Ode to my Mother’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Time after time

Fresh from the oven with her chocolatey chippy cash and prizes

Her palette, the batter  

Her canvas, the oven

Her masterpiece, the Tupperware container

Brimming with choco-phenomenon

Milk is flattered to share the table with such splendid finery

Grown, civilized men squabble for first pick of the batch

Their redolence renders resolve undone

Their flavorsome physique finds asylum there

Safe within the belly

It only takes one bite

Of one cookie

And every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthday

Is forever tainted

Spoiled

Incomplete without the container

Refilled with warmth and goodness

Thus, the pilgrimage begins

On the road to delectable destiny

May you get lost along the way

Leaving more for me

More sweet more

Back to the Rat Race

At this time yesterday, I was sipping a hot cup of Starbucks, fresh from the French press. I was just about to initiate the weekly requisite face-washing, hair-brushing, shoe-tying frenzy to get The Skinnies ready for church, enjoying the last few moments of peace and quiet with my wife.  These are the simple, unsophisticated moments that money can’t buy, and the ones that I cherish the most.  Yesterday was no exception.  I was reminded again that I am rich beyond measure in every way that really matters.  I am blessed.

Twenty four hours later, I’m sitting on a conference call wrangling with a client on another continent about the scope of an “out-of-box” database whitepaper and whether it appropriately covers general connectivity options and interoperability.  I can’t help but not care about the details of a deep-dive whitepaper, or the compulsory round of reviews and edits, or sign-off, or the high-level expectations of some seminar attendees 4 weeks from now.  I just want to go back to that sun-kissed morning, twenty four hours ago.  I felt so far removed from work and business-as-usual.  This rubbish was truly the farthest thing from my mind.

It’s difficult to get motivated about work when the deepest, truest passion of my heart is in a house on a street in another town.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do enjoy my job.  I even like (most of) my coworkers.  It just feels like I’m engaged in a daily exchange of the prime hours of the most precious, priceless years of my household for the vocational use of a desk, a couple of monitors, and 50GB hard drive.  Maybe I’m just melancholy, but the luster of leveraging my core competencies is wearing thin today.  Work feels monotonous and uninspiring. 

I suppose this is just the plight of a heartsick husband and father of five in America.  I should shut my yapper and get back to work – thankful that I have a family and job, albeit torn between the two.    

No Blog Today

I can’t decide what to post on my blog 

I’d like to write but my brain is a fog

Topic and text

Linguistically hexed

Perplexed in this tongue tied slog

My word-maker’s locked and I can’t find the key

My prose-composer is charging a fee

Keyless and broke

A frustrated bloke

I’m choking, quite literally

 

Fingers are fighting refusing to type

Five on each hand unite as they gripe

Brazenly still

Enforcing their will

Unwilling to open the pipe   

 

Alas, dear reader, I’m sorry to say

There won’t be a new post posted today

Tomorrow, perhaps

I’ll curtail the lapse

And run, write back into the fray

Weekendings and Beginnings

On Friday we packed the 7 Teauxs into the Teaux-Mobile and made the 3 hour journey to the in-law’s farm in Yakima Valley. Once again I was reminded how blessed I am to have married into such a wonderful family. They truly got the raw end of this deal.


My mother-in-law’s garden is teeming with big, leafy green life. To my city-bred eye, the only discernable crop is corn, because that’s the tall skinny one. But my wife and The Skinnies spent quite a while picking green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, grapes, beets and onions. We also picked blackberries from the (get this) THORNLESS BLACKBERRY BUSH! I didn’t even know there was such a thing! Then my mother-in-law canned some of them for us in this big, silver, cylindrical pressure cooker that can kill you. She risked her life (and ours) so that we can eat farm-fresh, hand-picked veggies from jar-shaped time capsules this winter.


I spent some time on Saturday morning taking leisurely drives with The Skinnies (one at a time) around the farm on the 4 wheeler. I had to constantly adjust the speed and duration of the rides based upon the unique 4 wheeling preferences of my offspring-cargo. Still, it was deeply delightful to hold each of them on my lap and feel the wind and the sun on our faces. It was on one of the trips down the dirt road on the east end of their acreage that my 4 year old daughter squealed: “Daddy! This is the best day of my whole life!” I’ll not allow such spontaneous outward expressions of joy and contentment in my presence. So, I immediately gunned the throttle which, in turn, elicited a scream that could only have come from a very distraught place in her soul. Kids are so silly.


The wife and I were able to get away for a bike ride on Saturday afternoon. The 50-something Ma-and-Pa-in-law did the same 13 mile trail one evening last week. They told us that it only took them (and I quote) “about an hour”. By mile 6, we determined that they were either lying to us or smoking crack, or both. We had to pedal like Mr. and Mrs. Lance Armstrong for the last few miles just to finish at 1 hour and 15 minutes! I challenged my father-in-law’s estimate (to his face). He just smiled and chortled to himself choosing not to challenge the hypothesis that he’s a crack-smoking liar.


Our extended weekend ended with the convergence of two monumental milestones in the life of my eldest son. On the eve of his first day of first grade, he lost his first tooth. Just a little tug and his upper-right front tooth busted out of his 6 year old grill. I was proud of him because he’s been fairly concerned about the amount of blood and pain that would be involved with the loosing of said tooth for a few weeks. But yesterday afternoon he mustered up his courage and told me he was ready to have me pull out his tooth. The reason? “Tonight’s money night, daddy! If the tooth fairy’s gonna pay me for this, I want it tonight.” Little does he know, the tooth fairy is partial to copper and a little lean in the wallet.