Poetic Justice

Greetings once again.  Can you believe it's already time for another post?  Well since there are no commitments made, I figure I can post whenever the hell I want...so deal with it.

It's cold season once again, and as mentioned in our previous post, the whole family has come down with the sickness.  Poor Adler has had a really bad ear infection, so not only does he have drops (yes, he also has tubes), but he had to get a higher dose of oral antibiotics because the first prescription wasn't working.  In addition to Adler, Lexy has his first ear infection as well.  In case you couldn't tell, ear infections are about as common as junk mail in our household.  When M took Lexy in, the doctor was surprised to see someone so young with an ear infection.  Imagine our excitement and joy to learn our 4 month old is an overachiever in that department...

You may have noticed (or not) that there are some changes over on the right side of the blog...yet again.  Seeing that people were having a hard time becoming followers, I decided to remove that piece.  Instead, I offered up a SUBSCRIBE option which will notify you when a new post has been added (I'm sure it's going to get soooooo much more use than the Followers option, but whatever).  I also added a couple of survey questions I encourage you to participate in as well as an Asteroids game that has been added to keep the starving, virtual fish company.

Anyway, on with the thing.  For those of you who don't know me very well, I can be a smart ass.  I have mentioned before that my daughter, Ayris, has been studying and practicing the art of sarcasm for some time now.  I think it's time to admit that she has now successfully achieved Jedi level.

What's even more fascinating is that this is somehow also starting to rub off on Ash as well:

For those of you who know me well, I hope you just enjoyed a good laugh on that one...

So there it is - poetic justice at its finest.  The teacher has now become the student / student become the ring leader / upsetting the apple cart...I don't remeber where I was going with that one.  Sorry, I got side tracked by something I found online just now (see below).

Before we go, I leave you with two new pictures that have given me some laughs lately:

And my latest internet distraction:

Seriously, how epic is this?!

-Cheers!

Nighttime is Funtime

Greetings once again from that not so regular blog - Edge of the Lemon!  How about some updates?  M and the kids are doing fine...Lexy is fricken HUGE and the other three have all gone through the January/February cold season.  It has finally hit me and now it's my turn to cough and sneeze and be reminded to cover my mouth when I do either of the previously mentioned activities.

This is always an interesting time of year for me at work.  Coming off of our "busy" season, projects are transitioned and my time starts to open up a little more (both at work and at home).  This is when I start to have a lingering guilt in my days as I leave feeling "I should have done more today".  I remember last year, I called Wheeler all worried that the email was down.  Why?  Because it had been 15 minutes and no one had sent me anything!  Yes, that's how crazy it can get at times.

So with the busy time at work starting to dissipate, now is the time when I reacquaint myself with my family and friends.  I also tell my body it's okay to get tired and be sick.  So of course, with the flood gates open, my body decides I need 8-10 hours of sleep EVERY night and I usually come down with my annual cold (which will likely linger for a good 2 weeks).

The good news for you, our faithful reader(s), is that I now have more time to focus on all of the post ideas I've been compiling over the past few months.  You can also look forward to a higher frequency and more content.  In fact, I am so confident, that I will personally give each reader $1 if I can't make another post by the end of this year!

Last time, I had posted something called Lowered Expectations.  Since that post, I have come up with a few more thoughts that I would like to share with all of you.  My office building has been going through some construction and renovation.  Our entire department was moved to another part of the building, including my office.  Now I'm not pretentious or like to be ostentatious, but this was my sign for the first few months after moving into my new office:

Again, I'm not the kind of person that has to have everything all classy and junk, but I was tempted to head over to Things Remembered at the local mall to get a new sign.  You'll notice that the last digit is a "7".  The first two months, it was a "9" and the mail room was not able to find me...TRUE STORY.  So now I have a formally printed piece of paper with my name and the correct routing number.  I still don't have anything to hold it on the glass, but the tape that was used seems to be doing the trick just fine...

