Thirteen

Our thirteenth anniversary was on Monday. (We actually have two anniversaries: May 27th, when we got legally married here in the States, and June 7th, when we had the wedding down in Ecuador — but the first also corresponds to Deborah's birthday, so we tend to celebrate the second date as our anniversary.)

So, how do you celebrate thirteen years? By going out and doing all the unlucky things you can think of!

We opened umbrellas indoors.

We didn't actually break this mirror; it came broken with the house. Does that imbue bad luck onto the old owners, or us? Either way, the seven years have worn off by now....

We spilled some salt...

LOTS of salt...

....and threw some over our shoulders.

We stepped on cracks (sorry, Mom!)

We picked up coins — thirteen cents! — that were tail-side-up (Have you heard of this? This is a new one on me.)

Walked under ladders...

...and laughed at the gods. Or something above us, anyway.

We had an orange cat cross our path...

...but that probably wasn't unlucky enough, so we drove around in the Zipper, looking for black cats, but didn't find any. So we settled for a shot at 13th street.

So, we had plenty of fun, and no resultant bad luck.*

Thirteen years? Luck has nothing to do with it!

---

*Admittedly, we did have one spot of bad luck that evening: unbeknownst to us, Fiona and Aiden were playing with the branch trimmers: Aiden holding twigs, and Fiona working the clippers. Aiden lost a bit of his thumb and got a trip to the emergency room out of the deal. Luckily, Paul was here and could watch the other kids while we took him, and his thumb is healing up nicely. Besides, this all happened before we started doing unlucky things.

A Historic Moment

It's probably been a good 20 years since I've been to a barber. In fact, I'm almost certain that the last time was while I was living in Spain — so, yes, I can say I've been to the Barber of Seville.

But 20 years is a long time, so...

What, you thought I was going to cut it all off, or something?

I will say that they took off more than I had wanted — specifically, my eyebrows. My eyebrows are blonde and nearly invisible. But all of a sudden, with no warning, I had a comb in each one, zip, zip, zip! She bothered to ask if I wanted my sideburns, but eyebrows, well, those obviously needed to go. Later, when talking to Paul and my father-in-law, both mentioned that the same thing had also happened to them. It's like some national anti-eyebrow conspiracy. Weird.

Birthdays, age, and how they sometimes go together

This afternoon — for the first time, ever, that I know of — I was referred to as "middle aged." Hey! I just got carded at the grocery store this evening!* I can't be middle aged! Just to clarify...

I'm 34.

Thank you.

I know all this, then, because I just had a birthday. Two, in fact.

The first birthday since last year was the most interesting, given that (a) It's the only surprise party I've ever had, and (b) it was exactly three four months after my normal birthday... to wit, I was 33⅓ years old. Kinda like an old vinyl record, if any of you remember what those were. I think I actually proposed the 33⅓ bit myself, way back when, and then totally forgot about it. But other people didn't forget....

This was pretty much my first indication that something was up — being presented with a cake. Of course, Deborah had also told me (rather than asked) that Paul & Paul (they're roommates) would be coming over to play games. Deborah mentioned picking something up along the way... Just as we were cutting into the cake, I got another surprise, as my parents walked in! I had called my mother earlier to wish her a happy birthday, but I had no idea that they were in the car on the way to see us. We ate and played games, and then just as the party was breaking up, God decided to put on a real show, with thunder, lightning, and a tornado watch spanning several counties. We stuck around for a while longer, as the lightning flashed almost continually for several more hours.

My real birthday was a much more sedate affair.

No, really, it was.

The morning we spent going and redeeming various gift certificates; one was for a much needed new pair of jeans (I was down to one; the new pair is pictured here) and to get some more fish for my aquarium. Fiona drew up a lovely card to go with that one.

That evening, Paul, Paul, Aunt Martha, and all of us went out to eat at Hacienda (hence the hat) and gave me a few presents once we got home. Several boxes of chocolate, a green iPod Shuffle (Just what I heavily hinted at!) and a nifty book of "find the difference" photos that Fiona and I greatly enjoy doing together. Monday morning, I also discovered a digital photo frame on my desk at work, and it was several hours before I found out that Paul had collaborated with one of my co-workers to sneak in and set it up.

