Bring On The Global… Uh, Regional Warming

Dear Global Warming Scientists,

Spring officially started today.

It’s about time. I’m so tired of winter that I’d like to go straight from winter to summer and then hit the snooze button on fall and winter a couple of dozen times and just move into summer for the next decade. Can you help?

I turn on my TV, Radio, surf the Internet, read the newspaper, and everywhere I hear about global warming. So here is my question: Is there an actual location that global warming is affecting on our earth besides Africa and the Middle East because it sure isn’t happening in the Pacific Northwet (pun intended). Whoever has control of the thermostat can turn that baby up a few degrees.

I’m not saying that there is no global warming, I’m not wired to understand the science thing that well. Just ask my old 7th grade science teacher Mrs. Vajdas, if she even knew that I could spell it would probably make her roll over in her grave, if she’s in the grave. Now Mrs. Hansen, my English teacher, she knew I could spell and write. I always did my homework for her because she was smokin’ hot! Her husband was a jerk though. Come to think of it my high school English teacher was hot too. I just figured out why I like to read and write.

Now we know you know the West Coast is a strange place to live. California has earthquakes and two seasons, “Flood and Inferno”. Oregon is like the best of California and Washington but unpredictable as to when you can expect what season. They can’t make up their mind there. They have year round skiing and assisted suicide.

Washington, well we don’t tan, we rust. The eastern half of the state spends most of their time hating the western half because 98.5% of the state budget is spent west of the Columbia River. Eastern Washington is considering letting Idaho annex it. Western Washington is the best of everything that you love about the earth, just the average temperature is about 20 degrees less than the rest of the states excluding Alaska and Canada. We have seasons, two of them, “Raining” and “Waiting for it to rain”.

And the rain does wonders for us. While you are conserving water due to shortages in the reservoirs we’re watering our lawns twice a day. Everywhere you go in Western Washington it’s green and raining! Moss is our state flower. Ever seen a rainbow? Here, it’s an everyday occurrence. Seattlites buy more sunglasses per capita than any other city because we can’t find them most of the time. We’ve got the ocean, Puget Sound, lakes, rivers, mountains with snow, mountains that are going to have snow. You want to see a wetland firsthand? Fly into Seattle and look out the window of your airplane. If you wait long enough in some areas the river comes to you or your house slides down the hill to the water. The reason water witching or dousing works in Washington is that you can’t miss, water is everywhere!

And now we’ve had enough. Snow the past two weekends! I’ve had to use my tire chains twice this winter. Who pissed off Canada and Alaska in our government that made them send us their weather? Give us global warming! Someone else can have the rain.

And here is why. While all of this rain makes things green, it’s against a background of gray. When the sun comes out the citizens start worshipping it like the second coming. Yes we’re green but we also have most of the crazy people here. If you look you’ll find the Unabomber vacationed here. In most states you have your occasional bizarre murder while we’re producing quality serial killers. Washington is a training ground for mass murderers, it’s the Al Queda of America. Why? They eventually get sick of the rain and with nothing else to do they kill. Give us some global warming and we’ll move to second place in a heartbeat. God’s creation of the rainbow along with the promise to Noah that he wouldn’t flood the earth again didn’t mean he wouldn’t regionalize it.

So, you scientists and people who got better than a D on your report card in 7th grade science… please send us global warming.

Sincerely,

Haynsy

Accessorizing Through Remodeling

I don’t know if I am a typical husband but like most of the other spousal units of the male persuasion I notice the subtle and the obvious changes that Hottie makes in her appearance, eventually. I mean obvious changes like major haircutting and coloring I’m on top of, say within about a week or two of the event. Usually my son who lives about 400 miles away asks me how I like his mothers new hairdo and then I ask what hairdo and then I’m in the doghouse. I tried to compliment her everyday on her hair, you know, “isn’t that a new look for you?” or “that new hair color really brings out the brown in your eyes”, but she soon caught on to my complete lack on sincerity and the fact that my eyes were getting browner with every compliment.

Subtle changes like a new outfit usually take me a year. Take for instance last Sunday. We were out of town visiting the in-laws/romantic getaway at the coast. I know, sounds like it sucked but we didn’t spend the romantic getaway with the in-laws. Focus. Hottie takes off her coat and is wearing this red long sleeved top that really, well, turned me on. I’m sure that it looked good on her but this being a romantic getaway I was also wondering what the world record time was for sincere-compliment-to-sex. I just know that looking at her in that outfit made me want to break the record. Sadly, she had owned the very cute little top for over a year and what I got was the sincere-compliment-to-lecture about how I never really notice her. I’ve got the world record in that category. I still wanted to see how easy the top came off even though I got the lecture.

Which brings me to the real reason for this blog.

Men accessorize through remodeling.

