Whirlywind

Tags

life, marriage, personal, relationships

WHEW!

I made it. Life since December has been non-stop, mostly related to preparing my condo for selling, as well as wedding plans. Thankfully, Lisa relished the whole wedding planning process, so my job for the wedding was mostly to nod in agreement. I do that well. There were tasks I had to do, but mostly I just had to show up. The caterer was my big task, which I accomplished. Let’s face it, food really isn’t a challenge. Our guest list was small, intentionally, only 53 people, so ordering food was easy.

The condo prep was a lot of work, constant. After weeks of painting, replacing a floor, rehanging doors and doing some general cleaning, I was ready to hang it up. When the last baseboard was replaced, I vowed not to touch another hammer or paint brush for the rest of my life. Ha! Like that is going to happen. The kitchen floor, in particular, looked very nice. Lisa saw that and immediately the wheels started turning in her head with ideas for projects to do around our house (condo). At the beginning of February, my condo was ready to sell. The listing went active at 4 PM on a Sunday. Within minutes there were multiple requests for showings the next day. I worked from Lisa’s condo (next door.. short commute) Monday morning, to accommodate the showings, and was rewarded with two offers that morning. Another followed early that afternoon. Two were nearly $8000 higher than the asking price, and one of those offers was an as is offer. It was nice to be in a seller’s market!

I’m not sure how many showings there were the first day. Let’s just say there were a lot of showings, so many that I had to start turning down requests, allowed one more showing Tuesday morning before I accepted one of the offers. My realtor vetted the credit of each of the buyers, said all three had solid loans. After some discussion, I decided to accept the offer from a young man who is an elementary school band director. My daughter teaches band, so I figured he would be an admirable choice. A guy who teaches kids instrumental music all day likely needs a quiet place to live.

My place sold and appraised at a price $17000 higher than any other condo like it in our condo association prior. In a few short years, the value of my home increased nearly $60000. That may not sound like that much in today’s real estate market, but my condo was a small 1000 sq ft, two bedroom one bath unit with an attached garage. The equity was enough to make me feel stress free financially for the first time in what seems like an eternity.

I closed on the condo a little over two weeks ago. The four week period between the sale and the closing went quickly. Thanks to FB Marketplace, nearly all my furniture was gone quickly. Since I was moving into Lisa’s condo, all but a few items had to be sold or given away. It’s pretty amazing what people will buy if it is cheap. The worst items seemed to garner the most interest — a forty year old wobbly dresser and nightstand ($5 for the pair) sold in 10 minutes, with countless inquiries. I sold the dressers and nightstand in the master bedroom to a woman who fixes up old furniture and resells. She even helped me move it from my second floor unit to her van, came back to pick up the rest. When she saw some of the other stuff I had, she offered to buy some more items. I hated to part with one of those items, an outdoor bench that I had out on my balcony, weathered nicely, a home made project my dad made from an old headboard and footboard. I was touched by the immigrant couple who showed up in an old Toyota Corolla to buy the tattered full mattress and box spring I had. They drove an hour to pick it up, but it was obvious they were grateful for it. Neither spoke much english, but when I asked them if the bed was for their children they said no, it was for them to sleep on. They struggled to load the frame, comforter, sheets inside the car, then bravely strapped the mattress and box spring to the top of their little car. Somehow they managed. I felt a little guilty for taking $10 from them, tried to decline the cash, but they insisted I take it.

I moved some things into Lisa’s condo, but that was difficult, as her son still had things there. I planned to move the remainder of my things in a week before the closing, but when I went to her place to move, I found out that her son’s girlfriend had kicked him out the day before, so he had moved back in to Lisa’s. After the smoke cleared, and I had managed to hold my temper, we talked it out. She asked him to move his stuff out, which he did immediately. There will still things left, and he was still living with her, but I was able to move most of my stuff over. By the day before the closing, I had moved my stuff to OUR place.

For two weeks, I needed a place to live. I try to honor God and understand why it’s important to wait to live together until marriage. A couple we know from church, who also were studying with us to help prepare for marriage, offered to let me live in their garage loft until the wedding. The loft is his office, so it was a sacrifice for him to let me live there and work from there for two weeks. I am very grateful. Not only was it kind of them, but I really enjoyed getting to know Jim and Cindy better during the time I stayed with them. The loft doesn’t have a bathroom, so I saw them quite a bit, as they left their back door open for me so I could use their basement bathroom. I used that most of the time, but during the night there was no way I was going to stumble through the dark and into their house to use the bathroom. I got used to peeing in a cup!

The wedding was this past Saturday. I will save the details for another blog. We both remarked that night, after we were recuperating from the day, that the day was even better than anticipated. Lisa really plans well and it showed! Such a wonderful day. I am married now. As you can tell from the picture, she is gorgeous, and my jaw dropped when I say her appear in her short wedding dress. I don’t like most of the pictures of myself, as the winter was not kind to my physique! I will lose quite a bit of weight as the cycling season starts, thank goodness.

