December 16, 2005
He then proceeds to urinate on me.
He was so proud of his accomplishment. I, however, was more disturbed by the fact that he thought it was okay to pee on me. Needless to say after cleaning him, the floor and myself up he went to bed with a stern talking to about where and when to pee
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December 09, 2005
Lutefisk is an old Scandinavian delicacy. Originally it was sun dried white fish, mainly cod, that was soaked in lye (Yes, the caustic material that the industrial sector uses to make glass and soap) for at least 3 days and sometimes up to 10. Then you soak it in regular water for about 5 days, give or take a day depending on how long you soaked it in lye. Really, the lye is what makes the texture and taste so happy! That is just to prepare the fish for cooking. So for the few of you that arenÂ’t sticking your heads in buckets, wrenching your guts out, IÂ’ll now share the secret of how to cook lutefisk.
The old fashion way to cook Lutefisk: First off, as a warning do NOT use an aluminum pot or pan unless you wanted it ruined. The cooking process will permanently darken it. First you boil the fish; Boil the water. Add salt, using about three tablespoons of salt for each quart used. (Amount of water depends on the amount of fish cooked. Make sure the fish is at least covered by 2 inches of water). Return to a boil. Add the fish to the boiling water and again return to boil for about 20 minutes. DO NOT OVER COOK! When all is done serve with melted butter.
You can also bake Lutefisk: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. On a large baking sheet place aluminum foil (donÂ’t worry, youÂ’re going to throw the foil away) two sheets thick. Place the lutefisk skin side down and season with salt. Wrap the foil tightly around the lutefisk. Bake for 20 minutes, again DO NOT OVER COOK! When you remove the lutefisk from the oven you will want to drain the excess fluids from the packet. My grandmother recommends just cutting a corner out of the foil and draining it that way. Serve with melted butter.
A great side dish for lutefisk is boiled potatoes, lefsa, pickled herring, rice pudding and lingonberries. Now some people have a white sauce the put over lutefisk, others use a mustard sauce. WELL THEY ARE EATING IT WRONG! Just plain melted butter is all that is needed for this oral delight! Also if it is not cooked properly it tastes really nasty and has a bad texture. Grau once had some that he described as, “fish flavored pre-chewed steak fat.â€� Either his was obviously cooked poorly or he was eating the skin. Which let me save you some embarrassment, don’t eat the skin… it’s just there to hold the meat in place.
Anyway, I took the boys for our annual lutefisk dinner with my father last night. This is the 28th year theyÂ’ve had it, IÂ’ve been every year except for the 4 years I was in college. ItÂ’s also serves as a fundraiser for the Salvation Army, their band comes to provide music for us while we eat and they pass the donation bucket around. ItÂ’s the official kick off of the Christmas season for me.
Now I must admit, I used to hate lutefisk… up until 4 years ago. Now I love the stuff, my father loves it as well. Boopie hates it. Clone didn’t care for it last year. When they served it, my father took Boopie's and I took Clones. Don’t worry folks; they also had ham, Korv (Scandinavian Christmas Sausage), Swedish meatballs, real Swedish meatballs. Not the crap they pass off as Swedish meatballs in the stores. We are all eating our fill of Scandinavian delicacies when I ask Clone if he wants to lutefisk. Clone says, “Yeah, I like.â€� Okay… So I give him some, I’ll be double dipped in chocolate if the boy didn’t like it this year. He ended up eating half a bowl of it on his own. HALF A BOWL!
My father was so proud that his youngest grandson was eating the lutefisk. He gave me some crap because “it took (me) 24 years to decide he liked it.â€� Unfortunately it will be another year before I get a chance to eat lutefisk again. The only person I knew first hand that made it was my grandmother and she’s not making any this year.
To finish this post, IÂ’ll leave you with the lutfisk song in the extended entry.
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December 05, 2005
Clone was very excited about getting to pick out a tree. Seeing, as he is only two and a half, this is only his third Christmas. IÂ’m not sure if he actually remembers the Christmas tree from last year or if heÂ’s heard talk about them. What I do know is that when we were getting ready to go get it Sunday morning, Clone didnÂ’t want to cooperate getting ready to go. When Ktreva said we were going to go get a Christmas tree, then Clone became hyper excited and couldnÂ’t wait to go get it. He sat still to get dressed and get his coat, hat and mittens on.
When we arrived at the store to pick the tree, his little eyes grew as big as saucers. A forest of evergreens, stacked in bays just waiting for someone to bring one home. It didnÂ’t take us long to find what we considered the perfect tree. Eight feet tall, somewhat skinny (We donÂ’t have a lot of room for a Christmas tree), a perfect shape. Clone thought it was an excellent tree to have in our house.
We set the tree up when we got home. We usually wait at least 24 hours to decorate the tree once we have it in the house. We like to give it time for the branches to fall back into their pre-shipping squashed position. Tonight, after work, we will decorate the festive victim of floracide. That means tomorrow or even later tonight, there may be festive pictures of our tree for me to share with all of you.
