After keeping his mom and the rest of us waiting for almost two weeks past his due date, baby Elliott decided it was time to meet the family, and he made his appearance at 6:29 this morning, weighing in at 10 lbs. 15 oz. (Yes ladies, I said 10 pounds and 15 ounces!). Mom did great, and she and baby were home from the hospital the same day - by 7:30 PM Elliott was resting quietly on the couch with Dad and Mom was eating Chicken Nachos from Dos Coyotes.
June is becoming quite a birthday month in our family - in addition to Elliott’s birthday, there is JoAnn’s (Emily’s mom), Cyndi’s (Elliott’s mom) and mine.
Elliott is grandchild # 5 and grandson #3 - his mom says that she will not be adding any more to our grand-totals.
My daughter Cyndi is pregnant. Very pregnant. Possibly 10 months pregnant. OK, maybe not 10 months, but pretty close. And she is quite ready to give birth. She was ready back at the beginning of June, and she really did not want to still be pregnant in the middle of June. But apparently her baby Elliott has different plans, because he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry. Saturday morning Cyndi called us and thought she may be starting labor. So Emily and I drove down to Cyndi and Lunar’s house and waited most of the weekend, but Elliott was content to stay put. So we are now back at home waiting to see when Elliott will have his birthday. Cyndi hopes that it’s soon.
Although we didn’t get a new grandbaby during the weekend, we did find a car for our daughter Rachel - a 97 Honda Civic that Rachel thinks is very cute. Now Rachel is happy to have her own car, and Emily is happy to have her own car back.
Several years ago I knew this man who was a very intelligent guy. He was born in Southern California - his father was from New Mexico and was Hispanic and Native American, and his mother was born in Mexico City. Not surprisingly, Spanish was this guy’s first language, but by the time he was a young adult he had learned to speak English fluently and taught himself to speak without an accent. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and eventually became a 2nd Lieutenant and a pilot, flying those large cargo planes and taking skydivers up for training. At some point the Air Force doctors discovered that he had a congenital heart defect - a hole in one of his heart valves - and they grounded him which, as I was later told, was a big disappointment for him. Back in civilian life, he taught himself things like auto repair, electronics, television repair and even some carpentry. He made extra money by fixing old tube stereo amplifiers and televisions in his spare time. He once ordered one of those entertainment center kits - unfinished wood and electronic parts - and he built and finished the cabinets and assembled and installed the stereo amp, and it ended up looking and working great. He got a job as a civilian employee at a U.S. Navy base, and he went to college at night on the VA Bill to help him get promotions. He owned an older house on a 1/2 acre of land and remodeled it himself, and built (as in, he sawed/hammered/roofed) a two-story garage/shop in the back yard which was where he restored his 1967 Cadillac. He was a coach for his son’s sports team - overall he and his wife were pretty involved in their son’s life, and his family was quite devastated when he died in 1998 of complications from a seizure.
I also knew a man who wasn’t as involved in his children’s lives. This man was one of those people who carried a lot of anger inside most of his life. Now this man had had a very cruel father, a father who beat him and his siblings, a father who cheated on the man’s mother. Eventually this man’s father left the man’s mother and family for another woman and started another family. So this man, who was the oldest child, was left to be the “father” of his home, which probably had a lot to do with the anger this man lived with, but even as an adult he never found a healthy way to release his anger. He married a county girl from Kentucky and they had a son, but the man’s anger soon revealed itself in their marriage. One day, the young son was on the floor of their home playing with a new toy truck given to him by a sweet older neighbor lady. The man came home from work and asked the son where the new toy had come from. The son told the man that the neighbor lady had given it as a gift. The man didn’t like the neighbor lady - he had told his wife that he didn’t want her talking to the neighbor lady - so when the son told the man who the toy had come from, the man walked over, lifted his foot and crushed the toy, right in front of the son. That is the earliest memory that the son has of the man. Later, more children were born, another boy and three girls, and as they got older and needed discipline like all children do, the man began to be more and more harsh with the children, and eventually the man started beating his children. And the man also started beating his wife and cheating on her. And he later left her with the children and started a new family with another woman.
And the smart guy and the angry man have something in common - they were both my father.
Fifteen years ago today the woman I had been married to for 17 years moved out, leaving me and our two kids. That was a very traumatic time and for the next few months all I wanted to do was to try and save my marriage. But I discovered that if one marriage partner no longer wants to be married, there isn’t much of a marriage to save.
A lot has happened in 15 years, and some of it I would have never guessed. Fifteen years ago, I never would have thought that I would:
Be divorced.
Be a single parent.
Be able to live contently through ten years of being single.
Lose both of my parents within 12 years.
