If Life Gives You Lemons, Make Butter Beer

Tags

life, personal, religion?

Last Spring, the men’s breakfast group that I attend every Friday studied and discussed the bible book of Job.  Job was a blessed man, rich with land and cattle and servants and family, a man blameless and righteous in the eyes of God, so much so that Satan challenged God.  The challenge was that God remove the protection he had around Job, let Satan have his way, and surely Job would curse God.  Job suffered terribly, lost all he had, endured friends who said that he was being punished for his sin, yet through it all did not curse God.  In the end, God restored all that Job had lost, rewarded him for his righteousness.

I wish I had the patience of Job.  For that matter, I wish that I could be blameless like Job.  When it comes to righteousness, I am not worthy to even scrape one of his boils.

Here comes my whine.  I have a tendency to come here to do that.

Tomorrow, I am driving 4 hours to meet my daughter, get a lift to Indianapolis to fly to Orlando.  I wrote about it a few days ago.  This is going to be a fantastic trip, one like I have never been able to experience.

This afternoon, two blocks away from home, the low coolant warning light came on in my car.  It wasn’t overheating, so I assumed it was just low coolant.  I let the engine cool, added coolant, took the car out for a short drive.  A mile from my house, the coolant warning light came back on.  I pulled in my garage, checked again.  Coolant was low, so I added more.  This time I let the car run in the garage, checked for leaking hoses, couldn’t find a leak.. that is until I looked under the car to see coolant pouring from the back of the engine.

Crap.

Crap, crap, crap.  What to do?  I fumed for a few minutes, asked God why things like this always seem to happen to me (tried not to curse God.. even Job asked God why bad things were happening to him).  I called the rental car company that I normally deal with, got a great deal on a rental car.  While I am not quite making lemonade, I am avoiding the persimmons.  I will take my car to my mechanic in the morning, get in the rental car, and save the worries until next Tuesday.

The car broke down in my garage, for goodness sakes.  This could be worse.  I could have been stranded on the tollway on the south side of Chicago tomorrow (that’s bad shoo shoo), instead, and trying to figure out how to make the flight to Orlando.  Really, I should be counting my blessings.  The car was going to break down any way and it broke down in a convenient place.

I am packed, ready to go.  I finally have enough money to relax on a vacation, something I don’t ever think has happened before on any vacation that I have taken.  Four days with my wonderful daughter.  What else can I ask for?  Perfection?  Over rated.

Butter beer, here we come!

Freaking Potter World!!!!!!!

Harry freaking Potter World awaits!  The trip that my daughter, Alyssa, and I have been waiting for is just a few short days away.

I am so happy that I sired a nerd girl.

This weekend is it.  January 26, I drive to my daughter’s college in northeastern Indiana, where one of her friends will take us to the airport in Indianapolis for our flight to Orlando.  Saturday and Sunday, I have tickets to Universal Studios for us, complete with express passes.  We are staying with my friends Rich and Pam, who have a nice house in Orlando, minutes away from the park.  Our airfare was cheap, secured with my Southwest rewards points, upgraded to A boarding with a minimal fee.

Last summer, I suggested this trip to my daughter as her college graduation present.  Did she flinch?  No freaking Potter World way!  At the time I suggested the trip as a present, I had no idea if I could afford it.  When I was married, there was no possible way.  When I was not married, it was frightful but possible.  I am still not married, the idea of the trip is still frightful, but it’s reality in a very exciting way.

Did I mention that my daughter and I are going to Harry freaking Potter world this weekend?  Oh yeah, I did.

I do not fear he who must not be named.

I look forward to my first butter beer.

What house will the sorting hat give to me?

Hogsmeade will be so much fun.

This trip became a reality the day after my divorce.  As my daughter and I were lamenting the demise, we found a positive way out of the mire.  The mention of the proposed graduation gift came up and I stepped out in faith, said yes why don’t we do it, and suddenly our conversation turned from doom to Dumbledore.  My friend Rich had offered up his house in Orlando for any weekend in January.  Why not take advantage of the offer?

Suddenly, I felt like I was able to do something that I could never have dreamed of before I was divorced.  Is that terrible to say?  Maybe, but it’s true.  I was not sure that the trip was something that I could pull off financially, but by that point in my journey I had learned to see the possibilities through the blessings.  Free lodging followed by free transportation, followed by financial blessings that probably would not have existed pre divorce.  Today, this trip is already paid for and I have money to spend during our trip.

