Neal Pollack's The Maelstrom

The other night, while I half-heartedly watched the Dodgers flail at Francisco Liriano's changeup, Regina and Elijah made mint chocolate chip ice cream. They used fresh mint, and fresh cream, and what appeared to be fresh chips, and the whole thing tasted delicious.

About an hour later, I felt a little bloated. But I had a deadline, and was at the computer, so I ignored the feeling. Elijah was in bed, doing his usual routine. First he wanted socks, then he wanted water, then he had to pee, and then he had to poop. We accept all four of those excuses, but anything beyond that receives no tolerance in these parts.

He came into my office.

"I have to fwow up," he said.

He says this all the time, but rarely delivers the goods. Despite the fact that my stomach didn't feel so hot itself, I ignored him.

"Get your ass back in bed," I said. "NOW!"

"I have to fwow up!" he said.

"No, you don't."

"Yes I do!"

"Get back in bed, or I will turn off all the lights in the hall and it'll be dark and you'll be scared."

He ran back into his room, whining about how he had to "fwow" up.

Fifteen minutes later, Regina came to me.

"His stomach feels very hard," she said.

I went into his room. Sure enough, Elijah's stomach was rock-solid.

"I have to fwow up," he said.

I felt horrible, because I'd obviously made the wrong call. But, unlike anyone in our current federal government, I'm willing to admit my mistakes. I handed him a garbage can.

"OK, sweetie," I said. "But throw up in this, because we don't want to have to wash your sheets."

Elijah leaned over the garbage can and made a hideous noise.

"BORK!"

We looked into the can. A few small rivulets of barf had run down the sides. I handed it to Regina.

"Baby, could you wash this?" I said. "I'm on deadline."

She rolled her eyes.

"I feel bettew now, daddy," Elijah said.

The next day, Elijah and I discussed the incident.

"I fowed up, daddy."

"No, you say, 'I threw up.'"

"Fowed up."

"Threw up."

"Fowed up."

"Threw up."

"I sounded like a seal."

"More like a dog."

"How about a pig?"

"OK, a pig."

Last night, he tried it again. At 9:45, while Regina and I were watching a very important movie about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he came into the living room.

"I have to fwow up," he said.

"No, you don't," I said.

"OK," he said. "Goodnight, daddy."

I can't be wrong every time.

Posted by at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (53)

Elijah and I were washing our hands in the bathroom the other day--an activity which I, with my infinitely good parental judgment, have declared necessary after I wipe his ass--when Regina walked into the room with a surprise.

She had a carrot between her legs.

"Look," she said. "Mommy has a peenie."

She wiggled the carrot around.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

This was very inappropriate!

I looked at Elijah, who didn't seem offended at all. In fact, he seemed overjoyed.

"Heh heh," he said. "WAHHHHH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

"It really does look like a peenie," Regina said.

Sure enough, the carrot had a little tip, which was separated by a ridge from the rest of the carrot. The wife had a point, so I excused her this transgression. And I even excused her when she took Elijah into the kitchen, cut off the tip of the carrot peenie, and gave him the carrot to eat.

"You circumcized it," I said.

Later, I walked into the living room. Elijah was laying on top of Regina, watching The Iron Giant for the 500th time.

"Your son just told me I had a baby in my tummy," Regina said.

"Elijah," I said. "That's not appropriate. Tell your mommy that she's beautiful."

"No," Elijah said. "You're beautiful, daddy."

"Thank you, son, but you still have to be nice to mommy."

"I told him that he had a baby in his fat ass," said Regina.

"Nice," I said.

"Daddy, I have a fat ass," Elijah said.

"No one in this house has a fat ass!" I exclaimed. "OK?"

"OK!" said my son to me. "You're a talking banana."

That was an insult I could accept. Another great moment in fatherhood had concluded. So I went away and hid in back of the house until it was time for Elijah to go to bed.

Posted by at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Note from the mgmt: following this entry, I welcome you to add your own stories about teaching kids to read and/or count.

Though Elijah is still not able to do puzzles that contain more than 12 pieces, and still has trouble sitting through a book with a coherent narrative, he's begun the process of learning how to read. He now looks at words and is able to tell us what letter they start with; at some point, he's going to figure out that the other letters in the words mean something as well. The conversations go like this:

"Daddy, what starts with C?"

