The Aerie
I wrote the following entry last weekend while on Dad-N-Kid Day with my youngest boy. There was no connectivity at the time so I saved it, and then of course forgot to post it.
Interestingly, after I wrote this, youngest and I went to the Uptown area to wait for the movie: he read manga while I caught up on the latest chapter of Stirling's "The Protector's War," which since it is not out in paperback yet I am reading in the bookstores in hardcover. Anyway, after an hour of this we left to walk over to the movie theater. At about the same time about three blocks away a mugging was turning into a murder. Needless to say my wife was a little freaked out later on when she saw the story. Me, I try not to think about it too much: I mean, the whole thing about random violence is that it's random - so how can you avoid it? Stay in the house forever?
Heck, where I'm sitting now, in the Borders at 6th and Hennepin, is the physical location of Block E, and while the history has been torn down upscaled, the site remains a strange attractor for the wierd, the hopeless, and the testily violent. As if to testify to this, three cops just walked shoulder-to-shoulder down the sidewalk outside the window.
Anyway, here's last Saturday's entry. My boy loved the movie, BTW. I found it largely incomprehensible.
I'm out with my youngest on Dad-n-Kid-Day. He doesn't know it, but our eventual destination is the Dragonball Z movie at the local artsy-theater, the Lagoon in Uptown. I have no idea why the Lagoon has decided to show this film but I'm grateful: sometimes the boy and I have a hard time finding things to do.
He's very singleminded: if it hasn't got a screen, he isn't interested. Videogames, movies, etc., are all fine with him. My wife often criticizes my judgement in letting the kid pick the destination, but I don't want to make these outingscontrived or forced. Taking the kids to places that they don't want to go isn't something I want to do often. Not never, but not often. These trips aren't about the kids learning about opera or visiting a museum: these are a chance for me to get to know who they are, not about me making them into something else.
Unfortunately who my youngest is right now can be deduced by the fact that I'm sitting at a Chuck-e-Cheese.
He has taken a break for the moment from video games to explore the elaborate climbing tubes perched precariously over the central atrium of the circular building. He's eleven so this will be one of his last trips. If he's like his brother he'll shoot up in height soon and lose interest in such childish affairs. But presently he's mugging at me from the top of the structure as I pretend to throw away his remaining game tokens.
Chuck-e-Fargin'-Cheese, as Lileks call it, is a complete zoo. There was a line to get in and if you can believe it a wait for a table. And no, I wasn't inclined to bribe the maitre d'. The noise is a true cacaphony, electronic bleeps mixed with the pounding of the Hungry Hippo and Whack-a-mole game, overlaid squalling babies and shrieking children. I donned headphones and I'm playing the iTunes at max volume, and it's just barely enough to balance the dreadful noise of this place with a barely-recognizable musical overlay.
But someday, in not too long, he won't want to come back here anymore. And sometime after that he won't be going on Dad-n-Kid days anymore. Maybe someday he'll take his own kids on these little trips.
He'll use his last tokens soon and we'll go find something to do for a couple of hours until the movie starts. Maybe hit the Border's Books in Calhoun Square or something. In the meantime I'm trying to make a little progress on my novel, which considering the circumstances would be quite an accomplishment.
And in the meantime I'm enjoying what I've got. Soon there will be a break in this pattern, and then I'll have to wait. And wait. And wait. But someday, someday...
Grandpa-'n'-Kid Days!