Banana Daiquiris and Soggy Lessons

Today’s lesson: How not to lose your mind and how to appreciate your spouse. 
(That’s right, kids. I’m giving you a two-fer!)

The day started out like any old Monday. Nothing special, nothing exciting. That is, until I learned that my new kitchen appliances would be delivered early. Like, same day early.

You could say I was riding a new appliance high. Everything was great. Meals were waiting to be cooked, warm beer was ready to be chilled by a new fridge (strictly for quality control purposes, of course…), and dirty dishes piled up waiting for the brand spankin’ new dishwasher.

Life was great. No, life was better than great. Manny finally got on board that new appliances were destined for our kitchen. I might add that this convincing was no easy feat considering “Manny Garner” has three little letters after his name that can sometimes make my life difficult: C.P.A. (Yea, see what I mean?!?)

I digress… Dreams of pinterest inspired homes danced in my head. Martha Stewart had nothin on my kitchen plans. This was going to be awesome.

Monday night was coming to a close and all but one of the new appliances was installed and up and running. Everything except the dishwasher. For whatever reason, Whirlpool decided not to include an elbow joint amongst the miles of tubing, clamps, screws, and other doo-hickeys needed to install it.

“No worries,” we said. “We’ll get the part tomorrow,” we said...

I drifted off into a deep slumber dreaming of my new kitchen. Such a deep sleep, in fact, that I did not wake up at 3am when Manny thought someone was knocking on our door. But it wasn’t a late night visitor. Oh no... It was the sound of water dripping from our kitchen down into a laundry basket in our laundry room below. This is where shiz gets real...

Manny wakes me up to tell me that our house was flooding. FLOODING.

Oh to be a fly on our wall at this moment. Both of us were half awake, not sure what to make of our situation, and basically running around like chickens with our heads cut-off. After turning off the main water source for our house and soaking up the water in our kitchen with every towel we owned, we quickly realized this wasn’t good. Ever had it rain in your (finished and fully furnished) basement? If not, I can tell you it sucks. And if you have experienced this “fun” I want to personally treat you to a really big banana daiquiri because, my friend, you deserve it.

Around 4:30am, in the midst of the mess that was our house, we became delirious with disbelief and exhaustion. It was then that Manny and I started laughing hysterically. Sputtering this ol’ diddy:

Amen, Tood and Margo. Amen...

It seems odd, but it was just what we needed at the time. I’m guessing it’s pretty important to make sure you can have fun with your spouse/significant other - in both times that are fun and times that are not so fun. Thank gawd Manny and I are able to do both, otherwise our situation could have been so much worse. There was no finger pointing (shhh… let’s pretend the appliance idea wasn’t mine… mmm, k?) and we were able to do as much as we could at the time.

Half our furniture = shot. Flooring (both upstairs and down) = soaked. Sanity = still missing.

Now anyone that knows me - in real life or via the blogosphere - knows that Manny and I have two young, very active boys. Boys that go searching for things they’re not supposed to touch. With this in mind, we packed up the ol’ casa and headed to a local hotel. I might add that this particular hotel happened to offer a complimentary evening social, complete with food and beverages. Winning!

We all sat down to dine on chicken wings and french fries (did I mention it was free?) and the boys quickly showed their excitement over their new digs by cheers-ing their sippy cups of apple juice quote loudly over their gourmet meal. The drained feeling Manny and I had experienced all day lifted a tad. They kids were seeing this as an adventure, not as a crappy day. I mean, heck, there is a swimming pool here!

As I’m writing this the boys are dozing off in their new temporary bedroom -- a queen bedroom suite complete with a large flat-screen tv. They don’t have it so bad and come to think of it neither do we. The mess will (eventually) get cleaned up and our lives will (eventually) get back to normal, but until then I’ll be looking for my sanity. If you see it can you give me a call?

Cheers! ;)

UNC - THE GREATNESS

The joys of sports…on any given day, something great or terrible can happen. On February 20th, the University of North Carolina proved to the great state of North Carolina that it’s still number one by taking down the 5th ranked team in the nation, the Duke Blue Devils. I know this is a bit hard to believe, but if you Google it, you will see that UNC actually won. Now, just a short history of the greatness of the Tar Heels:

-The school was establish on February 12, 1795
-UNC has won 5 National Titles
-17 ACC Championships
-29 ACC Regular Season Titles



A map of UNC fans compared to Duke fans Nationwide (source: the most accurate one you can think of)

The Tar Heels are not just one of the best teams in North Carolina; they are one of the best in the nation (usually). To be that great, you have to have great players and great coaches. The school had one of the greatest coaches in basketball history with Dean Smith and one of the greatest players of all time, Michael Air Jordan.

