Rules of Life Number 11

Living well really is the best revenge. Being miserable because of a bad or former relationship just might mean that the other person was right about you.

Rules of Life Number 10

If you woke up breathing, contgratulations!!! You have another chance!

Childhood's End?

Sitting around the house last night having a roundtable discussion about nothing in particular. My Senior son, who basically finished High School this week (He graduates this weekend), started a statement with, "While I am laying around this summer..." Both his mother and I and our Housemate, Ms. W, immediately pounced on that! Me: "Your time for sitting around is at an end..." The Queen: "You're gonna go..." Ms. W: "and get..." All three of us, practically in unison: "A JOB!!" I thought he saw the light... "I have to be able to get to a job....No car." But no...(Sigh) At any rate, the Queen and I, "You get the job, We'll make sure you get there. One way or another, rest assured." I don't think he has quite realized that it is time to grow up...It CAN be a shock. It wasn't for me, I had moved out my parents house at about the age of fifteen (by mutual agreement). I already was working and had been for a couple of years. But I remember some of the kids I went to school with...After Graduation it was such a shock for them (and I always wondered why) to realize it was time to become a productive member of society(or for those that could go to college) and right out of High School we don't all start with CEO wages. Things haven't changed much, except kids are much fussier about what kind of work they are willing to do. If you ain't college bound, it's time to get a job. It will not be your dream job. Probably won't even be close. Now in my (Step) son's case - he has the ambition to go to college (I think) - Unfortunately he only started really paying attention to the important stuff for the college bound High School student in about the last year and a half. Also unfortunately, he did not change his study habits and his grades were not what they could have been. Going back a few months... We sent off three applications to three colleges in Texas. Mostly to make a point (as far as I was concerned anyway) as I didn't think his GPA would support getting into these schools. And yes, I told him so. I was summarily informed that schools didn't look at your GPA so hard any more but took that in combination with other things. Volunteer work, extracurricular activities, Test scores, etc in addition to the GPA. I did my best at that time to hold a straight face as I wrote the checks. Out of the three schools he applied to, one came back and offered him a slot, but he would basically be on probation, until such time as his GPA was at a suitable level or...he washed out. This is known as working with the student. And it only works if the student is willing to be worked with. He was highly insulted and has pretty much let that go as far as I can tell. But what did he expect? He managed to squeak by in school with minimal effort (mostly) and now he will have to pay the price. He also informed us that his ultimate college choice was a school that costs about $25K a semester... I tried to hold a straight face and I have to admit I failed miserably. I laughed out loud. He had a plan, he told me... More to come...

Rules of Life Number 9

Never pass up an opportunity to Pee.

Time To Put Away Childish Things?

So last Wednesday I made the second round trip in a week to the beautiful metropolis of Nacogdoches, Texas. The Oldest town in Texas. The first was to pick daughter number 2 up so she could lay claim to her stuff that was still left at the house. She is finally moving out of the dorm (Yay!) and into an apartment. By the time I got home on Tuesday evening from work. She had gone through and packed (or thrown away a lot of stuff. A LOT OF....STUFF) So I started looking at all of this supposed trash and WHOA! There were things in here that she LOVED...Stuffed animals, porcelain dolls, action figures, posters, School awards and such. Did she really mean to throw away all of these things?, I asked. "Well, Mom said she didn't want to store any of it, when I told her I was getting an apartment in Nac," she replied. Think it's time to ask again, kiddo, I thought. "Is it really time (already) to put away childish things?" I asked. "Do you really want to shed ALL of this stuff?" She looked at me, her eyes looking like they were about to well up, "But Mom said(!)" This led to a long (for us) wonderful discussion about The Time For Putting Away Childish Things...Time enough for that later. Her time will come but it was not that day. For God's sake I have about five thousand dollars worth of Legos stored in the garage, surely we can make room in there for a few boxes of her stuff. We talked about a few other things there in the driveway... How 20 somethings like her have the world by the ass. ...And how certain 40 somethings are all but washed up at this point. (Not! But it made her laugh and that was the point.) ...And the transient lifestyle she plans to have after graduation and how she will be unable to afford to move all this crap around with her. Again NOT this day... I don't think she'll be back to live with us unless circumstances dictate otherwise. All in all it was one of the most rewarding conversations I've had with number 2 daughter in quite a while. Now I've gotta work on the other two... t...

