Cafe Leone

Hello, as I am sure you all know, I am Donato Leone Jr. I am here to say a few words about my father, Donato Leone Sr. I am not going to talk about how cute my father’s accent was or how disappointed he was with me when he learned I was a lefty. I promise I wont embarrass him by not mentioning that he was so resourceful that he would cut some scrap pieces of rug into the shape of a foot and stick it in his boot for extra cushioning when his boots would start to break down. I do not have stories about the day he bought me a bike in the second grade, my best Christmas ever in the fourth grade or even the first, and last time, he brought me fishing in the fifth grade. That is not how I remember my dad. Please allow me just five minutes of your time to share just a few words with you.

Today, I smile

Today, I smile because today he is free. He is free from the relentlessly-tightening grip of the shackles that bound him. He is free from the ever-increasing weight of those chains handed to him just 13 short months ago….a million yesterdays ago.

Today, I smile because he no longer struggles for each precious breath. He no longer marches, unwillingly to the merciless drumbeat of ALS.

Today, I smile because I know my father…Dona, Papa, has left us in peace, with his dignity intact and surrounded by those who love him.

Today I smile because we can now go on to the business of remembering the good moments and forgetting about the horrors of the last 13 months.

I want to share with you just one such moment:
I watched him get out of the car as I watched him do it a million times before. The small window on the second floor was one of the few windows overlooking the driveway. I watched the door open on the green Pontiac Tempest slowly open. Even more slowly, my dad would swing his legs out and there he remained. His hands resting on both his knees. Staring ahead of him; staring beyond the house just a few feet away. Staring beyond Brighton. Perhaps he was looking back in time; back to a time that was both easier and more difficult. Here, in America, he had an opportunity, a future, a chance to create the life that he dreamed. He also had his beautiful bride. In Italy, he had everything else. His connections to his past, his family, his support system, his language and his culture.

The view of the top of his head never changed over the years, except for the graying and the receding. His hair was made even grayer by the ever-present cement dust he brought home from the construction sites; the only remnant of his job that he brought home with him. I remember he could be patted like a dirty pillow and dust would envelope him; never diminishing no matter how many times you hit. It was like the dust was coming from inside him.

I would see my dad lift himself with a single groan; using his hands to unbend his knees. The years passed and that pause would get longer and the groan a little louder. You would think the first stop would be the kitchen table for dinner. But not with my dad. He would immediately go into the basement where he had the courtesy to install a shower a few years before. That way, he could wash off the residue of the construction site. When he came up, he almost always wore a clean pair of Dickies and a sleeveless tanktop tshirt. He still had dust on his body, but this time it was the clean smell of baby powder. There is no way to forget that smell because he wore it every day of his life. It was the smell of clean…talc dust replacing cement dust.

That is how I remember my father. He was not a friend; he was a father. He was a father who got up at 4AM everyday; drank instant coffee, went to work building walls, came home exhausted, ignored blackened fingernails wrapped in electrical tape, watched candlepin bowling and fell asleep at the kithen table. Little did he know that with those same calloused hands that he used to lay bricks, he was also paving the way for his family to live an easier life in America.

When I would check in on my dad over the last 13 months, and ask the stupidest question ever: “How are you today, Papa?”, he would look at me, smile and give me the thumps up. This never changed until a couple of weeks ago, when the disease made it impossible to move his muscles into a smile or even lift his thumb.

So today I smile…because I know you would have. Today, I smile because I have no choice.

Donato Leone Sr…I miss you already.

my father | 34 Comments »

My father, Donato Leone, passed away at 9:45 this morning. He was surrounded by those who love him. There is no way I can say he died peacefully, but his death certainly brought peace and ended his struggle. He remains my hero but he now shares that spot with my mother. 13 months ago, she promised him that he would die at home, under her care, with his dignity intact. Today, as the hearse pulled out of our driveway, my mother composed herself and said: “I did what I promised, Donato. I am so proud of myself.”

my father | 24 Comments »

My dad wrote this last week. He wrote it while he was having his coffee and my mom thought he was reading the paper. His hands are slowly becoming paralyzed and he usually communicates now by pointing to letters on a letter board. Somehow he found the strength to write this.

It is very awkward for me to see these words. In my mind, my dad is not one to speak in metaphors. He is a very cut-and-dry, matter-of-fact kind of man. Additionally, he only has a 6th grade education!

But, as he has proven to me a million times in the past, being smart has little to do with education. Quite literally, he is the smartest man I know.

This letter is barely legible. Below is a poor transcription and an even poorer translation. If anyone knows Italian and wants to take a stab at translating this, feel free to email me your thoughts.

