To Sleep, Perchance

Zaphod and Trillian are mad, mad mad - and I can’t say that I don’t blame them.

They are getting to the age where they are easily embarrassed, especially about their home life.  And last night, it came to a head at church, over a subject that has been a point of contention in our household, almost from the moment we brought Zaphod home from the airport.

Our kids have an incredibly ridiculous, unreasonable bedtime. 

They are sent to bed at 8pm Central.  8:30 in the summertime.

Keep in mind, they are not 4 and 5, they are 10 and 11 years old.

Last night, we were rushing to get home from church to get the kids in bed, and we got the funniest looks from other parents, and even funnier looks from the children in the room.  There were 6 year olds who said their bedtime was 9 or later.  My kids were mortified.

Lintilla is absolutely adamant about not changing the bedtime, though.  And, what’s funny is that she has science on her side.  Children Zaphod and Trillian’s ages need 10-11 hours of sleep a night.

It’s funny - Lintilla gets absolutely frustrated with me when I adhere to the speed limit on the interstate, although I am being passed by every other car on the road, even those driven by little old ladies.  This is a similar situation.

NOBODY makes their kids get the recommended amount of sleep anymore.  Except us.  We send our kids to bed before dark this time of year.

Here’s the thing: I know that our lights out policy at home is partially responsible for our kids’ incredible grades and test scores.  But, I’m afraid the kids are approaching an age where grades are far less important than peer approval.  I know that Lintilla and I have to be the adults, and ignore peer pressure, doing what’s best for our kids.

However, I think totally ignoring their peer group is a recipe for disaster down the road.  We have to walk a fine line.  Plus, they feel we treat them like ‘babies” and are not letting them “be” their age.  Even if “being their age” means getting less than the recommended amount of sleep per night.

I’m wondering if we’re doing the right thing, or being entirely unreasonable. 

What time do your kids get in bed?  If they are older, what time did you send them to bed when they were around 10 or 11?  Do you think they get/got enough sleep?

The Real Talent Of The Family

I was searching for some mp3s that I remember someone ripped from a CD produced by the band that me, Ford, and my brother Scott used to be in. I wanted to give nm a good idea of how I go nuts with production in the studio.

Well, I couldn’t find them (paging Ford - where are they?). But, while searching around, I discovered that my brother has some new music out.

Scott is a virtuoso guitarist - in the style of Steve Vai or Joe Satriani. He’s been known to cut some blues as well. Give a listen:

Scott’s Music Page

Unlike many in his genre, he knows how to play in a major key. Very well. Pay close attention to the track “Dance of the Delighted Dolphins“. The arpeggiation is 3-part harmony, the lead is many times 2 or 3 part. Like me, he likes to heavily produce.

He has more talent in his little finger than I will ever have. And he records all of this from the comfines of a custom-made recliner in my parents’ living room. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to hold up the guitar.

The only two tracks I played with him were “The Lonely“, and “Strange Sammi Strut” (in that one I added the silliest sounding horn tracks ever. I recorded a trumpet, sax, and trombone separately to make them sound more realistic).

You will notice on “Crippled Boy Blues” and “Strange Sammi Strut”, he channels Billy Gibbons.

If you listen to no other track, check out “Polyphony Overload“.

For slick production check out “The thrill of the chase“. He recorded that with a friend of his,long distance. There’s even a (strange) duet he did with a didjeridu player.

I haven’t heard his stuff in a while. He is such an awesome talent, I’m just proud to say I’m his brother.

Unable To Move

I know I haven’t posted much lately, but I’ve been out of sorts.  Yes, there’s the usual busy-ness, but there’s also something that has been haunting me.  I think I need to talk about it, as this seems to help sometimes.

I recently Tweeted that I’ve been feeling guilty for not calling my mom in three weeks.  Shortly thereafter, I got an email from her with some good news.  You see, my mom injured herself badly about 4 years ago, so badly that she is in constant pain.  If you stand close to her, you can hear a suppressed whimper of pain under every breath.  She tries to be brave, and every now and then she gets a shot in her spine which seems to help, but it’s hard for her to carry on.

Well, after a LONG battle with the Social Security Administration, she finally had her arbitration hearing, and the ruling was in her favor.  Both my mom and my dad have been out of work for a few years, so this is a blessing beyond measure.

I was so happy to hear this news, so happy that my folks are finally getting a reprieve from the heavy burdens they bear, happy that their luck finally seems to be turning.  I decided to call, get over my guilt, and congratulate her.

When she answered the phone, there was something not quite right in her voice.

Mom and Dad had been feeling great on the way home;  they were so excited, when they got home they went straight to the back yard to sit in the Florida loveliness (my parents are outstanding landscapers) and relish their victory.

It was then that they heard a faint, frightened cry for help from within the house.  It was the voice of their son, my younger brother Scott.

