It's getting closer. The appraiser was supposed to hand in her report today, so hopefully we'll hear something tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll also be following up on home insurance and . . . something else ACT! will remind me of in the morning.
As for today, we took the kids to school, Carole went down to Harry Hines hunting for fabric to match the top she already made for Anita's mother-of-the-bride dress, and I drove to Paris for a couple of jobs. (After a job in Carrollton.) Carole found the fabric, fortunately, and Anita smiled on it. Good good. The kids elected to sleep here, though Alexander made noises about wanting to go to Daddy's. I finished Photowalk stuff, fixed spaghetti and meatballs, we finished watching the surprisingly thoughtful (no, really) Bubba Ho-Tep, labeled and FTP'd the Photowalk stuff, then respectively messed around on the Net. I wish I didn't have to wait till midnight to start catching up on the news and commentary of the day, but as yet I haven't discovered much of a way around it.
On that score, however (advance pun intended), I see Natalie Maines opened her mouth again outside of a song. Always a danger. And I see she's as much of a punk as she ever was. She says now she retracts the apology she gave for her disrepectful remark about the president back in '03. Now she says he deserves no respect whatsoever. Well knock me down with a feather. Natalie never got and still doesn't that free speech cuts both ways; if you dis your audience, either directly or indirectly as she did here, don't be surprised when they react negatively to it. She's always played herself up as some brave martyr when in fact she's just a rude, dense punk.
What I've long hoped, however, is that she caught some flak from Martie and Emily, assuming that they surely didn't share Natalie's loopy liberalism. Not so, I see. In fact, Martie, my favorite (et tu, Martie?), rivals her in idiocy with this: "'I'd rather have a small following of really cool people who get it, who will grow with us as we grow and are fans for life, than people that have us in their five-disc changer with Reba McEntire and Toby Keith,' Maguire said. 'We don't want those kinds of fans. They limit what you can do.'" I'm sure she felt exactly that way when they were setting sales records, selling out arenas all over, and racking up Grammy's left and right. I'm sure she was thinking then, "Y'know, what'd really be cool is if most of these people went away and didn't buy our music." Well, Martie, you don't have to worry about it now. The three of you misread your public and now you're having to make up transparently fake rationalizations for it. What a fall, and what a shame. At least you make good music. Or used to. I haven't heard the new album yet . . . .
On a less serious note, it's a little harder to take stories about the near-impossibility of escaping from the infamous Alcatraz when you see a headline like "Boy Swims from Alcatraz to San Francisco." I mean, it makes it a lot harder to take Clint Eastwood seriously, squintingly trying to Escape from Alcatraz, when apparently it's kid's stuff.
Much too late to be awake. But I blogged, goshdarnit!
Monday, May 22, 2006
Saturday, May 13, 2006
It's all about me . . . and you . . . and him . . . and her
We as a society need to just get this through our collective skulls. 'Course way too many of us are much too thick-headed to get it or care.
Saturday, May 13
Kids were up early, but not as early as sometimes. Carole'd brought the video games over here yesterday from Dave's since the kids were excited about the games they'd bought from Travis (the young'n from our prospective new house), so they were up and ready to hit them first thing. Carole ended up sitting with them instead of coming back to bed. I was eye-rubbing tired when I finally dragged myself out of bed (good thing I'm getting to bed early tonight), but brought out Gene and Skip anyway. Spent the next hour-plus entertaining the kids and being climbed on. I submit Exhibit A:
After that Carole and I whiled the afternoon away on photo editing and political commentary (I'll let the dear reader decide who did what). I did manage to get to the credit union to get cashier checks for the title company. We have to get those to Danny tomorrow so he can take them to Republic on Monday morning. I did get some research done on the honeymoon. Mid-July, it will be. I think we've boiled it down to two possibilities. Waiting on responses from both of them to determine which. Then we went to Texadelphia for dinner, staying till close doing a Boggle puzzle and crossword puzzle in The Diddly News. Followed that up with a Wal-Mart run to stock up on Diet Dr. Thunder and to get some Mother Day flowers and a card. Back here it was back to the computers doing various things that certainly don't need to be done right now -- though it is good to have the Vonage decisions made -- but there we are.