Stats on UNC vs Duke:

- UNC leads the series 133-104
- ACC regular season champs UNC leads 29-19
- NCAA final fours UNC leads 18 – 15
- NCAA Championships UNC leads 5 - 4

I guess one of the best things about sports is how it brings friends together…or pushes them apart. I wrote this blog because I lost a bet to my best friend. He is a UNC fan and I happen to be a DUKE fan. Writing this blog and doing the history of the two teams kind of made me sick. Lucky for me, DUKE and UNC will play again this year and hopefully the odds will be in my favor.

PS:
One thing I didn’t know about the greatness of North Carolina (something Wikipedia failed to mention) was brought to my attention by one of my best friends when he was visiting the campus. Apparently, it smells like winning and cotton candy.

Fear: Two Stories, One Lesson

Two things scared me about moving to California. Well, more than two but these two things in particular ran through my mind over and over again: driving (traffic) and spiders. In the former case it was the sheer increase in quantity and insanity. Driving in SoCal is crowded, fast while incredibly slow, and pure madness if you really think about it - conversation for another place in time. In the later case, I knew moving from Minnesota to California was going to bring new species, some of the much larger variety, of arachnids. These 8 legged, multi-eyed, creep creeper~tons have been my sworn mortal enemy since the breaking of the world (#WheelOfTime, cray-cray adorbs!), since as long as I can remember. I hate spiders. They freak me out. I was able to watch the film Arachnophobia back in the day, but I’m pretty sure that made things worse.

The Great Californian Parking Lot

This lesson is about fear. It was suppose to be about fear and traveling but once again, it was a chance encounter that provided the spark for me to sit down and write. This time it was with some furry hell-spawn the size of a 50 cent piece that decided to perch itself under my desk - sitting here now makes me uneasy.

The story is short and simple: I came out of my bedroom and into the entry of our apartment yesterday morn’ and reached down to grab something but I don’t remember what and there, under my desk, was the enemy, legs sprawled out to make itself look the size of a small dog, silent and still but ready. I moved a bit. It moved - the quickness of a spider is disturbing. I backed away, grabbed a copy of an OC weekly periodical that I got for free at some strip-mall quick eatery, rolled it up, came in close, crouched down to make for a quick strike and boom. I think I whacked at that sonofabitch 3-4 times, and once more when my wife thought it wasn’t dead.

I’d like to think I conquered fear in that moment. Usually I would scream like a girl and make our roommate, Lucas, kill it. But I know that is not the case. I still fear spiders greatly and consequently hate spiders. And among my human brethren I am not uncommon in this belief. Also, I can help but think that possibly what I did was unjust. The spider wasn’t really a threat to me, just happened to roll into a bad situation: a giant with a fear of tiny things. I’m sure in the great circle/cycle of life the spider has a significant role to play (birds eat them?) and while life and death are natural occurrences of this cycle, getting whacked to death by subpar journalism isn’t exactly life doing as life does.

Allow me one further digression before making my point: my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Europe for our honeymoon. This involved getting over many fears: flying over a vast ocean, being in strange places with people who do not speak your language, whose customs and modes of behavior are different than our own, etc. Our first major stop was in the country of Malta, where most people spoke English, as well as Maltese. After we got settled in late on our first night there we decided to go out for a drink. We could hear music and see lights from down the street so we wandered out the front of our hotel and made our way down the windy island road. When we reached the source of light and sound we discovered a few open tables outside and the bar itself was no larger than a kitchen with a small bar, three two-seater high top tables, a jukebox on the wall and a door to small bathroom. There were maybe 3-4 people inside the bar and another group on the patio area. We felt all their eyes on us as we walked in and felt strange. The shaved bald head of the bartender came over as we took a seat at one of the tables. We ordered a couple pints of beer while the bartender also brought us small plates of sausage, crackers, olives, and other wonderful bar snacks. We walked in as strangers but as the night progressed, we got intoxicated, they got intoxicated, the bartender came over many times just to ask us where we were from, what we were doing etc. At one point one of the obvious locals who was honestly the doppleganger of Freddie Mercury and also obviously intoxicated, was prodded on by the other locals to lip sync to Queen songs. Which he proceeded to do with a mop in hand as his mic stand busting out the back arching moves of Sir Mercury with a surprising 60% likeness. By the end of the night we were sitting at the bar - at the insistence of the bartender - and had learned most of the stories of the local Maltese people in attendance. The bartender poured shots out of the bottle into our beers, into our mouths, and at one point my wife was behind the bar making drinks while shouting “I don’t give shit” in Maltese. We left the bar at 5 am.

