Game of Thrones delivered up another blog-worthy scene in its most recent episode.  The manipulative and compassionate “Imp” let fly a raging rant against, well, pretty much everyone — 

I saved you. I saved this city. All your worthless lives. I should’ve let Stannis kill you all. Yes, father. I’m guilty. Guilty. Is that what you want to hear? No, of that I’m innocent. I’m guilty of a far more monstrous crime. I’m guilty of being a dwarf. Oh? Yes I am. I’ve been on trial for that my ENTIRE LIFE! I did not do it. I did NOT KILL JOFFREY BUT I WISH THAT I HAD! Watching your vicious bastard die gave me more relief than a thousand lying whores! I wish I was the monster you think I am. I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you. I would gladly give my life to watch you all swallow it. I will NOT give my life for Joffrey’s murder, and I know I’ll get no justice here so I will let the Gods decide my fate. I demand trial by combat!

I know how he feels.

Not the unappreciated city-saving part, the scornful father part, nor the years of persecution part.  Just the diffuse anger and rage part.  The reason for my own, current anger management problem is admittedly not the stuff of an HBO episodic series.  Nevertheless, when I saw Peter Dinklage’s character go off on this psychotic bender the other night, I saw myself.

Some sort of virus or another has been having its way with me for about a week or so.  This truth is of course heavy with irony, given that I’ve written so dismissively of Slapped Cheek, Meningitis, Chicken Pox, and the rest.  Turns out those bad boys don’t take well to being openly mocked on a WordPress blog.  My bad. 

How could I have been knocked sideways by something so random, something that more than likely found its way to me via a sick child?  Or more specifically, cough droplets from a sick child that ended up transferred over to me?  My kids haven’t been sick in weeks; maybe months.  I don’t work in an office.  I am outside in the fresh air constantly, never cooped up on a MUNI bus eyeing my warm grip on a germ-slathered strap-hanger’s pole. How in the world did I end up on the wrong side of the game of virus roulette?

Yep, whatever locked on to me has a vicious sense of irony.

My risky behavior, my undoing — and here comes the second dose of irony — was most likely Little League baseball.  More specifically, my Norman Rockwellian insistence on post-game hand shakes and high-fives has come home to roost, apparently.

Let’s do the math:  First, each of my Little League teams is comprised of 12 boys.  That’s 24 potential Typhoid Marys whose hands I grip, slap, or bump in a closed fist at least three times each week.  That’s 72 weekly roles of the dice right there, at minimum.  And I should probably add in a multiple here, seeing’s how the high fives are rarely a one-time thing.  I’ll connect hands with my players, each of them, probably several times during each practice, each game.  I’ve even, gasp, encouraged my younger team to hold a high-five contest with their teammates, in a contrived attempt to gin up some good sportsmanship on our own team.  And yes, I myself have participated in said contest(s), racking up points for each hand slap in a loud voice!  Bragging about it, even — “One! Two! Twelve!  Fifty Seven!”  

Oh the hubris. 

That hubris probably gets me 500 rolls of the viral dice weekly, and that’s just from my own guys.  Add in all the games we’ve played over the past couple weeks, and the exposure potential balloons exponentially.  I count approximately seven to ten games within my “catch and incubate” window.  Now we’re up to thousands of little hands, unknowingly passing a small infectious agent around that will ultimately set up shop in me.  

And of course, I write regularly about how much I swim, run, ride, yada yada.  Look at me, such a physical specimen! Well, my immune system has evidently been feeling the strain of trying to jam that extra mileage into an aging body so as to survive the upcoming Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon.  I suppose this marks the third heavy dose of irony here. That small infectious agent had me and my shaved legs in its little viral cross hairs, just rubbing its fuzzy little infectious claws together, hardly able to contain his excitement at the prospect of tossing me around for a week or so, slamming me cartoonishly from one side of the ring floor to another.  Bam! Wham! Bam! 

