Grandpop's 100th Birthday

Depending on whom you talk to, today, June 28, 2009, would be my grandfather's 100th birthday, were he still living. My mother would emphatically tell you that James Wood, my namesake, was never my grandfather. She learned in her late sixties that she was the illegitimate offspring of my grandmother and some mystery man she tried to track down through genealogy for the rest of her life. In fact my grandmother may have never been married to anyone, a secret she thought had gone to the grave with her. We learned this too late, as there were no people from that generation left to talk to, and Grandpop had advanced Alzheimer's and didn't even know who he was by then.

I don't care what all the facts may be. I claim Jimmy Wood as my grandfather. He was the only one I ever knew. I have only one memory of my grandfather Baker. That may never have even happened. We were at his house, so it had to have been in 1964 on our way from New Jersey to San Antonio. We had been living in England for four years, and re-entered the country at either Fort Dix or McGuire AFB in New Jersey. Grandmom and Grandpop Wood met us at the airstrip. I remember very little about our stay with them. On the way to our new home at Lackland, we stopped in Toledo, Ohio. I don't remember anything about that stop except my grandfather standing at the foot of the stairs showing Patti and me a bible that had belonged to our grandmother, Eula Mae Baker. Mom told me once that it may have happened, but she did not remember it. Anyway, he passed away when I was eight or nine, so I know that I never saw him again after that one visit.

My Grandpop Wood was a wonderful man. Whether or not he ever married Grandmom legally, and, even though he was not my mother's birth father, he stayed around for her entire life. There was never anything about either of my grandparents that would ever have suggested that there was scandal lurking below the surface. Anyone who knew about it respected them enough to keep their secrets. To all appearances, they were a solid, moral, hardworking couple who struggled to raise two daughters during the depression.

Grandpop was the first of his family to be born in America. His parents and older brother, George Jr., had come from England not long before his birth and settled in Nanty-Glo, Pennsylvania where my great-grandfather worked in the coal mines. My great-grandmother died when Grandpop was ten years old. His father, having nobody to look after him, was forced to take him into the mine with him, where he worked for four years alongside his father and older brother.

When Grandpop was fourteen-years-old, family living in what was then called Woodtown, New Jersey, invited them to move there and escape the unhealthy mining life. Woodtown was a small part of what is now called Somers Point where about twenty members of the Wood family lived in a cluster of five or six houses. Grandpop worked with his father and brother to build a tiny little four room house. It was so tiny, that when my Great-Great Aunt Violet complained that it was putting her flowers in too much shade, the three of them picked it up and carried it twenty feet away. There it still sits to this day as shown in the photo below.

Grandpop worked doing odd jobs and learned many different skills. He was a ship builder, brick layer, and carpenter among other things. When he met my grandmother, he was running a ride on the Ocean City Boardwalk. She had come down from Philadelphia for a day at the seashore with her best friend, Henrietta Borraci and her family.

Grandmom and Grandpop became a couple and moved to Camden, New Jersey so my Grandfather could work at the ship yards building ships for the US Navy. I have been told, but could not in any way prove it, that my grandmother had a job singing in a saloon during this time. When Mom was five-years-old, the young family moved back to Somers Point, but did not live in the Woodtown area. This would have been in 1937, and times were hard. Mom told me that wherever they were living, they packed up their stuff and snuck back to Woodtown during the night because they couldn't pay the rent.

Sometime after that, probably in the mid-forties, Grandpop and his brother George built a small shed across the road from Aunt Violet's house and started hand mixing and pouring cinder blocks, which were being used in the area to build the basement foundations of homes. Their little shed eventually grew into the Shore Block Company, which Grandpop owned until he retired and sold the business.

In the early sixties, my grandmother needed something to do, so Grandpop built her a twelve room motel on New Road. She called it the Sea Lure and had it painted a very loud pink. They ran a small cafe in the office at first, but my grandmother developed a heart problem, and they shut that operation down. At around that time, they moved into a room above the office area, and my mother's younger sister and her husband moved into the little house by the block company. They lived there for quite a while, but later moved to another home on shore road. The house must have been rented out or something, because it still belonged to my grandparents, and they moved back into it in 1981 when they retired and sold the motel. When their health deteriorated and caused them to move in with family, I think my cousin Wendy moved in.

