thisnewday

Grandson: "Poppa, do you think I could come over sometime and do some of those jobs we talked about?"

Me: "Sure kiddo, I still have the list I made out for you. I'll pay you 10 bucks an hour, but you've gotta leave your phone at home."

Grandson: "Oh, OK. But I didn't mean that you had to pay me."

Me: "Great! In that case, you can bring your phone, do the all the work, and I won't pay you a cent."

[We both laugh]... 

LPK
Dreamwidth
1.7.2020

Sounds almost Biblical, as Dreamwidth titles go, doesn't it? And that feels totally appropriate, given the magnitude of the revelations experienced by my grandson and myself over the past weekend.

His first. We were driving back to his mother's house, after I'd picked him up at his dad's on Sunday night. And he said to me, "You know how we were talking about engineering and mathematics and the different things that engineers do? Well, I think I'd like to do that."

He went on to say that he knew he'd have to work really hard in school, especially after the past couple of years. But he really felt like he could do that, work hard that is, with college as his goal.

And that he'd like to start doing some hands-on projects in the basement workshop that we'd built. Also, he wondered could we go to Barnes & Noble, like we used to, to see if they had any project books that we could use?

And I'm thinking that, yes, we can certainly do that--if I don't crash the car, in the next minute, having been completely blindsided with surprise and elation.

He went on to ask if I knew where the best engineering school was--he assumed that, of course, I did--but told me that in his opinion it was MIT. Which, of course, I had to agree with. (I also mentioned that, off the top of my head, Purdue and Georgia Tech are considered to be decent schools as well.)

I suppose that I really shouldn't have been so surprised. I've talked quite a lot with him about always have a "Plan B" for his life. Had also reminisced, on occasion, about how amazingly well he'd transformed the 2-dimensional drawings that came with the Bionicals he'd loved--and built so many of--into the towering, articulated, 3-D creations he'd assembled as a kid. Totally on his own.

Including the one age-rated at 15+ when he was only 8.

And as I think about it now, he'd really taken that to the next level, a few years later, when he worked with me to build the workshop, having accurately translated my 2-D drawings as he measured and marked all of the saw cuts and pilot holes for the two work benches at the center of it.

(After which he drilled and countersunk all of the pilot holes, using the drill press, and helped with their assembly. I'm absolutely certain that the two Air Force flight engineers, who designed these benches for Chapter 1000 of the Experimental Aircraft Association at Edwards Air Force Base, would be impressed with our work.)

Anyway, once I recovered, I told him that we could definitely look for some books and line up some projects. And that I was impressed with how he'd thought this out.

Which he did. I'd just pointed at the pieces, from time to time, and he went ahead and put them together. Sort of like the work benches.

And that's where I'm gonna leave it for tonight. We traveled about a 40-mile circuit today, between two bookstores, to find what we were looking for. Because of that I'm pretty tired, so I'll save my own story for tomorrow...

LPK
Dreamwidth
12.10.2019 

When I walked downstairs, this sunny Saturday morning, and looked out the picture window in the front of the house, there was the gray shadow of the year's first frost spread across the front lawn.

I'd been reading From Cradle to Stage: Stories from the Mothers Who Rocked and Raised Rock Stars, by Virginia Hanlon Grohl. You know, Dave's mom. This morning, it helped me to get my best blood pressure reading of the week: 119/68/57. Thanks, Mrs. Grohl.

Anyway, I'm sure that'll be my low for the day, lol. Not a lot of stress anticipated but, as I've learned, it doesn't take much. The morning's plan is to record BP, hydrate, medicate, do treadmill at the Community Youth Center, and then meet my daughter at a local soccer field, just before noon, for her middle daughter's last game of the season.

Later in the afternoon, I'll be taking the grandson to his one-on-one coaching session out at the Jones Rd. soccer facility. After that, I'll be back home where I'll hopefully get in my last "old man" workout of the week with the scant equipment I've kept from a lifetime of such workouts.

