A Penny for My Thoughts

I don't expect life to be easy. I guess I just expect it to be easier than it is. So why, then, would I choose to sign myself up for more complication.

As Jamie Foxx might say, maybe I should blame it on the alcohol.

I have a wife, two sons, a stepson, a dog, two houses, a full-time job and somewhat of a seasonal part-time job. My wife also runs her own business out of one of our houses, so there's certainly a great deal of stress to go around with that too. She appears to be every bit as stressed as I, however, she remarkably has grander plans. She talks about expanding her daycare even more, she has a seemingly insatiable desire for a fourth child, and in the background all I want to do is get some more fucking sleep.

Well, that hasn't happened recently. Why? Because we got a new dog. A new eight-week-old puppy, to be exact. And, trust me, this does not make life any easier.

Don't get me wrong, the puppy is adorable. Her name is Penny. (The name was actually one that I threw into the mix. When brainstorming for names, my wife wanted to think of ones that started with P so it would sound cute with Dog #1, Pebbles. I, naturally, starting thinking of TV show characters. Lost is generally at or near the top of my list, so Penelope Widmore gets credit here, although I think just one of her breasts is larger than my new dog. I digress. Anyway, back to the canine Penny ...) She's very playful, she's been very quick catching on to house training, but she's got an unquantifiable amount of energy. That doesn't bode well with small children around either, particularly those who insist on simply rolling around her and putting their hands in her face.

Now picture a maniacal, impatient, short-tempered man seemingly pacing around the house in circles.

"Don't eat that!"
"Get your hands out of her face!"
"Put that down!"
"Stop biting him!"

Oh, it's a scene, man.

So how did we get here? The idea of another dog has come up many times, although when asked within the last month how likely I thought it was that we'd get another dog soon, I estimated the probability at a mere 20%. It was only a possibility because I sometimes feel sorry for Pebbles. She's the spoiled little girl of the family, which I often point out as rationale in my case against having another child. We've already got our little girl. But Pebbles often seems to just be bored. I don't know what the hell she's thinking, but it looks like she could use some more stimulation.

But I also know it's not as simple as plopping another dog into the mix and watching them frolic happily. Would the spoiled little five-year-old dog feel betrayed, as if the spotlight is being turned away from her? It was a realistic possibility for me, seeing as that's what happened to my beloved cat when Pebbles came along.

It's clearly a debatable topic, and without a clear-cut answer, the status quo certainly appeared safe. But that all somehow changed a couple of weeks ago. As is fairly common, my wife was spending one late evening on our couch perusing the pups on Craig's List for Shih-Tzus (which is Pebbles' breed). She came along a cute one that was mixed with Mini Australian Shepherd. And the "What If?" game ensued.

"What would we name her?"
"How big would she get?"
"Do you think Pebbles would like her?"
"Do you think it would be good for the kids?"

I played along, all the while enjoying several drinks and the NBA Playoffs. I hardly thought there'd be a new dog under our roof the next fucking day. But that's exactly what happened. There were some e-mails and texts early that next day, one of which led to my wife's happy proclamation: "She says we can get her today!"

I thought, "Of course we can get her today. Just about anyone can get her. But that doesn't mean we are getting her ... does it?"

But we did. The wife, of course, was dumbfounded by my seeming change of heart. She claimed I was 100% on board with it the previous night, which means I must have drank a hell of a lot more than I thought.

Regardless of the chain of events, there's a new spoiled little girl in town. And, not surprisingly, all of the spoils are going to her.

Welcome to the party, Penny

A Day in the Life

This morning I came really close to accidentally putting diesel fuel in my car. I'm not sure how accidental it would really have been, seeing as I had to have consciously removed that nozzle and pushed the corresponding button; but it certainly can be seen as an indicator of my mental state.

I know, everyone's busy, everyone's tired, and everyone's stressed. I won't deny that blanket statement. But we all deal with the shit differently. And any reader of this blog knows on which end of the spectrum I fall.

My stepson probably summed it up nicely in the car last night when he chuckled and said, "You're, like, complaining about a lot of things right now." That kind of comment generally doesn't go over very well either. Dominic's not-so-keen observation actually came just after I was cursing a highway access ramp for having too many fucking potholes. Seems trivial, yes, but consider that I was just then on my way home at about 7:00pm when I'd left work over two hours earlier. I had to pick up one kid in one place, one kid from another place, and then I unwisely chose to drive several miles out of the way to get some decent food for dinner. (Thanks to my brother, at least the food was free.)

I know it's the nature of being a parent, especially one who has multiple kids, to be completely devoid of free time. I honestly consider my drive to and from work each day to be about as relaxing as my life ever gets. But it's not as if I have kids who are overly active outside the house. I'm not yet at the point where my family is driving from end to end across town to get to a baseball game here and a soccer game there. This should be the time that I have some more flexibility to enjoy the child-rearing duties. But I'm not experiencing that with much consistency these days.

