Stupid Fat Hobbit

Mrs. Hobbit was gracious enough to give me most of the day Sunday (Mass was Saturday night) to work on a pet project of mine. I love making wooden pens and I have all of the tools necessary in the garage to make them. Unfortunately, I’ve not had enough time recently to do any work at all. About 4 weeks before Debbie returned, I ordered some Olive wood from Jerusalem so that I could make a couple of gifts before I left for Texas. I wound up making 5 pens and 1 pencil (One was a pen/pencil set made out of Purple Heart wood, it is beautiful). Debbie wanted one as a gift for a friend back in Pakistan (I forgot to take a picture of it), I gave one to the Principal at our school and I plan to donate the others to the church/school auction which happens in May.

Then, Monday night (really it was Tuesday morning) it started snowing hard enough here that all of the schools in the local area shut down. Since I work (ahem) at a school, I didn’t have to go to work so I decided to make some gifts for my best good friends. They haven’t seen them yet so I’m not going to post any pictures today (which is also a snow day). I’ll take some though so that after I’ve delivered them, I can post pictures on another boring post about making pens.

As a side note, if there are any men reading this post; spending the entirety of a snow day in the garage making wooden objects for friends, without stopping to clean up the house, shovel the driveway (I’m from South Louisiana, we don’t understand snow), or make the kids pick up their cold, wet clothes from the landing by the front door will land you squarely in the smallest corner of the biggest doghouse you have ever seen. Just a little tip from your uncle Hobbit 8-[

My teenaged son and I were having a heated conversation not too long ago about school, grades, and the amount of time he spends NOT being concerned with either. As a teenager, he felt it necessary to come up with some wonderful, snide retort that let me know that teenagers don’t need to discuss mundane things like education with their father’s; especially when there are still a couple of YouTube videos out there he has not yet seen. My son, summoning all of his teenage wisdom, said this: “Don’t worry dad, three more years and I’ll be out of your hair.” In the span of a microsecond, my brain said things to me like “You got that right, buddy”, “Do we really have to wait that long?”, “Smack him! Smack him, hard!”, “Try to remember, you were 15 once also.”, “It could be worse, he could be you.”, “Where DO you hide the body parts so that they can’t be found?”, “Oh come on, smack him!”. My brain is very fast, and rather caustic! Unfortunately, my mouth has been rather slow on the uptake since my “friends” at work have been reminding me that most people have a “gatekeeper” (you are more than welcome to picture me holding my hands in front of me and making the quotation marks with my fingers, if you would like) that keeps the things in their brains from making it to their lips! Whatever! So now I have a dilemma because I want my son to respect me but I also dearly want to stove in his cranium with a pan (which obviously would make it hard for him to respect me, duh). I paused a couple of seconds, exhaled deeply for dramatic effect and looked my son directly in the eyes and heard this come out of my mouth…”Son, you will never, ever be out of my hair. You may be out of my house, even in another state but I will always love you and always worry about you. And, believe it or not I don’t want you out of my hair. I might want you to be a better person but I don’t want to lose you.” Up until that point, I had never seen a teenager open their mouth to formulate a response and then close it dumbfounded (at least not without doing it on purpose to make a point). He was completely taken aback by this. He didn’t run to his desk and start doing his homework; but he didn’t lose his cool and start arguing either.

Naturally, after he walked away, I sat back and basked in the glow of what I had just accomplished. No fight, no (more) sarcastic looks or phrases, just stunned silence followed by a stroll out of the room to digest what he had just heard and try to discover if his dad really meant it or if there was a new method to sarcasm that his father was trying to impart on him. Either way, I had just gotten away with a major coup and I was very proud of myself. The back-patting machine was going full bore. Then my brain started having this little discussion inside my head that went something like this.
“That was very good, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. How did you come up with that? You’re really not that good you know.”
“Maybe, after 15 years I’m finally starting to come into my own.”
“Yeah, and Hillary’s going to be a wonderful Secretary of State. Really, where’d you get that from?”
“Can’t I have just a single moment? Leave me alone.”
“Do you think your mother had anything to do with this?”
“She’s 1800 miles away. How could she?”

You see, my brain knew something that I didn’t remember knowing and it wanted to remind me of it. I hate playing games; I am a very direct person and I would prefer my brain to treat me the same way, but I had to give you some insight, didn’t I? Eventually, I was taken back to a conversation I had with my mother several years ago. I don’t remember exactly how we got on the subject but I distinctly remember saying to her, “Aren’t you glad all your kids are grown and you can stop worrying about them?” To which my mother replied that you never stop worrying about your children. In fact, she said, if they told you the truth beforehand, you’d never have children. The truth is, once your first child is born, you will never be able to stop worrying again as long as you live.
Can you imagine? And sure enough, it was way too late to try to stuff those little buggers back where they came from! So, my brain was very satisfied with itself for stealing my glory and making me realize that I had not actually become a great father overnight as well as giving me more things to think about as my teenager (who thinks I’m an idiot) becomes a man.

