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.

Camping In

The girls have recently discovered the joys of "camping out"...inside the house. They've always enjoyed building tents out of blankets and pillows, then their aunt Debbie bought them real pup tents a couple of years ago which led to a period of indoor camping. It's amazing how much space a couple of pup tents occupy when set up in the family room.

Well aunt Debbie struck again a few weeks back when the girls made the trip up to the Northwest with Grammy and Papa to visit her in her new condo. Since space and sleeping arrangements was an issue, she bought the girls these Disney Princess air mattress/sleeping bag combos. They're actually pretty cool. You inflate the air mattress then slip the sleeping bag over the top. The sleeping bag stays in place and you don't have to worry about sliding off of the air mattress. I've got to hand it to aunt Debbie: she is the giver of cool gifts.

The girls brought the mattresses home after their trip, and they weren't much of an issue until this week when Diane's brother and his family came to town. He has two boys roughly the girls' age and at some point someone came up the idea of doing sleepovers. One of the girls would spend the night at Grammy and Papa's house and one of the boys would come home with us, then the next night we'd switch. Great plan.

Out came the air mattress/sleeping bag combos, and they worked great. My youngest nephew, who's four, made a little macho fuss over sleeping in a "girls bed", but that didn't last long. Both sleepover nights were huge successes. But now we can't get the girls to sleep in their own beds! They've taken turns sleeping in each others' rooms and have been putting up a fuss about sleeping in their perfectly good beds. So we've decided to put the kibosh on this recent trend before it gets out of hand.

And believe me, I know from personal experience how out of hand it can get. When I was about 11, my brother and I saw the movie Alien. It was a Sunday night and we were at my Dad's place. He let us stay a little later before dropping us off at home so we could watch the Sunday night premiere of Alien on HBO. So we "watched" the movie (mostly through our fingertips), it scared the mother-junkies out of us, and my Dad took us home in time for us to get into bed because Monday, as it turned out, was a school day. I slept not a frickin' wink. My brother slept not a frickin' wink either. We spent the better part of three months taking turns sleeping in a sleeping bag, sans air mattress, on the hard floor of each others' room, well aware of the fact that monsters materialize UNDERNEATH the bed, making the unfortunate floor-dweller of that particular evening easy fodder. But I guess we figured that getting eaten together was better than getting eaten alone. And unlike the poor fools in Alien, we weren't in space where no one can hear you scream, so we persisted in our nightly ritual. And I wonder where the girls get some of their nervous, paranoid tendencies. Mystery solved.

So we packed the air mattresses away. It's only a matter of time until I do something stupid like let them watch a movie that they're too young to see and that scares the mother-junkies out of them. Then history will repeat itself. At least they'll have comfy air mattresses to sleep on.

I Hope This Isn't A Sign

Who can it BE no-ow...da da da DA da da...
Who can it BE no-ow...da da da DA da da...

I grabbed my cell phone and saw that it was Diane calling from home. As soon as I answered the phone, I heard it.

beep

I immediately detected the frustration in Diane's voice. "OK, now the smoke detector in OUR bedroom is beeping." She was in the process of the girls' bedtime routine, and I, of course, was at work. Like our living room, our bedroom also has vaulted ceilings, and Diane was a little befuddled as to how to work my collapsible, extendable Gorilla ladder. I started to talk her through it when work suddenly required my immediate attention. I told her I'd call back in five minutes.

I lied. It was about fifteen minutes later when I called and Kailey answered the phone. "Daddy, I showed Mommy how to use the ladder!" I about fell off my chair laughing. The girls have been present for several of my home improvement projects that required the use of the Gorilla ladder, and it makes me extremely proud to know that that knowledge stuck. My girls will be able to change smoke detector batteries, hang Christmas lights, and the like. That's pretty cool. Tomorrow I think I'll teach them how to change a tire.

I still had to talk Diane through the actual battery replacement process. "It takes a 9 volt battery...it's in the top desk drawer by the computer...there's a compartment on the side of the detector that slides out..." Diane then handed the phone to Kyra while she climbed the ladder and finished the task. Kyra spent several minutes pouting about how she only got to help Mommy with one thing while Kailey got to help her with TWO things. Typical Kyra. I tried to explain that sometimes the biggest help a little girl can give is by getting out of the way and not pouting, but she wasn't buying.

