Corned Beef. That was the last thing I ever talked to my dad about. It was St. Patrick’s Day, and I’d just moved up to Portland two and a half weeks before. I was making the standard St. Paddy’s day meal in my little NW apartment and rather than ask my mom or my cousin or anyone from the Irish side of my family, I thought it best to consult my Slovakian father. This made sense, you see, because my dad often took the lead in special occasions meals– Easter brunch, Christmas Eve dinner, birthday BBQs, etc. I don’t think he liked corned beef (or anything Irish for that matter, with the exception of his three part-Irish children and his part-Irish wife), but he sure did prepare it well. So I called and he walked me through the steps for cooking it and we got off the phone pretty quickly because he had the flu and needed to rest.

And that was it. Four days later I got a call from my mom at 7:30 a.m. saying paramedics were at the house because Dad wasn’t breathing. Several minutes after that, another call saying he was gone. That was six years ago.

In the week leading up to the anniversary of my Dad’s death I decided to read Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, a book about how she handled life after her husband died of a sudden, massive heart attack. I probably could have picked a better time to read that book. There were other choices on my Kindle that I could have read. A few classics. The latest from John Irving. Some book about a dog. But I didn’t choose any of those. There’s probably a reason for that. Most of the time I think about all of the memories I have of my dad. But this time of year, more than any other, I think about all that he’s missed, and all the things I’ll never get to say to him.

I think a lot about everything that has happened in the past 6 years that he would have enjoyed, or found funny, or been proud of. He would have been impressed with my used car buying skills– with how I walked out of the dealership just like he taught me and made the salesman conduct the final negotiations from the parking lot, where I sat in my car with the motor running until he gave me the price I wanted. In my retelling of the story, I would have left out the part that revealed the only reason I was at the dealership was to be secret shopper for the ad agency I was working for, and that I hadn’t intended to buy a car but found myself caught up in the moment.

Of course there are other things that I don’t mind him not knowing. Like that 2 out of 3 of his kids have been unceremoniously dismissed from their jobs in the past couple of months, and that these same two remain more or less directionless as far as career aspirations go. He also would not likely be impressed by the condition of my lawn or the fact that I only let my chili simmer for ten minutes before serving it.

There are days when I find myself lost in overwhelming sadness when I think about him. I’d like to say that those moments occur with less frequency now, but I’m not sure that’s true. I have gotten better about forgetting that he is dead, which is good because it can be awkward to back out of a conversation with someone that initially indicates that my dad is alive and well and available for, say, dental advice. I just got a new phone, my 4th one since he died, and for the first time I didn’t program his cell number into the address book. See, I am making progress.

July 1st is the perfect time to begin something new. Half of the year is over, so even the most committed and focused people have long since lost their enthusiasm for the resolutions born on January 1. Looking back through the posts on this blog, I am reminded that my inner fire was squelched on January 5. Perhaps this is why of the five goals I laid out for the year, only one has been accomplished. As for the remaining goals, one is not now, nor was it ever, realistic. The other three I suppose are still possible but they seem pretty unlikely, plus, I am feeling distracted and unsettled so it seems like now would be a good time to start something new. Otherwise, I’m going to lose my freakin’ mind.

Idea
July to June

Objective
Keep a log of 4 different activities in my life for one year (July 1, 2010- June 30, 2011)

Trackables

1. Miles pedaled on my bike

2. Beers consumed
3. Words written
4. Miles run on my own two feet

Point
None

Well, maybe there’s a point. I either currently spend or would like to spend a lot of my time doing the four things listed above. These are things, I believe, that make me happy. So why not see how much I really get to do them in a given year? Seems like it could be a tool to give me some perspective on just what I am doing with this life of mine. And right now, perspective seems like a very good thing.

I’ll be keeping track of my totals on a separate blog. Because if there’s one thing the internet has taught me, it’s that you can never have too many half-ass, poorly designed, self-indulgent blogs floating around cyber space. If you want to follow along, you can view the results here, or access the site in the right sidebar at any time.

Tags: july to june

It’s been about a month since I’ve written on this blog. Looking back at the title of the last post- “System Overload”- I can say that the same feeling of being overwhelmed continues to dominate my little world.