Feels Like Summer Has Arrived in Houston

89F outside right now! Wow! Just another beautiful day in Paradise... Supposed to be in the mid 90s over the weekend. I was talking to this guy from St. Louis (Yes, that ST. Louis in Missouri) outside yesterday. He was sweating...And asking if it was always this Hot. Had to laugh...Dude, it ain't even Hot yet! Him: What?!? Me: Oh no...Wait til August-September. Then it'll be really HOT. Him: What have I done?!?! Me: Laughs Harder Did you know: When you are being recruited by various Fortune 500 Companies to re-locate to Houston - they hand you this package of all the good shit about Houston. One of the good things about Houston is supposed to be the weather. This package claims the average temperature in the Houston area is 74.5 F. And it is...If you average daily temperatures for an entire year! Winter included. What it doesn't tell you is...We are capable of triple digit temps for 4 months in a row! Sometimes September is the Hottest month of the year!

Rules of Life Number 8

Learn to pick your battles; ask yourself, 'Will this matter one year from now? How about a month? A week? A day?' And then act accordingly!

Rules of Life Number 7

If he / she says that you are too good for him /her -- BELIEVE IT

How Men and Women Are Different Department

Q: Why do men's hearts beat quicker, go weak in the knees, get dry throats and think irrationally when a woman wears leather clothing? A: BECAUSE SHE SMELLS LIKE A NEW TRUCK ! ! ! Sent to me by friend Jill t...

Rules of Life Number 6

The only really good advise that your mother ever gave you was, "Go! You might meetsomebody!"

You need baby clothes?

We got'cha baby clothes.... Took this a couple of weekends ago...down the street from my house. Somebaody had alot of baby stuff. t...

Went to my daughter's 21st birthday party last night

What a lady her mother and I raised (Along with a bunch of other folks)! And it shows. Man oh man do I feel old. Can't seem to hang with the 20 somethings anymore. Guess it's more of a "I don't really want to," kind of a thing. Nice party though. My baby's all grown up. When I picture the princess in my mind's eye, she's still at that magical time between 3 and 10. When you as a parent can do no wrong. (Betcha are, anyway) I think that's the age I'll always see her as... peace out, t...

Rules of Life Number 5

When you make a mistake, make amends immediately. It's easier to eat crow while it's still warm. Note the emphasis on the word "immediately"

Rules of Life Number 4

Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

To Quote Bruce Sterling's Blog, "We're all Rushdie Now"

