A Learning Experience

I understand that clean clothes are necessary in today’s civilized world, but it’s strange how much laundry has evolved. When you’re a kid, the clothes appear magically in your dresser. Sometimes you get dirt on your favorite shirt, and you cry, so your mom takes the shirt and magically replaces it with a clean one! Neat!

Then you learn about THE MACHINES.

We’re fortunate to have the machines; there are still people and places that don’t. But once you learn about the machines, you slowly begin to understand that they’re beasts that must be continuously fed. I learned about laundry during high school. Everything was pretty easy to handle, because for guys, laundry is relatively simple: white underwear and socks in one pile, light t-shirts in a second, dark t-shirts and jeans in a third. Simple: three loads, no problems.

Then you get married or live with someone, and then things get a bit nuts. You start separating out delicates into light and dark. You learn about water temperature and the power of red to dye everything else. Maybe you do a tie-dye and use the washing machine for entertainment purposes. You learn about lingerie bags and the fine art of washing pantyhose. Things get more confusing.

Then you have kids. Your laundry demands increase to the point where you’re doing loads daily just to keep up. Not only are you separating your clothes into whites, regular darks, regular lights, delicate darks, delicate lights, dry-clean only, sweaters, and oversize blankets, there’s now baby laundry to be Drefted, spit up stains to pre-treat, and the sizes. Oh, the sizes.

When the laundry comes out of the dryer, you have your underwear, your wife’s underwear, your son’s underwear, your daughter’s underwear, usually decorated with a Hispanic girl or a unicorn emblem. Then you have the “fits him”, “used to fit him”, “too big but we were out of clothes that day”, “fits her”, “neighbor kid”, “too small for her”, “hand me down from him to her”, your regular clothes, your wife’s regular clothes, the sweaters (which hopefully you remembered to place on the drying rack instead of in the dry…aw dang), the jeans, the pants, the T-shirts which are all turned inside out to protect the emblem, the dress slacks, the shorts, the capri pants, the bras (which again should be air dried), the clothes that shouldn’t be dried before your other checks them to see if the stain got out, and so on and so forth.

Finally, you’re done, so it’s time to take off your clothes and put on pajamas because it’s past your bedtime. So you toss the clothes into the hamper, realizing that the beasts need feeding again.

In honor of attending my 20th high school reunion, here’s 20 thoughts on high school.

20. Yes, I put the APATHY acrostic in the yearbook on purpose.

19. Yes, I was ready to be slapped by the former yearbook editor.

18. Yes, it would have been worth it.

17. There is a large part of me that hated high school. It started with moving from Oklahoma on my birthday before the 9th grade year, so there was a HUGE amount of transition that the natives didn’t have to deal with. I already felt weird about myself, since I was the stereotypical nerd, and being overweight and out of place didn’t help matters.

16. The fact that I went to college and got Ds in classes made me feel that I never really learned how to study. Was it that high school was easy, or that I never chose to challenge myself?

15. I didn’t challenge myself. Science fair projects seemed like such a complete waste of time.

14. At the reunion, everyone looked pretty good. It takes a certain amount of guts to even attend a reunion, especially if you never felt like you were part of a group in school.

13. I was an oddball in high school. There’s an issue with being smart and wearing glasses right around the time of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”. No matter how much you try and not feel like a nerd or a geek, it’s painfully obvious that you are one. As such, you start feeling that “no one to sit with at lunch” phenomenon.

12. It’s amazing how much change has happened in some people. Some of my friends have made HUGE changes in their lives. Some others…not so much.

11. I wonder beneath the surface how many people are happy with their lives as they stand now. Are they doing what they wanted to do? Has their lives changed?

10. I’m pretty sure I’m doing what I wanted. I’m also sure that I chose what I wanted to do for the wrong reasons, and as a result, I’m in a bind.

9. High school was such a different animal 20 years ago. There wasn’t as much emphasis on passing tests; the TAKS came online during our time, and now that’s become almost the entire focus of teaching.

8. There apparently are plans to get rid of most of the old high school and completely change it from a set of buildings with walkways inbetween to a monolithic building. One of the little bits of charm of Boswell was the outdoor lockers, and that will be gone.

7. I didn’t get a chance to talk to some people at the reunion. I wish I had in some cases. In at least one case, I made a choice not to talk to someone. There wasn’t any reason other than having dealt with the type of person before and not wanting to (a) get tied down and (b) not engage in pointless small talk. I don’t want to be a jerk, but I also don’t want to open any old, firmly closed doors.