And here I go.
After that Carole and I whiled the afternoon away on photo editing and political commentary (I'll let the dear reader decide who did what). I did manage to get to the credit union to get cashier checks for the title company. We have to get those to Danny tomorrow so he can take them to Republic on Monday morning. I did get some research done on the honeymoon. Mid-July, it will be. I think we've boiled it down to two possibilities. Waiting on responses from both of them to determine which. Then we went to Texadelphia for dinner, staying till close doing a Boggle puzzle and crossword puzzle in The Diddly News. Followed that up with a Wal-Mart run to stock up on Diet Dr. Thunder and to get some Mother Day flowers and a card. Back here it was back to the computers doing various things that certainly don't need to be done right now -- though it is good to have the Vonage decisions made -- but there we are.
And here I go.
Friday, May 12, 2006
Friday, May 12
Another hectic one, though thankfully not quite like yesterday. Not nearly as much back and forth and overlap between work and house stuff. Alexander woke up early again today, though thankfully not quite like the other day. He was being dramatically loud with his yawns and talking loud, hoping to wake Angelina, so I had to shush him a couple of times. He quieted down and there wasn't mutual stirring for a while, and then it was all but up.
We were late getting them to school, but I made use of the time and got the car loaded for work. After an apt. office stop to fax the contract to Danny and a Walgreen's stop to swap the Diet Coke with Splenda with Diet Coke withOUT Splenda, we headed for our ostensible first stop, east of Lake Lavon in Nevada. Only problem was she didn't live in Nevada; she lives in Powell. Wrong city, right zip code. Oops. Reschedule. So then we did the two jobs that were left and came home. Scheduled the house inspection and then I got to work scheduling Monday. Thought I had it all done when Carole mentioned a different sheet, which meant I had to start essentially all over. It took a long while and several phone calls, but I finally got it all done.
In the meantime Carole had gone to pick up the kids from school and stop at Dave's to get the video games. (We weren't supposed to have them tonight, but the babysitter called to say she had a church function she hadn't remembered, so we switched nights with her.) The kids dug having the video games here for once (twice, actually); Alexander said he wanted to sleep here all the time now. I wonder what was the difference? Everything was fine until
bedtime. Alexander and I had a good ol' time playing on our big bed until Angelina was ready, at which point it was her turn and I told him it was time to get in bed. He kept ignoring me, even as I got more serious with him and told him I was getting upset. Angelina by then was ready and in bed herself and then he wanted to look at his photo album. I told him no, it was time for bed, way past time, and we'd had lots of fun, but it was time for bed. He started crying and I told him if he didn't stop crying and start getting into bed before I counted to five, he'd lose a song. He didn't, so he lost a song. I told him again, he didn't again, so he lost another song. I told him again, he didn't again, so he lost his last song. Of course he was upset by all this, but he's got a stubborn streak going on lately that we can't abide, particularly where minding me is concerned. I told him it was very sad that he lost all of his songs and gave him one back, but he only got the one. Of course I tickled him and gave him lots of kisses and he was giggling and laughing and ready for more when I gave the Big Kiss. (Angelina said she was too tired for the Big Kiss, which was a first, but I saw her still catch it and the small kisses from inside her sleeping bag, which was funny and cute.) Such is the life of a parent, and to some degree specifically a step-parent.
And now I'm going to get back to the Billy photo project, which entails me scanning a multiplicity of photos of Billy to send him and Shana. This was prompted by the wedding collage; I thought Shana in particular might like to have some old photos of Billy, and realized Billy would probably like to have them himself. So I'm scanning in several to send them tonight.
Back to it.