If shopping defines women then remodeling defines men. I shrink at the thought of having to buy a new pair of shoes, shirts, a new suit, and even socks. My wife on the other hand wants me to go shopping with her all of the time, to the mall, to the grocery store, and the furniture store. I know you can’t believe that I would pass up a great opportunity like shopping but most times I’d rather have my testicles put in a vise. Nothing personal I just don’t like shopping.

But every Saturday I’m at Lowes. And I’m shopping but I don’t think of it as shopping. I’m accessorizing.

Like most of you I’m big into home improvement. As Hottie will tell you I’m constantly working on the house, she will also tell you that I’m not big into finishing my projects in a timely manner. But I’m working on a project right now that is the perfect project for accessorizing. I’m replacing my electrical service panel/rewiring most of the house/rewiring the phone system/replacing the cable lines/finally finishing the laundry room/completely remodeling the garage/building my man cave. And how does a man accessorize?

With new TOOLS!!!

Ladies, men put as much thought into the tools, or accessories for the project as you put into matching an outfit with the right necklace, earrings, shoes or scarf. A project just isn’t the same without a new tool. Take for instance my current project. Overhead work, rough carpentry, drywall. To my very patient wife it’s dust, noise, and destruction. To the man who accessorizes it’s a new ladder, framing hammer and a Rotozip! And like those necklaces, earrings, and shoes that you wear with a wide range of outfits, our accessories will go with other projects.

That Rotozip is just as useful trimming tile for your new floor as it is for trimming electrical boxes in drywall. I’m toying with the idea of using it to trim my nose hairs but I’m having trouble finding someone to test my theory. Now the ladder will spend its lifetime gaining us access to the attic, the roof, trimming the trees, hanging Christmas lights, cleaning gutters, and getting the cat out of the tree (or putting the cat in the tree). The framing hammer is useful in so many ways, building a new shed, that arbor that you’ve always wanted, and it doubles as a nut cracker.

So the next time that you think that your husband doesn’t notice you, turn it around. Go down to Manland and sincerely compliment your man on his new tools. You’ll fumble, he’ll grumble, but when you show him that you are sincerely interested in how he “dresses” himself you’ll find the compliments will be returned.

The Kid Delivers His Kid (Baby!)

My oldest son is very upset this week. When his first child was born he was robbed of the opportunity to "cut the cord" due to some silly "complication", health of the mother, problems with the delivery. Doctors, what do they know anyway. Tuesday morning when his daughter was born he missed out on cutting that cord too. I think his actual words were, "dang, I didn't get to cut her cord either". What a complainer. You'd think that he wasn't allowed into the delivery room at the hospital to participate.

Truth is he wasn't allowed in the delivery room. Okay, she didn't deliver in the delivery room but she did made it to the hospital. The reason he didn't cut the cord this time is a tale as old as time itself.

He was busy delivering his own baby in the car, in the parking lot, at the hospital, just after midnight.

Show off.

It happened like this (and this is a second hand report).

Son comes home from school, 10pm. (He's an apprentice electrician and is going to police academy to become a reserve sheriff in Spokane (SpoCan, not SpoCain), Washington. They're going to induce the delivery on Monday the 23rd, baby due March 4th. This baby is a kick boxer it turns out and is working out early for the Ultimate Fight Championship. His sweetie pie is feeling weird, not right, but she is a human punching bag right now.

12 midnight. After a bath Sweetie calls for mommy to come watch child #1. Doctor says come to the hospital. You know, runs up the doctors bills if you do that. Mommy comes because that's what mommy's do.

Sometime between midnight and I'm guessing 1:30, yea, AM!, they are driving to the hospital and she starts having contractions a minute and half apart. This is the part where my son decides that traffic laws are for sissy's because he breaks most of them when he puts his foot down on the pedal. She worries she's going to have baby and there is widespread panic... at least in their car. Me and the wife, she's in her kerchief and I'm in my cap, we just settled down for.... forget it. Sleeping like old people do. Besides, we're 400 miles away.

Somewhere during this blatant disregard for the traffic laws they hear running water. Since there isn't a sink in the car it must be coming from the pregnant one in the story. More gas is applied to the injectors. More panic too.

He skillfully drives up to the emergency room entrance, don's his SuperDad cape and rushes to the door to assist his wife into the hospital. He yells at the security guard to get help there's a baby coming and other stuff that I forgot.

Adrenalin is not flowing, it's pumping at high pressure, but still he gently opens the door for his sweetie and suggests that maybe she should remove.... how can I say this delicately.... her, her, her. Underwear. Just in case, which they do.

Now this is the part where everything gets crazy. Supposedly it happens something like this; wife screams "I'm having a baby", has a major contraction, and then, and then....

MY SON LOOKS DOWN JUST IN TIME TO SEE A BABY SHOOT OUT OF THE PLACE BABY'S SHOOT OUT OF AND DOES A QUICK JOHNNY BENCH (Hall of Fame Catcher) AND GRABS SAID SHOOTING BABY REAL FAST AND PULLS HER TO HIS CHEST!!!! NOT SEEING HER BREATHE HE TURNS HER OVER, CLEARS THE AIRWAY, PATS HER BACK AND GETS HER CRYING!!!!

