Bionic Man In Progress

I'm over my limit for surgeries this year, which means that I'm going to trust the doctor that told me to endure it for three weeks. Shoulder should be back to normal, or very close to it, at that point.
I'll have a cool moving bump on that side unless I opt to get it fixed. Playing 'Wait and See,' which is my all-time least-favorite game.

Worst part about being on the injured reserve list is that I was just on the cusp of getting FIT, and now I'm idle. I remember Tyler Hamilton riding in the Tour de France with a broken collarbone... I feel like a pansy.

That is, until I move my arm wrong, then I feel like a happy ground-level firework of pain.

Had a nice affirmation from the nurse in the ER, though - in pain and worried and all that, and still had a resting 66 pulse rate, which is not something I've had in 15 years.

Tammy's taking advantage of the time to ride daily, and is killing the hills and new trails they put in the neighborhood. Got a sweeeeeet picture of her bike covered in its own weight in mud one morning... she was one brave kiddo to wade through the sea of muck out there. Everything goes to horrible sticky mud when it rains due to the high clay content of the soil... she's lucky she didn't come home looking like a terracotta wife.

Back to work, lunch break rambling is over.

- Ryan

He Said, "The Sheriff is NEAR"

And, likewise, the end of another school year is nigh. Wish work got out for summer vacation.

Think I'm going to sulk about this for a while, then eat more Lucky Charms for dinner. That'll show them for being so mean to me.

Songs My Mother Never Taught Me

I wonder how my tastes would have differed in life if I hadn't been exposed to so much art as a child. Once over the illicit thrill of seeing nudes from the 1400's, I returned to the books my mom had accrued over the years to look at the technique, the brushstrokes, the carriage of the models... and despaired. Rembrandt was especially hard on a twelve-year-old, with his perfect skin tones, unreal lighting and chiaroscuro; fabrics that had heft, weave and draped around the forms elegantly. I couldn't duplicate that mastery.
Somewhere in there, Picasso started to make sense. He'd moved from the real to the insane, as it seemed to me at the time, and I reveled in his ability to paint from well beyond the normal event horizon. Granted, there was the sneaking suspicion that he'd been drinking his own paint, but, really, does it matter where lies the headwater of genius?

I'm no Picasso. I'm still really close to Calvin in terms of world outlook, and I don't mean the reformist. At some point I'm going to get busted for doodling dinosaurs eating middle management while in a meeting...

I was left free, ultimately, to find out who I was and what I liked. If that meant rejecting a lot of the strictures of conventional thought and wisdom, my mom let me do so, with the understanding that she was not going to provide a 'Get Out Of Consequences Free' card. This may have been the greatest gift ever given to me, as it let me become who I am. Having many viewpoints available while growing up, and the ability to discuss both sides of things with my parent(s) was a rare and beautiful thing, I realize now. I didn't paint the Sistine Chapel, and I didn't give anyone my ear as a touching and really creepy gesture, but I found my muse and my art and my eudaimonea all the same.
I credit being surrounded by things of worth and beauty with the emphasis on what really mattered for a lot of my stability in life now.

There is a long list of things that I've derived from my mother. And, to be fair, many of them stand out because Dad was right there with her, but Dad will have to wait a month for his anthem and tribute.

Things I Got From Mom:

• My hairline.
• My tolerance and appreciation of classical music.
• My self-image as a happy kid (I remember sitting on the stairs when she told me my default state was 'happy', maybe at age 11? Whether it was true or not, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy)
• My love of art and beauty in the classical sense.
• My ability to draw.
• My sarcasm (it's a good thing.)
• My Eagle Scout award.
• Understanding how a good marriage works (again, Dad gets credit here too.)
• Knowing that women should be smart, capable, well-read and able to do anything they want.
• A letter every few days when I was overseas or otherwise away from home.
• A sense of 'home' to come back to when I was done being away.
• My ability to speak and write coherently when I can be bothered to do so.
• Some really cool cousins and relatives and grandparents. I felt planted deep while growing up, and it was nice to have a sense of place in the world.
• The ability to match my belt to my shoes and not look like I got dressed with the lights off.
• My near-magical ability to have my respiratory system slam shut when cats are near.
• Same as above, but with random pollen.
• My covetousness of really good lawnmowers
• The sure knowledge that putting a log on and having an entree will fix most problems
• A brother and sister that I count as my closest friends

Things I Did Not Get From Mom

• Any appreciation of opera ('Live from the Met' is illegal under the Geneva convention.)
• A desire to weed the garden.
• Being insistent that the kids eat their Brussels Sprouts.
• A desire to ever HAVE Brussels Sprouts.
• Anything to do with liver.
• My love of all music that you can dance to without wearing a powdered wig.
• Any sugar cereal for the first eighteen years of my life.

I'm sure a few more things will occur to me, so I'll come back and edit this as the day progresses.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.

[ Edit: mom noted that it wasn't Brussels Sprouts. It was bean sprouts, and they're worse. ]

...let there be light.

Shhhh. Sleeping.

















Yes, she's covered in band-aids. She may even need some of them. We can't tell.

I found some really cool dragonfly lights for Tammy a while back, and the Chairman of the Decorating Committee moved them to drape over Sage's headboard. They are just bright enough to keep her happy and able to read in bed, but not quite so bright that she wants to get out of bed and play. Besides, we've been showing her pictures of monsters and pointing under her bed to help her understand that Getting Out Of Bed Is Not Good.

She was a good sport about it - I only got one heavy sigh and I can only imagine what weirdness the sound of the shutter introduced into her dreams.

Off to slay breakfast.

[update: When I was posting the picture, Tammy came up and said, "she looks dead." Lauren said the same thing a while later. So much for my ability to capture the delicate bloom and innocence of youth.]

- Ryan