The website being down is killing me. How long before I just scrap the whole thing!? How do you run a business with the tech support these guys offer?
Why is it that mainstream news outlets have gone soft? It used to be that you could watch the 6:00 news and find out what was going on in your local area. By 6:15 they were done with the weather, moving on to national news. 6:25; sports and done by 6:30. At 6:30 the gossip shows like “Entertainment Tonight” took over for half an hour and at 7pm some national news program like “Nightline” came on for serious world wide news. You can get a recap of everything you missed on the 11pm news before Leno. I’m feeling my age because I still want to say Carson not Leno.
Now we get the news at 5pm and 6pm, 10pm and 11pm. The gossip shows have their own networks and primetime showings. With all of this time to fill, the news has gone from unbiased journalism and serious news to flighty and compassionate drivel. They give us ten minute fluffs on adopting a puppy or heartwarming stories about some lady giving up a kidney to a stranger in Zaire. The most gut-wrenching trend is this “celebrity news”. Treating people as if they are important just because they can (or can’t) sing or just because they are in our favorite movies… it’s just fucking stupid. Letting Don Henley or Paul McCartney sway you on how to vote. Do I give a shit about Don Imus? Does ANYone give a shit about Anna Nichole-Smith? Why do I know that Britney Spears is bald? I shouldn’t know this unless I was a fan. Is it really national news that Alec Baldwin had a fight with his daughter? In a day and age of wars, terrorism, political chess, nuclear threats and rogue nations, are they so hard up for news that the lead story is whether or not some bi-coastal rich kid ends up in therapy because daddy yelled at her? I’m absolutely sure that if a nuclear bomb went off in a foreign country killing thousands of people and Brad Pitt was caught fishing without a license, both on the same day, they would compete for airtime.
I hate television. My mother taught me that there are no bad words, only bad intentions behind the words. She never let me curse and swear but I learned early on that the words are not at fault. Mom forbid only one word in our house, “hate”. You were not allowed to use that word because it was too commonly applied to situations where “dislike” or “upset” should apply. Now, all that being said… I HATE what television has become. I really mean it so that is proper use of the word and my mom won’t be upset with me on that one I’m sure.
I had a pretty decent weekend. Busy like always but hey, what are you gonna do? I always bitch about being too busy but I wouldn’t have it any other way. Maybe a little more time in the weekend…
So Friday I got up and took the truck in for maintenance. While we were out we stopped in for breakfast at Panera Bread. All I wanted was a danish and a coffee. I saw the sign and it had the same damn stupid names for sizes that StarSchmucks does. I won’t start up on that because it’s a tired, old bit and it won’t play anymore but I REFUSE to order according to their stupid little chart. I asked for my pastry and a “small coffee”. I expected the guy to correct me and at that point I was prepared to jump over the counter and bleed him all over their cappuccino machine. I was going to pounce on him and beat him with stale bread yelling, “You’re a clerk behind a counter, not a fucking “Coffee Barista” and small does NOT equal tall in any sense of the word. Never ever, ever, EVER correct another customer with your uppity-bullshit-made up language again!” But, nothing happened. He took the order and gave me my cup all without any trouble. I was happy. Until… I went over to the self-serve coffee area and could barely find the coffee. Tea and flavored coffees all over the place but regular, caffeinated, coffee-flavored-coffee was in the back hiding like a relic from a forgotten time. Back when humans used to drink coffee and not mocha-latte-double-espresso-fuck-you-coffee. I had an enjoyable breakfast with Teresa and we left. On the way out the door, I threw away my empty coffee cup. I didn’t carry it around for a few hours so that everyone could see me with trendy coffee. Ok, I swore I wouldn’t play this tired bit again but damn, it gets me every time! And only because the two of you are waiting for it, “Foua bucks foa a cup a fuwkin cawfe!?”
Friday night we got to hang out with some friends for the whole evening. It was a rare treat. I got to relax and didn’t have to be anywhere. It didn’t stop me from feeling that way but I was able to tell myself to calm down. It felt weird, not having any pressure to perform like the dancing monkey I always feel like. I was able to sit and talk and really communicate. Talking as well as listening. I learned a lot I didn’t know. I forgot how fulfilling it can be to have full conversations rather than just a string of anecdotes. Normally Teresa is the only person I get to have any real meaningful discussions with. I enjoyed the company and the alternate points of view. It’s also nice to hear people tell Teresa the same stuff I’ve been telling her for a long time. She never listens to me but somehow, when it comes from other people, she listens. It’s like she knows there’s a bias when it comes from me. Baby, you really are beautiful, no matter who does or doesn’t say it.
Saturday I got up early and started working in the backyard. I did a lot more than I expected to do. I told Becca she had to work in the yard with me for an hour and a half. I figured I’d let her do some cleaning and then we’d work on her bike and I’d let her ride around for the rest of the time. I just wanted her outside rather than in on her computer or in front of the television.