Enjoy flying.
Find myself drinking Margaritas with my friend Tom at Papas and Beer in Ensenada, Mexico.
Be employed in the computer industry, about which I knew almost nothing in 1993.
My 8-year-old granddaughter Katie made her singing debut last week, singing Plain White T’s song Hey There Delilah acapella at her school talent show. I am very proud of her - she can sometimes be shy, but she got up in front of a large group of parents and sang through the whole song, alone in front of the microphone. I had never heard her sing before - she definitely is able hear and sing a tune, and she sounds like an alto. So I’m thinking and a Grandpa/Granddaughter act may be in our future.
This weekend Emily and I , and our daughter Rachel, went to Sacramento for a special get-away. It was part “late anniversary present” (for us) and part “early birthday present” (for Rachel’s 18th birthday). We stayed two nights at the Embassy Suites in downtown Sac, and it was pretty awesome - we pampered ourselves in our two-room suite, lounged around in the lobby listening to the indoor waterfalls and surfing the Internet, and stuffed ourselves with the free full breakfast (both mornings I had a delicious bacon/sausage/cheese omelet).
It was a pretty extravagant, and expensive, weekend for us, but Emily and I both felt that a weekend out of town would do us good. So we rested a bit, and also visited our oldest daughter Cyndi and her family. Our son-in-law Lunar cooked up some home-made chicken enchiladas, and Emily and I took grandkids Katie and Eamon to the Sacramento Zoo.
Katie wanted to ride a pony, and so did Eamon… at first. But when it came time for Eamon to mount up, he suddenly and firmly decided that he didn’t want to be a cowboy. So he walked with Grandma while Katie rode her pony, named Ladybug, and Eamon got to pet Ladybug when she stopped for a drink.
At the tiger exhibit, one part of the tiger enclosure has a thick glass window built into the wall - viewers can look in and even stand just inches away from the tigers, just like Katie and Eamon are doing.
So we got to see kangaroos, toucan birds, lemurs, emus, penguins, lions and tigers and a chimpanzee who seemed to enjoy pooping in front of the enclosure window. But a good time was had by all.
Today is the 5th anniversary of the day Emily and I were married. Five years ago, on a Saturday morning, we met with our kids and a few close friends at Rick and Pam’s house and exchanged vows. Then we held a reception, and about a hundred people passed through the house - Pam was quite a gracious hostess. Afterwards we flew down to San Diego and stayed at the Hotel del Coronado for our honeymoon. It was a wonderful day, and it’s amazing to me that five years has passed so quickly. At the same time, being married to Emily feels so natural that it feels like we’ve been together a long time. I’m looking forward to even more.
My wife Emily is talented in many ways, and being an artist is one of those ways. She loves to paint watercolors, and I think that she is very good at it. She has a personal blog where she sometimes posts photos of her watercolor paintings, but today she decided to create a blog dedicated to her artwork, called Art Endeavors. Each post is a brief description of one of her paintings along with a small photo.
When I met Emily, she was very shy about letting anyone see her paintings. Before we were married she lived in a small townhouse down the street from me, and in her garage she had a little desk set up where she painted. I was visiting one day and we went into the garage to look for something. I noticed the watercolors on the desk and complemented her on her painting. She immediately stepped in between me and the desk and began turning over her paintings so I couldn’t see them. So for her to put up this new blog, publishing her paintings to the world, is evidence of the freedom she now feels. And I think that her freedom is reflected in her art. And I am proud of her.
When I met Emily, seven and 1/2 years ago, she was going through a difficult time, and when November arrived she didn’t feel like celebrating her birthday. I wanted to cheer her up, so I went to the closest supermarket and bought her a small, round chocolate cake and surprised her with it. For several years since then I’ve gone to the same supermarket and bought the same kind of cake, but this year there weren’t any available. So instead I got her a larger chocolate cake and a veggie pizza, which is one of her favorite pizzas.
I also bought her a newer laptop. She’s been using an older, smaller laptop and between her blogging and her journals the older laptop is getting too slow, so I bought her a refurbished Dell Insprion 1501 (with a one year warranty) from the Dell Outlet Store (which has some great deals).
So this birthday, even though she didn’t get her small chocolate cake, she’s much happier than seven years ago.
After keeping his mom and the rest of us waiting for almost two weeks past his due date, baby Elliott decided it was time to meet the family, and he made his appearance at 6:29 this morning, weighing in at 10 lbs. 15 oz. (Yes ladies, I said 10 pounds and 15 ounces!). Mom did great, and she and baby were home from the hospital the same day - by 7:30 PM Elliott was resting quietly on the couch with Dad and Mom was eating Chicken Nachos from 
