My truck has started whining when I give it gas, so I made an appointment with my garage to have it looked at on Wednesday. Tuesday night, I dropped it off with the shop. Cowgrit and the boys would take me to work Wednesday morning, and pick me up that evening.
Well, Wednesday morning, we all loaded up into the mini van, (including the dog), and headed out to my office. Half way there, the mini van became possessed by the devil. Stuff started malfunctioning and warning lights started coming on all over the place. What the hell!?
The transmission started slipping gears, and we lost first gear completely. The brakes started stuttering when I applied enough just to slow down. The traction control warning light came on. The emmissions light came on. The drive light started flashing. OMG! WTF? BBQ!
I got us turned around and headed back towards home. We were at least 15 minutes from our house, and traffic was very heavy during the morning rush, we had both boys and the dog in the car with us, the school start time was approaching, and we were worried the van would break down before we got somewhere less inconvenient. And then the gas tank light came on.
“Oh, funny,” I said out loud, “if the van doesn’t break down, we’ll just run out of gas.”
My stress level reached a height usually reserved for falling out of an airplane without a parachute. But we made it home.
I called the garage and told them about the van’s problems. Unfortunately, they’d didn’t have time to work on it that day. But, since my truck was scheduled for the day, they suggested we switch the vehicles — since I can drive my truck safely with its problem, but the van is unsafe/unreliable with its problems. So I took the van in and got my truck back.
Now I’m not stressing over whether I can get the family home, I’m worrying over how much this repair is going to cost. I can’t imagine so much mechanical failing costing less than a 4 digit figure to repair.
* * *
Aaaand I just got the repair estimate. The mechanic told me that all the problems and lights were from the same source. I said, “Oh, good.” He said, “But there’s bad news.”
The problem is the transmission is failing and has to be completely replaced. Four thousand dollars. FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS! Well, shit.
It’s . . . annoying . . . to have to pay $4,000 for a car repair. That’s a lot of money out the window. Dammit. <sigh>
Something I dislike about our master bathroom is that the shower and bath are separated. Our old house, and every house I’ve ever lived in, had a shower in/over the tub. This new house, though, has a shower “closet.” The big oval tub is a waste of room space since it seems to never get used for anything.
I used to really like taking a “shower bath.” Close the curtain, turn on the hot shower, plug the drain, and lay down in the warm, filling water. I absolutely loved spending half an hour in my hot and floaty sensory deprevation chamber — the sound of the shower drowned out the rest of the world, (no pun intended). I’ve lost this little joy. I can’t lay down under a hot shower, now.
A few nights ago, while showering off after a workout, I decided to give the bathtub a try. I turned off the shower, stepped out, and turned on the water in the tub. I poured in some shampoo to give me bubbles, and then I stepped into the water.
The “garden tub” is big enough that I’m not cramped up, but it’s not big enough to really stretch out in. The back of the tub is contoured for laying back and propping up your arms, which is nice, if not truly comfortable. It takes a lot of water to fill the thing, even with my body taking up a sizable volume.
Once the water got deep enough to cover me, except for my head and knees, I turned off the faucet. I lay there a few minutes, just soaking up the warmth.
You can’t really move much in a full tub for fear of spilling water over the edge of the tub onto the floor. And once the water is turned off, the bathroom is strangely silent. And since this tub doesn’t have a shower, we don’t have a curtain for it, so I felt kind of out in the open should someone come in the room.
I just lay there, still and quiet for several minutes. I was afraid to move much, and every little splash or bump echoed loudly in the room. I was glad that I had already washed while in the shower, because there was no way I could really do anything productive sitting there in that full tub of water.
The minutes ticked away, and I just couldn’t stand it any more. There was nothing relaxing about the whole thing. I was afraid to move, I heard every sound in the house, (and out of it), and the water was quickly loosing its warmth. I pictured the stereotypical woman sitting in her tub, candles around her, reading her book. I thought, “There’s no way I could read a book in here. It’d get wet.”
Once I had as much bath time as I could take, (about 10 minutes), I pulled the plug to let the water out. As the water drained, I realized a drawback to having bubbles in a bath: bubbles don’t drain. So when the water was all gone, I was left there covered in white bubbles. I stood up, nearly completely clothed in a cloud of suds, and stepped out of the bath. I had to go back into the shower to rinse off.
After rinsing and then drying off, I saw all the suds still in the tub. I had to run the tub faucet again and splash all the bubbles to clear the tub.
What a pain in the butt that whole experience was. There was nothing enjoyable to that at all. I came out of the bathroom more stressed than when I had walked into it. I’ll never take another bath like that.
I so miss having a shower over a tub. I might have to take over the boys’ bathroom some night so I can relive my old relaxation technique. That might even be more fun than it used to be because I can play with their toys while in the water.
