I’m posting this on I-95. I’m heading to my Mother-in-Law’s.
Tethering my rooted phone once again.
Category: family
I Love My Wife
But helping her work with her phone and computer makes me f%$#ing crazy.
I am so not a teacher, but I married one, go figure.
I’m showing her how to sync her android phone directly to her Outlook.
(Hint: it uses a PIM called MyPhone Explorer which is actually pretty slick)
I have to have her press all the buttons, because otherwise, she would not get it, and she would be asking me how to do this over, and over, and over, and over again.
Still, getting her over the hump on this drives me buggy.
Vengeance Is Mine, Sayeth the Dad
So, we want to a Bar Mitzvah today, and we told Charlie that since he was only 12, he needed to wear a suit jacket and a tie.
He was OK on the tie, but refused to wear a suit jacket.
We are talking yelling, and screaming, and passive aggressive resistance.
Eventually, we got him into the car, and put the jacket in the back, and when when we got there, it was held at the old Washington Post building, we got him to take the jacket in, but not to wear it.
Toward the end of the evening, I asked Charlie if he could put on the jacket for 15 seconds, so that I could snap a picture of it.
He put on the jacket, and I reminded him that he was turning 12 next month, and that his Bar Mitzvah would be a year from that.
I then informed him that a suit jacket with tie was non-negotiable for his Bar Mitzvah, and as it sunk in, I snapped this picture.
Not a happy young man, huh?
Feeling Fracking Awful
I’ve been caffeine free for the past month or so, and felt a lot better.
Unfortunately, last night I was Jonesing for some Coca-Cola, and last night I had a couple of cups.
I have felt out of sorts and awful all day.
Back to decaf tomorrow.
I Think That He Needs to Get a Younger Girlfriend………*
Click for full size
Baltimore is a strange place
So, I was driving home from shopping with my family, and come up on a motorcyclist who has a decidedly atypical companion on the back of the bike: a skeleton, complete with wig and helmet.
I asked Sharon† to snap some pictures of this, and here they are.
As you can see, he saw our interest, and my wife snapping pictures, and posed a bit for us.
It added a bit of the surreal to this day.
*I cannot claim credit for this bon mot. It was coined by my daughter, Natalie.
†Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
Pictures I Won’t Be Uploading
I’m sitting in a doctor’s office, waiting for Sharon* to get out of her appointment for a colonoscopy.
Getting older is so fun.
When you get old enough they regularly put a video camera up your Tuchas.
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
Busy Day
We got a call from Natalie’s sleep away camp, she was experiencing headaches, tremors, and trouble swallowing.
We took her to the ER, and it appears just to be a minor virus, juxtaposed with not eating anything that day (from the virus), and the fact that she was up until 2 in the morning.
Still, there is nothing like an ER visit to F%$# up your day.
She’s back at camp, and so are we overnight, just in case.
I Love My Daughter
She lost her cell phone again, and found it a week later, in exactly the same place she found it last time.
Great googly moogly!
I Love Our Healthcare System
My wife has spent much of today finding who we need to call in order to get a certificate of what is called “creditable coverage,” which we need to get or pre existing conditions covered.
I am seriously considering moving to Vermont when their single-payer plan becomes operational.
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Deep Thought
Yesterday, we were driving to a distant SCA (medieval recreation group) event, about 200 km (120 miles), and my almost-14 year old and my 11 year old were being annoying, both to each other as well as to Sharon* and me.
I finally told them that they were acting like the 3 Stooges, without the Stooges level of maturity.
The scary thing is that it’s true.
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
It’s a Memorial Day Tradition
Cookout time.
Pretty standard fare, I did steaks for Sharon, Natalie, and Me, and knockwurst for Charlie.
A twist on all this was that I grilled some fruit, mangoes, pineapple, cantaloupe, and bananas, which turned out nicely.
