Up in Smoke

The summer of 1995 was filled with some big changes in my life:  I turned 20, finally got my drivers license, got my first car, and officially moved to Stillwater full-time. However, the biggest change that summer came about several weeks after my move when I got a call letting me know that my parents house -- the only home I had ever really known -- had burned down.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt in the fire -- neither of my parents were home when it happened, and luckily they had let the cat out before they left.  After confirming that no life was lost, the next thing my parents assured me in that call was "Don't worry: your comic books survived."  To be honest, the condition of my comic book collection hadn't even crossed me mind until they brought it up, and it caught me off-guard.  It would catch me even more off-guard over the next few weeks when every single family member I would talk to would bring up the survival of my comic books almost immediately.

Of course, when I finally got a chance to go see the charred husk of my childhood home, their emphasis made more sense, as my bedroom's location on the opposite end of the house from the living room where the fire started meant that it was the least damaged, although all that meant was that my room suffered mostly heat and smoke damage rather than fire and water damage. It was an odd experience sifting through the debris, attempting to find anything salvageable.  I could see the spot where all of my longboxes filled with comics had been sitting, and was amazed to see that on one side of that spot there was the melted remains of my plastic pencil sharpener, and on the other side, the melted remains of my record player.  The fact that the cardboard boxes filled with comic books wrapped in plastic bags had emerged from the ordeal with little more than some smoke stains to the boxes was unbelievable.  I was able to recover a few other smoke damaged books and papers, many of which are still boxed up in my apartment.  However a great number of these items, including my high school yearbooks, were placed in storage at my Grandma Ann's house along with all of the stuff my parents had already recovered before I got there.

Over the years since then, I've often told the story of the fire, and invariably someone will make a comment about how relieved I must have been not to have lost all those comics because of how much they were worth, to which I would reply, "Actually, the only books I had that might have been worth something had been put away for safekeeping in my parents' room, so they didn't make it."  A nice bit of irony there, don't you think?

So, what's brought this incident to my mind?  Well, let's fastforward 15 years -- following my Grandma Ann's passing earlier this year, my family was able to sell her house fairly quickly, with the end result that my parents' current house is now overflowing with stuff they had to remove to make the sale.  Friday night I got a call from my dad who had been sorting through the stuff and found something he thought might be of interest to me.

"Was going through the stuff we brought over from mom's," he tells me, "and came across some of your comics."

"Really?" I replied, momentarily stumped at what it could have been -- the only thing I could think of off the top of my head was my long-lost run of original Offical Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which had disappeared at Papaw and Grandma Ann's farmhouse when I was still in Junior High, and that possibility was, to say the least unlikely.

"Yes.  It says it's a 'bagged, collector's edition complete with trading card' of '--"

"X-force #1." I finished for him, momentarily shocked.

"That's right.  And there's five of them!"

"Yes, one for each of the different cards," I commented.  He started to tell me that there were a few other books with them, but I didn't really need him to tell me the other titles, as I could picture them in my head fine:  the first Excalibur Special Edition that introduced my favorite X-team, and the first couple of issues of The 'Nam which dad had purchased himself.

Yes, after all these years, it turns out that the books I had put away for safekeeping had survived the blaze after all -- they had just gotten swept up in my parents' original salvage run and lost among everything else, thus making my long-standing ironic story ending unusable.

"But," you might be thinking, "shouldn't you be happy that the valuable books survived?"

Well, my Book Monkeys, for those of you unacquainted with the vagaries of the comic book explosion of the early 90s, and the subsequent implosion, let me sum it up this way:  those five "collector issues" I had purchased were emblematic of the speculator's mindset which drove the comic book industry for several years, in which comic book companies churned out countless variant issues which were snatched up by countless comic book fans wanting to be in on the ground floor of the next big thing, with nobody thinking through the fact that if everyone and their dog owns a copy of X-Force #1, then it's never going to be worth anything because, well, everyone already owns a copy.

Long story short, a quick view on eBay shows bagged copies of X-Force #1 going for as low as $0.99 cents -- and getting no bids.

So, in the long run, the value of the books did go up in smoke after all -- just not the way I had always thought.

And Then Came Mourning

This past Saturday morning my phone started ringing at around 9:30 AM. My first thought was not "who in the world would be calling me this early on a Saturday?" as it would have been most any other time. No, instead my thought was this: "Grandma Ann must have passed away." I answered the phone and found that my prediction was true, and that my last surviving grandparent had passed away sometime around 5AM. My parents gave me the details, and I visited with them for a little bit before they had to go because someone was at the door. Once I hung up I immediately sent a text to several friends, and then posted the news on my Facebook status, and then went back to watching whatever it was I had been watching before the call came in. By that afternoon I had received dozens of condolences from friends, family, and co-workers, chatted briefly with a cousin about plans for services, and watched several more hours of movies and TV.

I had not, however, yet shed a single tear.

This, as those who know me well can attest, was a bit unusual. After all, I'm the sort of person who tears up at the drop of a hat; tears of joy, tears of rage, tears of despair -- if the emotions are powerful, they escape from my bleary, reddened eyes, and there's nothing I can do to stop them. At best, I can delay them; when I got word of my Grandma Kidwell's passing several years ago while I was at work, I almost managed to get to the front door without losing control. But then my shock-induced clumsiness caused me to accidentally rip a box of markers from the wall next to the whiteboard where I was signing myself out, and all pretense of self-control went crashing with them.

Still, while the lack of overwhelming emotion was odd, I was able to rationalize it. After all, when my mother first called me to say that Grandma Ann had started to go downhill and the doctors said she probably wouldn't last a week and that I should probably head home immediately if I wanted to say goodbye, I had a breakdown so overwhelming that I was glad TopGun wasn't at home to witness it. Then I got a call from dad several hours later saying that Grandma had bounced back a little bit and wasn't in quite the danger zone they had originally thought, but it would still be a good idea to come say goodbye if I wanted her to know who I was. So I headed to Miami so I could find closure and peace with the idea of my Grandmother's impending mortality.

That was a month and a half ago.

Since then, Grandma's health has been a roller coaster ride, with her going back and forth between periods of confusion and coherence, times where my dad and uncle were sure she was about to pass and times where it seemed like she might last for months. But every time she'd fade, the bounce back would be just a little less than the time before. And even when she seemed to be making progress, he health had deteriorated to such a degree that she was unable to take care of herself and needed supervision 24-7 -- a situation that was complicated by her unwillingness to go to a nursing home. Back when she was in full control of her faculties, she even threatened to starve herself to death rather than go into a home, so my dad and uncle were put in the unenviable position of trying to balance respecting her wishes against doing what was best for her. For most of the last few months, my uncle had been staying with her full-time, first at the nursing home and then at her own house, but he finally had to return home to Maine, at which point my dad took time off of work to stay with her. By that point the writing was definitely on the wall, as Grandma was sleeping the majority of the day, and even when she was awake, she wasn't really there. In less than a week, she finally went to sleep and did not wake up.

