We have a family friend.  Her name is Victoria, and she has been spending time with our family for a month or so.  When the doorbell rings in the late afternoon, I no longer wonder who it could possibly be.  She is a great playmate to Dylan, an auxiliary caregiver to Julia, and at eleven years of age, she is a glimpse into the future of parenting an “older” kid for me.

Her family has been close with us for years.  When John and Annette (her parents) won a trip to Vegas, they invited us.  When I needed a ride home from work last night, her dad came to pick me up.  Her older brother Alex occasionally watches the kids while we ride our bikes downtown for drinks and dancing.  Yet Victoria has only recently carved out her own special place in our larger family friendship.

Last week, she had a few days off from school and was invited to our place for a sleepover.  Everyone had a good time and she helped bedtime go super smoothly by reading books to the kids until they drifted away.  The next day, we played and played until I finally reminded her it would be a good idea to check in with her parents.  So why does she like to hang out with us?  I will have to ask her.

It may have to do with being the oldest kid when she is at our house, while she is the youngest at her home.  Maybe she is excited to practice playing the piano on our new keyboard, or to learn a new chord on the guitar (she says she is getting free lessons from me).  Or perhaps she senses the coming change in her life as she sets out to explore the larger world of her adolescence, and is savoring a bit of childhood by hanging out with young children.  I know I am.

Happy Autumnal Equinox! Summer is my favorite season, but fall is a close second. It is cool enough at night to justify a backyard fire, and the mosquitos have flown south for the winter. Although the Minnesota Vikings are off to an 0-2 start, Julia and I are thrilled when they achieve a first down and we get a chance to boom out our impression of the Viking’s horn. Aaaaahooooooo!

The Red River of the North has finally fallen below flood stage, the first frost has killed our tomato plants, and the forecast calls for 80 degrees and sunny. It must be time for a recap of the events of the summer! Here are the highlights: My teeth fell out. And left little stubby fangs behind. I gigged as a storyteller, once for a crowd of twenty and once for hundreds of small children. I was asked to perform three wedding ceremonies, and to attend a funeral. Busy busy busy!

Dylan is now capable of reading books to Julia, you might say it is like filling two brains with one tome. He is also dancing, playing games involving math and cooking at pbskids.org, and telling surreal knock-knock jokes.

Julia is running in parks, brushing her teeth, and speaking in full sentences between bouts of giggly gibberish. “Daddy, I need to tell you something,” she will solemnly request. “Gak-yak!” Is Julia still a baby? She will turn two years old on November 13th, and I will be forced to acknowledge what the accumulation of evidence clearly shows: the children are growing up.

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I just got punched in the face. By a professional. It felt pretty darn good!

Many moons ago, when I lived in the northeast neighborhoods of Minneapolis, my old buddy Johnny and I started working out at Uppercut Boxing Gym. We enjoyed taking lessons and hanging with the tough guys (and girls, the gym was and is run by a woman), but we never had any illusions of stepping into the ring.

Training to box helped me lose a few pounds as well as take out a bit of agression in a somewhat productive fashion. When we moved to Moorhead after Baby Boots (Dylan’s fetal nickname) arrived, I was disappointed to find there were no boxing gyms in the F-M area.

Over the years I have collected various pieces for my home gym including hand wraps, gloves, sparring equipment, a double end bag, a speed bag, and my boxing robot, Slam Man (aka Slammy). It is a lot of fun to wrap up my hands, blast the tunes, and work it out on the bags. Dylan and Julia enjoy boxing as well. Dylan and I have an elaborate routine involving me on my knees in the black headgear and he with the red. We trade punches until one of us decides to fall down, the other begins counting to ten, then the fallen one hurriedly gets up and the action continues. Inevitably, after a few falls, the ten-count is reached and I boom in my best boxing announcer voice that the winner and undisputed champion is Dylan…Michael…Brannnnnnnnnndoooooonnnnnnnn!

Now I get to box with the big boys again thanks to the Golden Eagle Boxing Club. It is fun to work out on my own, but there is something special about hanging out with the type of dedicated athlete who is drawn to boxing. The gym is somewhat sparse, and the do-it-yourself ring is not yet complete, but it feels great to enjoy the camaraderie and encouragement of other fighters.

I explained several times that I was there for the workout, not to spar or prepare for an amateur bout, but the professional boxer who was going round after round with all of the guys was insistent. “I’ll take it easy, I adjust my punches to the fighter,” he assured me. True to his word he did a great job of not knocking me out while making sure to wake me up with shots to the head when I opened up my guard. We only went a single two minute round. Did you know that two minutes can be a long time?

“Oh, sick! That one still looks alive,” Corey stage whispered. At these altitudes, yelling was saved for your own life and death struggle, not those of the bodies littering the slopes of Mt. Everest. When we initially agreed to undertake the most arduous trek imaginable, we had no idea how much it would cost, or how many had died attempting to reach the summit.

I had written down my “bucket list” at Corey’s suggestion, three things I wanted to do before I died. Outrageous things. Things not to be shared with others at the risk of ridicule. He wrote his down as well, proceeding to tell me about his goals in great detail. We matched on two out of three, skydiving and climbing Mt. Everest. I did not share his passion for menage a trois, and kept my third goal to myself.

Skydiving was accomplished the next day. A real rush to be sure, but it was mostly a chance for us to discuss our epic journey to the Himalayas. We would take massive loans from our retirement plans, obtain top of the line equipment and training, and hire the best Sherpa guides available. We didn’t know about the bodies.

Most of them are very well preserved, nearly all wearing the brightly colored parkas and cutting edge mountaineering equipment of their day. Some are famous, like that of George Mallory, who fell to his death in 1924. Some are recent and anonymous, like the one we had just about stepped on.

“She could have made it if she had more oxygen,” Corey offered by way of sympathy. She lay on her back, no frostbite visible on her well-formed face. A stark warning of what might happen to us.

“Help me,” she croaked. “O two.”

“Shit! She’s alive!” Corey yelled as we both stumbled away from the non-corpse. “What are we gonna do?” he asked.

“Well, we sure as hell aren’t going to save her,” I began. “We are not going to turn back after coming this far, and there is no way we are gonna give her one of our oxygen tanks just so she can live another forty minutes. Besides, no one helped all these others on the way up, and she wouldn’t have stopped for us had the situation been reversed.”

“Crap, you are so cold. But right. You should say something to her at least, I don’t think I can handle it but someone’s got to say something, right?”

“I’ll take care of it. You go on ahead, we’ve wasted enough time already.”

As soon as my friend was out of sight, I approached the undead woman. She did not attempt to speak again, but her eyes reiterated her request. “O two” she had pleaded, “O two”.

I knelt beside her and rummaged in my pack, pulling out a piece of paper and a small tank of oxygen. Corey was long gone, he would never know about the tank. Gripping it tightly, I raised it high above my head, mouthed the words “thank you” to the woman, then smashed down once with all of my weight and conviction.

I stood, held the paper in both hands, and triumphantly made a mental checkmark after the third item on my list. If the mountain got me now, at least I would die complete.