Mark's Trendy Blog

Time to Pick Pumpkins

2011-10-17T20:37:00.000-04:00

Here are the pictures of people picking pumpkins as promised in the preceding posting about the peculiar...

...and I'm done with alliteration attempts already, all right?

It's Autumn!

2011-10-17T20:22:00.000-04:00

...and so we went to the New River Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch just outside Boone, NC. Gorgeous time of year, and the kids had a great time. I think I took too many pictures, so I had to break this post into two posts. Alliteration: Picking pumpkins at the pumpkin patch posted promptly in the preview of the prior post.

Time for Pictures!

2011-10-02T15:15:00.002-04:00

So we decided to finally get a decent camera! Here are the results. Keep in mind that I'm still learning how to use it, but other than user errors the picture quality is greatly improved from our normal pictures. I'm hoping to get better, but for now I'm posting a LOT of pictures. Jared, Jacob and Katie are in a soccer league so of course the action photos warrant their own post for each respective child, following this post.

These should be full-res pictures, so if you click them you can save the large version. Enjoy!

Jacob's Soccer Pictures

2011-10-02T15:08:00.000-04:00

It's picture time! Here are Jacob's soccer pictures.

Jared's Soccer Pictures

2011-10-02T15:04:00.000-04:00

It's picture time! Here are Jared's soccer pictures.

Katie's Soccer Pictures

2011-10-02T14:58:00.002-04:00

It's picture time! Here are Katie's soccer pictures.

Sadly...

2010-07-03T16:23:00.002-04:00

...some discrimination still exists in the South. This bathroom is for deities only.

Five months in pictures

2010-04-18T12:42:00.016-04:00

Take a look back at 2010 and the latter part of 2009 with me, won't you? I have talked about pictures that we took that needed posting, and now I will show you. See. Enjoy.

Easter 2010:

----

This is a field trip J-1 took with Suzanne in March. It was a museum of some sort, and I'll be jiggered if I can't remember where they went. I wasn't there, right?

This is a multi-ton sphere that the kids are moving thanks to the magic of water.

This is J-1 having a good day. No math today? You betcha.

Trying to think of a "Big" quote, but failing. I know they played "Chopsticks" and "Heart & Soul", but J-1 presumably played, er, is that chord E-Sharp? I dunno.

At this museum, there was minigolf. An important relic of the '80s. I think the girl in pink is his date. The date, obviously, was their first and last. Minigolf dates were awkward, but lo, did we ever keep trying to make them work. Anyway.

Teaching NC'ers how to cut someone off in traffic Cali-style.

-----

N had her first communion a few weeks ago. She says the wine really isn't that bad. Of course, if you drink enough of it...

See the sign? First communion. Proof.

Grandma took N to all of her communion lessons, so she's a proud Grandma.

-----

K's 4th birthday was in March.

K got her first Big Wheel. And she can alllllmost reach the pedals.

Graduating from the trike to the Big Wheel.

Chocolate? YEEESSSSSSSS!!!

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!! (We're still working on candle-blowing technique at our house.)

Again, the feet almost touch.

And K got her first bike as well! She didn't take to it at first, but she loves riding it now. Still on training wheels, but she rides it every chance she gets. The Big Wheel is definitely the second banana.

I like birthdays!

More clothes?

-----

I started coaching this year. J-1 and his friend next door are on the same soccer team, so his dad and I took the reins. It's been fun, and this is J-1's first game of the season:

Our team name is the Cowboys (definitely pre-chosen by the league), so naturally our shirt color is orange. Whew. That's Oklahoma State Cowboys, apparently. Dallas? Pshaw. NEVER.

The fat coach over there is me.

-----

N's 11th birthday took place about a week before K's birthday.

Yeah, birthdays get a little routine as we get older.

Nope, no toys. Clothes, and lots of 'em. By the way, N has a Justin Bieber poster on her bedroom wall. Bah.

-----

And J-2 had his 7th birthday in February.

It's a little bit hard to see, but his Star Wars themed cake seems to be on a Spider-Man background. Weird.

I MC'ed the events for J-2 and his group of friends. Party time! I couldn't tell you what the games were anymore. However, balloons were prominently involved.

J-2 and his friend from next door.

That's me checking my watch. Is it Miller Time yet?

-----

Christmas 2009. Enjoy the glee.

This was Santa's gift to all four kids.

K's haul from Santa.

N's haul from Santa.

J-1's haul from Santa.

J-2's haul from Santa. The RC truck broke within three hours.

-----

Fun in the snow at home last winter.

Suzanne and N's finished product.

I'm all a-Twitter

2010-03-11T12:57:00.003-05:00

Okay. So I must admit that I'm struggling with this blog. When I created the blog, monumental things were happening in our lives, and I figured this would be a fun and easy way to let friends and family know how those things were going. And it worked! However, those things have largely passed and have been well documented here.

Our family is in a happy routine. We are happy, and routine is good. Good and boring. The problem with that is that it does not lend itself to interesting reading. Being cognizant of this fact, I have not written in quite some time. For me, not writing is a bad habit because when things do happen, I tend not to blog about it at all. For instance, J-2 had his seventh birthday last month, and I wrote zip about it. No pictures, no stories.

I read other blogs which tend to be very personal and include intimate details of conversations, and they tend to name names with whom these conversations take place, or to whom an unflattering observation might refer. That's good reading. And yet, I wonder how writing about intimate details of real life does not negatively affect the writer's relationship with others. I wrote some fairly personal details about Mom's death last year, a process which was incredibly helpful for me during a difficult time. I'm sure I embarrassed myself, and I might have embarrassed and/or saddened Mom if she read those things before she passed, but I needed an outlet.

I don't think I need that outlet any longer. I don't need to reveal every detail of our lives in order to deal with the stress of ordinary every-day living. I very much enjoy writing, and I'd like to write interesting things, but I'd much rather maintain good relations with those I'm, you know, related to. Or friends with.

Thus, my dilemma. My resolution: Twitter.

Yes, I've written before about how I can't get behind Twitter because it's lazy writing. I like the writing process, of refining a thought or an idea, even if I'm not particularly good at it. But let's face it, refining a thought about a random event is overkill. I don't need to be recreating Tolstoy here when blogging about a child's birthday. So I'm adding a Twitter feed to this blog.

Here's what I'd like to do with this blog going forward. I plan on tweeting more than blogging. However, I like the blog because sharing pictures is a good thing, and when I have something I'd like to expand upon I'd like to have that option. But for small updates, or quick thoughts, go to the Twitter feed.

If you have a Twitter page, you can follow me: @markferris74

Miami-Bound

2010-01-25T13:31:00.002-05:00

I'm off to Miami tomorrow. As you may know, the NFL is playing the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl in Miami over the next two weeks, and I will be rubbing elbows with elite football players, entourages, agents and groupies for the next two weeks.

Okay, I'm going to Miami for my company's bi-annual convention for five days, not to see the Super Bowl. So, no, it won't be much fun. I won't get to go to any beaches or parties or football games, and instead I get to be away from my family and my bed for five nights. Well, most of us here in the office are in the same boat, so I will try to keep a positive attitude while I'm there. I was successful last year with the positive attitude, and I know I can do it again.

K has an ear infection. Poor girl. She, J-2, and I spent a couple of hours in an urgent care clinic yesterday while N and J-1 went to church with their grandma. If you were a kid, which would you prefer? Doctor's office or church? Church or a doctor's office? But J-2 was a huge help by simply being patient and agreeable, so I rewarded him with a toy motorcycle after we left. K now has antibiotics that she doesn't like. She asked me this morning to fix her ear because it hurt, and when I explained that the medicine will fix her ear, she still didn't want to take it. What is she, three?

Bonding Time

2010-01-20T11:14:00.006-05:00

There has not been much excitement here. Suzanne and I are still working, the new year came, and the three older kids continue to get almost all A's. Also, K likes to play a game called "What Letter Does This Start With?" As in, "What does 'house' start with?" "Hhhhhouse. H!" She's very good at this game. She can also write most letters, and she can spell her name on the computer without any help. She still has trouble writing K's, but she can write the other letters without trouble, so once she learns how to write a K she'll be writing her name.

One thing I wish I could do a lot more is take the kids out for one-on-one activities. I really enjoy their company individually; it's amazing that they have such unique thoughts and can articulate them when given uninterrupted time to do so. This is always so surprising because when together as a group, as the children almost always are, one child can begin a story but quickly gets frustrated because another child invariably tries to tell the story his/her way instead. Of course, this leads to four different children yelling over each other to make their voices heard, which leads to arguing, hitting, and crying. And me white-knuckling the steering wheel.

Suffice to say, these are not stories that I enjoy hearing.

I took J-1 out to the mall and to run some errands two weekends ago, which turned out to be a lot of fun. He talked about school -- you know, the details that kids leave out when you ask them how their day was after you get home from work ("How was school today?" "Good."). I got to hear about the new girl in his class whom nobody seems to like, that he and his friend Hampton are still not allowed to sit next to each other because they talk too much, and that he still likes the prettiest girl in school. Kylie, I believe her name is? Well, no matter. You always get your first girlfriend in fourth grade, so he has to wait a year. Or, at least the opportunity for a girlfriend. If memory serves, I literally ran away from a pretty girl who presented me with such an opportunity in fourth grade. Nice and smooth, that's my motto.

Several people had prodded me to go see "Avatar" in an IMAX theater with 3D, that it was amazing, yadda yadda yadda. So last weekend I decided to take J-2 to see the IMAX version, thinking it would be one of those "whoa" moments for his childhood, like "Star Wars" was for me. The nearest IMAX theater to us is about 95 miles away, in North Charlotte, and so I get to say that I literally drove a hundred miles to watch "Avatar". And not to bore you with details about yet another movie, but it was a fantastic moviegoing experience. Not a great movie in and of itself, but the 3D visual effects were incredible. J-2 had a tough time keeping his giant 3D glasses on his face, but he laughed and ate popcorn and drank Mr. Pibb and we had a great time at the movies.

(That's two uses of the word "literally" in one post! How ironic since I hate that word due to its frequent misuse. And doubly ironic since I hate the word "ironic" for the same reason. You know what my newest hated word is? "Hyperbole", as in it is the currently the most overused word in print, and definitely the most overused word in the history of the entire universe. Anyway, back to the story.)

After the movie, J-2 and I walked the large outlet mall of which the IMAX theater was a part, and we ended up wandering into the world's largest hunting/fishing/outdoors store. I mean, it was the Wal-Mart of fishin' stores. They had everything. Including a very large rifle and handgun display that was hard not to gravitate towards. As we stood looking at the shiny steel lying in velvet behind the clear glass case, J-2 pulled my arm and said, "Mark, those are real guns; I have to run away from them." This from the kid who loves playing war with toy guns more than anything. Good boy. But let's hang out just a minute longer...soooo shinyyyyyy....

No, I did not end up buying J-2 his first 9mm Barretta. But I did get him a camo baseball cap, which he loved.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

2009-12-28T11:53:00.011-05:00

Christmas came, and Christmas went. No more shopping. And yet, the Visa bill remains. The final remnants of snow from the blizzard two weeks ago are trying desperately to melt. The end of a dreadful national decade is almost upon us, with the hope of a more prosperous decade glistening in the distance. Glistening, you might say, not unlike a Red Ryder BB gun with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time.

Yes, I think my favorite part of this holiday season (other than receiving Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for the Xbox 360 [thanks, Honey!]) has been watching "A Christmas Story" three times. Now, this is a rare movie that gets funnier every time I watch it. This holiday season, I decided to add this movie to my list of movies that violate the law of diminishing returns as far as entertainment value received per number of times watched. This list is small. It includes:

"The Big Lebowski"
"Napoleon Dynamite"
"A Christmas Story"

In order to be on this list, a movie must have sufficient subtlety to reward the viewer with new, previously unnoticed and amusing details each time he or she watches it. If I considered this list for any length of time, the list might get longer. But that has to be the top three.

Suzanne and I watched "A Christmas Story" together, then I watched it alone, and best of all, I watched it with the kids for the second year in a row. It's not entirely appropriate for kids, but then again, life is short. I especially loved how J-1 noticed one of the little things that makes this movie rewatchable: When Ralphie's dad is unsuccessfully trying to glue back his shattered "major award" leg lamp, J-1 noticed Ralphie's mom stifling a chuckle in the background. I wouldn't have thought that an eight-year-old would notice subtlety like that -- let alone find it funny -- but then again, I'm talking about a kid who gets straight A's and was talking in complete, fluid sentences at 24 months old. Genius is as genius does.

Some of my favorite "A Christmas Story" movie quotes:

Dad: He looks like a deranged Easter Bunny."
Mom: Oh, he does not."
Dad: Yes, he does. He looks like a pink nightmare."

Ralphie: "'Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.' Ovaltine? A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!"

Dad: "'Fra-gee-lay.' It must be Italian!"
Mom: "I think it says 'fragile'."

Chop Suey Quartet: "Deck the hawrs wit bow of hawry, fah-rah-rah-rah-rah, rah-rah-rah-rah."

Santa Claus: "If Higbee thinks I'm working one minute past nine o'clock, he can kiss my foot. HO HO HO!!"

Dad (cradling the shattered remains of his major award): "You were always jealous of this lamp!"
Mom: "Jealous?"
Dad: "Jealous! Jealous that I won."
Mom: "Jealous of what?! That is...the ugliest lamp I have ever seen in my life!"
Dad (shaking with rage): "GET THE GLUE."
Mom: "WE'RE OUT OF GLUE."
Dad: "Yoooou...used up all the glue...ON PURPOSE!"
Narrator: "The old man stood there quivering with fury, stammering as he tried to come up with a real crusher. All he got out was...."
Dad (putting on his hat and running out the front door): "Not a finger!"

So, rather than spinning another tale about Christmas at our house like I did last year, I think I will return to everyone's favorite game: Name That Movie Quote! As always, the first person to correctly answer in the comments section gets a point. No cheating!*

"What are you going to do?"
"Dunno, I'll think of something."
"Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue."
"Well. I can see that your Schwartz is as big as mine."
"Don't call me stupid."
"Hey, do you want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
"28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, 12 seconds. That...is when the world...will end."
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works."
"God gave me a gift. I shovel. I shovel well."
"Franks and beans! Franks and beans!"
"By Grabthar's Hammer, you shall be avenged."

* some quotes may have been used in a previous game. If so, please direct all refund requests to management.

Look At Us!

2009-12-21T13:45:00.003-05:00

I promised family pics, and by this day I am a man of my word. Yup, this is us.

OMFG! It's Santa!

2009-12-15T11:40:00.022-05:00

Yes, we did indeed pack the kids in the minivan-shaped sleigh and headed out to The Mall to see Santa Claus. And there was much rejoicing.

Sunday 'twas an action-packed day for the family. We made the kids all take showers and baths in the morning so that they could be squeaky clean for family picture day. We had an appointment at 1:40 p.m. at the portrait studio for our annual hey-everyone-look-at-us day. (Photos to be posted to the blog soon, and Christmas cards will be sent to you soon. If you've been good.) We also wanted to have lunch as a family, and the kids wanted to see Santa at the mall, so we had our itinerary set for the day.

We lunched at TGI Friday's where the tables and servers were striped and merry, chicken strips and fries were eaten, and a cell phone was nearly forgotten. Thanks be to our wonderful server who chased us down in the parking lot to return the phone. We left the restaurant with plenty of time to make our 1:40 appointment. Things were going well.

Dun-dunnnnnnn....

You just know this is where the wheels come off, right? Right. We arrived at the portrait studio at 1:30 for our 1:40 appointment. Why have I mentioned our appointment time not once, not twice, but thrice? Because apparently appointments at the portrait studio are more of a guesstimate as to when the appointment will be filled. I would think that arriving at a 1:40 appointment ten minutes early will assuredly result in our pictures being taken at, oh, I dunno, ONE-FORTY.

When we walked in, the studio waiting areas were packed like clown cars with bowed-up, button-downed, hair-slicked kids of all ages from many, many families. I'm thinking, huh, guess they should've made an appointment, but we're here, when do we shoot? Turns out I was not the only one thinking that. On the contrary; everyone else in the entire friggin' universe was thinking that because they all made "appointments" as well.

By about 2:15, many families not named Ferris had been escorted to the studios, many more families not named Ferris were still waiting, and we were out of ideas on how to keep the kids entertained. After all, K can only pull her dress up over her head and yell at people for sitting in her chair so many times before she gets bored. (Is she still three? Right, just checking.) Suzanne found out that we still had about 45 minutes to go before our turn, but she talked a photographer into doing a quick shoot for us right then because the family whose turn it was had not finished primping. We were in and out in five minutes with shots taken of the family, Suzanne and I as a couple, each of the kids individually, and the kids in a group.

Sufficiently rattled by waiting so long with kids who were actually behaving quite patiently for children, but would be considered pathetically impatient if they were adults, we headed for The Mall to go see Santa.

It was crowded, of course, but the line to see Santa was not unreasonable. The wait looked to be maybe 45 minutes to an hour, and it was our own fault for waiting until less than two weeks before Christmas to see Santa. However, the kids were excited and trying to remember 350 +/- days' worth of accumulated Christmas wishes, so the wait was all good.

Peeking through the cotton-snow and displays, the older kids excitedly pointed out the dour-faced Santa to K as he dutifully listened to another wish list from another child. When I took a gander, I must say that Santa did not look very comfortable. Soon, he was standing and stretching his legs in between visits before plopping his bowlful of jelly back in his velvety throne of joy. A sign that Santa may soon leave, perhaps?

About 20 minutes after we got in line, a short, wrinkly, bitter-looking elf walked down the line, stopped in front of me, turned her back to me, waved her arm up and down with the back of her hand to me so as to signify a separation. She did not speak to me or anyone else behind us in line, but I did hear her mumble to the person in front of her, "You're the last to get in before Santa takes a break for an hour." As if the person who she was not cutting off needs to know.

Suzanne and I, along with the family behind us, immediately smelled some serious bullshit the elf stepped in. We all protested -- loudly -- that the end of the line was actually some distance behind us and we had already waited this long, so we should be able to get in before the break. The elf pointed to a man she identified as her manager and completely threw him under the bus, saying she was just doing what he told her to do.

Suzanne made a beeline to the manager and let him know of the mistake he was making. The manager told Suzanne he wasn't changing his mind, so she returned and we adults in line all took turns belittling the manager from a safe distance. The bitter elf stood in line in front of us for the next half hour and refused to say another word to anyone in line behind her. I give her credit; she silently absorbed quite a few not-so-subtle insults directed her way during that wait.

Suzanne, sensing that I was going to perhaps get a little bit loud with the manager before he called a break, sent me off on a few errands. I bought some ice cream treats for the kids while they waited for Santa to come back. And they waited...

And waited...

And waited.

I left The Mall to get a certain gift for one of the kids and to collect the pictures from the studio (and they looked great, by the way! Again, pictures to come soon). While I was gone, I plotted how I was going to get free Santa pictures from the manager for making us wait, and what I would do if he refused. These options included:

Yell and insult the manager before meekly buying his product.
Yell and insult the manager and not buy his product.
No yelling, but refuse to buy any pictures, and use our cell phones to snap pictures for free instead. (Normally this would be unconscionable for me: These people are in business, too.)
Fart right in Santa's face after the kids get off Santa's lap.

After concocting Evil Plot #4, I laughed quite a lot. How great would that be? Just back right up to him, his face already at butt level, and just let one rip. But then I thought, that's a real beard so he's definitely a salt-of-the-earth type. I'm sure he gets worse from his common-law wife back home in the doublewide. Not to mention, it would be shockingly bad karma: Who farts on Santa Claus? And lastly, the only people who will certainly be upset are the people behind us who were planning to sit their kids on this freshly-befouled cherub. And that would be missing the target entirely.

Eh, maybe I shouldn't do that despite how angry we were at the disrespect. And then I was laughing at myself for laughing about an Evil Plot. It was an Evil Plot Cackle! But we weren't at all angry that Santa needed a break. It was just the way they went about giving him the break. The bitter elf should have waddled to the end of the line and let all newcomers know that Santa would be taking a break.

I got back to The Mall about five minutes before Santa returned from his break. Suzanne and I decided to go with Evil Plot #3: Take our own damn pictures for free. That rotten manager was nowhere to be seen. Screw those guys.

Despite being cell phone camera quality, they actually turned out better than the crappy Santa pictures we usually pay $24.95 for! The kids got to ask Santa for more stuff, they got to sit on his lap and were none the wiser about what the problem was.

Good day.

Hooray! It arrived.

2009-12-15T11:34:00.005-05:00

I'm told that the proper answer to the next question I will be asked is: No, I won't do your taxes.

Just kidding. I'll totally do your taxes without any prior experience looking for the deductions and writeoffs you'll need this year. I can wing it.

I Still Love Babelfish

2009-12-03T09:18:00.002-05:00

Just for fun, I translated the first paragraph from yesterday's post to German and back to English using Babelfish. Here is the revised paragraph:

My first complete tag job, provides, short after Abitur was and held for four years at the expense of a university formation, at the local whale Mart. I was adjusted in October from 1992 as Höflichkeitsekretärin, which is a fantastischer title for cart slidegate valves/collecting tanks, and in this capacity I was to learn the rope of the retail trade that to the crowding and for the hasty bustle of the vacation time f5uhrt.

I only wish my first job involved collecting tanks at a whale mart.

Thanksgiving and the Darkness Which Follows

2009-12-02T12:48:00.021-05:00

My first full-time job, procured shortly after high school graduation and held for four years at the expense of a college education, was at the local Wal-Mart. I was hired in October of 1992 as a courtesy clerk, which is a fancy title for cart-pusher/gatherer, and in this capacity I was able to learn the ropes of the retail trade leading up to the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking Wal-Mart is a quaint family-oriented general store that offers quality merchandise at affordable prices, with cashiers who know their customers' names by heart. Oh, you simple, naive blog-reader! In reality, Wal-Mart is a large box megastore staffed by sullen non-union employees being paid nigh-slave wages with minimal health insurance benefits, if any at all. The only smiles you'll see at Wal-Mart are on the faces of retired, legally-blind greeters, and/or on the logo itself:

But I digress. As I was saying, I was able to get my retail legs under me for a month before the run-up to the day after Thanksgiving, or Black Friday. "Black Friday" was a term I had not heard before I started working for Wal-Mart, but apparently it was a term that was well-known by many. So many, in fact, that I -- along with all other Wal-Mart associates (employees, for the WM uninitiated) -- was threatened with termination of my employment if I decided to call out sick or late for my shift on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Not wanting to sacrifice my generous five-bucks-an-hour wage, I resolved to be at the store on time at 5:00 a.m.