We came as strangers, afraid of things and people around us, and left Malta having made 4-5 more trips back to that bar to see people we had come to know, if not as friends, as acquaintances that we knew by name. Just good, average, if not entirely normal people. It was subtle, overcoming the fear of other people, but it got me thinking.

Fear of each other is one of the worst fears because of the consequences. Ignoring someone because they are a stranger is a mild consequence and mild fear. But fear of each other has also been, if not the cause, the fuel by which great atrocities in human history are fed and continued. Wars, genocide, hate crime, etc. My life lesson at the bar in Malta was to travel, meet people, get to know them, understand they are just dumb people just like you and in doing so you will no longer fear them.

 Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

I’ve mostly overcome my fear of LA traffic and I live in an area surrounded by strangers and while I don’t get the chance or have the ambition to get to know all of them, I know the potential to do so is there along with a good chance they are average, normal, and are not douchebags - though in SoCal there is a high chance of that as well.

I’d like to say, to bring this piece full circle, that my fear and hatred of spiders is a work in progress, that I’ve been actively working to overcome my fear and that I’ve initiated peace talks with the Great Spider Council to convene a cease-whacking, but… fuck that shit.

To close I will leave you with this preview of things to come. I’ve been working on and off one of the fiction projects that I mentioned in an earlier post. The following is either a speech or part of a document that exists in the fictional world proclaiming the philosophical position of one of the factions in the story. It was inspired by my thoughts on fear:

“Fear is the almighty destroyer, for it leads to acts in antithesis of love: callousness; It leads to acts in antithesis of life: injustice. Fear will hold us and bind us and is therefore the antithesis of freedom.”

Blog #50

BLOG #50: Oh, The Places You'll Go

 

Wow, 50 blogs. That’s pretty impressive if you ask me. I believe we now have enough Banana Daiquiris and Life Lessons to fill a novel; it wouldn’t be a particularly high selling novel, but none-the-less.

This has been a pretty big year for our little blog as we have now reached 50 blogs and a while back here we went over the 5,000 views mark as well. Our goal is to start to get 5,000 per post…but that may be a little ways down the road here, just need to do some more networking or maybe be able to afford one of those awesome robot programs that got Flappy Bird up the charts in the App Store so fast! But, we’ll keep plugging away, drinking our delicious cocktails and trying to remember what we learned about life as we did so, and then we’ll pass it on to our readers!

I’ve taken to bragging about the kids on my bus quite a bit in this blog and this past week I got to do some things that my current position with the school and the kids afforded me to do, and I think I learned quite a bit about where I am in life because of it.

A few weeks back I was visiting with a couple of the teachers from the Elementary school at a local watering hole and one of the teachers mentioned a “Secret Reader” activity that they were doing at the school. Different individuals from the community would come in and any kid that wanted to listen to the “Secret Reader” read could come to the library of the school and listen. I thought it was an awesome idea and I was completely on board with it right away. I try to promote reading and the fact that knowledge is power on my bus all of the time and this would certainly give me an opportunity to practice what I preached.

I originally had planned to read any short story that the kids from my bus had written for me but I had only received one still at this point so I decided to go with a story that’s relevant at any stage of life. Be it when you’re born, in Kindergarten, Graduating High School, College, or just need a pick me up in life…Dr. Seuss’s, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” is a book that we can all relate to and filled with life lessons that no matter where we end up in life, we seem to have to travel through the lessons in this book. As Dr. Seuss had written it just a year before he passed away, he had the experience needed to show us what may be in store for the rest of us.

 

So I had my book and the date I was suppose to read, now the school just needed five clues as to who the “Mystery Reader” was for the kids to try and guess.

Now this may be pretty simple for a lot of people, but for some odd reason my thinking isn’t always on par with everyone else. A lot of people may just sit down, think of five quick things that they’re associated with and send it off to the school, but for me, I found myself asking the question…”Who am I?”