Not that other things tried to ruin my plans.  A week ago, my car broke down in what looked like a very tragic fashion.  I panicked only to discover the benefit of friendships, friends who provided a very inexpensive car repair ($67).  A tooth that a few months ago had received a root canal cracked in half, fixed at no charge by my dentist.  Almost miraculously, I have been able to put aside enough money to enjoy this trip with my little girl.

Do I sound like a guy who has come to expect things to implode around me?  I am that way, but I am learning that it is not always that way.

So, I get a weekend with my daughter.  Four days.  I expect that we will have a chance to discuss our lives as they exist now, talk about the details.  I hope that I am up to that.  I also know that we are going to have an awesome time, a chance to decompress, a chance to have the fun time we have always wanted to have together.  This is a treat, after all.

Our flight Monday is late in the day.  We are going to drive to Daytona, where Alyssa wants to show me where she has ministered to the homeless during her Spring college break the past two years.  She is excited to show me.  I am excited to see.

There is a lot to anticipate this weekend.  There is plenty to enjoy at Universal.  There is plenty we could talk about.  I am looking forward to this, a little nervous, a lot pumped.

 

Welcome back to the lunatic fringe

I would like if you could keep the noise to a minimum at night.  Saturday night there was noise during the night in the form of high heel shoes clopping on the wood floor and table and chair legs scrapping on the floor.  It would help to take shoes off or put carpet for her and put felt pads on the legs of the chairs and table.

My downstairs neighbor taped a note to my front door during the day this past Monday.  To put things in perspective, she was gone from the beginning of November until this past Friday.  It took her 24 hours to find something to complain about.  Lunatics waste no time.

I think if there was not already a history of constant complaining, there might be a touch of legitimacy to this particular complaint, nitpicky as it is.  While the two months of peace were welcome, I find the return of the polish queen to be very unsettling.  Truthfully, I don’t like someone who constantly challenges my patience, who I know is going to frustrate me to the point of anger.

I don’t want to be that way.  After all, this is my neighbor, someone who essentially shares my every day existence.  I can hear part of her life.  I know that she hears part of mine.  She reminds me of it.. she waits for it.

That sucks.  When I saw that note taped to my door last night, my heart sunk.  I mean, really, seriously, this is that important to you?  A few footsteps on the floor in the evening, a chair making noise as it is pulled out is a disturbance to you?  FYI, oh queen who occupies and rules the space beneath me, there is already felt on the bottom of the chairs in my dining room and kitchen.  Furthermore, after the outburst she displayed to my daughter last October, I am worried that she is going to do the same to any guest that I have.  Honestly, how can I possibly be more quiet?

I know it doesn’t matter.  She wants to be queen.  She wants to not only rule her piece of our condo world, she wants to rule mine.

I want to be kind yet firm, understanding.  It’s not possible to be that way with this woman.  I chose to be firm.  I wrote out my response.

.. Your behavior is harassment, mean in nature,…Clearly, you are searching for reasons to complain…My behavior and habits as your neighbor are polite, certainly not deserving the terrible attitude that you are expressing to me…I should not have to fear upsetting you and should be able to have guests.  Any attempt by you to approach or speak to a guest of mine will be considered a threat.  I request that you do not speak to or attempt to communicate with any person who visits me.  I will call the police, possibly file a complaint.  I will pass on any note that you give to me, as well as my response, to our association and property management for record.  I will be kind, but within reason.

I made copies of my response, took it down to my neighbor, knocked on her door, handed the copy to her husband when he answered the door, requested the presence of his wife as I read my response.  I wasn’t going to just tape my response to her door.  I handed the copy to him, advised him what I was doing, stepped back and started to read the letter.

She started yelling at me.  I expected it, hoped it would not happen.  I felt my ire rising, especially when her husband exclaimed that “at 2 AM we heard footsteps”.

SO FREAKING WHAT was my response.  She started to yell back at me.  I told her to shut up, turned around at walked back up the stairs.  I did not want to be angry.

I sent a request to the property management to send a copy of her note and my response.  It was scanned and sent to them this morning.

I just want this to be over.

 

 

 

Foolishness

There are times when I wish that God would be more specific about this whole new body thing, the body we are going to have when we get to heaven.  Frankly, this 56 year old body sucks, even while what I have isn’t half bad for a guy my age.  Give me the body that I had when I was 18 and the mind that I have now, I will be completely satisfied for eternity.