The dogs have been chewing on tree branches. They have been dragging them onto the patio and knowing on these 6″ logs. So the backyard looks like it migrated up to the back door. Every time I move them back to the yard, they migrate again. So this time I started a fire. I burned almost every bit of scrap wood in the back yard.
While I was out there, I took down Becca’s old swing set. It hasn’t seen any use in the last two years. It was still stable enough to be good for use but rusty enough that you couldn’t really move it to someone else’s yard. I was out there with the reciprocating saw and found that the wood blades worked better than the metal blades for these empty pipes. I didn’t want to get rid of everything, I am sure I could use these pipes for SOMETHING. Nope, get rid of them. I would save everything if I could.
The next to go was her trampoline. It is a smaller one and too low to the ground for her to bounce on. The padding and netting were all torn up but the frame, springs and trampoline part all looked new(ish). So we decided to ask the new family on the block if they wanted it. They have two small children that are always riding their bikes up and down the street. We went out front and they weren’t home so we put the trampoline in front of my work truck and went back to work. About an hour later there is a knock at the front door. The two little kids are at the door asking what we are doing with the trampoline. Their mother is just walking up the driveway and I tell her that if she wants it, it’s hers. I tell her where she can buy a new net for it and we carry it over to her front yard. Becca was a little sad to see it go but she was happier knowing that someone was using it. Just like her daddy. I’d give away just about anything I have, as long as I knew someone wanted it and it wasn’t going to waste.
The only things I did save from the fire were a couple of solid 4×4 posts. I’m going to do some fence-work here soon and I know I’ll be using them. One of them was a long 14′ post in good shape. I dragged it over to the patio and cleaned it off. We decided it would be a perfect measuring device for her science project. We marked it off and she painted it black and white (alternating each foot) and we secured it to what is left of her swing set. Now she can shoot her Mentos/Diet Coke rockets into the air and we’ll have a way of measuring it. She never got above five feet but we also never restricted the opening. I’m going to show her how to make it shoot up really high when I get home. For anyone keeping score at home, her science project showed that the “Caffeine-free Diet Coke” was the best result. It shot almost a foot higher than all the others. So now we’re stocking up on the stuff.
I love a fire. It really is a soothing element to me. I just enjoy watching it consume everything down to a clean and empty end. I stopped feeding the fire around 2p and it was embers by 6p. We had to leave the house so as much as I hated to do it, I went out there with the hose to finish it off. I always prefer seeing it collapse on itself, burning up the last possible ember and winking out. But, with the dryness and the winds (two reasons I should never have had a backyard fire in the first place) I couldn’t leave the house without knowing that the fire was safely out and cold. I turned the embers with a shovel and hosed them down. It took a lot longer than I thought. Teresa was waiting to leave but the fire was hotter than I imagined and it took a good ten minutes to get it completely out. In the end, there was nothing but the half-burned remains of a giant log, some charcoal and a few springs. The springs were from some of the last notebooks I wrote in. When Teresa saw them and I told her what they were she was pissed. She was hoping she’d get to read some of my stories. I told her she didn’t want to read any of them, they were lousy shorts that I should have burned a long time ago.
So Saturday evening was “Ladies Night”. You know you are getting old and becoming “Dad” rather than “Chris” when ladies night is bowling with your daughter’s Girl Scout troop. We sat and cheered on the girls. I could only relax after each of them finally scored at least one pin. It took one girl until the fourth frame before she hit anything but the floor. Once they started getting into the groove, everything was cool. I was worried about Becca playing because she’s so damn competitive, but lousy at bowling. Every time we bowl with her, she gets upset and starts to really boil over by the middle of the second game. She did not have that problem this time. She was the second best bowler there. In the beginning it looked like she would walk away with all three games but one of the other girls gave her a run for her money. Becca won the first game but fell off from there. She had fun and that’s all she was supposed to do.
Just as the girls started their third game, a couple of the other parents decided to bowl a game in the next lane. It was me, the co-leader, the co-leader’s older daughter and another father. He was dancing the whole time and really having fun. He’s the one who started calling it “Ladies Night”. I played for fun, not really competing but trying to play within the abilities of the other players. Some people might call it sand-bagging, I prefer calling it playing under-speed. I’m not really much of a bowler but if we were to shoot pool, I’m much better at pulling this off. I sat there and watched the other three bowl and decided how well I had to hit this frame. I tried to call my pins (quietly to Teresa) and pulled it off pretty well. The other father was pulling away from me and I thought to myself that I was screwing around too much and lost the game. I picked up speed and going in to the tenth frame I needed to hit it low, like a three because I got a spare in the ninth, but then I’ll have to pick up the spare to get the extra ball in the tenth to win. See, strategy is not always about winning, to me it is about how to just BARELY win. Like by one point. So I throw the ball and I hit it harder than I thought and got a seven. Ok, I’ll just do it in reverse. A little less dramatic but I can still come close. As I’m walking back, everyone cheers. Somehow the last three pins fell down and I got the strike. Damn! Now I’ve already won and unless I getter the last two balls, I’ll win by a significant amount. It’s a good thing I wasn’t hustling for money or I would have come home with some broken fingers.
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