I certainly could have used some of that leeway last night, too, after a relatively rocky day at work. While it did have some clear peaks, there were also the corresponding valleys, the low point being when I felt the need to call two of my closest co-workers/friends “fucking assholes.” I meant it more than they seemed to think, but it still did change the tone of their chuckles at the time. My capacity for peripheral nonsense just happens to be at an all-time low. They should know that now.

When I did return home, I found that the door from the garage into our house had been erroneously locked. I don't have a key for that door on my chain, and, fuck, I don't even have a key to the front door on my chain. (I'll admit, I have no one to blame but myself for that, but that doesn't make the situation any better.) I knew there was a box with some extra keys out there, and while the two kids stood startled on the stairs with our poor dog barking on the other side of the door, I frantically had to try to find the right one. Luckily I did before too long, and I was finally able to get inside my freaking house.

It wasn't long after that, however, when one of my boys' chairs at their Lego table had an unfortunate accident. The accident was that it ended up in my hand, which is what led to its demise. The events that led to this incident are inconsequential at this point, but I knew at that moment that my night was going to get even worse. My wife was sure to notice this very quickly upon her return. And she did. If it weren't for Dominic's dad showing up to get him a few minutes thereafter, I might still be in the doghouse. But since Sal hung around for a little while and had a couple of beers, some of the tension was thankfully washed away by alcohol.

Still, the subject was revisited later with the expected hyperbole; my wife often likes to say, "Why do you have to break everything?" I clearly don't break everything, otherwise we wouldn't have anything left. I've responded with that exact line before, and it's not received well. In fact, I believe it was something very close to that that prompted the Line of the Night to be very smoothly and plainly delivered by my better half:

"I have this urge to punch you in the face right now. Right on the cheekbone, I think."

That, my friends, is what family life and love is all about. And at the end of the day, I know right where I belong.

33

I celebrated a birthday this past week, which means there’s a new number assigned to me. As much as I’d like to call that number meaningless and trivial, it’s obviously not arbitrary; it does stand for something That said, I don’t claim that there’s much significance to being 33 years old.

I’ve never been one to sweat about age anyway. The gray hair has already been around for many years, and I don’t care so much about the color of the hair changing as long as the quantity of it does not.

So this most recent birthday came and went with an appropriately tempered level of fanfare. There was a nice dinner at my parents’ house on my birthday eve, featuring my favorite dinner dish (veal parmesan); I had a nice birthday lunch with my co-workers at my favorite downtown KC lunch spot (Gordon Biersch Brewery); and I had a very pleasant birthday evening with my family upon my return home that evening.

That was more than I needed, in fact. These days, my wife and I have agreed that we don’t need to waste our money on each other for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, etc. We spend plenty of money throughout the year on things for the kids, the house and any day-to-day needs.

But my wife usually breaks the rules on my birthday and gets me a little present. This year it was a really good one: a gym membership. Of course, that’s actually breaking the rules in the worst way. Not only was it an extra expense, it created a new recurring monthly payment. That’s alright, though, because it was something we’d been seriously considering in since moving into our new house last year. This was a good time to make it happen.

She’s forgiven, and I’m certainly very thankful for everything that I have been given.

***

A few random thoughts:

- I’ve been trying to figure this out for about nine months: Why was Michigan State’s run in last year’s NCAA tournament so “magical”? They were a two-seed, a perennial national contender that tends to be in the Top 10 just about every year. Was it just because the Final Four was being played in Detroit? Sorry, that’s not enough for me. A city and state ravaged by the country’s recession, rallying around one of its state schools? I’m not fully buying that one either. Maybe I’m bitter because my Illini are almost always chasing the Spartans in the Big Ten. About the only exception over the past decade was the 2005 Illini that reached the title game. By the way, Michigan State reached the Final Four that year too. It’s not fucking magic. It’s a really good coach who knows how to recruit very good players and get the best out of them on the court.

- Am I the only one who pronounces the first ‘r’ in February? I don’t know why it would be universally silent. I have to assume, therefore, that its usual pronunciation is based simply on laziness. Yes, February doesn’t really roll off the lips as easily as Febuary. But does that make it right? I don’t think so.

- My stepson has had some extra Christmas and birthday money burning a hole in his pocket the last few weeks, as he’s been dying to get out and buy some new CDs or video games. His most recent pick-up was the “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?” game for Nintendo DS. What I find interesting about this purchase is that Dominic is only nine, so he’s only in third grade. Now I’ve never watched the TV show, but I understand its premise. The producers are trying to see if they can make adults look like asses by posing questions that are part of a usual fifth-grade curriculum. It’s more of a reality comedy than a quiz show, right? At least equal parts. But the comedy of it is surely lost when it’s a third-grader playing. So what’s the attraction for Dominic? As usual, I have no fucking idea.

