Of someone riding my old (2005) bike. I found this photo on my old hard-drive (the one with Windoze). It’s my Dad. It’s during our move from Carbondale to Baltimore in August 2006. When our bikes were sitting by the little trailer, ready to get packed last, my Dad snatched my bike and took off. He wound up buying the 2006 model a few weeks later. Cycling is so damned fun that no one can resist and unattended bike.
Got any Polish in you?
Stop me if I’ve told this one before. My brother tells this joke, which must be asked of someone you are attracted to:
“Hey, do you have any Polish in in you?”
“No,” he or she will say.
“Want some?”
(We’re 1/4 Polish.)
Want something more intelligent? Read this.
Two excellent birthday gifts.
One: The ways in which I have been spoiled today, culminating in a lovely sunset and cool evening (the end of summer?). From chocolate chip pancakes to delicious mattar paneer, this was a very yummy day. And there was also a fun dinner at Joe Squared last night, complete with French lager, Czech lager, Irish stout and chocolate cake.
Two: What I said I wanted since spring (when we decided to have a baby). I wanted Mrs. FP to be pregnant, and I wanted to know. With my party three weeks ago and the best news I ever received two weeks ago, I thought my birthday would be anti-climatic. But it wasn’t.
Thanks to everyone who made this three weeks of awesomeness. I am a very fortunate 30-year-old. Ahem, 29-year-old (again, ahem).
Japanese beer is very good.
Went to a “Japanese Steakhouse” for my brother’s and sister-in-law’s birthdays last night. Had delicious beer and very good food. Ate mushrooms like mad. The cook nicknamed me Johnny Be Good and joked that I was able to knock-up Mrs. P with us both being vegetarians. Had chocolate/peanut butter/ice-cream cake. It felt like my birthday; my tummy was so happy.
We’re Pregnant!
Good thing I’m not scared of holding babies anymore! Mrs. P. took two tests Thursday night after the Ravens’ first score. The second (taken later, actually) was much darker. They’re still showing positive. So far as our blessings continue, Baby Pragmatik is due in April. John III or Charlotte. (Long story.) I’m still catching my breath. And reading Daddy books.
Happy Memorial Day.
I got a ride to a campfire Saturday night in a pickup truck. We were tearing down a unpaved road in the woods. My Dad drove, and I was in the passenger side. Two guys were hanging onto the side of the truck on the runner, one on each side. It was pretty exciting after not leaving my apartment at all for like a week (really). I had to skip the trip because I can’t walk still, but it was very nice to at least get outside for an evening and to get to see Mr. Zack’s cute new baby.
I helped to give a new Eagle Scout the Pledge. Enjoyed kids performing skits and songs. It was awesome.
Afterward, what happens every Memorial Day happened: old flags were retired by fire. Last year, an older guy told the boys never to “stand” anyone to burn the flag, no matter how anyone feels about our country or about freedom of expression, etc. I don’t feel particularly motivated to do any flag burning of my own, but I found that little bit particularly distasteful. Being a “college boy”, I’m not exactly going to tell someone who was actually in a war how to feel about flag burning. This year, a gent who is a veteran of the Air Force (Hi, Mr. Y!) gave a nice speech before the flags were retired. He talked to the boys about what the flag stands for, including the right to burn it. I thought that was the perfect way to sum up the meaning of the stars and stripes, seriously. We’re free enough to reject it all, and I’ve known plenty of people who have felt that way.
I thought of my Uncle Harry, who’s no longer with us on Saturday night. I looked up to toast him in my mind and saw a solitary star in the clearing of trees. Felt a little odd. He would have enjoyed that fire and the company. His wife passed three months after he did, which just seemed to complete the situation to me. It seemed right. I’d still like to share some grilled corn with them again at a cook-out.
