YEAR'S END

The end of the year is here. Again we are done with the ‘gather the family together for a big meal’ holidays (except for my brother’s end of the year Festivus* get together). All the cards have been sent (sorry about my letter this year), all the gifts have been opened (I am not sure when I will use the blinking strobe light that attach to the brim of a hat given to me by a co-worker), and getting around town seems to have finally leveled back down to a tolerable pace (my daily drive by a local shopping mall exit does not resemble a demolition derby anymore). All that is left is the throbbing hangovers of New Year’s Day and we can call the season officially over.

Before everyone starts calling me Dananeezer Scrooge, I want to make it clear that I enjoy the holidays. I am just glad when they are over. As the year winds down I tend to get very reflective. I am not one for making resolutions for the upcoming year but come late December I usually do find myself looking backwards. I assume it is natural to use the closure of a year to look back at the good and bad of the past 12 months.

I spent over 15 years traveling for a living. Many of those years included a few holidays alone at a hotel in the middle of nowhere. I got very good at not letting things like that depress me. Sometimes I was lucky enough to be working somewhat near a relative or friends. I loved those years! Thanksgiving mimosas in Chicago, Christmas with The Doors in Columbus and the New Year’s holiday hot tub in Hartford are all memories I treasure (again another year’s blog talking about past New Years Eves and I did not mention standing naked in the snow on a city street at the stroke of midnight doing a Baby New Year imitation… maybe it is wise not to get into that)

The more I traveled the more friends I made all over the country. Now that I am settled in one spot it is hard for me to visit everyone and I fear I am growing apart from these wonderful people that have meant so much to me over the years. Instead of bringing me warmth, the holidays always seem to remind what (and who) I am missing. (Of course the plus side is maybe eventually there will be no one left that remembers the naked Baby New Year stunt)

It is always worse for me right around Christmas Day because my wife usually heads up to Iowa for the holiday to spend a few days with her family. Because of work I can never go along. So as much as I enjoy a little quiet time to myself, it’s hard not to become a little lonely when everyone and everything around you is focused on being with loved ones that day. (Hopefully I squeezed enough pity out of everyone on that last part and you all will forget I mentioned that whole ‘naked’ thing.)

Even with my usual brief wave of sad holiday malaise, I cannot complain about the past year. As a matter of fact back on January 9th I wrote about trying to be Zen Man Dan this year. Now I understand that this sounds a lot like a New Year’s resolution but you recall I mentioned earlier that I do not make those. I have opted to look at it as more of a minor personality tune-up that just so happens to have been decided upon around New Years with the intent of it lasting throughout the year. Now come on, that is not a resolution (DAMMIT, IT’S NOT… sorry).

I made the be more Zen-like proclamation when I found myself internally overreacting to things that were either far out of my control or that deep down I truly did not want to control. I have most certainly had moments when I was less then Zen but overall I did an excellent job in keeping things at a bit more even keel and not getting myself all worked up over nonsense. Of course I still reserve the right to get all worked up over something real.

So friends let me again use this opportunity to say that I love and miss you all and I wish each of you a Zen-ny New Year.

* http://www.whatisfestivus.com/* http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/fashion/19FEST.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

FEELING GOOD OR AM I

I’m ‘Feeling Good’! O.K. maybe not that good but I did take a quiz from the self-help book titled ‘Feeling Good – The New Mood Therapy’ the other day. Someone at work had a copy and we all took turns taking a few of the books many quizzes about anger and depression. I think most of my co-workers lied on the tests because, although anger-wise I fell into what the book called the ‘average’ range, my score was higher then everyone else’s. Now I might not be working with a group of hair-trigger crazy hot heads, but I certainly do not have the worst temper of the bunch.

Am I an angry guy? I do not lose my temper much anymore but I guess I still have the potential to become a blood boiling raving loony (there is an AC guy and an American Airlines ticket agent that can vouch for that but that’s for another blog). Age and maturity have mellowed me. Of course the fact that I am pretty darn happy with my life helps too. It’s hard to blow your stack when there is nothing much to get mad at.

