Big Daddy Paul

I needed to run to the airport to pick up a rental car today (our car is in the shop for a few days and I need a car to pick up and drop off Malcolm at school.)  I could have taken a cab, but with the rental car costing $17 a day, a $35 cab ride to the airport would have killed my margins. So, I decided to take the bus, and I learned a ton of cool tricks.

First, I learned how to pay absolutely no attention to your kids, except to punish them.  Stick them in a seat on the bus with nothing to do, then swear at them when they start looking for something to do.  Tell them that you are gonna smack that look off their face.  Also, it is cool if you smoke while zipping up your kid’s sweatshirt, so much so that you can see the smoke go in their little mouths.

I also learned that you can throw your trash anywhere!  While waiting for the bus, I saw the local kids demonstrate the proper technique for dealing with garbage.  Finished with that Egg McMuffin? Throw it in the street.  Done with your soda? Chuck it in the gutter!  Why, you can even empty most of the contents of your backpack right there onto the sidewalk.  See that garbage can right next to you?  Lean up against it, if you want, but under no circumstances should you throw refuse into it.  You can even throw your empty bag of chips onto the floor of the bus.  The possibilities are endless.

I also learned that people will not respond if you start acting completely crazy.  You should try it, it’s quite liberating.  The guy sitting in front of me mumbled to himself in Spanish the entire time he was on the bus, and every once in a while he took a swing at some phantom person in front of him.  A woman who looked suspiciously like George Clinton got off the bus and proceed to yell at the woman (who was nursing an infant) who was previously sitting next to her.  “You a bitch.  I heard you talkin shit about me touching yo baby.  I didn’t touch yo baby, yo baby kicked me.  I’m goin to the doctor already, I oughtta file a claim against yo sorry ass, bitch.”  No one paid any particular attention to Lady George Clinton, but I did.  I made sure to keep my distance, because I was afraid that if I got too close to her, a raccoon would jump out of her hair and terrorize my face.

I eventually made my way to the car rental counter, although I admit I got off the bus a stop or two early.  I had such a goofy time, I decided that I am taking Amy on a date that consists of nothing but riding around on buses.  At a mere $2 a pop, it is the best deal in the entertainment world today.

We visited with some friends at the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin festival this year. The festival was OK, lots of pumpkin foods, drunken hillbillies, and a sad little parade.  A raccoon ravaged my friend Austin’s garage, suggesting again that the raccoons of the world are out to ruin any fun that I may have.  I say that knowing that I was not the one shooshing the raccoon during the middle of the night armed with nothing but a tiny flashlight.  Way to fight the good fight, Austin and KC!  Malcolm enjoyed a never-ending supply of sweets, so he thought the weekend was a smashing success.

The one real noteworthy thing that transpired over the weekend was Malcolm and his 2.5 year old friend Henry slept in the same room.  For most of you, sleeping the in same room as someone else isn’t that big of an accomplishment.  That’s what prison teaches us, eh?  Henry, however, had not, so this was his first foray into cohabitation with someone other than his parents, and Malcolm played the role of the experienced older gentleman.  So, here it all is from friday and saturday nights:

The Good

Malcolm and Henry stayed in their room after it was their bed time.  This allowed us to socialize with Henry’s parents, who we like talking to and drinking wine with (although not necessarily in that order.) It laid a good foundation for the next step, a sleepover at either their house or ours.  The sleepover is perhaps the greatest invention in the history of parenting an only child: you get to leave your kid at someone else’s house and go out and enjoy yourselves, and then sleep in without having to pay for it!  The boys did not hurt themselves or the furniture, and even slept in til 7 am both days.

The Bad

The boys did not go to sleep quietly.  They stayed up until 10:30 or 11 each night, and were quite excited by having a little buddy to sleep play with.  They screamed, the squealed, they wrestled.  The second night, we all took turns going in the room and threatening them until they finally fell asleep.  Saturday night, the boys refused to go to sleep after it came to light that one of their stuffed animals had lost an eye.  Quite the animal enthusiasts, those two.  All told, the boys lost 5 hours of sleep over the weekend, and it showed.

The Ugly

To say that Malcolm was a train wreck on sunday morning is putting it lightly.  I would classify Malcolm on Sunday morning as a train running to a jumbo jet, and then crashing into a nuclear submarine, causing it the whole thing to explode.  He whined all morning long, and when we loaded him in the car to go to breakfast, he began biting, scratching and hitting anything he could get his hands on.  He threw our camera around the car like it was a football.  He was like a caged raccon! His tantrum extended to the return home (we did not stop for breakfast out of fear that he would have torn the restaurant apart, and that is saying something, because we were going to a biker bar!)  At home, he ripped every piece of clothing out of his drawers and even snapped a rubber band on Amy’s face.  He was in pretty rare form.

In the end, I am glad we did it, as the next time we get the boys together it should be easier. With the weekend safely under our belt, we can expect a lifetime of boys happily sleeping together, enjoying our friends, and drinking wine, although not in that order.

We went camping again this weekend, our second time this season.  This time, the group was mixed with both parents and non-parents.  (In my younger days, I used to call these different groups: people and people with kids; it’s sad how times have changed.)  The campground, Samuel P. Taylor state park, was set on the side of a hill in a great big redwood forest.  As a result the sun went down at about two o’clock, and I mistook this to mean it was already happy hour.  We started eating guacamole and drinking beer early, and it made for quite a night.

