I do not want to be envious or jealous, but I want my dog’s life. I have had a busy day and really, I am exhausted, but for the last part of it I took our dog Viper. It was not that he didn’t want to go the rest of the day, I just didn’t take him. He however know what he wants,tries to get it, and knows how to enjoy it.

So this is obviously not him in the picture, as it was too dark to take one, but it captures the context, for as we were driving home I looked in my side-view mirror, and there he was with the window down, head out the window in the cool air, fast asleep.  I was in the front seat, as my license is to drive whereas his is just to be a dog, and my knee was aching, I was tired, cold, and feeling a great deal of admiration for the glorious example he was setting. And this just proves his versatility, as he is technically a retriever. (stay with me, I am here all week)

But the question is, how can a grown man feel this way? The dog isn’t supposed to be the master, it is the other way around.  Or is it something like marriage, where I only believe I am in charge?  I don’t know, as these are deep thoughts and I pretty sure I cannot think of them until I ask Amanda for permission.

I will confess however, that in my 53 years on God’s good earth, I have never considered such aspirations. I have always seemed driven to aspire to something more “socially acceptable,” and in all honesty I am not dissatisfied with my path. But perhaps my life could be edified in some way by adopting Viper’s philosophy.

In truth my life would be far better if I was happy to see everyone, and I just enjoyed every moment with a deep sense of comfort and satisfaction…..especially those moments I was awake.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yes, another “oldie,” but a “goodie” as they say. But it certainly expresses in a humorous way how I am feeling tonight…….like I have been bitten by a shark!  Not that I would know, mind you. You may find it surprising to discover that Indiana, although it does have a few miles of beach on the northern border of our country, is actually void of sharks…..unless of course they are there on vacation.

But I feel bitten as so much is going on at once that it has been a bit overwhelming. And although my experience is more among the common Indiana squirrel (crazious rodent indecicivous) the analogy is still good. A bite is wounding in some way, and it often draws more sharks. The need is to get to a safe place, but as I said, I am from Indiana, so my tendency is to dart off in 50 random directions, often all at once, like a squirrel. I think this is one reason why squirrels never can never keep jobs, as they appear over-worked and random. But in fact, as I have maybe 20 of them that live in my yard, I can say that they are pretty efficient.

A bite however hurts. And it definitely can slow you down, and a random non-intentional path does nothing to get you out of the water, yet it’s important to do so…….for staying in the water often leads to more sharks. I know that the back fill behind all this may be vague, after all I went from quite a few years of continuous daily blogging, to s stutter, then a stop, then an absence, to a pre-Thanksgiving dissertation on the correlation of shark and squirrel theory. But in all honesty it is just me attempting to process my life. And as a man (supremious delusinati) from Indiana (Deus nisi pro eo), I know the path to happiness is to have less of a shark life and more of a squirrel life. It’s okay to be busy, but do your work and be prepared.

So Ben’s shark suit no longer fits, in fact many of his costumes don’t, but the lesson of seeing it is not lost on me. The picture also makes me smile…..another good lesson. Life can bite in places (generally in my gluteous maximus), but we still have plenty for which we can smile. 

After all, the shark-handler (mommious sexious) is my wife. Yep, life can be hard, and sometimes even bite, but everyday I get to come home to that. (and a much older shark).  It’s all about perspective I suppose. So really, I guess I can say, I should really be happy I am not her. After all, she has real problems living with all the sharks and squirrels.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

I have to confess, I am doing an awful lot of paddling, but I do not believe my progress is really commensurate with the amount of work. It’s not that I need to produce a masterpiece, because I don’t, but I do like to feel I have accomplished something, and that I am not currently feeling.