All of which is to say, in effect I've been mourning the loss of my grandmother for the better part of two months, so maybe the fact that I didn't have a repeat of my initial breakdown wasn't that unusual.

Except, of course, that it's me we're talking about, and a lack of overwhelming emotional response should really be a red flag to anyone around me.

Now, that's not to say I wasn't sad, or that some tears hadn't fallen. When I read the card a friend from church had written, I teared up a little; words of comfort and support from my best friends did the same. But when Sunday evening rolled around and I still hadn't really been able to feel the impact of her passing, I started worrying a bit. As I told L'il Brother late that night, I was a little scared of when and where the emotional dam was finally going to break. I even tried to jump-start it as I lay in bed, focusing on the sense of loss and the realization that I would never see her again on this earth, but all that did was make it harder to go to sleep.

The next morning I got up at 6 AM to get ready for my morning work-out with TopGun. While waiting for TopGun, I started watching an episode of Torchwood, the slightly darker spin-off of Doctor Who. Although the tone of this particular episode had been fairly light-hearted through most of it, towards the end the characters attended a funeral, at which the estranged father of the deceased sang "Danny Boy." And while that didn't quite bring on the waterworks, I could tell it had primed the pump.

Shortly after the funeral scene ended, TopGun came out of his room, cranked up the music on his iPod docking station, and it was workout time. We started doing Hindu push-ups, and I found myself struggling with them more than usual; I switched to regular push-ups, and found that even those were proving unusually difficult. I punched the ground and cursed at myself in frustration. TopGun shook his head at me and said the same thing he always said when I let my frustrations get in the way: "Stop with the negativity; it doesn't help, just makes things worse."

Cue the waterworks.

I did manage to walk hurriedly into my room and close the door before really losing control, but for the next several minutes it all came pouring out -- all of the sadness and sorrow that had been building up in me for the past two days. After I had exhausted that first torrent of emotion and had composed myself a bit, I headed back into the living room. Not too long after I had gone into my room, TopGun had taken his iPod and went back to his to continue his workout; I could hear the music coming from the other side of the house. Feeling strangely invigorated, I dropped down and knocked out a couple of sets of push-ups with no problem; apparently my earlier attempts had suffered from the emotional weight I had been carrying around.

TopGun came out to check on me, and I told him I was feeling much better. He said that he could tell I'd been holding everything in, and he was glad I was finally able to let it all go; I told him that I had been trying to let go and had failed utterly, and then joked "Who knew all it was going to take was you yelling at me?"

The mind is a funny thing; two days of sympathy and condolences and sad thoughts hadn't made a dent in my emotional shut-down, but let me watch one British Sci-Fi show with a funeral and have my good friend give me the same advice he's given me time and time again, and the dam gets blasted to smithereens.

Some of you may be reading this and thinking that it's not a very fitting memorial for my grandmother, and you would be right; very little of this post has been about the person she was, or what she meant to me. I'm not sure I'm quite up to that at this point.

The Great Texlahoma Blizzard of Aught-Nine

As most of you blog monkeys are probably aware, this past Christmas Eve was marked by an enormous blizzard that shut down highways throughout Texas and Oklahoma. Luckily for me, I headed up to OK on Tuesday afternoon -- stopping off in Tulsa to hang out with Cap'n Shack-Fu before heading on up to Miami on Wednesday -- so I was able to avoid getting caught in the horrible weather. Many of my friends weren't quite so lucky: it took Coronela 16 hours to get from Ft. Worth to Oklahoma City; TopGun's normal 5 1/2 hour trip to his family in Midland took him 19 hours, with people skidding out of control all around him; and the winner of the "longest Christmas Eve ever" award goes to Shack-Fu's sister and brother-in-law, whose 9 hour trip from Houston to Pampa took them over 28 hours due to the highway becoming a virtual parking lot at times.

And then there was The Lovable PigPen, who called me while he was on the road to let me know that if we ever decide to go on another ski trip, we could probably take his car, which was handling fine in conditions very similar to what we encountered on our way home from Breckenridge a couple of years ago . . . of course, then he wound up getting stuck while turning into his mom's driveway about 50 yards from her house, so maybe we should rethink that suggestion . . .

When I got PigPen's call I was out doing last minute Christmas shopping with my parents in Joplin -- my mother was all giddy about shopping on Christmas Eve, and I was along for the ride. The bad weather didn't hit us until we were heading back to Miami, and it didn't really start coming down hard until after we made it home. We did venture out once more that evening, heading to the video store so we could rent some movies for Mom to watch while we were snowed in, but after that Mom and I didn't leave the house until Sunday afternoon when we went to visit my Grandma Ann.

A great deal of my entertainment/exasperation on Christmas Eve came courtesy of my parents' cat, Snitzelfritz. Not too long after we got home, Snitz decided that he wanted to go outside, and so positioned himself by the back door and meowed to be let out. I opened the door, and as the bitterly cold and damp blast of wind hit him he backed up, shivered, looked at me with a baleful stare, and emitted an accusatory meow that I couldn't help but translate as "What did you do?!!?!?!" That was the amusing part; the exasperation started to set in as his tiny cat brain seemed to think that if he waited three minutes the outside conditions would change completely, and so he would be at the door meowing again, only to turn tail and run as soon as the door was opened and the cold hit him. I have no clue how many times we went through this ritual before he had a burst of feline inspiration and demanded to be let out into the garage instead. Of course, my parents have it set up so he can exit the garage and go outside, so probably 10 minutes after letting him into the garage there was some frantic scratching and meowing at the back door as the dummy* desperately tried to regain entry into the house. This, too, was repeated several times, until finally the fact that being out-of-doors was not a viable prospect for him finally sunk in.

The biggest downside to the bad weather** was that it derailed my post-Christmas travel plans; even if the weather was supposed to be okay in our neck of the woods on one day, then it was supposed to be bad somewhere else along the route -- and then the conditions would be flip-flopped the next day. By the time it was all said and done, I didn't head back to Denton until New Years Day, which meant I missed out on the Singles New Years Eve party with its super-hero theme. Luckily, I had thought to drop the stuff I'd promised they could use for decorations beforehand, so all of my action figures were available to guard the DJ from evil-doers.