Scott has a form of Muscular Dystrophy.  He’s been wheelchair bound since his early 20’s.  Apparently, he had fallen out of his chair in a freak accident, shortly after my parents had left that morning.  He had hit the ground hard, and bruised himself up pretty badly.  Due to his disease, he was pretty much unable to move.  His cell phone had fallen with him, and lay useless on the floor across the room.

He had been trapped, on the floor, by himself, unable to move, in pain, for four hours.

My folks took him to the emergency room, and he’s banged up but nothing is broken, but I want you to read that last sentence again.  I just can’t get that thought out of my head.

I feel an incredible amount of guilt about this myself; I can’t imagine the guilt my parents are going through about this.  Now, you have to remember that Scott is a grown man, and he’s done fine by himself during the day for years and years.  My father has made their house entirely wheelchair accessible.  But there it is:

He had been trapped, on the floor, by himself, unable to move, in pain, for four hours.

Damn.

 I do NOT blame my parents.  I know they blame themselves, but they shouldn’t.   It was a freak accident, one that hasn’t happened in 20 years of my brother being in a wheelchair.

My parents have a tendency to overreact, and I have no doubt they’ll never leave Scott alone again, no matter how difficult the circumstances.  This brings up issues that my older brother and I have always spoken about in hushed tones.  Scott is a full grown man, and he doesn’t have the strength to help when he needs to be transfered from his wheelchair to the bed, or the tub, or his easy chair my dad set up to help his legs rest.  And my dad turns 65 this year.

Dad has always been a big bear of a man, but he wont be able to lift Scott forever.  Plus Scott, deep down, does not want to be in Florida.  He wants to be with his brothers, where he can go to Titans and Predators games, and generally hang out with people close to his age.  Even though he needs professional semi-skilled care (which we can’t afford because my older brother recently lost his job), we might could come up with some arrangement where my brother could be cared for in our homes.

But my parents are stubborn people, and it may sound funny coming from a 43 year old, but I don’t want to disobey them.  I think that deep down, all of us, parents and children, know that a day is coming when the two able-bodied sons are going to have to sit down with the parents and say, “No disrespect, but you’re going to have to let it go and let us take over”.  But for now, we have instead, this uneasy silence where we sons know what we have to say, but we don’t say it.

I think it’s going to take Scott telling them to let the brothers take over.  Ironically, they’ll listen to him.

Sorry, I know all of this is a downer, but it’s been eating away at me since my mother told me, and I had to get it off my chest.

What’s New

I don’t want to talk about Obama and Wright anymore.*  I just don’t.  I’m letting it go for now - November is a long way away, it’ll keep.  I refuse to go through all this angst, strain friendships, and give bomb-throwing partisans reasons to fire away,over something that I can’t do anything about right now anyway.  So, I’m done with it, for now.  Y’all do what you’re going to do.

 In other news, my children are turning my world upside down. 

 My son decided to follow in my daughter’s footsteps, and got in trouble at school for bullying ad fighting.  Y’all must think I’m the worst parent ever.  Anyway, after getting his story, his friends’ stories, the stories of two different teachers and one principal, I have come to the conclusion that Zaphod gave into peer pressure.  He is very vulnerable to it - he has always been overly concerned with “what his friends think”.  Doesn’t excuse what he did, but it does explain it somewhat.

He’s also way behind in taking accelerated math quizzes, which comprise most of his grade in math.  The kids are expected to take them on their own, and they are judged on how many skills they master.  Because he hasn’t been taking the tests, the best he can do is a “C”for this six weeks.  Neither of my kids have ever gotten below a “B”.  I can hear you laughing now, but it’s not the grade that upsets us, it’s the lack of effort.

My kids also have begged me NOT to take them to Disney World next year.  This breaks my heart.  They would rather go to California.  They want to pan for gold, then maybe go to Disneyland.  Gold country is in northern California, right?  I keep telling them, California is a huge state - you can’t see the northern part AND the southern part in one trip.  Maybe they have some kind of gold panning in southern California.

One thing I know for sure: we have to do SOMETHING Disney next year.  I have a Disney Visa, and my points I’ve built up over the years expire in 2009.  Maybe I’ll find a way to sneak away with Lintilla to Epcot. 

Trillian wants her own bathroom now.  No big surprise, really.  She’s been trying to steer us to remodel, and we keep telling her we can’t afford it. 

This post from Aunt B really, really brought home to me the awesome responsibility I have.  And I don’t mean to my daughter, I already feel the full weight of that.  At my “other gig”, I do entertainment and celebrity reporting.  I won’t talk about how large my readership is, let’s just say it’s beyond my wildest dreams.  (Amazingly, I’m still the slacker in my channel).  Most of my readers are young women, from about 15-25.  Let’s just say there are a LOT of them.

