New Tradition?

12.24.2008

I've managed to only watch about 10 minutes of A Christmas Story so far this season. TBS seems to be showing a lot more commercials than I remember. I'm not really in the mood to watch it, though, so it seems like a good excuse to start a new Xmas Eve tradition for myself.

This afternoon I played a whole lot of Lego Star Wars on the old Xbox 360. Tonight I'm going to follow it up with some Jeff Dunham Christmas Special.

Maybe I'll fix myself some hot chocolate, too.

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After 39¾ years...

12.22.2008

I've always bragged, been smug, about having never locked myself out of either my house or my car.

I can't say that anymore.

This morning I went out and about to run some errands. The first stop was the gas station, as I was under ¼ tank and have some driving to do this week. After filling up the tank, I went across the street to the bank to deposit various amounts of moolah that had been coming in over the past couple of weeks. From there I went to the post office to drop off 3 bills in the post office parcel receptacle box. That's where things went wrong.

I drove up to the post office and had to get out to walk the 15 feet to the box. It was 20° and I hadn't driven very far from the gas station and bank, and it was going to take all of 30 seconds to drop off the mail, so I decided to leave the car running (don't get ahead!). I hop out, close the door, drop off the mail, and go back to the car. I pull on the handle. Nothing. Just in case anybody's looking I try it 2 more times. I look down, realizing the car door is locked. The motor is running. My wallet and cell phone are sitting inside the car. There's a touchpad combination lock on the door I've never touched, much less memorized the number for.

Shit.

I go inside the post office, mainly because I don't know what else to do. This is a small post office, and as such the woman working leaves at 11:00 for lunch. I walk in at 10:59. There are 3 of us in line and she looks at me and asks if there's anything I need (evidently I was looking pretty pitiful). "I've managed to lock my keys in the car with the motor running and I have no idea what to do." You can see the mix of sympathy and suppression of a chuckle as she tells me she doesn't know what to do either, but there's a mechanic next door that might have a slim-jim they can use to open the door. I thank her and head to the mechanic next door to repeat my story. It sounds like they've heard this story plenty of times, and soon the girl behind the counter grabs a bag of tools and we go back to my car.

As she starts to perform her magic, a woman in a van pulls up to drop off her mail and notices my predicament. "Locked out? Oh, and your motor's still running! At least the gas prices have come down some." She starts to get back in her van. Her door won't open. She walks around and tries the other doors, but they're all locked. "I don't believe it." She locked herself out, too. None of us could help it, but we all started to laugh a little. She was able to call her husband to come bring the spare set of keys, so she didn't need my lock picking maiden.

After about 20 minutes, she was able to get my door open and I was able to get back inside to my keys, cell phone, wallet, and everything else that makes me a member of modern society. She didn't charge me anything, but I slipped her a $20 out of thanks and relief. The other woman's husband showed up with the spare key and undoubtedly got to hear the story from his wife.

Now I'm going to go lookup my keypad combination, although I may never let go of those keys again.

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Karate Mom

12.16.2008

I've been digging through some boxes trying to find a picture, and I finally came across it.

I remember taking karate when we lived in the trailer park outside of Florence, so this pic would be sometime between 3rd and 6th grades. I want to make it around 1979, so that's what I'm going to do.

The class was taught by one of the guys who lived in the park who had developed his own karate style - a mash-up of styles he had learned along with some Bruce Lee inspired moves. Mainly he was an excuse to get all the kids in the park together and teach a little discipline. A couple of Moms joined us in the class in the beginning, and mine was one of the gaggle.

Being the young rebel that I was, I didn't want a black gi or a white gi. I looked in the catalog and saw a red gi, so that's what I got. What the hell was I thinking? Chunky 10 year old kicking and punching in a set of red pajamas.

Looking back, I'm not sure how long Mom stuck with the karate. I got a yellow belt and green belt before quitting, and I think there were 2 levels of yellow belt. I don't remember how long there was between belt tests, so that's not a very good measurement. Just under 4 years ago I took a karate class with Jerry and Keith, and stuck with it until I advanced enough that my knees couldn't take the twisting and pounding that were required for the moves. Oddly enough, I had made it once again to green belt, although Leonard was ready to promote me to the next level (I think that's blue belt). I had missed a lot of classes due to my knees and back being messed up, so I didn't feel like I had really earned another belt promotion.

I keep telling myself I'll go back one day, and maybe I will. Until then, I can always look back at kicking Mom's ass when I was 10! If only we didn't have those huge smiles when we were kicking asses.

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Post Xmas Party Sniffles

12.14.2008

This past Saturday was the Spiritus Christmas Party which I attended with Gina. The previous Saturday was the Westar Christmas Party which I attended with Gina.

I have a sinus cold and have been sniffling and sneezing my fool head off for two days. Gina's been doing her best to take care of me. She's a sweetie.

I had a similar cold about this time last year. Since it's not time to watch A Christmas Story I've instead been watching Star Wars (Episodes 1-3) while convalescing on the couch. It's times like this that having an expansive movie library pays off.

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My college care package

12.12.2008

In the Spring (I think) of '88, I was away living the college life with Jer at Birmingham-Southern College, a place I had no right to be but I wouldn't take anything for the people I met there. But I digress. I had finally reached the stage where I didn't come home every weekend - I think I might come back home once a month by that time. One afternoon I made my way to my mailbox and found a large, puffy envelope awaiting me with "Mom" as the return address. I opened the envelope and pulled out a pale pink shirt!

Note 1: It was the 80's. We watched Miami Vice. Pink shirts for guys were cool.

Note 2: All my life Mom has sewed (sewn?). She always wanted to make me clothes, mainly because it was cheaper than buying them. When I was 18/19 I worked out semi-regularly and had not put in the time and effort to develop the gut I lug around now. I've always had broad shoulders, and finding a shirt to fit said shoulders was difficult. Mom took it upon herself to drag me into helping her construct a shirt pattern that would actually fit me. It took the better part of a year and parts of 5 or 6 patterns to make the shirt I wanted, but we finally got it together. to top it off, I was particular about the type and weight of the fabric of the shirts I would wear - a medium weight cotton is what I preferred. Hey, if Mom's going to make me help her then she's got to pay the price!

... and now back to our 20 year old story ...

I got back to the dorm room and looked at the shirt. Cool, a new shirt from the pattern me and Mom made! Button-up, button collar, oversized sleeves. Two big chest pockets. I pulled it on and started to button it up when I stopped.

The buttons were on the wrong side.

Mom had just made me a pale pink womens shirt.

I went directly to the phone and called up Mom. "Hey Mom, I got the shirt!"

"It already got there? That's good. Do you like it?"

"Uhm, yeah. Ah, did you know the buttons are on the wrong side?"

You could hear the astonishment in Mom's voice. "Really? No! I've been doing so many womens clothes I just never thought about it. I'm sorry!"

"That's ok, I don't think that'll keep me from wearing it."

I wore that shirt way past the cancellation of Miami Vice. I wore it until there were holes in it to where I couldn't wear it anymore. Nobody ever noticed that the buttons were on the wrong side (unless I told them, accompanied by this very story most of the time). If anybody had noticed, it wouldn't have mattered a bit.

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