Been a minute

It's been several months. Life has returned to the pattern of father son. By that I mean, work, chillin with mini-me, repeat. Good News I am under a pack of cigarettes a day. Bad news, I am now addicted to breath mints.

Mini-me and I made it through the year of firsts since his mother's passing. We had a private ceremony to remember. I had a really nice "Memory Box" made. My thinking is that in it, we'll put those things for him to remember her. Yet also it will serve as a repository of moments of his life they could not share together. I hope it will become something he'll treasure for the rest of his life.

Other than that, nothing has really been going on of importance. We survived the year of firsts. He survived school. Given that it had been several years since he had seen family, and after talking with family..he has gone to visit them for the vast majority of the Summer.

On one hand I get a vacation, on the other hand, and don't ever tell him this, I do miss him. Having said that however, I have started the necessary clean up this new start requires. This part was something which best be done alone.

I'll be back to writing on this, more than likely on a weekly basis. Perhaps I will throw in some politics..it is the Presidential season after all. I am hesitant to do that though as one always tends to come across those "True Believers" with whom having anything remotely resembling an intelligent conversation is rendered moot.  Sadly though, I think I am related to a lot of those, on both sides of the political spectrum. We'll see though.

Haven't cooked in the last week or so as I went from the ER to bed rest. Hell of a way to spend Summer with mini-me gone for 6 months huh? Although right before that I did make a nice blackened salmon I served with some dirty rice.
I've got some ideas for more cooking. Getting into some claypot cooking, and more international cuisine. We'll see where it goes.

Dancing with the Devil

So mini me had his first school dance of the year last night. I being the dutiful father provided the admittance fees, and some money for snacks, loaded him up, took him there and then left. I came home and did what every parent did, worried! It's in the parenting handbook, page1, right after providing unconditional love is to always worry and stress out. Trust me on this!

Well anyway after a couple hours, curiosity got the better of me and I headed down to the school.  It was interesting to see mini me take those tentative steps into adolescence. No I didn't interfere, as I have said before, it is his life not mine, so I just observed from afar.

Mini me was dancing in the center of the floor, as only Jr. High Schoolers can. Think more like a pack mentality rather than individual couples. Yet you can start to see those first steps, cautious at first, but they were there as the boys and the girls danced around one another, yet never actually with one person.

Any how, as I was talking to a parent who was chaperoning, I notice that mini me kept having two females tying to dance strictly in front of him. I say in front because as noted earlier they aren't really dancing with one another.  Now when one was in front of him, you could tell he was enjoying himself, smiling, laughing, yes even blushing. However when the other one took her place, you could tell he just wasn't as into it.

Now before you start assuming, some body type, hair, etc. So it wasn't a shallow thing.  I have tried to instill into mini me that looks are nothing really important, it's the content of the character and personality which matters.  Well given how he changed depending on who was in front of him, I made a mental note to poke around the edges to see what was going on.

Later in the evening after I "officially" arrived to pick him up, as we were driving home, I did the standard parent line of questioning: "Did you have fun?" "Meet any new people?" "Did you dance or play in the gym?" I like to think that I have fostered an open relationship with mini me. He can talk to me about any and every thing, and believe me he has!

Well he answered the questions which of course prompted new question, specifically the one I was waiting for, " Did you dance with any girls?" He told me a couple. I noted I saw him dancing with such and such as well as so and so. His comment took me back and made me think for several reasons. The remark was " Such and such just wants to have a boyfriend, and I want none of that."

Now my first reaction was wow! Smart kid but it got me thinking, what does it say of our society that a tweener is desperate to be in a relationship? Kids really are growing up fast these days. Mini me's answer shows how he is growing up and learning.

We talked more, about little things, important things and the ilk. As we talked I got more insight into how he thinks. I am starting to believe he is wise beyond his years. You see his reasoning can be boiled down to " any one who is desperate enough for a relationship, isn't comfortable with themselves."

I think what I am attempting to teach him is rubbing off: Be true to who and what you are. What I need to teach him though is not everyone is perfect. Not he, not I, not the one he was really enjoying dancing near. The secret, I think, is to learn to accept the imperfections, to realize that the imperfections make us who we are. To run away because of another's imperfections I tend to opine is because we cannot accept our own.

In a real sense, our imperfections are labeled as imperfections, when in fact they make us perfectly us. They are who we are.

Any how, supper was a slow cooked roast in the crock pot. Great for the crappy weather. I seared the roast on all sides, added some broth, rough cut carrots and onions, as well as some black beans. Half way through I added some chili adobo for some spiciness and then cooked for a couple more hours. I then served with some rice to which I had added a pepperjack cheese sause to.

Right now I am really diggin Mumford and son, so musically tonight it's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KkUeRPjc-Y&feature=fvwrel