I am watching it snow tonight and it is apparently something the “weather people” (a mainstream tribe of voodoo practitioners with similar accuracy rates in terms of weather prediction…poor) say will be something I can do for many hours in a row, perhaps even into late tomorrow.  But for as good as they are, tomorrow may be sunny and 85.  We will see.

But I notice as I watch how my perspective has changed.  At 52 snow is still beautiful, but in a very different way than when I was, let’s say 12.  At 52 snow is peaceful and serene.  It covers all the imperfections of yards, roof lines and trees, and creates especially when things are still, the same sort of mystical world you imagine that Lucy discovers as she enters Narnia for the first time.  It is very beautiful.

Of course at 52 you also have the ability to wake yourself up and think how that super long driveway that you love seems a heck of a lot longer covered in snow.  And now that you you received that long expectant call from the school calling off, and you have rechecked the entire house many times for your able bodied 22 year old daughter and 20 year old son, you finally come to acceptance.  Yes, they no longer live here so they cannot plow the drive.  Then you frantically look to find the manual for the snowblower to answer your next question, and you find that yes, as you assumed, a 6 year old cannot drive a snowblower that is twice the size of him.  And even if there are child labor laws in Indiana kids when I grew up learned the old fashioned way……you worked for family for free.  And that’s why my perspective was different when I was 12.

You see at 12, snow meant money.  Since no one had snowblowers (I looked up that they were invented in the 1920’s) a shovel was a good gig.  AND, it was fun too.  I know the term “Lake Effect Snow” means something to many and when you grow up in that kind of area you get a lot of snow. Tonight’s snow seems devastating for everyone in this area and there is a lot of drama surrounding it, yet for me, tomorrow will find a very Narnia type picture that will surely produce a lot of nostalgic feelings for me as 7-8 inches on the ground was pretty normal for home.  The difference will be the sounds.  Snowblowers stifle the sweet sounds of winter, such as the sound of a sturdy shovel scraping under a hearty pile of snow as a drive gets cleared.  And I hear that sound and it means winter and gives me feelings I really only deeply understand.

But of course I am not 12 anymore, I am 52.  And the drive will not only not shovel itself (apologies to my HS English Teacher Thelma Martin…RIP for the double negative) but if we cannot get out there is a strange side-effect that takes place.  You see after you have your first child, snow physical properties of snow change as well as the dimensions of both time and space.  Snow will now cure, and harden, and trap you in your home.  With that, your house can also get smaller to where even the largest home can seem like a small room….especially when you hang with a six year old who wants to tell you every detail about Spongebob, Minecraft, or some other vital piece of national security information (he never talks about all those books he reads).

But the good thing is I have a plan and that plan is a SHOVEL, which tomorrow he will learn to use. He won’t make any cash as I don’t want to go to jail, but I don’t want to be in one either.  He DOES have a snowblower as the parents in my neighborhood would say, it’s in his hands.  And he can work now to have the privilege then or taking the mechanical one out to make some when he gets older.  But for now this will have to do.  It is going to be an adventure!
moola

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well you would think that there would be no way at all that a guy like me would miss posting on such an important international holiday like Ground Hog Day, but indeed I did.  Despite the ridiculous concept of a groundhog predicting weather set aside (although they fare far better than the weathermen) I kind of am attracted to these big furry rodents.  No, I am not attracted to them in the sense that I would want to own one, but if you have read this blog long enough you know about the hefty one that lives across the street and comes over to feed in my wife’s garden every year.  She hates it, I love it, and he (or she) loves melons.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I missed posting.  I was not watching the Superbowl, nor did I intend to.  I instead just found myself in bed and hadn’t done it.  And my clear lack of commitment to rodent commentary means you will need to wait 364 more days to see if I can get it right.  I am guessing I will.

