True North

My maternal Grandmother had a preoccupation with direction- direction as in north south east and west.

She never used right or left, everything was described in terms of its location directionally.

"The salt shaker is on the shelf just north of the bowls."

That was relatively easy for me to decode, as I could identify a salt shaker, but when she didn't refer to a specific item or place I was completely lost.

"Put your bags in the northeast room," she would say.

Dude, I'm ten, can you give me another clue? How about room color?

I didn't know where northeast was when I was at my house.

My mother does the same thing.

"I got a new rug for the south room," she recently told me.

I always respond as though I know exactly what she is talking about .

"You needed a rug in there," I'll say just to be positive about the purchase, as I know thats really what she wants.

I have a poor sense of direction, and although most of the time I can tell what direction I am traveling it has taken me years.

On the dash board of my Grandmother's car she had a compass. I remember thinking it seemed obtrusive, I didn't like the way it looked, yet I couldn't stop staring at it bobbing as she drove. Now it sits on my desk in my office .

So when my Grandmother was somewhere unfamiliar she would always and I mean ALWAYS ask," Which way is north?"

And I always thought, who cares? She cared- a little direction obsessed.

Now I think its how she understood the world and her place in it, and I sort of get it.

The compass on my desk is out of balance, it no longer points in the right direction...but it doesn't matter- somehow in spite of my limitations I know true north...

Sancho

Apparently Aidan has a girlfriend and since I am no longer living in the main house, I am (apparently) the last to know.

So the strange part is her name is the same name of my parental Grandmother, and so its hard for me to get around this fact...yet I have been told she is very pretty - as (apparently) others here have actually seen her.

It's no wonder, he is 6'2 handsome, intelligent and charming. She is one of the first in a long line I'm certain.

So tonight I asked him about it. Right before dating him she had a boyfriend for eight months thus I now understand why he was called "Sancho" by his brothers since the beginning of the year. Sancho is the dude that takes your girl-and (apparently) thats what Aidan aka "Sancho" did- took the girl.

That in itself is something I have never accomplished although I had certainly contemplated trying. I have never been "Sancho".

"So what happened that made her decided to leave her boyfriend?" I asked.

"What happened? I happened," he replied.

Sancho- the guy that takes your girl.

He told me she had already gotten mad at him once for something he objectively had no control.

"Welcome to it," I replied.

My experience has been in the venue of romance there is no real equity per se. Don't argue your position, accept guilt and request forgiveness and if needed retribution.

Most of the time if your not dating a complete psycho the girl will eventually come around either forget about it or admit she may have over reacted- translated although you plead guilty it really should have been a no contest.

The trick is if you are with someone truly psycho to not drink the koolaid, which is tough because your threshold for "acceptable" gets blurry and before you know it you find yourself on a Sunday morning bringing her bubbly water and advil for the hangover she got when she ditched you on a Saturday night to go out with her friends.

"Next time you get that drunk call me I'll come and get you," you'll hear yourself say.

"I didn't want to bother you so late," she'll reply- translated I hooked up with someone else...

But I don't think my step son "Sancho" will have that problem.

What happened...I happened...my new matra

Fat and Lonely

My Grandmother hated fat people and people with poor oral hygiene.

I don’t hate fat people, but I do have admit I have issues with poor oral hygiene. I would live in my car if my teeth were fucked up and I had to pay to fix them. I would ride a bike and not own a car if it meant fixing my teeth.

At my elementary school there was always a few kids with a metal cap or even worse a brown dead tooth right in front. I always feared somehow I would have a dental mishap and end up with a disfiguring tooth injury. It was one of my two goals in elementary school, don’t ever be the kid with the fucked up front tooth, and since every year one kid in my class barfed I willed myself to never be that kid…lofty goals, yet I was successful.

I was so completely paranoid about my teeth I wore a dental guard when I rode my skateboard, keeping in mind I was in third grade, so this has been an obsession since I had teeth.