Well, as the wonderful poet and theologian Carl Sagan once said, “If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” Deep, huh?

Oh, and for those of you who read the title and continued on because of it, I have something to say to you. Shame on you, go to confession now!

Like many, I watched the inauguration today with great interest. I’ve made no bones about the fact that I didn’t support Senator Obama, was not happy with his win and am not looking forward to the next four years politically. That being said, I thought his speech today was very well done. I expected the hidden/veiled attacks on the previous administration so I was not surprised nor disappointed with some of the statements made. I was impressed with several of the statements, especially those promoting the rights of all American citizens. I only hope that over the next two weeks, the term American citizen can be defined to include unborn citizens as well. During the proceedings though, I was struck by something a friend of mine said. Discussing President Bush, it was mentioned that he was too aggressive in maintaining the war on terror and that his legacy will be forever tarnished by it.

If I didn’t love this person dearly, I might have reacted quite negatively to this type of comment. When President Bush took office, his mandate from the American people was clear; we want a leader with integrity, and we want to feel secure again. Most of the policies on his plate were domestic in nature. He understood there was an immigration crisis, he knew the military needed to be revamped, he knew that big government had invaded too much of our private lives and he set out to correct those things with a 5 year initiative. Then September 11th happened and we all watched as a single man stood in a pulpit and with a single speech put the weight of this entire country on his shoulders. I have never, ever been so proud of any leader, possibly any man, before or since. Later, I watched as all of our elected representatives and congressmen stood on those steps and pledged allegiance to our flag, and sung the National Anthem and swore to get those responsible for attacking our sovereign nation.

Since then, many have stated that they didn’t realize how long and difficult this war was going to be, even though President Bush warned them that there was no end in sight and that it would possibly have no end. Others have been replaced by new politicians who claim that they never supported the war in the first place and that they never would have stood on those steps if they had been in office at the time. Finally, we have those who have just ‘changed their mind’; saying they don’t think fighting this war is the right thing to do anymore. The press has been no better. They supported the war while their ratings were up but it soon became apparent that the only way to get the ratings they wanted was to be controversial. Controversial meant attacking every move President Bush made, broadcasting troop locations and movements and then publicly questioning why things were going so badly (their definition, not the military’s and not the Commander In Chief’s).

Behind all of this, one person remained firm. One person stuck to his guns. One person was John Wayne, frightened to death but getting in that saddle anyway. One person was resolute. One person was a leader. Damned be the press, damned be his approval rating, and damned be his critics. They did not know what he knew, they did not swear an oath, they did not promise the American people, he did and he stood by that promise through thick and thin.

God bless you President Bush! I wish you peaceful days ahead with Laura and the girls. I’m two weeks behind you to Texas and good Lord willing, I hope to one day meet you in person and thank you for every single minute of all 8 years of your presidency.

Many of you may have noticed that the Hobbit has been extremely distracted as of late. Posts are erratic at best and there is a very good reason for this. The Hobbit has been working on a major change in his family’s life: his migrating west to San Antonio. I’ve had to keep it very secret, in fact we will not even announce it at work until tomorrow! Mrs. Hobbit and I have wanted to return there since we left 5 years ago and have always looked for an opening. We felt that this summer was going to be the best opportunity so I contacted my old boss at USAA to see what the positions looked like for the summer. He notified me that he actually had a position that had been open to the public for a couple of months with no qualified candidates. The problem was that the position needed to be filled quickly (long before the summer). So Mrs. Hobbit and I talked it over and decided that if I got the position, she would be able to be a single parent until the summer (hence the Flip-flop title of this post). It was still scary and awkward because we were truly taking a step on faith. She did not have a job in San Antonio and if the Air Force decided not to move her, or move her somewhere else, we would be getting introduced to the proverbial creek upon which no paddle will hold! We talked that out though and decided that even if her position would be elsewhere, the chance to get back with USAA and prepare for her ultimate retirement just couldn’t be passed. Of course, we prayed constantly for God to make this work out for us and to make it the best thing for our family. This past week, we received notice that in fact, Mrs. Hobbit will move Randolph AFB in Schertz, TX by the end of June 2009. We could not be more excited!

