Oh yeah? Resolve this.

It’s been 2 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days since I last entered anything here. So much for last year’s resolutions. Maybe I should make some new ones?

1) Stop wasting my YMCA membership. Get there at least once a week.

2) While I’m there, exercise a little.

3) Stay organized by keeping appointments in a calendar.

4) Find my calendar.

5) Write in this blog, if not weekly, at the very least monthly.

6) Figure out how to keep the archive list from running off the page. (Help, Mark! Help!)

7) Find a quiet spot to do a little reading on occasion.

8) Try to remember that it’s not a good idea to cross a busy intersection with your nose in a book.

I’m not going to succumb to temptation by listing it, but I was considering keeping myself confused for an entire year by including “9) Ignore all New Year’s resolutions.”

Off-topic, as if there was one, last night I finished a fantastic article in the February 2005 issue of Discover. It’s the cover article, and I suggest you find it and read it. It’ll really put a bee in the creationist bonnet.

I followed that up with a conversation on the phone that has me convinced more than ever that running, jogging, marathons, and Gatorade are best avoided.

Get out the vote

I've never been involved in the political process to a great degree before. I've never written a letter to a Congressman, handed out flyers, or put a sign on my front lawn. I vote, sure, but until December, 2000, I never thought my one individual vote counted for much.

Boy, was I wrong.

And now I find myself galvanized. Never before have I been passionate about who I think should be in office. never before have I watched, enraptured, as the candidates battle it out in a debate. Never before have I yelled "You stupid liar! What the hell are you thinking?!" at a television commercial. But now I find I'm doing it almost on a daily basis. I find I need to know who's right and who's wrong. It's almost like a drug fix. And maybe it's because I'm a father now, but more than ever I find that I desparately want this country to be under the right leadership.


For God's sake, people, get out there and vote.

Roller Coaster

Did you ever feel like you're riding a roller coaster without having set foot near the amusement park? That's how I've been the last couple weeks. No, this post isn't going to be some clever little ditty (except for the roller coaster analogy), no interesting stories, no insightful comments. Mostly, it's going to be a rant.


The first couple weeks of school are insane. Forms to be handed out, filled in, returned. Changes made to schedules, faculty, rooms numbers (I can't find anyone anymore). Field trips to plan, grades to enter, new computerized attendance forms to fill out. Parents to contact, assemblies to attend, advisees to advise. Oh, yes, and teaching to do, at some point.

Additionally, the way my school works, there is a progress report of some kind going out every three weeks. I can understand why. Parents pay quite a tidy sum to send their kids here, and deserve to know on a regular basis what the result of that is. I don't fault the system. But, hell, when I'm just starting to feel like I'm in the swing of things and then grades are due?

There are teachers here that make this job look amazingly easy. I wonder if they are like ducks, calm on the surface but paddling like mad underneath.

So back to the roller coaster. I realized this just now when it came to me that today is Friday. (All day yesterday I thought it was Friday. Have you ever done that? You know, where intellectually you know it's Wednesday but in your gut it feels like Monday? You can't imagine my disappointment when I finally realized that yes, I have to get up early the next day.) So the week is a roller coaster ride. Fast-paced, thrilling, full of hills and valleys, but they go by so quick that if you blink you miss them. And then on the weekend, you pull into the station and have just enough time to catch your breath and start to think about the ride you just had, when whoosh! You're off for another go around. Because on this roller coaster, the seat belts are locked in place permanently. You can't get off this ride.

Of course, this doesn't mean the ride can't be fun. It's just that sometimes you need to stop and catch your breath. And the times you need to aren't always consistent with the times they give you. (By "they" I mean, of course, "They", which are the same ones you refer to when you say "Why don't They time the traffic lights better?" or "It's ridiculous how They treat you when you answer the phone." and "Why can't They invent a Raisin-Bran-like product that doesn't get soggy in milk?" and so on (and by "you" I mean, of course, "Me".))


So, it's Friday, and in a couple hours the roller coaster will pull into the station. I'll have time enough to wave to the people on the platform, but that's about it, because in no time at all, it'll be Monday again, and we're off on another ride.