I have memories of several impressive "firsts" in my life that I will never forget: The first time I saw the Star Wars AT-AT with a bow on it standing next to the Christmas tree when I was eight, watching the ground leave me while on my first airplane flight, my then-girlfriend's shocked and delighted reaction to the first (and only) time I proposed marriage, the first time I saw and heard my daughter when she was born. But also not to be forgotten is the first time I saw a Wal-Mart Black Friday crowd lined up in front of the store.

I remember driving up to the massive and ordinarily half-empty parking lot to park in the employee parking area, but not immediately finding a space. There were hundreds and hundreds of people lining up outside the front door at five in the morning. The hell? The store doesn't even open until six! I had no idea how long they had been there, but given the size of the crowd I would say the first shoppers arrived at midnight, at least. I was able to make my way through the crowd and was allowed entry to the store by the manager.

The night stocking crew had set out pallets of merchandise in the aisles, barely even bothering to show the prices of the items. In many cases, prices were marked in sloppy Sharpie writing on the sides of brown shipping boxes. In many other cases, prices were not listed at all; surely the customers would know the prices from the ads they desperately clutched in their white-knuckled claws.

Before the doors were opened, I was told to basically stay out of the way and help out where I was needed. I didn't have anywhere in particular to be when the store opened, so I chose to stand near the front and watch what happened. The managers unlocked the inner doors to the vestibule, then the outer doors.

Madness. Chaos. Disharmony. Fox News. Ugliness. Insanity. Greed.

Like a wave of human nausea, the people vomited themselves into the store. Many people broke into full sprints down the aisles. Shopping carts started banging against other carts and filling up with merchandise. All 24 cash registers were opened for the first time that I could recall, and each register had a long line of sweaty and mutinous shoppers leading up to it for the remainder of the morning.

It was a notable day for me, filled with directing disappointed people to empty displays where their target purchases had already been snapped up ten-at-a-time by early birds within 15 minutes of the store's opening. I remember thinking -- even in my halcyon Limbaugh-listening, Smithian days of youth -- how odd it was for these people who were giving thanks for their blessings less than 24 hours prior to be acting really put-out about not being able to buy a goddamn Nintendo Gameboy on sale for $69.95. Like, I'm sorry you missed out, but why don't you pay the extra $30 next week when they're back in stock? It won't break you, and it's just a video game. Just sayin'.

It is now 17 years later, and Black Friday is not only still here but has been expanded to the full weekend, Cyber Monday, and -- why not? -- Black November. I haven't actually heard the term "Black November" yet, mind you, but this year I started seeing holiday displays in stores near the end of October. Take heed; Black November is coming.

All told, I worked at Wal-Mart for, count 'em, five Black Fridays before my retail career came to a merciful end. I've made it my business to deliberately miss Black Friday since those days. You would think this is about as easy a goal as trying not to join the Taliban, but I failed this year. Hanging Christmas lights on the day after Thanksgiving is what did me in. I realized that I did not have enough lights, extension cords, or automatic timers to suit my exotic lighting tastes, so I packed all four kids in the minivan and headed off to Target to buy some holiday cheer. Since we arrived in the afternoon (after the big morning rush), the store was not insanity incarnate but merely massively crowded with wall-to-wall people. We were able to get in, find the lights in the back of the store, pick up a few odds and ends on the way to the register, and get out within a reasonable amount of time. With the help of a small bag of popcorn for the kids to fight over.

However, I actually really like Christmas shopping. It's exciting to think about how much the kids are going to love opening their gifts. I love seeing all the Christmas loot laid out and set up on Christmas morning, and then watching them open their presents.

I've spent the past couple of evenings at Toys R Us (those damn commies are still using a backwards R in their logo) looking for stuff to get the kids. The store wasn't quite wall-to-wall people, but it was certainly much more crowded than usual. I bought items for the kids on Monday, returned one item and bought more stuff on Tuesday, and then I realized that the stuff I bought on Tuesday won't work out at all and so I need to return those items. I'm not doing that today. Hopefully Suzanne will take care of that tomorrow because I can't handle going back there for a third day in a row.

Art, Music, and Shortcomings

2009-11-24T10:53:00.024-05:00

Growing up in Elk Grove, California, a suburb of Sacramento, autumn Friday nights were usually dominated by the Elk Grove High School football games. We lived about two miles from the campus, and on clear nights from our house I could see the glow of lights from the stadium rising above the rooftops in the neighborhood. If I listened carefully, I could also hear the indistinct voice of the PA: "...mfldsfdh gain of 10 on the play, tackle by fdsinoewnds...."

I could tell something was going on over there in the distance. It's a football game, definitely, but I don't know who's winning or any details. The crowd cheered; something good just happened. I can't clearly see it or hear it, but I know it's there.

I feel exactly the same way about music and art. I know there's something there, but I cannot give you details. I don't know why music or art is good or bad from a critical, technical, or emotional standpoint. I can tell you in a general sense if I believe it's good or not, and I can tell you what I feel about it, if anything, but it is usually of little use because I don't know why it's good or why I feel the way I feel about it.

With music, there is very little out there that I enjoy these days. Most of what I listen to is the same old stuff I've been listening to for the last 10 to 25 years. Our new car came with XM satellite radio, and I've found that I can't listen to a station playing modern music for more than a couple of minutes before I'm bored beyond belief. Maybe I'm just a curmudgeonly old man at age 35, but I think Rob Thomas, Black Eyed Peas, and Daughtry need to be just dropped off the end of a pier. They're so bland and boring. Before I know it, I'm listening to the 80s and 90s channels again. I just can't handle the modern stuff.

My friend Chris has tried to introduce me to a lot of indie-type bands over the years that I would not have otherwise heard of, but I just don't care one way or another about most of these bands. It's not that these bands are bad -- or even bland -- but I don't feel anything about their music. I have no idea how Chris and others can take any music, listen to it and form an opinion, but I can't.

On the other hand, today I've been listening to The White Stripes album De Stijl, which includes a song called "Death Letter". It is nothing more than a blues song with some nice guitar riffs, but I'll be damned if I haven't just listened to it five times in a row. I've heard blues before; this song is nothing new. But that shit makes me want to pick up a guitar and learn to play.

So why do I like Jack White but not Rob Thomas? Well, effort, certainly. White seems to care about his craft. But I've never heard one of White's songs as an NBA intro. Maybe it's simply the fact that a given song has a kickass guitar riff. Maybe I just like songs with prominent basslines. Maybe I just like songs that remind me of someone or something. But I don't know.

I can't tell you why I think a song is good or not. It just is or isn't.

With art, I can look at a Picasso and think to myself, there's something I don't want to hang on my wall because it doesn't look nice. However, a Kinkade painting is just the right color for my living room. It looks nice.

My mom, being an artist, loathed Kinkade paintings. She was not terribly opinionated about it outwardly, but she did make the odd comment here and there. When I asked why she had a negative opinion about Kinkade paintings, she avoided answering in fear of starting an argument. However, my questions about this topic were not designed to be confrontational: I genuinely want to know why Kinkade paintings are considered to be "bad" even though they look so good.

Mom finally answered one day. She felt that Kinkade paintings were illustrations, not art.

I thought about that. What is art? I know some basics about art. I know art is an interpretation, or a deliberate reaction to an emotion. I know impressionism is less about the way something literally looks, but rather how the artist reacts to something. That's neat, right? I like that idea. However, I don't necessarily like the way it looks. (Okay, everyone likes Starry Night, but Van Gogh was sort of the exception. All of his stuff that I've seen would look good hanging on a wall.)

I can't tell you why I think a painting is good or not. It just is or isn't.

It seems like artists -- those who Know About Art -- have an immediate aversion to anything mainstream. Kinkade paintings and Starry Night are for the masses, so throw it up on posterboard and thumbtack it to your dorm wall because it looks nice and you don't have to think or feel one way or another about it. Artists must always feel. Feel, feel, feel.

That right there is my major shortcoming when it comes to right-brain thinking, and why I am probably not a good writer. I can be a good transcriber or a copy editor, but not a good writer.

Here's why. I have a natural aversion to whining and melodrama. Generally speaking, my reaction to any problem is A) Fix the problem, and B) Get over it. Sure, I have feelings about the problem or situation, but I am somewhat embarassed to express that feeling in writing. I mean, I have before, but constantly writing about what I'm feeling is tantamount to whining. Fix the problem, get over it. Maybe the problem's resolution will make for a nice story.

Romance novels are nice stories. The "Harry Potter" series was a nice story. But good writing? Probably not. (And yes, I do know that I said earlier that "Harry Potter" was good writing, but after reading the entire series I've changed my mind.)

I think if I really put all my effort into it, I could write a novel that is a nice story. It would be nicely assembled, with paragraphs and punctuation and everything. But I don't believe I have the ability to be a good writer. I just don't examine life...enough? Correctly? ...as good writers do. There are no original thoughts here. However, I enjoy writing a great deal, and I will continue to write on this blog from time to time because I enjoy it beyond simply giving friends and family updates as to what we're up to.

I would just really like to be able to grasp whatever it is that right-brained people grasp. I can see it there on the horizon.

We're All Gonna Die!

2009-11-16T13:04:00.005-05:00

I'm sitting here at my desk, and I had a thought/feeling that I can't recall ever feeling before. Maybe everyone has felt this way and I'm just behind. If so, feel free to laugh at my naive ways.

Take a disaster movie -- any disaster movie -- and imagine a scene of hundreds of people running from certain death in a state of horrified panic. "War of the Worlds: Tom Cruise Acts Like Tom Cruise Yet Again" is a good movie for this exercise. The alien machines are marching down the street and shooting their death rays at a large crowd of people, while the crowd runs screaming and vanishing in poofs of CGI pixels. They are running from certain death into the waiting arms of certain death, but it doesn't stop them from screaming and running. Always with the running.

Why don't we all do that, like, constantly?

We're all going to die. If it happens tomorrow or in eighty years, doesn't matter. It's going to happen. And it's going to happen to every single other person in the world, as well. I just thought about that and had the sensation of vertigo. Shouldn't this feeling cause panic? We're all gonna die! Help, help, save us!

Or perhaps it was just the leftover lasagna I had for lunch not sitting right. It sure was tasty, though.

***

On a lighter note, I've decided that our three-year-old, K, is a walking, talking embodiment of the GOP. "No! Let me do it, even though my way of doing it will surely result in a spill or a loud bang of some sort."

I'm ready for her to be four.

To be fair, she will certainly be the embodiment of Democrats when she turns 14: "We're going to Disneyworld? Cool! And we're staying for a week at the Disney Hotel and we can get room service 24/7? Awesome! That'll be so much fun! I can't wait! I'm going to go invite my boyfriend to come along so that we can share a private room! Oh, he can't come? Then screw you guys, I'm not going, either."

Come to think of it, I'm looking forward to being a granddaddy -- in 25 years or so. Registering Independent is the way to go.

An Open Letter to October 2009

2009-10-27T11:20:00.009-04:00

Dear October,

Thanks for stopping by. You weren’t here long, but you’ve left a swath of previously-unblogged-about memories in your wake.

First and foremost, thank you for being the month in which my CPA application was approved, and for notifying me that I am now officially a Certified Public Accountant as of the 19th of you. I’ve waited a long time and worked very hard to become a CPA, and I’d like to thank you for the quaint parcel of anticlimax that punctuated my quest. While you did not actually include the certificate itself, October, I do appreciate the title. Even if I have no idea what I’m going to do with it. If it’s all the same to you, please have November send me the certificate so that I might proudly frame it and hang it somewhat precariously on my cubicle dividing wall.

Thank you for my brother Rob’s wedding, which took place earlier in you. While I did not particularly enjoy flying to, being in, or finding myself delayed in leaving Sacramento, my brother’s wedding outfit, highlighted by his papalesque, red-velvet-lined ivory cloak, was the gift that kept on giving all month long. Enjoy this picture of we three siblings:

Shazam.

Now, there are undoubtedly many truths about myself of which I remain blissfully unaware, but this much I know: I am nowhere near fly enough to pull off that outfit. Kudos to Rob, whose unparalleled vision and commitment to an idea born years ago, frankly, deserves a standing ovation. *Begin slow clap*

With that said, October, thank you for the gorgeous weather you bestowed upon downtown Sacramento that Sunday afternoon. The burgundy-and-ivory color scheme worked beautifully against the backdrop of the State Capitol Rose Garden, and the photographers were hopefully able to adequately capture it. It was a fantastic location for a wedding ceremony, and I'm glad I was there to see it.

The wedding reception that followed was memorable if for no other reason than the wedding toasts, one of which was simply disastrous. It was the type of disastrous wedding toast that might find its way into a movie one day. The type of wedding toast where you feel embarrassed for the speaker as it's happening. I've heard of disastrous wedding toasts before, but this was the first time I'd actually witnessed one. I won't go into details, October, but let's just say I was delighted to be experiencing it for the first time, like the first time I saw Billy Martin get thrown out of a game for kicking dirt on an umpire in person when I was a boy. However, I do hope Rob and Rebecca know it wasn't their fault because they did a great job putting the wedding together.

May I ask you a question, October? Why is the Minneapolis airport a major airline hub? I really wish you had carried the nice Sunday weather over to Monday in Minnesota, because I did not appreciate being delayed, missing a connecting flight, and spending several hours in Detroit hoping to catch a flight to Raleigh-Durham before driving home and walking in the front door at 2:00 a.m.

On the other side of the coin, however, was the treat of actually walking into the Minneapolis terminal and experiencing the Minnesota accent first-hand. I swear that I am not lying or exaggerating when I report that the first voice I heard was that of a man watching the blizzard raging outside a terminal window and saying, "Ooooooo, dat's a lodda snoo! It's uhrrrley dis year." The only thing that would've made my trip awesomer (other than a requisite you-betcha) would be catching a connecting flight to JFK and hearing someone say fuhgeddaboudit in the terminal. So thanks for that, October.

However, October, while I would like to thank you for the Swine Flu that brought my family to its collective knees this month, I’m not going to. You’ll be interested to know that every minute of the H1N1 experience has really, really sucked. In addition to the inconvenience of caring for (or arranging for the caring of) sick kids who are not able to go to school, not to be forgotten is the spirit-crushing sensation of the 103-degree fever for four days. I, for one, am quite used to getting a cold, feeling like shit, taking pseudoephedrine pills by the fistful, and getting on with my day. I am not used to simply being unable to function, as I was last week. I'm glad to be semi-normal feeling today with very little shortness of breath. Only the cough remains. Well, that and the oinking. Oinky, oinky, oink.

Perhaps we should have tried to get the H1N1 vaccine, October. What do you think? That way we could have gone up to Grandfather Mountain to see the leaves, like we did last year. But everyone was sick the past two weekends, and now the peak color season has passed. Here's the thing, though: Our back yard and my daily commute are also just gorgeous during your month. The colors on the trees are brilliant orange, yellow, and red, just like I was told about in elementary school. We didn't miss much by not hitting Grandfather Mountain this year. And by not taking the vaccine, we didn't subject ourselves to a hastily-assembled, poorly-tested injection produced with the help of a government-issued hold harmless agreement. So, we won't grow that third eye in the middle of our foreheads like everyone else, which is a good thing. You only need so much depth perception, I always say.

So, thanks. Thanks for being a great month. I've enjoyed capping off an undefeated fantasy baseball season, and starting off my fantasy football season 7-0. I've enjoyed playing Madden 10 and Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare on XBox Live. (Wanna friend me on Xbox Live, October? ferrismark.) I look forward to seeing you again in 2010. Buh-bye, now. Buh-bye.

Regards,

Mark

When a Car Knows It's donE.

2009-09-10T23:31:00.014-04:00

So, last week, after sending the kids on their way to the school bus, I loaded K in The Red Van and prepared to drop her off at Grandma’s for the day and then drive to work. This is a very normal routine, one I’ve performed many, many times. Except this time, the van didn’t start when I turned the key. The dash came on and everything seemed to be working with the exception of the engine. All things considered, I’d rather the temperature gauge didn’t work if I had to choose a part of the car to malfunction.

Now, I am by no means a mechanic. I like cars just fine, but I am terrible at diagnosing problems, let alone fixing them. However, I do know that some cars are pretty and drive fast, and I know that some cars are ugly and drive slow, and I know that I’ve owned more than my fair share of shitty cars that break down a lot. So I’ve had some under-the-hood experience with cars. For example, I know that when I turn the key and the car doesn’t start, then something is wrong. I also know that if my car fails to start the first time, try, try again, say “no-no-no-NO-NO!” a few times, and hope that I just imagined the engine’s failure to start.

All of which, of course, I did. The car failed to start once, then twice. I took a deep breath and tried again, hoping that I could at least produce a sound from the engine from which I could diagnose the problem, preferably something that sounds a lot like a human being saying “The alternator is dead” in a loud, clear voice. But on the third turn of the key in the ignition, success! The car started right up, and I was saved. I did, however, notice that the mileage on the digital odometer had been briefly replaced by the following word:

Ah.

Well, I suppose that’s a sign. Thanks, car, for the tip.

I managed to drive K to Grandma’s, and I made it to work with no problems. However, I was skeptically glancing at the dashboard out of the corner of my eye with raised eyebrow the whole trip to the office. During my lunch break, I had a guy at Autozone test the car battery, and he told me it was a good battery. He suggested the alternator might have died, or perhaps it was a little bit cold this morning and the car struggled to start. Drawing upon my vast mechanical expertise, I calculated that the problem was most likely not because the car was a little bit chilly this morning.

Now, this is not a new car. It’s a 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan with 92,000 miles on it, so it was probably just showing its age. The car was now running with no problems, so what did it matter that it failed to start on one occasion? I put it out of mind, and continued on with my life.

Then, a couple of days later, I was driving K from her preschool open house when several warning lights slammed to life with a resounding “ding” while my external thermometer and compass slipped into darkness, and the air conditioner ceased…um…conditioning. Okay, something’s definitely wrong here. See how quickly I deduced that? I’m a good car…fixin’…guy.

I turned the car around and took it to a mechanic. I asked the mechanic to check the alternator, which he did and reported there were no problems. He suggested it might be a computer or wiring problem, and that I should try a Dodge dealership. Too bad. I was hoping to look smart for the mechanic and correctly diagnose the problem – surely I was only bothering the mechanic because the problem had occurred mere moments ago, and I had left my spare alternator and alternator-replacing tools at home.

That evening, I gave Suzanne the bad news that we would have to take the car in to the shop. I also threw out the amusing anecdote of the car telling me it was “donE” a couple of days ago, hoping for a laugh. However, Suzanne, being smarter than me, figured that “donE” was probably a clue of some sort and began using the power of the Internet to find a solution. She was able to learn that “donE” meant the car’s computer had performed a self-diagnostic, and that the accompanying error code(s) would give us the problem. Yeah, I was going to say that.

Suzanne was able to replicate the “donE” message by turning the car on and off three times, and pulled a couple of error codes that we looked up online. It confirmed our darkest fears: likely on-board computer failure requiring a fifteen hundred to two thousand dollar repair bill.

We were then facing a dilemma. Do we pay for the repairs and keep the completely paid-off minivan, or do we look into buying a new car? We had already sunk a good eleven hundred dollars in repairs over the previous three months for a new A/C compressor and a brake job. If we dropped another two grand into the van, would that be the last repair bill or would more repairs be needed?

Curse you, Cash For Clunkers. If only your blissful generosity had been extended another month.

Of course, dealer lots were not filled to overflowing thanks to C4C last month. Not many good deals were there for the taking. However, one deal did catch my eye: GM was offering 0% APR for 72 months on 2009 Impalas. You know the Impala, AKA, “Car, Chevrolet”. It’s not a spicy car. It’s not a sexy car. But a decent Impala has a 3.9 liter V6 engine and loads of creature comforts, and GMAC is offering to essentially pay people to drive them off the lot at zero percent interest.

Taking a page from Suzanne, I used the power of the Internet to locate a good Impala. I found one in particular at a dealership that was clearly designed to pull people onto the lot, as it was spotlighted on the dealer's website and was quite a bit less than other Impalas with fewer options. I called the dealer to get more information about the car and made an appointment for a test drive.

Suzanne and I test drove the car, and we really liked it. The interior belies the somewhat dull exterior, and it has a whole lot of power and control. It was really fun to drive. We decided to buy it. Of course, in the end the offer wasn't nearly as good in reality as was implied (or, rather, explicitly stated) on the dealer's website. But even so, it was still a very good deal. We agreed to a deal at a higher (but still lower than invoice) price and filled out the credit application. But of course, as we were about to sign the papers, they informed us that the deal was even less favorable than we had agreed, and we stormed out in a huff. Liars!

After we got home, we reconsidered our options. We thought maybe repairing the van was a good idea to save us the car payments. However, Monday brought word that the actual repair tab was going to be about a hundred and fifty dollars. We re-reconsidered, and decided that we should accept the "donE" message as a harbinger of things to come. After repairing the van, it would be in great condition with relatively low mileage, so it should be sold with a new commuter car bought to replace it.

Long story short, I was not able to locate another deal anywhere near as good as the revised deal from the shady dealership, so I called them back and put the revised deal back on the table. We went in on Tuesday and signed the papers on a brand new 2009 Chevy Impala with 0% APR for 72 months including a 72-month/100,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. That's piece of mind right there. And it's a shiny new car for our garage.

I passed the CPA Exam!

2009-09-05T19:56:00.003-04:00

I'm not putting forth any writing effort today, but I thought I'd just pass along that I found out today that I passed the fourth and final section of the CPA Exam. I'll write more soon, but yay!

