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Father’s Day was a partial success, an endless stream of board games chosen one after another by my son.  I rolled impossible combinations in Easy Money and made millions, crushing the smiling eight year old into the carpet like an ant on welfare.  He claimed he was letting me win, considering it was my day, but I think it was my hot, dice-rolling hand.  If I’d been in Vegas, security would have tightened all around me, considering my string of luck.

We went out and ate.  Burgers and ribs and stomach aches all around.  I tipped the waitress too much because she danced around and sang to herself when she thought no one was looking.  There are times that I miss that in my life.  That spontaneous happiness that bursts out of the people around you.  I’m not sure how tipping big has anything to do with it.  Maybe it’s all part of the “you get what you pay for” mentality.  In some way she made me happy, so I paid.  Seems weird the next day, but that’s what it boils down to, I guess.  Or maybe she made me sad in some way, longing for something that I no longer have.  Maybe she should have paid me.

Today I feel tired and slow.  The apartment never did get straightened out, which is really no surprise.  Nothing productive ever gets done when my son is here.  Play, play, play.  You’d think that’s the only thing little boys ever thought about.  Where’s their sense of order?  Aren’t they concerned that every third step taken to cross the room could result in a serious, toy-related injury?  Wait until he hits 200 plus pounds and stepping on a Lego results in a wound so deep that the little nubs are imprinted in the bones of his feet.

I haven’t written anything of interest today, and it doesn’t look like I will.

The phone is relatively quiet.  A good thing.  At three this afternoon I need to go give some irrigation advice to a pair of homeowners with a parched lawn.  The great mystery of plumbing and low-voltage wiring.  I wonder if they’d notice if I conducted the meeting while napping.  I’d wear my sunglasses, so they’d never see my eyes.

Maybe I’ll just send Headless Lawn Man over to take care of things.  He’s been around as long as I have, and come to think of it, doesn’t work hard enough.  He needs to start pulling his weight around here.  Or pulling my weight.  Whichever one gives me more time off.

Today is suppose to be the day that I fire up the clown car and drive around the street in a small, one-man parade.  Someone will bring me my slippers and microwave yesterday morning’s coffee for me so that no noise is made and wakes up the reason for the day.  Crowds will gather along the curb, waving and smiling and all shouting in unison, “Happy Father’s Day, Imaginary Keith!” I will wave and smile back, then throw out handfuls of good fatherly advice that I keep in a grocery bag tucked between my legs, the edges carefully folded over so as to avoid paper cuts.  This in itself is good fatherly advice, so I occasionally hold up the bag for all to see.

My own father holds his own parade, somewhere in the heart of Costa Rica.  I imagine his new children gather around his feet and pile up papaya or mango or whatever it is that falls off of the trees down there.  But I can also imagine that the little half-brothers know nothing about Father’s Day, and that they just run around screaming the same as every other day.  It is quite possible that their knowledge of Father’s Day is as limited as my knowledge of Costa Rican produce.  Or Costa Rican children for that matter, even the one’s that have fallen from the same tree as me.

When the parade is over, my son has boldly proclaimed that he will take me first to brunch, then later a movie, then even later, dinner.  Eating and a movie.  I can’t complain.  Gifts that even I would buy for myself - how can I go wrong?

Yesterday, us two boys bought a couch and loveseat at a garage sale, so today will also be spent with all of the cleaning and rearranging that is necessary when you drag two giant things into an apartment.  The two couches are like us - one big and one small, oddly colored and shaped, unlike anything we’ve ever seen, and begging to be loved.  Last night we each took our respective places and grinned at each other like we’d somehow snuck aboard a space shuttle ride with enough candy bars and juice boxes to keep us comfortable all the way to the moon and back.

When the little man wakes up, which should be very soon, we will again assume our positions, begin grinning, and see where the day takes us.  The first stop will of course be breakfast, where my belly will surely swell with french toast and fatherly pride.

All I had to do was skip one Monday to make today seem impossibly far away.  And yet, here it is.  A regular Monday.  A back to work Monday.  I like skipped Mondays a whole lot better.

I’m still trying to adjust to the pace and demands of life at home.  My mind seems hesitant to return, lingering somewhere in the past, leaving my body to fend for itself.  Yesterday I ate too much, out of boredom, I’m sure, as I sat around tired.  I’ve been very tired ever since I returned.  Exhausted almost.  The balance of the days and the nights has yet to level out.

But it’s back to work.  People are waiting.  But not an impossible amount, so there is hope.  The phone was relatively quiet while I was away - a good thing.  I’d feared there would be so much catch-up to do when I got back that the trip would end up feeling like a foolish decision.

It’s hard to get a grasp on how many things have happened in the last two weeks.  Randy and I both visited our grandfather’s graves - a first for both of us.  I saw my sister and her family after more then five years apart.  I watched familiar territory move past my eyes, thinking that time cannot erase everything.  I listened over the phone to problems happening back at home.  Divorce inched its way closer and closer.  A loan was approved for $100,000, that today I will deposit and spend in such a way that financial burden falls squarely on my shoulders and someone else walks free.  I will be 43 years old and $300,000 in debt.  I have no doubt which number makes everyone’s eyebrows shoot up to the sky and I think it is sad.  We measure everything with money, including each other.  I don’t like it.  I don’t agree.

It’s the first number, the 43, that has me concerned.  Numbers with dollar signs in front of them move both ways.  $300,000 will return to zero eventually.  But my 43 can only go in one direction.  Returning to zero with age means something completely different, and I think we are all fools for not measuring life on this scale.  Myself included.

I think that is where my mind lingers, back with my friends, talking and laughing, stuck in a place where nothing is measured with money.  Maybe my mind floats slowly through a familiar town, or stops along a lake, or moves down that abandoned, Minnesota county road over and over in an endless loop, at peace for all eternity.

Someday I will tell you all about my good friend, Headless Lawn Man.  I will tell you everything.  I will tell you about how we came to be friends and about the places we have traveled to together.  Headless Lawn Man loves to travel, and is very excited about our upcoming trip.  It’ll be his first trip to both Arkansas and Minnesota, and he can hardly wait.

Headless Lawn Man is an excellent traveling companion.  He always packs light, seldom taking with him more then one bag.  He has a large, stong bladder and isn’t picky about when or where we eat or sleep.  He doesn’t complain or whine or even think about slowing me down.  Not once.  This alone is a giant plus in his favor.  You’d be amazed how easily he passes through security.

But right now isn’t the time for stories.  With only four days left until we leave, there is much to be done.  We’re pounding our way through the accounting and arranging work schedules.  He’s paying bills and I’m completing bids.  As odd as it sounds, he has quite a head on his shoulders when it comes to money.  He assures me that everything is fine. 

Stop thinking so much, he’ll say.  Relax.  Take a load off.

I’m not quite sure if he is referring to my head or what.