This is just a quick post to rant about some things.
So, some time back my wife and I splurged hugely on a Phil and Teds stroller. And not just any Phil and Teds, but the top of the line Vibe stroller and extra seat to accommodate both boys, of which we only had one at the time, but we were preparing. That's the one thing that we went all out on. Even some of the extras to go with it, which most strollers just include, but not the P&T ones. Such as a $25 cup holder and a more than $50 plastic rain shield. Really. Twenty five big ones for a cup holder. One. For one cup. And it keeps coming off the stroller. Really.
And that's not the worst part. The stroller came in with a bunch of scratches. The retailer would not exchange it, and Phil and Ted's said we could send it in to them at our expense and they might ("might", see?) try to paint over the scratches. Let's keep in mind that this is a stroller, but it's also a stroller that cost more than what my car is worth! And they "might try" to fix it!!! At my expense! That was not the worst of it.
I did not send the stroller back, because although the cosmetic damage annoyed me it just wasn't worth the expense of sending it back to them. Although every day that I look at a whole two weeks of income on three wheels I cringe. Here is what really ticks me off: the stroller broke.
Yes. It's that simple. It broke. We still have a relatively cheap super-light stroller that's worked just fine for 2 1/2 years, but our uber-expensive cadillac of a stroller lasted less than one year without dying. We have disposable cups that we've managed to keep longer than this stroller!
To their credit, Phil and Teds did repair the stroller and they even sent us a loaner stroller while ours was being worked on (of course, it was pink and I really didn't want to push the boys around in that). Not that there is anything wrong with pink camouflage patterned strollers, but that one just wasn't my cup of tea. They did charge me for shipping, but at least eventually they fixed the stroller. When it works it works great, much more conveniently than any other stroller we could find, but for the price we really did expect perfection.
And a cup holder.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
Mexican Dad
It's Not Easy Being Brown.
Actually, it isn't that it's hard, but it can be confusing. We Hispanics of Mexican descent have an ingrained culture that's hard to fight against. And it starts off with having to define ourselves as "Hispanics of Mexican Descent". Not only is it a mouth-full, it makes my fingers tired from typing it and it has already turned my attention away to more fun things. Yet I plod on. Do you really need anymore background on me? You probably do, but you're already bored so I'll skip it.
Here's the main point, we Mexican-Americans are a complex bunch, not a simple monolithic group, but we do share some common characteristics, which are almost entirely negative. Isn't that sad? We don't share the good stuff, we keep that closed in within our families or people we know, but the bad stuff that we struggle against is all over. I actually was raised in Mexico, and I went to public schools in a poor part of the Third World. I wasn't poor, thanks to my Dad's hard work, but the places where we lived were definitely not nice. Lots of dirt and dirty children and shacks made of scrounged materials with dirt floors. My schools had no AC's, libraries, cafeterias, or playgrounds. But we always had desks for everyone and real glass windows. I bet you hadn't thought of that as a luxury! And yet, when I compare the education I received down there with what I see other kids getting here in the good ol' USA, I thank my lucky stars for my schooling. Seriously. And I'm not knocking American schools, they're not bad, it's just that my schools were so much better. And why is that? To me, it's because I received an education grounded in the classics. We read the Iliad in junior high, we covered Jules Verne in elementary. We discussed political theory more deeply in seventh grade than my college professors would dare to try. We had no school band, no senior trips to Italy or the Caribbean. There was only school all the time. We received a mixture of lecture and discussion, with lots of thought provoking questions thrown into all classes. And there is the point. We were forced to think all the time. We weren't given answers, but we were expected to come up with them on our own. I think that the greatest difference, though, as far as basic schooling went, was the level of "culture" we were exposed too. And I mean culture in the sense of Art, not in some ethnocentric way. We were exposed to paintings by different artists, lots and lots poetry, and the occasional piece of music on an old record player.
But, and here's the cultural problem that is a "cultural" item with an ethnocentric view, we Mexican boys we're also taught to be the strong ones, to be aggressive, to be "macho". Macho, by the way, simply means male in Spanish. We were taught good manners right along with disrespect. We should open doors for ladies, but only because they're too weak to do it on their own. You must pull our chairs at dinner, but only because women are clumsy and can't sit on properly. On and on. So it's hard to get past the sexist and racist and classist ideals that were drummed into our heads systematically. I want to pass on the good bits to my kids, but how can I tell the good bits apart from the bad bits? They're all mashed together all the time. It's not hard to separate them when I can sit and consider, but teaching them good, moral behavior on the fly is tough. And I've not even touched on teaching them the language yet. Spanish is tough to learn without a whole lot of early exposure. And we don't speak enough of it at home for it to be natural to the boys.
