The Second Post-Mother's Day Post

I think Mother's (it's never been clear to me if it is possessive or not) Day has outdone it usefulness.  I think the same of Father's Day and the vast majority of Hallmark Holidays but, I'm a grumpy old fart so that's beside the point.

The original intent of Mothers (I like it better the other way) Day, was to...

An aside.  I went to wiki and found this:  She (Anna Jarvis, founder of the original Mother's Day) specifically noted that "Mother's" should "be a singular possessive, for each family to honor its mother, not a plural possessive commemorating all mothers of the world."

That clears that up.  And, apparantly I am not the only one frustrated by the commercialism of the day.  Anna Jarvis herself grew weary of it all as well, in the 1920s.

You know what?  Here's a link to the page.

The commercialism of holidays is not my rant today, however.

I just going to blurt it out because I can't find clever way to get to this.  I think Mother's Day makes a lot of people, moms and dads, feel bad.  It's not so much the expectations of gifts and cards and book-bag cuteness that makes it difficult.  It's not dinner reservations and flowers, brunches and trips to the local farm place for pansies and vegetable starts that make us feel bad.

It's more fundamental than that.  Roles are changing have changed and the whole vibe of the day has not.  The cards are ridiculous, thanking mom for the cooking and raising the kids and cleaning and all that, when those things are more often shared these days.

My wife brings home the bacon and I fry it up, thank you very much.  Where's the card for that?  If we're thanking someone for maintaining domesticity, well, uh, thank you very much, I do do a great job.

Okay, well, that's not my point really either.  Ugh, I am digging a hole here I don't know how to get out of.  (I'll throw in a sentence ending in a preposition, to distract you while I think abou this.)

Here's the thing - it is plumb impossible to talk about Mother's Day without getting sloppily sentimental and trite.  I mean, have you seen the cards?  You can only say thanks and I love you in so many different ways.  Accolades and cute epithets amuse and entertain, but, seem sadly off the mark.  Addressing motherhood is daunting and impossibly complicated; how do you thank human nature and biology and love?  How do you say I love you to the wind, it already knows.

And I guess that's my point. 

So, instead of being getting "sloppily sentimental and trite" I sloppily did this sentimentally trite thing instead.

Yep, a picture of me, on the bias, holding a picture of the boys as babies.  I framed and wrapped it in tissue paper and gave it to her at breakfast

I'll wait while you get a Kleenex.


My wife, Marci, is the mother of Nick and Zack.  And, that changed everything.  I don't have to go on and on here; the wind already knows.


From Marci's "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat ..."
 
So we parked our car next to a cop car, with the cop sitting in it with his windows open.

We got out of our car, and Nick promptly, and adamantly, tells the cop (complete with his little hands up in the air), "I have never robbed a bank in my life!"

I saw the whole thing, officer, that child is indeed a smartass ...

 

First and Last Post

I read on some advice blog, a blog about blogging, that you should treat every post as your first.  On another advice blog, this one a technical site, it said to treat every blog post as your last.

Unless you are a novice at this, get paid for it, or are just plain crazy, you could be on the verge of ending the whole damn thing.  I know I am.  It takes effort and a certain amount of commitment.  And, to really make it big, even medium, you need to be a whole lot more technologically savvy than I am, and a lot more aggressive than I am, and a lot more willing to be just a pawn in the game here on the innerwebs.  Basically, I don't want a G+ account or a Twitter account or a Discus registration password or a YouTube channel or, for God's sake, a Pintrest page.  I don't want to beg and cajole everyone I know to get four-hundred Facebook friends or thousands of likes on my page.  The frustration of all of this sometimes makes me feel like giving it all up.  Done.

I'm not doing it right, am I?

And, I am pathologically naive.  I thought that if I offered up something interesting and new people, well,  would read it.

On the other hand, the assertion that we should treat every post as our first is extremely valid.  I have said repeatedly that this is a stupidly ass-backwards medium.  When you go to a site for the first time you read the most recent post, maybe scroll down and that's what you get, right off, the most recent thing.  None of the clever and carefully developed nuance of tone or voice, style or look, is recognized or, frankly, even considered.  A new reader doesn't know what your getting at from just one post.  And what if that one post is an ad or review or, say a craft made out of snacks.  That's just not what I am trying to do here.

Because of this, I am constantly linking to old posts and explaining backstory and, well, case in point right here.  Up there at the top of this page I mention that this thing is about childhood and my twins and nonsense and cute stuff.  Until that last sentence, you wouldn't even know I had kids, you could have assumed you were on an advice blog, or that I was some blah-blah-blob-blobbity-blogger with nothing worthwhile to share.

I'm not doing it right, am I?

I don't stay trendy either, or offer reviews of products, or make Star Wars references, or even have a book to offer you or that's in the works.  Nope, I don't have much to offer in this era of rampart consumerism and petty capitalism, although I do like LEGOs.  I don't recommend many products, except, apparently, LEGOs.  I don't really like computers, and loathe smart-phones.  I don't give advice because I don't think my way is the only way, that, and I fail a lot.

