Things I like and don't like

Things I like: (not all inclusive)

- The sounds to be heard in a grove of aspens.
- A good bike ride
- The way my clothes smell after a bike ride (besides the sweaty zones)
- Sugar sludge in the bottom of my bowl of cereal
- Four-wheel drive
- Substituting the word "Squirrel" for "girl" whenever possible
- My dear sweet squirrel Mandy and my little squirrel Shelby.
- Sunday naps
- The way my hair feels after a haircut
- A warm shower after working out in the cold
- Watching a summer thunderstorm roll in
- The smell of rain on dry pavement
- Tax returns

Things I don't like

- Mornings
- Running
- Donny Osmond
- Plain milk
- Country music
- Glitter
- nose hairs
- Seeing myself on camera
- Getting eaten by an alligator

This is just a list of things I do and don't like. If you have things on your own personal "like" list that I have on my "don't like" list. I don't think any less of you. Let's say for example you were to tell me that your dream day would be waking up really early, going for a run with Donny Osmond, drinking a tall glass of milk, while listening to country music, then getting showered with glitter as a film crew records your lush forested growth of nose hairs and then you getting eaten by an alligator. Then I say "Good for you!" This is merely a list of items that I have for either logical or completely irrational reasons collected.

Donny Osmond for example I can't explain. He just embarrasses me and I think he is too -- um, smiley? He makes me want to do something to him that would make him not smile. Like feed him to an alligator. Country music. I don't know? It just grates on my senses. (However, for reasons I can't explain, I like bluegrass music) Milk. Tastes like the smell of cows -- which I happen to not like the smell of.

A few weeks ago Shelby started coming into our room early in the mornings and climbing in bed with Mandy and I. Formerly, Mandy would snuggle with the child that came in to our room at night for a bit and then put them on the floor with a pillow and a blanket. A few weeks ago this stopped. I was forced to confront my morning with elbow jabs, head butts, kicks to the kidneys, slaps to the face and "Dad, I'm hungry!"

A morning is something you have to ease into. Kind of like getting onto a moving freight train. You can get onto the front of the train by standing in the middle of the tracks and waiting for the gap to close or you can ease into it. Run along side, get yourself going the same speed and grab the hands of one of the hobos cheering you along. In a sense I was getting kicked, punched and slapped onto the tracks. I haven't been very happy about it.

I quizzed Mandy about her recent change in policy. She dismissed my questions with a half baked excuse. "I don't want to accidentally step on her when I wake up in the morning!" "Hmm..." I grumbled. Later we were travelling together in the car, I was flipping through the radio channels. I stumbled across a country station. Mandy blurted out "NO! STOP! I like this song!" I grumbled loathing mutterings quietly to myself as a song twanged along and the singers voiced creaked out the lyrics. "Let them sleep in the middle" I looked over at Mandy and she was gazing sentimentally forward. She had that look like tears were bubbling very close to the surface. Somehow she had found a connection to this song. I receded back to my happy place where I was plucking Donny Osmond's nose hairs out one by one and he was not smiling. When the song was over I quickly changed the channel before another one of Mandy's favorites might have come on. and said "This is why you let Shelby sleep in our bed now? Because of a song? A CoUnTrY song?" Mandy looked suddenly ashamed. "Well, it's such a sweet song" she pleaded.

I hate it when items on my dislike list combine forces. I sigh with a tinge of gratitude that my dislike list is not so lengthy and complicated as it could be. I mean -- somebody, somewhere out there wakes up to the stark reality that they in fact, live next door to glittery and persistently sparkly personality that just won't go away that we all know as one Mr. Donny Osmond.