Weird right, how can a simple thing like, “Give me five clues for the kids to guess who’s coming into read” can move to question who I am as an individual? But as I said, I don’t really think I’m wired quite like everyone else, but thankfully none of us are. The fact that this moved me into some philosophical questioning of my existence might be as good of an answer to who I am as anything…but that may be a little deep for the kids filling the seats.

So who am I? What did I give for clues, what could I have given, and what did I learn from the whole experience? Well, let’s break it down for you:

Clue #1

“I am a local small business owner.”

My bus route goes right by our business everyday and I always have the kids look for deer on our grounds or talk about how pretty it is every time we pass, so I was hoping they might pick up on this clue, but that business has certainly played a giant part in my life and although our parents started the business, it has certainly become one of the things that has shaped me into the person I have become. Be it the ability to communicate with people of all ages, a certain business savvy (however slight), or an ability to be a problem solver I think I can attribute to my time with this business as a real teacher for me. It also gives me something to be proud of and the fact that my parents grew something that people thought would fail into one of the biggest attractions in our area makes me pretty proud of them too. It taught me that not everyone will always be on your side, but as long as you believe in what you’re doing and your own ability, you can move mountains (which is a great life lesson learned from, “Oh, the places you’ll go!”).

Clue #2

“In the fall and spring, I like creating stuff in people’s yards with rocks and bricks.”

A few years back one of my best friends asked if I’d like to help him with a few landscaping jobs. He and his mom owned a part of their family business at that point and dealt with the landscaping part of the organization. I said that I didn’t know much about it, but that I would certainly be willing to give it a shot. That friend is certainly one of the greatest friends I’ve ever had and his entire family has become like a second family to me as well. He and his wife (also one of my best friends) recently had their first child, a beautiful baby girl, and I think I was as proud of them as their parents or even as proud as they were of themselves for creating something so wonderful as this amazing little girl.

When I went through an extremely rough time in my life, he and his wife were there for me. He gave me a job when our business went through the worst summer we ever had and also gave me the friendship I so desperately needed during a time when I needed someone to just be there for me. He and his family certainly played a very large role in getting me back on track with who I am, and in doing so became a part of who I define myself as being.

For the kids I was going to be reading to, the ones that rode my bus knew that in the fall of the year, I didn’t drive the afternoon portion of my route because I was busy working at my landscaping job, and we often had conversations about what exactly landscaping was, we may also have a conversation or two on creating things on my bus so I was hoping the two things in one clue would really help them along! So something I never thought I would do, I didn’t even really have an interest in it, has now become part of my life and the people that I work with doing the “job” have taken up residence in my life as well.

Something that a lot of people may not know is that I actually considered moving away from where I am right now after this past summer, but then I thought of these “friends” of mine, the ones that are so much more than that, and I thought about how a few of them were going to be starting their families, and how if I moved away I wouldn’t get to see their kids grow up, and I wouldn’t have these people in my life anymore, and I decided that despite whatever else was going on with me, these were the important things in my life that they were the things worth holding on to…and so I stayed. Now there are three new little people in this world who I know have amazing parents and I hope to be part of their lives as they grow into the amazing little people I know they will become. I wouldn’t give that up for anything, and I wouldn’t give these “friends” of mine up either.

Clue #3

“I think basketball is better than hockey because the skates are too hard to tie.”

When the principal read this clue the kids erupted in “boos!” It was pretty great. My brother and I have gotten to drive the elementary kids down to skate four times over the last couple of months and every time we do, we help them tie their skates. As I am an avid basketball fan, I take this opportunity to recruit the kids and tell them that basketball shoes are so much easier to tie so they should just play that sport instead. I’m not afraid to pander.

Other than basketball being a big part of my life and a tool my family has used to raise a ton of money for cancer research through our charity basketball tournament, “Hoops for Hope” this clue was pretty much just one of those I wanted as a giveaway clue as to whom was going to be reading to them.

Clue #4

“I love music.”

This was another one of those clues that I figured most of the kids would be able to associate with me. If you’re an avid reader of our blog, you know that I’m a big fan of music and I really enjoy letting the kids on my bus listen to it and promote them singing as much as possible as well. On some of those skating days I would get every kid that rode my bus singing songs in between the school and the arena so it was one of the clues where the kids really started putting it together.