So yes, I'm another year older. What, I'm supposed to make a speech? Say something wise? Nah! Just reporting the news here. :-)

---

* To make sure I was at least 21. NOT, as one friend suggested, to make sure I qualified for the senior citizen discount. :-Þ

The Ol' Shoulder (Part 3)

When the nurse called with my diagnosis, I really wasn't ready, and had no idea what questions to ask. There was nothing dramatically wrong with my shoulder she said, although there was some impingement. Impingement? The next course of action was anti-inflammatory medication; they could do cortisone shots right there in the office, she said. I felt befuddled, but thanked her and hung up. There were two important things that stood out to me at that point:

1. I didn't require surgery; and,
2. My condition had a name... and a common enough name that they didn't bother explaining what it was.

I took a certain amount of comfort in both these things.

Impingement Syndrome, it turns out, is both complex and simple — simple enough that every medical person I've talked to about it knows exactly what it is; complex enough that I haven't gotten the same explanation twice. What I've pieced together involves the idea that it's a self-aggravating condition: when the rotator cuff (the muscles surrounding your shoulder) swell, they swell up against bone, which irritates them even more, and cuts off blood flow.

The second part is that, even through the shoulder is a ball-and-socket (like the hip), it's a much less stable arrangement — more like a golf ball on a tee than a mortar and pestle. Given that, an imbalance of force is more likely to topple that ball off its perch. It turns out that the muscles on my front side are fairly strong, but that the muscles on the back side of my shoulders are very weak.

So, my treatment has been two-fold thus far: treating the swelling, and treating the weakness.

For the first, I'm on Relafen (or rather, the generic nabumetone) which has the advantage that it's a more effective anti-inflammatory than ibuprofen, costs less (compared to taking 2400 mg of ibuprofen per day, anyway) and you only have to take it twice per day. Win, win, win. I've been on this for about two weeks now.

The second part saw me in to my first physical therapy session yesterday morning, where a kindly older fellow measured the strength of various muscles, and set up a program of exercises that I'm to do throughout the day. I have nicknames for most of these exercises now; Buddhas (sorry, Michelle — that's the name that came to mind, and it stuck!), chicken wings, Superman. The fourth involves a large black rubber band that I hook on over a doorway, and try to pull the house down. I don't have a nickname for that yet.

One thing that struck me while I was there was the very community feel to the place. Most of the people that were there for therapy seemed to know each other, and referred to each other and the therapists on a first-name basis. We were all in the same room, and talked while we had our nerves stimulated, or practiced putting nuts on bolts, or stretched rubber. It felt homey.

So that's where I am now: sore, but happy to be doing something.

Tell a story, Daddy!

Every night, I tell the kids a story once I've tucked them into bed. The fun part is, I do it the hard way: I take requests.

Requests typically involve things that we've been doing; games we've played, books we've read, floods we've paddled down the street in, cheeses we've bought at the store. To make things more interesting yet, I try to take into account what both kids have asked for.

Last night, we did (1) Everybody in the whole world going to the moon; and (2) pie. (Why, the story just writes itself!)

The story of Pie on the Moon

Once upon a time, maybe a few days ago, Mommy made some pie. [She did, by the way; it was yummy.] This time, though, she experimented with the recipe, and added just a little touch of something special. Little did we know, that that something special made the pie come alive. This pie could walk and talk, and it climbed out of the fridge where it was cooling, and wandered out of the house into the back yard. "Hey, wow, look at all this!" the pie said, "there are trees, and sky, and a wagon, and... IS THAT A SPACESHIP?

Well, it was. It was the very spaceship that Daddy had built out of a dryer, two rakes, and a few parts he borrowed from the old car, and that Fiona and Aiden had flown to the moon so many times. "Cool!" said the pie, "I always wanted to go to the moon!" So, it climbed in, and somehow worked the controls, and it blasted off from the back yard, flying up, up, up, through the blue sky, until the sky turned black and the stars twinkled and shone brightly all around.

On and on the pie traveled, for three whole days. Then, it got to the moon, and gently touched down. It didn't need a spacesuit like the kids did — it was just a pie — so it got out and started walking around, tasting bits of cheese from the various boulders of colby, cheddar, and havarti. "Hey, look, it's an old camera!" said the pie, and switched it on. Moments later, every television on earth showed a picture of a PIE... on the MOON. [The kids were howling with laughter at this point. It's a wonderful sound.] "Hello everyone!" said the pie, "I'm a pie, and I am on the moon!" And everyone on earth looked at each other, and said, "There is a PIE, and it is on the MOON. Let's go see."