6. Romy and Michelle was a pretty good, extremely unrealistic movie.

5. Why would we have a reunion where people would want to talk in a confined, cramped place with a DJ blaring the best of the late 80s?

4. Was there any good music from the late 80s? In retrospect, not really. I think I’ve lost more brain cells in remembering lyrics to “Come On Eileen”.

3. I don’t look back on high school with much fondness. However, I think it’s just the system that grinds everyone down and puts them into defined boxes more than people.

2. As far as the people go, I have nothing but respect for them.

1. I’ll be ready for the next one.

One of the problems in today’s society is that with twitter, facebook, and everything else, news events get sent through the echo chamber many more times than before. It used to be that you’d see something on TV, or you’d read about it in the paper, but today, arguably 90% of the facebook updates that I’ve seen have had something to do with Michael Jackson.

There’s no doubt the man was a cultural touchstone. His music was popular around the world, and his lifestyle was tabloid fodder for many, many years. But to idolize him the way so many people have been gives me the willies. This was a man who paid several families settlement money for his behavior. Sleeping in the same bed with kids is not something a healthy-minded 50 year old man should be doing unless he has to. The fact that it was always boys is a bit bothersome as well; can you imagine the hue and cry and immediate action from the police if it were a young girl in a similar situation?

While I’m sorry that he’s gone, the question of what musically had he done recently comes to mind. His most recent albums were compilations, and everything seemed to point to a magical time for him with Thriller and Bad with not much in the tank after that. His lifestyle overshadowed his music at that point and continued to do so until yesterday.

The most I can say about him was a line heard on a local radio station, “it’s amazing that he was a child prodigy that never wanted to be anything but a child.”

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia, the Congo, North Korea, and other places are spots where the only music is shrapnel flying through the air and the only lyrics are the cries of the innocent. Those songs should matter more to us than “Beat It”, but I fear they never will.

I’m starting to think the time you feel most out of sorts is when you’re wearing underwear that doesn’t work for you. It’s either that it’s too small, or too big, or it bunches up, or… This is coming from a guy. I only have one undergarment. I have a hard time imagining the struggles women go through to get out the door.

Jacob still has the occasional accident where he doesn’t make it to the toilet. These are usually small dribble type accidents, so it’s not a big mess. He had one of these earlier this week before my folks came to visit. Laureen got him out of his underwear and just pulled up his shorts. He clambers down the stairs, goes up to my mom and whispers with a mischievous gleam in his eye, “Granny! I’m going commando!”
Just FYI, if you visit the blog regularly, there’s more protected pages on the right hand top side. These are basically writing projects–some things I’m trying to work on in order to get them out of my head. If you want to read them, you can ask, but they aren’t necessarily finished, done, or even good.

I’m trying to make writing more of a habit.  120 characters really doesn’t go terribly far these days, and if I’m going to finally give meaning to my life, I need to start exploring those parts of my brain that are quiet.

We’re sitting at dinner, and I’m talking about my job. There’s the possibility that I might have to travel. I’m not necessarily against travel; I’m against needless unplanned travel. So I’m saying that I don’t really want to be away from the kids, and Jacob pops up, “We’re always in your heart, daddy.”

The next book is going to be “Things My Son Taught Me”.

On Saturday, June 1, I was driving back home from the airport. Jessie was in the van, asleep as usual when we go to drop Jacob off for a visit with the grandparents. I had just turned onto the toll road to head back home, when in my left temple, I felt the sensation of liquid moving through a tube under my skin. I don’t know how to adequately explain it other than feeling like a long, skinny balloon was filled with slightly thick liquid, and it had moved from near my ear to the corner of my eye socket. After that, I got a sharp, stabbing localized headache.

My doctor’s nurse, a beautiful, wonderful lady named Barbara, told me it was at that point I should have gone to the Emergency Room. And I probably should have, but I had Jessie in the car, and I had this reason, and I didn’t normally get headaches, and so I really didn’t think it was anything serious. My step-grandfather (grandma’s second husband), recently had a stroke, and while I knew that a headache wasn’t a stroke, I really didn’t know what was going on. I decided to sleep on it. The next day, it felt better, at least until I touched that part of my head. A pattern developed: touch it and it hurts. Occasionally to relieve the boredom of that, a random headache in that part of my head would start. Advil did nothing.

