Saturday 31 May 2008

crabbydad - The Perfect End to a Perfect Week...

 

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The Perfect End to a Perfect Week...

Miss O was home for the third day in a row, today, and instead of my crab-o-meter going all haywire and shit, I just resigned myself to the fact that my week was officially douched and I should just fucking accept it. Which I did, for the most part. The Old Lady and I split the day, so I was able to get some work done, but the rest of the time I spent with Miss O creating a new habitat for her fairy dolls. She was coveting this massive woodland treehouse thing in some hippie catalog she dug up, but I said, "Ah, that thing blows -- we could make one WAY better than that!" Unfortunately, she said "Okay!"

So, I dredged up the "bag-o-crafty-shit" from the basement and we just started slapping crap together -- popsicle sticks, fabric scraps, clay, sticks, yarn, fake fur, boogersnots, earwigs, blood. When the dust cleared, this is what we had wrought:







And finally, a shot with the new homeowners enjoying their digs:



Get a load of me -- I'm a regular Frank Lloyd Wrong. Miss O digs it, though, and it saved me about 100 bucks, so what the shit. And it burned up the afternoon, so bonus.

Tomorrow a.m. I leave for Gearfest 2008. Unfortunately, like Miss O, I got re-sick and this time, the plague juice has taken up residence in my chest. I'm quite the wheezy chap, of late, and it feels like I have a pair of wet pantyhose lodged in my alveoli. Nothing 48 hours of drinking and not sleeping won't fix, right? As long as I don't die in Fort Wayne, the trip will have been a success.

So yeah, if anyone's heading to Fort Wayne this weekend, look me up. I'll be the tall dorky guy sucking on an oxygen tank while trying to bum free shit at the Digital Performer booth.

Rock [coff, coff] on!


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Thursday 29 May 2008

crabbydad - Miss O No... Not Again!

 

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Miss O No... Not Again!

The crabbiness has all become clear to me now -- Miss O was up with a fever last night and she's officially re-sick... again. No school today (and most likely none tomorrow) and I had to spend the day making her comfy, playing marathon Uno games with her, forcing the fluids and trying to find something that she'd fucking eat, all while trying to shoehorn some work into the minutes in between. It was snot fun.

Before the fever, we actually had this grand plan for today. Miss O was supposed to have an eye doc appointment in Brighton, which is about 45 minutes away, and we were going to rent a van, pick the kids up from school, stop at the doc's office, and then continue on to IKEA, which is about another half an hour from there. We were going have dinner there, load up on bungloads of cheap Swedish kräppë (we especially wanted to pick up some deck furniture so we could start eating outside) and it would've been hunky-fucking-dory.

But she didn't go to school, I canceled the van rental, canceled the eye doc appointment, got zero Swedish kräppë, and I got my ass fucking schooled all day in Uno. Which was almost as fun.

I just hope her phlegmishness clears up by Saturday morning, 'cuz I'm actually shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and heading on an overnight geek-scursion to Fort Wayne, Indiana for Gearfest 2008! That's right, beeyotches, 10 hours of complete nerdarinos drooling over recording gear they can't afford in beautiful downtown Fort Wayne -- home of... uh... Gearfest 2008? And Frank Burns.

You can begin envying my life right about... now.


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Wednesday 28 May 2008

crabbydad - The Return of Miss Woe...

 

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The Return of Miss Woe...

Well, Miss O's two-wheeler good mood officially lasted "a" second, and then she was on the express train right back to crabbyville. In all fairness, she has been battling this never-ending, bottomless-phlegm-pit of a cold that has seemingly been dragging on since, oh I don't know, the twelfth? Of never? All shit broke loose yesterday afternoon, and there has been a steady stream of whining, tears, boogers and/or snotballs ever since.