So they all got into their rocket ships, and all blasted off to the moon. Three days later, they all landed — all six billion of them! — and started looking for the pie. "Is it an ALIEN in a flying saucer?" some demanded. "Can we EAT it?" others asked. "Can we get its autograph?" asked still more.

But the problem is, six billion people weigh a lot. That made the moon very heavy, and that also made the Earth a lot lighter. And that was very bad, because one started speeding up, and the other started slowing down! All the scientists started running around, yelling and waving their arms! "Oh no!" they cied, "Now, instead of a month, we'll have mon, and instead of a week, we'll have a wee, and instead of a day, we'll have a d! Oh, no!!!

So everyone jumped back in their spaceships, and went back to earth. And the world went back to its normal speed.

Well, everyone went back, that is, except two little kids. They stayed on the moon, and went and found the pie. "Hello," they said, "you look a lot like the pies that Mommy makes. Would you like to come home with us?" The pie said "Sure!" and they all climbed into their little spaceship, and sailed across the starry sky, down into the dark blue of the upper atmosphere, down into the blue of the sky, and down, down down, until they touched down gently into the back yard. They carried the pie inside. "Oh, there's that pie! Where was it? I've been looking all over for it," said Mommy. The kids just giggled to themselves, and then Daddy came, and he picked them up, and tucked them into bed, and told them a story. And then, he gave them a hug and a kiss, and he said, "I love you! Good night! ....the end."

*  *  *

While I was doing just that, Aiden piped up in the darkness. "What did they do with the pie?"

I paused for a moment. Eat it? No, I can't say that... better go with what the kids know. "I don't know, Aiden, what do you think they did with it?"

"They put it in the fridge." Ah, of course.

"And that's exactly what they did."

Fiona piped up next while I was giving her the requisite hug. "Hey Daddy, tomorrow, tell a story of a HUNDRED pies, and everybody on the planet going to the moon."

"OK, but that — is a different story, for a different day."

Good night!

The Ol' Shoulder (Part 2)

Pricey. Hahaha. What a wonderful gift for understatement. The hospital called me a few days before my appointment to do the pre-registration, and mentioned the actual price: $2500. Ulp. My insurance contracted with the hospital to knock the price down to $1700, and then mentioned a 10% discount if I paid the whole thing up front. Um, yeah, I'll... consider that. I kicked myself once again for not having done this last year, when our deductible had already been met.

The day arrived, and I felt claustrophobic just thinking about the procedure. I was fairly sure I could survive that long in the machine, but the idea of that confined a space made me nervous. I wondered if I could get nitrous oxide, like at the dentist. I hastily wrote back to the alarmed Twitter and Facebook crowds who didn't think my status update was an adequate explanation, and headed out the door to my appointment.

While I was checking in, about thirty firefighters trooped out. "What was that about?" I asked. "Oh, they're just learning about MRIs." I went back to my paperwork for a minute as that processed. "Wait, why do firefighters need to know about MRIs?" The clerk smiled. "I asked the same question. It's in case they needed to do an evacuation, and a firefighter went in there with a fireaxe... it would fly out of their hands and into the machine. And if someone was in the machine, that... would be very bad." Flying axes. I got the picture. (A little digging on-line came up with the MRI safety video that they probably got to watch. Turns out there's more to be aware of than just the magnet.)

While I was on the phone with the bank, trying to arrange my finances, two intense, wiry, black-scrubbed guys kept poking their heads around the corner. "Yes, this is your four o'clock" the clerk assured them. "They're just impatient," she explained to me with a tone of amusement and affection.

Finances arranged, I got to go back into a waiting room where I was quizzed about anything that might make my MRI experience unfortunate. No, no pacemaker, no implants, no screws, I'm not pregnant. I had to stop and think about the question of having metal in my eye. I've made my share of sparks on a bench grinder, and... well, had I gotten some in my eye? I couldn't remember any specks that got in that I couldn't get out. When they offered to to an orbital X-ray, I figured I'd remember something that big, and said we were safe. I hoped I was right.

I made a metal note to always wear eye protection from then on out, in case I ever had to have another MRI.