We were late getting them to school, but I made use of the time and got the car loaded for work. After an apt. office stop to fax the contract to Danny and a Walgreen's stop to swap the Diet Coke with Splenda with Diet Coke withOUT Splenda, we headed for our ostensible first stop, east of Lake Lavon in Nevada. Only problem was she didn't live in Nevada; she lives in Powell. Wrong city, right zip code. Oops. Reschedule. So then we did the two jobs that were left and came home. Scheduled the house inspection and then I got to work scheduling Monday. Thought I had it all done when Carole mentioned a different sheet, which meant I had to start essentially all over. It took a long while and several phone calls, but I finally got it all done.
In the meantime Carole had gone to pick up the kids from school and stop at Dave's to get the video games. (We weren't supposed to have them tonight, but the babysitter called to say she had a church function she hadn't remembered, so we switched nights with her.) The kids dug having the video games here for once (twice, actually); Alexander said he wanted to sleep here all the time now. I wonder what was the difference? Everything was fine until
bedtime. Alexander and I had a good ol' time playing on our big bed until Angelina was ready, at which point it was her turn and I told him it was time to get in bed. He kept ignoring me, even as I got more serious with him and told him I was getting upset. Angelina by then was ready and in bed herself and then he wanted to look at his photo album. I told him no, it was time for bed, way past time, and we'd had lots of fun, but it was time for bed. He started crying and I told him if he didn't stop crying and start getting into bed before I counted to five, he'd lose a song. He didn't, so he lost a song. I told him again, he didn't again, so he lost another song. I told him again, he didn't again, so he lost his last song. Of course he was upset by all this, but he's got a stubborn streak going on lately that we can't abide, particularly where minding me is concerned. I told him it was very sad that he lost all of his songs and gave him one back, but he only got the one. Of course I tickled him and gave him lots of kisses and he was giggling and laughing and ready for more when I gave the Big Kiss. (Angelina said she was too tired for the Big Kiss, which was a first, but I saw her still catch it and the small kisses from inside her sleeping bag, which was funny and cute.) Such is the life of a parent, and to some degree specifically a step-parent.
And now I'm going to get back to the Billy photo project, which entails me scanning a multiplicity of photos of Billy to send him and Shana. This was prompted by the wedding collage; I thought Shana in particular might like to have some old photos of Billy, and realized Billy would probably like to have them himself. So I'm scanning in several to send them tonight.
Back to it.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Thursday, May 11
I've now learned the necessity of including the day and date in the title, since if I happen to be publishing after midnight it looks like two posts in one day. Of course chronologically it is, but that's not the point.
Today was a blurry flurry of phone calls. Picked the kids up at Dave's and took them to school as per the usual, but that was where the usual ended. Talked with Danny at least six or seven times today, the first time when he called with a market analysis for the neighborhood. It showed the house appraising for considerably less than what Vance and Chrisana were asking, which prompted a later call from him saying that he'd called in a favor with the appraiser and been told it almost surely wouldn't appraise for much more than $100,000. In and around all that Carole was talking with Vance about it all. At least twice we were talking with Vance and Danny at the same time. In the middle of all that we did the Photowalk stuff we'd normally have done the night before, and then called Margie about doing our own scheduling. Thus began an afternoon of working on work schedules, phone-tagging Margie while still fielding calls to and from Vance and Danny. Picked up the kids from school and brought them back with visions of Milo and Otis, but we didn't even get to that before leaving again to go back to Vance and Chrisana's again to attempt to fill out the sales contract for the house. That was a rather comical blind-leading-the-blind affair, but we think it worked out all right. Everyone's out to do the fair thing, fortunately, so it was a good experience. We joked that we wanted to buy their house, but we'd rather them move next door so we could be neighbors. The kids had fun playing with their son Travis, and we slid him a twenty for the video games. Vance said he was embarrassed his son was taking money from us, but it was Carole's suggestion. She didn't think he should be giving away his video games. I wouldn't have argued if he did . . . . Then to Sonic to feed the kids and back here to attempt to get them in bed ASAP, since it was already past 8:00. I think they were down for good by 8:45. Yeesh. And then to the roast that Carole had put in this morning and continued commentary on Field of Dreams. ("I just thought it would be funny to watch Kevin Costner try to kidnap James Earl Jones" -- director Phil Alden Robinson, roughly.)
