Kate and I visited my old buddy Al, and his wife Bianka and two kids Lorelei and Alex, today. Al cooked burgers and dogs, and we hung out on the back deck of their home for three or four
hours in the afternoon. Now Al's the kind of guy who can get quite a bit done while never looking overly busy at any given moment (he was seated on a mower and working alongside his house when we arrived. I began mocking him for the height of his front lawn when I saw that he'd already finished the acre out behind). He was class president and I was treasurer for our junior and senior years in high school, which 
made sense because he was the popular one with the silver 300 ZX convertible, and I was the shy geek with a 30-pound book bag, driving around the old El Camino my sisters had both used.
Al has loved comics for longer than I've known him. He still has a collection of over 200 action figures, his daughter knows the difference between the Avengers and the X-Men, and though he hasn't kept all his comic books, the Spidey issues are going 
nowhere. I grew up loving cartoons. Bugs Bunny and Wile E. were my Saturday staples, and I even adored this crappy sixties-era spy series, Cool McCool (the real Inspector Gadget, before Inspector Gadget). Cool McCool was one of those cheap vintage cartoons shown early on Saturday and Sunday mornings, right after the test pattern came off. (Remember test
patterns, before the days of hundreds of 24-hour cable channels? I was determined as a child to get the most out of my weekend viewing.) So I'd always loved animated stuff, but Al showed me that you can admire it into adolescence and beyond. Thanks, buddy.
nowhere. I grew up loving cartoons. Bugs Bunny and Wile E. were my Saturday staples, and I even adored this crappy sixties-era spy series, Cool McCool (the real Inspector Gadget, before Inspector Gadget). Cool McCool was one of those cheap vintage cartoons shown early on Saturday and Sunday mornings, right after the test pattern came off. (Remember test
patterns, before the days of hundreds of 24-hour cable channels? I was determined as a child to get the most out of my weekend viewing.) So I'd always loved animated stuff, but Al showed me that you can admire it into adolescence and beyond. Thanks, buddy.Plus, he was a fantasy-fiction maven, and me being something of an intellectual snob even then, I took regular verbal dumps on the Piers Anthony-type things he'd read (until I discovered that Piers Anthony can be a very funny writer). But we had a deal: I'd read this five-book series,
the Belgariad, about some little kid with a witch for an aunt, a wizard for a granddad and a spectral wolf for a grandmother, and who had to take down this evil god, Torak. In return Al would read the Lord of the Rings, the furthest into fantasy that I'd descend (and I did adore that series. I've read parts of the Hobbit--Bilbo vs. the spiders--probably a hundred times. Like I've read about how Hornblower escapes down the Loire in a boat during a snowstorm probably fifty times now). So I held up my part of the bargain, read the mediocre books by Eddings, and Al welched. Eight years later he finally got around to the Lord of the Rings--through Books on Tape. Way to go, pal. He might've gone so far as to watch the movies, but I doubt it.
Of course Katie wanted to hear embarrassing stories, but Al and I just weren't troublemakers. (The wheels came off for me in college, though I wasn't all that creative even then-- just a basement rat.) But in high school, before I drifted, Al and I were guilty only of goody-goody stuff--breaking the occasional speed limit, stealing a sign or two, letting a girl get in the way of the friendship. Lily-white teenage things.
We took a five-week vacation in England and Scotland after graduating college, which included an annoying foray north to the tiny town of Golspie, seat of the Sutherland family castle, Dunrobin. My great grandfather was sent to the
New World by the other Sutherlands in the late 1800's, perhaps as part of the family purges of the time. (Robert Service tells such a story in his Rhyme of the Restless Ones--though I like to joke that the smart ones got the boot, and the dumb ones kept the land. Irvine Welsh would seem to agree, at least about the Sutherlands.) Apparently the old man was a rolling stone and it was my grandfather who settled the family in Jersey, where my dad grew up. The Sutherland property on the North Sea shore is grand enough, but the castle was closed by the time we arrived, so we just turned around after about twenty minutes of strolling the area and headed back south. I've got to say, Al handled the disappointment with quite a bit of equanimity.