Next stop was a locker room, where I was lightened of anything metal. My ring and the rivets on my jeans were allowed, but everything else had to go in the locker. No wallet, no keys, no camera, nothing electronic that I wouldn't want erased. We passed from there through two enormous doors with larger-than-life warnings about strong magnetic fields.

There was a room within a room; the outside one was dark and purposeful with glowing computer screens, enormous stacks of music CDs, and a stereo; the inside one, light and restful, with the smooth curves of the MRI machine trying to relax you. The pretty blue fluorescent skylights didn't quite set off the menacing bulk of the machine, but they were a nice touch.

"So, what would you like to listen to?" I hadn't been expecting that question. One look at the two guys and their towering collection of CDs made me think that Styx and 'Stones figured heavily into their musical heritage, but I managed to find a token Third Day album that I'd never heard among their collection, and chose that.

They slipped a coil over my shoulder that looked like a football shoulder pad, and strapped me down with pieces of shaped foam, stretchy fabric, and a blanket. "You have to be totally still for the whole test, and you may as well be comfortable. You'll be in there for about half an hour." I took serious stock of any pressure points, adjusted my pillow, and they slid me into the machine.

At this point, I have to stop and include a photo, because Deborah complains if I have an entire screen of text without a picture.

There wasn't much to say for the view. I was facing up, and I could see bits of the room in my peripheral vision, but the net effect was of staring at a blank wall, or the side of an old beige computer. A bulky set of hearing protectors/headphones were slipped on, and I got a squeeze ball to alert them if something wasn't right. They left.

The music started. At first, I thought it was just the way the album started — vague, echoey, and muffled. Then I realized it was the headphones. Good grief, I thought, a multi-million dollar machine, and they can't put in a decent set of headphones? Then I remembered: I was lying underneath an enormous magnet. Normal headphones wouldn't work here; the sound was being piped in, literally, like the old stethoscope-style headphones they used to have on airplanes. I settled back and listened to the words as the machine fired up.

Well I won't pretend to know what you're thinking
And I can't begin to know what you're going through
And I won't deny the pain that you're feeling
But I'm gonna try and give a little hope to you
Just remember what I told you
There's so much your living for

There's a light at the end of this tunnel
There's a light at the end of this tunnel for you
For you

How appropriate. And I appreciated that hadn't stuffed me into a tunnel with a closed MRI. I couldn't see out of it, but someone was taking my pain seriously, and trying to find answers.

Meanwhile, there was definitely something going on in the massive structure above me. Whirs, clicks, bumps, ratcheting sounds. And then the loud ones: Braaap, braap, braap, braap, braap, like a school fire drill, and then, over there, a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat that reminded me of playing video games on an 8086, back when they were called "IBM clones." Some of the frequencies made my left eyelid twitch, and I couldn't figure out if it was the sound itself, or the things the machine was doing to every atom in my body. My eye started to burn a bit, and I wondered if I should squeeze the bulb. I wondered for long enough that I decided it must be OK, given that I was still wondering, and nothing worse had happened.

I was also starting to really appreciate how much body-related imagery Third Day put into their lyrics:

This is the body
This is the blood
Broken and poured out
For all of us

Hah, I thought to myself, I can just imagine the guys in there, looking at the screens, saying, "This is the body, and this is the blood, and see, here is where it's broken..."

After quite some time, and a few interruptions in the music to tell me I was doing great, just a little while longer, I was done. They slid me out and unwrapped me, and I was very glad I'd taken the time to make sure I was comfortable. I got to see some of the images (which looked like black-and-white photos of steaks; somehow this was uncomfortable — humans aren't used to thinking of themselves as being made of meat) and zoom up and down my shoulder in tiny sliced cross-sections. They said they weren't allowed to interpret the images, but that didn't stop me from drawing some tentative conclusions of my own — namely, that I hadn't seen anything obviously wrong.

As we were getting ready to head back to the locker area, I asked them how strong the magnet was in layman's terms. "Bigger than the ones they'd pick up cars with," said one technician. The other smiled knowingly, and pressed the locker key back into my hand with a firm instruction that I was not to let go of it. We walked back into the magnet room, and he placed my clenched fist into the machine. It was incredible: the tiny key writhed in my hand and twisted painfully against me as I crossed unseen magnetic boundaries. It took considerable strength to twist it around. Not to be outdone, the first technician then removed his shoe, and indicating that it had a few small staples in it, stuck it to the underside of the magnet, where it wobbled improbably, end over end, dancing about on it's own. "That's 0.7 Tesla," he told me, "some of the 4 Tesla machines, they've got videos of them levitating mice." What I'd been playing with wasn't even one Tesla. Whatever Nikola Tesla got up to, he certainly didn't have a wimpy unit of measurement named after him!

