Entry 476: An Explosion and a Party

Crazy week, this past one; a lot going on, which is why I haven't posted anything in a while.  For one thing, my Krav Maga gym exploded -- literally.  There was a massive gas leak near the gym's building -- apparently you could heard the gas hissing out of a hole in the pavement -- and something sparked it.  Nobody was hurt, thankfully.  It was early Sunday morning, so there were only a few people in the entire retail center.  Somebody smelled gas and called the fire department, and they had the area cordoned off a few hours before it blew.  Last I heard, nobody was sure what caused the spark.  It's across the street from my office building (which is unaffected), so I snapped the pic below from my car as I slowly drove by.  Scary stuff.

That building ain't getting fixed anytime soon -- I doubt it ever does -- so the status of the classes are in flux.  To the gym's management's credit, they were on it immediately.  They posted a video on Facebook saying they would still offer classes in the area one way or another.  The past few days, they've had "pop-up" classes in a soccer center.  It's a space, but they need something better.  People aren't going to shell out $50 a week to do Krav Maga on an indoor soccer field for very long -- and by people I mean me.  They also need to find somewhere close to where the old facility was.  The convenience of being able to leave work at 4:45 and be in class by 5:00 was a huge selling point.  If I have to drive too far I'm out.  We shall see.

In happier news, we had a joint birthday party for the kids on Saturday.  It was madness: about 35 kids, 70 total people.  Although, to be honest, it was less mad than I thought it was going to be.  We rented a bouncy castle, which was one of the greatest ideas we've ever had.  (Actually, S deserves sole credit for it, I think -- pretty sure it was her idea.)  For one thing, it's just cool to have one of those things in your yard -- mega parenting props, right there.  For another thing, it disperses the craziness.  Half the kids can play in it, and then with "just" the other half running around, it doesn't seem quite as frenzied.

I bought way too much food and drink.  I knew I bought too much, but I figured it would just be normal too much, but it was well beyond normal too much.  The leftovers include: three bags of tortilla chips, one bag of potato chips, one bag of popcorn, one entire veggie tray, a fourth of a giant birthday cake, two full large pizzas (and we gave three away), half a box of chardonnay, one case of beer.  Most of this stuff we can save for later -- the chips are unopened and we froze the pizza -- so it's not a completely waste, but still.  We started composting, and I already dumped the cake in the compost bin, and I think the veggies are next.  I've been doing my best, but I'm one man taking on an entire party tray.  The kids won't eat the stuff, and S doesn't really like raw vegetables like that.

I did the shopping for the food, because S always buys the wrong thing, but then I pulled an S and got the wrong thing.  She sent a text asking for wine in a can -- apparently this is the trendy new thing -- but I accidentally bought cans of rosé-flavored beer.  WTF?  Who even brews that?  Yuck.  I'm turning into a crotchety old man when it comes to beer.  I'm sick of all these fancy microbrews.  I usually just want watered-down yellow beer now, especially on a hot day, especially when I'm having more than one.  Give me a PBR or a Modelo, and I'm good.  If I'm feeling classy maybe I'll step it up to a Kronenbourg or a Stella.  I just don't enjoy the craft IPAs like I used to.  Anyway, the guy at the liquor store was really cool and let me exchange the rosé beer for actual bottles of rosé wine (they didn't have it in a can), and it's a good thing he did because nobody would have drunk the beer, but the rosé wine was one of the few items that didn't survive the party.

For his birthday, I bought Lil' S1 a Nintendo Switch.  He's been loving it, needless to say.  I've been having fun with it too.  There was a period in my life when I played a ton of Mario Kart, so I've been getting back into the groove with the latest version.  It's crazy how that muscle memory stays with you.  I haven't played it in 20 years, literally, and I'm still pretty good at it.  It's become our new family activity.  For a half-hour every night, Lil' S1 and I play and Lil' S2 watches us -- I think he has the most fun too.  I always let him pick my character and my vehicle.  He picks Donkey Kong every time.  And then he follows us on map and does running commentary, "Daddy, you got a red shell!  Oh, take that Bowser Jr.!"

