Not My People

With the Daughter Person going off on her Peace Corps adventure soon (see last post), the shopping spree has begun.  The Peace Corps sent her a list of things they suggest she bring along with her (seemingly in contradiction to the space limitations they also levied on her).  She’s also been pinging internet support sites from current and past volunteers (“Yeah, the Corps says to bring thus-and-so, but don’t bother…DO bring this-and-that…”).

Daughter Person wanted to go to a new, outdoorsman store on the north side of town – Gander Mountain.  She figured she could get a few of the more arcane things on her list there.  For example, water purification tablets.  Well, that and she just likes shopping at new places.

I think that shopping gene skips generations… or gender…  I am not a ‘shop for the sake of shopping’ kind of guy.  Okay, I did enjoy seeing some of the stuff in there (thinking about short combination camping and biking trips, for example).  But, generally, I was waiting on her to finish up.

As I wandered from the fishing department to the camping department to the hunting department, I was struck by an odd feeling.

These are not ‘my’ people.

invite 'em in for lunch!

They are all nice enough folks, from the looks of them.  Nothing untoward or evil about them.  They appeared to have all their teeth and mullet haircuts were not to be seen.  Yeah, there was the occasional John Deere baseball cap and Budweiser t-shirt.  And I like those things (though wouldn’t wear the hat or t-shirt for liking them).

It was just a feeling.

Now, I’m not a namby-pamby, city-fied snob.

stick the nose higher...

I do enjoy the outdoors.  Have camped and fished.  Actually, I do pretty well at fitting in with just about any group of people I encounter.  A friend once called me a ‘chameleon’ when it comes to blending into multi-social crowds.  Doesn’t mean I always feel comfortable doing so.  Think this was one of those times.

Nice people.

Just not ‘my’ people.

Proud Pop Moment

Yep, a ‘Proud Pop Moment’.

My recently graduated Girl Child was accepted into the Peace Corps.  I always knew she wanted to help the world.

An honestly good thing...

I admit to being a bit hesitant to her quest for this.  She has, in the past, had a naïve moment or three.  She wants to see the entire world, not giving a care to the realities of where she wants to go.

An example –

Her university partners every year with a foreign government to do a study project  — economic or political.  The selected students do tons of research, seeking solutions to the issue presented by that foreign government, and culminating in the students going there for a week to present their findings.  A couple years ago, Girl Child came home saying she desperately wanted to do that.  She said the students the year prior went to Thailand.  Knowing her penchant for acting emotionally on travel issues, I asked where this year’s project would be.  “I don’t know!”, she replied, “…I think it’s in Syria*.”  Whoa… stop the train, dear girl.

So, when she talked about going to the Peace Corps, I was picturing her requesting Somalia (”…to help those poor pirates…”) or some such.  Still, I supported her self-nomination process**.

But, here she is.  Accepted.  Off to help others.  In South Africa.

I’m so damn proud of her.

And, damn right, I’m going to go visit her when she gets settled in.

=-=–=-=-=-=-=
*Noted for not only being aggressively anti-American, but for being rather severely sexist towards women.  Not a good place for a young, American girl to go.

**Peace Corps selection is a notoriously long and painful process.  Plan on at least a year and be prepared for getting no feedback in the interim.  Frustrating.

Fireworks

Missed them.

Didn’t feel like fighting the traffic, especially since it was raining off and on during the evening leading up to the local show.  Heard them off in the distance.

But, it reminded me of another fireworks show last year.  No, not during the 4th of July celebrations.  It was the middle of May (or so…).

As part of being a pilot, I have to maintain currency for day and night flights with passengers by making 3 landings within the prior 90 days.  Being at about 80 days for night flights, I wanted to beat the deadline.  So, invited my best friend to come along for company.

There’s something quiet (yeah, ironic considering there’s a noisy engine just a few feet away) and spiritual about night flights.  It just feels like you own the sky (yeah, I still keep an eye out for other folks).

