May 16, 2006

A void?

Not really a void. When I go home tonight, I expect that my quality of life will have improved dramatically. Why? Because by the time I arrive home, SAS will be winging my mother in law back to Norway.

The visit is over and, really, not a moment too soon. She was a big help to my wife but a difficult woman to be around. I am a little overdrawn at the nice bank, having pulled out a lot of my emotional reserves to make sure that I was welcoming, pleasant, accommodating, and making her feel comfortable.

I cannot wait to go home today.

And I go home, as we say in my office, with my shield and not on it. I had a huge victory today, after arguing for 75 minutes, I convinced a judge to award judgment to my client today on default in the face of strong opposition. It was a great day for my client. Of course, it may have screwed up vacation plans for the month of June -- going to Norway -- since the judge has scheduled the inquest for damages for then, but, still, when the judge gives you everything you've been asking for you don't tell her that the date she picked is not convenient. You just can't do that, especially when you've been urging speed. Next move, a motion to hold the defendant in contempt. I would not be shocked to see this play out so that the defendant spends a night or two in jail at the end of the case. A civil case, mind you. I bet he's sorry that he (the defendant) called me an asshole. Nothing like a little motivation, you know?

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May 10, 2006

Quite a lot on my plate of late

Hence the silence. No shortage of things to say, mind you, just a huge shortage of time to do write them all up. So, let me memorialize one very sweet moment before I forget about it entirely.

Monday night, I was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for dinner to finish cooking. The Boy Child came over to me and, without a word, climbed up onto my lap. He sat himself down on my right leg and leaned across my body to snuggle his blond little head into my left chest and collar bone. Into his mouth went his thumb and my head came down against his back and neck and I closed my eyes. And we sat there. Just the two of us for what seemed like a really long time. If any of you have direct experience with three year old boys, you know that getting them to sit still for anything is worthy of comment in and of itself but to be gifted with a cuddle was lovely beyond compare.

And then it got better.

His sister came over and they exchanged the following words:

Girl Child: Why are you two sitting there and cuddling?

Boy Child: [Removes thumb from mouth with audible pop] Because Pappa loves me.

Sublime.

Which does not mean under the lime, you know. Because if it did, we'd also probably have to have a word like sublemon and we don't, ok?

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May 03, 2006

Ahem

Just clearing my throat a little. Seems like it has been a long time since I last wrote anything on my blog. Dear Diary, so much has happened! She looked at me today! No, that doesn't feel quite like my style, whatever style that may be. So, perhaps I will just talk a little bit.

I've been running a bit on empty of late. Burning the candle at both ends and sometimes in the middle, too. Lots of work, little of which jazzes me, although I am preparing for an appellate oral argument for a very important client of the firm. That's kind of fun. You read the briefs, especially the reply brief, and you try to find that logical flaw, the one the other attorney has spent a lot of time glossing over or pretending doesn't exist. You look for this thing like it was a loose thread on a cotton shirt because you know that when you find it, you can start asking questions: well, does A really follow from B or can you get to C without having had to pass through B? And when you tug on it, you can watch the whole thing unravel. There is always something; you just have to look hard enough, ask the right questions, and be creative enough to construct the right argument when you've finished. It is intellectually satisfying, in a good way.

One of my non-profit boards is in a huge uproar over a very significant governance issue. I can't say more other than it has become a huge time suck, taking up hours every day with phone calls, consultations with our attorney, lunches with disgruntled directors, etc. If it wasn't so important, I'd resign, too. Actually, I may resign anyway as soon as the issue is resolved. It wouldn't be fair to step down now.

My mother in law is staying with us. This means that there really isn't any private time, any quiet time, any time I can just veg for a half an hour after the kids go to bed and before I go to bed. 30 minutes. Not very much time but I am a little bit taken aback by the void it leaves.

Don't go into business with a family member, if you can avoid it. It is kind of hard to tell your uncle he's an idiot, no matter how stupid he's being. Like, for instance, unilaterally changing the law that applies to the shareholders' agreement to a state in which the attorneys who drafted said agreement are neither admitted nor competent to advise on. Little things, like that.

