Tuesday, July 21, 2009

ima gonna whup ur ass BOY




Now I usually do not start or title my blogs this way, but today, I was inspired to share with each of you what I fear I may become as a parent if I stick to:

A. Drinking shitty bourbon all day long.
B. Become a Nascar Fan and drink shitty bourbon all day long.
C. Become a Nascar Fan, listen to Vince Gil, have children with my sister, and drink shitty bourbon all day long.
D. Have two children like the ones I am about to describe to you...

In between calls today, I took a two hour break to take my kids (not to be confused with the two ass biters I am about to describe below)to the beach in Pensacola. It was a beautiful day, they had been patient as I churned away on my keyboard for eight hours, and I was, to be honest, ready to stop planning for a little while. It is always that time when the best things in life happen, and today's experience was no different...

So we get to Pensacola Beach - which does contain some of the most wonderful beaches in the world - the sand is sugary white and perfect for building the Pyramids at Giza (see pictures above) and on Green Flag days (for non-floridians this means there are no sharks, no rip tides, no hurricanes, and no syringes or other biohazards washing up on shore from cruise ships) it is great to go sit on the shore and relax in the cool ocean water and the hot sun. The only problem with Pensacola Beach is that it attracts tourists from some of the most illiterate states in the union- and much of what they say about illiteracy seems to be true...

Anyway, we make our secure campsite, and in the best beach etiquette, set up the towels, move the chairs, get the cooler, and try not to occupy more than a ten foot by ten foot swatch of ocean front property - you can always tell the tourists when they break out their newly purchased fully collapsable Coleman Mobile Home tent, complete with diaper changing station and decorated with Dale stickers (who the fuck is Dale anyway) - so that is what happened to us today. Our nice little spot was soon to be shadowed by American Woman, Cromagnon Man,and Children. Here after, I refer to them as Mom, Dad, Child A and Child B. I am not a cruel person, and I typically give the benefit of the doubt to just about everyone I meet, but for god's sake, this family(although representative of about 20% of the families on the beach) left me feeling like Dr. Spock in my child rearing and parenting abilities...

So, let's discuss Mom. For any mothers out there who believe that stretch marks (I mean really really bad stretch marks) accent a green bikini - they do not. Let me repeat that - they do not. Stretch marks and a bikini look like police tape at a crime scene - folks see it, they are not sure what happened, have to look just out of human nature, but are repulsed each time they investigate. That's what Mom was wearing, and, like I said above, I had to do a double take - I thought at first her kids had written on her stomach in permanent marker, or perhaps she had waves tattoed across her stomach - but no, I was wrong on all counts - it was just a series of stretch marks highlighted by pockets of resilient fat framed by lime green bikini. In between cigarette breaks, mouthfuls of Doritos, and rolling over, there came a shrill cry from her mouth to Child A and Child B "Ima Gonna Whup ur ass Boy"- I was not sure which boy she was yelling at, and apparently neither were the children, they looked up and continued doing whatever it was they were doing...I will get to that later.

Dad. What a piece of work. Maybe thirty five. Vince Gil, long sleeve, BLACK, concert tshirt on. Sunglasses (expensive sunglasses). A straw hat. Pleated cut off POLO shorts(I found this very very very hard to digest, but saw both the polo tag and his ass crack when he moved down towards the water to rinse his feet - you will understand more later)- he seemed oblivious to all that surrounded him - he was transfixed on covering his feet with sand, and uncovering them, rinsing them, then recovering them, unconvering them, rinsing them - and repeat. Maybe OCD, maybe fear of having to gaze at the green stretch marks, maybe the shrill voice of his mate had beat him into a permanent state of thinking about what and how his life went so terribly wrong. None the less, his feet must have been as polished as a worry stone, because he covered, rinsed, repeat, covered, rinse, repeat...

Child A and Child B - Apparently one was younger than the other, but it made no difference. Any item that could be used to torment, hit, maim, scar, burn, destroy, cut, molest, traumatize, disable, or terrorize the other was used in their conversation - I can only imagine the look of their trailer after a long summers day with those two asswads locked up inside, hyped up on Dr. Pepper, beating the living shit out of each other. If there was ever a case for ritalin, benadryl, bondage, or straight jackets being part of a parenting plan - these two were the prime study. I watched in amazement as Child A beat the shit of Child B with a wood handled fishing net, (insert shriek from Mom), then watched Child B wallop the shit out of Child A with a Boogie Board and scrape a plastic beach rake across his relatives back with little or no remorse. Then both would run when Mom would shift her tits (this was apparently the sign that Mom was ready to stand up). The two little shits would run into the water, and apparently Child A was not quite the swimmer, because he would generally get in over his head (literally), swallow salt water, and then dog paddle while choking back to the shore. These two miniature rednecks did this for the better part of two hours (re-read this about every fifteen minutes, then stuff a handful of Doritos in your mouth, have someone scream at you they are gonna whup ur ASS and have someone wear a green bikini with stretch marks - and you too can have a piece of my paradise today).

