Hope You All Enjoyed It

Thanksgiving is a time of tradition.  We have many Thanksgiving traditions in the Garrett family.  We gather.  We expend copious amounts of energy making the house look more organized than it typically is, and then say, "Excuse the mess" when others come over.  We feast.  We play games, talk, and laugh.  We take turns writing in the "Thanksgiving Journal."  There are literally dozens of traditions that we observe, consciously or unconsciously, each Thanksgiving. But the most rigid, the most sacred, the most religiously followed tradition is not known to be followed until the day after Thanksgiving.

Every year in preparation for the yearly feast, my family plans on gathering at the Garrett household for Thanksgiving.  We contact everyone and count the people who will be attending.   We carefully and thoughtfully review (and then reject) the subtle changes suggested for the menu each year.  No, the stuffing will not include nuts.  No, we will not be deep frying the turkey.  No, we will not be making yams simply because they add color to the table.  We assign roles, take stock in what we have, what we need, and then go out and purchase enough food to feed the 1st infantry...following three days of starvation training.  And yet, even this is not the tradition that is most adhered to.

This tradition has been passed on from generation to generation, family to family, from as long back as I can remember.  I remember hearing about observing this tradition the day after eating at my aunt and uncle's house when I was in elementary school.  It seems like only thirty years ago (it was more like forty) that we were sitting and watching the Wizard of Oz while waiting for dinner to be set out on the table.  There were two families of five so they took it easy on the food.  There was a ham, a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams (with mini-marshmallows), gravy, green beans, rolls, jello, ambrosia salad, cream cheese stuffed celery sticks, and black olives for all the kids to stick on their fingers.  And every year my aunt would come out, look at the table, straining under the weight of more food than city ordinances would allow, with an appraising eye, and then head back into the kitchen while saying, "Hold on everyone...I'm going to make a green salad."  Green salad?  If we hadn't eaten in a week and invited everyone we'd ever met we wouldn't have been able to eat all the food on the table...and yet Aunt Pam wanted there to be a cushion of food just in case.  And this still isn't the tradition.

No, I discovered that we had honored this tradition this year when I looked in the refrigerator this morning to see if there were any leftovers that might be loosely considered breakfast worthy.  I looked past the gravy and the stuffing.  I considered the deviled eggs briefly.  I decided there was too much infrastructure that needed to be moved to get to the leftover turkey and then I saw them.  The artichoke jalapeno dip and several Pillsbury ready-to-bake crescent roll packages sat exactly where we placed them in preparation for last night's meal.  It seems that the tradition on our family is to plan to serve something, either as an appetizer or side dish,...and then don't.  

In no particular order, according to year, I have heard, "I hope everyone enjoyed the, rolls, jello salad, shrimp, oysters, fresh fruit, stuffed peppers, crackers and cheese, or pickled herring."  At some point in the planning, one of us (probably shopping while hungry) said, "Oh, that would be good.  Let's get that for Thanksgiving."  Only to have it sit 'snug as a crescent roll in a pressurized tube' well after the meal.  (I've always wanted to coin a phrase so if you will start using that crescent roll one, and give me credit, I would appreciate it.

As delicious as warmed artichoke and jalapeno dip is or fresh, hot crescent rolls are, I'm certain that we sent no people away feeling unfulfilled.  More likely we sent away people with that feeling of regret over having taken one too many helpings of whatever...only to "find room" for "just a taste" of two different kinds of pies as dessert.  I'm certain my great-great-great-great grandmother would be proud to know that the tradition of leaving something prepared and uneaten is still going strong.  Of course the times have changed and we no longer, like her, leave the squirrel casserole in the oven until long after the meal was finished...that was last year.

Advertising and the Rhythmic Intestines (not the name of a new band)

Ever have one of those times when you just know you are supposed to do something?  I had one of those yesterday.  In the span of about forty-five minutes three people asked me similar questions.  "How's the blog business?", "How's the blog going?", and finally..."You better start writing again, or do I have to cut you!?"  So here I sit on my first day off for Thanksgiving break and I "decided" to write this morning.  Honestly, I wasn't too worried.  I mean, this all happened in the courtyard at church between services...and the knife the pastor was holding was really kinda small.