I have truly shifted gears in my life, not giving up that which I love, but refining it in a finer way. I feel as if I have come a long way to get to this point, but often it looks as if I am no further from the shore than I was before. It is often frustrating, but when I pull back and look objectively, I can see the progress. Even returning to this blog is an indicator of progress, for as I have stretched myself I began to need to write it again for a bit of cognitive therapy. My mind works best when firing on all cylinders, and writing helps me to process my day.  I never did any such thing like it before my stroke, as it was something akin to keeping a diary to me, and far too identified in my generation with the realm of “girls’ things.”  But post-stroke, some sort of processing is absolutely necessary. And this blog is the medium I have chosen. For those of you who don’t know, I write this just for me, and I almost always have. Some people however are just twisted enough, or bored enough, to join me on the journey.

So anyway, I suppose all that means is this is a post that doesn’t say much of anything, yep, no progress, but that is just how I feel. 

It may be a rut, but it’s really only a temporary one. All of them are.  I need to brush my teeth, go to bed, and call it a day.  There will be time for more paddling tomorrow!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+ 

Okay, granted, instead of trying to look through all my photos on my backup drive, I found the fist one that made me both laugh and smile and used it. I only hope when she sees it she will do the same. I believe she should, as she is the one who sent it to me.

But yes, this is my wife as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.  It was part of a video her team filmed as a fundraiser this year. (they won!) But as I am still buried in work, I thought this was the best solution. Plus, it is pretty clear to me that in two weeks, after I meet all the deadlines I am working toward, I will need to allow Apple to keep my month old Mac and fix it right. It is clearly not working, and I am not going to pull all my files back over from my back up only to have them erased when they have to reinstall everything again after fixing it. So this is also to say (“warn” is implied) that I will probably be using old pictures I find or new ones I take until this Mac-mess (as opposed to anything from McDonalds, which would be a McMess) is over.

So I apologize for the picture, but she is kind of cute. When I look at her, even not as Dorothy, I am reminded how others must view us, somewhat I’d imagine in a “Beauty and the Beast” sort of way. Yes, she is tall, young, smart, beautiful, and has a great heart.  And I am, of course, just me. And if I think about it, not even really me, but a constantly being rebuilt me.

Today I am walking, and my knee is stiff, but the ice helps. My knee is swollen, not due to my compliance, but to my lack of elevation and ice.  I do get to take a shower tomorrow, and that helps as I felt too much like a girl “washing off” next to the tub. But as of Monday at 10pm, I will be able to ice up and not be too worried about doing too much.  And tomorrow I can get back on the bike for some rehab. I am looking forward to it.

But in all honesty, it is kind of nice to have a swollen knee with a real excuse (surgery yesterday) rather than no excuse (just age and body abuse).  Getting older is not for the weak, and with my still pristine 12-year old mind, I think my body should still do everything.  And it will.

Because as of tomorrow, off come the bandages and into the shower I go. Then it is on with some gym shorts, a t-shirt, and some running shoes.

I intend to go after her………and her little dog too.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

This may be an old picture, but of course I asked. My Ortho asked me if I had any questions and I made sure that skating was on my list.  My meniscus wasn’t sewn up today, the part that I damaged was removed. It was a more realistic repair, and it was successful.  I am walking and swollen a bit, bit zero pain.

But his answer was of course!  So in a few weeks I intend to lace up and go rehab via what I love best, to skate. It has been way too long, as we no longer live near a rink, but it will be within weeks, as it was worrying about it that has made the urge so strong. And yes, that is Ben with me a few years back. He is scared to skate like his mom, Steph and Scotty skate like they were born on ice.

But with all my files on back up still, picture files are hard to find, plus there are so few of me as I am usually taking them.  In fact, I have no pictures of when I played other than posed team pictures. But I skate for the love of it, not for someone to see.

Today however has been a fine day. Some surgery and some good news going in and out! But for now it is bed for me, as it has been a long day too. I am thankful for Amanda and the help she has given me and to my doctor, Dr. Sexson, for always doing such a great job!

Goodnight and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well, tomorrow morning I will head into the surgery center and have my knee “repaired,” or as repaired as it can be. I had it majorly re-hauled in 1995, and now I have just a torn meniscus. My ortho said “At our age, we generally just cut the damage out.” I however will push for a sew over a cut in the morning.