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November 30, 2005
There is always a flip side to everything. I will yell at cars that are going too slow, arenÂ’t paying attention to the lights/traffic around them or being jerks in general. There is nothing I hate more then being stuck behind some jag off doing 35 in a 45 or they aren't paying attention to when the light changes and sits there blocking traffic. IÂ’ve been known to spout of quite a rant when this happens.
So it should be no surprise to me that my youngest, Clone, has picked up this habit. Last night on the way home from picking the boys up we were stopped at a light. As soon as the light turned green, I hear from the back seat, “Dude, go! Go dude go!” (Yes, I still say dude, shut up!) Boopie is in the front seat with me laughing; I’m laughing and trying to keep my foot on the break. I didn’t feel like running the COP CAR in front of me over.
To make matters even worse, since the cop was there, I was stuck doing the speed limit. Clone, not used to actually traveling at 30 MPH, felt we weren’t going fast enough and started yelling, “DUDE, GO! GO! GO! GO, DUDE, GO!” He repeated himself numerous times. I tried to explain to him “The dude is going.” That wasn’t good enough for him, it wasn’t until the cop turned off and I was able to speed up to 45 that Clone became satisfied with our speed.
This isnÂ’t the first time heÂ’s done this, he started doing it a couple of weeks ago. It is the first time he got so mad that his little blonde head became bright red in anger. He looked like a tomato with white hair!
The older he gets, the more of my traits I see in him. My poor wife is doomed.
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November 29, 2005
Over the weekend, I took some time to play with Clone. He had a bunch of little plastic Cowboys and Indians spread out across the floor. (Think little green army men.) It started with him picking up an Indian with a bow and saying, “My Guy”. So I picked up a cowboy that looked like he was about to gut shoot someone and said, “Mine!” Grinning, Clone picks up another Indian, this time he has a spear with feathers. My next choice was another cowboy aiming/shooting a pistol. Looking over the pile, Clone picks up an Indian with a tomahawk. I look at the pile and see an Indian with a rifle; I pick him for my team.
Clone tells me, “No, dada. You pick cowboy.”
Me, “What? No, this is Squatchmo. He’s a traitor to his people and works a guide/tracker for my cowboys. We bought him off with firewater and a rifle. Now he takes us around to where all the Indians hide.”
Clone looks at me nods his head and picks up a cowboy, “Dada, Traitor bring Indian rifle.”
I laughed so hard I almost passed out. Ktreva comes running in to see what all the ruckus is. When I tell her what happens she advised me IÂ’m not allowed to give Clone history lessons while IÂ’ve been drinking Jack Daniels.
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November 28, 2005
We spent Thanksgiving Day at my parent’s house with my sister. Mom also invited many of my aunts, uncles and cousins. This has been their tradition for many years. Notice I say “their”. Why is it their? Growing up my mother would either invite her whole family over to our house or we would go to one of my aunts. They traded off every other year. Not all of my mother’s brothers/sisters would show up being as they were married and would spend it at their in-laws. My father’s family lives way up in Minnesota and upper
Wisconsin and they never wanted to travel north this time of year, thus we were always there.
Now that IÂ’m older I do not want to spend time with my aunts, uncles and cousins on the holidays, I want to spend it with my family. My wife and kids in our house. Maybe we visit my parents, maybe we visit my sister, but I donÂ’t want to spend it with my motherÂ’s family. I just do NOT like them. They are the touchy, feely, gossipy, prime and proper type of people. Where I take most if not all of my traits from my Father and his side of the family. We are distant, loud, obnoxious, tell you how it is kind of people. We just donÂ’t mix.
Since I told my mother I would go, we had to go. Everything was going okay, at first. I tried to keep my mouth shut and not get irritated by some of the hippy “save the environment” BS that was thrown my way. Of course I had enough so I spouted off, “My view on the environment is ignore it, it’ll go away.” And “If I cared about the effects of cars on the environment I wouldn’t have bought a 10mpg beast just to drive around town.” Hey, I said I tried. I didn’t say I succeeded. Apparently my mother’s side of the family has some very hippy tendencies. The funny part is that all stemmed from me throwing away a beer can!
Dinner is served and we all sit down to eat. Clone is up to his usual, “There’s new people around, and how much can I get away with.” He didn’t eat his dinner. We’ve been having a problem with this. He only wants candy and desert. When he said he was done after only a couple of bites, I told him, “If you don’t finish your lunch there will be NO candy, cookies, pie, cake, anything. Am I understood?” He gave me a chipper “yes” and bounced on his merry way to go gamble. (My father has a slot machine; the boy loves to play with it. Sadly enough he’s won more then he’s lost) That is the standard rule in our house, no meal, no dessert/snacks.
After a couple of hours it’s announced that they are cutting the pies. Yes pieS, French silk, pumpkin, banana cream, key-lime, etc. My mom’s side of the family does food in huge and grandiose style. No one ever wants for anything. Clone decides he wants pie. NO! You did not eat your lunch, no pie. He’s only upset for a moment then goes back to trying to get three sevens. While getting my piece I’m asked if I’m getting one for Clone. I advise everyone in the kitchen (most of the family) “He did not eat his lunch, he gets no dessert.” For the first time I hear. “But he’s been eating carrots all afternoon.” Apparently he’s been running up to the veggie tray and snagging carrots. That doesn’t bother me, as it’s not candy/cookies/pie/etc. It is the holiday so even though he shouldn’t be snacking on it, I let it go. “Fine, I don’t care if he has carrots, but no pie.”
