The Difference Between "Friend" And "Family"

My friend "N" and his wife "S" showed up "out of the blue" yesterday, I hadn't seen him since last year, when I ran into them at "Wally World". They were just coming back from camping, and since they were passing by my side of town they decided to stop in.

He and I have known each other our whole lives, well, his whole life anyways. I remember I was about 20 and living in my very first apartment, when from my living room/kitchen/bedroom (it was very small apartment) I heard a noise outside. At the time I had a most cherry 78 firebird, redbird edition, t-tops, the works, sitting out in my driveway. I looked out to see what the noise was, and there were these two kids, no more than 7 years old, that had their bicycle turned upside down and while one was spinning the back tire, the other dropped P-gravel from the driveway onto it, shooting the gravel onto my car. Needless to say, "I was none too pleased", and preceded to run out yelling at the two little rug rats, to chase them away. They ran away and came back several times, to them; this game was great fun, to me; not so much. Finally they left, though I spent the rest of the night watching out the window, to see if the little hellions would return, I never saw them again.

About 12 years later I was in a bar and got to chatting with a fellow that had stopped in to buy some beer to go. He told me "It was his birthday, and he was buying the beer for a party he was having up at his house." I told him "it just so happens to be my birthday as well" (it was.) He invited me up to the party, and I said, "What the hell, but you'll have to give me a ride because I'm on foot." We rode up to his house in his truck, and when I got there and met his family, it turned out that I already knew all of them. They had lived in the same neighborhood where I had grown up.

It ended up being a very good party, we all drank heavily, and had much laughter with old friends whom I hadn't seen in a very long time. When It got late, they invited me to stay the night, since no one was in any condition to drive me home and I wasn't in any condition to walk home. I accepted their offer and slept on the floor. The next day "N" offered to drive me home, and on the way we went down the road that my old apartment was on. I pointed out the place to him, and he asked me "did you own a really nice red car". I told him that "I did", and he busted out laughing. He said "I was one of those little kids that was throwing stones on your car!", so punched him in the arm. We have been friends ever since.

We don't see each other "all the time" like some peoples friendships, but that's the way we have always been. I might not see him for months, or even years, then we will run into each other and hang out for months or years. We do try to get together every year on "our birthday", and have ourselves a little party. I remember one year we set up his band (he's a drummer) in my living room, along with two half stacks, fog machine, and a mirror ball screwed to the ceiling, and tried to see if we could get the cops to come, since we had decided "it's not a real party until the cops show up", but it seemed no matter how much noise we made, we just couldn't get my nice neighbors to call the police.

Yesterday He said he wanted to have our party again this year (we say that every year), some years we do, and some years we don't. I don't know if we will have it again this year, he's married now and has a two-year-old son. I'm just waiting for his son to get old enough so I can teach him how to throw stones with his bike tire, onto dad's car.

A Short Intermission Blog

Yesterday I put in new shower doors in my upstairs bathroom ("I know, real exciting post coming up.") Before that, I had shower curtains, and though I feel curtains look better than doors, I just prefer doors to curtains. Doors don't "suck in on you" when the water is hot, doors are easier to clean than curtains, I hate it when the "little eyelets" that the hooks go through on the curtain tear, and if the curtain lasts more than a year you are doing well, though I think they should be thrown out every year anyways. Which brings me to my questions. Do you prefer doors to curtains? Do you prefer Baths to showers? (I have a theory.)

I had never put in doors before, and after reading the instructions I thought I had made a mistake buying them. The instructions seemed difficult and I thought that it would take me all day to put them in, but once I got into it, I had them hung in about two hours. I hate the instructions that are included with "the things" you have to put together. As a designer in an engineering department my job is to create "instructions" for other people, and so when I read these instructions I am constantly correcting them. Yes I am the person who loves putting the toys together at Christmas.

I could have picked better weather to do this project. The hot weather that bloggers in Van Couver were complaining about a few days ago has finally worked its way across the continent. It was not a good day to be working in a small bathroom. The worst part of it is, I got all sweaty putting it in, and now I can't take a shower. I have to wait 24 hours for the caulking to dry, some of which looks like it's melting. Where I live the highest the temperature has ever reached is 100 degrees F., and that has only happened on something like three occasions, when it gets over 80 here it is really miserable because of our high humidity. What I wouldn't give for a good "lake breeze" right now (lake breeze: when the wind suddenly switches around to come from the north, over the cool waters of Lake Erie, cooling us down considerably, this happens mostly right at dusk. In the winter it causes much snow.)