Life is good, better than I imagined it would be five years ago. A lot has changed. I am glad to be able to trust in God, because he has truly blessed me.

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream

Tags

anger, faith, God, life, marriage, marriage issues, relationships

I need to scream.  I am emotionally spent and I have no outlet.  I need to be comforted and hugged, but the one I thought would be there for me when I need her touch took that away from me a long time ago.. and she is the source of my frustration.

Where do you go when you need to scream?  What do you do?

I want to know.

Do you moan to God like David, at times feeling like God has rejected you?  I can relate.  I pray for relief, for change, and it seems like I am praying for naught.  My prayers feel empty.  I have yet to dance naked before God and everyone, like David did in his celebration.

Maybe that’s the answer?

Naaaaaa.

Do you spill your anger out on the people around you, the poison seeping from your pores, dripping from your tongue?  My mood threatens to turn black when the screams are trapped inside me, so much that I wish I could run from myself.  Instead, I run to a mirror, witness the distressed man that stares back at me, darkness lurking in his eyes, tears pooling.  Often enough, I am able to leave him there.

A bicycle provides escape for a time, each frustration shaved away as the pedals turn beneath me.  There was a time when the bicycle was the only outlet that I needed.  There are times when that is still the case, but more and more the screams stay with me.

I am not a violent man.  I can be an angry man, a man I have learned to fight simply because I know that I don’t handle the angry man very well.  Never am I tempted to strike out in an attempt to release the screams.  I am afraid of what might happen if I did.  I want to be angry with my words, but I don’t like to do that, so I hide my words away more often than not.  So I need to scream.  I want to scream.

I can’t.

I want to scream so loud that it all goes away.  The pain.  The want.  The sacrifice.  The woman who complains and takes, who gives so little back.

In a moment, I will retreat to an empty bed.  I will wake up to a still empty bed.

And I will live my day craving the opportunity to scream.

Some day it will happen.

 

January Doody

Tags

daughter, family, humor, marriage, Nick, sheltie

It’s the last day of January.  The quest to find the type of true meaning that keeps me off of the couch is still in full swing.  Last weekend the quest found me removing the danger of avalanche from my walk in closet, in the process I found myself.. weeping over lost tee shirts.   Then I came out of the closet.  I needed something to keep me out of the closet this weekend.

Over lunch, I made an announcement to my wife and daughter, one I am quite sure they were not expecting.

“I think I am going to clean up the dog poop in the back yard this afternoon.”

My daughter gagged on her lasagna.  Miriam looked at me quizzically (dang, I like that word).

“What are you going to do with it?”

Our daughter gagged on her lasagna again.

Dog poop removal has been a bone of contention in our household for many years.  My wife had asked a loaded question, one might say it was a crappy question, a reason for me to call her a turd.

Are husbands allowed to call their wife a turd?

She had really stepped in it this time.

I should probably take a quick step back, catch my breath (or hold my breath) for a moment.  Today was a very mild day for January in Chicagoland.  It was fifty degrees, cloudy and a bit damp, but otherwise balmy.  There is no snow on the ground, but the ground is still frozen, and Nick the Sheltie’s modest droppings are still solid ice.  That’s perfect shit scooping conditions, my friends.  Considering it has been since November since my last forage for feces, the build up was considerable.  Left on its own, the volume of dog muffins might just get out of control.  So, with proper urgency, my quest alarm went off as I observed the back yard while we chowed down on our lunch lasagna.  It sounded a bit like this in my head….  DUNG!!!!

Can you tell that I looked up synonyms for poop?

As I said, dog poop removal has been a bone of contention in our household for many years.  Mostly the job of removal has been on my shoes, especially since I am the one who carefully care takes the lawn.  During the summer, I usually scan the back yard for dog mines before mowing the lawn, although often enough I just hope that the mower chops it up.  There have been a few times where I unexpectedly found something squishing up between my toes.  Those were the days when I mowed in my bare feet, the brown mixing quite nicely with the grass stains on my feet.  Occasionally, though, Miriam will pick up poop.  I think she does it just to show me the proper way to forage for fecal matter.  In her mind, I don’t do it right.

Don’t go there…

That has happened before.  Garbage duty used to be my responsibility, but at some point I discovered that she was going out and rearranging the way I had arranged the garbage and recycling for pick up.  I let her, so much that somehow garbage duty became her doody.

There are so many synonyms for poop.

When she asked what I was going to do with it, what she was really asking was whether I was going to gather the frozen feces into plastic grocery bags.  That’s what she does.  Her idea is to throw those bags into the trash.  That doesn’t always happen.  Many a 90 degree summer day have I opened the door to our back yard shed to be knocked over by the stench from bags of dog poop.

