My rummaging process through the old raft was pleasantly interrupted this last week by an unexpected visit by Weasel...a much-needed visit for both of us, I think. The visit didn't last as long as I would have liked (no matter how long a visit is with your children, it's always too short), but I'm very grateful for the few days we had together.
Without going into too many details, Weasel had been living up to his name--at school, and at his mother and stepfather's house in Arizona. He was caught doing more than his share of lying, had been somewhat defiant (out-of-character for him), and was failing all subjects in school. Yes, all of them. It turned out that though he was the top of his class on his tests each week, he hadn't done a single page of his daily work--neither at home or at school. For my digression of the night, I'm reminded how I did the same exact thing when I took Chemistry in high school (though I didn't lie, my parents just never asked)...except that I was able to pull off a C+ for the year.
My Chemistry teacher, Mr. Pritchett, had pissed me off by asking me if I was stoned one time in front of the whole class while he was giving a lecture and I wasn't paying attention. A friend of mine, John, and I, were looking at Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic books and giggling during the lecture. I didn't mind that he called me out for not paying attention, but I didn't like being wrongly accused of being on drugs--especially in front of the whole class (and the irony of it was that my friend John probably WAS actually stoned, lol). I let Mr. Pritchett know as much as class let out. He pointed out that I hadn't done any of my daily work and that there was no way to pass his class without doing the daily work. I, of course, took that as a challenge, and made a point of doing none of the daily work the rest of the year. I read the chapters, though, and my friend John and I were always in the top 3 on test scores out of all his classes. Mr. Pritchett was so pissed about having to give me a C+ that he wouldn't speak to me for many, many years. Anchorage is a small town, so you run into people at grocery stores and what not; so I of course would run into him on occasion. Every time I saw him somewhere I would say "Hi, Mr. Pritchett" in a sincere and pleasant tone...he wouldn't return the "Hello" and would instead glare at me, grumble, and walk past me. This went on for many years--even after he'd long been retired from teaching--until about three years ago. I bumped into him at Costco a few years ago and tried again with my "Hi, Mr. Pritchett," and, much to my surprise, he smiled and was so gracious. He took my extended hands with both of his and held them so warmly, and I could feel he was genuinely happy to see me. We exchanged small talk for a few minutes and parted ways...it was such a beautiful moment though. I haven't seen him since then, but I'll always have that fond memory.
In fairness to Mr. Pritchett, I did give him much more cause to be pissed at me than simply not doing my daily work and acing the tests. He was out one time for a seminar for a couple days, and had left a notebook of instructions for his substitute sitting on his desk. I scanned over it and noticed that he had instructed him to make 2.0 liters of sodium something-or-other solution, and he had handily written the instructions in pencil so I was able to erase the "." from the page. Mr. Pritchett nearly exploded when he came back to 20 liters of sodium something-or-other solution and spent most of an entire class letting us all know how upset he was. I never did fess up to that one, though I imagine he always suspected me.
And there was the time I squirted a girl on the backside with a water gun--Amy, I think it was--and he sent me to the principal's office. Amy (if it was her) even pleaded with him not to bust me, as we were friends and I was just messing around, and she didn't really mind...but he'd have none of it. So I went to the office, and was issued a week's worth of work details. Mr. Pritchett was satisfied with that, until he later found out that I never actually had to serve any of them. There was another girl--Cassie, I think was her name--who was a friend of mine who worked in the school office, so she marked me off on my work details each day to reflect that I had served them. She offered to do this for me, because she felt the punishment was unjust. Since I seem to be sort of confessing things here, I should point out that the way Mr. Pritchett learned that I never actually served the work details was by me telling him so--on the last day of school. I made a special trip to his classroom to let him know as I was on my way out the door of East Anchorage High school for the last time. So now that I think about it, I guess I deserved years of him glaring and grumbling at me. But all's well that ends well, right? Hopefully Mr. Pritchett never reads this and learns I was responsible for the sodium something-or-other debacle.
