Pardon my Geektitude...

But I am in awe and drooling with anticipation over this movie...



There. Just justified the title of my blog.

Choral Ennui Leads to Flowing Creative Juices…

Monday was rehearsal for my barbershop chorus. I hadn’t attended rehearsals for about a month, with all of the insanity leading up the aforementioned “Worst… Christmas …EVER”, so I was glad to get back into the swing of the routine. We have a show coming up in late February, so I needed to get the songs back in my noggin and learn any choreography I may have missed. Lou picks me up and we walk in to warm smiles and ringing chords. Ahh, barbershop – my island of adequacy.

After some warm-ups, we’re handed our newest piece of music. We almost NEVER get things less than 3 months before a performance – let alone something as big as our annual show. The show this year is entitled “What’s Up, DOC” (DOC being the acronym for our Detroit-Oakland Chapter of the Barbershop Harmony Society), a clever moniker for a show themed around kid’s songs and cartoon and children’s TV theme songs. Our newest addition is an arrangement of the theme to “Might Mouse”, penned by one of our own chorus leaders.

The arrangement is absolutely wretched.

Don’t get me wrong; I like and respect this person. He’s a great guy and an adequate arranger. He does a few arrangements for his chapter quartet, consisting of himself and three other chapter leaders. His arrangements are quite functional, if a bit replete with barbershop clichés, stolen tags, and consisting of few chords more interesting than simple triads and the bare minimum of straight dominant 7ths. He’s done a few arrangements for the chorus before, that have been decent and easy enough to learn for the lowest common denominator in the chorus, but nothing particularly interesting or inspired.

This was at the lower end of his scale.

We start learning it, and I stroll over to Dave, my quartet’s bari, who has two (count ‘em – TWO) vocal music degrees, and before I can utter a word, he grins and rolls his eyes. As they are teaching the parts to the chorus, we’re in the back kibitzing virtually every aspect of the arrangement. This chord is wrong, that chord is improperly voiced, this phrase is over-simplified, that phrase has poor voice-leading, this phrase is just plain dull, majors chords where there should be minors or 7ths, the whole thing is pitched too low, etc. I know he was writing it to be simple and quick to learn, but SHEESH! We point out a few items as they're teaching it and he fixes the simplest of them one the fly.

We spend about 45 minutes learning it and by the end, most of the chorus has it pretty well down. A good thing, as we have only about 6 more rehearsals before the show and there are several tunes we still don’t have sounding very good. I’m sure they’ll all sound great by the end, but the pressure, nonetheless, is on. It should be a fun show, with most of the chorus in the costume of some kid’s show character (I’m Fred Flintstone, apparently) and the rest in black t-shirts with a cartoon character on it.

Later, I’m asked by one of our chapter leaders to give a vocal evaluation next week to one of our newer members. I appreciate being entrusted with this duty and feel somewhat respected as a musician to be asked to do this on occasion. This guy, however, is the weakest link in our chorus.

One thing you should understand about most barbershop choruses is that they’re like Little League teams – everyone plays, regardless of talent or ability. Ya got a kid who can’t catch worth a tinker’s damn? Stick him in right field. Got a guy who can’t sing very well? Stick him in the second to last row, surrounded by others on his part to shore him up and tell him to sing softly. That’s the usual M.O. for most barbershop choruses (sans the international finalist level, of course, who usually audition to even get on stage).

This guy, on the other hand, is impossible. Oh, he’s full of determination and desire to do well, but he just…can’t…get it! He stands like a statue with a somber look on his face and is basically a Johnny One-Note who can’t carry a tune in a bucket. For the past 6 months or so, whenever we have our vocal coach in, we spent a good half of the time trying to fix the basses and it’s almost always HIM that’s wrong. Eventually, our coach gives up, lectures them on learning their part, and just shrugs, not wanting to call him out and embarrass the poor, tone-deaf new guy.

I’ve dealt with people like this in marching band - kids with no sense of pitch or rhythm who can’t seem to grasp the concept “left foot, right foot”. Usually, after some personal coaching, they get it, but on rare occasion ya just gotta shrug and pray a judge doesn’t walk by them. Our chorus Big Wig tells me that this guy is having problems getting the higher notes – ON BASS PART! How do you fix that? In a show, it’s easy enough to just have him sing an octave lower (assuming he can hear the note in the first place), but on contest, a 5-part chord is an absolute no-no. I don’t like being the one who has to recommend giving someone the axe, but I anticipate having little to report that would recommend him. Likely, he’ll just be told he can’t sing in contest. More likely, he’ll be told just to stand on stage, do the choreography (which he doesn’t do any better than he sings) and just not sing. Still a no-no in contest, but harder to prove.

