wondering

awake for some ridiculous reason. daughter asleep. can hear her steady, snotty breathing. can see her soft, round baby's face in the dim light. her rosebud mouth. 

i danced with her this morning to a happy mozart concerto for piano and violin. a tiny waltz in our sunny, white kitchen. she seemed fascinated by my holding her arm outstretched to "lead" her. (she was in my arms, three feet off the ground.)

this girl, she's still my baby, even though she's already three. i wondered, as we stepped in three-quarter time, how quickly it would be before i'd be dancing her after her wedding. i hope it won't be too soon. 

i am blessed. 

hoop-dee-doo

Gary Browne (14) had 18 points and 8 rebounds on Saturday.

if you look back at my posts over the years, you'll see i have a great love for my west virginia mountaineers football team. the basketball team? well, it's tough being the second banana.

this year's team, though, after a snake-bit, bad chemistry couple of years has a young core that has bought into coach bob huggins' team-first philosophy of effort and tough defense. he likes to say that while he doesn't have the best starting five in the nation, he probably has the best 11 or 12.

that's the kind of faith in a team that can take you places. he really seems to have made these kids see that they're playing for the state — and they take it as a great responsibility.

monday marked the start of a big week for the team. the previous saturday, they got run out of the gym at iowa state and were reeling after their third loss in four games. their last six games didn't hold a lot of promise to cement what earlier in the season appeared to be a lock for an ncaa tournament bid.



but on monday, in front of a national television audience, wvu shocked no. 8 kansas with a spectacular last-second drive to the basket for a big home win. and today, we got a huge boost on the road over no. 22 oklahoma state.

we'd been making a bad habit out of losing to ranked teams this season. maybe they were reading their press clippings or maybe the grind of a 30-game schedule was taking its toll on the group of underclassmen that comprises the bulk of the team.

while i'd like to hope they've turned that trend around, the next two teams have beaten us handily and the teams after that will now have revenge on their minds.

i will say, though, that i do like the mindset coach huggs has imparted to his charges. when the team breaks from huddles, they collectively bark, "national champions!" that's a battle cry and a mission statement and a collective vision. these kids are already accomplished athletes; if they get to believing in themselves, they just might be dangerous.

long day

oh, crap. big-ass cloud approaching beckley.

when i went to bed last night, i knew that today i was definitely going to take the cat to the vet and take the boy to get a haircut with me. as far as i knew, the rest was going to be revealed as the day unfolded.

the sun was still rising when i received a text that the press had another shutdown that delayed publication. then i had a phone call and hang-up from dad, who was on the way home from a trip overseas and was expected to return on an early morning flight. he didn't respond to a text checking if everything was ok. then i got another text that a good friend was in the hospital with a heart ailment and that i should go check on him. luckily, i got to grab two more hours of sleep. (the chilling temperatures conspired to give me a long week of late work nights.)

at some point during breakfast, my sister texted that weather had delayed mom and dad's flight in atlanta. i volunteered to shovel their driveway after remembering there had been no one in beckley when almost two feet of snow had fallen.

how we communicate.

so the cat, luckily, didn't have to have her hindquarters shaved to get rid of the sad, thick mats in her fur. the general anesthetic they dosed her with sedated her enough that the staff was able to comb out the dense conglomerations that had developed from a bad combination of seasonal shedding and her immense girth.

afterward, i snarfed down lunch of sardines and saltines before taking the boy with me to my hair guy. i may have taken a nap while he was in the chair, so he must have entertained mr. ted and behaved himself for the cut. we bought a small bag of popcorn up the street at the peanut shop and headed home afterward.

our return afforded kris the chance to do an emergency pantry restock rather than a full-on grocery run — just after a prediction of an 5 additional inches of snow led to the expected panic buying at the local kroger store. "this is hell," she texted me. she arrived home without milk for the baby or any fresh vegetables.

at this point, i grabbed some water, a banana and some fruit bars just in case for the trip to mom and dad's. the roads were clear and i watched the temps drop from a balmy 24 degrees in charley west to about 17 in beckley (which was up from subzero temps the night before).

