Month: December 2006

I know. A horribly over-used cliche. What can I say? I’ve been away from the love of my life for far too long and am hopelessly uncool without her. Whether or not I’m cool even with her is, I’m sure, debatable for some. But that’s for another time. I finally got tired of unsuccessfully trying to hack into the neighbors’ wireless internet connections, so I went retro (hence the 1999 reference) and got me a dial-up internet connection. It’s absolutely maddening. The internet is a complete waste of time without broadband, but that’s just my opinion. It’s taken me close to 10 minutes just to pull up this page and get a box to type in. But, I knew that the vast audience of readers was clamoring for something new.

I finally got a haircut today. Catherine will be proud of me for that. Though I’m not sure if Fantastic Sams would meet her approval. You’ll just have to know, Catherine, that teen wolf has been tamed and the mullet is no longer. I had an interesting time with the woman who cut my hair. She was probably 50 – 55 years old, and spoke with an accent (she was from Mexico, she told me). I sat down in the chair, no doubt looking incredibly pathetic while feeling sorry for myself, and she asked me what I’d like to have done. I said that I needed a haircut. She then bonked me on the head with her comb and said “I know that — how do you want me to cut it!” It was pretty funny. It wasn’t nearly as harsh as it sounds here. It was in good fun.

It snowed again last night. Quite a bit, really. Maybe 2 or 3 inches. Today was much colder, and it’s supposed to snow much more tonight and tomorrow. Very exciting.

It’s been a hard few weeks for our family. I think (hope) I’ve made some realizations about what my priorities need to be and what I need to do. Julie’s been so good about all of the stuff she’s been indirectly asked to do by my being here, and she’s done it so well. I know it’s been hard, and often pretty overwhelming. I, too, have had my moments of despair, wondering if it’s worth it. While I don’t know the answer to that, I do know that I miss my family and can’t wait to bring them up here so that we can be together again. I’m afraid our (my?) hopes of finding some wonderful dream home have been a little dashed, but then maybe that’s what needed to happen. It’s time to refocus and put a few things in order. I don’t need a home like I’ve been wanting. Luckily Julie put me straight on that. The home we’re renting in Pleasant Grove will be great. Now we just have to get there . . .

My employer has been really good about letting me go down and get things taken care of. I’ll probably be coming down on Wednesday night instead of Friday. That will give us a few more days to get our bearings about us and hopefully plan for the coming week. The people at work are so excited just to have a warm body with a clue in there, I think they might be afraid that I’ll just go somewhere else if they give me a hard time. What their motivation is doesn’t really matter. I’m just happy they’ve been so accomodating and understanding. I work with some good people.

So I’ll be down there Wednesday or so. We’ll get as much in as we can before Christmas, then I get the truck on the 26th, and we try to get it all ready to go. Michael has said he’ll drive the beast up (thanks Mid!), which I’m sure will be fun. Michael, you know that you have to go through Laughlin, right? You can’t go over the dam, and there’s no way you’re driving that thing through Flagstaff and over 89 in the wintertime. Maybe Ali will come along for the ride? Anyway, we have the truck until the 30th (which is Saturday). Hopefully we — and everything else — will make it in one piece.

It’s good to be back in Arizona for the weekend. The first few things I noticed about being back were:

1. The roads sure are nice, compared to up there;
2. This is a big city!

I started sweating once I landed and got things out to the car. It’s amazing how one can get relatively acclimated in a short period of time. We’ve had a busy 24 hours since I got home. Lots of chores to do, the yard to clean up, floors to mop, boxes to sort out, kids to squeeze, etc. We somehow made it out to Sean & Jana’s house in Mesa for the annual look at the Christmas lights get together. It was fun. Lucy had a good time and was pretty tired by the time we got back. Everyone seems well.

While we were walking around looking at the lights, my dad told me that I was waxing philosophic in my old age. I guess when you move you become old. And when you blog you’re philosophical. So I guess it fits. I finished John Adams on the flight home last night. I’ll end this short post with some more philosophical waxings that I found in the book. Then it’s back to ornery old me — until I find another book, that is.

John Adams lived a long time. I’m too tired to look it up, but he was 89 or 90 by the time he died. He lost children, grandchildren, his wife, and many close friends. He died on the 4th of July, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the same day as his one-time close friend, later fierce rival, and ultimately again close friend, Thomas Jefferson. McCullough writes:

That John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had died on the same day, and that it was, of all days, the Fourth of July, could not be seen as a mere coincidence: it was a “visible and palpable” manifestation of “Divine favor,” wrote John Quincy (his oldest son and 6th President of the United States) in his diary that night, expressing what was felt and would be said again and again everywhere the news spread.

To one of his granddaughters, Caroline, Adams wrote:

You are not singular in your suspicions that you know but little. The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know. Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough.

And, finally, he wrote just after his wife, Abigail’s, death, through correspondence with Jefferson:

I believe in God and in his wisdom and benevolence, and I cannot conceive that such a Being could make such a species as the human merely to live and die on this earth. If I did not believe in a future state, I should believe in no God. This universe, this all, this totality would appear with all its swelling pomp, a boyish firework.

Indeed.

That’s all for now, dad. Philosophical and all. I uploaded a few pictures tonight. Those you can see here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/midder/

I have been reading David McCoullough’s John Adams with all of my time up here. I’ve been reading it for about 3 months, but this last week or two I’ve really been able to dive in and I’m nearly done. The language of the time is mesmerizing to me. People spoke so formally and matter of factly. The quote in the title of the post was spoken by John Adams while he was in Paris trying to maintain relations with the French during the earliest days of our country. I love reading about the people who lived during the American Revolution. What courage, conviction, and faith they had. Though it was certainly far from all roses. Some of the language between political parties makes today’s rhetoric look tame by comparison.

One of the things that I have enjoyed the most about this book is being able to look into the relationship between John and Abigail Adams via the many letters they wrote to each other. John Adams spent many years in Europe, and a few of those years were spent without Abigail. Further on, when Adams becomes President, he spends time away from her, first at Philadelphia, and then at Washington, DC, once the White House had been completed enough to live in. It makes me think of the relatively short, though seemingly endless, time I’ve been away from Julie and the girls. I don’t wish it to happen again.

I will fly back to Arizona this Friday evening. I hope that Gwenyth remembers me.

How do you like the new Christmas theme?