Ten Minutes

Evenings are tough. We get home, and it's meltdown time. Not David, but me.

I need my "ten minutes" to relax and switch gears. But then there's Grant, the next door neighbor's boy. I wish I knew how to describe this bossy, dominating, toy throwing, video game junkie of a 7-year-old. We all cringe when we pull in the driveway and Grant is in his samurai outfit, playing sword fights with mystical oponents from the planet Zuron. Excuse me, not from the planet Zuron, "there's no such thing", he is fighting the angel of Fuster from the Galactica of Musichi, located 20 billion light years from the secret moon of Whothefrickcares..."I'm here to play with David. Can I have a drink, I am thirsty. I want to play in David's room and empty every toy he owns onto the floor and then say I REALLY REALLY need to go home."

Then it's supper time. And David wants cake for supper and 4 cups of juice, sixteen straws and one bottle of water. The TV volume is maxed out on Fox News and I can't hear David yelling for "Little Bear! Little Bear!" as he is filling his 4 cups of juice with the bottle of water and looking around the living room from the corners of his eyes...as plastic farm animals are floating toward the door.

Michele is conveniently stuck in traffic. Ruby is acting like she's not fed. Nana is cooking supper. I still have to pee, I still have a pen behind my ear and just when I am wishing I owned a personal Margarita Machine, David isn't hungry anymore, yells 'Helcopta" about 20 times and wants to have Zorro put on his TV, but only after he lines up every car, truck, bus and tractor end to end on the coffee table screaming "I did it!" everytime he does it without eating a booger first.

Oh wait, do I smell poop?

No wonder Michele is forever stating, "I must pee" and disappearing for who-knows-how-long-she-can-hide-in-the-bathroom. I gotta try that. And I gotta get a laptop and portable TV that shows Sportcenter. I could easily be swayed to believe that computers and televisons do not belong anywhere except in the bathroom.

David just ran in and grabbed a pen. Do I follow him? Nah, Michele's home now.

Oh wait, Michele just yelled out,"Has anyone seen the kid? Where are the scissors? And where's Ruby?"

David is now stuck under Nana's bed yelling, "OWW, I hurt" and Nana is watching Anna Nicole coverage on Fox News, staring blankly, calmly saying ,"No David, don't play with the wires you'll get a booboo..." Seriously, I can't make this stuff up....she’s not even blinking and she keeps repeating herself.

Great. Now David has squirmed under me and is under the computer where there are actually tons of wires and now I am the one calmly saying, "Put away the screwdriver and leave the batteries alone, its time to go ni-nights, and um… hey why are you naked?"

Oh wait, do I smell poop?

1.14.2008

We Give Thanks

Our Father in Heaven,

We give thanks for bringing us all together today: May we relax and rest and enjoy our day of Thanksgiving.

We give thanks for the meal before us today.

We give thanks for Life, for our homes, for our families, for our friends and for our friends that feel like family.



Please keep close, those that couldn't join us today, may they be safe and know they are loved.

We give thanks for our health, our Faith, our work and our ability to play.

We give thanks for our Freedom and especially to those fighting for it.

We give thanks for touching our lives, and healing our children.



We give thanks for listening to our prayers and giving us courage, especially in times of desperation.

Please bless those that are hungry, alone, sick or suffering.

We give thanks for all Your blessings, for opening our hearts to remain strong and faithful.

And we humbly ask for Your continued blessings through the year ahead.

We give thanks, through Jesus Christ your Son


Amen

11.27.2008

My Wishing I Have Something to Say So I Started a Blog Instead of The Great American Novel

I like reading about people who Do Things. I like reading stories about adventure. Like Chris Duff writing Southern Exposure about kayaking around New Zealand and riding what sounded like 20 foot waves in 60mph winds. Like Colin Walker being the first to walk from one end of the Grand Canyon to the other, in The Man Who Walked Through Time. Like books by Charles Kuralt and John Steinbeck traveling across America, meeting locals, sharing stories, experiencing a diversity of cultures, foods, and history.

Yet I also like stories about people who Don't Do Things. Like not doing anything and sitting in a hammock and counting ants in Connecticut and writing about it, as in A Naturalist Buys An Old Farm by Edwin Way Teale. Or “wandering” out back and contemplating moss and writing about it in a way that I buy four more books and share them with my family. Ken Weber wrote Wanderings and might be proud to hear that. Or Bill Bryson hiking the Appalachian Trail with a cartoon-like character and fearing he'd "shit himself silly" if he happened along not one bear, but two bears. He didn't actually "shit himself silly" but he wrote about not doing it and it still made me laugh so hard my wife re-wrote the rules about reading in bed. A Walk in the Woods is on the banned-from-bed-list.

Me? I was kind of thinking I Don't Do Things.

I get depressed a lot, thinking I Don't Do Things. I get home from work, grab a beer or a glass of wine, and I step out back and I wait for the dog to go poop. Feels like that's pretty much it. It’s dark. She's itchy. I stand around for a while. I wait. I pace. I wonder if watching a dog scratch is like sneezing or having the hiccups, because soon I begin scratching. I'm not really itchy, I just catch myself scratching, like I catch myself yawning sometimes.

Soon though, I find myself not wanting to go inside. It's strange; inside is a loving, caring, radiantly glowing woman, a very entertaining three-year-old that gives the best hugs, a dinner that smells-oh-so-delicious and if I’m lucky, a Red Sox game on TV. Yet I look at the stars. I watch the blinking airplanes blip from one tree line to another. At first, I listen for gunshots or neighbors arguing. But then something slowly creeps into me, and I find myself listening for wild animals beyond the fence. I listen for the wind in the trees and the raccoons in the bushes. I listen for long ago campfires crackling from a ring of stones in the Sierras. I listen for waves lapping against the boat while I am heeding to my screaming bladder under a full moon on a lake in New Hampshire.

