minute.  That already happened.

So today I figured since I can’t do anything about the damn garage, I could busy myself making a dent with the yard weeds.  I summoned Zen-Me for company, as well as a garbage can and a weeding trowel.

You see, I have come to discover that working in the yard essentially is a form of therapy for me.  I don’t think about work, or money, or project cars — I just focus on finding that tap root and yanking the weed intact out of the soil.  It’s a simple, focused process, and as long as my back doesn’t start to hurt or the sun become too hot, I can do it for hours.

Well, maybe not hours, but fairly long stretches anyway — let’s say twenty-five minutes at a time or so.

Based on my experience as an amateur weeder, I can confidently say I would not be capable of supporting myself, not to mention an entire family, as a migrant farm worker.  My hat is off to those guys because that kind of work has to be about 100 times harder than weeding my yard.

So, I weed, and ponder, and take a break to get a drink, and sit down and flex my back, and eventually wander back over to begin to weed again, trying to imagine that I will actually eradicate the clover once and for all some day.

And I get in a rhythm, but my mind starts to wander out of that Zen-Me zone.

I think about dying and the final reckoning that may occur.  One idea that pops into my head over and over again is that when your days are done, you will be the beneficiary of an Angel Debrief during which you are told of all the near-misses in your life and the “coulda, woulda, shoulda” decisions that would have been extremely destination altering.

In my case, I expect to receive word about several key incidents.  You know, that weekend in November of 1994 when I forgot to buy a lottery ticket.  You guessed it.  The one with my name on it that I didn’t purchase was a winner.  Or the multitude of times I was nearly in traffic accidents but was saved by some circumstance of stupid luck, and I never even knew.  Or that Publisher’s Clearing House entry I threw away — yep, winner.

And on and on and on and on.  Most of these fantasies include waylaid visions of extraordinary material wealth — missed.  Which is why it’s a good thing I’ve learned not to worry about it so much anymore — I’m talking about material wealth.  Because these days, compared to many in this world, my family is doing pretty darn well.  Maybe not financially, but certainly in terms of being (relatively healthy), not whacked out politically or philosophically, and grateful for what we have on most days.

But still, I’ve got some issues.  The biggest continuing dilemma right now is the damn clover.  I fear I am destined to battle this invasion as long as I live in this house with this yard.  Clover is, after all, a formidable opponent, and one which I am unlikely to defeat via conventional, non-herbicidal methods.

However, I will continue the struggle and, who knows, one day I might prevail.  And during my one-on-one with St. Peter (or someone like him), he may chastise me about the multiple opportunities I missed during this life, but will then gently smile and acknowledge with a knowing glance that I fought the good fight against the clover.  It is only then I will notice he has a bit of dirt under his fingernails, so I figure he either liked to work in the yard himself or changed his own oil when mortal.  It is only then that my vision of hell and missed jackpots will be transformed into being “high-fived” by a Million Angels, because of my determination and dedication to a higher calling — pulling weeds.

In the meantime, just to be safe, I will continue to play the lottery.

- Dad

 

21 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

///

03

May

Waiting Room Morons

waiting room

“Man, I hope someone else shows up so that I can put this magazine down and annoy the crap out of them with my phone.”

As if going to the medical clinic / doctor’s office / hospital on a routine basis isn’t already bad enough in and of itself, I find myself constantly challenged by the oblivious insensitivities of my fellow patients in waiting.

Though the only direct feedback on my last physical malady-related post was from none other than Daughter herself, I received a number of informal responses commiserating right there along with me.  That would be reassuring if the subject weren’t so depressing in the first place.  However, what I gamely failed to mention in “No Shame” was that the entire “streaming episode” was preceded by one of the most basic pass patterns out of “The Old Codgerdom Playbook.”

Picture this if you will — three or four of us Codgers gamely woke up a bit earlier than usual, gave up breakfast, and quite possibly did not visit the bathroom so that we could arrive at the specimen clinic before the window opened for business.  Such was the scene when I walked in a week ago.  There were three old guys already seated and waiting, in varying degrees of bodily distress.  God knows what they were holding inside of themselves, and I didn’t want to know either.

At precisely 30 seconds before 7:00 a.m., another Old Codger came shuffling along, dressed in “comfort clothes” he very well might have slept in, and plopped into one of the seats right up front.  To be completely honest, he looked a bit out of it, and none of us gave him a second look.

That is, until the window opened for business, when he sprung to his feet and shot straight away to sign in!

Since I was fourth in priority, I was more amazed than distressed at the gumption this guy displayed.

What were the rest of us?  Invisible?  Idiotic?  Lambs?

Yes.  Yes, we were.  All three, apparently.  But the other Codgers there who just got jumped simply took it in stride.  They silently lined up behind him.

I was incredulous, but then got to thinking that, by the looks of most of them, they weren’t in a hurry to go anywhere else that day.  Hell, maybe getting specimens taken was the highlight of their Friday, for all I knew.

Anyway, they were all pretty much nonplussed about the egregious breach in Waiting Room Etiquette.  Perhaps they’d seen this play before.  Perhaps one of them even invented it.

I don’t know, but my old friend, Karma, was well at work last week, because it turned out that the Line Jumper didn’t have an appointment in the system and was quickly sent on his way by the staff.  By the time he left, he had reverted into his Space Cowboy Demeanor and was, no doubt, headed for another destination where fellow Muggles would become susceptible to his ruse.

Zen-me was whispering in my ear the entire time, and I managed to stay cool and not worry about it.

But that was last week, and today was another round of appointments for me.

The first one out of the chute was with the Eye Doctor.  Just for reference, all the Eye Doctors in this particular office appear to be between the ages of 16 and 17 years old, and many of them could pass for Dog Scientists in another life.

It is an eerie environment in the Eye Doctor’s Office, made more claustrophobic because the damn Waiting Room is so small.  Three or four of us Muggle Patients (there was another Old Codger there, too), sat in very close proximity to one another while pretending to read three-year-old US Entertainment Weekly magazines (Abs of the Stars — Exclusive Photos!).

Then the cell phones started going off, with their cute, but annoying, ring tones; which were then following by the even more annoying and mindless conversations.

“Yeah, I’m still sitting here.  Where are you?  In the car?  Okay.  No, I don’t know what Tammy is doing.  Where is she?  In the car?  Oh.”

Crap like that.

Over and over.

Thankfully, the Waiting Room eventually emptied out, and I was left with another Muggle who wore one glove on his right hand, for some reason.

It was peacefully quiet.

Until he started playing Call to Honor 3 or Wreck It Ralph on his phone.

Bleep-bleep.  Parp-parp.  Tootle-tootle.  Ta-La.

And so on.

I decided I had endured enough of this for one day, and while my eyes were slowly dilating and the world around me became a fuzzy blur, I walked out into the hallway and told the receptionist to come and get me when the doctor was ready.

Well, eventually she did, and I told her about being annoyed in the Waiting Room because of this other guy.  I also told her that I seriously; in fact, very seriously, considered beginning to sing in a tit-for-tat attempt to annoy him, since he was doing such a good job with me.

Her response?

“Well, that depends on how well you sing.  It might not be annoying at all.”

And with that, she darkened the lights and proceeded to give me a clean bill of ocular health.

Zen-me, indeed.

Namaste!

- Dad

22 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

Family/Humor/Laugh at My Expense/The Daily Trip

///

28

Apr

The Difference Between. . .

chair

“Nope. That’s not going to fit. Let’s change cars.”

. . . going alone to my Sunday morning refereeing assignment, and bringing my eleven year old daughter (Daughter Number Two) with me:

Going Alone Looks Something Like This:

1)  Wake up early enough to eat breakfast before heading out the door.  In reality, waking up at 6:30 a.m. is simply the third of fourth time I wake up during the night.  The only difference is that I’m up for good.

2)  Determine if I can walk, or resort to an immediate infusion of Extra Strength Tylenol in order to move.

3)  Boil water.

4)  Take medicine while water is boiling.

5)  Make a pot of tea after water has boiled.

6)  Make a bowl of oatmeal while tea is brewing.

7)  Eat oatmeal and drink tea while watching the first half of whatever English Premier League Game is playing on Fox Soccer.

8)  Realize it’s getting late, throw my bag in the car, and drive to field, stopping off for foo-foo coffee on the way.

9)  Armed with Tylenol, medicine, oatmeal in my tummy, and caffeine, pretend I’m ten years younger than I really am while feeling ten years older than I really am, and act like a referee for the next four hours.

10)  Walk very slowly back to the car, drive home, drink a cup of leftover tea warmed up in the microwave, and make myself a tasteless gluten-free sandwich.

11)  Fall asleep on the couch while watching whatever PGA tournament happens to be on.

12)  Finally figure out that it’s easier to nap in bed and curl up with a cat for an hour.

Going with an eleven year old looks something like this:

Steps 1-7 are exactly the same for me, taking into account Daughter Number Two (DNT) is already awake and has eaten breakfast.

8)  Make sure Daughter Number Two is dressed.  Grab my bag, a portable folding chair, blanket, water, snacks, paper and pencil. 

9)  Change cars to drive in Daughter’s Killer Cabrio, since all the crap in Number Eight above will not fit in my Miata.

10)  Stop for foo-foo coffee and blueberry scone, chocolate croissant, and brownie.

11)  While pretending to focus on refereeing, keep constant eye on wandering DNT.

12)  Spend all available time between games looking for a restroom for DNT. 

13)  Forget to drink water between games because of restroom search.

14)  Walk slowly back to the car, reload most everything we came with, and figure out where to stash all the wooden branches and other craft items DNT has gathered all morning.

15)  Eat lunch at In-N-Out as a reward for being a good kid.

16)  Pop a bowl of popcorn while watching PGA event, while trying to prevent DNT from eating more than me.

Steps 11 and 12 above are the same, and become Steps 17 and 18 in the second scenario. 

The above accounts are true and almost completely accurate, missing only details I cannot remember or are too potentially gross to mention (thanks, Daughter). 

Though I thought this morning might be a hassle, it was a lot of fun for both of us, as DNT was adored by the other two refs I was working with. 

Unfortunately, they initially thought she was my granddaughter.