Now let's spin the random thoughts wheel:
a) Thanks to yet another trip to Walgreen's for diet drinks for Carole, I'm amazed all over again how many variations on just diet drinks there are. Diet Dr. Pepper is fine, but then there's Diet Coke with Lemon, caffeine-free Diet Coke, Diet Coke with Splenda (bad choice on my part), and some other taste variation on it. Is the market for Diet Coke really that splintered, and if so, yikes?
b) Life would be a lot easier with a lot of money. Certainly buying a house would be easier. "I want your house, and everything in it." "Okay. I want $XXX for it." "Done. Here's $XXX for a tip."
c) I really, really need some new jeans.
d) Is that a spider bite?
e) It seems almost impossible for me to get to bed before midnight.
In that vein, Carole has resumed her almost nightly pre-bed nap on the couch. How I envy her borderline narcoleptic tendencies. Since I've mostly caught up on the news and commentary I'd like -- I'm being driven almost daily toward some political rants about Republicans and Democrats both -- I can now retire to bed and my new, comfy Bed Bath & Beyond $99 pillow. (Texans Credit Union called this morning to make sure the $300+ purchase there the other day was in fact ours. "Yes," I told her, "that was our wedding gifts spree.")
Today was a blurry flurry of phone calls. Picked the kids up at Dave's and took them to school as per the usual, but that was where the usual ended. Talked with Danny at least six or seven times today, the first time when he called with a market analysis for the neighborhood. It showed the house appraising for considerably less than what Vance and Chrisana were asking, which prompted a later call from him saying that he'd called in a favor with the appraiser and been told it almost surely wouldn't appraise for much more than $100,000. In and around all that Carole was talking with Vance about it all. At least twice we were talking with Vance and Danny at the same time. In the middle of all that we did the Photowalk stuff we'd normally have done the night before, and then called Margie about doing our own scheduling. Thus began an afternoon of working on work schedules, phone-tagging Margie while still fielding calls to and from Vance and Danny. Picked up the kids from school and brought them back with visions of Milo and Otis, but we didn't even get to that before leaving again to go back to Vance and Chrisana's again to attempt to fill out the sales contract for the house. That was a rather comical blind-leading-the-blind affair, but we think it worked out all right. Everyone's out to do the fair thing, fortunately, so it was a good experience. We joked that we wanted to buy their house, but we'd rather them move next door so we could be neighbors. The kids had fun playing with their son Travis, and we slid him a twenty for the video games. Vance said he was embarrassed his son was taking money from us, but it was Carole's suggestion. She didn't think he should be giving away his video games. I wouldn't have argued if he did . . . . Then to Sonic to feed the kids and back here to attempt to get them in bed ASAP, since it was already past 8:00. I think they were down for good by 8:45. Yeesh. And then to the roast that Carole had put in this morning and continued commentary on Field of Dreams. ("I just thought it would be funny to watch Kevin Costner try to kidnap James Earl Jones" -- director Phil Alden Robinson, roughly.)
Now let's spin the random thoughts wheel:
a) Thanks to yet another trip to Walgreen's for diet drinks for Carole, I'm amazed all over again how many variations on just diet drinks there are. Diet Dr. Pepper is fine, but then there's Diet Coke with Lemon, caffeine-free Diet Coke, Diet Coke with Splenda (bad choice on my part), and some other taste variation on it. Is the market for Diet Coke really that splintered, and if so, yikes?
b) Life would be a lot easier with a lot of money. Certainly buying a house would be easier. "I want your house, and everything in it." "Okay. I want $XXX for it." "Done. Here's $XXX for a tip."
c) I really, really need some new jeans.
d) Is that a spider bite?
e) It seems almost impossible for me to get to bed before midnight.
In that vein, Carole has resumed her almost nightly pre-bed nap on the couch. How I envy her borderline narcoleptic tendencies. Since I've mostly caught up on the news and commentary I'd like -- I'm being driven almost daily toward some political rants about Republicans and Democrats both -- I can now retire to bed and my new, comfy Bed Bath & Beyond $99 pillow. (Texans Credit Union called this morning to make sure the $300+ purchase there the other day was in fact ours. "Yes," I told her, "that was our wedding gifts spree.")
