She spent over 3 hours (sometimes fending off the imps sometimes allowing them to help - girl.imp stabbed the cake just to make sure it was not going anywhere) decorating the cake. She then took a short break as I gathered the materials and set them up for all to enjoy.
It is now over. The long-haired hard rocker look I had been going for is now a sad, lonely memory. I am now 'proudly' showing off my well-defined widows' peak with the, slightly longer than, military brush-top look.
Well, the family had an intervention with me today
I will post more later, after I pull myself together.
Just got a call from the Dr. and was told that I was verging on too little iron in my blood as opposed to too much!! So, fewer visits for my leechings!
went outside this morning and came to the conclusion that pigeons who are flying back to NYC from Mexico (where they drank copious amounts of water) flew directly over my car, possibly more than once...
You might remember that I posted about one of girl.imp's recent science experiments. The one where she scooped poo out of the toilet (using t.p.) and set it in the bathroom sink so she could break it open to see what was inside??
Just last week boy.imp was suffering from sinus/ear infections. How did I diagnose this? First he was shivering in a warm shower (and the doctor told me that earlier in the day). Second he was shivering whilst I was toweling him off after the shower.
Thank you Diana!
1. My favorite bumper stickers: As a matter of fact office, I do own the road! //
Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray
2. My baby photo makes the dog walking backwards with its butt shaved a Brad
Pitt look-a-like
3. I am often at odd with myself: Store this junk just in case it can be useful or
throw this crap away because it take up too much space
4. As a younger lad, deadlines tended to amuse me
5. They still do.
6. Our family had its own time zone. There was the Eastern Time zone, Slow
time (re: how women view the actual time when they are supposed to leave the
house for a party) and our family's time (re: how long the scout troop/baseball
team/football team would actually delay departing on a road trip before I would
finally show up)
7. I will judge your character within 1 minute of actually meeting you. (I have a
brother who will make his decision based on the first words out of your mouth)
8. I have never been wrong
9. I tend to finish your part of the conversation in my mind before you actually
do finish speaking
10. This makes laughing at your jokes hard
11. I have been wrong
12. I do realize that I am not the center of the universe
13. No, really. I am serious.
14. I believe that all things are possible to achieve
15. Until you don't achieve them. Then they are impossible, impractical, and just plain not cool
16. I have often tried to discern the moment when political correctness took the place of common sense
17. I believe that with today's pc culture the phrase 'Suck it up' can cause more trouble than it helps
18. Suck it up!
19. Tattoos as a means to show how tough one is is so low class. Any damn fool can draw a picture
20. But the covering of ones body with the scars of life (like that tree branch that broke my fall--momentarily- when I was 5sh, or that scar on my arm from when I was wrestling my brother and he pulled my arm through the metal workings on the underside of the couch or the time I dropped that knife through the back of my hand)...
21. Everyone please meet any damn fool...
22. Redheads are the best (especially when it comes with green eyes and a slight Irish lilt)
23. Bottled red is worse than bottled blonde
24. Pundits (both liberal and conservative--moderates have too much self-respect) should be caged on and island somewhere. Guantanamo..?
25. I often wonder if Hollywood can/will actually release more than 2-3 films a year that are not remakes of an older movie
So we are eating fish for dinner tonight and girl.imp is vehemently opposed (it was not salmon) and boy.imp was not interested in anything but the eyeball.
Wife.Imp: (calling home from her car after work)...
Our SIL has been staying with us for a while and gave boy.imp a shower recently. After which they came downstairs and regaled me with how his badoodle poked out of the side of his briefs after he did a brief hip-shaking dance.
