Caleb

So for a glimpse of time, I got to see my son.  I mean, he's spending the night here but he left to go visit mom and some of his friends are throwing a party for him.  We talked about the Bible and God.  That's what we always do. We talk about the things that are going on in our lives and how they relate to - the Bible and God.  Cause' that's what interests both of us and we both see the Bible is a treasure trove, full of gems and full of truths and full of revelation.

We were deep into a discussion but he started looking at the clock so I knew it was time for him to get moving.  Inwardly, very reluctantly, I let him go.  Outwardly, good to see you son, love you.  Yeah, I'll get to see him for a short time tomorrow morning but then that's it for quite a while.  Yes, I miss him something fierce, though it doesn't really hit me until  - I see him again and and this time it's such a short time that he was here.

But a short time is better than no time.

We pulled out Hebrews 11 and talked about that for quite a while and then he said, well, I guess  this is the last time I will see you for ---- years.  I'm sure the look on my face wasn't one of, gee won't that be wonderful.  No, I said what on earth are you talking about?  Well you'll be in Texas and I can't afford to get out there.  I've already told him several times I would fly him out there and back to wherever if he wanted to come visit.  But I said it again.  Oh, cool.  I said yes, aren't you coming back to town after you are done in Hawaii?

He didn't know. He doesn't feel like he is supposed to be here for any length of time which is totally fine with me. I just ended this with: wherever you are, I will get you out to Texas and you can stay as long or short a stay as you like.

Cool, he replied. I said and maybe have you come out when the kids are on break from school so you can not only meet them but maybe minister some truth to them.  Not that I won't, but never hurts to get it from other sources that are like-minded.  Well, Caleb is out and about now.  With his mom by now I am sure.  Just a very tight schedule for him, I understand and it really is a blessing that I could spend any time with him at all -- but I am his father and I love him and it still kinda is hard to be only able to see him for a few hours and then gone.  Well he has to be up early tomorrow for his flight back to Hawaii so I will see him for a little while in the morning, but if he's staying out half the night with mom and friends, he will be too tired to do much talking of anything.

And I am sick with this respiratory junk and mornings are the hardest part.  He is done with his 1 year commitment to RevHi in August and after that coming back to Phoenix to visit if nothing else.  Regardless of what he is doing, hopefully he will be able to find some time to come out and visit me/us/my new family.  Still that's at least 5 months probably longer before I get to see him again.  I know, suck it up.  Not  I don't subscribe to the theory that men should have no feelings or never show them. I don't, frankly, give a damn what anyone thinks about my showing my feelings to the people that I love and if that includes some tears, then so beit.

Time for bed. Monday's coming soon.  Huge orders that have not been pulled.  I know because I was at work on Saturday to get some things and looked in the truck routing system and found all that stuff in there - stuff that wasn't there before I left on Friday.

G'nite.

ben

Sunday morning.
Woke up at 3 am and then fell right back dead asleep.
6 am, up-and-at-em.
Got up, got my coffee, got out of the house.
Decided to break down, go to Walmart, get 2 cans of freon and recharge the ac system in the old car
Twenty bucks to get the ac working and more importantly, make it a huge selling point for that thing.
So get that pumped in and see if I get any response.

Meanwhile, my car's ac repair put off again. They had to order a condensor from California and it hasn't arrived yet.
Oh well.  It'll get done. I don't feel well enough to sit in a garage for 3 plus hours today anyway.

So today's agenda:
just that. I feel like crud.  Got more sleep then I usually do and it's making me feel even worse.  Just gonna pump that stuff into the car when I get home and then head to the bedroom.  Maybe do some packing into boxes.  I can start sending that stuff off, no need to wait and do it all at once.

Well hours later.  Josiah contacts me.  Hey man, can I work today for some money?  Litmus test coming on his promise, cause mom didn't like the idea for a variety of reasons but just said oh well, let him do it.  I can't go into the details of what transpired, just a "crisis" was averted and so I said good job to him about that and hope you keep it up.

Went to start the old Buick today and - nothing.  Totally dead.  Took it back to Auto Zone and they charged it. Came back later, uhhh, this battery is bad.  What? I just got that battery from you 2 weeks ago!  I remained calm though, the guy looked at me and said, well okay, I'll give you a break this time! The warranty expired like last week or something. Thank you!

Fired it up, it only took one can of freon to get ice cold air pumping out of that thing.  Freaking cars. This things is 2 decades old and all it needs is freon, my car is a decade old and it needs $700 worth of repairs. Gag.

