Role reversal

I'm not even going to try staying up this year. I've been getting up at 3:30 all year so I can get to the gym on time, and that means I've been ending my day just after 7pm. Not necessarily going to bed, just making sure I'm done with everything so I can.

It's been working.

But I stayed up until 9 the other night, and it wasn't easy. I was nodding off where I sat, so I decided that I just wouldn't bother. The party isn't a big draw for me any more. Meanwhile, my kids (some of them, anyway) are planning their own party.

My youngest son already fell asleep on the couch. His nearest brother didn't bother, he announced he was going to bed and settled down already. My oldest son, and my tiny daughter are both committed to making it to midnight. My wife, meanwhile, is going to give it a try.

I'll find out how everyone did in the morning. Good night.

Merry Sickmas

Two days ago, my youngest son came down with a case of pink eye. At the same time, his sister was throwing up. I instructed my kids in quarantine measures to avoid spreading pink eye, and kept watch over the nausea. That spread quickly, but didn't last more than a few days. Meanwhile, the pink eye has spread to only my daughter.

The older boys held tight to my instructions in avoiding contagion, but their sister (bless her 8 year old heart) wasn't so fortunate. 

What this means is that we're not going anywhere this Christmas. My parents are aware, albeit saddened by this development. My wife, always able to roll with the punches, expressed a bit of relief at having less to do. Meanwhile, the illnesses aren't debilitating. They don't require much extra care, just quaranting.

It's oddly relaxing.

Herbal hideaway

Just once I'd like to be in a hedge maze. Is that so weird? You know, walking around completely lost and unable to figure out where I am while surrounded by immense greenery. Is that so strange?

It's not, it's perfectly normal.

RainCember

Last year I bought a snowblower, and as Murphy's Law dictates, it barely snowed much at all.

Well this year, I still have it. I got it out, set it up, gassed it up, and it's been rainy all season. 

Rainy. Not snowy, like you'd expect in December. Rainy. Look, I don't mind *not* having to clear snow all the time. People tend to forget how to drive when it snows, so every other car becomes a hazard. It's just weird.

Necroplant and ivy

Back in the summer of 2003, I bought a small ivy plant. It was in a cheap plastic pot and had three leaves. It's moved with me five times. Meanwhile it's been in, if I remember correctly, three different pots. At its largest, it spread ten feet. It's always filled the space it's been given, so its only constraint has been, well, space. It occurred to me that I've had this one plant for over twenty years now.

I wonder how long a houseplant really lives for.

Meanwhile, my wife got herself another small plant. I honestly don't know what the species is, but that never mattered much to me. She tried to care for it, but it withered down to a mere stem, all leaves lost. She was going to get rid of it, but I took possession instead. A little soil nutrition and a fair amount of water, and the stem turned green and started to stand upright. Then a leaf pushed out of the dirt next to it. Right now it's about four inches tall and has eight leaves all reaching for the light.

Necroplancer.

Warm pajamas

I don't have a lot of dresser space, so my pajamas have to share. I have lightweight shorts and shirt combos for summer, and heavier flannel / fleece sets for winter. Well it got cold, so I dug out the bin from under my bed and made the exchange.

None of my pajamas fit.

I pulled them on and they fell right down to the floor. Amusing, yes. I know I lost weight, but I didn't expect it to be so dramatic. Frog in a pot that I've been, I suppose I should have seen that coming.

I don't consider this bragging, because I don't think anyone actually reads this blog.

Timing discipline

Going to the gym in the morning requires that I leave so I can get to work. It's a deliberate cutoff - I have to go. But on days when I don't have that requirement, I find that I just stay there. This morning I got there when they opened (which was late, because it's a holiday or something), and was there two and a half hours. I left because I simply couldn't do anything else. 

Oh, I knew exactly how long I'd been there. It's hard to lose track of time when you're always timing yourself. I just didn't want to go.

But I suppose today of all days is the one to overdo it at the gym. Gotta earn that big dinner.

Candy mafia

A week before Halloween, I told my kids not to give me any candy. I told them that if I asked, say no. If they saw me taking any, take it back. Don't let me have candy. I may have developed some good self control over my diet in the last year, but I decided on this anyway. 

They opted to eat the candy I liked first. Then they ate the stuff that didn't have red food coloring. (Either that or they hid the rest) Now what's left is stuff that will give me migraines. I have to admit I'm proud of how they pulled it off.

Turns out it wasn't necessary anyway. A mere look into their stash showed me nothing but sloppy sugar and the kinds of candy that pull out fillings. My oldest also pointed out that, as an adult with a job and a car, I can just go out and get whatever candy I want whenever I want anyway, and that I don't.

He's 14 now and I keep forgetting that.

Daylight hacking time

I know the stated reason for doing the time change at 2AM on Sunday. To minimize the impact on business.

