It's a Small World...

Over Spring Break we went on a cruise. Our ship was Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas. It’s that new 6250 passenger, larger than life ship that started cruising earlier this year. Both the ship and the cruise were pretty amazing.

However, this story isn’t about the ship. Don’t worry I’ve got some stories to tell about the ship and all that we did, but this is about a really bizarre thing that happened on one of the islands we visited.

Our ports of call were St. Thomas, St. Maartin (that’s how they spell it) and Nassau.

So we’re on St. Thomas, one the Virgin Islands. We had walked around, shopped a little bit and had basically just been lazy. It ended up with the four of us, Melissa, Macy, Page (a friend we took with us) and me just sitting on the beach with hundreds of other people. We started getting hungry, so Melissa walked down the beach and found Thor.

Thor is a large, animated island resident who either works for one of the beach restaurants, or he simply makes money by looking crazy, taking people’s orders and playing waiter for tips. Either way, Thor has a very colorful personality that made eating on the beach much more fun than it usually is.

Anyway, the four of us, and the group next to us, both ordered from Thor. The group next to us had about six adults and their kids. They were ordering some pretty festive drinks and seemed to be having a pretty good time. I was a little jealous of the drinks, but I knew I had to somehow actually make it back to the ship, so I decided not enjoy one of their festive beverages.

Thor shows up, gives us our food and tells us he’ll be right back to collect the money. I get my money ready and start walking toward Thor and the festive drink group to pay. When suddenly, the guy from the festive drink group who is talking to Thor starts to look familiar. He had on dark sunglasses and that made it hard to be sure. That’s when I turned to Melissa.

“Look at the guy talking to Thor. Is that Tracy Ward?”

“No way…well, maybe.”

“Last time I saw Tracy he had hair, but I’ve seen him on Facebook, and it’s all gone now. So that could be him.”

At this point I yell, “TRACY!” He never stops talking to Thor.

“I guess not, it’s hard to tell with his sunglasses on.”

“Hugh, isn’t that Kathleen?”

It was at this point that I realized I had traveled thousands of miles from home, and was sitting on the beach next to my old buddy from my college days at Hardin-Simmons University, as well as, Seminary. We were actually headed to Tracey’s house back in 1990, when we were in the accident that changed my life forever. Come to think of it, Tracey is one of the few people who actually read this blog. Go figure?

Turns out it was Tracy Ward. We talked, laughed and hugged. Of course it never occurred to either one of us to take a picture, but the memory is all I need.

Turns out, if not for Thor’s loud “Hey! Look at me!” kind of personality, I may have never realized that I was soaking up the sun right next to my old friend.

Then we saw each other again at the airport as we were leaving Fort Lauderdale. Tracy got a picture of us on his iphone standing outside the airport. At least that was something.

Yep, it really is a small world…But I wouldn’t want to paint it.

Thor

I had to say something...

I have written about this before, but it’s on my heart and this is my best outlet.

When I see small children afraid to come to school, not because of missing homework or bullies, but rather because of a standardized test called TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills), it breaks my heart and infuriates my soul at the same time.

The state of Texas is doing a serious disservice to lives and futures its people by putting our children through this kind of an “educational” ringer.

The biggest worry that a third grader should have is getting cooties, not passing some damn standardized test!

We have lawmakers in Austin (and Rick Perry is the main one) with no educational training who are sitting in their ivory tower and tossing out educational reform ideas like an old, blind man feeding handfuls of pebbles to a flock of hungry birds. He has no idea that the pebbles aren’t food, and that they are actually killing the very birds he’s trying to feed, so he keeps on throwing. He hears voices all around pleading with him to stop throwing, but instead, out of frustration, he starts throwing larger and larger stones. If a bird dies, he just starts throwing harder. He has an inexhaustible supply of stones, and there is no end in sight to this bizarre pattern.

These lawmakers have never spent time down in the trenches. They have never had to stand by and watch a third grade girl pull her own hair out by the handfuls, because she so afraid of failing this giant test. Not because she cares about the grade, but because she knows that, even though the scores are kept “confidential,” everyone will know if she passed, because if you fail you’re put into a special reading group. And that will make her different.

These lawmakers have never had to find discreet ways of looking under a child’s long sleeves to see if he’s started cutting himself again. And they sure haven’t had to watch this same boy’s mom crumble into a sobbing mass when they tell her that it’s happening again.

