To my knowledge, there are five or six people who regularly read this blog. There’s one of them who I know certainly takes religion seriously and one who I know holds religion firmly at the bottom of his priorities. I assume everyone else falls somewhere in between, myself with a lean toward the latter.
That said, I wasn’t too thrilled about attending last night’s Ash Wednesday service at our nearby Catholic church, and I hope I’m not judged too heavily by any of those who read this. (Especially considering that some would surely argue that I’ll be ultimately judged on this and other related topics by the higher power whose congregations I’m about to criticize.)
Although my family once attended church, um, religiously, those days are long in the past. It hasn’t happened since the mid-1980s when we relocated to the Kansas City area. I’ve carried on that same lack of tradition in my adult life and have really only gone to church in recent years for baptisms, first communions and weddings.
And trust me when I say that I’m fine with that.
I’ve never really felt comfortable in churches, and I don’t see that changing. There have been times over the past 10 or 15 years when I’ve been in a church and thought, “What if I really made this a priority? How would I be feeling right now, and how would that change the way I feel everyday?” I've had no good answer to those questions; instead, I have always come to the pretty simple and reasonable conclusion that it’s just not that easy. There has to be something inside you that makes that connection, and I don’t have it.
My wife, on the other hand, apparently does. She also feels the need to make sure that connection is discovered and maintained within our children. I obviously don’t view this as a “need-to” type of thing, but that argument never gets me anywhere but the doghouse. And I already spend enough time there.
So I only briefly tried to fight it last night when I my wife spoke again of the “need” to go to church as a family for Ash Wednesday. I took a couple of swings in an attempt to deflect my apparent personal obligation to go, but I eventually decided that it would be in the best interests of all of us for me not to drag out the fight.
For this night, actually for just over an hour, I could be a Man of God. Or at least try to appear to be one.
Like I said, I simply don’t feel comfortable in a church setting. This begins even before any service has begun. As I find a seat just like everyone else, I’m sure there are many regulars who recognize that my face is foreign to the large group. Sure, there are plenty of them who are probably thinking, “Well, I haven’t seen him before. God bless him for joining us.”
Yet I can’t help but think that many others are thinking something more along the lines of the following.
1. “Why hasn’t he been here before?”
2. “Is he one of those people who only comes on Christmas, Easter and Ash Wednesday?”
3. “I wonder if he even contributes to the church.”
My answers:
1. Because I don’t want to.
2. Maybe, but even on those days it’s only if I’m forced to.
3. Absolutely not.
So this is what races through my head, this feeling of being unwelcome. Yes, it might all just in my mind, but why wouldn’t I think that? These are people who’ve seemingly made religion a high priority in their lives, whereas I haven’t. Maybe I’m wrong to think that there aren’t many like-minded folks trapped in there with me, but it’s not like I had time to take a poll of how many guys so desperately wished they were watching the Purdue-Ohio State game instead.
No, I feel relatively safe in thinking that a majority of the people with whom I shared the 7:00 hour last night are not like me. They wanted to be there, and they sure as hell would want to know why I wouldn’t want to be there.
And I feel confident in all of these thoughts even before everyone but me starts belting out lines such as “This is the time of fulfillment” and “The reign of God is at hand!”
Part of my confidence is in the fact that church right now doesn’t seem like church was back in 1985 – which was probably when I last attended it regularly – or even during many of the one-off visits I had to make throughout my adolescence and early adult years. I don’t remember so many people showing up in sweatshirts and tennis shoes. Likewise, I don’t remember any man of the cloth beginning a service with the phrase, “My personal trainer has been on my case lately …” as was the case with Father whatever-his-name-is last night.
It’s almost as if there’s an effort to make it seem more casual and therefore more comfortable. But it’s not working for me.
No, church just isn’t the place for me. My wife was very appreciative of the fact that I put forth the effort last night; she was sure, she said, that I wouldn’t have done it for anyone but her. She’s probably right.
But, with God as my witness, I’ll try my best to keep avoiding it.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Come on, Lucky Sevens!
I think it’s time for me to buy a lottery ticket.
It was once commonly understood that the “American Dream” was to have a nice job, nice house and nice family. It should also be widely accepted that this is no longer the case. Instead, more people dream of simply falling upon a large sum of money. Add me to that list too. I have a nice house, job and family, but a truly dreamy scenario would be not having to work too hard (if at all) to maintain the aforementioned nice house and family.
Yeah, greed may not be good, but it sure as hell is real.