- Dad

27 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

/

27

Apr

Pho Dat!

pho

“No. I don’t want a fork and spoon, thank you. I realize it will take me ten times longer to eat with chopsticks, but I want to look authentic.”

One of my best friends in the world is of Vietnamese descent.  I would normally write that he’s Vietnamese-American, but I am pretty sure he considers himself an American before all other classifications.  No matter, as he is the guy responsible for introducing me to the underworld of Vietnamese cuisine.   

Back in ancient times, sometime during the mid-90′s, my Vietnamese friend and I worked together on a military staff assignment in Texas.  Since we were both forward thinkers and were somewhat bored with the dining options on base, we began a tradition where we visited a Vietnamese restaurant every Wednesday for lunch.  *Memory Disclaimer:  I don’t really remember if we actually went every week or if the chosen day was Wednesday — but both are close enough.

I couldn’t tell you the name of the place we used to go to, but it was in a rough part of town that featured run-down laundromats and scary looking used car lots.  Neighborhood appearances (and appliances) aside, the food was great there, and we had safety in numbers since usually a group of four or five of us went together. 

I usually bungled my way through the meal, bravely brandishing chopsticks until my fingers cramped, forcing me then to retreat to fork and spoon.  I never knew what we ordered since my friend did all the talking, and the language was not English.  I was told we always received “authentic Vietnamese” as opposed to “Watered Down For Americans” Vietnamese, but I couldn’t really tell the difference anyway, as most of the ingredients of whatever dish sat in front of me usually defied my simple understanding. 

This routine became a regular part of our working lives, and when we both moved to Southern California years later, we picked it right up again.  This time we frequented a Vietnamese restaurant in a strip mall every Friday (previous disclaimer applies), and the entire routine was essentially duplicated.  My friend did the ordering, and the rest of us stuffed down our Muggle gullets whatever found its way to the table in front of us.

One particular Friday, however, we pulled up to a different Vietnamese restaurant in the same strip mall.  I guess it was not that unusual in and of itself, since all the stores in this shopping center were Vietnamese but, still, I wondered why we changed venues.

We all sauntered into the new place and grabbed a table.  My friend didn’t seem to be forthcoming with any information, so I broached subject.

“Okay.  What’s the deal?  Why did we switch restaurants today?”

The response from my friend was simple:  “It’s cleaner.”

Got it.  Okay.  That was that.

That incident took place probably about ten or twelve years ago, and my Vietnamese friend now lives on the east coast.  But today one of my favorite meals remains Vietnamese noodle soup:   pho. 

And as luck or fate would have it, our little SoCal suburban enclave features not one, but two Vietnamese restaurants.  Well, truthfully, we used to have only one here for many years, and that’s where I got my fix.  The trouble was, this place featured the meanest, surliest servers that I ever experienced.  They made the Soup Nazi look like Bambi. 

You see, sometimes when you happen to be the owner of a monopoly, it can go to your head, regardless of how good your food is.   

But two or three years ago, a second pho restaurant opened across town, which we immediately tried.  The food was great at the new place, and we’ve never gone back to the original. 

When Son came home for a weekend visit from college a few years ago, we bypassed our old haunt in favor of the new.  Son was unaware that the landscape had changed.

“Where are we going?  This is not the way to Pho,” he wondered.

“It is.  These other guys have opened up a pho place just down the street,” I replied.

“But why are we going there?”

“Because they’re nicer to us.”  End of story.

So as my Spouse, Daughter Number Two, and myself finished up a tasty Vietnamese dinner this evening, I remembered the journey that led to this destination.  And as I’ve said many times previously, what goes around, comes around.

The trouble is, the original pho restaurant here is still doing gangbusters business.  But, a-ha, so is the second one. 

Go figure.

Anyway, after we finished our supper, I had to make a deposit at the ATM across the parking lot from the restaurant.  After inserting the envelope into the machine, I turned to get back in the van and there on the ground in front of me was a shiny new penny lying heads up. 

I picked it up and thought that, all in all, it doesn’t get much better.

Namaste!

- Dad

28 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

//

26

Apr

No Shame. . . .

BCP019-26

“Not only is very white and of ample size, it can be used as a tent in times of natural catastrophe.”

 

As a part-time job and to help ensure my sanity and continued interaction with fellow Muggles, I teach several times a year at a local “for-profit” university.  I recently finished up an “Introduction to College” course, that costs the students nothing to attend and, hopefully, gives them a good idea of what to expect going forward academically.

One of my favorite parts of the course, however,  is the last night during which we spend time discussing the importance of having an overall career plan, thereby putting obtaining a degree in perspective.  We even talk about resumes and interviews, which may seem like putting the cart before the horse, but the context is helpful since most everyone is pursuing a degree while simultaneously seeking a better job and, hopefully, more money. 

I use lots of job-seeking examples from my own experiences over the years, and you might guess that most of them are bad.

Very bad.

And I don’t even have to include Daughter’s semi-recent attempts at landing gainful, long-term employment.  For instance, I might ask:

“How did the interview, go, Daughter?”

“I nailed it, Dad.  Just nailed it.  They loved me.” 

Three weeks later.  “Whatever happened to that last company you talked to?”

“Dunno.  Never heard back.  I guess they hated me.”*

(*Just kidding, Daughter!  I know you’re awesome and will soon be off the Family Dole.)

Well, I’ve been on both sides of that table, and when I’m interviewing someone for a job, I can usually tell within about three minutes if they are going to be a good fit for us. 

A couple of years ago I was screening a middle-aged lady for a position in my office, and the entire discussion went well until it was time for her to leave.  Though she had been a bit nervous throughout, I thought she presented herself fairly well. 

When she stood up to go, unfortunately her skirt did not accompany her — let’s just say I discovered she was a Hane’s Girl and leave it at that. 

The sad part about it was that I was very nonplussed about the whole thing.  Whether it’s because I’ve been around for so long that it’s hard to shock me anymore, I don’t know, but the display of Underwear Nudity did not strike me as that big of a deal.  I was simply more concerned about filling the open position and making sure the lady didn’t die of embarrassment (which she didn’t).

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective), she didn’t land the job because of her lack of specific skills we needed.  However, she did land a permanent place in the Pantheon of Unforgettable Life Experiences and Underwear Nudity, which is probably better than working for my company anyway.

And so it goes. 

Today, much to my chagrin, the Pantheon was graced by a new member (maybe I shouldn’t use that particular word):  Me.

On my way to work this morning, I stopped off at the local medical clinic for my quarterly blood draw and fluid sample.  The phlebotomist (derived from the Latin word, phleboto, which means “painful vampire”) on duty was quick to her task and then pointed me to the men’s room so I could execute the second part of the evolution.

The restroom is what we call a “one-holer” in the hills of Southern California, and it was basic; no more, no less, except the door lock seemed a bit sketchy to me. 

That is to say, I couldn’t really tell if I locked it properly after closing said door.

And even though it was very early in the morning, there was a gathering of old codgers in the waiting room going through the same motions as me.  Yep, it sucks getting old.

You might guess what happened to me next — in mid-stream, as it were, the restroom door swung open, and there stood one of said codgers.

No “excuse me,” or “sorry,” or “what the hey?”  When he saw me, he just sort of backed off and didn’t pull the door shut behind him. 

So there I was, executing a delicate balancing act between specimen cup, blue jeans, and doorknob. 

And they say judo is demanding.

I can happily report, however, that I successfully pulled off the above trifecta, without spilling a drop!

As I exited the restroom and passed the queue of codgers lined up against the corridor wall outside like they were staged for a firing squad, I simply smiled and said, “It’s all yours,” and made my way out of the clinic.

I didn’t feel the least bit self-conscious, and I simply chalked it up to another one of Life’s Experiences. 

In these types of situations, it’s always best to leave on a high note.  I would have bid the old guys in line a hardy “Namaste!” but they would have probably thought I was swearing at them in French. 

- Dad

29 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

Embarrassing Stories/Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

///

21

Apr

Not My Skink. Not Today!

220px-Blue-toungued_skink444

“I may be ugly to some, but I am loved!”

Today, Sunday, was an absolutely superbly beautiful day here.  If I could figure out a way to squeeze in more adjectives describing just how spectacularly wonderful the weather was, I would. 

It was so nice that it just made you feel better about being alive. 

It was so nice you could, for a moment, forget about the 24-hour news cycle we’ve all been on this week. 

It was so nice that it gave you hope for the future.

And I wasn’t the only one that felt that way, apparently.  One of my neighbors up the street texted me about the glorious morning and how he spent the entire previous day working in his yard, like me.  I am fairly certain he is less suspect to Rube Goldberg influences than I am since he is an engineer by trade.  Still, you can never be sure.

Even Daughter texted me springtime photos from the campus of her east coast Lesbian Den of Iniquity Cult College.  The trees there wore their new blossoms as if they had been high-fiving a million angels and, in return, were blessed with these tiny points of light.

Yep.  That last comparison was quite a stretch, I admit.  Still.  You get the picture. 

However, I was determined not to waste spend another day working in the yard, so I steeled myself to actually run some errands, get things accomplished, and visit those places regularly frequented by the females in my family — Target, Wal-Mart, Foo-F00 Coffee — I threw in Home Depot on my trip to maintain some sanity. 

First stop, coffee.  But while I was sipping my drink on the outside patio, a small sparrow lighted on the chair next to me not a foot away.  She was soon joined by one of her babies, whom she promptly fed some type of insect.  Then they both flew away so close to my face that I felt the gentle wind of their beating feathers.

Sickening, I know, but it was that kind of day. 

Much later I found myself back home, performing some minor maintenance on my classic Alfa, when I saw a commotion in the street out in front of the house.  There were a couple of large ravens or crows making a racket, bouncing up and down trying to carry something away.  After staring for a few moments, I realized they were battling over a lizard. 

A big one.

After some more squawking and hopping, I noticed their prey was still alive and putting up quite a fight.  I mean these crows were ten times its size. 

Though I knew I was about to violate Star Trek’s prime directive of non-interference, it’s the time of year when the crows are busy decimating the songbird population around here, and I’d seen enough baby birds carried away over the years not to feel too badly about saving this lizard, if I could.

As I approached the quarry and the predators, I recognized the ”lizard” to be a large skink — one that lives in our yard.