I can’t sit and complain about how the media portrays beauty, I am the media.  I am required to post red carpet photos and the like.  The photos I choose to display, the comments I make about those photos, and my commentary all have an impact.  The show I write about is probably the only body-positive show on television today, so at least I have a head start.

I can only hope and pray that I have the wisdom to always do the right things for these girls and women.

*Those of you who only read me here might ask, “When did you talk about Barack Obama?”  I haven’t here, but I’ve been all over the comments at other folks’ blogs.

Just A Little Clarification

I have a menopausal wife, aging parents, and two kids who are entering adolesence. 

I don’t see how you could have any questions, but I’ll continue.

It’s all drama around here, all the time.

I hit a moment yesterday, when I had just completed a horrible day at work.  Our kids’ school presented us with an unexpected bill for $1600, which we do not have right now.  I’ve never, in my entire adult life, had someone tell me I owe them money, and not be able to pay it immediately.  We also just paid a $450 electric bill.  That’s not a typo.  We’ve  had car repairs, extra doctor bills, kids that need shoes.

Our finances are so screwed up, we’re two months behind on our tithe.  Don’t worry, I’ve worked out a debt repayment plan with God.  In fact, we’ll catch up with everything in time.  But it’s a punch in the stomach in the here and now.

So, back to yesterday.  All of this is simmering in the back of my mind, and I’m exhausted from the hard day at work,and I’m frantically trying to get the kitchen clean and get dinner ready, while at the same time trying to get a post done for UBN (I have to get six done per week), and watching the clock because I had to be somewhere at 6 and I knew I wouldn’t be back home till after my normal bedtime. 

I have to be somewhere or host someone for the next 7 nights.  Then it begins again.  I just can’t say no, and somehow I end up volunteered to be somewhere every night.

Anyway, the kids were fighting and yelling and screaming at each other, like they have been doing nonstop for the last 6 months or so.  Lintilla called, and started in on me like she has for the past couple of months.  The doctors will not let her take hormone replacement therapy, and she’s been wildly emotional for quite a while now.  I know it’s not her fault, but it’s tough being on the receiving end of it all the time., with everything else going on.

Folks.

I had a meltdown.

My mind simply refused to allow any more stress into it, so it just shut down.

I’ve have a really weird habit since I was a kid: when folks I love are upset or mad, I cook, clean, and do laundry.  I’ve been doing a lot of this lately - but the people in my household are still constantly upset.  Like my mother, I’m wired so that my happiness is directly tied to the happiness of the people I love.  I’ve run myself ragged trying to will three people (whose hormones are all out of whack) into happiness.  And I’m making myself miserable in the process.  See what’s wrong with this picture?

I’m stretched so thin, you can see through me.

And I feel guilty for feeling this way, because I know many have it far worse than I do. 

Funny, my mom absolutely lost her mind when she was about my age - and I’m just like her.

So anyway - I can’t go on like this indefinitely.  I can’t do ALL of the housework, and all of the cooking, and be responsible for the happiness of each member of the household, and be ‘the man’ at work, and fully devote myself to band and church and ministry, and play peacemaker to every friend and family member, hell, every person on the planet.  There just isn’t enough me.  I have to draw some lines.

So, I need to take a step back, to find a way to undo my wiring that causes me to be depressed when any member of my family or any of my friends is anything but happy, to finally get the kids to help around the house, to tell church, or the band, or my kids’ school every now and then that I just can’t make some event or other without feeling guilty.

I can go forward this way or that way, but what I cannot do is continue going the way I was going.

That’s what I meant.

On a happier note: Warrior is home already!  6 days in the hospital - it’s a miracle.  How can I be upset in the face of that?  I’ll post more on that tomorrow.

Sorry about the vague post earlier.  I hate those.  I hope I’ve cleared some things up.

Valentine’s Night Meal

I have an embarrassment of riches in love.

And for once, I decided to just enjoy it, and not make a big deal out of it here. 

When I got home with the kids yesterday, we went to work.  I’ve kind of let the house go in the last couple of weeks, and I know it has affected Lintilla’s mood.  So, we cranked up Hannah Montana and got to cleaning.  It didn’t take long (I could REALLY get used to having some help around the house).  Then, I started dinner.

BTW, most adults would never admit it, but Hannah Montana 2 is a pretty good CD.  Mostly vapid pop, but would you really want your 10 year old daughter to be listening to angst ridden existential college music?

Anyway, there are two days of the year we do not, under any circumstances, eat out. One is Mother’s Day, the other, Valentine’s Day.  The stress of doing so just ruins the whole day.

So, I broiled some strip steaks.  Light on the seasoning, no marinade, because we were having them with Bearnaise sauce.  No, I didn’t make it from scratch.  I work full time, have two children, three dogs, a blogging job, a music ministry,and church responsibilities.  I do not have time on a weeknight to separate eggs or clarify butter.  We used the Knorr sauce mix.  It was still excellent.