I learned how to blow my top from my Dad. When I was a kid my father rarely yelled and screamed, but on the few occasions that he did blow a fuse it was very intense. About the most angry he ever got at me was when I was being over the top obnoxious at a local Chinese Restaurant. He had enough of my whining and complaining and rhetorically said ‘if you do not like it, leave’. So I did. He was not to pleased that his annoying son was taking him so literally.

I was a few blocks into my brooding teenager long stroll home when the family car swerved up next to the curb along side of me. My Dad tossed me into the car yelling stuff like ‘no one walks out on me’. We picked up the rest of the family who were cautiously waiting in front of the restaurant and we all silently sped home. At the house my Dad dragged me into the bathroom and as punishment for my behavior he proceeded to cut off several inches of my groovy long 1970s hair. Such trauma, maybe I should borrow that copy of the ‘Feeling Good’ book.

‘Feeling Good’ claims to teach you how to ‘combat feelings of depression so you can develop greater self-esteem.’ Maybe the book works, maybe it does not. I have never been a huge fan of self-help books. It seems to me that often the folks that are avid readers of this stuff are not willing to do the hard work that is required to truly change and better ones self. Instead they are searching for the miracle one-step quick fix. In other words simply buying a dozen Deepak Chopra books will not magically connect my mind and body in the same way dedicating my entire life to the intense study of the relationship between quantum mechanics and the healing process might.
If my Dad had read a bunch of self help books would he still have responded to my butt-head behavior by cutting off my hair? I hope so. Occasionally letting go and being angry is healthy. I love my Father and now that I am an adult I could not conceive of him being any different. He is the man that during a heated debate over dinner once said “what you know about it (the topic of debate) you could put in a thimble, stick it in your eye and it would not blind you.” Now there are no self-help books out there that can teach you lines like that.

SLEEP

OK folks, its quiz time. Any of you that have ever visited my parent’s house should be able to ace this one question test. (Sorry to everyone that has never been there; I will offer a quiz that is a bit fairer to all a little later)

1) My Dad sits down in front of a television. What happens next?
A) He carefully finds the perfect program to enjoy for several hours.
B) He spends the evening surfing through all the stations.
C) He shoots spitballs at the screen trying to hit the actors between the eyes.
D) He immediately falls asleep within seconds of turning on the set.
E) All of the above (freightingly at the same time)

Dang, I could practically hear a bunch of you yelling “D!!!” in unison right through my DSL line. The television is like a shutdown valve to my Father’s conscious mind. He falls asleep so fast after turning on the set that the remote control is often still tightly in his grasp with his finger poised above it ready to change to the next channel. Sometimes he literally nods off in less then a minute’s time after turning the TV on. It is a truly amazing sight to behold.

I do not think the television has quite the same effect on anyone else in my family but I do sometimes worry that early signs of this sleep-effect might be starting to happen to me. All too often these days I find myself being roused by my wife, as she makes sure I have not drifted off to La La land during some program that I really wanted to watch. I assume she knows when I am nodding off (I tend to snore a bit) but I am not positive since she does not always mention it. There have been times that later in the evening, or the next morning, I have had to sheepishly ask ‘who done it?’ because I slept though some show’s big finish. Sometimes I wonder if she knows I missed some key part and she is just waiting to see if I will fess up to my napping and ask what I missed.

I guess I should be happy that I am a good sleeper. So many people around me have issues falling asleep. I’ve had my fair share of tough nights when the wheels are spinning a bit to much to allow me to crash, but overall I would say 95% of the time I fall asleep very quickly after laying my head down (hmmmm, I think I just heard some of my insomniac readers cursing me through that damn DSL line). I seem to do best when I get about five to six hours of sleep a night although I can usually function just fine the next day with as little as two (is that more cursing I hear?).

