Category: family

i’m presently at my parents’ house in mobile, alabama for thanksgiving. my parents house is not my home and therefore i basically not used to the things found within it. this morning when i went to the bathroom to take a shower i was faced with a enormous decision that i was not prepared for. the decision was between yellow and green soap. within my parents guest shower there are two different significantly used soaps. one is green and one is yellow. these soaps have both been used to the point that all markings have been washed off of them. for most people this wouldn’t be a problem because they would simply smell the individual soaps and be able to tell what they were. the problem here is that i have a pathetically inadequate sense of smell – which is a huge asset in working with middle school boys. i can’t smell anything except very strong smells.

so i reached out grabbed each soap and took a whiff. nothing. it was hopeless. which soap would i use. i guessed that the yellow soap was probably dial – a soap that i usually like – yet i wasn’t sure. the green soap was probably irish spring – my favorite soap of all times – but i had no way of knowing for sure. this was an important decision. if i chose the wrong soap it would throw off my whole day. irish spring would be great, dial would be okay, but what if it were another type of soap. surely there are other soaps that are green and yellow. this was all too much stress for a shower.

i chose green – i’m fairly sure that it was irish spring. of course, for all i know i could smell like anything right now.

this afternoon the terrell family went to the greater baton rouge state fair to experience the wonder and majesty that is the state fair. everyone needs to experience eating greasy corn dogs and then going on the tilt-a-whirl. there is nothing quite like riding a fair attraction that was placed together by a worker making minimum wage. apparently, the fair has standards for the workers who run their rides. these worker standards seem to be as follows:

• all fair employees who operate rides must hate all kids and barely attempt to hide this hatred. it is even better if you frequently shout at kids for no apparent reason.
• all fair employees who operate rides must hate all other human beings and barely attempt to hide this hatred. an easy manner in which to display this hatred is to sneer at anyone who ever asks you a question (no matter how good the asked question might be).
• all fair employees who operate rides must be able to convey to all those who ride their rides that the operators have very little idea how to operate their rides. looking at the ride’s control in obvious dazed, confusion is a great way to make the riders worry about your skill at operating the machinery.
• all fair employees who operate rides must be more concerned with watching the things going on around them than they are with actually watching their rides. talking on your cell phone is a great way to ignore your ride.

i’m not sure how they test for these qualifications, maybe they give a personality or dexterity test to figure out who would be best in these positions. all i know from my experience at the fair today is that they seem to have done a pretty good job at getting people who meet the above qualifications.

this morning the fam and i went to see noah play a flag football game. noah was great (here comes the proud parent routine) – he caught a kick off and returned it, made the only pass reception of the game, disrupted a possible interception, and did a tremendous job blocking. the best part was enjoyed the game, which hasn’t always been true.

this game pam, adam, and i sat closer to the cheerleaders than we have ever done before. i had never understood how much entertainment we had been missing by not sitting by the cheerleaders. the group is composed of girls in second and third grade who have no actually connection to the team. they are a cheerleading squad who merely picks one team to cheer for each week. the other team is merely left without cheerleaders – left to wonder why life has so greatly rejected them and why no one wants to cheer for them. i’m not sure how they decide to cheer for each week – maybe it’s which ever color rhymes with their cheers better, or maybe it’s a coin toss, but a decision is made and that decision determines which teams gets the support of the 7 to 8 girls who have come there to cheer.

of course, this random selection apparently throws the cheerleaders off every now and then. this became apparent by the fact that every now and then the girls would forget which team they were cheering for. so one cheer which went

y.. e.. l.. l..,
y. e. l. l. everybody yell
go green, go green, go green! (noah’s team color)

by the end of the cheer the girls had forgotten which team they were cheering for and thus “green” was left out of the cheer and replaced with “who are we cheering for?”

as you can tell these girls were really into the ball-game and their spirit lifted everyone up in to the fervor of what is second and third grade flag football.

pam, my wife, loves to research things. it doesn’t really matter what she is researching, she merely loves to research. that’s why when we started talking about getting a new dog sometime after CHRISTmas she immediately started surfing the net for dog information. pam has already looked into most of the different breeds that we have considered bringing into our home. she has looked into spaniels, beagles, terriers, and lastly basset hounds. i’ve wanted a basset hound for years and finally pam has been won over by their charm (well sort of).

