I have been neglecting this blog recently, and haven't been quite as productive as I would like. For those of you who depend upon this mental graffiti for information, for a good laugh, for something to think about (and really? I'm the best you can do?), I apologize for being, well...lazy.
Showing posts with label My Boys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Boys. Show all posts
Friday, July 13, 2012
Thursday, May 26, 2011
"But There's Nothing To Do..."
My Doomsday Diary.
Here's how I spent what was supposed to be our Final Day on Earth. Except for the Happy Ending, I found myself that day fervently hoping the planet would, indeed, split wide open and burn to a cinder. It started with my nephews.
I feel somewhat badly for today's children, mostly because they have been robbed of all the things that I believe should make up childhood.
I've been thinking about this notion this past week because of what happened last Saturday...
I have four nephews, aged 14, 13, 11 and 5. They're great boys, and by that, I mean that I love them very much, not that they're the best behaved. In fact, my nephews have the manners of a pack of wild boars...wild boars with toothaches and hemorrhoids, I mean. They can be a touch ornery and rambunctious, to say the least. Part of this is just The Age; two teenagers, busily exploring the boundaries, pushing every envelope. The two younger ones, naturally, mimic what they've seen the older ones get away with, which is quite a bit as my sister and brother-in-law are a bit lax in the discipline department. When I was their age, if I pulled half the stuff they did -- and got caught -- I'd be on the phone looking for organ donors, just in case I needed them in the aftermath of the truly horrendous beating I was going to get.
Worse, I grew up in a house with my grandparents and my uncle and his family. Stepping out of line -- and getting caught -- meant, potentially, three beatings. Even worse, I went to Catholic school, which meant stepping out of line included a bonus beating from the nuns, then three beatings when you got home. Considering that I was a beastly little swine as a child, I'm amazed that I was able to survive a John McCain-like experience of near-constant physical torture. Fortunately, for me anyway, I seem to have gotten away with just enough to avoid permanent brain damage.
My nephews have, thus far, been spared the experience of a truly epic beating at the hands of their belt-and-wooden-spoon-wielding grandparents, wooden-hanger-wielding mother, and the open-hand buttocks assault of an ex-Marine Uncle, and in today's Catholic schools you couldn't find a Shao-Lin- ruler-wielding nun if your life depended upon it. Besides, they all go to public school, except the oldest, and the Catholic school he attends is generally regarded as 'soft'. I went to grammar school with Dominican Nuns who moonlighted as hand-to-hand combat instructors with the Green Berets, and a high school with Black-belt Christian Brothers, half of whom seemed to be tough Hell's Kitchen Irishmen, and every last one of them claimed to have been a Golden Gloves boxer in his youth.
Suffice to say, short of being raised by the Spanish Inquisition, with alternate weekends at Gestapo Headquarters, very few people know physical discipline like I know physical discipline. Today they'd call this 'child abuse', but back then, it was just what parents did to straighten their kids out when that was necessary.
But, I digress...
Anyways, I had occasion to 'babysit' my nephews, despite the fact that none are babies anymore, but the oldest are certainly too irresponsible to be left to care for the younger two when their parents are away. Their father had pulled a weekend overtime shift. Their mother was dragooned by the Little League they've all played in to do her 'volunteer' service. My mother, a woman whom God certainly sent to annoy the living shit out of every other living being on Planet Earth, came along. Heaven forbid she should have to sit at home and rely upon her own wits to keep herself entertained for a day. It began, predictably enough, with constant complaints about 'the Sciatica', her back hurts, her legs, her knees, her sinuses, and even her fucking ass. It's all an act, by the way, it's all a play for attention because she's sympathy junkie and a drama queen.
This is the First Indication that I'm going to have trouble at some point. But I'll get back to that in a moment. Let's start with the Second Indication that it's going to be One of Those Days.
If there's one thing I really dislike about Modern Kids, it's the silly whining they all engage in about having 'nothing to do.'
Mind you, my nephews live in a house which has FIVE televisions, all with cable access including 150 channels and On-Demand programming up the Wazoo, two DVD players (with an extensive library), a Playstation 3, an X-Box 360, and a Nintendo Wii, each again with an extensive library of games. The garage is simply overflowing with bicycles, skateboards, kick scooters and roller blades, not to mention a bewildering array of portable ramps and rails for them. All my nephews play baseball -- Little League, High School, and Travelling Teams -- so there are enough bats, baseballs, and gloves laying around to equip a Major League Team. The only things missing are Buck and McCarver, chewing tobacco, and Yankee Stadium.
There are two computers in the house, both with internet access. I know they have internet access because guess who installed the cable modem and Wi-Fi router (that would be...Me)? There is a vast array of computer games available, as well, not to mention two or three Nintendo DS consoles. There are enough Lego bricks (the five year old is a Lego junkie who might soon require methadone treatments to wean him off of them) to build a life-size replica of the Manhattan Skyline.
There is a small library of age-and-theme-appropriate literature, and for good measure my sister has stocked the house with all manner of Art Supplies, colored pencils, sketch pads, crayons, markers, paints, and so forth, that would have made Van Gogh lock himself in her basement, and kept him far too busy with it all to even have time to think of cutting his own ear off.
Oh, and the three Big Ones have cell phones, too, and text message Lord Knows Who constantly. She just might be raising a passel of boys with the strongest thumbs on all of Staten Island.
I can understand the five year old complaining "I have nothing to do", because, well...he's five. Five year olds have attention spans measured in RPM's, although, like I said, he's a Lego junkie and when he's in his zone you don't hear a peep out of him for hours at a time.
And the Swimming Pool hasn't even been opened for the season yet. On a good day, my nephews will protest, loudly and in a manner which reminds me of a menstrual girl, if their mother suggests they go outside to play. They've been known to cry about 'how unfair' that is. Did you ever know kids to complain they're being sent outside to play? They'd rather ride their kick scooters IN THE HOUSE, on her marble-and-ceramic-tile floors, and she lets them get away with it.
So, who has 'nothing to do'? Well, the 13 and 14 year old, naturally. They're the biggest pests of all that way. They decide that since there's 'nothing to do' why not engage in a bit of absolute stupidity and build a tree swing?
Now, about this swing. It's my brother-in-law's fault. He decided one day that it would be a good idea to find himself a length of rope, toss it over a high branch on the tree out front of the house -- over 30 feet in the air -- attach the broken seat from an old office chair to it, and then encourage his children to swing from it. Even the Biggest Doofus. There's just two problems with this swing; the first is that once you're on it and gain any sort of momentum, you're swinging out into the street, and since there's about 20' of rope involved, you're swinging 20' out into the street and into traffic. The second problem is because of the peculiar position of the anchor branch, once you begin your 're-entry' from the street, you're likely to crash headlong into the trunk. If you're, say, 14, and weigh about 150 pounds and gather enough momentum to make the swing worth your while, if you hit that tree you're probably doing 20-25 MPH when you make contact.
Considering that the other three launch the 5-year old with enough force to loft the Space Shuttle, he's probably going to hit it at closer to 30 mph, assuming he manages to keep his grip at all.
For that reason specifically -- the five year old must be kept off of this dangerous contraption -- they are forbidden to do this thing without their father being there to supervise, so that they don't get stupid and carried away, and a 911 call has to be made. This Swing-erecting event also leads to the most inhuman arguing and crying you've ever heard over 'who's turn' it is; it's like listening to sorority sisters argue about who gets to use the Big Mirror, and there's no place for me to plug in my curling iron in the common bathroom with 12 other girls already in it. The whole operation is far more trouble than it's worth, if you ask me.
But this is exactly what they want to do, and they keep insisting they have the right -- and permission -- to do it whenever they fucking want to. Except that I know they fucking don't. So, I tell them; No Swing, find something else to do. This pronouncement gets the expected grousing, and unfortunately, no surprise at all, a lot of cursing.
I would have swatted them good for sassing me, but I'm not allowed to touch my sister's children that way. Consequently, neither does she...not until they've reached the point of being in close-to-riot condition. No wonder they push the envelope; there's no consequence for even having the audacity to dare it. Someone should smack them around. I took things from them I wouldn't take from a grown man without insisting he step outside and defend his honor.
The Law has been laid down. No Swing. I go back into the house. The The First Indication is now heard from, and you would think the Gates of Hell had just burst open and poured forth a vast horde of soul-stealing demons, red in tooth and claw, fire and brimstone flowing from their flared nostrils.
A bit about my Mother, first, so that you can get some idea of what's about to happen when I continue this story. My Mother is, without a doubt, the most disagreeable person in this Solar System. She's not a bad woman, she just has some rather strange ideas and an overly-inflated opinion of herself which is totally detached from reality. The first problem she has is that whenever she says something, no matter how stupid, how inane, how inappropriate, how non-topical, insulting, no matter how unasked for, she believes it should be treated as if Moses carried the decree down from the Mountaintop engraved in stone. As soon as the words are uttered, she either expects whatever it she wants to be done right this very second, or that it is to be regarded with the same reverence and respect that we have for the law, worthy of immediate attention and action, and we should all fall to our fucking knees and thank the shit out of her for having graced us with her words of wisdom.
I beg to differ. She was a rotten mother who offered no real guidance, and who's children suffered for her poor choices in husbands, and the bad decisions she made that ruined her life. These required her children to pick up the pieces for her, because that would require effort, and then support her for the last 25 years of her life. She's fortunate that we haven't taken her out into the woods, slathered her in animal fat, and left her there to face the grizzlies alone, or just tossed her off a convenient pier in cinderblock underwear, already.
As if this wasn't annoying enough, this distasteful personality trait is attached to a woman with an anxiety complex so monumental, and a variety of other mental issues of the Poor-Me type (the very worst), that it has kept the best therapist on Staten Island busy for 25 years...with no improvement to date, whatsoever. Which leads me to the question; just who the fuck was it who said she was the best in the first place? Because she's convinced that her every word should be an Imperial command, and because every second that passes between command and action builds up the cycle of anxiety and impatience, and because it all plays into this martyr complex of hers, nothing is ever simple. Everything is a fucking imperative, Earth-shattering emergency that is accompanied by That Sound.
That Sound. Look up the word 'cacophony' in the dictionary. Doesn't even come close to describing it. Imagine it like this: the sound of 4,000 cats being castrated simultaneously with a rusty, unsharpened garden scythe, set against the background noise of a pack of constipated wolves baying at the moon whilst being serenaded by some great locomotive that hasn't had it's moving parts oiled in a couple of centuries moving at high speed, which then tries to come to a screeching halt upon a dime.
That's almost it. But still not quite. You also have to imagine someone pouring table salt into your eyes when you're hearing it.
It's a terrible sound. Hearing it gives one the impression of great shards of jagged glass and ten-penny nails being pounded into your skull. The sweat breaks out on your spine. Your teeth are set on edge as if someone just slit your asshole with a razor blade and then poured lemon juice and Liquid Plumber into the open wound. You'd rather be sucked into a jet engine -- and survive -- than to hear that sound. You'd rather have someone open an umbrella up your ass repeatedly than to listen to it. You'd rather be the sex slave of some Al'Qada dude with a sandpaper and blowtorch fetish. It's a sound I've heard -- even in my sleep -- almost every day of my life for the last 44 years, and the amazing part of it all is that I haven't killed her yet.
MAAAATTTTYYYYYY! Come up here...NOW! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod....Look what that LUNATIC is DOING! STOP THEM!
The Swing is being set up. They can't even get the rope over the branch, and already, it's as if someone has just been struck by lightning, run down by a garbage truck and shot eleven times...all at once. And I absolutely HATE being called "Matty". I'm not a seven year old in short pants and knee fucking socks.
So, I tell them. No swing. Now knock it off. "But we have nothing to do." Bullshit, find something else.
Ten minutes later:
MAAAAATTTTTYYYYYY! LOOK WHAT THESE KIDS ARE DOING! Gooutthereandbreakhisass, goddammit!
Guys, I said Knock It Off. No Swing. Do us all a favor, and don't give that pain in the behind inside another reason to start wailing. I don't want to hear it, and it's pissing me off. Just shut her up and stop, or I'm taking this crap away from you.
Not two minutes later, it starts all over again:
So, I take the rope, the seat, and the garden tools they're using trying to get the damned thing over a 30' high branch. Find something else to do, fellas, because if I have to listen to that woman one more time, someone's getting killed, and it might not be just her.
At this point, the little guys want to go to the schoolyard and ride their scooters. Of course they do; it's only a mile walk, and naturally, the Big Ones don't want to go. I can only imagine what I'm coming back to when these two, naturally, resume their stupidity behind my back and Ye Old Nervous Windbag inside has several hours to witness and endure their nonsense and get progressively more aggravated, frustrated -- and even shriller -- because they ignore her repeated commands to stop it.