"I don't know, Elijah. What does start with C."

"Cookie!"

"Yes."

"And cat."

"Correct."

"So does snake."

"No, snake starts with S."

"Cake rhymes with snake."

"Yes, and cake starts with C."

"You have poop on your head."

"No, I don't."

"Cake, snake, bake, rake."

"Yes."

"Schlake!"

"OK, sure. Schlake."

He's also showing quite an interest in numbers, though I'm having trouble persuading him that "thirty-ten" is the same as forty.

The other day, while driving to swim lessons, the family did a numbers run. We counted to 60, and then to 100 by tens, then to 1,000 by hundreds, and finally by thousands. When we got to 10,000, Elijah had a question.

"How many numbers is there?"

"How many numbers are there?" I corrected.

"How many?" he asked again.

"There's no end to numbers," said Regina.

"No end?"

"They go on and on forever, I said. "Just like the universe."

"That's called infinity," Regina said.

"Numbers go on and on forever without ending?" Elijah asked, grasping the concept with frightening ease.

"That's right."

"Letters aren't infinity," he said. "Letters end."

Regina and I looked at each other, our jaws unhinging.

"That's right, son," she said.

"I eat boogers," he said, bringing us back down to the finite.

"OK," I said. "And what letter does booger start with?"

"B!" he said. "What does fart start with?"

"What does fart start with?"

"F!"

He who spelt it, dealt it.

Posted by at 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (26)

This morning, I woke up around 10:30, a little earlier than my usual Sunday time, went into my office, loaded a bowl, smoked up, and walked down to the corner diner for a big plate of chilaquiles and a tall glass-bottle of Mexican coke. The dudes came over around noon. We tossed our boogie boards into the trunk and drove down to Zuma with a 12-pack in the cooler. An hour later, we were playing Frisbee when these three really hot Dominican chicks....

I'm sorry. I accidentally went back to 1996 for a minute there.

Actually, I woke up around 8:30 to find Elijah washing his plastic dinosaurs in the bathroom sink. He'd made a finger-painting of a purple caterpillar for me, which was really nice of him, and Regina presented me with a kick-ass Amare Stoudemire jersey. Then we drove down to Koreatown to meet my sister, brother-in-law, and niece at this Oaxacan restaurant I've been wanting to try. While we drove, Elijah engaged us in a kind of dialogue.

"I had a nice dream last night," he said.

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh. It was a funny dream."

"Do tell."

"I was Hot Man. And I rescued Superman from Goo Man. And then Goo Man sat on a wall and there were trees and someone fell into a ditch."

"I see."

"Goo Man is a naughty man. He tries to hurt people."

"Right."

"I saw funny pirates and a flying blue squirrel."

"Thank you for sharing, son."

At the restaurant, the brown mole and the estofado were both pretty good, but the rest of the food was mediocre. Elijah threw a fit because we took away his chicken soup. We told him that's what you get when you blow your nose and put the tissue in the soup on purpose, but nothing could stanch his grief.

Elijah hasn't been feeling well lately. We knew this because as soon as we got home, he went into his bedroom, got all his pillows, blankets, and stuffed animals, and dragged them out to the couch. We tried to show him Howl's Moving Castle, which arrived yesterday from Netflix, but he got bored by the early scenes of the shopgirls yammering to each other. So instead, he drank juice and watched Noggin while glassy-eyed with a low fever. That's probably the best way for him to watch Noggin anyway, since he doesn't have the option of watching it while high.

Looking around the Internet at the parenting blogs, it's apparently required that I say something about my own father today as well. I really hate "Father's Day memories," and so does my dad, so I'll just say that when I called my parents today, like I do every Sunday, they were at Costco eating hot dogs. If I call my dad and he's not at his home office, he's usually either at Costco or at the gym. The two, I guess, cancel each other out.

Finally, check out this article about daddyblogging in the Austin American-Statesman. I'm quoted in it somewhere about halfway down, and I don't sound like an utter dipshit for once. Here's to you, modern dads! You're doing a great job. All hail the nurturing, product-saavy, somewhat self-absorbed new American father!