But just before the grandson gets out of the car at his mom's house, I'm gonna give him something that I drove all the way across town to pick up last night at the Erie Boulevard Barnes & Noble.

It's a Meccano Engineering and Robotics kit for their "Race Buggy" which I'd seen in the toy section earlier in the week.

I wasn't sure, as I was driving home with it in the car, whether I'd actually bought it for Jason or for me, lol. But I've always told the kid that, wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you need a "Plan B" for your life.

I don't know if this little kit might be a window or doorway to his, but he was always good at these kinds of things--at 8 years old building large and intricate robotic creatures, called Bionicals, from kits designed for kids age 15-plus.

This one is only for 8-plus, but he hasn't done anything like it in a while and besides, like I said, it's intended as a window or doorway, not as a sidewalk or superhighway. I hope he likes it, I hope he builds it, I hope he understands what it might mean.

My "Plan B" is to go home and work out and heat the second serving of a dinner that I made a couple of nights ago--no worries, it's been in the fridge, lol.

Hope everyone has a good morning, good day, good night...

LPK
Dreamwidth
10.19.2019

Most folks reading this probably don't know that Mexico is north of Syracuse NY. It actually is, and I'm driving my grandson there to play soccer tonight. No, no, no, not THAT Mexico, lol. Mexico NY is a small town a few miles south of Lake Ontario.

I'd almost rather we WERE going to the land of those mythical neighbors who are paying for tRump's border wall. At least we'd be flying there and staying overnight in comfortable accommodations while drinking bottled water.

As it is, it's a 45 minute drive on Rt 81 and the game doesn't start until 7 PM. Which means we probably won't be home much before 10 PM on a school night.

Which, I guess we'll survive as long as we don't have another night like earlier this week when we had a home game and sat for 2 hours waiting for the opposing team to show up because their bus driver didn't.

We won that one, 3-2, but don't need to experience insult added to injury. Just let us get there, play the game, and go home. With another win. Of course.

Anyway, I'd already made alternate arrangements for the kid to get back to his mom's after the bus ride home, in the event that today had been my "special day" at the dentist. It wasn't, so I'll be making the drive.

So hey, what am I griping about? I'll be going to Mexico, watching an evening of soccer, and then have 45 minutes in the car talking to my grandson afterwards.

Now, if only something unfortunate could happen to his cell phone, lol...

LPK
Dreamwidth
9.5.2019

This is the second day of Jason's morning practices for his school soccer team and the first week of official pre-season practices. They're scheduled for 5 days a week, 3 hours a day until school starts, and I've agreed to get him there in the early AM and pick him up mid-morning for the ride home.

On top of that, I have another dental appointment today, set up late yesterday with a call from the dentist himself. He's a great guy and works his a$$ off and so I try to accommodate him even as he works to accommodate me.

Yesterday, I was in such a rush to get things done that I totally forgot to do my BP--something I've done 3x daily for almost 9 months. This morning, though, I was awake a little after 4 and got up at 5. Got my BP done, am working on hydration, will be getting dressed next. By 6:20, I have to be cranking up the breakfast smoothie I promised to bring the kid and then it's off to the races.

Practice starts at 7 and lasts until 10. This morning I'll just drop him off and head home to eat and do my AM meds if I haven't gotten them in before picking him up. Then, I've gotta change, get him home, and head for the dentist. If no extractions today--which I've gotta call to find out about--I'll stop at the high school track for my fitness walk before heading home,

This morning, though, I calmed myself down a bit by reading a few pages of Paula McClain's Love and Ruin before checking my BP. It seems to have worked, because I was in the mid-120s, which is OK for me.

Probably won't be that low for the rest of the day though, lol...

LPK
Dreamwidth
8.20.2019

A couple of nights ago, the grandson called and asked me to drop him off at a friend's house in the Eastwood neighborhood where we used to live.

It was someone he'd been playing basketball with and his mom was going to bring him home, after she got out of work, so I said OK.

The friend was sitting out on his front steps when we arrived and, rather than ducking his head toward me for the customary half-hug, love you, and goodbye, he just said thanks and got out of the car.

