Bygones, dumb puppy

Bygones, dumb puppy. Only dog now.

All has long since been forgiven.

The fault was never in you anyway.

We are glad!  You are our dog still.

How can that be? How can that be?!

"How can that be?  How can that be?!" shouted my daughter, her eyes searching mine earnestly, desperately for some sign that it was all a big joke.

But by the expression on my face she knew: it was no joke.  It was the truth. The awful, unbelievable truth...

Darth Vader really was Luke's father.

It's a shock the first time you're told.  In fact, it personally took me years, all the way up until the premiere of Return Of The Jedi, to fully believe it.

How can that be?  And yet, it is.

I know I'm not alone among parents of my generation to experience the strange sense of fulfillment, the hard-to-articulate sense of the-circle-being-unbroken that comes from watching through the entire Star Wars anthology with your kid for the first time.  The movies are chock-full of suck in spots, and are, at so many turns such a gross disappointment in terms of plot and character, that it's always surprising to me just how much I enjoy them, especially when taken together as a whole set of six films.

Especially when viewed over the course of several evenings with your wife and kid beside you, while the movies play on your big, grown-up flatscreen TV and John William's score rises and falls triumphantly through the custom home theater sound system of which you are so proud.  Much better than watching them at Harkins.  That's what I think.

We'd been waiting for years to watch the Star Wars movies with her, holding out for that perfect moment in time when my wife and I were both comfortable with her readiness.  Our kid was aware of this, too, eagerly awaiting the day along with us.  She'd heard us refer fondly to the movies many times over the years.  And I'd even given her my Jabba the Hutt action figure to play with years ago, when she was still very small, in anticipation of her one day meeting him on film.  He's been a permanent resident of her Barbie play house ever since.

A few days after we concluded our week-long marathon through episodes IV, V, VI, I, II, and III (in that order, natch), we made our way down to Bookman's on a Saturday afternoon, as is our regular habit most weekends.  As usual, we had each gathered a few things for the trade counter.  Me, a couple of old CDs; my wife, a few old books; and our daughter, a few well-loved DVDs she'd watched a million times.  Strangely, however, the DVDs she'd picked out to trade-in on this day were a half-dozen of her favorite Barbie movies.

We've come-and-gone through the Wiggles, the Backyardigans, even High School Musical, but to-date she'd never ever considered even the mere suggestion that she should trade-in her Barbie movies at Bookman's and exchange them for something else.  But, for whatever reason, this time, all on her own, she'd put a selection of her most-favorite movies in our trade counter sack.

And what did she select in-trade to replace her beloved Barbie movies?

A Princess Leia and two Ewok figurines.

Star Wars figures!  How awesome is that?

"But why?" I asked her.

"So my Jabba has some real friends."

So, yeah, after the funeral

So, yeah, after the funeral, which was, my-hand-on-my-heart, easily the most uplifting and inspiring funeral I've ever been to, we all drove over to the Val Vista Lakes Country Club for a nice catered buffet luncheon that was more like a reunion of old friends and loved ones than it was a time of mourning, which, as his mother said, was "exactly what Christian would have wanted."  Christian's friend, who spent most of the day with him the day he died, gave a wonderful, courageous, and composed retelling of all that they did together, up to the moment they parted... with the words, "Wear your seatbelt."

"Which he didn't," she added.  "And, so, yeah, that's what happened."

So, yeah, after the funeral, the next day, Christian's dad Derrill and I, and about 8 of his regular riding buddies, headed out onto the Hawes trails in the far-east Valley together for a ride.  It was an ideal morning and the trails were perfect.

"How many times do you think we did the same kind of thing when we were eighteen?" he and I both wondered aloud as we were preparing our gear and getting ready to start.

"And got away with it.  Survived."

"Dozens."

"Easily."  Dozens of near-misses.  Dozens of dumb-moves.  And somehow, we survived.  For some reason Christian didn't.

Can't explain that.

So, yeah, after the funeral, on our ride today Derrill cleaned the big climb, called Cardiac, for the first time ever. "I wanted to do that, for Christian. And I did," he told us all when we reached the top together.

No one really knew what to say.  We were just a bunch of speechless, sweaty guys astride their bikes at the top of a climb.  So what was done at that moment was precisely what has been done a billion times before, at the top of a billion similarly challenging climbs cleaned for the first time: fist bumps, high fives, pats on the back.

But I know what we all meant was, "We're so sorry, man.  This sucks.  Your strength's not just in your legs today.  Well done, my friend. Well done."

Christian

Parenthood changes everyone.  It just does.

As a father, one change I've noted in myself is that I tend to assess individuals based not on the firmness of their handshake, or the smile they wear on their face.  Truthfully, on most occasions, I tend to judge people based on how they react to, and subsequently behave toward, our daughter, Bekah.  Like most fathers, my child means the world to me.  Therefore, the quickest route into my good graces, into my favor, is to be kind to, and to listen to, and to include her in real, honest, and genuine ways.

Christian, the oldest son of my oldest-friend, Derrill, has always been more than kind to our daughter; he is her friend, despite the vast difference in their ages.  He epitomizes the way a young man should behave toward a kid like ours.  And his tender-hearted treatment of others is not unique to the way he treats Bekah. It likewise is demonstrated in the genuine and abiding love and compassion he shows at all times toward his younger brother with special needs, Alexandre.