Last time, I made fun of Ozzy and his current case of domestication.  Well, I spoke too soon.  While waiting for the Super Bowl to start, I caught the tail end of the "Pre-Show to the Pre-Game Show".  During that show, our favorite "couple of darkness" were sitting in front of me on my TV:

Not only does Ozzy look like Joan Rivers now, he also has a secret fantasy.  For those of you who missed this ad campaign, let me paint the picture for you - over the course of the week, the ad campaign started out by declaring "Ozzy has a secret fantasy...find out during the Super Bowl".  Wow, I figured this was going to be EPIC.  Seriously, this was Ozzy "Fricken" Osbourne!  All other secret fantasies will cower in fear over Ozzy's secret fantasy, right?  Uh, not exactly.  When it came time for the final announcement, Sharon asks Ozzy his secret fantasy.  To which The Prince of Darkness replies, "I want to fly to New York City for a colonoscopy!"  First let's acknowledge something:  Sharon Osbourne had cancer...Sharon's cancer was in her colon.  OK, now with that said - SERIOUSLY?!?!

I cannot get over the evilness that was Ozzy and how every parent in America was against him in the 70's/80's/90's because of the messages in his music.  Now we are being told by him to check the pulse of our health.  Who would win in a fight - "good" Ozzy or "evil" Ozzy?  I can't help but think of today's vulgar and out of control poster child for debauchery - Ke$ha:

With such thought inducing lyrics like "Brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack, because when I leave I ain't coming back..."  Wow, riveting.  Let's fast forward 40 years to a time when things may have slowed down for our little party girl.  I can imagine Ke$ha still donning the glitter and crazy hair, but with a more wholesome message:

Auto-Tune: Taking the talent out of singing and making careers for tone deaf people like Ke$ha since 1998.

Speaking of the Super Bowl (see what I did there), I had another reminder of my ongoing struggle with Madonna.  For those of you that don't know me very well, I am forever cursed with Madonna's "Like a Prayer".  All someone would have to say is "Life is a mystery..." and that song is stuck in my head for a week.  So watching the Half-Time Show, I started to get nervous thinking I was going to have to turn off the TV.  As the show went on and on, I started convincing myself that she wasn't going to perform the song.  I decided to go into the kitchen when I started to hear the choir.  "Huh," I started thinking to myself, "that sounds a lot like...oh no.  Oh crap!  No, no, no, NO!"  As I ran into the living room I was shouting (read: begging) for someone to change the channel before it was too late.  Unfortunately, the only two people in the living room at the time were Adler and Alex - two people 1) not able to understand what I was saying, but 2) even if they did, they would have no clue what to do with that new found information.  Apparently the tone of my voice and the sense of urgency scared poor Alex.  So as I'm screaming something incomprehensible, Alex starts crying...then Adler hands me my phone and starts laughing (he's such a trooper).  That's when my phone starts going off.  For the next 5 minutes, I am receiving 10-15 text messages from people telling me to turn on the Super Bowl and that "life is a mystery".  You all suck!

Even Madonna herself seemed to have a part to play in this:

Let's just say it was the most enjoyable part of this year's Super Bowl.  And a special thanks to everyone out there who continued to feed my unknown obsession with that song.  I wish nothing but misery for you all.

Now, on with the festivities!

A long time ago, I posted about outside noises playing a role in my dreams - Have An AWESOME Day!  I have since encountered a new version of this.  The following is my recollection of what I thought was a waking moment, but what I now hope and pray was actually a dream without me realizing it.

I'm finding the older I get, the more I look forward to sleeping.  I'd like to go back in time to meet "Young Chris" and smack him/me around for refusing to take all those naps.

Anyway, I have a hard time getting to sleep sometimes:

So I usually have to go through my entire day and then revisit some popular topics before I can calm myself down enough to fall asleep:

When all of a sudden a picture-in-picture type image popped up above my head:

***I'm pretty sure I was dreaming by this point

I became confused and then I started to panic.  I didn't know what was happening, but I knew that no one in the movies/on TV ever cuts to nothing happening (like a baby sleeping).  I had to do something, but I was too late:

And that's when it happened:

***I'm pretty sure I said that part out loud

So with Lexy actually up and crying, I am awakened out of my not so lucid dream and back into the reality of the really, real world.  Of course, this starts off a chain reaction in our house (which is a common occurrence around 3am):

Stop by sometime if you can't sleep, you can help me with the boys!

Seeing that we missed posting anything last week, I wanted to provide all of you a late Valentine's Day pic:

And of course, one of my favorites:

I'll leave the interpreting up to you...

-Cheers!