Anyway, I don’t play the lottery very often, largely because the odds of winning are so unreal. My dad and brother used to play Powerball with each drawing, using the same numbers each time. They once won $5000, which sounds pretty nice, but how long did they play before they actually saw some windfall? (That’s a rhetorical question. I know it doesn’t matter how many times you play; you technically have the same chance each drawing regardless of how often you’ve gone to the well.)
But I think I might be in the good grace’s of God today – on Ash Wednesday, no less.
Consider this: Late last week I stopped at Wendy’s and my total was $7.77. Two days later I got in my car and found that my mileage was 77,777. Lucky fucking sevens across the board. Weird.
Then, the next two mornings I awoke at the exact same seemingly-random time, 4:42 am. There were a couple of times each night/morning when I briefly woke up to roll over, adjust the covers or pillow, etc., but the first time I looked at my phone on each of those mornings it was 4:42am.
What are the odds?
Well, consider that I slept for about seven hours each of those nights/mornings. The first was from about 1:30 – 8:30; the next was about 11:30 – 6:30. The odds of waking up at any particular moment during one of those 420-minutes spans is right around one-quarter of a percent. Now, think about how improbable it is to wake up at that exact time two mornings in a row. Try about six ten-thousandths of a percent.
Can the odds of winning the proverbial ‘big one’ be much worse? I’ll let you know after checking my tickets tonight. But I don’t think I’ll bother holding my breath.
It was once commonly understood that the “American Dream” was to have a nice job, nice house and nice family. It should also be widely accepted that this is no longer the case. Instead, more people dream of simply falling upon a large sum of money. Add me to that list too. I have a nice house, job and family, but a truly dreamy scenario would be not having to work too hard (if at all) to maintain the aforementioned nice house and family.
Yeah, greed may not be good, but it sure as hell is real.
Anyway, I don’t play the lottery very often, largely because the odds of winning are so unreal. My dad and brother used to play Powerball with each drawing, using the same numbers each time. They once won $5000, which sounds pretty nice, but how long did they play before they actually saw some windfall? (That’s a rhetorical question. I know it doesn’t matter how many times you play; you technically have the same chance each drawing regardless of how often you’ve gone to the well.)
But I think I might be in the good grace’s of God today – on Ash Wednesday, no less.
Consider this: Late last week I stopped at Wendy’s and my total was $7.77. Two days later I got in my car and found that my mileage was 77,777. Lucky fucking sevens across the board. Weird.
Then, the next two mornings I awoke at the exact same seemingly-random time, 4:42 am. There were a couple of times each night/morning when I briefly woke up to roll over, adjust the covers or pillow, etc., but the first time I looked at my phone on each of those mornings it was 4:42am.
What are the odds?
Well, consider that I slept for about seven hours each of those nights/mornings. The first was from about 1:30 – 8:30; the next was about 11:30 – 6:30. The odds of waking up at any particular moment during one of those 420-minutes spans is right around one-quarter of a percent. Now, think about how improbable it is to wake up at that exact time two mornings in a row. Try about six ten-thousandths of a percent.
Can the odds of winning the proverbial ‘big one’ be much worse? I’ll let you know after checking my tickets tonight. But I don’t think I’ll bother holding my breath.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Football Is Over. Isn't It Super?
It wasn’t long after the Super Bowl’s opening kickoff when my son Joey asked me why I have to watch football games “all day, everyday.” That’s clearly an exaggeration on his part, even on the one day when it’s possible to get completely consumed by coverage of a single game from the time you wake up. I’m not into that though. Not even three years ago when I woke up from a poor night’s sleep in anticipation of the Bears playing in Super Bowl XLI.
As freakish as I am about sports, I’m really not an all-day NFL fan. My habits are strictly dictated by my allegiances, so my fandom is entirely dependent on when the Bears play.
I rarely watch any of the weekly pre-game shows when there are 13 to 16 games to preview; my team is involved in exactly one of those each week. So if all teams/games are treated equally – which they aren’t – then over the course of a two-hour edition of NFL Countdown the Bears’ game would get an average of somewhere between five and seven minutes of coverage each week. (That’s assuming commercial interruptions account for 16 minutes per hour of programming.)
Why would I watch 80+ minutes of coverage devoted to other games with which I have no emotional involvement? Breaking fantasy football news? Like I couldn’t get that with a couple of simple clicks on my PC instead.
Which brings me back to Super Bowl Sunday. CBS had a four-hour pregame show, and that didn’t even include the “Kickoff Show” which was actually the last 30 minutes leading up to the kickoff. I understand that the NFL is believed to be the model professional sports league in our country right now (although you might need to stay closely tuned to ongoing labor negotiations for a reminder that the NFL is human), but not only are there no casual fans watching all that fluff, I have a lot of trouble believing there are many true die-hard football fans who stay glued to their TVs for hours leading up the opening kickoff.
