Not Your Daddy’s Mary Poppins

So I’ll get to the reasoning of the title in a minute. But first I must say "howdy-do" and "hola", and explain my absence.

The short explanation is "I’m getting married." The long explanation is "I’m getting married, wrangling my kids through their last quarter of school, making arrangements for the wedding, changing jobs, looking for a house, and generally not having much free time." It continues to be a good busy, and should calm down in about a month. One of the happier times of my life really.

So about the title for this post. Last night was daughter #2’s last band concert of the year. Or ever. She’s wanted to quit band for while because she much prefers choir, but I told her she had to stick it out for the year since I paid actual money for that clarinet. But I digress. It was the last concert of the year, and the closing number was "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious". I think I spelled that right. The song started up, and as my brain is wont to do, a thought immediately came. I leaned over to my other kids and said:

"Super cows and fragile pigs explode and are delicious"

And then I had a couple kids sitting on the floor, falling over in hysterical laughter. Fortunately we were sitting just behind the timpani, so nobody could hear us.

After the concert, in the parking lot, I shared the rest of what had come to mind.

Super cows and fragile pigs explode and are delicious.
If you cook them well enough they’re even good with fishes.
Don’t help in the kitchen and you’ll wind up doing dishes.
Super cows and fragile pigs explode and are delicious.

 

I talked with my bride-to-be later on in the evening and shared it with her. How great is it to find someone who not only thinks it’s funny, but that it’s cool my brain throws these things out?

How Can She Be Saying Hello When She’s Showing Ta-Ta?

I keep saying I’m going to do this more than once a week, and yet here it is a week later. Again. Good thing I’m not trying to generate any ad revenue. Google would probably have me owing them money if I were. Not that they aren’t already selling my soul online one small piece at a time.

Side thought: If Google if mining me for information, should I feel guilty enough to talk to my bishop? I should probably just feel guilty for seeing innuendo in things like that. (heh)

Anywho…speaking of innuendo, this post’s title is loaded with it. I’ve had it in mind for a while now as I’ve held back this story for a bit. So the story goes something like this:

My oldest (the Model) has a cell phone on my dime. It makes it handy to get in touch with the kids since their mom doesn’t see fit to (a) have a home phone number and (b) ever answer her own cell phone when called. After a surprise bill one month thanks to the fine folks at "Joke-A-Day" though I disabled instant messaging and so forth on her phone. She knows not the vastness of her own power to inadvertently cost me $45 in a month without hardly trying.

At least, I thought I had completely disabled instant messaging on her phone. Perhaps I have. It’s kind of hard to say really. Because one evening she received a picture message from her mom, although because of the block she couldn’t see it. Instead she received a blurb telling her that she had one and needed to go to a web site from my carrier to view it.

When she received the notice I was on the main computer (yes, as in there are multiple) at home, so she asked if I could open the web site for her to see the message. I was happy to since I wanted a distraction from the side-project I was working on. So I type in the web address, punch in the code to access the message, and get…

A tight shot of a big-chested woman wearing a t-shirt that says "I (heart) You". And almost before I can realize it’s an animated image, and definitely before I can finish thinking "This won’t end well" off comes the shirt and a second of bouncing commences.

So there it is. My oldest daughter receives a booby-shot message from her mother. Her very overtly, "you need to love me no matter who I am", gay mother.

As fast as my fingers would move, I closed the web browser. But it was too late. It had been seen, and the damage was done. Reflexes, as those of us old enough to remember from WKRP, have their limits. And those limits can only be exceeded when alcohol is provided to Dr. Johnny Fever. I neither drink, nor am I Dr. Johnny Fever. So there it is.

Brakeback did tell me later that the message must have somehow sent by accident from her phone. It was definitely her message though, as a "friend" had sent it to her. My oldest immediately knew which friend that must be, who I shall simply refer to as "The Flake". That didn’t help her feel any better about it.

So the moral of the story is this: if you have friends that send you phone porn, make sure you keep your keypad locked so it doesn’t accidentally forward to your kids, or your boss, or someone else important that might form a negative opinion about you.

Or, better yet, just avoid phone porn altogether I guess.

Job Opening: Must Be Proficient With Hammers and Children

The third trimester of Hallowchristmagiving is almost over, and the tryptophan is wearing off. So what to do next? Dream of the Big Dance, of course. Do the shopping, trim the tree, fire up the oven (yes, I do my own baking…and I’m good at it), and dream of having a "special someone" with which to share a smooch under the mistletoe.

Add all that together, and this morning’s conversation with my youngest makes complete sense. Not that we haven’t had these conversations before, but when I’m wishing there were someone with whom I could share a couch, a blanket, some popcorn, and a movie it’s just a little more poignant.

