Tag: family

Seven

photog Current Events, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family , ,

Six hours of Godzilla movies, some lime ices, two hours of swimming, a couple of pounds of spaghetti and meatballs, an apple pie and a quart of vanilla ice cream.  Apparently, that equals the optimal day when you’re a seven-year-old boy.  At least in one case.  Now I’m not seven.  And when I was seven, I’m guessing I would have preferred six hours of Universal Classic Monster Movies and maybe I’d have gone with blueberry pie in that line up.  But I definitely remember most of the vibe in that set of choices.

And so, I set up the itinerary exactly as specified by my guest.  And it was swell.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I would have preferred six fewer hours of Godzilla and maybe a ribeye steak would have been higher up on my list than spaghetti today for instance but bonding with the grandkids is an item very close to the top item on my list of priorities.  And because when you have several grandsons and they all differ in their preferences about everything including activities, foods, desserts and movies it sort of behooves you to divide and conquer.  So, I’ve instituted a separate day for each of them to spend the day with me and Camera Girl.  And on that day, they get to pick the activities, entertainment, food and desserts.  And they even get to decide when it’s over.

And it works.  Without his brothers or parents there, each kid gets to call the shots and be the king.  No one tells him to eat his vegetables or finish everything on his plate.  No one says six hours of bad movies is too much or says to get out of the pool because we have to pick somebody up from something or other.  And he even gets the chance to discuss with a supposed grown man whether Godzilla would beat King Kong or T. Rex or Indominus Rex or the Mosasaurus and why and under what circumstance.  And how Godzilla can have radioactive fire but somehow it doesn’t kill King Kong.  And he has to do it with a straight face.

And he can even eat his dinner while watching tv on the couch and not have to do any chores all day and go home as late as he wants.

But it’s also a good deal for me.  I can sort of remember caring about, “Who would win?”.  Sure, maybe it wasn’t Godzilla.  Maybe it was a Roman legion versus Alexander’s Macedonian phalanx.  Or Superman versus Thor.  Or whatever ridiculous thing I imagined that day.  But the point is I sort of recall the feeling.  Some very old neurons fire off a few synapses that I haven’t used in sixty years or so and it’s fascinating.  I almost remember being that age.  I almost remember the feelings.  And it’s pretty great.

I’m working this program youngest to oldest.  So, as we move up the line things should get more and more familiar.  Or will they?  Is nineteen any closer to who I am than seven?  I don’t know.  Each page in the book of life is an island.  A snapshot.  All of them are long ago.  But I expect to enjoy each chance to delve into their present and my past at the same time.

And ultimately, I’m trying to build a little immortality.  I still remember the times my grandfather came to visit me as I was growing up.  He understood that public relations with your descendants was terribly important.  So, he did it right.  He brought us out for the biggest, greasiest triple cheeseburgers at Wesson’s and he always had chewing gum when he came over and he always took us for a drive to the most beat up neighborhoods in NYC where he knew the most bizarre characters like a jeweler that he worked for as an armed guard.  And he always had stories about his times as a cop or when he was the mayor’s bodyguard or a private detective.  Or when he shot it out with armed robbers from the running board of a commandeered taxi.

And because he spent the time with us, in a sense, he’s still alive even forty some-odd years after his death.  And if I tell his stories to my grandkids then maybe he lives another hundred years.  So that’s my game.  I’m working on my immortality.  And I’m paying forward things that were given to me long ago.  What’s more valuable than that?

Father’s Day 2023

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Ah, Father’s Day, that most inexplicable holiday in the calendar.  Children, wives and the fathers themselves walk around that day with confused expressions on their faces.  What are they all supposed to be doing, or feeling or even pretending to be feeling?

Everyone understands Mother’s Day.  The bond between mothers and their children is self-explanatory.  Even the act of becoming a mother to a child is one of self-sacrifice and love.  Even husbands are unable to be completely selfish on Mother’s Day.  We’re forced to acknowledge that our role in the circle of life is the easier side.  And we do.  Every man in a good marriage honors his wife on Mother’s Day and tries to show some class on that day.  And so, he encourages his children to gather around his wife and celebrate the nurturing nature of mothers.

But Father’s Day?  I mean, we try to be good fathers.  We spend time with our kids and teach them things and show affection.  But do we want to be applauded and be fussed over about our role in the family?

Honestly?  No.

