Another Quiet Week-End

February 19, 2012 ~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

Not too much to report this week-end. After work on Friday, I stopped by Karin’s house to drop something off for her and ended up staying for three hours, hanging out, having dinner and, of all things, talking religion… go figure.

I slept late on Saturday and then took my recyclables to the recycling center. I buy way too much Diet Pepsi, so I pay way too much in California Redemption Value (bottle deposits), not to take them in and get my money back. Every few months I load up my car with trash bags full of aluminum cans and plastic bottles and take them in. Yesterday, I got just a few cents shy of $45.00 so I’d say this is a worthwhile exercise.

After I dropped those off, I went to Popeye’s Chicken and Biscuits to get some… well, chicken and biscuits. I was feeling the need for a little comfort food. It helped a bit. I spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing and hanging out. Watched all the regular television on my DVR. Watched a Netflix DVD, original Doctor Who, the episode where Peter Davison relinquished the role to Colin Baker (not that anybody knows or cares about that), and then I watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog. It was pretty good and funny, right up to the end, and then it got a bit weird. Oh well. I even got some recreational reading done. And in spite of all that resting I still managed to stay up way too late last night.

I slept in this morning, but woke up to a very nice voice mail message from Gene who, sadly, returned to San Diego today. I got up and watched last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Maya Rudolph (very funny) while I ate my lunch and then it was time to get ready and head out. Today was Lil’B day and we went to the movies.

I occasionally ask him if there’s anything in particular he’d like to do and he almost always says, “I don’t know”, which comes as a surprise to exactly zero people, I’m sure. But last Monday night, when I was taking him home after dinner, I asked him if he had anything in particular in mind that he’d like to do this week-end and after a moment’s contemplation he told me he wanted to go see Journey 2, The Mysterious Island. This is not a movie I would have opted to go to on my own, but Lil’B rarely expresses a specific desire of any kind so when he does, I like to try to make sure it happens.

I posted this on my Facebook page:

About to watch Journey 2 with my Little Brother… I may have to watch this movie through my fingers!!!

I thought this movie was going to be filled with over-sized creepy crawly things and that my skin would be crawling by the time it was over. There were a couple of instances with enormous centipedes, some massive spiders and a couple bee’s large enough to ride (I’m allergic to bee stings so they always oog me out!) and of course a lizard as big as a house, but all-in-all the movie wasn’t terrible. It actually had a pretty good story that should have been pretty entertaining but it was not as well executed as it could have been. Too bad.

I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up my Twitter account. Deleting people who have either been inactive for a long time, or who do not follow me back and therefore aren’t interactive. Or at least I did until Twitter started having technical difficulties and now here we are!

It’s a long week-end and mercifully I do not have any big plans tomorrow. Officially, it’s not a holiday for me, but my company is kind of weird. We have multiple entities that all co-exist, but the employees are on different payrolls. Since my office building is owned and operated by the Northern California Region which considers Presidents Day to be a holiday, the building is closed, but since I am not a Northern California Region employee and Presidents Day is not a holiday on my payroll, I am required to take the day off and use one of my four float days for it. I don’t really mind though. I used to be a Northern California Region employee and I had the holiday but no float days. Now I have four float days but lost this one holiday. So I choose to look at it, instead, as though I have three float holidays and continue to have Presidents Day off as a paid holiday.

I texted Michelle earlier today to see if she wanted to go see This Means War tomorrow but as it turns out, it’s not a holiday for her. So I guess I should just be grateful. And I am!

Hands

February 13, 2012 ~ riggledo ~ 2 Comments

Tonight was my bi-weekly dinner with Lil’B. When I picked him up, he was bundled up in more layers than I ever remember seeing him in; with a fleece hoodie over his shirt, a thick puffy vest over that and a knit cap on his head, he looked like a longshoremen on his way to the docks. I was informed he had been sick and was still getting over it. He told me he didn’t go to school on Thursday and Friday while he was sick and I asked him what he did during that time. He, of course said, “I don’t know.” I asked him if he played video games and he said no. Then he told me that he watched movies.

I said, “That’s a good way to pass the time while you’re sick. What did you watch?”

“On Thursday I watched Elmo in Grouchland,” he told me, ” and on Friday, I watched Rio.” The boy has watched Rio a thousand times so I didn’t spend any energy on that, but I was amused because he watched Elmo.

I told him, “That sounds like fun! I really like Elmo.”

“Me too.”

