We all managed to get to church yesterday, which is important to me. I hope it doesn't surprise too many people to learn this, but I usually don't go into this in my blog since I'm not the best example of a religious person--at least I feel like I'm consistent in my behavior, but I don't try to ram my beliefs down anyone else's throat. But, regarding attending church on Sunday--I think it starts the week off right, and for one reason or another, reasons which I feel are sound, our family's attendance has been spotty over the past 18 months or so.
There are actually good reasons why. I feel compelled to share a few to help justify my irritation:
1) Kaitlyn was born two years ago, and the doctor told us not to take her in public for 6 months if we could avoid it because there was a particularly dangerous outbreak of a disease that infants tended to be susceptible.
2) After 6 months, Fran was hospitalized for a week and Kaitlyn hospitalized for 4 days in a very dark week for our family. People were under the impression that the recovery was immediate, because it was convenient for them to think so. Unfortunately, it actually took about a year.
3) Other medical and personal issues arose which we don't necessarily disclose to others at church unless they ask directly, just because I don't think it's polite to dump your personal problems on others unless they are willing to hear them. And...no one really asked.
4) My travel plans have kept me out of town several weekends, and Fran finds it difficult to pile everyone together and get them out the door without my help, especially to make a schedule in the morning.
5) The other Sundays, we take turns, one going and the other staying home with Kaitlyn. For some reason, probably because she didn't go for the first year of her life, Kaitlyn has never adapted to the church nursery very well, so inevitably she gets very upset and one of us has to hold her outside while the other stays inside the auditorium.
The thing is, there are people who, I freely admit, are better people than I am when it comes to this issue, worship every week, as much as 3 times per week. They are never, ever absent. I even saw one couple who had a baby on Tuesday, and were sitting in class with the newborn on Sunday morning. No excuse that I give can justify not being there every Sunday morning without fail. They don't mind hauling their squirming, screaming kids everywhere, either.
So, to me, who really wants to be at church on Sunday morning, this has been a frustrating time. To make matters worse, there are a couple of people who take it upon themselves to comment on our absence every time they see us. I take this as extreme rudeness which is intended to make the speaker feel more important, but it is done in such a tone that they can quickly retreat and claim that they are just inquiring after our well-being.
I know that several people who read this blog who are cynical about organized religion, and issues like this serve easily to reinforce their bad opinions of devoutly religious people who look down their noses at other people. I have to say that for years I felt the same way, and acknowledge that there are, of course, people who don't go to church (I'm using church as a euphamism throughout this whole entry--please don't ask me to expound on the definition of a religious person) who are morally upright, kind, good people. Many of my friends, particularly scientists, are atheists or agnostics, which seems to be a common theme due to skepticism and their perceived lack of hard evidence of God's existence and the poor behavior of his representatives here on earth. They either dispute the Bible's authenticity or just sincerely don't care.
My brief sermon is that, in reading the Bible, it is obvious that Jesus concerned himself mainly with lifting up people that were having a hard time, and heartily criticized church leaders who looked down their noses at people--he even said "Don't judge others, so you won't be judged." and "Why are you worried about the speck of dust in someone else's eye when you have a huge log stuck in your own eye?" I love the hyperbole.
So, it really ticked me off (cleaning up my language for this one post) when a particuarly snooty woman confronted our family as we were walking out after church, saying slyly to my wife, "So...you all managed to make it today? Why didn't I see your husband?" (I had decided this week to take Kaitlyn to Children's church with Ryan, and stand outside the door the whole time to make sure she acclimated well and didn't freak out, which she did).
I happen to know that this woman, without asking us anything, has expounded on all sorts of negative theories as to why we've been absent, most of which centered around her favorite topic of marriage instability (I know this because she shares the theories about others with everyone, including us), which, although true much of the time, is of course is false in our case.
I replied to her comment by saying "Yes, we're very hard to keep track of, aren't we?" In other words, I know you're watching our every move, and it's annoying. I feel like she's a private annoyance sent to torture and distract me from wanting to go to church. I also know that Fran just dreads her comments every week and it is really demotivating to get our crap together to go, just to be confronted in this catty manner. Fran usually just takes it and moves on, somewhat dejected, and just voices her outrage to me privately.
Knowing this, and feeling protective of my wife's feelings, I became very angry at this comment, and continued "...Our full attendance records are available for review, if you like. Good thing Wednesday service doesn't 'count', right?"
Her face flushed, and a friend of mine who was standing nearby laughed a nervous laugh at the mini-confrontation. I was a little embarrassed, but feel justified at responding mildly to the bullying we've been receiving. This woman certainly feels that she is justified in confronting us for our own good, and I feel that she needs to shut down before she drives someone crazy with her meddling and gossipy behavior.
I can't believe this chick made me lose my cool. Maybe I'll send her this post.
30 January 2006
29 January 2006
Life is Beautiful
The title came to me this morning, even before I knew exactly what I was going to write about, while I was sitting by my fire, enjoying the wireless network in my house which enables me to sit in my favorite chair and type away. I'm so comfortable--it almost feels like cheating on a test.
I had the oddest experience the other night--a mix of panic and excitement.
I've read all the Jane Austen novels that we have, which, unbelievably, does not include "Pride and Prejudice". I think I have been resisting reading it so far because I've seen the movie, both Laurence Olivier and Colin Firth, and I was afraid that, knowing the storyline of the novel, I would be a little disappointed at not being surprised by the plot twists.
So I visited Barnes and Noble because we were fresh out of Jane Austen in the house, and I found myself standing in the New Fiction section. It was kind of late on a damp night, and there was barely anyone else in the warehouse-sized store. A slow-witted boy with bottle-thick glasses on the end of his nose was brewing a fresh pot of coffee, the aroma of which permeated the whole store. I looked at the piles and piles of New Fiction and realized that, someday, I am going to write something that will end up in on those shelves. I know I'm capable of it, but I have to be disciplined to, obviously, finish it, edit it (which I've learned is also difficult for me), and follow through with the tiresome process of getting something published.
I picked up a book--the title was terrible, like a 10-year-old had written it. I read the intro page, and had my sudden panic of realization that, if this complete swill could be published, certainly something I write could be interesting to readers...But the prospect of doing it made me energized and happy.
Now, I've got kids buzzing around me, so if my sentences start to become (more) incoherent, that's the reason. At least I have an excuse now...
I've got a great idea for a book, which I've been charting out and writing disjointed chapters for as the urge strikes me. Please, please, don't ask me what it's about yet...
Additionally, I think I've been watching too much Extreme Makeover: Home Edition--The urge struck me to redo the kids' bathroom, which was outdated and really needed some work. I'm pretty good with my hands, so I started doing it, stripping off 3 layers of wallpaper and making a huge mess--I left it as messy and shocking as possible, and asked Fran to go look at it--One of the layers of wallpaper had been particularly well-glued, so even though I scored it and used wallpaper stripper (oh, the Google hits I will receive now!--what would a wallpaper stripper look like, I wonder?)...anyway, back to the ransacked state of my remodeling job--tiny strips of peeled wallpaper overwhelmingly littered about the place in psychotic randomness and destruction of artistic proportions--it looked like the depraved remodeling efforts of a deranged mind, like if we somehow merged Ty Pennington, Freddie Krueger, the Tasmanian Devil, Edward Scissorhands, and Hannibal Lecter into one body, pissed him off royally, and locked the maniacal conglomerate into a small room. Fran was duly impressed.
I told her, "I'm really tired of this job--maybe we can just leave it that way..." I had to disconnect the toilet, so it looks very out-of-place in the center of the room. Which reminds me, I need to do something so Ryan's friends don't try to actually use it...
"Baby Beethoven" just ended, and Kaitlyn asked me "Watch it again, Mike?" (which she sometimes calls me which just cracks me up so I can't stop her)
So, I'll wrap it up here--hope it explains a little of my absence and distraction from blogging (thanks to those who noticed). Up to 8000 hits since June, so thanks for continuing to read. I'm also getting less shy about letting friends and family know about my writing, so I guess that's a step forward as well.
I had the oddest experience the other night--a mix of panic and excitement.
I've read all the Jane Austen novels that we have, which, unbelievably, does not include "Pride and Prejudice". I think I have been resisting reading it so far because I've seen the movie, both Laurence Olivier and Colin Firth, and I was afraid that, knowing the storyline of the novel, I would be a little disappointed at not being surprised by the plot twists.
So I visited Barnes and Noble because we were fresh out of Jane Austen in the house, and I found myself standing in the New Fiction section. It was kind of late on a damp night, and there was barely anyone else in the warehouse-sized store. A slow-witted boy with bottle-thick glasses on the end of his nose was brewing a fresh pot of coffee, the aroma of which permeated the whole store. I looked at the piles and piles of New Fiction and realized that, someday, I am going to write something that will end up in on those shelves. I know I'm capable of it, but I have to be disciplined to, obviously, finish it, edit it (which I've learned is also difficult for me), and follow through with the tiresome process of getting something published.
I picked up a book--the title was terrible, like a 10-year-old had written it. I read the intro page, and had my sudden panic of realization that, if this complete swill could be published, certainly something I write could be interesting to readers...But the prospect of doing it made me energized and happy.
Now, I've got kids buzzing around me, so if my sentences start to become (more) incoherent, that's the reason. At least I have an excuse now...
I've got a great idea for a book, which I've been charting out and writing disjointed chapters for as the urge strikes me. Please, please, don't ask me what it's about yet...
Additionally, I think I've been watching too much Extreme Makeover: Home Edition--The urge struck me to redo the kids' bathroom, which was outdated and really needed some work. I'm pretty good with my hands, so I started doing it, stripping off 3 layers of wallpaper and making a huge mess--I left it as messy and shocking as possible, and asked Fran to go look at it--One of the layers of wallpaper had been particularly well-glued, so even though I scored it and used wallpaper stripper (oh, the Google hits I will receive now!--what would a wallpaper stripper look like, I wonder?)...anyway, back to the ransacked state of my remodeling job--tiny strips of peeled wallpaper overwhelmingly littered about the place in psychotic randomness and destruction of artistic proportions--it looked like the depraved remodeling efforts of a deranged mind, like if we somehow merged Ty Pennington, Freddie Krueger, the Tasmanian Devil, Edward Scissorhands, and Hannibal Lecter into one body, pissed him off royally, and locked the maniacal conglomerate into a small room. Fran was duly impressed.
I told her, "I'm really tired of this job--maybe we can just leave it that way..." I had to disconnect the toilet, so it looks very out-of-place in the center of the room. Which reminds me, I need to do something so Ryan's friends don't try to actually use it...
"Baby Beethoven" just ended, and Kaitlyn asked me "Watch it again, Mike?" (which she sometimes calls me which just cracks me up so I can't stop her)
So, I'll wrap it up here--hope it explains a little of my absence and distraction from blogging (thanks to those who noticed). Up to 8000 hits since June, so thanks for continuing to read. I'm also getting less shy about letting friends and family know about my writing, so I guess that's a step forward as well.
26 January 2006
The dumbest joke ever, In Two Parts
A poor friar answers a knock at his door and opens it to see a giant man--a stranger, who is obviously a foreigner, standing in front of him. He asks for food and shelter for the night, and the friar invites him inside.
