Chasin' the Dogs Off with a Stick

I am sure there are many of you that at one time or another have uttered the phrase, "when it rains, it pours." You are not alone. Though, i can't really say it's pouring here, rather it's more like i have a pack of Chihuahua sized Hell Hounds nipping at my heels. After battling these little buggers, some of them for years, i made a concerted effort this week to chase a great many of them off with a broom.

As you can see in the picture on the right, i haven't shaved in weeks. No, i can't grow a beard and yes i should resign myself to that fact and just shave like the rest of the world. Fair enough, i'm going to make a regular practice of shaving at least once every other week or so.

It has been my experience that familial ties are strongest when you are needed the most. This of course is trumped by relatives that live two blocks away from you. In all actuality i guess it does seem logical to expect a person eight hours away to be more available than the idiot down the street. Maybe in your world, but until Captain Kirk gives me transporter privileges you'll just have to settle for what you can get. Unfortunately, that includes the idiot down the street being too tired to help.

After weeks of hemming and hawing, my smart ultra flabby child went to his first day of football practice. The king of the half pushup had a load of fun and is looking forward to going again tomorrow. Kudos little man for not quitting. I was hoping not to have to whack you with the tenderizing mallet. I have hopes he finds his place and i won't end up bashing him with it in the near future.

My best good girlfriend with the twin girls brought up the notion of participating in that two thousand year tradition of Baptism for her girls and naturally i will be making the sweetest little gowns for this. She also brought up the Godfather thing. Initially i was a little hesitant. Well that's not entirely true, i was pretty much mortified by something that is an honor to be a part of. I have agonized over this and have come to the following conclusion. I would indeed be honored to be "The Godfather" and i promise to do whatever Dave would do in whatever capacity when called upon.

As for going to Alpine this summer for a visit, it's still up in the air. I have to tell you, i'm just not into going. I love the country and i have several friends there including one that's been gone for fifteen years and is now back, that i'd love to see. There are a couple in particular that i'd like to sit down with, split a beer, and talk treason till the wee hours of the morning, but it never works out that way. So the best i can muster on that subject is, i'll either do that or pull out my fingernail with pliers. It's a coin toss at this point.

One final thought, I have an oil leak on my Trooper. It's a '91 and as far as i'm concerned it's a classic. I LOVE IT!!!!! Be that as it may, the oil cooler adapter thing that bolts to the engine has a super weirdo gasket on it and i can't seem to find one. This due to Isuzu not selling the Trooper in the US anymore. Though, one of the dealers i called told me there is good news on the horizon, Isuzu will start selling the Trooper again in the US in 2012. Just how in the hell is that good news. I asked the guy to put a finger in his ear that he wasn't using for the phone so that i could ask my question again. He asked me why and i told him i didn't want the question slipping out the other ear again. He hung up. Some people's children. Interesting twist though with the other dealer i called, he asked if i had a Chevy engine and i do so he told me to go get one for an old S-10 pickup. I'll let ya know how that one turns out.

Well the sun is up and the sleepers awaken,

As always i wish you peace, Dave

Hotdogs and Nutella

Hello everyone,
I remember cooking dinner in my thirties and wondering what the big deal was with all of the people i heard complaining about always eating the same old things every night for supper. I thought, hell as long as i can get my hands on a chicken i'll never be one of those. Alright now, slow down a minute, you know what's coming, so wait for it. Gasp and Swoon!!! I have become one of those that i swore never to be!!!
Okay, so Thursday night the boys asked what was for supper. This question comes at me so regularly you'd swear it were an illness from elementary school in January. So, being the guy i am, i quipped back, "Hot dogs and Nutella". And a great silence fell over the land!! Well, for about five seconds anyway. Then, the little one asked me if he could toast his bread. Okay, Tilt, at that, overcome with a sudden out of body experience, i considered whether or not one should toast the bread. Now while in deep contemplative thought and with my head still spinning and my ears buzzing off of my head, the big one asked if he could still have hot sauce with that???? Holy Shit Batman, how the hell do you spell aneurysm??? Toast, nutella, hot dog and hot sauce???
Suddenly, i remembered Pizza Hut. Travesty averted. Oh, and yes, the big one did get his hot sauce. I guess it's time for me to go back to the beginning and remember how i began ruining chicken dinners in the first place. Who knows, i might even get inspired to do something radical like cut one up for myself again.
You know i am thankful for the entertainment i have surrounding me daily, but i sure do miss the wonder and mystery of cooking when it was new.
Until next time or Chicken A La Nutella, Y'all enjoy each other, Dave