Terminator 1

I've been married twice and this is the story of the first one. I call my marriages T1 and T2 (Terminator 1 and Terminator 2). The very first thing I have to say about both of my "exs" is that they are both good friends of mine. I consider them both to be quite wonderful ("yes, I said that") and I cherish the memories of the times we were together. I feel I was blessed with two wonderful wives, and though it didn't work out, I wouldn't trade our times together for anything in the world. Yes it's kind of rare to have a single marriage that afterwards you can speak of your "ex" with fondness, much less two marriages, but hey those are the chapters of my life.

T1 and I were married at a very young age. This is the main reason that we are not still married now. Her parents were fairly strict and would not allow her to date. I was essentially her first real relationship. The reason we ended up together is my brother and her sister met and got married, and so when T1 and I started showing interest in each other both families accepted it. Not just accepted, but also fully expected that we would get married. I guess we did what was expected of us, but we were young and really didn't know any better.

The marriage was not a bad one; her and I did have the ability to talk to each other, but not in any kind of really meaningful way, not about each other and our relationship. We spent many nights awake, "until the wee hours", chatting about anything and everything. When it came down to views on life, and such, we really saw "eye to eye." When it came down to views on our relationship though, I cannot remember us even talking about it once.

I suppose that if I had to describe my first marriage with one word, it would be "nice". There was little fire or passion, it could almost be described as "a marriage of convenience". We rarely had any fights, and most people thought we were a fine couple. It's not that there were no fights in public, there were no fights in private either, we really needed a "spark" that just wasn't there. When the time came that we decided to get divorced, our divorce was just like our marriage, no fighting, no lawyers, and no bloodthirsty war. We worked out our own divorce by getting books from the library on the subject and did it "mail order" from a county that specializes in such things. My brother and her sister had previously been divorced, in what could be described as, "the bloodiest battle since the battle of the bulge", and since T1 and I had been caught up in the middle of it, we saw exactly "how" we did not want to be divorced. We can both say now that if you have the ability to divorce peacefully, it is definitely worth doing. We had one child in the marriage, and when it came down to the divorce, we decided to put him first, which was really the best thing we could have done.

Near the end (I found out later) she had met a guy who had made all kinds of promises to her of "how it would be if they were together", but after we split (her wanting to be with him), and he got what he wanted, he split as well. Some may call this "comeuppance", but I have no such "Ill will" feelings towards her. Since then many guys have come in and out of her door, including one that did stick around for many years, but as he was a "somewhat psychotic drunk" she would have been better off without him. She tells me that she still loves him (he's dead now), but that she was afraid to leave him, a mentally abusive "story", that tragically, we have all heard before.

During the time she was with him, and I was with my second wife, T1 and I had little communication, really the only time we talked was during "child exchange" when I would take my son for the weekend. My second wife did not like her at all, so T1 and I didn't talk to each other much during that time. Since my second divorce, and her boyfriend passed on, her and I have been talking much more often. This is when I learned about "how he was", things I suspected, but never really knew. She has since got back on the dating "merry-go-round"; I give her credit, though her luck with guys seems to be about the same as before. I haven't heard from her in about three weeks, so she must be dating someone, this is how I know how long her relationships last, she only talks to me, and comes around between them.

She has dropped hints that she would be interested in getting back together again, saying things like she "gave up the best thing she ever had" and that her and I "could go out together", but I haven't really jumped at the idea. Though I'm sure a "closer relationship" with her would be just as "nice" as it was the first time, I don't see where much has changed between us. Don't get me wrong, I have thought about the idea, and it's "not an unpleasant one", we have both "grown up" a lot from the first time we were together. I really don't want to be "a fall back position" and I also would like to have "something more" in my relationship. My last girlfriend, who I blogged about in a previous post, really was my soul mate, and it would be very hard to accept anything less than that. Any relationship I would have now, I could not help but measure up against that, and if it did not meet "those qualifications", I would have to consider it "settling". This has made it difficult for me to start dating again. What are the chances of finding a second soul mate?

