Bowling night

Earlier this week, I received an invitation through FaceBook to help the American Diabetes Association by participating in a night of bowling. My daughter loves to play bowling on her Wii and she expressed a long while ago the desire to go to a bowling alley and play real bowling. So when I received the invitation, I wanted to go for her but hesitated since it would be from 7 to 9pm and I was afraid my son would not like being up that late. After consulting with the SU and getting her ok, I went ahead and RSVP.

It was supposed to be a surprise for my daughter but something happened on Thursday morning and she was upset, so to calm her down, her mother went ahead and spilled the beans. I found out that she knew when I picked her up from school and she told me we were going bowling the next evening. I was pretty upset that MY surprise was spoiled in such a way.

So Friday night, we left home and made it early to the alley. There was a table with our company’s colors and the organizer of the event was already there and gave us all the information we needed. Now it might have been my daughter’s first night bowling but in fact it was the whole family’s first time! People were surprised but it was true. I did get a bowling ball as a Christmas present many years ago but never had a chance to use it. So everything was new for us.

We went to our lane and then we were told to go and get the shoes. I had hoped to avoid this and keep my shoes but I was shown the counter where to get the shoes and here is what I got:

Such ugly colors! And they did not even feel comfortable. But it was the rules, so I had to go with them.

We then picked our balls and had to wait because it was still not 7pm yet. I did get to chat with the only person I knew from the enterprise but she was with a date and I didn’t want to keep her away from him.

They finally opened the lanes and the first one to play was my daughter:

Of course, being a little girl, she had to choose the pink one which coincidentally was the lightest one. She was all excited and could not wait to go ahead and throw the ball down the lane…

She threw the ball and it went down the lane and her first score was an 8! She was happy and I was proud of her. Knowing how competitive she is it was also a nice ego booster so early in the evening.

Next was the SU and I tried to take a picture but for some reason the next series of pictures did not come out good enough to publish them. Her first try went in the gutter and then she scored a 7. It was my turn after that and I got a 7 and then I threw the ball in the gutter. We didn’t mind since it was our first time ever and what we wanted was to have fun. The next ball, I had a strike and everything went downhill after that and for the rest of the night. At the end of the first game the score was:

My daughter had 69, the SU 44 and I had 50. As you can see, it was decidedly not champion’s night!

In the second game, we added baby boy because he was grabbing all the balls and even picked a few, nearly dropping them on his feet. Of course he could not throw the ball but would hold it until it was time to throw it:

It was getting late and he was getting crankier and crankier. He kept going from his mother’s arms to my arms and all the noise and excitement kept him awake. Our game became sloppier and my thumb was hurting because of the blister I got in the first game. So we kept playing as fast as we could so we could go home. The 2-hour limit was also getting close and my daughter wanted to play one more game but we knew we couldn’t do it in such conditions but we did promise her we would come back soon.

And the final score was 71 for my daughter, 63 for the SU, 68 for my son and a paltry 61 for me. Beaten by both my kids! What a shame! I actually have to figure out why I kept sending the ball in the left gutter all the time. I think I threw the ball too hard or something, but I sure am not joining any team any time soon…

But in the end, it was a nice evening and everybody was happy. Next time, we’ll do it earlier so we don’t have to worry about baby boy being sleepy because it’s so late.

My daughter wanted me to buy her a bowling ball right there but we have to take more time to figure out which one would suit her best and find one in a color she would like. Although I don’t think she’d want anything other than a pink one!

Till then…

I Shall Spit on Your Graves

I found the title of this book by Vernon Sullivan, a.k.a. Boris Vian quite fitting for this post. Not that I really intend to follow those people’s lives and wait for the right time to expectorate but it is true that I despise now more than ever before.

My office wife has been sent to another department in a building across the street. Lots of things happened but she stood up and remained strong and I was there with her all the time. We knew it was happening but we didn’t know when exactly. I told her to let me know when and I would move her stuff.

This morning I saw my OW and she told me she needed to have her computers moved so I went ahead and moved them with some other stuff I thought she may want to have around to make her new cube more homely and after loading the cart, I realized there wasn’t much left to move but I would have to make a second trip. OW was happy and impressed with the stuff I had moved over and told her about the other stuff left behind and what was in her drawers and file cabinet that were locked up. She asked me if I wanted the keys and I said yes so she gave them to me and did not expect to see me back until tomorrow.