Screw that noise. None of us benefit from an extra hour on Sunday mornings. I didn't change my clocks until Sunday night. I had a normal day (mindful, after all, half my clocks change themselves), and when it was time to go to bed, I changed the rest of the clocks and went to sleep.

Monday morning, that's when you want that extra hour. So that's when I took it. This whole thing needs to go anyway.

Wrong day off

The schools always have these random days off that aren't on known holidays. The calendar always calls them something like 'superintendent conference days' or whatnot. That's fine, let them take a day to sort themselves out. 

But why isn't November 1 one of them?

I can make my case in one word: Halloween. Or in one short sentence: it's the day after Halloween. The kids were up late either running amok in the neighborhood, or out late at a party. They stayed up eating candy and watching an appropriately themed movie whose genre is defined by their age bracket. Either way, they had a terrible night sleep.

It's even a Catholic holiday. Maybe if we got them on board we could do this.

Unkept greenery

I don't like lawn work, but it needs doing. The grass, thankfully, grows slower once it gets cooler, but alas it still grows.

At least until I have to clear snow out of my driveway.

Regardless, despite the cooler temperatures, I have to cut my burgeoning hayfield. The only issue with this requirement is that it won't stop raining.

At all.

Every single time I have a break long enough to actually do this job, it rains. When it's not raining, it's soaking from the last rain. At this rate I'm going to have to just drop whatever I'm doing when the opportunity is there and just go.

Now, I'm a big fan of just not mowing a lawn. Something about nature, whatever I just hate doing it. But I hate invasive species even worse. And by invasive, I mean the kind that will invade my house if the tall grass gives them enough courage to get close.

So it's gotta go. I chop it down so mice and other critters don't have a reason to get anywhere near my house.

I should get a cat while I'm at it.

The dream again

It happened again. It's been a very long time, but it happened again.

Here, it's been awhile.

Only this time, it was about college. I dreamed I was back in college. I was only signed up for two classes, but I knew it didn't make sense. I clearly remembered meeting all my requirements and graduating, and long since moving on. The classes didn't make sense, I didn't need them for any continuing education or certifications.

The dream made so little sense that I woke myself up.

The all clear

Another important visit with the oncologist today. She was given the all clear, and they're going to remove the port. The risk of reoccurrence is minimal.

Whenever the surgeon's office gets around to contacting us to schedule that, anyway. She tells me that it's been incredibly convenient, not having to have a new hole poked in her arm every time, but I know that she doesn't like anything artificial just living in her like that, so I know she's very much looking forward to having it removed.

Just gotta wait for that procedure to get scheduled.

Milestones

Went apple picking again. Since the kids have the day off of school on Columbus day, we just take the day off work and go. My whole family goes; my parents and my siblings with their families. It's become quite a crowd, but over the years, as the kids have gotten older, the crowd moves differently.

We started joining the group when we first moved back from Buffalo (would have been tricky before), and my oldest was six, while my youngest was a baby of five months. There was a lot of shepherding, carrying, and corralling. Now, my oldest is fourteen, while my youngest is eight. We just set them loose and vaguely make sure they're with the crowd. It's amazing, looking back, at how sharply the dynamic has changed over the years.

This is the part where I add something poetic, but it's just not coming to me right now. 

Overfull

You were hungry. You sat down to a nice meal. It started off with a nice appetizer. The main course came, and it was amazing. second course? What level of bourgeoisie is this? Ok, second course. Gotta slow down a bit. Dessert comes, and as usual there's always room for dessert.

You're full, you're done. It's over, time to go.

Another large plate is put in front of you. It's big, and you *have* to eat it before you can leave. This is BS. I hate this. Why is this happening.

Anyway, that's how I feel about 80 degree days in October.

The hunch

There's a vehicle repair shop within walking distance of my house. I'll bring my car there for routine things, like brakes. In fact, I took it there a month ago for brakes. I could just walk home after dropping it off, and walk back to pick it up. In and out no problem.

They can't do state inspections though, so I had to go elsewhere. There's another place I'll do that. Usually I drop it off at the end of the day, and they'll pick it up the next morning and I'll have it back by the end of the day. It passed inspection, but they 'found' a host of other issues that are gonna cost me $2K to fix.

Issues that the other guy didn't see at all. Things they can and will take care of, they didn't see any issues whatsoever. But they just appeared in the two weeks between.

I took the car back, and a couple days later half the warning lights went off and I started to hear a grinding noise.

The reason I don't take it back to the dealership for maintenance is because I need to schedule an appointment, and it's never convenient. I booked it anyway, and waited a week doing so. They had the car, and discovered two problems. One under warranty (nice), and another minor issue that was definitely the cause of the noise I was hearing. Didn't cost me a fraction to fix that issue.

And people wonder why I have trust issues.