What we’d prefer is to get up late, have a nice big breakfast, watch some really bad movie or go fishing or read a book then have a steak dinner and then watch another bad movie and go to bed.  Of course, this leaves room for variation.  Maybe instead of fishing you’d rather work on restoring an old car or head to the gun range or have a catch with your grandson or something.  And I even know some fathers who aren’t happy unless they’re doing home repair projects on their day off.  There’s a natural range.

One of my favorite fatherhood memories was taking my son to the north shore of Lake Champlain to fish for pike and bass.  It was a long trip and we didn’t know any of the local details for fishing so we tried a row boat which turned out to be a dicey thing on a lake with a particularly strong current.  But we caught some fish and ate some bad food and spent a memorable weekend together as father and son.

I guess it’s natural for us to think of our own fathers and try to figure out how we stack up.  My own father had six sons and he spent most of his time with us trying to stop us from hitting each other quite so much.  He was one of the most aggravated individuals I can remember.  He was just outnumbered was his problem.  But deep down I think he liked us most of the time.  And since I feel that about him, I would conclude that he was a successful father.

So really none of us get to decide if we were successful at fatherhood.  It’s the kids who get the last word (although the wives probably would like to add a footnote or two as usual).  So, if after they’re grown, they’re still talking to you and if from time to time they still talk about any of the things you did together, then a case can be made for you as a good father.  Anyway, that’s my take.

26MAR2023 – The Week Begins

photog Biden Humor, Current Events, Humor, Reclaiming the Family , ,
Christmas Cooking, Sony A7 III, Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens

The weekend was replete with good food, happy visitors and talk.  We heard stories about the really old days, over a century ago when our ancestors came to this country and made their fortune and then lost it and then started over again.  It was exciting, pathetic, sad, funny and very familiar.  Familiar because it’s family.  And we heard tidings of some old friends and relatives who are ailing.  But as we age there will always be more of that.  But there were tidings of the next generations venturing out into the world.  That’s always a necessary and welcome development.  And we made plans for upcoming gatherings.  Easter is almost upon us and we’ll be hosting the family which is great.

And now here we are beginning a new week.  Chaos reigns supreme in Dunwich and I expect pandemonium when I arrive at work tomorrow.  But the world we live in is in a permanently catastrophic state and if no other good thing has come of this shambolic existence, it’s that we’ve become less delicate.  Anything less than a megaton of destruction is routinely just shrugged off as “more of the same.”  Well, good.  We’ll continue on and deal with these occurrences, one catastrophe at a time.  Who knows maybe they’ll run out of plagues eventually and we’ll come out on the other side.

And at least there is a bit of humor to the whole thing.  Even the outside world is starting to catch on to just how pathetic Joe Biden and his gang of losers really are.  Even the Saudis, who have never been known for their love of humor have joined in the act.  Saudi tv has a skit where Biden and Harris look-alikes wander around a political soundstage hopelessly lost and stupid.  Imagine when even stone age people like the former headhunters of the Amazon jungles and the New Guinea highlands join in the fun.  Maybe it could become a meme when representatives of every race and ethnicity compete on Rumble to mock Dementia Joe and Magic Bus Kamala.  That would be a true moment of solidarity for the whole human race.  It chokes you up just thinking of it.

But seriously, this is going to go on for a good long time.  As a very smart man said long ago there is a lot of ruin in a nation.  Before the US is degraded to a level where people will do anything about it, it will have to get a lot worse.  So, I intend to do my best to take care of those I love and try somehow to make my immediate surroundings a little less horrible.  And when I have the time, I’ll put up some of my scribblings here as moral support for folks like me.  If you have something to share leave it in the comments and if you have something longer, you’d like to see posted send it to me at the e-mail address listed or just say so in the comments and if it’s something I can support I’ll probably post it up.

Things are a lot worse than they used to be.  But one thing has improved.  We now know the truth about the country we live in.  Tens of millions of people now know that what we were told was a big lie.  And that is a powerful thing.  And I don’t know how, but I’m pretty sure that one day that is going to have a tremendous impact on some critical moment in our history.  A country is made of more than just banks and bureaucracies.  I think there is a component that depends on the trust of people.  And this country has lost that.  It was that characteristic called American exceptionalism.  It was belief in ourselves as being part of something remarkable.  Now we know that’s not true.  And pretty soon the rest of the world is going to find out too.  The day will come when one of Joe Biden’s gang is going to ask us for help and he’s going to get

… nothing.

Guest Contributor – Nostradumbass – 25FEB2023 – Rant on a Rant

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A Rant for February Twenty Fifth

I so wanted this post to be true, but the main ingredient for the actions you state require the “parent” to actually be a parent…

just a start on commenting about this post:

If you have children, teach them what you want them to believe.