 

I lived a portion of my last year with no music, didn’t listen to it at all. Just kind of tuned it out along with so many other important things, and I was pretty miserable during this time…but then I brought it back into my life and I think I have the kids on my bus to thank for really getting me to appreciate the healing power that it holds. So I thank them for that, and for allowing me to bring some music to their lives as well.

 

 

Clue #5

“I’m one of the first people the kids see in the morning.”

I was all out of good clues and I figured that the kids would either put it together at this point, or they would be very creped out!

 

So the kids started to figure it out and then I stuck my head out of the classroom I was hiding in and all of the kids started yelling my name and that was pretty darn cool. The principal introduced me, but the kids all already knew me…just a bus driver for the school, but they made me feel like so much more. I read to them, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go” and thought of the places I’ve gone and where I have yet to go. I thought about all of these wonderful kids and I hoped they wouldn’t have to experience my dark times but get to live all of the joy I’ve had in my life. I thought about the kids who have created things for me on my bus, or just sat and talked with me about learning, traveling, landscaping, sports, and life in general and I was pretty proud that I was asked to come and read to these awesome little kids. I think they certainly have the potential to make the world a better place, but for the first time for a long time…I thought that I still have that potential too, and so do you.

 

So we don’t generally get a ton of comments for our blogs here, but this being our 50^th blog, I’m hoping we can change that. Here’s what I’d like to see; give us five clues as to who you, our reader is. You can post anonymously if you’d like, or you can tell us who you are and with your clues give us a better idea of who you really are! My kids on my bus don’t always create the things that I ask them to, but I think they at least talk about it a lot with their parents and other people, so if you don’t comment I hope you at least spend some time discussing or thinking about this subject yourself. It’s good for our souls to reflect, it tells us where we’ve come from and reminds us of all the places we can go!

V-Day Blog...ugh.

As yesterday was Valentine’s Day I think I better speak of the day rather than just ignore it like a good single person, like it never even happened.

We’ve written about Love for this blog before, both the player and the emotion. Both were tough topics to tackle but I think we got some good points across and maybe even shared how we’ve learned some of our most valuable life lessons, as love usually teaches us some of the finest. But, for the first time since starting this blog, I did not have someone to spend my Valentine’s Day with, and as we all know that can be super depressing…

Just kidding! I use to get all bent out of shape about being alone on Valentine’s Day. You see all these happy couples all around you and you think, when am I going to find somebody? But in 30 years I’ve learned a few things. The most important of which is that it’s pretty easy to be romantic and forget all of the bad things that happen in every relationship for one day. You buy some flowers, maybe make a reservation at a nice restaurant or cook something special at home, sprinkle a few rose pedals on the bed and boom, you’re a romantic. But what did you do the day before, or the year before? Love isn’t about one day, and if you truly love someone you shouldn’t need to go above and beyond on Valentine’s Day.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have another excuse to show someone that you love them and that they mean the world to you, or to even just thank them for being there for you, but I think it’s what you do the other 364 days of the year that really matters.

True love isn’t really about the easy days or the holidays where you’re expected to do something nice for the people you love. It’s about the days when you fight about whatever but realize at the end of the day that it’s more important to you that you resolve the issue and actually talk about it than let it linger and grow into a bigger problem.

I may not have had great relationships in the past but I’ve seen enough of the really good ones and bad ones to know what makes the difference. Couples fight. It’s inevitable. But how you handle the fight is what makes love. The Lumineers really nailed it when they sang, "The opposite of love is indifference." We’re living in a world where the divorce rate is higher than it’s ever been, partly because forensic evidence has made serious breakthroughs so that you can’t just murder the one that you loved anymore, but partly because people don’t focus on the important things in relationships, like loving yourself first.

It may seem a little selfish and relationships are supposed to be a compromise but how can you ever truly compromise if you don’t know who you are and what you want? To throw who you are away to be what someone else wants is not a compromise, and when you just do the things that will make the other person happy and forget about yourself, the other person may lose the love that they once had for you, or they may be a dick and like having a drone to play with.