Went through more stuff today but I am wiped out. I gotta get over this chest congestion junk. It is wearing me out and I am not getting near enough done.  There is a deadline looming and it ain't that far off now.  The 16th is my last day of work and here it is already the 27th.  that's only 19 days - less than 3 weeks - to get this stuff done!  That's a challenge feeling good, feels like impossible the way I feel right now!

I mean of all times to get sick!  Over 2 weeks of this now and who knows when and "end date" is for it.  Gag.
Well I"m going to do some more work today in my bedroom anyway.  Got my boxes in there, got the tape and started taping boxes together and started loading one up.  Then realized I have very little packing material.  Never-ending, seriously.  This is all starting to get old, all the crap I keep running into with this situation.  I still have plenty of time to get this all done, though, just have to keep plugging away at it, even if slowly so i don't wear myself out.

I still have to find a temporary place to live over there, too.  Freaking live in a tent at a KOA I don't really care it's only a sleeping place I can take showers at her house and Duke will be over there as well.

Update

I know, I haven't posted since Saturday, some 6 days ago.  But I have both been sick and very busy.  I found out that this coughing bug can last for months regardless of whether you go to a doc's or not and get meds that do - absolutely nothing to this thing.  Cough medicine hardly does anything to stop it either.  To be honest?  When this happens this bad? The only thing I have ever found that works for me is a couple shots of whatever alcohol.  Coughing stops and at least I can have some kind of relief.  I suppose the cough medicine with codeine would work as well, but codeine makes me physically sick.  Like feeling like throwing up sick.

Whatever the case, between the house and trying to get ready to move and attempting to deal with what is increasingly becoming a belligerent 16 year old boy and trying to sell off stuff and all the rest of it? I'm exhausted. Went to the airport last night at ten to get Caleb - my son- and bring him back to my house.  We had maybe an hour long conversation - it was eleven thirty by the time I got to sleep and then up at four thirty am for work.  Yeah, I'm getting really tired.  Not "of" stuff, just tired!

Josiah completely out of control. Too much to go into and yes, that's just this week alone.  I just can't get into that right now.  Plus the situation with the church.  You know, if you say anything about a church that doesn't make them look like lily white angels? You are going to get hell for it. Whatever. I didn't back down on my statements, I just backed off from it, not worth it. Dunno if I will go back, other churches around here I can go to for the last few, remaining Sundays I have left in Phoenix.

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Saturday. Pond sold.  People interested in car, but keep getting low balled.  C'mon, it's 600 buck for a running car, geeze. They keep offering 500. At some point if I don't get a better offer I may have to take it.  but I'm holding out.  The pond was a total pain in the ass.  Draining it, catching 6 small fish that were still in there and moving it out to the vehicle for this lady and loading it.  She was probably in her mid 60's, I didn't expect her to do any of it, but still. At least it ain't hot today. In fact, overcast and windy and cool.

Fired the old Buick up to make sure the battery isn't going to go dead on it.  Some people stopped and asked how much. $700. Would you take 5? No, I'll down to 6.  Okay well we'll talk about it and maybe get back to you. Which means to me I will never see them again. I just simply do not want to take 500 for it unless it's just all I can get.

Went to work today and made some signs for it, plus got the tape gun to start packing - boxes are all torn down but in  great shape, just need to put them back together and tape them up again. Changed my approach to moving. Was going to get a trailer and a hitch on the car - didn't really want to but what other option was there cheaper than that? Well turns out, shipping out of our branch will be as cheap or cheaper via UPS.  I have 18X18X24 moving boxes and I input 50 pounds into WorldShip (UPS software used for shipping) and it came back with a price tag of $33.  Well I don't have an incredible amount of stuff to ship, maybe 10 of those boxes at most plus putting odd shaped stuff in trunk of car.  If there is something bigger I will bite the bullet and ship it.  I'm trying to keep my stuff down to a minimum.

So that's my new plan. Probably going to stick with it, too, unless I end up with too many boxes to ship. But I don't think so.  I don't need to be taking a lot of stuff.  Unsure how to ship the Kachina doll though.  It is a handcrafted doll made by one of the local Indian tribes and it is worth some dough.  I don't know how much, would have to have it appraised. Had it since the early 80's.

Anyway, without a trailer on that car? I can haul @$$ out there.  I won't need more than one overnight stay at a hotel - hope I can find one that takes dogs, have heard that there are chains that will. What will fit in the boxes? Clothes, kachina ( put insurance on it if I go that route), PS3, pictures, important papers, things that i want to keep.  My wall pictures - worth some bucks - in car, as well as guitar.