There are a good amount of teenage and welfare mothers that are teaching their children exactly what they believe, that being it is someone else’s responsibility to provide a home, food, clothing and health care, and it should not involve any costs or labor on their part. I think this lesson is being taught effectively.

Show them how to achieve the things they want.

The lack of principle, the ease of acquiring the largess of American good will is how the children of these mothers is shown.

The problem is now that the people that raised this version of parents were never actually parents to begin with. I’m not saying that this is true for all the current crop of parents, or even that they are the majority of the current generation, but there are enough that are, that they become “models” for the next generation.

The question becomes “Why should I work and bring home less than what the government will give me for doing nothing?”. That seems to be the current model.

Dead Pile and the Angry Polar Bear

photog Current Events, OCF, Reclaiming the Family , , , ,

Today was a busy day.  Princess Sack of Potatoes wanted to play Dead Pile, and later on, The Angry Polar Bear.  The latter is a very taxing business where I chase her around the house growling and trying to carry her away to the “Ice Flow of Death.”  All that growling takes its toll on my larynx and the dogs go nuts trying to defend her from this seemingly homicidal activity of mine.  But one does what must be done.

As you can tell by the descriptions, death has become a part of her imagination.  Of course, all those who end up in the dead pile are the bad animals, never the good ones.  And the Ice Flow of Death has only ever been fatal for the polar bear and even then, he always seems to be brought back for an encore.  It’s funny how little kids imagine things for which they have very little experience.  Other than a hermit crab, her little world has been untouched by death.  At least as far as she is aware.  She’ll be spared knowledge of actual deaths that have occurred while she was too young to even understand the concept.

Of late Camera Girl has introduced the concept of dog heaven to cover the eventuality of what to tell her when our older dog does die.  And she is very curious about it, “Will Kaylee have anyone to play with?  Will she get her favorite treats?”  All these were manageable reactions.  But then she asked about herself going to heaven.  That was a bridge too far.  We assured her that she wouldn’t be going anywhere for a long, long, long time and she should stop thinking such things.

And that passed.  Now we’re back to the cheerful mayhem of dead pile where bad velociraptor and evil giraffe get their comeuppance but never is heard a discouraging word.  She has introduced some innovations that may be a form of humane treatment or possibly just safety precautions.  Now before any of the bad animals are hurled onto the dead pile, they are first “put to sleep.”  This sounds suspiciously like pet euthanasia.  I hesitate to ask where she got this idea.  Maybe one of her friends had a dog or cat that had to be “put to sleep.”  But we’ll let it slide for now.  Dead pile has been wildly popular but I think the first waning has begun.

And just in time.  It’s rather repetitive.  And it’s time for the princess to begin to read.  We’ll start with the ats (at, bat, cat, fat, skip gat, hat, mat, gnat, pat, sat, forget tat and finish with vat).  And then we’ll do a few more families and it’ll be on to Dr. Seuss.  We’ve got to hurry because before you know it it’ll be September and she’ll be off to kindergarten.  And then she’ll be too old for The Angry Polar Bear and too sophisticated for her old pastimes.

Well, that’s the way it should be.  Her world is opening up.  School and friends and all the joys and sorrows of childhood.  And I have to wonder if she’ll remember all our games and play.  She is a very intelligent child.  Maybe her memories will last.  I hope so.  I feel that my existence is bound up in the memories of those who are close to me.  My children and grandchildren will be the extension of my impact on this world, just as I passed on the existence of my parents and grandparents to them.

It’s a great privilege to get to interact with your descendants.  You can see their traits and sometimes recognize yours and your spouse’s.  You can tell them stories and things about themselves and about their parents and you can share things that you enjoyed when you were young.  Yes, it’s a rare treat.  It’s the payoff for all the hard work you did raising your own kids.

Well, it was a good day.  Busy but good.

December 26th 2022

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner ,

And just like that it’s over.  All of Camera Girl’s hard work has been expended and all the splendiferous foods have been eaten and all the children have gotten their gifts.  And we wake up on Monday morning and groan from the food we consumed and begin to straighten up the kitchen and the house and cart away the imperial ton of wrapping paper and boxes and put away the good china (of which one plate didn’t survive the exercise, requiescat in pace) and shake out the table cloths for the birds before they go in the washing machine (the tablecloths not the birds).

