Not a Good Day

Not a great day. Argued a lot of the morning with Lisa, then sallied forth to get her flowers by way of apology, only to have someone hit our car in the parking lot and f* up the front fender. Naturally they left no note, although the store will look through their video for a license plate. Now the net's acting up too, so it looks like a doozie of a day.

First snow of the year . And a $500 deductible I can't afford. I'm going to go out to the garden and eat some worms.

On Swingsets, trees, NKOTB, and Lump's 1st and hopefully last car accident

Today wasn't as busy or productive as Saturday. Lisa had switched hours and worked 1st shift, forcing me to take Smiley and YaYa into work with me while I did some morning paperwork in lieu of the manager that quit.

Smiley insisted on wearing his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles slippers.

Then we dropped YaYa off at her religious ed classes - yes, she attends Catholic school, but they farm them out to their home parishes for First Communion classes. That's a lame requirement, but I'm proud of her, especially since she seems to know much more than the other kids in the Sunday School class (duh - they don't take religion class daily).

Smiley and I then returned to work for an hour, then picked her up and attended mass. At heart I'm a very religious person, and very happily Catholic, and it does my soul good to devote a Sunday morning to the church. It makes me feel closer to God, and not in a Nine Inch Nails way.

I picked up lunch then settled the kids in for a nap while I flipped between the Brewers and the Packers. You know how both those stories turned out.

* * * *

I was set to go on a bike ride when my mother-in-law called to say that she and Lump had been involved in an auto accident. No one was hurt, thank God. I drove out to the scene and picked up my baby.  My mother-in-law's car had been hit pretty hard by a teenage leaving Starbucks, that den of overpriced dirt water.

I'm kind of glad it happened the way it did, as far as Lump goes. One of my mild superstitions involves getting a 'first accident' out of the way with as little harm as possible. YaYa was on a school bus that hit a van on the freeway, LuLu was in our van when it was totaled in '06, and now Lump got hers out of the way. Smiley's is still out there . . ah, no! Come to think of it when I was moving my folks I backed our van into a stone wall attempting a Y-turn in a narrow dead-end. Smiley was in the car, and that counts, right?

Upon our return I hit the bike with the kids and wound up at the park where the kids played for about twenty minutes.

When Lisa got home and the Brewers clinched the Wildcard I took the family out to Ponderosa to celebrate (hey, I'm a big guy. How was I supposed to celebrate, with jazzercize and celery?).

Before we went we picked up LuLu from yet another park, where my Dad had taken her to play with her cousin. Here YaYa chose to climb some trees while Lisa hit the swingset herself.

* * * 

After dinner, with the kids in bed, we watched a great VHI special the New Kids on the Block. A lot of rare footage coupled with some genuine insights. Most shocking:  Jon never 'left' the band, as has been reported for over a decade. (Hell, I remember Joe moaning about Jon's 'betrayal' in a VHI piece years ago.)

Nope, turns out he was doing so much whining and 'maybe I should go/maybe I should stay' that the guys got sick of it and put it up for a vote. By a count of 3-2 he was asked/told to leave the group. Huh.

The special was followed by a kick-ass three song set live from a concert in Boston. What a great taste of the concert we'll see next Saturday in Chicago. 

It ain't always roses. .

I wrote this two or three weeks ago and didn't get a chance to post it

 

Well, it's been a sh**ty summer, and as you know it started early, with May approaching a mythically lousy standard that I hope is never duplicated.

 

Then, after a reasonably decent June, my Grandma and my wife's Grandpa died within two weeks of one another in July. The funeral for my in-law was fraught with family drama, and my wife had to bear the local brunt of a misplaced argument related to the events.

 

To boot, on Sunday the 23rd she and Middle Child were T-Boned at an unmarked intersection. No one was hurt, thank God, but it totaled our van and we spent a lousy two weeks in a rental until we received word that the other driver's insurance took 100% liability.

 

We replaced the van with a Plymouth Voyager. It's the first time I've owned anything but a Ford, and I feel like a dirty rotten traitor :)

 

At work I'm ready to scream as the stress behind the scenes continues to build . . and I've had to let a few people go lately to boot. . .

 

At home, while the kids are great 85% of the time, the remaining 15% of the day - mainly at nap and bedtime - they're devils.

 

1. Middle Child has a natural potty mouth. Now no doubt she's learned the verbiage from us, but it flows so smoothly off her tongue you'd think she was a sailor. And that girl can fight for a 3 yr old  - I saw her take down YaYa and jump on top of her faster than Hulk Hogan in the day.

 

2. YaYa is the most stubborn, strong-willed kid EVER, especially if it's something her Mom wants and she doesn't. She also has the God-given ability to manipulate and/or convince others to get her way. Yikes. My wife and her butt heads a lot, and it ain't pretty.

