European Wanderings

I was working at a company north of Paris (20 miles) yesterday and made the decision to remain in Paris for the night and come back today to Frankfurt. While I usually travel alone, this time I was with two coworkers and one of them had never seen the Eiffel Tower. Normally I would have had dinner and gone back to the hotel room to work but he convinced me to go with him to the tower. And I am so glad he did. The tower was beautifully lit with sparkling lights all over it (like Cinderella's castle at Disney) and was a sight to behold.

However, coming into the city may not have been the best choice in the world. The traffic was miserable coming into the city at 6 pm yesterday and took us 90 minutes in a taxi from the hotel to the office. If I knew Paris a little bit better I would have taken the Metro. Oh well...

Tomorrow, Friday, the family and I are driving up to the Netherlands to the city of Keukenhof. This is apparently one of the most beautiful places in the world where the fields and fields of tulips bloom in April. There are flower parades and an amusement park all dedicated to the flowers blooming. While there we hope to spend some time in Amsterdam and a beach on the North Sea. We are staying with a family with two girls (7 and 5) - he's British and she is Dutch - that we met while sitting waiting for the Main Street Parade in Euro Disney in November.

And lastly, the company I worked at yesterday is 300 meters from where the Concorde crashed in 2000 upon take off from Charles de Gaull, killing all 113 people on board. There is still a huge hole and field, cordoned off by razor and barbed wire and small monument in the parking lot of the restaurant/hotel next door where we ate lunch. Awfully eerie to be eating lunch looking out at a field where a major airline disaster occurred.

Ode to Kate

This morning Rebecca and I got the opportunity to go to Kate's class for a conference with the teacher (and Kate) and to view Kate's portfolio - all the pictures, projects she has worked on throughout the year. We are so proud of her! She then got to go out with Rebecca for a few hours alone as Lauren was in school (which rarely happens as whenever Lauren is in school, Kate is as well) and got a popsicle. You would think we were in Texas with the size of that thing! We love you Kate!

Rebecca and I went to dinner and a movie Saturday night. Dinner was at a Japanese restaurant where they cooked in front of you like Benihana (or Samurai for those long-time east-side Cleveland residents). Food was very good, pricey but not quite the fun atmosphere of Benihana. Movie was Marley and Me...not bad but certainly emotional. The pic is a picture of a "beer bike." There were 8 places on it, each place with pedals and kegs attached so people could climb up, drink beer and help pedal the bike as it roamed the streets of Frankfurt. There appeared to be one guy up front who did the steering. Not a bad way to get from place to place on summer evenings while taking in the local scene...

Thanks for the Memories Grandpa

My grandfather, Glenn Molyneaux (Gim), was one of the people I admired most and most enjoyed spending time with. He was a jack-of-all-trades and able to do and fix anything. He was a well-respected businessman (owner of a hardware store and mutiple other endeavours) who always made time (at least in my lifetime) for family and grandkids. He passed away Saturday after a rough last couple of years. He will be sorely missed by all those who had any contact with him. A list below of the wonderful memories, many of which I share with my cousins, sister and parents:

- Going for donuts with grandpa at the cottage every weekend morning while the parents slept

- Learning the etiquette of golf

- Boating in the Molycoddle in Florida

- A deep sea fishing charter he paid for in which my cousin Brad and I were very sick

- Working for and living with him one summer after sophomore year in high school at a construction site, learning what manual labor was all about

- Fishing and learning how to clean fish

- A 14 day cruise thru the Panama Canal in 1987

- Christmases in Shaker when they would drive the motor home in and park it in our driveway

- Going with him to flea markets where he would be selling products from the hardware store

- Playing in the 2nd floor (toy floor!) of the hardware store

- The corny little songs he used to sing ("He mourned for his life and shot his wife...")

- Riding his moped around Oberlin

- Being blamed for putting the cat down the clothes chute at 582 Beech Street

- Teaching me how to drive a car with a trailer

- His constant "jerry rigging" to get things to work (thankfully/surprisingly never causing a fire at the cottage)

- Buying lottery tickets with him and sitting in the motor home waiting for the nightly picks

- Never forgetting anybody. He remembered every friend I ever brought to the cottage

- Cruising around Ft Myers in his 80's Lincoln Continental (huge!)

I am sure there are a million more, so please add on if anybody has more. I will miss you and love you Grandpa Gim.

GERMany

We arrived in Germany on the 1st of August last year. The first 3 weeks we spent living in a hotel as we awaited the delivery of the furniture to our rented house. During that 3 weeks, we went from playground to playground, McDonalds to McDonalds, exploring cities. No one got sick. Since then, GERMany has taken its toll on the Molyneaux clan. Evidence below…This does not show all the hours spent filling out medical claim forms (as each doctor visit and prescription must have a claim form filled out and sent back to the US) nor the hours Rebecca has spent on the phone talking to the healthcare provider or reconciling what they should have paid to what was actually paid. Bless her heart…it has taken at least 5 hours a week since September to keep it all straight!