This post is turning whiny. Or has already turned whiny. Maybe I should go back to the Dear Diary thing. No, on second thought, I shall slog on and see what transpires.

The newest little one has his days and nights mixed up. Otherwise he is gorgeous and I suspect has a lot going on. When awake, he looks around very intently, very much in deep concentration. I am beginning to suspect he will be bright and potentially even more of a pain in the butt than the other two put together.

The Girl Child, if she behaves, will receive her first baseball glove tonight. I went into the sporting goods store next to Grand Central to replace my weight lifting gloves and found gloves for kids on sale. A no-brainer. I just wish they had gloves for left handed kids -- I'm pretty sure that the Boy Child is a lefty. I can't wait to give it to her. I sure hope she was good enough to merit a present.

What else made me happy recently? Ah, yes. Shopping for new suits. Getting into shape can be expensive. When you in-grow (what else could the opposite of out-grow be?) your suits because you have been so assiduous in your fitness center attendance and you need to wear suits to go to court, you have to buy new ones. My wife is very understanding, which is nice.

Spring is making me deliriously happy. I cannot wait for the beach weather to be upon us but I am enjoying seeing every tree in my yard burst into glorious flower.

Well, my logic games are calling so return to the salt mine I must.

Thanks for reading. Nice to stretch the fingers again.

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April 28, 2006

My wife is so tough. . .

After the night before last, during which I believe almost no sleep was obtained, and only twenty two days after giving birth to our new son, my wife went twenty one minutes on the elliptical trainer machine.

So tough. She laughed, almost spitting her tooth paste out, when I told her that she totally shaved off 3, maybe 4, ounces.

Did I mention how beautiful she is, too?

She's gonna need every ounce of that tough, by the way, since her mother arrives today for a three week visit.

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April 27, 2006

That smell

I am certain that I am not the only person out there who is actively engaged in a conversation with himself. It isn't out loud, mind you. It is sort of a quiet undertone kind of thing inside my head as I "talk" to myself about observations and the world around me. Calling it a conversation gives it too much gravitas, actually. Its more like a stream of consciousness babble that I only sort of pay attention to. Kind of like just not being able to turn my brain off. It gets more active the more tired I am. I have been tired for some time now, of course.

Here's one observation I thought I'd share it with you here. I was walking through one of the secondary passageways in Grand Central, on the way to my train and observed to myself that when the gentle smell of feces wafts its way into your nose, the following thought sotto voce intrudes into your babbling dialogue: "Please let that smell be from a dog and not a person. Please."

Thus proving that I have been in this city for too long.

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As not, for whom the bell tolls . . .

. . . because it is your alarm clock and you have to get out of bed now. Right now. No screwing around. Get up!!!

Or not.

I am a creature of routine and habit, at least in the morning. That alarm goes off every weekday at 4:40 and I take the 5:17 train into the city. From there, I head straight to the gym for about an hour and a half to two hours of exercise and then to the office. This is my regular morning thing. I am like the milkman's horse. I just get up and go. I have it down to the point where it is more difficult not to go to the gym than it is to go to the gym.

But not today. Today, that alarm clock went off and I turned it off and went back to sleep for another hour and a half. About the same amount of time as a workout, come to think of it.

The baby is having bad and painful gas. He was up, I think, a lot last night. All I know for sure is that the Viking Bride never returned to the marital bed last night. That's not to say that I slept all alone, because I didn't; the Boy Child came in sometime in the middle of the night to cuddle and sleep with me. I escorted him back to his own bed after a lovely cuddle. He believes that the rule is that if our door is open, he can come into bed with us. And he's basically right.

The baby's gas pains were somehow soothed for little while after I picked him up and, holding him to my chest, began kissing him on his neck and collar bone. Three quick little kisses without taking my face from his neck. He stopped crying, seemed to really like it, and feel asleep on my chest for a bit until the internal pain woke him again.