Get out

I was out walking today, on my way home from work, and it wasn’t until I got home and inside that I realized what a beautiful day it is. About 75°, sunny, a few white puffy clouds, and a light cool breeze. Just perfect. And then I thought, how often does this happen? Well, I don’t know where you live, but where I am, here is southeastern Pennsylvania, the weather doesn’t really turn nice until late May or so. Once you get to the beginning of July, it gets unbearably warm and humid. There may be 4 or 5 days during the summer that cool off, and maybe another month at the end before the leaves fall and the wind picks up. That about 80 days a year, and that’s a conservative estimate. If you are lucky, you may live to the ripe old age of 90. So, if the seasons are perfect and you are in excellent health and a truck doesn’t run you over tomorrow, you might expect to see about 7000 beautiful days in your lifetime.

When you stop to think about it, 7000 isn’t a whole lot. 7000 seconds is slightly less than 2 hours. 7000 inches is less than 2 football fields. If you have a 50 gallon fish tank, I can almost guarantee there are at least 7000 pieces of gravel in it. 7000 blades of grass cover only a couple of square feet. The average American is $7000 in debt, not counting mortgages. And I’m sure that same American has at least 7000 pennies in his or her bank account.

7000 goes by quick. Placed in a row, that would only be 19 years of beautiful days. Now, 19 years may seem like a lot, but for those of you over 25, think about yourself and what you were doing 19 years ago. It went by quick, didn’t it? Cripes, My best friends in the world have known me for about 7000 days.

Now, I’m not suggesting you be pessimistic about this. Don’t get out your list and tick off another beautiful day (that’s 4,387 down, 2,613 to go….). But don’t forget either. And certainly don’t waste them.

What’s that? You have nothing to do on a perfectly beautiful day, except to waste it? Well, then, for your perusal, I offer this list of things you might want to spend such a day wasting.

Take a walk.
Fly a kite.
Spray the hose at your kids.
Go to the zoo.
Play baseball, frisbee, basketball, soccer, lacrosse.
Eat lunch under a tree.
Eat lunch in a tree. (Trust me, this is fun.)
Ride a bike, scooter, tricycle, Segway.
Put the top down on your convertible and go for a ride.
Put all the windows and sun roof down and pretend your car is a convertible.
Go swimming.
Write an article on how nice it is. But do it outside.

Summertime

Well, I know that my schedule is generally different from everyone else's, but even if you're not a school teacher, I think that summer is still different. You might be in the office, but things are a little more relaxed. Rush hour isn't as tense, and you tend to enjoy going out to lunch a little more. (And if you happen to take an hour and a half instead of an hour, the boss is less likely to complain.)

But then you have the dog-days of summer, here in the middle of August, and if you are a kid or a teacher of kids (or a parent of kids), you start to look forward to September. And with good reason: cooler temperatures, pretty colors on the trees, the smell of new pencils and new notebooks, and Halloween on the horizon.

Keep summer in mind though, when sometime soon, deep in January or February, when the thermometer bottoms out and you slide across that intersection on a sheet of ice on your way to work, when two sweaters and a down jacket don't keep the wind out, when you leave home in the dark and return home in the dark. Just remember. Remember cool breezes and iced lemonade, remember hanging on the swings and playing in the pool, remember "five more minutes, mom, we can still see the ball". Remember the good ol' days of summertime.

Got a second?

Time is subjective. Einstein was right, and I can prove it without advanced mathematics.

Saturday night, my wife and I, along with our friend Jon and some others went to see the new Harry Potter movie, which, on the whole, we enjoyed very much. On the way back we stopped at a diner for a snack to celebrate my mom’s birthday. And on the way back from that, we totaled our car.

{A side note to those who drive, have driven, are learning to drive, or ever plan to drive: a flashing red light really does mean stop completely. A flashing yellow light really does mean slow down and use caution. We had the flashing red and didn’t stop all the way; they had the flashing yellow and didn’t slow down at all. Bang.}

(And for God’s sake, in case there’s anyone out there still too stupid not to, please, please, please wear your seat belts. They saved two lives this weekend and kept our kids from becoming orphans.)

So I was in the front passenger seat when I saw the image of a silver car in the headlights. I didn’t even have time to think “Wow, that’s way too close” before I felt the shock of impact. We must have spun around at close to the speed of light because I had time to think, “Say, we’re in a car accident, aren’t we? I hope it turns out ok. Maybe it won’t be as bad as it seems. I don’t want anybody to be hurt…” and so on. All that stuff about your life flashing before your eyes is nonsense, but there sure is plenty of time for it to do so, should it choose to.(On the other hand, I don’t remember actually spinning at all. My visual memory skips from “just before impact” straight to “time to get out of the car”. Let the Lorentz transformations explain that one.)From this point, everything proceeded in normal time for awhile. I dragged myself out of the car, helped my wife and friend out the passenger side (their doors were fused shut), and got ourselves to the curb.

