I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack....

So....all of my loyal blog readers thought I died from the flu. Nope.

Still here.

Let's see....what have we missed talking about......St. Patrick's Day, the baseball season, Sarah's Birthday, Mother's Day, Father's Day. Tracy's Birthday, our trip to NY, my annual battle with my stepmother during my trip to NY, Sarah learning about Central Park and John Lennon (hey, some people take their kids to DC to learn history), our anniversary, the beginning of the football season, the Braves season going in the toilet, my birthday, the Panthers season going in the toilet, Halloween, and now Thanksgiving.




EXCELLENT...we're all caught up, loyal blog readers! Which brings me to the point of today's diatribe.

It's Thanksgiving.....a day where most people get together with their extended family, eat a lot, drink a lot, watch football, and fall asleep on the couch with the top button of their pants undone to allow their girth to have room to breathe.

We have no extended family. OK....that's not 100% true. I have 4 living relatives besides my wife and kids. My father, his wife, my sister and brother. Tracy has 3 living relatives. Her mother, and two sisters.

I haven't spoken to my brother or sister in a few years. We annoy the hell out of each other and so a simple email is NOT HAPPENING, let alone extended "family time" on a holiday.

Part of me thinks Sarah is missing something. I have great memories of hanging out in the kitchen watching my Mother cook, all of the relatives coming over, my father carving the turkey like it was some sort of religous ritual.

It wasn't until I was 19 that I realized the drumstick is NOT the best part of the turkey. As a kid, it was the first thing my father cut from the turkey so I wanted it on my plate so I could stare at it for the duration of the ceremony.

In college I cooked my own turkey for a girlfriend in my bachelor pad. I was suave, debonair, and hammered by the time she got there and the turkey was cooked. (Later in life I learned that you can, in fact, baste the turkey without getting a beer.)

Sorry... I digressed. Sarah is missing that "family thing" for better or worse. It seems kind of ironic in this age of ultra communications...telephone, cell phone, instant messaging, and email that the family I grew up with has grown to live as far apart from each other as physically and emotionally possible.

But....we did have a nice meal and a nice day....without discussing politics or religion or battling over how gravy should be made. Instead we ate, went for a walk and are now enjoying an Eric Clapton DVD.

In a way I'm jealous of all of the happy families who look forward to the big Thanksgiving dinner with 17 relatives in the house.

To me, a grouchy old curmudgeon, it seems kind of like a pain in the ass.

In a way, I'm really glad to just have my wife and kids, a nice meal, a few days off from the rat race, and some good music to just sit and enjoy.

When I think about the Thanksgiving that the men and women serving in our military are having, it really seems kind of lame to even be pondering the negative parts of my day. Thanks to them, I can sit here and open a button......it's almost time for another slice of pie.

Hello......Vatican?

OK...today marks day seven of the dreaded flu bug's grip upon our household.

I'm ready to call in an Exorcist. Neither my wife or I are known for having tremendous patience...on a good day. This week T has Type "A" AND Type "B" flu. She feels like crap...understandably. To put it politely....she's a tad crabby. I passed "a tad crabby" three days ago.

Sarah....the heroine of the posts below....did not have the flu according to the poking and prodding she received in two hours at the doctor's office on Wednesday. What she has is a fever that comes and goes. Her head has not made a full 360 degree turn yet...but it could happen. Full blown pea soup projectile vomitting could happen at any moment. She's turning down ice cream..... a certain sign that SATAN has taken over.

The doctor prescribed Tamiflu. I smelled the medicine....not good. Sarah said NO WAY. Daddy, sucker that I am, took the Tamiflu back to the pharmacy to have it converted to bubblegum flavored Tamiflu. Sarah said NO WAY. Daddy said many words that Daddys should not say.

I give it another day or two and I'm getting the Pope on the phone. Surely his waiting room could not be as crowded as the pediatricians.

Saying "NO" to the NY Yankees

This week I turned down the televison industry's equivalent of the starting centerfielder's job with the NY Yankees.

