randy joe - (a preview of) the final chapter

don't worry, he's not dead yet.

my dad has been contemplating and discussing his death for years now.  i can't tell you how many "last" christmases he's had.  he also likes to point out last purchases - "this is the last washing machine i will ever have to buy" (said with relief and enthusiasm).

i was on the phone with him this morning complaining about some recent home-related expenditures and he said "well, here's one thing you don't have to worry about paying for.  i talked to bob lovein at the funeral home this week and i made all the arrangements so you, michelle and ronnie don't have to worry about paying for that." at this point, he paused and i suppose he expected me to tell him what a relief that was to me. he continued:

bob said they would come get me, whether it was at home or at the hospital or from up under a semi truck.  they'd scrape me up and take me to the funeral home and put me in a temporary casket. then, they're gonna open it up and you and ronnie and michelle have got an hour to look at me and say how good i look and how it looks just like me.  

after that, they're gonna carry me to tifton to the crematory place they got there and they will put me in there at about a thousand degrees.  well, first they gotta get my metal hip replacements out because they'll spark up in that incinerator. after that, they'll put what's left of me in there and then give y'all the ashes.  

i want ya'll to take those to my family's gravesite and sprinkle them there.  the first good rain and that will be the end of that. 

so there you have it - that is a preview of how randy joe anticipates it will go down in the end.  he did make a passing mention of us going back to his house and drinking and talking about him some more.  i'm just glad he is still here to keep giving me stories to tell, although if you asked him, he'd say that was the last one.

marathon-to-couch training

i'm thinking of marketing and selling an online marathon-to-couch training program.  it would go something like this:

get started!!
set your sights on a race that is completely out of your league.  a marathon! better yet, make it a trail marathon.

start training!!
go online and find every possible training program.  print them all out.  then make your own. follow it obsessively.

run your race!!
complete your race.

do whatever!!
now that you have completed your race, be completely in the dark that there is a post-race recovery plan.  just do whatever.

get injured!!
this is where i recommend a hamstring strain or maybe even a torn meniscus. really, whatever you can come up with.  it shouldn't take too much thought and there are any number of good options, particularly if you are over 40.

bed up!!
relax and enjoy some law & order and the warmth of those extra pounds.

the best septic tank story that i've got

we have lived in our house for nearly seven years and i decided we should probably do something with our septic tank because i have heard they need maintenance.  what exactly maintenance entailed, i had no idea. so i asked a friend and got the name of a septic guy - darrell.

darrell showed up at the scheduled time and introduced himself, then asked me (i guess i should have seen this coming...) where the septic tank was located.  i had no idea. darrell then asked "you got email?" i replied yes and he told me to call the health department and ask them to email me the information on file with the county about the location of my tank.  he recited the number and i then explained to the nice woman at the environmental health department that i had darrell there with me and we needed to locate the tank.  she agreed to email the document and then she said "tell darrell tammy says hey." i did.

the email came and i showed it to darrell and he took over my phone, zoomed in and out on the screen, called out a bunch of random numbers and then looked at me and said "whats that add up to?" not being aware that i was tallying, i told him i had no idea. darrell figured it all out without my help and started digging.

a little while later, he called me over and the conversation went like this:

darrell: i'm sick.
me: okay. is there anything i can do?
darrell: i got diarrhea.
me:  oh no.  what do you need?
darrell: i'm gon have to come back and finish the job next week.
me:  that's absolutely fine.  you do whatever you need to do.
darrell: (gathers his tools then stops what he was doing) whatchyou do for a living'?
me: well, i take pictures of cows and sell them, but i wouldn't exactly call it a living
darrell: cows? you know the bull man up on highway 15?"
me: (staring blankly, shaking my head no)
darrell: the bull man. you know, he inseminates cows all around here.  they did a documentary about him. (he waited for me to realize i knew the bull man, but i failed him and he continued) me and my wife was in it. it did pretty good, made it to that sundance film festival. it was called dirty work.
me: wow, that's crazy.
darrell:  i reckon people liked it cause jimmy kimmel wanted us to come on his show and sing the honeywagon song.
me: that's so cool. did you go?
darrell: yep. me and my wife and harold went to los angeles.  they paid for the hotel and ever'thing. we was on there with hulk hogan and a chi-nese lady from that show lawst.
(then, an unexpected subject change, possibly due to an upset stomach reminder)
darrell: me and my wife ate out last night and i knew some'n wattin right after that.  we ate at redds in jefferson.  you been there?
me: no, i haven't.
darrell: you oughta try it.  it's good.