I take the Little Guys to the schoolyard, and we have some fun. They get to ride their scooters, they jump around on the playground, we play with a football they've found...and I get hit on by a chick. There's two scifoozas that we run into on the street nearby who talk as if they were taught to whisper in a sawmill, and use language that's...well... 'salty' is an inadequate description. It's even worse than mine.
Scifooza Number One can't stop talking about her boobs. In front of my two young nephews. She's telling Scifooza Number Two that as soon as she gets her "chemical balls" (admission: I have never heard this term before) she's going to get "my tits done", and "finally fucking get myself a fucking husband because all they want is fucking D-cups". Sciffoza One apologizes profusely for using such language in front of My Sons. There not my Sons, they're my Nephews, but it's okay. I'll just tell them to ignore you.
"Do you think my tits are alright, or should I get 'em bigger?" Sciffooza One asks. Scifooza Number Two feigns being flabbergasted. One gets the impression that Number One asks every random man she meets this question, and Number Two is obliged to pretend to be embarrassed, even though she's probably shown her tits to twice as many random men. And she might get paid to do it, too.
"Nah, nothing wrong with what you got. They're just fine."
"You boys are soooo lucky! Your father is such a nice man..."
"He's not my father, he's my uncle."
"He's soooo nice!" I'm now having my shoulders and biceps felt up and pinched as if she were looking for a ripe cantaloupe in the supermarket. She apparently likes my hair, too. I'm about to smack this bitch.
"I'm not married, you know...", She says.
"No? You? Can't imagine why not..."
"You have beautiful sons. I wish I had a son...."
"They're my nephews."
"Really? I thought they were your kids..."
"If you could shut up about your tits for three seconds you would have realized you were told otherwise three times. Maybe that's why you're not married: you can't shut up about your tits, you're pushy, and you don't listen very well."
Number Two finds this uproariously funny. We leave. If I ever wanted the local equivalent of Trailer Trash, I now know exactly where to find it. I wouldn't marry this chick for a Green Card and a mention in her father's will. It took near an hour to reach the schoolyard, if only because the five year old has little legs that don't carry him so fast. Twenty-five minutes after we get there they want to go home. Another hour back. And...
There's the FUCKING SWING...naturally. And a crowd of neighborhood kids all waiting for their turn. Mommy Dearest is apoplectic, and on the verge of having puppies. I figure if she does manage this astounding feat, it ought to look like something out of Aliens, only with fireworks and more gunfire. It's now all my fault that this happened because I was away for three hours doing GOD-KNOWS-WHAT-STUPID-SHIT-YOUR-BROTHER-IN-LAW-IS-AN-ASSHOLE-FOR-SHOWING-THEM-THIS-SHIT-GODDAMMIT-WHERE-IS-YOUR-SISTER-THAT-INCONSIDERATE-BITCH-THEY'RE-DRIVING-ME-INSANE.
And people wonder why I am the way I am? If you had my life...
Anyways, here's what I mean by 'losing their childhood".
In my day, if we were told 'you can't do that', we simply found something else to do. And since we didn't have a billion beeping-and-bright-lights-electronic geegaws, we had to make due with whatever was at hand, and somehow manage to have fun with it. Worse, I grew up in Brooklyn, and there wasn't a front lawn, an open field for miles, or a swimming pool in the back yard. We didn't even have a back yard worth the appellation. In those days, we played a lot of wiffle ball (no one plays wiffle ball anymore), and a ton of stickball. These were games that were pretty cheap, and in which you could improvise equipment if you didn't have any, and play for hours. In winter, we played tackle football -- in the street -- and during the fall, we played tackle football...on the concrete in the schoolyard. Hockey was played year-round, either road hockey or roller hockey, ice hockey being something extremely rare: skates were super expensive (your parents might blow a week's salary on skates then), and the only ice was at Coney Island, which required a death-defying trip on the B or D train, dodging muggers and streakers. We used a roll of electrical tape worn smooth on the sidewalk for a puck. It works remarkably well on the well-worn blacktop of a city street.
Protective equipment, if you could find any, usually consisted of a mish-mash of catcher's gear, baseball gloves, football helmets and shoulder pads, and the simple expedient of stuffing magazines into your socks to serve as shin guards. A hockey stick in those days cost about $10, and that was a ton of money, so no one took slap shots -- the best and easiest way to break a stick on blacktop.
There were exactly seven television channels -- and one of them was PBS. Video games consisted of Pong, and if your family could afford it, you might get lucky and have an Intellivision, Atari -- or the Cadillac of them all -- a Commodore 64 with something like 3 really crappy games. Otherwise, you needed to scrounge quarters to go to the local candy store to play pinball, or maybe Space Invaders or Asteroids. When PacMan came around, kids seriously considered taking up a life of crime to support their habit. You dreamed of the days when you had enough quarters to just play a few games of PacMan AND get an Egg Cream. That was like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous to us.
We played a lot of common childhood games: Johnny-on-the-Pony, Red Rover, Stoopball (kind of like baseball, only with 'phantom' runners, where you tossed the rubber ball with all your might against your front steps when you were 'up'). We played handball and basketball in the schoolyard, boxball on the sidewalk (like tennis, using the square sections of the sidewalk as a court). When your rubber Spaulding ball split at the seams (they always did) from all that stick- and boxball, you simply took the two halves and played Halfball (a variant of baseball, played with the half a ball and a short length of thick rubber hose).
When you didn't even have a ball, you played Skelly. In this game, you shoot bottlecaps that have been filled with melted wax around a square 'board' drawn on the sidewalk or street in chalk. If you were really serious about your Skelly, you carved your Skelly Board into the hot asphalt of the street in summer with a screwdriver. Kids got very creative with their carved Skelly boards. Some were really intricate and quite challenging.
We didn't have trees to climb, so we climbed fire escapes and 'laundry ladders'. These were skinny, metal ladders, often 30' or more in height -- and not always anchored very well -- that one found behind most houses or apartment buildings, and to which tenants attached clotheslines from their back windows. Climbing a laundry ladder was usually something you did when playing 'War', in which we ran around the streets and the back-alleys in mock combat with toy guns. Try that today, and the local authorities will drag your kids off to a mental institution, just in case they want to grow up to shoot a Democrat. Any fence was like an open invitation to 'come climb me', and it didn't matter if there was barbed wire or razor wire, or even if it was rusty; we climbed them, especially if there was something 'cool' on the other side...like access to Tar Beach (the roof of an apartment building from where one could launch water balloons, or watch the local girls sunbathe).
Bikes and skateboards were rarities. In the Brooklyn of that time these things were likely to get stolen. At knifepoint. I was mugged at knifepoint, twice, before my thirteenth birthday. Nowadays in Brooklyn, they definitely would be stolen, only you'll receive multiple gunshot wounds and might get your house burnt down just so there's no witnesses to the crime for good measure.
Everyone played with matches. Everyone played with magnifying glasses and anthills. Everyone played with magnifying glasses, anthills, model glue and a can of hairspray. You circled the anthill with the glue, set fire to it with paper and magnifying glass, and when the ants came up to escape, you used the hairspray can like a flamethrower. We knew how to make slingshots, and makeshift crossbows with a piece of two-by-four, a thick rubber band, wood staple and a clothespin.
Disputes between kids were always settled with fisticuffs, or a wrestling match, and three minutes after someone got his ass kicked everyone was friends again. We collected comic books, baseball cards, bottlecaps and Matchbox Cars. We 'flipped' baseball cards, we pitched pennies, we played a lot of catch, Tag, Dodgeball (or a rougher variant, Kill the Man With the Ball), Red Light-Green Light, Ringolerio and Bulldog. We built model airplanes and ships. We knew how to build and repair our own toys, or adapt them to other uses. We did it in the CITY, too, with a lack of open spaces and grass, and with what nowadays would be considered Third-World-level disposable incomes.
In short, we knew how to be BOYS. We never had 'NOTHING TO DO'.
My nephews, for all the love I have for them, would have been lost in that world. They would have been constantly bored because no one would be giving them anything. As it is, they get so bored despite all they have, that they become single-minded of purpose when it comes to a tree swing that even in my day would have given Evel Knievel second thoughts. Now, granted, there's some creativity and a sense of danger involved in that swing, but the point is if we were told 'don't do that', we found something else to do, and we had enough of a store of made-up/improvised games/activities at our disposal that it wasn't difficult.
Nowadays, kids seem incapable of doing this. Try to teach these things to them, and they look at you as if you've just emerged from a spacecraft with three heads, green skin, and antennae. They aren't interested unless there's a flashing light, a large price tag, a beeping sound, or a degree of extraordinary, bound-to-end-in-the-emergency-room danger -- they call these things Extreme Sports nowadays, but in my day, they were simply the things The Stupid Kid Who Always Had a Broken Bone did.
There was a degree of danger in what we did, too, but it was always a calculated danger (kids were smarter then, I think). We knew the limits. An equivalent to this swinging between traffic and a great fucking tree trunk in my day was called 'Skitching'. In Skitching, one either wore roller skates, or did it in winter when the streets would be full of packed snow that you could slide on. You simply grabbed onto the back of a stopped bus or truck, and got low where the driver might not be able to see you easily, and got yourself pulled along as if water skiing. At least until the vehicle stopped, and you didn't...you usually only stopped when you got a face full of back bumper. The worst cases saw the Skitcher eat the bumper and then slide under the now-stopped vehicle, and being too stunned to move, get trapped under a wheel to get themselves run the fuck over. Never did it myself, never wanted to. It was just too stupid and dangerous.
But such was the life -- and the joys -- of a city boy in the 1970's, and amazingly, we did these things with no adult supervision, whatsoever. Makes you wonder just what the hell happened to the world and what happened to the Spirit of Boyhood. These kids today are such pampered, spoiled, over-supervised, whining little pansies who don't get beaten on a regular basis for their misbehavior, and who don't know how -- and who can't be trusted -- to play on their own. And who suffered for it all this fine day? Why... I did.
I'm not even their parent, either.
I had to listen to a Screaming Banshee who turns my insides into a knotted mass, and who could curdle used motor oil with her voice alone. I had to hike two hours to and from a schoolyard I didn't want to go to, and we barely stayed. I was nearly sexually assaulted on the street by a bimbo I wouldn't screw with a stolen penis, and who didn't even have the courtesy to offer me a drink before putting her hands on me. I had my nephews actually tell me to do something anatomically impossible -- twice -- and I'm not allowed to feed them their teeth. When my sister finally gets home, she wants to know why I 'didn't do anything to stop those kids from putting up the swing' and has the nerve to ask me if I'll watch them again the following day.
It's a good thing it was supposed to be Doomsday, and there was a 'We Didn't Die' party later that evening. I managed to play a few other games that night that also don't require flashing lights and electronics, or adult supervision...only adult participation.
That was something else we learned to do in the schoolyard, too.
Here's how I spent what was supposed to be our Final Day on Earth. Except for the Happy Ending, I found myself that day fervently hoping the planet would, indeed, split wide open and burn to a cinder. It started with my nephews.
I feel somewhat badly for today's children, mostly because they have been robbed of all the things that I believe should make up childhood.
I've been thinking about this notion this past week because of what happened last Saturday...
I have four nephews, aged 14, 13, 11 and 5. They're great boys, and by that, I mean that I love them very much, not that they're the best behaved. In fact, my nephews have the manners of a pack of wild boars...wild boars with toothaches and hemorrhoids, I mean. They can be a touch ornery and rambunctious, to say the least. Part of this is just The Age; two teenagers, busily exploring the boundaries, pushing every envelope. The two younger ones, naturally, mimic what they've seen the older ones get away with, which is quite a bit as my sister and brother-in-law are a bit lax in the discipline department. When I was their age, if I pulled half the stuff they did -- and got caught -- I'd be on the phone looking for organ donors, just in case I needed them in the aftermath of the truly horrendous beating I was going to get.
Worse, I grew up in a house with my grandparents and my uncle and his family. Stepping out of line -- and getting caught -- meant, potentially, three beatings. Even worse, I went to Catholic school, which meant stepping out of line included a bonus beating from the nuns, then three beatings when you got home. Considering that I was a beastly little swine as a child, I'm amazed that I was able to survive a John McCain-like experience of near-constant physical torture. Fortunately, for me anyway, I seem to have gotten away with just enough to avoid permanent brain damage.
My nephews have, thus far, been spared the experience of a truly epic beating at the hands of their belt-and-wooden-spoon-wielding grandparents, wooden-hanger-wielding mother, and the open-hand buttocks assault of an ex-Marine Uncle, and in today's Catholic schools you couldn't find a Shao-Lin- ruler-wielding nun if your life depended upon it. Besides, they all go to public school, except the oldest, and the Catholic school he attends is generally regarded as 'soft'. I went to grammar school with Dominican Nuns who moonlighted as hand-to-hand combat instructors with the Green Berets, and a high school with Black-belt Christian Brothers, half of whom seemed to be tough Hell's Kitchen Irishmen, and every last one of them claimed to have been a Golden Gloves boxer in his youth.
