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Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 05, 2014 4 comments

Maintenance Monday

A vacation in Michigan is wonderful, but then there’s the return to the routine and outright misery that is FAR Manor. Nevertheless, I took an extra vacation day yesterday, partly to get a little rest before getting back to work and partly to take care of some things.

Vacation was altogether lovely. We stayed at the Ramada Plaza, at 28th St. and East Beltline, the heart of the retail district and a 10-minute drive from both Other Brother’s place and the place where Dad is now staying. The Plaza has a shallow pool with a high waterslide, and Mason loved the pool. He finally worked up the nerve later in the week to take the waterslide, first with Daughter Dearest and then with me, and then on Friday (our last night) he unlocked the “go it solo” achievement.

The day before we left for Michigan, my phone (iPhone 4) began acting up—powering down and restarting whenever I tried to do anything that involved the display (and that’s why I have no pix to share for now; DD will share soon). I assumed the phone needed to be restored, and worked through it that night with no luck. During the week, I figured out that I could use it for hours if I left it plugged in, which pointed to the battery. Fortunately, iFixit has parts and entire replacement kits (which include necessary tools), along with extensive instructions and videos, and the kit was $25 including shipping. Fighting the Ramada Plaza’s thoroughly crappy hotel wifi, the biggest downside to the place, I managed to place the order and the kit arrived on Monday.

But the mail runs around noon at FAR Manor, so I had the entire morning to change the oil in the Miata. This was something that needed doing a few weeks ago, so it got priority. Turned out I already had enough oil, and just needed a filter. (And an oil drain plug gasket, but we’ll get to that shortly.)

Changing oil is pretty straightforward: put the car up on ramps, loosen the filler cap on top of the motor, the drain plug underneath, and the filter on the side. The top and side can be done by hand, the bottom requires a 19mm wrench. You want a pan to catch the oil, a few rags to wipe up spills… and a new plug gasket. I’d neglected the last part, and ended up with the car spitting a cup of oil on the garage floor when I started it for the leak-check. Off to the parts store for a replacement, which required the van. Since the van needed new wiper blades, no problem. I lost another cup of oil when I loosened the plug, although that was expected. I kept a thumb over the drain hole and put the new gasket on with the other hand. Sloppy, but not difficult.

Then, I figured out what was needed to fix the windshield washers—a Y-connector had come apart and the fluid was going down the rain drain. Since the wife was going that way again anyway, I tagged along to get a replacement.


With the car dealt with, I finally got to the phone surgery. I have a floor lamp with a magnifier, and at my age it’s not an option for doing detailed things like this. To keep tiny screws from escaping to freedom, I did everything inside the shipping box. I was struck by the similarities between the battery swap and the oil change: three screws, a couple of specialty items (ramps vs. plastic pry tool), a little care when reassembling… and each took about the same amount of time. The differences were primarily those of scale and sloppiness.

The insides of an iPhone4,
with the new battery ready to install.
With repairs effected, and vacation over, things can get back to normal. Ouch.

Sunday, March 16, 2014 2 comments

Skylar Takes a Powder

Thursday morning dawned bright and interesting. The Boy took Mason down to Newnan, for an overnight with his fiancĂ©'s family. She (haven’t come up with a suitable blog-name for her yet) is a decent sort, and Mason adores her.

About twenty minutes after they left, I was checking a few things online, and saw a cop car drive by my window… which meant he was in the driveway. I was afraid that The Boy might have gotten up to something, although I had no idea what, and I didn’t have any better theories.

With the coffee still working on kicking in, I gave the cop one of my more intelligent greetings: “What’s going on?”

“Uh, do you have a little boy that lives here?”

“Yeah.” Now I wondered who had called DFACS on us. M.A.E’s mom used to make a habit of doing that, using them as a harassment tool, until they put her on a “permanent ignore” list.

“Did he miss the bus this morning?”

“He doesn’t ride a bus,” I said, more confused than usual for a morning (which takes some doing). “He’s four, goes to pre-K, but Monday through Wednesday.”

“Is he here?”

“He just left with his dad.”

“So he’s your…” By this time, the cop had a smartphone in hand and was poking at it.

“Grandson.”

“What’s his name?”

“Mason.”

“Is this him?” He held up the phone, with a picture of Skylar.

I managed to suppress the urge to say “You have wrong house,” in my worst Russian accent. Having the wife come up behind me may have helped with that. Instead, I said, “That’s Skylar. Mason’s second cousin.”

“Ah. He missed the bus this morning, and just started wandering around. One of the neighbors found him and called us.”

Wife gave him directions to Big V’s place, and he went on his merry way.

Now Skylar has been living with Big V for a while. She’s half blind, has one leg… and so, she often doesn’t see him doing things he shouldn’t and can’t catch him when she does see him. I’m guessing she zorched out and he took advantage of the situation to play outside. Wife opined that Skylar would shortly end up in a foster home… while I took a hike up a busy highway as a toddler around 1961, authorities don’t have much of a sense of humor about such things today. In the end, Skylar’s parents, Cousin Splat and Badger Boobs (long story), got him. I hope they can keep it all together, for his sake.

If not… I rather expect he’ll end up as a long-term inmate at FAR Manor.

Thursday, November 28, 2013 4 comments

Home for the Holiday

Home, home again
I like to be here, when I can
— Pink Floyd

I took the three days off work that the office was open this week, but it wasn’t even a staycation.

