Some more fun topics for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge this week!

1.) What does marriage mean to you? (inspired by Jon Gosselin) 🙂

This is a timely topic for me since we celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary on Sunday. So even though I may not be able to supply the perfect definition of marriage, I at least get to enjoy experiencing one!

Marriage is many things. It is a partnership through life, not just the good times but the bad times too. It is having a friend that knows you and your deepest darkest secrets and still wants to spend time with you and the converse. It is having someone you are still attracted to long after the bloom of youth has started to fade, and the attraction is not simply physical or purely mental.

It was once explained to me that (and I believe it to be a good explanation) there are a finite but not necessarily small number of people you can love and who can love you on the journey through life. The one you marry is the one you *are* in love with when you get the urge to be married. But, and it is a big but, from that point on it is part of each partner’s duty to the marriage to stay in love and grow closer together. I think the crucial point is that both people have joined in a partnership and are dedicated to working together to advance that partnership.

Does that mean that marriage never has its travails? Of course not!

I can remember a time nearly thirty years ago when L and I sought out a marriage counselor since we did not seem to be able to grow closer together. The major problem was the clashing world views of a rationalist and a humanist. Add to that the job related stresses and living half a continent away from each other for a period of time and you can see that some work was timely in order. Going to counseling helped us to be able to see the world from the other’s point of view, and thus allowed us to continue growing as a couple without the festering of perceived slights. Heck, we still remind ourselves of the lessons we learned then even today

2.) Scaredy Cat!!! (inspired by Brandi from Not Your Average Soccer Mom)

There are few things that can still provoke the all out fear reflex in me. I suspect part of that is reaching an age where the boogie men can catch me if they really want to and there is little I can do about it if they are big and strong enough.  That said …

I have reached the age where I don’t quite have tinnitus yet, but I hear things. When I go to bed at night and it is very quiet, my mind and ears seem to amplify every ambient noise and creak to the point that i am convinced someone is in the room with me or is creeping down the hallway.

Now add to that an overactive mind that creates patterns even when there is no pattern to be discerned and you have some interesting nights. Especially in the winter when the rushing sound of the furnace pushing air through the heating vents acts like a white noise mask and I hear voices. Objectively I know there is no voice talking, but my mind and ears reconstruct it as a voice talking just below the level of audibility. I’ve been known to get up several times in a night “just to be sure” that there is no one talking down the hallway. For a while I seriously considered the idea that the furnace duct work was picking up a local talk radio station. Add to this the fact that for a number of years I was on 24 hour call and trained myself so I could answer the phone, solve the problem, and not wake up, and you get some really strange moments.

I suspect that is why God inflicted men with enlarging prostates as they age so that they have to arise every few hours in the night. That keeps them from going insane hearing things that aren’t there. {*grin*}

3.) List the pieces of you that have come from those around you? (inspired via Tweet by Angela from My So-Called Chaos)

Where should I start?

I have the small round sunken eyes of one of my maternal grandfathers side of the family, otherwise know as the Pyle pig eyes. I have the Dumbo sized ears of both sides of the family. And from my father’s side of the family I got that classic Jones build: a beer barrel perched on short stilts with gorilla arms and a neckless bowling ball head. Thus I can blame my huge paws and head on that side of the family.

Now there are some pieces that I have no clue about too. Where did my giant clod-hoppers come from? No one else wears size 16’s. No one knows.

And, of course, one would be remiss not to mention the diabetes from dad’s side of the family. Dad had 5 brothers and sisters; all of them that didn’t die young were/are diabetics. Likewise his mother. What more could one ask for in a family tree?

But I also got a keen curiosity about the world and very high IQ from both sides of the family. My grandfather was an inveterate inventor who taught himself electronics via correspondence school and my dad was amazing at math (which is all the more amazing considering that dad never graduated from high school). My mom was the first in her family to graduate from a community college and I was the first to get a graduate degree. So one gets the good along with the bad. Something to keep in mind the next time you carp about your inheritance!

4.) The first day of… (inspired by Mama Kat. again.)

