Tagged: family
Eating Cereal Quietly
“So, George, remind me again what you were telling me last night?” Pete asked upon returning to the kitchen after setting H- up with cereal. “Other things I was doing at the time caused me to miss the significance of the meeting being one-on-one, but I think I get it now. You said you had a one-on-one meeting with your boss and that he asked for your opinion on how your performance should be measured.”
“That’s right. I asked him if he wanted to know how I thought I should be measured, or if he wanted to know how I thought I was being measured.”
“Which was it?”
“He said he wanted to know how I thought I should be measured.”
“And you said that you think your performance should be measured on the quality of your work, but he said that he was going to measure you on the duration of your work?”
“Yeah.”
“Jesus,” Pete responded in disbelief, “that’s totally inverse. The goal should always be to get more done in less time–not just to work longer.”
“Pete–I know.”
“So what happened next?”
“He told me that to achieve an excellent on my review next time that I will need to work nights and weekends.”
“And what did you say?”
“I told him that I wouldn’t be aiming for an excellent then.”
“Ha.”
George opened the door to leave for work and paused, saying, “You don’t know how close I was to asking him, ‘Do you want to be a soul crusher?'”
“Ha.”
As always, the crack of the wooden blinds against the door signaled George was off to work. Pete then turned to H- who was all the while quietly finishing her cereal.
“Are you a soul crusher H-?” he asked her, using extended, slightly squinted eye-contact to signal playfulness. “I know I don’t want to be a soul crusher. I want to be a soul creator, a soul grower,” he reported, increasing the melodrama with the repetition in an effort to summon a response from the speechless little girl.
With her familiar, lovable earnestness and attentiveness H- responded, “I’m still growing.”
As the Credit’s Roll–What It’s Like to Watch Fast and Furious Six with George
Bad guys fight for many things. They fight for fame, money, reputation–sometimes they fight just because they can. Good guys, on the other hand, fight for one thing: family. Because good guys fight for their family–because family is the only thing worth dying for–they do really cool things to win. And because we want good guys to win, most of us movie watchers give filmmakers a tremendous amount of liberty with little things such as physics. Of course, however, each of us has our own internal sliding scale when it comes to these liberties.
For instance, I found Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s 2-story, 30 foot leap from his moving (and ridiculously bad-ass) Humvee down onto an Indy-car-turned-wedge-with-possibly-magnetic-suspension believable. He’s a big guy. Surely those muscles are good for jumping and cushioning. My friend George agreed.
And when Vin Diesel leapt 50 feet to catch his woman mid-air (she’s also leaping) and has enough situational awareness and foresight to twist to his back so that when they land on an innocent bystander’s car’s windshield she is unharmed, I found myself lowering my just-raised-in-celebration arms and wiping a tear from my eye. Then, as that now dry eye checked in on George, it discovered he was wearing a large grin and nodding a hushed “Yes!”.
And when I hit STOP on my timer as the giant bad-guy-filled Russian Antonov cargo plane finally comes to a halt on the runway, along with the smiling good guys and their many cars, I discover the car/plane chase that just happened on a runway that can’t be longer than three miles at speeds somewhere near 120 mph lasted all of thirteen minutes. And that’s impossible. Then, I quickly remember that my limitation of the runway’s length to three miles is because that’s about how long the longest runway in America is. I have no idea how long runways are anywhere else on the planet, and the scene did not happen here in the States. And in that moment, the scene became believable. Seemingly we both decided the point was not worth debating, so George and I silently waited for the anti-climax scenes.
Did I mention that good guys have great barbecues and hold hands while praying? They do. And sometimes, part of the table spread is an enormous bowl of baked beans.
“Did you see that bowl of baked beans?!” George exclaimed. “No way those seven people can eat all of those beans! Back it up. Tell me I’m wrong.”
So we backed it up. And the bowl was rather large and rather full. Not noticing it the first time, now that I saw it I just figured someone liked left-over beans.
George did not agree.