But unfortunately it meant I didn't get to see all of the super-costumes everyone had thrown together.


Although I'm even more upset that I didn't get to have fun playing with the visual sound effects.



On the plus side, by heading back on Friday, it meant I got to stop off in Tulsa and see my best bud Cap'n Shack-Fu again for a bit, and as he's the closest thing to a real Action Hero I know, it was practically like being at a super-hero party. Only, y'know, fewer girls in interesting outfits.

Yes, they're wearing super-hero boxers; Marvel on the left, DC on the right.

*When I visit my parents, I often amuse myself by coming up with "Weird Al" style songs about how stupid/crazy the cat is. The festive one I settled on this time around was "You're a Dumb Cat, Snitzlefritz" to the tune of "You're a Mean on, Mr. Grinch," which was probably on my mind mainly because Zinger had sent me this link while I was there.
**Besides the fact that there was tons of snow and none of my friends to play in it with

25 Random Things

Earlier this week I got tagged in a meme on Facebook by Trouble's new roomie, Lizard (pre-existing nickname, I assure you). Since I was going to fill it out and post on Facebook anyway, I figured I'd go ahead and use it as a blog post as well.

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

I'll do the tag thing on Facebook; here, you just get the list

1. I'm generally not a big fan of giving pets common human names like Jack or Pete or the like; I tend to like more eclectic/esoteric/bizarre names. This carries over into my fiction writing, where I tend to give animals names of comic book characters.

2. I've never fired a real gun in my life. Rubber dart guns, plastic disc guns, Nerf guns, paintball guns, yes; actual lethal weapons, no. Cap'n Shack-Fu has eagerly offered to rectify that situation for me, but things haven't worked out so far.

3. I have a horrible head for numbers; they tend to go in one ear and out the other. This also applies to dates, which is part of why I never really liked history in school. I can count on one hand the number of birthdays of friends and family I can remember that aren't linked to a holiday.

4. I have a reputation as a picky eater, which is probably well-deserved. When I was younger it was next to impossible to get me to try new things; my cousin Lori once threatened me with great bodily harm if I didn't try the lasagna she made. I'm much more willing to try new things these days, just as long as it doesn't cost me anything and I know I have something Todd-approved as a backup.

5. I don't know how to drive a stick-shift. I've had many people offer to teach me over the years, but never have actually followed through on it.

6. When I live by myself, it's a struggle not to turn into a bit of a hermit. I get home, change immediately into my comfy, not-going-back-out-in-public-tonight clothes, and am then ready for a night filled with doing absolutely nothing. If I get a call from someone wanting to do something spontaneous, my first thought is "but I'd have to get dressed in presentable clothes!" I am much better about accepting spontaneous invites now than I once was, but there are times when I just have my mind set on staying home being lazy, and nothing is going to change that.

7. I often get impatient waiting in drive-throughs waiting for people to figure out what they want to order, but that's probably because when it comes to eating out, I usually find one thing I like and order it every time. Clan Stoneheart would often joke about having a "Todd special" at Hideaway Pizza, i.e. pepperoni pizza and coke.

8. I stay in touch much better with friends who use IM than friends only email. For some reason, I have no problem just saying "hey" in an IM, but if I start to write an email I feel like it needs to be much more involved. Subsequently, I will often think "I need to email so-and-so" but will put it off because I don't have time at that moment to compose anything substantial enough.

9. When I was six years old, I got to go to Hawaii with my parents. My strongest memories are of standing on the shore letting the waves wash the sand away from around my feet; going to an aquarium and seeing a show starring a fat penguin called Fred; and watching a bizarre Japanese television show. It's the last one that sticks in my mind the most; something about a guy in a rubber squid-man suit shooting off the top of his head so that it flies through the air, knocking over another man, covering him up and transforming him into a small canister, which the squid man this puts into a container revealed in his head when the squid top flew off . . . something about that just stuck with me. If I could ever find out what that show was and somehow see it again, I would be a happy, happy man.

10. I generally don't do well being put on the spot and being asked to make quick decisions. I am a muller; I like to think things through thoroughly before voicing my opinion or advice.

11. One of the organizations I was most active in in high school was the Technology Student Association. My first year, I was part of the parliamentary procedure team that won first place at the national conference. A few months later, we were asked to film an instructional video to be given to other TSA chapters in Oklahoma. Many years later while I was working at OSU, I volunteered to help judge at the state conference in OKC, and was actually recognized by a few people from the video. Makes me wonder if that tape of 8th grade Todd acting as Sgt. at Arms is still floating around out there.

12. I rarely stop a movie once I've started it; there's always a part of me that hopes to find a redeeming moment in the film to make it not a total waste of my time. Sometimes this pays off; sometimes it doesn't. Every once in a while I run into something so painful I can't make it through; this seems to happen more often the older I get.

13. A lot of people I know talk about how when they read it's like a movie in their head. Me, not so much; yes, I love to read, but I'm not generally a "visual" reader. Yes, when I get into a good book I get sucked into it and tune out the rest of the world, but I suppose my focus is more on the writing itself -- cadence, meter, alliteration, dialogue, characterization, etc. -- so unless a writer is very heavy into descriptions, I don't automatically generate a mental movie. This, of course, has led to issues in my own writing, as I have to fight to avoid the "talking head" syndrome and actually write some descriptions and action sequences.

14. It's sometimes hard for me to focus or concentrate in total silence. I almost always have the TV on or some music playing so I can have background noise. Of course, I have to be careful what I use as background, otherwise I find myself watching the TV or, in the case of music, singing along.

15. I am not an overly organized person, as anyone who has ever lived or worked with me can attest. I will occasionally be overcome with a need to attempt to organize things, but I either (a) run out of steam before finishing or (b) succeed initially but then don't keep up with the system.

16. If most of my Parkerite friends hadn't been so gung-ho about moving out of the dorms, I probably would have stayed in Parker until I graduated. For some reason, the "no alcohol" policy and "no member of the opposite sex on your floor after curfew" rule didn't seem to bother me like they did others . . .

17. When I do something and feel guilty about it, I invariably tell on myself

18. I never realized I enjoyed spicy foods until after I went off to college; my parents neither one eat spicy stuff, so I never really tried any until much later.

19. The places I'd most like to visit are Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the U.K. Yes, I primarily want to visit English speaking countries, but the language has nothing to do with it. I've just been fascinated by Australia and the U.K. for as long as I can remember, and have heard nothing but good things about New Zealand. As for Japan, well, I've always wanted to visit someplace that triggered total sensory overload . . .

