Wow….Three Months!!!

I can’t believe it has been three months since my last post. Okay, well maybe I can. I have had a busy quarter I guess. Of course my work takes up a good portion of my time. Running a restaurant effectively takes a little doing. I have slowed down a lot of my Internet activity. I Twitter less than I have in the past, I deleted my facebook profile, and apparently I blog even less. I don’t really know what to say about that. Lord knows that I spend enough time in front of internet connected screens between my desktop, my iPod touch and my smartphone. I don’t know why I don’t write more. The past few months have been both eventful and uneventful at the same time. While I do spend the bulk of my time cooking for the largely ungrateful public, I have learned to enjoy the parts of my life that aren’t always routine. The unexpected is the only thing that keeps my interest these days. Until recently I believed that my life had become rather bland. The same experiences each day. Nothing new. Same old same old. Thanksgiving changed that. My restaurant has the largest single day of the year on Thanksgiving Day. It is a lot of work, but it is also the greatest challenge. People just keep coming and coming wanting food. You would think that most people would be spending the day with their families, but I have the most people that day. Next week will me like that too. We will have decent business leading up to Christmas, but afterwards, nothing for two to three months. I really don’t know for sure what will happen but I know the challenge will not end.
Anyway, on to more important things. As my screenname suggests I am the father of two boys. They are the reason that I cook chicken for the largely ungrateful public. I am certain that being a father was why I was put on this earth. Those two boys bring me so much joy that I don’t think I have a word to express it. The youngest Wyatt is so full of energy and adventure that sometimes he seems much older than 16 months. The look on his face when he sees or hears something new is captivating. I like nothing more than to sit and watch him investigate a new object or toy. I just imagine what is going thru his mind as he absorbed the new sights and sensations. I usually leave the experience filled with wonder myself looking at the world just a little bit differently.
My oldest child, Ben, is a thoughtful young boy of nine. He does well in school and tries hard. I can see some of me in him as he gets older. Ben is not the most outgoing kid, but he has some friends. He is very smart for his age but not just book smart. Now don’t get me wrong, he has very little in the way of street smarts, but he has very good rationalization and critical thinking skills. He understands more about the world than some of the asults that I know. I really am proud of him. I don’t think I let him know that enough.
The love of my life is next to me right now. I love her dearly. I don’t know how I would continue my life without her. She loves me for who I am today not who I was yesterday. We look toward the future together and we see happiness. Sure the road is tough sometimes but we get thru it toghther.

By the tone of this post I can tell that I am tired. Fatigue has a tendancy to make me introspective and cause me to gush. Tiredness brings my defenses down. I spend most of my life keeping most of my emotions behind a barrier. I can’t do my job based on emotions or else I would have a building full of too many employees and everyone would eat for free. I have to remain relatively detached and keep the crew at arms length. That is really hard for me sometimes. I have a crew member that is one of the sweetest young women I have ever met. She shows up every day and does a fairly decent job. Recently she has been pregnant twice. Both pregnancies miscarried. As the manager I have to asses the situation as it pertains to the operation of my business. I have to deal with replacing her shifts and all that stuff. All the while the parent inside me is screaming out and trying to offer comfort and just wanting to console her and hug her and tell her how awful it is. But I can’t. All I can offer is an empty sorry to hear that, and ask when she can return to work. Those are the times I hate. When my need for professionalism trumps my basic human emotions. Luckily I don’t have too many irrate guests yelling at me or else I would’ve been out on my ear a long time ago.
It is now almost three hours since I laid down in bed to go to sleep. And as you can plainly tell I am still awake. I feel tired and my eyes are tired but within what seems seconds of closing them they have popped back open again and I am staring at the nightstand. My wife is snoring away peacefully as she always does, but here I am. Wide awake. I have had many strugles wig insomnia over the years. It usually is causes by some emotional or intellectual issue going on ok my head. I have a couple of big decisions to male this week both personally and professionally. My wife’s car is going kaput and we have to decide of it’s worth fixing or if we can afford to get a new used one. Also, I have planned a trip to Washington DC for Ben, Wyatt and I for after Christmas and I don’t know if we will be able to go thru with it or not. I really would like to give him that opportunity to see that city, but I don’t know if it is doable or not. When I was his age we didn’t get he opportunity to travel like that because there were so many of us. I would like to let my son have that chance. I stopped truck driving before he was old enough to go win me and I rally want him to see the country. When I was his age I thought the country was huge and I was better off just staying I’m Michigan. It was scary for me as an adult to venture out into the country and find my way around. The perception of this country got a whole lot smaller. I have visited forty-seven of the forty-eight states ant one point or another. I have driven every mile of I-69. I can tell you the nest route from Seattle, WA to Miami, FL. Seeing the country changed my life and I want mo less for my kids.
I know this is a long post and if you have made it this far, I hope you feel of was worth your time. I started tie blog to share my thoghts and observations of my world around me. It isn’t very informative or entertaining bit kent to me thought provoking. My life isn’t exciting in any way. I’m not an Internet celebrity. I’m a husband and father that wants to do just that. Provide for my family and share my thoughts and experiences with others.

By the way, if you thought this was long to read, keep in mind that I wrote this on my iPod touch, fighting the onscreen keyboard every step of the way. The text prediction did a good job though. Probably got ninety percent of the typos fixed automatically for me.

Later
Chuck