I don't think S is that into it.  For one thing, she doesn't play video games much, so I think she feels a bit left out, and then she also thinks video games are bad for kids, which, I dunno, they might be, they certain are in excess, but everything is bad in excess, and I'd much, much rather have my kids play video games than watch TV.  Video games are more interactive, and you can play them with other people, so it's a social thing.  Also, they are fun.

Alright, I think it's time to wrap up this entry.  The kids started school this week and somehow I'm exhausted because of it.

Until next time...

Entry 475: Quality Time Alone

S and the kids return tonight, so my sojourn in a house of my own is coming to an end.  Originally they were going to come back on Monday, but S moved the flight to tonight.  She was getting worn out being with the kids by herself at her parents' new place in Tampa.  It's in a gated retirement community, so there aren't many (any?) other kids around, and if you want to go anywhere to do anything off the premises, you have to drive for like 20 minutes.  There is a pool there, which is great, but pools are exhausting for parents of kids under 10.  Young kids don't want to lay in the shade and relax; they want to go-go-go constantly, and you can't just zone out and let them do their thing, because you have to play the role of lifeguard.  I like going to pools, because the kids have so much fun, but they also stress me out.

S's parents try to help out, especially her mom, but she has trouble physically keeping up with them.  S's dad will hang out with them, but only on his terms.  Once they start getting a little bit rambunctious (i.e., act like normal kids their age), he gets frustrated and gets upset or retreats to another room.  So, it's mostly on us when we visit her parents, and when you're alone, it can be trying, to say the least.  S's cousin was supposed to come with his kids from Jacksonville, but he had to cancel, and when he did, S started looking into changing their flight.

I'm not sure exactly what this portends for our future visits, but it probably means there will be fewer of them and they will be shorter.  It's not like Columbia, South Carolina, where S's parents used to live, is a hub of activity, but there are other kids in the neighborhood, and we easily could take the boys to playgrounds and indoor fun centers, and we could visit friends in Charlotte.  Also, we could drive there.  It's more convenient/better suited for little kids.

I just don't see how we can afford -- time-wise, money-wise, and mental health-wise -- to spend as much time in Tampa as we did in Columbia.  It's too bad for S's parents, but overall I think they will be happier in their new place, so... it is what is.  I hate that saying, but sometimes it's very apt.

My time alone was seriously some time alone.  I mean, I went to work and the gym and stuff.  But I didn't do anything "fun."  I realized that my social life is 95% family activities -- cookouts, birthday parties, play dates, all with other parents with kids.  I play trivia on Sunday nights sometimes, but if that's off (as it was the past two weeks), then I don't really do anything social without kids.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing.  It's a simple matter of resource allocation.  I just don't have the capacity in my life right now for a robust non-kid social life.  If I didn't have a family, then I would build one, but I do have a family, so I don't.  It also doesn't help that my O.G. DC friends, the ones I could always count on for sports watching and beer drinking, have all moved away.  Most recently, my friend R moved to Columbus, Ohio to be with her boyfriend, and I doubt she's ever coming back, since they're getting married in November -- so selfish of her, huh?

Actually, I was in the process of getting a poker game going for tonight, when S changed her ticket, prompting me to cancel it, so that I could pick them up at the airport.  She said that they could take an Uber back, but she'd have to get one with car seats, which is a pain, and it would be expensive (from Dulles), and, I dunno, it just feels weird to make my family, whom I haven't seen in two weeks, take an Uber back from the airport, while I play poker.  I would feel guilty about it, even if it's because S changed her ticket.  Also, some people were being wishy-washy or non-responsive about the game, which was annoying me, and by going to the airport tonight, I will accumulate goodwill, so that I can play trivia with emotional impunity tomorrow night.  So, it's not entirely a selfless act by me -- but it is mostly one.