Anyway, it strikes me funny that I am fifty and on the day I was born, my grandfather was about six months shy of being fifty himself. I know that I am old enough to be a grandfather. Heck, I could actually be a great-grandfather, if I had followed the fifteen year plan that one of my students in Waeldar was following. Her grandmother had her mother at fifteen. Her mother had her at fifteen. And, she was fifteen when she had her first child making her grandmother a forty-five-year-old great-grandmother. So, yes, I could be a grandfather, but I think of myself as being so much younger than my grandfather would have been at this age.

My first memory of Grandpop was in 1964 the night he and Grandmom picked us up at the airstrip. We were hungry after such a long flight, so they took us to the flight line cafe. I remember being given cantaloupe for the first time that night. But, sadly, that is all I remember of that brief visit to New Jersey. I know that they came to visit us once during the two years we lived in San Antonio, but the only memory I have of their visit is one meal that we had at a Chinese restaurant and the gifts they gave us when they returned from a day in Mexico.

It was during the Viet Nam war that I really got to know my grandparents. When my dad got shipped over there, we went to live with them at the motel. My mother, sister, and I shared room twelve for the first year that we were there. During that year, Grandpop was building a new apartment for  Grandmom and him, so that she would not have to climb the stairs so much. I probably was not much help, but I did hang out at the construction site and did whatever I could. I remember holding some T-shaped thing that held the sheet rock for the ceiling in place while Grandpop and my Uncle Paul, Mom's sister's husband, nailed it in place.

When the apartment was finished, Mom, Patti, and I moved into my grandparent's suite above the office. They called it room 14 after we left, and rented it as an efficiency apartment. They had this cute little mini kitchen set up in there. We thought we lived in a palace after staying in a small room with two double beds taking up all the space for a year. The suite even had a bath tub!

I already said that Grandpop was a good guy. He was a pretty good substitute for my dad, too. He even went with me to the Cub Scouts. It was him, not Dad who helped me build my first pinewood derby. He also took me in his truck whenever he had to go somewhere for business. The only problem with that was that he would always buy something for me. Then Mom would get mad at me and accuse me of asking for things. Patti and I learned not to look at anything when we were with either grandparent, because they would always buy it for us. I remember standing in a restaurant parking lot once in my twenties saying, "I hope you see me looking at that Mustang, Grandmom!" Of course, it was just a joke.

I have so many rich memories of Grandpop that there is no way to even begin to mention them here. I guess that's because we really made the most of the limited time we had with our grandparents. They would visit us every once in awhile, or we would go to New Jersey for a visit, but, being military brats, Patti and I didn't grow up with a hometown experience. We only had those two years during the war to actually live with our grandparents. Because of that, any time spent with them was savored. How could I not remember the time Grandpop got the two of us stuck in the middle of the bay at low tide, the time he took me to Smitty's dock to watch him and Smitty work on his old Evinrude boat motor, the time he took me to Philadelphia on a building supply run, the time he kicked my butt with every step I took after I kicked a hole in a neighbor's screen door, or all the times we used to walk out back and get those awesome hoagies at Joe's? Yes, there are so many rich memories that I could write a book.

I wish my mom had not died upset with her parents for not telling her the truth about her personal history. I wish she could have just let it go like I did. I'll be honest with you. It used to upset me when Mom referred to Grandpop as "the man I thought was my father" or "my mother's husband". I knew my mother well enough to know that, even though she was hurting over all the secrets, she died knowing that Jimmy Wood was a good man. She died knowing that he treated Grandmom, my Aunt Shirley, both of his sons-in-law, all four of his grandchildren, and her wonderfully. I know that she loved him as much as Patti and I did. And, I know she would not have let this day go by without somehow honoring his memory on what would have been his 100th birthday.

Down With Summer!

You know, I might as well admit that I am not that fond of summer vacations. There, I said it. Teachers all across America are lighting their torches, getting in their cars, and coming to kill me for saying such a blasphemous thing. How could I, Jim Baker, a 27-year veteran teacher, break the rules and say that I don't like the part of the teaching job that everyone else loves the most. Well, I have my reasons, and you know good and well, I'm going to give them to you now.