A company I worked for 12 years ago called last week and offered me my dream job. I had applied for and was turned down for this same job 3 seperate times since 1991. This time I was the one who said no.

This company has more money than God. They told me the salary would be a lot more than I am making now. They told me they'd help sell our house. They'd help with relocating. I'd be working with some great people...experienced professionals...some of the best photographers in the business. Then they started playing dirty.

They told me I'd be an intergral part of the management team. They told me about the new state of the art equipment they were getting. They talked about planning capital budgets with real money....not the pennies I work with now. It would be working for one of the best stations in the country...a dominant #1 in a top 10 market. Great station...great toys....great people...great facility.....

WRONG CITY...WRONG TIME.

To take this job it would mean either my wife would be a part time parent to her kids...or I'd be a part time parent to Sarah. I've known friends who did this and their careers flourished. I can't.

I know how miserable I would be seeing Sarah just 2 days a week and I can't ask my wife to do the same thing with her kids.

So I continue as the manager of the Toledo Mud Hens.....dealing with twenty-somethings who don't know what they are doing....a boss who watches pennies like Ebenezer Scrooge...on the last place team in a top 30 market.

C'mon boys and girls....let's tow the live truck to the plane crash and make some news.

At least they aren't dating.....

This week's Sarah-Daddy-Day was warmer.....no frigid tubing this week...just a trip to the "Almost Greatest Show on Earth".

The good people at Ringling Brothers have 3 levels of circus....Red, Blue, and Gold. We went to what was supposed to be "Gold". When you think GOLD you think "their best". They advertise it as closer to the people. Well....OK...but not quite their best.

They had 4-5 horses....one elephant....and 2 clowns. Yikes....my office has more entertainers than that. For most of the adults in the audience it was lacking a little bit. For the kids it was fine...there was the assortment of over priced souvineers...over priced popcorn...over priced parking...you get the idea.

Highlight for me was giving 2 of my 4 free ticket coupons to a little Asian woman with 3 kids in tow...she looked like she could use them and she was shocked to see someone hand her the equivalent of $40.

And it was warmer than last week's adventure.

Sarah-cicle

OK.....So Dad gets the bright idea to try tubing again. This time Sarah, her stepbrother Sam, "friend of Sam" (not to be confused with Son Of Sam) John and I head up to Hawksnest.

It was the opposite of the first trip.

All was well on the trip up. John quizzed me on my musical tastes as I tortured him with my satellite radio choices. Sarah only said "How much further" about 10 times (a drastic improvement from the first trip "up the hill"). We arrived about noon.

It was downhill from here...(PLEASE...Pun Police forgive that one.) The place was goofy packed. We opened the car doors to 30 mph winds and a wind chill of around....5.....FREAKIN' FIVE!!! What the hell was I thinking? We bundled up for the walk along the icy road to the ticket booth. I carried Sarah for fear she was going to fall in the path of one of the on coming SUVs. (Do they let you come there without an SUV?)

Got to the ticket booth without busting my ass. (Did I mention the ridiculous ass numbing cold wind?? Did I ask what the hell was I thinking??....oh yeah...I did.) Long line of other frozen ass-cicles to buy tickets but.....the 1PM AND THE 3PM WERE SOLD OUT!!!!

So now what the hell do I do?....I have 3 kids....all ready for a winter wonderland of fun and the next available time where fun was going to be permitted was a mere 4 1/2 hours away.

OK....I'm somewhat of a stubborn person. The mere 5 degree windchill and the "No Fun Allowed Until 5PM" sign was not going to make me look like an idiot in front of these three kids. I was starting to have visions of Clark Grizwold in National Lampoon's Vacation. I was ready to punch the moose!

On to Sugar Mountain...they have tubing....and it's probably warm and they probably have no lines....and they probably give the Dad's cold beers while waiting......

YEAH....right! We spent the next hour driving around just looking for a place to park at Sugar. We stopped and got GAS STATION PIZZA...and Sarah used the bathroom at a place that made me cringe. (OK...the options were limited....Sarah's Mom please forgive me.)