I wish T1 all the luck in the world when it comes to finding the right man. I truly hope she can find her soul mate. I know she has "gotten up there in years" and is considered to be "beyond the marriageable years" (what a load of crap!) which is something that worries her. I think she looks better than she ever did, and I don't see why any man wouldn't consider her a great catch. I just wish she could find the happiness that she so desperately seeks, the right man that she is looking for...without settling.

A Simple Question?

What is the name of your Blog, and why did you choose it?

Mostly True

I borrowed this from Tai's blog, who ran away with this from Kimber's blog, who shamelessly ripped it from Me's blog.

10 Favorites
Favorite Season: Summer!
Favorite Color: Silver.
Favorite Time: 5:00am
Favorite Food: Greek!
Favorite Drink: Pink Lemonade.
Favorite Ice Cream: Fudge Swirl!
Favorite Place: Back Porch.
Favorite Sport: Ice Hockey?
Favorite Actor: Johnny Depp.
Favorite Actress: Jamie Lee Curtis.

9 Currents
Current Feeling: Worried (that I offended a friend).
Current Drink: Coffee.
Time: 8:16 am
Current Show on TV: Never in the morning.
Mobile used: Uh..."Mouse."
Windows Open: Four.
Current Underwear: Being washed.
Current Clothes: Old Jeans and Favorite brown flannel shirt.
Current Thought: "It started out raining again today, and as soon as I started bloging the sun come out, again! (it happens every time)."

8 Firsts
First Nickname: I've never had one.
First Kiss: Uh...Do cousins count.
First Crush: Twin girls in kindergarten.
First Best Friend: Gerald in Kindergarten.
First Vehicle I Drove: 1978 Pontiac Firebird, Red Bird Edition, T-tops (out), Sweeet.
First Date: Barb at a church hayride ("she's a lesbian now, I guess at age ten I wrecked her for other men, but I do Love her and Sue, and I miss them very much.")
First Pet: "Trampy" (our massive, black Irish Setter) At the age of 5, I had to walk home through the woods, alone one night (slept over at a friends). I stood at the edge of the dark, scary, woods terrified, and he showed up out of the blue to walk me home. I still feel him walking beside me, with my hand on his back.

7 Lasts
Last Drink: Coffee.
Last Kiss: "J".
Last Meal: Marie Callender's Creamy Mushroom Chicken Pot Pie and Parmesan Angel Hair Pasta (yes...I'm single).
Last Web Site Visited: Hope's Blog.
Last Movie Watched: "Narnya"
Last Phone Call: "Jul".
Last TV show Watched: "Dr. Who".

6 Have You Ever...
Have You Ever Broken the Law: Not today...Yet!
Have You Ever Been Drunk: I owned a bar!
Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: "Hey!" I said..."I owned a bar!"
Have You Ever Been in the Middle/Close to Gunfire: Uh..I live in the United States!
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: Yep...and always waiting for the next offer.
Have You Ever Broken Anyone's Heart: Sad but many hearts litter the path I have tread, including pieces of my own.

5 Things
Things You Can Hear Right Now: "The Alan Parsons Project - I Robot."
Things You Can See Right Now: The Mayan Sun Temple at Chichen Itza.
Things On Your Bed: The green comforter my girlfriend "J" gave me, cuz she didn't like the sleeping bag I was using.
Things You Ate Today: Nothing Yet.
Things You Do When You Are Bored: Blog Surf.

4 Places You Have Been Today:
Bedroom (woke up),
Kitchen (for coffee),
Back Porch (to drink coffee & and say "good morning" to the birds),
Den (to drink more coffee & to blog this).

3 Things On Your Desk Right Now:
Mayan Bookends (No Kimber, Not stolen artifacts!),
Many Dragons,
A Standup Calendar Thingy with Big Feet. My Son gave it to me, and it is one of my most prized possessions (If the house caught on fire and I could save one thing, this would be it, and it's worth maybe a dollar.)

2 Choices
Salt or Pepper: Pepper
Hot or Cold: Hot.

1 Place You Want To Visit:
Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

Irregular News

Well it’s raining, cold, and miserable out so that pretty much means no yard work today. Since I have a lot of things out there I would like to accomplish, I do not regard the weather as good news. But I do know how to make it change. All I have to do is start doing something that I enjoy (like Bloging) and the sun will be shining in no time. I consider this the universes way of saying “Hey!, you’re not getting out of doing work that easily!"

