Caught

Tags

daughters, moments, parenting

People notice the most odd things, random sublime moments that escape the ones caught in the amber of the scene.  As I sat at a table in the coffee shop section of our church yesterday morning with my daughter, I glanced to my left as a friend of mine was focusing a camera on us, trying to sneak the picture from behind the stone chimney a few feet away.  My friend had one of those admiring looks on her face, a satisfied smile plastered on.  She waved as she put the camera back in her purse and left.  I thought nothing of it, turned my attention back to my chatty daughter.

Alyssa had been just that all morning with me — chatty — the kind of chatty that makes me glow, basking in the energy of her attention, a rare treat that makes the whole dad thing worth it all.  Sunday mornings have become ours, a result of Alyssa and I being the early risers of the family.  A few weeks ago, she suggested she join me in my ritual of coffee before church, giving up an extra hour of well earned sleep so she could share that time with me.

My daughter is a pure gift to me.  I use the word ‘pure’ intentionally, a word that may seem out of place when describing a gift, but it really is the best description.  Her time is given to me like a flawless diamond, a treasure with infinite value.  What prompted my friend to want to take that picture of me with my daughter was the relaxed, focused, blissful smile I had on my face as I listened to my daughter enthusiastically tell me about the day she had with her friends the day before, and school, a college, and her best friend Kate, and marching band, and her boyfriend Alex, and and and…. as if she will never get the chance to tell me anything again.

My friend confessed to me on FB yesterday:

“I know you caught me snapping a picture of you this morning. 😉  You were so wrapped up in listening to your daughter! The smile on your face was priceless!!!”

I needed that.  She was right and the realization of what she told me just made the moment even more sweet.  If I didn’t have my daughter, I honest to goodness do not know what my life would be like.  She is my gift, a true blessing that keeps me grounded.  I doubt she knows how much I need her.

Then there is my 14 year old boy.  He is so much a teenage boy, but I’m pretty sure he goes beyond that.  I can’t try hard enough to be his father.  There are times where I don’t feel like I want to be.  His mother, my wife, doesn’t understand that, and she just makes things worse by… eeehhhhhh… it’s not worth saying.  Let’s just say that there are two who make me want to give up, almost daily.

Then there is my daughter.

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Flight of the Redbird

Tags

Abduction, Poor Cub Fans, Redbird

As a St. Louis Cardinals baseball fan living in Chicagoland, where Cub fans are still looking for some little green man to jump out of their box of Lucky Charms to lead them to that pot o’gold called the World Series, I have taken an almost sick pleasure out of taunting my potless friends.  I am used to my team winning, my team proving time and again why St. Louis is indeed the best organization in professional sports.  Each time my team wins I employ the assistance of my little crimson friend, Redbird, to taunt the Cub fans around the office I semi-work in.  He is a little plush bird who chirps loudly each time he is squeezed, announcing loudly to everyone that the Cardinals have once again won a game.  If it happens to be a series sweep of the Cubs, he chirps all day.

Redbird has been a fixture around the office for more than a decade, perched at the corner of my desk amongst all the World Series trinkets there — the Chris Carpenter Wheaties box from the 2006 Series championship, the Pepsi 2006 WS championship can, my Bob Gibson baseball card, and an 8.5 x 11 picture of Yadi Molina congratulating Jason Motte after the final strike out of the 2011 WS championship.

Redbird carefully avoids the yellow container of “Anti Monkey Butt Powder” a friend of mine gifted me for my birthday a few years ago.

A few weeks ago, Redbird disappeared.  Vanished.  Flew the coop.  I was worried sick, knowing that jealous coworkers had abducted him, not knowing what cruel torture he was being subjected to.  Then the pictures started rolling in.

REDBIRD WAS TAKING A TRIP. 

His clever abductors were careful to make it appear like Redbird was enjoying himself.  See the fake smile on his beak as he holds his suitcase?

Your Redbird is enjoying himself with us so much that he says he never wants to come back.

He was being brainwashed, a result of the countless video of Harry Caray and the Cubs he was subjected to, no doubt.  I know my bird.  I can see the dazed look in his eyes.

Redbird must have cashed in his frequent flyer miles.

My poor bird, singing a different tune, the Redbirdman of Alcatraz.

Chinatown. The dang bird does look like he is enjoying himself.

Ding ding ding goes the trolley.

I don’t get it. Redbird has never been a fan of fresh fish.

Weird Cardinal Fan Pictures, a Startled Weenie, and Band Nerds Invade

Tags

band nerds, Cardinals, Hornets, Weenie

Don’t ever startle a 52 year old man while he is holding his weenie.  No one wants to see how he reacts, including the 52 year old man.  Nor do all the high school band nerds he was watching while holding his weenie.

Even I am creeped out by the way I introduced this blog.  Bad Stevie.  Bad, bad, bad.

This past week was one of those crazy, mixed up, wacky weeks.  Things can get that way in my world.  To quote one of my favorite song writers, “It’s a mixed up, crazy world, and I’m getting kind of queasy as it spins around”.  My stomach has been doing flips all week, like I have been riding the Zipper or something.  Ride the Tilt A Whirl after having a few fudge bars and you will be able to relate.

My daughter, the one who is the head marching band nerd, the drum major, hosted the preseason picnic party at our house this week.  Thursday night over fifty high school kids filled our back yard for a night filled with frivolity, or as frivolous as possible for a bunch of really good kids.  They played a lot of zealous badminton, enough that I was afraid our neighbors would call the police.  And bags, competitive bags, cut throat.  I had to step in a few times to settle them down.  And cards, Apples to Apples, I think.  At one time they were wagering Fig Newtons.  I am assuming they were Fig Newtons.

Oooo… fiiiiiirrrrre.

