Fruition

Busy, busy, way too busy to think or to write with any decent amount of satisfaction.

Still adjusting to the new work-life balance. Primarily it's Patch, who's taken a distinct disliking to being dropped off at day care. That manifests itself in various forms of toddler behavior ranging from heartbreaking sniffling to leg-kicking howling. My wife has had to deal with it twice this past week, me the other two times. It ain't pleasant, this thing called Tough Love, but it has to be done.

My job is settling into routine. I'm starting to know procedures and people and am starting to make a positive difference there. Though the heat's been beastly and the ACs weren't up to snuff on Friday, I'm liking it. The commute's fantastic. Only wish I wasn't working on a highway. Would like more opportunities to go out to lunch during the day.

Money became unexpectedly tight, something to do with the crossing of very expensive day care and my income, all coming due around the time the mortgage and the credit card bills come calling. Had to borrow some money off the Discover card, never a good thing, but we should be all right. A few sleepless nights, though. I question in the darkness whether the rest of my life will be like this, this neverending juggling of income and outgo, one step and a few dollars ahead of the thirty or so hands always reaching into my wallet. I guess I just have to persevere until the children get older, the economy gets better, and I get a little luckier in terms of a vocation. Writing this makes it sound trivial, but its a very real presence at 2 am, as real as the oppressive heat and humidity just outside my front door.

Spent a few well-deserved bucks on a handful of used books. More on that tomorrow, I think. I always enjoy writing about reading; I hope you enjoy reading about my writing about reading half as much.

Finished watching Richard the Second yesterday afternoon while the girls were out and about. Enjoyed it, as I have enjoyed all the BBC Shakespeare DVDs I've watched. Cooked some burgers and dogs on the grill last night reading the first two scenes of Twelfth Night, my next Shakespearean venture. The wife retired for the night shortly after putting the girls down. I cleaned up the basement, did some laundry, watched Serpico on the MSG channel while brainstorming on the laptop.

We're in the midst of refinancing the house - again - so I have a FEDEX folder of a thousand pages to review and sign. Anything to save one or two hundred dollars a month, I suppose. I'd like to lift a couple of dumbells downstairs and hit the exercise bike for a bit, too. Lung feels good; I think I can expand it to about 90 percent capacity before the sharp pain forces me to stop. This is an improvement; finally I feel optimistic about keeping the darn thing.

This post is meandering, so I'll end it now. It's starting to drizzle outside, so maybe the temps will come down a bit. At least it put a cessation to the girls whining to be taken to the town pool. I'm too tired to even get out of this chair. Need a new body, or a head transplant. Preferably both.

In the words of a famous priest, "You pray for me, brother, and I'll pray for you, and together we'll bring a little bit of God's will to fruition." Amen.