It was lovely until...

Our Chicken New Year (as X-man renamed Thanksgiving) was pretty low key. It consisted of my sister, my parents and my cousin coming to dinner. My dad brought X-man a deck of Star Wars Villains playing cards, and he managed to wipe the floor with Papa, Mom and Dad at War and Go Fish (that is after we all sat down and discussed what movies each of the villains came from). He also played a little wii Batman 2 with MacTroll and some sports with me. But I liked being just around the corner listening to him from time to time talk to other adults. He was in a good mood the whole time.

He ate the bison MacTroll grilled, and the salad I made. He liked the owl ice cream cake I picked up for him at Marble Slab, just in case he considered the dessert my stepmom brought to be too adult (it was delicious chocolate cheesecake!).

I turned on Pixar's Brave a bit later after everyone who wasn't at our house left, and my sister and mom had gone to bed (before 8 p.m.). It was a bit of a wrong move, because X-man was very upset by it. The whole movie is wrought with tension between mother and daughter and there's a time crunch crisis. It did help that I could fast forward through the "bad stuff" which made it a very short movie.

However, it's now 3 a.m., I just woke after having a dream where it was nighttime and I was stuck in traffic and I was late to pick up my son from somewhere. I couldn't get to him, and then I didn't know where he'd be after the pick up time.

And now MacTroll is vomiting in the downstairs toilet. I think I'll go sleep in X-man's bed. Poor MacTroll.

Update 3:48 a.m. And now he's sawing logs...

"Oooh, he's learning binary!"

MacTroll got home from Anaheim last night at around 9:30 p.m. Papa, X-man and I were all in bed and, boy, were we pooped. It had been an exciting Halloween.

This afternoon after MacTroll picked up JR and X-man and walked them home, JR invited X-man into play. So, MacTroll came home and brought in the mail while the boys had a play date. He dropped off some sobering paperwork. For the last three days, I've been spelling words with X-man for a test on Friday. The first time I created a worksheet where each of his spelling words was missing one or two letters, so he had to really listen for the sounds. He got all of the words right. The next day, I busted out the foam letters. I read the words to him and he found the letters and spelled them in front of him. He only had one upside down letter and forgot the "c" in duck. 

Then yesterday, after school, I asked him to verbally spell the words to me. He got them all right except duck, again. But today, in a spelling "check" he misspelled all the words. He inserted the short "o" rather than the "u" in everything. It was really, really strange. The test was on white paper, which is hard for him to write on. And I got frustrated. Why is what he showing me at home not translating to the writing? When he gets home from his play date, I'll have him write the words again, and see how he does. But it worries me. I've been in constant chatter with his teachers about the spelling issues. And they are very supportive and encouraging and tell me that I'm doing some great work with him, but it's not getting consistent results, especially for him in the classroom. I was changing the ways we did them (rather than just tracing words or verbal/writing tests) to keep things interesting and limit complaining. No one likes to feel stupid. And when he gets things wrong, it deeply affects his self-esteem. And in turn, seeing your child take a nose dive, doesn't do anything good for the Mom's esteem either. My little man is totally working his little butt off, and it sucks to see him have to work so hard for things that come so naturally to other children both in terms of the writing issue and the socialization issues. But he totally has a heart of gold. He keeps on trying and he pours everything he's got into it.

Then I showed MacTroll the math fun that X-man brought home from Mathman yesterday. To me, it was a math game that X-man took from Mr. Cohen's house in NW Champaign all the way back to our driveway to explain how to play to me (remind me that he probably won't grow up to be an instruction manual writer), but in the end, he got it. And we played. 

There are five grids of numbers in boxes labeled A through E. You have to pick a number in your head 1-31 and then tell the "quizzer" what lettered boxes it is in. Then the "quizzer" adds up the first number in the first row in the upper left hand corner of each box and -- surprise -- you get the number in the person's mind. 

