Shotgun Daddy

Praying Mantis... Meet Strawberry Shortcake

The Streets of San Francisco

 

So we came up to Pleasanton to spend the week with my parents, and as pleasant as things are in Pleasanton, we decided to pack up the kids and spend Thursday in San Francisco.

Now, here's the thing. I've been down on San Francisco for about twenty years, mainly for questionable reasons. I went to college in the Bay Area, and every once in a while someone would get the bright idea of going into the city (and it also irritated me to no end that the locals insisted on calling it "The City," as if it were the only city in the world) and everyone would into a car, sit shoulder to earlobe for an hour or so before spending almost as long looking for a parking spot. And in the end, nothing good ever seemed to come of the trip, and those negative feelings stuck with me for two decades.

Our day today was so perfect that all that was washed away forever. We convinced my parents to join us, so the seven of us hopped on the BART and arrived at the Powell Street station forty-five minutes later, rested and ready for action.

We walked a few blocks to Chinatown and spent an hour or so wandering in and out of souvenir shops and gawking at ducks hanging in windows. For lunch we popped into a place called the Far East Cafe. The broccoli and beef was good, but better than that was my mon's realization that she had eaten in that same restaurant with my father forty years ago.

After a few more trinket shops (Alison bought some ceramic frogs, Henry chose a trolley car, and Kate picked up a stuffed kitty) and a detour into a tea shop, we sat down for some yogurt and gelatto in a yogurt place which sat right on the border of Chinatown and North Beach.

At that point my parents had had enough of the hills and eighty degree heat, so they headed home, but we bravely soldiered on, catching a bus to Ghiradelli Square where we picked up some chocolate. From there we headed down to walk along the water towards Fisherman's Wharf. We passed a young hipster sitting on a curb, smoking a cigarette, and Kate announced at the top of her little lungs, "I see someone smoking! He's gonna die!" A good laugh for all. We avoided the siren song of the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, and stopped instead for dinner at the Boudin Restaurant. The kids had pizza, but Leslie and I got what everyone else in the place had come for -- sourdough chili bowls. The chili was marginal, but dishwater would probably taste pretty good in a sourdough bowl. I'm still kicking myself for not getting a loaf or two to go.

Next we meandered through the Pier 39 tourist trap, took a peak at the sea lions, looked across the bay towards Alcatraz Island, and watched the sun disappear behind the Golden Gate Bridge.

We walked a bit more to get to the south end of the Powell-Mason Street cable car line, which was probably Henry's favorite part of the day. (It would get even better when the driver let all three kids ring the bell at the end of the line.) So as I hung off the side of the trolley I thought about how much the day had reminded me of our time in New York City. San Francisco is a city with a personality that L.A. will never have, and although I can't imagine leaving SoCal for San Fran the way I could for NYC, I'm still looking forward to our next trip to The City.

Not His Cup of Tea

Stepping Stone

Leaving on a Jet Plane

It'll be a short trip, and hopefully Kate will behave... She's got her Littlest Pet Shop to keep her occupied. 

Peering Into the Crystal Ball

Have you ever been shopping with my daughter? In general, Kate is a girl who knows what she wants, whether it's the purple panda instead of the Kai-Lan doll at bedtime or the chocolate cupcake instead of the vanilla for dessert. There's never a question, and she usually won't take no for an answer. We certainly don't set out to spoil her, but as the youngest child she has made it clear to all who live in her kingdom that she should not be disappointed. 

Never is this more apparent than when we take her shopping. With school only two weeks away, Alison and Henry were in desperate need of new shoes. Note that I say Alison and Henry. Kate has more shoes than Alison, Henry, and I do -- combined. As Leslie noted yesterday, she is the Imelda Marcos of our home. But the idea of buying shoes for her siblings while ignoring Kate? Impossible. 

We split up when we got to the store, Leslie and Alison going one way, Henry, Kate, and I the other. Henry is easy to please. He selected, tried on, and decided on his shoes in about three minutes. Seriously. Kate was a different story. Her eye first settled on a pair of plaid mary janes featuring the smiling face of Dora the Explorer on the buckle. She liked them, but they just didn't fit right. From there she moved to a white pair of tennis shoes with the Disney princesses on the side. She loved them, but since I just knew they'd be grey and dingy within weeks, I nudged her towards a pair of pink and brown tennies, again with Dora on the side. She showed her distaste by crinkling up her nose as if I were handing her a pair of dead fish, but she tried them on, probably just to pacify me. She stood up after putting both of them on and somehow looked about six inches shorter, as if her dislike of the shoes was shrinking her entire body. Even so, I was sure I could convince her. 

 "Ohhhh, those are so cute! And I bet you can run fast in those shoes... why don't you show me how fast you can run???" 