After chorus, I’m so frustrated that I open my laptop and start up the olde Finale ‘07 music software. The “Mighty Mouse” arrangement has me so wound up, that I HAVE to re-arrange it. At this point, I know we won’t use it in chorus, but I can’t just let that mediocre piece just stand, unchallenged. At first, I figure I’ll take what we were given and tweak it, but after looking at it I realize it’s better just to start from scratch. I play the original version from my collection of MP3s (I have a formidable collection of TV tunes) and get crackin’. After a couple of hours, I have something I’m happy with, save it, and hit the hay, figuring maybe I'll give it to my quartet after the show is over.

The next day, I open “Mighty Mouse” to listen and re-evaluate what I’ve done. I’m still pleased, but as I look at the folder with my Finale Files, I notice a tune or two I’ve started and never finished, so I dust them off and start working on them. Before I know it, I have one finished, a whole new one arranged, and another almost done. My addiction to arranging has re-emerged. Now I have a list of about 10 songs I want to start on for my quartet, and if the past 2 days are any indicator, I ought to have most of them done within a week.

Arranging (and marching drill designing) is like a puzzle addiction. Many people start puzzles like crosswords or Soduko and just can’t stop. Now, imagine designing your own puzzle on a scant template, solving it, and when you’re done, having not only the satisfaction of a job well done, but also a work of art. Better still; imagine that work of art being displayed in a gallery. That’s what it’s like to arrange a piece, then have it performed. Assuming your hypothetical “gallery piece” sells for money, that’s selling an arrangement – all for having fun with your bizarre obsession.

Now, I don’t have copyright for any of what I arrange and I’m pretty sure most of it isn’t public domain, so I can’t legally sell the arrangements – not without going through the time and expense of obtaining copyright or hefty legal repercussions, anyway. This means my quartet can’t perform them at paid gigs (technically speaking) and if another quartet wants to use them, I usually just charge them in free beer at social gatherings with the warning that they perform them at their own risk. Still, it’s a thrill to have them performed at all!

Anyway, it’s been giving me a great deal of personal satisfaction that, even if I’m not getting rich off it, I’m doing what I love and it’s (occasionally) being appreciated. Now if I could just get some commissions to arrange stuff that’s legal!

So how was YOUR Christmas, Paul? Part 3

Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It’s been 8 days since my last blog…

Okay, it’s been a while and I have other things to blog about, so I’ll just give the (somewhat) abbreviated version of the remaining parts of what I like to call “Worst…Christmas…Ever!".

Had my left 2 wisdom teeth extracted the day after I got the remains of my car from the impound. Got up at 7am and grabbed breakfast at McD’s. Had the wrong time in my head for the appointment, so I spent an extra half-hour of excruciating anticipation in the waiting room before getting things going. The actual extraction and subsequent stitches for one of the holes were quick and (relatively) painless, but as usual, the waiting and the Novocain shots were the worst. He explains the possibility of “dry socket”, where the clot becomes dislodged or never forms at all, creating infection, severe pain, and necessitates more surgery. (GULP!) This inspires the over-cautious reactionary in me for the next several days.

After a bit of wrangling about billing, I’m given scripts for Tylenol 3, amoxicillin, and Motrin and sent on my way. I hit the drug store for the prescriptions and head home with gauze in my mouth.

After gathering the kids, we went to Christmas Part Deux at my grandfather’s place. Aside from not being able to eat anything with the gaping holes in my jaw still bleeding, it was fun. We leave and Sonya drops me at work at the video store. Yes, I worked the register, with gauze in my mouth, after oral surgery. I’m an idiot.

About 9, Sonya calls me at work (she doesn’t do that usually unless it’s an emergency). Apparently, someone broke into her parents’ house in Detroit and ransacked the place. Sonya was rushing down to help and, thus, wouldn’t be able to pick me up from work for a while. After explaining my situation to the boss, I’m let go early to catch a ride with a coworker who was just leaving, so I could stay home with the kids and not give them another late night. I managed to get the kids in bed without killing them, despite having had a downright shitty week, a sore jaw, holes in my mouth that wouldn’t stop bleeding, and doped up on a trilogy of meds.

