Dru’s New World

Today I was listening to the morning radio show on my way to work. They started discussing some election stuff like everyone now that the primaries are happening. They started talking about Clinton and Obama. Now being a registered republican in Albany New York I can only vote in the Republican Primaries. It really doesn’t matter because I am probably going to write in my vote.
Anyway this radio station mentioned the words reverse discrimination. These words, when put together drive me crazy. I am a middle class white male in my thirties, I have not been reverse discriminated against, I have been discriminated against. There is no such thing as reverse discrimination, discrimination is horrible who ever you are.
This was brought up because they were talking about black votes are going to Obama and woman and idiots are voting for Bill’s wife.
Election time brings out the idiots of all kinds. I for one would love to see a Black Woman in Office. I have no issues voting for a person that has views closer to me than anyone else. If I stood up and said I am not voting for Obama because he is black, then I am a racist. If a black man stands up and says he is voting for Obama because he is Black he is patted on the back. I was actually talking to a friend of mine and a coworker the other day who are both Black. My friend said he was going to vote for McCain. The Coworker actually got pissed at my friend because he is not voting for the Black person that is running. Am I horrible because I will never vote for McCain, I am a Veteran and so is he. I am not voting for “my kind”
Who is a Black woman suppose to vote for? Does she turn her back on her race or gender?
Vote for those you agree on and leave the skin tone and gender out of it.

Friday my daughter stayed after school since the school was showing a movie. She is in Middle School and she has been growing up way to fast this year. I left work early and decided it would be fun to go pick her up and then go out for an Ice Cream cone before we picked up her little sister from Day Care. I make sure that there are those little moments that the two of us can sit down and talk without the interruption of her 3 year old sister looking for my attention.
So I walk into the Auditorium and look among the mass of 11-14 year old in this huge room. I couldn’t see he and thought it was no big deal (there were a lot of kids) Then my eye caught her best friend. She was sitting just a few rows in front of me and was with a big crowd of kids joking and having fun, they definitely didn’t care if there was a movie there. I scanned the smaller group and sure enough there was still no sign of my daughter. Then I did a double take, there she was, right next to her best friend. She has a favorite sweatshirt, or Hoody I think they call them, she always wears it. There it was, how could I miss her? Well this whole time I was looking for this beautiful young girl with 2 arms and 1 head, I was not looking for the kid with one head on someone else’s shoulder. I was not looking for a boy with his arm around my daughter. I was not looking for this boy that was holding my daughter like she was the most valuable possession he has owned.
I will admit at first my blood was boiling over, I could not believe what I was seeing, then the humor set in. I know none of her friends saw me so I grabbed my camera phone and tried to sneak up a little closer. It was to dark I had this image of snapping a picture of this and sending it to every relative we have. I just couldn’t get the picture, well here I was standing right behind one of her friends that was right behind my daughter, look there, its an empty seat. I quickly tapped her friend on the shoulder and gave her the signal to be quiet. Sat down next to her and started watching the movie. Her friend leaned over and whispered, “Tony asked her out today.”
I quickly responded, “I see that,” with a little grin on my face. I was sitting there in this group of my daughters friends trying to think of something that I could do to embarrass her. I could have thought all day long and I would have never came up with something good enough. So I leaned over to her friend and said, “just tell her I will be up there waiting.”
On my way up towards the school lobby one of my daughters teachers stopped me. so I sat there and talked with him for a few minutes and was taking glimpses of my daughter and her new boyfriend. Then all of a sudden it felt like I was jumped on by a Linebacker in the Super Bowl. It was my daughter, I guess she noticed I was there.
She jumped on me and wrapped her arms around me and said, “Tony asked me out.” Of course I had the same reply, “I noticed, and again I had this grin. At this time I looked at where my daughter was sitting and I see this 13 year old boy sneaking away very quickly.
After telling my daughter I was waiting until the movie was over and then I would take her home, she gave me another hug and then went to sit down again.
“Wow, not to many daughters would be excited to tell their father they have a new boyfriend,” her teacher said to me.
“Yeah, I know” I said as I thought about every major milestone I have seen her go though, and realized this was the next one.