My method is simple.  I browse the grassy knoll with spade in hand, scoop the deadly excrement until the blade is full, then carry it back to the corner of our garden.  I fling it up against the stockade fence where it scatters into the corner.  Dust to dust, one might say.

I answered the question of what I would doo with number two by saying that it would be the usual method of manure manipulation.

“That stinks!”  she exclaimed.

Our daughter took the rest of her plate of lasagna to the sink.

In the end, my method won out.  It was my job to do, after all, and I was going to poo it my way.  I didn’t give doodly squat what my wife thought.  As I started the job and observed the amount of accumulation, I can understand why Nick the Sheltie always tiptoes daintily in circles around the yard, fluffy tail held high in the air, as he performs his doody.  He’s trying to avoid the piles.

Another quest for couch avoidance has been accomplished.  I have done my doody duty.

Any suggestions for next weekend?

Quiet Saturday

Tags

family, fatherhood, God, life, marriage, parents, relationships

Saturday morning quiet is where I exist at this moment.  My family, including the dog and cat, are resting comfortably in their beds upstairs, asleep after their late Friday night revelry.  Alyssa is home for a short two day visit, snuggled up with her mother in her bedroom last night for a pajama party as I ventured down the hallway to bed, a quick “good night” as I stuck my head in to check on them.  The MacBook was out and ready for what was most likely a Gilmore Girl marathon.  Nate was perched in his usual spot, Xbox blazing and cell phone out as he kibitzed with his teenage buddies.  I got out of bed around 5 this morning to shut his bedroom light off, his Xbox controller still in contact with his outstretched fingertips on the bed next to his snoring carcass.  He won’t stir until at least noon today.  There is probably another hour of quiet left in my morning, the girls and animals likely will emerge from the chrysalis of sleep about mid morning.

Me?  I’m plotting my day’s activities as I write.  Last Saturday was a ice/snow ride in the woods, today too warm and sloppy for a ride in the woods.  Sloppy is not what I prefer.  My road bike needs a new hoop for the rear wheel, so it’s not going to come out of the garage.  An old Univega hybrid, once the bike I road almost exclusively for my work commute, is hanging from the garage rafters and waiting to be reconditioned.  Today seems like a good idea to start that project, perhaps an hour or so ride on that bike is in order.  Tax documents also are ready for me, so I may dive in on that chore later on today.  Doing the taxes is not something that I loathe, but it’s one of those chores that I like to get out of the way early.  With a child in college, the FAFSA requires the information from a completed and accepted tax return, so there is extra motivation to get the taxes done early.

In that Alaska coffee cup is a perfect brew of Starbucks Italian Roast.  If the coffee is portioned correctly for the brew, a task I have somehow perfected as of late, the sweetness of the dark roast is further enhanced by the sweetener added.  There are two sips left in my third cup of that brew, almost intoxicating to me on a morning like this.  When the seal breaks, I will get a head start on my Saturday workout.

This year has already given me opportunity to struggle with a tough decision.   That Alaska coffee cup reminds me of that decision, one that I finally made a little over a week ago.  “Finally” is a necessary word for this story because the initial decision wasn’t accepted, forcing me to reconsider and make a stronger case for the decision.  I debated with myself as well as my wife for more than a month before making the announcement — I am not going to Alaska with my family this June for a wedding.

A few months ago, our daughter was asked to be a bridesmaid by her cousin for her June wedding.  We have known for several months about the wedding, excited for Mir’s family and her niece.  Inga has lived with us several times over the years, a happy little blonde pixie who I love like she is my own daughter.  Her father, Dan, is one of my favorite brother-in-laws (I have four) mainly because our personalities and interests are very similar.  When we found out about the wedding, my wife was supposed to be putting away money from her paycheck for the trip and airfare.  January came, time to buy the plane tickets if they were going to be affordable, her sisters putting the pressure on her to buy the tickets now.

One problem — my wife has not saved a penny for the plane tickets or trip.  I can’t pay for them as my paycheck pays all of our bills, little to none in the budget from my pay to save for a trip to Alaska.  I get paid twice a month, the first paycheck going towards the major bills with just enough left for fuel and food, the second covering the rest of the bills (car payment, cell phones for wife/kids, etc).  Besides air fare expenses for the trip, there are going to be plenty of expenses for the 11 days that my wife wants to stay in Alaska.  Not only is my wife not saving money for the plane tickets, she is not regulating her spending, often going through her pay so quickly that she is borrowing from our joint account (my paycheck.. hers goes into her own account).

The other problem was the time away from work needed for the trip.  When I said no to the Alaska trip the first time, which was a few weeks ago, time away from work was the reason that I gave.  If I went for the full trip, it would mean 8 working days away from my job.  In a three person office, at the height of our busiest time of the year, it would be a bad thing.  My boss flinched when I told him I needed to take 8 days in June.  He was fair to me, said it was my time to take but hoped that I could at least reduce some of that time.  That probably meant going just for the wedding and coming home early, without my family.  Unfortunately, the discount plane tickets had to be purchased in pairs and those two people would be required to travel together.  After a good deal of wrestling with the details, I decided that the expense and time away just were not justified for a wedding.