handiwork.

luckily, a neighbor had done them the kindness of shoveling  the initial snow dump from earlier in the week, so all i had to do was clean maybe 4 inches of unpacked powder behind mom's car and clean off the steps. (dad had driven the denali over his side of the driveway, so i wasn't going to scrape that stuff off.) i unloaded the rest of their luggage, picked up some groceries for mom and a couple of lottery tickets for dad before heading home.

found baby some milk at the k.c. kroger store and kris asked for baby carrots. i grabbed my friend a get well card and headed for the hospital. while i had a room number for the new ward, the lobby signage didn't help at all in indicating where i might go to find him. after about 20 minutes wandering about and visiting two different nurses stations in two different hospital wings, i learned he'd been discharged a few hours before. oh well. at least he was well enough to go home.

kris bought sushi for supper. i cracked open a bottle of screw-top riesling and ate by candlelight. i noshed on a few more potato chips i'd liberated from mom and dad's, in addition to butter cookies i'd nicked from them, too, and a handful of almonds and french burnt peanuts i'd bought for kris at the peanut shop.

i'm ready for bed now.

stay on target

today we worked with one copy editor in newsroom and five working away the office as snow steadily fell on the city.

it was very weird working kind of in a void where no one actually spoke to each other except through facebook and google doc messages.

all i could think of was the chaotic radio chatter during the rebel attack on the death star in star wars episode 4 — lots of disjointed communications from all over as we hurtled toward an early deadline.

drive back home.

that said, it was a pretty snow. there were no monstrous gusts of giant flakes or blinding whiteouts — just a delicate, day-long downpour of dry powder in sub-freezing temps that slowly filled the streets and blew into drifts in undisturbed corners. it was the first "major" snow of the season.

in addition to heather, the copy editor, there were only two reporters, the lifestyles editor plus brad, the publisher, and me in the office, and then just heather, brad and me after 5 or so.

i waited for papers just in case there were any corrections needed, but we were good. the drive home was uneventful, though our street had yet to be plowed. hopefully, we'll get a pass in the morning before i have to head back out.

geek milestone

angels

scary thing.

you ever have those days when it seems like an insult is piled atop an indignity heaped upon an injustice and you just want to tell your tormentors to go screw themselves?

after a rough start to the workweek, followed by public gibes and a veiled bit of snark on social media, i had the safety off and was ready to unload at the next provocation.

and then i get a nice, "virtual pat on the back" from a friend for something i wrote that just makes my day. seriously, it wiped the slate clean of all the negativity building up and made me feel ... well, better.

this just felt like one of those days where you are especially glad for the people the Lord places in your path. (and, yeah, i write that having written two kinds of vulgarity in my first two sentences. i hope my gratitude cancels them out.) so, thank you, Lord.

rock star dad

i still make interesting subject matter to the baby. technically, not a bad shot.

remembering to relish these days when i'm still a rock star in my children's eyes.

most ever day

boy with young lego obi-wan on his pirate speeder.

morning didn't start off well. was helping mom and dad by moving their car out of long-term airport parking and over to my sister's, but couldn't find the ticket in the visor where dad said it was. luckily, kris found it in the glove compartment.

once home, kris make a big pot of coffee (two cups for me), i got a load of laundry started, and had the babies clean up their toys from the living room while i uploaded a couple of stories to the website. we had to get this out of the way because the boy and i had a project ahead of us: the building of the "wugga ship." 

