Juddy, Don't Take Your Guns To Town

The thing about military checkpoints in Mexico is that they don't spook me.  They shouldn't, of course.  I'm not smuggling illegals in my chassis or heroin in my spare tire.  They sometimes lead to fun surprises, like the time Regina and I stopped and one and inadvertently agreed to give an entire platoon a ride in the back of my truck.  But, they're also manned by boys with automatic rifles who look like they're learning to shave and frequently feature a guy in a sandbagged bunker with a .50 caliber trained at passersby.  So, yeah, they can be a little intimidating.

Checkpoints work like this:  The non-smiling military man in full camo and a shemagh around his neck leans into your window and says something unintelligible in Spanish.  I look blankly, then turn to Regina for support.  Then, in English, the non-smiling man asks, "Where are you going?"  I tell him, and usually because I know we'll repeat the blank stare game for at least another round, preempt any further awkwardness by asking if we can get out of the truck.  We enjoy the break, generally.  Regina and I stretch, the kids play, and the military check out our beat up camping gear before they send us on our merry way.  But when the non-smiling man takes something from your console and gives you a look of both fear and WTF, then you know you've really f'ed up.  The thing?  A single bullet, forgotten from a hunt three months prior.  The look on his face told me they were going to tear the Titan apart, piece by piece until they found the rifle that accompanied the bullet.  I told him he could keep it, which was dumb.  Regina, suddenly fluent and chatty, told them I was the greatest American hunter who ever lived and I was taking a break from a grueling season to visit their beautiful country.  Or, she said, "My husband's an okay hunter and a bit of an idiot.  Have mercy on him."  Either way, it worked and so began our Christmas in Baja.

The rest of the vacation was all shrimp tacos and cold beer.  We met great people who invited us into their home for Christmas and fed us pie; we smirked at the young studious kids getting off the giant "research vessel" parked out in the bay until we realized it was the Sea Shepherd and they were probably spending their holidays hosing down whale poachers; we ate fresh sea bass that Regina caught; we visited great-great-grandfathers grave; and we drank wine on the beach while the kids build sand castles.  I could have stayed another month (and when we returned home to -10 degree weather, I wish we would have).

Our trip home took us from the Sea of Cortez to the Pacific ocean, and over a snow covered mountain range (something I'd never seen in Baja, but impressed just one person: Me.).  My Spanish is just bad enough to misinterpret most things I hear or read (See: checkpoint anecdote above), so I passed the long hours of driving by interpreting the road signs for Regina.  Some read, I think: Don't Drive Like a Jerkwad, Your Family Waits For You.  I like that someone in the roadsigns division decided to make that one personal.  You!  Yeah, you, Carlos.  Slow 'er down, buddy.  Usually, a few kilometers past the first one would be be another, less stern warning that, Drinking and Driving, You Know, Might be Bad.  Mr. Roadsign maker must've had a few Coronas when he came up with that one.  And my favorite sign, but definitely the most lazy, just read: Obey the Signs.  Okie dokie.  Thanks.

So, we obeyed the signs, drove up through Baja's wine country, which we thought would be like driving through Alabama's wine country, and we were a little more than surprised at the great wines we tried.  Granted, we had to use 4-wheel drive just to get to some of the vineyards, but they were Napa-gorgeous when we finally rolled in.  We sampled and bought more than a few bottles to take home.  So when we passed through our last military checkpoint -- the border -- with waaaaay more than our allowed 2 measly liters of wine limit, I didn't bat an eye when the guy in aviator glasses asked if I had anything to declare.  Nope, I said and smiled as I drove on.

Losing Our Marbles

Over the winter, Regina and I noticed our kids had blue faces.  It certainly wasn't from the cold -- we couldn't get them to go outside -- it was the light from their tablets, glowing softly on their angelic faces.  So, in an effort to get them breathing fresh air, Regina came up with Marbles.  Not to play, although that would have been an improvement, but as a reward system.  Essentially, the kids earned a marble for completing different chores, and each marble was worth ten minutes of screen time.  For example, if Dylan went outside and shot twenty arrows, she could go inside, collect a marble, and shoot a thousand virtual arrows.  Sound a little hypocritical?  You bet it is, but it also worked.  Sort of.