Little Things

2009-08-26T18:25:00.001-04:00

It’s the little things that make it all worth it…

Four bars on the cell phone.
Family pictures on your desk at work.
Sudden thunderstorms in the middle of hot, sunny days.
A hug from a small child.
Realizing that you got ten hours of sleep last night.
An empty inbox that was filled to overflowing on Monday.
The anticipation of opening the packaging of a newly-purchased toy.
A credit card statement with a total amount due that is less than your current checking account balance.
Legitimately being friends with your boss.
The first bite of filet mignon that is still sizzling in its plate from Ruth’s Chris.
Showing a child something the child has never seen before.
Green lights and open roads.
Your mp3 player’s “shuffle” mode selecting the perfect song for your mood.
A friendly “hiya” text from your significant other.
Having a second NPR station to tune into in case one station is running a pledge drive.
A bottle of red wine, two glasses, and a full list of shows available to watch on the DVR.
A considerate driver who slows down to let you in.
Reading a well-written and well-researched newspaper column.
Goldfish crackers.
The sound of a small child’s hysterical laughter when being tickled.
A closet full of freshly-ironed shirts.
The feeling of drifting off to sleep while lying on the couch and watching a football game.
That moment in a movie theater when the previews end, the lights dim, and the logo for the movie’s production company comes on.
Oh, and movie theater popcorn.
Not saying anything stupid at the office meeting.
Going full-throttle on the jet ski.
Hearing that a good friend finally got his shit together.
Logging onto Facebook and seeing lots of comments added to your most recent post.
Playing catch in the front yard.
The feeling in the pit of your stomach right before jumping into the swimming pool for the first time that day.
Watching the media become slowly, yet surely, less afraid of Dick Cheney.
Seeing a newborn infant sleeping on mommy’s or daddy’s shoulder.
The sound and smell of coffee brewing.
Playing the newest version of Madden for the first time.
Hitting snooze on the alarm clock, realizing you have ten minutes before you need to get up, then rolling over to cuddle.
The moment at a restaurant when your food arrives.
The feeling of knowing your shot is going in after releasing the ball.
Re-reading something that you haven’t read since childhood.
Gazing at your lawn after you have finished mowing it.
The picture slideshow screensaver on your computer.
Mocking those who fall prey to the Apple Store.
Accomplishing a goal.

Hello, music.

2009-08-24T18:04:00.005-04:00

Once, there was a seventeen-year-old boy who fell in with some friends from school who all attended the same church. This boy, over the next eighteen months, became a born-again Christian and began to judge all who were not ardent followers of Christ. He wore gaudy t-shirts to school that loudly proclaimed his beliefs, and bought a number of Christian pop/rock albums so that he could rock out, albeit in a Godly way.

Prior to the boy becoming a born-again Christian, the boy assembled a somewhat normal CD collection that might be found in anyone else’s CD collection circa 1991. It had grown over the years and reflected the meager beginnings of a musical maturation from a hair-metal-band taste during the late ‘80s while in junior high school to a more pop-centric collection, with some ‘70s rock thrown in for good measure. The artists prominently featured in this collection included Prince, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, and U2.

One day, the boy decided that he was not Christian enough or something, so he made up his mind to fully embrace the horror of Christian pop/rock. Plans were set in motion to sell his entire collection of secular music so as to not be tempted to listen to it any longer. After all, these hedonistic artists used phrases such as “God damn it” and sang about sexy times, so God certainly would not want anyone to listen to that. The boy, along with his good friend – a friend who did not attend the same church and did not approve of the boy’s decision – took the boy’s entire CD collection with the exception of the U2 albums (some of their songs have Christian undertones, no?) and sold them to a store that specialized in buying and selling used music.

The boy spent the next year or so reveling in his decision to listen exclusively to the toneless harmonies of Jars of Clay and Newsboys. While these artists did not play music that could be categorized as “good”, their themes focused primarily around God. The boy was certainly living a more Godly life.

By the time the boy was twenty years of age, he had stopped going to church entirely. Despite being assured and reassured by the likes of Geoff Moore & the Distance that God was caring for His flock, it had become all too clear by that time that He was probably not – cancer kids, hello – and all the boy had accomplished by selling his CDs was unwittingly giving a random music store owner a good deal. The boy missed his non-Christian music collection and began to slowly assemble a new collection of CDs. Sadly, this new collection did not include much of the nostalgic music from his past.

Over the years since that fateful day, the boy has given his friend much grief for allowing him to sell his CDs under the friends-don’t-let-friends corollary. The friend should’ve stolen the boy’s box of CDs for safekeeping, or at the very least not driven the boy to the music store because he didn’t have a car at the time. But despite it all, they remained good friends.

Yes, I was that boy. My friend was Chris, who has been one of my best friends since fifth grade. And yet, as happens with most good friends, we stopped hanging out as much after high school because women got in the way. And by that, I mean Chris’ women got in my way. I did not have any Christian women getting in his way. He eventually married Andrea (he chose well) and they moved to several places all over the country. I attempted to follow them once shortly after they got married, but that led me to Provo, Utah. That is indeed another story. Needless to say, I have not made another attempt to follow them anywhere.

Our respective lives have led both of our families away from California and to the East Coast, his to Florida and mine to North Carolina. It had been more than a year since Chris and I last hung out when Chris, Andrea, and their boys made a trip up the coast to visit several friends and relatives this summer. They stayed with us for two nights last week, and we all had a great time. Our kids got to play together, Andrea and Suzanne got to talk about nursing and various bacterium, I got schooled in Rock Band, and Chris got schooled in Madden.

While staying with us, Chris decided to clear his name once and for all from my heinous decision to rid myself of earthly music, and, shall we say, lent me many albums from my past that he just happened to own. These albums are now on my mp3 player. I’m rediscovering music today that I know well but haven’t heard in years.

Oh, the joy of listening to “When the Levee Breaks” again! I know most of the Prince songs by heart, and yet – he was a daring one, wasn’t he? He made quite a few unconventional choices with his songwriting. I don’t recall when I was a teenager giving much thought as to how creative he was as opposed to more conventional Top-40 artists of the era, and how exposed he allowed himself to become. And I don’t just mean the Lovesexy album cover. I just listened to “Temptation” for the first time in fifteen years, and it blew my mind. It’s a little cheesy towards the end, but my mind has been blown.

Thanks, Chris….

Foolproof

2009-08-20T20:31:00.008-04:00

My favorite Pixar movie is probably “Finding Nemo”. There, I said it. Those of you with kids probably know this movie well, so follow along with me.

One of the tertiary characters in the movie, a slightly-insane-in-a-PTSD-kind-of-way fish named Gill, hatches a daring plan in which to escape from his fish tank. He was, after all, a grizzled fish born in the open sea, and he longs to return to it. He tells tales of the sea to the other fish in the tank, and promises to liberate them from their oppressive menagerie. He lays out his plan to them thusly:

Clog the tank’s water filter in order to scum up the tank, thus requiring the tank’s owner to clean it.

The owner will presumably remove all the fish prior to cleaning the tank, placing each fish in its own individual baggie filled with water.

As the owner cleans the tank, each fish will begin pushing its own baggie from the inside, rolling it out of an open window onto the sidewalk below, across a busy street, and then down into the bay which was on the other side of the street.

“It’s foolproof!” Gill exclaims. Over the course of the movie, several attempts are periodically made to execute Gill’s plan with no success for various reasons. However, at the very end of the movie, all of the fish are actually able to successfully carry out the plan with each fish managing to roll his or her baggie out the window, across the busy street, and into the bay. They all cheer the completion of their long and difficult task. Then the smiles fade as they realized their new predicament: They had successfully made it in the bay, but were now bobbing on the surface of the water in their individual baggies. The camera holds their muted reactions for a couple of seconds – now what? – before amusingly crashing to black, roll credits.

That’s kind of how I feel these days.

Get married? Check. Become a father? Check. Help Suzanne get through nursing school? Check. Finish college and get my degree? Check. Move to North Carolina? Check. Take the CPA Exam? Check.

Now what?

Is it possible that after ten years of post-high school lethargy I have become so goal-oriented that I cannot turn it off? Is that a little bit crazy? I accomplished all of my short-and-medium-term goals at great expense and effort to myself and others, and I still have my long-term goals remaining. I guess I just hadn’t given a lot of thought to what would happen after I was “done”. I’ve caught myself looking at the local university MBA programs, and investigating local Master’s of Nursing programs for Suzanne in case she wants to one day become a nurse practitioner. Between UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Wake Forest University, there are some very tempting programs from which to choose within driving distance.

Why in the name of Michael Eisner would I want to torture myself by going back to college?

I think the answer is that in order to compensate for ten years of a don’t-bother-me-while-I’m-eating-pizza-and-playing-Madden attitude, I forced myself to choose a direction. Instead of merely attending community college courses like most slackers, I wholly threw myself into the task of getting a college degree that would pay well. I layed out my plan to myself thusly:

I need a career; I know some people who became accountants and enjoy their work and make pretty good money; that’s good enough for me. Bachelor of Science in Accounting, it is.

I will attempt to get straight-A’s every semester to graduate with honors and better my chances of employment in a non-custodial arts environment.

After college, I will begin my career in a public accounting firm and obtain my CPA license ASAP.

After meeting Suzanne shortly after resuming my college career, some additional, non-selfish goals were added to the list which included a wedding, having and raising kids, and helping Suzanne fulfill her own ambitions. The list of goals grew substantially from individual goals to shared goals. Let’s just say that the past six years have been a blur of mental checkmarks with each passing semester and major mile-marker reached.

And now the end result has been achieved. Suzanne is an RN, I’m an accountant – hopefully soon to be a CPA once the results come in. We have our house, we have our kids, we have our minivans, and we have cable and broadband. Okay. There it is. We’re all set. Now all that’s left is to work my way up the career ladder over the next thirty years or so.

Sigh. Thirty years is a long time away. What do we do in the meantime? Like, watch the kids grow up and enjoy each other’s company and stuff? Really? We just…sit here?

Long-term goals are good to have. I just don’t know what to do about the lack of short-term goals, and how to introduce new short-term goals that don’t conflict with the long-term goals.

Oh, wait. I know what to do! For a new short-term goal, let's take the kids to Carolina Beach and do what Gill wanted to do:

Oops.

2009-08-12T18:09:00.011-04:00

Okay, so I thought better of the post that was previously in this post. It's best that I delete it.

So, how are you?

No blue dongs, please.

2009-07-30T20:51:00.004-04:00

The dog days of summer are upon us, and with them come the requisite bad movies, boredom around the house for children home for the summer, and a family trip to The Lake. I certainly wish I had more to write about, but our lives currently revolve around work and being with children. However, it is nice for a change to not have something ominous hanging over our heads.

Yes, the ominous has indeed gone away, thankfully. In addition to the recent cessation of my studies, Suzanne got to keep her job, as did all the RNs on her floor at the hospital. It turns out that all the fretting that the hospital management put Suzanne and her fellow coworkers through was much ado about nothing. Not only did Suzanne get to keep her job, she got to keep her favorable shift as did most of her coworkers.

One wonders why hospital management made such a big production about possible staffing changes, even going to the extent of making individual appointments with each RN to discuss his or her future with the hospital. In each meeting, an RN got to choose an available shift based on seniority. And they each had to walk the green mile to find out that, hey, good news, almost everything is remaining the same because there were enough shifts for everyone. However, they did have to wring their collective hands for a month to find that out.

When I think about it, hospital management seems to know what they’re doing when it comes to staffing. What they have done by threatening their employees is engender loyalty from said employees. Management made staffing decisions based strictly on staff seniority, practically ignoring any performance evaluations that each individual nurse received, good or bad. Now none of the RNs want to leave the hospital even though they all got punched in the gut because to leave would be to sacrifice seniority.

I do wonder if greater staff loyalty is received by an organization if it rewards and caters to its employees, or if it threatens its employees by valuing seniority above all else. Anyway.

---

So last night Suzanne and I rented “Watchmen”.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I’m sure most of you have heard of this movie, as it received an incredible amount of hype earlier this year. It’s about a group of disbanded and de-masked former superheroes in New York, and apparently it was quite a popular comic book in the ‘80s.

Excuse me. Graphic novel.

It’s directed by Zack Snyder, who also directed “300”, which is another movie that is based off of a com – er, graphic novel. Both movies are very stylized and graphically violent, with lots of extreme-slo-mo and freeze-frames to capture the look and feel of a drawn frame from a graphic novel. Computer-generated graphics are heavily used, and both films are deliberately given a digital/illustrated look. I know a lot of people who liked “300”, and I know that many people also liked “Watchmen”.

I am not one of those people.

I think this is a personal preference issue rather than a quality issue because, while "Watchmen" was technically well-done, I don’t like a movie trying to look like a comic book. It’s partly for this reason that I did not like “Sin City” or the first “Hulk” movie, either, although both of those movies legitimately sucked for reasons apart from the directing style. However, I very much enjoyed “The Matrix”, which used the comic-book look repeatedly, albeit greatly toned down. The style worked for “The Matrix” because it was somewhat groundbreaking at the time, but it’s been done now.

Directors simply need to stop making movies look and feel like comic books. A movie is not a comic book, and a comic book is not a movie. I have no problem with making “Watchmen” into a movie based on the graphic novel, but I can really do without the super-stylized method of making it. Additionally, must the dialogue be lifted directly from the speech-bubbles in the book? The book was written for – and most likely by – lonely post-adolescents who need to fantasize about social interactions because they have not experienced many legitimate social interactions. Nobody in the world talks like these drama queens! Nobody actually drops to their knees and yells, “NOOOOOO!”

However, there were some good parts about “Watchmen”. I admit that I was sucked in by the first twenty to thirty minutes of the film, particularly the phenomenal historical montage establishing the fantasy timeline through the years. The makeup and costumes were great, particularly President Nixon. I thought the premise of the movie was excellent, and I liked the idea of history being changed by the superheroes easily winning the Vietnam War for the United States, leading to Nixon remaining as president well into the 1980s. And I thought Lee Iacocca’s demise later in the movie was awesome.

With that said, did we need to be exposed to Dr. Manhattan’s big blue dong over and over and over again? Did he have to walk around naked all the time? Did we really need the extended sex scene, which was fast approaching the insane marionette-sex scene in “Team America: World Police” in terms of sheer lunacy? Did the director feel it wise to show not only every drop of blood spilled – of which there were many – but the source of each drop of blood?

Lord, did this movie ever make me feel like a crotchety old man. Get the hell off my lawn, goddammit.

Harry Potter

2009-07-21T18:20:00.002-04:00

In the great vacuum of time and space that was formerly occupied by my studying for the CPA Exam – have I mentioned the Exam? – there requires an activity since I am no longer studying, because nature abhors a vacuum. This activity currently includes lying on the floor in a state of stunned disbelief about the lack of pressure in my life now that the Exam has wrought its horrible designs upon my will. However, this too must pass, and to that end I have chosen an activity that I have admittedly put off for far too long. No, I’m not referring to finally throwing out last year’s Jack-O-Lanterns.

I shall read the “Harry Potter” series.

I’m not sure why I decided to finally crack open the books – we own the first two books in the series already – but perhaps it is in response to Suzanne’s fawning over the “Twilight” series, or perhaps it is as a result of the hype surrounding the sixth “Harry Potter” movie that just came out in theaters. One hundred and four million dollars it made on opening night. That’s approximately 10 million people who saw the movie on its opening day, and 10 million people can’t be wrong, or so the saying goes.

But here’s what I don’t understand about the “Potter” appeal: it’s a kid’s book, is it not? I can understand children loving the book – there are many books from my youth that I remember with great fondness – but adults who did not grow up with even the first “Potter” book worship the series. It isn’t yet a classic; the first book was printed in 1997. How did it gain such a following so quickly?

When I initially heard about the first “Potter” movie, I had never heard of the book. My reaction to the movie trailer was, eh, child wizard; I’ll pass. I missed the first two “Potter” movies, and I only watched the third movie in the theater because I was trying to kill time.

(Although, as a quick aside, I do hold some fondness for the third movie because the time in question that I was trying to kill was the time between purchasing a diamond for my then-girlfriend’s surprise engagement ring and the jeweler setting the diamond in the ring. Let’s just say my mind was not entirely on the movie, so I cannot give an honest opinion about it.)

I didn’t watch the first two “Potter” movies until after Suzanne and I were married, as we received – nay, earned – the first three movies on DVD as a wedding present. “Harry Potter” and “Harry Potter II: The Wrath of Khan” were okay. Not great, but okay. And we did see another “Potter” movie in the theater, one with some sort of championship cup – “Goblet of Fire” perhaps? Anyway, I was surprised to hear that the current movie in theaters is the sixth movie, so I must have completely missed the release of either the fourth or the fifth movie, I think because it may have been directed by Bill Shatner. Goes to show you that I have never been even remotely enchanted with “Potter” even though I did not dislike the movies.

So again: why the overwhelming popularity? I have not been particularly impressed with the franchise, nor did I see impressive potential. The books must be pretty good.

I decided to re-watch “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” last weekend to refresh my memory and then begin reading the book. I’m about halfway through the book. I’ve noticed that the later books in the series are much thicker than the first two books, so I’m withholding ultimate judgment on JK Rowlings’ writing until I’ve read her later books because clearly she had more to say as time progressed. However, I have thoroughly enjoyed the first book so far.

Let me say first that it is very easy reading. It is clearly a book written for children, or at least young adults. Rowlings’ style of scene-setting and physical descriptions of the characters reminds me of how I felt reading any number of Roald Dahl’s books when I was a child. Further, Harry’s underdog/orphan status in the beginning reminded me particularly of “James and the Giant Peach,” but also of “Danny, the Champion of the World.” I loved the nostalgic sensations her writing gave me. But borrowing Dahl’s writing style can’t be enough, can it?

The book’s third-person narrative goes to some effort in describing Harry’s emotional reactions to certain situations. In the beginning, his existence was dominated by living with the Dursleys – his evil uncle, aunt, and cousin who all hate him. However, as he begins his journey to Hogwart’s, Harry frequently uses his experience living in the cupboard under the stairs as a reference point to the sights and sounds he was currently experiencing (e.g., when Harry meets a fellow student he doesn’t like in the robe-maker’s shop – Draco Malfoy – he compares him unfavorably to Harry’s cousin, Dudley). It’s a fairly Judy Blume-esque juvenile writing method of hammering the reader over the head with an intended emotion: “That reminds me of the time when [X] happened because it made me feel like [Y].” Keep in mind, I don’t think that’s bad writing; it’s juvenile writing. Younger minds need to be held by the hand in order for them to enjoy the book.

But here’s the first leap of Rowlings’ literary inspiration that I have caught: Harry begins to draw less and less upon his experiences with the Dursleys as time goes on, as Harry fills in his emotional gaps with new experiences and he subtly leaves the Dursleys in the past. It’s not a sudden or obvious process, but a process that occurs gradually and organically. We, the readers, get to truly experience Hogwart’s with Harry.

I don’t believe a writer can accidentally accomplish that. Juvenile fiction or not, that's good writing.

Rowlings’ writing is fluid, easy to follow, and quite descriptive. I imagine I’ll be through the books in no time (relatively speaking) because of the ease of reading them, but I’m enjoying myself so far, and I hope to continue to fill that vacuum of time and space with something enjoyable.

Two Months: A Narrative

2009-07-16T22:29:00.006-04:00

Admittedly, my hiatus was longer than I intended. However, I was simply unable to justify spending time writing blog updates when there was so little available time to study for the final two sections of the CPA Exam, and so I just shut down the writing until all studying was behind me. So here’s a narrative of basically what happened over the past two months.

The beginning of May found me fully embroiled in study mode. Work, study, work, study. The section of the Exam that I was studying for, the Financial Accounting and Reporting section, is easily the most difficult section of the Exam based on the breadth of knowledge that a candidate needs to absorb. Suzanne and her mother both made every effort to allow me time and space to study, and I split my study time between home and Suzanne’s folks’ house.

Finally, near the end of May I sat for the FAR section of the Exam. As I left the house that morning to drive to the testing facility, I felt as if I was fairly well-prepared, but probably not prepared enough to pass. I had quite a few concepts with which I was still struggling, and I worried that I did not understand these concepts well enough. After taking the four-hour test, I felt that I had a 50-50 chance that I passed. However, I knew that I wouldn’t find out if I passed until June sometime.

The beginning of June found the children ending their respective school years. N wrapped up fourth grade, J-1 finished second grade, and J-2 graduated from kindergarten. Each child brought home remarkably high grades and were rewarded to the tune of five bucks per A, or a whole crapload of money. That’s one bill we’re always happy to pay. J-2 didn’t bring home any grades, per se, from kindergarten, but his assessment level for all areas was very high and his reading comprehension level was measured as well into a second-grade level. We don’t give J-2 money yet, so we bought him a Nintendo DS game of his choice.

J-2’s kindergarten graduation ceremony was very cute, albeit long. I took the morning off work to attend, thinking it would be a quick ceremony for the benefit of the notoriously fidgety post-kindergartners. But alas, that was not to be. I stopped counting the different speakers and awards they handed out, but by about the 90-minute mark under the hot sun of the outdoor ceremony I was very, very ready for the ceremony to end. Thankfully, “Pomp and Circumstance” did eventually play, the kids got their certificates, and I was able to take my sweaty and sunburned self to work.

Less than a week later, Suzanne took the older three kids to California, who were spending a month with their dad. At that point I was well into studying for the Audit section of the Exam, so K and I didn’t go with them. Fortunately, the rapidly-collapsing California’s budget cuts had not yet reached the airports, so Suzanne was able to make it home after spending a few days with friends and family.

It’s been very quiet in the house without the kids. Now the house seems like way more house than we need, what with the unused bedrooms and an unused bathroom. I’m looking forward to the kids coming home tomorrow. But I’m stepping out of the narrative form, so back to the story.

Near the end of June, Suzanne found out that her job may be in some state of jeopardy. The hospital had hired a team of efficiency consultants to evaluate each department in the hospital, and apparently some positions in Pediatrics will be eliminated. And since Suzanne has a very low amount of seniority in the department, there’s a high likelihood that she will be bumped out of Pediatrics. However, she has had wonderful evaluations and was made a Charge Nurse (like a shift lead) shortly after being hired, so management obviously won’t want to let her go. Suzanne will find out next week if she will be displaced (or worse) and what her options are.

On a related topic, are you ready for the economy to turn around? I sure am.

At the end of June, I got the results of the FAR section of the Exam. I was hoping to get the results earlier in the month, but my section’s results were not mailed until the 29th. That’s a long time to sit in limbo. But the NC CPA Board’s website reported that the results were mailed, so I knew they would be waiting for me in the mailbox on the 30th. Driving home from work that day seemed to take forever, but I drove up to the mailbox, rolled down my window and looked inside. There was one letter in the mailbox: the letter that I was hoping was there.

First, a few things about the CPA Exam. Grading is scored on a 1-99 scale, with 75 being the minimum passing score. Also, Exam results are given on a pass/fail basis, and failing notices include a vague breakdown of a candidate’s performance written on the back of the notice. Passing notices include no information on the back of the notice; it is a blank page.

As I indicated earlier, I gave myself a 50-50 chance of passing. I honestly was not sure how I did, but I knew I at least did reasonably well. Upon tearing open the envelope, the first thing I noticed was the sheer blankness of the page. I passed?? I unfolded the page and flipped it over to find the score: 76. Wow, what a relief! Obviously, 76 is not a great score but that really doesn’t matter. To be a CPA, all a candidate needs is to simply pass. There are no honors or ranks to be achieved. Seventy-six. Good enough. Good enough. Good enough. I don’t have to re-take that section of the Exam. Wow. Wow. Okay, then.