I told one person that I hadn't written in a while because I was having a time-management issue and how I used to just sit down and pound out a blog in an hour before the family woke up, but that was when I had stories swishing around my brain like flies around the hind end of a cow.  (some people are saying, "So that's why your writing is like that!")  Now, to be honest, I have fewer stories to tell.  Oh, there are still stories swishing around...doozies...but right from the start I promised that I would not use this as a place to embarrass anyone.  That means there are certain timelines that are in place.  There are some stories that are too fresh to be seen as funny by those involved...others I will need to write and lock in a secret facility to be published only upon my demise.  I haven't written them yet...so no point bumping me off...Ya hear that pastor Mike!?  (not her real name)

Yes, sadly the ideas are sometimes not as forthcoming as they have been in the past.  Don't get me wrong...I could sit and pound out a group of words every day...I'm sure that some of them would even make you, laugh out loud, cry, snort, or even pee your pants (all comments that I have gotten from readers...apologies to the pee-ers...but most especially to the pee-ees) but alas, since no one has seen fit to pay me to do this I have to relegate my blog to hobby status and only write when time allows.  Yes, I am spending energies on keeping my marriage and my children alive.  We've just gone through another set of x-rays and specialists to find out if a wrist was broken or just sprained.  Kids!  What're ya gonna do!?  Today, even though I am positive I turned off the alarms for my first vacation day, one snuck through the settings and I am up at six, writing without a topic...sort of.

I told myself, last night, that if I was awake early enough I would write something this morning.  I didn't have a topic so I thought, I'll write about whatever pops into my head first thing in the morning.  I considered writing a status on Facebook that said, "I am looking for blog topics...give me something to write about." I always feel a little sorry for people who try to get attention like that...BUT IF YOU WANT TO SEND ME SOME BLOG IDEAS HERE IN THE COMMENTS OF THIS POST I CAN GUARANTEE THAT I WILL GET TO THEM IN FUTURE BLOGS!!  And this is not sad, because it's not on Facebook you see...isn't relativism wonderful!?

Back to this morning.  I woke up, fed the dogs, and as I was walking back in from the back yard I heard it.  "AcTIVEeeeeUHHHHHHHH."  No, I didn't have the TV on.  At least not one that anyone else in the world can see or hear.  I heard it back in the center of the brain that is usually relegated to re-playing "It's a Small World" over and over again.  Plain as day I heard the sing-songy final word of a yogurt commercial.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen (and certain knife wielding clergy) the topic for today is yogurt that helps old ladies go poop.  At least that is how they described it on a TV show.  If you don't like it, you may lodge a complaint with my brain.  Ask Sylvia for the details, she does it all the time.

In case you aren't familiar with Activia.  It is a product that is packaged nicely, displayed prominently, and marketed effectively.  I'm sure the only people on the planet who even knew that Activia existed were the people who were making it...enter Jamie Lee Curtis...complete with new natural hair color.  You know what they say, gray is the new blond.  Analysts have spent countless hours talking about how she is showing people that this product is great since she is willing to be its spokesperson looking natural.  There are many commercials in the series of selling.  Jamie getting up in the morning.  Jamie talking to people at a cafe.  Jamie in a ball gown dancing with Arnold Schwarzenegger.  (But I may be thinking of a movie instead of a commercial)

Whatever the scenario, Jamie interacts with women who talk euphemistically about how this yogurt has "changed their lives."  There is a lot of "moving along" talk, and how everything "got going" but they cleverly stay away from the "p" word.  There are several times when Jamie does a little wiggle and moves her arms like she's hula dancing.  I am guessing that this is supposed to simulate the action taking place in your large intestine.  But I tell you what, I don't think I want my innards doing anything even remotely similar to the hula.  In fact that may make me a little uncomfortable if I was at a staff meeting and I noticed that anyone in the room had a dancing colon.  When these women are dancing the wave and talking about feeling better than they ever have in their lives, the commercial pops onto the screen (notice...there's only one "o" in pop) a disclaimer that says something like, "...when eaten three times a day."   Well I'm not going near anything that is going to make my entrails shimmy...and definitely not three times a day!  I'm going to predict that there is going to be a new disclaimer attached.  "If your insides dance or feel like they may be wearing a grass skirt ...longer than four hours...contact your doctor."

All right, Sylvia is up.  I am going to leave it here.  I'm not sure if the kids are up...after I publish this my pastor will tell me where they are being held.  (Kidding!)

Smart? Nah...