The next morning, the stranger expresses his thanks and asks if he could do something nice for the friar, who suggests that he might ring the chapel bell--the friar is getting old and it takes a lot of strength for him to climb to the top of the tower and strike the bell.
So, the massive man climbs to the top, and to the friar's surprise, doesn't use the striker. Instead, he backs up a couple of steps, runs along the think walkway toward the bell, and slams his massive head against the side of the bell, sounding a loud "Dong!" He backs up, and runs forward again, striking it: "Dong!"
By this time, the bell has begun to rock a little, so he misjudges the next blow, loses his balance, and runs off the belltower, falling several stories into the brick courtyard below.
By the time the friar gets outside to where the massive man lies dead, there is a crowd of people gathered around.
A person in the crowd asks "Does anyone know this man?"
The friar answers, "No, but his face sure rings a bell!"
----
One Year Later, the friar answers the door, and is shocked. Standing in front of him is a man who is identical to the huge stranger who died ringing his bell.
The man says "Father, I have traveled a long way to remember my twin brother, who I believe died here one year ago today. I was wondering if I could commemorate his death by ringing the bell in your tower?"
Reluctantly, the friar agrees and the giant climbs to the tower, and, surprisingly, uses the same method to ring the bell, striking it with his head. Not so surprisingly, he meets the same fate and topples off the tower to his death in the courtyard.
The friar hurried out to the body.
A man in the crowd asked "Does anybody know this man?"
And the friar answered "Not really, but he's a dead ringer for the guy that was here last year."
The next morning, the stranger expresses his thanks and asks if he could do something nice for the friar, who suggests that he might ring the chapel bell--the friar is getting old and it takes a lot of strength for him to climb to the top of the tower and strike the bell.
So, the massive man climbs to the top, and to the friar's surprise, doesn't use the striker. Instead, he backs up a couple of steps, runs along the think walkway toward the bell, and slams his massive head against the side of the bell, sounding a loud "Dong!" He backs up, and runs forward again, striking it: "Dong!"
By this time, the bell has begun to rock a little, so he misjudges the next blow, loses his balance, and runs off the belltower, falling several stories into the brick courtyard below.
By the time the friar gets outside to where the massive man lies dead, there is a crowd of people gathered around.
A person in the crowd asks "Does anyone know this man?"
The friar answers, "No, but his face sure rings a bell!"
----
One Year Later, the friar answers the door, and is shocked. Standing in front of him is a man who is identical to the huge stranger who died ringing his bell.
The man says "Father, I have traveled a long way to remember my twin brother, who I believe died here one year ago today. I was wondering if I could commemorate his death by ringing the bell in your tower?"
Reluctantly, the friar agrees and the giant climbs to the tower, and, surprisingly, uses the same method to ring the bell, striking it with his head. Not so surprisingly, he meets the same fate and topples off the tower to his death in the courtyard.
The friar hurried out to the body.
A man in the crowd asked "Does anybody know this man?"
And the friar answered "Not really, but he's a dead ringer for the guy that was here last year."
24 January 2006
The gauntlet, errr, Mug, has been thrown down
In response to the challenge issued by my friend, Ghost Particle, I am attaching a picture of my favorite, and longest-lived, mug. I just call it "Duck Mug".
Each morning: regular, caffeinated coffee with 1 cream and 2 sugars, please.
I really lost my taste for Starbucks when I was out of town for 3 weeks. In San Francisco, there was a Starbucks on every corner but I couldn't get in the door. In Idaho, well, I'm sure there's a Starbucks somewhere (Nicole--is there?), but damned if I ever saw one. So, I dried out and got on/off (?) the wagon and am joining the Latte Investment Plan, where you take all the money that you would have paid for it and save it for...something else stupid.
By the way, I get tons of hits for my blog on "Latte Investment Plan", where I mock and taunt financial analysts for this plan, since their plan is basically to suck the joy out of your life so you can die rich. I'm sure I'm on their blacklist somehow...
23 January 2006
Amish with a side of Black-Eyed Peas, and a nice Chianti
We went to dinner tonight at a restaurant that has special significance to us--It's an Italian restaurant where we went on our first date. It's in a bad part of town now, and a 20-mile drive away, but it is my daughter's 2nd birthday so we decided it would be a special treat to celebrate it there--we haven't been there in several years.
Fran has this really crazy habit of deciding that a certain way is not just the fastest way to get someplace, but that it is the absolute correct way to get there. That was what I was up against tonight. For some reason, she hates the road that goes right through the middle of town--I guess it's just too convenient--so she forced me at gunpoint...well, really she just lectured me until I just gave in. So, instead of driving 20 miles down main street, we drove 10 miles down a different street to the highway, where we drove 10 more miles to a different highway, then five more miles to the exit.
She was listening to "Where is the Love?" by the Black Eyed Peas on a CD, and I decided to entertain her with my ultra-low-pitched and 1/2 beat-behind Lurch (from the Adams Family) version of the song, which I thought was comedic genius, but she apparently hasn't developed the palate to appreciate yet.
"You've ruined the whole song, now." And turned off the radio.
"Hey, that's the way we used to do that song back when I was in the group. Then Fergie had that peeing accident onstage and I couldn't hang with that anymore..." Silence.
So, we had lots of time to talk.
Not sure why, but our talk turned a little catty when I changed the subject:
"You know the xxx couple?"
"The ones who look Amish?"
"They ARE Amish!" (they really aren't, but they look Amish--the guy has an Amish-style beard at the bottom of his throat but not on the sides, and the woman doesn't wear any makeup---they have that old-fashioned look from the 1700's--don't know how else to describe it). It may be funnier to note that there are, exactly, zero Amish people in a 200-mile radius from here.
"Yeah, can you believe it--that guy is the grandson of Eli Whitney!"
"Well, they're having a barn-raising this weekend" (not really, they need help with some sort of building project at their house)..."They would have probably finished it last week if they tried using power tools instead of that Wood-auger thing" (I glanced around to make sure there wasn't any traffic, then braced one hand on the steering wheel and moved the other in a circle behind it like that old-fashioned hand-drill thing).
"This weekend's no good for you. Plus, they may not allow you to wear clothes with zippers and buttons at their house--you may have to go to hooks and eyes or pegs or something"
"I want to go help them so I can drink sasparilla--I've never had that before."
"You can't help with the barn raising--tell Hezekiah (not his name) that you can't come this time--although I guess he probably won't get the Email from you."
"Nope--he's still working on whittling his wooden computer."
Anyway, we got to the restaurant, and I realized why we hadn't been there in four years--Fran had borrowed some empty chianti bottles for table decorations at an Italian dinner she hosted, and we never took them back. The owner is an old man and has known us for a long time--that was his only request when we borrowed them from him--that we bring them back afterward. Fran had used them for candle-holders, and they got coated with wax, so we couldn't return them. After a couple of years of looking at them in my garage, I threw them out and vowed never to go back to the restaurant so I wouldn't have to face the old man. Now, as we walked up to the door I got this terrible feeling. I have this wicked memory which makes me so self-conscious about stuff like this after everyone else has long forgotten it all...
The old man was behind the front desk when we walked in. He looked up, puzzled. It took him a minute, but he finally recognized us and smiled broadly. He was so visibly older now that it made me sad to see him. He looked tired.
In my mind, the scene played out like this: (The old man stood up, put his hands on his hips, and demanded to know why the hell we never returned his chianti bottles. Then proceeds to kick us out of the restaurant.)
After we were seated, I mentioned the bottles to Fran and she laughed at me, deeply, for a solid minute while others in the restaurant, including our two bewildered children, looked at her. I sat there, sheepishly grinning and realizing that my neurotic behavior is still alive and kicking...
She said, "You know, you're the only person who thinks like you. I can't believe you remembered that."
Fran has this really crazy habit of deciding that a certain way is not just the fastest way to get someplace, but that it is the absolute correct way to get there. That was what I was up against tonight. For some reason, she hates the road that goes right through the middle of town--I guess it's just too convenient--so she forced me at gunpoint...well, really she just lectured me until I just gave in. So, instead of driving 20 miles down main street, we drove 10 miles down a different street to the highway, where we drove 10 more miles to a different highway, then five more miles to the exit.
She was listening to "Where is the Love?" by the Black Eyed Peas on a CD, and I decided to entertain her with my ultra-low-pitched and 1/2 beat-behind Lurch (from the Adams Family) version of the song, which I thought was comedic genius, but she apparently hasn't developed the palate to appreciate yet.
"You've ruined the whole song, now." And turned off the radio.
"Hey, that's the way we used to do that song back when I was in the group. Then Fergie had that peeing accident onstage and I couldn't hang with that anymore..." Silence.
So, we had lots of time to talk.
Not sure why, but our talk turned a little catty when I changed the subject:
"You know the xxx couple?"
"The ones who look Amish?"
"They ARE Amish!" (they really aren't, but they look Amish--the guy has an Amish-style beard at the bottom of his throat but not on the sides, and the woman doesn't wear any makeup---they have that old-fashioned look from the 1700's--don't know how else to describe it). It may be funnier to note that there are, exactly, zero Amish people in a 200-mile radius from here.
"Yeah, can you believe it--that guy is the grandson of Eli Whitney!"
"Well, they're having a barn-raising this weekend" (not really, they need help with some sort of building project at their house)..."They would have probably finished it last week if they tried using power tools instead of that Wood-auger thing" (I glanced around to make sure there wasn't any traffic, then braced one hand on the steering wheel and moved the other in a circle behind it like that old-fashioned hand-drill thing).
"This weekend's no good for you. Plus, they may not allow you to wear clothes with zippers and buttons at their house--you may have to go to hooks and eyes or pegs or something"
"I want to go help them so I can drink sasparilla--I've never had that before."
"You can't help with the barn raising--tell Hezekiah (not his name) that you can't come this time--although I guess he probably won't get the Email from you."
"Nope--he's still working on whittling his wooden computer."
Anyway, we got to the restaurant, and I realized why we hadn't been there in four years--Fran had borrowed some empty chianti bottles for table decorations at an Italian dinner she hosted, and we never took them back. The owner is an old man and has known us for a long time--that was his only request when we borrowed them from him--that we bring them back afterward. Fran had used them for candle-holders, and they got coated with wax, so we couldn't return them. After a couple of years of looking at them in my garage, I threw them out and vowed never to go back to the restaurant so I wouldn't have to face the old man. Now, as we walked up to the door I got this terrible feeling. I have this wicked memory which makes me so self-conscious about stuff like this after everyone else has long forgotten it all...
The old man was behind the front desk when we walked in. He looked up, puzzled. It took him a minute, but he finally recognized us and smiled broadly. He was so visibly older now that it made me sad to see him. He looked tired.
In my mind, the scene played out like this: (The old man stood up, put his hands on his hips, and demanded to know why the hell we never returned his chianti bottles. Then proceeds to kick us out of the restaurant.)
After we were seated, I mentioned the bottles to Fran and she laughed at me, deeply, for a solid minute while others in the restaurant, including our two bewildered children, looked at her. I sat there, sheepishly grinning and realizing that my neurotic behavior is still alive and kicking...