Last week, the wife went into the doc’s about her knee. Over the years, it never really recovered from the car wreck that brought Daughter Dearest into the world a month early, and a chicken house accident certainly doesn’t improve anything. It finally gave up about a month ago. The doc suggested trying this and that, which weren’t likely to be a permanent fix if they worked at all. The wife said, “Let’s cut to the chase, not mess with stuff that isn’t going to work, and just replace it. Because that’s what’s going to happen after these other things don’t work anyway.”

That hardware is going
to be around for a while
The “system,” usually glacial when it comes to elective surgery, got its act together more quickly than expected, and she went in for a new knee on Tuesday. Yup, that was how I spent my birthday: dragging myself out of bed at way-too-early-thirty, taking her to the hospital, playing solitaire on my phone in the waiting room, then joining her in her new room. The operation itself was a breeze, but the recovery will take a while.

Lots of people have said to tell her to make sure she does her therapy. No problem there—she’s been trying to get ahead of the curve, trying to flex her leg a little a few hours out of the operating room. Her actual first therapy session went well, with her gimping around the bed on a walker.

With Thanksgiving looming, Daughter Dearest and I wondered about the timing. Still, there was plenty of dinner on the table, including the rolls I made from Grandma’s secret recipe. We didn’t have any shortening, but I found online that coconut oil is an acceptable substitute and we do have some of that. They turned out just fine. She called me in the morning, and told me to pick her up after I ate.

So it was off to the hospital, wheelchair to walker to van, then down to the in-laws to join the rest of the crowd for the second round of face-stuffing. There were jokes about her and Big V having a walker race, but Big V has more experience. I thought that “Two Gimpy Sisters” would be a fine name for a punk rock band.

So there’s a few things to be thankful for this year: thousands of copies of Accidental Sorcerers sold, Mason started pre-K, wife is going to be able to walk well for the first time in years… and Daughter Dearest is more like her old self than she has been in a while.

Saturday, November 23, 2013 6 comments

The Many (goofy) Faces of Mason

When Mason takes selfies, he goes all out:


So the wife, daughter, and I were all laughing about this, and Mason came to see what was so funny. I showed him, and he said…

“That’s not funny at all.”

Which was even more hilarious, of course.

Saturday, July 20, 2013 6 comments

Looking Back on Vacation

I realized a long time ago, when I need a car, it will come to me at the right time. My Civic has over 450,000 miles on it (the actual mileage is indeterminate, as the speedometer only works about 5% of the time these days), it uses oil now, and the gas mileage has been dropping off. So when we went to Florida in January, and my brother Solar said he was planning to sell his Miata come spring, I told him I wanted first dibs.

When he got ready to sell, and realized I was serious about buying it, he waxed enthusiastic. “Yeah, you can fly down, we can go to the autocross. We’ll have a bro-weekend, and you can drive it home!” Works for me… but then the wife realized she didn’t have a lot going on, that week after the 4th, Daughter Dearest hunted down a resort near the beach (like across the road), and it was vacation time!

I still flew down in advance, to spend the weekend with Solar. I packed enough stuff to get me through the weekend, in a bag that tucked easily under the aircraft seat, and the wife agreed to drive me to the airport so we wouldn’t have to pick up a car later on. So we bolted out the door Saturday morning, got two miles, and Daughter Dearest called. “Does Dad want to take a copy of the resort reservation?”

“I don’t think he’ll need it,” saith the wife.

“Well, he left his phone, too.”

Sigh. Turn around, grab the paper and phone, and now we’re on the way. Since my phone was making a bunch of chirps and bings, I stuck it between my legs for easy access. Of course, that meant I left it in the car when I got to the airport. Fortunately, the wife found it and called Solar, to let him know what had happened. I bummed a phone call off the guy sitting next to me on the plane, when we arrived in Tampa, to find that things had been arranged for the pickup. Whew.

So Solar and I had a pretty good time, eating, drinking, being merry, and flinging his 240SX around at the autocross. That took us to late Sunday afternoon, and he handed me the Miata keys so I could meet the rest of the family at the resort. We got there almost simultaneously!

We mostly spent mornings at the beach, the pool in the afternoons. Solar came over for dinner a couple times, and we ate out some, but his job is finally picking back up so he wasn’t around all the time. Our one touristy thing was a trip to the Suncoast Bird Sanctuary, just a few miles down the road. They rescue and (where possible) rehabilitate injured seabirds, but those with permanent injuries have a safe place to live out their lives. There were plenty of free-ranging birds there as well; I think they figured out that handouts were a regular part of life there.

For the rest of this post, I give you a slideshow (with captions). Sorry about the Flash trash, I figured Google would have embraced the HTML5 future by now…



The trip home was interesting. I expected to have to be careful to not leave the wife behind… but she was driving that minivan like Shirley Muldowney up I-75, and I was wailing pretty hard to keep up. I think someone wanted to get home. :-)

Wednesday, July 17, 2013 7 comments

Writing Wibbles

Well, not really writing wibbles this week, because there hasn’t been much writing so far. But with Water and Chaos now launched, maybe I can get back to it soon. Since mid-January, we (that is, the co-op) have released:
  • Accidental Sorcerers
  • The Crossover
  • Oddities: an Anthology
  • Pickups and Pestilence
  • Water and Chaos
Five books in six months is a hefty production schedule, no matter how you look at it. If you’ve missed any, hit the My eBooks page to see where they’re available.

