Author: Chris Souther

Chris joined the Air Force out of high school. After four years of supporting communications for the Department of Defense, the White House, and stations around the world, he left the military and moved to Atlanta. For the next six years, Chris continued working in the telecom field, eventually traveling around the country teaching companies like MCI, Nortel Networks, and Cabletron, how to do what he did.

When the dot.com crash happened, upon recommendation from his wife, Chris re-enrolled in school and earned his B.S. in Communications (PR & Marketing).

Since then, he was worked in network security, healthcare, banking and finance (and FinTech), general high tech (AI/ML, Cloud, IoT), and most recently, application development fields. Now, with more than 15 years of both Marketing and Communications under his belt, he helps organizations grow their business through the proper application of marketing, communications, and content.

And he blogs on the side. It keeps him sane.

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A Boy's Life Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Marriage

Phy-sychiatrist phriday

image Sorry, I couldn’t find any compelling pictures to support “Picture Phone Phriday” so we’re trying something new today, and probably today only!

But folks, I need your help. We…need your help. See, I have a friend, let’s call her Mary. Mary and I have known each other since 6th grade, when I moved from the relative high-society of Mobile, AL. out to a po-dunk part of town called Semmes, AL. Of course, this meant changing schools and being a 6th grader meant I was the new boy at the bottom of the heap, since the school started at 6th and went up to 8th. As such, I got picked on…a lot. Which might explain my drive to exercise today, but wait! Phy-sychiatrist Phriday isn’t about me!

Anyway, Mary and I became sort of unspoken friends, and for a couple of years there, we alternated between liking each other and completely ignoring each other. For some reason though, the stars never aligned and we never hooked up. But we have remained good friends to this day. She is one of the only people from my childhood that I still keep up with, with any kind of regularity. She even lurks around here and on the very rare occasion, will leave a comment.

I hope she doesn’t mind, but she needs our help and I’m going to plug into the P&P brain-trust and see if we can help her out.

Here’s the deal:

Mary is currently single, and has a son nearly the exact same age (and with the same name) as MLI. It was a strange coincidence to be sure. She’s been married once and, let’s just say, it was kinda weird and that we’re glad she got out of it. She’s been dating a guy now for a while. He has kids of his own and from what little I know, his previous marriage wasn’t all that great either.

Mary is a traditional kinda girl. Meaning, she likes a commitment. She wants to be married. She wants the “dream.” Is that so wrong? Well, it apparently is for her current boyfriend, who claims one minute that he doesn’t want to get married again, while another minute saying, “Give it time, when it’s right, we’ll know,” to yet another time telling her that he loves her deeply and needs her and all that good stuff.

Mary is stuck. She really likes the guy (loves even I would say), but she has a son and a life, and dare I say, parents that she doesn’t want to let down. She wants to be married, but at what cost?

So, she recently asked me, “So do you think I’ve fallen for another man who says he loves me but has no intention of every marrying again?”

Now, you can probably guess what I told her, but I’m going to refrain from posting it so that I don’t skew your comments any. But, I pose her question to you. What do you think?

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Society

Do you see that you’re wasting my time?

image I sit at a computer all day and work. That’s my job. Sometimes I think that maybe it would be fun to be outdoors working, but then I have to dig a 10-ft drain line in the back of my house and I realize what a crap-job that must be, day in and day out, and then I’m grateful that I can work on my butt, in climate control 365 a year.

Lately, I’ve been getting little headaches while working. This happened a few years ago, which prompted my first set of eyeglasses. The prescription is really minor, but it helps immensely. Thinking perhaps it was time for a checkup, I made an appointment with my eye doctor.

I walked in one afternoon last week and strolled up to the front desk. There was a lady sitting there who gave me the vaguest of glances and went back to what she was doing. No stranger to this “appointment” process, I signed my name and went and sat down, assuming that someone would call me to come fill out some paperwork.

There were a few other people waiting and in a few minutes a very young girl came out to wait with them, and then was taken back again to have her eyes dilated.

Still I waited.

After about ten minutes, a lady walked in the front door. I knew her from a place called “Massage Envy.” Last Christmas (2007), CareerMom signed me up for a “Massage a Month” with this place. What you do is, join their little service thingy, and for $50 per month, you get a massage. It’s still expensive, but when you consider a massage elsewhere runs $65-$80, it’s not so bad. Anyway, I had several problems with appointments there; the last being that I had walked in–much as I’d done here at the eye doctor–signed in and then sat there for 25 minutes before finally asking, “Hey, where’s my masseuse?” Turns out, they’d just forgotten I was sitting there, which was funny considering they could all see me. They tried to get me to come on back, but I made up some story about how they’d completely fu-barred up my schedule and how I didn’t have time now! It was the point of the thing by then see.

So yeah, I showed my ass a little that day.

Anyway, the lady working the massage place that day, was the one who had just walked into my eye doctor’s office. She signed in and within minutes was taken back, helped, and sent on her way.

After about 25 minutes, I finally got up and walked to the front desk and asked, “How far behind are we running today?” This brought a questioning glance from another lady who asked if I’d signed in. I picked up the sign in sheet, pointed to my name, which by the way, was the last one on the sheet, and said, “Yep. Says so right here.”

Turns out, they too had “forgotten” I was sitting there.

So yeah, I showed my ass a little that day…too.

But I tell ya what, the next time this lady from the massage place shows up ANYWHERE else that I’m at, I’m leaving immediately because her being there at the same time can only mean that I’m about waste at least 20 minutes of my life.

