One of the strange things my dad did when he was growing up, was to wear white tube socks with his black dress shoes. Now, I always thought this was weird, and could never under stand why he just didn't get comfortable sneakers.

Tonight, I realized I'd been wearing my black dress loafers with white tube socks for the last two weeks. I hope I'm just becoming just like my father, because the alternative is that my Dad, who passed away in October, is posessing me. as Charlie Brown would say, "Aiggh!"

I was driving back from Richmond the other night, sans children, and driving through the White Mountains under a clear sky, and I realized that I had not saw beauty in something some time. Don't get me wrong, tzelema is very beautiful, but that's expected. This feeling is the unexpected feeling of wonder one gets from the Milky Way at night, or in a pine covered hill off an interstate, or a silent neighborhood on a snowy morning before the trucks churn the powder to gray ice. The feeling I get when a RPG session just goes right, or the sitting in a diner until 2am with the woman you love, or talking with your Con friends after a meeting and just communicating. There was many a time I touched the sublime talking to Charles during a dinner, or Chris after a particular movie, or just hanging with stuckintraffik and five or six people at a ATC function, and felt...possibilities along with the warmth of good feelings. Life was still out there to be had.

I still deserve that, and so does tzelema . I don't think she understands what I'm talking about, and it hurts her because she thinks I can't find this as a family unit. Well, no, not until they stop tormenting each five minutes. I'm trying to cast out ideas so my stated goal for moving out here, to have us share our lives, doesn't mean sharing the lowest common denominator. Ideas are welcome.

Strange thing is, I'm not in a bad mood. But I'm done with waiting for it to happen.

Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile" and I will respond by asking you five questions that satisfy my curiosity. Update your journal with the answers to the questions, including this in the post.

1) If you were a butterfly... no, seriously, how's the family? Are you the recognized pater familias now?
A 1) I'm still Dave, and I'm still announced as "that's our step-father, our real father lives in Pennsylvania" but it's better. It's hard to say, really, whether this is normal, or whether it's not. Are they well behaved around me? I don't really know. There' s behaviors I don't like, but being a bachelor for 40 years and being the child of an Army Drill instructor hasn't prepared me for understanding what is normal, and what is problematic. They say they are happy here, and that's what I have to go on...the thirteen year old vacillitates from hating on me, and thinking I'm okay, to having her "best day EVAR!", but apparently that's normal.

2) What campaigns are you running, and are any of them a patch on that Exalted game?
A 2) I'm running book 3 of my own campaign world in D&D 3.5, which I took to calling "The Known World". Book 3 is "The Unknown World" for the horrible Blood Plague is making it's Black Death trail around the continent, and the PCs are stuck in the middle of it. It's a new group, and they need to get used to me, and I need to get used to the fact that I don't have my excellent groups in MN. As for Exalted - I had purchased a lot of 2nd edition Exalted books and I've really like them...I don't think this group is ready for a step up yet for that world. As usual, I'm too dark. Some people like that.

3) Did you attempt Nanowrimo this year in an unofficial attempt, or not go at all? (With your schedule, I completely understand if you decided to take a pass this year)
A 3) HHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA. No. I can't even update my LiveJournal. I work Tuesday - Friday 8am to 1030pm, a 9 hour shift on Saturday (I like the 630a - 330p shifts at WalMart, because the 11am to 8pm leaves you with no time to do anything before and after.) Sunday is D&D day, with occasional family stuff, since, like I have a family now. Monday I work 8am to 5pm, but after picking the 9 year old at Hebrew School and getting the 13 year old to her photography class, and my scheduled quality time with both of them (the 6 year old made a face when I suggested it), it's a wash. (looks up at paragraph) God, I bitch too much.

4) Any closer to setting a date for a major event (wink wink) that would require airplane fare/a road-trip to see the new digs?
A 4) As a matter of fact, I puchased my membership tonight. I was going to use the name Prodigal Treasurer, but I just went with my name. As for airfare and rent-a-car, we'll see if we can swing it. As for hotel, well, I can see it's way too fucking late for that. (GOOD JOB!)

5) Would you be willing to try Virtual Tabletop software to still run some games with the folks back in MN?
A 5) Abso-fucking-lutely. The question is when? We're working on it.

During my free time this week, I was running the numbers for my future plans, like visiting my friends out west, attending Anime Detour 2010, attending any convention, taking a vacation, getting married, et al, and folks, it’s not looking good.

