GAH! She left! She left me! She left me to go to Chicago for 3 whole days! She didnÂ’t learn from last time. IÂ’m not Single Dad again. Of course to make matters most difficult, my first day I have to work until 6:00 PM, which means I had to make arrangements for Clone. That made life a little bit more interesting.

By the time I got home tonight it was well after 6:30 PM. Dinner wasnÂ’t done until 7:00 PM. Yes, I admit I made a crappy cheap and easy meal. It took clone all of 15 minutes to decide he didnÂ’t want it and throw it onto the floor. He wanted his mama. GAH!!!! Finally I put him to bed; well I attempted to put him to bed. We could not find his favorite stuffed AnimalÂ… the poisonous tree frog. We also couldnÂ’t find a pacifier. After twenty minutes of searching we finally found one. It was hidden behind the couch.

I know at one time we had close to 10 of the damn things, but where they are at now, no one knows. Well no one in this house at least. I think Ktreva might now where they are at, but sheÂ’s not here.

Tomorrow I have to rush from work, get the boys, run home meet the electrician (Com Ed is cutting power to our house so he can finish up). That should be fun with Clone. HeÂ’ll be nice and happy to play with, especially with no power.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:27 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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The other day I was sitting on the computer playing Age of Empires III. ItÂ’s one of my favorite games. There is just something satisfying about building up an army and then decimating your opponent. Especially when I have a bunch of Indian allies that I can turn loose upon the unsuspecting settlers. When I hear their death screams itÂ’s soothing. Much like the relaxing sound of a soft rain on a warm summers evening.

Clone comes over and decides he wants to watch me play. ThatÂ’s not unusual, he also is fascinated by the settlers death cries. This time he decided that instead of getting his own chair, he wanted to sit on my lap. Sure, no problem. Maybe itÂ’s harder to play, but I was getting toward the end of the game and I pretty much had already won. All I had to do was send the amassed army of 50 natives, 30 cavalry, 80 infantry and 18 artillery against the unsuspecting French. All was going well.

Then Clone looks up onto the computer desk and sees my Silent Bob Action Figure. He points at it and says, “That’s you, dada!” Looking at where he’s pointing, I chuckle and try to explain that no, no that’s not me at all. Clone looks at me like I am on crack and with all the seriousness a 3 year old has states, “No, that’s you!” Trying to argue with a 3 year old is an exercise in futility. However, I’m a stubborn man, so I tried. For 20 minutes I argued with him that it was not me, it was in deed Silent Bob. Apparently Clone is also stubborn, he must get it from his mother. At the end of twenty minutes I gave up. Telling him, “You’re right. That’s me.” I was hoping that would shut him up.

Did that work?

Hell no! Looking me in the eye, in all seriousness he says, “Dada, you tell the truth! It’s naughty to lie. You can’t say it’s not you!” Then he kept going on about how I have a statue of myself. I was torn between laughing from the loss of sanity to duct taping him to the ceiling fan.

I can see where he might think it looks like me. We both have facial hair. WeÂ’re both bigger guys, I do wear a hat a lot (only not backwards) and I do have a black overcoat that I wear to work on colder days. At least my son thinks IÂ’m famous.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:12 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Our house has an antique cast iron lion foot bathtub in the main bathroom. I say main because at sometime a previous owner built a makeshift bathroom in the basement, but really this house only has one bathroom. The basement is an unfurnished limestone basement. The “bathroom” down there has no walls; it’s just a toilet in a corner of the basement with a crude shower built next to it. There are no walls surrounding it. For years we never had a real shower to use.

That is until today. After years of putting it off, I finally installed a shower in the bathroom. Well actually I bought a conversion kit to turn the lion footed bathtub into a shower. We like the antique tub and didnÂ’t want to get rid of it. That and the fact it weighs a ton and is on the second floor also helped the decision. I really didnÂ’t want to have to move the beast if I didnÂ’t have to. Due to many other reasons I just never got around to converting the tub. Mainly it was because of laziness. Hey, IÂ’m not denying it.

A couple of weeks ago the faucet on the tub started leaking. It wouldnÂ’t turn off completely. The best we could do was slow it to a fast drip. Mainly it would just run as off the faucet was cracked open. All right, I needed to replace the faucet. If I was going to do that, I might as well install the shower. That was when I discovered that most of the local hardware stores do NOT stock the shower conversion kits anymore. I guess they figure that if a house had a lion footed tub, it would have been converted by now.

