Half Past Awesome

What The Pros Supposedly Rode.

I love lying to people, mostly my sons. If I was to be believed, Darth Vader built the Death Star on our 5 acres (right behind my shop), I used to be a Transformer until an accident at the power plant turned me into a human, I have a ninja on speed-dial on my phone who is ready 24/7 to fight crimes I encounter, I invented Legos one rainy Sunday and, coincidentally, I can both speak to and understand all animal life forms. These traits give me great credibility within the home, right up to the point where The Wife betrays me in favor of the truth. I curse her name when she does this. She has to, though, because I come by this capacity naturally, thanks to my father, The Lyin’ Dutchman. I grew up in a household where certain fabrications were spun out that we, his boys, were to take as gospel on pain of ostracization. An example, you say? Here are seven examples for you to consider:

• Pink Floyd , Supertramp and ABBA were Dutch bands (this is because my father is Dutch-Indonesian, hence, all things good in this world are, by default, Dutch. All bad things – well, those are usually Japanese, in his eyes)
• All major BMX stars purchase their bikes at Pep Boys Auto Parts, which is, coincidentally where my Huffy Thunder Road with the banana seat and get-your-ass-kicked fenders was bought.
• He invented the layout of the circuit board
• He got citizenship early from President Kennedy himself
• MIT was “a decent college”…..he’s a graduate, despite any sort of diploma or evidence of this education.
• He served as a tank commander in Korea ~ we’re not sure which country he was serving, none dared to ask.

…………..and most recently (as related by Bones, another of my five brothers):

• He invented the navigational strobe beacon found on aircraft as early as the 1940′s. Quite the achievement for someone under the age of ten.

Now, this might seem rude and crass to utilize this public forum to call out the old man for his fabrications, but I would argue to the contrary. If anything, they made growing up under his roof one constant adventure in fish tales. Yes, confusion reigned, especially when we dared to question the validity of his claims. A sad turn of events has led to the invention of the internet and search engines such as Google, thus making it easier to refute claims such as a long-referenced semi-professional soccer career (“stop being such a smart-ass. I was a pro. End of story.”) No, it was much simpler to weave a fabric of fabrication in the 70′s and 80′s, a fact not lost on me.

So now I’m faced with children who will have the ability to research my claims of leading a zombie army in the overthrow of a hostile military junta in South America way back when. But rather than being intimidated by technology spoiling my animated stories, I relish the challenge of  working around inconvenient truths. After all, part of the reason I became a father was to experience the thrill of lying to my kids in order to look cool. Some may label me a bullshit artist, but I prefer to go by “Dad”.

“Dude, you’ve GOT to see Avatar! Best movie, ever! Make sure you see it in 3-D, dude, it’s sooooo much better that way!”

This is a statement a friend made to me recently. He took my raised eyebrow to mean I wanted to debate the merits of watching said new movie in 3-D versus 2-D. Nothing could’ve been further from reality, however. The odds of me seeing a science fiction flick in 3D on an IMAX screen in the near future are reasonably nil, a fact that baffled him. It was tantamount to missing The Resurrection as far as he was concerned, but then again, he has no kids. In all likelihood, I’ll see Avatar around the same time as I become a full fledged cocaine-cartel boss.

On the incredibly rare opportunity that I find three hours waiting to be pissed away, I find it hard to walk into a theater and plop down $13 dollars for a ticket $79.43 for popcorn and a small Sprite and sit still. Don’t get me wrong….I love the movies, and there is hardly a better guilty indulgence than to escape into a wild world of cinematic mindlessness. But I’m overwhelmed by the fact that three hours of my life will ebb into the abyss and I’ll have wasted time I could’ve spent on Facebook.

The actual truth is a few blocks down from that statement. The fact is that I’m a dad with two boys under the age of ten. If I’m going to waste a weeks’ pay on a cinematic experience, it better be one that they choose. I can’t see anything that can’t be purchased in toy form at a McDonalds. I cannot name the provinces of Iraq that my brothers served in, but I seem to know the Transformer characters by name, and have cursed their names in vain as I smashed them against a wall in an futile attempt to convert them. I’ve never given a second thought to how moronic it is that a robot would want to transform into a semi truck (I mean, really. What’s he gonna do in everyday life? Haul produce and lounge around in truck stops, only to have his driver seduce prostitutes on an hourly basis?) No, I gladly submit to the hell that is one million parts of Chinese plastic in an attempt to remain relevant in this household.

