If I could trade in a sibling like a car, she'd be the upgrade..

Penny Arcade

Woot!

   

Coming soon...

   

Monday, May 23, 2005

It's certainly Monday

I don't like Mondays.

I'm not aware of many that to, truth be told. It's not necessarily Monday's fault, really, being designated the sad bookend to a glorious 48 hours of not having to check email, answer questions, clock in clock out go to lunch try not to be late struggle to understand why you're here and not on a beach drinking Corona and winging your PDA at a dolphin's face. It's the Mondays of our lives that affirm that yes, we have in fact grown up, and yes...it sucks sometimes.

Such is life. Or so I'm told.

My weekend, as it were, was quite fun and relatively relaxing.

Noted as a "Taylor Weekend", whereas I have my daughter with me as per my Dad duty and joy, it started off well and ended well. Friday night we got home a bit late, had dinner and stayed up watching cartoons for a bit. Saturday morning, Sarah and I had to take the Tater to see her doctor. She's picked up some sort of rash that has a long medical term that I won't even begin to mangle. Taylor's always been a relatively relaxed child, thankfully, and going to the doctor's office is just another little adventure for her to experience. Now I'll admit, she does not having to get shots of any kind...and frankly, who does? But this trip was a smooth one. The doc checked out her rash, and put me at ease in explaining what it actually was, where it came from, and how to treat it.

Apparantly this type of rash...thing...is quite common with small children, and it turns out that it's actually a benign sort of virus that kids tend to pass around, much like chicken pox. The doctor explained the history of treatments which mainly involved digging out the little bumps with what equates to a melon baller/scalpel - right. No fun at all. Thankfully that's no longer a necessary treatment, as some wise folks have discovered that, if left alone for an undetermined amount of time, the rash...simply goes away.

It could take a couple weeks, months or even a year or two, but it does cure itself, more or less, and Taylor herself has told me that it doesn't hurt, itch or irritate...so, leave it alone we shall.


Part Duh...

So after the Adventures with Doctor, we headed off to my mom's beach house. I look forward to these visits for one simple reason: it's a quiet, beautifully relaxing beach. I go there and my brain, body and soul all heave a collective sigh of relaxation. It's also a great spot to let Taylor burn off some steam, and she's grown into quite the beach lover herself, just like her Pops.




A fun twist to this particular visit was not totally unexpected, but a bit uncertain. My grandmother (mom's mom) was staying the weekend with my mother, and well...ok, let me explain.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, my family started going off in different directions. I was the last one left in Spokanistan some years ago, and after finishing up school and accepting a job with MS, I headed off to Seattle. During my travels in life, I managed to all but ignore most of my extended family for some unknown reason. It wasn't out of animosity or bad feelings or anything, really. I was just 20-something and too wrapped up in my own self-serving life to write a letter to my grandparents now and then.

Sad, I know, but there's nothing I can do about it now. Thankfully, I've since done a little growing up between failing a marriage, raising a kid and struggling to just be a decent, productive human being, and I'm now beginning to truly understand and appreciate the importance of family. Family has so many meanings and values, different for all of us, and for me, it really just comes down to who I love and want to be near, protect, help, talk to...all of those things that we so often take for granted. We've never been your typical 4-bedroom, 2 bath, 2.5 children and a dog type of family...the Pates have never been "usual" in any regard, as far as I can tell. But y'know...that's ok with me. We do our best to love each other and watch our backs, and yes we DO fail from time to time, but I know that my brothers are out there and they can reach me...my sister is doing as well as she can...my mom is finally doing what she wants to do with her life...my daughter is safe, healthy and beautiful, and my own family - myself, Sarah, our stupid cats...we're doing ok too.

Anyway...little off track there.

In the ever-slight oddness of the Pate regime, my grandparents on both sides of the fence were the ringleaders. The Pate folks from the Texas side of life is a whooooole different story, for a different time. But my mom's parents - Michael and Elizabeth, who we (the kids) have always known as Lady and PapaBear - are unique in the grandest sense of the word.

Lady. She didn't want to be ear-marked as "old" by being called Mom or Mother, so....it was Lady. She wears a wig. She smokes menthol More cigarrettes. She used to drive a '69 VW Beetle like a bat out of hell. Again, there's a whole treasure chest of stories there, ones that I whole-heartedly intend to record here at some point in the future. Back to this past weekend...

I hadn't seen or spoken to Lady in roughly 7-8 years. I was in Texas when she fell ill and my mom, brothers and sister all caravaned to Seattle to take care of her. She had a stroke, has heart trouble...age is doing what it does best, it would seem. But, there she was, meeting her great-granddaughter for the first time.