- Somehow (I know how it happened but don’t feel like explaining all of it) my kids have recently been introduced to the Austin Powers trilogy. Somehow (I’m less certain of this part) they have become addicted to these films. Consistent with the vocabulary they’ve gleaned from being around me, the Austin Powers movies have become known as “the Fat Bastard movies.” The Fat Bastard scenes are the ones they want to watch first, and that’s understandable. For a two-year-old and a nearly-four-year-old, a ridiculously fat guy who talks funny is clearly the closest thing to a cartoon. Now, predictably, they repeat the things he says. Some of the more common phrases heard around my house recently:

“I’ve got a crap on deck that could choke a donkey.”

“I’ve had bigger chunks of corn in my crap.”

It’s pretty freaking amusing. The only real annoying part for me is Dominic thinking he needs to repeat the same lines and attempt a Scottish accent in the process. It instead comes out like a really, really bad Arnold Schwarzeneggar imitation. Anyway, I accept the blame since they are my movies, and my wife has also seemed to somewhat enjoy the comic relief during our otherwise hectic lives. I didn't, however, think my lead-by-bad-example style of parenting needed to be broadcast out to the wife's entire social network. Her online chirp was something along the lines of “Thanks to my husband my kids are now walking around the house saying …” Fuck you again, Facebook.

- Thanks to my new gym membership, I can now go work out any time it fits into my schedule. That includes late at night or early in the morning. I’ve already taken advantage of that, recently hitting the gym at about 10:00pm the other night. Of course, when I came home I found my wife putting the finishing touches on a fresh batch of Rotel. Yeah, nothing screams "Healthy Lifestyle" like a big bowl of cheese with chili tomatoes. Whatever, like I’m going to turn that down. You need to refuel after a workout anyway, right?

Ok, Now What?

Let’s talk a little bit about my last couple of weeks.

I essentially ended 2009 with 11 days off of work, not returning to the office from Christmas Eve until January 4. But note that I’m not going to make the mistake of referring to it as vacation time. That’s how it’s logged according to my employer’s HR department, but the use of vacation days certainly doesn’t automatically mean one is enjoying a true vacation.

Trust me; I wasn’t.

The holidays were filled with predictable strife. Stress over the Christmas budget, stress over holiday scheduling with the family and stress over family interactions in general. That’s bound to happen with a family of five, a wife who comes from a perfectly broken family and a few houseguests who crashed for about two-thirds of my time off.

Consider this: The highlight of my year-end break may have been going out with the family on New Year’s Eve to see Alvin and the Chipmunks II: The Squeakquel. Yes, computer-generated rodents singing Beyonce and other bad Top 40 hits provided a breath of fresh air.

It seems like this so-called break might have been a good time for me to air some detailed grievances via the blog, but I couldn’t really do that since my brother-in-law, his girlfriend and their dog were staying in my basement for seven days. That’s where my computer is set up, and since I’m a fucking idiot and fucked up the configuration of my wireless router, I still need to go downstairs any time I wish to go online. Ok, you can blame that one, at least in part, on me.

So it’s not like I’d ever experience a post-holiday hangover. In reality, it should be more like a post-holiday bender. But there’s no rest for the emotionally abused, and I’ve learned that yet again recently.

Over the last six days, the water pipes at my house froze, my three-year-old son contracted Croup (a fairly common and rarely serious respiratory virus that causes swelling of the throat and caused Joey to wake up at 2:00am Wednesday gasping for air, wheezing and trying desperately to scream and cry), and it was all topped off last night when my wife took a tumble in our garage, breaking her ankle.

As much as I hate clichés and hate talking about the weather in just about any context, perhaps it’s true that when it rains, it fucking pours.

Yes, the stress of raising three children, making a decent living, justifying two house payments and helping my wife manage her own business is not enough. I know, “that’s life.” That’s what the assholes say about things like this. But it’s not unreasonable to think that I’m getting at least slightly fucked here. Just when I bought in for arguably a little more than I could afford, I’ve been dealt some seriously shitty cards.

Everything on the periphery is just as jumbled. In the past, work used to be seen as a good break from home, and I’d seem to be heading home not long after my patience at work was wearing entirely thin. But not so recently. Too often I’ve been antisocial at work among a group of like-minded colleagues whom I’d argue are my best friends these days, and upon returning home my fuse with both the wife and kids has been even shorter than usual. In the meantime, of course, interaction with my non-work friends continues to be less frequent than an Illinois victory over Penn State.

But the Illini did sneak past the Lions this week in Champaign, so maybe things can be turned around. However that win came prior to the arrival of the barking Croup cough and the snapping of my wife’s ankle.

I dream of a more simple life and pray (not literally) that this mess is more manageable than it currently seems. If the Illini can pull of a win in East Lansing tomorrow, then maybe I’ll be a believer -- a believer in the fate of both the Orange & Blue and this crazy life that I lead.