When satisfied that Diane had the situation under control, I hung up the phone and returned to my work. That's when the little voice began talking. What if it's a sign? The little voice talks to me more often than I'd like to admit. What's worse is that I talk back.

What if what's a sign?

C'mon, two beeping smoke detectors in one week?

The batteries were probably all installed at the same time and are now going bad, that's all.

Sure, sure, you're probably right. You shouldn't worry about anything. I'm sorry I even brought it up. Still, I'd probably sleep with one eye open 'cause you ne-ver kno-ow.

Thanks. Thanks a lot for that, you stupid, STUPID little voice. Now I have to see if the extinguisher still works. And find a good shrink.

Is Summer Vacation Over Yet?

If I have to tell the girls, "Keep your hands OFF one another," one more time this early summer vacation, I'm going to have a complete mental breakdown. And I've had them at home alone for a grand total of one and one-half days. I will admit that I'm partially to blame because I've spent much of that time outside doing "man-stuff". My father-in-law and I have been constructing a new patio on the back corner of the house, and the girls were initially excited about the "man-stuff" activity. They expressed their desire to "help", so we put them to work. But apparently shoveling dirt and sand and mixing cement aren't their cups of tea because they lasted a grand total of about five minutes before retiring to the relative comfort of the boob tube.

Even the miracle of modern TV is not powerful enough to overcome the curse of summertime boredom, so the girls resorted to the next best thing: picking on each other. So there I was, literally breaking my back mixing and shoveling cement in an attempt to beautify the very home in which they live, when I heard a series of blood-curdling screams. I dropped my shovel and trudged to the door to find the fruit of my loins locked in a struggle on the family room floor. "WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE!" I bellowed as I threw open the door.

My inquiry was met with a flurry of incomprehensive accusation. "I WAS TRYING TO...KYRA WAS TOUCHING...SHE PULLED ME...AND SHE WON'T LET...I TOLD HER TO STOP...KAILEY NEVER LETS ME..."

Since I (1.) was dripping with sweat, (2.) didn't really want to know what was happening, and (3.) didn't care, I dispersed them with a unilateral "Go to your rooms and think about what you've done", then returned to my work. One of the girls would poke her head out the back door twenty minutes later, ask if they could come out of their rooms, and the whole process repeated itself several times until we wrapped up our patio work for the day, around noon.

Now before you lablel me as the suckiest father alive, you need to know the touching and picking continued even when I devoted my full attention to the girls. We played "talent show audition" where I pulled out my guitars and microphone, and the girls took turns at the mic as they created songs to tunes I played. Kyra liked acoustic guitar tunes. Kailey wanted to rock to electric guitar tunes. Both picked on the other to the point where one sat in time out while the other took their turn at the mic.

And I curse the day we ever bought the "Madagascar" edition of Sorry instead of the regular, colored pawn edition. Each pawn is a character from the movie "Madagascar", and we can never get through the pawn selection phase without a major meltdown. When we finally got to the game, I had to draw a line in the carpeting between the girls and threaten them with their immanent loss of life should they cross that line.

I finally took them to the park in the 100 degree heat to let them burn off some energy and hopefully take out some of their aggression on the monkey bars. It seemed to work, but I now know I've got my work cut out for me. I need to do a little planning for the rest of our summer days together or I'm going to lose my mind. Only 35 days until school starts again, but who's counting?

No Wonder I'm Going Grey

This morning as we were watching Kyra's softball game, Diane turned to me, grabbed my arm and gasped, "Oh, I almost forgot to tell you..."

Diane just returned from a three-day conference in Scottsdale where she was honored as one of her company's top managers. Her company wines and dines them, books inspirational speakers, and pulls out all the stops to express their appreciation. Diane is amazing at what she does, and it's exciting for me to see her honored in this way. As she was getting her things together and preparing to leave for the conference, Kailey came into our bedroom to present a rather unusual request.

"Mommy, when you go on your trip, can you bring me back something?"

A small grin spread across Diane's face. "Don't I usually bring you and Kyra back something when I go on a trip?"

"Yes, but I was wondering if you could bring me back something different. Like something for big girls."

"Like what?" Diane wondered aloud.

"Like a poster...with a boy on it."

My jaw dropped as Diane recounted their conversation. A POSTER WITH A BOY ON IT? SHE'S EIGHT YEARS OLD? I immediately envisioned a shirtless Enrique Iglesias, his body glistening with sweat, eyeing my daughter from his perch on her wall. OK, that was probably a little too much detail, but as an overprotective dad, that's where...oh, never mind. There's no good way to explain it. Diane seemed to think it was funny. I was looking for someone to kill. Over my dead body will she EV-ER own a poster with a boy on it. What is she going to ask for next, the annual Firefighters Calendar?

