Grief

***Danny & Sto, December 1987***

I had a really nice weekend near Brainerd, Minnesota with Mom and Dad, sister Cara and her husband, Marco, and my awesome nephew, Eli. We ate well, went horseback riding, cruised Gull Lake on a pontoon, and my weekend culminated with an awesome warm-stone massage . . . something like that anyway. Then I came home and played in a super-fun hockey game.

Sadly, Sunday morning we learned that my brother-in-law's father, Jose, passed away. He was 86. I first met Jose two years ago at my sister's wedding. To quote Cara's Facebook page, "He was a fun loving guy with a witty sense of humor and was an expert in telling fascinating stories. He immigrated to the United States from Lima, Peru in 1956 to give his family a better life." Two weeks ago, he was here in Minnesota with his wife, Yolanda, their daughter Carol and her husband, Rick. We spent the day on the St. Croix River (you can view via my Facebook page a 40-second video of Jose on the St. Croix), and I really warmed to Jose--how sharp and funny he was, his warm presence. We spoke a bit in Spanish, which was fun for me. I am genuinelly sad that I won't have the chance to chat with him again and know that his family will miss him dearly.

August 24, today, is a date that never passes me by without remembrance. On August 24, 1990, dear friend Danny Black from good ol' Webster Groves died. That day and the following week I never forget, 19 years ago always seeming like yesterday. I miss Danny's smile, laugh, and our boy-to-boy then man-to-man talks as we intentionally walked many steps behind our friends. I loved those talks. Danny is sorely missed by many.

Finally, my nonprofit, ACES, had its annual golf tournament today. A year ago at, in the midst of the tournament, I took a call from Bernie's veternarian, learning Bernie had two different types of cancer in three different spots. It was a grave diagnosis I knew at the time, and as you know, four months later Bernie was in puppy heaven.

May Jose, Danny, and Bernie rest in peace tonight and ever after.

A Cure for Boredom

***One of the silliest photos I've ever seen, Vikings head coach Brad Childress driving Brett Favre from the airport to practice on Tuesday.***

Pro sports bore me, at least compared to the level of invigoration they use to bring me. Leagues want parity, and they've set the system up to achieve it. In other words, every team sucks. Boring. "Defense wins championships." Boring. Athletes in it just for the money and fame. Boring. Fans in it just to be "seen" at the game. Boring. The Minnesota Wild. Borrrrrrrrrrinnnnnnng, and a classic example of how leagues and owners and all have forgotten what pro sports is: entertainment. The reality is pro sports don't matter except for their entertainment value. Lose that, they border on utter insignificance.

So everyone is dissecting the whole Brett Favre thing. He's a narcissist. He's too old. He just didn't want to endure training camp. He's a traitor. The Vikings are dumb, stupid move.

Huh?

Dude is an entertaining athlete. Now, in the interest of disclosure, I will say this. I like the Vikings. I root for them, but when the game is over--win, lose, or draw--I forget about it. It's three hours of my week, nothing more. I've met Tavaris Jackson a couple times, I like him, he's a nice, articulate man, and soon he will be an ex-Viking. I like Brett Favre. I speak of on the field, I gave up on Sportscenter and its soap operatization of sports and athletes long ago. I don't care about Brett Favre off the field. But man, dude is entertaining on the football field. Scrambles, interceptions, Hail Marys, et al. You don't have to like him, but there's something wrong with you if you don't find him entertaining. Now, in the Vikings case, they have been a boring team since Childress took over, save for Adrian Peterson. Tavaris Jackson is a boring quarterback. Sage Rosenfelds is a boring quarterback. Brett Favre is entertaining, win, lose, or draw. He puts asses in the seats. He is what fans deserve in return for putting down $100 for a seat. It doesn't matter if he's too old, doesn't want to participate in training camp, won't help the Vikings, or you think he's a punk-ass. He'll make us laugh, smile, and/or roll our eyes and throw stuff more in one game than most quarterbacks will in a season. My kind of athlete.

Now all we have to do is get Randy Moss back . . . that would be some serious entertainment, as sports are meant to be.

I Am a Dog

I saw a couple Old English Sheepdogs prancing down the street with their owner yesterday. They had summer cuts, growing out a bit by this time. My former Sheepdog, Poochie, was a very social creature. She was also a really good climber. I used to come home from high school and she'd be in the neighbor's front yard, visiting with the younger children at play. She'd climb the chain linked fence that bordered our yard. She'd climb that sucker like a human, all for the joy of mingling with the common folk.

Speaking of socialization, my skillz constantly amaze me. You see, I went to a barbecue today where I knew no one except Beth, and while my expectation isn't such, I'm always conscious of the possibility that I will make a complete jack ass out of myself--like they just won't get me. Not that I'm that hard to get, in fact I'm rather easy to get, especially in a short "surface" encounter. Try to get to know me further, well, that just might be another story. My jack-ass-potential recognition isn't the result of paranoia or even simple fear. Rather, I think it's spawned by the fact that we all attend this or that gathering and there is one bloke who just comes off as an idiot, a dork, or the adjective of your choice. Tonight, that wasn't me, and fortunately, it rarely is. There wasn't one at the barbecue, unless you count the bees that were prevelant and annoying, but didn't have the cajones to actually sting anyone. Weak.

Business functions always make me laugh, generally in hindsight--where I leave this or that collection of "important" people and think, "Wow, I nailed that. How the hell did that happen?" I went to a lunchoen this past week, topic was inflation. My mother was there soaking in the information, as was I, it presented in circles in the manner only economists can do, and she commented to me following, "You have such wonderful social graces." Indeed, and granted it was my mom, but it's the first time "grace" in any context, save for being preceeded by "lack of," was used in utterance of moi. I'm generally quite pleased if I don't drop an F bomb at an innapropriate time, so grace is a big bonus.

