Sunday, August 28, 2016

Entry 344: Happy Birthday to Me... And to You

Today is my 39th birthday.  The weirdest thing about reaching middle age is doing the subtraction from my youth.  30 years ago it was 1986, which I remember quite well -- it still feels like "modern day."  But if you go back 30 years from 1986 you get to 1956, which feels not just like a different era, but like an entirely different plane of existence.  The increment from 2016 to 1986 is the same temporally as that from 1986 to 1956 -- 30 years -- but the former feels like a little skip away and the latter an uncrossable chasm.  Like I said, it's very weird.

It's also weird to think back to, say, 1986, and remember all the things we did as a family (Expo '86!), and then realize that my dad was two years younger than I am now when we were doing these things.  But, I guess I can't feel too old.  Yesterday we had a birthday party for Lil' S1, who turned four a few days ago, and one of the dad's of a friend of his mentioned that he graduated from high school in 1974, which would put him at about 60.  That is objectively an old age to have a young kid (and he has another one who's even younger).  The energy required... I can't even imagine.  But from what I can tell, he's a great dad and a great guy.  So more power too him.  I hate how ageist our culture is anyway.



In other news, we're back from our trip to the PNW.  It was an excellent vacation, as expected.  Always great to see my family and old friends.  Well, my paternal grandpa died while we were there.  That was kind of a bummer -- but just kind of.  I mean, when a really old person, who is withering away physically and suffering from dementia, final passes on, it's not exactly the world's greatest tragedy.  He was in his 90s.  That's a decent run for anybody, especially for somebody like my grandpa who told me "I'd be fine going tomorrow" when we went to visit him... in 1996!  (So much for the powerful of positive thinking.)

Plus, I have a strange relationship with my dad's side of the family -- by which I mean, we don't have much of a relationship at all.  I'm friends with one of my dad's brothers on FaceBook, and that's about as far as it goes.  To understand the family dynamic better, here's all you really need to know: I have two first cousins on my dad's side whom I have literally never met.  That's just how things are.

Anyway...  I've got a list of topics here.  Let's see how many I can plow through.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Tacoma is way underrated when it comes to beautiful cities.  The Waterfront and Point Defiance have some amazing vistas, and it's equally staggering on the other side with the Narrows Bridge and Chambers Bay (which is technically in U.P.).  I mentioned this to S, and she said that I might be a bit biased because I grew up there.  Perhaps, but the thing is I never appreciated it when I lived there.  I was too young.  I took it for granted because that's what young people do -- they take things for granted.  But now I miss it because that's what middle-aged people do -- they miss things they took for granted when they were younger that they don't have now.



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I miss living in/near Seattle too, but DC definitely has some big advantages.  For one, DC has a much better public transportation system.  Seattle is a very car-centric city.  For two, DC is much more diverse.  At Lil' S1's school there are kids of all sorts of backgrounds, ethnically and socioeconomically.  There are poor kids and rich kids (well, maybe not rich, the rich kids go to private school, but certainly upper-middle class); there are black kids and brown kids and white kids and every color in between.  A few months back we went to a cookout and of the seven families there, six of them had biracial kids.  That just is not my experience in Seattle, where I mainly interact with white people.

Lastly, Seattle is getting really hipster (or maybe it always was and I only just realized it this trip because I'm now a non-hipster family man, but I definitely realized it).  Now, hipster isn't always a bad thing -- microbreweries and artisan food trucks are fine by me -- but too much of it is irritating.  As an example, one night we got ice cream with my brother and his family, and we went to this super hipster ice cream shop (they make their own waffle cones on a little iron and have fliers up for bands you've never heard of).  Lil' S2 was with us, and they were being really weird about there being a baby in their establishment.  And I was thinking to myself, "Yes, how odd to find a small child in an ice cream shop!"

With that said, all other things equal, I'd pick to live in Seattle (or Tacoma) over DC.  I think it is just always going to feel like home to me.

[Lil' S1 on a rope bridge in Seattle Center.  You don't get shots like this in DC.]

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For all her strengths, S is an awful grocery shopper.  I'm writing this with levity now, but it's legitimately vexing at times.  She constantly forgets things ("Make a list and use it!" I cry in vain) or she buys the wrong thing or she buys too much or too little of something or she buys pineapple chunks that are half brown.  It's always something.  To be fair, there are so many damn variations of everything now that it's easy to mess up, but you have to know that and look at the items carefully before you put them in the cart or order them (we do InstaCart a lot).  S rarely does that; she grabs and goes, so it's no wonder when she gets buttermilk instead of half and half.

The other day was particularly bad.  She was going to the store, and I sent her a text with three items I wanted -- provolone cheese slices, tomatoes, and plain yogurt.  She forgot the yogurt (which ruined my dinner plans), and then she bought smoked provolone, which I didn't ask for, and we've never gotten before.  At least the tomatoes were good.

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I some offended some old guy at the airport on our return trip.  We were at bagging claim waiting for our luggage, and Lil' S2 was getting into something so I had to quickly corral him, and I invaded this guy's space or something.  (Imagine that, being crowded in an airport.)  I'm not sure exactly what I did -- I certainly didn't make an noticeable contact with him -- but I heard him utter under his breath, "Easy!"  And then he moved to the other side of the carousel and just stink-eyed me until our bags came -- just straight staring at me.  It was strange.

I was halfway hoping he would come over and try to chastise me so that I could pull my favorite move.  Here's what you do in that situation: You wait for the person to finish; you look them dead in the eye to show you aren't intimidated; and then you turn around and walk away.  This serves two purposes: 1) It pisses the other person off because they want you to engage.  2) It extricates you from a shitty situation.  Win-win.  I've done this move before -- it works.  Few things feel as liberating as thinking to yourself as you're walking away, "I could be arguing with an asshole right now over some bullshit, but instead I'm just movin' on with my life."

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Alright, time to go.  We're going to go take the kids to the pool.  S just texted me that both kids are awake now.  They were refusing to take naps, so she told them they're going to the pool, put them in the car, drove them around the block until they fell asleep, and then just sat in the car with them for an hour.  Hey, works for me.  I got some peace and quiet and got to final write an entry on this blog, and now I get to go to the pool with the family.  Sounds like a fine 39th to me.



Until next time...