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I crawled out of bed at John-Paul’s insistance when my 7:37 alarm buzzed. I shivered into the living room and started a fire while my pot of espresso brewed. The sun is beaming through the front window, leaving puddles of warmth for the cats to snooze in. By all right, I should be plugging my work laptop into my monitor, keyboard, and mouse to send a message to my team. “Hi team! Working remotely today. Will be offline for lunch. Have a T-Riffic Tuesday!” While my e-mail downloads and my systems boot up, I should be packing John’s lunch while Robin Meade talks about terrorism in India and YouTube videos.

But the house is dead silent. No hum of BBC America coming from the furthest bedroom. No cats are frolicking. I don’t hear the sleepy dueling banjos of John and my dad snoring.

I’m trying to decide if I want to say anything at my dad’s funeral. He was really proud of me for being strong enough to give my little speech at my mom’s: “My mom kicked ass.” I don’t know what I’d say. I think it was John-Paul who told me I should tell the horse-touching story. Maybe I will.

My parents always had a Box. It used to be a Can, but then they upgraded to a small Tupperware. It was the family non-junk drawer. Important things were stored in the Box so we’d know where they were – Insurance cards, Chap Stick, winning lottery tickets, legal documents, nail clippers – All of the oils that grease the wheels of our daily existance.

In this box, I found my mom’s transcription of a phone conversation my sister had with my dad.

“Get off 21 and turn on 5 street. Right on Center. Down to Davis. Left. Aha. OK. OK. OK. OK. OK. Aha. Aha. Uh-huh, right. I got that. 5th street. Aha. Really? Yeah. OK. OK. Aha. Aha. Hon, get ready to…”

It’s nice to remember that my parents were completely silly most of the time.

Tonight at the viewing, I spent 20% of my time crying and 80% laughing. That’s a pretty fair estimation of how my dad’s life was, so I think it’s only fitting.

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My dad passed away early Friday morning. I have answered the same questions a hundred times in the last 48 hours.

I’m tired of these questions. Instead, I’m going to talk about touching horses.

We were in Whitehall Mall, and I was right around the age when dads reach their peak of uncoolness. The mall fountains were turned off because of conservation regulations in effect during a particularly nasty dry spell. The two of us wished on pennies and threw them in anyway.
In front of a random store, a taxidermied horse stood. As we approached the horse, my dad noticed the sign taped to its side: ‘Do not touch the horse.” He was guarded by a man in full security regalia. I’ll have you know that a security guard in Whitehall Mall is about as necessary as having the 164th Infantry Regiment protecting my toolshed. Clearly, this gentleman was on the lookout for rabble-rousers, miscreants, and horse-touchers.
Not only did my father touch the horse, but he said to the guard, “Hey, I touched the horse,” as we strolled away, laughing like baffoons.

In the grand scheme of things, the last dozen hours of his life are meaningless. What matters is that my dad wasn’t afraid to touch horses.

Manuel Diaz, 59 of Pen Argyl, PA passed away Friday November 28, 2008 in Easton Hospital, Wilson Boro.
Born: He was born on June 19, 1949 in Havana, Cuba, a son of the late Jesus M. and Margarita Herrera Diaz.
Personal: Manuel was preceded in death by his wife, the former Maria Koltunowicz, in 2007. He was employed as a Carrier for the US Postal Service in Plainfield, New Jersey, retiring in 2003.
Memberships: Manuel was of the Catholic faith. He was also a member of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
Survivors: Manuel is survived by daughters Jennifer M. Diaz of Pen Argyl, PA, Suzanne M. Stepien and her husband Christian of Palmerton, PA; a sister Gloria Morin and her husband Jose of Miami, FL, 2 grandchildren Alexander and Nikita Stepien; six nieces and nephews; and extended family Darlene Mortensen, John Buchanan, and John-Paul Gorgoroso.
Services: Calling hours will be held Monday evening from 6:00pm until 8:00pm and Tuesday morning from 10:00am until 11:00am in the Morello Funeral Home, Inc., 3720 Nicholas St. Palmer Twp. Funeral Services will be held Tuesday morning at 11:00am in the funeral home. Interment will be in Plainfield Cemetery, Plainfield Twp.

I want a real Christmas. What’s a real Christmas?

My real Christmas:

The tree is the fun part. The first layer is two or three strings of lights from different decades – Some plastic flower-bulb ones, some “modern” bulby ones, with silver garland around it. Invariably, there will be some discussion on whether the garland goes up and down or wraps around. Next up are ornaments. Some cheesy construction paper ones my sister and I made as kids, some pretty porcelain ones my mom got on QVC in the mid 90′s, some of those tacky thread-covered-styrofoam balls (including the TMNT one we got from Fingerhut!), and the glittery ornaments that managed to survive two kids and a cat. The topper is some cheesy circular thing that lights up. The pretty glass topper stays in the box, but maybe we unwrap it to check the dates on the newspaper its wrapped in.

The tree has a a pile of neatly (or not-so-neatly, if they’re from me) wrapped gifts underneath. The pile of gifts grows as the days pass, and some appear magically on Christmas morning. The gifts range from the practical – “A toaster oven!?! AWESOME!” to the random: “Sim Earth? Uh…. Awesome!” All of the tags have ridiculous labels – “To Daddy, From Walter Mondale” or “To Honey, From Mr Pringle” until we run out of names. Then, we resort to using reindeer names.

Once everyone wakes up, we eat some chocolate covered cherries to stifle our hunger before heading to the tree. We open our gifts one by one, keeping all the wrapping paper in one pile. You have to sort through it when you’re done to make sure that you don’t accidentally throw away some Barbie shoes or an instruction book. Someone ends up wearing all the bows. We Oooh and Ahhh at everything before making piles.

Once the gifts are done, we retreat back to the kitchen to eat more chocolate and watch the parade while the grownups make dinner. Usually there’s a ham with pineapple crap, some string beans, mashed potatoes, and a lettuce and tomato salad. We investigate the lack of television, marveling at the one day a year that QVC goes dark, and proceed like we would on any other night.

This is Christmas. I will have a real Christmas this year.

Hong Kong has been the only Chinese place in town for as long as I can remember. That’s pretty much the only draw here. Typically, their food is overcooked and bland. Tonight’s meal did not disappoint in its mediocrity. Good curry chicken should cause me physical harm. This should increase exponentially when I request my meal to be extra spicy. I was sorely disappointed. I added curry powder and it still was pretty blah. Textures were all wrong – The chicken and veggies were mushy, while the rice was brittle and hard. The shrimp was chopped into pieces, giving the illusion of shrimp in every bite. John enjoyed not having to chew his General Tso’s chicken but shared my feelings on the rice. Ick. The egg roll was, as he says, “Egg rolly.” Take that as you will.

The most telling part of this subpar Chinese experience – I don’t even feel sick. Lame.

I’ve been thinking.

I’m tired of having a boring ole “here’s what i did today” LiveJournal. I’m tired of having an uninspired photo site.

So now.. I’ll have an uninspired awesome blog.

People talk about things on their blogs, right? I’ve seen a lot of blogs that I enjoy – Cell phone blogs, diner blogs, music blogs, video game blogs.. So I’m going to make this all three. I’m going to review every aspect of my life that is either very interesting or very not. This will be awesome. Yes?