Posted by at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (55)

Yesterday we went to Elijah's swim class early, because Regina wanted to do some grocery shopping and because it was hot and I wanted to get in the pool myself. The schedule online said that there was "family swim" from 2:30 to 4:30 on weekdays. Elijah and I put our stuff on a bench and took off our shoes. Then I gleefully removed my shirt, walked to the edge of the pool, and hopped in. The boy, who doesn't understand the concept of "waiting until dad gets his feet set before jumping in after him," was behind me by about five seconds.

I began to swirl him around. We talked in our own little language. It went something like "wiggie sniggie boogie oogie floogie." My eye caught the lifeguard's. He looked upset.

"There's no family swim today!" the lifeguard said.

"Oh?" I said.

"It's summer camp."

I looked around. Elijah and I were in the middle of a dozen 10-year-old girls, all of whom appeared to be frightened. I tried to think like them: A sweaty, hairy Jew with a big smile on his face jumps into the pool and speaks in gibberish. I'm lucky they didn't start screaming.

Closeup on my horrified face. Cue the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme. Fade out.

Posted by at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (388)

At some point on Saturday evening, Elijah and I determined that we should construct a dinosaur museum in the bedroom hallway. He went about gathering exhibits. These included: his dinosaurs from the bathtub, the remote-control T-Rex that his auntie gave him for his last birthday, a couple of appropriate volumes from his vast collection of etymological tomes, and a stuffed Triceratops puppet. While he did this, I vacuumed the cat shit out of the hallway.

According to Elijah, the museum should consist of all the collected items tossed into one big pile, which could then, apparently, be totally manhandled by visitors. When I asked him why, he told me we were in the process of "making a dinosaur movie." I imagine there are people pitching in Hollywood at this very moment who have worse ideas.

It came time to name the museum.

"Esther Mason," he said.

"Who's Esther Mason?" I said.

"Esther Mason is something that I like," he said threatingly, like I was preparing to steal the joy of Esther Mason from him.

"Yeah, but who is it?"

"Esther Mason is a giant monster with blood on the outside. He has two noses and likes to eat alligator poop."

This wasn't the answer I'd expected, having imagined an upper-class arts and sciences patron in her mid-70s, but I went with it.

"Esther Mason is a he?"

"He's a boy."

"OK, then," I said, and wrote on his Magna Doodle:

WELCOME TO THE ESTHER MASON DINOSAUR MUSEUM.

Elijah informed me that we'd be charging $40 to adults and $20 for kids. I thought those sounded like excellent prices. Thus, The Esther Mason Dinosaur Museum is now accepting visitors. You all should come. It's like Disneyland, except with much lower overhead and much better food. And not in Anaheim.

Posted by at 3:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (91)

A little before noon on Saturday, I saddled up Hercules and put him in the passenger seat of the station wagon, so we could make the 15 to 20 minute drive to Encino to pick up Elijah from his cousin's house, where Elijah had spent his first sleepover. A moment containing more stereotypically American details could barely have been fabricated by Bob Greene at his hackiest. But this was not a good morning for Merry Sunshine. After about two minutes on the 134, I realized that I'd have to get off the highway, because I needed to vomit, immediately.

This didn't seem fair. I'd had about three sips of a vodka martini the night before, and had filled the rest of the night with club soda. Also, I'd neglected to participate in the consumption of my favorite substance despite its almost omnipresent availability. I wanted to be clear-headed for my weekend alone with my son.

Nevertheless, I'd woken on Saturday morning with a sinus headache unlike anything I'd ever endured, with a concurrent belly full of phlegm. No decongestant or ibuprofen could help me. My equilibrium had shifted, and my body had to purge.

I pulled off at the first exit I found, drove down the ramp, and parked on a crowded residential street in Glendale. I went around back of the car and bent over, until I realized where I was, so I went to the front of the car instead. A parenting rule formed in my mind: If you absolutely have to take an emergency puke in front of someone's house, you should at least have the courtesy of doing it one car's length away from their driveway entrance.

I bent over, and started retching.

At that moment, a large Korean family came home from church. Apparently, they lived in the house in front of which I'd chosen to yack. They looked concerned. I waved them off.

"I pulled off the highway," I said. "I'm just a little sick, that's all."

"Do you want some water?" asked a young, non-vomiting male.

"No," I said. "I've got some in the car."

He looked into the car, where Hercules was sitting, half-asleep, oblivious to my suffering. Well, I thought, they'll have a story to tell for a while. I wonder if they have a blog. And then it happened.