Tinker Falls

So we took the kids on a hike. Supposed to be an easy one, for hikers anyway. Tinker Falls is close to a hang glider launch site, which is a 1260 elevation from the parking lot. My kids tuckered out about halfway up, but powered through and got their second wind. The wife lost steam about a third of the way up, but slowly finished the climb.

I spend 15 minutes on a stair master every day, so it was nothing to me. Until we had to go down.

Going down uses a different muscle group, one that apparently doesn't get worked nearly as much as the ones used going up. Oh no, the kids were racing down the trail. The wife merrily hopped downhill, and I wobbled like a rookie sailor.

I earned that one.

Leaves

Ah, fall. That magical time of the year when people ooh and aah over the dying leaves. I can appreciate the dynamic contrast, but knowing that it's all happening because they're dying and being shed so the tree can survive winter just adds an odd morbidity to the whole thing.

First day of whatever

The first day of school used to be like a minor holiday. I'd take the day off work and the wife and I would go out and do whatever. Now that our oldest is capable of watching the younger ones, we don't need to arrange a sitter. 

The first day of school came and went without much fanfare.

But not entirely finished

There used to be a closet in the downstairs bathroom. I suppose there still is, the gap where a closet could go, but nothing went in. It was built in, a custom job by the previous occupant. They used a very thin  wood wall, and when the walls went back up, the contractor used a mold resistant drywall, which was thicker (and should have been used in the first place). Turns out that small difference was enough that the shelves don't fit in there any more (custom cut), and the door frame didn't fit over it (it's close enough to the wall to make a difference). The general contractor was, admittedly, stumped. They do bathrooms, and only bathrooms. The original plan to reinsert the closet materials simply wouldn't work. 

So in the end the closet is now just an open space we have to figure out. Had I known ahead of time I would have had plywood put in between the studs, because they're just awkward enough that I can't put in supports for new shelves, but it's too late for that now. Finding something I can insert into the space has been frustrating because, well, nothing is the right size.

Lesson: don't go to work while the contractors are busy. Just take the time off and babysit the job, because it won't get done right otherwise.

Done early

It was originally scheduled to last until this upcoming Wednesday. They gave it that much time because of the extra work to put in plumbing where there was none before, but apparently it was incredibly straightforward. They also added more time due to the perceived complexity of the soil lines, but that also turned out to be incredibly simple.

A contractor finished a job four days early. Is that some sort of record? Either way, I'm not complaining.

Driest week ever

So I got home today and the water was back on, where it could anyway. Both bathrooms are still demolished, but they capped off the water lines and turned it back on, so I have running water in my kitchen and laundry room. They also did the work replacing the valve and toilet downstairs (yes, I have a toilet in the basement. It sits in a small closet with no door - only a curtain, but the valve always leaked so it was always shut off) so we at least have one functioning toilet in the house.

I have a constant compulsion to wash my hands. After I do anything I, at the bare minimum, rinse them off with clean water. Baby wipes are a cheap consolation prize, but better than nothing.

I have never wanted to spend my day at work so much in my life.

Having the basement plumbing redone was a long time coming. The soil pipe, which went straight up through both bathrooms (adjacent to the kitchen) and through the roof. It was cast iron, and had been punctured when people tried installing things onto the walls. In the basement, they covered rust with duct tape and painted over it. (The home inspector said it was sound, but to have the whole thing replaced the first time I did any work on the plumbing) The previous owner, when they redid the kitchen, put the old kitchen counter and sink in the laundry room. First thing I did was pull that garbage out, but the pipes were all over the walls. The pipes also clanked like crazy when I did the laundry. The utility sink was a small cheap flimsy piece of nonsense that was on the wrong side of the room entirely.

But today the basement portion of this remodel is done. Which puts my backup toilet in service, so we don't have to hike next door to my grandfather's house for that.

First world problems.

Now we wait for the showers to be installed. Having been torn out to the studs and joists was going to make it a longer project, but the fact that there was never a tub upstairs meant they had to add all the pipes in themselves, making it take even longer.

But having only one shower with four kids this close in age is gonna suck.

I have no water and I must everything

My bathrooms are getting redone. One of them is a half bath, but there's room enough for a tub. It's getting a tub. The other is a three quarter (giant walk in shower), and it was hastily remodeled as such by the previous owner. And by hastily, I mean poorly. It's deteriorated badly in the intervening years, and today's the day it finally gets turned into something not crap.

The water has been shut off to my house since morning. According to the plan, I was expecting the upstairs to be done first, shutting off only the water upstairs, but they decided upon arrival to start on the downstairs, shutting off everything for the duration.

Finding a way to accommodate my family under such short notice has been tricky. Kinda hate it. But, it's the egg we have to break to make this omelette.

I'm not hiking

You read the title correctly: I'm not hiking right now, and I'm not happy about it. Let me explain.

I've been planning on hiking in the Adirondacks for awhile. I've had time, but I haven't had anyone to go with.