And now you know what it’s like to watch Fast and the Furious 6 with George.
Caught!
“Heyyyy!” said H-, her head rotating up in order to look him in the eyes. Slowly peering into his soul, she couldn’t stop her bottom lip from quivering. Her face flushed red, and she loosed a single, crippling tear. “Why did you do that? Why did you take off my band-aid?”
“H-, come on now. You saw that it was already starting to come off on its own. How long had it been on for anyhow? Two days? You didn’t even have a bleeding oww-ee,” he said, meeting her eye-contact and rubbing her shoulder. “Plus, I keep telling you that band-aids aren’t stickers-”
“Look! It’s red. Can I have a band-aid to put on it?” she asked, her tone revealing that she believed she had presented sound reasoning.
“No, H-, you cannot have a band-aid to cover the mark left by leaving the last band-aid on for too long,” he winced. “Can we stop talking about band-aids for the rest of the night at least? Please?” he asked, appealing to her well-developed sense of give-and-take.
“Okay. But tomorrow morning I want another adult band-aid,” she asserted, her persistence approaching a level generally reserved for the possessed children in career-making horror classics.
“We’ll see. For now, let’s get back to bed so we can continue reading about King Aaathuh,” he said.
****
“Daa-ddy! Daa-ddy!” sounded his own personal alarm clock exactly twenty minutes early.
Climbing out of his bed, he opened her door and let her know that it wasn’t quite time to get up yet.
“Can I play quietly for a little bit?” she offered.
“Sure. I just need twenty more minutes,” he said.
Only a minute passing until guilt overcame him, he reappeared in the living room, much to her surprise.
“I’m going to rest a little out here while you play,” he informed her.
“Rest a little?”
“Yeah, rest a little. Here on the couch. It’s not time to get up yet, but when my phone goes off, I will. You can play though.”
“Okay.”
No sooner than he had closed his eyes, he heard her walking towards the bathroom. Eyes still closed, he asked, “H-? Where are you going?”
The entire essence of her being still moving forward, her corporeal body came to a halt. He opened his eyes just in time to see an empty face betray that all available energy was being redirected into deciding how best to play this one out. No less sudden than when light vanquishes darkness, her widening eyes and resultant raised eyebrows signaled that she had made her decision. Turning towards him, she slowly nodded her head in the vertical plane, raised her index finger, and casually informed him, “I’m just going to get one band-aid.”
She Can Hurt You
Who are these men? Where do they come from? What forces form them? Is it nature? Is it nurture?
Is there a specific set of childhood variables that must exist in certain quantities in order to produce these men?
We must admit that one attribute that these men have in common is ignorance. As children, during the formative years, they must have been ignorant and unaware of situations where women hurt men. Oh sure, we’ve all heard of poor John Bobbitt’s pain, but, seriously, what man considers amputation a likely outcome that need be guarded against? In fact, there’s probably a man somewhere who has created some statistic which proves that the chance of a woman cutting a man is less than getting struck by lightning.
And men are proud creatures, the lot of them. And rightfully so. Is that it then? Can we point the finger at an adult man’s pride? (A father’s pride?) Is pride the causal factor? Is pride the reason that he wouldn’t share with young men that a woman had hurt him? Or maybe he, the adult man, had never owned up to himself that she had hurt him? Is this whole mess created by a simple lie? Is it created by simple denial? A virtual, “She didn’t hurt me. I wanted to break up. I hadn’t liked her for a while anyhow. I can do better”?
Whatever the causes, I haven’t been able to figure out what words would get through to these men–or as Heat puts it, “All you are is a child growin’ older!”–these men who rush into relationships with women. And no ‘mounta nothin’ cn talk ’em outta it–don’ matta who doin’ da sayin’. I know, because I was one of them. And then I almost repeated the mistake. And then almost repeated it again. And if I didn’t have such a hatred for patterns, I probably would’ve rinsed and repeated for the rest of my life.
Enter “old people”.