When I go back downstairs after getting my own piece I see my father feeding Clone pie. “Dad, he didn’t eat his lunch. He gets no pie.” My dad looks at me and says, “Sorry, I didn’t know.” Okay… fine. Sitting down to eat my pie Clone comes up wanting a bite. “Nope,” I announce, “You did not eat your lunch. NO desert!” Everyone in the basement heard me.
A lot of my relatives have heard this declaration three times now. After watching the Lions get manhandled for a while, I go upstairs and what do I see? One of my cousins feeding Clone pie with a couple of my aunts. Again, for the third time I announce. “NO, he did NOT eat his lunch. He gets NOTHING sweet.” I get the excuse back, “But he’s been eating carrots all afternoon.” To which I respond, “I don’t care, no pie.”
I have to move my truck so an uncle of mine can run home for a moment. When I come back into the house, sitting at the kitchen table what do I see? Clone sitting there eating a huge piece of French Silk pie, with my sister watching him. Walking through the kitchen exasperated I say, “He’s not supposed to be eating pie, he didn’t eat his lunch.” This is an excerpt of the following conversation:
Sister: “He’s been eating carrots all day, what is it going to hurt if he has pie? You need to lighten up.” (This finally breaks my patience)
Me angrily, “I’m his parent, if I say no, that means no. If you are going to undermine my authority as his parent, I can make sure you never see him again.” I start walking down stairs.
Sister, upset. “That’s not funny, you shouldn’t say things like that!”
Me, “I’m not joking, I’m dead serious. I’m tired of having this family continually disregard what my wife and I say about raising our child. Maybe it’s time I did something about it.” There was more, but you get the idea.
My sister goes stomping off. I go back downstairs to watch Denver and Dallas. First Ktreva comes downstairs and tells me not to be such an arsehole to my sister. Apparently she was outside crying. (Side note: I made the same threat last year when my mother and mother-in-law did a similar thing to her. Last year I was a good guy, this year I was the villain.) Then one of my cousins (One that my wife and I both think is a shallow beotch) comes down to yell at me, because she was the one that gave Clone the pie. She had heard me say he didn’t get any three plus times. I told her that from my sister’s comments, she gave the impression that she gave Clone the pie. Secondly, the same still applies. If this family cannot learn to abide by my wife’s and mine decisions then they can go with out having my family around. At which point she said I was a bigger asshole then she thought I was. To which I responded, “I don’t care.” She stormed off.
Since this has happened two years in a row. IÂ’ve decided I am not going to do Thanksgiving with them next year. My family and I will do our own thing, start our own traditions, and actually enjoy the day. Not deal with a family that is so wrapped up in what it wants that it disregards everyone else.
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November 12, 2005
Between the long hours, shier exhaustion and the other responsibilities we have; we have not been able to spend more then a couple of waking hours together over the last couple of weeks. I was discussing this with one of my co-workers today and she mentioned she sees her x-husband more then that each week.
This brings me to my question; does this mean my wife and I are now legally separated? If so I need go make sure I grab her back before she realizes her newfound freedom. The last thing I need is her realizing how much better then me she could do.
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November 10, 2005
Since Clone is two and a half, this is his third time having a family photo. When he was only 6 months old, he was fine. All he had to do was lay there. Since he pretty much just slept, there was no problem with him posing. I donÂ’t think anyone expects a great family photo involving a 6 month old. If they do, they never had kids.
The next year, when Clone was 18 months, we had problems. He did not want to cooperate at all. He would refuse to sit still, cry and scream. The photographer we had was a patient individual, but you could tell she was starting to be frazzled from the whole situation. None of the pictures where turning out all that good. Finally, the photographer was able to get Clone to settle down and smile on three different poses. It only took 45 minutes.
This year was the exact opposite. Clone, in a trait that is definitely not like me, loved having his picture taken. The photographer would tell him to say “cheese” and he would repeat it over and over. After the first picture, even before the photographer said anything he would start yelling out “cheese!” He sat still and did an excellent job of cooperating. He even tried to help the photographer rearrange the studio for different backdrops and poses just so he could have his picture taken again.
It was Boopie and myself that were the problems this year.
Boopie has been going through this ritual for the last 8 years, plus all the other photoÂ’s he has had taken. This year he just could not keep from looking at the stupid monitor to see what the photo would look like. Finally, the photographer would get a picture where everyone looked good, except BoopieÂ’s eyes would be glancing to the side to look at the monitor in anticipation of seeing the photo. This happened a good dozen times.
