Words of Wisdom

When I was out last night I heard someone with an original (for me, at least) aphorism: “When life gets shitty wipe your ass and move on.” Like I said, words of wisdom.

The weather is perfect today, 72 degrees, a little breezy. So unhumid that you almost forget that humidity exists. Like I’ve said many times: if the weather were like this every day I could live under a ruthless dictatorship and not have a care in the world.

I really don’t have much else to add at the moment except that summer is ending quick. All too quick.

Just So You Know I’m Here

Yes, readers, I’m still here. But are you? Hmmm.

Not much going on. I’m finding that I’m having trouble getting the stuff done that needs to get done. Mostly due to my inability to stay organized and focused. But if you know me, you know all about that.

Today I’ll be golfing. Golf makes me happy. Even when it’s frustrating it’s relaxing. I golfed at a local private club the other day. I must say it’s very nice. If you’re driving down Rt 91 through the area here you’ve seen their sign along the highway. I found out when I was golfing that the sign is placed not too far from one of the tees. Now, I’m sure it’s been done a million times but the bet was on for one of us to hit the sign with his drive. And he did it. Damn that made a loud noise. Someone else hit his drive so badly that we’re pretty sure it ended up on the highway (not on purpose) but there was no screeching of tires or smashing of glass. So all is well there. Well, not that we heard anyway.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll see you at the 19th hole.

It’s Food

8/31/05: Today Packy walked into the room chewing on something so I said “What are you eating Packy?”

“Something I found.”

“Something you FOUND?”

“Don’t worry. It’s food.”

“Oh, okay. What is it?”

“It’s a Twistable. I think we bought it a year ago. But it’s still good.”

I think Kindergarten’s going to be an interesting year for our PacMan.

8/16/05: What I Learned: So, anyway, the other day Dee and Packy went to see that penguin movie so I asked them how it was and Dee said he liked it and thought it was cool and interesting. Then Packy said “I didn’t like it.”

“Wasn’t it cool seeing all those penguins in Antartica?”

“Ahhh, no” replied, exasperated.

“You guys must have learned something from it?” I asked, thinking like a teacher.

And Dee told me about a few interesting things he learned. So, of course, I turned to Packy and asked again.

“What did I learn? I learned BOREDOM!”

So, without having seen the film, I can say: March of the Penguins. Eight year-olds, yes. Five year-olds, no.

And in other Packy news, he has a new neighbor just down the street who’s going to be in his class in September. AND, he has an inground swimming pool. Packy is in a heaven that only a co-starring role on Spongebob could replace.

Tired

Man, I’m tired this morning. I wasn’t out late or anything–I was at home by like 11:15–but I stayed up late listening to music and watching TV.

Although my true, workless summer has started, it doesn’t totally feel like it because for the last three days I’ve been hanging with the kids each day. You know, so I’ve been up early and really haven’t had the time to do errands and get stuff done the way I would if I were on my own. Not that I’m complaining: I love time with the boys and going to Taco Bell and hanging around the club with them. Oh yeah, it’s the good life we’re living at the moment.

At any rate, I’m going to go off and be tired somewhere else on the Internet. But today is payday (woot woot) so I got that going for me. Although I made the mistake yesterday of pleading the poor mouth with Packy and then later mentioning that today was payday.

Packy: So you mean you can’t spend anything today but tomorrow you’ll have a thousand bucks to spend?

Me: Umm…

Packy: That’s a lot of tacos for me!

Yes, indeed.

Plans

So, my plans of spending the day with the boys up at the club doesn’t seem to be panning out. A gloomy day. Now I have to figure out what to do. We already have a trip to Taco Bell planned for lunch, but none of us have come up with any good ideas for the day. Any thoughts anyone?

Hold My Hand

5/30/2004: When I told Dee and Packy that after I dropped them off I was going to be bringing flowers to their Baci’s (my mother’s) gravesite for Memorial Day, I was surprised when Packy, who’s four, said: “Can I go too?” Dee chimed in as well: “We want to go.”

Though I hadn’t expected them to want to go, I, of course, agreed. It would be nice to have some company after all. In the past they’ve certainly asked a lot of questions about her (she died a year before Dee was born) and about death in general, but I’ve always attributed the need to visit the cemetery to my old-style Polish upbringing. And I guess that I was also surprised because even (perhaps, especially) as an adult I’ve always dreaded the place and, in fact, made my first trip there last year, eight years after my mom died.

As it turned out, Dee, at the last minute, got nervous about the idea and decided to go home instead. I’m not surprised. He’s the sort of seven year-old who is very sensitive to the power of such things. He knows the place is filled with emotions that won’t be easy to deal with. Packy, on the other hand, I think is more of the exploring type of four year-old. For him it’s a new experience that he wonders about and this is a great chance to ask a lot of questions.

