What I do when I'm alone

Marathon Girl and Aidan left last night for Idaho and the wedding. The evening passed quickly. I worked on my book for two hours and finished another chapter. It's coming along better than I ever thought. It seems like the more time passes between me and the events of three plus years ago the better perspective I have on things and the easier it is to write about them.

Marathon Girl called a little after ten thirty to let me know they had arrived safely. At that point I put the laptop away and went to bed.

I spent my first night alone in almost two years. I fell asleep just fine but woke up shortly after five in the morning and found that I couldn't go back to sleep without someone to cuddle next to.

So I lay in bed and thought about the relay race that begins this afternoon and the different legs I'd be running and tried to estimate the time I'd be running them. One late this afternoon, one around midnight, and one early Saturday morning. Then I got up and made sure I had everything packed for the race and the drive to Idaho Saturday night.

After the list was checked off, I did some dumbbell exercises for 30 minutes. Not sure that was the best thing to do considering I'll be running 15 miles in the next 24 hours but it helped pass the time which is what I was trying to do.

Around seven I kept listening for the sounds of Aidan waking up. It took me a minute to remember that he wasn't here.

Breakfast wasn't the same without him sitting in his high chair smiling at me.

Always listen to your gut

Many moons ago (January, to be exact) I signed up to be part of company-sponsored team for a 150-mile relay race that is to be held this weekend. This means I would run three legs totaling approximately 15 miles in a 24 hour period.

In the back of my mind when I signed up, my gut feeling kept telling me I shouldn't sign up. Something important was going to happen that weekend.

I told my gut feeling to shove it.

Time passed and occasionally chances arose to drop out of the race. When such a chance arose my gut feeling again told me drop the race.

Every time I told my gut feeling to take a hike.

A few weeks ago we received a wedding invitation in the mail that is a must attend.

Location?

Idaho.

Date?

This weekend, of course.

So what does all this mean?

When my last leg of the race is finished (somewhere between 6-8 a.m. Saturday morning) I have to make a three-plus hour drive to Idaho to make the wedding with a quick stop over at my parent's place to shower and clean up.

Did I mention the amount of sleep I'm going to get Friday night will be next to nothing?

Damn.

Always listen to your gut.

Weekend Reading

Just posted: An Early (and rejected) chapter of Running Forward. When I was rewriting my book, one of the things I struggled with was finding a consistent voice to the story. I tried some different voices and wrote the following first chapter in first person, present tense. Though I thought it worked well for this part of the story, I had difficulty continuing the voice throughout the rest of the book.

I also decided that I didn't want to start the story here. The story did not begin with the death of my infant daughter but a week earlier when my first wife killed herself. There were too many questions that needed to be answered before I reached this part of the story.

In the end I inserted this part of the story at the tail end of chapter two. I added more detail and changed the voice to match the rest of the book.

But enough of why I didn't like it. If you want, go ahead and read it.

Excerpt

I sit next to my infant daughter watching her chest move up and down in sync with the whoosh of the respirator. She is two and a half months premature and weighs two pounds, six ounces. There's a tiny pink bow in her attached to her head of thick chocolate colored hair. My daughter's name is Hope.

Yesterday I made the decision to remove Hope from life support. I've been at the hospital today almost five hours and still haven't been able to bring myself to do it.

Hope shares a room with three other babies in the intensive care unit of Primary Children's Hospital. The other babies are bigger and from what I can tell, healthier. None of them are attached to as many life support devices as Hope. Not one is on a respirator. At some point during my daily visits I've seen all three awake, moving, and occasionally cooing and smiling at the nurses through their plastic incubators.

Not Hope. For the last nine days she's never opened her eyes or voluntarily moved her body.

The number of devices attached to her means she can't be kept warm in a plastic incubator like the other babies. Instead her body is heated by a bright white light. Three IV bags deliver clear concoctions of food, painkillers, and muscle relaxant one drop at a time. An electrode attached to her chest tracks her heart rate. Another checks her blood oxygen level. There are other instruments but I've forgotten what they do.

Read the entire chapter.

What are they thinking?