I showed it to MacTroll and he sat down on my scooter and seemed impressed that X-man was working in binary. "What? I thought binary was just a bunch of 0s and 1s?" 

MacTroll got excited, because he likes it when he knows more about something than I do, so he sat down and explained binary to me. Now we're all in the know. 

And I guess I need to pay more attention when I do things because Christie Clinic had to send back my check to pay for my surgery because the number in the check box didn't match the one I wrote out.

Oops!

** Update **
X-man gets home from his play date. I give him his spelling words. He misses the "l" in plum and the "c" in duck. But the other six words are perfect. I show him the sheet that came home.
Loosey: "Did you do this today?"

X-man: "No, that was from a long, long time ago." (Which probably means it was his pre-test on the spelling words on Monday. Now I feel all kinds of silly for being so frustrated.)
Lesson learned -- I just need to calm the heck down.

Fuzzy Photos

After I killed my iPhone a few weeks ago (by dropping it in the toilet), I inherited MacTroll's old iPhone 4. I hate getting hand-me down phones from MacTroll because he is a serious phone user. By the time he's done with a phone (each year), the battery is basically nothing (six to eight hours of conference calls 3-5 days a week will do that to a phone) and it's been beaten and scratched beyond repair. I acknowledge that I wouldn't be in this conundrum, if I wasn't the dumb ass who dropped her phone in the toilet.

You'll see that the photos are all fuzzy. That's because he didn't use a protective case and the lens of the camera got all scratched and beat up.

Now, why don't I just break down and buy myself a new one? Well, here's why -- I have been with AT&T for so long that I've been grandfathered in and have an unlimited data plan for $70 a month. I don't ever really talk on the phone when I have it (unless it's to my spouse), I mostly text and use it to answer X-man's never-ending questions. But I do admit, that I take photos with my camera enough that this fuzziness is annoying. 

That, and I think once we move to California, I'd do better on a Verizon plan (because I have a 3 call limit when MacTroll tries to call me from San José, Chicago or NYC and he keeps dropping on his AT&T phone). So I'm trying to hold out until next June... plus, it is possible that in the next three months, the Fruit will send MacTroll an iPhone 5. And then I can have his 4s, which DOES have a cover. No phones wasted... I just need patience.

Anyway, so here's what's been going on... This is X-man's creation that we made in the waiting room at his therapist's office. When he went in with April he was sad I'd have to take them apart, so I took a photo and put them in a baggie and my Mom delivered them to another kid in the other room who was waiting. 

This is an updated photo of my foot, so you can see how long the incision was. It's still swells a bit throughout the day. But foot massages are starting to feel good again rather than painful and freaky.

This is X-man dressed up for school picture day in his fedora, sports jacket and "spy shirt." Notice how he's got his excited smile on. He's totally adorable. I just have to find the right tie!

And here is a photo of the giant Tardis cake that I got for MacTroll's birthday. We'll be taking leftovers to all the neighbors... Cause holy cow that's a lot of cake.

Don't Trust the X-man

Seriously, my child is TERRIBLE at keeping secrets. He doesn't do it to be mean. It's not like he's walking up to small children ruining their holiday, fairy, religious, (fill in the blank here) hopes, dreams and beliefs. He's just -- really excited about doing nice things for people.

Yesterday, we got Booed. If you don't know what this is, it's a holiday tradition in our neighborhood where someone leaves a special treat on your front porch with a poem (that is instructions) and a photo of a ghost. The recipient is supposed to post the ghost on the door and then pick two neighbors to boo and get treats for them to leave as a secret on their front porch. It's a bit like a chain letter -- with toys, crayons and candy.

After he got booed, X-man came up with the friends he wanted to boo. I told him we'd have to go around the block and see who had ghosts up on their doors so we'd know who was already chosen. But in his mind, he had two friends already picked out. When one of the friends came to the door to play this morning... he spilled the beans. :-) Then when the child called him out on sharing the secret, he backpedaled. "Maybe, maybe I'll boo you!" And then he fessed up who he wanted the second boo to go to.