After searching for weeks I went to a locally owned hardware store, Nicholson Hardware. People, this is the best hardware store on the planet. It is stocked with just about everything you could look for in home improvement. Not only that but the staff is not only knowledgeable in all things hardware and home improvement, but also they are courteous, helpful and extremely eager to please. The only problem with this hardware store is its business hours. Monday through Friday 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM. ItÂ’s a contractorÂ’s hardware store, hence why they have everything under the sun.

When I entered I found the new faucet easily enough, but I couldnÂ’t find the rest of the stuff to make it into a shower. I asked the clerk and he told me that I could buy it piece by piece, or they had an all-inclusive kit that contained all of the parts. He then told me that the kit would be cheaper then buying all the part piecemeal. Sure enough he was right.

Ktreva was excited over the prospect of finally having a useable shower in the house. My father, the plumbing and electrical engineer, came over to give me a hand installing it. It only took about an hour and now all it needs is a couple of shower curtains and we are ready toÂ… well shower I guess.

Now I donÂ’t have to worry about falling asleep in the tub in the mornings.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:34 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 548 words, total size 3 kb.

1 Congrats on your leap forward in time!

Hey, you know you didn't need to get a new faucet... you could have gotten new seals and packing for the old. Gravy job.

Posted by: That 1 Guy at June 14, 2006 08:19 PM (gMMvi)

2 You are the bestest husband ever. I know Ktreva has got to be over the moon.

A shower.

In her own house.

You deserve...well, somethin' special! ;-)

Posted by: Tammi at June 14, 2006 09:38 PM (L7a63)

3 Ah - so you're saying the last two years of me asking "Why don't you add on a shower kit" and you saying "Because it's physically impossible, they don't make them to fit these pipes or a way to covert them" was really your way of saying "Eh, I don't feel like it" huh?

Posted by: Shadoglare at June 14, 2006 10:13 PM (4VtjK)

4 Yeah, I was going to call bullshit too, but Shadoglare beat me to it. I even found the kit in a catalog and you argued it wouldn't fit.

You're right about one thing though, Nicholson's rocks.

Posted by: Graumagus at June 15, 2006 02:21 AM (zEZuj)

5 Yay! Now she won't have to wait till you take her to a hotel to shower!

Posted by: oddybobo at June 15, 2006 08:11 AM (6Gm0j)

6 Those locally owned hardware stores are the greatest thing ever. We have one in my town, it been here, I think, since the dawn of time. If you are looking for the obscure, and someone who knows all about the obscure, the locals are the best. I have been looking for parts before, went to Farm King, Menards, Lowe's, putting almost 100 miles on the truck, should have started with the 1 mile each way to the local store.

Posted by: Petey at June 15, 2006 11:26 AM (mNqaI)

7 Shadoglare: If I remember correctly you where refering to the whole shower kit because we talked about replacing the tub. Those won't work in the house.

Grau: I don't recall talking with you about it. But we might have.

Posted by: Contagion at June 15, 2006 05:01 PM (aGJp4)

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When we moved into our house, there was an old swing set in the back yard. It had been horribly neglected and was pretty badly rusted through. After our first year of living here, I ended up having to remove it. Removing of the metal was easy; I cut it up into smaller parts and set it out for the trash. That was only the part above ground. I had to dig up the posts sticking out of the ground.

Figuring that whoever installed it probably did the typical cement in the coffee can anchor system; I didnÂ’t think it would be a problem. Quickly I discovered that the idiots had dug four huge holes, put the swing in place and then filled the holes with concrete. These concrete blobs (Blocks does not describe them) where huge, each one looks like they poured five gallons of concrete into the hole.

For the longest time they say in the back yard because the trash company wouldnÂ’t take them and I couldnÂ’t find of a way to dispose themÂ… other then rebury them in the back yard. Since they where safety hazards I moved them to the side of the house with the help of Graumagus where they sat for the last 4 years. Every so often I would see if I could find of a way to dispose of them and I never could. The only option I had was to break them up into smaller chunks. That just sounded way too much like work, and I just let them sit there.