I'm an extrovert. If I go alone, I'm just walking around outside. This is a social event for me. But I also want to do the thing. Whatever.

I had an opportunity. Some of my people were planning a hike that was going to start today and run through the weekend, hiking over three of the peaks. You might notice that I'm posting this today. I shouldn't have internet access from there. I don't.

Because I'm not there.

Last couple of weeks there have been some nasty rain storms, and it turns out that a lot of trailheads and bridges were washed out, and my people decided to cancel the trip. Not postpone, no. Cancel.

Bah.

So here I am again. I get it, especially when half of them work in schools and there just isn't time later on. Though at this point I'm thinking of spearheading it myself with another group.

Swim lessons

This is the last week of swim lessons for the summer. My wife always signs the kids up because she not only believes that they should be able to not die in water, but it gets them out of the house and away from their screens for awhile.

Of course, free swim starts when their lessons are finished (she always schedules the last classes for the day), so they stick around and tire themselves out. They always drop off much easier on those days.

The difficult part about the end of lessons is that free swim starts much earlier, so they want to go much earlier, which while it still tires them out, they have a lot more recovery time, so it doesn't drop them by the end of the day.

At least they're active.

Gardon't

My mom asked me what I was getting out of my garden so far. My answer: frustration with the local wildlife.

I planted eight cherry tomato plants, six have been destroyed. I planted six roma tomato plants, two have been destroyed. Whatever is getting past my fence also destroyed all of my sweet peppers, eaten over half of my zucchini, and all my radishes.

I had zero problems with critters last year, so this is a surprise. All the traps and repellents in the world aren't working. More to the point, I don't actually know what is doing this. My wife caught a groundhog sulking around in my back yard, but on another occasion I saw something jump out of the garden bed, but I was too far away to see what it was.\

I couldn't blame it all on rabbits, as much as I want to.

I need a backyard fox.

Sizing

Losing weight has its perks, but your clothing never fitting was unexpected. I had to buy new pants because my olds ones were too big (yay) and a month later I had to do it again.

yay?

Then I get stuck in between sizes. I have to go out of my way to find odd sizes, but I ask myself if it's worth it if I'm just going to have to replace them again in a month.

When my wife went through this, she wore stretchy clothes and skirts. Not an option here.

The app cheat

I use an app to track my workouts. The goal is to track what works and what doesn't, and how much weight I'm lifting. I use the same app to track my food intake, so it also has a calorie count for everything.

Wasn't my goal, but there it is.

Just keeping track of what I eat has had a strong impact on it. Being accountable - I want to eat half a cake, but I don't want to log it in the app. 

I use the stair climber at the gym. (I'm planning a mountain hike in the Adirondacks, so I adjusted my workout to that end). I log how long I was on it, and it also tells me how many calories I burned. Again, logging the calorie burn wasn't the goal, but there it was, and I found myself enjoying watching that number climb up as I went through my workout.

Then the numbers changed. 15 minutes on the stair climber used to burn X calories when I first started, but since then it's slowly gone down, one by one. Right now it's down by eleven, and while it was never my goal, I still feel cheated.

Familiar faces, unfamiliar places.

My gym opens at 5 on weekdays. Since work starts at 7, I usually get there pretty much right at 5. 

Yes, I'm a morning person. Always have been.

But the gym opens at 7 on Saturdays, and that always feels weird. 7am, I'm normally long done. So many Saturdays, weather permitting, I'll go to the park near my house. It has a pretty long trail on the lake. I've been coming to this park since my parents were strapping me into a car seat, I love this park. But on these early Saturdays I've started to notice things. Or rather, I've started to recognize them.

The people from the gym. Also there in the wee hours of the morning. Not many of them, no. You can really only do cardio on the trail, but the ones that are always doing a lot of cardio are the ones I've started to recognize. 

My idea was not as unique as I expected.

Boom boom boom boom

We always do a fireworks show in our driveway.

We live in the suburbs, so shooting anything off into the sky is generally considered impolite. Also we live close enough to the airport where it also would warrant a visit from someone with either a badge or a three letter job title.

So, ahem. We always do a fireworks show in our driveway. The wife is always the one in charge of procurement, and she told me we never bought enough. So I reminded her who always got them, and told her to just buy more.

So she did.

Fast forward to the big night, and we had some family and friends over. I was then surprised to find that my brother in law had brought some of his own as well.

The show lasted much longer than my dear wife had the energy for.

Skunk patrol

There are skunks in my neighborhood.

I should explain that my corner of suburbia is an old one. My house was built in 1955, and the newer part of the neighborhood was built up in the early 80’s. Rather than a developer buying an acreage and rubber-stamping dozens of identical, cheaply made paperboard mcmansions, this one grew slowly, more organically. As a result, there is a lot of empty space that a developer would have min/maxxed into oblivion.

