Copasetic Flow

Two things happened today that could have been bummers, but weren't: one in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. In both cases, as a parent, I could've thrown a fit. One of the things was way easier to deal with than the other though, and because of that, I got to learn something about myself, and that was also kinda nice in addition to getting to have a pretty cool day. In the morning, we got to fish for a bit. The nine year old got the second fishing rod out of the car, and started making his way around the lake. The fish were biting, the dogs were staying generally out of the way, and things were fun. Then, the nine year old wound up with a twisted up, near to knotting line.  My heart rate went up, adrenaline started to pump, I really did not want to mess with the knots. I breathed deeply, I kept my mouth shut, and soon the situation was reolved, and we were both catching fish. In the end, I'd tamped down my reaction, bit my tongue, survived, and we'd wound u

We got to go fishing on the side of the road in a river nesteled up angainst a cliff today! It was a kinda big deal for me because we finally had time to stop at one of those 'perfect fishing places' one tends to see as they're wandering down old state highways.. We have an old fishing rod and reel with us, the only one we could find before the trip. It has a push button line release. The gang and I spent ouir last several fishing trips getting used to a spinning reel, (the open faced ones that occasionally spit line out in a tangled gnarl if you don’t treat them just so.) None of us has used a push button reel since before the pandemic started. It took me a little work to come back up to speed,with the reel, but I finally managed it. The relearning curve was taking longer for the eleven and 9 year olds. Then, I asked the seven year old if she’d like a turn, and wow! She walked up, took the rod and reel--ignored my intake of breath to begin the explanation of how to use the

 No big thoughts today, just snatches of a slice of life. The gang and I are out camping! We got up about 3 this morning to walk the dogs so they could get their wiggles in (and their pee and poop out.) Then, we all—the 11, 9 and 7 year old kids, the 13 year old dog and the one year old dog and myelf—loaded into the car and headed out of San Francisco super early to avoid traffic. But there were still lines of traffic coming down the little state highways we dodged off too just after Oakland.  Fortunately everyone was coming back towards town, but wow!  We saw two accidents. We got to stop twice. Once to run around the forest off of an old abandoned logging road.  Another time to make sandwiches and fish on the side of a mountain lake. We didn't catch anything. The sandwiches were awesome! Then we landed at our camping site for tonight.  The wind is gusting up to 16 miles an hour. The gang got their tent plopped down.  I got mine setup a few minutes later with their hel

 Soon, I’m going to launch into a series of posts for new dads, expectant dads and thinking about being expectant dads. These posts will contain ideas about the things that worked for me. Emphasis on me, since we’re all different people, that, by inference, means my spiffy ideas might not work for you. At all. And that’s OK. They might just not be your thing. Everyone parents differently. Before I do that though, there’s one other implied tip in the above that is completely hidden, what with all my talk of ‘I’ and ‘me’. I think—no, I believe, deeply—that this hidden tip can help everyone who identifies as a dad. Everyone. This one is important, so I’m going to lead with it. I talked to my partner about all my parenting plans before I put them in motion. We started talking about plans before my partner was pregnant, and eleven years in, we still talk about them a lot. Talking about plans works on tons of levels, so I’ll list the ones I can think of now, and plan on adding others in a di

The gang and I are getting ready to go camping across the Western United States. Just recently,  the bigger kids graduated to larger backpacks, so they can haul a bit more stuff, (they’ve been hauling their own tent and sleeping bags for years, but now they can take more food, water, the collected works of Elf Quest Vol. 1, and whathevs.) There was a bit of a conundrum though. Even though the gang has larger packs, it behooves one to practice with the heavier weight for a bit to get used to it, but there’s a pandemic, and therein lied the rub.  The pandemic has—perhaps paradoxically—actually thinned out the number of camping trips we take each year. You’d think out in a forest would be better during a pandemic right? I agree, but our camping route, no matter how we’ve tried it so far always involves a bus ride for the last leg. Even if we walk to the ferry terminal in downtown San Francisco, even if we take the ferry—where we sit outside—across the bay rather than the bus over the brid

We’ve been playing at the idea of psychogeography for a few years. The gist of the study is to wander about an area of town—the same idea could of course be applied to the wilderness, but I don’t see it mentioned as often—paying attention to what you see, hear, smell, and how that makes you feel.The idea, broadly, the way I understand it, is to search for the transitions on your walk, paying attention to how you identified them. It works out great for getting the gang out into the world. They get to go explore for themselves, and as if their every sense wasn’t already peeled on exploring a new place just because it’s new, they’re also focused on measuring the world around them as they experience it and relating those measurements to how they feel. The whole thing is also very useful for getting neighborhoods used to the kids. I can anchor  myself somewhere I want to be, then the kids can explore out in every widening radii that we both feel comfortable with, bringing back their experie

  Are rules a hard and fast thing? Do we have to do what the rule says just because it says so? None of the kids here, nor I think so. We’ve always pictured rules as guidelines. Does that mean we just flaunt past them whenever and however we please? No. It means we work to understand the reasons for the rules in our lives. If we can gain that understanding, we can actually achieve two things. The first is making our lives more convenient because a rule just doesn’t apply or because it doesn’t make sense in this case. The second way it makes things more convenient is that by understanding what we’re trying to achieve with a rule, we can actually apply the rule places that will keep us safe, but where the rule—as it was originally construed—might not have applied. This leads to two different behaviors on my part as a parent. First, I try not to make rules. Second, when I really, really have to make a rule, I make sure to explain exactly what it’s for and what I’m trying to achieve. This