”It’s time for another excerpt from “Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader”. This time I tried to scan the pages in and use a program I downloaded from the net to convert them from Jpeg Images to Text. It didn’t seem to work so well. Amongst other things it changed all the “t’s” to “c’s”, and it understands punctuation even worse than I do, if that’s possible. I think I have cleaned up all the errors, but if anything below makes you say WTF!, please understand that this was an experiment, and that my regular writing will make you say that anyways.

More Proof that truth really is stranger than fiction.

PLEASE, MR. POSTMAN...

"A package marked 'Warning, bomb!', 'Now you'll have It!' and 'Look out!' was delivered without a problem by the Swedish postal services. Postal Service spokesman Mattias Geijerstam said Wednesday the agency was embarrassed, but explained that the package was delivered because postal workers were convinced It was a hoax. The package was forwarded to a local shop to be picked up by the addressee. He said workers at the local store read the labels and called police. It was examined and declared bomb-free after It was found to hold a pair of shoes." -Manchester (U.K.) News

KNOCK-KNOCK

"A pair of prisoners at a British low-security Jail escaped - only to knock on a door of a more secure prison nearby and ask to be detained there instead. The two reformed drug users fled from Leyhill prison near Gloucester because they found narcotics too easily available there. Audie Carr, 29, and Benjamin Clarke, 23, were found to be missing at roll call last Sunday night, but by Monday lunchtime they had knocked on the doors of Gloucester Prison 32 kilometers (19 miles) away. 'They wanted to finish their sentences at Gloucester,' a prosecution lawyer told the court."
-ABC News

IT'S AN HONOR JUST TO BE NOMINATED

"Awards World magazine recently sponsored the 'Awards Awards' at London's Dorchester Hotel, handing out awards to members of the British awards-presentation industry for the year’s best awards shows. Awards World editor Barbara Buchanan explained, 'Everybody likes to win an award, even the people who give out awards.' Buchanan (who staged about 1,OOO major presentations in Britain last year) called this year's program a success, but said it is disqualified from receiving any awards at next years Awards Awards."
-BBC News

NO LAUGHING MATTER

"Members of a 'laughter club' in Patna, India, decribed the decision to ban laughing at their local zoo as 'autocratic.' Chuckling was outlawed after Laloo Prasad Yadav, the president of Bihar state's ruling party, was angered by the group 'merrily laughing in chorus' when he walked past them in the Sanjay Gandhi Botanical Garden and zoo. 'You are disturbing the Peace of the flora and Fauna of the zoo,' Laloo reportedly told the group, before issuing instructions to zoo officials to enforce an immediate ban. Laughter clubs, groups of people who gather to laugh loudly in public to relieve stress, are a phenomenon in parts of India."
-The Economic Times

BLOCKEAD

"A U.K. driver was pulled over by police in Surrey when they noticed him driving with a box (with eyeholes) over his head. He told police the foil lining Protected him from the cars electromagnetic emissions."
-"The Edge," The Oregonian

EGG HEAD

"When Briton Malcolm Eccles, 50, died of bowel cancer, his FamiIy turned him into a kitchen aid. In accordance with his wishes, they keep his ashes in a specially crafted glass egg timer. 'I can't boil a soft egg to save my life,' widow Brenda said, 'so he said I should turn some of his ashes into an egg timer. Then he could help me and it would be a nice way of remembering him."
-Wacky News

DIDN'T SEE THAT COMING

"A Chinese pensioner who exercises by walking backwards around a lake had to be rescued after he lost concentration and fell in. China Daily, quoting the Beijing Times, says Yan, 72, believes his daily routine of walking backwards around Bayi Lake is good for his health. But he was apparently counting his steps instead of checking his surroundings, miscalculated, and fell backwards. Three other fitness enthusiasts saved him and took him to the hospital, where he received three stitches on his head."
-Daily Times (Pakistan)

"Hey! looks like the rain stopped and it's actually getting lighter outside"...

When would you want to live?

If you could live at any time, in the past, or in the future, when would it be and why?

