Fini

Phase 1 of the patio project is finished! To say that I am pleased with the results is a major understatement. It was a lot of hard work, but still very much worth it.

After laying the flagstone and mortaring the cracks, my father-in-law rented a saw and trimmed off the edges of the patio and rounded off the corner (pic 2).


We then dug an 8" trench around the patio, boarded it off, and mixed several wheelbarrows of fresh cement on which we laid a brick border. My father-in-law completed the job by filling in the cracks with mortar. I told him that he was definitely the man for the job because he has the patience of a saint when it comes to detail-oriented projects like this. Mortaring brick is a long process requiring much more time cleaning the brick than applying the mortar. I hate that. I just want to slap on the mortar and be done with it. Not so with my father-in-law. When he does a job, he wants to do it right. I really appreciate that about him.

So now we'll take a little break before beginning on Phase 2 of Operation Flagstone Patio: clearing the rest of the river rock from between the back patio and grass and extending the patio to the grass. That's going to be fun.

I Hope My Princesses Don't Have to Kiss A Lot o' Frogs...

I pulled into the driveway the other night when out of the corner of my eye I saw something that caught my attention: a large dark pile resting up against the house along the front walkway. "What the hell?" I thought as I rolled into the garage. It looked like a Bull Mastiff decided to empty the contents of its bowels on our walkway. Nice. But closer inspection revealed the turdy-looking lump to be something completely different...a very large frog. Or toad. I'm not sure which. Either way, it was pretty gross; all moist and slimy and bloated. So I did what any responsible father would do. I ran and got my camera so I could gross out the girls in morning. As I squatted down to take this picture, I realized how big this thing was, easily the size of both of my fists. I thought, "If this thing jumps while I'm down here, I'm going to wake up the whole neighborhood with freakish schoolgirl screams." It didn't, thank goodness. In fact, it looked like it just slept there through the whole ordeal, oblivious to my presence. Either that, or it was so big that it just didn't care, figuring if I gave it any trouble that it would merely jump up and eat my face off.

After completing my toad photo shoot (...tilt your head...YES, JUST LIKE THAT...click...the camera loves ya, baby...), I went inside to check on the girls before going to bed. The whole experience brought to mind the fairy tale of The Frog Prince, where the princess kisses the frog and he turns into a prince. YIKES! I couldn't even imagine HOLDING the turd toad much less KISSING the thing. It brought a whole new realm of perspective to the well-known tale.

Then my over-protective daddy mind kicked into gear, wondering how many frogs will hop their way into the girls' lives before they meet their "prince". Hopefully not many. But the thought left me feeling helpless knowing that I won't always be there to protect the hearts of my little girls; that my little girls are growing up faster than I would like and that they would have to go through their own series of relational trials on their path to womanhood. So that night, in my helplessness, I said a little prayer for Kailey and Kyra as I rearranged their covers and tucked them in. I asked that they might grow to become caring, strong, confident and self-assured young women, and that they would know how to effectively handle those frogs. I think much of that is my role as a father and a parent, teaching them and caring for them and reassuring them, preparing them for life, but a little (or a lot of) Divine Guidance never hurts.

All of this from an encounter with a turdy toad on the front stoop. Man, I need to start getting some more sleep.

Holy Javelinas!!

I looked at my ringing cell phone and saw that Diane was calling. Being the good husband that I am and seeing that I had nothing to hide, I answered my wife's call. We started our conversation with the usual chit-chat, "How was your day," "How were the girls for you tonight," etc, when Diane decided to tell me a story.

"Tonight I did something YOU would do," she began. "I don't know what I was thinking...It was so...STUPID."

It took a moment for me to realize that my wife, the love of my life and the woman of my dreams, just referred to me as "stupid". Actually, she referred to my actions as "stupid", which is true because many of the things I do are admittedly "stupid", but I don't really need my wife to remind me of that. What I need from my wife is the reminder that she loves me IN SPITE of the stupid things I do.

"HEY," I objected, but she just laughed it off and continued with her story.

