Smiling Mom

The Blog Exchange is hap­pe­ning today, and I have been pai­red up with Gun­figh­ter. Enjoy his best post below!

Gun­figh­ter lives with is wife and daugh­ter in Northern Vir­gi­nia, and is emplo­yed as a tac­ti­cal firearms ins­truc­tor for a fede­ral law enfor­ce­ment agency. He blogs about the things he sees and what he thinks about them at The View From Here. When he grows up, he wants to be a wri­ter… or hand out balloons at Disneyworld.

Those of you that have been rea­ding my blog for the last seve­ral months, you have been wai­ting patiently for me to tell you about why I wear kilts regu­larly and to post pic­tu­res to go along with.

Well, for you, today is your day.

As you might ima­gine, wea­ring a kilt in 21^st cen­tury Ame­rica, without bene­fit of being in a wed­ding or being an extra in a Mel Gib­son movie…

…is an unu­sual thing… but it is beco­ming less and less unu­sual these days. These days, there are no small num­ber of modern kilt pur­ve­yors pop­ping up all over, and there are many men to pro­vide the demand for their wares.

For the most part, the suc­cess of the modern, casual kilt, the world over, can be cre­di­ted to one man; A Mexican-American in Seattle Washing­ton, named Ste­ven Ville­gas was wor­king on a motorcycle (one of his many pro­jects) wea­ring a pair of shorts made from old, camou­flage cargo trou­sers, but found them too res­tric­tive to move the way he wan­ted to… so he took a scis­sors to them, applied some sewing, and the first Uti­li­kilt was born.

I have been wea­ring Uti­li­kilts since 2001, and the second most com­mon ques­tion I get asked is: “Why are you wea­ring a kilt? You aren’t from Scot­land!” or words to that effect.

Well here are the answers:

1. Because I can.
2. Because I look great in it (I have great legs).
3. Because I’m not a com­plete con­for­mist.
4. Because a kilt is almost as cool as a Super­man suit.
5. Because my wife likes it.
6. Because fric­tion is bad (figure that out for your­self).
7. For good repro­duc­tive health (although I am out of that busi­ness).
8. Chicks dig it (they do, trust me).
9. Because men envy me for doing what I want without regard for what others think.

Where does all of this come from? Oddly enough, the idea was plan­ted as a result of rea­ding a Science Fic­tion novel when I was a young Marine, in about 1986. The name of the novel was “Methuselah’s Chil­dren”, by Robert A. Hein­lein. One of Heinlein’s favo­rite cha­rac­ters through seve­ral novels is a fellow named Laza­rus Long. No need to talk about the book, or this cha­rac­ter other than to say that this guy could usually be found wea­ring a kilt, which I thought was very cool.

Fast for­ward nearly twenty years: Mrs Gun­figh­ter, Oli­via and I were atten­ding the Vir­gi­nia Scot­tish Games in Ale­xan­dria, Va. in 2001 (I think) and were having a great time watching the pipe bands, dan­cers, and sam­pling the various crafts and foods that were avai­la­ble. While we were brow­sing about, I remar­ked to Susan how much I would like to wear a kilt on a regu­lar basis. Pro­blem was, they are rather imprac­ti­cal. Not only are they made for a Scot­tish cli­mate (made from heavy wool), they don’t have poc­kets and are prohi­bi­ti­vely expen­sive (a tra­di­tio­nal kilt would cost me around $600).

Well, being that it was mid-June, here in Vir­gi­nia, and hot­ter than hell, I took an oppor­tu­nity to get some lemo­nade for us, while Susan wai­ted in the shade. While I was stan­ding in the line, I noti­ced a guy in the line at the next booth, wea­ring a kilt. Which wasn’t uncom­mon, con­si­de­ring where we were, but the thing that made this guy so UNcom­mon, was that his kilt was black! and it had large cargo pockets!

When I got our lemo­nade, I noti­ced that logo over the back poc­ket (it had back poc­kets, too!) said “Uti­li­kilts”. I was deter­mi­ned, there and then, to find out more.

A few days later, I did a search (was there even a Goo­gle, then?) for Uti­li­kilts and found their web­site, and the rest is his­tory. I now own 5 Uti­li­kilts, and plan on orde­ring a new one (this one in leather) some time soon.

If you are won­de­ring about the reac­tion I get to wea­ring a kilt, I’ll tell you this, and my wife will attest to it if you ask her: Women I have never seen before have follo­wed me in the mall; have been bra­zen enough to ask if I was wea­ring any under­wear; have come up to me and flat-out ask if I was married; have loo­ked me in the face and said “I wish my hus­band was half the man you are”; have said to me: “Ohmy­God! That is the sexiest thing I have ever seen!, can I borrow you for a while?” I must say, I find it hugely flat­te­ring. I get this kind of a reac­tion from women when I am rapidly approaching (well, OK, IN) middle age, get­ting fat­ter by the minute, and am only so-so good looking.

Men react in a range of ways. Some tell me how cool it looks. Some tell me they wish they had the nerve. Most are neu­tral, although many men ask this ques­tion: “Aren’t you afraid someone will give you a hard time about it?” To which I ans­wer: “Nobody has ever given me any grief about wea­ring a kilt… after all, who wants to have his ass kic­ked by a man wea­ring a skirt?”

So there you are.

