And the wall, wins.

Whats the worst pain you have ever felt?
Mommies, no fair bringing up the whole birth thing. That's a hands down winner.
Give the rest of us non-mommies a chance and think of the NEXT worst pain you have ever felt?

Whats the silly little law? The one that states something to the effect of  "an object in motion will stay in motion unless it pisses a bigger object off who then stops its motion with a well placed forearm?" Anyone? Bueller?
I forget the law, in fact, the immutable laws of physics have always seem to stretch a little bit for me.
But not always.
I was once running away from this really big scary person with white blonde curly hair. I am pretty sure it was female, either that or a guy with very high estrogen level wearing a sheepskin hat, and I know that whatever it was chasing me for was more than likely well deserved.
Actually. It was going rather well.
I was 10 or so and fleet of foot, especially when terrified. The sheep-thing was screaming at me and looked really scary so I was making  good time towards home. I had just about hit 88 miles an hour and turned around to see if my feet were kicking up flames when a giant brick wall jumped out of nowhere and smacked me in the head.
It was extraordinary. One second I was moving at light-speed through the sir, my feet barely touching the ground and the next.
Splat.

The sky looks really pretty when it spins.
The sheep was nice enough to let bygones be bygones and carried me home.
Sheep must have known about my parents aversion to livestock because it left me on the front porch in a pile of Tom and doorbell ditched.
That wall kicked my ass.
Fast forward. I am a grown-up man. Married, with children and a dog.
My dad calls and says "Hey! Your Uncle Bill's water heater went out. Go and stick a new one in for him."
He was The Boss at this point, so I hopped to it and bustled over to Uncle Bill's.
I know just enough about a lot of things to get really hurt.
Keep that in mind.
I had cut the old heater out, schlepped it outside, grunted the new one in and was just in the process of soldering all the joints together.
Quick plumbing tutorial. Back in Ye Olde days before PEX we used to have to use flux and solder and propane or mapp gas torches to stick the copper plumbing pipes together. New construction was fairly quick and painless but remove and replace was always an adventure.
Now, the Solder is a mixture of two metals (Antimony and Tin) that both have a fairly low melting point, the heat combined with the flux you spread on the joints creates a vacuum and pulls the molten solder inside the joint.
Did you catch the word MOLTEN, as in HOT!

So, I was working on the last joint, it was above my head but being a safety conscious young fellow I had safety glasses on. Well, safety conscious and still paying for the surgery to remove metal splinters from my eye...... Another story.
The glasses were kinda fogged up so I did not see the large drop of MOLTEN solder that dripped off of the pipe and landed on my lip. My upper lip. Just to the right of the little divot thingy I have.
I screamed.
 Like ten little girls all at once. High and piercing, shattering glass for miles, Dolphins around the world heard me and wondered who had just gone to the big glass bowl in the sky, Millions of bats were blinded forever and I have  unconfirmed report of two submarines colliding with a giant underwater spaceship sent by future us back in time.
It hurt.
Living the life I have led developed two things, a fear of water and a high pain tolerance.
This hurt.
 I can honestly say that it was the most concentrated single spot of pain I have ever experienced. This from a man who as a wee boy zipped his wee-wee into his corduroys.
Solder melts fairly fast, it also cools fairly fast. But not fast enough. I was screaming and laughing and the glasses were fogged and I could not really think. It was more of instinct. Running really fast upstairs to the sink, hoping for an ice cube, hoping for a fairy freaking godmother, anything. I was blazing up the stairs as fast as I could, screaming in gasps now but still at a very high pitch.
I reached for the door handle just as my Uncle Bill opened it from the other side.
I didn't even slow down.
That wall jumped out and hit me right on the head.
Even after the ice cube melted and Uncle Bill kindly picked the now solid solder out of my lip with a needle, I  really had only one thought.
That wall kicked my ass.

