Don't believe in the Easter Bunny but I Do Believe in Kharma

Zachism of the year. Zach is riding in the back of the truck, I'm driving, and my redneck savant buddy Mike is riding shotgun, one Saturday afternoon.
Zach: "Hey Mike, I watched "Johnny English last night. In this one part, these two guys were standing in front of a giant dong.
Mike looks at me and says without saying anything: "What the hell are you letting your kids watch on TV, Rick."
Zach continues: One guy walked behind the giant dong and hit the other guy with a big stick."
Me: "Zach, I think its called a 'gong,' not a 'dong.'"

Kharmic Revenge: All school year we have gawked at this self-styled, self absorbed hippy women, whom we affectionately call "Nightmare Hippy Girl" (see Beck's first album). Her self-absorption is such that Meghan and I can't resist getting close to her to hear the latest wrong that has been done to her. She just can't figure out that there are other people living in the world around her.
So for the entire school year, we have watched her park her little cute green Honda Element in the handicap space in front of the school as she goes in to get her kid after school. Now the handicap space is often abused. In my opinion, Stephen Hawking is the only person who has a right to that space. Fat people? No way, that's what walking is for. Still, I don't tresspass on those spaces.
We have waited for months for the Kharma gods to act and this past Thursday they did. Someone called the police and the NMHG got a ticket. NMHG, to seemingly sympathetic teacher on Friday: "Can you believe I got a ticket!"
Teacher: "Oh my gosh, what did you do?"
NMHG: "I left my son in the car."
Teacher: "So you got a ticket for leaving your child in the car?"
NMHG: "No, I parked in a handicap spot."
You got to love kharma!

Big Family Issue Easter has apparently brought Meghan face to face with her greatest fear: Telling the kids that the Easter Bunny is made up. Now, the boys love zoos and have been to several dozen in their young lives. They've seen basically any animal that swims, walks, slithers, or flies. I don't recall and they certainly will not be able to recall ever seeing at the zoo a rabbit the size of a human being that gives gifts to kids. Here's the life lesson that I want them to learn from this nonsense: Believing and knowing are two different things. Stick to what you know. That way, you never end up looking or sounding like an idiot. Besides, you already get the gifts anyway.

Chicks The chicks are three months old. They smile and act cute. Katherine sticks her tongue out on cue while Elizabeth converses in some sort of drunken, indecipherable tongue. They are fun but also they are girls. Already Meghan and I have notice jealousy developing between them. When you lay them on the bed together, they do their cute baby stuff but as soon as you pick up one, the other wails like a she-devil until you put down her sibling. Looking forward to breaking up those fights. As long as they don't park in handicap spaces when they get older, we will be good.

After a month.....

Right now, its 5:30 AM and every breathing creature in our home is asleep except for me. There is nothing I want more than sleep. Uninterupted sleep in a warm bed. Instead, I have been reduced to weeping in the fetal position wrapped around this computer.

In the past month, I have watched so much television that I have exhausted the entire line-up of programming for the Travel Channel, ESPN, Discovery Channel, Food Network, History Channel and FX. As a result my ass now has its own gravitational pull. I have broken a toilet seat while seeking solace. And I have broken through a borrowed cane-bottom rocker to delight of my wife and children.

I have stubbed my toes on baby bouncers so many times that now my toes hurt constantly. I have held the chickens so much that I have a knot in my neck. I have gone days without a shower. It's a cold realization when you learn that the foul odor that you smell is not others but yourself.

And as if all of that is not enough to encourage anyone out there of having twins, I have withstood a vicious butt-vomit attack from one of my own daughters. Nothing is more degrading than yelling for backup from your wife while trying to cap a mini shit-geyser with first your bare hand, then a stack of new diapers.

All is not well at the Lucas home. We are broken down and exhausted. God did not intend for humans to have more than one baby at a time. We are now paying our penance.

I write all of this to write this: Happy one month old Killer Fighting Chickens!

Arrival of the Kickin' Chickens

Elizabeth Agnes Lucas aka "Thin Lizzy"
Katherine Flannery Lucas aka "Kit-Kat"

The saying goes "They were accidents but not mistakes." To start, we weren't supposed to have any more kids. Not one more. Ever. For the first two months of Meghan's pregnancy we tried like hell to get our heads around the idea of having another kid.