It’s this empty space that has various overgrown brush, groves, and well placed drainage creeks. Some of them are better maintained than others; none of them are on any public land, it’s all a part of someone’s property. But the uneven and mismatched shape of the plots of land don’t lend themselves well to further development, so they remain wild green space.

And skunks live there, among other creatures. The only ones bothering *me* are the groundhogs that would raid and destroy my garden, but enough chicken wire put a stop to that. Either way, that’s a different story.

Skunks. They’re nocturnal, so being out during the day is normal as any other mid latitude deciduous climate. But when it starts to get dark, they start to come out.

It doesn’t bother me. I see one, I just go the other way. But it has this added benefit that really keeps the neighborhood shining: no miscreants. Yea I said it. My town doesn’t have any wandering ne’er do wells looking for crimes of opportunity. No, the bored teenagers see the skunks and decide to stay in.

Though it does make the walk from my front door to the car early in the morning a bit treacherous. I’ve resorted to using the side door, since the skunks stay off my deck. The last thing I want to do is get blasted because I opened the front door and startled a spice weasel that was rooting around the hedges.

Birthday parks

Every year on my birthday, I try to find a new park I haven't been to, and then go exploring. One of the benefits of living in New York state is the absolute abundance of parks, so I'm not going to run out anytime soon. This year it was Salmon River Falls. It was wet and rainy, so the gorge trail was slick in addition to being very steep, but that meant we had the place to ourselves.

 

The falls aren't exactly large, but they follow a dam built last century, so if they let out more water than normal, it can get dangerous fast.

 

Such a peaceful trickle.

 And of course the best view of all, my wondrous traveling companion.

The orange sky

I get up before the sun, so a little fog isn't unheard of, even on the warmer nights.

This wasn't fog. I was aware of wildfires in Canada, but didn't put much thought into them because they're usually out west. Turns out this batch is in Quebec, and the wind is pulling the smoke straight down.

The sky was a hazy orange all day. My camera really didn't show it. The clouds weren't clouds, and as bright as it was, the sun was an orange dot on a dim grey smear.

It got darker as the day went on. The entire area smells like a campfire. I would complain, but there are people that live where those wildfires are, so I'll only say I wish neither of us had our respective problems.

(Yours are way worse though. Good luck)

I hear it's supposed to be worse tomorrow. The whole town feels so eerie.

Trampoline timing

Last year, when I bounced on the trampoline with my kids (they keep asking because I can bounce them really high), I would tire out within ten minutes.

This weekend, I outlasted them all. Going the the gym sucks some mornings, but stuff like this is so worth it.

Amateur chiropractor

So every now, my shoulder isn't quite where it should be. When it's bad, I visit my chiropractor and she knocks me back into place.

Well after a long busy Friday putting my garden in, my shoulder was out of whack again. Unfortunately, not only was my chiropractor out of office all weekend, but she's booked for the next few days afterward. So there I am, laying face down on my bed holding my arm in the one, admittedly awkward, position that hurts the least. In comes my daughter, asking what's wrong. She prods me trying to find out just where the pain is, tapping parts of my upper back until she knows where it hurts.

Flashback: a few months ago I was running a few errands with my daughter, and right in the middle of those was a visit to the aforementioned chiropractor. It's a small, rather informal office, so she was right in there with me. She asked a hundred questions, and the doctor was very patient, explaining what was going on as it happened. In fact, on subsequent visits she's been disappointed I didn't bring my daughter.

Anyway.

So my daughter, every prodding, finds out where it hurts. She asks if I'm going to the chiropractor, and when I said I can't, she jumped on me.

No, she lined herself up, aimed right at the spot I said hurt, and dropped her entire body weight right on to the part of my shoulder that was out of whack. Knocked the wind out of me and made a sound like popcorn in my shoulder.

Once I regained myself, the pain in my shoulder was nearly gone. I still went for the formal visit, which finished the job, but my daughter is probably going to med school.

Dark gym

I usually get to the gym right when they open. This morning I still did, and the lights were off.

Mostly off. Every fifth light was on, as it is overnight, but nothing else.

Opening time came and went. The lights remained dim. I recognized an employee letting herself in. A few of us headed over and we realized the power was simply out. We were down to backups: the security lights and ventilation. They let us in anyway. We couldn't scan our cards to sign in, they just took our names at the door. We worked out in mood lighting.

The water heaters were electric, so when I went to shower off afterward, I was both surprised and fully awake.

That doesn't happen in May

I have a sunburn.

In May. That doesn't happen in May. I wasn't even warm, let alone hot. Sure it was sunny, but... May? I was completely unprepared for this.

It's not the worst sunburn I've had (Tennessee, 1992), but it's the most surprising.

Ow

Digging in the dirt

I had my garden in the ground by this time last year. This year, however, it's been rainy and cold. Today, however, was finally the first good day that wasn't overbooked.

