Simian Farmer

A trinity of... things

Terri made me do it.  Or at least asked politely.  I normally like to stay meme-free around these here parts since it has the pontential to distract from the serious effort of writing self-absorbed tripe, but what the hell... every now and again won't hurt.

And you must take every single one of my answers very seriously. 

Because I hardly ever equivocate.

Bozo drivers

If there is one human sentiment that is well-nigh universal, it's a contempt for stupid drivers.  The brusquely understated corollary to that is the assertion that it's always somebody else who's the bad driver.

The undeniable urge when presented with a bad driver is a NEED to see what that person looks like, because they must look stupid.  They must have their finger up their nose to the second joint, or be eating a protein bar while talking on the cell phone and applying mascara, or have a baby on her lap confined by nothing more than a languorously bejewelled forearm, or have on a ten-gallon hat proclaiming for all who see that his belt buckle is large enough to serve dinner for two, and paved roads are a luxury where he comes from, so goddammit he's going to enjoy this one at his own pace.

These are the people who signal right for 15 blocks, veer into the left turn lane and are oblivious to the accident they almost cause.  They travel 10 km under the speed limit in the fast lane on the highway.  Don't even get me started on the yahoos who stop at a red light and then continually inch their cars forward until the light turns green.  That's great, because now you've saved enough time to hit the Tim Hortons drive-thru for that large double-double.

At every opportunity, I have to speed up or slow down just to see - to confirm - that these people look stupid.  Always.  And then, where appropriate, give them that incredulous stare-with-the-subtle-head-shake that loudly proclaims, "I just want you to know that I saw what you did there (don't think I didn't), and your moronic act has been noted."

My wife and I were discussing this last night and she reminded me of an incident that happened very early in our relationship and which had skipped my mind.

When we shared a basement suite before the house we're in now, I would come home from the gym across the river, up the hill and pull into the driveway.  There was one evening I was driving up the hill and got stuck behind a plodding, rusty Honda Civic.  Plodding like I could have gotten out and jogged up the hill faster.  I was angst-ridden almost immediately.  Much gnashing of teeth and white-knuckling of the steering wheel.  Invectives and such.  The first chance I got, spotting a hole in the next lane, I peeled out and around the miscreant, and whipped my head to the side so I could get a good look at (and possibly assail with a contemptuous glare) him who had so inconvenienced me.

There, hunkered over the steering wheel - both hands at 12 o'clock - red, curly hair all askew, make-up still applied perfectly, nose dominating the face, white gloves, sporting a pitiably morose expression and with his propeller beanie listing to one side -- was a clown.

I fucking lost it.  I was then only four blocks from home and laughed hysterically the whole way.  Bad drivers have been tinged with a shading of tolerance (and hope of seeing that again) ever since.

Running to stand still

My wife has wanted a treadmill for quite a long time.  Kinda like she's wanted a bike for the past number of years.  Every year around January I'd say that, come bonus time in July, I'd put some of that money aside for a bike for her.  There was always something else that took precedence - something that we needed to buy or pay off that superseded her bike.  Plus, there's been no bonus the past couple years.

My own bike's been hanging in the garage for the three years we've lived in our house, sorely in need of a tune up and with a leak that needs fixing on the front suspension.  Still no bike for her, but we finally have a treadmill.

A coworker mentioned in passing that his wife's treadmill has been nothing but a clothes-hanger for the past few years and they were looking to get rid of it for relatively cheap so they don't ever have to move the bloody thing again.  I bought it off them for about a quarter of what it was new.  We picked a convenient day and took our lunch hour to swing by his place, toss it in his truck and reassemble it in my basement.  We couldn't have moved it on the weekend since he races vintage cars as a hobby and is frequently on the road during the summer weekends.

He and his wife live in a gorgeous two-storey house with a finished basement, 50-whatever inch flat screen plasma TV complete with surround stereo system, and by God they have a fridge-sized wine cooler that's stocked full of wine.  Never mind all the toys that are parked haphazardly in the garage. 

After we drove from his place and pulled into my driveway, I warned him to wait by the truck while I put the dogs in their kennel so we could leave the gate open and carry the treadmill right down the back stairs.  It was a matter of only a few minutes to lug the various parts into our basement and then a short while with a cordless drill to put 'er all together.  She ran smooth.

I couldn't help but spend part of that time making comparisons between his house we'd just left and ours with the unfinished concrete floor, randomly-dog-chewed wood trim, scattered toys, the lemon of a Volkswagen in the garage and the patina of grime on our front windows - courtesy of toddler hands and canine nose prints; all underscored by the faint but pervasive aroma of eau de chien.  Our weekends are normally spent catching up on laundry, cleaning the poop from the backyard and avoiding eye contact with the various puke stains around the house.

The difference in our lifestyles is most readily attributable to the fact that we have two kids and they have none.  They are DINKs¹ and we are SITCOMs².  Amy and I are still pretty new to the game, but it doesn't take long to figure out that there's a whole lot of effort involved that doesn't yield a corresponding amount of tangible benefit.  (Not taking into account the myriad intantibles.)