The next day, we all went back to Sonya’s parents’ house with Leigh to help clean up a bit more. Bless her heart, Leigh is always there to help out. Thankfuly, there wasn’t much of obvious value at that house. It seems they hardly took anything: a few DVDs, a jar of change, but not much else. Odd and almost frustrating, considering they took the time and effort to kick in 2 doors, empty every drawer, and even take a lamp to the empty second floor to inspect up there. Even the silver was still there. We cleaned up for a couple hours, then wrapped up and had diner at Mexican Village afterwards. I hadn’t eaten in roughly 36 hours and was still bleeding a bit. At the behest of virtually everyone and despite not actually feeling very hungry, I order a side of beans and rice. I finish the beans and a bit of the rice.

The next day, I check my voice mail to find a message from the auto shop. Just as I had feared, the car’s a loss. Sonya still wants to ask some questions, hoping the guy was basing that prognosis on more repairs than were needed to get it moving and (relatively) legal, drawing the process out further. I have yet to retrieve the car, but I expect in the end, I’ll be calling Charity Motors to have it hauled away for parts and some meager tax deduction.

I went onto my credit union to look into a loan for my next car. My credit’s pretty f*cked up right now, so with a co-signer, I may be able to afford some $2500 beater to get me through the next couple years. I’ll probably end up in another late 90’s Ford. Eh, no biggie. I’ve had 3 other Ford sedans in my day. They’re comfy, fairly reliable, get decent gas mileage, and are relatively cheap and easy to repair – especially compared to the Isuzu. Still, I will miss having an SUV. I know they’re not economical or politically correct, but it was comfy, spacious, and I liked having a higher vantage point on the road. It fit me like a glove.

New Year's was quiet and peaceful. We were invited to 2 parties, but given the impending snow storm and the absolutely hectic and shitty week we've all had, Sonya and I decided to just stay home. Sonya's parents came for the kids, as they had plans for the next day to go to the opera with their grandfather to see Hansel & Gretel (which Liam apparently was absolutely thrilled with and extremely well behaved for. I have a 7-year-old boy who likes opera. I'm a good Music Dad and he's got a great music grandpa).

Sonya's brother, Jeremy, joined us and we spent the night munching, drinking, and watching the tube. We set off a few leftover bottle rockets at midnight, watched a couple movies (well, THEY watched - I hadn't eaten much over the past several days, so the drinks I had hit me hard and I passed out quickly). I was just glad to toss out the old year and start fresh.

Thus endeth 2007 and the "Worst...Christmas...EVER"!

So how was YOUR Christmas, Paul? Part 2

Let’s see – where did we leave off?

Ah yes, Christmas Day.

Christmas Day started off – and remained – relatively normal. Exceedingly so, in fact, given the events of the previous night. About noon, Liam gingerly, but eagerly, enters our room and whispers with glee, “Santa came!!!”

At this point, Sonya and I have managed about 6 hours of relatively decent sleep (Sonya less so, with pain shooting through her chest and back with every toss and turn), so I throw on my robe and head to the living room. As I gather myself, Liam rouses his sister and they both rush to the tree. As usual, the presents from Santa are displayed prominently on top of everything else, unwrapped: glow-in-the-dark Speed Stax for Liam and Christmas Day Barbie for Courtney - just what they asked for. I revel in their faces for a few moments, then explain to them that they shouldn’t open anything else until mom is up and moving. Between the gifts from my family the previous night that were rescued from the car and Santa’s treasures, they have enough to keep busy while I run to the drug store and get Sonya’s prescriptions filled.

When I return with the best Christmas Gift I could have gotten Sonya – drugs – the kids tear into the pile. Usually, Sonya and I will spend a bit on each other and get a few things. With money so tight this year, we skimped on each other to make sure the kids got a good haul. Sonya and the kids did get me the newest volume of Family Guy, however. The kids tore into box after box, exclaiming with utter delight at each new item, be it fun like a toy or practical like new Spider-Man & Dora hats and gloves.

After a few hours, we head to Flint in our only remaining mode of transportation (Sonya’s Prism) for Christmas with her folks. Dinner was supposed to start at about 3, but given the events of the previous night, things were set back a couple of hours. We arrive about 4ish to find Sonya’s father’s cousins already there. Not wanting to waste their time, we hold gift opening off until after dinner, when they have left.