These lawmakers have never had to use a translator to tell loving parents that their child, mostly because English isn’t spoken at home, is going to have to repeat the third grade. And then look across the table at the child and try to convince her that she isn’t stupid.

These lawmakers have never had to watch as the joy that should be daily in Kindergarten, is washed away with the promise of “better first grade readers.” Oh sure, it sounds great, but they are forcing teachers to use developmentally inappropriate testing with these small children.

What’s the bottom line for these lawmakers? It’s not quality education. It’s not brighter futures of the children of Texas. It’s not the mental and physical wellbeing of their constituents.

It’s Money.

The better we score on these tests, the more money the state gets. The more money the state gets, the more stones the lawmakers can buy for the old man.

I know Governor Perry recently led the charge for Texas to keep some of its educational autonomy by opting out of President Obama’s education program, but don’t let that fool you. We still get federal money. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t turn down ALL of the federal funding.

So what can you and I do?

Scream.

Yell.

Make Noise.

Let the lawmakers know that we don’t like what’s happening…make them listen to us for a change.

Mine is only one small voice, but together maybe we can stop that old, blind man before he starts throwing boulders.

Thanks for listening,

Hugh

Backwards Epiphany

I was watching myself sleepily drag my brush through my hair in the mirror a few days ago when it occurred to me that I only ever see myself backwards.

Then I realized that the only way anyone ever sees himself or herself is in a mirror and that means backwards. Oh sure, I’ve seen myself in photographs and videos, but to be perfectly honest, I never look like I think I should. Quite possibly my dissatisfaction with my appearance in pictures may have something to do with the fact that to me the image is flipped.

And what about all those other people who hate having their picture taken? You know the ones. They’re always sticking their hands in front of their faces and yelling obscenities at the photographer. (Well, perhaps not all of them use obscenities, but you get the point) Maybe, they just don’t like seeing themselves backwards either!

Standing there half asleep, with my brain trying to soak this in, I start wondering about other things that look backwards to me. First, my hair is really parted on the other side. Next, my ring is really on the other hand. The little scar on my face is really on the other side. And the list goes on and on and on.

Then I began to wonder. Who’s really seeing backwards? Am I getting a backwards view of reality, or is reality getting a backwards view of me? Maybe my hair really is parted on the side I think it is, but you just can’t see it correctly.

That’s when I started to get worried. I mean what if it’s more than just the physical things about me other people are seeing in reverse.

Could it be that my whole world is backwards from reality?

Come to think of it, there have been times when I have deemed things to be funny, or cool, or stupid that other people have either failed to see the humor in, or simply considered to be no big deal, or thought they made perfect sense.

In these situations, who was right and who was backwards? Even as I’m writing that last sentence I’m forced to wonder, why can’t backwards be right?

Years ago I had a dyslexic child in my class about whom the district’s diagnostician said, “This child has the most sever case of dyslexia I have seen in 25 years of testing.” Bob didn’t know right from left, up from down or front from back. This poor guy didn’t know if he was coming or going.

With my new everything’s backwards quandary, I found myself thinking about Bob. I had to laugh when I thought about Bob in front of a mirror. I bet mirrors were Bob’s greatest fear.

But maybe, just maybe, they were his greatest joy. Maybe, for Bob, everything he saw in the mirror made perfect sense. Maybe he could do that “try to trace the star while looking in the mirror” thing better than anyone. Not because he saw things different, but because he saw them way they were really meant to be. For a brief moment, I started to envy Bob. However unlikely, there is a chance that he not only sees things differently, but maybe he sees them the way the way God intended. Who knows?

And there you have it, my backwards epiphany.

So what does this backwards epiphany mean? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m just writing things for you to read…

Or maybe you’re just reading things for me to write...

Record Breaking Snow

I've lived in Texas all my life and this is the first time I've seen it snow for 15 straight hours. That much snow creates a pretty impressive picture. Let me share a few with you.

Enjoy

A look out my garage

View from the street

I live in Dallas, Texas... my street is not supposed to look like this!