Thankfully I currently don’t have a dental issue(s), but I’m fairly certain I’m getting fat. I think I look a little better in the face, but the ass and middle, not so much.

This is a good reason to not own a full length mirror, at some point I might have to look at my body naked, and I really don’t want to do that…the house I lived in before this house was a real fuck pad- a Jacuzzi in the bedroom- and the master bathroom was completely mirrored, so I would be looking at my self sitting on the toilet or get a glance of that terrible tattoo on my lower back, or a one of the many divots in my thighs, it was always unsettling.

I don’t have a full length mirror, a scale or an alarm lock in my little house, and I don’t miss any of it- like I don’t miss facebook- when its there you feel compelled to look…its that and the fact I have become a social isolate so I’m not so concerned with “social networking”- or really any activity which includes the words “networking” or “social” in its description.

So I’m fat and lonely.

Today I took the girls to visit my mom and one of our typical activities it to go to Wal-Mart.

I spent $113.76 and I purchased the following items;

1. 10 drinking cups for the girls (I know 10 seems like a lot but these don’t leak, and these things disappear out of the house like socks…)
2. A forty pound bag of dog food
3. 2 sets of Dora the Explorer pj's
4. Pine Sol (Mountain Fresh scent)
5. Candy, cookies, snacks including nuts, and 3 six packs of regular soda (Root Beer, Mountain Dew and Dr. Pepper)

So here’s the problem, the non edible items, which for me includes the Pine Sol, could not have been more than 52.65 (ok that’s an exact figure) of the total- that means the remaining 61.11 was spent on food, more specifically food without any real nutritional value- food with sugar, sodium and saturated fats-..actually upon reflection to call what I bought food is an insult to food- what I really bought was a variety of chemical conglomerations rich in flavor.

Last night after pounding back a few handfuls of M & M's I panicked...I will have to remember to brush my teeth....

50/50

Fortunately for my unfortunate situation Gioconda and I are sharing the custody of the girls 50/50. The thing is there are two of them, and so although it would seem it would make it 50% easier having another person it actually makes it 78% easier to take care of them with another person.

So, with me there is a learning curve.

My goal at the beginning was to keep them alive while in my care, yet at this point I have upgraded to keeping them alive, and not permanently disfigured ( which includes amputations) while under my care.

As of today I'm at 100%, I'm not going to get cocky.

While playing with them outside today I noticed Sadie has a jaw breaker in her mouth, and then I thought - I didn't give her a jaw breaker- and then I thought I wouldn't give her a jaw breaker. The subsequent mouth sweep revealed a pebble the perfect diameter of a two year old's trachea.

So this is now rolling around my head, what if she swallowed it how could I dislodge it from her throat...what if I put my finger down to get it and pushed it further back...what if I didn't see it and I turn the corner and there she is unable to breath...and by the end of the day it might as well have happened because I have played out every disastrous result in my head

In order to get my head around it I have characterized these situations as follows;

The exacta; disgusting boxed with potentially life threatening-the trifecta; disgusting, with life threatening boxed with your fault - and God help me - the superfecta; disgusting, life threatening, your fault and legal consequence.

Please note arguably "your fault" could always be factored into any scenario, so I have come to just accept liability for those acts in which I am actively negligent - example giving Sadie an electric sander to play with as opposed to accidentally leaving a steak knife on the high chair tray.

Two years ago I heard on the news about a two year old killed when the family's pet boa constrictor got out of his cage and into the little girls crib. I am haunted by this, and to the best of my knowledge there are no loose or caged boa constrictors in the house and we live no where near a swamp, yet I find I am actually fearful of this happening.

"Your Grandfather was almost killed by a sow when he was a toddler," my mother said when I told her about my fear of having one of the girls crushed by a snake.

She has told me the entire story, although I have no recollection of the details other than he wasn't killed.

Sure I have pigs, and yes they have pistol whipped me once...which turned out to be a huge misunderstanding which we ended up laughing about when I got back from the ER, yet still how can you compare the two...