She said, "You know, you're the only person who thinks like you. I can't believe you remembered that."
22 January 2006
Real Cowboy
"Don't talk baby-talk to the damned horses! That's the most irritating damned thing I've ever heard!"
I jumped a little bit, shocked that Earl had heard me from the other side of camp, talking to Squanto while she ate her feed out of the black, plastic bin. I realized it was dusk, now, and we were in thick trees that cast vertical shadows. My face got red-hot with embarrassment, and I didn't answer. Earl let it drop.
We had ridden out into the piney woods of far East Texas near the Louisiana border, just for a few hours. We had packed light--just enough for an overnight trip, and we planned on sleeping out under the stars. I wasn't sure if I was more hungry or tired at that point--we had stopped a couple of times for water and to readjust weight on the horses--there were about ten of us taking the horses across to the camp on the other side of the Natchez ranch, and we figured we'd make it an easy overnight trip instead of a tough full-day trip.
We got a late start, and started off a man short, because one of the guys sat square on top of a copperhead in his bunk after breakfast, and it bit him in the top of the leg, right under the right buttock. The tents were cool and dry in the woods, and it was already near 90 degrees. The man was whisked away in a dented, white pickup that the ranch kept on hand for moving equipment, and the rest of the camp got jittery and slow as we transferred gear from our tents to pack onto the horses--only a bedroll, mess kit, canteen full of water, and a dry change of clothes were allowed. Earl led a cream-colored pack horse with cooking gear and some cans of chili for dinner, and a sack of feed for the horses strapped inside a small stack of shallow, plastic buckets. Everyone was still edgy and on the lookout when we left because when Bennie came out screaming, the snake somehow had gotten away.
The trail was hot and dusty from the orange, sandy layer of thick, loose dirt that was dry under the horses hooves, kicking up behind us and hanging in the air as we rode along. Immediately, we rode right through the middle of a huge, yellow hayfield near the 10-acre fenced pasture where the horses were kept during most of the summer, and then right into thick woods that was owned by the Owens Paper Company, and leased to the ranch for maintenance and access. I was up near Earl at the front of the line and, when we came around a bend in the trail where it narrowed into a grove dark from the intersecting branches of towering oaks, we saw three large deer bolt suddenly across our path like ghosts, appearing from nowhere and disappearing into the trees almost immediately. I love being at the front of a trek for that very reason--the wildlife is generally out of sight by the time the stragglers come through.
I've ridden horses all my life, but it's never been up to me to take care of them in any way. For this trip, under the direction of Earl Dobbins, we were directed to brush them down, saddle them up, make them take the bit, and generally take care of them on the trip, which was supposed to be a treat for those of us who were spending time at the ranch. You could see that some of the crowd of guys with us had never been close to a big animal before--their eyes grew wide when they walked up to throw the blanket and saddle over the withers, and they were very tentative in handling the equipment. Earl didn't help by scaring the hell out of everyone as they reached under the horse to cinch the saddle up, telling about how it makes the horse jumpy and talking about getting kicked in the head. These were the same guys whose horses told them where they were going. Sure, they may follow along the trail as long as they wanted to, but if they felt the rider's hands light on the reins, they were just as likely to walk off the trail for a fresh patch of clover, leaving the bewildered passenger confused at where he went wrong. I knew that wasn't going to happen to me.
My horse, Squanto, was a paint, almost solid brown with large, white patches along her backside. She had behaved herself well all day and was very reliable, handling the trail effortlessly and never fighting me for control. Now that we had unpacked, I was compelled to go make sure she was fed and taken care of--some of the other guys just threw their things down, unrolled their bedrolls and lay down. I guess I didn't realize that Earl was so fussy about treating a horse in a distant manner, lest it forget it's just a dumb animal.
Earl Dobbins was another mystery. When you're out in the woods, a lot of time is spent in thought, and a recurring question that came to my mind concerned Earl's authenticity as a cowboy. On first glance, he sure looked the part with the jeans and a straw cowboy hat that was worn and dusty. It's funny when you realize you never catch a cowboy on the day he bought his cowboy hat--it always looks about a year or two old.
When we were packing up, though, it caught my eye that Earl's jeans were just a little too blue. A second glance gave him away as a fraud--there were freshly ironed creases along the legs! I smiled to myself.
But, on the trail, Earl knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going. He said practically nothing, except when one of the guys would make a foolish mistake.
"Hey, get that animal out of that clover right now! What's wrong with you? No! Pull up on the reins! You're gonna have to pull harder! Get back on the trail!"
But, overall, he seemed very calm and in control-it was hard to confirm or contradict my initial assessment of the man, since he barely spoke a word, and certainly didn't say anything about himself. After the day on the trail I had changed my mind, convinced that Earl's expertise qualified him as a real cowboy, despite his manicured jeans. At the end of the day, I rode up beside him and noticed his boots, which were rubbed smooth and faded down where stirrups had worn against them from many hours of work in the saddle. I took it as a definitive clue.
I was still nervous from Bennie getting bit in the ass that morning, and stories kept going around about how snakes like to crawl into your sleeping bag with you at night since it's nice and toasty in the chill of the Texas night--particularly pit vipers who could "see" the hotter temperature of a man's body. That scared me to death, and still does, when I'm out in the woods. I waited up drinking coffee by the fire and, when I finally was tired enough to know that I wasn't going to lay up for an hour thinking about snakes, I headed over to my sleeping bag, which I unrolled, unzipped, and shook out to make sure there wasn't anything inside. I crawled inside, used my boots wrapped in a shirt for a pillow, and fell asleep staring up at the stars with the noisy sounds of crickets working away in the black woods.
When I woke up, I was staring at a scorpion about a foot away from me on a chip of bark on the ground. It was pretty small, light brown and about half an inch long, but I've always been told that those are the most painful ones if you get stung by them. I got up slow, shook out my boots, which had come partially unwrapped, and packed up my gear. I went over to the fire, and saw some biscuits wrapped in foil cooking over some coals. Earl had placed just a few coals on top, I guess so they would cook more evenly. Some coffee was going as well--the night before, it had taken a few minutes to get all of the grounds out of my mouth, so I was hoping to get one of the cups off the top of the pot instead of the sludge at the bottom, but I could see I was a few behind in the line already.
Then one of the boys knocked nearly all of the biscuits into the fire trying to unwrap the foil. Earl just shrugged and took a sip of coffee--guess he doesn't get worked up over all mistakes, just horse mistakes.
Then I realized again that he had fooled me and that he really was a fraud--his jeans didn't have the telltale ring worn in his rear jean pocket from holding a can of snuff. Almost every cowboy I had ever seen "dipped" tobacco, and this just cinched it for me that Earl was posing as a real cowboy but lacked authenticity. It didn't really affect me, but it was good to know.
I dug one of the biscuits out of the fire quickly with a stick, wiped the ash off it, and ate it--it was just fine, although the other guys looked at me funny. I saw a couple of them go and cut the broad leaves off a cactus and toss the flat body onto the fire--this is supposed to burn off the spikes. These guys were going to show off and eat the fruit out of the cactus, which tastes like sticky, bitter, watermelon rind. To me, this was a last resort because the spines never completely burn off, the meat of the cactus is so sticky that the juice takes a lot of water to wash off your hands, and, besides that, it tends to give you the runs. Sure enough, I saw these guys digging needles out of their hands with a pocketknife for the rest of the day.
We got on the trail, and got out into the open very quickly in the day. We only had about 10 more miles to go, so we would be pulling in to the ranch house by around noon, so I made up my mind to enjoy the morning ride near the front with Earl, confident in the fact that I knew his secret. It was overcast, and before long I knew we would get rained on. I didn't have any rain gear, so it worried me a little that we may be soaked with a summer thunderstorm and get extremely cold. I was angry at myself for not planning better.
Just then, Earl turned around and started talking to me.
When I say turned around, he actually turned around in the saddle, and started riding the horse while sitting backwards! Somehow, he actually lay down backward on the horse as we went along the trail and started nonchalongly asking about where I was from and why I was on the trail with him. I was trying to act cool and ignore his crazy riding, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of amazing me. Also, maybe I was still embarrassed from being admonished the night before. Whatever the case, I was sincerely hoping that this fraud cowboy poser would get thrown on his ass right in front of me.
He dug a can of Copenhagen out of his shirt pocket and grabbed a big fingerful and put it in his mouth. I thought to myself: Well, maybe this guy is a real cowboy who is just overly particular about the condition of his trousers...
As we rode along the trail, it started to rain small drops in a light summer shower. I acted like I didn't even realize it was raining--I thought Earl was watching me to see if I would react to the rain like a city boy, wincing like it was acid falling from the sky. I was just worried about getting cold, but certainly wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of feeling tougher than me. More prepared, perhaps, but not tougher. He was in the lead and I was the number two man. One of the hands had caught up to us with Bennie's horse the night before, and had taken the pack horse out early that morning ahead on the trail, and was probably already at the ranch house by now. Behind us, I could hear the guys starting to bitch and moan about the rain. A couple of guys stopped to dig their rain gear out of their bundles, but Earl didn't stop to wait.
Riding backwards in the saddle downhill, with rain beading on his tattered hat and dripping off the front, his lower lip bulging with tobacco, and still somehow managing to look graceful, Earl belted out, loudly, in an operatic baritone:
I'm singin' in the rain
Just singin' in the rain.
What a glorious feeling!
I'm happy again
A cowboy who sings showtunes? It didn't take much more thought before I gave up on deciphering Earl's true colors.
When we were about two miles out from the ranch house, we passsed a field of wild blackberries, the stalks reaching up to the horses' bellies. Copying Earl, I scooped my hand down along the stalks and grabbed a handful of berries. They were still wet from the brief rain shower and they tasted like a handful of grass mixed with a thimbleful of sugar, but it was fun to eat them anyway. I scooped again and somehow sliced my hand as it dragged across the leaves, similar to a papercut. It stung, and the sticky juice from the blackberries got into the cut, making it sting even worse.
We rode into camp, unsaddled the horses, and by then Earl had disappeared into his room at the ranch house. I didn't see him again, but I thought about him and laughed that he was quiet and unassuming one minute, opinionated, capable, and self-confident enough to do whatever he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it. It made me smile.
The following spring, Earl Dobbins was working in the hayfield when two massive roundbales of hay fell on top of him and snapped his neck, killing him instantly.
Sometimes, I get a flash of memory from that trail ride--the deep smell of heavy, oiled leather, the taste of berries (although none ever taste as good as they did that morning, picked freshly from the summer field), and pine needles when the air is just right. Even once when someone sang "Singing in the Rain" while we were in the stands at a football game and rain soaked us in the stands unexpectedly.
I remember that ride because it was the last time I rode the trail with a real cowboy.
I jumped a little bit, shocked that Earl had heard me from the other side of camp, talking to Squanto while she ate her feed out of the black, plastic bin. I realized it was dusk, now, and we were in thick trees that cast vertical shadows. My face got red-hot with embarrassment, and I didn't answer. Earl let it drop.
