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Oh man, the shits on now. This whole “situation” has been coming to a head for a while now. We’ve been looking sideways at each other, but then he had to go and take it up a level and get physical. Okay, I’m down with that. He broke a brand new piece of equipment I’d purchased that afternoon! Damn, he wanted my attention, he’s got it now. Can’t say I didn’t see it coming though. I was standing in my back yard yelling over the fence. It went like this:

Me, “So that’s how it’s gonna play huh . . . bitch?”
Him, “#$^&*!@$” (Some garbled nasty shit I couldn’t understand)
Me, “Now that you broke my shit, you gonna stand over there like nothing’s happened?”
Him, “#$^&- *!@” (Some more garbled nasty shit I couldn’t understand)
Me, “You wanna go? Why don’t you step to it and let’s do this.”
Him, “#$^” (You get the picture)
Me, “What are ya going do, huh?” (I started to move toward him)
Him, “#$^&*!@$#$^&*!@$ . . .” (Said over his shoulder as he was running away)
Me, “I knew you were nothing . . . don’t ever fucking come back here.”

So that’s how it ended between me and the squirrel who broke my new bird feeder.

That’s what we heard from daughter #1 on her second night away at Outdoor Ed.

A little background. In MOCO the middle schools have something called Outdoor Ed. It’s a 2 day retreat where the kids learn team building skills, hike, check the health of streams etc. We were a little nervous about letting her go. The dorms are separated by gender, there are high school counselors and the teachers sleep in the same building.

How bad could it be? What could possibly happen? She’s not even that far away? Relax.

I went to all of the informational meetings at school and it seemed like it would be a great experience. One thing the teachers told us, expect little to no communication from our kids. Cellphones not allowed. IF they had time they might give us a prison-like 15 seconds of an update. Okay, I’m not all that worried.  Read more »

The other night we went to Einstein HS to see our eldest daughter play in a concert. It was an Honors band for the central area of Montgomery County. She practiced for about five weeks, so of course she got sick a few days before the concert. But, she dearly wanted to play so we dosed her up and she gutted it out. It was simply wonderful. Nothing like seeing your child on stage.

So we’re sitting in our seats, youngest daughter playing her Nintendo DS to kill time before the concert. Lights go down, concert starts. We’re only a few minutes in when Lisa excitedly asks if I have a tissue for Erin. Her urgency made me immediately think it was one of Erin’s classic Sam Peckinpah like spewing bloody noses. I frantically search every pocket I have in 5 nano-seconds. No, I don’t have anything. As I lean over expecting to see a blood bath, Lisa says, “cuz she’s got a gigantic booger on her face.” The horror. Gigantic said it all. It was colossal.  Read more »

Lisa goes out of town for 2 weeks. The next day me and Daughter #2 get sick. We’re coughing like 12-pack-a-dayers. Erin was worse, oh how that poor little thing coughed at night. She had a fleeting little fever that came and went. I gave her the standard Motrin for the fever and Triaminic strips for the cough. Motrin worked, Triaminic was overwhelmed. I waited several days because she wasn’t getting any worse and on some days she was doing pretty well. Around day 7 I call our pediatrician to schedule a sick visit and get the standard screening response we’ve come to expect. Read more »