Since everyone is sharing storm pics...at least the power is still on...I just wish the old couple that live behind us weren't nudists...

To my brother and sister-in-law on the birth of their first child

To my brother and sister-in-law on the birth of their first child,
What a beautiful child! Congratulations!
So enough about you guys.
Let me tell you how much I really appreciate you bringing him into the world. It’s gotten a little “estrogeny” around here and knowing that there is another Neel male out there brings me comfort. Also I’ve been hoarding fart and booger jokes for years in the hope that one of my brothers would have a male heir with whom I can pass on this treasure trove of male humor. So again…Thank You.
Now back to you.
You’ve finally evicted the little guy from the womb so I need to share a couple of things with you that the baby books, friends and family didn’t tell you about having a kid.
First off. You know that wonderful nursery you’ve spent so much of your time and economic resources decorating so that Marcus will have a nurturing calm environment in which to grow and prosper? He won’t be sleeping there or even go willingly into it. There’s a direct correlation between how great a nursery is and how likely it is that the kid will sleep, poop and leave their toys in your room.
Don’t spend a lot of time worrying about loud noises waking him. It doesn’t happen. Honking horns, doors slamming, barking dogs and plane crashes will be ignored. Lifting a fork after sitting down for dinner or turning the pages in that book you’ve been trying to finish for the last 3 months will though.
People will spend a lot of time looking at Marcus and telling you how much he looks like you. You’ll nod and agree but inside you’ll be wondering “how in the world could these people think that this small wrinkled disproportionate mass of humanity could possibly look anything like me”. Then you’ll remember that you haven’t slept or eaten more than two continuous bites of any meal in the past 3 months. Sleep deprivation and malnourishment will take its toll on your appearance which is why you now look like your baby.
One of the greatest moments in your life will be when you hear Marcus utter the words “momma” or “dada”. It won’t matter that he’s talking to the dog. Just reposition yourself between the dog and Marcus while making a mental note to have the pediatrician check his eyes on your next visit.
You will spend a lot of time being impressed by things like Marcus’s first green poop, his first brown poop, his first slightly solid poop, his first “I can smell it but I can’t find it” poop…and so on and so on. You’ll say things like, “It’s obvious he’s pooping on a 3rd grade level.” It’s important to remember that it’s normal to be impressed by these things and to comment between yourselves. Unfortunately you will also comment on this to other people who will look at you as if you’re crazy. Just remember they’re just jealous of Marcus’s obviously superior pooping abilities.
Marcus already understands complex math. He will be able to derive from how nice the clothes are you’re wearing, how late you are for an appointment and the availability of cleaning supplies, and determine exactly how much throw up to deposit on you. Solving for x, the answer is a lot.
A perk of having a baby is that you can now walk down the street with Marcus and make an incredible array of silly barnyard noises as loudly as you want and no one will call the police or ask you to kindly keep moving on. In fact 9 times of 10 they will join in. Just remember that with Marcus this is ok, without Marcus you’re just some weirdo walking down the street talking about poop and making cow noises.
Sleep. Let me say that again, SLEEP. Any opportunities you have to sleep take them. The old saying is “sleep when the baby’s sleeping”. (Just remember this doesn’t apply when operating a vehicle)
You will bug you’re home so that you can constantly monitor everything little Marcus does. These baby monitors will be placed throughout the home and you will often forget they are there. This is never truer than when someone comes to visit at an inopportune time and you begin talking about them after leaving the room to change Marcus. Chances are your so sleep deprived and malnourished that you won’t notice their glares when you come back in the room.
It’s important to not sweat the small things. You’ll forget his favorite toy somewhere. The bottle won’t always be the right temperature. You’ll turn your back for two seconds and he’ll be giving the dog a prostate exam when you turn back around (ask me about Claire). These are all small things. Just relax babies have really low expectations.
Most important of all remember that having a child gives you license to act a little crazy. Embrace it. Turn up the “Beatles for Babies” cd and dance around the room like an idiot. Its okay you have a kid and no one will judge you for having fun with him. It’s important to remember though that Marcus will get to a point where he will judge you for acting this way.
There’s no secret to being a great parent. Anyone who says different is lying or trying to sell you something. You guys are both great people and will bring up Marcus to be a great person too. I can’t wait to meet him and see firsthand what a great job you are doing at raising him.
All my love,
Andy

Life isn't a fairy tale...it's a fill-in-the-blank choose your own adventure scratch & sniff colouring book with missing pages and random highlighted passages that make no sense to anyone but the author...

