With all of the time I’ve been spending on planes lately, I’ve had the chance to see a large number of movies I wouldn’t have the time for otherwise. So, in lightning-round format, here are five reviews of movies I’ve seen on small, glowing screens about two feet from my face.

• The Water Horse — I didn’t have sound for this one (I didn’t need it), and didn’t really have a choice as to whether I could watch it or not. 2/10.
• The International — “Hey, our plot doesn’t make any sense, let’s shoot it in a bunch of glamorous locations and hope people don’t notice.” 4/10.
• Watchmen — Meh. Not sure what the big deal was. 6/10.
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button — Not Fincher’s best, not Fincher’s worst.  A strange, lovely and–of course–curious film, one I suspect could grow on me. 7/10.
• Milk — Great acting by Sean Penn, although the film seems to skip over a lot. 8/10.

I wonder what I’ll see on the way back.

Despite the scheduling complexity in my life these days–one day this past week had meetings at both 7:30 AM and 10:30 PM–I’m trying to set aside 10-15 minutes every day to write.  So much going on, so little time to write or even think about it.

~ ~ ~

Today is my second Father’s Day as a father, and my first Father’s Day without one.  Not much else to say about that.

Yesterday was Mathias’ second birthday.  We had a small party, and my mom was up in the Cities to celebrate it, along with Ben and his kids.  It was a lot of fun, but to be honest Mathias and Ben’s kids seemed to have just as much fun, if not more, running around the mega mall later in the evening.  (They closed the Lego store.)   Hopefully there’ll be some time to meet up with Ben and his family tomorrow morning before they head back to Two Rivers…

…And before I head back to Bangalore later in the afternoon.  I’ll be gone for a week.  This will be my first trip during monsoon season, so it should be interesting.  I’ll have a really packed schedule while there, but hopefully I’ll be able to get out a little bit, something I really wasn’t able to do last time I was in town.

Last weekend we were in Two Rivers and Green Bay, in what was essentially an in-and-out stop to hit the Day Out With Thomas being held at the National Railroad Museum.  Mathias had fun, but we’ll have to go again when he’s old enough to remember it.

~ ~ ~

I can’t believe it’s almost July already.  It feels like the summer has just begun.  If I have time one of the evenings I’m in India, I may try figuring out when and where Lisa, Mathias and I can go camping.  I better do that soon, as before we know it I’ll be back in school and our brief Minnesotan summer will have faded to Fall.

I’m starting to wonder if I should be worried with my son’s ongoing obsession with clocks. “Clock” was one of his first words, and while there was a bit of a dry period where he only gave passing interest to them, his sudden realization last week that the speedometer in my car looks like “A CLOCK!!!!” has resulted in three to four hours of Lisa or me sitting out in my car his week so Mathias could jump up and down on the driver’s seat, play with dials and switches, and comment on the “clock” on the dashboard. (The fact my car has plenty of lights, another Mathias obsession, albeit not quite as severe, has exacerbated this issue.)

A recent purchase of a toy car big enough for him to ride in has not distracted him from his idea that my car is a plaything, but in all likeliness has actually made things worse.  We’ve had a number of cases this week where he’s run to the back of the house (towards the garage), sometimes pulling Lisa or me along, pointing and proclaiming “clock!” and “car!”  Refusal to take him out has a seemingly inevitable result: Mathias flips. The fuck. Out.

Last night while walking back from Sebastian Joe’s, we made the mistake of taking a route that allowed Mathias to make a beeline for our garage.  In hopes of directing Mathias elsewhere, I pretended that the garage door wouldn’t open, but Mathias responded with a trick of his own, his first four-word sentence, delivered with a high level of concern: “The car is stuck!”  Lisa and I looked at each other, dumbfounded.  After a few attempts to divert his attention, we let him in the garage, briefly.  The expected happened when we removed him, though.

As with many things relating to the junior member of the household, we’re assuming this is a stage.  I’m sure we’ll be nostalgic about it when he’s older, but for now, we kind of hope it passes quickly.

Only two more mornings of Putter waking up the family in an effort to get his breakfast.  His new owner picks him up on Sunday.  That afternoon, we’re going to start the tedious process of eliminating any cat residue from the apartment, just another step in our battle against Mathias’ respiratory problems.

