Pounding the Pavement



This picture is funny, because the Shar pei is wearing a hat and
shoes... dogs don't wear hats or shoes.  That's crazy.  And
even if he did wear shoes, why would he just have them on his
back feet.  This picture is silly.



I went running today.  It was the first time in several months.  You see, last week I caught a profile view of myself in the mirror, and what I saw was not pretty.  When I look healthy, the scars on my stomach (from my younger days when I was in Tijuana fight club) look like a smiley face.  If you have seen it, you will know it is uncanny.  However, in my more recent bloated days, my stomach has resembled less of a smiley face, and more of that of a shar pei's face, lots of folds over the eyes and mouth.

So alas, it took me a week to psych myself up but am back pounding the pavement with my size 15, Adidas. 

After about .5 miles I had to stop and walk.  My whole body was hurting.  Even my teeth.  That is the kind of shape I am in right now.  The moment I physically exert myself, my whole body fights it, including my teeth.  I was eventually able to compromise with my body, by promising that I would feed it a parfait made with bacon, sour cream and cheese when it got me home.  I didn't really eat that.. that's gross.

It is crazy to think a year ago I was getting ready to run the Ascent.  Once I won the Ascent, I stopped running almost all together.  I thought to myself, I want to run this again next year, but I did not have the resolve to train again for it.  I took my chiseled form, and god like physique for granted.  A year later, its like VH1's behind the music..."and one day, his dog didn't even recognize his bloated, washed up master... he had hit rock bottom". 

Thus begins the comeback tour...  there is some hidden motivation.  I was recently speaking with an old friend.  She suggested that we do a 5K to raise a bit more money for the adoption.  Nothing is in the works yet, but if it is something you would be interested in participating in or helping out with, please let me know. 

Will I Be That Parent?

Will I be that parent that blames their child's teacher, because they got a C on the spelling test for spelling apple with a "8"? 

Will, I be that parent that yells at the coach for not playing my son, even though he spends most of the game sticking his fingers in his shin guards and than smelling his hand? 

Will I be that parent that refuses to admit that my child stole money from his friend's house, even when I am out to dinner at Ruth Chris Steak house, because that seven year old son of ours wanted to do something nice for us and take us out to dinner?

I worry that I will be that parent, in fact, I am almost certain that I will be that parent.

Why?  You ask.

Well, the other day, my favorite dog, Lucy got into the bathroom trash and tore up and spread out feminine hygiene products all over the bathroom.

Did I get mad at her?

No, of course not.

No, instead, I got mad at my wife.

Why?

Because once a month she "has" to have need for feminine hygiene products, even though she knows this tempts Lucy to get in the trash.

I am a terrible person for these thoughts.... I understand this.

However, let it be known, that I will go to bat for my kids.  Perhaps literally, because I will be the first to charge the mound when my child is hit by a wild pitch in little league, and I will not think twice about squaring up to that fourth grade pitcher. 

Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but I will figuratively fight for our children.

I have been feeling like the blind hair dresser lately...

Misty left me this morning.  She'll be back on Wednesday.  She is on a road trip to Seattle and flying back on Wednesday.  I am a little at a loss for what to do with myself.  It has only been five hours and I am already beginning to feel the affects of starvation creeping in.  It is times like these when I realize how lost I am without her.  I was able to find my toothbrush this morning, but what I thought to be tooth paste, was in fact Ben Gay.  My teeth still feel very cold.  I am thinking about sending the dogs out to live with a friend, they keep looking at me in hopes that I will feed them but I don't know where there food is.  I used to look at the people that lined up for the soup kitchen and think 'there, but by the grace of God go I', now I know this was a misnomer... now I know the truth, 'there but by the grace of Misty, go I'.  My clothes are already badly stained and smell of stale urine, yet they were clean just five hours ago.  What will become of me.  I have been trying to go outside and pan handle, but I cannot for the life of me find out where Misty keeps the markers and jagged scraps of cardboard. 

Certainly, I can overcome this adversity. There have been countless others before me that have been able to rise above their situations.  Take the lady who cut my hair yesterday for example.  I am pretty sure she was legally blind.  I bet she heard all her life "no one is going to get their hair cut by you, if they see you have a service dog", "how are you going to cut hair, if you have no depth perception".  Well, she proved them all wrong.  Not only did she cut my hair, she did a great job... cause I look damn good  right now....  I may be exaggerating, but I am not making it up, she really did have some vision impairment.  She had really thick glasses, glasses as thick as the bottom of a coke bottle.  I thought eye glass technology had advanced a little bit in the last twenty years, so that they didn't need to make them that thick any more, but I guess that isn't the case.