When it wasnÂ’t Boopie looking off to the monitor, it was my stupid glasses. IÂ’ve worn glasses since I was in kindergarten. Every year I had school photos, family photos, sports photos, etc. In every one, I was wearing glasses. I know how to hold my head so the flash doesnÂ’t reflect off them. Not this year, this year I had a mental meltdown. I would hold my head normally and when the flash would go off, there was a big reflection of the flash covering part of my face. We had at least four photos that would have been perfect if I had tilted my head down just a little.
The boys were great and very well behaved. I only had to get on their case once, and that was when we were trying to check out. The ladies behind the counter where having difficulties with the checkout system. It took longer to check out then to have the photo’s taken. Both boys had enough waiting and wanted to get on to other things… like dinner and playing. They started to get a little loud and rambunctious. I kept telling them to settle down. There would be a moment or two of quiet and then they would start up again. This forced me to use my “mad dad, you’re really in trouble voice”. I remember what it was like to be a boy at these photo shoots. They are boring and you just want to go do something else. Both boys were just trying to entertain themselves. That does not excuse them from being little hellions.
All in all, it was a good shoot, the boys where cooperative and well behaved on the most part, and we should have our Christmas cards in about a week!
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October 29, 2005
First we drew the design on a piece of paper, then we gutted and cleaned them both out. Clone loved this part; he could not get enough of the disemboweling of pumpkins. It was his desire to just through the pumpkin guts on the ground that was annoying. Finally we get around to actually carving the designs into the pumpkins. Boopie did his own this year. He wanted to do it by himself. Clone also wanted to do it himself. I put my foot down, much to his chagrin, and carved it for him. Here are the final products.
From all of us in the Contagion household to all of you, Happy Halloween!
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October 27, 2005
The boy put on shorts again this morning.
He looked shocked when I told him calmly to change.
How calm was I? My voice was barely a whisper. Why was I so calm? If I didnÂ’t maintain that level of calm, I would have killed the boyÂ… or at least woken the neighbors up from my yelling.
He is going to need all the help he can get to survive the next 6 years.
And you all wonder why I drink. j/kÂ… well not really.
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October 25, 2005
Fast forward to yesterday morning; Boopie is getting ready for school. It is a balmy 40 degreeÂ’s outside at 6:30 AM with a forecasted high in the 50Â’s; the boy decides it is a good day to wear shorts. At this point, my wife, who loves mornings, strongly advises him that he cannot wear shorts to school. HeÂ’s not happy about this, but he changes and spends the rest of the morning pouting about it.
Fast Forward again to this morning; I’m in the kitchen getting lunches ready when I hear my wife say to Boopie again, “It is too cold to wear shorts, go change.” With out missing a beat in a very flippant and disrespectful tone of voice I hear Boopie respond with something like, “You didn’t do my laundry. I have no clean clothes.” (Boopie is supposed to take his laundry to the basement for washing; he has been told that if he doesn’t bring it down it will not be washed. He didn’t take his laundry down.) That was it for me this morning. I was raised in a household were children show proper respect to all adults, but especially their parents. There was no way I was about to put up with that.
I walk into the living room; heading straight for Boopie. As soon as he makes eye contact with me, he knows he did something wrong as his eyes start to bulge in fear. Yes, my kids have a healthy respect and fear of their father. With my hand firmly on the back of his neck, I guide him into the kitchen. The whole way from the living room, through our office to the kitchen he is make choking noises.
The first thing I say to him once I let him go is, “Just so you know it is physically impossible to be choked from the BACK of your neck, so knock that crap off.” If I had him by the back of the neck and was able to choke him, his neck is either really small, my hands are really large or a combination of the both. Either way that’s not the case here, my hand only goes maybe 3/5 the way around his neck. That and it wasn’t as if I was squeezing it. I love my son, but he is a bit of a wimp when it comes to things like… pain, fear, getting in trouble, being sick, etc. He then tried to say he wasn’t making choking sounds, to which my wife called him out on it.
Now I’m telling him my standard dad speech number 2, “You will show proper respect for adults both in your actions and your tone of voice. Until you, yourself are an adult, I will not tolerate you talking to adults in that tone of voice. You had better knock it off and knock it off now or you are going to learn this lesson the hard way.” For Boopie the hard way is making him clean his room thoroughly AND writing hundreds of sentences.
Ktreva goes back to explaining to him again that if he does not take his laundry downstairs and tell her it needs to be done, she is not going to do it. Then she advised him that it was still too cold for shorts anyway. In the same flippant and disrespectful tone he mouths off, “How was I supposed to know it was going to be cold?” I believe he realized he screwed up right as the words left his mouth as he, (and Ktreva) took a step back from me. Looking him dead in the eye I calmly ask, “Did we not just go over this? Is there something in your head that prevents you from thinking before you speak? Do you really want to make me mad?”
A squeak emits forth from his mouth. I’m fairly sure that squeak translated into “Yes, Yes, and NO” in fearinesse; a language mastered by all boys when they have incurred the wrath of the fathers.
He was still pouting when he left with Ktreva for school, but apparently, his tone of voice was much better. Before he left, I made sure to explain to him that shorts will no longer be worn to school until late spring. IÂ’m just curious to see if he tries to put them on again tomorrow. It wouldnÂ’t be the first time, nor the last time, he pulled a stunt like that.
