Routine.

Fiona mentioned to me yesterday that there’s a new girl in her class.

“Is she nice?” seemed like a good question to ask my 3.5 year old daughter.
A simpler form of “Does she play well with others?”, if you will.

Because that would probably be what registers and is important at that age, right?
You want the other kids to be nice to you- kind, you want the other kids to play well with you.
At this point in my daughter’s life, she’s probably not looking much past these basics.

It would be a simple verbal transaction.

I ask “Is she nice?”
Fiona answers “Yes.” Or “She took my pink crayon” in lieu of “No”.


Or so I thought.

“She doesn’t have the routine down yet.” was her vaguely critical reply.
“But she’s nice.”

Alarming visions flashed through my head as I waited for the light to turn green on our way home from her school.
Brief flashes of The Shawshank Redemption… various boarding school movies… “What we have here is a failure to communicate”……. Flew through my brain, all in an instant.

“Doesn’t have the routine down yet?” from my 3 year old?
WTF???

“Ummm… Do YOU have the routine down?”

“Yes!” was her prompt and matter-of-fact reply.

“What IS the routine?”

(Please don’t let it be that they’re making athletic shoes in a sweat shop atmosphere, please don’t let it be that they’re making athletic shoes in a sweat shop…)

“Doing things you don’t want to do, because the teachers tell you to.”

My relief that her pre-school is apparently NOT treating their students as cheap labor, quickly morphed into something less upbeat.

She’s already figuring out what a large chunk of her life is going to be all about. 14+ more years of school, and then college, hopefully grad school if she wants it.

And jobs. There’s little chance that she’ll go through life without having to work jobs to make ends meet.

Thanks for making me think about this sweetheart, after just leaving a particularly difficult day at the office behind. No, really. Keep up the good work...

That IS, and will continue to be the routine, for most of your life, darlin’.

That’s why we all embrace what’s OUTSIDE of the routine, with such vigor.

Fishing weekends, family getaways, live music, dinner with friends, the odd night out….
playtime.

Never, EVER take playtime for granted, darlin'.
Because the rest… Is routine.

That moment, between sleep and waking....

You know that moment.
The brief time when you're no longer asleep, but you're not yet awake.
When your dreamworld and the real world briefly overlap, until you fully orient yourself to the reality of your morning.

Odd things populate that moment.

For me, it's usually sounds.

A siren might be my daughter, crying.
Or vice versa.
My neighbor wheeling his trash can to the curb early on a Monday morning, might be the sound of a far off train, or perhaps thunder.

Rain is radio static, radio static is rain...

But only for a moment, that moment that's populated by odd things.

I've never been a real deep sleeper, but have become even less of one, since my daughter was born. It got a bit worse, when she became mobile; as she regularly would pad into our room in the middle of the night. It got so I'd be listening for footsteps in my sleep.

This morning... well. Let me tell you about this morning.

I've had the place to myself the last few days, while Wendy and Fiona visited Wendy's mom. I woke up well before the alarm clock, convinced myself that I was awake for the day, and promptly fell back asleep.

We've a large dog, and wood floors. Not even realizing that I had fallen back to sleep, I heard the sound of footsteps entering my room, and opened my eyes.

Odd things populate that moment between sleep and awake....

This morning, it was an extremely tall...something.

I opened my eyes to a fleeting vision of an extremely tall woman, in a white wrap, staring down at me.

"Gah!" I shout aloud and incoherently in that moment.

The giantess disappeared, replaced by the reality of shadows and a white bath towel draped over the bedroom door.
Eventually, my heart stopped racing.
I thought about the giantess, and... was kinda sad she had disappeared so quickly.
I would have liked to have had a better look at her.

Was it really just a towel and a trick of the light?
Or was it something else?

I would have preferred the answer to be "something else", be it an apparition, or proof, perhaps, that someone DOES watch over you.


But in the time it took me to register what I saw, and holler aloud, it was over, and I'm left only with a vague longing for more,and the reminder that:

Odd things populate that moment, that moment when sleep and awake overlap.

