Tag Archives: Family

M Is for Her Many Falls on Her Head.

Posted on May 11, 2008 | 3 comments

Back in January, the whole Unfocused Family signed up for a family Tae Kwon Do class at the local YMCA on Saturday mornings. After a few weeks, it was clear Junior wasn’t ready for it (he had just turned four), and he and Mrs. Unfocused dropped the class.

Last weekend, after Unfocused Girl and I were working on her white belt form in the backyard, to prepare for her yellow belt test later this spring. Junior said he wanted to take the test, too, and after I explained that the test was part of the class, he said he was ready to try it again. The Mrs. and I were reasonably certain that he would forget all about it, but if he decided he wanted to try again, we’d be happy to start him back up in class.

On Friday night, Mrs. Unfocused and I went out for the first time in weeks months quite a while, to see Don Giovanni with some friends. It is possible that the Mrs. had a couple of drinks at dinner. It is also possible that she woke up with a bit of a hangover.

This made it extra special Saturday morning when Junior announced that he wanted to go back to Tae Kwon Do. I offered to take both kids and let the Mrs. stay home, but she insisted on coming along so I wouldn’t be outnumbered. Unfortunately, because we hadn’t planned on her or Junior going along, she didn’t have time for breakfast or even coffee.

It was the perfect class for them to start back up with, because instead of practicing kicks or punches, self-defense moves, or even forms, yesterday’s class was all about falling. Falling forward. Falling backward. Best of all, we worked on falling sideways, which involves throwing out your arm as you hit the ground and bouncing your head off of it.

But it worked: Junior paid attention, and participated in most of the class; he wants to go back next Saturday, which is great (especially considering his swimming lesson later in the morning consisted largely of holding onto the side of the pool and screaming “Mommy! Mommy! I want Mommy!” over and over again, but that’s another story).

So here’s to Mrs. Unfocused, and all the other mothers out there who hurl themselves head first into all sorts of things for the sake of their kids. Happy Mother’s Day!

P.S.: Just to avoid Mrs. Unfocused having to comment about this herself, I will disclose that the rumors are true: she did buy her own Mother’s Day present this year. But five years ago, I did buy her a red Kitchenaid stand mixer for Mother’s Day, and she’s still using it, so I figure I’m covered.

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Happy Passover!

Posted on April 19, 2008 | Leave a comment

When I was in high school, my friend Barry used to say that he was Jewish, but not very good at it. I’m half-Jewish, and not terribly good even at that. Add it to the list of things I’m not terribly good at.

We do have a seder almost every year for Passover, though, so the kids learn something about this part of their heritage (and because we enjoy it). Over the years we’ve cobbled together our own Haggadah from various sources, and we all have our designated lines. Mrs. Unfocused, Lutheran born and bred, gets into the spirit of it, even to the point of buying kosher-for-passover wine, which has come a long way from the sugary aged grape juice I remember tasting as a youngster. She also does a lot more of the preparation work than I do; she’s cooking now – I can smell the lamb shanks from the upstairs bathroom where I’m giving the kids a bath. A little over eight hours to sunset. Getting hungry.

I don’t have anything deep to say about Pesach; I’m neither religious nor spiritual. But I do think it’s important to pass on at least some of these traditions, if only to keep the history alive.

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Happy Easter from the Grey Goo.

Posted on March 23, 2008 | 3 comments

Happy Easter. We’ve been invaded by hostile, replicating nanobots, of supposedly “natural” origin. They struck the most vulnerable member of the family first, of course — Junior woke up yesterday with a fever and stuffy nose and a cough, then threw up as his body attempted to expel the nanites, to no avail.

One by one, our defenses appear to have failed. By last night, Unfocused Girl, Mrs. Unfocused, and I all had mild fevers, but our diagnostic equipment has been malfunctioning, and is therefore unreliable. Mrs. Unfocused had the highest fever of the three of us, but this morning Unfocused Girl woke up with a stuffy nose and cough. Between her and Junior, they are emitting enough grey goo to convert most of the eastern half of the continent.

