Down Home Country Boy

I have an embarrassing confession to make.

If you live in or near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and listen to the radio, you'll know there's only three kinds of radio stations in the area - hip-hop/pop stations, religious music/commentary stations, and country music stations. (Yes, technically there's like two classic rock stations and the public radio stations, one of which I technically work for, but the VAST majority of the Harrisburg airwaves is filled with the above three.)

Well, I may have admitted to some of you that, since the birth of my children, I've reached a new level of appreciation for country music. What does one have to do with the other, you ask? I have no idea. Probably something to do with the conservative message in country music, about driving to work in a pickup truck (which I do - it's Jennie's truck, but I drive it these days), working hard for your family, then going home to a wonderful meal prepared by your strong yet nurturing woman. I guess I've tapped into that part of the collective American subconscious and awoken the dormant Father archetype, the one that's equal parts Atticus Finch and Clint Eastwood and Father Knows Best, square-jawed and wise in his recliner, reading the paper while smoking his pipe. (Please note that I do not have a newspaper subscription, a pipe, or a square jaw. I do have the recliner though, so as soon as the rest fall into place I'm set.)

Anyway, that's not the confession I'm here to make. The confession is, when a particularly sappy song comes on one of these country stations - not just your standard country ballad, but the one about the separated parents who still love each other sharing custody of their kids every other weekend, or the one about how much the singer really truly loves America because it may not be perfect but it's the best thing out there - I'm talking the REALLY sappy, sentimental, can't-possibly-disagree-with-the-message-regardless-of-politics country ballads - when one of those songs comes on the radio, I LOSE it. I am overcome with emotion. Suddenly I'm on the verge of tears thinking about how much I love the United States, or how lucky I am to have Jennie and the girls, or whatever. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've always thought relatively well of the USA, and of course I love my family, but it's really a ridiculous, out-of-character thing that grabs me when these songs are on. But then it's back to the average, horrible honky-tonk crap that these stations try to pass off as music, and I'm back to normal.

And speaking of being reduced to a quivering pile of sobbing jelly via song, for anyone who grew up with the film An American Tail, please go here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=BcgM_6x9neo . Seriously, I thought I was going to die of nostalgia.

PS: As for the decision to buy a home in Harrisburg or continue to live with Jennie's parents in Middleburg, we split the difference and found a nice apartment with a gym and a pool and our friends Carol and Steve live just above us. Pretty sweet.

My Dilemma

Do I:

a) Buy a cheap home now, and save a whole lot of money on gas (as well as wear and tear on both my truck and my legs)?

or

b) Stay where we are in Middleburg, living rent free, and try to save up for a home that I'll still want to live in a year from now?

We're seen a few (crummy) homes in our price range, but I really wanted our first home to be our home for a long, long time, possibly forever. That way, we wouldn't have to pay the government back for their assistance, and we could be without a mortgage in 30 years or so, which would certainly help us money-wise. I plan on retiring as soon as humanly possible, you see - I actually hate working. I also would like to have something to leave to my kids when I shuffle off this mortal coil. If I buy a home now, not only will we be not saving much money, but it won't be the ideal home that I'd want to live in for awhile, as our price range right now is about half of what a nice home costs. But if I wait to buy a home, I'll still be spending about 400 to 500 bucks a month on gas, which is obscene, as well as putting so much extra wear on our truck, and that's not to mention HOW MUCH I HATE SPENDING TWO HOURS IN A CAR EVERY DAY.

So ... what the hell should I do?

Pennsylvania Primary Voting Day

I can't vote in today's primary election. I am registered as an Independent, which means that I have the independence to choose to not partake in the preliminary stages of an election by deciding who I have the opportunity to decide on in the actual election. I think the two party system is dumb, so I'm just not gonna play. It's rather a case of cutting off my nose to spite my face, but I don't like the Democratic Party so I'm not gonna join.

That said, I encourage anyone out there who is a registered Democrat to vote for Obama.

Outdone by Infants

So I was playing with my eldest daughter, Evelyn, who is about 17 months old. She's still teething, and I had just given her a dose of Children's Tylenol (which is probably the greatest invention since the combustion engine if you ask me). The bottle is small and plastic, and has a little dropper that you use to give the correct dosage. She likes to chew on the dropper to ease tooth pain.

Anyway, I was holding the Tylenol bottle between my hands and closing them, then opening them again. She would try to grab the bottle. Then, I would close my hands again, but I'd let the dropper fall out of my hands into my lap. She couldn't see that, since my hands were the only thing in her field of vision. I'd open my hands again, and the Tylenol bottle would be gone. Mystified, she'd look around for it. I'd scoop it up again and open my hands to reveal that it had returned. She would be overjoyed. This went on for a bit, and I took no small amount of pride that my meager sleight-of-hand was impressing a toddler.

Finally, I let her take the bottle and chew on it. We haven't seen it since.

It seems that Evelyn has much to teach me about making things dissapear.