Ursa Delicious

One of the recent challenges to parenting began with the movie Madagascar. In this movie, a lion is deprived of his zoo-provided steak, and begins to view his zebra friend as steak. This prompted a conversation with Miss Neverpoop.

• daughter: Daddy, does steak come from zebras?


• me: No, steak for us comes from cows.


• daughter: No, daddy.


• me: Really, honey. It is from cows that die for our food.


• daughter: No, daddy, it is not a time for joking. We don't eat cows.


• me: I'm not joking honey. That's why we are thankful for our food and we don't waste it. Our steak comes from cows.


• daughter: Don't talk about cows daddy.

A few days pass, in which life progressed with its usual doll-dressings and poop-encouraging serenades on the toilet. I was working away at my research when my daughter saunters into the room. She has been playing chef with her favorite dolls, each seated around a pretend table set with tiny tea cups and plates. Panda is wearing a tutu.

• daughter: Daddy, I made you a special dinner.


• me: Wonderful, Monkey, what did you make?


• daughter: I made you a bear meat sandwich.


• me: A bear meat sandwich? What a new and delicious thing! I want to see!


• daughter: Wait here, I will bring it to you.

Behold... a Bear Meat Sandwich...

Lone Burning Ember

So the dream I have been having recently is set at Boy Scout Camp. But before I dive into my dreams, let's take a splash into my past.

The most life-shaping time in my life was spent in the woods of central Missouri. I worked six years (I regret still it wasn't more) as a camp counselor. At the end of the school year, I moved with a trunk full of clothes and supplies to a one room, screen-windowed cabin with three other guys. Scouts would come in waves for 11 days of merit badging, swimming, and learning how to become men.

That last part is significant. Being a man is something so often defined by being the toughest, or the strongest, or the most admired, or the least sensitive. It's easy, without role models, to let that be the extent of it. But those things miss responsibility, kindness, consequence, work, brotherhood, and humility. These things are only really taught though modeling and experience, and camp was a great chance for that for me.

It hit me at the right time in my life. I was deep in the darkness that comes with adolescence. At camp, I was an important person. I learned to lead a group, to speak aloud, to quit worrying about being cool and focus on the needs of those around me. I learned to be a teacher, a brother, and a man.

My oddly vivid dreams are placed in this setting, on trails that I once walked at night without a flashlight because I knew the rocks and roots like friends. Nothing drastic happens in the dream, but it is a series of events where I must make the best of being unprepared. That is a pretty big thing. Be Prepared. The Scouts kind of harp on that one. In these dreams, I am walking unfamiliar trails, with trees I don't recognize reaching across me. In each dream, I have problems arise that I can't solve, obstacles that I didn't foresee, or jobs that I am incapable of accomplishing. In each, the common factor is that I was unprepared to handle each.

I suppose that isn't surprising. I was completely unprepared to be here in my life. Jobless, injured, isolated, and grasping at a future that I can't foresee. They aren't nightmares, really, but reminders of how I don't want to feel. A good scout is always prepared.

North and Low

I have been a bad blogger again. It is difficult to motivate myself to write sometimes, though it always helps me feel better. The truth is, it's been a low year here in Michigan. I miss the heat of San Antonio, the friends of Texas and Kansas, having a job and feeling like the man of the house. Graduate school has been nice, but I have ruptured two discs in my back and haven't been able to sit or stand for three weeks now. I am only funded to do research through the summer session, and I doubt I will be able to contribute much from my prone and medicated position. My long-planned vacation to Mexico is occurring without me, and I spend my days eating percocet like candy and waiting for the doctors to consider my pain as urgent as I do.

Miss Neverpoop is at least enjoying her Tour de Grandparent: a three week trip to Kansas City and Fort Collins to visit her four sets of grandparents. She will be joined by Dr. Wife for the last 5 days, who will visit her family. I'm sure by the time I see her again she will be thoroughly pampered by doting parents. Dad will be much less entertaining than the boating, camping, puppy-owning, attention-lavishing grandparents. But that is as it should be.

As for my brain, it has been occupied with a retarded amount of facebook ogling, daytime TV drooling, and moping about. I have lost 15 pounds, because I have no appetite and I spent a lot of my time tensed in pain. It has been a long three weeks, though parts of it were a blur of sedative.

I keep looking for bright sides, but there are few to be had right now. I'm not going to fall apart, but I think life has gotten the better of me for the time being. I dislike being this negative, but until the pain stops this may be the best I can do. I should know more in a day, as I am scheduled for an epidural injection in the morning. If that works, I will be back to mobile by the weekend. If it doesn't, I will get on the list for surgery as soon as possible.