August 25 - Lauren - Bronchitis
September 1 - Lauren - Lung congestion
September 4 - Rebecca - family exposed to TB on plane, needed testing
September 5 - Kate - strep throat
September 5 - Lauren - strep throat
September 11 - Kate - test for TB exposure
September 11 - Lauren - test for TB exposure
September 15 - Kate - health test
September 15 - Lauren - nasal congestion
September 20 - Lauren - sinus and cough not improving
September 23 - Rebecca - kidney and bladder infection - ambulance and hospital for 2 days
October 1 - Kate - strep throat
October 1 - Lauren - sinus infection
October 3 - Lauren - hand, foot and mouth disease at Disney
October 9 - Lauren - sinus infection
October 20 - Kate - fever
October 28 - Kate - ankle injury
November 20 - Lauren - Upper Respiratory infection in Austria
November 27 - Kate - ear infection
November 27 - Lauren - Pneumonia
December 5 - Lauren - urinary tract infection
December 6 - Lauren - pneumonia
December 22 - Lauren - severe cough
December 22 - Kate - pink eye/conjunctivitis
December 31 - Kate - pink eye, severe cough
December 31 - Lauren - pink eye
January 1 - Miles - bronchitis
January 7 - Rebecca - sore throat/cough
January 14 - Miles - pneumonia
January 25 - Rebecca - broken foot
February 3 - Kate - Cold/severe milk anaphylactic reaction
February 3 - Lauren - cold
February 10 - Rebecca - broken hand
February 10 - Lauren - foot infection
February 16 - Lauren - Scarlett Fever

Bedtime Stories

When Rebecca moved to Florida to live with me in May 1999 after graduating from law school, she jumped pretty quickly into studying for the Florida Bar exam. At night, she had difficulties falling asleep as she had so much going through her head so I started reading books to her to better allow her to fall asleep. I think the first book we read was the first Harry Potter. We have continued this practice of my reading to her each night (when I am not traveling) and have read numerous books, including the entire Harry Potter series, the Chronicles of Narnia and scores of other books, with the last one being Catcher in the Rye (which might be the worst book I have ever read).
This allows us a little down time together at the end of the night as we are both often doing our own things for the final few hours of the day after the kids go down and Rebecca and I both enjoy it. The only problem is she can't tell me when she falls asleep so I often read several pages before realizing she is asleep. And then have to reread those pages the next night...

Any suggestions for good books to read?

Analyzing behaviors

So a few months ago I mentioned divulging those personal issues which I struggle with. One is pretty easy and doesn't effect life too much. The other has become a bit too much of a part of my daily like.

1. I am totally obsessive compulsive about a number of things - cleanliness/order (but oddly not about germs) and counting. I count absolutely everything - letters in words, words in sentences, every step I walk up. I know how many steps to the 2nd and 3rd floors to our house in Shaker which I moved out of in 1994. Same with the neighbors...The cleaning drives me crazy. I get nervous and sweaty when things are not in a specific order. And order means everything off the counters, dishes washed immediately, kids toys put away when done being played with...this has manifested itself over the past few years since having kids. Rebecca and I were always quite orderly when it was just us. But the kids have caused disorder (either directly or indirectly) that just drives me crazy. This, as well, has not caused too much trouble in my life. I spend alot of time picking up and it has caused some tense moments between Rebecca and I when things get left out longer than they should or she gets bothered by the fact that I walk in the door from work and am washing dishes in suit and tie within 30 seconds (implying she is a poor housekeeper). But part of that is to ensure that I don't get angry or nervous about it later causing bigger issues...either way, I suppose, this is not a large issue as compared with those of other obsessive compulsives I have read about - not being able to leave the house, constant hand washing, etc.

2. Death. I used to have a "Book of Questions" with 242 (I think) questions in it that were supposed to spur thought, conversations and inner analysis. One of the questions was "What are you most scared of?" I often shared these questions with coworkers and friends and was amazed at the number of people that had death as their biggest fear. At the time of these numerous discussions, I was 15-25 years old and death was at the bottom of my list of things I was scared of. I parachuted, started flying, ran into burning buildings, jet skied in 20 foot waves in the ocean and alligator infested lakes. I tempted death and didn't let it worry me one bit. However, I have 100% reversed my thinking on this and attribute this to having a wife and kids who rely on me and loving others more than I could possibly love anything else. I am scared to death of death (??), not the physical act or event of dying. That doesn't worry me. The effect my death would have on the rest of the family. I read the obits every morning, scouring them for people my age who have died to find out how, who they left behind and often shed tears thinking about this person I don't know and the kids who will grow up without a parent.

Almost every act I make during the day that is semi-dangerous (driving, commercial flying, crossing the street), I picture myself crashing or getting struck and killed and think about not being able to see my daughters grow up, missing birthdays, weddings, their adulthood. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it now. Not 100% my missing things but the idea that they wouldn't have a loving and supporting father to help them grow, mature and become sensitive and caring women.
And often, especially today as I read about a father who killed his 3 children and set the house afire, I think about things the other way around - my kids getting killed and my having to live through it. Many horrendous visions come along with this. I imagine (for some reason) the last few minutes of those kids lives and watching what their father was doing and the pain (physically and emotionally) they must have gone through.

I realize this is a completely morbid post and certainly not very uplifting. But unfortunately it is something that consumes alot of my thoughts. And I read other blogs that also often have a theme of death in them - either dealing with a death or reacting to death or the worries of a parent - and realize I am not the only one. But I wish I could stop thinking about it all the time...