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The Secret to a Successful Marriage

I was at lunch at Taco Bueno today and T– called to talk about a garage sale she wants to do sometime next month. At the end of our conversation, we spoke over each other a little saying, “I love you, bye.”

We do that at the end of pretty much every phone call. Sometimes it’s, “Hey, I forgot the garage door opener. I need you to hit the button so I can come in the house.” The call still ends with, “I love you, bye.”

I was thinking about that, after I got off the phone, and realized how important that little exchange is. It’s just something silly — and you could easily say it’s something overdone, undervaluing the real meaning of the expression, maybe, repeated so often — but it’s something we started doing when we were going out in high school. It started out as a stupid teenager thing, and we just never stopped doing it. Now we’ve been married for ten years, and I’m ready to call it the secret to a successful marriage.

I’m not talking about communicating affection, or keeping the romance alive, or anything as vague and trite as that. There’s nothing particularly beneficial about the way we end our phone calls, but there’s something special about the fact that T– and I — who have been romantically linked for, what, seventeen years now — are still caught up in a habit we started way back then. The important part isn’t even the habit. It’s the seventeen years.

Because when it comes right down to it, the real secret to a successful marriage is having a long marriage. That’s it. I can say that with some confidence, because everyone I’ve ever talked with who’s in a successful marriage has made that same point, in one way or another. That’s what it means when someone says, “Oh, we’ve had some rough times. But we toughed it out, and we’re better for it.” That’s what it means when someone says, “You’re not always in love with each other — heck, you don’t always even like each other!” That’s the whole reason the ceremony is built upon vows instead of love poems. Forget forging a bond between two destined lovers, forget the charming image that is one soul inhabiting two bodies.

The cornerstone of a strong marriage is staying married. The longer you do that, the better it is. Because in the end, it’s not about having someone to make you laugh or someone to make your skin feel tingly. It’s about having another person you can rely on, you can believe in, you can trust every bit as much as you do yourself. That’s what you’re working toward, and the only way to get there is through pain and suffering — through hurt and betrayal and disappointment and life situations that just make staying together impossible. Do it anyway, and that makes it just a little bit easier next time, and all those next times stack up, until you don’t worry anymore. Someday, somewhere down the line, you realize it’s not even a question anymore. There’s two yous that you can count on when things get rough. There’s somebody else sitting next to you on the couch when it’s cold outside. It takes dedication and courage and, at times, sheer obstinacy, but the result is what everyone was looking for from the very start: A relationship without fear, without doubt, without a shred of uncertainty.

The recipe is simple, but entirely unfair. The only secret to a successful marriage is succeeding at marriage, again and again, even when you fail. Sorry .

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Journal Entry: July 13, 2009

In my last journal entry I mentioned working in the garage last Wednesday night, which required me to move a couple window A/C units. Apparently in the process I severely hurt my back. I’ve been limping ever since, and for the last two days I can barely stand up or walk. It’s awful.

Thursday
Last Thursday evening D–‘s mom came into town to pick him up for a family reunion over the weekend. As is her wont, she came over to our place to see AB and share dinner with us. D– ordered pizza for us, and we had a pretty pleasant evening talking. When they headed out, T– and I watched Flight of the Conchords while I researched used cars online.

Friday
Friday I used my RDO to make a 9:00 dentist appointment a little more leisurely. Then I went to lunch with T– and N–‘s mom, and afterward headed up to OC to see if I could start filling out paperwork. I didn’t have any luck — no surprise, showing up without an appointment on a Friday afternoon in the summer — but I spent half an hour wandering around campus, basking in the nostalgia of it.

Then I spent much of the afternoon working on this blog. When I transferred my old Xanga posts to Blogger last year, I spent a couple weeks crawling through them and setting titles and labels based on the content, but I ran out of steam 2/3 of the way through the process, and never picked it back up. Courtney’s been commenting on some of my older posts recently, though, and that got me thinking that I needed to finish that task, so Friday afternoon I read through and labeled a hundred or so posts from 2007.

Turns out 2007 was a really good year for me, personally and socially. Prepping those posts was a fun experience, even if it was tedious at times. And now I’m finally done with that, at least as long as I stick with Blogger….

Friday night T– and I huddled together around the laptop to dig into the ugly truth of our financial situation. It really wasn’t as bad as we’d expected. Most of our regular budgeted expenses match real-world expenditures even though it’s been two years since we sat down and figured that out. The only ones we have trouble with are the discretionary income — allowance and entertainment — and while that might seem obvious, it’s a helpful point. Because we can cut those in times of need. If our real grocery or gas expenses were, say, twice what we had budgeted, we wouldn’t be able to do too much to cut those. We can stop going out to eat, though, and get some frozen pizzas instead of Papa Johns. So that’s the plan.

Our real difficulty is in the unreliable income. T–‘s monthly pay can fluctuates by hundreds of dollars, and even though our mortgage payment for the Tulsa house is a constant $650, our rental income can (without warning) be anything from $0-$675. Months when both of those values are close to max, are income exceeds our expenses. Months when both of those hit zero, we hit crisis. Adding the car payment certainly isn’t going to help, but we came up with some realistic averages and figured out what we can cut, and we decided we could handle it. Probably.

