From Six to Nine

I’m not much of a dancer. I’m sure if you know me, you’ve figured that out already. To be honest, I never really got it… I used to go to dances, dance at weddings, and all that – and I don’t think I was ever the guy that people used to stare at because I was bad, I was one of the people that was sort of middle of the road and just blended into the background. The problem is, it’s one of those things that you just can’t seem to avoid, and every once in a while I just find myself in a dance-type scenario. Oddly enough, I find myself in karaoke-type scenarios too, which I find even less appealing – so much so that I have made a mental list of things I would rather do that sing karaoke. Like, for example, inseminate an elephant… or take a rollercoaster ride with a mouthful of fishhooks.

But I digress… For the past three years Sara has been taking Sam to the mother son event at his elementary school, and every year they have some competition or sports related theme. Every year she stresses about it a bit, and every year they end up having a great time… and all the while, in the background, I knew that eventually the time would come for the dreaded Father-Daughter Dance. Now don’t take that the wrong way, I wasn’t dreading going to an event with Lily, I just wished it was something like a Father-Daughter Fish Fry… or a Father-Daughter Movie and Funnel Cake Spectacular. But she was excited, and since I adore her, I was excited. So she got a new dress, I got a vest to match and my dusty tuxedo cleaned. I bought a corsage, got a haircut, cleaned my car, and showed her my best dance moves. She rolled her eyes.

The day finally came, and when we walked into the first room it was like stepping into one of Lily’s most elaborate fantasies. There were servers walking around with trays of snacks, a cotton candy machine, dark and white chocolate fountains, candy tree centerpieces, American Doll and gumball machine raffles, and every girl that she knew preening around like it was a miniature prom. We roamed around in there for a bit, plucking food off of silver trays and getting our picture taken – and when the crowd started to shift onto the dance floor we wandered in to the dance.

Now, from Sara’s description, the mother-son event was a rough and tumble collection of games that the boys ran to in rapid succession. Basically, it sounded like excitement and sweat. The dance floor at Lily’s event was Walt Disney on acid. Disco lights, taffeta, braids, ribbons, red sequins and elementary school gossip all swirling around in one frenetic soup. Lily, unlike me, came to dance. She practices moves at home whenever a song comes on – and depending on her mood, she floats around in graceful, dramatic swooshes - or rhythmically thrashes across the floor using furniture, Sam, or the dogs as props in elaborate gyrations around the house. So we danced. For hours. When she dances at home, it’s usually just to keep herself amused… but having Lily as a dance partner is like trying to land a Marlin. She wiggles around, twists and whirls with wild abandon, and dips at random points in her routine, and expects me to catch her as if I was knew it was coming. Needless to say, I sweat through my tuxedo, as did most of the other dads, who all looked a bit like weary soldiers leaving the battlefield as we all made our way back to the car when the dance was over.

But she held my hand the whole time, and not like we were walking through the mall, she held my hand like she meant it. When there was a break between songs she grabbed onto my waist as hard as she could, and when she said goodnight to me she wrapped her arms around my neck so tight I could see stars. So it turns out I like dancing after all, and you know what? I can’t wait till next year.

Lions, Lambs, and Paper Dolls

I haven’t written in a while, not out of laziness or lack of drive to post – but more because of my lack of direction. I started this blog ages ago after my sister started one, so that I could fill people in on what was happening with my wee kids and get things off of my chest. Lately though, I’ve been struggling to find things I want to write about… no one wants to hear me complain all the time, or listen to the same old rehashed stories of my humdrum day to day life. Funny thing is, I think about the blog all the time… almost every day, as a matter of fact. I shape stories in my head as things happen during the day, and turn them over and over in my mind until they shatter into too many pieces to type. So I’ll start again, work backwards a bit, and see if I can gather some together.

Lily’s been sick for the past couple of days, and not just the regular sick that a little attention and a tissue will fix - the throwing up, fever kind of sick that reminds you that you’re a parent. I took the days off and stayed with her, because Sara’s done her share of sick time, and I was the first one covered in vomit on Monday morning - it’s sort of like the lotto that way. If you find dog poo on the floor, you clean it up instead of waiting for someone else to do it – and if you get thrown up on, you’re ‘it’ for the day.