The beginning of July found me in full study mode for the Audit section of the Exam, which I took on July 11th. In contrast to the FAR section of the Exam, Audit is much less comprehensive in breadth and instead looks at depth of knowledge. As such, there is less study material to cover, but a candidate has to understand the material and apply it. That’s more in my wheelhouse. If I know what to study and I have time to study for it and soak it in, I can knock out just about any test.

By the time the 11th rolled around, I was feeling very confident in my chances. I sat for the Audit section of the Exam that day, and completed the four-and-a-half-hour test in just three hours. I felt like I knew the answer without a doubt in my mind for most questions, and I’m sure I knocked the test out of the park. Unquestionably, the Audit section was the section of the Exam in which I performed best. However, I won’t get my results until sometime in late August or September, so I won’t know for sure until that time. But I’m almost positive that I passed the fourth and final section of the CPA Exam. Yay!

The weekend before taking the last part of the Exam, Suzanne and I took K to the beach for the first time. We went to Carolina Beach south of Wilmington, and we had a great time. I have to say, I’ve never been a real beach-ey kind of guy. After all, what’s the appeal? It’s hot, there’s lots of sand, seaweed smells gross, and the water is too cold. I’m a NorCal guy, after all, and the Bay Area beaches really are lame. I have gone to beaches in San Diego and those are nicer, what with the college girls in bikinis and all. But I dared not go in the water because I grew up mistrusting the ocean even though I enjoy swimming.

When Suzanne, K and I got to Carolina Beach that Saturday, K was of course apprehensive as she is with all things new. Suzanne and I both took turns trying to get K to get her feet wet in the water, and she did, screaming all the while. She was clearly not enjoying herself at all. So, in an attempt to show K that she had nothing to fear at the beach, I decided to take a dip.

Holy Kelly Clarkson, was that fun!

I mean, the water was the perfect temperature to cool you off on a 100-plus degree day, and the waves were not big enough to drag you out to sea but were big enough to be relaxing. I swam and swam and swam, and K said I was a big fish who says glub-glub-glub. K eventually began enjoying going out in the surf with me as long as I was holding her, and she wound up having a great time. K also had fun making her first sand castles. I think I like the Atlantic Ocean better than the Pacific.

And finally, the kids are coming home tomorrow! It’s been too long. I’m really looking forward to taking all of the kids swimming often this summer, as I’ve been working with K in the neighborhood swimming pool. She’s still fairly hesitant, but she’s getting more comfortable being in the water each time she goes in. It’ll be great going to the pool with all the kids after work most nights since bedtimes can be pushed back and I don’t have to study at night anymore.

We’ve also promised the kids trips to the beach and the lake. In addition to taking K to the beach this summer, Suzanne and I also had the opportunity to take K to the lake for some jet-skiing fun, and we’d like to include all the kids in the summertime activities.

I haven't forgotten the blog.

2009-05-16T02:02:00.003-04:00

I am putting maximum effort towards studying for the CPA Exam. Or, rather, one PART of the CPA Exam. A part that I have previously failed. Anyway, that's why I haven't been writing at all. I'm sitting for this section of the Exam next Saturday, so I only have a week left. And then six weeks from then to take the last part of the Exam. And then if I don't pass I have to re-take it.

Dead to the world, man.

Blood, Pee, and Tears

2009-05-01T10:16:00.012-04:00

When my sister, Rilla, and I were kids, we got the biggest kick out of wigging out Dad by showing him our loose teeth. We would twist our teeth around backwards, walk up to Dad and surprise him with, "Hey, Dad, look at this! Bleeeeahhhh..."

I have since received my comeuppance in spades.

N has lost many teeth, and that process has certainly been gross. J-1 has lost a couple of bottom front teeth as well, which has also been gross. However, it does not compare with my experience of two days ago.

J-1's two upper front teeth were loose. Very loose. One of them was so loose (how loose was it?) that it actually seemed to shrink inside his mouth. I think the reason why is because his permanent tooth was wiggling in and spreading his other teeth apart, but it was still odd to see a space in his teeth despite not losing any teeth. He's had a lot of fun showing me his loose tooth seemingly on a daily basis.

Two days ago, N and J-1 were roughhousing in the living room, and K and I were playing in the family room. As I was lying on the floor, I heard J-1 yell, "Oof, my 'ooth! I 'ink I broke my 'ooth!"

I sat up as J-1 walked in to the family room to show me his bloody maw. He was sporting a sadisticly Cheshireian grin to reveal a front tooth that had been knocked from its mooring and was glued sideways onto the front of his other teeth by a mass of congealing plasma. Instead of freaking out about the blood, he was chuckling like Butthead: "Uhhhh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh. Mark, I 'ink I broke my 'ooth. Uhhhhh-huh-huh-huh-huh. [N] kicked me in the 'outh. Uhhhh-huh-huh-huh-huh."

After I came to, I took J-1 in the bathroom, grabbed a tissue, and gently unglued the tooth from his other teeth. It took several minutes for the bleeding to stop, with J-1 chuckling the whole time. The boy lost so much blood I was considering offering him a glass of orange juice or a cookie.

J-1 was fine, he enjoyed eating dinner with a missing tooth, and he got his two dollars from the tooth fairy. Of course, he got it from the day-shift tooth fairy while J-1 was at school because the graveyard-shift tooth fairy forgot to write himself/herself a note to check under J-1's pillow that night.

FIRED.

---

I've gone on and on about how K simply refused to be potty-trained. Well, let's cut right to it: she's practically potty-trained now. Huzzah.

The most pressing need for K to be potty-trained was to qualify her for preschool in the Fall. Most preschools need the children to be potty-trained as a prerequisite because apparently no one likes changing diapers. Imagine that. While K was not entirely potty-trained as of last week, she was at least freaked out enough about wearing panties instead of a diaper that she very rarely wet herself. She just held it and held it. That's good enough for preschool, right? I think they only need the kids to not go in a diaper. If a child doesn't go in a toilet while at school, but doesn't go in his or her pants either, who's to say that's wrong? The parents will be the ones to bear the brunt of the excrement supernova when the child goes home.

Suzanne was off work for six days last week, and she made it priority number one to potty-train K. After hours and hours of K sitting on her portable potty in front of the TV, and hundreds and hundreds of Twilight pages read, K has finally reached the point where she can pee on cue. Good job, Mommy.

This part might be a little bit TMI, but it's cute so I'll share. K is able to make herself go with a "ready-set-go" chant of sorts. She will watch herself down there and sing, "One! A-two! One, two, three four!" And then she's able to watch herself go. I don't know where she learned to say that, but it sure is cute.

---

And I thought I would also mention that a couple of weeks ago J-1 decided to take a bottle opener to school. It was just a standard bottle opener with a flip-out corkscrew and a small blade for removing the foil over the cork, but it was still a major no-no. Suzanne got a call from the principal at about 8:30 in the morning letting her know about the situation, so she hightailed it down to the school.

We still have no idea what prompted J-1 to take the bottle opener to school, but he just said he thought the other guys would think he was cool for bringing it. I did something similar to that in seventh grade with a Swiss Army knife, so I can understand that. But J-1 has never shown any interest in the bottle opener in the past, and this incident was totally out of character for him.

Fortunately, J-1 was not suspended or expelled from school despite a zero-tolerance policy. The principal lives in our neighborhood, is a really nice guy, and is the father of one of J-1's friends, so he knows J-1 well. Given that J-1 has never exhibited any aggressive tendencies, gets straight A's, and is only in the second grade, the principal let him slide this time. But J-1 had to go home for the day, and there were tears, tears, tears. I think he learned his lesson, but that was a shocker.

Night at the Movies

2009-04-29T09:59:00.013-04:00

Suzanne and I are wonderful partners. We share duties around the house, have each other's backs when making parenting decisions, and spend most of our free time together. However, we have divergent movie tastes. There's no better way to say it than that. Suzanne wants a movie to simply be an enjoyable waste of time, and has little patience for nonlinear story lines and obscure dialogue. I can understand this; after all, I very much enjoy stupid movies such as Armageddon and Happy Gilmore. They are what they are, and if I can put myself in the correct frame of mind I can judge the movie based on what it attempted to accomplish.

But I also enjoy movies that Suzanne considers to be artsy-fartsy. (You know, totally indie movies such as Memento and Lost in Translation. Because who has ever heard of either of those movies?) When I rent movies, I usually bypass the movies that I would like to see but don't think Suzanne will enjoy. The point in watching movies is to do something together, right? However, I will on occasion make Suzanne suffer through watching a movie such as Seven Pounds because I wanted to watch it. Of course, Seven Pounds was kind of boring, so she's got me there.

Renting movies that I want to watch is sometimes to Suzanne's advantage. She will occasionally request that I rent and watch a chick flick that I ordinarily would rather chew broken glass than watch, and out of a sense of fairness I will acquiesce. A couple of weeks ago, Suzanne let me know that she has heard good things about the movie Twilight and would like to watch it. I had also heard good things about the movie, of course, but I was apprehensive about watching a vampire movie with a teen-angsty twist. Vampires? That's fine, usually. Teen angst? Bleh. People behaving like angsty teens makes me immediately want to tell them to get over themselves. But Suzanne wanted to see the movie, and her movie requests are very few and far between, so I was happy to rent it and watch it with her.

Oh, Lord.

I will first say that I understand why Twilight is so popular by way of using the Titanic girls-are-closet-comic-book-dorks corollary. By this, I mean girls who are not uber-popular in high school will often times relate with a heroine who acts like a petulant brat, yet attracts a Very Pretty Boy. This Very Pretty Boy is inexplicably drawn to the heroine because he can somehow see into her soul and realize what a special, misunderstood, shooting star of a deity she is. And when the Very Pretty Boy freezes and drowns because Kate Winslet was too fat to make room for him on the floating door, that is the ultimate in The Romantic Sacrifice.

Because yeah, that happens. Just like Spandex-wearing supermodels regularly throw themselves on geeks who can climb walls and get washboard abs after being bit by radioactive spiders.

So in Twilight, when the mouth-breathing, petulant brat Bella moves to a new town and blows off everyone she meets, she of course is welcomed by her peers as the wonderful new girl in town. And the prettiest, prettiest, prettiest Very Pretty Boy in town, who also happens to be a vampire, of course finds himself inexplicably drawn to Bella. They fall in love, some shit happens, and the movie ends.

Twilight was not the worst movie I've ever seen, not by a long shot. However, the hackneyed screenwriting and choppy direction had me rolling my eyes on multiple occasions at the corniness of it all. Suzanne, alternatively, really enjoyed the movie. I can respect that. But I reserve the right to make fun of the movie. And also make fun of her a little bit for wanting to read the Twilight books.

At the library two weekends ago, I sought out the book in an attempt to check it out for Suzanne. I couldn't find it in the Fiction section of the library, so I looked it up in the catalogue. I found the listing...in Juvenile Fiction. Suzanne then received a phone call from me that was peppered with my chortling. But of course the book was checked out, so I resolved to buy it for her.

That weekend I bought Suzanne the first Twilight book. It's actually a fairly thick book, and at first glance I thought maybe the library misfiled it. Then I opened the book, which revealed a first-person narrative in 28-point font. Here's my re-enactment of Chapter One:

I'm Bella. Well, Isabella, but people call me Bella. Anyway, I just moved to Forks, Washington. It sucks here. People don't get me. My dad bought me a truck. He's the town Sheriff. My mom and dad are divorced. Hey, that boy is pretty. Why is his skin white? I think he doesn't like me.

I presented this book to Suzanne, who was very happy to begin reading last week. It's now Wednesday, and she's already nearly done with the third book in the series.

One more thing...

2009-04-15T15:35:00.002-04:00

Check out this blog, Cake Wrecks, which shows pictures of many cakes with a healthy dose of doubleyou-tee-eff.

This blog made me laugh -- not chuckle; laugh -- repeatedly. I'm as surprised as you about that.

A little tip: The Easter cakes are okay, but it gets really funny with earlier posts.

The Workplace, Vol. II

2009-04-15T11:14:00.009-04:00

The Workplace, Vol. II

(The Angry Coworker)

There seems to have been a rash of office shootings lately by deranged office employees or an employee’s deranged family member, blasting away a bunch of helpless office workers in retaliation to some sort of perceived disrespect or ongoing injustice. I guess. They always seem to kill themselves before the police can put a stop to the shooting or arrest them. Talk about your uncreative would-be vigilantes.

I think anyone who feels justified enough to blow away someone like a single mother of three who is filling in as a temp secretary should be able to articulate his reasons sufficiently. He should feel confident enough in his actions to be able to make some pseudo-heroic point like Lt. Frank Drebbin at the opening scene of “The Naked Gun.” You know, the scene in which Frank breaks up a meeting of terrorist minds from the late ‘80s (Gorbachev, Khadaffi, etc.) and beats them up, before making for the window and posing: “And don’t let me catch you guys in America!”

But no. We’re left with the corpse of some idiot who not only couldn’t deal with ordinary problems, but didn’t even have a good message justifying his actions. He’s just so full of blind rage that he doesn’t know why he’s doing what he’s doing. Even if his boss is the biggest asshole anyone has ever met, or even if the girl in the cubicle next to him has eaten her egg salad sandwich with her mouth open one time too many, the guy should be able to justify shooting up everyone in the office.

Let’s assume this guy believes without a doubt that he is justified in his plans to kill as many people in his office as possible. He should probably want to convince the world of the evil of this place and why it must be destroyed, right? So shouldn’t he try to formulate an argument? If nothing else, just when he talks to himself in the mirror like DeNiro in “Taxi Driver.”

“You lookin’ at me? You want a piece of me, boss? Well, have a taste of this! And you, secretary, you’re in my way! You’re asking for it! And you, janitor whose name I don’t know, die!”

Hmm. That’s not right. Maybe I’m carrying this too far.”

See? I would think that most people who have anger management issues reach that point and can talk themselves down from the ledge. But who among us works with the one guy whose conversation with himself in the mirror simply reaches, “You! You! You!”?

I admit that sometimes I wonder.

I like the office where I work, and I generally like the people I work with. However, there is one guy in particular that I work with that I’m not so sure about. We’ll call him Candy since he’s so darn sweet.

Candy works in the I.T. department, and he’s a middle-aged, hard-working guy who is reliable and does a good job. He’ll occasionally pop on over to my cubicle to talk about sports or politics or whatever, and we get along well enough. He’s a little bit off and fairly high-strung, but we get along. I quite often rely on him to correct problems when our system miscalculates income somewhere along the line. As an accountant, my job is to find the problem and then tell Candy where the problem is.

However, Candy doesn’t like getting instructions from me, and he makes that very clear even as he fulfills my requests. I try to be as polite and even apologetic about my requests as possible because I’m not his boss and he doesn’t report to me, and I know that receiving instructions from a peer can be a little bit degrading (if one looks at doing one’s job that way). Before fulfilling my requests, he usually lets me know exactly how busy he is and exactly what he’s working on before stomping off. Or hanging up the phone on me.

Sometimes I just get the feeling that one day I’m going to turn around in my cubicle and find myself looking down the barrel of a shotgun. “You’re first, Ferris!”

With that said, I’m fairly confident that I will not meet this demise at Candy’s hands. The mass-murderer is almost always described as a quiet, polite guy who kept to himself. The survivors and witnesses always tell reporters that they never saw it coming. However, if Candy does shoot up the office one day and I live to tell the tale to a reporter, it will be something like this:

“Not only did I see this coming, I had an escape route planned for when I heard gunshots coming from his wing of the building. How do you think I survived to talk to you? He’s a lunatic.”

As such, Candy doesn’t fit the profile. He won’t shoot up the office.

So who will??

Are You Ready?

2009-04-12T08:46:00.003-04:00

On Thursday afternoon, I was sitting on the couch in the family room. On TV, Dora's friendly map was assuring us that he was, in fact, the map over and over (and over and over) again, and the kids were either playing outside or hanging out in the family room.

Now, you all remember our struggles with trying to potty-train K. In fact, this weekend we sat her on the potty again for another round of "Go potty!" with limited success. She only dribbled out some "yellow water" after doing the potty dance on the pink kiddie toilet for a couple of hours, swinging her little arms back and forth exclaiming, "I don't like potty!"

However, on this Thursday in particular, K, at this point being fairly cognizant of our interest in her excretions, walked up to me and said, "Daddy, are you ready for my poop? Okay." The faraway look on her reddening face then preceded the grunting.

Dude, it's time to be potty-trained. This is ridiculous.

The Workplace, Vol. 1

2009-04-08T14:26:00.026-04:00

In keeping with yesterday's stated attempt to write much more frequently, I've decided to emulate (if not outright steal from) "Dilbert," "The Office," and "Office Space" and occasionally post thoughts on the unique setting that is...

The Workplace

I work in a small accounting department within a large office building. There are twelve people who work in Accounting, and about three hundred people who work in the building. Basically, I see and hear and talk to eleven other people on quite a regular basis for 40 hours a week.

When I get to the office in the morning, I say hi to the people that I see. Pretty standard-fare social greetings. However, as the day progresses and the intervals between our interactions stretch to several hours in length, the next time we speak to each other is always just a little bit awkward. We already said hi that day; should we say hi again? "Hi!" "Hi again!" "Hi there!" "Whuttup!"

Being overly greeting-oriented can brand a person a weirdo.

I try to avoid eye contact with people who say hi a lot, and I worry about the reciprocal being true of me. When I need to speak to someone I've already said hi to about a work-related topic, I usually awkwardly launch into the conversation with minimal introduction: "Hey...Stacie...um, here's the Illinois quarter-monthly sales tax payment confirmation. Would you like it here? Oh, your inbox? Okay. Um...there."

(I don't think I'm the only one who does this, but this may just be my ongoing quest to be as socially off-putting as possible without being straight-up antisocial. If that makes sense.)

Anyway, when I walk past people in Accounting that I've already said hi to that day, instead of saying hi we usually give each other a tight-lipped smirk and raised eyebrows. An acknowledgment of each other's presence without wanting to go through the whole "How you doing?" thing again. Like, yeah, we're both doing exactly the same; yeah, it's still Wednesday; yeah, it's still going to rain this weekend. But the raised-eyebrow polite acknowledgment seems to be most appropriate.

But when we see each other in another part of the building, like a restroom or the mail room, it's like seeing an old friend at the grocery store.

"Well, hi there!"
"Funny seeing you here!"
"I know you!"
"What are you doing here?"
"Are you stalking me?"
"Okay, see you later!"

And then when we do see each other later (usually three minutes or less later), eye contact is once again avoided until we can make our way to our respective cubicles. Every office I've worked in is exactly this way.

Back in the Swing of Things

2009-04-07T12:47:00.013-04:00

I’m trying to shake myself out of my late-winter/early-spring writing doldrums. I’ve been using Facebook quite a bit lately, and it has been fun spouting one-liners to people I may or may not have known in the past. However, I do have quite a bone to pick with Facebook. And while I don’t think anyone necessarily needs to read updates about so-and-so that he or she “is sleepy!!!!!!!” or “is going to bed!!!!” or “is going to the gym!!!!!”, it's fun to keep up. So that’s not my problem with Facebook. Or for that matter, Twitter.

My problem with Facebook and Twitter is that, for me, they’re like eating fast food. Part of the reason I enjoy blogging is that I actually enjoy the act of writing. I don’t think I’m a great writer or anything, and most of my blog posts are pretty ho-hum-this-is-what’s-going-on-lately. But the act of writing is like eating a steak dinner. To continue the analogy, steak dinners cost more than fast food and they take longer to cook, but they’re infinitely more rewarding to eat. Fast food is good when I’m hungry and want a quick bite to eat.

Okay, I might be carrying the analogy too far, but Facebook has pretty much been the reason why I have not been motivated to post on the blog. Most people I know can see what I’m up to, so there hasn’t been any need for me to really go to the effort of writing anything. But I still feel the need to be writing more, so I’m going to write about a few topics today. Maybe that will spur me into writing on a more regular basis.

***

I finally got my riding mower last week, and took it for its shakedown cruise this weekend. We bought a Craftsman LT2000 with a Briggs & Stratton 19.5 horsepower engine and a 42-inch deck. *Grunt-grunt-grunt*. It’s not top-of-the-line or anything, but it’s a lot of machine – way more than anything I’ve had in the past. Of course, I have no desire to crisscross our acre lot trudging along behind a lawnmower for three hours a weekend, so the tractor is definitely the way to go.

I love mowing the lawn now. I get some sun, the lawn looks great when I’m done, and I feel like I accomplished something even though I only drove a loud tractor over some grass for a couple of hours. Our garage was built with a small parking spot that fits the tractor perfectly (have I mentioned lately that I love our house?), so storage is no problem. The speed controls are fantastic, the cut is even, and it even comes with a cup holder.

One minor addition to the tractor, a value-added feature if you will, is the plethora of warning labels and overly graphic “NO!” signs. You know, those presidium-arch scenes with featureless silhouetted figures engaging in all manner of reckless behavior inside a red circle with a red slash over the scene. I know that warning signs are necessary for companies to try to mitigate their strict product liability in the event that some knuckle-dragger does something thunderingly stupid beyond all manner of comprehension while using their product, and I know a great many jokes have been made about warning signs over the years, but I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything quite like these signs.

Let’s take, for example, this warning sign to not run over a baby while driving the tractor.

Really? I mean, would anyone deliberately do this unless warned otherwise? Okay, fine, I get it. I’ll be careful not to drive over the baby. But…wait…what’s this? Is that…the baby’s leg getting sliced up in the mower blades?? See, now I’m confused. Is it okay to run over the baby, but not so recklessly that his leg gets chopped up? Personally, I can see many reasons why running over a baby with a lawnmower is a bad idea. But this label is getting pretty specific.

Or this warning label about the dangers of a lawnmower tipping over on a hill.

That’s a fairly low grade hill, is it not? Did someone at the top of the hill just send the tractor tumbling down the hill at a high rate of speed to crush this poor soul? Or is it a warning not to lie down underneath an upturned tractor? If anything, I would think this label simply demonstrates a significant design flaw with the tractor’s overall engineering.

The mower also came with a keychain that that had a hilariously misogynistic warning label.

“Hi, honey! I’m enjoying my freedom from you out here! Hope you’re enjoying your self-made prison of overwhelming obligations and crushed dreams!”

