Colts Memories

This past weekend marked the 25th Anniversary of my beloved Indianapolis Colts' move to Indianapolis.

I was 12 when the Colts moved to Indianapolis. It was a formulative time for me and I dove into being a Colts fan with the passion and obsession that only teens have.

When the Colts opened up their W. 56th St. complex they had an open house. I had cut the tip of my finger off two days before. I was not going to miss it though and I stood in line for 3 hours with my finger throbbing just so that I could see my favorite player, Nesby Glasgow. I missed him but I did meet Mark Herrman.

The following August I met Mark Herrman again at training camp and he remembered me and had a rather lengthy conversation with me about my finger and took a good look at it. It impressed him that I was such a fan. An NFL quarterback was impressed with me. At 13, that was cool!

That memory alone puts Glasgow and Herrman on my list of favorite Colts!

Training camp was an annual event for my family and I. It was a time during my teens when my Dad and I could find common ground. Most of my early Colt memories are of training camp.

Jack Trudeau will always be a favorite of mine for a couple of reasons. I was there the very first day he arrived at camp. A holdout had him a few days late and I was amongst the throng wanting an autograph. I was about 15 at the time. I made a joke about his first NFL injury would be writer's cramp. He scowled at me.

It was at that moment that I realized he wasn't anything special. He wasn't much bigger than me. He wasn't better looking than me. He didn't look more athletic than me. Well shoot, if he could be an NFL quarterback than I could be an NFL safety! (turns out, I couldn't be... but it was that thought that led me to understand that I really could be anything I wanted to be... heck, Jack Trudeau was an NFL quarterback and I'm pretty sure I could take him )

So for that lesson Jack Trudeau will always be on my list.

Good Morning Sunshine!

I awoke this morning with excitement tingling through my body. I was excited about playing with my children. I was excited about getting things accomplished around the house. I was excited about having a working washer and dryer. I was excited about the warm weather we've been having and spring being here!

And then I realized that what woke me up was the yelling of my youngest from the bottom of the stairs up to my room. "aaahhhh." Nothing quite as inactivating as a 2 year old yelling noise at you. Not words, that would be too polite. Just noise.

But alas, it is still spring and I will still get things accomplished around the house and the washer and dryer still work and... and it's raining. I opened the curtains in my bedroom to let in the sunshine only to be hit by dingy grey and wet.

But alas, I will still get things accomplished around the house and the washer and dryer still work and ... it's 5:50am. I just glanced at the clock. It is 5:50 am. Are they insane? Speaking of they, where are they... my children that were yelling at me from the bottom of the stairs have stopped. Where are they?

Good morning, Daddy. That would be a wonderful welcome to the day.

"Aaahhhhhh," followed by silence is what I received instead. And silence always precedes trouble. In this case it was Hawks, Jr. holding the refrigerator door open for Lil Hawks to climb inside. They froze as I entered the room as if I were a giant T-Rex attracted to movement. I snorted and roared. They ran downstairs as I poured them milk and opened breakfast bars. Find a television station with good shows in a row and ahhh.. the couch, a blanket and nap...

"Daddy, Daddy , Daddy I have to potty!"

"Well, go do it," I told Hawks, Jr. At 4 years old he's been pottying for about a year and a half now but still needs to announce it every time he does.

"Holy Crap it's 9:30!"

Back upstairs, make sure Jr has flushed, clean kitchen from last night, get laundry going (at least THAT still works) in a rush as a stay-at-home parents job is never completed but it is often hectic. Well at least the rain is good for the plants.

Shit. It got cold last night. I had set the plants out a couple of days ago, the rain and spring would be good for them. They were growing and green and enjoying the freshness. Now they were brown and droopy and looking pretty.... dead.

I need coffee.

Well, Sunshine. I had wonderful aspirations with you today. First you abandoned me. But that's okay, you are a flighty lover. Only you took your warmth with you. And all those things I wanted to get accomplished today went down the drain with a 3 hour nap on the couch while my children were pleasant enough to play quietly with their toys. ALL of their toys, which lay strewn across the room and I wonder how I could have slept through the carnage that surely must have sounded like a freight train.