We had ridden out into the piney woods of far East Texas near the Louisiana border, just for a few hours. We had packed light--just enough for an overnight trip, and we planned on sleeping out under the stars. I wasn't sure if I was more hungry or tired at that point--we had stopped a couple of times for water and to readjust weight on the horses--there were about ten of us taking the horses across to the camp on the other side of the Natchez ranch, and we figured we'd make it an easy overnight trip instead of a tough full-day trip.
We got a late start, and started off a man short, because one of the guys sat square on top of a copperhead in his bunk after breakfast, and it bit him in the top of the leg, right under the right buttock. The tents were cool and dry in the woods, and it was already near 90 degrees. The man was whisked away in a dented, white pickup that the ranch kept on hand for moving equipment, and the rest of the camp got jittery and slow as we transferred gear from our tents to pack onto the horses--only a bedroll, mess kit, canteen full of water, and a dry change of clothes were allowed. Earl led a cream-colored pack horse with cooking gear and some cans of chili for dinner, and a sack of feed for the horses strapped inside a small stack of shallow, plastic buckets. Everyone was still edgy and on the lookout when we left because when Bennie came out screaming, the snake somehow had gotten away.
The trail was hot and dusty from the orange, sandy layer of thick, loose dirt that was dry under the horses hooves, kicking up behind us and hanging in the air as we rode along. Immediately, we rode right through the middle of a huge, yellow hayfield near the 10-acre fenced pasture where the horses were kept during most of the summer, and then right into thick woods that was owned by the Owens Paper Company, and leased to the ranch for maintenance and access. I was up near Earl at the front of the line and, when we came around a bend in the trail where it narrowed into a grove dark from the intersecting branches of towering oaks, we saw three large deer bolt suddenly across our path like ghosts, appearing from nowhere and disappearing into the trees almost immediately. I love being at the front of a trek for that very reason--the wildlife is generally out of sight by the time the stragglers come through.
I've ridden horses all my life, but it's never been up to me to take care of them in any way. For this trip, under the direction of Earl Dobbins, we were directed to brush them down, saddle them up, make them take the bit, and generally take care of them on the trip, which was supposed to be a treat for those of us who were spending time at the ranch. You could see that some of the crowd of guys with us had never been close to a big animal before--their eyes grew wide when they walked up to throw the blanket and saddle over the withers, and they were very tentative in handling the equipment. Earl didn't help by scaring the hell out of everyone as they reached under the horse to cinch the saddle up, telling about how it makes the horse jumpy and talking about getting kicked in the head. These were the same guys whose horses told them where they were going. Sure, they may follow along the trail as long as they wanted to, but if they felt the rider's hands light on the reins, they were just as likely to walk off the trail for a fresh patch of clover, leaving the bewildered passenger confused at where he went wrong. I knew that wasn't going to happen to me.
My horse, Squanto, was a paint, almost solid brown with large, white patches along her backside. She had behaved herself well all day and was very reliable, handling the trail effortlessly and never fighting me for control. Now that we had unpacked, I was compelled to go make sure she was fed and taken care of--some of the other guys just threw their things down, unrolled their bedrolls and lay down. I guess I didn't realize that Earl was so fussy about treating a horse in a distant manner, lest it forget it's just a dumb animal.
Earl Dobbins was another mystery. When you're out in the woods, a lot of time is spent in thought, and a recurring question that came to my mind concerned Earl's authenticity as a cowboy. On first glance, he sure looked the part with the jeans and a straw cowboy hat that was worn and dusty. It's funny when you realize you never catch a cowboy on the day he bought his cowboy hat--it always looks about a year or two old.
When we were packing up, though, it caught my eye that Earl's jeans were just a little too blue. A second glance gave him away as a fraud--there were freshly ironed creases along the legs! I smiled to myself.
But, on the trail, Earl knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going. He said practically nothing, except when one of the guys would make a foolish mistake.
"Hey, get that animal out of that clover right now! What's wrong with you? No! Pull up on the reins! You're gonna have to pull harder! Get back on the trail!"
But, overall, he seemed very calm and in control-it was hard to confirm or contradict my initial assessment of the man, since he barely spoke a word, and certainly didn't say anything about himself. After the day on the trail I had changed my mind, convinced that Earl's expertise qualified him as a real cowboy, despite his manicured jeans. At the end of the day, I rode up beside him and noticed his boots, which were rubbed smooth and faded down where stirrups had worn against them from many hours of work in the saddle. I took it as a definitive clue.
I was still nervous from Bennie getting bit in the ass that morning, and stories kept going around about how snakes like to crawl into your sleeping bag with you at night since it's nice and toasty in the chill of the Texas night--particularly pit vipers who could "see" the hotter temperature of a man's body. That scared me to death, and still does, when I'm out in the woods. I waited up drinking coffee by the fire and, when I finally was tired enough to know that I wasn't going to lay up for an hour thinking about snakes, I headed over to my sleeping bag, which I unrolled, unzipped, and shook out to make sure there wasn't anything inside. I crawled inside, used my boots wrapped in a shirt for a pillow, and fell asleep staring up at the stars with the noisy sounds of crickets working away in the black woods.
When I woke up, I was staring at a scorpion about a foot away from me on a chip of bark on the ground. It was pretty small, light brown and about half an inch long, but I've always been told that those are the most painful ones if you get stung by them. I got up slow, shook out my boots, which had come partially unwrapped, and packed up my gear. I went over to the fire, and saw some biscuits wrapped in foil cooking over some coals. Earl had placed just a few coals on top, I guess so they would cook more evenly. Some coffee was going as well--the night before, it had taken a few minutes to get all of the grounds out of my mouth, so I was hoping to get one of the cups off the top of the pot instead of the sludge at the bottom, but I could see I was a few behind in the line already.
Then one of the boys knocked nearly all of the biscuits into the fire trying to unwrap the foil. Earl just shrugged and took a sip of coffee--guess he doesn't get worked up over all mistakes, just horse mistakes.
Then I realized again that he had fooled me and that he really was a fraud--his jeans didn't have the telltale ring worn in his rear jean pocket from holding a can of snuff. Almost every cowboy I had ever seen "dipped" tobacco, and this just cinched it for me that Earl was posing as a real cowboy but lacked authenticity. It didn't really affect me, but it was good to know.
I dug one of the biscuits out of the fire quickly with a stick, wiped the ash off it, and ate it--it was just fine, although the other guys looked at me funny. I saw a couple of them go and cut the broad leaves off a cactus and toss the flat body onto the fire--this is supposed to burn off the spikes. These guys were going to show off and eat the fruit out of the cactus, which tastes like sticky, bitter, watermelon rind. To me, this was a last resort because the spines never completely burn off, the meat of the cactus is so sticky that the juice takes a lot of water to wash off your hands, and, besides that, it tends to give you the runs. Sure enough, I saw these guys digging needles out of their hands with a pocketknife for the rest of the day.
We got on the trail, and got out into the open very quickly in the day. We only had about 10 more miles to go, so we would be pulling in to the ranch house by around noon, so I made up my mind to enjoy the morning ride near the front with Earl, confident in the fact that I knew his secret. It was overcast, and before long I knew we would get rained on. I didn't have any rain gear, so it worried me a little that we may be soaked with a summer thunderstorm and get extremely cold. I was angry at myself for not planning better.
Just then, Earl turned around and started talking to me.
When I say turned around, he actually turned around in the saddle, and started riding the horse while sitting backwards! Somehow, he actually lay down backward on the horse as we went along the trail and started nonchalongly asking about where I was from and why I was on the trail with him. I was trying to act cool and ignore his crazy riding, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of amazing me. Also, maybe I was still embarrassed from being admonished the night before. Whatever the case, I was sincerely hoping that this fraud cowboy poser would get thrown on his ass right in front of me.
He dug a can of Copenhagen out of his shirt pocket and grabbed a big fingerful and put it in his mouth. I thought to myself: Well, maybe this guy is a real cowboy who is just overly particular about the condition of his trousers...
As we rode along the trail, it started to rain small drops in a light summer shower. I acted like I didn't even realize it was raining--I thought Earl was watching me to see if I would react to the rain like a city boy, wincing like it was acid falling from the sky. I was just worried about getting cold, but certainly wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of feeling tougher than me. More prepared, perhaps, but not tougher. He was in the lead and I was the number two man. One of the hands had caught up to us with Bennie's horse the night before, and had taken the pack horse out early that morning ahead on the trail, and was probably already at the ranch house by now. Behind us, I could hear the guys starting to bitch and moan about the rain. A couple of guys stopped to dig their rain gear out of their bundles, but Earl didn't stop to wait.
Riding backwards in the saddle downhill, with rain beading on his tattered hat and dripping off the front, his lower lip bulging with tobacco, and still somehow managing to look graceful, Earl belted out, loudly, in an operatic baritone:
I'm singin' in the rain
Just singin' in the rain.
What a glorious feeling!
I'm happy again
A cowboy who sings showtunes? It didn't take much more thought before I gave up on deciphering Earl's true colors.
When we were about two miles out from the ranch house, we passsed a field of wild blackberries, the stalks reaching up to the horses' bellies. Copying Earl, I scooped my hand down along the stalks and grabbed a handful of berries. They were still wet from the brief rain shower and they tasted like a handful of grass mixed with a thimbleful of sugar, but it was fun to eat them anyway. I scooped again and somehow sliced my hand as it dragged across the leaves, similar to a papercut. It stung, and the sticky juice from the blackberries got into the cut, making it sting even worse.
We rode into camp, unsaddled the horses, and by then Earl had disappeared into his room at the ranch house. I didn't see him again, but I thought about him and laughed that he was quiet and unassuming one minute, opinionated, capable, and self-confident enough to do whatever he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it. It made me smile.
The following spring, Earl Dobbins was working in the hayfield when two massive roundbales of hay fell on top of him and snapped his neck, killing him instantly.
Sometimes, I get a flash of memory from that trail ride--the deep smell of heavy, oiled leather, the taste of berries (although none ever taste as good as they did that morning, picked freshly from the summer field), and pine needles when the air is just right. Even once when someone sang "Singing in the Rain" while we were in the stands at a football game and rain soaked us in the stands unexpectedly.
I remember that ride because it was the last time I rode the trail with a real cowboy.
Hey There, Bubba!
Ryan has his first loose tooth.
This is making Fran and me pretty sad, realizing that his baby teeth will start to fall out. Other signs of his growing up tend to make us look at each other and make a sad face, kind of like a running joke, but more like just a running commentary of our amazement at what it's like to have a child.
Bringing me back to Ryan's loose tooth. He has some friends who lost their first tooth over a year ago, so he is anxious to join them (remember those days?) He has been claiming loose teeth for about 6 months now, but Fran just verified the first palpable wiggler just last week. I could tell it made her sad.
Could I just let nature run its course and not use it as fodder for practical jokes? Nooooooo....
We were at Party City picking up balloons for Kaitlyn's birthday party yesterday, and I spotted these "Bubba Teeth" by the cash register. I turned to Ryan and told him that we absolutely had to get them and tease Mom with them. I must have been speaking louder than I thought, because I looked up to see several people smiling broadly at the idea. Ryan saw them, too, and became very self-conscious--he's just that way, sometimes. He didn't want to have anything to do with those wax "teeth"--he thought they were gross.
