Addemdum to Yesterday's Post

Just to follow up. Today, I got a call from my son whose name is the same as "New Guy Who Doesn't Have A Nickname Yet". That is to say, I answered a call that was placed to my wife's cell phone. She and I are now sharing a cell phone to keep costs down. I had the phone with me at work just in case she had a relapse and needed me.

So I answered the call and "My son whose name is the same as 'New Guy Who Doesn't Have A Nickname Yet'" said "hey, What ya doing?" I answered, "I'm just on my way home for lunch." "Oh, so you're keeping Mom's phone?" he replied.

Is that code for "I guess I'm gonna have to call the home phone to talk to Mom"? Hmmmm. Am I seeing a pattern? :-)

Is what you hear what you heard?

So, when the phone rings, I don't normally pick it up. I never have. I mean why? It's never for me and if it is, it usually means it's work. So the normal routine around our house is for me to look at caller ID and say, "Honey it's for you". This system has really worked well for years and years. That is until this last week. Yup, I wife has been very, very sick. She hasn't been physically able to answer the phone and I have had to move my lazy butt.

Today the phone rang and I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was probably "My Daughter Who Moved to the Bottom of the World and Changed Her Name to a Flower". So, since I was closest to the phone and my wife is just now barely moving, (she was really sick), I answered with a cheery, "Hello". "How come you're home?", said My Daughter Who Moved to the Bottom of the World and Changed Her Name to a Flower. "I'm always home at 4:00pm", said I. "Oh, (pause), I know, I just forgot that when it's morning here it's not morning there." Now that was a quick recovery except for the fact that if you time your call to avoid someone who should be at work... Hmmmm.

To be fair I have been intercepting my wife's calls but only because she just couldn't talk. And 4:00pm here is 8:00am where My Daughter Who Moved to the Bottom of the World and Changed Her Name to a Flower lives. Which means she just got up and was out of it.

So is what is heard what I heard? Naa. You could hear the tiredness in her voice. I wish I could sleep in till 8 am. :-)

Has the worlds greatest mystry been solved?

For at least 50 years the modern world has struggled with a nagging mystery. Where do those darn socks go once you put them in the dryer? If you put 8 pairs of socks in the dryer you only get 7-1/2 pairs back. This mystery has baffled mankind until now.

I stumbled upon the possible answer quite by mistake. I was actually trying to find out where cups, plates, spoons and forks go. Our dishwasher seemed to be dissolving them. The more we put in the dishwasher the less we put in the cupboard and drawer. As it turns out the there is a simple explanation for our dish disappearance phenomenon. Our dishwasher is also a "Dirty Dish Teleportation Unit" or DTU.

We knew when we purchaser our machine that there were features we didn't understand. I have determined that one of these feature is the "I'm too full" feature. If we load too many dishes in our dishwasher a certain number of them are teleported into our basement and accumulate on a night stand. Now it's interesting that the teleporter feature just works on dirty dishes. However, you wouldn't want clean dishes being teleported into the basement, they would just get dusty and they would have to be cleaned again. I guess Maytag is trying to be green. Anyway mystery solved!

I'm assuming that the same thing goes for my socks I just haven't found the teleportation location. Hmmmm.... Maybe I should look in the same room :-)

So has the world's greatest mystery been solved???

Should We Go Back?

So read these lyrics

Lyrics to "Until You Come Back To Me" :

Though you don't call anymore
I sit and wait in vain
I guess I'll rap on your door
tap on your window pane
I wanna tell you, baby
changes I've been going through, missing you
'til you come back to me that's what I'm gonna do

Why did you have to decide
you had to set me free?
I'm gonna swallow my pride
and beg you to please see me
I'm gonna walk by myself
to prove that my love is true, all for you
'til you come back to me that's what I'm gonna do

Living for you, my dear
is like living in a world of constant fear
hear my plea
I've gotta make you see that our love is dying

Although your phone you ignore
somehow I must explain
I'll have to rap on your door, tap on your window pane
I'm gonna camp by your steps
until I get through to you
change your view
'til you come back to me that's what I'm gonna do
'til you come back to me that's what I'm gonna do

I'm gonna tap on your window pane, don't wanna wait in vain
I'm gonna tap on your window pane, don't wanna wait in vain

I head this on the radio today. Okay it was Muzak not the radio but still. Anyway I remember this song. I used to even sing along with it. I like the message that I'm going to be persistent until you come back to me. What's wrong with that???

Sorry. Today that would be considered stalking and you'd be arrested. Duh!

It was a lot easier a few years ago. Should we go back??

Another Cave?

A few weeks ago a plate took up residence near our computer. It wasn't mine or my wife's. I decided that I wouldn't move it. Yes, I know it would not have been hard to move it, I just wanted to see what would happen first. Would the "owner" of the plate notice it and take it to the sink or would fuzzy green things engulf the residue on the plate and start moving it off the desk?

Of course neither happened. I mentioned the plate to the "responsible party" and they promptly moved the plate. So did I cave? That isn't really the question. Neither is why did the plate end up, forgotten, in the middle of my bed.

So here's the deal. During the time period of the "plate incident" there were about 14,000 things going on at our house. We were in the middle of sending the "responsible party," our daughter, off to school 12,874.752 km away. As the days got closer and closer the stress level in the house rose exponentially but we all trudged on. Eventually, it was time to head to the airport. Stress, drama and emotion levels were at an all time high. We said our good bye's. My wife and daughter cried and she headed off to security screening. As my wife was heading off to the car I said, "Let's just make sure she gets through security", so we stopped and watched. She did. She had to take off her watch and try again but she made it through. I teared up as we headed to the car. That's right, Me, the rock, teared up as my little girl flew off. So here's the question: Did I cave to emotion or is there a special place in every father's heart for their daughter? (It's the later)

#3 Life isn't supposed to Suck?

Have you ever walked by a big display of basketballs? If you have you know that there is a need to pick one up and bounce it, you just have to. What would happen if you picked up one and nobody took the time to fill it full of air? So on the front side it looked perfect but on the back side it was sunken in. What would to say? You’d say, " boy that sucks". Pun intended.

So question 3 is: Is it fair for life not to suck?

Yesterday I was moving a lot of accumulated, not my stuff, stuff into our basement. It took two of us to carry this one particularly heavy piece of stuff. As I came around the the corner of the stairs my path was blocked by a large empty, not my box, box. This box had taken up residence in the family room having birthed its contents about two weeks before. So as I come around the corner, backwards with a very heavy, completely full cedar chest, my back aching, ready to drop the chest at any moment, in a moment of weakness, I kicked the “Blasted” thing out of my way. That of course only put it more in my way and I had to kick it again. With the second kick (or maybe the first) I said, “THAT (short pause (remember the chest was heavy and all my air was needed for survival)) BOX”. WOW, talk about an eye roller. An un-uttered gasp resonated throughout the now silent basement. As sure as night follows day a moment of weakness was now etched into the family memory banks. A story sure to be repeated time and again at gatherings for the next two generations. "Remember the time Dad......."

Now, I’m a parent and parents, I guess, aren’t supposed to ever have one side of them sucked in. We are always supposed to have a perfect bounce each and every time. Is that fair? Sometime when I’ve had all the life sucked out of me I’d like it to show. “Hey, Everybody. I’ve been squished real good.” “ya man you are like totally flat. Where’d all your air go?” Now I'm not saying that this was one of those times mind you. I've had worse times. But just once in a while When I feel flat I'd like it to look flat and act flat.

But I guess that’s what being a parent is all about. When life sucks you can’t let it show you just keep on bouncing.