7 Kids, 2 grandkids, 1 on-the-way, 2 cats, Mom, and Dad

In My Kitchen or Trying new things.

This past weekend I bought some bacon, and other pork products, from an organic farmer that has a stall every week at the Portsmouth Farmers' Market.

I decided to make breakfast on Sunday so I cooked up the bacon and made home-made waffles. I decided to use Alton Brown's recipe because he always has you weigh the flour instead of measuring it into a cup and I have a really cool kitchen scale just for that purpose. His recipe used buttermilk instead of regular, and melted unsalted butter rather than cooking oil but otherwise was pretty standard. The waffles came out really good and everyone liked them!

Last night I grilled steaks and asparagus for dinner. When we were done dinner I took a sauce pan out to the grill and made banana's foster for the first time. The Daughters all stood around and made appropriate ooo and ah sounds when I lit the rum and shook the pan to make it flare up.

It came out pretty good but I had forgotten to buy ice cream so we had to eat it with just whipped cream on top instead.

Simple procedure or I couldn't do it.

I was supposed to have an MRI this morning. It was at the same hospital that Mary had all of her surgeries, chemo, and radiation. They have two machines and I ended up scheduled on the one that is outside in a trailer that sits on a concrete slab. It is the same one that Mary had her last CT scan in before finding out that she was terminal the next day.

I remember getting her a wheel-chair because she was too weak to walk into the hospital. I went with her down to the changing room and waited for them to come get me after it was done.

When they came to get me I found Mary sitting in her wheel chair getting sick from the pain and exhaustion of laying down and then having to get back up again. There is nothing more heart-breaking than to watch someone get sick when they barely have the energy to sit.

All this came back to me as they led me to the trailer and when I got inside I told them that I didn't think I could do it. I tried to and was ok until they put me in the machine and I had to close my eyes. The image of Mary in the wheel -chair came flooding back and I had to stop before they even started.

I will have to do this but will request a day when I can be on the inside machine and I think I'll ask for some Valium too.

I've been having problems with my right shoulder. They're sure that I have some arthritis and cartilage type damage but want to rule out any problems with the rotator cuff before they do the surgery in late October.

All I have to do is dream or Comfort a bit.

Obviously, I still dream about Mary. She will be there in an everyday situation but part of my dream mind will think that something's wrong, that she shouldn't be there because she's dead. One day dreaming about her came up with the girls and they said that they felt the same way when they dreamed about her.

But I don't share the dreams like the one I had Saturday night. In those dreams we are all together doing something, and then Mary goes off by herself. I go over to speak with her and let her know that me and the kids are sad and don't understand why she won't come back to the table/car/whatever and be with us.

She smiled, and hugged me...and that's when I start to cry...cry for what we had, cry for what we wanted in our future...for the kids and the day they get married, have kids...all the things that Mary lived for and wanted to see. I cry because I don't know how I'm going to do this alone.

Sometimes I wake up and feel comforted, most times I wake up from this type of dream depressed.

Them critters or Flower tales

So many cool flowers decided to bloom while I was in NJ. I took some pictures this morning and found another critter that I didn't see when I took the picture. These crab spiders love my yard and I find them everywhere in the flowers as they wait for something smaller than them to stumble into their web.

Business in NJ or Interesting events.

I was in NJ all last week attending a training class. The training was 'ok' but what makes it worthwhile is that I get to see colleagues that I don't see frequently and meet people that I've only exchanged email with or spoken to during a conference call. We eat at nice places and have a lot of fun.

Tuesday night I had too much fun. I had five Kettle One martinis, straight up, and I was hurting the next day. After I had three at the restaurant we ate at I gave my car keys to a sales rep that wasn't drinking and had him drive my car back to the hotel. A bunch of us went to the bar and I started to chat with a woman seated next to me. Turns out she's married (no ring), has two kids, and gave me her card with her mobile number on it so that I could call her if "I didn't want to eat alone some night." I decided, even in my drunken state, that it would be a bad idea and after she left the bar heaved a sigh of relief.

Wednesday night I ate a light dinner and was in bed by 8pm.

We ate out Thursday night at a nice Italian restaurant and the hostess was very pretty. Since I made the reservation I checked in and after doing that told her that she was the prettiest hostess that I've seen during our week in NJ. She smiled and told me thank you and then proceeded to flirt with me by winking at me across the room and blowing me kisses.