I hated making the decision.  I honestly did.  I like my wife’s family (for the most part) and it would be great to see my daughter decked out as a bride’s maid.  Her family feels the same way about me and offered to pay for my plane ticket.

Part of the struggle is knowing that I know there are changes that need to be made in my family if my marriage is to survive.  One big change is our finances.  Our resources need to be managed better, spending decreased, budget seriously adhered to, debt reduced (not increased).  That meant (means) not spending more money on the Alaska trip than is needed.  If I do not go, my wife and kids won’t need a rental car or hotel, as well as other expenses reduced.  My son likely won’t get to do the fun things with his father, but more than likely will spend more time with his cousins as a result.  The girls will be consumed with the wedding details for at least half of the trip.  So I presented the hard financial facts to my wife, showing her that best case scenario of savings from my pay would be $400 by June.  I would have to turn down the kind offer of her sister paying for my plane ticket.  She would borrow the money from her sister for her air fare and for our children’s air fare, something that I have real doubts she will be able to repay, especially if she is going to be able to save for expenses during the June trip.

The second time that I said no, my wife agreed with one condition — I would have to tell her sister that I was not going and would not be accepting the money for my plane ticket.  My wife wanted me to email her sister.  I thought about her request, initially bristling, but after a little consideration welcomed the chance to explain to her sister why I was not going.  I didn’t email her, I called her, explained my desire to convey how serious I am about our family finances.  We need to learn to live on what we have.  This is an opportunity to convey that message in a way that shows how serious that I am.

This is a decision that really makes me feel like the bad guy.  I don’t like being the bad guy.  I am one of those people that wants to always be the good guy, enough that I sometimes do not make the hard decisions that I need to make.  Before I made the decision to forego the Alaska trip, I called the person I trust the most in my life, my father.  Dad listened to me, told me that he understands why I need to make the decision, especially considering all he knows about my marriage.  Dad did not tell me what decision I needed to make, but he told me that I was thinking along the right lines, that my reasoning was sound.  He said that there are both positive and negative consequences from the decision, thus the struggle, but the potential positive likely outweighs the negative.  And he said one thing to me that stuck — Steve, you need to make a decision like this one right now.  I thanked him sincerely for the encouragement and for listening to me.  My father has learned to listen to me in the last few years.. and he always tells me that he and my mother pray for me each day.  If you do not know the assurance that the knowledge of someone praying for you gives you, you are missing something.  It is strengthening.

The decision has given the message to my family that I am serious about the money we spend.  The past two weeks, I have put together a day to day menu with a grocery list on Sunday.  I do the grocery shopping, cook most of the meals.  There has been resistance, but the message is being delivered.  It gives some strength to my no response when someone, usually our son, wants fast food or a pint of premium ice cream, luxuries far too common for him (as in daily luxuries).  The next step will likely be eliminating the funds available in the joint checking account, opening my own checking account and leaving only enough cash in the joint account to pay bills.  I am tired of financial stress.

There is a full blog, a ton of information.  Now to start on that bike (I won’t be changing out parts — no money in the budget for that!!!).

Coffee is gone.  Day is ready for me to move…..

Furnace Envy

Tags

attempted humor, maintenance, marriage

“Do you actually have to take notes for this?”

I tried just a little to mask my sarcasm, soften my voice just a little, tried to discover a bit of amusement in the fact that my wife was standing next to me taking notes on a notecard while I showed her how to use a back up battery to jump start the family van. 

“This is just like using jumper cables and the battery posts are color coded with those felt discs.  See?  Connect the cables, turn the dial on the box to jump start, and give the battery a minute or so to build up a charge.”

My wife was feverishly drawing a diagram on the note card.  In 21 years, I have shown her how to jump start a car many, many times.  The thought ran through my head that I had best not die.  Anything breaks or quits in the house, my wife would be lost without me.  Clueless is probably a more accurate word.

Last night I dealt with the furnace repair man, my concession after spending Sunday messing with the furnace, conceding after confirming that the ancient 30 year old contraption (the nameplate screamed 1983 at me when I looked at it) was literally breathing its last breaths.  I had hoped that the repair man could at least provide a cheap fix to help us limp through the winter.  He confirmed my worst fear.  The control circuit board was failing, a part that costs in the neighborhood of $700.  The heat exchanger was old and rusted but not rusted through.  A new furnace will cost far more than I want to consider right now, but will probably have to try.  Even with financing, if we can get financing, $4000 is too much even if spread out over a few years.  I understood what the repair man was telling me, thanked him and paid him the service fee, told him I would look into my options (probably will have to find a way to do the replacement myself).

