“When it rains, it pours.” Indeed, this could be a wonderful thing, if you’re a plant. Or perhaps a duck. It is all a matter of perspective I suppose. However, since I am not of the waterfowl breeds, nor do I spend much time converting Co2 into breathable oxygen, the sentiment has a much more negative connotation.
And it often breeds true.
The last few days have not only seen it rain, but ‘pour’ enough that the concept of building an ark has in fact occurred to me. In truth, all of the issues that have arisen are nominal on the sliding scale of problems that ranges from “Hangnail” to “Everybody is dead.” However, enough small things can in fact make a decent sized pile.
For starters, my wife and I had a rather heated conversation about my changing my schedule in the upcoming months to keep me home more at night. When I work late she is faced with putting both kids to bed by herself, and if Mini-Me doesn’t go down easy, The Narrator often doesn’t go to sleep until nine, which is not acceptable when he starts school. So she wants me home. My concerns about the loss of income due to the limited schedule were lined up against her concerns for the well being of our children. Long story short, I looked like a jackass, and the schedule is being changed.
Then I broke the lawn mower. Again. It is severe this time. The battery has had trouble for some time, to the point where I’ve had to jump it with the car to get it going. Once its running, everything was hunky dory until I shut it off again. This time though, it fired up, ran for about half an hour, then died, not to be resurrected for anything.
Not only did it die, but it died on enough of an incline in the lawn that I needed to tow the damn thing out of the lawn with the car. Which, when you’re doing that sort of thing alone, sees you doing a lot of running back and forth to change the steering wheel position of the tractor, pulling it a few feet, then moving the wheels again.
Cursing is not optional.
Then I find out that a series of significant one-time expenses this month have taken a serious toll on us already. This issue isn’t severe, since the situation will be remedied as early as this afternoon. Still. One more little problem atop of the other little problems….Stress.
To top it off, I ran up to the uniform and equipment supplier that our department uses so I could pick up some equipment I would need for a bike patrol this weekend. I shelled out my own money, because getting funds released from the budget takes an act of congress and presidential approval. Then I find out that the chief changed the plans, and took me off of bike patrol…without bothering to tell me. So I ate significant expense for nothing….and SINCE I’m not going to use the equipment, my chances of getting reimbursed for it is fairly dim.
If you’re still with me, I don’t intend to whine the whole time. There are some great things happening too.
The Narrator is getting the hang of his summer soccer program, and we’ll be dog-sitting for a friend next month, which I’m excited about since it will expose the boys to a constant animal presence outside of our two dumb cats. Not only that, but the two dumb cats might be forced to live for a few weeks outside of their overly-luscious comfort zones. They’re getting fat and lazy, and a little bit of “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?!?” won’t be so bad for them.
I’m also getting to do a little more exercise. I went for a run for the first time in a few weeks the other day. I finally shelled out for some new running shoes. My old faithful “go-fasters” were so lacking in support that I might as well have been running barefoot. A mile and a half in those things was enough to set the legs to burning and the knees to ache from the impact.
Changing things up saw me put in two miles the other day, and I felt like a million bucks afterwards. No aches, no pains, other than the usual soreness from rusty muscles being yanked out of what they assumed was an early retirement. The bit of working out I’m doing, as well as my near-total elimination of garbage from my diet has me coping with a nasty schedule so much better. There might be something to this ‘health fad’ after all.
Don’t get me wrong….I’m not going weird on you. The other night, my wife had a hankering for nachos, and that struck a chord with me, so I drove to the nearby general store and made it happen…I said ‘near total’ elimination of garbage.
And finally, Mini-Me is sleeping better. He’ll wake up maybe once a night, but goes immediately back to sleep when I lay him back down and pat him on the ass for a few minutes. No more spending hours on daddy’s chest. The drawback is that he’s awake earlier, but I’ll take my wake-ups early rather than frequently any day of the week.
…So, on the grand scheme of things, we’re about balanced. Some minor victories, and a few minor setbacks.
So to bring it full circle from the beginning, When it rains, it does in fact pour. But I’ve got an umbrella, and it doesn’t even have that many holes in it.
adequate dad 