(as the boy has grown more and more drawn into the "star wars" universe — without having yet watched a movie — he's endeavored to learn as much as he can about its characters, props and settings. he knows darth vader, luke skywalker, r2d2, yoda and the rest. but while he knows who yoda is and knows his name, he continues to call him "wugga," which is what he called the wee jedi master even after he first learned his name. it's weird.)

anyway, yoda was featured on the box for a lego star wars hh-87 starhopper. just judging by the size of the box for a single item was enough to me know we were in for more than just a half-hour job. (discovering upon closer inspection that it was designed for 8-14-year-olds gave me pause. i see now that it also contained more than 360 pieces. what were we thinking when we bought this? that it was marked for clearance, that's what we were thinking.) anyway, i told the boy we'd have to set aside a morning for it when we'd be fresh. kris thought it would take more than a day.

he put on all the stickers. (daddy "adjusted.")

well, it was nearly noon by the time we'd finished our morning chores, but we were raring to go. we started right away with a big mistake when daddy opened all three bags that the box contained and dumped their entire contents into a storage tub. the idea was that we'd be less apt to lose pieces that way, but upon looking at the instructions, each bag had its own set of instructions for each section of the ship and its accoutrement. as a result of this tactical error, we had to make sometimes a half-dozen sweeps through the container to find pieces for each step — and there were about 50 steps. looking back, this probably cost us about half an hour total.

but we sallied forth. we knew we had a task ahead of us and the boy recognized it was imperative to be patient, listen to daddy, and follow the instructions. that first hour or so, baby went with mama to the grocery store, which gave us a great start for the base. the boy was focused and excited each step of the way; every time a section was completed, we'd admire it for a moment before pressing on. 

most of the time, he'd want to make the effort to find pieces on his own before asking for help; most times he'd get things right. i just made sure he followed the steps without getting ahead of himself, that he had the right pieces for the job and that he used his eyes to correlate what he was doing with what he was seeing in the manual.

despite mama's suggestion to eat, we skipped lunch. about two hours in, i caught him rubbing his eyes a bit and displaying the slightest testiness and impatience. i proposed we take a little break for some nourishment; he insisted on doing one more step, since it looked simple. and it was.

as he noshed on a hard-boiled egg and a leftover breadstick from his fancy restaurant dinner last night, i checked our homework. i caught a mistake on the completed right stabilizer (it was folding in the wrong direction) and reversed the location of the hinge, along with ensuring the corresponding color blocks were corrected. with the coffee all gone, kris made me some mint tea.

that he agreed at all that he could use a break felt like quite the advancement in his thinking. i half-expected that he'd stubbornly want to bull on through, with the result being a total meltdown and abandonment of the project. (maybe i was basing this on his mercurial, low-blood-sugar-susceptible, 3-year-old line of thinking, but i'm still getting to learn the lay of the land in 5-year-old-dom — and maybe he is, too.) needless to say, his mother and i were quietly pleased and impressed with his progress.

refreshed and re-invigorated, we charged through the final hour, as it was just the completion of a wing, then a repeat of all the other steps to complete the other side of the ship. the only snag was discovering two missing pieces were actually just mis-colored, as mama suggested and which she then quickly found.

completed lego star wars hh-87 starhopper

and there we had it: the wugga ship.

toy story 48-piece puzzle. nice job.

meantime, we had to work hard to keep the baby from making off with pieces or picking up/breaking assembled sections. this really bummed her out. but mama being mama, she got her daughter started on the biggest puzzle she'd ever attempted: a 48-piece jigsaw. and she'd made quite a bit of headway before calling for reinforcements. ("mommy, can you please hep me?") really, all she needed was some hand-holding and reassurance; in the end she got it done mostly on her own.

some days, progress comes agonizingly slow, with milestones almost unnoticeable and seemingly so spread apart that you don't even know they're leading somewhere. and the days of two steps forward, one step back are still fairly fresh in my mind.

but today, this section all came together: listening — both to me and his own body; following instructions; patience — with me, himself and his sister; pride — and humility — in his accomplishments; and gratitude. seriously — between yesterday and today, i don't think i can thank the Lord enough for bringing him — and us — so far. amen and amen.

fancy restaurant

olive garden kids meal

kris wanted to do a family outing tonight, but wasn't sure what to do. she'd thought of bowling and i thought of inner-tubing near flat top. but not long after, the boy, who i don't think was aware of his mama's desire, said, apropos of nothing, "i want to go to a fancy restaurant."

kris and i kind of rolled our eyes and laughed and tousled his dark head of hair; this struck us as a strange request. i think he got a little embarrassed and went to his room to play.

i was reading some sports and just mulling his request over and over in my head. i wonder what he had in mind? i envisioned white tablecloths, candles and smartly dressed waiters. or laury's, the fanciest restaurant in town, where i've never been in my nearly 20 years of living here and where i'd probably never be able to go to.

i repeated it aloud. "fancy restaurant." i asked kris what she thought he considered "fancy." so she called him back to the living room and asked what he thought a fancy restaurant was.

this really made him embarrassed and he hid under the table, but kris persisted. "what makes a restaurant fancy?"