 

The TD Bank position I have is limited to 2 percent per year raises, and the next position above me won’t be open for at least three years (it’s not that big an office), and there’s no guarantee that I’ll even get the promotion. The other unit in the building (Cash Management) I’ve heard from employees themselves that the supervisor in charge has expressed a preference for an all female office, so that doesn’t look good, and the nearest big office is in Portland, and we aren’t going to move. The other job is WalMart, and they don’t pay much.

 

You see, the problem is that WalMart doesn’t give vacation to part time employees, and at this juncture I can’t afford to go without a week’s pay in either job for at least the three years up to the possible promotion. And as I said, I’m at least three years before I get a significant increase in pay…bottom line, I’ll be lucky if I get to Massachusetts, let alone points west.

 

I know I told people I’d be able to visit, and believe me that is my ardent desire, but if wishes were horses we’d all be in the cavalry. Hopefully, you’ll just have to make due with my presence on the internet.

 

On another topic, is Facebook worth it?

Thanks everyone for your help. A new motto, I believe.

BTW, I just checked weather.com for Brattleboro, and the allergen/pollen level is listed as "Ridiculous".

All my anime friends out there - I learned an actual Japanese phrase once, from watching - it meant something like "It can't be helped" and it's a normal every day phrase in Japan. Does anyone remember what it was?

I was thinking at work now about our 'graduation' song, performed by the choir. It was some sentimental motivational -poster tripe called "Gonna fly now", since we were the Dover Area High School 'Eagles'. About how everyone was going to touch the sky, blah blah blah. It's too bad that I didn't get to go to my reunion (it was last September). I would have played them another song:

Stratospheric traces

Of our transitory flight

Trails of condensation held

In narrow bands of white

 

The sun is turning black

The world is turning gray

All the stars fade from the night

The oceans drain away

 

Horizon to horizon

Memory written on the wind

Fading away, like an hourglass, grain by grain

Swept away like voices in a hurricane

 

In a vapor trail

 

Atmospheric phases

Make the transitory last

Vaporize the memories

That freeze the fading past

 

Silence all the songbirds

Stilled by the killing frost

Forests burn to ashes

Everything is lost

 

Horizon to horizon

Memory written on the wind

Washed away like footprints in the rain

Swept away like voices in a hurricane

 

In a vapor trail

Music by Lee and Lifeson/Lyrics by Peart

April has been a hard month, and it shows in the fact that I’ve not been posting. I always say I’m going to try to rectify that, but now, I have even less time then when I frittered  my previous time on LJ  watching Bravo (but, boy, do I miss watching Top Chef). And yet, here is another attempt to start posting regularly, because there are many people not in Vermont who care about me, and I had promised to use this medium to keep people in the loop.

 

When the month began, I had assumed the most difficult part would be separation anxiety from Anime Detour, and truly, I miss the hard work and also the camaraderie of that convention. I haven’t watched any anime in 2009, and I am so far behind that I still have episode 14 of Clanad on my copy of Veoh. I still haven’t seen any episodes of the seasons 2 or 3 of Sayonara, Zetsubou Sensei.

 

But first my nephew, John, depressed over my sister’s death, committed suicide on the 2^nd, and then, of course, as you all know, we lost ZuZu on the 4^th. For a double hit, it was pretty major – I fell back into the trap of feeling somehow I deserved this, that this was punishment for sins uncounted or unremembered, and even some remembered. It was hard for me to get up in the morning, it was hard for me to go to sleep at night. It was hard for me to call anyone – especially since, like a doofus, I called my biological family first. My father spent five minutes of time on it, starting with the old stand by “well, it was probably for the best” (you know, one day, he might even remember tzelema’s name. If ever I need a goad to not be the default personality of the Vetrovecs, to not perform to the dismal expectation, all I have to do is call dear old Dad for an example of how not to be), and then went into a 30 minute screed on how President Obama is going to give the country to the Africans. Then I called my twin brother, who, most disappointingly, conflated the miscarriage with him losing his attic window in a hale storm. I don’t know – maybe not having children makes people undervalue miscarriages. But I was pretty steamed and angry at him for that, but he’ll never know it.

 

A week later, in the midst of this, we were visited by the Brattleboro Police Department, since someone had a filed a child abuse complaint. Now, this was the icing on the cake. The conversation went something like this (not verbatim, since it was some time ago):

 

“What are we accused of?”

