As you may know, my wife works, (as a maternity nurse), every other weekend. When she does, it’s just me and my boys all day, from wake up to bed time, Saturday and Sunday. Many times when I take them out somewhere, like to a restaurant or something, I feel that people look at us like I’m a divorced dad with custody of his kids for the weekend.

That’s actually a depressing feeling. But I know exactly why I feel that. I remember being with my dad on the weekends, when I and my brother were the ages my boys are now. Our dad was divorced, and had custody of us only on the weekends, and we’d go out to a restaurant for lunch and/or dinner Saturday and/or Sunday. In those days, (70s-80s), that was the only reason you’d see a family without the mom on a weekend. (At least that’s what I thought, at the time.) That experience apparently permanently set my thoughts on seeing a dad alone, out with his children. So when I see a dad taking his kids out to a restaurant, that’s the first thought I have of the situation — I assume he’s divorced, and just with them for the meal together. So, since I have that thought when I see that scene, that’s what I assume others see of me when they see me out with my boys.

And that’s crap. I don’t think the same when I see a mom out with her kids. I don’t assume she’s a single mom. And I don’t add the pathetic idea that she has limited custody, just for the day or weekend.

I hate that. Both the default thoughts I have, and the feelings I feel because I assume everyone else thinks the same as I do. It’s just stupid. I feel guilty for my thoughts, and I feel guilty for what I assume others think, (even though they probably don’t assume what I think).

I’ve found myself explaining to total strangers that I’m not a divorced dad. I find myself mentioning to the waiter that, “Mom is working today.” or “We’re giving Mom a little break tonight.” It’s an instinctual utterance, most likely completely unnecessary. The person probably didn’t think what I assume they thought, and even if they did they don’t care.

It’s strange how something so stupid can bother me to such a core level.

Bullgrit

Last night, while lying in bed, suddenly everything seemed weird. Something was . . . wrong. It took me a few moments to realize what it was. The room was completely dark — pitch black —  and very quiet — eerily still. Our bedside digital clocks were dark, and the white noise machine was silent. The power was out.

It’s amazing how dark the house can get with no electricity powering the little electronic devices we take for granted. Normally it’s pretty easy to get up and walk to and from the bathroom in the night because the clocks or some little red dot on some device serves as markers for where things are. But when everything if off, the dark is complete blackness. Literally can’t see your hand in front of your face.

I got out of bed, and carefully and slowly felt my way to the window to look outside. I parted the curtains and blinds, and saw the glowing streetlight beside the road that runs past our neighborhood. On the other side of that road, I could see lights on in houses in the other neighborhood. Hmm. Is it just our house that’s without power? I slowly and carefully made my way across the bedroom and out to the hall to look out a front window. The streetlight in front of our house was dark, and all the houses down our street were dark. So, it wasn’t just our house. Wonder what caused this? No storm, nothing going on that I could see or hear. Just a random power outage.

When I walked back into the bedroom, Wifegrit was awake. I told her the power was out. She had to get up for work Saturday morning, so she needed an alarm. She opened her iPad. It was 11:35. While she set the iPad’s alarm, I made my way to my office to get my phone. I used it as a flashlight to get back to bed. I forgot that I keep a big Maglite in my nightstand.

While she had her iPad open, she checked Facebook. One of our neighbors had posted about the power outage. Wifegrit confirmed in a comment to that post that it did seem that the whole neighborhood was out. Then she closed the pad,  and we both went back to sleep.

A while later, though, I heard a strange moaning sound. My first thought was that the dog was snoring. So I listened to his breathing — easy to do when the house is otherwise completely silent. The moaning didn’t seem to match the dog’s breathing pattern. Then I realized it was one of our boys making the sound down the hall. I hopped out of bed and went through the blackness, (I forgot the flashlight again), to find that Calfgrit9 was trying to call for attention.

CG9 was spooked by the darkness and silence. His room has a nightlight and a fan, and both were off. I talked to him a minute, to explain that the electricity was out. He was trembling and his voice was cracking. So I got in bed with him and snuggled up with my arm over him. He calmed down after a minute, and we whispered a conversation for another minute or two. He asked what time it was, and I said I didn’t know.

He really wanted to know what time it was, so I left to go get my phone from my bedroom. On my way back to him, the power came back on. In his room again, I showed him the time on my phone, (1:10), and we talked another minute. He said he would be alright now that it wasn’t completely dark and quiet.

Soon I was in my bed asleep again. I dreamed of fighting zombies. Not a scary dream, but actually a fun and exciting adventure. I wonder if the power outage prompted that?

Bullgrit

It’s been over a month since I last posted anything here. One reason for my blog absence is we’ve just been extremely busy around here. Another reason is that I allowed myself to get lax about posting. It’s amazing how easy something can fall away completely when you let your grip ease up on it.