Okay.  Gentle Ben Disclaimer Time:  I cannot really distinguish individual skinks, but I do know that several make their home in and around our house, and they are both beneficial and quite harmless.  Plus, they have their hands (?) full avoiding our elderly cats, so we’ve seen their left-behind tails now and again. 

So I was on a Skink Saving Mission, but the crows weren’t giving up that easily.  Upon my approach, one of them grabbed their prey and made a run for it — literally.  He scampered over to the next driveway with my Skink.  Eventually he got the picture that I was a Muggle and pretty large, and he took off for easier hunting grounds.

I gathered up the Skink, who had already lost his tail.  He was battered but alive, and still his hissing for all he was worth.

I love a fighter.

I found a safe, quiet place for him in the bushes, and he scampered away through the underbrush. 

Whether I got to him in time, I suppose I’ll never know.  But I do know one thing — today was not his day to succumb to the crows. 

Not on my watch.  Not in my yard.

Namaste. 

- Dad

34 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

///

20

Apr

I Am A Dog Scientist

dogscientists

“Knowing how it could change the lives of canines everywhere, the dog scientists struggle diligently to understand the Doorknob Principle.”

The adults in my house bemoaned that fateful day when Gary Larson stopped creating his Far Side comics because so many of them, we found, described many aspects of our own Human Lives. 

For instance, I frequently consider myself something of a Dog Scientist because I seem to toil ceaselessly on chores and projects around the house for which I am eminently not qualified.  And never finish.

Some days (or weeks) I find that Discretion is, in fact, the better part of Valor, and we call in The Professionals.  Case in point was our recent termite invasion.  It turns out that vacuuming the swarming insects only has limited effect. 

“They are all God’s Creatures,” I said. 

“I don’t care who the hell they belong to,” was the reply, “Call the termite guy.  This is disgusting.”

And so it goes.

At the end of the day, keeping in mind my genetic Presbyterian thriftiness (Yes, I’m cheap, and, no, I’m more Buddhist/Bullet Proof Monk than Presbyterian now anyway), I will heroically attempt many of the handyman repairs around the house myself, buoyed by the battle cry, “No Professionals!” 

Perhaps that explains why our home is slowing moldering into dust, and we are the bane of the neighborhood — not really, but I do have to get cracking on a new coat of paint, and soon.

But one of the battles I’ve fought time and again is with our demon-possessed sprinkler system.  In a good month, I spend, perhaps, thirty percent of my free time chasing down leaks, trying to figure out why particular sprinkler heads are or are not working, and delving into the Mother of All Sprinkler Repairs, the Broken Pipe. 

It’s for that reason the winter in Southern California can be a blissful time for me, since we can go four or five months without turning the damn system on at all.  But when Spring is in the air, so is the Sense of Impending Doom. 

I know I will have to return the Sprinkler System to full operational status after a season of slumber.  It’s downright frightening, and I delay the event for as long as possible.

“Isn’t the grass looking a little yellow, Dad?”

“Nope.  That’s just the way the sun is hitting it.  Don’t worry about it.”

Maybe ten days ago someone in the house — not me — broke the spell and energized the sprinklers.  Although all hell did not exactly break loose, one major pipe break in the front yard did, unfortunately.  And of course the offending pipe is buried in a nearly inaccessible corner of the lot, and I had to hack my way through trees and shrubbery to expose the offending cylinder. 

After confirming the Niagara Falls Pipe Syndrome, I did nothing.  Though I may have hoped the thing would miraculously fix itself, truth was I just wasn’t prepared for the onslaught in front of me:  pvc cement, pvc saws, pvc elbows, dirt, roots, crap.  You name it; just about everything except the kitchen sink is potentially involved in sprinkler repairs. 

But for some reason — possibly shame — I decided to give it a whirl today.  I may have been inspired by my Spouse’s dedication to massive yard work in the back of the house, or I may have simply felt guilty because she was working so hard.

Whatever it was, I went for it.  Unfortunately, the particular section of the broken pipe contained no less that two elbows and two additional adapters.  It was an elaborately designed intersection between the remains of the legacy system in the front bank and the new system we had installed almost ten years ago now that covered the rest of the lawn.

I was going to need reinforcements for this one:  I packed my bags to visit the local Big Box Hardware Store. 

Normally this trip is cause for celebration and rumination about what “might be” as I wander the aisles and imagine our forty-year-old suburban box transformed into Oz. 

Today, I just needed some fittings.  This was all business.

Rather than detail and bore you with the measurements (none), the fittings, and the guesswork involved (just about everything I did fell into this category), about two hours after beginning my task, I was done. 

As I looked down at my handiwork, I marveled at the two forty-five degree elbows and the various adapters and extensions that I glued together to make the system whole again.  But as I stared at my creation, I realized that in my zeal to replicate the exact fittings that were there previously, I overlooked the basic layout of the pipes themselves.

I surmized then that I could have done the whole thing with one 90-degree elbow and a couple of sleeves.  My elegant Rube Goldberg design might work, but it took me three times as long to put together and also introduced multiple possible leak locations because of the various joints involved. 

This had all the earmarks of a disaster and afternoon wasted.

So, I did what any guy would do in this situation.  I let the glue set, and I mowed the lawn. 

My logic was that no matter what happened the rest of the day, I was going to be able to say I did, in fact, accomplish something — even if it was just cutting the grass.

Well, I am happy to announce that I witnessed the Ninth Festivus Miracle late today:  I tested the sprinklers and they worked and the repair held — at least for now.

I figure it’s time to dig out the Festivus Pole from the crawl space below the house and dance a quick jig.

Let the record show that, for the year, my run of good luck is still holding true.  Thank you, Zen-me!

But tomorrow is another day, and there is still plenty of time to snatch Defeat from the Jaws of Victory. 

- Dad

35 days ago Short URL 2 Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

/////

19

Apr

Details and Vomit

 

male

“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. Just hate me because I hate you.”

So the other night I found myself scrambling for some bedtime reading material, having finished the appropriately titled Bad Trips.  Which, by the way, has made me more determined than ever to never take a trip that doesn’t afford me a modicum of comfort – clean bed, decent food, pure drinking water.  By extension, that would exclude most Carnival Cruises and visiting large swaths of Southern California. 

I mean, let’s face it.  If you don’t go into a traveling situation with a clean scalp, how can one be prepared to interact with the multitude of local populace(s) whose belief systems includes voodoo dolls and animal sacrifice?  Apparently much of the world consists of these types of folks, according to Bad Trips. 

Well, a number of weeks ago (months, actually), I brought home a large satchel of magazines a co-worker dropped off at work.  This grab bag consists of publications that I had neither read before nor even knew existed in several cases. 

Scientific American is a perfect example.  In the past, I have perused copies of this time-honored institution, but I quickly tire of its articles since they require a companion scientific dictionary and, in frustration, I usually end up looking for cartoons that will explain the String Theory of the Universe and other Space-Time Continuum conundrums that perplex me. 

In other words, I quickly move two racks over in the bookstore and pick up Road & Track. 

So completely by random, I fished around in the bowels of the magazine bag and pulled out something called Details.

It wasn’t the cover that caught my attention; it was the teaser title box that read “The Worst Things You Can Do.”  Actually, that wasn’t the real title, but I can’t remember the no-kidding words right now, but you get the gist.

“Hmmmm?” I thought to myself.  “That looks interesting.”

I did actually think those thoughts.

So I began to leaf through the publication, and what I quickly discovered was that there was very little publication and lots and lots of advertisements for male cologne and male clothing. 

One ad in particular caught my eye.  It featured a dashing guy in an expensive overcoat, which covered a beautiful suit.  He was standing on a dock which appeared to be somewhere in the middle of the Denali National Park.  He was also accessorized with a European carry-all leather parcel bag. 

Okay.  You got me.  Who are you?  What are you doing all dressed up somewhere north of the Arctic Circle?  And why do you really, really make me sick? 

Is it your smug expression?  Is it because your bag costs more than my entire wardrobe now hanging in my closet?

Or is it because you remind me of the commercial I most hate on television?  You know, that smarmy Ralph Lauren sepia-tinted Great Gatsby-esque diatribe about how clothes translate and transport your quality of life. 

Please, and point me in the direction of the nearest Vomitorium. 

And by the way, Ralph, trim the sideburns, dude.

But then something in Details even more interesting and more perverse caught my eye — all of these advert guys (some even had appropriately attired high-brow women alongside) wore expressions of disdain.  Nay, superiority.

Like they all are better than me.  Their clothes are better, and they smell better.

While I might not disagree with the latter point (I dun’t dig perfume), I take issue with the former.  For instance, what good is wearing a pair of pants that don’t allow you to bend your knees and change a flat tire? 

“I’m sorry.  I would help you with that flat, but I might wrinkle the fabric, dear.  Don’t we employ a service for this kind of thing anyway?”

And all of these guys — all of them — look really, really unhappy.  Almost pained.

They remind me of an old Star Trek Next Generation episode which featured the return of Leonard Nimoy as Spock.  When he spoke, he sounded as if a hot poker was lodged somewhere in his backside. 

I kept thinking, “What’s wrong with you, Spock?”

I did really think that, and I couldn’t figure out exactly what he was channeling, and, no, I’m not a Trekkie, but I do like Star Trek. 

Come on, guys.  All of you:  Don’t Worry.  Be Happy!

To make 100% certain I wasn’t imagining the details in Details, I confirmed with my wife what I was seeing was accurate.

“Yes, they look unhappy.  I’m turning off the light now.”

And as she tossed aside the SteinMart flyer she was scanning, that’s when it hit me — I should check it out to compare their models with the foo-foo guys in Details.

As I suspected, the SteinMart menfolk were loving life!  They were smiling.  They wore bright colors.  Though some were much more dandyish than classy, they were all having a good time.

In the end, I guess I always knew I was more of a SteinMart/Target Clearance rack kind of man than anything else, and a long time ago I figured that the guys in this world could be divided into two types — those who play ball and those who don’t. 

Not so long ago I amended that truism to include a third type:  those who pretend they do.

You know, the Details guys.  

Going back to the reason I picked up the magazine in the first place, I never could locate the article I was looking for.  There were simply too many advertisements that got in the way.