It's been a disappointing season for the Detroit Tigers. Mired with a 27-29 record, they haven't lived up to their potential this season. So I was a little miffed to read that they traded one of their relievers Ugueth Urbina for Phillies infielder Placido Polanco.

Their biggest weakness this year (and for the last several years) has been their pitching. Though Urbina has been so-so as a reliever this year, it seem to be that their biggest need is on the mound and not in the infield. The Tiger's offense is good -- not great but good enough. They don't need a hitter. They need someone who can pitch and win.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Fighting the HOA

Last night I was hoping to spend some time on my book. Then I remembered that I had to write a letter to the HOA rules committee to appeal an HOA violation.

The letter was due by close of business today. So instead of putting my writing skills to something important, I had to write a convincing letter stating why our property should be issues a variance to the fencing ordinance. (This will be the true test of how good my persuasive writing skills are.)

For the most part I don't have many complaints about our HOA. Our city is divided into two clusters of about 500 homes each. The cluster we live in has an HOA. The other cluster does not. Because of the HOA, the homes in our cluster are better maintained and have a consistent look and feel to them.

The cluster of homes without the HOA is a mess. Some yards are nice, others have sagebrush instead of grass. Some homes have wood fencing, some have vinyl and some even have chain link. Because the other cluster of homes are such a mess, the homes don't appreciate in value as fast and are harder to sell.

Until the beginning of this year, the previous company that managed the HOA wasn't very good about enforcing the rules (or so say the neighbors). And since no one was enforcing the rules, some property owners started ignoring them.

A new management company was hired in January. And they started enforcing the rules. Last month it was brought to our attention that part of our fencing was not in compliance with the rules. I called them up and was explained the exact violation. (I'll be the first to admit that part of the fence is not in compliance with the HOA guidelines.)

Since Marathon Girl and I didn't put up the fence, I immediately tried to contact the previous owner to see if she had any paperwork about the fence that she forgot to leave with us. (The previous left us with some paperwork regarding the HOA but nothing about the fence.)

All attempts at contacting the previous owner were unsuccessful.

But here's the kicker.

As I was explaining the situation to the current HOA management company, I asked if they had any paperwork that stated that the fencing had been approved. They told me that the previous management company had lost and/or misplaced two-thirds of the paperwork regarding homes in the HOA -- including any paperwork regarding our home.

So basically the HOA is enforcing rules not knowing whether or not variances were issued. Now if I had put up the fence and was stupid enough not to get written approval from the HOA that the fence was in compliance, then I'd agree to fix it. But since I didn't put up the fence and the previous management company lost all paperwork regarding the property, I asked for a variance to the rules.

Basically my argument came down to this: Since all paperwork regarding the property has been lost, they can not prove that a variance was not issued and that the lost paperwork this causes an excessive burden of proof on new property owners who are not responsible for the violation.

I'm crossing my fingers that a variance is issued but I'm not overly optimistic that we're going to win.

Small town drinking fountains

You know you live in a small town when the public drinking fountains for the city's festival is a fire hydrant. Oddly enough, I never saw anyone drink from it.

The Carnies Are Coming, The Carnies Are Coming!

Should be an interesting weekend. Our town is throwing their yearly festival and carnies have set up shop in the park across the street. The standard, overpriced rides were set up last night. There's a Tilt-a-Whirl (for the Tilt-a-Whirl Gods), Merry-Go-Round, a giant slide, a Ferris wheel that looks like it's about to fall apart, a Tea Cup ride, and something called The Cliff Hanger. There's also the standard booths where you can try to win stuffed animals or other toys.

Of course the downside of all this is that our street is going to be wall-to-wall cars and people for the next 48 hours. No real complaints about it though. It should be interested to take a walk through carnie land to see what's happening. I'm sure Aidan will like to look at all the lights come dark.

***

Is there another word for carnie? Marathon Girl and I had a discussion about it. Marathon Girl doesn't like the word and says it's demeaning. I said there wasn't another word for people who worked at a carnival. I even pointed out there was a Simpsons episode where Homer and Bart worked as and called themselves carnies -- thereby making the word acceptable.

Anyone know of any other terms?