It's not unlike Father's Day when we were taking MacTroll out to get his gift. It was one that Dad had to be there to pick out and get measured for... and as I'm driving away toward the store, X-man says, "We're really NOT getting you a bike, Daddy."

Great, thanks kid! No secrets for you! (On the side, his father is also pretty terrible at keeping certain secrets. Things just slide out of his mouth, and he can't take them back. They're both also not very good at lying. These, are, of course, not terrible qualities to have. :-) )

92-92-9-9-9-9-92

Yeah, so, I was the class of 94. MacTroll was the class of 93. But we met in 1992 and who the hell thought we'd get 20 years of something good out of what should have been nothing. We pretty much labeled our relationship "Hopeless" because really, who lasts long distance for six years, to live together for two and get married and then pretty much end up living long distance for 38 work weeks out of the month?

Whatever. It's a happy day. We've celebrated by taking my Mom out to breakfast at Le Peep. Then we took an hour bike ride into Urbana and back. Now I'm going to Rotary with my Mom before MacTroll picks up X-man from camp.

Speaking of Rotary... this is me... and my Rotarian friend Jim at the meeting last week. I won "New Rotarian of the Year." I got a plaque. It was super cool.

Tonight, MacTroll and I are going out to dinner with the Super Flynns. They're scheduled to drive away with their cowboy hats and boots into Texas as the end of the month, so we're trying to get in as many play dates as possible -- grown up ones and kids before the move.

Maybe = Yes

I'm going to be honest. I've only had three boyfriends in my life, and I married the third, so, um, my scope of things is limited. But do you want to know what all three men had in common that I loved so much about them.

When they said, "Maybe" they really meant, "Yes."

When 17-year-old me asked carless MacTroll if there was any way that he could visit me at the University of Iowa Yearbook camp for our one year anniversary. He said, "Maybe."

He showed up, found me at the mall, grabbed my ass -- and almost got punched for it.

When 22-year-old me got into graduate school at American, I called him up and asked if he'd like to move with me. He said, "Yes." When I asked him if he thought we'd do okay living in the same 700 square feet (let alone the same area code) after being long-distance for six years, he said, "Maybe."

When 29-year-old pregnant me asked if he could find a job within Apple where he wouldn't spend 6 months in Tokyo, he said, "Hell yes." Then he committed to scooping the cats for me for a year. Then he committed to taking the night shifts with the baby so I could get some sleep.

Now at 36, he doesn't say maybe that often. But maybe that's because he doesn't have to. Maybe it's because he automatically puts us first when he can. And maybe that's why we're looking at a move to California so hard in the next year or so. Because wouldn't it be nice to be a team more than 40 percent of the time?

--- Maybe --

But I have to tell you, I could never have been with someone where maybe meant no. I need hope and something to look forward to. I need someone else who wants to move mountains. Maybe = no is like saying I don't know. And I hate that phrase more than any other when it comes out of the mouth of men, especially about things that I think they should know -- like their children's shoe sizes or the kind of toilet paper we use. Or... how you feel about another human being.

But right now, MacTroll knows I've been feeling pretty shitty. So he and I spent some time last night making our hotel reservations for San Jose. We're going to spend two nights there in the new Hilton and then two nights in Half Moon Bay. Which reminds me, that I need to call two different school districts and ask for information on coming to tour four different elementary schools, while we drive through the neighborhoods. I'm pretty sure I know where we want to end up as a family with young children. But I just need to see the "hood" with my own eyes.

A Shot in the Dark

At the conference we were at in San José at the beginning of last month, a colleague of MacTroll's from Sydney mentioned that one of the fruit's key brainiacs on that continent was going to be on leave for a year working on becoming a colonel in the Australian army... and perhaps some of the U.S. brainiacs might be interested in helping out.