Anyway, that took the whole evening.

Saturday
Saturday morning we got up early and took AB over to K– and N–‘s, who had graciously agreed to babysit. Then we went to Bob Moore Saturn, who had a promotion going on Saturn Vues (exactly the car we wanted), with no-haggle internet prices. We took a short test drive in one, checked out another, and chose the best value one at the highest of the three price points we could afford. We drove away in an ’08 Vue with 30k miles on it.

Then we went back to K– and N–‘s place, where K– grilled up some hot dogs for us for lunch. I took AB home for a nap, and T– celebrated having a second car (for the first time in weeks) by going grocery shopping. Yeah, she’s wild. While she was out, I took a nap.

Saturday night we watched Flight of Conchords, and I started and lost a game of Civ. Then suddenly, somehow, it was midnight. I went to bed but couldn’t sleep. I got up around 1:00 and killed some time on the computer, then went back to bed to not sleep some more. It was a long, weird night.

Sunday
Sunday morning I got up at 8:30 to mow the front lawn (which was badly in need), and then get cleaned up in time for church. Rob is back, and he gave an excellent sermon on being holy. Then we hung around for the Second Sunday Fellowship, where I got a chance to talk with Gail a little bit about teaching Tech Writing this fall. I’m getting more excited about that.

Afterward we went back to the house and put AB down for a nap, then I went over to K–‘s place to play some Gears of War with him while N– was away at a baby shower. Three hours flew by, and we didn’t even finish the act. I had to head home, though, because I’d agreed to help T– with the babysitting.

Said babysitting was for my sister’s girls, who had been dropped at our place around 3:00 so my sister and her husband could go catch an early, free showing of Harry Potter on base. I showed up at 5:00 and watched the girls for a few minutes so T– could get dinner ready, then she took them out back to play in the sprinkler while I took another nap.

D– and his mom came over again, their reunion concluded, and they hung out until after seven before leaving to grab some dinner. We watched Madagascar with the girls, then put AB to bed around nine, and watched Dora the Explorer with the nieces until Shannon showed up around ten.

After they left, we were both exhausted, but we were both badly in need of some laughs, too. So we watched a couple episodes of Flight of the Conchords, and then headed to bed around eleven.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: July 4, 2009

Thursday T– had plans to meet her dad at the halfway point between OKC and Wichita and hand over AB. Her parents had agreed to watch AB Thursday night and Friday so T– could have a little bit of a break.

The broken car put a little bit of a kink in that plan, but T– wasn’t willing to let that stop her. So we all woke up early early on Thursday, piled into the Saturn, and T– drove thirty minutes south to my work, processed through our Pass and ID office to get a temporary Pick Up/Drop Off badge, and then dropped me off at my office door. Then she turned around and drove all the way back across town and another hour and a half north on I-35 to meet her dad at the Dairy Queen for the baby transfer.

Then she turned around and came home, which put her back in town right around time for my lunch, and since she already had the badge she just came to the office, picked me up, and had me drop her off at home after lunch, so that she wouldn’t have to do any more driving for the rest of the day. It was a pretty busy morning for her.

After work I continued my experiment with Madden-based elliptical exercise, and it proved a continuing success. Then I got cleaned up and took T– out for a date night. We had Mexican at the new place right around the corner (Victor’s Mexican Cafe where the old Boomerang Grill was), and it was not great. The prices were medium-high, service was slow and clumsy, and the salsa tasted like Chef Boyardee for some reason. The entree was delicious (we shared Tacos al Carbon), but not enough to make up for bad salsa. That’s my primary criterion for any Mexican place.

Anyway, it wasn’t terrible. Just disappointing. Then we went up to Barnes and Noble for a little shopping, stopped at Wal-Mart for some ice cream, and then went back home and watched InkHeart and The Pink Panther 2. The unapologetically stupid one was the better of the two.

Friday I had off for the holiday, so I got up late, worked out (and won my third preseason game in Madden), then we went over to K– and N–‘s for a delicious lunch. We brought croissants and they had chicken salad ready for sandwiches, and there was an American Flag themed brownie birthday cake for N–, and a fruit basket showed up for N–‘s mom with perfect timing for all of us to enjoy. We were there for a couple hours, and then headed home to finish packing.

Then a little after three we headed to Wichita. We grabbed snowcones on the way out of town, and T– was driving so I was able to read Click for an hour or so (I’ll give more details at a later date, but no, it’s not the novelisation of the Adam Sandler movie). Then, a little shy of halfway there, T– started experiencing some Braxton-Hicks, which she hadn’t had at all with AB. It was uncomfortable, but I think mostly it scared her. Either way, it was enough reason for her to pull over and I took over driving for the second half of the trip. She called N– and got a prognosis over the phone, and called her mom to talk about it, and after that she felt a lot better.

When we got in the party was already going. The Charboneaus did their Fourth party on the third, because her brother Matt has to work tonight. John grilled out, and did chicken breasts, chicken wings, hot dogs, hamburgers, and a whole mess of stuffed jalapenos that were hugely popular. There was also potato salad and lots of chips and dip and a counterful of desserts. It was pretty awesome.

