View, Straight Up

View, Straight Up

Originally uploaded by Hank LNU

A nice barbeque afternoon with my in-laws. Brother-in-law and sister-
in-law, that is.

A *very* nice afternoon.

A Crappy Memorial Day

So where did you spend Memorial Day?  In the emergency room?  No?  Well, then your day was better than mine.

I was out in the morning doing some errands when I got a call from Mrs. LNU saying that our youngest had gotten into her bag, into a zippered compartment, gotten his hands on a bottle of her thyroid medicine, somehow had opened a “child-proof” cap, and “ate some of mommy’s candy.”  Three pills, he said.

Now, on the plus side, I got to find out what going 85mph in a Honda minivan feels like.  We threw our kids, still in their PJs, into the car and rode to the hospital.  Mrs. LNU went in while I waited outside with the other three.  We didn’t want to wait in the waiting room because the whole thing was filled with people with surgical masks on, supposedly to prevent swine flu.  We’ll leave the difference between being protected and feeling protected for another post.  Suffice it to say that my already freaked out wife wasn’t ready to have our other three sitting in the flu trough.  So outside we went.

Can I digress a moment?  Why is it that a hospital cafeteria would sell a prepackaged muffin with 540 calories and 3.4 billion grams of fat?  Are they trying to drum up business?  Meanwhile, one bad cup of coffee and one dripping-with-fat muffin later, with my other kids having had their chocolate milk and Rice Krispies etc., and having exhausted other things to do (my daughters racing each other, up the stairs and down the handicap ramp, each going the opposite way), we went back to sit outside the ER.  Then we finally got to join Mrs. LNU and the youngster in the ER, where his teeth were black from drinking the charcoal stuff they use to bind the medicine.  Our pediatrician says he’s not worried at this point, although the ER doctor told us that Poison Control said that the particular medicine takes about five days to really get up to levels they can detect.  So another couple of days and I can sleep again.

And of course Mrs. LNU and I were snapping at each other the rest of the day, bleeding off the stress from the morning.  So it was one argument after another, over the most stupid, meaningless things.  Those of you who are married will know exactly what I’m talking about, how the stupidest things spark an argument when you’re stressed from some other reason.  So we end up arguing about where on the dining room table we put the mail, when we’re really just worried about our kid.

I hope you had a better Memorial Day than I did.

A New Reader

Everyone please welcome Mrs. LNU to the ranks of my readers.

She doesn’t really get the whole blogging thing.  And she’s a little more private than I am.  (Hi, I’m Hank.  I overshare.  Hi Hank!). 

But I love her more than anything, and she wants to read it.

That said, she’ll probably never actually read it.  Sometimes I think it’s the “I can” versus the “I actually want to.”  I think that’s probably common to women.  (It’s certainly not to men.)

So let’s keep the rowdiness to a minimum, shall we?

The Face in the Ceiling

The Face in the Ceiling

Originally uploaded by Hank LNU

I feel very looked down upon.

Why Bother

You know, one of my favorite things about blogging is getting to know other bloggers.  Reading their comments, even getting to know their commenters.  I met some really great people in the last 5 or 6 years since I’ve been blogging.  Some I’ve met in real life, some only through telephone, IM, or the back-and-forth in the comments section.

So I really like leaving comments, cause that’s where it all starts.

Except in this case.  I came across a new site, good pictures, interesting writing.  So I thought I’d leave a comment.

Along with the other 405 people who had already done so.

Seriously.  405?!  What’s the point, really?  It’s not like this person is ever going to respond to the comment, much less start a dialogue.

Anyway, if you want to follow the thronging masses, go check out Pioneer Woman.  But beware the crowds.

Manly Things

I think I need to go kill a wild animal with my bare hands.  Or watch a football game with beer and chips, with other guys.  Or go to a bar and use a cheesy pickup line on a semi-drunk woman.  Manly things.

I say this because I was leaving my house this morning and noticed that the snail colony was back.  I have bushes lining the walkway from my house to the street.  In the bushes are lots of snails.  In the morning, I walk out and have to avoid the 30-40 snails in my walkway.  I didn’t see the snails all winter.

So today, I noticed the snails again.  And I realized that I kind of missed the snails.  I said to myself, “oh! the snails are back,” and there was a warm fuzzy feeling as I realized that I had missed the snails.

Followed immediately by a need to hit myself in the face and man up.

Now, because of some mean woman on the subway who felt it necessary to sing to herself (and everyone else on my side of the train), I have Alanis Morisette’s “Ironic” going through my head.

Manly things.  Think manly things.