Vintonville

Last night I was able to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It’s long (almost 3 hours). It’s slowly paced. It’s wonderful.

While I broke tradition and didn’t bawl (curses to you, Awakenings, Field of Dreams and AI!!), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button brought me close.  Close in the way of realizing how precious and fleeting a life lived truly is, how the dreams and hopes of generations change, fade and– in many ways– become lost, the wonders of savoring every moment in life despite age and never abandoning the pursuit of dreams. It’s been years since I’ve seen a film so able to deeply stir emotions.

Of course, descriptions like those above sound cliched, but Benjamin Button delivers them in a way totally disassociated from anything of the sort. I’m having a hard time putting into words the melancholy, hope and humanity that saturates every frame of this film, but it’s there in spades– building until the very last frame before dropping you off at the haunting intersection of introspection and reflection.

Some may be put off by a few adult situations (albeit tastefully done– fade to black is back!), I can’t recommend this PG-13 film enough.

While the trailer navigates the film from beginning to end with a sense of Big Fish and Forrest Gump (which could draw a few comparisons), it doesn’t do Benjamin Button any justice. This film needs to be experienced.

[caption id="attachment_1725" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Already found his new best friend"][/caption]
Well Hellllooooo! We made it over to the Lancaster’s today so I just thought I would post some newer pics of the cutest little baby around. He is just as happy as can be and enjoys keeping mom and dad up occasionally at night. As you can see he has put on some weight and is adding to his rolls of chub. The newest thing for him to do is stick out his tongue and you know he is around because he is quite the squeker. It is so fun to have this precious little boy and we love him so much!

OK, so the mailbox didn’t actually go down. In fact, it kind of won the battle. Here’s how it all unfolded:

It’s a normal evening. I’m just minding my own business, slowly cruising up to the front of the house where I usually stop–uneventfully– to grab the mail before pulling into the garage.

But not THIS day.

As I angled the car in for a parallel mail pick up, I hit a nice little patch of ice. The slickity-slick kept the angle going, resulting in mailbox and truck engaging in fisticuffs. Surprisingly, the mailbox won, leaving the Frontier a nice little dent in the hood to remember it by.

Man.

The Nissan website reads “Mid-size body. Can-do attitude.”

Pfffft. More like “Mid-size body. Mailbox Sissy*.”

*Oh, I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean it. I just have to write stuff, you know? I know it was all my fault. Why don’t we go for an off-road drive after a nice oil change. I’ll get you fixed in no time and make it all better. We still love each other, right? …Right?

Man, it’s cold. And not “throw-a-hoodie-on-and-go-to-a-football-game-cold”. I mean “blood-withdrawn-from- inconsequential-appendages-like-fingers-and-feet-for-pooling-in-essential-things-like-heart-and-lungs-cold”. I mean “Why-is-living-as-a-transient-hobo-in-Hawaii-such-a-bad- idea?” cold. It’s Jack London cold.

Now, if I was a snowman or a sled dog, it’d be fine. Fantastic, even!

But I’m not.

I’m a warm-blooded, summer-loving mammal born to wear flip flops, shorts and  skin pigmentation belying a risk of melanoma.

Looking back, I’m not sure when my unhealthy relationship with Winter cold ended, but the whole thing feels like it went on far longer than it should have. Not that we didn’t try to make it work. I mean, we tried to work it out for years. We tried counseling, but she was always so unwilling to change. Everything had to be her way. There was no middle ground. Cold was cold– live with it. We’d even tried taking breaks from one another, but every year it was the same thing:

“Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I’ve been so cold. I promise I’ll change. See? I’m reading this book on global warming and I really think I could get into it. Here, lemme up the temperature for you, Baby. See? I can change… Oh, you want it warmer? I was out shopping, Baby– and I got you a present! It’s called Summer- it’s warm all day and night and gives you long days and infinite tan. See? You like that? I love you, Baby…”

Then slowly, always slowly, things started creeping back to the old ways.

“Oh, this little cold snap? I’m just having a bad day, Baby. Everything’s OK. I’m not even as bad as I used to be… I’m trying!”

Then, one day, I woke up and the flipflops were mothballed,  the forecast was all gray skies and sub-20’s for the next  three months and my tan was history– I was suddenly a doughy, second-rate Edward Cullen knock-off.