I left the garden fence up last year so I could just toss in the leaves from the red maple. They add to the compost and help break up the soil, and I didn't want them blowing around, so up stayed the fence. Problem was, the grass had grown into it a bit last year, and again more when it got warmer. I had to peel that fencing off the ground and rip it right out. Of course I couldn't just put it back in that when I was done, so I had to mow.

I had to mow anyway.

I'm gonna skip to the end. The garden bed is ready for planting, but planting happens next week. (Ground is still too cold). But I started at 8:30am, and ended at 4:30. I was filthy - I had so much grass and dirt inside my shoes that even my feet, which were wrapped in socks, were black with dirt.

According to my wife, when I did this last year I was far more exhausted than I am right now. Sure I have some aches, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to drop like a rock tonight, but I suppose that's what actually starting to work out does for you.

Excuse me, I'm falling asleep.

The visitors

My in laws are in town. First her parents and a sister, they flew in last week Tuesday. Then two more sisters, one of which brought her two young children, arrived on Saturday.

I have a small house.

My kids, however, readily absorbed them. My oldest is really good with kids, and easily entertained the 4 year old boy cousin. Meanwhile my daughter opened her room to the not-quite two year old girl, who was enthralled with the toys that my daughter had long since outgrown.

Maybe now I can convince her to give them up.

Meanwhile, I've been deeply over-scheduled. I like going out, but I also get up early, and work a full time job. And have kids. I'm also in my 40's, so yea I'll go out once a week. But they didn't come into town to hang around the house all day, so we've been busy.

Doing stuff indoors, because it hasn't stopped raining.

Seriously, if you're not drinking, this town has parks. To go outside. It seems to have let up just today, but we've exhausted our supply of sober indoor activities.

The van

So just before my daughter was born, my family of then five was packing into a sedan. But with two people occupying my wife's seat, we knew it was time to size up. We got a minivan just two months before she was born. It was five years old and only had 30k miles on it. (apparently it was owned by a nursing home that used it to take the residents to the park across the street)

I tend to hang on to my vehicles until they die. Well it took eight years, but we're there. The thing is more rust than metal (thanks NYS road salt), and it won't pass inspection without costing enough in repairs to cover a new vehicle anyway (thanks NYS inspection requirements).

Looking for vans, however, became a problem. There aren't many in this region, for reasons I have yet to discern. Then, those that are available average 80k miles on them, and they're asking new car prices.

Sorry, I don't want your used up Uber.

Then I found one that was relatively young, and had pretty low miles. Turns out when I went to buy it, they didn't even have all the paperwork for it yet. Didn't stop them from selling it to me though. In fact, that was Friday and we still aren't done yet. Oh, they let me drive off with it. I've had it all weekend, but it still has a dealer plate on it because we can't do the DMV paperwork yet.

Getting kinda antsy, though. I don't like being in limbo.

The daughter continues

My daughter is now eight years old. Looking back, I realize I never announced her arrival in my blog. I wasn't very consistent back then, but still, such an event should warrant a line or two.

Anyway story time.

She was born at 2:20 in the morning, and a couple hours later I went home. It was helpful that I already worked nights, because I wasn't tired in the least. I made the detour to pick up some Paulas Donuts, and remarked that they were for my daughters birthday. The girl behind the counter asked "oh, how old is she?" and I merely replied, "Three hours"

But instead of requesting donuts for her birthday, she always wants cupcakes instead. :(

The old ones

Alright, the internet is just so convenient, but at the same time it's designed to funnel everyone into about five different web sites, then pummel them with ads. It's insidious. 

I miss the old internet.

Go back, before social media, before upvotes and user generated content. When you wanted to use the internet, you had to have some manner of skill, a degree of tech literacy. If you wanted to put something on it, you needed even more skill. It was an entry exam: you must be this tall to ride, and the content and discourse showed it. 

Perhaps I've become a snob, but when you look at the level of discourse online you quickly see that perhaps not everyone should have their voice amplified.

Perhaps I'm just nostalgic. Honestly sometimes I find myself chasing that high from my early days, when I went from a small town outside a swamp in upstate New York, and found the entire world on my desk.

And another one

I knew he wasn't exactly in his prime, but we lost another good soul. My grandfather died 20 years ago, but I think the tar from all the smokes it what was holding him together in the end, while being the reason he passed so much younger than his peers. But lately it seems the rest of his generation is in a hurry to catch up.

The marathon

So my kids decided last week they were going to watch all nine of the main Star Wars movies. They hadn't seen them all, and they were going to lose the opportunity once tax season ended. But rather than just passively watch, they turned the living room into the Satellite of Love and roasted all nine.

The Phantom Menace: "The real menace was the writing team"

Attack of the Clones: "If the bounty hunter works for Dooku, and the clones are from the bounty hunter, then who's army is it?"

