*whooooooosh!*

As all of you have guessed, I have lost interest in this place and making updates a priority.

My new life and new family have shifted my perceptions so much, this blog seems largely irrelevant.

Which is cool because that's how life SHOULD be, it should not be a static bore. It's just that the journey I'm on now has made my presence here largely unimportant.

My love for my wife grows stronger each day. Her three kids and I are growing closer as I assume the role of "dad" for them. My own three are thriving, loving their life out in the country.

An idea for another blog has been kicking around for some time and I may get around to firing that up. The emphasis would change - this place was started as "A single, full-time dad figures it out" - and my new blog would be about blending a family, a large family, with some bits about small-town life and being a born-again mountain man (not that I'm "born-again" in the religious sense, apatheist me). I've been thinking about using the domain space we used for the wedding and dumping blogger, making it more personal.

I have to investigate some of the technical aspects: coming up with a design, integrating blogging, keeping the spammers to a minimum. If any of you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I really would love to start something completely new that reflects my new life. I'd love to see your emails or comments.

If I get the new place launched, I'll let you know here. I'll try and put up some updates until then (working for a small-town weekly doesn't keep me THAT busy) but I think I'm announcing the imminent demise of this place.

So... until then... please give me your input, suggestions, and help me out!

Ta ta for two weeks and tensum

So long, suckaz
Off to the Emerald Isle and won't be back until June 25. Which means, no posts (are you nuckinfutz?). Not that it matters much - posts here have been scanty at best, boring at worst of late - but don't expect anything until after I get back. While I'm gone you should go pop in at Soiled Dove Inn and give her grief about not posting more.

Also, because I insist on moderating comments (due to puerile asshats in the past who felt a brilliant strategy of getting at me was posting their stupidity here), your fine comments won't see the light of day until I return. By all means, comment away, just don't expect anything to post in the near future.

All of that is not why I'm posting, though. There is something important I want to say before I'm Dublin-bound...

MBS (heretofore, my darling and beautiful Mara) had a fight the other night, something I believe couples do from time to time. As we reached resolution, Mara told me how much she appreciated how deeply I believe in our relationship, how hard I work on it. I didn't tell her (but I will now) is how much I appreciate how hard she has worked on this relationship: if it wasn't for her doing pretty much everything, we wouldn't be going to Ireland and our wedding would still be a distant (if pleasant) dream. Her hard work made all of this happen, I was just the guy she bounced her brilliant ideas off of because I was the guy lucky enough to be the one she wanted to share her dreams and adventures. Lucky enough to walk down the aisle with, dance with, toast some mead with, and now, jet off to Ireland for the time of our lives.

So please don't think I am fortunate for getting to go to Ireland. I am fortunate because I ended up finding my true soulmate, my partner in crime, my co-parent, my best friend, the best (by far) thing that has ever happened to me.

Ah, the luck of the Irish. Even if I am a bit of a prick.

The brew to do

The egg on our faces is from another scientist's head exploding
The "Honeymoon Brew" is racked and ready to bottle; we'll put on the caps tomorrow.

Also tomorrow: gerieatric rocking out, chicken killing, and New Mexican adventures. Stay tuned.

Anyway, we started this first brew about 10 days ago with almost two cans of light malt extract, Irish Ale yeast, Cascade hops to start and Centennial hops to finish (the entire boil went an hour with the finishing hops in the last fifteen minutes). We're calling this our "Honeymoon Brew" because we're bustin' the caps on it after we return from Ireland. Toasting us and Obama.

Not talking about the weather but actually doing something about it

How soft your fields so green,
Can whisper tales of gore,
Of how we calmed the tides of war.
We are your overlords.
Look around you, outside, what do you see? Skimpy outfits on the swine waiting in line to see Sex & the City? Quarts of sweat dripping off the fat guy's moobs, collecting like strings of pearls on the short curly ones rimming his aureaolae? Kids running and jumping through the sprinkler on your lawn, screaming with the sting of rock salt from your 20 guage?

June 5th and it was freakin' snowing here, I even had a fire going, this morning. It's a good thing we're heading to Santa Fe, to the land of the tiny-feathered silver earring on the blue-bobbed saggy tit. Sssshhhh.... she's wetting her bill with a bit of mohito and seeking to mate with the broad-shouldered personal trainer (after having passed on the talentless artist).