Each person must be represented in the relationship, and we must make concessions to try and do the things that the other person likes, but we don’t have to love those things, we just have to be honest about them. The greatest relationships that I’ve seen, allow for the individuals to still do the things that they’ve always enjoyed doing, even if that isn’t with their partner. Great pairs know that they don’t always have to do everything together and they really enjoy when their partner has good friends that will do some of the stuff that may seem less fun to them with their partner. What guy really wants to spend all day at the mall shopping? What girl wants to participate in a bacon eating contest? Well, that’s not really fair, who doesn’t want to participate in a bacon eating contest?!

But the point is good relationships don’t result in either party giving up who they are. When you love someone you should love them, not what you think you can turn them in to. Too many relationships have failed because we forget the qualities that made us fall in love in the first place, and it’s easier to quit something than it is to try and learn why it isn’t working. Love is work, but it’s also the only emotion that most people seem to be willing to work so hard to keep in their lives, despite how hard it can be sometimes.

So how’d I spend my Valentine’s Day? Well, I spent it a lot like my other days. I got up and went to work, got to drive some real crazy kids to school and saw how creative they could be with their Valentine’s Day boxes. Saw a 2^nd grader take his shot with a 5^th grader (life’s too short not to take chances!) and then at the end of the day handed out some Valentine’s Day candy and proceeded to have to tell the kids the rest of the trip that there certainly is a thing as too much candy. On a side note here, if you ever want to feel great on Valentine’s Day, single or not, drive a school bus or become an elementary teacher! I can’t tell you how many Valentine’s I got, and the diabetic shock I went into last night as I was getting 59 on Flappy Bird was totally worth it! (Yeah, that’s right, 59)

So now you’re thinking, wow…Flappy Bird, huh? I also had my cat and dog you judgmental pricks! (and booze…lots and lots of booze) Valentine’s Day was a good one, I got to see a bunch of awesome kids doing creative work, got to find out we have an awesome item for our charity basketball tournament’s silent auction, and today I get to go celebrate a retirement/birthday party with one of my best friends parents and I also get to meet the newest addition to my friend’s family. Today isn’t Valentine’s Day anymore, but I get to go spend the day with people who don’t need it to be a holiday based on love to show it! Hope you all had a great Valentine’s Day, but I hope the rest of the days of the year are the ones that show you what love is really about!

Birthdays

It’s February 8, 2014 which is an important date for the Banana Daiquiri and Life Lesson crew. This day, 30 years ago, one of our contributors was born! So I’d like to start this blog by sending out a very Happy Birthday message to one of our newest contributors, Mike! I hope our readers are getting to know this very creative individual that I’m lucky enough to call my friend through his posts. I first got to meet Mike through playing basketball, which as it turns out is where I’ve met most of my lifelong (so far) friends. We shared a common interest with the sport but as it turned out we shared a lot more interests as well. After our City League basketball games we would often sit and discuss books, music, etc. alongside the fireplace at The Blue Moose restaurant in Grand Forks…it’s been a bro-mance for the ages ever since!

Mike has since decided girls were more his style and got himself married and moved out to California so that his lovely wife can start designing the buildings that will one day define the California Landscape. I’ve been lucky enough to get to see them both when they make a return visit our way, though, and have had the good fortune of talking Mike into joining us at Banana Daiquiris and Life Lessons which is kind of a Life Lesson in its own way. Friends may go their separate ways in this life but the truly good friends find a way to stay part of each other’s lives. Mike’s a great friend, and I hope he celebrates his 30^th birthday like he was celebrating his 21^st! Thirty is the new 21 from what I understand…or maybe it’s the new 20? Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a “Forever 31” store? It would probably sell a lot of khakis though…

So, Happy Birthday Mike! In honor of your birthday and three impending births and a recent one I’d like to try my attempt at something I think Kid President truly nailed, “A letter to a person on their first day here.”

 

It’s been a busy year for my friends, with one set of them giving birth early December (the 9^th) and two more sets due within this week (Feb. 5^th – overdone, and Feb. 12^th). I’ve also recently found out that another one of my really good buddies is expecting in August! I have some of the best friends in the world and there is no doubt that they are going to make amazing parents because they truly are great people with a lot of love in their hearts. They also have a great group of friends (hopefully I’m included in this) that really care about them and want to make sure that their kids know love from everywhere.

