The Hulk And The Maestro

Hm. Or in the word of Watchmen's vigilante hero Rorschach, Hurm.


Today's title I figured would be more recognizable as a present and possible future version of the same being (from Marvel Comics' two-part series Future Imperfect, where the big green guy on one of his more intelligent bouts is brought a century later to meet and beat a nastier futurer ... wait, I mean future, version of himself) than another alternative I had. You need a good title to get places.


Yesterday, I felt for the better part of the day in a Maestro mood, where I'd have ripped someone in two for the sake of their being idiots, but like being depressed, I get over that by getting productive on something that is important to me. Hey, I'm nowhere near Bruce Banner's (the Hulk's and Maestro's alter ego) intelligence in many ways, but I know what I need to do to get going.


And I feel like I have. From Sarah's ... let's be polite, rant yesterday morning on some of her math work for class to last night's Advent service (where Pastor Gerald got this awesome gift of dress shoes that light up and change colors the way your kids' sneakers likely do). There are days you just want to be over! And in my case, that mood ended about four pm yesterday; I'm not sure why.


I'm still strong, I'm still smart, BUT I'm wise enough (I think) on my last day of being forty-three -- yes, it's my birthday tomorrow -- to get calmer with Martha and Sarah and Jeffrey, truly the most important people walking this earth to me, with them and with all the matters pertaining to them. And I'll listen. And we'll realize that we are in this together.


Case in point, this morning: the kids and I are headed to school and then I hear from Jeffrey that neither of them have their backpacks. Neither of the kids had their backpacks because Martha had picked them up in our other vehicle last night and the backpacks were still in the van and we'd forgotten to get them. So we went to Martha's workplace and got them.


Thank God she only works across town! We got the backpacks and I drove Sarah and Jeffrey back to Longfellow and dropped them off. Even though they were late by two minutes, nobody was shouting and my stress went down. Jeffrey said and the kids admitted that they were partly at fault too, not just me. I'm relieved when it's not just me (even Martha has some blame, but not much).


David