Kudos, Kiddos

Most times I'm content knowing the human race is circling the drain on its way to being flushed down the toilet of history. (Shout out to Florida).

Once a week, however, a minority of humans who didn't get the memo go out and do something awesome, like these three 8th-grade basketball players who stood up to some asshole who was taunting (they say ''bullying'',  but I for one think that term is over-used nowadays) a cheerleader with Down syndrome:



Of course, the hypocritical school overdid it by officially renaming the gym D's House, but whatever. By going with that extra tap, the principal took some of the spotlight away from the kids and, really, 12 or 25 years from now, when society's perhaps moved on and all people are treated equally and this is no longer ''a thing'', won't you regret taking that one moment to honor a 5-minute event when you'll want to rename the gymnasium for the lady who is now President of the Continent (or Galaxy, what do I know?) who played volley-ball in that room?

The school should just have handed the boys a civility medal or something. Or made them pass a failing class. Or thrown them a party. Or return their confiscated Playboy magazines. Not take credit for the kids' move by co-opting their shit.

Moms. Again.

Mother's Day came to pass. I called mine, even called my grandmas. Two of them, anyway. Wished a happy one to a few of my friends, too.

Then it went away. That's what Holidays do, they expire, and the very next day, storefronts are loaded with the next spenders' trap.

And as it did years ago, just as it had faded from memory, bad news came on all fronts, from everywhere.

A really good friend of mine lost her mother early this year; now, her father's girlfriend has been diagnosed with cancer. My best friend's mom just got diagnosed with cancer, too, forcing him to come back from Mexico earlier than he'd expected. Even the former Lady Of The House's birther got a crappy diagnosis recently.

Mine's healthy, joyous, happy. She's the ideal mom for my brother and I - she's been treating us like adults since we were kids, teaching us about taking responsibility for our actions really early on. The kid's lucky, too, 'cause I made the usual 'teenage mistakes' first, so he didn't even get half the yellings I got, lucky bugger.

We took her for granted for much of our lives; we're too independent for our own good. Nearing and reaching 30, I started to realize it would suck to lose her without letting her know how I feel, how important she is to us.

She knows, now, even if she remains the one who initiates contact most times.

It's weird, because I'm at the age where people I've known all my life are dropping like fucking flies - especially the older folk - and it got me thinking about death, about getting terrible news myself, and I think...

Fuck. I think I'd be more ready to hear I'd be terminally sick than hearing it'd be her.

I've lived my life so that if/when the time came, I'd have the least amount of regrets possible, that I'd have the least amount of miserable days compared to good ones as possible.

But I'm not ready to let her go.

Take care of your moms, people.

Moms...

I was thinking about this, talking with friends whose parents had passed away, some recently, one three years ago...

I'm the most independent person I know. Too much, at times, in a way. Many of my family members would like me to call more often, but Life gets in the way. I hope they know they're the most important thing to me, just that we keep different schedules and don't always think alike, but I still have all the love in the world for them.

Especially my mom. She's devoted to our cause like no other, always there for me and my brother. We do our best to not abuse it, she does her best to let us live, but I'd be lost for a fucking while if anything happened to her.

I see her once or twice a year; I'll see her soon, for the Holidays. It doesn't happen to me often, but these two weeks seem really far away...

Another Feel-Good Hockey Story

It had been in small-town papers, and slowly made its way towards bigger ones. It's now on the NHL's website.

Players from the Chicago Black Hawks, all of them in fact, instead of boarding a chartered plane and heading home for a well-deserved day off, chartered a pair of buses and went to a small town in Ontario to attend to their GM's father's funeral.

Then they stopped at a McDonald's on their way back and signed autographs for everyone there.

Feel-good. Millionaires who do good.