Tree in the backyard

I just liked this one

And finally, me in the snow

(Melissa thought I was crazy)

There's Just Something About A Quirky Kid

Over the last 16 years I’ve had every imaginable kind of kid in my class. I’ve had football stars, future head cheerleaders, and everything in between. And while I can’t think of a student who I couldn’t find something about to like, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the quirky kids.

I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe it’s the fact that no one needs to be liked more that the a quirky kid. Maybe it’s because I just want to see that quirky tortoise beat that over-popular hare. Maybe I simply like to root for the underdog. Whatever the reason, I think I can identify with the quirky kid just a little bit better. Who knows why?

If the conversation turns to quirkiness, students I’ve really enjoyed teaching, or yes, even smart kids, my thoughts always turn to Miles.

Miles was in my class quite a few years ago. Miles is by far the quirkiest student I’ve ever had, he is also quite possibly the most gifted student I will ever have. I was drawn to him right from the start.

Miles came into my class with a wealth of knowledge that was light years ahead of most of his classmates, and in many cases, his teacher too. However, I truly believe that he was unaware of this fact. In his mind the game had a level playing field and he was just one of the players.

I’m not sure if I really ever taught Miles anything, with the possible exception of the lesson that stabbing one’s self in the leg with a pencil is NEVER a suitable self-punishment for misspelling a word. A stunt that he only pulled twice in my class, (both times on the first day of school) before we had a hallway heart to heart that was quite intense and to the point. (No pun intended)

I also don’t know if he knew he was a little different, but just didn’t care. Or if he had no idea, so it just didn’t matter. Either way, Miles marched to his own beat, but if you wanted to tag along, Miles was happy to have you along for the ride.

Miles’ dad was some sort of scientist, I think. He had a great sense of humor, an infectious laugh and was really fun to be around.

One time he volunteered to be the parent reader. Most parents brought picture books, or grade level appropriate novels, but oh no, not Mile’s dad. He brought a book about nuclear fusion. When I tried to tactfully question his choice of books he told me that this book was hilarious.

“You see,” he said, “this book was written so long ago that most of the concepts, that at the time were considered to be earth shattering revelations, have long since been proven to be false. Or, simply no longer have any real meaning in today’s nuclear world. We’re going to have a blast with this!”

I just nodded and sat back to watch the show.

Imagine, if you will, a room full of third and fourth graders sitting on the floor with a scientist and his child sitting in front of them. Both the father and child are reading from an outdated, college level, nuclear textbook, while the class is sitting there trying desperately to recognize even one word.

I was actually very proud of the whole class. You could have heard a pin drop. Their glazed eyes and vacant expressions said everything you needed to hear.

As it turned out, Miles pretty much had the entire book memorized. Occasionally he would blurt out something like, “Oh Dad! Flip over to chapter six where they talk about molecular co-adhesives of binomial fusion transformations!”

Then dad would say, “Oh yeah! That’s back on page 267! This is the funniest thing you’ve ever heard!”

He’d turn back, read the section, and father and son would be sitting there in tears. Meanwhile the class was hoping I would get the hint and put an end to the madness. But there was no way, because the three of us were having the time of our lives!

They were having fun poking fun at antiquated scientific theories that nobody else in the room, including me, had any hope of understanding. I was having a blast watching the other students squirm, drool and contemplate suicide.

In the end, a good time was had by all! (Well, maybe not the lesser-gifted 99.9% of the class, but only I was watching them.)

Like I said, there's just something about a quirky kid that calls to me. Maybe birds of a feather really do flock together. I don’t know.

What I do know is, if you’re a quirky kid, and your name is on my class list…then baby, you’ve found a home!

where's MY global warming???

I woke up this morning and the temperature was 11 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s around -11.667 degrees Celsius, and baby, that’s cold.

I live in Dallas Texas…it’s not supposed to be 11 degrees in Dallas Texas!

Now, before all you people up north start with your, “That’s not cold!” or “Come up here to Wiss-caan-sin, and we’ll show you cold!” Let me just say that, yes, it’s colder up there. However, that’s not what I’m talking about.

You see, I live in Texas. One thing I like about Texas is that we DON’T have days where the temperature is only 2 degrees above single digits. And we sure don’t have a full week with temperatures blow freezing!

And what about all this global warming talk? This morning, as I was letting the dog out to do her business, I had to use a stick to break through about a half-inch layer of ice on our fountain. I also had an ice/leaf glacier that had formed on the surface of the pool. It was kind of cool and I had fun playing continental drift, but that’s beside the point.