Dylan treated it like a new, fun game where her goal was to collect as many marbles as possible.  She currently has enough in her jar to watch all ten hours of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and probably have a few marbles left over to catch the first three hours of Titanic.  She saves marbles like they're her personal IRA and she really wants that sweet condo in Boca Raton.  Grady, on the other hand, takes the "If You Got It, Spend It" attitude.  He earns a marble, plucks it from his jar almost immediately, and sits down to ten minutes of The Lego Movie.  He watched the movie, in short chunks, over the course of four months.

Their enthusiasm, and ours, wore off pretty quickly.  The jars of marbles are still around, I know because I knock one over about once a week, but they're no longer a viable form of kid-currency.  But, an amazing thing happened -- when they realized they couldn't play Minecraft (Dylan), or snap a thousand photographs of, say, your shoe (Grady), they started to drift toward their bookshelves and pretty soon they were asking for more time to read, or another trip to the library.  Granted, they've always loved reading (Brag alert: Dylan leads her class in AR points by double), but now they burn through books like ISIS in a Salman Rushdie library.

Did the marbles work?  Absolutely not.  We're back to reminding the kids that their pets need to eat everydamnday and that, yes, they should do their homework before dinner.  But the fact that the local libraries email regularly to inform us of their overdue books, and that I'll probably break a hip one day from slipping on an errant marble, is only a small problem.  I'm calling Marbles, whether they horde or spend, spill or rattle around the dryer, nearly a win.

Sugar & Spice

Dylan just turned 9.  Yikes.  What does a 9-year old Eastside girl get for her birthday?  Guns and knives.  Not exclusively, although that would have been awesome.  She also got, I don't know, other stuff that wasn't gun or knife related, like books and crafts.  And those gifts perfectly tell the story of our Dylan.  When she's not crafting, she's reading, and when she's not reading, she's shooting.  I'm really just trying to raise her to freak boys out, even though I know this will backfire, because up here, "I'm a good shot," is a sure-fire way to get a boy's attention.

A couple weeks ago I took the kids to the bow shoot that a local organization sponsors.  The Siskiyou Bowmen have a few courses that you walk through and shoot 3-D targets.  Think miniature golf, but with weapons.  They also have a kids' shooting competition, with three different age groups.  Dylan is in the middle group.  I stood back and watched as she was the only kid to hit the bullseye on her first shot (or any shot, for that matter).  She won her entire age group and came home sporting a new Siskiyou Bowmen hoodie as her prize.  I was awfully proud of my little junior badass.

We've introduced Dylan to the world of BB guns.  For me, a BB gun was a great tool for shooting my friends, but I'm really stressing to her that "shoot the bellybutton" wasn't as fun a game as it sounds.  She's been spooked by shooting rifles, mostly because of the noise, so BB guns are a nice introduction.  I honestly thought she might not be interested in it at all.  She'd thank us sweetly for the gift and hide it under her bed with her Lalaloopsy dolls.  But, like her bow, she loves target shooting.  I took the balloons from her party outside and she was in love at first pop.

With her new birthday knife in her pocket, and her bow and rifle by her side, I sometimes feel like we're raising a nutty survivalist.  Then I see Dylan with her nose in a book or making animals out of paper clips and old erasers and I breath a sigh of relief -- whew, she's definitely nutty.  No, I know she's balanced.  And unless I see her studying the pages of 1001 Uses for Your Bunker and crafting tactical tomahawks for the family, "For when shit goes down," I won't worry.  She's the perfect balance of smart and tough, cute and killer.  So when the zombies attack, the Canadians invade, or Donald Trump gets elected, and you see a cute girl in braids holding a bow, get behind her, she'll get you through.

Grady Jay Day

Ok.  I know, it's been awhile since I've written.  Is it because as children get older they get less and less interesting?  That can't be true.  I'm still the idiot parent who yammers on and on about my kids to whoever's unfortunate enough to stand behind me in line at Target.  It's laziness, pure and simple.  I wish I had a better excuse -- I've been putting all my energy into my Fulbright application, it's rush-season for Somali pirates and I can't decide which band of thieves to join, the Jehovah's Witness wouldn't leave -- but I gots nothing.