Things I don’t want to ever hear myself saying to my daughter - Thoughts on “character building”.

Growing up, I built a LOT of character.

Bucket Loads.
Newspaper delivery bags full.
250,000 snow shovels worth.

Because, you see, every menial task, every roll-up-the-sleeves chore… built character.

Why do I have to hold the wedge against the log while my brother tries to hit it with the blunt side of an ax?
Why do I have to clean out the garage? I don’t use it for anything, except keeping my bike out of the rain.

Because “It builds character”.

“It builds character” was usually accompanied by laughter.

I was too young to understand the concept of “character”, when I first started building it.
I wasn’t sure WHAT it was, but if I got it by, say…picking up wagons full of walnuts, I was pretty sure I didn’t want it.

We never went to the beach to build character, we just went to the beach.
I never played “Asteroids” at my buddy Rick’s house, to build character.
I never rode my bike to the park with my fishing pole, to build character.

“Can I go to the city pool with Allen and his mom?”
“Sure, it’ll build character.”

Nope, “character” never entered into these discussions.

So, following this logic, one’s character is defined by….unpleasantness.

That doesn’t sound very promising.

I’d like to think that the music I played, the friends I’ve made, the camping, the fishing, the acts of love, both emotional and physical…. Had way more to do with my character, than, say… organizing my dad’s random tool room detrius.

To that, mix in professional experiences, fatherhood, college and many wonderful random adventures.

These things HAVE to be responsible for my “character”, don’t they?

Jesus, I hope so.

And I hope the same for my daughter, which is why she’ll never hear “Because it builds character” from me, when she wonders why she has to help shovel the driveway, weed the garden, and clean the basement.

Oh, she’s gonna do all of those things, but she won’t ever be led to think it’s what defines who she is.

random winter storm and ensuing panic thoughts -Part 1.

Lines out into the street at all the gas stations yesterday afternoon and evening.

REALLY?
Because…. Everyone’s gonna be doing a lot of driving over the next couple of days as we get 12-20 inches of snow? Seems counter-intuitive…

Both of my cars have full tanks.
But they both NEEDED filling up.
Honest.

Co-worker told me his wife had to drive to ½ dozen different places yesterday before she could find ice melt. And when she DID find some, she bought every bag in the store.
He tells tall tales, but claims that his wife was approached by other shoppers, offering HER money for the salt in her cart, that she hadn’t even paid for yet.

On the count of three, everyone panic. Ready????
1….. 2……3……FREAK OUT!!!!

Yeah, this storm’s gonna be a monster, but not sure what a bag of salt’s gonna do to combat that.

random thought: Seems lots of people made sure to stock up on booze and junk food for the impending blizzard and forced stay-at-home time. I've ridden through hurricanes, people. Drunk's really not the way to approach crisis. Just sayin'.
At least they won't be on the road...

I’m working from home today. Because I don’t want to wait for the storm to arrive before being told I can leave early. Compound with fact that all the decision makers, and aprox. ½ my coworkers are all at our big market event in Florida.
Where they will remain, as they were likely scheduled to fly home either tonite or sometime tomorrow.

Hopefully, there will still be hotel rooms for them, if they are, indeed, stranded.

Headed out to Target last night, it was as busy as I remember it being just before Christmas. With all the hoopla, I was surprised to still see plenty of milk and other staples, like chocolate chips, available.

Decided to get Fiona a sled, so was checking out the sporting good aisles. Hmm…. Pool toys, beach paraphernalia, scooters, skateboards….. Excuse me, where are your sleds?

Seems they pulled all the winter stuff off the shelves just a couple of days ago, to make room for beach umbrellas and kiddie pools.

HA-ha (In best Nelson from the Simpsons voice)! Good planning! Don’t you folks watch TV?

The drug store around the corner’s a little slower on the trigger, and had plenty of sleds.

Fiona climbs into bed with us at 5:45 this morning.

“Let’s go sledding!!!!!”
It’s still nighttime, darlin’.
“Oh! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ”

Nice.

A not so near miss

Monday night.