My stomach hitched and released. Out of my mouth came a puddle of regurgitated Zen Berry smoothie from Robek's Juice. And then some more, and more, and more. It took four rounds of barfing until I was able to stagger against the side of the car, functional again to drive. There was no time to recuperate or to apologize to the Korean family about the pool of fetid orange liquid I'd left on their property. I had to see my son.

Though I spent my first 30 minutes in Encino on my sister's bed with a pillow over my head, to block out the light that was penetrating my eyelids like a hot drill, I managed to absorb some details of the sleepover.

"Did you sleep well?" I moaned to Elijah.

"No," he said. "I had some pwobwems."

Apparently, my brother-in-law had to sleep in Ali's room with Elijah, while Ali slept in my sister's room with my sister, who is nine months pregnant. My brother-in-law and sister, who've just moved across the country under these circumstances, looked tired. Saints that they are, they'd taken Elijah and Ali to the park all morning. Both kids had fallen and scraped themselves. Elijah got an ice-cream sandwich as palliative. In other words, they'd survived, but it had hardly been a return to Howard's End.

Elijah, though, was mostly concerned with the details of my illness. In the car on the way home, he asked,

"Daddy?"

"Yes, son?"

"Did you barf in the grass?"

"No."

"Did you barf in the street?"

"No."

"Where did you barf, daddy?"

"I barfed in the gutter."

"What's a gutter?"

"That's the thing between the grass and the street that catches water when it rains."

"Oh. And it catches barf, too."

"Yes."

"Sometimes people barf in the gutter," Elijah said.

"Yes."

"I barf in the gutter, too."

"That's nice."

I'd always intended to teach my son about vomiting in the gutter. But three going on four seemed a little early for that particular lesson. I guess that's what happens when mommy goes out of town.

Posted by at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

Regina has just driven the 1998 Nissan off the street. She's on another weekend trip. But unlike the last trip, which she spent drinking lunchtime margaritas in Austin, this one has a purpose--to attend the Yearly Kos convention in Las Vegas, along with all the other naive people out there who are trying to change the Democratic Party from its grassroots. To my mind, that's a task about as impossible as "curing" homosexuality or getting a cow to move out of the street in Mumbai, but who am I to deny my spouse her dreams? She has many exciting items on her agenda, including an 8 AM science panel tomorrow and an 8 AM Howard Dean keynote speech on Saturday. Also, she will be attending a party thrown by Presidential hopeful Mark Warner at the top-floor bar of the Stratosphere Hotel. I've told her to focus on the parties and blow off the panels, which is always my convention-going strategy, but she holds firm.

Last night, while she was trying to decide whether the white or the peach top went better with her floral-print skirt, she said to me, "there won't be much time for goofing off."

"Don't ever say anything like that to me again," I said. "There is always time for goofing off. You are going to Vegas, for god's sake. For four days. Without me. "

"Yes, dear."

"In fact, if you want to have an affair, you have my permission. But don't tell me. Unless it's with a woman."

"You wish."

"I think you'd really enjoy it."

"Right."

Despite the sad loss of mommy to the revolution, this is actually an exciting time for the family, because my very pregnant sister, my not-pregnant brother-in-law, and their nearly three-year-old daughter Allison have just moved to town, though I'm not entirely sure if Encino qualifies as "town," whose borders tend to end for me somewhere around Studio City or maybe Sherman Oaks. This is relevant here because I'm doing a reading tomorrow night as part of Jill Soloway's fabulously Jewish Heaping Portions series, which you L.A. people should all attend. I wasn't able to score a sitter, so my sister asked if Elijah wanted to sleep over at their house. Elijah couldn't be more excited than if he saw a snake eating its own tail.

Along with a bottle of sunscreen, a dental-insurance card so I could make Elijah a dentist's appointment, a note to remind me to call my grandmother on her birthday, and a checkbook so I could pay for the next round of pizza days at preschool, Regina left me a list of things Elijah needs to bring over to Ali's house. It follows after the break.

For E's Visit To Ali: Use sunscreen!

3 pair underwear
2 pair shorts
PJ's
2 shirts
White, green, +? Blankie (his choice?)
2 pillows (red+animal)
2 animals
Lg. sippy of Rice/soymilk

OK, Mom!

