Arlene Bates ok’d Kathy working on a project for Human Resources. The project is estimated to take 20 hours and pay $8 an hour.
That’s equal to about 6 weeks at Sports Life.
H.R. Project
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Author Archives: jeb
Jumping Snow
It is snowing. If tomorrow was a work day, we wouldn’t go to work. Nicole had not been feeling well all day, but was very excited by the snow. Danny and I went out to play in the first inch that had fallen. We scraped snow off the cars and threw snowballs at each other.
I then heaved one at Nicole who was looking out the window in her pajamas. She jumped back 3 feet.
As they slept the snow continued to fall. Should make for a delightfully chilly morning.
Single Guys
Bob Beres called. He’s expecting his Macintosh LC any day now. He was calling from his room in his Mom and Dad’s house.
How does a 30-year-old doctor explain that he lives with Mom and Dad?
Kathy and I worry about Bob and Ted. At least Ted moved out. Wanted his independence. Now he lives independently with 5 guys and 2 dogs and some girl that answered the phone today.
Exploding Canadian and the Red Knight
Left work early to get ready for our 5th anniversary date. Needed a haircut bad. Mom is out of the haircutting business now that she is working full time. Went to Dad’s barbers at Embry Hills. Got a old-fashion $8 haircut with a $2 tip.
Ted asked me if it was infinitely better than Mom’s free haircuts.
Ted watched the kids. Kathy had been craving steak for several days, so we set out looking for some steak dinners.
First, though, as we sat bundled up in the car outside the house, I gave Kathy a few anniversary presents.
I presented her with a bottle of Clearly Canadian. She laughed. Then I pulled out another, and another, up to six different flavors. She thought it was great. I had brought our wedding goblets, so we decided to pour before we left.
As I opened the bottle, Clearly Canadian exploded all over me and the inside of the car. A fine start to our anniversary evening. Kathy enjoyed it.
Dried off, we finally got on our way. Driving up the expressway we realized that neither of us had brought wallets. No bucks. BUT YES! I had stored away a Tillie Card in the glove compartment for just such an occasion. On we went to Penbrooks (sp?) and a nearby tillie machine. BUT NO! Wachovia had purchased First Atlanta and changed the cards. My gray Tillie didn’t work. Had to be blue.
Ted was and the kids were surprised to see Dad come back in a second time.
Our waiter was under experienced and over eager. He had Kathy in stitches dropping and forgetting things. We gave him a great tip for being so entertaining.
We then watched the Fisher King which was very good. Danny was entraced by my description of the Red Knight.
MLK Essay
Nicole wrote an essay on Martin Luther King. She was one of two kids in her class chosen to read it over the intercom. I never got to say anything over the intercom.
Ted says MLK is perhaps the greatest Georgian ever.
Ted got MLK day off.
Ted organized a reunion of Peace Corps types and (coincidentally) met in Phoenix. Just for fun, a bunch of them joined in a demonstration protesting Arizona’s no-MLK-day. He was most impressed with the ridiculous saguaro cacti, standing tall with their fat arms, just like the cartoons.
The Blue Stick
Kathy called me at work today and told me she thought we should get “the test.”
You see, while Kathy was fixing breakfast, Danny said to her, “It looks like there is a baby growing in your tummy.” He then dashed into the living room to tell Nicole his exciting discovery, “Mommy’s growing a baby in her tummy!”
Though Kathy had been having some concerns the past few nights, she had only shared them with me in the privacy of our dark, late-night bedroom.
Where did he get this notion? (Especially since Kathy doesn’t look like she has a baby growing in her tummy.)
Both Nancy and Alice were (and still are) expecting at the farm. Nancy is several months along, so perhaps Danny was jealous that Shawn was going to have another little brother or sister. Fetal envy, one might say.
Kathy went up to buy “the test” along with (for some reason) a mysterious bottle of Clearly Canadian which Tom Finley had just told me that morning was trading low and might be a good stock to buy.
Kathy had dinner started when I came home. We set up the vials and chemicals in our bathroom lab. Having always done so well in science courses, I conducted the experiment. Kathy went downstairs, after her contribution, to check on dinner.
At the end of the test, you are supposed to wait 10 minutes to check the little stick indicator for the color blue. The stick turned blue within the first minute. Danny was equally impatient when he changed his chemical vial blue. In fact, Danny was impatient throughout his pregnancy and even refused to wait for the doctor at his birth.
We may have an energetic little brother on our hands.
I invited Kathy up to see the results of the experiment. There was no doubt. We hugged and talked about it a while, both excited and a bit shocked. Then we went downstairs to make the announcement to kids and introduce them to the blue stick, the only tangible evidence of their new sibling’s existance.
Nicole looked up with disblief from reading on the floor. “Are you sure?”
The directions said the blue stick was 99% accurate. I wouldn’t bet against it. We were sure. She then hopped up and hugged Kathy shouting “Congratulations!”
Danny hopped up and down (which he does much of the time anyway) and clapped his hands repeating, “I’m excited. I’m excited.”
How did Danny really know? I think it was mental telepathy. His young mind is not cluttered with the trivia that blocked the subtle signals from his new little brother or sister’s mind. “Hello out there.” Plus, Danny’s brain and the baby’s brain are traveling around at the same height. Certainly this gives him a clear advantage over the rest of the higher brains in the house.
Champagne and Kisses
I took my 10th day of vacation on New Year’s Eve. We all packed up in the afternoon and headed up to the Hedges Farm. We arrived just after Nancy & Ted. Arriving later were Alice & Bennett, Paul & Linda, Frank & Stephanie and her brother Greg, and Carol & Bob. Wayward Elizabeth & Harrison showed up late with the pizzas. We woke the starving children from their hunger comas to feed them.
