My brother Oliver was in town this week, and we started enthusing about the work of Frank Frazetta, whom I’ve written about before.
The next day, he presented me with the best daddy-daughter portrait ever:
Oliver, I am forever in your debt.
Category: Family
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I’ve been looking for an indoor, living-room-friendly hobby to do at night, when I get home from work. Something that makes me present in the world of people and things, leaves my brain free for conversation with my lovely wife, and doesn’t involve reeking hydrocarbons. Kate’s knitting is the Ultimate Hobby Activity, as far as I’m concerned; it’s a skill that takes a lifetime to master, occupies her hands, allows her to talk, and results in making really beautiful, lasting things. And she can do it pretty much anywhere.
Has to be a Man Hobby? Nah.
I briefly considered whether I was going to include “must be traditionally male” as a requirement for hobby selection, but the “traditionally male” requirement seems to be antithetical to the “no smoke or smells” requirement. That leaves scrimshaw, I suppose, but I don’t want to have to put away a rack full of incredibly sharp chisels every night, when I’m tired and clumsy. And then I’d have to pick whalebone shavings out of the carpet. Plus, how many pairs of mermaid boobies do I really want to carve?* So if my new hobby involves painting watercolors of fuzzy kittens while we watch “Dancing with the Stars”, so be it.Knitting is out
I tried knitting, but unfortunately that filled me with rage. I respect the hobby and the people that do it, and I recognize that if I worked my way through the learning period it would probably get better, but frankly it seemed like all the worst parts of fly-tying, combined with all the worst parts of learning the piano. I’m sorry, Michelle, I think the baby sweater project is officially a bust.Juggling? Prestidigitation? Card sharping? Knot-tying?
I also tried: learning more contact juggling (the kind of stuff you see David Bowie’s character doing in Labyrinth), but it’s just too SCA-nerdy for me these days. Card shuffling is out for the almost same reason; I no longer want to look like a David Mamet Grift Cadet (when a teenager, I thought I looked incredibly cool spinning a quarter over my knuckles. Oh, who am I kidding, that was just last year.) I asked for the big book of knots for my birthday, imagining that I could spend my time churning out monkey-fist keychains of tarred twine, which I could sell on Etsy (oh, hey look!) . Clearly, I was now grasping at tarred straws. Plus, knot-tying turned out to be worse than knitting; some of those knots involve pinning twenty-five strands of rope to a board as you move forward carefully, and then you realize OH GOD I’M MAKING A MACRAME OWL.So then, remembering an incredibly awesome First City Troop footstool that my grandmother made, I decided to try needlepoint. Here’s my first attempt, which is almost finished! It’s a rudimentary picture of Tikaro, the stuffed pig made by my aunt Sylvia:
It now needs to be stretched back to a square shape, but I’m pretty happy with it. I like how needlepoint is a lot like pixel art, and I like how you’re using natural materials — wool yarn, cotton canvas, starch, and masking tape — and I like how in some ways it’s exactly opposite to computer work. Want to fill an area with color? No “command-A, Edit > Fill, preserve transparency”. Nope, it’s three evenings of basketweave stitch, and each little session is either tighter or looser depending on how you were feeling that night.I paid lip service to not needing to be Traditionally Male, but anyone whose first project is a kind-of fake heraldic shield is right in the middle of the Venn intersection containing both Male and Nerd. And SCA. Oh, well, next one will be a fuzzy kitten with a ball of yarn. Or a screaming eagle. One of those.
* This is a trick question.
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This is a hard blog post to write; blogging is a medium with narrow shoulders, and any blog is an edited sub-set of your whole life. So I haven’t mentioned my father-in-law Bob “Snuffy” Smith’s illness with cancer, even though it’s been a huge part of our lives since last fall.Bob was diagnosed with bone cancer in December, the day after Barb won her contested election for PA State Representative. He was in and out of the hospital (mostly in) since then, went through three rounds of chemo, and finally came home for hospice care about a month or so ago. He died at home two Thursdays ago, in the morning.
I loved Bob very, very, very much. He had the gift of genuinely liking people. He listened carefully, spoke slowly, and was unfailingly honest, enthusiastic, and genuine. As Scott Seiber, a motorcycling friend of Bob’s said, “Bob was everyone’s hero — but he always made you feel like you were his hero.” One of the proudest moments of my life was when Bob and I were stuck in the big Northeast blackout of 2003, on the second day of a motorcycle trip, far from home with only 100 miles of range in our tanks. I was able to use my Mysterious Cellular Internet Powers to locate a luxury mountaintop hotel 90 miles away that had its own generator, and we slept that night in style. Bob always got a look in his eyes when he told that story, and that look always made me feel like a million damn dollars. And Bob made everybody feel that way, for about a million reasons. As Kate pointed out, he was making people feel that way who just met him in the last three weeks of his life.