 And so she ran, but only half-heartedly so. She reported that they were too big; her heel was slipping out. "Hmm. Let me see. Wiggle your toes for me." As I was feeling for her big toe, she updated her previous assessment. "I think they're too small now. They hurt my feet." Fine. 

She turned back to the racks and recognized the face of one of her sister's favorites, Miranda Cosgrove from iCarly. These shoes were hideous in pink and neon green, so I breathed a sigh of relief when these didn't make the cut either. 

Alison had chosen her shoes by this point, so Leslie popped over to suggest a cute pair of plaid lace-ups. I dreaded the idea of tying her shoes over and over, but at this point I would have happily bought her a pair of 18-hole Doc Martens if it would've gotten us out of the store. Kate tried them on only to discard them just as quickly. She sat on the carpet amid piles of shoes and boxes, the debris of her indecision clogging the aisle, and her eyes slowly fell on her first love. 

 "Alright, why don't you try on the princess shoes again." 

Her mood lifted at once as she slid her feet into the shoes and bounced up to her feet. Without being asked she raced from one end of the store to the other, smiling in triumph. She had won, the shoes were hers. 

I sank to my knees to gather the other four pairs of shoes and sort them into their boxes, and I felt I had seen the future. As much as we're told to live in the moment, I think all parents are guilty of giving in and looking ahead, wondering what will become of our children. We love our children, so we see only the greatest successes awaiting them: a seat on the Supreme Court, an Olympic gold medal, President of the United States. 

Even though I can't be completely sure of who Kate will be when she grows up, I know she won't be shy about what she wants, and I know her husband will spend lots of time in shoe stores. 

 As I put the boxes back on the shelves, a scene from a certain movie started playing in my head. Can you guess which one?

 

Little Bits of Lovely

After a long break, my wife has jumped back into the blogging pool. Her new site is called Little Bits of Lovely, and she's already written about homemade bread, strawberry jam, and our daughter's ballet lessons. Please stop by and say hello -- tell her Shotgun Daddy sent you.

{Photo Credit: Leslie Saito}

I Am the Hawk Whisperer

Sometimes you find yourself sitting at the keyboard, fingers poised at the corner of asdf and jkl; waiting for an idea that never comes.  Other times, like today, inspiration flies in through the front door.  Here's the story.

Even though we have no screen doors, we tend to leave our front and back doors wide open during the afternoon and evenings to take advantage of the breeze that comes up around that time.  The obvious drawback is that small irritations like june bugs and Japanese beetles sometimes find their way in.  Today was different.  Today a hawk came through the door.

Leslie was working at the computer and the kids and I were lounging on the couch watching TV when we were suddenly pulled from our trances by the sound of frantically flapping wings.  We've had an occasional bird blunder in from the patio before, but this was something completely different.  A hawk had chased its prey (a mourning dove) into our home, feathers were swirling everywhere, and my children and wife were shrieking and cowering in various corners of the room.

The hawk realized immediately that it had followed its prey too far.  Searching for an escape route, he began circling the living room, sending Leslie and the kids scrambling to the safety of a nearby bathroom.  Our ceilings are the standard eight feet off the ground, so our guest's talons were inches from the top of my head as he tried in vain to find a way out.  It's amazing how quickly thoughts can run through your head at a time like this.  As cool as the whole thing was -- and trust me, it was pretty cool -- I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if this bird of prey became scared enough to turn his talons and beak on me.

Thankfully he tired out fairly quickly and settled into a corner against the sliding glass patio door.  As I bent over to gather him in a towel, I noticed that he was clearly more frightened than any of us.  His beak was open and pressed against the door, leaving a small triangle of steam that grew and shrank in time to his heaving breaths.  He struggled only briefly after I picked him up, but quickly relaxed and turned his head a hundred and eighty degrees to look me square in the eye.  He was absolutely magnificent.  I walked out into the backyard and gently tossed him into the afternoon breeze; even before he was out of sight I found myself wishing for him to come back.  Perhaps tomorrow.

Here's some video of the catch and release.  Please excuse the brief appearance of my ass.

The One Where I Drop Out of the Running for Father of the Year

I woke up Saturday morning and the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and the roses were blooming. The children were awake, but still too sleepy to bicker with each other or demand breakfast. In all ways, it was a beautiful day. 

As I looked out the kitchen window I saw several strange men walking up to the front door -- two with video cameras, one with a giant boom mike, another with a trophy and an oversized cardboard check, and someone who looked suspiciously like the late Ed McMahon. A glance back at the driveway told me everything I already knew. Emblazoned across the side of the van were four simple words: Father of the Year.

I should probably make something up about how surprised I was, but that would be a lie.  Afterall, I thought, who else deserves to be Father of the Year more than me?  As I was tossing around ideas for my acceptance speech, a tiny voice in my Father of the Year head told me to check on Alison's frogs.