I got a little overwhelmed by the crowd, so I slipped away before the fireworks started. Went downstairs to check my email, and next thing I knew it was eleven o’clock and everybody was leaving.

This morning T– and her parents took AB to a parade, and she loved it. Then we had chicken fajitas for lunch, and ribs are on the menu for tonight. I’m certainly going to be well-fed! In spite of the holiday we’re looking forward to a pretty quiet Saturday, but tomorrow’s going to be busy with birthday parties, so that’s probably a good thing.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff

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Journal Entry: Labor Day in Houston

Last Thursday night, after I got home from work, T– and I spent a while talking, and I played with the baby, and I wrestled with my inner demons and finally settled on watching the entirely insignificant final Cowboys preseason game instead of playing Rock Band. Then, after the game, I played Rock Band.

Friday morning we woke up at 7:00, loaded up the car, and headed out of town. We were in Dallas by 11:00, and we met Grandma and my aunt Darlene for lunch at El Fenix — a family favorite in the area. Then Grandma, who had taken the afternoon off, watched AB for us so T– and I could go to the museum just the two of us.

That was fun. We had to drive an hour across town to get from Dallas proper to the museum in Fort Worth, but on the way we passed the new Cowboys stadium, and it was amazing. Worth the drive just for that.

Then the museum itself was beautiful. It was part of Fort Worth’s cultural district, with a massive park our front and quiet fountains all along the front walk. We went to the Impressionists Exhibit first. On loan from the Chicago Museum of Art, that exhibit was the only reason we’d gone to the museum. After looking through all the Monets and Manets and Van Goghs, T– went to look through the gift shop while I sat down on a bench and did my PT stretches, because my back was killing me.

While T– was shopping she discovered that the museum had, in its permanent collection, one of her favorite paintings by Caravaggio, so we went ahead and strolled through the museum’s permanent collection, and there were some amazing paintings there, too. After spending forty-five minutes in the Impressionists, the stark colors and sharp lines of the older realist paintings really stood out.

Anyway, we were there for a little over an hour, then headed back to Dallas and discovered along the way that the charger for our GPS had exploded inside the cigarette lighter, so we were without GPS for the rest of the trip. That was a bummer.

After we got back, Grandma and I ran out to pick up some barbecue and Darla and Jason came over for dinner. We ended up watching the last ten minutes of Ella Enchanted and then the last fifteen minutes of Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, and I finally decided enough was enough and went to bed.

Saturday morning we got up early and left by 8:00 toward Houston. T– had been smart enough to print out directions everywhere we were going (I’d have just relied on the GPS) so we weren’t completely helpless. Saturday morning AB was a little fussier about being stuck in her car seat than she had been Friday, but it wasn’t too bad, and we made it in to Perry’s place a little bit before noon. He gave us the tour of the house, we chased AB off the stairs, and followed her around while she chased the cats from room to room. Then my sister showed up with her family, and Mom and Dad showed up with Granddad, and we all had sandwiches for lunch.

Dad and I ran up to the grocery store to pick up some supplies, and that became a longer ordeal than it needed to be (but it gave me a time to provide some advice on his book, for which he was grateful). Then I got back to find T– and AB in the pool. It was so hot that I didn’t hesitate to change into my swimsuit and join them. I was only out there about half an hour before my uncle announced dinner was almost ready, and we all headed in to get cleaned up.

Dinner was steaks, and was fantastic. After that, Jeff and I spent the evening getting Civ set up on his laptop and Dad’s, and the three of us played until late into the night. There was a Sooners game on — first of the season! — but it was pay-per-view and Dad couldn’t talk us into chipping in to order it. Civ was sufficient to entertain us.

We were up too late, so church at 10:00 the next morning came way too early. We made it, though. They attend a pretty progressive church, with a five piece rock band for the praise team, so I spent most of the service watching the drummer and about half of it tapping along on my knees. It was quite educational.

Actually, even though I had to leave Rock Band behind in OKC, I spent the whole weekend practicing. I did most of the driving, and whatever music I could find on the radio, I would try to pick out the drum rhythm and follow it — at least the way it would be presented in Rock Band. There’s a particular combination of high hat, snare, and bass drum that is incredibly consistent in the Rock Band songs (at least at the easier difficulties), and which I’d had a lot of trouble with all of last week. While I was driving, I spent hours at a time practicing that specific pattern, until the independent movements of left hand, right hand, and right foot all made sense to me. I didn’t know how much of it would be useful, and how much I was just being silly, but I did get much better at recognizing and picking out the drum part of songs just over the course of that first drive from OKC to Dallas.

Anyway, Sunday afternoon after church we left my uncle and his family and headed toward Galveston for a day at the beach. We stopped at a Mexican place there in Tomball (the little town outside Houston where my uncle lives), then drove the hour-and-a-half out to Galveston. Granddad rode with T– and AB and me, and he entertained us on the drive with stories of trips to the beach, from throughout his life. A surprising number of them involved hurricanes, too, which was topical. All weekend the TV stayed on the Weather Channel, tracking Hurricane Gustav.