Those without children use me as an example of the pity they feel. They don’t know the depth of the unspoken, unconditional love that keeps me motivated to engage in thirty light-saber battles a day, always willing to lose for the cause. I wouldn’t do this for your kids, and you wouldn’t do it for mine, but something happens when you’re this invested. Hare-brained schemes like leaving it all to join a Bob Marley & The Wailers tribute band take a back seat, and you’ve become that guy. The one who gets mocked in a silent way when he leaves the party, stone cold sober and eager to catch the 763rd reading of “I Stink” before bed time.

Someday, I’ll be able to join in on discussions about the impact of the latest Hollywood blockbuster on pop culture, but, by then, I probably just won’t care. In the meantime, I’ll still build Lego spacestations and create forts of blankets and pillows to stave off attacks from the Imperial Mom. I can only hope they might want to catch Transformers 12 with me down at the cineplex in a couple of years; at least I’ll know all the characters’ names.

It’s time to kick -aught nine to the curb and usher in the new decade. We’ll probably start with the host of false promises known as  New Years’ Resolutions. I thought that for a different perspective, my resolutions would be things that I would NOT do 2010 to the best of my abilities. This post also marks the 100th installment of Half Past Awesome, and I’d like to thank those of you who take the time to read my insane rants; at the least, I hope I can amuse you from time to time. So here you have it, 20 things that I intend to not to do in ’10. I’ll talk to you next year, amigos. Enjoy!

20 Things I Resolve To Not Do In 2010

I will not:

1.) Get any neck tattoos. While these may elevate your status in prison, they are somewhat off-putting and remind people on the outside not to trust you very much.

2.) Be featured on the A&E television show Hoarders. To avoid becoming one, I may have to set fire to my many random pieces of plywood and lumber that litter the shop. Nobody gets a birdhouse, but then, I don’t become one of those nutjobs. Bittersweet, I suppose.

3.) Let the hair on my back grow to any length. This is disgusting and requires only two words: consistent waxing. The pain is well worth the avoidance of the back sweater blues.

4.) Develop any sort of Ponzi schemes that might defraud hapless hedge fund managers. Those poor slobs have been through enough already, don’t you think? They deserve our deepest sympathy.

5.) Fall in love with Penelope Cruz. This is going to prove tougher as time goes by, but we must get over one another.

6.) Join a motorcycle gang. As tempting as it sounds, riding around all hopped up and psychotic, I don’t even own a motorcycle, so this should be an attainable goal. No promises on not wearing the leather vest, though.

7.) Ever, EVER, wear skinny jeans. This trend is stupid enough that I envision the next step will be wearing a wetsuit bottom around, and after that, just straight up tights. Way to go, Robin Hood wannabes.

8.) Be swayed by the hypnotic qualities of Dyson products. Whether it’s the vacuum ball or air-blade hand dryer, I must control the urge to fork out $1600 to dry my hands. But damn, their devices look so good, and when that Dyson guys pitches his inventions? His accent alone makes me want to purchase. But I won’t. Not this year.

9.) Mock Steven Seagal. This has become too easy, and he’s inches away from becoming a character on Reno 911, so I just gotta let them have it. Take care, Steven, I’ll miss haranguing you.

10.) Attempt a mustache. Previous mustaches I have worn always result in my looking like either a failed porn star or some sort of international sex predator, neither of which I can really feel comfortable sporting. No to the ‘stache.

11.) Purchase Crocs. Not unless I need some fancy footwear while shopping down at “The Wal-Marts”.

12.) Take sides, nor participate in the Edward vs. Jacob conversation. You ladies are all either necrophiliacs or pedophiles, and it’s more than creepy. Ps- vampires and werewolves don’t really exist, so this whole debate makes as much sense as arguing about who’s hotter: Jessica Rabbit or Betty Boop?

13.) Purchase a Member’s Only jacket. I don’t think I need to give a reason here.

14.) Challenge The Lyin’ Dutchman to a cage fight. To the death. Much as I am tempted to lure him into the Octagon, there can only be one result of such a fight; the winner would have to take on Aunt Viper, and we know who wins in that scenario.

