2012 isn’t exactly off to a rousing start; less than twelve hours after our Monday, 2:30 a.m. arrival, I came down with a head cold, and because Little M caught a stomach bug, I spent Tuesday instructing her on the fine art of throwing up (incline the torso to make as straight a path as possible — and keep an old toothbrush around to get rid of the taste).
And yes, every time I get sick I’m amazed at how quickly I’m transformed from Writer/Consultant/Fly Fisherman Brimming With Ideas to Cranky Old Man Muttering Under His Breath About Crazy Shit.
It may not be one of my stellar attributes.
Why This Isn’t A Fishing Report
Today’s (and yesterday’s) planned fishing trips — rewards to myself for a December jammed with things that were definitely not fly fishing trips — are now dead and gone.
As any parent will tell you, three year-olds aren’t bombs that detonate in the middle of your life; they’re a series of them, and looking forward to 2012, one thing the L&T are going to fix is the uncertain state of our child care.
This time, Little M is sick, but when anyone in her daycare provider’s family gets sick, she’s home, which means I probably am too, which means I’m not out fishing.
Or getting much done on the work front.
I’m all for looking forward at the turn of the year, I’m also a believer in looking back and fixing what didn’t work.
That didn’t, and sometimes for weeks at a stretch.
OK, So What’s Next?
I was recently interviewed by California Fly Fisher about traditional vs digital media (I’ll let you know when the issue appears), and the basis for the interview was a 2006 post about fly fishing magazines.
A lot has changed since then, and I’d suggest the first wave of the digital revolution is settling out, but that some truly disruptive stuff is about to move within knife-fighting distance of the fly fishing industry, which — despite a lot of whining to the contrary — has enjoyed a certain immunity (I go into the reasons for this in the interview).
That can change in a hurry, and I’ve got some thoughts about that, and you’ll get a chance to accept or reject them in a post.
See you on the river (tomorrow!), Tom Chandler.
Flight on United Airlines: $2,500. Legal Fees to Redress Airline Trauma: $2,500. Barfing Children: Priceless
There’s nothing more precious than a parent teaching a child the proper way to hurl. You have my sympathy.
Steve Z(Quote)
Clearly, I take this parenting stuff seriously.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
You are a good father.
Steve Z(Quote)
Sorry to hear about your illness. Happy New Year. Hope you had a good time in the islands. Now for the good stuff. Do you live in Siskiyou county? Do you have a county supervisor named Marcia Armstrong? Does she attend the Sarah Palin Shoot-em-from-the-helicopter school of governance? I just read in the Sacramento Bee that she told the L.A. Times that she would like to see the first wolf in California in 90 years “shot on sight”. She goes on to try to make a case as to how dangerous this lone wolf is, and how unfair it is to rural people (us urban types just romanticize them) who are trying to eke out a living raising cattle and sheep. Jeeezus! No, really. Do you people collect nuts like squirrels up there? Any other whack jobs up there that I should know about?
Isn’t this the person you mentioned in your recent Nestle wars article?
Kentucky Jim(Quote)
Yes, we’ve focused our attentions on Ms. Armstrong in the past, who — despite believing the federal and state governments are subservient to the county government and that the county should have veto power over the removal of privately owned dams on a river that runs through two states — is actually being recalled by one small group for not being crazy enough.
Well, you did ask what kind of nuts grew up here.
The ongoing self-victimization of rural people is a recurring theme up here. In fact, the phrase “Rural Cleansing” has been thrown around quite a bit lately — a pretty unfortunate choice of words given how the land came to be “owned” by white folks to begin with.
The ranchers are getting it from all directions, but that’s not really a reason to wipe out the salmon or the wolves or whatever else becomes inconvenient.
Tom Chandler(Quote)
To me parenting is a bit like steelheading. There’s a lot of suffering and sacrifice involved but the rewards are glorious. Also like steelheading, those rewards can be so sparsely scattered across your timeline they drive you just to the brink of insanity… and then there’s a tug.
Ethan(Quote)
Then there are the moments when you want to pitch the thing in the river (the rod or the kid) and go back to a normal life…
Tom Chandler(Quote)
Parenting will make a better person of you, whether you like it or not. Don’t really know that Steelheading will do that. I can see where the rewards would be similar, but I’ll take my daughter’s college successes over a big one, even though I’d love to get one of ‘em.
Kentucky Jim(Quote)