relatives

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familiar stranger

January 4, 2007 in Personal by Ben | 1 comment

Have you ever gone to an airport to pick up somebody you didn’t know?

Or, perhaps, somebody you had met once, but hadn’t seen in a while?

I did this, nearly twenty years ago. It was a couple days before my wedding and I was nominated / volunteered to pick up my fiancee’s brother. My future brother in law.

He called and said he was coming to the wedding, which was a little odd because hardly anybody had seen him in twenty years. I met his son and his ex-wife, in fact, before I met him. Lucky for me, he looked kinda like his dad, so I was able to spot him easily at the airport. That and the fact that the place was just about closed for the day (he must have been on one of the last flights, if I recall he phoned the house when he arrived and this was LONG before cell phones) – he was practically the only person waiting.

Anyway, why do I bring this up, do you ask?

Because that was a long time ago (nearly twenty years, you might recall, back in paragraph three I said this), nobody has heard much from him since, and last night another of my wife’s brothers called and said he had passed away. If I have the story right, he was on dialysis and picked up a respiratory infection in the hospital that did him in. Somebody going through his things found his son’s name and location and a trooper showed up at the door yesterday bearing the bad news.

So, um, yeah.

This is the second sibling in three months, both to a respiratory infection caught while in the hospital. Damn. That’s not good.

My wife told our kids this morning (obviously, they have no clue who he is) and one of my boys was in tears at the thought of her leaving town for a while to go to the service. My oldest, though, was thinking “Oh, yeah, dad’s in charge. Ice cream for dinner!”

Happy new year.

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Hallelujah everybody say cheese

December 8, 2006 in Music by Ben

Ah, it’s a weekend.

Carve the turkey, turn the ballgame on
Make bloody marys cause we all want one.
Send somebody to the Stop ‘N Go,
we need some celery and a can of fake snow,
a bag of lemons and some Diet Sprite,
a box of tampons and some Salem Lights.
Halleluja everybody say cheese,
Merry Christmas from the Family.

Feliz Navidad…

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It’s STILL not Friday

December 9, 2004 in Personal by Ben

Okay, couple things:

1) Y’all are the bestest. Thank you, thank you for the wonderful comments. I just now have logged in again after posting late yesterday (Thursday morning). I am touched. Have I said thanks yet?

2) I can’t leave that post at the top, nosir, so in keeping with the ‘we put the fun in dysfunctional’ theme, here’s a Christmas song that’s been running through my head. You may have heard it, you may not have, it’s really funny when you hear how Robert Earl kinda drones it along.

3) I hope I didn’t leave the impression I was scarred for life. That is too strong of a term for whatever it is that I feel. But you know how you have moments that leave a true impact on you, your character? Perhaps witnessing something, perhaps when something happens (good or bad) to someone very close to you? It’s kinda like that. It colors your world.

From Robert Earl Keen…

Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk
At our Christmas party
We were drinkin’ champagne punch
And homemade eggnog
Little sister brought her new boyfriend
He was a Mexican
We didn’t know what to think of him
Til he sang Feliz Navidad
Feliz Navidad

Brother Ken brought his kids with him
The three from his first wife Lynn
And the two identical twins
From his second wife Mary Nell
Of course he brought his new wife Kaye
Who talks all about AA
Chain smokin’ while the stereo plays
Noel, Noel, The first Noel

Carve the turkey turn the ball game on
Mix Margaritas when the eggnog’s gone
Send somebody to the Quik-Pak store
We need some ice and an extension cord
A can of bean dip and some Diet Rite
A box of pampers , some Marlboro Lights
Hallelujah everybody say cheese
Merry Christmas from the family

Fran and Rita drove from Harlingen
I can’t remember how I’m kin to them
But when they tried to plug their motor home in
They blew our christmas lights
Cousin David knew just what went wrong
So we all waited on our front lawn
He threw the breaker and the lights came on
And we sang Silent Night
Oh Silent Night o’ holy night

Carve the turkey, turn the ballgame on
Make bloody marys cause we all want one.
Send somebody to the Stop ‘N Go,
we need some celery and a can of fake snow,
a bag of lemons and some Diet Sprite,
a box of tampons and some Salem Lights.
Halleluja everybody say cheese,
Merry Christmas from the Family.