For me at least there are two answers to this, and they are both extremes.

My first answer would be "I would like to have lived about 35,000 years ago". I would have loved to be a hunter-gatherer, to be able to travel through a sparsely populated land carrying with me all that I owned. Wrapped in pelts, mukluks on my feet, a stone tipped spear in my right hand and all my stone tools, stone axe, fire starting kit, and leftovers from last nights dinner wrapped in leaves, in a fur satchel slung over my left shoulder. To be able to travel the wilderness afoot, through the primeval forest, not knowing what I would see, or whom I would meet, over the next rise. Meeting unusual tribes of people as I went, and learning their customs. This would be my ideal life. I am a fan of the "Earths Children" series of books written by Jean M. Auel. Many people know the first book "The Clan of the Cave Bear" because of the movie by the same title staring Daryl Hannah. For me the best book in the series was the second one "the Valley of Horses". In that book, 'Ayla', the 'cave girl' main character, had been cast out of her clan, and was living by herself, in her own valley. It also had a running side story of 'Jondalar', who was to become Ayla's mate, taking a ritual journey throughout ancient Europe, and how they would eventually meet. This kind of lifestyle has always been very appealing to me.

My second answer would be completely opposite. I would like to live about 500 hundred years in the future. I could imagine myself having a small interstellar scout vessel, traveling the stars beyond the mapped, 'civilized' regions of space our people will (hopefully) be living in then. To go and visit new worlds, once again, not knowing what I would see, or whom I would meet, over the next rise (ok, so there's no "rise" in space, just work with me alright!). Finding new civilizations, and meeting new intelligent species all along the way.

Both of these answers, for me, have one thing in common and that is 'New Frontiers'. We are living in a time that is quite possible the worst for me. All the land has been explored, very large areas of wilderness are becoming fewer and far between, the only frontiers left on Earth are the oceans, which at our present technology are difficult and expensive at best to live in, and we are just beginning to explore space. I think there are many people out there who yearn for a new frontier, pristine, and untouched by man, for them, and for myself, those are definitely better times to be alive.

Search Me?

I've done this once before, but it was a very long time ago, so I decided to try it again. I went to the search engines and plugged in my own name. Now everyone thinks of doing this sooner or later, but I was recently reminded of this on another blog. I guess the new theory for searching yourself is to find out if you have been a victim of identity theft. Now I don't know how well it works for that. I didn't find anything suspicious. It's not like your credit card transactions show up on the net or anything. The first time I searched myself I was really surprised when I received 3 million hits! As it turns out my last name is also the name of an obscure college, so every single college paper on the internet that had the colleges name on it turned up as a hit. I didn't get near as many hits this time. It appears that the search engines are much more refined now, either that or my college went out of business. The following is the few hits I did get:

The most interesting one was the first hit, and it was my obituary! I died at the ripe old age of 97 (good for me!) I had a wife named "Bina" (yeah, really...bina) I also had 7 children, 16 grandchildren and 28 great-grandchildren (damn I was busy little beaver, I think I need a nap).

I also found out that I had another wife named "Marion" in another state ("I swear Bina, I've never met that woman before!").

I was born in Kansas (ahhhh. the waving fields of grain!)

I served on a navy ship as a butcher during World War II. (Yes, proud to do my part to fight the Nazis' thank you.)

I searched with many different search engines, but they all came up with about the same information. Makes you wonder why we have so many different ones. I also searched with my name in quotations and without. With quotations you get a lot less hits. It only gives you the ones that are exactly like you typed it in, but I didn't get my obituary with the quotations and never would have found "Bina". Give this a try if you've never done it before, you just might find some interesting facts about yourself that you never knew. Right now I have to go try to find out what the heck happened to my college ("If it went bankrupt I'm gonna fire that dean!")

An odd sort-of Mother's Day Blog

The other day my brother called me at work to invite me to a family get-together that will be happening at his house today. I told him that "I would try to make it", but I think we both knew I would probably not show up.

The first thing you have to know and understand is that this is in no way a sad blog, so keep telling yourself that throughout your reading. If you start to think otherwise please refer back to this paragraph.