So… since there’s no writing to discuss otherwise, and I haven’t shared much “weirder than fiction” that happens around FAR Manor lately, I’ll do something about the latter. I started sorting through a huge pile of photos from vacation last night, and deleted 80 (out of around 500). That’s a job nowhere near complete, so there’s no slideshow just yet. But it’s coming.

We returned home Saturday evening, in good order. I was driving the Miata I bought from Solar (my brother), and everyone else was in the van. (I was expecting to have to remind myself to not get too far ahead of them, but instead I was often wailing up the highway to keep up. Miatas aren’t geared for all-day freeway driving, kind of like my little motorcycle.) Of course, I got home, and The Boy had stuffed his Acura in the garage space I’d spent an entire weekend making ready for my car. To make matters worse, he was standing outside with his cousin Kobold, who was smoking in my Civic. I was more than a little peeved, and let them know, and told him to get his car out of there.

“Fine, let me take Kobold home first.” They jumped in the Civic, took off, and that was the last I saw of them until morning. Which did nothing to improve my mood, of course. (He’s using my Civic since his car has serious issues, which I will get to shortly.)

He showed up in time for breakfast, and I stayed on him about getting his car out. “We’ll have to push it,” he said, and repeated the litany of problems he’d told me about over the phone on vacation: burning oil, missing a lot, needed major work, etc. Of course, we’ll have to push it meant that he sat in the car and steered, while EJ and I pushed. We got it about 2/3 of the way, before a slight incline defeated us, and The Boy decided to fire it up for the last 30 feet. Indeed, smoke billowed out the tailpipe, and I heard it miss a couple times as he backed it into a pull-off spot.

With the car out of the way, I put the Miata in the garage then joined The Boy and EJ. The Boy already had the hood up on the Acura and was talking about all he had to do: tear the engine down, do a ring job, probably replace the entire ignition system…

“What’s that for?” I asked, pointing to a loose, thick cable coming through the firewall. “Your stereo system?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The fuseholder melted, so I just took it off.”

“Um… you might want to take the other end off the battery.” I lifted the other end, big around as my index finger, attached to the positive terminal.

“Why?”

I swear I didn’t plan this, but I let the cable go, and it bounced down and contacted the engine block, making a hefty pop sound. “Because it’s bouncing around while you’re driving, and it’s shorting out the battery, and that’s why your car is missing sometimes.” I laughed. “You really need to get that off of there.”

“Well, it’s still burning oil,” he grumbled, and went to get a wrench. The way he tossed the wrench on the garage floor afterwards, suggested he was more than a little peeved about this weapons-grade brainfart.

That’s the kind of stuff we deal with at FAR Manor.

Monday, January 07, 2013 3 comments

Pictures by (not of) Mason

Mason provides a lot of the content for the blog these days, although that has always meant I take picture of him and post them. It got a little different today…

We were taking a break from playing this afternoon. I let him use my phone to play some games, hoping that he’d get still long enough for a nap, while I fiddled with my laptop.

Then I heard, “Smile, Granddad.” I looked up, and Mason was pointing the phone at me.

“You found the Camera app, I assume?”

He nodded, I smiled, and he poked the clicker a couple of times. Then he turned away and did some other things. So how many three year olds actually create content for a blog?

Granddad

All my cars

My foot
He’s probably not quite ready for lessons about framing, focus, and so on, so I’ll not confuse the lad. But I’m looking forward to many future guest posts…

Monday, December 10, 2012 6 comments

Recaptured

Vacations always have a sunset clause
The problem with escaping FAR Manor is that I can’t stay escaped. And the recapture always happens a day or two sooner than it should. OK, I shouldn’t really complain. Much. For one thing, the weather was near-perfect for vacation. They need some rain in Florida, but we got lots of beach and outdoor time. Mason wasn’t the only one who had a wonderful time. The only thing I didn’t get to do was meet up with some of my Twitter friends.

I got to take care of some of Mom’s computer issues, and that turned out to be fun. Dozeboxes and their software is always more than a little weird, and Vista flat refused to load the drivers for Mom’s HP all-in-one off the CD. It claimed it needed to run from an admin account, and that’s what we were doing. So I downloaded the drivers and ran it from there, and it worked.

That's me on the left
With all that working, we started scanning pictures. Mom had me get a miniature cedar chest off a high shelf, and she weeded out a few shots that nobody really wanted. The scanning software let us run several pictures at a time, and we made quick work of it.

One of the pictures was this one, complete with someone’s pencil marks. That’s me (on the left) and Other Brother. There was no date, but I figure it was early 1961 when I was in my Terrible Twos. I was an adorable little rug rat, huh? Now you know where Mason gets it from. :-D

Sunday, December 02, 2012 1 comment

Escape from FAR Manor!

For the first time in far too long, we all got to escape FAR Manor. Wife-o-licious tried to get her dad to come, but he flip-flopped around most of the week then finally decided to stay home. That meant the wife did a mad scramble to line up people to keep an eye on him, but line up they did. Mom found us a cottage off the road, across from the beach, and near her place. Daughter Dearest had to work until 3 on Saturday, but that gave us time to pack (and forget a minimal amount of stuff). Still, I breathed a sigh of relief when we got moving with everyone in the car.

