DAMN

Mercury Morris will never shut up.
An almost perfect season is not perfect.
The Pats offensive line was offensive, the Giants ran right through them.
When it came down to it, the Giants made all the plays the Patriots usually make.
Damn!

Nervous

I am nervous, Merry and David got ski lessons for Christmas, when Merry found out, she declared that she does not like skiing because skiing is cold. I am nervous! I want so much for them to like it.
Their first lesson is tomorrow night at the local ski hill, where I learned to ski 35 years ago. This weekend coming up we are off to Sunday River.
Man, I hope they like it.

Close to a Month

It has been close to a month since my last post and it is not for a lack of experiences. The saddest, hardest week of my extended families intertwined lives happened the week before Thanksgiving. A talented, beautiful, shining star was extinguished on a Brooklyn Street.

My cousin Emily was 24 years young, a graduate of Williams College, she was just getting settled in the big city after a tour of the world. Then she stepped into the street and was hit by a car.

We are a large, devoted family that had not experienced tragedy until now. It was a tough week that will remain with me forever. The importance of taking each day and making the most of it has never been more evident to me. It has also reminded me to let my siblings know that I love them every chance I get, even when I don't like them that much.

Life is fragile, please try not to take it for granted.

Gone Missing

It happens here in the blogosphere and I never get used to it. Bloggers vanish into thin air. Writers that you feel a connection to stop writing, take down their sites and vanish.
The blogger I am referring to this time around is Wendy of Things in Your Head.
I hope all is well and that you resurface sometime down the road.

We Got a Problem!

Server Down! Server Down! Firefox can not find our server! We are not receiving emails or, more importantly, ORDERS!

This is the second time in what seems to be a short period of time that this has happened. I wonder what is going on over there at the hosting company. I am looking forward to hearing from them.

Not having any more information than this I hope the site and email is back up and running by the end of the day or first thing tomorrow.

Handling Loss

We sat down for dinner Monday night, after grace I told Merry and David that tonight is the last night Jackson will be with us because tomorrow morning he is going to doggie Heaven.

David immediately stated that it was OK because Jackson would come home after that. I informed him that he would not be coming back from Dog Heaven and David began to weep. He said he would miss him and that he loved him. At this point Heidi and I were weeping as well.

Merry's response was very different, she looked around the table at all of the sad faces and declared "We should watch tv, watching tv makes me happy." Merry did not shed a tear, she did not acknowledge the loss. Merry got in trouble at pre-school this week for the first time ever. Her teacher reported that Merry was not acting as herself and that she was being terribly bossy. I think her sadness manifested itself in her poor behavior at school.

The children have moved on, life has returned to normal at The Old Blue House. The adults are keeping it together and as long as we do not bring the children down I think we have suffered threw the worst of this sadness.

Here's to happier days.

Waves of Sadness

The tears roll in from I don't know where and engulf me, I let them flow threw, I do not attempt to hold them back and they pass on to where they came. I hope the storm passes quickly, I think that it will, today feels better than yesterday and I suppose it will get better every day.
Maxwell spent the last year keeping Jackson company, Maxwell is a bit messed up waiting for Jackson to come home. I have decided that it is time for Maxwell to get in shape. He came jogging with me yesterday and this morning. I figure if he is tired he won't have the energy to be sad.

Good Bye

Good Bye Jackson, we loved you and will miss you. You meant more to me than you ever realized.

Tomorrow Will Tell

The ski trip was a trip, a lot of work and well worth it. Merry and David have been exposed to their fathers favorite past time and both came away feeling good about it. This is not the subject of this post however. When we returned home it became evident that my friend Jackson had taken a severe turn for the worse.

His hips have been bothering him and something happened over the weekend that has left his rear left leg dead. It was a year ago when I first started to think about ending Jackson's life. It sounds so cruel but that was the time when his blindness and anxiety got the best of him. He adapted and has lead a sedentary life since. Confined to the yard and the areas of the house where he feels comfortable.

I have a feeling that the Vet is going to try to talk me into fixing his leg, digging out the tumor in his rib cage and maybe even a little experimental eye surgery. All at a discounted rate because they understand what an integral part of our family he is.

The fact is that this dogs life has been on hold for over a year and I feel like a heel for keeping him around. It is a very difficult decision to make and I do not come to it lightly, in fact the odds are, that the Vet will attempt to, and may be successful at, talking me out of it. I hope for Jackson's sake that I remain strong.

He was and remains one of my best and only friends. I have had more private heart felt conversations with him than with any person except my wife. He loves me unconditionally and he is very tired and very sick.

The Vet asks if he is eating and does he make it outside to go to the bathroom? The answer to these questions is yes, but just barely. When I mentioned this to Heidi she asked me if the Vet wants us to wait until he doesn't eat and can't make it out. Would the time be better if he was crapping on the floor and starving?

I feel like God and the weight of this decision is almost to heavy for me to bear. Our appointment is set for tomorrow morning at 8:45.

WTF!

The Tutu Boutique is down, we are not receiving emails or visitors. The company that hosts the site is working feverishly to solve the problem. Everything they do is down, the girl who answered the phone when I called almost cried, I was not the first to call.

We have a nice little business here on the world wide web and we are hostage to our host. Seems there is a catastrophe at least one time a year. The site went down between 10:30 and 11:30 this morning, this inconvenience has dropped our traffic from 3,000 page loads to 600, from 500 unique visitors to 100. There is nothing I can do about it. I am a hostage to my web host.

The work involved to move the site is HUGE! Other companies crash too I suppose. So patience is the key, but at what price? Is there any recompense for such a slight? We just paid our web hosting fee for the month, is that due back? Should they cut me check for the average amount of money that the site generates everyday? What should or can be expected when the people who you pay to provide you a money making service leave you out in the cold?

This is turning into a whine session and I don't want it to be. I just want my web site back.

Where are You?

Freezio and Emily have disappeared. They did not say goodbye, they simply vanished. It has been a couple months, Freezio posted one little fictional post that I think Emily wrote and other than that, nothing.

I frequent the comments on other blogs where they used to show up and they are not there. I check my statcounter and see that they have not been by. They owe no allegiance to me and may be experiencing something that warrants their absence. I still feel slighted.

Freezio was the first Daddy blogger that I felt a connection to. We started about the same time and would frequently comment on each others blogs. I looked forward to his take on my thoughts and enjoyed reading his posts.

When Emily appeared in the blog-o-sphere her honesty and prose blew me away. She exposed herself, her fears and her struggles and quickly became a must read for many. Then without so much as a goodbye, they were both gone. It troubles me, I find myself wondering about them and their family often.

Their son The Voice, kept his parents on their toes, to say the least. The New Baby, we never really got to know, although the impression I came away with was that she was/is far less challenging than her older brother.

It strikes me as odd that I have this attachment to a story. I only know/knew this family through written words and I morn the loss of those words. I hope and pray that they are well and I will continue to keep an eye out for them. If you are in contact, with either of these two, let them know that Peter at The Tutu Boutique, hopes that all is well.