Oh hell

In some countries, by the calendar, I am considered an "Adult"
In a few more days or so I think I can safely say that I have lived more of my life than I have left.
Neither of which is a very comforting thought.
I am a Father.
I have two children that I refer too variously as 1 and 2, and "the NUMBERS' and I realize that I should be mindful of this and act appropriately.
Bull pucky says I.
If I feel the need to Juggle fruit in the grocery store, have a skipping or spitting contest or impromptu wrestle or sword-fight in the toy store.
I will.
Adult?
By age only.
Cultural definitions be dammed straight to Sheol.
That being said I had a very uncomfortable deep thought today.
Trust me, it was not on purpose.
#1, who is 13 and in middle school said Something to the Wife today.
"You and Dad may have crappy Jobs and think they are stressful, but you should really try middle school. Its MUCH worse"
My first reaction, on hearing this was to scoff, what does she know about bills and jobs and kids and car payments and children and spouses and all the other innumerable bullshit that is part and parcel of being a "Grown up".
Pshaw said I.
Then I had one of those highly damming spells of realization.
And memory.
I remembered middle school.
Really remembered it.
The fears and Pain and Heartache and Puberty and not being invited to the party and not quite knowing what to do and having a girlfriend and best-friends and fighting and My Grandpa dying and my Uncle Ron dying and Jamin dying and grades and math and wood-shop and ..........
well.
All of it.
I sat still and remembered all of it.
Then I had another realization.
This one was far more painful.
All of those stresses I deal with?
Now, as an Adult.
So do 1 and 2.
As children.
They are not deaf and Dumb, nor are they Blind or obtuse.
They know whats going on.
They hear the fights and see the anger. They feel the sadness and the pain of Adult life by watching the two they love the most go through it all.
They not only have all of their stresses, they have all of ours too.
My typical response?
"I dealt with it, so can they"
Why? I asked myself today. Is this some sort of bizarre hazing ritual that we all consciously and unconsciously practice?
I had to do it, so should they?
Really?
Truly?
Maybe some of it is unavoidable.
People are shit for the most part.
But as a parent of a wee human should not my Job be to see that they have it better and easier than I?
So that they can grow up to be a better and more complete person than I?

I hope so.

Apple Tree

It started simply. The very best stories always do.

I wanted money.

When you are twelve and want money your options are pretty limited.

I already worked for my dad, Mowing lawns and pulling weeds and cutting fence slats with a hacksaw, but I wanted a desk job.

So I checked out a book from the library "101 ways to make money"

That book was FULL of useful information.

Rolling your own fire logs, selling them door to door. Window cleaning, Puppy poop pickup, sawdust collection, resale candy bought in bulk.

Horseshit.

That book was full of something all right.

It did teach me a valuable lesson. If you want to make a lot of money, write a book on how to do something, Like.........

"How to make a lot of money!!!"

What a pile of steaming green road apples.

So I looked about, to find a less physically demanding job and I came across a sign "Bart’s Big Worms" . He sold them to fishermen who were too lazy to catch their own.

So back to the library I went.

How to grow earthworms at home for fun and profit.

Just what I needed.

I read the book, and in a frenzy of activity made my earthworm habitat and breeding ground, I knew when I buried that five gallon bucket and filled it with a mixture of dirt and sphagnum moss that I was on my way to trump-like millions.

I spent a long and muddy night catching as many crawlers as I could. At the end of which I released all 8 of them into their brand new custom made climate controlled delicious tasting guaranteed to breed worms of prodigious even by Australian standards earthworm habitat.

I watched them all burrow into their new home and imagined I could hear the sound of contented sod busters chewing themselves into a food induced breeding frenzy.

AND THEN......

I forgot all about it.

Completely.

For a couple of months.

Work was too much of a drain on my time.

That and Basketball, Baseball and Thinking of new ways to torment Justin and or his sisters.

This took more time than you would think. He had A LOT of sisters.

My Mom brought it to my attention.

It stank. Badly.

Just as advertised the decomposing moss and lose dirt had degraded into a vitamin rich mulch like substance and settled into the bottom foot of the Five gallon bucket, Unlike the poster however my prime wriggly habitat had collected a foot or so of scummy brownish water.

It stank.

Horribly.

So I bent closer to see if perhaps it was just as bad up close.

It was. It was also alive with little tiny wiggly things.

