What started out as me saying, “…sure, I will guest post sometime…” has turned into the art of procrastination on my part with a good dose of writer’s block. MommaK (is this what I call my wife??) has been patient but firm. Much like a mother bird…throwing its own baby overboard fly-or-die style.

I do not blog. Something I have yet to get into. Mostly because I have gotten into about everything else. I have a constant mess of unfinished work, hobbies, daddy-time, and husband duties. Moreover, I have never kept a diary. My writer’s block has come from the “guest” part of this post. It feels like I get only one shot, one chance to express…something. What? I can’t think of a subject. So in the spirit of 4th grade essay subject:

I should point out that I am the only male in Petroville to include dogs and guinea pigs. We had a male dog but my wife got rid of it while I was at work. George was a “bad boy”. I must admit my behavior has improved since George’s departure.

My wife and I were married fairly young (21 & 23) and as such have had the great opportunity to grow up together. When we were first married I worked 3 jobs (1 professional, 1 retail, 1 paper hat), had one pair of dress pants and we lived in a 400 square foot apartment in the hood near DC. My wife was pregnant and working part-time so we could afford our “new to us” ‘82 Volvo that came with optional hooptie wheels and permanent cherry air freshener smell. We could hardly afford network television, our main beverage was Kool-Aid, and all of our furniture was older than we were with many previous owners. We would go to the grocery store with 40 dollars for the week. Crazy…Anyway in the few hours that we would have together at home we found a little slice of heaven. My wife can take ordinary and turn it into extraordinary. It may have been a candle-lit dinner with frozen pizza but it was wonderful.

From that first Petroville we have moved 10 times in pursuit of my wacky career. While my career has been very good to us, the moving and the lifestyle made finding and keeping friends difficult. It also made it all too easy to be absorbed in each other, our children, and our home-life. It is important also to note that K’s mom was in a convent and her father was in a seminary to become a priest. Conversely, my mother was a Zen Buddhist and her husband a Christian Scientist. The point of all this background is to explain the environment it created and the bizarre alchemy of life. The combination of being transient, having no defined spiritual foundation, and reasonable financial success has made/allowed us to live by the “best we know how” rules. This is somewhere between Hammurabi’s code and the rules of Fight Club. K will still settle a dispute with a running leap and tackle. I have advised her for 11 plus years that physical violence is never the answer to which her response is generally “This is how we do.” (K has always had the requirement of answering a third of all questions asked with something painfully funny. Often rap lyrics and movie quotes.)

On the 10th move my lovely wife said, “We can’t move again until the girls are out of High School”. WHAT? She did not say this on move 9 when we lived on the beach in CA in a manicured golf community. She did not say this on move 8 when we lived in the Bay Area in a beautiful hills community. She put her foot down in the latest greatest Petroville smack dab in the middle of the freaking woods. For the previous five or six years we have had a gardener and a number to call when something broke ( I am not looking for pity just context). Now I am like Schneider from “One Day at a Time“. Constantly fixing toilets, cleaning up Great Dane vomit, and fixing an endless procession of maladies associated to our vehicles (we have a driveway full of foreign vehicles for absolutely no good reason. One of us is car obsessed). I do not mean to complain; quite the opposite actually.

My job has me out of town 2 weeks a month. At my work I have almost a hundred people that cannot wait to do something nice for me and an incredible assistant that manages almost all aspects of my life with an eye to comfort. When I am on the road I am forced to stay in a luxury condo in the heart of San Francisco always stocked with my favorite goodies. But I could not feel more out of place or more absolutely alone when I am gone. I am addicted to Petroville and have immediate withdrawal symptoms the moment I step off the property.

While I have worked hard to create our living, K has worked hard to create our life. Anyone who has been to Petroville can tell you that, while it is strange in a “Lord of the Flies” kind of way, it is also a low-stress place to unwind and have fun. We live far enough from anything that most guests are overnight guests. This adds to the charm as it is generally asses and elbows with a mixture of family and friends compounded by any number of animals and animal guests. We eat big, play hard, and sleep like bandits in Petroville and will accept nothing less from our guests. We are severely prone to practical jokes. Even my youngest daughter will often hide a plastic spider in my sheets and I will generally wake most first-time guests with the bull-horn and siren (K has this hidden but I will find it…again). Laughter is never short and our life is an odd comedy.

I am glad some of you enjoy reading this blog and hopefully laughing with us and at us. I know K enjoys sharing and interacting with other bloggers. She said today, “I like my blog friends more than many real friends.” Given my lack of understanding around blogging I was quick to ask if she had a blog husband and if so, did she like him more than me. She said she did not, which is comforting I suppose. I think I have taken up a lot of space and been fairly random in my attempt to answer the question, “What does Petroville Mean to me”. It is a big question with a simple answer. Home: No where else

Happy Father’s Day

BP