Meanwhile getting AC fixed tomorrow on the car.  It was going to be Friday but they condenser was the wrong one.  Gag.  Also picked up Caleb (my son) from the airport Thursday night at 10, spent an hour talking to him.  Unfortunately I could not get work to change schedule so I had to go to work the next morning.  He's coming back Sunday evening so I hope to get at least a few hours to visit with him before he jets back to Hawaii Sunday night.  $700 to fix AC.  Needed  a new compressor, two lines and a condensor plus of course freon and oil and the labor.  I am getting out of it cheap. That much work at a regular shop would cost probably twice that much.  This guy is ASE certified, just going to school and does jobs on the side at his parent's house.

This is some pretty solid hours I am putting in here. Plus I have been sick and hacking and coughing now for well over 2 weeks.  It is slowing me down, worst time to get something like this. I have talked to a large number of people now that have this bug - some for 4 MONTHS!!  NOOOOOOOO!!

Meanwhile, Duke - Great Dane - is missing Prince something terrible. Had to put Prince down last week, he's running around looking for him all over the place, jittery and unhappy. I asked a friend that breeds Danes for any advice - take him to the park, keep him busy and make sure he's well fed.  Okay!  Took him with me to the farewell party some old friends were throwing for me and got a good walk in with him.  I can't lose another dog right now. Duke is old by Great Dane standards, it would just rip me apart to lose yet another one.  One of m'lady's friends in Texas says she will get me another Great Dane. Yes!  A puppy to boot. I never thought I would want a puppy again, but Dane life span is so short, the only real way to enjoy their life span completely is to start out in puppy hood.

So, back to yesterday. Josiah. Being a total pain in the ass.  Rebellion, incorrigible, mouthing off to his mom.  BAD. Called her an asshole earlier this week. I've never even heard of a lady being called that, usually other derogatory terms reserved for females that males want to use against them.  Whatever the case, that crossed my line. We had it out yesterday via texting.  He refuses to talk to me on the phone, which is fine, means that a texting war will go on for hours instead of getting it over with in maybe half an hour or even less.  This started at 4 and finally ended at 8. I'm not saying rapid fire texting, he said something, I would say something back, back and forth but in "due" time, not sitting there doing nothing else.

I am a man, this 16 year old boy kept telling me. I put him in his place: Men do not speak to their mothers that way.  Even if they do not agree with them.  Real men do not have short-fuse tempers that blow up in an instant without even that much provocation.  On and on, he finally said, FINE, just don't treat me like a 5 year old. Then stop acting like one!!!!!!  This all started when he bypassed me - making plans to be with that girl without even asking much less even saying ANYTHING about it, so I bypassed him and contacted both of her parents and told how he is acting and what he is saying to his mom.

Yup, that started it. He was having a cow. You are trying to break us apart! If you ruin us, I swear to god........about the point he said that is when I started in on him. You will NOT talk to me that way, period.  It got pretty heated. I won't tolerate a teenager talking to me like that, non-happening event.  At some point, m'lady texted me and asked me to stop texting him. ???  Turns out Josiah was with ex, I didn't know that. He had been with mom when this started.  But it didn't matter, HE texted me, not the other way around.  Ex yelled at her on the phone, nothing worth going into.  M'lady took it hard, ex talking to her like that.  Today? I told her if he calls you again and talking to you like that about my interaction with Josiah, you can give him my phone number and he can call me and try that yelling s*** on the phone with me.

I don't think she liked that idea, either, probably cause' she knows I'll let that man know exactly how I feel about the way he treats his own kids not to mention all the yelling shit with m'lady.  Regardless, after hours of texting and going through every single thing under the planet, I finally got a PROMISE out of that boy to get rid of the attitude and start acting nice towards mom and stop cussing her out, especially in front of the rest of the kids.  I mean, it was hours of outrageous attitude that is reinforced by his dad.  That guy is a real piece of work.  But I never say anything bad about him to the kids, just can't do that.  For obvious reasons.

Onto other things? Yes, I'm tired. This has been a LONG week.  Besides some long hour the hacking and coughing, the congestion in my lungs, it's taking a toll on me.  I have far less energy than normal.  Hard to make it through a work day.  Too many people have been to a doc with this junk and gotten medicine/antibiotics that did them absolutely no good to the point I ain't bothering.  Try some of the home remedies such as the honey and cinnamon thing.

What now?  Sitting at a restaurant. Long day. I needed a break, nothing in the fridge or nothing I was interested in anyway, restaurant a mile away from my house. Probably won't be able to do that in the future with a wife and 6 kids, but that's cool, the company will be better than eating alone at a restaurant.   Well not just company, family.  People that actually love me and I love them back.