I cooked the burgers and hot dogs, then watched in a very chaperony fashion from our deck.  At one point, I employed my now famous gasoline technique of starting a bonfire in our campfire ring.  Believe it or not, that technique was employed upon request.  Pyrotechnics are a specialty of mine.

It was during that chaperony thing that my weenie was startled.  There I was, savoring my grilled weenie, when I felt something large crawling on the back of my neck.  I reached back to investigate and…

ZAP!!!!  A hornet latched on to my finger tip and stung my finger.  I launched from my chair, emitting a muffled “OWWW!!” as my weenie dropped to the deck.

What is ironic is that I was afraid one of our party goers would be the one getting stung.  While preparing our yard for the party last week, I discovered a hornet nest hanging fairly high in our back yard maple tree.  Part of my prep for the party was to cut the limb down, soak the nest with insecticide, then burn the basketball sized nest.  There were hornets swarming that nest when I cut it down, a scary sight indeed.  Even though I had taken care of the nest, I was afraid there would still be hornets lurking.  There was one, probably that last ninja hornet seeking revenge.  I’m pretty sure I heard a TORA, TORA, TORA before getting zapped with the sting.

This sucker was as big as a basketball. These hornets were not from Charlotte, however.

So my week was filled with dealing with the anxiety of a overly involved wife, obsessing over party preparation.  We made it.  The party was a success, enough that the kids stayed until midnight.  That’s late for band nerds.

Oh, and my St. Louis Cardinals took two out of three from the lackluster Cubs this weekend.  I am sporting the red.

A happy Cardinal fan always keeps tongue in cheek.

Grab a Shovel, Grab a Ho

Tags

at home vacation, fatherhood, marriage, marriage issues, yardwork

Poke yer partner and docey doe.

It’s been a bit of a hiatus for me here, not really by choice but simply by other duties, like Call of Duty, taking priority over writing my blog.  My presence has been made known here, evidenced by commenting on blogs.

Excuse me for a moment while I go remind my 14 year old son that our living room is not a golf driving range.  Again.  The dang kid is up early (for a teenager) so my morning revelry was interrupted as he clomped down the stairs and proceeded to chip a tennis ball into a picture on the living room wall.

What mayest thou be doing home during the middle of a work week, thou mightst be asking?  Last weekend was the annual get together for my side of the family, a trip always arranged by my mother so that my brothers and I can get the rare chance to see each other.  This year’s get together was at the beach in South Haven, Michigan, a short drive from the Chicago area.  I forgot that I took this entire week for vacation, in anticipation that my family would continue with our vacation after the weekend get together.

Miriam appears to have a death wish for our sister in law. WATCH OUT MELISSA, THE SHOVEL IS ABOUT TO COME DOWN!!

That did not materialize.  My daughter is entering  her senior year of high school and is also the drum major for her school’s marching band.  She can not and does not want to miss anything.  This week is the second week of marching band rehearsal to prepare for the school year.  No extended vacation for us.  So here I sit, not a bad thing at all, trying to decide what to do with all of this free time.

Monday I sat and did virtually nothing all day.  I dropped Nate off in the morning for a golf tournament, coached him a little as he warmed up on the driving range, watched him tee off on the first hole and headed home after he hit his second shot.  It was nice to watch.  The kid has a nice tee shot that takes off on a straight rise, not a pop up, with good distance and accuracy.  Not only that, but he asked me to stick around to watch his first tee shot, which was nice to hear, much nicer than hearing a tennis ball carom off of the living room wall.

Yesterday I managed to whack my shin with one of my crappy eggbeater bike pedals, a result of one pedal staying engaged to the cleat on my left foot as the right side slipped violently out, causing the left to push the pedal out and into my shin.  There is a cool looking goose egg there now and it should produce an awesome bruise.  Oddly enough, I was too upset with the terrible performance of the Eggbeater pedals to pay much notice to the injury.

Like I said, these pedals are called eggbeaters because, well, THEY LOOK LIKE AN EGGBEATER!

I hate those pedals.  After buying them a few weeks ago, I was a bit concerned about the lack of ease clipping in to the pedals.  I am used to clipless pedals, so getting used to them should have been a short learning curve.  They still don’t work right.  I have emailed Performance Bicycle, where I bought them, and gave them my opinion of the pedals.  There has been no response as of yet.  When I got their automatic email asking me to give a review of the pedals, I gave a rating of poor and a title of the review called “Beware”.  It was published and is the first review of the pedals.

Now it’s time to put on my yard work clothes, grab a shovel, grab a ho(e), and get some work done out in the yard.  My wife was out front last night at midnight, pulling the grass along the sidewalk.  Sometimes I just plain don’t understand that woman.

“Why are you doing that?  You do know I am going to borrow our neighbor’s edger tomorrow when I mow the lawn, don’t you?  We talked about that.”

She has been frustrated all summer about our yard.  After some 20 years of showing absolutely no interest at all, her attention has suddenly turned outdoors.  I suspect it’s largely due to the influence of our Gladys Kravits-esque next door neighbor, a know-it-all who has no qualms about telling you what she thinks.  She and her husband ignored their lawn for years until he retired.  Suddenly she is a lawn care expert.  My overly anxious wife listens to her and is very worried about what she thinks, enough that Mir goes out to do useless yardwork at midnight.  It’s frustrating for me.  The yard is my territory, always has been, and I do an excellent job.  It’s no fun having a worried newbie poking their nose into my business and screwing up what I have worked hard to produce!

So out I go into the sunlit green expanse of my lawn.  Something tells me the hoe is going to be out there with me.  It may take a hoe to get her to listen to me…..

A friend of min…

A friend of mine has a trophy wife but apparently it wasn’t first place.

– Stephen Wright