When we think of who has died in a war in this country — whether you think it was pointless, for freedom, for the rich, etc. — I remember that my father was in a war. Vietnam. Actually, as they say, “in the shit.” I’ve always found it bizzare to imagine such a gentle pussycat in such a situation. It’s hard to reconcile. I can’t imagine my father actually hurting anyone, and I’d bet he can’t either. When there’s the temptation to spread the blame for our clusterfuck “conflicts” that take lives, including Americans, to the men and women who actually have to do the taking and get their lives taken, I always remember my Dad. Getting spit on and called a Baby Killer when he came home to meet his cousin and best friend with only one of his legs. When nothing about my Dad or probably most of the other people he served with could be less true.
(Photo by Mrs. P, of my brothers and I on Mothers’ Day.)
Slider the killer turtle.
My mom has a little pond her in yard, right off of the deck. It’s like her little peace place. There are cute statues, including a little gnome I gave her. A few years ago, my brothers and I joined forces to put in a larger and deeper pond. There was mud everywhere, and it was a fun effort. We work well together, we three brothers.
Lurking in the darkness of this deeper pond is Slider, the hungry turtle.
He’s snapped at dogs, and he’s got a thing for those baby shrimp you buy in a can. There used to be large goldfish in there. But he ate them all. The whole reason that the pond had to be re-dug was because eating fish that rivaled him in mass made him get huge.
Now he occupies an amount of space half the size of a college dorm room, including a large portion of garden and the entire pond. Attempts to introduce more fish to the pond result in a bigger and fatter turtle. If my mother approaches, he comes to her, expecting food. I’ve fed him enough that he comes over to me like a puppy for treats. Goldfish crackers, pieces of cheese, Ritz crackers — he’ll eat anything I give him. He looks at me with eagerness, circles his big sunning rock and thrusts his head out for morsels.
He’s growing all the time, it seems to me. I imagine that the neighborhood children near my parents’ house are going to start circulating rumors about that crazy turtle, which resembles some sort of scary croc sometimes.
“Did you know that the Elm Avenue Killer Turtle ate Timmy’s little brother? He went in after his Wiffle ball, and no one ever saw him again.”
“That scary Polish lady was out riding that turtle one day, and it had little Bobby’s half-eaten shoe coming out of its mouth!”
I can see it now.
New camera, someone else’s new computer.
I am at my family’s house in Hampden, in my old bedroom, on my Dad’s new computer. (I’m seriously stealing this frikkin monitor when I go back home.) After much drama, research and, well, bullshit, I have a new camera. It’s sitting here in the tiny (and kinda over-priced) case I bought for it, charging. Did three test black shots, and there was a weird spot in the first one. I almost pooped. But I took three. And the others were fine. Took two photos of the wife and put that baby on the charger like it told me to. It’s tiny. About the size of a deck of cards. I can actually carry it around! I didn’t check to make sure there’s no crap under the LCD, but that’s only happend to me twice (knock on wood), both with a Canon. The same one that died twice on me. Four of the same model (!). And the other dead pixel one and my favorite old A60 which up and died totally, else I’d probably still use it. With the luck I have with digital cameras, maybe I shouldn’t check? (Kidding.)
I am going to my brother’s house for Christmas Eve, and I’m stoked that I will have a camera. Enough eggnog in my baby brother, and I’d be a fool to miss it.
I should really post more candid photos of people on here and Flickr. But I don’t take a whole lot. I’m photo shy. I used to sneak photos of people and call it a pretentious name (look it up with the search function!).
I can’t sleep and didn’t eat much for dinner because I’m pooping myself with excitement over Christmas. I think being away from my apartment and job (and bike, poor thing) and seeing the presents I have for people is infecting me. I wanna wrap and give and take pictures of people opening the awesome shit I got for them.
I went shopping with my Mom yesterday like I used to before I started my VISTA year. People were nuts. You know, proof of the existence of God might lie in the way that more people don’t either die or kill each other over the stupid things people do when they are lurking and speeding their metal cages around with them.
You might think it’s weird to spend one’s day off with one’s mother, but I don’t give a shit if anyone thinks that. Hell, I like my parents a lot. I have fun with them. I feel badly for people who don’t enjoy their parents’ company, and that is at least half of the people I know.
