Around the bend...

The update itself doesn't really have anything to do with Christmas Eve, by the way. I just happen to have a little time on my hands today.

I guess I've been a little bummed out for the past few weeks. It doesn't usually happen to me during the holidays--I look forward to the kids getting their gifts on Christmas morning. I remember being a kid and feeling a little guilty about getting presents. One of my brothers got a bike and I remember thinking "Wow--we can't afford that!" Now, it makes me think of the movie It's a Wonderful Life, which is a great movie, but a little depressing, don't you think?

No, it isn't depression--This time of year just naturally makes me nostalgic and sentimental. The irony is that some day this is the time I'll be nostalgic for...

Some people I know are really awesome at giving great gifts. That's definitely a talent. My best gift to give this year was going to be to write a story for Ryan about the time during the summer when he hit a home run. It was really dramatic--he had struck out every time at bat the game before, and came home crying and saying that he didn't want to play baseball anymore. Then, he struck out again at his next at-bat--he was crushed, and my heart really went out to him. Finally, he was down to his last strike and struck out again, except that the coach on the other team, in a rare move, stopped the game and gave him another chance because the pitching machine malfunctioned. Ryan caught the last pitch and sent it over the heads of the opposing team, to the back fence. He easily rounded the bases for a home run! It made me so proud that he didn't give up, and kept fighting back with determination. Yeah, that would have been a great gift...if I had finished writing it.

Work has been pretty good for me over the past few months. It's taken me out of town a few times, which I enjoy for brief periods. Plane trips seem to be like short stories to me--Purposeful, dramatic, and with a beginning and end. If you keep your eyes open, you can see different characters out of their ordinary habitat--these days, flying is a stressful situation, so it's interesting to see what people do. I listened to my Ipod the other day and just felt a peace with the world for a few minutes, tuning out everyone around me. For a time, the peace just felt so wonderful.

I got a telephone call from an old friend a month or so ago--I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I am an Eagle Scout. Protocol sort of dictates that you don't say "I was an Eagle Scout when I was a kid"--it is actually an honor that is supposed to stay with you for your whole life. I was 14, for God's sake, and it seems a lifetime ago. Well, the call was an invitation to a reunion of all the Eagle Scouts that have ever come from the same troop. I was number eight, and now there are over two hundred. The reunion is in two weeks--should be an interesting time, maybe worth writing about when I get back. I hope I don't just feel pathetic sitting there as one of the "old dudes". I didn't go to my high school reunions, so this will be a new experience for me.

At this time of year, I like to plan what I'm going to do for next year. It usually comes to me as a whole year laid out like a child's oval train track, and I can see the different seasons and just put events in their place--this is the part of the year where I'll take the kids fishing...Why don't we plan a trip out of town here...Maybe we could go to San Antonio...Can I go back to Maine in the summer? When I was in San Diego, an acquaintence invited me to go Marlin fishing in the Pacific next year--should I go? I'm a shameless over-planner, but I try to leave a cushion to live in the moment when things come up.

I can't do it this year--I'm trying as hard as I can, but I can't see past the first turn in the bend. This could create a sense of excitement, promise, opportunity. Or a sense of dread and fear of the unknown. Almost like I'm so bound to the train itself that I can't rise above it to see the big picture--the whole track and where we are ultimately headed. Or driving in fog, only seeing things develop in the immediacy of the moment. It feels out of control and nerve-wracking, and I have a sense of foreboding for the coming year--why can't I see what's coming? Could I ever really see it, or was my planning a false mask of control over an uncontrollable future which gave me a sense of security? Maybe I'm just facing reality in a more open fashion. Either way, the train rolls on.

A funny thing happened on the way to sushi...

We walked along the Gaslamp district of San Diego. It was the evening dinner rush, and our group's first choice of restaurant, a bustling sushi place, had a wait which was too long to bear.

We walked along the sidewalk in somewhat of a daze, passing sights which had become familiar over the past week. Each restaurant in this area had an old-fashioned style gas lamp on their patios, which was a shock against the damp chill we felt as we walked along.

