The Fog, The Fantasy And The Facts Of The Matter

Monday morning back to work day. I backed the truck out of the garage and started down the highway. I needed to adjust the side mirror and rolled down the window a little. The fresh air felt good so I left the window down.

The day was gloomy and overcast, cool and misty. I had a long drive ahead of me,
so my thoughts began to wander. It was not long until I hit a patch of fog I was completely in fantasy land.

I sat taller in my seat, thrust out my chest and imagined I was in a much better place.

Now I  was Captain LeClerc, sailing the high sea in on the HMS Beagle, wind in my hair,the ocean rolling and heaving, the feel of a light rain against my clean-shaven cheek. I could hear roar of thunder in the distance as I charged forth unafraid and bold, toward the fearsome foe, the uncertain destiny that waited for me.

The thunder grew louder and closer, and I could smell an acrid burning smell, almost assuredly the stench of death from Davy Jones locker. Suddenly there was a sizzling sound and a huge wave hit the starboard bow, rolling up to the ships wheel where I stood undaunted and unwavering. I was the "The Captain". 

The sizzling suddenly got louder and I was suddenly jolted back to reality. I was
not a captain, I was not wearing a uniform, and my ship was just an old pickup. A tractor trailer rig had passed me on the left, and the rain had gotten harder. I was getting soaked. The smell of death was only the combination of the  diesel exhaust from the semi, and the wet manure of the stockyard I was driving past.

The aroma of all that cow crap was just formidable and at this point, I was compelled to roll up the window. I turned off the Roger Whitaker CD (only those of you over the age of 70 will understand that obscure reference, so basically none of you) and wiped my glasses clean. The fog was lifting and the rain was steady.

I knew from experience that once you leave a daydream, you never really get to go back. It is just not the same. The work parking lot was full and I had to park farther out than usual. I would be able to enter a new fantasy.

The one where I love my job and sunshine and butterflies fly out of my rear end. 

When It Rains, It Pours.

This weeks started out like normal. Monday morning wake up, hit the snooze a few times, get out of bed, curse the night for passing too quickly and race to work, cause I am down to the wire and nearly late for my first meeting.

The beginning of the week was status quo, no problems but no real triumphs either.

Until Tuesday. As I drove home from work I had to stop and get gas. As I returned from paying I noticed a river of yellow water flowing out from under my car, and then say the last of the waterfall dripping from the engine. I had blown out the water pump and was still 25 miles from home. I limped home and called the dealer and ordered a new part. 

As a younger man, this would not have bothered me in the least, as I was accustomed to working on my own cars. The last few years however I have lost my acute mechanical skills as well as the ability to crawl underneath the car.  Oh I can get my head under the car but my belly now scrapes on the oil pan. And the bumper. 

When I was in my twenties, I would pull an engine in a hour, fix what was needed and have it back on the road the next day. 5 years ago, I went to replace an engine on on my SUV and it took me 5 tries and about 2 months. Still I am too cheap to pony up the cash to have a professional do the job in a timely manner.

The repair will  eat up the rest of my evenings this week and all of my Saturday. But my wife is happy, because with me out in the garage all that time, she has one less child to look after. 

Now that the sedan is parked, I had to rely on my backup vehicle, the same SUV that took me five tries to fix. It has been sitting in my garage for 3 years, I only drive it if the snow is deep enough to warrant using 4 wheel drive. It is pretty much a refrigerator on wheels, so it sucks gas pretty fast. That will provide me with a good incentive to fix the other one quickly.

Wednesday morning I get up in my usual fashion and race out the door five minutes late. As I check the SUV for fluids and all that, I notice the tags expired 2 months ago. Crapola. I would have to be extra careful and not get caught. Luckily the county clerks office was on the way so I could stop and renew them. 
As I was driving down the highway, sure enough I get followed by the Highway Patrol. Fortunately for me someone else must have been infracting the law in a more conspicuous manner because he passed me by to go get them. 

I stopped to get the new tags, and then noticed the car was out of gas. That will make me 10 minutes later, but you do what you have to do. 

As I got about 5 miles from work, it started to drizzle lightly. No problem, I have an umbrella. I parked and thought, it i not so bad, I will just book on into work and not get wet.  Bad call. I got to the first security gate and badged in which must have been what the gods were waiting for. The heavens opened wide and drenched me for the last 100 yards to the building. Sure, I could have stopped and pulled the umbrella out of my pack, but I thought that if I stopped to get the umbrella out, I would get wetter than if I just kept walking. Moot point as it turned out. I ended up looking like a fat drowned rat. As I entered my office area, a cube farm, some of my coworkers audibly snickered. They piped down when I shook like a dog to rid myself of the excess water. The laughing stopped altogether when I undressed and hung my shirt and pants on the desk to dry. I think it may have been because my socks smelled like a wet dog. That or because I forgot to wear underwear.

