I have news to share with my children but I'm waiting for my wife to allow me to tell them. Somewhere between a wonderful surprise and an enormous responsibility is where this news lies and we're going to need the kids to be a major part of the plan in order to be successful. How we reveal the secret is more important to my wife though and it has to be memorable. Dana is a photographer at heart and captures every event digitally. Since I'm the wordsmith and she's Annie Leibovitz, I think we're going to be putting our heads together to make this collaboration special. Home movie? Scrapbook? Music video? Just getting the creative juices flowing is fun and making Dana happy is the goal I can't lose sight of.
I'm under strict orders not to tell the kids my news until the time is right. I am just wondering if that includes indirect sunlight, fashionista primping, and a professional makeup artist. Dana is very particular when it comes to capturing life on film so there's a good chance our kids won't be town criers until Dana figures out the setting, location, and timing of the big reveal. When we do finally reveal the secret, trust me, everyone will know too as the girls don't know how to keep anything to themselves. I'm sure that ability will be acquired within the next 10 years or so but for now, my children are blissfully ignorant to the social dilemmas faced by adults. When it comes to divulging news, who you tell and when you tell it are two of the most important decisions people have to routinely make.
Before I open my big mouth, I'll just stop typing the thoughts that are streaming wildly out of my head. I apparently haven't learned the basic concept of zipping my lips and this blog might spur an email of two wondering what the hell I'm talking about. I guess the first rule in keeping something to yourself is not telling others that you are keeping something to yourself. Oops.
My kids take after me in more ways than one.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
I Need Another Story
I'm shuffle-mode listening to i-tunes again and trying to think about what to write about next. The Jeff Gordon Children's Foundation project is done and I want to get back on track with blogging. The problem with music playing in the background is that I tend to forget my thoughts and just start singing the lyrics instead. Here's what I'm talking about:
One Republic's Secrets: "I need another story, something to get off my chest. My life gets kinda boring. Need something that I can confess."
Linkin Park's What I've Done: "In this farewell, there's no blood. there's no alibi. Cause I've drawn regret, from the truth, from a thousand lies. So let mercy come, and wash away what I've done."
Linkin Park's Waiting For The End: "This is not the end, this is not the beginning, just a voice like a riot rocking every revision. But you listen to the tone and the violent rhythm though the words sound steady something emptys within em."
I think everyone chooses songs for different reasons and though many of my musical preferences are the same as yours, I recently discovered that I'm drawn to songs that reflect pain with poetry. If the song has the same three lines sung ad nauseum, I'm just going to change the channel. But if the artist is lyrically clever, a la Eminem (sans vulgarity), I can listen to those selections all day. Since hurt and devastation are "easy" to write about, those type of songs tend to have the depth I'm looking for versus Top 40 chart toppers that often leave you singing along without ever prompting your mind to start working. "Baby you're a firework". Really? OK. With that in mind, BANG! I'm brain dead.
My wife had me download a song this morning that has meaning for her. It's Gratitude by Nichole Nordiman. As I'm writing this blog I'm also listening to it for the first time. I can hear the reasons why Dana would love it and though it wouldn't be something I'd put on my i-pod, I'm happy to bring some joy to my wife by giving her this download as a gift. For me there's just not enough pain to make the song very appealing.
What does that say about me? I guess that's a topic for another story. Just need to turn off i-tunes to make that happen.
One Republic's Secrets: "I need another story, something to get off my chest. My life gets kinda boring. Need something that I can confess."
Linkin Park's What I've Done: "In this farewell, there's no blood. there's no alibi. Cause I've drawn regret, from the truth, from a thousand lies. So let mercy come, and wash away what I've done."
Linkin Park's Waiting For The End: "This is not the end, this is not the beginning, just a voice like a riot rocking every revision. But you listen to the tone and the violent rhythm though the words sound steady something emptys within em."
I think everyone chooses songs for different reasons and though many of my musical preferences are the same as yours, I recently discovered that I'm drawn to songs that reflect pain with poetry. If the song has the same three lines sung ad nauseum, I'm just going to change the channel. But if the artist is lyrically clever, a la Eminem (sans vulgarity), I can listen to those selections all day. Since hurt and devastation are "easy" to write about, those type of songs tend to have the depth I'm looking for versus Top 40 chart toppers that often leave you singing along without ever prompting your mind to start working. "Baby you're a firework". Really? OK. With that in mind, BANG! I'm brain dead.
My wife had me download a song this morning that has meaning for her. It's Gratitude by Nichole Nordiman. As I'm writing this blog I'm also listening to it for the first time. I can hear the reasons why Dana would love it and though it wouldn't be something I'd put on my i-pod, I'm happy to bring some joy to my wife by giving her this download as a gift. For me there's just not enough pain to make the song very appealing.
What does that say about me? I guess that's a topic for another story. Just need to turn off i-tunes to make that happen.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Once a Moron, Always a Moron
I have a neighbor who can't help being who he is. What is he you ask? Let me make a list.
He is:
1. unmarried
2. 46 years old
3. 6'5" and 270 lbs
4. observably promiscuous
5. usually naked
6. oblivious to the fact that he lives in a residential neighborhood with a family of four next door.