But being aware of the problems is the first step to solving them. Or at least to ameliorating them.
Actually, it isn't that it's hard, but it can be confusing. We Hispanics of Mexican descent have an ingrained culture that's hard to fight against. And it starts off with having to define ourselves as "Hispanics of Mexican Descent". Not only is it a mouth-full, it makes my fingers tired from typing it and it has already turned my attention away to more fun things. Yet I plod on. Do you really need anymore background on me? You probably do, but you're already bored so I'll skip it.
Here's the main point, we Mexican-Americans are a complex bunch, not a simple monolithic group, but we do share some common characteristics, which are almost entirely negative. Isn't that sad? We don't share the good stuff, we keep that closed in within our families or people we know, but the bad stuff that we struggle against is all over. I actually was raised in Mexico, and I went to public schools in a poor part of the Third World. I wasn't poor, thanks to my Dad's hard work, but the places where we lived were definitely not nice. Lots of dirt and dirty children and shacks made of scrounged materials with dirt floors. My schools had no AC's, libraries, cafeterias, or playgrounds. But we always had desks for everyone and real glass windows. I bet you hadn't thought of that as a luxury! And yet, when I compare the education I received down there with what I see other kids getting here in the good ol' USA, I thank my lucky stars for my schooling. Seriously. And I'm not knocking American schools, they're not bad, it's just that my schools were so much better. And why is that? To me, it's because I received an education grounded in the classics. We read the Iliad in junior high, we covered Jules Verne in elementary. We discussed political theory more deeply in seventh grade than my college professors would dare to try. We had no school band, no senior trips to Italy or the Caribbean. There was only school all the time. We received a mixture of lecture and discussion, with lots of thought provoking questions thrown into all classes. And there is the point. We were forced to think all the time. We weren't given answers, but we were expected to come up with them on our own. I think that the greatest difference, though, as far as basic schooling went, was the level of "culture" we were exposed too. And I mean culture in the sense of Art, not in some ethnocentric way. We were exposed to paintings by different artists, lots and lots poetry, and the occasional piece of music on an old record player.
But, and here's the cultural problem that is a "cultural" item with an ethnocentric view, we Mexican boys we're also taught to be the strong ones, to be aggressive, to be "macho". Macho, by the way, simply means male in Spanish. We were taught good manners right along with disrespect. We should open doors for ladies, but only because they're too weak to do it on their own. You must pull our chairs at dinner, but only because women are clumsy and can't sit on properly. On and on. So it's hard to get past the sexist and racist and classist ideals that were drummed into our heads systematically. I want to pass on the good bits to my kids, but how can I tell the good bits apart from the bad bits? They're all mashed together all the time. It's not hard to separate them when I can sit and consider, but teaching them good, moral behavior on the fly is tough. And I've not even touched on teaching them the language yet. Spanish is tough to learn without a whole lot of early exposure. And we don't speak enough of it at home for it to be natural to the boys.
But being aware of the problems is the first step to solving them. Or at least to ameliorating them.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Long Time coming.
Don't be mislead by the title. It's going to be a long time between posts. No surprise at all, really.
So what's new? Lots of things since the last post. As you'd imagine. Because, if you've read any other posts, I've got two young boys. They still change every day. It's not as if I can simply say "Yeah, the other one already did that" and then move on. It's a surprise every time.
Monkey #1 is just talking up a storm. I'm amazed at the level of conversation he can hold up. Seriously. I knew English majors at Pan-Am who didn't have his command of the language. Monkey #2 is quiet, but he'll point to things and say what they are every once in a while. It's amazing, as I've already stated in this very same paragraph.
How can they move up the intellectual ladder so fast while I keep falling behind? It's not even as if I'm static while they move. I can actually feel my brain atrophy as the days go by. I can't read as fast, I can't retain information, I can't even imagine as well as I used too just 10 years ago, let alone 15. But the boys are just rocketing. So I can't even claim credit for that. It must be their mother.
As for me, well. . . just don't expect any more posts for a while. Not that anybody would. Nine hours of college classes and the job and the boys and the wife pretty much take up all my time. Even if the classes are easy enough they still suck up tons of time. The job takes up a lot of that, too. I'd take more classes if I could choose between those two, though.