Suffice to say, short of being raised by the Spanish Inquisition, with alternate weekends at Gestapo Headquarters, very few people know physical discipline like I know physical discipline. Today they'd call this 'child abuse', but back then, it was just what parents did to straighten their kids out when that was necessary.
But, I digress...
Anyways, I had occasion to 'babysit' my nephews, despite the fact that none are babies anymore, but the oldest are certainly too irresponsible to be left to care for the younger two when their parents are away. Their father had pulled a weekend overtime shift. Their mother was dragooned by the Little League they've all played in to do her 'volunteer' service. My mother, a woman whom God certainly sent to annoy the living shit out of every other living being on Planet Earth, came along. Heaven forbid she should have to sit at home and rely upon her own wits to keep herself entertained for a day. It began, predictably enough, with constant complaints about 'the Sciatica', her back hurts, her legs, her knees, her sinuses, and even her fucking ass. It's all an act, by the way, it's all a play for attention because she's sympathy junkie and a drama queen.
This is the First Indication that I'm going to have trouble at some point. But I'll get back to that in a moment. Let's start with the Second Indication that it's going to be One of Those Days.
If there's one thing I really dislike about Modern Kids, it's the silly whining they all engage in about having 'nothing to do.'
Mind you, my nephews live in a house which has FIVE televisions, all with cable access including 150 channels and On-Demand programming up the Wazoo, two DVD players (with an extensive library), a Playstation 3, an X-Box 360, and a Nintendo Wii, each again with an extensive library of games. The garage is simply overflowing with bicycles, skateboards, kick scooters and roller blades, not to mention a bewildering array of portable ramps and rails for them. All my nephews play baseball -- Little League, High School, and Travelling Teams -- so there are enough bats, baseballs, and gloves laying around to equip a Major League Team. The only things missing are Buck and McCarver, chewing tobacco, and Yankee Stadium.
There are two computers in the house, both with internet access. I know they have internet access because guess who installed the cable modem and Wi-Fi router (that would be...Me)? There is a vast array of computer games available, as well, not to mention two or three Nintendo DS consoles. There are enough Lego bricks (the five year old is a Lego junkie who might soon require methadone treatments to wean him off of them) to build a life-size replica of the Manhattan Skyline.
There is a small library of age-and-theme-appropriate literature, and for good measure my sister has stocked the house with all manner of Art Supplies, colored pencils, sketch pads, crayons, markers, paints, and so forth, that would have made Van Gogh lock himself in her basement, and kept him far too busy with it all to even have time to think of cutting his own ear off.
Oh, and the three Big Ones have cell phones, too, and text message Lord Knows Who constantly. She just might be raising a passel of boys with the strongest thumbs on all of Staten Island.
I can understand the five year old complaining "I have nothing to do", because, well...he's five. Five year olds have attention spans measured in RPM's, although, like I said, he's a Lego junkie and when he's in his zone you don't hear a peep out of him for hours at a time.
And the Swimming Pool hasn't even been opened for the season yet. On a good day, my nephews will protest, loudly and in a manner which reminds me of a menstrual girl, if their mother suggests they go outside to play. They've been known to cry about 'how unfair' that is. Did you ever know kids to complain they're being sent outside to play? They'd rather ride their kick scooters IN THE HOUSE, on her marble-and-ceramic-tile floors, and she lets them get away with it.
So, who has 'nothing to do'? Well, the 13 and 14 year old, naturally. They're the biggest pests of all that way. They decide that since there's 'nothing to do' why not engage in a bit of absolute stupidity and build a tree swing?
Now, about this swing. It's my brother-in-law's fault. He decided one day that it would be a good idea to find himself a length of rope, toss it over a high branch on the tree out front of the house -- over 30 feet in the air -- attach the broken seat from an old office chair to it, and then encourage his children to swing from it. Even the Biggest Doofus. There's just two problems with this swing; the first is that once you're on it and gain any sort of momentum, you're swinging out into the street, and since there's about 20' of rope involved, you're swinging 20' out into the street and into traffic. The second problem is because of the peculiar position of the anchor branch, once you begin your 're-entry' from the street, you're likely to crash headlong into the trunk. If you're, say, 14, and weigh about 150 pounds and gather enough momentum to make the swing worth your while, if you hit that tree you're probably doing 20-25 MPH when you make contact.
Considering that the other three launch the 5-year old with enough force to loft the Space Shuttle, he's probably going to hit it at closer to 30 mph, assuming he manages to keep his grip at all.
For that reason specifically -- the five year old must be kept off of this dangerous contraption -- they are forbidden to do this thing without their father being there to supervise, so that they don't get stupid and carried away, and a 911 call has to be made. This Swing-erecting event also leads to the most inhuman arguing and crying you've ever heard over 'who's turn' it is; it's like listening to sorority sisters argue about who gets to use the Big Mirror, and there's no place for me to plug in my curling iron in the common bathroom with 12 other girls already in it. The whole operation is far more trouble than it's worth, if you ask me.
But this is exactly what they want to do, and they keep insisting they have the right -- and permission -- to do it whenever they fucking want to. Except that I know they fucking don't. So, I tell them; No Swing, find something else to do. This pronouncement gets the expected grousing, and unfortunately, no surprise at all, a lot of cursing.
I would have swatted them good for sassing me, but I'm not allowed to touch my sister's children that way. Consequently, neither does she...not until they've reached the point of being in close-to-riot condition. No wonder they push the envelope; there's no consequence for even having the audacity to dare it. Someone should smack them around. I took things from them I wouldn't take from a grown man without insisting he step outside and defend his honor.
The Law has been laid down. No Swing. I go back into the house. The The First Indication is now heard from, and you would think the Gates of Hell had just burst open and poured forth a vast horde of soul-stealing demons, red in tooth and claw, fire and brimstone flowing from their flared nostrils.
A bit about my Mother, first, so that you can get some idea of what's about to happen when I continue this story. My Mother is, without a doubt, the most disagreeable person in this Solar System. She's not a bad woman, she just has some rather strange ideas and an overly-inflated opinion of herself which is totally detached from reality. The first problem she has is that whenever she says something, no matter how stupid, how inane, how inappropriate, how non-topical, insulting, no matter how unasked for, she believes it should be treated as if Moses carried the decree down from the Mountaintop engraved in stone. As soon as the words are uttered, she either expects whatever it she wants to be done right this very second, or that it is to be regarded with the same reverence and respect that we have for the law, worthy of immediate attention and action, and we should all fall to our fucking knees and thank the shit out of her for having graced us with her words of wisdom.
I beg to differ. She was a rotten mother who offered no real guidance, and who's children suffered for her poor choices in husbands, and the bad decisions she made that ruined her life. These required her children to pick up the pieces for her, because that would require effort, and then support her for the last 25 years of her life. She's fortunate that we haven't taken her out into the woods, slathered her in animal fat, and left her there to face the grizzlies alone, or just tossed her off a convenient pier in cinderblock underwear, already.
As if this wasn't annoying enough, this distasteful personality trait is attached to a woman with an anxiety complex so monumental, and a variety of other mental issues of the Poor-Me type (the very worst), that it has kept the best therapist on Staten Island busy for 25 years...with no improvement to date, whatsoever. Which leads me to the question; just who the fuck was it who said she was the best in the first place? Because she's convinced that her every word should be an Imperial command, and because every second that passes between command and action builds up the cycle of anxiety and impatience, and because it all plays into this martyr complex of hers, nothing is ever simple. Everything is a fucking imperative, Earth-shattering emergency that is accompanied by That Sound.
That Sound. Look up the word 'cacophony' in the dictionary. Doesn't even come close to describing it. Imagine it like this: the sound of 4,000 cats being castrated simultaneously with a rusty, unsharpened garden scythe, set against the background noise of a pack of constipated wolves baying at the moon whilst being serenaded by some great locomotive that hasn't had it's moving parts oiled in a couple of centuries moving at high speed, which then tries to come to a screeching halt upon a dime.
That's almost it. But still not quite. You also have to imagine someone pouring table salt into your eyes when you're hearing it.
It's a terrible sound. Hearing it gives one the impression of great shards of jagged glass and ten-penny nails being pounded into your skull. The sweat breaks out on your spine. Your teeth are set on edge as if someone just slit your asshole with a razor blade and then poured lemon juice and Liquid Plumber into the open wound. You'd rather be sucked into a jet engine -- and survive -- than to hear that sound. You'd rather have someone open an umbrella up your ass repeatedly than to listen to it. You'd rather be the sex slave of some Al'Qada dude with a sandpaper and blowtorch fetish. It's a sound I've heard -- even in my sleep -- almost every day of my life for the last 44 years, and the amazing part of it all is that I haven't killed her yet.
MAAAATTTTYYYYYY! Come up here...NOW! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod....Look what that LUNATIC is DOING! STOP THEM!
The Swing is being set up. They can't even get the rope over the branch, and already, it's as if someone has just been struck by lightning, run down by a garbage truck and shot eleven times...all at once. And I absolutely HATE being called "Matty". I'm not a seven year old in short pants and knee fucking socks.
So, I tell them. No swing. Now knock it off. "But we have nothing to do." Bullshit, find something else.
Ten minutes later:
MAAAAATTTTTYYYYYY! LOOK WHAT THESE KIDS ARE DOING! Gooutthereandbreakhisass, goddammit!
Guys, I said Knock It Off. No Swing. Do us all a favor, and don't give that pain in the behind inside another reason to start wailing. I don't want to hear it, and it's pissing me off. Just shut her up and stop, or I'm taking this crap away from you.
Not two minutes later, it starts all over again:
So, I take the rope, the seat, and the garden tools they're using trying to get the damned thing over a 30' high branch. Find something else to do, fellas, because if I have to listen to that woman one more time, someone's getting killed, and it might not be just her.
At this point, the little guys want to go to the schoolyard and ride their scooters. Of course they do; it's only a mile walk, and naturally, the Big Ones don't want to go. I can only imagine what I'm coming back to when these two, naturally, resume their stupidity behind my back and Ye Old Nervous Windbag inside has several hours to witness and endure their nonsense and get progressively more aggravated, frustrated -- and even shriller -- because they ignore her repeated commands to stop it.
I take the Little Guys to the schoolyard, and we have some fun. They get to ride their scooters, they jump around on the playground, we play with a football they've found...and I get hit on by a chick. There's two scifoozas that we run into on the street nearby who talk as if they were taught to whisper in a sawmill, and use language that's...well... 'salty' is an inadequate description. It's even worse than mine.
Scifooza Number One can't stop talking about her boobs. In front of my two young nephews. She's telling Scifooza Number Two that as soon as she gets her "chemical balls" (admission: I have never heard this term before) she's going to get "my tits done", and "finally fucking get myself a fucking husband because all they want is fucking D-cups". Sciffoza One apologizes profusely for using such language in front of My Sons. There not my Sons, they're my Nephews, but it's okay. I'll just tell them to ignore you.
"Do you think my tits are alright, or should I get 'em bigger?" Sciffooza One asks. Scifooza Number Two feigns being flabbergasted. One gets the impression that Number One asks every random man she meets this question, and Number Two is obliged to pretend to be embarrassed, even though she's probably shown her tits to twice as many random men. And she might get paid to do it, too.
"Nah, nothing wrong with what you got. They're just fine."
"You boys are soooo lucky! Your father is such a nice man..."
"He's not my father, he's my uncle."
"He's soooo nice!" I'm now having my shoulders and biceps felt up and pinched as if she were looking for a ripe cantaloupe in the supermarket. She apparently likes my hair, too. I'm about to smack this bitch.
"I'm not married, you know...", She says.
"No? You? Can't imagine why not..."
"You have beautiful sons. I wish I had a son...."
"They're my nephews."
"Really? I thought they were your kids..."
"If you could shut up about your tits for three seconds you would have realized you were told otherwise three times. Maybe that's why you're not married: you can't shut up about your tits, you're pushy, and you don't listen very well."
Number Two finds this uproariously funny. We leave. If I ever wanted the local equivalent of Trailer Trash, I now know exactly where to find it. I wouldn't marry this chick for a Green Card and a mention in her father's will. It took near an hour to reach the schoolyard, if only because the five year old has little legs that don't carry him so fast. Twenty-five minutes after we get there they want to go home. Another hour back. And...