We went to this little restaurant in Alameda, called The Red Onion (It claims to be “The Original The Red Onion”), which sadly didn’t turn out very well. The food wasn’t too bad, but the service, location, service, ambiance, service, and prices… and service, were not great. Plus they don’t take credit cards which I didn’t know until we were already seated and looking at the menu. They take cash or ATM (with a $.75 service charge.) That’s just ridiculous. And Shifty. Anyway, we had a lot of downtime while we were waiting for anyone to notice that we were in need of some sort of service or other. (It happened multiple times.)

There was a plasma screen TV on the wall which was showing Space Jam and he was entranced. This is the reason I enjoy hanging out with Lil’B. I like kids movies and with him, I get to watch them.

Lil’B had spaghetti which, for a while, he was eating one noodle at a time, getting the end in his mouth and then slurping in Lady and the Tramp style. I watched him do this a couple of times and chuckled. I’m pretty sure that, as an adult influence, I was supposed to tell him to stop and eat the spaghetti properly, but, you know, I fail at adult influence… At least I do when the kid is being funny. The thing is though, as I watched him slurp the noodles, I also noticed that they were hitting the front of his hoodie. There wasn’t nearly enough sauce on the noodles for my taste and the noodles were fairly clean, but I spoke up anyway, telling him that he was going to get his shirt dirty.

He put his fork down, picked up a napkin and looked down at his shirt front. He couldn’t see any sauce, so he pulled the front of the vest apart more so he could get a better look. Then he pulled the front of the hoodie, where the zipper was, apart so he could look at the metal.

And that’s when I saw it. Something I hadn’t watched for. Something I hadn’t anticipated, though, I should have because it was inevitable. This little boy, who watched Elmo and Rio while he was sick and was so engrossed in Space Jam while we ate… This little kid who still doesn’t ask for what he wants and just goes with the flow… The spritely young thing that doesn’t even stand as tall as my chest… Has grown up hands. I don’t know when I last really paid attention to his hands, but I know they were tiny little things with bad hang nails and gnawed, ragged edges; scrawny, clumsy, short little things. And now, his fingers are long and slender, controlled and strong. His hands are grown up hands and it seems like it happened over night. It’s just one more sign that his “little boy” days are numbered and before long he’ll be a young man. I can’t believe it!

A Resurgence

January 23, 2012 ~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to arrive at Lil’B’s house around the same time that his younger sister’s Big Sister arrived. Neither of us had a hard and fast idea of what we wanted to do with our respective Little’s that day. It was unseasonably warm – I was actually wearing shorts – and so neither of us wanted to be cooped up inside if we didn’t have to be. We ended up taking Lil’B and his brother (10 months older) and sister (16 months younger) to play miniature golf as a group.

Months ago when I took Lil’B there alone, we encountered a small Mexican family that we spent some time talking to because the course was crowded. At one point one of the little boys comment that, “Your son is pretty good.” That was, by no means, the first time I had thought about people thinking Lil’B was my son when we are out together, but as I’ve mentioned before, it’s quite clear we do not share any genes.

The Big Sister is of Mexican decent and seven months pregnant. There we were three Mexican children under twelve years old, a very pregnant Mexican woman and a pasty white guy all playing miniature golf together. I couldn’t help thinking, “people think we’re a couple, I’m the step-dad, and these are her kids.” Obviously, if I were Lil’B’s “father” there would have to be a “step-” in front of it.

I had a first that day. After we completed the course we were on, we went to the “19th hole” to return our balls and clubs and I got a hole in one. Go figure. I received a coupon for one complimentary round of miniature golf, which expires one month from the day we were there. So when it was time to plan the next outing with Lil’B, I was inclined to go miniature golfing again. We both enjoy it and it would be silly to waste a free game.

It was raining like mad yesterday. Without a back up plan, I went out on a limb. I took Lil’B to see Beauty and the Beast, recently re-released in 3-D. I’ll be honest. I wanted to see it and I don’t have anyone else to go with. I wasn’t sure it would be up his alley, but the only other kid-friendly movie out there was The Adventures of Tintin and I really don’t want to see that if I can help it. I told him as we were driving there, that I wasn’t sure how he was going to feel about this movie, but that it was something I really wanted us to see. I told him it came out originally when I was young and that it might be a little dated, but I thought he would enjoy it anyway. He said he was fine with it. When it was over, I asked him what he thought. He nodded and said, “It was cool.” Normally, that question is met with “It was awesome!”, but I’m taking him at his word that “cool” is an honest reaction. I told him I knew it wasn’t really our usual style, but it was still fun.

Watching this movie with Lil’B, was a kind of surreal experience, though, when I realized how long before he was born this movie had come out.