I’m beginning to wonder that this whole global warming thing wasn’t just some giant hoax masterminded by the Republicans and the Democrats so they would have something big to blame each other for.

All I know is it is 11 degrees Fahrenheit and my fountain is frozen, and my pool needs water, and I can’t add any water, because my hose is also frozen, and I’m cold and I don’t like it.

So where’s my global warming when I need it?

Russell to the Rescue

I’ve had many flat tires over the years.

On my first car, the 1974 Camaro, I burned a hole through the rubber trying to smoke the tires.

Thinking back, I can remember changing many a tire. When I was in college, I even had a blowout on 635, the LBJ Freeway here in Dallas. I pulled over and changed it right there on the highway. I’m lucky to be alive!

However, I haven’t had a flat in years. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that on my Trailblazer, while I know technically what has to be done to get the spare tire lowered, I don’t actually have any working knowledge about how to get the spare tire down from its little spare tire hideout.

Oh sure, I can work the jack and get the lug nuts off, and truth be known, given time and the opportunity, I could figure out the whole “tire lowering” thing.

But when it’s dark, and it’s raining, and you have a car full of loud ninth grade girls it is hard to have the mental skills necessary for that kind of mechanical problem solving. At least it is for me.

So you can imagine my shock and awe as my wife and I are driving our daughter and five of her friends home from Chili’s when we get a flat tire.

As it turns out, Russell, the dad of one of the girls, hops in his truck and comes to give me a hand. I was hoping Russell would at the very least have a flashlight, which he did. Russell also had a floor jack, a crossbar lug wrench, and he had a wealth of knowledge about how to lower the spare tire on a 2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer…. Go figure!

In the end the tire got changed, no girls got injured or even wet and I didn’t even get all that dirty. (Only because I let Russell do most of the work. After all, they were his tools!)

Yep, I’ve had many flat tires over the years.

Maybe next time I’ll be a little bit more like Russell...

First White Christmas

I’m 45 years old and I have never experienced a white Christmas…

that is until this year!

While it didn’t actually snow on Christmas day, it did snow Christmas Eve, and we did have snow on the ground on Christmas morning.

And baby, in my book that’s a white Christmas!

I got some pretty impressive pictures on both Christmas Eve and Christmas day.

See what you think.

So was my Christmas White?

You be the judge!

Funny Man

When you’re a guy who like to be funny, and you’re around people on a daily basis who think you are hilarious…well baby, you’ve got it made!

That’s how it is for me every single day. At least, that is, until summer vacation.

Never mind my audience is a room full of nine and ten year olds who aren’t allowed to boo or walk out. If you’re keeping your audience (captive or not) in stitches it’s great for a comic’s ego.

Sure, the adults in the building think I’m funny too, at least the hip adults do, but they aren’t my core audience.

You see, my crowd has a fascination with cooties, nose picking and bodily functions. All I have to do is ask someone to quit picking their nose, and the room explodes with laughter. It doesn’t matter if this person was actually picking, because the room still falls apart.

Truth be known, it actually works better if he or she wasn’t engaged in the afore mentioned behavior, because their violent protests create even more giggles.

Yep, I may only be a teacher, but I’m livin’ the stand-up comedian’s dream…

Go Figure!

I realize that my postings were happening at a frequency of about one per month. Then suddenly, as if by magic, I blast out three postings in a week.

I'm not sure what's gotten into me...maybe it's the hair.

Go figure!

Shocking Results...

I was being the dutiful son-in-law and helping my mother-in-law hang her Christmas decorations. She didn’t have a lot of lights to hang, but it was a cold, drizzling day so I believe that will award me some extra jewels in my crown when I get to heaven.

“Don’t you mean IF you get to heaven,” I can hear people like K-Dog saying, but I just don’t listen to those people.

Anyway, I’m just about finished hanging the lights on the first part of the house, when I plug them in to see how I need to adjust the strands.

I noticed some haphazard spacing between a few of the rows of lights that’s on one of those prickly holly bushes. As I grab the lights I feel this sharp prick in my finger. Thinking it was just the holly bush I just ignored the pain and kept moving the lights.

That’s when I felt the jolt.

