Caution - High Tide

There was once a period of time when I did not much like to swim, a time as far back as even two days ago, for instance. I grew up with a dad who was attracted to bodies of water like Norm to Cheers. Because of his affinity for most things maritime we often vacationed in places like Mexico and frequented the Post-Card Pretty like Santa Barbara or Tahoe. Still, while I always appreciated the water, I never really liked to swim so it is weird that I have enjoyed the pool so much lately.

Many of my early memories of swimming involved narrow defeats of death, like the time I was at the local pool across the street from my uncle's house with a pool and I went to take a nice refreshing sip of Coke and got lanced by a bee which had wandered under the lid only to sting me in the lip when trying to flee. My brother must be reading this because I can still hear his stinging laughter.

And then there was the time the family went rafting with friends and the kids were told not get out of the boat because there was a "bottomless pit" underneath. So there I was, singeing to side of the metal boat, searing in the 100 degree heat but refusing to get out of the boat even as everyone else swam around. (On a related note, this reminds me of the time my sister-in-law skinned her chin and knees clanking off the side of the boat when Maggie fell in the "water", but I won't tell that again.)

And of course, there was the time when I was much older and went to visit El Salvador after my grandma died and got in a fight with a rock and rip-tide, and almost got tapped out. That is not a story to retell now, because it would take way too long... but let's just say I was warned before I went into the water and almost never came out. It was one of those moments everyone must go through to prove their mortality, I guess. I mean everyone stands on a shore in an unfamiliar country, with family they have only met moments before, spends exactly two seconds pondering the current only to jump in immediately after being warned of the legendary danger brought by that break, right? Gabriel Garcia Marquez could not have written a more sublime, ridiculous moment. But he would just say I was stupid.

But none of these moments are the exact reason why I don't like swimming. Really, I can't say what is. Maybe it was the mandatory swim class we all had to take in high school where the girls were allowed to wear whatever suits they wanted. I mean, who could learn to swim in those circumstances? During high school I also spent a ton of time skipping class at the beach, and spent plenty of time boogie boarding or trying to surf. I love the sun and the beach and the inherent life-style. I guess I just never got the call the way Rayne Droplet did, say, when she steps up deck-side on a lake somewhere and enjoys a morning B - (She told me not say that is slang for "Bud Lite" for fear it would give the wrong impression. I said it makes her cooler. And besides she tried to make me swim in jelly-fish infested water in Mexico!).

I guess this is why I have never done any triathlons. Shawn and Heather's recent dolphin acts seemed to only reinforce how much I like to stay on shore, unless I need to cool off. Certainly, the competitor in me wanted to join them in their recent tri's but the preceding open swim in the local slew slushing through flotsam, jetsam and detritus confirmed what I already did not want to do. (Though Shawn's wrong turn was certainly inspirational in the "funny" way.)

Anyway, recently my enjoyment has changed due to how much Hunter really seems to love the pool. He is fearless, I guess, because he has been pushing physical limits since before he was born, and the pool is perhaps a new vehicle for him to drive to the limits. He has ridden every bouncy chair, crawled up every stair and tried to climb every dresser and book shelf in the house, so maybe he just wanted something new to explore. There is a certain freedom and exhilaration involved in playing in a pool when you are kid, for sure. But this is more than that, I think he loves discovering. The joy and outright giddiness in his laughter while in the pool has been matched only by his magic sleigh ride in the snow. And there is a certain amount of danger involved in each, which should be concerning but instead is a familiar feeling.

Watching him reach out and jump off the side of the pool, or stand on the second step, or do a pull-up over the edge, or kick his legs and splash around joyfully and without any regard for his youth is so wonderful I can almost ignore the Dork Hat his mom makes him wear. She is right, his almost translucent white skin needs to be protected from the sun, but still. At least from under that hat emerges a boundless joy. The smile on his face as he carelessly splashes around or lowers his face into the water is surreal.

It's the look that at once says What's That and Let Me Have That with raised eye-brows and is often accompanied by an O-shaped mouth and curious noise. He does this when he sees things he cannot have like the dog dish, his mom's computer, all the electrical cords, kitchen knives or whatever else he can get his little fingers on. You place him away, at a nearby table say and he gives a grin and a little slap on the table while he searches for something new with which to play.

So I wonder if he will grow into loving swimming, or ever learn boundaries, or fear fearful things and then I wonder if I want him to learn those things, or at least, when. The newness seen in his face as he crooks his head slightly and gets wide-eyed when looking at something he does not recognize, I hope never goes away.



