A Time For Friends, A Time For Contemplation

Tags

bicycle, friends

This morning I rode my mountain bike with three friends.  I finally have recovered enough to sit down and write.

Mike, Mike and John are three good friends, guys I have been riding with for years.  Between Saturday morning rides, trips to Wisconsin for a weekend ride with the guys, and all the emails in between, we know each other better than we probably imagine we do.  We’re guys, after all.  Guys don’t have deep relationships.  We don’t have to share too much besides a bike ride or a ball game to call someone a friend.

I don’t think that is true with the guys I ride with, especially the core group, the ones who have stuck with it.  Life has thrown enough at each one of us that it’s nearly impossible not to go beyond the posturing that accompanies our riding.

This morning was a change for us.  Most rides are road rides, with a group of 10-20 cyclists, a hammer fest that starts off at a conversational pace but quickly turns to a hang on for dear life marathon.  When I ride with that group, I hang on for the first twenty miles or so, then drop off the back to save my energy for the rest of the day.  But this morning it was just four of us, riding mountain or cross bikes on a scenic path along the I & M Canal just southwest of Chicago, our wheels turning just as the sun came up.  As we rode in twos along a path just wide enough to ride two abreast, fisherman waved and dawn runners pulled to the side.  Our pace was brisk, enough that both knees and a hip barked loudly at me, but I wanted to keep up on this ride.  I pushed through pain, rewarded to feel the strength as my body warmed up.  The pace was fast, but not so fast that the conversations didn’t flow constantly.

28 miles before we stopped for a break.  I listened a lot of those miles as one friend told me how he was feeling after starting the divorce papers rolling yesterday, the stress evident in his voice even over the crackle of our tires on the crushed limestone.  The past few months have been tough for him since, as he left for a Colorado bike tour with the two Mikes and other friends, he discovered that his wife had been cheating on him over the course of the past year with not just one, but several men.  I have sat with him many times this summer, listening to the struggles that have tormented him, trying to help him deal with the thoughts that his 21 year marriage might be over.  One of the Mikes was instrumental that week in Colorado as the pain of that discovery drove our friend down.

And I listened.  And he listened to me this morning.  We talked.  We shared.  And the miles flew by.  Before I knew it, we hit the 28 miles mark.  I grabbed a bag of cashews at a mini mart and turned back.  The rest continued on to make it a 100+ mile day.

The ride back was solitary and cleansing, the thoughts of the morning filling my head, my body aching again from the strong pace of the morning ride.  I needed that time.

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marriage

We can dance if we want to.

Forget it.  I do dance like an imbecile.  I’m proud of it.  Chicks used to dig it back in the day.

My current chick of the last twenty years apparently digs it when her man checks and fills the air in the tires of our van.  Our van has an automatic tire pressure sensor which gives an alert on the dashboard screen when the tire pressure dips below 32 psi, flashing a “FLAT TIRE, CHECK TIRE PRESSURE” message.  Apparently, according to my current chick, that message has been boldly proclaimed for the past few days.

“You’re going to call me stupid when I walk out of the room, but I haven’t checked the tire pressure and I haven’t filled the tires with air.”

“I wasn’t going to call you stupid, but thanks for giving me no choice but to think it.”

That didn’t go over well.  Contrary to what was expressed, I do not often choose to think of my wife as stupid.  She’s not stupid.  Stubborn, yes, but not stupid.  She knew what result her little statement would have on me.   The thought was planted in my tiny male brain, with the little devil sticking it’s stupid pitchfork into my shoulder.  I recognized her statement for what it was – manipulation at it’s female finest.  Mir was about to make a late night grocery run, a task she not so secretly despises, and she was really looking for an excuse to forego her trip to the store.  Procrastination was in effect as it had been all evening.  I saw it and chose not to acknowledge it even as she sat across the living room in her fuzzy-hooded jacket, got up and went into the kitchen, banged some pans around in the sink, then came back to sit across from me ten minutes later with the fuzzy hoodie still on.  I looked up, acknowledged her presence, then went back to reading my book.

Before the nasty grams start flying, let me say that I had already put in a twelve hour day at work, came home to a tired wife who had already fed herself and our son by stopping by the local burger joint, and went to the grocery store to purchase more food to feed myself and our already hungry son.  After the exhausting task of heating the frozen pizza, I ate it then spent an hour playing ping pong with Nate the aspiring ping pong champion.  In my world, I had earned the hour or so I had left before bed to vegetate on the couch with my laptop.  I had.

I could hear the female stopwatch ticking across the room.  Ignoring it was like trying not to gaze upon the exposed coif of Medusa.  My fate was sealed.  Call me a statue.

