Play well

Dad was proud. He was beaming in the back, but I knew he really wanted to rush to the front, get on the stage and tell the world I was his son. And, it’s not that he was afraid to do that, it’s just that he didn’t enjoy that kind of attention. I knew that he knew that I knew, if you know what I mean.

Now, had I shat in my pants during my show, had I lost a brick or something, I know he would have been the first one up there to help me, and he would have completely ignored the rest of the world. That’s what Dads do, I suppose.

This is not me.

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Spot

“Quick, quick,” Wife yelled, opening the front door for me. I grabbed my iPod off the kitchen counter and ran outside.

“Go get ‘em,” I heard her shout behind me, but by then, I was already a good 30 meters outside the house, running towards the garage, adjusting my black leather bag that kept hitting me in the rear end. Our car was parked outside the garage complex, where eight families kept their cars mostly second cars, parked. Most of the tiny garages were used as storage space and so filled with junk that the cars were always outside.

Ours, too.

I jumped inside – I had already parked it so that I could just get in and drive – and made a quick left, then another quick left, then a quick U-turn and then an even quicker parallel parking trick, to claim the only empty spot on the street – right outside our house.

I saw Wife standing by the window, giving me a thumbs-up. I smiled back, and flashed the famous Churchillian victory sign. When I got back in, we high-fived each other.

Well, he can have THAT one. Today.

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A backstory

In hindsight, it was obvious. The unwillingness to admit a mistake and the bossy attitude were there. He even had that certain look, that posture, the quick step in his walk, and the majestic jaw – a “Disney jaw” his old school nurse had called it, the same one who always said he’d grow up to be Somebody.

Beep.

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An exercise

“I have a little game I play in my head. Often when I’ve pitched a project or sent a job application, or something similar, I got to the gym to work all the anxieties out of my body. I send my thoughts, all my stuff into the ether, then pull back and let the universe work its magic on me.”

It could have been a dark and stormy night.

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Scotch on the rocks

Specialists from New Zealand plan to recover two crates of Scotch whisky left more than 100 years ago by the polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and trapped deep in Antarctic ice.
New York Times, November 17, 2009

Ladies and gentlemen,

Well, who am I kidding? “Ladies”? Good one. Gentlemen, welcome to the New Zealand Explorers’ Club. It is that time of the month again, and I am happy to see so many of our distinguished members here tonight. And even happier to see all the rest of you! HAA!

The Man.

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Benchmarks

Remember a while ago when I wrote that “[t]here is no place – and this is no exaggaration, simply a fact, so I repeat it: no place – a Swede can’t set up a bench, or hasn’t already done so”?

Yeah, the other day I went for a walk and thought about how I said that, and how right I was. I think I may have even said it out loud, “that thing you wrote about the benches last summer, on July 14, that was so right on, it was so true.” The thing that made me remind myself of that piece was a bench that I saw on my way to the mall.

This one:

Good old bench.

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