We are all very tired and I have been burning the candle at both ends. Getting up at 4:40 all week and not going to bed until 11:40 -- filling the intervening period with court appearances and oral arguments, contentious board meetings and rancorous and difficult phone consultations regarding the same, hosting a dinner for 90 at which I had to speak (at three different points during the event), and otherwise just trying to stay on top of things generally.

So when that bell called this morning for this fighter to step into the ring, he did the only thing he could do -- he turned it off.

May I ask for your kind thoughts, by the way? My mother in law arrives for a three week visit tomorrow. Any good energy / nice thoughts you can send my way would be fine.

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April 24, 2006

A little self realization ain't so bad

I had a bit this weekend. I looked deep into the abyss that is my dark heart and realized that I am not a hitter. I am not going to hit my children. I will not spank them. I am not going to do that bullshit thing that my dad did. You know, the "this is going to hurt me more than it will you" thing. I always used to tell him, that if that was true, why didn't we just skip it? I'd still get spanked. I didn't get spanked a lot, mind you, but I did get it from time to time. I am absolutely 100% certain that I deserved each and every one of those smacks, too. But, I don't think I will be doing that to my kids.

I threatened them with it on Sunday, though. I told them, after they continued to run around the house and after I told them to stop. I told them that since they had just broken the crystal bowl I was given from my much beloved, now dead, grandmother, that I would spank them if they didn't listen to me and if I had to tell them something again twice.

But, here's the thing. I can't do it. I won't do it; not over this. I might give them a swat in the parking lot if they tried to get away from me and thus scared the living hell out of me. But to just whack 'em for not obeying?

No. I can't do it. I won't have my children look at me fearfully. I told them, too, that I was changing my mind, that I wouldn't spank them for not listening to me, at least, not automatically. I do want to leave a small area of doubt. But when I sat back and thought about it, I realized that I can not just cold bloodedly, at this stage, put them over my lap and hit them. Laps are for cuddling. Laps are for hugging and for squeezing and sometimes for tickling. Laps are not for hitting. Cold blooded, by the way, because I never, ever want to be the person who physically corrects his kids in anger -- that's a disaster waiting to happen.

I don't know how my dad managed to make himself do it. I don't mind at all that he spanked me since, like I said, I bet I drove him to it. I was a bit of a terror and had a mighty smart mouth on me. But I just can't see myself doing it.

Especially to my daughter. I don't want her to EVER think that any man has the right to put his hands on her violently. EVER. End of discussion there.

So, where does that leave me? Where I started -- enforcing discipline through a consistent application of the rules so that the kids know where the limits are, where the boundary markers lay, what my very, very clear expectations are for their behavior. I don't want to force adherence to the rules out of fear, no matter how badly I want them to adhere. Some things may just not be worth it, some avenues are too likely to transform all of us in ways I am just not comfortable with.

So, I put the hand back in my pocket. You see, the next time I take my hand from my pocket, I don't want my kids to flinch when I go to stroke their hair, which I do a lot.

All bets are off when they get to be teenagers, of course. Although, by that time, its probably way too late.

And by the way, I reserve the right to change my mind as circumstances require. After all, grand pronouncements of parenting rarely, if ever, survive contact with a real, live child.

Hope some small part of that above ramble made sense.

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April 21, 2006

Happy Blogiversary to me!

Today I am two years old. It almost slipped past me actually. But as of today, I have been blogging for two whole years now. In that time, I have had around 70,000 visitors, according to the not terribly accurate sitemeter. I have posted over 1000 entries. I have received, since moving to MuNu, over 4100 comments.

I set out, with my first post, to do the following:

My goal here is to create an outlet where I can comment on the things that piss me off, interest me, amuse me, or will do any of those three things to my readers. In short, this will be a general interest blog for catholic (with a small c) interests. I welcome your participation in my little experiment. I will be adding more later, including email contact information.

I think I have mostly succeeded in doing that. But what has made it all worthwhile is the comments I have received and the friendships that I have been fortunate enough to form with some of you.

