It's past eleven now. On a work night and I should be sleeping. We went and got my son this past Sunday for a delayed Father's Day and so he could live with us the rest of the summer. I was on-call for work on the real Father's Day so couldn't make the trip to get him. See, his mother and I have joint custody and now that he's in school we're having the big fight (she likes to call it a discussion, but let's face it, neither of us wants to give him up, so it's a fight, or at least it will be--it's just stayed civilized thus far) over where he's going to go for school. He was with me for Kindergarten, last year. Half the summer with her. Half with me and then with her for First Grade. After that, we have to make a final decision on the rest of schooling. Without involving the lawyers...
See, the problem is we live almost 300 miles apart, which makes this whole situation more of a shitfuck than what most people in our situation have to deal with. I mean, don't get me wrong. We get along well enough... now. We both want what's best for him, we just don't always agree on just what that is.
Still, it's nice to have him home with us now. 2004 saw my wife and I get married, my son start Kindergarten and all of us moving into our new house. And we thought that would be the hard part. Already we've had problems with the neighbors, the police, the... but I really don't want to get into all that. Maybe in another post. Is this blogging supposed to be cathartic?
This post is about my family. Together again. I can hear Alex rustling around in his bed. Probably trying to get out from under Boka. Boka's a part-Chow, part-Rottweiler, and we swear to god believe part-Bear dog. One of two we have. Two dogs, two cats, two hamsters, god help us my wife wants a snake and a lizard and the boy wants fish. We moved out to the country to get away from people and back into nature and wildlife, but I didn't expect it to live inside with us!
Still, a boy and his dog is a classic. Boka was first among dogs. She's loving and whiney and needy but sweet. Alex loves her (I still remember when he put his arm around her and said "you're the best dog a boy could ever have.") But Alex really wanted a hunting dog, so when the opportunity came along to add to our growing family, we jumped on it and Copper joined our happy little clan. Copper is a full-blooded American Foxhound and is everything Alex imagined. Of course, now that he's got the dog he wants the old man to take him out for some real hunting. Like I know anything about hunting, I'm a freaking suburban kid for Christ's sake. But...
God, it's that late already. Heh. Dear Diary, I am sorry I haven't written to you in so long. Ha. I should get a locket for my laptop. Maybe World War III will hit and years from now they'll study my blog. Of course, times have changed. Anne Frank's diary was on paper while this is just bits and bytes in the ether. World War III hits, the 'net goes down and the blogoshpere ceases to exist.
Maybe I should print this shit out...