Before she took off this morning, Regina left Elijah notes on his two Magna Doodles. One of them is a fairly standard "I LOVE YOU ELIJAH." The other is more specialized. Let me explain.

Of late, Elijah has become enamored of the phrase "monkey butt." This is probably because we ask him all the time, "Are you a monkey butt?" We think it sounds funny.

So last night, I put on my only suit and went to a party for The Nation Institute, to honor the radical journalist Robert Scheer. Johnny Temple of Akashic Books, the guy who published my highly-successful crime-fiction anthology Chicago Noir, has put out a couple of Scheer's books, and he bought a table. To take nothing away from Scheer, who is one of the great truth-tellers of our time, the Beverly Hills Hotel is a kind of strange place to have such an affair. The whole thing, co-anchored by Arianna Huffington and Katrina Van der Heuvel, took place on a stage in front of a gold velvet curtain. Even when people in Hollywood are in front of a mike talking about the Wen Ho Lee case, the event still feels like the fucking Oscars.

Warren Beatty and Annette Bening were there, which caused people to stare while they pretended they weren't, and I sat about ten feet away from Larry Flynt. Also, rumor had it that Gore Vidal was in the house. That's the closest I'll ever get to him. I think I saw Larry David waiting for his car at the valet park, and no, he wasn't getting into a shouting match with the valet guy. What was the point in this aside? Ah, yes. Monkey Butt.

As I was standing in the kitchen in my underwear, ironing my shirt, Elijah approached.

"What's gonna be at the party?"

"A bunch of rich people," I said.

"What else?"

"And daddy," said Regina.

"And food!" Elijah added.

"Yes, and wine," I said, "and I'm guessing a video of an old Martin Luther King Jr. speech or something."

"And monkey butts?"

"Possibly."

This morning, before she left town, Regina left this note on Elijah's other Etch-A-Sketch:

"See You Soon, Sweet Monkey Butt! Love, Mama."

Posted by at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (52)

Elijah has begun taking swim classes for the summer, though I guess in L.A., he can pretty much take swim classes year-round. This is particularly true where he's going now, which has got to be one of the nicest non-country club pools in the country. The Rose Bowl Aquatic Center, which is in direct proximity to, yes, the Rose Bowl, has trained hundreds of champion swimmers and divers, or at least has tried. Its pools are endless and sparkling, and the whole complex is ringed by the curving, almost mysterious hills that make that part of Pasadena such an unaffordable place to live.

In Austin, we took classes at public pools that weren't quite as nice, but were certainly pleasant enough. Those swim lessons largely consisted of me holding Elijah, while a half-dozen moms held their babies, as we all turned in a circle singing "The Wheels On The Bus" and "Motorboat, Motorboat." Thankfully, those days are gone now, and I no longer have to get in the pool. I like swimming, but I don't like feeling like I've accidentally stumbled into an aquatic mother's day out.

Now the swim diapers are mercifully gone, and Elijah is ready to learn this important skill in earnest. Unfortunately, we seem to have registered him in the busiest class in the history of the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center. Note to self. Monday and Wednesday at 4:40 PM, not good. Elijah's swim lessons mostly involve him and a dozen other toddlers sitting on a step in the shallow end of the pool while a bunch college students try to figure out who's going to take which kids, and at what level. Or they're gossiping. I can't really tell. As Elijah has said after most classes, "there's too much people here."

On the second lesson day, Elijah actually spent 15 minutes without getting touched by an instructor at all. The first time he made contact was when he ventured off the step and started to sink. Then they paid attention to him. I got a refund for that particular lesson from the supervisor, who was about half my age. Let's say 20 years old. I kept hoping she'd turn around so I could see her shapely and very tan shoulder blades, but I felt a little old, bald, and perverted. Plus, Elijah was trying to throw a bottle of water into the pool. She seemed somewhat surprised when I shook her hand and called her ma'am. I sympathized; I've lived in so many different regions of the country that I'm confused by my own manners.

Subsequent lessons have been a little better, but it still feels like kind of a mad rush to get my money's worth. I make sure to position Elijah directly in front of a teacher, and to stand right by the step, with my arms crossed. One other mom stands guard as well.

"I can't believe I'm that dad," I said to her one day.

"Hey," she said. "You've got to advocate for your kid."