Sea Monkeys?

Nope. (the water tasted different.)

So my budding young mad scientist mind did the only thing possible. I looked them up in my Mutual of Omaha wild kingdom guide to insects placed on individually printed glossy color photographic note cards and discovered two things.

1) That they were Mosquito larvae

2) That they possibly carried diseases and should be eradicated.

After a visit to the dictionary and an encyclopedia I discovered that I was supposed to kill them, and that the best way was to pour a petroleum Product on top of the water.

Gasoline is a petroleum Product.

I topped off the bucket with the can from the garage, and since the encyclopedia had been a little vague as to how the petroleum was supposed to actually KILL the little malaria carries I hove-to about twenty feet and started chucking lit matches at it. (I was not completely stupid!)

 (OK, maybe I was)

Did you know that when 2 gallons of gas (2 1/2 or so) sitting in a bucket 1/2 full of water and decomposing moss, 3 billion mosquito larvae, and a handful of soggy matches, encounters a flaming match the AIR above it.......

It explodes.

I felt Like Moses.

There was a 20 foot high pillar of freaking fire.

Panic

Running about, bumping into trees and tripping over bushes and howling a little bit, come to think of it, I bet Moses did EXACTLY the same thing.

He probably even peed a little.

Salt did not put it out (out of baking soda) and when I threw a shovelful of dirt on it, flaming blobs of stickier than boogers and  1/2 rotted flaming moss splashed unto the apple tree, and the fence.

This Bush Burned.

And it was consumed.

So was the fence.

Luckily for me Uncle Buck (His Real name) lived next door, seeing flames leaping grandly into the air he heroically stuck his head over the fence "HOLY SHIT TOMMY" was followed by a mighty leap and a quick dousing of the conflagration.

I told my mom and dad the whole story.

Beginning to end.

George Washington and his lame cherry tree has got nothing on me.

Besides, I had to tell them before Uncle Wally (That’s Buck) did, then I would have been in deep shit.

I am a PIRATE!

I really am.
I can prove it.
I have pictures and everything.

Its goes like this.
My parents own a pontoon boat, and really, for being nothing more than a floating floor it is a lot of fun.
we would go up and tow it to one of the lakes, float around a bit, splash, fish and get sunburned.
Fun time for all.
It was a floating floor with a motor.
The motor was sporadic.
My family believes in the buddy system.
If something is broke, or someone is hurt you call around to all your buddies to seek advice.
Invariably someone knows someone or your buddy goes green when he sees that your thumb is actually split in half and you get to get something fixed, or go to the ER.
I absolutely despise the buddy system.
Hate it.
Nothing ever gets fixed right when its a buddy doing the fixing, and a buddy of a buddy? Even worse. They always cut corners.
And waiting 6 hours with a split in half thumb to go to the ER, sucks.
So the tooners motor was a bit sporadic, sometimes it works, sometimes it dont.
This is how I became a Pirate, so I cant really complain.
It makes a fun story.
As a side note, its an odd thing how the things that make me the maddest are what make others laugh the hardest? Its a flaw in me.
anyways.
The wife and I had it down to a science, the unloading of the boat. I would back it in, she would hop in the tooner, I would chuck in the kids and the victuals and then push off the boat, jump into the truck and park the truck and the trailer.
Wife would motor around to the dock and I would step on and off we would go.
Smooooooth.
Putting the tooner away after a bright day was the reverse, motor to the dock, Tom (thats me) steps off and runs to get truck and trailer while wife motors around to pull the boat in as I back the trailer into the water.
Smoooth.
Today we had the nephews with us, good toe heads both of them. spent the whole day out getting sunburned, swearing (just me) at the lack of fish and splashing around.
It was a fantastic day.
A day of good memories.