There are only so many human interest stories that can truly be interesting. As humbling as it was to basically be a housewife at the time, concentrating most of my efforts early Sunday afternoon on laundry and cleaning duties, it was plenty more productive than sitting on my couch watching the many stories that stroked the egos of the Manning family and trumpeted the Saints as a shining light around which an entire damaged city could rally.
No thanks.
When gametime did finally arrive, I had the same lack of rooting interest as I did two Sundays ago when we all learned who’d be facing off for the Lombardi Trophy. At that point I was just happy that Brett Favre’s season – and hopefully his career – was over. I had a slight lean for the Colts, but it was less due to a liking for them and more to do with a bit of distaste for the Saints. Still, not enough of a difference to care too much.
As is often the case when I watch two teams about whom I don’t really care, I concern myself more with some of the individual players who are involved. And on Super Bowl Sunday my attention was mainly fixed on two former members of the Illinois Fighting Illini. If I can’t focus my energy on my alma mater, then what good am I?
So my primary concern was not necessarily who was the winning team, but my hope was that Pierre Thomas wouldn’t cough up the ball at a key moment and that Kelvin Hayden wouldn’t get burned deep by Drew Brees for a score. Neither of those things happened. In fact, Thomas made a very positive impact, accounting for about 100 total yards and a touchdown. Go Illini!
But now that the Super Bowl is over, we can move on from football. And for the first time, we don’t have to worry about the formality that is the Pro Bowl, the worst all-star game of all the professional sports.
The Pro Bowl being played the week before the Super Bowl is actually an absurd idea for many reasons, not the most trivial of which is that it obviously precludes the participation of any player from either conference champion. The good news about that, though, is that no one fucking cares. The Pro Bowl is a joke, and so it’s probably good to get it out of the way as soon as possible.
It should be noted, however, that the irrelevance of the game isn’t the fault of the league; it’s the nature of the sport. You can’t put these freakish athletes out on the gridiron together for an exhibition and for a moment think that it’s going to be entertaining theater. It’s just not possible. For a sport that’s built around hitting your opponents and avoiding being hit by them, you might as well just make your all-star game a skills competition. See which QB scores the highest in accuracy drills, see which kicker can drill one through the uprights from the farthest distance, and see which linebacker with a dangerous blend of speed and strength can literally knock the head off of a tackling dummy.
Let’s instead just make it a creative version of the draft combine and those lame College Football All-Star Challenges that are always on this time of year.
Actually, we probably shouldn’t do that either. Let’s just continue pretending the Pro Bowl doesn’t exist.
Back to the point, the football season is over. It’s time to think about where your team stands for the coming season and what can be done to address its weaknesses. The Bears’ 2009 season, for all intents and purposes, ended three months ago, so I’ve had plenty of time to ponder their future. Now I can do it without the distraction of other teams and their annoying success.
Fucking losers.
As freakish as I am about sports, I’m really not an all-day NFL fan. My habits are strictly dictated by my allegiances, so my fandom is entirely dependent on when the Bears play.
I rarely watch any of the weekly pre-game shows when there are 13 to 16 games to preview; my team is involved in exactly one of those each week. So if all teams/games are treated equally – which they aren’t – then over the course of a two-hour edition of NFL Countdown the Bears’ game would get an average of somewhere between five and seven minutes of coverage each week. (That’s assuming commercial interruptions account for 16 minutes per hour of programming.)
Why would I watch 80+ minutes of coverage devoted to other games with which I have no emotional involvement? Breaking fantasy football news? Like I couldn’t get that with a couple of simple clicks on my PC instead.
Which brings me back to Super Bowl Sunday. CBS had a four-hour pregame show, and that didn’t even include the “Kickoff Show” which was actually the last 30 minutes leading up to the kickoff. I understand that the NFL is believed to be the model professional sports league in our country right now (although you might need to stay closely tuned to ongoing labor negotiations for a reminder that the NFL is human), but not only are there no casual fans watching all that fluff, I have a lot of trouble believing there are many true die-hard football fans who stay glued to their TVs for hours leading up the opening kickoff.
There are only so many human interest stories that can truly be interesting. As humbling as it was to basically be a housewife at the time, concentrating most of my efforts early Sunday afternoon on laundry and cleaning duties, it was plenty more productive than sitting on my couch watching the many stories that stroked the egos of the Manning family and trumpeted the Saints as a shining light around which an entire damaged city could rally.
