The Plan for Summer

Set your phasers to 'FUN,' kids - it's mothaf******' Summertime!

This summer, I've made it a point to devote as much of my time as humanly possible to writing. The first time I attempted to do this, Kris squeezed out Alayna, which more or less destroyed any and all free time. The following summer, she worked full-time, which meant that Yours Truly had to babysit the year-old Cannonball full-time. Not so awesome. And last year, Kris up and squeezed out another kid, which, once again, put Brian's Writing Time on the back burner.

Not this summer, kids.

I've been hitting up the local library from 10am - 1pm, every day, and treating it like a job. Sure, I do have a Man Room at home, but the kids are always screaming about something in another room, or else banging on the door and demanding I come out and watch them trace their hands.

You know. The usual.


So during the mornings, while I'm out of the house, I'm able to catch up on tons of crap that I've been working on or else have been meaning to work on. It's been swell, and I feel like I'm accomplishing something instead of just pissing away my two months off sitting around the house chasing kids around and not showering as much as I used to.

Speaking of bathing, the pool has turned out to be the single greatest thing this family's ever put money into (kids coming in a close second). As the weather heats up around here, our mega-kiddie pool (or, smaller-sized adult pool, either way you want to look at it) has become our go-to haven during the blistering afternoons and evenings. The kids seem to love it, too - Alayna's getting to the point where she'll willingly jump to someone in the water from the top of the ladder, and Abby has gotten to the point where she'd rather just play on the ladder instead of in the water.

Everybody wins.

This week, the Cannonball also started Bible Summer Camp at the Peace United Methodist Church. Something by the name of 'Pandamania,' don't know if you've heard about this before...

Pandamonium: You may pay for the whole seat, but you'll be sitting on the edge!!!

Yeah.

Don't know if you've heard about this before, but apparently it's pretty cool with Jesus (and he runs our church, so... there you go). It's more or less three hours of games, arts and crafts, and sing-alongs. And at some point in time, they should stuffed pandas and t-shirts out of a cannon into a crowd and make toddlers and grade-schoolers trample each other in the name of the Big Guy.

That gives me and Abby full run of the house from 6 - 9pm every night, which is cool. So far I don't think Alayna's learned anything from the Bible, per se, but it gets her out of the house for a few hours so she can get some social interaction outside of school, and as a result, Daddy can get a small window of peace and quiet.

Praise Jebus!

- Brian

Heartbreak Revisited

Hi folks.

So the other day, I was scanning a bunch of old papers, reports, drawings, and documents that I had stored away in a bin in my Man Room. I do things like this on occasion when I feel I'm not being O.C.D. enough.

Anyway, as I was going through a particular cache of old papers, I stumbled upon an old letter to a friend:


Oh yes. "For Relatives... or Santa." Its an old Christmas list.

I especially like the 'seal' that I drew on the back of the letter itself, as if to guarantee the authenticity of the document (yes, this really came from a seven year old) and that no one, prior to Santa and/or relative, was privy to the important information therein.

Anyway, here's what the letter had to say:


I think that, besides the fact I couldn't spell my own name by the age of 7, this is a pretty solid Christmas list. Two, specific items listed, with a third option for 'some other things.' That leaves a lot of wiggle room for a Santa Claus or parent, I should think. Kind of hard to get any of this wrong, right?

Now here's the kicker: I didn't get anything off this Christmas list in 1987.

How do I know this important document is from 1987? I did a little research into one of the items taken off this list, the G.I. Joe Cobra Wolf vehicle. It appears on this website, in an archive that maintains descriptions and pictures from past G.I. Joe toys.

This particular toy comes from the 1987 line-up. That December, when the toy was on the shelves, I would've been seven. If memory serves correct, the Christmas my family celebrated when I was seven was one that found Yours Truly bedridden with a nasty fever and unable to join my family opening up presents around the Christmas tree. To make matters worse, my extended family was in town, and I was quarantined in the sick tent that was my bedroom upstairs.

Sure, periodically I was brought up a present from the downstairs festivities, but on this particular Christmas, my folks decided that their sons had probably had enough action figures, Nintendo, and otherwise 'awesome' toys, and instead opted to provide us with an 'educational' Christmas.

Although much of this holiday has been subconsciously suppressed in my memory bank, due to sheer crappiness, I do remember receiving plenty of books, wooden old-fashioned toys, do-it-yourself science experiments, and the like. Not too shabby if you're a nerd, or living in the '50s, but, for a seven year old like me who enjoyed shooting plastic missiles at everything under the sun, this was a Christmas that arguably rounds out the worst I've ever experienced (my Christmas in Ghana is right up there, too).


So, if this Christmas list does correlate accurately with the aforementioned Christmas, I think this says a lot. Mom, Dad, if you're reading this, I think its high time you gave me what I'm owed. I require some serious reparations... or whatever it's called. You know, where the descendants of slave-holders give the descendants of slaves some sort of 'ma bad' offering.