Mrs. P. and I went shopping with my Dad tonight for a camera and other things. When I was in college, my Dad and I used to go shopping just days before Christmas and do all of our purchasing. I don’t think anyone really did online shopping back then. When I was living away, Mrs. P. got to come along, which was supposed to be understood as an honor. With the advent of online shopping and DOORBUSTERS, we’ve sorta fallen out of the tradition. I was glad to revive it tonight, quite unexpectedly.
I have a little more shopping to do on the Avenue tomorrow, a half a block away. And TONS of wrapping.
If you don’t hear from me before then, very happy holidays to you. And to everyone else I love or hate.
Ish Crissmus an awl, hon.
I don’t have any recent photos of Christmas because my camera pooped out. This is my Grandmama-in-law [who is one of the sweetest people I know] back in 2004.
I don’t get/have to travel for the holidays these days, which takes away some stress/excitement. I still eat too much and feel guilty about it though.
Not that I don’t do that a whole lot during normal times.
I did too much research and picked my new camera, which I’ll order later. Hopefully this one will come sans imaging processor errors.
Christmas feels weird these days. It’s been suggested that I need to have some kids to get back into it. Kids? I wonder how long it will take before we have a kid or two, as if I don’t get a say in the matter. Any children we have will probably show my green eyes and F’s big hair.
So cute that they might destroy the world. Or save it. Maybe even make a real, really, totally-for-real Santa Claus.
Holy shit.
I am pooped. And I haven’t wrapped my presents yet.
Pabst for Uncle Harry.
I toasted my recently passed-away Uncle Harry today at the Taste of Waverly. When he lived in Boston (while I was small), he would spend his vacation in Maryland with the family — to include playing in the pool and yard with the boys. He enjoyed a beer, some crabs, the cigarettes he used to smoke a long time ago and people he cared about nearby.
He was one of the sweetest people I have ever known.
He was a fan of Pabst. The smell of “regular” beer always makes me think of him. More so now.
[Taken with my new camera!]
New hip.
My grandmother got her hip replaced early yesterday morning. Going to bed after 1am and then getting up at 3:30am, spending a day at the hospital and then going to a public safety meeting make for a weird day. She is still at the hospital. They put her in intensive care because her heart rate dropped and because her kidneys are not doing well. She’ll pull through, though. Tough old Polack. (That’s a lot of OUGHs.)
I’m doing tasks for my up-coming job and going to meetings. This is good for my sanity, for easing into my job next month, and I don’t mind working for free at all. It’s all beneficial work to my favorite city, in the long run.
I am making a terrific stir-fry today, too. Which is only related in that the veggies are smelling up my apartment right now. Which is not so related.
I am tired.
Half of gun deaths are suicide?
Damn. It’s true. Trust me. I’m not making light of suicide. A few people in my family, closely related and otherwise, have chosen that path. But, well, so much for guns making us safe. (For the record, no; none of them used a gun.)
Grandmom got worse, a bit.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that my grandmother was staying with my parents in Hampden this spring. She went home to Canton three weeks ago. Everything was fine, and then she could not move yesterday. So my mother, her twin brother, her older brother and I spent yesterday at the hospital. We were there pretty much the whole day. They X-rayed my grandmother’s hip; couldn’t see anything. We sat around for an hour and half waiting for someone to get her and take her to get a CAT scan. Finally, the nurse got fed up and took her down herself. Nothing was broken. All day in the hospital for them to tell her to take Tylenol.
But what’s very weird to me is seeing her re-arranged rowhouse. While the couch, chairs and TV set have been replaced a few times, the arrangement of the furniture in my grandmother’s house has remained unchanged since I was born. Seriously. Even before my parents were married, according to photos I’ve seen. Now, the dining room table is gone, and there’s a bed there. Large wooden things have been moved around, and the plasma TV my least favorite uncle bought has been ignored in favor of a smaller TV closer to the bed. It looks like a different house, and it signals something sinister to me.