Am I going to miss our cat? Heck yes. Putter has a long track record of driving Lisa up the wall, but it’s pretty clear she’s going to miss him, too.  There’s comfort in the fact Putter is going to a rabid cat person, someone who has cat-sit for him in the past, and who actually currently does cat sitting for a living.  There’s some concern Putter may have trouble adjusting to a house with other cats in it, not to mention the fact he’s on a special diet, but it sounds like his new owner has some creative ideas for dealing with those issues.  If worse comes to worse, we can help find him another home somewhere else.

Next weekend, it’ll be the guinea pigs’ turn, as they relocate to Northeastern Wisconsin.

~ ~ ~

Other than that, life is the typical: Busy.  Depending on the weather this weekend, we may or may not be hitting the Minneapolis farmer’s market.  The same goes for Grand Old Days.  Priority will be given to cleaning and decluttering, though.  We’ll have family in town in a few weeks for Mathias’ second birthday, and this will be the only weekend to clean up post-Putter.

Between yoga class for Lisa, swimming and music classes for Mathias, and my sudden urge to bike all over the Twin Cities, it’s safe to say we’re a pretty busy family.  Next weekend, we’ll be in Green Bay. The weekend after that, it’s Mathias’ birthday, and my mom will be in town.  And on Father’s Day, I’m off to India for the third time this year.

Life is interesting.

I thought school being out for summer would mean some spare time for me to get some writing done, get some backlogged India photos up on Flickr, and make some progress on the hundreds of little projects I have going on at once.  So far, not much luck.

We’re in Madison, staying a dog-free hotel while visiting friends and family during the day.  (The hotel is cheap and doesn’t have wifi, so who knows when this will be up.)  The need for the hotel was brought on by Mathias’ allergies, which, now that we know what they are, are bringing a range of unpleasant changes to the Danielson household.  For one, there are the morning and evening allergy-related nebulizer treatments we have to give Mathias.  For two, well, we have to get rid of the resident feline, as well as both of Lisa’s guinea pigs.  We’ve found a good home for the pigs, but for a range of reasons I’m not going to expand upon here, we’re trying to keep Putter close to home in Minneapolis.  I’m working on a couple of leads, but the search for a new home for the kitty is complicated by the fact that he’s a fairly senior cat, and has a track record of not playing well with other members of his species.

Hopefully I’ll have an update on the cat in the next few weeks.  We don’t have a deadline to get him out of the house, but the earlier the better.

~ ~ ~

Beyond that, May has been busy.  My first business trip to India for the most part went very well, and my project there seems to have gotten off to a great start.  I’ll be heading back in late June for my second work-related visit, and may be headeded back once again in late Q3.

Back at home, the next few months are looking pretty booked.  We’ll be heading to Green Bay the weekend of June 13th to visit some friends and take Mathias to the “Day Out With Thomas” tour, and the following week my mom will be up for Mathias’ birthday.  (I leave for India the day after his birthday, Father’s Day.)  I’ll be hitting my 15-year high school reunion in July–don’t ask me why, I’m not sure I know–and sometime in the next few months we hope to take Mathias camping, and, well, take a few weekends off.

Well, Lisa sounds like she’s getting done with the shower, and Mathias is acting psychotic in the way only a two-year-old can–he’s in a big walking-around-the-hotel mode today–so I should go.  Up today: Visiting with Robin and Andy, and hitting some crazy brat festival a few miles from our hotel. Also, later tonight: Brisket hamburgers. (Today is sponsored by meat.) More later.

Today’s highlight: Courses canceled at the Carlson School due to some jackass threatening to shoot up the place. (For me, school’s out for summer.)

Tonight’s highlight: Mathias hugging me, saying “I love you,” and patting me on the back.

Tomorrow’s highlight: Business class on NWA and British Airways.

Sunday’s highlight: India.

Life is interesting.

I haven’t given a Mathias update in a while, but the past few days definitely call for one. Sometimes his growth and development comes in the form of gradual changes, and other times it comes like it has over the past few days. I’m not sure when exactly it happened, but both verbally and conceptually he seems to have gone up a few steps. Just over a week ago he grasped the concept of a circle–the first shape he’s been able to identify verbally–and since then has started identifying things like airplanes, trucks, screwdrivers and a wide range of food products.

