It may seem I’ve been gone for a while, but it’s not true. I’ve been here and there. I’ve just been invisible for a while. You would think I was agonizing over a feature article for the newspaper. I have two or three posts in the queue (not counting countless, abandoned ones) that are “mostly done” but I can’t bring myself to finish/post. You’ve already heard me moan about one of them so I’ll move on. It brings me to another subject I think about from time to time: what is success? I’m thinking in terms of a whole life [...]
Cheryl
I’ve got Santa on my mind
First of all I want to say, with all the humility and grace I can muster, we are WAY cooler than you are. We got a box filled with A TON of chocolate from Germany today. – Insert insane jealousy here – Sorry, I had to get that out of my system. I’ve got the mother of all sugar highs going. The kids are only sleeping because they rocketed right past sugar high to sugar coma. The issue of Santa came up today, or this evening I should say. Today I was embroiled in the mother of all court days. [...]
Now for a few fuzzy birthday videos
Here’s a few quick videos from Beth’s real birthday (we’ll be doing a few late celebrations after Adam sheds his virus). My apologies, the quality is exceptionally poor. I forgot to recharge the batteries in our camera, so I settled for my old iPhone 3G, which was never really meant to be a video camera. It’s a pretty lousy still camera when you get down to it. The obligatory cake shot: Beth turns the camera on us for a change: What does it mean to be thirteen?
The MRI
The background: Cheryl (known to many of you as my wife) had an MRI done recently due to chronic back pain. – – – It was one of those court days where several people needed to be escorted out of the building. A little conflict goes with the territory. Your agency sues someone, you expect a little hostility. In fact, it isn’t uncommon for both sides to leave with no love to spare for anyone in the room. But this day was bad. One for the books bad. Sometime past mid-day, my phone buzzed – vibrated really. I checked the [...]
Is it paranoia if your appliances really are out to get you?
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our detergent.” – Epictetus, Greek philosopher (AD 55 – 135) – disputed, alternate translation from the original text Cheryl really wanted me to write this post. “John, you’ve got to blog about this.” See, I told you. “Why don’t you write about it?” I replied. “It’s not my blog.” “So, I could set you up as another author. It could be our blog.” “But I’m not funny.” “Wait. You think my posts are funny?” “Well, not all of them. [...]
Big Bother is watching
Cheryl was complaining this morning. Before you rush to judgement – of me – for telling on Cheryl, let me say up front that I complain just as much as she does. Only, my complaining tends to be more whiney, grating, and down right irritating. But let us not talk about me, and instead focus on Cheryl – my intended target. (We’ll get to me shortly.) Cheryl was complaining about her ratio of recreation to responsibilities this morning, but I was having none of it. “I saw you on the computer this morning,” I pointed out. “Yeah,” she replied, “but [...]
Ass Mac
What would you do if your wife told you there were too many computers in the house? Could you bring yourself to get rid of a few? What if they were more than just computers… but Macs? So what if they’re just taking up space, or the bedroom is beginning to look like a storage shed. These little guys are members of the family. You don’t kick family out of the house when they stop being useful, do you? O.K., maybe you shouldn’t answer that one. Besides, the Ruby fella has some life left. He’s faster than the lime in [...]
She’s 38
I have a much longer post written (in my head) tentatively titled “state of the Kauffmans,” but it will have to wait until a time when it’s not past my bedtime. Until then, know that Cheryl’s recovery is going as planned, and she enjoyed a little get together with our parents to celebrate her birthday. (She was a little nervous about me wearing my Obama campaign shirt with her parents coming over, but I was itching for a little political dust-up… low key of course). A couple pics from this evening: from left to right: my dad, Cheryl, Beth, Adam, [...]