At the idea of crossing the Pacific again, MacTroll's eyes widened, his ears perked, and a bit of drool slipped out of the side of his mouth. We looked at the calendar and indeed, we have eight to ten weeks this summer where we could, supposedly, skip town for a couple months -- during the Australian winter -- and spend some time in Sydney before X-man starts kindergarten in the fall.

MacTroll doubts that he'll be able to go. He has enough work on his plate. But he also spent 5 years in Europe when his Dad worked abroad from almost his birth until age 5. And although he remembers no French from his time in Geneva, and really only has memories based an a few images left over in his brain and the stories his parents and brothers have told him, he has always thought it would be fun to work somewhere else for a while.

And if he wouldn't have had to pay taxes twice by working in the U.S. when I wanted to reside in Montreal before X-man was born... he would have gone for that move in a flash, too.

Outside of the crazy long plane ride from here to Sydney with a child, I think it would actually be awesome, too.

I guess we'll wait and see.

How It Works in My House

I made Three-Pepper Cilantro Fajitas tonight. Here's how it went:

A) I forgot to put in the cilantro.
B) My child insisted that the bell peppers were spicy, spit it out, and announced he was making his own dinner and went to the cupboard for bread and peanut butter.
C) My husband ate the meatless concoction. Then he went back for seconds, microwaving leftover pork in a styrofoam container to add to his dinner.
D) When I informed him that he shouldn't do that because it releases all of the cancer-causing chemicals in the styrofoam into his dinner and isn't at all microwaveable safe. He looks flabbergasted. He looks at the bottom of the styrofoam in disbelief and then starts to add the pork to his dinner regardless of my warnings. So I have to go look it up on the Internet to prove I'm not the moron.
E) Meanwhile, while this debate is going on, my son is STILL complaining, as he eats his PB sandwich that he doesn't like peppers. No kids like peppers. In fact, next time I should just not buy peppers at the store at all, he doesn't care if Daddy and Mommy like peppers... on and on and on.
F) My husband noticing me getting irate, sighs, and takes the pork off the plate and announces that his leftover meat will be going into the garbage.
G) My son eats 4 bites of the sandwich and nothing else, except the 12 Tostitoes I put on his plate. Still grumbling.

So, if you, too want to enjoy this memorable dining experience with your nearly carnivore spouse and super star complaining child... here's the recipe.

Three Pepper Cilantro Fajitas
1/3 cup each sliced red, yellow and orange bell peppers
1 small onion sliced
Pam cooking spray (or 1 tbsp olive oil)
1/2 cup canned low-fat refried beans
2 whole wheat tortillas
1/4 cup cilantro, chopped
Make it: Sauté peppers and onion in cooking spray (oil) for 8 minutes, or until tender. Warm refried beans in microwave per instructions; spread on tortillas. Top with vegetables and cilantro.

It takes 10 minutes to make. MacTroll said it was "fine." I gave him some habanero from the garden to add to it, but he refrained.

Life: Love it or leave it.

Family

MacTroll has been traveling for work since 2002. It's been over eight years of him being gone at least two work weeks a month. And since we had a very long distance romance for six years before we moved in together, and he was a photojournalist (and news doesn't stop) for several years that we were in Northern Virginia, so we're used to having a lot of independence in our relationship.

He's gotten used to eating out, usually alone, for every meal. He's used to having someone pick up after him and wash his towels in hotels. He's used to adult activity. But when he comes home, he's superdad. And truthfully, X-man and I are the ones who have trouble adjusting our schedules to let him back in. Like MacTroll is used to a maid service, free wine and freshly baked cookies in business class and the airport folks in Savoy knowing him on sight and having his boarding pass preprinted for him, X-man and I are used to our own schedules. We know when the other one likes to eat, where we usually go, what's on the agenda for the week and how the bedtime routine is going to go. For the first 36 hours MacTroll is home there's an adjustment -- every time.

April was a crazy travel month. MacTroll's usual every other week got split up into traveling every week at least for three days, sometimes the full five. These situations usually make X-man and I go a bit nuts with each other. So, I start to plan meetups and invite people to dinner so that we're not totally in each other's faces all the time.

