Regular Life

I think we all know why there are so few successful movies and television shows about well-adjusted families.

They’re kind of boring, from an outsider’s perspective.

Well-adjusted is great for those living it. It’s generally easier on the pocket book, the nerves, and the mental stability of everyone in the house. While a little spontaneity is welcome, constant unpredictability frays the brain.

I think I just summed up parenthood in one sentence.

When creating entertainment that will make its mark on the world, dysfunctional generally is the way to go. A single episode of the longest-running television show in history, “The Simpsons,” is perfect evidence of this. If Bart, Homer, and the rest got along great all the time, then why would anyone watch? Just to see Barney’s lips flap when he burps?

Although we’re not quite as messed up as the Simpsons, there are dysfunctional things going on in our families. While they might make for exciting reading, this is not the place to share them.

A whole lot of people have to die before I can even consider that.

I used to believe that all those screwed-up families on the screen were gross misrepresentations of real folk. The more people I meet, however, the more wrong I become. Even if I aired everything out here, it wouldn’t come close to what I’ve heard from others.

That makes me glad that, on an entertainment scale, our families rate fairly low. What’s bad for my (eventual) million-selling memoir is wonderful for our home life.

“Daddy, do we get to ride in one?” Benjamin said.

“No, son. Most people who go to the Balloon Festival don’t get to ride in one,” I said.

“But I want to ride in one,” he whined.

“That’s not how it works, Ben,” Shannon said.

“But I want to ride in one.”

We repeated this conversation about three or four times that very long Saturday as the launch time slowly approached.

(veritable photo blowout coming after the jump)

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Homework in kindergarten. I will just leave that out there for you to think about for a moment. For now let me just say that my opinion on it changed Wednesday night.

The assignment was to identify shapes and then make a pattern out of them. No more specific than that, and the simplest he has had thus far. I figured it would be easy enough, considering that Benjamin had known at least five shapes for quite some time.

I dug through a plastic container of wafer-thin foam shapes and picked four each of circles, squares, and triangles of various sizes. Two of the squares, still attached to one another, served as the rectangle.

Quick, related sidenote. The other night when Benjamin said he didn’t know how to read yet, I said, “There’s at least one word you’ve known for a while.”

“Which word?”

“It’s on a sign that has eight sides.”

“An octagon?”

I had forgot that he knew that shape. “Yes. Do you remember the word?”

“Stop.”

“Can you spell it?”

“S-T-O-P.”

“See, you can read that word.”

That shape was something we had taught him, so while it still impressed me, I wasn’t surprised at all.

Back to Wednesday night.

At the kitchen island, where he always does his homework, I presented the shapes to Benjamin. He quickly identified the three (what I call) most basic shapes: triangle, square, circle.

I slid the rectangle toward him and said, “What is this shape?”

“Two squares,” he said.

“Yes, but together, what do they make?”

“A rectangle.”

Building on that same line of thinking, I combined two triangles. They didn’t make a square as I had hoped they would, because they were equilateral (look it up, I had to). They made a rhombus, which I didn’t have to look up but which I wasn’t going to ask Benjamin to identify.

Instead, I turned the shape slightly and presented something simpler for his consideration. “What’s that shape?”

“Ummm…”

Figuring he wasn’t going to pull that one out of his hat, I blurted, “It’s a diamond.”

“Diamond?”

“Yep.”

Benjamin reached out his tiny fingers and turned the shape slightly.

“It’s a rhombus,” he said.

(Note: I composed this post, resized the photo, and posted both using Puppy Linux 4.00 (”Dingo”) on a Toshiba Portege 7020CT with a Pentium II and 192 MB RAM)

(Note: Those reading “The Keys Are In It” may proceed to Part Twelve, or start over on Part One. I know it’s been a while.)

Ben didn’t hesitate to go out on the field with his teammates during Saturday’s game. He got his foot on the ball a couple of times, but his team was badly over matched by a group that we joked was loaded with first and second graders. Those boys were a head taller and four steps faster than most of ours, and only our one guy who sized up to them made much headway.

All this after I had just told Ben that you don’t have to be the biggest player to be the best at soccer, and that Tatu, one of the greatest indoor soccer players ever, stands about five inches shorter than I (I’m not quite six feet tall).