Every once in a while I do something that some may consider smart.  I cannot point out too many examples..but it happens.  I may have mentioned before (in an entirely humble way) that I have been called a fairly smart guy.  Of course, that is the only way that people who know me through this blog would know that I wasn't drooling on the keyboard as I wrote.  My grandfather used to say that I was a "pretty smart feller."  Come to think of it, he just as often called me a "pretty fart smeller" so that may not be the best indicator.

Actually, deep in the dark recesses of a couple of damp and moldy archive somewhere lay a few test results that say my intelligence quotient is in the genius range.  There are also a couple of gray haired men, scores of people I know, and practically all of my high school teachers all standing around scratching their heads wondering how they should re-calibrate the machine.

After I heard the first results (fans of The Big Bang Theory on TV can picture Sheldon saying, "I'm not crazy.  My mom had me tested.") I looked into joining the Mensa club.  Apparently it's a club that you can get into if you, like me, were able to pull the wool over some tester's eyes.  I looked into it.  It sounded boring.  And gave up.  A bunch of people standing around solving word problems.  No thanks.  Although I do like an occasional logic puzzle...but I digress.

My favorite story that I came across while looking into this particular club was told by a worker on a marina.     It seems a group had rented a large party sailboat to go out on the bay for the day.  When they came in to port they settled the bill, emptied their belongings, and left.  The worker then started cleaning out the boat to get it ready for the next group in the morning.  When he got to the rigging for one of the signal flags atop a mast he saw that it was jammed.  He couldn't secure everything that he needed to because it looked like a flag was stuck in the mechanism far above the boat.  The only way to handle it was to climb up the mast and hold on with one hand while untangling with the other.  He did that, and after about ten minutes of pulling and untangling, hanging on for dear life, he realized that the group had put their flag on upside down and that had been the cause of all the trouble.  After he freed it and dropped back down to the deck (I apologize to all sailors out there who are cringing at my non-nautical expertise) he unfolded the flag to see that it said, "MENSA!"

As usual...I told you all of that so I could tell you this story.  I was reminded of my brush with intelligence last week when I was given the task of picking up a pizza for when Sylvia and the kids got home from a church function.  I wanted to time it just right so I would have hot, delicious pizza ready for them right when they came in.  I went to the restaurant with what I thought was plenty of time.  I should have known there was something different when I couldn't find a parking space.  There are three businesses in their parking lots and two of them were closed...all of the cars, trucks, and motorcycles(!) were there for pizza.  OK, so technically the people who maneuvered the vehicles to the parking lots were there for pizza...but you get the idea.  I walked into Round Table and was met by a wall of leather, patches, beards, and chains connected to wallets.  Apparently every other Thursday is the night that Harley Davidson riders from near and far converge to have a meeting.  And there I was in the middle of this sea of manliness trying to act as tough as I could...while wearing my faded pink polo shirt.  (I said I was smart, not wise)  The line to get pizza was all the way out the door and I joined the slow parade toward the cashier along with dozens of people who were "Charter Members", "Oakland Chapters", and "Bay Area Prouds."

And that is gets me to what I really wanted to tell you today.  One time, about thirty years ago, my friends and I were in a similar situation at a different Round Table pizza parlor.  It was absolutely mobbed and we considered it a bit rude since it was our hangout and we hadn't given permission for anyone else to come.  The line to order the pizza was about fifteen minutes long and on top of that, the people at the counter were answering the phone orders and making the people who were in line and having to smell the delicious pizza while waiting for food.  As I stood to get into line (I was a few months older than the rest of the youth group so I was the designated orderer) I walked past all the people in line.  Something in me just said, "Let's give it a try."  I walked past about a dozen people, picked up the pay phone by the door, deposited my dime, and ordered my pizza ahead of all the other people.  Not the nicest thing to do to all the people in line...but I was young and self-absorbed.   I just remember that at the time I was fairly proud of myself for being so clever.  If you are kind, nobody will mention the fact that I had to reach back a few decades to find a good example.

Looking back, I see that I wasn't so smart as I was mean to the people standing in line.  But I felt good about it at the time.  So much for joining Mensa.  I'm sure they have an ethics clause or something...but maybe the guy in charge of that is still waiting in line for pizza.

The Face

It's happened again...I got the face.

I should be used to the face by now but every once in a while it surprises me anew.  I get the face much more from women but occasionally from men.  The last time I got the face I should have seen it coming, but I boldly went where experience has told me that I should fear to tread.  That's right...I told someone what I do for a living.