Now, the sensation you get from a jolt of electricity is not something new for me. I do enough “handy-man” type of work around my house that I’ve touch more than my fair share of live wires. I also worked with an electrician at Peacock Chevrolet in Houston while I was in high school. I made everyone in the shop laugh uncontrollably on several occasions when I was knocked on my butt after grabbing the coil wire of a car before turning off the engine.

As it turned out, there was a broken bulb on the cord that I didn’t see. When I grabbed the cord, my finger landed on the exposed negative and positive leads. This was only a 110 connection, so I wasn’t ever in any danger. If that was all that had happened I wouldn’t have thought twice about it and wouldn’t even be writing this post.

However, probably half an hour later, as I was driving home my iphone made an odd noise. I pulled it out and the message on the screen said, “No SIM Card.”

I was very puzzled, tried to use it and nothing. All my contacts where there and the games would play, but I couldn’t make calls.

After restarting the phone everything works again. No problems at all.

The only thing I can assume is that the shock somehow went through me into the phone and caused some kind of a glitch. I may find other problems later, but for now it’s business as usual.

I am, however, quite intrigued by being a human conductor. My class is just finishing up a unit in science on electricity and magnetism. I can’t wait to tell them about their teacher’s Christmas light adventure and its shocking results…

In Search of Neon

And so I’ve got this very creative friend…Let's just call him K-Dog.

K-Dog is forever pulling out some new thing he’s into that just exudes creativity. His latest thing is neon signs.

He told me about his fascination with neon a few months ago.

“What I do is find some cool, old neon sign, take a picture of it, and then I can digitally rebuild it. The whole process is really amazing!”

At first I was intrigued and curious. I like neon as much as the next guy, or at least I thought I did. Come to find out, K-Dog will research each sign to find out its history. He’ll know things like when and where it was made, when it was placed on the building and probably even the brand and size of boots worn by the workmen who installed it.

For some, like the signs on motel chains such as Holiday Inn, he tries to find out where any of the surviving neon signs might still be up and working.

K-Dog is a neon nut!

I’ve only seen a couple of his digital, neon re-creations, but I was blow away.

I know of two really cool neon signs here in Dallas that K-Dog hasn’t seen. One is pretty nice, the other one is really amazing. I’m not going to say anything more about them, because K-Dog and I are going to go on a Dallas Neon search sometime over the Christmas break. And since K-Dog is one of the few readers of my blog, I don’t want to give it away.

However, rest assured that I’ll post some before and after pictures of any of the neon signs we happen to find that K-Dog ends up rebuilding.

Long Hair

So I decided, back on March 5^th of 2009, to just let my hair grow. I’ve kind of had long hair before, but this time it’s different.

You see, before now, when I’ve had long hair, parts of my hair would be long (like the back for instance) but I’d keep the rest in check by getting it trimmed about once a month…or so. Now I don’t have any actual pictures of this, but rest assured it was in no way a mullet.

Anyway…

On March 5, 2009, I was getting my hair trimmed and I just decided to not go back for two months. Before I knew what was happening, two months turned into three and then into four.

By this time my hair had gone through several stages or phases. I would wake up one day and discover that I couldn’t get my hair to work right at all and that it was time to get it cut. However, after a week or two of procrastination, I would wake up and find that it was working again. Then, almost on schedule, a couple of weeks would go by and I’d be right back in the same “bad hair” dilemma I had been in only a few weeks ago. Once again I would fully intend to go get it trimmed, but just wouldn’t get around to going. And the “Good Hair/Bad Hair” thing would start all over again.

I began to find the whole “Good Hair –vs– Bad Hair” situation a wee-bit comical.

At this point I decided not to go to the barber for anything other than getting my sideburns trimmed until 2010. And that brings us to today. Having long hair has been a true learning experience for me. I've learned some valuable lessons that I couldn't have learned with my previous do.

Some of the things my long hair has taught me:

1. Washing long hair is nothing like washing short hair. I see now why my parents gave me a buzz-cut until the third grade.

2. If you have long hair, the wind is not always your friend.

3. If you’re a guy with long hair, people talk to you about art and other cool things like you actually know about them.

4. And if your boss asks you to cut your hair, this is sexual harassment. This never actually happened, it just occurred to me.