In Galveston, we drove along the beach for a bit then stopped at a Wendy’s to change into our swimsuits. While I was changing, I put my cheap Wal-Mart sunglasses on top of a hand dryer, and some dude ended up snatching them and walking out the front door with them before I had a chance to go back and grab them. Whatever. I walked over to the Surf Shop next door and bought a new pair for $7.

Then we finally got out into the ocean. In spite of all my grousing about having to spend a whole hour outdoors, I really had a good time. At water parks, my favorite spot is always the wave pool. This time we got to take AB out into the waves, and she loved it. Jeff had little Sophie, too, and she stayed with us even when we went out deep. It was fun.

Fourth wave that hit me, though, ripped my new sunglasses off my face and hid them somewhere in the bottom of the ocean. I spent about five minutes trying to find them, but after about ten seconds they were already lost to me. Argh.

I had just as much fun anyway, though, and I was disappointed when Mom and Dad called us back to the beach and said it was time to go. We drove up to a gas station that turned out to have only one bathroom, got changed back into dry clothes, and then headed back for Tomball, this time with Mom riding in the back with AB.

Just as we were getting into Houston, AB’s stomach rebelled at the cereal Mom was giving her (and, much more likely, all the saltwater and sand she’d swallowed while playing in the waves). She made a huge mess in her car seat, and I was trying to follow Dad through dense traffic, at high speeds, in an unfamiliar town (and without directions or a GPS). That was no fun. Mom and T– between them got her cleaned up, but the whole car smelled like vomit and I have a sensitivity to that. It was not a fun ninety minutes….

We finally got home, though, and Perry had some fantastic fajitas ready for us for dinner. We were all exhausted after the day’s events, too, so after dinner we fell to talking and Dad and Jeff and I played some Civ and it was all very low key. Around midnight we gave up on our game, and headed to bed.

Then we got up fairly early Monday morning, but with all the chatting and saying goodbye, it was nearly 10:00 before we got out of town. We made good time, though, and got to Dallas right at 1:00 where Grandma and Darla and Jason met us at Chik Fil’A for a quick lunch, then an hour later we were back on the road.

We got home at about 5:45, unpacked the car, looked around the house to make sure the cats hadn’t made any messes (and silently blessed B– and E– for taking care of the litterbox over the weekend, which was the reason they hadn’t), and then set the table for our dinner guests.

K– and N– showed up at 6:30 with some P F Chang’s, and D– got in about fifteen minutes later with soda. We had a delicious dinner, then watched An American Tail (as part of our 80s Movies thing), and then rocked out for an hour or so before bedtime.

Y’know, I wasn’t too excited about spending my holiday weekend on the road, but I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. I always forget just how cool Perry and his family are, especially the kids, and then it was a much quieter weekend (in terms of schedule) than most such family get-togethers are. Maybe it’s because Labor Day doesn’t have the same traditional demands associated with it as a Thanksgiving or a Christmas.

But, yeah, it was awesome. And then while I was playing Rock Band last night, that particular drum pattern that I had been practicing in the car on Friday kept showing up, in song after song, and every time it came up I nailed it. Bah-DAH! So that’s awesome. I also learned that the intro to “Enter Sandman” can kick my ass, well and truly, but I’m working on that next.

Now I’m home, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be home until October. I’m grateful for that.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 23, 2008

I have some pretty ugly business going on with the Tulsa house, involving insurance stuff and roof problems, but I don’t want to go into detail on that, because it’s horribly depressing. If you’re curious about it, ask me sometime when I’m in a good enough mood to handle it.

Anyway, Thursday afternoon my mom and dad came in for a visit. They had to take care of the van (as mentioned previously), and had dinner plans with an old family friend at 5:00 downtown. T– drove down and we all met up near the airport at 4:30, then we dropped the van off in hourly parking and headed to the Zio’s downtown for dinner.

It was nice getting to see Theresa again, and dinner was excellent. D– joined us so he could take AB home with him (he’d offered to babysit while we went to an exhibit at the museum), but he ended up coming with us.

The exhibit is a collection of ancient Roman art from the basement of the Louvre. It’s mostly sculpture and jewelry, but they’ve also crafted a walking tour through it that’s themed and presents all kinds of fascinating historical information. It was very cool. AB’s favorite part was the relief of a cow, sheep, and pig being led to sacrifice, but that’s just because she likes animals and doesn’t quite get context yet.

Afterward, Dad and I stopped at Byron’s to pick up some dessert (as it were), and we all stayed up late watching SNL and talking. It was fun.

Friday, Dad and I had made plans to spend most of the day writing together, but I ended up sleeping in until 10-ish, and then we had lunch with Mom and T– at Pizza Hut, and then I had a dentist appointment at 1:00 (small filling), so it was 2:30 or so before we really got started, and Mom and T– got home from their thing (painting pottery at the mall) around 4:00. We did make some good progress on a story idea Dad had come up with, but I didn’t accomplish much of anything.

Friday evening we went to dinner with D– and his mom, and my little sister brought her family including the in-laws, so we had quite a crowd. We went to this barbecue place called County Line, down by the Cowboy Museum (yes, we have one of those), and it was fantastic. The food, not the museum. Fan-freakin’-tastic.

Then we ran by the Family Fun Night at OC, and AB got to ride one of the ponies. T– has pictures on her blog. Unlike Thursday, Friday was a pretty early night.