We're going to see X at the brewery and then coming back here to embark on our journey to the emerald city... or isle... I can't remember which.

While we're in Santa Fe, your invitation is here:

Goin' to the north, north, north shore

Yes, THAT kind of surfing...
Despite reports to the contrary (on E! and those phony-ass cable "news" networks), the wedding went off without a hitch and, in fact, not nearly as many people were arrested as was reported. The whole KIA thing is total bullshit and we're not taking any responsibility for the MIA folks - they'll show their faces when they're ready, we reckon.

And no, I didn't spike the punch but with our crowd, who knows who the culprit might have been? I suspect some old hippie from the bride's side.

Now we're off to Ireland for two weeks. It's a backwards country dontchaknow, what with their sod huts and religious wars and lack of potable water. We're taking the exotic route, I know, but what with the dollar's value everywhere else, we're taking the bargain. Point is, don't expect any posts from hereabouts considering they probably don't have internet over there - hell, they don't even have a written language. They're ignorant but they sure make a mean whus-kee.

We're taking lots of beads to trade and a camera in order to take pictures of the poor, dumb savages so that we can steal their souls and then sell the souls back to them at an inflated rate. Again, the rate of the dollar probably puts us at a disadvantage in that endeavor.

I'll report on the wedding when I get back. Hopefully, arraignments will give me a better idea of who is where and the what-diddy-what.

While you're there, I'm here

At the beer garden, exchanging vows. Obviously, no posting today, this done via blogger's nifty scheduled posting mechanism.

We're having the time of our lives. We hope you all are, too. Mazal tov.

My crappy little homemade card (with macaroni glued on it) to all you moms

I'm up early with the flower arrangements and getting the kids to help out with the Mother's Day breakfast (Lox & Bagels, mimosas), placing the cards and presents, doing what I can to give MBS her due on this, her day.

The moms-in-law-to-be, her boyfriend, bro-in-law and his family, the brood times two, MBS and I will be heading to Williams Creek Resevoir for a picnic. If there's time, I'll prowl along the irrigation ditches on the land and clear out some of the brush (I'll post some more on THAT task later in the week).

Moms: I hope you're having a wonderful day and are reading this a day or two later. A belated happy Mother's Day to you all. Or, if you're taking it easy and using your down time to surf the net, I hope your day is a splash.

Now, answer me this, please - the kids "got" MBS cards and a retro-ish vase (that I picked up from a consignment store - we need the vase, btw), I got flowers to put in the vase; I also gave her a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Did I do well?

Trying my best...

Bomb the moms!

Didn't Jenna get married today?

Wasn't it just a couple years ago that these mouthbreathers were high-fiving each other over the notion of a "permanent majority"?

On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.

"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.

It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.

Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."

By voting against it?

The whole story is here.

Am I alone in thinking that these folks keep sticking their tongues in light sockets to see what electricity tastes like?

Anyway, have a happy Mother's Day, willya'?

Reasons why I am head over heels in love with her, #8

Well the kids are all hopped up and ready to go


She loves most of the same music I love.

Gawdahmighty I was trying the daily post thing in earnest but between the unreasonable demands of my pesky editor at the paper (who knew the whole "deadline" thing was so serious-like? sheesh), cuddles on the couch with MBS to watch The Third Man, and oh, you know, taking care of the brood times two, well, ain't it funny not how time slips away but blogging takes a backseat to having a life?

Maybe I need a little more time to figure this all out. Posting daily, that is.

Sunday found me on rafting our little class-2 river. Not so much a thrill-ride as a drink some PBR and talk politics ride. A beautiful day that made me crave a little more whitewater. However, no craving to jump on here and write about the excursion. The rest of the week... bad habit, this not writing.

And all you get today is Reason #8, timely in that we're going to see these guys at The Santa Fe Brewing Company June 6:

Really, how can life get any better with MBS at my side, slam-dancing to X We're too old to "mosh"), and getting cooled by the local brew. Better yet, these cats are opening:

I stumbled on The Detroit Cobras a little while ago and put one of their songs on a mix I made for MBS while we wuz a-courtin'. After she got the mix she had to know what band it was (I never label my song lists) and ended up downloading a bunch of their stuff.

