Dear Dad,

As of today, you have been gone for five years. When I say gone, I mean not here physically with us. It isn’t at all fair, but I’m sure you more than anyone know that to be true.

Five years seems like so long ago, yet if I close my eyes and dare myself, I am right back to that day like it was moments ago. The windows were open, it was better that way, the air in hospice seemed suffocating, so thick with all hope lost and sadness. As we sat alone in your room and I held your hand, I told you not to worry, that I would do my best and take care of mom. I tried so very hard while sitting next to your bed to memorize your hands, it was overwhelmingly important to me in that moment to be able remember them. As I watched as you took your last breath, I hope you know what a honor it was to be a part of your graceful end to such a fucking horrible experience that you did not deserve.

Zoe talks about you often and is so very grown up now, which I’m sure you know. Troy has inherited your trains and cars, you would get such a kick out of him. When he was born and I held him for the first time, I noticed that you both have the same hands. I know without a doubt that this is an immeasurable gift, not something that I could even try to define, something I’m sure most would dismiss as genetics or coincidence. You have always been there for us and you continue to be, just in a different way. I might not have taken the opportunity while you were still here with us to tell you, but thank you for being a real stand up guy who worked hard and did the right thing. How lucky we were, truly lucky.

At my wedding ten years ago, you stood to make a toast. It’s perhaps only one of the handful of times I ever saw you overcome with emotion. You raised your glass and said, “May your love be eternal”.

Oh Dad, you have no idea.

Love,

Zakary

Every morning early afternoon, I bathe Troy because he is a heavy wetter and usually pees out of his diaper. I’m sure this has nothing to do with the fact he is almost 3 and probably shouldn’t be in diapers, but he has zero interest in the potty. I am not about forcing anything on anyone, as I really don’t want him to grow up with a complex. You know, like he will hate the toilet and have nightmares about his mean, devil mother that made him sit on his potty ring in exchange for gummy snacks and suckers and he will only be able to pee outside off the porch or on dumpsters. I had a dream the other night that Troy was a grown man and like three inches taller than me, but I packed diapers in his backpack along with a laptop before he drove away.

I’m not sure if that is better than peeing on dumpsters or worse. Probably a tie.

After he has a fresh diaper, he’s ready to jam. He does this every single time he takes a bath.

Because playing your sister’s pink keyboard just sounds better while wearing your dad’s motorcycle helmet.

Now if I could just get Troy to do this while riding a unicycle, I might be onto something.

I spoke to Troy’s doctor today and his white blood count is up, but barely. He is cleared to travel, more on that next week, and he will have it re-tested at the end of next month. Keep your fingers crossed.

You Capture-play

Here I am, trying the navigate my way around the internets with my trusty dinosaur. I miss you, internets. I have to be very selective about where I take the dinosaur because eff, he’s very, very cranky. If I try to listen to music, upload photos, read celebrity gossip and look at sandals all at the same time, the dinosaur gives me the finger and is all, “I don’t think so, you uppity skank, with your newfangled sites and fast loading crap and graphics” and then he goes back into his cave or under a tree or wherever it is dinosaurs like to sleep.

I would Google it, but I need to finish this first.

Jeff managed to get food poisoning on my birthday and for once, I will spare you the details. I mean, I’m married to him and witnessed it go down and I wish I didn’t know the details. I took everyone minus Jeff to dinner and we came home and did the cake part without him. After the kids and my mother and I had eaten half, I realized I had only taken a photo of just the cake and without any people in it.

The following photo* is a dramatic recreation of ZDub’s very happy birthday celebration brought to you by the self timer:

Disregard the whole backside of the cake was gone and Troy had also managed to eat all of the fondant circles off of it, but you catch my drift. I would like to note that Jeff went to our favorite bakery all by himself and designed that cake, like without any instructions. Zoe gets major bonus points for enthusiasm, Troy loses points for calling bullshit.

*I hereby request the any photographs taken of myself to be shot only by candlelight. My skin looks like it was invented by angels and blessed by baby Jesus.

Today I am 34. Or thirty-effing-four if you really want to get down to it. Last week, someone asked me how old I was going to be and I said I didn’t want to talk about it.

Now that I think about it, I do want to talk about it.

I feel like I have been cringing for the last, oh, 10 years when this day rolls around. Growing older, for most women, is hard. Not only does everything sag (boobs), dry out, (my skin) and just not work like it used to (my eyes/back/brain), the society we currently live in glorifies the hell out of being young. Now that I am creeping towards 40 at an alarmingly fast pace, I’ve decided to eliminate the negative thinking towards aging. Don’t get me wrong, I would trade in kidney to look like 20 year old Zdub in a bikini faster than you could say “Happy Birthday”, I’m just saying.

