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.

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

1.) Your trip to the ER…spill it.
(inspired by Stephanie from This Blessed Life).

2.) “Why are American’s obsessed with weight? Why are we always fighting or complaining about what is natural for our bodies?”
(inspired by Jenn from Jenny Says What?)

3.) Describe one of your ‘God Moments’.
(inspired by Jordan from Wide Open Spaces).

4.) List ten things you would say to ten different people in your life…if you had the hutzpah.
(inspired by Cassandra from Cassagram)

5.) Why is your kid in time out?
(inspired by Sera from Laughing Through The Chaos)

Without further ado, I give you the minimalist answers for this week.

#1 – Given I have only been to the ER a couple of times and there is only one of those trips where I would not be disclosing someone else’s medical problem, my choice is easy. Thus, you get the case of broken arm. Or if you like odd titles, the case of Bubble Bouncer Mania.

I was in fifth grade and playing on the school basketball team against one of our arch-rival grade schools. (Even chubby kids get recruited to play basketball when they are taller that everyone else. {*grin*}) It was a hotly contested game with the lead changing hands multiple times. Late in the third quarter I went to block a shot by the other teams center and when all was said and done there were about five of us on the floor. I got up and the referee was shouting “Stop! Stop the game! That player has a broken arm!” So of course I looked around to see who was hurt and noticed that everyone was staring at me and turning green and pale. That was the first hint I had that it might be me the referee was talking about. The blood and the bit of bone sticking out of my arm made it clear it was indeed me. About then it started to hurt.

The school nurse and the principal splinted it loosely in old Life magazines and took me to sit in the office while they called mom to come get me. (This was in the days before the automatic ambulance calls and other over-reactions of modern society.) Mom arrived shortly and we set out on the journey to the hospital a few miles away. By now I was in definite pain. I mean the absolute, get sick to the stomach, gut wrenching kind of pain. So I am sitting in the passenger seat, holding my magazine cradled arm in my lap. And then we came to the railroad tracks. I swear that every track we crossed was like having giant spikes driven up my arm. We arrived at the hospital and shuffled into the ER. Like every hospital known to man, they had to take X-rays first before they could proceed. And then, finally, the nurse gave me a shot of pain killer preparatory to putting me under to fix my arm. No shot has even felt as good to get. Within a few minutes I was out cold, waking up many hours later in the hospital with my arm in a half-cast and immobilized, packed in ice. The end diagnosis was compound fracture of both bones in my right forearm.

The irony in this story is that I played football through college and even rugby after college and never once broke a major bone (fingers don’t count). But playing grade school basketball is the one time I broke a bone and I did it spectacularly well. My arm is still crooked some 40++ years later and I still have the little scar where the bone poked out of the skin. And I still remember the thankfulness I felt as the nurse gave me that shot that stopped the pain.

#2 – I suspect that there are some who are obsessed and there are some who are not. I belive that those who are obsessed come from two points of influence.

I have strong belief that those who are truly obsessed are those most susceptible to TV and the media and the images projected and emphasized there. TV and the movies can subtly skew our beliefs of what is normal and what is desirable. The continuous bombardment by images emphasizing certain physical traits makes the tolerance and acceptance of those that don’t meet those ideals even harder. When you have an arbiter of taste and preference that the average American is exposed to for 6 hours a day or more, cultural norms go by the wayside.

With that said, I suspect that the other side of the issue is that we are amidst the first of the generations facing the easy availability of excess calories. At the turn of the last century, the working farm male often burned more than 8000 calories per day. Today there are few occupations where an adult male burns more than 2000 calories per day. In that same period, food has moved from reap and prepare your own to mass preparation with salt and fat loading, boosting the available calories by huge amounts. We (human beings) have not adapted to those rapid changes. For the last 40,000 years or more, it was a huge survival advantage if your body stored fat during times of plenty to cover the times of famine and want. There is a reason that stone age fertility images are of what we would today consider obese women. It meant that they were able to store enough during times of plenty that they could successfully birth and nurture offspring during times of want. That same genetic adaptation in this time of more uniform and abundant supply leads to obesity and the associated diseases.

So my conclusion is that the current obsession is due to a) susceptibility to media and b) uncertainty due to changing external conditions which undermines listening to the body.

#3 – One can have many God moments on the journey through life, but the one that sticks with me the most was shortly after the birth of the Son. (Some background: L and I had been married for 14 years and had given up on having kids when we found out we were going to have the Son. Because of our age, we had undergone aminocentrisis, even though we had already decided that he would have to have a defect that was fatal and painful before we would do anything. We figured this was the one miracle we were going to get and weren’t going to give it up.)