Oh well. At least they don’t officially keep score.

(click any pic to enlarge)

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JuJu was the toughest runner I ever saw.
(commenter on woopig.net online forums)

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Tatu is… one of the most accomplished indoor soccer players of all time.
(Wikipedia)

Benjamin enjoys soccer practice, but he refused to take the field with his teammates for their first game. Saturday’s impending contest has me a bit on edge.

I’m hoping my son finds a sport he likes, instead of ending up a “one and done” like his old man.

When I was a kid I tried each sport available to grade school children — baseball, basketball, and football. I played one season of each, with actual play time during at least one real game. Sometimes more.

In baseball, I never got a hit. In football, I never scored. In basketball, the same, despite a great screen by my brother (yes, we were on the same team).

Naturally, over the years I have developed wonderful excuses for all of the above.

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Today’s a different take on Wordless Wednesday. I’ll turn it back to the readers to provide the words. I’ll just say that I shot this photo on Saturday, September 13.

Here are a couple of questions to get you started:

1. What is going on here?
2. How was this picture taken?

As usual, click the pic for a better look. Be investigative or creative (or both) — it’s up to you. That is all.

I always believed I would look hideous with a shaved head. Only some sort of financial incentive would spur me to sport a cue ball. It would be more of a cue block, really, so to protect myself and others I’ve never entertained the notion.

It’s a good thing I don’t live in New Zealand.

Apparently Air New Zealand will pay me if I shave my head and stand in a line at one of three airports (or all three, I suppose, if I make the rounds).

The catch (besides the whole smooth pate thing) is that they would first decorate my head with a temporary tattoo promoting a new check-in system. If I lived in New Zealand, this might be an easy second job, and one I could work around my unpredictable day job hours.

One application of the tattoo lasts up to two weeks, you say? Hmmm… that could have implications at the office. Better re-think this. Plus, a move to New Zealand probably wouldn’t work out for me right now.

I have at least two baldy friends reading this. Maybe you guys should do this in your area. In essence, you’d get paid for your good head.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/odd_new_zealand_bald_billboards

My lovely wife noted in the comments area a few days ago that I forgot to include the above photo of us at the concert. It’s just one of the symptoms of using two cameras at an event.

We had just spent a few minutes with Shannon extending the camera out in front of us for the “smile and hope it looks good” shot. The joy of digital cameras is knowing when you need to try again, or realizing that your head looks even more ridiculously large when the camera’s so close.

Even better is when a nice woman behind you offers to take the picture and can tell that your wife blinked her eyes (for which she is quite infamous), then gets a good one.

She then laughed and said, “Dude, your wife’s hot, but, um, Dong King called, and he wants his hair back.”

(Image and words prepared and posted from a Toshiba Portege 7020CT laptop – Pentium II with 192 MB RAM, running Puppy Linux 4.00, Geany Text Editor, the GIMP – Gnu Image Manipulation Program, and Sea Monkey web browser. Yes, I became too obsessed and, yes, I am stopping now before it gets way out of hand.)

There is a level of understanding in that face.

Some hands got in poop, but everybody survived.

Had I not taken pictures, I might still wonder if it was all just a dream. Not the poop part. All the other stuff.

Then I realize that, no, it was not. One of Benjamin’s friends actually had a birthday party including a portable petting zoo and pony rides. As lavish as that might sound, the event felt much like any other kids’ party. There was running, laughing, a little bit of crying, cake, and presents.

Even the second-largest tortoise in the world was there.

(click any pic to enlarge)

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(Note: All pictures in this post — taken with my point-and-shoot Canon — were cropped, except one.)

On Thursday I got an e-mail from Shannon asking how much I like the Counting Crows. Apparently they were touring with Maroon 5, her favorite band, and someone listed a pair of tickets on Craigslist. She had seen Maroon 5 with her cousin last year, but this time he wasn’t able to make it down here.

I said that regardless of how I felt about the Counting Crows, I would love to go with her. She snatched up the tickets (for a bargain) and arranged for Benjamin to spend the night with my local in-laws on Saturday (no arm-twisting is required on either side to make that happen).

Following the handy directions Shannon got from the Internets, we got lost in downtown Dallas.

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