There are ways in which I have settled down at my job. Parts of what I do feel comfortable. Other parts feel way over my head, but the sickly feeling that accompanies having no idea what I am doing is consistent enough that now it just feels like part of my daily routine- walk dog, drink coffee, break out in cold sweat while reviewing to-do list at work, go to gym, and so on. Almost everyday I find out that something new has been added to my plate. Or maybe these things were always on my plate, but just safely hiding under the “and other duties as assigned” clause of my job description.

There are definitely some awesome things about the new job. For example, I seem to come home with a new work-related t-shirt almost every week. Since t-shirts are my favorite thing in the world, this makes me very happy. Kabluey, however, is not as impressed with the amount of swag that has entered the house during my first month of employment. Surely she will change her mind when the compliments start rolling in on the company-issued metal lunch box that I generously gave to her, and pack her sandwich in every day.

Enough about my job. It’s the Saturday of a 3-day weekend, so who wants to think about work?

As of today, it is 2 weeks until my half marathon. The farthest distance I have run is 8 miles. That was 3 weeks ago. I’m not great with numbers, but I am pretty sure that means I am screwed. I know it sounds like I have totally messed this up, but only part of it is my fault. And the part at fault is my hamstrings. Ever since my 8 mile run, I’ve had problems with my hamstrings that have manifested themselves through pain in my lower back. This is probably due to one of two things. It could be the horrific running form that I have mentioned before. Or it could be because I am getting old. Both reasons make me mad so who really cares which one it is. Kabluey has been giving me stretching exercises and if I can get up to 10 miles before the race, I may try to pull out the whole distance. I’ll have to make sure I bring work home with me that weekend, as it’s unlikely I’ll be able to walk for a while after the race.

One form of exercise that does not give me pain is bike riding. This is great because once I get past this ill-fated half marathon thing, I think it will be fun to ride my bike a bit more. Or at least ride it in the great outdoors, as opposed to on a stand in my basement, which is where I usually ride. I had already been thinking it would be a good idea to get my bike out of the house, but my recent bit of good luck solidified this idea. Kabluey and I were at Hopworks (our home away from home) attending one of their Mug Club parties. Neither one of us even knew there was a raffle, until they started pulling names for prizes like t-shirts and 22oz bottled beer. Imagine how excited we were when I won the grand prize, which was a $500 gift certificate to Bike n Hike!

I think it would be cool to get a city/commuter bike, and start riding to my office in Clackamas. I’ve only spent a little time looking at their bikes online, but so far these two are looking pretty sweet:

All this typing about Hopworks has got me craving a Rise Up Red. Off I go…

Tags: bike buying, half marathon training, Hopworks

I made it through two weeks at my new job and it’s safe to say my brain is officially fried. The good news is that I think I am really going to like this job. The potentially bad news is that everyone there is so excited about the company, and there is so much to do, that I could easily be putting in 12 hour days, 7 days a week if I don’t make a concentrated effort to maintain some kind of work-life balance.

Here’s a quick recap of some of the work-related things that have happened in my first two weeks:

1. My first day I worked 10.5 hours with no break
2. My second day I worked 10.5 hours, but managed to sneak away for twenty minutes so I could drive to a Lowe’s Hardware store, sit in my car in the parking lot and eat my sandwich
3. My third day I has to stand up and give a 30 minute presentation on social media to 15 members of the sales and marketing team
4. The company is buying me a new phone, which is awesome for me, and also awesome for the company since it will make it very easy for me to put in the 84-hour work weeks mentioned above
5. I got a full behind-the-scenes tour of the Oregon Humane Society (and I only started to cry twice!)
6. I got to buy an awesome video camera for the company, and have already made a video of Riley which I will post here soon (I also used it today, Saturday, for a work-related event…)

All in all, it was a pretty successful couple of weeks. I just need to get past the extreme stress and fatigue that seem to accompany the start of all new jobs. I need my energy so I can get outside and increase my distance running. The half marathon is fast approaching, and at the rate I am going now, I am going to be one sad camper during miles 7-13.

• 

Kabluey is weird. I know I have hinted at that before, but I’m not sure I have adequately conveyed just how weird she is. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to explain this idea now, either, since words fail me when it comes to communicating this aspect of Kabluey. I can only tell you that she is not normal. Funny, smart, charming, determined, compassionate- yes. But normal? Not so much.