But the truth is that we miss MacTroll when he's gone. We don't want that period of adjustment to be there, but it is. And I wonder if we'll ever have a 8 to 5 situation where MacTroll goes to work and is home for dinner and to sleep in his own bed every night. I wonder if he'll ever be free to coach one of X-man's teams or help him with pre-algebra or to teach him to tie a tie. I wonder if I'll always have those kinds of duties because I'm the one who is consistently here.

I guess we're lucky that I'm not completely clueless regarding the characteristics that make a good man. But at the same time, I do not have the required gendered parts to really "model" those behaviors. I guess, he'll have to settle for modeling a good person. And that can't be entirely bad, right?

Guess who the Easter Bunny is...

A House of Colds

Both X-man and MacTroll have colds. X-man's is just a clear runny nose and some coughing at night, but no fever. Unfortunately, the coughing keeps him up a lot, so he can't sleep well and it makes him erupt into tantrums (not unlike his mother when she's sleep deprived).

MacTroll has chest congestion, headache and a low-grade fever off and on. He's upstairs sleeping in. I'm doing okay so far. No signs of a cold. I'm hoping the virus I had in early September was my bug -- and that I'll make it through for awhile. At least until the other two are better.

An Everything Kind of Day

We spent the night at Dad and Barbara's last night in Rockford for Father's Day. This morning, my sister and I did at 50-minute walk while the two Dads (mine and MacTroll) got to play with X-man in the yard. They apparently did Hide and Seek; Duck, Duck Goose and then threw the tennis ball lots for Zippy. We continued playing in the house when it started to rain and then had some lunch before packing up the car and coming home. 

We had 2 potty stops for X-man on the way down. One because he pooped in his pull up and the other because he had to go pee pee. When we got home, he was asleep. He put him on the couch and let him continue to nap until 5:30 p.m.

When he woke up, he ran into the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat, peed, put the toilet seat down and washed his hands. MacTroll was euphoric. :-) 

Then we gave MacTroll his father's day gifts. X-man made him a garden stepping stone with glow in the dark stars. I got him a hammock. Then he ordered pizza. So, he's a happy Dad.

We did finally do one thing we'd been putting off. We sprinkled Loosey's ashes into X-man's gardens in the front yard. MacTroll and I both teared up. X-man kept asking, "Is Looseyfur in the house?" 

But she's got a place, and it's newly mulched and has a great little stepping stone. 

A Shout Out to MacTroll

Two months ago, MacTroll (above playing at the Orpheum with X-man) came off of a 5-month long road show where he traveled to 3-4 cities each week for 3 weeks out of the month. On the 4th week sometimes he was home and sometimes he had to travel to other places to do actual work and not marketing work.

It was a really, really long road show for him and for us. And when he came back, there was nothing that MacTroll could do right because I was at my limit between school and X-man's jump into the bipolar 3-year-old mania stage and regular life stuff. A few weeks ago, he got the word that he was going to get to hire a few more people to his team. Anyone who knows Mactroll knows how much he travels, so the first question is always, "How bad is it really?"

When MacTroll was hired it was supposed to be a 10-day travel average. He realized that doing any more was pushing our family to the brink of badness. And for the last two months, he's kept it to 10 days a month. He travels for a week and is home for a week. And can I say I've noticed a huge difference. We communicate rather than just running around sending e-mails or IMs at each other to check in. We talk. We go to lunch. We have friends over for dinner. He helped me mulch the gardens. He offered to dethatch the yard. He's watering plants and grilling dinners and doing his own laundry.

And he never, ever complains about me having friends and a life and needing time out of the house. He fixes dinner for himself and X-man since I'm on my medically supervised diet. And he's understanding that when I go to maintenance -- there are certain foods that will be banned from the house. He's a good guy, my spouse. We love him very much. And I notice that since he's around more for longer stretches of time, X-man doesn't ask where he is any more. He knows that Dad is at work (he thinks he actually flies the planes) and that he'll be home as soon as he can to make him pancakes and go for walks and play catch. 

