Fair Weather Father
I turned forty a week ago last Saturday.
You’ll notice that I wrote out the word (forty) rather than using the numerals (4 and 0) to represent my age. In recent double-blind laboratory studies, test subjects retained both “generalized allure” and “a certain je ne sais quoi” an average of five years longer than the control group simply by avoiding the use of the numeral 4 in the the tens column when representing their age to the opposite sex. (Side effects are similar to sugar pill.) By spelling out their age, the test subjects benefited from the homonymous relationship of their age with the Latin root “fortis.” Thus:
| 40 | = | old |
| forty | = | strongy |
Anyway, the girls and I pulled out all the stops and celebrated by going to Chuck E. Cheese with a couple of their cousins. A good time was had by all, as manifest by my niece who, in mid-bite, looked up from her pizza and enthused, “This is the best birthday ever!” I don’t know about that. I remember my 26th quite fondly, but I appreciated the sentiment.
The next day the girls flew with their Mom to Chicago to attend their Uncle Ben’s graduation from the University of Chicago Law School. I should have spent my childless bachelor week shopping for a Miata/Boxter/Z4/H2/Harley/<insert your preferred mid-life crisis vehicle here>, but as luck would have it I spent every passing day getting steadily sicker with what I thought was the flu.
By Wednesday I was semi-comatose, but I had to drag myself in to work so I wouldn’t miss getting laid off. They want me to hang around and help out with some big projects that are going live in September, but after that I’ll be looking for work along with the other 6.1% of the population.
The next day I was diagnosed with pneumonia.
So, to recap:
- Turned 40/forty.
- Soon to be divorced.
- Soon to be unemployed.
- Consumptive.
This is the stuff of opera. Bad opera, to be sure, but opera nonetheless.
So, there I was, having one of those George-Bailey-on-the-bridge moments, feeling profoundly pathetic, and thinking that everyone would probably be a lot better off if I just “died of the damp” (as Dill’s Aunt Stephanie would so eloquently put it). I even had Mr. Potter’s “You’re worth more dead than alive…” ringing in my ears.
You see, if I were to die tomorrow of some tubercular catastrophe, my girls would walk away with about half-a-million dollars for college and a new Mini/Beetle/Jeep/<insert your preferred fun-and-fancy-free-girl’s vehicle here> in about ten years when they’re old enough to drive. And thanks to the modern wonders of Accidental Death and Dismemberment coverage, if I were to die tomorrow in some fiery automotive catastrophe, they’d walk away with twice that amount.
But as I lay there, sicker than a dog and wallowing in self-pity, I had to acknowledge the fact that I’m far too selfish to croak right now. For one thing, I’d miss our weather talks too much.
I’m not sure how it started, but we’ve developed this odd little bedtime ritual where I’m required to dispense some weather-fact-of-the-day before my girls will go to sleep. In the past few months we’ve covered all of the dramatic weather phenomena: tornados, hurricanes, giant hailstones, raining frogs. But they’re even interested in the most mundane of cloud facts.
So, the girls got back late Saturday night and I was able to spend all Father’s Day with them. We all slept in, played on the computer, made paper helicopters, practiced riding our two-wheelers (we just took off the training wheels last week), watched videos, ate too much dessert. To paraphrase my niece, it was the best Father’s Day ever! By bedtime, I was exhausted and so were the girls. But after “hugsandkisses,” as I turned out the light and was about to leave the room, Emma said, “Wait, Dad. You have to tell us something about the weather.”
We covered barometric pressure. We’re going to make a barometer out of a 2-liter bottle later this week.
I know that may not sound very exciting to you, but I live for this stuff. Literally.
Comments
Erik
There’s nothing better than being a dad.
Kate
I’m afraid that your life has far too much plot for an opera. Many operas can derive three or four hours of music and drama from such plot points as:
- bohemians are poor
- my name is Mimi; I secretly have consumption
And any opera death usually involves at least three arias (sung by the expiring person, of course), so unless you are prepared to sing that much with your lungs in bad shape you must stick with us.
Let me know if you need to borrow my nebulizer.
dan
Kate’s right about the opera thing. If an opera happens to be based on a story that already has a plot, Romeo and Juliet for example, they have a little trick. They remove all plot but three main points— three minutes worth, tops. Then stretch it out for three or four hours.
Maybe you could be a Wagernian opera. Of course some minor changes would have to be made to make it work. You would, of course need to retain the name Grettir (it being apropriately mythic). Then, instead of turning forty, you would battle a half-elf half-dragon creature and lose forty magical diamonds to it. And instead of losing your job at a software company in seven months, you would lose your precious son, prince Gomblod, to a wicked sorcerer who would turn him to stone for seven years. Then, instead of divorce, you would burn in the fires of mount Tunskil. And finally, instead of pneumonia, you would be turned inside-out by a giant.
Yep. Opera.
By the way, here’s one for the girls:
A lenticular cloud. It is a cloud that is shaped like a lens. They only occur when a small cumulus (i think) cloud comes over a mountain, and the wind patterns sweep them in just the right way. So you could see them from your house, whereas someone in Kansas may never get that chance. Kansas sucks.
Grettir
So, I don’t suppose there are any operas where a wealthy and gorgeous Brazilian model approaches some poor, wretched guy on the street and sings the “Aria of Inexplicable Passion”:
And the English translation:
Nah, I didn’t think so…
alia
Up here we have the Canadian Weather Trivia Calendar, filled with just such daily weather factoids as it sounds like you and your daughters would enjoy. There may be an American version - perhaps Google would be helpful. I consider myself lucky - I have a meteorologist dad, so I grew up with weather facts on a pretty regular basis.
This link may have facts of interest as well:
http://www.infoplease.com/cgi-bin/weather
cheers
alia
dan
They have Chinook winds in Canada (western Canada, that is). In the western U.S. the best we can do are Santa Ana winds. No comparison. Canada wins again!
Jodi
“Fuoco”. Heehaw. I didn’t think of “fire” when I saw that word in your comment, Grettir.
Yes, I will be forty in four months. Very mature, I am.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, by the way. Belated, but so what. :-*