Now there is a blurry line between falling asleep and passing out for the night. This might not be the appropriate forum for discussing the latter but I will say that I am familiar with both. Whatever the case, there are times when watching a TV or not that my body has demanded that I sleep even though I might not be in a traditional sleeping location i.e.: a beach chair in someone’s backyard, a friend’s living room floor, the landing between flights of stairs, atop the trunk of a car… Within the context of the story that includes the background leading up to going to sleep in each of the afore mentioned places, none might seem that odd. Taken as a whole though, it seems like a scary trend that might soon lead to my Dad’s television issue.

So lets try another one question quiz based on my sleeping habits:

1) Dan sits in front of a computer screen proof reading this blog. What happens next?
A) He cuts out the part about sleeping on the trunk of a car.
B) He adds the really embarrassing story about Chinese food and… and …
umm , aaaaaa.. urg…. zzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzz

WATER

The water from my tap smells. Not everyday but quite often it has a nasty funk to it. It is sort of a cross between swamp mud and an older heavyset moist football player’s two-day-old sweat sock. Years ago I would drink the infamously bad water of cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Phoenix and not think twice about it. Eventually I started getting a little more picky and started using one of those Britta filtering pitchers. Now that I have gotten used to drinking purified or bottled water, I think I have become a spoiled water snob.

A few months ago I purchased a PUR water filter that attaches to my kitchen sink faucet. The thing worked great. I told my wife “Al Gore would be happy that we are refilling our water bottles instead of constantly buying new plastic bottles of water.” I have started using the ‘Al Gore would be happy’ line every time I do something that is even slightly beneficial to the environment. I think it is starting to annoy the people around me. That said, I bet Al Gore would be happy you are reading this on a computer screen and not on a wasteful printed piece of paper.

Well I guess I should correct things and say that Al Gore would have been happy with me until last week. The connection from the PUR filter to the faucet cracked and started spewing water all over the place. Of course this waited to happen just when my busy season started and I have no time to fix it. After getting myself and the kitchen soaking wet while trying to do the dishes, I decided to just take the thing off and deal with it after I am done with this month’s 80 hours work weeks.

It took a little while to get the filter off. In the short time it had been on, the creepy stuff in the local Texas water had caused it to bond to spigot as if there were some galvanizing agent mixed into the tap water. I had to use several tools and a decent amount of elbow grease (would Al Gore be ok with the unnecessary release of elbow grease into the environment?) to get the thing off.

I ended up annoyed and grumbley like a little kid when I was taking the filter off (Al Gore would definitely have been pissed at the verbal pollution I released into the environment while disconnecting it). I always feel silly when I catch myself getting aggravated at such a minor inconvenience. What do I really have to complain about?
What do I really really have to complain about? I fill my blog with stories of little things in my world that drive me so crazy that you likely could see little tiny puffs of smoke shoot out of my ears (I hope Al Gore does not think I am contributing to the greenhouse effect) but I really have it good. I have friends with all types of very serious problems. Someone close to me is in great pain everyday with an incurable degenerative disease; I think about their miserable situation everyday. They have a right to complain. As for me, if my worst problems are funky water and Al Gore on my case, well, I just can’t complain

LOCKHEART

This time of year I feel like I am running a marathon. While most folks are all caught up in gift shopping, holiday prep and various other related activities, I am in work mode. This is when I get busy at work. Really busy. Long hours and no days off throughout the month of December have been a part of my life since I got out of college. Like a runner, I put my head down and focus on the distant finish line, which right now in my case is so far out of sight I can not even see it.



When life gets like this I do better knowing there is a prize waiting for me. I like having a couple of weekend trips or a major vacation planned. It makes it easier to get through the workday when I know I am slowly counting down to some fun escape from the norm. Unfortunately between my insane December work schedule and a planned late January move to a new house, it might be a long time before I have a vacation or a quickie weekend get-a-way.



Before my friend Tammy moved out of Dallas a few years ago she gave me a book that she and her husband made great use of called ‘Romantic Days And Nights In Dallas/Fort Worth’. No it is not some twisted longhorn rodeo sex manual but it is filled with great ideas for weekend getaways with detailed descriptions of local hotels, Inns, as well as Bed and Breakfasts. I wish we had gotten the book sooner. My wife and I have been a bit gun shy about staying at local B and Bs ever since our last in-town weekend trip to a place in Fort Worth called the Lockheart Gables Inn.



