8/7/22 Who Is Really Living In A Cage?

     Wife was driving home from work one of these days and she got stuck at a light where she could see a homeless person.  She felt bad and mad at the same time.  On the one hand, she hates that they suffer and live out in the streets, but on the other, it is by their choices, in cases where it isn't a mental thing.  Then we got into a conversation, which I like exploring, and usually pisses off whoever I try to do this with.  I asked her who is really the one to feel sad for?  You might think you're winning, but your butt runs from place to place, and you aren't in control of your domain.  Try missing work for a few days without announcing to your superiors what you are doing, and all your comforts could be taken away by getting fired.  These people get to lay around all day, if they want.  They come out to a light intersection, put their hand out and get what they need, and then go about their business.  Just from that point, who has it better?

    Then you can add the fact that yes, you make a bunch of money, but most of it goes to cover housing, to keep your stuff and a car to get to your job, so you can be a prisoner every day, just to keep the shelter and maybe a little extra cash.  The bums keep all their belongings in an HEB or Target cart and don't have to worry about taxes, or schedules.  Their time is their own, they aren't selling their life blood for a couple trinkets from the man.  Add in a tent provided from one of the nice people with too much money and life is getting a little better and better.

    What I don't understand is why do they set up camp right next to the freeways?  If I lived out in nature, I would go find a campsite next to a quiet lake or river, that would be nice.  Once you give up the grace of using modern plumbing and/or showering every day, why be amongst all the roar and commotion of "civilization"?  I think that is a lot of the reason these people go crazy, in the first place.

    Meanwhile (this was a conversation with Wife), your butt still has to rush home, go pick up Mijo from practice, eat something, probably overpriced crap from one of our mediocre eateries, take a shower and get to bed before 10:00am, just to do it all again tomorrow, starting at 5:45am.  And don't think you can take it easy, skip a few house payments and you'll lose the house.  Forget to pay taxes, and eventually they'll threaten you with fines and jail time.  Shit, don't feed your kids and the state might even take them away.

    Who is really living in a gilded cage?

8/6/22 Another Evening With The Baby?

    DD and his wife called Friday night to see if we were available to watch their baby for a few hours.  He is now starting to teeth and mama said she was being driven crazy because it is non-stop crying.  Our biggest plan for Saturday night was that Wife said, "No Barbeque", which I didn't like, but I added "good, maybe you can locate the kitchen and rattle some pans (I'm funny).  She had decided on making a lasagna, which I liked because they are great, but do take some time to put together.  Since we were planning on being home, we said sure, bring the "Gordito" over.

    It was actually a pretty busy day, overall.  Wife had a start of school drive, in which they hand out backpacks and throw a party out of getting the kids ready for the first day of school.  She said they had the fire engines, gifts, snacks, and even the Coyote from the SA Spurs was there.  All this activity of course required she be there at 7:00am, so she had to leave the house before 5:40am.  This left her no time to go with me to get the lasagna supplies, so I had to manage that.

    Then because when she got here, we went and ran some quick errands, the baby got here about 20 minutes after we had gotten home.  Wife ran upstairs to take a quick shower and I was tasked with starting the ground beef on the skillet.  Then the baby got here and after all the hellos and actually seeing the tiredness in their eyes, we told them to go.  They said they were probably just going to go buy a bucket of chicken and watch a movie at home.

    The baby is a cute little hunk of ham, he is built solid, not really a squishy baby.  Wife was, "Well, you can hold him, and I'll put the lasagna together, or I can hold him, and you can put it together."  I hadn't made a lasagna from scratch before, so I was curious.  It took a good 20 minutes and we had enough for the two pans she had.  It was then in the oven for about 2 hours, it seemed.

    The baby was a good baby until he wasn't.  He must have a tooth coming because once he started crying, he kept crying for about half an hour.  Wife had asked if I wanted to go to Target and get some sort of seat for him.  I love buying stuff, so this a chance to shine.  Turns out I picked the exact one they already have.  I don't know what they are called, but it is an activity center where the baby seats in the middle and the seat rotates all around with little toys attached to the frame.

    Baby A called me while I was still at Target to get him a pacifier because he was crying his little brains out.  I got him a couple different ones and some teethers too.  It was a little intense I guess until the Motrin kicked in or the little seat thing really distracted the pain, but after I got home, he settled down and went back to happy baby mode.

    DD and wife came back about 2-3 hours after they left.  Mama needs to chill out, she is strung tight and says that she has only been away from the baby about ten hours total.  She needs some more support to stay sane, but I'm not sure either side of the family is kicking in that much support.  We enjoy the baby.  He is the closest thing we have to a grandson, Boy still says he doesn't see a kid in their near future, so for now, this is our future wrestler to follow.

8/5/22 GIrly's In A Sea Of Trouble From Her Car Wreck?