We’ve seen enough sick to know when not to panic. There were a few years where thermometers and Tylenol sent us into a tailspin, and I was sure that the night nurses at CHOP knew our voices and medical history by heart. But we know sick. We know hospitals and x-ray machines, stitches, blood tests, ice packs, and casts. We know what band-aids will fix, what fear looks like, when to make Jell-O, and when to drive through red lights. Yesterday I made Jell-O, and she survived just fine. The sick part is easy to manage, it’s the kids that are a wild card. We had our Jell-O, and she slept. We had crackers and watered down juice, movies and blankets, and she slept - slept with a passion, the sleep of the dead – and while she was sleeping I ate something besides crackers and Jell-O so she wouldn’t see. By the time we were getting ready for bed, she had long since stopped throwing up, but was still pale and limp on the couch... and when I asked her if she wanted me to carry her up to bed, she looked at me and let a single round tear well up in the corner of her eye, and when it was big enough it broke free it rolled down the side of her cheek and into her hair. Which killed me. She didn’t cry or complain, the day and the sickness won, and she just gave up. This morning, as expected, she’s once again a lion.

All the while, in the background, Steve is growing.  When we decided to bring home an English Mastiff, the world seemed to collectively raise one eyebrow at us. To a certain extent, everyone was right. He’s absurdly large, and gets bigger as you stare at him. He is clumsy as an ox on Rohypnol, can eat an entire chicken carelessly knocked off a counter before it hits the floor, can drag Sara across the street even with a choke collar on, and has succeeded in turning our everyday lives into a cartoon. He is passionate about the eyes on stuffed animals, and will gently gnaw them off when no one is looking. He drools when he drinks, when he thinks he is going to get a treat, when he thinks he is going to get walked, when he sees another dog, and whenever he feels like it. And not just drool – long, thick strands of viscous slobber that wobble about from his jowls and refuse to disconnect until they’ve found purchase on something clean or expensive. He has kept me up nights, swallowed Christmas tree ornaments and DS games without chewing, tested our patience at every opportunity, and somehow has managed to make up for every bit of it. He’s patient and loving, attentive, and will actually stand up and give you a decent hug if you don’t mind washing drool off the side of your neck.

In the midst of the chaos, destruction, and spurts of Green Day Rock Band, I’ve been trying something new. It’s not a New Year’s resolution or a grand life change that I’ll toss out the window in a month, and it’s not even something I’ve talked about. It’s just a thing. A little thing. I have all this stuff here, kids, wife dogs, house, friends, bacon… you know, stuff… and I’m trying to focus on the stuff that’s important for a change. It doesn’t always work, and it’s easy to forget, but sometimes it’s really paid off. Like Christmas, for example. I didn’t ask for anything, and truly couldn’t think of anything I really wanted. I wanted the kids to have fun, and thought some surprises along the way would be cool, but that’s it. In the end, we had a great morning here with the kids, and at my parents house I got one of my father’s photographs (which is really the only thing I wanted) and a cookbook my mother made that left me completely and utterly speechless – which isn’t easy to do. But it isn’t just that. I’m incredibly frustrated at work, but have reminded myself every morning that it’s good to have a job, and it could be worse. I try not to just come home from work, but remind myself how glad I am to be at home… and when Steve knocks over and eats the entire contents of my kitchen trash can, I try to take a deep breath and remind myself that I have one less bag to carry outside. In forty years I think I’ve squandered away more than I’ve deserved, and maybe in lieu of a mid-life crisis Ferrari, I’ll just try to get what I deserve, and appreciate what I have.

Walking The Couch & Borrowing Babies

OK, enough seriousness, it’s getting a bit old on here. Lets try a little slice of my day instead.

As I mentioned before, our English Mastiff named Steve is getting bigger by the second… you can actually see him grow if you stare at him long enough. For those of you who don’t have dogs, that means two things. One, he needs to be trained and socialized while he’s still a manageable size, so that when he creeps over the 200 pound mark he doesn’t eat the children. And two, while he’s still a growing puppy there’s bound to be all sorts of shenanigans. At 15 weeks old he was big enough to stand up and watch what I was doing on the kitchen counter, and by 17 weeks it occurred to him to lean up on the counter and eat what was on it. He also discovered that he was now bigger than every other dog in our neighborhood, and naturally, thinks that they should all cower as he approaches. Which they don’t.

