Zach Copley

I would have to be a nutter cretin to ask for a better father’s day. I got to sleep in until nearly noon. When I woke up, we went Codornices Park in Berkeley and had a picnic. We stopped at Semifreddi’s bakery to pick up sandwiches and coffee on the way. Cordonices is my favorite park right now. It’s connected to the Berkeley Rose Garden via a tunnel. Tots have a special love for tunnels. Cordonices has a stream and a bridge and huge sandboxes and all the requisite play-structure stuff. But what makes Cordonices really special is its slolum-like concrete slide built into the hillside. Kids use cardboard to fly down at dangerous-seeming high speeds. Nothing like it would ever be built today, so it must be a relic from the olden days of the ’70s or something.

The first time we went there, Wyatt was apprehensive but fascinated by the slide. We went down together a few times, and he really liked it. After awhile it was time to go home for naptime. Wyatt was having too much fun I guess because he grabbed some cardboard, ran up the hill before I could catch him, and started going down all by himself… Eventually, he learned to wait in line, and sometimes fight his way through the other kids when they wouldn’t give him his turn. He’s a tough kid. He’s gotten quite good at sliding on that thing… Today was the first time Wendy got to see it. I knew she would freak out; it looks really dangerous for a two-year-old. Maybe it is… But I’m proud of my boy. I’ll dress his road rash wounds.

The next big treat for the day was to go to Pixar and see an early screening of their new movie Ratatouille. Wyatt’s “Uncle Bonbon” got us in. Being in a theater for 110 minutes tested Wyatt’s patience a bit and there were a couple scary parts, but I think overall he loved it — all the Pixar movies are his favorites — and he was talking about Ratatouille all the way up until bedtime.

Before going home to put Wyatt to bed, we all stopped for dinner (Wendy, Wyatt, Uncle Bryan, Aunt Erin, Uncle Charlie and I), and finished off the evening with a couple pitchers of powerful Herradura Gold-loaded margaritas and a feast of Mexican foodstuffs at Picante.

Topper: then I got a watch! A Wenger Swiss Army diver’s model, a “Seaforce.” It’s extra manly.

Best Fathers Day this year by far!

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