That my grandmother is on her way out, not a pleasant thought. Nor what that means for my mother, her brothers, the ton of grandkids and greatgrandkids. Not a pleasant thought at all. I don’t really know what/how I think or feel about the downwardly-sliding situation. I am really trying not to do either of them.
I do know that it’s frustration to be able to do nothing.
Fused finger suffering.
My youngest brother and I have the same birthmark on our shoulders: three moles in a diagonal line, perfectly spaced. Same arm. Same size. Same direction. Yesterday, I was watching “The Simpsons” with him at my parents house after having pizza with our grandmother. During a commercial, he said, “John, you know that feeling like you crushing your fingernail?”
“Yes! My @#$%ing finger has been hurting all day. Is it your index finger?”
“My right one.”
My left finger was hurting yesterday, like it got crushed in something. And, while I am clumsy, I know I didn’t crush it in anything. Both our fingers hurt, for no reason. His left, my right. So I have to call our middle brother this weekend to see if both of his hurt, in an act of brotherly symmetry. How creepy and…connecting that would be.
Frikkin cosmic.
30 year anniversary.
A strange submission for Photo Friday: Electricity, yes. But the kind of spark that can ignite something that lasts for thirty years, well, what better word than electric?! My parents will mark their 30th wedding anniversary on Wednesday. We celebrated in a big fashion three weeks ago with a surprise party thrown by my brothers, my sister-in-law, my wife and myself. A party that could not be mentioned here because, well, my mom reads my blog (Hi, Mom!). Thirty years is a long time. I did not exist then, and now look how much more awesome everything is because of, you know, me. The Mrs. and I have been together for 10 1/2 years, married for 4 1/2. It feels like forever, though, and I can’t imagine thirty.
Here’s to hoping they will celebrate with a bike ride together. Nothing beats the stress from everything that’s happened in our family in the last three weeks like some nice cycling. My father has some sweet new fenders I get to install for him today at his house. And a rack that I hope fits. My mother’s trike has custom fenders and a huge basket. Can you say PICNIC?
I feel like I should have something more to say about the thirty year mark. But I’m not even that old yet and can’t really understand it. Awe is about all I can muster.
Frustrating funeral.
What a wacky week! After Grandmom’s accident and her ensuing time at my parents’ house in Hampden and the surprise anniversary party for my parents two weeks ago and one of my brothers leaving for Warrant Officer Candidate school in the Bama, there is too much to tell. I can’t tell some, won’t tell a lot, and, you know, it’s not like blogs are always as…candid as they used to be, huh? Like I never was anyway.
My grandfather was buried Friday morning. Countless people that I care about came to the viewings and the funeral. It sounds stupid to say that you don’t know how lucky you can be until something bad happens and all that. But there you go. My family and myself — we have some very good friends, and we are very lucky in that department.
I didn’t get a chance to say “Goodbye” to my grandfather at the viewings Thursday, so I went up to the open coffin to do that Friday when we got there early. Most of the people there were family from his dead beast-bitch of a wife (sorry, Pop). As I was standing in front of the coffin with my wife, some fried-haired bitch of a woman came up and stood behind me. The room was practically empty. But she needed me to move. Right then. That’s the way things were with that damned family. People who were not a part of it but wanted a place in the will pushing the real family away. I don’t think that hag even knew who I was. She had a cross pendant dangling in her low-slung cleavage, too. I thought that was some kind of symbolic image, but I’m not really all that sure how exactly. I spent the rest of the events trying to catch her eye and give her a dirty look, but she’s not the eye-contact kind of person.
Pig’s family was and is just a bunch of tacky gimmees, nasty people with no tact, no manners, no decency. And, now, churchy types who don’t even know what religion they are even though they supposedly go to church a lot. Seriously.
