Candy What?

Ozzy Jr asked me an interesting question earlier in the summer, "Dad, at what age can I start cussing?" I thought to myself, "whatthehell kind of question is that?" I didn't have a good answer, just "you have to be older than you are."

Fast forward to Saturday. Beautiful weather, I have a ton of stuff to do, and its Ozzy Jr's job to cut the grass and he finally got busy on it. 10 minutes in he saw a wasp. Last week he saw a wasp and wasn't able to finish the job due to his emotional state. Now, he's too scared to cut the grass because he saw a wasp. I was not happy. Cutting the grass was not on my agenda. At the point of our father/son discussion when I knew he was not going to finish the job, I said words that my father may have said to me. "Well, you just take your candy ass inside and unload the dishwasher!" He disappeared into the house.

Earlier in the day we had the disucssion of doing what you fear to overcome the fear, but obviously, he wasn't buying it. I resigned myself to cutting the grass. 20 minutes into the chore, he came out and told me he decided he could do it. He took over and cut the rest of the yard. I was proud that he overcame his fear and later I told him just that. I also said, "sorry I called you a 'candy ass'." He replied, "I like the word 'candy ass'."

I like the word "candy ass" too.

Only at My House...

People often ask me if what I write here is true. I promise, I'm not motivated enough to make this crap up.

We were spending a quiet evening at home watching a crappy movie we had rented (The Jumper thumbs down), and Mrs Ozzy gets up off the couch and scoots the coffee table out a little. I had Poco (little dog) in my lap and Icee (big dog) was at our feet. Somehow, as she scoots the table out Icee catches his leg in the curled up foot of the coffee table. He starts yelping, twisting himself around, and I look down and he has somehow gotten his leg awkwardly wedged into the table. I feebly try to get him into the right position to free him, but no luck.

This looks very BAD.

He calms down relatively quickly, but he is hopelessly stuck. I tell Mrs Ozzy to call 911 and tell them to send the fire dept. On her way to the phone, she bumps the table and the puppy goes nuts with pain. The dispatcher tells her they will call animal control, but they can't dispatch the fire dept for a non human emergency. She said, "forget it" and hung up. I tell Ozzy Jr. to go across the ditch and get a neighbor that I'm sure has the tools to cut him out. Meanwhile Mrs. Ozzy starts calling other neighbors to come down.

As the first neighbors start to arrive a policeman comes by. Apparently, the police have to be dispatched every time you call 911. He says he'll stay and help. So, John (a neighbor) suggests taking the table top off then using a hacksaw to cut the table leg off. I tell him where the screw drivers are, and I go get my trusty angle grinder. I think, "screw a hacksaw." Meanwhile, John's wife Jody poured oil on the spot to see if there was a way to slide it out. No dice. So, John gets the table top off in pretty short order. There are several points that have to be cut through to get this done and I start with the smallest. 3/4 of the way through, as sparks are flying and the dog is going nuts, I was persuaded to stop. We used the hacksaw to finish the cut. We had at least 4 or 5 cuts to go. I was sweating, and my livingroom smelled like dog crap.

The policeman very adroitly then called the fire dept. They were there in 5 minutes. I guess they believed him more than us. They used the jaws of life to cut the leg off my coffee table. (I can tell Mrs. Ozzy is digging this well built fire fighter). At the suggestion of the policeman, I taped Icee's mouth shut for the protection of everyone. The policeman, fireman, and the fire captain carried him to the car with the coffee table leg in tow. As we put him in the back of Mrs Ozzy's car the table leg came lose. He was stuck in the table leg for about an hour.

Special thanks to our neighbors, the Smyrna Police and Fire Depts.