20. My handwriting is horrible. When I was doing a research paper for my Senior English class in high school, my teacher made me type up my rough draft because she refused to try to decipher such a massive chunk of my illegible writing. And I couldn't even complain to my mom about the teacher since, y'know, my mom was the teacher.

21. I talk to my parents on the phone an average of a couple of hours a week . . . typically all in one sitting. We are a chatty people.

22. When I was in college, I picked up the skill of twirling a pen in my fingers from my roomie Wrath teh Berzerkr; that skill has now become a habit that I do almost without thinking. Over the years, many people have tried to emulate it, and invariable they ask me to "do it slowly," a request that robs all momentum from the object, making the twirling impossible. I will occasionally meet someone else who also does it; so far, everyone who has either (a) learned it in debate in high school or (b) learned it from someone who was in debate in high school.

23. Although I have eliminated or reduced many of my irrational insecurities over the years, they still rear their heads in my reluctance to initiate telephone conversations or instigate plans with others. Part fear of rejection, part neurotic certainty that my random call is an annoyance. I can probably count the number of people I'll call up with no hesitation on one hand.

24. I used to cheat at Candyland; I would stack the deck, and then ask my mom to play. As a cover, I would let her go first. That's one of the few deceptions I really remember perpetrating in my childhood. Yeah, I was a goody-two-shoes, but is anyone really surprised by that?

25. I spent way too much time coming up with this list because I was trying to come up with stuff that I haven't talked about in my blog, and I didn't want it to just be a bunch of one sentence statements. Yes, I have a problem, but we all knew that, right?

Look Who's Back . . .No, Honest, I Mean It This Time

Remember last month when I said I was back on the blogging track?

Obviously, I lied.

Sadly, no really good excuse for my lack of posts, other than a general lack of inspiration and desire. Had planned on getting back into it over Christmas break, but wound up just reading old comics and watching lots of movies. Then I had thought "alright, let's make 'posting regularly' one of my New Year's Resolutions!" But, yeah, that didn't happen either. And while I was trying again and again to motivate myself to post, as usual it fell to a pointed comment from Zinger to get me moving: "Can't believe Rosenberg is only going to be updating Goats three days a week. Next thing you know, he's only updating once a week, then once every couple of weeks, then not at all. We all know how frustrating it is to keep checking a site that never updates, right?"

Point taken, my friend, point taken

So, what's been happening in my life since the last time I actually posted?

CHRISTMAS: Cap'n Cluck and Angel hosted a White Elephant gift exchange at their house the Friday before Christmas. My contribution? A framed photocopy of the picture I had posted at work for the "Guess whose parents these are" game

Gotta love the 70s, right? Anyway, Fluffy was the lucky recipient of my parents' wedding photo, along with a beat up copy of the 2000 Video Hound Movie Guide, added to give the box some weight.

I spent the first week of my Christmas break in Miami, OK where I gleefully introduced my parents to such Odd-Squodd-esque films as In Bruges, Burn After Reading, Mister Foe, Sasquatch Gang, etc. Dad and I also got to enjoy a couple of entertaining horror-comedies The Cottage and Dance of the Dead, which I plan to talk more about on Monday. Honestly, a good portion of my enjoyment of spending time with my folks is introducing them to films I know they'll like but which they would never rent on their own.

The second week of Christmas break was spent largely just sitting around my house watching Netflix and DVRed shows. Man, I love my DVR.

NEW YEARS: I spent the bulk of New Year's Eve fighting with a nasty piece of malware on my PC which not only kept most of my anti-spyware and anti-virus from opening and/or updating, but also blocked me from accessing several web sites devoted to fighting such things. Luckily, I now have WiFi and a laptop, so I was able to download the software needed to clean up the PC onto the laptop and then burn it to disc to get it onto the PC. After about 6 hours or so of messing with it, finally get it all cleared up, and so was able to make it to the Singles New Year's Eve Luau with no problem, especially with the help of the new TomTom GPS unit my folks got my for Christmas.

The Singles party was a lot of fun, even if it did remind me just how horribly out of shape I've gotten in the last few months without PigPen and Cap'n Shack-Fu around to get me off my butt. Dancing can take quite a toll when you're old, fat, and have no endurance. I also about lost my voice doing karaoke. Good times, good times.

I got to try out the TomTom again on New Years Day when I drove out to Van Alstyne to visit Clan Flunky. Flunky's folks had bought around 8 acres there a few months back, and Flunky had spent most of his Christmas vacation helping his dad with landscaping. When he invited me out to visit, Flunky told me I could bring my work gloves and pay for my lunch with hard labor; I opted to just be a mooch instead. I was really glad I got to spend the day with Flunky, Flunky Lover, and their two spawn, since I hadn't seen them face to face in probably two years. The elder spawn is not nearly as hypnotically cute as he once was, but he makes up for it with his mind-bending joke telling ability.

Spawn: Knock knock
Me: Who's there?
Spawn: Chair! [erupts into gales of laughter] That's how we play this game!

CAP'N SHACK-FU: My best bud Shack-Fu has now been at the FBI academy for a little over a month. The first few weeks were pretty rough as they tried to weed people out, but things seem to have settled down a bit . . . of course, "settled down" for the FBI academy is relative term. He has put down Oklahoma City as his top choice for a duty assignment after graduation, so we're all praying that that pans out, since he'd only be a couple of hours away then. Right now I'm hoping to head up to Quantico for his graduation in May; with luck I can work it so I can also swing by Maryland and see Clan Flunky again while I'm in the general area.

And, for the record, yes, it is still horribly surreal for me to think that my best friend in the world is on the verge of becoming a full-fledged FBI agent.

FACEBOOK: I know I mentioned back in September that there had been an increase in the number of Wyandottians on Facebook, but it has been steadily increasing ever since then. As of this moment, I now have over 50 former classmates from Wyandotte as friends on Facebook. Kind of interesting, seeing where everybody is these days. Plus, I enjoy knowing that some of them who never had much exposure to the "real" Todd are now getting to see a brief glimpse of my insanity as evidence by my random status updates.

In addition to the Wyandottians, I've also managed to reconnect with my old pal from the Stillwater Public Library Days J.D., along with his wife and mother-in-law; now that we're in contact again, there may be hope that we can actually get our schedules to line up so that we can meet up at some point, since I can't even remember the last time I got to see them.

