My daughter turns 14 years old today.
I’d complain that this makes me feel ancient, but I’ve been saying that for years now. Luckily, Erica’s such a sweetheart that she still insists that I’m not an old geezer. (Yet.)
She’s done a lot of growing up in the last 12 months and has had to learn a few tough lessons. Okay, so she’s still working on some of them… but at least she’s trying, and there are noticeable results. I’m quite proud of her!
Happy Birthday, kiddo!
Okay, so I blew off doing the cleanup I’d planned yesterday. Today, however, I believe I’ve made up for that lack. I dragooned Kyla into making a trip out to that new Ikea store (with a follow-up stop at Best Buy) and we came home with a few nice-and-cheap storage solutions that I spent the next few hours putting to good use.
There’s a new hanging-shelf piece in my closet, consisting of some Velcro and a collapsible set of fabric shelves. Into those shelves went the various cold-weather pieces I had piled up hither and yon, along with a couple pairs of jeans that used to be wadded up on the closet floor. To make room for the shelving, I weeded out some of the clothing and bedding I’d thrown into the closet over the years. Yes, I actually threw stuff away. Amazing!
I’m also in the middle of migrating my burned-CDs collection from those clunky, hard-to-sort binders into dual-disc sleeves which I’m filing into my new paperboard CD drawers. At $13 per set of two drawers with enclosure, it was too good a solution to pass up. As a side benefit, I’m culling lots of anime that I downloaded entirely for the kids’ sake. That will all go into one of the binders and sent to them for safe-keeping. I’m also burning some DVD-ROM discs to finish out a few series that I managed to botch up the organization of the first time around, or that I simply never got around to tidying up. That aspect of the cleanup project, of course, directly benefits the available disk space on my main computer and the network storage drive. Everybody wins!
To round out the shopping trip I picked up a small, cheap external mouse for the laptop (touchpads annoy me, and a full-sized desktop mouse is a nuisance for mobile use) and a couple of cheap 2GB USB memory sticks. I don’t like the idea of feeding batteries into a wireless device, so my new mouse sports a retractable USB cord instead.
I’m not done yet, of course. I have some laundry to do, more CDs to file and DVDs to burn, and I need to tidy up the explosion of fabric outside of my closet. My sense of accomplishment, however, is quite high. Hooray for organization and cleaning!
I’m taking a four-day weekend, starting today. We have something fun planned for tomorrow, and the rest of the time we’ll fill with whatever forms of rest and relaxation we find appealing.
I should make a point of unloading the camera’s memory, shouldn’t I? Hmm. I wonder if CompactFlash prices have come down in the last year or so…
I set a goal for myself this weekend: Spend a few hours cleaning my bedroom & bathroom. Let’s see how I did…
The other computer desk needs a quick once-over, all of the hutches and shelving need their contents thrown on the floor and rearranged and/or tossed into the trash, and then there’s the small matter of my overflowing closet… but I think I’ve done enough damage for one day. I’m taking a four-day weekend after the coming joyfully-short work week, and my goal is to spend part of next Sunday making more visible progress on turning my living quarters into somewhat less of what many parental units around the world and over the years might refer to as “a pig-sty.”
Not, mind you, that I normally live in filth. Just… clutter. Lots of clutter.
Once again this morning I was reminded of a fact that I can’t quite fit into my world view. I dress in clean clothes, I bathe every day, I do my best to present a pleasant (or at least neutral) demeanor, I lack disfiguring scars and tattoos and piercings, I use deodorant, I don’t take up that much space. So why is it that nobody wants to sit next to me on the bus or train?
This morning, for instance, two people in a row stopped at my bench on the MAX, crouched a bit as if they were about to sit down, then apparently thought better of it and moved on. Most of the time on the bus, if I happen to be on the last bench with a free seat inside the entire vehicle, it’ll remain unoccupied while people stand in the aisle. It’s been this way for as long as I can remember.
What gives, Portland? Why don’t you want to sit next to me? I don’t bite. Honest.
(For the record, I don’t mind having elbow room. I just feel bloody damned conspicuous as the only person on the vehicle who’s sitting alone.)
The highlight of the weekend just gone by was spending some time at one of the local “laser tag” emporiums, Ultrazone down in Milwaukie, to celebrate the kids’ birthdays. (It was sort of a joint party, one a few days late and the other a month or so early.) After a bit of cake, ice cream and soda we all trooped into the blacklit arena and zapped one another with laser beams.
Originally the teams were going to be Boys Versus Girls, but a gender imbalance meant that it became instead a Boys Versus Girls And Grownups affair. (The alternative implication is that I spent part of the afternoon as an honorary girl. Pish.) The G-and-G team chose the red equipment both times around, and we stuck with the same suit numbers as well.
Something Ultrazone changed since the last time I played there is that the three available sets of equipment have themed character names assigned. Our first round consisted of Spider-Man Characters versus Autobots And Decepticons, and the other game added Star Wars Characters to the mix. (Ultrazone threw in another small group who wouldn’t have been able to muster enough for two teams and their own round otherwise. We didn’t mind much, as there’s nothing quite like a target-rich environment to make things interesting.)
We all had fun, nobody got hurt, and I was pleasantly surprised by the improvement in my scoring ability since my last visit years ago. In both games I took a commanding lead on the scoreboard, helping (but certainly not carrying) my team to victory. There’s also something to be said for being on a team in which everyone’s very good about avoiding friendly-fire.
Hey, being the top dog (or hobgoblin, if you prefer) earned me two free game coupons, so I suppose that counts for something. Right? More importantly, of course, I had the chance to say “neener neener” to my kids.
I’m fairly certain that’s in the job description for fatherhood. Trust me.