Transcription:

Nel 1990, sono stato condonnato, io sono appellata la causa e con un avacato dottore e un by-pass, io vinta la causa. Sono rimasto libero per 17 anni. Facevo quello che volevo. La famiglia ogni tanto me regalavano un nipotino, ma quanto e stato 2007 sono e stato condonnato a morte, senza la possibilita di appellare. Solo invece di andare in carsere me anno mesoo arresto de mi domiciliare. La guardia de la carcere e una molto buona. Certe volte mi fa rispettari la legge. Essa prepare da mangiare e buona. Solo che quanto io lo mangio tutto si riduce a polenta. Non posso uscire di casa, mi e stata ritrata la licenza, non posso communicare de con nessuno ni meno con il miei 5 nipotine, cosi o raccamandato a la guardia de la carsere che lo dicesse essa al 5 nipotine che io voglio bene e sieta per me il piu bel regalo.

Translation:

In 1990, I was sentenced. I appealed the case and with a lawyer/doctor and bypass surgery. I won the case. I was free for 17 years. I was able to do what I wanted. The family occasionally gifted me with a grandchild. But in 2007, I was sentenced to death without the possibility of appeal. Only instead of being put in jail, I was confined to my home. The prison guard is very good. At times, she made me respect the law. She prepares meals and they are good. But everything I eat is reduced to [the consistency of] polenta. I cannot leave the house because they took away my license. I cannot communicate with anyone, not even my 5 grandchildren. With that, I told my prison guard to tell my 5 grandchildren that I love them and that, for me, they are the most beautiful gift ever.

I remember when I found out about my father’s condition. It was October of last year. He was beginning to slur some of his words and he felt not quite right. We all assumed he suffered some sort of mini-stroke and that he would either recover from it completely or that we would have to get used to his weaker tongue.

I was at the doctor’s office, taking care of my own medical issues. At the time, these issues seemed like most important thing in the universe. As I was waiting in line for the receptionist, I received a text message from my wife. It simply said: “What is ALS?” I nearly collapsed in the line. I got dizzy and my heart raced. I knew precisely what this was in reference to. By the time the receptionist was ready for me, I had tears in my eyes. She never looked up at me.

As I was not able to drive at the time due to my condition, I had to call for my ride. I waited across the street from the hospital at a Starbucks. I sipped an espresso as I stared numbly out the window and reflected that life as we all knew, would never be the same.

ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), or Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a relentless, horrible disease. There are no “good days.” Each one is worse than the other. Each day, I am still shocked at how my dad’s condition progresses. We do not lie to ourselves. Even though this man no longer looks like the father I once knew, this disease is not finished yet, he will only get worse. This disease is very linear. It is a steady slope downwards. There are no remissions and, yes Papa, there is no chance to appeal.

my father | 14 Comments »

I took my dad to the Charles River. We talk a brief walk on the path and paused to look out at the water, rowers and random children feeding the ducks.

We didn’t say a word except when we were talking about a home repair that my brother-in-law was nice enough to take on. That is when he wrote me a note and said in Italian “that is what I always wanted to do with you.” A painful reminder of unfinished business.

At some point, he saw me checking emails on my cellphone and he began laughing. I knew he was reflecting on how far away his life was from cellphones and emails. He then pointed to himself and gave himself the thumbs down; a far-too-familiar hand signal that he is not well.

my father | 15 Comments »

The hospice nurse asked my dad whether he was afraid to die and this is what he wrote:

“Adis, when I was well, death was all I thought about and it made me scared. Now, you see my condition; I don’t speak, I can’t eat or drink, I can’t walk and all the other things I can’t do. To me, death is the best solution.”

my father | 13 Comments »

You died and you rotted. There was no reason to call an ambulance. An ambulance is for the living. Dead people get wrapped in a glad bag and unceremoniously thrown into a van. But the police on scene knew that my partner and I were rookies and perhaps would be interested in something different than the usual; pick up the homeless guy off the streets, take him to the hospital then pick him up again the next day. We pulled up to the three-family house in Southie. Police and medical examiner already on-scene. We started to walk up the stairs and each step brought us closer to the smell you left behind. My partner was the first to gag. I was quite proud that I was able to hold off. Early on, EMTs learn to breath through their mouths, but when we did that today your putrefaction blanketed our taste buds. We literally tasted death.

We entered your room. The first thing I noticed was that your TV was still on; tuned to The Price is Right. I saw the drug paraphernalia, such as spoons, candles, crystalline substances, pipes and other stuff I never saw before.

My eyes went over to your body.

Your bloated head was the size of a beachball. As a body decomposes, the skin, whose job in life was too keep the bad stuff out was now serving as a container for the by products of decomposition. As bacteria breaks down the body, it produces the equivalent of a fart; billions of farts. This fills the body like it was some cartoon character balloon at a 4th of July parade. Your naked torso showed the violaceous, tell-tale sign of “really dead”, called the line of lividity.