----
We walked in the door, and Fran was in the kitchen. I carried in a bundle of helium balloons, and Ryan cupped his hand over his mouth. We had discussed our scripts and stage direction on the trip home.
"Hey, Fran. You remember how Ryan had that loose tooth? Well, he's got a surprise for you!"
"WHAT!!!!??? Oh, no!" I didn't anticipate how shocked she would be at the prospect of Ryan losing a tooth when the event actually "occurred".
Ryan walked around to the other side of the kitchen table, and, using his actor's instincts, held his hand over his mouth for an extra second or two. This was the time during which Fran's mind went through every possible scenario which necessitated him holding his hand over his mouth. Well...probably all but the right one.
I really wish I had one of those high-speed timelapse movies of her facial expressions as she ran through the possibilities. Among the questions she pondered were:
-I can't believe his tooth came out!
-Did someone knock it out?
-What in the world are we going to tell him about the Tooth Fairy?
-Do people still do that? How much should we leave him under the pillow?
-Did Mike do something stupid, like tie his tooth to the car and drive off?
-Is his face disfigured?
-Did he swallow it?
-I didn't think it was THAT loose!
-Is he bleeding?
-How many of them fell out?
Part of me would like to sadistically play the timelapse movie frame by frame and watch the thoughts wash over her face--that's what a practical joke is all about, right? This one lasted just a precious few seconds.
Ryan took his hand off his mouth, then: horror, confusion, relief...anger.
She shot a look at me, "Ahhhhh! You just gave me a Mini Heart Attack!" and she walked off.
It took a minute before she burst out laughing. Gee, I wonder why she has a hard time believing me...
18 January 2006
The Saga of '77
School had just started again in the fall in Texas. My friend, Chris, and I were a week apart in age and lived a block apart. For some reason, our parents never, ever talked to each other so we had a lot of unsupervised free reign throughout our neighborhood, which we availed ourselves of regularly, taking walks, playing in thrown-together tackle football games, and riding our bikes to a place called "the trails", a scary crossroads of dirt bike paths located just on the outskirts of the neighborhood on the other side of the railroad tracks. Big kids, and even teenagers with girlfriends would sometimes hang out there, too. Rumors circulated that The Trails was a place where people would go to fight, smoke cigarettes, or kiss girls (all of which I had done by age 7 anyway...but I was still scared.)
It was on one of these walks that Chris and I started the "can collection", as we called it. We spotted a pristine Coca Cola can tossed alongside a busy road, and Chris mentioned to me that if you take it to a recycling center they would give you money for it--I don't remember, but it was 2 cents or 5 cents, but to me it seemed a lot like finding money on the side of the road. I was intrigued.
Why did I want money? Because of 7-11 and baseball cards.
A seven year old is generally given everything he needs to live, but this was a point in my life where I started to realize that there were things beyond my grasp. Some things were just barely beyond. I was with my aunt at 7-11 and I saw rows and rows of colorfully wrapped wax-paper packets along the candy aisle--they were priced at a quarter apiece--I asked her what they were.
"Oh, those are bubble-gum cards." (sometimes, members of my family coined terms for things that weren't mainstream. These were really baseball cards with a stick of gum stuck on top).
"Can I get one, please?"
"Michael, get a different candy."
"No! I want a bubble gum card!" (Insisting, though, of course, having no idea what it was).
She gave in. I remember that waxy paper that it came wrapped in and the permeating smell of the disgusting gum
that came with the cards--powdery on the outside, probably so it wouldn't stick to the cards. I remember getting confused and wondering if the cards themselves were bubble gum--I licked one of them just to make sure. The cards would keep that sickly sweet smell for weeks after you got them, and they were just laminated on one side. The other side had a bunch of numbers which meant very little to me--statistics about the players which I didn't quite understand. I know some kids really picked up on stuff like that, but I was happy just to know what position they played and what team they were on, and just to have them--brightly colored pictures, action shots, players, managers. If I got too many of the same guy, I would sacrfice or two by clipping them to the spokes of my bike, making it sound like a motorcycle while I rode it.I don't know why, but I loved having these baseball cards, even though I knew nothing about baseball, the people, or the teams. I remember clearly that one of the teams, the Cubs, was written in a relatively illegible script that made the team name look like the "Owls". I called them the Owls for at least a year before slyly discerning that some of my friends had players from the Cubs--then I figured out my error. To me it was just fun. I would "play" baseball with them, making a ball out of wadded-up paper and placing all the players in their respective positions on the floor, then putting the ball in play and moving the players in the field.
I was hooked on Baseball cards without a means to get them other than begging family members to buy them for me, which quickly became pretty tiresome to them.
So on the day when I figured out a way to make money, I started thinking in terms of how many cans I needed to get for each pack of baseball cards, and we started our collection. We kept it going throughout the whole year, piling bag after bag in Chris' garage to be "cashed in" some day. His parents thought it was hilarious that we stuck with it. My parents had no idea of what I was up to--I believe the general impression was that Chris and I hung out at his house watching reruns of Godzilla movies and playing "Sorry" with his mom--we did sometimes, but mostly we just kept piling up cans.
Some houses were being built nearby, and Chris and I would routinely patrol the neighborhood, scouring the place for abandoned beer cans. I remember sipping warm Coors out of a can that was propped on a sawhorse inside a house--I still remember the house, because when I was in high school a friend of mine lived in it--but this experience probably soured me on beer for the rest of my life, because it was the most awful taste I've ever experienced. In retrospect, I hope it was actually beer after all...If we found a deposit bottle, we would make a trip to 7-11. This was like getting a Christmas bonus--we would usually find a few bottles a week, so Chris and I would take our trip together. We would get the coins--quarters so thick and round that I wanted to sink my teeth into them--I loved the way they clinked together...We would turn them over and over again in our moist fingers, inevitably buying a grape Nehi, and maybe a pack of baseball cards. We felt so rich and powerful that we couldn't resist surveying the kingdom and deciding upon our purchases--it would take at least 20 minutes. And we must have seemed so small to the clerks--I remember one or two of them asking if we had permission to go to the store.
Then one day, Chris appeared at my front door unexpectedly--with $18! His mom and dad had found the 10 bags of cans we had collected and cashed them all in--$18 was my half, and I remember stashing the money under my bed until I could get to 7-11, buy 2 grape Nehi's and 20 packs of baseball cards. I opened them one after the other, stuffing at least six pieces of the stale gum into my mouth so I could hardly chew it.
All summer, I played and played with the cards until the edges became worn. I enjoyed them so much--I didn't even want to trade my "extras" with my friends. I kept them stored in an old empty tissue box under my bed.
At the end of the summer, my mom and dad found the box and accused me of stealing the cards. I can't remember if they thought I took them from a store, or from a friend, but I remember being terrified that they might found out I had been working on my can collection without them knowing--that's all that mattered to me, even though Chris and I had essentially dissolved our partnership already. I told them that I got them from a friend.
They told me to give them back to him.
So I took the tissue box full of cards over to the home of my friend, Alex. His family was pretty poor, but he was a nice guy that I didn't know very well. Something told me to give the cards to Alex, so I did. I just told him that my parents wouldn't let me keep them anymore, so I wanted him to have them. He seemed surprised, but happy, and we never talked about them again--Alex moved out of town the next year, and I never saw him or my baseball cards again.
Times have changed, baseball cards have really changed--it cracks me up that some people see them as an "investment"--like a Certificate of Deposit they can cash in to pay for their kid's education. Instead of a quarter, they cost over two dollars a pack, and they don't come with bubble gum anymore. They are not only laminated, but they are hologram-embedded and require you to store them in a museum quality holder so they don't lose their value. You would have to be insane to clip one to your bike tire. I never had a desire to own baseball cards after having to box up my collection and give them to another kid, but I sprung for the $5 for a couple of packs for my little boy this year when he learned about baseball--I taught him the rules of the game by placing cards on a makeshift baseball field on our kitchen table and "playing" baseball just like I did when I was seven. It just seemed natural to me to do it that way--I wonder if anybody else ever did that...I wonder if he enjoyed it.
My son turns seven next month, and it's surreal to me that he is at this same point in his life that I was. I can relate to the confusion about the adult world and the unseen values that influence kids. I remember the awareness that I had at that time, and that adults seemed oblivious to the fact that I understood the things that I understood. Simple pleasures, like a waxy pack of cards for a quarter, would make me happy. Maybe there are things for me to learn from those memories that will make me a better dad to Ryan---not to make all the decisions behind the scenes, but to listen closer to him and to share my rationale for decisions and get his input. But in those days, I learned to rely on myself to get the things I want, and to be ashamed of breaking rules. And, in my own way, I guess I made things right, and dealt with the consequences and regret of unfairly losing what I had worked for. The cards had to go.
But the memories are priceless.
17 January 2006
Two Guys go into a bar...
I have this weird impulse-control thing that I've never conquered--it does make for an interesting life, though.
Business meals are very weird--it's not like going out and having dinner with friends. It's more like the extended dance mix version of the relatively unsatisfying experience having coffee and donuts at a meeting in a conference room, wishing you were chomping the same donuts and coffee in your pajamas while reading a book in your favorite chair...
One of my colleagues, named John, whom I don't know very well, was in town to help me with a tough training class for a group of nitwits. Since he was visiting from out-of-town at my request, and didn't have a car, I felt somewhat obligated to take him out to dinner that evening. Some guys have "road" personalities, where they go nuts and drink like crazy or otherwise misbehave, so you never know what you're going to get--this guy seemed pretty tame, so I decided to take him to a restaurant relatively close to his hotel.
We sat, somewhat awkwardly making polite conversation. He is a pretty formal guy, very professional and not too open about his ideas. Some guys will go on and on about politics, which just bores the shit out of me. Others stick to very neutral topics such as events in the industry, "where I'm from it's like this...", and even funny work anecdotes. If I ever run into someone who reads literature, likes to hunt or fish, or talk philosophy (open-mindedly, not trying to convince me of anything), then I'm good for the whole evening. But that night I was trying to switch my brain off from work mode and was just enjoying stories of John grow up in a military family, moving from place to place. He's a decent guy.
I let my guard down for just a minute.
"Did you hear that Peter McDonald left the company? He went to the competition."
"Good--I'm glad he's gone. He's a smug bastard!" I shot back with blinding speed, just enunciating the word "bastard" at about the time I caught myself saying it.
Normally, this in itself would be funny enough of an interjection just because it was such a sudden and disproportionally dramatic departure from the somewhat passive tone of the conversation, but then I saw John kind of press his lips together with some effort and look down at his drink.
I had one of those flashing episodes like in "Run Lola Run" where bits of information about John and Peter ran through my head, tracing back to a convergence of their paths. I realized that John had known Peter from working with him at their former company.
Now, here's where I'm coming from on this: I had just had the opportunity (privilege, if you ask Peter) to work with Peter for about 10 days in a row at a conference. He's a smarmy British guy who is extremely brilliant, gifted, well-spoken, and clever. The kind of person that I become quiet around because there isn't enough room for my ego in the same room with theirs. The kind of person who is constantly correcting you with hyper-accurate language. An Example:
Me: "Am I attaching the X-ray correctly?" (putting something together)
Peter, scoffing, sighs, rolls eyes, then responds: "It's an energy-dispersive X-ray analysis detector." (note that he really didn't answer my question).