- Dad

36 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

////

13

Apr

Oblivions (sic)

catpull

This photo is supposed to be symbolic of pulling your hair out; however, it just reminds me of Yoda, more than anything else.

All in all, a fairly quiet day was had.  I slept in to, wow, almost 7:00 a.m., as I’ve lost the ability to slumber for longer than two hours continually, it seems. 

Watched live Barclays Premier League Soccer before taking Daughter Number Two to her regularly scheduled flute lesson every Saturday. 

And that’s where it began.

For better or worse, Daughter Number Two (DNT) and I usually arrive for flute a little bit early, so that Dad can grab a coffee and she can attempt to eat most of whatever breakfast pastry I purchase.  Before you get the impression that it’s a heart-warming chance for Father and Daughter to chat, complete crossword puzzles, and create stick figures together from wooden stirrers, it’s not. 

Oh, we enjoy the time together, but DNT is usually buried in one of her omnipresent books, and I scan CraigsList for my latest potential automotive acquisition. 

But it’s still fun, and I think she’ll remember Saturday mornings with me when she’s a grandmother decades from now, but it may be along the lines of, “Gee, I wish my Dad and I talked more when I was little.”

Still, I figure I’ll be high-fiving a million angels if I get some kind of honorable mention from her in the future.  If not, maybe I can look into the whole “haunting thing,” though there are a number of other targets I would much rather frequent in that area. 

This morning while I was ordering the coffee and scone, DNT grabbed a chair at the counter that faced the picture window.  There were just a couple of seats either side of her, and I planned to take one of them.  Then I noticed a Mom with two daughters showing a distinct interest in where DNT was sitting. 

The place was crowded, and there wasn’t much available room. 

Yep, they were definitely eyeing DNT’s chair, and it looked like they were maneuvering to ask her to move so they could all three sit down.

“I can’t believe this,” I thought.  They’re going to try to edge her out. 

And then the Mom leaned down to say something to DNT.  Her two daughters closed in expectantly.

Okay, she was crossing the line now.  I simply could not believe she was going to ask my Little Eleven Year Old to give up her seat.  My responsibility as a Father kicked in, and I approached the Mom.

“I’m sorry.  I’m going to be sitting next there next to my daughter.”

Who do you think you are? I said to myself.

Well, she just smiled at me and said, “Oh, we were all just fascinated with what your Daughter was drawing.  What is that?”

Of course, the entire time DNT was completely oblivious to the drama unfolding around her.  She was busy patiently waiting for her breakfast treat while focussed on her book.  

“Her what?  Oh, that’s a connect the dot workbook, I guess,” I said.

“I haven’t seen one since I was a little girl, and my daughters were really interested.  It’s very cool.”

“Um, yeah, it’s pretty cool.  Thanks,” I replied.

“You two have a good morning,” and she walked away with her kids.

“If you’d like, we can move,” I offered.  I was going to try to save this.

“No, that’s fine,” she offerred.  “We’re okay.”

I’m an idiot, of course, negatively interpreting what was happening in front of me.  At least they were very nice about it, and I took my seat, carefully tucking my tail between my legs.

I experienced a couple of other near incidents later in the day when someone cut me off in traffic, or took the parking space I was angling for, or nonchalantly (and accidentally) crowded me in a restaurant. 

And though my first instinct was to take offense, make a face, and express general displeasure, my second was to think of the Mom’s reaction to me earlier in the morning.

In the end, I just chilled out, slowed down, found another space, and discreetly listened to whatever the folks at the table next to us at the restaurant were discussing.  I internally adopted my “pretend Jamaican” persona (no worries, mon), and also made sure that my Spouse and DNT ate most of my cheesecake dessert.

As Daughter would say, “Namaste.”

Now the only thing left for me to do is google “Namaste” because I have no idea what it really means.

- Dad

42 days ago Short URL Comments

The Daily Trip

/

07

Apr

More Bad Trips

kitten break

Not one of Daughter’s Ninja Kittens, but could have been.

Based on second-hand information gleaned from my Significant Other, apparently one of Daughter’s kittens was accidentally stepped on a few days ago.  It’s been easy enough stepping on Daughter all these years, so a once-removed skittering feline receiving the same treatment doesn’t seem all that far-fetched to me. 

Please note that the photo above is not one of Daughter’s foster kittens, but it is my fanciful representation of what it may have looked like had either Daughter or her roommate actually broken its leg. 

They didn’t, and the kitten eventually resumed playing with its sibling within a short while. 

Notice, also, that I do not refer to either kitten by name, thus avoiding the predictable lamentation from Daughter about bringing one home from college.

“No, and what kitten are you talking about?  I don’t even know their names.”

That kind of thing. 

It’s my understanding that Daughter’s period as a foster mom for the Mama Cat and her two kittens ended within the last day or so, as it was time they were returned to the shelter and placement in permanent home(s). 

I applaud Daughter for her personal sacrifice in caring for the cats, and I know it’s difficult to return animals that have been in your foster care because you do grow attached, no matter how hard you try not to and no matter how ornery, aggressive, and just plain unpleasant the animals might be. 

I know, because we had a German Shepherd like that for over eight months.  That story ended happily, however, as she was eventually reunited with her canine brother, and they both spend their days running together to their hearts’ content with a great family with a big yard in the country not too far from here. 

But today, for me, was another reminder of why I spend my days now refereeing rather than playing soccer. 

Oh, I could play well enough.  I just couldn’t walk for several days afterward, not to mention the real and ever-present risk of incurring serious injury. 

To be honest, it’s gotten fairly bad for me in terms of physical pain, just as a referee.  Parts of me hurt afterwards that I never used to have any trouble with at all. 

Beginning with my feet.  After completing a couple of games, it’s as if I’ve been hung upside down and beaten with a rubber hose on their soles. 

Yep.  They hurt a lot.  Podiatry appointment in three weeks, by the way, thank you. 

Next comes my back; my lower back, specifically.  Though I stretch and twist throughout the game in my best Denise Austin impersonation, I can barely bend over by the time the final whistle blows.

And even my eyes hurt, if you can believe it.  My vision is already just naturally deteriorating because of age, and after four hours in the sun, my peeps look like someone dribbled a mild acid solution in them. 

But all of these aches and pains pale compared to what happened to one of the players this morning. 

There was no collision, no fancy footwork.  This poor guy was just running down the field, mildly changed direction and suddenly went down in a screaming heap. 

Screaming.  Really screaming. 

Having witnessed someone blow out a knee on the basketball court (several times, actually), I know the pain must be excruciating because the yelling is so loud and persistent (and usually very high-pitched, strangely enough — Note to Self:  When in horrific pain, be sure to vocalize in a manly fashion). 

But today it was clear this guy hadn’t ruined his knee.  Rather, at least his tibia had snapped, and probably his fibula, as well.

How can I make that assessment?  Well, the lower leg itself looked bad (I won’t say how bad — just use your imagination), and everyone within about 50 feet of him heard a wicked snap when the bone(s) parted.  After attending to his immediate needs and making sure he was somewhat comfortable (I mean, how comfortable could we make him), we all stood around and watched the EMTs work and joke with him. 

One of his teammates also snapped a bunch of photos for the league newsletter.  It was all rather convivial, in a macabre sort of way. 

Turns out this player works in a hospital nearby, which is where the ambulance took him, and he was in good spirits when they carted him off the field in a gurney.  Perhaps the massive amounts of morphine had something to do with his improved, non-screaming disposition. 

He looked to be in his mid-thirties, maybe older, and I hope he’s not done with soccer forever now, though I can understand why he might want to switch to playing canasta in the future.  It’s going to be tough coming back from that injury. 

And to be honest, I have seen much, much worse on a soccer pitch, but I won’t describe the details here.  I probably wrote too much about this one already.

But even though I walked away today “sore, soaked, and slightly punchy” as the old TV ad used to say, I was thankful that I made it through another couple of matches without feeling too bad physically, without getting physically assaulted, and without leaving via emergency vehicle. 

My thoughts tonight are with the injured player, and today’s events just proved to me that all bad trips are relative, after all. 

- Dad

48 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

///

31

Mar

I’m Certified; But That’s a Good Thing.

referee

No self-respecting referee really gesticulates like this guy, but he looks to be a bit of a dandy anyway.

For various reasons, most of them bad (complete and utter lack of time away from work being primary), I have been unable to become re-certified as a soccer referee for 2013.  I usually knock this process out some time either in November or December for the following year.  But four or five months ago, I absolutely could not spare even a few moments to schedule, much less study for, my recertification test. 

As a result, I have been working on an occasional basis what we call in the trade “unsanctioned” games.  That’s a fancy way of saying the particular soccer league at issue does not enjoy inclusion into the United States Soccer Federation umbrella or any other similar organization.  It’s not really a huge deal to me, but to give you an idea of the level of adult competition involved, no slide tackling is allowed and audible profanity results in a mandatory five-minute send-off. 

I have to watch my own mouth as much as the players, as in, “I can’t believe I’m fu freaking doing this.” 

The games aren’t particularly challenging, but they are somewhat enjoyable in a laid-back sort of way.  I don’t even take the time to warm up before taking the pitch (field).  I simply stop for a foo-foo coffee on the way over to get my “caffeine on”, and I’m pretty much good to go by game time. 

In a way, it’s sad, because I’m used to working much higher level, more violent and demanding matches.

So, since the cauldron at work has recently begun to cool, I decided to schedule my referee recert test and get back in gear. 

I reserved my place online about a month ago, and yesterday morning was the exam session.  I had a solid plan in place for the week prior.  Starting on Monday, I was to study just a few pages each night so that by Friday evening, the bulk of the prep work would be complete and I would be good to go for Saturday.

You might have guessed what really happened. 

I only managed to crack my study book after supper the night before, and I managed to review the necessary text while simultaneously watching the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament.

Note to Daughter:  Don’t try this methodology at your Lesbian Cult College.  It is proven to deliver mediocre results, at best. 

Saturday morning dawned bright and early, but it was only because the test site was about a 40-minute drive from home.  I had to build in enough time to pick up a foo-foo coffee on my way over.  Just like working a real game, I knew I needed that caffeine boost to encourage the gray matter to kick it up a notch during the test. 

