Memento Mori

I was cuddling with N again tonight.  We didn't talk.  I was troubled and we just lay there and I reflected on the events of the day, rubbing his back with a slow, half-conscious stroke.  At some point I became lost in my thoughts and must have stopped rubbing.  He wiggled around a bit to draw me back, and when that failed, he said "Daddy, can you please rub my back like you were doing?"

"Would you like me to keep rubbing your back forever and ever?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," he said into his pillow

"And would you mind if I kept telling you how much I love you over and over?"

"No," he said, "I love hearing anything my Daddy says to me."

A son is precious and fleeting.  God forbid I neglect even a moment of gratitude.

The Census Taker of Heaven

The death of a close family friend last week has brought about some processing and questioning in the kids of late.  N especially.  As we were lying in bed a few nights ago having our cuddle time we got to talking about death and what happens afterwards.

"Are there a lot of people in Heaven?" N asked.

"Yes, there are," I answered.

"How many?"

"The Bible says a multitude from every tribe and nation that could not be numbered." (Rev. 7:9)

"How many is that?  Is it a googol?" N likes precision in his statistics.

"I don't know, N.  Probably not a googol, but it's a lot.  You can't even count that high."

N thought a moment, and for a bit I was afraid he was going to want to demonstrate that he could, indeed, count that high.  But his mind had moved to a different angle.  "I bet when Heaven was first starting out you could count that high."

"I agree," I agreed.

"Daddy, did Adam and Eve go to Heaven?"  My blood pressure went up a couple of percentage points at the thought of having to unravel such a theological conundrum.  I tried to play it safe.

"I really don't know, N," I said, hoping he wouldn't press me.  But figuring he would regardless, I abandoned my cop-out before he could challenge me and offered up a little conjecture anyway.  "It says that after Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, God covered them with animal skins.  In order to do that, He had to kill some animals.  That seems a lot like a sacrifice.  I think that would help Adam and Eve remember that the consequences of their sin is death, and that someone had to die for the sin, just like the animals did.  It was God's way of showing them what Jesus would do for us.  I don't know, but I like to think that if God took the opportunity to cover them in the robes made from the sacrifice, that He was probably saying that He forgave them their sins and that one day Jesus would cover them just like the robes."  N thought about this for a moment, but didn't challenge it or question it further.  Somehow this concept that blows my 44-year-old mind seemed to satisfy my newly minted 6-year-old.

We chatted a little more on related topics before kissing him good night.  Over the course of talking I came to realize for the first time that Adam and Eve would not have been the first to populate Heaven (even if my theory holds true).  Poor old Abel was the first person that God loved who died.  We discussed a few of the particulars.  N nodded knowingly.  For some reason he had no difficulty embracing the concept of a boy being sorely abused by a sibling.

Irate Avians and Other Reasons to Celebrate

This weekend was N's 6th birthday, so we decided to celebrate by taking up the cause of our fine-feathered, if somewhat ill-tempered friends and beating the tar out of some dastardly pigs.  An angry mob of N's kindergarten friends came over to lend a hand (or slingshot, as the case may be) and much mayhem ensued.

Stacy had the events planned out to the minutest detail and watched over the proceedings like an angry hawk.  First was the opportunity to provide our emotionally worked-up comrades a tasteful, well-appointed place calm down.  Each kid got their own birdhouse to paint and decorate.

Then it was time for a snack where, in a display of birdly solidarity, the avengers got to eat like birds - rooting around in some chocolate pudding mud for juicy gummy worms.  Thus refreshed, we launched a relay race to restore stolen eggs to the birds' nest.

Having restored the eggs, it was now time to deal justice to the porcine perpetrators!  No fortress, however rigorous in its design, was truly impenetrable by a determined crew of bird champions!

Then, in a stunning departure from the Angry Bird storyline, we summarily beat the living daylights out of a bird.  I wanted to tell the kids that the bird had been caught in the act of collaborating with the pigs and therefore was an accursed traitor worthy only of a bloody, bludgeoned execution.  A Nurembird Trial, if you will.  But Stacy felt strongly that I shouldn't.

N considers...

N prepares...

N attacks!