Saturday morning, T– went to a tea room for brunch with Mom and my sister. I took Dad to the Texas Roadhouse, and we brought our writing stuff (he his laptop, and me my scribblebook), but we ended up spending the whole time talking.

Mom and Dad headed home around 2:00, and D– came over with a new tabletop came called Heroscape, and taught T– and me how to play while AB was taking her afternoon nap. We played for most of the afternoon, and then he went home and I went over to B– and E–‘s to watch some mixed martial arts.

Mostly, though, we talked. I was there for four or five hours, and it was a lot of fun. I need to spend more time with them. But, then, I think that every time I spend any time with them.

Sunday morning we skipped church because we had plans to celebrate Mrs. Huddleston’s birthday with her. She’s…umm…D–‘s childhood friend’s mom. It’s a little bit of a distant connection for us, but she’s also D–‘s mom’s longtime friend, and the two of them both fell in love with AB pretty much from the start, so we’re invited to family stuff, now.

Anyway, that was at the zoo. We got there around 11:00, and it was already hot. All the girls went on the merry-go-round to start with, and rode this silly little train that goes in a short circle, and then we had a picnic lunch, and talked for a while, and then it was 3:00 and we went home.

Umm…I’m sure T– will make it sound like a lot more fun. Watch her blog for updates.

Both before and after that trip to the zoo, I spent several hours working on a markup of my sister Heather’s first novel. It’s fascinating working on Fantasy again. Her book is a good one, too, so it’s fun to have a hand in that.

After I finished that, around 5:00, I invited D– over for dinner and called in a take-out order to Ole. We ate, and then spent the rest of the evening watching Boston Legal. We’re ten episodes in. It’s…fascinating.

I also had a couple truly bizarre dreams this weekend, but I won’t try to explain them here. Suffice to say, they have me thoroughly weirded out.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: Father’s Day

This was Father’s Day weekend, and we treated it with the respect and gravity such a significant holiday deserves.

On Friday, T– and I went to dinner at Ole (temporarily my favorite Mexican restaurant, for set-up anyway), and then went back home to wait for her parents to show up. They got in around 7:30, and we talked for a while. We had made tentative plans to go out for a movie Friday night (and let her parents act as babysitters), but T– was concerned they would get bored, showing up so close to AB’s bedtime.

Well, first thing after they came in the door, T– suggested we go ahead and do Father’s Day, so she gave John and I our cards, and handed out presents. John got the first three seasons of Hill Street Blues on DVD, and I got a wireless mouse I wanted and a 3 pound bag of super Twizzlers. The bag is almost as long as AB is tall. Seriously.

Anyway, after that we discussed the movie situation (we had a coupon for free movie, drink, and popcorn that was set to expire that day), and T–‘s parents told her she was being silly. So they stayed home and watched Hill Street Blues while we went to watch Kung-Fu Panda.

Fantastic movie. Probably my favorite Pixar movie. Hilarious, with a strongly developed storyline (even for some of the secondary and tertiary characters), good action and great dialogue. And Jack Black, of course, is awesome. There is no charge for awesomeness.

Even though we picked the 90-minute movie, though, it was after midnight when we got home, so naturally I slept in on Saturday. Still, I had to get to the gym before going over to K– and N–‘s for lunch, and it was set to be an early lunch, so I was up by 8:00, and as I was heading for the door, T– brought up several complications that delayed my leaving by another 15 minutes. I also ended up tasked with getting a coolerful of foods to K– and N–‘s place, when we didn’t really have enough ice to keep it cold.

So I called them both but, it being so early, got no answer. I went ahead and went to the gym (which is right by their place), and about 30 minutes in, just as I finished my strength training, K– called me back and said, sure, I could come by early and dump some food in their fridge.

I went ahead and left then, took the food over and dropped it off, and then decided to try running in their neighborhood instead of going back to the gym. I had been wondering for a while how well my training would translate into real-world running, and it seemed like a good chance to try it out.

There are a few things I hadn’t considered, like the fact that the outdoors isn’t at all air conditioned, and that everyone in the neighborhood was out mowing that morning (which meant a nasty allergy attack). Worst of all, though, I’d never realized their house had been built in the midst of a damn mountain range. What’s a man to do?

No, really, I haven’t been using any incline when I’ve been doing my running on the treadmill, and even the slight elevation of their neighborhood was enough to knock me back a couple weeks in my training. No problem. I’ll go back to the gym tonight, get back in where I’m supposed to be (week 5, day 2), and finish up my training in the gym. At week 9, I should be running 25-30 minutes at a time, and then I can start fancying it up, gradually adding things like incline and increasing my speed. That’s really been my plan all along.

Anyway, lunch was delicious, burgers and dogs, and we had a fun crowd. Afterward we took AB home for a nap and sat around talking for a while, then headed out to do some shopping (Wal-Mart and Michaels, oh joy), and then out to a kitschy Americana restaurant called Pops! for dinner.

It was good. We had an hour wait which was brutal, but the food was good and the place had a fun feel to it. It was far enough out there, though, that it was easily AB’s bedtime by the time we got home. I spent a couple hours played AoC while we watched some more Hill Street Blues, and then got to bed around 1:00.

