(A note from the management: As you can see, I’m a little behind on these posts. The hows and whys of it will be explained within.)
Thursday, September 29, 2011
In the baseball movie Bull Durham, the following pearl of wisdom is dispensed: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.” I’m not entirely sure what this means, but it seems apt. After all, storm clouds have gathered, and not just outside. Consider:
• X-rays during a routine visit to the dentist today reveal that a tooth underneath one of my crowns has decayed badly and might require a root canal. This development transcends my needle phobia (not to mention my issues with power tools being applied to my teeth)—it also plays into my newfound fears of going broke. Even with insurance paying part of the freight, the procedure will cost me a bunch of cash.
• When last I spoke of Fluffy, he was making a heroic comeback from his bladder infection. Suffice it to say, he’s taken a turn for the worse, and the vet has called for further tests. This, too, plays into my newfound fears of going broke.
• By dusk, I’m a shell of a man—I’m achy, chilled and listless. I take my temperature, and the thermometer reads 101. It seems I’ve fallen victim to another flu bug.
Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Sometimes it rains. Sometimes you wish you had a confounded umbrella.
Friday, September 30, 2011
This latest illness has put one of my most sacred fatherly duties into jeopardy: taking Liv to an Indian Princess campout.
Indian Princess is like Scouts without all the rules and regulations. Liv’s Indian Princess name is Broken Arrow; mine is Sitting Bull. Indian Princess season consists of three campouts (fall, winter and spring), as well as assorted other get-togethers. This is Liv’s fifth and final year of Indian Princess, and tomorrow we’re supposed to go somewhere in Indiana for the fall campout.
It’s heady stuff. Daytime is for activities such as canoeing, fishing, wall climbing, archery, Frisbee golf and hiking. Together, Dad and Daughter explore the rustic beauty of the outdoors. (Afterward Dad might explore the blessed world of slumber by sneaking in a nap.)
Nighttime is for fellowship. As the girls do whatever it is they’re doing, the fathers congregate by the grill with adult beverages and, oh, a month’s supply of meat. In my five years of Indian Princess, we’ve prepared countless varieties of beef, pork, chicken, fish and sausage, and we’ve experimented with all manner of game, including venison, bison, elk, snake, alligator and wild boar. The full list of meats we’ve grilled is too long and complex to compile here. By my second year, I felt like I needed to travel to Australia and slay a bearded dragon just so I’d have something different to bring.
But I digress. These campouts are all about the girls, and they have a blast. Without their mothers helicoptering over them, they’re free to have fun, fun, fun. Sure, they come home the next day sleep-deprived and with burrs in their hair, but that’s how life goes in the wilderness. What’s important is that we always get through these things without any incidents. (Okay, late one night a dad leaned back too far in his lawn chair and rolled down a hill and into the darkness, but that was the exception, not the rule.)
Right now, though, everything is in doubt—it’s all I can do to drag myself to the dining room table for a couple hours of work. Liv is not happy. I go to her bedroom to say goodnight, and her last words to me are, “I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to go on the campout.” As I leave, I hear her mutter something like, “Can’t you just suck it up for one day?”
I hobble back to my bedroom and hope for a miracle.
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