The first bad sign was when I rolled up to the elementary school where the test was scheduled; it looked like about a thousand cars were parked all over the place.  I just wasn’t really up for a group cluster. 

All I wanted was an easy multiple guess choice test, and an instructor who wasn’t shy about giving away the answers ahead of time. 

The second bad sign was at the registration desk, after I finally found the correct room.  Yes, I was on the list, but, no, I had no idea what the guy checking off names was talking about.

“Yes, sir, I’ve got you on the list.  Now I need your $20 facility fee.”

“My what?  I already paid for all of this online.  Are you saying I owe twenty more bucks?”

“Sir, you’re the only one who didn’t get the word this morning.  No one else has had a problem.”

Well, I already was not in the best of moods, and now this.  I really had no choice but to pay the piper.  Thank God I had more than the usual two dollars in my wallet, but this was really beginning to piss me off upset me. 

This day was not starting out well at all. 

Once inside what appeared to be the school cafeteria, I grabbed a seat right up front, since it seemed there was going to be some kind of presentation which I was going to have a very difficult time seeing, since I forgot my glasses.

In fact, I was woefully unprepared, not even taking into account the lack of studying.

To wit, I was supposed to bring a couple of pencils — nope, I brought one pen.  Note taking paper was encouraged — nope, I figured I could write the really important stuff on my hand in ink.  The instructor had some kind of pre-test lesson planned — nope, I left the good ole hearing aids at home, too. 

Geez.  This was shaping up well, I figured.

I had been sitting at the table for all of two minutes, when another older dude plopped down beside me, either because he was as disadvantaged as I was, or because almost everyone else in the room was fourteen years old.

He did seem to have a lot of notes with him, so I casually asked if I could use him to cheat.

“What kind of work do you do?” he asked me in an Australian accent.

I told him I was a program manager.  I just as easily could have said architect or veterinarian, but I didn’t feel like I could pass for either at the moment.

“I just needed to make sure you weren’t a lawyer.  These notes are from the pre-marital agreement with my new wife.  We just got married, and now I’m reviewing them.”

Clearly, I did not have a monopoly on issues this morning.  In fact, this guy turned out to be really nice, and he spend the better part of the next two hours whispering to me about not only various refereeing problems, but his new marriage, as well.

Since I didn’t have my hearing aids in, I understood maybe, maybe about ten percent of what he said.  I just smiled, nodded my head frequently, and occasionally gasped “really?” to any comment that seemed especially important, or so I guessed.

When it came time to take the actual test, we broke up into groups, and we could actually talk and reason through the answers together.  Since I was one of the few adults in attendance, I was saddled with assigned a group of four teenagers to mentor through the exam.

This pimply convocation of hungry ennui was a life-saver for me, because they both studied and remembered the answers to last year’s exam, and could cite specific problems for reference.  However, the kid at the end of the table was only a little more clueless than me.  He, in fact, didn’t have a clue, but was clearly benefiting from the brainpower around him. 

As was I.

Long story short, we managed to complete the exam in about 45 minutes, and then spent 30 minutes waiting in line for it to be graded. 

We all passed, and we only missed two or three questions. 

The Pimpletons pulled me through.  Hooray!

Second Note to Daughter — do what I say; not what I do.  Prepare, study hard, write outlines, revise, and then revise again.

Or find a damn good graduate student tutor to help you out.  It only gets worse as you get older.

- Dad

55 days ago Short URL Comments

College/Family/Humor/Lesbian Cult/The Daily Trip

//

30

Mar

The Great and Powerful Credit Card

oz

“Magic. I need magic now! Or a credit card. And, yes, my shoe is glowing.”

Let’s face it.  I’m cheap.  Or put another way, thrifty.  But the kids consider me cheap, though I like to think of it as being sure to obtain good value for my dollar, no matter what the deal. 

Like I said, cheap.

These facts all become important because of what we didn’t do this week during Middle School Spring Break.  We took no trips, and we really did nothing special as a family.  I had to continue to visit the Salt Mine every day, and Daughter Number Two and my Spouse spent a lot of time running errands and conducting partial Pajama Days. 

We kept on meaning to go catch Oz The Great and Powerful, but we never made it to the theater until Thursday night.  And since we hadn’t blown megabucks on some type of California Vacation Adventure, I figured we could splurge and have a nice restaurant meal before the flick.  Fortunately, the theater is flanked by a number of eating establishments, but we passed up the affordable alternatives (Rubio’s and Panera) to try out a new (for us) Italian place.

I’ll call it Buca de Beppi’s, but that’s not really its name.  My wife indicated that our son and one of his girlfriends used to eat there on occasion, so it at least passed the “someone we know has actually gone there” test, though I couldn’t seem to remember him ever mentioning it. 

Hmmmm.

The landscape inside the restaurant was something along the lines of Shabby Chic Italian.  And supposedly the chain’s claim to fame is all the dishes are “family style” and meant to be shared.

Translation:  Lots of carbs and a mega-buck per plate price, at least compared to Denny’s, or In-N-Out. 

One look at the menu, and I already calculated we were in for at least an $80 meal — for two adults and an eleven-year-old. 

The food was nice enough, but when the check came, I asked my wife to guess the total.  When I told her it was $79, her reaction was something along the lines of, “What cost so much?”

That was an easy one to answer:  two adult entrees, one kid’s meal, one appetizer (cost as much as one meal), one coffee, and one non-alcoholic beer (bummer).  And no dessert. 

To translate the above total into Denny’s Dollars, that would equal four full meals there, or seven bags of food at In-N-Out, or lots and lots of fish tacos at Rubio’s.

Lots. 

I mean if the food had been truly outstanding, I would try to craft my impression of the bill into something along the lines of, “Wow, we received great quality and lots of really tasty morsels.  We’ll definitely be back.”

Well, unless they have some kind of Value Menu, or Kids Eat Free Deal, we ain’t going back. 

But the place was fairly crowded, so clearly there’s some type of broader appeal.  Apparently, I don’t fall into that demographic, however.  You could term my demographic as, “cheap is good, but free refills are better.”

Don’t get me wrong.  It wasn’t that we didn’t enjoy ourselves, because we did.  And I would gladly pay almost $100 for one meal there than $1000 to camp out at DisneyLand for three days — keeping in mind (as I always do) that the best comment I ever heard about about Disney was from a Fellow Father many years ago, sitting on a bench at the park entrance, late in the afternoon, as he lamented to his wife, “But I didn’t know there would be 50 million people here today!”  

Yep.  Compared to that, I figure I came out ahead — way ahead. 

But I knew better than to buy the movie tickets myself after dinner, because it would only lead to me sliding more beads on my mental financial abacus.  My Lovely Spouse made the purchase for us, and she even used discount coupons. 

And while Oz might have been a charlatan, at least he had access to a huge storeroom of gold in the Emerald City. 

Though that gold would be nice, I figured that, unless we ate at Buca de Beppi’s every night, my good old MasterCard would suit us just fine. 

What value! 

And, yes, I’m okay with that.

- Dad

 

56 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

/

25

Mar

Does This Make Me A Bad Person? Or Father?

popcorn

“No. There’s not enough for both of us. Isn’t it your bedtime? If not, it should be. Go away. I love you.”

One of our favorite movies, and lots of it is not even very funny, is Wild Hogs.  For the uninitiated, the storyline is about some suburban guys who spend their weekends (and male bonding time) as pseudo-tough guys riding their Harley-Davidson motorcycles. 

In our little suburban enclave here in SoCal, the weekends are littered with the same types of riders who meet up at the local foo-foo coffee house where they engage in tough-guy antics while sipping their double cappuccino frappe lattes, or whatever. 

The whole phenomenon is very amusing to me, and their omnipresence affords me the opportunity to shout “Wild Hogs” whenever I catch a glimpse of them riding around the neighborhood.  Of course, I never really make that reference in an environment where they might hear what I’m saying; say, in the coffee shop itself — who knows, maybe they would try to beat me up, and it’s not worth taking the chance.

However, I am quite confident I could still outrun most of them (have you seen the girth on some of these guys?), so I suppose it’s not that big a risk. 

I still have a lot of fun with the whole Wild Hogs thing; it’s basically the adult version in my house of calling “shotgun.”

In the motion picture, I mostly relate to Tim Allen’s character.  In an early scene, he is seated with his lovely family at the dinner table.  They are indulging in a wonderful meal of meatloaf and mashed potatoes (or something like that), while Tim, the father, has to eat a salad because of his health issues. 

That’s me, all right.

I can really relate to that feeling, as I have been sentenced now live in a gluten-free, organic, non-carb, non-HMO non-flavor healthy household because everything that ails us begins “in the gut.”  So, we have to keep that gut well. 

Don’t get me wrong.  I really appreciate the diet within which we all live and, truth be told, we all feel much better for it.  Plus, my Better Half does an extraordinary job making it all tasty as well as beneficial for us. 

And I guess I could cheat, if I really wanted to, but I don’t for the most part.  Why?  I do feel better these days because of what I’m not eating anymore, and I can thank my Spouse for that.

But it doesn’t mean that sometimes it can be difficult to stay on the sober food path.  In fact, it can be downright challenging. 

On a practical basis I now come to appreciate, no, cherish those foods that harken back to the days when I pretty much shoved anything I wanted down my gullet. 

Ah, the Good Old Days.

One of the remnants from these Days of Yore is popcorn.  I consider it a treat, and it is also something I look forward to as an evening snack.  Apparently, popcorn can be loosely characterized as somewhat healthy.  But because of the numerous, evil ingredients contained therein, microwave popcorn has been banned in our house for ages now. 

So we now make popcorn with an extraordinarily loud hot air popper that not only cooks a solid bowl of corn, it also scares all the pets living with us and causes everyone else to either retreat to another room or turn up the television so loud our next door neighbors get a good idea of what we’re watching.

Yep.  It makes a lot of noise.

Here’s the less savory part that I’m somewhat ashamed to admit. 

I don’t like sharing my popcorn. 

With anyone.  Not Dandy Dog.  Not my eleven year old.  Not the ornery ancient Mama Cat, who likes the (unhealthy) salt.

The way I look at it, I’m getting screwed in general with the guilty food items I just want to enjoy an entire bowl to myself. 

