Trees

Let me just say that it's been a long fucking day to say the least, a day that started roughly around 12:30am when i awoke to what sounded like a fucking shotgun blast ripping through my house, a shotgun blast? in the middle of the lily white burbs? i immediately checked both the boyos but i was pretty sure it didn't come from their rooms and then i ran down to the Rumpus Room, where all the wild rumpus' start, cuz there is this large tree that hangs rather precariously close to my house and was much relieved to see that it had not come crashing down but then i walked upstairs and looked out the back door and was staring face to face with what used to be the top of a tree perched some 30 or 40 feet from my house, it had snapped at the base and come crashing down upon my back deck just clipping the gutters and roof, of which i don't think there's much damage on the roof but i'm still holding my breath on that one, now let me say that i'm not one to become unnerved easily, i mean i did used to roll around with trunk loads of grass but let me say in no uncertain terms this little situation fucking unnerved my ass...

Had this large fucking stick decided to land about three feet to the left it would have blown those glass doors i looked out of right in my house, had this tree snapped 6 or so hours earlier and little Nick Disaster would have been roughly six feet from where it landed, albeit on the other side of a brick wall, of course combine the two up there and three feet and six hours and i'm a fucking nervous wreck, i about vomited just thinking about it earlier and i've been trying my damnedest to breath deeply and say "it's fucking okay, coulda been worse, the two most important things were well out of harms way", hell i know life's all about timing, i know it's all a game of inches, that day i was young and drunk and almost walked into a bus taught me that but that was me and i could give a shit what happens to me, the boyos, fucking hell i worry myself senseless, damn near get separation anxiety when i go to the fucking pub, you try and do all this shit and then some fucking weird shit like this happens and you want to build a fucking bunker and lock them away so that they're safe... but you can't... and so you cross those fingers and rub that rabbit's foot and make deals with any ghost that'll listen...

So i spent the rest of my day on the phone with insurance types and tree services and come tomorrow there will be 3 less trees in my backyard, well 4 actually if you count the firewood laying across my fence and deck, and hell it's not that i dislike trees it's just i like them better when they ain't that close to my humble fucking abode dig? and hell i might not stop there, i might just say clear cut that whole damn hillside, i'll go plant some saplings somewhere in the dead trees honor, i'll just plant them miles away from my property line, about the only cool thing is that come the a.m. Nick Disaster will probably be feeling like a pig in shit when he gets to watch guys with chainsaws and heavy machinery cut shit down, hopefully i'll get to see some too, unfortunately i'll start my day in a dentist's chair which somehow brings me to this...

You see after the fucking day i had i took the I-mac to his first ever hockey scrimmage and i'll be the first to admit the kid ain't Wayne Gretzky yet and he's one of the younger kids in the older group (if that makes sense) he being all 6 1/2 and some of these kids pushing 9 but watching his skinny ass skate up and down, trying to steal the puck and taking kids out, almost scoring not once but twice, fuck if i didn't catch myself grinning like an idiot, watching him and the rest of these kids reminded me of something, something, what was that something? it was joy, joy to play a game not for money or glory but just to play cuz you loved it, it may have been the only time i felt normal all day, hell i felt better than normal i felt good and when he came off the ice and saw his old man standing there beaming at him he gave his little, bashful smile and immediately hit me up for a chocolate bar and what could i do but hand over a dollar, and it was on the walk to the car, the tiny flakes glinting in the parking lot lights, the cold air stinging, that i told him again he done good, that i was proud of him and then i looked up into the stars as for some reason my eyes began to well thinking about my sons, and i got my shit together and looked down at my oldest boyo munching the last of his chocolate bar and you could have hit me in the mug with a tree but it wouldn't have wiped the smile off my face...