My brother pointed me to this video saying only that he was in it. He had me watch it while on the phone with him. I first noticed him on the couch, (surrounded by a bunch of kids at least 15 years younger than he), and said, “There you are. Cool.”
A little later, there he was playing the drums. I said in surprise, “Oh, you’re playing the drums.”
“Naw,” he mocked, “you thought I’d be playing the guitar?”
I rolled my eyes, (not that he could see them over the phone). “I didn’t know you’d be playing anything, smartass. I didn’t know you played with this band.” I know and like his band, Paperstreet, but he never told me about Erath.
So, brogrit, tell me how you ended up playing in this video.
Thirteen weeks of P90X got me here. I was as fit or more than I had ever been in my life. Several more weeks of the regimen got me here. Though I was in the best fitness and shape of my life, I wanted more. I had worked hard enough, for long enough, that I felt I deserved that damn six-pack ab section. I wasn’t satisfied with just “wow, what a transformation” and “better than ever.” I wanted to take my body all the way to “hot damn!”
But I’ve apparently been on a plateau with P90X, for several weeks, now. So I started giving consideration to another Beachbody workout regimen called Insanity. Several aspects of this regimen sell it to me:
No equipment — no more pulling out and putting away my weights and pull-up bar nearly every night.
30-60 minute workouts – quicker than the 60-90 minutes of P90X.
Sixty days — even faster than P90X.
“The hardest workout ever put on DVD” — after taking on and beating the P90X challenge, I want to test myself on this, too.
From all I’ve read about this workout set, it’s not really a next level up from P90X, it’s just different — and just as extreme. P90X has a lot of weight training and muscling up; Insanity is all cardio and leaning down. After my rounds of P90X, I’m muscled up as well as I want, (I was never going for the Schwarzenegger look). Now I just want to lean down a little bit more.
Before I started P90X, I never would have thought I would reach 170 pounds and think, “I need to loose another couple pounds.”
So, I ordered and received my set of Insanity DVDs. I went through the first fit test and found the effort exhilerating. Here’s a Youtube video of the fit test exercises, (this is not me):
The info in the Insanity set doesn’t give a goal for the fit test, but here’s what I “scored”:
Number of reps in 60 seconds, for each exercise
Switch Kicks: 58 (two kicks = one rep)
Power Jacks: 40
Power Knees: 72
Power Jumps: 25
Globe Jumps: 7 (series of four jumps = one rep)
Suicide Jumps: 9
Push-up Jacks: 20
Low Plank Oblique: 28 (two knee ups = one rep)
Most of those exercises I’ve never seen, much less performed. That beginning test was last Sunday. I’ve now completed my first week of Insanity, and I can say, “Wow! Holy &%^#^*&!” The workouts are incredible. Harder than P90X? I’d say, “Yes, but not because the individual exercises are harder.” The main difference is the intensity and pacing.
I couldn’t conceive of a more intense or faster paced workout than P90X before I started Insanity. But DAMN! Even the cast in the Insanity videos have to stop from time to time and take a breather in the middle of some exercises. It actually helps me get through when I take a break, hands on my knees, sweat dripping from my chin, lungs pumping like bellows, to look at the screen and see that a couple of the twelve or so cast members are also taking a pause. After a few seconds, I get back into the workout, so do the resting cast members — but then another one or two break down for a few seconds.
Whatever my results after this 60-day regimen of Insanity, I’ll be done with the daily workouts. Whether I get that set of washboard abs or not, I’ll just drop back to, and keep up, a good, solid maintenance workout schedule — 3 days a week. This is my promise to myself and my family. If I can’t get that ultra lean, totally ripped body with all this, then it’s just not going to happen for me, now, over 40 years old. I can accept that, but only after I’ve tried to get it.
Calfgrit5 always holds my hand when we walk anywhere together. When we walk down the sidewalk together, when we walk through the mall together. Sometimes even when we’re just walking through our house, or in our yard. This is something he initiates, and I accept with great joy.
Calfgrit9 has outgrown hand-holding, but he held my hand yesterday for the first time in a long while. We were walking down some steep, concrete stairs of a parking deck, and he was a little nervous. The stairs were outside, so we could see how high we were. It was a little disorienting. So each boy held one of my hands while their other hand held the railing as we all walked down.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, Calfgrit9 held my hand for only another minute before letting go. Calfgrit5 continued to hold my hand as we walked.
It’s such a little thing, really. Holding the hand of a child. But when you realize the time they’ll do it is so fleeting, it’s precious. When they’re first learning to walk, they have to hold your hand for balance. Then as they get good at it, they want to let go and walk (or run) on their own. Then there’s that very short time after they’ve proven they can walk and run on their own, that they come back and will hold your hand.
Calfgrit5 is at this point now, where he realizes that it’s a big world out there, and he feels secure when holding Daddy’s (or Mommy’s) hand. But it won’t be long before he again wants to assert his independence and walk without holding. He’ll want to walk like his big brother, with no safety net in the big world.