It’d be trite to say that he taught me about motorcycles, although it’s true. It’d be trite to say that I learned about the Cowboy Code from him (if anybody is “all cattle and no hat”, it was Bob and his mellow, grizzled, storied and honored friends — I still stumble across mentions of them in books), though it’s true. It’d be insufficient to say that I miss him, although that’s more than true. I miss him very, very, very much.
Bob and Barb live two doors down from us. Having Bob go through hospice care at home felt right. We didn’t have to make pilgrimages out to where Bob was, we could just lead our lives all together. I learned that dying is a process, and we went through it together. We all got to say our goodbyes at home. I worked from home one day a week, and participated in his care, and was home the morning Bob died.
I’m embarassed to be crying on the train, so I’m going to stop here. Well, rather, I guess I’m going to switch back to a more familiar heart-not-on-the-sleeve blog mode, and say that the day after Bob died, I finally got my motorcycle running again, after a year of tinkering on it.
I’d like to be able to say that Mysterious Hands were guiding me. Except it’s not mysterious; I just tried to emulate Bob’s patience, and his careful approach, and to just see what was going on.
And sure enough, I found the problem — a simple thing, once I finally stopped poking at the wrong end of the bike — and now I’m up and running with the 16MM Commando Projector, having built a platform for it for the sidecar, and I know Bob would have loved that. So we’re showing “Meatballs” this Saturday night at Northbrook Canoe Company, and Bob, I love and miss you very much. -
Lydia and her pop (my dad) made the cover of the Daily Local News this morning. Give that girl a shovel and a lens to smile at… -
Snow day! Lydia with her uncle Matt, hanging out in the living room. Matt is wearing his new workout clothes, and Lydia is wearing her “tutu team” outfit: “I’m on the tutu team! I’m going to win! Jump! Jump! Jump!”
Meanwhile, the sleet is piling up and piling up and piling up outside.
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Tonight’s schedule of events will be as follows:
ACT THE FIRST
- 6:30 PM: Arrive home.
- 6:31 – 6:32 PM: Negotiate whether or not small girls should use booster seats
- 6:32 – 6:33 PM: Negotiate whether or not small girls should wear bibs
- 6:33 – 6:34 PM: Negotiate whether or not small girls should have their food served in big pieces, or in small pieces.
- 6:33 – 6:34 PM: Negotiate whether or not small girls have water or apple juice, served in which cup, and in what amount.
- 6:35 PM: Eat dinner
- 6:36 PM: Negotiate whether small girls that are done can, in fact, leave the table.
Let’s skip ahead, here…
ACT THE FOURTH [we join in progress]
- …
- 8:36-8:37 PM: finish reading second book, per previously negotiated agreement to read TWO books at bedtime, no more and no less.
- 8:37:05 PM: turn out light.
- 8:37:06 PM – 8:37:15 PM: Begin singing standard bedtime song.
- 8:37:15 PM: Standard bedtime song stopped summarily. Request issued for standard bedtime song (alternate).
- 8:37:16 PM – 8:40 PM: Standard bedtime (alternate) sung. Deep, even breathing detected from mattress on floor, as small girl is transitioning from crib to a big-girl bed.
- 8:42 PM: Tippytoe out of room, shut door. Begin negotiations with cat over feeding schedule
ACT THE FIFTH [a coda]
- 2:47 AM: Plaintive summons issued from room. Investigation reveals small girl curled up in ball on rug next to mattress on floor. Girl climbs back onto mattress, requests re-covering with each of precisely three family quilts.
- 2:47:10 AM: Re-covered, small girl goes instantly back to sleep.
I’m reasonably sure that our girl isn’t spoiled, and she’s not horribly bossy or demanding. She is, however, a three-year-old in a couple of weeks, and various folks have been telling us that two is nothing — three is the hard year. Hey! Thanks for NOTHING, people! You should have warned us that we were going to be living with an ombudsman. Kate is incredibly patient, picks her battles, is flexible for things that don’t matter (“yes, you may pick your own shoes”) and firm when it does (“no, you can’t pick the sandals to go outside in the snow. “)
I know that attrition is a powerful tool in negotiations. Boy, do I ever. 🙂
Update: Kieran tells his own bedtime story on his blog.
tikaro.com 