Posted 5:16 AM by Alfred

I sit here before you, oh computer screen of acranon, high priest of the known and unknown, seen and invisible, black, white, purple, green, all that comes before and behind with good and evil intentions, bow before you oh unwitting ultimate judge, that doth visage upon the vilest and the most pure with equal eyes of innocent reticence, that ponders imponderables without regard for former opinionated subjectivity. To you I say, pshaw. Gratzi.

The type is small and the drinks are tall, here at 1:51 am in the middle of the pacific ocean. Japan lies not too much farther from my feet than the shores of California, nay baja beckons at a more proximous locale, but none of that is of any concern at this junction of the flux capacitor’s whim, nay, I come not to bury Caesar, but to make a salad from his crimson bony remains, in croutons we trust, salud.

My younger daughter awoke, as she is wont to do, with pacifier falling out of mouth and scream of unwillingness to embrace the sandman without the assistance of formulaic lactate imitatory assitance, and as I held her close post bottle I sat in awe of her size in my arms, harkening back to similar nocturnes with my older one (just a year apart they be, a smidge over 13 months for those counting beans for the stork accounting firm, beak and talon, inc.), the amount of my chest and stomach that her body covered as she lay passed out, my girls are getting bigger, stronger, older, wiser, more agile, and before I know it they will be laughing at the old man in newer and different ways rather than the happy clown it will be sigh shalom pops, thou art a funny fool, but we love you. This I hope, but I know it in my heart. I am a good father, married to an amazing mother, I love my kids, wow, a lot, more than the Grecian urn collection of Alexander the 83rd, Jehovah rest his burdened shoulders.

I’m trying to segway into something that I’m not sure if it’s segwayable, so I’ll just get right into it. Not in any relation to what’s been said above, but I’ll let you, reader, in your infinite, or complete lack of, whatever the case may be, wisdom, determine. My older daughter, light of my life, for whom I would gladly take a nosedive onto some rail road tracks as the oncoming train whistles Dixie and the cows come home if it meant one more day of her beautiful existence on this sometimes sketchy planet of ours, was born with Down Syndrome.

And she’s doing incredibly well. It was a frightening proposition, I won’t lie, when we found out (in utero) that we were going to have a child with quote unquote special needs. We wondered, are we ready for this, can we handle this, and honestly, it’s been a breeze, our pleasure, she has taught me ad infinitum more about this wacky mudball and the philosophies which should govern its governance than I could ever hope to teach to her. Her health? Insanely good, no problemos. She has tons of doctors checking her out all the time at regular intervals and they’re quite challenged to find any issues. She is in a constant search for the next challenge that I hope never ends. And really, what more can you ask? Can I say the same for myself? I like to think so, but some days, I doubt, I wonder. She walks, she signs, she thinks, she understands, she opines glorious words, she loves, she gives us the gift every day of her beautiful presence.

As does my younger one, the blessing that was given to us by whatever higher power, if in existence, that hovers above the scene, determining that which is best and most appropriate for this vagabond band on this overpopulated island. The younger one came about, just a year after her sis, give or take, to be the other pea in their little two girl pod (for now, more siblings to come, bet), to learn at her big sister’s whim (and she’s a generous soul, the older, they both are) about life in our cityscape tropic, about sharing toys, reading books, colors, numbers, the letters of the alphabet, the signs of everything under the sun and beneath the roof. Big sister and little sister, learning, teaching, growing together and providing the companionship for the nonce, and, insert deity here willing, a lifetime, that couldn’t have possibly been planned any better by any master planner that ever stepped in front of a gigantic scheduling sheet ready to map out the eons and beyond of familial bliss for the arcane ages.

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