Brain (s)Craps

So Christmas is just around the corner, and this year that means seeing relatives that I haven't seen in a number of years. A week or two ago I got a call from my biological father. I haven't heard from him in about three years or so. Before that I don't think I had heard from him in about five years. It's hard to know what to think since I can count the number of times I've seen or talked to him in the past ten years on two hands and still have phalanges remaining to stick in my ears and wiggle my fingers at you while making a silly face. Partly it's my fault, sure. The phone does work both ways, and I could pick the phone up any time I wanted and give him a call. It's difficult to track him down sometimes, but not impossible. For some reason I just never get that urge.

The other side of it is that this guy didn't raise me. For most of my life he was in and out of prison for different petty stuff, or just MIA in general. My step-dad has raised me since I was about three. It leaves me a bit conflicted. I almost feel like I'm betraying the man I've thought of as my Dad for as long as I can remember. I've discussed it with my Mom a few times (she's got one o them psychofrackulator degrees), but I've never been able to acheive any sort of resolution in my own mind. I still feel uncomfortable, yet long for the kinds of familial connections that my wife has. Not that my own family isn't tight knit, but they are considerably more reserved than my wife's family. My wife is Hispanic and has a large extended family with more cousins and aunts and uncles than I could even imagine.

I also have three half-sisters, one older and two younger, all of which are from different mothers, none of which I've ever kept up with. I have nephes and neices that I've never seen. I don't dislike that side of the family, I just didn't know them well growing up, so therefore I never bonded with them. I saw them once a year for Christmas, if we lived close enough to make the trip feasible. Can relationships be built (or rebuilt) so late in life?

Can a person's character change enough over the course of a lifetime that they can again be trusted with a familial relationship? I guess I'll find out this weekend.

"Where is fancy bred, in the heart or in the head?"

Every year about this time, Ernie over at Ernie's House of Whoopass (Not always safe for work.) does a little something for our service men and women stationed far away from their families. Ernie's little project is called Let's Bring 'Em Home. Ernie asks for donations of money or even frequent flyer miles which are used to get plane tickets home for soldiers and sailors who can't afford it themselves. Like Ernie says, it's not about who you voted for or whether you belive in what we're doing or not, it's just about getting some of these folks home for the holidays. Go without a half-caf-soy-double-latte for a week and send a few bucks over to LBEH for a good cause.

I guess it's been a while since I read LotR, but I con't remember who the heck these guys are. Apparently I'm one of them though.


Numenorean


To which race of Middle Earth do you belong?
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Gee, has it really been since July? How time flies when your life is a headlong rush of days whose sameness causes them to melt together indistinguishably. I see that I've been attracting a large number of hits from surfboard vendors for some odd reason. Gotta love automated Spam.

So what have I been up to? Not a whole lot. I get up, eat breakfast, sit in traffic for an hour and a half, listen to people who make three times more than I do and have four times my education cry because they can't figure out how to run a Peoplesoft query or save a Word document, Spend two more hours in traffic on the way home, get to spend a precious hour or two with the one person I'm happy to see all day before she has to go to bed because of her crazy work schedule, then I get up and start all over again. Yes, life is full.

Okay, so it's not all that bad. My wife and I both enjoy our jobs and it's really kind of nice to be on a regular schedule. After working nights, graveyard shifts, weekends and holidays for so long, it's a relief for both of us to have weekends and holidays off together. Our schedules are only a little out of synch since she has to be at work at 3am.

Current Events
Wow...Where to start? I guess the most recent news would be that I'm preparing to have surgery. I have what is known as a Hydroseal on one of my...gentlemen. Okay, so I have a swollen ball. Hooray. Basically one of my testicles has swollen to about four times its normal size. Big Teke Nuts in ya Mouth indeed. According to the doctor this is a "normal" issue. Normally, most guys would be like "Hell yeah! I've got a huge package!" Belive me, though, when I say that it's not comfortable, it's painful in some circumstances and I'll be glad when its fixed. The procedure seems simple enough. They slice open the scrotum, pop out the offending testicle, drain the excess fluid, cut open the sac that surrounds the testicle, flip it inside-out, then sew everything back up. Why are you guys out there crossing your legs?

Additionally, I apparently have gout, or at least a pre-gout condition. "WTF!?" you might say. I know I said it. I don't eat rich foods or drink heavily, but nevertheless my uric acid count in my bloodwork is abnormally high. I'm also not in any joint pain and I have no swollen or painful toes. So I did a bit of research. High uric acid levels can be caused by a number of things, the end result of which after a number of years, would be gout. One of the things that can cause high uric acid levels? Obesity. Guess it's time to dust off the diet and exercise equipment. Oh well, I've been needing to lose some weight anyway.

Insert Anecdote Here
So my wife and I were discussing my upcoming surgery when she recalled an event that happened a few years back on my birthday (which is coming up January 12th for those of you who want to lavish me with gifts like big screen TVs, Chrysler 300Cs, or a lifetime supply of half-eaten Fig Newtons). Marianne went to buy me a birthday cake from Baskin-Robbins (mmmm...ice cream cake...) and decided to put something funny on the cake. When she got the cake home and took a picture of it, she noticed the wacky foreign guy at the shop had made a minor spelling error. The cake read as follows:

"Happy Birthday to the Man with the Biggest Ball in the World!"

Considering what I'm going to be having surgery for...

"That, my friends, is irony writ large."
-George Carlin