By the time the kids went down to sleep, we were good and drunk, roasting marshmallows and playing a dangerous game of “That’s what she said.”  I joined in the fracas, but became confused when I had a fleeting thought that two of the women there were lesbians.  (I couldn’t tell whether they were lesbians or not, as it was getting cold and EVERYONE was wearing jeans and flannel shirts.)  How does one approach saying, “That’s what she said” when some of the listeners are gay? I struggled with this metaphysical dilemma for exactly five minutes before my beer and wine induced mental narcolepsy hit and eliminated all traces of thought.

One by one, the parents with kids there peeled off and went to their tents to either respond to a crying baby or prepare for an early morning crying baby.  I would like to note that Amy and I were the last parents standing, but quickly faded when the non-parents exclaimed with glee that it was only 10:30 and that there was plenty of night left to party.  Amy and I immediately thought, “10:30!  Woa, it’s way past our bedtime.”  We immediately withdrew to our tent.

Nobody slept much that night, because our campsite was overrun by a never-ending gaze of raccoons.  (Yes, I looked it up; a group of raccoons is called a gaze. Bust that out at a party and you will be championed conversationalist of the night!) When I first heard the raccoons, a mere ten feet from our tent, I figured they would eat whatever was left at the table and then move on.  When the sounds of rummaging through all our belongings did not subside, I poked my head out of the tent and flashed our flashlight at them.  They turned to me, and sauntered off, as if to say, “alright boys, the gig is up, let’s get outta here.”

In reality, they just went and got their bigger, tougher friends.  By the time that I got back into my sleeping bag, a larger group was making quick work of everything they could get their dirty little fingers on.  They must have found something crispy, because I could hear the crunch of their tiny little jaws like someone was crinkling paper in my ear.  I poked my head out of the tent again, and when the flashlight trick didn’t work, I began throwing dirt and pine needles at them.  Now, I don’t know what raccoon laughter sounds like, but I am pretty sure they laughed at me, “Look at fatso!  He thinks he scare us by throwing soft pine needles at us! Oooh scary!!!”  This pissed me off ( I have a history with raccoons) and I got out of the tent to physically remove them from the premises if need be.  They casually left the campground, looking back over their shoulders to see if I had gone back to the tent yet.  When I finally was back in the in my sleeping bag (AKA my fart locker), I heard them again, and decided that I was outmatched, outwitted and was going to let them have their way.

I eventually fell asleep, and I when we woke the next morning, the damage was quite astonishing.  They had pried some chips out of the storage container, unzipped a cooler and ravaged the yogurt and milk, and rifled through the garbage that we had neglected to throw in the dumpster.  It was dirty, messy, exhausting, but fun.  And that’s what she said.

My friend Leo has a sweet vacation pad in Jamestown, and he graciously invited some of the softball guys and their families up for the weekend.  We went and decided on Saturday to go boating on Lake Tulloch, thinking that we would spend a lazy day swimming and touring around the lake.  The weather was perfect, the water inviting and so we set out in our rented pontoon to find a slice of the lake that we could call our own.  Then, we saw the wave. 

A power boat pulling two adrenaline loving kids in inner tubes  barreled in front of us leaving a wake that looked like it was the size of the empire state building.  We were heading full steam right at it, and Leo, who was driving, cut the engine in a seemingly wise effort to slow the speed at which we hit the rapidly growing wall of water.  Instead, the nose of the boat dipped into the water, and the now tidal wave sized wake hit us like paddle hits a fraternity pledge’s bare ass.  I was sitting in the front of the boat, holding my friend’s seven month old, and held on for dear life as a wall of water smashed through the boat, destroying everything in its path.  People in the back of the boat watched in disbelief as the wave crashed off the ceiling of the boat (!) and swept through, drenching everyone and everything on the boat.  Some say that a second wave hit us equally hard, but I was so focused on not shitting my pants that I really didn’t notice.

The aftermath resembled the chaos of D-Day, with all of us wandering around looking shell shocked and wondering what to do.  Daniel, the father of the infant I was clinging to, jumped up, and, with the vacant look of an infantryman looking for a missing limb on the ground, muttered that the boat was going down and we needed to get to the back of the boat.  The parents of the six kids on board scrambled to make sure that their loved ones were indeed still on on board.  Of course the seven year old with us jumped up and down and immediately asked if we could do it again.

Daniel and Suzi’s camera got doused, and every towel, diaper, and extra piece of clothing we had on board was sopping wet.  A couple of articles of clothing had washed out of the boat, and, after retrieving them, we cautiously made our way over to the side of the lake to swim.  In an unsuccessful effort to dry out our stuff, we transformed the boat into a shanty town by hanging all of the wet stuff from the top and sides of the pontoon.  The people who drove by didn’t see the disaster strike, and stared at the ridiculous collection of towels and clothing that hung all around us.  We had a relaxing time the rest of the day, although talk of the rogue wave was never far from our lips. 

At the end of the day, we ran into a flotilla of young people in boats basking in the sun, playing loud music, and generally acting hip.  We didn’t really have the heart to join them, as we knew down deep inside that we had almost been done in by a motorboat towing some kids.  We cautiously made our back to the dock and kissed the ground upon our return to dry land.  Back at the sweet pad, we smoked cigars, drank whiskey, and reenacted the whole event as often as we could. I hope we can do it again next time!