Oh the holidays
2004-12-30 || 9:14 a.m.

Oh the holidays
Well it's been an eventful week. It started with my friends and I paying tribute to the man, the myth, the fucking legend, Joe Strummer. We had a blast. We watched some old videos of the clash and some new stuff as well. Even a silent movie that Joe had directed starrining the clash. It was a fun time. We got piss drunk and had a blast. I put some more pics up on my pictures link of the man.
Onto Christmas eve. I had off on friday so that was nice. I needed the time off. The guy I work with had a silent heart attack at the end of November so it's just been me and let me tell ya', work has been fucking crazy. I spend more time here at work than anywhere. In the past month I have only been home to sleep. It fucking sucks! I miss my wife and Kids something awful. Anyway, we went to my in-laws for christmas eve down in Brick NJ. They have this huge family party every year and we always go. It was extra good this year because my folks came down from Maine to spend the holidays with us. We all had a good time. We left there about 11:00 pm and headed back up to north jersey and put the kids to bed. On christmas day the kids didn't wake up until about 9:30am. They were beat from the night before. The look on their faces when they came out by the chritmas tree in the morning was something that I 'll never forget. It's really brings you back to when you were a kid. The excitement you used to feel knowing that Santa was at your has in the middle of the night and Holy Shit! He left a shitload of gifts for you!. I really missed that feeling but now I have it back in some form. It' was really an amazing day for me. It took everything I had to keep from tearing up. Then what does my oldest son do. He retrieves a gift that he made in preschool from under the tree. He's only four. It was all wrapped (he wrapped it himself by the way) and when I opened it it was a peice of construction paper with his hand prints on it and a little poem. This is what it said:
I know you get discouraged
Because I am so small
And always leave my finger prints
on furniture and walls

But everyday I'm growing
I'll be grown up someday
And all the smudges that I did
Will surely fade away

So here's another bunch of them
Just so you can recall
exactly how my fingers looked
When I was very small

well lets just say that whatever I was doing to hold back the tears wasn't working anymore. I gave him a big hug and he said. "I love you Daddy".
It's hard to believe for most of my adult life I didn't even want kids. Now I realize how blessed I am to have them in my life. I can't even remeber what it was like when they weren't around. I also realized that for me anyway the strongest love that I have ever felt is the love I have for my kids. Now don't get me wrong. My love for my wife and family and friends is very strong, especially my love for my wife, but......yes there is a but.......The love that I feel for my kids is so huge that I couldn't even begin to put it into words. You all with children out there know what I mean. When I was without children I used to see parents and how they would talk about there kids all the time and it used to make me cringe. I would say, "if I ever get like that please fucking shoot me". They would always say "When you have kids , you'll understand". I would be like Yeah right. Well every one take out your guns and shoot me in the fucking head because right now I'm at the front of the firing line. They were all right, every one of them. Now I totaly understand. It was a great christmas. If you asked me I really couldn't even tell you what I got. I was too interested in what the kids were doing. I know I got the first season of Chapelle's Show because I watched some of it last night. Oh and some clothes but I need to take stock.
New years eve we are just going to a friends house with our kids. It will just be us and them. they have two kids the same age and they all play together so it should be fun. We're staying over so we can have some fun too.
I hope that you all had a happy and safe holiday and that all your loved ones are healthy and safe as well. I think it's important to realize that during this holiday season we all have loved ones that are not healthy or safe and by loved ones I mean all of humanity. All people on this earth. We have lost, at this point in time anyway, 114,000 fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, grandparents, friends, relatives and fellow human beings. I can't even begin to fathom the sheer grief and horror these people have faced in these past days. We need to help. It's always been my philosophy to let petty things go. I have great relationships with every one that I know. You have to leave anger and foolish pride behind in your lifetime because you never know what life will bring. I know someone who hasn't talked to his family in years. I asked him the other day, " what would you do if you're entire family was wiped out by that sunami which as far as I'm concerned is not that much of a stretch of the imagination. How would you feel knowing that your entire family was gone". He told me a few days later that he had called his mother for the first time in years after that conversation. I was so happy for him. I think that you have to let all that shit go. We are only here for a very short time. It doesn't pay to live out that short time without the ones who are close to you.
Enough preaching for one day. I'm sure I bored you all to tears with that.
later,ROB
ps. I was just looking at the mofos diary and he had a great list of links to help the sunami victims so go check it out and do something.