“See? See what you made me do!? I tried to change and you didn’t do anything! You don’t appreciate anything I do! So you know what? I’m happy with the old me. If you want heat, go make your own! You disgust me!”

To which I say, ” OH YEAH!? WELL BRING ON GLOBAL WARMING!”

And that’s how it ended.

No, Cold and I haven’t been involved in an equilaterally fruitful relationship for quite some time. –Sigh– And after all the good times we had together.

If the eyes are windows to the soul, I’m beginning to see prayers as the peephole to Joshua’s little id…

The other night Mari-Catherine was out being crafty, which left me and Joshua bacheloring it for a few hours (IE- eating all the junk food and watching Kung Fu Panda/Wall-E). Despite all the bonding we’d done, when it cam time to go to bed, I became the parental equivalent of chopped liver. “I want Mama to sleep with me.”

“Wha? C’mon, buddy. It’s me and you! Taking on bedtime Mano a Mano!”

“You can sleep with me tomorrow.”

“Mama’s not here.”

“I have an idea. We can wait for Mama and maybe she’ll be home.”

“She’s gonna be home late. It’s time to got to sleep, Joshua. We can sleep and then when she gets home maybe she’ll come in here.”

After a little soothing and pacification, Joshua relented in saying his prayers, where he quickly added, “Please help Mama to drive home safely.  And please help us to sleep terrible until Mama comes home.”

Lately, we’ve found Joshua becoming occasionally distracted with Mari-Catherine’s… er… charms. Now before you get all creeped out with visions of Oedipus Rex, Joshua’s fascination is a more of an “I don’t have those, but you do” kind of thing. Or so I keep telling myself. Either way, Joshua is very concerned that they’re functioning when the new little one comes barreling into our family come May. On any given night, we can usually count on this request, “Please bless Mama’s boobies to make milk when the baby pops out.”

Today Joshua was hanging out with his cousin Isaac. The two were talking about Mari-Catherine and pregnancy. Isaac was explaining that Mari-Catherine was pregnant and is going to have a baby. Joshua quickly countered, “No, I changed my mind. We’re not having a baby, we’re having a bulldog.” Needless to say, Joshua’s been trying to convince me a bulldog would be a good idea. I’m not big on a poop machine roaming the house, so when I ask what Joshua would do with a bulldog, he answers, “I’ll go to the bulldog store and buy bulldog food. And we’d teach it to go poop on the toilet and I’d hold it so it could go poop.” Can’t beat that logic.

Just a few years ago– after the blizzard of ‘03– I realized shoveling snow was nothing but sweaty futility crappily disguised as manly, character building work.  Solution? Buying the lazy-man’s best friend: a Snowblower (technically referred to as a “Snow Thrower”).

Of course, anyone who’s ever been in the market for a snow thrower knows it means raising a small mint. With an acute case of pre-buyer’s remorse, I picked up the cheapest snow thrower I could find– the runt in a litter of chain ganged snow throwers lined up outside Wal Mart. I was totally unitiated, so the combination of terms like “single stage” and “two stroke oil” meant nothing to me. Neither did the fact this snow thrower looked like the result of a lonely, cold and drunken night in Paris between an oversized dustbuster and prehistoric “Mo“.

Sadly, it was later in the season I discovered my purchase was a loud, stinky and obnoxious pantywaist. A pantywaist that choked on wet/heavy snow, instantly causing the chute to clog and turning augers from snow gobbling miracles into snow spitting dervishes. A pantywaist intent on demonstrating that tackling snow banks or snowfall over five inches would guarantee an instant shutdown. In short, my first snow thrower was only good for two and a half things: a life lesson in the merits of “what doesn’t kill you makes you cuss better” (and thus the “half” portion: how to artistically string together linguistics-defying chains of four letter words) and practice for the Olympic Hammer Throw.

Luckily, mid-winter of last year, I was saved by a gas can mix-up and some little detail about how two-stroke engines don’t take straight gasoline all that well. It’s not that I tried to sabotage the snow thrower, but the rest of the winter ended up relying on neighborly kindness and Mari-Catherine’s “can-do” attitude to keep our walks clear (she insisted!).

This year, however, I successfully manipulated and weaseled convinced Mari-Catherine that I’d learned my lesson and totally needed a new snow thrower– and not some snow thrower made in the sunny hills of Mexico or the humid expanses of China, either. Oh, no. I was talking about brawny, flanneled, hairy-knuckled construction born from the arctic bosom of Wisconsin– the land that invented Winter.