{Another aside: I have discovered the ratio of angels to complete pricks in this world. While sitting on the curb, senseless from the shock, we were aided by one guy who appointed himself traffic cop, a woman who gave us a blanket (it was raining) and refused to give an address to which to send it back, and another young woman who, besides knowing first aid and being a nursing student, also called 911 and let us use her cell phone. On the other end of the scale was the prick in the SUV who honked at us because he wanted to squeeze between where we were on the curb and where my ruined car sat in the street. He came within 4 inches of running over my wife’s foot. Thanks asshole. Hope you got where you were going on time. You’re probably the same guy who doesn’t pull over for ambulances and passes school buses while they’re letting off children. Our good Samaritan “traffic cop” yelled at him for us. It seems, therefore, that the angel-to-prick ratio is about 3 to 1. This is gratifying, although I recognize it is an isolated case and I welcome suggestions for other values. I hereby dub this the “Strieb ATP (angel-to-prick) Ratio, and fully expect a commendation and byline in any updated texts on mass psychology. End of aside.}


So we sign all the papers needed and they lay my wife out on a stretcher because of neck and back and knee pain and they scrape the car off the pavement and onto a tow truck and we all pile into the ambulance and it’s off to the hospital.

Upon arrival, the check-in nurse asks, “What time was the accident?”. My initial reaction is that about 15 minutes have passed, but I thought in case it was 20 (you want to get these things right, otherwise I’m sure they chase you down and bother you for the rest of your life with notices in the mail) that I’d better check the slip of paper the cop on the scene gave me. (By the way, this little humdinger brought the attention of no less than 5 police cars, two ambulances, one tow truck, and as-yet-uncounted lawyers)

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that 50 minutes had gone by. And worse, this was only the first of several time expansions to come that night. For as we waited to be checked-in, and then waited to be admitted, and then waited for a physical, and then waited to talk to a doctor, and then waited for X-rays (and, in Jon’s case, CAT scanned and EKG’d, and in my case, given a tetanus shot), we glanced multiple times at the clock. After 20 subjective minutes, one hour had gone by. After one subjective hour, 3 1/2 hours had gone by. And after what felt like 2 hours since the accident, we left the hospital 7 hours after we got there.

Yet, at the same time, we spent an eternity waiting at the hospital for the next step. So is time fluid? Can it go fast and slow at the same time (so to speak) for the same person? Strangely enough, yes. But why? I haven’t the slightest idea. Someone make a phone call and get Stephen Hawking up to date on this. I want answers.

Friendship

Sometimes your friends are right next door. You can stop in anytime you want, because the door is always open. There’s a place set at the table, whether you show or not. You trim their hedges without asking, and when you arrive home one day, your lawn is mowed without explanation or expectation.

Sometimes your friends are all in one place. In the high school cafeteria, you swap lunch money from day to day without bothering to keep track, because, hey, I’ll catch you tomorrow, ok?

Sometimes your friends are under your own roof. If you are lucky, you’re married to a very good friend. They read your moods and know when to hug you and when to leave you alone.

When you were 5 years old, everyone you met was instantly a friend. A little boy seen briefly at the mall, a girl you climbed the monkey bars with, it didn’t matter whether you ever see them again or not. Instant bonding, quickly forged, just as quickly forgotten, but no less important.

Sometimes friends are always right there, even when they’re not right there. You lose touch for a week, a month, a year. Then you pick up the phone and begin exactly where you left off.

And sometimes friends know exactly when you need them. If you’ve been friends long enough, it almost defies explanation. You reach for the phone to call and it rings under your hand. Or you sit at home musing on how to get through a situation, and they call you with the answer from 450 miles away. How does this happen? One mind, living in two brains? I don’t actually mind not knowing. Just the circumstance is cause for wonder and joy.

Thanks, friend.

Age must give way to youth, no doubt. But not yet, not yet.

According to Bartlett's Quotations, the above is ascribed to "Mason Cooley, U.S. aphorist".

According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, an aphorism is 1 : a concise statement of a principle
2 : a terse formulation of a truth or sentiment

In other words, Mason Cooley is a person known for stating the truth, I suppose. Man, I wish I could get paid for that.

None of this, though, has much to do with today's entry. I just liked the quote.