MBS is off to Durango with her girlfriends for a bachelorette's night on the town. I'm making tacos for the brood times two, cleaning the garage while a fight over the video choice rages upstairs. An example of life being somewhat fair, I think.

Reasons why I am head over heels in love with her, #16

Tis' better to trip than fall
She says she can dress me up and take me out.

A night on the town for MBS and I, at her suggestion, a date night that we take some R&R; going to see celtic guitarist Jerry Barlow perform, have a little dinner, and a nightcap.

Stuck here at the agency. A group earlier and now just doing the drug-testing thing. Ugh.

I should be using this downtime to crank out some quick articles for my newspaper (my editor wants them in first thing Monday for a supplement which is, in his words, "a big money-maker for the paper"). Maybe ol' Lefty has the answer to how I'll get it done:

HT to skippy

Throw in a few fingers of Cutty Sark and it's a done deal.

A two-fisted drinker in a two-job economy

Dammit, I need a bottle...
To clarify a bit of Wednesday's post (which I didn't get around to posting until today - oddly playing with the timeline...), I in fact continue to work in the mental health field. Yes, I'm working two jobs. Writing for a small town paper, covering town politics and business is where my heart is at, obviously. But as I said in that post, it's not yet a full-time gig and working as a lowly stringer doesn't feed the bulldog (or anyone else, for that matter).

Whatever time I have left after hunting down and writing stories, doing far less than my share of raising six kids, planning a wedding, and this blog thing (ok, knock off the giggling), I spend running groups for DUI offenders and monitoring drug testing (i.e. watching guys piss into a cup). The more the newspaper job demands, the less I want to be at the D&A agency. There's no dilemma - I want to write. It's just that the part-time / piecemeal aspect of my writing job makes it impossible to break from being a DUI counselor.

OK, enough bitching and whining... time for some fun:

Reasons why I am head over heels in love with her, #239

She buys me energy drinks, even though she's totally opposed to them (she's such a health nut). And, she rarely gives me shit about drinking them.

With that, here's some Sony Rollins to smooth out your day:

Until you've walked a mile in my shoes, you won't know how my feet smell

If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?
Ah, the glory of being a city-desk reporter. Or editor. Or something. Hell, I'm just a stringer. And it's not so much a "city-desk" as a "small town-desk".

I mean, the town is small, not the desk. There isn't even a desk, really, just a cell phone that my editor calls on to tell me what to cover, write about.

Again, not entirely true. Doing the wildcat thing makes it incumbent that I chase down the stray story, since I'm getting paid by the piece. The light posting here the past few days has been a reflection of that. Attending meetings, making calls, dropping in on town officials, stirring things up to see what rises from within the mire, all in the service of a few column inches; this past week has been balls to the wall. And if the gods are with me (my editor seems to be), I'll have five articles to my name in this latest edition.

Working hard for a pittance, yes - but having the time of my life. And sometimes, compensation is not measured by the size of paycheck, at least not for me. One of the reasons I stayed in the mental health field for so long was decidedly not because I thought I'd get rich; with the exception of a driven few or the therapists on the tee vee, people in the mental health field are not motivated by wealth. The more I work at this journalsim gig, the more the same seems to be true of my colleagues, that money is not the motivation.

Posting everyday (as I've been attempting to do the past week or so) isn't as easy as it sounds... WAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!

My write-in vote for precedent

We're all Bozos on this bus
Deadline's tomorrow and although I've cranked out 5 lengthy articles for this next edition (we won't mention the quality, mmm-kay?), I still have some writing to do.

So, hopefully, after the deadline has past, you'll get another dollop of my meandering drivel.

If you take the dollop I've given you and throw it at HRC, I'll give you five bucks. Scout's honor.

Hey, get a clue

My son has REALLY had it with you people...

Small town news has me preoccupied, yo...

Nothing to see here, move along....

With, oh, 6 or so articles needing to go live by Wednesday and very little to show that they're even close to being finished, posting will be light for the next 36 hours or so. As if if you're surprised.

And while you're wondering whatever happened to me, I wonder what happened to these guys - gals - um, penguines or something.

Confession time, episode # 337

...and my life has never been the same.

So now you know... there's a reason why blog posts have been scant the past few months.

Falling in love again, never wanted to; what am I to do? Can't help it...