My biggest problem with summer breaks is a personal identity issue that won't make a lick of sense to anyone but me. I don't mind that. A bee that stings only me, still stings me. I identify myself as a teacher. I know some of my coworkers will argue that I am not a teacher but a campus instructional technologist. They reserve the term teacher for those poor souls who are assigned to a classroom and stay with that group of kids all day. I haven't always been a CIT, and, as a CIT, I do teach. So, as I was saying, I identify myself as a teacher. That's what I am for eight hours a day, five days a week, and thirty-six weeks out of every year. Locking me out of the schoolhouse for ten weeks in the summer is a lot like sending a nun to live at the Bunny Ranch in Nevada for ten weeks.

Another major reason for not loving summers is financial. Unless you've lived your life under a rock on Bouvet Island, you should have heard that teachers aren't the highest paid people in the country. That means we don't have a lot of money. That, in turn, means most of us can't afford to actually “vacation” for ten weeks. We usually get our two weeks in then sit around the house broke for the other eight weeks. Having teenage boys in the house all day, instead of at school where they belong, practically doubles our usual grocery bill. Believe me, even if they work summer jobs, that cash doesn't reach the household.

My butt is a HUGE reason to wish school never was out. At the end of the school year I always have these grandiose plans for using my summer off as an opportunity to get in shape. I plan to go on daily walks, hit the gym and workout, and eat salads and other light summer fair. That would be wonderful, if it ever happened. Instead, I decide it's too damned hot to do anything and find myself either laying in bed reading or laying on the couch watching television shows I'm not even interested in. Then, as the start of a new school year approaches, I start beating myself up for getting fat and lazy. I hate that I always start each year bigger and fatter than I ended the last one. So, I make a last ditch effort to get under control. Does it happen? Not even!

I can't get my schedule under control either. The first few weeks, I wake up early in the morning by habit. But, as the summer progresses, I start going to bed later and later, until, eventually, I find it hard to get up in the morning at all. My usual routine disintegrates. I eat off schedule, I bathe off schedule, and my body functions forget what a schedule is. When school starts back up, mornings come like a sledge hammer for the first couple of weeks until my body gets back into the routine of school days.

This year, I have two new reasons to hate summer. The first is the fact that my summer break is actually a countdown to Josh's going off to college. When summer ends, his status as a full time resident in my home ends with it. I know he'll come home and all that, but it'll never be the same. My mother once told me that, when Patti and I moved out of the house, her perception of family totally changed. Even if we stayed with her for a month, we were visiting, and visits end. She said there was a sadness there all the time, even when we were enjoying our time together. Mom, herself, is the biggest reason for me hating this summer in particular. As you know, she died exactly ten months ago today. I'm beginning to realize that I didn't get through the grieving process. Instead, I kept myself busy and tried not to think much about it. Now, however, my days are free. Everything I do, read, or see digs up some memory of Mom that cuts me like a knife. Josh going to orientation brought back the day Mom and Dad took me to mine. Planning for the upcoming cruise brought back the memories of Dad's accident in the Cayman Islands and all the time Mom and I spent hanging out together while we were there. My friend Dana's trip to the beach this weekend brought back the trip I took to Port Aransas with Mom, Dad, and Patti. I could go on listing these things, but I won't. I can't. It'll just drag me back into the awful place I've spent enough time in already.

I guess it's time to put on my Pollyanna ponytail wig and find some things to like about summer. There are a few. I like watering my flowers every evening just before the sun sets. I like catching up on all the books I put off until summer. I like that we tend to get the house cleaned up more in the summer. I like that we can go to movies in the daytime and pay cheaper ticket prices. I like that we can go for late lunches and not fight the crowds. I like that, when things get to be too much for me, I can hop back into bed for a nice refreshing nap. I like having time to get on a city bus to just see where it goes. I like having a beer at Hills and Dales in the middle of the day with my buddies before the smokers get there. I like that I only have to wear long pants to church on Sundays. I like that sometimes in the summer, Rachel is willing to miss church every once in awhile. I like that summer is the time we usually get to see my mother-in-law, Jane. Finally, I'm going to like the heck out of being on a cruise with my big sister and my daddy during my last week of this summer!

A Funny Memory of Mom

My mother died on August 27th, 2008. She served my dad his dinner, told him she wasn't hungry, sat down in her easy chair, and passed quietly away. It was a real shocker. After all, Dad was the one who had bone marrow cancer and was practically an invalid. Just the same, it happened, and I dealt with it. I won't say I dealt with it well. It really isn't a contest, now is it?