But, storm clouds gathered and it was time to go.
So we started the routine.
Motor to dock, Tom jumps off, runs to get the truck and waits in line with all the other uber efficient types waiting to get their boats out of the rapidly roughening lake.
Problem.
I get the trailer in the water and, no tooner. No wife and kids, no nephews.
So I looked, and looked, and grabbed the binoculars from some lame fat dude and looked.
And found them.
Drifting.
Halfway across the damn lake.
No other boats around.
So.
(this is my favorite part)
I Parked the truck and the trailer and went running down to the dock, I ran to the end of the dock just as a young kid in a brand new boat was stepping on to the dock to tie his boat off.
I grabbed the rope, pushed the kid back on to the boat and hopped on after him.
"Hi, You arrrrgh going to take me out to that boat (point at the tooner) and tow it in for me."
I said this with my biggest most friendly smile
the kid and his five kid passengers sort of froze.
the kid I had gently led back on to the boat said "a a a a a are you stealing our boat?"
he stuttered, poor kid.
I said
"Oh HELL NO! I am just commandeering it"
Maybe my rollicking laughter at this point was a bit of overkill, but Hey, its what we pirates do.
By the time we got out to the tooner my hostages (ride) were getting into the spirit of the thing. The wee little boys were huddled protectively around the wee little female and casting mutinous glances in my direction. I was standing on the point of the boat, if I had had boobs I would have made a kick ass hood ornament thingy.
The wife and kids were valiantly trying to start the tooner, the toe heads were ? Paddling ? but the paddles did not quite reach the water, so really they were just splashing.
But they felt good about themselves.
The captain, the stuttering boy wonder, hollered, "AHOY THE BOAT" and I stepped gracefully on to the floating floor.
Oh the cleverness of me.
I still had his rope, which was tied to his boat.
and they were fresh out of boarding axes.
So they towed us back.
Arrrgh. I sang sea chanteys all the way home.

Pirate hat arrrgh

Cookery

I cant cook.
I failed Home economics remember?
The last time I made breakfast for the #s I used powdered something instead of powdered the other.
Then I made them eat it.
After I had screamed and yelled and forced them to eat three bites each, I sat down and took a bite.
It made me gag, which made #2 throw up, which made #1 spew, which made a mess for me to clean up.
In lieu of an actual apology, I took them to Marie Calendars.
I suck.
So when I decided to cook dinner I tried to keep it a secret.
I figured I could always tell them a neighbor brought it over and feed it to the dog if it was too bad.
But what to make?
Something simple obviously.
Toast?
With Jam?
I could always garnish (food channel word) it with canned corn.
It was a conundrum. So I Googled it.
I was directed to millions of  blogs, all about cooking. Most of them displaying food porn in abundance.
All of the recipes sounded intricate and complex.
What in the Hell is plating? Braise? Glaze?
Not in my vocabulary these words.
At least not for food.
So I looked on my phone. And found this thing called "BIG OVEN" simple recipes for families.
Done,
Under "Easy" I found a recipe for Chicken Enchiladas.
Win win.
Of to the store to buy the ingredients. (thats the food stuff)
I found it all, but I was starting to think that whomever wrote the recipe was an idiot.
oh, wait.
Whoever wrote the recipe was WRITING it for idiots! That actually just occurred to me.
Damn.
So I got all the stuff and headed home.
Then I destroyed the kitchen.

It started when I had to boil the chicken boobs.
Boiling chicken boobs is boring as Hell.
So I decided to skip to the next step whilst the mammary's were marinading.
Open the can of Cream of Mushroom and plop it into a pot, a small pot.
Open up the can Of Cream of Chicken and plop it into a pot. a big pot.
Then cover the bottom of a pan, a really big pan, with olive oil and turn it on high to cook the raw tortilla things.
Are you keeping track?
My stove thing has four burner things on top, each  of these was now occupied with a kitchen vessel full of water,fowl tits, mush,mush and oil.
Did you know that when the steam from the water and mush evaporates and drops into the boiling oil it splatters?
And it HURTS!
So, i quickly chucked  a tortilla on the oil, and started stirring the mush.
Then the boobs started boiling.
It was at this point I forgot the instructions and just started making stuff up.
Hot salsa, quickly stirred into grey mush.
Mild salsa quickly stirred into brown mush.
Flip Tortilla.
Half a can of boiling breast water into each can of mush.
Flip tortilla.
Swear break to run burned fingers under cold water.
Flip tortilla.
Colby jack cheese,  two small handfuls stirred into mushes.
Flip tortilla
Grab hot boobies, scream, drop them back into boiling cauldron of death and then grab tong things.
flip tortillas
use tongs to grab mams, shred them up
mix them into mush. 1 1/2 boobs per pot.
Throw burnt tortilla to the ground for dog.
Flip tortilla.
Find glass dish. Discard for size. Find bigger glass dish.
Turn on oven to 200.
Flip Tortilla.
Put done tortillas into dish.
Find spoon
Flip tortilla