Back to the kids.  It's been a pretty epic Spring for them, and Grady's had a few "firsts."  It started with the G-man losing his first tooth.  I'm not the parent who tries to yard out a tooth at the first sign of any wiggle (see: Regina); I let those suckers go until they're hanging by a strand of saliva, then casually tug it out.  I love the look on a child's face when he or she loses a first tooth.  It's always, "I lost a tooth!" followed by, "No one told me there would be blood!"  Grady's was the same.  We were just happy he didn't swallow it.  You can sure tell he's a second child by the way the Tooth Fairy responds these days.  Here's a conversation the Tooth Fairy and Regina had the morning after Grady's tooth came out:  R: Did you remember Grady's tooth?  TF: Um. R: How much money do you have?  TF: (digs through pockets) ¢.47.  R: (sigh) Here's a few bucks.  TF: (pretends to dig chonies out of Grady's dresser and hides cash under tooth box)  Me: Hey!  The Tooth Fairy left you some money!

Grady also got to be a Prince for the high school's basketball homecoming.  Princely duties include wearing a tie, hanging out in the weight room for three hours, and crowning the Homecoming King.  The best part was during introductions, the little Prince and Princess got their bio's read.  Delaney, the supercute Princess, wanted to be a Nurse Anesthetist when she grew up.  The crowd was so impressed they literally "ooooh-ed."  Grady wanted to be a cowboy or a Bumblebee Transformer.  Maybe not as high a career aspiration, but still, a pretty good goal.  He didn't get the "oohs" when the announcer said "Bumblebee Transformer," but Grady gave a big fist pump when he heard it and I could see a lot of high school boys thinking, "That's really a job?  I need to go see Regina."

The announcer should have read, "When Grady grows up, he wants to be the next Banksy," because the walls of our home are getting tagged by our little graffiti artist.  There's no detective work involved to find the culprit, he writes his own name.  Our car doors, the windowsills, and several walls all have his little-boy handwriting -- and sometimes a little abstract art included as a bonus -- on them.  The bright side is that we're really noticing an improvement in his penmanship with all the practice.  The downside is, well, obvious.

*Turns to annoyed stranger in line behind me at Target* So, yeah, the kids are great.   Have I told you about Dylan?  Oh, you've got to go wash your cat?  Ok, sure.  I'll catch up with you next time.  And I promise I won't wait three months to yammer on about my kids.

Dad's Weekend

The Christmas Season was not the goldmine of calamity and failed parenting that I exploit like to write about here.  It was ... perfectly normal.  Great for the Eastside Gang, bad for writing.  In fact, the only real gem came from Dylan on our truck ride home from Callahan Christmas.  "Dad," she asked from the backseat, "you know how some people smell different?"  I looked at Regina.  We had no idea where this was headed.  "Sure, sweetie," I said.  "Your dad smells really different," Regina said.  "Well, Callahan Santa smelled like ... Mac & Cheese."  Whew, Mac & Cheese was my very last guess.  Cigarettes, Regret, Bourbon, Fresh Blood ... all those options ran through my head before she finished her sentence.  Mac & Cheese, I can definitely live with that one.

So that's it, that was Christmas.  But this is a tale for all the fellas (cue Young MCs, "Bust A Move").  Regina spent a weekend in Napa with her college homies and I stayed home with the monkeys.  I had a weekend planned that was packed with sledding and sleepovers and snowboarding and horseback riding.  Activities!  That's what we need to do.  And then it started raining.  And it rained.  And rained.  It rained at the sled run.  It rained at the ski park.  It rained on my dreams.  Plus, I kind of suck and switching plans.  Fortunately, Regina's good at it so when she called to check in, she offered up a few alternate plans.

First of all: Feeding.  That's a great half-day activity that keeps the kids occupied.  Couple that with "bull turnout day" and you've got an entire day packed with me figuring out how to avoid talking about what "bull turnout day" really means.  That was Day 1.

Day 2 was a little trickier.  With the sledding plans washed out, the kids got cooped up in the house pretty quickly.  Finally, during the briefest break in the weather, I piled them into the Ranger and went exploring.  We had a rogue wild boar in one of the fields, so I put them on patrol to find it.  We never saw him, but their lookout turned up two great shed antlers, so we had something to bring home.