We have a lovely meal of roast beef, a myriad of side dishes, and the Ferris’s traditional Christmas Pudding, and have a wonderful time chatting and just relaxing. After the cousins leave, we open gifts. I got the big item on my “not-necessary-but-greatly-desired” list of a 160GB external hard drive, and spent much of the rest of the evening transferring media from my overstuffed laptop to my new toy while Sonya naps on the couch. We stay a bit later than usual and eventually head home, content that the whole world has NOT gone topsy-turvy and there is some stability left in our lives.

Thursday, I have a dental appointment. I have a mess of cavities and a laundry list of work to be done, but the major problem I need dealt with is a wisdom tooth that had decayed to a hollowed-out cavern. For some reason, Dr. Jay insists on dealing with another cavity first. So I spend a half-hour in the chair while he does his thing.

I must make this clear: I HATE DENTAL APPOINTMENTS! I’m a good patient and can keep my cool, regardless of the discomfort or downright pain I’m in. I’ve always had good dentists and it’s never as bad as I build it up to be, but between the prolonged shot of Novocain, the piercing sound of the drill, and having sensitive teeth to start with, I have to spend a good half hour in the car calming myself down before I even walk into the office. I sat in the chair, closed my eyes, and went to my inner “happy place” while he poked, prodded, and (shudder) drilled. This one was particularly deep, so he wants me to be aware of it, as it may still become infected and may need to be redone at some point. I make an appointment for 2 days later (Saturday, 8am) to get my wisdom teeth extracted.

Friday, I leave work a few hours early to try and get my car towed from the impound lot to a repair shop (at Sonya’s insistence) to see if it’s at all salvageable. This should be simple. Go in, pay the $212 in towing and various other fees (for a totaled car - what a racket), call AAA and have it towed to the shop that was recommended to me, right? WROOOOONG!

I was hoping to do this alone to avoid long discussions about every little detail about the car with Sonya and not have to wrangle antsy kids, but Sonya insisted on coming along and Liam wanted to see the car. After finding the rather hidden offices in a less-than-ideal part of Detroit, I walk in – cash in hand – to bail out my battered and beaten old friend. Of course, the car isn’t THERE, it’s at their OTHER lot, 5 miles away. Sonya’s mom joins us, we get clearance from the main office and head to the storage lot to unload anything of value that may remain in my mobile second home.

Once we see the car and survey the damage in the daylight, we find several things missing – most notably, my trombone. After a litany of profanity that would rival Lenny Bruce, we unload everything else and head back to the lot's office to complain about the missing instrument. Thankfully, after 20 minutes of the guy checking paperwork, he finds it safely tucked in the office. Still, I’m missing a huge box of AA batteries and my MP3 player (which didn’t work particularly well these days, anyway). At this point, I just don’t care. I just want the ordeal over with so I can get to work by 6.

We drive back to the main office. They say if we can get the tattered remains of my poor car off the lot today, they can drop some bullshit $40 listing fee, otherwise, it’ll be that, plus another $15 storage charge. We call AAA, tell them they’ll need all the bullshit insurance and licensing paperwork required to even ENTER their precious lot, and they say a truck will be out in 45 minutes – 15 minutes before they close at 6pm. Just in time, but still making me late for work, so I call to alert my employer to my delay.

I send Sonya with the kids to her mother’s house in Detroit, just a few miles away, rather than have her and the kids stay, restless and bored out of the gords. I sit at the towing office and wait…and wait…and wait. It’s now 5:55pm and the staff is packing up. I call Sonya. She says AAA just called her to say it’ll be another half hour before a truck can get there, missing my window, costing me an extra $55 in fees, the time I missed from work at both jobs, and the past 4 hours of my life. Thankfully, one of the gals at the office (Maxine, bless her heart) opted to stay a bit late to help me out.

The tow truck shows up about 6:40, we get the paperwork all set, and tow my battered “Fortress of Solitude” to the repair shop in Melvindale. By the time it’s all done, it’s 8:30. I call work, who says just to stay home tonight and be ready to work my sales magic the next day.

"No problem," I think, "I'm just having two wisdom teeth extracted at 8am!"