Come to think of it, I did do one social thing this week.  I went to dinner with a bunch of Krav Maga folks on Thursday.  The wrestling instructor is leaving for college this weekend (he's only 18 years old!), and so some of the longtime students planned a going away dinner for him.  I happened to be around when everybody was leaving, because I took his last class, so I just tagged along.  We went to a barbecue joint, and I got a half-rack of pork ribs and a loaded baked potato.  It definitely beat the scrambled eggs I would have eaten.  (Actually, I make some bomb scrambled eggs.  I put peppers, onions, and sausage in them and top it with cheese.  Add a let little hot sauce, and that's good eatin'.)

It's one of those things that's kinda awkward, where I've seen everybody hundreds of times before, because we've all been taking classes together for the past three years or whatever, but a lot of the people I haven't really ever talked to, and I don't know their names, or if I do, it's only because I've heard other people say it.  Also, there's a sizable age gap.  I think I was the oldest person there by at least ten years, and some of the people, like the instructor, are barely out of high school.  (I think one girl there is still in high school.)  I heard somebody on a podcast say, "We all think of ourselves as being 15 years younger than we actually are," and that is so true.  In my mind, high school wasn't all that long ago.  I feel like I just finished it five or six years ago.  In actuality, it was literally a generation ago.  I'm the same age as the parents of many high school kids -- and not super young parents.  If I had a kid at 27, well within the range of normal, they would be in high school by now.  This is absolutely mind-boggling to me.  My best friend has a kid in high school, and it's still absolutely mind-boggling to me.  I can never not be amazed, and more than slightly freaked out, by how fast time has moved for me since I turned 14.  Before then time went so slowly.  I remember visiting my older teenage cousins when I was 10 -- they looked like behemoths to me, full-grown men, with muscles and facial hair -- and thinking to myself how far out of reach that seemed.  The four years between ten and 14 took longer than the 28 years from 14 to 42.  It's the paradox of aging.

But who cares, right?  People are people, and it's fun to interact with people of all ages.  I'm never going to be one of those snobs who gets off on denigrating other generations.  I absolutely despise it when people do this.  I hate it when people my age bash millennials, and I hate it just as much when young 'uns make fun of old people for no other reason than being old.  As Sarah Silverman once said, "I'm sorry I haven't died yet."  And not to get all Marianne Williamson on you, but it's an amazing cosmic quirk that we all exist together, right now, on this minuscule speck of rock, orbiting one of hundreds of billions of stars in the known universe.  Why can't we recognize that and live with love, in unity?

And with that I think I will exit now.  I'm going to watch an episode of Stranger Things from season two.  I'm not all that into it,* to be honest, but S wants me to watch season three with her, so I need to catch up.

Until next time...

*My problem with this show, and it's why I'm not a huge fantasy guy in general, is that there's way too much unexplained shit going on.  It's fine to have suspense and mystery, but they need to start bringing it together.  What is the Upside-Down, and how can one get into it?  There's that portal in the lab, but then that kid Will gets sucked into when he doesn't want to -- how does that happen?  And now there's something living in him Zuul-style?  Is that the same type of creature as that gremlin that ate that kid's cat?  And where does Eleven go when she transports to visit people?  Is that the Upside-Down?  If so, why doesn't she go fight that monster and help Will?  Actually, why is Eleven even in this season?  She hasn't done anything but eaten waffles and broken windows in a cabin.  Her story line couldn't be more boring.  They probably should have killed her off last season.  I know she's popular, but great shows recognize when a character, even a beloved character, has run their course, and she's apparently run her course.  Anyway, the last episode left me hopeful that some things will starting getting resolved, so I'll keep watching.  I just hope there is some sort of payoff soon.

Entry 474: Conflicting Feelings

It's a weird time for me right now.  I feel like my personal trajectory and that of society are intersecting, but one is on the way up and one is on the way down.  Things in my life are going pretty well -- I have a great family and friends, a good job, a nice house, and enough time and money to indulge most of my hobbies.  I get to play trivia, make and solve crossword puzzles, listen to great podcasts, and workout regularly.  I get to lie next to my beautiful wife each night and watch my beautiful children grow up.  I get to sit on the porch of the house I own and eat good food and sip cold beer with people whose company I enjoy.