Today started off so promising.

What to say when there is nothing to say

So its one o'clock in the afternoon, I've only had two cups of coffee today and I'm still really not awake and I've nothing to say. What do you say when you have nothing to say? I guess you give an update. If nothing else it keeps the habit of writing the blog going, even if it isn't entertaining.

I went to a religious retreat this weekend. What?! Tom Hawks is religious - who knew?
Lil Hawks is playing with playdough and apparently all she is interested in making are soccer balls.
Hawks, Jr. is walking around with an old filmless camera taking pictures announcing that he "wants to catch everything on film."

I've got nothing to say, I just didn't want to go so long without blogging and get out of the habit.

Guess I'll go snuggle one of the Hawks children and see if I can get them to giggle by farting out my butt.

Waistin' away again in Perculatorville

I wish I lived in a world where a cut heel is such a tragic event that it sends you to your home looking for booze. But alas I do not live on a tropical island like Jimmy Buffett. I live in the Midwest with three kids. And that means that I have problems significantly more serious than a blown out flip flop. And when you have problems of the magnitude of middle class America you need a drink a little stronger than a margarita.

I blew out my bank account.
Wrote a bad check amount.
Into the red and the domino's fell.
But there's grinds in the maker
and soon it will make her
that bittersweet cup; an escape fom this hell.

Waistin' away again in Perculatorville.
Searchin for that perfect cup 'o' joe.
Some people clain that the economy's to blame
but I know its AIG's fault.

Dilemma of dilemna deserves a mulct

In writing the previous post I used the word "dilemma" and I wasn't sure how to spell it. Actually I'm a very good speller (as long as I am not spelling the word 'misspelled') but I always check because I am paranoid about misspellings (and yes I'm using that word repeatedly so I can remember how to spell it.)

Dilemna looked right to me. So much so that I thought for sure that was how it was spelled. But because it was an odd word I thought I would look it up. Egads! Lo and behold it was not spelled dilemna, in fact it was spelled dilemma!

What a dilemma!

Who knew? All this time myself and an entire generation of mid-westerners had been spelling the word with an "N" when in fact it is spelled with two "M's!" ASIDE: speaking of english... did I do that M's thing correctly... with all the consecutive punctuation, I never know in which order it should all go... well, if I did it incorrectly don't give me a mulct.

So what I discovered in several blogs, most notably some guy named King who is a much better blogger than I and taught me the word mulct, is that an entire generation of American's throughout the midwest were incorrectly taught to spell the word with an "N." It has never been spelled with an N. The greek root is "lemma" and in all dictionaries the word is "dilemma" when suddenly in a part of America people decided to change it to "dilemna" and, apparently, nobody knows why.

Natural City Hiking

So I took the kids for a "Nature Hike" today. Actually it was a "Its nice outside and you guys are driving me crazy" walk. So we loaded up the big red wagon, put on our cool shades, and went lookng for nature.

The problem is that we live in the city. How do you find this elusive "nature" when you only have 1/5 acre plots of grass surrounded by concrete and asphalt? There was a better than average chance we would see a Kestrel, as they live in the downtown buildings and frequently hunt these little 1/5 acre plots. Then it dawned on me! That is nature. The Kestrel hunts something natural, lets look for those! So we found grey squirrels and some chickadees and some dogs in peoples yards and a older lady still in her bathrobe.

Hey, its not what you and I think of when we think of nature... but to a 4 year old and a 2 year old it was pretty cool. Not as cool as Polar Bear poop. Really they just liked being pulled in the wagon.

I was about a block away when I realized I had left my coffee cup sitting on the counter. It was the classic middle-aged man's dilemma. Do I exert the energy to retrace my steps to go get the coffee... or do I just carry on without. Gamely, I proved to my children that man was capable of carrying on through great hardships as I continued my walk around the block sans coffee.

My 12 Toughest Decisions While President

Apparently former President George W. Bush is writing a book about "My Twelve Toughest Decisions While President." Seriously, that is just too good to pass up!