I've been fortunate, during many hikes and talks and shared meals, to be able to get to know Christian over the years, first as a child, and more recently as a fine young man about to graduate from high school.  For the record: He's a really great guy with an easy smile and a friendly, compelling demeanor.

Late last night we found out that Christian was killed in a car crash.

This should never happen.

Yet it has.

My heart breaks for my old friend Derrill and his family.

More each moment as the reality of this awful thing sinks in more terribly.

I have no other words.

An artifact of my ride

I was feeling pretty good yesterday morning when I awoke.  We were in Phoenix.  It was 50 degrees outside with overcast skies.  So, of course, I went on a bike ride.

Like all good rides in Phoenix, this one began with a 25 minute drive in the car to the trailhead... which i really just a huge parking lot filled with nice cars, wedged between a golf course and a subdivision.

Anyway

Based on how my ride turned out, I think it's safe to conclude that my previously mentioned banged-uppedness might be just a bit more profound than I originally thought.  I've got a pretty good sense now that what I'd hoped was a bit of bruising and tenderness from a pole-grip to the ribs may, in fact, be something a bit more notable and less quick-to-heal.  Like a crack or a fracture... again.

I got about 4 miles and 1000 vertical feet and an uncomfortable number of dabs into my ride up South Mountain's National Trail (always one heck of a tough trail) yesterday when my rib began to hurt quite badly.  I had planned on only a slightly a longer ride, up to the towers and back, but instead, given my growing discomfort, elected to turn back at the 4.5 mile mark, just at the top of the saddle that begins the short descent into the Buena Vista parking lot.  So I ended up riding only about 9 miles.  But they were 9 tough miles, 9 painful miles, 9 miles where it would have been nice to bunny-hop or ride over or down this or that tricky-trap, but which became 9 miles of caution and wincing instead.

While I was out, I ran across a couple of dudes with a Go-Pro camera on a tripod at The Waterfall on National Trail, which, if the denizens of MTBR's Arizona forum are to be believed, is a place of deep and abiding lore on South Mountain.  'Tis a right of passage, so I've read many times, to ride down The Waterfall successfully.

Of course, I walked it yesterday.  Blamed the rib.

And because I've ridden it many times before, and for the first time more than 20 years ago, I think that's fair.

Of the two dudes I encountered at The Waterfall, I think the guy who made the film below tends to run a little hot. This is just my opinion. But I think he runs unnecessarily hot around the mouth, in that he speaks in a rather profane manner, and likewise hot as-in he seems to use way less of his brakes in certain situations (such as those featured in the video below) than I would, given the terrain.  I include his profane and somewhat sketchy video here because I walked right through his shot yesterday as I carried my bike up The Waterfall, and despite the fact that he edited out my nonetheless very stylish portage.

We'll call it an artifact of my ride nevertheless...


South Mountain 2011-12-22.

Wolf Creek

I am a bit at a loss for words, but feel as if I would be remiss to fail to record the trip my brother and I took to ski at Wolf Creek in Colorado this week.

I am sore, slightly bruised, but never the worse for wear, as they say.

The trip was great!  Amazing, really.  Six hours door-to-door.  54 dollar lift tix.  Vast and challenging terrain. And the conditions, considering the time of the year, were incredible; 100 percent open, everything covered, still soft and turny, with nothing clunky underfoot. The far-east Alberta chair, where we spent most of our two days, is basically devoid of crowds, of other people entirely, really.  We made laps through glades and over steep headwalls with no waiting, run-after-run-after-run.

In all we skied 17 runs, covering some 40 miles, and got about 20,000 vert over two days.  Not an epic, but a great start to the early season, for sure!

Other people's dead dogs

Well, I think I'm officially done with my homework.  My first of four classes in pursuit of my state school principal certification will officially conclude next week.  But, for right now, it's all done but for the grading, and the turning-in of my final project, which I'll do sometime tomorrow.

So we've enjoyed a nice quiet evening together tonight, sitting around as a family after dinner, listening to folksie seasonal music on Pandora (a nice mix based on Rosie Thomas+holiday) and looking nostalgically at a few familiar pictures of our good old dog.

There's a higher-purpose to our reverie tonight, however.  You see, our favorite local bagel shop, Biffs, makers of the finest bagels in the northland, and one our regular weekend breakfast stops is, oddly enough, themed around a vast collection of individually framed pictures of hundreds of other people's dead dogs.  It sounds a little morbid, but it's not.  Dog-people will understand, I think.  It's really kinda touching.  Anyway, we dig it.  So we always imagined, once Shadow was gone, we would be just-so-pleased to hang one of her pictures on the wall at Biffs, where we could see it now and then, whenever we visit.

But it's taken us a little time to find one we all like enough to place into Biff's permanent collection.  We've got thousands of pictures of Shadow.  Literally thousands.  But we didn't look through all of them to find just the right one.  We did, however, scrutinize several dozen looking pretty carefully for just the right one among the 190 favorite-photos of our good old dog in a set of her pictures we've kept for years on flickr.com.

We think the one we picked captures Shadow as perfectly as any photo could.