15.) Go to Arkansas for any reason – it never ends well. Just ask Hillary.

16.) Insist that Christopher Walken play the role of me, on the off-chance that an epic movie be made about my shenanigans and debauchery.

17.) Accept Sarah Palin’s invitation into her tour bus the next time she rolls into Springfield – she only wants one thing, the dirty little minx. I learned my lesson last time, and I won’t be treated like that again.

18.) Beat up young boys who wear make-up and iron their hair. This one will be tough to uphold, as those kids need a decent slapping and a mirror shoved into their face. When you wear more make-up than most girls and you spend more than 10 seconds on your hair, then your sexual ambiguity should meet the back of my hand.

19.) Walk away from everything I know in order to be a roadie for Mariah Carey. Despite her proclivity for wearing stiletto heels 24 hours a day (which shows dedication!), I suspect that she may be just a little high maintenance.  We’d have issues.

20.) Use the phrase “I’m going to sell you for parts” as a threat to my children when they misbehave. Some people in the Division of Family Services might want an explanation for that one, and I get the sense that they are institutionally devoid of any humor. It’s incredibly effective, but I’ll try my best to threaten to sell them as whole entities instead.

Two days post holiday indulgence and my head is pounding to an unfamiliar drummer. It’s not alcohol induced, and I’ve had the cursory pot of coffee this morning; I’m beginning to suspect radon poisoning or maybe arsenic. I can’t decide which malady is striking me at this time, but I’m pretty sure it’s happening.

It’s 27 degrees out in the yard, The Heathens and I systematically euthanized the Christmas tree and I’ve spent some downtime with my collapsible back scratcher that was left in my stocking, so all should be on the up and up, but it’s not. It feels as though the boys are playing Dance Dance Revolution on my brain stem. I even got after some housework to try and shake this rattling sensation, but to no avail. Has it just been one of those kinds of years, where the sudden onset of a brainache is the consequence of twelve months of foolish behavior? Very possible.

We stand at the precipice of a new year, you and I. We’re going to have lots of choices to make in 2010, and in this, my 99th post, I declare that I’ll choose to have more Ibuprofen on hand. That should dovetail nicely with my other choice – the one in which I improve my relationship with Guinness. I might not follow through on the resolutions that sound so good on paper (ie. really, really trying to get some work as a writer, running a half-marathon, solving world hunger), but I’m pretty sure that if I set the threshold low enough, I can achieve just about anything. In the meantime, I think I might head on down to Patton Alley Pub and grab a pint of the dark stuff in an attempt to silence the jackhammering in my mind.

One night a year, I get to write this letter. It takes all of the usual ingredients of a normal post, alcohol, creative flogging and time spent staring at a wall, to name a few, but the whole process takes on a different meaning tonight. I try and shelve the cynicism. I leave the enemies list tucked into my pocket, ignore the normally-reliable cheap shots, and attempt to focus on this night of nights. I don’t get spiritual in the Christian sense but rather, I try and take the occasion to stroll across fond memories of the Christmases of my youth.

I remember my mom reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to me, the large, dog eared copy of the book the same one her father had read to her. I remember tucking in for a brutal Santa Barbara night, where the temps might hit 50 degrees, our obnoxious family feline, Fat Cat, running her motor on my shoulder until I dropped off into slumber land. I remember scrambling out of that bed to find what I’d been left by the mysterious St. Nick, who was always kind enough to leave me a couple of Clementine oranges in my stocking, along with a candy cane or two.

Christmas was a big deal around our house. My mother decorated like Martha Stewart when Martha Stewart was still running a catering business from her basement. We had the typical parties, punctuated by distant strangers pinching my cheeks while simultaneously blowing cigarette smoke everywhere; the kind of parties where I snuck off to try and make time with the Episcopal priest’s daughter, caring not that she was six years older than me. There was mistletoe….there was a chance. When scorned, I could always turn to listening to my new Beastie Boys tape, using it as a background for the sketches I’d draw of such deep topics as motorcycles and WWII-era bombers.