I started a thing on my bus (I drive school bus for those that don’t know) this year where each day I put up a new life lesson for the kids. They’re mostly sayings or things that have been learned by others over their time spent on this planet, but they’ve been a real conversation starter on my bus and they’ve allowed me to get to know the kids and stress the importance of being kind and living your life to the fullest. The kids have seemed to really buy into it too. We’ve now done a few “assignments” on my bus where the kids first had to write to me about music and what they enjoyed about it, and now they have the assignment to “create something.” I’ve really been trying to stress that I would enjoy short stories out of them but most of the things I ask them to do are just to have them spend some time in thought and hopefully spend some time talking with their parents and family about what they should do and what they are doing. I want them to know that there is more to life than the standard curriculum that they do day in and day out at school. I want them to do things that make them happy, and show them that when they’re happy doing something, that they do the kind of stuff that makes others happy too.

So far one of the families that rides my bus, three awesome little girls, have all created me something. One short story and two pictures, and every one of them are awesome. The short story was on bullying and standing up for yourself, which was simply awesome. The pictures were also very creative and showed me a glimpse as to what the kids enjoyed doing most. One was a picture of a deer and a really cool tree (she really enjoys hunting) and the other was a picture of the girl playing blocks with her sister. The little girl who drew the picture of the blocks gives me all kinds of little art projects that she does in school all the time too…she’s a little terror sometimes, but really tough to get angry with.

The rest of my bus is working on their projects still and I’ve given them a few weeks to get them done, mainly because two of the girls are planning a sleep over and want to do their project together!

The kids talk to me about what they’re working on and I really can’t wait to see what they all come up with. One of the kids told me he was writing an Indiana Jones story and said it was already 37 pages long! He’s a 1^st grader by the way…I told him that I think he should write a story like Indiana Jones but make himself the main character, a little bit of a hidden life lesson for him on how he should be his own hero…

But the main point I guess I’m trying to make here is that it seems like more and more we’re hearing how this generation isn’t as good as the ones of the past. That these kids are lazy and we may be screwed when they’re running the country. Well, that’s b.s. These kids are awesome, creative, and kind hearted. They believe in themselves and given the opportunity they will not cease to surprise you, that is if you don’t believe in them. I personally know the good that they are capable of, I see it inside of them and how they treat each other as well as their bus driver. They are capable of great things, they just need to know that we all believe in them and know that each and every one of them is awesome.

So here it is, my letter to a person on their first day:

To: I-Pod Hash Tag Simonson-Brumwell

First and foremost, I’m glad you’re here! Welcome to the world as we know it. It can seem like a big scary place but you’ll soon find out that the people that try to be part of your life really care about you and want to make your life happier and as good as possible. There are a lot of lessons that people will try to teach you along the way, most of the hard stuff you’ll have to learn on your own though. You will make mistakes, but the important thing to remember is to learn from them and the people who truly love you will be there for you regardless. They will be there for you when the times get tough and you need some direction to get you back on track.

If you need help along your journey, ask. We’re all here to make you feel loved, even when you might think you don’t deserve it…you do. We all believe you will do great things and will make the world a better place, but if you don’t feel that way, just remember that you already have just by being here. One of the most important things I can tell you is to do things. Experience everything you can! Make your life extraordinary just by living it to the fullest. “Life is a great big canvas and you should throw all the paint at it that you can!”

When you have bad days, remember that they will pass and that you always will have us, the people who love you, to turn to and who will always be here for you.

Life is short. It’s funny. It’s sad. It’s meant to be both. If you don’t feel every emotion while you’re here, then you’re doing it wrong. Live your life to the fullest, that means experience everything it has to offer. Also, pick your friends wisely. You can’t do anything about your family, you were born into it and like it or not…these are the people who will always be there for you despite the mistakes you make or the hardships you may cause, they will teach you everything you should know about forgiveness and love. Your friends are the ones that you get to pick to spend your time with, and it’s important that these people are the ones that go out of their way to ensure you know that you are important. They may be your harshest critics, but if they don’t tell you when you’re making a mistake, then they don’t really care about you. Their criticism may be hard to take, but realize how hard it is for them to tell you what they do, and realize that in them telling you, they are really showing their love for you.

If you are lucky, you won’t get everything right in your time here. We learn the most when we face the greatest obstacles and I hope you get your opportunity to face yours. When you do, remember that you’re not alone and that when conquering these obstacles we learn the most about ourselves.

I hope you always know how awesome you are, and that you can do anything…so do everything.

Create for the world something beautiful, just like your parents did when they created you.