I never thought I'd see the day (I don't know why) that I would something in common with Salman Rushdie, but he does have a point here. I, for one think the poles of government and religion are getting too close together. We need to push 'em back apart. Dubya scares me with all his "God is on our side" talk. It is one thing to be a religious person and be public about it and quite another to be the president of the greatest democracy in the world. Whatever happened to secular government? You cannot get elected without declaring your religious beliefs right now. Hanging it out there for all to see. Anyway, here's the text of the article from the Calcutta Telegraph freely stolen from Bruce Sterling's Blog. Rushdie hits it on the head imho! The Telegraph (Calcutta) THE TROUBLE WITH RELIGION Wherever religions get into society’s driving seat, tyranny results by Salman Rushdie Exception to European secularism I never thought of myself as a writer about religion until a religion came after me. Religion was a part of my subject, of course -- for a novelist from the Indian subcontinent, how could it not have been? But in my opinion I also had many other, larger, tastier fish to fry. Nevertheless, when the attack came, I had to confront what was confronting me, and to decide what I wanted to stand up for in the face of what so vociferously, repressively and violently stood against me. Now, 16 years later, religion is coming after us all and, even though most of us probably feel, as I once did, that we have other, more important concerns, we are all going to have to confront the challenge. If we fail, this particular fish may end up frying us. For those of us who grew up in India in the aftermath of the Partition riots of 1946-1947, following the creation of the independent states of India and Pakistan, the shadow of that slaughter has remained as a dreadful warning of what men will do in the name of God. And there have been too many recurrences of such violence in India -- in Meerut, in Assam and most recently in Gujarat. European history, too, is littered with proofs of the dangers of politicized religion: the French Wars of Religion, the bitter Irish troubles, the "Catholic nationalism" of the Spanish dictator Franco and the rival armies in the English Civil War going into battle, both singing the same hymns. People have always turned to religion for the answers to the two great questions of life: Where did we come from? and how shall we live? But on the question of origins, all religions are simply wrong. The universe wasn't created in six days by a superforce that rested on the seventh. Nor was it churned into being by a sky god with a giant churn. And on the social question, the simple truth is that, wherever religions get into society's driving seat, tyranny results. The Inquisition results, or the taliban. And yet religions continue to insist that they provide special access to ethical truths, and consequently deserve special treatment and protection. And they continue to emerge from the world of private life -- where they belong, like so many other things that are acceptable when done in private between consenting adults but unacceptable in the town square -- and to bid for power. The emergence of radical Islam needs no redescription here, but the resurgence of faith is a larger subject than that. In today's United States, it's possible for almost anyone -- women, gays, African-Americans, Jews -- to run for, and be elected to, high office. But a professed atheist wouldn't stand a popcorn's chance in Hell. Hence the increasingly sanctimonious quality of so much American political discourse: the current president, according to Bob Woodward, sees himself as a "messenger" doing "the Lord's will", and "moral values" has become a code phrase for old-fashioned, anti-gay, anti-abortion bigotry. The defeated Democrats also seem to be scurrying toward this kind of low ground, perhaps despairing of ever winning an election any other way. According to Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission, "The clash between those who believe and those who don't believe will be a dominant aspect of relations between the US and Europe in the coming years." In Europe the bombing of a railway station in Madrid and the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh are being seen as warnings that the secular principles that underlie any humanist democracy need to be defended and reinforced. Even before these atrocities occurred, the French decision to ban religious attire such as Islamic headscarves had the support of the entire political spectrum. Islamist demands for segregated classes and prayer breaks were also rejected. Few Europeans today call themselves religious -- only 21 per cent, according to a recent European Values Study, as opposed to 59 per cent of Americans, according to the Pew Forum. In Europe the Enlightenment represented an escape from the power of religion to place limiting points on thought, while in America it represented an escape into the religious freedom of the New World -- a move toward faith, rather than away from it. Many Europeans now view the American combination of religion and nationalism as frightening. The exception to European secularism can be found in Britain, or at least in the government of the devoutly Christian, increasingly authoritarian Tony Blair, which is now trying to steamroller Parliament into passing a law against "incitement to religious hatred" in a cynical vote-getting attempt to placate advocates for British Muslims, in whose eyes almost any critique of Islam is offensive. Journalists, lawyers and a long list of public figures have warned that this law will dramatically hinder free speech and fail to meet its objective -- that it would increase religious disturbances rather than diminish them. Blair's government seems to view the whole subject of civil liberties with disdain: what do freedoms matter, hard won and long cherished though they may be, when set against the requirements of a government facing re-election? And yet the Blairite policy of appeasement must be defeated. Perhaps the British House of Lords will do what the Commons failed to do, and send this bad law to the scrap heap. And, though this is more unlikely, maybe America's Democrats will come to understand that in today's 50/50 America they may actually have more to gain by standing up against the Christian Coalition and its fellow travellers, and refusing to let a Mel Gibson view of the world shape American social and political policy. If these things do not happen, if America and Britain allow religious faith to control and dominate public discourse, then the Western alliance will be placed under ever-increasing strain, and those other religionists, the ones against whom we're supposed to be fighting, will have great cause to celebrate. Victor Hugo wrote, "There is in every village a torch: the schoolmaster -- and an extinguisher: the parson." We need more teachers and fewer priests in our lives because, as James Joyce once said, "There is no heresy or no philosophy which is so abhorrent to the church as a human being." But perhaps the great American lawyer Clarence Darrow put the secularist argument best of all. "I don't believe in God," he said, "because I don't believe in Mother Goose." I couldn't have said it better myself... Thank you Mr. Rushdie, t...

A post from my garden

Daisies in my garden! Enjoy! t...

Rules of Life Number 3

The five most essential words for a healthy, vital relationship: "I apologize" and "You are right" If only I had known this before!

Rules of Life Number 2

You only need two tools... WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and it should, use WD-40. If it moves and it shouldn't, use the Duct tape. Happy trails, t...

Rules of Life Number 1

Never...ever give yourself a haircut after three Magaritas... Sometimes we just need to remember what the Rules of Life really are... Just so you know....I'm pretty much against giving yourself a haircut under the BEST of circumstances, let alone...when you're three sheets into the wind... t...