After my pants dried and I had returned to conforming to office guidelines concerning proper attire my team lead came over and mentioned that it was going to be rainy the rest of the week and then offered me the option of working from home for the rest of the week. I think it was nice of her to understand that the SUV cost me so much in gas, and let me avoid the extra expense.

As nice as her offer was, I still wish she would get my name right. When she walked away I heard her call me Mr. Frank n Beans.   

I see therapy in your future.

Today at work, someone at work automatically offered a "God Bless You." to someone who had just sneezed. He then he began musing aloud, "I wonder what happens when sinners like me offer the blessing without really thinking about what they re saying? Does it really '*bless* someone at all? Does God honor that?"

I of course had to offer to him the benefit of my vast theological knowledge. I replied "Actually, when a sinner says 'God Bless you' an angel gets its wings ripped off." As he took that in, I further explained, "After the angel gets his wings ripped off it is excruciating and makes the angel cry out in pain and we people on earth hear that resulting scream. We just call it thunder." I know that I am right because I have been to Bible College down in Texas.

Sort of makes me a religious authority.

Now, my coworkers are accustomed to the river of sarcasm that seems to flow out of me constantly, but it occurred to me I need to start being more careful with what I say to my kid.

I know he is only 3 and is a brighter than average kid, but still he is a kid and is in his formative stage. If I am not careful I am going to crack him up.

Last night as we prepared for bed, and I was reading a story out of the children's bible story book to Josh. He suddenly cuddled up to me pointed to flashlight that was recharging on the dresser and said in a small and fearful voice "Daddy, I am scared of that light."

I immediately told him, " You better be scared, that blinks faster if you are naughty, and it is gonna get you!" Then I continued reading the story about Isaiah getting a word of God for his people.  Apparently I need to start spending more time reading the bible for myself too. Especially given the fact I can read it and at the same time mess with my kids psyche.


It may be hard to believe, but I am actually really sensitive at heart, I just tend to mask it with a great wall of sarcasm and denial. I have been trying to remember how I felt when I was his age, but that was 47 years ago, and I think the concussion and Jack Daniels that I had when I was younger man somehow has masked the memories.

Still I have a hard time not waffling with the kid, sometimes I am totally sympathetic and supportive, and sometimes just gotta go with the teasing.

He is a quick study I have to give him that. He is just like me except for being really athletic. I would call him "Mini Me" but "Skinny-me" might fit the bill a little better.

After all the messing with him, he was ready to show me what he had learned. Right before I read him the story, he watched me change the sheets on the bed.
After I read to him and we watched some TV, he said "Daddy, I want to lay on your arm." I assumed he meant he wanted to cuddle up to go to sleep so Like the loving dad I sometimes am, I reached out and pulled him close. He cuddled up, turned around and cut the cheese on my forearm, then proudly told me what he had done.

It may have been a bit sophomoric, but it got the job done.


I Wonder what he dreams up next?

Cacaphony Of Thought

I saw a commercial recently that seems to describe the inner workings of my thought processes. I rarely seem to have a prolonged train of focused thought, it is more like my mind is a search engine and when one concept surfaces, about 3 million other loosely correlated subjects get listed below. You might say I am google-brained.

This revelation was brought to light while I showered this afternoon. I was washing my hair and looking in the mirror I have on the shower wall. I noticed my eyebrows needed trimming. Now the sad thing about this is that until my wedding nearly 5 years ago, I never had trimmed my eyebrows and never thought any thing of it. The just were OK on their own. As I prepared for the wedding, I decided it would be good to do the total groom package. Got a good hair cut, shaved the goatee, (wife's little sister mentioned that the gray in it made me look old) and then trim the eyebrows. I did it and it has been a nightmare ever since. If I don't trim them every two weeks now, I end up with one side making me look like a Romulen, and the other side, well just looks like hell.

The other thing I discovered in the shower this afternoon was that if you decide to use the shower massage wand as a water pic, and massage your uvula (that dangling thing in the back of your mouth), you will get to taste every meal you have had in the last 24 hours. Just a word of caution to you.