And we talk about all the moments we had with the kids and the grandkids.  And they are remarkable things these moments.  And we agree that it doesn’t get any better than this.  Spending time with the people you love and being relaxed and happy doing it is the pinnacle of life.  All of the hard work that went into the meal was repaid with interest by seeing the guests enjoy it.  Watching the young children playing together and sitting with the older children and talking about their lives and interests is the culmination of decades of work and is enormously gratifying to a parent and grandparent.

I was having a conversation with one of my sons-in-law.  We were talking about the uncertainty of conditions in the world for regular people and he said some things that told me he understands what’s important.  He said the only certain thing in the economy is that if you have a skill that people need, you’ll be able to survive.  And I said that’s true and I added, “No one is looking out for us anymore.  We have to depend on ourselves and each other.”  And he agreed.

And afterwards I thought about what I had said off-hand.  It’s true.  The government has abandoned us.  We’re looking out for each other or no one is.  If something happens to one of your family you may be the only thing between him and homelessness and death.  The government can’t be bothered.  The Canadian government, always ahead of us on the edge of progressivism, now uses the idea of assisted suicide for any situation where people feel abandoned by society.  If you can’t get help with a health problem, they’ll suggest, “Why not end it all with our convenient and economical assisted suicide kit.”  It comes with a YouTube video and on-line instructions to make sure everything goes smoothly.

I’m sure soon they’ll add it to all government FAQ pages as an option to all life’s difficulties.  Can’t get that rental house this summer?  Then end it all.  Can’t find that bargain on eBay you wanted?  Why not off yourself?  It’s fun and practical.  You won’t need to skimp on anything.  Just have a big weekend at a resort, run up an enormous hotel tab and then finish it off with an overdose of fentanyl.  Quick, painless and easy.

Well, excuse me if I don’t run for the exits.  Life is extremely precious.  Our overlords are working overtime to encourage people to give up.  Don’t get married, don’t have children, don’t buy a house, don’t work hard, just drop dead.

Well, too bad.  I won’t take the hint.  They’ve stopped pretending they’re our fellow countrymen.  The globalists say we’re all just one big world.  And it’s a world that has too many people in it.  Fine then.  We’re nothing to them and they’re nothing to us.  Less than nothing.  They’re our avowed enemies.

Let’s remember that and act accordingly.  We only have each other.  But the help of people that actually care about you is more valuable than anything else that you’ll find in this fake world of woke propaganda.  Recalibrate what you can and can’t depend on and decide what is worthwhile to do and what is a waste of precious time.  And you’ll be surprised how much less bleak things will appear.  Just find people you like and work together to make a little world around you that includes the things in life that actually matter.  That’s my thought on this day after Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving 2022 to Everybody

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What a splendiferous day.  Camera Girl, working on her early food preliminaries, busy as a bee and supremely skilled.  Me, lazier than a lion in the noonday sun, puttering around, anticipating the feeding frenzy to come.  I research anything that comes into my head.  I find solutions to problems that I’ve put off solving for years.  I’m profoundly contented.

I finally made a walkaround outside a little while ago.  That good, late afternoon sun, every photographer’s friend as it transmutes everything it touches into gold, gives me some subjects for my camera.  A frost-burned rosebud, a dying stalk of millet, some seared oak leaves on a branch.  Quite unspectacular subjects but with an obvious relevance to the season.  The walk was invigorating.  The fresh air did me good.

Tomorrow will be a full day of family.  I won’t spend much, if any, time on-line.  Which is all to the good.  The site daily content is all pre-loaded.  Hopefully the world will have the good grace not to explode until after I’ve enjoyed my holiday.  So, everyone will be so good as to amuse themselves tomorrow while I give thanks for all the wonderful people and things with which God has seen fit to populate his universe.

If something important or amusing strikes me and I decide to throw it onto the site tomorrow I hope most of you will be too busy or too groggy with food to notice.  There will be plenty of time on Friday or Saturday to catch up with my pearls of wisdom(?).

I’ll have to say the results of the elections have made me unexpectedly upbeat for the future.  I feel like the future is up to me to create and that greatly energizes me.  No more waiting for saviors or depending on luck.  I feel like the world is for those who seize the moment and wrest the future they want out of the indifferent present that we see around us.  The American dream was shown to be just that.  The fellowship with our American “brothers” on the Left has been revealed to be a lie.  But this revelation is liberating.  An open enemy is so much less dangerous than a false friend.  None of the Bushes or McConnells or Bidens or Obamas can surprise us anymore.  We know just how evil they are and we can anticipate most of their attacks at this point.  So, there’s no reason to think of them at all on a day of thanksgiving.  I’ll think about all the good people that I’ve heard about or met in the last year and I’ll be thankful for blessings that I know I’ve enjoyed.

