OLD PORTLAND, YOUNG PARENTS

Make that old Portland, youngish parents.

Or not so old Portland, and not so young parents.

We weren’t teenagers, but if you ever want to feel like one push a stroller around downtown.

With two kids it’s like a double punishment, like sent to your room AND missing dinner.

What else?

It’s the time of your life when the right mom and the right kids show up.

I don’t mean they showed up like I didn’t just showed up.

Oh no, it was a six year project with the wife which includes three years for #1, five for #2 in the lineup.

She made me a dad, I made her a mom, and somehow we both made kids.

“But DavidPdx, wasn’t it all a burden to a swinging hotshot like you?”

Good question. No.

By this time I’d seen enough marriages take a dive, while those that should have been euthanized for their own good kept going on that special life support people discover after it’s too late, after they’ve lost trust, lost faith, but haven’t lost ‘but baby, I luuuuuuve you.’

I took the oath, made the pledge, donated blood. I would have sacrificed a small fish if that was in the works. It wasn’t.

No sacrifice except the single life of not answering to anyone, not looking to answer to anyone, not checking in, not showing up.

The question of why I was still single never occurred to anyone.

 

Then I Asked Myself Why

Why was I still single after meeting a sassy woman in the neighborhood who seemed to have staying power?

One thing led to another and here we are nearly forty years later drinking tea from a bag together.

As a baby boomer blogger, a prolific writer by any measure, the past forty years outshined the first thirty by a magnitude of the sun vs a sun lamp.

Having a sharp wife and sharp kids means one thing: stay sharp.

What that means is I’m the responsible man, the driver, the last word when my wife allows, which is key to a successful union.

Is it the final word, or the last word, and do either get added to?

In the ongoing dialogue of life together with lively people, someone always has a better idea than someone else and they’re not bashful about it.

So you make changes, decisions, then revise as needed. That, my friends, is the big secret. Call it coming to your senses, waking up, snapping out of it.

Say those things to yourself for best effects since we hate hearing it from anyone else.

Come to your fucking senses. Wake the fuck up. Snap the fuck out of it.

Yeah, no one wants to hear it, but everyone ought to have it on speed dial in their minds when they make those do-or-die decisions.

 

Do Or Die? Come On

Wheat toast or sourdough?

Coffee or tea?

Beef or fish?

Lawn or deck?

Downtown or suburbs?

Gas or electric?

Couch or recliner?

Shave or beard?

Walk or drive?

Main road or short cut?

Early dinner or late?

Shoes or sandals?

Bike or mountain bike?

Foot brake or hand brake?

Fence or open range?

Beer or gin?

Wine or gin?

 

What do you do when you find your own Elaine?

 

 

PS:

You take an oath, make a pledge.

PSS:

Then you both agree to live up to it every day, or you get tossed at the next bus stop for insufficient care, or ticket.