I sometimes get the urge to make up a career.  "I'm an underwater welder on explosive oil rigs.  Yeah, they only call me when all the other guys refuse to do it.  You know, because I laugh in the face of danger...and I'm so tough I don't even need to wear a wet suit.  The mask interferes with the shark repelling knife I am holding in my teeth."  And then I would spit out a giant wad of chewing tobacco...just to prove how manly I was.  I bet guys who say things like this never get the face.

Sylvia and I were out and about (oot and aboot for my Canadian readers) a while ago when she ran into someone she knew.  Small talk, small talk, small talk...and then she asked, "So Jeff, what do you do?"  My standard reply is "I'm a teacher." which is fortunate because, well, I am a teacher.  And then she said, "What do you teach?  High school?  Junior high?"  Ignoring the urge to make something up about teaching Chuck Norris everything he knows about Karate, or pretending that I teach anger management to violent prisoners at Quentin...IN A STEEL CAGE!   No, I said, "Kindergarten."  That's when she broke into the face.

It's a little difficult to describe the face unless you have seen it, but I will try.  Imagine an eleven year old girl who has just listened to two and a half hours of Justin Bieber songs...while hugging his picture.  Then imagine that young master Bieber sent his personal limo driver to her house with a box full of fuzzy little kittens.  Get the picture?  The eyebrows move together and up, the mouth becomes a small smiley "o" shape, head tilts slightly to the side, and you hear a faint, "Awwwwwwww!"

I have to admit, when I first started teaching kindergarten I didn't fully examine the ramifications of this as a job.  I knew I would have to teach these four and five year olds everything about being a student.  "Your bottom belongs on the chair."  "Tell her you don't like when she touches your face...don't hit her."  "The pencils are for writing, not eating." and my favorite, "Take that paper out of your ear!" but I didn't expect how others would react.  And I certainly didn't expect the face.  

I'm sure it doesn't help that I am fairly tall.  I'm not a giant.  I have zero prospects of being a professional basketball player and the Lifetime channel will never do a half hour special figuring out how I cope in the 'normal height' world, but at 6 foot 3 inches I do tower over my students.  A lot of people (non teachers) say, Oh I bet your class is so quiet since they are scared of how tall you are.  Let me (and every other teacher in America) just say, "Yeah, right."  What they should say is, I feel so sorry for your back since you have to bend in half to get to their level.

It is sort of funny when you think about it, tall guy, short students, it would probably make a great movie.  Let's see, Arnold Schwarzenegger could play me...yeah, he could be a policeman who kind of falls into being a teacher in a kindergarten classroom.  They could call it Kindergarten Cop!  Man!  This is just rolling off my fingertips this morning!  I have to call Universal Studios!

Actually, that is the second most comment I get when I meet people.  "You should see Kindergarten Cop!"  To which I say, "Really?  What's it about?"  There really is very little I have in common with that situation.  My Arnold muscles are well hidden under a protective layer of cheeseburgers, I actually worked toward being a teacher, I didn't just fall into it, I don't teach in a little town in Oregon, and I almost never bring a gun to school.   Maybe I'll just embrace the comparison.  Does anyone know of a school that teaches how to speak in an Austrian Accent?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go deliver this box full of fluffy kittens...Awwwwww.

A New Pillow?

It's past midnight.  I'm wearing a tuxedo.  Everyone else is in bed.  It's dark.  The leg lamp from A Christmas Story is lit.  Perfect time to write a blog...wouldn't you say?  I am not going to tell you that my tuxedo is much more like a Donald Duck shirt and a pair of running shorts.  I only know that they are for running since it says so on the tag.  I was actually coerced into writing by a group of people I spent the evening with. We had a great time of laughing, eating, playing Bocce ball, and (for some strange reason) talking about how buying a new pillow is not an effective cure for carbon monoxide poisoning.  True story...

When it came to the tail end of the night and people were looking at me funny (and looking at Sylvia sympathetically) over some odd thing that I had just said, my friend Rand told everyone that I wrote a blog.  He then said a complementary thing..."37 degrees!"  Just kidding, I love math jokes that 8 people will get.  He said a very complimentary thing about my blog, "It is very much like Dave Barry's writing."  I'll have you know, Rand, that I have two things on the mirror next to my side of the bed.  A picture of Sylvia and a post card Dave Barry sent me.  To be mentioned in the same breath as him, and his writing prowess, never gets old.  Thanks.  (your check should arrive in the next few days)

Well now people actually are going to maybe go looking for something that I have written.  And I haven't written in a while.  I better get to work on something fresh.  Something now.  Something hip with a groovy kind of beat that all the cool cats are digging these days!  That's right, in an effort to keep it real I have decided to write about Mozart!