The trip--five weeks in various tiny apartments, small bed & breakfasts, and a small Fiat we
drove around the country--left us pretty sick of each other by the end, and it was several months before we started hanging out again. We learned that our natures are pretty opposite--he's a slow-down-and-relax kind of guy, and I'm a frantic, get-up-and-go type. For brief stretches, like a few hours or a few days at a time, that's great. For five straight weeks, in close contact without any break, it's pretty much hell. So our trip was good, and we saw lots of cool things (Castle Edinburgh rocks, and the city of Edinburgh was worth at least a week by itself. Loch Ness was dark and foreboding enough to suggest the
presence of a monster)...but we needed to get away from each other by the end.
We did remain friends--once we got over the trip fatigue things were fine. Though Al got started with marriage and a family several years before I did, we're now back to somewhat similar places in life--unfortunately, including at the moment similar worries about the job market. Al is being something of a big brother to me, warning me about the labors and frustrations of raising kids. In fact, when I broke the news in February of Kate's pregnancy and our plans to get married
right away, he responded like I'd've expected a sister to--with about 58 questions, all variations of, "Do you have any &%!#ing clue what you're getting yourself into?"
I was touched, quite honestly.
So, fast-forward to today. Al and Bianka had us up, we ate cookout and spent a few hours shooting the breeze, mostly about kids, pregnancy and baby hardware, and a few mildly embarrassing stories from Al's and my adolescence.
Both Al and Bianka wanted very much to be helpful and encouraging, particularly since Kate's a first-time mother and we've gotten ourselves involved in the family thing so quickly. It wasn't a question-and-answer session, but they dropped plenty of wisdom on us during the course of the afternoon. So, I decided to put together a list of the more memorable thoughts. Here they are:
1.) Intelligent improvisation is sufficient for breastfeeding, and for feeding in general.
2.) Vaseline is an indispensible aid during the first several months, and especially during the first few weeks.
3.) Dealing with the judgmental parents of other children requires immensely more patience and tact than dealing with children.
4.) If you should use formula, the federal government regulates its nutritional content, so the brand name is irrelevant. BJ's is just as good as Enfamil.
5.) Try to avoid socially awkward names, such as those of melancholy spirits of vengeance (Lorelei, in Germany. Maybe Lizzieborden here?).
6.) Steal everything from the hospital room that isn't fastened down, repeatedly on successive days if they restock. You'll find a use for all of it, and they expect you to anyway.
7.) Everybody gives you well-meaning advice. Go ahead and do what you want.
Around six-thirty we left, and drove home with the top down and the heat on (I really love my
convertible), and were back in time for me to post this, and then for us to watch Kill Bill Vol. 2 (watched Vol. 1 the night before). Kate and I really haven't found any kind of entertainment that we don't both love (or detest) mutually (excepting live baseball and sports talk radio). During the movie, she might close her eyes briefly when Beatrix Kiddo is slamming Buck's head in a door, and she'll ask what rock salt is and what it has to do with the shotgun wounds, but she's definitely into it. Like how I got her--completely unexpectedly, and she kind of curses me for it--to fall in love with Metalocalypse, the cartoon about the stupid, good-hearted, and wildly successful death metal band Dethklok. Tarantino movies have a similar spirit, showing human innocence in the midst of violent death, at once both raised to an art form and made commonplace.
Okay, this is starting to sound like a mediocre film studies thesis. Basically, Tarantino makes a hell of a flick. (And I aspire to much better writing than mediocre theses.) Time to shut it down for the night, especially since the little bengal is now sleeping on my shoulder. Bye, all...
the Belgariad, about some little kid with a witch for an aunt, a wizard for a granddad and a spectral wolf for a grandmother, and who had to take down this evil god, Torak. In return Al would read the Lord of the Rings, the furthest into fantasy that I'd descend (and I did adore that series. I've read parts of the Hobbit--Bilbo vs. the spiders--probably a hundred times. Like I've read about how Hornblower escapes down the Loire in a boat during a snowstorm probably fifty times now). So I held up my part of the bargain, read the mediocre books by Eddings, and Al welched. Eight years later he finally got around to the Lord of the Rings--through Books on Tape. Way to go, pal. He might've gone so far as to watch the movies, but I doubt it.Of course Katie wanted to hear embarrassing stories, but Al and I just weren't troublemakers. (The wheels came off for me in college, though I wasn't all that creative even then-- just a basement rat.) But in high school, before I drifted, Al and I were guilty only of goody-goody stuff--breaking the occasional speed limit, stealing a sign or two, letting a girl get in the way of the friendship. Lily-white teenage things.
