My life is madness!

As you might have noticed, I haven't been blogging reliably this week.

That's because this week has been insane.

Okay, my normal life schedule has been pretty reliable: up at 6, at the bus stop by 6:30, an hour's commute into downtown, 40 minutes of which is on a bus that allows me to get some writing done. 7:30-11:30 work, 11:30-12:30 gym and lunch, 12:30-4:30 work, and then another hour's commute home with a longer hack run on the bun, usually back by 5:30 or so. A lesiurely dinner, some hacking time, some time with the family.

This week, though, it's been up at 7 to get the kids out the door by 8:15, get them to summer camp by 8:45, then make it to the office by 9:30. Work straight through from 9:30 to 1:30, then run back to pick up the kids by 2:00, be home by 2:30 and do another four hours from home (thank the goddess for freenx). Usually done by 7, by which time I'm totally burned out. And we've been spending the evenings prepping the camping gear for next week.

No personal project time, no writing time at all. I have a primitive set of scripts for organizing the contents of my stories-in-progress directory, and had a brilliant idea for re-writing them using Merb, but that'll take about 16 hours of development time (not counting visuals) that I just don't have.

Vegan Barbecue?

Last night, fallenpegasus invited us over to his house where his friend Sarah would be preparing a "vegan barbecue." That very phrase sounded oxymoronic, but Omaha and I decide that we'd go anyway and find out if the very essence of meaty cooking could be translated to the vegan lifestyle.

A number of other acquaintances were there, all of whom were delightfully civil and some of whom took unalloyed delight in the kids. A newly-married couple nervously contemplating their first pregnancy wanted to hang out with them at dinner and experience kids for themselves; good for them. I perused the cookbooks on the shelf and coveted a few of them, especially the "Vegatarian Italian Cooking" books.

Guy-type confession: at one point I was standing in the dining room and looking down the hallway into the kitchen. A woman stood there with her back to me and my first thought was, "Now, she's got a good-looking butt." And then I realized I was looking at Omaha. Well, of course she does!

The meal was delicious; the sugar-free strawberries and soda mixture would take some getting used to (as would any sugar-free diet), and the vegan burgers were a bit drier than what one gets from your typical American grain-fed meat, but it was all yummy. The pasta salad was especially good, although at one point we all ended up trying to describe the difference between a shallot and a scallion to someone at the table.

I was saddened to go, actually; I don't have much of a social life these days, and the people at Aloha Haus are really good people, generally. But it was late and the kids had to be in bed for camp the next day.

I'm a lifer!

Today is my and Omaha's 19th anniversary. This marks 19 years of being married, from Reagan to Bush II, through two recessions, three lay-offs, four wars, two surgeries, dozens of epileptic seziures, a houseflood and angilong.

But it hasn't all been tragedies and horrors: there have been wonderful camping trips, mad days of mountain biking, nights of lovemaking, launching and managing a business, and raising two wonderful kids who we're helping rise to being whole and healthy adults.

I love my wife dearly. I haven't been able to show it as much recently as I'd like, and there are reasons for that. These are the most stressful years: our bodies have peaked in terms of wellness and the signs of aging are starting just as the kids are reaching that time when they need our energy and attention the most, career decisions are made and broken in this time, and so on.

But she has absolutely been my rock and anchor against the vicissitudes of time, and it's worth my time to reflect back on all Omaha has been and done, and to remark once again just how beautiful, wonderful, and magnificent she has always been, and always will be. And she deserves everything I can do for her.