Finding Common Ground: It’s Only (Big) Steps Away

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I’ve been writing in fear, guys.

The Photo a Day Challenge helped. I could write about happy faces in frying pans and display sweet pics my kid took of clouds and not tread near to the hell breaking loose around the world. Unintentionally, I dealt with fear of speaking up by looking down.

It involved sticking my head in the sand when it comes to the Denver Broncos’ offseason woes or the perennial quandary my Colorado Rockies put their fans in by sucking but not sucking enough to justify giving in on a season and trading off all your tradable players.

I bottled up thoughts and reactions to pertinent things in the universe, such as shootings and coups and attacks on the innocent and a contentious election season brewing.

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.

Photo a Day Challenge: June 28 – Routine

EJP

I face a test every morning.

It involves a finger prick and a reading. How’d I do with that late-night snack? My glucose monitor doesn’t lie. I know what to expect mornings after three bowls of Frosted Flakes the night before. I know what to expect when it’s been an English muffin and sun butter.

I try to start my mornings with a tall glass of water and stretching.

They replace a swig of Coke Zero and bleary-eyed checks of the mobile phone and blog comments. I crack eggs to eat over medium with a warm tortilla, or scrambled, wrapped in tortillas or mixed in with strips of corn tortilla, fried in olive oil.

Go Ask Daddy About Punctuation, Cartoon Commerce and Nuances in Advertising

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Grace has fired the questions at me fast and furious this week.

That’s what happens when you spend more than an hour a day in the car together. That, plus the hour or two she’s been at my side at work after I pick her up from theater camp. The final performance of Robin Hood happens today at 3. I can’t wait.

We’ve covered everything from politics to an OCD diagnosis (for me). As if.

Go Ask Daddy questions nearly reached 450 as a result. Not that I mind. I’m working on a new feature called Dadding in the Kitchen, to document my considerable struggles over the stove – and delicious consequences despite them. Also, look for more How To posts from me, an unlikely source.

Photo a Day Challenge: June 27 – Silhouette

EJP

My kids won’t give my camera phone a chance.

HMP

The moment they notice me bumbling around to find the camera app, they gently (but firmly) push down my forearm, like a dirty trick against a goalkeeper on a corner kick. “No, dad,” the kid will say. “I’ll take the picture on my phone and send it to you.

“Your phone sucks.”

It’s especially challenging to snap a quality shot of a silhouette. We played Rat-a-tat Cat on a well-place gazebo bench and waited for fireworks. I waited for the sun to set to the west and frame my perfect silhouette of one of my girls or possibly all of them.

I captured the photo above.

Marie, though, asked about the theme. “I have some silhouette shots.” She scrolled through her better-than-my-android iPhone at three beautiful shots – all of her little sister on the lake. Marie’s shot appears to the right.

Go Ask Daddy About Spiritual Coverups, Jerk Propulsion and Some Stats Behind Coach Daddy

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This one time, mighty Amazin’ Grace backed out.

I hate putting it that way. I feel like a kid – especially a girl – isn’t bound to compete at every turn. I don’t want any of my girls to feel obligated to take up the fight, for themselves, their families, their race, their gender … their anything.

I learned a ton when Grace took the high road before.

So she didn’t sign up for the LEGO Ninjango Obstacle Course a few weeks ago. I wrote about it here on the CD. She’d even picked out a friend to sign up with. She’d planned it all out, which parts she’s excel and which were better suited for her friend. We’ll call her Jaylen.

Photo a Day Challenge: June 26 – Up Close

And then there were two.

This is Brownie. A close-up of Brownie. She’s a cat in her teens, which would be like a human in her 80s. She’s had a couple of close calls. She’s cashed in a handful of those nine lives. The closest call: A grudge match between her intestines and ribbon.

TMI?

She’s losing muscle mass and there’s other signs. There’s also signs she’s got plenty of life to live. She is a constant companion to the girls I love most in this world. So on the day I snapped this, I thanked her. Not that she’s going anywhere.

Go Ask Daddy About Summer Celebrations, Pretend Grass and ‘Is that !@#$! in English??’

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So one time, I made the principal’s daughter cry.

No, it wasn’t a broken heart, or even a noogie on the playground taken too far. Being the devout patriot she was, she took exception to my project on advertising in our gifted and talented class. See, I made a series of newspaper ads for a car dealership …

My spokesmen: Dead U.S. presidents.

I had Honest Abe, George Washington and others pushing off used cars to the public. I had them jive-talking and contemporary-acting (“No money down?? Say WHAT, GW??” that sort of thing.) and that’s just not dignified for any of our forefathers, not even Lyndon B. Johnson, Chester Arthur or James Polk.

Our Unsafe Histories, in 6 Words

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We operate on CD time around here.

You know – Coach Daddy time. A to Z Challenge? Few days behind. Photo a Day Challenge? Hell, June’s almost over, and it feels like I have a week of photos to take. So it stands to reason we’d recognize National Safety Month – June – On June 29.

Every month, I compile a post called 6 Words. Ernest Hemingway inspired it when he said any story can be told in six words. I ask bloggers, friends, strangers, and a few strange blogger friends to respond to a prompt.

June is National Safety Month. Tell us about something you did decidedly unsafe – in six words. It could be from any time in your life. Think “Rode Big Wheel off garage roof,” or “Wore Georgia gear in Florida section.”

Photo a Day Challenge: June 24 – Happiness in a Cup (and Also the ‘Who I am’ Project)

It’s another convergence of challenges.

Today’s words are Happiness in a Cup. Now that I’ve effectively quit Coke Zero (did I mention that?), the easy out on this no longer exists. I can’t even quit soda at the right time. Neither Pippa Middleton nor pizza fit in a cup, you see.

A heart-felt, homemade jewelry item from a kid you’re bonkers about? Put that in a cup as it waits for her to repair it, and, well, if that’s not happiness in a cup, I don’t know what is.

This isn’t easy to decipher. No, it’s not three chunks of beef caught in chicken coop wire. It’s three gems. It’s a homemade wire bracelet, with gemstones attached. Grace made it for me. She implored me to pick out gems from her stash.