Who knows?

My ego likes to remember what I was like when I was 16-17 years old (and a little older), when I was in the throes of my obsession with running.  While I wish that I would have been a little more committed to excellence, I loved to run and it showed.  By the time I was a junior in high school, I was one of the best middle distance runners in the state of Illinois and with the body that went with that talent.  Colleges took notice, but not enough.  I wasn’t that good, even though I was good enough to be setting school records in my events, on a team that would place second in State my senior year.

I wish that my memory could still remind me what it was like to be that way.  I was 6 feet tall, 160 pounds, with little to no body fat, a powerful runner without experience.  I could have been a lot better with what I had been blessed with, but maturity escaped me in a way that limited my potential.  Holy cow was I strong, though.  The local community college track coach sent his runners out to try to convince me to run with their team after I graduated.

I tried.  It was tough.  I practiced with them, found out what it was really like to run with serious athletes.

Bruce Springsteen has built a career around reminding us about our glory days.  I could write about them, bore people to death with them, and I probably have.

My body has changed over the years.  No longer do I have that muscled, lean body.  It’s something that seems like it never existed.  Yet, cycling has brought me back to a close representation of previous glory at times.  Never again will I achieve what I once had.

Does it matter?  No.

Yet the young man still runs inside of me at times.

 

Give It A Brake — Day Two

Tags

divorce, family, fatherhood

I am glad that I thought through this situation this morning.  Even more, I am glad that I prayed about it.  Of all that has happened the past year or so, my relationship with God has changed.  I am a whole lot more aware of how God is working in my life and in the lives of others, take a little more stock in that than I might have before, and it is showing in how I pray.  I pray purposefully, aware that God is right there with me, and it’s about as close to continuous prayer than ever in my life before.  It doesn’t mean that I am a spiritual genius, only that I am more aware of God’s involvement than I have ever allowed myself before.  Believe me, I am thankful that I am.  It changes my perspective, puts optimism in a day that would have dragged me into oblivion in years past.  I would like to think that I am a different person now.. and that is a very good thing.

Divorce has changed things as well.  Ironically, that too is a reason for optimism.

My son is still on break from college.  What does that mean?  It means that he is a typical 18 year old college boy — he sleeps until noon or later.  I know that I need to be intentional with him, know what I need from him, be persistent with him.  My son lives with his mother, not me, so I can’t just demand his attention.  In some ways, I need to respect his way of doing things, understand him, remember how I was at his stage in life.  Oddly, I have his mother’s ear more now than when I did while we were living in the same house and married.  Knowing that, I took advantage of it today.

I texted my ex wife, let her know what I needed.  To her credit, she asked me exactly what I needed for her to do.  What was my plan?  I let her know that I wanted our son to contact me, let me know his availability and come to me at my office.. today.  I would then go with him to the mechanic, help him with the paperwork and communication, then go back to my office while my son waited for the news on the costs and extent of the repair.  It would teach him, I knew, and was much better than me doing it for him.

That is what happened.  My ex wife roused our son, he called me,  I told him the plan.  He came to my office, I checked out his car, then he followed me to the mechanic.  He waited while I worked.  The mechanic gave the estimate (exorbitant — nearly $900 for what should have been a simple brake pad and rotor job).  My son called me, asked me what to do.  He was panicking.  I told him that we would pay the small inspection fee, I would contact the person we bought the car from, take it to him.

I called the guy we bought the car from.  His business is buying cars, rehabbing them, then selling them to dealers.  He assured me that he would fix my son’s car for far less.

To my son’s credit, he paid the inspection fee at the mechanic, came back to my office on his own.  We talked it over.  We actually talked it over.  None of this would have happened the same way a year ago.  I told him what I could afford and why I couldn’t afford doing everything the mechanic had suggested.  I explained what my own money situation is (strained, using money saved for other purposes).  He agreed to meet me tomorrow morning, when we would take his car back to where it was purchased, where it would be fixed.

His mother texted me when I got home from work.  Call me, she requested.  I did.  She offered to help.  After I picked myself up off of the floor, I thanked her.

There are reasons to be optimistic.

Give It A Brake

Tags

family, fatherhood

My phone rang around 4 PM this past Saturday, just as I was about to climb on my bike for an indoor spin.  It was my son with a question about his car.