It has been a very busy weekend so far. Last night after I got done with work I went out and tried to use the weed whacker on the lawn. It was the first time to fire it up for the season so naturally it ran out of string the first 3 feet of trimming. Off to the Home Depot I went. I decided to get a better grade of string for my little electric trimmer. Maybe it would last longer. I get a roll of the commercial grade and headed home. It turns out there is a reason why they say it is for professionals. A landscaper has the intelligence to wear steel toe boots while on the job, unlike me who insists on doing all outdoor chores, be it mowing the lawn or shoveling snow in jean shorts and leather sandals.
Well as soon as I had it all loaded up, I started trimming the grass. It turns out the heavier string hurts a heckuva lot more when it snaps off and hits my foot than the thinner stuff my weed whacker was designed for. The lawn looks good, but now I have a slight limp.

Another side effect of this is now my kid says sonafabeach while playing with his toy lawnmower.

Good To The Last Drop.

You might not know this to look at me, but I am an amateur 'Gourmand"  In my day, I was known to put on big gourmet meals for up to 20 people at a time, and most of the time I was a big hit. I say most of the time because there was that one time I made ravioli's totally from scratch, stuffed with gorgonzola cheese and walnuts, topped with a home made marinara. I had good intentions but one of the ravioli's broke open in the water getting the blue cheese color all over rendering the pasta a sort of cadaver gray tint. Once the red marinara was poured over it, well it looked like a scene from a snuff film. 

I still make a pretty good cheesecake, No need to defend my actions on that one. 

Lately however my attention has been focused on coffee. I consider myself to be a coffee snob, none of the famous coffee houses are good enough for me. I have had what is arguably the best kind of coffee in the world, Kopi Luwak so I have very high standards. (if you don't know what it is, google it, you will be both amazed and horrified.) As a matter if personal opinion their offerings are not nearly as good as what I like to call "Markbucks".

You will never EVER catch me using a brand that is pre-ground and comes in a big plastic jug and costs less than $15.00 a pound. I consider those big blue or red jugs to be a little more than dirt. Why else do they call it "Ground Coffee"?

I only buy whole bean coffee, because I insist on grinding my own beans. I keep those whole coffee beans refrigerated. My grinder is a special German brand that I keep segregated from other spices and  odors so that it maintains the integrity that I so  strive for. I have a commercial grade espresso maker and all the special Italian syrups. I get special coffee brands from all over the world. People come to visit me just for the Vietnamese sua da, I am not ashamed to say that I am pretty much convinced that I make a one of the better cups of coffee around.

A couple of months ago I was served up a cup of coffee at a church gathering and it was just wonderful. It had full body, minimal bitterness and a wonderful hint of cinnamon. Ever since that day I have been looking for some gourmet beans that would in some small way taste as good as the church coffee. I tried getting Viennese Cinnamon from the coffee section of an organic shop and still it was not on the same level. I had even pondered the idea that perhaps, because it was in a church that God somehow intervened and made it special. I searched and searched and could not duplicate the experience.  They knew something that I did not.

My wife first came up with a simple solution that somehow escaped me. She told me to just ask the person in charge of coffee how they do it. How they do it indeed. What person in their right mind would let me in on the special technique they used to come up with the heavenly dark elixir that keeps me awake and alert and longing to come to church each Sunday?

I decided to give it a shot and humbly approached the man who was loading the 5 gallon coffee pots last Sunday. I told him how great his brew was and that I was very impressed with his barista skill. 

He looked at me strangely with one of those "What the hell are you talking about?" looks and said, "What are you talking about?" We were in church after all so he had to keep it clean. So I just asked what special brand he uses and was it available to the general public? "Yeah" he says. I went out to Wal-mart and got the big blue can of Maxwell house." Then I poured in a tablespoon of ground cinnamon."

I was aghast. I sputtered "M M M Maxwell House?" How could this be? " You mean freshly ground cinnamon?" Nope, not even close.

Not only was I put in my place by the coffee gods, I was totally shocked to realize that being a coffee snob had nothing to do with having discerning taste. I was so shook up that after all these years of spending hundreds upon hundreds of dollars, I could have been making coffee the way my parents have done.

Now here is the real telling part of my personality. I am in such denial over this that I have decided that I still need to search for the "good stuff' because my ego cannot handle the back pedaling and lowering itself to buying coffee off the shelf in a can or jug, much less a brand that is recognizable by anyone over at the local truck stop. 

I have already mentally blocked the whole idea that it is Maxwell House, I am sure they just are not telling the truth because it is a secret family recipe or something. Denial is sometimes a great thing. 

Especially for the me, the amateur coffee snob.