The chronic and barely manageable pain in my head, neck, shoulder and chest over the past week has not brought out the best in me.  Particularly by the end of the day, when my neck has had enough of supporting my head all day, when my shoulder wants to remind me that I’m not supposed to be throwing batting practice or hitting ground balls, when a pedestrian sneeze feels like a battering ram to my chest, I become a Monster of Impian Proportions.

I rail against whomever thought that “Horsehead Kid and baseball into the ump’s nuts” Giants television commercial is a good idea.  I have wished that person dead, aloud, from a prone position on my living room floor, head propped up with a boiling heating pad, popping Advil from the plastic pill container always within arm’s reach.  

I caught myself spitting venom, almost literally (the spitting part for sure), when the Giants’ young shortstop Ehire Adrianza struck out looking, leaving the bat on his shoulder.  Pop another Advil.  

My wife and children, even my dog, now step warily around me.  Avoiding direct eye contact (not just the dog).  Steering clear of anything even remotely resembling a provocative comment.  Quickly leaving the room in a jog, high-stepping from their heels with a nervous giggle if the Monster begins to gurgle up some sort of bile-laden rant.  Same technique used when walking by a frothing, growling Doberman behind a fence.  “Tee hee hee, nice doggie,” while stage-marching it the hell away from there.  

The cute little birds in our neighborhood, protecting their cute little babies in their cute little nests?  When they wing themselves in my direction while out for a dog-walk, I grind my teeth and imagine them all vaporized.  Neighborhood lore has it that a neighbor once ended an unreasonably loud crow with an expert pluck of the crossbow.  I want a crossbow, and I want it now.  Now, I said!

Yeah, it’s been like that.  

I should probably apologize to everyone with whom I’ve had any contact of any kind over the past 7 days.  On the other hand, I think I have a couple days left with this.  A few more days of swinging my wrecking ball with abandon.  Hulk SMASH! Probably best to wait until the full extent of my pain-induced frenzy has run its course.  Free of my tiny infectious tormentor, I can then lift  my head among the smoldering ruins, survey the damage, do a quick head count, and begin the business of apologizing. 

Until then, I empathize with the Imp. 

Thanks for reading. 

I had some blood drawn yesterday at my friendly, neighborhood lab.  I was greeted by a very pleasant woman with an angelic smile, standing at a podium aligned perfectly with the entrance door.  As if she’d been expecting me for days, knowing everything there was to know about me.  But would keep all those things a secret between us.  That kind of smile.  Changing the bend of her smile slightly, she gently advised me that I’d be waiting 25 minutes before my name was called.  No problem, I thought, scanning the crowded room for a seat least likely to bear Legionnaire’s disease cough droplets on the armrests.  

Within two minutes of finding my little sanctuary and settling in, another lab worker stepped to the center of the room, cleared her throat, and announced my name.  Her own cherubic smile strained at one corner by the effort of attempting to pronounce my name properly.  I have learned to recognize that look before I even hear my name, often popping to my feet with my own smile, granting instant clemency to my obviously relieved, new friend.  This time, though, I’m not feeling great, and couldn’t spare the energy to save her.  I don’t remember what she said, exactly.  I think I heard at least one “s” although there is no “s” to be found in my name save for my middle name.  And if she had announced my middle name, I probably would have snapped to attention, marched towards her like an automaton, and reached out for a diploma while wincing in anticipation of a flashbulb flashing.  

This second lab worker was not the maître d’ at the podium, who continued masterfully to welcome each new patient through the door.  Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, you might say.  This second woman’s role was to ensure the lab has all of my information entered into the lab’s database, before the lab does any actual work on me.  The second worker — I wish I remembered her name — was equally lovely.  Laughing generously at my weak attempts to break the mundane, digital form filing out with dark humor.  At the end of our time together, she let me know that this was just her 3rd day on the job.  So perhaps her laughter was genuine.  Or perhaps she, like the others, knew exactly how to handle me so that I would leave the lab chest puffed out.  Thinking I’m damned funny.  Probably the most handsome man to grace that lab in quite some time, too.  Fully expecting the lab workers to make little  necklaces carrying a drop of my blood in pebble-sized capsules around their necks; a memento of that afternoon in May when that otherworldly being (me) graced their presences.  