Oh, and earlier today I added CoIM to the Facebook Blog Network; if those of you blog monkeys with Facebook accounts could take a moment to go here and confirm me as the blog author, it would be greatly appreciated. If nothing else, I'd like to get the number of readers to rise above 2.

Mix-It-Up Monday - Invasion of the Parental Units

Since I didn't put up a Fragmented Friday post last week, even though I promise Miss ArkanSass one was forthcoming, I figured I'd do my rambling summation of last week today, rather than wait until this Friday.

Zinger just got back from a week in Alaska and spent a good portion of his morning getting caught up on all of his daily online reads. Zinger remarked how much he hated trying to play catch up on everything, although he was quick to point out that reading through CoIM was incredibly easy . . .

My mom and dad were in town for several days since they hadn't seen me since Christmas, and my vacation leave balance was practically nil making any potential trip on my part rushed at best. Plus, they never had gotten a chance to meet many of the Singles outside of Maverick, Biz-Z, and Cap'n Shack-Fu, and were really wanting to see just how accurate my descriptions of everyone were. Last time they were down we tried to do quite a bit of stuff, but this time we mainly just sat around, visited, watched TV, and went out to eat. Not very exciting, perhaps, but it was relaxing.

Saturday evening while mom and dad were relaxing back at the hotel, I went out to the park with PigPen, Cap'n Peanut, and Maverick to throw around the football and Frisbee. It was one of those times when something kind of clicked in my head in terms of the mind/body connection, because I wound up doing a better job catching the football than pretty much any other time I can remember -- up until I kind of jammed my fingers, that is. Three guesses which finger got the brunt of it. That's right, the crooked right middle finger caught the ball head on; I tried to shake off the pain and keep playing, but after a few more catches the paranoia of "Oh, crap, did I screw it up again?" was a bit overwhelming and I had to bow out of any more passing/catching. Didn't feel too bad on Sunday, but is a little stiff and sore today; hopefully that will go away soon.

About the most touristy thing my folks did while they were down is stroll around The Square. We went to Recycled Books, had lunch at Denton County Independent Hamburger Company, had dessert at Beth Marie's Old Fashioned Ice Cream and Soda, wandered into one of the antique stores -- surprisingly my dad's suggestion and not mom's -- and then had to come back a couple of days later so dad could take pictures of the courthouse.

A few weeks back Cap'n Peanut and I were wrestling around and I had to take a very literal breather because I had been around too much cigarette smoke that night and was having trouble getting enough oxygen; early last week I sent him a couple of emails clamoring for a rematch, to which he never responded; in fact, we were around each other quite a bit on Saturday and it never came up. Until, that is, we got back from the park; while PigPen went in to take a shower, Peanut calmly walked into the living room, shoved the coffee table up against the couch*, and called me out. He kicked my butt pretty handily of course, thanks to his crazy gorilla strength, but I almost caught him in a choke . . . man, am I sick of almosts. Next time, Peanut, you're going down!**

I was not the only person with parental visitors this weekend; Li'l Random's parents also decided to come to town for a few days, although none of us ever got to see them. I gather that this is because as soon as his folks arrive, Li'l McEvil chains them to his yard, forcing them to weed and plant and chop down trees and such, until he's worked them near to death and allows them to escape back to Arkansas before their next round of enforced labor. . . although, since I never have seen hide nor hair of his parents even after many, many visits, I have started to suspect that they're just figments of his imagination, and that Li'l Random was not born like a normal man but just sprang randomly from some dark and twisty hole in the ground.

I was hanging out at Li'l Random's place on Thursday afternoon as we were both waiting for our respective parental units to arrive in town when a contractor he had called to inspect the hail damage on his roof rang the doorbell. When The Random One answered the door, the contractor asked "Is Li'l Random home?" I immediately suspected that the contractor's question was due to his assuming that Li'l Random was actually the teenaged son of the house's owner; when Li'l Random told him that he was Li'l Random there was a pause before the contractor blurted out "No way you're old enough to own a house." I cried out "I knew it!" at which point the contractor poked his head around the corner to see me, recognized that I was most assuredly not teenaged, and asked if I was really Li'l Random, assuming that we were trying to prank him. Somehow the joy of mocking Li'l Babyface lost a little bit of its luster with the realization that I was visibly recognizable as being "the old guy"; didn't stop me from doing it, though.

That last bit reminds me; my former college roomie The Old Man recently started up a Facebook page; after I added him as a friend I told him that I was now in the same position he was in in college, surrounded by a social circle who are a few years younger and who insist on rubbing it in my face -- I told him I thought that was probably what they called "karma."

I had been planning on introducing Cap'n Peanut to my folks as "one of those bad influences you always warned me about," but dad went up and introduced himself before I got a chance. However, when Li'l Random met them, I was able to reference the fact that a while back mom had asked if my adopting him as my Li'l Brother meant that he was replacing our old cat that we always referred to as my little brother when I was younger by introducing him thusly: "Mom, Dad, this is Itty Bitty."

Last night my parents capped off their visit by taking my best buds PigPen and Li'l Random out to dinner with us; wish Cap'n Shack-Fu could have been there to make the set complete, but at least they got to meet him when he was deployed to Miamuh. As it was, I had a good time seeing two of my Best Friends interacting with the parental units. I really enjoyed seeing just how often my mom was able to fluster Li'l Random; the best was probably when the waitress was about to take his order, and mom interrupted to ask if he'd found anything on the kiddie menu. Don't think she ever really managed to get PigPen, sadly, but he is pretty hard to fluster, and she was on good behavior and didn't bring her full complement to bear.

*Shoving the coffee table up against the couch is pretty much the universal sign at our place that someone's about to get their ass kicked; 99% of the time it's me.
**Note to self: update the will.

Fragmented Friday - Keeping Up With the Spawn

• The other day I noticed that Cap'n Bubbles' roomie, Brown-Eyed Girl, had changed her Facebook status to indicate she had gotten a call-back, leading to the following instant message exchange
  

  ME: I'm out of the loop: what did you get a call-back for?
  
  BEG: The summer musical at Denton Community Theatre called "Lil Abner". My sister got the lead female role!
  
  ME: She gets to be Daisy Mae? Cool. Who you trying out for, Stupefyin' Jones?
  
  

  Stupefyin' Jones in the middle, Daisy Mae on the right
  
  

  BEG: haha, yeah she's Daisey Mae. Stupefyin' Jones doesn't sing or speak, so hopefully that's not my part. I'm amazed that you know about Lil Abner, no one else younger than my parents seems to know
  
  ME: Don't forget, you're talking to someone who is both a comic book/comic strip geek* AND a theater geek
  
  BEG: good point

  Just heard from BEG a few minutes ago, she just got cast as one of the Dogpatch wives.
  
