Tag: Kid

  • ODDS and ENDS: Quantum Renaissance, Stupid Tottenham, and Mother’s Day

    ODDS and ENDS: Quantum Renaissance, Stupid Tottenham, and Mother’s Day

    (Bust with the whippets…)

    In the evening, it’s hard t find a tv show that me, the wife, and the kid can agree on. The stuff me and my wife watch is way too adult for the kid, and the kid thinks she adult enough for it, which she isn’t. But, the wife came up with an idea, which was to watch old TV shows on Roku TV and Tubi. (This is not a plug for either service.) As of late, the show we are all enjoying is Quantum Leap, which still hold up very well. (Though Sam does seem to fall in love with the ladies rather easily…) The most surprising aspect of watching this show is how latched on and invested my daughter is. Like, it’s what she wants to watch, and has even gone a little into a few fan theories about the show; how much Sam is influenced by the person he leaps into, and so forth. No real surprise here as dramatically, each episode is different from the last, which keeps you engaged as to see what happens next. But the kid totally got wrapped up in the show when Sam leaped into a DJ from the late 50’s, and it dawned on my daughter that the “teenagers” in the show would have been her grandparents. (MIND BLOWN!) It never dawned on the kid that her grandparents were once young and rowdy!

    Looks like Tottenham went on won their second match against Glimt in Norway, and now they are in the Europa League final against Man United. Damn It! Just when I had completely given up hope, and written off the whole Spurs season, that stupid team has gone on to position themselves with the opportunity of winning a trophy, and qualifying for the Champions League next season. Damn it, man! Now I have hope, and excitement again! That’s the last thing I wanted at this point in the season.

    Mother’s Day is Sunday. Call your mom. Sure wish I could.

  • Man, Am I Tired

    Not sure what happened. I went to bed at my normal-ish time last night. I did stay up and watch the Oscars, so maybe that had something to do with it.

    I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the Oscars, but it has been over 15 years since I have seen all the best picture nominees, let alone half of them. But I am a movie fan, and I like the spectacle, and it is something fun to debate with friends, and I wanted to see what Conan would do. With all of that said, it was a rather dull affair. My kid wanted to stay up and watch it with me, which I agreed to, but she was out by 9pm.

    When the Oscars were over, and the kid off to bed, I started to watch Becket. I hadn’t seen it since high school, and I didn’t get too far into it. I found Peter O’Toole’s Henry II grating on my nerves, which I understand was the point. Then I thought about watching Lion in Winter, which is also about Henry II but at the end of his life and with succession being the driver of that plot. Though Lion in Winter is not a sequel to Becket, with O’Toole playing Henry II in both films, it sort of very loosely, kind’a is.

    I bring all of this up for no other reason than it occurred to me last night.

    And this morning, I just felt off. Very tired, a little anxious, and all around uneasy about myself and the day before me. The last time I felt like this was when I was working a particular job that I started to despise, and knew it was time for me to leave. But I couldn’t pin down why I was feeling this way, especially on a day like today.

    But there is a very harsh reality with being the age that I am and also having responsibilities of my family; I had to push through it. I had to make breakfast for the gang. I had to get people up and on their way. I had to do laundry and clean up. I had to making chicken stock for dinner, and lunch for the wife. In a little bit, I will take that chicken stock and tech my kid how to make Greek Lemon Soup.

    I just have to keep pushing through, but that feeling hasn’t gone away today.

  • Blog Prompts/Ideas That Failed Me

    (These are all ideas for blogs that I had, but I couldn’t get them to work. So, enjoy some one-off sentences.)

    I have been too hard on myself lately. I need to loosen up, relax.

    We have a very hard time keeping plants alive in our family. Even the weed that sprung up in the planter on the fire escape just gave up, browned up, and has shriveled away.

    I don’t miss being a kid, and I like being an adult.

    I always thought Casper Van Dien should have been a bigger star.

    I bought one thing online from Pottery Barn, and they won’t stop emailing me. Good Lord, the Harris campaign doesn’t email me as much as Pottery Barn does.

    September 16th was the anniversary of the Battle of Harlem Heights. The battle took place in my neighborhood. I think that’s cool.

    I’m in a hurry for Thanksgiving.

    When we have small dinner parties at our place, we end the evening with drinks and a game of UNO.

    Yes, I am bald, but my love of hats predates my receding hairline. Not that anyone believes me.

    Another blog on my love of naps.

    Can I come up with a half-ass idea, and pass it off for a full assed one?