We keep the frogs (there are two of them now) in a small tank on the kitchen counter, where they're relatively out of the way but still convenient enough to be fed and fawned over.  The first thing I noticed was that the lid of the tank was wide open, and I immediately realized what had happened.  Just before going to bed on Friday night I had gone out to the kitchen to give the frogs a few crickets.  I had opened the lid of the tank, but when I discovered that we were out of crickets, I must've forgotten to close the lid.

This was one of those moments when your life stands still, when everyone around you stops what they're doing and stares directly at you, waiting to see how you'll respond.  I froze in the middle of the kitchen floor, only long enough for this thought to pass from one synapse to the next: "Wouldn't that suck if one of the frogs had gotten out?"

Now keep in mind, even though these are North American bullfrogs, the very frogs which inspired Mark Twain to write The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, we're still talking about two creatures which could each sit on a quarter and give you back about ten cents in change.  Escape would mean a jump of about eight inches straight up, a truly Olympian feat.

But even so, what if they had jumped out?  I quickly saw that the smaller of the two frogs was still there, which was a huge relief.  I didn't see his larger friend right away, but that wasn't unusual.  I peeked in the corners and behind the filter but still didn't see him.  I desperately plunged my hand into the tank, swishing my fingers through the gravel, overturning their sunning rock, lifting out the filter.  He was gone, and it was my fault.  I looked out the window just in time to see the Father of the Year van backing out of the driveway.

My first thought, of course, was for Alison.  I called to her and told her what had happened; the tears were flowing before she got to the kitchen.  We searched the counter tops, pulled dishes from the sink, scoured the floor, and pointed a flashlight deep beneath the stove, dishwasher, and refrigerator.  No luck.

It was difficult for Alison to help me look because she was sobbing almost the entire time.  She had learned enough about frogs to know that he would die if he dried out, but what we didn't know was how long he could last.  Hours?  Days?  My heart ached for Alison and hoped that we would find him soon, but my head knew better.  The house was big, and the frog was small.

What struck me the most was how Alison handled the whole situation.  Her sadness was completely pure and never wavered towards anger.  I had admitted my responsibility, but she never once blamed me and didn't even ask me why I hadn't closed the tank.  She wasn't looking for justice, she was just looking for her frog.  At one point during the search, she stopped and looked up at me, her eyes overflowing with tears, and asked, "Daddy, if you were a froggy, where would you go?"  I think that was the moment when my heart broke.

She remained positive throughout Saturday and into Sunday as we continued to search the house, but I realized that each passing hour made a positive outcome less likely.  We kept looking in the same places and getting the same results until we returned to the family room couch for a more thorough search.  We had looked beneath the couch on Saturday morning as soon as we spread our focus from the kitchen, but on Sunday night I suggested that we take everything out from underneath it, just to be sure he wasn't there.  

I pulled out a few boxes and bags of things stored beneath the couch, all the while crossing my fingers that the frog would come hopping out from behind the next item I picked up.  I found him soon enough, but it wasn't the happy ending I had been hoping for.  I slid out a rolled up yoga mat and suddenly there he was, completely dried out and almost flat.

I looked at Alison on the opposite side of the couch and chose my words carefully, so as not to instill false hope, even for a second.

"Alison, I have bad news."

The tears came instantly as she ran around to where I sat on the floor.  She took one look at her frog before collapsing into my arms, her body shaking with sobs.  I won't soon forget how small and powerless I felt, slowly rocking her back and forth and feeling her tears against my skin.

Why hadn't I just closed the tank on Friday night?  What if I had searched beneath the couch on Saturday morning instead of Sunday evening?  There were no answers to these questions, and as Alison continued to cry, going from my arms to Leslie's and back again, there was nothing I wouldn't have done for her.  A puppy?  No problem.  A pony?  Let me build a pasture in the backyard.

But to Alison's credit, she asked for nothing.  When Leslie offered to buy some more tadpoles, she refused, probably not ready yet to think about replacing her missing frog.  Instead, she found a small cardboard jewelry box in her room, gently placed her frog atop the bed of cotton inside, and set him in a place of honor.

I took her to bed and she pulled out one of her library books, All About Frogs.  As we laid side by side reading about frog croaks and metamorphosis, the tears finally stopped.  She even laughed a little when we learned that frogs can pull their eyeballs into their heads to help push food down their throats.  As it turned out, I hadn't scarred my daughter for life.  She was still sad, but she was getting better, and I was relieved beyond belief.

We finished the book, I tucked her in with a kiss on the forehead, and I turned out the lights.  Through her bedroom window I saw another van pulling up into the driveway.  This one, though, said "Daughter of the Year" on the side.

