Thanksgiving

Onions, celery, and mushrooms sauteing in butter. If you ask me about Thanksgiving, that is what I will immediately think of. Onions, celery, and mushrooms sauteing in butter.

My parents have hosted our family Thanksgiving for years. I do remember a time when they didn't. The last such time was at the home of my Aunt Pat, a wonderfully sweet and eccentric lady that I don't see often enough (which is entirely my own doing; I'll someday regret not having spent more time with her).

But for at least two decades, my parents home has annually been a Norman Rockwell-esque picture of Thanksgiving. Grandma will be there with her sweet potatoes fried in butter and brown sugar. All my uncles and aunts will be there, most likely being loud. But hey, I expect nothing less from them. Cousins and their kids will be running around like crazy. I'm betting there will be 30 people or more.

And my dad will make the turkey and dressing. He cooks them separately which makes for a shorter cooking time. But it used to be that he would stuff the turkey. And all with all that mass, it would require a lot more time to cook. So on Thanksgiving morning, at some ridiculous hour, my parents would get up and fix the dressing, stuff the bird, and throw it in the oven. And then go back to sleep.

And every year, I would wake up at some ridiculous hour to the sounds of pans clanging and onions, celery, and mushrooms sauteing in butter. I'd get up and watch my parents, half asleep, prepare the food. And then they would go back to sleep. And I'd stay up. Oh the joy of Thanksgiving, I would be too excited to go back to sleep. Just like a kid at Christmas.

Thanksgiving football is great to watch. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is even better. Food and family and friends. Leftovers. And pouring over the Black Friday ads. All pieces of the joy that is Thanksgiving.

But onions, celery, and mushrooms sauteing in butter. That wonderful smell that ranks in my top ten smells in the world. I think Yankee Candle could make a killing with that fragrance.

Have a happy turkey day everybody.

The results are in and the MRI says...

...chronic sinus infection. That's not what they were looking for. They were looking at El Presidente's brain. It's fine. They just happen to look at his sinus cavities and notice signs on chronic and ongoing sinus infection. Apparently the anti-biotics that he has been on have not been enough.

I think we are going to stick an moldy orange up his nose; cut out the middle man.

Important yet icky

Today we applied for life insurance for El Presidente. I should have done this a while ago but didn't want to think about death at all. A very adult thing to do. Yet I still got the heebie-jeebies.

Next not-so-pleasant but very important thing to do: the will.

By the way, I'm frickin' brilliant

As I predicted, Warm 93.9 went all Christmas this previous weekend. I've been listening to Christmas music like crazy. One of 118 stations across the country to do the all-Christmas music format so far this year.

Anyway, you can take a moment to bask in my awe-inspiring genius...

Because I can't pick up 93.9 at work and can't listen to online broadcasts, I have about 10 hours of CD's that I have ripped and have playing in shuffle mode at work. Three hundred and forty songs and counting. Some of my favorite albums includes Vince Guaraldi Trio's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrack, "A Christmas Gift For Your" from Phil Spector, Manneheim Steamroller's "Christmas 1984", plus many various artist albums from Time-Life and others that include Elvis, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Carpenters, Kenny Rogers, Harry Connick Jr., and Nat King Cole.

The best album of all though is one that my parents made in 2000. It includes some of the best songs from television specials and elsewhere. The California Raisins doing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. The Carol of the Bells from the Claymation Christmas Special. Burl Ives tunes from Rudolph. Jimmy Durante from Frosty. Lou Rawls from Garfield. Fred Astair from Santa Claus is Coming to Town. The Chipmunks. The Grinch. The Simpsons. There are other funny songs like Snoopy and the Red Baron, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, and Porky Pig doing his version of Blue Christmas. This mix never fails to put a smile on my face.

Only 33 shopping days...

Apparently having boobs is helpful

In order to increase productivity and decrease Internet costs, our office blocks out any and all websites that might include streaming media or downloadable media files. So no online radio. Which really sucks because we get terrible radio reception in this building.

One of my co-workers contacted IT asking for access to an online video seminar. She is doing the seminar for continuing education credits. The guy from IT who arrives to help is one of your typical computer geek types. He also looks like a comic book or roll playing game geek. Think Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.

