Slackjaw's Forum

You can’t always tell all the ways you’ll affect your child as he grows up. Most of the time the things I worry about are not the things the older boys brings up in those moments before sleep—in that space between the end of the day and night. Last week on the first day of spring, as has been tradition for the past 5 years, we headed out to the ocean in honor of Ike’s birthday. We were a bit late in going this year due to scheduling conflicts with Sweetie and my work, but it was actually all for the best. Ike wound up coming down with massive ear infections in both ears about a week before our trip and so it gave us some time to pump him full of antibiotics before heading out into the next winter storm to make its way along the coast this time of year. That night Ike had a massive seizure causing him to vomit and spasm, and for about the next 30 minutes or so, Sweetie and I wondered just what the hell we were gonna do up there in Moclips, miles from a hospital on a Monday night, if he ...

Sweetie and I celebrated the 24th anniversary of our very first date yesterday. On that night, we went to see the movie Ragtime, staring Jimmy Cagney in his last movie role. I had already sneakily gotten our first kiss out of the way the night before at an impromptu cast party for the musical Grease that we were both in. Sweetie, because of here talent and fine singing voice was the lead, Sandra Dee, and I was Teen Angel and pit orchestra guitarist. Afterwards I took her to my house to meet Toby, who I found out years later, she thought would be my younger brother, but he was just our decrepit English Bulldog, in the last year or two of his life. Toby was a sweet old dog who in his later years suffered from a bit of arthritis and eventually died during surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. Sweetie, who grew up with a lot of cats, had never owned a dog, and this led to a few episodes where she would decide that we should take the dog for a walk and Toby would grudgingly allow himself...