But I digress.

In the midst of my polite interrogation at the hands of Angel Number Two, Angel Number Two asked, “Do you have a religious preference?”  Given the nature of the questions previous to this one, I assumed she meant my preference as to the religious affiliation of my blood-taker, not my own religious preference.  I said, “You mean the religion of the person who will be sticking a needle in my arm and taking my blood?”  Expecting her to giggle at my misunderstanding and correct me, I got the giggle but not the rest.  “Yes. It’s just something they want us to ask.  Some people do have a preference.”  

Even in my achey state, this sent me off on a bit of a riff:  “I hadn’t thought about it, no.  But now that you mention it, are the people who follow a particular religion better than others at this?  You would know, right?  You can tell me.  Let me guess:  Catholics, right?  It has to be Catholics?”  

A few questions later Angel Number Two asked if I wanted to provide an emergency contact.  She asked this question with the most solemn look she had mustered to this point.  Sitting here now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the text of Question Number 17 pulled up on her computer screen was followed by a parenthetical stage direction —

(Note: effect solemn look on your face, make deep eye contact with your interviewee, consider dropping the frequency of your voice a half-octave and reduce its intensity (volume) by one-half).

If those were the directions, she followed them perfectly.  

I froze in her gaze only momentarily, though, still emboldened by my real or imagined comedic success in this venue; the faux-wooden booth we had been sharing for the last five minutes.  “You mean, in case I choose the wrong religion and the person bleeds me out back there behind those curtains??  Now I really really need to know which religion to pick.  C’mon, this is serious business now, you just raised the stakes!”  I lean in a bit, lower my own voice’s frequency and reduce my own voice’s intensity halfway to a whisper:  “It’s got to be Catholic, right?!?” 

I survived the blood-letting…er…blood-taking.  And I honestly do not know whether my blood-taker practiced Catholicism, Hinduism, Shintoism, or whatever else there might be to choose from in there.  It turns out I am agnostic when it comes to my phlebotomist.  To each his (or her) own.

Thanks for reading. 

I’m aware of milestones, especially the ones that mark the end of something or the beginning of something.  Sometimes the same stone marks both.  The end of one journey overlaps completely with the start of a new one. One such milestone is on my mind this morning: The end of the regular season for one of my San Francisco Little League teams.  We played our final regular season game yesterday afternoon.  

These are 8 and 9 years olds, for the most part, and my youngest son Everett is among them. Now two or three months into this, the boys are finally starting to show signs of “getting” the system we’ve been trying to impress upon them with every practice, every game.

On a macro level, they will answer, “Hustle,” to the question, “What is always in our control?”  And they can rattle off pretty easily a handful of concrete examples of what hustle looks like on a baseball field.  That’s different than just repeating back some memorized mantra by rote.  For example, the team has embraced what we’ve coined as “Show and Tell.”  In the field, all of our players now communicate with all of their teammates before each opposing batter steps up to the plate.  The know to “show” the number of outs to each other, holding aloft a fist or maybe horns to every player, and to “tell” the situation — shout out the outs and what the infielders and outfielders should do with a ball hit their way.  They’ve moved beyond giving me the horns and shouts as if they’re being quizzed.  They now seek out their teammates’ eyes in a genuine quest to communicate something important.  

The first baseman knows he is accountable for the left fielder who has his hand jammed in his back pocket; knows it’s his job to inspire that chilly hand out of the pocket and up into the air to signal an awareness of the game situation.  The on-deck guy knows he is responsible for grabbing a discarded bat at the plate, and that he needs to handle this task in a jog if not a sprint.  Everybody nods when I remind them to get their bare hand involved in receiving the ball, and their once melodramatic reactions to a stung hand have given way to barely perceptible winces.  That gloveless hand is their best friend, and the sting means they’ve done something right.  