So a big thank you to MacTroll for everything he's doing. It's nice to know that it's the travel that makes us all grumpy and not actually each other.

Neil Street Pull Over Number 2

So two weeks ago Mr. Quigs got pulled over on Neil while rushing to have dinner with his family on his birthday. 

Last night coming back from a business dinner at the Beef House, MacTroll also got pulled over. He knew about the speed traps in town this spring/summer, so he meanders along, mostly because he drives a sports car, which means people notice how fast he's going. 

It was a University cop that got him, but the absolute confusion on MacTroll's face when the police officer told him his plate registration had expired last October must have made him show some mercy because MacTroll only got a warning.

But he came home and bothered me about it. I reminded him that my plates are up-to-date, so we'd have to figure out what happened. Did I pay for it and give him the stickers and he threw them on his desk somewhere? Did the bill get lost in the mail? He changed his address on his license when we moved in summer of 2007, and we registered his car then, so why wouldn't we have gotten the bill in 2008?

And then we started remembering that I was annoyed that the DMV notice came forwarded for my car in August 2008, which was also when our 1-year forwarding address expired. I remember that I thought it was stupid that even though I updated my license, that I also had to do a separate address change online for the car registration. Because apparently those two things don't update at the same time. 

MacTroll's registration was after the forwarding order had expired, so it was probably returned to Jesse White's office... and, well, if a bill comes to our house I pay it. If it doesn't... I don't usually think about it.

So now MacTroll's gotta go down to the DMV and figure out his license plate situation. And MacTroll doesn't seem to be on the same wavelength as the DMV. When he renewed his license -- he had to go 4 times to get it right. But that's a whole different story.

Life through X-man's words

MacTroll came home this afternoon from a trip to D.C. and X-man immediately melded to his side. I guess having a sick mom for 5 days pretty much means that there's no time to put Daddy in the penalty box for traveling (usually he has little to do with him for 36 hours after a long trip).

Anyway, X-man is saying a lot of things that MacTroll's ears don't understand yet, since he's been away a few days. For example, X-man started talking about his goldfish, Gordy, who died. He also asked for his turtle bath toy holder a few times before I went down the hall and got it for him. 

But Daddy does lots of things Mommy doesn't do. He lets X-man eat pizza in the living room. He let's X-man sip from his diet ginger ale. He let's X-man sit in the tub for 45 minutes, even when he's given him the 1-3 minute warning three times over the last 20 minutes. :-) 

And since I'm sitting in my bed, hardly able to breathe because I'm so congested. I am thankful to have someone else on point tonight. I don't give a crap if there's pizza sauce on the carpet or that he's peeing in his bathtub. 

All I care about is that I can lie here blowing my nose with Clawdio, my awesomely soft cat, in my lap, without anyone shouting at me or pulling at me. 

Although he did come down after bath, blow me a kiss, and then turn around and ask Daddy for medicine and kleenex. He likes to think he's sick, too.

From the Road

Every week MacTroll visits a plethora of places around the country. For example, next week he'll visit D.C., Miami and New York in three days. He flies over 100,000 miles a year primarily on American Airlines, which qualifies him for Executive Platinum Status.

What the hell is that you ask?

What it means is that although you and I might plunk down our cash for a coach seat with our (or others') shrieking children and overweight thighs that make it impossible to get the service tray to lay flat for our non-existent food -- MacTroll is privileged.

When he buys his tickets in coach they instantly work to try to upgrade him to first/business class for free. He rides up front with his fellow professional travelers enjoying free alcoholic drink service, complete meals that don't suck, cups of warmed mixed nuts, a closet to have someone else hang up his coat for him, clean blankets and extra-wide seats with two times the leg room of a coach seat.