We've tried to cheer her up, distract her, indulge her, but she has set the mood dial to "fuck off" and that sucker ain't budging anytime soon. At one point, in the midst of a particularly blubbery weepisode, she stomped upstairs to her room and slammed her door. Then, about two minutes later, she stomped back down, tears still a-streamin', and thrust this into my hands:



I think the fact that I laughed at its sheer adorableness didn't really help matters much.

Alas, knowone nose the troubles she nose.


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Tuesday 27 May 2008

crabbydad - A Cool Pair of Wheels Is All I Need...

 

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A Cool Pair of Wheels Is All I Need...

Miss O finally decided that it was time to ditch the training wheels on her bike and learn to ride two-wheeler-style. You can't force Miss O to do shit -- and if she senses that you want her to do something, she'll completely polarize and refuse to fucking do it -- but once she makes up her mind to conquer something, she fucking kicks its ass. Which is what she did with her bike. I ran along side her a coupla times and then, boom, she nailed it.

Today, we went on our first all-family bike ride around the subdivision and she really was amazing -- keeping up with Mr. Z, riding up hills, stopping at stop signs -- the works. I spied her writing this later on this afternoon:



Our baby's done growed up, mother.


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Friday 23 May 2008

crabbydad - Whose Death Is It Anyway?

 

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Whose Death Is It Anyway?

Well, thanks to a 1/4 of a Xanax, I made it to the funeral, and I'm glad I went. I was a little fucking creeped out for the first 20 minutes or so, but the meds kicked in soon after and the terror level dropped significantly.

But I have to tell ya, and my apologies to the faithful out there, but cheezin' rice, I REALLY don't get this whole religion thing. It was a Catholic service (but really, it could've been any denomination), and I swear to crap, they were making the shit up as they went along. (And seriously, no disrespect to any believers out there. Do not take my heathenous musings as anything but that.) The sprinkling of the holy water on the casket, the metal incense ball thing the dude was waving around (which smelled strangely like burnt pencil), the whole Eucharist thing with the eating of the body and the drinking of the wine/blood (?!), the weird-ass kneeling bar that I had to pull out from under the bench in front of me, the fanciful vestments of the pastor (tastefully traditional but with inlaid fabric from what seemed to be a Red Roof Inn bedspread), the hymns, the many gilded tomes that were brought forth, the lady who kept leaving her seat to go to the bathroom and each time she did it, she would bow to the giant Jesus hanging from the ceiling who, by the way, seemed to have been sculpted out of honey-butter.

Seriously. It really seems like some insane person just made a bunch of shit up, packaged it, and said, "There you go -- I give you religion. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go meet a giant badger on Mars -- we're having a picnic and then we're going to wash our hair with potatoes!"

Don't get me wrong -- the organist rocked the hizzy! I could sit around and listen to that dude play all day long. And I actually sang along with some of the hymns, adding in some 7ths and 9ths and going all Bohemian Rhapsody on their ass. When the dude really cranked the big, fat chords out, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. He had a total Deep Purple thing going on, for sure. That part was awesome.

I think the thing that bummed me out the most was that, of the nearly two hours I sat there, the pastor talked about Jesus or God or a buncha other bearded and robed dudes for about an hour and forty minutes. But I only heard about Bob, the guy WHOSE FUNERAL IT WAS, for like 20 minutes... if that! I wanted to hear about his life and who he was and all the things he did and why the church was packed to the fucking rafters with people who thought he was the nicest guy ever. But all I got was a 3 minute speech from a friend of his from the Masons or the Knights of Cydonia, or whatever, and a seriously heart-rending speech by Bob's son and his SIX other siblings.

I mean, face it, the paster TOTALLY BOGARTED THE SERVICE!

I guess I can see why they do it that way -- if, instead of fixating on this horrible, unexplainable individual death, you couch it in this grand master plan laid out by this all-knowing and all-loving supreme being, it's way easier to handle the randomness and awfulness of it all and you can actually get through your life without your head going all "Scanners" on you. But I'm telling ya, I think everyone would've gotten a hell of a lot more out of it if they had just sat in a big circle on the floor of someone's living room and told stories about the dude and passed around some photos and gotten fucking soused.