No, I am not going to write about some dead guy who wrote music.  Although I can tell you what he is doing now...de-composing.  (empathetic letters to Sylvia can be sent to....)  No, I am not going to write about that stale old composer from the 1700's...I am going to write about a stale old movie from the 80's...Amadeus.

Call me an uncultured slob if you must, but I have never seen this movie in its entirety.  I have never been a huge fan of movies that depict other times.  I believe they are called period pieces.  I just call them boring.  That may be a rather narrow-minded and unfair stereotype, but it is what it is.  (I cannot believe I just wrote that expression.  Someone please make sure I never do it again)  Something happened that has made sure I will never watch this on in particular.

I do have a story to offer as proof to my theory that these movies are not terribly exciting...and that is what I am finally going to write about today.  It's a short story, but one that always makes me smile.

It was 1985, it was a crazy time.  I was out of school and owned a car.  My buddies and I would get together and play poker until late at night and I would come home, open the door quietly, and go to my room.  I didn't have a TV in my room, I didn't have a smart phone, I may have had a Commodore 64 computer but I wasn't about to turn it on since the Bzzt Bzzt Bzzt Bzzzzzzzzt of the dot matrix printer warming up would have awakened everyone on the block.  No, my plan was to go to bed and sleep.

On this particular evening, however, I got a bit of a surprise.  When I drove up in front of the house I saw that there were lights on in the kitchen window.  I hadn't stayed out til the cows came home but it was still later than I would have expected to see lights on.  My dad drove a truck and usually got up around 4:30 A.M. if memory serves.  He then worked painting houses in the evenings.  He had more energy than me (I just got winded typing those two sentences about what he did) but he went to bed at a reasonable hour...usually.  My mom was a night owl compared to him but usually only made it about an hour and a half later than him before she went to sleep.  It was past her bedtime!  By the way, if you could keep an eye on my mom until she started doing the "I'm tired and I want to stay up, but my body is going to sleep whether I like it or not" nodding of the head, it was pretty funny.  If you could catch her just beginning to do the nod/jerk awake/nod thing you could ask her some of the craziest things.  And she would answer!!  Those 'conversations' alone would be enough for a book, but I want to be respectful to my mom...even if she too was up way past her bedtime.    And then I rounded the corner.  There was a little orange car in front of the house.  My sister was home.

Sue went away to college and when she came home she toyed with everyone's sleep patterns.  I think it had to do with phases of the moon, barometric pressure, and time zones...even though she lived about 20 minutes away in the next town.  She would call me at 3 in the morning just to see what I was doing.  "Sleeping...goodnight."  If her car was here, of course the lights would be on.  And at least mom or dad would be up.  I went in.

When I opened the front door I looked and saw my dad snoring away on the couch.  Understandable.  He worked hard.  I went in a little more.  There was mom, snoring away on the couch, just on the other side of dad.  (My mommy doesn't really snore but for the extra humor I added it to the story...wink wink) and amid that snore symphony I came a little closer to living room and saw my sister in a very relaxed and noisy state.  Sitting on the love seat and leaning her head back over the headrest portion, mouth wide open, and snoring like a rusty chainsaw, was Sue.  She could sleep anywhere and why make mom and dad's couch an exception?  Then I looked at the TV and saw why they were all asleep.  There on the TV playing from a newly rented VHS copy was the movie Amadeus, in all of its snore inducing splendor!  I started to walk in to the room to turn off the television and scoot people off to bed when I caught something out of the corner of my eye.  There, on the chair that no one sits on, (we all have them...admit it) was a guy who was roughly my sister's age sitting there and obviously on the worst date of his life.  He looked a little meek.  He didn't seem like my sister's type so maybe he was just a friend.  Didn't matter, he looked at me with wide eyes like he was a deer and I was a headlight.  No, there was more terror in his face.  He looked at me like I had just put on my leather mask and started up my chainsaw.

Whatever the look, in that instant he silently pleaded with me to get him the heck out of there.  I woke everyone, told Sue that the movie was boring and everyone fell asleep, and went into my room...laughing my posterior off.

I never saw the unnamed young man again.  Legend has it he invented a pillow that keeps you from snoring...and cures carbon monoxide poisoning!

Will Someone, Please, Answer That Phone!

