Kobayashi Maru

Seriously.

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Before I get really into this post, I needs-must give you some historic background on myself.  Yes, I know how much you love a little insider history on moi…  I went to a private college-prep high school (if the literature is to be believed anyway) in Texas.  I don’t want to hear any snide comments about how we prep for college in Texas being somewhat different than how it might be done in other states.  Yes, I was talking to you!

Anyway, when I began attending said school as a freshman we were able to wear whatever clothes we wanted to.  Of course that was back in 1985 so we looked a lot like this:

That might have something to do with why they eventually made us start wearing uniforms.  Yep.  Like a bunch of National Socialist German Workers’ Party members we had to wear the same clothing as everyone else every day.   So we all looked like this:

It was traumatic and scarring and I still am a little bitter about it.

Ok, fast forward to today.  Ok, maybe not actually today today.  But today in the more universal sense meaning in the present tense.  Oh alright, it happened over the course of a few weeks and is now past (hence me being able to tell it), but it’s WAY more current than me being in high school.  There, we all happy with the time frame?  Good.  Back to the story…

The Muppet goes to a private school.  She is in pre-school.  The school goes from pre-school through elementary school.  Kids in kindergarden and up are required to wear school uniforms, but pre-schoolers are not.  Now, the freedom fighter in me would embrace the lack of codified dress requirements for as long as allowed by law.  But the daughter seems to have connected more with Ferf’s genetic code on this, because she asked - for Christmas no less - for school uniforms.  She seriously and with sincerity asked for school uniforms for Christmas.  So, we got her some uniforms for Christmas.  (and yes, I made Ferf buy them out of principle)  Since she went back to school she has worn nothing but the school uniforms everyday.  EVERYDAY.  I think this is strange, but admittedly this could come from my own childhood uniform based ordeal, so I have not commented to her on my opinions and just tell her how good she looks in her uniform each morning as she prances into our bedroom.

I, however, seem to be in the minority regarding this position.  The kids at the school, specifically the kindergardners who interact with the preschoolers, have taken notice of her choice in clothing.  Specifically that she is wearing uniform when she does not have to.  In fact, some of the students have taken umbrage at this, seeing it as some kind of slight towards their superiority.  You know, the superiority that kindergardners have as a birthright over pre-schoolers.  Evidently this offense boiled over recently and within earshot of one of the teachers.  It seems that a kindergardner walked over to the Muppet and stuck out his chest and with as much haughty attitude as he could muster asked her derisively why she was wearing uniforms since she was only a pre-schooler.  The not-so-subtle reminder that she was not a kindergardner laced through the comment with malice aforethought.

The teacher was about to intervene, when the Muppet turned her head to the older boy and said, and I quote, “Ppffffttt, I make this look good.”  And the she turned on her heel and walked away.

Maybe she does have some of my DNA in there after all.  That’s my girl!!

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So the Muppet got some game for Christmas this year.  She has been asking for games for a while, and we have been holding off until she actually understood the games.  See, like a year ago we got her that old wonderful childhood game:  Hungry Hungry Hippos

And I have been stepping on plastic marbles ever since…so that game got like 3 actual plays out of it before there weren’t enough pieces left to play.  That sucks the fun right out of it believe you me.

So here we are 12 months later, and she got some new games: Dominoes and Go Fish.

She took to these games fairly well.  We started with Dominoes and those she caught onto quite quickly.  But Go Fish was its own special experience.  Ferf decided that to start we should be able to lay down pairs instead of the 4 card sets.  I found this to be somewhat worthless, but it was to help a 4 year old learn the game (and be able to hold the cards).  So we played a few hands like that and the Muppet got the gist and played well.  Fast forward to the next day.  The Muppet wants to play Go Fish again.  I decide that she understands the game well enough for us to play sets.  (The game comes with these cool card holders so the Muppet really can handle lots of cards at a time.)  The game started well enough until that fateful moment where Ferf asks the Muppet for a specific card that she has 3 of.  This gives Ferf a set that she lays down and the Muppet does a little lip quiver because she has grown attached to those cards - after all, she took two of them from me in what was her first big haul.  We explain to her that this is part of the game, and that she still has three cards in her hand to play with.  Unfortunately, the very next hand I happen to ask her for a card - of which she happens to have exactly 3.