Since we were planning to leave so late in the afternoon, I booked a hotel room in Valdosta. It turned out to be right in front of the freeway exit—no left turn, no right turn, just go straight across and into the hotel parking lot. There were two people in front of me to check in at the front desk, and I think it took each of then ten times what it took me, just because I had a reservation. Mason slept through a cavalcade of snoring, and I’ll admit it wasn’t all from the wife and daughter… although both of them did more than they let themselves believe.

So this morning, it was up and on the road again, with a toddler who spent all of his waking hours in a car seat. Nap? Hah! But as we crossed the Howard Frankenstein Bridge (as the locals call it), Mason got his first-ever glimpse of the ocean. He was excited, as you can see.

Mom was helping some other ladies decorate the condo, so we grabbed some lunch and ate at the park across the road while Mason blew off some energy on the playground. (Did I mention it was warm enough to do that?) An older boy was there, and wearing the same color shirt as Mason, so they were suddenly Team Orange and hung out all over the place.

The cottage got a rare Wife Seal of Approval. It’s spacious, and has a big open area for Mason to run around in. So he got to blow off a little more energy while I parked in a lounge chair with my Kindle. Oh, and the place has wifi, which means I get to write a blog post…

So I hope there will be much relaxing through the week, for all of us. I did all the driving, after they said they’d pitch in, so I hope I’ll be one of the relax-ers too.

Tomorrow is a non-vacation post. If I get more post-worthy photos, they will be seen here too.

Thursday, November 01, 2012 3 comments

The World's Cutest Pirate

Arrrr, ye lusty wenches! He’s gonna board yer heart, while his granddad plunders yer booty!


And with Daughter Dearest, definitely looking non-slutty in her phoenix guise.


Hope everyone had a great Hallowe’en!

Well, it's official: no frost in October at FAR Manor, for the second time in three years.

Monday, August 27, 2012 2 comments

Vacation pt 1: Manitowoc

Awwww…
So it was just over two weeks ago when I loaded a tote bag, computer bag, camera bag, and cooler into Daughter Dearest’s car and pointed the nose north. Of course, I’d planned to leave around 10am, but it was closer to 1pm before departure. I had to pick up my BP/cholesterol meds early, and the wife was reluctant to let her slave labor the love of her life go away for so long. But go I did—I was on a mission, although I didn't realize it until I was already there.

I did manage to make the Columbus IN exit around bedtime, and settled on a Motel 6 for the night. The tall, tall sign, visible from the freeway, promised rooms starting at $44.99. I had to ask the desk clerk about that when she handed me the bill for $60. “Oh,” she said, “that’s the weekday rate for a single room.”

“Seems like you should change the sign for the weekend,” I suggested, not being overtly confrontational… yet.

“We can’t see it from here, and something’s screwed up.” Yeah, I think it was a fatal error in the morals circuitry. I haven’t emailed their corporate offices about it yet, but I will. I will. Misleading is the nice word.

The next morning was better—I met the couple that are affectionately called “the Fs” on their blog, for breakfast. All too soon, I was on the road again. But this time, instead of veering onto US31, I stayed on I-65. I got to geek out over the enormous wind farm south of Gary—hundreds of turbines on both sides of the freeway, for miles and miles—before getting stuck in Chicago traffic on a Sunday afternoon. I managed to make Wisconsin before needing gas, and tanked up for the final leg up I-43 to Manitowoc. North of Milwaukee, traffic was stopped up going south, but northbound was mostly clear sailing. I got to The Boy’s place in time for supper.

As always, The Boy has a crowd of colorful characters gathered around him. J (fourth from left), who also came from Planet Georgia and lived at FAR Manor for a little while, left Kentucky for Wisconsin at the beginning of the new year. He’s now The Boy’s official roomie. J’s new girlfriend Courtney lives at the apartment with him, and she says others have been coming around more often now that The Boy and Snippet are broke up. That has been six weeks and counting—probably the best thing for them both. Had I planned to go straight back to Planet Georgia from Manitowoc, I would have contacted Snippet and offered her a ride back. She wasn’t all that thrilled to move up north to begin with, you know. But, since I wasn’t going straight back, I didn’t contact her and we didn’t run into her.

Anyway, they live in a largish old house that’s been separated into three or four apartments. It’s not upscale by any means, but in reasonable shape for young working-class guys and surprisingly clean. He keeps night-shift hours, so I would get up in the morning and creep out to the porch to eat breakfast and write. That worked out well; the others would start moving around at 10:30 or so, about the time I was about wrote out for the morning.

THAT is a lake.
One question I was asked often, “are you taking the ferry across the lake?” The ferry leaves Manitowoc and crosses Lake Michigan (seen behind us) to Ludington. It’s a four-hour jaunt, and not cheap ($150, half for me and half for the car), but I’d get back $30 or $40 in gas and avoid all that traffic. I figured the travel time would be pretty close, but it was four hours I wouldn’t have to drive myself.

Of course, since we were right on Lake Michigan, we had to go to the beach. The weather was beautiful, and I wish I was still there.

On Tuesday night, I got a call from Other Brother. “Bad news,” he said. “Uncle John passed away yesterday. His viewing is Thursday night and the funeral is Friday. Are you going to be here for that?” Then the fun one: “Oh, and Dad totaled his car Thursday.” So at least I could be there not only for the funeral, but to make sure Dad got there.

