I had to go to the vault for this image. That is T1 in between my legs on skis for the first time. Look how small she was! Damn.

T1 started skiing when she was 2 1/2 and was doing pretty good. At the end of the winter before she turned 5 she had a pretty big crash and hasn’t even looked at her skis since. I actually had to buy myself ski gear, after almost 20 years of snowboarding and try to teach her to do something by all rights I had no place teaching. But I wanted her to love it like I did. I wanted her to catch the fever and want to be out there with me, I wanted to share that. Share how it made me feel. Maybe i pushed too hard, expected too much from one so small. It was a tough lesson to learn.

Tonight was a good night. It was a very cool night. Tonight, I took my family out, and we bought our girls their first snowboards. I have been snowboarding since 1988, and it is as much a part of me as anything. Tonight i will dream of powder. It was more fun than looking for new gear for myself. It made me remember my first board. It made me think that T2 will be able to say she started snowboarding when she was three years old. I was very proud. This winter, I will get to share my other love with all of my family, I better not ruin it.

This time around I vow to be chill. Wait for them to have fun before they have skill. I like to be good at something, you know, not just a participant. I want to find the sweet spot, the place where the thinking stops and you just do it. It’s a very hard thing to explain, if you get it, you know what I’m talking about it. I know I have to let them find it for themselves. I know I’m having the same excitement for T2 starting snowboarding that I had for T1 when she was starting skiing and I have to be careful or I’m going to be disappointed. I don’t want to be a “Hockey Dad” pushing my kids so hard they end up hating the very thing I want so desperately for them to love.

Trying to teach them will be interesting,the two of them are so different. If the ShortThings were songs, T1 would be “Furnace Room Lullaby” and T2 would be “Fight The Power”. T1 being feminine, ethereal, elegant, charming, with deep soul and passion. T2 is in your face, power on the edge of cacophony but laced with an undeniable groove that you just can’t get out of your head. T1 likes to learn, but not pushed. If you push too hard you’ll lose her. She’s also careful, calculated and gradual ( traits that help Sugarmomma sleep a tiny bit easier). T2 is all or nothing. She’ll go if she wants to, if not, fuggeddaboudit. But when she goes, look out, because she goes hard. ( a little more of me i suppose). Sugarmomma has never skied, only started snowboarding after meeting me, and has not been on the snow in a few years. It’s going to be a helluva winter! They’ll be snow bunnies and powder hounds by april come hell or high water, and that’s all I have to say about that.

Oh, by the way, Furnace Room Lullaby is by Neko Case, and Fight The Power is by Public Enemy. In case you were wondering.....

I just realised in two days I have manged to post about ice skating, hockey, skiing, and snowboarding. Throw in a little McKenzie Brothers, some Tim Hortons, a few beers and a beaver for good measure and you’ve got a set. Can you tell I’m Canadian? Eh?

We are now at T minus 30 Days until we move.

BBD

Tags: Ski, Snowboard, Hockey Dad, Neko Case, Public Enemy

Today I feel good.

Not that my back feels 100%, or that the pain in my legs is gone. I just feel good. My spirit, my soul, feel.....good. We sealed the deal on a new home this week. I sold my grandfathers VW Westfalia after 4 months of trying. The sun is shining, and I think I have finally exhaled after about 4 months of holding my breath. How to celebrate? Hmmmm.........ah! I know, music. There is little else that can lift my spirits like great music. So what to put on? What fits the mood? Something catchy, something to tap your foot, shake your head, and just plain groove on.