The once comically long-winded instructions doled out from my 3rd base coaches’ box are now staccato short.  One or two words chiseled down to capture something each batter is working on.  A quick trigger to remind one to loosen up, another to align his grip, another to keep his head and eyes still and quiet on the swing, another to keep both hands on the bat until those hands have done their jobs and the top one can let go.  “Two hands,” “fix your fingers,” “fix your foot,” “wider,” “see it.” It’s a thing of beauty by this stage, watching a player make an adjustment at the plate with a knowing head nod, in response to only a word or two.  

So on a macro level, it’s fair to say these boys as a group have learned a considerable amount about the nuts and bolts and how to play together as a team.  Not just saying it, but doing it, or at least recognizing what that is supposed to look like. 

On a micro level, almost everyone has cried.  I’m including myself in that group. The characteristically flat affect ever present on all their faces masks a tempest of emotions ready to explode or implode at any moment.  I’ve learned to pick up on each player’s body language to learn what’s inside at that moment. Eye-balling them as they run across the grass towards me to join a just-starting practice, water-bottle sloshing with each stride.  Peeking at their eyes as they get a look at the day’s lineup on the clipboard for the first time.  Listening to how they speak to one another, with particular attention to whether they are being kind — being “a good teammate.”  I have zero tolerance for experienced players speaking harshly to the less experienced.  Unfortunately for the more experienced players, I have zero tolerance for them not developing thick skin when the less experienced don’t always follow this same rule.  The more skilled players by now understand they have a key role in helping the less skilled become more skilled. Within reason, if a less skilled player razzes (intentionally or otherwise) a more skilled player, I’d like for that skilled player to take it in stride.  They can handle it.  

And there is most definitely crying in baseball.  

A genuine show of emotion in our post-game circle will move me.  I’ll take a breath to fill my lungs full for a planned, long-winded answer but my breath will catch.  A little constriction in my own throat reminds me how much I care about these boys, those tears, and this moment.  Particularly on milestone days like yesterday, I am grateful and feel incredibly fulfilled.  I heard myself yesterday, unprompted, telling one of my boys (my assistant coach’s son), “Hey, you are a good kid and I am very lucky to be your coach. Thank you.”  Not the kind of advice base runners on 3rd base are expecting from their coaches at that moment.  But that’s how I felt, and I wanted him to know it.  

I live for these moments.  

And I am agonizingly aware of the finite number of such moments that remain.  I feel the sand slipping through my fingers.  I see the boys looking forward with their eyes, focused solely on what will happen next.  Not so much, anymore, looking at me for direction or for acknowledgement of a right answer.  They are ready to move on.  And whether I am ready or not ready isn’t the point.  If I’ve done this right, they have no idea about my own state of readiness — ranging from non-existent to fragile at best.  Well we have at least a couple more games to ride out together before these moments are a collection of memories captured in a team photo.  I have a stack of them (memories and team photos).  So bring on the playoffs!

Thanks for reading.

Ahh, city living.  It’s amazing what seemingly meaningless, insignificant-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things things prove themselves invaluable when living on a speck of San Francisco land approximately the size of a basketball court.  

Take the “firebrick red” and “sunglow gold” stripe of paint captured in my photo above.  This sweet piece of Jesus is hard to come by in the City of San Francisco.  Maybe it is equally sweet, righteous, and elusive in other cities.  I can’t speak to that.  Here in San Francisco, for the bargain basement price of $130, you too can enjoy the peace of mind that comes with a driveway properly protected by six inches of official sidewalk paint.  

And as an extra bonus, what home would not benefit from a nice splash of curbside color reminiscent of the former Soviet Union’s red star hammer and sickle?

I’ve always had a thing for Sergey Mikhalkov’s “State Anthem of the USSR,” and now I have this handy visual prompt to remind me of that catchy little ditty a dozen or so times each day.  So I’ve got that going for me now; which is nice. 