Coming up next: Part 3 - Oral Surgury, Fear of the Dry Socket, More Christmas, Anti-Santas, and a bleak Automotive Prognosis.

Why Isn't Paul More Political?

(From a draft I never published in January of 2008.  Still relevant.  Perhaps even more so now)

Most who know me, know I have fairly strong political views. I can rant for hours about the Commander-In-Thief, his Penguin-esque puppet master, and the vast Right-Wing, corporate-led conspiracy, yet somehow these topics seldom - if ever - make it into my blogs.

I'm a rabid leftist. I was raised with fairly Libertarian governmental views and liberal social views, and they've stuck. In high school and college, I attended protests, boycotted products and companies, and espoused my leftist views at the drop of the proverbial hat. I still wear my beliefs on my sleeve, but these days, my sleeve is usually covered by my coat as I dart out the door to my next commitment to keep my family and life afloat.

My beliefs haven't changed much over the years. Particularly in these harsh economic times, I have become a bit more economically conservative, but my social and governmental perspective hasn't wavered. On the contrary, I think they have been reinforced as I manager to get older and (arguably) wiser, yet seem to not progress much financially. What has changed is my eagerness and ability to be the strong voice of change that I once was. This has happened for several reasons:

1) The discourse has degraded. With the advent of Fox News and the subsequent (and on occasion, sadly similar) liberal backlash, the political climate has deteriorated into a din of noise I simply can't tolerate, and just don't want to be a party to. It's like watching a serious debate turn into a WWF cage match with the entire audience flooding the ring and choosing sides. In the end, it just becomes a useless, bloody mess that resolves absolutely nothing. Sure, I could likely join in the fray and do some damage (as many of the participants on the other political side are the mental equivalent of Pee-Wee Herman in an inflatable muscle jacket), but I'm not exactly a Hulk Hogan when it comes to debate, myself. Words I can do. Fact-based arguments, however, are not my forte.

2) Choosing "sides" on any given issue/candidate isn't as easy as it (seemingly) used to be. I know that's naive of me to say, but as government has grown in depth and complexity, our resources for easily discerning the fact about how it truly operates have diminished. As black and white as either side of the media would like us to believe the political climate is these days, the simple fact is that it's not always easy to tell the good guys from the wolves in sheep's clothing.

Everyone had heard the line, "What publicly funded group has 29 members accused of spousal abuse, 7 have been arrested for fraud, 9 have been accused of writing bad checks, 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses, 3 have been arrested for assault," etc. The answer, of course, being the US Congress. The simple fact is, most politicians are hypocrites and/or bought and sold my major corporations and interest groups. Finding the true motives of most politicians and legislation is virtually impossible these days. Politicians and government officials hire ruthless professionals to hide their dirty laundry and humiliate their opposition, legislation is made so incredibly verbose and replete with "legalese" as to make it impossible for even the most educated and well-intentioned legislators to make an educated decision on, the Spin Machine has made deciphering REAL news from "infotainment" virtually impossible, and REAL investigative has gone the way of the Edsel. While the internet seems to have made all of the relevant public records readily available to anyone who can get to a computer, finding and filtering the pertinent information can take days or weeks, even for an experience research assistant. Which brings me to my final point...

3) Time. There simply ain't enough hours in the day. You've all heard me whine (practically in every blog) about how busy I am. Jobs, kids, school, family commitments, etc., all consume almost every minute of my day. The scant few I have remaining simply are not best spent rummaging through all of the information and becoming an unpaid investigative journalist. That's not my job (though some have suggested it should be). My virtually non-existent "free time" is better spent with my family and sorting out my own thoughts (here, for example) to maintain my sanity within my own microcosm. I could go on for pages about this, but if you want an idea of how busy I usually am, just read some of my older blogs.

In the end, it likely seems that I'm just another jaded non-voter who has lost faith in the American way of life. Not so. I still vote in virtually every election. I have not missed either a federal or state election in my entire voting life, that I can recall. I support my pet causes to the best of my ability. I have even considered running for public office myself on some local level, with the possibility of making public service (NOT politics - there's a BIG difference) my life in some way. I believe the system we have is quite possibly the best in human history...it's just broken. It can be fixed, but it'll take more than a few people with signs to initiate change. It will take a mass movement - a revolution, perhaps - that hits those in power where it hurts them most. No, not money - power. Sadly, money equals power in most situations - as it always has, it seems - but that's what motivates humanity: the power to control. Not necessarily the power to control others, but the power to control one's own destiny. It will take more than one man to accomplish this.