Needless to say, the new electric start, four stroke, six horse, dual stage Ariens snow thrower cut its teeth and man-handled last weeks accumulation with Northern Midwest authority. My new BFF chewed the dickens out of everything both City Public Works and Old Man Winter (with their towering snow plow drifts blocking the driveway and thick, wet snow) tried throwing at it and chucked their weak antics aside with burly gusto.

What’s up now, Old Man Winter?

Preg⋅o [preg-oh]

–adjective

1.  Savory, tomato based pasta sauce manufactured and distributed by Campbell’s Soup Company. “Spaghetti tastes like warm tapeworms unless I use Prego brand pasta sauce.”
2.  Having a child or other offspring developing in the body; with child or young, as a woman or female mammal. “Mari-Catherine is currently 19 weeks prego.”

Origin:
1375–1425; late ME < L praegnant- (s. of praegnāns), var. of praegnās, equiv. to prae- pre- + *gnāt- (akin to (g)nātus born, gignere to bring into being) + -s nom. sing. ending.

I know videos like these are a dime a dozen… military mom/dad come home as a surprise, cameras gather and push in for close-ups on teary kids/spouses… but call me a sucker– I don’t think that makes them any less heartwarming. I’m not sure why this particular one caused my jaded heart to turn all soft, tender and wuss-like, but it did. I suppose it’s just the confirmation that love is cool, kids are the best and most everyone wants the same basics of happiness and security. It’s just a nice reminder to see that every once in a while, when the stresses and frustrations of life have their volume dialed down, love and connection are the things that matter most.

Ok, back to the usual programming.

As Joshua gets older, one thing is becoming clear: Christmas has the potential to send us to the poor house. It’s not that Joshua’s demanding– I found one half of a busted .25 cent Rubik’s Cube and after handing it to him, became the coolest Dad ever. No, no. It’s not him.

It’s me.

See, when I go to the “toy store” and see aisles upon aisles heaped with glorious, shiny and fantastic things to play with buy for an imaginative 3.5 year old, the 6-year-old Dan resurfaces (which, admittedly, doesn’t take too long) with wide eyed and giddy vengeance. 34-year-old-rationality grinds to a halt as my hands become slaves to their new master and I mindlessly fill shopping carts, thoughtlessly empty shelves and enthusiastically tick off a mental laundry list of all things that, as a kid, would have had me contently locked away in my room. $50 for a Star Wars Republic Gun ship? Bargain! $89 for a Star Wars AT-TE Troop Carrier? Steal! And while my rational, seasoned consciousness would scream, ” When the h-e-double-hockey-sticks did Legos become so da**ed expensive? “, my new found 6-year-old id squeals, “Silence, Old Man!”

Thankfully, Mari-Catherine is usually on hand to pimp-slap some reason into me and send a pouting 6-year-old Dan back into his id-level room without dinner. Otherwise, it’d be “Good day” to our budget and “Peace Out” Joshua’s college fund.

Still, every once in a while, the inner six year old gets wise and whispers up from the basement and through the heater vents, where the unspoken bond between age 34 and age 6 finds irresponsibility and reason inexplicably tied. It’s in those quiet and weak moments I find myself mumbling, “Can you really put a price on happiness?” and it’s in those quiet and weak moments I find my eyes glazing over as I drone, “No, Master. No you can not.”

Next thing I know there’s a heavy-laden car in the garage, a bunch of toy retailers quoted as saying “What recession?” and an incoming credit card bill totaling a months salary.

In the mean time, I’m curled up and sleeping on the couch repeating to myself, “You can’t put a price on happiness. You can’t put a price on happiness.”

There is, however, an apparent price on sleeping in your own bed. It’s roughly the same price as that credit card bill.

Inevitably, we got a little snow yesterday. While I was not all over it (as my friend calls it, being a “crybaby”) and at the office earning some bread, Joshua totally was all over it. Being the great Mom she is, Mari-Catherine took him outside for a little winterland adventuring, where they joyously whipped up a batch of snowballs, disappointingly found out the boots we bought last winter for Joshua to fit into this winter… don’t and that Joshua’s new coat looks a lot like an old coat I had back in the early 80s. But without zipoff sleeves. Boss!