MY Christmas Story

The holidays are over and my pants don't want to fit. The state is under a good deal of snow which means my family gives me a daily schedule to drive them so they don't risk a wreck. Evidently the TV news warnings of DO NOT LEAVE YOUR HOUSE UNLESS OF AN EMERGENCY had a tag line that said "or if your Dad can take you." What is worse is Mrs. Cris keeps producing a new grocery/Wal-Mart list every day!

Yes Wal-Mart. The one store you want to avoid the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas. You DO know that all holiday decorations, paper, bows, bags, inflatables, lights, toys, gift sets, and overstocked items will go on sale the day AFTER that most holy of holidays... don't you? So every redneck within 50 miles charges to the store with Christmas cash to get new tree skirts, next year's greetings cards, and the best lights left over from yesterday.

Now I too have been known to rush to this sale. A few years ago I got not one but TWO new tree skirts. They were things of beauty. See, over the past three decades we have collected a vast assortment of Christmas do-dads and trinkets. If we wanted to set it all out we could land jet airliners in the driveway and the house would make even the gaudiest of shopping center malls claim we "over did it" a bit. In fact, we had so much that I had to have an outside storage building created just to hold the Christmas stuff. OK, to be fair there are like three boxes of Halloween and one Thanksgiving box of decorations. But still the building is about 80% Christmas decor and we do not have big outdoor decorations. Nope, it is all indoors baby!

So yeah I don't mind a bargain. So like I said, I bought a couple of great tree skits a couple of years ago. I came in and we all marveled at MY brilliance at finding something pretty that nobody else wanted in a timely manner. Then I gave this freshly found treasure to Jr to put away in a storage bin for to use next year and many years thereafter.

Next fall, when pulling out the Halloween Decorations I found those Wal-Mart sacks where they had been tossed inside the door. Not in storage containers. Not protected from field mice or pack rats or any other vermin that inhabits sheds that only get opened for three months out of a year. No I found the last vestiges of rat torn and chewed rags that untold litters of rodents had crapped and procreated upon.

Hell Yes I stood there in that dank smelling environment desperately wondering if I could find a corner of the round skirt I could turn to face the living room and salvage my once great find. Alas I had to admit defeat and we returned to the old rust stained skirt we had been using for the past 15 years.

BEGONE FOUL MEMORY! GET THEE BEHIND ME!! For today the little Mrs and I ventured unto Wal-Mart where I got a fiber optic tree angle and Mrs C got a new tree skirt. Soon we will take down the tree for another season. We will put away the decorations, both old and new for another year. Then, as tradition dictates I will tell Jr to put the storage bins back in the shed because I am too freakin tired and too freakin fat from all the overeating during the holidays. And then 9 months from now we will see the job he performed and most likely the cycle will continue to turn.

New Year New Resolutions

Nope I am not going to resolve to blog more often. Some time ago I read a bloggers tip sheet that begged bloggers to not post every day unless they had something worthy of saying. Then I had internet access problems that seemed unfixable unless I move to a more internet friendly location... which I am not going to do right now... So I got to thinking "Just how important is it to blog on and on about nothing?

Sure it was fun, but it was like an obsessive type of need rather than a productive past time. In the past few months I switched my leisure activity to creating a bragging rights only football pool. I could put my humor and limited creativity into that and impact (harass) people closer to home. That experiment has turned out very good but football is coming to a close.

What to do, what to do?

A few things are certain: The internet service will not get better in the foreseeable future and I will not have more "extra time." So, while I will not close down the O blog right now, it is under consideration. AND somehow with Facebook and a Smartphone AND a couple of teenagers who are always occupying the computer... I have less of a need to be online.

Anyway I feel I need to reach a resolution about this blog. My friend Tina just decided one day she was over blogging and she hasn't posted since. Maybe I should have more than one desire about Christina! Anyhoo Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Hawnykah, and that Kiwanis thing. God bless us everyone.

Three Rules Of Life

As I enter the winter of my life... ok the winter of the year, I grow more introspective. What, I ask myself, what wisdoms would I have liked to share with my children if they had not run off and joined the carnival. (Ha! The joke was on them, it was a community Halloween carnival and not a traveling band of lovable freaks and pedophiles. LOSERS!!)

So thus in my deep and thoughtful introspection I have selected three of life's rules that everybody should live follow in life. These are rules I learned at the college of hard knocks and misdemeanor criminal records.