Make that Fifteen for Bucketface

The calendar page fell and the temperature went up. June came in like an Acme Anvil from the roadrunner cartoon. Now i ask you, what would the world be like if the spring football game were played on a temperate afternoon instead of a blisteringly hot one?? Even being particularly susceptible to heat stress, i wouldn't have missed it for the world.

I'm going to stray from my narrative briefly, but i hope at least one of you can follow what i'm saying or perhaps even how i feel. For all intents and purposes, i'm a Catholic. I am not however a strict dogmatic Catholic and there are many notions the church has that i just don't hold in the same regard. If the truth be known, i'm about half Catholic and half Buddhist. At any rate i don't hold life to be man's dominion, but rather the dominion of God. That being said, (just to clarify that i'm not speaking of abortion) i am neither for nor against abortion. As with all things in life there are decisions to be made and repercussions surrounding those choices. As for what i am saying, God may not be overtly present in every moment of my life, but there are times when i know with a certainty that i've had help.

So, there i was with my wife and youngest son at the spring football game. My son, in the picture, was playing. He's too thin to be center, but he started every game this year, save the one he was out with the flu, and has already been given the starting center spot for next year. While it is true he's pretty much a big dumb jock, we have worked together to make him stronger and more academically sound.

This year was his Freshman year. Going in he had a history of being a "C" student and always on the verge of summer school for TAKS test remediation. I, like any parent, poured a lot of blood, sweat and tears into making himself more confident and raising his awareness that school and mom and dad are only temporary. I worked hard at convincing him he wouldn't always be a kid and that being grown up meant he was going to have to figure out what he is best at and what he loves to determine a career path. Over the year, his grades improved and he came up nearly a hundred places in his class ranking. I'd like to take credit for this but it wouldn't be fair. He did it. He was moved out of his normal English class and placed in English Honors/Pre AP. He has a wonderful written voice for someone so young and a grasp of story elements that amazes me. The only other thing he did that really stood out this year happened during the Track and Field season. He was the only Freshman from his school to consistently compete. Now before you think "hey, he must be fast" let me share with you that he competed in Shot Put and Discus. These are strength events. Although he didn't place a single time and this causes him some angst, most meets he was the only Freshman throwing against mostly Juniors and Seniors and the important thing to consider is: He was competitive.


He turns fifteen this week and after the effort he made, he ended the year as a "B" student, i pierced his ears for him. Which leads me to the point of all this drivel. I Love him as i do all of my children and i do anything i'm able to help them realize those things they want as long as they seem reasonable and their rationale is sound. The only question i've ever had, other than am i doing all i can, is do they understand why i'm so hard on them and am i a positive influence on their lives?? (So that's like three questions, but it's my blog and i can cry if i want to.) Then just when i think i'm beginning to see my kids pull away from me, God drops by to let me know what's really there. Rarely is there an instance when i can share these moments of grace with anyone. However, there was one of those moments of grace at the end of the game the other day and Donna caught it. Maybe God caught it. Who am i to say? All i know is the result is the following picture and there are no words needed to know where i stand with him. Equally, there are no words needed for where he stands with me. He's just beautiful and is going to make a fine man.