The first day of snow is not far in the future. The nights are getting cooler and the days shorter. All clues that whisper to me that one of these days it is going to freeze. I keep hoping that it will delay until mid October, but mom and others are betting on a much sooner date. And anytime after that first freezing day, it might snow. Some years the first day of snow comes before the trees have shed their leaves and other years it delays until December or January.

I love that first day of snow. The joy of shoveling, that feeling of comfortable exertion and warmth. The pleased feeling of being able to set aside a few hours and curl up with a good book and a cup of soup. The unbridled joy of all the bugs dying off – no more insecticide needed to work in the underbrush. The smell of wood smoke in the air. The way that falling snow dampens all the sounds of the world, making it so serene and peaceful to be out walking. When I was in college, I used to go to a tower by the observatory and sit in the open top and watch the snow plows miles and miles away down in the valley as they battled to keep roads clear. There is nothing like a late night hike in the snow when the wind is howling and the temperature is dropping – especially when you know that you can get warm and curl up with a good book when you get back home.

Here is one of my favorite winter scenes from many years ago when the Son was but a tyke. It was taken on our driveway during the kind of snow storm of my dreams.

5.) Transcribe a recent entertaining conversation you recently had with someone. (inspired by Mama Kat…I’m so inspirational for myself.)

Me: Dan speaking.
Caller: Is there?
Me: This is Dan.
Caller: Is there?
Me: Yes, this is he. (with at least a little hint of disgust)
Caller: No, I’m looking for . Is he there?
Me: This is he!
Caller: Are you sure?
Me: Yes!!!
Caller: Never mind. (Hangup and dialtone)

I’m pretty sure that the Caller believed I wasn’t me because I don’t mispronounce my own name like he did. Oh well, I figure he was a trade rag magazine solicitor – probably from Puerto Rico given the accent and traceback number.

Some fun topics for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge this week!

1.) Write about a time when you were wrongly wronged.
(inspired by Mama Kat herself.)

I can think of many times when I have been wrongly wronged, but episodes from childhood stick in my mind most strongly.

When I was growing up, the local movie theater used to run a Saturday Kiddie show featuring such classic films as Hercules Returns, etc. You know, the grade C- films that only a preteen kid in the early years of television would get excited about. Since the show was connected to the down-town merchants (“Mom and Dad, let the kids come to the show while you shop unencumbered” type of thing.), there were rules on who could attend. The show was free, but you had to be under the age of 12 to get in.

Unfortunately, I was a big kid. I was 6 feet tall and 200+ lbs. by the time I hit 5th grade. In any case, I was 10 years old and big. I wanted to go to the show in the worst possible way since the feature was one with Hercules and the Three Stooges. Everything that a preteen boy could dream of – he-men and physical comedy and of course a beautiful girl to play opposite Hercules.

So at the appointed time I walked down to the theater (only about 5 blocks from our house) and got in line. When the doors opened and we headed in, the manager put his hand on my shoulder and told me I was too old to attend. My protests that I was only 10 fell on deaf ears. I never did get to see the movie. I can’t express how hurt I felt. It hurt that someone had not believed me when I told the truth. It hurt that I was being singled out based simply on size.

That was my introduction to several wrongful wrongs. Three lessons I learned that painful day:

1) People don’t necessarily listen to the truth and are not there to make your world better.
2) Sizism is alive and well. I don’t care if you are smaller or bigger than the norm, someone will use it as a handle to try and hurt you.
    and
3) At some point you have to put on your big boy pants and ignore the hurts.

2.) Geriatric peeping Tom neighbors? Do tell.
(inspired by Angie from Seven Clown Circus via email. And I don’t know what geriatric means either. Look it up.)

I don’t have any geriatric peeping Tom neighbors, but I do have geriatric neighbors. In fact, I have geriatrics living behind and across the street from me. Until recently, the neighbor on one side was in his eighties. So far as I am aware, none of them are of the peeping variety.

