Out of Frustration Comes Fun...

Our next door neighbors are lovely people. A mother and daughter who, unfortunately, have a bit more house than they can handle. These ladies have been wonderful neighbors for the entire 11 years we have been at our current residence. Blunt and no-nonsense, to be sure, but friendly, helpful, and easy to get along with.

In the city of Hazel Park, we have one particular code enforcement witch that is on a power trip. She routinely harasses these poor ladies for minor violations. Yes, their yard gets a bit unkempt at times, but with big trees in their yard and a fence around the periphery, it's hardly an eyesore. This code enforcement witch has often asked for access to our yard to take pictures of their yard to use against them. We, of course, tell her no. Aside from being good neighbors, we figure if it's not an eyesore from the street or a breeding ground for vermin, it's not a problem.

Now our neighbors are going into foreclosure for various reasons...and the witch has trained her flying monkeys square on us next. She stopped by last week, complaining of "improper storage" on our front porch and backyard (from what she was able to see across 3 yards from the side street), and handed us a warning to have it cleaned up in a week or get a citation. The warning quotes a snippet of the city code that says anything other than "patio furniture" must be stored indoor or in a shed.

Now, I'm NO fan of clutter, but having 2 kids it's often unavoidable. Our front porch usually has Liam's roller blades, a gardening tool or two from weed-digging, and a tub of sidewalk chalk. The past 4 months or so, it's also had a pile of stuff from Sonya's trunk from when she had to clear some room for other things. Our backyard has been in transition all summer. Between the gazebo, the new swing set, the 12' inflatable pool, and preparing for a garage sale this week, I can barely turn around in our backyard.

So yesterday after work at 6:30, I stop by the grocery store for charcoal and a couple other necessities, I come home, make dinner, and proceed to clean up the yard while Sonya talks on the phone. I clean up the stray garbage, pile up the remaining wood for the firebowl, put the toys away, put some garage sale items back in our overcrowded shed, and place the firebowl in the only remaining spot in the yard with space enough for a few chairs around it.

As I'm setting up the firebowl, my best friend Lou stops by unexpectedly. At first I'm a bit frustrated at the interruption in my momentum, but figuring I had accomplished enough and it was getting dark, I grab each of us a beer and start a fire. A few minutes later, our friend Leigh comes by, followd a short time thereafter by my brother-in-law, Jeremy. We spent the evening by the fire laughing, swaping stories, discussing life, love, politics and generally having an impromptu party. It was a perfect night for it.

I'm sure Wicked Witch of the Park will still find something to cite us on, as we're clerly on her shit-list and her newest favorite target, but at the very least, the clean-up spawned a wonderful late-summer evening with friends and atmosphere.

More detail on the Wicked Witch of the Park to come, along with Garage Sale Prep, Rescuing sonya's Car, and anticipating a very special visit!

"Luck ‘O The Irish", My Arse…

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Corktown went well. Sonya and Leigh headed down about 2 hours early to join a friend of Leigh’s in the parade walking a pack of Irish Setters. This left me to gather up the kids myself and head to our usual spot along the parade route across the street from Nemo’s. Not unexpectedly, they dragged out my timeline and bit. After doing a mountain of dishes, a bit of tidying around the house, and gathering some chocolate milk for the kids, I argue with Liam a bit to get moving and we hit the road about 1:30. We grabbed some Taco Bell on the way to be sure the kids get some protein before inhaling the piles of candy they were sure to gather along the parade route and a 6 pack of Guinness for me and whomever else we should meet up with.

We got there about 10 minutes into the parade. About 40 minutes after my anticipated arrival time, but still typical for us, and not missing much. Liam desperately wanted to wear his roller blades to the parade. I wasn’t keen on the idea at first, knowing Michigan Avenue is brick paved and bumpy, and fearing skinned knees or a bumped head marring the experience. I eventually acquiesced, and I’m glad I did. He’s apparently got this roller blading thing down pat. It sped up our movement from the car to the parade, and he spent the whole time zooming up and down within about ½ block on either side of our spot, laughing, cheering, meeting other kids, and snatching up candy and beads without a single scratch or bruise. We met up first with my sister Val’s old flame Stephan and his girlfriend, and later with Val, and eventually my best friend Lou and his fiancé.

Though I forgot to borrow the camera from work, Val got a few great shots. You can see them on her Flickr page here: Val's Flickr Page

As the parade was wrapping up, I spotted a guy in a leather jacket with “Teen Angels” emblazoned on the back. They being my favorite local A Cappella/Doo-Wop group, I stroll over and ask if he’s in the group. After chatting him up a bit, discussing barbershop and A cappella music, I find out he’s the brother of a good friend of mine in another quartet! We have a few laughs as the parade comes to a close, and the small mob of us that had coalesced head to Sonya’s parents’ place to gather and decompress.