***

K is still not potty-trained. She’ll hold it and hold it and hold it until she’s shaking, but she just won’t go. We’ve had her sitting on the potty for hours on end, and bupkis. She’s afraid of new things like going potty, but she’s actually getting more afraid of things she used to enjoy like swinging on the swing or riding with me on my bike. I’m hoping this is just a phase. Well, I’m sure it’s just a phase, but I really need it to pass. K is three years old now and needs to be out of a diaper.

We’re looking at preschools in which to enroll her this fall, and since we’re new to the area one preschool seems to be just as good as another. Fortunately, we have been able to land a referral or two from neighbors, and we’ll be choosing one soon. Hopefully with no waiting list. But the upshot is K needs to be potty-trained before she goes to preschool. The occasional accident is okay, but most preschools won’t take a child over three years old if he or she is still wearing diapers.

Sigh. Always with the potty.

***

Another thing about Facebook, while we’re on the topic: It sure is judgmental. Facebook allows anyone to create themed quizzes in which a participant answers a series of questions in order to elicit a judgment about the participant's character and how it relates to a particular topic. For example, you can find out which cartoon character you would be, which Starbucks coffee beverage you would be, or, my personal favorite, which crazy bitch you would be (apparently I’m Sinead O’Connor). These quizzes are obviously nonsensical wastes of time, but one quiz in particular made me raise an eyebrow.

The quiz in question is “What political leaning are you?” It asks 30 very, very unscientific questions about a variety of political opinions, and I took the time to answer the questions which were of the “strongly agree/agree/disagree/strongly disagree” variety. No middle grounds, no shades of gray. Most of the questions seemed to involve whether or not gays belong in the military and how much privacy and civil rights people should be afforded. I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy in general, and I believe Constitutional rights need to be preserved even at the expense of national security (whatever “national security” means), and so I answered the questions as such.

My result was that I was “Very Liberal”. That one kind of stunned me. Not that the quiz author is an authority to speak on probably anything at all, but it’s just the ultra-conservative viewpoint and judgment that is surprising to me. Personal rights and privacy are “very liberal” ideas? Maybe I’m way off base here, but this is the way I’ve always thought of the liberals, conservatives, and moderates as they pertain to America (which exclude communism and Nazism, respectively):

Liberal: A more powerful federal government that provides most services and jobs, and people are taxed at a much higher rate because they are theoretically provided everything they need by the government. Healthcare, education, and careers are chosen for people based on predetermined quotas. An emphasis is placed on racial and social equality by severely restricting the efforts of Caucasians and the better-abled. Basically, “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut.

Conservative: A mostly invisible federal government receives funds strictly for the purposes of orchestrating a first-class military and executing a foreign policy designed to negotiate solely from a position of strength. States’ rights are emphasized, and local governments are dominated by the Church and WASP elites. Morality is dictated by the government, and any public or private dissent makes an individual subject to monitoring and harassment by local authorities and vigilantes. Basically, a combination of the original Articles of Confederation and “1984” by George Orwell.

Moderate: A pragmatic and common-sense approach to governance that incorporates ideas from both the right and the left. An emphasis is placed on regulations and procedures, and every effort is made to make society as inclusive as reasonably possible. Personal privacy is maintained (e.g. HIPPA), and all individuals are entitled to the due process of law. The result is a bland, wishy-washy government and a society frustratingly made up of a great many seemingly incompatible ideals. But in the end most people are employed and earn a livable and sustainable income, most people can receive a high-quality education and high-quality healthcare, and a generally strong national infrastructure is maintained to promote interstate commerce. Basically, the current United States of America.

I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a pretty spot-on evaluation.

I will grant you that I am probably somewhat left-of-center of public opinion simply because I think the ACLU is correct far more often than it is incorrect. That live-and-let-live mentality there, again. But it seems to me that the growing ultra-conservative viewpoint is one without an allowance for moderation: “Either you’re an American like me or you’re just another damn liberal.” I think ultra-conservatism is simply insecurity. Of course, this is the opinion of someone who just wrote a 673-word response to a “Very Liberal” label applied to me by a dummy, so what do I know?

***

And finally, I’m continuing to study for retaking the two sections of the CPA exam that I failed. I’m actually getting a whole lot more studying in than I did last summer, so I’m very hopeful that I’ll pass this time. I’ll spare you the details my studies (unless you want to hear about how you account for receivables and inventory), but suffice to say that May 23^rd and July 11^th are important dates for me because that is when I will try to put this CPA exam way the hell behind me.

Pictures are easier than words.

2009-03-17T20:21:00.012-04:00

Yeah, it's been a while since the last post. Sorry about that. There is stuff going on in our lives that I could be writing about, but I have this problem where I want to kind of craft what I write rather than just belch out a bunch of words onto a blog post. The problem is, writing takes time.

I'll be back to blogging soon, but in the meantime, here are some pictures of our lives recently. They're easier to post than writing. Even if all the birthday pictures make it seem like we're forcing the kids to morosely go through the motions of opening presents. A great photographer I am not.

N's 10th birthday!

Fun times in the snow! It snowed a good 4-6 inches, and the kids had a blast. Fun, that is, until J-1 smashed an ice ball into J-2's eyeball, resulting in a scratched cornea and a trip to the ER.

BIFF!

Ow.

Yeah, this is our yard. It's purty.

K had all sorts of fun picking up snow with her little mittens and throwing it in the air, yelling, "Yippee!"

J-2's 6th birthday!

A trip to Virginia to see Aunt Rilla, Uncle Derek and the cousins:

Getting ready for bed. All the kids got to share one bedroom. By the way, this was not a very good idea, as it turned out. Kids are, like, playful and stuff? When they should be sleeping?

And finally, a couple of snapshots from a trip to Georgia to see T-Pop and Miss Mary:

"SLEEP! You want to hand me a bowl of cookies. SLEEP!"

"Oooh, it worked!"

The Potty and Other Exciting Colloquialisms.

2009-02-24T10:04:00.011-05:00

When one becomes a parent, verbal language becomes key. This is a truth that is usually discovered over time by adults who are gradually eased into parenthood. However, my vocabulary immediately became much more direct when I began dating a woman with three small children in the summer of 2003. Summoning my inner anthropologist, I will reach back, way back, through the eras of language in an attempt to find out why and how this change takes place. You know, for fun.

In middle school (formerly junior high school), cliques are established for protection, antisocial children are isolated, and boys and girls only become boyfriend and girlfriend rather awkwardly at best during this phase due to an inability to effectively communicate non-verbally. This struggle with subtlety often reveals itself in one of three types of conversations, one more successful than the other two:

Conversation 1:

Girl: So, like, my BFF -- well, I mean my new BFF, Amanda, because my old BFF Britney, like, is a spaz and likes my stupid brother, and whatever, anyway -- Amanda, like, totally thinks you're cute and doesn't want to tell you because she thinks you like Hannah and she, like, thinks you'll, like, laugh at her or whatever? Anyway, are you still with Hannah?

Boy: ...

Girl: Hannah? From 2nd period pre-algebra?

Boy: Shut up. Amanda doesn't like me. Does she?

Girl: Ha-ha-ha, you are so funny!

Boy: What?

Girl: Anyway, Amanda is, like, totally in love with you and she doesn't want you to know -- Gawd, she's being such a drama queen -- but I think you should know because, you know, you're a good guy and I like you, too.

Boy: What?

Girl: Oh, my God, I can't believe I just told you that. Look, you can't tell Amanda I told you that. I mean, the part about me liking you. Or the part about her liking you, because she would just die.

Boy: You like me?

Girl: Well, not like like you, just, you know, you're cute and nice, and Amanda would be, like, so hurt if she knew I liked you because she likes you, too. And I couldn't do that to her because I mean, oh my God, that would be, like, so awful for me to do my best friend.

Boy: So...you want to go with me?

Girl: OKAY!!!

Conversation 2:

Boy: Um...do you...want to go with me?

Girl: No.

Conversation 3:

Boy: ....

Girl: *giggle*

Boy: ....

Girl: Okay, um, there's my bus. See you tomorrow!

(In case you are wondering, I was a master of the third conversation. Nailed it, and used it repeatedly until well into my 20s. In a related story, I didn't get engaged until age 29.)

When one reaches high school, subtlety is achieved more competently. Boys learn how to be successful at wooing girls by simply making eye contact, smiling, and speaking without elipses. Boys and girls stay together for longer than three days because they realize that making out in front of peers is a lot of fun, as is the sex. Which is, of course, another type of non-verbal communication that high school kids are awkward at. From what I hear.

At the high school level, we learn to expand our vocabulary and speak in more complex terms. From delivering a refined answer in Psych class to replacing "shut up" with a "yo-mama" joke when insulted, we learn two things:

1) One is not always speaking exclusively to the person one is addressing. The audience matters, and it is infinitely more important that the audience agrees with you than the person whom you are addressing.

2) It isn't what one says, rather it is how one says it. Even if one has a weak message, it can resonate well with many people if said in an interesting or funny way.

These lessons are taken into adulthood, where we learn to effectively communicate non-verbally. Mating rituals become more complex, involving eye contact, posture, arm-touching, and booty-shaking while on the dance floor. As in, one must only shake one's booty at an individual one is attracted to.

We learn to interpret non-verbal communication, and in fact we learn to love it. We flirt with multiple members of the opposite sex, an activity that is perhaps 99.9 percent non-verbal; we judge our job performances based on the friendliness of our superiors; we judge the moral character of strangers simply by watching their driving patterns. And since we learn that it's not what one says but how one says it, we increase our vocabulary exponetially in order to impress others. This leads society to largely not talk to one another, but when it is time to talk we use fifty words to say something that could have been said in ten. A look, a touch, a head movement can move mountains. Receive, interpret, express, impress, and judge: wash, rinse, repeat.

Then we have children, and all that bullshit comes crashing down.

When I started dating Suzanne, she was a recently-divorced mother of two toddlers ages four and two, and a baby of six months. I was introduced to a world of black-and-white, an exciting time for children as the size of their vocabularies are exploding on a daily basis. However, their vocabularies are still relatively limited, and so this is also a world where words are often recycled between uses. Case in point: Potty, which is alternatively two nouns and a verb.

Definitions:

1. Potty (PAHT-ee), noun: A toilet or commode; "Go sit on the potty."

2. Potty (PAHT-ee), noun: Urine, the human waste byproduct often found in an infant's soiled diaper; "My goodness, that's a lot of potty."

3. Potty (PAHT-ee), verb: To urinate; "Do you need to potty?"

When speaking to a toddler, one says what one means, only in greatly simplified form. This can, and often does, lead to confusion such as: "Do you have potties? Do you need to go potty? Go potty in the potty!"

(Parents are usually eased into this speaking style, and so it insideously creeps into not only the speech pattern, but thinking patterns as well. Thus, the cliche of parents out on date night making baby-talk to one another. It's simply the way they speak and think now.

However, when I was dropped into the toddler world, I was spared the insideousness. I was not eased into anything, and so my pattern of thinking really wasn't altered. This was good when I would actually get to go out with Suzanne or when I would hang out with my friends, but it was bad when I would hang out with the kids. On more than a few occasions I have had to stifle casual observances such as: "Holy shit, did you see that kid somersault off the couch? I'd break my friggin' neck if I tried that," and replace them with tight-lipped smiles: "Good jump, dude.")

The potty is currently an unresolved issue in our household. K is almost three years old and is still not potty-trained. We have a small plastic pink potty just for K to use, and she loves the idea of it. Why, she'll take us over to the potty on a fairly regular basis just to explain, "See? This [K]'s pink potty. See?" But then we'll ask her if she'd like to sit on her pink potty, and she replies, "No, I don't like the pink potty."

Here's a typical attempt to potty-train K:

Us: [K], do you want ice cream?

K (jumping up and down): Yes! I love ice cream!

Us: Then sit on the potty and go potty, okay?

K (frowning): No, I don't like ice cream.

Yes, K grapples with stuff. It would be great to explain to K in a rational way why going to the bathroom is better for her and better for us, but instead I'm left with, "Go potty on the potty! Do you have potty? Not yet? Where's the potty? Can you make potty? Do you want ice cream?"

A Day in the Life

2009-02-17T14:17:00.008-05:00

Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head.

It's been a while between posts due to a lack of excitement. Suzanne and I took the kids to see Rilla, Derek and the cousins in Virginia this weekend, and that was fun for everyone. And thanks go out to them for buying and cooking us food, which is of course why we went. They're in the home stretch before graduating from UVa and leaving Crozet, and I'll miss that three-hour drive when visiting them. I've written before about what a nice drive it is.

But that hardly warrants another blog post. So, what does warrant a post? A cheap gimmick, that's what. Here's my Monday:

6:00 am: Alarm clock goes off. Allegedly.

6:07 am: Alarm clock goes off. Allegedly.

6:14: Alarm clock goes off, and I'm annoyed at being awake. Where's the snooze button? There it isszzzzzzzzz....

6:15: Suzanne, showered and in her scrubs, wakes me up to let me know that she's leaving for work and that I should get up. She kisses me goodbye and leaves. "Beep-beep-beep," replies the house alarm as she leaves. I wish I could reprogram the door to give a satisfied sigh like the doors on the Heart of Gold in "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

6: 21: Alarm clock goes off, and I debate getting up after hitting the snooze button.

6:28: Alarm clock goes off. Okay, it's definitely time to get up.

6:29: Brush teeth. Ahh, minty fresh.

6:32: Wake up older three kids. They wake up easily and begin going to the bathroom and getting dressed.

6:36: Go downstairs and start packing lunches. Balogna and cheese for the boys, roast beef and nothing else for N. A Capri-Sun, apple sauce cup, and Oreo dippers round out each kid's lunchbox.

6:41: The kids trickle downstairs one at a time. Waffles for N and J-2, and Honey Nut Cheerios for J-1. Always Honey Nut Cheerios for J-1. I could offer J-1 a bowl of candy for breakfast and he'd still want Honey Nut Cheerios.

6:45: I make my lunch. Two turkey sandwiches on rolls, two Diet Cherry Pepsis, two bags of chips. Because I'm exactly that health-conscious.

6:56: The kids go upstairs to brush their teeth, and I go to our bathroom to shave.

7:05: We all put on our jackets and shoes.

7:10: We walk to the corner and wait for the school bus.

7:12: Here's the school bus! Bye, have a good day. Bye, have a good day. Bye, have a good day.

7:16: Put the morning dishes in the dishwasher to add to last night's dishes, start the dishwasher.

7:25: Pull a big pile of laundry out of the dryer, transfer wet clothes from the washer to the dryer. Fold clean laundry and place in piles on the couch and coffee table.

7:31: Good God, that's a lot of clothes.

7:34: Take a shower.

7:41: Get out of shower and dry off. Now that I smell like Head and Shoulders, the ladies won't be able to resist.

7:45: Get dressed: Button-down shirt, blue jeans, black shoes.

7:48: Wake up K from her beauty sleep. "Good morning, Daddy!" I live for that. Put socks and jacket on, pick out her outfit for the day, grab her blankets and let her pick a few stuffed animals to bring to Grandma's for the day.

7:55: Carry K to the van, strap her in.

7:56: Run inside for a pack of Pop Tarts and a Gatorade for the road. Because I'm exactly that health-conscious.

7:57: Start the car. "Ready, [K]?" "Ready!" Pull out of the driveway.

8:02: Pull up at Grandma's house. Carry K and all her belongings inside. I'm running late, so I put her down, ask for a hug, get rejected for a hug, and say goodbye.

8:05: Start the car up and drive to work. Turn on radio, listen to NPR.

8:06: What a shocker, NPR is talking about the economic recession.

8:15: What a shocker, NPR is talking about the economic recession.

8:20: What a shocker, NPR is talking about the economic recession.

8:25: What a shocker, NPR is talking about the economic recession.

8:30: Pull up at work. I'm on time! Park the car and walk inside the building. Turn on computer, make coffee at my desk, check my emails.

8:30 am - 12:30 pm: Work in its various forms. It's a slow day, not much going on.

12:30 - 1:15: Eat lunch at my desk.

1:15 - 5:00: Work in its various forms. It's been a slow day, so I'm leaving the office exactly on time today.

5:00: Get in car, drive home.

5:10: What a shocker, NPR is talking about the economic recession.

5:15: What a shocker, NPR is talking about the economic recession.

5:20: What a shocker, NPR is talking about the economic recession.

5:25: What a shocker, NPR is talking about the economic recession.

5:28: Pull up in the driveway, park in the garage. What a nice house!

5:29: "DADDY!!" K comes running up, and I pick her up and raise her high in the air -- she has a big smile on her face. I give her a hug and ask her how her day was. Apparently she liked her "chickens" for lunch.

5:32: Grandma says everything went fine, the kids did their homework, K ate a good breakfast and lunch, but has some discoloration on her girlie bits. I make a mental note to pass that problem along to Suzanne because: no, thanks.

5:38: Grandma goes home, a job well done.

5:40: I help J-2 read his book he checked out from the library. He's one of the brightest in his kindergarten class, but the book he picked out is a 1st-grade-level book. He does very well reading with some help from me on the trickier words. I sign his reading log, and he goes back upstairs to watch whatever "Hannah Montana" type dreck is on TV.

(We're pretty lenient on TV watching. I'll put my foot down for shows that are inappropriate for children, but they've got to be kids. They want to watch TV, so we let them. I'm opposed to "Hannah Montana" because it's a wretched show seemingly written by children and overacted to an embarrassing degree by Miley Cyrus. *shudder* But it isn't inappropriate, and if the kids like watching it, so be it. I'm sure I watched worse when I was a kid. "Knight Rider" comes immediately to mind.)

6:00: Begin fixing dinner. Tonight it's Hamburger Helper and green beans. Which Hamburger Helper, you ask? Why, Cheeseburger Macaroni, of course! Mmmmmmm. Hey, K eats it, which makes it valuable indeed.

6:25: Dinner time! The four kids sit at the table in the breakfast nook, and I sit at the counter next to the table.

6:45: The kids are finishing up their dinner. J-1 and J-2 negotiate their release from the table by eating a predetermined number of bites of green beans. N needs no such negotiation; she's practically licking the plate clean with the exception of the hamburger meat. She hates ground beef unless it's in the form of a hamburger patty, for some reason. K is a greasy mess, but at least she's eating.

6:55: N clears the table and I begin cleaning the kitchen.

7:15: The kitchen is clean, dishes in the dishwasher. I join K in watching "Max and Ruby."

7:30: I have N get in the shower, and I tell J-1 and J-2 to get in jammies and clean their room.

8:05: Suzanne gets home from work. Kiss, kiss. She pulls out the container of Hamburger Helper that I left for her in the fridge, pops it in the microwave, and digs in. Mmmmmmm. We talk about our day.

8:20: Suzanne goes upstairs to give K her bath, and I give N her medicine. She's had a sinus infection of sorts for several weeks, and is on a course of antibiotics. It's been fun times with Kleenex around here lately, let me tell ya.

8:30: Bed time! I tell the kids to brush their teeth, and the boys do so. N tells me that she already did brush her teeth. I ask her if her toothbrush is wet, and she sighs, "Nooooo." She gets up to brush her teeth. She's been on a lying kick lately, telling little lies fairly regularly. I warned her to stop lying a few days ago, but now I have to follow through. Boom, she loses her Nintendo DS for a week. I hate being the bad guy.

8:45: The kids are all climbing in bed, and I brush K's teeth. Suzanne is talking to N about her day.

8:47: We tuck the boys in bed, hugs, I-love-yous, blow out the light.

8:48: Same routine with N, except she has a windup musical ceramic angel that I wind up for her. It's been part of her routine for years. It's cute that she still wants the angel turned on.

8:52: Tucking K in bed is a bit of a longer process. She gets her blankets, sucks her thumb, cuddles with a few stuffed animals, gets a hug, kiss, Eskimo kiss, butterfly kiss, and a bee kiss. Routine, routine. Kids thrive on routine.

8:58: Suzanne checks her new Facebook page. For as much mocking she did of me when I signed up, she seems to enjoy her page enough. I'm glad. We talk about our days some more.

9:20: We watch "Heroes" that's on our DVR. Meh. That show always seems like it should be so much better. A lot of really creative stuff happens in that show, but the writing and directing seem to be aimed somewhat low. A lot of needless explanation goes on, which oftentimes gets repeated multiple times. They should take a page from "Lost" and "Battlestar Galactica" about how to give your audience some credit for being smart. Anyway.

10:05: The show is over, Suzanne makes her chocolate milk and goes downstairs to bed. I begin my side job typing a transcript for the Board of Parole Hearings. This one is a woman who got dumped by her boyfriend in 1982 and killed him with a shotgun. Very boring case. Boooo. I like the crazies. Well, this chick is crazy for killing someone after getting dumped, but I mean, you know, crazy. They're so much fun to listen to. They think they can argue their way into a granting of parole. FAIL. Good times, good times.

11:10: Nodding off at the keyboard. I didn't get much work done, but I'm too tired to continue. I'll put it off for tomorrow and head off to bed. Shut down the computer, turn out the light.

11:13: Brush teeth.

11:15: Set the alarm, climb into bed. My mind races for about 8.342 seconds before shutting down and falling asleep. I love being able to sleep on a moment's notice. Suzanne hates me for it. Nya-nya.

11:25: Wake up when Suzanne makes me roll over because I'm snoring. Immediately fall back asleep.

25 Random Things About Me

2009-01-30T23:20:00.002-05:00

Today, I responded to a popular Facebook chain-mail that's being passed around. The way it works is you list 25 random things about yourself, then tell 25 Facebook friends about it. They are then supposed to do the same, including you in the list so that you can see what they wrote. I actually had a good time coming up with the list, and thought, hey, two birds with one stone! I can post it to my blog, too. Enjoy!

1. I’m not quite wise enough to avoid becoming involved in a Facebook chain-mail.

2. A coworker today played an mp3 of Eddie Murphy singing the Put It In Your Butt song from back in the day, and I honestly thought it was Donkey from Shrek signing. So yes, there are children in my life.

3. In my 20’s, I loved Cheez-Its. I’m more mature now that I'm in my 30's, and as such I now love Goldfish crackers.

4. My favorite sound in the world is the sound of our two-year-old’s shriek-giggle when she’s delightedly surprised by something.

5. My Dodge Grand Caravan is the best car I’ve ever owned. Feel free to interpret that as you wish.

6. The best man at my wedding once literally abandoned me and another friend in the middle of the desert for hours. We were on our way home from Vegas after a weekend of gambling and debauchery when my car’s engine died. He managed to get a ride before we did. Also: he was, coincidentally enough, driving my car when it died.