We did widdle our wait time down to a mere 3 hours by driving around aimlessly. I decided (in true Clark Grizwold fashion) that BY GOD WE WERE GOING TUBING AND WE WERE GONNA HAVE FUN!!!!! The 5PM session would be great!!

So...back up to Hawksnest we went to kill 3 hours with a 4 year old by my side. We went in the lodge....we went in the ski shop (that's probably supposed to be spelled "shoppe" since their stuff was so ridiculously overpriced) we went outside....we went upstairs....etc.

We repeated this process 172 times until it was finally close to 5PM. In the meantime, Sam and John were happily throwing chunks of ice at each other, outside, oblivious to the temperature (did I mention the wind chill?).

We went out, got our tube and stood in line for a few minutes. The fun was about to commence to happen here!! We were looking at 2 hours of "Daddy-Daughter-Ear-to-Ear-Grin-Fun"!

Except....for some reason as the sun went DOWN the temperature didn't GO UP. In fact...it got really cold. Silly cold. "Ass- numbing-sell-your-right-arm-for-a-little-warmth type cold".

And so...we went down the tube run once. And on the way back up on the moving sidewalk it became obvious that my sweet little girl was not experiencing the fun I had envisioned. In fact...she was in pain.

By the time I got her in front of the fireplace she was crying uncontrollably. The good people of the NC Ski Patrol (all volunteers and all genuinely nice people) brought her in and put hot water bottles on her hands and feet. After a half hour or so she was back to normal temperature.

We spent the rest of the session sitting in front of the fireplace. Sarah wanted no part of being frozen any more.

Her brother and his buddy tubed the full 2 hours...and then continued on a side hill...apparently oblivious to the fact that it was brass monkey cold and time to go.

Once I got them in the car we made a run for the border. Taco Bell never tasted so good. A short time later my troop of "fun seekers" was southbound and sound asleep. Dad was just glad to no longer be freezing his ass off.....and glad to know a beer was a mere two hours away,

4 year olds and PMS

OK......lest the regular readers of this blog (is there more than 1?) think we are a combination of the Cleaver/Huxtable/Walton families...spending every weekend in happy bliss while I drop meaningful witty lines everywhere.....today was not a happy Sarah-Daddy day....

The tantrums started early and often....after a parental stand off that damn near required an intervention by the National Guard (are there any left in this country?) Sarah finally pulled herself together and we went to a children's museum. She was petrified of a fairy tale exhibit. (Remember, last week she was up for throwing herself down an icy hill in an inner tube.) We decided to go see a puppet show...."Salsa Cinderalla".

If you're familiar with the brilliant comic Jeff Dunham's "Jalapeno on a Stick"....it was just like that! Except....not funny. Or Brilliant. Or Entertaining.

Afterwards Sarah and I went out for pizza. In true 4 year old with PMS character, she didn't want any pizza....until I got mine...then she wanted mine....all of it.

Some days Sarah is a joy....some days she is a challenge.

Getting "Tubular"

As a child of the '60s I grew up with playgrounds that had metal slides and teeter totters....and lived. My parents wouldn't think twice if they didn't see me all day long. I rode my bike all over town. I played baseball without a helmet. I didn't have a cell phone so my Mom could find me. She told me to be home at dinner time and I did. It was a different world.
We would go sleigh riding on highway cloverleafs. If you got going really fast you'd have to fall off because the sleigh was going to be soon competing with the cars attempting to get on the Sunrise Highway. Nobody was ever killed. We froze our "keysters" (that's NY for bottom) off, played all day, went home and had hot chocolate.
I wanted my little girl to experience the fun I had as a child of playing in the snow. Since it's starting to look like winter is never going to come here, we piled in to the car and took a two hour ride to go tubing.
Thirty seven "are we there yet"s later....we arrived. I was a little concerned that Sarah would take one look at the slopes, decide they're scary and we'd be back in the car in 10 minutes. She's petrified of inflatable lawn balloons in Home Depot...you never know what's gonna press her "DEAR GOD...GET ME OUT OF HERE" button.










