For her birthday, from her mother and brother, Cowgrit got a pair of new nightstands for our bedroom. They came through FedEx this weekend, and we set them up on either side of our bed. We moved our stuff from the old bed-side tables to our new nightstands — we both have a lamp, a clock-radio, and a small collection of books.

Our lamps are a nice matched pair, but the clock-radios are completely different. Mine is squat and black, hers is a cube and white. Neither of us use the radios, and we only rarely use either of the alarms (Calfgrit4 wakes us up in the mornings).

In transferring my stack of books from my old table to my new, I decided I should put most away on a shelf. I don’t often read in bed much anymore, and when I do, I usually bring a book from my office rather than pick up one of the books already on my table. In fact, I hadn’t even looked through the selection of books on my bed-side table in a long time:

• World War II On the Air — by Mark Bernstein & Alex Lubertozzi
• The Illustrated Star Wars Universe — art by Ralph McQuarrie, text by Kevin J. Anderson
• A Brief History of Time — by Stephen Hawking
• Just a Geek — by Wil Wheaton
• The Black Company — by Glen Cook
• And a loose dust jacket for Stephen Biesty’s Cross-Sections Man-Of-War

I looked at the books. What does this small collection say about me? I thought.

And yeah, I needed to reduce the pile and clutter beside my bed. But I figured I should probably keep one book there, just in case I find myself in bed, awake, and wanting to read? What to keep? I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, contemplating the decision.

I pondered. I flipped through the pages of some of the books. At last, I decided to keep Stephen Hawking‘s book at hand for bed time reading. I opened the nightstand drawer, put the book into it, and closed it. I took the other books and put them on my desk in the office, to be properly put away later.

Then today, while sitting at my desk to write this post, I looked at these books sitting here. When I first took the books off the bed-side table, I wondered what that collection of books says about me. Now, sitting here thinking about the only book I left beside my bed, I wonder what my decision to keep that one book says about me.

I’ve read A Brief History of Time at least three times, and I find it absolutely fascinating. It’s more likely to  keep me awake than to help me go to sleep. Thinking about it now, I think I’ll take it away from my bedside and put it in my backpack (read: “briefcase”) so I can read it during lunches.

Bullgrit

It was coming up on bed time for the boys, and Cowgrit was directing Calfgrit8 to the bath. I was in the den with Calfgrit4.

Little CG4 was nearly bouncing off the walls with energy. Because of the way the day had gone, he hadn’t been outside for any exercise all day. That’s a bad, bad situation for a 4-year-old at 7:00 at night. He desperately needed to do something physical, or he’d just explode all over the house.

I was too worn out right then to get down and play rough with him on the floor, but I had to keep him away from the bathroom and his brother, else his energy would get CG8 all riled up and baths would be a crazy mess. Off the top of my head, I said, “Why don’t you run around in circles?”

“Why?” he asked.

“See how many times you can run around,” I urged. “I’ll count for you.”

To my surprise, he started running in a circle in the middle of the den. “Count, Daddy!”

I started counting his revolutions: “3, 4, 5, 6 . . .” He was running at full speed, round and round and round, in a 5-foot diameter circle. The image was like someone was playing back film too fast.

“. . . 12, 13, 14, 15 . . .” Normally, running in the house is not something we condone. But under the circumstances, I was fine with it.

“. . . 24, 25, 26, 27. . .” Wow, I was impressed. He wasn’t slowing down. I wanted to get a camera and record this exercise, but I was afraid that if I moved, it would break the spell.

“. . . 33, 34, 35, 36 . . .” Oh my God! At 38, he dove onto the sofa. “Oh, you can do more than that!” I goaded. He got up and went around again.

“. . . 41, 42, 43, 44 . . .” At 45, he collapsed in the center of the den. He hit with a thud, rested about three seconds, and then jumped back up. I swear, I think that boy could throw himself off a 20-story building and the impact on the sidewalk wouldn’t bother him.

“Can you run to fifty?” I asked.

“No,” he said, “I’m done running.”

No amount of talk from me could get him to run any more. He wanted some water. 45 laps! And although he was breathing heavy, he didn’t act tired. He just got bored of running. At least it did seem to burn off some of the energy he had bottled up.

Bullgrit

I took the boys to one of the local parks. This park has two areas of climbing zones: one area has a small “footprint” but is tall and intricate — steps, ladders, tunnels, etc.; the other area is more spread out with slides and a bridge.

The Calvesgrit wanted me to play tag with them, and I obliged. It was a mild day, so we weren’t wearing coats. I tucked my cell phone — which usually sits in a holster on my belt — into my pants pocket, and I took off after the boys.

We were playing in the taller play set, which I like the best, and they would climb up into it, through the tunnels, up the ladders, and then down and around into the dungeon-like area underneath. I, instead of following the expected paths through the structure, climbed up on top of the tunnels, leaped up the ladders, and swung down on poles to reach the bottom. I absolutely love climbing around on that place.