“Are you going to fill the tires for me?”  Her arms were crossed.  Response was not necessary.  I shut down my laptop, put it to the side, got out of the chair, grabbed the van keys, and walked out the door without saying a word.  It was 9:15 PM  according to the digital clock in our van.

We have two gas stations within a mile of our house.  Neither air compressor at those stations worked.  The first compressor I found that worked, leaked.  The next, another two miles away, was in the dark.  I finally found one that worked – and spent five minutes trying to get the language-challenged cashier to understand that I needed four quarters for the dollar bill I was handing him.

Her smug smile directed at me from her spot in our bed when I walked in at 10:30 almost prompted a very male reaction from me.  Instead, I calmly prepared for bed and promptly pulled the covers over her face as I got into bed and made the bed “warmer”.

Poker Face With Some Chocolate Cheek

There are around twenty pieces of Laffy Taffy hidden the top drawer of my nightstand, plunder taken in last night’s family poker game.

That’s right.  I said “poker game”.

Nate purchased a set of poker chips with cards at the local dollar store.  Since that purchase he has been strongly attempting to persuade us to play poker with him.  He also persuades us to play ping pong, basketball, and golf with him.  I’m used to it.  I have been the object of persuasion for many years, a boy waiting out front for me each evening over the years, a ball or ball glove or ping pong paddle or golf club in his hands.  I’m not sure how games of catch or one on one basketball I have played in my work clothes.  Quite a few, I am sure.  It’s nice to see him getting Mir and Alyssa involved in his acts of persuasion now.

Although he uttered the statement in the direction of his mother this past Saturday  “yeah, Mom, I want to play ping pong with you but I prefer Dad because he is more of a challenge”.  I’m rarely off of the hook with the boy.

So last night, after I came inside from playing with my Drew Peterson Deluxe chain saw out in the yard (my next door neighbor did not appreciate my attempt at humor when I told him that), I faced a family waiting at the dining room table for me to join them in a game of poker.  Each spot at the table was arranged with rows of bite size Snickers and Milky Way, Laffy Taffy, and mini candy bar squares.  Poker chips representing the value of said candy accompanied each row.  We played poker using the chips and divvied up the candy after each hand.  The game was literally dog eat dog, as long as you understand that the dog was really the candy.  Many dogs did not make it to the end of the game.

My game strategy was shrewd – win as much taffy as possible.  I controlled the supply of banana taffy, my favorite, then cashed out.

It was interesting to see my Baptist-raised wife greedily gambling for chocolate.  A week ago she couldn’t tell the difference between suits of cards.  Now she’s a real shark.  Cards are apparently no longer evil.  She was talking of making the candy poker game an event at the next family outing with her sisters.  This should be fun to see.

So, my loot hides in the safest spot I know of in the house.  Even the dog won’t find it there.

Rare

My daughter is one of those kids who dives headlong into life, similar to her father in a lot of ways including that tendency, always at some activity or with one of her myriad of friends or tending to some responsibility.  She is busy in a good way and can think of no other way to be.  Neither can I.  That is one of the ways I can relate to her.

Last night we had a few minutes in the car driving home from the local middle school, where she had just supervised a performance of the flute choir she directs there and where Nate had also performed with the school jazz band.  I drove and listened to my enthused girl talk non-stop to me, talking so fast it seemed she needed to fit everything into the small amount of time she had my undivided attention.  Rarely does Alyssa get time alone with me.  I need that time with her, listening to her talk non-stop like that.

She’s my little girl.  I think about last night and I realize that two years from now she will be in college.  She won’t be a little girl any more.  I wonder how many more opportunities I will have to give her my undivided attention.

Yikes.  Where did the time go?

Don’t Call Me Old

I played a lot of softball this past weekend, six games to be exact – one league game on Friday night and five tournament games on Saturday.  By the fourth game on Saturday, my legs were painfully sore, partially from fatigue and partially from a thigh strain suffered in the first game of the tournament.  When I told a work friend about that this morning, he scarcely batted an eye as he replied that even his teenage boys would have a hard time playing that many games at once.  That was something I needed to hear.  Up until this morning, I just thought it was because I’m 51 years old.

Shucks.  Who is fooling who?  Being 51 probably didn’t help things.  Of course, I shoot toot my own horn a bit more.  I started the tournament with 21 at bats without an out.  That translates to a lot of base running.  I also played third base for the first time in two months, likely adding to the fatigue factor.   Being an old fart was what led to my inability to play third for two months.  My throwing shoulder takes longer to loosen up now and it finally quit complaining.  Instead it stopped working. I could throw but regretted it every time I tried to throw in a game.