That's the Italian restaurant with the spooky, stalker-ish manager who paid slightly too much attention to our little group when we were there the first night.

Could that be the Tequila Bar? Is it possible that I found myself there at 1:00 AM listening to Reggae music and taking shots with Mike D.? I seem to remember dim neon lights, a friendly tattooed bartender who continually consulted the recipe card as she mixed our group's drinks--and a full-sized skeleton on a shelf 30 feet in the air who was wearing a Santa hat. Mike and I were outnumbered by guests from the Czech Republic--the more tequila we had, the better I understood those guys. The next morning, I was back to not getting a damn thing they were trying to tell me.

Another funny scene from the Tequila Bar: my new friend, Nate, and I, looking at bottles of tequila.

Nate (deadpan): "I have a feeling you and I are going to fight."

These flashbacks were entertaining, but our little band was still in search of sushi. I must explain that I know nothing about sushi--I am on the lazy side of remembering what things are called, and I tend to be always dependent on the people I am around to help me order. That's okay--I guess my brain is just operating at near-maximum capacity and I just can't retain that stuff. I'm not one of those radical people who craves sushi--I reluctantly agree to go along with it if that's what the group wants. Give me a good steak any day. I guess I'm still traumatized by the low-quality fish sticks they used to give us in school.

After our first choice was deemed unacceptable, we went to a restaurant just 100 feet away. We looked inside and there was absolutely no one inside. Something was wrong. We looked at the menu and, in addition to sushi, they had random entrees like Beef Stroganoff and Baloney Sandwiches. As we stood reading the menu, the hostess came outside and begged us to come inside. One of the more cocky members of our party asked "I don't mean to be rude, but why is your restaurant completely empty?"

The hostess was taken back a little at first, then her shoulders slumped and she answered "I don't know. the food is good." Then she went back inside. We all looked at each other and wordlessly agreed to get away fast. As we got to the corner, two ladies stood pointing in the air. They were clearly alarmed.

I turned and saw two very large rats making their way along a ridge in the architecture of the building. They were not in a hurry, but they certainly seemed to know where they were going. They might have been one hundred feet away, and thirty feet in the air, but I could see whiskers on the rats as they peeked over the corner of the building. They looked friendly, like pets.

I turned and looked at the ladies again, and felt like I was in one of those cheesy Godzilla movies that I used to watch when I was in second grade. By now, a small group had gathered and watched the rats wandering along the ledge. The ladies were agape and silent and seemingly frozen in position of pointing at the rats, incredulous. I could see people through the windows right behind the rats carrying on without seeing them. Thirty feet below, along the street below the rats, unsuspecting pedestrians bustled along the sidewalk.

I remember feeling pretty good about our decision to leave the restaurant--the rats were going away from that weird restaurant, too.

We went ahead and enjoyed our sushi and had a great evening together. It's funny what comes to your attention when you keep your eyes open and maintain a sense of humor.

Some drawings from my Thank You Notes

I mentioned before that I spoke to Ryan's class. They each wrote a Thank You note and some of them felt compelled to provide drawings. Here are my favorites:

Mwop Mwop Mwop! The Penguin Returns!

I'm wearing my flesh-colored mittens and saggy-crotch unitard...

At least I'm smiling, right?

I thought this was funny, too. A quite disinterested expression...

This was pretty funny--if you can figure out what is going on, you might be a little sick...This kid may actually need some counseling.

One possible caption was "Me teaching the kids about Satan..."

What really happened was that I was using a projector to show the kids stuff, and this particular kid stuck his Star Wars action figure under the projector camera, so it projected on the wall in front of the other kids. Unfortunately, that's what that kid remembered instead of anything I talked about.

No, I didn't wear a clown suit and galoshes to school. Seems to be pretty unanimous that my haircut is a comb-over...

Remember When Things Were Fun?