There's the FUCKING SWING...naturally. And a crowd of neighborhood kids all waiting for their turn. Mommy Dearest is apoplectic, and on the verge of having puppies. I figure if she does manage this astounding feat, it ought to look like something out of Aliens, only with fireworks and more gunfire. It's now all my fault that this happened because I was away for three hours doing GOD-KNOWS-WHAT-STUPID-SHIT-YOUR-BROTHER-IN-LAW-IS-AN-ASSHOLE-FOR-SHOWING-THEM-THIS-SHIT-GODDAMMIT-WHERE-IS-YOUR-SISTER-THAT-INCONSIDERATE-BITCH-THEY'RE-DRIVING-ME-INSANE.
And people wonder why I am the way I am? If you had my life...
Anyways, here's what I mean by 'losing their childhood".
In my day, if we were told 'you can't do that', we simply found something else to do. And since we didn't have a billion beeping-and-bright-lights-electronic geegaws, we had to make due with whatever was at hand, and somehow manage to have fun with it. Worse, I grew up in Brooklyn, and there wasn't a front lawn, an open field for miles, or a swimming pool in the back yard. We didn't even have a back yard worth the appellation. In those days, we played a lot of wiffle ball (no one plays wiffle ball anymore), and a ton of stickball. These were games that were pretty cheap, and in which you could improvise equipment if you didn't have any, and play for hours. In winter, we played tackle football -- in the street -- and during the fall, we played tackle football...on the concrete in the schoolyard. Hockey was played year-round, either road hockey or roller hockey, ice hockey being something extremely rare: skates were super expensive (your parents might blow a week's salary on skates then), and the only ice was at Coney Island, which required a death-defying trip on the B or D train, dodging muggers and streakers. We used a roll of electrical tape worn smooth on the sidewalk for a puck. It works remarkably well on the well-worn blacktop of a city street.
Protective equipment, if you could find any, usually consisted of a mish-mash of catcher's gear, baseball gloves, football helmets and shoulder pads, and the simple expedient of stuffing magazines into your socks to serve as shin guards. A hockey stick in those days cost about $10, and that was a ton of money, so no one took slap shots -- the best and easiest way to break a stick on blacktop.
There were exactly seven television channels -- and one of them was PBS. Video games consisted of Pong, and if your family could afford it, you might get lucky and have an Intellivision, Atari -- or the Cadillac of them all -- a Commodore 64 with something like 3 really crappy games. Otherwise, you needed to scrounge quarters to go to the local candy store to play pinball, or maybe Space Invaders or Asteroids. When PacMan came around, kids seriously considered taking up a life of crime to support their habit. You dreamed of the days when you had enough quarters to just play a few games of PacMan AND get an Egg Cream. That was like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous to us.
We played a lot of common childhood games: Johnny-on-the-Pony, Red Rover, Stoopball (kind of like baseball, only with 'phantom' runners, where you tossed the rubber ball with all your might against your front steps when you were 'up'). We played handball and basketball in the schoolyard, boxball on the sidewalk (like tennis, using the square sections of the sidewalk as a court). When your rubber Spaulding ball split at the seams (they always did) from all that stick- and boxball, you simply took the two halves and played Halfball (a variant of baseball, played with the half a ball and a short length of thick rubber hose).
When you didn't even have a ball, you played Skelly. In this game, you shoot bottlecaps that have been filled with melted wax around a square 'board' drawn on the sidewalk or street in chalk. If you were really serious about your Skelly, you carved your Skelly Board into the hot asphalt of the street in summer with a screwdriver. Kids got very creative with their carved Skelly boards. Some were really intricate and quite challenging.
We didn't have trees to climb, so we climbed fire escapes and 'laundry ladders'. These were skinny, metal ladders, often 30' or more in height -- and not always anchored very well -- that one found behind most houses or apartment buildings, and to which tenants attached clotheslines from their back windows. Climbing a laundry ladder was usually something you did when playing 'War', in which we ran around the streets and the back-alleys in mock combat with toy guns. Try that today, and the local authorities will drag your kids off to a mental institution, just in case they want to grow up to shoot a Democrat. Any fence was like an open invitation to 'come climb me', and it didn't matter if there was barbed wire or razor wire, or even if it was rusty; we climbed them, especially if there was something 'cool' on the other side...like access to Tar Beach (the roof of an apartment building from where one could launch water balloons, or watch the local girls sunbathe).
Bikes and skateboards were rarities. In the Brooklyn of that time these things were likely to get stolen. At knifepoint. I was mugged at knifepoint, twice, before my thirteenth birthday. Nowadays in Brooklyn, they definitely would be stolen, only you'll receive multiple gunshot wounds and might get your house burnt down just so there's no witnesses to the crime for good measure.
Everyone played with matches. Everyone played with magnifying glasses and anthills. Everyone played with magnifying glasses, anthills, model glue and a can of hairspray. You circled the anthill with the glue, set fire to it with paper and magnifying glass, and when the ants came up to escape, you used the hairspray can like a flamethrower. We knew how to make slingshots, and makeshift crossbows with a piece of two-by-four, a thick rubber band, wood staple and a clothespin.
Disputes between kids were always settled with fisticuffs, or a wrestling match, and three minutes after someone got his ass kicked everyone was friends again. We collected comic books, baseball cards, bottlecaps and Matchbox Cars. We 'flipped' baseball cards, we pitched pennies, we played a lot of catch, Tag, Dodgeball (or a rougher variant, Kill the Man With the Ball), Red Light-Green Light, Ringolerio and Bulldog. We built model airplanes and ships. We knew how to build and repair our own toys, or adapt them to other uses. We did it in the CITY, too, with a lack of open spaces and grass, and with what nowadays would be considered Third-World-level disposable incomes.
In short, we knew how to be BOYS. We never had 'NOTHING TO DO'.
My nephews, for all the love I have for them, would have been lost in that world. They would have been constantly bored because no one would be giving them anything. As it is, they get so bored despite all they have, that they become single-minded of purpose when it comes to a tree swing that even in my day would have given Evel Knievel second thoughts. Now, granted, there's some creativity and a sense of danger involved in that swing, but the point is if we were told 'don't do that', we found something else to do, and we had enough of a store of made-up/improvised games/activities at our disposal that it wasn't difficult.
Nowadays, kids seem incapable of doing this. Try to teach these things to them, and they look at you as if you've just emerged from a spacecraft with three heads, green skin, and antennae. They aren't interested unless there's a flashing light, a large price tag, a beeping sound, or a degree of extraordinary, bound-to-end-in-the-emergency-room danger -- they call these things Extreme Sports nowadays, but in my day, they were simply the things The Stupid Kid Who Always Had a Broken Bone did.
There was a degree of danger in what we did, too, but it was always a calculated danger (kids were smarter then, I think). We knew the limits. An equivalent to this swinging between traffic and a great fucking tree trunk in my day was called 'Skitching'. In Skitching, one either wore roller skates, or did it in winter when the streets would be full of packed snow that you could slide on. You simply grabbed onto the back of a stopped bus or truck, and got low where the driver might not be able to see you easily, and got yourself pulled along as if water skiing. At least until the vehicle stopped, and you didn't...you usually only stopped when you got a face full of back bumper. The worst cases saw the Skitcher eat the bumper and then slide under the now-stopped vehicle, and being too stunned to move, get trapped under a wheel to get themselves run the fuck over. Never did it myself, never wanted to. It was just too stupid and dangerous.
But such was the life -- and the joys -- of a city boy in the 1970's, and amazingly, we did these things with no adult supervision, whatsoever. Makes you wonder just what the hell happened to the world and what happened to the Spirit of Boyhood. These kids today are such pampered, spoiled, over-supervised, whining little pansies who don't get beaten on a regular basis for their misbehavior, and who don't know how -- and who can't be trusted -- to play on their own. And who suffered for it all this fine day? Why... I did.
I'm not even their parent, either.
I had to listen to a Screaming Banshee who turns my insides into a knotted mass, and who could curdle used motor oil with her voice alone. I had to hike two hours to and from a schoolyard I didn't want to go to, and we barely stayed. I was nearly sexually assaulted on the street by a bimbo I wouldn't screw with a stolen penis, and who didn't even have the courtesy to offer me a drink before putting her hands on me. I had my nephews actually tell me to do something anatomically impossible -- twice -- and I'm not allowed to feed them their teeth. When my sister finally gets home, she wants to know why I 'didn't do anything to stop those kids from putting up the swing' and has the nerve to ask me if I'll watch them again the following day.
It's a good thing it was supposed to be Doomsday, and there was a 'We Didn't Die' party later that evening. I managed to play a few other games that night that also don't require flashing lights and electronics, or adult supervision...only adult participation.
That was something else we learned to do in the schoolyard, too.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
A Very Good Holiday...
I'm not really one for holidays, anymore. I would have to say that if given a choice, most of the time I would prefer to stay in with a good book, movie, or a video game rather than get dressed up, take a 2-hour drive to someplace I'd rather not be, and then go through all the saccharine nonsense attendant to a Christmas celebration.
I'm not a religious man, so the idea of commemorating a Savior doesn't do anything for me. I imagine my Saviors to be a cross between George S. Patton and The X-Men, anyways. I'd like to put a pickaxe through the face of a good number of my relatives. Not because they're bad people, mind you, but because I find the company of some rather maddeningly annoying, like an inflamed hemorrhoid that alternates between a dull throb and a stabbing pain, but retains the constant itch. (Ed. note: That wing of the family didn't show this year. Whew!)
Why, if it wasn't for "the kids", and an extravagant meal, Christmas would probably be much like any other day for me, only with fucking Candy Canes. I could very easily just enjoy my Christmas dinner, grunt a thing or two at the guests, and then leave. In fact, I'd prefer to do exactly that.
But this year was different.
Three of my nephews are now old enough where Christmas ceases to be a wondrous event. It has simply become one of the annoyances of being a teenager; your parents dragging you off to places you don't want to be in order to give kisses to ancient relatives who smell like mothballs. You'd rather be hanging out at the Mall (which is, I believe, what teenagers around here do, for lack of anything else), and are engrossed by that stupid text-message thingy which has become the Herald of the Anti-Christ; it absorbs most of your time so that you're rotten company, anyway. You can't buy them toys anymore, and if you try to buy them clothes you'll usually get a sullen and begrudging thank you (more like a"Screw you! You expect me to be seen in public wearing this?"), and that's about it.
Which is I why I gave the three oldest cash. I give everyone cash; no one ever returns it, it's always the right size, and no one complains about the color.
But, the Little Guy...now there's a horse of a different color.
My nephew Mark is five. He still believes in Santa Claus. He still gets excited by the prospect of new toys and wrapping paper. He has enthusiasm for a holiday that long ago ceased being a source of excitement, and became one of pure obligation and forced bonhomie. This year, Mark saved Christmas for me. He made it tolerable, at first, and then, even a little fun.
I have to say, he's become my best friend. We do everything together, you know. So, a few weeks ago, when I was dreading the arrival of Christmas I was sort of shocked to discover that I actually wanted to do the shopping and gift-wrapping routine, if only for him. He's into Lego stuff now, and it's pretty much all he wants nowadays, so I went and got him something on his Lego wishlist (come to think of it, almost his entire Wish List was Lego-related. I don't know whether this indicates an affinity for architecture and a creative mindset, or if it's a sign of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
Christmas Eve was pretty good. We had our traditional Feast of the Seven Fish (my favorite meal of the year. Take that, Thanksgiving!), the company seemed less boring, dull, and annoying this year than in the past, because only the cool people were there. I only had one drink all weekend (yay!).
And on Christmas Day, I lay on the floor with a five year old with more energy than I can ever remember having had as a child, and built every Lego set under the tree; the Lego Fire Station, the Lego Airport, the Lego Police Boat, Lego Construction Site, and a few I can't remember (in my time, when you got Legos you simply got a bucket of bricks. Nowadays, the things come in complete sets with a theme. One of these days, we'll probably be going to work in the Lego City Dark Satanic Mill and Stock Exchange Building ). And had fun.
I can't recall the last time I've actually had fun on Christmas.
But, he's getting older, too, and I know that one day the entire thing will be just another day for him, too. There will be no more Santa Claus, no more anticipation of unknown treasures under the tree, no more winter afternoons on the carpet playing with his uncle. If we could have wishes granted, I would ask but for one; just give me one more day like yesterday before he outgrows it all.
I'm not a religious man, so the idea of commemorating a Savior doesn't do anything for me. I imagine my Saviors to be a cross between George S. Patton and The X-Men, anyways. I'd like to put a pickaxe through the face of a good number of my relatives. Not because they're bad people, mind you, but because I find the company of some rather maddeningly annoying, like an inflamed hemorrhoid that alternates between a dull throb and a stabbing pain, but retains the constant itch. (Ed. note: That wing of the family didn't show this year. Whew!)