I will say however that the big news for me today is that the Lindenwood Lions Women’s Lacrosse Team, for which my daughter Stephanie plays, is ranked #14 in the country in NCAA Division II in the preseason coaches poll.  This is BIG.  And as she is a senior it is even bigger.  (This picture is of Senior Night 4 years ago in high school and I must be slouching as bot my wife Amanda and Steph seem taller….but I am 6’4″)  But she plays in Noblesville no more, so just in case you would like to read upher team now or follow them, here is the Lindenwood University Women’s Lacrosse team site Lindenwood Women’s Lacrosse Site

If you want to see my daughter she is of course Stephanie (named after my sister) Tirman (named after me).  I suppose this should go without saying, but as some of my high school and college buddies read this I want to help them like they would help me.  (And yes, she is a chemistry major and I suppose many of them will ask, “Just how the hell did that happen?” And I understand…..sometimes genes just mutate in a good direction….I’ll take it)

But I am really proud of her and her teammates.   I have watched them move this direction for three years and this is pretty real.  They are not just exceptional players, but they have exceptional coaches.  I was Steph’s high school coach and I sent a lot of girls off to play in college.  The last of those girls leave for college this year.  But the Lindenwood coaches have a unique and brilliant style and as my retirement from coaching comes to an end this year (as I just wanted to be available to see her play when I could but couldn’t if I was coaching) I hope to come back somewhere into the high school or college ranks and bring these observations too.  These guys know how to get it done and it is impressive.

I will miss the first game in two weeks which is being held in Missouri, but hope to make the rest.  I am very proud of all of what she has accomplished, from top to bottom.  She is an athlete, she is a top notch student, an exceptional daughter (my very favorite) and a team player in the best sense of the word.

Just a few months left of all this hard work, and it is all coming together!  Enjoy it Steph, and enjoy it ladies.  We are proud of you all and are excited to get to this point with you!  Congratulations Lions!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, yes indeed.  This is a picture of current Lance Corporal Scotty Tirman USMC, although I do confess that it is a pre-Marine one.  And clearly he has come a long way from this debonair and alluring character that a woman could just not resist.  I mean, come on girls, a lot of you want that “man in a uniform,” but perhaps it is just because you never considered the attraction of a diluted child of mine dressed up like Luigi.  This one however, is spoken for (my deepest and sincerest apologies to our soon to be daughter-in-law Kenzie – but we are keeping YOU!).  I do however have the newer model available, who is undeniably just like this prototype, but as I said available.

But tonight neither prototype or our “spare boy” (definitely twins born 14 years apart) are here tonight. One is still stationed in California at Camp Pendleton defending our freedom, the other is here in Indiana, but has put aside defending our freedom tonight (he ALWAYS professes to be some type of good-guy superhero) as he is at a birthday slumber party.  And of course I do not remember when those end, because they are different for boys and girls.  Boys give those up sometime a few years down the line, whereas girls could do slumber parties well into their 50’s.  We men do not question why, we just say okay.  But when Steph is home she and her friends who are also home seem to travel in a “group” (older groups of women are often known as “packs”) and they are all almost always staying somewhere, sometimes here.  All the parents of her friends are used to it and all seem to serve as surrogate parents, or “hosts” as it is most likely uncool to say parents when describing this.  But boys just dont’ do this.  Oh sure, we will hang out all night and maybe get in trouble, but there is never sleep involved.  We just do not get the concept.

But that’s why we can wear things like tonight’s picture and live in the world of delusion (like super-heroey things). We never get enough sleep or proper socialization, REM sleep evades us, and our brains do not rejuvenate.  But we are MEN and it actually helps.

It’s what makes us comfortable in our own skin, able to wear what we want (which OFTEN baffles and irritates our mates) and live in the world of heroes and that of which the sane, well-rested women only dare to dream.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today was not the 100th day of school for Ben, (ask him….he is quite literal about everything) but it was the day Lapel Elementary celebrated it.  Each class year has a different theme.  Last year, for regular readers, you may remember his gumball machine filled with 100 gumballs.  They had to make something with 100 of anything.

But first grade is quite a bit cooler, because everyone in first grade gets to dress up like my dad, I mean a 100 year old, and it is a stitch to see (using 100 year old terminology).  Ben worked on his costume hard, and was able to put together quite an outfit.  The cane is mine from when I hurt my back, but the top was cracked so I cut it to size.  Amanda’s friend Vashti provided the cool hat, although I am sure she is missing it tonight.  And Ben went to school looking to me just like a cleaned up version of Gabby Johnson from “Blazing Saddles.”