Revenge of the Sith: "They didn't put that scene in the game" (When a freshly minted Darth Vader met younglings)

A New Hope: "This smells like 70's"

The Empire Strikes Back: "Couldn't Obiwan's ghost tell them where to find Luke?"

Return of the Jedi: "How are the teddy bears winning?"

The Force Awakens: "Why is she good at everything right away?"

The Last Jedi: "So during the slow speed chase where they're running out of gas, they ran away to Vegas and got arrested for illegal parking?"

The Rise of Skywalker: "Half the movie takes place during the opening crawl. The other half is placeholder text that's basically [INSERT SCRIPT HERE]"

Smell in the air

I could smell it. I went outside, and it was warm. Oh, we have warm days during winter. Sometimes it's downright balmy. But this time I went outside and the air smelled different.

It's a weird fishy smell that only happens when the wind changes. When the atmospheric currents begin dumping air up from the south instead of down from the north. I don't know why it's a fishy smell, or why it only lasts the first day. I just know that's my cue to get the winter stuff put away and dig out the bikes.

Spent a couple hours cleaning out the shed while I was at it. So much stuff crammed in there.

The guilded cage

So things keep changing at work. Someone left abruptly, I was given their old job. I did their job, in their old office. I also did my old job while training my replacement... while learning how to do my old job.

Well things keep getting busier. More orders, more paperwork, etc. The guy that left came back, and he got his old office back. So what happened to me?

Well, the VP moved to Florida, leaving her office completely empty. She was gonna come back every so often, but I heard her health took a downturn and travel isn't on the table any more. Know what is on the table?

All my stuff.

Yea, I was moved into her office. She moved several years ago, and hasn't been back in quite awhile. There wasn't a lot of her stuff, she didn't keep much there. What got me was the furniture. The desk, tables, etc, it's all high quality and expensive. I almost feel bad using it the way I am, but in the end

I don't feel bad at all.

Success

Lab results are in. The cancer is gone.

The robotics

My oldest son is in the middle school robotics club. What that normally means for me is that once a week he stays late and tinkers with a robot with a couple other kids. What it means for him is that a month ago, he was at a local competition. Apparently I didn't write anything about it, it was so low on the radar. But his team qualified for the regionals, and that was yesterday. 

From 6am-4pm, he was at the Oncenter in Syracuse. I rejoined him at 9, when the competition began. Or rather, the sitting around.

Alright, I get it. It's pretty normal for these types of events. They have a match, their robot competes, they're scored, then they go back to their staging area and plan for the next match. There wasn't really a spectators area, so I joined them at their table, which had plenty of space for me. I was there for just over seven hours, and there was about an hour of actual event.

But don't get me started on the food.

I'll do it anyway.

There's a food vendor there that has a monopoly on the one spot in the building. No outside food or drink allowed - they check your bags. A previous convention at the same location informed me that you're not even allowed to park a food truck outside. Meanwhile the nearest alternative is a pub I'd rather not take a middle schooler into.

The food at this was pretty much what you'd expect. Extremely overpriced, dumpster grade slop masquerading as lunch. The actual counter was a joke. There were a handful of fresh faces up front happily taking your money, but in the back I could see what looked like a batch of drug addicted crackheads slowly torturing the food.

So yea, next time I'm in that building, movie theater rules apply. Whatever I can smuggle in using cargo pants and a fake beer gut pouch.

Slow and sore

I got Becka home around 4:30 yesterday. She ate a stack of saltine crackers and a tall glass of water, and immediately went to bed. My old friend Mindy came by and brought dinner, which was incredibly helpful as I didn't have any time to cook. As I was working the kids through the evening, Becka woke up and asked if it was 7am or pm, which was about all she could do before turning around and falling right back asleep. All in all it was pretty uneventful.

This morning, I was about as normal as possible. I went to the gym, but came home instead of heading to work. I go early enough that nobody's really awake when I go, so few were up when I got home. She was, as titled, sore and slow. Couldn't move her arm much, still had some of the drugs swimming through her head. I stayed home long enough to get the kids ready and out the door.

I almost felt bad leaving her when I did go to work, but she was cozy on the couch, no kids jumping on her, and covered in her fluffiest blanket. As a mother of four, she relishes her alone time, so rather than think she needed me to dote on her, I went to work.

Removing the problem

The tumor comes out today. So does the nearby lymph node. She gets dropped off in the wee hours of the morning, then I leave and I'm on call the rest of the day. Should take all day. Theoretically I could go into work once the kids are off to school, but she asked me to take care of rearranging some things around the house. That and I doubt I could focus on anything more complicated than rearranging furniture.

I shouldn't be this worried.

Happy not-quite

 

 

Next year sweetheart, next year.

8 hours

So there I was, staying up too late and suffering in the morning. Five hours of sleep meant I was tired and groggy. Then the weekends would come, and I'd sleep in. Ten hours of sleep later, and I was still groggy. Too much is as bad as too little.