Aging is a bitch, yes, but I’ve come a long way. Ive made some jackass decisions, some that could have resulted in myself not making it to this point. Sometimes I look around while we are sitting on our couch that is paid for and semi-clean while the kids are playing together on the floor that we are lucky to have underneath our feet with my mother sitting in our downstairs that we thankfully can provide and am humbled by this vortex, our vortex, of happy and more importantly, who I am.

So today if anyone should ask, I am gratefully, not unfortunately, 34. I think Whitesnake, one of the greatest bands ever from the days of my youth, sums it up best with their legendary lyrics “I don’t know where I’m going, but I sure know where I’ve been”. Armed with this poetic life advice, I will learn from the past and I am beyond stoked for the future.

And apparently where I’ve been included one hell of a kicky bonnet.

Y’all, stuff is breaking at an alarming rate up in here. This is becoming a very annoying and not to mention, expensive. The kids? Never break anything. Zoe has managed as to not even chip a drinking glass her whole life. Troy falls down a lot, but as far actual damaging our household goods, he’s golden. I feel like I’m cursed, like some real voodoo stuff might occuring.

To recap, Summer 2010: Busted Ass Stuff includes:

-One Blackberry (my fault)
-Jeff’s tooth (his fault)
-Tires on my truck (my fault, I drive like a dick)
-Air conditioning in my truck (side eye to Dodge)
-Sprinklers at my rental that I have fixed twice (my fault for shutting them off in October while there was a blizzard)
-Troy (pick an incident)
-Bumper of my truck because I rear ended someone driving Troy home from doctor (blaming my driver’s ed instructor who was also my principal/track coach for his less than stellar driving instructing skills and my uterus for hosting children)
-My favorite yellow wallet (my fault for carrying $359 one dollar bills around like a complete jerk)
-Ghetto blow up pool (the guilty bird that perched on the side and pierced it with his talons)

To add complete drama to this already growing list of terror on our bank account, my laptop, that just celebrated it’s FIRST birthday, took its last breath yesterday around 3:45 pm MST.

Y’all, it isn’t like I’m doing taxing smart people stuff on my laptop, like spread sheets or reading up on Congress. I use it for important mediocre people stuff, like email, photographs, shopping for squirrel accessories, reading People and banking. I was checking the stock market researching how to reseed a lawn because I’m making Jeff do that asap at our rental and my computer just froze up. Not like froze up with that stupid “Not Responding” message, but froze up in a “I Hate You,ZDub” kind of way. I reached into my big bag of computer troubleshooting, which means I just turned it off.

When I powered back up, it informed me it wasn’t feeling the whole recovering my data job it was supposed to do. Like my data that I haven’t backed up in a very long time. (Don’t judge.)

After I hyperventilated and had to take one of Jeff’s blood pressure pills, Jeff called tech support and they were like, “No biggie, we see this ALL THE TIME”. My data can be saved, but the computer is toast. And what about the warranty? It expired on THURSDAY.

We have a desktop computer that is almost nine years old and Jeff uses it to win sunglasses on eBay and play video games. It takes almost nine years for your email to load, but I can’t really say anything because this antiquated dinosaur I am typing this post on right now still works. I cannot go without a laptop, I need it to check Etsy six times a day. I happen to work next door to the fancy gadget store that is taking over the universe and last night, I marched myself in there for the first time ever.

It’s not that I’m not down with technology and all that, it just seemed way too smart and shiny, and I admit, totally intimidating. You know when you go in to ask the salespeople a question at the cell phone store and they are kinda douchey about it and act like it is a major inconvenience for them to show you how to sync something or find out it if your charger is or is not broken? I envisioned that going down in the fancy gadget store.

I walked in and was signed in (oh god) and told to look around, that someone would be with me in a few. The place was mad busy and just as I was about to leave, my gadget helper sales person came over and introduced himself.

I took it as a sign that he was the only Asian working the floor and was so adorable and smart that I decided to adopt him. Or try to carry him out in my purse.

He was genuinely sad for my computer problems and would probably be the worst cell phone sales person ever because he was completely helpful. I called Jeff and told him where I was and Jeff informed me to go for it. I knew he wouldn’t talk me out of it or say no because he’s Asian and he’s totally down with all new technology entering the house. I am not worried about the money because I’m paying cash for it. I have a secret account that I funnel part of my (pathetic) paycheck into, like an offshore account except the bank is like a mile away and it really isn’t secret, just an old checking account I haven’t closed.

Despite their brilliant gadget genius robot computer magic that won me over the minute I laid eyes on it and arming me with a smart, adorable Asian (ZDub’s kryptonite), I just couldn’t break up with my cash and I chickened out.

And besides, this old dinosaur is holding up just fine. I’m sure I will be able to hammer out at least a week’s worth of posts before I break the shit out of it and I am blogging from the library on their public computers.

Question: What computer do you use? Old Dinosaur? Magic genius robot computer magic? Something in between? Thank you in advance for your guidance.