Browse Category: Stories

SNOWBOUND IN A YELLOW SUBMARINE

beat

(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

FUNNY… I woke up this morning with my sanity intact! I did it! I survived! A full day snowed in with five kids, and I’m still sane! Just a little bit of drool on my chin and a passively crazed look in my eye – not too bad!

We all fared fairly well yesterday. S had a few moments there when I thought she was going to be the first one to jump ship. I guess it’s tough being a 14 year old girl living with two teenage brothers and a dad. I can’t say that I can relate to that exactly, having never been a girl myself. S was a great help in keeping H and M occupied much of the day, especially while I was taken hostage by my pc and forced to finally produce this site! J was fairly mild through the day. There were a few incidents when he and S tangled with each other. That brought back some memories…

I GREW UP WITH a younger sister, C, two years younger than I. I love her to death… But there were times as a teenager when… Well, I remember saying things like:

“Stop singing!”, while we were in the car. And, of course, Mom always said, “She can sing if she wants to. Leave her alone. She’s happy.” Yes, happy to be torturing me! But, I will confess, I find myself repeating Mom’s words in similar situations with my own children.

“Don’t walk so close to me!”, while we were walking in the mall. Walking too close to your teenage brother in the mall just isn’t cool! He doesn’t want anyone to mistakenly think that you are his girlfriend and not just his sister! That is one of life’s injustices that most teenage brothers are forced to bear. Some day I’ll make a law about that too!

ANY WAY… Besides the few squirmishes between J and S, we had some fun while being snowbound yesterday. In fact, we got by with a little help of our friends, The Beatles. M saw a commercial on television for a new Beatles CD. When I told her that I had that CD, she got so excited and said, “Can we put it on? I want that one, ‘I want to hold your hand,’ Daddy!”

So we danced our way through most of the 27 tunes on the CD! At one point S, H, M and one of S’s friends were all holding hands and dancing – on my bed! Then “Penny Lane” was ringing out through the halls at the top of someone’s lungs. “Eight Days a Week” was a little confusing for young minds. As an adult, it sure feels like most weeks have enough work for eight days! My bed was quickly transformed from a dance floor into a “Yellow Submarine.” M was the captain. She and I sat on the bed, facing each other with or feet together, singing and making silly faces at each other. There’s nothing as silly as a four-year-old yellow submarine captain!

I’ve been thinking of changing one of the tunes to “JavaScript Writer.” I wonder if it would sell??

THROUGH MOST OF MY LIFE, I really haven’t had much of an interest in the Beatles. But, for whatever reason, I recently had a “hankering” for their music. That’s a funny word, but I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s a “hankering.” For the past few years, I’ve been getting these “hankerings” for music that I never wanted to listen to when I was younger. Some of the CDs that I now own I would not have been caught dead with in my possession as a teenager! And I’m finding that I’ve been getting “hankerings” for the music my Mom listened to while I was growing up!! Somebody save me!! Neil Diamond… Elton John… Carly Simon… Carole King… And I’ve got such a “hankering” for one of the old Chicago CDs! I must resist! I must fight it! I must put some cool music on! Alice Cooper! Give me Alice! Alice will help me!

So what is the moral of the story? Is it, once you have kids of your own you end up with “hankerings,” talk like your Mom and listen to her kind of music?? Maybe it’s, once you have kids of your own you start to appreciate your parents more. You begin to realize how much of their own life they gave up for YOU. As you pour yourself into your children you see that a good portion of what you are pouring has come from your parents. Then you may even get a glimpse of how so many things – both good and bad – have been pouring down from parent to child for generations. Hopefully you also have the determination to correct some of the low qualities that may have been passed along and to strengthen the higher qualities. Now, before I get way too philosophical on you, I think I better put some music on!

Neil Diamond anyone??

SNOW AND CHINESE FOOD

snowing2

(Originally posted on the website Continuum…)

HERE I AM on a snowy Saturday morning at the end of the year 2000. The snow appears to be falling with a cold determination to bury us deep this time. The weatherman was calling for twelve inches or more. He says its going to to snow all day.

At least we have heat today! The day after Christmas the heat went out for the third time this winter! (Yes, I have one of “those” landlords.) Then, once we had heat that day, we had no water because a pipe cracked in the basement. When I returned from picking up H and M, the lady downstairs said, “We are waiting for someone to come fix the pipe. The landlord said someone was coming.” Right…..

That was around 1 in the afternoon.

By 2 in the afternoon, no one was here to fix the water and “nature was screaming!” I wasn’t about to comply with nature when there was no water to flush the evidence of my compliance! So, I got my coat on and informed the kids that I was setting off to find a bathroom.

I decided to go to the China Garden restaurant to seek my relief. I had eaten there plenty of times without leaving a decent tip. So I figured it was time to give a little something back! Then it occurred to me that I might as well get an order to go since we had not eaten lunch yet. That was perfect! I could use their bathroom AND return home with something for the kids to eat! I could take care of two of life’s necessities in one swift “movement”!

The kids loved the broccoli and chicken….

WE still haven’t finished decorating our Christmas tree. I did put some lights up along the steps outside on December 23. I also put the tree in its stand in the living room that day. But no one put any lights on it until December 26. The lights are on “upside down” so that the prongs to plug them in are sticking out at the top of the tree about two miles from the nearest outlet. After driving to Harrisburg and back on the 26th, I just had no inspiration to fix those lights. We’ll do it right next year! The way I see it, as a single father, it was a major accomplishment just getting that tree into the living room in time for Christmas! Lights and decorations are dispensables and frivolities – not necessities like heat, water and Chinese food!

SO NOW I am preparing to face a day snowed in with three teenages, a four and a six year old. It’s the latest version of “Survivor.” Who will emerge from the apartment alive once the blizzard passes? Will Dad have any sanity left by the end of the blizzard? If we run out of food here we have no rats to eat…. But J did get a hamster for Christmas…. If the heat goes out again, we can “light” that Christmas tree up to keep warm. But what if we have no water again???? What then????

I wonder if the Chinese place delivers in the snow…….

(* This entry is dedicated to a girl who called herself Yen and had a website called Nostalgic Thoughts. She gave me the encouragement to finally start this journal! She has since disappeared and I often wonder where she went.)