Got home from errands, and light snow was juuuuuuuuust starting to fall as I unloaded the car.
Five minutes later, I’m walking out the front door, leash in hand, dog on other end.
And…it was icing.

Not the yummy kind, but the kind that usually flies sideways in a strong wind, and makes pretty little tinkly noises as it smacks against the ground, houses, my coat…. It’s pelts my face in silence, however.

I’m not diggin’ it.

But it’s supposed to be a dead on blizzard by walk time tomorrow night, so can’t shirk now.

We do the loop, and are back at our 4 way stop. I begin to cross and… the car headed toward us brakes, and everything works out like it’s supposed to, EXCEPT…. The car does not stop. 10 minutes of icing has made the road slippery.

The car slid past the stop sign and I…. was not in front of it, knowing that it was likely slippery, I hung back.

I’m learning….

Another near miss…

Saturday night.

The man and his dog had completed their loop, and were a few yards away from their house, when it happened.

Once again, he was well into the cross walk, when someone nearly ran him over.

The man was greatly displeased by this, and voiced his displeasure loudly, and crudely.
This, it turns out, might have just saved his life.

The driver of the offending vehicle had her window down, and heard him yell, which caused her to stop.
She had apparently not seen the man and the dog.

She looked slightly ill, at the realization that she had almost struck the man, as she spoke.

“I don’t know what the f*ck I WAS doing.” she said, answering the EXACT question the man had loudly posed.
“I’m so sorry!”

The man could not help himself, and broke into a big smile. He waved to her, as she patiently waited for he and the dog to finish crossing the street.

Imagination and Tim Burton movies….

Sunday night.

He was walking down his driveway with an armful of boxes, a bag of recyclables, and a big dog on a leash.

His goal – put all the boxes and recyclables on the curb; and then proceed to take the dog for her evening walk.

“Hope the dog doesn’t take off on me.” He thought briefly, as he crouched by the side of his busy street, placing the bags and boxes on the curb. And, as it tends to do, his imagination ran with the notion.

He clearly saw in his mind eye his dog seeing a rabbit, taking off, and yanking him over, facedown into the street, as a white van approached…

This did not happen of course.
Nothing did.
Done with the unloading, they proceeded together up the street in companionable silence, until they reached the corner.
Looking both ways, they entered the cross walk at the four way stop, and crossed the street.

They were over halfway across when a large white van, barely slowing down at the stop sign, bore down upon them. Seeing this, he quickly jumped back, pulling the dog with him, and started cursing mightily at the van, which by this time had already hit its brakes, and was speeding back up, never actually stopping for the pedestrians who had the right of way.

“Jesus, that was close!” he muttered, wishing he had a cell phone with him so he could call the police with the van’s description and license plate number.
Shaken, he and his canine companion continued across the intersection, and on with their walk.

Moments later, images from Beetle Juice popped into his head. The movie started with Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin narrowly missing a big accident, only to find out that they not only did NOT miss it, but they were actually dead.

He noticed how quiet it was outside, and how there wasn’t anyone else to be seen. He thought about the movie some more, and laughed to himself, amused by his own imagination. And they walked on.

And on, and on, and there was still no one else to be seen. Down two blocks, left just past the elementary school, through the empty playing fields by the train tracks, and back toward home. And he thought again about the movie…

As he approached the four way stop again, a garage door opened, and the home’s owner walked out. He was a nice guy, wife, two kids, spent lots of time in the summer shaping his hedges until they were perfect.
The man and his dog had stopped numerous times in the past to exchange pleasantries with him, whilst he trimmed. The man remembered a particularly pleasant exchange from the end of last summer, where he was encouraged to smell the greenness of the freshly trimmed hedge. It had smelled wonderful.

“Happy new year!” the home’s owner said cheerfully to the man, as he walked to his van, parked at the curb.
“Oh, whew!” The man thought, smiling to himself.

“Happy new year to you, too!”

The walk concluded without incident, and he was delighted to hear his wife giving their daughter a bath, when he walked into the house from the cold, quiet night.

“How was the walk?” She called from the bathroom, as he took off his coat and scarf

“It was ok.”