High Plains Panhandler

Act-ting

I've discovered, after the past few weeks of endless volunteer and regular work, that volunteering does not pay nearly enough. If any of you are interested in the fun and less-than-lucrative world of volunteer work, I offer this bit of advice: appear completely, utterly, and unforgivably incompetent. Promise the world and then barely show up when you're asked. Be a nuisance, talk too much, and do worthless work. Then, maybe then, your fellow volunteers will wise up to your plan and leave you alone in self-loathing and TV-watching misery. Or you could do what I do and offer to help with everything. In the business, that's called called being a sucker. I need a t-shirt.

Because I've been so busy running around doing this and that and, in general, being tired for want of sugar I have neglected my web page duties, so now I'll try to come up with something clever to redeem myself.

For the past few weeks Suzanne and I have been volunteered (see the second to last sentence of the above first paragraph) to teach some more kids' sunday school. This time I was asked if I could act as Peter during the opening little skit (I was supposed to have a conversation with John about the Last Supper, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, and whatnot. I warned the guy who was John that I really didn't ever follow the script, but I kind of, sort of, go off book you could say. So I did what I did, threw in some jokes, mentioned how we just came through the time-space continuum and boy were our arms tired. John, alas, wasn't quite ready for that and kept waiting for me to give him his cues, which I fiendishly did not, but I did say things like, "So, John, what do you think of that?" and "Say, John, isn't that interesting, you know what I mean?" Then he'd start reading his script verbatim, no eye contact with the kids, paper out in front of him.

Well, we got through it just fine, although there were a couple of times when I felt as though I should end whatever I was saying with "cha cha cha" and waggle an imaginary cigar around. John then did something silly. He asked the kids if they had any questions.

One boy raised his hand.

"Yes?" said John.

"Umm," said the kid. "Why can't you memorize your lines?"

That, my friends, is what we called back in the Bible times getting busted.

Now a little later, when Suzanne and I were actually talking to the kids in our little group, Suzanne was trying to get the kids a little more involved with the following:

Suzanne: "Do you know what they talked about at the last supper?"

Kid: "I know what Jesus said to them before they ate!"

Suzanne: "Great! What was it?"

Kid: "Jesus said, DIG IN!"

Oh, it's so hard, so very hard, to keep a straight teacher-like face when something like this happens. Later on I told that story to the kid's mother and she rolled her eyes and said, "He gets that right from his father." When I saw his father and told him the story he laughed and said, "He gets that right from his mother."

And we got him for the next week, a little wise-guy-ness to spice up whatever little religiosity we could impart so early in the morning.

Easter 2005

Easter weekend summoned us to Houston for the annual Big Easter Bash and Cookout. Suzanne and the kids made the ten hour drive on Tuesday, leaving me to my evil machinations at work and my bachelor parties at home (which consisted of me eating hot dogs and watching the new Battlestar Galactica, all at the same time) until Friday when I flew into Houston that afternoon.

Friday night, my brother-in-law, Mark, and his wife, Karen, hosted a very lovely dinner for everybody (including, in no particular order: aunts, uncles, cousins, parents, and puppies). They have an Adult Dining Room, complete with weighty cutlery, thick napkins, and pretty centerpieces. As I write this in our family room, I think of how our room might be a good Adult Dining Room one day, but then I see the Spock action figure locked in a Little People fenced corral on the floor, which forces me to conclude that this is as formal as I'm going to get.

Mark and Karen are wonderful hosts, and in the midst of all the kid chaos and dog noise Karen actually remembered that I have a strange and not-yet-medicated thirst for icy cold milk, so she kept a glass of milk refrigerated for me. She pulled it out of the fridge for me right before dinner, and I almost wept with the kind of joy that only icy cold milk can bring.

Mark and Karen were also kind enough and insane enough to invite our kids to spend the night with their three kids, the four oldest would camp out in the backyard in the gigantor tent that Mark had set up (the tent could hold something like 20 French Foreign Legionnaires, six elephants, a hot air balloon, and a Christmas tree). Too bad that Alex didn't want anything to do with sleeping over, so after we all played a rousing game of Milles Bourne (my other brother-in-law Bob, his wife Tara, and their new and massive black lab, Blackjack, joined in the fun - although Blackjack once or twice impaled me with his jackhammer legs, but I was happy to use that to excuse my less-than-stellar card play).

Saturday was the official picnic day, but before the festivus, we headed over to my other brother-in-law Pat and sister-in-law Donna's house because they have a swank pool with waterfalls, flaming whatsits, and an outdoor kitchen. There we let the kids stew in the water until they were nice and wrinkly. My job, which I took seriously, was to stay out of the sun, since the sun in Houston is brain-fryingly toxic to people of a more hospitable climate, say anywhere else.