For all of you that have younger kids, this is what you get to look forward to happening with yours. ArenÂ’t you excited?
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October 12, 2005
Unfortunately, his trip was cut short.
He was mad when he could not open the child gate in order to go out the front door.
I have a feeling when he gets older IÂ’m going to be spending a lot of time searching for him around the neighborhood.
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October 09, 2005
That isn’t what makes that day stick out in my mind. Nope, Why I remember this day is because I had planned something special that was supposed to happen that day. I had worked out with a friend of mine that during one of our performances we were going to deviate from our lines and make it look like we started a real fight. The fight was supposed to start over an inappropriate comment made to another re-enactor. After the drawing of steel and a heated sword fight I was supposed to come away victorious and in front of the gathering crowd propose marriage to the “offended” re-enactor. We had worked on and practiced the fight and the wording for hours, only to have it be a waste of time. We never were able to do that show with the event being closed.
Saturday morning upon hearing the weather report I knew that my plan was for naught. They called for cold rain and high winds all day. No swordplay would be done in this weather. So at approximately 11:45 with a crowd of public gathered under our fly trying to keep dry and other re-enactors, I got down on one knee in the cold mud and asked the most beautiful re-enactor IÂ’ve ever seen to be my wife.
I never figured out why she said yes, or what she saw in me, but she did see something that she felt was worth giving a chance. Her kind and compassionate heart held a poor, surly, angry and hateful man in a special place. The love of this woman had changed me from being so angry and hateful into a content and more forgiving man. All I knew was that I was a better person for having her in my life.
6 years ago today, October 9th, 1999, the Beautiful Re-enactor and the Surly Re-enactor were married with a ceremony and reception that is still talked about to this day. The bride made her own Elizabethan wedding gown; the Groom wore a Scottish lord outfit, literally the whole 9 yards. (The wool kilt was 9 yards long before being pleated; this was the origin of that term). The bridesmaids wore Elizabethan lady in waiting gowns. The Groomsmen and ushers all wore kilts. All the re-enactors that attended came dressed in their best costumes. A piper led the bride down the aisle. The church where we were married still talks about this ceremony.
At the reception Matt, the Chieftain of Clan Chattan, brought drums with and our reception turned into a proper Scottish Ceileigh. Along with the modern music, various members of Clan Chattan would play the different drums. They would also allow other guests attending to play along with them.
That was Six years ago today.
Ktreva, I love you. With out you I would have lost my humanity to my own self-destructive habits. Thank you for two wonderful boys and a life filled with happiness and joy. Because of all that you have done for me I am a better person. Again, I love you.
Happy Anniversary
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September 28, 2005
His new verbal agility can be bad, especially if Daddy is watching his Packers make a stupid play and rattles off a stream of obscenities that would make Graumagus run off covering his ears. Only then to turn around and hear Clone repeat verbatim, “Son of a B(TCH! Those G*d d@mn M*ther f&ckers better learn to catch a g*d d@mn ball or they won’t win a f&ckin’ game all season, B@STARDS!” He said it perfectly; only instead of anger behind his voice, it was pride. Pride at knowing that he did something that made Daddy laugh and Mommy yell at Daddy. Now he knows which words are “bad” words and tattles on Dad if he says one. Then Mommy comes and yells at daddy to “watch his language”… the little bast…. brat.
Then there is the even more humorous situation where he uses slang correctly. Especially if we didn’t know that he knew the term. For example, Saturday night, before him and my wife became sick, we were sitting around the campfire listening to my friend Jim play the guitar and sing. Earlier in the night Jim was teaching him how to do the two-handed “monster metal horns”. Try as he would, Clone could not get it right. Flash forward 2 hours we are still sitting around the fire and Jim just finished playing a song. Ktreva was clapping when clone, trying to do the two-handed “monster metal horns” says, “Rock on mom!” clear as a bell. Fortunately, I hadn’t been taking a drink at the time or I would have spit Jack Daniels out of my nose into the campfire. That could have been bad on so many different levels.
Everyday he does or says something new, I just hope it doesnÂ’t repeat something IÂ’ve said and get me in troubleÂ… again.
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September 06, 2005
We put up a child gate at his door, but that didnÂ’t help. He was like Spiderman climbing right over it. It may have slowed him down by a fraction of a second. Around midnight he finally laid down to go to sleep, only to get up at 5:30 in the morning! Neither my wife nor I was ready to wake up and deal with the day that early. Especially since, it was a holiday weekend. We did the only thing we could, and brought him to bed with us in hopes he would go back to sleep, which he did.
On Sunday, Ktreva replaced the crib with a toddler bed we have. At least that way he won’t break his neck trying to get out of it. She also picked up a new “Harder to climb” child gate. When naptime came, we learned a couple of things. At least with the crib he thought twice about climbing out. Now he just gets up anytime he wants. As for the new gate… “Harder to Climb”, Bullshite! He looked like a gymnast jumping over a pommel horse.