The job did send me off to the Third World for a week, so that was sort of nice. It was actually really, really cool most of the time, when I didn't focus on anyone else other than me. This was a business trip, right? Not just fun in the sun. So I got to eat in restaurants that cost a weeks' pay for a meal, and stay in hotels that I could never hope to afford, while being chauffeured past shanty towns (favelas, if you're interested). But the place is an ecological disaster, worse than what you see on TV, and they don't really care. Or maybe they care, but they just don't have the desire to change things. They're in a hurry to catch up to us, and when they do they'll find that it's going to cost them a whole bunch to fix the damage they've done. But that's a problem for another Generation so they'll continue to pollute and destroy and so on and so forth. Not that I'm concerned about the environment simply for the environments' sake. I'm an industry that exploits nature so I've made my peace with that, but you have to protect it a bit because it's more expensive to fix problems later on.
I want to put more pics of the boys up, but my wife hates any images of us online. I don't like any of me, but I figure the boys are going to grow up in a connected world so they won't know the difference at all. By the time they start thinking about their relationships to people other than just mom and dad web relationships will be perfectly normal. But for now I'll respect her opinion and leave it at the two previous low-rez images.
So what's new? Lots of things since the last post. As you'd imagine. Because, if you've read any other posts, I've got two young boys. They still change every day. It's not as if I can simply say "Yeah, the other one already did that" and then move on. It's a surprise every time.
Monkey #1 is just talking up a storm. I'm amazed at the level of conversation he can hold up. Seriously. I knew English majors at Pan-Am who didn't have his command of the language. Monkey #2 is quiet, but he'll point to things and say what they are every once in a while. It's amazing, as I've already stated in this very same paragraph.
How can they move up the intellectual ladder so fast while I keep falling behind? It's not even as if I'm static while they move. I can actually feel my brain atrophy as the days go by. I can't read as fast, I can't retain information, I can't even imagine as well as I used too just 10 years ago, let alone 15. But the boys are just rocketing. So I can't even claim credit for that. It must be their mother.
As for me, well. . . just don't expect any more posts for a while. Not that anybody would. Nine hours of college classes and the job and the boys and the wife pretty much take up all my time. Even if the classes are easy enough they still suck up tons of time. The job takes up a lot of that, too. I'd take more classes if I could choose between those two, though.
The job did send me off to the Third World for a week, so that was sort of nice. It was actually really, really cool most of the time, when I didn't focus on anyone else other than me. This was a business trip, right? Not just fun in the sun. So I got to eat in restaurants that cost a weeks' pay for a meal, and stay in hotels that I could never hope to afford, while being chauffeured past shanty towns (favelas, if you're interested). But the place is an ecological disaster, worse than what you see on TV, and they don't really care. Or maybe they care, but they just don't have the desire to change things. They're in a hurry to catch up to us, and when they do they'll find that it's going to cost them a whole bunch to fix the damage they've done. But that's a problem for another Generation so they'll continue to pollute and destroy and so on and so forth. Not that I'm concerned about the environment simply for the environments' sake. I'm an industry that exploits nature so I've made my peace with that, but you have to protect it a bit because it's more expensive to fix problems later on.
I want to put more pics of the boys up, but my wife hates any images of us online. I don't like any of me, but I figure the boys are going to grow up in a connected world so they won't know the difference at all. By the time they start thinking about their relationships to people other than just mom and dad web relationships will be perfectly normal. But for now I'll respect her opinion and leave it at the two previous low-rez images.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Why do I not post more regularly?
The simple answer is because I don't have time. The real answer is different from that. I can say that it's because nothing is new, but that's not true either. I have 2 little boys, and every day is new and different and exciting for us 3. And for Mommy too, I think, but I can't really speak for her. It would be pretty cool if I could talk her into keeping a blog also and explaining her side of things. But I digress.
The truth is that I don't do it because that would require effort and discipline and it would seem too much like work. I have no intention is adding to my workload, so this will have to remain an on-again-off-again guilty pleasure. And really, that's the only kind of pleasure worth having.
So it's been a month since I last wrote a post. It sure doesn't seem as though it's been that long. What's new? Monkey #2 has rolled over a few times, but he hasn't done much more than that. He sits up fairly well, but not well enough to do it alone for long periods of time or to pull himself up to it. And when he flops down, he flops down hard.
