“Blame it on the Santa Ana Winds”
My blog has been silent lately. Even my last few blogs, which were weeks ago, did not contain much sustenance. I have been working long hours again. I am slowly cutting unnecessary expenses like my phone and Blockbuster membership and hope to be back down to just 40 hours per week every week by the end of the year. In case you are wondering, my income recently went down when I finally changed my tax status from married to single. This means that Uncle Sam now gets close to 10 percent more of each of my paychecks. Combine that with alimony and child support and you can see the reason for the long hours.
I have been single for nearly a year now. The beginning of next month will mark the one-year anniversary of the night that my ex-wife was rear-ended by the wife of a professional athlete. Said accident was the catalyst for our long overdue break up. I have another blog that describes much of this in detail so I will digress.
Single is an interesting place to be. People often ask me how the long hours affect my relationship with my kids. The fact is that my relationship with them is better now than ever. When I don’t have them, I take care of business. When I have them, they are my business. We have Disneyland passes and live in an area surrounded by trails and parks. There is also a heated pool just yards away. In fact, we were in the pool a couple of hours ago. We go to church every Sunday even when we are out of town. The last time I picked my 7 year old son up from school, some of the first words out of his mouth before he hugged my leg in the parking lot were “I love you daddy.” The other day, I kissed my 2-year-old daughter on the forehead. She smiled and looked up at me and said, “You kissed me daddy!”
I am a big Dodgers fan. Both kids know several Dodger cheers and have been to a couple of games with me this season. Unfortunately, the Dodgers have been eliminated from any chance of post-season play. We do live in the OC though and so we have ALL converted over to be temporary Angels fans. My daughter often asks me, “Angels winning dad?”. If the answer is yes, she says “Yay, Angels!”. If the answer is no, she says “Ah, man!” Her vocabulary is much fuller than this but I enjoy the stuff I have quoted so much that I felt compelled to share with random blog readers. 
What does the title of this blog have to do with it’s content? Nothing really. It is a quote from a Steve Martin movie where everyone has a few screws loose and the phrase keeps being used as an excuse for the silliest of things. I was reminded of it this morning when I experienced the first dry wind since moving to the OC. I used to live in the desert and I experienced dry wind EVERY DAY. That seems so long ago now. I love my new life. It can be lonely at times, but I am taking the opportunity to make long-term investments in my kids, my finances, my walk with God, and my career.
