I spent a good portion of the day with Scotty waiting for a tow truck, as his car would not start and needed to get to the shop.  AAA is great if they can get there quickly, but today it took them close to 2 hours to arrive.  But the car has been towed, and the verdict is a new alternator for it, probably sometime on Monday.

BUT what it does is put me behind, and I hate that.  I had my entire day scheduled and finding a place to put an entire morning, as the drive there and back cost us time too, has been difficult.  And of course he needed my car then to do his stuff, which was not a problem today, but will be over the next three days.  I really hate that too.

I suppose however that things will all work out in the end.  They always do, and I will just go with the flow.  No one wants things to break down, but at least it’s not someone’s body!!

I am just disappointed that he is not yet through boot camp…..because as a Marine he will not NEED a car.  He can just run everywhere he wants to go!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

At times I really do not know what is worse, to be the parent of a son who is heading into the Marines and is working to push up his ship date, or the parent of a daughter who is a high level college athlete.  Both make you feel pathetic about the shape you are in, BUT we have “hired” Steph to train us over the summer, so I am squarely coming down on the decision that she is worse.

In fact, she really lit into Amanda tonight about her commitment level when Amanda came home from a full day of work and did not want to go running.  And I laughed, because that was a BIG mistake on Amanda’s part.  They have been out running for over an hour.  Steph is a zealot and it serves Amanda right for assuming she would be an easy mark.  She isn’t.  And although I do not hear the ambulance in our neighborhood, I am sure she is feeling like calling it.

For 8 years I was the priest of a woman named Betty Schembechler, who was the mother of the University of Michigan football coaching legend Bo Schembechler.  Bo was a coach with an incredibly tough reputation yet was a pussycat compared to his mom who was the head of my Altar Guild.  I loved her and she loved me.  But I mention this because I believe that Steph is harder than both of them.

God bless Amanda for thinking she could do this…….but I in no way want Steph beating on me.  She is paying back Amanda now….and I will be quite content letting my bride take the brunt for both of us!

Yes, I am writing this in my comfortable office chair with a vodka tonic in front of me and they are still out running.  Life is good!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, Ben thinks it is his right to decide just where it is he can sleep, and we are doing our best to convince him otherwise.  Every night he is put to bed, and every night he protests.  He usually settles for someone sleeping in the other twin bed next to him, and he creates monsters, bad guys, and all sorts of excuses to get out of there.  Yet every night he sooner or later falls asleep only to share how very brave he was the night before for sleeping in his own bed.  If he were just a little more delusional he would rival my high school sports career!

But the picture is of what he looks like after he coasts out……yep, he is clearly suffering.  I believe he sleeps like this to mock me, as I am never that comfortable and he has stolen his mom right from me.  His life is really cushy enough and how he became my adversary in all this was clearly unexpected.

Yet the battle rages on…….I fight to get my wife back and he fights to get her to sleep in that spare bed in his room.  Yes, he is younger, and has tons more energy.  But I have the brains and experience (I think).  I intend to see this to its conclusion.  I just hope it all concludes though before he turns 5 in 24 more days!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

I had a doctor’s appointment today with my primary doctor and although it was somewhat frustrating for the both of us, it did bring to closure a big issue that I have been struggling with for me.

You see, when I had my stroke in 2008 I was over 60 pounds lighter.  Sure, my medicines cause weight gain, and sure I cannot go off them, but even with that it seems I struggle to get things off much more than I should.  My meds change my metabolism, but it just should not be that had.

And we have tested a lot….thyroid, blood pressure, cholesterol…everything in fact is great.  I am very active too… it has puzzled us both.

But in our conversation he laid it out.  Even my vision changed and my face started changing to where my eye lid has a blond mark and about a third of my face went to almost “clear” hair shortly after the stroke.  My neurologists said it was unrelated.  My doctor today said, oh yes it was…..after all, how could it not be?

He also said that he has seen it only a couple of times, but he is convinced that I am one of them, but there are stroke patients whose area of the brain that deals with metabolism gets damaged and this happens…or for a better description doesn’t.

So why is this a good day?  Well because it puts it to rest.  I knew things were just not right, but I still believe this is doable.  So I have a damaged brain, so what?  I also have a great heart, good levels, great blood pressure and a lot of strength and determination.

Today’s picture is pre-stroke……I will get back there I swear…..all but the moustache, as you would not see at least half of it now…..I have a lot of ability….just not the ability to do that!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today was Ben’s first day under the tutelage of his sister, which will last till the end of the summer.  She, Amanda, and I have set a course of development for him that will hopefully get him up to speed for kindergarten in just a few months.

And quite honestly, he needs it.  He is plenty smart, but his motor skills are quite a bit behind.  And as the son of an athlete, and a kid who’s sister is a top notch college scholarship athlete and who’s brother is heading to the Marines, the poor boy is in trouble!  But I will say that after even just a day he has shown marked improvement.  Both Steph and Scott, who were very athletic, are highly motivated to see him come along……and when we labeled it as “superhero training” he suddenly was up to the task.

Now I do not remember Steph having problems too much in this same area, but I do remember Scott.  He wanted to play baseball yet could not swing a bat for the life of him.  It was downright embarrassing….VERY embarrassing in fact.  But I remember watching him as he put a ball up on the tee again.  What a moron, he put the ball up on the tee and stood on the WRONG side, and then BAM……he hit the ball not just toward our house, but OVER it.  He bats left-handed.

He continued on as a catcher and became a great baseball player….leaving it all to play ice hockey like me, yet even he would tell you it was nothing like me at all….he totally sucked!!  But I learned a valuable lesson in all of it….your kids are not you, and it is best if you let them be THEM.  Scotty gave up ice hockey and became a lacrosse player, a goalie, and one of the best in the state.