And maybe someday, on vacation, he will swim like a dolphin with not a care in the world, heeding all warnings, except those to maybe to stop exploring.

Hunting for a Hero

Tom Cruise makes one or two film appearances a year. A baseball player can be the hero or the goat one hundred and sixty two times.

As an English major it is appropriate that my quote about what makes a hero come from a retired baseball player, Hall of Famer, Dave Winfield. I particularly enjoy this quote now (he said it in the early 1990's) because not only is Dave Winfield like 6 foot 6 and a mountain of a man, but the idea of Tom Cruise as a "hero" is almost as comical as the image I have in my head of Winfield standing next to Cruise, Cruise with his puckered, smushed, smug mug muttering "Matt... Matt...You don't know history" appearing so impish and elfish, looking like something Winfield found squashed under his shoe.

But the scholar in me is reminded that, like Jim Morrison stated, many of my heroes are actually artists and writers, and so it is here I remember Oscar Wilde quipped, "In every first novel the hero is either the author as Christ or Faust."

And that is reason number 200, 212 why I have not written a novel. I could never live up to that.

But I do have a story to tell about a new hero in the making. And while I have so many rants I could use here, the beautiful and talented Rayne Droplet would prefer this to be light, so I will skip the anti-war prattle for the day and talk instead about Hunter's Second Giants' game.

As usual we arrived early and having learned a few things from the first game, we were actually early enough for Giants' batting practice. The plan was to take a baseball Heather had received at a previous game and see if Hunter Pence, the Astros new young star, would sign the ball for our new young star. Then I saw the Astros had taken the field.

And so Heather was left comfortably reclining in a luxury box with her pre-game meal and a foot massage while Hunter and I were ordered to go hang out in our seats to give her a moment of peace. They are really doing great things to make the park more fan-friendly nowadays.

Uh, really, what actually happened was poor Heather was ditched in a wake of peanut shell dust and Cracker Jack wrappers as I scurried Hunter down the right field line, leaving Heather somewhere behind home-plate tethered to the stroller.

Hunter and I had to go down the right-field line because that is where our seats are and they don't allow you in the preferred section if you are not preferred, no matter how cute and properly dressed your baby is. I thought I might sneak around when I saw Hunter Pence was actually shagging flies in right field directly in front of me. Since he was out of ear shot, I asked a player who happened to be on the fence-line if he could ask the outfielder to sign my ball since my son's name was Hunter.

A few minutes later I saw the reliever talking to Pence and pointing our way. I had the ball but we had to borrow a pen, and when he hurriedly came over, I stammered some false sycophantic flattery about how Hunter was named after him and he said what a great a name and then grabbed Hunter for a second! I guess he sensed my panic because he quickly released the baby and smiled and asked if I wanted him to personalize the ball, which he gladly did. Then he had to go hit, so, like Superman he was off in a flash. How cool, I thought. He came over just to make an infant's day.

I remember when I was a kid going to a Giants game to "see" my then hero, a player named Jack Clark, hoping he would make my day special. But the difference was when I went to that game, I was wearing an eye-patch because some hack doctor thought it could fix my hereditary eye problem. As if having terrible eyes were not bad enough, they thought public humiliation would make it better. My dad took me to the game, in part to help me feel better. Instead, all game, I had to endure the screams and cheers of adoring fans screaming adulations for each successive play. It was like the players had transformed into dueling evangelists, every play a bigger miracle to top the previous. I see your blood to wine and raise you a walking on water!

Suffice to say, the agony of not being able to really see what was going on was worse than torture. I am sure I heard someone say, "THAT was the greatest play I have ever seen!" and that was it. I was pissed. I was like 7, but I was man-sized pissed. Eventually, in that game, Clark actually homered and I only really know this because I sneaked a peak through the patch just in time to see him high five someone at home plate amid astonishment about how far the ball had traveled.

Now here I was was with my own son, who has good eyes, watching a new hero being born. The man could have ignored us, or been upset that Hunter had on all his Giants gear, but instead he smiled, and gladly signed the ball, a childhood dream come true. And he made Hunter's day too.

I don't even care that Giants lost because someday I will tell Hunter the story of this ball, and how I was able to part the Red Sea to make it happen, as it will surely be told in my first novel, and we will always be able to look at the inscription and know for one day, out of 162, what a hero can do.