Wednesday morning, I got The Boy some groceries (“I’m about over the thing with Snippet,” he said) and we had a quick lunch before I boarded the ferry. That’s tomorrow’s installment.

Monday, May 21, 2012 6 comments

The Funeral

How I'll remember her…
My mother in law had severe asthma ever since I’ve been around. She was never one to let it slow her down much though, and it finally caught up to her last week.

She’s had a couple of near-miss attacks before, and after the last one the doc told her she probably wouldn’t survive the next. So she was at the #4 chicken house on Wednesday, where they keep one of the tractors. Even with them shut down since November, they’re still dusty and a little smelly. So combine that with the exertion of climbing a tractor, and it brought on The Big One.

The guy who’s been helping was nearby, but discovered her still wheezing and slumped over… but then she stopped breathing altogether. He did CPR and called 911, which was another black comedy of errors. For one thing, the tin roof blocks what meager cellphone signal we get there. For another, he forgot the street address (easy to do, I can’t ever remember it) and the dispatcher insisted on having one. Finally, they took directions… then the ambulance turned into the pasture and got stuck. So by the time they got her stabilized and at the hospital, it was far too late. Thus begun the tradition of calling the family together and having them on hand before disconnecting life support Thursday evening.

The wife has pretty much anchored everything and everyone the last few days, which means she hasn’t had time to really deal herself. The Boy and Snippet came down from Wisconsin, and Mr. Sunshine got off the road, and Big V is nearby anyway — so there was plenty of sturm und drang to go along with everything else. But in the end, it seems to have worked out. Snippet and the wife have reconciled, so maybe things will be a little more peaceful later on.

Anyway, I’m going to miss her. She was a good cook (especially for small army-quantities) and a great gardener. And how many people had a mother in law who’s maiden name was Alice Cooper?

Sunday, April 29, 2012 8 comments

Commence to… Something

Let’s start with the big picture — long-time readers will recognize the “Then” pic from July 2008.


So yesterday morning, we got up at 6:30 a.m. That was a Saturday, which is a bad thing, but this is something that only happens once. I have several pictures to share, so I’ll let them do most of the talking.

Here they come! You can see DD with a big smile
close to the bottom-right.


I was on the side where her back was to me for the diploma,
but I had a clear line of sight to her in the seats.


And here she is, taking the handoff!


And I got a clear shot of her coming off the stage.


Hey Dad, I got it!!!


For me, the highlight came near the end. She was chosen
to lead the entire assembly in the alma mater!

Today, we’re sort of recovering. I’m going to take Mason outside for a while now.

If anyone needs a music teacher who graduated magna cum laude yesterday, she will entertain all offers. ;-)

Monday, March 12, 2012 7 comments

Just Shoot Me

Big V came up here Wednesday and spent the night. “It’s for this week,” says the wife, “until she gets her glucose under control.” Like The Boy, Big V has diabetes — and like The Boy, she does absolutely nothing to keep it where it needs to be. So her levels have been running anywhere from 220 to 490 (100 is ideal), and “until she gets it under control” could be a long, long time. She had the audacity to ask me for ice cream over the weekend, then I had to chase her away from grabbing a box of Teddy Grahams in the kitchen. Maybe I should just give her the gun; it would be a lot quicker and there’d be more of her left in the casket. Yes, I’m being morbid, but that’s pretty much the situation.

Of course, with Big V up here at the manor, Skylar is here too. Of the two, he’s less hassle. Usually. There’s always the screaming matches with Mason over some toy that one didn’t care about until the other one picked it up.

Monday nights are extra-special. The Voice is on, and SWMBO insists in devoting her full attention to it, and woe to anyone who makes undue noise while it’s on. That wouldn’t be so bad, but Mason sleeps in the living room for now. I need to show her Hulu, so she can watch her shows on the iPad once Mason’s asleep. Of course, if you try using the iPad in Mason’s presence, he’s all over you wanting to play Otto Matic or something. I think once things warm up more reliably, and Big V is no longer here, we’ll move Mason into the guest room until he’s old enough to want The Boy’s old room upstairs.

I give this situation another week. By then, Big V and SWMBO will get into their own screaming match over something and Big V will drive home in her powerchair with Skylar in her lap.

But to end this on a more pleasant note, Mason got his first ice cream cone this weekend. He also got his first taste of kiwi, and I’m not sure which he liked better — his eyes lit UP over the kiwi, and he gave me the Happiest Kid in the World grin when he saw me bringing his cone. Of course I got a pic!

That’s pretty much the way things are at FAR Manor for now. As always, I’ll have to wrest an afternoon from the clutches of everyone else so I can get a few things of my own done.

Monday, February 20, 2012 5 comments

Racing to Recovery

Mason’s cold has about run its course — he’s back to his old (usually) cheerful self — and hallelujah, he’s sleeping all night more often than not!

The Boy is starting to send some cash to cover what he owes us (oh that’s right, it is 2012). So we were in the local Mal*Wart to pick up the wired cash, and guess what was crouching just past the front door? Mason got all excited and walked all the way around it, then I got him to stand in front of it so I could get a picture. “Mason and race car!” he said, pointing to the picture; he’s not referring to himself as “Boy” now.

Speaking of The Boy, he and Snippet are officially on the outs again. Or was as of two days ago. She hadn’t been “home” for a while, and The Boy now says he’s going to get his own apartment when the lease runs out. Having heard similar things before, we’ll believe it when it happens. I am so glad we don’t have to deal with that drama up close and personal anymore. I guess the breakup will be truly official when Snippet moves back to Planet Georgia.