This then turned into:
sil: dennis, when you have to pee how do you (gesture of moving clothing)...do you move your underwear to the side? (It took me a little bit but the gesture was that of pulling the seam from the leg up and over, thus freeing, the applicable parts)
me: No you just poke it through the hole in the front or hook your thumb over the waistband and pull down
sil: but with briefs don't you?
me: I don't wear briefs anymore...wait a minute. you've been married for what...20 years or so. Haven't you ever seen...
sil: NO! I could never...
me: well after 14 years I can go in and pee infront of wife.imp if I need to. You have to remember, guys are lazy. We want to find and use the easy way...
girl.imp has advised that we should be Obama supporters come November's election. In exploring this newfound interest in politics on g.imp's part we determined that her support of Mr. Obama stemmed from two sources:
1) He would be the first brown president in the United States
2) His commercials about 'that other guy' McCain are funny
and it is really hard to argue with girl.imp's logic!
I met a couple from Ottawa yesterday on my way home from work. They were traveling to Nashville to visit with their son and wanted to avoid Columbus, Ohio during rush hour. And, no offense intdended Mayor Coleman, I agreed with them. So I told them about the largest Amish Community in North America (which was approx 1 hour away) in Holmes and Wayne Counties and then I noted that they were only 2 hours away from Hocking Hills and Old Man's Cave.
After pointing out numerous routes designed to take them well off of the beaten path, I started back to my car. About the time I reached the 'office on wheels' I realized that their maps were practically useless for avoiding getting lost whilst enjoying life off of the beaten path.
Oh, sure. We all know that it is impossible to stay lost on an Ohio backroad as they all lead to a larger Township Road which connects to a County Road which will, eventually, route one to a State Route or a US Highway.
But did this couple know this? their maps were blatantly devoid of all the back-country roads and how to route back to their eventual destination. I, on the other hand, know most of the routes and how to get around (I had a map that lists all of Ohio's backroads and main routes and I did not need it). So I trotted back to the couple's car and essentially told them to have fun and to use my map. I then hurried away so that they would have had to chase me down in order to give the map back.
and as out-of-shape and fat as I am, I was betting I could still hustle just fast enough to keep them from coming after me...
Unknown Telemarketer: May I speak to the person who makes the .... decisions for the household?
me: That's me until wife.imp gets home.
ummm, This is Mr. Bush? Mr. ... Bush?
me: Yup! That's me!
ummm, Mr. Bush, is Mrs. Bush home?
me: nope. If she was, she would be answering the phone to take this call. But she's not, so I am free to answer the call and make any decisions that seem necessary at the moment.
uhmmm, ok. Mr. Bush, I am blah blah blah (insert name and sales pitch and sales item here) and if you take advantage now, we can install it in up to 4 rooms for free!
me: Suhweet!! That sounds great (in this case they were wanting to sell me a digital satellite subscription)!! My brother and my father have those tv's that have the super large screens and are super thin. The picture quality is fantastic! All digital!
so, your brother and your father have ___ digital satellite service?
me: no, no, no. They have those flat screen tv's with liquid digitalized thingimabobsy tech. The pictures are incredible and the screens are like 60"!
and they do have digital satellite service?
me: no! they have cable. I think they have cable. One of them might have satellite. We had satellite growing up but dad took down the dish and installed an antenna, so I think he would have to have cable and the antenna as a backup...Boy, digital satellite and in 4 rooms!
yes sir, that is correct and --
me: and we get free hookup with four digi-liquid-techy tvs with it? Cool! I cannot wait to tell the wife what a deal we got! I cannot wait to get rid of this old tv that runs on cable...
um sir..that hookup is for 4 rooms only
me: I know. 4 tvs. Of course we would want them in separate rooms. I mean that would be pretty silly to have 4 tvs all in one room!
uh...actually sir we would only be providing the hookups for the tvs in the 4 rooms. We would not actually be providing you with 4 new tvs.
me: no tvs?
no sir.
me: if you're not providing me with the tvs, then why would I want to have 4 more rooms wired for them?
uhmmm, well, sir, if you were to buy additional tv's you could then hook them into the outlets in any of the four rooms.
me: yeeees...I see...
uhm, now sir, if I could just verify the information that we have....
me: Uhmmm, you'll have to call back and speak to my wife. She makes all the decisions for this kind of service in our house. Thank you.