I can't help but notice you checking out my pecks and cool shades...you come here often...why yes those are real tortoise shell...

And "Ye" said some old guy in the bible..."The Lord shall give you children, and they shall be a thing to cherish as they grow, their cuteness will overshadow all others, their intelligence and agility will be above any other child, and as they continue to feast upon your sustenance, and as they grow stronger and begin to withdraw shekels from your pocket book even though the sheep haven't been tended or the cows milked and the days pass and they learn new and interesting words it will only be the remembrance of their cuteness and early signs of intelligence that allowed them to get to this stage in life."...and Adam said to the old Guy "Is there not anything we can do to avert this suffering?"...and the old Guy laughed and the sky rumbled and then a voice from above said..."I brought you into this world and got you guys to this point. Now its your turn. Karma's a bitch."....and Adam wailed and Eve ran off looking for a snack...and the old Guy just laughed and laughed...and thus God's first practical joke upon man was to bestow them with little versions of themselves that will go through all the trials, tribulations and "I can't even's" that Adam and Eve put God through.

Can or can't you get no satisfaction?

Satisfaction. To be satisfied. To be content. To fulfill your desires.

I was asked recently to participate in creating something for a young adult that would help lift them up. An opportunity to provide a gift that would help them to fulfill their desires, to find contentment, to be satisfied.
The process raised the question, is satisfaction a pro or con? If satisfaction is contentment fulfilled and to be content is to be at ease then there's no favor in teaching satisfaction.
At ease.
At rest.
The opposite of how the universe works. It may not all be random (different argument) but it's never at ease. Shakespeare made a great living proving this very point so we'll assume the Great Bard knew a thing or two about how the world works. 

The trick then to help another soul find a way to fulfill their desires, to find satisfaction, without falling victim to contentment's allure.
This is where age brings a sense of scope to the problem. 

As a toddler if I turned in a circle three times while wishing for snow, I would confuse a snow storm that night as being caused by my actions. Correlation alone, two random events colliding to confuse reality. As a boy I had a few years understanding of how the world works. I knew that if I did this then that would happen. A basic understanding of causality usually resulting in my learning why I was told not to do something. Then we're thrown into early adulthood and all that shit is just great cafe talk as we try to make a start on a 1000 calories a day and enough beer money for the weekend.
I think we often forget what an amazing time that is in our lives. We argue the reality of causality and logic while secretly hoping a series of random events will bring us the perfect lover or lead us on an epic random adventure. The birthplace of philosophy. Trying to describe our passion for random correlation through the logic of causality. There's a reason most of the best art, poetry, ideas and passions occur from fifteen to twenty five. As we age beyond those years we remember the stumbling attempts at bravery that led to failure far more than the fewer beautiful moments of a successful night of epic love or adventure. 

We begin to steer our lives down the path of least resistance. There's more at stake. We develop our dogma and fall into our patterns. Banishing randomness. Living more for the next day ten years down the road rather than the moment when you catch the scent of the perfume your first love wore as you walk across a room or when you hear the song that will define your generation for the first time. You've found stability, contentment and ease.

But at our core all of us still long for that first new experience. The first kiss. The first moment you got away with breaking a rule. The first time you knew you were with a kindred spirit. We've built entire industries around trying to recapture those moments. The oldest and second oldest professions are based on it. 

I don't know about the next stages of how the world seems to unfold but I have an idea from watching aging parents and grandparents that things still stay interesting. 

So what to provide a young adult that would help to raise them up. To help them to fulfill their desires without falling into contentment before experiencing the magic of that time in life when we know the weight that our actions have consequences but we still hope that next moment will bring a new marvelous adventure. 

Like I said before, age provides perspective here.

Only a love story would do. A story that demonstrates the importance of those random moments while not forgetting what those moments were trying to tell us. Most people think love stories begin and end with the first pangs of passion and end with the two lovers entwined but that's not the case. Fact is most love stories are long tales of random moments that pushed the participants into the arms of their lovers over miles and years. We pull a girls pigtails on the playground and then make an ass of ourselves in high school. Somehow the universe managed to have the right two people in the right places to make the connection. 

I decided I would share my story with this young adult. The story of twenty years of random correlations that led to two people finally finding their kindred spirit and the causality of the next twenty years as we figured out the other person and prepared the way for our children to find their own way in the world. 

I don't know you're story of how or if you've found your love but I can guarantee if there was any story of how many random encounters you could have with someone before realizing that this was truly your other half we're close to winning some universal award for either density or stubbornness. 