Feliz Navidad…

And yes, I’m posting a lot of lyrics lately, prolly cuz I’m missing Gary and his song of the day quiz…

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Paint by numbers

August 7, 2004 in Personal by Ben

Hello.

How are you? How’s your weekend? Mine’s been… interesting. And it’s only half over.

What’s that? Why am I posting an entry at 11:00 on a Saturday night? Well, it’s a long story, but to sum up, I’ll do it by numbers:

  • 4 – number of family members having a birthday in the past month
  • 1 – party at my mom/dad’s to celebrate (such efficiency!)
  • 3 – pieces of furniture that need to be moved between here and relatives in Dallas that are too big for our van.
  • 0 – number of trucks available to rent, something about a college town and august.
  • 1 – van my dad will loan me
  • 10 – age of van in years
  • 302,592.6 – age of van in miles
  • 70 – age of van in dog years
  • 700 – dollars my dad has saved by not having the steering fixed on the van
  • 5 – times I totally freaked out worrying if the steering was working
  • 0 – times the steering actually failed
  • 4 – kids at the party today
  • 3 – ours
  • 3.5 – hours spent partying with family
  • 859 – smiles by people at the party, it was a lotta fun.
  • 8 – hours spent on the road
  • 4 – members of my family that decided to stay at a relatives house instead of follow me home in my dad’s van full of furniture
  • 2 – public storage places we went to till we found the right one
  • 1 – train spotted driving down from Waco
  • 11 – trains spotted driving up this morning. I thought trains were nocturnal, maybe not.
  • 3 – discs in ‘How the West was Won’ by Zeppelin
  • 2 – discs listened to in last four hours
  • 2 – times I yelled “Jimmy Page is a fucking god!” while driving home
  • 17 – minutes of drum solo during “Moby Dick”
  • 3 – times Moby Dick played on the way home
  • 0 – times my wife will listen to live Zeppelin. Probably has something to do with excessive drum solos.
  • 1 – blog post written to put off unloading van by myself
  • 6 – hours I hope to sleep before hitting road again to return van to my dad
  • 2 – times I thought “Shit! I can’t do that in a van with my dad’s phone number plastered on the side.” (It belongs to his company)
  • 2 – number of other drivers that earned title “Buttmunch.”
  • 1 – totally hot woman walking her dog at a truck stop I visited
  • 2 – truck stops on the way home, for coffee
  • 1 – truck stop clerk complaining about crack users buying stuff from their store
  • 1 – times dozed off on the way home in spite of coffee. Good thing the steering is loose.
  • 48 – times I missed driving the Honda
  • 1 – metal toolbox on a metal shelf directly behind my head.
  • 1 – did I mention I missed driving the Honda?
  • 24.97 – paid for gas at one of the truck stops
  • 124.97 – value of van now that it has gas in it
  • 1 – blogger who had damn well better quit bitching about the van, lest it come back to haunt him tomorrow while in the middle of nowhere
  • Eleventymillion – times I miss my wife and kids
  • 1 – garage that needs to be rearranged so furniture will fit
  • 4 – animals who were glad to see me just in time for a late dinner
  • 3 – losers shoppers in between me and the Ben and Jerry’s at the grocery store on the way in to town
  • 2 – number of checkers open
  • 8 – shoppers in front of me
  • 1 – man buying a twin douche pack.
  • 4 – people buying ice cream or other comfort foods
  • 15 – minutes I have put off unloading the van. I better get my ass in gear.

Perhaps I’ll fill in some of the gaps another time. The van (I’m calling it The Beast at the moment) deserves a post all by itself. This thing is a trip.

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