I told him this movie came out “when I was young”, but I didn’t say how young. It was only as we were actually watching the movie, when memories of the first time I saw Beauty and the Beast in theaters came flooding back, that I realized just how young I had been. I saw the movie for the first time, as the beginning of what would turn out to be a tragic failure of a Valentine’s Day date – the only one I’ve ever had. I was sixteen years old. The girl I was dating, Cindy, had all sorts of romantic notions. During the opening number, “Belle”, when the “Gaston Groupies” sing:

“Look there he goes, isn’t he dreamy? Monsieur Gaston, oh he’s so cute!
Be still my heart, I’m hardly breathing. He’s such a tall, dark, strong and handsome brute”

she thought it was “adorably provincial.”

In 1991, Beauty and the Beast was on the cutting edge of animation technology. Everything looked so crisp and clean, the scene when Belle and The Beast dance in the ballroom already looked nearly 3-D and that was before 3-D movies made any sort of resurgence. The characters, at least the human ones, seamed pretty realistic with fairly natural movements. The wisp of hair that is forever falling down into Belle’s eye, struck Cindy as being the coolest thing ever. She saw so much meaning and subtext in this movie that went over my head; to tell the truth, it still goes over my head. But Cindy saw it, and I wanted to see Cindy so I saw it too. (Hey. I was sixteen. Give me a break.)

When the movie was over and Lil’B and I were heading back out into the rain, we had a little math lesson. I told him, “Remember I said I saw this movie when I was young?” he said he did. I told him, “I saw it when I was sixteen years old. How old does that make this movie?” Somehow I hadn’t put it all together before we were in the theater. I didn’t realize that this movie was 20 years old. In fact, strictly speaking, with an original release date of November 22, 1991, it’s older.

“I saw this movie when I was sixteen,” I told him. “In fact, I think I saw it on Valentine’s day.” That statement went right past him, but it stopped me short. It stopped me short because that’s all I said. I didn’t say, “I saw it on Valentine’s Day with my girlfriend”, I just said, “I saw it on Valentine’s Day.” I told myself that I didn’t elaborate because I didn’t want to confuse him, but it continues to nag at me.

Lil’B and I have never discussed my sexual orientation. If he’s even aware of what it means to be gay, he may already have figured it out or assumed it, but we’ve never discussed it and I’ve never confirmed or denied it. If he is aware of it and I told him I went with my girlfriend, maybe that would be confusing to him. Then again, if I said I went with my girlfriend and didn’t explain that I don’t date girls now, that seems dishonest. It continues to nag at me though, because by withholding additional information, I missed an opportunity to open dialogue between us.

When I signed up with Big Brothers and Big Sisters I told the Match Specialist, Jenny, that I’m gay. It was important to me to be honest and not keep a secret from the family I was trying to build trust with. Jenny asked me if I wanted to be open about that with the family and I said I did. In fact, me being gay prevented me from being matched with the first little boy they selected for me. In that instance, Jenny told me about the kid before telling the family I am gay and when it didn’t work out, she felt badly. When she called me about Lil’B, I asked if the mother knew I was gay. She said that she had told Lil’B’s mother right up front because she didn’t want to have another situation like with the previous family. But the mother and I have never talked about it either. I assume she remembers, but I don’t know and I don’t know if she told Lil’B.

When I was matched with Lil’B, he was only seven and I felt like he was too young to have that conversation. Now that it’s been nearly two and a half years, it’s difficult to bring up. Admittedly, I’m concerned how he’ll react. And strangely, I’m afraid of being rejected by a ten year-old.

And just when I thought I had put this fear behind me…

Lazy Saturday

January 21, 2012January 21, 2012 ~ riggledo ~ 4 Comments

It’s been a very lazy Saturday here in the Riggledo household. I haven’t been to bed before midnight (and usually much later) in more than a month and sitting here at the end of my second week back at work since my most recent vacation, the late nights have taken their toll.

I’m sitting in my living room, in my recliner with my feet up. I’m wearing sweat pants, a t-shirt and a fleece, Old Navy pull over. There’s a throw blanket covering me from just below my chest all the way to my feet and it is an electric blanket which is plugged in and turned to high. My laptop is– well, on my lap and my geriatric cat is curled up in a ball on my shins, sleeping and probably dreaming that the laptop will go away and free his preferred spot for him. For the first time in weeks it is actually 70 degrees in my apartment and, just to be clear, that’s the warmest it’s been. (On a couple of occasions in the last two weeks I’ve actually had to break out the space heater which I never use because it draw so much energy that my electric bills triple when I do, it’s been that cold.)

I am cozy and I do not want to move. I’ve actually fought off sleep a couple of times already today.