There's nothing to inspire youth like a story of love and nothing to ground them more than to realize its true. 

So I've put my story down for my oldest daughter to read. Hopefully she'll take more away from it than that her dad was basically a jackass and her mom really had poor taste in dating before stumbling across me for the hundredth time over twenty years. I'm not saying I was any better than those that came before me. I'm just saying I wasn't willing to ignore the previous twenty years of correlation that led me to the fact that I had found my partner. Correlation did in fact lead to causation and that's my philosophy on love. 

SF Visit

So 12, let me type that out T…W….E…L…V…E hours of driving with mi familia back from the land of our forefathers (we’re card carrying Cherokees, except for my white squaw wife who has been accepted into the clan through the sacred ritual of having put up with me for 20 plus years, but anyway I like to think of all native lands as those of my forefathers in a similar way that a dog knows the difference between the smell of coyote piss on a fire hydrant and that from another dog…this analogy is beginning to get a little out of hand and all I’m really trying to say is that this interconnectedness that I feel with other Native American’s is a lot like peeing on a fire hydrant…wait what I’m trying to say is I know when my cousin has peed on something and when some no account interloper with their small pox blankets and fire sticks has pissed all over my shit…pause for heavy breathing from literary rant…my point is retribution…no I mean interconnectedness…and of course in no way am I condoning any member of my family to start peeing on stuff…Josh I’m looking at you here). So here we all are strapped into the family truckster exiting the lands of the cousins of our forefathers and since I happen to be driving because as my squaw wife says “I have ‘control issues’” (I put the extra quotation marks in as a smart ass gesture) it gives me a lot of time to ponder the universe and my place in it. (By the way I still sleep with one eye open and have only ever received one blanket from the squaw that I immediately sprayed with Lysol to kill the small pox).

So this time is there, and my brain is there, and in between mental images of dragging the guy in the car blocking the passing lane from his car and delivering some sort of apocalyptic beating (like cruise control hasn’t been around for 50 years…Jesus Christo people learn to fucking drive) and laughing at the accountant motorcycle clubs (seriously don’t mess with the 1040EZ’s) riding the original route 66 that always seem to want to take up both lanes I guess so if there’s a wreck it’ll look more spectacular and RV’s with hashtags so we can follow their ‘great’ adventures virtually, like driving around in an RV isn’t virtual travel. Get out there in a real old fashioned prairie schooner cutting a path through the wilds of America…pissing on the fire hydrants of my people and then I’ll follow #BobandSherriLoveRVing (yes it really was Sherri with an ‘I’ but I don’t know if that was the exact hashtag and come to think of it I never really saw this Sherri…after 40 minutes of trying to get around them all I could see in the front cabin was a guy with one of those puffy little dogs sitting in his lap…Christ for all I know this guy may have been some sort of bestiality nut job and I just drove by and didn’t do anything to help poor little Sherri the dog spelled with an ‘I’…she looked so puffy and innocent)So like I said normal people thinking good, Andy alone with his thoughts while being subjected to the latest pop post-apocalyptic young adult book on Audible that we chose to listen to as a family unit (trust me when I say this…no man willingly subjects himself to teen harlequin romances for any reason other than to keep everyone else’s traps shut and give himself a little peace and quiet while the road unwinds beneath him…it’s like a little mental vacation…I’m definitely  getting a small pox blanket for Christmas this year) and things start to get a little screwy.

First off the reason for the journey was to see the latest addition to our growing clan, a quite pink and if I’m perfectly honest very handsome young man named Benjamin Rider, my younger brothers new son or as I like to call him “The Heir to the Throne” since I myself have no male offspring and historically titles pass to the next oldest child’s son (just watch your back when playing with Marcus, my youngest brothers son, is all I’m saying Ben). His alternative name is Chalupa Batman because my sister-in-law had the misfortune of having intercourse with my brother in such a way that we found out about the coming birth just as we were catching up to that episode of “The League” where Taco gets to name the new baby (and for anyone who doesn’t watch The League shame on you…it is a masterfully crafted and timely piece of comedic genius that makes lots of hilarious dick and fart jokes…just watch it then defriend me if you decide it’s not for you…I don’t really mean that it’s just my inner Ruxin coming out). I’m not explaining any more League references by the way so if you want to know why a Taco gets to name a baby then you’ll just have to watch the show or google it. Ben, Benji, BenGee, Chalupa Batman, whatever you want to call him (and don’t think that there have not been agonizingly long group family texts about the subject which for a family spread across 3 time zones can get a little annoying at certain times of the day or night) I’m just saying he’s a good looking kid. He doesn’t really do much yet, in fact I’d go so far as to call him kind of a slacker, and the few suggestions I made about getting him on some sort of workout regime now might save Josh some trouble down the road went unnoted. Hey it won’t be me paying for fat camp if he keeps up this just lay around having someone feed me all day lifestyle. In a way I admire him for it but as a worker bee the only contribution I see him making to society right now is his undeniable cuteness. Damn it why do attractive people have life so easy.

