Two in a row!

Small victory, I know, but we've just had our 2nd good night of sleep in a row. I feel rested enough now that I may try to stop beating my wife and children and see how that goes. What? Look, it's better than self-harm, and I had to do something to get through! Actually, the lawn looks pretty ratty, and I may have to take a drive today to pick something up for my wife, so don't worry about me having nothing to do while I'm on paternity leave.

A loved one stopped by last night. I'll refrain from identifying her, except for saying that she is a her, ur, her is a she, blah! You know what I mean! I remember a story my friend told me about a childhood incident in which a group of children were staying overnight at a friend's house. The friend's drunk father came home, and started making grilled cheese sandwhiches left and right, like he's feeding an army. He became very adamant that everyone eat the grilled cheese sandwhiches. Stories like that are funny and sad at the same time, ya know? Well, this family member called yesterday, "I want to come over to see the baby." Ok, we're home, come on over. Somehow this 15 minute drive became 4 hours, and she got here blitzed out of her mind, repeating things over and over, repeating things, repeating things, repeating things over and over, over and over, repeating things over and over, calling for children that were standing right in front of her, literally blocking her line of sight, handing out junk she bought at the dollar store, and falling asleep while holding the baby. Cole found much of this quite funny, and it was. But it was sad at the same time. She did bring me two Meerschaum pipes, one new, and one that is 35 years old. Meerschaum is a porous material mined almost exclusively in Turkey, and it makes for a very cool pipe -- it changes colors as you smoke it, from white to a golden brown, and it smokes very dry because the moisture gets absorbed nicely into the porous Meerschaum. So, let's review...

Drunken visit, bad.

Meerschaum pipes, good.