Back in November I started a legal process.  I accessed an on line system to prepare the forms, printed them out and signed them.   In mid December I took them to King County and filed them.  No lawyers to be seen, just a wad of cash for the fee. 

And yesterday I went back and filed a few more, had them signed by a commissioner, and with a quick stroke of a pen found myself in essentially uncharted waters.

I am talking about divorce.  It was no secret that my marriage had been troubled for many years.  We came close to separating 7 years ago, but ended up staying together, and trying again.  In the end, we just decided for the better of both of us, it was time to move on.

Having been through this once, I was somewhat shocked by how easy it all happened.  In my first foray into family law (California style), I was shocked at how complicated and expensive the process was.  A year and half went by before it was complete, and that was considered speedy.  We still ended up in and out of court for the next 10 years or so.

Give sorrow words;
the grief that does not speak
Whispers the o’er-fraught heart
and bids it break.
~ William Shakespeare, in Macbeth, Act IV, Scene III

“If I am to wear this mourning cloak, let it be made of the fabric of love, woven by the fine thread of memory.”
~ Molly Fumia

Remember.

Various birthdays have significant meaning, as they are transitions.

18 makes you an adult.  21 makes you a real adult.

25 marks your 1/4 century, the precursor to getting old.

30 marks the end of your wild ages.  And 40, well at that point you are entering your dotage in some peoples minds such that many lie and claim to be 39 for a few years running.

And don’t start with 50.

So today was my birthday and it was….none of the above.

48 actually.  And yet, even though it was not one of those traditionally intense days, I still found it a remarkable one.

This year has been a strange and remarkable year, what with my children scattering to the winds and my divorce looming.  This birthday I had figured to be a low key, uneventful and forgotten one.

It was anything but, really.

I headed to my dad’s house on the Peninsula and expected a nice dinner and such, but instead it was a fairly wild day.

First we got to see one of the Seattle Ferries ram the dock, something they typically try to avoid.

I think no other director in that era had this much of an impact on…well pretty much everyone in the 80s.  His legacy will endure, there is no doubt. 

Movies like the Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller and Some Kind of Wonderful continually resonate with each new generation.  He may have been writing to an era, but he was writing about real people, and that made his movies timeless.  More later on that.

Here is a great montage, a fitting tribute to his legacy.

RIP Mr Hughes.  Ferris will take it from here…

One of the challenges to being separated is setting up two households where there was previously one.  Such is my life.

We did marginally good with what we had, and so far only a minimal amount of purchases and such to complete the picture.

As a lot of my free time is cleaning out stuff, moving stuff, dividing stuff and occasionally selling stuff, my blogging will continue to limited for a week or so.

But that won’t stop me from a few posts, including this round up of interesting links I found. 

First up, a pair of miracles.  The first brings echoes of Harry Potter:

 Baby survives Baghdad bomb in slain mother’s lap

A baby miraculously survived a Baghdad car bombing cradled in his mother’s lap as she was burned alive in a blast that claimed the lives of eight people on Tuesday, witnesses said.

Harry, of course was attacked by he who must not be named.  I have no such problem naming the bastards who nearly killed this child, and did slay its mother.

In a battle against nature as opposed to man, our second miracle:

I am back from my visit to California. 

I did not post any blogs since posting of my accident last Saturday.  I chose not to for a couple reasons.

Primarily the accident took a slightly larger toll on me than I first thought, though I still count myself incredibly lucky to have escaped serious injury.  I decided to rest and ensure that upon my return to work today I would be in as good of shape as possible.  I nearly succeeded.  I still have a sprained wrist that plagues my otherwise meager typing skills.  I also have some late blooming bruises on my hips and legs that make sitting slightly unpleasant.

But again, I am incredibly fortunate and I will bear those aches with good nature.

I also had a couple of unpleasant experiences that required me to take some personal reflection time so as to process some harsh truths.

They say you cannot go home, and they are right.  I traveled to my childhood home, and found that so much had changed that it no longer felt like home.  Not all mind you, there were constant glimpses of familiarity, but at the same time, I was shocked at some of the radical changes.

My daughter and I am on the road in California for the next week, so blogging may be a bit lite.

While down here I hope to swing by the Marine recruiters office in Berkeley and see how the stand off is these days.  More on that later.

I am also going home, as they say, to see my old haunts and homes here in the Bay Area.  Tomorrow for example we drive north to Oroville to visit a high school friend and his family.  There may be guns, ATVs and four wheel drive  vehicles involved.

Armed with my trusty new Nikon D60, I should have some fun pictures to post.

I will try to post updates and stories as I go.

Sadly there are some serious issues I will also be monitoring  such as that horrible botched abortion story circulating.

I have a lengthy post in the works about that one.

Thanks,

LSU

So this year was like Mr Toad’s wild ride.  Not just me personally but the country and world.

Enough sites will post huge summaries of the major pivotal events, but a few stick in my mind.

Obama won.  I expected it.  Hell, I predicted this in 2004.  McCain tried to energize the conservatives despite not really being conservative.  He got smart and found a real conservative to help him, and he came this close to making his inevitable loss almost close.  Now we can see if conservatives can recapture their voice or not.  It may be all the harder with the losses of William F. Buckley Jr, Tony Snow and Tim Russert.

Other notable voices lost were Paul Newman, Charlton Heston and George Carlin.  I actually mourn more for the loss of a favorite author, Robert Asprin.

Global warming had a slight death too.  It brought us the worst winter on record, has been proven to not exist as stated by the UN report which is being challenged by the UN scientists, but thankfully continues to make Al Gore wealthy beyond all measure.   Well at least Al is happy.

My daughter has been a frequent co-contributer to this blog, mostly behind the scenes in the form of ideas, inspiration and occasionally comments.  But several times she has also appeared in the form of blogs I have reposted, with understandable fatherly pride.  The responses have been amazing as she is a gifted writer.

This is no exception,  and may be her finest post to date.  She sent me this in response to the vitriolic comments over a blog I posted yesterday mocking the attempts to create an Obama Federal holiday.   I am immensely proud of her, not because she shares some of my conservative values, because she is unafraid to make her beliefs known. 

Enjoy ~ LSU

Once more, this now-eighteen year old has to just shake her head at what a group of grown adults can babble and scrabble about.

As I sat down to write, I originally aimed my focus at denouncing those who have posted some strange gibberish under my dad’s post about Obama-day. But after a few days that have left me emotionally exhausted (Including losing one of my co-workers to a heart attack) and drained, I decided to write something else, and to, perhaps, give someone out there a view into the mind of at least one of America’s youth.