No thanks.
When gametime did finally arrive, I had the same lack of rooting interest as I did two Sundays ago when we all learned who’d be facing off for the Lombardi Trophy. At that point I was just happy that Brett Favre’s season – and hopefully his career – was over. I had a slight lean for the Colts, but it was less due to a liking for them and more to do with a bit of distaste for the Saints. Still, not enough of a difference to care too much.
As is often the case when I watch two teams about whom I don’t really care, I concern myself more with some of the individual players who are involved. And on Super Bowl Sunday my attention was mainly fixed on two former members of the Illinois Fighting Illini. If I can’t focus my energy on my alma mater, then what good am I?
So my primary concern was not necessarily who was the winning team, but my hope was that Pierre Thomas wouldn’t cough up the ball at a key moment and that Kelvin Hayden wouldn’t get burned deep by Drew Brees for a score. Neither of those things happened. In fact, Thomas made a very positive impact, accounting for about 100 total yards and a touchdown. Go Illini!
But now that the Super Bowl is over, we can move on from football. And for the first time, we don’t have to worry about the formality that is the Pro Bowl, the worst all-star game of all the professional sports.
The Pro Bowl being played the week before the Super Bowl is actually an absurd idea for many reasons, not the most trivial of which is that it obviously precludes the participation of any player from either conference champion. The good news about that, though, is that no one fucking cares. The Pro Bowl is a joke, and so it’s probably good to get it out of the way as soon as possible.
It should be noted, however, that the irrelevance of the game isn’t the fault of the league; it’s the nature of the sport. You can’t put these freakish athletes out on the gridiron together for an exhibition and for a moment think that it’s going to be entertaining theater. It’s just not possible. For a sport that’s built around hitting your opponents and avoiding being hit by them, you might as well just make your all-star game a skills competition. See which QB scores the highest in accuracy drills, see which kicker can drill one through the uprights from the farthest distance, and see which linebacker with a dangerous blend of speed and strength can literally knock the head off of a tackling dummy.
Let’s instead just make it a creative version of the draft combine and those lame College Football All-Star Challenges that are always on this time of year.
Actually, we probably shouldn’t do that either. Let’s just continue pretending the Pro Bowl doesn’t exist.
Back to the point, the football season is over. It’s time to think about where your team stands for the coming season and what can be done to address its weaknesses. The Bears’ 2009 season, for all intents and purposes, ended three months ago, so I’ve had plenty of time to ponder their future. Now I can do it without the distraction of other teams and their annoying success.
Fucking losers.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
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?
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?
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Everything Happens in Intervals of ... How Many?
As the holidays approached, I learned that my brother-in-law, his girlfriend and their dog would be staying at my house for more than half of the vacation time that I was taking from work. Doesn't sound like much of a vacation, does it?
But it didn't get any easier.
The week before Christmas, my stepson was diagnosed with Mononucleosis.
Over the holiday break, we hosted my mother-in-law for a visit that culminated in a shouting match between my wife and her mother.
Shortly after the holidays, my three-year-old contracted Croup, a respiratory virus that caused the swelling of his throat, which made it difficult for him to breathe and caused a terrible-sounding cough.
Joey recovered, but Lukas caught the same ailment before it had fully faded from his older brother. Great news for dad. Two kids with a pretty bad respiratory illness.
Anything else? Sure. Last Thursday night, while all of the kids ate dinner calmly in the kitchen, my wife ran to the garage to get her phone from her car, only to stumble off the garage stairs. The result: a broken ankle. The actual break is in the fibula, the outer leg bone just above the ankle joint. Regardless, not good news for a high-stress dad and husband. Fuck, my wife later told me that she thought when I'd run out to the garage after hearing her scream that I was going to hit her. Not quite the nurturing nature of a spouse that one might wish for.
So my wife continues to recover, now with her left foot in a hot pink hard cast. And as a daycare provider, this isn't a perfect scenario for her. It certainly doesn't bode well for her to have to hobble around while chasing eight or ten kids, not just our own. Things have been rough the last few days, to say the least.
But it doesn't just end there. I got a call from her Tuesday night around 6:00pm, letting me know that her car had suffered a flat tire on the way home from work; a not-so-subtle reminder that we needed to have the tires on our SUV replaced soon anyway. Hell, what's another few hundred dollars?
So what's next?
Tonight (or early this morning, rather) I received some news even worse than I could have expected. An old friend from college is no longer with us. Honestly, it had been a long time since I'd spoken with him, but that doesn't really lessen the impact.