I have been feeling like the blind hair dresser lately.  We have $8000 raised and almost three times that left to go.  It feels insurmountable at times.  But than I am reminded of all of the people who have donated so far, and I cannot help but to have faith that we will get there.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday... hopefully in the next twelve months.     

Me and Antoni

I recently saw a program on the great Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.  His architecture was fun, innovative, and unlike any other before or after him.  What stuck out the most to me was that his last project, his paramount, was a cathedral located in Barcelona called Sangrada Familia.  What was so amazing was that he knew he would be long dead before the cathedral was finished.  Gaudi died in 1926. 86 years later they are still working on it!  It is estimated that the cathedral will still not be finished for another 10 to 20 years. 

 

I bring all this up because I can relate to Gaudi.  I guess there are a number of comparisons to be made.  We are both innovative geniuses, not fully understood or fully appreciated in our own time.  Our critics regard us as being baroque and excessively imaginative.  And don't get me started on how the Noucentisme feel about our independent works.  We also both have beards. 

Of  all these similarities, the one that I can most closely relate to, goes back to the Sangrada Familia, because lately I have been feeling like my list of home projects will not be finished until decades after my death.  At this rate, I don't think I will be done grouting the tiles until at least 2050.  And that is just the beginning of the list.  Yes, I find solace thinking about my kindred spirit.  I imagine him as he tried to enjoy his morning cup of coffee, while Mrs Guadi would badger... "when will you finish the columns?", "are you almost done with the nave?"  "I thought the alter was going to be bigger" "will this be finished before my mother gets in town?", "how come the spires aren't finished yet?"  "I should have married that Frank Wright, he could at least finish a building in his lifetime" "When are you going to finish grouting?"  What Mrs Gaudi and Mrs. Berry don't understand is that genius, like a good souffle, take time.  Sure a lesser craftsman could finish my projects in a couple weekends, but than the projects wouldn't share the art and soul that mine do.

All kidding aside, there is something so romantic about investing in something that will be around long after you are buried in the ground.  Yes, this is where I am going to throw a soft pitch, and ask you to join my Amway team... just kidding.  I hate Amway.  But seriously, though I have never been to Barcelona, I have heard that you can hardly turn a corner without seeing some of Guadi's distinctive architecture.  And better yet, to leave behind an unfinished work, like the Sangrada Familia, an edificethat people for centuries later, will stop and look at in awe.

This is why I believe so strongly in adoption.  It is not just an investment in one orphaned kid.  It is an investment in that child, and the generations that will follow him or her.  We are given the opportunity to alter the path of an individuals life, to give them a fighting chance to leave their own mark on the world.  We can't be saviors, but we can offer unconditional love, support and encouragement that will allow the children in our lives to be everything that they were uniquely created to be.

And lastly there is a little +1 icon at the bottom of this blog.  I have no idea what it does, but I beg that you click on it.  I firmly believe that by doing so, your children will less likely be bullied in their schools... and don't you want that for them?  Don't you... just click it.      

   

Why I married a Soviet prison camp guard...

I generally don't put much stock in reincarnation, but lately I have had an itching suspicion that in previous life Misty was a Stalin era guard in a Soviet work camp.  I think she was the guard that other guards were scared of.  From sunrise to sunset I have been tasked with a multitude of "projects".  When I propose a project (like a water slide that goes from our house to the stream below) they are promptly nixed.  The other day I was caught putting extra bread (my dinner) in my socks (for later) and she put me in solitary for three days. 

It has been said that hell has no fury like a woman scorned... I think they got that wrong.  Hell has no fury like a nesting woman. 

I kid, Misty, as always has been very sweet and genteel these last several months (four years for that matter).  However, it is quite apparent she is nesting.  It is quite cute and endearing.  Already this summer season I have taken down a fence, tiled and grouted a floor*, disassembled and reassembled a closet, and built very shoddy planter boxes... very shoddy. Seriously these planter boxes are so shoddy (how shoddy are they?)  They are so shoddy, I think if plants were planted in there, they would be the kind of plants that cooked meth and married their cousins.

Anywho, Misty has been nesting, and she makes a nice nest.  I see it as an act of faith by her part, faith that we will be able to adopt and start our family.  Which is ironic, because usually I am the optimistic one in our marriage.  But her nesting is saying "we will have kids running around our home... and it better damn well be ready". 

This is optimism I have had a hard time accepting lately.  I look at what we have raised, in the context have how long we have been raising, and I think we have so much longer to go.  I am tired of trying to be hopeful.  I am discouraged and when I am discouraged I easily lose sight of the goal. 

