How to render your dad speechless

Reality needs a soundtrack. That way I would be able to anticipate moments of terror before they happen. If tonight was a movie it would have looked something like this

Scene - Int - Dusk

Sounds of bathroom splashing, general family household noises in the background. Jordan a slightly precocious 4 yr old girl is having a bath and talking to her dad, who is a little tired from a warm day, but generally the mood is pleasant.

JORDAN
Can you condition my hair tonight?

DADDY

Sure thing sweet

JORDAN

Will this make my hair soft?

DADDY

It will be very pretty, and a lot easier to brush

A mildly sinister and foreboding note would happen at this point. Daddy is brushing her hair and finishing up her hair. Jordan reaches up and feels her hair and lays down in the tub.

DADDY

What do you think? Softer?

JORDAN

Yes. Look, I'm a naked fashion girl.

(pause, dad is speechless and eventually he leaves the room trying not to laugh)

Daddy is looking at a 4 yr old who is turning in to a fully grown girl WAY too fast. In his mind she grows older and older faster than he can catch up with her. He is speechless, comes into the living room to tell his wife what she just said. The wife simply laughs at him as well.

Someone help me when this one turns into a teenager. She is fabulous and wonderful as they both (my girls) are. But the anticipation of this one between the years 2016 - 2023 is enough to scare the bejeebers out of me.

On the upside, I also love it when she comes up with things that make me laugh as much as they did tonight.

The day I was waiting for

There is a list. It seems small and unassuming at first. "that won't take too long" you think as you peruse the little things on this list. It is the list of things that need doing on the house. Then, as you start to complete the jobs on the list, it grows like the hallway in Poltergeist, where the light at the end of the tunnel is a train moving quickly away from you as you scramble to catch up.

Then, every now and then, you have the opportunity to not look at the list. Not work on the house. These days are usually when one of the bigger jobs are finished. Then, if the gods are truly happy with and wish to reward you for being such a good boy, they let the sun shine while you kick back and have a beer on the new deck that you have been working on. Long story short. it is done, finished and HUGE. Already I am watching as the benches are being used as tanning tables, kids are running around the place and Shell and I are having a quiet game of crib in the sunshine. There are few perfect moments, but this is definitely one of them.

I was asked the other day what I thought of the Universe and how it works and where we go when we die etc. and it reminded me of something.

There is a theory that I started coming up with when I was about 12 years old and have been developing since. I have never read any books on it, nor indeed have I seen anything that agrees with it, but to me it just makes sense in a really simple way. There is a rhythm to everything in the universe: molecules are vibrating, hearts are pumping, and the Universe as a whole has a pulse that takes billions of years to go through. So I believe that everything in the Universe is a part of the same rhythm, a beat that connects everything to everything else, it is balanced and instantly recognizable when we feel it. When someone is 'out of sync' thats where the confusion starts to happen. They feel lost and struggle to find some meaning in their lives, panic, go faster and faster, visit a guru to go slower and slower. All for the sole purpose of finding a rhythm inside that connects them to the rest of the Universe. I feel that the further out of sync someone becomes, the worse their lives get and they might become violent or some such.

Very often people will spend lifetimes working on finding the rhythm that best suits and connects them. At the end of our lives, I don't feel that our spirit as a whole reincarnates into another body, but rather that when we die we shed the excess elements that have thrown us out of sync, and the stronger rhythm that embodies us will move into another as their heart and body develops.

For Gavin

Tick SToP
An abrupt absence
from loving wife and childs.
Touching hearts of all those
watching the storm from the inside.
Pacing places in the soles of
shoes and minds.
Questions racing behind the eyes
that see your face.
What were you going to do
tomorrow.

secrecy is dead

I am all for the extra security measures taken by credit cards, websites etc, all in the name of keeping your credit your own rather than letting it be taken by any number of freaks. But sometimes it can go too far....

I had a tiny window of opportunity to grab my wifes birthday present. She didn't know, and it was literally the only moment available. so with child on shoulders, I head into Future shop to grab something that I have had my eye on for a good while now. Pick it up thinking that i am being fabulously discreet. Pick up the other child, some dinner and I head home. All good right? Wrong.

Turns out that while I was out, Visa calls home to inquire about some "questionable purchases", specifically one at future shop. At which point my wife tells the little visa man on the phone that that was probably her birthday present. ... There is a pause ... then there is an "oh my god" quietly mumbled from some cubicle in New York, quickly followed by "i'm really sorry".

So needless to say she is very exited to see what I got for her at future shop.... nuts.

Job Posting

Title: personal assistant

details: light housekeeping, some cooking, nanny duties, organizing, driving the kids, picking up the kids, painting, drywall, framing, plumbing, massage therapy, hypnotherapy, psychic advising, fencing, gardening, mowing the lawn, roofing, tiling, decking, furniture moving, grocery shopping, dog walking, picking up the dog poop, garbage detail, dish washing, carpentry, masonry, welding, electrical, entertaining the children and getting them to stop trying to mutilate each other, office clerk, book-keeping, hairdressing. manicurist, dog grooming, reading stories, laundry, all while my wife and I check in from somewhere in barbados. Additional duties may be added without warning or indeed without actually telling you until it is too late.

Note: this is a volunteer position and will be extremely rewarding once you see how blissfully happy I become.