Me (who really just asked to politely fill an awkward silence, knowing what it was and how to attach it, including the full, annoying name): "Thanks."
Then, in my imagination, Peter is drinking tea later on with his comrades (At least 5 English people magically materialized at our station during the conference): "I work with a group of gorillas. They are all complete morons who know nothing..."
Gloriously gifted Peter pranced around the conference rolling his eyes and speaking condescendingly to others the entire time, in that manner of him being in on some large, cosmic joke of hyper-awareness amongst dullards. But still, he was one of those guys that made me glad he was on our team because he is quite knowledgeable about technical matters. Believe it or not, I can easily put aside personal dislike for someone if they do a good job.
So, when given the ability to unleash my pent-up wrath about Peter, I opened my mouth and inserted my foot firmly--I guess I could be a wuss and retreat, chalking up my outburst to an instantaneous lack of judgement, but nooooo, not me...I've gotta go the other way:
"You must know him pretty well from when you worked for xxx, huh?"
"Yes, he was my contact with that company for eight years. He called me to tell me he was leaving" John responded, smiling slightly as though he really caught me in a big faux pas. Turns out they've been friends for eight years or so...
"Well, if you talk to him again, you can tell him he comes across like a real smug bastard. But then again, maybe that's the effect he's going for..."
John politely changed the subject, and I just laughed at the absurdity of the situation and my own silliness.
Business meals are very weird--it's not like going out and having dinner with friends. It's more like the extended dance mix version of the relatively unsatisfying experience having coffee and donuts at a meeting in a conference room, wishing you were chomping the same donuts and coffee in your pajamas while reading a book in your favorite chair...
One of my colleagues, named John, whom I don't know very well, was in town to help me with a tough training class for a group of nitwits. Since he was visiting from out-of-town at my request, and didn't have a car, I felt somewhat obligated to take him out to dinner that evening. Some guys have "road" personalities, where they go nuts and drink like crazy or otherwise misbehave, so you never know what you're going to get--this guy seemed pretty tame, so I decided to take him to a restaurant relatively close to his hotel.
We sat, somewhat awkwardly making polite conversation. He is a pretty formal guy, very professional and not too open about his ideas. Some guys will go on and on about politics, which just bores the shit out of me. Others stick to very neutral topics such as events in the industry, "where I'm from it's like this...", and even funny work anecdotes. If I ever run into someone who reads literature, likes to hunt or fish, or talk philosophy (open-mindedly, not trying to convince me of anything), then I'm good for the whole evening. But that night I was trying to switch my brain off from work mode and was just enjoying stories of John grow up in a military family, moving from place to place. He's a decent guy.
I let my guard down for just a minute.
"Did you hear that Peter McDonald left the company? He went to the competition."
"Good--I'm glad he's gone. He's a smug bastard!" I shot back with blinding speed, just enunciating the word "bastard" at about the time I caught myself saying it.
Normally, this in itself would be funny enough of an interjection just because it was such a sudden and disproportionally dramatic departure from the somewhat passive tone of the conversation, but then I saw John kind of press his lips together with some effort and look down at his drink.
I had one of those flashing episodes like in "Run Lola Run" where bits of information about John and Peter ran through my head, tracing back to a convergence of their paths. I realized that John had known Peter from working with him at their former company.
Now, here's where I'm coming from on this: I had just had the opportunity (privilege, if you ask Peter) to work with Peter for about 10 days in a row at a conference. He's a smarmy British guy who is extremely brilliant, gifted, well-spoken, and clever. The kind of person that I become quiet around because there isn't enough room for my ego in the same room with theirs. The kind of person who is constantly correcting you with hyper-accurate language. An Example:
Me: "Am I attaching the X-ray correctly?" (putting something together)
Peter, scoffing, sighs, rolls eyes, then responds: "It's an energy-dispersive X-ray analysis detector." (note that he really didn't answer my question).
Me (who really just asked to politely fill an awkward silence, knowing what it was and how to attach it, including the full, annoying name): "Thanks."
Then, in my imagination, Peter is drinking tea later on with his comrades (At least 5 English people magically materialized at our station during the conference): "I work with a group of gorillas. They are all complete morons who know nothing..."
Gloriously gifted Peter pranced around the conference rolling his eyes and speaking condescendingly to others the entire time, in that manner of him being in on some large, cosmic joke of hyper-awareness amongst dullards. But still, he was one of those guys that made me glad he was on our team because he is quite knowledgeable about technical matters. Believe it or not, I can easily put aside personal dislike for someone if they do a good job.
So, when given the ability to unleash my pent-up wrath about Peter, I opened my mouth and inserted my foot firmly--I guess I could be a wuss and retreat, chalking up my outburst to an instantaneous lack of judgement, but nooooo, not me...I've gotta go the other way:
"You must know him pretty well from when you worked for xxx, huh?"
"Yes, he was my contact with that company for eight years. He called me to tell me he was leaving" John responded, smiling slightly as though he really caught me in a big faux pas. Turns out they've been friends for eight years or so...
"Well, if you talk to him again, you can tell him he comes across like a real smug bastard. But then again, maybe that's the effect he's going for..."
John politely changed the subject, and I just laughed at the absurdity of the situation and my own silliness.
09 January 2006
Woulda, shoulda, coulda
There was no mistaking that it was Mrs. Davenport. I knew it was her without even looking.
I had taken my wife's car to a car wash and was trying to get 5 minutes of reading done while I was waiting for the guys to wash it, dry it, and deliver it back to me so I could let the kids smear twinkie filling and chocolate milk on the inside of the windows again...
And I recognized a voice that belonged to the mother of an acquaintence from high school. In fact, her son, Jay, and I had been in scouts together for several years, and I had been over to their house several times. Fifteen years ago.
I'm cursed with this overactive memory that clings to details, so sometimes I recognize someone, know lots about them including every interaction I've ever had with them, and then when I go and say something I get the blank stare of complete non-recognition. This happened a year or so ago at the same exact car wash (probably been that long since I had gotten the car washed)--I recognized a man from my old neighborhood who had twin daughters, one of whom I had worked with for about six years while we were in high school (I didn't mention it to him, but she had paid me $100 to write her term paper and she got a better grade on hers than I got on mine!)--I knew these girls since we were four years old, as well as about ten members of their extended family, so I spoke to him and asked about his daughters. Sadly, I learned that one of them had died of cancer (not the cheater).
This is what I learned from these girls as we grew up in the same neighborhood: 1) Girls go to the bathroom sitting down 2) Fried baloney really stinks up the house and is gross and 3) The Beatles songs are cool--we used to listen to their parents' old records in their house (while they were frying baloney). All of these I consider to be valuable life lessons, and I owe a debt of gratitude to this family.
Not that I didn't care about the other one dying, I mean it was a sad story, but I hadn't seen her in twenty years so (callously I say) I probably won't miss her greatly. I wondered what I had gotten myself into, sitting there at the car wash talking to her dad in front of 10 strange people. But I felt obligated to hear the whole death tale and I knew that the dad had no idea who I was, and it seemed a little awkward for him to be telling me this very personal story--but we both lived through the experience unscathed.
So, when I heard the unmistakable sound of Jay's mom's graveley voice, I had to do a quick evaluation of life convergence to determine if we had interacted enough to meet the criteria for me to not seem like a stalker who needs to get a life.
We were friends in scouts.
Their family bought me a nice gift when I graduated.
Went swimming at their house about 20 times.
Did some work for Jay's dad and got paid very well.
Remembered his sister's name...
Knew a little about Jay--he is a multi-millionaire now and has been on talk shows. At least he's not dead and I'm forced to listen to a verbal obituary...
Yeah, I guess that's enough to briefly say "hi" and "give my best to Jay".
As I started to speak to this bewildered lady, my mind filled in a critical incident: "The Car Story". Yeah, it would have been helpful to have remembered THAT a little sooner...
The story could actually be called "The Spitting Incidents of 1987", because it all revolved around spitting. Jay had bought a new bitchin' camaro and had pretty much turned obnoxious, peeling out all over town and picking up groupies that just wanted to hang out in his car. It was a cool car, but I wasn't really into cars so it didn't mean much to me. Jay did lots of bragging and big talking, so that was a little tiresome. It didn't occur to me in the least to be jealous of the camaro--getting a car was so out of the realm of possiblities for me that it just went over my head.
But my buddy, Cameron, was burning up about it--it really bugged him. Cameron had a 1967 baby blue mustang which he always seemed to be fixing up. Driving home from a scout meeting one time, we saw Jay's camaro parked in a lot, and Cameron pulled over. And, sitting in the car still, he spit on the windshield about 20 times. I know it's quite convenient to say that I remember birthdays of people I haven't seen in 20 years, but I can't remember something significant like whether or not I joined in the spitting incident. It's not beneath me, but I seriously can not remember doing it. I do remember being a little surprised that Cameron had such rage in him over a silly car, and that there wasn't anything specific that sparked it.
I'm not sure how Jay figured out who it was, but a week or so later he got revenge on us--he went to my younger brother, Don, and spit on him, maybe even giving him a shove for good measure. I'm sure that Don went ballistic on him, but the whole thing became an embarrassing incident and somehow violated pretty much every point of the Boy Scout code or something tragic like that, so we all got invited to a meeting at the scout leader's house and Jay's dad did most of the talking. Seems that he was afraid that we might all retaliate against Jay. He even tearfully and convincingly explained that he thought of Cameron and I like his own sons (Hey Dad, can I have a camaro, too??) It all ended there, though.
So, that would have been a good detail to remember before talking to Jay's mom.
Luckily, she didn't remember me and thought I was an Amway salesman or Jehova's witness or something, and jumped back about a foot when I went up to her, said "hi" and introduced myself.
We engaged in mostly small talk, and she was pretty guarded about saying anything too personal.
I asked about Jay, she mentioned that "one of his houses" is here in town, and he visits it occasionally.
I asked about his sister, Carmen, who was two years younger--I said, "she must have turned out to be so pretty"--I know, this was a risky thing to say. Her mom gave me a blank look and didn't reply. I bet she inherited the "blow up like Violet on Willy Wonka" gene (that scene disturbed my 6-year-old Ryan so much that he had to leave the room).
I asked about the dad (since I'm like a son to him)--The response was interesting: She looked down, fumbling a little aimlessly for something in her purse, and said "Well, we're just going to have to see about him and if he behaves himself. Right now, he's in trouble." And that was that.
After she asked me politely about my family, during which time I realized she had no idea who I was and of course no idea about my family. I asked her to give my regards to Jay and we parted.
Then it hit me--It would have been well worth it to pay for her car wash and tell her that I owed it to Jay. Damn, that would have been funny.
I had taken my wife's car to a car wash and was trying to get 5 minutes of reading done while I was waiting for the guys to wash it, dry it, and deliver it back to me so I could let the kids smear twinkie filling and chocolate milk on the inside of the windows again...
And I recognized a voice that belonged to the mother of an acquaintence from high school. In fact, her son, Jay, and I had been in scouts together for several years, and I had been over to their house several times. Fifteen years ago.