Worse was the pastor. He was the same idiot who professed a deep understanding of people at Pig’s funeral in 2006 but then said oh-so-many untrue things about her and her life. I saw him at the hospital a few weeks ago. He made a point of telling Pop how busy he was but how he wanted to see him. My grandfather donated a travel-Eucharist set ($900 we were told by someone who really seemed interested in how much money Pop had) for folks who wanted to receive Communion but can’t make it to church, a nice thing to do, really. Did Pastor Dick bring it with him to Pop at the hospital? No. I guess he was too busy. Anyway, there Rev. Asshole was, making us all pray, holding hands. He held mine. Too tightly. For ten minutes. When I saw him leaving the potty Thursday, he didn’t say anything to me. He walked to his car at technically, Catholics.
He was mad that the funeral was at the parlor, rather than his hillbilly church. It was Pop’s wishes to not go to the church. Going from the parlor to the church to the grave for Pig was a circus, and he didn’t want to repeat it. So Fr. Jerkass took it out on us all with a long sermon about bullshit he didn’t understand. Apparently, Pig and Pop were “people magnets” because of their faith. I know better. Pig was a magnet because she put on a pity play and took people captive feeling sorry for her pathetic ass. Pop, well, because he was too nice to people he barely knew. By the end of the ceremony, I had twisted, torn and sweat on my double-programs until they were in two pieces. That this man spoke for any God and any faith made me want to cut the brakes in his land yacht (because you need an SUV with all the options to make housecalls, yes) and watch him fall into some kind of hellfire somewhere and probably get my 72 as a reward.
I took great pleasure in telling these hillbillies that I live in THE CITY. And I am not the only one who enjoyed their discomfort when some black members of my family and friends arrived. Stupid crackers.
I am probably a horrible person for writing all of this. I don’t think they have the internet, though, so I doubt they’ll ever find this. Plus, you know, I cover my tracks pretty well. And it’s all true anyway. I didn’t do any of this stuff.
After the ceremony at the grave, the priest was making his “I’m sorry” rounds on his quick escape to his huge SUV. (He was first to leave.) I turned my back to him in the hot sun and in my black suit when he headed in our direction.
Pop died.
I just — literally just — got a call from my mother. “Pop died.” My father’s father, who has been in general ill health for years, more so after his wife died two years ago, passed away. We don’t have details yet, not eve if it was just now, early this morning, last night, etc.
Wow.
I don’t know how I feel. My mother’s father died before my parents met. My father’s mother died when he was a boy. My mother’s mother is alive and funny, though in bad shape currently. So I’ve never really had a grandparent die before. Plus, if you remember when J died in January 2006, you know the situation is…complicated.
We expect some family battles. Likely a legal battle or two.
Anyway, Pop was, mentally, pretty sharp when I saw him last. We always talked about food a lot and traveling, since we both liked to eat, to cook, to go places. I realized, one of the times I saw him a few weeks ago in the hospital, that the way I move my hands is similar to his motions. We both grasp things like we are afraid to squeeze or crush them. Aside from being warm, the family trait among him, my father and I is that we have very strong hands for not being particularly muscular men. And, until I cut mine last week, occasionally long fingernails.
If you don’t hear from me much this week, you know why.
Sick grandmother.
My grandmother, pictured here on Easter this year, is at my parents’ house in Hampden. She fell in 2003 and required a metal rod be inserted into her leg; she had heart surgery then to boot. Before, actually. She fell last week and wrenched the same leg. While the X-rays came back negative for breaks, they think she either sprained or tore something. I am watching her today while my mother goes for a doctor’s appointment, then with my mother and uncle to take my grandmother to the hospital for her appointment to see the extent of the damage in her leg. I don’t like seeing such an independent woman laid up and unable to even walk. Or the look on my uncles’ and mothers’ faces when they realize that their mother is getting older. I am just hoping she will pull through and literally get back on her feet. No one ever thought she’d get around after her last accident. I did not believe she’s ever get upstairs in her Canton rowhouse again. But she did. She loved walking around in the grocery store with a cart. I hope she gets to do it again and soon.