Scott’s Blog

Lone Catalpa Flower

I’m having an out-of-body experience. While I was in my body, I had a bad day. Then a short while ago, I laid in the hammock outside, swatting mosquitos and watching the last rays of the sun illuminate the huge green leaves of our Catalpa tree. From my position on my back, all I could see was Catalpa leaves, some dark green, some yellow-green, against a perfectly blue sky. I think that’s when I decided to leave this day behind and start blogging.

My day started ordinarily enough. I was late to work because it felt so much more comfy to sit in my chair at home and drink coffee. When I finally slinked in, I realized I had basically nothing to do that day. Oh sure, I responded to some little things and helped a few people out here and there, but I had practically the whole afternoon to myself.

It wasn’t always this way, and it shouldn’t be this way, but it is. You see, I used to be a technical wizard. From there I turned into an application designer. Pretty soon I was leading teams, and now I’m a project manager. I’m not supposed to  be a geek anymore. In fact, I’m barely hanging on to shreds of my geek heritage, and at the same time, I’m not a very good manager. For those who have read The Peter Principle, I’ve petered-out, or more accurately (and sounds like a lot more fun), I’ve petered-up. I’ve been promoted to my level of incompetence, and I’ll likely retire from this position in another twenty years.

Enough about work. After work, on my sweaty ride home in the air-conditioning-no-worky Dodge pickup, I remembered that my wife would be late today. Gina was in Lake Forest because her mammogram last week turned up a “density” that needed checking out. I was surprised to see her home before me. Walked in and got the mammogram update right away: they did a bunch of ultrasounds and MRIs and other tests and decided she needs a needle biopsy right away. That’s scheduled for tomorrow, with the results due Wednesday. Oh, and get this: apparently she was supposed to be notified of a follow-up in 2007, but her old doctor’s office screwed up and never told her. Great, this thing has been brewing inside her for two years.

Now I have to say this right up front: I’m a crier. I cry at sad movies. I cry if I think a sad thought. I totally cry too much, and this is a problem for me right now because I need to be strong for Gina instead of being a 260-pound snotrag. But instead, for the umpty-umpth time, I’m a sobbing wreck while she’s telling me it’s going to be OK.

I capped that off with a little weird spending on my son. This past weekend Andrew told us he was going to trade his shotgun–something we’ve been praying to be rid of since his May suicide attempt–for a bike. A bicycle is just about Andrew’s speed, something he is capable of taking care of. A car would be too much. Anyway, I have pictures in my head of him coming home with a nice, sturdy bike he can ride all over town. After all, it was a like-new shotgun with all the accessories and extra ammo. Instead, he brings home this wreck of a little motocross bike that was never worth more than $100 new. Ah well, we’ve learned to keep our mouths shut when things like this happen.

So he leaves to go home, and about 20 minutes later we get a call. Can Dad come pick me up? The crank snapped off! I pick him up a few miles from home and throw the bike in the back of my truck. We take it over to the bicycle repair shop, and I ask them how much it would cost to fix it up. They tell me I’d be better of spending $100 on a new, cheap bike at Toys-R-Us. So we head off to Toys-R-Us and find ourselves in the bike aisle.

This is where it gets a little surreal. Andrew is 23 years old, 6′ maybe 6′-1″ tall, probably 220 pounds…he’s definitely a man, not a little boy. We’re in the aisle with all the tiny motocross bikes, right next the little girls’ princess bikes. We’re checking out bikes shoulder-to-shoulder with parents of kids small enough to ride in the cart. I felt more than a little out of place. Anyway, long story short, we settle on a nice Tony Hawk model for $189. I didn’t want it to fall apart after a month’s hard use. When we got home, my wife frostily reminded me that we’re supposed to discuss purchases over $100…oops.

That’s when I laid down in the hammock. What a day. Then I noticed something strange. Catalpa’s make a huge flower display in May, then they dump all the flowers like rain over a period of about two days. These flowers have long since shriveled up, rotted, and blown away. Except for one. It’s still up in that Catalpa tree, eking out a living. Seemed like a perfect finish to the day to find that one struggling flower.

My wife has decided that my son needs to be moved out by July 1. I’m ambivalent about this. It’s true that he needs to take responsibility for his own life, and I surely won’t miss the messes, noise, smoking, drinking, and swearing, but when it comes down to it I just can’t bring myself to throw my baby out of the house. I wish he had more time to pay off debt, save up for a car, find a decent place to live. As it is I think he’s going to move in with one of his friends, which is OK, but I don’t know how he’s going to get to work without a car.