Day 3 I nailed.  After feeding, we loaded up for Ashland to go see Star Wars.  The kids needed something to talk to their friends about at school, and we may have been the last family on earth yet to see it.  We got to Ashland a little early so I loaded the kids up on noodles and then hit the cheapest entertainment in town: The Dollar Store.  Here's a tip: if you ever need to kill an hour or so, take your kids to one.  We burned an hour, loaded up a basket full of crap, and it only cost fifteen bucks.  We bought duct tape, candy, stuffed monkeys, Hot Wheels, toothpaste, sandwich bags, and more candy.  So, with pockets stuffed with Swedish Fish, we hit the movie.  Grady, literally, was on the edge of his seat the entire time.  So much so that his seat kept springing back to the "up" position because he kept leaning so far forward.  Dylan loved it too.  How do I know?  Because for the rest of the afternoon I kept getting questions that started with, "Daddy, do you remember in the movie Star Wars ...," like we'd seen the movie a year ago, not an hour ago.  How do you overcome the post nerd-flick blues?  More sugar.  Ashland is great for its sweet shops, and we strolled for the rest of the afternoon and hit up a few.

Regina came home to a nearly clean house, and kids who were still in one piece, so I think she was impressed.  She may not be so thrilled after their next visit to the dentist, but hey, I can always blame Mac & Cheese Santa for filling their stockings with too many sweets.

Cabo's Cabo

Some people measure the success of their vacations by the number of mountains they climb, monuments they explore, or layers of tan they acquire.  When it comes to vacationing in Cabo, we like to measure our success in the number of new taco joints we find and the amount of pool water we drink.  After all, it's Cabo.  I liken it to Las Vegas: no one who lives there is from there.  Nothing there is historical, unless you count Sammy Hagar.  The early Jesuit priests didn't even bother to hang out there, even with an El Squid Roe bar, so there's no mission to make tourists feel like they did something cultural on their vacation.  You could easily mistake Cabo for any beach resort town -- until you walk into Gardenia's restaurant and try their shrimp tacos.  That's when you know you've chosen your vacation well.

Yep.  El Arco.

When people ask how our Thanksgiving vacation was, my reply is always, "You know, Cabo's Cabo."  Even those who have never been seem to get the gist.  And that's exactly why we keep going back.  Sure, we'd love to explore the globe, but there's something deeply appealing about a vacation with zero expectations.  There's no pressure to visit museums or climb atop rickety missions or explore a jungle's canopy.  Cabo's most interesting feature is el Arco -- the rock feature on the southernmost tip of the peninsula -- and we can see it from our pool's lounge chair, just over the top of my giant banana daiquiri glass.

We love you, Cabo, but we're getting the hell out of here

For a city that boasts little history, it's a town full of statues.  Grady hates them all, except for the giant Homer Simpson, which he was indifferent about.  I blame the gold-painted panhandler dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow who stood statue-still until we walked by.  That bastard spoiled many a walk along the marina.  After that, Grady shied at real pirate statues, Virgin Mary figurines, every single Day of the Dead skeleton (sold in every single store), and taxidermied marlins.  He was one jumpy little dude.  It was best to just let him hang out in the pool and turn so beautifully brown that when we walked around together, I'm sure everyone thought I was his gringo nanny.

The beauty of low expectations is that you often find yourself surprised.  We stayed in La Paz a few days on this trip and kept seeing stores that sold Clamato.  Some exclusively.  I couldn't fathom any business turing a profit on selling solely a clam and tomato juice concoction, so we tried one.  These make your Bloody Mary Buffet drinks look piddly.  Any item you can find in the snack food aisle or your fish monger's freezer is shoved in a plastic cup, then topped off with Clamato juice.  Add seasoning and there's your drink.  They're odd and delicious.   See?  I didn't think I could drink all my meals, and was pleasantly surprised when I realized I could.

Dylan loves cactus tacos. They taste like green beans

Apparently, our expectations for ourselves also drop when we're there, too.  I'd heard about a great taco place that I wanted to try, but we never went because it would have required us getting in our car and driving nearly a mile.  The conversation went something like, "Honey, should we try Asi and Asado today?"  "Another paloma por favor." Sigh.

When your biggest decision for the day is choosing between tacos al pastor or tacos camaron, it's easy to forget the little things, like hygiene.  We came home just before hurricane Sandra touched down and on Saturday, a full two days after Thanksgiving, Dylan told me she still had Thanksgiving in her teeth.  Please don't tell her dentist that.

So yeah, Cabo's Cabo.  Sometimes that's exactly what we need.