Thanks for sticking with me these last two years! I'm off to have a long lunch and a short afternoon!

Pax tibi!

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April 20, 2006

This really, really old house

One of the great things about living in New England is the sense that history is just around every corner. I took a picture of the oldest house I've been able to find, so far. It is in Fairfield, CT and I think it is absolutely charming:

oldhouse1.JPG

Want to guess how old it is?

oldhouse2.JPG

Yup, about 1690. Fascinating, isn't it?

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It is all fun until someone has to sign a release

In Michigan, a few days ago, a minor league baseball team did a cash drop to drum up attendance. They chucked $1000 out of a helicopter onto the field and let everybody run around to collect as much as their sticky little hands could hold. The problem was that two small children were injured. Not seriously injured -- a split lip on one and some bruising on the other. But the bruised one had to do to the hospital. Asked for a comment, the team PR flack said:

"It's for fun and games," spokeswoman Katie Kroft said. "This is why we have everybody sign a waiver."

I have to remember this bit of learning for the next birthday party. All kids have to sign waivers before they play "duck, duck, goose".

Seriously, isn't that a ridiculous comment?

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April 14, 2006

A letter of thanks

I wrote, this morning, a long letter of thanks to a friend, a Hasidic Jew who gave me a gift this year and a gift several years earlier. With some minor changes, I realized upon re-reading, it would make an excellent blog entry. And so:

Dear Friend,

Please excuse the fact that I am writing to you on my computer as opposed to by hand. I want you to be able to read my note, you see, and my handwriting would make that much more challenging than strictly necessary.

This is a long overdue note but, just the same, I write to thank you for the gift you made me of the _______ Haggadah some several years ago and for the gift you gave me of the matzah, this year.

As you may know, I now have three children: The Girl Child, age 5; The Boy Child, age 3; and, The New Addition some 10 days old now. I send the Girl Child and the Boy Child to preschool at the _____ Synagogue of ____ where, along with playground time, they receive the beginnings of a formal Jewish education. Frankly, their education is already probably better than what I was open to receiving. Indeed, I wish you could have heard the Girl Child sing the four questions at the Seder on Wednesday night in Hebrew. It was lovely and better than I could have.

As we were coming home from the Seder, the Girl Child told me that she did not want to have a second Seder on Thursday night. Well, I certainly wasnÂ’t going to push Jewish life on her. My view is that it needs to be a part of her life because she has been led to want it as a part of her life not because I have forced her into it. It may not be the right decision, at the end of the day, but I am doing the best I can. So, I acquiesced and told her that that would be fine and we could skip the second Seder.

Then I got home last night and, I am happy to report, was confronted with an angry and disappointed young lady who demanded to know why we were not having a second Seder. I explained to her that if she had wanted one, we would have been able to have one but that I had to prepare and would have had to have come home much earlier than I did. Her mother promised her that, with the seven days left to us, we would have a second Seder. She was mollified.

And so, I went to the bookshelves in my den. I knew that I would find there the only Haggadah I owned: The _____ Haggadah you had given to me. I took it from the shelf and put it in my bag to bring with me on the train for my commute so I could review it and make some appropriate selections from it for our second Seder. I had never, I must confess, looked at it beyond a sort of cursory fashion before but, I thought, it is a Haggadah and a Haggadah is exactly what I need.

I read through the first half of it this morning and, in one sitting, feel as if I have acquired a vastly different understanding of the Passover holiday, of the miracle of the Exodus, of the importance of it all to me as a Jew. It is a wonderful book, my friend, and, I am almost ashamed to say, I have already learned so much from it.

I did not realize that “the Children of Israel ‘were naked and bare’ -- they did not perform mitzvot in Egypt [and] [e]ven the mitzvah of circumcision was forgotten. When the time for the redemption finally arrived, G-d gave the Jews to mitzvot to perform: the Paschal Lamb and circumcision . . .” (citation omitted). I did not realize that it was, among other things, due to the performance of these two mitzvot that G-d redeemed our people from slavery in Egypt. This affected me greatly and I want to share with you why.