Surreal doesn't even begin to describe it. All at once, I felt like I was 8 years old again, and my favorite grandma who I couldn't CALL Grandma was there, and I was about to start nosing around looking for her candy stash. And then, at the same time I felt very old, as the long years and missed correspondence caught up to me in one grand kick in the junk.
A very wide arc of emotion swept the stage there for about 20 minutes, as all these things started to sink in, and then wash away in a bit of relief. It was good to see her again, and it was wonderful to see her enjoy Taylor as much as she did. I'm very proud of my little progeny, and I was an extra-proud poppa when my grandmother took to her so well.
We spent the day enjoying the beach, and even the weather cooperated for most of the day. We all watched Taylor play, watched the crab boats come and go, watched the eagles fishing and screeching at each other. Even had a sea otter make an appearance, much to Taylor's excitement.

As it was, we had to leave a little earlier than expected. The weather started to change a bit, and since Lady's stroke, her energy and strength are not what they used to be, and she was quite tired and ready to crash out for a bit. Having a 5 year old running around can drain the strongest of wills regardless of who you are - trust me, I know...but I was really happy to see Lady in such a great mood, and to be honest, she seemed a lot healthier than I had expected. Her mood was great, and she sincerely seemed to enjoy our company. I was relieved and happy to finally have her meet Taylor and Sarah - sarah being extra-special since even my ex-wife never got to meet most of my family (see above for "many years of no family contact" stupidity).

Overall, we had a good time, and hell, it was only Saturday.

Sunday we headed off to the Seattle Aquarium which is always an adventure. Taylor and Sarah had a blast poking starfish and investigating sea urchins, and Dad hung back and took pictures. We toured the whole place and had a great time, ending the day by catching the Imax feature "Into the Deep", which is quite an experience, if not slightly painful. The Imax Dome is exactly as it sounds...a huge dome, and the movie itself is displayed across the entire front half of the dome roof. This is all cool and stuff, but the seats aren't exactly cineplex luxury, and you have to kind of crane your head back to catch everything on the screen.

Eh well. It was a fun little experience nonetheless, and we all had a good time tromping around. I'm sure there are pictures to be uploaded and such, but I'll let Sarah take care of that. Hell I may even see if I can convince her to share this whole blogging thing with me.

We shall see *evil chuckle*

Oh P.S.: Amidst all the Episode 3: Sith Ownz j00 hoopla, Kingdom of Heaven was a darn good movie for $7. Definitely worth a view on the big screen if you get the chance.

"I once fought for two days with an arrow in the testicles." ~ Godfrey

Yeah.

It's good. :)

Friday, May 20, 2005

Are we there yet, part 2.

Ok, so i feel compelled to write a little. It's Friday afternoon, I'm worn out from a long week, etc etc. And today, for some mystical or lack-of-sleep reason, I decided to check out this whole blog thing.
No no, this is not my first foray into the medium. I think I still have a LiveJournal account floating around somewhere...but I never liked the interface, the tools sucked..and yeah, well. It just didn't groove.

So here we are. But who are "we"?
As far as I can tell, I'm writing to myself, so that's how it's going to be for now. There's no manly translation for "diary" in the English language, so we'll call this a journal of sorts. Random musings from a very inconsistent writer. Don't expect any more than that.

So far, I must say I'm impressed with this whole Blogger.com animal. Fluid design. Lots of options and tools. A verifiable 20-piece bucket of awesome that's readily giving me the warm n' fuzzies. Such that I may actually update on a regular basis. Maybe.

Anyway, there are so many things in life that really, really need MY personal exposition. There just aren't enough opinion-givers in this world, so I'm going to take the challenge, stand the post and shovel my useless crap all over the interwebs [insert irony!]. I can promise musings on games, technology, and how much I deeply and whole-heartedly hate stupid people and the stupid things they do.

It'll probably involve swearing, so it should be pretty cool.

All told, though, if you happen across this little plot of ether-land, staked out solely by a mind that has too many things to say and no desire to really say them...then I apologize heartily.

I blame it entirely on tight pants.

//a.

Are we there yet?

A writer's get-out-of-laziness-free card. Welcome to blogging.

I hope this doesn't cause cancer or poor eyesight...or something.

//a.
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Location: Seattle, Washington, United States

I'm old. I'm only 30, but some days I feel *old*. I have a beautiful 6 year old daugher. A nice life. A loving family. A gorgeous girlfriend. Yep, pretty boring. But dammit I'm here to write about it and you can't stop me!

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