Category: family

Jen just finished Tom Clancy’s latest tome, Red Rabbit. Her review was succinct and perfect, “It was horrible. Only read it if you’re desperate, and even then, just take a nap.”

I guess I won’t be reading it then…

My adorable sister is going to play a valley girl in a one act play. I can’t wait to see it. If there’s one thing my sister isn’t (and I’m not surprised there’s only one thing, for she is so many things), it’s a valley girl. It will show her true acting talent. That, and it will make me laugh until I wet myself.

With a sister who blogs, I now don’t even have to recap my day; she’s already done it. Now, Max is going to help me by typing. We’re sitting here watching Blue’s Clues, and I decided to use the time to check my mail. Bad idea. He wants to “help me”. Here is the product of his “help”:

How do Jen and I keep our sanity? Max Day.

Max was sick yesterday when he got up from his nap. He was lethargic, had a fever, and took little 20 minute naps every hour or so until bed time. But, he was extremely cute. It was weird. We got some tylenol into him, which helped with the fever, but he was still really sleepy. So, he spent the afternoon and evening taking turns cuddling with us (which is odd for him. He’s an affectionate kid, but hasn’t been much of a cuddler for over a year). He made his little Max jokes, but they came out a lot slower. He gave us sleepy smiles, and patted our faces. He was extremely happy for being sick. It felt good to sit there on the couch with my son and his big stuffed lamb on my lap and whisper quietly to each other as he patted my face and played with my beard.

Max is apparently all better today (they didn’t wake up till 9 – I was already at work and halfway through my mail by then), and they’re headed off to the library to return books and potty-training videos. My back is mostly better, and I’m stuck here at work, half-awake and not ready to begin my work week.

We got caught! I don’t believe it. Jen and I were taking the trash out last night (it was after 10pm) and cleaning up Max’s sidewalk chalk mess. She kissed me, I kissed her and before you know it, here comes a lady from down the street with her little barrel dog. Jen yelled “Ooops!”, and I laughed uncontrollably. We gathered up the chalk and ran inside giggling like teenagers.

It was a little over five years ago that I proposed to Jen on the landing of her apartment as we looked out over an August lightening storm in Tucson. If I had to do it all over again, I’d come up with something more creative than my, “I think I need to go talk to your parents.” like and my fumbled proposal. It seems like yesterday.

It worked… Heather took my bait and ran with it. And to clarify, I only called her a fangirl because she herself said she was one earlier yesterday. I would never go so far as to call someone a fanperson unless they admitted it first, or if I were feeling extremely mean. And, despite my standing as the older brother, I am never mean to my little sister… on purpose.

The best thing about my sister keeping a blog is that I find out nice things like she has a copy of Lord of the Rings on DVD so I don’t have to go rent it!

I’m 8 pages into FlatCat, and Jon has graciously reconfirmed his willingness to illustrate it. Jon, if it makes tons of money, I’ll take you out to lunch (just kidding!! 50-50?)

I’m taking a break from putting up shelves. I am not a handy guy to have around. I’ve successfully stripped two screws that are both at varying degrees of in-ness. They are so stripped that I can’t even muscle them in with a big flathead screwdriver. Now, if this were the bottom screw of the bracket, big deal. But, they’re the two top screws of a bracket, and now I’m kind of… well, screwed.

I hate handyman projects. I suck at them. They make me get angry and sweat. The make me swear, something I’m trying not to do. They make my blood pressure go up, also something I’m supposed to avoid.

Now the shelves are in a state of disarray. How do I get the stripped screws in all the way? If I can’t get them in, how do I get them out? They’re 2.5″ long, and 3/4’s of the way into the stud. I’m smart enough to know that’s not a good place to be if you’re a stripped screw.

So, I’m in here, not working on the shelves, trying to come up with a good explanation for myself. “Sweetie, you know, I saw a wonderful set of prefab shelves at Costco this morning. I think those would work much better than… this.” I can follow Swedish directions. Swedish is a lot like Tcl, lots of arrows and numbers and labeled parts.

I was reading Cowboy Dreams in this week’s Washington Post Magazine, and it struck me that Max won’t really know what I do until he’s much older. I don’t know that it bothers me, but it’s different. I grew up knowing pretty much exactly what my dad was doing. He was a navigator in the F-4D (and later E) Phantom II, a big death-dealing machine without grace. It was round, and looked like a chopped down 60’s hot rod with wings. It wasn’t much to look at, but you knew what it was meant for. They were loud, and I knew what they were for from a very early age.

When I was four and five (1979 – 1980), dad planned flight routes for dropping retaliatory nukes on Eastern Bloc countries. He used to bring home old topographical maps (none with actual routes on them or anything) and let us play with his map templates. Tim and I used to play with our little toy soldiers on them and have wars all over eastern Europe.

When I was seven (1982), dad chased commies all over the North Atlantic, from Scotland west to and over Greenland. He took pictures of them, and “escorted them” through the area as the bombers headed down to Cuba on “exercises”. He told stories about taking pictures of the soldiers in the gunnery bubble while the Russian gunner took pictures of him. We saw pictures of his grey F-4 right underneath a gigantic silver Bear bomber (like this… not one of my dad’s, but the same idea). He also used to sit alert at the end of the runway in a little bunker in his “chinese pajamas” playing pool (he’s a wicked pool shark) waiting for the siren to go off signifying that the Russians (or we) had started World War 3.

When I was seven (1982), we moved back to the States, and the F-4 was on its last legs. The danger wasn’t quite a real, because dad didn’t fly as much, and the F-16 and F-15 were taking over. There wasn’t much left for the F-4’s to do. Dad delivered some F-4’s to George W. Bush’s old National Guard squadron in Texas. His friends delivered F-4’s to Hill (a base in Utah) where they were going to be transformed into drones for the sexy new planes to have target practice with.

When I was 10 (1985), dad helped draw up plans for a desert air war in the Middle East. I used to come into his office and look at this huge map of the Arabian peninsula on the wall with pins all over it. I had no idea where it was, but I knew we had a plan to bomb the living crap out of it.

When was 16 (1991), Desert Storm broke out (and then ended almost as quickly). My dad worked in the Pentagon and helped implement the plan he worked on in the late 80’s.

After that, I kind of stopped paying attention. Dad planned all kinds of exercises having to do with camouflage, concealment and detection (CCD), and well, that wasn’t half as interesting as bombing things. Plus, I was into girls, not jets and camo nets. I still knew what I my dad did.

Now, I’m 27 and my dad works at a big defense contractor in Reston, and I have no idea what he does, just like Max will have no idea what I do past, “Daddy works in an office with a bunch of computers in it.” I don’t know how important it is to me that Max knows what I do, but reading that story, it struck me that he probably won’t, and worse yet, he might not care.