Turns out, they can hold their own in conversation. And they’ve got, by definition, no shortage of experiences to back up the talk. And I was looking for answers, ready to try anything.
So after a lot of listening, and a lot of thinking, the answer finally appeared. I believe that I am invincible to women. Or, rather, I believed I was invincible to women. No longer. Now, I know the truth. Women are just as capable of hurting men as men are of hurting women.
So fellas (you know who you are), I have broken down the (our) problem as simply as I know how. We need to acknowledge the simple, unbearable truth. This truth is captured by four words, though I think its most effective delivery comes with repeating the words four times in a row, emphasizing a different word each time.
She can hurt you. She can hurt you. She can hurt you. She can hurt you.
What’s the rush?
PS – As a reminder, hurt doesn’t feel good.
How ‘Bout?
A strict father, though one who exercised a parent’s hypocritical initiative frequently, he never let her watch television. And his list of approved-for-her movies included only three titles: Holiday Inn, White Christmas, and The Lego Movie. She fell asleep during the first two, and, much to his chagrin, she lacked the context–not to mention the capacity for abstract thought–requisite to enjoy the third.
But every once in a while he would hear her say something that beckoned the playing of a song. Not just a song, but a music video. This evening was no different.
Instinctively these days, she knew to flip up the paper-thin seat cushion, so as to not ruin anything if she spilled, before assuming her oddly favorite eating position–one that had the left-half of her body sitting on the chair, while the right-half stood on the creaky hard-wood floor.
“You’re the greatest, daddy,” H- said, much to his delight. “You’re the greatest, not mom.”
“Hey!” he said firmly, not wasting time on a crescendo, “that’s not true H-. You’re mom’s the greatest, too. I’m the greatest dad, and she’s the greatest mom. Understand?”
“You’re the greatest dad and mom’s the greatest mom,” she recited.
“That reminds me of a song H-. Have I ever played R. Kelly’s “World’s Greatest” for you? The song he wrote about the boxer Muhammad Ali for the movie Ali?” he asked, making his way over to the laptop.
“World’s greatest?” she asked, in kind.
“Yeah. I didn’t think so. It’s a good one, just give me a sec to pull it up,” he said, trying to remember if the video contains anything a three year old shouldn’t see. “Okay. Here it is.”
“Is it the rainbow song?” she asked.
“No, it’s not the rainbow song,” he answered, chuckling as he tried to remember what past video had a rainbow in it.
Like most R. Kelley videos, there was a touch of a melodrama before the music began. Finally the music started. Memories and feeling flowed as Kelly sang, “I am a mountain. I am a tall tree, oh-oh-oh, I am a swift wind, sweeping the country.” Searching for any sign of understanding or enjoyment on her face, he couldn’t help but get caught up as the song built to the chorus. Soon he found himself singing along.
“If anybody acks you who I am, just stand up tall, look ’em in the face and say-ay-ay-ay-ay-ee: I’m that star up in the sky. I’m that mountain peak up high. Hey, I made it. Mmm. I’m the world’s greatest.”
“How ’bout-” she began.
“I know, I know, you want the rainbow song,” he interrupted, breaking from the song.
“How ’bout you not sing it, so I can hear it?” she finished.
“Oh,” he said, laughing. “I suppose I can try.”
The “77% the Height of Adults” Myth About Kids’ Size
Recently, the Wall Street Journal’s online edition published an opinion piece which discussed the questionable raison d’etre behind the little known “Equal Pay Day.” Only slightly less familiar to the general public is another “day” that has dubious origins.
Nearly a decade ago, April 14th, 2005 to be exact, the federal government acknowledged the plight of kids across the country by establishing “Equal Height Day”. Much like “Equal Pay Day”, “Equal Height Day” seeks to raise awareness for a specific social injustice–that kids are shorter than their adult counterparts–by adding a second title to the otherwise repetitious monikers (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) that help distinguish each complete rotation the Earth makes on its axis. Though left unsaid, it is clear that supporters of “Equal Height Day” are hoping to achieve a portion of the attention they receive on other dually designated days–notably “Christmas Day” and “My Birthday”. The trouble with the claim that kids are shorter than adults, however, comes when the supporting data is examined.
