It was our first decent visit together of the new year, and wouldn’t you know it? She came down with a cold just in time to make the weekend interesting. That’s okay, though. We managed not to let it slow us down too much.

Friday, we shopped and we shopped. I think I like going to Uwajimaya more for the snack options than even the bookstore, and that’s saying something. (I was a good boy; no money left my wallet at Kinokuniya. Oh, how I was tempted, but no.)

Saturday, we shopped some more, this time at Powell’s. Little by little I’m adding used books to my meager library. Mind you, I wasn’t going to get any this time but somebody insisted… on paying for them. Darn her all to heck.

Sunday, we trekked out to visit The Imperial Princess of Cute. It turns out she bought a fun game called “Unexploded Cow” but hadn’t yet played through it yet, so I taught both ladies how to blow up mad cows. We also played some Fluxx until Doug got home, at which time we dragged him into a few rounds of Unexploded Cow. Much fun was had by all, even the one with the nasty head cold. Oh, somewhere in there we also played Mario Kart and ate at Gustav’s. Life is rough, I tell you.

Today? We mostly laid low, cleaned up, played City Of, and generally tried not to think about the weekend being over. Ah well. I also tore into my early birthday present, much to my glee and everyone else’s wry amusement. Hey, it’s (nearly) my birthday, I’ll geek out if I want to. Hah!

Wendi beat me to it, but that wasn’t difficult considering it took me until almost bedtime to write about this.

While the real breakup is a few years gone, now, today marks the first time that the date of our wedding anniversary has come after our divorce was legally finalized. I quipped to her this morning that it’s our first “non-anniversary.” (Yes, we still chat. Whatever else happened, we ended the marriage as friends. That’s gotta count for something.) I have, as you can imagine, mixed feelings about this. Mostly I’ve been trying not to spend too much time looking back on how badly I screwed things up in the early days. I also don’t want to get too caught up in missing the really good times, because that’s not particularly healthy either. Where we are now, individually, is far healthier than anyone could have expected. It hasn’t been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is, right?

And I’m going to repeatedly tell myself that until I pull myself out of this funk I’m in… hopefully in time for someone‘s visit this weekend.

We bring you this report, live from Southeast Portland. We’re here to confirm that Old Man Winter’s last hurrah is still going strong, with bitingly cold temperatures and a nasty wind that only recently has begun dying down a smidgen.

So, what have the kids and I been up to? We’ve killed time playing games and watching movies, eating various concoctions (most of which involve cheese, ’cause we’re cheesy that way), and generally behaving ourselves. Oh, and trying to keep warm. This place can get awfully drafty. Brr. I did run the kids through their required gamut of chores, but that didn’t take very long. My daughter’s week-long grounding from All Things Electronic ended today, and she’s taken full advantage of that.

Since my favorite electronic addiction is playable here (though 256k DSL is no competition for the cable hookup at home), I managed to ding a few characters up to key levels, such as getting my Ninja Mastermind up to level 14, the benchmark for all “lowbie” heroes and villains as that’s when the travel power becomes available. She can fly now. Yay! What’s more, I may have rekindled the spark of enjoyment in my kids for the game. One can hope, considering how much a year I spend so they can share an account. Not that I mind, but if they decide not to play the game anymore I can certainly use that money elsewhere, you know?

Anyway, I go home tomorrow, to my own bed, one that isn’t right overhead of annoying neighbors with delusions of musical talent who like to “practice” until 3:00am. (I wish I was joking, here. Argh.) And since I don’t have to work Monday, I get to sleep all kinds of in, tomorrow night. Hot dog.

I hope your weekend is at least as enjoyable as mine, friends.

My son sent me the following in an email a few days ago, and I asked his permission to post it here for your entertainment. Enjoy, won’t you?

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I was bored in PE this morning, as usual, because they had us playing basketball. I hate basketball. It’s the worst sport. Then I thought, why? Why is it the worst school sport? I came up with a couple theories.

Property of Popularity

In middle school there are the popular kids and the unpopular kids. There are plenty of popular kids.

There are also quite a few basketball hoops in our gym, and about as many tens of basketball players. Of course, this is common for any selection of schools. But anyway, I wondered one morning if there was a connection. What made students popular? What you looked like? What friends you had? How much profanity you can utter in a single sentence? These are merely subfactors.

The true determining measure of popularity in my school is basketball skill. If a person plays basketball very well, or at least a lot, then that person is seen as a very athletic person who takes interest into a very popular thing.

With this new theory, we can safely assume that

Popularity = Basketball Skill(appearance + relationships + vocabulary)

Basketball Is A Team Sport No Longer

As the property above suggests, basketball has become a contest for individual popularity. The popular kids have to outplay the unpopular kids. Therefore, the unpopular kids, such as myself, never get the ball.

A popular kid with the basketball will pass to another popular kid, but this merely adds to the relationships variable in the Theory of Popularity. And they will hardly add any other signs of cooperation at all. Teamwork is invalid. Seriously athletic kids in middle school are, with little variation, people who only care about their own popularity.

Theory of Gym Relativity

The unpopular kids probably find that the popular kids don’t notice them in a game. At all. A player could be WIDE open, and the popular player will go on without a clue. This may trigger thoughts like, “What am I, invisible?!”

Maybe that’s the case, to a degree.

If you aren’t in possession of anything important (like, for instance, a basketball), there’s no worth in making interaction. Especially if you are standing still. Then you are the closest thing to invisible.

This even works in dodgeball. If you stand perfectly still next to a wall, and you don’t have a ball, popular kids won’t take notice of you. This is because, in relativity to them, you are worthless and therefore nonexistent. There aren’t many variables to this. I’ve tried it and it works.

~Spud

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Come to think on it, I don’t miss middle school. Not one bit…