So, How Was YOUR Christmas, Paul? Part 1

“So, Paul, how was your Christmas?”

“Oh, not bad. Saw family, watched the kids open presents, dealt with family drama, totaled my car nearly killing myself and family, spent Christmas Eve in the police station and hospital, nearly went broke, had oral surgery, didn’t eat for 2 days, in-laws’ house got broken into and ransacked. Pretty uneventful…”

This will go down in history as the Christmas from Hell in my family. I must append that statement with gratitude to God that we’re all alive and (relatively) well despite it all, but Murphy’s Law was in FULL effect all week. Want the full story? Okay, you asked for it. Buckle up, kiddies, it’s a bumpy ride…

Christmas Eve started about the same as always. I got off work a couple hours early and headed home to help Sonya get the final touches finished and kids ready so we could head out to Ida and spend Christmas Eve with my side of the family. The gathering is usually a high point of the season for me, as it represents a certain amount of stability and tradition over the years. I have spent the majority of my Christmas Eves with the same gaggle of about 15-20 family members for most of my life. I was excited and happy.

Earlier, while I was at work, my mother called me to ask for a ride, as my grandfather and uncle were heading up early and she felt she needed a nap first. I said it’d be tricky with the whole family in the car, and we wanted to take Sonya’s compact instead of my gas-guzzler to save some gas money. Nonetheless, I told her to call me if she couldn’t make other arrangements. By 4pm (our anticipated departure time) I hadn’t heard from her, so I gave her a call. She’d decided not to attend.

This would make the second family holiday in a row she had decided to skip for whatever reason. I was livid. After calling my sister to see if she had left yet and relay the news, she said she was almost to Ida already. She was deciding to turn around, as our mother’s withdrawal from family events had gotten her too pissed to enjoy Christmas. I told her to keep going, grab a drink to calm down, and that I would bring our mother to Christmas, come Hell or high water. I then drive out to Bloomfield Hills to talk my mother into attending.

When I arrive, she’s sitting in her recliner (one of only 2 places in the house one ever finds her) talking to my sister on the phone. After a little additional encouragement, she decides to go and spends the next hour and a half getting herself showered, dressed and ready. As she’s extremely overweight, diabetic, asthmatic, etc., these things take her a long time and there’s no rushing her.

We finally hit the road about 6, pick up Sonya and the kids, and head out to Christmas Eve. I’m fairly pissed at this point, because since Sonya wants to leave at 9:30 at the latest to get the kids in bed, it means only about 2 hours of festivities and curtailing my drinking to maybe 1 beer – 2 with a big meal, maybe.

We still manage to cram a lot of fun into 2 hours. My cousin Lori digs out the dinner makings for us to reheat and I have a good meal. Wonderful comfort food like turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, squash, rolls – good traditional stuff. We watch the kids open their gifts from the family we won’t see later in the week, sing some carols, and chat. It was everything I love about Christmas Eve with my family – just truncated a bit.

About 10pm, we hit the road. It’s drizzling a bit, but nothing major – or so I thought. After a few minutes, everyone but me is asleep in the car. About 10:30pm, we get to Outer Drive or so on I-75 and hit a patch of black ice. The car skids to the left median wall, bounces like a pinball across the freeway to the right shoulder wall, hits a small abandoned car, sending it flying about 30 yards on the ice, and comes to a stop with kids screaming and all aboard frightened and confused.

I look around the car’s interior to assess Sonya and the kids’ conditions. Sonya is okay, but startled, Liam is wide-eyed and crying, and Courtney’s face is bloody, but she’s conscious and alert. Panicking, I attempt to get out of the car and help Courtney from her door. Sonya stops me, reminding me it’s not safe and proceeds to clean Courtney up with a spare napkin. Just a bloody nose – nothing broken or teeth missing. However, as Sonya is contorted around helping Courtney, another, larger SUV barrels at us on the same trajectory we took and careens into us at full speed. It hits our back corner, spinning around us, and landing in front of us. If Sonya hadn’t stopped me from getting out of the car, I’d be dead.