In the past few days, the remote has stopped functioning like the 'well oiled machine' it was when purchased two years ago. This generic, universal remote, now runs all of our video/tv equipment and if it goes loopy, we all go loopy.
In the past 72 hours the volume control stopped functioning except for when programmed on tv mode, the dvd players (we have two-one we purchased the 2nd we were gifted approx. 1 week after our own purchase) and the vcr.
On, Off, Mute--much like our control over the imps, were all non-existent. Fortunately I kept the instructions and codes that, once programmed into the remote, would restore our desired dictatorial control over the non-human denizens of the Family Room.
It should have worked. I had the previous codes written down. I have two complete (front and back) sheets of single-spaced, sized 3 font, lists of codes for everything ever made. Four hours after I got home last night, I was still trying to find the one code that would work on one of the DVD players.
'Why dennis,' you might ask. 'Why do you spend so much time with this one unit when you have already admitted that you own 2 dvd players?'
That is a great question. The only reasonable, and therefore honest, answer is that this particular unit is the one that, most reliably, plays all the DVDs we buy/beg/borrow.
I even searched the internet for the elusive codes and could find none that had not already been tried. In total frustration I finally picked up the Owners Manual for the remote (it was open to how to program the codes into the remote) and Turned.The.Page!~
Interesting what material the manufacturers deem worthy to pass on to us, the Consumers. Fascinating Stuff! Really!!
In the time it took to digest the fact that wife.imp shall never be told of the existance of this amazing treasure trove of information/instructions, I had finally reprogrammed all functions on the remote!!
Yes, I have another health related problem. All of last weekend I was suffering from sever sinus congestion/coughing and sneezing and very TIRED!
I left the maze of reconstituted air (re: office work) to avoid this. Fresh country air! Less flu and cold downtime! Better health!
I should have checked the disclaimer more closely to verify if the warranty on Fresh Air and Better Health was expected to expire!
So now the green phlem, sore throat and aching lungs (when I cough) are chasing me back into the doctor's office.
Yea me!
I had hoped that the bad-reaction-to-the-back-waxing body rash and the gee-dennis-didn't-you-think-that-playing-pioneer-and-manually-clearing-that-poison-ivy-patch-would-react-badly-with-your-obvious-allergies-to-said-ivy rash that covered my arms and upper torso would have warned me...
So here I sit, waiting for the doc to walk in and ask me to open my mouth and say 'ahhhh'.
I guess it could be worse. He could be asking me to turn my head and 'cough'.
So here at the Playground life has continued to move forward, even though the blog process has been somewhat stagnant (my apologies).
Wife.Imp's youngest sister is stopping by for a brief visit and today I took her out for a road trip (ok, I gave her the keys to my car and told her that she gets to drive me around). Because the one thing I have learned when visiting wife.imp's family is that if you have no means of going out and about, then things can get boring.
SIL brought gifts from the family, of which a baseball hat with an Iron Man logo on it was given to boy.imp. Since getting the hat boy.imp wears it around the house fighting the 'bad guys'. The fights are terrible, with lots of shouting, jumping and falling down. However b.imp always gains the upper hand with a knock-out blow. Which he has to describe to me.
'I hit him in the eye!' 'I hit three of them in the teeth!' 'I hit him in the chest and two of them in the eye!' 'I hit five in a row here!' (this is where boy.imp points to the lower abdominal/higher thigh area of his body and will continue to point there until you have viewed the area of damage and acknowledged his fighting prowess...)
Concerning aging...
I went to my s0mewhat-annual (ok, 1st time in 3 years) checkup today because I felt I had enough info to make the doctor's effort in the examination more than just routine. I have a very nice back rash (the result of a hair-removal waxing--Oddly enough when I found out a year or so ago that I did have hair on my back, I have never been able to put that thought out of my mind. It actually bothered me. I finally pulled the trigger and it barely tingled. It felt like someone had spread masking tape on my back and pulled it off. But the rash kind of puts a damper on repeat procedures), a pain in one of my knees and a phantom ache in one of my arms.
