Yesterday afternoon I was running a little late. My boss and I discovered somebody's screwup, and it was up to us to clean it up.
I knew my wife had dinner in the oven. We'd spoken only about an hour before and I'd told her I'd be on my way soon. So, good and considerate husband that I am, I decided to call her again and let her know I'd be awhile. My daughter answered the phone (four and a half years old):
HER: Halloooo?
ME: Hi baby!
HER: Hi Daddy! I love you!!!
ME: I love you too!
HER: Can I have some chocolate time when you get home? You're workin', but when you get home and we eat dinner can I have some chocolate time?
(I inherited this routine from my grandfather - we have chocolate only as a reward after dinner when she's eaten her entire meal. And then we make this whole production where I ask her, "What time is it?" and she comes back with "IIIIIIIT'S CHOCOLATE TIME!!!!!!!)
ME: Sure sweetie, we...
Posts
A moment of bravery
I was brave, once . Many things pass for bravery in our world today. Depending on people's perception of them, certain events are permeated by courage and heroic behavior. But one thing is showing courage while doing your job, and another is being brave because you choose to. In other words, your job description may require you to confront certain perilous situations (soldier, fireman, cop, etc.), but in real life we're constantly being confronted with challenges, and yet we seldom act courageously. Usually, when we look back at those moments, we wish we'd acted differently. In retrospect black and white are always very clear, and the words we would have liked to hear come out of our mouths shoot out quickly and in sequential order. In the thick of it, things rarely happen as you would have thought they would. Our reactions to menacing circumstances can't be calculated or planned beforehand. If your instinct is to freeze up when somebody pushes you, you're going to ...
Tale of a bridal gown and a fairy godmother
It happened almost twelve years ago, after I'd taken a break from college. I was working for a production outfit in the Kern Ridge oilfields, a couple of hours north of Los Angeles. Hard, dirty work, but it paid well and they let me keep my long hair.
Like other towns that were born from the oil industry, ninety percent of T-Town's population depended on the oilfields for its employment.
Oilfield workers, it was said, liked to work hard and live hard. T-Town was a breathing testament to it. There was one church and about twenty bars.
I met my bride to be, Cindy, working behind the counter at one of those bars. She was back in town to help her mother sell her house. She'd been gone for nearly a decade and never thought she'd be back. But life has many twists and turns.
We hit it off, sort of. The electronic dartboard kept taking my money, and she kept refusing to refund me. I'd go up to her and say, "That damned thing just took another fifty ce...
San Lorenzo
I recall the beaten path of rocky grass, entrenched by moss covered stone walls. It ran alongside the border of my father's farm, and for many miles farther across the foot of the mountain. El Camino Real, it was called. Too narrow and contoured for any wheeled vehicle, it was only to be traveled afoot or on horseback.
Before the advent of carriages -and later motor cars- brought about the need for better roads, El Camino Real was the only way for the local folk to cross the territory without trespassing on somebody else's property. In rural Colombia, during the early twentieth century, the lands were vast and sparsely populated, and the laws were vague and barely enforced. People brandished machetes and shotguns, and defended their turf by whatever means necessary. Many shallow graves were dug near the riverbank; unmarked and unvisited.
Inhabited mostly by mestizos and descendants of the tribal natives who innocently ...
Those Amazing little ones
This is priceless! My own daughter (now 4 1/2 years old) occasionally comes up with her own handful of gems from somewhere deep inside her memory bank.
She was blessed (or damned from your point of view, I don't know) from early on, to be dragged from one sporting event to another. I've always frequented pro sports events and since she could get in for free until the age of three, well, I just took full advantage of it. We spared no expense and purchased her little cheerleader outfits with our local team's emblems. She looked cute as hell! So much so, that on one occasion she singlehandedly secured us an invitation to join a party in a luxury booth at a Marlins game, just by being cute.
At these events, and especially at the basketball games, she became curiously involved in the rallying cries that the home team's organizers would inevitably push for, during the crucial stretches toward the end of the games. You know the ones: "Let's go Heat!" or ...
TV or not TV...aye, there's the rub!
Man, it's hard to turn away from it, isn't it? That damn box that seems to suck your brains out and paralyze you before it. There may be nothing on, but still you persist, changing channels over and over trying to find something, anything that will entertain you; help you kill some more time. I swear, the informative aspect of TV constitutes a generously stated 10 percent of the total use I give it. That's sad.
I recall in my younger years when I was in college and full of spunk, yearning to make a life for myself that was built on art and culture. I used to consider TV a detriment to my purpose in life. Back then I allowed myself to watch TV with only the agenda of catching movies or educational programming. Maybe the news, and occasionally Dave Letterman after work to unwind (back when he came on after Carson, at half past midnight). But I eventually began to stay tuned for Cheers and Taxi reruns, and I started to get to know their characters. Then I found myself see...
Smoke
Getting smoked out on the roads this morning.
Last weekend lightning started a few brushfires locally. We're told they're under control, but they're still having to shut down long stretches of highway. Due to the closed turnpike, it took me almost 2 hours to drive a distance of 30 miles. The whole time I spent it moving between 5 and 10 miles per hour, and helplessly inhaling layer upon layer of smoke.
Now I get to work and it seems like the smoke has completely permeated the office. My head is killing me!
On days like this I wish life was more like TiVo and I could stop the action right here, rewind all the way to before my alarm clock went off, then just change the channel.
Vacuum Bags
My parents reside in a land far, far away. Not far away, mind you, far , far away.
During my mother's last visit (she usually spends one week with us, then one week at my sister's), she spent a good deal of time seeking out replacement vacuum bags for her old, now obsolete, Eureka vacuum cleaner. The thing is, she forgot to check the bag size before she traveled. So through email, she got my Dad at home to look at the old bag and determine the size.
I suggested she look in Walmart. From there we moved up the ranks through Kmart, Target, then Sears. No luck. So we searched for specialty stores. Found a nifty little joint called AAA Vacuum services in the Yellow Pages (yes, that's still the only place to find nifty little joints) that wasn't far from my house. She went there, paid $7 apiece for two packets containing three bags each.
With the matter resolved, we gave it no further thought and enjoyed the rest of our time together.
Upon her return, my mother wr...