A Day In The Life

Disclaimer:

If you are a parent, you will probably do a lot of nodding during this blog.  

If you don’t have any kids, you will probably do a lot of nodding off.

Either way, I hope you enjoy it. 

It is Sunday night and we just completed a marathon.

Not a real marathon, that’s too much work, but...

It all began Friday night with game one of my son’s weekend baseball tournament.

Following a satisfying win and an even more satisfying meal with the family, we got back home at around 9:30.

It was a quick lights out as the alarm clock was scheduled to go off at 5:50am to get us ready for game two.

A quick lights out for everybody but me.

I’ve always been a night owl and no matter what is scheduled for the next day, I always have a hard time getting to bed early.

I have this little unwritten rule in my head though, as long as I sleep five hours or more, I am fine.  

Four hours and 59 minutes or less and it is guaranteed to be a two coffee day.

For this night, my goal was Midnight 50.

This time I made it, but barely.

For the last five plus months, the highlight of my day is getting everybody to sleep so I can sit down at the computer and put together a new blog.

Hey whatever keeps you happy, right?

That process usually takes about an hour, but Friday night I was writing blog #100, so I wanted it to be extra special.

For this one I set aside 75 minutes.

Bottom line, I made it to bed just in time to satisfy the five-hour rule.

My son’s tournament was about 40 minutes from our house, so when you factor in a coffee stop and getting lost, we were up with the roosters.

Usually our coach wants the kids there an hour before each game, but with a quick turnaround, he said we could get to the 8:00am game by 7:30.

How does 7:42 sound?   Damn directions.

That was just the beginning of a Saturday to remember:

 5:50am -- Alarm clock goes off

 6:30am -- Try to leave for my son’s game

 6:55am -- Actual departure time

 8:00am -- Weekend baseball game #2

10:00am -- My wife leaves the baseball game to get my oldest daughter to her dance practice and my youngest daughter to her tee ball game

11:15am -- Dance Practice

12:00pm -- My son’s second baseball game of the day, third baseball game in 19 hours

1:00pm  -- My youngest daughter’s first tee ball game of the year

By 2:00pm I was ready for a nap, but there’s no time for that.

On the way home, my son and I stopped at my mom’s assisted living facility for a quick visit and to get her to take care of some monthly paperwork.

With my weekdays now being gobbled up by work -- what an inconvenience that is -- I needed to carve out some time this weekend for mom.

So my son and I stopped there, which was fortunately on the way home.  We spent about 20 minutes saying hello, how are you, sign here and be well.

From there, we made a quick pit stop at the gas station, followed by the grocery store to pick up some food to throw on the barbie.

Those errands got us home by 4:30ish, just in time to flip on the grill, make dinner for the family and inhale a meal.

But wait there’s more.

While cooking, the email came in from the other members of my new band, The Clearance Rack, that tonight was the night they wanted to practice.

Really?   Cool.

It would be pretty diva of me to say I was too tired for band practice, right?   Even though I am the lead singer and all that.

So after I got the kids to bed, I made a quick late night stop at Starbucks for a half-caf something or other and I headed to the studio.

(Well its actually a garage, but studio sounds more official.)

Two hours and three new songs later, practice was over.

By this point, the clock had struck, Sunday.

As in Sunday -- day three of my son’s baseball tournament, which brought another 5:50am wake up call.

If I left band practice immediately, I might’ve, just might've made it home just in time to get my five hours of sleep.

But nooooooooooooo.   We had to have a philosophical conversation in the parking lot about music.

That’s so Axl!

I love being in a band.

Thanks to the iPhone and youtube, we were able to watch and listen to both Nick Lowe’s Cruel to be Kind and Marshall Crenshaw’s Someday Someway without any interruption.

Of course by this point, the clock was ticking.

I got back in my car my Midnight 45ish, well aware that I would be lucky to get even four hours of sleep.

What an exhausting day!

And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Dancing With The Scars

HELLO SABERS!!!

With those two little words, my daughter’s life changed forever.

Of course, when you are 13 years old, your life changes forever every 7.4 minutes.

But when my daughter got the news that she had been promoted to a new dance team this year, it left quite a mark.

I have never seen her so happy.

Or perhaps even more important, I have never seen her so proud.

To understand the present, we must first understand the past.

Since we moved to this area about five years ago, my daughter has been dancing in the same studio.