Over the weekend he and I were out in the sunroom–his defacto playroom–and he was banging away at his toy piano. After a couple of minutes he paused without warning, looked at me, said “practice,” and went back to banging on the keys. I was floored. His Thomas And Friends video has suddenly stopped being “choo choo,” and has started being “Thomas.” And today, he saw a picture of himself, pointed at it, and said “me.”

Mathias has had a relatively long track record of putting two words together–usually some noun preceded by “a,”–but today he walked up to his mom and matter-of-factly said three words: “I love you.”

So, a lot of changes from the little one around here, and he’s not even two.

Now that everyone is back home and pretty much settled in, I’d like to be able to say Mike and Andrea’s wedding was great, but part of me would still like to know who the hell I can punch for everything that happened.  What was supposed to be a small, leisurely gathering to witness and celebrate a new marriage was turned into a day-long rush-and-stop-and-rush endurance test.  Royal Caribbean, who’s Voyager of the Seas was to be the site of the event, definitely bears some of the blame, but the complete lack of coordination and communication by the planning company Mike and Andrea worked with didn’t help.

The schedule as we knew it going in was we were to get to the Port of Galveston cruise terminal around 10:00, and would likely be onboard around 11:00, over three hours before the ceremony, allowing plenty of time for the families and friends to visit and walk around the ship, for the bride and groom to prepare for the big event, and for a certain toddler to take his afternoon nap.  Long story short, we didn’t get on the boat until 1:30, and a number of delays and changes after that caused the ceremony to slip to 3:00, one hour before the non-cruising guests—everyone except for Mike and Andrea—had to be off the boat.  Mathias never got his nap, the reception basically left time for photos and nothing else, and the officiator at the wedding even managed to accidentally swap Andrea’s name for… Lisa. (“She was holding the flowers,” was the explanation we got later.)

Both Andrea and Mathias get extra bonus points for the day,  Andrea for holding it together despite the cavalcade of idiots running amok across her wedding day, and Mathias for dutifully putting up with a second long day of limited sleep time.  (As many parents can attest, a sleep-deprived but patient toddler can be a rare combination.)

~ ~ ~

Our experience trying to park our cars was kind of representative of everything that happened.  We actually scoped out the cruise terminal the day before to make sure we knew where we were going, but upon arriving Sunday morning, with two huge ships in harbor and people everywhere, all bets were off.  We dropped off Mike and Andrea and headed for the parking lot.  Arriving there, we were told it was only for people on the ship, and we were supposed to park in short-term parking.  We headed back to the terminal and couldn’t find the short-term parking, and, still believing that we were scheduled to board the ship in the next half hour, parked on a sketchy-looking nearby street (and by “nearby” I mean roughly three city blocks away).  Upon getting into the terminal and checking through security, we found out the short-term parking was in the same lot as employee parking, it just wasn’t labeled as such.  Not wanting to return to our SUV to find it stripped of its tires and devoid of our luggage, I left the terminal, spent 10 minutes driving through the line of cars in front of the terminal (again), negotiated with law enforcement on parking, and waited through the (now much longer) security line a second time.

The time spent didn’t matter, though, as we still had a full hour and  a half before boarding.  We just didn’t know that yet.

~ ~ ~

In the end we were told there was a large Mexican tour group on the boat, and there were problems with many of their visas, and that boarding couldn’t begin until all the current passengers were “dealt with.”  I asked why that wasn’t recognized when the tour group, was, you know, BOARDING THE FUCKING BOAT, but was told there was no way Royal Caribbean could have foreseen the problem.  Right.

But, in the end, none of that is too important, as eventually we got to see this:

And, hopefully, in a few years everyone will be able to look back at the crazy events of the day and laugh.

I still kind of want to punch someone, though.