For months after Mom died, I couldn't look at her picture without having my life come to a crashing halt. I would sit there in my sorrowful stupor unable to move on. My heart would race, as I suddenly realized that she was gone, as if I hadn't known it. I would literally say to myself, "Oh, yeah, Mom died." Then after a brief feeling of intense panic, I would take some of those "deep cleansing" breaths I learned about in birthing class, and come back to the here and now.

Instead of avoiding pictures of Mom during that time, I put them on the walls around my desk thinking, that eventually, I would be able to look at one without getting that first drop of a roller coaster feeling. That didn't work out too well. School got out for the summer two weeks ago, and I was still experiencing the same thing as I took the photos off my wall.

Then, the other day, in a moment of brilliance, I sat on the couch with my beloved Asus eeePC 1000 and created a DVD with all the digital pictures I have of my mom. The slide show lasts almost seven minutes. I even set it to some appropriately sad songs like "To Where You Are" by Josh Groban. The process of creating the DVD took hours, since I got stuck staring at at least half of the pictures and going through my little anxiety attack. That happened mostly with pictures I found hiding in a folder called "Stuff off Mom's computer" which I had not taken the time to completely explore.

Now, getting back on track. For some stupid reason that I can not explain, I was drawn to that DVD before going to bed last night. It was like passing an accident. You know how you don't want to look, but you just can't stop yourself. I could not stop myself from starting up that DVD and sitting through nearly seven minutes of photos of Mom. As a result, I had a very rough night. For the first time in several months, I had what feels like a night-long dream in which I am looking for my mother, but can not find her. Sometimes, I see her standing across a room, but she is gone when I get there. My psychiatrist would have a field day with it, I am sure, if I were smart enough to seek counseling.

Because of having such a rough night, I decided to start a new approach. I decided that, when I get into my little wimpy panic mode, I should force myself to think of funny things I remember about my mom. Notice I did not say "happy things". Happy memories just lead to that sense of loss and longing that can knock me to my knees. Funny things seem to reprogram my grief into a less anxiety producing form. So here goes... I am going to share one of my funniest memories of my mom with the world, even if some of you find it a little off-color.

In the summer of 1975, my mother's only living uncle died. (That's not the funny part. She was actually quite upset by it.) Within an hour of hearing the news, my mother and I had packed our bags, grabbed Smokey (our German Shepherd), and started the long drive from San Antonio to Somers Point, New Jersey. My dad was TDY in Turkey on some kind of inspection team, and the Turkish government wasn't letting anyone leave the country for a while. I don't really remember anymore about that, and it isn't important to my story.

We stayed in New Jersey for about two weeks, and were just about to leave when Mom got a call letting her know that Turkey was going to allow Dad and his team to return to the USA. They worked it out that he would fly into McGuire AFB so that he could drive back to San Antonio with us. The only problem was, he wouldn't get there for another two weeks, and I had to get back to San Antonio to start my senior year of high school. We decided that I would fly back by myself.

My grandfather drove Mom, my grandmother, and me to the Philadelphia airport to put me on a plane. While we were sitting at the gate waiting the two hours for my flight (Yep, those older people sure love getting to the airport early!), Mom asked me if I wanted some mints for the trip. You see, I was notorious for puking my guts up whenever I flew, rode in a boat, rode on a bus, rode in a CAR... I got sick on anything that moved until I was about twenty-years-old. We even carried a huge coffee can with a lid on it for me to hurl in when we went anywhere in the car. If we had to pull over every time Little Jimmie got sick, we would never have gotten anywhere.

Back to the story. Anyway, I said I wanted some mints, so Mom started going through her purse and giving me all that she had. One of them was a big new kind I had never seen before, so I decided to eat it right then and there. I opened up the cellophane wrapper and saw that the mint was wrapped in string. I started unwinding it and asked, "What's this stupid string for?" Mom casually looked my way, made a face like she had seen a ghost, screamed "Oh my God! Give me that!", and fiercely grabbed it out of my hand. With one quick stab, she shoved it in her purse and looked around to see if anyone had seen. Of course, everyone who was within a fifty-foot radius was staring at her after that scream.