Why, if it wasn't for "the kids", and an extravagant meal, Christmas would probably be much like any other day for me, only with fucking Candy Canes. I could very easily just enjoy my Christmas dinner, grunt a thing or two at the guests, and then leave. In fact, I'd prefer to do exactly that.
But this year was different.
Three of my nephews are now old enough where Christmas ceases to be a wondrous event. It has simply become one of the annoyances of being a teenager; your parents dragging you off to places you don't want to be in order to give kisses to ancient relatives who smell like mothballs. You'd rather be hanging out at the Mall (which is, I believe, what teenagers around here do, for lack of anything else), and are engrossed by that stupid text-message thingy which has become the Herald of the Anti-Christ; it absorbs most of your time so that you're rotten company, anyway. You can't buy them toys anymore, and if you try to buy them clothes you'll usually get a sullen and begrudging thank you (more like a"Screw you! You expect me to be seen in public wearing this?"), and that's about it.
Which is I why I gave the three oldest cash. I give everyone cash; no one ever returns it, it's always the right size, and no one complains about the color.
But, the Little Guy...now there's a horse of a different color.
My nephew Mark is five. He still believes in Santa Claus. He still gets excited by the prospect of new toys and wrapping paper. He has enthusiasm for a holiday that long ago ceased being a source of excitement, and became one of pure obligation and forced bonhomie. This year, Mark saved Christmas for me. He made it tolerable, at first, and then, even a little fun.
I have to say, he's become my best friend. We do everything together, you know. So, a few weeks ago, when I was dreading the arrival of Christmas I was sort of shocked to discover that I actually wanted to do the shopping and gift-wrapping routine, if only for him. He's into Lego stuff now, and it's pretty much all he wants nowadays, so I went and got him something on his Lego wishlist (come to think of it, almost his entire Wish List was Lego-related. I don't know whether this indicates an affinity for architecture and a creative mindset, or if it's a sign of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).
Christmas Eve was pretty good. We had our traditional Feast of the Seven Fish (my favorite meal of the year. Take that, Thanksgiving!), the company seemed less boring, dull, and annoying this year than in the past, because only the cool people were there. I only had one drink all weekend (yay!).
And on Christmas Day, I lay on the floor with a five year old with more energy than I can ever remember having had as a child, and built every Lego set under the tree; the Lego Fire Station, the Lego Airport, the Lego Police Boat, Lego Construction Site, and a few I can't remember (in my time, when you got Legos you simply got a bucket of bricks. Nowadays, the things come in complete sets with a theme. One of these days, we'll probably be going to work in the Lego City Dark Satanic Mill and Stock Exchange Building ). And had fun.
I can't recall the last time I've actually had fun on Christmas.
But, he's getting older, too, and I know that one day the entire thing will be just another day for him, too. There will be no more Santa Claus, no more anticipation of unknown treasures under the tree, no more winter afternoons on the carpet playing with his uncle. If we could have wishes granted, I would ask but for one; just give me one more day like yesterday before he outgrows it all.
Monday, December 20, 2010
At The Movies With Mark...
One of the duties of being an uncle is to take your young charges to places their parents haven't the time or patience to bring them to. I have, for the last 14 years, faithfully and cheerfully, carried out this serious responsibility; I have lost a small fortune in the local Chuck E. Cheese. I have been to more kiddie amusement parks than I can remember tossing my lunch in. Had I stock in McDonald's, Burger King or Wendy's, I'd be a very poor man, for my dividends would consist largely of the return of my own money.
But the one child-appropriate activity I have always enjoyed is taking the wee ones to the local theatres to sample the child-appropriate movies. I have spent literally weeks over the course of my four nephew's lives inside over-air-conditioned or hot-enough-to-grow-orchids movie theatres, stuffing them with enough sugar to ensure that when I return them to their home they have the energy to drive my sister and brother-in-law to drink with their frenetic activity.
It's one of the joys of being an uncle; you get to spoil the child rotten, and then let someone else deal with the aftermath. While you go home.
I have four nephews, the youngest being five now, and just old enough to sit still for a 75-90 minute CGI feature and enjoy it. In the last six weeks or so, we've been to the movies three times to see the latest offerings of this age of movies (mostly-) without actors, and often, a story worth a bucket of warm spit. Here's a quick review of them, just in case you have little ones you want some"us" time with;
1. Megamind: we saw this one first, the very day it hit the theatres. Mark enjoyed it, but then again, anything that allows him unlimited popcorn (the boy could live on the stuff) and soda is already bound to be a big hit. I must admit it did have it's moments, but I have two minor complaints about it;
a. When was Will Ferrell ever funny? If I recall, the biggest moments of his career came when Christopher Walken said "I need more cowbell!", and when when George W. Bush said "strategery". He's made a living off Bush, and with any luck he'll be making another living off Bushes...like when he has to pick nuts and berries off them before he returns to the refrigerator box he'll soon be living in.
For the Saturday Night Alum, his Belushi-like suicide will probably be funnier than anything he ever did in life.
b. Tina Fey is going to be very, very sorry when Sarah Palin finally wears her welcome with the American public out from sheer over-exposure, and that impression is no longer current or relevant. She might actually have to work for a living when that happens.
I find her decidedly unfunny (then again, I laugh like a ten-year-old when someone farts, so really, what do I know?), and after a while, annoying.
2. Tangled: This one was not such a big hit with Mark. First of all, it's kind of a musical, which hearkens back to the days when Disney made movies like Snow White and Cinderella, but which doesn't go all the way and present a memorable score that even adults would be happy to whistle while they worked,and would remember 50 years later.
It's a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale, which makes it boring for a five-year old boy, I guess, and while it had it's funny moments (funny in a kindergarten motif that a child would recognize as humor), it had just enough adult jokes and subject matter (not inappropriate, just serious) in it to cause a serious loss of attention span. Mark almost never asks to go home when we're out doing something...unless it's a story about a teen aged girl with really long hair.
I have to say, though, I kind of liked it.
3. Yogi Bear: Where to start? I actually had two of my nephews along for this one this past weekend; the 12 year-old one fell asleep, and Mark was asking to go home 20 minutes before the movie ended; he'd seen the one part that appealed to him (from the previews and television commercials) and then just wanted out.
The problem with Yogi Bear was the cast, I think. While Yogi and Boo-Boo were done rather well(Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake...sheesh, how does that guy keep getting jobs?) the "human" actors, Tom Cavanaugh and Anna Feris, acted as if the whole thing might have been a community theatre production.
Cavanaugh is goofy-looking, and while I used to think Feris was really cute, it's becoming clear that she's maybe the one actress you call to make really bad movies that other actresses won't touch with a ten-foot pole. The rest of the"human" cast is a who's-who of people who probably took this gig because there wasn't a really cool jock itch medication commercial in the offing.
I grew up on Yogi and Boo-Boo, and I was rather disappointed, too.
But the one child-appropriate activity I have always enjoyed is taking the wee ones to the local theatres to sample the child-appropriate movies. I have spent literally weeks over the course of my four nephew's lives inside over-air-conditioned or hot-enough-to-grow-orchids movie theatres, stuffing them with enough sugar to ensure that when I return them to their home they have the energy to drive my sister and brother-in-law to drink with their frenetic activity.
It's one of the joys of being an uncle; you get to spoil the child rotten, and then let someone else deal with the aftermath. While you go home.
I have four nephews, the youngest being five now, and just old enough to sit still for a 75-90 minute CGI feature and enjoy it. In the last six weeks or so, we've been to the movies three times to see the latest offerings of this age of movies (mostly-) without actors, and often, a story worth a bucket of warm spit. Here's a quick review of them, just in case you have little ones you want some"us" time with;
1. Megamind: we saw this one first, the very day it hit the theatres. Mark enjoyed it, but then again, anything that allows him unlimited popcorn (the boy could live on the stuff) and soda is already bound to be a big hit. I must admit it did have it's moments, but I have two minor complaints about it;
a. When was Will Ferrell ever funny? If I recall, the biggest moments of his career came when Christopher Walken said "I need more cowbell!", and when when George W. Bush said "strategery". He's made a living off Bush, and with any luck he'll be making another living off Bushes...like when he has to pick nuts and berries off them before he returns to the refrigerator box he'll soon be living in.
For the Saturday Night Alum, his Belushi-like suicide will probably be funnier than anything he ever did in life.
b. Tina Fey is going to be very, very sorry when Sarah Palin finally wears her welcome with the American public out from sheer over-exposure, and that impression is no longer current or relevant. She might actually have to work for a living when that happens.
I find her decidedly unfunny (then again, I laugh like a ten-year-old when someone farts, so really, what do I know?), and after a while, annoying.
2. Tangled: This one was not such a big hit with Mark. First of all, it's kind of a musical, which hearkens back to the days when Disney made movies like Snow White and Cinderella, but which doesn't go all the way and present a memorable score that even adults would be happy to whistle while they worked,and would remember 50 years later.
It's a retelling of the Rapunzel fairy tale, which makes it boring for a five-year old boy, I guess, and while it had it's funny moments (funny in a kindergarten motif that a child would recognize as humor), it had just enough adult jokes and subject matter (not inappropriate, just serious) in it to cause a serious loss of attention span. Mark almost never asks to go home when we're out doing something...unless it's a story about a teen aged girl with really long hair.
I have to say, though, I kind of liked it.
3. Yogi Bear: Where to start? I actually had two of my nephews along for this one this past weekend; the 12 year-old one fell asleep, and Mark was asking to go home 20 minutes before the movie ended; he'd seen the one part that appealed to him (from the previews and television commercials) and then just wanted out.
The problem with Yogi Bear was the cast, I think. While Yogi and Boo-Boo were done rather well(Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake...sheesh, how does that guy keep getting jobs?) the "human" actors, Tom Cavanaugh and Anna Feris, acted as if the whole thing might have been a community theatre production.
Cavanaugh is goofy-looking, and while I used to think Feris was really cute, it's becoming clear that she's maybe the one actress you call to make really bad movies that other actresses won't touch with a ten-foot pole. The rest of the"human" cast is a who's-who of people who probably took this gig because there wasn't a really cool jock itch medication commercial in the offing.
I grew up on Yogi and Boo-Boo, and I was rather disappointed, too.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Of School Buses and Dimwits...
There's a lot of stuff going on here on Staten Island involving school buses. The Department of Education (that's three lies for the price of one) is refusing to provide school bus service for 7th and 8th graders here on the island, a service that has been around for years.
The Educrats claim this is a cost-savings measure; local parents call it "bullshit". The parents do so because the DOE won't answer their questions, won't provide any information, and after two lawsuits, even the judge is beginning to ask just what the fuck the DOE is talking about.
Now, I don't have any kids (that I know of -- wink, wink) attending public school here in New Yorkistan. So, this shouldn't matter to me. But, it does, mostly because my nephew is one of the kids affected (more on this in a second), and because, well, any opportunity to piss on City Government and Mayor Doomberg is just too good to pass up.
My nephew is 11, going on 12. The school he attends is something like 3 miles (as the crow flies) from his house. Without a school bus, Mikey is forced to take a round-about route to get there: he walks 5 blocks (that's half-a mile) to the local train station, and after taking the train for 3 stops, walks another 5 or 6 blocks to school (taking the City bus is an adventure: The "Long" route requires 2 buses, and the "Short" route, 3. Suffice to say, you could walk the 3 miles on one leg and get there faster than if you took the City bus). Both ends of that walk require him to cross streets that simply were not designed for the traffic they now carry (most streets in this borough follow the same path as they did in Revolutionary War times), and the average Staten Island driver resembles a kamikaze pilot on speed -- with the added benefit that most can be counted upon to be texting, yacking on the cell phone, shaving, putting their makeup on, or wiping up the Starbuck's spill in their lap, anything other than paying attention to the road.
I would hazard to guess that your average Staten Island driver learned to operate a motor vehicle at a Demolition Derby school, and presumes that it is his/her God-given right to do 80 in a 35 zone -- in reverse and blindfolded -- if they goddamned well please. Crossing a street on this island is like taking your life into your own hands; these assholes all ride around in SUVs and actually try to panic pedestrians into crossing before the light changes, or they have to suffer the inconvenience of waiting another 3 minutes to make that all-important left turn that only takes them to the next red light.
Pedestrians? You get points for hitting those, right? Red lights? Those only apply to everyone else on the road. Turning lanes? What the hell is a turning lane? Even the sidewalks are often unsafe, as it's not unknown for drivers stuck behind one another on narrow roads to turn them into impromptu, personal express lanes. Provided there even IS a sidewalk -- in some neighborhoods, sidewalks are like woolly mammoths; no one's ever seen one, but you remember someone once told you they existed.
This is life in the Forgotten Borough of New Yorkistan, c. 2010.