Over Thanksgiving, my family was walking to a little restaurant near my parents home when, due to the wind, my hair was being kind of funny. Luckily for me, my daughter captured it on film.

Check out Hugh’s funny hair pictures below.

Me trying not to laugh.

Me doing I don't know what...but looking rather dumb.

I don’t know how long I’m going to let it get…but I’ll keep you posted.

When Your Age Rounds to Fifty...

I woke up yesterday and realized that my age rounds to fifty. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been aware of this for quite some time. I have actually gone to great lengths to and taken great pleasure in reminding my brother of this fact.

However, I somehow thought it would feel different. I can’t exactly put my finger on just how I thought being closer to fifty than to forty was supposed to make me feel, I guess I just didn’t feel very enlightened. Whatever that means.

So far life closer to 50 is not all that much different than life closer to 40, with the possible exception of my hair.

I’m 45 and my hair is the longest it has ever been in my entire life. I don’t know why I decided to grow my hair long…I just did.

So in a nutshell, that’s what is happening in this old man’s life.

As for the hair, I’ll keep you posted. I may even tack some before and after pictures.

Wouldn’t that be kooky!

Faux Pas

Yes, you may have heard of,

What some other folks saw

Of that which I speak,

Is Hugh’s verbal Faux pas

I was tying the bow,

On my UPS lesson

When I strayed from my plans,

And my thoughts started guessin’

We’ve all had that happen,

At least from time to time

And the truth is that usually,

Things work out just fine

You start to say one thing,

And your brain turns to wood

Your thoughts take a twist,

And don’t work like they should

Most times you just mentally,

Shuffle each word

And the message you meant,

Is the message folks heard

But then there are times,

When your brain turns to goo

And you say something that,

You just didn’t mean to

You sense your mouth moving,

And your thinking just falls

Then you hear yourself mutter,

About “Bob’s two balls”

You try to stay cool,

But you look up to see,

Your whole team’s eyes widen,

And then they all flee

You sense the night’s over,

So you bow low your head

Then you exit stage left,

With your face very red

Last night, as I was talking with a group of parents about our math problem solving strategy, I was trying to make a point about the difference in the amount of reading comprehension involved in math these days as opposed to back when I was in elementary school. I said something like;

"Back in my day, math word problems would be like Bob has two balls and Dave had 3 balls, how many balls do they have all together?"

Laughter is the last thing I remember.

Isn't life just a wonderful thing?

A Visit From A Farm Animal

There aren’t all that many farms or ranches in Dallas anymore these days. Oh sure, we live less that 20 miles from South Fork. The former Ewing ranch made famous decades ago by the mildly popular television show Dallas. Perhaps you’ve heard of it…

Anyway, other than that I don’t really even know where you’d go in Dallas to find an actual working farm. (South Fork hasn’t been a working farm in years)

However, even with the lack of farms here in Big-D, we found ourselves on the receiving end of a visit from a rather pesky little farm animal.

The animal in question is both pink and plump with a flat nose and a curly tail. And no, I’m not talking about Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web…for us it was nothing than mundane!

Our little friend goes by the name “H1N1” and carries with him a basket of little goodies with things like a cough, sore throat, fever and chills.

That’s right it’s everyone’s favorite, the Swine Flu!

To tell the truth, for now, only my daughter has gotten to see our little pink bundle of joy, and the rest of us are washing out hands constantly in an effort to avoid any pork related illnesses.

So far, so good.

When did the other white meat get to be such a nuisance?

Fun with Head Injuries...

Our daughter was having what we could only assume was some form of migraine headache. After several months of visits to the pediatrician, the pediatric neurologist and a sleep deprived EEG, we were finally at what we hoped would be the final doctor’s appointment for at least six months if not a full year.

Doctor Zinser, the pediatric neurologist, was walking us through all the ins and outs of the “Alice in Wonderland” migraines that our daughter was experiencing.

To make a long story short, especially since this isn’t the true crux of the story, she’s doing fine and hasn’t had a migraine is quite a while.

The real story is about a funny thing that happened while the whole family was with Doctor Zinser.

He had a medical student with him who was simply there to get her feet wet, as it were, in the field of pediatric neurology. Suddenly, Doctor Zinser fires off a question to the student doctor.

“So at what age is the frontal lobe fully developed?”