     As far as I know, Girlie leaves at the end of the week, but as of yet, she has no car.  She was hit in the Walmart parking lot and her car of two years was totaled about two months ago.  I don't understand why, but the insurance said the other party had some evidence they were going to submit to prove she was at fault.  The lady who hit her was driving a rental because she had just hit another person with her car.  Because the lady never did, they just determined that it was a no-fault accident and they called it square.  They did pay off her car, according to her she owed about $28,000 and the car was valued at $32,000.  She was expecting to at least get the difference to help her with a down payment, but Geico has not done that.  Instead, they paid off the car and called it done.

    She was already slowly getting into credit debt just trying to get by, so it's not like she had a savings, who does, nowadays?  She has been working, and she will be some kind of physical therapist, mostly working with developmentally delayed, so I don't know the specifics.  But because she is fixing to leave, the company she works with has been slowly removing her clients, so she has less and less hours, so it is almost impossible to save money for a down payment on something.

    That being said, it is a big ask for us to buy a car, we aren't doing that, she is currently not even talking to her folks, there was a big fight.  Piecing together everything, she will be gone for about 4 months, her professor, said they would finish the internship program before Thanksgiving, so she can get back before it gets too cold.  Her boyfriend is driving her up there, she currently has the rental from the accident, he has been paying for it at the discounted rate they gave her, which is like $300 every two weeks.  I had jokingly said "we can buy you a bike and you can get around that way."  She will be living about three miles from where she will work.  At the moment, this is her best idea and though she laughed when I first said it, she drove around with Wife one afternoon to pick up Mijo from practice, and Wife kind of convinced her it could work.

    I was thinking maybe a scooter would be a step up, they could somehow transport it in the SUV, maybe get a small trailer, I don't know, but cost wise, I think either her or her boyfriend could afford the $100-$120 payment a month for a scooter.  We'll see how it plays out.

8/4/22 Secret is Out?

     This is a couple days late, but yesterday (Friday), I called my mom, I was out driving and figured it was a good time to brag about Mijo.  I couldn't even finish the pleasantries of hello before she wanted to change the subject and ask the big question "Does our boy have a girlfriend?"  I laughed a little uneasy, but at least the secret is out.  I couldn't talk about it per his request, the relationship is moving about as fast as ice melts in winter, but yes, the husky Mijo is now in his first relationship.

    Mom quickly went into it, my niece saw a picture on Snapchat, then she showed it to my nephew, or vice versa, and then one of them ran to tell Grandma.  I quickly admitted it was true, but he had sworn me to secrecy, so I wasn't supposed to say anything.  It was hard, because I like to keep my mom in the loop of what the boys are up to.  Mijo had been waiting for the perfect time to say anything, but I am not sure, the parent's might be very strict or something, but she has not told them, so although they have been "dating" since April or around there, it is on the downlow.

    I thought it was a little weird that the parents didn't catch on.  She is on the wrestling team, and we met her parents and talked to them for a good while.  They were really thankful that we have been nice enough to be taking their daughter home like 4 times a week all of a sudden and feeding her at least twice a week towards the end of school.  Wouldn't you figure out if your son/daughter suddenly started hanging out with a person of the opposite sex, that there might be something there?  I was trying to talk up my son with stuff like "our boy is a great kid, doesn't really go out on the weekends, he mostly hangs out with us watching movies or his friends might come over once in a while.  I thought the being nominated as an All-American might have impressed them, but because it is sponsored by the Marines, they just assumed it was some way of announcing he is joining the military (or that is what the girl told Mijo when they talked after the awards banquet).  No disrespect to our military, but before Mijo does anything, he is getting an education.

    We have told him to put some pressure on her, maybe he can go over there, old fashioned style, and ask her parents, like a man from the 50s, that he would like to court the daughter, I don't know.  Either way, they are a cute couple, she wrestles on the team too, so she understands his biggest passion right now, and that is good.

8/3/22 Second Opinion For Our Jock?

     Maybe we panicked, maybe we just needed a second opinion to make sure our boy is okay, but we took him back to Texas Orthopedics today to look at his knee.  I say back because this is where we ended up last year when he hurt his shoulder.  It was nice to hear that his shoulder was not broken or whatever else, I thought it speeded up his recovery knowing everything would be okay.

    Because things didn't seem to be progressing as quickly as I thought they might, I ended up scheduling this appointment.  Apparently, you only get shitty service when you go to the poorer medical facilities.  This place, like the Victory Medical on Bee Caves gets you in and out the door super-fast and leaves you feeling good.  Texas Orthopedics is over by Barton Mall, on Ben White, the small street right before hitting MoPac.  They even had me filling out the medical questionnaire by email, so we didn't even waste time doing that.  His appointment was at 2:15pm, we got there at 2:00pm, and we were in the small rooms talking to a nurse for his vitals by 2:10pm.  Even with x-rays, we sat and talked to the doctor, he checked the knee by moving it about and talking with us for a good 10-15 minutes.  I had the school trainer on the phone, she requested to be in on the visit, in case the doctor recommended any therapy she could handle to help us.