I'm cursed with this overactive memory that clings to details, so sometimes I recognize someone, know lots about them including every interaction I've ever had with them, and then when I go and say something I get the blank stare of complete non-recognition. This happened a year or so ago at the same exact car wash (probably been that long since I had gotten the car washed)--I recognized a man from my old neighborhood who had twin daughters, one of whom I had worked with for about six years while we were in high school (I didn't mention it to him, but she had paid me $100 to write her term paper and she got a better grade on hers than I got on mine!)--I knew these girls since we were four years old, as well as about ten members of their extended family, so I spoke to him and asked about his daughters. Sadly, I learned that one of them had died of cancer (not the cheater).
This is what I learned from these girls as we grew up in the same neighborhood: 1) Girls go to the bathroom sitting down 2) Fried baloney really stinks up the house and is gross and 3) The Beatles songs are cool--we used to listen to their parents' old records in their house (while they were frying baloney). All of these I consider to be valuable life lessons, and I owe a debt of gratitude to this family.
Not that I didn't care about the other one dying, I mean it was a sad story, but I hadn't seen her in twenty years so (callously I say) I probably won't miss her greatly. I wondered what I had gotten myself into, sitting there at the car wash talking to her dad in front of 10 strange people. But I felt obligated to hear the whole death tale and I knew that the dad had no idea who I was, and it seemed a little awkward for him to be telling me this very personal story--but we both lived through the experience unscathed.
So, when I heard the unmistakable sound of Jay's mom's graveley voice, I had to do a quick evaluation of life convergence to determine if we had interacted enough to meet the criteria for me to not seem like a stalker who needs to get a life.
We were friends in scouts.
Their family bought me a nice gift when I graduated.
Went swimming at their house about 20 times.
Did some work for Jay's dad and got paid very well.
Remembered his sister's name...
Knew a little about Jay--he is a multi-millionaire now and has been on talk shows. At least he's not dead and I'm forced to listen to a verbal obituary...
Yeah, I guess that's enough to briefly say "hi" and "give my best to Jay".
As I started to speak to this bewildered lady, my mind filled in a critical incident: "The Car Story". Yeah, it would have been helpful to have remembered THAT a little sooner...
The story could actually be called "The Spitting Incidents of 1987", because it all revolved around spitting. Jay had bought a new bitchin' camaro and had pretty much turned obnoxious, peeling out all over town and picking up groupies that just wanted to hang out in his car. It was a cool car, but I wasn't really into cars so it didn't mean much to me. Jay did lots of bragging and big talking, so that was a little tiresome. It didn't occur to me in the least to be jealous of the camaro--getting a car was so out of the realm of possiblities for me that it just went over my head.
But my buddy, Cameron, was burning up about it--it really bugged him. Cameron had a 1967 baby blue mustang which he always seemed to be fixing up. Driving home from a scout meeting one time, we saw Jay's camaro parked in a lot, and Cameron pulled over. And, sitting in the car still, he spit on the windshield about 20 times. I know it's quite convenient to say that I remember birthdays of people I haven't seen in 20 years, but I can't remember something significant like whether or not I joined in the spitting incident. It's not beneath me, but I seriously can not remember doing it. I do remember being a little surprised that Cameron had such rage in him over a silly car, and that there wasn't anything specific that sparked it.
I'm not sure how Jay figured out who it was, but a week or so later he got revenge on us--he went to my younger brother, Don, and spit on him, maybe even giving him a shove for good measure. I'm sure that Don went ballistic on him, but the whole thing became an embarrassing incident and somehow violated pretty much every point of the Boy Scout code or something tragic like that, so we all got invited to a meeting at the scout leader's house and Jay's dad did most of the talking. Seems that he was afraid that we might all retaliate against Jay. He even tearfully and convincingly explained that he thought of Cameron and I like his own sons (Hey Dad, can I have a camaro, too??) It all ended there, though.
So, that would have been a good detail to remember before talking to Jay's mom.
Luckily, she didn't remember me and thought I was an Amway salesman or Jehova's witness or something, and jumped back about a foot when I went up to her, said "hi" and introduced myself.
We engaged in mostly small talk, and she was pretty guarded about saying anything too personal.
I asked about Jay, she mentioned that "one of his houses" is here in town, and he visits it occasionally.
I asked about his sister, Carmen, who was two years younger--I said, "she must have turned out to be so pretty"--I know, this was a risky thing to say. Her mom gave me a blank look and didn't reply. I bet she inherited the "blow up like Violet on Willy Wonka" gene (that scene disturbed my 6-year-old Ryan so much that he had to leave the room).
I asked about the dad (since I'm like a son to him)--The response was interesting: She looked down, fumbling a little aimlessly for something in her purse, and said "Well, we're just going to have to see about him and if he behaves himself. Right now, he's in trouble." And that was that.
After she asked me politely about my family, during which time I realized she had no idea who I was and of course no idea about my family. I asked her to give my regards to Jay and we parted.
Then it hit me--It would have been well worth it to pay for her car wash and tell her that I owed it to Jay. Damn, that would have been funny.
07 January 2006
A Slippery Slope of Stealth and Sneakiness
My goal-setting for the year is a weak point that can easily be exploited.
Fran knows that I have set a goal of redoing the kids' bathroom--tiling the floor, tearing down wallpaper, painting a faux finish on the walls, a complete makeover. But, unfortunately, we already have a major project going 10 feet away--Fran is hand-painting butterflies and daisies on Kaitlyn's walls and windowseat. Two large projects going simultaneously would just be too much.
Somehow, in a moment of delirium, I decided that if I shoulder the burden of entertaining and caring for children, it would help expedite her work--so I can get to my projects before summer. So, for the past two evenings, I've bathed the kids, dressed them for bed, and cleaned the kitchen while Fran relaxes in sweats, drinks tea, closes the door, and cranks up some tunes while supposedly painting. Today, we're going to make a whole day of it--hopefully she'll finish.
What was I thinking?
This technique is called the "soft sell", but I'm not sure who's selling what to whom...seriously, if the roles were reversed, how motivated would I be to hurry up and finish?
Fran knows that I have set a goal of redoing the kids' bathroom--tiling the floor, tearing down wallpaper, painting a faux finish on the walls, a complete makeover. But, unfortunately, we already have a major project going 10 feet away--Fran is hand-painting butterflies and daisies on Kaitlyn's walls and windowseat. Two large projects going simultaneously would just be too much.
Somehow, in a moment of delirium, I decided that if I shoulder the burden of entertaining and caring for children, it would help expedite her work--so I can get to my projects before summer. So, for the past two evenings, I've bathed the kids, dressed them for bed, and cleaned the kitchen while Fran relaxes in sweats, drinks tea, closes the door, and cranks up some tunes while supposedly painting. Today, we're going to make a whole day of it--hopefully she'll finish.
What was I thinking?
This technique is called the "soft sell", but I'm not sure who's selling what to whom...seriously, if the roles were reversed, how motivated would I be to hurry up and finish?
06 January 2006
Skiing seemed like a good idea...
When I was in high school, I had several friends who would take ski trips every year and come back with lift tickets clipped to their
jackets that they would wear for the rest of the winter (and the next)--now that I think about it, that was a nerdy thing, wasn't it? But it seemed cool at the time. It was one of those things that I must have been a little jealous of, because it became one of those things that I started to feel wasn't a real thing--I couldn't visualize myself doing it.There have been times where I've broken the bubble of surrealism--one time I was walking down Broadway in New York, and, suddenly realizing where I was, was overwhelmed by the feeling--it had been such an abstract concept to me that Broadway was actually a street that existed somewhere. Come to think of it, New York City gave me that feeling everywhere I went--famous architecture, Central Park, and . Another "worlds colliding" feeling has happened when I have personally seen beautiful paintings in person that I had previously seen prints of: Monet (favorite), Rubens (surprising to me), Renoir. Nothing compares to seeing it in life.
So, all the fantasy stopped when, after long struggles, almost certain cancellation due to no snow, and kid-wrangling for over an hour, I found myself at the top of my personal Mount Everest (AKA the top of the Bunny Slope). At was at that poignant moment that I realized what skiing really is. Abstract concepts faded: Skiing is actually sliding down a mountain with the slightest deluision of control via slick boards strapped to your feet! This is in no way an easy thing to learn! If someone tells you that it is, they are lying just so they can laugh at you in your near-death dilemma.
Keep in mind that I am a "flatlander". The highest hill in our city is the mound of trash at the dump, which wafts like potpourri for miles...Ahhhhh.
Luckily, I had Nate and Nicole with me to serve as witnesses and direct the rescue team to scrape my carcass off the rocks when the inevitable happened...
This is how you teach someone how to ski, apparently: Just yell at them to "Make a wedge!!!" If the student looks like he is about to fall off the side of the mountain, just say it louder and repeatedly...
Seriously, though, I was so thankful they were there--it was such a foreign concept that we wouldn't have attempted it without their help...Of course, it was a beating of phenomenal proportions for them, I'm sure. I had to helplessly watch as they helped my 6-year-old boy out-ski me like crazy down the mountain. We were told that he would probably pick it up pretty quickly...and he seemed to.
Just about that time, I learned what a face-plant was...I left an impression like one of those plaster-of-paris death masks on the side of Bogus Basin--kind of an inverse Mount Rushmore type of thing. Then I remembered "Hey, this is how Sonny Bono went out..."
I realized that I was stressing out about Ryan every time I would go up with him, so eventually I took a couple of trips down the slope pretty much by myself, which was much more fun and relaxed.
A highlight of the day was when my wife Fran, who merely one week before had mustered the stamina to outshop the rest of San Francisco at a seven-storied Macy's, decided to try skiing. Now, Fran is not widely known for her athleticism, but I was really proud of her for having the guts to try this, so I curiously watched as she assembled herself and went up the ski lift. I turned to Nicole and told her "Right about now, she's trying to figure a way out of this."
Second-hand account begins here (as related through multiple sources):
Fran, slides off the ski lift and starts heading over the side of the mountain. Nate has to ski in front of her and body-block her from going over. Looks up.
"Is there any other way down this mountain?"
"Could I just lay down and roll back down?"
"Why don't they just let you ride the ski lift back down? I would come out here just to do that--it's so beautiful..."
"I don't think I can do this"
"I can't believe they won't let me ride down the ski lift"
Then, when the inevitable finally sank in:
"Shit Shit shit!" (Yes, this is my dear, sweet wife we are talking about, here).
She made it down in one piece, I think with just one fall, although I think Nate had a grip on her and held her up as she came down the slope. One trip was enough. At the bottom, she is rumored to have said "Thank you Lord Jesus, Amen", a reference to a line from Places in the Heart...
Nate's response "Don't you think Jesus heard you at the top of the mountain, too?" (grinning--see photo below).
Two days later I was so sore I could barely stand up, but still glowing from the experience--it was really a highlight of our trip.
Do you think it would be too nerdy for me to leave my lift ticket on my jacket for a little while?
05 January 2006
Okay, that was just God messin' with my head
As I'm leaving for work this morning, Kaitlyn, my daughter who will turn 2 later this month, says to me:
"Bye, bye Daddy. See you in the funny papers!"