One of the reasons for writing this blog is the continuing attempt to convince myself that I’m not a middle aged man.  Dang it.  Reality bites.  Somehow knowing that I can still play ball at a high level takes away some of that bite.  I also write simply as this is an outlet, as I said above, to “toot my own horn”.  Frankly, what also bites is being married to someone who, as the youngest of an all girl family, has absolutely no appreciation for sports.  Baseball to her (and in her own words) is “a perfect excuse to take a nap”, an assessment I have somewhat earned by my tendency to fall asleep two or three innings into watching a game on TV.  Mir also has never been able to stomach watching me play, goes into her own nap mode if I try to tell her about my game.  For a guy who grew up in a family of baseball fans, it’s been a hard pill to swallow living with a woman who has no appreciation for the game.  She has saving graces, otherwise I would be subjecting her to a quiz like Steve Gutenberg gave his fiancé in the movie Diner.  Just like in the movie, she wouldn’t make the grade.

I capped off the weekend by going to watch the Cubs (ugh, bleah) play at Wrigley on Sunday afternoon.  I’m a Cardinal fan but I make the sacrifice to watch the Cubs when they are playing a team I want them to beat.  They win when I go to watch them at Wrigley.  My mojo is good.  Cub fans should be paying me to go watch the Cubs play.  They would win the World Series.

So, there it is, an account of my weekend in baseball heaven.  It was.

Tip #1 for newlywed husbands: She can smell it

Tags

bicycle, marriage

Is that all you are going to wear?

That was the question. There have been variations on that question over the twenty years spent in marital bliss, but the bar was raised this past Monday as I prepped for my early morning bicycle commute.  God bless her heart, I love her, but there are times when I want to hit her with a stupid stick.  When that inclination strikes me, it’s best that I get myself quickly out of her view.  Why?  Because she’s not stupid.  If I’m thinking it, then she knows it – my eyes roll, an eyebrow raises, a slight smirk emerges – without my knowledge.  I know this from the years of being hit with the sarcasm stick.

I’m glad I wasn’t actually in the same room as she was when the question was asked.  Mir was in the kitchen preparing school lunches for our kids while I was in the hallway pulling on a long sleeved bicycle jersey after taking it from the clothes dryer.  My bicycling bibs/tights were already on and a zip up matching sleeveless vest was put on over the jersey.  Yes, I’m styling bike guy and a styling bike guy who has been commuting to work by bicycle for close to twenty years.  I know what to wear when it’s hot outside, cool outside, cold outside, and freezing outside, even when it’s raining.  Not once in those twenty years has the “Is that all you are going to wear?” question been asked of me.  Of course, she’s almost never up early enough to witness my choice of cycling clothing.  It just happened that she was this time.  So, I walked into the living room and within earshot of my still pontificating wife as she continued to elaborate on my clothing choice and how cold it was outside that morning.  Shouldn’t you be wearing more than that?

No.  I rolled my eyes in the safety of the living room, out of sight.  Also by experience, I let her keep talking but didn’t respond.  She also can hear me holding the stupid stick.

I escaped out the front door, unscathed, manhood intact.  There are those who might question that seeing that I was wearing cycling tights.  The ride was excellent, comfortable.  Mir need not have been concerned.

So there is the lesson for any unsuspecting newlywed husbands out there who happen upon this blog.  If you’re going to think any negative thoughts about your wife, make double sure she can’t see you or hear you.  Do not speak, turn your back on her if you have to.  Watch even that.  She will smell the sarcasm.  Take it from me.  I know.

Visit here often for more words of wisdom.

Brush

It’s funny how one simple nuance can change perspective. 

 

This morning, on my commute to work, I came within inches of getting hit broadside by a car.  I had been waiting for the light to change at Loop Road and Butterfield, a double lane left turn onto Butterfield.  I take that left for a few hundred feet before I turn right onto Leask Lane, my cut through to Warrenville Road from the Wheaton area.  It was around 6:30 AM, just as the sun was blazing into the eyes of east bound traffic.  As I crossed into the east bound lane on Butterfield, I heard first a revving engine followed by the stuttering screech that lock up car tires make when anti-lock brakes are slammed on.  The little blue Toyota stopped just a few feet from my right side, probably one of the closest calls I have had in nearly twenty years of bike commuting.  I turned a mean stare on the driver of the Toyota, a blonde girl who looked to be high school age, probably on her way to Glenbard South.  She was shocked to the point of tears and as I rolled on I could hear her beginning to weep through the open passenger window.