I'll accept either of the following gifts:

1.) (x1) G.I. Joe Cobra W.O.L.F. (Winter Operational Light Fighting) Vehicle

2.) (x1) Lego Pirate Harbor Playset

Thank you.

- Brian

Summer School

I had originally hoped that this summer I would finally be able to devote large increments of time to writing and my freelance work. I had it all planned out, too - morning coffee(s), extensive literary sessions in the Man Room, followed by sunny afternoons and evenings with the Fam.

Sounds awesome, right?

Well, it turns out that, for at least the month of June, the ol' writing thing is going to have to be a weekend feature...

Yours truly is teaching Summer School.

Yes, indeed.

I was recruited by my school administration to teach Social Studies to a motley assortment of 6th graders. Monday - Thursday, 8am - 12pm. Now, 6th grade Social Studies is unlike the 7th grade Social Studies I usually tackle - its completely different content. I'm accustomed to teaching kids about Ancient Rome, Europe, the U.S. and Canada, and Latin America. For Summer School, I'll have to take on Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

Not too bad, really... until you consider I have to plan for 240 minute consecutive class sessions. I've never taught that long straight before - my longest bout of teaching (two years ago, when we were in block scheduling) was 90 minutes. How the hell does one hold a twelve year old's attention for four hours straight... during summer vacation, no less? That's what I have to figure out between now and June 14th, when we kick off three weeks of our Eastern Hemispherical knowledge injections.

I've got twelve, four-hour long days in which to teach this band of 6th graders everything they were supposed to have already acquired during their 180-day, 6th grade Social Studies experience last year.

I'm preferring to remain optimistic about all of this, as the only thing I know about Summer School is the movie, Summer School... which, all in all, seemed pretty cool. Here's hopin'...

- Brian

Tub Probs

Hi folks.

Well, once again, something is messed up with our house. Since we moved in, we've endured several setbacks with appliances, services, and the like - some of which I've disclosed before in previous posts. Some of these were minor, and some were somewhat of a big deal.

The most recent dilemma to befall the Hough clan, alas, is somewhat of a big deal. The bathtub in our guest/kids' bathroom, for whatever reason, had a leak in it (or something, I don't know - I'm not a plumber). We only used it a few times before we started noticing that something was wrong. Whenever we'd drain the tub after bathing the Cannonball, the floor near the entry way of the Man Room would get wet. At first, I thought I spilled a drink on my way in/out of my hallowed sanctuary (crazier things have happened, for sure), but soon enough we managed to put two and two together and realize - with no small degree of horror - that the two occurrences were directly related to one another.

Here's what happened: whenever the tub would drain, water would seep into the floor in the adjoining hall linen closet and soak into the carpet of the Man Room. As mold has long been a scourge of mine - a vehement tormentor of mine for years - we knew that we couldn't let this disaster to continue. When we had a maintenance wiz (and I use this term with no small dose of sarcasm) come out and evaluate the situation for us, he concluded (over the course of a week or so) that he had to remove a crapload of tile and strip out the carpet in the Man Room in order to eleviate the problem.

Well, we did the ol' 'leave a door key under the welcome mat' thing for about a week and a half, and gave this guy and his unknown colleague(s) free run of our house in order to fix the problem. Eventually, after I had moved out half of my Man Room and we abandoned that bathroom completely for over a week, we were finally able to bathe our kid without bathing my carpet. Which was nice.

So... to date, we have had fixed or replaced: dryer ducts in the attic, several window blinds, a few window screens, a dryer, a fence, practically every light bulb in the house, a toilet, a refrigerator, and a bathtub.

...man, houses rule.

- Brian

House Huntin'

I forgot how much I hate looking for a new place to live. I can't stand it.

We've been at our current residency of almost two years, and have grown rather attached to it. Alas, since Kris decided to up and get pregnant on us, we now have the task - nay, privilege - to go out into the wilds of Central Florida and retain ourselves a new casa de hougho...

Sure, I suppose that with the three bedroom place, we'd have enough space for two kids plus ourselves, if it weren't for two, simple words: man room. I refuse to part with my command center, my shrine, and would rather uproot the clan and resettle elsewhere then watch my hall of dudeship turn into another baby room.

No thanks.

So, as it is now, we spend each weekend looking at scores of 4 Bedroom/2 Bath houses, apartments, and condos. We're even settling for 3 Bedroom/2 Baths, as long as there's some sort of a loft or office den that I can protect from adventurous children that would love nothing more than to impale themselves on one of my swords. So far, we've had a few leads, but 90% of the time we spend hours in front of the computer for absolutely nothing. Its a huge waste of time, but necessary in order to keep up with our family's reproductive progess.

Pfft...

- Brian