7. There might be more to that story that exonerates him somewhat, but it’s more fun when I tell it that way.

8. Speaking of gambling, the first bet I ever placed in a Las Vegas casino was at a roulette table. I placed $5 on Black-24, and it hit! I won lots of money, and I was hooked.

9. Um…can you loan me five grand? I’ll, like, pay you back Tuesday and shit?

10. Okay, I’ll say it: There is one person on my Facebook friend list who is a complete stranger to me. I have no idea who this person is.

11. Frankly, insufficient evidence exists to warrant anyone’s love of the following: Land Rovers, poetry, tomatoes, Maroon 5, the beach, The Eagles, Rush Limbaugh, seafood, Apple computers, David Caruso, Sacramento, and the Lakers.

12. I’m a lot better than my wife at spelling and I have a larger everyday vocabulary than she does, but I can’t beat her at Scrabble or Boggle. Seriously. I’ve never won against her. After playing her, I always feel like Homer asking his wife, “Marge, where’s that metal…dealey…you use to…dig…food?”

13. Diet Pepsi with Cherry? Why, yes, I’ll have one. Thanks.

14. This one time, I tricked myself into thinking I enjoyed jogging.

15. It turns out that I don’t like running because makes my right knee hurt. I went to a doctor about the knee, and he actually told me something along the lines of, “Maybe you shouldn’t run anymore.”

16. In a related story, Kaiser sucks.

17. I absolutely love our house. I absolutely love living in North Carolina. I’m so glad we moved.

18. I still feel proud about graduating from college. After initially dropping out at age 19, I honestly thought I’d never be a college graduate.

19. I snore. Loudly. And yet, I remain married. Either I’m a good husband, or my wife thinks she’s out of options. (She isn’t, by the way.)

20. When I think about the self-centered pity-me type of person I was from age 14-18 (basically, high school), I could just puke. If I knew you then, I sincerely apologize.

21. “Lost” is probably the most well thought-out TV show in history. Well, it friggin’ better be when it’s all said and done or I’m gonna mail a big bag of poop to JJ Adams.

22. I like hyperbole. It’s the best thing ever.

23. I’m currently trying to get my CPA license, but I honestly have no idea what I’m going to use it for.

24. I’d like to go to Wake Forest or UNC-Greensboro to get my MBA, but I honestly have no idea what I’d use it for.

25. I love my family, I miss my friends, and I miss my mom.

26. People who give extra effort rock.

The Update-O-Matic 3000

2009-01-26T10:35:00.005-05:00

The older kids' bio-dad flew into town for the weekend to play with them, so Suzanne and I decided to take K and head on down to Atlanta to see my dad and step-mom. We'd been living in NC since July but we hadn't yet made it down, and I actually hadn't visited Dad since 2001 or thereabouts, so I was glad for the opportunity to visit. The two times I visited Dad when I lived in Sacramento sort of laid the groundwork for my desire to move back east. I wasn't sure at the time if Atlanta was where I wanted to end up, but I just loved the scenery and pace of life. So if you want someone to blame for my leaving California, blame Dad.

The trip is about six hours, which includes a stop for lunch. We left on Saturday, rolled into town late Saturday afternoon, spent the night, and got back into Greensboro on Sunday night. Just a quick stop. I was thankful that K got to spend some time with T-Pop and Miss Mary. She already knew them, but I think she was able to make some memories with them this weekend. At the very least, she now knows their names. I'm hoping that we can take all the kids down there for a longer weekend this spring, maybe see a Braves game and/or go to Six Flags.

During lunch on Sunday, Dad reminded me that I needed to pass the CPA exam. It's funny, but I had almost completely put that out of my mind. With the holidays and Mom's passing, the CPA exam was just put on the backburner. Like, way in the back. I've got the study material sitting on my desk, but it's beginning to gather dust. Time to get back on that horse.

I still need to re-register for the exam, which is an important step #1. I think I just feel guilty about failing the exam the first time, and the time that I'm costing my family because I didn't just knock it out the first time. But I'll sign up for it in the beginning of February, and schedule the two parts for the end of April and the end of May, respectively.

And, of course, I need to study. At this point, it's amazing to me that I was able to not only stay in school for 5 1/2 years, but that I succeeded in doing so. It was just a tremendous amount of studying and schoolwork, projects, etc. It's only been eight months since I've been in school, and all I have to do now is study for an exam. The prospect of studying is daunting. I'm now officially out of the habit of studying, and getting back into "school" is now officially difficult.

But I'll get it done. I just don't wanna.

Two Boys, a Girl, and Some Leaves.

2009-01-13T21:23:00.002-05:00

Mom

2009-01-10T12:32:00.010-05:00

This blog post is very long, personal, non-linear, and possibly semi-coherent in parts. It's long because I'm covering a lot of ground, and my intention is to write about this only once. In all honesty, this post is for me rather than for you, but I’m sharing it publicly because it feels a damn sight better than scribbling “Dear Diary,” in a notebook. More valid, somehow. I don’t know. Anyway.

---

On Christmas night, some time after posting the Christmas pictures onto the blog, I gave Mom a call to wish her a Merry Christmas. It had been a great day, and I was in a good mood. And I was simply not prepared for the voice I heard on the other end of the phone.

Mom answered with her usual enthusiasm: “Hiiiii, Mr. Mark!” but the strength of her voice quickly faded. I asked Mom how she was feeling, and, as usual, she brushed off my question. Instead, she told me about what a great help her new hospice care worker was, how wonderful it was to live with her sister, and she asked how the kids and Suzanne and I were doing. Always positive, always asking about others.

Except this time, her voice was barely above a whisper. The cancer had spread to her lungs, I could hear. And rapidly.

Caught by surprise, I choked up and had trouble speaking -- Mom’s end was near. I had known the end would come, of course. I was just not ready to face it, even though I had already said my goodbyes to her. I knew I had to get off the phone before I lost it, and so I made a hurried goodbyeIloveyoutalktoyousoonMerryChristmas.

Suzanne was at work Christmas night (a Thursday), and I was making dinner for the kids when I was having this phone call with Mom. After I hung up, I paused to take some breaths. Focus, focus, focus. I’m not alone here, the kids need me, they’re hungry, fix dinner, they’re my focus, they’re my priority, wipe my eyes, don’t let them see me like this, they’ll be scared.

“Dinner” was Kraft Mac and Cheese with hot dog bits, fruit cups on the side. Good thing I was doing my best Hank Hill impression of fatherhood that night because I think I would’ve burned enchiladas had I been making them. Drain the noodles, mix in the powder, milk, butter, nuke the hot dogs, slice them and fold them into the noodles. Okay, no problem, I got this, dinner’s just about ready.

Set the table, pour the milk, screw the lid onto K’s sippy-cup. Scoop portions onto everyone’s plate and set them on the table. “[N], [J-1], [J-2], [K], dinner’s ready!” Down the stairs they come, everyone in their right place at the table. Good, everyone is happy. They had a good day, and they love Mac and Cheese. Fucking hell, they’re never going to hear their Nana’s voice again, are they?

I picked up the phone and called Mom back. Mom was fading in and out of the conversation already; she was not able to stay conscious for more than a few moments at a time before coming to and resuming the conversation. But thankfully I was able to reach her, and I told her that the kids wanted to talk to her. She was, of course, thrilled to speak with them.

One by one, the kids took their turn speaking with Mom. They excitedly told tales of Santa coming, presents that were opened, how great their new toys were. K, who loves holding the phone but rarely speaks into it, chose at that moment to become a phone-talker. “Hi, Nana! I eating macka’oni cheese. I love macka’oni cheese! It’s delicious! And Christmas tree, and presents. Bye, Nana!”

When I got the phone back, Mom told me that she was ashamed that she couldn’t tell the boys apart when she talked to them. I explained who was who, and we had another short, halting conversation with her about the day. Choking up again, I made my goodbyes once more.

Later that night, after the kids went to bed, Rilla called me because Mom was worried that she had scared me. (For those who don’t know, Rilla is my sister, and she lives in Virginia. Mom, also for the record, lives in Sacramento.) Rilla talked to Mom some time after I did and reached the same conclusion about her that I did, and wanted to see if I was okay. I was not. Rilla, who had plans to visit Mom around New Year’s Day, decided to bump up her travel arrangements to fly the next day (Friday the 26th). It was clear to her that Mom wouldn’t last more than a few days, and she had not yet said her goodbyes. We talked and cried for a bit, considering our options. Rilla said Mom told her that she talked to K, and that K told her a funny joke about Mac and Cheese. So Mom was able to understand K. I’ll always be grateful for that.

After speaking with Rilla, I called Suzanne at the hospital to let her know that Mom had only a few days left. Suzanne, being the awesome wife she is, immediately started letting her supervisor know that she had to go home. I told Suzanne not to come home, that it wasn’t an emergency, just that I wanted her to know what was going on. In retrospect, I don’t know why I called her that night. I never call Suzanne at the hospital. I’m not one to cry, and I’m not one to reach out. However, I have weak moments from time to time, and Lord knows this was one of them.

The next day (Friday), Suzanne insisted that I immediately go to Sacramento to see Mom before she died. Suzanne’s parents had previously offered to let Suzanne and I fly to Sacramento using their Frequent Flyer miles for this very reason. I decided Suzanne was right, and I called Mom to let her know that I was going to try to get out there on Saturday. Mom’s whispered and slurred response: “Ohhhh, that’s good news. That’s great news. Oh, goooooooood,” she said before trailing off.

I told Mom that I loved her, asked her if she knew I loved her (which she did), and I hung up. And then I realized that I couldn’t just up and go to Sacramento the next day. I was still in my 90-day probationary period at work, and both of my immediate supervisors were on vacation the upcoming week so I couldn’t get in touch with them. If I just left, I might not have a job when I came back. I doubted that would actually be the case because the people I work for are very accommodating, but I couldn’t put my family in jeopardy. I decided to wait until Tuesday.

Rilla managed to get to Sacramento on Friday, and I got periodic updates from her throughout the weekend because Mom was too weak to talk on the phone. On Monday, I wrote my supervisors an email explaining my situation in the hope that they were unable to put down their crackberries. My tech-savvy supervisor almost immediately replied to my email telling me not to worry, but to take care of my family.

I spoke with Rilla that afternoon, who was driving around on various errands. While speaking with me, she saw that she got another call and said, “Oh, no. I’ll call you back.” A tearful Rilla called me back two minutes later to give me the news: Mom had passed away about ten minutes prior.

---

It's a funny thing, losing a loved one.

When I got the call from Rilla about Mom's passing, Suzanne and I were playing a skateboard video game in the bonus room. We of course stopped playing and started alerting family members, making arrangements to fly out to Sacramento, and addressing other funeral-type issues. But once I finished with those arrangements for the time being, I was surprised at how okay with Mom's death I was. Don't get me wrong, I was sad that she died, but I wasn't nearly as affected as I was when I spoke with her on Christmas, when the sudden inevitability of her death hit me like a ton of bricks. When her death occurred, however, it seemed to me that the inevitable had simply come to pass. Her pain was gone, and she -- and everyone else -- could now move on to the next step. I was so okay that after a couple of hours I went back to playing the video game. Suzanne reluctantly joined me later, and she commented several times about how weird it was that we were playing a game on the day that my mother died. I agreed.

At the time of this writing, it is a week and a half since her death. And now is the time when Mom's death is sinking in. I keep wanting to call her to ask her something, but I realize that I can't. Well, I can; her voice mail is still active, which is disconcerting. But if she had any answers to give me about anything, I can't receive them. That seems so obvious when contemplating death, but it's quite different when a loved one is actually gone.

For example, I've been reading Mom's blog the past couple of days, and on the surface it seems to be the same type of flibbertigibbet nonsense that I've always known her to embrace. I love her for it, but I regret that I've never had a lot of patience in hearing (or reading) it. But in clicking on her other pages detailing her family history and some reasons about why she is the way she is, it has become apparent that she had some legitimate and interesting things to say that I hadn't yet heard. Her writings promised more detail about this story or that story, but she never got around to finishing a lot of her stories in the blog. I really, really want to call her to ask her what the rest of the story is, or to implore her to finish writing. And, of course, I can't.

That's when it hit me that Mom is gone. Not at the time of her death when I thought I missed her, but now that I actually miss her. Right now is difficult.

---

I flew out of Greensboro to Sacramento on Tuesday thanks to Suzanne's parents' donation of their Frequent Flyer mileage. Suzanne had to work on Tuesday and Wednesday, so she was flying out on Thursday. In addition to the donated mileage, Suzanne's mother, Debbie, was kind enough to watch the children until that Sunday, which was when Suzanne and I were scheduled to return. Now, we have great kids, but they are young, and there are four of them. They're a handful. It was a tremendous favor for Debbie to watch the kids for that long.

Speaking of kids, do you know what the best thing about flying with children is? The appreciation you develop for flying without them. My flight to Sacramento included stops in DC and Denver, and I tell you, I would've been fine with another couple of connections. I felt as light as a feather in moving from connection to connection. All I had as carry-on luggage was my backpack; my hands were free, and I didn't have to keep my head on a swivel to make sure kids were following and not fighting with each other.

I had a three-hour layover in DC around lunchtime. Dulles is not a great airport, which was too bad because I had time to kill. However, I did manage to find a decent pub and ordered a chicken club sandwich. "Would you like a beer with that?" No kids? Why yes, I will have a beer, thanks! "Would you like another beer, sir?" You betcha! It wasn't about getting drunk; I was definitely not drunk, nor did I wish to be. It was about being able to do what I want without regard to anyone else, if only for a couple of hours. Despite the circumstances of the trip, it was good times at the airport.

Suzanne's brother and his wife, Michael and Kayla, let us stay with them in their guest bedroom, and lent us their commuter car for the week. They're awesome. Michael has a whole slew of video games and a pinball machine, not to mention a Nintendo Wii. I'm so glad we stayed with them if for no other reason than the welcome distraction from the tasks at hand. I developed quite a case of "Wii Elbow" from playing too much the first few days. Rilla and Aunt Bonnie had handled almost all of the funeral arrangements by the time I arrived on Tuesday, so the time I spent on Wednesday and Thursday not visiting friends and family was spent playing pinball and Wii. It was nice to relax, but after about a day of it I was missing my family.

Suzanne landed at about 12:30 am on Thursday night/Friday morning, which means it was 3:30 am our time. Booo. But it was great to have her back around me.

On Friday morning, several family members and Mom's friends gathered at the funeral home to decorate Mom's casket. Unusual? Oh, yes. Mom wanted a simple burial, so Rilla and Aunt Bonnie chose a simple, unpainted pine box as her casket. Mom's family and friends then painted little pictures all over it that represented our memories of her. Some people were excellent artists and did wonderful work, and others (like me) muddled through the best we could. N had sent along a paper with some pictures that she wanted to paint on the casket, so Suzanne painted those on for her. I painted a small Starship Enterprise because, well, I'm a dork, I guess. It's what I often drew when I was a child. The funeral director said he'd never seen a group of people paint a casket before. I'm glad we did.

This event generated my first really emotional response to Mom's death. This is Mom's casket. Even though the casket was empty when we painted it, it was still Mom's casket. I had to leave and come back a few times to avoid the crying, which I didn't want to do in front of anyone. After a couple of hours, we finished and cleaned up, and everyone left until the graveside service later that afternoon. Rilla, Suzanne and I stayed to close the casket after Mom was laid. Rilla had put Mom's gold-lined comforter cover and her favorite pillow in the casket, and when I saw those I absolutely broke down. Couldn't help it.

The funeral director took the casket away, and returned with it a few minutes later with Mom's shrouded body inside. I couldn't actually see Mom since she was covered, which I think was a good thing. We placed a few mementos in with Mom (pictures drawn by N, an acorn, a pine cone, a Dr. Mario Nintendo cartridge [she loved that game], and a few other items that I can't recall), and then Rilla and I closed the lid.

---

How do you tell children about death?

Suzanne and I had been keeping Mom's illness from the kids, at Mom's request. Mom did not want the kids to be scared of her, nor did she want their memories of her to be filled with images of her suffering -- or worse -- them being frightened of her should she experience a negative personality shift as a result of cancer attacking the brain. It was for this reason that Mom had refused to live with us after learning her diagnosis. She had been living with us for about a year and a half before moving out earlier last year.

After speaking with Mom on Christmas, Suzanne and I agreed that it was time to tell the kids what was going on. I thought being honest and direct was the best way to handle it, and I would avoid using phrases like “passing away” because the kids would probably have no idea that a phrase like “passed away” really means “died.” So after dinner on Sunday, Suzanne and I sat the kids down and told them that their Nana (Mom) was very sick, and that she was going to die soon.

K, being two, didn’t understand nor was she expected to. J-2 is a rambunctious five-year-old, and to him, dying is an exciting thing that happens on TV or in his imagination when playing with his army toys. He didn’t really understand what was going on, either. J-1 had noticed Mom’s tumor the last time he saw her, and he asked a few follow-up questions about that. N asked a question about what would happen to Patrick, Mom’s dog, and then returned her attention and her conversation to her Nintendo DS.

Honestly, I was pretty disappointed with the kids’ reaction, particularly N’s. I know now that that’s my fault for having expectations that were too high, but at the time I was a little bit hurt that N, being almost ten years old, showed very little empathy or concern about anything other than herself.

That night as I was tucking her into bed, I gave her a long-ish lecture about how she hurt my feelings a little bit by talking about her Nintendo DS when I was trying to tell her something important about her Nana. I told her that she didn’t have to fake-cry or anything, but at the very least she should focus her attention on the person talking. I told her to try imagining how it would feel if her mother was sick and dying, and how it would feel if the person she was talking to about it didn’t seem to care. And what with me being kind of an asshole about it all, I made her cry.

Now, I wasn’t yelling or demeaning to N, and I told her that I wasn’t mad because I know she is still a child. I thought I was pretty calm and rational about that discussion. But still, what a dick I was. N felt sad about Mom; of course she felt sad. She just didn’t know how to react or show it at the time. After all, she had no idea about any of this until that night. What’s a nine-year-old supposed to do, flop dramatically to the floor while weeping, gnashing her teeth, and rending her garments?

On Monday, we told the kids that Nana had died. They seemed sad, but unsure of what Nana’s death meant. I think they’ll have a reaction sometime in the future when they realize that they can no longer talk to her or see her. That night when tucking N into bed, she told me that she was sorry that Nana died. N really does want to please. And I felt like kind of an asshole again, but I told her thank you and it was very nice of her to say.

After I left for Sacramento on Tuesday, N drew some pictures of Nana and sent them with Suzanne on Thursday, including one of Nana walking her dog, and another of her in angel form. The pictures were spot-on, completely from memory, and so sweet that they made several people cry during the casket-decorating. We left the pictures in the casket to be buried with Mom. Yes, Nana's death did make an impact on her. She needed no lecture from my dumb ass.

---

The graveside service was attended by probably 50 people, most of whom I had not seen since my wedding. It was cold and rainy outside, just like a funeral scene in a movie, and a tent had been erected over the grave. The minister was Mom’s pastor at a church she had been attending the past couple of years, and he seemed nice enough. I know his church is a very charismatic church with lots of praying in tongues and dancing and such, so it was good of him to tone it down for a non-denominational service.

There were not many tears at Mom’s funeral, but a quiet respect for her. Many people came who had not seen her in years, but had heard of her passing through Rilla’s many, many phone calls, and wanted to attend to pay their respects and see her family. I regret that I didn’t remember very many of Mom’s old friends, as I was introduced to most of them when I was an adolescent who had no patience at all for Mom or the friends she introduced me to. (By the way, I can’t wait until our kids hit puberty. Won’t that be fun?)

Most people left before Mom’s casket was lowered into the ground, and I was thankful for that. I had been smiling and friendly, making my way from person to person to shake their hand, give a hug, asking how their lives were going, but once everyone had gone we three siblings, supported by our spouses/fiancée, wept over Mom’s body now in the ground.

Aunt Bonnie had put together a memorial at a local Rotary Club, which most people at the funeral went to. It was a nice catered event with a slideshow put together by Aunt Rilla. I’d already seen most of the pictures in the slideshow, of course, but seeing them put together with a song like “Calling All Angels” playing was moving, to say the least. Not a dry eye in the house. I had sent in a few pictures for the slideshow, and when I saw the picture of an 18-month-old K walking and holding her Nana’s hand, I was hit again: K probably won’t remember her Nana at all.

---

I had a dream last night that a clone of Mom was still with us, and that it wasn’t a surprise at all to anyone. There had always been this clone of her that lived a normal life, but we generally wouldn’t pay much attention to this clone for some reason. It was, like, a copy and not worth as much. I don’t know; it was a dream.

In this dream, the real Mom had died and it was present day, which is to say, about two weeks after her death. I remember sitting in a room with CloneMom, who was healthy, and it suddenly occurred to me that hey, maybe CloneMom can answer those questions I mentioned before. Does she know everything that Mom knew? I leaned forward to ask a question, but before I could say anything she started rubbing a spot on her chest just below her right clavicle. I could see the spot had a sort of purplish hue. I asked CloneMom, “Does that hurt?”

She replied, “No, not yet. It just feels hard.”

I said, “Oh, if it isn’t bad yet, the tumor can be removed and you’ll be okay!”

She didn’t say anything else, but I could read her thoughts: “How cruel of God to afflict someone with cancer not once, but twice?”

I woke up at that point. I don’t know what that dream was all about, but I didn’t like it much.

---

The next day, Rilla, Rob, and I went through Mom's bedroom and storage facility. Mom didn’t have anything particularly valuable to anyone except us, but I wanted to be sure that Mom’s photos and photo albums were preserved. Rilla and Rob were taking care of Mom’s artwork, of which there are many pieces she painted or drew over the past 30+ years. I wanted a few of those paintings, but the photos were the most important to me.

Rob had Mom’s photo albums, but the pictures were placed in acid-based pages and were badly faded. I needed to find the negatives to possibly reprint them. A search of the storage facility yielded some, but not all, negatives from the old pictures. I called Dad, and it turns out that he has them. Whew! Developing those photos and reassembling the albums will be a huge project, and I’ll start that up after Dad sends the negatives or converts them to .jpg format for me. (And by the way, good on Dad for keeping them all these years. Many other people would’ve simply thrown away memories from a failed marriage. Thanks, Dad.)

It was nice going through all of Mom’s (and our) memories and laughing about them with Rob and Rilla. The ‘70s was a fabulous time, wasn’t it? There were so many artifacts from that bygone era in storage that the facility seemed to be less of a place to keep old junk and more of a shrine to the god of brown and olive green kitch.

