shortly after watching the peta instructional video, nikky and i indulged in our annual festivus meat festival (fmf):  4 pounds of grilled steak and the appendages of (former) animals that were marinated to perfection and burned beyond recognition.  the fmf has become, well, somewhat of a seasonal tradition for the lane boys up here at the center of the universe.  kind of like the annual “washing of the dirty linen.”

 

boys will be boys.

 

if the meat weren’t enough, we also had some tail-on shrimp, harvested from the trunk of a wayward crown victoria, seized by the border patrol right after an ambiguous response from a drunken bonspieler in the back seat, on boxing day, of all days. 

 

don’t get me started about the perks of public service.

 

“these shrimp taste yucky dad.”

 

“just put more ketchup on them.  pretend you’re eating at arbys.”

 

nikky, of course, needed a bit of culinary coercion from his father after the multimedia presentation, prior to the feast.

 

“just don’t look in the cow’s eyes buddy, and you’ll be okay…ohhh jeez…did you see that?”

 

“see what?”

 

“never mind…would you like some salt?”

 

“is this really cow, dad?” the golden child asked after parting the red sea of mushrooms and onions.

 

“not anymore, buddy. now, it’s dinner.”

 

of course, while listening to the sizzle and hiss of fascia and muscle and fat, and while sucking in the carcinogenic plumes from my snow-covered grill, i also had many internal conversations with my conscience.

 

“what about to-furkey?”

 

“what about couscous and pita bread?”

 

“have you checked your cholesterol lately, fat boy?”

 

and of course, those are all well and good, but when you drive to work assessing the freshness of the latest road kill and the viability of the tenderloin, those inner voices become somewhat irrelevant. 

 

okay, so maybe it’s not all that and maybe there is a smidgeon of hyperbole here (duh), but yeah, the golden child and i had a feast of immense proportions and the marinade masked the taste of adrenalin that surely courses through the veins of the ahh…”livestock”…at the very moment they realize theirs is not a date with a state fair blue ribbon but instead, it is a date with a stun gun. 

 

moo.

 

all told, next year’s fmf will have more emphasis on a balanced meal, rather than on the septic tack choking repast of yesterday.  it might be tough to sell nikky on the new agenda though because when finally done eating, he lay back in the chair and said, “oh man, that was good dad.”

 

then again.  he likes cottage cheese.  

 

karma…we need to talk. 

poor kid.

 

forced to watch west side story with his old man.

 

no redeeming value, whatsoever.

 

no dragons.

 

no denizens of evil lurking in the sewer pipes.

 

no viscera.

 

no explosions.

 

just song and dance.

 

woe was upon him; the golden child.

 

but then he decided he liked it.

 

not such a bad movie afterall, dad.

 

       happy holidays to all. 

my memory remains sharp enough to know that the last thing i told the golden child’s mother on the eve of his journey back to the center of the universe was “just make sure you get to the airport early.”

 

of course, my ability to invoke wisdom and her ability to incorporate the same are diametric opposites. 

 

i say potato, she says salsa dancing. 

 

nikky missed his plane.

 

i was an hour outside of the concrete and halogen of the twin cities when my cell phone rang (they are good for something).  at first, i heard the low-pitched wailing of a child in distress, then the pleadings of a russian woman to an unmoved ticket agent whose joy of holiday travel had been removed several decades earlier. 

 

the golden one’s mother was late, then got lost.

 

in boston.

 

at rush hour…never mind the sage advice her former boy-toy had given during the abovementioned conversation.

 

of course, the reason she was late was because i no longer lived in maine.  of course, the reason i no longer lived in maine was because i didn’t want to learn to salsa dance.  of course the reason i didn’t want to salsa dance was because i had a dutch/irish, liquor-loving background.  of course, the reason i had that liquor-loving background was because i married her. 

 

“oh i get it…it’s all my fault.”

 

so it goes.

 

i convinced nikky that everything would be okay and that he would come to minnesota in the morning, never mind that his adventure would begin at 3:30 in the morning.

 

for a kid with asberger’s (so they say), sudden change is akin to setting a stick of butter on a hot jotul stove.

 

not that i’ve ever done that. 

 

so in the interminable wait for nikky’s connector and final flight to arrive in minneapolis, i had a caribou coffee induced panic attack that all the people deplaning were going to come up to me and say “was that your kid?” 

 

“nope…not mine…sorry…wrong flight…”

 

but none of that happened because nikky did well and there was nothing disruptive or seething about the demeanor of a 10 year old who had to get up at 3:30 in the morning because his mom didn’t listen to his dad.

 

again. 

moderation, my good man.  moderation.

 

i keep forgetting that.

 

take skiing for example.  here i was exuding gleeful giddiness about the return of winter and all the snow and the groomed trails and my jotul and the fact i’m going to ski forever this winter, when my body told me otherwise.

 

in fact, it said.

 

“give me a break, you prurient old fart.”

 

i made five nights in a row and was gearing for a sixth…hoping to get in 15 k before the pending blast of polar pleasure rendered outdoor time moot…when i had the persistent thought that what i truly wanted to do was go to sleep.

 

i wanted to curl into the fetal position and relive the halcyon days in mom’s amniotic sac. 

 

bone tired.  dog tired.

 

but really, this isn’t just about skiing, it’s about owl surveys in the spring, biking in the summer, owl banding in the fall:  i do everything with youthful exuberance and then, my body bitch-slaps me. 

 

so for now, i’ll lay low and forget about the swirling wind and the snow that moves horizontally across the beam of light atop my deck. 