Well let me tell you. No I’m just kidding. I’m just an ordinary guy doing ordinary stuff. Leading what some might call an ordinary life. Nothing exceptional here. No way. Just Mr. Ordinary. (come on guys there’s only so long I can fish for compliments…this passive aggressive stuff isn’t easy you know). So what’s that I here, “It’s not like you’re grotesque or anything.”. I’ll take that to mean I’m a solid 7-8 out of 10 then.

OK so way off track there. New baby. Long journey. Fun driving sleep deprived new parents crazy with funny kid names. Now everyone should be up to speed.

Where I’m heading here is family. I had a lot of time to think about family on this trip back. It’s amazing the shit you don’t realize that makes you a family until you start to really break it down. Summer and I didn’t become a family when we said “I do” but when we started to impact each other with all of the things we each brought to our new relationship from our old families. The first time she twisted a bag with a loaf of bread in it and then fed the top portion over the bag so you didn’t have to use a twist tie, I felt like the guy who just noticed the stars moved with the seasons or the guy who got to look at the Mona Lisa for the first time. I wanted to run home to my parents and tell them about all the wasted time we’d spent on searching for lost bread ties. I’d just been shown something new and incredible and today my girls close a loaf of bread just like that and not once have I raised my voice in anger over a lost bread tie. Point is Summer brought something into the family that although trivial made it better. I’m not sure what she’s learned from me except that anytime I ask her to pull my finger she already knows its too late and I’m just trying to lighten the mood before the odor strikes. I’m sure I’ve impacted her in other ways though. I just look at my kids and see parts of each of us and realize some day one of my daughters is going to marry some lucky guy and teach him to clear the room if she says “pull my finger” and that makes me proud.

But back to the newest family member. It was great seeing my new nephew, my niece and brother and sister-in-law and having some time to sit and just shoot the shit but as I sat there I started to notice things almost seemed not quite right. The kitchen drawers weren’t organized quite like I would’ve but I definitely knew where the spare trash sacks were. Some things looked familiar while other things where a little different. It wasn’t until the drive home and the free time to really think about it that I realized my brother had created a new family. He will always be my brother and we will always have shared moments that no other person will have had but he also probably doesn’t know the bread trick (unless that secret knowledge crept in from the sister-in-law’s side of the family).

We’ve been building these families for thousands of years. Somewhere back in time we were a pair of lucky monkeys that zigged when the not so smart monkey zagged and thus the first family tradition was born. Zig don’t Zag when being chased by something with lots of teeth. We’ve been building on this ever since. So I understand somewhat when people talk about ‘family values’ because change is hard but in reality it’s the change that we each bring to the arrangement that makes the whole thing better in the end. If people want to do things a little differently that’s ok with me. I’ve got some nephews and a neice out of the two new additions to my original family and I’m pretty fond of them.

So to Josh on the birth of your newest child congratulations on not only having a beautiful new son but a great new family. And if you haven’t shown Lyndsay what a ‘Dutch Oven’* is yet then now is the time while she’s still too sore to catch you. And thank you so much for sharing little Chalupa Batman with us for the week.

*’Dutch Oven’ is a traditional method of tricking your little brother into sticking his head under the covers after cutting a terrific silent but deadly fart and then holding them under the covers. I only put in this definition because I know some of you come from homes where you did not have the joy of an older brother to teach you such things.

Fathers Day 2014

Father’s Day. It’s that day every year where we get all emotional about bonding over pulling that giant catfish, “The Old Man” we called him, from the lake after chasing him all summer or how your sturdy hand was placed on my shoulder after the game winning touchdown and the words “Son, today you’re a man.”were grumbled in my ear. It’s hard to get emotional about these things because they didn’t happen. I doubt they ever happened to anyone.

For me Father’s Day is about the relationship that started years ago that led to me having a father (that’s right we’re going to talk about two people making a baby-ewwww) and how my dad’s still guiding me along through my own bungling attempt at not killing, maiming or just misplacing my own kids.

