🐵 #AtoZChallenge: Z is for the zoo (5 whacky facts about them)

When we were kids, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo was the bomb.

It was quite a hike. The zoo is literally on a mountain. In Colorado Springs. But when you’re young and spry, it doesn’t matter. We might not have done all the cool things the white kids in our neighborhood did, but this one was awesome.

As a dad, I got to bring my girls to zoos, too. Riverbanks Zoo & Garden. Greenville (S.C.) Zoo. North Carolina Zoo. Knoxville Zoo. Man, those are some great memories.

Today, I’m wrapping up the A to Z Challenge with a limp – coming in with wacky facts I found about zoos. Hey, Q, X, and Z are the biggest challenges of the month!

🎳 #AtoZChallenge: X is for 10 (my favorite players to wear that number)

Moment of honesty here.

I got sick of the normal X words. As if X words are normal. I’m sure somewhere someone is writing about xylophone adventures and xenophobia. More power to ya.

I say, let’s go with 10.

You know, the roman numeral for 10, X. Quick story here: I was a no-soccer-experience soccer coach at first. I made my own formations and positions, such as junker. (It was like a sweeping fullback, full of badass.)

⏳ #AtoZChallenge: S is for still alive, stolen things and (green) screen (#GoAskDaddy)

I kind of hate the #AtoZChallenge.

No, though. I mean, I love reading others’ blogs, meeting new writers. Seeing new people and people I used to know among commenters. I hate what a reader I become during the #AtoZChallenge, is what I hate.

I’m a shitty one, no bones about it.

And that’s kind of the point of blogging. The interaction. I’m grappling with those times, like tonight, at 10:06 p.m., of whether I should be writing or reading. To keep up, I choose to write, but it sure does feel shitty.

🏈 #AtoZChallenge: Q is for quarterback

I didn’t always dream of becoming a writer.

I was going to become an NFL quarterback. I could throw a perfect spiral in fourth grade – with a plastic ball OR a Nerf. Talk about versatility. I had all the tools.

Except the talent and physical gifts.

But if dreams were those things, I’d be giving a Hall of Fame speech at some point. As early as I can remember, I had a love affair with the game of football.

#A to Z Challenge: A is for Ain’t Too Proud to Beg, Adam and Avril, and Amidala (Go Ask Daddy) 🦚

It’s not easy being cheesy.

When did you have your Motown phase?

Mine happened in middle school. It lasted on into high school, and, by great fortune, into adult life. My first exposure to The Temptations came with the Daryl Hall & John Oates album Live at the Apollo. I learned fast the history and prestige of playing that venue.

Hearing my favorite Rock N Soul duo mix it up with legends was priceless.

Temptations songs resonated with me at 12 (and 32, and 42) Just My Imagination was my theme song for those formative years. A girl made a mixtape for me with I Wish That It Would Rain on it and it took me a decade to understand what she was trying to say.

💛 A Father’s Day post written after Father’s Day (and posted way after Father’s Day)

I keep a foot in happy and sad each Father’s Day.

The happy is easy: I have three wonderful daughters who enrich my life beyond measure. I also miss my dad. He died of leukemia three months before Hayden was born. This Father’s Day I again considered visiting his grave.

It’s in a beautiful spot, just under a mimosa tree that since has grown incredibly.

But it’s not where he is. It’s not where I feel him. I felt him so much more in the years just after his death. I’ve written about things I can’t explain. I feel as if my dad had to expend a lot of cosmic energy after death just to keep me from self-destructing.

#AtoZChallenge: E is for Every Day Gratitude

I’m grateful for photo ops in antique stores when I happen to have a stormtrooper in my pocket.

My journal has taken a beating.

Literally and figuratively. Before last night, I hadn’t written in it for weeks. Also, the back cover has fallen off. There are about five pages left in her, and it looks like it spent a season getting kicked around on Gilligan’s Island.

Gratitude is easy to come back to, it seems.

It wasn’t as if I’d abandoned #gratitudeandshit. It’s part of every day. It just wasn’t getting written down. So I had some old things in there. Things such as, I’m grateful for new episodes of Silver Spoons and I’m grateful for my new calculator watch.

Mindful Monday | My first baseball mitt

CGP

We’re excavating our garage like it’s King Tut’s tomb.

Not finding golden statues or mummified cats, if that’s what you’re thinking. Yet. I found my first baseball mitt, though. Even as I revere the beginning of baseball season, I felt a wave of emotion as I put on my glove.

Most of it was awful.

This cheap chunk of leather – real leather? I’m not sure – represents my introduction to a game I love today. It harkens a loyalty to a team and a reliance on hope. For what better an example of hope? A sport that lasts all summer and breaks nearly every heart.

10 Things Grateful, Even When Aldi’s Out of Naan Bread

‘sup cat?

So I’ve got these systems.

Some are working. Some aren’t. I’m in that journal nearly every day. The 30-day pushup challenge? Well, it might have been 30 days since I’ve done it. I’m sticking to the systems, though, and have found a couple new ones that I know will help.

One is the productivity planner.

I have a lot going on. I can handle it. When I don’t deliver, though, people get ticked. And I don’t sleep so well. I’m having trouble getting the time to do it, though, and that’s problematic. After I post this. I’ll get to it

Go ask daddy about driving rules, alcohol in the kitchen and illegal football moves

Inspecting the elephants at our Airbnb haunts in Fredericksburg.

I couldn’t wait to get my permit.

I was just a dumb kid in Colorado with the delusion that acquiring my permit would automatically result in:

1) Getting a brand-new Pontiac Fiero;

2) Driving my butt from Greeley, Colo., to Seattle

3) Actually making it back home.

How could I forget? I was also going to pick up my cousin, Raquel, in San Francisco. All this, before I’d even learned to parallel park. But I was ready. Kids these days? They’re not so ready. Why be ready to drive, when you parental Uber toting you around?

I’m okay with this.