Needless to say, Kailey did NOT get a poster with a boy on it. What she got instead was all of her TV viewing privileges revoked because that's the only thing I can think of that might put that cockamamie, NO, er, um, CRAZY request in her head. I need a drink. Anything to get the image of sweaty Enrique out of my head.

Overprotective Dad?

I am a dad who has been "blessed" with two beautiful daughters. On several occasions when I've been out with the girls, at the store or the playground or the coffee shop, I've had other dads make comments something to the effect of, "Daughters, huh?" which is usually accompanied by "The Look." Every dad with daughters knows "The Look". "The Look" is a telling expression of pity and concern recognizing that you, dad of daughters, were once a teenage boy with raging hormones...raging hormones that sometimes took over your ability, or desire, to treat members of the opposite sex with the dignity and respect they deserve. "The Look" says get ready, 'cause payback is hell.

For the most part, I was a good boy as a teen, able to keep the hormones somewhat corralled, something I'm quick to remind the Good Lord of while pleading for the lives of my girls. I was a good boy...kinda! Please don't punish them to punish me! Please don't let them give in to the raging hormones! Please give them the horse-sense to know the difference between LOVE and HORMONES! Now, I don't want to be the dad who polishes his shotgun while potential suitors come calling, but I will if I have to! I like the following resolution even better, sent to me by a friend: The Trunk Monkey chaperone...he'll keep the boys in line when you're not there to.



Hopefully, God will be merciful and we won't need a Trunk Monkey to keep those boys in line, but I'm going to check it out as an option on our next vehicle...just in case.

Going for the Trifecta

It's been a crazy week already, and it's barely Monday. Over the course of the past week, I've covered the morning, evening, and now the overnight shift at work. Last week I covered a couple of shifts for one of my coworkers as he took some vacation time, and then another one of my coworkers experienced a death in the family. So here I am covering BOTH of their shifts, and I don't think I'm going to make it. At least I'm getting paid.

I have a newfound respect for people who work overnights. Yours is a special breed, nocturnal dwellers able to sleep the day away and go on the twilight prowl, or in my current case, push a bunch of buttons to air programming NOBODY WATCHES. At least not anybody who is sane.

Have you ever tried to force yourself to go to sleep? It doesn't work too well. I willed myself out of bed extra early yesterday morning because I knew I'd have to go to bed in the early evening to prepare for my shift. Actually, I had to go pick Kyra up from her first ever sleepover party, so it worked out pretty well. I then kept myself busy for the rest of the day in a vain attempt to wear myself out. I vacuumed the Rex hair from the family room. I mowed the lawn. I picked up heaping piles of Rex poop. I pulled weeds and moved river rock from our backyard. I played soccer and softball with the girls. I dropped Kailey off at a birthday party and Kyra and I went to run errands and get a bite to eat. We returned home and I got my things together for my twelve-hour overnight shift.

I should have been exhausted, and I was. I finally fell into bed a little after 6:00 pm, then laid there, awake, for at least the next two hours. My body was tired, but my mind, wide awake. I thought about the day, our finances and the bills that needed to be paid, and continually performed the math to figure out how much sleep I would get if I fell asleep precisely this minute. As my sleep sum dwindled, my anxiety level rose. Dude, you've got to go to sleep! Brain, knock it off! I eventually fell asleep, although I'm not sure exactly when. But I do know that I slept no more than four hours, most likely around three, for my twelve-hour shift. Should get interesting. So good citizens of Tucson, should you experience long periods of black during your morning programming, do not panic. I'm just taking a little nap.

A Little DAY Reading

When I was a teenager and into my early twenties, I was a huge Stephen King fan. I got this from my Mom, and everything of his she read, she passed down to me: Carrie, Salem's Lot, Cujo, Firestarter, The Shining, Pet Sematary, Misery, The Stand (my personal favorite), It (a close second), and various short stories of his. I stopped reading Stephen King for subliminal reasons back in college. During the winter of my freshman year at the University of Illinois, I read It, a story about a sewer-dwelling monster that manifest itself as a clown and lured kids to their deaths..."down here, they all float"...and it scared the hell out of me. The U of I has a series of steam tunnels linked to several steam vents peppered throughout the campus. I would walk home to my dorm in the wee hours of the morning after an evening of study in the library or in a classroom on campus, and have to pass several of these steam vents, all the while keeping a wary eye out for Pennywise the clown. After finishing the book, I guess I decided to take a break from Mr. King. Yes, I am that big of a wuss.