To begin, while it is easy to remember that each of us once had to tilt our head back to look at an adult’s face, we shouldn’t let nostalgic feelings affect the science of the problem. Kids–by definition–are still growing. Adults are done growing. Even if it were possible to measure each kid at precisely the same moment and compare the resultant median kid height to the median adult height, the data will have changed before the ink of the report dries, so to speak.
Next, it appears that instead of actually measuring a bunch of kids with a tape measure, the researchers simply went residence to residence and measured existing lines drawn by caring parents on kitchen walls. But everyone knows that kids use tip-toes when measured at home.
Lastly, and most deploringly, these very same researchers did not even measure the adults who took part in the study. Instead, they opted to simply ask the adults how tall they were.
This last decision should betray more about the supporters of “Equal Height Day” than just insufficient methods.
Only kids would believe that adults tell the truth.
Block Two
The preacher, the only one in the room wearing a suit, leaned forward, dramatically closing in on the microphone. His hands grasped each side of the worn, wooden pulpit, a relic which never failed to support his weight in moments like these. A professional, he drew energy from the room’s silence like Superman would the sun’s rays. Attendance had been dwindling, but this morning there were more people than he expected. He took that as a sign. During this pause, he made eye contact with nearly everyone, and as he scanned the room, he found one unfamiliar face, a young man. Unlike most past guests, the young man did not look away.
The preacher, at last, continued.
“To be able to forget,” he concluded. “Sometimes I just want to be able to forget,” he said, repeating his desire, this time without pausing for effect. “You know me well enough to know first-hand that I sin as much as you,” he said gravely. “I know me well enough to argue that I probably sin more,” he said, the corners of his mouth rising as he shook his head. A lone chuckle evidenced that he hadn’t lost his knack for timing.
Unlike recent Sundays, he had something to say this morning. And while he needed to transport the audience to a place where they felt the weight of the world, he also knew they needed slight relief every so often if they were to feel him lift it completely off at the end. Picking up the pace, the preacher proceeded.
“I want to be able to forget big things, sure. Like hate, meanness, selfishness. But that’s not all. I want to be able to forget specific things. I want to be able to forget when I was mean to my best friend. I want to be able to forget when I yelled, ‘I hate you!’ to my parents. I want to be able to forget the time that I didn’t share my ice cream with my son,” he claimed, feeling his heart pound like it always did right before he pulled it out for all to see. “More than that-” he stopped, and re-directed, “I can be honest here, right? Is that okay with you?” he asked. A majority of heads nodded in response, and a practiced, deep “preach it!” could be heard.
“More than that,” the preacher resumed, “I want to be able to forget that in each of those circumstances I wanted to do those things. Those actions were desirable to me. I wanted to be mean; I wanted to hate; I wanted to be selfish. If the Lord was standing here right now, and we all got to ask one question, mine would be, ‘Isn’t it enough that we do these things? Can’t you at least relieve us of our memory of them?'” he paused, nearly choked up. “But the Lord isn’t here right now,” he said, regaining his composure. “He isn’t going to intervene and answer my question. And why not? Is it because he doesn’t care? Is it because he doesn’t exist? No. It’s because he’s done everything necessary already. The onus is on us now. Remember?” he asked.
With a look that betrayed that he didn’t even realize that he had come down from the stage as he spoke, he turned his back on the crowd and walked up the two creaky stairs, returning to the pulpit. This signaled that he was near the end.
“Remember,” he said, the word somewhere between a command, a statement, and a question.