And, when I look up from having placed those cards down in front of me, the Muppet is getting up from her chair and running towards the stairs.  I get up and follow and grab her right as she hits the stairs.  She quirms and cries and says that she wants to go to her room.  I take her to the couch and Ferf comes over and we explain to her that this is all part of the game, but she is semi-unconsolable…until finally she says, “you two hurt my feelings by taking all my cards.  Those were my special cards and I was trying to get to 4 of them AND YOU TOOK THEM!!”  While suppressing my laughter, I looked into her eyes and again explained the game and how she had taken many cards from myself and Ferf.  She thought about it for a moment, and said, “yes, but you didn’t love them like I did so it didn’t hurt your feelings.”
This is where I realized that my and Ferf’s genetic codes were at war inside my daughter.  See, Ferf comes from a family that she thought was competitive.  She honestly thought that she grew up in a seriously competitive family when it came to playing games.  But that was before she met me and learned what competitive really was.  MY family did competitive on a while new level.   The first time she played Monopoly with Marvin and I (and got her butt totally handed to her) she was dumbfounded.  She seriously considered herself to be one of the best Monopoly player in the world.  She very quickly learned that the world is a very large place and that for some, this is less a game and more a life and death competition.  We taught her a whole new level of strategy, ruthlessness and cut-throat game play.  But deep down Ferf is a softie and she does not want to hurt people (or be hurt herself) - which is why I kick her arse more often than not - I don’t have that whole conscious thing that gets in the way when playing games).  So, as I said, I realized the internal war going on inside the Muppet.

See, she wants to win…badly.  She wants to crush her opponents like bugs.  She wants…well, the same things I want.  But even more than that, she wants to not lose.  And she wants you to want her to win as badly as she wants her to win - enter Ferf’s genetic code.  This poor girl has a long game-playing road in front of her.  But once she gets it all figured out, I have this feeling that nothing will stand in her way.  Kinda scary really…for others anyway.  Not so much for me.  Once she gets it all figured out I will make sure she is always on my team.

I am pretty sure that my genes will win out in this particular instance.  How do I know you ask?  Well, that same afternoon the Muppet and I were sitting in the bed - me typing away on my ‘puter and her watching some Dora movie.  I look over and notice that she has leaned back and crossed her left leg over her right (just like I was so my laptop would rest at the right angle for typing).  I glance a little farther and see her looking at me.  I smile at her and she says, “Look Daddy, I am just like you.”  I gave her a big hug and told her that is makes me very happy that she is just like me.  And that is when she sits up and looks me right in the eye and says:

“Daddy.  I think I want to be just like you when I grow up.”

Me: “Thank you Muppet.  That means a lot to me.”

Her:  “I have been thinking a lot about this Daddy.  I want to be just like you…or a dancer.  I might want to be a dancer.  I like dancing.”

And then she goes back to watching the DVD.

Either it was a really cool, yet fleeting, moment of childlike honesty and Daddy-daughter bonding, or it was a really well thought out nasty little way of getting back at me for taking her 3 cards in Go Fish.  If it was the first, I have the sweetest little girl in the world.  If it was the second, then I am even more impressed with her than I thought I was, and she really will take over the world one day.

Either way…I kinda win.

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Well, here I am.  Another year later.  Another year older.  I’m romancing another beautiful dusk in the mountains on the porch of my family home in British Columbia.
Christmas is over, but we haven’t quite made it to the new year. Give me a couple of days…I’ll get there too.