The bloating did not shock me. It was the surreality of seeing the casual, almost peacefully normal position your body was in at the precise moment that your life ended. Your hands were behind your head in a self-satisfied, head-propping manner perhaps to better see the TV at the foot of your bed. Your bloated face contorted your mouth unnaturally agape, which almost made it look like you were smiling. Your feet crossed at the ankles were now rigid with death.You could not have known that your final breath, final heartbeat was pending. You would have fought; you would have flailed; you would have fallen out of the bed. But you looked perfectly content.

You even had a picture of a woman on your nightstand. Will be police be calling her to tell her of your fate? Will she weep for you? Will she be surprised? Who was she? At that moment, that was all I wanted to know. Who the hell was this woman?

My stomach held it together up until this point. But then, I looked more closely at your face. I noticed your skin undulate as if a balloon was filled with jello. Then I saw what made my knees weak; the maggots crawling out of your nose and mouth. One of these maggots crawled out through the corner of your mouth. This made me involuntarily itch the corner of my own face as I imagined how it would feel. I then realized your “human-ness” was no more. You became food for microorganisms and a condominium for insect larvae.

I ran to your bathroom to throw up. The veteran officers on-scene laughed at me. I continued to wretch as I made it out to the ambulance. Your smell permeated the polyester threads of my uniform. They say that you never forget the smell of rotting flesh. I say that smell has never left my nostrils.

Since that moment, I have seen many bodies in various stages of life and death. But, I will never forget the day I understood that death was final.

writing | 12 Comments »

As my father battles Lou Gehrig’s disease, I have come to the painful realization that this disease is moving faster than we are. The other night, I came home to find my cousin in the driveway with my mom. He had an electric lawnmower and was actually showing my mom how to mow the front lawn. Luckily, we do not have a large yard and it is not particularly well-groomed anyways. But, this was ALWAYS my father’s job. As I type this, I realize that there were a few years during my teen years, where it was my job. But certainly in the last 20 years, I have never mowed the lawn.

I also just realized that my father was using the same gas mower that we have always had! This thing is a relic and if my memory serves me correctly, never really worked all that well to begin with. Apparently, last week, my dad attempted, stupidly, to mow the lawn despite his condition. Well, he fell down a couple of times trying to pull-start the engine.

Since those falls, my mom suggested that she be the one to do this chore (no one consulted me with this decision, of course). My cousin had an electric mower and brought it over and instructed my mom in the finer points of lawn care.

Imagine my surprise pulling into my driveway and seeing my mom, with her arthritic knees, dragging the machine around in curvy attempts at straight lines and trying not to run over the cord. I saw my dad, supervising the lesson, clearly laughing on the inside at the thought of an electric lawnmower. As far as my dad was concerned, each blade of grass was made of titanium requiring mega-horsepower and a wake of burning oil billowing behind him.

But, that moment, coupled with an ever-increasing number of moments, stabs me in the heart with the realization that our lives are changing and we are slowly accommodating. The status quo is no longer. At 78, my father can no longer mow the lawn. He cannot make it into the basement to HIS tool bench that at most I have been allowed to borrow from his collection of 15 hammers. He did not help me install the AC in his dining room yesterday and when I needed a saw to cut a strip of wood and I could not find one. I asked him and he wrote down precisely where 7 of his rusty old saws were hanging. His role has changed in just a few short months from the man who could build shelves using scraps of wood; no shelf matching the one above it and no 90 degree angels to be found anywhere. The man who nurtured each tomato to perfect ripeness, no longer notices the weeds have overtaken the garden and we can no longer determine where the basil lives.

As we all watched and laughed at the bittersweet image of my mom mowing the lawn, while my father relinquished control for the first time in his life, I stopped smiling and began to cry.

my father | 22 Comments »

My good blog buddy and friend, Terri at http://territerri.wordpress.com/ has done something that I wonder if I could do. Due to a serious condition, Terri’s father needed a new kidney in order to remain healthy. After numerous and grueling medical exams, it was determined that she was a good match to donate her kidney.

Yesterday, she underwent her surgery and though we still don’t know the status of her and her dad’s condition, she did leave us a post for today.

Please stop by http://territerri.wordpress.com/ and wish her well. She totally can use the addition of the two extra hits from my site.

Terri is one of the sweetest souls on the internet tubes. We are so lucky to read her words. She shares her spiritual struggles as well as the day to day challenges of being a working mom and wife. Every word of hers bleeds sincerity, sweetness (I bet she doesn’t like that fact) and depth. I have stalked followed her for a couple of years and feel intimately vested in her journey.

When many of us would not even have shown up on game day, Terri has stepped up to the plate, and leaned in, and hit one out of the ball park.