All eyes shoot across to the student who we had all but forgotten about for the last 20 minutes. “Um…20?” Was the timid, stuttering answer.

“Nope, 25.” Was the somewhat stern reply from Doctor Zinser.

Turning back to us, the parents, but really speaking to the medical student, he said, “Now this is pretty amazing. I’ll gently tap the forehead and due to the fact that she’s only 14 and the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed we will see some twitching in her lip and under her eyes.”

He went into much greater detail than this, but it’s not like this happened yesterday, so I have no idea what he said.

Using his reflex mallet he tapped her head and sure enough, the twitching began. I don’t mind telling you I was VERY intrigued.

“What would happen if you did that to me?” I asked without ever taking my eyes off her face.

“Nothing at all. Do you want me to show you?”

The words weren’t even all out of his mouth when, sounding somewhat like a girl who was just ask out for her first date, I gleefully shouted, “Are you kidding? Of course I do!”

As he began tapping my forehead I started to experience what felt like twitching under my eyes.

Melissa told me later that my eyes were actually twitching more my daughter’s had.

He paused, obviously more that a wee-bit puzzled. Melissa said that, while his face never changed expression, she saw in his eyes a look that said, “Oh Crap, something’s wrong, what do I do now?”

That’s when Melissa jumped in and blurted out the words, that saved the day for our doctor friend, “Hugh probably should have told you that he is a diffuse axonal head injury survivor.”

In a blink of an eye, the good doctor's demeanor went from panic, to relief, to interest. And I had to give the streamline version of my head injury story. One I’m sure he’s all too familiar with, but was intrigued by all the same.

He explained that my brain’s frontal lobe must have been pretty severely damaged and other parts of my brain took over and learned to do whatever it is that the frontal lobe does. Therefore, my frontal lobe didn’t have the chance or really even the need to fully develop.

It’s not very often that you get to snap a doctor to attention like that.

Yep, as far as practical jokes go…this head injury thing is turning out to be a gold mine!

And So I've Got This Tree...

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. It is a red oak tree that’s tall with a wonderful spread of branches that create a nice, comfortably shaded sitting area. We have some patio furniture under it and everything looks nice.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. A few months ago this tree, after I rather stupidly cut a low branch off, started leaking sap onto our nice new patio furniture. The sap was leaking out of the spot where I cut the branch off. I simply moved the furniture, and sprayed some black pruning sealant on the stub of the chopped off branch, then went about my business.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. Some days go by and I discover, much to my chagrin, that insects have come and not only eaten through the pruning sealant causing it to leak again, but they have also started boring through the bark on other branches and now my tree is leaking sap in half a dozen other places.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. As it turns out, this tree is becoming somewhat of a sap sprinkler. Each and every day there are new spots on the patio and the furniture and we have bugs of all kinds all around the tree. At this point I begin to get concerned that there may be a chance we could lose our wonderful tree.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. A friend suggests that we call an arborist (or tree doctor as I enjoy calling him) to assess the condition of our now ailing tree. Dr. Matthew, the arborist, comes and makes a “yard-call” to check out our tree. He inspects the sap on the ground and furniture, takes a look up through the branches and says, “Yep, you’ve got boring beetles. They bore holes through the bark and the tree creates the sap to fix the holes. However, the sap is what is attracting all the other bugs, plus more boring beetles. It’s an endless cycle. We could give the tree some injections and that would kill the beetles as well as make the sap that the tree makes taste bad so the boring beetles won’t come back. It will cost about 160 dollars.”

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. After weighing the cost of the anti-boring beetle injections against the cost of dead tree removal and replacement, I decided to go ahead and have the tree doctor administer his medication. He came, made the injections and in 48 hours the tree was leaking much less sap and things were getting back to normal…or so it seemed.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. A couple of weeks pass and the tree’s sap leakage is right back to the amount that it was before the injections. So I call Dr. Matthew and he comes back for his second yard-call. He couldn’t find any trace of the boring beetles, but after scraping, smelling and probably even tasting several bark samples, our tree doctor came back with this diagnosis. “What you have here is a fungus, but not just any fungus. Now, this isn’t a fungus that is usually found in red oak trees, that’s what’s so fascinating! Your tree’s bark smells like apple cider that means it’s in the fermentation process. What’s happening is the insects that have been coming to eat the sap have introduced some kind of yeast to the tree. And so the sugars in the sap, combined with the yeast from the bugs is fermenting to create alcohol. Basically, your tree is making beer.”

