Columbia. Day 2

Second day in Columbia was a triumph. I slept in until just before 7 am, by which time my daughter was long gone, Jon soon to follow, leaving Pam and I alone in their house for the rest of the day. Before she left, Kaitlin thought to send us a text with a list of things we might want to do to busy ourself while...”missing our delightful company.” The first thing on her list was the Riverbanks Zoo.

My last zoo experience was many, many years ago and not altogether pleasant. My limited and quite dated experience with zoos is that they always made me feel sad. The animals all look so depressed and unnatural. But this zoo was a million miles from any zoo I have ever visited. It was beautifully designed and maintained. Great care was taken in creating the environment. The animals looked equal parts comfortable and menacing. 

Although it was warm and humid out, the place was designed with an abundance of natural shade, and just enough air conditioned displays to escape the heat. The prescence of a steady breeze also helped. The three plus hours we spent there flew by.

We got back to the house around 2 or so, just in time for a power nap. Jon left work early for the first time in three weeks (which is also the amount of consecutive days he has worked without a day off—firefly season ). I sent him to his room for a shower and a nap! Then...we waited, and waited, and waited some more, for my firstborn and only daughter to return from work. It is at this point when I began to get riled up, agitated, pissed off, and all up in the pictures. Kaitlin had left the house somewhere around 6 to 6:30 in the morning. It was now 6:00 in the evening and she still wasn’t home. What does she do for a living, you ask? Is she an important government official? Is she the CEO of a large corporation with far flung responsibilities and 10,000 employees? Is she a highly compensated celebrity whose day is packed with public appearances? Is she the only person in South Carolina who knows how to keep everyone’s air conditioning working? Oh no...she is a Middle School English Teacher, with only two weeks of classes left and final grades due this Friday, who was being kept late at school doing some asshat busy work which had absolutely nothing to do with her students or their grades! And this was the second straight day that this time-killing, soul crushing outrage had been foisted on her. And yet, when she finally opened the door to the wild delight of Jackson, she looked fresh, relaxed and had a beautiful smile on her face. I was astonished. I would have thought after two 12 hour days back to back she would at least have been...bemused. Instead, she was like...Whatever, this is my life. I’m starved. Let’s eat!!

I will resist the caustic lecture from a private sector business owner who would never in a million years tolerate the jackassery that teachers endure on a daily basis. I will simply say that my daughter is a hard working genius who, if paid by the hour, would be making less than the minimum wage...in the Sudan. This is an outrage, and the State of South Carolina is very fortunate that Kaitlin’s lunatic father lives safely 6 hours away...grrrrrrr.

Then, the kids treated us to a magnificent dinner at a lovely Italian restaurant for our 35th anniversary. Afterwards, we met their best friends at a local ice cream spot down town...

These wonderful people are Matthew and Bailey Wolfer and their son, Milo. They are the answers to every parent’s prayers when their kids move away to a new city...Lord, please help them find some new friends who will love and care for them like we would if we were there. Unfortunately, these are also the people who will make it hard for Kaitlin and Jon to ever leave this place to move closer to home. They are the sort of people who are frankly, irreplaceable. Love them to pieces.

Our Road Dog

Usually, the 24 hours before Pam and I leave for a trip are quite...tense. My wife is a meticulous planner and packs like a fiend. She remembers...everything. Me, on the other hand, tend to throw stuff in a suitcase at the last minute and often forget crucial stuff...like medications. My lackadaisical approach to packing causes much eye-rolling and heavy sighs from my wife. But this trip has been different. She has been as cool as a cucumber, flitting around the house without the usual manic drive. Last night it hit us...there is a reason for this newfound chill, and it comes from a surprising place...Lucy is coming with us.

Most of the time, Lucy stays home, which means that our super star dog-whispering house sitter, Becca, moves in. This is great for Lucy, who loves Becca. But, it requires a whole other level of preparation. The house must be cleaned, beds made, food must be in the fridge. But, if Lucy is coming with us, we can leave the house in a shambles and no one will know the difference!! The discovery hopefully has been a revelation for my wife, and as we decide whether or not to bring Lucy to Maine this year, I hope she will remember the relative tranquility of the last 24 hours.