Fun and games (and a lot of very cool technical explanations that I mostly followed) done, we made arrangements for the results to be sent to the doctor within a day or so. Until then, I just had to wait and tell stories. Telling stories is a good way to pass the time.

To be continued...

The Ol' Shoulder (Part 1)

Fifteen years ago, I went skiing for the first time. It was just something a few guys at the dorm put together, crossing the border into Switzerland to get to some good hills. My friend Josh spent a good part of the morning teaching me how it was done, and I spent the rest of the afternoon refining my technique, flipping head-over-heels, losing gloves, retrieving skis, and learning the true, terrible meaning of the phrase, "Mogul city, dude!" ...I was having a blast, in other words.

My friend Josh was a good, patient instructor.

It was near the end of the day that Mr. Hare called out that there was time for one more run, and Josh and I slipped off towards the lift to do just that. The snow dipped unexpectedly, and I fell on my right side. In a single instant, my arm went from being straight in front of me, to being straight in back of me. It hurt. Oh, it hurt. I took my last run with little enthusiasm, and climbed back into the dorm van, wondering just what I'd done.

Fifteen years later, I was still wondering. I was sure my friend's informal diagnosis of a dislocated shoulder and pulled rotator cuff was right on, and he said all I could really do was treat it gently, and control the swelling. I've been doing that, but I've been re-injuring it more and more often over the years, and I finally decided it was time to Do Something about it. I'd been saying that for several years, but this time actually got me as far as an appointment with the family doctor.

For once, I actually wished that my shoulder hurt more. Surely "Ow, ow, ow, that hurts, right there" would be easier to diagnose than what actually happened — "Does that hurt?" "No." Does that hurt?" "No." Does that hurt?" "Maybe a little..." I felt rather foolish to say the least. But in the end, the doctor gave virtually the same initial diagnosis my RA gave in high school: unstable shoulder due to dislocation and rotator cuff injury. "Are you insured?" he asked, "I'd like to order an MRI, but they're a bit pricey." I assured him I did have insurance, and the assistant made an appointment for me.

I felt apprehensive, but at the same time, pleased that I was finally doing something about it.

To be continued...

Snow Angels

The dark days

Summer promised so much. It always does. Now all those opportunities are scampering away, wasted, perhaps, by the joy of actually getting enough sleep, of getting to work by 9, rather than by 7. Tomorrow, Deborah goes back to work — if the car is repaired in time — and I go back to the split shift. The easy temptation to stay up late and have fun is no longer matched by the grace of a flexible starting time in the morning. I look at Deborah's growing belly, and wonder how long I can do this. How long, until all the kids are in school? Six, seven years? I don't even like to think about it. Part of the challenge of life, is living in a way that meets with one's own approval. Leaned up against that, are the realistic options one has. So I do what I must, and move along, during these dark days of the year.

300 and 11

300? 11? What's that about?

I'll give you a hint: one is the number of posts I've made on this blog, and the other is the number of years we've been married. I'll let you decide which is which... although if you're complaining about my latest lapse in posting, or think Deborah and I are truly ancient, you might pick the wrong answer. :-)

We enjoyed the Art Fair for most of the day, and once the kids were in bed, and Paul installed in the living room with a book, Deborah and I returned to the Village to go try out Cerulean, which purports to be a "restaurant and sushi lounge." (I didn't see that there was any separation between the two, but that's what's on the sign.) The national-identity-conflicted menu also included tapas, but that didn't make it to the sign. Everything we got was delicious — Maki rolls for me, spicy vegetable rolls for Deborah (sushi and sashimi are no-nos while pregnant) and an umami-packed tapa of grilled asparagus with proscuitto and manchego. (Deborah says I ordered it for the manchego. I admit, I do miss it.)

The secret to a long and happy marriage? Keep flirting.