Honestly, though?  I don’t care if the end result of San Francisco’s Official “Curb Painting Process” was a splash of Hockney, striped with the Minnesota Viking colors, or “King of the Hill” red and white polka-dotted. Small price to pay for raising two kids and a dog in the city, trying to keep (politely) sharp elbows protecting our tiny plot of poised-for-liquefaction heaven.

You see, my wife and I had long grown weary of shoe-horning our car through the impossibly narrow space between the car bumpers in our rear view and side view mirrors at the end of our driveway.  Juggling the distractions of a looming Little League practice, sons ripping in competition at a bag of Goldfish in the back seat, a puppy demanding an immediate belly-scratch via a firm paw pushing down on a wrist desperately trying to preserve that wrist’s purchase on the steering wheel’s 3 o’clock position, slipping in a click of the garage door opener (closer?) somewhere in the midst of this chaos to ensure our fortress is impenetrable — none of these things are part of the proper recipe for defensive driving.  

Instead, cringing, we blindly nudged our own car’s rear end out into our quiet street, hoping the passersby would see us and come to a gradual, sympathetic stop.  Fully prepared to overdo the obligatory wave of the hand and forced-friendly smile, acknowledging the other driver’s observance of driveway etiquette.  Even if raising a waving meant a scratch from Wailea’s nails, since that hand is supposed to be scratching her belly in the passenger seat, not following some unwritten rule of the city living code.  

On more than one occasion, we were nearly t-boned by a passing car.  Stomping on our brakes and suddenly halting our backward progress, the pup lurching backwards, the Goldfish bag ripping and spilling its contents on the backseat, the random gathering of baseballs in the trunk rolling about frenetically like billiard balls sunk in corner pockets and rolling back to the start position within the pool table’s unseen innards.  Screech. 

That life-flashing-before-your-eyes experience gets old in a hurry.  The quick mental calculus can be debilitating: “Had I not took the time to fill that Sigg bottle to the top, we would have been smashed to smithereens.”  Not to mention, on this point, how far back do I go?  Should I give myself a congratulatory slap on the back, 27 years after oversleeping on my Psych 101 Final at Duke? Sure, I may have taken the exam whilst sitting uncomfortably in the carpeted aisle, hunched over for a couple hours.  But that extra 5 minutes spared my family from certain death years at the end of our driveway in a burning inferno.  Right?  Or perhaps I should thank my stubborn, in utero self. Had I not been born a couple weeks past my due date, the whole Beadling clan expires right there on Beach Street at the end of our little driveway.  No?  

Like I said, debilitating.  

So spare yourself and your family from this same awful fate and the accompanying mental gymnastics.  Get yourself a nice piece of the former Soviet Union (or whatever color scheme applies to your particular municipality).  Small price to pay for sanctuary.  Ahh, city living. 

Thanks for reading.

I don’t know if I’ll be ready for the Escape from Alcatraz Triathlon in about a month, but Wailea is in ridonculous shape. Our one year-old lab-ish rescue puppy is in the best shape of her life.

My right knee and left Achilles are banged up from our week-long trip to Zion. Ample doses of canyoneering in knee-deep river water, ascending and descending stairs carved in steep rock, sprinting serpentine down a paintball field to avoid being shot — these all require recovery beyond what fistfuls of Advils washed down with Uinta Cutthroat Pale Ales every evening can offer. But I’m not feeling like I have the luxury of time to recover, given that I only have about a month to bank some training so that I don’t keel over into some trailside pricker bushes on race day. No thank you.

So I rode yesterday. And swam and ran today. The run is the painful piece, and that’s what my knee and Achilles reminded me at the outset this morning. Wailea weighs about 70 pounds now, and she pulls on the leash like a rhino. Because neither of my legs is capable of moving in a natural way at the moment, or at least not until I’m warm, I must have looked ridiculous trying to catch my stride while being yanked along by my dog. A few nannies and homeless gents, even, gave me sideways glances as I peg-legged awkwardly around Mountain Lake Park yelling, “Heel! Heel! Heel, damnit!” My periods of yelling at the dog punctuated by periods of “ooh, ouch, ooh,” each step causing a stabbing pain in one leg, then the other. Wailea kept looking back and up at me, trying to decipher a command she could recognize somewhere in the midst of my speaking in tongues.