I sent her the following note on a folded napkin and a little later she dropped the reply, with a flower folded inside, at my table.

After a few more winks and her touching me on the shoulder after she went by our table I sent the following and got this reply:

I'm sitting at a table with 11 other colleagues, both men and women, and all of them can't believe that this is going on. I decided to go for broke and sent the next missive and was shocked to get the following reply:

I decided to speak to her directly and she told me that she'd love to go out with me after she turns 21...in November! That means that she's younger than my son! LOLOLOL

It was a fun evening of flirting and she thanked me, prettily, for making it so much fun for her too as I walked out the door.

Headstone protocol or Who put that there?

There's a cute turtle figurine on Mary's headstone. She liked turtles and obviously someone remembered that and put it there as a remembrance.

I was speaking to my Sainted Mother yesterday and she asked who put it there and I had to tell her that I had no idea.

I figure anything that someone puts on the headstone is between them and Mary and there is no need to get my approval or ok.

You will be terminated or Peekaboo I see you!

I'm always amazed by what I see in my pictures that I didn't see when I was taking the picture.

This hornet looks like it means business as in "I have a stinger and I ain't afraid to use it, hombre!"

My command of language or All you need to know.

Quebec was a lot like Disney World...it was very clean and the people that worked in every shop and restaurant we visited was polite, friendly, and willing to listen to my attempts at their language.

I know the basics: hello, good-bye, please, thank you, you're welcome, I would like, and (most importantly) you are pretty.

Middle Daughter will be taking French 5 in school this year. She's been to Quebec and spent a week in France last Spring. We were talking about my upcoming trip and I asked what I should say to flirt with a hot chick. After the requisite eye rolls and "Oh Father!" she told me to say "tu es joli".

I got my chance to use it a couple of times. Once, I was in a shop getting coffee and the girl there apologized for her bad hair day. She wasn't feeling well and was waiting for a replacement to arrive. I said to her, "Tu es joli!" and she gave me a big smile and told me thank you. The second time I was in a chocolatier shop and the girl there was complimenting me on my accent and asking how many other French words or phrases that I knew. I saved the best for last and again was rewarded with a big smile and thank you.

I told Good Friend about my new phrase on our way to Quebec. He told me that I was given the familiar form and that I really should say "vous êtes joli" since I didn't know the person.

I stuck with the one that I was taught and brought this up with MD when I got home and she said, "Yeah, so I should have taught you how to formally flirt with girls." The eye roll was stupendous and I wish Good Friend had been there to see it!

Awesome time or But no chicks!

I had a great time in Quebec City this past weekend. We did a lot of walking, and ate at a lot of really nice places.

The weather was beautiful...not hot and no bugs at all. It was perfect for walking and then sleeping at night.

Out of sorts or Trying to pin it down.

This whole anniversary thing has me feeling so out of sorts. I took great pride in always being prepared and making sure that Mary felt appreciated and loved on our special day.

I'm so glad that Good Friend and His Hot Wife are going to join me this weekend so that I'm not alone.

However, I still feel like when I am dreaming and realize that my clothes are missing, or I'm not ready for a test because I didn't go to class all term...something's wrong.

I know it is crazy but I feel like I should be at the grave all day...with flowers and keeping vigil or something like that...something that Mary totally would not want me to do.

So I'm going on this trip, going to have fun, and maybe even flirt with a Canadian chick or two.

But my heart of hearts will be looking down the aisle and my face will be breaking into a huge smile when my beautiful bride, Mary, walks through the doors. She'll be looking up at me tired, but thrilled, when I take each of our children in my arms after they are born. And she'll be holding my head to her chest as I cry after finding out that she was going to be taken away from me and tell me that it was going to be ok.

I'll try to tell this or Probably one of those you had to be there...

Middle Daughter, Youngest Daughter and I were all enjoying dinner together last night. The menu? Baked potatoes done on the grill so that skin was blackened, delmonico steaks done medium rare, grilled asparagus, and a tin-foil pack containing vidalia onion slices, tomato, squash, fresh picked basil, and a red pepper all drizzled with evoo, kosher salt, and black pepper.