I remeber before my world travels began sitting at the local coffee shop with a friend gettin my dose of caffine before going to babysit my neice. Although I was still in my teens I never had enough energy to chase a two year old girl around the house. My brother was proudly wearing the military uniform at the time sitting somewhere in Asia so I felt it was my responsiblity to babysit his daughter so her mother could have an adult conversation every once in awhile. My friend was getting his caffine fix so he could go to the rock quarry over the border in Pennsylvania. “That sucks you have to babysit, this is going to be the party of the year.”
“I don’t mind, Deb is going to come over after Tiny T is asleep.” Tina was my brother Tony’s daughter, for some reason my family was always called by initials, I don’t even think my best friend even knew the name my parents gave me untill the year after graduation.
“Aww, how sweet,” the sarcastic jeer that I was expecting came a little slower than I was actually thinking it would, the caffine probably did’t hit Brian yet. “Are you and Deb going to play house tonight?”
“If I am lucky we will have a good time.”
Being a seventeen year old boy was difficult enough but throw in the fact that I spent the only Friday night off babysitting my neice really took a notch out of my social standing. No one cared of course when I usually did this because I usually got paid a case of beer that we would drink on Saturday.
“Dude, you are going to be a perfect parent someday.”
“My goal in life is to raise my children. Unfortunatly that means I will have to put up with a woman all the time.”
Everyone I knew understood that I loved hanging out with kids. Mainly because I never wanted to grow up and always liked having an excuse to go see the newest childrens movie at the theater. It was creapy if I said, “hey Deb you want to go see The Little Mermaid?” I would never get a weird look if I said, “I want to take my neice to see “The Lion King” you want to go?”
I was a Senior in High School and spent half my school day doing my practical at the Elementary school next door. I was already excepted into college for early childhood education. Whenever I wasn’t in school or working I usually had my neice with me.

After a couple more cups of coffee I said bye to my friend and headed to my babysitting duties. This was soon going to be a night that I would never forget.

Living in NY as a Dallas Fan is hard especially now that the New Jersey Giants are in the Super Bowl… But…
The Giants have been NFC Champions 4 times since 1970:
- 1986-87
- 1990-91
- 2000-01
- 2007-08
hmmm… How bout them Cowboys?
- 1970-71
- 1971-72
- 1975-76
- 1977-78
- 1978-79
- 1992-93
- 1993-94
- 1995-96
The Giants have won the Super Bowl 2 Times:
- 1987
- 1991
How bout them Cowboys?
- 1972
- 1978
- 1993
- 1994
- 1996
The Giants have appeared in the Super Bowl 3 times, this will be the fourth - 2 wins, 1 lose - Who else has been to the Super Bowl 4 times?
Buffalo Bills - Great Company to keep there…
The Cowboys have been to the Super Bowl 8 Times - 5 Wins - Who else has appeared 8 times? NO ONE… Who has appeared more? NO ONE…
So to the Giants Fans out there, enjoy the Hats and T-Shirts now because as a Cowboys fan I can wear one for each day of the week…

Last week I went to court again. It was a great trip once again and proved to me that the family court in my county is very unorganized. We were scheduled to see the judge at 12:00 noon, I thought thet was funny since that is when they usually take lunch. Due to all the times they have changed the times with out notification I called my lawyer as soon as his office opened up. They checked the schedule to let me know there was no change. So at 11:00 am I left work and headed to the court house. I was checking into security and they looked at me funny. “what was your name?” I told them for the second time. “and you are suppose to have court today?” of course I responded, “that was the schedule.” Then came the dreaded words, “we do not see you on the schedule.” I then asked them if they could let me in so I could talk to the Administrative Assistant, they did so I quickly learned that the vacation time off of work is worthless.
I called my lawyers office to find out what they had to say. His assistant, great woman, checked the same online calendar that she had checked earlier in the day. We had been removed. She quickly got off the phone with me and within 10 minutes the court clerck came to me in the waiting room, “Mr. Topia, I just got off the phone with your Attorney and I am not sure how you were removed from the calendar but you will be seen at the scheduled time.”

At this point I was a little stressed out, ther are two things to look for in an attorney when you are going infront of family court. The first trait that I noticed about my lawyer that helped me choose him was his compasion. I could tell right away that he understood how emotionally drained I was trying to save my marriage and that I didn’t need the additional stress involved with court. He was the first one that would try to relax me and take away as much stress that he could. The only time he pushed stress on me was when I was on the stand and he actually made me cry. But he later told me that he wanted to pull that emotion from me to show the court I wasn’t a heartless stereotypical man.
the second trait I noticed about him was he was always confident that his view on the subject was the same as the courts. There were a few times that he talked me out of leaving him because he was letting the ex-wifes lawyer hang herself. Everything she said eventually made my ex look worse and me better. He definatley had the view that if we did what was morally right we would win. It has worked.

So we sat there and waited until 45 minutes later when my name was called. I started to walk into the court room but was then told, “Lawyers only”

For benefit of the doubt I am going to say 5 minutes later, when waiting for court 5 minutes seams like an hour but it only felt like 5 minutes. My lawyer came out with a smile on his face and said let’s go where we can talk. As soon as we were in the vacant stairwell he said, she is going to start paying $850/month as of Feb 1st.
So the story of the day ends with a temporary order of $850 Feb 1st, we go back to court in a couple of weeks and they will decide on how much back child support is due.
Keep the faith though all lifes battles and you will make it though.