When I was five years old I voted for Ronald Reagan for President. I remember my kindergarten class cheered when it was announced that he had won in a landslide in the school election at Sylvan Christian (I heard rumors that Mondale had pulled out a win over at Oakdale). I’m sure I didn’t fully appreciate the reasoning behind those votes until I got to high school and those same Sylvan voters were driving shiny new cars on their sixteenth birthdays.

These days, now that my vote counts for slightly more, I do my best to avoid politics until I absolutely have to. I couldn’t tell you any candidate’s stance on anything at this point. The week before voting I’ll swoop across the Internet and do my research. Not before that. Too much blather.

I tend to lean Democrat, though I do have a few die-hard opinions on issues that sometimes push me into a Republican vote. I value working for what you get in life. I realize taxation has to happen (though I would root for a Fair Tax), but I don’t want to pay for someone’s laziness. And I certainly don’t want to pay to fund shooting up other countries. I don’t like guns in general and wouldn’t mind loss of that particular American freedom. Abortion? Far too many gray nuances for me to base someone’s electability on. And on and on. More than anything I like to vote candidates that appear grounded and genuine. I want a president who is capable of making decisions with an open mind based on circumstance and not on what their party is supposed to support.

That’s why this whole process is so frustrating. We try to box in and label each candidate so we can count how many issues we agree with. What we need is a process to judge them as humans. How they respond to stress or joy. What hobbies or events make them light up? Tell me what you love/value and I’ll tell how you’ll vote/act to defend that love in presidential time. How do they respond to a variety of obstacles. Put the candidates in a presidential “Survivor” together. Make it a reality show, I’d love that, America would love that. Some independent network, unedited. See who works hard. See who fights for his/her team. If you make it a month long the bluster would fade and true colors would start to show by week two. This would be incredible.

My other memories from kindergarten at Sylvan:
– Watching a butterfly in an aquarium hatch from its cocoon.
– Accidentally hitting a kid in the nose with a fist-sized rock I when he popped up unexpectedly on the other side of the metal slide I was heaving it across.
– Having a crush on Micky Batts.
– Learning to ride my first bike on the painted lanes in the school parking lot.
– Mouthing off to a kid named Ben when he was making fun of Ben Knoester, saying something to the effect of “Well, you’re named Ben too, so you’re making fun of yourself.”
– Putting a two-inch long gash in my right knee courtesy of a fall in the parking lot after being pushed from behind by the above-named Ben. Crying and saying “he pushed me!” I still have a hefty scar on my knee from that fall.

The five d’s of dodgeball: dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge!

I joined a YMCA dodgeball league with eight other co-workers from work and tonight we played our first games of the season. We played two different teams (best of five match each) and split for the night. We won the first series 3 games to 1, then lost the second by the reverse count. I only got pegged twice, which I think was pretty good for seven games played (subbed out one game). Once on a glancing elbow shot. And once when I was the last man standing on our team against four. That game was a hoot, running around by myself dodging a flurry. I got ’em down to two when I drilled a guy, then leapt over return fire and in mid-air caught another throw from another guy. Then about two seconds later I couldn’t hang on to a throw I tried to catch. It was fun to be in fifth grade again.

Lance Armstrong: Hey, aren’t you Peter La Fleur?
Peter La Fleur: Lance Armstrong!
Lance Armstrong: Ya, that’s me. But I’m a big fan of yours.
Peter La Fleur: Really?
Lance Armstrong: Ya, I’ve been watching the dodgeball tournament on the Ocho. ESPN 8. I just can’t get enough of it. Good luck in the tournament. I’m really pulling for you against those jerks from Globo Gym. I think you better hurry up or you’re gonna be late.
Peter La Fleur: Uh, actually I decided to quit… Lance.
Lance Armstrong: Quit? You know, once I was thinking of quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I’m sure you have a good reason to quit. So what are you dying of that’s keeping you from the finals?
Peter La Fleur: Right now it feels a little bit like… shame.
Lance Armstrong: Well, I guess if a person never quit when the going got tough, they wouldn’t anything to regret for the rest of their life. Well good luck to you Peter. I’m sure this decision won’t haunt you forever.

Brilliant!

When I was a kid my dad would routinely cook Vietnamese Fried Rice. It seemed like once a week at least, but that may be my memory running on kid time. I remember just as routinely I would complain loudly, lurching about in my chair at the table. I wasn’t big into vegetables, especially onions. I couldn’t handle that onion crunch. And there were onions-a-plenty in Vietnamese Fried Rice.

Well for some reason today I suddenly had a craving for Vietnamese Fried Rice. I probably haven’t had it since high school (or even thought about it since then), but I was sitting at my computer this afternoon and just like that I wanted some. I tried to remember what went into it, focusing on all those ingredients I used to freak out about. I remembered rice of course, onions, eggs, peas, soy sauce. Green beans maybe? But I knew there had to be more than that. I looked up a bunch of recipes online and they were all across the board, but at least I could get a general idea of the main staples and how to cook them. Ended up adding garlic and carrots also. The only thing that we didn’t have in the house were peas, so I picked up a bag of frozen peas and carrots on the way back from working out at the gym tonight.

It definitely didn’t turn out quite as I remembered it. Probably because I’m a terrible cook and the rice was kind of mushy and I used bagged veggies instead of ingredients we used to pull straight from the backyard garden. Oh, and we didn’t have any soy sauce, even though I thought we did before I stopped at the store. So I realized how important the soy sauce was and it was a bit bland. Pepper helped a little. Still, in the end it was close enough to reach my craving. I just need more practice.

The dogs and I spent this morning exploring the uplands of Cowiche Canyon. Cowiche Canyon is a 2000 acre preserve just west of Yakima (about a ten minute drive from our house to the trailhead) that I had wandered around a little last summer. Lots of single track and double track trails for mountain biking and hiking. Very desert-like anywhere that’s not close to the creek at the bottom of the canyon. I think it’s a fairly popular spot for people to run their dogs too as our three dogs were sniffing like mad from the get-go. Neat views of Mount Adams and the Yakima Valley, but otherwise nothing too spectacular.

The day started off plenty lazy. After briefly letting the dogs out when they started shuffling around at daybreak, I went back to bed and slept until almost 11. I can’t remember the last time I slept in that late. I’m sure it’s been more than a year since the last time (maybe when I last worked a third shift at St. John’s in ’06). Granted I stayed up pretty late last night, but that was some of the deepest sleep I’ve had in a while.

This has been such a nice break from work the past week and a half. I didn’t burn any vacation days, but had two days off for Christmas, a day and a half for New Year’s and a couple of my normal three-day weekends lumped in there. Even the days I did work everyone else was vacationing, so I basically had the place to myself. No meetings, no surprise work assignments. I guess it’s not over yet, but I’m already trying to figure out how I’m going to make it to my next paid holiday in May.

This afternoon was less lazy though. With blue skies and a bunch of college kids on winter break, a Frisbee game was pulled together last minute. It felt good to sprint around again, though I could definitely feel the time off in my lungs. We threw for a while then played 5 on 5 for about an hour, until soaked feet and tired legs wrapped things up.

Pictures: The dogs slept in too this morning. And a shot of Chesterly Park with some hardy Frisbee players here in Yakima this afternoon.