I’m getting older, but I refuse to believe it. So many things have happened lately to try to make me feel older that it seems the world is conspiring to age me 20 years in only a few months. And to make it more confusing, a huge part of me recognizes this, but another huge part of me doesn’t feel it at all.

For example, I’m buying a house. This is something that happens to adults. Last time I checked, I didn’t think I was that much of an adult. (Then again, I’m 33. Maybe I should check again.) When did I become one? I don’t recall waking up one morning and thinking, “Hey, looks like I’m an adult now!”.

To add to that, my daughter is now at the age where she’s pulling things that I distinctly remember pulling as a kid. You know, stuff like talking back, stomping your foot in a huff, lying to your parents, and being a tattletale on your younger brother. It’s the ancient parents’ curse: May you have children that treat you the same way you treated me. And it works. Parents don’t even need to announce the curse out loud. It just happens. And my parents have acknowledged that it happens not by gloating, but simply with a knowing smile and nod when I mention that their granddaughter ate all the popcorn and then blamed her brother. (This is another trap I’ve fallen into. When my children have done something good, they are “my children”. When they’ve done something questionable, they are “your daughter” and “your nephew”. When they’ve done something detestable, they become “the boy” and “the girl”.)

And to top it all off, my sister is engaged. She’s been seeing the guy for a couple years now, and he’s a fantastic person. I love him greatly, and he loves her greatly, and she loves him greatly, and everything’s just lovey-dovey. However, she’s my little sister. My little, innocent, youngest-sibling baby sister. And although we all knew it was coming, now it has happened, and that’s different. She’s not a girlfriend, she’s a fiancée. And in the fall of 2005, she’ll be a wife. And probably not too far after that, a mother. (I know, I know. That’s how these things happen. Intellectually, I’m fine with that. But please refer to the 4th and 5th sentences in this paragraph.)

And none of this mentions the fact that lately the topic of discussion among my friends and I has been back pain, how poorly we’re sleeping, whether or not our children are learning to use the potty (Not toilet. Adults use the toilet. Kids use the potty.), what music “kids these days” are listening to, how much better things used to be, what the political scene is, and when our next doctor’s appointment is.

Is this what it’s going to be like forever? I don’t think so. Life is what you make of it. Sure, there are responsibilities, and hard parts, and right now I’m in one of those, but it will pass, and things will get fun again, simply because I’ve decided so. And someday I’ll be a grandparent, and my kids will complain about how their kid destroyed the vacuum, and I’ll just give them a nod and a knowing smile.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go use the potty.

Pipe dreams

As the sun goes down at night, I lay in bed and dream.
I dream of a house called Rental.
Upon leaving this poor man’s castle, the road of purchase winds down through the valley
and to the wood.
Thick tangled brambles rise up to bar my way;
Loan origination, escrow fee, survey and state tax roots trip my feet.
PMI, assessment, title examination, hazard insurance branches scratch my face.
A deadfall of title insurance blocks my way.
I work around it, only to find myself at the edge
of Downpayment Cliff.
Sliding down the gravelly slope, I hear the wolves moving through the forest.
Wolves with names, the names of Appraiser, Inspector, Broker, Lawyer, and Seller.
Racing ahead, I come into a clearing.
There is a house, the same house, but with a different name.
It is Mine.


A new dawn has come. Closure is here.

Strange brew

Everytime I think my life is getting weird, something stranger comes along.

Life's valuable lessons

In the past ten minutes, I’ve learned two valuable lessons. The first will save people trouble on a daily basis. The second will save America millions and potentially affect the outcome of the next presidential election.

We are leaving for the weekend to see some family in Connecticut, and so we are doing all the things necessary for such a trip. That is, my wife is panicking and I’m saying reassuring things like, “Relax, we have plenty of time.” Meanwhile, I’m actually doing some semi-constructive things, like trying to convince the kids to clean up (which is about as productive as trying to convince a cat to do something against its will) and doing the dishes. So I walk into the kitchen to do some dishes, and there’s a white foamy puddle spreading out across the kitchen floor. Like a mutant amoeba from a B flick, it extends its pseudopod towards me and (I swear) moans.

I remain nonchalant. In times like this, I am like a well-oiled machine. I know exactly what to do, and I do it right away. I call to my wife.

“Uh, Chris, we have a problem with the dishwasher.”

Mind you, this comes at exactly the wrong time. Our vacuum cleaner died, our clothes dryer died, and we’re trying to buy a house on a budget and a time limit. So the idea of needing a dishwasher is not a pleasant one.