A Note to my Son:

Son, I don't give a hang if you are a Model, Wrestler, Actor, English teacher, or Tattooist in this life. Ultimately, i only want your life to be rewarding and for you to be happy with the "Skin you are in".

I Love you Bucketface, Happy Fifteen



To the rest of you, that's all the sap i have at this moment. My tree has once again gone to winter. Until the next time we meet, take a moment to notice the grace in your world

Be Very Well My Friends, Dave

Bi-Polarism and the unresolved symptoms

Hello Everyone,
I hope that y'all are doing well and you haven't had too much severe weather where you live. Save for a few fast moving storms the weather here has been pretty nice, but we haven't had the wind we look for this time of year. Ya see, when we aren't shooting up heroin or smoking crack (I'm Kidding Of Course!!!), we fly kites this time of year. This year has had the lowest average daily wind speeds, in our area, for more than twenty years. Which leads to some pretty miserable outings if you expect to fly that day. All things considered, it's probably just as well in some regards. For those of you that don't know, i have, for brevity's sake, Bi-Polar Disorder. Now, in as much as I'd love to say i have a garden variety case and it's well managed, i can't. In true Greyeyes Family style, i am so far out on that branch, treating me is an exercise in resolve, patience, and forgiveness for my doctors, close friends and family.
I have been battling, as of late, with the thought that we will never find a drug combination which will either arrest my BPD cycles or at least slow the rate of them down to a point where i will be able to return to some sense of the life i once lived. I'm reasonably sure someone reading this will tell me not to give up and advances in neuroscience happen everyday, but i have already been told twice that there are only a few meds left for me to try and i shouldn't give up hope, but i shouldn't be looking for that silver bullet either.
This subset of meds that i haven't given a try are the new anti-psychotics. I just love that term! Although, they don't call them that, they call them mood stabilizers today. Such a handy little euphemism isn't it?? Out go the anti-psychotics and enter the mood stabilizers. ACK!!! The problem with these pills, for me, are the side effects. I mean have you ever seen a commercial for a medicine and they list the side effects and while they are reading them off, do you hear yourself saying, "Geez! the side effects are worse than the disease." Well i know i have. In this, lies the problem. I need to supplement what i take now with a "mood stabilizer", but i want to avoid the major side effects and i just haven't found the right one yet.
This may seem a bit personal, but I'm pretty clear headed this morning and i thought i would put it down before i forgot what i was thinking.
You know there was a long time when i didn't put too much credence into BPD and the progression of symptoms during a lifetime. I remember a time when i went about a year without any extremes, neither up nor down. Sadly, that med combination only made it about three years before i, rather suddenly, nearly stopped responding entirely.
I have been actively treated for this for nearly fifteen years. Add to that a hit or miss, as symptoms arose dosing practice for another decade and it's little wonder why there are so few meds left to try. It's not all bad news though, as of today, i am nearly weight neutral. Trust me, that's a tremendous step. In the last fifteen years i have gained about a hundred pounds. It would make me ill if i thought about that part much. I have also managed to get my extreme depression under pretty good control. So what's left you say?? Only the anxiety, poor sleeping, and the ever present threat of losing control into a rage filled state. Okay, so i need a "mood stabilizer" that aids in control of anxiety, in sleeping, and arrests the bouts of rage with a minimum of weight gain and no link to type II Diabetes. I guess that's not hoping for too much.
I have a son going to a special high school next year and is in a program called Medical Academic, who's curriculum is specifically designed for kids who want to grow up to be doctors. Maybe one day he'll find my pill or your pill. At the very least, i would hope he never loses his kind demeanor the way so many of us have by the things that jade our lives.
I bid y'all a pleasant day filled with satisfaction and gratitude. Dave

Truculent @ 45

Today is my birthday and i'm forty-five years old. My sense of humor betrays me as the phrase, and that about sums me up, screams for me to splice it to the end of the first sentence. Truly, is that how i feel? Is that the value i place upon myself? Well, i just don't know. I'm beginning to believe "not knowing" is the stem from which i wilt.