There were other things too, but those were the big ones--and I've already let this digression run on too long. I'll finish the digression by saying I actually wasn't a bad kid in school at all--I was an honor student, and, for the most part, what every mother wanted their high school kid to be. The only punishment I ever received in school at all were the work details issued after the squirt gun incident that I never served. A squeaky clean record aside from that. Anyway, on with the unexpected Weasel visit.
Weasel spent three days and two nights with me here at My Blue Heaven, and it was all quality time. We didn't talk too much about his troubles at school and home, but enough I think. When he left the other night he promised me that he'll graduate the 5th grade, so I'm taking him at his word. We ran some errands together and ate out a few times, but mostly we hung out and played video games. We mostly played Primal Rage (which he knows I was addicted to when I was in my mid 20's), but we also played Mortal Kombat--both II and III. Thank God for the retro games they release for Xbox by the way!
I kicked his ass on Primal Rage, of course, because I knew all the special moves; then he returned the favor on Mortal Kombat because he knew THOSE special moves. While we were playing Mortal Kombat, I discovered I was putting up a much better fight against him when I was playing as Mileena, so I just kept playing as her. I even won a few rounds against him, which annoyed him enough to start playing as her. Even when we were both playing as Mileena, I was putting up a good fight against Weasel every round (though I didn't win them all). The highlight, though, was that I successfully executed a finishing move against him, which in Mortal Kombat is called a fatality. This particular fatality had me eating him then spitting out the bones. He was very pissed about this...that is the moment captured in the photo above. He accused me of "button spamming" as he calls it, though I honestly wasn't. I was trying a sequence of buttons as an experiment that was intentional, and the fatality happened. I've always understood "button spamming" (I call it "button mashing") as just randomly hitting different buttons, having no intention or idea what you're doing. The jury is still out.
It was also nice to have someone to watch Thursday Night Football with...we both enjoyed watching the game together I think, and I'm glad he's at an age now where we can have football in common. In all honesty, though, that kind of went off the rails: since we both can always muster enough flatulence for our own entertainment, we engaged in plenty of that during the football game, and we ended up making associations between penalty calls and farts. Gas Interference, Illegal Shift (lifting your butt up to let the stink out), Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Holding (pinching your nose), Roughing the Gasser (punching someone after they fart), Delay Of Game (a fart that lingers too long), Illegal Contact (butt cheeks actually touching the other person when you fart)...and so on. I think you get the idea. It was fun in a father/son kind of way, with no ladies present.
We also watched the Adam Sandler movie "Click" as Weasel really liked that one and I had never seen it. I've enjoyed many Adam Sandler movies over the years, by the way (Happy Gilmore has always been my favorite), but "Click" was one I hadn't seen. We enjoyed that very much too, and made no fart associations with it that I know of--though I'm sure we both still engaged in flatulence while watching it.
We also had found a copy of the Indiana Jones Lego's game for Xbox for $5 at Ian's Game Paradise, so we picked that up and spent some time on that one too. And we farted some more. And we watched cartoon episodes of "Clarence" and "Regular Show" on demand that we both enjoy...and were likely farting during those as well. Maybe I should have worked "flatulence" into the title of this chapter?
In summary, I'm so grateful for the few days Weasel and I had together. He is much more grown up every time I see him (I last saw him late in July, when he and Butterfly were here), and not just in stature. I don't always know that I'm a good father (though my intentions are always good), but I always know that I'm a father...and that goes a long way in defining me I think. No matter where any of us are, no matter what we are doing, I am always a father and always will be. And I'm grateful for that every single day. Dynamic as life is, that is something that can never be taken away from me--in this life or any other. Sometimes life is heavy and we aren't always where we want to be, but we always have to believe that we are where we are supposed to be that moment. We have to believe that the best things in life cannot be changed--that we build our houses (or rafts) upon a rock instead of the sand; and that our rivers always lead us to good so long as we remember that.
