We left this morning to look at possible pets for the, I don't know, twelfth time in a year.
We came home with two cats, Jack and Mimi.
No, I don't know how it happened, either. Neither does Tori. We're very confused.
UPDATE: Check out our kitties.
It's always easy to change your life. Really. Changing jobs is a snap: you just need the summon the will to do the work required to stop working in one place and start working in another. However, even the most determined need breaks, some more than others. And I can't seem to catch one.
Sleep is the best break there is. Sleep, as we all know, is the best way to recharge your batteries. Even if you're a slow riser like me, eventually your brain wakes up and feels like it can take on what the universe will toss at you for the next 14-16 hours. My brain doesn't wake up, for the simple reason that it didn't relax in the first place.
Continue reading "Working eighty hours but paid for forty" »
Tori's mom got through the surgery fine. Although she's missing half a leg, it's a hell of a better choice than the alternative. We're all relieved about it, but we also know my mother-in-law has a long road ahead. She basically needs to re-learn to walk with an artificial limb for a month at a rehabilitation clinic, and then...who knows.
It's been frustrating for me, because I can only worry about so many people, and my worry for my wife and mother-in-law has completely eclipsed my own anxieties about my work hell and my depression. And before you call me self-centered, keep in mind that I do not consider my own problems more important than that of my mother-in-law; it's just a lot to absorb all at once.
Although I've not been exactly prolific in my quest, I have been looking for other work. However, there's just nothing out there. But depressed as I am about it, I do have a job...and two healthy legs. Do I have a right to bitch about my cruddy job when my mother-in-law just had a large chunk of her body removed? Do I want to immerse myself in a career change when my wife might need us to fly out to the coast on a week's notice?
At what point do I concentrate on helping myself so I'm in a better position to help others? Where is that elusive line between self-preservation and self-absorption? Am I making any freaking sense?
Saturday was Tori's birthday but, given how our week transpired, we didn't do anything other than eat birthday cake we bought at Dominicks the day before while waiting for the phone to ring. Everything else - trip to the Shedd, dinner at Gibson's - was cancelled. Hopefully we'll do something in a few weeks. In the meantime, read her blog and wish her both a happy birthday and good luck and happy thoughts for her mom.
There are dispersed, in our apartment, about half a dozen spools of dental floss. Why, God only knows, and God ain't talkin'. There's this one on my wife's desk, a Glide brand mint-flavored floss. It's been in my possession for two and a half years, long enough for me to think I should floss more often. What strikes me about this particular spool of floss is its odor - the mint smells unlike anything else worthy of the adjective "minty." The mint in this floss carries with it a softer, more artificial scent, but seemingly unique. Since I purchased it, I occasionally flip open the cap and take a whiff. The fragrance itself has diminished considerably, but my memory of it lingers and probably accentuates the actual smell.
Most folks do not recall the exact circumstances of their dental floss purchases, and if they do, it's most likely because they buy their floss at the same place every time they run out of the stuff. I purchased this particular roll of floss over two and a half years ago at the same CVS where I bought my mother tampons - next door to the Floral Park Motor Lodge, where we would sleep off the stress of watching my father fight off death for another day. He didn't have many more days to fight; after the lung cancer broke his back, I doubt he really wanted to fight anymore.
I do not write of this randomly. The mother of a friend of mine is fighting lung cancer as I write this, and this news, combined with the seemingly unrelated sight of this minty dental floss on my wife's desk, whips up a string of memories: a couple funny, like the trip to CVS; some moving, like shaving my father as he lay in his bed; but mostly sadness, now stale and faded. Like the smell of an old spool of dental floss.
It's not a long time, is it? In geological time, even in an average human lifespan, it's a stray chocolate chip in the batter of eternity.
Just over five years ago, Tori and I first met at a Cuban restaurant. It was a nice date, even though we went to another restaurant because we didn't want to wait twenty minutes for a table. That it would lead to marriage, or even a hop in the sack, was the last thing on my mind. I just didn't want to screw up the date. Apparently, I didn't.
Even today, some folks find internet dating to be somewhat nerdy, impersonal, fit only for losers too shy to hook up at bars or screw their coworkers. Thing is, I wouldn't have met Tori any other way; she didn't drink, I didn't go clubbing, and although we lived only two blocks apart, we might as well had lived in different states; we worked different schedules in different neighborhoods. The odds of accidentally bumping into each other at Jewel were just about impossible. Hell, we shopped at different Jewels anyway. Without an internet dating service, we would never have met, let alone married.
To celebrate the fifth anniversary of my not screwing up the date, we went to Morton's Steakhouse in the middle of what could be charitably stated was not nice weather. Other than being terrorized by a giant mutant lobster who would not stop staring at me while I was turning him down in favor of a porterhouse, our dinner was wonderful. I enjoyed the smoothest martini I'd ever tasted in my life, and my wife and lifetime love (yes, the same woman!) toasted our amazingly good luck at meeting each other half a decade ago.
Today, when Tori and I walk together, we still hold hands, or I take her arm. We've done this since our first date. Friends have commented about this, seemingly surprised by this behavior of ours. My response (never vocalized) is always the same, "Why, don't you?" I sure hope to be holding Tori's hand when I post ten years and twelve days from the night we first met.
I was born a flirt. I would not be surprised if the first thing I did after emerging from my mother's womb was wink at the attending nurse. And it's not just a genetic quirk: my grandfather, God love him, was equally flirtatious. How flirtatious, you ask? He gave his trademark little flirty wave to a passing nurse not only on his deathbed, but on the very hour of his death. It is quite possible that my grandfather's final thought in this world was, "Nice rack."
For those who know me and know me well, apologies are not always easy to extract from yours reverently. However, this time I feel I must, for the alternative would be to alienate my family and friends.
*ahem* I deeply apologize for buying my wife an iPod nano for Christmas.
I feel like I've been brutally stabbed in the shoulder with dental floss, and it looks like someone welded a dead spider there. I can't wait until I get them removed.
I managed to make it almost 37 years without having someone sew parts of my flesh together. It's a bit strange, when I think about it: I was a kid for a good eighteen years, and I managed to survive it without a single broken bone or a nasty cut that required stitches. However, streaks do come to an end, and it's a good thing: I had an mole pop up out of nowhere on my shoulder a little over a month ago.