Now as his dad, (not Gabby Johnson’s, but Ben’s) I thought he might ask me for some pointers about being old.  Of course I admit I was exceptionally young when we had him, so when he didn’t ask I told him to call my dad……which he wouldn’t.  I swore to him that he could ask my dad how to yell, “Get off my porch you young whippersnappers,” while shaking the cane and that he would be a hit.  But even though Ben thinks Grandpa is actually 103, his lack of beard and cane apparently disqualified him from such an appointment.

But needless to say, he looked pretty marvelous heading to school.  When he takes off his glasses the eyebrows come with them, which is a little creepy at first, but you get used to it.  He has now passed a first grade marker he will always remember, and plus as a bonus he has yet another disguise for his costume truck.  It is impressive.

It is pretty cool to see all the kids at 100 too.  Of course if it were real I would long be gone.  Which today is kind of thankful that it was just all pretend.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well I had to laugh.  I certainly hope mind a few of these nostalgic pictures, but this one was pretty pertinent to my life as of late.  It was when Ben was just one and a half months old, and about 9 months before my stroke.  And what I can clearly say was I was a lot smarter then, or at least living in similar times.

You see, Ben is a talker, and when I say talker I mean an incessant one unless he is distracted (i.e. Spongebob, Minecraft, etc.) I generally work from home and have an office there too, and whereas he would interrupt me all the time to see him in some sort of costume, (regardless of what I was doing yes, even while on important phone calls),  now he does so by talking incessantly (see above).

Now this absolutely baffles me as well as my family, especially my kids.  I would tell them to stop something or give them “the eye,” and they would stop.  Ben however seems immune to such things.  I can be on the phone talking and have given him prior (advanced and detailed, definitely advanced and detailed) warning, and yet I can be on a call and he will walk right in to impart some pertinent and urgent information (meaning probably pertinent and urgent to no one on God’s good earth but him) about something (generally off topic) about anything but what I need to talk about.  I am on the phone!

And yes, he has been through the entire gamut of of warnings and punishments short of anything “currently” illegal like pubic stockades.  Yet despite such things he still will come to you talking and when you remind him of what he is doing he looks at you with a baffled look as if he is thinking, “Surely dad you have come to you senses. Now let me tell you about this.”

But this picture tonight reminded me that I need not give up looking for a solution.  At about 45 days the solution was obviously formula, but it not only kept him from interrupting, but put him to sleep too.  Yet I am sure he will figure all this out before I do.  But it is just nice to remember a time when it was pretty easy.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!


Tommy+

I have been exceptionally busy all day and was looking for a particular picture when I found this.  It is a Saturday food drive we held in Greenfield, Indiana as a way for us to introduce ourselves to the community.  It is not a new picture as we were just forming what became St. Paul’s in Greenfield, plus Father Chuck (second from the left) is now working from the “home office” (heaven) and Father Templeton (far right) is now working in what I think may be “purgatory” or as we say in the theological world “Ohio.” (The two extremely good looking ones are me on the far left and Fr. PT in between Chuck and Sean)

But the picture really made me laugh and miss some pretty fun times.  We got permission from the Greenfield Wal-Mart to advertise and hold a small donation site and we just sat out there meeting and talking to people while drinking coffee.  AND, the best part was that the Hancock County Food Pantry was able to receive a nice donation for work in the community.

In time, Father Chuck became the permanent priest for St. Paul’s and they went on their own with him (that is not a bad thing but what you want a Church plant to do)  It was his final assignment here on this earth.  When Chuck became terminal, he still worked, but it became harder and harder.  Father Tony, then Deacon Tony, asked to go out to help him and we sent him there.  Tony helped Chuck through those final days and after became a priest and took that parish for a time.  It still exists, but Father Tony is now the Vicar of one of our first Churches, St. Patrick’s in Noblesville.

I spent a couple of hours with Father PT today, as I am now an assistant on HIS staff and he is my assistant in the Order.  Father Sean serves as an assistant in a large parish in Ohio, and writes and does a variety of things that young smart priest do.  I still see him and talk t
o him on occasion too and he is doing well.  But I think we all miss those times.

It surprises me, as I was talking about this today on a couple of occasions, how much fun being a priest is when you just are being a priest.  Sure there is a lot of institutional stuff and details that need to be done, but that is not the core of that call.  And PT is the famous one to us in all this as when we get too overwhelmed with the stuff he will say, “This isn’t fun anymore, we need to plant another church.”

