Max told me he heard about the Toys 4 Us “bankrub”  (bankruptcy). Needless to say, he’s upset about it, although not overly so. I hope we can go one last time so he can experience a real brick-and-mortar toy store. There are no other toy store chains left since Toys 4 Us bought out KB Toys (called KB Hobbies when I was a kid) years ago.

And Kiddie City is long gone, too… where my Grandpa Moe took me once and told me I could get anything I wanted. Of course, I asked for the most expensive item– a pinball machine that was some kind of “kit” pinball… it was on the very top shelf and I couldn’t even touch it. He said no and I chose something else 🙂  I knew before asking him that I should not have asked.

While in bed in Littleton, with his turtle light in Cordillera, “Aki, can you believe I no more need the turtle light? I can sleep in the dark now.”

Max: When will the baby be born? April or May?

Aki: April

Max: Will the baby visit Gaga? Like when he’s 7 or whenever age?

Aki: “Probably not”

Max: What about when he’s 10?”

Aki: “Maybe if he goes with you.”

Max: “Yeah, that’s what I’m meaning.”

Aki: “Ah, yeah, then he could go.”

Max: “Were you one your father’s best friends because you went on the broken stuff with him?”

Aki: “Yes, just like we are best friends, too.”

Max: “Did your mom know?”

Aki: “She knew some of it, but not how dangerous it was.”

Max: “If it was so dangerous and she found out, what would she do to her husband?”

Aki: “She would That’s why mamma would be so angry if I did that with you.”

Max: “What happens if you never tell her? And just tell her we’re going on vacation.”

Aki: Laughs. “Mamma would find out.”

Max: “Really? How?”

Aki: “She has like a 6th sense about these things.”

Max: “a 6th sense? What does that mean?”

Aki: “It means, like, she can read minds.”

Max: “A mind flayer can read minds.”

Aki: “So mamma’s a mind flyer in disguise?”

Max wants to work at a sardine factory when he grows up. He said he will give me 100 free sardines every 5 days (“How do you call 5 days?” — he thought there is another word for it like 7 days is called a week)

Friday

I picked Max up from school. We went to Chipotle:

then PetSmart. They had no cats, but we looked at the fish, crabs, lizards, snakes, hamsters, and all other animals, as usual.

Then Bricks and Minifigs store:

where we purchased a Lego baby for Newey and Mama and Aki and Maxi:

Then Black Gold:

Then Peter Rabbit, the movie, in Highlands Ranch… all without going home!

Saturday

Max read Eloise’s Summer Vacation, and then I read The GingerBread Man to him (the Ed Arno version that was read to me as a boy) to him. This was perhaps the 3rd time I’d read it to him. The next day, Max read 1/3 of it to ME.

We watched one or two Adventure Time season 9 episodes:

 then went to Christopher’s 9th birthday party!

[TODO: insert photos]

Afterwards, we went to see the horses at Chatsfield Resevoir. Then Tim Coutts called me, saying he was waiting at Barnes and Noble in Lakewood for us. I’d forgotten, or rather thought we hadn’t agreed upon a time and so it had been called off, but apparently we’d agreed to 3 PM, and it was already 3:30. We raced to Barnes and Noble. Max met Tim and his wife, Margaret, and they were delighted with him. While we talked, Max roamed the bookstore — something I did as a child with my father.

Later, after Tim and Margaret had left, I sat with Max and we read a lot of Dungeons and Dragons books which we’d already perused at Black  Gold the night before. He really wants this one, so I’ll get it for his birthday:

He’s obsessed with Mind Flayer colonies.

We spent hours there, after Tim left, reading through books and playing with toys (but, surprisingly, mostly reading). We sat on the floor of the aisles and read, just like I did when I was a boy at Encore books,with my father in the War section and me in Science Fiction & Fantasy section.

Finally, we had dinner at Olive Garden (yechhh), where Max accidentally ordered video games at the table. He thought I would be mad at him, but I knew it was a mistake on his part–he wasn’t reading the screen, just pressing buttons. We drove home and went to sleep.

Sunday

Another morning of reading Eloise’s Summer Vacation and The GingerBread Man, breakfast, Adventure Time season 9, and a shower that was difficult to have Max take (“I don’t take showers in the mornings!” — and he really doesn’t — so this was new for him).

Then off to Chipotle for lunch and Castlewood Canyon for the abandoned dam! He loved that hike. He kept saying afterwards that he likes having a destination for the hike. We stopped at the ranger station first, where they had rattlesnake shedded skins, lots of stuffed animals (real ones, not stuffies!), etc. A ranger told us that most of the petrified wood in the park is gone, but you can still find some if you go to places where others hiker’s haven’t been. This stuck with Max, and he was obsessed with staying off the path in the beginning of the hike, rattlesnake skins and petrified wood, while I was afraid of losing the trail altogether.

We saw a porcupine on the way, hanging out in a tree. We had sword fights and climbed rocks, playing King of the Mountain. We jumped over streams, looking for fish and crayfish. We ran through the fields, giving each other wedgies. We played at the playground. It was magical, even if I was exhausted for no apparent reason.

[insert photos]

Finally, we went food shopping then home. Max played a little kindle while I started dinner. Karolina came home after driving 6 hours from Cordillera. She confronted Max about lying to her about not having homework last week, so Max was banned from playing kindle or watching TV.

We ate salmon and vegetables, I worked for an hour the first time in 2 1/2 days, then all went to sleep.

a great weekend!

I’ve been working long hours, not seeing Karolina and Max much at all. Karolina told me that Max keeps asking when I’ll be home. This morning, before school, he asked me when I’ll come home earlier from work  so that I can read him the DogMan book we started reading last week. It’s one of the first books he’s fallen in love with. Prior to this, I can only remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory generating so much excitement.