For the first three years, she was pretty much with the same troop of a dozen dancers.

But there were a pair of girls that joined my daughter to make an inseparable trio.

They danced together.  They hung out together.  They carpooled together.

They danced together -- to the tune of about 12 hours per week.

School, who needs school?

Well during those first three years, there was a bond that nothing could break.

Until year four.

That was the year that my daughter had a growth spurt, while her two friends did not.

As a result of her new height and hard work - not necessarily in that order - my daughter was bumped up to the Senior Hip-Hop dance team.

Her two friends were not.

It was one of the most bittersweet moments of my daughter’s young life.

She wanted to celebrate her accomplishment, but it felt very empty.

And the reaction of her two closest colleagues made it even worse.

Whether intentional or not, her friends became foes.

They turned a cold shoulder like it was part of the dance routine.

If they had only been able to move like that during the tryouts, maybe they would’ve made the senior team too.

For the first time in her life, my daughter got a taste of what it’s like to be the hunted.

And it wasn’t pretty.

The trio became a duet and one lonely girl.

As hard as we tried to remind my daughter that she had done everything right and nothing wrong, she was still reminded four nights a week that everything had changed.

Even the carpooling went away.

And to make it worse, the three girls were still on the same pom dance team.

At that age, the kids are taught to give a NICE, BIG, BRIGHT, fake smile to make it look you are always having fun.

My daughter had no problem pulling that one off.

I realize you can’t spell competitive dance without competition, but the fact that my daughter felt bad for doing something good really stunk.

Well here we are a year later and the tryouts for the new year are just complete.

Like last year, my daughter made the Senior Hip-Hop team again.

Unlike last year, she also made the Senior Pom team, the Sabers.

And so did one of her two former friends.

When the news broke, she got a call from her new old teammate to talk about the good news.

Immediately, my daughter congratulated her friend and welcomed her back with open arms.

Unfortunately the third member of the trio did neither.

In fact, her immediate reaction was to quit dancing all together.

The teenage years are hard enough, but throw in a little extra drama on the dance floor and it can be too much to handle.

My daughter suffered through it last year, but thankfully she made it through.

This time around, its her friend who is learning that being good can feel very bad.

Dance Fever

I’m guessing that my 12-year old daughter was not the inspiration for the Jackson 5‘s hit Dancin’ Machine, considering that “I” was only six years old when the song came out in 1973.

But like the song says, she is “movin and groovin” pretty much every day of the week.

Whether it’s in our kitchen or in the dance studio, where she spends more than 12 hours a week, she loves to dance.

Hip hop, jazz, pom. You name it, she’s in.

Last Friday night, she took on a new kind of dance -- a middle-school dance.

My wife and I chaperoned, giving us a night out and giving me a chance to forget that I was unemployed.

The theme was 80’s night, which was right up our alley.

One of the first songs we heard was Bryan Adams classic, “Heaven”.

Except, it wasn’t Bryan Adams. It was a dance version released in 2002 by DJ Sammy and Yanou.

Totally not the 80’s.

As the evening went on, we heard Journey and Wham, Miley Cyrus and the Black Eyed Peas.

Perhaps, the song that got the biggest reaction was the Village People mega-hit Y.M.C.A, released in 1978, oh by the way.

Totally, sorta the 80’s was more like it.

Many of the 7th & 8th graders dressed the part, with leg-warmers and polo shirts with the collar up.

The celebrity look-a-like contest was won by an a suburban white kid, dressed as M.C. Hammer, parachute pants and all.

For the record, “U Can’t Touch This” became a hit in 1990.

But, who’s counting?

I certainly enjoyed the night and enjoyed watching my daughter enjoy the night, but I still brought my smart phone, you know, just in case I needed to check sports scores.

At 8:44pm, on a Friday night, I was alerted that a new email had arrived.

So I opened it.

And for the first time since becoming unemployed 14 months ago, I had received a notification from my state’s job line that a job meeting my criteria had been posted.

At 8:44pm? On a Friday night?

Of course, I had to see what it was all about. Sure enough it was a job in my field.

The job requested three years experience. I have 25.

The job pays hourly. I have always been salary.

But hey, it’s a job.

I immediately applied, even though realistically, I am probably one of too many who put in for it.

But considering the struggle I have had to find anything, as Kool & the Gang would say, it’s time to “Celebrate”.

Released in 1980.