When I broke the news to my wife, suddenly she became an expert, wanted to tell me what was wrong with the furnace.  The woman who just that morning had refused to deal with a repairman during the day instantly knew what was ailing. 

“Oh, my sister knows somebody who had the same problem and they just replaced a switch.”

“Uh huh”

Don’t get me wrong, but let me take notes while you take apart our furnace and figure out what is wrong…..

Instant Karma

Tags

marriage, technology

I was raised in an instant world.

Knowuttimean?  Vern.

That last comment came out nowhere.  Sometimes I just have to speak in Ernest.

My generation was born into an American culture that transformed from black and white to color, Ovaltine to Nestles Quick, theater to VHS to DVD to streaming video, Encyclopedias to Wikipedia, Gomer Pyle to pay at the pump, stove to microwave, diners to fast food drive through.  My generation has gradually become accustomed to having it now and has raised another generation which in turn is raising another generation to expect all to be available at their fingertips.

Patience is no longer a virtue.  Those who are willing to wait are simpletons stuck living in the past.

One way I can tell that my wife has transitioned into a true American is by her incredulous insistence that all things must be instantaneous.  For instance, when Miriam is using the family computer, I avoid our office and even occasionally leave the house completely, lest I am summoned to help her out and listen to her complain.

“This internet won’t do anything” (click click click click click… click……… CLICK)

I usually walk in to see the Windows start up screen transitioning or an icon at the top of the window indicating that her task is loading.. but she just clicked the mouse so many times that is never going to happen.

“Just walk away from the computer and come back in a minute.”

“Can’t you just fix it for me?”

There is no explaining that the only thing broken is patience.

She just called me to ask me why the furnace won’t go off.  Our daughter and a friend are filming in our house for a school project.  The furnace makes too much background noise.  I asked her if she shut the furnace off at the thermostat.

“Yes, but it’s…. oh, … never mind.”

I didn’t have to explain that it takes about the same amount of time as dialing a cell phone for the thermostat to respond.  And I probably shouldn’t even tackle the whole cell phone issue.  Cell phones have given a whole new meaning for every husband to the phrase “you can run but you can not hide”.  My wife knows because the cell phone knows.. and if that thing rings god forbid if a husband doesn’t answer it (and right away).  And with smart phones becoming the norm these days, everything is literally available at the fingertips.

I am considered a dinosaur and snubbed by many a smart phone user, sneers directed at me as the user raises their phone in my general vicinity but the gaze unable to lose the attention of whatever vital information is being viewed on said phone.  Yes, I am a flip phone user.

“But how do you text?” you might be asking.  Many do.  My children scoff at me and condescendingly offer their text secretary services to me on a regular basis.

It’s not a disease if you can’t whip off a text message in two seconds.  I manage.  But my text messages are not immediate responses.  My wife or my daughter often send me two or three texts while I am attempting one reply.

Wut r u doing r u thr I rlly nd u to pck up some hair stuf for me now

K

The church I attend has even joined the instant age.  No longer is it necessary to write a check or pull some cash out to place in the offering plate or bag as it is passed by the ushers.  Noooooooo.  Scan your cell phone as you come in or use the offering app from the church website.  Offering time during the church service is beginning to resemble a rock concert (my church has been a rocking church for some time), cell phones lighting up all over the auditorium, a mix of old and new fashion as the offering bags are passed amongst glowing smart phones.

I wonder where this is all heading.  Marriage by internet? I actually like that idea.  The ceremony could not have gotten over fast enough in my humble male opinion.  Yes, there is such a thing as a humble male.  What will my children be telling their children?

Before delivery drones we actually had to walk into a place called a “store”, pick up the thing we wanted to buy, carry it to a place called a checkout cash register, pay for it with something called “money”, and carry it in a bag into our house.

Wow, Dad!!!!

 

People Are Interested In My Mom’s Underwear

Tags

fatherhood, marriage, parents, underwear

There are times when it is perfectly clear to me why a certain blog I have written is read more than others.  In my world that means that the blog entry gets read a hundred times or more.  My blogs, especially here at WP since my appearance here nearly a year ago, have been a lot more personal, my angst thrown in so much that it keeps me from really wanting to publicize my blog.  Sooner or later that will need to change.  I want to have fun with my writing, get away from therapeutic writing, challenge myself a bit more.  When I write a personal blog, I do not expect it to be read much, expect that it will likely drive away readers.

I like comfortable clothes, especially this twenty year old corduroy pullover that my Mom approves of, my daughter hates.

Occasionally I will write a blog that reflects the passion I felt as I wrote the blog.  Over the years, not necessarily on WP but on other blog providers, I have had a few blogs that were read by so many people that I could not keep up with comments.  One blog that I wrote about being the only white family at a Baptist church service, even made its way to the hands of a Chicago radio station and was read during a discussion about reverse racism.  I caught part of the discussion, heard my blog being read, and had one of the coolest experiences I have had as a blogger.  Passionate blogs like that don’t come very often.