The rest of the evening was spent between watching the Balduck Mountain Ramblers at Nemo’s, chatting at the house, drinking, and munching on take-out Botana from Xochimilco’s. I passed out in a chair, letting Sonya take the kids home and figuring on a short nap before heading home. I woke up about midnight (MUCH later than I had planed), and drove home, with a quick stop by AJ’s Café in Ferndale to participate in their world record attempt to sing “Danny Boy” non-stop for 50 hours.

St. Patty’s Day proper was spent at work, then home to watch the kids while Sonya took some much needed time out to hang with her family at Nemo’s to watch the Ramblers some more and have a beer. That’s about where the fun and supposed “Luck O’ The Irish” ran out…

Just where the hell did that phrase come from anyway? Snakes, famine, and religious oppression at home, hatred, bigotry, indentured servitude, and deplorable living conditions here. Where in the hell did ANYONE get the idea that the Irish were lucky?

Well, even only being about ¼ Irish, it seems that sour brand of “Irish Luck” is coursing through my blood again. The car I bought for such a deal about a month ago is fast becoming a giant mutant albatross around my neck. First the heater core doesn’t work – a $400 repair I haven’t done yet. Then I notice the stereo has a few glitches, which, having no garage, I can’t get to until this interminable cold weather breaks. I still have to find a bed liner for the hatchback area. The front driver’s tire has a very slow leak. Then, most recently, it had been running a bit rough and the “check coolant” light came on. No biggie – probably just needed a top off on the radiator fluid, right? That took care of it for about a week, then the light came on again. This time my car’s thirst was quenched for all of a day before the hood started to steam. The temperature gauge was still within the realm of “normal”, but I figured I’d take it in for it’s first oil change under my care and get $15 worth of free advice from the grease monkeys there.

I drive in with a pleasant smile, hoping they’ll say it’s a slipped hose or something. Well, faith ‘n begorah, if it wasn’t the water pump. On top of that, my serpentine belt is in tatters and on the verge of disintegration. Great. I head to the local discount auto parts store for a $45 water pump, $20 serpentine belt, and a $15 timing belt (which you may as well replace if you’re doing the water pump), and I take it to my trusted mechanic, Tony, at BYOP (Bring Your Own Parts) Auto Repair.

I left it with him first thing yesterday, knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to get to it that day. He usually encourages appointments so he can plan his schedule better. I hop a bus to work from there and wait…and wait…and wait. About 3:30 he calls me with a grim tone in his voice. He knows I ain’t Rockefeller and try to do the minimum needed to get from point A to B. Apparently my thermostat wasn’t reading correctly and sometime (probably Saturday) I had blown a head gasket.

This can often be a death sentence for a car, depending on how the engine’s built. While my Mercury Tracer (basically a Ford Escort) has a good rep and being a Ford product, parts are relatively cheap, it wasn’t exactly designed for durability. It’s the kind of domestic Econo-Box you buy in a six-pack and hope to take good care of to get to about 150k miles. Mine's at about 102k. He runs down the litany of procedures for the work and as my heart beats faster in my chest, having assumed I just dumped $1500 down the drain buying this overrated go-kart, he gives me the total…$500 (give or take $100).

That’s it? I was figuring on about $300 for the water pump anyway. Was I happy? Hell no, but at least that repair brings my total cost of the car to around the Blue Book value (so far – I still have to get to the heater core before next winter). While it’s not a repair I was financially prepared for and will suck my account down to the dregs, it’s not a panic-inducing situation (knock wood).

So I’ll be without a car…AGAIN…for about a week or so while I get the necessary work done. God willing, this will be the last mandatory repair I’ll have to do for a while.

Spring barbershop convention is looking less and less likely…

Even Keel, But Not Improving Yet...

(From January 25th 2008)

HEY! Been a while! How the hell ya been?...GREAT to hear!

Now, shut up. I'm trying to type...

Seems that, unlike the housing market, my situation has bottomed out for now. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but not exactly hunky-dory, either. It just means that the piles of shit waiting in queue for the fan are each taking their turn. This week it was an unprecedented hangover, Liam being suspended from school (again), and the power getting shut off for non-payment.