 

i have learned yet another valuable lesson.

 

winter is here but tonight, my body isn’t. 

it is again readily apparent that my obsessive/compulsive disorders are seasonally based.  it has nothing to do with seratonin or dopamine levels; nothing whatsoever.

 

the trails are groomed and i am their slave. 

 

i would imagine that if one were to look back on the archived drivel this blog has become, one would find a familiar pattern to said drivel:

 

i love winter…love fall because it leads into winter…love spring until it turns into summer.  hate summer. 

 

is that wrong?  

 

i always tell the golden child he should never use the word hate until he develops the jaundiced worldview of his father.  he doesn’t know it but that time is rapidly approaching. 

 

tonight, upon arrival at the bolted doors of my humble abode, i threw wood in the stove, threw fleece on my adonis-like body, and headed to the onion river road for a twilight ski.  a mile up the trail, i stopped.  mars was a red ball in the east, a faint aurora glowed to the north, and to the west, the orange glow of a defeated day hid beneath the horizon. 

 

there was not a stir of wind.  there were no snowmobiles in the distance, only my heartbeat and breaths that quickly settled into the landscape. 

 

i skied at my leisure, stopping to look and to listen, and most of all, to remember that the nights of december are not at all unlike the nights of march, when i will get excited again. 

 

it was wonderful.  it was complete. 

 

it wasn’t summer.

the reunion with my son was wonderful.  he didn’t know; didn’t have a clue that his dad was coming to see him.  he "won" two days off from school, then had the third day canceled by the snowstorm that nearly left me with an extra night in maine.

 

i visited his school and in doing so, should have known i would get sick.  i mean, how can one not get sick in an elementary school?  they serve as life’s agar plates. 

 

i think it was good for nikky to hang out with his mom and dad.  of course, his request for a birthday meal caught both of us off guard.

 

“i want sushi,” he exclaimed.

 

it seemed an odd request, especially given my complete unfamiliarity with sushi, save for a sake- and wasabi-laden night i had spent with co-corkers in portland a decade earlier. 

 

always the liquor, owlman.  always the wasabi…tsk tsk tsk.  

 

damn straight.

 

and in actuality, nikky got the best of maine’s culinary worlds:  pizza on thursday and sushi on friday. 

 

i’ve seen the kid inhale pizza before but never sushi.  he was, his proud father would later exclaim, “an eating machine.”

 

on saturday, there was the birthday party with four of nikky’s friends indulging in pizza (his request for more sushi was firmly denied) and the cake baked with considerable inattention by his old man.  why…i even put sprinkles on it.

 

and thereafter, we just kind of hung out and occasionally had emotional conversations about how his parents’ divorce still hurts. 

 

how could it not? 

 

all i could do was say, “oh nikky, i know it does.”

 

when time came to leave for the airport, he would not let go.  he cried and in response, so did his father. 

 

“nikky, you’ll be in minnesota in two weeks.”

 

tears halted.  optimism returned. 

 

“i can’t wait,” he said.

 

when finally back on the north shore, i suffered the pains of an absentee homeowner:  my driveway was blocked by a 3’ high snow berm and thereafter, hidden below 14” of snow.  sam and moose emerged from their deep, hidden hiding places and immediately wanted treats.  there were no foul odors in my house, nothing had died, and when you are a hermitic north shore owler, that is as good as it gets.

 

i slept fitfully.  all the travel and delays -- never mind the fever and sore throat that came courtesy of north yarmouth memorial school – left me feeling overcaffeinated, even though i wasn’t. 

 

when daylight broke over the lake i lay in bed, thinking of my visit to the son who deserves so much more from his parents.  i tried to sleep, but couldn’t.  then, i heard the songs of the pine grosbeaks outside the window, impatiently waiting for a “fill” at the feeders.  winter had returned to the center of the universe and in two weeks, the golden child will, as well. 

i left minnesota in the swirl of a low pressure system that coated the landscape with a deep, insulating blanket of perfection.  at least until april, the discarded automobiles, appliances, and sudafed packages in my yard would lay hidden, unseen by the surveillance droids that are watching me. 

 

i know they’re watching me. 

 

my drive to the airport was longer than need be, in part because 25 miles of the journey were blocked by the erratic accelerations and overly cautious braking of a demure pilot hidden below the oversized steering wheel of a ford expedition.  when the opportunity finally presented itself i passed the oblivious driver, emitted a baleful look of scorn, and headed along the craggy cliffs that are superior’s north shore.  like any self-serving north shore resident, i got in the last word. 

 

take that you transient hose bag.

 

count it….2 points for the owlman…

 

as i get older and more entrenched on the north shore, i realize that vengeance no longer needs to be expressed, simply stored for future release.  

 

my journey to duluth was on the front end of a series of flights that would end with my firm (yet sorry) ass in portland maine, whereupon i would surprise my son upon his 10^th birthday. 

 

i admit i get a bit anxious when traveling.  and it isn’t because i can’t envision my final destination, or the things that are beyond my control (“if i was flying this plane, we’d be there by now…”) 

 

of course, my visit to stall 7 at the lindbergh terminal didn’t help one bit…

 

“ahh sorry buddy, i’m just here to take a dump.”

 

and feeling rather left out on my last airport junket, i made sure i carried a cell phone and had downloaded a smarmy, high volume ring tone so when my phone rang, i could shout to the world….”hey everyone, i have a phone call....look...someone called me!!!”  

 

nine hours later i touched down in portland, where the landscape was brown and there were no signs of the winter i had left behind.