Most people, when they run, end up getting somewhere as a result of their efforts.  On a treadmill, you have to be patient and rely on the fact that continued perseverance will result in the goal you're striving for.  Benefits are slower in coming to fruition.  It's the end result held firmly in mind that eases the occasional frustration of stationary churning legs.

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1 - Double Income No Kids

2 - Single Income Two Children Oppressive Mortgage

Potty like it's 1999

(How could I NOT have used that title??)

Adventures in potty training have now begun in the Fraser household.  The heat is helping.  And so are Smarties.

A partial refutation of men's secrets

Though I feel shame for admitting it, I accidentally stumbled upon an on-line article culled from the Redbook, a chick magazine of some sort.

It basically espouses the benefit (to men) of being honest with our significant female partners about the trivialities that are often concealed or glossed over for the sake of convenience or avoiding a minor argument.  (I was just reading the caption on her shirt, honest!)  By being open about the little things, the bigger things are easier to talk about.

It's nearly too 'cute' an article to have bothered mentioning here, but there are 11 alleged 'secrets' revealed, not all of which I agree with.  Actually, I disagree with most of them on some level.  You can read the linked article to find out what most men apparently think about these things, but I've provided my own feedback below.  I am not most men.  (I have a lightsabre in my bedroom.)

Uncle Butt-dude

This holiday Monday just past, the boys' Uncle Buster came by for a belated Canada Day BBQ; we had steaks and beer and really lots of sun.

Well, I had most of the beer, but it was a very good time.

Declan is incredibly fond of his uncle, not least because Buster is largely responsible for Dex's slow transformation into an adrenaline junky.

Time in a bottle

There is nothing in me so fear-inducing as the thought of some day losing one of my children before my own time.  Similarly, my wife, with both of our boys, has exhibited an ineluctable biological urge to ensure that they are breathing at all times of the day when not in direct line of sight.  Between the baby monitor, uncanny hearing, and a husband who's become rather adept at interpreting the "my hands are full, you'd best go check and see if Tavish is breathing" sort of looks, the preventive measures are stacked in our favour.

Can't really do much about those things completely out of our control.  And, as a parent, one of the worst things to do is try to control those.  Serenity comes into play here.

Over the past while this relative helplessness has been driven home.  A friend of my brother lost her infant unexpectedly a couple months ago.  One of my co-workers was away for two days last week; he attended the funeral of his three month-old grandson.  Another co-worker has a toddler just two months older than my own, diagnosed with Leigh's Syndrome; he and his wife have been steeling themselves for his loss ever since the birth.  I'm also good friends with a couple who had to deal with losing in utero.  I can't imagine.

These were some of the thoughts drifting through my head this past Saturday as Declan and I swayed back and forth in the ham-meek in our backyard.  Amy was playing with the boy outside in the swing and then came in the house to tag me in while she put Tavish down for a nap.  I grabbed a big yellow plastic cup of ice water and walked out to where Dex had lost most of his momentum, kicking listlessly at some of the taller blades of grass.  I pulled him out and plopped us down in the hammock, kicked off against the bricks of the fire pit and watched with intense amusement as Declan tried to reconcile the heavy cup of water with the unstable seat in the yellow mesh, made worse by our swinging back and forth.  He did quite well.

We spent the next five minutes making note of such things as the fact that the cup and the hammock were the same colour and that the trees surrounding us were green.  Beside us was a pile of wood and the two plastic chairs on the other side of the fire pit too were green.  There were boobies to be heard in the air somewhere beyond the concealing leaves and one of them sounded quite like a crow.  A butterfly flitted past.  Orange!  We waved in annoyance at a few mosquitoes looking for a meal.  Declan stuck an entire grubby hand into the cup for a moment, drew it out, looked at it, looked at me and said, "Wet."  Then he did it again with the other hand.  Surprisingly, it also got very wet.

He lost his balance taking a drink, leaned too far backwards and spilt half of the cup plus a couple ice cubes over his shirt and down his chest.  "Cold!" he asserted.

I convinced him to let me have a few sips from the cup and then I leaned over and placed it on the edge of the fire pit.  He wanted to snuggle.  So we swayed and snuggled and I wrapped the yellow mesh of the ham-meek around us like a fish-net cocoon, clasped closed by my one hand, the other wrapped securely around my son, his head nestled in the crook of my neck.  He poked his fingers through the cocoon to test the air outside our haven against whose influences we were, for a brief time, inviolate.

Then he wanted out.

I heaved the two of us out of the hammock and Declan took great delight in helping me feed each of the dogs one of the dwindling ice cubes from the yellow plastic cup retrieved from the edge of the fire pit.  The two panting puppies gobbled them up and drooled for more.  Dex thought them completely hilarious and ran after them all over the yard, shouting and flailing his arms, "FAHVEEE!!  GEEKOH!!" 

I stood up from where I was hunkered by the bricks of the fire pit and went to get more ice water.

I wish there were some more permanent way to preserve those moments that seem to hang suspended outside the more mundane hustle of the rest of my days.  They are incredibly precious to me.