(Oh, and bear in mind that my youngest, "Z", is all of five years old)

Z: When are you going to get married again?

M: I don’t know. I’m not even dating anyone. (My last date was back in March)

Z: I know.

M: Do you want me to get married again?

Z: Yeah. And when you get married again, then I’ll have a step-mom, right?

M: Yep. Are you wanting a step-mom?

Z: Uh-huh. And when I do, she’ll be happy to play "Break the Ice" with me, won’t she?

The answer, of course, was "absolutely". We then broke into our own round of games for a half-hour or so before church. The great things about playing the game with her are the interesting house rules and hammer techniques. Does the big block with the bear go in the middle of the field, or more toward one side? Do you carefully tap a block out, smash it with one stroke, or use the hammer in more unconventional ways?

Whatever style of play one might prefer, I think it’s a pretty good quality to look for. And not just because it’s my daughter’s favorite game. I like it too, after all.

The high cost of lower education

Ah, school time. The first quarter is almost over, and my three oldest children are in the throes of learning. At times (many) they may argue that the only kind of “throes” they get from school are those involving death, but they are throes nonetheless.

We are fortunate to live in one of the best-rated school systems in our state, which means a couple of things: pretty good education, better-than-your-average-bear athletics, and “they didn’t even buy me dinner first” property taxes. The amazing thing about the taxes to fund the schools is what you get in return. State-of-the-art buildings and equipment, newer generation computers, excellent teachers, and an apparent dearth of basic supplies.

Yes, a complete lack of anything and everything that isn’t a textbook, chair, desk, or building. I’m sure it’s this way in other school districts, but it’s completely astounding how much isn’t provided. School supplies for my three skulls of mush totalled close to $200. And that didn’t include the additional school fees for…uh…whatever it is the fees are used for. There’s another $100. And the mandatory field trip in the second week for daughter #2, which was another $30.

Then of course is the constant begathon. The year-round tin-cup-carrying, cardboard sign on the freeway, clean your window with a dirty rag, knife-fight you for squatting rights, incessant pandering for everything one might think of. You’re wondering why I hadn’t written this post back at the beginning of September? Well, sloth for one, but also I’ve just grown to accept this nonsense until the two most recent attempts to put a hand in my back pocket with the intent of doing more than cop a feel.

Daughter #2 is in band, and there has been a request that each parent send in a bag of individually wrapped candy to be passed out as rewards or something. Sure it’s only a $3 bag of candy, but it’s also the principal of the thing. I played in orchestra when I was a young skull of mush, even to the level of spending a couple years in the city junior philharmonic. We were good. And you know what we got? Yelled at for tapping time with our feet. Candy was for wussies. Candy was for Hallochristmagiving.*

The second item was when daughter #1 asked me to sign the permission slip for participation in “art club”. “Sounds good,” says I, followed by “But what’s this mysteriously folded-over front sheet stapled on here that you seem to want to avoid having me see?” Ah yes, that would be the page with the hand reaching again for my wallet. Sucker! I don’t carry cash (much) and you don’t take a debit card. So no, you can’t have the $20 pay-to-play fee and the additional $20 for “supplies”!

Apparently last year, the money from the dozen or so participants (around $240 I suppose) was enough to buy the necessary materials to create a five-foot papier-mache letter “O”. Call me an ogre, but I’m thinking my $20 could be put to better use. “Transformers” came out today on DVD for instance. That movie was cool, even if it was made by Michael Bay. Way better than a papier-mache block “O”.

I’ll give the school here credit for the education though. It’s 10:50pm right now, and daughter #2 is still working on her homework. Yay school!

*Happy 16th day of Hallochristmagiving by the way. I believe the song is up to “16 loaves of white bread to start drying out for making stuffing”. I’m still trying to get the rhythm to flow with “Golddigger” but it’s tough. Bustin’ a rhyme with an ill flow like that ain’t nothin’ for a playa, but it’s a biznatch for a Wonderbread, yo.

Of course I’m working. Don’t you see this hammer in my hands?

Have I mentioned before that I love my job? Well, I do. I love my job. My position is referred to alternately as “interaction designer” or “information architect”. What it all means really is that I figure out how to present stuff in computer programs so that it makes sense and connects on a personal level. It’s creative and thought-provoking, and when it’s done at it’s best you look at it and go “well duh, of course that’s how it should be because that makes total sense”.

I can talk about that some other time though, because even from here I can see that the mere mention of something pseudo-intellectual-geeky is putting people to sleep. This isn’t an association journal article after all.

But one of the great things about my job is where I work. It’s a great group of people in a decent company. This week, our entire group is out at a retreat of sorts. Which is cool, except that it’s only the full-time people and not us lowly contractors Which is okay besides being a bit out of touch with whatever new company mindset might come out of it. But what it does mean is that it’s really quiet at the office. Maybe a little too quiet. But at least there are some other people there, and somehow I just concentrate better in the office setting.