I love you Terri and wish you and your family the best of health.

blogging, blogs way better than mine | 3 Comments »

A skill I have mastered over a few years of erratic blogging is to write about not writing. Whenever, I feel like I should be writing my “book” or feel guilty that I am abandoning BoMR (Both of My Readers), I simply start a post about not writing. Then go into painful details about how am really good at thinking about writing, preparing to write, buy really cool writing-related toys, sitting down and not writing.

This post is no different. It is a post about not writing.

I have put down my book recently (did you notice “T”, that I didn’t put quotes around that word this time?). I feel justified in doing so. With all the various stresses in my life and the fact that my dad is a very sick man, I felt that I could not commit myself to write a novel about a man who loses his father. It was simply too painful for me to deal with.

The book hits too close to home.

Over the last few months, I have been doing a lot of procrastinating, more like avoiding my blog and my book. I have poked around and wasted a ton of time on Plurk (that won’t stop!) and found the act of writing greater than 140 characters to be simply more than I can handle at this time in my life.

But, recent events, have made me revisit my book and the story I am hoping to convey. I hope to go into those reasons as soon as I can wrap my head around them.

In the meantime, just know that I will try to update more often and hopefully regain some of my readership that have since jumped ship due to utter boredom.

My words may range from the utter mundane (my kid picked his nose type stuff) to painfully maudlin to sincere expression of the anguish I have been feeling recently.

Whatever the case, look for more of me on your blogs and I hope you will find mine again.

Thank you!

blogging, writing | 13 Comments »

I’ve got no words for this picture…but HOLY CRAP!

Baby Goats | 12 Comments »

As both of you know, I am an atheist. As both of you know, my dad is dying with Lou Gehrig’s disease. As both of you know, this has become a source of unbearable stress on the entire Leone clan. We are all dealing with it as a family, but in our own way.

A conversation I got into recently (actually an amalgamation of a few conversations I have had recently) boiled down essentially to some variation of this statement: If you believe in God, and therefore heaven, then at least you can find comfort in knowing that you and your dad will be together again some day. In the meantime, you could be happy knowing that your father will be with God in heaven. Don’t you want that for him?

It is important to note that I don’t believe in god in the same way I don’t believe in Santa Claus. I may want so badly to believe that a jolly fat man will land on my roof every year and provide me with a Hot Wheel loop-the-loop track. But wanting it does not make it happen. Desire does not validate . I can drop to my knees, pray to any one of the gods, look to the heavens, speak in tongues, belt out hymns in a church, drink chicken blood and absolutely none of that will make Santa drop down my even more non-existent chimney.

What keeps me up at night; what makes me cry at the drop of a hat; what worries me; what stresses me out and what can grab hold of me and punch me in my face is not that my father is going to die. Death is a part of life. What gets me mad, is that my dad will suffer. He is suffering. His body, his spirit and his dignity are slowly slipping away from him as this fucking disease chips away at each nerve ending. He is reduced to writing his words on paper; he needs to excuse himself from the table as he has to clear the food from his cheeks with his finger; the disease makes him laugh and cry uncontrollably and often at the exact same time; his sense of balance is compromised; he cannot cough efficiently and his swallow muscles are quickly becoming paralyzed.

When he goes, I will miss him. I will weep for him. I will find constant reminders in my day to day life of him. I will celebrate his life and mourn his death. But, as when anyone dies, there is no “other side” to look forward to. My dad’s soul will not rise into the clouds or sink into the ground. When he is gone, he is gone except for his memory. I do not look forward to or think about a day when I will join him. I only look forward to the day he is free from this unbearable suffering. The day after he dies, I will leave up to nature.

My opinion until I change it. Thank you for allowing me to express it.

atheism, my father | 19 Comments »

I no longer have the courage to look in my father’s eyes.

my father | 15 Comments »

My Almost 11 year old son just came up to me and said:

Dad, I will throw mithril darts to trap rabbits to increase my summoning level so I can summon Kebbits to be able to draw out Abbyssyel Demons to train my slayer and get 1.2 mill GP Abbyssyel whips.

I then went blink…blink, blink. I had him slow down and help me with the spelling as I typed it into a post.

What do I do with this?

Technorati Tags: english please, baby goats, video games

Baby Goats, funny | 11 Comments »

When I was growing up, we made frequent trips to my father’s village in Italy. At the time, in the 70’s and 80’s, there was a lot of fascination with all things American (presumably that has diminished somewhat with George Bush). We saw many instances, even in the small village, of America’s influence. American music played on jukeboxes in bars and cafes while American television played in everyone’s homes (dubbed in Italian…imagine The Cosby Show in Italian!).