Lowered Expectations

Well we're finally back once again after a long hiatus, and I for one think it's about f#$&ing time!  What a crazy year it has been so far.  My always busy January travel schedule did not let me down again this year with multiple trips to St Louis, Baltimore (almost) and of course my always popular stop - New York City.  For those of you that don't know me very well, I tend to travel 2 or 3 times a month for my job.  In January, however, my travel ramps up to insanity levels allowing me brief stints at home long enough to remind my family what I look like, wash some clothes and clean the litter boxes (M has deemed this my honorable duty and mine alone).  So now that we have moved into the month of February, I am looking forward to seeing an end to my constant treks through the airport security lines and hopefully I can soon start spending more time with my family, going to band practice, and of course, adding more exciting new posts to this obscure, unknown blog that no one ever reads.

Before I dive into the latest post, let's take a moment and reflect on the year that was 2011.  For me, it was a year of mixed emotions as M and I completed our family with the birth of our son, Alexander Nolan.  As exciting as it was to have another child, we both knew before Lexy was born that he would be our last (cripes, we have something like 50 kids...or so it seems).  Also, earlier in the year, I had my hip fully replaced...something I probably should have done 10 years ago.  And of course, I made it another 12 months without becoming a better person...which is a personal best for me!

The holidays were simple this year.  M and I decided to buy presents for the kids only (and we really meant it this time unlike previous years), but I did manage to score some good gifts from my team at work.

Karen gave me the wonderful gift of holiday bacon:

While Cara gave me my very own signed copy of Jorge Buccio's latest album - This is the Music

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last 35 years and don't know Jorge Buccio, he is sometimes known as the "Italian Elvis" and plays at a local Italian restaurant in New York's Little Italy where I like to eat from time to time when I'm in town.  He does a good rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and the world famous "Napkin Song".

Now, on with the post:

I sometimes look back at my younger days and think how crazy, hardcore it used to be.  Not in my actions, but in my music.  I listened to bands that were over the top and downright insane.  The front man for Guns n' Roses, Axel Rose, was such a person.  His "F you" attitude, offensive lyrics, and blatant drug abuse made him the poster child for all parents looking to keep their children in Osh Gosh and out of torn leather and ripped hair.

Axel Rose was hardcore!

But then this happened:

Not quite the same level of awesomeness huh?

Same with the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne:

This guy was so out of control, he once bit the head off a bat!  How more hardcore can get?  But now he is this:

These days, Ozzy just sits around trying to remember where he left his house.

Now to be fair, I've listened to a lot of different kinds of music throughout my life, but what made me think about these two in particular is where they were 20 years ago to where they are now.  Growing up, these two icons were evil, out of control miscreants who were deemed too savage and unsuitable for civilized society.  Today, you can't go to a professional sporting event without hearing "Welcome to the Jungle" and even worse than that, "Crazy Train" is now being used to sell minivans...MINIVANS!!!  I would love nothing more than to go back in time and show the world of yesterday what will happen to these people in the world of tomorrow...I can only imagine.

As a dad, I find that I too have lowered the "Bar of Expectations" with my own kids.  What used to be fun for them when they were younger has become mundane and annoying (at least for the older ones...it still works on Adler and Alex).  There was a time Ash would get so excited to see me when I came home from a trip.  He would run into my arms and give me hugs and kisses, or he would go hide and make animal noises until I went to go find him.

These days, it's a little bit different:

OK, so gone are the days when he would get excited just to see me.  So I now have to bring him something to show that I was thinking about him while I was out of town.  The problem with this approach is that he is now expecting me to give him something every time he sees me:

In the case of a response like the one above, it is usually followed by a frowny face while he tries to hold back the tears.  What's worse are the other times:

He seems to be growing out of this phase rather quickly...for some reason.

Ayris is no different.  What used to entertain her and make her smile:

Now annoys the hell out of her:

Wait for it...

Okaaaaayyy...

I can't help but wonder when Ayris becomes a teenager if I am going to be traveling a lot more than I am now.

So there you have it - another post from Edge of the Lemon once again lowering expectations with you the reader.  I hope you all have enjoyed this time away, and you are all excited to be entering another year with random thoughts and posts that should hopefully be coming out more frequently now we are through the busy month of January.

As I close the first post of 2012, I leave you with a picture that has helped to get me through some rough days recently:

I hope you all have a very memorable year...

-Cheers!