Unrepentant to the end.

The serving of ultimate justice was followed with the serving of cake.  Sucrose runneth over.

A busy, but ultimately satisfying day for a 6-year-old hog hunter!

Love American Style

Ah, Rome - the eternal city - the city of seven hills and narrow streets, with its gelato and old-school accordian music. Romance leaks from every Venusian antiquity.

Oh, New York - the city that never sleeps, where carts of roast chestnuts perfume Rockerfeller Plaza; where Central Park steals your heart and only gives it back on a 100th-floor observation deck.

<sigh>  Paris - the aspiration of every heart-sick romantic and enraptured poet. All of Cupid's converts while away the languid hours dreaming of the Seine, of croissants and the Champs-Élysées.

Those lost in love may be among us in the flesh but they are not with us in spirit. Their bodies may be here, slumped apathetically, ambivelantly, their eyes raised, gazing at the moon. But their hearts are not. They are there - somewhere - somewhere out there. Those who can rarely linger in their malaise, but take up love's prompting and journey to where their hearts already abide. But those without the means or freedom, those of us who can't just jump an Air FROHNSS to gay PAH-REE, need not despair. Love in all its many incarnations lies near and waiting - a mere 5 hours away. Viva Las Vegas! 

N, getting into the Vegas spirit

About a month ago (but who worries about time when love is in the air) Stacy's cousin Laura finally made her long-time beau Allan a respectable man. The two cinched the deal in our covetted Paris de l'Ouest and the whole Harris clan converged to be a part of it. The wedding was on a Saturday, so we drove up on Friday and had most of the afternoon to kick back and relax.

The ceremony was held in a grotto at Caesar's Palace with an en-templed Venus and Apollo looking on benevolently. Laura was beautiful, Allan dashing. The assembled crowd could have been mistaken for a Roman Senate subcommittee, we all looked so dapper. (We just all needed togas to tie it all together...)

After the ceremony the reception gathered at "Strip Burger," named, I assure you, for its location rather than its waitress's proclivities. Here the love of a man for his wife was aptly echoed by the love of a man for things made with beef. It was a large and vivacious crowd and the open air patio was an ideal locale for L and N and all the mini-cousins (an energetic lot) to attack and destroy - like Visigoths upon Rome, or perhaps like men with barrets and baggettes singing on Parisian barricades.

To have and to hold, from this day forth...

Cousins, cousins, everywhere!

It was a very enjoyable reception - evidently for some more than others. Cupid, having wrapped up his earlier responsibilities with Laura and Allan, seems to have realized his case load was a little light and decided he needed to stoke up his business. Being invisible, we never actually saw them, but it is clear from empirical evidence that Cupid's arrows were indeed flying thoughout the course of the reception, and striking their targets with deadly precision.

Awww, dude!!!

On Sunday we resisted the Harris obsession with getting up at the crack of dawn to hit I-15 back to L.A. before the rest of L.A. does, and took advantage of the opportunity to explore the local sites. Hoover Dam seemed the perfect combo of engineering geekiness for me, and height-induced panic attacks for Stacy to be the ideal day trip!

Gooooooooooooooaaal!!!

The Harris early-morning flight instinct is not without its merits. We wrapped up what I will refrain from referring to as our "best dam adventure ever" around noon and after a surprisingly appealing Taco Bell midday siesta, began our long journey home. The roadpack was pretty dense and we got about a 45-minute look at the world's largest thermometer as we stewed at a stand-still in Baker. (That was only about 44.8 minutes longer than you really need in Baker.) Finally traffic started up again and soon was cruising at a jaunty 10 to 15 miles per hour. As soon as we edged clear of the final Baker exit - yes, for some inexplicable reason there really are more than one - L reminded us she is a girl with all the various bladder timing fiascos that go along with that gender. "Hold on L," we assured her, "we'll stop at the next exit." Forty minutes (and probably four miles) later as we were getting full-on thrash dancing in the back seat we finally found an off-ramp. There was nothing remotely hospitible on either side of the freeway, but hospitality is vastly overrated when you're seven and tanked up on an all-you-can-drink Taco Bell beverage bar. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.