Profunksticated

So we went to the birthday party of my new nephew, who turned a year old. On the surface it was a pleasant enough affair. My brother’s girlfriend lives with her mother, who, it appears, has been treating my brother like one of the family for years despite his being married.

Also attending were several of the girlfriend’s friends and relatives, along with my sons, older nephews and their friends. My brother seemed real happy The Spouse and I showed up. We had dinner, sang "Happy Birthday" to the little guy and watched the Eagles beat up on Dallas (actually the Cowboys self-destructed, committing five turnovers, but as an Eagle fan I’ll take it. The win got Philly into the playoffs).

My wife said that she wants a relationship with our new nephew, but cannot do that without at least getting to know his mother. Once we returned home, however, The Spouse admitted she was uncomfortable over the whole thing, especially her mother’s seeming nonchalant attitude over her daughter dating a married man for so many years. She also said the woman mentioned she and my brother were taking a trip to Las Vegas in February. She said she thought of my brother, "Your wife will not have been in the ground a year, and you’re taking trips with this person. Not a good idea."

I have to admit, I was also uncomfortable. But I told my wife that if that’s how my brother and his woman chooses to view all the stuff that’s happened, that’s on them. We have our own isht to worry about.

Still I couldn’t help thinking of seeing the woman again after all these years and wanting to ask her stuff. TravelDiva commented in the post below that she wouldn’t have been able to hold her tongue if she had gone.

I replied that at some level, this woman will have to be accountable to someone over her role in all this. But to whom?

God? Absolutely, but we all are.

My sister-in-law? Definitely, but she’s gone on.

My mother and sister, who helped nurse my SIL through her illness and pain of learning of my brother’s relationship? Maybe.

I don’t know. I know that had that been me who was widowed (or is it widowered?), there’s no way I would have introduced any relationship – much less an illicit one — to anyone, especially my own children, so soon after my spouse’s death.

Thoughts?

It’s shortly before midnight on Saturday as I write this. During Christmas dinner at the folks,’ The Spouse tells me we’ve been invited to a birthday party — my new nephew’s first birthday, which I believe is actually Monday. The party is 3 p.m. Sunday.

For those of you who just started lurking, this youngster I speak of is the kid my bro had with his longtime co-worker and side girlfriend. The little boy was born as my brother’s wife was dying from a lung disease. She died last March.

I admit I was a bit taken aback about the invite. I hadn’t been expecting it. The party’s happening at my brother’s girlfriend’s home. That means I’m going to see this kid’s mom for the first time in probably 14 years. This will be the first time my wife’s met her.

My brother’s still wanting to integrate this person into the family, but my mom and sister continue to balk at a relationship with the woman, although they’ve warmed to the baby. It doesn’t help that this ice cream and cake-fest also is happening on my mom’s birthday, which is Sunday.

OK, I’ll go. I’ve still got a ton of questions for this woman. I don’t think this party is the time or place to ask, however.

Christmas Eve. Downtime in the office. I haven’t had a whole lot to say since the folks’ anniversary. What’s rattling through my mind:

Going to try in 2009 for a newer, better paying gig. Tired of expenses stripping income. Yeah, I know I should trim some expenses, but save cable TV, there isn’t a lot to cut. And I ain’t giving up my HBO when I’m home.
We are looking to refinance that damned mortgage.

Still haven’t heard back from the graduate school to which I applied.

Just finished cleaning off my desk. There was stuff on it that dates back to July when I first started here. I tend to be a pack rat.

The Spouse will visit me here in the DMV for New Year’s. I’d like us to go to a Washington Capitals game scheduled for New Year’s Day. (OK, yeah, that’s an expense, too but one I’ll gladly eat.) We used to do hockey games together in Philly (Go Flyers!) when we were dating. We saw our first hockey game in February 1982 — Flyers vs. the L.A. Kings at the soon to be razed Spectrum in South Philly. Game had everything — shooting, scoring, hitting and a second-period brawl that left blood on the ice. Then in 1987, almost five years to the month later, we flew from our new home in Colorado to L.A. to see the same two teams — Flyers and Kings — this time at The Forum in Inglewood, CA. Not quite as violent, but entertaining nonetheless. Flyers won both those games, BTW.

I say all this to say, my sisters, guys want their women to be their recreational companions. If he asks you to attend a live sporting event with him, by all means, go. He’ll love you for that. I think that’s been a big thing that’s been missing in our marriage in recent years. I hope hockey fans our flames once again.

That’s it for now. Pro wishes you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Peace.

Pro’s been a little busy at the gig. Speaking of gigs, I’m still looking what with my resume’ still out there. I like the firm I’m working for. I really like the people. What I don’t like is the limited responsibility and the pay. I’m really not feeling waiting several months for them to “promote” me while I’m drowning in the deep financial ocean of maintaining two residences. I’ll work out my own promotion, thank you very much.

The “hiring manager” for another tech firm emailed me about a position over a week ago saying she saw my resume (and presumably, my much-higher-than-current salary expectations) on Monster.com. I emailed back a few days later saying sure, I’d like to talk. This person wanted me to come in today. That’s when the fear gripped me. I can’t stand when that happens.

I emailed the manager, saying the soonest I could come in was the last week of December. She emailed back saying, how about Monday Jan. 5, then the holidays will be past and schedules will be clear. I emailed back that’s perfect.