On top of that, I would say without a doubt, that he is mostly:
7. a moron
Moron is defined as "a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment". Considering we have a decade of experiences living next to him to draw from, I think you couldn't define this dude any better.
If moronic isn't the right adjective, you could say that he simply doesn't understand what I have repeatedly told him for the last 10 years; we are his NEIGHBORS. To be neighborly would imply being good natured, helpful, or friendly. Sometimes the guy next door has been just that. The problem is that I have to repeatedly knock on his door to get him to quit acting like a hormonally imbalanced teenager whose parents are gone for the weekend. Most of the problems he causes involve an abuse of alcohol and a lack of awareness. There are some though that just come from out of the blue.
The latest event that is fueling this blog entry just happened today. Sitting in the kitchen and paying the bills, I heard a truck slowly move back and forth in the alley behind my house. Since this is a rare happening, I ran upstairs to get a better look out of the bedroom window. I quickly and shockingly discovered that the truck was not in the alley like I thought. It was maneuvering back and forth on my side yard.
As fast as I could grab a crow bar and open the door, I popped outside only to find that Mr. Moron was right there leading his friend onto my yard (grass covered, expensive irrigation system underneath) so that he could use the truck to help trim his 40 foot illegal palm tree; the same one he already had trimmed a month ago by licensed professionals.
"What the hell are you doing??" I shouted. Beyond pissed, I walked over to my neighbor and almost broke his neck with the crowbar. (Not really, but I did wave it around and he got the message.)
The driver of the truck backed off my property and the moronic neighbor got an earful. Who the hell just tells someone to drive onto his neighbor's property? I asked Mr. Moron that and after a number of apologies and the offer to replace the deep tire tracks with new soil, I ran my sprinklers to determine how many heads the truck drove over. Gladly, and luckily for my neighbor, there were none.
I try to look for the good in a person or situation; it was how I was raised to be. But how can anyone accept the consistent stupidity of another? Let's be honest, I have enough problems already without this constant nonsense. My life doesn't need other distraction.
The moron next door clearly got my message and now I'm waiting to see what he's going to do next. After he repairs the damage to my lawn there will almost certainly be a period in which he will try desperately to avoid contact with me and especially my wife (he's afraid of her), and then he will eventually resume being the person he always is. After living next door to him this long, there is adequate proof to show that sadly, he will always be a moron.
What I should do to retaliate will be the subject of another blog. I have to go make sure that the truck isn't on my front lawn now.
He is:
1. unmarried
2. 46 years old
3. 6'5" and 270 lbs
4. observably promiscuous
5. usually naked
6. oblivious to the fact that he lives in a residential neighborhood with a family of four next door.
On top of that, I would say without a doubt, that he is mostly:
7. a moron
Moron is defined as "a person who is notably stupid or lacking in good judgment". Considering we have a decade of experiences living next to him to draw from, I think you couldn't define this dude any better.
If moronic isn't the right adjective, you could say that he simply doesn't understand what I have repeatedly told him for the last 10 years; we are his NEIGHBORS. To be neighborly would imply being good natured, helpful, or friendly. Sometimes the guy next door has been just that. The problem is that I have to repeatedly knock on his door to get him to quit acting like a hormonally imbalanced teenager whose parents are gone for the weekend. Most of the problems he causes involve an abuse of alcohol and a lack of awareness. There are some though that just come from out of the blue.
The latest event that is fueling this blog entry just happened today. Sitting in the kitchen and paying the bills, I heard a truck slowly move back and forth in the alley behind my house. Since this is a rare happening, I ran upstairs to get a better look out of the bedroom window. I quickly and shockingly discovered that the truck was not in the alley like I thought. It was maneuvering back and forth on my side yard.
As fast as I could grab a crow bar and open the door, I popped outside only to find that Mr. Moron was right there leading his friend onto my yard (grass covered, expensive irrigation system underneath) so that he could use the truck to help trim his 40 foot illegal palm tree; the same one he already had trimmed a month ago by licensed professionals.
"What the hell are you doing??" I shouted. Beyond pissed, I walked over to my neighbor and almost broke his neck with the crowbar. (Not really, but I did wave it around and he got the message.)
The driver of the truck backed off my property and the moronic neighbor got an earful. Who the hell just tells someone to drive onto his neighbor's property? I asked Mr. Moron that and after a number of apologies and the offer to replace the deep tire tracks with new soil, I ran my sprinklers to determine how many heads the truck drove over. Gladly, and luckily for my neighbor, there were none.
I try to look for the good in a person or situation; it was how I was raised to be. But how can anyone accept the consistent stupidity of another? Let's be honest, I have enough problems already without this constant nonsense. My life doesn't need other distraction.
The moron next door clearly got my message and now I'm waiting to see what he's going to do next. After he repairs the damage to my lawn there will almost certainly be a period in which he will try desperately to avoid contact with me and especially my wife (he's afraid of her), and then he will eventually resume being the person he always is. After living next door to him this long, there is adequate proof to show that sadly, he will always be a moron.
What I should do to retaliate will be the subject of another blog. I have to go make sure that the truck isn't on my front lawn now.
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