Christine enters the kitchen. Now it’s her turn not to panic. She takes one look at the living, breathing creature coming towards me and says, “Oops.”

“Oops?” I repeat, in what is destined to go down in history as one of the most intelligent comebacks ever recorded.

“Yeah. Oops.”

“What do you mean, ‘oops’?”

“I mean, I guess you can’t put dish washing detergent in the dishwasher.”

So there’s lesson number one, folks. Don’t put dish washing detergent in the dishwasher. (And by this, I mean the stuff you use to do dishes at the sink. By all means, keep using the stuff meant for the dishwasher. If you don't use anything at all, your dishes get crusty. This too, I know from experience.(I don't know what happens if you use laundry detergent. A future experiment?)) If you do use dish washing detergent, then halfway through the cycle you can open your dishwasher to see a wall of white foam. Penetrate this wall, and you may be able to catch sight of your dishes (which, by the way, turn out sparkling clean). And most of all, if you choose to ignore my advice and use the detergent anyway, don’t bother filling the little time-release container in the dishwasher. Half the required amount is more than enough.

The second lesson came just after we had finished mopping up after the first (using the kitchen rug rather than a mop because “it needed washing anyway”). My 3-year-old son came into the kitchen with tears in his eyes. He had an imaginary scratch on his little finger that needed tending to. So of course, being the dutiful father, I gave it a kiss and said, “All better?”

He grinned, nodded, and ran off, happy as could be.

So I started thinking, why don’t hospitals take advantage of this power of healing? Imagine this. You fall down the stairs and hear a “crack!” in your leg. Searing pain lances up your thigh. You scream in terror, whip out the cell phone, dial 911. Four minutes later, the ambulance arrives amid a flurry of lights and sirens, and with an exhibition of the most amazing efficiency, stick you on a stretcher and whisk you off to the hospital. At 60 mph, they truck you down the streets, whipping around corners, calling ahead to give all your pertinent medical information to the ER docs. You back into the ambulance bay, they wheel you out, through the doors, down the hall, and into a private room. The curtain is drawn shut. A few minutes later, a pretty nurse comes in, looks at your chart, and says, “Well, what have we here?”

You say, through gritted teeth, “I think I broke my leg.”

“Oh, what a shame!” she says. Then she leans over and kisses it. “There. All better?”

And you hop off the bed, thank her, and walk home.

Think of how this would revolutionize the medical field! Insurance rates would nose-dive. The cost of medicine would beat Canada's. The only time you would be able to sue for malpractice would be if the doctor kissed your left wrist instead of your right. Medicare, HMO’s, long waits in the doctor’s office would all be things of the past. All we need is someone to promote it. So who’s it gonna be? I guarantee, whether it be Bush or Kerry, the sure route to the Oval Office is in the simple slogan, “Kiss a Boo-Boo, Make It Better”.

Life's Design

I've just come across a website by linking through a friend's blog, and it resonated with me. It's intended for young fresh architects, but I think it is equally applicable to life in general. I've included it in the list to the right. Check it out.

Ignorance was bliss. Now it's a pain in the ass.

I'm finding out that every day offers us an opportunity to find out how much we don't know. My wife and I have just been exposed to a situation that could turn out extremely well or extremely badly. Our landlords are going to be selling the house we are living in. Our choice is simple.

a) Move.
b) Buy the house.

Christine and I vastly prefer b). We hate renting, and have long wondered when we would get around to buying a house. Well, now it's time. And since we know so little about buying a house, we figured there'd be a lot of questions to ask. So the first thing we did was to compile a list of people we knew who were more knowledgable about real estate than we. That way, we could go down the list and ask them all our questions.

Of course, we hit a snag right off. As it turns out, we know so little about this subject, we don't even know what questions to ask.

This makes a phone conversation amusing:

"Hi, Dad? I need to know something about buying a house."
"Sure. What do you want to know?"
"Um...everything?"

So now I'm collecting terms I need to learn about. Mortgage brokers, interest rates, fixed-rates, FHA, HUD, county taxes, closing costs, and on, and on....and again, I can't even list all the stuff I need to learn about yet. I haven't learned what it is.

Some ancient sage said it. "The ignorant man does not know. The wise man knows what he does not know."

I think I'm somewhere in between.

Empathizing with Mahler

I’m a lousy finisher.

I don’t mean that I’m not good at putting a nice veneer on a mahogany tabletop (although I’m not). I mean that I’m a pro at starting projects but lousy at finishing them.