And yet I live my life feeling an underlying anxiety for the state of society.  It's not like I'm constantly sad or angry or anything like that (on the contrary, I'm happy and laid back by nature); it's more like there's always something in the back of my mind nagging me -- a thin but extant pall cloaking my mood at all times.  And it has to do with two things: the resilience of white supremacy and our failure to act on climate change.  Every time I start to feel too good, one of these things rears its ugly head.  Last weekend it was the former, obviously, with two mass shootings, at least one of which was carried out by a wacko white supremacist.  But even before that news broke I was already in a funk because a friend told me climate scientists project that by 2050, which is not all that far away -- my oldest child will be five years younger than I am now in 2050 -- DC will have 40 days a year in which temperatures reach over 100.  That's insane.  Currently we have around seven and that's way up from "normal."  We're cooking the planet, and half the country is either in denial about it or doesn't care.  The steady warming of our climate is not as viscerally jarring as our seemingly biweekly mass shootings, but it's a much grander and less tractable problem to solve -- especially when a lot of powerful people don't want to solve it.

I do this thing a lot where I'm thinking an unhappy thought and then I move on to a normal thought, and then I forget momentarily what the unhappy thought is, but I do remember it was unhappy.  Then when I actually remember it, it's either a relief because it's something trivial -- the Seahawks lost -- or it's a stressor because it's something serious -- my friend told me they have cancer.  These days, I have that going on constantly, but the final remembrance is never a relief.

But, nobody gets to live a stress-free life.  There is no perfect spacetime in history to be alive, and there probably never will be.  We struggle along, subject to the cruelties of our day, and eventually the sun will burn out.  I haven't died of bubonic plague; I haven't been displaced from my homeland; and my teeth haven't rotted out of my mouth.

Here are some more things I have going for me at the moment.

• I got to visit my family and friends in the PNW a few weeks ago, mainly the former.  Before everybody had kids, I would split my time between UP (family) and Seattle (friends) roughly 50-50.  Now it's like 90-10.  I spend most my time with my boys and their closest (age-wise) cousin Lil' Q.  I'm lucky if I get a night and a day to spend with my pals.  I'm not complaining, just saying.  Overall, it was a great trip.
• I'm still the wrestling champion at my gym (self-proclaimed).  I have yet to be bested in any live drill in the class.  A week ago I got a pretty good challenge from a kid in his late teens or early twenties who said he had been wrestling since he was in grade school, but ultimately I got the better of him too.  I kinda sandbagged him.  I went really easy during warm-ups -- I always do, because I'm old and can't go full-out the entire class anymore -- and then I turned it on when we went live.  He was pretty pissed after class -- at least in my head he was.  In actuality, he might not have cared much at all.
• My oldest son is getting really smart, especially when it comes to animals.  The other day a friend was over, and he pointed out a Pileated Woodpecker in my yard.  I said I didn't know what that was, and he said it was a woodpecker with an identifiable red head.  I told him he should tell Lil' S1 about it, so when he saw him he said, "Hey Lil' S1, I saw woodpecker in your yard.  One with a bright red head."  And Lil' S1 replied, "Oh, that means it's a Pileated Woodpecker."
• On Wednesday, S took the kids to her parents' new place in Florida for almost two weeks.  I miss them already, but it's so nice to not be awoken at 6:00 am every morning.  Before I had kids, I didn't consider just waking up and going to work on my own schedule a privilege, but it so is.
• Atlanta, the only TV show I'm watching regularly right now, has gotten really dark and surreal, and I'm loving every minute of it.  It's kinda like hip-hop David Lynch.  I have a man-crush on the actor Lakeith Stanfield and a crush-crush on the actress Zazie Beetz.  The only problem with it getting so bizarre is that S is losing interest.  It's not real her bag.  In general our weirdness-versus-enjoyability graphs are correlated in opposite directions, and so it's hard to find shows we both like.
• I had a dream last night in which I went on a major bender, and then I woke up with cottonmouth and thought to myself, Shit!  I'm gonna be hungover all day.  But then I remembered that I didn't have a drop of alcohol last night -- I was just thirsty -- and thought, Yes!  I actually won't be sick today.  At least, I have that.  I'm not sick today

Until next time...