Be good and you will be lonely

Not going to linger here, much, but only to say I am enamored... and humbled.

I've been enthralled by the meandering and brilliant short stories of Alice Munro this past week, kind of feeling like I should get back to bed and start my entire life over. When I regard someone writing circles around me, well, I am thrilled and a little bit shamed.

I wish I had more to say but I have 5 articles to complete this week and this here is a break from my writing and reading.

Carry on....

It's not so much all the blood and such but the screaming - that's what gets to you, eventually

“If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mr. Brave man, I guess I'm a coward.”
My eldest stepdaughter, R, officially entered into that phase of life that we all dread to deal with as outsiders, yet endured ourselves with such relish (and spastic angst).

This has been an auspicious year for R. Aside from turning 13 today, the remodel of this house to accomodate my brood included adding a room downstairs, effectively moving R away from the great unwashed upstairs (i.e. the rest of us), creating a sanctuary for her, alone, segregated from parents and little kids alike. And what else could a teenager ask for? Hell, it's like a whole other universe or something, the teen-o-sphere.

The festivities today included having two of her friends stay for a sleepover, the teen club downstairs while the rest of us hunkered down above, watching "Raiders of the Lost Ark," perhaps as some kind of training film (I have no idea what I'm talking about, BTW).

Actually, R is an awesome kid - er, "young lady" now - smart as a whip and handling the addition of three new siblings with exceptional grace. Despite my sorry ass stabs at snark (jokes at the expense of teens is a bit like screaming "toss the bum out!" at one of Z's T-ball games), I have to admit that she impresses me; I'm lucky to have her leading this mixed brood. Also, I enjoy her company: she's funny and engaging and sweet in a non-sentimental way.

Oh, but gods help us, she now has a cell phone. She can now text her friends that I have indeed indulged in far too many cracks at teenagers and that I'm lame and my music sucks and whatnot. That and my haircut is ugly.

Sweet day at the park for the "Say Hey Kid"

So say hey Willie, tell Ty Cobb and Joe DiMaggio;
Don’t say "it ain’t so", you know the time is now.
Spring has sauntered in here at the Crown of Valhala. Snow some days, accumulations that melt almost as soon as it's gathered, but otherwise our shoulders are warmed with a soft blanket of afternoon sun. Prairie dogs stand timorously at their doors, elk herds stand in the road with noble indifference and there's bluebirds a-plenty. The river rises as the peaks shed their white shrouds, announcing the end of winter with a mighty roar.

And then there's the call of "Play ball!"

Z started T-ball earlier this week and his love of the game has daddy all misty with pride and nostalgia. Spring is, by far, my favorite time of the year, and if there's anything that signals the end of cold, dark days it's the smell of fresh-cut grass and a groomed infield. Although my days of aspiring to the big leagues are long past, his days of dreaming have just opened up, a field of possibilities stretching past the horizon, "farther than those hills,
farther than the seas,
close to the stars,"
- beyond the crimson kiss of the setting sun. There is nothing that tomorrow can't offer him, he reckons.

At his first practice, Z took a nasty spill and his little face bears the raspberry badges that bubble up from the heart, scabs on his nose and cheeks and lips that attest to his dedication and spirit. Because, he indeed plays with all his heart. He's by no means the best player out there but oh, he fields a heart larger and more insurmountable than the Green Monster. At yesterday's practice, the coach told everyone that they were welcome to go ("I know some of you are tired") or they could stay and practice more fielding. Z ran full force to me, asking me if he could stay, beaming sunstrong and soul-deep as he turned to run just as fast back to the field.

Another dad at practice today, his son chided and cajoled and criticized, how to stand, how to place his glove, the poor kid not allowed to have fun and be five years old. No time to dream, not allowed to just breathe in the sweet aroma of the grass. Somewhere it was lost that we're supposed to "play" the game not "work" the game. Time enough to work, one day, everyday, and that day will come too soon.

For me, watching Z run after the ball he missed then pick it up, throw it towards first base and then do a little dance as the ball actually made it there - that was enough. No time to chide or demand perfection, no inclination to do anything but just bask in the warmth of the moment, Z's heart-so-big that there's no escaping the enthusiasm and love, presence and intention, the embrace of my own memories.

"Well, beat the drum and hold the phone - the sun came out today!
We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field."