After a few minutes, Mom gave me a cryptic explanation. "That wasn't candy, Jimmie. It was a personal 'lady-thing'. I wasn't following her at all. She kept getting flustered, and finally wailed (in a most Mary Richards manner, I might add), "It was a tampon, damn it!" I had heard of those, but hadn't ever seen one, so it took me awhile for it to sink in. When it did, I let out a loud, "Oh, GROSS!", and laughed so hard I thought I was going to pass out. The whole time my mother kept slapping my arm saying, "Stop it!" The poor thing was completely and utterly humiliated. That was one of the funniest moments of my life. Sorry, Mom!

I need a drink, Roz!

That's my favorite line ever spoken in a motion picture. I bet you remember it. Doralee Rhodes has finally had it with Franklin Hart's sexual innuendos and storms out of the office. Roz Keith, that old busy body, and excellently portrayed brown-noser, asks her where she's going. Doralee looks at her without stopping and shouts, "I need a drink, Roz!" That's when all the ladies meet up in the bar, swap stories, and plot together to put an end to Hart's dirty deeds. The movie was Nine to Five. It's one of the movies I really love. Come on! Dolly. Who doesn't just love Dolly?

Anyway, that's a line which I catch myself using more and more. You see, I always wanted to be that loveable lush that seemed to hide in the corner of every movie or book. Like Margaret Foster, the office lush from Nine to Five who, right after Doralee's line, slurs, "Atta girl!" You probably have your own loveable lush in your family, even if you are non-drinking Southern Baptists. There's that one rascal uncle of yours that everyone snickers about without ever actually mentioning his "condition". My family had several such uncles and a few aunts to boot!

I always imagined myself happily staggering down the road arm in arm with my best buddies singing that proverbial loveable lush song "How Dry I Am". But alas, it was not meant to be. Hard as I tried to attain such a level of "lushishness", I never got the hang of being much of a drunk. I am not saying I've never been drunk. That, I woefully admit, I have been, dear readers. That I have been more than I would like to remember. But those were not happy times. Instead of singing quaint little ditties, I usually ended up on my knees talking to Ralph at the temple of the porcelain god.

Now, however, there's hope. Along with drinking the occasional mug of ale at the center of the universe, Hills and Dales, with my best buddies, I have been having a torrid affair with a lovely full-bodied lady named Merlot. My beloved wife is no fan of red wines. She would rather sip away at a cute little glass of white zinfandel. Why, an opened bottle of that stuff, will oft times sit in our refrigerator for months waiting for her to get to that last glass. Not me. I am very passionate with my dear Merlot. Unfortunately, she's usually gone by the end of the evening.

So you see, there is hope for me. Like Doralee, I have suffered through some pretty crappy days. When that happens, I storm out to my van, head to that fine establishment known for its selection of fine wines called WalMart and buy a bottle of merlot. Then I drive home, run into the house, toss my keys on the kitchen counter, and reach for my genuine metrokane rabbit wine opener (sturdily made of polycarbonate and reinforced nylon- with ergonomic grip pads for easier operation and now available at Amazon for only $28.69) and pop that beauty open. Rachel usually asks, from her spot on the couch in the den, "What are you doing over there?" I pour myself a HUGE glass of that lovely liquid and shout, "I need a drink, Roz!"

So Many Joshuas, revisited

Back many years ago, I wrote this poem about my oldest son Joshua:


So Many Joshuas
　
Tonight I put my Josh to bed.
I tuck him in and kiss his head.
I read a chapter of his book.
Then as he prays steal one last look.
I know this Joshua can not stay.
A new Josh greets each coming day.
Eight years of photos on the shelf
Show how the scene repeats itself.
Infants, toddlers, little boys
With pacis, balls, and action toys
All smile from behind the glass
As if they knew they weren't to last.
So many Joshuas in a row.
Did each one know I loved him so?
Did each one know how much I prayed
That he would never ever grow away?
And will the new ones know that - gosh,
My heart has room for every Josh.

I think he was in fourth or fifth grade when Rachel and I were asked to write a poem about him for some project his teacher was working on. As usual, when it comes to writing, Rachel passed the task off to me. At the time, I was suffering from the loss of two babies. No don't grab a tissue-they didn't die on me. They just "grew away". Jared, my youngest, was four or five at the time, and had left that adorable phase of toddlerhood and grown into a young boy. You parents out there know what I am saying. My babies were now gone.