No Laughing Matter

One of the great joys of fatherhood so far has been to see the joyfulness and wonderment in Hunter. Recently we went to a work party where many people finally got meet 2.0 for the first time. And like the little Show Pony that he is, he did not disappoint. He pulled himself up on tables, and crawled as if he knew people were watching. And, he spent much of the time growling, and smiling at people, because ponies, um, growl? Anyway, he had fun.

I did not get any video of his growling, and I thought that is OK because I never posted any video of him laughing either, so, I figured, why would I want video of him growling? Well, damn it, I wish I had videoed it because just seeing him smile and discover brings an unspeakable joy. And sometimes we need unspeakable, frivolous, just because, joy. And Hunter blesses us with such joy that we cannot even begin to share how lucky we are. Each day... some new heights and promises of more. Just as he crawled so early; and sits up so early; begins each day with a wonderful smile, I promise him daily to raise him to continue do great things. Today's world needs some greatness.

With gas prices soaring, and home values flooring, and countries warring, thinking of the world we are leaving for Hunter can be such a bummer. The people in charge don't care to change because they are part of the .1% making fortunes off my son's future, and, since they were purposeful in their destruction and terror, they see no need for change, especially since their plan, like so many working family's livelihoods, have been executed with precision.

Watching giant corporations get swallowed by mega-corporations- Yahoo! is in so much trouble that they can be bought by Microsoft?, uhoh!, Starbucks is closing stores, Yeah?!, Home Depots are going Kaputs, an oil company reaped billions of dollars in profit in one quarter and it was deemed a "loss,"- one can only shake in fear over the future being stolen from our kids.

I teach my students everyday, small ways they can retake their futures, their dreams, their planet. Each person has to do something small to benefit another. And change the goals and perceptions of our nations leaders. Because right now Nero is in charge. In his chariot, speeding away. And while he may not actually have the brains or foresight to execute his mother, he appears to be decent enough to eat his own children, as Swift suggests. I have a proposal for him.

And it starts with a vision and promise of a better future, and wonderful little things like a baby's growl, or funky haircut or beautiful smile. When I think of Hunter's future, I know he will achieve greatness in his way, because each time I see him, all this oil-tinged paranoia fades with a laugh.

You Gotta Love These Kids

When I was kid, the Giants were terrible, (wasn't it a 30 year period?) and one year they rolled out an add campaign pleading the fans to like the group of Never-Knowns, and Couldn't Be's they were calling "kids". This year should be so good.

So it is very difficult not to rant about how awful the Giants are. The team that is supposed to be going young, regularly plays more old people than the penny slots in BoomTown, Reno. It is not so much the oldness, but the, how should we say it gently, overall crappiness, that is the problem. If the Giants were Hunter, they would be the part that gets hosed about every two weeks when things go really, really wrong.

With that wonderful attitude, we headed to PacBell Park with the renewed vigor of a promising new spring and the wide-eyes of our beautiful baby boy.

Unlike the Giants, we had a Game Plan to maximize our time at the park, knowing Hunter would need to sleep before the game ended (and secretly thinking the Giants a great cure for The Incredible Sleepless Baby): get there early, park in our favorite free off-site parking zone, go buy Hunter a new hat because he had outgrown his, check-in our stroller, get to the seats with our burritos and watch batting practice before catching about an hour of the game. (Luckily the Giants BP is before they open the gates, so I would not have to explain to Hunter why a professional team could be swinging and missing during practice.)

The whole thing went as well we could have hoped. The Giants played crisply on their way to victory, the weather was chilly but not Candlestick cold, and our seats were still great. There was a concern the ambiance of the seats and the proximity to the back wall would be encumbered by a new section down the line, emphasized during the previous games we watched. Those concerned were allayed as they allowed us to huddle against the back wall that becomes the right-field ally, as before, so there were no problems there.

The only bummer was that they don't sell our favorite burritos anymore but we did not know that until we went to order them. Oh, and we made a sign to get on TV, to no avail, in spite of our cuteness, heightened because we did manage to find Hunter a new pro-style hat, and when we styled him in it, along with his Giants onesie and his Replica Jersey, he received many compliments, coos and even a few random people who came over to try and touch him due to excessive cuteness.

He was all smiles, did not fuss much and enjoyed the splendor of the park. The park is as beautiful as ever, and for all their faults building a winning team the Giants have assembled a very family-friendly venue even providing an official "First Game" certificate.

