A tax-deductible family vacation seemed like a wonderful idea several months ago when I paid for a conference in Florida scheduled for late July/early August. But every time I’d been to the panhandle, it was March (college spring break) or May (high school senior trip or weddings). And I’d never stayed at a place with a glass elevator lacking air conditioning when it was 100 degrees outside with 80% humidity.  And I forgot that when lawyers go out of town under the guise of continuing legal education, we tend to go out drinking til 2 or 3 every night, making the early wake-ups of preschoolers used to Eastern time absolutely tortuous. It’s a wonder no one got vomited upon.

The 6-hour drives (with one stop to eat) were surprisingly okay, despite the DVD player’s breaking within 3 days of lift off.  I got to talk to Pretty Bride without laptops and workloads in front of us for the first time in … months?  Longer?  The children either slept or made up shitty songs that didn’t rhyme.

Our nearly-3-month-old got sunburned, despite our diligent efforts to prevent it.  Umbrellas tend to blow over in the sand, and bonnets don’t cover entire faces, it appears.  Having a red-faced infant is guilt-inducing to normal people like my kind spouse.  I figure it’s a normal part of childhood.

The positives:  no oil or tar balls in sight; seafood tasted fine (i.e., none of us has died yet); the band at the Village Door let me climb on stage and play the bongos (sort of—I forced my way up there and played until forced back off)!  See how skilled I am?

The negatives:  hot as balls; not really a vacation to the continually child-wrangling Pretty Bride, who apparently likes to RELAX at the beach (WTF, selfish woman?).

Proposed changes for next year:
1)  I will help with herding children each morning to the sand by just skipping the conference and only attending social functions at night.
2)  Stay in a beach house, not on the 13th floor of a condo with a hotter-than-shit glass elevator that takes 10 minutes to arrive.
3)  Stay in Santa Rosa Beach or somewhere similar that’s quieter and more quaint, since I won’t care about being able to walk to the conference every morning at the Hilton.  We ate there one of the nights and found it much more desirable.
4)  Consider coming home from the bars at 1 or 2 instead of at 3 or 4.  Notice I use waffling language on this one.
5)  Ask Al Gore or God or someone of equal influence to make the highs in the 80s instead of high 90s/low 100s.

**

This concludes my second of four nearly consecutive trips.  Next up, New York City and Seattle!  Let the work-related emails continue to mount…

Filed under: Family, Law, Travels, florida, vacation | 16 Comments

Wednesday afternoon, I rode in a Cessna Skyhawk from Honolulu, over Molokai, and onto Maui.  After we landed, I learned my new friend had never landed at Maui before, because his instructor told him it was the most difficult runway in the U.S. to land a private plane, since the winds come off the ocean and through the trees to create vortexes of sorts in the crosswinds on the tarmac.  Maybe that’s why we approached at an angle and got blown back into the air when we were a few feet above the runway, only to come down a few seconds later and actually land.  That wasn’t frightening at all.

I did find interest in our flying over a leper colony near the coast of Molokai, though.

Somewhere over the Pacific, I took the yoke for a few minutes…just long enough to update Twitter with a Top Gun reference:

I’m piloting a Cessna while tweeting! Where’s Viper? I want Viper!  posted by @themuskrat from Twitter for iPhone

Filed under: Baby, Military, Travels, hawaii | 16 Comments

I never actually expected to have a trip to Hawaii count as “annual training” when I saw the email mentioning an opportunity to do just that about 6 months ago.  But here I am.  In Hawaii.  Getting paid.

I arrived Friday afternoon after 10 hours next to a 25-year-old PhD student from Charleston who came for an Alzheimer’s conference; her name was Linnea.  I called the duty controller at the base where I’m supposed to train and learned I was to show up at 0530 the next day.  I walked over to Duke’s and had dinner and beers at the bar with another PhD student named Julian; he was from Switzerland.  Linnea soon joined us, and the 3 of us continued until 9 (keep in mind that 9pm was 3am to my confused body).

The next day, my duties on base ended at 9am.  That’s right.  So I drove over to Hanauma Bay for some snorkeling and swimming.