After I completed my mandatory 3 landings, we decided to just putter about the sky a little bit on my way back to the ‘home’ airport.  Enjoying the stars in the skies…the random airplane lights in the distance…the lights on the ground…

My friend noticed them first.  Fireworks in the distance.  She pointed them out to me and we decided to go take a look.  As I said, we weren’t expecting them since it was before the 4th of July.

This wasn’t just some yahoo in the backyard with leftover, cheapo stuff.  These were really big fireworks.

Finding a safe, yet still close, distance away, I started circling.  Fully expecting the ’show’ to stop at any time, we were both thrilled to see the red, gold, green, and other colored fireworks blossom again and again.  We circled for about 20 minutes watching this wonderful display.

It was a unique viewpoint.  While we couldn’t hear a thing (one of the best parts of fireworks shows is being close enough for the reports to reverberate through your body), we did get to see the bursts from the air.

Finally, they stopped.

The beauty of the night flight got an extra bonus that night.  I was very glad to have someone to share it with.  And it obviously made an impression, since I still recall it.

It provided a needed reminder that the random and unexpected things in life provide the icing to life’s cake of adventures.

Magic Pool

Here on scuba vacation, doing my first salt-water dives.  Staying at a fairly nice hotel near town on the waterfront.  On arrival, my companion and I wandered down to the bar to get a celebratory drink for our adventure.  One of the other guests was there, already quit lit up with alcoholic excess.  Dressed in still-wet swimsuit, he loudly cautioned all of our group – - -

“Watch out for that pool…it’ll get you drunk!!”

Last night we finally got to experience the hotel pool…and damned if that guy wasn’t right!

A swim up bar aided in the ‘magic’ of the pool.  And when that bar closed at 5 pm, the next closest bar was glad to give us plastic cups to continue our adventures in alcohol versus pool swimming experimentation*.  Several drinks later (including a chugging contest between two of the other scuba group), and my companion and I were staggering…yes, even in the pool.

“…it’ll get you drunk!”

…and I recommend it highly.

00000000

*…also come to find out, this being our first ‘real’ scuba trip, that the nitrogen build up in the system is a great contributor to both easily getting exhausted and, especially, getting drunk faster!

Rule One, Rule Two

I introduced my friend, Dr. Jim, in a prior post.

Dr. Jim preceded me in divorcing his 1st wife some 20 years ago.  As me friend, he has in the past and continues to counsel and advise me on life issues, to include my marital issues (culminating, obviously, in my own divorce).

I expressed a concern to him, long ago, about being both alone and lonely—especially the physical and sexual intimacies I knew (and still know) I desired.

He captures the essence of what is likely known by everyone (including me), but put it in terms which were readily understandable and resonate well with me.  It will serve as a touchstone to my dating adventures I’m embarking upon.

While this concept was explained for my benefit, as a man, I am very sure (sorry guys, I am) that it could equally be applied by swapping genders for the following:

Dr. Jim’s “Rules For Women”

Rule ONE:  All women are crazy.  No exceptions.  It is, however, clearly a matter of ‘how much’.

 

even good looking can't compensate for too crazy

 

Rule TWO:  You still gotta get laid.

 

Men are...well...men...

 

Therefore—you have to balance the degree to which a woman is crazy against the degree to which you gotta get laid.  With this rule, there are clearly some women you should not sleep with.  And, with this rule, there may come a time where you must sleep with someone you shouldn’t have.

Now, obviously, figuring out those “degrees” is the difficult part.  Some women hide their craziness better than others.

But…

Yep…

Still going to date.

Baselining Capabilities

Well…so here I am…divorced.

There’s not really a hurry, but I am thinking about dating.  At least finding some more of the opposite sex to hang out with and do things with—yeah, hopefully including a bit more intimacy.  And, no, honestly, this is not the first I’ve been thinking on this.  It’s been on my mind for quite awhile.  I already do have friends I hang out with, female and male.  Just expanding my horizons a bit, if you will, for more intimate partners in life’s explorations.