Not an auspicious start to a run just one month away from Alcatraz.

Within a few minutes, though, blood flow allowed my right knee to track properly and my left Achilles to loosen up. By then, we’ve managed to snake our way up through the Presidio a bit such that Wailea’s leash can come off. And that’s when the fun starts.

The Presidio Trust has done a remarkable job of making the Presidio and its 24 or 25 miles of trails very accessible while still preserving a sense of remoteness. There are periods like what is shown in the photo below when it feels like you’re running through a far off jungle —

And there are loads of sturdy wooden stairways dug into the cliffs that overlook the Pacific Ocean outside the Golden Gate Bridge. Scrambling down these steps several hundred feet, encountering essentially no one along the way, with a blistering offshore wind gusting at 30 MPH stirring up menacing chop out in the Pacific, my black dog leading the way — what’s better than this?

Not much. Add in fleeting glimpses of the Golden Gate Bridge’s North Tower on the way back up from Marshall Beach, and it’s almost enough to forget the burning lungs and concrete quads.

Of course, Wailea is in every one of these photos. She is just…there. I have friends who never quite clicked with their dogs, but that has fortunately never been an issue for me. She completes our family. And she has become, at least for the running part, my training buddy. Never complaining, always happy to run with me no matter what new trail or cliff side steps I introduce–simply thrilled to be alive and sharing that moment with me.

And I feel exactly the same way.

Thanks for reading.

I’m not a fan of guns. Of any kind. The kind in video games, the kind in movies, the kind that are fake and given to kids as gifts by faraway aunts or uncles. Even the bars of soap carved and painted black to look like guns in television shows shot in black and white. Not a fan of those either.

I have long frowned, even, on my kids’ making their fingers and hands into pretend guns. That kind of behavior triggers long, dreaded sermons about violence through the course of human history. Admiring the “Charlie’s Angels” logo will trigger the same sermon. If I spy a “Ducks Unlimited” bumper sticker on a bumper in my neighborhood, I have to resist the powerful urge to hawk a loogie on said bumper. My upstairs neighbor’s quarterly American Rifleman rubber-banded in with my own stack of mail makes the veins in my neck pulse with self-righteous rage.

My own father, who owns guns and espouses their virtues, regularly pushes my buttons on this hot button issue of mine. Most recently, he surreptitiously “gifted” my youngest son with an NRA belt buckle, stuffing it into Everett’s little hand while I was visiting the men’s room at a Denny’s.

So imagine my chagrin at finding myself suddenly gun-crazy. Or more accurately, fake gun crazy. Or maybe it’s gun fake crazy.

What I’m trying to say is this: I have a sneaking suspicion that I just might be a Paintballoholic.

You see, I just cannot stop thinking about the two hours of paintball I played the other day. Over the past week, my family, our friends, and I experienced some of the most amazing bike rides, river walks, and death-defying hikes delivering once-in-a-lifetime vistas that the National Parks system has to offer.

And yet, all I can think about is the double body shot I delivered to a 13 year-old that would have helped my team of two win the final paintball round, had the 13 year-old admitted to being hit. I mean, the double body shot was a remarkable feat of marksmanship. I slid two neon yellow gumballs through a 3-inch wide gap in the clubhouse wall. From 30 yards away. Despite labored breathing, cement thighs and a visor fogged up from the previous 60 minutes of completely losing my mind.

I keep replaying my ill-advised bull rush on the clubhouse full of snipers over and over again in my head. Nevermind that the snipers were 8, 12 and 13, or that two of them were my sons. In the heat of battle, it’s every man for himself, even if that means “offing” that man’s own progeny or the progeny of his friends.