The DOE isn't interested in saving money, but they can't go out and say what their real concern is.
Staten Island's White Middleschoolers get bus service, but the rest of the kids in the city --The Diversity -- does not.
Typically, this is because the Diversity lives in places where there is adequate public transportation, and where there's also more schools. This isn't the case on Staten Island, so it's not unusual for a Middleschooler to have to have a commute that rivals his parent's.
When the DOE Dingbat said, "Times are tough..." that is bureaucratic crapspeak for "Bend over and take it, Whitey". The fact that none of the DOE doofuses involved in this fiasco can tell you exactly why they're doing this, or how they arrived at the decision to do it, tells you all you need to know:
It's all about race.
When it doesn't make sense, when no one can offer a logical explanation, when someone cites cost when the agency in question wastes more money keeping hundred of teachers in Rubber Rooms, often for a decade or more, you can rest assured that we're not talking about a policy based upon logic or economy.
Someone must have gotten her panties in a bunch to discover that somewhere in New York City, white kids were getting chauffeured to school, and it rankled. Why, that's not fair to all the kids who have to walk three blocks to go to school! It's yet another example of institutional racism!
And so now a couple thousand schoolkids will have to dodge traffic, along streets that might not have sidewalks, prowled by idiots who know where the accelerator is, but treat the brake pedal as an afterthought, to get to a school that's further away from home than most of their parent's jobs. And some of them are going to get KILLED doing it. I can promise you that, because people being struck by cars is the second-leading cause of death on this island (right after Mob-Style execution).
If you want to know just how much about race it is, read some of the comments to this article left by the dimwit Libtards who signed in to tease the White Guys, and actually accuse those who oppose the removal of service of being racists!
The Educrats claim this is a cost-savings measure; local parents call it "bullshit". The parents do so because the DOE won't answer their questions, won't provide any information, and after two lawsuits, even the judge is beginning to ask just what the fuck the DOE is talking about.
Now, I don't have any kids (that I know of -- wink, wink) attending public school here in New Yorkistan. So, this shouldn't matter to me. But, it does, mostly because my nephew is one of the kids affected (more on this in a second), and because, well, any opportunity to piss on City Government and Mayor Doomberg is just too good to pass up.
My nephew is 11, going on 12. The school he attends is something like 3 miles (as the crow flies) from his house. Without a school bus, Mikey is forced to take a round-about route to get there: he walks 5 blocks (that's half-a mile) to the local train station, and after taking the train for 3 stops, walks another 5 or 6 blocks to school (taking the City bus is an adventure: The "Long" route requires 2 buses, and the "Short" route, 3. Suffice to say, you could walk the 3 miles on one leg and get there faster than if you took the City bus). Both ends of that walk require him to cross streets that simply were not designed for the traffic they now carry (most streets in this borough follow the same path as they did in Revolutionary War times), and the average Staten Island driver resembles a kamikaze pilot on speed -- with the added benefit that most can be counted upon to be texting, yacking on the cell phone, shaving, putting their makeup on, or wiping up the Starbuck's spill in their lap, anything other than paying attention to the road.
I would hazard to guess that your average Staten Island driver learned to operate a motor vehicle at a Demolition Derby school, and presumes that it is his/her God-given right to do 80 in a 35 zone -- in reverse and blindfolded -- if they goddamned well please. Crossing a street on this island is like taking your life into your own hands; these assholes all ride around in SUVs and actually try to panic pedestrians into crossing before the light changes, or they have to suffer the inconvenience of waiting another 3 minutes to make that all-important left turn that only takes them to the next red light.
Pedestrians? You get points for hitting those, right? Red lights? Those only apply to everyone else on the road. Turning lanes? What the hell is a turning lane? Even the sidewalks are often unsafe, as it's not unknown for drivers stuck behind one another on narrow roads to turn them into impromptu, personal express lanes. Provided there even IS a sidewalk -- in some neighborhoods, sidewalks are like woolly mammoths; no one's ever seen one, but you remember someone once told you they existed.
This is life in the Forgotten Borough of New Yorkistan, c. 2010.
The DOE isn't interested in saving money, but they can't go out and say what their real concern is.
Staten Island's White Middleschoolers get bus service, but the rest of the kids in the city --The Diversity -- does not.
Typically, this is because the Diversity lives in places where there is adequate public transportation, and where there's also more schools. This isn't the case on Staten Island, so it's not unusual for a Middleschooler to have to have a commute that rivals his parent's.
When the DOE Dingbat said, "Times are tough..." that is bureaucratic crapspeak for "Bend over and take it, Whitey". The fact that none of the DOE doofuses involved in this fiasco can tell you exactly why they're doing this, or how they arrived at the decision to do it, tells you all you need to know:
It's all about race.
When it doesn't make sense, when no one can offer a logical explanation, when someone cites cost when the agency in question wastes more money keeping hundred of teachers in Rubber Rooms, often for a decade or more, you can rest assured that we're not talking about a policy based upon logic or economy.
Someone must have gotten her panties in a bunch to discover that somewhere in New York City, white kids were getting chauffeured to school, and it rankled. Why, that's not fair to all the kids who have to walk three blocks to go to school! It's yet another example of institutional racism!
And so now a couple thousand schoolkids will have to dodge traffic, along streets that might not have sidewalks, prowled by idiots who know where the accelerator is, but treat the brake pedal as an afterthought, to get to a school that's further away from home than most of their parent's jobs. And some of them are going to get KILLED doing it. I can promise you that, because people being struck by cars is the second-leading cause of death on this island (right after Mob-Style execution).
If you want to know just how much about race it is, read some of the comments to this article left by the dimwit Libtards who signed in to tease the White Guys, and actually accuse those who oppose the removal of service of being racists!
Monday, July 12, 2010
Movie Day!
Took two of my nephews to see Despicable Me this afternoon. My youngest nephew, Mark, has been asking me for weeks to take him, and we were all set to go on opening day when he came down with an ear infection and a solid week of 102-degree fevers. Guess what I heard every day for the last week? "You said you would take me to see Bispicable Me...."
The movie itself was fairly good, notwithstanding that the best parts don't actually involve the main characters/actors at all. The Minions (small, yellow-green creatures who work for Gru, the protagonist) provided the majority of the entertainment. The movie consisted of a repeating loop of Scene-with-Main-Characters-followed-by-all-too-short-Snippet-of-Minions-and-their-hijinx.
Steve Carell is making far too many movies, for my tastes (another Carell offering, "Dinner for Schmucks" is opening in a few weeks), and they seem to be getting weaker with each release.
As always, the highlight is watching the kid's faces. Mikey (12) wasn't always quite enthusiastic, but Mark (5), laughed his little ass off. I can watch that kid giggle for hours; it's just that amazing to me.
However, I didn't leave the theatre totally disappointed. In fact, if there was one character who was actually worth the price of admission, it was Agnes, the smallest of three orphaned sisters taken in by the evil Gru. Agnes steals the show, but unfortunately, there's not enough of her for my tastes.If you don't leave that movie wishing you had a brace of little Agneses of your own, there's something wrong with you, because I certainly wished I had an Agnes. Or three.
There was, as there usually is in these sorts of movies, that endearing moment near the end which makes you go "Awwwwwww...", which is what I suppose most people really go to these CG-generated movies for in the first place. All-in-all, so long as you don't have to cough up a lung for tickets (really, $25 for tickets to a 12:00 Monday matinee? I could get laid for that!), it's probably worth taking your younger kids to see it.
The movie itself was fairly good, notwithstanding that the best parts don't actually involve the main characters/actors at all. The Minions (small, yellow-green creatures who work for Gru, the protagonist) provided the majority of the entertainment. The movie consisted of a repeating loop of Scene-with-Main-Characters-followed-by-all-too-short-Snippet-of-Minions-and-their-hijinx.
Steve Carell is making far too many movies, for my tastes (another Carell offering, "Dinner for Schmucks" is opening in a few weeks), and they seem to be getting weaker with each release.
As always, the highlight is watching the kid's faces. Mikey (12) wasn't always quite enthusiastic, but Mark (5), laughed his little ass off. I can watch that kid giggle for hours; it's just that amazing to me.
However, I didn't leave the theatre totally disappointed. In fact, if there was one character who was actually worth the price of admission, it was Agnes, the smallest of three orphaned sisters taken in by the evil Gru. Agnes steals the show, but unfortunately, there's not enough of her for my tastes.If you don't leave that movie wishing you had a brace of little Agneses of your own, there's something wrong with you, because I certainly wished I had an Agnes. Or three.
There was, as there usually is in these sorts of movies, that endearing moment near the end which makes you go "Awwwwwww...", which is what I suppose most people really go to these CG-generated movies for in the first place. All-in-all, so long as you don't have to cough up a lung for tickets (really, $25 for tickets to a 12:00 Monday matinee? I could get laid for that!), it's probably worth taking your younger kids to see it.
Tuesday, July 06, 2010
Fell Off the Wagon This Weekend...
You know, I once had a serious problem with booze. We're not talking about the kind of drinking one might call "social", but with the kind one typically associates with "Jesus Christ, this guy has a Death Wish" drinking. I pretty much spent my 20's in an alcoholic swirl, and looking back on it all, I'm surprised I even lived through it. Back in those days, it was nothing to put away a fifth of Canadian Club, or spend a day with my Best Friends -- Jack, Jim, and Old Grandad. Once I had discovered the Joys of the Margarita (the straight-up kind, with a salted glass, and not that girly, frozen shit), I can promise you that I had nights where how I managed to get home safely was a complete mystery -- it's almost as if I just pointed the car in the right direction and it found it's own way home. I once actually set a Tavern record and downed 18 whiskey highballs in one sitting...and still drove home that night.
Yes, there was plenty of drunk driving in those days, too (no accidents, though). In fact, I can tell you that I was given Field Sobriety Tests on at least four occasions -- and passed every one of them with flying colors, garnering little more than a warning to be careful, and I can't tell you how in the world I managed that. Every time I was under the impression that THIS time was the one where they finally would nail me, because even I had to admit I was fucking soused. A night on the town routinely came with a minimum $300 bar tab, and I was on a first-name basis with about 50% of the bartenders in New York City. Drinking all night and then pulling a 12-hour workday tomorrow, with little more than 20 minutes of sleep and a shower, was not uncommon.
Of course, back then I didn't know about depression and obsessive compulsive disorders and their connection to/with alcoholism, and whatnot. I just felt jollier and more confident when I was plastered -- not to mention that I had suddenly became incredibly charming to the ladies -- and I was able to pull it all off. They call that being a "functioning alcoholic", and my level of "function" must have been off the charts. Until that one evening when I was about 27. That night is still a blur. All I remember is that I awoke, in the driver's seat, in my driveway, with the engine running, my foot on the brake, and the car in gear. I have no idea how long I had been sleeping in that precarious position. That and the intense pain in the middle of my forehead, like someone had driven a nail between my eyes, was enough to convince me that this was probably a good time to stop drinking.
And I did. Mostly. I never got totally smashed again, and I (almost) never went past four drinks a night ever again...except that week where I managed to keep an English country inn in business practically all by myself. But there was a wedding involved in that one, so...I pretty much kept booze, except for the occasional beer, or (more rarely) two or three drinks here-and-there, out of my life. That was before 9/11, of course, when the boozing started all over again, but was quickly reigned in once more because Vodka and Tonics don't play nicely with Xanax.
I hadn't had a serious bout of drinking for perhaps six, maybe seven years...until Saturday.
I was invited to backyard barbecue by one of my sister's neighbors. It turns out that I had been invited because I make the best fucking sangria you've ever tasted in your entire life. And it's true: I can make a sangria that would make a Spaniard cry and curse his Mother. The ladies at this party had a taste for Sangria, and one of my sister's friends remarked that "no one does it like Matt...call him!", and off I went to mix up five gallons of the stuff for them.
That's where it started. One of the problems with making a really good Sangria is all the tasting you invariably need to do to get it just right. Particularly when you use my recipe, which calls for a generous dose of brandy. Anyways, as soon as I showed up, I was handed a beer, which somehow became six or seven. Then it was Sangria, again, another six or seven large cups. I should have stopped right there, but they broke out the schnapps and assorted liqueurs, and I was pretty much wasted and not even thinking about it. I must have done another four or five shots of Who-The-Fuck-Knows after that. The walk --more like a zig-zag stagger home -- thankfully short, must have looked like an old-time game of Frogger to an outside observer.