I did figure out at some point in my adult life (I use the term adult to refer to post-undergrad years, even though in my case I actually hit full adulthood closer to the time I finished graduate school, which wasn't that long ago) that most people are alright. Nobody intimidates me, it's more just a matter of if I think you're a tool or not and if I can withstand another moment of conversation with you without drooling as my eyes slowly shut, or in extreme cases, vomiting in dissatisfaction. I have social grace though, hear me roar, and am quite adept at keeping said fluids where they belong.

There aren't a ton of people who make me jump and wag my tail, quite frankly, so I'm certainly not a Sheepdog. On the flipside, I never bite, so I'm not a pit bull. More so, I am like a Chow-Chow, sniffing out the scene and then coyly backing my aloof self out said encounter, to sniff elsewhere, ultimately taking myself to those who do make me jump and wag my tail, to those who bring me joy. I love to leave my yard but am always glad to return.

Oliver's Weenie

***Earth, where about 400 million dogs roam.***

I touched Oliver's weenie today. Oliver is Beth's dog, you know this because you read every entry of my blog. It was an accident. He was standing on the arm of my couch Saturday morning while I read the paper. I reached up and my hand touched his weenie. I've never had a dog with a weenie, so this was a true rarity for me, even more so than for the average Joe who has a dog with a weenie. Let's hope it's a rarity in his case, too.

That, of course, was a miniscule portion of my day, about one second of it, or .01 percent of a 24-hour day. Science says that the human species as we know it, homo sapiens, has been on Earth .000002 percent of Earth's existence. Diamonds, on the other hand, were created before life on Earth existed about 4 billion years ago, so they've been around much, much longer than us homo sapiens. They are so deep in the Earth that only powerful volcanoes can extract them, which compounds their rarity. This rarity, of course, is in part why diamonds are a girl's best friend. Dogs, of course, are a boy's best friend, but that doesn't necessarily mean we like to touch one's weenie!

Shameless Plug

***Thursday, August 13, join me and a lot of other people for the inaugural ACES @ O'Gara's Garage fundraiser. Tickets are $10, all proceeds to ACES, live music, FINNEGANS Beer specials, a great raffle (click here for prizes). Festivities start at six o'clock, raffle begins at eight, we're outta there at ten. Click on the photo to blow it up. Be there!!!***

It's been a good week, back in the flow of things. I was away from work for a month, and there's always a bit of stress wondering what awaits when you return. Alas, all is well at ACES, my colleagues (especially Catherine and Anna)--along with Leadership St. Paul--have done an awesome job getting this event going. It's the first time we've tried this type of event, something fun and loose, and hopefully appealing to all the great help we get each year from our college-age staff and volunteers. Let's do this! Hope to see you there.

Back in the Saddle

***Bernie at the dog park, on the Mississippi shoreline. If I recall correctly, this trip to the dog park was the first time I admitted she was older, as she walked and sniffed much more than ran and swam! She was 10 in this photo. Sept. 2005***

Alright, it is August 9. July 10 was my last day of work before Brazil, and August 10 is my first day back at work. It's not all bad, going back to work, though this week promises to be a busy and interesting one. If you are in the Twin Cities, please please join us Thursday 8/13 @ O'Gara's in St. Paul for a fundraiser from 6-10 for my nonprofit, ACES. Food, music, a kick-ass raffle. We fear no one will show up, so be there!!!

I had a great trip to Brazil, met many cool people from around the world and did many cool things with them. Rio is a great place, the Amazon is amazing. I'll go into more detail in subsequent posts (I'm still getting my groove back as far as writing/blogging/computing goes), but serious thanks go to Becca, Fernanda, Francisco, Andre and all the other Brazilians who were pretty cool to this gringo for three weeks.

I've spent the past several days hanging out with Beth doing fun stuff. Her dog, Oliver, is pretty darned entertaining, I must say. Really smart but kind of flakey, energetic as all get out. I came home tonight, after a full day of boating and socializing, to a quiet house. It still throws me, no dog to wind down with. It's like a hole in my life that I'm waiting on someone to deliver the dirt to fill it. I've been so busy the past few months perhaps I haven't noticed the void that exists. That, and I noticed the past couple years, even when I still had Bernie, that I was becoming more co-dependent. Not on one person, but just less satisfied taking on the world as a party of one. Now I have other pleasant parties to walk alongside but no fuzzy friend to take my mind off the world. Of course, march on I do, back to reality on Monday, an amazing month in the books. I wonder what adventures await in the upcoming month. . . .

Welcome Home, Chad

***I saw a little fox like this one about a half-hour ago about two blocks from my house, on my way home from hockey. Being that I live in the city, this is quite unusual. He had a little dead animal in his mouth. I stopped, looked at him, he dropped the animal and wanted to flee, but just couldn't leave his prize. I wish him well, hoping he makes his way to a nice place for a fox to dwell, away from the hazards that he will face in this environment.***

I was craving American food. A big fat greasy cheeseburger would've been perfect, but being that it was eight in the morning, that wasn't going to happen. Nevertheless, I made my way into Chili's within the Atlanta airport, tantalizingly close to being home from my three weeks abroad. I was greeted by a large lady, about 60. "How you doin' today, baby?" We got along smashingly well, she reminded me of many a mother I met during my childhood "down south" in St. Louis. It was a great first "welcome home" upon landing on U.S. soil!