Now we are having a central air unit installed in the house. Those blocks are sitting exactly where itÂ’s going to go. That means they must be disposed off. Earlier today I ran to Farm and Fleet to pick up the tools I was going to need to break these behemoth blobs of concrete up. I bought the biggest sledgehammer they had, 12 pounds, and a concrete chisel. I already own a good hand sledge, so I didnÂ’t need to get one of those.

After work, I came home moved the first blob into the back yard and started my daunting task of trying to break it up into smaller, more disposable chunks. Now I understand why they used to have prisoners break stone. Sure it will build upper body strength, but after an hour I had no desire to do anything but take a nap. Of course, that was only one of those blobs destroyed. I spent a total of 3 hours in the backyard breaking these chunks up. People walking by where staring in disbelief at what they saw.

Every hit small shards of concrete would go flying in every direction. I sent some flying a good 30 feet away into neighborÂ’s yards and into the alley. IÂ’m damn glad I had safety goggles on, or I probably would have lost an eye on at least three occasions. I had to alter between the big sledge and the hand sledge in chisel to give my arm a rest. The sledge used the muscle in the upper arm, while the hand sledge used more of the forearm. During one of my breaks Ktreva made the comment that it was a good work out, and that if I did it for 20 minutes a night my arms would be ripped. I had to correct her. My right arm would look like something off of a body builder, my left arm would look the same.

After getting the second one broken up into disposable chunks, I had enough for the night. There was no way I was going to tackle a third one. I just didnÂ’t have the strength and stamina to keep going. That was about an hour and a half ago. Now I sit here, covered in concrete dust, my right arm aching and hanging limply at my side. I barely had the strength to lift up my hand so I could type this post. My shoulder is sore and IÂ’m thinking of taping a bag of ice to it in the fashion of a baseball pitcher after a game.

Ten years ago this wouldnÂ’t have been an issue. I would have had all four of those blobs broken up and disposed off. Not now, now I feel like IÂ’m a feeble old man.

I hate getting older.

Posted by: Contagion at 09:00 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Did you know that it is possible to have too many bubbles in a bubble bath? Last night in an attempt to not only clean Clone, but to also calm him down, I decided to give him a bath. Clone loves the bath, especially a bubble bath. He gets clean and he gets to play for a while. I figured this would be perfect, kill two birds with one stone. IÂ’ve given Clone baths before; I didnÂ’t think it would go any differently this time. Well, that is except for my adding bubble bath to the water.

I start the bath, and put a little bit of the bubble bath into the water. There wasnÂ’t much of a reaction. After adding some more there still wasnÂ’t much of an effect. So I put more in. Now we have a reaction. Bubbles started forming as I expected so I went to finish getting Clone ready for the bath. When I returned to the bathroom, the tub was full. I turned off the water and went to check the water to make sure it wasnÂ’t too hot before putting Clone in. I sank up to my elbow in bubbles before finding water. We have an old lion footed cast iron bathtub, so itÂ’s pretty deep. I had it about a quarter filled with water and the rest was bubbles.

GREAT! OwellÂ… Clone should have fun with this so I placed in the tub. One minute IÂ’m looking at him, and the next he disappears. The bottom of the tub was slippery from all the soap and he slid in under the bubbles. DonÂ’t worry, he didnÂ’t hurt himself. In fact he thought this was great fun. He kept hiding in the bubbles and popping up in different places. It was like a demented live action wack-a-mole game. Only instead of moles, it was a little blonde boy with a gnome hate made of bubbles.

I figured the bubbles would go away after a while, well I was wrong. The damn bubbles stuck around. The things would not dissipate. Trying to wash the soap off of him was about impossible. Every time I would start to make some headway, he would slip back under the bubbles and coat himself in them again.

Finally I had enough of this, so I yanked him out of the bathtub and toweled off all the remaining bubbles. I pulled the drain plug and waited for the bathtub to empty. It would have none of that. Nope, those bubbles sat there defying gravity and god. They would not go away. I knew better then to add more water, that would just create more of the annoying things. I figured after a while they would finally go away.