#3. After year's of separation it always feels good to hug Grandma. But no matter how good that hug feels, no matter how much you are feeling the love; DO NOT slap that ass!

#2. If you apply Deep Heating Rub on your sore back prior to getting undressed and climbing into bed to relax to Cinemax TV; WASH YOUR HANDS before you even get close to touching Mr. Happy!

#1 If you hire a Bagpiper to march in a local parade to promote your new project; INSIST he wear something under that kilt when marching in Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping up your legs!

Road Rage

Why Cris, old boy! What the devil are you doing up and on your blog at 5:30am?

Well Dead Reader, I have a Blackberry. And from time to time that Blackberry gets Email. And from time to time, while on the road I set the phone to alert me to incoming messages so I don't miss important work or family related news while traveling.

All reasonable, you think? Responsible family man on a business trip out of town wanting to be available to family and staff needs, right? So there am asleep in a smelly old Holiday Inn when my phone starts alerting me to incoming mail from Overstock.Com and some Holiday Card business and it is 4:30 in the freakin morning!!

Sure I get out of bed, go across the room to check the phone, both times. Of course I go back to bed, I mean it IS this middle of the freakin night... the only reason I am staying in a hotel is so I can sleep the extra couple of hours it would take me to drive here. I mean if I had driven home last night, in order to get back to the state capital I would have had to get out of my comfortable new Serta Perfect Sleeper with the downy soft memory foam topper at em... about 5:30am.

So I go back to bed and toss and turn and figit and finally get up and vent to you, my faithful friend and reader. Yes I used the singular because I pretty much know who actually reads this (thanks Mom) ANYhoooo... Maybe I can go back to sleep and grab another hours rest before it is time to return to the training. I will try because I am responsible that way.

Yes I turned my damn phone off! Yes I want to hunt down and flick rubber bands at the SOB who signed me up for alerts from Overstock.com... a site I have never visited. But I am too mature for thoughts of violent and well deserved retribution. I am a man of piece and love. So I think I watch some porn and try to go back to bed.

The Heat Is On!

Let it be known from this day forward Cris was cold and he turned on the heat for the winter. I know, I know this should not be blog worthy, but I live in Oklahoma dude! We are still mowing grass on weekends. We do not expect our first frost for another week or two. But it has been dipping down into the 40s at night, it is currently in the mid 50s and my big ass is COLD!

So let the other rednecks talk, scoff if they will. Cris turned on the heat on October 5, 2009. And... it feels good! By the way, I finally moved the TV back to where it belongs so we can access the fireplace. I have to admit the tile hearth and the new wood floor look pretty good together.


My son is in the final count down to the day he will sell his summer cow project for FAA. This is a heard project. He kept careful books on the feed and vet bills. These books he will turn into the teacher with the results of his sale, to show the profit margin on the project. This is NOT a true reflection of the experience. He is not paying pasture rent, he is not paying other family members to actually make sure the cows are fed and watered each day and most importantly he is not paying for water.

Yes Water! Our water bill has been on average about $100 a month more since we got the cows. Granted, a good portion of that is because when Mom or Dad go out to fill the water tank that the boy forgot to fill, they tend to get distracted and walk away in the 20 minutes it takes to fill, and they don't remember to turn off the water until the next morning when they see a flooded pasture on the way to work. If we have another heard project next year we will A. buy the calves earlier in the Spring. B. Mow down pasture weeds to enhance the grass and C. Buy the $20 valve you can put on a tank that turns the water on and off so doddering old relics like my son's Mom and Dad don't have to focus on a task for 20 full minutes at a time.

Today is my daughter's Half Birthday. She has been talking about it all week. She has exactly 6 months of childhood left from today. Fear has started to creep in as the excitement of possibilities has shifted to the reality of time. She is growing up. She will be an adult with adult responsibilities the rest of her life. There is no going back. I try to help ease the anxiety by reminding her that she will ALWAYS be Daddy's little girl.

Fear and the Fear of Fear

There I said it all in the title. OK, its out there and lying like a cold dead fish on the counter top, waiting on us to chop it up, roll it around in our own special ideas of how to prepare and serve it. Some love it, others hate it and I think maybe the majority of us spend our lives trying to cope with it. Fear.

I will be the first to admit I am a collection of shivering, wide eyed awake in the middle of the night because I can't sleep fear. I fear the unknown, I fear the expected, I fear Y2K really happened and a huge Government cover-up is hiding the fact that we are now totally back in the stone age. I fear the death, harm, sickness, and possible future of my children. I fear loud thunderstorms, weak bladders, spiders, mean people, and Bigfoot.