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Today the kids woke up at 6:00 a.m. complaining that their stomachs hurt because they were hungry. (Gee, they ate almost nothing before going to bed. What could have been the cause?) I'd woken up at 3-something, and then again when they woke me up. Couldn't go back to sleep; just dozed. We took them to school, got back from there to eat and then go to work. Just four jobs, one of which turned out to be just a couple of retakes, but between starting later than intended and running into the second traffic jam in three days on the same part of 35 north down in Oak Cliff, we got back later than intended. We picked the kids up from school (I dozed in the car while Carole went to get them) and took them to the 406 Anna house (Chris Black nee Daugherty) to see how they liked it. Fortunately they did. (This one didn't smell. Big deal to the four- and five-year-old set. And the thirty-seven-year-old set for that matter.) Got home, Carole dozed on the floor with an upset stomach, I entertained the kids as much as I could. Curt returned my call from earlier about home-buying stuff, and informed me there could be a truckload of Autocad work ahead, so we'll see about that. Then we talked to Rebekah's Danny more about the mortgage loan stuff, and then met him for dinner at Tia's to sign all the requisite paper work for his stuff. Chris' husband Vance called us back while we were there to talk price and offers and sounded very reasonable in the process. He said they'd just guessed at the $115,000 number they were offering, so they're willing to honor whatever the appraisal says. Very cool. Danny says he'll get comps tomorrow and we'll have some sort of answer for Chris and Vance by noon tomorrow.
I'm falling asleep at the keyboard.
I'm falling asleep at the keyboard.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Short one 'cause again I'm late for a bed. No work for today, so I got mortgage stuff together that I ended up not needing, got nothing much significant done beyond that before time to pick up the kids, we drove by some houses, picked up the kids, went back to the apartment, they were kinda grumpy, we went back to a house and toured it, it was okay -- Carole liked it more than I did, as apparently did the kids -- we drove by a second one, the kids were melting down, and then came home. We put the kids to bed, ordered the $5.55 carry-out special from Papa John's, watched Field of Dreams, we cried, watched the making-of video, we cried some more, I've just read some of Jason's e-mails and chuckled, and now I'm writing this.
Done in five minutes. Rock on.
Done in five minutes. Rock on.
Monday, May 08, 2006
This is the start (and hopefully not also the end) of a new approach to this blog thing: Actually writing something every day. This I hope to accomplish by actually treating it like the diary which I intended it to be from the outset. It's very hard for me not to think of each entry as a combo-journal/blog (that is, created for external interest). When I do that I blanche at the number of words I'll surely expend, and instead do something else. (Which unfortunately almost never, at least immediately, includes going to bed.) So the goal now for each day is to write just a paragraph. Well, at least a paragraph. I'm still open to writing more, but the pressure's off if I know all I'm definitely wanting to do is have a record of the day. So to that end:
This morning we woke up early but snuggled late. Got to Dave's later than usual, but at least the oatmeal got eaten before leaving to take the kids to school. Took the kids to school -- Alexander was full of energy at that point -- then came back to the apartment to get ready to leave for work. Had a couple of e-mails from Danny about mortgages, and in response to one looking for independent contractor history, I e-mailed Jason McSween at BCS, then called Barry there. (To see if they could show a two-year history for me there still.) He was thrilled about me and Carole, and said possibly. Cool. Did the three Photowalk jobs we had today, but I was exhausted enough even before we left that I laid down after we got back and napped/dozed for over an hour. I took a shower before Carole got back with the kids, and then . . . did stuff. Alexander fell asleep on the couch (he's apparently been fighting whatever Carole had), and I played hide-and-seek with Angelina, which progressed to building with Legos. I made an American flag and she covered an entire large, flat piece with only two-piece blocks. Then we started building a little house. It was cute watching her play with the "kids" in the house. She decided she wanted to stay with us when Dave got here, so she did. Ended up getting her to bed much later than planned, for no good reason that I can think of. She kept wanting to eat more, and she was being very good while watching Beauty and the Beast, so we just kept letting it go. Finally we got to a stopping point, she got ready for bed, and I went to Dave's to get her stuffed animals that we realized we didn't have. I tucked her in again, she told me in her joking way she wanted me to stay in the bedroom (Carole told me after I returned from Dave's that she didn't want me to leave in the first place, but still wanted her animals; define "dilemma"), and I let Skip and Gene (my hands as puppets who've become quite the hit) tell her good-night. It was nice. Carole fixed hamburger mish-mash, we finished watching Swing Time, finished our Photowalk work, I read some news and commentary, and then did this.