When I’m in my zone, climbing, leaping, swinging, chasing, and catching the boys in that play set, I feel like Spider-Man — all I need are web shooters and a tall building. Calfgrit4 would try to escape me by crawling through a tunnel, but when he came out the other side, BAM!, I dropped down in front of him. Calfgrit8 would try to outrun me around the play set, but when he got to the other side, BAM!, I swung down in front of him.

I could only keep that activity up for 10 minutes at a time, and then I had to calm it down for a couple minutes. After that breather, I’d leap back into action. The boys, however, never needed a moment to rest. They can run wide open for an hour.

Whenever Cowgrit sees me doing this stuff (she’s not usually with us when I take the boys to the park), she worries that I’m going to hurt myself. And she’s right to worry. I mean, I may be crazy, but I’m not too dumb to know I’m over 40 years old, and one slip of the foot, one missed grab on a pole, and I could really hurt myself. But God, it’s so fun.

At one point, I was up on top of the play set, where there is a 8-foot-diameter platform. Calfgrit8 was “it,” coming up after me, and Calfgrit4 was down on the ground running around the circumference of the play set. I was slowly backing away from Calfgrit8, who had his hand out to tag me — I was going to let him tag me — and I took a bad shuffle down a step behind me.

My ankle twisted and I started falling backwards. Everything slowed down. I immediately knew I had hurt my ankle, badly, but my main concern was on where I’d fall. I dearly did not want to fall dangerously on my back, or hit my head on something — and there were steps, ladders, and rails all around me. I managed to catch a rail with my left hand, and this let me fall safer than just a blind collapse.

Once I was down, and I hadn’t hit my back or head, the pain in my ankle became terrible. It hurt like crazy. I hadn’t heard a snap or pop, so I thought I might not have broken it, but it had twisted pretty bad. Calfgrit8 realized I was hurt and he came to me with concern.

“Are you alright, Dad?” he asked. He sat down next to me and put his hand on my knee.

“Ow, ow, ow,” I answered. “I hurt my ankle real bad. I need a time out.”

“OK,” he said, and the look of fear slowly left his face. “But just for the game,” he added, “I tagged you before you called time.”

Despite the pain, I had to chuckle. “Noted. Now please go find Calfgrit4 and sit or play with him for a minute while I get right.”

My oldest son left me and climbed down from our top level. He found his little brother and they sat on a bench watching me struggle to get up off my back and down from the play set.

Damn but my ankle hurt from that twist. Luckily it was my left foot, so I would be able to drive the van. “Crap, crap, crap,” I said under my breath. Man, it hurt. I thought if it wasn’t broken, it sure was a waste of pain.

I managed to get down from the play set and told my boys I’d be OK. I just needed to rest my foot for a while. I sent them back to the play set to play without me. I propped my foot up on the bench and let it rest. Surprisingly, the pain subsided fairly quickly. Within 10 minutes I could walk on it, with a limp.

I followed the boys to the other part of the park and walked around for another 5 minutes to work out the injury. Soon I was chasing the boys again — but just chasing them on level ground, not jumping around on tunnels and ladders and rails.

Half an hour later, when we were all ready to leave the park to go eat dinner, we all raced back to the van in the parking lot. I was very happily surprised that my ankle was all better. I’m not Spider-Man, I thought, I’m freakin’ Wolverine! Healing factor FTW!

But the next day, my left thumb was hurting. That was the hand I had used to catch myself while falling on the play set, so I figure I must have caught wrong or something. But while my ankle never again bothered me, that thumb ached for three days after the park outing. Somebody tell me how in the world that happens.

Bullgrit

A while after the final flight of my first flying model airplane, we got a second, and completely different model airplane. The difference in the planes matched the difference in the decades — the first plane was of the 70s, and the second plane was of the 80s.

The second plane was a stunt plane, and it looked the part. It had a wider plastic body, plastic wings underneath, and a gas-powered engine (like a small lawn trimmer). But the most notable difference was how its flight was controlled.

From the tip of its starboard/right wing came two strings that attached to a hand piece. You were to set the plane on the ground, start the engine, and then step back and let the plane take off at the end of the string. You then held the hand piece and controlled the plane’s climb and dive as it flew around you.

But that was the problem: the plane flew around you in a circle. My dad and I both tried controlling this thing a few times, but the circling, circling, circling, circling made us dizzy. The plane was so fast that we couldn’t really put any thought into trying maneuvers or stunts. And after maybe 60 seconds of circling flight, the plane crashed into the ground.

This plane was a sturdier specimen compared to the older, first plane, so it better took the crashes — I don’t remember any damage to this second plane resulting from the poor piloting.

But we could take the dizzying circles so much before giving up on this model airplane. The only thing really cool and fun about this second plane was the great divots it made in the ground when it crashed propeller first. The speedy impact and the strong engine made for big holes and churned up grass and dirt. And the sound of BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-THUMP! was awesome.

And so ended our attempt at fun with that second plane. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-THUMP!

Bullgrit