These projects can range from the stupidly simple, like changing a light bulb, to the wickedly impossible, like landing a job with NASA.

Some of the projects I’ve begun and not finished include:

--cleaning my room and keeping it clean
--building a model train set in the basement
--emptying the basement so I can build that train set
--holding a yard sale
--learning web design
--writing a novel
--reading the Bible straight through
--saving up to buy a house
--getting to the last level of Midnight Club on the PS2

Ok, so maybe that last isn’t so much of a project as a pastime, but you get the idea.

In fact, this weblog itself is a project that is doomed to be uncompleted. I mean, how can you say a journal is ever finished?

In further fact, it’s unlikely I’ll even get to the end of this entry. Or even to the end of this sente

Smoke if ya got 'em

I haven’t written in awhile. I’ve done this because, despite my stated goal, I haven’t had much to write about. But I saw a news article just now, and my emotions are up. Here’s the deal.

I’m generally a pretty sensitive person. When someone has a problem, I very often take it to heart. I like helping people, and I like seeing them be helped. But there is one group of people I have a lot of trouble empathizing with. I have a hard time understanding smokers who complain that they smoke.

I’m sure I’ll catch hell for this from someone, but I can’t help it. Close to half of the cigarette smokers I have met have essentially said to me, “Yes, I smoke, but I don’t like it. Gee, I wish I could quit.”

And my answer is, “No, you don’t.” If you wanted to quit, really wanted to, then you would. If you really cared that it was bad for you, you wouldn’t start in the first place. And once you’ve stopped, you’d keep temptation away from yourself to avoid starting up again.

It gets even worse. Now there’s a pill to help smokers quit. (Mind you, it’s only short-term so far.) This is in addition to those patches that advertise their ability to insert addictive chemicals directly into your bloodstream, rather than have you go to the trouble of smoking them. (Can’t they make a patch for crack users? Call it Cocanoid^TM. “Do away with all those clumsy tubes, syringes, and razor blades. Get your high with style. Talk to your doctor about Cocanoid^TM”)

So let me sum up. People choose, of their own free will, to take a drug that they know will create health problems for themselves and those around them and shorten their life spans. Then they can take a drug that will help them to stop taking the first drug. But it may be that, after all that, they’ll start taking the nicotine again anyway. I just don’t get it.

And before you start, let me say, no, I’ve never really been addicted to anything. I’ve never smoked, I only drink occasionally, I don’t do drugs. Some smart-ass out there will probably say “But you’re addicted to breathing and eating!” (I know this because, as I kid, I used to be that smart-ass.) Eating and breathing are not addictions. They are necessary for life. Smoking is not.

And here’s what really pisses me off. Phillip-Morris, to use an example (though I am sure they are not alone), makes a point of advertising how helpful their website is to help people stop smoking. If you go there, you can read about the ingredients of cigarettes, how they are bad for children, pregnant women, old people, young people, middle-aged people, addicts, and those who are just starting. They will tell you that smoking causes emphysema, heart disease, and lung cancer. They will tell about the negative effects of secondhand smoke. They will give advice to those who are addicted and want to quit. They will urge teens not to pick up the practice.

But, of course, they still want you to buy their product.

Hey, I have a brilliant idea! Let’s try this. If Phillip-Morris truly is concerned about the effects of cigarettes, if they want people to be able to quit, if they don’t want teenagers starting, if secondhand smoke bothers their conscience, why don’t they stop selling cigarettes?

Or is that too obvious?

To dream the impossible dream

This morning, I awoke from a very vivid dream that involved myself, Buddy Hackett, one other adult, and eight kids aged 12-14 working a complicated con to heist a brand-new canary yellow Hummer from two middle-aged women who were out tilling the field in their backyard. So if your Hummer is missing, I apologize; I don’t know where Buddy put it.

The Day of the Doll

I have experienced a new phenomenon, new at least to me, of which I have heard tall tales passed down from my parents of the horrors entailed.

Yes, I speak of the 5-year old birthday party.

The long-awaited day (and by long-awaited, I mean for the last 5 months) had finally arrived, and the birthday girl, resplendent in her pink outfit, eagerly awaited the arrival of her guests. Her mother had just left to pick up the balloons and pizza, promising to be back “by 11:30 at the latest” for the 12 o’clock fiesta. Her father (that would be me) was at the dining room table, frantically trying to finish decorating 17 heart-shaped cupcakes, complete with ribboned edging and individualized with the names of the guests (because, after all, doing individual cupcakes would be so much easier than doing one big cake). Her brother was busy spreading out all the toys we had spent the previous day picking up.