Which of course brings me to today, and another upside to where I work. When something happens the requires staying at home for the day, like having a scheduled maintenance appointment at my apartment, then it isn’t a big deal to work from home. So home it was for me today. My home computer rig is better than my office setup, my dog is here, and today so was my four-year-old daughter. How could it be any better? When I had my own business I worked from home all the time with my kids around and it was great. So I was looking forward to it, getting to do my work in the comforts of home while enjoying my daughter’s fun and creative play. (As a quick aside, has anyone else ever thought it’s funny how close “precious” and “precocious” are in terms of spelling, but not necessarily in meaning? Anyway…)

I, however, have lost my laser-sharp focus when it comes to working at home.

Not that I didn’t still do my work. Got a good bit done actually. But creative four-year-olds do have a way of…uh…distracting you. With anything they can think of. I’m not sure how many rounds of “Break the Ice” I actually wound up playing over the course of the day today, but I knew it was time to cut it off we we started playing a new home-rules variant where the object was to slide the blocks of plastic ice down the hammer handle cocked up against the frame for the game. An interesting variant, but it was kind of difficult to tell whether you were winning. Honestly I’m not sure that anybody won, aside from the fact that we were having fun together. But the revised game rules clearly weren’t ready for tournament play.

Tomorrow I’ll be back at the office and will be able to better concentrate, so I’ll get close to finishing this prototype I’m working on. But in the meantime it appears I have a game of Sponge Bog Tic-Tac-Toe waiting for me.

Na na na na na na…You say it’s your birthday

September 11, 2001 is a date with a lot of national significance. It’s also a date with a lot of personal significance for me, because today is my oldest daughter’s fourteenth birthday. She happens to also be a Beatles fan, so my cheesy title get a little sentimentality sprinkled on top. I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff. I also tolerate chick flicks well, so it’s a wonder that I’m still single.

Six years ago my business was still newish, and operated completely out of the front room of my home. This meant, of course, that it wasn’t unusual to have the news on. Which meant that on 9-11 I was glued to the television. I was dumbfounded and angry. Then numb. And then…and then I remembered that my oldest was having a birthday at school right then and there. It was her eighth birthday, which for the unintiated is pretty important in the Mormon world. It’s the age at which kids are baptized, and my daughter had been very much looking forward to this birthday.

She came home that afternoon, and the look on her face said it all. “How was your birthday?” I asked.

“It sucked”, she replied.

A very to-the-point answer. She’s good at those. If it had been me, I probably would have said, “Like a shop vac, alternately sucking and blowing.”   But “It sucked” satisfied the need just fine, because as she began to explain, she had already realized that for pretty much the rest of her forseeable life, her birthday would be inextricably linked to a national tragedy. And it bummed her out. Big time.

For the following three years until the emotional tidal wave of divorce hit, she would start openly bemoaning how the news stories of the anniversary were popping up and ruining her birthday. As a young kid it’s hard to keep things in their proper perspective of course, and your birthday is supposed to be celebrated with songs that don’t come in a minor key.

Life is a cruel educator though, and with my divorce there was a lot to process. So this year I’m happy to say that there was no complaint of a birthday being ruined. Instead she made cupcakes to take into class for her birthday, ready to share “her” day with “our” day. She has grown into a fine young lady. I’m proud that at fourteen, she sees that the world doesn’t revolve around just her. Or at least not completely. Not bad for a teenager of today.

So happy birthday, kiddo. I’m a proud dad.

Water Fight!

Is it just me, or does everyone experience the hiccup and loss of a few days when first starting out writing a blog? Nothing quite like the guilt of seeing that it’s been three days since the last post. Especially when I’ve been building a battery of topics to write about, so it’s not like I have writer’s block or anything. Just a busy schedule. But I digress…

So, a quick bit of disclosure. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A Mormon. You may have heard of us. Or you may at least have heard of Glenn Beck, who is also Mormon. Or Mitt Romney. Or yes, even Donnie and Marie. But this isn’t about any of them. This bit of personal information is just to provide some context around talking about the mid-week church youth activities my daughter attends. They have these every week, and typically are broken up by gender and age groups. But once a month, everyone gets together for a large group activity, but boys and girls.

Last night was one of those nights, and it brought back fond memories for me.

The youth were playing some water volleyball and having water relays. The water volleyball was a new concept for me, but looked pretty fun. Water baloons caught and tossed back over the net by teams of two using a bath towel between them. The relay involved sitting in a row and passing a giant, water-logged sponge front to back over each other’s heads and squeezing what was left out into buckets. Good stuff. And though fun, the activities weren’t what the kids were all about. They were, of course, about throwing buckets of water and strafing each other with super soakers. Boys versus girls for the most part, of course. And those are the memories I have.

