A DAY IN THE LIFE

Sunday, my first Sunday in quite some time without parental duties, saw Miguel and I heading up to some bike trails surrounding the new state of the art whitewater training facility outside of town. After biking a grueling 9 miles (Miguel's tire flattened in the last 1/2 mile and he had to walk it out), we had lunch at the restaurant and enjoyed the atmosphere. This place, see diagram, is pretty cool. There apparently is only one other one like it in the world (down under I hear). This drawing doesn't do the place justice. And I won't even go into the quality of eye candy adorning the surroundings! Later on in the evening I took one of the kayaks out on the lake (see photo - that's where bricotrout resides) for sunset rituals. Water is very warm right now! Then I came home and went straight to sleep. See how boring I am! sidenote: that's a pretty good pic for a cell phone i must say! sidenote2: on the headphones i am listening to springsteen's new live in dublin with the sessions band cd. the same band he did the seeger sessions cd with. if you have not heard that yet i strongly recomend it. a 5 star cd in my book. and im not even a big bruce fan for that matter.

SO YOUR CHILD IS STRANGE

Have you ever given your child a bit of advice that you find you yourself needing to listen to? The other day, Aspen was asking me what to do in a situation where a classmate likes her and always to play with her even though Aspen and her close group are not particularly fond of this girl. Aspen's main concern was that she did not want to hurt this classmate's feelings yet she didn't really want to interact with her either. Not because she was mean but just a little socially odd. I told her that perhaps the reason her friend is strange is because her surroundings at home are different, maybe not as nice and comfortable and safe and supportive as what Aspen is used to. I advised that if Aspen could try to imagine or even understand 'why' someone is the way they are then it can be easier to tolerate and even appreciate those idiosyncrocies. Maybe her friend is a bit easier to interact with once Aspen has spent some time thinking about what has caused her to be like that in the first place. I found myself reviewing my words repeatedly over the proceeding days. Guess I needed to hear that myself.

CURRENT READS

God Is Not Great is the book that I am currently working through these days. The author, Christopher Hitchens, is whom Al Sharpton was debating the other week when he made that bizarre comment about Mit Romney being a Mormon and not a 'true believer in God'. Despite it's eyebrow raising title, it makes some compelling arguments by chapter 2 as to the damage that religion has caused throughout history. It's a fine line between letting your religion enhance your morality or mutate it. I'll post again on this after I've finished it and chewed it over. So far it's good reading if nothing else. Anyone else out there reading this?