Last year, Diane and I were perusing the bargain table at Barnes & Noble when I came across King's "On Writing", his book about, well, writing. The book was priced right, something like $4.99 for a hard cover (apparently not too many people are interested in taking writing tips from Mr. King), and after thumbing through it and seeing that a good portion of it contained a mini-autobiography, I bought it. I was interested in discovering what went on in that demented mind of his. I wasn't disappointed. I breezed through the autobiographical section, then stalled during the "tools of the trade". I put the book down for a couple of months only to pick it back up and finish it about a month ago.

Although Stephen King is probably not the first person you'd think to go to for a lesson on writing, there's no denying that he's had a long, successful and lucrative career, and is therefore worth listening to. His no-nonsense approach to writing was refreshing and inspiring, and it was interesting to see him use his works as examples of his approach to writing.

On completing "On Writing", I decided it was time to end my Stephen King break for real and pick up one of his newer novels, and so I did. I was on a Target run one afternoon where I saw what I believe is his newest novel, Cell. Without any clue of what it was about, I grabbed it along with a couple of other books (John Berendt's City of Falling Angels and David Sedaris' Naked, both great reads), and headed for the checkout lanes. It seems like I can never get out of Target without dropping at least $100, but that's neither here nor there.

Yesterday afternoon, I started reading Cell after I dropped Kyra off at school, where I soon discovered that it is King's contribution to the "zombie" genre of horror stories. On October 1st at 3:00 pm of an unknown year, every user of a cell phone gets their minds turned to mush which causes them to go on a maniacal, homicidal rampage. By page 8, the people of Boston are attacking and chewing on each other, cars are crashing, planes are blowing up, and mass chaos ensues. The city of Boston is burning to the ground. Wide eyed, oh he just knifed that guy in the throat, I kept turning the pages because I needed to see what these people were going to do and how the crap they were going to get out of Boston. But I eventually had to put the book down because it was time to get the girls from school.

I returned to my book after we put the girls to bed. Diane had some work scheduling she needed to do on the computer, so I plopped down in our big comfy chair and began to read. The wind was howling last night and it beat upon the house as I read. Then the lights in the family room began to flicker. Did I mention that I'm a big wuss? Suddenly, the book that I had been able to read with little problem in the daylight had become much more sinister in the night. Our heroes were hunkered in the lobby of a hotel as night was falling and they kept hearing loud thumps from the floor above. Coincidentally, I kept hearing loud thumps from outside, and then the lights behind me began to flicker. I began looking nervously over my shoulder until finally I decided that perhaps I should should give Cell a rest and just flip on the TV.

I wandered into the den where Diane was working instead. "He he he," I laughed nervously, "Perhaps that book is a good DAY book." Diane shot me a pathetic look. "These are not your normal, arms in the air, shuffle your feet zombies," I explained, trying to defend my honor and what was left of my masculinity. "These are quick, frickin' zombies that..." I rushed across the room, grabbed her shoulders, and began nibbling on her neck. She usually doesn't mind this routine except that this time the Hannibal Lecter, fava bean "pht pht pht pht" noise I made kind of freaked her out.

"Maybe you shouldn't read that book at all," she suggested, wild-eyed. Not a chance. I have to know what's going to happen, but I'll have to rebuild my tolerance for King. I'll start during the days for now and ease my way back into nights. But there's still one thing that's haunting me now. If I was nervous about the steam tunnels on the U of I campus twenty years ago, what the hell am I going to have to go through, what courage will I need to summon, to answer my cell phone every time it rings?

Rainbow's Revenge

I think Rainbow is out to get us.

As you may recall, Rainbow was the girls' pet Beta fish that bought the farm back in November. We "cleverly" replaced him with a new fish, Rainbow II, in order to spare our precious daughters the grief of losing a beloved pet. Our plan is backfiring and I'm beginning to get more than a little freaked by an animal that is smaller than my thumb.

There are two possibilities here: either Rainbow II is merely a psycho fish from hell, or he is posessed by the spirit of Rainbow I, who is out for revenge. I'm becoming increasingly convinced toward the latter.