Plus, I had already been humiliated in earlier rounds by the same sweet children whom I had helped guide up and down Angels Landing just 24 hours earlier. The same children who had galloped around the rental home’s environs this very morning, ecstatically collecting Peeps and Hershey’s Kisses encased in blue, plastic eggs and hidden by the Easter Bunny. The same kids who had traipsed around the house in pajama bottoms bearing patterns of a smiling Buzz Lightyear.

Cold-blooded assassins on the field of battle, I tell you.

One snuck up on me with impossible stealth, yelling “Mercy!” (she meant to say “Surrender!”) before popping a painful, yellow pellet onto my right buttock, forcing me to make the long walk of shame, hands held high, up the middle of the battlefield to the Safe House. The shame hurt nearly as much as the red, yellow, black and blue bruise still flowering on my butt 3 days later.

I still cannot comprehend how this sweet little angel caught me so completely off guard or what sort of evil lurks behind those blue eyes that gave her the preternatural skill to eliminate me from the game with ruthless efficiency. I’m pretty sure she was smiling, too, but I couldn’t see that part of her face under the black, protective mask. Come to think of it, the mask itself seemed to be grinning a sick grin, mocking me. Pure evil, I tell you.

So I had that humiliating experience poisoning my head as I stormed my own sons’ clubhouse the next round at a full sprint. Hell-bent on exacting revenge on anyone of roughly the same generation as my blue-eyed, thirteen year-old assassin. High-stepping over clumps of brush, leaping over a man-made ditch cartoonishly. My wife later remarked in a fit of laughter that she saw the orange soles on the bottom of my shoes from 150 yards away. I was evidently channeling Bozo the Clown instead of Rambo.

But in the moment, bitter taste of adrenaline on my tongue, I was desperate to hit the clubhouse wall with full force, dodging a spray of gumball bullets en route, then tip my muzzle expertly over the top of the wall, squeezing off a barrage of my own to dispose of the hornets in the hornets nest.

Ah, the glory that would be showered upon me by the entire group as I marched triumphantly back up that same middle path of the battlefield. My battlefield. Victorious. Probably our paintball guide would marvel at my skill, inquire whether I was involved with Seal Team Six’s Bin Laden operation, beg for an autograph.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning. Smells like…victory.

My delusions of grandeur exploded with the first yellow gumball that plunked off the top of my skull, feeling as though an egg had been smashed on my head. I later learned that my 8 year-old had delivered this kill shot. He bragged about it to our friends during the minivan ride back to the rental house. Basking in the glory that should have been mine alone. Smelling my napalm. Stealing my victory.

Everett claims this moment was the high point of his entire Zion National Park vacation. I’m afraid to ask the obvious follow up question, but if I did, I think Everett might claim that this was the proudest moment of his entire life to this point.

I will have my revenge. I must have my revenge. It is my destiny. As is the case with any true Paintballoholic.

Thanks for reading.

My family and I are tagging along this week with friends who rented a fabulous home outside Zion National Park. Three days in, and we are officially smitten with Zion.

Once the largest wind-swept collection of sand dunes on the planet (think Lawrence of Arabia), Zion Canyon’s present features have been slowly carved, squeezed and watered down over the course of something like 150 million years.  We arrived on the scene only 8,000 years ago.  By “we” I mean humans.

More recently, a handful of particularly influential humans have played a key role–directly or indirectly–in preserving this remarkable region.  People like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft, and Barack Obama.

Thanks, guys.

There is an especially intriguing feature of Zion known as “The Narrows.”  First shared with Mormons by Paiute guides more than 150 years ago, National Geographic ranks this hike today in its top-5 “best adventures” in the United States.  For good reason, from my point of view.

We all “hiked” The Narrows yesterday, and it took us about five chilly hours.  I say “hiked” because 80% of the trip involves sloshing, wading, or swimming through 46 degree river water moving at 55 cubic feet per second. That kind of trek requires special gear, apparently.

So all of the kids were properly geared up in full dry suits.  While watching them splash and stumble on one or another slippery rock, I spent the next several hours trying to put my finger on what or whom their bloated and colorful outfits reminded me of. 