not long after that, darrell packed up and headed home.  he did return the following week and we talked more about family, politics, school and about his work.  he said he loved his job and was proud that he had stuck with it and made a successful business.  i agreed with him. not many people can say the same thing. i asked him the craziest thing he ever found in a septic tank and he said, without hesitation, "false teeth" and after some thought, "and a bunch a rubbers."

the only thing disappointing about my septic tank maintenance experience is that darrell won't need to come back for 3 to 5 years.  i'm going to miss that guy.

run penelope run

the middle school track meet was scheduled for thursday in jefferson, georgia, at 3:30pm and would last until 8:30pm. i spent monday through thursday dreading it, so when i received a text message thursday around lunchtime saying that the meet had been cancelled due to to rain, i was so ecstatic that i failed to notice that the text went on to say that the meet had been rescheduled for the following night (friday night, for those of you only skimming).

so when i got up friday morning and my son informed me that the meet was that afternoon, let's just say it soured my mood. my mood is generally good on fridays as friday evenings at my house are known as "beer friday" because i like to have a couple of friends over to drink beer and complain about things like track meets, etc.

and for you to fully understand my disdain for track (feel free to insert whatever other kid activity of overblown importance here), i need to explain that neither of my kids is athletic and asperger's isn't really associated with a lot of sports successes. (in fact, i'm pretty sure i've got some blog entries to back this up). consequently, i suppose, i think parents today have fucking lost it when it comes to their childrens' athletics.

friday, the day itself, was rather miserable, for reasons that are not funny and therefore not suitable for this blog. and i had to cancel beer friday so i could drive to jefferson- which even my gps resisted and referred to as "unmapped" territory. i did eventually find the meet and sat alone in the bleachers among cheering parents, restless children and the clacking of expensive track shoes on metal.

i watched one couple, in particular, who cheered for their budding star who i will call penelope (to protect her precious identity). penelope ran a full mile - that's four whole laps - around the track and finished well ahead of her competitors. her parents screamed and cheered each time she came around and at the finish just beamed with pride and excitement. the mom said to her other, younger child, "can you believe she beat everyone else?" finally, after a painfully long wait, penelope was able to join them, where she was met with "hey, track star" and congratulatory high fives and hugs. it was a beautiful scene and all i could think was "enjoy your moment penelope, because in a few short years, you could run a marathon backwards and no one will give a shit." something tells me penelope won't see it coming - she's been conditioned, like all of them (mine included) to expect the moon and more. but i kept all this to myself and let penelope have her moment and not long after, i gathered up my middle school track participant and we happily headed to the car. i took it as a good sign when my gps suddenly kicked in and knew the way home.

walk a mile in my shoes. no, really, i only buy comfortable shoes.

the title may have mislead you.  there is not much humor in this post.  but it is a post i feel i have to write because of the overwhelming media coverage of the measles outbreak. this is not a political post or even an opinionated one (for once).  i'm not asking for sympathy - there are people who have way bigger problems than this.  this post is written to give one perspective.

imagine that you have your second child.  you do exactly what the doctor tells you to do (like you did with your first child) - you get your newborn all of the shots you are required to have before he leaves the hospital, you breastfeed (okay, if you are a guy reading this, adjust the story as necessary to not be disgusting or unnatural), you go back for all the check ups and get the required immunizations, etc.  but after one set of immunizations, your child gets sick with a fever and there is swelling at the site of the injection.  you don't think much about it - this is normal, right?  you did exactly what you were supposed to do to protect your child.  so you go about your business and everything seems fine.