He’s right, and that’s just what I intend to do.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

I was thinking tonight about obsessions as I tend to see them in everyone.  Yes, most people seem to be obsessed by something.  But when I speak of obsessions, I am not talking about them in the ways that a psychiatrist would, especially as I am not a psychiatrist.  I am talking instead about things we are both drawn to and think about A LOT.

Some people are obsessed with sports, others fashion, others cars, others working out or running, and others like my son Ben, stupid video games with worse graphics than if they were produced in 1980.  Ben cannot seem to get enough of these, even though he is limited to the amount he plays, but part of his obsession is that he wants to share with us (or anyone around) every single solitary detail about playing.  And it excites him more that a Jehovah’s Witness in the doorbell section of Lowes (I will pay for that joke dearly when I see my sister Sarah again, as she will not find it nearly as funny as I do, but it cracks me up!)  So let me digress here into a side note joke she and I both used to enjoy (she was a Jehovah’s Witness)  But what do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with an Anglican? The answer is, someone who will ring your doorbell and not say anything!!  Yep she’d laugh at that!  But let’s move on.

I however have a lot to do, as does my wife.  And hearing about the intricacies of Minecraft or whatever he is playing is not a big value added thing.  Spending time with him is, but he is not interested in that.  He just wants to talk about the game…..ALL THE TIME.  But since my stroke, I developed a kind of OCD, so I am always cleaning stuff and very busy at it……bwhahaha.  (Now tell me that isn’t funnier than my wife…no, I don’t have THAT KIND) But I do have a stroke induced OCD and since I work from home I require ALOT of concentration.  And the point is, how many worlds one walks in within Minecraft is not really connected to any of that work.  In a way I wish it were because I could just buy some tokens and make my life a lot easier, but until that develops in life I will just have to tough it out.

But for now there is peace as he is in bed……and my bed at that. (I will be moving him as 6 year olds are boneless and unwakeable after they are out)  Amanda worked these past two days despite teetering on the edge of a migraine.  It is awful as she will be miserable all week. Normally she takes a bunch of meds and sleeps at least a day and just gets back a little slow.  This “obsession” to work though it makes her pay and it is painful to watch.  SO I have been taking the Minecraft hits and for her he just dishes out the hugs and snuggling.

I clearly need some better obsessions.  Mine are not paying off like his.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Before writing tonight I should start with this disclaimer…….*no, I was not coerced at gunpoint, knifepoint, drugged, threatened, nor harmed in any way to write this.  And no animals were either.

But yes, this post comes to you generated by some guilt…..at least on my part, as last night my wife said to me, “Why don’t you write anything nice about me?”  I told her I always do, yet in her perception she apparently felt like many might think she is mean or kind of wife-ish (my term).  And this comes from the person who not only married me, but who insists she is far funnier than I am.  Yet when I tried to explain the concept of “sarcasm” it got about as much traction as that Geo Tracker we saw sliding off the road just an hour earlier.

But here’s the honest truth…..I love my wife.  There’s not a lot that is very funny or even interesting about that I would suppose, although in this day and age I do not see very many men admit it. (Actually, if I did hear any men admit THAT, these posts would be only as often as I could get on the computer at the State Prison, so I hope you understood that I meant a lot of men don’t publicly admit they love THEIR OWN wives)  But Amanda is really pretty awesome. She is pretty, funny, confident, smart (other than the whole marrying me thing), a great mom, and overall fairly together for a person who chose to go to, and graduated from Penn State.

In other words, as I OFTEN TELL HER, “Listen honey, no one looks at you and me together and thinks that I am the moron.”  I have got it good and I know it.  And if there is something wrong with her, as there certainly could be, I will be first in line to pray against any cure.  I really do like her the way she is and I am thankful for her.

Please understand, as she is “sarcasm-resistant” that there is absolutely no sarcasm whatsoever contained in this post.  It is all just plain old love and appreciation.  After all, she is the Kardashian to my Shapiro, or better yet for you younger folks, she is the OMG NO to my Justin Bieber.   I just mean it when I say I am blessed to be her husband.