Simply put my mother and I do not "get along" and never have. Admitting that, to most people, is like admitting that you club seal pups for a living. The fact of the matter is that her and I learned a long time ago that we do not see eye-to-eye on anything, and prefer not to be around each other. We have only spoken to each other maybe a half dozen times in the last twenty years. This is by mutual consent, and neither of us have a problem with it.

I grew up on a farm and most my summers were spent living outdoors, literally. One of the things I loved to do was go out into the woods and 'live off of the land'. I was always a survivalist, which continues to this day. One summer, when I was about 15, I went out into the woods to live, and spent the entire summer there. After about two months my brother and his girlfriend came 'tromping' out through the forest calling my name. They told me "that mom had sent them out to see if I was still alive." Of course I was just fine and went back home a few weeks later in time to go back to school.

My second ex-wife would get livid when I told this story. She could not comprehend any mother allowing her son to do that, much less not checking up on him for two months. To me though, this is where I gained my strength and my sense of independence. It was a gift from my mother, the ability to stand up to the entire world when everyone turned against me, an ability that I've needed from time to time in my life.

A few years later I came home from work to find our house empty. Everything had been moved out except for my stuff and the telephone. The phone rang and it was her calling to tell me where she had moved to, and that I could gather up my stuff and move there as well. She thought this to be quite hilarious as it had been "done to her" when she was young, her brother showing up on his bicycle to give her a ride to the new house. My mother has a flair for practical jokes; she loves bad jokes and worse puns. This is probably were I get my strange sense of humor, which is another gift from my mother.

Some years after that, I had moved out, and her and I had grown apart. When, by chance, her neighbor ran across my personal website and he emailed me. We talked back and forth for a time, and I decided to go see her, to see if we could patch things up, bury the hatchet (and not in each other). There had been many fights between us over the years, but I thought maybe we could fix things. That is when she told me "that it was too late for us" and things have pretty much staid that way between us ever since.

A few years ago she had a stroke (ok this part is sad), and yes I did go to the hospital to see her. Since then she has been confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak. I did feel sorry for her because she had been fairly active up until that point, taking up roller blading in her seventies. All of my family has convinced themselves that having this stroke has somehow changed her, that she now regrets the past. I believe that their reasons for feeling this way has more to do with the 'permanent smile' the stroke has left on her face, rather than anything she may have been able to communicate to them, with the simple 'yes' and 'no' signals they have been able to work out. I also believe that nothing has changed in the relationship her and I have maintained for as long as I can remember.

So on this Mother's Day I will give her the one gift I know she will truly enjoy. I will give her the gift of spending the day with our family, without my presence. You may call me a bad son, if so, so be it. I've left out a lot of the worst examples of our relationship, this blog has grown long enough already and those are between her and I. If you think I hate her you would be dead wrong, and I don't believe she hates me either. In retrospect, I have to take back one thing I said, I guess her and have found one thing that we see eye-to-eye on...

Happy Birthday Girls'

I stopped at the store tonight on my way home from work to pick up the girls', "K" and "E", their birthday cards. They are 17 years old this year, they were 15 when I first met them. I don't get to see them as often as I would like. I fear that "seeing me" hurts them, reminds them, not that they could forget. The last time I had seen them was Christmas and I didn't even get a hug from "K" (the hugger) and that was the first time, even the very first night I met them I got that. It must be hard on them that their birthday (they are twins) falls on the half-year anniversary. Do they blame me? DO I blame myself?

I had known their mother for about two years and she never struck me as someone I would date. She just didn't seem to be my type. I ran into her one night at another bar and we sat beside each other the whole night and talked, she made it clear she wanted to see me, and gave me her phone number and address. I thought about it for a few days, and even though I was convinced she wasn't my type I decided to give it a shot. I have to say it wasn't long before I realized I had met my soul mate. The image she projected did not at all show what was really inside of her, we were alike in so many ways; It was truly amazing. I've never been with someone who could be so open to me or that I could be so open with.