But of course there is the hard part of going through Mom’s things. Mom’s bedroom was small and with the exception of an empty space where Mom’s hospital bed had been wheeled out, the room was packed with her books on a small bookshelf, her father’s dresser, her most prized memorabilia, a TV stand, and her clothes in a closet.

It was eerie. There’s her stuff. There’s her clothes. I remember seeing a shoe on the ground as if Mom had lazily kicked it off when she got home. Her room was waiting for her to return any moment.

---

Suzanne and I returned home Sunday night to a warm welcome from the children. Lots of hugs, lots of excited stories, lots of carrying around a two-year-old who refused to let me put her down.

I didn’t take much home from Mom’s room, but one item I insisted upon was a small music box with a dancing clown. When Mom lived with us, K would frequently visit her and ask her to turn on the clown. Mom would, and K would dance and dance, spinning in circles on Mom’s magic blue area rug.

After we got home, Suzanne pulled the music box out of my backpack and said, “[K], do you know what this is?”

Even though she hadn’t seen it in almost a year, K knew exactly what it was. She reached for it and exclaimed, “Can I hold? Can ninic (music)?”

Suzanne wound it up and let it play, much to K’s delight. Suzanne asked her, “Do you know whose box this is?”

K replied, “Yeah! That Nana box!”

---

If you were to ask me to give you a single, specific memory of Mom, I probably couldn’t do it. What can I say? It’s Mom! I grew up around her. I’d have to really think about it. Much the same as our children take us for granted, I took my mother for granted. But she represents my childhood, my earliest feelings and sensations. I can’t tell you a story, but I can remember exactly what she smelled like, exactly how she ate her cereal in the morning, exactly what I felt like whenever I heard my name shouted from the other side of the house.

Cancer aside, Mom had a rough end. She made some poor financial choices, and her blog does lend some insight into why she made those choices. Over the past 15 years she went from homeowner, to house renter several times over, to bedroom renter, to free room and board from loved ones. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Sacramento, and never capitalized on it. She went from full-time employment to unemployed by her own choosing.

Even though she made those choices, she didn’t deserve this end. I stood over Mom’s grave and thought it should have been better for her. She was only 56 years old and had a bleak future with no retirement or savings to speak of. I wouldn’t say she was lonely, exactly, because she surrounded herself constantly with good friends and family, but she had turned into a loner. She did things by herself. She wouldn’t accept sound advice, and she wouldn’t accept help until things got so bad that she had no choice.

But Mom was positive. All the time positive. She saw the good in everything, gave everyone the benefit of the doubt, and saw beauty everywhere. That sounds like a trite and clichéd eulogy for just about anyone, but as all who met Cat Ferris can attest, she of all people didn’t deserve to suffer as she suffered.

I’m a Christian; I believe in God and Jesus’ gift of grace and salvation. But God doesn’t intervene in earthly affairs anymore. I don’t know if he ever did, but I’ve never seen a miracle. In watching my Mom suffer as she did, it is clear that God is not an interventionist. I always suspected as much when reading about the atrocities that occur on a daily basis around the world, and I’ve always been offended when I hear a churchgoer ask a pastor to pray for them that they might sell their 25-foot ski boat soon, or when I see a football player point to the heavens after scoring a touchdown and thanking God for blessing him with ability when the sideline reporter interviews him. Fuck you! Who the hell are you? You think God loves you more than anyone else? You think God loves one fourth-generation Yale grad more and gives her a life of ease, or loves one cocky and selfish wide receiver more and so lets him find glory on national television, while letting a woman with nothing but love in her heart grow a smelly, ugly, thunderingly painful tumor on her breast that eventually kills her? No. He doesn’t. God doesn’t step in to help any of us, or smack down anyone for ascending too high. We help ourselves down here and hope fortune finds us. Church is a waste of everyone’s time.

But yet, as I hear my children’s voices in the other room talking over lunch, I know that I am blessed. I don’t know why or by whom, but I know that I waited to find the right woman to marry for a reason. Granted, I wasn’t very good at dating, but I also wasn’t about to marry the first girl who came along. I feel that it was partially my own decision to not propose to anyone else before proposing to Suzanne, but it was also some sort of unseen fate that let Suzanne out of a bad marriage in time to meet me while I waited nine years to go back to school so that I could meet her.

I know that I have a much better life than the parents of an eight-year-old leukemia patient going through his third round of chemo. I know that I have a much better life than an Iraqi businessman who eyes every kicked-over Pepsi can he sees in the street with caution. I know that I have a much better life than…well, you see where I’m going. But why? I don’t know. No one has explained any of this to me. Well, various church leaders have tried, but their explanations don’t hold water. God’s plan? Whatever, guys. If Mom didn’t deserve better, then I’m no more or less deserving than anyone else. Jesus did his job, and then he went home to wait for the rest of us.

But I also know that Mom is enjoying her riches in Heaven. God knows she earned them on Earth.

---

On her blog, Mom has a quote from Benjamin Franklin that brought me comfort. I don't know if that was her intent when she posted it, but here it is:

"We are all spirits-- That bodies should be lent us while they can afford us pleasure, assist us in requiring knowledge, or in doing good to our fellow creatures, is a kind and benevolent act of God.When they become unfit for these purposes and afford us pain instead of pleasure, instead of an aid become an encumbrance, and ensure none of the intentions for which they were given, it is equally kind and benevolent that a way is provided by which we may get rid of them-- Death is that way.Our friend and we were invited abroad on a party of pleasure, which is to last forever. His chair was ready first and he has gone before us. We would not all conveniently start together; and why should you and I be grieved at this, since we are soon to follow and know where to find him."

Catherine Reynolds Ferris

8/30/1952 - 12/29/2008

Want to Follow?

2009-01-08T11:45:00.004-05:00

You see all the fun stuff on the right side of the screen? There's a follow feature there now. If you sign up, you can follow my blog anywhere. Anywhere! If it happens to here first, you'll know next. Doesn't that sound fun?

Won't you help me feel popular by signing up to follow my blog?

---

ETA: Yay! Chris wins by being my first follower.

A Blustery Day

2009-01-07T14:28:00.003-05:00

With the older three kids back in school, Suzanne and K met me for lunch today at Red Robin. We usually meet for lunch once a week or so. I'm beginning to look forward to these weekly lunches, as it's usually the only semi-date opportunity Suzanne and I have. We're usually juggling all four kids, or are fending off sleep with wine and HGTV after the kids go to bed. I like being out with her. Which is good, I suppose, what with being married and all.

On our way out of the restaurant, the wind had really kicked into high gear and was blowing the three of us around. K thought this was the funniest thing in the world, and giggled her supercute-excited giggle with every gust of wind as we walked across the parking lot. My baby.

--

I had a thought today that I've been laughing with Suzanne about. It may not seem funny at first, but it's been amusing to think about on a hypothetical -- purely hypothetical -- level, so bear with me:

What is the absolute minimum that I would have to do for Suzanne to just divorce me? Where's the line? Let's say we have me, well on the safe side of the line, and well on the other side of the line we have the usual divorce cliches such as adultery and gambling our savings away. Of course adultery gets me a divorce, duh. But what is the absolute minimum I would have to do in order for Suzanne to just say, I'm outta here.

That's a tough one! I mean, I can do something stupid like buying a couple of luxury cars on a whim without consulting her, but is that a divorceable offense? She'd just be mad at me and make me return them, no? What if I insisted on wallpapering our bedroom with life-sized Barack Obama cutouts? Divorce, you think?

Where's your line? Feel free to comment. Be creative!

Back in Town

2009-01-04T22:03:00.002-05:00

Suzanne and I are back in Greensboro after a trip to Sacramento. Most people I know are aware of this, but Mom died on Monday, Dec. 29th. I flew out to Sacramento the next day, and Suzanne followed on Thursday.

Clearly, this is a very blunt and shallow post, but I recognize that I am nothing more than an amateur writer, at best, and I wanted to avoid coming off as glib, melodramatic, or unsympathetic in writing about our experience this past week. I will be writing about this past week in much more detail once I have sorted out some thoughts, of which there are many. But for now, there you go.

Mele...mele...hakuna...feliz...um...Merry Christmas.

2008-12-25T21:34:00.005-05:00

I hope you and your family had as wonderful a Christmas as we did.

The kids followed instructions and didn't descend the stairs until 7:30 this morning to see what Santa brought them. Twenty or so minutes later, Suzanne and I were serenaded with "This is the best Christmas ever!"

Yeah, you know all the hassle and inconvenience and stress and frustration of being a parent? Totally worth it.

Here's a glimpse:

Birthday Musings

2008-12-22T09:42:00.008-05:00

Today is Suzanne's birthday. Yes, it's three days before Christmas. Can you imagine growing up with a birthday so close to Christmas? Suzanne assures me that when she was a child her parents made every effort to differentiate her birthday from Christmas itself, but I'm sure she got her fair share of "birthday/Christmas combo" presents from friends and relatives while her brothers got two separate gifts when they were kids. What a rip-off for her!

And I have to admit, it's hard for me not to fall into that "birthday/Christmas combo" gift trap when gift shopping for my wife. You know what I mean, the I-can't-justify-spending-that-much-money-on-one-present item you see in the store, but since her birthday and Christmas are only three days apart, maaaaaaaybe I can make that fly as a "birthday/Christmas combo" gift. While that may be a great gift, it's still just a little bit lazy and unthoughtful, you know?*

As such, it's kind of challenging getting her presents for two occasions back-to-back (at least we didn't do a Christmas wedding, right?). I think I did all right this year. For her birthday, I bought four picture frames that were partitioned off into seven 4X6 mini-frames. I then filled each frame with seven pictures of each respective child from infancy to present day. I think it turned out pretty well, and Suzanne seemed to like it. The kids got Suzanne a practical gift of a set of bath mats for the master bathroom. For Christmas, I got Suzanne a ______, and the kids got her a _____.** I think she'll like those, too.

---

Rilla, Derek and their boys rolled into town this weekend for an overnight visit. We were happy that they could make it, and all of the cousins had a great time together. Well, K kept making a pest of her two-year-old self with her older siblings and cousins, but everyone else had fun playing around the house and outside, braving the intermittent rain to ride bikes and scooters down the driveway. The adults enjoyed wine, conversation, blackjack, and Guitar Hero challenges. Who knew that Rilla was so coordinated, and I was so not? I just can't handle the orange button. Booo.

Rilla's 10-year-old son, Ethan, cracks me up. As boys will do, he brought an action figure along for the car ride. But not Spider-Man, not Anakin Skywalker, and not Optimus Prime. No, his action figure was John McCain. Oh. My. God. On sooooo many levels is this interesting. First and foremost, he's 10! Most 10-year-olds don't care who's running for office, or even who the president is. But not Ethan. Ethan not only knows and cares who's running for office, he has several reasons why he felt McCain was the better candidate. We asked Ethan why he liked McCain, and he didn't even have to think about it: McCain supports the war in Iraq, and McCain was a Navy fighter pilot, and so McCain is better. Ethan really wants to be a fighter pilot when he grows up, you see.

Secondly, Ethan is growing up in an uber-Obama household. How does he come away with a staunchly pro-McCain voice? Are his parents that poor at communicating? Or is he really that smart and not-easily-led? Considering Derek is finishing up a law degree at UVa and Rilla is finishing up a Master's degree in public policy also at UVa, I'm leaning towards the latter. What an amazing kid with off-the-charts potential. If he keeps his head in the game and plays by the rules (and doesn't follow my example of deliberately tanking high school and dropping out of college), he can be anything he wants to be.

---

Last night, Suzanne and I took the kids to a Festival of Lights in a park just west of Winston-Salem. It's a situation where you pay 14 bucks to drive your car through the park, and the park is decked out with all kinds of lights and Christmas displays (excuse me, holiday displays. There was a token Hanukkah display and a token Kwanzaa display). We had heard about this from Suzanne's mom, and thought it would be fun to take the kids out and see some lights.

Well. Apparently, some other people thought this was a good idea, too. Once we got there, we were herded by police into a very, very long line of cars on a mud road from which there was literally no escape. We were committed to waiting in this line come hell or highwater. A line that practically didn't move. It was about a two-hour wait in line with kids who had to pee, and there were no restrooms to be seen. To illustrate this unforseen wait, the driver of the car in front of us poured out a bottle of pee from his window. It was very steamy in the cold air. Classy. At least our kids have functional bladder control, jackass.

But once we got in (at about 9:30 pm), the park was really decked out. Great displays everywhere, very creative. Suzanne had K sit on her lap during the drive through the park (don't worry; we never exceeded five MPH), and we were treated to lots of ooooohs and wows from the kids. Well, except for J-2, who had fallen asleep while we were in line. Poor kid was crying when we got home after waking up and being told he missed the whole thing. In our defense, we did try to wake him up once we got in the park, but he would not be stirred. Snore, snore, snore.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

* - Cue Suzanne saying, "No, no, feel free to get me that Mercedes."
** - You'll have to wait until Christmas, dear. No cheating.

'Tis the Season

2008-12-09T22:43:00.006-05:00

'Tis the season to endure the shoppers. So far, we've braved the windswept parking lots, the teeming masses of value-seekers, and the dazzling decor of Greensboro area shopping malls in search of toys, toys, and more toys at Target, Wal-Mart, and Toys R Us. They have many of our dollars now. Good for them. [those sons of ...]

'Tis the season to have J-1 mention to us that a friend of his at school told him that parents buy all the toys, not Santa Claus.

'Tis the season to effectively non-answer a perfectly reasonable question regarding the Santa-parent relationship. My heretofore untapped talent, thy name is improv.

'Tis the season for K to claim everything -- EVERYTHING -- as, "No; mine!" She's soooo two.

'Tis the season for Suzanne to have "the talk" with N. I was not there for this conversation, but I understand that N decided she didn't want to do all those things that girls must do somewhere between the ages of nine and 14. I don't friggin' blame her.

'Tis the season for J-2 to simply never do what he's told to do. Sigh.

'Tis the season for me to threaten J-2 that Santa may not visit him after he kicked his mother during a temper tantrum of sorts. Sigh.

'Tis the season for me to feel very guilty about threatening to cancel Christmas for a five-year-old. Sigh.

'Tis the season to begin kind of enjoying my job. It's a starter accounting job, no doubt, and I have been worried about job security because they haven't seemed to have much actual work for me. But the past couple of weeks, I've been fairly busy with projects and learning quite a bit about taxes and accounting in a non-academic environment. The schedule is great, I like my coworkers, I like my bosses, and I like my commute. I don't much care for the salary, but it's a salary we can live on especially given the harsh economy. I can definitely see myself here for the next year while I get that CPA license.

'Tis the season to sit for family portraits for Christmas cards, which we did yesterday:

'Tis the season for J-2 to decide to cut a big chunk of hair from the front of his head the day before we sat for portraits. Look closely.

'Tis the season to discover that K will actually smile, and smile well, for the camera when bribed with the promise of candy.

'Tis the season that I heart Suzanne.

Thanksgiving and Failure

2008-11-29T11:51:00.010-05:00

Well, I got the results of the last two sections of the CPA exam, and I failed them both, as I expected. I simply was not able to study enough while preparing for buying the house and moving. It's too bad because I really don't want to retake the exam, obviously, but I'm not very discouraged. I have already passed the first two sections of the exam, so I know that I can pass if I have enough time to study. And now that we've moved in and things are starting to settle down, I'll be able to study and pass.

Oddly enough, I feel good about my scores because they were abysmal (I scored a 61 and 63 in the Audit and Financial sections, respectively), as opposed to if I got scores that almost passed, like 73 or 74 (75 is passing). Like, it's not as if I was this close to passing and blew it. Nope, I was simply ill-prepared. Is that weird to be okay with those scores?

---

Thanksgiving for our family fell on a Wednesday because Suzanne had to work Thursday night at the hospital, what with being low on the totem pole and all. It was a small event with limited family in the area to join us. But Suzanne's parents came over and we had turkey and all the fixins. Much to everyone's chagrin, except mine. I'm the only one in the family who likes turkey and stuffing -- Suzanne and her dad wanted to do prime rib. And yeah, that sounds good, but it's Thanksgiving! Turkey time. Well, I enjoyed dinner, anyway.

---

Suzanne's mom was good enough to watch the kids yesterday afternoon so that I could do some Christmas shopping. Yes, I braved the Black Friday crowds at Wal-Mart. However, I was not an early bird, so the ground that I walked on in the store felt normal to me. As opposed to, you know, bloody and human-corpse-ey.

What's up with people stomping someone to death for Wal-Mart specials, anyway? It's not like there was anything that great. What, you simply had to get your hands on that $4 crockpot? There were some good deals to be sure, but nothing spectacular. I think there was a $400 laptop, and the $135 Nintendo DS Mario Bros. pack was a hot item (they were out by the time I got there, which isn't a bad thing -- we're trying to stay on budget this holiday season). Anyway, I got some shopping done, but I wasn't blown away by the deals. I had hoped to do a one-stop shopping trip at Wal-Mart, but I will be looking elsewhere for most toys.

On the plus side of my Wal-Mart trip, I did find a DVD of "I Am Legend" for $6, which I couldn't pass up. I don't buy too many DVDs anymore, but I know I'm in the minority when I say that "I Am Legend" is among the best movies I've seen in recent years. I'm going to discuss this movie for a bit, so if you haven't seen it yet and you don't want any spoilers, please skip the next two paragraphs.

I think the reason it hasn't gotten more play among critics is that: a) it's a zombie movie, and b) it has a very weak ending. And yeah, I'm not much of a zombie movie fan myself, so I get that. But it's just a much creepier zombie movie than the cheesy "UUUUGHHHH BRAAAAAAAAAINS" of other zombie movies that are basically self parodies of the zombie genre at this point. The zombies in "Legend" seem more feral while -- interestingly -- more civilized than BRAAAAAAAINS zombies, and they're more believable as well.

As far as the ending goes, there's an alternate ending that is much better. Why the alternate ending wasn't used, I have no idea. But in the alternate ending, Will Smith survives by trading the captured female zombie (presumably the Alpha Male's mate) for their safe escape. The alternate version of the film includes a little bit of setup for the ending that isn't included in the original, so I think if the producers had released the alternate version of the film it would've been much more well received.

---

As promised, I'm including some photos below.

---

Thanksgiving!!

Da bird.

Breaking in the new dining room. Centerpiece by J-2.

Concert time in the living room.

---

Autumn days in the back yard.

Aaaaah! It's cold! (K wasn't a fan of the snow.)

---

Halloween.

It snowed today! Squeeeeeee!!

2008-11-21T06:32:00.003-05:00

...which was Suzanne's reaction before driving to work. It was cute. N woke up and looked out her bedroom window to see, then she started screaming, "IT SNOWED TODAY! IT SNOWED TODAY! IT SNOWED TODAY! IT SNOWED TODAY!" She ran into the boys' bedroom screaming this phrase, to which J-1 responded, "OW!! That hurts, get off me!"

Sick Again?

2008-11-19T14:03:00.003-05:00

I can't be sick again. Blast!(tm)* And yet, I can feel it. Oh, yes, it's coming.

I've just gotten over my second ailment since starting this job in late September, and now the third is hitting. I think it's the scurvy flaring up again.

There's the tickle in the throat. Tickle, tickle, tickle. Cough, cough, cough. And now it is joined by the sneezy sneezing and the mucus. And you know me with sneezes: ah-choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo.....EHCHEW!! I'd call this an allergy, except the sneezing has been prominent since last night, well into this afternoon.

The tonsils are swollen; it's hard to swallow. I'm starting to feel achy/fevery. This sucks.

I think it's actually the office I work in. I can't prove this, of course, but I just don't get sick very often, and this is the third time I've been sick since starting here. I've been sitting at my cubicle for the past six weeks coughing and sneezing away. It must be annoying the hell out of my coworkers. Then I get a break from the coughing for a few days, and I get sick again.

Another option: tonsilitis. Swollen tonsils each time I get sick. Time to call the doctor. I have health coverage through Suzanne, but I haven't set up a primary care physician yet. I just don't want to deal with it. I'm tired of Dealing With It, you know? I have enough on my plate. A couple of days ago I called the holder of my student loan and arranged a repayment plan, and I felt really good about filling my quota of Dealing With It for the week. Must I Deal With It again? Sigh...apparently so. Some antibiotics might be just the ticket, but I can't get them without the PCP. And the doctor.

* Luke Skywalker by way of George Lucas' screenplay-dialogue hackery.

How the hell are ya?

2008-11-11T16:39:00.003-05:00

We're unpacking. Unpacking is fun at first. There's so much to do, and so many pictures to hang and TVs to install and beds to make. Then you start to run out of steam, as we have. The garage is full of boxes of stuff we don't need right now, but don't want to throw away. You know, like old books, childhood memories, the rotting corpse. I really need to get that stuff in the attic.

The kids are doing great and have made several new friends in the neighborhood. The kids actually didn't want to come inside hardly at all this weekend because they were having too much fun playing outside. I know! That's insane. But I could look outside a window at any point and see the kids playing with anywhere between two and six other kids from the neighborhood. If the kids are happy, I'm happy.

Well, if the kids are happy and the Niners are winning, I'm happy.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaangry.

I'll have some pictures to post soon of the boys playing in the backyard. The scene here is Rockwellesque. I'm sure the grin will fade with time, but I'm enjoying it here for now.

---

Movie time! Short list, easy quotes. The challenge is to get all five correct. Are you up for this??

1.

"Daddy said I'm to shoot anyone with papers. I nicked the census man!"
"Now there's a good boy."

2.

"Don't cross the streams."
"Why not?"
"It would be bad."

3.

"If the Nazis take over Austria, I have no doubt, Herr Zeller, that you will be the entire trumpet section."
"You flatter me, Captain."
"Oh, how clumsy of me. I meant to accuse you."

4.

"There is no spoon."

5.

"Do you like apples?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I got her number. How you like them apples?"

Because I can't say it any better...

2008-10-28T13:52:00.004-04:00

...here's why Barack Obama has my vote on November 4. I'm just including the end of his speech yesterday, and I'll understand if you don't want to read it, but here's a quick summation:

Hope. Work hard. Reach for something better. Lift others up. Have faith.

---

"I still remember the email that a woman named Robyn sent me after I met her in Ft. Lauderdale. Sometime after our event, her son nearly went into cardiac arrest, and was diagnosed with a heart condition that could only be treated with a procedure that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Her insurance company refused to pay, and their family just didn't have that kind of money.

In her email, Robyn wrote, "I ask only this of you - on the days where you feel so tired you can't think of uttering another word to the people, think of us. When those who oppose you have you down, reach deep and fight back harder."