Before long I was loathing Christmas get-togethers, responding to forced interactions by showing up with a lumberjacks’ beard, a vest and a rebellious streak of alcohol permeating from my pores. There are few things in life as cynical as a teenagers jaded outlook on such urbane topics as “family” and “ugly sweaters”. I wanted out of there, wanted to jump in the ocean, wanted to head back to the hills, wanted to be anywhere but there. I’m sure my stance as an ingrate was noticed, and yet surprisingly I was allowed to continue to attend these functions, scowl in place. That’s the role of family, I guess – to tolerate you even when you’re going through that horrific phase, knowing it all.

Years later, I find myself longing for that embrace of family. They’re all in California, and I’m out here in Missouri where there is approximately a three percent chance of having a white Christmas. I’ve just finished reading the boys “Twas the Night Before Christmas” from a copy of the book from my childhood. We’ve started our own new traditions, including watching “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” several times, we leave a plate of carrots and cookies out for Santa and The Wife bakes like a woman possessed all day so that I’ll have something nice to take to the firehouse on Christmas Day. We’ll get up at 4:00am so that the kids can tear through their presents before I head out to work. I wish, though, that we were gathering at the familial home on 18th Street in Cayucos, California with family members numbering in the thirties, the teens looking sullen and put out, the kids running around like maniacs with their newly acquired toys, the elders just happy to be in the company of those they love.

When I take out the Clementine orange from my stocking tomorrow morning, I’ll be thinking of that family while forging new traditions with my family here in this house. It helps immensly that on the back of my handmade stocking, sewn so many years ago are my mom’s initials. Some traditions are meant to be kept alive, and I intend to keep it that way.

Merry Christmas, my friends. May your memories be forged in the happiness and joy that comes from those who love you the most.

SORT of looks like Aunt Viper

The last couple of days spent on this trip went by in a seeming blur, no doubt influenced by a desire to return to the barn and seasoned with liberal amounts of imbibing. My visits with The Author and RoJo’s family were complimented by an unexpected visit to Aunt Viper. Aunt Viper is The Lyin’ Dutchman’s sister, and, much to her chagrin, she was given the moniker by none other than her own brother, my father. I believe the sentence went something like this: “I tell you what, Ool, that woman is a goddamn viper.” This is the way the crazy wing of the family relates to one another.

Aunt Viper and I haven’t spoken in nearly nine months, ever since The Lyin’ Dutchman’s latest flight into lunacy involved blaming my brothers and I for the implosion of his marriage. When told of such accusations, Aunt Viper had a classic response: “THIS IS WHAT WE DO! We hurt the ones we love when we hurt!” In my book, that’s called ridiculous and I told her as much. There was much yelling involved, and Aunt Viper ended the argument in her typical fashion; she told me to have no further contact with her ever again, seeing as how she now considered me dead to her. This was followed by a ritual slamming down of the phone from her end. Totally standard operating procedure.

I dropped in on her at her office and her first words when she saw me were “Well, well, well……look who’s back.” This was followed by several clucks and a small hug;  then, as she patted me these words of endearment came spilling from her mouth… “Christ, Ool, you’re getting fat.” Sigh. She then led me by the ear as I’d refused to got get some lunch “on her tab” across the street and marched me into a deli where she promptly demanded that a tri-tip sandwich be made. She is of the school that if someone doesn’t understand her thick-as-mud accent, then she should just shout her demands; her favorite target of such tirades is anyone of Mexican decent. No one raises her hackles so completely like the Latinos – she just can’t hate them enough. As I ate half of a sandwich, I asked her if she and her office-mates ate the same thing when they came here. She told me, no, they do not, because it’s too fattening. “Perfect for you, though, Ool. Tell me, are you curling your hair now? What the hell are you doing with your hair?” I informed her that no, this fat boy was indeed, NOT, curling his hair. She dismissed this as an outright lie and intimated that maybe her suspicions about my sexuality were more accurate than I’d care to admit. Despite my having a lovely wife, kids and a propensity for the opposite sex, Aunt Viper thinks most men are nothing more than closeted homosexuals. My opinion is that this is a line of defense she employs when people get too nosy about her spinster status. I tell her as much and she informs me that I have no idea what I’m talking about, as usual. Family.