After the last pomegranate lemonade, they shood us out of the restaurant, and we took the cart out to the park for a nice romantic moonlit stroll along the beach (no, really!) and some tracing back and forth to see if we could figure out the exact place I had proposed.

I think I'm up for another 11 years. And I think Deborah is, too.

33

OK, quick poll: Have you EVER heard anyone say, "Yeah, when I'm 33, then I'll have some fun!"

No?

Me either.

It was my birthday yesterday. 33. It wasn't a day of excitement — I had to cover at work for my supervisor (no day off...) and ended up working late to try to meet a deadline. I blew it. I gave up, brain-dead, at 7 p.m. and sent the customer the file and an outline of everything I knew was wrong with it.

I got home and was hugged by two awesome little kids, and we all went out to eat. The margarita was perfect, the steak was rarest I've ever had it, the waitress took good care of us, and the kids behaved. I completely stuffed myself. It was lovely.

After the kids were tucked in, Paul came over, and I showed off my birthday present — a palm-sized R/C helicopter. We took turns flying it around the living room, and then retired to the computer, where we watched an old episode of Max Headroom Paul had managed to find on the 'net. The show has aged rather well, I think.

So was 33 excitement by the minute? Nah. Is life good anyway? Yes.

***

Perhaps to make up for all that lack of excitement (or perhaps because it seems like cool thing to do) we're talking about having a 33 ⅓ party — one third of a century, and, coincidentally, the RPM of an old record player. So, Sometime in August, bring your old vinyl, and we can gross each other out with '80s music and slam-dance until dawn.

Or at least until the babysitter needs to go home.

An Early Inheritance

I love Legos. I got my first set sometime when I was four or five, and I have been adding to my collection by one means or another ever since, whether receiving them as gifts, buying them conventionally, through BrickLink, eBay, and yard sales, from purchasing a single piece to complete a project to buying smeone else's entire collection.

Needless to say, I have a bunch.

That's about 65 pounds of Legos. The under-bed storage container barely fits them.

But I have another problem — two small children, whom I also want to learn the joys of Lego. Do I turn them loose in my collection? I can't see that being a good idea right now. Do I just buy them their own? It's a good idea, but Legos are, quite frankly, expensive. (Whoever bought me that first set when I was young, I think, made a pretty serious investment.) Finally the answer came to me in the form of a 200-piece beginner's set that had been given to me on a recent birthday — maybe I could just separate out part of my collection, and share that.

It took a few nights of sitting there sorting through pieces as Deborah quilted and we listened to an audio book, but I finally had sorted out about 500 pieces that I thought would be appropriate for a Fiona. As I sorted, I noticed that a lot of the pieces I was choosing were ones from that very first set I had. I also made sure to include some of those pieces that I'd wished I had back when I was that age.

Her first words were, "Hey, there's a LOT of pieces!

The acid test then, was to see if Fiona thought I had chosen well. Judging from her reaction, I think I did. The effort to separate out all the slanting roof pieces was immediately redeemed when she said, "Let's build a house!"

The house that Fiona and Andy built. A surprisingly modern structure with a double-hip roof, skylights, slanting walls...

...and a big-screen TV on the roof. Who am I to argue? The blue pieces around the house are ponds, according to Fiona. I was about to suggest to Fiona that ponds aren't normally get that close to the house, but then I remembered that we'd only just gotten rid of the ponds that were closer than that to our own, real house.

Halloween pictures

It has (rightly) been pointed out to me that I have posted Thanksgiving pictures, but no Halloween pictures. Let me remedy that.

See if you can figure out what I'm making....

Rip apart an old computer speaker...

Shape a piece of walnut to fit...

Paint 'em gray...

...and attach to the rest of the truck you've been working on.

So, Aiden was a truck. Fiona (at her request!) was a bathtub, complete with towel, shampoo, and rubber duckies.

This is the first year we've both gone out trick-or-treating with the kids; usually, one of us stays home and takes care of the people coming to our place. Thing is... I bought the same amount of candy as I have on other years... and no one was around to hand it out. So we've still got a lot of it. I think we have a year's supply of Nerds left.

Hang Ten

Always wave your arms about wildly. It helps.

One of the featured attractions at the Kalahari is the ability to surf indoors. Having spent eight years in California just slightly too far away from the coast — I could bike to Seal Beach and back in a day — this exerted a powerful pull on my imagination. I used to skate; how hard could it be to learn to surf...? $30 and a waiver later, I was signed up for surfing lessons.

