There and back again

Thanks, everyone for their comments. We made it home yesterday about 6-ish. The kids worked off some steam by riding their bikes, we had dinner, baths, books, etc. Then I was going to write up our days adventures, but instead I printed off the room confirmation for next weekend and my wife jumped my bones for an hour of wild monkey sex, or I fell asleep. You decide.

Let’s see, I’m not as punchy as I was Saturday night so apologies that this isn’t funnier. I think it fitting to borrow some lyrics from Zeppelin:

We come from the land of the ice and snow,
>from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow.
The hammer of the gods
Will drive our ships to new lands,
To fight the horde, singing and crying:
Valhalla, we are coming!

Yes, it really helps to pretend you are a mighty Viking or at least on some kind of epic quest. Instead of accepting that you are just hauling furniture around.

Mellow is the man
Who knows what he’s been missing
Many many men
Can’t see the open road.

Yeah. Something like that. I saw a little too much open road this weekend (just under 1,000 miles combined Saturday / Sunday). So am I mellow now?

Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on.
And it makes me wonder.

Okay, just to fill in a bit on why all this was necessary. We have been talking for a long time with my in-laws about swapping some beds around. They had a trundle bed they didn’t really want/need, and we had two box springs and frames in closets and getting tripped over. Twin size. In our van, we have three kids in car seats, so there isn’t just a whole lot of cargo room. If we left it to others to bring stuff down to us, it would never happen. In addition to the bed stuff, there was a recliner in storage that belonged to my father in law, and some prints my mom had framed for us, and we bought my son a fisher-price power wheels thingy (pictures soon, I promise) that is pretty big for his birthday (actually we called the place up there that had a used one and my dad went and picked it up in The Van on Friday but we knew we had to get it back home somehow).

We were going to rent a truck but there were none locally – lots of college types moving around. We found one in Dallas but they wanted $800 for it and we’d still have to get it back to Dallas so lots of driving. The van was a logical choice.

And if you say to me tomorrow,
Oh what fun it all would be,
Then what’s to stop us, pretty baby,
But what is and what should never be.

By the way, driving down on Saturday night I saw three U-hauls broken down on the side of the road. Three. One – the trailer came off the suburban pulling it. Two others were big trucks, probably full, sitting in the dark with their flashers on while the driver discussed things with a tow truck. Not a pretty site.

Been dazed and confused for so long it’s not true,
Wanted a woman, never bargained for you.
Lots of people talk and few of them know,
Soul of a woman was created below. yeah!

Um, no, I didn’t really sing this very loudly when I was driving along, thinking that there were about a dozen different ways we could have accomplished the same objective. No.

You need coolin’, baby, I’m not foolin’,
I’m gonna send you back to schoolin’,
Way down inside honey, you need it,
I’m gonna give you my love,
I’m gonna give you my love.

It’s lyrics like this that drive my wife insane. She was very, very glad I got my Zeppelin fix while she was busy chasing after three kids. She does not miss the days when people talked like this.

Sweetest little baby
Daddy ever saw
I’m gonna give you lovin’ baby,
I’m gonna give you more.
Bring it on home,
Bring it on home,
Bring it on home,
Alright.

It was so nice to get home. I called my dad to thank him for use of his van (I returned it to his house and left the key while they weren’t home). He laughed and said “I bet you’re tired, it’s not like driving a Honda.”

Pictures to follow. When I find the camera. Thanks for reading.

Paint by numbers

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.

Childhood fears

My son is just about to drive me nuts obsessing over things. We’re way beyond “20 questions” into more like encyclopedia territory.

Three things, usually, in rotation:

  • Spiders
  • Snakes
  • Sharks

Spiders? We talk about which ones are poisonous, what they do, where they live. “And if they wanted to, they could bite your head off!” No, son, only in the movies, spiders are smaller than your head. It would take a while for them to chew through your spine, anyway.

Snakes? Fascinated with venom and teeth. Oddly enough seems oblivious to rattlesnakes (which are more likely here in Texas). Then this morning I see a news report that they are trying to catch a Boa Constrictor nearby, assuming it was released by a pet owner when it got too big since of course Boas don’t live in Texas. It’s been spotted in a stock tank in a nearby town and is pretty big by all accounts. While trying to catch it? They caught a seven foot python but they don’t think it’s the same one. So son, maybe you’re right to worry about snakes in Texas.

Sharks? We live 200 miles from the shore. And shark sightings and actually eating people are rare, right? Well, enter the news reports that the dead zone off the texas coast is driving sharks in to the shore in search of food (food that looks kinda like kids swimming). And we’re going to the beach next week. Andthis movie just came out:



– The stuff that dreams are made of ->

Maybe he’s onto something?