When I was younger, and part of said youth program at church, water fights between the boys and girls were a summertime ritual. Most of them took place in my parents’ yard, and involved any manner of dousing conceivable. It wouldn’t be terribly unusual for the guys to be outside talking and suddenly see a volley of water balloons arcing over the top of the house. It was even less unusual for the girls to be outside talking and suddenly see a volley of water balloons arcing over the top of the house. All sides enjoyed it, and the combat would last for an hour or more. Balloons, then hoses, then five-gallon buckets, and eventually a few guys grabbing one of the girls in an attempt to hold her directly under the outside faucet.

For us guys, it was a combination of water combat and flirting. We had some attractive girls in our circle of friends. For the girls, it was also a combination of water combat and flirting. The guys weren’t completely unfortunate either. The girls had all apparently read Sun Tsu’s “Art of War” however, and knew that one of the keys to winning was to let your enemy think you are weak. The guys would always think they were getting the better of the girls in the water fight, but the girls were always winning the real war in terms of relationships.

I only realized the full extent of this while watching my daughter and her friends at their youth activity. One of the girls in particular was a perpetual target (though she dished some out too). And she loved it. She was losing the fight, but clearly winning the war. And once I realized that, my immediate next realization was of my daughter was doing the same thing. Which led to my final realization that, with the start to her dating only being two years away, it’s about time for me to choose between aluminum or wood and start practicing at the batting cages.

I believe Sun Tsu also has a thing or two to say about preparation, after all.

Broken wrist follow-up

So I’ve gotten back to my hometown area to pick up my youngest daughter and her new, arm-length accessory. It looks pretty good on her actually. I called her on the phone the other day and asked if her cousins had signed her cast yet and she didn’t quite understand the concept. My sister explained later, and my daughter said that she didn’t want them to sign it and wanted to keep it white. (She has a plaster cast for the next few days and will get her pink one then.) As soon as her siblings and I arrived she started having everyone sign her cast with markers. Very cute that she wanted us to get to sign it first.

The break is pretty obvious in the x-ray. I’m no radiologist, but I don’t believe bones are supposed to separate and lean non-linearly. The day after getting her case, my daughter was in no pain and had no swelling or any of the other things they tell you to be watching for. She’s been her happy-go-lucky self, playing endlessly outside with her cousins while we’re still visiting and dragging tree limbs five times her size over to the fire pit for her uncle to burn. If it weren’t for the plaster appendage, you’d never know anything happened. I’m very happy about that.

My daughter’s biggest point of happiness is that she interprets not getting the cast wet as not having to take baths. She’s due for a scrub-down, so some harsh reality is going to be rearing its ugly head very soon.

Unexpected first entry topic

So with all the prodding I’ve been toying with the whole blog idea and the possibilities of its anonymous exhibitionism and decided to give it a go. Of course to do so means needing a starter topic, which is the thing that keeps many people from starting writing in the first place. Again, enter my pointy-blog-sticked sister with a phone call only ninety minutes or so ago to inform me of some goings-on involving my youngest daughter who is spending a couple days visiting with her cousin.

“I’m really sorry. My youngest daughter and your youngest daughter were playing a round of ‘let’s jump off tall things that we ought not’ and I think her wrist is broken. Mom and I are taking her to the hospital.”

Hey hey…a blog topic if ever one was made.

My sister feels awful as though she were some neglectful ne’er-do-well. I say things just happen with kids sometimes. My son had a compound break from a trampoline accident a few years ago. Which I never fully saw because he snapped his arm back in place on his own before coming inside (GAH!). The fact that nothing like this has happened to any of my sister’s kids yet I just chalk up to beating the odds. Seriously, check her site (http://lookingforgeorge.spaces.live.com) and just look for the doll. And then keep an eye on the evening news. Or watch “Chucky” movies. Whatever works for you.

So now I sit and wait for a call from relatives two hours away to let me know that everything has gone fine with setting bones and putting on a cast. My daughter is a very sweet, mild-mannered but fun-loving girl and I hate to think of her being in pain and doped up on morphine. Not that I would want to think of other people in that predicament, save for possibly one or two, or maybe a half-dozen. Again, another set of stories for another time.

More than anything I wish I was right there to give her a hug and help carry her out and drive her home when it’s all over. None of which she’d remember later of course, due to being anesthetized from having her bones set. But it’s the being there that would count, as much for me as for her I suppose. But with other kids needing packed off to school in the morning I have to wait a couple more days to give her a hug.

And to see her cool cast. I hear she has chosen pink, which comes as absolutely no surprise.