“Dad, what does it mean when there is a constant squeak while I am driving?  I remember it happening on our car before.”

His question was an easy one to answer and I am glad that he has no problems asking me.  I explained to him that is the noise that brake pads make when they have worn out.  The next thing to happen will be a metal on metal crunching sound when he applies the brakes.  I told him to not drive his car, get the car to me on Sunday.  I would let him have my car while I either replace the pads myself or take them somewhere to be fixed.

Worn brake pads was a lesson that I learned when I was his age, when I had my first car.  I ignored the squeak of the worn pads, hoped the brakes would last until I could afford to fix them, ended up rear ending a car when my car wouldn’t stop.  We all learn lessons with our first car.  That was just one of the lessons that I had to learn the hard way.

I still have lessons to learn as a parent.  My son called me because he knows that I will pay to have his car fixed or will fix it myself.  That is not a bad thing.  I want him to trust me enough to call when he needs help.  What I am seeing right now is that I need to teach him to take responsibility for himself.  Instead of me taking care of this car repair completely for him, I need to guide him through it.  Will I pay for it?  Yes, although I am gritting my teeth as I say that — it has been a tough month financially.  I have learned to grit my teeth, remember that the Lord has always provided.  My parents provided that example for me, teaching me not only to take responsibility for myself but also to recognize what God provides.

So what do I do?  My son did not show up yesterday, of course, even after I reminded him.  Last night I called him, left him a voice message and asked him to get his car to a mechanic today.  I will come and pay for the repair.  He texted me back, said that his mom told him that he couldn’t come to me because his mom said it was too icy yesterday (it was icy).  This morning, I texted him back and asked him what his class schedule is today.  I told him that I want those brakes fixed today, so he is going to come by my office and I will go with him to get the car fixed.

I have an idea of how bad the brakes are, by the way.  An encouraging thing happened yesterday — my son came to church and brought friends with him.  I was out in the church parking lot directing traffic (I do that regularly) when he drove past.  I heard him coming since the loud squeak of the worn out brake pads preceded him.  He talked to me when I came inside, agreed to come by my place that afternoon.

He is a kid.  Of course he didn’t come by.

A Wild and Swinging Guy

Tags

dating, divorce, lessons learned, life, personal

Up to a few years ago, had I been in the life situation I currently am in and I participated in the activity that I am about to admit, it would have been admitted shamefully.. possibly even denied.  Me being the wild and crrrrrraaaazy guy that I am in a boldly electronic age, there is no shame to admitting it at all.

You guessed it already, I am sure.

Yes, I created an online dating profile.  Everyone does it these days, so the stigma no longer exists.  As a matter of fact, most people expect it.  Is it something that someone should do right after a divorce, while the ink on the decree is still damp?  IMO, it depends on the person and their motivation for dating.  So far, my experience is that many women wait years before they are ready to date, although that is not entirely the case.  Men don’t wait so long, often they don’t wait until the are divorced or even until they have filed for divorce.  On either side of the gender line, there are a host of people with improper motives.  There are just as many who are looking for companionship, with genuine good intent.

I would like to think that I fit into the genuine good intent category.  Early into separation, I discovered that no matter how used to being alone I thought I had become during the final years of my marriage, being alone on a weekend absolutely sucked.  Being alone sucked to the point of being depressing on a Friday and/or Saturday night, no matter what I did to try to fill the void.  I found that I dreaded the weekend.

Don’t worry.  It gets better.  Despite the sucky nature of being alone, it was good for me.  It gave me a chance to truly reach out to God that only desperation can do to a person, the rawness of my soul exposed possibly for the first time in many years.  The ugliness of my marriage had been an obstacle that had kept me from approaching God.  I needed healing and found it in those months following the marriage separation and divorce filing.  Maybe for the first time in a long, long time I felt good about myself, good enough to talk to God again, and I was able to work through those early lonely times.

I have to be honest — I didn’t wait until my divorce was final to create the online dating profile.  Yes, spiritually I was experiencing renewal, but I am a man and God created woman to bring companionship to man.  More than ever, if I was going to make it through the weekend without going completely bonkers, I needed to feel needed by someone soft and pretty.

Creating an online profile is definitely a humbling experience.  This man is 56 years old.  Suddenly, I was faced with the reality that I am not as pretty as I think I once was.  No longer do I have that full head of mullet.  There might be just a tad bit of gut occupying my mid section.  In order to create an online profile, there needs to be pictures of me.