I watched a couple of movies this week, What happens in Vegas & Mama’s Boy. It seems less unusual lately to find films in which the most redeeming parts of the movie occur either during the credits, or in the deleted scenes. I’m not sure what this says about these films. In the case of What happens in Vegas, there is a scene in the credits that makes the film worth sitting through, or at least skipping to the credits and just watching that. I literally rewound it and watched it four times in a row. Mama’s Boy has John Heder in it, the guy from Napoleon Dynamite. It had a few ok moments in it, but the stuff that made me laugh out loud was in the deleted scenes. So, where am I going with this? The most redeeming part of this movie? The Soundtrack. Heder plays a 29 year old pseudo mod who still lives at home with his mother. The soundtrack is full of great 80’s mod music like The English Beat, The Jam, Generation X, Scanners, The Proclaimers. There’s a scene where Heder imitates the classic scene from Say Anything with John Cusack where he stands on top of the car with the Boom Box and they use a Morrisey track. So I went looking for the soundtrack, and almost everything from the movie is on there, except for the pivotal Morrisey track. That pisses me off so much, I can’t understand how they can get permission to put the damn song in the movie but they can’t put it on the album, what’s up with that! There is however two tracks from the movie that Anna Faris’ character plays “Bed, Bath & Bullshit” and “Old Fashioned Girl” that are performed by Billy Bragg on the soundtrack. Good Old “Stick it to the Man” teenage angst performed by a true angster.

Speaking of movies and music, ThingTwo’s current favorite movie is Camp Rock. Subsequently, In order to get her to wear the new shoes and jeans that Sugarmomma bought her last week we had to convince her that they were “RockStar Jeans” and RockStar Shoes”. To be truthful they kind of are, Dark Jeans with big thick rolled up cuffs (because they have to last of course) and white leather shoes with black soles and purple & pink leather hearts on them, they’re pretty rockin’. Her favorite thing to do right now is “RockOut!”. Her favorute character in the movie is Shane Gray played by none other than Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers, who are apparently a big deal right now. She informed us matter of factly that her “RockStar Clothes” were a present from Shane. Everytime Shane plays or sings in the movie she runs to ThingOne’s closet, drags out the acoustic guitar that Poppy bought ThingOne a couple of years ago and proceeds to “RockOut” with Shane. It would appear she has a crush on a teenage RockStar. Keep in mind she is not yet three.

It could be worse. ThingOne tends to gravitate towards the more “Glam” characters, ie. “Tess Tyler” the diva of Camp Rock. I had to point out to her how awfully mean the lyrics of Tess’s song were, and how mean she treated all of her friends. I tried to explain how she would not treat her friends like that, and how hurt she would be if her friends treated her like that. I think she has a raging case of what the Weaselmomma calls A.D.O.S. (Attention Deficit ......Ooohhhh Shiny!). ThingOne is a beautiful child with a heart of gold and is deeply passionate, about everything, and this can prove challenging when trying to impart my brand of timeless sage-like wisdom to her.

They are both hilarious to watch as they lip-sync to the songs in their current crop of favorite movies, they strut with the swagger of Jagger and belt it out like Aretha. They know all of the words, or at least think they do, and are not afraid to substitute indiscriminate sounds and words of languages known only to them in order to stay in time with the beat. It’s great.

So I spent the morning washing dishes, eating noodle soup, rockin’ out to tunes from high school with a little super-surfer-mellow-grooves courtesy of Donovan Frankenreiter thrown in for good measure. I just picked up a little eye-candy at the bookstore last night in the form of the Transworld SURF magazine’s annual Photo Issue and noticed a picture of Donovan and his son, Hendrix. He named his son Hendrix! (at least I’m assuming it’s his son) How cool is that?

Today I feel good. Rock On.

BBD.

Tags: Music, Feelin Good, Soul

So, why was I there, doing that, in the dark, by myself. Well, ThingTwo is a little over two years old now, when she was about six months old we discovered she had allergies. To a lot of things. The worst were dairy, and nuts so you might see where this is going.

For a little over a year and a half now, we have had no dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, etc.) in the house. The same goes for Peanut Butter. Do you have any idea how far reaching dairy is? It's in EVERYTHING. Salt & Vinegar Chips! Look closely in some brands, it's in there. Now, when I need a dairy hit (cheese, chocolate, milk) I have to leave the house. Call me weak. I don't care, I like cheese.

So where does Hip Hop fit in? Two words...questionable lyrics. But the beats, the beats are so good. The kind of stuff that grabs you in the guts and twists, but in that good way. I like music, quite a variety, and a lot of it has lyrics or even just certain words that little ears were not meant to hear, yet. Thus it goes I sit in the dark like a fugitive rocking out to Hip Hop, eating Doritos.

Sometimes, it's just about the simple things...

Tags: Allergies, Hip Hop, Dairy, Nuts, Fugitive, Beats, Simple Things