I arrived this morning at o’dark thirty at LAX to head home (Thanks to RoJo and Amy for their hospitality!) and was greeted by the most hostile ticket agent in the L.A. Basin. When I came up to her counter and said “Good morning, how are ya?”, she just stared at me and slowly picked up the p.a. loudspeaker, angrily announcing “Ladies and gentlemen, when you come up to the ticket counter, you must have your I.D. ready, this will make the process go much more smoothly.” Turns out my I.D. was in my other hand, but I was too busy trying to be all friendly for her liking. I then slapped the plastic card on her counter and made some remark about how some folks just aren’t morning people. She responded by seating me at the back of the plane near a toilet. Score one for the asshole airline employee.

I then met the same customer service etiquette when dealing with the T.S.A. of L.A. They don’t want to be told “Hello!” They want I.D. and they want nothing more. In an ironic twist, there was someone sitting in my seat, and when we compared boarding passes, we were both assigned seat 31D. This counter agent was nothing, if not relentless. I then noticed the guy occupying my seat had, as his name on the pass, my exact name. It then occurred to me that perhaps my sadistic counter agent fell a little in love with me, and was surly as a response to her magnetic attraction to me. She couldn’t get me off her mind, so she kept typing Ulrich Gulje on her computer and assigning groups of people to sit on my lap. I could see that our relationship was going to be tumultuous from the start. In other words, a typical Los Angeles love affair, where mutual hatred was the primary attraction. Score one for the hopeless romantic.

As the plane descended from its cruising altitude and we dipped below the cloud line, I recognized the December hinterlands of the Ozarks coming into view. If California is, in the words of my Rogersville neighbor “the land of fruits and nuts”, then Missouri is the section of the freezer that is in desperate need of a defrosting. People are iced over, there’s no snow to speak of, and there’s a pretty good chance there’s freezer burn on our asses.

The family unit was waiting at the curb, both Heathens eager to tell on one another and pretend they missed me. The Wife seemed glad to see me, and in that moment, I knew that I’d have to end my dangerous relationship with the ticket agent. I don’t think she’d fit in too well here in the freezer section.

Smoking kills. Apparently, however,  it kills in a decidedly random pattern, as evidenced by my family. We seem to be tougher than cigarettes and there are quite a few of us who smoke like freight trains (present company exempt). We are the family that Big Tobacco wishes they’d known during all of those messy legal troubles a few years back. I’ve watched as my father, The Lyin’ Dutchman himself, swore on his grave to his pulmonologist that he’d never touch another smoke, only to pick up the habit within weeks of his discharge, blowing off his diagnosis of emphysema as “a bad cough”. Hard as a coffin nail, the old man refuses to give up his beloved butts, claiming that they’re really no big deal and that doctors, on the whole, are idiots.

As kids, this presented my brothers and I quite the conundrum. Most kids smoke as a form of rebellion against their oppressive parents who don’t know the meaning of cool. But we were actually encouraged to smoke from, like, age ten. I wasn’t a fan and never could manage to pick up the habit, something which no doubt brought my father great shame. He smoked during meals, in the car, in the shower, in other peoples homes, in stores, at work, at Little League games and any other time he deemed fit. To be fair, when I was growing up, smoking was NOT as socially frowned upon; in fact, if you looked at any faded pics from my youth, at least 87% of the adults are holding on to cigarettes, as ubiquitous as cell phones are today. Auto parts stores had a smoking requirement if you were ever to be taken seriously as a customer.

And this…..this was the environment that The Lyin’ Dutchman was born to inhabit – that era when it was thought that women really did appreciate a nice swat on the ass as they walked by, when veiled bigotry was a way of doing business and cars got 7 miles per gallon. There are pictures of him riding the carousel at Disneyland with a cigarette clenched in his teeth, eyes set with the maniacal intensity of a crusty sea captain, and me on the horse behind him, choking on the smoke and face twisted up tight to avoid his exhaust. All of our household furniture had the associated burns and smelling like Harry’s Cocktail Lounge upon arrival at school was the norm. Unfortunately, as society progressed and we left smoking to angst ridden teens and twenty-something models looking to cover up the scent of their bulimic lunches, The Dutchman chose to remain behind. He still enjoys referring to complete strangers as “sweetheart” and casually muttering racial epithets at dining establishments. And oddly enough, he still seems irritated when informed that he cannot light up in an airplane, an indignation that he’ll remedy by strolling around airports with an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips; this lets everyone know he’s both cool and insane.