Flash forward to this morning. I go into the bathroom to take a bath, what do I see in the tub? BUBBLES! The damn things did not dissipate overnight. What kind of funky bubbles are these? Then to make matters worse, when I turned the water on, it created more. Then when I went to get into the tub, the soap had made the bottom of the tub slipperier then a snake covered in Vaseline. I about fell down. Thankfully my size thirteen feet where able to keep me from falling and hurting myself.

Ktreva is now back; thank all that is good in the world. I was getting ready to do a rejoicing dance when she dropped a bomb on me. In two weeks she is leaving for 4 days.
FourÂ… DaysÂ… That is one day longer then this time. I donÂ’t know if IÂ’ll be able to survive.

Posted by: Contagion at 06:23 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Last night I was lying in bed dreaming a good dream. Shakira and Jessica Alba where wrestling naked in pudding over who was going to be the first one to pleasure me. My beautiful and understanding wife was doing that thing she does that I want her to do all the time, but she doesnÂ’t do nearly often enough. All of a sudden there was a searing pain in my groin. It felt as if someone had hit me in the nards with a golf ball. I awake to find Clone climbing over me.

Me, “What in the love of god are you doing at… (looks at clock) 2:30 in the morning(?) awake?”

Clone, “Dada, I need drink.”

Me, “That makes two of us buddy. Go get into bed and I’ll get you a glass of water.”

After retrieving the glass of water for Clone, I return to bed. In hopes that my dream will pick up where it left off. Unfortunately I started dreaming about vasectomies. Sometimes life is cruel.

In the morning Clone did not want to get out of bed, and from the state of his room, I can tell that he didnÂ’t go to bed when I told him to. Nope, he must have gotten up and started playing with his toys. Now when I needed him awake, he couldnÂ’t keep his eyes open. He was like a narcoleptic after a long day of heavy drinking. Every and any attempt to wake him up resulted in loud and incessant cryingÂ… until he passed out again. Getting him dressed and ready for the day was like trying to shove a cat into a toilet.

Boopie on the other hand must have found a speedball because he was bouncing all over the house like a crystal meth junkie with electrodes attached to his nards. Boopie's hyperactivity counteracted with CloneÂ’s sleepiness and created a horrible combination of laughing, crying, giggling, yelling and screaming. It wasnÂ’t even 6:30 AM and I wanted to empty a bottle of Jack Daniels. Unfortunately I think Clone drank all of it.

I get to work, and I have never been so happy to be there in my life, even if it was one of my worst days as supervisor. I had a meeting that went horribly bad, two employees about wig out and in giving one feedback they burst into tears because, “I’m going to lose my job!” I don’t know where she got that idea; I never once said anything that would give her the indication that she was on the road to replacement.

When I go to pick up the boys I discover that Clone miraculously recovered from his drunken narcolepsy and played all day. He refused to take a nap. GreatÂ… that means more fun tonight. Sure enough on the ride home the boy fell asleep in the most uncomfortable of positions that only a child can sleep in. Deciding to keep my sanity a while, IÂ’ve let him sleep now for almost an hour. IÂ’m going to have to wake him up soon, but IÂ’m waiting for the food to arrive.

Which reminds, I was going to make dinner tonight, really I was! Unfortunately I kind of left what I was going to make out on the counter this morning when I was getting my lunch made. I walked into the house and was assaulted by the smell of ground beef that has gone rancidÂ… and cat turds. The damn cat must have eaten something that wasnÂ’t fit for feline consumption because itÂ’s arse smelled horrible. It was like a stinky dog fart was bottled, fermented, aged to juicy ripeness and then released in the house. Needless to say there will be no cooking in the house tonight. I have Chinese food on the way.

Now if youÂ’ll excuse me, I need to go bring Clone out of his coma. Only about 24 hours to go.

Posted by: Contagion at 04:36 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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With the help of some ChildrenÂ’s chewable morphine, Clone is asleep. Okay, I didnÂ’t actually drug my child; I wouldnÂ’t do something like that. That doesnÂ’t mean I didnÂ’t entertain the idea, but no I could not do that.