Sunday morning we went to church, and then T– grilled up some steaks for us for lunch. They were fantastic. After that, I spent pretty much the entire afternoon playing AoC. Her parents headed home around 2 or 3, and we ordered pizza for dinner sometime around 6 (and it was delicious), but pretty much the whole time I was on the couch playing AoC.

Overall, definitely a relaxing Father’s Day. A great weekend all around, really. Thanks to those who made it so.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: June 2, 2008

Thursday afternoon, on my way home from work, I stopped at Ace Hardware to pick up a new garage door opener remote for T– (one of our old ones just stopped working, and new batteries didn’t fix it). It was cheaper than I’d expected, and I’d figured I would have to order it online, so all in all, it was a pleasant surprise. Worked right away, too.

Anyway, I got home about 5:00 and found T– working in the yard. I set up the new remote, then took AB to the gym so T– could finish up her work.

I met K– and N– there, and N– suggested a new ab workout that might not leave me quite so exhausted as the hanging leg raises (and she was right), but it works muscles I haven’t really been working before and, yeah, I spent all day Friday cursing her name.

After weight training, though, K– and I did the second day of week 4 from my jogging program, and I saw a definite improvement. On day 1 I’d extended the last walking break by 30 seconds just to get through the final jogging bit. We didn’t do that Wednesday, and it was still overall easier. That was rewarding. Now I’ve taken a four day break, and the strain in ankle seems to be all better, so I’m hoping I can finish out the week strong, today.

After the gym K– and N– went home to grab some dinner, and I picked up some Bueno for us, then I grabbed a quick shower before I ate. Right around the time I finished, D– and K– and N– showed up, and we all watched the season finale of Lost. Good stuff. It ran until 10:30, though, since we were watching it DVRed, so I headed to bed as soon as everyone left.

Friday, I came in to work for the morning, then left at 11:00 to pick up T– and the baby and head for Little Rock. Mom hadn’t been able to make it to town the last couple times Dad came, so she hadn’t seen the baby in over a month (and, as a result, was starting to get panicky). We had actually promised to go up to Little Rock for Memorial Day, thinking it was this weekend, and had to cancel on that for K–‘s birthday party (among other things).

Anyway, we made good this weekend. We made it to Mom and Dad’s place around 5:30, and sat and talked for a while while Dad heated up the grill, then Mom and I ran up to a liquor store to pick up some wine for dinner while Dad grilled the steaks. Sirloins and filets mignonnes, my favorites.

Dinner was awesome. Getting to see my parents was cool. I ended up spending most of the evening downstairs with Dad, him playing WoW and me playing AoC. Finally gave up about 11:00 to head to bed.

Saturday morning, Mom took T– and AB to the Little Rock zoo. I slept in. Around 10:00, I finally got up and stumbled downstairs, and Dad offered to take me out to breakfast. We went to IHOP, and took along his laptop so we could discuss my markup of his novel. It was fun. We were also leisurely about it, so when Mom and T– called us around 11:30 asking about lunch plans, we had to admit that we were only halfway done with our breakfasts. They settled for Wendy’s, and we went out for an early dinner later in the afternoon.

Meantime, though, we went back to the house and watched Stranger than Fiction, which I had lent them because Mom had never seen it. She finally got around to it on Saturday, and we all watched with her. Such a good movie.

Then we went out to dinner. The plan was to visit a dive of a pizza joint that Mom and Dad had heard much about, but when we got there found it “Closed for Marcus’s Graduation! Congrats, Marcus!” or something to that effect.

So we went way out of town to some other pizza place that Mom and Dad like, but they weren’t offering the buffet because it was Saturday, so we tried the nearby barbecue place, and found it closed (with chains across the entry drive), and by that time there was much talk of a dinnertime curse. Josh mentioned another barbecue place Dad had twice tried to take him to (on Mother’s Day and Memorial Day) and it had been closed both times. I’d been there before, and it’s some fantastic barbecue, so I petitioned for that, and eventually we drove the twenty minutes back into town — probably nearly an hour of driving around trying to find places, total — and ended up at Whole Hog less than a mile from my parents’ house. It was good, though. So good.

Then Josh and Dad and I spent the rest of the evening downstairs, playing games and working on Josh’s laptop (which is having some weird problems). I played Mom’s WoW account for a couple hours and it was a strange experience. It hasn’t been that long since I’ve played, but playing another game with only-slightly-different-controls since then made the whole thing a bizarre experience.

Sunday morning we went to church, and in class we talked about raising children (and how much different it was in the good old day), and I objected to nearly every point the guy was making through the first half of the lesson, but I didn’t feel like derailing the discussion just to bring up my objections. Besides, he had the whole class on his side, so it would have been a hard-fought debate and I wouldn’t have won.

Then the sermon was on the passage in Matthew where Jesus suggests cutting off your arm if it causes you to sin…and I gained a flash of insight (entirely unrelated to the preacher’s take on that passage) that made good sense of the passage for the first time, to me. I’ll probably write up a little sermon of my own on the topic to post up here, today or sometime this week.