The nanobots are using our bodies’ energy for their own replication, leaving us droopy and listless. The vaccination I received last fall appears to be useless against this strain of nanite.

Don’t let this happen to you. Avoid potential carriers of nanobot infection, and remember to wash your hands often — the soap won’t disable the nanites, but may make your skin slippery enough at the molecular level that they will be unable to find purchase.

At least we have lots of candy.

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Response to Weekend Assignment # 203: Road Trip!

Posted on February 16, 2008 | 4 comments

This week, work grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and gave me a good, hard shake. Now that the week is over and the long, President’s Day weekend has finally arrived, I’ve got documents to crunch through this weekend on three different cases before Tuesday. I had intended to take a couple of days off from blogging to work on the novel. Instead, I’ve written a whopping 704 words since Sunday night. Yippee. I’d like to get 2500 words written by Monday night, to take my word count up to 35K, but I think that’s unlikely.

What I need, of course, is a ROAD TRIP. The kind where you get in the car with your significant other or your buds, throw a backpack in the trunk, and just drive. These days, our road trips are a little more planning-intensive, requiring car seats, DVDs, CDs, laptops, chargers, toys, books, markers, etc., etc. They’re still great, just slightly less spontaneous.

This week, Karen over at Outpost Mavarin has given us the freedom to go on any road trip we want, so long as it’s a driving trip. If we could take the time, where would I drag my Unfocused Family? I’m assuming that this is supposed to be a three-day weekend kind of trip, not a two-week, Brady Bunch-style, driving trip to the Grand Canyon. But that still leaves a lot of territory to potentially cover. Milwaukee? Great museums and public garden, I love the brewery tours, and it is home to my favorite bar in the entire world. Cleveland? I’ve never been to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so that might be fun, and educational for the kids. St. Louis? I guess we could see the Gateway Arch, but I used to have a number of cases in and around St. Louis, and I never really warmed up to the town. Bad memories, I guess. Springfield? Detroit?

Any of those would be real possibilities, but if you handed me a three-day pass for the trip, I’d really like to take the Unfocused Family to Louisville, Kentucky. Shortly after we graduated from college, Mrs. Unfocused (then the Unfocused Girlfriend) and I took a trip to Louisville for a few days. We were going through a bit of a rough patch, as unemployed recent college grads can, and decided that a weekend away together was what we needed. Unfortunately, neither of us knew how to drive, so it had to be somewhere we could get to relatively quickly by train or bus (since we also did not have enough money for plane tickets).

We worked off of an old copy of Let’s Go America, and finally decided on Louisville. We took an overnight Greyhound bus (an experience in itself, which I would not care to repeat), and spent a wonderful few days seeing Louisville on foot and by bus.  If were to go back, this time with our own car and the kids, I’m not sure what we would do differently.  We would take them to Churchill Downs, and Colonel Sanders’s grave, and whatever else there is to see, like this, but best of all would be the chance for Mrs. Unfocused and me to revisit the place where, 17 years ago, we decided we had to make things work, and set the foundation our marriage four years later.  And to get another Churchill Downs Kentucky Derby mint julep glass to replace the one Unfocused Junior broke a couple of years ago.

That’s enough lollygagging for me.  I’ve got work to do, the Family Tae Kwon Do class (if no one’s sick this week) and then maybe a little time for Meet the Larssons. Have a good, long weekend, and if you haven’t yet, don’t forget to check out the February Blog Chain.

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On Christmas: in which I completely geek out

Posted on December 25, 2007 | Leave a comment

Day four of not going into the office. You’d think I’d be more rested.

Mrs. Unfocused and I were up until 2:45am last night, wrapping and tagging presents for the kids, and Princess was up at 7. It was all worth it, though, watching their happy faces as they opened their presents. Princess, two months shy of turning 7, opened her gifts in approximately 3.4 seconds, a new record. Junior is still young enough to want to play with his presents as he opens them, and the second package he opened was the Geotrax train set he has been lusting after for months. He liked his other presents, but the train set was really all that mattered, and you could tell that even when he was opening another present that he liked, he still wanted to go back to the train set.

