January 2003 Archives

Kinetics

I drove past this sobering scene after dropping Giselle off at school this morning.

And maybe it doesn't have anything to do with the school parking lot, but I could just imagine one of those parents blasting away from the school and running that guy clean off the road until he was flipping through the air with ladders and tool boxes shooting everywhere. Parents dropping their kids off to school are out of their collective minds. My radar is running full tilt when I pull in there, because it's wall-to-wall kindergarten kids and a double or triple line of jockying cars with the kids all weaving around them. And from the second your kid hops out of the car, it's like the pressure is on to get the heck out of everybody's way, and fast, as the parents in back rev up on you with their huge 4WD trucks, and let me tell you, you are NOBODY in this town if you don't have an obnoxious 15 foot tall truck, buddy.

And even after I've left the parking lot, being sure not to maim any youngsters on the way, I can look back and see these insane Mom's are still all over my bumper goading me out to the traffic light as if to persuade me to blast up to 50 in a 25 zone because my caution has ruined their whole schedule. Oh, and there's a one-way street outside of the parking lot, and do you think they care about that? No way man, you can't assume anything. It's Tijuana traffic rules all the way. All it needs is sheer cliffs, an intersecting railroad, and school buses stacked all up on top with chickens, goats and haggard townsfolk. The whole place feels like it was designed for the horse & buggy days anyway.

Bah.

Gripe gripe gripe.

Little Surprises

I've discovered that if I ask Giselle a specific question about something that happened in school, I tend not to end up with the information I was after. But some strange things do come out of our little dialogues. She let slip that the little boy in her class that always got the other kids at his table in trouble, had moved and wasn't in their class anymore. And when the kids really get in trouble, sometimes they have to put their heads down on the table for x number of minutes. So I asked her if Mrs. Fix had been forced to make any kids put their heads down on the table since Billy¹ left. And she says 'no...but sometimes we do have to put our heads down on the table when they check us for lice.' Oh man I had forgotten all about those humiliating little checkups in school. 'Course in my day we all filed into the nurse's office single file and got our once or twice-over.

So I changed the subject and asked if she got to play with her best friend at recess, and she says 'yeah, but Marla's lice are all dead now.' Oh lordy lordy, I try not to laugh in the face of other's misfortunes around Giselle, so I made like I was coughing and then offered my condolensces.

Oh boy. Speaking of misfortunes...

Harrison has spun right into developing full blown asthma attacks the past few weeks. It's exercise-induced for now, but it gets pretty bad. We took him in to his doc, and now he has his own rescue inhaler and a little kiddie-sized face mask to administer it properly. Oy. He's not keen on that at all. But with Amanda's lifelong history with asthma, he couldn't have a better coach. Amanda never grew out of it. Hopefully he will. Time will tell.

Oh my gosh...and then Amanda's brother Jared was severely burned with 2nd and 3rd degree burns all up his back and arms. I guess he came in from the cold with a nylon jacket on and backed up too close to the fireplace and it ignited on him. He's been in the hospital for close to two weeks and they've been giving him autologous skin grafts. He's hurting really bad, but they've been able to talk on the phone. I can't even imagine. We're thinking about you Jared, and hoping you start feeling better soon.

My sisters and niece and nephew came up to visit this past weekend, and the kids had a great time together and we all had a lot of laughs. Of course when you get that many people and little kids together in a small space...well let me quote Jessica: "oh my god...it smells like...like smoke...and beans...and poop...and it's all stale...oh god it smells horrible!" Man that was a blast.

Well, it's all busy at work. One guy is on Grand Jury duty for 4 months, people have been out sick or with sick kids, and all kinds of new products are going through major market releases and it's all piling up. But it's good work. And hey, some of it is even enjoyable. I got to work on another illustration the past couple days showing stenotic lesions forming around a vascular graft anastomosis.

Well that's about it for now.

1. Student names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Fine Motor Skills

Amanda just brought me lunch at work. Mmmm Del Taco...

Giselle was in the back seat of the car showing me how well she's doing with her shoe tying skills. It's proved to be a very frustrating thing to teach. She suddenly started picking it up in the past couple weeks. My guess is that peer pressure is what motivated her. I don't think I learned how until I was in first grade. I was very stunted with such things as a child. Pshh, I didn't even learn how to ride a bike until I was in 3rd grade. Ugh.

About the same time, I remember Dad taking me out to the playground with a baseball and a glove and trying to show me how to catch. He pegged me in the elbow at some point and I collapsed like a souffle. I think Mom really let him have it for that. And that was all she wrote. Me and Dad and any sort of a ball were never to meet from then on. I took a lot of shame from that. Which I think attracted me to the role of playground soccer goallie and taking the ball in the face and groin enough times to prove that I wasn't a total wuss. I really like playing soccer, although I don't much care for watching it...or watching just about any sport for that matter.

Well I wasn't really headed anywhere with this, and I need to finish my lunch before somebody slumps up to my desk and attempts to drain the life out of me.

We Did

On Monday, Amanda and I turned 13 together. We were married in the rose garden at Saguaro Ranch Park down in Phoenix on January 6th, 1990.

In 1990 there was a horse & carriage, a warm blue sky, dozens of family and friends wishing us well, and a boundless future before us.

In 2003, there were two wonderful kids, cold nippley weather, Outback Steakhouse, and a future that's still spread wide open before us. Reality has surely taken jabs at our health and sanity over these years, but here we are still, weathering it together, and finding time to laugh in between the screams :) I don't know how she puts up with me, but she does, and I love her for it. We still can't read each other's minds though--maybe by our 25th anniversary?

Oy...it's midnight, and I have no eloquence.

To my love, Amanda, Happy Anniversary.