The season begins...

"If you're at a Thanksgiving dinner, but you don't like the stuffing or the cranberry sauce or anything else, just pretend like you're eating it, but instead, put it all in your lap and form it into a big mushy ball.
Then, later, when you're out back having cigars with the boys, let out a big fake cough and throw the ball to the ground.
Then say, "Boy, these are good cigars!"
-Jack Handey

Seven Meme

Okay Diva...I accept the challenge. Here goes:
The Seven Meme

7 Things I Can Do:

1- Successfully catch small objects that I throw in the air, in my mouth. I have about a 95% success rate for this.
Peanuts, M&Ms....anything around this size.
2- Quickly learn new tasks and procedures. From changing hard drives to changing diapers, I am a quick study who is not afraid to fail a few times before I get it right.
3- Six degrees of separation with movie stars.
Okay...so not a useful skill but a fun one. Give me two actors or actresses who lived and were in movies in the last 50-60 years and I can usually link them to each other within 6 steps...off the top of my head with no internet or reference material needed.
There have been exceptions but I have a pretty high (85%+?) success rate.
4- Make my daughters smile no matter how upset they are. Even if I have to resort to working blue (on a 5-6 year olds level anyway) I can do this.
5- Come across as intelligent even though I feel like a dumb southwest Virginia hick sometimes...at least I think I can.
6- Sew. This is a new skill that I worked on for the last few months in order to make Halloween costumes that did not feel like they were made of pantyhose.
7- Fight for what I believe in. I am generally a very even tempered guy. My wife did not see me angry for years after we met. However, if I feel that someone is being unfair or ignorant then I will point it out.

7 Things I Can't Do:

1- See post below about smoking.
2- Hug my mother ever again.
3- Drink mass produced American beers. My English friend Ian made sure of that before he went home.
4- Correctly punctuate my writing.
:;,.
It's all a mystery to me that I can never seem to figure out.
5- Forgive my Father for not being a part of my life as I grew up. Regardless of what happened with him and my Mother he had a responsibility to make an effort to be there.
6- Accept Jesus Christ as my savior. I had enough organized religion thrust upon me by my Step-Father to completely destroy any possibility of this.
7- Feel comfortable dancing. I just don't seem to be able to do it...no matter how hard I try.

7 Things I Have In My Life Now That I Am So Incredibly Grateful For:

1- My wife
2- My children
3- My sisters
4- My brothers
5- My in-laws
6- Movies
7- Books

7 Things I Hope To Do Before I Die:

1- Go back to Europe. You can never get enough.
2- Take my wife on a romantic trip to New York.
3- Skydive
4- Lose weight
5- See my daughters grow up to be happy and successful.
6- Read more classic literature. I have read my share but there remains so many Steinbeck's, Hugo's and Faulkner's that I have yet to enjoy.
7- Be able to make a living while doing something I truly love to do.

7 Bloggers I Would Like To Infect With This Meme:
I don't know 7 bloggers. Other than Diva, who has already done this, I would like to call out CWMUPRHY to step up to the 7 plate.

Things I remember

Part One: Years 1-5
I remember being very young and sneezing in the front seat of our car while my mother drove.
I remember being stretched in some fashion. The muscles on the left side of my neck weren't working well and the stretching was part of a physical therapy routine to get them stronger.
I remember my brother Michael pretending to die and falling off our porch onto the ground below. I was sad and then happier than I had ever been when he stood up. He was wearing a gold cardigan and brown pants.
I remember getting excited when I saw the fox on Moores Lumber's sign and yelling "Peebles" for some odd reason.
I remember shopping at Hills with my mother in Christiansburg and using my allowance to buy Colorforms. I also remember their popcorn.
I remember going to a matinee of the original Batman movie with both my brothers and calling our mother to get permission to stay and watch it a second time.
I remember a girl in our trailer park who could run across the gravel road barefoot.
I remember going to a Christmas dinner for underprivileged children and a man with a brown dress coat with the leather patches on the sleeves who was nice to everyone.
I remember our neighbors, the Jenkins and the numerous amounts of cockroaches that lived in their trailer with them.
I remember climbing the trees around the trailer park and coming home covered in pine sap.
I remember spending time with my grandfather as he ran errands around town.
I loved to go to Southern States with him most.
I remember crying on my first day of kindergarten and sitting in the principals lap until I realized everything was going to be okay.
I remember my brother Joey getting into a fight with a bigger kid who kept picking on me.
I remember my mother telling me I was going to have a little sister.

To be continued...

My affair

I started smoking when I was 15.
At first it was to fit in with those I hung out with. I never really enjoyed the experience but thought it was necessary to "fit in"
Then my mother and step-father divorced and we moved to Blacksburg. After riding the bus a few times to school, I decided it was not for me and promptly started riding the public bus to school. This involved me waking up very early to walk through a very affluent subdivision to catch the bus.
During these walks I discovered the wonderfulness that is smoking. I would walk and listen to the Cure's Boys Don't Cry cassette on my Walkman and feel like I was in a another world.
This was all a secret from my mother...until the day she intercepted one of my walks home and detected the stench of nicotine and pleasure on my breath.
She knew that she could not cease the smoking, so she only gave me lecture and let me go.
I spent my senior year of high school in a haze of smoking and Plastic Passion.
Upon graduation, I left the safety of home for greener pastures and ended up in Maryland. I was 17 years old and 19 months and the legal age to purchase tobacco was
18 years old...I never encountered a problem purchasing my Marlboro Milds though. I always seemed a bit older than I really was and life was good.
I smoked until 1994, when I got a really bad case of strep throat.
It was October (which I know because it was time for the Simpsons Halloween special) and it was so bad I was coughing up blood. I went to the emergency room, received a prescription and stopped smoking for 2 years.
It was not until my girlfriend (fiance at the time) decided to end it all that I started back again. I had gained 80 pounds and when I started again I lost it all.
I moved to Richmond, VA and met my future wife. She smoked also and we courted in a ardor of love.
Then my wife became pregnant in 1998. She stopped smoking immediately and I continued. I wanted to quit but just couldn't.
I worked in a call center and it was too easy to walk outside and light one up during a break.
...and so it continued.
It was about 6 months ago that I came up with a great idea...at least to me.
I would only allow myself to smoke on Fridays and when I was drinking or around other smokers in a social setting.
This has worked, mostly.
There have been a few extra smoking sessions, but for the most part I am smoke free...at least 6 days a week.