I just did something that I haven’t done in years. I exercised. Of course I walk the dog and do other things that are technically in the vicinity of healthful activity, but they do not compare to riding a tandem beachcomber style bike for miles and miles while pulling two forty pound twins behind you in a cart; brothers pulling brothers, sort of fun both conceptually and actually.

We biked from Andy’s place in Rancho Cordova, past my old apartment circa 1991, to the shore of the American river, which I used to walk down to and swim across with my then roommate Jason and my friend Kate, when she would come over from Berkley. Jason, now going by his first name Tom, claims to still be in love with Kate. His wife left him last summer, taking the new truck and leaving him the house. When people leave you it’s easy to foster love for all your ex’s, even those of distant and naive youth, just ask Julio Iglesias.

We then biked along the river to the Sacramento damn, past lake Nacoma up to the bridge into Folsom and then back again. Vick, my sister-in-law not my sister, met us back at the dam and took the kids home just to make sure they hadn’t had too much fun. We had picnicked on the cliffs over Nacoma, under a chestnut tree, and we threw many stones into the lake to watch them disappear in the clear, green hued water.

I always loved riding bikes and this excursion may well prompt me to track down a bolt cutters when back in St. Louis, so I can rescue Brad’s once used bike from its’ rusting inactivity under my back porch (he's lost/fogotten the combination). I could zip about forest park in search of a mugging.

As I often am in the homes of my siblings, I am know in this household as “Uncle Karl” – run together just like that. St. Louis friends first encountered this moniker when Taylor moved back in the Vicky and found it quite unsettling – they were at first uncertain that I was uncle material. It turns out I am. Andy and Vicky thought I might find staying with twins in their terrible twos sufficient evidence for more drastic forms of birth control, however I am finding their tantrums, only occasional ones at that, don’t really phase me at all. Scary stuff to consider, but I may have finally accrued some patience such that parenthood, while generally an unlikely scenario for me, might not be wholly unwelcome. So look for that sometime in the next twenty years (does he have a bridge to sell us?).

I thought of a chapter title when I first arrived here related to my moniker:

Uncle Karl in the land of the DTs

This has not proved to be the case. My brother and I are after all both -------, and booze and BBQ are as ubiquitous here as you might expect (as is the right glass for every beverage). As I looked through their stemware the other night I told Vicky, “You like to think that you’re an individual. That you have your own unique perspectives about the world and then you visit your brother and discover he has the exact same pilsner glasses, the same martini glasses, the same silver rimmed rocks glasses.” Genotype or phenotype we ended up with similar taste and similar perspectives. This is a good vacation and a good re-acquaintance. You’ll be happy to know I am memorizing some of my brother’s best recipes, such as the currently marinating Carna’ Asada, which I’ll make for you all in good time.