Then in June, when we had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were having another baby, I got a text from Meghan. "I'm having twins." "LOL" I responded. I think I was on the toilet. Meghan is pretty good at keeping a joke going and I will more than reciprocate. But then I gott a call from my buddy Mike who was vacationing in Virginia. I was still on the toilet. "Congratulations on the twins," were his first words. I promptly hung up on Mike mid-sentence to call Meghan. (sorry, Mike, I will call you back later.) JT answered. "Dad, we are having twins!"

My head swirled with lawsuits over incorrect ultra sound results to pay for the addition that would have to be built on to the house.

Next, we spent a three-week cross country trip trying to pin down the exact time of the conception but managed only to narrow it down to two episodes--both times I'm pretty certain that I had a headache and Meghan had been drinking heavily. One thing is certain: Twins do not run in either of our families. And apparently people pay a shitload of money to have multiple births. It was like a million-to-one lucky shot.

By the fall, Meghan was ever the trooper, working her ass off to be everything to everyone while I strutted around like a Bantam Rooster but scared shitless. The boys were not excited until we found out the babies were girls. When we asked them why they hadn't been excited over the prospects of more boys, they both explained, "We didn't want to share our LEGOS." Fair enough.

I'll admit that the last three months Meghan was a little cranky and not a day went by when I didn't look at her growing belly and apologize profusely. But through it all, she was also that strong woman that I fell in love with 13 years ago, even if she looked like a Tele-tubby.

Yesterday, the girls were born and they are absolutely beautiful and I'm not bragging either. Hell, even the doctor and nurses told us they were beautiful. I could bore you with all of the stats and crap but instead I'll tell you what I really think of them. At first when they came out, I thought they were boys. Katherine looked a lot like JT when he was born except she had this white shit all over her. The nurses told me it was a natural lotion but I forgot the name of it. The delivery went off without a hitch even if it was hard as hell to keep the names attached to the babies. They were flying out like clowns out of a Volkswagon.

But after spending an exhausting night with the girls, I have a few observations. They are awesome farters so they must be mine. In fact Elizabeth startled one nurse with an air biscuit. Katherine is just a peaceful little gal. She especially enjoyed getting her thick head of hair washed under the faucet like she was in a salon. Elizabeth on the other hand will probably be the little hell-cat. She fussed all night until I broke down and got her a pacifier---she is now the first and only Lucas child to use a pacifier. She also has this little pointed nose that makes her look a little like Eddie, the Iron Maiden mascot. They are both incredible and we are incredibly fortunate to have them. And they have some pretty awesome brothers as well.

Maybe this will be the year when...

Metallica finally realize how much they suck and quit. Yes, the band that I worshipped as an angst-ridden teen need to quit. And it's not due to that fact that I've mellowed in the last few years either. I still get my metal on on an almost daily basis (when my brittle bones and weak health still allow me to headbang.) And it's not because I am waxing nostalgic for the old days either.

The fact is that Metallica simply sucks. Their latest abortion with Lou Reed is just one more nail in their coffin. Hell, even Rick Rubin couldn't make them relevent again and he made a seventy- year old Johnny Cash and even the Dixie Chicks sound like the biggest bad asses on the planet. For the past ten years, Metallica has put out unlistenable shit like St. Anger and Lulu etc.

I think I can trace their jump-the-shark moment. Remember this was a band who used to do kick-ass covers of obscure punk and metal bands like Killing Joke and Diamond Head. They made the songs sound fresh and unique and exposed redneck kids living in backwater towns to listen to something other than AC/DC. (No, offense to AC/DC). But then in the 90s they did the unthinkable: they covered Bob Seger's "Turn the Page." Thus began their slide to extreme shittiness. Now every song has the same old tired, boogie, crunch rhythm. James Hetfield now thinks he can sing.

So I would plead with Metallica this year to go enjoy all the millions of dollars they have made over a long, uneven career and go nowhere near a studio or stage.

Also maybe, with two girls arriving soon in my life and the other woman in my life threatening to kick me in the balls, I will write in this damn blog for an extended amount of time. I'll admit that over the past two years, I have been mailing in almost every aspect of my life so my resolute motto for the year would be "Don't be Metallica and mail it in."