Monkey #1's vocabulary continues to grow. The phrases have become sentences, and he can carry on a conversation when he feels up to it. Sure, mostly it's about what the WonderPets have been up to, but it's a conversation anyway. He's gotten into trains and dinosaurs now, but the big semi's on the road still excite him. Yes, even though we see them everyday, on every drive no matter what, they still get him all riled up ("Dada! Dada! Big truck! The big truck is red!"). Today he started singing Twinkle Twinkle little star on his own. That's the first time. Usually he asks us to sign songs for him, and even when he knows the song he won't join in, but this time he decided it was up to him to liven things up. He also decided that he wanted a haircut today after watching me get mine cut. That's not the surprising part, though. The surprise was that he suffered through it patiently until it was all done. He still can't read, but he's learning a few words. He can recognize his name, so we've got a start. Speaking of starts. . .
I started Monkey #1 on cloth diapers some of the time. I only bought the equivalent of 4 diapers, so that's only enough for part of one day anyway, but at least it's a start. It's not as if they're going to save us any money though. The darn things were so expensive. Sure, it's a one time purchase, but I could have bought more than 500 good disposables for that much money. Well, 496 more changes to go and I'll get my money's worth!
There is one thing that I really miss from before the children came into play. Reading real books. Now, all I read is Dr. Seuss. I can't remember what the last book I read was, and the book I'm reading now is taking weeks to finish. And it's not as if were anything complex, it's not Tolstoy or Kierkegaard (not that I'd read Kierkegaard for fun anyway!) It's just a run-of-the-mill novel, and I just can't seem to get enough time to read it, other than when I'm brushing my teeth.
Which I should go do right about now.
The truth is that I don't do it because that would require effort and discipline and it would seem too much like work. I have no intention is adding to my workload, so this will have to remain an on-again-off-again guilty pleasure. And really, that's the only kind of pleasure worth having.
So it's been a month since I last wrote a post. It sure doesn't seem as though it's been that long. What's new? Monkey #2 has rolled over a few times, but he hasn't done much more than that. He sits up fairly well, but not well enough to do it alone for long periods of time or to pull himself up to it. And when he flops down, he flops down hard.
Monkey #1's vocabulary continues to grow. The phrases have become sentences, and he can carry on a conversation when he feels up to it. Sure, mostly it's about what the WonderPets have been up to, but it's a conversation anyway. He's gotten into trains and dinosaurs now, but the big semi's on the road still excite him. Yes, even though we see them everyday, on every drive no matter what, they still get him all riled up ("Dada! Dada! Big truck! The big truck is red!"). Today he started singing Twinkle Twinkle little star on his own. That's the first time. Usually he asks us to sign songs for him, and even when he knows the song he won't join in, but this time he decided it was up to him to liven things up. He also decided that he wanted a haircut today after watching me get mine cut. That's not the surprising part, though. The surprise was that he suffered through it patiently until it was all done. He still can't read, but he's learning a few words. He can recognize his name, so we've got a start. Speaking of starts. . .
I started Monkey #1 on cloth diapers some of the time. I only bought the equivalent of 4 diapers, so that's only enough for part of one day anyway, but at least it's a start. It's not as if they're going to save us any money though. The darn things were so expensive. Sure, it's a one time purchase, but I could have bought more than 500 good disposables for that much money. Well, 496 more changes to go and I'll get my money's worth!
There is one thing that I really miss from before the children came into play. Reading real books. Now, all I read is Dr. Seuss. I can't remember what the last book I read was, and the book I'm reading now is taking weeks to finish. And it's not as if were anything complex, it's not Tolstoy or Kierkegaard (not that I'd read Kierkegaard for fun anyway!) It's just a run-of-the-mill novel, and I just can't seem to get enough time to read it, other than when I'm brushing my teeth.
Which I should go do right about now.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Introducing the Monkeys!
Sorry for the low-res pics. I'll post better ones later on.This guy is Monkey #1. He's going to be 2 years old soon.
This one is Monkey #2. He's 5 months old.
Chironautical because . . .
You might wonder "Why does this guy call his blog Chironautical?". Or, most likely, you really don't care and barely noticed that's these scribblings have an Ubername.
In any case, I shall enlighten you. Chiron, as you know, was a centaur. Not just any centaur, though. Way back then, centaurs were wild critters. They were strong, fast, drunken, and debaucherous. Even though debaucherous isn't even a word, they were and they made it work, thank you very much.