And then the nurses showed up, and security. Mother and baby doing fine. Dad, well he's SuperDad, his little piece of Kryptonite just jumped into his arms. Mom, well we just love our Jessica. We hope the baby looks like her.

Welcome to the world Heidi Jean Haynes. 6 pounds, 15 ounces. 20 inches long with lots of hair. Pictures to follow.

I wonder if his insurance is going to get billed for the delivery.

24

Besides breathing and eating, you know, basically existing, there is only one other significant event that has taken up any significant portion of my 50 years of existence on this rotating orb we call Earth.

Marriage, and the joys and pains that go with it.

Saturday, February 14th, my Honey Buns, my Lucy, and I will celebrate 24 years together. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I never knew what happiness was until I got married… and now it’s too late.

Okay, when I say that she gives me the look. But she gives ME the look! And I think she’s beginning to realize that I’m in it for the long run. I believe that we have a chance of going all the way and that’s saying something. In our families divorce has been the light at the end of the tunnel.

First marriage for me, second for her, but she’s sweet and says that I’m the one that counts. She divorced the first guy because of a sleeping disorder... he was always sleeping with someone else. She brought two great kids to the party and I don’t think of them as stepkids, just my kids. Two more, the clones, joined us in the first 3 years. Later, 7 grandkids, the 8th is due this March.

The memories…. Here are some in no particular order.

· Driving to Disneyland, the two of us, June 1986, Seattle to Anaheim, 1982 Ford Escort, no a/c. San Joquin Valley. Spraying each other with spray bottles to battle the heat.

· Honolulu, Hawaii, November 2005, climbing Diamond Head together. I nearly die on this climb because I’m out of shape, looking forward to the stairs at the top. I think I did die doing those stairs.

· May 1987, hanging a stuffed rabbit from the chandeler at our apartment in Tualitin, Oregon, our visual message to friends Matthew & Kerry Peterson, that number 4 child was on the way. (The rabbitt had died.)

· November 1986, Everett, Washington, me the big strong guy and my petite little wife, carrying couches and mattresses together in the pouring rain when we moved into our new rental because the local congregation of our church knew we weren’t going to stay long and didn’t want to help a transient family.

· June 1993, Disneyland again, this time in a rented Chevy Astro, all four kids. Might have been the best family vacation ever for us. Down and up the West Coast.

· Westport, Washington, the in-laws own a one bedroom cabin there. Besides being the honeymoon suite (or as a friend calls it “the stabbin’ cabin”), it has been the Spring Vacation Getaway for the family, numerous summer visits, the place where the crab is cheap and plenty. We all do the Walton’s goodnight thing when we stay there.

· Date unknown, the family home evening where we learned to spit grapes across the room at the house on 14th Street. Almost invited Guiness Book of World Records.

· September 27, 1987, the Seattle Temple for the LDS Church. We got rid of the “til death do ye part” and replaced it with “for time and all eternity”. Three kids sealed, the fourth was 5 months away.

· March 1991, Disney World for four days, the weekend cruise to the Bahamas. Oh yeah, it was sooooo worth it. No kids.

· February 14, 1986 – Our first anniversary, new baby and burnt brocolli.

· February 13, 1994 to July 1, 1994 – Temporary assignment for me in Denver, home every other weekend. She had the kids, the daughter turning 13, three boys in baseball. It was hell, for her. But it did everything for my career.

· November 1986, I was demoted in a job. Came home to tell her, ex-husband there to see the kids. Not a great memory but it sticks in my mind because it’s was so great that someone that day still believed in me, and she always has.

· March 2008, Lucy has major surgery, supposed to take only an hour, at hour two I wondering, hour three I’m spending the insurance money mentally, hour four I’m a basket case.

· Everytime we’re intimate, well… she doesn’t laugh at me naked. Surely she gets points for that, and “stop calling me Shirley”.

· Name Calling – We have them for everything, My Ricky to her Lucy, Shirley, as in "Surely you don’t mean that. Stop calling me Shirley." Buns, Honey Buns, and when she’s mad, HOT CROSS BUNS. And let’s not forget our old standbys, “Dream Killer!” “Hope Smasher!”

There’s more about us, some personal, some general. We’ve had our disagreements, our make ups, challenges financially, with the kids, with each other. But over the years we’ve been a team. We finish sentences for each other, we start them, we still get frustrated at each other, but we’re together 24 years later.

A young man once taught me (just before he got divorced from some wacko), the grass isn’t greener on the other side, it’s greener where you water it. Well Buns, Lucy, Honey Buns, Shirley, let’s turn on the sprinkler and get the grass greener for another 24 years.

Gotta Love That Kisser!!! Ricky & Lucy at "24"