Remember the Titans

This past weekend, we played our first tournament and did very well. Especially, when you consider that the group of kids and coaches had never played together before this past weekend and had had only one practice before the tournament. We got beat in the championship game by one of the premier select teams in central Texas after clobbering the one seed and tournament host, Austin's Finest.
For our family and myself personally, our showing at the tournament could not be more satisfying. The past year has been full of personal struggles and trials but this weekend was an encouraging sign that our family is headed in the right direction. My trophy moment came when a player told his father that he had so much fun the first day of the tournament ( we had just dropped two close games to some really good teams) that he wanted to go home and dream of baseball. The kid had spent the past fall on a team that stressed winning above everything else.
All told, the kids played seven games and performed wonderfully. The best moment for our family was when the new president of the league that helped facilitate the lawsuit against us last year watched our team beat the number one seed pretty handily. All throughout the game, he kept making phone calls and asking our coaches about our team. No doubt, we have their attention. And we also got the attention of some parents as well. One parent even approached us about getting their son on the team because the team he is on is just too negative.
JT played his heart out as he does in every game. I was so proud to see him encouraging and praising his teammates. I even heard him tell a player on another team "good hit" while the kid was standing on first base. Monday morning, we woke up and said he was sore but happy. That makes two of us, buddy.
So we are building something special, moving in the right direction. We'll keep you posted on our progress.

The Year's First Post

Ok, so last year we are referring to as "The Year of Shit" and we are glad to see it pass. The pun is intentional. There's too much to get in to and I don't want to revisit the past. So what is going on? Well, I'll tell you.

For one thing, I am gainfully and painlessly employed once again. I am subbing part time at the boys school and am really liking it. So far, I've worked in a low functioning autistic classroom, a higher-functioning autism classroom (my favorite) and a fifth grade class. I think every kid at the school already knew who I was so it hasn't been a foreign experience. And also at the end of the day, I still really like kids.

The second thing that I've been up to is our tournament baseball team. This endeavor is keeping me sane and posutive. Even though we don't have a full roster, the groundwork is set. We are a non-profit corporation. So far we've raised enough money through sponsorships to host two large tournaments this summer. (Yes, if you own a business I would love to tell you about the possibilities of sponsorships of our team). So far we have money in the bank, a plan to raise more money and we even have two sets of jerseys (over a thousand dollars worth to be exact that we were able to purchase thanks to Bruce Bowles at Texas Jumping Beans and Kyle Dalton at Danashay Marketing) waiting for a team. Oh yeah, we also have a bitchin' logo thanks to my brother in law, Gavin. Right now we are in the process of putting together a line of team merchandise using said bitchin' logo. Two days ago, we received our first piece of merchandise from Jamie Crompton, the fantabulous owner of Chattywalls.com. It's a window decal that looks amazing and you will be able to purchase at the bargain price of $7. Jamie was also kind enough to produce some amazing full color decals that the kids will put on their helmets.

Our plan from the very beginning has been to make this a first class operation down to the smallest details, like stickers on the batting helmets. I wanted to make it affordable for parents. When I told a parent the other day what each player will get for a hundred dollars, he didn't believe me. So far, I'm amazed at what we've accomplished and we still have even bigger plans. We want to eventually add a second team and to take a team to either Cooperstown or Myrtle Beach to play a week long tournament. Meghan has been so incredibly supportive of this venture that I can't possibly thank her enough. I'm a lucky man.

Saying Goodbye to the Year of Crap

Last night Meghan and I went out on a date. It was nice to get out without the boys and we have an awesome babysitter whome the boys really like. Over dinner Meghan revealed that she refers to this past year as the "Year of Crap."
To summarize the year of crap.
I'm out of work and struggling with depression.
Meghan is overwhelmed with family and work.
We got sued for really stupid shit.
Our dog died.
Meghan's dad got laid off.

Admittedly, in the grand scheme of things, things could be much worse. I think I would describe this past year as a pain in the ass.
Sometime during dinner, I went to the restroom and whe I returned, Meghan gave me the final piece of bad news. "You have started gaining weight," she said, touching my hand gently like she really cared.
But as is most always the case, Meghan was right. My jeans had started feeling like overstuffed sausage casings. I had regressed to eating ice cream for lunch when Meghan wasn't around. One night recently dinner consisted of a plate piled high with bacon and croissant rolls with a jar of mayo.
Now we are setting out on a mission to put the "year of crap" behind us which means getting our bulging asses moving, getting back to the ways things were not long ago. We are going to experiment with living without TV, too. Stay tuned.