I’m sure he’ll become interested in the bike in the spring.

The Mrs. even liked her gifts, which I always worry about. This year, I had her with the new L.L. Bean slippers — everything else was gravy.

As for me, in addition to several surprises, Santa (or, more precisely, Mrs. Claus) brought me exactly what I asked for: the new Blade Runner Four Disc Collector’s Edition DVD package, with the original 1982 U.S. theatrical release, the 1982 international theatrical release, the 1992 director’s cut, and the 2007 “Final Cut.” I’m in nerdboy heaven, and will be scheduling a screening soon.

I can’t have the Blade Runner screening until after we have the official first viewing for the kids of Star Wars, which we may do tomorrow. Not the new stuff – Episode Four, Star Wars 77, A New Hope, the original. At least, as close to the original as Lucas will let us get on DVD. Check out the reviews of the various DVD versions of the original Star Wars trilogy on Amazon.com to see what the complaints are all about (essentially, the remastered versions have new material added, and the “original” version available is not remastered or even from a particularly good print) and you’ll see the contrast with the new Blade Runner collector’s edition.

Princess asked me if she could watch Blade Runner. She’s a good kid, but I don’t think I’d be doing her any favors by exposing her to Philip K. Dick at this tender age, even filtered by Ridley Scott. I told her that she had to wait until she was at least 7.

I don’t mean to imply that the whole day was about presents. We had a great afternoon and evening with family, a wonderful Christmas dinner, and watched a couple of classic Bugs Bunny cartoons for the edification of the children. Very low pressure and nice. Also, did I mention the new Blade Runner set I received?

I hope your Christmas was as nice as ours, whether you celebrate it or are simply an innocent bystander, that the coming year brings peace and prosperity to you and your family and, most importantly, that you too receive the Blade Runner Four Disc Collector’s Edition.

Merry Christmas.

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On Holidays: in which the Christmas plague visits our home

Posted on December 22, 2007 | Leave a comment

From The Parents’ Dictionary:

The Christmas Plague: any of the many viruses or bacteria that infect a household right before Christmas. See also: Hanukkah Hack, Valentine’s Day Virus, Independence Day Illness, etc.

Mrs. Unfocused, who is singing a tricky piece in church tomorrow, has taken a vow of silence for the day — last night, her speaking voice started sounding rough. This morning, it hardly sounded at all. She got through her rehearsal, but wants to conserve what she has until the concert is over.

Junior woke up this morning with a truly horrendous sounding cough. It isn’t croup, yet, but I have a feeling that he and I may be taking a trip to the emergency room tonight. He’s just about four years old, so croup is still something to worry about for another year or so. I think that the Unfocused Princess stopped getting it once she turned five.

The Princess and I are fine. But for how long? (Key the creepy music)

I still have hope that everyone will feel better by Christmas Eve. Last year at Christmas, the Mrs. was still recovering from a godawful sinus infection/flu/pneumonia that hung on for a couple of months, including two rounds of antibiotics. Two years ago, the Princess woke up at 4am on Christmas Eve day with a raging ear infection — she and I spent the morning at the Children’s Memorial Hospital urgent care clinic. Three years ago — who can remember three years ago? Probably the fish had the sniffles.

I did manage to write the introduction to the professional article I’m working on. It’s one of the two writing projects I have committed myself to completing before NaNoWriMo starts on November 1 (and yes, one of these days I’ll post without referring to NaNo), and it is probably the easier of the two, since it’s based on a speech I gave over the summer on a subject I know pretty well. I have most of the research done and outlined in my speech materials, so writing the article is mostly filling in around the dry case descriptions in my outline (and livening up the descriptions). I got the writing done by getting up a little before anyone else did, and then by ignoring the kids while they made a mess in the back room while the Mrs. was at rehearsal (easier said than done).

Time to make some lunch for the Princess and the Plague victims. Here’s hoping the Christmas Plague passes over your house this year.

Update at 2:05pm:

Perhaps I spoke too soon. My nose has started to clog, and I’ve got a funny tickle at the back of my throat …

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