 

And that changed my outlook.  Seeing her shocked expression, the tears, hearing the girl begin to cry, took away what adrenaline rush there was from the near accident.  Instead I felt pity for the girl, waved at her as she passed and gave her a thumbs up as she slowed down to say she was sorry.  It’s kind of difficult to be angry at someone when they do that.  Maybe it doesn’t hurt having a sixteen year old girl who is driving also. 

 

Great morning for a ride!

Dad Doof of the Week

I’m thinking “Dad Doof of the Week” could possibly become a regular feature of this blog.  Mistakes in parenting are almost a daily occurence for me.  Maybe writing about them will be therapeutic.

This also is really a lame attempt to showcase my two favorite orange family members in one of my opening posts to my fresh,  unsmudged blog.  I really should write more about Chester, the main reason I am of the opinion that all orange cats have terrific personalities.  I’m pretty sure the same can’t be said for ginger girls, but mine just happens to be the best daughter ever.  Of my two children, Alyssa is the one that resembles me the most both in looks and personality.  She is a bit of a daddy’s girl, not so much in a spoiled way since she really doesn’t have me twisted around her little finger, but simply because she really does want to please me.  Compared to her thirteen year old brother Nate, who is entrenched in the typical teenage male power struggle, she is a regular suck up.  Nate will never openly admit to looking for my approval, even though it’s obvious that he does.  When he does look for my approval, it’s usually when I am trying to focus on something really important,  like write this blog.

Alyssa is sixteen years old.  I should know.  Last week I paid the first quarterly auto insurance bill with our new driver added, a painful experience that has created a unique irony — we have auto insurance paid in full, a great comforting security for my wife and I, but now we can’t afford to drive.  Good thing I like to ride my bicycle, because really the necessity to ride has increased since this past June, when Alyssa passed her driver’s exam and texted a picture of her freshly minted license to me at work, followed by another text message a few seconds later asking to borrow my car that evening, with another text asking when I would be home. 

A common bedtime occurence these days is a hug from my ginger daughter with the question “you’re riding the next few days, aren’t you… (I pause with furrowed brow).. canyou?..(she pouts and bites her lip).. please, dad?”.  I thank God these days for the gift of vitality,  not possessed by many men my age, yet I know that a few days in a row of stressful work days and the 28 miles round trip bike commute is going to make me one tired puppy.

I try to say yes even though it pains me sometimes.

So earlier this past week I let Alyssa use my car to drive to the elementary school to assist with their curriculum night.  Since my checking count was drained from that insurance payment,  my car had only a few drops left in the gas tank.  My instructions to Alyssa as I handed her my keys and my debit card (I don’t often have cash) were to drive directly to the gas station, do not pass go, and put ten dollars worth of gas in the car.

“Yes, Dad”  A smile, a hug, a thanks, a see-you-later.

I relaxed.  I watched some TV.  I wrote a little.  I had a popsicle.  There wasn’t really much else I could do that evening.  That was OK with me.  The couch and I hadn’t spent much time with each other for a while.

My orange offspring returned, peered around the corner at me on the couch, a sweet smile on her face.  She was proud of something.  Like me, her expression hides nothing. 

“I filled the tank for you, dad.”

I must have been white as a ghost.  I blanched as Alyssa’s face went from smile to frown. 

“Oh no.  Oh no, no no no.  We’re going to overdraft.”  The guilt inducing words escaped my lips before I realized what I was saying.  She didn’t cry, but I had just turned a good thing my daughter tried to do into a bad thing.  Daddy doof strikes again.

I tried to smooth it over, assured her that I would go over our check book, figure out a way.  I did, but all I could come up with was provide the hope that two checks not cashed would not be cashed before my friday paycheck.  Reality smacked with a bit of positively tinged optimism. 

Friday came.  No overdraft.  I texted Alyssa, apologized for upsetting her, let her know we were fine.

And my girl keeps on making me smile.  Daddy doofs may be plentiful, but somehow they are always forgotten.

A new start

Honestly, seriously, but not posthumously, I am starting a new blog here.  It’s my friend Riete’s fault simply because she migrated here, probably will exist in this world of WordPress, and I don’t think I want to go without knowing her like only bloggers can know each other.  I’ll invite her here so that all can share in her wonderful world, simple in concept, small by choice, but big in so many ways.

Wow.  My fir…

My words are not at all pressing

But believe what I say.  One thing I am not capable of doing is telling a fib.  My nose grows a big zit with each untruth I utter or write.  Once it festers, like the fib itself, the pus oozes in all its ugliness for everyone to see, a disgusting testimony to my unworthiness.  Pat Boone would be proud of me.

May this blog be pus free.

Thank you and poot.