Hmm. A little odd. But the friend is right out there, and it's not someone he's been around a lot, so maybe he was just embarrassed by this ritual we'd been performing since he was a little kid. So I returned his casual wave goodbye and drove home.

It was, in retrospect, a bit disconcerting because he'd never let the presence of other people dissuade him from this quick acknowledgement of our mutual affection before but, as the kids say, whatever. Anyway, that's how I tried to play it.

Then, tonight, he called again. This time for a ride to his friend Hector's where he often spends a part of the weekend. Once again, I said OK, as long as he'd let his mom know.

In fact, his mom was in her car outside of the house when I arrived. So I got out and we chatted for a minute while I waited for the kid to come out of the house. I told her where I was taking him--which he hadn't--and she said she was OK with it. Typical.

On the way to Hector's, we chatted briefly about school, his current interests and the opportunities he might have to explore them there, followed by some talk about Steph Curry, KD, and Lebron in the third game of the NBA finals.

When we pulled up to the house, there was no one outside, no one but the two of us. A grandfather, his favorite grandson, and the fifteen years of caregiving and companionship that had been the emotional staple of both of our lives.

And then the door opened, he said thanks for the ride, and walked to the house.

As I drove away, the pain I felt made me wonder if his growing up really had to happen this way. And whether this was really growing up or, in fact, another step in growing apart?

So I decided to stop by the cemetery, which is also on that side of town, to maybe talk about it with his grandmother.

But when I got there, the girl with the black and silver Mercedes was parked across the row where I would've walked in.

For a moment, I hesitated and then decided that what I didn't need, right then, was one more person thinking I was nuts.

And so I drove back through the gates with the kind of sadness, in my heart and on my face, that you might be wearing if you'd just buried someone.

Which, I dunno, maybe I had...

LPK
Dreamwidth
6.8.2018 

These days, I sleep in "shifts" and rarely dream. Two hours sleep, bathroom, two hours sleep, bathroom, three hours sleep, up for the day. Which adds up to something close to what I'm supposed to be getting, but not the quality, continuous hours that I actually need.

Anyway, during my last "sleep shift" this morning, I had a dream that my grandson and I were traveling through the city, on our way to some sort of party. Right, my 14-year-old, socially-inept and pathologically-withdrawn grandson and I on our way to a party. (Although, to be honest, I'm probably the geriatric version of him.) Hilarious.

So we're walking through the South Side, the part of town where my wife and I lived when we were first married and which has since plummeted into that urban abyss of drugs, burned-out buildings, and drive-by shootings that has befallen cities across America.

Did I mention that we were walking? My grandson having recently, in real life, lost his phone and I, in the dream, having apparently lost my car because there we were, walking to catch a bus in the worst part of town in order to go to a party. Dreams.

As we're approaching the bus stop on, I think, South Avenue, I turn to look at him and he's gone. My grandson is missing, in the worst part of the city, without a phone. This kid whom I'd so often implored to look out the window as we were driving, instead of at the GD phone, so that he'd have some understanding of where we were and how we'd gotten there.

I said his name, a couple of times, said it without hope of ever finding him, as if the distance that had suddenly and inexplicably come between us was all but insurmountable.

And then I awoke.

And wondered if this dream is in fact what lies ahead of us, in our waking lives...

LPK
Dreamwidth
12.31.2017

Yesterday afternoon was Jason's second game of the season with his middle school basketball team and, even though he's been playing soccer since kindergarten, it looks like basketball is really his sport. I even joked with his mom that I wish we'd invested even a little, of the small fortune his grandmother and I spent on soccer, to encourage and support his interest in basketball.

Because, watching him perform out on the court the past couple of days, it's amazing to realize what he's accomplished totally on his own, on a broken-down neighborhood basketball court. Maybe part of it's a difference in perception, because the game is played in a much smaller space with 5 players on a side instead of 11. It's just a lot easier to see and appreciate the incredible speed and quickness the kid has when he's one of ten on the basketball court instead of one of twenty-two on the soccer pitch.