And now I'm going to bed. If I can just start this a little earlier every night, this is eminently doable. Now if I will just do it.
This morning we woke up early but snuggled late. Got to Dave's later than usual, but at least the oatmeal got eaten before leaving to take the kids to school. Took the kids to school -- Alexander was full of energy at that point -- then came back to the apartment to get ready to leave for work. Had a couple of e-mails from Danny about mortgages, and in response to one looking for independent contractor history, I e-mailed Jason McSween at BCS, then called Barry there. (To see if they could show a two-year history for me there still.) He was thrilled about me and Carole, and said possibly. Cool. Did the three Photowalk jobs we had today, but I was exhausted enough even before we left that I laid down after we got back and napped/dozed for over an hour. I took a shower before Carole got back with the kids, and then . . . did stuff. Alexander fell asleep on the couch (he's apparently been fighting whatever Carole had), and I played hide-and-seek with Angelina, which progressed to building with Legos. I made an American flag and she covered an entire large, flat piece with only two-piece blocks. Then we started building a little house. It was cute watching her play with the "kids" in the house. She decided she wanted to stay with us when Dave got here, so she did. Ended up getting her to bed much later than planned, for no good reason that I can think of. She kept wanting to eat more, and she was being very good while watching Beauty and the Beast, so we just kept letting it go. Finally we got to a stopping point, she got ready for bed, and I went to Dave's to get her stuffed animals that we realized we didn't have. I tucked her in again, she told me in her joking way she wanted me to stay in the bedroom (Carole told me after I returned from Dave's that she didn't want me to leave in the first place, but still wanted her animals; define "dilemma"), and I let Skip and Gene (my hands as puppets who've become quite the hit) tell her good-night. It was nice. Carole fixed hamburger mish-mash, we finished watching Swing Time, finished our Photowalk work, I read some news and commentary, and then did this.
And now I'm going to bed. If I can just start this a little earlier every night, this is eminently doable. Now if I will just do it.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Afterthoughts
1) Those who say they don't need a piece of paper to feel married -- one of whom long ago included me -- don't understand a crucial thing: It's the process that makes the difference, not the paper. Going through it changes you, or at least it has me. I feel different about me and Carole as a couple. We were together before, but we weren't truly a couple. There really is something about proclaiming those vows before witnesses that squeezes out that little, final gap that remains between the engaged and makes them a unit by themselves. So no, you don't need a piece of paper. But you do need a wedding. Anyone who says differently hasn't gone through it to know.2) After not having worn jewelry my entire life, I've gotten used to wearing a ring surprisingly quickly.
3) There are few things in life more emotionally satisfying than seeing old friends, or as especially in my case, old friends of mine who've never met each other, laughing and talking together.4) There are few things more bittersweet than having to watch #3 from the sidelines. There just wasn't time to visit with everybody the way I wanted. But that's what future get-togethers are for.
5) I wish everyone had been able to hear the music that didn't have time to get played.6) I suppose it's telling that I never got nervous about getting married itself. I got a little anxious about how the ceremony itself would go down, as the clouds darkened to the south and west, but it never occurred to me to get nervous about saying those words to Carole.
Still to come: A blow-by-blow account from both me and Carole about everything from the lead-up to the afterparty.
(Photos by Chase Lindley. Marc Eells' coming soon.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)