But it is just another routine bump in the road of guy who used to be an athlete, and still thinks like he is, but denies the reality of a 53 year old body. For those of you who know guys, and I mean don’t speculate, but really know them, you understand just what I mean. How in the world can I ever wrap my mind around not being able to do a jumping jack when I have a guy’s mind? In a few weeks, hopefully I can not have this be an issue. But for now it is just ridiculous, as I think “come on body, don’t you know who we are??”

Anyway, it’s either stitch stitch or sew sew, and I bet it will depend upon when he is in there….it always is that way, I know.

But regardless of the method, I am reminded of the things that really matter, and I have included them in the picture. Sure, it is the same one as my Facebook profile, but I really can’t look at it enough. I’ve done well in my life, and this picture represents what it means to me to be rich.

Off to bed to get a good sleep! I hope you have had a blessed day, whether you are delusional about your body or not. Mine is pretty spectacular.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

You know I am a priest, albeit a married one, but I ran across this picture tonight as I was feeling a need to be a bit nostalgic, and it reminded me of something from Scripture.

In Scripture, in more than a few places, Jesus talks to people about signs. We don’t need to do a deep exegesis here to know that what he was saying when He said you see the clouds and then it storms that He means to say there are some things that are so clear we ought not to miss them.

And that’s what I thought about when I saw this picture. As Ben is 7 now, it is not all that old. But you just look at him at whenever it was, maybe 2 to 3 years back, and think why in the world should I be surprised by what I see in him now?  And further, if you even meet his brother, well how could I EVER be surprised that this is all going this way?  I even thanked Steph the other day for being the “normal one,” but they are all my kids, and even that is a stretch.

Today when I picked Ben up from school it was very cold, very windy, and in the 30’s. Yes, it was cloudy, but in no way did it ever merit a 7-year old who now thinks he is a meteorologist to look up and say “Dad, I think that is a super cell.” And after explaining to him for the 10,000th time why it wasn’t, he moved onto tell me how in a tornado you might not be safe even in a storm cellar.

I was baffled, that is,until tonight. It hit me that I have dealt with all of this before, just in different forms. Scotty was every bit as bizarre as his brother, so much so that we call them twins, even though they are separated by 14 years. And Steph, the normal one, I had to kick out of the house at Ben’s age to GO PLAY as all she wanted to do was stay inside and do math problems (yes, her idea of fun at that age). In retrospect, they boys’ philosophy I get, where Steph came from is an anomaly.

But regardless, I would not trade a one of them, even for something I would really want. They are pretty awesome kids and pretty wonderful human beings.  Sure, they may march to the beat of their own drummers, but I admire them for that.

After all, life is too short. One day you are here, and the next you could be sucked up by a super cell in the dead of winter.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

This is actually a surprise post. I am not a member of the Cult of Apple, although I use a MacBook Pro, have an iPad, and an iPhone. I switched to it originally for a reason, but have never bought onto the wonderful superiority of one over another. I do not have the bitten apple logo stickers they give you with your computer on my truck, as I am far more irritated Apple and Microsoft refuse to talk collaborate with each other. People like me always have a hard time when we have to use these two competing technologies simultaneously.

But I use a program called Omnifocus that helps me mange my life. Yes, it is a “system” that is designed to get things done in one’s life.  A businessman might use it to manage his job and all he has to do, but for me, I use it to parallel a damaged brain, as when I struggle it is easily capable of being that brain for where I can forget and get confused, it never does.  It has been a wonderful companion.

But that program is only on Apple, and although it works seamlessly without fail, what does not do the same is my new MacBook Pro. Did I mention it was new? You see it is NEW.  But on Sunday, it died, even though it was fully charged. But it was NEW.  I had a lot going on that I was working on, and it is ALL backed up, but in reality a dead computer doesn’t connect all that well with a backup. Why, because it is DEAD.