He gets onto her computer and sets her up to access the seminar. While doing this, he notices her iPod and speaker dock on her desk.

"You like your iPod?" he asks.

"Yeah, I like listening to it at work."

"I'll set you up with iTunes as well."

What the hell? Because she is blond and has boobs, she can access podcasts and other online media but the rest of us schmucks are S.O.L.?

I don't think there are any lady or gay IT people in our office. Even if there were, I don't think my bald head and hairy cleavage would get me any favors.

Button, button, whose got the button?

El Presidente had an MRI on Monday. It isn't really a big deal because it is just a diagnostic procedure. But because of his age and his history, he had to be put completely under, so I was a little nervous going into it. There is always a chance of trouble with anesthesia.

I didn't realize how nervous though until Monday night when I slept well for the first time in a couple of weeks. Sunday night was very restless. I woke up about every hour.

I'm very pleased to have it over with. We won't know any diagnostics from it for a few weeks, but just being done with it is a relief.

The timing worked out, though. El Presidente's Bard button (his second belly button that his feeding tube would connect to) had a valve malfunction and would start gushing like a geyser without warning. It freaked him out, made a mess, and kept him from getting all the calories he needs. Not a good situation.

This button lasted 11 months. The previous one lasted about 11 months as well. It too was replaced during a different procedure, so in both cases, he wasn't awake (or at least not fully) when they were changed out.

Here is why I say that: In order to hold it tight against the stomach wall and prevent leakage, the interior part of the button is about 3 times as wide as the hole in his stomach. In order to replace this type of button, you yank it out and push a new one in. The skin and muscle (mostly) stretch enough to allow the exchange to happen. But it sounds painful to me.

The perks of the Bard button is that they last longer and are very difficult to accidentally remove. But once a year, you have to deal with this crap.

This time, we had them put in a Mic-Key button. This style uses an inflatable balloon to hold it tight against the stomach wall instead of a hard piece of plastic. The insertion piece is the same size as his stomach opening, so no great pain. You inflate the balloon with water and you are ready to go. The perks is that you can do it at home, no doctor or nurse needed. The downside is they last around 3 months and the balloons will leak, therefore failing and increasing chance of accidental removal. If left open for too long, the opening will heal itself, meaning he'd have to have emergency surgery to reopen it and insert the feeding tube.

There is another perk to the new button. The Bard allowed only one way traffic. And that was in. The Mic-Key allows liquids and air to move in and out, so we are able to release air pressure from his stomach during feedings. We've only had it for 48 hours, but that has been a helpful feature.

Both have perks. Both have downsides. But the idea of the Bard button removal pains me and I can't imagine putting El Presidente through it. So we'll try the other option and see what happens.

The Great Refrigerator Relocation Fiasco of Aught-Eight

The lovely wife and I bought Four Square No. 266 in 2001. We had a month to clean the house and paint walls and all that fun stuff before our apartment lease ran out and we had to move in. When move in day came around, there was one project that the lovely wife wanted to complete that had not been done yet: paint the Barney wall.

The Barney wall runs along the stairs from the first floor to the second. It is an obnoxious color, one that no human should ever pick out for their walls. It was the color of Barney the dinosaur. We moved in promising that the Barney wall would not last long.

Seven years later, that wall is still there.

For myself, the least favorite thing about our house was the kitchen. We never intended on having it remodeled before we moved in, but I expected to remodel it in the near future. The previous owners decorated it in a Coca-Cola motif. The bottom half of the walls are painted flat black. The upper half is in a half assed gray on white sponge technique. Between them runs a Coca-Cola border.

The floor was done in cheap vinyl tiles that create a black-and-white checkerboard. There are three different generations of cabinets. The countertops were not continuous, but instead were cut to fit each individual cabinet. And there were two different countertop styles and colors.

There was one light fixture with a ceiling fan. And the appliances were in an almond color and came from the early eighties. Except the dishwasher. It was a portable unit. And didn’t work.

Over the years, we’ve worked on it bit by bit. One portion of cabinets and countertops have been replaced. We’re on our second dishwasher. We broke the globe on the ceiling fan, so we have a classy naked light bulb on a wire hanging in our kitchen. But we are taking baby steps on updating our kitchen.