A Letter to My Former Self

When I was eighteen I had a summer job selling meat out of a truck in what used to be called south central Los Angeles. A lot of good stories came out of that job, but the coolest thing was that I was paid in cash, a few hundred dollars a week. Sadly, I blew a lot of that money, but twenty years later I can only remember one specific purchase: a pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers. I paid a hundred and ten dollars cash, and I fell in love instantly.  You couldn't go wrong with Wayfarers in the 80s; Tom Cruise was wearing them, Don Henley was singing about them -- they were everywhere.

Since that first pair of Ray-Bans, I've probably owned twenty or thirty pairs of sunglasses, including a handful of Wayfarers and a ridiculously overpriced pair of Oakleys. Every single pair of shades that I've owned since the children arrived, however, have had price tags of twenty dollars or less, a necessary change made in response to toddlers and their grabbing hands.  I still needed sunglasses, but they needed to be disposable.

When Kate turned four earlier this summer, I found myself thinking of the future, thinking of a time when I could confidently buy expensive glasses and know that they'd last for more than a week.  I found myself looking enviously at other people's high-end specs, and I wondered if the Sunglass Hut was still around.  (It is!) 

But then it happened.  One day last week I was scouring the house for my glasses, a pair of $14.99 Wayfarer knock-offs.  From somewhere down around my ankles Kate's voice spoke up.  "Here they are, Daddy!"  I was relieved for the smallest moment as Kate handed them to me, but then she reached up and handed me... the rest of them.  They were in two pieces.  Suddenly I realized that the Sunglass Hut was closed for me, at least for another year or two.

All of which got me thinking about some of the things that I never would have known I'd be doing without once I became a parent.  And that, of course, got me thinking about Marty McFly's DeLorean and the flux capacitor.  If I could hop into that DeLorean and travel back to a time before Alison, Henry, and Kate were born, I'd love to give my pre-parent self a few words of advice about things to do before becoming a parent.  Here are thirteen suggestions:

1. Buy expensive sunglasses. 
2. Take naps.  Every single day.  The time will come when you'll be willing to exchange your first-born child for a thirty-minute nap, so take advantage now.
3. See every movie possible, even if you've never heard of it or aren't interested in it.  If it's showing in a theater and it's not animated, you're there.
4. Read the paper in bed on Sunday mornings.
5. Soon enough a simple trip to the store will require more planning than an Everest expedition, so for now, whenever you leave the house, just grab your wallet and keys and go.
6. When driving in your car, only play music with lots of profanity and play it as loud as your eardrums will allow.
7. You don't know what a TiVo is, but one day you will bow down in respect of its technological supremacy.  Anyway, when you get that TiVo, fill it up with anything that doesn't air on Nickelodeon or the Disney Channel.
8. While we're on the subject, drop everything right now and get the folks at Disney on the horn.  Pitch a story about a girl who has the talent to be a huge music star.  But since she wants to go to school and have friends and lead a normal life, she creates an alter ego in order to pursue the music dream while her "real life" persona leads the normal life.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but trust me here.
9. Have cereal for dinner.  In fact, if you're feeling lazy, just skip dinner altogether from time to time.
10. Go out and buy a few bottles of wine and drink enough to show that you're serious.  When you're hung over the next day, lie on the couch and watch VH1's "Best 100 Videos of the 80s" from beginning to end, just because you can.
11. As of right now, whenever you see a child misbehaving in public, never, ever, say anything like, "How can those parents let their children behave like that?"
12. When you're at a restaurant and the waiter offers to bring you a cup of coffee at the end of the meal, take him up on it.  Relax with that cup of coffee as if it were the last cup of coffee in the world.  Don't drink it right away, though.  First, cradle it between your palms, allowing the heat of the cup to warm your hands.  Lift the cup to your face and breath in the aroma until you have to blink away the tiny drops of moisture caught from the steam rising up through your eyelashes.  When you're finally ready, bring the cup to your lips and drink in the most dignified manner imaginable.  Savor every sip.  The time will come when none of this will be possible.  Your coffee will come from a drive-through window and you'll burn your lips, tongue, throat, and esophagus as you hurry to pour it into your mouth while driving your kids from school to swimming lessons in fifteen minutes. 
13. Do laundry once every three weeks.
14. Don't worry too much about all this. Sure, there are some tradeoffs, but you're about to be happier than you've ever imagined.

And so what about you?  There must be someone out there reading this.  What kind of advice would you give to yourself if you could?  While you're thinking, I'll leave you with three quick clips starring my old Wayfarers.  Enjoy.

 

They don't make an appearance here, but they get a mention, and this one seems appropriate as the summer begins to wind down...

New Music - More Music Videos

And really, how can any discussion about sunglasses, especially Wayfarers, be complete without this gem?

Corey Hart - New Music - More Music Videos