The Son was born healthy, but shortly thereafter was failing to thrive and in fact had fallen deathly ill. We went to the pediatrician early in the week and when we came in later in the week, the pediatrician wanted to know if we wanted to take the Son to Denver to Children’s Hospital (some 130 miles away) ourselves or by ambulance. L immediately set off and I followed and spent several days there. I vividly remember pacing up and down the halls of Children’s Hospital, The Son in one hand and the other hand pushing the IV pole and monitors connected to the Son. I remember going through the classic conversation with God. You know the one – where you ask God if he can’t take you and let the Son live. L stayed in the Son’s room and I was staying at the Ronald McDonald House.I can remember heading back to the room and calling the grandparents to update them and then just collapsing on the bed. And I can remember waking up and feeling that somehow this day was different. And heading back over to see L and the Son and finding that the Son was improving and should get well now. That was a God moment.

#4 – I don’t know that I have anything to add here. I have never been noted for lacking chutzpah (note the corrected spelling – {*grin*}). I generally say what I think without much regard for the consequences. I’ve noted before that I am a curmudgeon. That was not hyperbole on my part. I once told the Chairman/CEO of the company I was working for that he “had the brains of a kumquat” during a meeting when he was insistent on following an illogically boneheaded path. (Interestingly, I wasn’t fired immediately either.)

#5 – He’s not. Given the Son is old enough to vote and other such signs of adulthood, I doubt that trying to send him to the corner for a timeout will help much. At this point, you hope he has learned enough to make the right decisions on his own. All we can do is watch and hope and pray and cheer.

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

1.) Who made you red hot this week?

2.) A day in your life…recap.
(inspired by Jennifer from Toddler Tirade)

3.) What decision are you having a hard time making?
(inspired by Evansmom from Just Sayin’)

4.) How will you enjoy your last days of freedom (aka summer)?
(inspired by Heather from A Day In The Life)

5.)List your 7 most favorite summer items!
(inspired by Summer from Le Musings of Moi)

To which I respond:

#1 – No one. I tend not to get red hot. I always figure that it is not worth the wear and tear on me and my glucose control to get really mad. Besides, getting even is so much more rewarding. {*grin*} The few times in my life I have gotten really mad have resulted in people getting hurt, usually the ones I am mad at. So I am happy it happens so rarely that i do get mad.

#2 – I give you Tuesday:

5:45 – get up
6:00 – shave and shower and get ready
7:00 – do some e-mail
7:30 – grab a ride with the city manager and director of public works to Denver CDPHE (Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment) office
9:30 – arrive at the CDPHE offices in Denver
9:35 – have a cup of coffee
10:00 – begin meeting
12:00 – end meeting
12:15 – go to eat at Chili’s with our water engineering firm (from meeting)
1:30 – start the drive back here
3:45 – arrive back here
4:00 – prepare notes for city council meeting tonight
4:45 – read paper and have supper
6:30 – head for city council meeting
7:00 – convene city council meeting
9:30 – adjourn city council meeting
9:35 – discuss misc. things in the parking lot
10:00 – call L in return of her call during the meeting (on the way home)
10:30 – get home and give the dog her chewie
11:00 – do some housework (like dishes, etc.)
11:30 – decide to wuss out on blog post for tonight
11:45 – make a few notes for the radio show in the morning
12:00 – go to bed
12:05 – realize I didn’t check the mailbox, get up and go get the mail
12:10 – go to bed for real
…
6:00 – start all over again

#3 – The answer could be any of several things. One of the more interesting is whether to enter partisan politics. I am term limited out of being mayor come November. One of the things I have enjoyed about being mayor is that it is a non-partisan office (no political parties involved). But I have been approached by several people about running as a party candidate for a partisan office next November. If I am going to do it, I need to answer in the next few months. I believe I could and would win, so the question in my mind is do I want to badly enough to put up with partisan politics and party lines. So I continue to wage the internal debate with myself.  (And am I deluding myself in the belief I could win?)

#4 – About the same way I have enjoyed most of the summer. (I’m really more of a spring/fall kind of guy.) So that will include mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, harvesting the garden, and walking in the bright sunshine. This year I haven’t been golfing at all for a combination of reasons. In a normal year I’d say I’d look forward to those hot days on the golf course where nothing hurts. Just not this year.

#5 – My favorite summer items are all versions of fresh grown produce. In no particular order, I give you

Melons – cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon
Beans – fresh picked green  beans
Onions – fresh onions straight from the garden
Peppers – both red and green bell peppers
Cucumbers
Squash – zucchini, acorn, butternut, etc.
Tomatoes – fresh picked.

I’m not a big tomato fan in general since I react badly to the acid in them. But a bit of tomato in a salad or on a sandwich cannot be beat. I like to stir fry chopped peppers, onions, zucchini, and sometimes even beans and potatoes. The rest are self explanatory.