So, I’m doing a bit of introspective thought on myself, trying to gauge how to go forward with this dating thing.  And I’ve come up with the following facts (really happened) and potential fiction (could happen, might not).

This is my first time really living alone.   I had a single room in the dormitory at university, but that’s not totally living alone (shared bathrooms, cafeteria eating, etc.).   Between graduation from university and getting married, I sort of lived alone for two months.   But, given I was looking to the marriage and being inundated with a new job, I didn’t really feel like I was living alone.  Now—I am living alone.   It’s all up to me.

When I was in high school, I was a bit overweight—not the fat kid everyone made fun of, but enough so that it gave me self image issues.  Couple that with (or becoming because of?) being painfully shy* and you got someone who never really dated much.  Two semi-steady girlfriends in high school and one steady girlfriend, who I ended up marrying, at university.   So, it’s not that I’m out of practice in dating.  No, more so that I never really learned to date.  And, looking inward, I still see that inexperienced teenager lurking and whispering to the adult me** who is starting into this dating thing.

Now, on the plus side, many of the women my age who are dating are widows or divorced.  As such, they, too, are out of practice in dating***.  Couple all this with 25-35 years of life experience granting (some of) us more wisdom, the basic rules I vaguely knew in high school no longer apply.  And, for now, how to go forward is as yet unknowable to me.   I will be making this up as I go forward.

That said, and in keeping with my promised to myself to try new things, I will date.

I will make mistakes…not maybe, not likely, WILL.  I will have to be patient with my own mistakes.  Likewise, I will have to be patient with others.

I will, without meaning to, occasionally hurt others.  And, likewise, can expect to be hurt.

I must accept that I will be rejected.  And, I must learn to reject, graciously, those who are not right for me.

Whew…… This will be a grand experiment.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

*Actually found out later that many people didn’t see me as shy, rather as stuck up.  Go figure…

**”adult me” – HA! please forgive the exaggeration

***I’ve already recognized…and seen personally…the danger here as some of these same women are desperately looking to not be alone and want deep and sincere commitment early.  As my best friend so eloquently put it, they have the “It’s our second date, where should I put my furniture” syndrome.

Harvest Time

…as in the “Fruit of my Loins”…

Major transition this weekend.  Girl Child graduates from university!

Over 20 years in the making...

Hooplah!  Huzzah!!

Proud Pop, obviously.   Increased a bit by finding out that Daughter Person was recognized by her Political Science department as one of two Top Senior PoliSci students.  She was happy with the $500 honorarium that went along with it.  Extra fun comes in that Boy Child was able to take vacation time and will be flying in just a few hours from this posting.  We’ll get to spend at least a bit of his visit just hanging out together.  Very cool.

Of course, as seemingly typical in my life, there’s no good thing that goes without a bit of boat rocking—and forgive me for sharing this minor downer, but had to share.  Girl Child’s maternal grandparents are coming in for the graduation ceremony.  That’s not a bad thing.  What got my hackles up was a conversation with Boy Child…seems ex-father-in-law sent both he and Girl Child an e-mail which said, “I don’t want to see your father while I’m there.”   While a very fair statement (I’m not exactly thrilled at the chance of seeing him either), the fact that he laid that on my kids—on my daughter’s special day—pissed me off big time.  Both kids, having been raised peacemakers by me, started stressing about how they would have to make that happen.  Boy Child called me and I assured him that I was entirely flexible and had zero demands other than actually seeing Girl Child graduate…I’d even sit alone.  A great relief, as the kids could gauge the situation and make a decision without worrying about what I would think/feel/be angry about.   But, he’s a twit (I like better what my best friend referred him as being – A Douchenozzle!! ).

So, the last of my (known) progeny is soon out of school and officially on her way in life.

I will revel with pride over her accomplishment.  Hell, I am already.

They grow up so (too?) quickly.

Next stop for her? Peace Corps…