Amongst the constant partying, one centaur emerged that decided "screw all this having fun and chasing girl centaurs about. I'm going to settle down and study science." Yup, he gave it all up for science. And not just for a little while. He knew that once he started on the journey of self-enlightenment he'd be ostracized by his fellow debaucherers (yes, they made that work work too, those centaurs). No room for a thinking-type in those wild parties. Imagine the typical approach to a willy centaurette, running all around her, shooting some wild boars with your arrows and presenting her with a feast of raw pork before mounting her lustily, instead of all that, just going up to her and saying "doesn't all this just seem as though we're trying to run away from ourselves? Loosing our divine essence in this wallowing in wine and raw swine?"
You can see that he wasn't far from being ostracized, and he was never going to get any centaurette anyway, so no big loss to him, but that's not the point. The point is that he made the leap, to loneliness and better literature.
And he also took up with humans. Failing to get on with any centaurs, he went off to the next best thing. He knew that those Greek ladies weren't all that particular, what with all the minotaurs and attractive geese running around. In order to stay close to ladies he knew would put out, he started tutoring their kids. And the two most important kids he tutored ( at least in my opinion) were Ajax and his cousin Achilles. Yes, the two of Trojan war fame. The two greatest heroes that the Greeks ever produced, as long as you don't count Hercules, and maybe Odysseus.
I should, probably, tell you that my boys are named after these Greek heroes. Achilles and Ajax, not Hercules and Odysseus. And now I see my role as comparable to Chiron, having to navigate the sea of parenthood, hence the "-autical" part of the title.
Now, don't start to write me an angry comment telling me how I ruined the kids lives with crazy old names. They do have a mother that has enough sense to keep me from doing things like that. Only their middle names are weird. They have perfectly conventional first names.
You see? That first part wasn't about me at all. You thought I was the one giving up social life to study science, and the one who couldn't get any. Hah! That's all I have to say to you. I probably got more after I took up science.
In any case, I shall enlighten you. Chiron, as you know, was a centaur. Not just any centaur, though. Way back then, centaurs were wild critters. They were strong, fast, drunken, and debaucherous. Even though debaucherous isn't even a word, they were and they made it work, thank you very much.
Amongst the constant partying, one centaur emerged that decided "screw all this having fun and chasing girl centaurs about. I'm going to settle down and study science." Yup, he gave it all up for science. And not just for a little while. He knew that once he started on the journey of self-enlightenment he'd be ostracized by his fellow debaucherers (yes, they made that work work too, those centaurs). No room for a thinking-type in those wild parties. Imagine the typical approach to a willy centaurette, running all around her, shooting some wild boars with your arrows and presenting her with a feast of raw pork before mounting her lustily, instead of all that, just going up to her and saying "doesn't all this just seem as though we're trying to run away from ourselves? Loosing our divine essence in this wallowing in wine and raw swine?"
You can see that he wasn't far from being ostracized, and he was never going to get any centaurette anyway, so no big loss to him, but that's not the point. The point is that he made the leap, to loneliness and better literature.
And he also took up with humans. Failing to get on with any centaurs, he went off to the next best thing. He knew that those Greek ladies weren't all that particular, what with all the minotaurs and attractive geese running around. In order to stay close to ladies he knew would put out, he started tutoring their kids. And the two most important kids he tutored ( at least in my opinion) were Ajax and his cousin Achilles. Yes, the two of Trojan war fame. The two greatest heroes that the Greeks ever produced, as long as you don't count Hercules, and maybe Odysseus.
I should, probably, tell you that my boys are named after these Greek heroes. Achilles and Ajax, not Hercules and Odysseus. And now I see my role as comparable to Chiron, having to navigate the sea of parenthood, hence the "-autical" part of the title.
Now, don't start to write me an angry comment telling me how I ruined the kids lives with crazy old names. They do have a mother that has enough sense to keep me from doing things like that. Only their middle names are weird. They have perfectly conventional first names.
You see? That first part wasn't about me at all. You thought I was the one giving up social life to study science, and the one who couldn't get any. Hah! That's all I have to say to you. I probably got more after I took up science.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
You have to stop and think sometimes. . .
And yet I hardly ever do. Except to think about how rough I have it, before slapping myself (figuratively) and giving thanks for how easy I have it. Really. So we can't afford nice cars, the two we have are paid for. Sure, they're not new or 100% reliable, but they're ours. We don't have nice house, it's falling down all around us. But we have sort of have a house, as long as we can afford the mortgage. Which is more than a whole bunch of people right now. We don't have great jobs, but we have jobs and we're not slinging burgers or calling people at dinner time. We can't afford an awesome day care for the boys, but we can send them to a middle-of-the-road place that the oldest one seems to like.
