Gratuitous Dread Presence

Tidewater 41009

So I spent the last few days in southern California. I brought my daughter to meet my mother in law, who can't easily travel. Because of her maternity leave, it was best if my wife remained behind, so I had the experience of taking the baby solo through the US Airline system.

Travelling with a baby is pretty difficult, especially solo. I had my first experience taking the baby into a men's bathroom ... which will prove to be more of an interesting affair as my daughter grows older. I also had the experience of changing an honest to goodness poopy diaper in an airplane. It was an experince that was unappreciated all around.

I was surprised at the level of service provided by the TSA staff. I was kind of expecting some kind of horrorshow experence from what I've seen across the net, but the staff was very helpful. They allowed me to bring several bottles of water for the baby, and there was a person who was detailed to me upon completion of the screening who helped me get everything back together. The airline, Southwest, had a special envoy who worked at the head of their really long line who allowed me into a special 'baby' line that was much faster.

My visit with the inlaws was fantastic, but I knew it was going to be even before I left. My sister in law provided me with a bevvy of fine brew, as well as taking me to several nice resturants, including a sushi buffet. It's amazing to have inlaws that I actually like.

But I cannot explain the level of joy it gave me to bring my daughter to see her grandmother. My daughter is a ficle beast when it comes to being in the arms of strangers, but she knew something was special about Mams. No tears came, and Mams had her laughing within a few minutes. They had a great time together, and I have already noticed that the baby misses her.

This is the promised land callin', and the poor boy's on the line.

No Mean Mr. Mustard

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

A week or so ago, Joyce had to stay up late to get a few things done. As a result, she was only going to get about two hours of sleep before I had to go to work. When I brought Frannie upstairs, I realized that Joyce was too tired, and needed sleep. I decided to call my work to tell them I wasn't coming in that day.

I was completely dressed for work when I brought Frannie back downstairs. When I did so, I found out that my son was home early because it was the last day of summer school. He made himself a ham sandwich and was eating it as I fumbled with the phone and baby, and started the laborious process of calling in. As soon as he realized what I was doing, my son immediately indicated that he would be willing to watch the baby while I went to work.

This was a far cry from the 16 year old that has been indifferent to his new baby sister. He was pretty uninterested in the new addition to the family, and in the few weeks after the baby came home, he seemed to wade through some serious depression.

So he watched the baby, and started watching her on a regular basis when I go to work. At first, he was a bit unaffected by the process, but the eventual chore of watching an infant began to frustrate him in the same ways it frustrated Joyce and I.

The day before yesterday he gave Frannie a high five for throwing up on me. Last night, he showed me how she laughs when you blow in her face.

One of the downfalls of how I look at life is that, because I always acknowledge that things are in a state of flux, and that nothing is permanent, and everything changes. But in watching my son interact with his baby sister, it's like I have just been granted a quick view from some kind of future telescope.

I liked what I saw.

Insert annoying Rolling Stones reference here

Went to a softball game last night. I haven't played since Joye went back to work. My team is a ragged group of people that we've just barely managed to keep together over the years. I've played for over 20 years now, and this season is the first time that I've missed more then one or two games. They won, 9-3.

Of course Frannie was the big hit. She was alert for most of the game in my lap. She had smiles for everyone, and one person showed me through her actions how to get Frannie to be content in the arms of someone new. I was in awe as she did it, and taking notes for a future visit to Grandma, so I can avoid the annoying crying in being handed to Grandma.

On my team, two members have significant tattoos. By significant, I mean tattoos that cover their arms and necks. So severe that my employer would only place one of them where I work, and he would have to wear a collared long sleeve shirt to do so. The other one looks badass, with a striking blond goatee with thinning blond hair.

Both men's tattoos were of the artistic type as opposed to the gang type. Looking at them, though, I could understand how people could confuse the two. I also realized that I never wanted to get a tattoo because I was always proud of the way my body looked as is.

The tattooed players on my team are bothers; the father also plays. He's in my age range, and he has no tattoos at all.

Can't get here from there

I have started another project, called sub-Urban Blog, which can be found at www.sub-urbanblog.com, .net or .org. Tell your friends.

Postings on this site will be unabated.

PayPal Security Department

Am I the only person that deliberately puts in bad information in phisher's websites?

J.O.E.

I usually get pretty annoyed when I come across an evangelical Christian. The problem is that I’m usually too much of a free thinker, and I quickly get annoyed by their appalling anti-intellectual positions. So annoyed, for example, that I fired off an email regarding this site – before my wife and I concluded that it was really satire.

So, when I met my fellow election judges on Monday, finding out that one of them was an evangelical wasn’t very thrilling to me. In the few minutes we worked together, she managed to bring up her religion twice—enough to make me comment about it to my wife that evening.

But as we all started our 14 hour day, it wasn’t too bad. I deliberately held back—she was a nice woman, after all, and there wasn’t any good reason for us to get into it. Ultimately, she ended up getting involved in a few heated discussions over abortion and war with our lone Democratic judge. She wasn’t overly confident, and would quickly bow out of arguments by explaining that her faith didn’t necessarily give her the intellectual sword needed to fend off the likes of me.

Late in the afternoon, however, she explained how she had come to find God.

It seems that when she was younger, she had issues with mental instability. She said she had been hospitalized four times for nervous breakdowns. As she continued to describe her decent into despair, she began to talk about how she was hearing voices.