This is the beautiful think about marriage and one of the many reasons why I love my wife.  When one of us in the depth of despair and can't see through it, the other can provide a picture of what can be.  And that makes all the difference.   

Alright, I have to go now.  Misty will be home soon, and I haven't put a third coat of paint on the wall yet.  She'll notice... and it won't be pretty.

A New Season

People ask me a lot what I do at my new job. 

Well, truth be told its pretty boring stuff...  I save lives every day by providing oxygen in concentrated form to people desperately in need. 

You know that feeling when you are short of breath and you can't get enough oxygen.  Perhaps you have been held under water or even water boarded if at one time or another you have been suspected of terrorism.  Either way, you know the relief that comes when you finally do get that precious oxygen, that your lungs crave.  Well, I bring that relief day after day... well not exactly, but I manage the people that bring that relief.  So does that make me a hero... yeah, I guess that kind of does make me a hero.  But I don't want to brag... it's just a days work.

I have always thought it amusing, the cliched office workers hatred of a printer.  However, now I spend ten hours a week fighting with an office printer/scanner and the other thirty hours plotting my revenge on the maker and designer of the Cannon MF6530.  When I find that cannon mf designer I will ask them to do a simple task but make it exceedingly difficult, and make an obnoxious two toned error noise every time he/she gets it wrong.

All this aside, I love my new job, and I am really thankful for it.  The people I work with are great, and we do provide comfort to the dying which all joking aside, is a real gift.

Misty too has started a new job.  She is waiting tables at our favorite restaurant.  It has been great to see her rested, for what almost seems like the first time in two years.  She is no longer burning the candle at both ends, but instead she sleeps in (she works til 11 some nights), works on her photography, and is able to relax and not stress about work.  It is a lovely thing. 

On the adoption front, things are moving.  It feels like the beginning of a new season of patience and waiting.  We spent the last year actively asking and working to reach our goal.  We made great strides to reach that goal.  I ran up friggin mountain for petes sake.  Now, we begin a new season.  A season of expecting and of faith, that I have hope will be even more fruitful and bring us to the trail head.

Hooray for Hollywood

Hooray for Hollywood - oddly Misty was embarrassed when I sang this on the Hollywood Strip.

I just got back from the city that never sleeps, L.A.  What a city... what... a city.  I must admit, I felt a bit like a county mouse when rubbing shoulders with all those industry big wigs.  When I say industry, I am speaking of the garment industry- lots of textile production in L.A. and if you know people in that industry it is really easy to name drop in L.A. 

Another smaller, lesser known industry in LA is the entertainment industry.  Everywhere you go you see celebrities.  Natlie Portman served me coffee at The Coffee Bean, she was there studying for a role where she will be a barista in a feature film.  Christian Slater was my bathroom attendant... he was there, well because it was the only work he could get... hey ohhh.  In a city of 10 million people, 9 million of which work in one of the two industries.  In the Springs, I am kind of a big deal.  I write a bog  that is read by tens every day, not to mention, I am kind of a real up and comer in the liquid oxygen industry.  But that means nothing in L.A., jack squat. 

So alas, I found myself in public areas speaking on my cell phone loudly, even though no one was on the other end.  I just wanted people to think that I was someone, so I would say things like "you listen to me Jack, you pull a stunt like that again and you'll never work in this town again..... yeah we can talk about it at the Lakers game.... Deniro's not going to be there is he, I don't want to have to listen to him right now."  "Well you tell Spielberg I'm not going to placate to his ego, if he wants to direct it, its his, but I'm in charge.  If he's not okay with that, well he'll never work in this town again."  Or, "I don't care if he has to cancel his sons bar mitzvah, we're three weeks behind on production, he will be in tomorrow or he'll never work in this town again."

L.A. just has so much to offer.  In the middle of the city they have the LaBrie tarpits, a tar pond, where tar just oozes up tar and methane.  We also went to the Hollywood strip, and I just daydreamed about one day bringing our children there, so that they too could pose with the homeless people dressed up as super heroes.  They even have a California Pizza Kitchen where they have pizza that instead of pizza sauce it's barbecue sauce.  They call it a barbecue chicken pizza, only in L.A.... only in L.A.

It was a terrific trip.  We met family members for the first time, reconnected with family that I have not seen in seven years and got to experience a sampling of L.A.  However, what I am most excited about is, to one day bring our new family back there.  For in the middle of L.A. is a little neighborhood called Little Ethiopia.  It was really neat.  This neighborhood was sprinkled with Ethiopian restaurants, shops and signs written in Amharric.  A place where our kids, might be able to stay connected with their Ethiopian heritage.