Because of her innate weirdness, you can imagine how eager I was to go to Fort Myers and meet Kabluey’s mom. Almost immediately, though, I realized that while she is definitely weird, she is weird in a way that is exactly opposite of Kabluey. This caused a short-circuit in my brain that I just now feel like I am recovering from.

The one (and maybe only) similar feature that they share is they are both very tiny. And by tiny I don’t mean short, I mean stick-like. By contrast, I am not tiny and do not in any way resemble a stick. I knew that already, but just to drive the point home I got to witness the following conversation:

Kabluey’s Mom (KM): Kabluey, I have some belts that you might like. Why don’t you take them home with you?
Kabluey: Thanks mom.
KM: You should definitely take them because I have several others.
Kabluey: I would, but rhinestone studded belts are not really my thing.
KM: Are you sure? I think you would look nice with a little bling.
Kabluey: I’ll pass, but maybe K8 wants them. (Insert devilish grin)
KM: (glancing over at K8) Well, her waist isn’t as small as yours.

You know what else isn’t as small as Kabluey’s waist? My middle finger. Do you want to see it, KM?

So, they don’t have the same fashion sense. And they don’t look alike. Kabluey looks like whatever this world intended her to look like, and her mom looks like whatever the world intended her to look like as long as that intent included hair dye, assorted cosmetic procedures and lots of sun. Which is not to say she doesn’t look good. She is a very attractive woman, but she looks nothing like Kabluey. And really, she doesn’t even look like any of Kabluey’s three brothers, leaving me to wonder if one day she picked up the wrong kids from school and just never got around to sorting out her error. Exchanges can be a bitch.

She also acts nothing like Kabluey. Kabluey is easy going and doesn’t stress about basic decisions like what to do for dinner. On two separate occasions, that very question turned into a full-blown battle. The first time, we were trying to find a restaurant to go to. Kabluey’s mom threw out several suggestions, but somehow became obsessed with an all-you-can-eat fish buffet that didn’t have a liquor license so people were encouraged to bring their own booze. This doesn’t even seem legal to me, but I learned that things in Florida are a little different than here in the Pacific Northwest. Plus, low-quality fish sitting out endlessly on banquet tables seemed like an invitation for food poisoning, a possibility that occurred to everyone except Kabluey’s mom. The second dinner fiasco, which I shall refer to as The Great Fajita Debate of 2010, involved Kabluey’s mom calling her children one by one (from some undisclosed location. For whatever reason, that woman sure did disappear a lot) and talking to them until they reached maximum frustration and hung up on her, at which point she just dialed the next offspring down the line.

Kabluey’s grandma, I will say, does exhibit some similar characteristics as Kabluey. For one thing, she has an awesome sense of humor, and she didn’t get worked into a frenzy about where we were going to go for lunch. On the other hand, she tricked us into going to a Walmart by referring to it vaguely as “the yarn store”, and I spent the better part of twenty minutes helping her shuffle through the city-block sized mega store until she finally managed to commandeer a motorized cart from an unsuspecting and equally elderly customer, an accomplishment that simultaneously impressed and horrified me.

In the end, I’m not sure anything that I witnessed in Fort Myers really gets to the root of why Kabluey is so weird. But it does make me appreciate even more the exact brand of weirdness that she has made her own, and that is something I am thankful for.

Tags: Fort Myers, genetics are weird

I’m back from Fort Myers and am still trying to process all that I saw in the land that brought us Kabluey. Let’s start with the easy stuff first.

It was hot. I was happy that when packing for the trip I was able to dig through my drawer and pull out the shorts that were crumpled up in the back, wedged behind seemingly obsolete items like tank tops. The good news is that it wasn’t very humid. The bad news is that it was still hot enough that both Kabluey and I got heat rashes after we went for an afternoon run. This was pretty humiliating for Kabluey since she grew up in Florida, but it was also rather shameful for me as a California native.

I also got to see some amazing Fort Myers sites. For example, Kabluey kept her promise and took me to the Prawn Broker, where I was able to purchase a souvenir t-shirt. I think I may be the only one in the world to actually buy such a shirt, as the fish monger had to dig around in the back for quite some time before returning with a green shirt that said AhBeCrabby and Fish on the front, and smelled heavily of crustaceans.