Maybe the Monsters, Inc. Child Detection Agency officials?

Or the Despicable Me minions?

Or perhaps the much-maligned Teletubbies?

In the end, I settled on the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Ooompa-Loompas.  These guys —

I haven’t had sufficient time to digest fully our five hour adventure in The Narrows.  That particular adventure was yesterday, you see, and we have all been on the move since then, when not sleeping. Plenty of grist for the blog mill downstream.  In the meantime, one key observation I can share is this: Oompa-Loompas float.  How can I claim this with such certainty? I have some incredibly rare video footage to prove it —

Thanks for reading.

We are officially on the road. Ninety minutes into a 10-hour drive to Zion National Park. Technically, through Zion National Park, since the place we rented is on the other side. We’ll pull into the rental pad at about midnight, I reckon. Hilary has taken the first shift, leaving my hands free to DJ and blog. So during my shift in the passenger seat round about Madera, California, a few observations —

Observation Number One: It is very difficult to select songs from the Spotify iPhone app that will please all four of us. Mommy is belting out “Rocketman” pretty much in tune, the boys sit in the back seat looking every bit as though they are getting a tooth filled.

Observation Number Two: Happy Wife, Happy Drive. Feed her a steady diet of “Benny and the Jets,” “Piano Man,” and anything by Tears for Fears. These are direct deposits into the bank of marital goodwill. I will intentionally or otherwise be drawing down from the bank later in the trip, I’m sure of it.

Observation Number Three: Sonic is a salt lick. Much as I love that Giorgio loves Sonic, this place is to be avoided. Save yourself the $34, and achieve the same dietary benefits by pulling over at one of the many farms along Route 99, and sidle up to the Heifers’ salt lick. I ate 12 tater tots 10 minutes ago, and I’m so sodium-bloated that I can’t make a fist. Also, Sonic’s printed collateral bears a claim of over 1 million potential drink combinations. This boast made my head hurt, I tried too hard to argue successfully that the claim is not mathematically possible. It just can’t be, but I have to save my energy for my upcoming shift behind the wheel.

Observation Number Four: “Don’t You Want Me, Baby?” is a surprisingly appealing ditty across generations. The lyrics might be a downer for adults who recognize a toxic relationship when they see it (or hear a song about it), but the chorus is still catchy. Eight year-olds and 12 year-olds will repeat the chorus long after the song is over, in an operatic voice no less, until interrupted by hiccup/burp combinations brought on by the Sonic Salt Lick.

Observation Number Five: The over-sized, flavored limeades are to be avoided. My kids’ sugar levels are spiking off the charts at this moment. My wife is keeping it together, reminding the boys about the importance of “respecting each other.” I’m so wound up from my own over-sized Cherry Coke that I am this close to crawling into the backseat at 80 MPH and just ending both of them. Net net, back away from the styrofoamed sugar bomb drinks. Not a single one of those one million flavors will produce good outcomes.

Observation Number Six: We are punching our own personal hole in the Ozone. All of that diligent recycling and composting at home? Perpetual use of stainless steel or BPA-free drinking bottles? Salvaging of escaped ice cubes by popping them into a houseplant pot? All shot to shit, completely undone by all the otherwise recyclable or compostable stuff we will throw out in gas station cans and McDonald’s rest rooms. The locals are getting a good laugh at our expense, as we step out from our eco-friendly Prius, wearing our eco-friendly Patagonia gear, with armfuls of landfill-bound bags, cups and napkins spilling all over the pavement. My “Landfill Guilt” is palpable. We are going to have to buy a shitload of carbon offset credits when we get back home, or maybe orchestrate a neighborhood tire drive or newspaper drive. Then again, our environmental sins committed between now and then may set off such a horrific karmic backlash, we might as well just throw everything out the window as we speed south east (toward a National Park, no less).

Going to hell in a bucket; but at least we’ll enjoy the ride. Which gives me an idea about the next song this DJ will force feed on my road weary family.

Thanks for reading.