So let's show some self-discipline. Set a bedtime, same time every day. Set a wake up time, same time every day. Hold myself to it. Then I get that magic number, eight hours of sleep.

But I did it wrong. I slept on the wrong side, I breathed too hard, I had a bad dream. Good sleep is a casualty of my 40's.

Built in sitter

So my offspring are getting old enough that they can be left alone for longer periods of time. We started experimenting with leaving the older ones home alone awhile ago, but recently I've been leaving the younger ones in the care of the younger ones, and it's been succesful.

So far.

Every time we leave the kids alone for any real amount of time, I get worried that one of them is going to try some food prep with a knife and things go sideways, and-

I'll stop there. My imagination runs wild, and I honestly don't give them enough credit. They're smarter than I realize, and I get nervous when I actually trust them.

I didn't expect the growing pains to be mine.

The number five

So a few weeks ago, I realized that when I write the number five, it looks bad. I don't know what went on in my brain, but the way I've been writing it suddenly disagreed with me. It was sloppy and looked like a drunk S. 

My brain switched gears. I always started it on the top right, drawing the top of the five with a stroke to the left, then dropping it down and finishing off the number. With absolutely no planning or conscious thought, I started from the left and dropped the pen down, then picked it up and added the top line separately. 

All my handwriting is starting to change and I wonder if I'll be able to match my own signature soon.

The old cake mix

I was helping my Opa clear out some stuff in his house, and he gave me a handful of boxed cake mixes. He doesn't use those, so they went with me. Just looking at the dates, it's obvious that he doesn't use those.

This one says "Best if used by April 22 2013"

My aunt and uncle who were present at the time recoiled, the contents of that particular pantry having been stocked and subsequently forgotten by the late Joanne, and we cleaned out what we could.

I didn't throw it out. I decided to see if it was still good.

I know what you're thinking. That's gross, right? I can understand, but hear me out. You can find YouTube videos of people finding, and then eating, old food products. Tuna from 1865 was discovered and tested, finding it was still safe to eat. 

Some foods, namely fresh food like fruit, milk, etc, absolutely have a time limit on them. Your nose will tell you. But the rest of it can last much longer than the label. Heck, the date on the label is a legal requirement. If the company makes a batch, keeps it in storage for a year, and it's safe to eat a year later, they can label their foods as good for one year. If they keep it for two and it still tests good, they can say two years on the label. Most companies don't do that because storage takes up space, and who's going to keep food that long?

Oregon Freeze Dry, that's who.

They make Mountain House freeze dried foods. Great for camping, even if a little pricey. Their labels, as of this writing, say the food is good for thirty years.

Knowing this about food, especially dry food laced with preservatives, I decided to take that cake mix and put it to the test.

See that? Right where it says April 2013? And right below it was the finished product, baked in 2023.

The dry mix passed the sniff test, so I went ahead and added what it called for, while deciding on the bundt pan. It wasn't the most aromatic when baking, but it was a 'classic white', so that was to be expected.

I ate it. It was good. I survived with no side effects or other negative repercussions. Go ahead Pillsbury, tell people it's good for ten years.

Taxol

The wife finished her twelve weeks of taxol. That's the drug that makes you bald, sick, and weak. Now she's only in once every three weeks, and she'll only be on herceptin and perjeta.

She actually finished the taxol back on the 12th, but the effects are cumulative, so it lingers. After her first week off, she told me she actually felt normal again.

But not for long. There's another round of exams and whatnot before we'll know what comes next. I can imagine it'll throw another wrench in the mix.

Comparisons

Near the entrance at the gym is a beverage cooler with things like Gatorade and protein shakes. A quick scan showed me they cost three times what they should, but anything in a brightly lit glass case typically is. Then it hit me:

The gym is like the club.

The music sucks, the drinks are overpriced, and the girls aren't interested.

January at the gym

January at the gym. I was expecting vast hordes of new years resolutions overtaking the place, swarming over every piece of equipment.

There were maybe six people I didn't recognize, and four of them were gone by the end of week 1.

After some conversation, I learned that most of the new people were those that were already gym members but hadn't been there in months. The rest don't show up before dawn. Honestly I was bracing myself for the worst.

Lost a weekend

Friday I left work early. As the morning went on, I went downhill pretty quick. Got home and crashed. Saturday I went from sleeping to snacking and back to sleeping the entire day. Today? I woke up and started getting ready to go to church, but lost steam halfway through the process. The wife took the kids without asking if I was going to go. Apparently my face wasn't the right color. Did the same thing as Saturday.

When do I finally start to feel better? End of the day. Lamest weekend ever.

Out-joked

I found something funny online. I went to show it to my son.

He had already seen it. In fact, he was familiar with the entire YouTube channel, and saw the entire series alrady.

I have to step up my game.