We knew something was obviously not right when we pulled up in front of the place at the time we prearranged to check in and found the front door locked. After 20 minutes of trying different ways to get in or at least get someone inside’s attention, I called the Inn’s phone number. Marilyn the innkeeper answered and eventually wandered over, portable phone in hand, from a garage across the street where she said she had been ‘busy restoring antiques’.



We were tired and wanted to quickly check-in and get to our room but Marilyn insisted we take a tour of the place. The tour of the 4 downstairs rooms, not including the under-the-stairs closet that had been turned into the chapel “for whenever we want to pray”, should have taken about 3 minutes but instead took well over half an hour.



The tiny pink and gold colored living room had four uncomfortable rickety chairs with a floral print. The adjacent ‘music room’ had a piano that no one played and not much else. The nook near their private kitchen was filled with crummy Salvation Army quality crappy antiques lying on the floor that she repeatedly tried to sell us all weekend. In an effort to speed things up I oooed and ahhed at the monstrosity on the tearoom wall as she explained how she makes and sells these giant 5-foot wreaths that are filled with plastic flowers and mismatched broken teacups.



We finally were led upstairs to the guest rooms. On the way we passed a tiny 3’x 3’ bookshelf that she referred to as the library and a 20+-year-old refrigerator with a loud squeaky door and even louder humming motor that was stocked with soda and water. Eventually we were shown to our home for the next two days, the room described on their web-site as “presidential suite and hopelessly romantic” Melody Of Love room.



The room featured an antique pink sofa so beat up that your butt almost hit the floor when you sat on it, a tiny table with 2 chairs, a boom box with Christian music cds, and the room’s one of a kind focal point piece a queen sized bed that stood three feet off the floor on a home constructed bed frame made out of a sawed in half upright piano with sloppily nailed together wood planks. The bathroom walls were papered with peely and moldy pages of sheet music. The one thing we did thing think was hilarious was the towel rack and toilet paper holder made out of a rusty old trombone.



We were afraid to make too much noise because the walls were paper-thin and the floors loudly squeaked and creaked whenever you walked around. The next morning started with our Twilight Zoneishly creepy hosts Marilyn and her husband David bringing breakfast to our room (there is no dining room) an hour late and then forcing my wife and I to stand up and hug for several awkward minutes as they sang the entire song Melody Of Love to us. My wife and I were then instructed to kiss each other as they kissed each other. Afterwards we ate our coldish cutesy heart shaped pancakes, heart shaped toast and heart shaped fruit as I wondered allowed if they had a heart shaped trash can for me to vomit in.



My wife had wanted to watch a particular television show that afternoon so we asked about the TV they said they could supply us when we made the reservation. David grumbled at us and said he would try to find one. An hour or so later Marilyn came by to tell us they were going to church but they will look for a TV when they get back.



Several hours after that David rolled a small black and white model on a little stand into the room and then spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to attach it to the cable outlet. We were getting creeped out by his intense persistence and eventually told him it was just not that important and not to worry about it, but he just continued to loudly grumble and would not give up. He kept leaving and then coming back with different cords, wires and tools. Eventually he attached rabbit ears to the top and gave up.



The next morning’s breakfast was even later and colder but we were quite relived to learn there was no required hugging and singing. I guess for the right person this place would be fabulous but for my wife and I it was so over the top hideous that we never stopped laughing. With each crazier thing that happened we laughed even harder. Now that I think about it maybe spending my weekends at work this month is not that bad after all.

CLICK BELOW TO GO THIER WEBSITE (FILLED WITH PICTURES)http://lockheartgables.com/melody_of_love.html

CLICK BELOW TO READ A GREAT REVIEW:http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g55857-d226485-r8102090-Lockheart_Gables_Bed_Breakfast-Fort_Worth_Texas.html