Meanwhile, Lucy knows that we are getting ready to leave and has been quite lovey-dovey, hoping that this time we will take her along. After dinner the past couple of nights she has hopped up on the sofa and made a big production of snuggling up to Pam, the one she always needs to convince. It has been quite shameless...

So, this morning when I pack the car, I will be sure to cover all of the scary bags with a blanket so they won’t frighten Lucy. I will carve out a sleeping spot for her along one side of the car. As soon as she realizes that she is coming with us, she will jump in, walk around in a circle three times, then lay down and sleep like a baby the entire trip to Columbia...the best traveling dog of all time!

Fireflies and The Dogs

This week, Pam and I intend to correct a major parenting mistake. It embarrasses me to even write about it. For some inexcusable reason we haven’t visited Kaitlin and Jon in Columbia in over two years! When we realized this fact, we could hardly believe it. How on earth could this be? Over that same period of time, we have visited Patrick and Sarah three times...and although nobody is keeping score...what am I saying, of course they’re keeping score! My children are famous for their competitiveness. Nevertheless, this week we will begin to correct this imbalance. We leave tomorrow and will come back Friday. The excuse for this particular visit is to see, in person, the annual...Synchronized Fireflies at Congeree National Park where Jon is a Ranger. We will gather at the park one night along with a couple thousand others around nightfall and watch an amazing spectacle that happens in only two places in the United States...thousands of fireflies all pulsing light together at the same time.

I’ve been told that it is an amazing sight to see, magical and hypnotic. No one really knows why fireflies synchronize in so few places, or why they bother to synchronize at all. The best scientific explanation is that the whole lighting up thing is how fireflies go about selecting a mate...call it flash-flirting. If this is true, then the occasion of a display of thousands of them lighting up at the exact same moment would be the human equivalent of karaoke night at a singles bar. So what we have here is one of nature’s most glorious displays turning out to be all about sex!! Isn’t that always the way? Be that as it may, I can’t wait to see it in person.

The rest of the time, we will just be hanging out with the kids...and the dogs. Yes, we are finally taking Lucy along on one of our trips...and she is stoked about it. She truly loves going bye-bye in the car, and for the most part enjoys hanging out with Jackson...

...right up to the moment where she has had enough of Jackson’s smothering affections, whereupon she jumps up on our bed and guards her safe place from all intruders, foreign and domestic. The Alfa Dog and the Queen Bee.

The Fever Swamp That Is My Imagination...

I was relaxing in my LazyBoy the other night, watching a Nats game on my MLB app...when suddenly an image popped into my head. This sort of thing happens to me quite often. It’s hard to explain. Sometimes an idea for a story will materialize in my melon, unprovoked, dang near fully formed. It’s the strangest feeling. It paralyzes me. Temporarily, I can think of nothing else. This particular story idea was a multifaceted, convoluted mess. I will now attempt to summarize the outline that’s living inside my head, rent free.

It starts with a man laying unconscious on an empty beach. The man begins to come out of it, opens his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a sand crab, popping up out of his hole...

They stare at each other for a minute. The man is disoriented, confused and increasingly panicked. He lifts himself up, looks up and down the beach, seeing no one. He has no idea where he is or how he got there. It occurs to him that he can’t remember...anything. He checks himself. He’s not injured. He’s dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. He’s wearing tennis shoes. He’s covered in sand. He recognizes nothing. He reaches for his wallet. There’s twenty dollars in cash, a picture of a women he doesn’t know and a driver’s license he also doesn’t recognize. He stands up, looks up and down the beach. No houses anywhere. Then, off in the distance he notices someone walking a dog, heading his way.
The next scene if of a woman driving an expensive car. There are a couple of suitcases in the back seat. She is headed for her beach house on Hatteras Island. She has country music playing loudly on the radio. She feels alive and vital...a thrill of expectation running through her veins. She is headed for a rendezvous with the man she has been having a torrid affair with for the past three months. This will be their first time out of town together, away from the prying eyes of friends and enemies. She thinks briefly of her husband, who is out of town on business. She feels a pang of guilt. She instantly suppresses  it. Although he’s a good man and doesn’t deserve her unfaithfulness, her lover takes her places she hasn’t been in years. She feels powerless to resist.