Just like they won’t know about life before the personal computer, riding in the back of a truck or the fear we had of the Soviet Union, The Heathens won’t have to worry about growing up in a house where there is the deathly pall of faded yellow on the walls or the mess of ashtrays and the associated stench. On the side of town where I work, we see a substantial share of folks who are living in squalor, and I’ve come to associate poverty with a certain smell; it always reeks of piss, cigarettes and cat shit. I think that’s a universal odor, known to firefighters, cops and EMS personnel the world over. So where those of my parents generation viewed smoking as a sign of urbane sophistication, I see it as living in a socioeconomic condition where cat waste is considered interior decor. No wonder my father hates cats.

This is not to say there aren’t plenty of good people out there who smoke: we ALL make conscious, horrible decisions when it comes to our habits and vices. I can’t rationalize my partaking of a dip now and then, nor my copious abuse of the liver, but then, when can we rationalize our bad choices? At the very least, should I take up smoking, my family history dictates that I can inhale with impunity. I just need to get my mind around having a cat using my house as a toilet.

Men. We have a fascination with things mechanical, engineered or crafted. It could be a 1959 small window Peterbilt with a small cam Cummins engine married to a 5×4 transmission or it could be a meticulously executed 3 on 1 rush in hockey; however you look at it, we love it when a plan comes together, to paraphrase  John “Hannibal” Smith of A-Team infamy. As a corollary, we love the associated detritus that comes with an appreciation of craftsmanship. For many woodworkers, the acquisition and collection of the tools is as meaningful as any sort of project they’ll ever turn out. A man will show off his shop to a new friend long before he’ll ever invite him into the house, and this is because the shop is where your tools and equipment live. Even as boys, it wasn’t what we’d DO with the Star Wars figures; it was that we HAD them. This is the sort of mindset that allowed us as a nation to purchase Alaska for $0.019 per acre from the Russians in 1867. We didn’t NEED the great state of Alaska, we just thought it’d look good in the garage.

I am such a man. Always have been. The Wife has expressed concerns that this will evolve into a hoarding situation. Even as as a kid, though, I was fascinated by gear. In the salad days of my attempts at Little League, this became abundantly clear. If you were horrible at baseball, and I was, you either played in the outfield, to be left alone with your thoughts and Matchbox cars, or you played catcher. Being as how I had already constructed my own catchers gear from a pasta strainer, an old pillow and some PVC pipe, this was a score of epic proportions. You mean to say I could actually wear all that gear, for real? Never mind that I’d turn my head with each pitch and the ball would fly right by me. Never mind that I was terrified of getting clobbered in the head with the bat (and with good reason); I wanted to wear that shit on the car ride home from practice. The best part about BMX racing? Trying to do well enough that someone would sponsor your “leathers”, or racing pants, and a cool helmet. The worst part? I sucked at that too, so that meant I wore a motorcycle style and weight helmet, a rugby shirt and Levi jeans,  and thereby came across as a slow Charlie Brown bobblehead figure. I didn’t care, I was wearing GEAR, and it was awesome.

The years rolled by, and I wanted more equipment. I became a certified SCUBA diver and harbored thoughts of becoming an underwater welder. I learned how to weld and spent more time thinking about different welding helmet styles than metallurgy. I thrilled at running the biggest dozer in the quarry’s fleet, because it was an emblem of mechanical engineering asserting itself over piles of dirt. I played lacrosse in high school, in part because it was the closest thing we had to hockey out there, and I’d always wanted to play hockey in part because of the enormous amount of cool gear players got to wear. Now I lug and curse my hockey bag and wonder, as I open it up and the stench wafts upwards, if I should have stuck with soccer. Soccer seems to give off less of a malevolent odor.

Being a firefighter simply enables this love of accoutrements. We ride around on a mobile toolbox, carrying enough hydraulic, pneumatic and hand operated tools to break into most of your finer establishments. We have the firehouse engine bays, which is sort of like acquiring your own shop without any of the mechanic’s training. And to top it off, we wander into burning structures wearing more gear and equipment than I could have believed possible as a strainer wearing kid with a hyperactive imagination. Between the bunker gear, air pack, helmet and tools, we’re sauntering around in something like 60 pounds of personal protection and implements of destruction. And as I continue to age at ferocious pace, the feeling of awe at such cool junk has been replaced by aches, sores and future hernias.