Here is my take on President George W. Bush's 12 toughest decisions while in office.

12. The red tie or the blue tie?

11. Should I give the thumbs up sign to the reporter from the Journal or from the Times?

10. Crunchy or Creamy?

9. What country gets called evil today?

8. Would I like Freedom Fries with that?

7. The New York Times crossword puzzle or internet porn?

6. Should I hang the "Mission Accomplished" banner or the "America, Love It or Leave It" banner or maybe I should go with the oldie but goodie "Mickey Mouse giving the finger with the tag line 'Hey Iraq'"... actually it will say Hey Iran, but the n is scratched off with a marker and a "q" is written in.

5. Crawford or Kennebunkport? Ah hell, both!

4. Leno or Letterman? Who am I kidding, Laura's done rode me roughshod by 11:30 I'm sacked out, I've got an early day tomorrow, have to be at the office by 9:30.

3. Fix Social Security or Bomb Baghdad? (lets not kid ourselves, that was an easy one!)

2. Do I call the Joint Chiefs of Staff "Sir?"

And hands down the toughest decision I had as President:

1. Do I rig the election in Florida or Ohio?

Dinnertime at the zoo

So it was the first very warm spring day today. Temperatures above 70 for the first time since last September probably. So I took Lil Hawks and Hawks, Jr to the zoo. It was filled with stay-at-home soccer moms... and me. But it was fun in that all of the children there were my kids age. Old enough to run around and have fun, but young enough that they weren't in school.

Apparently 2 in the afternoon is THE time to be watching the polar bears for they were fed.

I first could tell that something was amiss when I kept smelling an odor that I was familiar with but just couldn't place. Then as we moved our way from the Rhino (from our angle it looked as if he were trying to hide behind a very skinny tree) to the Lions (asleep, as usual) inching closer to the Bear section, the smell grew stronger and stronger. Then just as we walked down the little path to the back of the polar bear area where they have a swimtank you can see under I recognized the smell. Spoiling meat.

On the bank to the little swim area there appeared to be a side of beef. In fact there were three, one for each of the polar bears, and they each had theirs in different parts of the habitat knawing away like a lab on a rawhide bone.

Of course Lil Hawks was oblivious but Hawks, Jr. thought that was just the coolest thing he had ever seen. That way beat out the Stellar's Sea Eagle or the backhairs on the elephant. It was even cooler than the pink flamingos (which weren't pink) or the snow leopard and his spots - not stripes, Dad, tigers have stripes.

It was so cool that when we stopped for hamburgers on the way home Jr. couldn't stop talking about it. "And the bear would rip it like this and it smelled SO bad. I mean it was terrible, Dad (as if I hadn't been there) it was so bad like the trash when Lil Hawks goes poop (as if I wasn't eating) or the..."

"My poop don't stink!"

"It smells like polar bear food."

"Does not!"

"Poop stink." "Bear fart."

GUYS!

Somehow this memory is supposed to be endearing to me when I'm an empty nester.

So many thoughts, so little writing

Life goes on day by day and so little of it gets shared. I think that is probably a good thing for the most part. Life is mundane. Miss T. Hawks goes to work. Lil Hawks and Hawks, Jr. alternate between annoying each other and making each other giggle. She-Hawks gets more mature everyday. But the thing about having a tween daughter are the wonderful moments I get to see. The moments where she is acting too grown up for her own good and ordering a capuccino at breakfast that are coupled with her licking the whipped cream off the side of the cup like a kid just moments later.

Miss T.Hawks took me to the Bahamas for our anniversary. It was an exciting romantic weekend on a two day cruise. I thought I would miss the kids too much to enjoy it. Turns out I didn't miss the kids at all until after I returned. Then I really just felt guilty for not missing them. Getting away was wonderful though. I rememberd all those reasons I fell in love with Miss T.Hawks to begin with. For some reason we forget about those things in the day to day. We start to ask ourselves why we love this person that drives us crazy. Then we have a weekend in the bahamas that included more sex then we have in a typcial half year and it all comes back to me and I remember that she just does it for me.