Like most relationships between teenagers in the late 1960’s things got groovy fast. A proposal was made, wedding bells chimed, and a mother of the bride was wearing hot pants. There was a cultural revolution going on and there wasn’t any time to mess around. So the messing around began and about 12 months later I was born 15 days shy of being a 60’s baby (but I still get to tell my kids that I was born during the Vietnam War – it gives me some street cred – and technically I can use the phrase “Back in Nam”). But I digress. Looking back now at pictures of them arm in arm or sitting together on a couch as one or another relative said ‘say cheese’ before snapping a picture. I can see the sideways looks or the gentle laying of a hand across a knee that speaks of something deeper than just teenage lust. There were smiles and conversations passing between them without any words being spoken. If you know what to look for in those early photos you can see the beginning of a marriage that was going to last a long time. Those photos are like viewing a river before it cuts a deep valley.

So husband and wife and baby and for the purpose of this note,specifically father, were all together living the American Dream. If that dream was a barely twenty-something couple both in college working multiple jobs with no money and a new baby, then yes they were living it. As crazy as it seems I like to think they had a plan. I like to call it the “Band-Aid Removal” method of life management, just pull it all off quickly and hope it doesn’t hurt for very long. For those of us who have practiced this same method I’ll give you a second to stop laughing and dry your eyes.

Alas, life began to impose.

The stories are long and varied about overcoming the trials and tribulations of learning to share an intimate life with not only another adult but with a small rude house guest that regularly crapped himself and would puke on whatever clothing you were planning on wearing that day usually five minutes before you had to leave. Small things became big things and big things became resentments but the joy shared in each other’s company and the fact that I finally stopped pooping and throwing up on everything provided a grounding rod for perspective and things began to work out.

So life wasn’t easy but mom and dad had the right attitude and decided to do what families throughout the ages have done when the going gets tough. Suck it up and work on making things better. I’m sure compared to people living in the wilds of Africa or the Amazon basin our life was something to be looked up to,but for me I often felt the book “Where the Wild Things Are” was based on my room after the lights went out. It was probably just the six foot cockroaches rummaging through my stuff but still it was a little unsettling.

Graduations occurred. Jobs got better. Things became more stable. The babysitters seemed to smoke less or at least I didn’t have to hold their ashtrays anymore. We moved and then we moved again. Time became something that was in short supply as the race to make things better grew more hectic.

And this is where a lot of great relationships end or find a status quo that everyone accepts as the new normal. Pictures now contain smiles that wouldn’t convince a ‘B’ movie director of their authenticity and superlatives begin to fly as accusations of unfulfilled dreams are hurled back and forth.

It happens. Let’s not kid ourselves. Expectations, not infidelity or finances, kills marriages. We expect things to be a certain way and then BAM they’re not.

My family got through this. Sure they had to look at their significant other and say “Sure he wears black socks with sandals or what’s with those bell bottoms with the footprints all over them? But hey I can live with that because they meet my most important expectation, a loving partner.”

Doesn’t mean it was easy. Time was scarce around our house. We all still had 24 hours every day but it was being eaten away by commitments. It was magically disappearing before our very eyes. Be here then. This has to be done now. Drop this off by three. I can’t believe the kid did this to my suit five minutes before I have to leave. For my parents it was like a magic act where they had to juggle all of these commitments while others were continually being thrown into the mix. I still don’t know how they did it.

But the true magic of the situation was that I didn’t notice. I didn’t notice the juggling multiple jobs. I didn’t notice when belts got tightened so ends could meet. (To this day I still view‘Shit on a Shingle’ as a proper Sunday viddle) I didn’t notice when pride was swallowed and relatives were asked for help. I didn’t notice when their desire for something better for me took longer than they wanted to come about. I didn’t notice those things because I was too busy noticing the things that mattered.

I noticed the weekend trip to camp on the beach where the fog was thick like smoke in the morning. I noticed the cherry blossoms blooming in the parks of D.C. where we spent timeshowing relatives around town. I noticed riding on your shoulders as we hiked through the woods. I noticed that you took the time to play checkers with me despite my attention span being close to that of a hyperactive squirrel. And most of all I remember you taking a moment to sit and read with me after a long day. What I noticed most about my childhood was that both my mother and father took the time and effort to make sure I’d notice the important things.

As this Father’s Day rolls around I wanted you to know that all those things you did mattered and the stuff that you may have felt you didn’t get quite right, most likely I didn’t even notice.Thank you Dad.