Sunday night I stayed up a bit too late, drinking whiskey. Lately I've been trying whiskey, with mixed results. (my God, was that a pun?) I'm not usually much for hard liquor. I'm more of a beer-an-hour kind of guy. Given the chaotic nature of my life lately and the propensity for Murphy's Law to profile me, the timing of my experimentation with the Devil Water may have something to do with self-medicating. Well, lesson learned. Woke up on Monday still a bit buzzed and feeling like a pile of roasted shit, which has NEVER happened to me, to my recollection. I don't often drink to excess and usually confine myself to mild cocktails or beer. I tried to compose myself for work, but an hour into my shift, I realized it was just too much. I went home, intending on an hour's nap, which somehow turned into 3 1/2 hours.

I'm an hourly employee at Ye Olde Tuba Store, so 3.5 hours means a big hit to the ol' paycheck I couldn't afford. My only solace was that on Wednesday, I'd be driving one of the company vans to Indiana to pick up a mess of tuba cases. 4 hours minimum on the road each way meant a bit more time on the card, so hopefully I'd recover most of it, but it meant I blew my only chance at overtime in the past 5 years or so.

Monday night we get a call from Leigh, who's pipes had apparently burst in the cold. She may need some help to get the situation under control, and at least need to borrow our shower. Being our best friend and owing her a MILLION times over for rescuing us on Christmas Eve, I stayed home from chorus rehearsal to be available to either run to the hardware store for parts, watch the kids, or whatever else may need to be done to help our dear friend. We ended up not being needed for anything that night and couldn't get a hold of her to find that out until late, as she was out getting parts with her much-handier-than-I brother. I was a bit irked at missing chorus, but she was in mid-crisis and had MUCH bigger things to worry about! I was just glad she was able to get things under control. Her water's turned off until the final repairs can be done, so she's been borrowing our shower for the past few days. Fine with us! Just gives us a chance to see her all the more! :)

Tuesday, I get a call from Liam's school asking me to pick him up. That's NEVER a good thing. As I have no car, they would have to wait for Sonya to get him, while I sat and stewed at work over his behavior as of late. Apparently, he threw another fit for something wholly unimportant like his place in line, lashed out a bit, and was suspended for the remainder of the week. A bit of an overreaction by the school, in my opinion, to what was apparently him defying the teacher's order to miss music class for disobeying her and then pushing a chair in anger, resulting in it falling down the risers of the music room.

I'm VERY unimpressed with the school's increasing tendency to simply remove Liam when he acts out, rather than try some sort of in-house discipline like an in-house suspension or recess detention. This suspension basically reinforces the idea that if he doesn't like something at school, if he acts out, he gets several days off. This time, however, his time at home was much less pleasant. He's grounded to his room for the duration with no TV or computer, and permission to leave only for bathroom breaks, getting ready for bed, and chores. You take away the kid's TV and computer privileges and it hits home a lot more. Sonya's been printing out extra worksheets and assignments for him to do in his more idle time, as well. This suspension is NOT just time-off, and he's duly disappointed with it. It does frustrate me, though, that I'm not available more to help enforce it.

Wednesday, I'm picked up by the salesman to hit the road for Goshen, Indiana. We were to pick up 32 tuba cases and 16 tabletop xylophone cases from the case maker, a bright-eyed, chipper old guy named Delmas. Thankfully, the salesman was in the other van, so the only time I had to relate to him was at the beginning of the trip and when we loaded up the vans in Indiana. The first half of the trip was pleasantly uneventful. I borrowed Liam's MP3 player for the trip (as mine was lost in the Christmas Eve car crash) with a full 1GB of choice classic rock, jazz, funk, neuvo-swing, and 80's tunes, and plugged it into my FM transmitter. 4 hours of me, my music, and the road - ahh, bliss.

We get to Goshen and start to load when I get a call from the home phone. This is odd, because Sonya usually calls me from her cell. On the line is Liam, calmly relaying to me that the power company had shut off the juice and mom was really upset and on her cell, screaming at the power company. Apparently, we had somehow neglected to pay them since July, which I find rather hard to believe. I talk to Sonya and let her vent about the absolute jerk of a tech who came to shut us off and the runaround she got on the phone from the power company. I talk to Liam and thank him for being so calm and cooperative during this crisis (in a family crisis he keeps his cool - he doesn't get to watch a movie at bed time and he flips - go figure), and then get to loading the van, worrying the whole time about my wife and kids in a cold house. As a father, you can't help but think you've failed your family in a situation like that - especially when you're 4 hours away and can't really do anything about it.