The other thing we noticed was the fascination with American fashions. Kids were scrambling to be seen with Nikes or Levis. The funniest thing is that we saw many T-Shirts with English words on them. These words or phrases never really meant anything, but I think the kids were happy to just show some sign of Americanism.

I don’t remember any of the specific words, but they always had a common theme of sport, fashion, speed and movement. They went something like this:

Club Sport
Super Play
Queen Princess

Well, on Monday, my cousin, his wife and their 13 year old daughter arrived from Italy. They are visiting my parents for three weeks. It turns out that this is a bittersweet visit as it is clear they are here to see my dad as he battles ALS.

When the plane landed, we waited anxiously as they survived customs. When they emerged, I saw my cousin first, then his wife. Taking up the rear, was their daughter. She was wearing one of “those” T-Shirts. As she paraded through the gauntlet of waiting families, we all stood, jaws agape, at what was emblazoned on her chest:

…with a picture of two cherries. Did I mention that she is 13!? I have no idea whether to tell them that there is a double meaning with this because I actually believe they know that there is a different way to take it. I wanted to take her to my son’s basebal

funny | 9 Comments »

I raced home from work tonight. It just might be the first night where I don’t have to drive someone to baseball practice or karate or the myriad other events that normally dot our evening.

Work has been leaving me numb lately and it is all I can do to work less than a 10 hour day. Too many projects, deadlines and fires to put out. You have all heard me whine about that ad nauseum.

The only thing on my mind on the drive home was a bottle of MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir sitting in my cellar with my name on it. I could even picture on which shelf it was sitting. I knew exactly where I wanted to enjoy this wine; outside on the picnic table, under the grape arbor. This just might be my favorite place on Earth. Despite living in the city, with buses passing the front of my house every 12 minutes, under this arbor and I am instantly transported to the little village my dad comes from in Italy.

I didn’t even go into my house. I just went into the wine cellar and pulled out my wine. I brought it out to the picnic table and called my father to join me.

As you know, my father is battling Lou Gehrig’s disease. He can no longer speak except in a very thick, gravelly voice filled with mostly grunts and lots of guessing by his family. Even the shadow he casts has changed as this horrible disease takes over his once powerful body.

I told him to bring down a glass for himself and to join me. He came out with a plastic cup and I laughed. I poured him a glass and he eyeballed the 18.99 sticker still on the bottle. He smiled at me while at the same time shrugging his shoulders signaling his disbelief that a wine can cost so much.

Because of his disease, when my father drinks thin liquids, like wine, we have to be prepared for the reality that the liquid will move faster than his mouth can process it and he may sputter. This is a cause of enormous embarrassment for him and stress for us as we hold our breath.

I was busy swirling and sniffing while he dumped the wine into his mouth ungraciously. I saw him shut his eyes as I assumed he was merely trying to work his swallow muscles. But when he finally did swallow, his face turned to a grimace. He shook his head as if he just drank some vinegar and we laughed.

Here was a man who spent his whole life drinking only his homemade wine. He is no longer able to make it himself and I have begun stocking the cantina with bottles I purchased. Every single wine I have shared with him, caused the same reaction.

Once he got over the initial taste of the wine, we sat there, under the arbor with fresh shoots that will grow so thickly this summer that it will keep us dry when it rains. We were together, without saying a word, sipping the wine. I was no longer looking for those damned “cherries, spice and hints of vanilla” that the wine-maker tried to convince me were in there. Now, it was simply about being together; father and son, with never much to say to each other even when he had his voice. But the silence, the wine, the picnic table, the beautiful spring weather and the good company all combined to make my stresses slip away; even if for just a brief moment in time.

As the sun popped behind the thickening clouds, my father stood up and looked at the grape vines and held a fresh shoot in his hands. He tapped me on the shoulder and began speaking as if he had something very important to say. I could not honestly say that I understood everything but it was extremely clear to me that he was telling me how to prune the vines in the fall. I looked at him in the eye and told him that I am such a city boy that he will need to show me again in the fall. He smiled and lifted his hand and gave me a thumbs down.

my father, wine | 16 Comments »

(click on image to enlarge)

I know it is a little rough around the edges; most of what my dad builds is. Collecting wine, is quickly becoming an obsession. The room you see in the picture is actually part of the cantina that my dad built over 30 years ago. It was one of the first things he did when he bought this house.

This cantina would house no less than 25 gallons of homemade wine every year. As you know, last year my father was diagnosed with ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease and has since stopped making wine. He lives upstairs from me and we cannot escape the gradual decline of his health. This collection is just one way that I have come up with to help me deal with the stresses in my life. My dad is an amazing man I honestly am not handling his disease well at all. I feel like I can fall apart at a moment’s notice. Luckily, I have my baby goats to remind me that I cannot shut down and crawl into a hole.