Is that so wrong? 

Before condemning me, please consider that not only do I work like a slave most days, I’m evidently also aging and have to deal with regular mailers from AARP and other indignities, not to mention I just feel like crap a lot of the time seem to be growing grayer hair by the minute. 

“Daddy, can I have some popcorn, please?”

How do I resist a plea from my own child?  With Daughter, it’s easy.  I just tell her to make her own.

With the eleven year old it’s a bit trickier.  And to be honest, I used to share with her, but then she started eating half the bowl when I wasn’t looking.

With her, I have a measured response protocol, depending on the circumstances:

a)  After bedtime, “I’ll save you some.  Go to bed.”

b)  Before bedtime, “Yes, you can have a little.”  Followed by, “No. Not that much!  Stop!”

c)  All other times, ”Is the eleven year old home?  No?  Okay, I’m firing up the popper!”

Wild Hogs, indeed.  I’ve got those guys beat, even though I ride a Honda and not a Harley.

And to my Family.  I love you and all that you do for me.

Just let me eat my popcorn in peace.  Thank you. 

- Dad

 

61 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

/

24

Mar

I’m Not Cool, Except. . . .

breakfast

“Wait. There aren’t enough carbs here. Please add pancakes and grits to my order. And some more toast.”

The kids have reinforced my uncoolness for years now.  In fact, I think it’s fair to say I embarrass them on a routine basis.  And if I’m not conducting myself in a manner which does embarrass them, I certainly try to do so.

Suffice it to say I have firmly established my uncoolness with them, and I’m not ashamed of it.  I consider it my parently duty anyway.

How do it do it?  By just being myself.  I wear the same clothes from twenty years ago (they’re still good after all), listen to the same music on the same radio stations my kids do (I don’t have an iPhone or Pandora loaded on anything, unfortunately — I’ve admitted previously I can’t discern most lyrics), and I generally express myself in a hip way — “Hey, mon.  I dun’t dig that.” 

To which I receive this typical retort:  “Dad, you sound like an idiot.  Don’t say anything else to my friends, please.  They are afraid of you.”

So it was with great pleasure last night that our family remnants, very tired after a day of working in the yard and rebuilding the motorcycle, became determined to experience a nice meal out on the town, and not at one of our usual spots — Rubio’s Fish Tacos or In-N-Out Burger.  We piled into the van and drove over to the only “cool” restaurant area in out little suburb for some semi-exotic fare. 

You know, I used to wonder why the parking lot next to the post office was so full on Saturday nights, and I soon received my answer.  All the cool, hip, “in” eateries were packed.  Our first stop, a gastro pub, was full.  I don’t really frequent “gastro-pubs” (the description sounds vaguely Pepto-Bismalish), but the wait for a table for three was over an hour.  And there were lots of neat, upscale people seemingly enjoying themselves there.  I wasn’t sure I would fit in wearing shorts but, no matter, we weren’t going to hang out that long for a table.  Next up, in quick succession, were a Japanese restaurant and upscale Vietnamese next door. 

Same story.  Packed, with elegant people, clearly looking down at us lesser mortals looking for open seats. 

After a quick family huddle, our collective hunger made the next choice quite obvious:  Denny’s!

Denny’s!  Yay!

We all could have breakfast, and it wouldn’t cost $120 for three of us to eat.  Wonderful.

Plus, Denny’s has the added advantage that neither of the older kids like eating there, and they think it’s Old School and uncool.  I could add to my legacy. 

Whatever.  We were headed to Denny’s.

Even though this particular location is about two minutes away from the restaurants I just listed that boast hour-long waits, there was no waiting at this Denny’s.  Super.

But I noticed something funny when we were being escorted through the main dining room.  Everyone there, and I mean everyone, was clearly 70 plus years old.  Suddenly, my Spouse and our eleven year old were the only two patrons in the place without gray hair.

This was getting scary, and I began to feel uncomfortable.  For crying out loud, did I belong with this crowd?  Would I be going to bed at 8:30 p.m. tonight?   What was going on here?

And then the hostess seated us at our table, which was on the other side of the establishment.  And the funny thing was, as I looked around us there, it was an entirely different crowd.  It was a bunch of young families, with several babies present. 

This Denny’s separated the Young from the Old, and we were placed with the Young!  Forget the obvious age discrimination issues here.  Yay, Denny’s, and thank you!

And after our hearty breakfast/dinner, we also found out that kids eat free on Saturday nights.  Total bill was about $20.  Take that, Gastro Pub! 

At the end of the day, I might be cheap, and I might not be as cool as I once was, but I had a full tummy and I made it back home last night in plenty of time to walk the dog while some of the beautiful people elsewhere were still waiting for their tables. 

Thanks, Denny’s. 

- Dad

62 days ago Short URL 4 Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

///

23

Mar

I Can’t Leave Well Enough Alone

carbs

“Okay. These are fixed. Let me screw something else up.”

Probably a couple of years ago, I picked up an older Honda motorcycle to work on and keep me off the streets most weeknights.  It had been sitting in someone’s back yard for quite some, and the owners just wanted to get rid of it.  Total price for the (running) bike, helmet, and jacket was a lofty $500. 

Sweet. 

The nice folks selling the Honda even loaded it up in their pickup and brought it to my house.  They were either really, really sick of it, or were, in fact, great people.  I actually think it was a bit of both.

Well, the bike has somewhat languished in my yard since its purchase, with the prime culprit being clogged carburetors.  Son and I made a go of cleaning them out one weekend awhile back, but our primary success was managing to reassemble everything properly and getting the bike to start again. 

Of course, the carbs were still plugged after all that.  The bike ran better, but not as it should.

Time to call in The Professional and pay the piper.  My last motorcycle was similarly afflicted with the impacted carbs, and I randomly chose a guy off of Craigslist to provide service.  As it turned out, he was marvelous.  He did a great job, the bike ran superbly after he finished, and he was very affordable. 

Luckily, I still had his business card years later, and when I phoned him this week, I found out he was still busily engaged with being a Mobile Motorcycle Mechanic.  The way he works is interesting.  He charges a flat rate per carb, comes to your house, and usually finishes in four or five hours. 

So while I trudged off on Friday and spent a day at the corporate grind, he disassembled my Honda and put it back together again.  And true to form, the engine now ran flawlessly.  I was very pleased.

So pleased, in fact, that I thought I would spend some time attending to a few of the other niggling details that had been bothering me about the Honda — primarily the tachometer, which didn’t work at all.  As is usually the case with these types of things, I have a tendency to:  a) think they are easier to repair than they really are, and b) take way too many things apart to try to find the root of the problem. 

In this case, both a) and b) were true.  By late afternoon, I had taken apart almost the entire front end of the bike, and not only did the tachometer still not function, but also I somehow managed to knock out of commission both the turn signals and the brake light. 

This was going wonderfully. 

I was dead certain the tach was not working because of a broken wire somewhere.  Rather than finding that wire, I was heavily engaged in breaking every other connection on the bike during the troubleshooting process.  At that point, I prudently decided to quit for the day and think about things, before I did any more damage. 

I will tell you that, not so many years ago, an experience like this would drive me absolutely nuts.  I would obsess over the details, lose sleep worrying about how much my amateurism would cost me, and get extremely upset at myself for being such an idiot.  But with the luxury of age and mental fatigue, I now boast a more sober approach, which includes trying to stop while I’m ahead, having a nice cup of tea in the evening while thinking about things, and delaying further activity until I’ve recovered my wits. 

So, with a decent night’s sleep behind me, I started afresh today.  First stop was a guy I contacted on Craigslist earlier in the week who, incredibly, had a used tach for sale for my bike.  What were the odds?  I figured I would swing by his house, pick up the used part, and use it as a baseline to finish troubleshooting and finally fix things on my own motorcycle. 

The first hitch occurred when I showed up in his driveway and he produced a really nice — speedometer. 

“Dude, you said you had a tachometer.”

“Oh, no, I’m sorry.  I already sold it.  I guess I got confused.  I hate that you came all the way over here for nothing.  Go ahead and take something for free.”

Which I did, though I didn’t know if I’d ever need the part I took. 

I tried to stay positive as I drove back home, but I feared I was looking at several more potentially fruitless hours of electrical continuity testing. 

Well, I figured, what else could go wrong? 

In my heart of hearts, I knew the answer was “plenty”.

When I pulled up to my driveway, I calculated I could spend probably two more hours on this thing max, before I would have to put down my tools and kill somebody — most likely the closest family member.

I proceeded to uncover the bike and reveal its guts strewn here and there.  Forget the tach, would I be able to put everything together again, or was Humpty Dumpty Honda doomed to stay separated?

Then, I began to think about my bike’s symptoms and what I’d done the previous day.  Surely one broken wire couldn’t cause all this drama, could it? 

Do motorcycles have fuses? 

What an idiot I am. 

Next steps on Resurrection Road:  a) locate fuse box, b) determine if any fuses are blown, c) repeat constantly, “I am and idiot, I am an idiot.”

Well, you might have guessed the end of this story.  Yes, a fuse was blown, and replacing it magically “fixed” all the mysterious lighting problems on the bike.  I then reassembled everything and only had one screw and one clip left over.

I fired her up and proceeded to embark on a thirty-mile ride, and I enjoyed a wonderful late California spring day. 

And when I returned home and parked the bike for the night, I chalked the experience up to age and karma.

And, no, the tachometer still doesn’t work.  I’ll save that one for another day. 

- Dad

 

63 days ago Short URL 3 Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

//

22

Mar

Just Give Me My Shoes, Man!

shoe

“You. Come back tomorrow. I busy today. Go away.”

First, I should warn you.  This post has not been written by a kitten or other member of the family pet kingdom.  Still, a blog authored by a pre-adolescent feline has its attraction, I admit.  However, it needs to be articulated in a language understood by some percentage of humans or else it runs the risk of just not being that funny. 

Sorry, Daughter.  Maybe next time you’ll take my advice and park TheDailyTripBlog.com on hiatus while you struggle with college writing college theses and other miscellaneous scholarly crap. 

Can you say “all-nighter”, or is that phrase no longer de rigueur at you expensive Lesbian Cult School? 

End of Fatherly Rant, and back to the Matter at Hand.

