Super Bowl Sunday and Double Features

Super Bowl Sunday. Pomp, circumstance, and hype. And of course the ads!

Kt and I used to watch the show together—I'm hardly the world's biggest football fan, but I do enjoy the occasional game, and if you're gonna watch one, this is the obvious choice! I think she probably hated football, but would join me as a social thing.

A few years ago one of the ads was for some movie (I forget which), and it prompted us to make up a game: movies that sound like they go together, but really don't.

Inappropriate Double Features

Finding Nemo / Finding Forrester

28 Days / 28 Days Later

Animal House / Animal Farm

Slap Shot! / Face Off

I just came up with that last one this morning. I think she would have loved it.

Frolicking in the sprinkler

I woke up this morning thinking, as usual, about Katie. The summer that she was almost two, we were visiting Anita's parents, an hour west of Buffalo, and planning to head on to my parents', up in Ontario. While we were there, Anita came down with the flu. After a day or so, she said, "I'm not going anywhere; why don't you take Katie up to see your parents tomorrow?", so we got an early start and headed off.

Growing up in Ontario, I've crossed the border dozens of times. So I quickly noticed that they seemed to be asking a lot of questions, but it wasn't until they asked, "Does her mother know she's with you?" that I twigged to what was going on: a 32-year-old man with a 2-year old, crossing the border, certainly could be a "custody situation", as the phrase goes. They sent us over to the immigration building, and we parked and went in.

Then we sat there for ten or fifteen minutes, while I kept Katie as entertained as I could. I'm sure they checked my passport information and car registration, but also kept an eye on me, to see if I was at all hinky. So I just made sure I looked as calm as possible, and eventually they came over and said "You can go". So off we went.


When we got to my parents, it was one of those glorious Ontario summer days: sunny and 80s, with low humidity. We had a light lunch and then my mother suggested that we set up the sprinkler and let Katie play in it while we adults sat and watched and chatted.

Of course I hadn't brought a bathing suit for Katie, so we stripped her down and she happily ran around in the water. I asked whether the neighbors were going to think it strange that she was naked, and my mother quite sharply said that if they did, they could go to hell. Then she told me that exactly thirty years earlier, we had gone to Shelter Island, off Long Island, to visit some friends. I was just two. When we went to the beach, I of course immediately got sand in my (cloth!) diaper, so she'd taken it off. Some woman made a snide remark about me being naked, and my mother told her to pound sand! I often forget just how much moxie my mom has.

Anyway, it was one of those wonderful, low-key visits, with no agenda (hard to have one with a 2-year-old in tow!), and we just relaxed and watched her play until she got tired and took a nap. And eventually headed back to Anita's parents that night.

A great day, even if Anita wasn't with us.

So this is Christmas

..as John Lennon wrote. This used to be our favorite time of year; now, not so much. We're gonna lie low this week.

I've read about soldiers coming back from war with PTSD manifesting as being unable to comprehend other people going about their everyday lives, and sort of feel the same way when I'm out in a store and see folks shopping for Christmas. Very strange: intellectually I realize that they of course have no idea how our lives are changed, but it somehow seems like they should.

But I do smile every time I see a Santa image, thinking of Katie coming home from second grade and telling us that Santa Claus wasn't real.

When we asked why she would make such an assertion, she explained that all of the books in the school library about Santa Claus were in the Fiction section.

Always was hard to put one over on that child!

Steely Dan

At Trader Joe's today, I heard Rikki Don't Lose That Number on the Muzak (the real version, not a Muzak version—which is scary enough, since 30 years ago I'd've bet that nobody would EVER play Steely Dan in a store).

And it reminded me of a running joke Kt and I had: anytime we were somewhere and would hear Steely Dan, the first one to hear it would ask the other, "What's this song about?" and the answer—delivered without hesitation—was "Drugs".

OK, maybe you had to be there. But if you know Steely Dan, it's actually pretty funny...

So, in her honor, I muttered "Drugs" to myself. A lady nearby looked a bit startled, but she'll be all right.

The Left Coast Again

I'm back from another quick trip to the San Francisco Bay area to visit Voltage headquarters. I arrived late at night, staying near the airport.

The next morning I got up and drove 25 miles down Interstate 280 ("the 280", in California dialect). A glorious morning: only moderate traffic, sunny and pleasant. I was treated to spectacular vistas of hills, and valleys filled with morning mist. Cows, eucalyptus trees, live oaks (I think; something gnarled like that), and sun, sun, sun! (Although at one point the mist even covered the road, slowing us to a crawl for a half-mile or so.)

The 280 was built in the 1970s through what was then—and still remains, in many parts—virgin California mountainside, and is claimed to be the "World's Most Beautiful Freeway", and I believe it. Here's a recent picture that gives some idea of what it looks like, although it doesn't do it full justice:

 
I listened to KFOX 98.5 Classic Rock, which seemed to be playing all of Kt's and my favorites, and wished she was there with me. She sure loved California.

It was twenty years ago today...

...that Katherine Elisabeth Hillyer Smith entered this world, to the joy of her beyond-ecstatic parents.

Missing you, little peanut girl. Today and every day.

Back last night from Detroit. In the "lattice of coincidence" department, I happen to have been in DTW on business on the day before Katie's eighth, eighteenth, and (now) twentieth birthdays. Distinct memories of each, very different moods, alas.

Grey and rainy today. Fitting.

Learning to Drive

I saw an MGB on the road yesterday, and it reminded me of when Katie was first learning to drive. There's an office park with a 4-lane, divided, semi-circular road (EDS Drive, off Mclearen across from Rachel Carson MS). It's busy during the week, but very quiet on weekends, so one Sunday we went over there for her first behind-the-wheel experience (not counting a little battery-powered car at LEGOLAND in California, where she merrily drove over painted houses and lawns!).

We spent an hour or so in a parking lot, so she could get the feel of the car, practicing driving straight and stopping more or less on a line. She only almost hit a couple of the curbs and parked cars; not bad (the first time I got behind the wheel as a teenager, I backed over a curb and ripped the gas tank off the car).

Eventually she convinced me that it was time to get on the road. Since there was no traffic, I consented, and she pulled out of the parking lot.

She was doing fine, keeping in the right-hand lane. Then we got near the end of the circle, and I told her to get in the left-hand lane, so she could do a U-turn and head back. No sooner had she changed lanes than an MGB came tearing up behind her. "Put your left signal on", I told her, "He can go around". She did, but he stayed on her tail.

"OK, get in the left-hand turn lane". She did—and he followed! By this point, she was shrieking, "Why is he following me?!?" But she held it together and made the U-turn, as did the MGB, at which point he roared past. Maybe he was testing out the car or something; we'll never know. But, while freaked out to some extent, she reacted appropriately.

She sure did love to drive.