Steph excelled too.  She was a perennial all-state player in lacrosse and is on a college scholarship for it in Missouri.  She qualifies for an academic one as well, but you cannot do both.  She goes to college for close to free and majors in Chemistry.  She was a goober at the start like Ben as well.

So I am not at all worried about the youngest.  Boot Camp has begun and he will be far different by summer’s end.  But his Drill Instructors have good hearts.  Time will tell what he becomes…..we just know he will not be the same as he entered our program!!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well I got home and everyone seemed excited to see me….particularly Ben and the dog.  But beggars cannot be choosers, so I will take what I can get and be thankful for it.  And yes, the picture for tonight is of my bedroom door!!

Yes, we have crosses on all our bedroom doors.  They have been on our doors for well over 10 years, and  I have always thought it is one of the greatest things that we do as a family.  And although we do not have grandchildren, or sons and daughters in law (yet), my hope and prayer is that they all might continue the tradition.  And of course I will be buying them as gifts just to “grease the wheel” as they say.

But my day has been fun, interesting, and beautiful.  The desk clerk at my hotel I found out was a retired (big plane) airline captain.  He reached the retirement age and still wanted to work with people.  He had to be one of the most personable, helpful, and interesting people I have ever met.  It was a real blessing to speak with him.

The drive home was spectacular.  Although when I stopped to go to the restroom at a rest area in the mountains of Maryland, a Mexican man who was my age came up to me and asked me in very poor English if I knew where some town in New Jersey was.  I told him I had no clue, and not in Spanish either.  But as I got into my car I remembered that we were in the rest area on the side of the road headed WEST.  But I had a McNally atlas for the US in my car and I got right out and gave it to him.  He thanked me and my last sight of him was in my rear view mirror as he and about 6 other guys began looking at it on a picnic table.  I sure hope and pray that they got to where they were heading.

And as I drove further I remembered a lot of construction on I-79 from Morgantown WV to just south of Pittsburgh, so I reprogrammed my Tom Tom and cut through the mountains on a more scenic path.  It was so well worth it.  I drove by a few battlefields and even tried to call Scotty as he is a big history buff.  I drove by the grave of General Edward Braddock and the Battlefield of Necessity.  Scott did not answer and when I got home I looked it up….and when I just talked to Scott he told me about it.  Okay, he passed the test.

But things like this relax me and make me quite happy.  Getting home however, is the icing on the cake.  In fact I am excited to go in my door because my bed is waiting for me.  Thank God for it too….it has been a busy few days and I am tired!!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today was a day of many blessings, yet a day of great confusion for me.  Today my brother and friend Rick Kramer was ordained as a deacon in for the Anglican Ordinariate of St. Peter.  (He will be priested on June 23rd, but I will be in Alabama)  It was a beautiful service at the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC.

But why was it both for me?  Well one, obviously because I was blessed by this.  My earnest hope is for the church to be ONE.  Yet as I participated in the Mass and listened to what was being said, I was aware that we really are not all one.  And although I desire this, my heart and my soul tell me that like Moses, I will most likely not see this for me in my lifetime.

As much as I heard, and hear, the call to this, I became convicted to the people I serve.  I am the Superior of an Order within the Anglican Church and to that end I must set my sights and must serve.  Yet I pray for the unity of the Church in the end..

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

No, he is not with me, I am just traveling and miss him.  But I have arrived in the Washington DC area for a ordination tomorrow at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.  In all honesty I am exhausted, in that I slept only a few hours last night before leaving for a very long drive in rain all the way.  And to make matters worse, when I arrived at my hotel that rain had apparently decided to spawn a bunch of tornadoes which made things even more interesting when I was tired.

But this blog post will serve as evidence that I survived it all.  And tomorrow morning, hopefully after a good night’s sleep, I will be able to see one of the very first ordinations of the Anglican Ordinariate of the Roman Catholic Church.  I will not post the details, but I will tomorrow and hope to have a picture of it as well.

But for now I will head to sleep and try to regain the 6 hours I lost last night and add them into the 8 I want to get tonight.  Of course with 7 hours till my wake up call and 14 hours of hopes, I am anticipating a bit of disappointment in the morning!

Oh well, it is what it is…..

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

He is actually pretty normal, although here in the picture (taken Sunday) he is wearing my reading glasses, and he spent the majority of the day today as a “good guy” pirate of some kind.  He did stab me around 5 or 6 pm, but I probably qualify more in the “bad guy” standard of pirates so I feel like I deserved it.

But Ben got his hook and eye patch today.  He had been “eyeing” it for quite some time, and short of actually losing a hand and an eye, which to get all that I would not put it past him, he settled for the props.   I actually got myself an eye patch too, which did not bless my wife one bit, but I figured I deserved it as they stiffed me on getting one when I had my eye surgery a few months back.  PLUS, how can you be a pirate dad, good or bad, without an eye patch?  I know my wife thinks she is smart, but she clearly doesn’t know the first thing about pirating.  She needs to stick with stuff she knows, like microbiology and how to marry a trophy husband.

So Ben is a pirate and I am a pirate dad.  Scott has not been home all day, but he is entering the Marines, and I wonder if they deal with guys like us, or do you need the Merchant Marines?  I don’t know.

All I know is that in a house that I believed couldn’t get weirder, things got even more weird today…..the weirdiest…….(I know that’s not a real word, but it is the pirate way!).

So avast ye mateys and goodnight…..and oh yes, God Bless ye too!

Tommy+