When it was said and done, we had a great experience, and it is very clear just exactly which kid we gotta love.

The Ketch Versus the Vikings

So Hunter was treated to his first trip to Emerald Bay, and he got to experience the family favorite, Fresh Ketch. It is difficult to say which he preferred more.

The day was passed on a long hike, spent mostly watching Mija run around like a little puppy in the open space near the house. She was in and out of snow drifts, sniffing creek sides, generally running unhitched; a dog in her natural element is beautiful to watch. After a couple hour hike, in beautiful t-shirt weather, despite the snow on the ground, we made our way to dinner at the family favorite restaurant, The Fresh Ketch.

Much like his cousin Blake, Hunter really seemed to enjoy the party atmosphere. Though it was crowded, we seemed to just beat the after skiing dinner rush and got a fine table over-looking the lake. There was a live musician ably playing soft-rock cover-songs along with generally good food. The highlight, though, had to be how much Hunter lit up the place. Nothing lights up a room like a beautiful baby. He was smiling at everyone, drawing rave, unsolicited, comments from all around, including one ill-suited gentleman who issued numerous thumbs-ups, and was in a great mood despite his obvious lack of fashion sense. I won't get specific. Let's just say, if you are over, say 55, the tight UnderArmor shirt, mixed with tight jeans, snuggly belted, just under your rib cage, is not the best look.

Emerald Bay was at its glorious, picturesque best; the classic glimmering jewel of so many post-cards. There is the Vikingsholm Castle at the bottom, which houses neither vikings nor castles, but it is gorgeous nonetheless. It was a sunny, if windy, day and there was snow on the ground. However, there were a number of tourists around, as the pathway down from the parking lot was relatively easily navigated. Hunter was "iglooed", as one ogling tourist noticed, as if Hunter were the attraction, bundled in fleece, jackets, hats, hoods and dad's sweatshirt as he rested in the bjorn. Heather enjoyed the castle grounds before we made our way back up to the car for chow.

These are a couple of the little pleasures that make visiting lake Tahoe precious.

Hunter's First Haircut

Yes, before he was even six months old, we trotted our beautiful, shaggy-haired boy to the Panda Room for his first official haircut.


Okay, it wasn't like he had a full mane or anything but his "faux-hawk" was getting out of control. Damon was very skeptical but we're both pleased to say that we prefer his new "do!" Here are before and after photos as well as a photo slideshow so you can judge for yourself...

First Trip to Tahoe: I Shouldn't Be Alive

So our first trip to Tahoe was a nightmare for Heather and Hunter. We went up in between the worst two worst storms in years, I mean we are talking Minnesota conditions, and we were not at all prepared.

We watch this show on TV called "I Shouldn't be Alive" and it is always a tale of people who survived harrowing events, like you know, hiking. I mean they all start off the same about a guy and his buddy, say, who set off on a lazy little hike through the Grand Canyon, in flip-flops with only a half filled canteen between them. Shockingly they get lost. And they suffer from severe dehydration and hallucinations. Hours later, when they are crocodile-skinned from the 110 degree heat, and talking to cactus plants about the best place to get a drink around here, they are found sucking sand by a group of Girl Scouts who rescued them by happening six feet off the trail, wondering just how long these nomads have been wandering the Colorado River banks...

Anyway, I thought we were going to be the next subjects of that show. A scant 15 degrees outside, wind chill of like minus 400, the pass was closed, not enough heat for us or the baby, Heather was sick, the bed was lumpy, Hunter would not sleep on the porta-bed, we couldn't give him a blanket, (what do you want, he's like 3 months old at the time?), we only had snack foods, and worst, there were no sports on. And it was cold. The Donner party was better prepared.

To be truthful, it was cold and stormy and uncomfortable. And we left after like 20 hours, but it was the right choice. Grandma Cindy was wonderful in trying to set up the house to be accommodating for the next time. And the next time we went up, Hunter had a much better time. We walked him around South Lake Tahoe, in the Heavenly Village, where he caught snow flakes on his tongue. Most importantly, he got to wear his puffy suit and sit briefly in the snow, with Heather nervously standing beside, as a good mom should.

Heather and I were also able to go snowshoeing because my mom was able to watch little 2.0. We were grateful. On our way out, we stopped at the Adidas Outlet, and styled the whole family in new shoes! (I am glad I talked Heather into liking Adidas clothes! ;)

Thanks again, to the Pattersons for the birthday gifts!