I also had (the first of what is now an annual event (yea me!)) the prostate exam! I am not certain, but I am fairly postive that procedures conducted in the family-care doctor's office should include the patient's continued ability to, oh say, breathe during said procedures!
Tony at 'Creative Type Dads' and Diana from 'Stuck in Elmo's World' have inquired as to how I managed such a drastic rash from Poison Ivy.
First let me say that my reaction to contact with the Ivy is nothing new. In high school, on two separate occassions, I had to rub ice on my eyelids just so I could open them to go to school in the morning. I, who burn faster than paper soaked with lighter fluid, would spend weeks at the public pool because the chlorine content in the water was the second fastest non-medical remedy to an Ivy rash I found. The first was using the juice from the stem of a Jewelweed plant. That stuff is a factual miracle in nature!
So knowing my history, one might guess my reaction to being invited to help my sister clear some of her land would be a resounding 'No.'
Instead, I promised to help. So I showed up in shirt-sleeves and dragged vines from trees to be burned with brush pulled out of the ground. It was a lot of fun and, yes, I was aware that the vines, some almost as thick as my wrist, were Poison Ivy vines. Yet, I still wrapped them around my wrist and dragged them to the ground or wrapped chains around them and pulled them out of the trees and lugged them to the bonfire to be burned.
Yes, I am aware that burning Ivy is also not the ideal way of disposal.
Yes, I spent the last 2 weeks with my arms and abdomen covered in salves and lotions. Until I had enough and visited the local family practioner. There I obtained the 3rd most effective cure for this rash.
Now I am merely days and not week(s) away from overcoming this abysmal rash.
Girl.Imp had her First Communion.
While standing in line, waiting file into the Church:
me: Settle down!
g.imp: blahblahblah (it was as if she had drunk 7-8 cups of sugar in her coffee that a.m.)
me: stand still...settle down
g.imp: blahblahblahblabblabblab, daddy, you have skin hanging out of your nose..!
(mind you we are standing in line with over 80 imps and their parents)
me:uhh, how's that?
g.imp: fine...blabblabblabbberdyblabblab, no, it's still there! You have a booger hanging out of your nose!
Yep, right before heading into Church for G.imp's big day, daddy is standing in line picking boogers out of his nose!
Daddy also spent the last week sleeping alone. Not one member of the family was interested in sleeping in the same bed, sharing a hug or even sitting on my lap.
Of course the rampant spread of Poison Ivy on my arms, neck and abdomen might be a small part of the isolationism...
Yesterday as I contemplated life and family and work, whislt astride the Porcelain Throne (I had finished the comics and sports section) I reached for some All-Purpose paper. In order to, comfortably, reach said roll in our bathroom, one must lean forward and it was a new roll, so no worries there.
Until I jerked on the end of the paper and a tiny bit tore off. I jerked again. Again a tiny bit tore free.
WTF? The paper is wrapped around a tube that rolls on a spindle...I'll be damned if I was going to shift one iota from my current position (now on the leading edge of the seat). So, I grabbed at the paper and Jerked and tugged and jerked and tugged and got to sit in my own personal toilet paper confetti blizzard (and I did not even have to travel to the Canyon of Heroes in NYC).
Turns out that if the cardboard tube (in a full roll of toilet paper) is not perfectly rounded, the roll won't roll. I had to turn the paper (using both hands) to secure the desired amount of quilted softness.
It is moments like this that can ruin a perfectly glorious morning!!
From the moment I uncovered you at the store
I knew you must join us at our home
and that I must have you and then have you some more
I had to possess you for you were what we needed
That you and not Comrade Radish had what I sought
that deep, gleeming, royal coat of red
Your pungent presence and sharp bite
slices made softer by frying in the pan
created a perfection that only you made right
Future meals I had planned with you in mind
But now Frustration and Futility wear on my soul
for nowhere searched did you allow me to find
Where O where my royal red onion have you fled?
Why have you spurned our passionate desires?
Will I find you before your aroma awakens the dead?