I like that stats feature offered by WP.  Like most bloggers here, I check my daily stats regularly.  My numbers are no where close to staggering, so there is no pride there, but what I do see is what blogs are read on a regular basis.  Since I have the time right now, I took the opportunity to see which blogs have been read the most since I began writing here.  There was one I was interested in seeing the numbers on, a blog I wrote a little over a month ago, one I see pop up as being read every day and more than once.. and not by me.

Moms and Underwear

People must be interested in my Mom’s underwear.  Or underwear.  Or Moms.  I am not sure why.

There are reasons why the blog is one I enjoyed writing and enjoy reading.  For one, I can see how my perception of my parents’ relationship has matured, my understanding evolving as I experience marriage, as my interaction with them has gone from child to adult.. although I am clearly still their child.  I also can see how my appreciation for my father is increased, important to me not only as a son, but also as the father of a male child.

Want to know what my boy said to me last weekend, as I sat and listened to him angrily spew his teenage perceptions of me?  I want you to see the word I used — listened.  Instead of react to what he was saying, I wanted to hear what he was saying to me instead.

Dad, I think you are a really good dad, most of the time you are better than other dads, but I don’t think you are being a good dad right now.

I know what he is going to remember because I know what I remember about my own dad.  I remember the positive my dad offered to me — the support, the freedom to learn about life on my own and the care to offer his take when I asked for it (wish I had asked more), a unique ability to never shove my mistakes down my throat.  It didn’t hurt that Dad was also an excellent baseball player, just as cool to me then as it is now, as well as a talented amateur carpenter who built houses for his family even while working a full time job as a computer systems analyst.

Dad also shared with me and showed me more about his relationship with my mother than I realized.  He was frank with me without asking me to take a side, praising her, worrying about her, letting me know that there were things about her that were a challenge to him, but somehow doing that in an acceptable way.  Now, when he talks to me about her, I can go back in my memory, see where they were and how they got to where they are as a couple today.

I like that underwear blog for that reason.  That blog reflects what I have observed about my parents and their relationship.  Mom was sick when I wrote that blog, Dad adapting to her being sick and enthusiastically taking on the caregiver role with her.  That time was painful for Dad, a struggle, and it showed to me the strength of a relationship that will survive into eternity.  No wonder that blog is one of my favorites.  Maybe that is why others are reading it.

Mom is a whole lot better.  I talked with her at length on the phone this past Monday.  Maybe the best way to close this blog is with a quote of something she told me in that conversation:

“Steve, I can’t wait to start cooking again.  I miss baking my pies and all the recipes I used to make.  I hope I remember how to cook them.  But your Dad is having such a good time in the kitchen, I am not sure I am going to be able to get him out of my way…..”

The Road To Stir Crazy Starts Here

Tags

customer, customer service, Farmers Insurance, fatherhood, marriage, medical leave, procrastination, recovery, stuff, writing

I’m telling myself that writing a blog this morning will get the gelatin that may be called my brain jiggling enough to start back writing the greatest American novel.  My bar is set high.  It’s set high enough for this 6’1″ tall man to walk under it without combing my ear hair down.

The coffee is kicking in.  I can feel the jello vibrating a bit more right now.  Woooooook.  That feels good.  This really was a good idea.

This is the second week of medical leave for me, part two.  Those who have been following along are aware that there was a part one last January, three weeks for foot surgery that left me physically incapacitated until nearly May.  Notice that I say physically incapacitated.  Let’s not get that confused with my usual mental state.

As I write, I am waiting for the morning circus to begin.  I am downstairs in the kitchen, the place where many of the pictures I use for this blog are taken (I will use one for this blog).  My coffee is just the right temperature, the Cream of Wheat cooling, Chester the cat sitting on the chair opposite me peering out the sliding glass door of the deck.  We both enjoy the early morning quiet.  Chester also likes the morning birds, his bird meow a pure joy to me.  We both know that in a few moments our revelry will be interrupted by first an overly anxious Miriam as she goes through her morning rituals to get out the door, followed by Alyssa as she arrives fresh and ready to take the food and coffee her mother shoves at her, then Nate will amble in with shuffling feet to slip his shoes on.  I try not to smile as he tells her to chill.  He always does.  That is something he has learned to do this year.  Last year he would have been panicking along with her, a perfect duo.  This year is different, a calmer boy prevailing, one that went from a D & F grade student to an A & B student this year.  Hmmmmm.