    With the x-rays, the doctor was able to tell us nothing was broken, and although he suggested we could do an MRI, after moving his knee around, he felt pretty confident that it was more of a cartilage/bone bruise.  The best thing for it is to let it rest, he sent a doctor's note to the coaches to excuse him from working out for at least a week, that should have him feeling better, if not, we can go and do an MRI, if we want even more peace of mind.  The doctor did suggest seeing a physical therapist could be helpful, even if it is once or twice.  Once he figures out the exercise routines, he can go and do them himself at home.

    Having the trainer involved was good, she said she was at school early, to have him come in by 2:30pm to get him started on some therapy.  I am not sure if this will be enough, but it is a good starting point.  I feel bad for Mijo, I know he wants to get on the field and mix it up with the rest of the team, but better to deal with this now than when the season gets started.

8/2/22 Need A New Meal Plan?

     Things have gotten real interesting, real fast.  With Baby A starting football season on Monday, the times for practice were changed, I guess to make sure they are out there during the hottest part of the day.  For summer weight training, they were going from 9:00-noon.  This was nice, I was able to take him, then come home for about three hours and enjoy my coffee and read and stuff.  Now that football is about a month away and all the football players are supposed to be there, weight training was optional, the times are all over the place.  The plan from the coaches is to have the freshmen work out in the morning from 8:00-10:00am, then the JV and Varsity teams come in at 3:00pm to 8:00pm.  It is not contact all period long, the first few hours are still drills and some weight training, followed by actually sitting down and studying film.  I believe there is also the stipulation that if it is above 100, then they wait until 6:00pm, otherwise, they go outside at 5:00pm.  With Texas weather, I am assuming they will be starting outside at 6:00pm most every day.  I think it was 106 yesterday.

    This is where it gets tricky, Wife does not get home until about 6:20pm, if things went smoothly.  Mijo and I leave the house around 2:30pm, to drop him off and then I head to work.  This means there is no one at home to get dinner started.  We can always eat out, that is not the worst thing, but it is going to be expensive if we do it every day this month.  We kind of have to be quick too, the last two nights, Monday and Tuesday, the boys get out by 8:00pm, but even with finding a place to eat by the house, it is still almost 10:00pm before we get home.  Wife likes to be in bed before 10:00pm, normally, so she is not getting the sleep she is used to.

    I suggested we were going to have to change what we eat, go to more food that can be prepared ahead of schedule.  The crock pot would work, but who wants to eat a hot meal after being out in this heat?  For tonight, I am going to attempt to make some either tuna or chicken salad to make sandwiches when we get home.  It is going to be a hectic and exciting year and I am sure we will get through it like we do every year.

8/1/22 Mijo The Savage?

     Baby A had a sort of birthday party for one of his close friends on Sunday and this boy does not disappoint.  Within five minutes of letting them in the door, they were making their way to our weightroom to run through some reps on the bench.  For some weird reason anytime one of his friends comes over, they have to go check who is the stronger of the boys.  All morning long, Wife kept repeating the phrase "I don't want to see you wrestling, your knee is injured, and you need to stay off it for a while."  It seems he merely waited for Wife to go upstairs to take a shower and then it was on.

    We ate our dinner which was the brisket, chicken, burgers and sausages that we made around 7:00pm.  The boys then had nothing better to do than wrestle.  He even went and brought down his mats, he has two 4x10 ft mats that attach to each other with Velcro edges.  These fit just perfectly against the wall in front of the sofa in the living room.  I was kind of looking at them and yelling constantly to be careful and not fall onto the subwoofer, or the other furniture in the room.  Since Wife was in the shower, he proceeded to take over the wrestling and he looked like a shark after the shark finds a blood trail.  They all got all sweaty and gross, and whether wrestler or not, they all took turns fighting.  Honestly, the only one that can almost challenge him is the other heavy, the birthday boy, who fought JV this past year, there can only be one varsity fighter per weight class.  His other friend who fights at 150 loves to fight him, but Mijo outweighs him 100 pounds, so when he gets tired of the smaller friend trying different moves, he just muscles him and falls down to pin him.  The other three boys don't have training and it really seems dangerous to let them get on the mat against our husky boy, he could really hurt someone if he didn't take it easy on them.

    Once they had all gotten beat by him, he basically started begging for someone to wrestle him.  None of the boys wanted a 2nd round of getting beat, so he was left with no choice but to beg them to fight him.  Then he started boasting that he could wrestle two of them at once.  Then he went ridiculous saying he would wrestle all of them, to which they said no, we'll all just attack different limbs and take you down, to which he responded "no, I'll use Veggie boy (I am assuming he is vegetarian because he looks like he weighs about 120), grab him by the legs and use him as a bat to knock you all out.  It sounded so savage and ridiculous, but with the look on his face, I don't think he was joking at that moment.  It took Mama coming in with the wooden spatula and threatening to hit him with it, to even get him out of his fugue state, after she had showered and come back downstairs.