Jan 1, 2010

Friends and Fun Times

Despite what you might think, I DO actually have fun sometimes, so I thought I'd do a smiley post for a change of pace.

Last weekend, BA and I went to our friends BB and TS's house for a post-Christmas dinner party (like I really needed to eat more food). They were friends with BA when we started going out, and became friends of mine as well. We went to their wedding about a year and a half ago. They live in a funky little hippie town near Missoula. They are really great people. They grow a lot of their own food in their backyard and they hunt elk together, which is a very Montana thing. They're a cute young couple and are expecting their first baby this spring. In fact, BB is due the day after my birthday, so their new arrival will be a little Aries like me. :-)


BB


TS

BB is an excellent cook. I've had several very yummy meals at their house in the last couple of years. For this visit, BB served homemade pizza topped with elk TS bagged on the first day of elk season, about 2 months ago. My Dad used to hunt elk. It's a HELL of a lot of work, not so much the hunting part, but the part that comes AFTER you actually shoot the thing. Elk are large animals, and butchering / processing is a major undertaking. I think TS said he got a cow this year (a female), so it wasn't as much work because they're usually smaller than bulls. Last season though, he shot a bull 6 miles back in the woods. He related the story of having to butcher it on the spot and then pack it out on his back over several trips. Apparently, there's nothing in this world that makes you want to take a shower more than carrying 80lbs of dead elk on your back for 6 miles. He said when he finally got home, he was covered in blood and fur and reeked of elk. YUCK! I prefer my animals to be slaughtered in another state, preferably New Jersey, by people I will never meet, and to arrive neatly packaged, ready to be popped into the oven. TS, my hat is off to you. Good thing you're young and strong. The elk pizza was VERY tasty, though.


BA


BA, Gweb, TS, and BB

I'm actually excited for the arrival of their little squirt. They don't know the sex of the baby because they want to be surprised. My intuition says it will be a girl, which will look funny in all the little boy baby clothes they've gotten as gifts. They whipped out an outfit BB's Mom knitted for her. It's basically a green, Arnold Palmer-type ensemble that the baby could wear on the 9th hole while practicing its slice. It was hilarious, but very cute!

BB and TS's decision to become parents has partly restored my faith, if not in the human race itself, than in the idea that there are just some really, really GOOD people walking around on this planet. This is something I lose sight of on a regular basis. I have a low opinion of our species, and it's nice that there are exceptions out there.

Seeing them have a baby is healing for me in another way, too. I didn't feel wanted or loved as a child, and I've often wished my parents had not had me. In my opinion, they were not qualified to have children. Our society requires some sort of licencing process for most of its important functions. Things like driving, voting, drinking, buying a firearm - all require SOME sort of screening process. Even shooting an elk takes a license. The penalties for hunting without one can be severe.

Yet the single most important decision a person can make, the one that will have the greatest impact, not only on them, but the entire WORLD, is completely unregulated. Any idiot can have a child with no oversight, no regulation whatsoever. And that is sad, because many people who have kids are unqualified for the job of parenting and end up inflicting enormous suffering on the world, giving it exactly what it doesn't need any more of: fucked up people.

BB and TS will be good parents. They will make lots of mistakes because they are human beings. But they will give their child the one thing that matters most: love. That kid will never doubt that its Mommy and Daddy love it. No matter what choices it makes, or trouble it gets into, or lifestyle it ends up choosing, its foundation, its core sense of self, will be that it's lovable. Give that to your child, and you can screw up a LOT of other shit. If you don't have that to give, you have no business being a parent. As John Cleese says to his patient in The Meaning of Life, "You're not qualified!"

BB and TS, thanks for making the world a little bit better place.

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