 

A bit cheesy and sappy this go around but I have amazing friends who have been there for me through good times and bad. I lost my mother when she was only 57 to ovarian cancer and she, in life and death, made me really appreciate the time that we’re given on this planet. I have an awesome family that truly cares about me and friends that are so much more than just friends, they’re family. I’ve truly been blessed in my life and have been given the ability to pass something along, as we all have, so I do it…may my critics be damned, but I forgive you!

I can’t remember where I read it, but there was this idea where on our birthday’s we should give a gift to our parents for bringing us into this world…I kind of like that. You may be the greatest gift they ever received, but since then you’ve been a real pain in the ass…trust me. So Mike, get your mom and dad something nice today, and the rest of you, do the same on your birthday! Dad, expect a dog…I read somewhere that cats make terrible gifts!

How a black cat named Leonard reminded me to practice empathy.

This happened last night and this is what I wrote shortly after it happened. I’m probably going to do some “light editing” and make additions to the handwritten script but I will not stretch it as far as “based on a true story.” Here it is:

On the way to the spa this eve, a black cat chanced upon me as I casually strolled down the much too clean, grass lined sidewalks of the walled-in enclave zombie-fortress-compound of my apartment complex. A few cats seem to roam about the place, not an entirely uncommon event.

At first I was much too busy with the world inside my head, and ignored it as it brushed by me twice. Friendly enough I thought. Then it crossed my path - Shit - meowed a few times and did the headbutt body glide across your leg thing that cats do. I stopped, then tried to walk again. Same result. The cat proved determined to follow me toward the spa area. It then cut across my path a few times as if knowing the act irked at my immediate superstitions so that I finally leaned down to test the presumed friendliness. Okay, super-friendly cat with a collar and tag. Friendly and civilized. The tag had a couple phone numbers on one side and a name on the other: Leonard. What’s up Leonard? Why won’t you let me pass, bro?

Leonard was pretty pumped to get my attention and it was a little difficult to get the numbers off his tag and into my phone. I dialed the first number: straight to a message proclaiming in a robotic eve voice, “the mailbox of the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service.” What does that even mean?. Tried the second number: something about the phone not being in active mode at this time. How does one even do this to their phone? I am turning 30 soon, maybe I need an evening-time adult remedial course in the cellular telephone held at a community center with coffee, lemonade and cookies.

At this point I hear the smooth electric hum of the friendly neighborhood zombie-guard golf cart. The same dude I see ninety nine of hundred times I see the zombie-guard in their retirement community wheels patrolling the complex. I promptly wave him down. He sees the cat.

“You find a cat?” he asks as he pulls over the vehicle responsible for removing 89% of the exercise from the sport of golf.

He has a name, zombie-guard man.

“Yeah,” I say “he won’t leave me alone either. I've tried both phone numbers on the tag and no answer.”

“Where did it come from?”

I point towards the nearest ground floor patio wall.

“Ahh, I bet it’s this lady. She likes cats...”

Good to know.

“... and the patio door is open.”

My inner Red Foreman: “You dumbass.”

I think I muttered “ah, okay. Cool.” as Leonard suddenly decides he is tired of being confined by the (hu) man and shoots off with a gallant feline leap towards the aforementioned patio wall and zombie-guard man walks off towards the cat-lady premises. I looked around quick, Leonard seemed to have slipped into the foliage around the patio. I say “thanks, man” and the zombie-guard muttered something as I turned and walked to the outdoor/pool area next door where I sat in a giant bath, drinking bottled water in an attempt to cleanse myself of Super Bowl Sunday sin and writing this piece. I’m not 100% sure Leonard is back with his owners, more like 83%.

But what I’m thinking now is why did it take me so long to reach down to Leonard and make those calls. I was pretty preoccupied and didn't feel like dealing with some random cat who was laying-on some pretty hefty bad luck. If my dog was out there I would certainly want somebody else to do the same thing. Tater Tot would not have been so persistent. But she has other skills: a scared shitless, shaking puppy with a face that will tug at every heart string you have.

I did do it, eventually. It was right thing to do and Leonard made rather a point of it. But reflecting now and switching roles to that the pet-owner rather than the preoccupied spa-bum put things into the empathetic perspective. Empathy is not at surface, not always, and seems a bit lacking in the versions of modern culture I have experienced. It took a cat named Leonard to remind me of it.

Thank you, Leonard.

~

Denver, wtf?! Train wreck Super Bowl.