In another episode of small town/world experiences, the neighbor beside me, Eddie, had spent his life as a railroad engineer. In fact he had spent much of it working with my father. All those years around locomotives and whistles had left him pretty deaf. That would be neither here nor there, but he had a pair of dogs that really enjoyed barking. If he was in the house, he could not hear the dogs barking outside. Thus he suffered a number of visits from the police and animal control about the barking dogs. It reached the point that the next time they were called out would mean that Eddie would no longer be able to keep his dogs. So Eddie asked me to call him if I heard the dogs barking.

Unbeknown to me at the time, Eddie’s wife was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and I think Eddie was battling to keep her at home and using the dogs to help and to battle the loneliness. A few years ago, she finally had to be institutionalized. Eddie and the dogs continued on, with Eddie spending the days at the nursing home with his wife and the afternoons with the dogs and his grandkids. Earlier this year Eddie passed away and the kids took the dogs. Somehow it just seems too silent now. I think now it would have been tragic if Eddie had been forced to give up the dogs just when he needed them most. But they sure could be annoying. {*grin*}

Geriatric neighbors can be helpful. The other day one of my sprinkler heads broke and I had a water geyser in the front yard. One of said neighbors called the house phone here and then my mom to make sure someone knew and could fix it. Of course I already had it fixed by the time mom called, but the thought still counts.

3.) Mommy play dates? What’s your experience with mom dating?
(inspired by Dana from Mommy Brain)

Wrong sex for me – have at it mommies.

4.) The first day of…
(inspired by Mama Kat.)

The first day of school was different for me. We moved from a very small town that had no kindergarten and no pre-school to the (huge) town of Curtis, Nebraska (population about 350 at the time). Curtis did have a kindergarten and our move was in the middle of the school year. My kindergarten school year in fact. Talk about being scared and facing a complete change of environment.

I remember getting to school and then to the classroom with mom in hand. But all too soon, mom had to leave and I was left all alone with all these strangers. It wasn’t as if I knew any of the other kids, we had just moved to town. So of course I spent much of the first hour sitting and crying by myself in a combination of fear and terror and curiosity. And then Julie came over and started talking to me. She calmly explained there was nothing to be afraid of and it was OK. Then she introduced me to her best friend Jackie and then her cousin Jimmie and Jimmie introduced me to his best friend Michael and Michael had to introduce me to his twin sister Melody and … Before lunch, I had met every kid in the class and was over my worries. This kindergarten thing was fun and there were so many new and interesting people.

The amusing thing is that we lived in that small Nebraska town until 4th grade when we moved again. By that time Michael was my best friend along with Jimmie. We went back to visit Curtis many times through the middle of my high school years since one set of grandparents lived there until then. When I’d go back, I’d sometimes see Michael and get a chance to talk, and in my teenage years I also got to talk to Melody who grew into a beautiful young lady. But that is neither here nor there. The interesting part is that when L and I headed off to college, I went to the east coast and L went to a school in Lincoln, Nebraska. Somehow L met Julie and Jackie there at the school and via the standard “do you know” conversations, they discovered they all knew me. Thus it was through L that I learned what my long ago savior was doing – I hadn’t seen or heard from her since 3rd grade.

5.) Share your friendly advice for someone you think needs it (ie your mother-in-law, other drivers, cell phone users, etc.)
(inspired by Jill from Scary Mommy)

My problem is that I’ve shared pieces of my mind with so many people that I can’t remember anything now. So I’ll constrain myself to one piece of advice to you, my friendly readers: Do it now for tomorrow may be too late!

Time once again for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge. This week the prompts are:

1.) My animals are making me nuts.
(inspired by Jody from Take Me As I Am).


2.) List the 5 best things about the first day of school.
(inspired by Lane from Sneaky Daddy).


3.) Tell us about your crush.
(inspired by Lisa from Just Lisa, No Filler)


4.) How did you break it?
(inspired by Brandy from Not Your Average Soccer Mom)


5.) Show us a favorite summer craft.
(inspired by Kristin from The Way It Is)

Some fun topics this week!