I deeply appreciated the language of the waiver. It gave you a pretty good idea of what to expect. I think I did most of the things it mentions. It wasn't until I got there that I also saw signs suggesting more substantial clothing than what I had on; the flow of water is quite capable of removing your shorts. And there's a live video feed that goes throughout the hotel...

My instructor for the evening seemed to be wiping out on the surfboard about as much as me, so after a while, we switched to boogie boards, which were more his forté. That went much more smoothly.

To be honest, though, "more smoothly" is a little like saying, "slightly less fattening than bacon." I was staying on the board more, but being down lower made me feel like I was facing down two dozen fire hoses. I think I filtered a few thousnad gallons through my eyeballs alone. And I was still getting dumped every minute or two...

[cue surf music] Hahahahaha... wipeout!

Maybe the point of a vacation is to beat you up so badly that going back to normal life seems like a treat.

Or maybe that's just my idea of fun... :-)

That's what coffee is for, right?

Last night, I wonderd to myself, "Why am I so tired?" Then I got to thinking about it. Let's see:

• I'm working 40 hours a week.
• My supervisor is on vacation, so I get to manage the department in her stead.
• I'm coming home in the middle of that for about 24 hours a week so that I can watch the kids so that Deborah can go to work and go to class.
• I'm trying to finalize the deal on my motorcycle parts drawing.
• I'm painting my shed.
• I'm renovating my attic.
• I'm coordinating the construction of new lower cabinets for my kitchen, wrangling plumbers, and getting ready to do remove the old cabinets myself — and I need to keep them largely intact, as I've found someone who will haul it away for free so that he can use them as a workbench in his garage.
• I'm trying to finish collating 1,500 copies of my book. By hand.
• I'm transferring my domain name and business website to another server.
• Diagnose and fix an electric car, when I know astoundingly little about electrical circuits.
• Diagnose and fix a gas-powered car, when I know astoundingly little about carburetors.

Oh, and, most of it's fairly urgent.

The cracks are starting to show. Don't they make some sort of spackle for that?

How does your garden grow? (part 2)

Since Paul helped us with our garden, we went and helped him with his. The two Pauls wanted to grow vegetables instead of flowers, though, so there was a lot more ground to prepare. Fortunately, our neighbors loaned us a tiller, and that made the work a little easier... or, at least, different. I was pretty sore from lifting that tiller in and out of the trunk!

Paul Hostetter and Deborah work at tilling the soil.

Andy and Paul Hostetter clear out the remaining grass.

Paul plants tomatoes.

We did one afternoon all together, including the kids. They got into it, too, with Fiona digging up the yard...

...and dumping it on Aiden. Aiden normally has sparse blonde hair, not brown.

Deborah had pretty dirty feet afterwards, too — I guess that's why you don't see too many farmers in sandals.

10 Years

On Wednesday and Thursday, Deborah and I went and celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. We went up to the Farmstead Inn in Shipshewana. (Just the two of us. Paul very kindly stayed home with the kids.)

Nearly everything had an Amish- or farm-based theme, including our hotel. The "barn" here houses the pool and exercise room.

Wanna race?

Shipshewana is primarily known for being Amish. According to the brochures, the population is 516, and they handle over a million visitors a year. They seem to put up with tourists (like us) rather well.

So what did we do? Well, we...

Bought Deborah an anniversary dress...

It seems odd to have found an Indian dress in the middle of an Amish flea market, but no one else seemed to notice any irony about that.

Looked at Amish arts and crafts...

For the prices, you wouldn't dare sleep on it...

Sat around in hot tubs until we looked like prunes...

This is what my hands will look like for our 50th wedding anniversary.

...and sampled the local cuisine.

Yum. Amish peanut butter (in this town, it was just called "peanut butter") is a mix of peanut butter, marshmallow fluff, Karo syrup, maple syrup, and a few other things. That's what our waitress told us, anyway.

My dentist asked me if this meant that "number 3" was on it's way. I told her Deborah wanted twins. :-) (No, that's not an announcement.) We did a few other things as well, but those are musings and photos for a different post on a different day. For anow, it's just weird to think that I've now been married for nearly a third of my life. It's easier to imagine it in two- or three-year chunks, and then put them all together.

Ten years. Ten!