I know that the majority of people that ride in cars (which is the majority of the majority of us all) will at some point in their lives be harmed in a major car crash, and that scares the crap out of me every time I pull out of my driveway! Statistically I know I am almost guaranteed to possibly die or be dismembered in a car wreck. And THAT fear doesn't even compare to the gut gnawing sick fear I feel every time my children leave in a car, and I don't care who is driving!

Yeah I gotta lot of fears. I fear poverty, health care, lack of health care and the Dentist. I fear I am not working enough, not getting enough done, not creating the security necessary to care for my family and for the time that will be here all too soon when I need more extensive health care.

But none of those fears even compare to my fear of Facebook.

Yeah that Social Networking thing scares the crap out of me because the walls I established between the real me and the Internet me is slowly getting torn down. So now the friends I gleefully spent years with in AOL Chat rooms where I encouraged Lesbian threesomes, are now making comments on the same page my pastor might visit on a regular basis. My kids go to my page as well as my co-workers, and all of the extended families of my co-workers. The Mayor of my hometown is a fellow graduating classmate of mine, and a Facebook friend.

"Not a big deal," you say? "Relax, Nobody cares about that stuff," you think? OK! OK! OK! Let me give you another example.

A few months ago I would have rushed to the computer to tell you of the verbal exchange between my wife and I. You know, one of those things where I am suggesting we have a bit of "Mom and Dad" time. So innuendo leads to suggestion leads to playful touching that leads to "the look."

Only now I am told, "That's not going to happen, for some reason my bottom hurts."

And while I fearlessly looked her straight in the eye with one arched eyebrow and suavely asked, "...you think it hurts now...?" followed by a bit of wagging of those arched eyebrows.

OK I am terrified to post that in a blog entry! Did I mention my wife and her friends read this thing? My mother reads this! My kids read this! And there is no way in the WORLD you can have a good entertaining blog if you allow yourself to be controlled by fear. Fear of castration with a dulled butter knife from the kitchen drawer... while sleeping.... in a house in the country... where nobody can hear me scream... that would report it... because they read the Blog too.... and they were probably the ones that suggested it.

FEAR!

February to Today

So back in February I decided that it was time to upgrade our Internet Service Provider (ISP) from the on-again/off again wireless feed we have had for the past few years. I went high tech dude, $300 and a computer nerd later I had a high flying Norad satellite system on my brand new roof.

Sure it wasn't the same thing I had agreed to over the phone and it wasn't even technically hooked up and they didn't actually give me the new router (or any router) as promised in the ad. But I had lightening fast satellite internet dude! It worked great for 45 days, which was 15 days past the return date. Then it simply quit working.

We had exceeded our bandwidth limit, we were informed by the ISP. We should upgrade to the next highest package, our new ISP told us. Our son watched Youtube one Saturday Afternoon and ruined the internet for the rest of us... or so I told the others. So after a month went by without internet access we paid a little more and upgraded. Then another month went by and Still nothing. Not even able to access Email most of the time. "You're still exceeding the bandwidth limit" we were told. How in the hell we could exceed it without being logged onto the internet was never explained, but we were assured by the new ISP that if we upgrade to the very highest, most expensive package. And of course that never worked either. We were told neighbors were tapping into our feed and stealing the service, we were told many things and finally we were told that the ISP really "couldn't provide internet to everybody."

So we canceled and paid another $300 to buy out the contract we never used because of the service we never could access. For those of you keeping score... this means that while I paid for everything, I tried for months to get basic service, I kept upgrading to more and more expensive packages as advised until I was told THEY could not provide the service... IF you are keeping score... that translates into I BROKE THE DAMN CONTRACT?!!

SO the wife goes out and gets a 3G card from Verison. It's ok, not all that fast but it is OK. Then I get to looking at the contract she had and see it has... wait for it... w a i t for it........... a bandwidth limit! I refused to be trapped into the same situation as I was with the satellite, so after 30 of never being able to access our the website that shows usage, we canceled the service.

And I KNOW what you are thinking. "But Cris, if you canceled your ISP how are you able to post a blog entry two night in a row?"

Simple dear reader. For a mere $75 I called up my old on again/off again service and had it restored. The same service that I used for the nearly 18 months of uninterrupted nightly blog posts.