Well, it’s been a few weeks since my dad died, and I’d say things are getting back to normal for Lisa and me except for some craziness from a few people who “are trying to help.” I’m lucky in that my friends and coworkers have been incredibly respectful and supportive, with an emphasis on supportive—none have turned my family’s tragedy into an opportunity for gawking or gossip. While Lisa’s gotten a lot of support from many close to her, her experience hasn’t been quite as good as mine, and has encountered some comments and inquiries from a few select people who could charitably be described as lacking common sense. I’ve given her some recommendations on how to screw with them in response, but she’s sensibly persevered and risen above such behavior.

My mom seems to be doing OK, all things considered. Speaking of people who are unhelpful, two of her neighbors, people my father feuded with on a number of occasions over the past decade, have now been trying to acquaint themselves with my mom. I won’t fault them for that, but their approach could be a bit more refined. Consider the post one of them put on my brother’s Facebook page, which was more than a bit weird considering their and my parents’ history:

Just to let you know…..I love my new found friend…your mom. We have her back for anything she needs! It was so nice to talk to her again yesterday! She is such a sweetheart! We’ve waited 10 years for this. She is the BEST! Look forward to the bon fires in summer with her! Can’t wait to meet you in person. Your mom is in good hands. If you ever feel she needs someone to come give her a hug….give us a call 920-793-____.

Well, OK, but all because our father has passed doesn’t necessarily mean we instantly like you, mmkay? We’re open, but slow down a bit. Then there was the piece of work she posted on the page of one of my parents’ close friends. (Emphasis mine.)

You know something ____? Kathy is such a sweet person. She is able to reach out to us and be able to just talk. To hear the joy in her voice….she is such an amazing person that I always felt she was. For her to call me and be able to talk about the weather, her future landscape,facebook, the snow….and to top it off…her new found freedom to express her love for her kids and grandchild is just beautiful! To know she will be able to express her unconditional love is amazing! We (____, _______, __, and I) are looking forward to adding this beautiful woman into our neighborhood “girls club”. We’ve waited 10 years for this! It’s her turn now and she deserves it! Thanks for being such a great friend to her. The BEST is to come for Kathy!

Seriously… My mom just lost her husband of almost 41 years, someone she stuck with through good times and bad, and this is their response? Holy crap.

Not that this needs to be said, but my mom never had any hesitation to express her love for her kids, or her grandson.  While fully recognizing that my dad was often not an easy person to deal with, my mom wasn’t a captive in their house and the suggestion as such is just bullshit.

~ ~ ~

Other than fuckers messing with our shit, life is pretty much back to normal this week, which means I’m busy at work and scrambling to get homework done. Lisa and Mathias are planning on heading down to visit her parents this weekend, which should give me some time to take care of some things around the apartment and to get ahead on my coursework. There’s also some travel planning that needs to be taken care of for our pending trip to Texas in a few weeks (my brother is getting married!), as well as a lot of thank-yous to write for support we’ve received from so many friends and relatives over the past few weeks.

And with that, I have a 7:30 AM conference call with colleagues in India, so it’s time for me to calm down a bit so I can get some sleep.  More later.

Peter J. Danielson

Peter J. Danielson, age 66, of 2918 40th Street, Two Rivers, died on Wednesday, March 11, 2009, at his residence.

Peter was born on July 14, 1942, in Manitowoc, son of the late John C. and Gretchen (Fuechsel) Danielson. He attended schools in Manitowoc and was a graduate of Lincoln High School, Manitowoc, class of 1960. He married the former Kathleen Farrell on March 21, 1968.

Survivors include his wife: Kathleen Danielson, Two Rivers; two sons and one daughter-in-law: Mark and Lisa (Michalski) Danielson, Minneapolis, Minn.; Michael Danielson, Oklahoma City, Okla.; one grandson: Mathias Danielson, Minneapolis, Minn.; two brothers and one sister-in-law: Eric Danielson, Fla.; John (JoAnn Duffy) Danielson, Racine; one sister and two brothers-in-law: Margaret “Margi” (David) Kindig, Madison; Patrick “Pat” Farrell, Green Bay. Nieces, nephews, other relatives and friends also survive. He was preceded in death by his parents.

Private family services were held on Saturday, March 14, 2009, at the Jens Family Funeral Home & Crematory. Cremation followed.

Memorials may be made to the National Diabetes Foundation.