He enjoys access to the fancy clubs at the airport where there are free snacks, free internet, loads of empty, large leather chairs to sit in and free soft drinks. The bathrooms in some Admiral Clubs have marble floors and doors that extend from the floor to ceiling keeping your gassy identity top secret, so no one can identify you as the smelly one by your shoes.

I don't fly a lot, but every six to eight months I get on a plane for a Loosey-only vacation. And each time I use MacTroll's frequent flier miles and each time I get upgraded to first class, where I am reminded how much I am NOT used to be waited on. I sit next to all baby boomers with Louis Vitton luggage and $90 haircuts. I drink water, instead of a mixed drink, and I scarf down my nuts fearful that one of the well made-up, excessively smiley crew that are appointed to the first-class cabin will identify me as a fraud by my old tennis shoes and discount fleece jacket and rip the little ceramic bowl out of my hands.

Today is one of those experiences. I'm flying next to a guy on his way to a conference in Phoenix. He's got a manilla folder on his tray. The tray the uber friendly flight attendent assumed she had to tell me how to use as I refused their fancy smelling dinners. "I'm having dinner with my friends when we land," I said politely.

No one cared, but as a Fat girl it killed me to pass on the glass of ice cream with the hot fudge sauce they handed out 20 minutes later.

Currently my co-passenger, who began our flight arguing with a co-worker in the seat behind him about whether 6B or 6E was the best seat on that particular model airplane due to the extra 1/2 inch leg room -- they apparently once measured, has had his Crackberry out the whole time reading ugly plain text. He tries to put it down, lasts 30 seconds, and then picks it back up again.

We've been in the air for 2 hours. During which I finished my second book of the year (It's a big accomplisment for me you readers! So stop snickering.), Laurie Novaro's "Guide to the Idiot-Girls' Adventure Club."

It was the only book I brought -- for obviously slow reading reasons. Hence my impromptu blog via my school notebook and then typed so diligently on my friend KAP's laptop.

Anyway, when forced with flying solo I get a lot of quiet time, which I use to eavesdrop.

My favorite were the Chicago businessmen enroute to Phoenix where they would be golfing, probably during the same conference as my seat buddy. You can tell the guys were from Chicago because they all had Mike Ditka attributes: Black jeans, white New Balance tennis shoes that are as wide as they are long, black socks, collared shirts underneath fleecy sweatshirts that have either colleges or sports teams on them. Their bellies hang six or more inches over their belts, that seemed to be pulled extra tight for some reason and over-emphasized the years of Budweiser drinking and shouting at the TV. Don't forget the hair either. The short spiky haircuts that match the same gray bushy moustaches.

As the gate agent called for first class to board first (they have to make sure the privileged have a chance to suck back a complete gin and tonic before take off), one of the Ditka replica says to the other, "I didn't get an upgrade, so I wonder how many employees are hogging those seats."

When he finished, I stood to get ready to board. I felt his eyes scan me as I walked to the line, handed my ticket to the gate agent and proceeded down the jetbridge.

As my people boarded 10 minutes later and moved to the cattle car in the back of the plane mooing, I sat with my eyes in my book. Head down. Dont' make eye contact! Refuse a drink! Do not draw attention to yourself! And I wonder how long it took MacTroll to get used to riding at the front of the bus with wings after flying coach on discount airlines when we ran our own business. I also wondered if he'd ever be able to go back to just flying coach.

I mean let's face it. He lives a life of $300 hotel rooms withnmaid service and free pints of Ben and Jerry ice cream when he's on the road.

At home, he gets a wife who runs around hurriedly trying to keep the household in clean underwear, wiping down walls she's glad they paid the extra money for to upgrade to eggshell coatings so that it makes removing dirty toddler finger prints off of them easier, running off to class and meet ups and leaving him with stuff to do or a kid to care for. In comparison to his travel life -- he definitely married a woman who is the epitome of coach.

One that is full of kids who kick your seat, spill their drinks and make you feel grumpy and cramped.