  
• Recently Flunky and Flunky Lover have started up a blog to chronicle the exploits of their two spawn** which is cool because it not only helps me keep up with what's going on with Clan Flunky, but because it also give me ample opportunity to take part in one of my favorite hobbies, which I've neglected far too much as of late: taking pot shots at my best bud Flunky. Flunky Lover posted that she was surprised at how much she enjoyed getting comments, to which I replied
  

  Oh, and I'm with you on the comments thing; I think I was much more inclined to blog regularly when I got more comments from more people; nowadays I pretty much only get feedback from you and PigPen (and Zinger, but only in a "stop being such a lazy bastage and actually write something" sort of way), which makes it feel like I'm writing for an audience of two or three, which saps my will to write.
  
  Well, that and the fact that Zinger is right and I am a lazy bastage.

  A couple of days later Zinger messaged me saying how sad it was that he now had to go read other people's blogs to see stuff that I had written.
  
  
• My biggest regret with being sick this past week is that I missed out on judo twice; I probably could have gone last night, but I really didn't want to push my luck, since it was proving to be a pretty hard illness to shake. Feeling much better today, and am glad that this is one of the weekends when I don't have to help anybody move.
  
  
• A couple of my co-workers are trying to talk me into dressing up as my favorite horror movie character next week for Friday the 13th; somehow I doubt this would go over well with the higher-ups. Plus, since one of the major proponents of this idea is well known for trying to mess with my mind, I can't help wondering if it's all part of a massive plan to shower me with pigs blood, metaphorically speaking. At least, I hope it's only metaphorically speaking . . .
  
  
• My folks are planning on coming down to visit in a couple of weeks. Hopefully this trip will turn out better than last year's planned excursion, which went from "mom and dad coming to Denton for my birthday" to "me flying to Tulsa through stormy weather after a huge delay that occured with me stuck in-between two large gentlemen while nursing a bruised tailbone so that I could get a new car after my old one suddenly bit the dust."
  
  
• Our pastor's son has decided to buck his family tradition of attending Baylor, and is instead heading off to my alma matter, OSU. This past Sunday when they honored graduating Seniors during the service, the youth pastor made sure to mention that Dr. Jeff was wearing orange and black. I was sure to go up to him after the service and tell him that orange and black were good colors for him.
  

*Honestly, when I was a kid I practically read the cover off of the Li'l Abner collection from the Miamuh Public Library; one year mom actually had to make me stop reading it so I could read other stuff for the March of Dimes Reading Olympics.
**Think the second story in this post could be one of my favorite "Spawn say the darndest things" stories ever.

Fragmented Friday - Singles on the Move

• While I'm enjoying judo class, I'm still having trouble with the stand-up portion. After a year and a half of getting my butt kicked by The Lovable PigPen on a semi-regular basis, I am reasonably comfortable when it comes to the ground game, but when it comes to actually executing a throw or trip during randori (the name for sparring in judo), I just haven't been able to break through this mental block that hampers my, for want of a better term, "killer instinct." I know part of it is just that I don't feel comfortable with any of the throws yet, and am self-conscious about looking like a fool, and am so busy over-thinking what I need to do that I can't do anything, but I have a feeling that if just once I could make myself fully commit to a throw and execute it successfully during randori, I could start to move past all of that.
  
  
• A large portion of The Singles are re-shuffling their living arrangements this summer. Last weekend I helped Squiggly move; tomorrow, I will be helping Mei-mei and Doc Jetson. And, over the next few months, moves will also be undertaken by Fluffy, Blondie Blaarrrgghhh, Cap'n Peanut, PigPen, Gemini, and myself. After that, if I never see another moving truck again, it will be too soon.
  
  
• Last Sunday my parents took Cap'n Shack-Fu out to dinner; my folks were happy to finally meet my adopted brother and Shack was happy to gain insight into the early days of young Cap'n Neurotic. Mom later informed me that they had, in effect, had my birthday dinner without me, and she lamented the fact that she didn't come up with the idea to tell the waitress that it was surrogate son Shack-Fu's birthday so they could surprise/embarrass him until after she got home. I'm glad they were able to meet up on Sunday, since by Wednesday Shack was called away from Miamuh and reassigned back to the OKC area for the duration of his deployment.
  
  
• Outside of heavy rains that knocked out power at my place for about an hour, my birthday was pretty uneventful. I did go to Tuesday night judo for the first time, which was nice since it was a much smaller group of people and I got more a chance to randori than on Thursday nights. I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday since I was pretty sure doing so would have given Sensei Smart-Alec even more excuses to throw me on my head than he already had. I can hear him now: "This is a special Korean* maneuver reserved as a rite of passage for men entering their 33rd year. Now, just stand still, bend your knees, and whatever you do, don't resist . . ."
  
  
• While I didn't do much celebrating on my actual birthday, Blondie was kind enough to organize a birthday dinner for me the following evening. Had a big group show up, which was nice, even if the total number of people at the table was unlucky number 23. When the waitress was taking Cap'n Peanut's order, he told her that he would get half of my bill, and that someone else would have to pick up the other half for my birthday. "Oh, it's your birthday, huh?" the waitress said with great enthusiasm. "Very smooth," I remarked to Peanut as he sat there with an evil grin on his face. Of course, those who know me well should know that getting up and making a fool of myself when the staff came out to sing to me wasn't exactly a big deal for me; I was much more put out with the fact that my free birthday dessert chocolate cake had nuts in it.
  
  
• Whatever allergens are in the air right now are giving my Ayr nasal rinse a run for its money; think I'm going to have to bump my routine back up to twice a day to keep from sliding back into allergy-ridden misery. Today I'm battling a sore throat, and I really want to nip this in the bud before it gets any worse. I blame the cottonwood, or as Squiggly calls it, "poison snow."
  
  
• A group of Singles went out to the lake on Memorial Day, but I begged off since I was feeling kind of blah and am not a big lake guy anyway. However, I was later very sorry I didn't go if for no other reason than I missed this:
  
  Trouble chasing Squiggly with a fish-head-on-a-stick.
  
  Good times, good times.
  