Salesman needs to head to Elkhart for something, so I head back home solo. I get a call from Sonya a bit later. Thankfully, when all was said and done, Detroit Edison put us on a budget plan, waived the shut-off and reconnect fees, and got us turned back on before Sonya got home from picking Courtney up from school. They arrived from school to the sweet music of the furnace, trying desperately to catch up with 4 hours of falling indoor temperatures. Whew! I arrive home after being stuck for 2 1/2 hours in snowy, rush hour traffic from Ann Arbor to home, drop the van at work, and walk home in the dark and snow.

The nice thing about things "bottoming out" is that it can only get better from here (I hope, knock wood). I've been taking a great deal of comfort in the fact that I know that my family and I will never hit rock bottom. We'll only be as uncomfortable as my pride makes us. I've received a lot of offers to help in various ways from family and friends lately. While many offers I've declined (or at least gently discouraged), the offers in themselves truly warmed my heart, once again proving my mantra, "With true friends, you will NEVER hit rock bottom". I have so many good friends ready and willing to help my family and me at the drop of a hat, and rest assured, I'd do the same for any of them (you).

A HUGE thanks go out to Rachael Levy, Leigh McLaughlin, Barb Bertolini, Diana Schnuth, and especially Sonya's and my parents and siblings for all the help you've offered over the past few weeks!

While I always encourage anyone and everyone to comment on my blogs, please refrain from specific advice on this one. No "You shoulda done this...", please. I just needed to vent a bit, and give some background to my previous, enigmatic blog.

Well, it's gettin' late. Gotta get home to be ready to be picked-up by my co-worker for another full day of working both jobs.

Coming up next: Paul Wins the LOTTERY!!!

(I figure if I put that in print, maybe my chances for it will improve)

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 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

Trees, Trinkets, and Traditions...

So it seems I have a few minutes here as I sit at my favorite repair shop to have my brakes looked at.

Sunday we set up the tree. Sonya and I have the same debate every year: real vs. fake tree. We’ve had an artificial tree in our shed for several years since our friend, Leigh, donated her old one to us. It’s been through the ringer a bit, after several previous owners, but it still has all of it’s parts and most of the branches are intact. Still, we don’t get it out every year.

Don’t get me wrong, I love having a real tree in the house. The traditional feel and the scent definitely add something to the holidays. In our house, however, it just doesn’t always make sense. I’m not a fan of the prep and expense involved in getting a decent real tree. First, there’s going out in the freezing cold, checking multiple lots for selection and prices, and spending well over an hour once we find a lot we like choosing a tree we can agree on. This one’s too skimpy, that one has a bald spot, the other leans too much, and most are just too fat and have too big a footprint for our tiny house. Then there’s the expense of a decent breed. We (okay, I) don’t want a Scotch pine anymore, despite their rock-bottom price. They were fine when we were young, but they’re too bushy, the ornaments don’t hang well, and they dry our a lot faster. We always go for a spruce, which of course, is about twice the price.

Once we finally find one we like and can afford, there’s tying it to the car, hauling it home, hacking off the end of the stump, wresting it through the door, lifting it onto the stand, and of course, the subsequent clean up of needles that seem to find their way into every crevice and hang around for months. That’s not even mentioning the maintenance of watering and trying to keep my brother-in-law’s visiting dogs from drinking it dry. We also have a nasty habit of procrastinating on getting the things down, so it’ll often stay in our living room, drying out for several weeks after Christmas.

Artificial trees are so much easier. The one we have is fairly tall and thin, and thus has a pretty small footprint. Liam just adores the assembly of, as he calls them, “puzzle trees”, and it gets him more involved in the decorating process. There’s also the wonderful feature of being able to position branches to fill in empty spots and create spots for ornaments to hang better. Clean-up’s a breeze and there’s no worry about the fire hazard of a dried-out, formerly live tree once we’ve forgotten to water it for a couple weeks.

I won (or more appropriately, she acquiesced), and we did the artificial tree this year. Money and time are tight, so it just made sense this year. We assembled the tree Sunday with some welcomed help from Leigh, put the lights up Tuesday, and decorated it last night. We invited Leigh over for some FABULOUS pea soup (courtesy of Sonya) and to help with the decorating.

Decorating the tree used to be one of my favorite parts of the holidays. I always dread the necessary loading and unloading of the stuff, but the actual placement of the ornaments really gets me in the Christmas mood. This year, however, I spent much of the time on the couch. I put the star on first, being the tallest in the house, but with our tree tucked into a tight corner of our living room and 2 eager kids, Sonya and Leigh going at it full force, I just sat back on the couch and watched most of it. I reserved my set of resin Victorian marching band statuettes to put on after the crowd had dissipated.