“Certainly everyone here is aware of the current stress put on living a balanced life. Eastern religions have the yin-yang concept. Likewise, when I think of all the things I want to forget, I can’t help but be grateful for one thing that we can’t ever forget–Jesus of Nazareth. He came. He spoke the truth. He gave us hope. But he also convicted us. So we killed him for it. Did it have to happen that way? I don’t know. I just don’t know. But it did. And if we ever forget that, I’m not sure we won’t forget hope altogether.”
Still Timeless
Happy that she chose waffles over doughnuts, he found himself preparing the batter when she called to him from the couch.
“Daddy, come lay with me. Don’t you want a little rest before breakfast?”
“H-, you know I’m cooking. If you wanted to lay, you should’ve said something earlier.”
“You’re cooking?”
“Yep. It’s almost done though,” he responded.
“Why you keep saying almost?” she asked.
“Do you know what “almost” means, H-?” he asked, genuinely curious about her response.
“Not done yet?” she answered, her voice betraying a modest level of hope.
“Sure. It means not done yet. But so would lots of words. How close does “almost” mean?”
“Fifteen?” she guessed.
His smile grew as her answer reverberated in his head.
Proudly, then, he cooed to himself, “She’s learning.”
Mommies Are Not Alive
Her new nearly-florescent neon tennis shoes did little to distract him from feeling the sting of what she said next.
“Mommies are not alive,” she purported.
“Mommies are not alive? I don’t think that’s right H-,” he returned.
“They aren’t alive. Mommies are not alive,” she said.
“What is a mommy?” he asked, seeking context at the least.
“K- is my mommy,” she answered.
“Hmm. So you know K- is your mommy, and that she’s alive, but you still maintain that mommies are not alive?”
“Yep, they’re not,” she said.
“Well,” he took a breath, “I hate to break it to you kid, but mommies are very much alive. Your mommy is alive. My mommy is alive. They’re alive,” he lectured dryly.
“Mommies are not alive,” she continued, a perfect stubbornness showing through. “Skeletons aren’t alive either.”
“Skeletons, eh?” he said. “Oh! I get it. Not mommies, mummies! Muh-muh mummies are not alive. You’re trying to say that dead bodies wrapped in tape are not alive, right? They’re called mummies, muh-meez, not mah-meez.”
“Yeah,” she said, her eyes betraying her brain’s increase in activity. “Bodies wrapped in,” she paused, “in tape,” she finished, her nodding head and squinting eyes calling out his inaccuracy. “Mommies-”
“Muh H-,” he corrected, “muh-meez. Mummies are not alive.”
“Mah-”
“Muh-”
‘Mah-”
“Muh-meez H-,” he said, feeling his patience about to buckle. “Forget it. Can you say reanimated?”
“Re-ami-nated?” she asked.
“Re-ani-mated,” he repeated.
“Reanimated,” she said.
“Good. Now say ‘mummies are reanimated, but mommies are alive.'”
“Mommies are reanimated, but mommies are alive.”
“Perfect.”
High Class
“Do we have cauliflower?” she asked after he mentioned broccoli.
“Nope, just broccoli,” he answered.
“Why don’t we have cauliflower?” she persisted.
“Because I didn’t buy any,” he said, not giving in.
After finishing her broccoli, she watched as he slid the grilled chicken on to her plate. Together now, they began to eat.
“Oh,” he interrupted, “did you want barbecue sauce?”
“Yes,” she said, “the new sauce.”
“I know, I know. You didn’t like the hot stuff.”
“Hot stuff?”
“Nevermind. Here’s your sauce. And here’s my sauce.”
To the sound of silverware squishing into chicken, they returned to the task at hand. Suddenly, she let out a shriek.
“What?” he asked, fearful that even the new sauce was too hot.
Spitting out the chicken, she replied, “I don’t like the roasted ones. That one’s roasted.”
“Huh?”
“See daddy? Roasted,” she said, pointing at the grill marks on the chicken.
“Oh. You don’t like the burnt part. Excuse me, the roasted part. Okay, you don’t have to eat it,” he allowed. “High class H-, you’re high class,” he thought, pride swelling.
Captain’s Log 