I’m going with #1 and #3. #2 doesn’t apply here and #4 I covered last week here. #5 isn’t really applicable unless you really want to see pictures of my renowned noxious weed crop. Something about Russian thistle and bind weed and sand burrs just don’t make for pretty pictures.

#1 – I don’t even need to go for plural here. Just the singular Molly is doing fine in making sure my sanity is slowly ebbing away. Molly is one of those dogs that combine the best and worst in one anxious body. She has developed a strong dislike and fear of thunderstorms. The subsonic noise from the distant storms brings her slinking in to my office to lie on my feet, periodically standing up on my leg looking for a reassuring word and a rub of the head. There is nothing like the sudden appearance of a a shaking and panting dog in your face to make it hard to continue working. Especially when her breath smells a lot like she intentionally gargles with a solution of garlic and onion mixed with hint of ripe road kill when she is scared. In the thunderstorm this afternoon I captured this part of the normal sequence.

I’m just going to lie here on your feet and keep my head down.

So there you have it – another embarrassing admission of normalcy. {*grin*}

Time once again for Mama Kat’s Writer’s Challenge. This week the prompts are:

1.) What will you be doing now that the kids are back in school?
(inspired by Michelle from Honest And Truly)

2.) Things I have learned from my toddler.
(Inspired by Big Mama Cass from The World Through My Eyes).

3.) What would you put in your favorite things giveaway?
(inspired by Jill from Scary Mommy who is having a favorite things giveaway right NOW! Check it out!!)

4.) Hi, my name is ______ and I am a _______.
(inspired by Emmy from Emmy Mom One Day At A Time.)

5.) If these walls could talk…
(inspired by JennyMac from Let’s Have A Cocktail)

So without further ado, here we go!

#1 – Given that the Son has been out of the house for a few years, I’ll be doing the same things i was doing before school started! So I’ll just have to look forward to the stories of escape from all the bloggers with young ones still at home.

#2 – One thing I learned (from a friend of the Son, not the Son) is that tykes can be both talented and obsessive. One day when the friend was over and the two of them were playing, I heard the ominous sounds of silence coming down the hall. When I went to investigate, I discovered the friend with a screw-driver of unknown origin taking the plates off the electrical plugs. I would have sworn they were too young to do that. We had the plug caps installed and the little guy didn’t even bother with the caps and went straight for removing the plate. Turned out he had gotten in trouble for that particular act at home before trying it here. So there were several lessons there: 1) Never let ’em out of your sight, 2) Pay attention to the sudden appearance of silence, and 3) Check with the parents of playmates as to what they have been doing wrong at home *before* they come to spend the afternoon.

#3 – Being the nerd that I am, it would have to include computer arcana. I have a still operational TRS-80 calculator from 1980, a precursor of the notebook computer in that it is a cross between a scientific calculator and low capability computer. Mass storage via a cassette tape interface to a cheap handheld tape unit. Capable of running 100 line programs in Basic. Runs only on 4 mercury watch batteries, no AC power interface. Heck, I might even throw in one of my handcrafted multi-player space opera games I wrote for the beast back in 1981. That was a step up from the calculator games I wrote in the late 70’s to sell to my fellow grad students since we all had similar calculators. {*grin*} Keep in mind that this is from a time before the IBM PC was even a gleam in anyone’s eye. Here is the beast in all it’s glory:

Up until a few years ago, I could also have included one of the first 100 HP LaserJet II’s ever made. But I already gave that away, so ..

In other areas, I’d have to include some works from my library. Maybe the collected works of Robert Heinlein or Harlan Ellison. Maybe even some of the rare short stories from the 50’s that are so hard to find now.

And food, I have to give away some food. Maybe a few zucchini. It is that time of year in the garden belt where anyone not guarding their door finds random bags of zucchini on their door step. (Someday I’ll have to write up my zucchini spaghetti sauce – it is so good that we freeze zucchini to put in it all winter.)