That's a religion I could get behind.

But, like I said, I'm glad that I went. I think Kim said it best when she said, "It's only fitting [I] remember him, since he always remembered [me]." And that was the subject of my dinnertime Mike Brady sermon to the spawnage when I told them that the best way to live on after you die is to live an interesting life, have as much fun as you can, and be really nice to people and make lots and lots of friends who will continue to talk and write and blog about you, long after you're gone.

Then Miss O plugged her ears and told me to stop talking about death or she's gonna have nightmares.


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Thursday 22 May 2008

crabbydad - Scared Stiff...

 

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Scared Stiff...

So, I think I'm gonna go to Bob's funeral tomorrow. Is that weird? I don't really go to funerals... yet. I'm sure they'll start rolling in soon enough. I remember a funeral I went to back in college where the open casket was right inside the front door of the church -- you basically had to walk up to and then around the body to go inside. I'm pretty sure that was the moment that put me off funerals for good.

And that open casket shit is so fucking creepy. It's like some kind of horror movie -- you're just waiting for the body to sit up and do some Phantom of the Opera face at the crowd. I know some people need to see the person one last time for closure, but I don't know, I think looking at photos and sharing stories is a little more respectful and a little less terrifying. Anywhich, apparently there was a viewing today, so hopefully tomorrow, at the service, things are all sealed up nice and tight, and it's just people talking about what an awesome guy he was.

I also have a really hard time sitting quietly in big spaces without moving, like in churches and lecture halls and shit. I've got my pointy ass-bones poking into the goddamn wooden benches, and I'm not moving, and it's really fucking quiet, and then I can feel my heart beating, which always freaks me out, and there's usually someone sitting right next to me, and I'm all hot and boxed in and shit, and then I start getting sweaty and panicky, and I try to just breathe slowly and deeply, but then I get too fixated on my breathing, and then I get all itchy, and by that time my ass and taint have gone completely numb and my mouth's all dry and I have to take a steamy camel piss and I look up to try to find something to calm me down and boom, I look right at the dead body lying there in the goddamn open casket.

Holy crap, I think I better take a half a Xanax before I go. And I'll sit on the aisle... in the back. And maybe I'll bring a cushion. And a diaper.

Only I could make someone else's funeral all about me.

I am such a dick.


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Wednesday 21 May 2008

crabbydad - Testing the Waters...

 

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Testing the Waters...

Even though my crabonic plague is still a-lingerin', I decided to go swimming this morning, just to see if the act of physical exertion might help me hork up some of the more weighty oysters lodged in the deepest recesses of my alveoli.

When I pulled up to the Y, I noticed that the sign out front read, "We Will Miss You, Bob!" The Old Lady had mentioned the sign yesterday, and said that she saw something inside suggesting that Bob was retiring, which is a huge bummer because Bob is probably the nicest guy on the fucking planet. Seriously. I mean, the dude knew my fucking name by my second visit to the Y -- he knew everybody's goddamn name. Not like those other desk workers who would try to sneak a look at your card before saying hello... "Oh... uh, hi there...[glance/panic/scan] Shirley?" Bob just knew everybody -- every single morning, he'd be there at the desk with a cheery, "Mornin' Crabbydad!"

So, I was a little bummed when I saw the sign. Then I walk inside and head toward the lockerroom, and I see this big sheet of paper on the wall where shitloads of people had written little goodbyes to Bob -- "I'll miss your smile, Bob!" and "The Y will be a little less cheerful without you, Bob!" and "Our prayers are with your family at this sad time, Bob."

Wait, what?!

I looked up and there, in the center of the sheet, was a reprint of Bob's obituary. Bob didn't fucking retire, he died. What the shit?! The dude was only 60. Goddammit.

So, I walked into the lockerroom, which was silent, got my suit on and managed to do about half the laps I normally do before I started wheezing and horking up lung. I said "fuck it" at that point, and went back in to get dressed and go home.