At first, she said, she didn’t hear them. But as she got older, they began to distract her. She sought treatment from a psychiatrist, and was taking ‘several medications, including lithium. None of it was helping, and she would occasionally go off meds—only to be pestered by those voices.

After several years of this, she was pretty frustrated, and made a conscious decision to seek out spiritual guidance. She said she went to several churches in a quest to find one that met her needs. After going to several churches, she finally found an evangelical one that she felt comfortable in. But that didn’t really help.

Her new church gave her a referral for a pastor of a different church, who was also gifted in counseling. When she met this man, she said she knew immediately that he would be able to help her. And so he did. He explained to her how the voices were daemons, and that she had to work to drive them out. He told her about Christ’s love, and how that was the power that would heal her.

He enforced lifestyle changes – made her stop drinking, for example – and apparently even performed some kind of exorcism. After he saw her for a while, he even instructed her to stop taking her medications.

At one point, she began to forsake him – and ended up back in the hospital. She came back, however, and this pastor continued to guide her to the plane of mental stability that she sought.

She still hears voices, she said – but now says it’s the voice of God telling her that she’s doing the right thing. Through her church and faith, she found the peace she so desperately needed. And, while working with her throughout the day, it was evident in her attitude. The woman positively glowed.

On Monday night, after we sparred on religious issues for a bit, I reassured her by telling her that I thought her faith in God was a truly beautiful thing. But I didn’t see how beautiful it was until I heard her story. Her quiet conviction really allowed the beauty of her faith to shine.

Sometimes it’s better if we just take a few minutes to listen.

The White Man's Club

People come in all types, sizes and shapes. Despite any claims about general superiority, we all are pretty much equal. The history of the human race is so muddled that the existence of a ‘pure’ racial type is extremely rare … and usually limited to those primitive tribes that also shun all outside contact.

So I generally react with disgust and annoyance when I see things promoting white supremacy. It’s vaguely ironic, because, through a twist of fate, I happen to have blond hair, and eyes that most people assume are blue. I even had a friend in college that would always point out to me that I was the ‘perfect aryan type’ when we would discuss race issues.

My appearance, however resulted in an interesting situation that I started calling ‘the White Man’s Club.’ I never realized how unusual this was until just a few years ago—but it was something that has happened to me ever since I can remember.

What happens is that I find myself in a situation where I am with someone I don’t know—I might, for example, be in a waiting room at an oil change place, and there’s one other person there. One other white person.

Because I’m a friendly type, I occasionally start conversations with these people. Sometimes the other person starts the conversation, and I become a willing participant. What happens then is that the other white person will make a racist comment to me. Sometimes it’s just kind of slipped in to conversation. Other times, the other person has initiated the conversation with the assumption that I’m a fellow racist.

It’s happened to me enough that I take it in stride. I never thought anything odd about it until a friend of mine who isn’t white mentioned the same situation happening to them. I brought the subject up with one of my white friends about it. He didn’t have blond hair or blue eyes—and he looked kinda shocked. ‘No, he said … that’s never happened to me.’

False Prophets

In yet another example of the downfall of Western Civilization (or perhaps I should say ‘Western Civilization’):

My job requires me to conduct business in various locations throughout Chicagoland. So I basically drive from store to store, and check up on my people.

Today, as I was talking to one of my employees, I saw a mom with several young children walk by. One of the kids accidentally knocked down the sign my staff person was working with. Instead of saying he was sorry, or making an effort to pick it up, the kid just walked on. And the mother, who saw the whole thing happen, ignored the whole incident.

If it were my kid, I would have sent him back immediately to fix the sign. However, this other parent seems to feel that this behavior is acceptable.

This is actually a trend I’ve noticed since I took this job. The retailer I work with closely is a members only facility—so their customer base is a finite number of people who have paid for the privilege of shopping there.

Yet, whenever I drive to a new location, I see things like the incident above … and more. For example, I have had people hit my van with car doors and shopping carts … while I’m in the van, and have the engine running. It is also common to find parking spaces that aren’t useable because someone didn’t bother putting their cart into the cart corral.

What really bothers me is the fact that these people probably consider themselves good people—or so I would guess from their bumper stickers and tee shirts. Yet, I have rarely seen such a crass group of people.

Assholes.

a kid

in the snow ...

A crumb of corporate America

So when I called to downgrade our cable, I used Comcast’s voice mail system. It asked specific questions, and I selected the option indicating that I wished to disconnect my cable modem. I was then put into a wait queue, and spent 5 minutes there before hanging up. I then called again, except this time indicated that I was upgrading my service. I got through the wait queue in less then 1 minute. Go figure.

Also, in this past week: I have a job that requires me to go from Sam’s Club to Sam’s Club throughout the Chicagoland area. On one of my visits, I went into a Wal-Mart, which was conveniently located next to Sam’s Club. I was unable to locate the table I was looking for so I left. On the way out, I decided to use the Wal-Mart’s bathroom.

For those who are unaware or of the wrong gender, it is common in men’s bathrooms to have a row of urinals next to several stalls. Often the stalls are constructed of metal, with some kind of particleboard core. There are certain men in the world who desire to view men’s penises. As blatantly looking at penises while someone is urinating in a public restroom can be hazardous, these individuals drill holes in the wall of the adjacent stall, so they can then peer through the hole at everyone’s johnson.

Because I know this, I make it a point to check bathrooms as I use the urinal. Sure enough, in the Streamwood Wal-Mart, there are two holes drilled in the wall next to the urinal, set for optimal viewing.

Only at Wal-Mart.