Son of a Wedding Band

Yesterday evening, I was downstairs making a couple CDs at my mom's request when she and my sister visited this weekend. She loves the Moby song, Porcelain, which I love as well, so I put together that song and a few groovy Moby songs from my collection. I also made a mix of tunes from that little known artist, A Produce - mesmerizing synth I like a fair amount, and find relaxing (in heavy rotation at work).

During this process, I asked the boy (David) to grab my cheap earphones out of my night stand in my room upstairs, as he is about to do his piano practice, and I did not want to interfere by listening to music over the PC speakers.

He comes back down with said earphones, but also with my wedding band I set on my night stand earlier in the evening, and a look of befuddled correction on his face. When he handed over the band, he was respectful, but also mildly corrective in tone, as in, "here's your ring dad; the one you should *not* have taken off".

Almost immediately, I was very tickled by this gesture. I thought it was cute that he did not want me to have it off, as that might suggest, in his perspective, some minor marital disloyalty. I tried not to grin too widely when I explained that I take it off at times for comfort, and his mom does the same. Heck, Ruthie takes her rings off all the time.

I am still amused by this as I type. As secure as Ruthie and I are with each other, the thought of his around marital loyalties having something to do with ring wearing was not something that remotely crossed my mind.

16 Candles Revisited

Ruthie & I were talking about John Hughes movies the other day, as someone was commenting on the classic title, The Breakfast Club. I mentioned that they wouldn't be bad to have on DVD if we saw them in a sale rack, so she picked up 16 Candles.

It's been awhile since I last saw that movie, but I remembered it as being cute and sweet and kind of funny. Megan wanted to watch it, so last Saturday we went downstairs to watch it on the big screen TV.

Well, I forgot the risque parts, which led to a few slightly awkward moments, but overall, it was fun to watch, and she liked the movie.

Time, memory, and a different life perspective, for lack of a better word, caused me to see the movie differently since I last saw it.

First, and of lesser substance, the good-looking jock who is the object of the main character seems way less cool now. He's still a jock, and has a single redeeming line when he tells his chin-up jock friend that basically, he's looking for a real girlfriend instead of the proverbial sacking. He's still very good looking, but his personality is pretty boring. What do you expect froma high school jock when you're my age?

What really captured me though was the daddy/daughter scene where the dad (played by the late Paul Dooley, which I always liked in his movies, especially in Breaking Away) apologizes for forgetting her 16th birthday. It's a soft, touching scene.

Now I have friends who are not parents who justifiably tire of the passive/aggressive dismissive line, "well, you're not a parent" they hear from people too lazy or just prone to egocentric dismissiveness to come up with something better when disagreeing on a parental issue.

That said, and this has no negative tone attached here, I would not have identified anywhere near what I did with the dad in that scene, and the feelings involved, if I was not a parent. Sure, intellectually, you get it, in the same way you understand prison is a bad place even if you haven't been to one. I just saw that scene now in a totally different perspective. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have identified so closely with the vibe of the scene from the dad's perspective in the way I did without actually being a parent.

Next up, Breakfast Club......

Po' Purry

I know I haven't posted in a while; a disappointment to 3 people. Been very busy at work and at home. Parenting is challenging, m-kay. If you just have one, well, OK, but having 2 adds that extra special challenge when all is not Camelot.

Got new glasses. Changed my 20/200 distance vision in my *good* eye to 20/60, which is great in that I can see stuff in the distance again and it's beautiful, but there are more and more pieces of vision missing, so it's a mixed bag. It shant be long before this last shred of practical vision is gone, and that is very challenging.

I discovered FaceBook and for the first week I did it, I had to turn it off at work, as it was distracting. I've settled in/down now, but hooking back up with people from childhood, grammar and high school again that I haven't seen in a couple decades is really neat. Many of my old friends look so different, and many are pulling the chrome-dome thing, which is fine, but as my last visual memory is in some cases an 8th grader, it has taken me aback at times to see that sun's reflection off the head.

In geek news, I haven't been blogging game sessions as I have had more important things to do. But here's a wrap-up as best I can remember. In the usual game group, Dave & I tied at Thebes. I won handily the follow-up game of Dominion, then Tim won the 2nd game of the same and I had my worst game of Dominion ever. Next week I won at Taj Mahal, Dave won Dominion, and I think myself or Tim won the 2nd of the same. At my friend Jim's house, I tought them Dominion, and my buddy Phil won the first game, but I won the second. Getting a win at Jim's house is frankly a good challenge, as the players who play there are pretty darn good players, though I do enjoy their company and tolerate the lack of social graces of one of them (not like my own gamiong group doesn't have one lacking in certain managerial skills at times [the Adam Sandler kind], so who am I to fault). Then Ruthie and I played Time's Up and Stone Age with Randy & Holly. Holly and I won Time's Up, a close game, and I won at Stone Age. I try to emphasize when I teach that game how important the cards are, really.

I am still enjoying my job, even though we are pretty busy. I get more enjoyment out of solving puzzles, albeit with data, to help other people do their jobs, then I have in a while. Working sans boss sans any real documentation on procedures I was never really trained on but kept asking for, well, sucked. I feel like we are out of the 'bailing water' mode now, and can begin to work as normal as we can. I have a new boss, and he seems pretty neat. After my old job of control-freak micromanagement and no trust from up top, this job is night/day different. And what do you know, I am far more productive here. Go figure. Still pretty busy, but coming to work has been very good for a while now, and I am thankful, for lack of a better word.

With the help of David, we now have the one TV in the house not DirecTV, digital. I was told the picture is much better. Not my TV. I am somewhat disappointed. Fox doesn't even come in much, and the local PBS rarely has a strong enough signal to not fail. Outside of football season and the goofballs on the American Idol tryouts, I don't watch much Fox, but I really do like various programs on WILL. Truth in Advertising, the spot that that TV is in gets a poor reception anyway, so I'll take some responsibility for the poor reception. However, when you got a poor signal with analog, you got some fuzz. With digital, it's warbled dropout that is unwatchable.

Megan turned 14. Scary, eh? Kids are doing well overall, as is Ruthie. We had fun the other day on a Family Night at Jupiters, a pizza place with a plethora of ticket-dispensing arcade games. I do enjoy Deal or No Deal, and one other silly fun game, but the rest are really for kids. There were a bunch of loud college kids there. Due to my sensitivity to loud noises, it began getting to me, but they did sound like they were having genuine fun being silly, so it made it more palatable. When they decided to leave, they gave David over 1000 tickets, which turned into silly prizes for David, and the rest of us. Thanks, guys!