I confiscated a few shelves and have amassed a small collection of about 70 bottles. I am still in a very academic and discovery phase. I read other’s blogs religiously and devour their reviews. I then text message the wines to myself so that I have a mini-wishlist going at all times. I read about different varietals and wine-growing regions. I allow myself to be guided by what I am “supposed” to like first and then what I actually like as my taste buds develop.

I would be honored if you take a look at my collection, my hobby du jour. You can view a reasonably updated inventory by visiting my profile here on CellarTracker.

Let me know what some of your favorite wines are. I would love to hear your recommendations.

I have always considered blogging to be a very self-indulgent exercise and my recent pity party is proof of that. But I have also realized that my blogging world is as much about my relationships, very real and vital relationships that I have developed with all of you. When I wasn’t writing, many of you would still take the time to shoot me a brief email making sure all was well. I cannot begin to tell you how important that has been for me.

I think I am back on track. I have some real ideas for blog posts and I am aching to read your words again. Thanks to all of you, my dear friends.

Dan

my father, wine | 10 Comments »

Do they REALLY make “cans of worms?”

I can only assume that these would be used for fishing but how long do worms live in a can? So, if I fished, and I walked into my local Fishing-R-Us, could I buy a can of worms? Are there different price ranges for different quality of worm? What makes one type of worm better than another?

imponderable, uncategorized | 3 Comments »

Need I say more?

uncategorized | 2 Comments »

You may not have noticed, but I haven’t been “around” the internets for a while; I certainly haven’t been blogging about it. Other than a few random tweets on Twitter (I would be honored if you would follow me here), there really hasn’t been much happening to the Virtual Dan.

You see, the 3D Dan has usurped time and energy from the Virtual Dan. Therein lies my biggest problem: Life gets in the way of living.

I am not so selfish as to assume my life is any more stressful than yours. But I am bold enough to tell you that I am not doing a good job of managing that stress. I have always prided myself on how well I can handle stress. I was an EMT for a while and I even took the Air Traffic Controllers exam ( a million years ago) when I realized that being a pilot would take a LOT of money. I loved stress and crisises crisiums crises.

Things are different now. The stress is no longer an adrenaline rush. This stress is a pervasive thread that weaves itself into each cell in my body. This stress has now been so internalized that I know there is a physiological price to pay.

Here is a brief rundown of some of the things on my plate.

My health: My leg has healed leaving yet another scar the size of a saucer on my thigh.  I need to receive Remicade infusions every 6 weeks. Each infusion takes at least 5 hours. Very draining.  Everything is fine but I fear a flare up at any time.  One result of my previous flare-up is that I stopped running as it is completely impossible to run with this disease. Starting back up again has been a challenge. I did go for a 3.1 mile run the other day though….now it is all about consistency (for those who follow my blog, I bet you can see how challenging “consistency” is for me).

My Baby Goats: Insanity is the rule at the Leone Estates. Each baby goat brings their own set of challenges to the table. I’ll stop here, before saying something I might regret.

My Dad: ALS (Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis) is a shitty disease. I am watching day by day as my dad progresses through the symptoms. He is virtually unable to speak now and his swallowing is severely affected. We all know what is happening to him and what will happen, but he prefers to work through this one day at a time. This is completely opposite of the “big picture” approach I would take if faced with the same prognosis, but I totally respect his perspective.

My parents live upstairs from me and we bear witness to the merciless, tomorrow-will-be-worse-than- today, progression of this disease. This puts an intense amount of pressure on the kids and I feel this leads to some of the problems that I alluded too above.

I know my dad is suffering and will suffer and that kills me.

Last Sunday was my niece’s First Communion in the Catholic Church. My parents have always considered themselves Christians but I have never in my life seen them practice it.  Last Sunday, we were all sitting in the same row and at one point, I looked over and saw my father on his knees praying. I may be an atheist, but this tore at my heart and I had to leave the church weeping like a child.

My work: INSANE! A pending deadline on a major, highly-visible project is stressful enough without the added stress of my normal day-to-day duties. But, truly, I love my job.

So, that is it in a nutshell…utterly uninteresting. The only purpose for blogging about it is to give me something to blog about.

Thanks to both of you for listening!

my father, parenting, uncategorized | 7 Comments »

I just overheard this 3 minutes ago while walking into my kids’ room. My 6 year old was talking to my 4 year old and this is the part that I heard:

….and then you fall asleep for 8 or 9 months and you wake up in your mom’s bagina

Should I be nervous?

uncategorized | 7 Comments »

Today….it is all about quantity.