I wonder what it would be like to pack up, head out and visit every place, every person that means something to me and just say Hi. And Thanks.

But, instead, well, um, my family made me create a Blog. I’ve never done this before. With 3 kids, an itchy dog and an occasionally itchy wife glued to Law and Order reruns, I very well doubt I’ll be back in the Sierras this Friday.

So if you have made it this far, and read most of what I've written, God Bless You, What is wrong with you? er, I mean, Hi.

And Thanks.

11.25.2008

The Refrigerator On My Head Story

Sometimes things happen and sometimes things happen when you have a refrigerator on your head. Sometimes you realize things in life, helpful things, which you may never have thought of without a refrigerator on your head. This is one such story.

I am lying down in the middle of the driveway with a refrigerator on top of me. I am all alone and have been here for quite some time. Help me.

I really didn't think I needed help, not even when I was holding on for dear life as I was underneath this refrigerator, sliding down the grassy knoll into the driveway, bouncing off the camper, breaking the tail light and coming to rest in an awkward silence. Funny, I don't think I even swore.






Now, I can't say the thought has ever crossed my mind to even go outside, lie down and view my life from the driveway. And as you can imagine, when you begin to think about life and evaluate life, changes in life; seldom does the opportunity come along where you have a refrigerator on top of you to really put things in perspective.

And surprisingly, this little driveway journey turns out not to be about the fridge at all. Nor was this some life threatening accident either. My life was not in peril. My limbs and digits were intact. There was no blood being dragged in on the carpet. I was simply in the driveway, happily married to a radiant, glowing love of a wife who had just given birth to our son; a wife who loved me with a love I have never previously experienced; a love I had never dreamed possible; a love, a completeness, an ever-fulfilling love and respect and acceptance I could never ever dream would ever come into question.

Phew. Here she comes. I hear the slider open. I romantically imagine her in soft focus, shrieking at the site of me, kissing me all over, I love you, I love you, I love you, gallantly lifting the refrigerator off of me, and I rise, carrying my radiant savior inside for an interlude of passionate reward. I have on one of those Harlequin Romance outfits, and I look rather dashing.

"Oh that's nice," she says. “Do you have to break everything?"

Um, what?

I realized something just then. It wasn't about the tail light. It wasn't about my twitching calf muscle from underneath the refrigerator. It was right about now that I began to realize that having a baby really can change things in people's lives.

"That's nice. Why didn't you ask for help? I told you I would've helped you."

My mind raced. This was not the time to mention that if I did indeed ask for her help, she had just had a C-section and her belly could easily split open with even the slightest fart, spilling her insides outside on a perfectly fine refrigerator in the middle of the driveway in front of all our neighbors. No, as I stared at her with my mouth wide open in disbelief, something stupid comes out, like it was said by somebody else with my voice and I couldn't stop it, and she goes inside and leaves me in the driveway.

It's really quiet now. Surprisingly, it is a really good time for some deep, internal contemplation.

And here's the thing. I got it. At least, I hope I got it. I am a dumb idiotic guy that can't support an unplugged refrigerator, and even as she turns her back on me, the heavens open with streams of light engulfing her in a brilliant radiance. I am sure the angels were singing at this moment, but I had an ear pressed against a granite fieldstone. She is no longer only my radiant wife; she is now also the "Mother of Our Son."

"Having a baby won't change us..." We kept saying, "Having a baby won't change us..." Duh. Things changed. Oh baby, Things have changed.

And here’s what I think I realized for the first time ever: In her eyes, in her deepest being, this can't be anything like what being a Mom is supposed to be like. This can't be what Motherhood feels like. She probably feels like nothing more than a meal ticket right now. Lunch. Nothing but a Boob. A sleepless, tired, slave to a gassy, crying, hungry, insatiable boob sucking monster. All night. All day. Motherhood must suck right now.

I'm a Guy. I work. I'm gone. I watch Sportscenter. I can barely use a dolly.

She's tired. She has no spare moment considered her own. Her body is not her own. She looks in the mirror, and that is not her body. Her boobs hurt. Her belly hurts. It hurts to sit. It hurts to not sit. It hurts to pee. And when she's done washing my dishes after doing my laundry and cooking my supper, it must hurt. She has no idea I still see a beautiful-almost-blurry-so-beautiful sexy woman. She's like an angel in my eyes, and she has absolutely no idea.

All this preparation we went through before having a baby was all about the baby - all about the baby and mother and all about the baby and daddy. Not a word was said about the mommy and daddy thing except, " Dads: Don't ask for a few extra stitches and no sex until this season of Law and Order is over."

I had absolutely no idea of this until this little driveway thing. I naively believed things wouldn't change, and here I was laying down in the driveway, her knight in shining armor, scrunched between a camper and a refrigerator, gravel in my shorts, and she is more concerned about the tail light than the pulsating vein protruding from my forehead. Who leaves their husband upside down in the driveway with a refrigerator on his head?

I am about to embark on a journey I have no idea how to embark on. Wow. It is one thing, learning to be a Dad to The Poopinator, but even scarier, Wow, I have to learn how to be a supportive, loving husband to The Boobinator. She really doesn't like that name either, but the point remains the same - and sometimes points are learned from some pretty unexpected view points -and from my current view at this point, I know that I have to earn and deserve to be called more than just the "The Impregnator."

Sometimes it takes having a refrigerator on your thick head to lead to some pretty meaningful conclusions in life.

09.2004