At first it was cute. I would open the lid to his bowl and he would swim to the surface in anticipation of the rock-hard pellet they call Beta food that was about to be dropped into the water. I put my fingers just above the surface and Rainbow II swam right up to them. Then one day, he jumped. Right out of the water. Right off my fingertips. Scared the hell out of me. I think I screamed. On second thought, I'm sure I didn't scream. Now Rainbow II's mouth is roughly half the size of a BB, and I'm fairly certain that it couldn't inflict THAT much damage, but I really think he was trying to eat me.

I know, I know...you think I'm crazy. But it's not just me he's trying to eat. Last week I heard a scream and I ran into the kitchen. Kailey stood next to Rainbow II's bowl holding her hand, a frantic look on her face. "Rainbow bit me," she breathed. That's not all. A couple of days ago, Diane opened the bowl to feed him and as she reached down, he jumped out of the bowl! Yes, you heard me...the little sucker got a running, er, swimming head start and launched himself right out of that frickin' bowl! Diane stood there stunned as she watched him flop around on the counter top. She should have stabbed him through his cold, evil demon-heart with a toothpick, but instead returned him to the comfort of his lair.

I don't know what to do. My logic tells me that he is too small to harm any of us, but anyone who has ever seen any of the Child's Play movies also knows that a little doll shouldn't have been able to go on a murderous rampage either. I'm thinking about flushing him, but then I'd never be able to take a crap in peace again.

I honestly don't think he can be killed. I mean anything that I can think of doing to him is accompanied by a thought of how he can get out of it. I could bury him, but then like Carrie, he would him dig himself out, grabbing me by the ankle with his little flipper as I visit his gravesite. I could drown him...oh, wait, he's a fish. I could step on him, shoot him, blow him up, throw him off a cliff, decapitate him, feed him to birds, any number of things, but no matter what I do to him, I am certain that one day I'd find him in a sink or toilet bowl waiting to get his revenge.

So for now I think I'll lay low, keep an ear open for squishy noises in the hallway, and feed him ALOT. I knew we should have bought a new bowl.

Gotcha!

Oh, how humiliating it is when you get duped by a 5 and 7 year-old. I'm so proud of my girls!

This is the time of year when the weather turns colder and the critters and creepy-crawlies seek refuge in the warmth of our home. I've gotten used to hearing the melodic, sing-song summons of "Hon-ey" or "Da-ad" over the past month, and I've become quite adept at deciphering their meaning..."we need you to come kill something"...usually a spider.

I don't really like spiders. I've gotten better about spiders over the years, but the bigger ones still freak me out a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I'll still dispatch the little suckers, but the big ones require me to collect myself before going in for the kill. At this point, all the PETA-people out there are letting out a collective gasp and imploring me to at least do a catch-and-release. No friggin' way. A catch leaves open the possibilty of escape which leaves open the possibility of me running through the house screaming like a schoolgirl. I'm sorry. If it ventures into my home, it's dead. End of story. Since moving to Arizona, I've had to take care of two tarantula-like spiders IN MY HOUSE. They were small for tarantulas (3 1/2 inches each, respectively), but big freakin' spiders to have in your home.

This morning I was in our bathroom shaving when I heard the call from my girls, "Da-ad". Great. They were in Kailey's room.

"I'll be there in a minute!" I groaned. I finished shaving and could hear them shrieking and giggling and carrying on as I steeled myself and headed to Kailey's room. I expected to find one of those medium-sized, lightning quick wolf spiders, as they have been my prime prey over the past couple of weeks. I walked into Kailey's room to find both girls on Kailey's bed.

"Where is it?" I asked. Kailey pointed to her bookshelf, about waist-high, right next to where I stood. I turned and saw a huge black spider sprawled out on the edge of the bookshelf about a foot away from me.

I jumped.

The girls cracked up laughing.

The spider was not real.

"WE GOT YOU! WE GOT YOU!" they sang at the top of their lungs. Indeed, they had. Kailey had clipped one of those plastic spider rings to the edge of her bookshelf and I didn't expect it. At least I didn't scream...I don't think.

I spanked both of them, sat them in the corner, told them there was no Halloween candy or Disney Channel for a month, told them they were both adopted and that their real parents loathed them, and then spanked them again. OK, I really didn't do any of that. I just laughed and told them they were rotten kids. They got me good and I knew it. And I'm man enough to admit it, even though I'm barely man enough to handle a little spider.