He was excited, but a bit tentative when we first got out of the car. “Hold my hand, daddy” he asked though I already was. And within a few seconds, the questions started to come at me in rapid succession:

There were the straightforward ones:

Why are there two names on that stone? Why do we bring flowers here? Who left all these other flowers? Why is Baci buried in South Hadley?

And then the not-unexpected religious ones:

Is Baci in heaven with Jesus? Will I go to heaven? What do people do in heaven? And of course: how did Jesus die and yet he’s still alive?

And then the classic kid-quote of the day:

Is Jesus buried here? His picture is on that stone. And its eventual follow-up statement: Jesus must’ve died a lot of times for us, I keep seeing his picture on all the stones.

And then there were the tough and painful ones:

Why do people die? Why did Baci die of a heart attack? My Nana had a heart attack and didn’t die. When will grandpa die?

I’m sure I didn’t give many satisfactory answers to his questions, but I tried my best to while keeping things on a four year-old level. It was a special moment for Packy and me. For him it was some special time with dad; for me, his presence there kept me focused on the future, not on the past. I discovered last year that, when I go to the cemetery alone, I’m transported back to that horrible year when my mother, my grandmothers, an aunt and an uncle all passed away over the course of a few months. I dwell on everything I didn’t do at the time and I kick myself over it. But with Packy there I could look at him and smile and lose myself in the challenge of explaining the mysteries of life to him.

But, as I sit here now reflecting on our talk, thinking about his ‘fourness’ and his wonderful worldview, it brings me back to when I myself was five–the year my grandfather died. I don’t remember much about his funeral, but I still remember clearly a time a few months before that. He was in the Nursing Home and my father and I had gone there to pick him up so that he could be home for a family picnic. I didn’t really understand what a Nursing Home was but I knew from what my dad told me was that Dziadziu was very sick. I remember walking alongside them as we left there, my father wheeling him out in his wheelchair. My grandfather held out his hand to me but I didn’t want to hold his hand because my four year-old brain thought that if he was sick I could get sick like him and I remember it took my father getting upset with me before I finally did it. And I felt so awful afterwards. And then later that day I sat near him for a while. I guess I was just trying to say to him that I was sorry, that I loved him, that I would miss him forever and ever.

Summer Reading

Well, I intended to start writing here yesterday, but that never happened. And, today, well it’s all hot and muggy so I’m going to spend much of my day down by the river, in and out of a pool.

But here’s a brief post of all of you.

So, I’ve started reading Harry Potter. You know, the last book. I’m only on page three hundred or something like that–so no spoilers or anything like that if you see me. My ten year old read the damned thing in like a week–which is cool, being a parent and a teacher and all. But it also makes me jealous to have a life again where I take out leisure time for reading and all. It’s my own fault and all, but that’s what I’m thinking. It also sucks that he read it already because he’s just busting with spoilers. I know he’s going to blurt out the ending before I get there. I just know it.

I’m also reading The Belly of Paris by Emile Zola on Tony Bourdain’s recommendation. Not that he talked directly to me or anything. He just mentioned it in one of his books. And it is a great work if you’re interested by vast, sweeping descriptions of food and of the huge food market Les Halles. The story itself is your typical 19th century French stuff. Nothing too exciting or different (not yet at least, I have a few pages to go–so again no spoilers) about the story. But the descriptions of food: truly a stunning work for that.

Anyway, this is just a short post to get the ball rolling. I’ll be back for more soon.

Church of Passive Aggression

3/27/03: Well, I’ve decided to give up my current profession and start my own religion: The Church of Passive Aggression. I anticipate being annoyed with my followers for not doing what I expect them to. I’m not going to tell them what that is, because, after all, they should know.

So far, I haven’t developed too many tenets of this faith. Our prayers will consist of sitting there saying nothing. After all, God is omnipotent, s/he should know what we need from him/her. And, I’ve decided to institute the sacrament of Confession, but, rather than divulging problems, the penitents merely comes to me in the confessional and say “Everything’s FINE.”

Other ways of expressing our new faith will include noisily doing the dishes and ending conversations by walking away muttering loud enough to be heard but not understood. Because we are a long suffering faith, our followers are also expected to go to events or parties that they really don’t want to without a word of complaint and then act like a jerk when they are there.

If you have any other potential tenets, feel free to email them to me. But I’m not going to tell you my email address because if you cared you would already know what it is.

TIRH Returns

Well, for the third time my blog, “This is Really Happening,” has found a new home. Thank you for taking us in, WordPress.

In the coming days I’ll be hitting you with some new posts but I’ll also be working on transferring old blog posts over to here too. Anyone wanna help me move?

Silence.

Yeah, it’s hard to get anyone to help you move. And finding a friend with a pick-up truck? That’s an elusive dream.

So, anyway, here goes…