Tell me how you are doing, the square root of pi, your favorite color, the last time you cried…ANYTHING! I feel like I am being run through a wringer right now and I really need, nee CRAVE, your voices!

uncategorized | 16 Comments »

Two major changes have made their way into my life in the last 5 years. They are very mutually exclusive and have begun battling in my head with no clear winner.

The first event was a self-diagnosed adult onset attention-deficit disorder (which merely replaced the self-diagnosed child-onset A.D.D when I became an adult at 38). The second event was the realization that I actually enjoy putting words on virtual paper. Sometimes, yes, SOMETIMES, I even enjoy stringing those words together into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs back into sentences because I scare easily. You can think of it as “literal” rock-climbing where the higher I climb, the scaredier I get.

This first event has made it nearly impossible to stay focused on the task of writing. When I open Microsoft Word (or for your Mac users, the Mac-Touch, Better-Than-Breathing, Bill-Gates-Sucks, Write-a- Novel-While-Sleeping, Pretty-Artsy-Bubbly-Interface, I-Don’t-Care-If-It-Costs-Seven-Hundred-Dollars, Edition software), I am faced with so many distractions like the ever-annoying Clippy and deciding what font to use today (I write in Wingdings).

Not to mention that the internet is always seducing me by whispering mesmerizingly in my ear “Ohhhh Dan, I need you to run your fingers over my series of tubes…” and I happily succumb. Then I feel guilty and dirty and used…but sated. So, I am quick to Alt-Tab (or just think about it for you Mac-o-philes) my way through life (How I wish I could Alt-Tab people in much the same way I do screens).

Both of my readers (BoMR) are unfortunate witnesses to this internal conflict. You may have noticed some of it in the previous 8 million words of this post just to say what I am about to say in the following 150 words.

One of the tools that I really enjoy using is called JDarkRoom. This is a full-screen text editor and offers NONE of the distractions that the fully-loaded Word does. With this editor, you do not choose fonts, underlines, paragraphs or any other formatting. In fact, the screen is simply a black screen that takes up your entire monitor’s real estate. You do not see the Task Bar, System Tray, Menu Bar, Desktop or anything else. Just a black screen with green text (You can also change the color of the screen and text if green-on-black is not your thing).

JDarkRoom has many other distraction-free features. From their website:

* Change your colour preferences, font and font size - via the settings screen (F6)
* JDarkRoom remembers the file that you were working on last time
* Support for central-european character sets
* JDarkRoom notifies you if you might have forgotten to save your changes
* Word/line/character count (Ctrl-L)
* Specify a file on the command-line for JDarkRoom to open it at startup
* Text antialiasing (where possible)
* Mouse-wheel scrolling
* Adjustable margins to fit any screen resolution (F9 to reset)
* Auto-save backups - so you never lose your work again
* Text search (F7 / Ctrl-F)
* A command-reminder strip can be displayed at the bottom of the screen

Of course, I am not sure what anti-aliasing is, but I think they are building a wall along the Mexican border and a plastic bubble over Califronia which should help with that. Honestly, I do not believe I can live without the Central European Character Set! I don’t even know where Central Europe is!

JDarkRoom is shareware, which simply means that donations are gladly and deservedly accepted. I, too, am shareware, which simply means that I am shareable.

open source/freeware tools I use, writing | 5 Comments »

Can anyone please tell me what birds and bees have to do with THE “Birds and the Bees?!”

imponderable | 4 Comments »

Today I came to the painful conclusion that I simply suck as a dad.

parenting | 13 Comments »

My father made his own wine every year since he came to this country from Italy. To him, his wine was the only wine that mattered. He scoffed at people that spend money at the wine shops, let alone spend 50 dollars or even much more for a bottle.

My dad’s wine was something to be consumed, like water or beer, as a way to quench thirst and to accompany the meal. It was not meant to be swilled, sniffed or spat. There would be no conversation about bouquet, finish or tannins. With his wine, you could add ice cubes on a particularly warm day, or you could add ginger ale if you were in the mood for something fizzy. You could add drippingly ripe peeled peaches to a glass of wine and you had an instant dessert. This is wine that children were allowed to drink, diluted with water.

His wine was to be consumed in a juice glass. My dad still does not realize that people can spend 40 dollars for a single Reidel burgundy glass. I don’t want to be the one to tell him that I have two of these glasses.

Every year until the last 5 or so, I helped my dad make the wine in our basement. I helped open the splintery crates and macerate the grapes using an antique machine with noisy rotating drums of teeth. I helped press every last drop of juice from the grapes, stems and skins. Then, break open the cider press, take out the remnants…and re-press them to eke out another few drops. Nothing went to waste. I then brought out the stems and skins, compacted to a tight brick approximately 24 inches in diameter and 8 inches tall, out to the garden. He would use the remnants to grow tomatoes, basil and beans.