Fill up done tortillas with mush, roll them up and put them in dish
five with hot salsa mush
five with mild salsa mush
(brown and grey)
Dump steaming water down sink.
Through the cloud of steam see lonely forgotten can of enchilada sauce.
Full Stop.
Now what?
The instructions were no help at all.
I had left them behind long ago.
So.
Improvise.
Dump can of enchilada Sauce into what is left of brown mush, bring it to a boil.
Dump it over the top of enchilada things and then cover them with shredded mexican four cheese blend bag you find in the fridge.
Turn to discover #1 and #2 staring with wide eyes at the destruction of a clean kitchen.
Sigh.
Forget about blaming neighbors.
Pop whole damn thing in the oven.
After 15 minutes turn oven to broil to melt stubborn cheese on top.
Take out of oven.
Take a deep breath.
Serve it to the three pickiest eaters on the planet.
They Loved it.
Had seconds.
And nobody got sick.
I rock.

To Fly

I dropped my children off at school this day.
Finally a beautiful spring day after a long and droopy winter.
#1 walked to the door of her school, looking so very grown up.
Breaks my heart into tiny little pieces to see her so Beautiful. Happy little pieces yes, but shattered nonetheless.

#2 starts school a little later, and gets out a little later. She explained to me yesterday that starting later is fair, "#1 has a lot more to learn there at the big school, my little school just teaches little things"
She has a point. I guess.
In true #2 fashion she also added "But we should get out of schools at the same times, Dont they knows we needs to plays together?"
She has a point.
I shall be informing the school board post-haste.
She really does talk like that, by the way. #1 talks like an adult, actually better then most adults. She far surpasses me.
#2 surpasses everyone, she speaks her own language.

I watched her this morning.
There is a small hill that slopes down to her school yard.
An asphalt track runs down it on a gentle angle, most kids just walk down the path.
Not so, #2.
I watched her today. Backlit by the rising sun.
She stood at the top of the path, saying nothing to any one. She adjusted her school bag and unzipped her coat.
Very deliberatly then, she stepped off the asphalt path.
Put her hands in her pockets, spread her wings and flew straight down the hill.
I could see her swooping and gliding, the wind blowing hard today giving her that extra height she needed to clear the curb. She used her momentum from the flight to glide in and out of the other children. Whriling and diving in and out of the cliuques and the single children, she flew circles around them all.
I saw her land perfectly at the end of a line, knees slightly bent to take the gentle shock of returning to earth.
She smiled in disdain as she slowly took her hands from her pockets and zipped her wings away.
Silly Humans.

Faster

I try to keep this blogthing fun.
Or at least entertaining.
I got to thinking last night.
About going faster.

The weekend after I got the motorcycle I have now, I went on a ride with my Cousins.
Just a short little jaunt.
I still had the salesman's admonition to "Take it Easy until She is broken in" which meant nothing over 80ish for the first 100 miles or so, ringing in my head.
So I was taking it easy.
We got to a gas station, 78 miles from home.
Not too far, about 1/2 way on our little journey.
I checked my phone.
1215 PM.
There were three missed calls from the wife.
So I called.
The reception was horrible.
I heard "Has  gone into anaphalactic shock and the ambulance is on its way" I caught number 1s name a few times so I knew it was her.
42 minutes later I walked into the Hospital and was Holding their hands when the Doc gave #1 an epi shot.
Faster.
Last night I got thinking about speed. Not just the speed at which we travel, but the speed in which we live.
SO many crises, so many things.
Faster.
Just a random little thought.
Faster.