It's also easier for us to see, and for him to assert, the amazing leadership skills that come from his great vision of the court and his almost encyclopedic understanding of the game, the strategies, his teammates' skill sets, etc. But there's still something more, something about the way he moves and asserts his presence in the game when HE'S the one at point guard, his preferred position, or making his presence equally-felt at shooting guard.

All of which makes it only slightly easier to tell the next part of the story which is that Jason's team was totally blown out of both games, the first against a small-to-medium-sized Catholic middle school and the second against a charter school from the city.

In the first game, they lost by something like 45-30 and the second was something like 36-22. I was a little late getting to the school for the first one but, by the time I arrived near the end of the first quarter, the score was already 14-2. And it was easy to see why: their defense was almost non-existant. They weren't guarding closely enough, they weren't getting back in transition, and they were providing wide-open lanes for the other team to pass, dribble, and shoot.

By the end of the game, some of that had improved and Jason had scored 20 of their 30 points and had numerous assists. And his speed, ball handling, and passing were truly amazing to watch. Occasionally, as was the case when he was trying to show off his newly-acquired soccer skills, he'd try to do too much and lose the ball or just get "stuffed," totally buried in the crush of defensive players converging on him.

But other times he would demonstrate that great vision of the court and lazer-accurate passing skills that make him such a great mid-fielder in soccer. And once, on a blazing fast trip down the court that ended under the basket, he executed a behind-the-back pass to a teammate who was following him unguarded and made the basket.

That was against a rather average team, not very tall, with a mediocre skill set. The team from the city, as expected, was a different story. They had some height, great athleticism, and some amazing shooters. So why didn't we get blown out ten times worse than in the first game?

For starters, we actually played some defense. It still wasn't pretty, and we killed ourselves with turnovers, but it was incrementally better. In some cases, the turnovers were due, once again, to showboating, trying to do too much instead of passing, or just plain ineptness or careless ball handling. And actually, during this game, the showboating mostly went away.

One highlight of the game, for me, occured near the end when there was this huge scrum under our basket, half of each team on the floor, fighting for the ball, and Jason came blazing out of it, dribbled to the other end, and made an easy layup.

There were some other "best plays of the game" as well, and some of his teammates are beginning to show some life. There's a couple of really good ball handlers, some pretty good speed, a couple with some height, and some decent shooting skills. There is, I believe, enough talent there to make it a fun, interesting, and more-competitive season down the road.

That's what I'm hoping anyway, for myself, for the team, and for the few other parents who, like me, will be their die-hard fans...

LPK
Dreamwidth
11.18.2017

Yesterday, I introduced the grandson to the router, a portable electric tool which is used in cabinetmaking to join parts and create decorative details. But because what we're doing is so basic, simple butt-joints and corner-rounding, I took a minute to explain the other uses of the tool and then set him to work with it.

And that's what I need to do more of: simple explanations followed by quick transitions into the actual work. Jason is just not a kid who tolerates well the kind of long-winded discourses which his grandfather is prone to delivering. He's like, ditch the poetry, show me the product.

Which is why I find it necessary to unload here on my long-suffering LJ and DW friends. And why there are so few of them, lol. Just think of yourselves as a highly select audience, I guess. There's gotta be some solace to be had in this.

Anyway, we've got one more unit to take back down, from its temporary mounting on the table, for these "finishing touches." Last night, I went ahead and finished the two that we'd taken down before he left.

As I worked, I reflected on how much I'd forgotten since the last time I'd done this, and had to re-learn, and how much the kid and I have actually learned together.

I think there's a lot to be gained by doing this, for him and for me. We just have to overcome a few things, like his impatience with detail and my tendency indulge in too much of it.

One of my favorite bumper stickers, which I've never had on my own car but have seen around town, is the one that says, "Wag more, bark less."

Which is totally appropriate for me, just as it is. But when it comes to the way that I work with my grandson, it could also be, "Work more, talk less."

Which I'm sure would work for him...

LPK
Dreamwidth
10.12.2017