  
• When I went to deposit a check Tuesday afternoon, I found that my bank's drive-through was incredibly backed up, with each lane having four or five vehicles. But, since my bank account was nearing the negative zone, I decided to brave the rush -- which, I now realize, is a bit of an ironic choice of words, since the lines were moving at a glacial pace. When it was finally my turn and I pushed the call button to request a deposit slip, I discovered the reason for the slow-turnaround when the teller's voice came back over the speaker informing me that due to a lightning strike earlier I could hear him, but he couldn't hear me, so if I needed something I should try to mime it out for him. Not exactly the most efficient form of communication, especially when you're three lanes over from the teller window.
  
  

*Everything with him is either Korean or Irish/Gaelic; before class one night he informed me that we were going to have a substitute Sensei who was going to think in Gaelic, translate into Korean, and then have someone else translate that into English. Surprisingly, this was a bunch of hooey.

It Was Only a Matter of Time . . .

The last 4 1/2 months have been nice, but as soon as my folks told me about the horrible tornado damage in Picher, OK, I knew that it wouldn't be long before Cap'n Shack-Fu's deployment-free streak came to an end. Sure enough, a couple of days ago he got the word, and is now up in my old stomping grounds for an indefinite amount of time. I would try to broker a home-cooked meal for him from my parents while he's up there, but there area few stumbling blocks:

• Shack would have to find the time in his 12-to-14 hour days, 7 days a week to meet up with them
• My folks would have to get their house presentable for guests
• Shack would have to wear a gas mask and oxygen tank the whole time so that his intense allergy to cats didn't kill him on the spot.

I'm thinking number 3 would be the biggest hurdle . . .

Fragmented Friday -- Let the Speculation Begin!

Time once again for random bits and pieces of my life presented in bullet point form.

• We have carpet again; they came and installed it on Tuesday, and PigPen and I spent most of the afternoon moving all of the furniture and electronics back in. It's nice being able to hang out downstairs again, instead of having us all hole up in our separate rooms. Of course, when the rainstorm hit on Wednesday, I was highly paranoid about the water levels, checking constantly to make sure we weren't in danger, a fact that PigPen let go unremarked -- until, of course, we were around other people, at which point he took great delight in demonstrating my neurotic behavior for the amusement of others.
  
  
• I'm not sure which Bubblegum Tate is more excited about: the fact that he won the Write in the Thick of It writing challenge this week, or that he is now a proud papa. Oh, sure, if you ask him, I'm sure he'll say that whole "miracle of birth" thing, but I think we all know the truth . . .
  
  
• Speaking of the challenge, PigPen insinuated pretty strongly that the only reason I got more votes than he did was because more of the people who frequent WitToI know me than know him since he was positive that his story was better than mine; of course, he prefaced this with the phrase "no offense," which made it all better, so I am not secretly harboring a grudge which will lead to his eventual demise. Not at all.
  
  
• Following yesterday's post about the growing Legend of Shack-Fu, I got some interesting reactions: Bubblegum Tate wants me to drag Cap'n Shack-Fu up the next time I head Tate's way so that he can meet the legend in the flesh, while Zinger was much more interested in knowing where he could get his hands on some of those emergency lights, for reasons a bit less altruistic than the Shack-man, I'm sure. When I mentioned this to Cap'n Shack last night, he said that he does sometimes wonder what the non-Singles blog monkeys think of him after reading all my stories; PigPen, who apparently feels I sometimes paint him in a less than glamorous light, agreed. All I can say is, at least I haven't created a blog specifically to detail how PigPen is the source of all Eeeeeeeeevil -- not yet, anyway.
  
  
• It's official: the May 15th season finale of Gilmore Girls will serve as the series finale as well. I know PigPen will be heartbroken; now he'll have to find another show to mock me for liking. Guess I could make it easy on him and start watching Ugly Betty again . . .
  
  
• My dad somehow managed to get four days off in a row on the weekend of my birthday, so mis padres will be heading down Denton way to help me celebrate. What fun and exciting things will we be doing? Who knows? Although we found a few things to do around the DFW area the last couple of times they visited -- last summer it was Six Flags -- I have a feeling that there will be much sitting around the house and hotel room this time around. Since they're probably staying through that Monday, they might actually get to meet some more of The Singles; so far only Bizarro-Zinger and The Anti-Cap'n have had the pleasure. It's always interesting to me when my folks and my friends interact, since I get to find out how my parents' impressions of my friends match up with mine, and I also get to see my friends realize that that certain of my quirks are come by naturally.
  
  
• No, I didn't go to the midnight showing of Spider-Man 3; to be honest, I have no idea when I'm going to see it, although I hope it's sooner rather than later.
  
  
• Last night, I allowed something to happen which I had vowed to myself never would; I am surprisingly less depressed about it than I had thought I would be, but at the same time, my mind keeps going back to it. No, it's not a huge deal, and no, it does not involve sex, drugs, rock & roll, or anything remotely profane . . . although, I will admit there might have been a few not-so-clean words coming out of my mouth when it happened. And now, let the speculation begin!

It's Also Why I'm an Only Child

I plan on getting some movie reviews up before the end of the day* but in the meantime, please head over to my mom's blog and find out all about how her bending over to pick up a pencil 36 years ago is sort of responsible for me being here today.


*Here's a teaser: the new Wicker Man? Unintentional comedy gold

Everybody Likes a Little . . .

In addition to rekindling my nostalgia for the Parkerite days, having roomies again has had another effect: it has awakened the smartass within from its long, deep slumber. Well, okay, it was probably more like a brief, light catnap, but the fact remains that in recent years my inner smartass has grown slow and flabby due to lack of exercise . . . much like the outer smartass.

I come by my smartass nature honestly; my mom's side of the family is rife with smartasses. It’s practically hardwired into our genetic code.* In my younger days I was a well-practiced smartass at home, but was also a big enough nerd to seldom display it during class, for well I knew that way lay detention, sentences, and (horror of horrors) swats. I only revealed my smartass proclivities during times when I could let my smartass behavior fly, free of fear or retribution in any form other than reciprocal smartassery from friends and family.

So, if I've been a life-long smartass, why has my smartassiness atrophied in recent years? Changes in social environment. During the Parker and Book Monkey years I had ample opportunity to exercise my smartass skills in the company of other veteran smartasses, both at home and at work. However, when I moved to Denton, I found myself in a work situation where the smartass population was much thinner, and it was many, many months among The Singles before I felt comfortable stretching my smartass muscles. And, as the membership of The Singles class changed, and I was placed in a leadership position, the resultant dynamic made constant smartass behavior problematic. I must confess that there are times when I miss the good old days when I was the one who got to sit back and make smartass comments during the lesson instead of trying to corral the smartass population. I occasionally feel like a traitor to the smartass cause.