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. And now, living in my tree are a bunch of alcoholic bugs who are spending their days lapping up keg after keg of my homemade tree beer. Not to mention the fact that our two baby opossums, the ones from the grill, have made this tree their home and have also been eating the sap. Which explains why their little squeals sound slurred and they’ve been seen staggering around with bloodshot eyes.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio. According to my tree’s doctor, this condition isn’t life threatening for the tree and there’s nothing you can do but wait and hope it stops. Our tree is just an easy fix for all the alcoholic critters I’ve created in the neighborhood.

And so I’ve got this tree growing right in the middle of my patio.

And for now...it’s open bar!

Somebody Moved My Cheese

I played around with the settings a little bit...even added a picture!

May do more later.

Hugh

Fun With Wildlife

School starts tomorrow and we decided that it might be fun to grill some steaks for dinner.

Now, while I haven’t actually used my larger grill in well over a year, I do in fact own two grills. Don’t ask why, because I’m not actually sure what the reasoning was behind getting two, suffice it to say, I’ve have, or rather I used to have, two grills.

I usually use the smaller, newer of my two grills. It just works a little bit better. However, we decided that grilling some corn sounded good, so I went out to see if I could even still fire-up the big grill. We moved to this house in May, and I hadn’t done anything more than push the large grill into a corner on the back porch and forget about it.

I pulled it out from the corner, opened the top and was greeted by not one, but two hissing opossums!

Slamming the lid shut, I did a ten-foot, standing long jump. After I landed I’m sure I looked like Fred Sanford as I stood there holding my chest and panting.

They scared the crap out of me!

In my defense, opossums are really ugly! And even if you were expecting to be face to face and six inches away from one of these little guys, I dare say you’d be on pins and needles. So, when it’s completely unexpected you’re lucky if you don’t need to change your pants.

Being the loving and concerned wife that she is, and thinking I had just blown myself up, Melissa started outside to check on her husband.

When I told her what had happened any concern for me flew right out the window, and the new object of her affection our were newly discovered grill squatters. Carefully reopening the grill, we found that the two opossums were actually babies who seemed not only extremely frightened, but also somewhat malnourished.

This is the point at which Melissa begins talking about, only kind of in jest, us keeping them as pets. I don't think I ever even responded.

We called animal control and explaining that we had two opossums in our grill. A somewhat perplexed operator explained that animal control doesn’t actually provide grilling instructions. After a hearty chuckle on our end of the phone, we did our best to help her understand that, while lighting the grill did cross my mind, varmint extraction and not food preparation was the actual reason for our call.

It was about then that we noticed, as we peered through the window, that the sicklier of the two youngsters was actually beginning to venture out. After comically breaking several laws of physics, she somehow managed to move from the grill to a nearby bush. Seeing this, we started rooting for the second of our grill’s residents to move out as well. However, he didn’t seem to be ready to leave the nest. At this point I rushed to the garage and found a stick about four feet long. I came back and poked a now very irritated opossum until he finally got the hint that he had worn out his welcome.

As soon as both were out I closed the lid and pulled the whole grill around to the front of the house for tomorrow’s scheduled bulk trash pick up.

I know what you’re thinking…we still have two baby opossums under a bush in our backyard.

Let me tell you that that is the least of my worries. You see, behind out house is a creek that is surrounded by all manner of plant life, not to mention snakes, armadillos, opossums and who knows what else. We’ve found snakes in the pool and seen both armadillos an opossums roaming the yard. So now that these two trespassers are free from their grill prison, I’m sure they will have no trouble finding their way back to their real house, or their mom, or their whatever it is they have out there. At least not after it gets dark.

While I’m on the subject, how in the hell did they get inside my grill in the first place?

I couldn’t find any openings large enough for them to fit through. If they did happen to somehow squeeze in from the bottom, then they would have to lift the grill rack and then climb up through a small gap to get on top. I know they have opposable thumbs, but come on…that’s a bit much!

In the end, the opossums are gone, I didn’t get bitten and we still grilled steaks!

I guess we can say that in the end a good time was had by all!

Well, maybe not the opossum I poked with a stick…but he as being stubborn!