but then you start to notice that your child's behavior is a little off.  he stares at objects a little too intensely.  you don't worry too much about it - all kids are different, right?  but then, time goes on and the behaviors increase and you realize he isn't really talking like other kids his age.  and he doesn't seem to do the things that other kids his age do and he seems to have a lot of tantrums.  so you take him to see a developmental pediatrician and she diagnoses him with autism.  you start researching like crazy because you want to help your child.  somewhere during all of this, you realize that both of your neighbors with boys the same age, who had the same pediatrician (and presumably got the same batch of vaccines as your child) also have developmental disorders.  you don't know if it was the vaccines or maybe something environmental or just a crazy coincidence, but you wonder.

you take him to therapy - occupational, speech, psychological..... whatever therapy you can find, because you want to do everything you can to help your child.  and as you are researching, you start seeing articles connecting autism and vaccines.  you hear that the science isn't there (the one study was thrown out) - but you keep reading about parents who swear that their child's symptoms started right after their vaccines.  you join online groups and find lots of people whose kids have these issues and lots of people whose kids reacted in one way or another to vaccines.  you know that vaccines are good for society, but you worry that your child just doesn't handle them well.  your biggest fear is that you will take your child to get a shot and all of your progress that you have made will be gone - your child will regress or react adversely in some other way.  you tell your pediatrician your fears and ask if you can separate the vaccines and spread them out just in case they overload your child and he says to you "i can, but i think that it is unnecessary and cruel to give your child so many shots."  so you decide your pediatrician is a bit of a dick and you look for a new one.  the next two that you go to tell you that they don't support any altering of the vaccine schedule and they don't want to see you unless you agree to get all the remaining vaccines asap. so you decide you will have to do it and you go online and look for everything you can find to reassure you that vaccines are safe.  only the more you research, the more you find that there are no guarantees of safety.  and in fact, there are lots of reported injuries from vaccines - many credible, acknowledged and compensated for by our government.  so then you decide you just want to avoid the whole issue because it is scary.  so you develop a religious/personal belief (arguably that you believe in a god that doesn't want you to harm your child) that allows you an exemption from the school requirements so that you can figure this out later.

so while taking a break from worrying about vaccines, you go to therapy still, you hire tutors to help with school and the ADD issues.  you battle the school about your son's IEP and services. you change schools, you homeschool, you go back to public school.  you try your best to help him have friends, but it's middle school and there isn't much you can do about that.  you worry that you aren't doing enough for him.

then you hear that pertussis (whooping cough) has made a comeback and can kill babies and you start worrying that while your not-fully-vaccinated-school-aged kid might survive it, you don't want to spread it to some baby who might not.  so you reluctantly go to yet another pediatrician and you tell him that you want to get the DTAP booster because you worry about spreading disease and he tells you that you need all of the immunizations and he doesn't really care what your story is or why you are afraid or that you have done tons of research or that your husband is a doctor too.  so you get your son the DTAP booster on a friday.  on saturday, his arm is swollen from the elbow to the shoulder and it is hard as a rock and scorching hot.  on sunday, it is the same.  on monday, you decide you need to go see the pediatrician again because it still isn't better.  so you call but your pediatrician is on vacation so you have to see the on-call doctor from another practice and it happens to be the dick you have already seen.  by the time you see the doctor at 3pm on monday, the arm looks better and the doctor tells you that he has had a local reaction ("no shit," you think). and you worry that your child doesn't handle vaccines like everyone else.

at this point, you are an MMR booster and a chicken pox booster away from fully vaccinated and there is a measles outbreak and every single news website you visit has an article blasting parents for not vaccinating, many calling them selfish or ignorant.  you fear the MMR the most because you know that it is one of the ones he has reacted to in the past.  it is also the most discussed in the context of autism.