Nope...when it comes to snow...we're raising a daredevil. She couldn't wait! We had a blast, up and down the hill. I'm sure it's the most fresh air she's ever gotten in one day in her entire life. For Dad it was the most fresh air and FUN I've had in a long time! It was 60 degrees...the snow was melting. The slopes were fast, the lines were short. Sarah's smile probably contributed to the "global warming"....ear to ear all day.
When our session was over we had pizza on the deck over looking the slopes. Sarah was tired, Daddy was tired, but for me there was a sense of satisfaction that we made a big time memory today. She couldn't wait to tell Mommy, brother, her friends at school, the NY Times...it was big in her world.
Two minutes after getting in the car to go home she was asleep...that kind of "drool on your chin" power nap that you can only obtain after intense excitement.
When we got home there was a cold beer instead of a hot choclate. It's been a long time since I've fully appreciated dry underwear and socks!

Sarah Daddy Day....

Today for most of the world was Saturday....in my world it's called "Sarah-Daddy-Day".

For the regular viewers of this blog (yeah, right, like anyone is reading this) you will soon realize that Sarah, our 4 1/2 year old little girl tends to make sure our universe revolves around her.

Saturdays are special for us...I get to spend time with our little girl, my little girl gets to spend time with her Daddy, my wife gets a break. One of the weird things about having a child in your 40s that you didn't expect to have is you feel so fortunate you tend to turn them in to the "Golden Child".

We are no different....we spent her first few years making sure her crown fit comfortably. There is no doubt...this has bit us in the ass in a number of ways....a topic for future blogs.

Today was kind of a typical SDD...we went out for lunch and then to the park. We'd still be there right now if Golden Child had her way. This evening GC and I went out for Ben and Jerry's (double break day for Mommy...Daddy got a nap in the middle)....my hope is the sugar will wear off before midnight.

Sarah was "chatty" today. I love that as she gets older she talks up a storm about all of the things we've done together. It's important to me to know that if I get hit by a bus tomorrow she will know her father loved her.

Every women I've ever met who had problems in their lives had bad relationships with their fathers. With every push of the swing at the park it is my dream that Golden Child will eventually be well adjusted Golden Woman.

Whatever happened to MP2 players?

OK....so it's my first blog...and my first post to my first blog.

I've been fighting technology for decades. I bought a cd player only after they released the first 3 Beatles albums on CD. At the time I said I'd only buy the really important stuff on CD and just buy cassettes of everything else. Currently I own about 280 cds.

About a dozen years ago I said I'd be the last person in America to own a cell phone....now you're issued one shortly after birth. The only place I go today without the damn thing being attached to my hip is the shower. (When Verizon comes out with the waterproof-MP 3 playing- text messaging- internet browsing- back massaging cell phone I'll be there.)

I resisted buying an MP 3 player because I couldn't possibly work out while listening to music. How would I know what the news channels at the YMCA were talking about? (Well....just read the closed captioning. I've noticed that apparently spelling isn't important at Fox and CNN.)

I had friends tell me that satellite radio would change my life. I said "Why the hell would I pay for radio?" After noting that the local talk radio station went for EIGHT FREEKIN' MINUTE LONG COMMERCIAL BREAKS and my commute often involved an hour plus long ordeal in the car I finally gave in. Sirius has made me love driving. It's amazing....you don't even get annoyed when the moron in front of you is driving 10 miles per hour UNDER the speed limit. Road rage murders are prevented every day by satellite radio.

So now....I once again bow to societal pressure and join the new- hip- cool thing...the blog world....or as I like to think of it....personal therapy without a bill.

I've noticed most blogs seem to be musings that people would otherwise spend a lot of money talking to a "mental health professional" about. Either we've run out of therapists (highly unlikely) or people are so busy with all of the trimmings of our modern world to find time to actually talk.

I have a few things to talk about.....but I've got to go check my work computer, answer a text message, watch my station's news....and try to be a good Daddy/husband......the joy of being the 21st century Lou Grant.