And speaking of Snippet, her mom (i.e. Mason’s other grandma) came to visit on the weekend. He enjoyed hanging out with her. While she was here, we — that is, the wife, her mom, and I — planted a couple fig trees out back. “We need to plant them where they’ll be sheltered from the north wind,” said the mother-in-law. You know, I never thought I’d actually use that Compass app… never say never, right? We ended up planting them behind the house. Maybe they’ll actually give a fig.

Now that Mason’s better, things are getting peaceful at FAR Manor. Time for something else to happen.

Thursday, December 29, 2011 3 comments

A Smooth Visit

Well, as smooth as anything ever goes around FAR Manor, anyway. There were no episodes of Daughter Dearest committing mayhem on Snippet, or even a heated argument. But it wasn’t completely uneventful…

The Boy and Snippet arrived Christmas Eve, almost exactly when expected. I got to talk with The Boy a while outside that afternoon. He seems to really like Manitowoc; he said he plans to stay there two or three years. He’s been working at a snow blower factory, which seems like a pretty steady job in Wisconsin although they haven’t had much snow there this year. He texted me a pic last week (before arriving) of a dusting of snow, with the comment “this is the first snow that stuck for more than five minutes.” It’s been a pretty mild winter so far, north as well as south. But he thinks he has a better job lined up when he gets back… one with good benefits and better pay. That would be good!

Of course, they were off visiting friends pretty much every evening except the last. Mason mostly enjoyed having them around, although he seemed relieved when they were gone. Toddlers do like their routines, and don’t like having them disrupted.

Snippet was mostly on her best behavior while she was here. Mrs. Fetched printed out several of these shots and included them in Christmas cards, including the one for The Boy and Snippet. She opened the card and squealed.

“What is it? A $100 bill?” our friend Jacob asked.

“No, it’s better!” She waved the picture around.

Okay… when someone says a photo I took is better than a $100 bill, it becomes rather difficult to say bad things about that person afterwards. Really, the only problem we had with Snippet is that she seemed to have an upset stomach. A lot.

You think she’s preg? Daughter Dearest texted me (from across the room) at one point. I really really don’t want to think about that possibility. Texting or IM’ing someone in the same room is a kind of telepathy, when you think about it… nobody else can hear what you say FARf! focus!


Anyway. She got better, good enough to go to iHop with us for lunch. One of her friends is working there, was on duty, and they had a nice chat. Snippet had a job at an ice cream factory (imagine that, a dairy job in Wisconsin… almost as strange as a poultry job in Georgia), but it melted away and now she’s at the local Applebee’s. So she told her friend, “If we move back, I could work at Applebee’s and Calvin Klein!” (she worked at the latter in the outlet mall before moving). Mrs. Fetched looked at Snippet, while I looked at The Boy. He didn’t show any reaction at all… like he just tuned her out.

Mason and I both got “happy place” presents. He got the train table shown here, and has left it only reluctantly since Christmas. Mrs. Fetched’s older sister, the sane one (because she lives like 90 miles away) got a new iPhone 4S, stuck her old iPhone 4 into its original box, and gave it to me. SCORE! Her daughter, Cousin Al (long story) gave me a hard-case for it. It doesn’t have Siri, but it works a HELL of a lot better than that crappy-ass Sony-Ericsson thing. I’m looking forward to no random crashes. I just need to get the photos off the old phone now.

There was much of the 3 Fs — friends, family, food — and that’s the part of Christmas I can get into. Of course, that meant I didn’t spend as much time with my online friends as I would have liked, but something’s gotta give when you only have a 24-hour day (and have to sleep for ⅓ of that). I would have liked more time with The Boy, and would have liked to see Snippet make an effort to spend more time with Mason, but overall I think things went much better than expected.

Then came Tuesday. It started out pretty good: I cashed the check that Dad sent, bought a Kindle 3 and a couple $5 CDs (Styx and Journey if you want to know)… and Daughter Dearest’s present for Dia de los Reyes, plus printer ink for her and Mrs. Fetched’s printers. Total: $300, and would have ran more if they’d had a Kindle case I liked. By the way, the Kindle 2 cases aren’t compatible with the Kindle 3. slaps Amazon upside If anyone has $50 that they want to throw away, you can buy me the lighted cover. I plan to de-register my old Kindle 2 and pass it (plus cover) to a friend of mine who wants an eReader. Of course, I’ll leave an ARC of White Pickups, plus Xenocide and a few Project Gutenberg goodies on it.

But I digress. The Boy and Snippet wanted to visit her dad, who is currently in Marietta, and take Mason with them. It’s one of those things that I haven’t managed to wrap my head around, the idea that Mason has another grandfather, but we got our act together and moved the car seat over so they could go. What they didn’t bother to mention was that they went about 40 miles out of the way to pick up a friend and take him along (some things never change). So… we were done with the “blow the Christmas money” spree, and on the way home, when The Boy called: “My car broke down at McFarland Road.”