The children had a great time by default, but none would fall asleep very easily in the upstairs room. Note: Splitting them up to sleep is probably a good idea.
The adults played Scattegories and Pictionary. Frank’s attemp to use “Teresa comma Mother” was thumbed down, much to Frank’s chagrin. And Ted got mad when his “Tennessee Senators” was voted down as a “T Politicians/World Leaders.”
Bob played with his video camera, recording much of he evening. Everyone shared champagne and kissed their spouses at midnight, except for Harrison. Harrison had been sent outside by Elizabeth to pop the cork so that no one would get hurt. I guess it took him longer than he thought because he missed the falling ball at Times Square. When he came in, he didn’t know that everyone had kissed, so I had to explain his duty to him.
Turns out that Harrison was the only real drinking victim for the night. He slept until noon the next day. He’ll do better next year just as Bennett did better this year.
Kathy and I drove down to the farm house where she had earlier staked out a whole bedroom to ourselves. Frank and Stephanie were still up, having left the party an hour earlier. Their bedroom door was wide open and the lights on, so I ducked my head in. Some serious discussion seemed to be going on, so I ducked my head back out again.
Frank’s voice lulled us to sleep.
This morning, we woke up for some breakfast. Having no children in the farm house, Kathy and I had the luxury of sleeping until 9. Bennett must have gotten tired of watching so many children, so he loaded up a bunch of them and brought them out to the farm house to wake up the parents.
I got to ride around the farm on Paul Barr’s dirt bike. That was fun. Danny and Nicole both enjoyed a tour on Paul’s bike with Paul.
Bennett, Ted, and I took vengence on a board in the pond with Bennett’s .22 Barretta.
Where’s Ted?
Yesterday we went on a train trip with Mom, Dad, Ted, Bob, Carol, Ted & Eric. It was fun, but I’m not sure it was worth $10 a piece, N&D $10, & E Free ($90.) Note: Make sure your window isn’t fogged before you grab a seat.
Santa came throught the train and gave candy bars to all the kids. So that was worth about $3. Carollers came through the train and sang a couple of songs. That was probably worth $3, too. That leaves $84 to account for. Ted thought it was a neat thing to do. I think all of us going to see Star Trek VI would have been neat.
That night we had our Christmas eve dinner at Carol & Bob’s since they are driving to Cinncinati on Christmas Eve. The highlight of the evening was Ted’s gift to Carol, a pop up book called “Where’s Ted?” Carol read it to the whole family (Denise, Grant’s girlfriend was also there) and cracked everyone up. Ted cracked up the most. Ted had pasted a picture of himself eating a racquetball in the place where the little girl finally finds Ted (her teddy bear.)
Bob filmed everything with his new Sony video camera. So if you want to see all of this, it is available in the Etensohn video library.
Devilishly Quick
Dad, Ted, Grant and I played the annual touch football game. After a humiliating and painful loss last year (Ted and me), we decided to change up teams. The long-winning Ted & Jeb team had been brought down by Grant’s growing up and becoming a devilishly quick football/ultimate player.
So this year, Grant and I stood Dad and Ted. This was decided based on Ted’s boast, “I’m better than Jeb, so we should put the worst with Grant.” Playing to 6, Grant and I quickly went to 5 to 1. It took a bit of doing, but we finally put them away 6 to 2. I scored 3 and Grant scored 3. I had a good year this year in both passing and receiving.
Dad came up with a plan that he shared with me and Ted. Next time we play, we’ll play 3 rounds with one person playing each round with Grant. Whoever plays with Grant will intentionally play terribly. That way Grant will lose each time, and we can determine that Grant is the worst player.
Danny came along with us while Nicole stayed home with Mom. He rode his bike around the park parking lot, cheered his Dad on, threw rocks at the fence, and played in the dirt. He had a good time.
I tried stretching before we played this year. I hope that will help. Last year I could hardly walk for 3 or 4 days.
A Good Shot, Otherwise
Yesterday Bennett and Alice invited us all over for pizza. I’m glad they did that, because I had wasted much of the day away sleeping late and then dozing off in the living room.
Bennett made a huge pizza with pan-fryed sausage and roma tomatoes that had less juice than regular tomatoes. Much of the evening was spent discussing pregnancy and birth since Alice just found out that she is pregnant. She told Bennett that I would hassle her because she had so adamantly professed “no more children” to me in the past. But I did no such thing. Didn’t have to.
Nicole, Tayler, Danny and Robert ran circles around us having a great time. They were still running when we left at 10:30. For the adults, it was like having a picnic on the beach. After a few minutes, you quit noticing the crashing sounds of the waves.
Bennett got a new rifle. Some kind of reproduction of an old west single shooter. Shoots the biggest bullets he has. He confessed that was one reason he got it.
As Kathy pet one of the two cats, Jack, Bennett told us about shooting a vicious bully neighbor cat. As it came to attack Jack or Jill, Bennett carefully aimed his pellet gun with the intent to “take the cat out.” The pellet hit the cat in the cheek bone. The owner later told how he discovered a metal glint in the cat’s face and dug out a pellet. “Someone shot my cat,” the neighbor told Bennett. Bennett just shook his head, regretting he hadn’t used live amo. It was a good shot, otherwise.
***
Mom, Bob, and Bennett want me to go to the doctor about my eyes. I haven’t had a problem since Friday afternoon. Alice told the most convincing story, however, about a woman who was dizzy, and didn’t experience it again until a year later when doctors found a massive tumor in her brain. Yuck.