This year we decided that we would just do Christmas as a small nuclear family.  (i.e. we did not have any money to fly down and do the holiday with the whole faim damnly like every other year.)  So the holiday was all about the Muppet.  She seemed okay with that.   She didn’t even notice a smaller than average haul of presents this year - of course, that could be because she was holding THE GREATEST PRESENT EVER.   We hunted a tree and killed it, chopped it down and brought it home and planted it in the living room and then decorated it while watching the snow fall through the front window drinking hot chocolate.

I know!  It’s like a freakin’ Hallmark made for TV movie isn’t it?  But it’s true.  All true.  The fire was roaring, the snow gently falling and Trans Siberian Orchestra playing on the CD player.

Who knew that the snow would keep falling for like a week and we’d be snowed in!!  That sucked a lot of joy out of the whole thing.  Christmas stir crazy was setting in.  I don’t think I have ever watched so many videos in my whole life.  The entire Barbie collection, every Dora video ever made, plus most every Disney movie.  Seriously, I was ready to dig through 30 inches of snow with my eye teeth.

Eventually we did indeed get out.  Though skating down the back alley with your car is not as exciting as it sounds.

And once I got out and got back to the office on Monday, Ferf calls me and asks if I would “pick her up a little something”.  Being it was right after Christmas, I was leery, but I figured, “hey, maybe I get lucky out of it”, so, I asked what she wanted.  And this is what she wanted:

Yes, that is what you think it is.  Unless you think it is the love child of Darth Vader and R2D2…

which is a semi-logical conclusion I grant you.  But sorry, that is not correct.

Those of you who guessed “a government subsidized 80 gallon composter” you win!!   That is exactly what it is.  Yep…I am now the horribly romantic guy who bought his wife a composter.  Seriously, she used to get all excited when I brought her roses.  Now she gets sexually aroused when I buy her a big plastic thing that turns organic material into psuedo-shit brown manure.  Oh yeah baby.  I should be on freakin Oprah with that story. I am that romantic.  Don’t hate me guys, just try to keep up.

So here I sit on New Year’s Eve Day having just watched the clock turn over to 2009.  Ferf is snoozing next to me having had the crap kicked out of her by this dang cold she’s been trying to fight for over a week, and while she has been losing the fight, it has given her opportunity to self-medicate.  I am considering the last couple of weeks, if not the last many months, but mostly just the holidays.  Holidays are like pre-arranged excuses for scheduled evaluations.  Time to think.  Time to dwell.  Time to supersaturate your system with sugar and then contemplate life as your body goes into diabetic shock and you hit the sugar downer.  Now wonder people kill themselves this time of year…

But fret not, I am not suicidal.  I’m not even into bruising myself on accident.  But I am semi-somber.  This has been a tough holiday season.  I lost 2 uncles to cancer this fall and was not able to attend either funeral.  Plus the whole Christmas away from family thing.  Kinda rough actually.  Believe it or not, I was actually asked what it would take to get me home for a funeral.  A cousin of mine asked my brother whose funeral I would come down for.  (I know.  I know.  He’s young, naieve and obviously still has the whole black/white view of the world about him.  Don’t be pissed at him on my account.  More pity that fact that he still thinks life is such a simplistic equation.)  Nonetheless, the question was posed to Marvin, who then passed the question onto me.  Seeing as how my favorite Uncle had passed away and I was unable to make it to Texas in the 48 hours between his death and the funeral, they were wondering who I would make it down for.  Indeed, there is morbidity to the question itself.  But once asked, does an inquiry not deserve some acknowledgment?