Yee. Haw. Fortunately, we left the Civic near the freeway. We called our favorite towing service, and the girlies went on home while I went down to pick up the warm bodies — especially Mason. The tow truck was already there, so that was taken care of. That’s when I found out about the friend, but we crammed everyone into the car and got rolling. That’s when Snippet opined, “Maybe we should just stay here.” Again, The Boy gave no reaction. Snippet was less than enthusiastic about this whole “move north” thing to begin with, and she was hoping they’d just stay here once they got here. I had sort of expected them to stay, but they didn’t.

The car was a relatively easy fix: it mostly needed a major tune-up (and a valve cover gasket). So… $100 for the tow bill, $250 for the repairs, and they departed about seven hours behind their original schedule. And yes, we’re the ones who paid for it. Almost worth it to send Snippet on her way, although it would have been better if The Boy had sent her and stayed here. They departed with a car packed to the gills, plus a big carrier that somehow didn’t fall off the roof. Good thing they’re all skinny.

The interesting thing was Mason’s reaction. He seemed to think he was going to go with them, and was relieved when he stayed behind. He was happy to say “bye-bye” even if he enjoyed having his bioparents around for a few days. I hope that one day, not too far in the future, they’ll be able to give him the kind of attention he needs… I’ll miss Mason big-time, but for now he’s where he belongs.

Monday, August 29, 2011 2 comments

Terrible Two

Mason will be 2 in ten days, but he was quite the little monster yesterday. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely his fault.

Mrs. Fetched’s aunt died this week, age 90, about three hours after she went into hospice. The funeral was yesterday afternoon, so I took Mason on to church. As happens rather often, he started nodding out in the car on the way home. Since we were nearly home, I took a little loop that adds ten minutes to the ride and that was enough to get him zorched. Unfortunately, that left about a half hour for him to nap before we had to get him up and go back into town.

Results were about what you’d expect from a toddler whose nap got interrupted: he kept moving at a frenetic pace, trying to keep moving so he wouldn’t go back to sleep in front of all those people. Some other kids showed up, and they opened up a side room for the kids to bounce around in — and Mason’s idea of a good time was trying to escape and getting angry when I wouldn’t let him. After a while, I got frustrated with his disrupting things and took him outside so he could cry as loud as he wanted. All in all, I felt like I was there for neither the aunt or the mourners, and told Mrs. Fetched as much. “You were there for me,” she said, which did make me feel a little better. But if I had it to do over, I’d have stayed at home with him. I did end up taking him home early; DoubleRed was at the funeral and offered to bring Mrs. Fetched home.

Once we got home, he got a little more nap in, but woke up cranky and not completely napped out. Meanwhile, DoubleRed got off on a tangent about Sesame Street, saying there was an episode that was never aired. I was thinking, “Oh boy, the whole Bert and Ernie hoo-hah again,” but it was Something Different. “The head of PBS pulled it,” she said. “They had a same-sex couple, and an interracial couple.” Okay, assuming she hasn’t swallowed yet another line of crap, I could see that they might not want to get embroiled in the same-sex marriage issue. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with the idea just yet, as lame as their justifications might be. But equating interracial marriage? The pod people have had fifty years to get used to that idea. I gave her a rather sarcastic response, and she shut up. Which is fine, because Sid the Science Kid features an interracial couple (Sid’s parents) and I haven’t heard any flack about that even on Planet Georgia. I’ve decided that sarcasm and ridicule are the only way to respond to pod people when they start spewing their anti-everything agenda — they know it’s shameful outside their little circle and rubbing their noses in the fact is the only way to open their eyes to the Real World.

Anyway. Mason cheered up considerably once I got his shoes on and took him out to the patio to splash in the play table, then he walked back to the house. I thought for a moment he wanted to go inside and watch Cars for the zillionth time, but he grabbed a stroller and said, “Ride!” So I took him for a stroll along his usual route, and he was in a much better frame of mind for his supper/bath/bedtime routine. In fact, he slept all night for the first time in quite a while.

The Boy called me this afternoon and talked for a while, then talked to Mrs. Fetched for quite a while longer. He seems to really like Manitowoc — the lake’s right there, the parks don’t have No Drinking ordinances like they do here, he’s fallen in love with disc golf, cost of living is cheaper, what’s not to like? Winter? He’s planning to get a snowboard. He’s in line for a couple jobs that involve sanitation in food-handling plants, similar to the job he had in the chicken plant before a party derailed him. Not much was said about Snippet… I don’t know how she’s dealing with the move or how she’ll handle Real Winter. For all I know, getting her away from the influences she has around here might help her mature a little. (Yes, I’m the eternal optimist.)

Wednesday, August 24, 2011 2 comments

Wednesday Wibbles (Big V’s Big Blowup)

Sitting at the dining table tonight, as Mason is watching Cars for the nth time (actually, playing around in between race scenes). No new followers to welcome this week, but the blog must go on regardless, right?

This was an interesting evening… I was working at home today, and was packing it in for the day when Mrs. Fetched called. “Meet me at Big V’s in five minutes.”

“But what if I don’t want to go down there?”

“Then you don’t eat.”

Well, I applied the usual formula for Mrs. Fetched’s time estimates: multiply by two and add one, then headed down there. She was cooking sloppy joes, while Mason and Skylar were playing in the back room. I wandered on back to look in on them, and the “fun” began shortly after when they started running loose. Big V is more than half-blind these days, and tools around on a powerchair. She came down the hall to borrow my phone, since hers was dead, and ran Skylar’s foot over in the hallway. He howled for a few minutes, but didn’t even limp after he settled down. It scared him more than anything.