Should I be more assertive? HA HA HA HA!

By the way, I did need new glasses. So, here’s to aging!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Life in these United States Marriage

Picture Phone Phriday!

01-13-09_0806 MLI brought this little booklet home from pre-K, and I swear, every time I see it, I chuckle a little on the inside.

Yes, I’m 35.

No, I’m not completely a grown up yet.

Clearly, I’ve looked at been exposed to too much online porn!

And since I used “online porn” in this post, it is surely to be my highest viewed one to date.

That’s kinda sad.

Categories
Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Life in these United States Marriage

More riveting “parental” stuff

There are many things, parentally, I find distasteful. For instance, the disposal of the past week’s Diaper Genie collection, yuck! Finding three-day-old milk bottles under the couch and trying not to gag while cleaning it…the worst! I mean, there are just some things about parenting that are not pretty.

And then there are things about parenting that probably don’t bother most people, but which bother a very small segment of the population. For me, it’s bathtime. In the beginning, I’ll admit that it was cute watching the boys together in the bathtub. They splashed. They laughed. They played together. It was fun. But that got old after like, a week. Now the two fight over who gets to sit in the front of the tub where all the hot water is. They argue over the few meager bath toys that we can find that, when you remove them from the tub, don’t drip water for the next ten hours. And of course, there is the “Hey, I’m naked and I have this thing between my legs!”

I’m sure I need not elaborate.

Suffice it to say that in any given week, if I can cajole CareerMom into giving the boys a bath, I will happily clean the dishes, feed the dog, paint the house…whatever…as long as I don’t have to give the boys a bath. But of course, this is not always feasible, so at least twice a week, I do it.

Over the years, we have tried out a number of bath toys in an effort to get them to stay in the tub, thereby using up precious evening time. Time that we don’t have to spend trying to find something else to keep them occupied with. So we’ve bought pirate ships and boats, floating Thomas the Tank Engine trains and duckies. Heck, I’ve even dumped in the boys’ Transformers.

For some reason though, CareerMom keeps buying Bath Paints. If you’re not familiar with them, they look like this:

image

So, the kids sit in the bath and they squeeze this paint out and I guess it supposedly helps them creatively.

Whatever…

What I’ve found instead, is that the kids, rather than using the paint sparingly to create their own personal Renoir; instead, they squeeze out huge, oozing gobs of it that run over the side of the tub, down the tub wall, and spread out across my white tile floor.

Oh and it stains the grout. Yeah, it’s great like that.

CareerMom purchases these things about once every 6 months and each time, it plays out the same way:

Scenario:

La dee dah, the boys are in the tub.
“Daddy, can you get the bath paints?”

“Yes,” I say, “But now you know the rules. Make sure it doesn’t run down the outside of the tub. Keep the paint INSIDE OK?”

“OK,” they agree; their eyes lighting up as I open each bottle of paint just enough for their little hands to squeeze out a tiny dollup.

Meanwhile, I get involved in something else in one of their rooms.

“You boys OK in there?” I ask from the other room.

“Yes!” they holler.

I fiddle some more; perhaps checking the weather on the computer. Finally, after a while I drift back into the bathroom and (insert music from the bathtub scene from “The Shining”) ARK ARK ARK — There is paint everywhere! It’s in huge puddles on the edge of the tub and it’s running down the sides and it’s (GASP!) on the tile and in the grout!

Now, onlookers will tell me that at this point, I lose it. I’m not sure what happens really…it’s all a little fuzzy. But what I do know is that by the time the red haze in my eyes has disappeared and I can think straight again, the bathroom sink is full of bubbly paint colors and empty paint bottles from where I’ve poured them all down the drain. Both boys are sitting in the tub, their little spiked hair punctuating the shell-shocked look of panic on their face as they cringe away from my gaze. And I’m panting like I’ve just run a mini-marathon. My heartrate is spiking and I have a sudden desire to join the World Kickboxing Federation and beat the ever-loving crap out of some punk just to say I can!

Oh, I might also mutter, louder than necessary for anyone who “might” be listening, “I don’t know why your mother keeps buying this stuff! It’s the same thing each time! You boys cannot play with this without making a huge mess.”

After some time, and some deep, cleansing breaths, I realize how crazy I’ve acted and I recall how, after my Adopted Mom walked out on our family a mere two years after adopting my brother and me, and after my dad remarried, that I was playing outside one day and got all muddy. Now, this wasn’t something a child was supposed to do according to my Adopted Mom. Her idea of a child was one that stayed perfectly clothed and clean throughout the day on the off chance that the Mother of the Year Foundation happened to drop by to see what kind of a job she was doing.

Getting dirty was liable to get a pointy nailed finger down your throat (don’t ask!). Anyway, I remember how, upon realizing how filthy I was, I pulled a Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” and made up this crazy lie about tripping in some muddy water. Then I stumbled into the house sobbing hysterically and sought out my step-mother so I could try and ameliorate any repercussions with a preemptive storyline. And I remember how, after seeing me and seeing how distraught I was, she calmly proclaimed, “Sweetie, kids are supposed to get dirty and make messes. This is what you do. Now go get cleaned up.” And with that, she gave me a big hug and sent me on my way. God bless her!

I try to remember this with my kids, even as the Adopted Mom part of me wants to flip out and do unspeakable things. Most of the time, I’m successful, except when the mess is semi-permanent and costs me money (and time) to fix. So yet again, another $4 in bath toys, literally down the drain.

Now, I know I can’t be alone in this. Anyone else have an irrational reaction to a perfectly rational kid-activity?