Go Ask Daddy About Cinematic Symbolism, Steve Martin Stunts and Retail/Dining options for Dec. 31

Do you know where that water’s been, brother?

NPR just made rain kind of gross.

A show promo pointed out that water we drink today has passed through the kidneys of a brontosaurus. Japanese freestyle swimmer Shigeo Arai probably swam through it in the 1936 Olympics.

It might have lived in a water pitcher on the set of the Dominican telenovela Tropico, too. I try not to think of that, but it’s true. Water’s the original repurposed thing.

Sure, rain’s kind of nasty, but it’s also beautifully poetic. It made up puddles my girls stomped in walking into the grocery store with dad. It helped soil uniforms – school and soccer – and locked in stories and memories and history.

No Guest Post Here. How’s About 10 More Random Smartphone Photos?

Who just went 2.7 seconds on a parrot named Fumanchu?

Another week, another guest post lost.

My inbox contains buried treasure. In it, correspondence from friends far and near. Agreements to guest post. Inquiries into soccer teams. Catch-ups, and rundowns. It’s tons better than anything found in Al Capone’s vault, even.

I’m getting closer to taking up shovels and those little whisky brushes like Indiana Jones.

I hope when I return to emails I’ve yet to return, you haven’t given up on me. I’m coming around, I promise. It’s not a brushoff – rather, you’re swept up in a convex twister than relies on randomality and the universe to sit you front and center.

Here’s Hoping My Girls Have Friends Like This

Sisterhood can be a twisty thing. But it’s mostly illuminating.

I have three daughters.

I want much for them. Peace, not a pampered path. Purpose, not existence in pretend. Experiences, not empty days when the moon rises and sets without peace and purpose. I want to drive them places they want me to take them.

I want also for them to venture into places I am not.

The influence and support they’ll have from their parents will never cease. What of those times when she’s chosen to play on a new team, in a far-off park? When she’s on a stage somewhere I am not, rehearsing and projecting?

Go Ask Daddy About Prehistoric Kids, Noble Research and the Art of Antagonizing

What happens between a Stormtrooper and a green bone shouldn’t be told outside of the stove top.

It took a while before my tenderest-hearted girl ever watched cartoons.

She saw the PBS stuff – Caillou, Telletubbies, Big Comfy Couch – but not the violent, irreverent stuffs of our childhood. Wile E. Coyote and Sylvester the Cat. The Jetsons and the Flintstones. The Really Rottens. Woody Woodpecker, and most of all, Tom & Jerry.

Elise finally got to see the eternal feud of Tom & Jerry.

Jerry pushed a piano down a staircase after Tom had attacked him with a mallet and butcher’s knife. On this particular episode, Tom actually gave up the ghost. His spirit floated heavenward, where he had to wait in line for St. Peter.

🧳 Travel Light. Wear Simple Clothes. Just Watch.

“Travel the world and the seven seas/ Everybody’s looking for something.” – Annie Lennox

Eloquent people seem to travel lots. Or maybe travel breeds eloquence. What do you think?

I don’t travel much. Unless you count drives to Mooresville or the trips I’ll take to the mountains for Elise’s games. There’s my annual work trip to someplace tropical every winter. When you travel, you pick up stories, whether it’s in Madrid or Marshville.

My friend Brittany tells stories of travel abroad and also to the junkyard in the blog Girl Interrupted, and its superb reading. The clarity of the scenes she sets? Downright Hemmingwayesque in its delivery.

My friend Britta writes It’s a Britta Bottle. She undertook a life shift to teach in Thailand. Her stories began when she made the choice and influence her writing today. Her adventures inspired this post.

When My Big Girl Was Little …

Stormtrooper kicks it with a Warren Wilson owl. – EP

It’s two days until Moving Day.

She’s eaten her way through a Farewell Tour, met with friends and brought home boxes of Zaxby’s and cups of Krispy Kreme coffee. Her stuff’s all packed. She’s dumped off all the “visit us!” college pamphlets on one sister and stole a bottle of lotion from the other.

I envy the forced minimalism, to be honest.

You’ve read enough about the girl who stops shots brilliantly and paints pictures beautifully. We’ve learned and lost and loved together. She’s in her room now, packing, probably singing the same chorus to a familiar song over and over.

3 Life Lessons I Learned From Pat Summitt

 

Dreaming of Lady Vols hoops. Photo by Grace.

Chick hoops.

That’s what sports departments I worked in called women’s basketball. Labels banter about safely in the presumed safety of like minds. Women’s athletics’ best chance at appreciation didn’t come through regard, admiration or respect.

More likely, it’d come from a news editor so enamored with tennis player Mary Pierce that he locked in every image the Associated Press moved on the wire of her.

The late Pat Summitt, the legendary University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach, couldn’t have cared less what close-minded editors thought of her. Or what they thought of her program or gender or sport or place in a game they considered a man’s.

🤠 Go Ask Daddy About Adventurous Couples, Early Mornings, and Pleasant Pachyderms

Checking out the floral action outside the Smithsonian in Washington. – EP photo

Ever just … shut down your brain?

It can be done in many ways. Meditation’s my favorite. I’m stellar at switching off my brain, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me as a man, a father, or a Colorado Rockies fan. Once, I came to after a mediation session to find my friends staring at me.

“I want a brownie,” I muttered. [Watch Reese on Malcolm in the Middle zone out below]

Yeah, I get all enlightened, go Zen AF to my eyebrows, and what do I ask for? Not world peace, not eternal life or immortal knowledge – I want baked goods. I’m also prolific at powering down the gray matter at bedtime. Today’s worries can wait until tomorrow.

Photo a Day Challenge: June 30 – You, Excited for June

Austin Light photo

They invited me to a photo shoot.

Seven-hundred-fifty employees here – mostly young, wholly beautiful – and they invited the Gen Xer in dire need of a haircut. They’re for a campaign for our wonderful company. I took my place at the end of the couch, blending in with the Beautiful Six.

Blending in like an armadillo in a fox parade.

I folded my arms, fussed with my hair. I worried about my graying mop. Did I trim my nose hair? This can’t end well. Under bright lights, I told a joke when photographers asked us to “look natural.”

Photo a Day Challenge: June 29 – the Letter M

EJP

I’ve a lifelong tradition – of losing.

Losses and losing streaks and losing seasons dot my sporting timeline. I have the green and yellow field-day ribbons to prove it. Want to know where the fringe begins? I made a home there.

You can claim that, when you’re the last player to make it on the worst teams in their leagues. I lost and lost – until I didn’t. Appropriately, I didn’t step a foot on the field for my first championship.

I stood in disbelief as the seconds counted down for Elise’s first championship, too.