My children are far from perfect angels -Gray whined about no mustard on her sandwich, Gabe complained about the water with no waves, but both of them sat amazed at the circus show that was going on before us. The absolute best part of the day - and always the best part of our beach trips, was the sandcastle. Today, Gabe wanted an Egyptian Theme - so we did the pyramids, and we pretended that we had an army of slaves and had to have a quarry and roads and a town - and the pictures above prove it - you can barely see the three pyramids, and the rocky towns and the quarry for each pyramid neatly laid out (Gabe seems to be spending a lot of time watching Discovery Channel lately, because the pyramids had to be laid out in some wierd angle - not next to each other, but sort of off center - he said to me "they must be aligned properly" - and I suddenly realized that my in-laws must be really intelligent people, or better yet, he had gotten a recessive trait that neither my family nor my wife's family seem to display...now if it was the odds on winning at roulette, a low emotional blow, a reference to a dirty movie, belittling someone in public - then maybe one of our families have that gene, but no such luck on the smart thing). Gray built towers - that was her job, build a tower, move on to the next tower, build another tower, move on to the next tower, do fifteen jumps into the water, build a tower, you get the picture. Her poor ass cheeks got a little pink - (this is another blog, but girls have too many curves for sunscreen - I always remember to move the straps and get sunscreen there, but never seem to be able to coat enough on her ass cheeks). High point of the day -

Even better, Child A and Child B came up as we were getting ready to call it quits, and admire our work - and one of them said "My Dad builds better sandcastles" (he had disappeared. Perhaps he had spear gunned himself to escape the next 15 years of hell). With no hesitation, and with no ill intent, Gabe looked up and them, and said - Not today.

With that, those two pudknockers moved on, and proceeded to trigger the shriek of their bloodline and continue to batter one another.

Until next time.

George

Friday, July 17, 2009

Good Travel...



That's what business travel is for - to have the opportunity to take good travel every once in a while - I am doing that now - good travel - the kids are wrapped up in their Hampton Inn bedcover (with the strategically placed pillow in betwixt them, lest they actually touch each other - eight and eleven, and they already need their own space...)and are getting much needed rest for the visit to the Itchetucknee River. They are nervously excited about it - I explained to them that the water was cold, and that it was a real river, and we were going to swim or float, or drift the entire thing - of course they asked about alligators and turtles, and Gabe instantly proclaimed that he had absolutely no problem catching a fish with his bare hands...( I did not have the heart to tell him that I did not have the money to pay the fine that the game wardens would charge, so I will just give him the luxury of chasing down fish, in fact, I am going to encourage it just to see him and swim and laugh and really try to catch a fish.)

The picture above sums up good travel - that was on the snorkel boat heading out of Stroud's Cay in the Bahamas - warm, sticky air, an island breeze (an overused cliche because it is true, the salt air cooling the sweat and tossing your hair around) - it was right before I jumped ten feet off the top of the boat into the water just above reef, and donned a goofy looking mask and snorkel and proceeded to duck dive and get more and more brave and a little more curious. That is what good travel is about - having eighty dollars in your checking account, more skymiles and reward points than you know what to do with, and a five day break filled with greasy cheap fried chicken (a note to everyone - when in Nassua, always eat at the Imperial, I recommend the Conch and Chicken Snack, the Steak Snack, and the Chicken Snack - don't be fooled by the word snack - each is a great meal - and tastes just as good in the morning cold...)

The Bahamas was a dream - the entire time. A blur of Kalik and Beaches and Soft Kisses and long talks, and the never ending feeling of doom when you know things are going to end and not going to last forever, they are just going to last a few more days - so you stay up until four am, you wake up at nine-thirty, and you try to live as quickly do as many things, and as little - as long as you are just there. Some people like to sleep away the good travel - take a break, I don't have that luxury - well, I do, but I choose not to take it - because most of my good travel involves the woman grinning in the Jackie O frames...time is always too short, and too limited, and there is always the pressure of what is happening in our real worlds for us to just enjoy it. Even with all of that, the Bahamas is still a dream.