Sunday night was the same thing, even though he didnÂ’t really nap, he wouldnÂ’t go to bed. We knew he was tired, but he did not want to go to sleep. If we laid him down, he would get up and break out of his room. Nothing would make this tired little boy lie down and sleep. In fact, he would turn on the TV to watch it! Again, on Sunday night he went to bed around midnight and was up around 6:00 on Monday morning.
My wife and I were tired, we hadnÂ’t slept much because we kept waking up to make sure he didnÂ’t climb out of bed, over the gate and try to navigate his way downstairs to the living room to play with his toys. When he woke up, again he was brought into our bed to sleep. Clone may have the vast majority of his traits from me; however, he does have one that is uniquely from his mother. He tosses and turns in his sleep like a whirlwind of knees and elbows. After laying there for a couple of hours, I just couldnÂ’t take it anymore. Yes, I was tired, but I just could not sleep with that little Tasmanian devil in the bed.
Naptime comes and again a fight and not sleeping. Monday night bed time and again he is not sleeping! I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, when I came out of our room I could see a flickering light coming from his room. That little snot weasel had gotten up and turned the TV on again. He had attempted to make another break for it around 3:00 AM. Fortunately, my wife thwarted his attempt. We have yet another night of not sleeping.
This morning when the alarm went of at 5:30 AM, I was ready to kill the boy. IÂ’m exhausted, my body does not want to climb out of bed, and I canÂ’t even pretend to be in a decent mood. Of course, Clone is still sleepingÂ… Therefore, we woke him up. Apparently, he was tired and didnÂ’t want to. Go figure, and no we didnÂ’t care. Maybe tonight heÂ’ll sleep.
I donÂ’t know if I can take much more of this.
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August 30, 2005
Right now he is watching Sponge Bob Square PantsÂ… It could be worse; he could be watching the Wiggles. GAK! HeÂ’s also eating some yogurt. Which has been the only food weÂ’ve been able to get him to eat in the last 24 hours. Hopefully he breaks this fever soon, I really donÂ’t want to have to take him to the hospital.
Now that I have the sympathetic parent crowd hooked, I have a question for you. Whenever we bathe Clone, he does not like getting his hair wet. Oh, and when I say we, I mean Ktreva… I’ve bathed him once in the last 2.5 years. Well, when “we” put him in the bath he’s fine. He’ll play and roll around and splash… as long as his head doesn’t get wet. Once his head comes in contact with water, he freaks out.
We have no idea why. Looking back over the last 2.5 years I canÂ’t remember a time when anything happened that would make him scared of water. Not once when he was submersed either intentionally or accidentally. We know that Boopie had similar issues when he was growing up, and kind of still does. What we are asking you, kind readers, is if this is normal? Do those of you that have or had kids go through similar issues with them? If any of you have any advice we would appreciate it. Thank you.
Also, it seems that my modem is dying. I have a new one being shipped to me, but I won't receive it for probably 2 days. That means my access to the internet is sporadic at best.
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August 29, 2005
Until yesterday. Yesterday Clone makes his triumphant climb to the top of Mount Dad. This time he just stands there for a while looking around, balancing by himself on my shoulders. My hands are right there getting ready for him to fall backwards to guide him to the ground. For reasons unknown, instead of just leaning backwards, he jumps backwards. IÂ’m not talking about a small kid jump, but an Olympic diver about to do a triple back flip jump. He jumped right out my hands.
Ancestors from days of yore smiled down upon him as they bestowed upon me the temporary grace and reflexes to be able to catch and lay him gently upon the floor. If I had missed, I could just see his little skull cracking open like a ripe watermelon being dropped onto concrete. Trying to tickle him longer then usual so my heart rate would slow down, I told him that he should NOT jump off daddy. He hasnÂ’t done it since, and we did continue to play, but I was much more cautious with him when he started standing up there.
I think itÂ’s great that he trusts me and has enough faith in my abilities to do such a stunt. However, I wish I had that much trust and faith in my abilities.
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August 26, 2005
Since we are not getting the rain, most of our lawns look like the dry plains of the Serengeti, all brown and withered. The grass just isnÂ’t growing and IÂ’m not one of those water the lawn type of guys. If you water it, it grows. If it grows, then you have to mow it. If you donÂ’t want to mow your lawn and donÂ’t care that your grass looks like some plagued wasteland, then you donÂ’t water it. Once the local governments started putting a watering ban or limitation in effect, most people lost the option to water and their yards started to die slowly off anyway.
Just to make sure, and to appease my wife, I would check the lawn about once a week to see if it needed mowing. Right up until I went on vacation, I checked it weekly front and back to make sure. Even my wife didnÂ’t feel it needed mowing. Then something happened.
When we returned from our vacation, I checked the back yard. There seemed to be enough growth to warrant mowing, unfortunately I was busy that week with a re-enactment and various appointments for me and the boys. I figured it could wait one more week. As I was loading up for my re-enactment I noticed the weeds seem to have flourished and where getting to a respectable height. Even the grass had started to grow pretty rampant. I figured we must have had quite a bit of rain while I was in Kansas.