Talking to God

Every night when Mrs Ozzy and I put 11 year old Ozzy Jr. to bed we have prayers. He came up with the format. One person does the "salutation" one person does the "body" and one person does the "closing." The responsibilities for these are rotated each night. Jr also came up with a somewhat unique "salutation" and "closing" that we use every night. We stress that this is a time to talk to God, so it should be respectful. Here's how it went last night.
Mrs. Ozzy: Dear Jesus and God
Ozzy Jr. : Please don't let Momma find out that there is a Victoria's Secret catalog and a flashlight under my pillow.
(then he squeezes my hand, which means he's finished with the "body")
Me: and be with Ash and Kels and Granpa and Aaron Small.
Everyone: Love, sincerely The Nelsons, Amen.

Wake Up

I had this dream last night. It was soooo real. I dreamed m 21 yo daughter Ashlee was addicted to fire extinguisher propellant. She got fired from her job because she kept ruining the fire extinguishers. She lied about doing it. We gave her 30 days to move out of our house because of her bad behavior. The scene switches to a little while later when she admits she as a problem and we are in Lowes. She is obsessed with trying to eat caulk. We are there in the caulk isle and she is uncapping them and squirting them in her mouth. I am trying to get the caulk away from her. She is trying to hurt herself by consuming this poison and I am going nuts. She doesn't care. She is fighting me. I give her a short left to the jaw.
"Ouch." I wake up. Mrs Ozzy had said "ouch".
The knuckles on my left hand felt like they had hit bone.
Oh crap!
"I am so sorry honey, I did not mean to punch you, I was having this dream..."
"Its ok."
"No, I am really, really sorry."
"Its ok."
"I did not mean to punch you. I am so sorry."
"Its ok. My elbow doesn't hurt at all now."
"I hit you on the elbow?"
"Yes. Where did you think you hit me?"
Mrs. Ozzy's head was level with mine in the bed. Ashlee is 5'0 tall. Thank God.

Life and Death

I volunteer what works out to about two months a year to delivering Communion to members of our church who are unable to get to church. I've been doing this for about 4 or 5 years I guess. One of my first visits was to Marie. Her husband was in a nursing home and she lived at home alone. I'd call her on my days to visit and she would always say, "I'm not feelin too good today honey, but come on ova." I visited her, and I'd go see her husband in the nursing home from time to time before he passed away and give her a report on my visit with him. She always said she didn't feel well, but she always had plenty to say when I got there. Marie moved to the same nursing home her husband died in about a year ago, and I still went to visit her there. Mrs. Ozzy would go with me sometimes and say she could tell by the gleam in her eye that she was just another of my girlfriends.
Marie died yesterday. She was 88. She loved her husband, her church, her family, and she enjoyed teasing a kid half her age about his different styles of facial hair.

My Badge

I don't have a good reputation keeping up with my corporate badge. My wife knows I can't keep up with it, the security guards in my building know me on a first name basis because I can't keep up with it, and I don't do anything about it. Some people have those spring loaded things that attach them to their belt, I just carry mine in my shirt pocket. No clip, no pocket protector, just a thin badge. I guess having it attached to me would symbolize that I am attached to corporate America. I don't want that.
So, this afternoon I get up from my chair and instinctively pull out my badge from my front pocket. The phone rings. I reach did answer the phone and as if in slow motion, my badge falls into my chair. I tried to retrieve it for 10 minutes, turning it upside down, banging it on the floor, reaching my hand into it. Nothing worked. Through the commotion, my office neighbor comes by and I tell her my story. She doesn't believe me. So, we take the chair to an interior door across the hall and lift it up to the badge reader. It beeps and turns green. She busts out laughing and I go downstairs to confess to security.
While I am out she decides to have a little fun and tells one of our gullible friends that she has discovered that this certain chair is magnatized in such a way as it opens a door just like a badge. They roll my chair to the door and lift it to the card reader. Beep. The friend is amazed. She wants to try another chair. They do. No beep. Then another. No beep. Now my neighbor can't control her laughter.

Sex Does Sell...even for VBS

We sit down in church Sunday, and there is a flyer about upcoming events laying on the pew. The clipart at the top of the page catches my eye and I say to Mrs. Ozzy, "If all of the young moms are going to wear skirts like that, I'm won't miss Vacation Bible School." She then called me a pervert. Right in chuch. Check the clipart out here.