And for the first time in perhaps 20 years -- I was sicker than hell. Puking like a dog. Heaving so heavily that my abs still hurt two days later. Totally useless the next day, too, and unable to even look at food. I spent my 4th of July on my living room couch, gulping water and thinking "right now would be a good time for the Douchebag Police to come and shoot you, and put you out of your misery, Dumbass." I was ashamed of myself, and mightily pissed...I should know better. My nephews saw the whole thing, and they thought their drunken Uncle was something funny. Some example I set, huh? The oldest decided to be a wiseass and ask me how my old behind handled my hangover. That made me even more embarrassed and pissed off. They look up to me, and I love the shit out of them; they should not have seen any of that. I let them down.
The next time someone asks me to make them some Sangria, I'm telling them to take a long walk on a short pier (I'll just give them the fucking recipe and wish them luck). I was offered a beer today -- temps hit high 90's, and, boy, would that have been good! -- and politely refused. I'm thinking I'm going to need a month to recover from Saturday, and I'm not taking anything harder than a Coke, if I can help it, from now on.
I'm getting too old for this shit.
Yes, there was plenty of drunk driving in those days, too (no accidents, though). In fact, I can tell you that I was given Field Sobriety Tests on at least four occasions -- and passed every one of them with flying colors, garnering little more than a warning to be careful, and I can't tell you how in the world I managed that. Every time I was under the impression that THIS time was the one where they finally would nail me, because even I had to admit I was fucking soused. A night on the town routinely came with a minimum $300 bar tab, and I was on a first-name basis with about 50% of the bartenders in New York City. Drinking all night and then pulling a 12-hour workday tomorrow, with little more than 20 minutes of sleep and a shower, was not uncommon.
Of course, back then I didn't know about depression and obsessive compulsive disorders and their connection to/with alcoholism, and whatnot. I just felt jollier and more confident when I was plastered -- not to mention that I had suddenly became incredibly charming to the ladies -- and I was able to pull it all off. They call that being a "functioning alcoholic", and my level of "function" must have been off the charts. Until that one evening when I was about 27. That night is still a blur. All I remember is that I awoke, in the driver's seat, in my driveway, with the engine running, my foot on the brake, and the car in gear. I have no idea how long I had been sleeping in that precarious position. That and the intense pain in the middle of my forehead, like someone had driven a nail between my eyes, was enough to convince me that this was probably a good time to stop drinking.
And I did. Mostly. I never got totally smashed again, and I (almost) never went past four drinks a night ever again...except that week where I managed to keep an English country inn in business practically all by myself. But there was a wedding involved in that one, so...I pretty much kept booze, except for the occasional beer, or (more rarely) two or three drinks here-and-there, out of my life. That was before 9/11, of course, when the boozing started all over again, but was quickly reigned in once more because Vodka and Tonics don't play nicely with Xanax.
I hadn't had a serious bout of drinking for perhaps six, maybe seven years...until Saturday.
I was invited to backyard barbecue by one of my sister's neighbors. It turns out that I had been invited because I make the best fucking sangria you've ever tasted in your entire life. And it's true: I can make a sangria that would make a Spaniard cry and curse his Mother. The ladies at this party had a taste for Sangria, and one of my sister's friends remarked that "no one does it like Matt...call him!", and off I went to mix up five gallons of the stuff for them.
That's where it started. One of the problems with making a really good Sangria is all the tasting you invariably need to do to get it just right. Particularly when you use my recipe, which calls for a generous dose of brandy. Anyways, as soon as I showed up, I was handed a beer, which somehow became six or seven. Then it was Sangria, again, another six or seven large cups. I should have stopped right there, but they broke out the schnapps and assorted liqueurs, and I was pretty much wasted and not even thinking about it. I must have done another four or five shots of Who-The-Fuck-Knows after that. The walk --more like a zig-zag stagger home -- thankfully short, must have looked like an old-time game of Frogger to an outside observer.
And for the first time in perhaps 20 years -- I was sicker than hell. Puking like a dog. Heaving so heavily that my abs still hurt two days later. Totally useless the next day, too, and unable to even look at food. I spent my 4th of July on my living room couch, gulping water and thinking "right now would be a good time for the Douchebag Police to come and shoot you, and put you out of your misery, Dumbass." I was ashamed of myself, and mightily pissed...I should know better. My nephews saw the whole thing, and they thought their drunken Uncle was something funny. Some example I set, huh? The oldest decided to be a wiseass and ask me how my old behind handled my hangover. That made me even more embarrassed and pissed off. They look up to me, and I love the shit out of them; they should not have seen any of that. I let them down.
The next time someone asks me to make them some Sangria, I'm telling them to take a long walk on a short pier (I'll just give them the fucking recipe and wish them luck). I was offered a beer today -- temps hit high 90's, and, boy, would that have been good! -- and politely refused. I'm thinking I'm going to need a month to recover from Saturday, and I'm not taking anything harder than a Coke, if I can help it, from now on.
I'm getting too old for this shit.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Had A Great Father's Day...
...even though I'm not a father.
I took my nephew to see 'Toy Story 3' yesterday (seventeen thumbs up! A must see! If you don't see this movie, you're a commie douchebag who says things like"bourgeoisie sentimentality" and expects to be taken seriously!). He's the last of the Piccolino Boys (for now, we think -- my sister has four boys, and I think she's like to go for the girl, it's just that her uterus needs a long vacation), and he's just turned 5, which makes him just capable of sitting still for 90 minutes, so movies are a pretty safe entertainment bet with him, nowadays.
Three weeks ago, we went to see "Shrek 3", and had a blast there, too (you had better see that, too, or you're no better than a Pro-Obamacare democrat -- small "d' intentional).
It's always the same: slice of pizza, over to the Dollar store to get movie candy (I'm already paying $8.50 for a kid's matinee ticket, and $10.50 for my own ticket -- New York is an expensive place to live, you know -- I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $4.50 for a box of fucking Raisinettes. Same for soda and popcorn (broke down yesterday because the kid actually wanted it -- $7.00 for a small popcorn!). And when the movie is over, assuming I don't have to rush him right home -- there's always the ice cream cone. By the time you're done, it's easily a $50 afternoon.
At our local theatre, they'll try to stop you from entering the premises with"outside candy" (there's a sign posted saying that this is prohibited), but I just dare them to try and take it from me. The one time I was actually stopped for this apparently grievous violation, I told the skinny bastard that I would kick his ass and then bang his sister afterwards if he didn't stop playing Theatre Cop right then and there. I think he works for the Border Patrol, nowadays. No one has made an attempt to halt me with contraband candy ever since. These kids today have no balls.
Anyways, taking the Boys to the movies is sort of a privilege I have always reserved for myself. As soon as all of my nephews were all old enough to sit still for a movie. It's been a decade now, and I get a kick out of it. We get to hang out, they get to gorge on junk food, we have a blast.
Four nephews, and perhaps 100 movies, amusement parks, mini golf courses, and goddamned Chuck E. Cheese visits later (if I ever have to walk into a Chuck E. Cheese's again, I'm bringing a gun and a stocking mask, and maybe taking hostages), it's still more fun hanging out with those kids than it is with 90% of the adults I know.
And I keep all the ticket stubs. I don't know why, but it just doesn't seem right to throw 'em away. I'm not going to tell you that whenever I see those stubs, I get a rush of "Oh, I remember when we saw "A Sharks Tale" or"Teacher's Pet" at the Such-and-such Theatre"nostalgia. I just remember the boys when they were small, and when going to the movies was an exciting adventure for them.
One day, they're all going to grow up to become great, hulking manly-men, but I'm going to remember them all as four-and-five year-olds sitting in a semi-darkened theatre, staring up at a screen, amazed, laughing, or just with a face full of melted chocolate. You see, the oldest (he'll be14 in October) already doesn't want to hang out with me anymore (he's got friends, and has discovered girls, you know), and soon his brothers will follow his lead -- the kids who were attached to my hip, and called every time they knew I was home to come and play with them, will eventually drift away from their Uncle. And that, I guess, is just Life.
Best to enjoy what you can while you can. Right?
I seriously hope that when Alzheimer's comes for me (with my luck, I'll not only be stricken with Alzheimer's, but with the rarest and cruelest variety that will allow me to remember the entire Disco Era with crystal clarity. Best to just shoot me now) and I can't tell the difference between delusion and reality, that I still -- somehow -- manage to see four little boys at the Movies, stuffing their faces with popcorn and candy, and asking me to read the subtitles on the screen for them when Buzz Lightyear starts speaking in Spanish, or laughing at the antics of CG-generated characters.
I took my nephew to see 'Toy Story 3' yesterday (seventeen thumbs up! A must see! If you don't see this movie, you're a commie douchebag who says things like"bourgeoisie sentimentality" and expects to be taken seriously!). He's the last of the Piccolino Boys (for now, we think -- my sister has four boys, and I think she's like to go for the girl, it's just that her uterus needs a long vacation), and he's just turned 5, which makes him just capable of sitting still for 90 minutes, so movies are a pretty safe entertainment bet with him, nowadays.
Three weeks ago, we went to see "Shrek 3", and had a blast there, too (you had better see that, too, or you're no better than a Pro-Obamacare democrat -- small "d' intentional).
It's always the same: slice of pizza, over to the Dollar store to get movie candy (I'm already paying $8.50 for a kid's matinee ticket, and $10.50 for my own ticket -- New York is an expensive place to live, you know -- I'll be damned if I'm going to pay $4.50 for a box of fucking Raisinettes. Same for soda and popcorn (broke down yesterday because the kid actually wanted it -- $7.00 for a small popcorn!). And when the movie is over, assuming I don't have to rush him right home -- there's always the ice cream cone. By the time you're done, it's easily a $50 afternoon.
At our local theatre, they'll try to stop you from entering the premises with"outside candy" (there's a sign posted saying that this is prohibited), but I just dare them to try and take it from me. The one time I was actually stopped for this apparently grievous violation, I told the skinny bastard that I would kick his ass and then bang his sister afterwards if he didn't stop playing Theatre Cop right then and there. I think he works for the Border Patrol, nowadays. No one has made an attempt to halt me with contraband candy ever since. These kids today have no balls.
Anyways, taking the Boys to the movies is sort of a privilege I have always reserved for myself. As soon as all of my nephews were all old enough to sit still for a movie. It's been a decade now, and I get a kick out of it. We get to hang out, they get to gorge on junk food, we have a blast.
Four nephews, and perhaps 100 movies, amusement parks, mini golf courses, and goddamned Chuck E. Cheese visits later (if I ever have to walk into a Chuck E. Cheese's again, I'm bringing a gun and a stocking mask, and maybe taking hostages), it's still more fun hanging out with those kids than it is with 90% of the adults I know.
And I keep all the ticket stubs. I don't know why, but it just doesn't seem right to throw 'em away. I'm not going to tell you that whenever I see those stubs, I get a rush of "Oh, I remember when we saw "A Sharks Tale" or"Teacher's Pet" at the Such-and-such Theatre"nostalgia. I just remember the boys when they were small, and when going to the movies was an exciting adventure for them.
One day, they're all going to grow up to become great, hulking manly-men, but I'm going to remember them all as four-and-five year-olds sitting in a semi-darkened theatre, staring up at a screen, amazed, laughing, or just with a face full of melted chocolate. You see, the oldest (he'll be14 in October) already doesn't want to hang out with me anymore (he's got friends, and has discovered girls, you know), and soon his brothers will follow his lead -- the kids who were attached to my hip, and called every time they knew I was home to come and play with them, will eventually drift away from their Uncle. And that, I guess, is just Life.
Best to enjoy what you can while you can. Right?
I seriously hope that when Alzheimer's comes for me (with my luck, I'll not only be stricken with Alzheimer's, but with the rarest and cruelest variety that will allow me to remember the entire Disco Era with crystal clarity. Best to just shoot me now) and I can't tell the difference between delusion and reality, that I still -- somehow -- manage to see four little boys at the Movies, stuffing their faces with popcorn and candy, and asking me to read the subtitles on the screen for them when Buzz Lightyear starts speaking in Spanish, or laughing at the antics of CG-generated characters.
Monday, January 18, 2010
I Could Kiss a Liberal Today...
It's just one of those days. They come so rarely. I'm actually happy this morning, because I've had a wonderful weekend.
The Jets beat the San Diego Chargers. Great game, and a stunning upset. You'll note that unlike in some American cities, when our football team wins a playoff game (the first one in many years) we don't riot and destroy other people's property.
I had a lovely day with my 4-year-old nephew yesterday. Legos, Wii, Spongebob and ice cream. Does it ever get any better? Dare we dream?
Got some more irons in the fire job-wise, some of them looking very good, indeed, over the long term. Despite this bad economy, I'm still determined to get "Fuck-You rich" and then rub it in the face of every ex-boss, and ex-girlfriend I've ever had. Fuck-you rich is defined as "even if you taxed 90% of my income, I would still have enough money left over to buy-and-sell you a hundred times over, Sucker!".