My newest son, the New Addition, named in blessed memory of my grandfather, _______ who died in December 2005, was born on April 5, 2006. We held my sonÂ’s bris on Wednesday, April 12, the morning of the first Seder. His circumcision was held the morning of the day on which we gathered to thank G-d for his redemption, just as the Haggadah recounts that our people were circumcised those thousands of years ago. With that beautiful ceremony, we were all privileged to share a connection with our fore-fathers as they too were circumcised and waited to be freed from slavery. I, obviously, did not realize the significance of the timing of the New AdditionÂ’s bris until I read the book you gave me. My grandfather would have known, I bet.

I was terribly moved by this wonderful occurrence and felt, as I felt when my wife was spared the devastation of September 11, 2001 because we were all at the mikvah for the conversion to Judaism ceremony for the Girl Child, that somehow G-d has welcomed my children into the covenant of his people, despite the fact that I married, for love, outside my faith.

Reading this Hagaddah that you gave me has given me greater insight into the holiday and spurred me on to want to know more and to study and to acquire more knowledge. And so, I write to thank you and to tell you that, in my view, you have performed a mitzvah. You have allowed me to learn and kindled within me the desire to learn more. You have made my Passover more significant, more meaningful and more important, less rote and more feeling and intellect. In short, maybe, you have helped me with your gift become a better Jew and a better guide to my children as they learn what it is to be a Jew. I will, I suspect, always think of you at Passover from now on.

While you gave me this gift several years back now, I think that it was only with this Passover that I actually received it. Thank you, my friend.

And while I thank you, thank you also for the wonderful matzah you gave my family and me. We will have it and eat it, in fulfillment of the laws of our people, at this second Seder that my daughter has now demanded that we hold.

With the fondest of thanks,

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April 05, 2006

Tears, the good kind

At 3:30 today, our newest son arrived in the world. I cried, just a little bit. He cried a bit more.

Mother and child appear to be just fine. The baby is in the NICU right now but, I hope, he will be out soon. They just want to make sure he's taking food properly and that his breathing is good. The Viking Bride has already been allowed to eat chocolate again and her blood pressure and other things are all back to normal again.

He's wicked cute and I love him already.

His brother and sister assured me that there was enough room in their hearts to include their new sibling.

And yes, he will be named for my grandfather who died in December.

Now, I go to sleep. I expect a good night's sleep for the first time in days.

Thank you all for your thoughts and support.

Bris will be held next Wednesday, according to the Mohel, who I just got off the phone with.

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April 04, 2006

Some good news: let the countdown begin

The results of the amnio are back and the baby's lungs are mature. That means, that as of about an hour ago, they gave my wife Cervidil. The labor induction has begun. I will join her tomorrow morning and, assuming everything goes smoothly, we will have a new baby tomorrow evening and the Viking Bride will be all better.

Thank you all, so very much, for your kind thoughts and your prayers and your emails. I have not been able to respond to them all (uh, any of them, actually) but I have read them and they helped.

Meanwhile, I leave you with the instructions the Boy Child (aged 3) told me to communicate to the doctor:

Pappa, tomorrow you go hopsbital, you see doctor, you say: "mamma ready come home now, she come home now", ok?

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April 03, 2006

The latest

I have finally gotten the children to bed. We called Mamma at the "hobspital" on my cell phone, put her on speaker, and included her in the good night stories and the songs. The kids sang Norwegian children's songs for her and I think she melted.

I am beat. I drove down to the hospital this morning and had breakfast with my wife. Then trained into the city to go to work for a couple of hours and returned in the late afternoon. After another visit and a consultation with her doctor, I drove home to take the kids.

The doctor was interesting. Basically, my wife is getting worse, trending from mild to severe. The blood pressure is up and rising and the other issues are going the same way. If it weren't for the gestational diabetes, they would have induced labor already. Why wait? With gestational diabetes there are lung maturation issues. You see, complication upon complication. What we are going to do, assuming she stays the same, is to have an amnio again tomorrow morning to check for lung maturation on the baby. If the lungs are mature, they induce right away. If the lungs are not quite ready, and my wife is stable, they will try to delay the process for a couple of extra days. If, however, my wife begins to get worse, they induce, regardless of lung maturity status. Either way, we're getting a baby by the end of the week.