The first time he gets out of our car and doesn’t immediately, of his own volition, take my hand, a little part of my heart will die.
About two days a year, Cowgrit is on call with the hospital, and rarely does the call come in. But this time, she got the call, and she went in to work for the day, on a week day. It’s a change in our schedule, but not a big deal. She goes on to the hospital, I drop the boys off at school, her mom picks them up from school, and I pick them up from her mom.
Since this was an unusual day anyway, I decided to take the boys to McDonald’s for breakfast before dropping them off at school. They both got an order of hotcakes, and ate them like they hadn’t eaten in a week. When we were all finished with breakfast, and about to get up to go on to school, Calfgrit9 told me he didn’t feel well. His throat hurt, and his stomach felt weird. “Actually, it’s kind of my whole body feels weird,” he elaborated.
Hmmm. I was a bit doubtful. For one thing, I just saw him put away three pancakes without complaint. But then again, pancakes are relatively soft, so maybe they wouldn’t aggravate a sore throat.
I was still suspicious. I suspected he was thinking he could trick me into letting him stay home, maybe to watch TV or play with his toys. Did he think I was a sucker compared to his mom?
I asked him was he serious, and I explained to him that if he didn’t go to school he would just have to go to my office with me while I get some work done — I had stuff to finish for a deadline in a couple of days. We wouldn’t just be going home. He said he was serious, and he understood that I had to go to work.
Calfgrit5 had been sick, with a sore throat, the week before, and this fact made me think that Calfgrit9 might have picked up the bug and was just now getting the symptoms. I considered taking him to school anyway and just letting him call me if he got worse. But if he was really sick, and needed me to pick him up immediately from school, well, my office is 45 minutes away.
I weighed all the ideas in my head to determine whether he was truly sick or if he was just playing me to get out of school for the day. I decided to err on the side of maybe he was actually ill. The potential logistics problems of taking him to work with me were less complicated than sending him to school and then having to come back for him.
So we dropped Calfgrit5 off at school for kindergarten. Calfgrit9 had a book to read, and his school backpack, and he came on to my office with me.
At my office, Calfgrit9 sat in the chair across from my desk. He read some of his book. He got down my action figures from my bookshelf and played with them. I gave him an old PC Gamer magazine to look through and read. And I had him do some school work.
In the few hours we were there, I got my work to a good stopping point, and then we left for home. He didn’t once complain about being bored, but he also didn’t seem ill. I was fully believing that he was simply playing me. I got played by a 9 year old.
After leaving my office, we ran some errands to various stores. At home, he played in his room while I got some minor chores done around the house. That afternoon, we picked up Calfgrit5 from school. Calfgrit9 still showed no real signs of being sick.
Yep, I was convinced that I had been duped. Dammit. Not only do I hate being tricked by a 9 year old, but I have to figure out a way to explain to him that lying to get out of school is bad, and will not be tolerated. It’s one thing to just tell a kid that, but then trying to explain how it’s a bad thing even though it just worked perfectly for him . . . well, it ain’t a straight-forward conversation.
But then, about an hour after we got home with his little brother, I found Calfgrit9 in his bed, under his covers. Whoa. A 9 year old putting himself to bed before 5 o’clock in the afternoon?
“I don’t feel good,” he explained when I found him. “I just want to rest.”
I felt of his head and face, but detected no fever. He fell asleep.
That night, after getting Calgrit5 in bed, and when his mother was home, we checked on him. He said his throat hurt very bad. We did the usual care and medications to help him through the night. The next morning, his throat hurt so bad he couldn’t talk.
I went on to work as normal, and Cowgrit handled things at home as normal. She took Calfgrit9 to the doctor and found out he had a virus of some sort. He ended up missing another day of school. Then he got better after another day.
So, he hadn’t been faking illness just to get out of school. He truly must have felt bad, or “weird” as he put it, and he wasn’t playing me as I suspected. I swear, I can’t rely on fatherly instincts one way or another. I’m sad he got sick, but I’m glad I trusted him against what I thought was evidence against trust.
Picture a handful of 30-something to 50-something guys sitting around a kitchen table playing board games, war games, and role playing games sometimes till after midnight. We were often loud and silly, like a gang of 13-year old boys. I miss my weekly game nights.
Although I hadn’t gamed with my group in a number of months because of my recent change of schedule, I was and am still very grateful to our hostess, the wife of one of our group. She was always friendly, accommodating, and even forgiving of our sometimes borish behavior. Though she didn’t participate in our gaming, she did talk with us and laugh with us as we revelled in our nerdy pastimes. I respected and appreciated her.
She passed away, of cancer, this week. This saddens me, and my heart goes out to her family.
Goodbye, Belinda, and thank you for your hospitality.