We have each other, all 4 of us, and that counts for just about everything I can think of. The boys are growing. . . slowly, but they're growing. Monkey #1 is still sharp as a tack, but he can't jump and he hates grass. Well, he hates walking on grass. Uneven surfaces still throw him off so he won't walk in the grass at all if he can help it. He's not even two and he's already a city-boy. One of these days maybe I'll be able to change him a bit and get some dirt under his little nails. But it won't be any time soon! Monkey #2 is cooing and babbling and he just managed to roll over from his back to his tummy. Of course, in that situation he had an assist from gravity, but it still counts. I already think that Monkey #2 is going to be the physical one, the leap-first sort of kid. Not Monkey #1, not at all. He's still an observer first and foremost. I hope that once they're older they'll rub off on each other and even things up. But I doubt it. My brother and I have a similar split, except the age portion of it is reversed. He's the one that likes to work the details out before hand, and I tend to leap in blindly. When we work together that works out, a man to do the details and one to do big-picture thinking. Although we never did manage to change one another, I hope that my boys will influence each other more strongly in positive ways. Yeah, I know, if wishes were fishes and all.
Anyway, the title of the post refers to the passing a a co-worker of mine, today. He was not an old guy. He even still had two kids in elementary school. But he had an accident at home and that was it, he's gone. I've known him for ten years and it's just not sunken in yet how something like that could happen to me also. And then what would my family do? Or what if my wife passed? What would I do? Sure, we have a little bit of insurance, but not much at all. Certainly not enough to pay off the house or hire someone to watch the kids all the time. We don't even have a will made out. That's probably step #1 right there. No point in dwelling on possibilities, I need to focus on what I can do to prepare for eventualities. But even more immediate in today's world, what if I get canned?
The company I work for us up for sale, and you just can't tell what's going to happen in a situation such as that. It could be good, but it may be bad. I actually went through this last year, since the plant I work at was sold, but I got to keep my job and the new employers are good to us all. Not "here's a great big pile of money and 8 weeks vacation" nice, but we all kept our jobs and they've pretty much left us alone to keep the place running. The company where my wife works was just purchased by another company and they let go of about 10% of their workforce, but fortunately she wasn't one of the ones they let go. So, that brings me back to the beginning, giving thanks.
We have each other, all 4 of us, and that counts for just about everything I can think of. The boys are growing. . . slowly, but they're growing. Monkey #1 is still sharp as a tack, but he can't jump and he hates grass. Well, he hates walking on grass. Uneven surfaces still throw him off so he won't walk in the grass at all if he can help it. He's not even two and he's already a city-boy. One of these days maybe I'll be able to change him a bit and get some dirt under his little nails. But it won't be any time soon! Monkey #2 is cooing and babbling and he just managed to roll over from his back to his tummy. Of course, in that situation he had an assist from gravity, but it still counts. I already think that Monkey #2 is going to be the physical one, the leap-first sort of kid. Not Monkey #1, not at all. He's still an observer first and foremost. I hope that once they're older they'll rub off on each other and even things up. But I doubt it. My brother and I have a similar split, except the age portion of it is reversed. He's the one that likes to work the details out before hand, and I tend to leap in blindly. When we work together that works out, a man to do the details and one to do big-picture thinking. Although we never did manage to change one another, I hope that my boys will influence each other more strongly in positive ways. Yeah, I know, if wishes were fishes and all.
Anyway, the title of the post refers to the passing a a co-worker of mine, today. He was not an old guy. He even still had two kids in elementary school. But he had an accident at home and that was it, he's gone. I've known him for ten years and it's just not sunken in yet how something like that could happen to me also. And then what would my family do? Or what if my wife passed? What would I do? Sure, we have a little bit of insurance, but not much at all. Certainly not enough to pay off the house or hire someone to watch the kids all the time. We don't even have a will made out. That's probably step #1 right there. No point in dwelling on possibilities, I need to focus on what I can do to prepare for eventualities. But even more immediate in today's world, what if I get canned?
The company I work for us up for sale, and you just can't tell what's going to happen in a situation such as that. It could be good, but it may be bad. I actually went through this last year, since the plant I work at was sold, but I got to keep my job and the new employers are good to us all. Not "here's a great big pile of money and 8 weeks vacation" nice, but we all kept our jobs and they've pretty much left us alone to keep the place running. The company where my wife works was just purchased by another company and they let go of about 10% of their workforce, but fortunately she wasn't one of the ones they let go. So, that brings me back to the beginning, giving thanks.
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