Thank you, all of you, for your good wishes, kind thoughts, and your prayers. I appreciate them all. I don't have the time right now to personally answer each one, as I am sure you understand, but I read them all and am grateful.

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April 02, 2006

No title here

I lack the inspiration to title this post. I am, at this point, exhausted and am really just writing this to unwind a bit. Last night, I allowed the kids to have a sleep over again. After a while, the Girl Child called to me and I went running upstairs:

GC: Pappa, my tummy hurts. I don't feel good.

Me: [honestly, thinking at this point that this is the last thing I need] What's wrong, peanut? Is your tummy unhappy?

GC: Well, its not happy; its not angry or disappointed, but its not happy. I think that maybe its just empty. Dinner was a long time ago.

Funny, since I recalled, at that point, exactly what she ate the day. Breakfast, one huge slice of Challah, toasted with butter and jelly. Then we ran errands and came home and she ate a bowl of oatmeal with a half a bannana. Then she went to a birthday party and ate cake and pizza. We came home and she ate 6 dumplings that her brother and I brought home from lunch for her. Then she napped. A little candy after her nap and a little ice cream when we visited her mother at the hospital. Dinner with my parents where she had bread and a whole plate of tortellini. And she was empty. Did I mention that you can see the girl's ribs and she eats like this? Unreal.

So, update on the wife's situation. She is not coming home from the hospital. Not until after she gives birth. We are on a day to day thing here. Her pressure keeps moving in ways that make everyone unhappy and her liver enzymes are increasing. There is no way to know but there is a sense that she is brewing something and everyone is nervous that it could escalate at any moment. So, she stays.

The kids saw her twice today. Once in the morning after breakfast and once after naps. They understand that she is not well. The Boy Child told my mother: "My mother in hobspital; she not feeling well. She sick." The Girl Child hasn't spoken about it but she knew the instant we pulled into the parking lot that this was the hospital that she went to visit her great-grandfather when he was dying. She asked me, as I switched off the engine, "are you sad to be here, Pappa?" I told her I wasn't, that I wasn't sad any more about my grandfather dying but that I was happy about the wonderful life he lived. She seemed to accept that, but, you never know. She's a deep one and there is, really, no question in my mind that she has made a connection between the hospital and death and her mother being there. I hope, merely, that it fades.

I don't want to end on that last thought. Instead, I will end on hope. I leave with a thought of hope. And the words of the Boy Child, who wanted to know if his mother could come home and check on him sleeping. I told him she couldn't.

Finally, I leave you with Kiss me Kate. We, the kids and me, have been listening to the soundtrack.

Its too darn hot.

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April 01, 2006

An update re the Viking Bride

They're keeping her, maybe until sometime on Monday, maybe longer. The problems are, potentially, very serious and they don't want to take any chances.

I am exhausted. The kids are down napping, now, and when they wake I will take them to visit their mother at the hospital. They have, needless to say, no idea of the seriousness of the problem. All they know is that Mamma is having some tests and they need her to stay over.

I am feeling a number of things right now. Worried about my wife, concerned about the kids, unsettled by the hour to hour uncertainty, and a tad overwhelmed. It feels, for the first time, like I am a single parent, like I have sole responsibility for the kids and that's it and it may be for some time. Its different from having the kids for a week while my wife is away on business, for instance. I can't say how, but it is hugely different.

Our nanny has not offered to help at all. Meaning, she has not asked if there is anything she can do. She has no plans this weekend. I know because she told me that. If I was undecided at all, I am now resolved that this will be her last week. Come Friday, I will fire her. If I'm gonna be alone with the kids, then fine, let me be alone with them and at least I can do it while just wearing boxer shorts.

I will post more, if I have the opportunity, later. Or not. We'll see how it goes.