 

“Abuse.”

 

“What do you mean? Hitting? Yelling? Neglect?”

 

“Just abuse, that it was an unsafe environment. The youngest has a burn on her back.”

 

(Actually, the youngest had  a scratch on her back, but that’s because she doesn’t understand that falling off the couch is not as fun as standing on the arm of the couch. The middle child has a burn on his arm, because sometimes he ignores invections to get out of the kitchen because bread is baking.)

 

Now, this just stoked me, so I let tzelema   handle the rest of the converation. How do you answer charges that have no specifics, except for one mark? We knew who it was, of course. The neighbors next door in our duplex are both on disability, and they moved in after us, and they knew we had  small boisterous children, including one high functioning autistic child. But they have spread around the neighborhood that our children our wild, and that I yell at the time (I /do/ yell – usually it is “keep it down, we have neighbors!). Anyway, the funny thing is that the cop turned out to be the husband of one of tzelema ’s acquaintances, and that his wife had come here for the youngest’s birthday party, and that the wife had made the mistake of parking in our neighbor’s driveway. The shrew of a neighbor had lit off on the wife of the cop, so bad that the poor woman started crying. When the cop realized who our neighbor was, he exclaimed about her being insane (which confirmed it was the neighbors, the cop shouldn’t probably had done that), and professed a confidence that nothing more would come of it. Still, it doesn’t exactly make me sleep soundly at night that out neighbors in our duplex are out to get us, when I’m still a bit behind on the rent.

 

The rest of the month has basically been trying to find my equilibirum. Work is work – I’m having a personality issue at the bank, because apparently I’ve been strange this month (Really? No fucking shit!). At Wal*mart, I’ve got two customer recommendations, and I’ve been informed that they are considering promoting me to Training Coordinator. I really don’t like Training, but I like being poor even less, so I’ll take it if they offer it.

 

I miss having time to really game. I miss having time to goof off without feeling guilty. I miss the promise of Zuzu. I really miss my friends. If it wasn’t for tzelema  and her love for me, I’d go batshit crazy.

 

Sorry for the drama, but I needed to get this out.

I don't know how else to say it - we lost the baby Saturday morning. I didn't post sooner because I didn't want friends enjoying Anime Detour to have to deal with it. I'm sorry this offends people.

The title sums it up - I really don't have any words, but the words of others.

Conservations I'd never thought I'd be in:

"Oh my god! What is wrong?"

"Dave, what's wrong?"

"Zeke's stomach, it's pink! I'll get the car."

Exasperated stare. "It's marker."

"What? Why? Where? Who?"

I don't understand small people.

After the first weekend...bleah. The only seeds lower than 4 is # 5 Purdue in the West Region, and #12 Arizona (bleah! It's a big school, not a Cnderella!). #4 Gonzaga is the only one I care about, and if it loses to UNC, March Madness is over for me. I really could give a rat's ass about the rest.

Hmmm, maybe I should pull out some anime library or something.

But I only was helping with the easy part.

And it will be a girl. My 12 year old step-daughter has informed us of such, and as she put it "I'm never wrong". We've all come to accept that, so, we have granted a temporary name to the little one. She is officially know as Zuzu. Ten points if you get the reference.

So, a slow time in the bustling aisles of Job #2 (that's cashier for Wal*Mart), and one of the older ladies is gushing about her new brand new grandson.  She's telling them about the 5 week pre-mature night mare birth, but everything is okay now. So I lean in, and ask "Did they name him?"

"Oh yes. Malcolm"

Ears prick. "Malcolm?" One of the older ladies says "That's an odd name..."

I take a hunch. "Is his middle name Reynolds?"

The grandmother says "Yes, it is, Malcolm Reynolds Roy. They got the name from one of the shows they like."

Ladies and gentlemen, fandom in New England. If you feed us, we will grow.


By the way, I guess I should let people know. I'm going to be a father in September. God help the little tyke.

working 65 hours/wk, so not have a lot of time to post. Still here, but little time.

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for the kind words regarding my last post.