Rock on.
I love you, Weasel and Butterfly. I always will.
Without going into too many details, Weasel had been living up to his name--at school, and at his mother and stepfather's house in Arizona. He was caught doing more than his share of lying, had been somewhat defiant (out-of-character for him), and was failing all subjects in school. Yes, all of them. It turned out that though he was the top of his class on his tests each week, he hadn't done a single page of his daily work--neither at home or at school. For my digression of the night, I'm reminded how I did the same exact thing when I took Chemistry in high school (though I didn't lie, my parents just never asked)...except that I was able to pull off a C+ for the year.
My Chemistry teacher, Mr. Pritchett, had pissed me off by asking me if I was stoned one time in front of the whole class while he was giving a lecture and I wasn't paying attention. A friend of mine, John, and I, were looking at Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic books and giggling during the lecture. I didn't mind that he called me out for not paying attention, but I didn't like being wrongly accused of being on drugs--especially in front of the whole class (and the irony of it was that my friend John probably WAS actually stoned, lol). I let Mr. Pritchett know as much as class let out. He pointed out that I hadn't done any of my daily work and that there was no way to pass his class without doing the daily work. I, of course, took that as a challenge, and made a point of doing none of the daily work the rest of the year. I read the chapters, though, and my friend John and I were always in the top 3 on test scores out of all his classes. Mr. Pritchett was so pissed about having to give me a C+ that he wouldn't speak to me for many, many years. Anchorage is a small town, so you run into people at grocery stores and what not; so I of course would run into him on occasion. Every time I saw him somewhere I would say "Hi, Mr. Pritchett" in a sincere and pleasant tone...he wouldn't return the "Hello" and would instead glare at me, grumble, and walk past me. This went on for many years--even after he'd long been retired from teaching--until about three years ago. I bumped into him at Costco a few years ago and tried again with my "Hi, Mr. Pritchett," and, much to my surprise, he smiled and was so gracious. He took my extended hands with both of his and held them so warmly, and I could feel he was genuinely happy to see me. We exchanged small talk for a few minutes and parted ways...it was such a beautiful moment though. I haven't seen him since then, but I'll always have that fond memory.
In fairness to Mr. Pritchett, I did give him much more cause to be pissed at me than simply not doing my daily work and acing the tests. He was out one time for a seminar for a couple days, and had left a notebook of instructions for his substitute sitting on his desk. I scanned over it and noticed that he had instructed him to make 2.0 liters of sodium something-or-other solution, and he had handily written the instructions in pencil so I was able to erase the "." from the page. Mr. Pritchett nearly exploded when he came back to 20 liters of sodium something-or-other solution and spent most of an entire class letting us all know how upset he was. I never did fess up to that one, though I imagine he always suspected me.
And there was the time I squirted a girl on the backside with a water gun--Amy, I think it was--and he sent me to the principal's office. Amy (if it was her) even pleaded with him not to bust me, as we were friends and I was just messing around, and she didn't really mind...but he'd have none of it. So I went to the office, and was issued a week's worth of work details. Mr. Pritchett was satisfied with that, until he later found out that I never actually had to serve any of them. There was another girl--Cassie, I think was her name--who was a friend of mine who worked in the school office, so she marked me off on my work details each day to reflect that I had served them. She offered to do this for me, because she felt the punishment was unjust. Since I seem to be sort of confessing things here, I should point out that the way Mr. Pritchett learned that I never actually served the work details was by me telling him so--on the last day of school. I made a special trip to his classroom to let him know as I was on my way out the door of East Anchorage High school for the last time. So now that I think about it, I guess I deserved years of him glaring and grumbling at me. But all's well that ends well, right? Hopefully Mr. Pritchett never reads this and learns I was responsible for the sodium something-or-other debacle.
