I have been remiss in posting about my trip to San Francisco. It was a great trip out to visit my brother, his wife and their new little boy Raiden, who just hit the two-month mark. Kato, Bob and I left Matthew and Alden behind (the two of them together are just the sort of hellfire of frenetic activity that new parents probably don’t want to deal with) and headed out west – the first time for Kato and only the second time for me.

After meeting Baby Raiden, Kato was immediately delighted to discover that he actually finally had the power to push someone else around. “Watch the eyes!” I kept having to say.

My brother (we’ll call him “Rob,” as he is a teacher with a rather unique name and prefers to remain nameless on this blog for fear of lurking student googlers) thought it would be a good idea to teach Kato a few things, in anticipation of the days when Raiden would be as large, mobile and desirous of a male role model as Kato is. First up was cooking.

Clams in white wine sauce over linguini.

I suggested I might send Matthew out west for some mentoring.

From there, they moved on to construction. No Behr Family get-together is complete without some kind of construction or destruction circus. Since the first part was destruction, Bob took the lead.

The job at hand was the removal of a rotted plank on the back deck. “Rob” managed the cords for the power drill, as the rest of us are unreliable when it comes to things involving electricity. So unreliable, in fact, that Kato was encouraged to try the manual route, “just for fun.” (For those of you who have never worked with Bob, he will offer all kinds of backwards, slow and ridiculous ways of doing things, prefaced by the phrase, “Just for fun…” – if ever you hear him say that, RUN FOR THE HILLS.)

The tedium eventually got to Kato, and I am ashamed to admit, he fell down on the job. Not literally (well, actually, yes, literally, but I don’t have any photos of that) – more figuratively.

Although “Rob” acted disappointed at Kato’s shenanigans, deep down inside I’m quite sure they reminded him of another young Behr in days of yore (not one named “Rob” but one named something else that would be much more immanently googleable). Obviously Kato had a lot to learn about tasks requiring time and patience. Perhaps his current intellectual ability was more suited to feats of strength.

Tearing apart phone books, for example.

I, for one, was impressed.

Though, you wouldn’t know it to look at the photos, but the entire process lasted about two minutes.

Kato was equally impressed, and wanted to try his hand. He showed remarkable self-awareness in his choice of telephone book.

However, after multiple failed attempts, he gave up.

Frustrated at his inability to satisfy the expectations of his uncle, Kato insisted it was his turn to share some expertise. “Rob” was in need of a new case for his new iPod. And so, off we headed to the Apple Store. Kato quickly went to work.

“This is OBVS the one you need, Uncle “Rob”,” he said.

“And while we’re at it, let me set you up with a new computer. That piece of s#!t you’ve been trying to video chat with me on is for the birds.”

And so, at the end of it all, both teacher and student, mentor and mentee, were happy. Leave it to Apple to solve the world’s problems.