Thinking about Nate in that light, well, it gets that brain gelatin vibrating a little more.  He has changed in one aspect of his life.  Maybe there is hope for the way he and I relate.  After all, he did tell me this past weekend that I am a very good dad.. and in the same breath said he did not think I was being a very good dad at the moment.  As Nate I heard that, I couldn’t help but process the positive in that while also admiring the way he said it.  Now what lead to and followed that moment was not positive, but I chose the passive and mostly silent response, listening better for the both of us than me reacting.  This past Saturday and Sunday was packed with a spousal contradiction, can of Mountain Dew bursting, frank discussion before church, tornadoes, delayed football game, TV battle, video game irritation, soul search, rainbow contemplation.  By Sunday morning I did not want to be in the house, the conflict so overpowering that my recently repaired gut was complaining mightily.  Thankfully there was the week gleaming on the near horizon, my experience from medical leave part one enough to keep my head straight.  I knew that Monday morning would return me to healing, including the damage the conflict was trying to inflict on me during the weekend.

That may be why I came into Monday morning with energetic enthusiasm, my gut still feeling the surgery from a week ago but not as much as it had over the weekend.  One of the challenges of the weekend had also been mechanical problems with the family van, so I had to make sure my PT Cruiser ran well enough for Miriam to drive, which it did.  The PT has become the problem child that requires me to stay a step ahead of it, which I do, but Miriam is not familiar with the PT’s quirks.  I needed to drive the family van, an aging Nissan Quest with lots of upside in spite of it just plain showing signs of wearing out.  150K miles does that to a vehicle no matter how good it is.  My friends from Panera had been sending me messages hinting that they hadn’t seen me for a while and wanted to know how I am doing.  How can I resist that?  I can’t.  It makes me feel like the celebrity I am not.  They are the only people, for the most part outside of my old blogs, that have heard (not read) a portion of my fictional writing and for some reason they seemed to like it.  Either that or they are just really nice people who are just encouraging me, which they are, but I like to hold a bit of hope that maybe they really did like what I wrote and read to them.  So off I went to Panera in the family van after using the jump charger to bring it to life, the displays and headlights dim until the battery was charged enough to support the vehicle’s accessories.

Monday was the day I got stuff done.  Even though I had the benefit of quiet while the kids were at school, I spent the day doing the tasks that I normally would not be able to devote my attention to.  In the office or even at home with my family around, it is near impossible to get the privacy to get issues that must be resolved over the phone done.  One task hanging over since the middle of September was a final premium bill from Farmer’s Insurance that was ridiculous from a fairness point of view (so much so that I had no issues in questioning it — sometimes I feel that the other side has its reasons) and presented to me with such a mean spirit that I could not believe it.  To make the story short (unlike this blog), after a week of wrangling with Farmers over a doubled auto premium that was going to come due again in less than two weeks, I had to cancel simply because Farmers was dragging their feet to try to resolve my issues with the doubled premium.  On the second business day, I received a bill from Farmers Insurance for the final premium — due upon receipt.  And I received a collection notice for that bill this past Friday.  So I called Farmers on Monday, negotiated an automated phone tree that seemed very much designed to handle anything but any customer with service issues, spent a lot of time on hold, negotiated firmly with a nice but stubbornly company line customer service associate who eventually turned me over to someone in accounts who had the power to resolve my issue with the final premium bill.  She did what should have been done in the beginning, applied payments and the discounts due to me, and issued a refund instead of a bill.  Had I not had the time (it took close to two hours), energy, privacy, and rest that call required from me, it likely would not have been resolved.

When one has the time and the rest that provides more control over the calm, one can take the deep breaths necessary to stop, advise the person on the other end of the line that you have reached the point where you are going to be upset.  I have learned that one.  It works.  You don’t have to yell and it’s fair to the person on the other side, who probably hates that they don’t have the power to help you the way you need to be helped, take a deep breath also and let their brain work enough to figure out a solution.  Sometimes a customer service person does not have the power to help, so I let him know that it did not have to be him that provides the resolution, but maybe another department or supervisor could.  I could almost literally hear the bell go off.  He told me he had an idea, was going to put me on hold for a while, came back to check in and let me know that the accounts person was working on it, then came back a few minutes later with her on the line.  Bingo.  In a few minutes, my situation with Farmers had gone from adversarial to peacefully and positively resolved.

There is no way I would recommend that company, no way I would do business with them again — there was too much trouble necessary to reach resolution.  There is a lot of my life I will not get back from that tiny refund.  A customer focused company would have been able to resolve my issues within five minutes, not the countless time and phone calls that resolution required, as well as the energy retaining my patience required.

It’s nice to ‘win’.  That changed my outlook on Monday.  By the evening, I no longer felt sick.  I had turned a corner.  I relaxed.

So what did I do yesterday?  Very little.  I did learn a little.  Online video games are changing the mindsets of the immature.  I am not talking about myself.  I am talking about 8 to 14 year old boys trying to cuss and talk like military hardened soldiers.  I played a lot of Call of Duty online yesterday, something I play as a game (play Call of Duty online sometime and you will know why I highlighted the word game).  Children and adults used the terms nigger, fuck, shit, dick, suck, eat me, gay, etc. so much that I had to use the mute feature of the game or quit in disgust.