Friday, we took another step. My brother-in-law’s aunt is moving out of state and is selling many of her furnishings and appliances, including a side-by-side refrigerator. It was in great shape and was being sold for cheap. We pounced on the opportunity.

Our old fridge still worked. But it didn’t have an ice maker, which always bugged me. And one of the shelves on the fridge door kept falling off, which was a pain in the ass. And it was ugly. Other than that, it worked great. We thought, “Hey, we could always use more refrigerated space!”

Everybody needs a basement fridge, keeping beers and other important things cold. My grandparents had one when I was growing up. It was one of the old latching doors. I only recall seeing Budweiser in it.

My father helped me pick up the refrigerator in Franklin and move it into Four Square No. 266. Other than having to take the doors off of the refrigerator to get it through the kitchen doorway, everything went peachy.

Now it was time to move the old fridge downstairs. We knew we were in for a challenge. First, it’s an old house, and everything is narrower than you would suspect. Second, the basement stairs has a landing that requires a 90 degree turn halfway down. Add the two together and you have a tight squeeze for a fridge.

The basement door had to come off first. Easy enough. We started down the stairs with the fridge. UMPH! What are we stuck on?

A sanitary pipe. In Four Square No. 266, the second floor bathroom drains down a pipe in an outside wall. When it reaches the basement walls, it elbows into the house and then elbows back down to tie in with the house’s main sanitary line. Unfortunately, this all occurs at the basement stairs.

We had to lift the refrigerator over the pipe that is in our way. But the ceiling is low in the stairwell. We ended up dragging the fridge across the pipe. The fridge ended up busting a 3” round hold into the cast iron pipe. Shit.

Oh well, I’ll deal with that later. We made it to the landing. Except that we can’t get the refrigerator to turn for the rest of the journey. It is stuck between handrails on one side and a wall with a window on the other. We kept twisting and turning that sucker, with me above trying to move the top of the fridge and my dad below trying to move the bottom of the fridge.

At one point, he pushes the fridge upward, putting the corner of the fridge (and my right hand, which is gripping on to it) up against the landing window. As I get ready to speak the words “Uh, Dad…”, he gives another push and CRASH! both my hand and the refrigerator corner go through the window.

“You okay Jason?!?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just my hand. There are only a couple of scratches.”

We continue to struggle with the fridge. We start to get it down the next set up steps until the top becomes stuck snuggly between the handrail and a wall. We stop to ponder our next move when I notice the red smudges on the refrigerator. And then the blood that is all over my hand. What the hell?

Since the refrigerator wasn’t going any where, I quickly tended to my wound. The bleeding came from a quarter-inch long wound on my pinky knuckle. To look at it, you would expect it to be so flowing. But it was a deep cut. I bandaged it up and returned to the refrigerator.

We decided the only way to get the fridge down was to remove the handrails. I wasn’t excited about it, because as with everything old, once you take it apart, it is a pain in the ass to put it back. But my only other option was to take it back upstairs, and dammit I busted a window, a shit pipe, and my knuckles, I’m not coming away empty-handed.

Down came the handrails. No longer holding on to the handrails, down came the refrigerator. Funny thing gravity.

We put the fridge in its place and leveled it. For the price of a broken sanitary pipe, a broken window, a removed handrail, and a bloodied hand, we had our basement fridge.

Epilogue: All the Kings Horses…

It turns out that the handrail I feared removing went back up with little fuss. Had I known that, I would have done that earlier, saving myself from much damage and injury.

My hand healed up pretty well. I didn’t need any stitches, though it took a while for the big wound to not reopen any time I used my hand.

The window I reglazed. It’s not a pretty glazing job. I don’t like glazing. But the repair cost less than ten bucks and only required about an hour and half of my time. Definitely worth it.

The shit pipe was a bit more challenging. The piece was half in a wall, half out. If I were to replace it, I would have to tear into the wall. Not my idea of a fun time. The pipe, it turns out, had been previously broken. What we broke was a patch of fiberglass mesh and cement. It was pretty brittle, so I’m surprised it hadn’t been broken earlier.

It is also an odd sized pipe (5” diameter), so finding a repair piece at your regular hardware and home improvement stores proved challenging. Wanting to get the upstairs bathroom (and our only shower) up and running in a hurry, I decided to do a patch repair of my own. I bought a 4” rubber elbow that is designed to fit around PVC or cast iron pipes.