I've just finished my 2008 taxes for the Feds and the state of Minnesota. (I'll have an easier time with the state of Vermont, with how little I made.) All I can say is 401(k) early distributions? Dicey

My sister, Lori Ann Vetrovec-Moriarty-Kell-Weimer, passed away suddenly on Thursday of organ failure related to her heart disease. It kind of took all of us by surprise, especially since she was only 47. The last time I talked to her, just before Christmas, she had seemed depressed, but most Vetrovecs are depressed during the holiday season, so I thought nothing of it. But she was going into the hospital for some tests the next day because she was having kidney issues, and she didn't let me know because she didn't want anyone to worry.

Since I'm the only sibling that has all contacts with all parts of the family, it has been my duty to contact all the other parts of her family that didn't live in Georgia and let them know, plus coordinate the distribution of her ashes, which she is going to put into crystals which she bought from the internet. It was difficult, because every one in turn opined the fact that our family has never been close (as the comedian Dennis Miller so aptly put it, "we were like  a tour group with secrets"). I can't even find my half sister, Tami - I think she got married, and moved to another section of the Ohio-Pennsylvania border area. I have opined before to friends and other family members that relationships don't retain inertia, they must be cultivated. While not exactly blameless in this area, I have made a more concerted effort than others to keep lines of communication open.  I still believe that the true, good friends I have and will have can be kept as close as they were when we saw or talked each other every day, as long as you put the work in. That's why I post on LiveJournal so openly, and continually do so, even though several people ask why I post the way I do. I want you all to be part of my life, for what part of life I have left.

I try not to give advice - I've not been successful enough to do so. But I will here - there's no such thing as tomorrow, cherish those close to you today.

As of 2:15pm today, Eastern Standard Time, I am a Wealth Management Specialist for TD Bank (that's Toronto Dominion Bank, for those keeping score...O Canada, our home and native land!). It was a close run thing, but I'm very happy. Now to juggle the bills until I get caught up.

Today I learned that I got my job back at Wal*Mart because a 20 year old quit Wal*Mart got a job at a medical products company that pays $4 more an hour, but he couldn't start until next week, because this 20 year old high school drop out had to be in court to answer three warrants regarding "intent to distribute", but I can't get a call back from a video rental store for a part time job. I guess having a letter of recommendation from the V P of Finance after doing 1.5 million dollar fund transfers for 8 years at a high level just doesn't make me qualified for the 'real world'.

Jesus Christ, I'm in the shit now. I am well and truly fucked.

Well, the whole employment  prospect thing has basically fizzled. One position I was sure they really liked me at reposted the position on the 3rd of January. Mt Snow hasn't called me back, and after a 'working' interview with a video store, they haven't called me back either.

Not quite sure what I'm doing wrong here.

In a bit of good news, Wal*Mart called me at 9am on Monday and asked if I wanted my job back. As much bile as I have for them, as much as I loathe the job and the people I work with with every fibre of my being, money is money.

I wonder if karma is really a concept, and if it is, I had better had a shit load of fun for the debt I'm paying off.  

Anyway, my job lasted two months. They laid me off two days before Christmas, because...hellifIkno. My direct supervisor wanted to keep me apparently (through reliable third person reporting), because although I'm not as fast as other people, I'm accurate. Well, duh.

Strangely enough, although the timing couldn't be worse, I'm not that upset. I really didn't like the 10pm to 6:30am shifts, it really screwed up my sleep schedule, because on my days off, I actually tried to keep normal hours. I didn't move half way across the country to not see my fiance' and have alone time (at least, not with three kids demanding an equal share). I have a bookkeeper/administrator job with a landscaping firm still high on the 'maybe' list, and my interview for the accounts payable position with the Mt Snow Ski Resort went rather well. Keep your fingers crossed. Hopefully, tzelema 's money from her home schooling classes at Solar Hill will keep us afloat until one of those two, or even an unknown third pans out. But I've been on the razor's edge for so long, I can hardly get frazzled about it. Financial precipices have nothing on having a teen aged step daughter with mood swings that would make Hamdo from Now and Then, Here and There seem like he was overdosing on Xanax.

I've just experienced my first full time Hanukkah, and besides some candle excitement and a well meaning member from Chabad-Lubavitch, it was pretty eventful.  Hopefully next year will have some guests over.

I got my final warning for a discount from CONvergence, but I didn't get one from Anime Detour. Hmmm. I sure do hope someone has updated my address.

Now, for New Years. Apparently, Brattleboro doesn't have a First Night celebration, but a Last Night. Anything to be different, I guess.

It won't stop snowing. And now I have to shovel! No more apartment living! Waaaah!