I was in my hometown for Saturday night and Sunday morning this past weekend, to see my brother a bit while he was visiting. Saturday night, he, I, and our mom went out to dinner at the local pizza place.

We were sitting in a booth, I on one side, my brother and mother together on the other side of the table, talking and just having a very nice time together. We were just starting our pizza when I heard the 80s Dexys Midnight Runners song playing through the overhead speakers.

My brother and I briefly referenced the song, “That’s an old one,” “I never really cared for it.”

Then an old juvenile joke came to my mind.

I said to my brother, “What’s worse than grease on Olivia Newton John?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “what?”

I gently pointed up towards the music.

My brother chuckled quietly.

I didn’t think Mom had heard me, or at least she didn’t catch exactly what I had said. There was a short pause and then she asked about the song we were talking about.

Brogrit summed it up in a few words, naming the title as “Come on Eileen.”

Mom said, “I don’t think I’ve heard it,” then she went back to her pizza. So did brogrit and I.

A few seconds passed, then she stopped cutting her slice of pizza, froze in place a moment and said, “Oh!”

The mixture of embarrassment, disapproval, and humor crossing her face as she put her hand to her mouth caused brogrit and I to burst out laughing. Quickly, all three of us had our hands covering our faces to conceal and muffle the laughing out loud. We were all three red faced, tearing up, and bouncing in laughter.

Fortunately, the restaurant was pretty loud during the height of dinner rush, so we didn’t attract more than just a few glances from other tables. We convulsed for a good five minutes before we could calm down and straighten our faces. When we could at last talk calmly again, our conversation quickly moved on to other topics.

That was probably the best laugh we’ve had together in many years (and we’re generally not a very serious family).

Bullgrit

Holy crap, it’s been six days since I last posted something here. What happened? Well, nothing happened, really. One thing after another just made me keep putting off writing my next post for Friday, and then the weekend was busy, and then I was tired Sunday night, so on and so forth.

I’ve built up so many anecdotes I want to write up that my brain is about to burst. But I’ve been so damn busy and distracted and tired. So, anyway, my regular posting will start back up tomorrow.

Bullgrit

I took Calfgrit8 out last evening, just the two of us, to go get Calfgrit4 a birthday present. (CG4 will turn CG5 on October 15.) I wanted to use this time not just for gift-getting, but also for some one-on-one time with CG8. We haven’t had much alone time together in a while, and I felt like we both needed it. (I need and want some alone time with CG4, too, and that will come soon, I hope.)

As we drove out, I asked him where we needed to go to get what he wanted to give CG4: Target, Toys R Us, somewhere else? He said Target. I then asked him if he was hungry and wanted to eat before or after shopping. He said after. So we went to Target.

At the store, he knew exactly what he wanted to get his little brother – they’ve apparently discussed this: a particular Pokemon deck. We went straight to Pokemon cards, and Calfgrit8 immediately grabbed the specific boxed deck. There was no looking around, no examining the selection, just straight to and grab it.

When we left the store, I asked him where he wanted to get dinner. In that shopping center there are several restaurants I like and I know he at least doesn’t dislike: Chili’s, Red Robin, IHOP, Fridays, and several smaller places. He chose Panera; I wouldn’t have guessed that. We went to the bagel and sandwich shop.

Calfgrit8 is a great kid. He’s normally polite and well behaved. Sometimes, though, when with his little brother, he gets a little passive/aggressive, and he loses his manners. Also when the brothers are together, he gets a little less mature – he tends to regress back toward CG4’s age. I think this might be because his little brother can’t really advance up to his age, so to have some common ground, CG8 has to “stoop down” in age a bit. And there’s also the sibling rivalry aspect, which as my brother and I can attest (at around 40 years of age), will make anyone drop a maturity level or twenty.

But when CG8 and I are alone together, his intelligence and maturity comes through. We sat in a booth talking and eating our bagel and sandwich. He seems to love asking me questions about random stuff. Apparently he asks these random questions of other people (his mother, his teacher, his grandparents, etc.) and when they can’t answer them, he brings them to me in batches.

“What does the a.m. and p.m. stand for in telling time?” he asked.

He knows they mean before noon and after noon, but he didn’t know what the initials stood for. I explained ante meridiem and post meridiem.

“Cool,” he said, “I’ll tell my teacher. She didn’t know what they meant.”

“What does ‘all rights reserved’ on a movie mean?” he asked.

I tried to give a short-form explanation of copyrights and reserving them, but this question and answer led us down an unexpectedly long discussion about creating stuff, getting paid for selling the stuff, and the wrongs of copying and selling other people’s stuff. Although copyright is a subject somewhat intertwined with my career (and this site), I didn’t intend to get into the depths of it with an 8-year-old, but he kept asking for more explanation and examples.

I really didn’t think we’d be spending our father-and-son time talking about copyrights, but it was still good just to have the together time.

Some fathers and sons sit around talking about football and cars. I and my son sit around talking time zones and copyright law. I love him so.

Bullgrit

Those of you who have been following my life as presented here know that we recently (quickly) sold our house. And since we decided to build a new house, we’ve been shacked up with Cowgrit’s mother for a few weeks. When we left for our vacation, our new house was just a concrete foundation.

The day after we got back from our Disney World adventure, Cowgrit and I drove by to see if anything had been done while we were away. There was a house standing there, both stories. Now, the interior walls are just the frame studs, and the outside walls are still covered in plastic, but glory-be, it looked like a house was sitting on our lot!

That was last Sunday. This Sunday, yesterday, it looks like the only advancement has been that they’ve added windows and exterior doors. In one week, they put up the whole two-story frame, but in the next they only put in windows. I realize there was probably other work done that isn’t obvious to the layman like me, but still, it’s frustrating to see such a big leap in construction and then see what looks like a fall back to snail’s pace.

I took the boys’ to the new house yesterday, and took them on a tour. I explained the floor plan, what the rooms would be, and how we’d get around in the house. They seemed most interested in being able to “walk through the walls.” Sigh.

They were more excited by “our backyard is a mud pit!” and the pile of gravel in our front yard than they were by any real construction that’s gone on with the house.

Bullgrit