While unloading from our event, I noticed the weeds where even taller and the grass grew some more. I knew it was time to mow the lawn. Looking at my calendar on Monday I noticed my only free night was Thursday. Promptly I informed my wife that I was indeed going to mow the lawn on Thursday. Operation Agent Orange was marked on the calendar.
Thursday comes, I send Boopie out into the yard with a trash bag, and a yard waste bag to pick up sticks and trash that has blown into my yard. Proceeding to my shed, I prepare my lawn mower for its duty. Having not mown the lawn since early June, some maintenance was required. I run down the list: Gas, check; Oil, check; Blade, Sharp enough to split atoms, check. Everything was ready to go.
As soon as I started mowing, I knew I was in for a fight. The grass, mainly weeds, had grown even more in that dry 4 days. Some of the weeds were almost hip high on me. The grass had started weaving itself together in some kind protective mat. Hitting one of these dense patches, I heard my 6.5 horsepower push mower engine start to struggle. What the hell?!?! We are in a draught. Nay, strike thatÂ… an extreme draught.
I fought my way through the front yard. Along my porch, some kind of funky vine had started to build up along it. Some of the weeds appeared to be small trees. TREES! When I tried planting a tree, I couldnÂ’t get it to grow. Now that we are in a draught, the damn things are sprouting up on their own! Unbelievable!
After finishing the front yard, I headed into the back. Now the trouble began. Taking a close look at the grass, I notice that it is much taller then I had previously believed. I had the distinct feeling that something was stalking me through it. Maybe it was my imagination that a patch of weeds and grass moved in a wave as if a large predatory cat was silently stalking up to me. It was when I started my mower and a herd of deer jumped out of it and ran across my driveway I knew I was in trouble. Okay, maybe that was a little exaggeratedÂ… but the grass had grown a hell of a lot in the last 2 weeks!
My mower is really bogging down in the foliage that has overtaken my yard. I started contemplating buying gasoline to burn away the annoying vegetation. Then I realized that it was just too damn expensive to buy that much gas. No, I wasnÂ’t worried about burning the house downÂ… ItÂ’s insured.
Working my way through the yard, I started noticing the mower was becoming more difficult to push. When I stopped to check out why, I made a horrid discovery. The lawn was fighting back! A different kind of vine was attacking my mower, wrapping up in the wheels and entangling the blade. To make matters worse, it was attacking me! I kid you not, while I was working on the mower, vines started to entangle my feet and ankles. It was as if it knew who had caused the vegetation pain and was fighting back.
Hurriedly I finished working on the mower and went back to work. My feet kept pushing the mower on, quickly wiping out the vile plants. Boopie was following behind me raking up the clippings that didnÂ’t make it into the bag. He kept complaining that the piles where pulsating like a heart that had been ripped out of someoneÂ’s chest, yet didnÂ’t realize it was dead yet. Watching the pile pulsate, I told him it was his imagination.
After about an hour and a half and 2.5 times the number of lawn bags I normally use, I finished mowing the lawn. Both Boopie and I showed signs of our battle, small cuts and scratches on our arms and legs. It was at this point as we put the last of the yard bags into the alley Boopie asked me, “Dad, why didn’t you just burn it all away.”
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August 15, 2005
The kids instantly start screaming and yelling. The mother, sounding like the kids had been doing this all day, starts yelling at them. They are pounding on the walls, slamming drawers shut on the dressers and jumping on the beds. Kids will be loud; they cry and just make noise. Having a two and a 12 year old, I understand and can over look that. Adults yelling and slamming drawers, letting kids pound on the walls and jump on the bed, I cannot abide by. There are certain courtesies and etiquette one follows when staying in a hotel or motel.
This would go on for a couple of minutes before stopping. As soon as I would fall back to sleep, they would start again. After a while, I had finally had enough and jumped out of bed to throw some clothes on and see if I couldn’t gently persuade them to shut the hell up! Just as I sat up to do something, my wife leaps up in the bed. With hair flying, she pounds on the wall as hard as she can. With her head flailing between the blows, she hollers out “SHUT THE f#&K UP!”
Stunned, I slowly turn to look at my normally serene and peaceful wife. Her eyes are bugged out, her hair wildly disarrayed, her lips peeled back to show her gritted teeth, a mask of anger had fallen over her beautiful face. Informing her that I was getting ready to head over and “talk” to the neighbors, she responded with, “I couldn’t take it anymore.” I guess I’m starting to rub off on my wife
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August 14, 2005
The worldÂ’s largest truck stop is on I-80 in Iowa. We stopped there just to check it out. Yep, itÂ’s a mighty big truck stop.
There is a place in Iowa called the Amana Colonies. It is about 30 minutes north northwest of Iowa City. This place is a really neat rural community with a rich history. The food is excellent (heavily German influence), they have all kinds of specialty industries including wool weaving, wine making, beer brewing, meat processing, etc. I will go out on a limb and say I had some of the best beer I have EVER (better then Guinness in my opinion) had from the local brewery, an oatmeal stout. I brought home two one liter bottles of it for my next weekend re-enactment. At their woolen mill we were able to pick up a historically correct wool blanket for our re-enacting for only $59.00.
