Batting .750

This weekend, Wife, Son and I piled into the car and struck out to visit my parents in Corwnall, Ont. There was a local fair, with rides, fireworks, and musical extravaganzas, featuring such high-profile Canadian Has-Beens of Rock as Tom Cochrane, Sass Jordan, and April Wine. Ten bucks gets you a five-day pass, and they also have hot-air balloons! Of course we got rained on, so the balloons and fireworks were cancelled.

At some point, we borrowed some windbreakers from my parents, since the show was by the water. Pictured here is Son, indulging his nostalgia for the great old days of hockey by representing for the noble Nordiques du Quebec. The jacket's old, borrowed and blue. All that's missing is something new, and he's ready to get hitched!

So, according to Pablo Neruda, "Laughter is the language of the soul". And we've all polished that old chestnut: "The eyes are the windows to the soul". And the Three Stooges, arguably the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century, frequently gouged each other's eyes with the goal of evoking laughter. Soul + Eyes + Laughter. Full Circle.

I just know this means something, but what? This is a perfect illustration for the limits of my capacity for reason. I'm perfectly able to detect the presence of some deeper meaning or pattern, just not what that important, life-altering message might be. There is always a missing piece, always an incomplete understanding. We have the old, the borrowed, and the blue, but the new, the final tantalizing nugget, is always missing. Good thing I've never read the bible, it'd probably drive me nuts.

This evening, Son and I invented a new game called "Hugs & Kisses", which is meant to replace our previous favorite "Knees & Knuckles". The object of this new game is for me to "kiss" him, by blowing a raspberry on his tummy, and for him to "hug" my neck until I pass out. This game still retains the entertaining core of our Ur-Sport, "Kick Daddy in the Balls". We've toned it down a little in deference to Wife's express desire for a kinder, gentler Son, but ultimately I think we've made it pretty clear that such is The Manner in Which We Role, and to divert these potent energies to a course inconsistent with our masculine imperative would be to break faith with the father-son bond.

So when Wife catches us in the act of tumbling around on Son's bed, bruising and contusing each other, I try to cover:

Me: "We were just, uh, checking the sheets for crumbs, because, uh, Son was eating toast in here before..."
Wife: "Why the hell do I bother?"
Me: "If loving me is wrong, you don't want to be right."
Son: (giggle).

Go Nordiques.