So, if everything goes according to the current plan, the Hobbit will be packing up the RV on February 5th and migrating to San Antonio to begin work on February 9th. I’ll live in the RV for 5 months and as soon as school gets out here in Northern Virginia, the rest of the clan will follow suit. At some point closer to June, we will purchase a house which will, hopefully, be our final resting place for 10-15 years until our complete and udder (yes, I know this is the wrong spelling, get over it) retirement in South Louisiana on the same property which my parents and siblings currently reside. Doesn’t that sound just like a Hallmark card?

There are no plans to discontinue the Hobbit blog, in fact, with the family having to read more about me than to experience me first-hand, I may have to blog more often; though Skype will once again be a very good friend to us!

So, now you have the complete tale and I hope that you all will join me in a prayer of thanksgiving and praise for answered prayers!

Stay tuned tomorrow for my first blog in the post-apocalyptic era code-named Obamanation. Only 1461 days until the next President!

I never really believed that more than three people ever read my blog and after not having posted for two weeks, I was certain that I had lost those three as well. Imagine my surprise to see how much trouble I was in at school after my last post. Several people wanted to know who the person was that I pointed to; a couple wanted to give me the ‘what-for’ for having the gumption to publish that post; and a couple more wanted to tell me, alternately, that I was a terrible or okay writer. I was floored, in fact several people were offended by the look on my face or my response because I was totally caught off guard! Oh well, just goes to show that you never know.

And just so this post is not without substance, the Hobbit learned something the other day from my best good friend Evelyn and I thought I’d pass it on to you. I was complaining about the onion smell on my fingers from slicing said onions for the wonderful, delicious, incredible chicken and sausage gumbo I made and she looked at me and said, ‘Don’t you have a metal sink?’ ‘Why yes’ I replied with the incredulous look of one who does not quite understand how we made the leap from onions to sink material. Then she told me that as you are washing your hands, you should rub them along the divider between the two sinks. Somehow, your hands, the soap and the metal combine to completely remove the smell! I have not had the opportunity to try this out yet but I am more than excited to give it a go…

Okay, normally these things don’t tend to bother me but it’s happened to me four times since we returned from Christmas Break and I’m really fed up with it. I may have mentioned before that there are 63 full-time employees at our school and 61 of them are female. The only issue we truly have is that there is one bathroom in the faculty room for all of us. There are other bathrooms around the school but since students can use these, it is generally frowned upon for teachers to use them as well (let’s not get into a child molestation conversation here, what were you thinking about!)

Anyway, many times when you get to the faculty lounge either someone is IN the bathroom or someone has just left the bathroom. As I mentioned above, it has recently occurred four times that I have entered the bathroom only to find that the previous tenant has gone ***number 2*** in there and then sprayed half a can of some fruity smelling ‘air freshener’ in the 4′ by 4′ room without a ceiling vent. Of course, I’m a guy and I could care less what the bathroom smells like when I need to go BUT, and I am serious here, my issue is when I leave the bathroom. Naturally, someone is waiting to go into the bathroom after me and who do you think they believe made that room smell like fruit flavored poop. Yesterday, I came out of the room and 3 people were lined up in the queue and when the fruitpoop hit them, they all looked at me with this incredulous look like I had just offended their entire genealogy. Well that did it, I pointed at the person who came out of the bathroom before me and I said “Don’t look at me, SHE DID IT!”

So now I’m in the doghouse with the 6 teachers that were in the faculty room (and by tomorrow, I’m sure, the other 55 females) all because I pointed out that I’m man enough to claim my own but I’m not about to take the blame for somebody else’s lack of discretion. It just goes to show that a guy cannot win in a female-dominant world.

Employee of the Month!

************************************************************************************
As a special side-note, for those of you who might be wondering where the heck I’ve been lately; a full account of my whereabouts would be entirely too humorous for a single post but suffice it to say that while in Louisiana for Christmas Break I was too ‘preoccupied’ with adult beverages to post. On the drive home, I got completely sick and was darn near bedridden for almost a week. Yes, my computer is portable, no I did not feel like walking ALL THE WAY DOWNSTAIRS to get it; it was that bad: also, there was two seasons of Boston Legal DVD’s to watch but that had NOTHING TO DO WITH ME NOT WRITING. Then, I started feeling better just in time to go back to work, yea! Finally, I had 3 days to prepare the house for the return of Mrs. Hobbit who was returning from Pakistan permanently, more yea! Unfortunately, the house was not as prepared as Mrs. Hobbit thought it should have been so I’ve been laying low (meaning I have gone nowhere near the computer which is seen as ‘goofing off’; no, I don’t know why) so that I do not offend her while she was cleaning up. This brings us up to yesterday in which I balanced the checkbook in Quicken and performed the website maintenance tasks that I get paid to do. Today, I’ve felt a little safer and decided I could risk a post. Shut up June!