Except for scraping my knees on some coral and getting sunburned in that spot a person can’t reach on his own back with sunscreen, it was a great afternoon (I thought about asking a stranger to put sunscreen on my back, but none of the scenarios in my head ended well, regardless of gender of the asked).  Except for some reason, after I came back, I started getting lonely and walked several blocks down to where Pretty Bride and I went in 2008 after my last trip to Iraq.  This was bittersweet, so I felt some sushi and Asahi beer were in order.  I had several of both.  When I woke up the next day, I realized I’d bought a shirt for my boy Owen and some of those Under Armour underbritches for myself.  Oh yeah, and that I dropped $1000 at the Ralph Lauren store.  On a sportcoat and sweater.  Haven’t quite told the Mrs about that yet, so, moving on…

Sunday, I ran a couple miles down the beach at sunrise.  I passed a homeless man, a very happy woman with her coffee, a couple in last night’s clothes who didn’t care about each other’s morning breath, a fisherman with his Lab puppy, some children who resented their parents’ waking them at 0530, and several surfers.  Then, it was breakfast at Duke’s, where I became convinced that in Heaven, they will serve guava juice.  I was supposed to report at 12:30, but it got pushed back to 3:30pm, so I sat on the balcony and read all afternoon before dinner at Roy’s, where I saw the lady next to me pour a bottle of Coors over ice and drink with a straw.  I thought that my cue to leave.

The next day began at 0530 and ended by about 9.  I thought it would be a good idea to drive an hour to a trail I’d read about on the internet.  I walked through a church graveyard looking for the trailhead.  No dice.  Ran down a residential street past three very angry and protective pit bulls, stopping at where I thought the trail began.  And I saw this:

Great.  I returned the half a mile I’d run and started over.  Finally, I found this:

I figured a “beginner” trail would be about 1-2 miles.  It was 4.  Up a mountain.  And the trail was covered in roots and rocks.  And I wore my most inappropriate shoes.

Once I got on the trail, I didn’t see another human.  It was the most alone I’ve ever felt.  At first, it was peaceful, until every fluttering bird made me wonder if 1) Hawaii has bears and 2) how long it would take someone to find my mauled body, since not a soul alive knew where the hell I was.  So, with every painful step, I was afraid to cry out, for fear of a bear or puma finding me, and instead whimpered like a little hungry puppy.  Because that’s what men do.

I finally made it to the top.

As soon as I got back down to the beach, I put my throbbing feet into the cool ocean.  And I paused to take in the tranquil surroundings while berating myself for being such an unprepared, naive dumbass.  It was nice.

Then I stopped by a park on the way back to the hotel.

Dinner was at the Yard House, where I talked to a kid named Robbie from California who’d traveled with his Mormon parents but broke away to guzzle some beers and smoke some cigarettes.  I’m pretty sure Robbie was using a fake ID.  He said “bro” a lot.

Today, I scheduled two activities from my “bucket list:”  SCUBA dive and surf.  First was the dive.  I was pretty nervous about going underwater and relying on a metal cylinder to keep me alive, but I enjoyed it.  My right ear wasn’t very cooperative with the whole “clearing” process every few feet, and when we came back up to the surface, the instructor told me he was close to giving up on me, but I finally got it to work.  We saw several fish and a large eel.  My leader, Greg, took several pictures that he’s sending me later.

I was not optimistic about being able to get up on a surf board, but I was wrong!

However, I did bust pretty badly on my very first attempt, landing in a reef.  When I took off my shirt (see how I learned from the sunburn experience at Hanauma Bay?), I found a nice grouping of coral residue and blood:

That didn’t feel too good.  The lesson was for an hour, and it was supposed to be a group class, but I was the only person who showed up, so, private lesson for me!

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to fly to Maui with one of the guys I met at the military base who has his private pilot’s license.  I’m supposed to work in the evening after we get back.

So far, a great trip…I still can’t believe how lucky I am to be here.  I’ve already initiated the process for coming back next year for more mission-essential training.  It’s what our country needs.

Filed under: Military, Travels | 40 Comments

This is where our 2-month-old sleeps.  Because we can’t sell our house.

I’m thinking this will turn out well for her in later years, however.  Besides the obvious character building she’ll get from staying in a closet for the first several months years of her life, I can see the following scenarios down the road, too:

Tween Party Host:  Hey, let’s play ‘60 seconds in the closet’!  Who’s game?
Lola:  I spent a large portion of my childhood in a closet.  It’s not that great.  Get lost, asshat.

Girl in Middle School:  Did you hear?  Lester came out of the closet last weekend!  I don’t think we should let him sit with us at lunch any more.
Lola:  I came out of the closet 10 years ago!  It’s hardly a reason to shun a friend, Madam Judge-A-Lot.

Young School Bus Rider:  I’m sort of a closet fan of the Twilight series.  Squeeeee!
Lola:  I wouldn’t characterize my fandom of anything as ‘closet,’ first of all.  Neither should you.  And second, why don’t you go buy a piece of intellectually stimulating non-fiction and, if you have enough cash left over, a clue!

See how I become Mr. Brightside?