Finally, yesterday I went to the doctor after a week of dealing with this. When Barbara asked why I hadn’t come in earlier, I told her the truth–I was stupid.

The visit led to scheduling a CT-scan at the local hospital, which was this morning. The procedure went well, even though I’m not a big fan of IVs for fainting and nausea reasons. However, they needed to inject contrast, so in went the IV.

The hard part about procedures is how you explain your fears, especially to your kids. How do I tell Jacob that I’m a bit afraid? Jacob has ITP; he gets his finger stuck every six months to check his platelet level. But still, I felt like I had to talk to him about my being afraid and that it was okay to be afraid.

After telling me that he used to be afraid, but he wasn’t anymore, he said this: “Don’t be afraid, Daddy. God is with you.”

I don’t know where he got it, but I’m thankful for him and his little unexpected wisdom.

P.S. The scan came back clean. It’s just an inflamed nerve in my temple.

Pics now available!

Jacob’s Graduation

Jessie’s Third Birthday

Sorry it’s taken so long. Wanted to get the images.

You know, it’s amazing how much misinformation is out there. As soon as the first reports of H1N1 came out, the 24-hour news networks fanned the flames of “this is going to be bad” and has prompted lots of people to do things.

First off, yes. It’s flu. It’s a virus. It can spread pretty fast because it’s what’s called a “novel” strain. “Novel” in this case means “oh, we haven’t seen this before” to the researchers and also to our bodies. We don’t have immunity to this, nor do we have a vaccine. So there’s a higher chance of catching this and getting sick from it.

One of the CDC’s recommendations for handling a disease that can affect a lot of people is to close schools. Let’s face it, we were all in schools once, and you know that no matter how clean you may be able to keep your child, they’re going to pick up something. It happens with Jacob and Jessie at their preschools. And because this virus spreads rapidly, the best thing to do is isolate the cases, treat the symptoms, and move on.

As far as how we treat those symptoms, we’ve got a good health care system in this country. For all its faults, the people doing the work are good at what they do.

The hardest thing for me is watching my kids burn through a fever. No, it’s not flu, but it is something, and so because we want to be cautious, we’ve had the kids out of school for the past two days. Laureen missed work Thursday because of this, and that is the part that is going to be interesting on a larger scale.

Because kids are out of school around the state, someone has to take care of them. Someone has to stay home and miss work. Someone if they don’t have sick days to cover it will not get paid, and for lower-income families, that’s kicking them when they’re down. And what if they lose their job? What happens then?

There are costs to this: the frenzy of analysis done by the media wears on our psyche, the parents have to suddenly juggle their lives moreso than normal, and then there’s the people who actually get sick.

So what happens when the next flu virus comes along and is more lethal than this one?

It’s been a while since I posted some pictures, so here’s some links to galleries.

Jacob’s Fifth Birthday Party

Backyard Bubbles

Bluebonnets 2009

Easter 2009

Jacob and the Texas State Railroad

Cascarrones at Zion

Miscellaneous March-April 2009

Kid Drawings

There are some times when I wonder if people are trying to mess with my head. We were at my parents’ house for Easter, and we walked down the street. There are two houses for sale on that street. One is about my parents’ size and lists for $182,500. The other is about my parents’ size and lists for $250,000. Whoa. Big difference. So we pull the fliers to look, and the quarter-million one includes the updates of “beautiful quarts countertops”.

Today, I check the listing on the web. Yup. Beautiful quarts countertops. Guess they can’t hold gallons.

There were some other things that would cause me to shy away from the house: an unfinished driveway, cracks in the driveway, etc., but those pale in comparison to bad spelling.

So, because I want to see the real estate agent succeed, I send her a message about “hey, don’t know if you know. This is misspelled. Image matters. Etc.”

I get back the following: Thank you for your imput in regards to the improper grammer that was on the description on my quarter of a million dollar listing at xxxxxxxxx. Would you be interested in buying this property if I correct the quartz misspelling?

I want to think the best of this person. I really do. But let’s look at the three things wrong:

1. imput

2. grammer

3. The original issue wasn’t grammar at all. Simple misspelling.

So I sent back a polite reply about how it costs $70K more than the one across the street, etc. That’s where we stand now. Not like we’re moving, but…