Clone needs to work on his restaurant etiquette. We really need to get him to stop yelling at the top of his lungs things like; “I go potty” and “Momma, you go potty”.
While in a nice family restaurant in the Amana Colonies, Clone was coloring when he dropped a crayon. At which point he proceeded to yell out, “DAMMIT!” I don’t know where he learned such language. I blame my wife.
Kansas City sucks. This is the worst city I have ever been too. There are 3 major highways through/around Kansas City, and they feel it is completely appropriate for them to completely close down two of them at the Missouri River to work on the bridges at the same time. Our hotel was right at one of the last exits before the bridge was closed on the highway we wanted. We planned our alternate route that night before going to bed only to discover the next day that highway was also closed. I was more then a little miffed.
People in Kansas City do not eat in restaurants unless it is fast food or at the Casino. We spent an hour driving around looking for a decent sit down restaurant and couldnÂ’t find one. Finally I went back to the hotel and asked the clerk where I could go find a decent restaurant. The clerk went on to say that I could take my family to either the casino or a sports bar. I felt so trashy taking my 2 and 12 year old to a casino to eat mediocre food.
We spent half of a day in Independence, MO, the launching point of the Santa Fe, Oregon and California Trails west. We went to multiple museums and soaked up a lot of history about early pioneers and settlers. If you like history or just want to do something educational on a vacation, this is an interesting town. It’s also where the Harry Truman library and Museum is. While touring the Frontier Trails Museum my wife made an interesting observation. In a lot of their displays about mountain men and frontier travelers they had replica items. From our re-enacting, we own many of those replica items and or know where which retailer they bought them through, especially the ink packets labeled “Jas. Townsend”. This was consistently the case at every museum and historic center we went to that had displays ranging from the 1700’s through the 1880’s Does this mean my house is a museum?
My wife has been lying to me for years. She grew up in Wichita, KS and has told me for years that Kansas is flat and has no trees. We drove through some pretty hilly areas covered in forest. We did come to spots where there was not a tree in site, however it was still rolling hills.
If I really wanted to quit my job and do living history full time, there are plenty of places for me to find a job. The pay is pretty bad however.
At the Zoo in Wichita, animals like to get right up to the glass. This makes for some really neat picture opportunities.
Wichita has a really neat Living History center, Old Cow Town. This is one of the best-recreated towns IÂ’ve seen. Even on a weekday they have re-enactors peppered through out the town to talk to the people. They even had the saloon open and running, however you could not get a whiskey there, no matter how hard I tried. There was even period pr0n on the walls!
While at Old Cow Town, the boys decided they needed guns. I ended up buying Boopie two six shooters and Clone a Derringer. These being my boys, they ended up getting into a gunfight IN the church.
They had a fur trapper/hunter section in the town. After the living historian finished her speech about the display, I politely explained IÂ’m a re-enactor and she had some of her information wrong. I corrected her on the use of a couple of items and even cited sources for the information. She seemed generally appreciative of my information. She was also rather annoyed by her inability to answer a couple of my questions. No matter how tempting it was to quiz her, I didnÂ’t. My questions where all legitimate ones that I didnÂ’t know the answer two.
In the small Kansas town of Hutchinson is located the Cosmosphere and Space Center. This impressive center also houses a museum on space flight and holds a large collection of rocket and space artifacts from the back up Sputnik satellite to the actual Apollo 13 capsule. IÂ’ve been to the Smithsonian and Cape Kennedy; this place rivals them. It is located about 45 minutes northwest of Wichita, if you are ever in the area you would be doing yourself a disservice by not stopping by. We attempted to see a couple of shows; I however had to miss two of them. Clone would start getting loud and crying and I had to take him out of the theater. We figured this would happen, so I was prepared. I wish I had been able to finish the I-max movie on fighter pilots, as that was interesting.
We went to a chuck wagon supper at the Prairie Rose. The food was great. There was also a cowboy song/story show that went with it. Clone would not sit still or be quiet for the show. I ended up having to take him outside so he could run around. Boopie joined us shortly after. I just could not get Boopie to go back in and try to give the show a chance. He kept saying he didnÂ’t like country music. Even after explaining to him this was the other kind of music, western, he still would not go back in. When clone finally settled down I took him back in and actually was able to see part of the show. These guys where good. After three songs Clone was back to his old tricks and I had to take him out again. This time Boopie decided to stay to watch the show. He liked it so much he ended up buying a CD and having the cowboys autograph it. Dad knows best!
Clone did scream a lot during the drive. If any of you had stock in Advil and noticed that itÂ’s value skyrocketed; itÂ’s because I was popping it like pez.
West of the Mississippi they have gas stations called Kum & Go. Words cannot begin to describe the juvenile levels of mirth I had with that name.
During the whole trip I was constantly speeding. I passed many more people then I was passed. Doing some quick calculations, I figure that for every 500 vehicles I passed, one car would pass me. Yet I did not get pulled over once. There were a couple of close calls.
IÂ’m sure I forgot something, there was so much that happened.
UPDATE: Per request, here's a picture of the Kum N Go sign. Yes, I'm juvinile enough to get a picture.
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