There’s nothing that makes one prouder or brings one more joy as a parent than new skills. I’ve slacked a bit on getting Nefarious skilled on her bike, but today I made sure to throw it in the back of the truck for when we went to the park. In the past I’d had her biking on her own, without training wheels, but today she figured out how to get herself started all by herself, with no push or start-up balancing or anything else by me. It was such a pleasure to watch her biking down the path without me, and restarting on her own after she stopped.
There are always weirdos at the park, but today there was a guy communing with the trees. He went from tree to tree, and at each one he’d “strike a pose”, usually with his hands pressed up against the trunk, but sometimes he’d hold them in the air, like a mime pressing against an invisible box, or rest them parallel to the ground, as if he was pressing down a force-field that was floating just above the surface. He’d do this for about two minutes, and then move on to the next tree… Very odd.
We went to the mall after the park, to replace the bike bell that had broken. When we were walking in, we had to walk across a crosswalk in the parking lot. There a hundred-or-so year old lady in a minivan came screaming through the parking lot at full road speed, and didn’t stop or even slow down at the crosswalk, missing Nefarious and I by about a foot. I hate bad drivers in general, but this psychopath-by-incompetence old fool is going to kill someone — illustrated by the fact that when she tore past us I punched in the side of her vehicle, loudly denting the side of her van (and skinning my knuckle). Hearing this noise, which easily could have been her hitting someone, she didn’t even slow down and kept on driving at full speed as if she neither noticed nor cared.
Anyway, we’ll be back to the park later because the band next door is playing tonight… they got a new bass player so there will be lots of noise this summer. However, now that they’re letting me know in advance it’s not too big a deal because we just go out those nights.
I went flying in an R22 today with a friend that was thinking about getting his license. I think in the end it was decided that it was too expensive to consider, so he’s going to come with me one day down to the airport and see if he might be better off getting his much less expensive and time-consuming fixed wing private pilot’s license.
Nefarious caught a toad and brought it home with the intent of it being her pet. However, when we looked up what they ate and realized that they are carnivores, we decided that we wouldn’t be able to keep the little guy happily fed, and he was released back into the wild. Probably much better for him.
Other than that, more of the same… sand castle building, sand castle smashing, getting caught in the rain on each of our forays to the park, and making angry faces for the amusement of the camera. I have a bunch of doctors appointments this week. Nothing exciting. My heart rate has been getting slower and slower, and with it hovering in the forties most of the time, I think it’s time to make some changes.
Slow day today… The rain is keeping me grounded today and tomorrow, so I mostly just relaxed… watched a movie and did some more writing on my memoir. My flight instructor has left me lots of homework, but I won’t actually be flying until the end of next week because he’s off to the airshow in Oshkosh, which should be a super fun trip for him. I’d love to go to Oshkosh, but I will have to settle for the Toronto airshow in a bit over a month.
Yesterday I filled a dozen BIG balloons full of water and Nefarious and Cassie lugged them way up the fire escape and tossed them over the side in various locations, and rolled them down the stairs where they’d have gigantic eruptions, making drumming noises on the tarp that covers Makoto’s motorcycles. They always scream with glee when they see me bringing the bulging balloons out… In vaguely related toys I want to buy/build some water rockets, though I admit those might be more for my benefit than for theirs. I wonder if it’s legal to launch model rockets in the city… probably not…
Nefarious is actually having a sleepover with an old friend, and it’s good timing because tonight the next-door band played — not the band below, which is currently only doing acoustic sets. They had lots of fun bashing around my guitar and bass, and Nefarious belted out one of her many original songs. She reminds me of Frances — the badger books by Russell Hoban — because she’s always “thinking” to herself in verse… it’s how she works through her thoughts. Who knows, maybe she will be a rock star one day. I’m sure she’ll choose an interesting path, whatever it may be. Anyway, Caitlin and Saira and I went out for supper, so we missed the ruckus as well. And ohhh… tomorrow that rare wonderful treat of being able to sleep in. Well, enough rambling.
While you’re holding up your wires
Lonesome and alone
I will come to visit you
And throw a friendly stone.
Since the band next door was practising tonight, I took Nefarious and Cassie out to the park after supper. We played and built sandcastles for a while, and then when it got dark, we set up my computer and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and ate the snacks we’d gotten earlier in the lobby 7-11, creating our own little drive in.
For Nefarious’s allowance, we’ve come to the agreement that in the morning she can tell me her dreams from the night before — and if she doesn’t remember, she can make up a story instead — and in return get a small reward for her piggy bank. In addition to being a fun thing to do in the morning, it’ll help her both learn to remember her dreams in more detail, and it will help her to be a better story teller.
PS. And I don’t know if it’s doing this for everyone, but it’s pretty funny that since I mentioned the movie Nightmare Before Christmas that google is now serving up goth advertisements! Hahaha.
Not including violent deaths and suicides, I’ve had only one friend die young, in his case, of cancer. So terminal illness, as it may apply to me, isn’t really something that’s been on my mind very much in my life historically. Nonetheless, with the various problems of the last year or two, it has crossed my mind a bit more in recent time. I don’t feel down about. If anything, it really makes me happy about the wonderfully lucky right-place-right-time life I’ve had and all the amazing people and opportunities in it, and makes me enjoy the remaining time more and try and put as many of my dreams into it as possible.
Anyway, one of the three chains on the tire swing at the park were broken, so the girls turned it into a double-decker swing… Tomorrow we’ll do a night visit to the park (which is fun, counting how many bats we see — last time the count hit thirty before we stopped) because our neighbour’s band is playing. We’ve come to the compromise that at least for the summer where bedtime isn’t too critical that he’ll let me know the nights they’re playing and I’ll just plan to go out those nights. I think it’s the surprise of it forcing an unexpected change of plans on me is the worst irritation, so this reduces the stress between us greatly.
I’m watching a documentary right now about the Space Shuttle — “The Tragedy of the Space Shuttle”. I still feel chills every time I see a launch, and watched many of them live, at school and at home, when I was younger. Sometimes I kick myself for not applying myself more at school and not trying to become an astronaut. It’s very sad to me thinking of the moon landing program, which has been all over the news lately, being cancelled in favour of more funding for the Vietnam War… That — the decision to fund war over space exploration (or even science in general) — has an error that’s been made over and over and over. I often imagine what a world we’d live in if all our wealth was spent on live rather than death.