3. Parker is still the most cheerful, happy kid I've ever known, and causes no problems, but he doesn't know what 'no' means. In the words of the Mrs. "Parker thinks 'no' is another way of saying 'go faster'" when he's grabbed something he shouldn't.

To try to stem the tide we created a detailed expectations chart. There are two Disney princesses who move up and down a staircase depending on the girls actions. It works, but we are still working out the kinks. Right now I'd say it does the job 50-60% of the time.

One perk they get on a good day is a guaranteed story at bedtime. We've literally read every book in their bookcase so often the girls are bored, so we've moved on to chapter books. The Mrs. is currently reading them The Wizard of Oz and Henry and Ribsy. The latter was the first 'book' I ever read, back in 1st grade, and remains one of my 10 favorite books of all time. It's a joy to hear the girls enjoy the story.

* * * *

One day with the rental we took the kids down to the Jelly Belly factory down near Illinois. To my regret, I forgot the camera. Parker was very good during the tedious tour, but I'm afraid there's not much more to say. On the way home my niece, who'd gone with us, lost a baby tooth courtesy of one of the jelly beans.

 

Of disturbing dreams and Divine Intervention?

Yeah, here's where you write me off as a quack.

On Thursday I loaded the kids into my two door hatchback to take YaYa to school. Three blocks from home - without any sign of trouble or warning - the car just stopped. It went kaput and wouldn't even clear the intersection.

[full disclosure: due to a wacky side effect of a long ago accident, the car occasionally has problems after a rainstorm. But this is forecast by a myriad of hints and oddities I know by heart - none of which applied here]

Anyhow, I got the kids out and walked home, which they at least thought was neat. YaYa, who's been through two flat tires in the last few months was confident in her diagnosis. "It's probably a screw or a nail in the tire. You should get the spare Dad."

I got my wife's minivan and finished the journey. The block around the school, however, was closed off by the police.

I later found out that a drunk driver had lost control and hit a woman who was getting out of her car, severing her leg before smashing into another car.

This happened at the same time I would normally pull up at the school and unload the kids, on the very same block that I've almost had my car door knocked off a dozen times by passing cars.

When I got home I tried the hatchback. Not only did it start, it's driven perfectly ever since - frankly, almost better than normal.

Now saying God was watching out for my family is a perilous path, one that implies the unwitting victim was less deserving of protection than I am.

I'm not saying the big J.C. was playing tricks with my itinerary, and I'm not saying the woman deserved to be hit.

But I'm also not saying it didn't happen that way; good sometimes follows from misfortune, and I'll never know all the particulars.

Either way, I feel a thank you is in order, and so here it is.

*  *    *    *

On a COMPLETELY separate tack, I've been plagued by extremely vivid dreams lately. I think it's a side effect of a medication I started a few weeks ago, so don't sign me up for the loony bin yet.

But if anyone is an expert on dream interpretation and cares to offer an opinion, here's two of the many dreams:

In the first, in what appears to be a grimy and gray England of old, a young woman is being blackmailed. She's instructed to place money in an envelope and leave it inside a 'secret room' behind a false wall in a manor house. 

The blackmailer, who appears to be a traditional English cop, meets her at the drop off and tries to include a sexual favor with the payment.

The woman agrees readily enough, but as they embrace she pulls a knife from beneath her dress and coldly hamstrings him. As he lays crippled on the ground she just as easily cuts his throat, retrieves her money, and leaves.

Nice huh?

Number two: my wife and I are in a church, one that I suppose is meant to pass for St. Peter's (but a darn plain one, I must say). The Pope is giving Mass.

On a silver platter next to him are two faces - think of the smiling and crying masks in theaters. These are real human faces however, and somehow I know they are the dead but still coherent faces of Pope John Paul II and another holy man (since forgotten). They moan pitifully, as if they are begging for the release of the hereafter, and their eyes roll back and forth in what could be a spiritual trance or (honestly) just a creepy look.

The line for Communion forms. My wife and I move forward, but as she is about to receive the wafer the faces begin to let out a guttural, animal scream. The Pope consults them, glares at us, and says my wife is forbidden to be there and has angered God.

We leave (duh)and I wake up.

Now, to aid any interpretation:

a) intense dreams are a legitimate side effect of this medicine (and yes I'm going to try to change it). So does its physical source void any potential meaning?

b)my wife's Lutheran and therefore not allowed communion in a Catholic church (a rule that has been not only ignored but actively violated by clergy). I would put that forth as the seed of the dream, but it seems too literal and easy an answer.

c)No, I'm not blackmailing or holding info over anyone's head, nor am I a victim of such a person. Frankly,my life is so damn boring that this blog is the most interesting thing I have going. So skip the skeleton in the closet theory.  

I think that's enough embarassing info for now.

 

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