Narnia, Chris and the Peanut

Yes, I am still at my Mom and Dad's right now. I'm sleeping here tonight, after a full day with Chris and the Peanut.

Tina didn't end up babysitting with the Peanut tonight, so instead of Chris and I meeting up with my brother, Nicole, her family, and my Mom and Dad for karaoke at this bar/pool hall called Masse's, we were treated to a full ration of Tina's pre-flight bitchiness (they leave tomorrow for Arkansas).

The longer Chris is with her, the less I like her, honestly. She's a micromanaging pain in the ass most times. I mean it.

While we were on the road getting dinner (Chris, the Peanut-- he's got pretty sophisticated taste for a five-year-old-- and I wanted Korean food, Tina wanted Mexican... guess what we ended up getting?), she must have called at least 5 times, telling and retelling Chris what to do when we arrived at the Mexican food joint. Well, the first choice one ended up being closed for the holidays. So we headed to the place that Chris and I prefer. More phone calls ensued.

When we returned with dinner, I said loudly and obviously, "Well, I don't want to be in your hair. Should I get going now? I can eat this food at my Mom's, I'm sure. I mean, if you two want some downtime."

Chris gave Tina a questioning look, to which she responded by just looking back at her laptop screen (where she had spent most of the afternoon loading her 1GB iPod-- Chris bought her the 512MB version for Christmas on my credit card, but she told him point-blank on Christmas morning in front of her parents, "I'll be returning this for the bigger one tomorrow. What were you thinking? Oh my GOD! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!") and groaned loudly. Sheesh. So, Chris was all, "Well, listen, stay for dinner and a beer and then I have to run to the bank. You could come with me, okay?"

As soon as we got outside, I said to him, "Look, I can see the writing on the wall, Chris. For whatever reason, Tina is in no mood for company and she wants you there with her. So, I think I should split when I get back."

He looked a little hurt, then he changed his mind and said, "Well, look. We're leaving for Arkansas for a week and I won't see you again until after New Year's, so... let's hang out and smoke a bowl after the Peanut goes to bed, okay?"

"You should check in with Tina on that one first, okay? Please?"

He didn't say anything, or even look at me, but I could tell he heard what I said and was thinking it over.

When we got back, he slipped into the bedroom and shut the door for a few minutes of muffled conversation with Tina. The Peanut was at the coffee table, scratching his Scratcher Lotto tickets with a nickel he found on the floor somewhere and talking to himself about which HotWheels cars he was taking on the plane the following morning.

Then Tina and Chris came out of the bedroom, both looking a little frustrated and more than a little tired. Yeah, it was time for me to leave.

I hadn't really brought anything in with me, other than the Mexican food I couldn't finish, so I grabbed my stuff, gave Tina, Chris and the Peanut big hugs and wished them a Happy New Year and a safe trip. Then I split.

On the way back to my parents' house, I stopped at Hollywood Video and rented a Werner Herzog documentary I hadn't heard of before called, "The White Diamond". It was about a slightly cracked British aeronautics scientist with a dream of flying over this incredible waterfall in Guyana, behind which almost a million birds of one particular species have lived for thousands and thousands of years.

There are times when each of us has dreamed of being one of those birds: of flying through a wall of misting water into a cool, dark world all our own.