And concrete reasons why are all around me, but tonight I will close with just one……Ben.  Tonight as I wrote this he was heading in to lay down with Amanda as she has a migraine and is now medicated and in bed (in came on quickly).  But Ben came in to tell me, quite seriously in fact, that he was going to go take care of her as she was sick……but first he needed to tell me something.  I asked, “what?”  And he said, “Dad, I know why you had your stroke.” So turning to him I said, “Why did I have my stroke?”  And he said, “Because you aren’t getting enough fiber.”

I am thankful I love her and she loves me, because you see it is not about who the funniest is at all, it all just basically comes down to DNA……after all, I know what side that little brain of his comes from and how it thinks.  And quite frankly I would be scared to live with that little mind on my own.

I love you Amanda, and thanks for marrying me, for staying with me, and for allowing me to believe that somehow, someway, that weirdness I can blame on you.  You really are a saint!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+ 

Well since we are heading into the sub-zero temperatures again, and because I have been given the Stephanie Tirman mark of disapproval for posting pictures on my blog that I thought were quite wonderful but she deemed as embarrassing, I have decided to redeem myself.  Yes tonight I am posting a picture from many years ago with Stephanie, Scott, and me at Lake Michigan enjoying a blazing hot summer day, and one I fondly remember tonight.

Yes, as you may have guessed, this picture was taken in that era when I was the actual “body-double” for David Hasselhoff in “Baywatch.”  And although we (the kids and I) had a great time at the beach at Warren Dunes State Park, we could only do to by staying in the States as I was very big in Germany at the time.  Of course those days are now gone.

I suppose I might receive some sort of text from my daughter protesting her in a bathing suit, and a “one-piece” at that, but who could even look at her with such fine specimens such as her brother and drawing all the attention away?  And if we reposed this today, all we would see is that both kids are quite a bit taller and I would now be surrounded by all those Greenpeace activists waiting to tag me and keep me in the water.  But other than THAT, not much has changed.  I still wear that same crucifix, I still have the same color hair (the same amount too, though I wear it shorter), and I am just as big in Germany as I ever was, and even bigger now in the States, but I am always watching what I eat.

But regardless, here is one of me that  maybe even Steph can laugh at.  I didn’t hear about yesterday’s picture with Lance Corporal Scott Tirman USMC with a kitten (now a vicious evil monster cat) quite few years ago, but I can only assume it was not enough.  So I will try this.  It’s certainly not all I have, but without being able to get ahold of my lawyer, it is all I will do.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless.

Tommy+

Yes, one of these two now protects our country as a US Marine and the other is all about herself, but I recently learned something about one of them that has both excited and irritated me all at once.  And what I have discovered concerns the very touchy and hot button issue that many people deal with, “cat treats.”

You see, since Puddy (still pronounced like pudding….see Bugs Bunny for why) has been a kitten (see picture) we have always bought her cat treats.  Sure, we created an addiction as once they get them they are “hooked,” and constantly looking for a “fix.”  And Puddy has two specific times where she seeks her fix and both are quite predictable.  The first is in the morning just at that precise moment that you wake up just a little exhausted and look and see that you are able to go back to sleep for just a little more.  It is a great feeling at that moment, that is unless you are living with a cat in active addiction. Addicts can be obnoxious and she is, so you get up in the midst of that moment knowing that it is indeed far better than what you create in her by waiting.  The second is far less stressful as it is just her little pick me up (not literally as she is looking for some “smack*” (*-cat smack) and will be quite put off if you do not comply.

But over the years I figure we have spent roughly 60 million US dollars keeping this cat hooked.  So you can imagine my fear in the midst of the sub-zero cold snap here to discover I was out of those treats.  At first I did not know what to do, as for 11 years she has never detoxed.  I figured there might be anger and then possibly bloodshed as Dr. David Banner’s line came to mind, “you won’t like me when I am angry.”

So with no other options I took the empty bottle of cat treats and filled it up with her cat food, which of course we have in abundance as cat food is also known as “dog treats” and the reason she is fed up high.  And I then gave her this placebo with all the confidence of a bartender giving a vodka drinker water and telling him it is Grey Goose.  It would never work.

But to my surprise it did, and it has, and apparently it will continue to!  Ben calls things like this “solutions.” I call things like this “miracles.”  But regardless, my mind is racing with possible ideas.

You see, we will save a lot of money not buying cat treats, but Ben has a problem too.  I just need to now figure out how to trick him about Pop Tarts.  After all, it’s not about the treat, it just really all about the love.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+