We had decided to go on a trip away together to the Adirondack Mountains, it was to be our first weekend away, just the two of us, and she was very excited. She talked about it all the time, and even talked about it in the little notes she wrote me while she was at work. We had planned this for a couple of weeks but that was as far as "the planning" was allowed to go. This was to be an adventure and we were leaving the next morning. Of course it was November and many people told us we were crazy to be taking a trip like that this late in the season, but we didn't care, all we new was we were getting away from there, by ourselves, if only just for the weekend. It was Friday night and I had been waiting a long time for her to show up, but I wasn't concerned because I knew that she had been doing some Christmas shoping, and had to drop her young son at her parents for the weekend, the girls would stay by themselves at her house for the weekend. When I got the call it was almost ten, she had been in an accident around six pm, and was in the I.C.U. of a hospital downtown. The reason it took so long to get a hold of me was apparently a common thing. Men carry their I.D. In their wallets and Women carry their I.D. in their purse, which in a car accident, often gets thrown "god knows where", which makes it more difficult for paramedics to ID women in an accident.

Though I went a little fast, I didn't race down to the hospital, It was a dark, rainy, windy night as November nights often are in this part of the country, and besides they said she was in I.C.U., NOT "being operated on", which must have meant she was going to be alright. I arrived at the hospital about five minutes too late, and the girls came running up to me crying that their mother was gone and I will always remember "K" falling on the floor weeping, and "E" clinging on to me crying as they watched their whole world crashing down around them, and my whole world crashing down as well.

I can imagine "J" thinking about our trip away together as she drove out to the bar after dropping her son off, her mind maybe not totally on her driving as she hurried to get back to me. They told me that the stop sign at that intersection had been bent to the side and with the dark rainy night she probably never saw it.

I hope the girls' like the cards I picked out for them, the card with the "cat" on it for "E" who adores cats, and the "Bad Girl" type of card for "K", which is how she envisions herself, even though nothing could be farther from the truth. I hope they can enjoy their birthday even if it falls one day after the year and a half anniversary of their mother's death; a fact that I'm sure won't be lost on them. I hope they can find peace of mind and understanding on their birthday. But most of all I hope they can find forgiveness.

Know Your Enemy!

Know Your Enemy!

Inspired by the beautiful pictures that Spider Girl posts of her garden, I decided that this weekend would be the weekend that I would attack the flowerbeds. I know from her blog that Spider and Tai weeded "spiders" garden a few weeks ago, but living close to Lake Erie causes our spring to come a little later.

All I have to say after three hours and three large trashcan loads of "weed debris" is HELP! Spider do you think that you and Tai could fly to Pennsylvania to help me fight this monster? It's not just that there are a lot of weeds but that there is also dead underbrush left over from last year. No one lived in this house last year so the flowerbeds went to hell. I'm seriously thinking about a bulldozer to plow the whole lot under. When I decided to attack the flowerbeds I didn't expect them to fight back, especially with such fierce resistance. My knees are throbbing, my back is aching, and my hands have swollen to the point where it's hard to grab a hold of the little invaders (I know, "would you like some cheese with that whine?")

I'm starting to think "chemical warfare" may be called for at this point. Is that against the Geneva Convention? The reason I chose not to use chemicals is all the beautiful little Maple Trees that are growing in my flowerbeds. Most of these seem to have come from the house across the street that has seven huge Silver Maples, but I have found one little Crimson Maple in amongst the rest that must have come from the neighbors yard three houses down the street. I would like to transplant them out into the yard when they get a little bigger. I don't think that weed killer would harm them, but they are so small yet I don't want to take any chances. My neighbor, next door, who does not have a single tree in his yard, is going to go nuts when I start to transform my yard into a forest. I hope to get many trees put in this year.

Well "Time is a Wasting" and I hope to get some more weeding done this afternoon, but there is still laundry to do, and I do have to go grocery shopping. Oh Well! I guess more weeding will have to wait...:) I've found that if I'm not as meticulous about getting every single little weed pulled, and mostly go after "The Big Guns" (the dandelions) I get a lot farther, and it generally looks a lot better. John Goodman on "The Roseanne Show" once said, in regards to cleaning the house, "Remember we're not looking for actual clean, but the mere illusion of clean" (a motto I've always tried to live by), I think I'll try to have my flowerbeds give the illusion of weeded.

Ten (hard) Simple Pleasures

Hey! Gringos! Happy Cinco de Mayo!!! "Margarita Mucho Grande Por Favor" I've been to Mexico twice and that's the only Spanish I know, or ever needed when I was down there. I absolutely adore Mexico, in fact my picture on this blog is from Chichen Itza. I got to climb the Temple of the Sun while I was there, which is to this day, one of my favorite experiences. Being able to look out over the jungle from the top of the pyramid and seeing the other ruins/buildings sticking up out of the rain forest canopy was truly breathtaking.