Just about every day, something happens or I think of something that I’d like to write and post about, but then, I get tied up with everything going on, and the next thing I know it’s 10 or 11pm. I’ve actually gone 3-4 days in a row, a few times, without so much as sitting down at my desk. Right now, as I am writing this post, it’s coming up on 10pm, and I’m still sweaty from my workout of 8-9:00. Usually I take a shower right after my exercise, but tonight I decided I really needed to post something, if just to let the Web know I’m not dead. (I’m sure everyone has been worried :-) If I went right to the shower, I’d end up in bed immediately after, passing another evening without putting my fingers to my keyboard in any way.

I can’t even point to any one thing and say, “That is what’s taking up all my time.” It’s just so much. I’ve done our taxes. I’ve helped the wife with a yard sale for her mother. I’ve had to work late at my job because of the software release date. I make dinner at least half the nights of the week. This, that, and another thing just keeps popping up and taking my time and attention. It’s taken me almost two weeks just to answer some emails.

Actually, if I’m completely honest, there have been a couple or three times that I’ve sat at my computer over the past month, with the intention to write a post. But writer’s block kills my mood and I end up spending half an hour surfing stupid junk around the Web. Then I get called away for something, and I missed the only opportunity I’d have for another week.

So, I apologize to all my regular readers who have bothered to come back here occasionally during the past month or so and found nothing new. And I want to say, “Hey, this isn’t a dead place,” to any new folks who have come around. This isn’t dead, it’s just been mostly dead. Which, as Miracle Max explains, is still slightly alive.

Slightly.

Bullgrit

I was at work yesterday when the snow started coming down around noon. All my coworkers started getting ready to leave for home, but I decided to wait. I looked out the windows to the main road outside and saw the heavy traffic cluttering up quickly whitening streets. I didn’t want to have to deal with the traffic in addition to the snow and ice coming down.

Everyone told me to get out. They warned me not to wait because the roads were only going to get worse as the day and storm progressed. Within an hour, my building was almost empty. I walked around and found three other people still at their desks. Outside, the road was still congested, and the snow was still coming down heavily. I continued to wait. I just continued to do my work.

At my office, I had warmth and plenty of food. If I did end up having to stay through the night, I’d be fine. My family was all safe and sound at home. They also had warmth and food, and the boys were outside playing and sledding.

At 3:00 there was only one other person in my building, and the road outside was starting to clear of traffic. But the snow was starting to fill in the paths the previous traffic had left on the pavement.

At 4:00 I decided it was time to leave for home. There was barely any traffic on the road outside. I’m perfectly fine with driving very slow through the snow so long as I don’t have to worry about so many idiots refusing to slow down. It’s the other idiots on the road that worry me during snow and ice storms. I’ve driven through these conditions several times through my 30 years of driving — I’m no expert, but I am cautious, attentive, and patient. Plus, at home I have a garage, and at work I have a parking deck, so my truck doesn’t get covered with snow to block my view of the road.

So I left work and got on the roads. The streets were icy, very slick. But I drove slow and steady, with slow easy stops, starts, and turns. With very few other cars on the roads, I didn’t have to worry much about possible collisions. I could concentrate on the road.

I made it to the highway. Going my direction, the traffic was still very light. But over on the other side, coming back the other way, the traffic was stopped and thick for as far as I could see. Those poor people weren’t going anywhere fast. I drove about 20 mph along the normally 70 mph beltline. Here and there along the way were abandoned vehicles.

The abandoned vehicles turned out to be a good thing for me. The hardest part of the drive was staying on the pavement and avoiding the highway edge. The abandoned cars were all stuck in the mud of the shoulder. Driving or sliding off the edge of the road into the dirt meant a complete end to driving. There’d be no getting unstuck from that.

Although most people going my direction stayed slow and steady, there was an occasional idiot driving twice our speed. Everything from small coupes covered in view-obscuring snow to big delivery vans dropping chunks of ice passed. I just held slow, straight, and steady while they flew by.

At last I reached home at 5:15. The commute had taken 75 minutes compared to the normal 35 minutes. Not too bad. I had several worrisome moments of short slips and skids, but I only lost traction once. The roads were very bad, and I definitely wouldn’t have tried that drive in the traffic I saw earlier in the day. But taking my time with very little traffic around was not overly dangerous.

I brought my work computer home with me so I’m staying in and working from home today. Although the plows worked over night and cleared the roads enough that I feel I could easily get back to the office today, there’s no need for the trip. My only problem today is keeping my boys out of my home office enough that I can get my work done. One boy wants to play Warcraft on his mother’s computer at the desk beside me, and the other boy wants to play Minecraft on the laptop at the table in front of me. (And I want to play either game with either boy.)

Bullgrit