We added loaded baked potatoes as the side dish, and skipped the bread because we knew we’d be having dessert.  Trillian (with my supervision) made Hershey Mini Hot Fudge Cakes.  We had them with vanilla ice cream instead of strawberries - yum!  I have no doubt I could make these from scratch on weekends - in fact, my friend Ford Prefect has a recipe that is pretty darn close.  Just drop a hunk of a Hershey bar on top of unbaked cake/muffin batter; as it bakes, it sinks to the middle of the muffins.  Drizzle with chocolate and get out your glucometer!

I also gave Lintilla Buddy the Dog as a gift.  It’s the Hallmark stuffed animal that excitedly says, “Where’s my hug? Where’s my hug? Oh, boy, oh, boy oh, boy!”  It fits our style just perfectly.

Lintilla wasn’t feeling well, but I think we still managed to brighten her day.

Aerogarden Update

We are almost ready for the first harvest!  Here is what things look like:

But all is not well in herb-land. You can see here, one of the seed pods was a dud:

It was the cilantro. No Tex Mex for me! Lintilla hates cilantro, so she thinks it’s no big loss.

My experience with herbs is limited to the spice aisle at Kroger, so I’m a little confused as to what I can do once we harvest.  How long do fresh herbs keep?  Do I have to immediately make dishes with basil, mint, chives, purple basil and dill?  Can I put them in the fridge and keep them a while?

Anyway, Trillian and I are excited: in just a day or two, we can have baked potatoes with butter and fresh chives. 

Praise The Lord!

Lintilla goes back to work Tuesday.  She’s restricted to light office duty, and she can’t do her normal job till March.  But, she’s still recovering well, and right on schedule. 

It’s a good thing, too, and not just for the money.  Lintilla has been going stir crazy, even resorting to watching various “judge” shows.  HGTV and Food Network?  Those are cool.  But, Judge BobJoeFrankWhatsHisName?  What joy can anyone possibly get from watching a faux authority figure dress down an idiot?  Don’t answer that.

Anyway, soon, our long nightmare will be over.  I am so happy for her.

Unreal

I don’t know how it happened.  It must have happened so slowly, I didn’t notice.  But I came to a realization that absolutely shocked me today.

I’ve become my dad.

Now, this isn’t a bad thing, I love and respect my father more than anything.  But, because we’ve always been so different (so I thought), it never occurred to me that our lives would end up almost perfectly parallel.  How different are we?

• My dad is a stern pessimist.  I am a cheery optimist.
• My dad is as introverted as I am extroverted.
• My dad is a man of few words. Me? well…
• My dad is a huge bear of a man.  Me?  well, many of you have met me.
• My dad was a machinist (before CnC); I am a programmer/web developer.

Yet, I look at the unfolding of our lives, and you’d think we were twins.

 It’s almost as if I had this pre-defined destiny, and no matter what I thought or did, I would end up fulfilling it.  That’s heavy stuff, when you realise that the unfolding of your life is not something you can do anything about.

There have been little clues.  Lintilla reminded me just last night, after I told one of the underfoot dogs to “git”, that I sounded just like my father.  Sure enough she’s right.

But - y’all bear with me here - what shocked me, what rocked me to my core, was my reaction to the comments for this post at Aunt B’s. I was quite interested in it because at first it was about women & IT, and being knee-deep in Information Technology, I like hearing about these things.  But, a the comments weren’t about IT at all, they were about math and science education.  All important stuff, but I was sorely disappointed.

I thought it was going to be about the real world.

It ended up being a bunch of academics, talking about academics.  Nothing real.

The last two thoughts were brought to you via my blue collar father.  Well, actually, they were thoughts that popped into my head - and that’s what shocked me:  the moment I realized that I was saying (to myself) a version of something I had heard my father say a million times.

You see, in my industry, people with CS degrees are just like mechanical engineers in my dad’s line of work.  They are always drawing up specs have to be re-written by someone who understands how the real work is done - whether it’s slinging code or using a lathe.  I have to totally retrain those newbies with CS degrees, because, either what they learned doesn’t fit into our business, or the school taught them 20 year old technology.

Computer Scientists just get in the way of those who do the real work.  Especially application architects.

Just as my dad use to say about engineers.

Now, on an intellectual level , I don’t agree with this.  But, it’s funny how attitudes are ingrained deep inside; you don’t even know that they are there.  How can a man in my position have old time blue collar attitudes?  But, there they are.

It’s amazing that our children learn lessons we don’t even know we are teaching.  As a dad, I must be careful.

One day, I’ll finish this thought, but I’ve rambled on too long.

Christmas Past

It’s probably time for a new printer/scanner.  But this is still my favorite Christmas photo:

 

It’s funny.  They are just as excited today as they were on this day.