Now I catch my boys wearing ninja masks to dinner and hockey helmets to the bath tub, as though this is the most normal course of action any young man can take. To them it is, for they are my boys. They love having a wide array of light sabers to choose from, even if they have no intention of going on an intergalactic assassination spree any time soon. I’ve seen them wear welding helmets while simulating flight on the riding mower; if I bring my fire gear home, they pounce like pimps who’ve stumbled across George Clinton’s wardrobe. No backyard battle is complete without them ending up in tool belts and yet somehow shirtless. While their mom might mutter and shake her head in confusion, I couldn’t be happier, for these boys, they get it. We don’t all outgrow our childhood dreams – we just get better at concealing them under layers of supposed “maturity”. It’s really a shame, because that which afforded you such wild tangents of the imagination as a child gets you labeled later in life by your spouse as a “potential hoarder”. So you grow up a bit, quit using cordless drills as laser-shooter-blasters and begin to laud the intended purpose of the tools that make our mechanical society function. You claim to appreciate the intrinsic and aesthetic qualities of tools and shops and safety gear, those things that make our lives that much better. And when no is looking, you grab a pasta strainer and see if the boys need another player.

It was a dark and stormy night. No, it wasn’t; it was the middle of the afternoon on a perfectly average day. As the monsoon-like fury raged on, there wasn’t enough visibility to make out your hand in front of your rain-soaked face. Again, not so much; it was sunny without even a hint of clouds in the sky. The mountains were steep and rocky….. enough so that even the sure footed Dall sheep were loathe to venture higher. Actually, the whole thing took place on my dead level gravel driveway. The crevasse gave way, exposing our intrepid explorer to a sure death as the ice ax began its slow southern migration from its chiseled hold.  To be honest, the rut was like 3.75 inches deep, caused by a little rain runoff, and completely avoidable.

As I returned to a work bench in my shop, I hear a wailing cry, the kind you might expect to hear from family members when they discover Dad has driven over the beloved Shar-Poodle-Shit-Zsu on his way to work this morning. I drop the cutting torch and sprint out of the shop to find my lovely wife rolling around next to the driveway, clutching her legs as though she’d just breezed over a hidden land mine that I may or may not have placed to deter trespassers. I ask just what in the hell she thinks she’s doing, lying there when we had company coming over shortly. She immediately demands that I grab a Fresca from the shop fridge, and pour it down her throat. In case that sounds awkward, let me emphasize: SHE DEMANDS A FRESCA. “Oh, what the hell”, I thought, got her the damn Fresca, and returned to find her engaged in what looks to be Lamaze knee rolls and associated hysterical cry/laughing.

My fire department training then took over, so I engaged in our standard protocols: I took some vitals, tried to give her some supplemental oxygen, then offered to check her smoke detector and told her to wait for the ambulance. She did not find this in the least amusing. She then told me how she’d been walking back to the house, and how one ankle rolled in the rut, the subsequent over-compensation of the other and the crash landing results. Having extensive training in the medical field, I told her “stop crying. Walk it off.” We’ve all rolled an ankle or two in our time, and she’s not so special as to merit an ambulance ride or anything. Eventually, she hobbles into the house and we proceed to throw a lavish party. The kind of party that involves the use of plastic utensils, if you catch my drift.

The next day, she opts to go to the doctor, because the swelling hasn’t subsided and, as it turns out, complaining about the pain rarely heals the wound. It then comes to our attention that one ankle has a spiral fracture and one is severely sprained. That’s right (and here’s where I make the big “my bad” part of the speech): she broke her ankle in the driveway. In flip flops. So while my assessment skills were a bit, shall we say, off, you’ll forgive me if the x-ray vision is on the fritz and I missed that one. And so it began. We got the knee scooter. The crutches. And, after a particularly nasty tumble in the kitchen, a wheelchair. I’ve gotten a glimpse of The Wife at age 85. I am most amused by this development.