Ok, actually I think the question is invalid on many levels as it presupposes quite a bit of false assumptions (like that I was making a choice when in reality there was no choice to make or that the nature of it implies it to be a character issue on my part i.e. I would do more to make it down for some things than I would others - especially when the “things” we are talking about are the funerals of family members).  But all that aside, I think that funerals always cause us to question things.  And, it is easier to question others than to delve into questions about ourselves, our faith, or our worldview.  There was no reason to question too much with either Uncle James or Uncle Bobby.  Both had lived long fulfilling lives.  Both had seen their children grow up, their grandchildren born and a whack of great grandchildren born.  Both were well loved.  Both will spend eternity in Heaven.  Everything’s tied up in a nice neat bow.  And add to it, that they are both no longer suffering.  Hard to get into the “life’s not fair” discussion with these two deaths.  But death still makes us think.  Think about my dad dying so young.  My father-in-law and mother-in-law dying so young.  Think about spending time with people - did I spend enough time with them??  Could I have spent more?  Should I have spent more?  Done more?   Said more?  Am I doing enough with all the other people I love right now?  What if…

You see how this can tail spin you pretty quickly.  And while I am not spinning on my tail, I am up late all by myself writing to a great sea of readers that I believe exist (on days where I am really optimistic) about my internal musings.  Let’s not psychoanalyze me though.  I am healthy - you maybe not so much.  But me?  Mentally sound and well hung.  Let’s move on.

So do we ever spend “enough” time with those we love?  Do we ever really talk to them about our feelings for them, and even if so, is it enough?  Do we try to really understand those we love beyond past what we already know about them?  Believe me when I say all these questions are exacerbated when you live 3000 miles away from your family.  I often wonder what would be different if I had not gone all over the world and not lived in Canada, and instead just stayed put in Tejas.  Who would I be?  What would my family be like?  My belief system, my worldview, my understandings, my political leanings, my opinions, my career, my dreams and my hopes…how would they be different, and would I like them more or at all?  Does anyone there even know what an 80 gallon composter is!?

Here’s what I do know.  I miss my family.  All the time really, but it is usually more like a dull ache.  During certain times and season it grows to a knife honed edge like cut deep inside, but 90% of the time it’s just there in the background.  Life goes on and I am simply not there for a lot of it.  I miss a lot that happens down there.  Phone calls and emails and blog posts only get you so much when it comes to really staying abreast of the guts of people - who they are and who they are becoming. (except for this blog of course, you guys know me all but Biblically through this thing)  I know that it works both ways too, they miss all the same things with me and my family here.

Mimi and Papa (my folks) I love more than words.  I am who I am largely because of them.  Mom has a hard time with this because she can’t believe that she had anything to do with me becoming someone who would live 3000 mile away, but it’s true.  She more than anyone always pushed me to believe in myself and that I could do anything and that I had to sail out of the safe harbours in order to explore and discover life (ok, so she doesn’t really talk like a Hallmark card, but she did give me literally hundreds of those cards with those exact sentiments, if not words, during high school and college).  She gave me the courage to step outside the Red River/Rio Grande box and push the limits, even if she wishes that I hadn’t listened quite so well now.  I love that she made me believe in the more out there.  That she convinced me to never be afraid and if I was, then to face that fear.  Mom engraved those things in my soul, while also making sure that I never forgot how important family is.  I am the husband and father I am today because of all the things she took the time to talk to me about growing up.  Going through her own hell of divorce she used each opportunity to teach me how to keep from ending up on that same road.  I am confident in my marriage because of her.  (the fact that I married an uber-hot lawyer who works as a Passion Coach helps too mind you, but that is because Mom always told me to marry the best - and I did.  In fact, she specifically told me that I should marry Ferf…even when we had broken up…and I was dating someone else…as I left to go on a date with someone else…even then she would tell me that I ought to be marrying Ferf.)  I truly love my momma.