I sliced the rubber elbow along the inside curve and wrapped it around the larger, broken pipe. I used four stainless steel clamps to hold the rubber elbow onto the cast iron elbow. After many, many tests that involved lots of water, I had no leaks and deemed it a success. Odds are this patch will become a permanent fix. Twenty five bucks. Two to three hours.

Between the time spent, the money spent, and the blood spilled, I would still say it was totally worth it.

When he has abandonment issues in the future, I'm sure I'll be to blame

Preschool has been pretty good for El Presidente. His social skills have been greatly improved. His vocabulary has increased. And best of all, he seems to enjoy it. Or at least tolerate it.

But like most humans, when he doesn't feel well, he doesn't want to leave the couch. He's been full of snot. Again. Or still. I'm not sure. That has led to more puking (of course) and restless nights.

This morning, the lovely wife had a doctor's appointment, so I took him to school. He didn't want to leave the house, but I made him anyway. He didn't want to go inside the school, but I made him anyway. And he didn't want me to leave, but I did anyway. Last I saw, he was standing in the middle of the classroom crying.

It was really tough for me not to grab him and say "Okay buddy, let's go home and watch cartoons." If I did it, he'd never want to go back to school.

So broken hearted, I departed. I'm hoping that by the time I return home, he will have forgotten all about it. Or at least have forgiven me.

Marking a moment

It is ten after midnight on Wednesday, November 5th. I have just returned from Spencer's Stadium Tavern where I and ninety-nine other hopeful Democrats watched and waited for the moment we had been hoping for: Barack Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States.

I watched Senator John McCain give his concession speech, the greatest speech he has ever given. I do not think him an evil man. I think of him as a man who desired more that anything to be President. He found himself in the unfortunate position of being in a party that was controlled by social conservative. And he knew that he would have to make changes after his 2000 primary defeat if he were to ever run in the general election. I don't think this is the campaign he had dreamed of. I don't think Palin was the running mate he had ever dreamed of. I feel bad for the guy, because I don't think he is a bad guy. I don't think he would have been a bad president. But what moderates he had in 2000, he lost during his public transformation during the next eight years.

I travelled home after the race was called. And I listened to the President-elect on the radio during my drive. Whether you agree with his politics or not, I'm betting you wouldn't disagree with me when I say he is one of the best talking politicians of all times. His speeches will be in history books. He sounds better than President Bill Clinton, which I didn't think possible. He pulls a bit from the Kennedy's (the good ones, that is), a bit from FDR, and a bit from MLK. His speech was incredible. Hopeful. Inspiring.

Of course, they are just words. Words meant to mark a moment. There is a lot of work to be done. But I believe that his words have laid out the plan for America for the next four years. Hopefully they have unified. For many, they have energized.

Two years of campaigning have taken their toll. He looked tired. He looked aged. And unfortunately for him, he has little time to rest, collect, and start anew. Two months, and he will be sworn in. One hundred days after that, everybody will be grading him. Nine months after that, Congress will begin their next campaign. And a year after that will be the mid-term elections and at that moment we will discover what America thinks for its next President. History says that the Democrats will lose Congress in 2010. President-elect Obama's actions will either break the tradition or continue the same old, same old.

I have hope that he will show progress before 2010. We may not yet be better off, but we will hopefully be heading in the right direction. America is in a good place right now.

As for Indiana, I must say how proud I am to be a Hoosier. I've always thought that the majority of my fellow citizens were closed minded and unwilling to see past superficial identifications in casting their vote. At this moment, the Republicans are ruling the political races, with Not-my-man-but-still-my-governor Mitch Daniels leading the way. Yet President-elect Obama is leading 50% to 49% with 97% of precincts reporting. That AMAZES ME. I never thought Indiana capable of this.

Let me say it again: there were a lot of Republican Hoosiers who cast a straight ballot tonight EXCEPT for the Presidency.

That is an amazing accomplishment. History was made in many different ways. It was amazing as I cast my ballot. It was amazing as I watched the results. And it is amazing as I write these words.

But the moment is over. Time for everybody to get to work.