Most often, when peo­ple think about kilts, they have this sort of image…

…in their heads, but today, kilts can be found in lots of pla­ces, from ath­le­tic events…

To hiking…

To a rock and roll band at Disneyworld…

To the war in Iraq.

To selling a kilt to a woman so she can molest her man while he wears it

At least, that’s what she told me (that is me, on the left… oh God, it was so hot that day!)

Any­way, that’s my story.

Oh, the MOST com­monly asked ques­tion is: “What do you wear under your kilt?” My usual ans­wer is: “My boots and my socks”

You can purchase modern kilts here:

Uti­li­kilts
Ame­ri­kilts
21^st Cen­tury Kilts
Sport­kilts
Free­dom Kilts

We’ve been furiously trying to refi­nance our house before our next mort­gage pay­ment is due, April 5th. This has been an ongoing pro­cess for the past three or four weeks. Yes­ter­day was the day we were to sign the loan docu­ments. Unfor­tu­na­tely, everything fell apart. Nor­mally we’ve had a notary come out to our house with papers in hand, the sig­ning takes place, the loan clo­ses and all is good in the world.

Two days ago, the com­pany called us and told us we had to come up to their busi­ness, an hour away during busi­ness hours to sign the docu­ments. Hubby was a bit anno­yed. He infor­med her that we wan­ted a notary to come to our house ins­tead, as we have…well, lives. Two todd­lers, two jobs, nap sche­du­les, hel­ping friends move, etc. She told Hubby no. Mis­take #1.

Hubby was non too plea­sed with these results and refu­sed to set up an exact time to make the trip to see her. We’d call 1 hour prior to our arri­val. The next mor­ning, Thurs­day, I called at 9:30 to ensure all was well and let them know to expect us. She, infor­med me that our len­der for our line of cre­dit had not got­ten back to her with the exact amount we owed. But that didn’t mat­ter, so come any­ways and she’ll appro­xi­mate it. Mis­take #2

Hubby did not like this, and called to cla­rify. He men­tio­ned that he was frus­tra­ted because the day before she’d infor­med him that all was com­plete and ready to be sig­ned. And now today there were still parts that were not done. And on top of it, we were sch­lep­ping two kids an hour out of our way because she refu­sed to send a notary to our house.

The lady then told Hubby that he didn’t give her a rea­son why. Had he then she’d have been more sym­pathe­tic to his needs. Mis­take #3 Hubby did not like this.… he let her know it too. “Let me get this straight,” (never good when it begins with “let me get this straight”) “I’m now requi­red to report to you why I need what I need?”

After an ear­ful she res­ponds by saying, “I feel like you don’t trust me.…”

This is not our mort­gage bro­ker we are spea­king too, but rather the com­pany the bro­ker used. That being said, we’ve never, ever spo­ken before. Trust? Ya, we don’t trust you. We don’t even not trust you. We don’t know you. This is a busi­ness deal, hello!

After about fif­teen minu­tes of this, Hubby hangs up the phone. We load up and head to her office. An hour and a half later, after get­ting lost, we finally make it to her office only to find out that there have been some glitches. Mis­take #4

Turns out that our pro­perty tax check, sent by B of A, the bank our mort­gage was through, had not been cashed by our county tax depart­ment. This imme­dia­tely halts the pro­cess. We are not able to refi­nance our loan with an outs­tan­ding tax bill. Why had she not noti­ced this prior to sen­ding us out to her office? Why did we drive 1 1/2 hours with a 2 yr old and 1 yr old just to turn back around and head home? Um, we were livid.

At home, I dealt with B of A, had a let­ter faxed to our len­der, sta­ting that the bill had been paid, just not cashed yet. So all is well. The notary is coming out to our house tomo­rrow night and we will sign papers then.

Yes­ter­day was so stress­ful that I was not able to func­tion for most of the day. I tend to shut down with extreme stress. All I want to do is curl in a ball and go to sleep. Of course, sweet dar­ling BC and eClaire chose not to take naps, so that wasn’t an option. It wasn’t until I sob­bed to my mom, later that eve­ning that I began fee­ling better.

Life isn’t all that easy. But each day gets bet­ter. You’ve gotta just to keep moving. Right, please tell me I’m right!

Stay tuned tomo­rrow! I’m par­ti­ci­pa­ting in The Blog Exchange and have been pai­red up with Gun­figh­ter. He and I are exchan­ging our best posts. I’ll have his up first thing in the morning.

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

I’ve had a few minu­tes to upload the pic­tu­res Hubby and I took during our trip up to see our new nephew. Unfor­tu­na­tely we lost about 200 of the pho­tos due to a corrup­ted card… So only about 40 remai­ned, none of Aunt S, or her family. For­tu­na­tely a few shots of Cade and brother JS still tur­ned out.

Baby Cade, 8 pounds, 8 oun­ces. Born on March 27, 2007

Big Brother JS, 18 months old

Cade, March 27, 2007

Uncle M and his two boys, JS and Cade.

Hubby, Cade, Cou­sin eClaire, Cou­sin BC, and brother JS

No not me, nice thought though!

My sis­ter in law, Aunt S, just gave birth to a beau­ti­ful baby boy this mor­ning at 6:00. 8 lbs, 8 oz’s. More infor­ma­tion and pic­tu­res tomo­rrow! I’m exhaus­ted. Wel­come to the world baby C.C.G