I can't help but feel that there was a sad cloud of disappointment hanging over both of us - we were in paradise, surrounded by coconut palms, and people relaxing, and in a Country whose number one import is tourists from all over the world. There were island smells of roasting food, and the clatter of cruise ship passengers haggling their goods down. There were slot machines and ten million dollar escapes, and boats with more space than my apartment, and more people and distractions to void our minds of whatever we had filled them with - but I think there was still that disappointment. I could not get away from it, she seemed to do better in glimpses, but both of us, even though together, still wanted a few hours just to gather the thoughts that we had, and to try and answer the questions that bothered us. That, I suppose, is what the good travel is for - to be together long enough to hold each other, to taste each other, to see and talk and cry and laugh and swim and bury our heads in each others shoulders and just dance - and then to walk away for a few minutes and be able to feel again with that little piece of healing.

That was the good travel. There will be more, it may be holed up in a dive hotel, or at some conference, but there will, I hope, be more good travel.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Swimming Laps...


Twenty Two minutes - that was the best my damn near 38 year old body could muster in the over chlorinated Hilton Garden Inn South Natomas Sacramento Swimming Pool (with the air of a Professor, I say please refer to the photograph above)...It was a paltry combination of floating, drowning, cramps, a few rear emissions, some gulping of water, and at the end of it all, I felt like I has just made the English Channel - except that I had gone for a paltry twenty two minutes. I used to never swim - in fact, I was just good enough at it to keep up with my wife for a few minutes, to keep from drowning during my short lived amature surfing days, and to always be sober enough to at least backstroke my way out of a hotel bathtub after a few too many vodka cranberry adult drinks...but that was the level I worked towards - being able to just do what it took, and not really pushing myself to feel what it takes to really swim...

So, the past couple of months, I really have taken this whole idea of swimming in a different light - I bought a pair of those goggles that make everything underwater look like you are staring at things from inside a fish bowl, got a pair of running shorts that show way too much junk (that double as a swimsuit), and started going down to the swimming pool to see how long I could go without (a) wanting a cigarette (b) swallowing my weight in water (c)cardiac arrest and (d) all of the above. At first, it was about four minutes - that was all I could do. Sad, but even floating part of the way, dog paddling part of the way, and backstroke the rest - about four minutes was all I could get through before I had to cling to the wall like a piece of toilet paper hanging on after a trip to the airport bathroom (see previous writings about bathroom TP experiences...and tips on how to avoid those pesky streamers) -

For all of about four minutes, I felt like I was drowning, hated every minute of it, and decided to go buy a six pack and hang out in the hot tub. Now, although not much of an accomplishment for those sleek bodies that I see in the water cutting a slipstream and silently for hours going back and forth - my twenty two minutes is starting to get peaceful. When there a carloads of kids splashing around, interstate noise, a couple giggling from the happy hours - I have the sounds of my hands cutting the water, my breath forming mercury bubbles, and the feeling of freedom - just floating and kicking and pulling, and for twenty two minutes - that is a pretty cheap way to have someone sing you a lullaby of water sounds and not be bothered by techno exercise music or televisions. It is just blue water washing away all of the rough conference calls, the endless lines of Excel Spreadsheets, the calculations, the sticky feeling of office attire - it all goes away in twenty two minutes.

Growing up near water - always near water, I wish I had appreciated it a little more - it always held a mystery from me, and now that I have learned to tap into the mystery it held from me all of these years - I will gladly go back and hopefully get a little more able to do more than just twenty two minutes...