As I sat there munching on a candy cane, the XM Christmas Traditions station piped through the stereo via my laptop, I caught that Christmas Spirit once more, but for different reasons. Watching my kids, now old enough to be efficient help rather than slow down the process and get in the way, I started to appreciate the holidays on a parental level. This is the magic time. Both of my kids still believe in Santa and the magic of Christmas. I don’t care how jaded you are, watching kids get into the Christmas Spirit is infectious.

Later, after the kids had been in bed for a while and Liam was sound asleep, my daughter got up and was whimpering a bit. She wanted to fall asleep in mommy & daddy’s bed. She does this on occasion, appreciating the softer bed and roominess. I direct her to a potty break on the way (her accidents are few, but truly frustrating when it’s in our bed) and prep the covers for her. As I pull up the comforter, she walks in with a sheepish look on her face, knowing it’s well past bedtime, holding a Christmas Advent book with flaps and pop-ups she can flip.

“You want me to read that to you?”

Her sheepish look fades to a delighted grin and puppy dog eyes. “I duss wanna Trissmas book so I tan doe to sleep”

I give her a warm smile. “Okay. Hop in and snuggle up.”

She excitedly hops into bed and nestles close to me. As I snuggled with my baby girl, reading a Christmas book and recalling images of my kids gleefully attaching baubles and kitsch older than they are to our “puzzle tree”, I had a moment – a moment of parental pride and Christmas cheer. Despite how tight our budget is this year, I am more appreciative than ever of the greatest gift a man can have: his family.

Maybe we'll get a real wreath for some fresh pine scent for the holidays, after all.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night…

The Halloween Blog – FINALLY!

Okay, took me almost 3 weeks to get to it, but here's a quick rundown of Halloween.

This is mostly so I can post some pics of the kids' Halloween Costumes. Other than that, there's not much to report. I got home, we ran around like mad getting costumes on, Leigh brought over dinner ("ears and eyeballs" made with shell pasta for "ears" and veggie meatballs for "eyeballs" with LOTS of mozzarella – yum), and I headed out with the kids for a few blocks while Sonya and Leigh handed out goodies and had a chance to chat, sans kids. After about 3 blocks or so, we rounded the route back home so Sonya and Leigh could trade duties with me.

After they were done and dumped their haul on the floor for us to inspect (parental paranoia, but only a few rejects), Aunt Val stopped by drop her goodies for the kids, since we didn't have time to stop by her place. We had a good time chatting and munching, and the kids hit the hay.

Liam went as "Ghost Rider".

This was nice and simple. He had full skull mask, but it covered his hair, so I let him use my old 2-piece, glue-on skull mask from my "Grim Reaper" days. Sonya put some hair spray and red make-up in his blond hair to resemble flames. Add my skeleton gloves, a $10 leather coat from the Salvation Army (that will get a couple more years of standard use as well), and a length of chain from Home Depot, and voila! He looked GREAT!

Courtney went as a dragon.

This was Liam's costume that Sonya had made from about 4 years earlier. Sonya was digging through the closet a couple months ago and Courtney spotted it. It was a tad small, but not bad for a costume. The only addition she wanted was a set of wings, which Sonya was more than happy to oblige. She found a nice piece of iridescent fabric and simple safety-pinned it on. Courtney looked adorable – as always.

I, having a certain standard to maintain when it comes to clever costumes, went as Nintendo's Mario.

I had been growing this handlebar moustache for the Moustache Contest at this Fall's barbershop convention. Well, the contest got buggared up and didn't happen, but the moustache proved useful, nonetheless.

While getting some balloons for Courtney's birthday party several weeks ago, I found myself looking at the front page of the Detroit News/Free Press. They had a story about the new video games for the holiday season and featured a picture of Mario on the front page. I found myself looking at the picture and absent-mindedly twisting my moustache like Sindley Whiplash. I realize what I'm doing, look again at the picture, and smile, knowing what my costume will be for the year.

I bought a pair of overalls from Wal*Mart (I hate shopping there), a red mock-turtleneck from the thrift store, dye my cap red, cut out the "M" from an iron-on patch, grab some old marching band gloves and my brown boots. I color my eyebrows, moustache and sideburns with make-up and – boom – perfect Mario.

That night, I shaved off the moustache and started growing my standard goatee again. I hate having a long moustache.

I'm not about to post a picture of Sonya's WONDERFUL pirate costume without her okay first. I'd be drawn and quartered for sure.

All-in-all a fun Halloween. Nothing remarkable, but just plain old-fashioned fun.

I love having kids.