And if that wasn't enough, I got hockey on television this afternoon. My Devils are on at 1:00. Nothing better than to celebrate MLK Day with the Whitest Sport on Earth!
I can only hope that liberal I finally kiss has D-cups and no gag reflex, but maybe that's too much to ask?
The Jets beat the San Diego Chargers. Great game, and a stunning upset. You'll note that unlike in some American cities, when our football team wins a playoff game (the first one in many years) we don't riot and destroy other people's property.
I had a lovely day with my 4-year-old nephew yesterday. Legos, Wii, Spongebob and ice cream. Does it ever get any better? Dare we dream?
Got some more irons in the fire job-wise, some of them looking very good, indeed, over the long term. Despite this bad economy, I'm still determined to get "Fuck-You rich" and then rub it in the face of every ex-boss, and ex-girlfriend I've ever had. Fuck-you rich is defined as "even if you taxed 90% of my income, I would still have enough money left over to buy-and-sell you a hundred times over, Sucker!".
And if that wasn't enough, I got hockey on television this afternoon. My Devils are on at 1:00. Nothing better than to celebrate MLK Day with the Whitest Sport on Earth!
I can only hope that liberal I finally kiss has D-cups and no gag reflex, but maybe that's too much to ask?
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Such Are The Joys...
This past weekend, I performed a solemn, time-honored duty which has fallen upon uncles since the Beginning of Time.
I was Santa Claus at the annual Christmas Party at my cousin's house.
This is the second year running that I've done it, and I'm actually quite upset that I hadn't been asked to do it earlier. I wanted to do it for many years. I have four nephews -- only one of them is still small enough to believe, now -- and my sister would never take me up on it whenever I offered to wear the Red Suit. So, I missed a great thing, an almost rite-of-passage, with my three, older nephews.
On the other hand, my cousins have several small children of their own, and so do their friends, so there's plenty of kids around for me to indulge (or am I really just indulging myself, I wonder?).
Being Santa is one of those bittersweet sort of activities. The suit is hotter than anything you can imagine. Between the flannel and the fake fur, not to mention the wig, beard and hat, and you're sweating before you really get started. Let's not even get into the make-up, because, well, you need those rosy cheeks and powdered eyebrows otherwise the smarter kids recognize you -- and I had to sacrifice my mustache, too! But, I'd do anything for the kids.
But the payoff is worth it. The kids get excited. They jump up and down and sing songs, and give you great big hugs, and if you're lucky, when they sit in your lap for the photograph, they're smiling from ear-to-ear. And you get to hand out presents, no less! Who doesn't want to hand out presents to children? It's fun to watch the whirlwind of flying griftwrap, the raucous dogfight-like crush of little kids elbowing each other to get to the front of the line, the little kids who look at you like you have three heads -- and then cry their eyes out when they get left in your lap for a picture. The screaming, the yelling, the laughing, the out-and-out joyous chaos.
It's better than booze!
I was Santa Claus at the annual Christmas Party at my cousin's house.
This is the second year running that I've done it, and I'm actually quite upset that I hadn't been asked to do it earlier. I wanted to do it for many years. I have four nephews -- only one of them is still small enough to believe, now -- and my sister would never take me up on it whenever I offered to wear the Red Suit. So, I missed a great thing, an almost rite-of-passage, with my three, older nephews.
On the other hand, my cousins have several small children of their own, and so do their friends, so there's plenty of kids around for me to indulge (or am I really just indulging myself, I wonder?).
Being Santa is one of those bittersweet sort of activities. The suit is hotter than anything you can imagine. Between the flannel and the fake fur, not to mention the wig, beard and hat, and you're sweating before you really get started. Let's not even get into the make-up, because, well, you need those rosy cheeks and powdered eyebrows otherwise the smarter kids recognize you -- and I had to sacrifice my mustache, too! But, I'd do anything for the kids.
But the payoff is worth it. The kids get excited. They jump up and down and sing songs, and give you great big hugs, and if you're lucky, when they sit in your lap for the photograph, they're smiling from ear-to-ear. And you get to hand out presents, no less! Who doesn't want to hand out presents to children? It's fun to watch the whirlwind of flying griftwrap, the raucous dogfight-like crush of little kids elbowing each other to get to the front of the line, the little kids who look at you like you have three heads -- and then cry their eyes out when they get left in your lap for a picture. The screaming, the yelling, the laughing, the out-and-out joyous chaos.
It's better than booze!
Sunday, December 06, 2009
And Now For Something Completely Different...
Something positive! Can't have you thinking I'm all a rainy day, can I?
I have four nephews, all my only sister's sons (They are 13, 11, 8 and 4). I have always taken all the time I could to be 'there' for them. Teaching them all the things that somehow it falls upon an uncle to teach them by some unwritten law -- mostly the things that makes their mother cringe. But, I figure, screw her; someone has to teach young boys the joys of kitchen-cabinet chemistry, belching, slingshots, the really neat things you can do to an anthill with a magnifying glass and model glue, and of course, dirty jokes. It's their parent's job to make sure they learn to brush their teeth, watch their language and do their homework, and all that boring stuff, right? Someone has to show them how to be Boys before they become Men and have the weight of the world settle upon their shoulders with...ewww...responsibility.
And there I have been, all these years, in a position of both Authority (defined as "Now, guys, don't do this without me around, okay? Your father needs the garage to remain standing, and I'm a Professional.") and awe. Yes, awe. You never forget the look of incredulous wonder that crosses a young boy's face when he's first discovered that, yes indeed, farts can be set alight by a experienced man with a barbecue lighter, nerves of steel, and the proper technique.
Okay, so I've never really grown up. I like to sometimes pretend that I have, but let's face it, Men -- we never really do. I'm just a 10-year old with a 38 waist and a mustache. Most men are. We just pretend otherwise so that girls will like us, and stuff.
But, the youngest nephew, all of 4-years old, has really knocked me for a loop. He's my shadow (in much the same way that the eldest was when he was little), and several times a week, I get that afternoon phone call:
"Uncle...will come over and play with me?" It's delivered in a small, pitiful voice that screams loneliness, or maybe he's already learned that I'm a sucker and just won't say no, but pours it on thick, just in case. It's an ego stroke, I'll admit. Besides, I figure it's my duty, and more often than not, it's fun.
Usually, I get invited over to play Geotrax or Thomas the Tank Engine (he loves trains), and the routine involves me building the tracks, and then we act out the script of the DVD's of those programs that's he's just watched (he has an absolutely amazing memory for the details). He directs me and tells me what's happened in the little scenario, and I do what he tells me, and eventually, we have re-enacted the entire episode, every word, action and detail, and then it's time to go on to whatever other activity his short little attention span demands.
But recently he's been big on games. He'll sit still for a long session of games. Board games, card games, dice games. We run the gamut from Monopoly (suitably modified for a 4-yr old attention span; we just go around the board and whoever goes to jail three times wins all the money), to the classics of Chutes and Ladders, Old Maid, Go Fish, Yahtzee and even our special version of Poker. We laugh, we joke, he cheats. Oh, how he cheats! Like a democrat! He's sharp about it, even sly, too. And there's always an explanation of why he should be allowed to cheat whenever I call him out on it (gently and always with a smile) which is curiously lucid, and you just have to allow it because, well, that was a pretty great mental formulation for a four year old to make!
And it struck me just today, during a game of Poker-Keno, that I am watching the development of a little brain. A tiny person is taking shape, just across the table from me. Up close and personal. I was dumbstruck just as soon as I realized it, and by just how subtle the process is unless you pay very close attention to it. A month ago, he couldn't be bothered to count (although he could do so, at least to 25, always skipping 16, for some reason), and now he does so with eagerness. He couldn't discern the difference between a heart and a diamond, and now he corrects me when I mistake a club for a spade. I've watched him count pips on dice and then carefully and deliberately count out the corresponding spaces on the board with a serious precision. He comments on my strategy, and then even explains his own. He laughs when he climbs ladders, and giggles when I slide down, down, down the chutes. He boasts when he wins, and then explains how he came up with the masterstroke that finally sent me into a deadly tailspin ending in humiliating defeat (wink, wink). He announces grandly, "the winner of this game is the Champion of the World!", and does the inevitable Victory Dance before exclaiming "Let's play again!".
And then I laugh. Something I all too rarely do, nowadays. It's at times like this that I'm reminded that there are still things to wonder about in this world, and to laugh at, and they don't all have to involve bodily functions, table-top explosions or the death of a Kennedy, and that perhaps, I spend too much time spewing venom at the world instead of being appreciative for the little things. So, I want to thank my little nephew, although he may never ever read this, for giving me, I think, far more joy, and certainly more to think about, than I think I can ever repay.
I have four nephews, all my only sister's sons (They are 13, 11, 8 and 4). I have always taken all the time I could to be 'there' for them. Teaching them all the things that somehow it falls upon an uncle to teach them by some unwritten law -- mostly the things that makes their mother cringe. But, I figure, screw her; someone has to teach young boys the joys of kitchen-cabinet chemistry, belching, slingshots, the really neat things you can do to an anthill with a magnifying glass and model glue, and of course, dirty jokes. It's their parent's job to make sure they learn to brush their teeth, watch their language and do their homework, and all that boring stuff, right? Someone has to show them how to be Boys before they become Men and have the weight of the world settle upon their shoulders with...ewww...responsibility.
And there I have been, all these years, in a position of both Authority (defined as "Now, guys, don't do this without me around, okay? Your father needs the garage to remain standing, and I'm a Professional.") and awe. Yes, awe. You never forget the look of incredulous wonder that crosses a young boy's face when he's first discovered that, yes indeed, farts can be set alight by a experienced man with a barbecue lighter, nerves of steel, and the proper technique.
Okay, so I've never really grown up. I like to sometimes pretend that I have, but let's face it, Men -- we never really do. I'm just a 10-year old with a 38 waist and a mustache. Most men are. We just pretend otherwise so that girls will like us, and stuff.
But, the youngest nephew, all of 4-years old, has really knocked me for a loop. He's my shadow (in much the same way that the eldest was when he was little), and several times a week, I get that afternoon phone call:
"Uncle...will come over and play with me?" It's delivered in a small, pitiful voice that screams loneliness, or maybe he's already learned that I'm a sucker and just won't say no, but pours it on thick, just in case. It's an ego stroke, I'll admit. Besides, I figure it's my duty, and more often than not, it's fun.
Usually, I get invited over to play Geotrax or Thomas the Tank Engine (he loves trains), and the routine involves me building the tracks, and then we act out the script of the DVD's of those programs that's he's just watched (he has an absolutely amazing memory for the details). He directs me and tells me what's happened in the little scenario, and I do what he tells me, and eventually, we have re-enacted the entire episode, every word, action and detail, and then it's time to go on to whatever other activity his short little attention span demands.
But recently he's been big on games. He'll sit still for a long session of games. Board games, card games, dice games. We run the gamut from Monopoly (suitably modified for a 4-yr old attention span; we just go around the board and whoever goes to jail three times wins all the money), to the classics of Chutes and Ladders, Old Maid, Go Fish, Yahtzee and even our special version of Poker. We laugh, we joke, he cheats. Oh, how he cheats! Like a democrat! He's sharp about it, even sly, too. And there's always an explanation of why he should be allowed to cheat whenever I call him out on it (gently and always with a smile) which is curiously lucid, and you just have to allow it because, well, that was a pretty great mental formulation for a four year old to make!
And it struck me just today, during a game of Poker-Keno, that I am watching the development of a little brain. A tiny person is taking shape, just across the table from me. Up close and personal. I was dumbstruck just as soon as I realized it, and by just how subtle the process is unless you pay very close attention to it. A month ago, he couldn't be bothered to count (although he could do so, at least to 25, always skipping 16, for some reason), and now he does so with eagerness. He couldn't discern the difference between a heart and a diamond, and now he corrects me when I mistake a club for a spade. I've watched him count pips on dice and then carefully and deliberately count out the corresponding spaces on the board with a serious precision. He comments on my strategy, and then even explains his own. He laughs when he climbs ladders, and giggles when I slide down, down, down the chutes. He boasts when he wins, and then explains how he came up with the masterstroke that finally sent me into a deadly tailspin ending in humiliating defeat (wink, wink). He announces grandly, "the winner of this game is the Champion of the World!", and does the inevitable Victory Dance before exclaiming "Let's play again!".
And then I laugh. Something I all too rarely do, nowadays. It's at times like this that I'm reminded that there are still things to wonder about in this world, and to laugh at, and they don't all have to involve bodily functions, table-top explosions or the death of a Kennedy, and that perhaps, I spend too much time spewing venom at the world instead of being appreciative for the little things. So, I want to thank my little nephew, although he may never ever read this, for giving me, I think, far more joy, and certainly more to think about, than I think I can ever repay.
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