First class shame…and envy…

I find it hard to believe that folks actually still pay for first class seats – but today in the airport, I actually stood in line behind a guy who had bounced from counter to counter looking for any available first class seat to Southern California – he was your typical corporate cheese type – probably a CEO or CFO of some successful bank with a large office in Jacksonville (I tried to catch the title on the business card, it had letters after the name, but hell, nowadays, you can letters with $30 and high speed internet connections) – and had to fly (supposedly last minute) to the West Coast for one of those urgent meetings – I sat behind him for thirty minutes and listened to him bitch about his inability to fly first class on the Minneapolis leg, but they could accommodate him on the other half (I never quite heard where he was going, but I am pretty sure it was not any small town – otherwise, he would have bitched about having to fly on a regional jet that only had seats available next to the shitter all the way in the back) – my favorite line from him was “Why don’t you just bounce one of those free upgrade passengers, and give me a seat – hell, they don’t DESERVE to be up there – my company is willing to pay!” – that just about floored me, and I think the lady behind the counter at the Delta desk was disappointed that she could not reach across the counter and kick that corporate prick square in the nuts – she did not have to worry, I, in my infinite wisdom, was next in line, and went to the lady next to the one helping him, and proudly and with a heavy southern gas station attendant drawl proclaimed, “Yall are damn near the nicest airplanes I have EVER flown, I got a seat in first class for both of my flights, and I didn’t even have to give you an extra nickel!” – I think that comment was not lost on the prick next to me – he gave me the look of Dick Cheney after he was asked why he blew his friends face to hell…what was even more appealing to me was the guy got seat 41-E – right next to the shitter. The topping on that cake was when he had to walk by me in a formerly white t-shirt, baggy shorts, and flip flops to go sit his Hickey Freeman ass in the seat way in the back. Foregoing the usually downward glance of guilt as folks stream by you in first class, I made sure we made eye contact, and made sure to give him a nice warm smile, welcoming him to the life that most of us outside of the boardroom live.
Granted, I am a decent wage earner, somewhere in some bracket that places me firmly in the middle class – I mean I can still afford a mortgage, an apartment, food, two cars, two kids – and can at least keep up the minimum payments on my maxed out credit cards – but that’s about it – as I dig a deeper hole to keep up with alimony and child support, and try to have a few things planned, I cant imagine ever demanding my company paying for first class – or for that matter – ever actually paying for first class – for all intents and purposes, unless you are on a 9 hour flight – you are going to get stuck next to someone you don’t know, who does something you don’t like, and has no intention of worrying about your comfort. I get first class because I gave my life to my job and that career ladder – I spend every Sunday or Monday and Thursday or Friday on an airplane somewhere – and some weeks, every Wednesday as well. I still feel guilty about sitting here – I get pissed off when folks don’t give up their seats to military men and women, (with some guilt, I did forego giving up my seat to a young soldier on a long flight to Seattle – and had to drink a lot to deal with that one), those are the folks who are about to go into a shit storm, or are coming back from a life altering experience – me, I am just flying to talk about project performance, or do some training, or provide some guidance – they are or have just had their lives dramatically altered.
I think the price I paid for very little job security, less work life balance, and more sky miles than I can use (hell, no one has that anymore accept folks high enough in any organization to demand an employment agreement, and even then they are still subject to being humiliated by their golf club colleagues for the paltry multi-million dollar severance package they received as they tee off on their second eighteen for the day…but enough bitching about that – the work is good, and if I had a choice, I will still probably do this) to get the occasional upgrade to first class, and enjoy a very expensive (free price wise, but expensive personally) glass of cheap red wine and some sort of meat slice (note slice) squeezed in between biscotti like “artisan bread”.
I guess what astonished me the most, and what prompted me to write this was the price tag that this officer of a company was willing to dole out to get a first class seat on his second leg – I am not a nosy person, nor am I ashamed that I overheard the conversation – but his whining and whipping out the corporate card led to a $2,400 ticket. That’s six months of health insurance benefits at $400 per month for an employee, ten weeks of salary for a call desk or administrative employee, or better yet, a pretty nice bonus for a hard worker who is going through some rough patches, but still shows up for work on-time, leaves late, and no matter what the overtime policy says – always only puts forty hours a week on the timecard. I guess that arrogance prompted me to throw in the southern shtick just to somehow see if it would get a reaction. Unfortunately, it probably prompted the wrong reaction, and some poor airline reservation attendant had to deal with any earful of disdain through the guys titanium blue tooth earpiece. In this day and age of layoffs and let downs for us middle classers and those who are just about three steps from the poorhouse who bust our asses to make a difference – and sometimes really feel like we do – the startling reality is that those who are so far removed from where we are – and how we survive – really have no idea what they might consider small decisions have on the rest of us. Look at the pay of your CEO, of your Officers – have they changed their behavior patterns? I don’t ask these questions cynically, I really ask them objectively – Capitalism is a great system – it is not a generous system, it is not a friendly system, but it is a system that allows the market (sometimes) to make decisions (sometimes) about what is right and is wrong – the beauty is that we just don’t ask those questions anymore –
We all do what we have to do to survive – and we all want better for those we love, and those around us – but at what point does that selfish need to meet the needs of ours and ourselves become blatant abuse of the folk in the wheel. That’s what perked my interest – I can honestly say that I believe I work for a different sort of company – granted the work is tough and hard and long – but it is rewarding and fulfilling – and there are more than enough opportunities for us guys and gals to move ahead and be rewarded – but with that said, I am not that close to the boardroom to ever pretend to know what hits their expense reports.
That’s all I have for now, I am being vibrated by the guy in the size eleven shoes behind me who thinks that you have to wear dress shoes on Sundays and tap your feet as hard as you can against the airplane floor to the music you are listening to – at least it is massaging my numb ass from three hours of flying…

