I bought the coolest new mop today! Yay me!

Ok, so I'm easily amused. Whatever. It's a good mop, though. I'm digging it.

That’s what Anne and I say to each other most nights, albeit tongue-in-cheek, while checking our download statistics. We haven’t had much time for music lately, but the last little song we recorded has sort of become a small-time Internet hit. Between this and our music site, I Cry has been downloaded over 8500 times in the 45 days since we first made it available. We aren’t earning a dime from it, but it's a blast knowing there are people out there listening to one of our songs.

There have been complete strangers putting the tune on their myspace, linking to it from their msn spaces and talking about it in forums in languages we can’t understand. Some are now reaching our sites by searching for our band name, Babydoll’s Closet, in google.uk (United Kingdom), google.cn (China, which is really neat and will translate our site if you click the Chinese link), google.de (Germany), baidu (China) and of course, google.com (US). We honestly have no idea how or why these folks discovered our song from various parts of the globe, but it’s really fun to watch; almost as much fun as the jokes we share about imaginary anonymous fame and invisible celebrity, and Anne’s comedy routines where she sings our songs with a foreign accent.

14 more downloads since I started writing this post. Someone we don’t know is probably listening right now and that's just cool. So, in celebration of the whole thing, I did a cheezy publicity shot of The Ultimate Singing Wife. She is dark. She is mysterious. She makes a killer meat loaf and mashed potatoes.

And here's one of yours truly, her guitar plucking, well-fed and deeply satisfied manstuff.

On my forty-first birthday, I find myself thankful. I appreciate how lucky I am to be spending my days with a wonderful partner I trust in every way. I appreciate my healthy children and the time I share with them. I appreciate my employment and what it allows me to provide. These things are to be expected and should come as a surprise to nobody.

However, this year, I have a more profound appreciation for something I’ve always taken for granted – the loyalty and support of my original family; my parents and brothers. While this may seem mundane and unoriginal, I have learned that for some, it is not necessarily to be expected. I have always known that I can trust these constants in my life; they will not do me harm. They will not engage in selfish acts of recklessness against me in order to gain something for themselves or some third party not of our blood whom they want to impress. They will not lie about me, attempt to turn others against me, or aid those who oppose me. They respect the boundaries I have built around the primary family for which I am responsible and they do not intrude. They forgive me for forgetting to call or write, as they forgive me for being busy and making things other than them a priority.

I have recently found myself in the position of having to demonstrate these family values. My daughter should not be surprised. People come and go in our lives. We may like them and we may wish them well, but blood is forever. My children can count on me and they will never question my love or loyalty. It is the way I was raised and for that, as age creeps up on me, I am thankful.

No matter how hard I try, I just can't make myself understand evil people. I don't understand what motivates them, and how they think they can get away with their behavior forever. I don't understand how they intend to hide it forever. By pointing the finger at other people? Won't the people they associate with eventually see through all of that venom? Then again, some of them have done it for so many years that they truly have perfected their craft of lying.

Mike keeps telling me that I need to stop and read M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie, and maybe he’s right. I don’t know how that will help practically, but it can hardly be more depressing than the reality of the evil that I am living with.

But, why? Why do some parents treat their children this way and others don’t? What twists them, and why are they so blind to the harm they do? Is it that the first people they lie to are themselves? How do they still avoid seeing the truth when it’s smack dab in front of them?

I just don’t get it. But it’s wrong, and it doesn’t matter how much venom they spew at me, I won’t stop fighting for what my daughter wants because their behavior has me more convinced than ever before that her instincts, and mine, are correct. I'm not going to let her down, no matter what else they pull. My family let me down time and time again and I will not ever betray or abandon her as they have done me.