My nephew from Arkansas came this weekend. I drove to Mount Pleasant, roughly half-way between our homes, to link up with his mom and step-dad. On the way, I listened to the Kinks song in which Ray Davies explains how all he wanted to do, and all he wanted to be, was get out of the factory, and then, low and behold, he found himself in the music factory.
I thought of so many friends and LJ friends who might agree in their own lives, in their own ways.
This morning we awoke to bitter cold and to gorgeous sun and headed over to Park Hill Prairie to fish. The weather looked right, but the wind came up and the fish did not bite. We came back to town, and ran a long-due nervousness exchange and a long-due package to a friend to the post office. I got stamps about bats and stamps about Andy Warhol. I like the Warhol quote about how you get behind the surface, there's really nothing there.
My nephew is a big sportsguy, age 10, so we headed to the massive Outdoor World, a Bass Pro Shop. This is less a sporting goods store than an extravaganza in itself. Anyplace that underprices Wal Mart is fine by me. The fish in the huge aquarium were huge. I loved the little Pond Prowler, a little boat the size of a little bit. I imagined myself pond prowling.
We stopped by the Asian Market to get cut squid to use as bait tomorrow. I bought him those little waffle-ironed pastries, filled with red bean curd and with taro. We came home and got a bath. I went to pick up my 12 year old nephew.
They loved playing the electric kazoo and the maracas.
After we all had a Campisi's pizza, the boys declared themselves desirous of playing computer games. Soon, though, I found one boy at computer and one boy at television. I rounded both boys up for a game of bughouse chess.
In bughouse, two team-mates play simultaneous games with opposite colors. Each time one team-mate captures a piece or pawn, it is handed to the other. A team-mate handed a captured piece or pawn may place that piece or pawn in lieu of a move. This "placing a piece" facility makes games much wilder than usual. I won each game but the last, and lost the last just as my brother came to collect the elder nephew. It was a fun night, very buggy.
I must drive my nephew back to Mount Pleasant, fishing along the way with the squid bait (note to self: make sure you get all the eyes off the counter when you slice and carefully hide the fact that you sliced raw squid on the cutting board, or the squid eye may come to haunt you later, spousally speaking). Then I must hop on a plane to SF. I'm exhausted, but I like hanging out with my family.