There needs to be recent pictures — although I soon discovered that is not the rule for more women than I care to admit.  Please, girls, I need to see what you look like now, not what you looked like when you were 20 or 30 or even 40.  A man my age, if he is in his right mind, does not need a woman who is younger than he is or who is trying to look like she is 20.  I also do not want to see a selfie (or numerous selfies) taken from above, exposing your wrinkled cleavage.  Show yourself as you are, without trying to find your best side or to show a feature(s) that are potentially temporarily attractive.  While I like that you keep yourself in good shape, I do not need to see you jerk lifting the equivalent of a small VW.  It’s nice to see that you are handy, but your main profile picture does not need to feature you with your favorite hammer.  Harleys are great, but you aren’t going to like my version of a Harley.

What I soon discovered as I perused profiles of potential companionship is that genuine is rare in the world of online dating.  We all want to put our best side forward, a best side that we discovered as soon as we tried to create an online dating profile apparently no longer exists.  When I tried to find pictures of myself for my profile, I realized that not only do I have very few pictures of myself, the ones that I have are not my best side.  Suddenly I was faced with the dilemma, the paradox of putting out my best side while being genuine.  Being genuine is important to me.

So I took a few pictures of myself.  Here is the picture I took with my PC that made it as my profile picture.  It’s vague, but I liked it.

The picture was taken on the deck of my condo, with my favorite Cardinals jersey.  I still had the weight off from the months of slaving to get my house ready to sell, then making my condo inhabitable.  To me, it felt genuine and was a good representation of who I am, while showing my allegiance to my favorite baseball team.  While it is a pretty decent picture of me, it wasn’t showing a fictional representation of myself.  It is a picture of me, recent and relaxed, which is what I wanted to show.

Has online dating been a good experience for me?  There are plenty of people who write about their online dating experiences, most give a humorous yet negative perspective.  I have to admit that it was a learning experience for me.  Since I originally posted a profile before I divorced, I had to face some negative feedback at first, especially since I was honest about my status.  The creeps ruined it for us honest guys.  I also learned to sift through the responses, many with definitely unpure motives.  I kissed (without kissing) a few toads.

As my December 11 blog post alludes, I found someone who is not a toad.  My Saturdays are no longer dreaded.  As it turns out, the person that I found a connection with is genuine, real, without cleavage or Harley or weightlifting pictures.  Saturday has  become the day when I experience affection that I have not experienced for decades.  Is this woman perfect?  Probably not, although she is very pretty and a person who fits my values in many ways.  She really can’t give me anything but a Saturday night, which is good for me right now, just enough to take the edge off of the loneliness.  Since December, I have experienced a bit of pampering that I could only dream about previously up to November 15.  Is this going to be permanent?  Maybe not, maybe so.  All I know is this.

Online dating has been OK for me.

 

 

A Chirp Blog

Tags

biking, life

One of the things about riding a road bike that I forgot about is the incredible feeling that comes when the rhythm of turning the pedals becomes an inward action, a melding of soul and body.  If it sounds like I am making it up for the sake of poetry, think again.  Ask anyone who rides.  They will tell you the same.  There is no need for meditation or yoga as long as there is a bike to ride.

I get the same when I ride the trails, but it’s less about turning the pedals as it is the thrill of riding and taking in the peace of the woods.  Until a week ago Saturday, I was still able to ride the trails.  Snow and extreme cold had not yet come to the majority of the Chicago area.

It has now.  Not only is there snow on the ground, but temperatures are consistently sub zero or single digits.  Word is that the trails are great for fat bikes, but I don’t have a fat bike and really don’t want to ride my old 26er with studs.  Besides, I need to rediscover my road bike.  Training for my May 14th ride in the Carolinas needs to start now.

That leaves riding my old fluid resistance trainer indoors.  At first, it was like pulling teeth, the first few rides barely enough to break a sweat.  I ride with Netflix on my laptop, but that doesn’t do it for me.  Last Saturday, I went back to the old stand by — music.  It helped.  Each song becomes a goal, with my sight set on making it to the next song, and continue to through the next.  While my rides have progressed to thirty minute low resistance sweats, they are progressing, and I am finding that zen from turning the pedals again.  If I can make it through this month, I am likely going to be ready when the weather breaks enough to take to the road again.

Christmas brought me something that even makes me want to wear spandex again….