[nggallery id=18]

[nggallery id=17]

Here are some miscellaneous photos from their visit.  The babies are 9 months old now.

[nggallery id=16]

]]> http://gkikas.com/you-gonna-eat-that-bib/feed/ 0 http://gkikas.com/maybe-its-just-fatherhood-gas/ http://gkikas.com/maybe-its-just-fatherhood-gas/#comments Tue, 16 Dec 2008 12:23:14 +0000 Chris http://gkikas.com/?p=254 In an effort to keep my writings high-brow and sophisticated, this post will be about gas.  Farts, to be more precise.

We just ended a six week run of house guests.  We’ve had family, we’ve had friends, and we love them all dearly.  It’s quiet again in our house, reasonably speaking, but something lingers, hanging in the air like a cloud.

It’s gas.

At first, months and months ago, I chalked this up to changes in my personal habits.  I quit smoking, and thought that this increase in flatulence might be related.  I’d been exercising more by playing freestyle football (soccer to us Yanks) and sweating profusely at times.  I started drinking different kinds of beer, switching between Estrella Damm and Samuel Adams’ seasonal samplers, which include a whole range of different brews.  This may be the root cause — the beer, but not root beer.  I digress.

Initially, I blamed it on my mother in law.  Pointing the finger at one’s mother in law is a normal and expected behavior of any freshly married man, with no disrespect intended (love you, Ama).  She’d been visiting us, helping Idoia and I with all manner of motherly stuff like cleaning and cooking, when I noticed my not-so-discreet increase in rear port musicality.

Don’t get me wrong, by the way.  I love farting.  So much so, that in the proper company, I seize each opportunity and do all I can to commemorate the “announcement” as creatively and memorably as I can.  This includes a fresh range of athletic and dance-inspired physical poses and improvised deliveries.  Think of it as “interpretive farting.”  I’ve unveiled the “Mister Olympia Fart,” the “John Travolta Saturday Night Fever Fart,” the “Pink Floyd Marching Hammers Fart,” and the totally adorable “Little Orphan Annie Fart.”

“I think your Ma’s making me fart so much,” I said to Idoia one night before turning out the lights.  I’d let one rip prior, throwing back the covers and aiming it away from her.  Why?  Because I’m a good husband, that’s why.  I’ve only Dutch Ovened her once, and it was worth it, but I know better.

She, my wife, incidentally, rarely seems to find farts amusing.  She usually admonishes me with her Mother Voice, “CHRIS.”  This, obviously, only goads me on.

I don’t care who you are, how educated you are, where you’re from or how sophisticated and refined you think you are — farting’s still funny.

“Well, she’s cooking a lot of interesting and unique stuff.  Things we don’t normally eat,” she said.  I assumed she was right, because she usually is.

A couple weeks later, Ama had returned to California, and my family was here.  My WHOLE family.  Mom, Dad, sister, and Grandma.  This was after the kids had been born.  My farting had not only continued, it had increased.  I was enjoying myself tremendously, and was happy that I had even more people to perform for.  I love an audience, especially one that knows me so well as to expect things like the “Clint Eastwood .357 Magnum Fart.”

Then, the house was empty of guests for a few days.  My family had left after Thanksgiving, and it was, for the first time, “just the four of us.”  My farting had pretty much stopped!  I was devastated.  Idoia, not so much.

Summer flew out from California though, that next Thursday, to see Idoia and the babies.  This was a wonderful time, not only because it helped us further (extra hands!) but because it ushered in the return of my gas, AND someone who appreciated it!  Thank god.

I said to Idoia, one night, “So it wasn’t your Ma.  It wasn’t my parents.  Jesus, maybe it’s just plain old visitor gas.”

She shot milk out her nose, and still does, whenever this phrase crosses her mind.

Now, I’m not so sure.  Summer’s back in California, and this gas is still lingering.  I’m not complaining, of course, but at this point I’m beginning to think fatherhood is the real culprit here.

After all, once the twins are old enough, I will have two fresh, willing participants for “pull my finger” and what could be better than that?

The first thing I head for’s the milk, because I know where it is. I rarely shop in this grocery store. I’m usually at the dirt Publix three blocks from the house because it’s closer. But, they’re closed by 9 and Sweetbay’s open, so I’m in a strange grocery store with a mission to find some nonstandard items.

On my way to the milk, I see Edy’s Grand ice cream is on crazy sale, two for seven bucks. Lunatic flavors, too… Coconut Pineapple? Cherry Chocolate Chip, red velvet style? Shit.