Her husband finishes up his business earlier than expected, and decides to surprise her by driving to the beach house. She had told him she was going down for a few days by herself to work on her tan. As he gets close to the house, a storm starts to form. The winds pick up and it begins to rain. Lightning streaks across the sky. he pulls into the driveway and sees two cars. He walks up the front steps then around the wrap-around porch towards the back entrance...the one he prefers to use. As he walks past the window to their bedroom he sees them in his bed, his wife and his best friend. They are fully engaged in their treachery, oblivious to the man standing at the window.  Filled with rage and aflamed by the betrayal he begins to enter through the back door but stops short, paralyzed by fear and grief. Instead he runs down the deck steps and out onto the beach while the rain gets heavier and the lightening flashes wildly all around him.

When the man with the dog arrives, he asks, You ok, mister? I hardly ever see anyone on my morning walk? The dog is busy sniffing all around the ground where he had been laying, then suddenly lets out a soft growl.

Excuse me, but...where am I?

Why...this is Hatteras Island.

But where are all the houses?

Well, there’s only three or four on this stretch. They are still where they’ve always been, as far as I know. You sure you’re ok?

You sure this is Hatteras?

As sure as I am of anything. I moved here after the war in ‘46 and have been here ever since...16 years of beach living!

Wait...what did you say?

I said I’ve been here 16 years. Moved here in 1946.

The man reached again for his wallet, pulled out his driver’s license, glanced at the picture, then saw it...his date of birth...June 10, 1962.

Ok...thats all I got. All of this came to me in maybe five minutes. Nothing since. The question is...should I write this story, or is it just too weird?

All My Fault

What follows is a short and incomplete list of Things That Piss Me Off, in inverse order...

5. People who cut in line.

4. People who don’t silence their cell phones in church.

3. People who talk during movies.

2. People who get distracted by their cell phones while waiting at a red light.

1. Making a stupid bank error.

You will notice that the first four things on my list involve other people. The reason the bank error thing is number one on my list is because it’s all me. It’s all me making a boneheaded mistake, and there isn’t another living soul who I can blame it on. All me. Take this morning at 5:41 am, for example...

The 15th of the month is one of two bill-paying days on my calendar. I set aside an hour or so, usually in the morning to get it done. In the Dunnevant household, there are three checking accounts. One of them belongs to Pam ( who this never seems to happen to ). The second one is our joint checking account, out of which we move and have our being (JK!!!), and the third is my corporate account, out of which I pay all bills associated with my chosen profession. Since the majority of my income is deposited into our joint checking account,(since, for reasons that escape me, it can’t be paid to an entity, only an individual), bill paying always involve making a transfer of funds from one account not another. With the miracle of online banking, this is as easy as pushing a button on my laptop, and it works like a charm....except on those rare occasions when it doesn’t. The thing that makes this so painful is that when it doesn’t work...it is always my fault. Something happens. I get distracted. One minute, I am focused like a laser on the task at hand, humming along like a well oiled machine. Then, the phone rings, a client shows up unannounced, an irresistible opportunity for an office prank presents itself, somebody brings donuts, and before you know it, I have forgotten to press send on that $8762 transfer from the joint account to the corporate account, even though I am convinced that I have. The next morning I open my bank app and am notified that there is a negative balance of -$1032 in said account. This has resulted in a $35 overdraft fee. I will have to go by the bank and plead my pathetic case to Clarice, my irritating but patient banker, who will roll her eyes and grant me some sort of dispensation for my stupidity. She will say...Doug, why don’t you delay your bill paying date until the day after you do these transfers? That way if you forget to press send you’ll have time to catch it. We’ve gone over this before!

I blush and nod my head obediently...Yes, Clarice...that is an excellent suggestion. I will take that under advisement. I guess I got distracted...but I could have sworn I hit send.

Naw...you didn’t.

I then will thank her for her forebearance, and slink out of the bank feeling like I used to feel whenever Mrs. Winston made me stand with my nose pressed against the blackboard for throwing paper airplanes back in 4th grade. Rage and temporary self-loathing.

Beto’s Do-Over

Beto O’Rourke. I’m told he’s Kennedy-esk. He’s running for President and having a rough go of it. Still, everybody keeps saying he’s Kennedy-esk.