I look at the clock. 11:45. 13 cupcakes done. No sign of the pizzas, and more importantly, mom.

Again. 11:50. 15 cupcakes done. Still no mom.

And again. 11:57. The last cupcake is being finished. At this point, I’d skip the pizzas and feed them dried pasta if only mom would show up.

High noon. Cue the western music, the tumbleweed blowing across the front lawn. As I, in my icing-stained sweatpants and torn T-shirt rapidly clear the mess I’ve made on the dining room table, a car pulls up. Thank God! My wife (oh yes, and the pizzas) have arrived! I’m saved.

There’s a knock on the door. On my way to open it, I’m bothered by the thought that my wife, in all likelihood, would not knock at the door to her own house. With trepidation, I slowly swing it open. Our first guests have arrived.

It’s exactly noon, just like it says on the invitation. Don’t these people have any sense of propriety? Don’t they know that a 12:00 invitation means we won’t be ready until 12:15 at the earliest? Don’t they know that, without my wife at home, I am totally incapable of entertaining four 5-year old children and their parents?

And how do you manage to show up at exactly the correct time, anyway? Did they wait around the corner, watching the clock, timing the traffic, until, bang! Foot hits the pedal, car zips around the corner, and the car comes a halt as the clock strikes.

I mumble a welcome, take their coats, and retreat to the upstairs.

Returning downstairs, I am just in time to greet our next guests. Body count: one frantic father, one delighted birthday girl, 5 guests, 2 parents. No mom. I make another retrograde advance to the upstairs with more coats.

Twelve-ten comes. Mom (and pizzas) arrive. All is well with the world once again. I retreat to the kitchen.

The party itself went fairly smoothly, with the only hitch coming at 12:50 when my wife and I look at each other and use our telepathic abilities to read each other’s minds. And our thoughts are the same. “The party goes to 2, and we’ve run out of activities!”

Fortunately, 5-year olds are easily entertained. They spent the next hour playing with the presents received by the birthday girl.

Something needs to be said at this point about presents. Girl presents in particular. Specifically, dolls. How many does one kid need? She got “Betty Spaghetti”, “Polly Pockets”, the ever-present Barbie and accessories (don’t get me started on accessories), Madeline, and a Beauty and the Beast castle that involves the smallest dolls known to mankind. Electron microscopes have been used to paint detailed faces on a piece of plastic no larger than a cockroach’s spleen, then wired into a plastic casing, double wired, then taped. The plastic casing has more plastic casing fused onto it, requiring an Exacto^tm knife to open (if you ever need to give a gift to the parent of a young child, give an Exacto^tm knife. They’ll give you weird looks at first, but thank you profusely when the next birthday comes around). This whole contraption is wired into a box, which is then sealed in even more environmentally-destructive plastic as a deterrent to theft.

And each unwrapped gift results in more and more accessories. Shoes, necklaces, bracelets, dresses, hair things, stickers, and even roller skates are all apparently necessary to play with dolls in the right way. Never mind the fact that I have a perfectly necessary 150-piece bit set for a drill I have yet to purchase; why does my daughter need a roller-skating doll?

But she’s happy, and that’s almost what counts. I say almost, because the source of Sarah’s happiness is the scourge of my wife’s life. Chris and I are now finding doll pieces everywhere we go. In the middle of the night, it is not unusual to hear the toilet flush, followed by an “Ow! #$%^$$#!” on the way back to bed.

My wife thinks we need a machine like a metal detector, only it finds plastic. Just sweep it around the house, and it’ll make a noise when it finds a piece.

I say we already have one. (Or had one.) It’s called a vacuum. Just sweep it around the house. When you’ve heard the “Ccrrrkk. Gsshhh. Wrkkwk.” sound come from the vacuum cleaner, you’ve found a piece of plastic.

Only yesterday

It seems it was only yesterday that my brother and I shared a room painted like the ocean. Nets hung from the ceiling with lanterns from ships and seashells caught inside. We fell asleep watching a big friendly whale smile at us from one wall.

It seems like only yesterday that we had to move to the “new house”, where my parents have now lived for 26 years. Not long after we moved, they brought my baby sister home from the hospital.

It seems like only yesterday when my brother and I played with Matchbox cars in the jungle that was our yard. The tall grass served as trees and the sidewalk was a canyon to be jumped over. I don’t know how many vehicles were lost in that yard.

