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“Always make ’em walk around a dirty horse.”
From whence came the art:
That image is titled 16 – September – 2007 — Dirty Horse, by reway2007, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 license.
As long as I’m still online in the storm, and my eyes aren’t quite open all the way yet, I thought I’d share a little love, from Roy Zimmerman.
Find all Roy’s videos at his YouTube channel.
Life with a teenage boy can be interesting. Trying at times, but definitely interesting. Especially when he is such an extrovert. There is nothing outside the limits of his curiosity, or his humor. Nothing. I like that about him (usually).
Put two of them under one roof, add the cover of darkness and sparklers, insanity is inevitable. It just is.
We went and watched the fireworks at Camp Lejeune last night, as we do every year. Nice display, though a little shorter, smaller, and less dramatic than usual. Parking was a little better handled this year, and leaving the base not the usual pain in the ass. Of course we had D with us this year, and it was his first time that he could remember going. He and J.P. hung out and kept each other occupied and out of trouble, so it worked out pretty well all the way around.
The fun really started after we got home.
Fireworks are mostly illegal in North Carolina. Well, illegal to possess. Apparently, not illegal to sell, as they sell all sorts of things in Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, at road-side stands, etc. that I would think fall outside the law. It’s one of those things that come the approach of Independence Day, everybody just sort of ignores, I guess.
I don’t mess with them, just because they’re illegal. It’s just not worth the potential hassle to me, and I try to set a good example for the kids. But somebody gave Jane a few boxes of sparklers for the kids, and I don’t have any problem with that (they’re legal), so once we got home (10:30/11ish), I sat out on the porch and lit sparklers for the kids. They were tough to get going, so I lit them and handed them off.
Remember the two teenage boys? Yeah, that wasn’t going to be interesting enough, by any stretch.
(Crazy kids, below the fold)
I got to bed fairly early last night, knowing that I was going to take the exams this morning. Got up tired, hadn’t rested well, hit the shower, even shaved to look somewhat presentable.
On the way over, I pull up to a red light, and the car does something it’s never done before, something not good. The RPMs drop, it starts to sputter and choke. I’ve seen this behavior before, when I drove old beaters, so without thinking I react, slap it in park. I can’t remember what the cause of it is, though.
The RPMs come back up and smooth out, but then climb to about 2500. Yeah, that’s what I expected, but I still can’t remember what horrible thing is going on under the hood. I kick the accelerator down, thinking “sticky throttle?”, but knowing as soon as the thought comes that this isn’t the problem.
The RPMs come back to where they should be, and the engine settles down, back to its normal hum. I’m talking to my car, my baby. “Please, not today. I love you. I love you more than my wife. You’ve never given me a problem that was your fault. Please.”
(More misery below the fold)
Several weeks ago I went and got the study packets when I was finding out about returning to school. The lady at the admissions desk was very kind, I was my usual charming self (not flirtatious, but charming in that Southern Way I’ve picked up over my adult life), exchanging pleasantries, blah blah, she gets the packets, writes a note at the top of the math packet, highlights some stuff up there, gives me the English packet, explains that I don’t need an appointment, take the exams by the 27th, blah blah, transcripts, blah.
Lesson 2: Read the Instructions
I bring the pile of papers home, set them on my desk, fetch all my old math texts, fold the cover page and the introductions over to open the math packet to the first problems and start diving in. First five pages is elementary school/ middle school math, no problems, then some very basic algebra, some geometry, nothing I don’t still master, ’bout page 20 I start seeing secants and quadratics and irrational numbers and radicals, and I start working and referencing, and looking up and trying to remember, and working sample problems. I’ve been working at getting enough of a handle on enough of the material that even if parts of it escape me, I can come back to it over the summer and give it my full attention, and in the meantime still get enough questions right to pass the test.
Fast Forward to today.
(Continued below the fold)
So I’m speaking to my wife, and the subject of her father comes up. It’s a little touchy, understandably, so I’m gently joking a bit.
I mentioned that I re-read Thanks for All the Squirrels yesterday, and I made myself cry a little. (Ok, I did have to wipe a few tears, to be perfectly honest.)
“I’m a big sissy,” I say.
John pipes up:
“Well just because you got a dick between your legs don’t mean you can’t cry.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. Dad would have been proud, I think.
HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) — Passing notes in study hall or getting your best friend to ask a boy if he likes you or, you know, LIKES you, is so last century. Nowadays, teenagers are snapping naked pictures of themselves on their cell phones and sending them to their boyfriends and girlfriends.
Many of these pictures are falling into the wrong hands — or worse, everyone’s hands, via the Internet — and leading to criminal charges.
Some parents are aghast.
“I just don’t understand why kids would do a stupid thing like that,” said Rochelle Hoins of Castle Rock, Colorado,
(my emphasis)
Seems to me the answer is contained within the question.
More at the link to the story on CNN.
For the thirteenth straight year, bitches!
From whence came the art:
That cameraphone snapshot is of Shakespeare, and was taken by Little John.
I’m an addict. I’ve occasionally found the will to put my addiction down for several months at a time, but I always pick it back up. I can’t help it.
It always starts the same. Someone in the family dies, or has a baby, or gets married and I’m just going to take that one little hit. I can handle it. I’ve been clean for months, one little hit won’t hurt. I’ll put it right back down.
Weeks later, it occurs to me that I’m hooked again, and I’m planning my life around my addiction. I’ll quit tomorrow. Right after one more hit. John Smith is waiting, and I have to find him. I hate John Smith. He wants me addicted. He thinks it’s funny. I’d kill him if he weren’t already dead.
So’s his buddy, James Shackleton. Actually, there’s a whole gang of them. John and James hooked up with Tom Bancroft and Priscilla Sutcliffe and started a little gang of zombie pushers who keep me coming back. There’s hundreds of them now. They call themselves The Brick Wall Gang, and they span continents.
I hunt them like Buffy.
(Continued below the fold.)
I am awakened by the dog. He’s whimpering. Now, when he wakes me up in the middle of the night whimpering, it’s because he’s stuck in the bathroom and wants out. (He likes to sleep in the tub but sometimes bumps the door closed on the way by.)
This time, he’s not in the bathroom at all, but standing by the bedroom door. (I keep the door closed at night so he doesn’t get into anything in the rest of the house.) This is unusual enough that it’s worrisome. He doesn’t go for his morning constitutional until around 8:00. He’s pretty regular (all the fiber he gets eating my socks, I think).
I get up and go check the house. My wife’s just home from the hospital, and still wearing a heart monitor (just in case thing), so she’s on the couch. She’s fine. The boys are fine, snoring like their lives depend on it. Kay’s fine, she rolls over when I crack the door.
There’s no fire, no one creeping about the yard, the doorbell hasn’t rung. There’s no Sunshine Behind the Trashcan (although it’d be a Gina at this point – relationships are kinda fluid at 13 I guess).
I return to the bedroom.
There, with the most innocent “What???” face ever beheld gracing the face of a golden retriever, Shakespeare lies in The Warm Spot on the bed.
He is so not getting any treats today.
Jerk.