So, why the sudden resurgence in my smartassishness? I think it's all part and parcel of Hanging Out With The Guys. When I was living alone there was little HOWTG, and so my regular dose of verbal sparring was minimal. But pretty much as soon as I moved into Bizarro-Zinger's place it began in earnest. The two of us fell into a steady pattern of behavior: he'd make some comment designed to get a rise out of me, and I'd turn it back on him in as deadpan a manner as I could muster. At one point he told me that he thought I'd fit in well at the fire station since I never let anything get to me.

If he only knew, eh, my blog monkeys?

But in regards to Biz-Z's jabs, he was right; I didn't let them get to me. Chalk it up to personal growth, or the knowledge that this was how he interacted with everyone, or the fact that he obviously didn't have The Doc's knack for knowing the right psychological trigger to make me wig out. Occasionally he would catch me distracted and unable to frame an adequate come-back. He would immediately pounce: "What's the matter? You're usually full of smartass comments."

Hey, nobody's perfect.

The dynamic of the new place is different, and I find myself abandoning the deadpan mode to adopt a more combative style of smartassery that's more in keeping with the tone set by new roomie PigPen and his pal Peanut, who have been good friends for years and therefore know exactly how to push each other's buttons and drive the other into a murderous rage. How else could you know they were best friends? Anyway, the day The Anti-Cap'n and I signed the lease at the new place was also the first time we'd spent extended time around P&P without any of the girls around to temper their behavior; quite an eye-opening experience, in a "what the heck have I gotten myself into?" sort of way. At one point when The A.C. and I were shaking our heads in disbelief, Peanut looked at us funny, and then said "Oh, yeah, I guess you guys don't really know us that well." Briefly after that, I made a couple of cracks (one at Peanut's expense, the other at The A.C.'s), and PigPen acted shocked at my coming up with "two in a row."

Obviously, they didn't know me all that well either.

The moral of the story: old smartasses never die; they just get smartassier**.

* My dad's side, on the other hand, is responsible for me having the "ornery" gene, although I'm afraid it might have been recessive in me.

**All variations on “smartass” are dedicated to Strengthy Girl and Redneck Diva, both of whom know the importance of creating your own vocabulary.

Who Can Resist a Denny's Wedding?

If you head on over to my mom's blog you can (a) wish her and my dad a happy 35th wedding anniversary and (b) marvel at wedding pictures she posted featuring the stylish Denny's Waitress Bridesmaid Dresses, which have provided years and years of amusement to many.

Man, I miss the 70s.

Happy anniversary, Mom and Dad.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

If you would, please head over to my mom's blog or her MySpace page and wish her a very happy birthday.

Resistance Is Futile!

Yet another unsuspecting soul has been claimed by the epidemic known as "blogging." The latest victim: my mom. Please, stop by and say hi, I'm sure she'll appreciate it.

The Subtext of Today's Post is "Cap'n Neurotic is a Lazy Bum"

Y'know, about three hours ago, when my parent's cat woke me up with his meowing because he was upset that I had the audacity to keep my bedroom door closed, my mind was filled with rambling thoughts to blog about as I tried to go back to sleep. Of course, once I did finally manage to slip back into slumber, those ideas fled into the Dreaming, never to return.

Bummer.

Oh, in case you were wondering, yes, I'm still at my parents' house in Miamuh. I've often run across people who seem puzzled by the fact that I would spend my whole break with my parents, a response that, in turn, puzzles me. Spending time here is, for the most part, relaxing; plus, what would I be doing if I headed back to Denton? Pretty much the same things I'm doing here, only without as much company. Also, without the world's most comfortable guest bed, which I fully intend to steal as soon as I get a place big enough to accommodate it and all of my other junk. Plus, as my mom said, back in Denton I don't have anyone who will "almost cook" for me.

To be honest, I wasn't planning on staying here quite this long, initially; the original idea had been to head back down on Wednesday. But, as almost always happens, I just felt so comfortable lazing around that I just couldn't bear the thought of hopping back into my car and driving back just yet. Generally, if I don't get up and around and on the road by 10 AM, the trip ain't going to happen 'til the next day. Why? Because I'm weird like that, that's why.

I would come back tomorrow, but that's my dad's day off, so odds are good that I won't be heading out until Saturday morning, so I should be back in Texas in time for some New Years excitement, or at least the closest approximation to New Years excitement that can be found around Denton.

Okay, that's as much rambling as I can handle without my morning dose o' caffeine. Which reminds me, Flunky once suggested that I needed to turn Eric Clapton's song "Cocaine" into my theme song, only substituting "Caffeine":

If you wanna hang out
You've gotta take her out
Caffeine
If you wanna get down
Get down on the ground
Caffeine

She's alright,
She's alright,
She's alright,
Caffeine

Okay, now I'm done rambling . . . for now.

It's Called Thanksgiving, Not Thankstaking

Happy Thanksgiving, my dear blog monkeys. I'm writing this at my folks' house in Miamuh, OK, where I'm currently trying to recover from stuffing myself with our non-traditional feast of porkchops instead of turkey.

I know I didn't really follow through on the whole "Thankful Thursday" for which I apologize; I suppose I should be thankful I have such a forgiving bunch of blog monkeys huh? Huh?

Anyway, I'd like to take a quick moment to talk about one of the things I am truly thankful for: my parents.


I'm thankful for the way that mom and dad raised me; I am thankful that they did not feel the need to shelter me, but instead trusted in their ability to explain to me what was right and what was wrong, and trusted in my ability to follow their lead.

I'm thankful that they did not try to force me into being a carbon copy of them, that they were willing to accept me for my own likes and dislikes, my own skills and interests.

I'm thankful that they knew when to give me space, and knew when to push; without mom making me join 4-H and TSA, the odds of me actually developing into a full-functioning social being would have been much slimmer.

I'm thankful for the way they allowed me so much freedom as a child, but still managed to give me boundaries; when they said "no," they meant "no," and I knew it. I'm thankful that they treated me like I was a rational being, and yet still allowed me to be a kid; they didn't talk down to me, and didn't coddle me, but didn't overburden me with more responsibilities than I was ready for.

I'm thankful that they've always been so straightforward with me about their past, and their youthful indiscretions, and about the mistakes and stumbles they made along the way to becoming the people they are; I learned from their mistakes, and also learned that even the big mistakes are correctable.

I'm thankful for the example they gave me during our times of trouble, which helped me to realize at an early age that money and possessions do not equal happiness.

Most of all, I'm thankful for growing up in a house that was filled with laughter and love; no matter what all this world may throw at us, we can always relay on that to pull us through.