At the mere age of 33, which I'll reach next week, my friend Adam has passed.
Adam was a good egg. He was one of those guys who was smarter than most of us ever could wish to be, a scholarship student to one of the best public universities in the country. But he didn't necessarily know his place. What he did know, however, was how he wanted to be perceived by his friends. A junior college transfer student, Adam was glad to be the designated alcohol buyer for our group, knowing that was a role he could successfully fill. The year that most of us, as freshman, turned 19, Adam turned 21. He was simply glad to be part of our fraternity (not a fraternity in the gay college Greek sense), and we enjoyed each other's company.
But it wasn't just for that reason that we respected him as a friend. Adam was probably about 5'11" and maybe 140 pounds, but that guy would have taken on a University of Illinois lineman to stick up for one of his friends. And it's for that reason we'd all look back now and know that we'd have done the same for him.
Midway through my sophomore year, Adam visited my roommate and myself to let us know he wasn't coming back to UI. His grades had suffered, probably due to apathy. He didn't feel challenged by life, so I think my roommate and I felt a little responsible for not giving him more of a reason to continue with his education.
But that may not have been what he wanted anyway. We knew that Adam wasn't your everyday kind of guy, and it probably wasn't just an education he was looking for in Champaign, Illinois.
So it's a little tough to swallow right now knowing that he's no longer around. His friendship is not forgotten.
But it didn't get any easier.
The week before Christmas, my stepson was diagnosed with Mononucleosis.
Over the holiday break, we hosted my mother-in-law for a visit that culminated in a shouting match between my wife and her mother.
Shortly after the holidays, my three-year-old contracted Croup, a respiratory virus that caused the swelling of his throat, which made it difficult for him to breathe and caused a terrible-sounding cough.
Joey recovered, but Lukas caught the same ailment before it had fully faded from his older brother. Great news for dad. Two kids with a pretty bad respiratory illness.
Anything else? Sure. Last Thursday night, while all of the kids ate dinner calmly in the kitchen, my wife ran to the garage to get her phone from her car, only to stumble off the garage stairs. The result: a broken ankle. The actual break is in the fibula, the outer leg bone just above the ankle joint. Regardless, not good news for a high-stress dad and husband. Fuck, my wife later told me that she thought when I'd run out to the garage after hearing her scream that I was going to hit her. Not quite the nurturing nature of a spouse that one might wish for.
So my wife continues to recover, now with her left foot in a hot pink hard cast. And as a daycare provider, this isn't a perfect scenario for her. It certainly doesn't bode well for her to have to hobble around while chasing eight or ten kids, not just our own. Things have been rough the last few days, to say the least.
But it doesn't just end there. I got a call from her Tuesday night around 6:00pm, letting me know that her car had suffered a flat tire on the way home from work; a not-so-subtle reminder that we needed to have the tires on our SUV replaced soon anyway. Hell, what's another few hundred dollars?
So what's next?
Tonight (or early this morning, rather) I received some news even worse than I could have expected. An old friend from college is no longer with us. Honestly, it had been a long time since I'd spoken with him, but that doesn't really lessen the impact.
At the mere age of 33, which I'll reach next week, my friend Adam has passed.
Adam was a good egg. He was one of those guys who was smarter than most of us ever could wish to be, a scholarship student to one of the best public universities in the country. But he didn't necessarily know his place. What he did know, however, was how he wanted to be perceived by his friends. A junior college transfer student, Adam was glad to be the designated alcohol buyer for our group, knowing that was a role he could successfully fill. The year that most of us, as freshman, turned 19, Adam turned 21. He was simply glad to be part of our fraternity (not a fraternity in the gay college Greek sense), and we enjoyed each other's company.
But it wasn't just for that reason that we respected him as a friend. Adam was probably about 5'11" and maybe 140 pounds, but that guy would have taken on a University of Illinois lineman to stick up for one of his friends. And it's for that reason we'd all look back now and know that we'd have done the same for him.
Midway through my sophomore year, Adam visited my roommate and myself to let us know he wasn't coming back to UI. His grades had suffered, probably due to apathy. He didn't feel challenged by life, so I think my roommate and I felt a little responsible for not giving him more of a reason to continue with his education.
But that may not have been what he wanted anyway. We knew that Adam wasn't your everyday kind of guy, and it probably wasn't just an education he was looking for in Champaign, Illinois.
So it's a little tough to swallow right now knowing that he's no longer around. His friendship is not forgotten.
Friday, January 15, 2010
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.
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.
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