Fortunately, Elijah's teachers seem to adore him. He has a way with the ladies, even if his way involves pitching the plastic diving turtle halfway across the pool and splashing his teachers when they're not looking. He also makes sure that they're watching when I pull his UV-protectant swim shirt (which Regina bought from a company in Australia, because they really understand this UV stuff), over his head. He also makes sure that he gets his head caught in the shirt and howls with laughter while I do it.

"Elijah," said his teacher, "You're a bad dude."

"I'm not a bad dude," he replied. "I'm Elijah Pollack."

Oh, you're a bad dude, all right.

Elijah appears to have learned, somehow, how to do the doggie paddle, though he isn't yet doing this unassisted. I'm hoping that by the end of the session, some of the other parents will have given up and he'll actually get to, you know, swim. The other day, I was talking to a dad in the stands.

"It's usually great here," he said. "Sometimes, you come to classes, and there are only two kids and like five teachers. This is just an aberration."

"Fucking typical," I said.

He turned away. I realized that it's not a good idea to use "fucking" as a modifier with people you don't know. Well, at least someone's learning something.

Commenters, on your mark, get set, share your swimming lesson stories. Go!

Posted by at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (60)

My old high-school buddy Jason Franz called first thing Friday morning to let me know that he had somehow wheedled two free seats in the power company's luxury box for Game Six of the Western Conference Finals. At 9 AM on Saturday, I powered up the 1998 Nissan and hurtled myself across the desert, to sleep on an air mattress in what used to be my bedroom but now serves as my father's office and computer solitaire chamber. Of course I had to go. This was, by far, the highest-end sporting event I would ever attend. Plus, it was free. Double plus, the beer was free.

We all know by now that paradise was postponed another year. The great Suns hope machine ran out of lubricant. Tim Thomas couldn't share and Steve Nash couldn't stop sharing. We fell two or three components short of a title. And though I left the arena saddened, as well as annoyed at having to hang around all those puffy-faced Arizonans with whom I have little in common but team loyalty, I also felt oddly satisfied. Only once before has a team under my intense watch achieved so much with so little hope. That was the 1988 Dodgers, and we all know how that turned out. Being a Suns fan is the basketball version of being a pre-2004 Red Sox fan, without the attendant publicity because 97 percent of Arizona citizens are either functionally illiterate or white-collar criminals.

I have little more to say, except that, in a fit of depression, I bought a 20-ounce Icee in Redlands with only about an hour left in my drive home, and that I had a sugar-low headache from about 5 PM yesterday until I went to bed. Still, humor me as I pretend that a terrible nutritional choice was actually a sports-fan letdown.

Goodbye for now, my Suns. Hide away in your McMansions for the summer, drive your Bentleys around the desert, and assume your pretend-underdog status anew in the fall. I will miss you.

Posted by at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (53)

Last night, I took Elijah to his first professional baseball game. As soon as I moved to L.A., I went in on a little Dodger ticket package, splitting 25 games with a paralegal named Craig who I met on the Dodger Thoughts message board. Craig and I went to Opening Day together, and after that, we were on our own, getting two tickets each to a dozen games. My deal with my friends has been this: I pay for the ticket and parking, and you drive so I can get high before the game. Also, you need to buy the food. It's a small price to pay for sitting in Section 1 of infield reserve, right on top of home plate, about a mile in the air.

Obviously, with Elijah along for the ride, I bought the food, I drove, and I didn't get high. These were small sacrifices for what will certainly be one of my son's fondest memories in the last moments before the planet onto which he was born gets consumed by a series of apocalyptic fireballs. I've been a Dodger fan my entire life, and it appears that the old club has finally begun to creep back into the greatness column. What a pleasure to share such a great season with my son. And if you think you've heard me rant enthusiastically about the Suns, wait until the baseball season turns the corner into the back nine. I even chose our general living location because of its proximity to Dodger Stadium. It's always been my dream to live within a ten-minute drive of the Ravine, and I'm willing to endure a nightly police chopper flyover to make that dream real.

Elijah wanted to wear my Cubs hat to the game. Though he's never seen the Cubs play and has never even been to Chicago, he's somehow instinctively drawn to a losing cause, which is why I'm certain he'll be a Democrat his entire life. As we turned onto Sunset, he said,

"This hat smells like you."

"Oh, really?" I said. "Is that good?"

"Yes. It's good."