I guess Mrs. Fetched must have said something to Big V about watching what she’s doing and waiting for me to come down the hall — next thing I know, I heard a door slam (so I thought). Voices rose, and rose again, and continued to rise, and it wasn’t long before the two of them were in a major-league shouting match. When I came out to see what was going on, Big V hoisted herself out of her powerchair, portable drill/driver in hand, and started on the door between the living room and the little hallway going to the carport. Turned out Big V didn’t slam the door, she deliberately drove her powerchair through it. She didn’t tear the door off its hinges so much as she tore the hinges out of the frame. I took over with the drill, because she couldn’t see to hit the screws, then took the door out to the carport and stood it up out of the way.

With that accomplished, Mrs. Fetched told me to get Mason, because we were leaving, and then the two of them managed to kick their shouting match up an order of magnitude once I got Mason outside. Made me glad I was in my own car, and Mason chose to go home with me — but that’s normal, he likes riding in my car for some reason despite it being noisy and lacking in A/C (red is his favorite color, though).

We got home, and realized that supper (i.e. the sloppy joe stuff) was down at Big V’s, so Mrs. Fetched went and got some. While she was there, Big V said to not help her do anything anymore. No problem. That will last just as long as it takes for her to need/want something. Like I’ve said before, Big V isn’t the most stable isotope on the periodic table.

Monday, August 15, 2011 3 comments

Clearing House

This is what the room that M.A.E. was staying in looks like at the moment:

Mrs. Fetched finally got tired of saying she was going to chuck her out and actually did it. I’ll be at work when M.A.E. comes waddling in after a long weekend of boyfriend-banging, expecting Mrs. Fetched to take her to a doctor’s appointment, but I’d love to see the look on her face when she sees this. Nothing says GTFO like removing all the furniture.

This is the state of the carpet after we applied an entire can of cleaner. She and especially Moptop were none too careful about what they spilled on a white carpet. We’ll probably end up ripping all that out and putting in a wood floor, since we have enough to do this room.

Meanwhile, The Boy got tired of saying he’s moving to Wisconsin and appears to actually be doing it. A friend of his says he’s lined up a factory job for The Boy (he works there too, juicy union wages), and The Boy says he’ll never get along here, so he packed his car last night and is cashing some checks for the trip as I type.

I’m of two minds about The Boy leaving: there are risks, but there are also risks in staying here and working a construction job. The difference is, he has a well-defined safety net here. On the other hand, it’ll be a good experience for him. If he thrives (and survives a Wisconsin winter), he will be happier than he was here. My family is across Lake Michigan, a long drive to be sure but shorter than all the way back to Planet Georgia. I ended up wishing him well, while Mrs. Fetched just hopes he’ll cough up some of what he owes us. Only one way to find out, I guess.

One thing I’m not conflicted about: the move has put a massive strain on his relationship with Snippet. She wants to stay where she already has a job, even if it’s a part-time retail job. More importantly, all her friends are here. (“All her boy-toys too,” said Mrs. Fetched.) She’s been the one putting pressure on him to stay — the exact wrong thing to do with anyone having the in-laws’ genetic code. Telling him (or Mrs. Fetched) something they don’t want to hear only makes them more determined to do what they’ve already decided. I didn’t bother to tell Snippet that, though… she doesn’t listen any better than The Boy.

Finally… we forklifted Daughter Dearest and her belongings over to the college to begin her senior(!) year on Saturday night. She’s staying with a lady from the church choir she sings in while at college, so we’re saving a ton of money on room and board while DD has a nice quiet place to study. The lady has no Internet access, but DD managed to “find” an unsecured wifi node…

So the manor has mostly emptied out for a while. It’s just Mason, Lobster (who is allowed to live here because he helps Mrs. Fetched with the chickens), and sometimes Skylar.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011 2 comments

Wednesday Wibbles

Wow, two in a row! As always, welcome to the new follower:

  • Luca Veste — book blogger, adult student… and father of two daughters! Oh, I’ll bet we have some stories to swap about our kids.

With the manor rapidly re-filling — The Boy and Snippet are back (sigh), and M.A.E. and Lobster show no signs of leaving anytime soon — I’m getting crowded in both time and space. M.A.E. in particular seems to always need something, and isn’t exactly Janie-on-the-spot about helping out. At least Snippet is showing some sign of wanting to take care of Mason… even if she’s inadequate about it.

Speaking of Snippet, she came in yesterday with an awesome sunburn. She wanted to show it to me, and first pulled down the front of her shirt to show her neck — then hiked up the back to show me her shoulders. As she wasn’t wearing a bra, it’s beyond me how I didn’t get an eyeful of boobage along with the acres of redness. I found her some spray-on burn ointment, and it seemed to help. At least she didn’t pull her shirt off again. This morning, she headed to work with plenty of coverage.

With summer in full burn (see above), I made a pasta salad this evening for tomorrow. FARf-alle (bowtie) pasta, sun-dried tomatoes, an onion, a squash, a bell pepper, some broccoli I found laying around in the fridge, garlic, mozzarella fresca, and Vidalia tomato-basil dressing. Lobster doesn’t want to wait for tomorrow, when the flavors will be blended — he’s grabbing a bowl on the way to work. (Oh… did I mention Lobster has a job? He’s working night shift as a welder.)

At least I got some writing done yesterday! I’m going to try keeping up the momentum tonight.

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