  • ODDS and ENDS: Surprised I’m Here, Gotta Have Goals, and Sports

    (Nothin’ to do, nowhere to go…)

    I’m forty-seven years old. Not ashamed of my age, and other than a slight pot belly, I think I look rather good for my age. But for the life of me, when I was a kid, like nine years old, I never imagined that I would be this old. Well, sometimes I thought I’d be really old, like eighty, walking with a cane, shuffling around, being all grandpa like. No, when I was a kid, I thought I’d be in my twenties, and then, nothing. Thirty seemed like it was so far away, let alone forty. That some how, it couldn’t be possible that I would live that long. Not that I had some death wish, or believed I was doomed. No, it was more a matter of time. It’s time, the time it would take to become old seemed insurmountable. There just was no way that I could become that old… When I think about me at nine year old, I think he would be surprised that I am still here. And so bald…

    But the thing that makes getting older tolerable, is having a goal. Something to work towards, or look forward to. My Grandma Groff used to say that all the time when she would come and visit. That and it helps to have some spending money. But the goal thing, having something to accomplish, that has made a big difference if the last year for me. Not that it’s completely gone, but I don’t have that feeling of flounder much any more. That I’m just passing through my life, instead of being active in it.

    Growing up, we were a sports family, and then there was me; the un-athletic kid. I mean I tried. I tried my hand at baseball and basketball up through junior high. I really did love playing baseball, but I wasn’t athletically gifted; Batting ninth and right field were my lot. I took tennis lessons in high school, as my dad believed that we should do something physical, and not be a total loaf. I was pretty good at tennis, but I didn’t have the killer instinct for me to actually be competitive. After high school, I stopped playing any sort of sport. And then I had a daughter, who now is very into soccer. Which is cool, because I really like watching it. In my kid’s mind, watching soccer must mean that I know how to play soccer, right? I had written a week or so ago about helping the kid get ready for the soccer club try out. I enjoyed that, mainly because I was spending time with my daughter, but it was good being out and active. I also see in her mind’s eye that she is starting to think I am an athletic type of person. I enjoy this admiration I am receiving from her, but I know that in a year of two, it’s going to dawn on her how awkward and uncoordinated I really am.

  • Road Trip Thoughts, Part One (Unedited)

    This has been a very hectic two weeks in my life. It was supposed to be relaxing and fun, but ending up being more taxing than I wanted, and it has left me rethinking where I am going and what I am doing with my life.

    To explain; the kid had been at sleep away camp, and we needed to go and pick her up.

    Won’t lie, it’s exciting to have the kid go away for a couple of weeks. Not that me and the wife did anything crazy. (We did repaint our bedroom. Whoa!) But it is nice to have some time just the two of us, to remember that we did have a life before becoming parents, and that we do like spending time together. The other fun part is that about three or four days before we head out to pick up the kid, we start heartbreakingly missing the kid like a bunch of sad puppies. More than once I found myself saying that I just want my kid back.

    The drive down south to get the kid is also the last Act of Summer in our household, as she starts school a week after we pick her up. So, this is a read trip that me and the wife look forward to.

    Except this year the wife go sick on the Wednesday night before we were to leave on Friday. No matter how much we wished, and tried, she wasn’t going to be well enough to travel. I was going to have to do this on my own.

    It has been over twenty years since I was alone on a car trip. Twenty years ago, I’d fill the car with gas, buy a Coke and a pack of cigarettes, grab my cd’s and head out. No cigarettes this time around, and I grabbed a water, and no cd’s as I made a playlist on Spotify, but it was pretty much the same. But lonelier. I liked listening to my music, but there wasn’t anyone to talk to. Just me, thinking about everything that I had happened in the last several years.

    Thought a lot about my mom’s death, and how I find myself getting angry at her now, and that makes me feel guilty as her son. I thought about my failures as a father, and not doing the best job at being a good provider for the kid. I feel secure in my marriage, I worry sometimes that we should be doing better at buying a home, or saving for the kid’s college, or retirement. I’m almost fifty, and will I ever be being gainfully employed? Is this writing thing just a delusion, and I am avoiding being responsible?

    And then I saw that I was passing close to the Antietam Battlefield. I’m a Civil War buff, when will I ever be alone again to explore this in my full nerd-out glory? Odds are never.

    So, I headed to the Battlefield. I still had a kid to pick up, so I promised myself that I was only going to stay for an hour. With limited time, I thought it best to head to the part of the battle I was most curious about, which was the Bloody Lane section. Oh, and it was like one hundred degrees outside. I always have a feeling of uneasy eeriness when I visit battlefields, because now they are all pastoral, and silent with very few people around – and I know as I walk that this was a place where thousands of men died, in horrible ways. That so much pain and suffering happened where I was walking. But there is also the grim understanding that a place like this is what allows me to live in the country I proudly call home. It was a humbling place to be, somber in its reality.

    True to my word, I kept it to an hour, and was back on the road.

    I made it to my hotel, a nice, newly built, budget friendly place. It was nice and clean, and I’m not a very fancy guy, so it was great for me. There was a burrito place within walking distance of the hotel, so dinner was fast. I called the wife to check on her, and fell asleep looking forward to seeing the kid in the morning.