One of my meetings fell through so I had some time left before the end of the day and decided to go ahead and move the rest of the stuff. On my way out, I was accosted several times wondering why I was moving that stuff and other utterly stupid remarks that I will not deign transcribe here. And others did not speak out but I could see the look of contempt on their faces. Just because I was moving stuff! They obviously don’t have a clue about our relationship and why I took care of her stuff but it was my promise and my decision and instead of working, their were minding business that was not theirs to begin with. Now I know the subject will be eventually brought up in some meeting and we shall advise then.

I will not spit on your graves but I won’t forget your pettiness.

Till then…

Kids… Kids?

Jay and I had an exchange of pictures today and they were silly but we had such a blast! Who can believe that we are in our 40’s and being such kids?

I don’t care. I LOVE it!

Till then…

I have a (crazy) dream…

I was in bed with my son, waiting for him to fall asleep so I could put him in his crib and I had this crazy idea that popped up in my mind: how about a road trip to pay a visit to my most beloved blogger friends? I was thinking how to get to the places and although the idea of taking a plane would be much faster and would leave me more time to spend with my friends, it did not seem right. No, the best way to do that would be to drive across America! Not only it would allow me to see more of the country and take pictures but it would also be great to accomplish such a feat.

So, I identified 8 people and went to Google Maps and traced my route. And you know what? It is a crazy because I would give myself 10 days to do it but I would be a few hours short, if indeed there would be no incidents whatsoever on the roads, with myself or with my car. Or I could skip one person since we have already met once but that would be a pity because a) it would be on my way between two other friends and b) because it would be a nice flashback to my teenager years when I would be in that town almost every weekend.

So I don’t know. It’s already too late in the year to think about this and besides I don’t have enough vacation time to do it. Maybe for next year?

Till then…

Ungrateful bastard

I was having lunch by myself today when I caught a conversation a couple of tables away. The subject of the heated debate was non other than President Obama’s health reform. One of them was an African-American, the second was white and the last and most vociferous was Latino. The Latino was the loudest one, trying to force down the throats of the other two at the table a pile of mumbo-jumbo that seemed to be tirades learned by heart right off Fox News. And while the African-American was not really getting involved in the conversation at that point, the white was trying to convince the Latino that everything he was saying was not correct.

And it dawned on me the silliness and the stupidity of this individual, arms flailing in all directions, insisting on being right and how his parents or grand-parents were happy to be able to come to this country and being assisted financially and medically while with the help of family and friends they could look for a way to get out of their precarious situation. Now that he has a situation and a good salary, there is no remembering the uncles, brothers and cousins left behind and whom would love to enjoy a piece of paradise. It doesn’t matter if the family that was so prosperous a cancer or an organ transplant away are in such a dire position because they have spent their last penny on medication or trying to pay a hospital bill they will never ever be able to pay in this lifetime. He is young, he is healthy and sees no reason to follow such a leftist position of well being for all.

He really should go and talk to his elders and listen to their stories. Maybe he’ll understand why we need this reform and we need it now.

Till then…

Twitting

By the way, I might have not been blogging here for a while but I am on Twitter under aliti33028. Just in case you really want to follow me or get in touch with me.

Till then…

Moving on

I know a bunch of people who are going to fall off their chairs reading this…

Yes, it is Aliti, once again back here.

I conveniently used the excuse of wanting to post the pictures from my trip to the Dominican Republic to stall any writing. Well, that’s not 100% true, but I did want to post the pictures and have a part 2, but what really got me all messed up was the fact that I could not really find anything interesting to say about the trip because there was nothing really that exciting. It was mainly a business trip and there is nothing really to say about talking to lawyers and visiting our properties.  Even the pictures I took were not that great but I do promise to post some of them soon. At least to get that closure.

What else happened? Well, summer came and summer is almost gone. The SU took the kids to see her parents before the beginning of school. It was nice for them to get out of the house and better for me to have 10 days of relative rest.

The SU was involved in an weird accident. She was hurt but not badly and the kids are ok. The car was in the shop for over a month but we got it back last week.

My daughter turned 6. She had a blast with some of her friends from school. She also started 1st grade this year. I participated in the “Million Father March” and took my daughter to school by myself. I met her new teacher and saw her classroom and left after taking a few pictures and making sure she was ok. When I was leaving, she did not cry but had a sad face. All day long I was thinking about her, if she was ok, if she had lunch, if she had fun and whole bunch of questions. When I picked her up, she was so happy and she told me it was “the best day of my life”! Well, I’ve heard that before in other occasions, but as long as she was happy, I was happy too. Over the days, her enthusiasm has cooled a little, since she has to deal with homework now. She is not used to the idea of having to work at home so it’s a little hard at night for now.  She is also in an accelerated class so she will definitively have more work than her K friends whom are now in regular first grade.