My dad would then spend the next few months coaxing a drinkable concoction from the foamy, fermenting grape juice carefully placed in a dozen five gallon glass containers. I never was part of this process. Perhaps, I was wasn’t so interested, or perhaps my dad simply did not want to reveal his secrets. But, I could never forget the fruit flies that inundated the house during this time.

Unfortunately, now my dad is battling a terminal illness. Since finding out that he was dying last year, he has stopped making wine. His stash from the year before slowly dwindled until there was a final gallon left and we have since gone through that.

As part of a living homage to my dad, I have able to amass a small collection of about 40-50 bottles of wine that I now store in the same cantina my dad and I would ferment his wine. This collection is my little homage to a great man. Right now, I am a neophyte still trying to determine what I like and have an almost obsessive desire to learn about all the wine-growing regions, varietals and vintages. I also love knowing what a wine is “supposed” to smell and taste like. I scour the internet for reviews and see if my opinion is in line with the pros. Usually, I am way off the mark, but it is such a fun hobby that I don’t care if my nose does not pick up hints of gooseberries and peach pits.

I sometimes find myself alone in the cantina, the same one I helped him build 30 years ago, I smell the years of spilled wine on the floor, the drying wine at the bottom of some of his bottles and the mustiness of that comes with time and living.

I have shared with him some of these bottles. He laughs weakly when I tell him the price (I only own one pricey bottle of wine..everything else is 25 dollars and most under 15…but he still laughs). He will take a swig of some Argentine Malbec and it is funny to watch his face contort because nothing tastes like the grape juice and battery acid that we used to make.

I enjoy at least one glass of wine a night. After I fill my glass, I raise it to the air and say “Here’s to you, Donato. Mille grazie per tutti. Cin Cin.”

my father, wine | 8 Comments »

ALS SUCKS!

my father | 5 Comments »

Luckily, the infestation was just confined to her head!

Baby Goats | 5 Comments »

As you know, I am an atheist. Many people believe that is because I am too ignorant of the facts of Christianity. Of course, I argue that I know more about the Bible and religions in general than many of my Christian friends. But that does not matter to them, because I can never argue the whole “faith”component of religion, which some people fall back on when I question their logic.

So, here is a chance to make me smart.

Can anyone tell me what do the Easter Bunny and chicken eggs have to do with:

A. Each other

B. The resurrection of Jesus

For that matter, what do Santa Clause and shopping malls have to do with the birth of Jesus?

Obviously, I am being facetious and am not so stupid as to believe that those pagan rituals and Hallmark creations have ANYTHING to do with the true meaning of the holidays. But, every once in a while it bears remembering…for both Christians and non-Christians.

Happy Easter everyone who is celebrating and Happy Day for all who are not.

I love these holidays, Christian or otherwise, and take them as an opportunity to reflect on the things that mean the most to me. So please know, I am forever grateful for your friendships, tolerance and your words!

imponderable | 6 Comments »

I gave you fair warning, so each word you read now brings you closer to my rant.

I need to receive Remicade infusions every month or so as part of the treatment I receive for my condition. Remicade acts as an immuno-suppressant.  Essentially, the theory is that my body has an over-reactive immune system that kicks in at the slightest provocation causing this nastiness to happen to me. Remicade will work to flatten my immune system and basically reboot it.

During this time, I am extremely prone to infection (because I don’t have much of an immune system), but have managed to side-step most of the illnesses running rampant at the Leone Estates.

So, here is the rant part: The logical conclusion of everything I said above it that I need to avoid people who are sick. IT IS NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND! I am not contagious, you idiots.  So, if you are pretending to be interested in my health and I go off and explain my treatments, the first words out of your mouth should not be: “OH! Stay away from me, then! I don’t want to get sick again!” Then proceed to tell me about the poor cold you just recovered from!

I don’t have leprosy. It is my immune system that is broken…not yours.

I just had this conversation on the elevator with someone and I am angry that this person got off the elevator and I am stigmatized, at least in his mind, as having a contagious disease.

It is important for me that people use their brains.  I am not a smart person, but I do the best I can to stop and think before I speak.

Thank you for allowing me a chance to vent.  Now it is your turn:

Go ahead and rant about something, anything that pisses you off. You are safe here. No one reads this stuff anyway.

health | 11 Comments »

(In the small case that you do not know me, this is supposed to be taken tongue-in-cheekily. I only have ONE crush in my life….and you know who you are!)

I admit it, I am addicted to The Food Network. I have always enjoyed cooking, LOVED cooking….but then I had children. Now I enjoy microwaving, standing up while eating and having a bowl of cereal for dinner. At some point in my myriad career changes, I strongly considered going back to school in order to study pastry chefery.

Also, TFN is one of the few channels on TV that are completely kid-safe. I am violently oppo