I promise.
"Bye, bye Daddy. See you in the funny papers!"
I promise.
03 January 2006
Just call me "The Shred-Meister!"
I really hate those people who (usually with eyes closed, head tilted back, as though they are smelling something distasteful) say "My New Year's resolution is to not make any resolutions...because I never keep them." How clever.
I'm very big into goal-setting and making big mammoth projects for me and chopping them up into little pieces and tackling the pieces one at a time. It works for me, anyway.
Here I come to a little sticky part--I may have lied in my blog somewhere back where I mentioned a box in the attic that has random things in it--when I went up to fetch Fran's ridiculous quantity of Christmas boxes this year, I set aside at least seven or eight boxes which have in them:
1) Every greeting card ever received into my hands
2) Every receipt I've ever had (not sorted, just lumped in toghether in no order)
3) Every check I have ever written, stacked in the old checkbook boxes
4) Notes from Parisitology class in 1994
5) Twenty-three leftover copies from a speech I gave ten years ago
6) Every tax form I have ever filed
7) Warranties to things I don't own anymore
8) Shirts and hats and collector soda cans and an empty coke bottle, three baseball cards, and 12 postcards
9) A wooden crucifix I stole from my great-grandmother's estate when I was 7
10) Every letter and ticket stub from when Fran and I dated (Yep, even the ticket stubs from the first movie we went to see togther: Field of Dreams, September 2, 1989)
It became clear to me that I needed a shredder--I mean, come on, we can't have someone stealing those twenty-three copies of my speech and delivering my thoughts across the earth, right?
No, I guess more like all the stuff with my credit card info, identity, etc. I'm super-paranoid about that stuff, so occasionally I'll just burn it in the backyard (it smells terrible). My goal is to condense my mementos into one or two reasonable-sized boxes and shove them back into the attic for all time.
I went out and got the Shred-Master 7000--a great leap forward in itself, but a mental change needs to take place as well. I've been doing better and better at losing the annoying pack-rat personality, but I tend to get this gloomy, panicky feeling whenever I'm disposing of something that I may possibly be called to recover.
Yeah right "Ahem, Mr. Mike, could you plesae present that check you wrote back in 1992 proving that you had the oil changed in your car?" Me, sheepishly sorting through tubs of boxes with check carbons flying everywhere, rifling through bank statements..."No." Getting very disapproving glares.
The truth is that I rarely have to dig something out of a file--why am I keeping all this crap?
So yesterday I fired up the shredder and went nuts, shredding unsolicited credit card applications, receipts for meals that were eaten during the Clinton administration, and phone bills from three addresses ago. I stopped for a minute, reminiscing about the fishing license I fed into it from 1993, then watched it get sucked into the blade and spit out as confetti.
Ahhhh. Like a weight off my shoulders.
I'm very big into goal-setting and making big mammoth projects for me and chopping them up into little pieces and tackling the pieces one at a time. It works for me, anyway.
Here I come to a little sticky part--I may have lied in my blog somewhere back where I mentioned a box in the attic that has random things in it--when I went up to fetch Fran's ridiculous quantity of Christmas boxes this year, I set aside at least seven or eight boxes which have in them:
1) Every greeting card ever received into my hands
2) Every receipt I've ever had (not sorted, just lumped in toghether in no order)
3) Every check I have ever written, stacked in the old checkbook boxes
4) Notes from Parisitology class in 1994
5) Twenty-three leftover copies from a speech I gave ten years ago
6) Every tax form I have ever filed
7) Warranties to things I don't own anymore
8) Shirts and hats and collector soda cans and an empty coke bottle, three baseball cards, and 12 postcards
9) A wooden crucifix I stole from my great-grandmother's estate when I was 7
10) Every letter and ticket stub from when Fran and I dated (Yep, even the ticket stubs from the first movie we went to see togther: Field of Dreams, September 2, 1989)
It became clear to me that I needed a shredder--I mean, come on, we can't have someone stealing those twenty-three copies of my speech and delivering my thoughts across the earth, right?
No, I guess more like all the stuff with my credit card info, identity, etc. I'm super-paranoid about that stuff, so occasionally I'll just burn it in the backyard (it smells terrible). My goal is to condense my mementos into one or two reasonable-sized boxes and shove them back into the attic for all time.
I went out and got the Shred-Master 7000--a great leap forward in itself, but a mental change needs to take place as well. I've been doing better and better at losing the annoying pack-rat personality, but I tend to get this gloomy, panicky feeling whenever I'm disposing of something that I may possibly be called to recover.
Yeah right "Ahem, Mr. Mike, could you plesae present that check you wrote back in 1992 proving that you had the oil changed in your car?" Me, sheepishly sorting through tubs of boxes with check carbons flying everywhere, rifling through bank statements..."No." Getting very disapproving glares.
The truth is that I rarely have to dig something out of a file--why am I keeping all this crap?
So yesterday I fired up the shredder and went nuts, shredding unsolicited credit card applications, receipts for meals that were eaten during the Clinton administration, and phone bills from three addresses ago. I stopped for a minute, reminiscing about the fishing license I fed into it from 1993, then watched it get sucked into the blade and spit out as confetti.
Ahhhh. Like a weight off my shoulders.
02 January 2006
Christmas in Idaho (Survivor: Boise Edition)
After about 10 days in San Francisco, I came home and turned around and took my family to Boise, Idaho for Christmas. It may be interesting to note that we were spending time with a total of nine family members in my grandparents home, and that, through events that would ruin the story here, some of the family had never met each other before, and five of the members have not been around kids in any way for the past 20 years for over about an hour. Before we brought our kids to their house for 10 days, I called each party individually and warned them that even the best-behaved kids have their "moments", an asked for patience.
My six-year-old boy, Ryan, is one of the most well-behaved children I've ever seen, and he didn't disappoint me on the trip. My little girl, Kaitlyn, turns two this month (January), and she hit the "terrible twos" in full stride as soon as we set foot in Idaho. Well, maybe it hit two days before we left when she knocked over our Christmas tree while trying to wedge herself between it and the window, but why quibble over technicalities?
For those of you who don't know, the Terrible Twos are a time of exponential mental growth in children. They continually test boundaries of time, space, and people. They start to talk with full ideas ("No! No eat that-that yucky!"), exert independence, and, in general, require full attention during all waking moments. It's a very confusing time for the child, and a lot of time they misinterpret their own emotions--they know they are feeling something strongly--it may go from delight to a crying fit in just a few seconds.
The fun thing about the terrible twos is that you can really start to see the mental processes that the child is going through while working out ideas. Our Kaitlyn is very sweet and snuggly, so it was cute for her to run around saying "Merr-ree Kissmus!" and giving us big hugs. That is, it was cute to us...
My grandparents home is made of metal and glass, with sharp-pointed corners and jagged rocks interspersed throughout the house. My Grandmother collects china, figurines, hand-painted stuff, and other shrapnel-like items. They did take a lot of time to childproof the house before we got there--that is, they took steps to prevent the house from being destroyed by our child. Childproofing is actually designing the house to be safe for the child to walk around in, not "whew, now they won't break our stuff..."
But, thankfully, we did have a cure, which we discovered a couple of days before we left--Kaitlyn has been entranced by the movie "The Sound of Music", which we got on DVD. The DVD even allows us to play all the songs and skip the dialog, which worked out great--as soon as we popped it in, we have about 20 minutes to get something done with less than full supervision. Somewhere between the scene with the puppet show and Mother Superior singing "Climb Every Mountain", she loses focus on the movie and takes a break to wander around and test the tensile strength of random objects.
So we whipped everyone's ass with "The Sound of Music", which we played about 40 times while we were there and soon became a soundtrack inside my brain. And I, subconsciously, sank into a paranoid delusion that we were ruining everyone's time with our high-maintenance lifestyle. We also all lived in the same room for 10 days, which reminded me of a cross between "Angela's Ashes" and an episode of "The Twilight Zone".
In our house, there are a couple of "Safe Zones" where we can situate poor Kaitlyn, knowing she won't plug a fork into the wall socket or stuff M&M's into the VCR. We can leave her toys out to come and go and play with as she likes without having to disinfect the place after each play session. No such luck at the Grandparents' place.
An additional humorous contrast is that my grandfather was an airline pilot, and operates his life on quite a systematic schedule. Additionally, he hates to waste time waiting for things, and pretty much refuses to wait in most cases. Contrast this with the twenty minutes it takes to put a two-year-old's socks, shoes, and coat on. Quite funny (to us).
So, after a couple of days of standing vigil, I developed that self-conscious paranoia like the sailors on the submarine that start cutting themselves across the arm and imaging that the walls are closing in. my eyes started to dart back and forth, I heard voices saying "You suck!" and "Thanks for ruining Christmas, jerk!", and the corners of my mouth started twitching involuntarily.
There were also dogs. In an interesting ironic-karma thing, I have a somewhat irrational distrust of dogs that, despite my continuing efforts to rationalize and overcome, persists. Here is a picture of the aftermath from my formative-years experience with a German shepherd. Subsequently, I had to have rabies shots, have to shave twice a day, and disappear for hours whenever there's a full moon out (just keep to the road and stay off the moors)....
Try not to be jealous of my sweet threads.
At some point, I stopped counting all the times it was said that "raising kids is just like raising dogs"...This seems quite rational to a person who has dogs and not kids, and is highly offensive to people with kids and no dogs (and fodder for humor for the former). This was okay until my grandfather decided to test the theory by stalking up behind Kaitlyn, clapping loudly right behind her head, and yelling "No!" when she touched the figurines on the table, hoping to condition her against touching them in the future (thank God it didn't work--she just turned and looked at him blankly)--I also had to draw the line at them tapping her on the nose to try to make her swallow her medicine...
So the facts are that it was a wonderful time and the whole crowd was quite patient and extremely generous, said nothing whatsoever critical, and we had a very nice time (although we were tired and ready to come home at the end). My paranoid delusions eventually ceased when the purple grasshopper told me to chill out and stop taking things so personally, and that intelligent adults who understand that they are going to spend several days with a 2-year-old probably realize that,at some point, the child is going to act like a 2-year-old and said adults probably won't hold me personally accountable for my offspring's actions.
So Long, Farewell, Auf wiedersehn, Good Bye...
01 January 2006
Mike's Drumbeats
When I started my blog last year, and entitled it "Mike's Drumbeats", I had this image in mind for a "logo".
It's a photo that I submitted to my Fine Arts photography course in college--I wanted a silhouette image of a guy playing a drum set, and I set up so the light would reflect off the cymbals. Essentially, I took several pictures and got the one that I wanted--a little mysterious, it's kind of a challenge to tell what is going on...
My entire class, as well as the teacher, hated this picture. I think I got a B or a C on it, and everyone else got an A. They contorted their face, turned their heads sideways, crossed their eyes, and then declared it very difficult to understand. I think the top grade in the class went to a girl who dressed up all Goth-ed out and took a self-portrait laying on a grave with her own name with a rose across her breast. At that point, I realized I would never be artistic.
But I may change the blog image to this one--I found it in the attic when I was putting 12 boxes of Christmas decorations (took a little while to cram in the 10 Lords a Leapin').
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
