Had to say something

Putting pen to paper, or keyboard to ASCII, has not been at the top of my priorities. It has been quite some time since my perspective on upbringing had driven my to make commentary. Today is no different. I make quips almost daily on Facebook. But that is more reactionary, drunken BS so to speak. With a few exceptions that is not a place for mental digestion.

Raising kids is hard. Keeping a marriage relevant is hard. Keeping sanity amongst it all is hard. Christmas, New Years, school restarting, next year's school planning, upcoming taxes, bills, car repair expenses, dog chewing shoes, and crappy sleep all make for a grumpy, and not-in-the-mood-to-write-Leland.

The kids are fine, the dog is fine, Shanna's fine. Me, we'll see. I'll cope. I hope.

Questions of Love

I love my Land Cruiser.
I love my dog.
I love my children.
I love my wife.
I love my parents.
I love the outdoors.

Love:

• Noun: an intense feeling of deep affection.
• Verb: feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone.

How do we know if we are truly in "love?" Is it binary, on or off? Are there degrees? Seven degrees to Bacon?

How do we measure "love?" Is it absolute or relative? Do we use subjective or objective criteria? What's the baseline to measure? What's the interval? Do we benchmark others? Do we compare and contrast the "now" with the "then"? Is love here today and gone tomorrow? What about loving the person but not the behavior? Or inaction?

I love the burger at Gold Nugget. I Love my wife. Yet my wife has a physiological impact not even approached by a good burger. How can I "love" both?

How is love affected by time, proximity, paternal or maternal relation, shared activities?

I am not a philosopher, maybe it's best to not worry about definitions or contemplations. Time to quit the mental gymnastics and go have a beer.

Dust to dust

Parents are not supposed to outlive their children, yet it happens. There is no answer to why, only pain, loss. I can't help but believe that when a parent is lost, the child feels pain as strongly. We humans are built to feel pain and joy, despair and elation, birth and death.

Why is that? Why do we need to be so attached that a loss takes away from our being? Love is the mechanism that gives us the strength to extend our species beyond today. Love is how we pair up, mate, and offer up the next generation.

Love offers the strength to suffer, rebound, and rejoice. Love is how we journey into the abyss and return.

What I learned at the Battle of the Balloon

Galen and Liam decided that a balloon is a good toy, no surprise there. My guess is that Neanderthal children would have been amuse. Hell, maybe they were, just with balloons made of animal gut. Problem being was this toy implementation was a bouncy game of run around the kitchen table while daddy is trying to read the newspaper. But to be fair, I can be tolerant even as my cherished morning routines was being disturbed by happy children doing no harm.

But not this morning. And I blame sleep deprivation.

Last night I went to the theater and watched Rush's Time Machine Tour movie. It was filmed in Cleveland during last year's tour, the one I attended at the Minnesota Sate Fair. While it lacked the "live" sound ambiance, the view was much better. And at $7.50 it was cheaper, louder, and bigger than the soon to be retailed DVD could play out in my living room.

OK, that exposition is just to explain that I was out past my normal bedtime. Once home I needed to acclimate to a quiet house and watched a portion of Some Like It Hot. Marilyn Monroe has a way of trapping the eyes and keeping one awake. Goodness, the way she wore a nightie...

OK, moving on. I sloughed up the stairs to bed. The pillow, sheets, mattress, eyeballs, and nervous system were simpatico, I conked right out.

Hello 1:15 AM. Hello Galen. Hello ten or fifteen minutes of child-induced wakefulness. Problem being that when my head once again found the pillow, simpatico had migrated away to the battle of the brain electrons. Now I was thinking of things better left for the light of day, or things that did not need attention. After about thirty minutes I got up and went back to the boob-tube (damn Marilyn reference)...

I watched an excellent program by Nova, the Fabric of the Cosmos. It did not bring about the sort of stimulation brought on by Marilyn's physique, or Lemmon & Curtis's antics, it was an intellectually stimulating program discussing the make up of space. And it had the desired result, by the end of the program my mind was through with its mental gymnastics, my body was tired, and I was confident that sleep would prevail. And it quickly did.

Fast forward back to the balloon wielding, fun having kids dancing around my table as I futilely tried to read the paper. I roared, they acquiesced, and minutes later all was forgotten as the game started anew, and I eventually smiled.

As I sit here and contemplate the chain of events I am happy to state:

1. Balloons are fun,
2. Rush is an excellent band,
   
3. lack of sleep is no excuse for grumpiness,
4. the cosmos is complex, and
5. a circa 1959 Marilyn is still hot.

Two steps forward

The kids have been in school for about a month. Liam's preschool is a bit more play than work, so no surprising feedback. He's happy to go, slow to leave, and has happy things to say about his day.