But, there he was yesterday, hat in hand, on The View, attempting a do-over. Beto regrets many things about the way he introduced himself to the Country. One of the things he regrets is this Vanity Fair cover. When Joy Behar, a celebrity with a 12 million dollar net worth asked Beto if he thought that perhaps the photo came across as elitist, he agreed. But when I look at Beto on the cover of Vanity Fair I don’t think Kennedy-esk. I think of Ronald Reagan...

Only, Reagan was smart enough not to put his dog in the shot. I’m thinking that Beto’s dog needs some love.

So, Beto regrets lots of things. He regrets being white. He’s very sorry about his privilege. He really wishes he wasn’t a wealthy man. He would have so much less to overcome as a candidate if he were say...poor, or Latino. Better yet...a poor Latino. Of course, the perfect storm would be if he were poor, Latino, disabled, and gay...but you have to play the cards you’re dealt. All of which brings me back to this Kennedy-esk business.

I’m here to tell you guys that there is nothing Kennedy-esk about Beto except maybe this look...

Aside from the striking physical similarities, there is nothing remotely Kennedy-esk about Beto. The Kennedy boys were all exceedingly proud of their upbringing. They worshiped the ground their old man walked on and were grateful as hell for their ginormous trust funds, since the financial security it provided allowed them to pursue public service. It would never have occurred to any of them to feel remorse for their whiteness or their privilege. Were they elitist? You bet they were. If they were eaten up with guilt about it, they had a funny way of showing it, inviting the press onto the grounds at Hyannis Port to showcase their privilege the way they did...

So, although Beto is no Kennedy, maybe he can retool his flagging campaign somehow by doing this apology tour. I suppose next up will be Oprah...

If he can manage some tears his numbers will bump up to double digits overnight.

There Goes The Neighborhood

I have walked through this door for over 21 years now. Just had it painted for the second or third time...I can’t remember. We’re the only people to ever live here. When we first moved in, the street out front hadn’t been paved yet. The place is almost paid for. Time flies.

I’ve watched a thousand sunrises through the Palladian window upstairs. Sure hope the Anderson’s don’t think I’ve been stalking them...

We’ve hosted many large family gatherings around these tables, with dogs walking beneath them, pestering everyone for a treat.

I have slaved like a beast to keep my lawn looking like this...

The inside of the house has always been Pam’s domain. The decor, the paint, the flair and warmth...all her.

And although most of the time we would rather be on a lake in Maine, this is the place we can’t wait to come home to.

Our neighborhood has changed a lot over the years. As our house has gotten older, our neighbors have gotten younger. There are kids everywhere, dogs too. While I may not be able to tell you the first name of everyone who lives on our culdesac, I’m on a first name basis with every dog in the subdivision. I think that means I’m a terrible neighbor. 

This particular corner of Short Pump is a melting pot. It didn’t feel that way as much when we first moved in, but now the place is much more diverse. There are Asian families, Russian families, African-Americans and Indians. Although, the changing ethnic balance in America at large has been associated with tension and acrimony, for me it’s been kinda fun. The fun comes with the kids. When I see all of them at play in the streets when I come home from work on warm summer days, I wonder why older people are so anxious to move to upscale retirement communities. Why would anyone want to surround themselves with a bunch of old farts? I would much rather live in a community which features an occasional appearance of a pickup truck full of princesses...

This is not to say that life in a suburban neighborhood is all moonlight and magnolias. The downside of unleashed pups is the appearance of dog poop in your yard. Having a peaceful dinner, alfresco, on a beautiful evening more often than not gets ruined by someone deciding to cut their grass across the way. And those beautiful kids? They can get quite noisy at times. Pam and I recently had dinner with some friends who had just built a house out in Goochland on five acres of farmland. As we sat on their back deck admiring the gorgeous view we couldn’t believe how...quiet it was...beautiful, beguiling quiet. But, if they get a hankering for ice cream at 10 o’clock at night, it’s a twenty minute drive. Life is about trade offs, I suppose.

At some point we may decide to downsize. Thats a big thing now, I hear. We might need a place with a first floor master bedroom, I’m told. Pam may get to the place where she wants the land, the wide open spaces and the quiet more than she wants a full service grocery store three minutes from her front door. Once I get grandkids of my own, I might not be so accommodating of other people’s kids. But for now...this is the place...