Today my oldest turned 15. He's taller than I am now, by an inch. He's starting to grow a bit of a 'stache, and he fits my shirts. I'm serious, I bought a pack of shirts and didn't like how they sat on me, so I tossed them at him. They fit him perfectly. It's almost unsettling. He doesn't fit my shoes - yet. He's surpassed my ability to mod games and consoles - which shouldn't surprise me but still somehow does.
I wonder how tall he'll get.
Remember this? Over the last month, we've had both extremes multiple times. Two days before our trip to the Great Wolf Lodge, it was 70 degrees. The day we left for that trip was a blizzard - I had to brush off the van twice and we fought snowy roads (for half an hour, we knew the snow band was localized and we just needed to get south of the city so no, we weren't being stupid), but late the next day when we returned there wasn't any snow on even the grass. It had melted off in a day.
The next week we had balmy mid 60's, but another snowstorm by the end of the week. One day I'm in a t-shirt, the next I'm in a parka clearing snow off the driveway wondering if the plows are going to come. It's become almost impossible to plan for what's coming. This is nuts.
Today is my grandmothers 85th birthday. Five years ago she said she never expected to make it to 80, and here she is. I have such a strong memory deep in my childhood of her putting me in the front seat of her truck and driving fast through an empty mall parking lot right through a flock of seagulls, watching them all freak out and fly away all around us. She bought me my first video game console.
She loves the apple butter my wife makes. She even returns the jars and asks for a refill.
Happy birthday grandma!
So long, long, very long ago I signed up for classmates.com - which at the time wasn't that bad. It was before social media, and if you didn't already have either their phone number before you graduated, you weren't going to find anyone.
I've always been curious to see how everyone's lives have been shaping up, so whatever.
But it's obsolete. We all found each other, first on MySpace, then on Facebook. But over the years, I eventually forgot all about the old classmates.com - until they decided to start emailing me every other day.
Seriously, we all forgot you existed when your obsolescence became inevitable. This awkward reach is almost impossible.
For the first several years I had this blog, I didn't maintain it very well. The busier my life got, the less I wrote about. Then one January I decided that I would write at least once a week.
I think I've been doing pretty well.
But there are times when I just can't find anything to blog about. Sometimes I reach and find myself writing absolute garbage, but I do it anyway. But then I realize that a big event went by and I wrote nothing about it at all. My recent trip to Great Wolf Lodge merited a mention, but it was our second trip. I looked and realized that four years ago it went by without so much as a whisper. I suppose I had a lot on my mind that March, but still.