I want to go fly fishing again.

A few notes on the Language

I must have been in my playpen, forty some-odd years ago, when the phrase "It's not what you said, it's the way you said it" was introduced to my lexicon. Perhaps, there are those of you that would prefer i use the term Broca's Area, but either way it's where we store our language. The interesting part of this is in the transport and delivery of language. Don't let me lose you, yet! This isn't going to be one of those dry academic things, more to the point it's going to be a quick examination of some language oddities that are on my mind. Oh Boy! I used the word quick didn't i?? Well, like the man said, "You get what you pay for." Back to, it's not what you said, it was the way you said it. Since the transport of our language is a living being, so must our language also be a living being. For instance the devolution of expletives for happiness or joy: sweet, dope, fly, awesome, cool, far out, peaches, berries, capital, and the like. Ah would a rose by any other name... Okay, so chalk that one up to generational catch phrases. How about the way technology has effected the language. if you misspell emulate (to mimic or attempt to pay homage to) you will end up with immolate (to destroy, usually by fire) another good one is rife (meaning a great amount of) and you get ripe (ready for harvest). These two can have overlapping contextual agreement. One could use either word to describe a quantity. Finally, we come to ascetic and aesthetic. The former is a person who trains in self denial and mortification and the latter is of beauty and what's pleasing to the eye. I'm not even sure i can find a parallel for those. Make no mistake, i'm not an English snob. If you look for grammatical problems in my writing, i promise you'll find them. I am the King of the Comma Splice.


All of this has been merely prologue to a few of my personal pet peeves. These are in no particular order and i hope you get some kind of giggle out of these. First off there is "alot". Alot is not a word. It is two and as two it doesn't mean many or several. However, many and several do substitute for alot just fine. Next, I want to remind y'all that y'all is spelled y'all. The argument has been made that y'all isn't a word either and the only reason it is in the dictionary is for common usage. WRONG! If you want to blame someone for y'all, then blame Queen Isabella of Spain. She needed to unite her country and commissioned a man named Nebrija to write the first Grammar. It is in this the Spanish form of the, plural and singular(in some cases) second person pronoun (you) (vosotros) was set down and hence, y'all is ours through assimilation.


Which leads me to my favorite email of the week. Yes! i'm telling secrets out of school.


I received the following:


Dude like my bff and me was hangin at the park just kickin and like her genes ript omg so funny cause her azz wuz hangin out and everything can you sew up her azz call me


In a word, WOW!!! I don't know if they need a geneticist or a seamster. So, i replied to my little friend with the following:


Dude, If she's over eighteen and has a good personality, bring her over and let me see if i can get her under the presser foot.


Remember, it's not what you say, but how you say it. I wonder if she'll want quilting stitches on her azz.......Y'all be great, D

Lactaid and the Humble Little Almond

There are few things in this world i cherish more, food wise that is, than ice cream. It's cold and creamy smooth with just the amount of sweetness you're looking for at any given time. Feel like something gooey, ice cream and caramel. Care for something just a little sweet, with very little fuss, vanilla with a bit of cinnamon on top. Oh, this could take days. Especially, if you've ever seen what they do with ice cream at places like Marble Slab. There's a problem with this picture for some of us; Lactose. For some of us that is the biggest four letter word in our diets, next to cholesterol, trans-fats, and eggplant.

I am lactose intollerant. As near as i can remember, i started having issues with milk and especially ice cream in the Army. I loved my Army doctor. He was a good old fashioned country boy and on the subject of milk, he was like that old joke: Hey doc, it hurts when i do this, and the Doctor says, then don't do that. So, for the most part, i gave up milk. I drank powdered milk for a while, it seemed to bother me less, and i even had goats milk. It just wasn't the same and neither made good ice cream. Now, i must confess, i wasn't ever a huge fan of milk like some people. I generally only had milk with cereal and in ice cream. I wasn't one of those drink from the carton kids.