I was supposed to be on-call for Labor Day but one of the techs is getting married in November and needs money so he asked me if I could give him my shift. I too needed the money but I figured that could be his wedding present whether I am invited or not so I agreed and suddenly my weekend was freed. Since it had been such a long time since we all went away together and it would actually be our first vacation with the baby boy, I was able to plan a long weekend to Naples, FL. (Italy will be for much later!) My daughter had a blast in the hotel pool and at the beach. I had bought a book that I had planned to read by the pool and it stayed on my desk. I was upset and disappointed because I was waiting for this book to finally come out, since the author (an old JSer) used to complain about not working on it. He disappeared and I found out lately that he did publish the book. Maybe I should have started it today…

Work is ok. I am still very happy that I still have a job and that I am kept busy. I see how many people are affected here and it is scary. My OW is having some issues but it seems she will be able to keep working for the organization, albeit in a different department and doing something totally different. 10 more days before her move and I am really glad it worked out that way, even though I will have to walk further every day to see her.

I am getting older and with that more health problems. My doctor and I had a serious talk last week and we talked about some drastic measures. I had chickened out about a year ago, but this time I am ready to go all the way. The first step is in a week, so we’ll see.

I got in touch with Jay. It had been weeks since we talked and I felt really miserable because not only I love her to death but I missed our silly conversations and more serious ones. Of course, as very often in such cases, there was some serious miscommunication between us. Everything was cleared and we are back in touch and I couldn’t be happier!

Of course there have been many other things that happened but that’s more of the daily stuff so it will not be transcribed here. That shall be for future and hopefully daily posts.

Till then…

My trip

I have been slacking off, putting off talking about my recent trip to the Dominican Republic. Not that lots of exciting things happened but I did not take my laptop with me and the free Internet was not as available as I would have hoped so. I will definitely avoid leaving without a computer next time not only because it’s nice to be able to write right away about things rather than have to wait so long to do so. Also, I am still reading blog posts and e-mails that just piled up in great numbers while I was away. I still have quite a lot to go through so hopefully I will get to them soon before I decide to go ahead and delete them all without reading them.

Heartbreaking

I was not a big Michael Jackson fan. I did listen to his music and was amazed when the “Thriller” video came out but I could not be counted as a die-hard fan.

When he started to fall from his dizzying heights, he would irritate me to no end. It was a time also where Prince was putting out his best material and I felt more attracted to what he was producing although Prince was never shy with his various eccentricities.

As Michael grew older, he had kids. How the children were conceived, who are the real biological parents, I don’t know and don’t really care but because he tried to protect his children to the maximum of his possibilities, I tended to see them as mute and covered puppets. Impossible also to forget the “South Park” episode with “Blanket”. Maybe not the best examples and moments but yes, I laughed and laughed again watching the duo of Parker & Stone have their moment with Michael.

I was shocked when I heard the news and even though I was not in the country, the media frenzy started that Thursday afternoon and I was able to follow the doubts about about his state then the confirmation of his death and all that followed. Of course the news talked about the children and I could relate to what they might have felt, to what they might have gone through that night and the days that followed.

I was able to stay away from all the madness, reading here and there a few tidbits but not falling for anymore of the coverage on TV. Even today, I barely read anything on my phone or PC and absolutely did not watch any of the memorial. Until I got home…

Reading some of what happened today, I was a little surprised to see that Paris, Michael’s daughter said something. I avoided all the clips from all the news sites until I gave in at the last site I visited.

I should have not done that.

She was brave enough to face everybody and tell them how great of a father he was and how much she loved him. And it was hard to watch this little girl talking about her dad that she will not see again, that she will not play with anymore and who will not be there to see her grow as well as her brothers. And that’s where it hit me. No matter how strange and bizarre Michael Jackson was, no matter how famous and how many famous people he knew, he was still a dad. A dad that was the best he could be to his children and was gone too soon. Yes, he is leaving a void in the musical world, leaving a void amongst his fans, friends and family but it will never feel as bad as it feels and will feel to his children.

I wish and hope they will find some solace and love to grow up and have a somewhat normal life but we all know that will never happen.

Good luck, kids.

Till then…

I’m baaack!

Catching up. Will talk about my trip soon.

Did you miss me?

Till then…