"candles," said the voice under the tablecloth.

kris and i were intrigued. we could hear him fidgeting. "and white blankets on the tables," he said as he shot out and back to his bedroom.

tablecloths. that is fancy.

there are couple of next-tier fancy restaurants in town where we haven't been in a while. tidewater immediately came to mind. soho's. (just now thinking — bridge road bistro. joe fazio's. and a slew of newish joints, noah's and su-tei among them, that i'd like to take kris to.)

while there was no money in the budget for something crazy like those places — especially for two diners who pretty much only eat chicken fingers, burgers and lunch meat — we did have a gift card to olive garden that i'd won as a door prize. fifteen bucks. that would cover the kids' food. while we weren't sure if it would pass his muster, we figured, why not?

so we told the kids we were going to a fancy pasta restaurant and the boy was psyched. he even dressed himself: a blue turtleneck with a red vest. mama picked him out a pair of khaki cargo pants to complete the ensemble. he looked sharp; i took off my polar fleece and put on a ribbed knit sweater.

we take for granted the franchise sit-down restaurant as "not real food" with cookie-cutter decor of simulated authentic ambiance, but to a preschooler who's been to fast-food joints up and down i-95, cathedral ceilings with fake timbers, wine glass racks and a fireplace are the earmarks of a fancy restaurant. (yeah, and maybe to his daddy, too.) there were no candles or tablecloths, but this seemed to suit him just fine.

the boy and his sister were jazzed. a server came and took our orders. pasta, chicken fingers and ... french fries for the kids. pasta with butter for the girl; tomato sauce for the boy. mama ordered a sample platter of lasagne, fettucine alfredo and chicken parmesan. daddy ordered the shrimp and chicken carbonara. we both ordered the 9-oz mini carafes of reds — pinot noir for her, chianti for me. we got salads and breadsticks.

dessert

the meals were satisfying. i liked how there was enough shrimp and chicken to pair up with forkfuls of noodles. kris promised not to complain when the infusion of gluten, sugars and alcohol racks her body tomorrow. i helped the boy work his fork with the spaghetti noodles and showed him how to use his knife to help scoop it on. we split two desserts: chocolate mousse cake and black tie mousse cake.

what was more satisfying was how the kids not just kept it together, but were patient — keeping themselves occupied with the activity kits they were handed — and well-behaved throughout. there was little fidgeting or crawling around; and they kept this up for the better part of two hours. they ate most of their food — both chowed down on the chicken fingers, but the boy favored the fries while the girl scarfed up the pasta.

it was either during the meal or on the drive home that we determined what a restaurant must require to be fancy: a server. ours was exemplary — solicitous without being obsequious and sassy without being snarky; he cared just enough. our guy earned his tip and then some.

while we didn't ask him if the restaurant was fancy enough for him, he did say that next time he thought we should go someplace fancier. (not that he was ungrateful; he gave me a kiss toward the end of dinner, thanking me for taking him to the fancy pasta restaurant. that boy. i'm grateful for that part of him.)

color commentary

self-portrait. 25 jan 2015

a school snack experiment — pepperidge farm goldfish and marshmallows — reveals a continued susceptibility to dye. (annatto in the crackers and blue no. 1 in the marshmallows.)

while he's not fly-off-the-handle violent, he is less able to contain, for want of a better word, his id, or darker impulses. he's a little bit more antagonistic and mean. and spastic. wow. little if any impulse control.

it's been almost three days now; it might be finally cycling out of his system. maybe another try in six months. or a year. hoping to get the boy back soon.