Every once in a while I am struck with an event so starkly that I think, "I better just sit down and write about that."  Today is the day.  Unfortunately, every other once in a while I am thwarted by things external forces that make it difficult to focus enough to write.  I am going to try to fend off the forces of thwartdom today (it's a word).  I feel I need to tell you though, that I have already misspelled four words that needed to be fixed, I have hit the CAPS LOCK button more times than a pinkie should be allowed, and I had to wrestle the carcass of a doomed sock out of the jaws of our new puppy.  This first paragraph may be all I am allowed to write.

Testing...one, two, three...OK, I'll continue.

This morning was a morning where I didn't need to get up and go do anything.  No alarm was set.  No plans were made.  We forgot to inform the puppy...and his puppy sized bladder.  In true, "I love you honey and I appreciate that you get up all through the week to go to work" fashion, Sylvia got up and let the dogs out.  (Which can finally answer the question, once and for all, Sylvia let the dogs out!...WOOF, WoofWoofWoof!) ...but I digress.

On certain Saturdays I am able to fully grasp this weekly gift and fall back asleep for a short time.  There are times when even an extra hour can make you feel like standing in a stadium full of people with a microphone reenacting the "luckiest man" scene from the Lou Gehrig story.  Today it was not to be.  I rolled over, adjusted my pillows, and reviled that cursed condition known as tinnitus.  (if you didn't already, please go back and re-read that last sentence using two syllables for cursed...I think this occasion calls for curse--ed)

If you are unfamiliar with tinnitus, allow me to elaborate.  Wikipedia states that TI nih tous (or tin EYE tous) is a condition where there is a perceived internal sound in the absence of a corresponding external aural stimulus.  And we know that Wikipedia is always correct so we will move on.  (As an aside, I had no idea that Mother Teresa was actually killed in a drive-by outside of Chicago!  Thank you Wiki!)

Jeff-i-pedia states that tinnitus (pronounce it any way you want...I can't hear it) is actually a way of making you feel like you have just walked out of a concert where the band bought their amps from "Spinal Tap" (you can turn them all the way up to eleven you know).  It is always worse where there is no external sound and, apparently, on Saturday mornings where extra sleep is possible.  On any given day it can range anywhere from barely noticeable to 'will someone answer that damn phone!'  I have talked to a lot of people who have had their ears ring for just a couple seconds, for no reason, and then go back to normal.  Mine do that all the time.  Someone I used to work with said that he figured it was just an alien ship checking on the implant they put in his head.  You know, to download all the things that he had thought since they implanted it.  I used to work with frightening people.

The ringing makes it difficult to understand others at times.  I have been tested for hearing loss on a few occasions and have been told, "You have substantial hearing loss due to exposure to noise." "You have moderate hearing loss in your right ear." and "Your hearing is actually very good."  The opinions happened in that order.  When I asked why I felt like everyone was mumbling things to me the doctor said, "As you age" (don't you just love that?) "you are more susceptible to weaker processing.  Which means that hearing more things at one time gets harder and harder."  This explains why I am deaf as a post when you go to anyplace noisy?  "Exactly."  So with my constant ringing, it's like I am at a noisy place all the time?  "Could be."  Super.

This morning, still laying in bed, I thought, "Wow this ringing is really bad this morning!"  I had noticed the other night that I was having a bout of really loud imaginary sounds, I thought this was a continuation of that, but it was really annoying!  I actually thought, wouldn't it be funny if there was a timer going off and I thought it was my ears!  It could happen.  There is no eliminating the noise.  There is no cure.  They don't know what is causing mine.  I can mask it with external sound.  Should I turn on the radio?  TV?  No, that would mean admitting that I was going to have to get up.  So I just tried to shut it out...for a half an hour.  Sylvia was up in the front of the house with the dogs, her coffee, and the latest in the book series she is reading.  I thought, I will let her read undisturbed for a while.  I decided to check my phone and see if anyone had said anything funny on Facebook since I last checked ten hours ago and when I turned to reach for my phone off the night stand, the ringing got louder.