We took a five-week vacation in England and Scotland after graduating college, which included an annoying foray north to the tiny town of Golspie, seat of the Sutherland family castle, Dunrobin. My great grandfather was sent to the
New World by the other Sutherlands in the late 1800's, perhaps as part of the family purges of the time. (Robert Service tells such a story in his Rhyme of the Restless Ones--though I like to joke that the smart ones got the boot, and the dumb ones kept the land. Irvine Welsh would seem to agree, at least about the Sutherlands.) Apparently the old man was a rolling stone and it was my grandfather who settled the family in Jersey, where my dad grew up. The Sutherland property on the North Sea shore is grand enough, but the castle was closed by the time we arrived, so we just turned around after about twenty minutes of strolling the area and headed back south. I've got to say, Al handled the disappointment with quite a bit of equanimity.The trip--five weeks in various tiny apartments, small bed & breakfasts, and a small Fiat we
drove around the country--left us pretty sick of each other by the end, and it was several months before we started hanging out again. We learned that our natures are pretty opposite--he's a slow-down-and-relax kind of guy, and I'm a frantic, get-up-and-go type. For brief stretches, like a few hours or a few days at a time, that's great. For five straight weeks, in close contact without any break, it's pretty much hell. So our trip was good, and we saw lots of cool things (Castle Edinburgh rocks, and the city of Edinburgh was worth at least a week by itself. Loch Ness was dark and foreboding enough to suggest the
presence of a monster)...but we needed to get away from each other by the end.We did remain friends--once we got over the trip fatigue things were fine. Though Al got started with marriage and a family several years before I did, we're now back to somewhat similar places in life--unfortunately, including at the moment similar worries about the job market. Al is being something of a big brother to me, warning me about the labors and frustrations of raising kids. In fact, when I broke the news in February of Kate's pregnancy and our plans to get married
right away, he responded like I'd've expected a sister to--with about 58 questions, all variations of, "Do you have any &%!#ing clue what you're getting yourself into?"I was touched, quite honestly.
So, fast-forward to today. Al and Bianka had us up, we ate cookout and spent a few hours shooting the breeze, mostly about kids, pregnancy and baby hardware, and a few mildly embarrassing stories from Al's and my adolescence.
Both Al and Bianka wanted very much to be helpful and encouraging, particularly since Kate's a first-time mother and we've gotten ourselves involved in the family thing so quickly. It wasn't a question-and-answer session, but they dropped plenty of wisdom on us during the course of the afternoon. So, I decided to put together a list of the more memorable thoughts. Here they are:
1.) Intelligent improvisation is sufficient for breastfeeding, and for feeding in general.
2.) Vaseline is an indispensible aid during the first several months, and especially during the first few weeks.
3.) Dealing with the judgmental parents of other children requires immensely more patience and tact than dealing with children.
4.) If you should use formula, the federal government regulates its nutritional content, so the brand name is irrelevant. BJ's is just as good as Enfamil.
5.) Try to avoid socially awkward names, such as those of melancholy spirits of vengeance (Lorelei, in Germany. Maybe Lizzieborden here?).
6.) Steal everything from the hospital room that isn't fastened down, repeatedly on successive days if they restock. You'll find a use for all of it, and they expect you to anyway.
7.) Everybody gives you well-meaning advice. Go ahead and do what you want.
Around six-thirty we left, and drove home with the top down and the heat on (I really love my
convertible), and were back in time for me to post this, and then for us to watch Kill Bill Vol. 2 (watched Vol. 1 the night before). Kate and I really haven't found any kind of entertainment that we don't both love (or detest) mutually (excepting live baseball and sports talk radio). During the movie, she might close her eyes briefly when Beatrix Kiddo is slamming Buck's head in a door, and she'll ask what rock salt is and what it has to do with the shotgun wounds, but she's definitely into it. Like how I got her--completely unexpectedly, and she kind of curses me for it--to fall in love with Metalocalypse, the cartoon about the stupid, good-hearted, and wildly successful death metal band Dethklok. Tarantino movies have a similar spirit, showing human innocence in the midst of violent death, at once both raised to an art form and made commonplace.
Okay, this is starting to sound like a mediocre film studies thesis. Basically, Tarantino makes a hell of a flick. (And I aspire to much better writing than mediocre theses.) Time to shut it down for the night, especially since the little bengal is now sleeping on my shoulder. Bye, all...
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