Green Dragon, Purple Dragon

As a rugby player, I have both a social and moral obligation to disdain soccer.  The drama, the flopping, the stretchers, the silly airplane celebration ... they go against the core of my being.  And yet.  I have a Brasilian wife (= soccer) and two small children (= more soccer), and somehow this equation has left me as the head coach of Dylan and nine other little third, fourth, and fifth graders.  We are the Green Dragons.  My first question as head coach was, "How many players are on a soccer team?" which was followed by, "What the hell is offsides?"  Obviously, I was the right man for the job.

Grady, too, is a soccer player and his team is the Purple Dragons.  I know, the lack of creativity in the naming of teams around here is disheartening.  After one match, we asked the team we just beat what they were called, so we could do the "2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate?" cheer.  Their coach replied, "I don't know, you choose."  All I know is that you're supposed to throw a "United" or "FC" after any name to gain a little authenticity.  Between Green and/or Purple Dragon practices and matches, our fall has been soccer-full.  Dylan plays on Saturday mornings.  I can tell where you're from by your reaction to that last sentence.  If it was, "Oh, Saturdays are perfect," then bless your heart, you're not local.  The correct reply is, "Wait, during buck season?  Is that even legal?"  It's not, I checked.

Grady's games are at least on Thursday evenings.  Usually they're on a field that is crowded with deer that have become accustomed to six-year olds booting soccer balls at them.  They barely flinch.  Grady's coach is a spunky Camp Wrangler who greets everyone with, "Howdy!"  She yells positive things at her players and cheers whenever anyone, on any team, scores a goal.  Grady's games are a joy to watch.  No one remembers the score and sometimes there are extra snacks after the game for parents.  Dylan's are the opposite.  They're contests in which parent can cheer the loudest for his/her child and for me to ponder all the decisions I've made in my life.

We are nearing the end of the season and, looking back, I've learned a few things about soccer, and, well, about me.  Here they are:

1)  I channel Coach Snell -- the Welshman who coached my college rugby team -- when I coach soccer.  We work on aggressive soccer and yell a few kid-friendly rugby chants now and then.  I haven't introduced them to "Shoot the boot" or any bawdy songs, but neither did Snell, we learned that on our own.  If I get to sub into a game for a few minutes and leave the field with one less ear than I started the day with, then I'd really do Coach Snell proud.

2)  Grady does an awesome hoppity-hop dance when he's the guy elected to kickoff.  The ball goes nowhere, and he just jumps up and down beside it, but it's fun to watch.  Besides, the tactic is so confusing to the opposing team that I might incorporate it into my game plan.

3)  I don't handle girl problems well.  The Green Dragons are 80% girls, and they're girls who don't always get along.  When in-fighting happens, I yell, "Get along or run a lap."  Guess what doesn't work?  Yeah, yelling "Get along or run a lap" to nine-year old girls.  Luckily, I have an assistant who A) knows the rules of soccer, and B) handles those problems well.  Wait, what to I bring to the table? Not much.

4)  Boys poop in urinals.  This has nothing to do with soccer; I just noticed it when I was taking Grady to one of my practices.  I can't un-see that.

5)  I've taught Grady a valuable soccer lesson: follow the big kid.  He has a buddy on the team who is a bit larger than most other players.  Anyone in his way generally lands on his/her back.  I've taught Grady to get behind that action.  At some point the ball is going to squirt out Grady's way, or at lest he'll be the first person there to celebrate a goal.

6)  We've had to institute a "no cowboy boot" rule for our practices.  It hasn't worked.  At least one player per practice has forgotten her cleats and plays in boots.  It's usually Dylan.  No one has been kicked too hard yet, but it's bound to happen.  One parent calls them "Siskiyou County Cleats."

I don't talk about it much, because I don't want to ruin my rugby reputation, but soccer is really growing on me.  The joy of a youth soccer game is really a thing to revel in and watching Grady run around the pitch just makes me smile and laugh.  My Green Dragons are an awesome group of kids and are as fierce and tenacious as any burly rugger I ever encountered.  "Be Brave" has become our motto and I've stolen a few of the more appropriate rugby chants for us to yell before matches.  So if you're not out buck hunting on a Saturday morning and find yourself in Etna, don't be surprised to hear "Saturday's a soccer day!"  You're not hearing things, it's just the Green Dragons getting ready to rumble.