A peak behind the curtain
When I started this blog two months ago, it was in the final days of my wife’s work trip to Hawaii. At that time it seemed as though I was walking through my dad-life finding every rake to step on, and it seems there’s nothing people enjoy more than watching someone consistently stumble through the basic tasks of life as long as they keep smiling.
While my wife was gone my minor misfortunes continually mounted and it was easy to write a daily update. When she returned I was curious if I could keep it going, and knew it wouldn’t be a daily update thing. A surprise to no one, I tend to have plenty to say and suffer more from lack of time to say it.
All the things I write are true and as accurate as I can recall them. I keep a notepad page on my phone and periodically jot down reminders when something that seems appropriate for the blog happens, then I cull out all the things I think would embarrass my wife. Usually, something will happen that acts as a catalyst for the start of a post, I’ll start rambling then add some items from notes I’ve written to flesh out the content. Occasionally it’s actually cohesive.
I write these at night before bed or sitting on the couch while Franklin is watching TV, and try not to spend too much time editing as you can tell. Once I’ve published the latest post I’ll set up the Mailchimp email to go out and schedule social media to post, if it’s too late it will post automatically on social media the next morning when people are likely to see it. It has been interesting to see the backside of social media, if people like, comment, and especially share a post, Facebook puts it before more eyes. If something doesn’t get many likes it quickly dies in Facebook purgatory. None of these things were things I knew how to do two months ago and I have enjoyed learning them.
As I’ve pondered what my next post will be and glanced back over my notes I have found my minor misfortunes seem almost too trivial to write about currently, but at least a few of you find these amusing and we could all use a little brevity in our life. So here it goes.
My wife has complained off and on throughout our marriage about me snoring. I complain to her that she breathes so heavily when she sleeps it sounds like a fat guy walking up the stairs. So last week when Vera got congested and kept waking up we pulled the relatively rare move of bringing her down and letting her to sleep between us.
As I lay awake groggily watching Vera’s nose run and her periodically coughing and sneezing in my face I pondered if listening to both her and my wife breathe while sleeping is what it was like to sleep on an iron lung ward in the 1950s.
For some reason (probably thanks to a Simpson’s episode) over the last couple of decades, I frequently get The Old Grey Mare stuck in my head. If you know me, you know I’m frequently humming or whistling something, but for some reason, my wife seems to particularly not like me whistling that one around her.
We had a busy day Saturday after a late night at work Friday. I went early to register Franklin for summer camp. Out of an abundance of caution, I arrived an hour early to make sure he got a spot. It was me and four other moms. I somehow tend to end up in mom groups despite my blatant masculinity (it is amazing how many words when used to modify “masculinity” sound obscene). Us moms were sitting in our cars politely ignoring each other aside from the slight knowing smile and nod upon the arrival of each addition.
It was actually pretty nice sitting in my car listening to Saturday morning NPR, returning emails and playing undisturbed on my phone. More and more cars arrived; everyone would glance up, smile and go back to their little child-free oasis. Each secure in the knowledge that when household assignments were arranged they had picked the right option between “do you want to get up early and go wait in line on Saturday morning or stay home with the kids?” That is until at precisely 8:28, thirty-two minutes before the doors were to open THAT lady showed up.
You know her. She cannot sit politely and let everyone finish their coffee and whatever game they’re playing. No. She arrives and immediately gets out of her stupid car to be first in what had, until now, been a mutually mental line. Naturally, the rest of us are forced to pile out of our cars and follow. I hope she wiped all the COVID-19 off the door handle with her greedy little paw.
I was able to buy and, with the help of an awesome volunteer, get all the framing pieces for Franklin’s treehouse home. Construction has been slow going. I intend to make a separate treehouse post in the future.
Some fun news, in an effort to grow my audience I submitted the blog to a blog listing website. I got an email a few days later telling me my site was selected by their editors as the 58th best dad blog. I assumed that meant there were 58 dad blogs in their listings, but no! The top 100 actually goes to 100, if you want to click the link to check it out I am in no way compensated, but you will see the embarrassing fact that I have 13 12 Twitter follows.
As always, if you enjoy my site or a post, in particular, you can share via the green Facebook and Twitter icons I learned how to make float over there out of the way. If there’s someone you can always share it the old fashioned way. I’m always happy to hear feedback, if there’s something about the web design that needs fixing or is terrible, let me know! Remember, wash your hands and stay safe!
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