We also got to go to Chili’s, which as avid watchers of The Office, was very exciting for us (There are no Chili’s in Portland. In fact, the only one in the state of Oregon is down in Eugene). We learned that “skillet of cheese” is an actual menu item (we’d heard this appetizer mentioned on an episode of The Office, but assumed it was a joke). We were so excited about our trip to Chili’s that we had actually called down to Fort Myers while still in Portland to inquire about their Happy Hour schedule and specials. It was then that we learned that their happy hour is “all day, every day”. Their beer special is a two for one deal, and for unknown reasons, they insist on bringing you both of your beers at the same time. Chili’s is the best.

Side note: a general problem with Florida, and one of probably several reasons why I could never live there, is that their beer selection is deplorable. When Sam Adams is the best thing on tap (and the only thing I even considered drinking), there is a serious, serious issue.

Probably the best (or at least the most vacation-like) part of the trip was staying for two nights at the La Playa resort where Kabluey’s brother works. He hooked us up with a very inexpensive rate, which is good because at full price those 2 nights would have cost more than my mortgage. We sat at a fire pit at the beach (drinking Sam Adams…), swam in the (3!!) lagoon-like pools, ate fancy food (for free!) and enjoyed an amazing view of the gulf from our furnished balcony. It was interesting to hobnob with wealthy families that were staying at the resort, not that they acknowledged our existence. It kind of reminded me of growing up around rich people, who also didn’t acknowledge my existence. Some things never change, I guess.

There is much, much more to say about the trip. The most interesting things relate to Kabluey and her family, and how they interact (or don’t) with each other. Kabluey’s mom… wow… I don’t even know where to start. I will definitely share thoughts about the woman who spawned Kabluey, but for some reason when I try to write about it my eye starts to twitch, making it very difficult to see the screen when I am typing. I am taking this as an indication that I need more time to gather my thoughts before I dive into this (truly fascinating!) topic.

Kabluey and I get job offers at the same time. It’s how we demonstrate that our lives are somehow fused together. Gays must do this, you see. Some couples start dressing alike, or get similar haircuts, or develop the same speech patterns, or maybe, in instances of extremely poor judgment, get matching piercings. Kabluey and I land new jobs at the same time. That’s our “thing”.

Based on this trend, when Kabluey accepted her job offer last week, I knew I had to step up and get a new job too. So I did. And not just any job. I am pretty sure I found a really awesome one. This feeling of excitement toward work is a strange and unfamiliar thing.

The only potential issue that I see with my new job is that I think I’ll be in way over my head, making it a very real possibility that I am about to travel down a path destined for shame, embarrassment, self-doubt and eventually the Multnomah County unemployment office.

But if that doesn’t happen, it could be really, really cool.

Maybe it’s because it is supposed to be Spring, but the weather is still wet and cold and horrible. Maybe it’s because it is so very far away from any major holiday or day-off-triggering event. More likely it’s because this month has historically contained some of the more upsetting times of my life. Whatever the reason, March kinda sucks.

This is the first time since I started this blog that I don’t really feel like writing. It’s not like there is a lack of things to write about. Stuff has been happening (not particularly exciting stuff, but one could argue that nothing I’ve written about has been earth-shattering). I’ve made some strides in my attempt to change jobs. I’ve been plugging away at training for my athletic endeavors. I’ve even been batting around some ideas for a book I may write. All good stuff. But I feel blah and generally I think it’s best to keep to myself when this mood takes over.

The good news is that at the end of this month I’ll be going to Florida with Kabluey to see her family. There will be sun, which I desperately need. (And according to Weather Underground, there will also be 96% humidity, which will likely result in my hair reaching a level of curliness never before seen in nature). I’m excited to see where Kabluey grew up, and visit all the places she used to go when she was a tiny weirdo (like the The Prawn Broker, where she used to go on Christmas Eve and where she promised we could go for dinner one night). I will also get to meet Kabluey’s mom, and from all accounts this will be an experience I will not soon forget. So whatever funk I’m in right now will surely be over soon.