Honestly, these meals are some of my favorite times with the girls. We always end up talking and laughing about so many things and they also tell me things that are on their mind that they want my opinion about...like who has bigger eyes, and if that is based on overall eye size or just the iris. The consensus is that MD has bigger eyes but that YD has bigger irises.

At one point in the conversation YD said that MD is OCD because she thinks the radio is too loud on 11 and always has to turn it down to 10. I said thinking it too loud isn't OCD but if she had to turn it down to 10 for the number to be even, well that might be OCD. YD said that she was going to put it on 12 then which cracked me up.

YD daughter said (and I quote), "Are you laughing because 12 isn't even like 10, 15, or 20?" When she said that MD spit her milk out of mouth on to her plate of food and we couldn't stop laughing.

Well...It makes me smile to type it out...

So...I caved or I've created a monster.

Fizban was not to be consoled. I tried holding her and then placing her in her bed but she'd get up with the most disdainful look on her face and walk away.

So...I moved the printer over and put her bed back up on my desk. I put her in there and left the room for a minute to come back to what you see in the picture below. See how she still keeps a possessive paw on her bed?

Cleaned my office or It was getting a bit messy.

My office...Mary wanted it to be my sanctuary but what it had become was the catch-all for 'stuff' when other rooms downstairs were cleaned. Oldest Daughter needed a printer so I gave her my old one (which is still pretty new) and bought myself a new one. I used that purchase to purchase to goad me into cleaning and organizing.

The printer is wireless so that any of the computers in our home can print to it from anywhere. I reorganized my desk so that the printer could sit on it too. I needed to do this so I could use the USB connection to connect to my work laptop. I typically connect to the corporate VPN and when I do that I lose contact with anything on my internal private LAN.

Fizban's bed was moved to the floor, under my desk, and I don't think she's very happy about it. We'll see. I had so much cat hair on my desk and also had to vacuum out my keyboard so it was time to do the switch.

I am going to buy some frames that are easy to swap pictures in and out of so that I can start printing some of the photos I've taken and put them up as art. :)

My class on Wednesday night, American Popular Culture, is going well. So far, I've gotten an A on each of my papers. I enjoy going to the class and having a chance to talk and hang out.

How do you measure a flower? or An inch at a time.

I was out taking pictures, AGAIN, of the wildflowers in the yard when I came across this inch worm measuring its way around the flower. Poor thing probably doesn't have DS Lite at home!

Northern Weekend or No phone, no lights, not single luxury!

Youngest Daughter, Middle Daughter, and I joined the Out-laws for a weekend in VT. Grandma and Grandpa have owned a cabin up there for nearly 20 years and the kids love it.

There are propane lights but that's about it. There isn't electricity, phone, internet, or even running water. Fresh water is obtained at a local spring in containers used for just that purpose.

The girls use environmentally friendly soap to wash in the pond that is across the street. If we're there long enough we'll sneak into the local campground and take a shower at their facilities. You have to take a pocketful of quarters in order to operate the shower.

All the downsides are offset by what I like best...the peace and quiet and being able to hang out with each other.

The porch is screened in so that is where I sleep. Both of the girls decided to sleep out there too even though it was pretty chilly at night. There is a brook that runs alongside the cabin and it is so nice to fall asleep to that sound and the call of the loons coming from the pond.

We got there Friday and by Sunday evening we were glad to be home, showered, in clean clothes, and sleeping in our own beds.

Got the last one or Something for my spare time.

I got the last Nintendo DS Lite in the area. I went to all the places that carry them and they were sold out...except for the last one waiting for me at Toys 'R' Us! The weird thing is that I got the hardware but they didn't have any games I wanted to buy so I ended back at Best Buy for those. I got the 'new' Super Mario Brothers and Sonic Rush.

I've been playing Mario and it is the same, in some ways, but different in others compared to the ones I played back in the original Nintendo 64 days. I haven't tried the Sonic game yet because I'm having so much fun with the Mario.

Of course, my kids are jealous but I tell them it is better for them if they go outside and play with the frisbee or kick a can around the block like I had to do as a kid. If they want real excitement they can catch a firefly tonight and then let it go after watching it blink inside a jar for a few minutes.

Just leave me alone until I finish this world!