It’s been a pretty good week, personally, filled with fun, social interactions, and personal accomplishments. Dinner with Lil’B on Monday; Lunch with K on Tuesday; finally made it to the Library to pick up that book they’ve been holding, on Wednesday; Thursday I had my weekly noontime meeting with the little advisory council for my Emergency Response Team program; and yesterday I had a lovely, long lunch with my friend Chantelé to celebrate her birthday.

It has also been a week of completions. One of the reasons I’ve been up so late and getting so little sleep is because I’ve been working on a baby blanket for a friend of a friend. Michelle asked me if I would make the blanket for someone she knows, and I’m always happy to do it as long as the requester supplies the yarn (that sh-stuffs expensive, yo!) I finished the blanket earlier this week.

Baby Blanket, hand crocheted by yours truly.

I’ve also been at the office late every day this week because I’ve been working on the first round of edits on my manuscript, hereafter called by its name, “The Teacher”. I guess if I’m serious about getting this thing published, I should start treating it like it’s real, and that means, among other things, calling it by its name. I found it easier to do this stage of the editing process, red pen on print out copy, sitting at a proper desk and not stretched out in my recliner. As of about 7:15 last night, I have finished that process and now I have to go through and translate those edits to the soft copy. And I need to get on it because I have eleven days until the first meeting of the writing group I’ve been talking about.

I’m super excited about the group, and also a bit nervous. I won’t know anyone going in and that’s never a pleasant experience for me. Plus many of the people involved are already published authors while I’m just a little blogger/writer with a small audience, a dream, and a not particularly mainstream manuscript. I know it’ll be an excellent, educational experience, if nothing else; it’s just the buildup that I dread.

Tomorrow, I spend the afternoon with Lil’B and I really have no idea what we’re going to do. I think it’s supposed to rain so we’ll be looking for something indoors. Normally, that means movies, but I’m not sure there’s anything for us to see. I’ll figure that out in the morning though. For now, I’m just going to sit back, relax, and watch my Dotor Who (original series, season 21) DVD from Netflix followed by the Rock Hudson movie in my Netflix instant queue that’s about to expire, and then call it a night.

It’ll be lovely. I’m already yawning and it’s only 6:45.

Flavor

January 13, 2012January 13, 2012 ~ riggledo ~ 14 Comments

A while back K told me about an on-line writing group; a website called Write on Edge. I subscribed to the blog and started watching the writing prompts they offered. Everything, at first glance, seems so vague. The word limits are always too small. We all know brevity is not my forté.

The most recent writing prompt was one word; flavor. Four hundred words or less, either fiction or creative non-fiction. I told K, “I don’t like it. It’s too vague.” She told me I should just give it a try. So I did. What follows is my first ever submission to this writing group, in the shadows of which, I have lurked for months.

I don’t think it’s very good (go figure) and it seems really contrived, but what the hell. It’s not like I’m going to get a grade for it. So here you go…

Flavor:

It took him a long time to open up. Months of silent car rides, open-ended questions answered with a vague “I don’t know”, and doubts about what the relationship was accomplishing for either of us. I began to contemplate giving up. Maybe he didn’t need me. Maybe he didn’t need anyone or maybe he needed something I wasn’t providing and someone else could. Could I walk away? Should I walk away? After all, I had met my initial commitment.

Walking away just seemed wrong, so I stuck it out hoping to see something change. I reduced the amount of time I spent with him; it took a lot out of me and I didn’t feel connected. Half as much time would have to suffice.

I don’t know when it changed. One day it was suddenly obvious; half the time wasn’t enough. He wanted more and I wanted to give him more. A new schedule. More time. Different days. Dinners some weeks. He lit up at the notion.

After the second dinner when he returned home he told his sister all about our outing. “And he had five Diet Pepsi’s” he told her, excitement in his voice. That’s when I knew he was watching. Picking up on everything. He sees all that I do. I have to be constantly aware, vigilant about the example I set. But I don’t mind.

I try to show him a good way to be, but it’s hard when what I want to show him is something different from what I am. I know he’s following my lead. I should eat better; drink more water. But I love the flavor of Diet Pepsi. It’s my one vice. I’m completely addicted. The sweet, refreshing, cola taste. It’s the first thing to enter my mind when the all important, “can I get you something to drink?” is asked.

He talks to me now. Still a lot of “I don’t know”, but there’s much more than that now. Stories about school. Stories about friends. Stories about playing video games. But he talks. And when I taste that sweet, dark elixir, I’m reminded, once again, that our relationship matters; that he needs me and I need him.

And that tastes pretty damn good.