Karma has a way of taking a steaming dump on your lap, though, when you derive too much amusement from your spouses pain. As I’ve alluded to in other posts, I’m in the middle of training for a half-marathon, a spectacle in which I completely expect to have a massive coronary event. And, one week into her rehabilitation time, I went a little off the rails at a wedding reception, prompting my knee to go from “a little achy” to “now I can’t walk on it without a limp.” With the aid of a knee brace, we are now a pair of invalids, hobbling all over creation. I’ve had to take over most of the domestic engineering, and while I am always happy to divide the labor, I ain’t so cheerful about a solo endeavor. I limp around the kitchen, shaking my fist at The Heathens, hollering that they are LUCKY to be having Mac & Cheese yet again. In the grocery store, we are constantly asked if we were involved in a car wreck. I’ve taken to lying on a much grander scale, often replying with “Why yes, yes we were. It was a 67 car pile-up and we’re the only survivors. But I don’t like to talk about it. How’s YOUR day going?” Really, it’s rather crass, but I take the little victories where I can.

And that, my friends, is why I haven’t posted in a while. We’ve been lucky enough to have the kinds of friends that have been bringing meals over and helping us out as I attempt to coddle (or yell) my family into well being. All of our visitors are of the mind that what we REALLY need is another lasagna, and while I’m eternally grateful for their thoughts and “help”, it’s as though they don’t even know me: not one cold Guinness has been offered as of yet. On the flip side maybe they know us too well; when you have two lame ducks limping all over the house, I’ve found it best if all parties are sober.

A sinus rhythm is defined one way as the normal regular rhythm of the heart as generated by the sinus node. This is what you want to see in a patient when an EKG is performed- five healthy waves in a single heartbeat. But like each beat of the heart, life happens in these up and down waves that define our interactions with others.

I thought about this while I was enduring the cardiac event known as “training run” today. Currently at the end of week three in a twelve week cycle of sado-masochism, I’m attempting my first half marathon in December. Back story -the event is for St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, and I committed to it for a couple of reasons; on October 18 of 2007, the beautiful daughter of a coworker of mine passed away at three years old, the victim of a brain tumor. St. Jude’s was instrumental in helping the family, and I’ve been impressed with this organization since I first learned of it. Secondly, if I am gonna do more than just TALK about being in better heart health, there’s nothing like setting a seemingly impossible goal to guilt me into running.

While experiencing undoubtedly abnormal rhythms, my mind was wandering all over the place, focusing on the peaks and valleys that happen to us at this age. The craziness knows no limits: one classmate of mine is in jail for allegedly murdering his wife in the heat of a bitter custody battle, we have folks with marriages on the rocks or ending, The Lyin’ Dutchman has ostracized each and every member of his family (except Bones), The Wife broke one ankle and sprained the other two days ago just walking down our driveway; hell, I even went nuts to a minor degree this past spring, sold off the excavating business, lost my mind and took up yoga. On the plus side, Heathen #1 is rocking kindergarten, this site has been a fulfilling outlet for my creative impulses, RoJo welcomed a baby boy into this world, Lyrical Jackass is back with an old crazy flame, Dirtbag is busy building out in the northwest, JoBoo just got him a new Harley and my first tattoo is on the horizon.

And so it goes. These various waves in our lives give it spice, meaning, passion and heartbreak. When compared to asystole (also known as “flatline”), sinus rhythm is not such a bad option, even with all the valleys. Living a flat line life would be boring, repetitive, secure to the point of mad doldrums. I’m not advocating abandoning family nor commitments, but rather, learning to accept the valleys as just another point in my life’s rhythm. Caring for a temporarily crippled wife? That’s not too bad, especially when taken in the context of having a person in my life who is willing to even be seen with me. Mile 5 of the training run today? Well, there was nothing good to say about that one, save for that it’s about 4.75 miles further than I’ve run in nearly a decade.  As the knees were snapping, the sweat pouring down like a monsoon, and the feet protesting with each stumbled step, it actually brought a smile to my face. My shuffle might embarrass the hell out of me if I ever were to witness it, but least I’m out there, and not flat-lining here on the couch. I’ll never be a runner’s runner – I know this. To survive this thirteen mile race without congestive heart failure will be nothing short of a medical miracle. But I’ll take the unknown inconsistencies of this run, this life, over the alternatives any day.