Marvin is the big brother that everybody wants, but I got.   Don’t get me wrong.  He can be a turd (as big brothers are wont to do), he can be annoying as hell (as big brothers are wont to do), he can piss me off faster and hotter than just about anybody else on the planet (as big brothers are wont to do).  Mind you, all his shortcomings aren’t really his fault…he’s a big brother.  Little brothers have no inherent faults. But he is my brother and I would unhesitatingly die for him.  He pushed me to be smarter, faster, stronger, tougher, even when he wasn’t intentionally pushing me.  He spent his life setting the bars for me - even if he had no idea that he was.  Sometimes I got over the bar and often I didn’t measure up to it, but either way the measuring stick for success to me was Marvin.  Ok, maybe not with GPA, but hey, at your 20 year reunion when guys are doing the whole “glory days” thing you will for sure hear them talk about the game or the play that everyone still remembers.  I am not expecting anyone to come up to me and say, “dude!  Remember when you aced Mr. Miller’s science test!?  That was so awesome!”  Turns out that no one really cares what your GPA was…whatever, I’m not bitter.  When I look at Marvin now, I see that he is still having the same impact on people’s lives today.  He continues to set the bar for people and lives to inspire people to be better than they think they are.  I admire his consistency.  He was noticed that Ferf and I weren’t, as he put it, “root growin’ folk.”  But he is that tree planted firmly by streams of water.  His roots go way deep.  Deeper than I think mine ever could.  He is the stable force for the family.  There are parts of that that I don’t envy him for.  He has become the “family pastor” and if somebody dies, he does the funeral…it’s almost an expectation now.  He doesn’t get to grieve like a son or nephew or cousin or grandson.  He’s the pastor who does the funeral.   I hate that for him.  I don’t even mention to family that I am ordained, cause I don’t want that mantle…but I hate that he has to carry it.  Bittersweet is too nice a sentiment for it.  (by the way…I am hereby stating that he will not do my funeral.  I want someone else.  At my funeral he is a brother.  He can check his credentials at the door.  He can either sit out in the audience like everyone else, or tend the bar, but not doing the funeral.  What? You’re not having an open bar at your funeral?)  It’s funny in a way.  There is probably no one that I wished knew me more than him.  He used to know me better than anyone.  But, as mentioned before, time and distance have a way of loosening that knot.  He and I are a lot alike which is why we probably get so ticked at each other on those things that we disagree on.  Ferf was recently reading a book wherein the author was talking about expectations.  I think that I probably owe Marvin an apology for having unrealistic expectations of him.  I want, and/or expect him to know me like he used to.  To be able to read my mind and just “get me”, but that’s somewhat ridiculous.  He might have similar expectations of me - who knows.  But I think I have had them of him and it is just not right of me to do so.  So, should you ever get around to reading this Marvin, I am sorry for that.  I am not fully sure how to stop, but I at least got to step 1 or 2 here, so that’s a good start.  I think I want to get to know my brother again.  Know who he really is.  Not who he shows people he is, and not who I remember him to be and not who I suppose he is based on historical knowledge and my own finely honed skills of people reading.  Nope.  None of that.  Just who he is.  Not even who I expect him to be.  Just who he is.  You’re a good man Marvin.  I know that to be true.  In a lot of ways, you are still the standard by which I judge a bunch of stuff in my own life - good and bad.  But I realize that neither is really fair to you.  We’re not kids anymore trying to one up each other.  We just are who we are.  Similar in a lot of ways and very different in a lot of ways.  I’d like to really know and understand all those ways - without judgment.

2009 could be a very interesting year.  Lord knows 2008 had its share of ups and downs.  But as the year ends, I think deeply about friends and family and loved ones (not really sure how you could be a loved one and neither friend nor family, but that is how people say it).  Mimi and Papa, Marvin and Twig, ColbyT and Mojo, Krissy and ‘drien - I love you all deeply.   Sissy and Boo, ScottyBear and Yoda, Seester, JonoO and the little red haired girl and Topher - I love you all deeply too.  Everyone else don’t get your panties in a knot just cause I didn’t call you out by name.  Either I am too lazy to type you all, too tired to think through every single one of you, or you don’t make the love list.  If you fall into category A or B then know you are loved deeply by me and I will try to tell you personally this year.  Those in category C, well, you know…try harder.  Or buy me coffee.  Either way really.

Happy New Year!

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