#4 – Hi, my name is Dan and I am a Computer Whisperer! My deep, dark, and dirty secret that drives people crazy is that I am the Computer Whisperer. I can walk up to any computer, think a few good thoughts, say the appropriate words, and viola – everything starts working just fine.

If the computer has been freezing up on you for days, all I have to do is walk into the room and it behaves perfectly.

If you haven’t been able to get that web site to accept your input and have resorted to sitting on hold for hours in the hope of getting through to customer support – just let me sit down at the keyboard and all will suddenly work and your order will be complete in seconds.

If you’ve been trying to get your printer to power on and/or unjam – let me caress it and it will work like a charm.

You keep getting the BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) – let me just touch the keyboard and the machine will run perfectly for hours.

In and of itself, being a Computer Whisperer is not calculated to drive people crazy. It is more calculated to make you really popular late at night around deadlines. The real issue is that people have been getting strange and irreproducible results for hours and have drug in other people to verify that it isn’t working and I walk in and it starts working. You can see how that might rankle a bit. I have had my wife insist on other people coming over to see that her computer isn’t working right because she knows when I walk in it will start working perfectly. And perhaps more annoying, all those vexed people know that as soon as I walk out of the room, their troubles will resume until I return. A good computer only responds to a Computer Whisperer it can hear and see.

The worst part is that I don’t even have to know anything about the computer in question. I have been at sites with main frames down and waiting for the system engineers to arrive, walked into the computer room, and suddenly all is working again. Back in the early days of programmable calculators, my fellow graduate students used to come to my office so that their “broken” calculators would work long enough to finish the assignment. When I was at a national lab, I had a colleague that would drag me over to his area at lunch time just so his computer powered detector would work. (I got a lot of free lunches that way.) It’s probably good I never became a system engineer – it’s hard to repair that which works while you are there and then quits when you leave!

#5 – If these walls could talk, they’d talk of many things from the past. The house was built in 1961; we are only the second owners. And of course like any small town, we know the first owners. Not only know, but went to school with some of their kids and the male half of the couple is my ophthalmologist.

I have already heard the garage whisper about the time their son (also named Dan) came home a little uncertain behind the wheel and perhaps a bit under the influence and forgot the brakes. That is why the wall between the garage and the back porch looks a little bit newer than its other cousins.

I have also heard the wiring talk a bit about the winter power paranoia of the original owners. There is a hulking switch on the back porch that with a single flick could disconnect from the grid and connect to the diesel generator in the garage. When we converted the house from all electric (it was a Medallion All-Electric showplace when built), the connections to the switch and the generator itself went the way of the dodo bird. In its loneliness, the switch whispers sad stories of outages past.

The family room is big enough to host a small basketball tourney, but that is nothing compared to the 40+ tons of rocks under it. The now removed early solar heating system used them as a heat reservoir. The theory was to gather heat in the rocks all summer by collecting on the roof and then blowing the superheated air through the rocks to store the energy. One was then to blow air from the house through the rocks in winter to extract heat. Unfortunately, the company that made the system never got them to work properly before they faded from existence. So hot air was indeed blown into the rocks in the summer. But, it then leaked into the family room, making it too hot to sit in even with the air conditioning running. Then in the winter, the rock quickly cooled and spent the winter effectively cooling the room. Needless to say, that was one of the systems we first pulled out when we bought the house. Now all we hear are whispers of the long gone solar panels on the roof and the ever running fans in the rocks. The rocks themselves just sit and hunker in silence beneath the family room floor, hoping against hope that someday they will be useful once more.

Finally, there is my bathroom. We remodeled it a few years ago. Out went the pastel green tub and sinks and all the stories they could tell. In came the nice white. Out went the standard size cabinetry and in came the custom stuff that is 6 inches taller that standard. I can finally wash my face and shave without feeling like my head is between my knees. I can comb my hair without stooping. And the tile is laid in a pleasing mathematical pattern of my own devising. But the tile has whispered to me that some family members think the tile and pattern is more suitable to a Tijuana house of ill repute than to a sedate bathroom. Too bad – the tile and I have attained oneness. We have no desire to separated.