Then Mom and Dad took me to lunch at P F Chang’s, because they finally got one in Little Rock and they know it’s one of my favs. It was delicious, too. Then it was already 2:00 by the time we got home, and a storm was rolling in, and we had a five to six hour drive ahead of us, and it was time to go. We packed our stuff, said goodbyes, waited out a major downpour, and got out the door at 3:00.

As part of a complicated favor for my sister’s in-laws (who are good friends of my parents’), we’d agreed to drive the in-laws’ minivan from my parents’ house to OKC. So T– took the minivan (and AB, thankfully), and I drove the Honda back home. As a result, I got a long stretch of alone time, and nothing to do but think.

I listened to all three of my French CDs (Patricia Kaas’s Tour de Charme, George Brassens’s Les Copains d’Abord (1 de 2), and Francis Cabrel’s Samedi Soir Sur la Terre). I haven’t listened to them in at least a year — it’s generally only on long drives like this that I do. I love songs on each of them.

Actually, Cabrel has a song, Je t’Aimais, Je t’Aime, et Je t’Aimerais (which means “I loved you, I love you, and I will go on loving you”) that is one of the best songs I’ve ever heard. It may be my favorite song. Right now it is, anyway.

But I got home and looked up the lyrics, because I can only translate so much of that at high speeds, and one of the lines that I’d thought was “nous se regardait” meaning “we watched it all happening” (which, I now realize, would have to be conjugated “nous se regardions”), instead appears to be “nu sur les galets” which, close as I can tell, means “naked on wheels.”

That’s not quite the same romantic imagery as the rest of the song. Maybe there’s some prettier way to translate it.

Anyway, “naked on wheels” or not, it’s a beautiful song.

Also, I noticed that dude uses the word “tellement” (“too much”) in every single song on the CD. Odd.

But, yeah, we made good time despite the storm and got in around 8:30. We had some dinner, I got some stuff ready for work this morning, and then it was already time for bed. That’s a weekend come and gone.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry: May 28, 2008

I had an incredibly productive day at work yesterday. I got a ton accomplished, and in between projects I spent some time working on our finances for the next four or five months, and found out that our prospects look a lot better than I had feared. Even with the double mortgage, we’re going to be able to get by (barring any disasters, of course).

That’s good news. It relieves a great burden of stress on me, which is an answered prayer in itself.

After I got home I called Dad and talked with him for half an hour or so, then T– and I headed to the gym. We met K– and N– there, and after we did our strength training, K– offered to run with me again. I did the first day of week 4 on my program (after so successfully finishing week 3 on Sunday).

Holy damn! What a monstrous leap in difficulty. In week 3, I basically did 18 minutes of running and jogging — half and half, taking four walking breaks along the way to help me catch my breath.

In week 4, I do 16 minutes of jogging, plus another 5 1/2 minutes of walking at much rarer intervals. The last 5-minute stretch of jogging nearly killed me.

I managed though (with much encouragement from K– and T–), and when I have to try to do the same thing again tomorrow night, I’ll be able to approach it with the full knowledge that, yeah, I can do this. I’ve already done it once.

And, from what I’ve seen, what’s impossible on day 1 is not really all that hard on day 3. It’s been consistent that way throughout the program so far.

After we got home, T– made quesadillas for dinner, and we watched some According to Jim for the first time in a while, and I spent most of that time playing with AB. Then she went to bed and we watched some Lost, and then it was 10:00 far too soon, and with that bedtime.

I didn’t actually play any AoC last night. Instead, I spent time with my family. I’m just saying, is all. Of course, tonight I’m playing AoC pretty much all night. But that’s beside the point.

Other than that, it’s just things and stuff.

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Journal Entry

Wednesday, October 17th
Last Wednesday I got sick.

Well, on my drive home from work, I got a call from K– asking if I could help him try something out on D–‘s 360 (which was temporarily sheltering at my house) when I got home. I did, and the long and the short of it is that he and I spent all evening playing Halo 3 over the network. That was a lot of fun.

Meanwhile, the minute I walked in the door T– asked if she could just order pizza for dinner, and I met that suggestion with enthusiastic agreement, but as the night wore on she kept second-guessing herself and thinking something else might be tastier than pizza. I never disagreed, and in the end she so-kindly offered to go pick up some Braums for us both, and left me home with a sleeping AB, which also let me keep killing alien scum with K–.

She brought me a burger deal and a medium chocolate malt, and it was all (of course) delicious. She stole some of my fries, but by the time I was done I didn’t much mind because I could tell I’d had way too much malt, anyway. I felt over full, and kinda queasy, and that didn’t go away as T– and I watched Heroes (or something of the sort). I stretched out on the floor, and as soon as the show was over, I went to bed.

Thursday, October 18th
That’s weird, see, because it was relatively early and I didn’t have to be up on time Thursday, because I had a doctor’s appointment. Still, I felt sick, so I went to bed early assuming it would pass and I’d feel fine by the time I woke up. Somehow, though, I didn’t. I woke up feeling worse than I had the night before. I was queasy, and my stomach hurt.

I got dressed around 8:30, and headed up to my doctor’s office at 9:30. The appointment was just a follow-up to my annual exam that I got a month ago. He wanted to discuss my labs (fantastic), and see how the blood pressure medication was going (really good). It was definitely a positive review, but while I was there I mentioned the nausea and he noticed (and commented) that I was feverish, so he went ahead and prescribed a nausea medication for me, along with my BP refills.