• bassest hounds can be distracted by smells (old or new smells) to the point that they walk away from home and never think to look where they are going.
• basset hounds will pretend to be asleep when you call them to “preform” tricks but will “wake up” the second you open the refrigerator door.
• basset hounds are extremely lovable.
• basset hounds like to sleep on beds and couches – so it appears that these short dogs actually have a great leaping ability.
• basset hounds are not lazy – in fact they can be pretty active – they’re just laid back.

i think they are the coolest dogs ever and every thing we read about them just seems to reinforce that they are extremely cool/odd and just what we are looking for in a dog.

as the title above says – i had to take hero, my 8 year old mutt, to the vet today to have him put down.

this morning noah cried out in pain and pam and i went to find out what was up. we were told that hero had bitten noah. hero had jumped on the table and taken some of noah’s food (something hero never does – he will take food that has been left but never tries to take food from you). when noah reached for the food hero bite him, actually breaking the skin. i went to get hero and punish him by putting him in our bathroom by himself – dogs are pack animals and therefore hate solitary confinement. when i reached to get hero he bared his teeth, raised his hackles, and lunged for me. after lunging he growled at me and stayed like that for a second or two. up until the past year this would not have happened.

hero has been becoming more and more aggressive over the past year to two years. he has bitten me once and has bared his teeth at me or someone else a few times when he didn’t like something. this is just not normal for him. he has always been the sweetest dog. but over the past two years that sweetness has changed ever so slightly. our vet had even noticed this and mentioned that it may get worse as hero got older. our vet said that as shepherds reach the end of their lives (life expectancy is 10 to 11 years) shepherds get “grumpy” and it shows up in aggression. today that aggression showed up and i’m wasn’t sure that i could trust hero anymore.

i talked to our vet and he recommended putting hero down. i really didn’t want to but i’m not sure that i could live with myself if someone was hurt by hero. so i took him to the vet and said goodbye. i love that dog. he has been a very good dog albeit a dog that liked to run around the neighborhood. i’ve enjoyed most all of the time we have had with him. i just couldn’t chance someone getting hurt.

it’s basically been a lousy day.

miniature golf was not designed to be played by 7 year olds!

i could probably end this blog with that statement but that’s not really any fun so i’ll explain a little.

today i took noah, my youngest, to a friend’s birthday party. it was at celebration station, which is a miniature golf, go-kart, and arcade place that sells over priced cardboard pizza – the perfect bait for 7 year olds. noah is a 7 year old and therefore swallowed the bait “hook, line, and sinker.” we went to the party, met everyone, played some arcade games, and ate bland pizza and cake. the party was great until we reached the point of playing miniature golf.

just imagine eight 7 year olds with small, hard projectiles and weighted clubs.

have you stopped laughing yet? okay i’ll describe the scene then.

this whole event had “warning major disaster” written all over it in big, bold letters. personally i can’t believe that celebration station’s insurance actually allows this to happen. they should have it written into their insurance policy somewhere, “no one 7 year olds or younger is allowed to play miniature golf.” i’m sure this would lower their policy rates and make the whole environment safer for everyone.

the game began with each 7 year old boy lining up at the first hole. this is when they changed from fun little guys to pga wannabes. each 7 year old would get up to the tee and suddenly dream of being in a long distance driving competition. they would pull back their club and let it go. i’m sure they were thinking “swing through the ball.” all i knew was that it was dangerous for the people in front of us. being a good citizen, and not wanting be behind the kids swinging clubs, i went to the front of each course in the hopes of blocking any flying balls. it didn’t take me long to realize that this merely added to the fun. i’m convinced the kids began to aim at me. i ducked, i dodged, i dove. it was quite a work out.

i’m happy to report that we made it through the little adventure without any major injuries. the doctor says that i will probably only have post-traumatic nightmares for a month of so.

a week ago or so pam and i came upon the brilliant conclusion of sending a walkie-talkie with our kids when they go to our neighbors’ houses to play with their friends. that way we are always able to call them when we need to come home. today noah decided to use the walkie-talkie to quiz pam. here’s the basic conversation:

noah – mom are you there?
pam – yes, noah. i’m right here
noah – do you remember that jump rope we lost?
pam – yes i do.
noah – well spencer has one just like it in his backyard. do you think it’s ours?
pam – no noah. we got that jump rope at walmart so there are alot of people who have jump ropes like ours. maybe spencer got the jump rope at walmart.
noah – oh okay
noah – mom are you there?
pam – yes, noah.
noah – mom, this one has a knot in it. did our jump rope have a knot in it?
pam – i’m not sure noah.
noah – oh, then this is probably not our jump rope

it’s not quite as funny when i type it out, but it was very funny listening to it on the radio.

once a year my family and i give up television. we do it to “detoxify” our minds and remind ourselves that we don’t have to have the television on in order to survive. it is always a favorite part of the year for us. we find that we have more conversations, get more stuff done around the house, play more games, and are generally more creative when we have the television off. it always works out that by the end of the month we have become completely used to not having the television on – not for t.v. shows, movies, ball games, video games, etc.

of course, the problem is right now that it has rained all day so i couldn’t work outside, i’m not really into the book i’m reading right now, and i have thus spent the day inside watching a computer screen hoping that someone would post a comment on the blog that i could respond to. i’ve been lurking around message board and forums hoping for some random conversation. i’ve become a sad pathetic human being.