The picnic started at about three o'clock at one of the twelve billion parks in The Woodlands (The Woodlands is an area north of Houston where people live in a nice, wooded park setting. We have the same thing here in Amarillo, except we lack the trees, parks, and walking paths. We do have cattle feed yards smells, so that's something). This year, as in all the years past, we started things with an Easter egg hunt for the kids - although Mark lodged a special money-stuffed egg in a tennis court fence that even Superman with x-ray vision would have a hard time seeing. Then we moved to the traditional softball game. I had pushed for a kickball game this year, but I didn't have the votes or military power for a coup. Since my nephew Joseph was sacked out in his car seat, I volunteered to stay behind, watch him, and eat potato chips. A few minutes after everyone had left, Joseph woke and a handful of kids came running back to our picnic tables. The kids weren't interested in softball, so I told them we could play our own game instead. Swing sets, slides, and forts were close by, so I told them we could go play Lava Monster Baby 1-2-3.

An Interlude about the Lava Monster Baby 1-2-3 Game:

About a year ago I made up a game at home called Baby. The idea was that I'd take a small Fisher Price baby, hide it in our family room, and then the kids would have to find it. The trick was that the kids would always have to start from their bedroom and if I tagged them while they were looking for the baby, they would have to return to their room and start again. If they were able to get the baby and return to the room without me tagging them, they'd get a point. It was perfectly fine for them to toss the baby to their teammate or hide the baby under their clothes so I wouldn't know who to go after. If I tagged someone who was holding the baby, I got a point. The team with the most points won, however we never kept score. Instead, we'd just run around and scream. This is a very stupid game to play inside, around furniture with corners and fragile things on bookshelves, but the Baby Game doesn't deduct points for stupidity!

The Lava Monster Baby 1-2-3 Game is somewhat similar. This time I had a partner, my nephew Scott. We were the Lava Monsters. The other kids started at the swings and had to find the Baby (this time it was the top of a plastic Easter egg) and return it to the swings for a point. If Scott or I tagged someone with the Baby, we'd get a point. Now since this was a playground with a lot of things to climb on and crawl in, the Lava Monsters were only able to leave the lava (the pebbles on the ground) and climb on the equipment for only three seconds (so once we started climbing, we had to shout 1 - 2 - 3! Once we hit three, we couldn't tag anyone anymore and had to return to the lava.

Once the softball game ended, we had an influx of new, older kids who wanted to play, so while the adults started fixing the food, grilling the grill, and, in general, having adult-type conversations involving investments, sports, and weather, we were changing the rules of the game to embrace our new population of eager runners. The new game was Lava Monster 1-2-3 Freeze Tag, pretty self-explanatory from the name. This time my sisters-in-law Karen and Tara joined in, to whom I owe immense apologies because in my Lava Monster zeal and Freeze Tag passion I was slapping and tagging people with abandon, aiming not so much, and landing inevitably, on the wrong parts of adult anatomy.

Even though it was hard to deny my freeze tag style and panache, those of us who were Lava Monsters were sadly outplayed. Once I saw how my eight-year-old nephew Andrew would sacrifice his body (and clean clothes) to free my frozen victims I knew that all hope was lost. One time Andrew ran straight for low-hanging bridge and at the last second fell to the ground, rolled Contra-style under the bridge, leaped up, unfroze his mother (Karen), jumped over a slide, unfroze Tara and his sister at the same time, and then leaped high onto a platform, out of my reach. He did this in one fluid smooth motion. The only thing he lacked was a roundhouse karate kick into a killer robot and the destruction of the Death Star.

Once the food was ready, we grabbed what we could before the potato chips ran out. My nieces from Austin were jamming to their iPods (Like my nephew, Sean, at Christmas, they had one earphone in for music, one ear clear for conversation. This I found odd since I knew I couldn't function that way, but I get distracted by letters on my keyboard, so what do I know?) One earphone in, one out must be the new style.

Then, soon, that was it. Dinner was over, people started disappearing, heading for home. We wanted to get the kids in bed because we had a long day on the road coming up for us: Easter Sunday on the church of the Texas highway.

A quick note about our trip home: do not, if you can possibly avoid it, stop and eat lunch at the Braum's in Decatur, Texas. One time, in the past, we stopped there and had a great time (this was one New Year's Day). Although the play area was closed, they cleaned it and opened it just for us (no one else was in the restaurant). The store manager was friendly and helpful. Not any longer. When we stopped there this time, the play area had been replaced by extra booths. They wouldn't give us refills, and the counter workers were rude. Bah. We'll pack a lunch next time. If you have kids and find yourself, for some reason, traveling across Texas, go to the McDonald's across the freeway. It's the same terrible greasy food that you'll find at Braum's but at least they have a play area. (Actually, in light of us just recently watching Supersize Me, scratch that. Keep going until Wichita Falls and eat at Luby's. Good veggies there.)

And then, beating her record, Suzanne pulled into the garage right at eight hours, fifty-nine minutes (I half-heartedly offered to drive after lunch, but she would have none of it, seeing as though my leisurely driving skills would mess up her record by a good hour or so). There we were, back home, some Easter sunlight still left for us to enjoy. It was soon after this that our kids, such angels on the entire trip, exploded into a gremlin-like frenzy, gnashing teeth and spilling blood. Once the sugar wore off, they slept soundly, curled up and ready for school the next morning, and I, ever eager for a small batch of quiet in the world, lay in bed and waited for the freeway miles to stop rolling over me. Rolling and rolling until I drifted off into a solid, wooden sleep.