"Thank you, son."

"I'm a nice boy," said Elijah. "I wave hello to people."

This self-assessment played out as we walked through the parking lot toward the Stadium. People waved back, and then Elijah said, loudly,

"My daddy is taking me to my first basebaw game and I'm vewy vewy excited!"

All the diabetics present reached for their insulin.

As we approached the entrance, Elijah had many important observations to make.

"There are lots of different cars in the parking lot."

"That's true, son."

"They are many different colors."

"Yes."

"Lots of people go to baseball games."

"Yes."

"Lots of kids go to baseball games."

"Yes."

"Kids are afwaid of awigators."

"OK."

"I'm a wittle afwaid of awigators. And snakes!"

"OK."

"Snakes are cool!"

This line of conversation continued until we reached our seats, about ten minutes before the opening pitch.

The PA announcer told us to rise for the National Anthem. I had to explain this process to Elijah.

"Take off your hat."

"Why?"

"Because we have to listen to a man sing a song."

"Why?"

"It's about our country."

"What country? What's a country?"

"The United States. Which is were we live."

"No, daddy. We don't wive in the United States! We wive in Los Angewes."

"Good point. Anyway, stand up and take off your hat."

The game began. A vendor came by with some malt cups. I bought two, popped a couple of Lactaid for myself, and gave one to Elijah.

"This spoon has two sides," he said, and then disappeared into deep concentration on his malt cup until the top of the second. Then he ate a couple of carrots. At that point, the food distractions ended, so I had to start breaking out the books and toys.

First, he looked at Hullaballoo At The Zoo, which has holes in it where you can stick your fingers. These then act as the legs for various zoo animals. I gave Elijah two small rubber snakes, which he stuck in the holes on every page, narrating to himself a story about how snakes were eating zoo animals because they were on vacation.

In the bottom of the second, Dodgers rookie centerfielder Matt Kemp slammed a whopping homer off the left-field foul pole, and the crowd made a lot of noise. Elijah put his hands over his ears and shouted "SHUT UP, EVERYONE!"

"Elijah," I said. "You can't tell people to shut up at a baseball game. Unless they're throwing beer on you."

"I want to see my fruits and vegetables book," he said. "The snakes are still hungry."

As the bottom of the third came to a close, Elijah said,

"It's time to go now."

"We can't go now. There's a song we have to sing later."

"Another song?"

"This one is called Take Me Out To The Ballgame. Everyone sings it and it's very fun."

"OK."

He squirmed restlessly. A cotton candy vendor came by.

"Cotton candy is vewy bad," he said. "It makes you cwazy."

The couple behind us, who had two little girls they were trying to keep busy, bought two.

"Let's go now," said Elijah.

"OK," I said.

We went out into the hallway. Can you call it a hallway? A causeway? Regardless, it was the concession area. Elijah broke into what passes for a sprint.

"You can't catch me, daddy!"

"I probably can."

"We're bears! Let's go find our caves!"

For the next two and a half innings, we ran up and down the infield reserve section, roaring and ducking into various entries. I've been to at least 200 baseball games in my life, and I must admit that I've never spent one quite like this. When J.D. Drew launched a three-run bomb to put the Blue up 7-0, thus removing the chance that Eric Gagne would make his fabled return that night, I knew we'd make it to the finish line. The crowd went nuts. They played loud music. I picked Elijah up and jumped around. He waved gleefully.

"Something just happened!" he said.

"Yes it did," I said. "Whooooo!"

"Whooooo!"

The diabetics reached for their insulin again.

We made it back to our seats in the bottom of the fifth, and I somehow kept him under control until Take Me Out To The Ballgame, which he obviously loved. If I may say so, my son looked at me with wonder and admiration as I sang the song from memory, and in tune, I might add. I looked back at him with equal wonder and admiration. Something quintessential passed between us then, and a great American cliche came true.

On the way back to the car, he said,

"I had fun, daddy."

"I'm glad."

"Did you have fun?"

"Oh, yes."

"I want to go to more baseball games with you."

"We can go to as many baseball games as you want. For the rest of your life."

"That's cool, daddy!"

"Except for Monday. They're playing the Mets and I want to stay for the whole thing."

"I'm a bear," Elijah said. He obviously hadn't understood what I'd just said. "Rowrrrrrr!"

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