In a fit of Presbyterian-inspired thrift (and incredibly sore feet), last week I decided to have my favorite pair of “business” work shoes repaired for the second time during my ownership.  I don’t remember how much I paid for the things six or seven years ago, but I’m into them for at least one hundred bucks in “maintenance fees” now. 

Heck, I’ve spent so much that I probably should have bought a really expensive pair in the first place, and maybe they would last a bit longer than these.

Probably not. 

But push came to shove for me in the footwear department when my “back-up” pair recently got caught in the wiring under the Miata dash and nearly caused an electrical meltdown.  And after all the trouble I went through to replace the stupid flasher, I didn’t want to lose the entire car to fire because of too-long shoe toe extensions (Yep — not sure what that really means, either). 

So, off I went to our local friendly shoe repair establishment in order to obtain a repair on my primary pair, which had worn completely through the soles. 

Yes, I visited a Cobbler’s Shop.  I feel like Will Ferrell writing that, by the way. 

The first time I went to this place was about three or four years ago, and it was out of necessity because of its location.  I asked a few local merchants (mainly the dry cleaner) if they could recommend it, since it was the only shoe repair place within ten square miles of where we live. 

I didn’t receive any resounding endorsements.  But I didn’t hear anything really terribly bad either. 

I decided to take a chance. 

My first visit to the small shop was somewhat uneventful, except that the proprietor wanted me to pay for the repair up front. 

Okay.  No problem.  I went ahead and paid, and he gave me my claim ticket.

A little over a week later I returned to pick up my “fav” shoes.  The conversation went something like this:

“Hi.  I’m here to claim my shoes.”

“You give me ticket.”

I then handed over my ticket.

“You pay now.” 

“Uh, no, I paid you last week when I dropped them off.”

“Where’s receipt?”

“I don’t have it.  Just the ticket.  Don’t you guys keep records?”

“Where’s receipt?  You need to pay.”

Okay.  Now I’m starting get a little upset.  I’m thinking I paid cash, and I don’t know where I put the crummy proof of payment.

In the meantime, while the voices inside of me were debating my predicament, the dude behind the counter picked up the phone and, evidently, called his partner who manned the store the previous week.  After a brief conversation in a language I didn’t understand, he turned to me and handed me my shoes.

No sorry.  No apology.  Nothing like that. 

Yes, sir, I’ll be sending all kinds of business your way in the future.  I guarantee it. 

It was with some trepidation, then, that I returned again for necessary repairs. 

Much like my recent junkyard journey, where there were no prices posted and each customer subject to the whims of the counter girls, this shoe shop doesn’t advertise, doesn’t list how much any of their services cost, and apparently, is doing quite well, thank you. 

The proprietor took one look at my shoes and said, “Fifty dollar.”

Now, had I been walking around the Grand Bazaar in Izmir, Turkey, I would have spent the next two hours haggling him down to, say, $47.50.  As it was, I did a quick time versus hassle versus quality of life calculation, and I determined I could live with the cost.

“Sounds good,” I replied.

“You pay now.” 

“Uh, I left my wallet out in the car, but I can go get it and give you some money.”

“No.  You pay when you pick up.  One week.  Same time.”

Pretty simple to return in a week.  I could survive five or so more days wearing my clodhoppers, I thought.

Except that when I came back, my shoes were nowhere to be found.

Really.  You’re kidding me, right?

The guy behind the counter (yet another different guy) spent a few minutes looking around the shop, digging through bins, and looking in closets. 

It was not an awe-inspiring performance.

“What color your shoe?”

This was starting to get better.

“Black and brown,” as I started to peer around the shop myself, wondering where in God’s name they put my shoes.

Finally, he located them hanging up in the “active cobbling area.”  They weren’t ready, of course.

 ”You come back tomorrow.  Same time.”

Sure.  No problem, I thought.  No sorry.  No apology.  No regrets.

So, as Fate, or Luck, or Zen would have it, they were, in fact, ready the next day.  I would be rockin’ and rollin’ in my newly repaired footwear!

“You pay now.”

“Sure.  No problem,” as I handed him my credit card.  Yes.  They accept credit cards. 

And I’ll see you again in another four years, Allah, or Buddha, or God, or Gepetto willing.

Now, I fully recognize that Gepetto was really a Woodcarver and not a Cobbler, but this whole episode was like a Fractured Fairy Tale anyway, so I figured I could get away with it. 

- Dad

 

 

 

 

64 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

//

17

Mar

I Guess I Should Write About St. Patrick’s Day

irishcoffee

If beer is bad for you, Irish Coffee is probably worse.

After yesterday’s drama at the junkyard, it was a welcome break to spend some time with old friends last night celebrating St. Patrick’s Day.  The honest truth is we don’t really commemorate the holiday, unless we’re invited somewhere.  The alternative is to stay at home and hope we’ve checked out a dvd from the library that is not Brokeback Mountain. 

Yep, it can get really crazy around here on Saturday nights. 

To illustrate how sad it’s gotten, I can’t even imagine trying to stay up to watch Saturday Night Live “live” anymore.  And to think, I can still remember rushing home from wherever I was in the late 70′s so I could be sure to catch Chevy Chase and John Belushi and friends.  It was that groundbreaking and motivating. 

Now, the only thing I get that even that remotely excited about (even that description is relative) is watching the Men’s National Team (soccer for those of you not in the know) play during the World Cup.  But even then, there’s a limit to either how early or how late I will stay up to watch those Underachievers perform, or not.

Back to the matter at hand, at least some percentage of my family’s lineage can be traced back to Northern Ireland.  In fact, we had a stimulating discussion last night about what actually constitutes First Generation versus Second or Third Generation Americans.  According the dinner party experts, I’m Third Generation, which makes Daughter Fourth Generation.  On the very, very rare occasion I could get one of my own parents talking about the family tree, it was revealed that one of our great aunts watched the Titanic being built as she walked to work in Belfast.  No doubt over time, that story will eventually be transformed into we had family members actually help build the Titanic.  Maybe a couple of generations from now, someone in our family will have sailed on the Titanic.  I expect it to get better and better as the years roll on. 

titanic

“One of my great great great Grandparents was a passenger on the Titanic. And he starred in a movie!”

After all, who is going to check the facts anyway?  It’s more fun making this stuff up. 

Meanwhile, returning to the dinner party, I immediately broke my “no alcohol vow” by ingesting not one, but two Stella Artois beers.  For some reason still not entirely clear to me, Stella is okay to drink in that particular house (our host’s) because it is wheat-free.  Since my palate is basically sophisticated enough to distinguish water from alcohol, I was fine with the choice. 

Which was then followed by a wonderful Irish dinner, featuring Irish Coffee with dessert.  It was all very excellent because we didn’t have to cook, the food was great, we met some new folks, and our hosts were marvelous. 

Until. . .we started talking about house decorations — an odd subject to be sure, but which happens when there is plenty of Irish Coffee being served. 

By way of background, we’ve known our hosts since we moved to California thirteen years ago.  We spent a lot of time together watching our daughters grow up on the soccer field together, and they are truly nice folks.   

My Spouse made a comment about what she thought were some Japanese-themed items adorning their home, which would be linked to our host’s wife and her ancestors, to which she replied,

“Japanese?  I’m Chinese.  My family is from South China.  You thought I was Japanese?”

How long have we known each other? 

What followed was an ethnic-centered discussion about Chinese home remedies.  And, of course, I took the opportunity to compare Chinese versus Japanese traditions whenever possible, even though I know nothing about either. 

I can do my part in these things when I’m motivated.

That after-dinner talk soon turned to politics, and I thought we were headed for disaster but, fortunately, the Irish Coffee took to the edge off of everyone and no one cared too much, at that point. 

In other words, it was a fun evening.  And much like the late 70′s, we rushed home later so. . . we could get to bed before 10:00 p.m. so that we wouldn’t fall asleep on the way home in the minivan. 

I’m already looking forward to next year.  Who knows what will happen?  Maybe I’ll have more information about my Irish heritage by then.

Probably not.

- Dad

69 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

///

15

Mar

I Loathe Myself!

catherine

“Yes, it’s love! Well, not really.”

The instrument has not been invented that can measure how much shame I feel. 

I am truly not worthy.  I am a moron.  I am a complete idiot.  I feel awful.   

And I’m not being hard enough on myself, either.  That’s how bad this is. 

You see, what I have done is unforgivable, certainly within the pantheon of television program royalty. 

What was my onerous transgression? 

I watched the final episode of The Bachelor with my wife by my side on Monday night.   

Oh, how far the mighty have fallen!

I have lost the moral high ground which Downtown Freaking Abbey has always afforded me.  Gone are the regular Sunday night meetings in my living room with The Finer Things Club, featuring watercress sandwiches and demitasse tea cups. 

Lady Mary’s alluring rebuff to her now-deceased and beloved Matthew, “Careful.  You’ll make me untidy,” has been replaced by Catherine’s response to Sean, ”I don’t see why there would be any waiting period. I want to be his wife.”

Jeepers. 

And in the spirit of full disclosure here, I became sleepy during the finale and actually turned in for the night before Sean made his selection.  There might have been a small measure of redemption for me had I just left it at that.  But since my Spouse DVRs any television program with either “bachelor” or “real housewives” in the title, I knew the balance of the unseen episode was lurking somewhere on that server.

Yep.  The next day I watched the last 30 minutes I missed. 

“Absolutely pathetic,” you say? 

I agree.

To make matters worse, I found a certain element of “creepy” permeated much of the program.  To my observation, Sean’s father seemed more than a little suspect in terms of his interaction with the two female finalists.  He was, in fact, a bit too welcoming and weird with them. 

He may have said, “You would be a wonderful addition to our family, if Sean chooses  you.”

What I heard was, “If my son stiffs you, I am probably available.  I know I’m already married to Sean’s mother, but don’t worry about that.”

I don’t know.  Maybe these folks would fit into Downtown Freaking Abbey after all, but some of the main characters would have to die, so I am not sure if that’s really an option.

Do people actually think any of this is real?  Is the drama sincere?  I mean, come on, Repo Wars seems more authentic.