But maybe that's why he upgrades me to first class each time I actually take the time to make time away for myself. Maybe it's his way of saying thank you for grounding him in a reality where sleeping in a pile like puppies with your familiy is way cooler and happier than 1,000 count Egyption Cotton sheets.

Maybe, but I'm too busy losing at the sudoku in the inflight magazine to think about it too much. :-)

MacTroll's travels

MacTroll is currently on a flight from Seattle to Dallas.

He is supposed to fly from Dallas straight into Willard at 8:30 p.m., so we can leave for my parents' houses in Rockford tomorrow.

I'm hoping that things are okay for him by tonight... and am glad he wasn't on the East Coast this week!

MacTroll is the Man

For the second year in a row, MacTroll won a mega award from work. He's the MVP of the entire Enterprise division. Top dog. Team Hustler. All that good stuff.

So he wins his 5-day trip to Mexico. He gets another free computer (which we're keeping for the first time this year. Prior free computers were given away to people who needed them more than we did) and he gets another shiny glass statue.

If anyone of you wonder why he spends so much time away, it's because he loves his job and he rocks at it, and his efforts are appreciated and honored. I'm very proud of him. 

(Now maybe he'll take Halloween off and spend it doing nothing but going from Halloween party to Halloween party...)

Signs that MacTroll isn't home

1. All of the drink glasses are washed and in the cupboard rather than spread throughout the house. 

 

2. He washed just enough clothes to take on his trip, left any leftovers stuffed in the laundry hamper to go back upstairs in the laundry room. The rest of his wardrobe that didn't make the "Crap, I really need underwear," wash is piled up in his area of the bedroom I like to call, "MacTroll's laundry corner." I wonder if Superman had this much of a problem.

3. The basement is a complete and total mess from  his afternoon watching X-man while I ran errands on Sunday. Even though BOTH of the people making the mess know  how to clean up after themselves.

4. There's enough milk in a 1/2 gallon for the whole week since no one is having 1/3 of a box of cereal each morning for breakfast.

5. I'm sick. Sore throat seems to have gone away, but I've still got the low grade fever and the body aches that make sleeping difficult.

That said...

He got another $200 hotel room where water was coming through the ceiling. This is a repetitive issue with him. He thinks he's cursed. Except when they move him to another room -- he gets corner suites with two showers... so, um, why do I feel bad for him again?

Oh, and as promised... the BIG BOY BED.

MacTroll's Monday

When MacTroll is home during the week on Mondays, I try to make every excuse to be out of the house. Monday is MacTroll's conference call day. He has between 4-6 of them today. Each of them taking at least an hour. You do the math. It's a lot of time to be on the iPhone.

I was supposed to be outside all day staining my fence, but given the sheer amount of crazy ass rain we got last night in the never-ending storms, I'm stuck inside doing inside jobs. 

UPDATE: You can head over to Cruzin' and see how MacTroll and I spent our morning being Toad rescuers!

Most of these I can do in the basement or the 2nd floor. But around the first floor will be nothing but pacing and loud talking, "LDAP, LDAP, Active Directory, Kerberos, Magic Triangle, deep into the keychain code..."

Blah. Yuck. I think I'd rather be vacuuming little tumbleweeds of fur that got scattered around the house last night from their hiding places due to our no air conditioning/open window preference. 

In other news: The cookout at Rayne of Terror's went very well. I got to meet Soy is the New Black and Mrs. Chicken as well as some other great people. I loved Mrs. Chicken's pasta salad. And X-man and I were the first to jump in the pool. It was a beautiful day.

Today is also Day 1 of the weekly budget. I just spent half of mine on gas. Seriously. I'm picking up the trailer and the bike this week. Let's see if that will save me some $$$  in the weekly drive-the-kid around situation.

I am just a couple weeks away from seeing KTDID, my nieces and nephews and from vacation. This year we're driving up to Oostburg, a few miles south of Sheboygan to stay in a rental house on the beach of Lake Michigan in September. I liked that it was in a family friendly area where we could just walk out of the house and be on sand.