But that damn fear of jumping to another firm had me for a few minutes. I had to look at my perpetually empty checking account statement on line to regain my motivation. Managing proposal development can be a huge, stressful pain in the ass (kind of like herding cats) but I’d rather be stressed by the job than be stressed over having household expenses that outstrip income.

I’m also registering to do an online master’s program in information systems. That also has me somewhat stressed. I should know this week whether I’m being accepted. The enrollment counselor told me to beef up my professional goals statement since my undergrad GPA was something like 2.3 and because I received my degree so long ago.

I wanted to tell him that journalism majors, then and now, generally don’t give a rat’s ass about GPAs. Prospective hiring editors cared about what kind of story clips you could provide, not your GPA. Coursework took a backseat to reporting and writing stories for the school paper, or if you were lucky, a real local newspaper.

After I got my bachelor’s, grad school was not even in my galaxy. To me, going back to school seemed like an expensive luxury when there was some real cash to be made (albeit not much) working for real newspapers. My negative view of grad school was reinforced by watching my wife earn three masters’ degrees, but for years seeing relatively little financial reward for her efforts.

But after leaving journalism and finding myself in my 40s trapped in corporate grunthood, I toyed with the idea of going for an MBA, but I didn’t like the idea of going further into hock for $25 to $50K while struggling to help my kids through undergrad. As you can see, I’ve changed my mind, with some enouragement from The Spouse.

Now it seems like grad school is a requirement for moving up, like the bachelor’s of yesteryear. I ask you all, is the master’s degree really worth it? If you were pushing 50 like me and had only a bachelor’s degree, would you even bother going for the masters? Just wondering.

Hello, dear readers of Profunksticated’s blog:

It is about 3 a.m. as I write this. We’re a few hours removed from my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary banquet in the Philly-South NJ. Wonderful it was. About 100 of my folks’ siblings, relatives and other friends showed up to help celebrate. The festivities were in a banquet room of a municipal country club/golf course.

The folks arrived in a stretch limo. We did dinner, played a trivia game about my parents’ lives, and acted like paparazzi, shooting a gazillion digital photos. We also feted Mom and Dad with songs, warm remarks, and visual memories of the past (including the video I assembled.)

My Dad admitted he was out there, living the single life and partying when he met Mom. What attracted him to her? Her suggestion that they attend church as their first date. He thanked her for “putting up with me for 50 years.” Mom said her husband, among other things, was a hard-working provider.

Look, you all already know that marriage ain’t always a bowl of cherries, but in this age of the ubiquitous stat of half of all American marriages breaking up, it’s nice — heck, it’s extraordinary — to see a couple stick out life’s peaks, valleys, brickbats and bouquets for half a century.

That’s 50 years, ya’ll. 600 months. 2,600 weeks. 18,262.5 days. 438,300 hours.

I remarked to the audience that God blessed me with the right set of parents. They provided a great example. They weren’t at fault for the times I went astray, I chose to travel those paths. In the final analysis, they did what they could to keep myself and my younger brother and sister on the right roads. After that, it was simply up to us.

As I’ve blogged before, my family has been through a lot of stuff in 2008, most of it downright unpleasant. For example, today December 7, would have been my brother and late sister-in-law’s 23rd wedding anniversary. I’m sure a lot of folks present remembered that. And if you’ve read this blog for any amount of time you know there’s other stuff happening, but I’m not going into any more detail, at least not in this post.

It was nice to have such a beautiful event cap a not-so-great 2008. Yeah, I’m sounding sappy, but I don’t care right about now. I thank God for my parents and their marriage.

As Pro writes this, a major massacre is taking place at one of the nation’s largest media companies. This is truly sad. I got my start in journalism with Gannett back in the early 1980s, first as a summer intern for a Florida daily (I actually got paid and received college credit for the gig), then as a staff reporter for my hometown paper in New Jersey.

Estimates are that 3,000 folk, about 10 percent of Gannett’s newspaper employees, are getting pink slips. The cuts were announced in late October.

This is why I could no longer do newspapers even if I wanted to.

Good Tuesday, my readers. Pro got a call from a guy looking for reps to sell Aflac insurance yesterday. I kindly gave dude the brush off. And today a message landed in my junk e-mail box seeking “exclusive agents” for Allstate. Now tell me if I’m wrong, but why would I want to sell a commoditized product like insurance.? I’d be competing with the thousands of agents already out there. I’m all for entrepreneurship, but for me to take the risk of starting up a business, the product or service has got to be right.

I finally met my nephew on Thanksgiving. Cute little bugger; he’s now 11 months old. I gave the kid my favorite test: whether or not he likes being thrown up in the air and caught. He loved it. My daughter used to squeal with delight when I threw her. So did my youngest son. But my older son screamed in terror whenever I tossed him up. Same gene pool, radically different personalities. Go figure. My mom seems to be bonding with the kid, but she’s still not ready to meet baby mama.

I made a few changes to the 4-minute video for my parents’ golden wedding anniversary party this weekend. I think it’s much improved. I’ve found I really like doing that kind of stuff. I can spend hours on non-linear editing applications. And I not only enjoy editing but but also scanning the images as well as shooting video and photos. I spent countless hours a couple years back assembing a video of a family reunion, which is now up on Google video. It came in at one hour and nine minutes. Now if I can just get someone to pay me to do video editing enough to replace this job I have now, I’d be one happy camper.