Next time though, I’ll not bring the fire down as much before grilling the fruit. I think that the higher temperatures will help caramelize the sugars.
I Had Fun….
We went to Annapolis today.
It was fun, but I am completely wiped.
The Pod People Have Replaced Natalie with a Doppelgänger
I love my daughter, but she could lose a bright orange bowling ball on a golf green.
It’s just the way she is.
Well, it’s not been a good week for my children in the losing things arena.
She lost her beloved cell phone (really, she loves it), and Charlie lost his eyeglasses , and so we have been turning the house upside down for the past week trying to find them.
We set up an appointment with Charlie’s Ophthalmologist to get a new pair of glasses, and I was about to start looking on eBay to find the oft-threatened crappy cheap replacement phone.
And then, tonight, in the space of 90 seconds, she found both of them.
Either the pod people have replaced her with a simulacrum, or there was a meteor strike nearby that released some heretofore unknown type of radiation, and she has developed mutant powers.
My Tax Dollars At Work
They are resurfacing my street this week, and if you look in the background, you will garbage truck in the background.
I can’t street park right now, which is kind of a pain, but the temporary eradication of potholes is a good thing.™
Deep Thought
Not my deep thought, actually.
The family was in a restaurant on Sunday, why eat in when you are removing food from the house for Passover, and besides, the storm had knocked out our power.
In any case, the restaurant had Fox News up on a monitor.
It was “pimp Atlas Shrugged day”, so they were interviewing the actors, the director, etc., along with examples of how capitalist “supermen” are essential.
Thankfully, the sound was off, and I had my back to it, but my son Charlie was watching the scroll beneath.
Suddenly, he looked at me confused, “Dad, Fox News says that venture capitalists invented video game systems. Can you explain that to me dad? I don’t speak lunatic.”
I guess that I am raising my kids right.
Biblical Plagues, We Haz Them!
So, Passover starts tonight, and so there is a lot of preparation.
Our house is supposed to be Chometz* free, so think of Spring cleaning run by a Jewish woman on the edge of madness.
Well, we get back from an SCA event on Saturday night, ready to start cleaning, and the power was out, and remained out for the next 18 hours.
But, as the saying goes, wait, there’s more.
Marilyn, my mother-in-law, was coming to visit us, and took the bus down the New York City area, only the ticketing agent pointed her to the bus that was headed to Boston.†
So, instead of arriving at 5pm on Sunday, she arrived at 6am today.
You know, I’m not a superstitious person,‡ but I am expecting problems with blood, frogs, and cattle disease at our Seder tonight.
Light posting the next few days, because of the holidays.
*Leavened bread, and related products, which include things like beans if you are a Jew of Eastern European extraction.
†Major props to my brother Daniel, who lives about 40 minutes outside of Boston, who picked up Marilyn and took her to dinner before taking her back to the bus station.
‡Which I guess is a mealy mouthed way of saying that I am a superstitious person under these circumstances.
Deep Thought
Cleaning for Passover sucks wet farts from dead pigeons.
Whew! My Number Did Not Come Up!
For the 2nd time in just over 3 years, I got a summons to appear on jury duty.
My call in number was 223, they called in numbers 1 to 218.
A word of note to any potential criminals out there: The idea that someone like might adjudicate your guilt or innocence should scare the crap out of you.
Well, At Least It’s Not Jesus or the Virgin Mary
So Sharon* went shopping, and picked up a parsnip.
Or maybe it’s two, I’m not sure.
It’s weird, and I think it looks like a contortionist with wide child bearing hips.
In any case, consider this a vegetable Rorschach, and leave your comments below.
Click the image for the full size.
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
Sharon and I Had Some Us Time Today
Both kids went to the Kings Dominion amusement park on a USY junket.
We had a date to get some coffee at the now re-opened Java Mamas coffee house, went to Barnes and Nobel to pick up some books for the kids, and then she went shoe shopping with a friend.
Gawd, we are dull.