Karma

Dear Reader,

This one is not so old, less than a year. More parental genuis.

Til next time.


Somehow I think Karma (not Kara!) is a cruel, cruel entity.

My kids love to dance. They have favourite songs, Hollaback Girl gets Phia’s booty shakin’, but anything with a half-assed dancy beat will get them up jumpin’, groovin’, stylin’, and profilin’. They particularly like to dance and act a fool when Daddy is up doing the same. It’s fun, it’s a work out, and always leads to great memories. That hopefully they’ll remember when they hit 12-13 and think Dad is an asshole.

October 2005 in general had been a below average month. But that is relative to the preceding months, I was away for the majority of it and though the tasking that I was involved in went perfect it was not without hardship, strife, and indigestion. As a result as well, Kara was home alone with the kids after just having me home for ten days. This brought out the worst in the kids; unsure as to when the stranger they knew as daddy was going to be home for good. To cap off October there were financial issues, social issues etc. etc that just added to a below average month. The crap out weighed the golden moments.
November 2005 therefore had oodles of potential. It started as well as it could if you consider the pace of work for myself, the kids had leveled off, and so had laundry requirements. Kara and I had the opportunity to spend some quality time and find our inner resolve again about money, friends, and family. The kind of inner peace only available when two people truly connect and are back on the same page.
After a week back to work to tidy up loose ends, send some troops on other taskings (that I was luckily able to avoid) I had a week home with the kids. Kara was going off to BC as part a contingent from the Military Family Resource Centre (MFRC, or FarCee to the munchkins). It started as a stressful occasion given the cost, but still a golden opportunity and chance of a lifetime for a small-town East coast girl. And it was Kara’s first real break from the kiddos, in, well- ever.
This was great opportunity for me, as Dad, as well to reconnect with my kids since I had been away a fair amount. And if you take out the fact that the kids would absolutely not sleep beyond 6:15 in the morning things were a dream.

Now as many know, this year in August Kara took up running, out of the blue. It lasted more than three or four days. In fact we are heading into month four. Unprecedented success for the self proclaimed couch potato royalty! Kara had been using events to act as training goals and motivating factors to keep her going during her “questionable motivation” times. But she also wanted a running CD, a compilation of songs and tracks that would get her ass a-boogeyin’ down the road. I had been saying “yup, I’ll get to it…” for a while. Well, being ultra husband balancing children in one hand and my nice-guyness in the other I sat down one evening and started tracking down songs from previous compilations and off the net.
Now I don’t watch a lot of TV, but one thing I like and have over a sports package on my digital cable is the music stations. I love all kinds of music and paid a little extra to get as many music videos as possible. One station is BPMTV, playing a ton of Electronica, House, Trance, Dance, and every possible variable thereof. One song really caught my attention: Traffic by DJ Tiesto. So I was a little selfish when I started searching and found as many DJ Tiesto songs I could. Despite my selfishness Kara’s CD filled quickly though for irony I stopped at 26 songs…
All this background led to the climax of our story.

It was Wednesday afternoon. Kara was about 36 hours from her return. Sophia had just woke up from her nap, Nathaniel had been watching me play online poker. While playing, Nathaniel had been grooving to DJ Tiesto in the background. Then a track I only know as Southern Sun a DJ Tiesto remix came on. It immediately caught Sophia’s interest, so I cranked up the volume turning or computer room in to a rave hall. I folded my hand of online poker and jumped up with the kids, it was an instant hit.
Nathaniel has taken to attempting “dance moves” involving jumping, spinning and occasionally punching himself in the face, and then saying “Daddy try this!” Well, dad starts trying to get the kids to try things, pretty soon the little room looks like an 80’s aerobics class, sort of Eric Pryde’s Call on Me…without the sex appeal. So we’re all doing knees lifts and lunges, and throwing our arms in the air. The jumping and air punching is reaching a frenetic pace, building with the music. Then Sophia stumbled.

I remember turning my body in the air, transfixed on not crushing Sophia and her bobbing ponytail. I never saw Nathaniel’s rising fist.

I heard a comedian describe it once as there is a bundle of nerves about as big around as a large fist connected to the testicles. And when struck, the pulse travels up the spinal cord and exploding like a tremendous Fourth of July fireworks display in the brain.

My feet never touched the ground; I used my back to break my fall.

Sophia and Nathaniel thought this was the next dance move and proceeded to jump up and land awkwardly on the floor. They found this move to be unfulfilling, and as the song ended they left the room and went to play Lego.

I lost about $500 in unplayed hands of online poker.

I hate DJ Tiesto.

But to get back to my point, this should of happened in October, that month sucked. But maybe it was karma getting back at me for downloading a whole bunch of running songs for Kara as a nice thing to do, on top of the laundry and cleaning.

Hmm, maybe it’s Kara’s fault.

Sincerely, with Ice Pack,

Scotty H.