When I came home from work, the first thing Max asked is if we could continue reading the book. It’s such a joy to see him fall in love with a book.

UPDATE: Max cried later, while we read. The cat father gave away his new son. The father would do anything to get rid of him, and when he finally did, the father came home and was upset. He looked at drawing his son had drawn of them together. He ran out of the house looking for his son but couldn’t find him. Just like Lies My Father Told Me, Max asked me why it has to be so sad. He cried a lot. It was very emotional for me to see it.

I told Max that is what makes a good book, a book that makes you feel.

In the end, the cat father and son were reunited

The other night, Max and I watched videos about Jupiter’s moon, Europa. He knows from other times we’ve talked that scientists think there may be life there. But he never knew the ocean there larger than any ocean on Earth. That got him excited,  because of his love for oceans, and he even told Karolina about it the next day.

We learned about the satellite NASA will send there in a few years. And we remembered the scary Europa Report which we watched maybe 6 months ago, and he liked very much.

Thisled to the inevitable questions about Voyager I and II, which continue to fascinate him (and me!) … since it’s the farthest we’ve sent any satellite, ever, and the first and only to leave our solar system.

The point of this story? Max calls the moon Aropa instead of Europa, and I think it is adorable.

We watched “Lies My Father Told Me” tonight, after a brief portion of “In the Womb” (while Karolina is about 28 weeks pregnant). Both of the movies were given to me by my father and remind me of him, especially “Lies…”. Such a sad and beautiful movie. Max asked why it had to end that way, and why did they kill the horse? And why did we show him that movie? But he did like it. He liked it so much he lost a tooth!

I was telling Max about parents in Perris, California who locked up their 13 children and only now were just found. He asked if it happens a lot and I said no, but then told him about the daughter that was locked up by Fritzl in Austria. His response?

“What if she runs out of toothpaste?”

One of the nicest holiday breaks I can remember. We stayed in Cordillera and didn’t travel. Max and I saw the new Star War on December 22. Christmas Eve with Karolina’s amazing dinner and gingerbread cookies. Her simple tree without all the crazy lights. Presents and coffee Christmas morning. Max still believes in Santa Claus. Is this the last time? He said there’s no way he can fit down our chimney. We told him that we leave the front door unlocked.

For Hannukah, Max got a new Mad Ballz (series 2) every night. I got a Bob Ross talking bobble head, and a couple of t-shirts (“Cat, I am Your Father” and the Shining Twins), two awesome Ray Harryhausen books, and pants from The Netherlands. I gave Karolina some cat shoes (Charlotte Olympia), yarn for Newey, and some pattern books.

Max had a lego-building marathon for 2 or 3 days (shark submarine, fisherman’s shack). I helped build the shark submarine in entirety, something I’ve never done before. It took longer than I expected.

Karolina moved her office upstairs, into the TV room, so she could build a nursery for Newey. Max went away for 2 or 3 days to see GaGa. While he was gone, Karolina and I stopped at the shelter and met Randall, a cat who looked a lot like Pepi (see photo in above collage) but wasn’t as skittish as Pepi.

Maybe the best part, for me, was sledding on the iced river in front of the house. We had to remove the snow first, then build a snow block under the bridge so Max didn’t get hurt.

New Year’s Eve was uneventful and we went to bed early.

On the last day, Jan 1, 2018, Max and I climbed the ridge above Red Draw Ranch. In the distance I am sure we could get to Diana Donovan’s farm. We didn’t go because of the snow and fading light. On the way, we collected snail shells while Chinley ran wild.

This was relevant to what we were listening to at the moment. It was not something I asked out of the blue.

Aki: “Max, do you know what sex is?”

Max: “Yes, it’s the kissing”

We were listening to an interview with the owner of Stardust Ranch, where supposedly aliens, UFOS, and monsters are commonplace. There are portals on the property, too. The interviewer asked the owner if he’d ever been abducted by an alien. Max asked me to pause it so we could talk about “alien maduction“.

This isn’t the interview we listened to, but it’s a good summary of the property:

Last weekend, Max and I went to Oklahoma City for the Ray Harryhausen exhibit at the Oklahoma City Science Museum. This is the first time I’ve traveled with him alone for an extended period; at least it’s the first I remember. And it brought back memories of doing the same with my father. All those trips he and I shared, just the two of us on adventures.

This trip wasn’t so much an adventure as a pilgrimage. The weekend before — Thanksgiving — we had a Harryhausen marathon. Max and I watched many of his films before that, however. Giant crabs, bees, skeletons, monsters.

Max got very upset when, after the museum curator gave a speech and took questions, the prize of the movie poster was awarded to a young girl for the best question (Max’s question was, “How did he make the blood?”).

We went to a skeleton museum, where Max got a computer mouse embedded with a fiddler crab. We saw a building near there that looked like a tornado had flattened it. Max was very excited about that.

The science museum, which we went back to on Sunday, was one of the coolest science museums I’ve been to, even if it’s planetarium was very, very lame.

Max at the diner for Sunday breakfast!

Karolina:

He asks me, “Are you going to have more children than Newey?” And I said to him, “No, we were not even planning on Newey, but you know, here’s Newey.”

And then he looks me and says, “Well, then you have to stop doing this” (finger on one hand in and out of fingers on other hand”

We spent Thanksgiving at Diana Donovan’s townhouse in Vail. She had a friend and her daughter visiting from New Mexico. Max was surprisingly well-behaved and played with his magnetic building toys most of the time. I cut the turkey (never did that before) and we had a good time. Diana’s husband watched some football, ate a bit, then left early to “lock up the chickens” at the cabin near Cordillera. He commented that I had a good appetite, that I was eating a lot, which is the wrong thing to say to a dinner guest. I stopped eating, even though I would have had more 🙂