All I had to do was say "Kaitlyn, stay out of the leaves!" Then it was the most fun thing on earth...I didn't notice how coordinating her clothes are--pink accents on her jeans and shoes. A little much for a 2-year-old?

Of course, I was hoping she would fling herself on the pile and roll around--I have a shot of Ryan doing the same thing a few years ago.

Fall came late to Texas this year--It was challenging to shoot this without getting the Christmas decorations in the background. Too many seasons wrapped into one picture would clash like Ghostbusters crossing the streams. Nevertheless, the last of the leaves were blown off the trees this weekend, and there I was: raking them as they fell. Is it shallow to take pride in the trees in my front yard?

Then there was controversy. New neighbors moved in next door, and while I was raking my yard I considered raking their yard, too. The fact is that all the leaves that are in their yard came from my tree, since they don't have any trees at all. On the other hand, it's a little assuming to groom someone else's yard, isn't it. You know, you sign a piece of paper one day promising your earthly possessions to pay for this house, and the next day the dude next door is walking around the place with a rake--it could be interepreted in an ugly way. However, my basic philosophy is that you should always do the nice thing if it's available. They could also be sitting in their house thinking "Oh yeah, he makes HIS yard look nice, while ours looks like the forest floor. Why should I have the pain of raking leaves if I don't have the benefit of having trees?" I know, I do this to myself...no one else thinks this way.

Things used to be fun, didn't they? Wish I could have just plopped down in the leaf pile with Kaitlyn...

The Scene in San Diego...

My sister, Melanie, has had a running joke that I am secretly some sort of international spy. She knows I speak a couple of languages, travel a lot, know how to shoot guns. My job is just vague enough and my travel schedule random enough that it is a little weird but explainable. Also: I went to the FBI Academy for a month when I was a kid--maybe I got brainwashed or something...

There have been times when I could have messed with her head--You know, "accidentally" dropping a comment or revealing an intriguing prop.

But I never really felt like a secret agent until last week when I was in San Diego--sometimes I laugh at myself for getting into these weird situations.

I previously mentioned that earlier this year I began to participate in a global, outdoor scavenger hunt called Geocaching. My son, Ryan, and I have found about 60 different hidden caches using a GPS receiver--it's a fun activity that we can do together outdoors, and it is a goal directed activity. I think that's one of the reasons that I can't stick to an exercise program--how do you know when you're finished? No matter how much you are working out, it just never ends. We've gotten to the point where we take one weekend here or there and go and find 5 or 6 caches hidden somewhere fun, like parks or landmarks. We've even done it as we've traveled around the country.

After a while, just finding the cache isn't fun enough, so there are little "games within the game" that exist--one of these activities is using a "travel bug" which goes from place to place--the idea is to transport it as far as possible. so we found one on a weekend trip and picked it up with the intention ofme placing it in a cache when I traveled to San Diego. I thought it might be fun for Ryan to see that I had moved something that we had found some 1100 miles across the US.

I was staying at a really nice hotel near the convention center by the docks--I looked up the address and plugged it into the map which showed all the nearby geocaches. I decided to drag this travel bug along and drop it off, so I wanted to make sure to get to it early in my trip before I started getting fatigued. I took my backpack, camera, and my GPS with the coordinates plugged in and took off along the boardwalk area which was full of tourists.

Pretty soon, I came upon the area and my GPS told me I was approaching. When it is cloudy outside, it is hard to pinpoint the exact location--the variance is somewhere between 10 and 15 feet, so I just sat down on a stone seawall and tried to look inconspicuous. I took my camera out of my bag and slung it around my neck, snapping a couple of quick shots which later turned out to be beautiful. The sun was going down and setting across the bay. To my right lay an impressive vintage aircraft carrier from WWII. Beyond that lay an even more impressive cruise ship--it dwarfed the aircraft carrier, and the booming horn blared over the whole city, the sound bouncing and echoing--it was probably of some sort of significance to the people on board or on shore.