It seems like only yesterday that I nervously asked Kim to the prom. So nervously, in fact, that she didn’t hear what I said but pretended to and mumbled an answer. I had to ask again two days later.

It seems like only yesterday that I aced a physics final by pulling an all-nighter. During one of my breaks, I walked out of the dorm and wandered the campus at 3 in the morning, a solitary figure without a destination. The snow, the icicles, the soft quiet hush of winter belonged only to me.

It seems like only yesterday that I first laid eyes on my wife. She needed a roommate and I answered the ad, showing up in an outfit that clearly demonstrated my complete lack of fashion sense. She thought I was harmless. I thought she was beautiful.

It was only yesterday that my daughter turned five years old. She politely requested a Madeline cake, and thanked everyone for coming. In the fall, she’ll be going to school.

I’m thinking of painting a whale on the wall of her room. Because eventually, tomorrow will seem like only yesterday.

Odds are

I saw a documentary recently about pregnancy and childbirth. I already know all the basics of course, plus a little of the more advanced stuff, and it’s not the first time I’ve seen a documentary of this sort. But every time I do, I’m amazed all over again.

Do you realize the number of factors that all have to come together perfectly for a child to be born? It’s astounding. I mean, forget the whole sperm/egg ratio for a second and concentrate on post-conception events. The egg has to attach itself to the uterus wall, or else no baby. It has to divide properly, or else no baby. It has to be nurtured, protected, and so on, or no baby. During birth, there's an astonishing sequence of events that have to happen just right, or else no baby (and sometimes, no mommy either). And what are the chances of this all coming together? It's gotta be pretty slim odds, and yet it happens all the time.

During my wife’s first pregnancy, I came across this tidbit of information. Every four hours or so, the amniotic fluid in the uterus is completely exchanged. Like changing the oil in your car. Drained and replaced. But get this: scientists don’t know how. We’ve landed a couple of robots on a planet 80 million miles away, but we haven’t the faintest clue how this fluid process works. But it does. And if it didn’t….no baby.

Incredible things happen every day, if you keep an eye out for them.

I’ve dropped a glass in the sink by accident and had it bounce four times without breaking.

I’ve crossed the street, looked the wrong way, and been missed by a car by about three inches.

I’ve seen a 2 year-old kid tumble down five concrete steps, jump up, and keep going like nothing happened.

I’ve seen sunsets that you couldn’t describe if you tried.

I’ve watched two children…my own two children…be pulled from their mother’s body and take their first breaths on their own.

I’m not religious. I haven’t even made up my mind yet about the existence of God. But I absolutely believe in miracles.

Reasons to smile

Well, the excitement never ceases. I have two reasons to smile today, and here they are in order of importance (least to most). First, I mentioned my newfound interest in weblogging to an acquaintance (whom I hope to upgrade to "friend") and she responded with a deluge of information, websites, ideas, and actual code. Turns out she's an expert on such things. And she's just taught me how to include links in my text, a MAJOR boost to my capabilities. So now I know two experts!

The other smile happened early this morning, 6:30 am to be exact. I was still mostly asleep, and had slept quite well. It was cold outside, and I was warm inside, which are wonderful conditions as far as I'm concerned. My head was deep in my pillow and the quilt was up to my ears. I dimly heard the phone ring.

The phone in our bedroom doesn't work, but the answering machine does, so if we are sitting up there we generally just listen to people talk and then go downstairs to call them back. Well, the voice on the phone came from 620 miles away to proudly tell me that Ethan Lee was born just 10 1/2 hours earlier, and that mom, son, and presumably father were healthy and happy.

I remember smiling broadly, and snuggling deeper into the pillow before drifting off again. I knew that there would be time to call later, that Mark wouldn't mind me not jumping out onto a cold floor at 6:30 to say congratulations. I had no worries; the sound of his voice said all was well. Better than well. Perfect.

But I couldn't remember exactly why I smiled until later.

I smiled because Dora was safe and the baby was here and my friend is happy.

I smiled because I have two of my own, and I love them.

I smiled because miracles like this can (and do) take place every day, and no matter how often it happens, it's still a miracle.

I smiled because it was cold outside and I was warm inside, and my wife was next to me, and my children were sleeping, and my best friend was happier than he's ever been in his life, and for just one solitary moment, every single thing was absolutely perfect.


Welcome to the world, Ethan. Have a nice stay.