I do endorse grand ideals.  I believe in hopes and dreams.  I love wholly and boundlessly.  I think words matter.

I'm not doing it right, am I?


So this is neither my first nor last post, my best or worst post, funniest or saddest, most poignant or grand.  This is the post I'm doing right now, and, it's the one you are reading right now.  I better think quick:

I don't think I need the decoder ring and, alas, there is no magical ring that can make an eight-year-old boy make sense.  I'll leave it as is.


I know that Zack and his team have been hard at work on this and that it is really important to him, but there is more to me putting this here.

It’s hard to explain, but, I think when he reads this, someday, in “future perfect” world, he will be able to remember this precisely.  Part of what I am doing here is supplying the boys with details, tangible evidence of their youth, which, for me, and so many others, is lacking.  Sure, there are pictures and such of me as a kid, but, the real evidence of my own childhood, those precious memories, is circumstantial and questionable and, selfishly subjective. 

Sometimes, a smell will bring back a memory of a fresh plowed field being split by a sharp blade.  The shape of a face recalls an old hardware store; an old corded phone, a girl I longed for in high school; summer lightning in the distance assures me, because my father assured me and calmed my fears.  These are good, strong and sacred memories.  I cannot assure you of their accuracy.

So Z might look at these and remember that time, on the bus – Miss Leslie’s Bus – when he had an idea and was helped by his friends and made this specific thing.   

I think he’ll like seeing it again.   

I know I will.

I'm not doing it right, or, am I?

Focus Pocus

There is this hippie writing technique I picked up somewhere along my psuedo-artistic journey.  It's simple really, before you start your soon-to-be-inspired prose, you light a candle, a "focus candle," and it reminds you to stay on task.  You can pray or incant or breathe or stretch before during or after the lighting of the candle and ...

I am never focused enough to remember to light the stupid focus candle.

I lit it today:

I lit it and then I got the camera and  I took a picture of it and then I downloaded the image and then I inserted the picture above.  Wasn't I supposed to be focused on something?

Here's the kicker, I am supposed to stay focused because I only have a little time today and I can only devote so much of my time and brain to this page of nothingness.  It's energy outlaid with none returning.  (That damn candle is giving me flashbacks to the seventies, man.)

Knowing I only would really have time for one longer, more, uh, developed - better written - uhm, gooder, post this week I got to thinking about what I would put my mind to today; what one thing touched me or moved me or tickled me or soared my soul this week.  This came to mind:

Yep pretty cool, “Nick Peebles Boy Detetive (detective) #28.”  I’ll let you assume that’s his badge number although, I know it is not.    His very hip sunglasses are stashed up in there and, well, I am afraid to look any deeper, it might be booby-trapped.  (If they don't start working on spelling soon ...)

I remembered this image with a chuckle:

It’s a pair of Zack’s underpants dangling out of his drawer.  It’s the first time that’s officially happened and it actually made me laugh outloud.  It conjured up messes and bad habits and smells and so much more yet to come.  And yes, that is a lava lamp – a lot safer than an open flame on a wooden desk very near a stack of old school papers.  (What is that smell?)

This was a top contender as well:

Nick and Zack spent one whole cold rainy evening and the next morning working on this, together, as in a team, a sweet, adorable, heartbreakingly tender, team.  They consulted and collaborated with such ease and goodwill that, well, it sort of surprised me, in a happy sort of way.  It was so inspired that it is still taped up to the wall in the dining-room, for a while now, actually.  Maybe I can take it down now that I have it archived, if you will.

I like trying to remember things here that I feel they might recall later, when they encounter this, what? - memoir, digital scrapbook, blog, although that infers readership.  Drawings and stories and images that might spark memories for them, and me, and perhaps you.

Truth be told, when I got to thinking about what I wanted to do here today, the very first thing I thought of was this:

Nick brought this home from school as a simple pencil on paper sketch.  When he got home, he whipped it out and began adding the color.  It was intensely important to him, I could tell.  I asked him what it was and he told me, “Oh it’s just a coupla pearls in the shells.”  In an azure sea under a turquoise sky, shimmering, happy and hopeful.  Just a coupla pearls...

DAMMIT!

I just reached out to get a pencil to  jot down a thought and ...

... I singed my arm on the stupid “focus candle!”

Once he added the color he relaxed and looked at it.  I still don’t get it.  I don’t know why it was so important to him.  I’m not sure he does either.  It may have been about completion or biology or balance or aesthetics or hope.  Perhaps it was about focus.

I gotta go get the fire extinguisher something.

Sorry I sort of lost focus there after I threw the "focus candle" across the basement.

From Marci's  "... things you don't expect to hear from the backseat.."

"We're a couple of greasy ducks, the happy kind."


I know I like my ducks greasy and happy ...


Just don't get 'em too close to the f***ing focus candle.