I don't really care what kind of parent you are. If you spent any time caring for your infant offspring at all, you must know the burning desire, make it a longing, to hold a baby in your arms and rock him. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to go through the daily grind of new parenthood all over. I just really want to hold a baby in my arms for about five minutes each day.

My fellow CIT and Facebook buddy, John Moran, has a new baby daughter. He affectionately calls her "Peanut" and constantly posts wonderful expressions of those special new feelings he is experiencing. It both fills me with joy to see him go through those wonderful things that I also experienced starting eighteen years ago, and, at the same time, breaks my heart. It breaks my heart because those days are only memories for me. It breaks my heart because I know that he will look back in eighteen years and feel this same pain, this same sense of loss. Of course, I am mature enough to realize there is no loss. I lived those early years of my sons' lives. More than any other events of my life, they are my treasured moments.

I think I set myself up to go through this. Rachel and I are the type of parents who place their children's existence in the very center of our universe. Every thing we have done, every dollar we have spent, and every decision we have made for the last eighteen years has been driven by our concerns for our family. Not everyone is like that. I have good friends whose children are satellites that revolve around them. They live for themselves first, and their kids seem to be in on a pass. Don't take this wrong. I am not saying they care or love their children any less than we ours, it is just a different family dynamic.

Well, where does this leave me today? I am a 50-year-old man who will drive his firstborn son to Austin tomorrow and hand him over to the University of Texas. Josh will be there for orientation for three nights. I should be crying over this. Have I not watched another legion of Joshua's vanish before my eyes? He is suddenly more of a man now, not a child at all. I should be on my knees like Scarlet Ohara, throwing dirt, and cursing my wretched existence. But, I am not. I have learned something in my last two decades, that I only had inklings of when I wrote the line, "My heart has room for every Josh". I have learned that I love my son more than anything on this earth. I have learned that I love watching him grow into the wonderful man he is and will be. I have learned that I can't wait to meet the Josh that falls in love, the Josh that gets married, the Josh that becomes a successful man, and most of all, the Josh who becomes a father. Looking back in sorrow has been replaced by looking ahead in wonder.

John Moran, you are a lucky man. Treasure your Peanut. Have more Peanuts. Make their lives the center of your universe and live every moment of them. Our children are the most important reason for our very existance. No other accomplishments in our lives will surpass that. Gotta love it!

Dang, Dana. I feel like a slacker!

My friend Dana has decided to maintain a personal blog. She says in her first post, "It's about time I tried out the idea of my OWN blog. A blog for me, about me, covering whatever. I have several blogs out there, along with some failed attempts...mostly relating to my job and/or teaching others to blog." That is almost me with the exception of the fact that I started the very blog you are reading now for personal expression back in Septemer of 2005. I guess you could call it a failed attempt, though. Afterall, I have only posted to it four times, the last being almost three years ago in July of 2006.

I don't know why I lose interest in blogging. Of course, it reflects my actual experience with journaling in general. I can show you a stack of journals that I started in a gung ho fashion, only to drop them within a few short weeks. If I sit on the bed with a spiral and pencil in my hands, my wife will actually say, "Oh, no. Not another one of your journal binges!" She has no faith in me. Sadly, neither do I.

I love to write. I have notebooks full of poetry and other writings. I even started a novel in the early 80's which will most likely never reach completion. I have an outline for a second. I haven't touched either of them in over two years. I guess I must just be lazy. I mean, really, why do I let my writing efforts peter out? I love to read and do so profusely. I am never not in the process of reading a book. I will read anything, really! I have even been known to go to Half Price Books, grab about five books at random, pay for them, and drive away within ten minutes. Eating is the same way. I love to eat. Hell, I can't get myself to stop that one.

Now, along comes Dana. She is going to make an effort to blog. Just like her, I work in the world of educational technology. I promote blogging to my coworkers. I'm such a fraud that I even hold training sessions on blogging where I tell everyone how wonderful it is. I'm like Ali Larter in Legally Blond. Remember how she sold fitness videos, but she actually had liposuction to keep her body in shape? I am so very very ashamed.

Oh well. There's nothing I can do about the past. All I can do is try to do better. I am going to do my best to make blogging here a habit. I have enough to say. I just need to keep doing it on some kind of regular schedule. I know... Dana, send my a message on Facebook reminding me to get my writing butt in gear!