When you have ringing in your ears, constantly, for more than thirty years, you never really get used to it but you do notice some things.  I can predict that I will have an awesome night's sleep when we stay somewhere near running water.  I know that it will be worse after I leave a moderately noisy environment (party, restaurant, fair...trust me, if I ever get dragged to a concert I wear protection like I am going to a military artillery range).  I also have noticed that I cannot, ever, make it get louder or softer within the span of a few seconds...and never ever because of something I do.  When I turned my head it got louder?  Really?  So I got up.  Louder still.  I walked down the hall.  Louder still.  I walked into Kristiana's room.  Louder still  Kristiana is away at a conference this weekend.  Sylvia was up front.  Jake is a teenager so there is no rousing him before ten on a Saturday, and I assumed it was just me who could hear it...until now.

I walked over to her desk, moved a stack of magazines, and turned off her alarm clock!  Hooray!  Now I just have to listen to the usual constant ringing in my ears!!  Wait, what?

Now Where Did I Put That Pool Table?

No going back.  That's what the proverbial "they" say.  I cannot look in regret to the past and opine for the things that should have been.  To wallow in opportunities misspent is to waste the opportunities that lie ahead.  To announce boldly that I simply cannot remember all of the silly conversations, the humorous happenings, and the incongruous occurrences since I last wrote, is to embrace a new beginning.

There, I said it.  I haven't even thought about writing in a long time and I wanted my first venture back to have a beginning that was worthy of the great works of Larry, Moe, and Curly.

We had a busy summer.  We were shedding off a lot of the things that hold us back.  Both literally and figuratively.  We have begun an effort to de-clutter the house and make it "ready for people to see if they just happen to come by."  We have had similar efforts in the past.  Our most famous and most successful was the battle of the garage two short years ago.  No longer have we had to open the garage door to walk on the body-width path to the outside to go to the different body-width path to the back of the garage off to the other side.  All the while wondering if the precariously piled objects would shift and cover the intrepid explorer in an avalanche worthy of the ten o'clock news.  I believe, at that time, we donated about 40 boxes to charity...and parked the van in the garage! (for about a week, and then Jake bought a drum set.  What're ya gonna do?)

The garage has been in varying states of tidy ever since and we have never been back to the "YOU DIDN'T LET THEM SEE THE GARAGE, DID YOU!?!" state since the big clean, but other places in the house compensated.  We have a screened room with a pool table in it that we cleverly call "The Pool Room."  It isn't the room that leads to the pool, since we have none. (Stop sending us your brochure Fremont Pool Supply!!)  It's a bit of a misnomer since only people with a good memory could tell that there actually was a pool table out there.  I have to admit, it is a seriously messy room when you misplace an entire pool table.  The room that holds the pool table also holds, a ping pong table (on the pool table), a foosball table, a couch, about a thousand VHS tapes, an artificial Christmas tree, a dresser, a TV, a five DVD player, a dormant treadmill, a keyboard, a filing cabinet, a doll house, souvenir bull horns, an old computer, several boxes that were packed up when Sylvia lost her teaching position due to budget cuts, even more boxes from the kids who decided to empty their rooms to paint and never re-filled them, and finally, enough dog hair to create another whole dog.  As you can imagine, this was now the un-seeable room.  When anyone came over, we closed the drapes over the sliding glass door and hoped that we wouldn't need to go outside for anything.

Anyone with kids, even teenagers, can tell you that trying to clean while they are present and living their lives is like trying to catch the rain in a cup.  You can get some of it, but you'll never get it all.  I know, I know...there are some people who can maintain a home worthy of a Beautiful Homes Digest photo shoot at any given time of the day, any day of the year, even when everyone in the house has the flu and has just gotten back from vacation.  Let me just say, in all seriousness, we hate them.  Well, that's not entirely true...but let's be honest, when you go into someone's house that looks like a model home has been continually cleaned by an obsessive compulsive germophobe, and that person says, "Excuse the mess" ... you want to smear peanut butter on their couch, right?

As it turned out, both of our kids were away for two weeks this summer and, romantic couple that we are, we attacked the pool room.  Not exclusively, but it was a major endeavor.  The first domino that tilted the others into action was my Uncle.  No, he didn't come over and say something about the clutter that embarrassed us into action...he came over from where he is living in Thailand and took all forty of the boxes that we have been storing for him in our garage.  (Can anyone else hear the Hallelujah chorus?)  With that free space in the garage we were able to organize enough to locate the pool table, put away the Christmas tree, donate about twenty five more boxes, and generally open up a room that is now not an embarrassment to be seen.  Our two dogs still produce enough extra hair to fill a cargo ship every other day, but at least we can play ping pong again...now where did we put those paddles?

It feels good to write again.  If I can keep at least one of our computers in functioning order, I may write again...but that is another story.