Oh but no worries as Apple has great customer service. Over the years we have purchased 2 iPhones, 5 iPads, and two MacBook Pros. If you have an issue you go online and enter a serial number and call and you are taken through resolution fairly quickly. In the cult, even as a peripheral or resistant member, you get that Disneyworld kind of “fast pass” service.  Of course that is unless the last NEW Mac is somehow put under an old email address you deactivated, and they don’t know who you are and you can no longer sign in under it. In that case you wait on hold for a LONG time waiting to talk to anyone you can, as you are not identified as “one of them.”  It is like Purgatory with provocation as you are forced to listen to on-hold music about how seamlessly and well all their products work. It just seemed a lot longer as my computer was DEAD. And then, when they did answer and were very nice, I could have an appointment to bring it in on TUESDAY in Indianapolis (50 miles away and I a BUSY) or I could drive it to Mishawaka (my hometown) on Sunday (2.5 hours) but it sounded like they would be keeping it.  If I took it to Mishawaka, I would have to pick it up there too…..whenever it was done.

So I kept the appointment for Tuesday (today) and got myself out of Purgatory alone. I read up about this problem on Mac sites and by myself in a few hours was able to get it turned on, and at least finish some of the work. Today it died again, even though I still consider it NEW, and I drove the hour to the Apple Store and met with them expecting to keep it. On the phone they had told me to expect that, the guy I met said originally he thought we would be replacing it, but he was able to get it moving and working, and said at least I could take it and get my work that is on some urgent deadline done this week, and deal with it if it happens again.

During a normal time of life I would have told them I just needed the new one then, which I would have to wait for, but his offer was quite sensible. I needed to work my real plan and not a back-up one. But regardless, being able to do so was a surprise. As was being able to post this, as I certainly could not do so on my phone.

But here I am, willing, and now still able. Don’t get me wrong, this to me is all still a mess and the fact that it is as late as it is reflects the fact that there has been a significant detour in my week. But I will take it as a small victory and a win rather than the first domino to fall of a chain. The perspective it big, the win is better.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Upon my arrival at home tonight at 10pm, I decided to sit down and type this post before calling it a day. It was a busy day with a Licensure Board Meeting we observed for those in counseling professions and then a long drive up to Marion where I attended two classes tonight. So needless to say I am beat, and stressed and wanting to give myself some good feelings before heading to bed (which everyone else here headed to long ago).

But this picture made me laugh as it was Ben’s first birthday. You will note the bib, which only meant Steph got to him first, as we all had them. But it was not just the memory of that day, but the interactions between our family as we have all raised him together. I am not qualified to make a diagnosis, but I would say we have done a fairly good job, as Ben seems only moderately screwed up, at least most of the time.  If you look at his mouth he still eats the same, and at some point in his development he stopped opening his eyes in pictures, regardless of how many you took. And if you look at the high chair he was strapped into, you will understand that he was easier to manage then too.

Of course at almost 7 1/2 he is quite mobile and does not seem to have much concerns for your privacy, your stuff, or your apparent unenlightened mind not want to talk about complex meteorology or whatever he is into at the moment.  Each kid has been different, but when you see them together you see very clearly just how very much the same they are. I pray everyday they will get more of the Mongold DNA over the Tirman DNA, but their behaviors have already indicated their paths. So using the technical phrase, we are totally hosed as a family. But as the provider of that DNA I can say I am very comfortable with that.

But I was glad to get home through the white out conditions I fought for about 20 miles of my trip home tonight. And despite the white knuckling drive, which is a lot to say from a northerner, it was great to just come home to my office and sit and look at some of these pictures.  It makes me feel good.  And tonight as I close a long day, that was just what I needed.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Holy Smokes, when it rains, it pours! I am currently on my 30 day old MacBook Pro, that I bought to replace my 4 year old MacBook Pro because it wasn’t keeping up with all that I do. But today, out of nowhere it just shut off, and by shutting off, I mean DEAD. Not even the power cord lit up.