Tag Archives: Recreation

The World of Paul Frank and Hamsters

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My mom likes my Paul Frank PJ’s.

My hamster is awake all night.  It bit me at the pet store before I decided to buy it–then I bought it.  Even though the teeth are sharp, the size of the tooth cause more pain than a needle at the doctor’s office.  The blood quickly beaded and I had to hold the bit incision, covering myself in blood.

My mom claims there were no cute things when she was a child, and she always say how lucky we are that there is so much softness and fun, as if childhood never ends.

Paul Frank is a monkey–mostly he is all head and mouth.  He is always laughing, sometimes eyes closed, sometimes eyes open.  His image is printed always or embroidered on something soft–Pajamas, backpacks, sweatshirts.  I always see Paul Frank on the adults who never grow up.

I am fully, tragically, in love with Paul Frank–I have no picture for you, but if you see him, by yourself–you’ll know it is him.  Mostly, I think  I laugh at the people who wear Paul Frank.  It is daring–and if you are a grandmother, then I think only your grandkids take you seriously.

Now, in our house, I am surrounded by monkeys and hamsters.  Even if I didn’t want Nibbles and Paul Frank here, my kids would’ve found some way to bring it all into the house.  I sometimes think my kids and their friends hanging out at our house, love the things they trade and share more than their parents.  They clean up after themselves very well when it is they are having a good day trading secrets and just looking cool in each other’s eyes.

I worry about situations like these.  I lose track what it is they are doing, and what it is that they own.  They have some money to spend now, and if my son doesn’t come and show me his convenience store purchases, I worry.  I still dress him….  He will be in the “perfect” store, and we will try on sizes until we get it right.

Surprisingly, I overheard my daughter talking with her friends in the backyard.  I just happened to walk by the open back door and heard her say that she thought I was cool.  It was one of the most gratifying days of my life.  She is still young, but she is very well-versed in things cool.  I will always think that she is cool.

Even when I begin to imagine all the things that could be made in my children’s lives, filling it all with fun, learning, and life, I sometimes scare myself.  What if they contract an incurable disease?  What if an accident were to happen, and they end up paralyzed for life?  They look so perfect now…  the things that they grow through are nothing like the disasters I have foreseen in others….  I’d be overjoyed if they could make it to adulthood without the most frightening failures of life happening to them.

So, now, back to the issues of monkeys and hamsters.  We share everything.  Everything in the house belongs to “our family.”  We try not to be strict and draconian.  They will grow into the stage where they will try to hide things….  and I do not encourage that age.  I want them to feel free enough to bring up those things that kids will sometimes hide.  So, yes, “our pet hamster,” named “Nibbles” in a communal naming spree, is shared.  We all take care of Nibbles, which allows me, my daughter, and their father into my son’s room to take care of Nibbles.  We ask permission, to “take Nibbles for a walk” and we will take turns cleaning the cage and refilling the food.

I get to look cool on my weekends with the kids.  My t-shirt with Paul Frank’s happy face recognizable instantly by my children, my mother, and, of course, my husband, who thinks it is just juvenile of me to keep Paul Frank around the house.

Right now, my daughter just finished planning a birthday party for Nibbles.  She drew a picture of it and showed it to me. It immediately went up on the fridge.  She has asked me, since then, when a good day is to have the party?  I don’t really know, but I do keep telling her, tomorrow.  She thinks I delay too long, and I think that the days pass by so quickly, that I’m afraid that I will forget them.

I don’t think there will ever be a day when we will take Paul Frank, or, hamsters, out of the house.  They have come in, and I think that they are staying for life.  For now, if the Dollar Store is not selling hamster-sized tea cups and balloons, we will have to keep delaying the birthday party.

Hanging Out With Friends

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Look in the distance, do you see the car driving on the hills?  It’s like seeing the roller coaster when it’s far away–the train of cars travel the track–the noise clicking and clacking.  The ride down the hill is a rush of noise and wind.  The screamers have no qualm and scream.

I think the roller coaster is like the popping corn machine at the movie theatre.  Irrisistible.

The hills are beautiful.  Come hang out with me there.  It’s as far as you can see, and then, it just drops….  Into the valley on the other side.  It’s a place in suburbia, surprisingly.  No need to drive for two hours for this fun.  We can make it there in summer or in winter.  It’s just a big hill, so, you have to bring your own picnic.

The hills are on top of each other, building up, climbing higher, and the mounds can be seen, following them, up, into the horizon.  They change colour with each season…  white with a blanket of snow in winter, the greyish green of regeneration in spring, the bright, bright green of healthy growth in summer, and the yellow of dying grass in fall.  It is beautiful here.  And, I do have to travel to get here, but not like when I want to find myself skiing on a hill.

I miss the days when the roller coaster was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  It was complete and utter beauty.  Strength, power, noise, propelled movement, and the thrust and rust o wind.  I saw the engineers sitting at their drafting tables, perhaps their hands on a keyboard and a mouse, as they made the ability of flight come alive.  I loved that riding the hill downward gave me a reason to scream.

I miss that all of my friends and I could just go, on a bus, out to a whole bunch of wild rides…, our favourite one being the Wild Beast.  It was rickety because it was built when wood was cheaper than reinforced steel, and we loved imagining the possible catastrophy of the wood cracking and ripping and just collapsing beneath the weight of the cars with us in it, flying.  Part of my scream was a dare to the inanimate wood to just collapse!

Today, I am more likely to become motion sick on those rides.  I get off, feeling nauseas, and wishing that good things could last forever.  Why is it roller coasters only exist in my memory?  Anything that they are now, are just illness-causing games…  I gamble with myself, with my children, and with my younger cousins and my new nephews saying…  “The next one….  I’ll get on the next one….  I’m not too sick yet!!!”

Do we only go on these rides because we imagine what it is first, before ever, ever, even approaching close to one?  Do we hear the words, “roller coaster,” and know what it is?  Or is the sight of a train of cars running on a track and making a rhythmic beat all the way to the top, …  and we’ve already decided?  Do we watch the cars follow the round about tracks until the end, making sure no one dies, and then, fearlessly, make our decision to go on it?

I tease my nephews, they are young, and fearless, and will attack anything that even sounds remotely fun.  It is a rite of passage towards the time when riding… a hill, a board, or a car, involves more than just daring.  It involves responsibility…., and more importantly, the ability to take control, which is the ability to use the power in your hands.  At what point does all of this make sense?  So, it’s not about booking with mom and dad about borrowing the car for the weekend…., or even for just a few hours…., it’s about filling it up with gas, it’s about parking it in an appropriate place, not only to save on the parking ticket, but so that the car just doesn’t get lifted.  There’s also not putting too many friends into the car, as that makes the car go fast–and the friends screaming their approval about making the car go fast, will make it go fast.  This is a trap for instant car accident if not instant paralysis from getting hurt in the accident.

I miss the days when friends were easy to find and easy to entertain… now, going out with friends, there is a minimum investment of a few hundred dollars just to start the evening.  We leave the kids at home, with a babysitter….  We take the car….  We go a little earlier for drinks….  Then, there is dinner, and, if it is in the evening, sometimes there is a show we can catch.  Lunch is similar…  Cheaper, but difficult to do, is the shopping trip with the girlfriends.  Everyone is on a different schedule, and this makes spending an afternoon together difficult to plan into happening.  But, as human beings always are, when there’s something that we can take advantage of, and, gain from, we will probably plan it into happening.

So,  from the days of  “riding the rails,” when my heart hit the quick beat, now, just driving the safely back from a trip and seeing the house up the drive and getting into the garage, is a true treat, making my heart hit that quick beat.