Sonya calls her parents in Flint and our dear friend, Leigh, who both immediately jump in their cars to come to our rescue, while I call 911 and am told to wait for the State Police. Meanwhile, we’re all sitting in my totaled car, unable to move, watching car after car skid out around us. Liam is in the back seat, praying, “God, I don’t care about presents! I just want us to all get home alive!” We saw at least 7 other cars narrowly miss us in the HOUR we waited for the State Police – who, despite a SECOND 911 call, NEVER SHOWED UP! Thankfully, the Lincoln Park Police, who just happened to be driving by, saw the pile-up and closed the freeway, got EMS out, and helped as much as they could. It was not their jurisdiction and they shouldn’t have had to, but they weren’t going to leave people helpless in a crash zone. God bless them.

After some debate with EMS about the seriousness of Sonya’s back and neck pain and whether she should go with EMS to the hospital or just wait for our ride to drive us to the ER on our own, she is finally put in the ambulance and taken to Oakwood Hospital. I pile the kids and whatever toys they could carry into one of the officers’ police cars to go to the Lincoln Park Police Department. By the time we get everything situated, both of our cell phones are dead. We get to the Police Station and an officer is nice enough to plug my phone into a squad car to charge, as I only had my car charger with me. Meanwhile, the kids have calmed down and are both simply grateful that we’re all alive. They play with the toys they brought while I try and tame the mood further – for the kids AND myself – by playing some Christmas tunes on my ukulele.

I get the phone back after about 20 minutes and call the in-laws and Leigh. Leigh is a few minutes away and comes to pick us up. I swear, as she opened the door to the police station, I could see a cape around her neck, fluttering majestically in the breeze – our own personal superhero.

Leigh gathers us up and after getting some directions from the officers at the station, we head to Oakwood Hospital to check on Sonya. We get there and are directed to her room. She’s been there an hour with no attention form a doctor. She’s still in pain, but the initial exam seemed not to indicate any serious injuries (i.e. nothing broken, bleeding, or punctured). We all hang around until her parents arrive, trading off visits to the room to observe the 3-visitor limit. When her parents arrive about 2:30am, we decide it’s best to get the kids home and in bed and try to regain some normality to the holiday.

Leigh piles us in her car again, while Sonya’s parents stay with her in the ER, waiting for the x-ray results. We drive home and, not surprisingly, the kids fall asleep on the way. Leigh drops us off, helping to get our salvaged presents and the kids in the house and settled to bed. This wonderful woman woke up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, braved driving in the dark in unfamiliar territory (2 of her biggest phobias) to come rescue us in our darkest and most frightening hour without a second thought. If that isn’t the definition of a true friend and hero, I don’t know what is. God bless you, Leigh.

I spent the next 2 hours wrapping presents, calling the State Police to get the whereabouts of the remains of my car, and calling Sonya to get updates on her condition. Sonya gets home about 5:30 with a pronounced slowness to her movement and prescriptions for a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory. The prognosis is still good. They didn’t find any breaks and she SHOULD be fine in a few day – or so they seemed to think. We sort out the details of the presents and wrapping for the kids’ stuff and hit the hay about 6am.

A very heartfelt and enormous "God Bless You!" to our personal super hero, Leigh McLaughlin and the Lincoln Park Police Department, without whom we might not have made it to Christmas Day!

God willing, this is the LAST of the drama for the year.

Heh. Yea, RIGHT!

Coming up next: So, How Was YOUR Christmas, Paul? Part 2

Driving In A Winter Wonderland...

Here I sit in the Train Station in Windsor, waiting to pick up a colleague of the dolts at my work and the train is running an hour late due to this pre-Christmas pummeling by ol’ Mother Nature. The wi-fi connection here is about $12/hr, so what do I do instead? Blog. Only thing there seems to do to pass the time, as I seem to have left my ukulele at Blockbuster.

The kids have the day off at school, but as I have to do crap like this to bring home the proverbial bacon, I don’t get to enjoy it with them and bake cookies, see Santa, go sledding, and do all the fun “snow day” stuff I’d like to with them. Snow days in this part of the country are rare, as we hardy Michiganders regard snow with a certain degree of apathy. We’ll get a foot of snow, grumble and complain a bit after the awe of its beauty have faded, then haul out the snow blowers and shovels and dig ourselves out to go about our business. The municipalities seem to usually get their act together pretty quickly and, as most of the area seems to drive gas-guzzling SUVs (myself included – I know, bad liberal!), a good dumping of the white stuff doesn’t deter us for long.