Galen is bored, school is too easy. I am not sure how to respond to a 1st grader's critique of the curriculum. He does his homework, on the bus, on the way home. More time to play he says. He's delving into geography, biology, and thankfully not given up his art projects.

Tomorrow is our first 1st grade teacher conference. I hope to find out how much is an act, or hopefully is true that classes are too easy. At least this year's behavior is improved, I think. So far only two notes for me to sign, no punch in the nose like last year... Progress.

Humble and insignificant

This year we took an actual vacation, a withdraw from kids, cell phones, computers, TV, and other aspects of our normal life. It was a two-part vacation; part 1 was magnificent and sublime, part 2 was ridiculous and brash. I speak of two weeks rafting the Grand Canyon followed by three nights in Las Vegas, two extremes along life's experience continuum.

Part 1, magnificent and sublime
Just to be clear, Part 1 was rafting Grand Canyon. We purchased our trip from Canyon Explorations, a family owned outfit specializing in participatory Grand Canyon rafting. Our starting point was Flagstaff, AZ. This offered a luckily timed opportunity to eat lunch with many of our AZ friends as they returned from supporting the Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon Fat Tire Bike Ride. A huge shout out to Marshall, Dan, Travis, Andy, Steve, Keith, Ty and the rest. Hope your drive home was safe...

Rafting the Grand Canyon is not something easily accomplished. Permits, weather, duration, rapids, provisions, required skills, and lack of accommodations all conspire to limit total visitation to approximately 22,000 people per year. Thankfully, the payment rendered to the Canyon Explorations took care of most particulars. We signed on to the 14-day, full canyon hybrid trip. It was 225 miles of river via oar boats, paddle raft, and inflatable kayak.

Part 2, ridiculous and brash
This was the Las Vegas portion. We stayed at the Flamingo, ate at Fiamma Trattoria & Bar, Delmonico Steakhouse at the Venetian, and Sushi House Goyemon punctuated with the Cirque du Soleil's Ka.

Las Vegas bit us in several ways; 1) the aforementioned dinning & entertainment, and 2) shopping. We are not gamblers, but at some point we usually will feed a slot-monster a $10 or $20, but this is more to rest our feet than satisfy an itch. This trip's shopping resulted in more bag-carrying than previous visits, thankfully the impact to the hand, arm, and shoulder (and stomach, waistline, and bum) weren't nearly as aggravating as the impact to our accounts.

The canyon and Colorado River have put my life in perspective and I would be most obliged if Canyon Explorations has room to raft me again. I observed a portion of earth's history, starting at 270 million years all the way back to 1.8 billion years ago. I saw fossils made before dinosaurs, mammals, or even simple reptiles. I observed rock that was transformed by incredible heat and pressures of the Earth's interior. I felt the power of a 25,000 cubic feet per second of water pushing and pulling at our passing.

I was a mere speck on the water, a passenger obliged to follow the river's rules, its whims, and unflinching desire to get to the sea. In Earth's history, I am a member of a species that has yet to register more than a note, something barely registered in the geographic history of this planet. We have yet to create a fossil record, yet to have our buried past become sedimentary rocks. All are refreshing thoughts as I escaped from daily life. My life is humble and insignificant next to the life-cycle of the Earth and Sun, wind and water.

Hope the funnel is big enough

Labor Day, the ending demarcation of summer. More importantly, it marks the beginning of school. Galen is off to 1st grade and Liam is off to preschool. The school bus stop was busy, more parents than normal, more cameras than normal. There was also the graduate, formerly the elementary school participant now on to middle school, waiting for her brother to disappear into the bus.

We summer-slacked, no vocabulary drills, no trips to the library, no Spanish speaking lessons. There was play, family, and fun. As the school day starts I wonder, will their ears hear the teacher? Will their eyes see the blackboard? Will their minds register the information? Today, a big ol' bucket of knowledge will be pored into those malleable, eager, and energetic minds. I hope their funnel can catch most of it.

As the other kids huddled, talking, no doubt, about something important, Galen watched. He made a gift for the teacher, he willed the bus closer. I think his funnel may do just fine.

The screech

I don't know how, I don't know why, but it is usually Liam that flies out of the woodwork crying, in agony, inconsolable. My spying skills have identify two equally plausible causes: 1) self-inflicted aggravation or pain, or 2) Galen-inflicted aggravation or pain. The end result is the same, seldom is there a clear cut indication which cause was prevalent. Occasionally I hear a condescending tone from Galen that gives a hint. But I am usually clueless.

Today's screech was piercing. It was loud. And it was Galen.

Liam jumped on his head.

It was hard to not laugh at the possible retribution aspects of this episode.