Ohio, that's what hope is - that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting around the bend; that insists there are better days ahead. If we're willing to work for it. If we're willing to shed our fears and our doubts. If we're willing to reach deep down inside ourselves when we're tired and come back fighting harder.

Hope! That's what kept some of our parents and grandparents going when times were tough. What led them to say, "Maybe I can't go to college, but if I save a little bit each week my child can; maybe I can't have my own business but if I work really hard my child can open one of her own." It's what led immigrants from distant lands to come to these shores against great odds and carve a new life for their families in America; what led those who couldn't vote to march and organize and stand for freedom; that led them to cry out, "It may look dark tonight, but if I hold on to hope, tomorrow will be brighter."

That's what this election is about. That is the choice we face right now.
Don't believe for a second this election is over. Don't think for a minute that power concedes. We have to work like our future depends on it in this last week, because it does.

In one week, we can choose an economy that rewards work and creates new jobs and fuels prosperity from the bottom-up.

In one week, we can choose to invest in health care for our families, and education for our kids, and renewable energy for our future.

In one week, we can choose hope over fear, unity over division, the promise of change over the power of the status quo.

In one week, we can come together as one nation, and one people, and once more choose our better history.

That's what's at stake. That's what we're fighting for. And if in this last week, you will knock on some doors for me, and make some calls for me, and talk to your neighbors, and convince your friends; if you will stand with me, and fight with me, and give me your vote, then I promise you this - we will not just win Ohio, we will not just win this election, but together, we will change this country and we will change the world. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America."

We're In!

2008-10-25T16:35:00.003-04:00

We are now official homeowners! We closed the sale last Thursday and we moved into the new house this weekend, much to everyone’s delight. However, we are still living out of boxes, which is probably not as much fun as you might think. Here’s a rather dull account of this week’s activities, which I was not able to properly document in real-time because of, you know, being busy moving and stuff.

Our move began on Thursday night after work, as I managed to begin moving boxes and things I could carry by myself. I took Friday off work to move more stuff and wait for the cable guy to do his thing, but Suzanne had to work. I actually managed to move most of our stuff largely by myself during those two days. On Saturday, we hired a couple of movers to move all the big stuff that I couldn’t move by myself. They packed all of it in their truck and unloaded it in the new house in about four and a half hours, which was great. Suzanne and I continued moving stuff on Sunday, and we got a lot more done. However, we still have a lot of stuff Suzanne’s parents’ house and we’ve both been working this week, so progress has been slow. I’ve been taking a few things with me back to the new house every evening after picking up the kids, who stay with Grandma after school.

So here we are. I absolutely love this house (so far), Suzanne is nesting, and the kids are happy with their new rooms. The past couple of days we've been out on the deck and have been able to watch a pair of deer eating acorns in the back yard, while squirrels ran up and down trees. This morning K and I watched the deer quietly until she decided to have some fun and yelled, "BOO!" How did she know that would make the deer run off? Scaring deer is fun. It certainly is different than winging rocks at neighborhood cats in the old neighborhood.

Just kidding...I'd never throw rocks at cats. Maybe just Nerf footballs to watch them jump. That's always fun.

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As far as this blog goes, I’m struggling to find some direction with it. I originally started the blog to kind of keep people abreast of our journey from California to North Carolina, and now that we’re here I’m not sure what’s next. I do like writing about sports and politics on occasion, but this isn’t a sports or political blog. It’s a family blog, and so I try to write primarily about family and post pictures, which is what most blogs do. I really doubt anyone cares whether or not I vote for Obama or that the Niners should’ve fired Nolan before the season (they should have), but I still enjoy expressing opinions about these topics on occasion.

But what else? I don’t want to get too personal with my posting, but it seems as if a writer needs to be extremely personal in order to keep an audience captivated. Or needs to have a unique and entertaining theme, which I lack. I think this my blog is going to continue to be an ordinary blog updated once in a while with pictures and goings-on, with occasional thoughts/rants as I feel the need to use the blog as an outlet of sorts. I’d also like to perhaps write my own movie reviews, but there are tons of review sites. I dunno; we’ll see.

I wish I had a better sales pitch to keep people reading. Maybe in the future I’ll find my blogging niche, but I think it’ll be kind of a theme-less freestyle. As the great Steve Dallas of Bloom County would say, “Just wing that mother!!”

Exciting Times

2008-10-13T19:34:00.013-04:00

Spending all free time studying for the CPA exam = no blog time. Sorry about that. It seems as though I always have excuses as to why I have not blogged, so maybe the luster is wearing off somewhat. I still enjoy it, though. But anyway, here’s a recap of our past few weeks, which have been exciting:

We’re three days away from closing on the house, and we move in on Saturday. Exciting times!
The new job is going well, even in the face of massive economic insecurity. Exciting times!
I took the third and fourth (and final) parts of the CPA exam over the past two Saturdays. Exciting times!

We’re signing the papers for the new house on Thursday, and we get the keys then and there. I’ll be spending Thursday night and all of Friday moving the boxes and stuff I can carry by myself. We’re hiring some movers to take care of the really heavy stuff on Saturday, but in an effort to cut costs I’m directing them to only carry the heavy stuff before paying them and turning them loose. And by “paying them” I mean firing a shotgun in the air to make them scatter. They’ll run off. Or will they? Maybe people around here will be all, “Hey, my turn to shoot!”

The builder has done all the piddly work we asked of him: Widen the driveway, address some drainage issues, install a carpet runner, put in a cable jack over the fireplace, and re-seed some patches of grass. I’m looking forward to moving in. It’ll be nice having our own space, and for Glenn and Debbie to have their own space again. We’ve gotten along great these past three months, but I can tell we’re starting to wear on them a little bit.

I started my new job, and I’m in my third week here. It hasn’t been quite what I expected, but I really like the people I work with, and the hours and commute simply cannot be topped. All in all, I can’t complain about the job. It got us in the house, I’m getting valuable accounting experience, and earning time working under a CPA (you need a year of work under a CPA to be licensed).

And speaking of which, I took the third and fourth parts of the CPA exam on the past two Saturdays. Again, I’m not at all confident that I passed either part. I felt that way with the first two sections of the exam, and I ended up passing those two, so we’ll see how I did. The difference here is that I didn’t spend anywhere near as much time studying for these two sections as I did for the first two sections. But I’m not really worried about it because whether I passed now, or in January 2009 or in April 2009 or whenever, I’ll still have to wait until October 2009 at least to get licensed because I need that full year of experience.

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It’s been fun watching the McCain campaign constantly jump up and down yelling, “Look at me! Look at me!,” has it not? When it comes to substance they even admit they got nothin’. Why do they admit this? Why even discuss tactics with the press? Do they enjoy losing? Wouldn’t it just be easier and more effective if they simply called Obama “that terrorist” every time they discussed him, and not give any reason as to why they’re saying it? That’s what Bush did to Kerry and the Swift Boat stuff. Kerry couldn’t get past it, and he whined about the topic quite a lot. And lost to a very unpopular man.

And Sarah Palin, frankly, defies explanation. But she’s really riled up about 37% of us, hasn’t she? Well, she’s actually riled up 74% of us, but that’s not a good thing for her. And I’m just going to say it: The former 37%, while they may love her for legitimate reasons, must be blind and/or dumb if they aren’t offended by her insistence that she’s running a positive campaign, that Obama is the dirtiest campaigner in history, that Katie Couric was being unfair, and that an Alaskan bipartisan report that concluded she abused power as governor has somehow exonerated her of any abuse of power. What??

And I thought I hated Hillary. Yeah. I was wrong. If Hillary was running against McCain and he still named that imbecile Palin to be his running mate, I’d vote for Hillary in a heartbeat.

I’m going to say this as well, and those who have known me for a long time might chuckle: Rush Limbaugh is a really, really stupid man. The radio in Greensboro is awful awful awful, and as such I’m forced to tune in once in a while to conservative talk radio. Better than nothing when I’m tired of my music. Today, Limbaugh accused Obama of lying about his tax plan. His lie? Obama’s claim that most small businesses earn less than $250,000, and as such most small businesses won’t see a tax increase. Limbaugh yelled at me the following (and I’m paraphrasing): Think about it – if you are one of five employees in a small business, that’s $250,000 right there!!! How can your business earn less than $250,000??? I GUARAN-DAMN-TEE YOU THAT YOUR TAXES WILL GO UP!!!!

Rush then went on to list several industries in which the term “small business” is applied to a certain cash receipts threshold. As in income before expenses. Those aren't earnings.

Has Rush never filed an income tax return before? I think he’s a small business owner, isn’t he? Doesn’t he own EIB? I refuse to believe he doesn’t know the difference between income and taxable earnings. Income: The revenue you bring in from operations. Taxable earnings: Revenue minus expenses including employee wages. I felt like calling in, but then the reality set in: he can’t be that stupid, can he? I think he knows the difference, but he thinks his audience is made up of stupid people. Stupid people who will be all, hell yeah! That NObama lib-turd is a liar!

Of course, not understanding tax doesn't make one stupid in and of itself. Quite the contrary. I'm sure lots of smart people don't know the difference between income and earnings. But either Rush should've known better before going on the air and misleading people, or he did know better and he thinks people listening are stupid. Either way, he's a stupid, stupid man.

Maybe I’m just stating the obvious about Limbaugh/Hannity and their ilk. I should stop the analysis, then. But I will qualify what I just said by saying I respect a difference of opinion. If you prefer McCain, that's fine. I disagree with you. I just hate the blatant lying, you know?

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And finally, we took a trip up to Grandfather Mountain yesterday to see the fall colors. What a beautiful drive on a beautiful day! The kids had a blast running around collecting leaves and climbing on rocks. I’m so glad we moved here. We got some great pictures, so enjoy!

It's here!

2008-10-05T10:09:00.002-04:00

It took four months, but the diploma is here. Yay! This means I win, right? Wait, you mean there's more to life??

The Exciting House Story

2008-09-25T08:09:00.008-04:00

We bought a house!

I've been postponing blogging on this development because there have been some contractual issues, a few questions about the lot, and some financing concerns over the past week, so I didn't want to have to post a follow-up blog saying never mind. But the "i"s are dotted, the "t"s are crossed, and it's looking like a done deal now (whee!), so here are some details.

It's not on the golf course so we won't be right around the corner from Suzanne's parents, but the house is about a five minute drive from their house. We fell in love with this house since our househunting visit last January, and we'd had it on our short list of potential houses once the dust settled after the move.

When we moved out here, we weren't sure if we were going to buy Suzanne's parents' house (hereafter referred to as "SPH") so they could move to a house they liked better, or if we were going to build a house, or buy a house. But we'd had our eye on this one for quite some time, always thinking it would certainly be bought by the time we were in a position to buy. But it stayed on the market for nine-plus months -- the builder had gotten nothing but lowball offers from people for the house.

Once I got my job offer letter, we were in a position to buy. Some unforseen factors had changed our situation somewhat, and we were no longer able to afford SPH, interest rates had dropped almost a full point after the Bush Administration decided to buy Fannie and Freddie (with money they didn't have. Deficit? What deficit? Free market? What free market? Grrr...don't get me started), so we decided to make an offer on the house. We went back and forth a few times with the builder about our offer, and we accepted a counteroffer that was actually what we wanted to pay for the house. Starting low is a great idea! :D

This is starting to become a boring story, but we got the house. We close on Oct. 17th. Unless, of course, the banks stop making loans because the good people of the USA seize on the Administration's leadership (Paulson: "Heaven help us all.") and make a run on the banks. I hope that doesn't happen. Because that would suck for us. And for you. Booo to bad leadership.

(And by the way, why does Bush think people still respond positively to the word "decisive"? He's touting this bailout as decisive leadership from his administration. Yes, it is decisive. And also, if one is out drinking all night and chooses to drive home instead of getting a cab, that is also decisive. George W. Bush, you damnable moron, just go away. You've done enough damage, thanks. And take Sarah Palin's ass with you.)

Okay, got that off my chest. Here are the some pictures taken this winter by a real estate agent:

I love the pond view, and the sound of the wind in the trees. I LOVE this deck.

Master bathroom

Living room

Nice woodwork on the front entryway!

The kitchen is very nice, granite countertops, etc., but there is still room for improvement. The appliances aren't top-notch, and the cabinets aren't that deep. It'll give us something to do in ten years.

We (read: Suzanne) picked out a burgandy and gold carpet runner for the stairs that the builder is throwing in with the deal. It's really going to look sharp, I think.

The gas fireplace. Or as I like to call it, the place below where the plasma TV will go. We love the built-ins, too.

Voila!

The dining room. The woodwork in here is great, too.

Thanks for indulging me showing off a little. We're pretty excited about this house.

Three-Hour Drives End Better Than Three-Hour Tours

2008-09-16T21:35:00.005-04:00

I have abandoned my quixotic quest to land a staff accountant job with a Big Four or regional public accounting firm (for now), and I accepted an offer for employment as a tax accountant in a medium-sized national direct marketing company. While this job is not exactly my dream job in my dream company to be sure, I'm excited about the opportunity. It's needed income, and I get to finally get some of that experience that has so clearly eluded me. I daresay I have a nice looking resume, and an excellent GPA to boot. But it lacks three things that would make finding a job easy:

A master's degree in Accounting.
A bachelor's or master's degree from a well-known or local school (oddly, most people here have never even heard of CSUS. I guess they should watch more college football because the Hornets kick ass).
Experience.

Re: #1. I shall not pursue a master's degree in Accounting. It's an absolute waste of time. What it does is get you in the door with the Big Four in Greensboro. Well, it's actually the Big Three because Deloitte isn't here. But other than helping you begin your accounting career, it does nothing for you down the road. I've heard time and again that most managers don't have any idea what benefits an MA brings to a potential accounting employee.

Re: #2. I may at one point pursue an MBA from either Wake Forest University or UNC-Greensboro. While this degree doesn't help me in an accounting career, it is likely that sometime in the next 30 years or so I may choose to expand into something other than accounting. An MBA from WFU would be fantastic to this end. An MBA from UNCG less so, but it's a well-respected regional school to complement my CSUS BS degree.

Re: #3. Yes, it's a direct marketing firm. No, it's not public accounting. But it is very legitimate experience working as a tax accountant for an organization with a tax presence in all 50 states and several countries. I liked what I heard from my boss during the interview. And I won't be selling anything to anybody. "Wouldn't you like to be your own boss and make thousands? Let me put you under me, then you put two people under you, and how the money will flow." No, thank you. I won't be handling that aspect. I'll be accounting for those poor souls who choose such an empowering lifestyle.

It's a company that's been around for a long time (no, it isn't Amway), and has a visible presence and a large building in Greensboro. I liked the tax manager during the interview, I liked the challenges the job entails, I liked the fact that I would be working under several CPAs and as such can earn my license after passing the CPA exam, and I liked the opportunity to gain the experience. It's most likely a good job (time will tell, of course), and I'm excited about the opportunity.

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K and I got back today from a trip to Charlottesville, Virginia. We drove there on Sunday to visit my mom, who's visiting from Sacramento and staying with my sister and her family. The drive from Summerfield to Charlottesville is just an amazing ride. The scenery is simply gorgeous. The ride isn't full of beautiful vistas or anything like that, but it's filled with picturesque houses, nearly-empty four-lane highways that are hilly and windy (as in curvy-windy, not blustery-windy), and lush greenery. The drive takes about three hours and ends better than Gilligan's three-hour tour. Hence my witty post title. I really should change that title because now I'm embarrassed at the un-funniness, but I won't. So there.

Why the trip? The short, short version is that Mom is rapidly losing her battle, and she flies back to Sacramento tomorrow, and I probably will not see her again during this lifetime, and she endures searing pain every day and there's nothing I can do about it, and she faces a painful and lonely death and there's nothing I can do about it, and hell's bells, this morning was sad. Mom put her granddaughter's hair up in a ponytail for the last time. I hugged my mom for the last time. I told her that I'll see her soon, and so my last in-person statement to her was a lie. As K and I drove away, I saw Mom standing on the sidewalk waving to us as best as she could, wounded, scared, and small.

Yeah, I'm keeping that a short, short version of the events. I hope you understand.

Rilla has to put Mom on a plane tomorrow morning. I don't know what else to say.

In All Fairness

2008-09-05T07:23:00.006-04:00

I suppose I should be fair and give some opinion on Sen. McCain's speech, as well.

Most opinions of his speech last night that I've read or seen on TV seem to be negative, or at least apologetic. I think it was a good speech, and more effective with independents and moderates than the experts seem to think.

First of all, he front-loaded his speech with the Republican pu-pu-platter. He got it out of the way, said his thanks to an unpopular President, and moved on. As a moderate, I found myself turned off by much of this, but at least he was respectful of Sen. Obama. That's a good thing. People who haven't made up their minds yet don't like hearing about how so-and-so is unpatriotic or a coward or what have you. (This, obviously, is why McCain chose Gov. Palin. Palin is doing McCain's dirty work so that McCain can rise above the muck and "inspire" the masses.)

Part of what turned me off near the beginning was that McCain's empathy with specific individuals in need -- "They matter to me" -- was right in line with Bush's "compassionate conservatism," which is to say, "Boy, that sucks. Well, best of luck to you. Hope you land a good job!" Notice that McCain didn't offer any plan for how to get those specific individuals out of their quagmires. But they matter to him. Come on, now.

But here's where McCain started to turn it around: When he, in front of a dyed-in-the-wool Republican crowd, accepted the blame for a general Republican failing from 2001 to 2006. That was not popular with the crowd. But trust me, his promise to right the wrongs within the party spoke volumes to moderates. Including me. I'm a Republican for a reason. It's that the Republican party has so completely and thoroughly lost its way since the vile and punitive Clinton impeachment last century that I find myself by and large voting Democrat.

Then McCain started talking about school vouchers, or at least alluding to them, and lost me completely. He promises to give parents choice of schools. As a parent of four, I think I'm qualified to say that parents already have a choice. You pack up and move, goddammit. Or pay for private school. I agree with him that education is the civil rights issue of this century -- hell, the school pamphlet from the kids' new school has a friggin' ethnic breakdown on the back cover -- but do not tell me that there is no room for my kids at the local school because low-income kids from the city are getting bussed in, so my kids will have to be bussed into the city. Boo to vouchers, boo, boo, boo. There's a better way; a much better way.

Then McCain opened up and shared a little bit about his POW experience. Everyone knew he'd remind us that he's a war hero, but he let us in a little bit. Telling a story works for everyone. His finishing stanza of serving a cause greater than yourself was an excellent finish, despite his robotic lurching around behind the podium while yelling over the crowd. He's a fighter, got it.

Not a great speech. Won't go down in the annals of history. But I think he picked up more than a few votes, for now anyway. Let's see how the Democrats respond, and let's see how he looks on stage with Obama.

It's gonna get ugly.

It's Picture Time! But First...

2008-09-04T09:57:00.017-04:00

…if you think I’m not commenting on Sarah Palin’s speech last night, you’re crazy. Feel free to skip down to the pictures if you like.

You all know I’m an Obama guy, but I have some thoughts from a moderate's perspective. What did Gov. Palin’s speech accomplish in convincing me, a moderate-to-liberal Republican, to vote for Sen. McCain instead of Sen. Obama?

It’s been a week since Gov. Palin was announced as Sen. McCain’s running mate, and it’s been a week of reading about “What the hell kind of choice for Veep is that?” While the choice made sense from a political standpoint -- she’s young to counter McCain’s oldness; she’s a neo-conservative to counter McCain’s perceived non-conservatism; she’s a woman to appeal to disenfranchised Hillary voters prepared to vote for any woman regardless of credentials or values -- the choice was beyond stunning as a potential President. She’s been a mayor of a tiny suburb, and she’s been the Governor of Alaska for a year and a half. Alaska! How does that even begin to prepare someone on how to deal with economics on a national scale, how to deal with legitimate urban problems, or how to effectively wield America’s international clout or recent lack thereof? It was a choice that didn’t make sense.

But now…now we know why McCain chose Sarah Palin.

Palin clearly doesn’t give a crap about her political, national, or international reputation among non-conservatives. She’ll say all the things McCain can’t say. She’ll use cynicism and sarcasm so McCain can remain the straight-man:

The difference between being mayor of a small town and a community organizer is that a mayor has “actual responsibilities.”

“The difference between hockey moms and pit bulls? Lipstick.”

She put Alaska’s private jet on eBay.

“When the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot, what exactly is our opponent's plan?”

What was most surprising about Palin’s speech was that it was aimed squarely at the Republican’s uber-conservative base. She didn’t even attempt to reach the moderates or independents. Her speech was full of soundbites that right-wingers love, but it didn’t include any specifics as to why Sen. McCain is a better choice than Sen. Obama. While it was an impressive speech for a newcomer on the national stage, I can’t believe it was even remotely effective in swaying intelligent people who have yet to decide between the candidates. She failed to answer any of the many valid questions about her political career and judgment as Governor.

Palin has fired up the conservative base. It’s now McCain’s turn to convince the independents. That sounds great in theory, but Palin's gonna get crushed in the next few weeks. The only thing Sen. Biden has to worry about in his debate with her is to not come across as a bully while waxing the floor with her.

The nomination of Sarah Palin as Vice-President has negated McCain’s most valid argument. Length and amount of experience cannot be argued any longer. Furthermore, Obama’s argument about having better judgment has been amplified. In his only major decision about the future of America, he placed the unspectacular but experienced Joe Biden in a position to become President. McCain’s only major decision has been to place the thunderingly un-Presidential Sarah Palin in a position to become President. Obama’s judgment can now be easily displayed in direct contrast to McCain's.

Sarah Palin is young, attractive, has a beautiful family, and seems like someone you’d love to be neighbors with. She’s the salt of the earth, an ordinary person like you and me. But she isn’t a President, not by a long shot. And if she stays on the ticket, she absolutely ruins any chance McCain has of winning the election.

Okay, enough! On with the pictures.

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This picture was taken last year, but just for fun...

"Hi. I'm Wilford Brimley for Quaker Oats. Eat a bowl of Quaker Oatmeal every day for a better life."

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Here are some first day of school pictures!

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We took a trip to Washington with Nana, Rilla, and the cousins, but we didn't take too many pictures, and most were of poor quality. Anyway, here are a couple.

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We went to Hanging Rock State Park for a long hike. The kids were great little hikers, even if they were dressed like Eastern European tourists.

It was a long hike. Night-night.

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And finally, here are some pictures taken in June at Uncle Michael and Auntie Kayla's wedding. They're older pictures, but I'm proud of these pretty little people and I wanna show them off. Can you blame me?

She's pretty, too.