Thank you, by the way, for all your kind comments. They were awfully nice to read.

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March 31, 2006

An Adjournment, that's what we need

These are useful things, adjournments. Its what a lawyer says when he needs to reschedule. Its what I just did at the Appellate Division, First Department, for my appellate argument previously calendered for next Friday. You see, the Viking Bride is being admitted to the hospital today for preeclampsia (follow the link if you want to know more). I am more or less beside myself with worry and writing this to distract myself and use up some time until the next train leaves to take me back out to Connecticut so I can be with her at the hospital. They are going to keep her over night, at minimum.

The baby is fine but, who can say, may decide or the doctors may decide that he or she will be coming out soon. Sooner than expected by a lot. It goes without saying, I suppose, that we are so far from ready for this baby to be born. We still need to locate and wash all the old baby clothes and put the cradle together. This will happen (meaning, I will do it) while everyone else sleeps, I bet. An adjournment of the birth would be helpful, but even with a stipulation with all parties consenting, I don't know which judge or clerk to present such a request to.

Yes, indeed. Life is happening while we fiddled and made other plans.

Ok, off to the train and to join my wife at the hospital.

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March 29, 2006

Memory lapse?

I think my memory is going. My short term memory. The thing that lets me retain instructions from my wife, for instance. I know she told me I have to do something but I have little to no idea what that thing might be. Honey, if you're reading this, shoot me an email, ok?

My memory for blog material is also suffering. I think I need to get a pad or something. I see all this cool and interesting stuff and I want to blog about said stuff but something happens. Sometime between thinking its cool and getting to my keyboard, I lose the thread. I get here and can't recall at all what I wanted to write about. *sigh*

Court went well yesterday. I do remember that much. My client was pleased and I got a preliminary injunction to shut down a former officer from competing with my client after said former officer admitted to stealing file and confidential business information. Injunctive relief work is very consuming. It is all done on short notice and without the usual care you might take in preparing a serious application. Sometimes, it is all about the speed. And the speed, that my friends, is a rush.

So much of a rush that I was still happy this morning when I got to the gym and put up 70 pound dumbbells, 10 times, for my last set of chest press. That explains, in part, why it was difficult to dry my hair after my shower. You know you worked out hard when you can't dry your hair because your arms and chest are too pumped.

So, that's it really.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 10:22 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
Post contains 280 words, total size 2 kb.

March 24, 2006

A milestone reached!

This post represents something special to me. This is a milestone reached, a distance covered, a length traveled.

This is post number One Thousand. For around two years now, I have been filling my blog with whatever falls out of my head. I began my first post by noting:

My goal here is to create an outlet where I can comment on the things that piss me off, interest me, amuse me, or will do any of those three things to my readers. [Ed.: Mind you, I had no readers when I wrote this!] In short, this will be a general interest blog for catholic (with a small c) interests. I welcome your participation in my little experiment.

I think, modest as my goals were, that I have mostly achieved them. Additionally, modest as my invitation was, it has mostly been accepted. Indeed, the comments make it all worthwhile. I still wrestle with why I blog or what I get out of it. I am way past caring that for some unknown reason I feel compelled to share some of my thoughts with a planet full of strangers and a small mini van full of people who I have come to share a friendship with. I am, however, pleased that my blog has also become a place where I memorialize -- what for many must be mundane but for me are -- the daily joys of sharing the lives of my extraordinary children and wife.

And I am, as I said, happy to receive the comments even if I tell myself that I would surely just keep on writing without them. Surely, I would. Surely I would derive the same pleasure from the writing that I do when I receive the largely thoughtful and intelligent comments I am fortunate enough to attract. Surely I am not lying to myself.

So, although I have said it before, thank you for the comments you leave. I am very appreciative of them.

