The DN

Merc News Headline: 

SEAHAWKS GET GORED!!!

 

1  I loved that my computer stopped working just as the Niner game started yesterday.

2   I got to spend the entire weekend with my Dad. It's his fault, you know, that I am a Niner fan both in this life and in the next. 

3  Just me 'n' Dad watching that amazing game. 

4  And for once I thanked the good Lord, or Joe-the-Bear, or whoever for giving me a piece-of-junk T-O-S-H-I-B-A laptop that craps out on me every other day. 

5  Q. "Why don't you stop complaining and send it back?"

6   A. "Because I want to fling it to the far reaches of the Universe."

7   Besides, I was making a point. 

8   It daily crapping-out of my T-O-S-H-I-B-A placed my focus on what is important. And being with Dad during a game that was SO intense worked for me. I'm pretty sure Mom had a part in the bloody monstrosity locking up on me. It got me spending more time with Dad. 

9   He's funny. My Dad. Like sense-of-humor funny. 

10  It's little stuff. 

11  If you know him, you know he is silently funny. 

12  For example, he looked at a picture of Mom yesterday and said, "I married the most beautiful woman in the world and she turned into the best wife and mother ever. I loved her."

13   I said, "You still do." He gave a brief pause. I went on, "That's what you told us to put on your flowers at her memorial. I said, 'Dad, what do you want us to put on Mom's flowers?' Without missing a beat you looked up from your paper and said, 'I still do.' "

14  "I said that?" he asked.

15   "Yup," I answered. "And so we had that put on the flowers."

16  He paused for a second, and then said, "Well, good for me!"

17  That's my Dad. 

18  When we visited Mom's grave the other day some guy ran right through a stop sign at the cemetery. "Whoa. That guy just ran that stop sign!" I said.

19  With no hesitation he said, "Maybe he was making up for all the times he hadda stop." 

20  

21  Anybody lookin'?

22  Good times, I tellya.

23  jfjalkdf;fdafadkffj

24  Moving On, Part One: On Friday I posted on Facebook that everyone got sent home early from school because a water main had broken. 

25  We had all sorts of stuff going on that afternoon. There was a basketball tournament, a music concert, and Winterfest, a multi-cultural celebration of the holiday season. 

26  Before all that we had a broken water main, and 2700 students wandering aimlessly.The teachers were asked to help move the kids off campus for safety reasons. I stayed and helped.

27   The trouble was that I had to get back to help supervise the Inked club, which I co-advise. It' a writing club. At the time we didn't know if they were going to have Winterfest at all, and were told to stand-by 'til 4:30.

28  I decided to go home, get some food, hang out, do a little shopping, and then go back. I assumed it would go on despite the plumbing. 

29  I got home, went to my fave pho place and enjoyed a fat bowl, and then hopped over to Lucky's to pick up a few things. I left Lucky's in a pretty good mood. <basketball buzzer>

30  The second I stepped out the door, I heard a scuffle and saw three guys violently going at it right next to me. It reeked of hard booze and fizzies. Fists flew. Noise. Shuffling.

31  All three looked gangly and fierce, so I was a tad scared. I then noticed that two of the guys were trying to calm down the third. It smelled strongly of booze. I assumed they were trying to calm down a drunk friend, so I asked, "You guys need some help?"

32  They stopped and looked my way, then one guy said to the other, "Get out your handgun bra.""Bra" is a phonetically incorrect pronunciation of the word "bro." Sometimes it amuses me. Not this time.

33  My circulatory system lit up. "Oh JAY-zuss!" I said, and moved swiftly to my car. 

34  No shots were fired, and I saw one guy take out some cuffs and slap them on the drunk guy.

35   I moved off. The school day cut short so that I could be there, right in the mix. 

36  It's funny because just the day before I had counted the amount of times that I had seen guns drawn in my life.

37  Four times, up 'til then. Lucky me.

38  I would add Friday as my fifth. They got the guy down and everything eased up.

39  I rushed home, went on my laptop and saw that the water was working back at the school.

40  A part of me wished that the 

T-O-S-H-I-B-A would have broken down so that I could stay home. 

41  Bizarre afternoon. I didn't really want to tempt fate again by driving anywhere. 

42   I'm glad that I did. Winterfest turned out to be an enormous success. The entire school was decked out with Christmas lights, smiling kids, parents, and lots of fun. 

43  Our club sold potions from different pieces of literature, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland, Alice in Chains, and a plethora of others. 

44  It was a very successful venture! Who knew? Love potions, good-luck potions, Drink Me potions flew out of the baskets. The club was making money hand-over-fist.

45  The music concert received rousing reviews, as the different buses for the basketball tournament kept poured in. 

46  Food trucks from all over town parked in the front, tantalizing even the cockaroachphobes. 

47  One student told me that he had purchased AND eaten a nine-dollar burrito. 

48  I asked him if he needed a potion for indigestion. 

49  Great night, and lots of fun, but certainly an odd entrance to a different weekend. 

50  Nice weekend. I usually don't talk too much about weekends. This one had a lot of special moments. 

51  Somewhere in there my daughter Caitlin posted pics of her very first Christmas lighting for her and Josh's very first house. 

52  Somewhere in there my daughter Nicoley and my wife Helene decorated an office, AND played with some extremely cute kids. 

53  And when I got home from Dad's last night, Helene had gone all out decorating our own home. 

54  I'm a known Grinch. I have said of Christmas "You can run, but you can't hide." 

55  Last night I wanted neither to run nor to hide. 

56  We are now in the mix. 

57  I'm enjoying every moment: broken pipes, gun rustlers, Winterfests, concerts, football games, Christmas lights and all. 

58  You have a GREAT day, and a GREATER week. 

59  See you again.

60  Peace.

~H~

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