So now I’ve got the milk, and the ice cream, which is melting. Fiber One bars. Where the hell are those? Cereal aisle.

Not there.

I needed apples, and they’re right over there. Braeburn? Cameo! $1.39/lb – Bang.

Ice cream’s melting. Shit. Fiber One bars. Shit.

I stop two girls in Sweetbay garb, even though they’re clearly off the clock and doing their own shopping. They were cool, though, and after I looked at them somewhat frantically after getting off the phone with my wife who said, “Ask someone,” I asked them about where I could find, you know, “chewy granola chocolate chip things, like I thought I’d find in cereal, but it wasn’t there.” Aisle 5. Thank God.

Ice cream’s melting, and the lines at the register are thick, so I head back over to dairy to swap out my now-softened crazy flavored ice creams with fresher, colder ice creams from the cooler. And on my way there, I see this black dude that looks just like Samuel L. Jackson, and he’s wearing a do-rag, and a Tucci t-shirt.

Tucci, Tucci…. where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, Wanee Festival. Some local dude, like a dentist or something, with a blues band. Was this the same black dude who jammed at the campground jam, and that I’d chatted with for a while before Junior Brown’s set? No, this was a different dude.

By now, I’ve gotten fresh ice creams and decide to make a break for it. Oh yeah, Sprite Zero. The pregnant wife’s got some odd dietary habits lately. Got it, so now I pick the least of all evils and go for Checkout Lane Six.

In front of me is a guy in one of those personal scooter motorized grocery shopping go-carts. He’s flipping through the magazines and knocks all the People magazines from its shelf in the rack. They spill all over the floor. Do I help him out? After a short pause, thinking, Yeah I should help this dude, I go for it and, as I’m stooping down to pick up the strewn mess, I say, “Lemme help out with that.”

“Oh, I’m not crippled, I’m just feeling lazy today.”

Feeling lazy today? Was he serious?

Sure enough, as the line inches forward and he motors up to the conveyor belt, he stands up out of the seat to hoist a gallon of milk or six-pack of beer or something onto the conveyor. I thought for a moment whether I should say something to him, but thought better of it and just laughed inside, wondering if he parked in a handicapped parking spot outside with the same rationale.

Behind me, there’s a guy that looks like Robert Duval, wearing a CB radio type thing hanging from his breast pocket with one of those curly cords going down to some receiver on his belt. He’s talking to himself pretty loudly. I realize he’s probably talking to someone on a wireless phone headset, and sure enough after a brief moment, he turned his head and I saw the Bluetooth piece.

This wasn’t just “Uh huh,” or “yeah, lemme call you back when I’m out of the grocery store,” this was a fairly animated conversation about hauling something made of aluminum. If I weren’t helping the non-cripple in front of me, I probably could have recalled more details about his can’t-wait conversation.

Now I’m at the register, and Lazy, ahead of me, is having problems with the debit card swipe. The checkout lady, now resorting to the “plastic bag AND backwards” swipe trick, looks at Robert Duval behind me, then glances at me and all I have for her is my best Jim Halpert smirk. She smiles at me with a quiet laugh as the plastic bag trick works and we watch Lazy scooter himself out with his loot.

“It’s like a Seinfeld episode,” I tell her as I grab my receipt.

“I know, isn’t it?” she replies, as I leave the Sprite Zero sitting there, walk out to my car and drive home to remember just now about the Sprite Zero. Shit.

An enthusiastic phone call to a friend later, I’m in Play it Again, buying “factory second” discs at $10 apiece. Then, I’m driving through parts of Sarasota I didn’ t know existed, winding through a residential neighborhood until coming upon Lakeview Park, with its 18 hole disc golf course.

I am intimately familiar with the Gainesville course on 34th Street but few others (I’d played Lake Wauburg in Gainesville, and of course Spirit of Suwanee’s Grateful Dead course last weekend). The excitement of a new course, this close to home, was almost unbearable.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a map of the holes, and we ended up meandering like tourists through 18 holes of challenging, at-times-heavily wooded, swampy dream for any disc golfer. We never found holes 11 or 12.

The course is fun, with creative pin placement and lots of water. The park had restrooms, water fountains, a fenced-in dog park, and picnic tables. Nice.

This whole thing’s got momentum. I’ll be playing the North Watertower Park course tomorrow morning, which is apparently either on-par with (no pun intended) or even better than the Lakeview course. I’m learning all of this from the Sarasota Sky Pilots web page. Yep, a full fledged disc golf community, which I’ll duly be looking into. Tuesday and Thursday night handicaps? Count me in!