There were other things too, but those were the big ones--and I've already let this digression run on too long. I'll finish the digression by saying I actually wasn't a bad kid in school at all--I was an honor student, and, for the most part, what every mother wanted their high school kid to be. The only punishment I ever received in school at all were the work details issued after the squirt gun incident that I never served. A squeaky clean record aside from that. Anyway, on with the unexpected Weasel visit.
Weasel spent three days and two nights with me here at My Blue Heaven, and it was all quality time. We didn't talk too much about his troubles at school and home, but enough I think. When he left the other night he promised me that he'll graduate the 5th grade, so I'm taking him at his word. We ran some errands together and ate out a few times, but mostly we hung out and played video games. We mostly played Primal Rage (which he knows I was addicted to when I was in my mid 20's), but we also played Mortal Kombat--both II and III. Thank God for the retro games they release for Xbox by the way!
I kicked his ass on Primal Rage, of course, because I knew all the special moves; then he returned the favor on Mortal Kombat because he knew THOSE special moves. While we were playing Mortal Kombat, I discovered I was putting up a much better fight against him when I was playing as Mileena, so I just kept playing as her. I even won a few rounds against him, which annoyed him enough to start playing as her. Even when we were both playing as Mileena, I was putting up a good fight against Weasel every round (though I didn't win them all). The highlight, though, was that I successfully executed a finishing move against him, which in Mortal Kombat is called a fatality. This particular fatality had me eating him then spitting out the bones. He was very pissed about this...that is the moment captured in the photo above. He accused me of "button spamming" as he calls it, though I honestly wasn't. I was trying a sequence of buttons as an experiment that was intentional, and the fatality happened. I've always understood "button spamming" (I call it "button mashing") as just randomly hitting different buttons, having no intention or idea what you're doing. The jury is still out.
It was also nice to have someone to watch Thursday Night Football with...we both enjoyed watching the game together I think, and I'm glad he's at an age now where we can have football in common. In all honesty, though, that kind of went off the rails: since we both can always muster enough flatulence for our own entertainment, we engaged in plenty of that during the football game, and we ended up making associations between penalty calls and farts. Gas Interference, Illegal Shift (lifting your butt up to let the stink out), Unsportsmanlike Conduct, Holding (pinching your nose), Roughing the Gasser (punching someone after they fart), Delay Of Game (a fart that lingers too long), Illegal Contact (butt cheeks actually touching the other person when you fart)...and so on. I think you get the idea. It was fun in a father/son kind of way, with no ladies present.
We also watched the Adam Sandler movie "Click" as Weasel really liked that one and I had never seen it. I've enjoyed many Adam Sandler movies over the years, by the way (Happy Gilmore has always been my favorite), but "Click" was one I hadn't seen. We enjoyed that very much too, and made no fart associations with it that I know of--though I'm sure we both still engaged in flatulence while watching it.
We also had found a copy of the Indiana Jones Lego's game for Xbox for $5 at Ian's Game Paradise, so we picked that up and spent some time on that one too. And we farted some more. And we watched cartoon episodes of "Clarence" and "Regular Show" on demand that we both enjoy...and were likely farting during those as well. Maybe I should have worked "flatulence" into the title of this chapter?
In summary, I'm so grateful for the few days Weasel and I had together. He is much more grown up every time I see him (I last saw him late in July, when he and Butterfly were here), and not just in stature. I don't always know that I'm a good father (though my intentions are always good), but I always know that I'm a father...and that goes a long way in defining me I think. No matter where any of us are, no matter what we are doing, I am always a father and always will be. And I'm grateful for that every single day. Dynamic as life is, that is something that can never be taken away from me--in this life or any other. Sometimes life is heavy and we aren't always where we want to be, but we always have to believe that we are where we are supposed to be that moment. We have to believe that the best things in life cannot be changed--that we build our houses (or rafts) upon a rock instead of the sand; and that our rivers always lead us to good so long as we remember that.
Rock on.
I love you, Weasel and Butterfly. I always will.
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