The day just got worse from there. I spent the next eight hours in bed or in the bathroom. Around 6:30 I finally felt up to going out in the living room to lie on the couch for a couple hours, and I watched some of our Thursday night sitcoms with T–, then went back to bed by 9:30.

Friday, October 19th
Friday, I was back at work. I still felt a little off, but nothing like Thursday had been. I made it through the day at work, then went home to watch some TV with T–. I also did some of my homework for the week, and I worked on some music stuff on my computer while T– was pushing AB in the backyard. Just a general sort of busy afternoon/evening, while we waited for T–‘s parents to show up.

D– and K– and N– went out to Kang’s for sushi and karaoke for the night. They wanted me to come along. I kinda wish I could have, because I like spending time with all three of those people, but I don’t like doing either of those other two things, so it wasn’t too bad. We talked with T–‘s parents for a couple hours, then everyone went to bed.

Oh! I also got a new game running sometime in there, and started playing Portal. It’s awesome. I highly recommend it.

Saturday, October 20th
Saturday was supposed to be a Fall Festival at the park across the street from our house, and T– had big plans for it, but when we finally got everyone ready to go and drove over there, we saw the sign indicating that the Festival was, in fact, next weekend. No good. So we went garage saling instead. We ended up splitting up, and John and I went down to the south end of town to check out a hobby shop while T– and her mom went to the mall to buy some shoes.

Just as we got to the hobby shop, I got a call from Dad about his writing project. He’d hit his first big speedbump, and he was worrying about the implications of it. Luckily, the only reason he’s hitting it now (instead of this time next month) is because I’d predicted that sort of thing could happen, and I set him an assignment to help him track it down now. That worked out even better than I expected.

Anyway, we talked for over half an hour, about writing and the writing process and what to expect. I loved that. I’m really excited about next month, and all the opportunities it implies, for connecting with Dad and Heather, on things we haven’t really had in common in the past.

More than that, I’m excited about Dad and Heather and Gwyn all finally getting their novels finished. That is going to be awesome.

After the call, though, we headed back to the house to pick up D–, and took him with us over to K– and N–‘s to watch the OU game. It was a tense one, but we pulled it off. I don’t need that level of drama, though. Ugh.

After that, we came back home and had enchiladas for supper, and then watched Evan Almighty. Frankly, better than I thought it would be. I think I said the same thing about Bruce Almighty, now that I think about it. Same reaction, really.

Sunday, October 21st
On Sunday, after church we went to Texas Roadhouse, because T–‘s parents wanted to take me out for a birthday lunch. It was delicious, nevermind them making me get up on a saddle on a sawhorse so they could shout “Yeehaw” by way of “Happy Birthday.” Forget about that. It was nothing. The steak…the steak was amazing.

Then I went over to K– and N–‘s a little late in the afternoon (after seeing off T–‘s parents), to watch the Cowboys game. Not quite as bad as the OU game, but not a lot better, either. It was fun getting to see Adrian Peterson on the field, but when we got a real lead on the Vikings they had to pull him (for reasons made clear in an article I read last week), and then we just cleaned up. I’m not a fan of the trailing-for-the-whole-first-half strategy, even if we are usually pretty good about winning-out-in-the-fourth.

Anyway, we won, and T– came over and K– bought us some always-excellent barbecue from Steve’s Rib, and you just can’t beat an evening like that. T– and I went home and talked about doing our homework, and watched some TV instead.

Monday, October 22nd
Yesterday was back to work, and my big deal for the day was coming up with a plan to restart the Remnant project as a web game. B– made the mistake of asking me about that project, and I talked at him for like two hours. But, yeah, if you’re interested feel free to ask. For now, suffice it to say that you can expect me to spend a lot of time in the near future complaining about having too many projects to work on. The Shepherd and Oberon’s Dreams were already going to make that happen, but adding in a Sims version of an MMO that’s web-playable isn’t going to help the situation any.

I got home from work, checked the mail, sat down on the couch, and then B– called and asked if we could come over. T– was jumping up and down, she was so excited about the opportunity. So we went over to their place last night (they just got rid of the in-laws yesterday afternoon), and spent some time with the new parents giving our advice and (as aforementioned) regaling half of them on the nuances of a web interface for a highly-automated role-playing game.

We also had pizza, and ostensibly watched MNF, although we really only saw the kickoff. We had a great time, though. It was nice to get the invite, and great to see them.

Afterward, we came home and talked about doing our homework, but watched some TV instead.

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Webcomic

I’ve been reading a webcomic called Achewood, which is…quite entertaining. It’s not family friendly, by any means. But the artist has developed some incredibly detailed characters. He maintains blogs for all of them. It’s wild.

Anyway, I just read this line in an edition of The Phillipe Times’ Friday Facts:

“Soccer is popular everywhere but America. Why, you ask? Because Americans like when things happen.“

I liked that bit. Also, the following image is the first panel in a recent strip…that actually becomes one of the happier things to happen within the storyline, but Roast Beef is just a sad ol’ cat. What can I say?