One thousand posts seems like an awful lot to me. For a while there I thought maybe I was running out of things to say, running out of inspiration, losing my juice. My site stats bore silent sentinel to this as I have seen my average daily hits drop by a third. But recently I feel like it is all slowly creeping back in -- the pleasure derived simply from writing and expressing my thoughts, the having of the thoughts worth writing about, the caring. And the hits are slowly coming back up again. And the comments are still worth reading. So, I think that I pick option (A) on the menu: I will continue this little experiment and keep on writing.

And I will keep on writing here on MuNu where, courtesy of the gracious hosting by Pixy and thanks to the kind invitation from Helen, I have found a home and a place within a community of writers who I respect greatly. MuNu is a fabulous world and, if you haven't, I urge you to explore the MuNu links on my side bar. You will be richly rewarded by the experiment.

So, as numbers go, this is post one thousand, as I expect you have gathered. I am a bit humbled by what comes next. Many of the thousand were written elsewhere but since the first post I have put up here at MuNu, I have garnered some 3900+ comments. Since starting, I have had around 68,000 visits, many of them repeat offenders, of course, but we all know that recidivism is a problem not just for MuNu but for the world as a whole.

I guess I end this post here with a simple (as if I could do anything simply) thank you for sharing my life over the last 1000 posts. I think it has made my life richer and for that I am quite grateful. Here's to the next 1000!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 03:00 PM | Comments (15) | Add Comment
Post contains 649 words, total size 4 kb.

March 23, 2006

A little randomness

I can't seem to get my thoughts organized into a coherent post today. As much as I keep prodding them and pushing them, they keep expanding / escaping / resisting all my efforts. So, I give up. Herewith, a random, disorganized post.

*I just returned from taking my tax information over to my accountant. He wasn't there, which is just fine with me. On the way back, I purchased a DVD to watch with the children: My Neighbor Totoro (link to review). I'm told that the animation is so equisite that it looks as if it was painted. Very excited, I am.

*The Viking Bride fled the state yesterday for meetings in Rhode Island. Before leaving, she attempted to poison the minds of the children against Rhode Island. They requested that she return with toys and she responded that Rhode Island was completely devoid of toys. A desert of toys, as it were. She's hoping that in 15 years time when the Girl Child hears the name "Rhode Island" she will have a negative reaction to the place and not know why. I ask you, dear readers, is it any wonder that I am as warped as I am after spending over 20 years with this woman?

*As a result of her leaving for meetings in RI, I had the kids to myself last night. If I was restricted to one word to describe how it all went, after a really shitty day at work yesterday, I would have to say: Bliss. Pure bliss, if two words. We read five stories and then tumbled around like kittens, cuddling, tickling, trying to squish Pappa, all with no one getting hurt, especially me. They listened like angels and the Boy Child went to bed without a peep. The Girl Child, on the other hand, was allowed secretly to stay up. We cuddled on the couch and watched a little pre-season baseball. She told me that I had to watch a lot of baseball when she grows up so I can see her because she's going to be a baseball player when she grows up. On the weekends, though, she says she's going to work in a restaurant as a chef but she's not going to tell me what she'll be cooking. Well, at least she has a strong work ethic, which I like.

*We have hired a new nanny. The old nanny does not know. Expect tears and recriminations when we hand her a plane ticket home. This will be my first time firing a nanny for performance issues. It has been tense, at least for me.

*I have been fighting an urge to flee lately. A desire to load the family in the car, shut the door on the house, start driving and just keep on going. We probably have enough cash to last for a couple of months, I suppose. Or just pack everyone off to the airport and get on the next plane out to anywhere. Well, not anywhere. I don't care for Michigan, so that's out. It is a combination of wanderlust, unhappiness at work, and probably some other stuff which I cannot really identify. Just the same, it looks like our Saturday just freed up. I think this could be the day to just fill the tank and see where the highway leads us without reference to anyone's nap schedules.

*The Viking Bride will travel into the City tonight from the far reaches of Connecticut and we will dine with the CEO and Chairman, and his wife, of a major league, big time, you'd know the name, international company. I'd be less than completely honest if I said I didn't hope that I'd get some business out it.

Ok, that just about wraps it up.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 11:57 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 634 words, total size 4 kb.

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