Well Tenacious T had this on her site and I said I'd "give it a go" so I guess I'm stuck. I found this to be a lot harder than it looked. I don't know maybe this one is easier for Women than it is for Men, but I've tried to come up with "Ten Simple Pleasures", so here ya' go...

1. Sunday afternoon snuggle-nap (was always my favorite and hands down had to be first).
2. The smell of her hair in my face and the feel of her soft breath on my skin.
3. On a swing, watching the sunset, vanilla-chocolate twist in my left hand, and a warm hand in my right.
4. Deep in the woods, not alone.
5. Summer, up way earlier than I have to be, sitting on the back porch drinking coffee and listening to the birds sing.
6. Winter, sitting in front of the fire in my rocking chair drinking coffee in the morning.
7. Winter Ice storms that knock out the electricity in the neighborhood, so you sit by the fire with candle light, and it is soooooo silent!
8. Slow dancing, country couples dancing, any dancing where you are holding a woman in your arms (cuz that's the only true dancing anyways!)
9. Being the "guy" that's invited along on "girl's night out" (women go out to have fun and guys go out to chase women...women are much more fun.)
10. Spring, when the daffodils pop up and my friends, the trees, wake up from their long winters slumber.
    

Whew! That was hard but I made it through it. Such stress! Such pressure! Of course, later on, they will just flow out of my mind. It especially got tough right in the middle when my cursor decided to up and leave, but he's back now to lead me down the road of temptation. If I change my mind later, or come up with a better one, can I have a "Do-Over?"

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The Mountain Bike

I finally dug my mountain bike out of the basement and set to work fixing it. It had been down there for the last two years so I had a little work to do on it. It had been brand new two years ago, I think I got to ride it once, but then the divorce came, and I moved around to a couple of different apartments, and since it wasn't working anyways I just left it there. I was "given" the house back last fall (with said bike still there), and since the weather has turned, felt I should get it out and fix it up.

The main reason I had been able to only ride it once was my teenage stepson. He had a real knack for breaking things, hence the flat tire and the slightly bent back rim. It always seemed that whatever that young man touched, broke. There are still a lot of repairs I have to do around this house that he was "responsible" for.

I started thinking about when I was a young lad, and the destruction and mayhem my brothers and I used to deal out. My mother worked very hard to put a roof over our heads and we were not always very respectful of "that roof" or anything under it. I remember the time my brother rode a motorcycle into the house and he didn't use the doorway. A friend's small dirt bike was sitting in the front yard about ten feet from the house; my brother jumped on it and fired it up. What he didn't know was that it was "in gear" and he hadn't depressed the clutch. Well the bike immediately took off and he hit the front wall of the house with a mighty impact that left the front tire of the motorcycle protruding about 6 inches inside the inner wall of our living room. To say our mother was "none too pleased" with this would be a slight understatement. We were able to remove the bike without causing too much more damage, but the siding still had to be repaired. Several weeks later she had the siding replaced, but the siding that they put on was an entirely different color than what had been there, and she never had it painted over. I think she left it that way as a reminder to us of the damage we had caused.

There are a lot of reminders still left around here from my stepson and they are not all bad. I believe he seriously tried to be a good son, things just didn't always work out for him the way he intended. He and I had more than one dispute while he was here and some of them got rather uncivil. But I do have to say that most of the time we got along fairly well. Like the time he and his friend attacked me with squirt pistols and the next day when I came home with a giant super soaker and paid them back (bet they didn't think parents could be so devious), or all the times sitting on the back porch talking about life, or even the time the tornados were around and we all had to hide away in the basement. I miss the young lad, I hear he's all grown up now, has a good job and is living in another state. I never got to tell him about the "parent's curse" that my mother told me, which goes something like "may you grow up and have children that act exactly the same way you do". I understand this saying better now and do wish this for him, so that he may come away with some warm, lasting memories to keep after his children have moved out.

As for the mountain bike it's all repaired now and makes a lovely decoration sitting in my kitchen. Who knows I may even take it out for a ride once or twice this year.