next you talk nonstop about it to your friends who all get sick of hearing about it.  and then you remember that you have a blog!

when do i get to sit at the big table?

if you love and enjoy children and like the way they are being raised around here, then this blog post might not be for you. in fact, this entire blog might not be for you. i am not for you.

it is friday afternoon and i will be driving around from 3:15pm until 7:15pm taking my kids various places.  when did this become an acceptable way for a 40-something-year-old to spend a friday afternoon and evening? and to sound even more old-lady than that last sentence - no wonder these kids are obsessed with selfies, and themselves in general.  with every activity that we drive them across town to, we are telling them that their activities and their lives are the most important thing and that nothing is too much to ask of your parents.  and some adults i know would even support that thinking.

i can tell you that randy joe and ronnie didn't think like that.  i was loved and cared for and had plenty of opportunities.  sacrifices were made for me.  but friday nights were not spent driving me to my activities. there was no travel soccer.  sure, maybe an occasional dance recital or gymnastics meet but weekend opportunities for them to hang out, listen to steely dan and smoke and drink (it was the 70s), were not negotiable. or at least as i remember it.

ronnie didn't fret over what to put in the gift bags at mine and my sister's birthday parties.  in the 70s, only the person who had the birthday got the gifts.  the guests got to attend a party - and eat cake.  no, they didn't get their face painted, or have a jumpy house to play in.  but still, there was cake.  one with thick, crisco and sugar icing flowers all over.  none of that whipped shit from publix.

the other day in barnes and noble, i saw that they are now selling a birthday elf-on-the-shelf. i don't know what our kids will do when they grow up and realize that no one gives a shit about their birthdays.  i also feel sorry for any guy that ever wants to propose to a girl who grew up in the early 2000s.  what will he ever do to top her high school prom invitations?

parents today didn't grow up like this - so why are we raising our kids this way?  we all grew up in a time when kids were told to go outside and play while the grown-ups talked and had fun.  we sat at the card table with the other kids, while the adults got the big table.  now, i feel like parents put the kids first.  they are the most important thing.  let's tell them that.  let's show them that by giving them everything they could dream of asking for and them some.  let's show them by driving them all over the state every weekend for their soccer games.  let's show them by giving them the biggest and best birthday party ever with the most expensive treat bags! let's show them by completely sacrificing our entire adult lives in every possible way.

now, i know you (all three of you reading this) are thinking, "when did nicole's blog turn into a big fat rant?" and the answer is - on friday, between 3:15 and 7:15pm.

sexy, flat abs at 40!

i hate magazines.  all of them.  i think they make people (mostly women) feel bad about themselves. fitness magazines are the absolute worst.  i have no idea why i got one in the mail recently.  i didn't order it, but i guess i ordered something online and this was my punishment.  on the cover stands an airbrushed model beside a headline boasting "sexy, flat abs at 40!" as if this is actually a possibility.  while i do think it is possible for a woman of that age to be sexy, i have serious doubts about whether her abs would be a contributing factor.  and if this woman has kids, forget all of it - she isn't ever going to feel sexy again.  ever.  and her abs are not flat unless she has had surgery or she is really, really hungry and sucking in.  and lying down.  trust me on this.

i didn't open the magazine.  but i imagine the article looked something like this.

Seven Easy Steps for Sexy, Flat Abs at 40!

Step 1: rent or purchase a time machine.

Step 2: get inside time machine.

Step 3: think back to a time when you had flat abs (if you are 40, this will likely be the early 90s).

Step 4: enter that date into time machine.

Step 5: travel back in time.

Step 6: tell your younger self not to have children, eat carbs or drink alcohol ever again.

Step 7: tell your younger self to spend 3 hours a day doing ab work for the next 20 years.

the magazine is still sitting on my kitchen counter.  i think i am going to throw it in the recycling so that i can stop thinking about what i am not doing to have flat, sexy abs.