Regular Life

Redneck (shirt pulled down to show contrasting skin)

Thursday, my lovely wife took our splendiforous son out to see some of her mom friends and their children. Sunscreen would have worked wonders, but during his bath Ben didn’t complain once of pain, so he seems to be wearing the burn well.

Thoreau-ing our Cares Away

Last Saturday, I took Ben out to a place called The Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary. It’s a great getaway from the more than six million people in the Dallas metro area. It turns out it is just a couple miles down the road from where I work, and about 15 from where we live.

My pictures do not do The Heard justice. It is a nearby escape for the workaday weary.

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Most of the time, I just can’t get enough of my son. When he’s being incorrigible? Whole “nother” story. I think I have an unfair advantage over my wife regarding the latter.

Although I get fairly high doses of Ben on the weekend, Monday through Friday life administers Shannon a nine-hour extended-release shot directly in her fine booty. When I get home, she and Ben have spent the entire day together — laughing, playing, and, on occasion, battling. It’s a war of the wills, and few things wear down one’s resolve faster than an insistent toddler. Also known as a wee willy whiner (not to be confused with the less frequently seen Wee Willy Wino, a flasher lacking notable size, which sometimes is called his Wee Willy Winky — but I digress).

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I shared the evening’s events with a friend who only a year before had landed in the sights of an older girl. His predator also was a smoker, but he had managed to get past that and on to things I had seen only in… well, I had seen them. In spite of his titillating recitation of events, I didn’t feel right about the Dawn situation.

For our rehearsal that night, Dawn picked me up at my house and drove us to Sandy Beach. It was a small section of shoreline at a large local lake, where officials thought hauling in truck loads of sand would give Arkansans a beach without several hours of driving or flying. It brought some swimmers, but also an abundance of house cats convinced they had reached litterbox nirvana.

Does she want to take a moonlit stroll on the fake beach?

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“Well, I played one of the wise men in a third-grade Christmas play,” I said.

“That’s cool. As long as you can handle being in front of people, you’ll do okay.”

We yelled inanities back and forth during the 10-minute drive to her house. I almost froze in the wind.

As we walked into her house, Dawn introduced me to her mother. She was an attractive woman who looked like she would be Dawn’s mom. Just like her daughter, she stood about 5′4″ and had hair that seemed blonde against its will. Its roots showed that it had lost interest in that color years ago.

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I am human and I need to be loved, just like everybody else does.
The Smiths

Speaking in euphemisms, one could call her a free spirit. Speaking bluntly and based on rumors, one could call her a slut.

Dawn was a junior and I was a freshman when she asked me to co-star in a one-act play with a kissing scene. I didn’t have a girlfriend, so I figured rehearsals might get interesting.

Apparently, so did Dawn.

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Duke Chapel Arch

On this trip, I got out, saw places, and met people. I did not, however, saw people. That’s just wrong. What if you made that famous line from The Sixth Sense past tense? “I saw dead people.” That could make the movie either a ghost story or a gorefest.

Click any pic below to enlarge.

From five destinations suggested by a Meetup.com hiking group organizer, I chose Eno River State Park after Tuesday’s class. I was careful not to reveal where I was going, lest someone be waiting there ready to saw live people. The entire Durham area is wooded, but this was a secluded place about five minutes from downtown. The river, reminiscent of what I call a large creek, ran down over boulders and through long pools. Wildflowers dotted the landscape. Finding a place like that near the Dallas metro area takes nearly a three-hour drive.

With apologies to my friend and University of Connecticut fan Dave, after my hike I visited Duke University. The drive to find the chapel was a nice tour of the hilly, wooded campus. I found and snapped a few pics of the chapel, as well as the statue of Duke himself. It’s fitting that a man who made his fortune on tobacco is immortalized with a huge stogie between his fingers.

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Duke University’s Chapel pulpit has a, ummm… cathedral ceiling.

Things keep happening on this trip that keep me from posting my planned entries. Above is a hint of the post to come. I had to share the following while it’s still fresh and relevant. It has a bathroom theme, but it is not graphic, and frankly, it might top this trip’s car incident.

After lunch, we start a process that the computer tells us will take 17 minutes, so I decide to avail myself of the facilities. With that much time to kill, I also decide to take the hotel-provided USA Today with me. Stepping into that restroom is like stepping back in time. Nasty blue tile covers the floor and the five sinks feature three different types of faucets.

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You ever have everything going just right, and then you do something stupid that screws it all up?

This morning had a storybook beginning, turned Brothers Grimm in the middle, and then showed hope again at the end.

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“Do I have green sh*t on my ass?” asked a lady in bright white pants.

I was right behind her in the connecting tube from the gate to the plane. Is that what they are called?

I looked at her posterior. For the first time. Only because she obviously was in need.

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On my first visit to Orlando, Florida, then home of pre-Epcot Walt Disney World, my brother and I quickly sniffed out the hotel’s game room. A few coin-operated video games and a pool table stood awaiting our travel-addled brains. Although I do not recall everything we saw, at that time it could have been nothing fancier than Asteroids, Pac-Man, and Defender.

Also in the room, however, was a much more fascinating form of entertainment — two British teenagers. The older boy had a gaunt build, with dark hair and pale skin. I’ll call him Nigel. His younger brother, more flamboyant and only slightly better fed, stood a head shorter and sported messy blond hair. He will go by Phillip.

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