You might wonder, why did I lower myself so?  Quite frankly, there was no much else on, and I was somewhat fatigued.  Perhaps my brains was a bit frazzled.  Maybe I wanted to bond with my wife and try to understand her fascination with this type of crap thing. 

I suppose there really isn’t a very good explanation.  Sometimes sh stuff happens. 

I guess the main point here is that everyone stumbles once in a while.  And I do believe there is a Road to Redemption.  I do not know, however, how many episodes of Masterpiece Theater cancel out one The Bachelor.  I’m still calculating, but I’m thinking the answer is “many.”

In the meantime, I have begun the Twelve-Step Recovery Process.  I have already completed Step One, which is admitting I have a problem.  I’m currently fighting through some of the other stages, but I have found that kitten photos and blurred pictures of the Amish somewhat diminish the bad taste of The Bachelor. 

But not entirely. 

I have to come to terms with what I’ve done and am determined to move on from here.  I must re-center with Zen-me and focus on the Way Ahead. 

And figure out the remote control programming features to filter/block future episodes of The Bachelor. 

After all, that is the safest route, but it will also necessitate incurring the wrath of the adult females in the house. 

That’s a small price to pay for true love, I figure.

- Dad

71 days ago Short URL Comments

Humor/The Daily Trip

////

10

Mar

I’m Comfortable. Are You?

sedona

“You can’t tell what it looks like from the inside, and the windows are tinted. No one will recognize us anyway.”

I seem to spend more than my fair share around this house screwing around with cars.  Much like the Annual Pruning of the Rose Bushes (which I didn’t do this year yet — probably too late now), I consider wrenching on cars to be as therapeutic as working in the garden.  I was also going to add that it’s cheaper than seeing a shrink, but given the cost of some of the repairs we’ve underwritten in the last few years, that point is debatable.

I might insert an additional observation now, dating back to my youth.  When I was a kid, I think that few things were less appealing to me than being made to work in the yard.  I absolutely, positively could not stand it.  There was no worse waste of time than mowing the grass, pruning the bushes, and — especially — pulling weeds.  After all, pulling weeds was so pointless, because they always reappeared. 

It’s funny how things change as you grow older. 

These days if you presented me with a list of activities with which to spend my time, doing yard work absolutely, positively climbs close to the top.  I enjoy it that much now.  Being outside and seeing things grow (or killing them, as the case may be — weeds) makes me feel good.  While gardening, I don’t worry about what troubles me, and I can simply focus on the next task at hand.  I also have a tendency to exhaust myself, so a side benefit usually includes the increasingly rare occurence (for me) of sleeping through the  night. 

What could be better? 

Working on cars. 

Both gardening and spending time under the hood are very similar pursuits because I can usually see the fruits of my labor when I’m done.  Honestly, that’s not always a positive thing because sometimes I make things worse and not better, but there is a certain linear flow to whatever I do that makes a weird kind of sense to me, whether I’m ultimately successful or not. 

So I have devoted a fair number of hours lately to bringing Daughter’s mode of transport back up to snuff, and it’s nearly there.  I still have to finish up a few details only I will notice before I consider it done.  But an opportunity came up yesterday to make a two-hour drive to the north to retrieve some vital spare parts for my “other” project — my Alfa Romeo.  And best of all the price was right for the spares — they were free. 

Since Daughter still maintains short-term possession of my truck for the balance of the semester at her Lesbian Cult School, I had to borrow the Wife’s minivan (pictured above) to make the parts run. 

Point of Fact:  We have a number of friends, acquaintances, and family members who, apparently, wouldn’t be caught dead in a minivan. 

I guess to them driving a minivan is the modern equivalent of wearing a huge Scarlet A around your neck.  I’ve never understood that point of view.  We’ve owned three minivans, and though they all do end up as mobile stale food and trash conveyances, they are also wonderfully efficient haulers of families and their animals. 

I suppose the other side of the equation is that driving a minivan essentially labels you as someone who has given up — no more sports cars, or fine wines, or running marathons — something like that.  Instead of socializing with your hip friends at the latest “in” nightspot on Saturday nights, you check out a DVD from the library and try, really try, to watch the entire movie before you become too tired and have to go to bed, only to wake up again every two hours as the night wears on. 

You know; that kind of thing. 

The fact of the matter is, on my drive to the City of Angels and back yesterday, I was probably the fastest vehicle on the road.  I had the electric seat warmer going , the sunroof open, music playing, and the cruise control on 80 mph. 

All in my minivan.  No worries, mon.

You see, even though the minivan is uncool, it’s also almost completely transparent to Police Authorities.  The highway patrol is focused on those Porsches and BMWs in the left lane, while I’m cruising along faster than all of them somewhere else. 

It’s beautiful. 

And to be completely honest, my Wife’s minivan will literally run circles around the “sports car” that I’m fixing up.  It’s better built, more comfortable, smells better (at least right now it does), and has about twice the horsepower of the Alfa (and three times the horsepower of my old Beater Miata). 

The minivan is the ultimate Q-Ship, if you can wrap your head around the fact that everyone you know is sneering at you for driving it. 

Well, I picked up the parts before lunch, stuffed them in the van, and motored back to the south, making even better time than on the trip up.  I did it in quiet, safe, and secure comfort.

I do have to confess, however, that I did stop and purchase a foo-foo coffee for the trip.  I had some difficulty because it was very hard maneuvering the van in the parking lot to find a space, because the whole place is sized for little BMWs and Porsches — the kinds of cars Soccer Moms and Dads drive when they are not in their minivans.  Actually, they probably drive SUVs and not minivans, but that’s a topic for another blog.

As for me, I have lots of practice driving vehicles that potentially challenge my self-esteem.  Whether it’s bopping around in Daughter’s VW Cabrio, or taking Dandy Dog to the local dog park in the Wife’s minivan, I’ve reached a point where I pretty much don’t give a sh care about those kinds of things anymore. 

After all, Chevy Chase may not have ended up with Christie Brinkley in Vacation, but he didn’t have to.  He already had Beverly D’Angelo. 

Same here. 

- Dad

76 days ago Short URL 1 Comment

Family/Humor/Lesbian Cult/Road Trip/The Daily Trip

//

09

Mar

They’re Back! Part 2

ghost2

“The upstairs ain’t big enough for three people. Well, make that two ‘living’ people and me.”

So, we have a two-story house.  If you dial the Way-Back Machine and read yesterday’s post, you would discover we have been in this place for over a decade now.  There are two bedrooms upstairs; one is small and the other is absolutely huge.  And since both kids were much younger when we moved in, they eventually migrated to the second story sanctuary where they were removed from regular and substantial parental oversight and involvement.

Funny how that works.

Full disclosure here:  I frequently travelled as a part of my job for a good part of the first six years here, so the exact sequence of some of the events I describe below may be slightly out of synch, but their substance is real if the exact order is not.

At some point living here, we began to hear sounds.  Now the “we” I’m referring to is my wife and I. 

Very clearly and with increasing frequency, it was apparent that someone was walking around upstairs — when neither one of the kids was home.  I’m not referring to an odd pop or bump now and again, I am talking about walking around, jumping, banging, etc. 

But much like JoBeth Williams’character in Poltergeist, the phenomena seemed benign and in no way threatening to us.  But, then again, my wife and I were sleeping downstairs and were somewhat removed from the front lines above. 

That is, until one afternoon while I was standing in the kitchen, I glanced down the hallway and saw a little girl run from our bedroom to our (then) baby’s nursery.  She just flitted across and was gone.

I sh kid you not. 

I’ve seen her several times since, and she seems attracted to our youngest daughter’s presence and toys.  Which makes sense if you believe any of this stuff.  She is apparently drawn to the type of life force most closely matching her own. 

At this point, I would like to digress for a moment.  Again, I want to emphasize that, from an adult’s perspective, I have never felt any sort of malevolence from our visitors.  Actually, now just thinking about it, maybe our family is visiting them and not vice versa.  But in my rational way of reasoning, I have always felt that if any of the “departed” ever made their presence known to me, why would they try to scare me?  Unless, of course, they knew me on this earth at some point and were trying to get even!

Sorry, guys!  Really.  Please continue not to hassle me.  Visits are fine; but please have a sense of humor. 

Hmmm?  I wonder if they read blogs. 

Now let me bring Daughter into the picture.  She used to camp out in the big, aforementioned bedroom above us, but she eventually made her way back downstairs to one of the rooms near Mom and Dad.  I always thought it was because she had a hard time keeping her space clean (she did have a problem with that, actually), but I subsequently discovered from my wife that she heard things, too, and wanted to descend to be nearer to us on the first floor.

I suppose all of this never bothered Son.  He stayed up there the whole time before leaving for college and painted his walls dark blue with black curtains for accent.

So, during one of my many absences from home, my wife brought someone in to “cleanse” the house.  I don’t think that what happened in Poltergeist describes what she did, which I’m glad of, really.  Like Craig T. Nelson’s character, I, too, would become confused with the whole “stay away from the light” or “go toward the light” thing. 

Which one is it again?

Well, this woman verified there was, in fact, a presence here with us; she discovered a man and a little girl who were attached to the land around here but not the house itself. 

And when they passed, they passed quickly.  So quickly, in fact, they think they are still alive. 

The Cleanser simply asked them to leave.  None of that “light” stuff.

And they did leave.  For awhile, anyway.

My Wife supplemented the cleansing efforts with her own placement of talismans, relics, and other herbs and spices in the rooms upstairs.  And in our rooms downstairs, too, for good measure.

She has also tried to cleanse me, by the way.  Not sure if it’s working.

Okay.  If you are still hanging in there with me on this, the noises began happening again a few months ago.  And several weeks past, I saw the Little Girl again in the hallway.  Then, a few days ago, we experienced a major banging/walking around episode upstairs.   

Apparently, they are back. 

And I don’t anticipate a visit from Zak Bagans and his crew from Ghost Adventures any time soon, nor do I want them here.  Well, maybe I’d like to meet Aaron. 

I hope our Visitors find some peace or whatever it is they seek. 

It’s funny.  On many days, I’m probably more like them than the realize. 

- Dad

77 days ago Short URL Comments

Family/Humor/The Daily Trip

//

Blog at WordPress.com.
Theme: Esquire by Matthew Buchanan.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 382 other followers

%d bloggers like this: