39

perhaps the worst blow to a man's sense of indestructibility is learning he is a year older than he thought he was. this happened to me the other day during a conversation with someone who inquired how old i would be this month. i confidently responded with 38. to which jen quickly (maybe too quickly) corrected me with a sing-songy 39. i smiled, waiting for the punch line. nobody laughed. a bead of sweat glistened my top lip as i frantically did the math in my head..2010 minus 1971, carry the one..= 39. dang it. it was no joke.

a queasy dose of reality pulled at my stomach as i reflected. how does something like this happen? losing a whole year. ignorance certainly had been blissful, but it had all been a lie. believing i was some spry 37 year old, frolicking with the winds of youth and indifference in my hair, laughing at my much older friends and cousins. it had all been a hateful dream.

regret seeped into my soul. i felt foolish as i took inventory of my recent life choices. lets see, there was the two wasted hours watching twilight. (luckily, ive yet to see the second one), and then there's my current musical preferences (got to stop listening to Owl City). and why, oh why, did i let jeremiah talk me into impulse buying those skinny jeans. i mean, sure, i could probably pull off a cocky swagger at 38, but at 39... i might as well dye my hair and eyebrows black, splash on some Axe, and loiter around the Barnes & Noble coffeeshop in hopes of catching an ego-boosting nod from the college crowd.

when i got home, i checked the mirror. i certainly didnt look 39. i mean, i still had (most of) my hair and those pesky crows feet hadnt strayed too far down my face. so.. i began to wonder, could it be there was a typo on my birth certificate? i mean, how many times have we all habitually scribbled the wrong year on a check..(for you kids out there, a check is the grandfather of PayPal. in the old days, we had to use math and penmanship to buy stuff..)

so, i called my birth hospital in Illinois. i explained to the kid on the phone that i was fairly sure there had been a discrepancy on my birth certificate and who did i need to speak with to to get it fixed. she paused a second before transferring me to an indian gentleman in the Records department. having listened to my speil, Ahmad explained that birth records prior to 1982 were not electronically logged but kept in boxes in the basement. and nobody was sure how those ancient scrolls were categorized anymore. then he asked me if it was true that cartoons use to only be televised on saturday morning. i hung up.

ok. i can deal with this, i thought. rather than dwell on past miscalculations and probable misprints, i decided to look ahead. find something positive. then it hit me. im still much younger than alot of people i know. i mean, look at my extended family. i have cousins that have passed the threshold of 40 and are still somewhat productive member of society. i mean, true, theyre a bit rickety, they still secretly lip sync to Belinda Carlisle and Marky Mark, and their wobbly bladders are probably inclined to be emptied every 15 minutes. but, for the most part, they dont hurt anybody and shuffle through life ok.

i began to feel a little better. actually, i felt a lot better. "late 30's" has a distinguished ring to it and i still have plenty of life to live. i still look forward to things besides grandchildren and my next colonoscopy. i've even adapted to watching cartoons on thursday nights.

so, for good measure, think i'll run over to Barnes & Noble and hobnob with the kids at the StarBucks. maybe i'll show up in my skinny jeans. maybe i'll daub on a little extra Axe. then i'll order a peppermint latte while humming that lightning bug song by Owl City.

if i could just remember how the tune went...

great. now i have Circle in the Sand stuck in my head. and i have to pee...

summertime

i sip my strong coffee and gaze out my office window. Lost Weekend, the flavor of my brew, not early stages of oldtimers disease. i gaze and ponder, reminiscing the last few weeks. let's see. jen and i started taking MMA classes (ju jitsu, muay thai, vale tudo, kickboxing..a lot of wax on wax off stuff). the idea was to find a fun way to lose weight and find a better shape to be in besides oval. the unintended side effect, jen has become a cagefighter. cocky, sassy, and a little intimidating. in retrospect, walking circles around the park may have been a less confrontational weight management choice. but now that she's had a taste of pummeling a body bag, and felt the rush of making a grown man 'tap out'.. well, running shoes and jazzercise just doesnt stack up. she told me the other day that she no longer sleeps..she waits. (i think she stole that line from chuck norris, but i'm too scared to accuse her.

ok. what else- oh yes. our trip out west. we spent 2 wks in california with jen's family. havent been there in 13 yrs or so. it was fun. but there was no rest or relaxing to be had. we hit disney, sea world, and knotts berry farm within days of each other. we sucked all the fun out of these parks, getting there when they opened and helping turn the lights off when we left. sarah turns out to be the daredevil in the group. she was the first to head for the REAL rides: the Xcelerator, the SideWinder, SpaceMtn, and that crazy deathtrap that takes you way up and then drops you screaming to the ground..cant remember the name of that one--think i mentally blocked that trauma from my memory. sarah ate it up, asking to ride over and over.. i couldnt say no (with me being a tough cagefighting father and all). so we rode over and over and over.. until my head pounded and the greasy burger i'd eaten threatened to make an unscheduled appearance.

happy to announce our cat farm is thriving. the population had dropped to an all time low of 5. but thankfully the neighborhood mother cats banded together and blessed us with 4 new litters. not sure, but i think there are around 25 out there now. the downside: sarah has run out of cute kitten names and has reverted to tags like 'knuckles', 'bob', and '#32'. the other downside: i get not only to feed a wad of starving children, but now i get to buy 20lbs of cat food a week.. the other downside: turns out the mulch around the house doubles as a great potty training area for the frisky felines.. the upside: ...(cricket sounds)...uh.. well, sarah has taught her cat herd to stay out of the street..wait, maybe this is another downside..

overall, it's been an exciting summer. the kids are still wallowing in their fun memories, jen has become a lean, mean kickboxing machine, and i, well i am glad to be back at the office, where everybody knows my name and they're always glad i came...(and they dont want to beat me up, or make me feel like a girl for screaming my head off, or claw my legs looking for food..)

our thanksgiving stunk

you know, ive always liked thanksgiving. good food, family, good food. and in my 30 something years of participating in this holiday, i dont recall ever having had a bad experience. sure, i've had my share of 'day after' thanksgiving regrets. but we've all had the buyers remorse that comes after slurping ladles full of giblet gravy and cramming handfuls of cranberry sauce down our pie holes (not to mention dealing with the pepperminty acid reflux that follows chugging more than the recommended dosage of mylanta). but come on, isnt that the true reason for thanksgiving? i mean, does anybody really care that some knee-high sock wearing pilgrims ate hominy with a bunch Indians a thousand years ago? no. thanksgiving is simply a celebration of excessive eating. the one day of the year when it's ok..nay, required to make a total porkin pig of yourself. celebrate, with hopeless abandon, the ability to chew and swallow food in great quantities. yes, anything short of blissful gluttony would be a discredit to honey baked ham and a slap in the face to the spirit of the holiday.

so, why did our Thanksgiving stink? was the food bad? no. was the family fun lame? no. our descent into the lower levels of holiday hades began with a poodle. yes. a nappy headed, white poodle with a malfunctioning anal gland. a disgruntled ball of kinky curls that, for some misguided reason, thought it would 'ok' to attack the business end of a skunk.

well, it wasn't ok.

after taking a faceful of spray, 'Baby' comes yipping back into grandmas house trailing a toe-curling fog of unspeakable horridness. to make matters worse, she rubbed and rolled her stinky face on the carpet, furniture, and grandma.

within seconds, the house stunk. our clothes stunk. our pillows stunk. my toothbrush stunk. my wife stunk. my dear grandmother stunk. ive heard that the only way to get the skunk smell out of things is to bury the contaminated items in the ground for 24 hrs. sounds like a resonably good idea. but it was much more difficult than i anticipated trying to convince jen, the kids, and grandma to stay in the hole while i covered them up. after extensive research on the web, i found that a mixture of tomato juice, peroxide and white vinegar would remove the odor. unfortunately, this is also the recipe for a homemade meth lab (which i felt would be hard to explain to local law enforcement if the whole thing went south).

in the end, we decided to douse each other with febreeze and keep the windows open.

driving back to TN was nothing short of miserabe, but did give me a chance to reflect. thus, i have decided to set up a non-charity organization dedicated to ridding the planet of stupid poodles. it is called P.O.O.D.L.E. (Purging the planet Of Obnoxious Dogs by relocating them to a Lunar outpost far from Earth.). donations can be sent to me, which i will use to buy a new toothbrush.

(disclaimer: the views posted in this blog are not necessarily held by lance nor are they to be taken seriously. i am not planning on sending Baby to the moon and no animals were injured in the writing of this account. in other words, dont tell grandma that i said mean things about her dog!)

tea party

got invited to my first tea party the other day. sarah had quite the spread with a set of exquisite hand-painted china cups filled with a sweet but robust blend of Colombian raspberry tea (actually, it was lukewarm water-but i was told to use my imagination), bite-sized shortbread cream scones (stale Ritz), and a very distinguished group of upper-crust guests. there was a peppermint colored bear, a couple of stuffed cats, a pink chicken, and a plastic doll that kept staring at me (note to self: get rid of creepy doll). i was a little embarrassed at my lack of tea party etiquette but was quickly brought up to speed by my gracious host in the dainty ways of tea sipping. after the refreshments, there was a spattering of polite conversation. the stuffed cats, evidently, felt a little put off with the current policy of allowing the boys to visit sarah's room and petitioned a 'no boys allowed' standard, which would include a very visible sign hanging prominently on the bedroom door. the peppermint bear had a concern with the boys leaving star wars toys on sarah's bedroom floor and seconded the 'no boys' notion. the pink chicken felt there should be a democratic vote to get rid of the boys altogether, and replace them with a handful of baby sisters (for sarah, of course). the creepy doll just sat and stared at me, which gave me the idea it didnt want boys there either. after a lovely time, i excused myself from the party and said goodbye to my new stuffed friends. sarah showed me to the door pausing long enough to direct my attention to a vacant spot that would be perfect to hang a No Trespassing sign. she asked me to forgive the pink chicken for the silly idea of throwing the boys away, (unless mom and i thought it was appropriate-then she would certainly back our decision) but encouraged me to consider restricting the boys room roaming privileges. she assured me, of course, that there would be a special stipulation in the prohibition that would always allow me to visit whenever i wanted.. how could i say no..

enter the wild

the guys and i decided to venture back into the wilderness over the weekend because evidently we didnt learn our lessons well enough last year (raccoon anyone?). so, friday we packed up and headed for the great outdoors for a weekend of fun and frivolity. having purchased for myself a new 5 man tent, i was fairly confident that i would have enough room to at least sleep without being mashed up against the sides of the tent all night (flashback to last year in my '2 man' tent where i was wadded up, drenched, freezing, and mumbling nasty words to myself). which makes me wonder, how can the people at the tent company get away with claiming their tents can sleep 5 comfortably? i'd love to see the head moobly goop from the tent factory try to sleep comfortably with 4 of his moobly goop buddies piled up on top of him in one of their 'spacious' outdoor pavilions (unless, of course, they're a bunch of oompa loompas or something).

we get to the campsite, set up our tents, and waited with wide eyes and white knuckles to see what john, our campfire chef, had in store for us this year. turns out, dinner was quite good. beef stew with onions, carrots, potatoes and cabbage (downside was the campfire dog that slurped about 3 big mouthfuls out of the pan before we could run her away). breakfast, the following morning included eggs, bacon, campfire biscuits, and fried potatoes (again, very nicely done, and no dog slobber this time). actually, everything 'Cookie' threw at us was very good, including a delightful stew of freshly plucked chicken and a side dish of seasoned crawdads. the nights were a bit cool with temps dropping down to the 40's but we somehow managed to keep anyone from freezing to death (which was good being that jen had warned me not to let any of her babies die from exposure). there was a plethora of activities to do including fishing, hiking, and small arms target practice. jonathon attempted to earn the coveted 'pooping in the woods' merit badge but was denied the opportunity when the limb he was using for squat support broke and 'dumped' him smack dab in the middle of the intended target area. (he decided to skip the whole ordeal and wait for more manageable conditions). the guys especially loved the new 'mountainman rules' that we established on the first day:

1) nobody has to shave

2) nobody has to take a bath

3) if you can catch it, you can eat it (assuming 'Cookie' can cook it)

4) playing in the fire is encouraged

5) roasting hotdogs is permissible anytime you want

6) if you see a bear, dont run towards camp (no sense in all of us being eaten)

7) rule 6 applies to mountain lions, T-rex's, and Bigfoots

8) if you do something stupid and almost die, you cant tell mom when we get back home

we had a great time, everybody came back in one piece, and we're looking forward to temping fate next year...

octoberFest

autumn. living in the south, fall is synonymous with cooler evenings, vibrant landscapes, warm pumpkin pie, and the single biggest junk-yard-fest in the known world. this weekend, Octoberfest rode in to town like the band of overweight Harley riders that came to celebrate it. hwy 20 was literally littered with booths, tables, and sprawling yards full of just about any trinket of trash you could dare imagine.

yes, it is the one time of year when the town of hohenwald bands together to celebrate and exhibit our most notable accomplishment: the ability to amass an insurmountable heap of junk and then have audacity and savvy to sell it to each other. but who am i to revile, i found some pretty sweet deals digging through the heaps myself. no. i didnt stock up on tube socks, or $3 sunglasses. i didnt fall for the free funnel cake samples, nor was i tempted by the 2 ton log splitter that was marked down to $75 just for me.. i didnt even hoard up on the .50 VHS movies even though some were still in their original packaging (i.e Staying Alive from 1983)..nope, none of these 'must have' treasures even came close to denting my undaunted resolve and tunnel vision. i was on a mission. i was looking for American Girl books for my little baboon. and did i accomplish my feat, you may ask...

take a look at this sweet pic and decide for yourself..

oh yes, and for a mere .50 each...

maybe by next year sarah will be tired of them so i can set up a booth and pawn them off on the next gullible poor slob.

life rolls on...

been a little while since i updated.. seems like we are all getting too busy to stop and blog (which sounds kinda gross when you think about it). so here's the update..

1) our current cat population is up to around 18 presently. there was a downward spiral in population a few weeks ago (while at the same time, a population surge down the road a couple miles) but the market has rebounded (repopulated) and we are peaking at an all time high...sadly...

2) jen and i celebrated 17 years of marital entanglement. i proposed an amendment to the current 'couch/remote' policy hoping to shift my position from the much smaller (and less comfortable) love seat. but im pretty sure that request was denied and i will continue to crumple up on the 'short couch' watching Bridezillas and the show with the short people that own the pumpkin patch..

3) the titans are 3-0. last time that happened we went to the superbowl (and lost).

4) sissy named her new kid william.. but we call him 'little bill' because its fun.

5) christian is officially taller than jen now..

6) sarah thinks it's great that we have 18 cats on our cat farm.

7) jeremiah got the chicken pox and i thought it was the funniest thing ever..