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Florida....

Modest Mouse has song titled the same name..."even as I had left Florida, far enough, far enough was not far enough - could not seem to escape myself, far enough, far from Florida..." - mowing the grass at the other house (this is what I affectionatly call it these days, even though I do not physically reside there, and most of my stuff has been cordially removed or handed to me in Publix plastic bags, I still mow the grass, indirectly pay 90% of the bills, and have two of the most important things in the world living there - so for now, it stands as the other house) - anyway, mowing the grass at the other house reminded me of what a miserable place Florida can be for about seven months out of the year - it is hot, monkey ass hot, the kind of sauna steam wet that makes it hard to breathe - couple that with wasps the size of quarters, mosquitos that don't seem to quit, the never ending weed season, the rednecks who voted Bush again (because they did not like either Obama or McCain - he let a wimin be his runnin pardner), and the anal retentive Julington Creek Homeowners Association (Mr. Bennett, we noticed the yard has a brown spot in it, and according to the by laws, you need to make it green or you can be levied $1,000 per violation...)the never ending stream of foreclosures, and finally the folks who just decided that it would be nice to spend their next ten years driving 12 miles an hour on any public street are just about enough to fill a cup of "I want to get the hell out of here" soup. That is Florida - some people fall in love with it - sure I like the reasonable winters, and the spring, and the ocean, the things that makes Florida great - but Florida is not a dream place - most folks with any money live in Vail or Beaver Creek or Aspen or Upstate New York from about March until October, the rest of the year, they sequester themselves away from us commoners on pristine manicured resort and golf course communities, deeply protected from the real world that surrounds them - but immersed in their seven percent club (the seven percent is the amount that the folks who can afford to live in those places experienced in income increase over the past two years - the remaining 97% of the folks in the States experienced the exact same decrease in income in the past two years...)that bounce around their ideas and ideologies amongst themselves in between tennis matches and two hours of volunteer work a week...

I know why I moved back here - she wanted to be back - at that point in time, we could have gone anywhere - and been happier - not subjected to the same people we moved away from in the first place - but we did, and instantly that old Florida magic started up again - granted, my folks live in Florida (a few here and a few there), my remaining grandparents live here, but they live in a different kind of Florida - certainly less pretentious, not as polished, and probably just as smart as those folks who are in those pretty places. We moved back because I was miserable, lost my job, and wanted a fresh start - hindsight being as perfect as it is, there was no fresh start - the friends had the same issues, the place had the same problems (and new ones coupled with the 60,000 homes per year they were spitting out of the illegal immigrant factory down here) - and I still felt the same way.

Some people are like that - they want safety and security and the same consistent sense of being all of the time - and I would be lying if I said I do not crave that some of the time - but to tell you the truth - Florida is not all that great - there are no mountains, our education system is strapped, the beaches are now mostly privately owned and fiercely defended lest we try and get an access to them, the hurricanes do a pretty good job of making August and September dreary months, and the land is as flat as a Waffle House griddle (and is decorated by mainly Waffle Houses and Indian River Fruit Stands that cater to those poor souls making the pigramage to Disney World). The real Florida lies in cities like Gulf Breeze or Live Oak or Lake City - very rarely do you find folks from Philadelphia who had to "escape the city" moving there - mostly you find decent, hard working folks - maybe a little racist, maybe a little country, but mostly decent.

Accept being threatened and legally bound to stay in Florida, and the fact that (as I so openly mentioned above) that the two most important things in the world to me are here - I would think of some place that I would rather be - but that is for another day and time. Another blog subject, another stupid chapter written in this tiny little apartment...

Dirty laundry beckons, and I smell like monkey ass (you know, the yard thing).

George