A spiny bush lay along the wall, and my instinct from searching these things out told me that the container was wedged in this bush somewhere. The setting sun barely provided enough light, but the hard plastic of the camoflauged container glinted a little in the remaining sunlight and gave away the position. I wonder how many geoaches are inadvertantly found by maintenance workers?

While I was waiting there, wave after wave of tourists came by. One herd of people came by all dressed in some sort of conquistador costume and singing funny songs. I could hear one girl in particular chatting loudly and laughing at her own jokes. I had my camera ready, so I snapped a couple of shots of the marina and the pretty sunset which occurred as I sat there.

Behind me were photographers lined up with the actual purpose of photographing the scene. I'm not really sure what the significance of that exact location was, but there must be something to it because there were about five photographers with pretty extensive setups--tripods, multiple cameras and lenses, and assistants in tow. It put me in a relatively unfortunate position because I was actually west of them and a little in front of them, so they were in a position to observe exactly what I was doing--I didn't want to give away that I was geocaching, and in some cases people have found containers which have been raided, so I didn't want to be responsible for that.

Just when I was going to reach for it, three homeless men came right toward me. I was almost certain they were going to ask me for some money. I really hate going to the touristy areas because of panhandlers. I mean, is a dollar really going to help? How about a gift certificate for AA? Oh, yeah, it's free( isn't it)? The guy in the middle was nearly passed out, and the two others flanked him, holding him up. Their clothes were encrusted with dirt and were in tatters. They didn't speak to me.

I set my bag down on the other side of the wall and pretended to dig through it looking for something. I didn't look up to see if anyone was watching me. Then I reached down and grabbed the container which was exactly where I thought it was--I set it in my lap and unscrewed it, fishing out the log book which I quickly signed. I stuffed the travelbug from Texas in there (it traveled 1177.1 miles from Texas to this spot) and replaced the lid. I bent down and carefully put it back into the bushes, deep beyond the outer layer so it wouldn't be easily spotted, and while I was down there I placed my camera in the bag and zipped it up tight.

Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I got up and blended quietly back into the crowd, my mission complete.

If you are on our Christmas Card Mailing List...

This is the picture you will be getting...

I told Fran "Great! Everyone is going to think our kids are Russian!"

Yes--we had snow last week. Here in Texas, we get a day of snow usually once every two years, but we've gotten it for the past three years (so much for the theory of global warming).

On the second day, I went out to my car and started to clear the snow off the windshield. It had already melted from our yard, but my car was in the shade so it was intact and sticking together nicely. I made a little snowman for Kaitlyn just to see what she thought, and she was so excited about it that she forced Fran to keep it in the freezer so she could share it with Ryan when he got home from school. It was a pathetic little snowman, but she loved it so much we had to take a picture of it...

Sliding

I had the weirdest dream last light.

I hiked off in the woods to be by myself and write. I came to a tall vista and sat down on a flat spot on the ridge of a cliff and looked out across the water--it was a beautiful scene, an overlook. I was writing on a pad and paper.

As I was sitting there, I felt the ground under me give way a little, and I started to slide down the cliff. The next thing I knew, I saw that I was on a slide, and that I was sliding down the cliff, not to the rocks below, but into a dark tunnel. I put my hands out desperately and stopped myself from going into the tunnel. There was water running into it and I was afraid that I would drown.

Stopping myself on the slide, I could look around and see that I was actually on a swiftly-flowing waterslide and I could see that the track extended around and around in a huge labyrinth. But I was hesitant to let myself go into the tunnel. I didn't know what would happen--maybe the tube is clogged somewhere and I would drown with the rush of water against me. Maybe the floor would give way and I would fall through. Maybe...I was terrified of letting myself get swept inside with so much uncertainty.

It occurs to me that I might just be frustrated with my writing. While driving around for work yesterday, I thought to myself that I hadn't written anything worth reading in several months.

Things aren't going to get better unless I can allow myself to become vulnerable when I am writing. Yet, I have a hard time visualizing letting myself get swept away.