However, I am now friended in the game by a black teen who calls himself “MyNigga”.  He calls me “Old White Nigga”.  Word.

What am I going to do today?  The bad weather here in the Chicago area ripped a large section of shingles from my back yard shed.  I may be able to do that without hurting myself.  Mir thinks I should not do that.  I may listen to her on that one.  I may be having a good week, but another week will drive me to the stir crazy world of allworkandnoplaymakesjackadullboy.  I am trying to write, after all, and that is my plan for the day.

Off to the shower.  I will leave you with a picture of my dog child Nick, who I just had to go outside and force back inside.  He loves cold weather and is waiting for his beagle friend from next door, Casimir, to come outside and play.  Nick stays in the unfenced yard until he gets a little stir crazy.  Like human, like dog.

(Some quick notes on this blog — 1.  Don’t think I don’t notice the attitude I have regarding my wife, the way I portray her in this blog shows in the way I describe her, phrases like “overly anxious”.  I am aware of it but am not sure I can change it.  There is a lot of prayer going on to address it, but I am not at the point where I want to change it — mainly because I am at the point where I am sure it can not because she is not going to change.  I am going to try to stop writing about that.  2.  To those who read this blog through the FB link, I may not link to a blog any more if I deem it too personal.)

Nick did not want to come inside, refused to, so unlike my usually master pleasing pup.

Marriage is not about the other person

Tags

fatherhood, guy stuff, marriage, reality, relationships

I just read a blog that seems to be going viral right now, reposted on WP and FB by several friends.  The blog is titled “Marriage Isn’t For You”, written by a young man who wants to share the advice given to him by his father as that young man struggled with the questions any one has while engaged — is marriage for me?  The advice, in a nutshell, was that marriage (and love) is best when it is about the other person.

I and a lot of people can’t help but agree.  In principle I do wholeheartedly agree.  And it was good advice at the time it was given.

As usual, I couldn’t help but throw my two cents in.  My comment:

The advice you received is good advice to build a marriage on, in my mind a restore point that you can come back to at any place along the marriage continuum.  I have been married 21 years, with two kids, and experience has taught me that the only way to be in it for the long haul is to learn to put self aside.  That seems to really be what you were told.  Put self aside.  Not an easy thing to do, especially since there will be times when it feels like that is all you are doing.

So you need to learn to say to yourself that it’s OK for marriage and fatherhood to be about you now and then.  It really does need to be.  The advice you received is only part of the picture.  You also got married because you found someone who you know wants your marriage to be about you.  You know her well enough already that you know she has learned that, that she will be able to come back to that point you are at now.

What I just said may be difficult to understand for those who don’t have the experience.  Trust me. It’s true.

It doesn’t take much knowledge about me to understand my reasoning in the comment.  For years I have struggled to accept not being a priority, the concept of marriage being about the other weighted too much in the direction of my spouse.  While I understand and even relish the role of provider/husband/father, I have come to the point where it just needs to be about me now and then.  That is not selfish.  No one can exist without reward.

Why do I have a vision of myself guarding a red stapler right now?

Sometimes you have to reward yourself.  After 22 years of marriage, advice my own father gave to me becomes more and more true each day — “Son, if she isn’t going to make it about you at all — and she doesn’t in my opinion — then you have to just make it about yourself.  Find ways to make yourself happy.  Do your own thing.”

This past weekend was an example of what I have learned — sometimes it’s OK to reward yourself.  In a marriage where my own thing isn’t always acceptable, even viewed as a sin, I just need to do what I want to do.  Go out with the guys.  Have that beer now and then.  Ride my bike.  Go somewhere without my wife or family.  This weekend I went on a trip five hours away to southern Indiana for a mountain biking trip with two friends, Jim and Jon.  We had an absolute blast.  It was my last hurrah, my surgery postponed until the middle of November so I could take the trip.  We did what we wanted to do, which was ride our bikes off road five and a half hours on Saturday, five hours on Sunday.  Boy, did I need that.

And trips like that is what may help my marriage to survive another 22 years.  My wife has had to learn to encourage me to do things like I did last weekend, have my own time, accept it.  Years ago I would have spent the weekend and the days leading up to it living a guilt trip before I even packed my bags.  I came home to perhaps might be the first time in quite a while where I felt this whole thing might just be about me too.  I need that.  Every husband, every wife, needs that.  Do we need to reciprocate?  You bet.  But if we’re not getting it back, even the strongest won’t survive.

I am convinced …

Tags

marriage, snoring, toots

I am convinced that many men start snoring when they are older because it’s nature’s way to provide camouflage for bedcover blasts.

Author Withheld Because He May Be Me