The stupid trashcan had me so pissed I couldnÂ’t see straight. Clone had knocked it over trying to get behind it to hide from Boopie. This is not a normal trashcan; itÂ’s a 55-gallon, trashcan with an auto-closing lid. Since it was obviously over full, i.e. trash was strewn across the kitchen floor; I decided to take out the trash. My plan worked for all of 15 seconds. As I pulled on the bag, the drawstring pulled the top inch off of the bagÂ… all the way around. Someone, KTREVA, had decided to dump the kitty litter bag into the trashcan. That made the combined weight of trash, kitty litter and cat scat way too heavy for the bag to hold. Of course it didnÂ’t rip until I was half way out of the trashcan, thus sending a showing of dirty diapers, empty beer bottles and other pieces of kitchen refuse everywhere. It looked like my kitchen had turned into a landfill. I was waiting for the damn sky rats to come and start eating the refuse.

After cleaning that up, I really didn’t feel like cooking. Then I had an idea, I’ll ask the boys what they want, we’ll get it and everyone will be happy. Dad, “What do you guys want for dinner?” The Horde, “Pizza!” Thinking to myself, I didn’t really need to ask. Boopie chimes in with, “Can we get Pizza Hut. They have that sampler pack that has hot wings, breadsticks and cinnasticks!” Clone, “Yea! Spinasicks! Dad, we get spinasicks? I want spinasicks! Spinasicks! Spinasicks! Spinasicks! Dad we get spinasicks?” Me, “Do you even know what cinnasticks are?” (I can’t recall ever ordering them before.) Clone, “Yea, they good!”

Boopie is laughing his little butt off by now. Clone is marching through the house chanting, “Spinasicks!” So I ordered from Pizza Hut, got the sampler pack. When I was on the phone with the girl I meant to make sure I was ordering the right thing. I ask her, “The sampler has spinasicks in it right?” (Pause on the other end of the phone.) Girl, “Excuse me?” Me, “The sampler, does it have spinasicks?” Girl, “Did you say spin-a-sicks? Me embarrassedly, “Yes, that’s what my three year old is calling them, I meant Cinnasticks.” Girl laughing at me, “Yes, it has cinnasticks.” Thirty minutes later our pizza and sampler arrive.

I give Clone a piece of pizza and a breadstick and let him eat. Clone inhaled two and a half pieces of pizza and a breadstick for dinner. Pretty good for a kid his size. It’s what he did with the other half of the pizza that cheesed me off. I asked him if he was done, and he told me he was. I walked over to get him out of the chair when he flings the half eaten piece of pizza at my head. He had picked all the cheese off so it was crust with sauce and it stuck to the side of my head like a like a suction cup. He’s laughing; I’m pissed and scold him. After cleaning me, him, the chair and the floor off, I sit down to eat some cinnasticks. Now I have an entourage of kids sitting around me fighting over the cinnasticks, “Dad! He took the big one!” “Dad, He’s not sharing the dipping sauce!” “Dad, Spinasick stuck in nose!” Clone sneezed while eating the cinnastick and jammed it in his nose. Apparently it was very uncomfortable for him.

After cleaning him up again, the boys played for a little bit while I cleaned up the mess and the house some. Then I put Clone to bed, but not until after he got a band-aid for his toe. At the sitters last Friday he skinned the top of his toes. I donÂ’t believe they actually hurt, but he wonÂ’t shut up unless he has a Band-Aid on his toes. Figuring it wasnÂ’t worth the trouble I slapped a band-aid on him. He started crying again. I had used a regular Band-Aid, not a Spongebob Band-Aid. After swapping them out, he finally settled down enough to let me put him to sleep.

Now IÂ’m going to go grab a beer or twelve.

Posted by: Contagion at 02:09 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Ktreva has once again gone on a business trip and left me with the boys for three days. As many of you may remember, IÂ’m not cut out for the single parent gig. DonÂ’t get me wrong, I can do itÂ… IÂ’m just not good at it. ItÂ’s one of my many character flaws. Yes, they are my kids and yes they are my responsibility. I can handle that for up to 36 hours. After that I start breaking down, especially if they are misbehaving. They are my kids and I will do what needs to be done. ItÂ’s my duty as a parent to do so.

IÂ’m sure over the next couple of days there will be plenty of good stories to share with you about my trying to raise the boys for 3 days on my own. As well as the wisdom and techniques that I used to keep them in line. But for now youÂ’ll have to excuse me. Clone has tipped over the trashcan, Boopie is whining about having to clean his room, and I need to make dinner. (Read, I have to order dinner)

Posted by: Contagion at 11:31 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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