I don't have a snappy ending to this story. I'm just shocked and bummed that one of the only people I see on a daily basis, and the only one who knew me from a turd on the ground, is dead. I mean, I didn't really know the guy, but when I think about it, I probably knew him as well as I know anybody in this town... which is depressing. I guess it's just another reminder to get out of this house and do shit and meet people and fucking live a little... if for no other reason than to ensure that when I drop dead, maybe there'll be more than two or three people to sign my sheet of paper on the wall at the Y.

Rock on, Bob.


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Monday 19 May 2008

crabbydad - Whoa, Black Lung-y, Phlegm-a-legm...

 

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Whoa, Black Lung-y, Phlegm-a-legm...

Still sick. Why is it that when the spawnage contracted this bug, they got a little cough and some sniffles, when the Old Lady got it, she had a sore throat and she felt tired and "dizzy," and when I get it, I'm wheezy, coughing gray slugs outta my lungs, can't hear out of either ear, and the never ending raging rapids of boogersnotz that flows out of my face is glo-stick green? I'm not complaining... just askin'.

I've got the fucking immune system of a goddamn dung beetle, that's why. Actually, the dung beetle probably has a pretty powerful immune system, given that the thing basically rolls shit-balls all day for a living. Maybe I could be the first human recipient of a dung-beetle immune system. I'd roll shit-balls all day if it would mean I could stay healthy while doing it. And I'll bet I'd be good at it too -- I have an eye for detail. I'd have the biggest, smoothest shit-balls in town, by gum! "Hey, have you seen the fucking shit-balls that crabbydad rolled today?! Holy crap, those things are turd-riffic!" Yep, that would be the scuttlebutt amongst all the other dung-beetle-immune-system-recipient patients 'round the shitfarm.

Ah, a fella can dream, can't he?


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Friday 16 May 2008

crabbydad - HOCK! Who Blows There?

 

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HOCK! Who Blows There?

Well, after weeks of the spawnage coughing lung-oysters in my general direction and tossing their snot-sodden, un-Kleenexes at me every three minutes, I have finally surrendered my immune system to their plague. I am a sputum-producing machine and my throat feels like it's lined in pink fiberglass insulation and napalm. Needless to say, my basal crab level has skyrocketed.

I don't know what the fuck to type about tonight... I'm not necessarily in the most reflective of moods this eve'n. Oh, Mr. Z did mention that in his "Reproductive Health" class yesterday, he learned all about the dreaded "nocturnal emission." Of course, the Old Lady responded with a "Oh, that's neat," while I did my usual -- sprayed whatever liquid I was drinking out through my nose and turned my head away so he didn't see me tittering like a schoolboy. I'm sorry, I can't help it -- I cannot discuss sex or any sex-related particulars without giggling, stammering and/or homina-homina-homina-ing. The Old Lady, on the other hand, can orate on the topic for hours with nary a smirk, hence, she handles most of the dirty work.

I did somehow manage to ask Mr. Z if he understood what the the "N.E." was all about, and he paused before he said, "So... what comes out? Is it pee?" Pee?! I think they're teaching you about the wrong kinda wet dream at school, dude. Then the Old Lady gets ready to start in on the ins and outs, if you will, of the said emission when I pointed out to her that we were all eating dinner at the time, and Miss O was sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER and perhaps there was a better, more private venue for discussing the matter. A sticky situation, indeed.

So, instead of going to the other room, the Old Lady whispers all the sordid particulars in the boy's ear. He seemed satisfied and left the room. Then I pointed out to Old Lady that she had just described the process of involuntary nighttime ejaculation, in her hushed, dulcet tones, into the youthful, impressionable ear of her son. I then drove to the bank to open a savings account for the years and years of therapy he'll be needing to undo the Freudian scarring she had just thrust upon him.

Alas, whatever happened to the days when she used to whisper the mechanics of the nocturnal emission in my ear?


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