Rewind a couple of hours to another cell phone conversation I had. This one was with Kailey. I answered the phone to her animated voice, "DAD, WE JUST SAW A JAVELINA (hah-vuh-lee-nuh)...ON OUR STREET!" We live in a residential area on the outskirts of Tucson that is surrounded by desert. It is not unusual to see coyotes roaming around neighborhoods at night. But I've never seen a javelina roaming around in the neighborhood, which would be very exciting. Diane was driving the girls to softball practice when Kailey saw the javelina in a neighbor's yard roughly six houses down from ours. Diane didn't see it, and on Kailey's request, turned the van around to have a look and verified that there was, indeed, a javelina in the neighbor's yard. The girls flipped. out.

Fast-forward to the current conversation of the alleged dad-like "stupid" thing done by my wonderfully supportive wife. As they were coming home from softball practice and pulling in the driveway, Diane told the girls, "Papa kept the garage door up when we left for softball practice. I hope no javelinas got in there." The girls flipped. out. Kyra was bawling at the top of her lungs and wouldn't get out of the van because she was convinced that she saw a javelina lurking in the dark corner of the garage. The girls spent the rest of the evening screaming and freaking out at every little noise and inspecting under chairs and beds (like a frickin' javelina could fit under the bed) to make sure they wouldn't be mauled in their sleep. It turned out to be an exhausting night of bed-prep for Diane, and all because of a little comment.

As she finished telling me the tale of her borrowed "stupidity", I was no longer hurt or offended. In fact, I could feel that hurt turning into something like pride because this was something I would TOTALLY do. And finally, after sixteen years of marriage, I could see my wife, the love of my life and the woman of my dreams, FINALLY taking on some of MY characteristics. May God have mercy on our children.

You Know You're Out of Shape When...

Last week the girls started practices for Fall Softball, aka Fall Ball. They practice twice a week, one practice focusing on defense, the other, on offense. Tuesday night was an offensive practice, and I decided to lend a hand. One of the coaches was pitching for batting practice, the other coach and a dad were working with pitchers, and they had set up a batting net in order conduct soft toss drills. In soft toss, the batter faces the net while a coach softly tosses the ball just slightly in front of the batter. The batter then drives the ball into the net. The drill teaches batters to maintain balance, to keep their eyes on the ball, and to reinforce proper swing mechanics. I decided to be the soft toss guy for the evening.

One by one the girls came to me to work on their swing. I would ask them what their name was, then introduced myself as Kailey and Kyra's dad, and briefly explained to them what we were going to do. I had three balls to work with. I dropped to my left knee and held up the first ball while the batter crouched into her batting stance. Then I tossed the ball, allowed the batter a few seconds to reset her stance, tossed the next ball, etc. When I had exhausted my limited supply of balls, I stood up, collected them and resumed my position on my left knee. I repeated this routine, the equivalent of a right leg lunge (that IS me in the pic, BTW), roughly one million times. By the end of practice, my shirt was soaked with sweat and I was in desperate need of a beer, er, water. It was completely insane!

Yesterday morning I almost fell to the floor while getting out of bed as my thighs and my, umm, gluteus maximus, screamed out in pain. How pathetic is that? And today the pain isn't much better. I'm a little paranoid because I think I'm walking kinda...funny, which doesn't help the situation either because in my attempt to avoid using the muscles that are hurting, I'm using OTHER muscles that I don't normally use for walking which causes THEM to hurt as well. I'm a frickin' mess! Methinks this is a bit of a wakeup call. No, not to exercise. That's too much work. I think I need to let the more in-shape mommies and daddies help out at softball practice from now on. Sorry girls.

I Need to Learn to Keep My Fat Mouth Shut

Well, my Cubbies are on the verge of getting swept by the Astros and are in the midst of a three-game losing streak. I think I jinxed them by praising them a little too early. Little did you know that the success or failure of the Cubs is directly related to the amount of praise I heap on them. I can HAVE hope that this will be their year, I just can't EXPRESS it. The mere expression of hope sends them into a free-fall. That being said, I am resolved that this will be my last entry on the Cubs this season. Unless, of course, they start kickin' butt and takin' names again. Then I'll be compelled to praise them. What can I say? I'm cursed!

OK, there's still a lot of season left, but I'd like to see them continue to win series and keep the pressure on Milwaukee. The only saving grace is that Milwaukee is in a slump as well, allowing the Cubs to stick around. There's still time. So until the playoffs arrive, here's me sticking a sock in it. Cubbies, that's your cue to go on another run.