Several years passed and i got to where i just didn't eat cereal and only ate ice cream sparingly. Some where in there i was introduced to lactaid by a friend. Ah, ice cream, my old friend. For a while it seemed to work fine, but then its efficacy seemed to wane a bit. I could have a glass of chocolate milk, but again, ice cream was my drug of choice you might say. I could eat ice cream with lactaid and it was tolerable, but i'd feel ugly the next day. Preferable to the pain, but not a good fix. Alas, am i doomed to a life without ice cream??

A few months ago, my son "bucket-face", yes i really call him that but it's not his Christian name, was put on a milk holiday to see if there was something in the milk making his acne worse. He's a carton tipper, jug junkie and all around milk monger!!! ACK!!! While he was on this holiday we got him soy milk. There are a few different brands of soy milk and they are all faily similar. He and his 14yr old taste buds told me it was as good as milk, maybe better. I smelled it and it had this machine smell to me. I couldn't drink it. I did try it and like i said we bought a few different brands, but they all had that smell to me and the after taste just grossed me out. I have a thing about smells. Smells can send me every where from lust to hiding under a bridge. So, i couldn't bring myself to eat a bowl of cereal with the soy milk. What this did do however, was make me want a bowl of cereal. I started remembering how i would drag my mondo box of Grape Nuts to the chow hall and suddenly i was struck with a full on craving. Ya see, my regular chow hall in the Army had both kinds of cereal, corn flakes and rice crispies. I liked Life and Grape Nuts. Solution?? Take your own to the chow hall.

Which sort of brings me to the crux of this whole thing. I want a bowl of cereal, but i don't want the after effects of eating it. Oh, what's a forty something foodie to do?? Enter, the Blue Diamond Almond Milk commercial. Now, i went to Germany and have indulged in some of the wondrous things they do with almonds and almond paste, so i naturally thought that either the Germans or George Washington Carver must have invented almond milk. I was wrong both times. Shhh, don't tell anyone. Almond milk enjoys a very long history stemming from the Middle East. This nugget made Donna smile as she is of Lebanese ancestry. Anyway, back to the Blue Diamond commercial. I jumped up and ran to the store to get me some of that stuff. I figured the worst case scenario being, Bucket-face could drink it. Oh, don't tell me you've never bought something, found out you didn't like it and then gave it to someone else. Kids are good for disposing of food that doesn't hit the spot and as far as that goes, Bucketface is the best.

The store didn't have any almond milk. It took a few days, but i found it. It's just under three bucks a half gallon here and here are the results according to my experience and taster. All they had was vanilla, no plain or chocolate. I opened it and smelled it. Weird thing, it smelled a bit like almonds. Go figger, right?? I'm not sure what i was expecting it to smell like, but it smells a bit of almonds. I poured a swallow or two into a glass. Taste, it tastes like a melted vanilla milk shake with a hint of almond. It's absolutely lovely. It's even great on cereal. I had the first bowl of Grape Nuts in nearly fifteen years. In the last couple weeks, i have had it on Cheerios (if you are a sugar hound, Don't Sugar cereal with Vanilla Almond Milk), Life Cereal and i even put it in a bowl with a fresh hot homemade brownie much like you might use ice cream. Excellent! Test number two, if you freeze it, does it separate when it freezes and thaws. Ultimately, i am going to make awesome ice cream with it. It is fairly stable from freezer to thaw and back. It will need some fat to make a good ice cream. Most of the recipes i have found use coconut milk, but i'm thinking avocado. Why not?? Alton Brown from the Food Network makes a cake subbing avocado for both the egg and oil, and it's pretty good. Don't go ew on me just yet, avocado has a very light flavor in comparison to coconut and might more readily lend itself to ice cream. I'll let you know. Till then, don't fear the lactose and don't endure the soy or rice, enjoy the almond. Afterall, would i lie to you??

Y'all take care of each other, D