I hope everyone out there eats and drinks way too much of some delicious things.  I hope that you have a chance to talk to some folks that mean something to you.  I hope everyone has time to think about this life and the good things that we should be thankful for.  And I hope you have a chance to enjoy yourself and relax.  I intend to stay up late tomorrow after everybody goes home and watch some old movies and get up late and then eat a lot of leftovers.

God bless you all.

Some Republicans Finally Embracing Pro-Family Economics

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Even the stupid party is finally waking up to the fact that we can help our side by embracing public policy that favors stay at home moms.  It requires a degree of intelligence to craft laws that help one-paycheck families without feeding the machine that currently sucks up trillions of dollars for the sake of welfare cases.  But it can be done.

This article describes the outline of policies that would support working families that want mom at home to make it a home for young children.  Child tax credits and other forms of tax relief are a beginning.  But what is needed is a new way for government to measure economic prosperity.  The raising of children as an economic outcome has to be valued as a higher good than the economic value produced by forcing a woman into the workforce so that she can pay for her children to be attended by day care centers and pre-K education.

And once people start looking at the hidden costs for making children prohibitively expensive, we can quickly find the money needed to prevent it.  The United States compensates for the low child birth rate by allowing enormous numbers of illegal immigrants.  These are poor, uneducated and often criminal individuals who require enormous support payments in the shape of government support for housing, food, schooling and health care costs.

If all these dollars were transferred to ensuring that American parents have what it takes to afford a middle-class existence on one salary there would be plenty of money left over to pay down the national debt.  According to the article, even that idiot Mitt Romney is open to some of the ideas that pro-family economics espouse.

So, here’s a tiny white pill to make the day a little better.

Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Puppies of War

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family ,

So, what to write about today?  Creepy Uncle Joe buying votes in the mid-terms by canceling student loans?  Meh.  Handicapping the mid-terms?  Boring.  Now there were a few headlines that caught my attention.  Donald Trump implores the senate Republicans to dump Mitch McConnell as leader when they take back the Senate.  Now that’s a great headline.  And it’s good advice.  But what’s there to say about it other than it’s a good idea.

And my current personal projects aren’t really that universal in their appeal.  Right now I’m trying to learn enough PHP and MySQL coding to automate some very time-consuming changes to my website.  The book I’m working from is about a thousand pages long and I’ve just gotten past the introduction so it’ll be a tough slog.

I haven’t read or watched any interesting stories in the last few days.  And I’m way behind on my photo work and the fiction writing.  The whole system is falling apart.

So, what’s causing all this havoc?  Well, we’ve been overrun for the last week (and will be into next week) with grandkids.  The little devils have successfully invaded the Compound and are monopolizing Camera Girl’s time.  Worse still they’ve subjugated me too.  When I’m not overseeing their infestation of the swimming pool, I’m forced to play chess with one of them or read stories to another.  And they even have me ferrying them around to the neighboring towns for tennis practice or school open house or whatever.

Actually, it’s kind of great.  My third oldest grandson is becoming a pretty decent pool player and a very good chess player to boot.  And tonight, my little granddaughter asked for three extra bedtime stories from her old grandfather instead of from Camera Girl.  It seems that she likes the same stories I read to her mother more than thirty years ago.

Really the only downside to all this babysitting is the lack of time.  It turns out I really do need time to write the stuff I post here.  There’s no way to multi-task while you’re refereeing young children at play.  They’re just too dynamic and need to be monitored pretty closely to prevent bickering from exploding into fisticuffs.  I have to rule with an iron fist.  Well, it’s probably more like a lot of haranguing by me but you get the idea.

But honestly, the political scene is just status quo.  After the FBI’s gestapo tactics against Trump there’s not much to say.  We know where things stand and we’re just waiting to see whether the electorate repudiates the Democrats or acquiesces in our new status as a banana republic.  So that just leaves me cultural and general interest topics to write about until the feds do something even more outrageously unconstitutional.

And of course, that’s bound to happen in the next week or so.  Biden is desperate to change the story away from runaway inflation.  He’ll attempt to bribe some other constituency with another illegal executive order.  The only question is whether it’ll be transgender polo players or normalizing monkey pox at America’s gay bath houses.  So, bear with me.  Things will return to normal soon and I’ll be back to decrying civilizational collapse again before you know it.