I’m always amused by friends from similar parts of the country who have relocated to warmer climates and their frustration at their respective new communities’ reactions to snow. Most seem simply aghast at how entire urban regions can virtually shut down at the slightest trace of snow. I used to think that way until I was caught in a winter storm on the East Coast, attempting to journey back to the Mitten State.

I was staying with my dad in Jersey for a few months in the winter of ’93. A friend had planned a huge formal party for Valentine’s Day in a pathetic, over-the-top attempt to win back his ex-girlfriend. Motives aside, it sounded like it was likely to be a great party and enough impetus to make me finally decide to brave the 10 hour drive and come home to spend the Hallmark Holiday with Sonya.

The day of my departure, there was a big winter storm predicted. The weather forecasters had been ranting and raving about several inches of snow. My obvious reaction, being a Michigander with all of 3 winters behind the wheel under my belt was, “Pffft! Snow!!? C’mon! You guys don’t KNOW snow!”. So, naively, I set out at the beginning of the storm, determined to show these Central East-coasters a thing or two about how to handle the roads in, what they deemed to be, a “massive” snow-maker.

All was fine for about 2 hours. I drove cautiously, but purposefully amidst the piling precipitation and was making reasonable time, all things considered. Then it finally occurred to me: When East Coasters talk of large snow accumulation, not only are the road crews NEVER ready for it, but they aren’t talking about our white, fluffy, cold, Northern snow. Noooooo. They’re talking about the wet, heavy, SLUSHY stuff that creates a 4 inch deep film of translucent treachery on the roadways. As I began to slow my speed a bit more to accommodate the increasingly bad driving conditions, I started to go around a curve – that is, my FRONT end did, anyway. The tail end of my car continued on the previous trajectory, spinning my car a full turn-and-a-half, resulting in my facing the WRONG WAY on the interstate.

You can guess what happened next. Yup. I got in a head-on collision on the freeway. As catastrophic as that sounds, my momentum was still going the correct direction and the other driver was slowing down as best he could. Thankfully, my grandfather had instilled the seatbelt rule in me very well, so the worst that I suffered was bumping my head on the steering wheel and ending up with a nice shiner for a few days. The other driver’s airbag deployed, so he had nary a scratch on him. A State Trooper wasn’t far behind, so he stopped to make sure all parties were okay, surveyed the situation, and chalked it up to no one’s fault – just bad road conditions. He was going to see this kinda stuff all day.

The other driver was none the worse for wear. I apologized repeatedly, but he dismissed me with a smile, saying that it was a company car, and I just got him the day off work, as he wanted in the first place, and proceeded to thank ME!

My car, unfortunately, wasn’t as lucky as I. The front 2 feet looked like pug dog. I had it towed to the nearest auto place. Now, any of you who have driven the PA Turnpike know that there is NO SUCH THING as the “nearest” anything. The first 5 miles of free towing don’t do much good on that stretch of road. So I spent 45 minutes in the cab with the toothless tow-truck driver, gave the auto shop my contact info so they could contact me with an estimate (which I had no illusions of being anything I could afford) and walked in the miserable weather to the train station. From the train, I took a cab to the bus station. From the bus, I had a friend drive me back to my dad’s.

All tolled, it took about 6 hours and almost every penny I had saved for the trip just to get me back to where I started. As my friend pulls in front of my dad’s place to drop me off - broke, exhausted, demoralized, and sporting a shiny black eye - he says, “Hey, today’s Anthony’s birthday and some folks are going to play pool. Wanna come?”

I stare at him with an overwhelming look of incredulity, pause for a moment, think, and say…”Sure! Why not!” I had just had one of the worst days of my life so far. I might as well end it on a positive note!

Since then, I have learned to respect the local forecasters a bit more. They still overreact, but they know the response times of their localities a lot better than I. Winter weather is nothing to mess with. One of the hard lessons every teenage driver has to come to terms with, I suppose.

The rail crew is battening down the hatches for the train’s arrival now. I’m not looking forward to getting back into the US with a Canadian citizen with a heavy Slovakian accent in my car. If you don’t hear from me in 4 days, assume I’m enjoying the fresh air and warm climate of sunny Cuba! Gitmo, here I come!

Buckle up, folks. We’re in for a LOOOOOONG winter!