Filed under: Baby, real estate | 39 Comments

I could write about the utter terror someone who passes out when given shots or blood tests faces when going for surgery on his nethers, but it’s easier to just provide my impressions from that timeframe as they were happening.

Accordingly, here are my tweets, in reverse chronological order:

1. 1. Fireworks behind our house tonight. Either the Braves won, or the city is celebrating my infertility. Fri Jun 25 22:49:22 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   2. Thanks for all the support, but tweeting a bunch isn’t brave. It’s how I cope: diversion. Fri Jun 25 15:23:57 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   3. Post surgery milk shake!!! (@ OK Cafe) http://4sq.com/5c5ccS Fri Jun 25 15:20:00 2010 via foursquare
   4. Am now safely in the passenger seat of our minivan. How appropriate. Fri Jun 25 15:16:03 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   5. The new walk of shame: gingerly shuffling out of the urologist’s office in front of 20 people. Fri Jun 25 15:09:42 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   6. Am upright. Still afraid to look down. Is this what it feels like to be a circus performer? Fri Jun 25 15:03:36 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   7. I like how it says “congratulations!”. Asses. http://yfrog.com/euofngj Fri Jun 25 15:02:39 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   8. This is where my bare ass sweat like a whore in church. http://yfrog.com/5cvhoaj Fri Jun 25 15:00:27 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   9. I am afraid to look down under this gauze. It’s like being on a building’s ledge. Fri Jun 25 14:58:34 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   10. They say no peas or ice. I did it scalpel-free! Fri Jun 25 14:57:19 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   11. Just got busted tweeting. Oops. Apparently I’m supposed to provide a semen sample when I’m at blogher: 6 weeks from now. Hmmm. Fri Jun 25 14:56:40 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   12. The video says I am supposed to take “specimen” cups with me. I can only imagine. Fri Jun 25 14:52:01 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   13. The dr said he knew I was a lawyer by my small penis. I said I knew he was a doc by his med mal insurance releases. Fri Jun 25 14:50:25 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   14. Why is STP’s “Half the Man I Used to Be” in my head? Fri Jun 25 14:49:13 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   15. I think smelling burning flesh was the worst. Oh yeah, and the damned needle that made me sweat a quart. Fri Jun 25 14:48:11 2010 via Twitter for iPhone
   16. I think he’s done. I’m alone w the video again. 2:46 PM Jun 25th via Twitter for iPhon
   17. I hope this isn’t “intern day.” 2:25 PM Jun 25th via Twitter for iPhone
   18. The video stopped. http://yfrog.com/j2bzcj 2:23 PM Jun 25th via Twitter for iPhone
   19. Now the video wants me to take off my pants. Stranger danger!!! 2:19 PM Jun 25th via Twitter for iPhone
   20. The video says not to worry. The video does not know me. 2:17 PM Jun 25th via Twitter for iPhone
   21. I like the word “rare.” 2:17 PM Jun 25th via Twitter for iPhone
   22. They are making me watch a video. I don’t want to know the risks, asshole. 2:16 PM Jun 25th via Twitter for iPhone
   23. a touching post by a friend about my balls: http://bit.ly/9OrSkO 11:43 AM Jun 25th via TweetDeck
   24. am 3.5 hours away from my appointment to get neutered. stressed. is that what a rapist in saudi arabia feels like? 10:39 AM Jun 25th via TweetDeck
       

Now that it’s over, I gotta say I recommend doing it scalpel-free, like I did here.  No ice or frozen peas.  No swelling or bruising the next day or the next day or the day after that.  No finding my absent penis on a blanket next to a broken toaster oven several hours after losing it.

The worst part?  The clamp.  I was terrified to look down, but at some point, some sort of vice grip contraption was cinched around my johnson.  I was certain it was going to lose its nutrients’ supply, turn black, and fall onto the floor before ending up in a pawn shop.  But it didn’t.  I was VERY relieved, however, when the cinch came off at the end.

As for my interpersonal relations?  Okay so far.  I mean, my pecker wasn’t talking to me for the first several hours afterward.  I avoided eye contact until Saturday afternoon (a good 24 hours), and even when I reached out to it to resume normal conversation, it played “hard to get” and retracted like a defeated turtle.

I think our relationship will improve over time, however.  It keeps asking to go for vigorous runs down the nature trail behind our building, and I have to gently tell it, “Not yet.  Doctor’s orders, buddy.”  It seems to understand, even if it acts petulant right now.

Someday, it’ll thank me for the sacrifice my psyche endured for its freedom from suffocation by latex or butting its head against hard plastic.  Some day, oh peevish penis.  Just not now.

Filed under: Family, vasectomy | 43 Comments