He’s pretty well behaved though, and the only really annoying thing that he does is get into the trash. Since he’s now 18 weeks old and taller than the trash can, he tries to stick his giant head in there and pull things out – and since we’re pretty careful about not leaving things sitting on top of a trash pile, the most he really ever pulls out is a napkin or some sort of wrapper. Plus, he knows he isn’t supposed to be in there and sheepishly gnaws on things in the corner and waits to get in trouble. Apparently, we don’t always catch him though, and if you’re easily grossed out you might not want to read the next part…

On Wednesday, I got home from work, fed the dogs, and took them out. After about four blocks I wore them down, they both pooped, and I scooped it up with my little dog bags. We moved on, except for Steve, who was still sort of bent over like he was going to go again… but he didn’t, he just kept squatting there and staring up at me. Since Steve is our fourth dog, I knew my options. It’s a waiting game, really, and eventually you just have to get in there and see what’s happening. I’m patient though, so I waited, and waited. For a second, he stood up again, and and saw what was going on (keep in mind I’m not trying to gross you out, but this is funny in the end), it seemed that out trash can sized dog swallowed a napkin or something, and it was trying to make it’s way back out. It was sad and gross, but at the same time a little funny because from the back he looked like a towel dispenser that you might see in a turnpike bathroom – the ones where you grab on the the end of a bunched up towel and pull, and when it comes out it tears so the towel is just sticking out enough for the next person to grab. Eventually I gave up and decided to help… and pulled a poo bag off the roll and went in there. (again, sorry) With the bag wrapped around my hand I grabbed on and started to gently tug on the napkin – which I realized was a paper towel because it kept coming, and coming. Then, after I had about a foot out, the most unexpected thing happened. Granted, I’ve learned to expect the unexpected when pulling things out of a dog’s butt, but this was a first. It tore. At the perforation. Seriously. So it turned out he swallowed two attached paper towels whole, and they lined themselves up on their way through, because when I pulled one out, just like a dispenser, the second one started to come out, and the first one tore off. So there I was standing in the middle of the road holding a paper towel and looking at the second one peeking out of my dog, and all I could think was “god, I hope there aren’t more than two in there”. It was like a dog version of a clown car… just when you think it’s over, there’s more in there…

Anyway, I tried to scrub that out of my head and moved on. Fast forward to Saturday… We spent the morning dashing around, soccer games, birthday parties, etc.. This has been a wicked allergy season for me and Saturday was miserable, so when I made my final drop off of the day and found myself alone in the car, I decided to drive around a bit and look for food before going home. I pointed the car west, because about ten miles away or so there is a little Mexican grocery store that carries Mexican Coke, as well as a few other tidbits I was out of, and on the way back I could stop at another favorite place of mine. It’s a tiny place, so when I got there I tossed a few things and some Mexican Cokes in my basket and checked out, and got in the car for stop number two – an even smaller Mexican grocery store.  This one is about the size of my living room and sells primarily two things, long distance calling cards and empanadas. Wait, let me rephrase – long distance calling cards and spectacular piping hot life changing empanadas.

When I walked in there were eight people sitting at a couple of card tables right next to the empanada warming cabinet, and the owner of the store got up, walked over to me and shook my hand. Since he was standing between me and the warming cabinet, I told him what I was there for and he grabbed the tongs for me and started tossing some empanadas in a white paper bag… then stopped and asked if I wanted one before I left. Now, if you could smell these things, you’d understand. He knew. He knew I would eat one in the parking lot. So I sat down next to the owner and his family, with my empanada and little grease stained paper plate, and started to dig in. Next thing I know, I felt a tugging on my pant leg. I looked down, and noticed a baby, about a year-ish or so, had crawled out from under the table and was tugging on my leg. The three women at the table were speaking in spanish and chuckling, and the one closest to me said “It looks like he wants you to pick him up”. “It does” I said, and tried to ignore the baby as I took another bite. “You can pick him up if you want” she said next – which completely caught me off guard. On one hand, I didn’t really want to say “no, I’m not really in the habit, or mood, to pick up random babies while I’m eating”, but on the other hand, the idea of stopping for a snack and ending up with a small Mexican child seemed seemed like a funnier option. So I wiped the grease off my hands, scooped the baby up, and placed him on my knee. As if all was right with the world, the women at the table went back to talking to each other, the baby sat perfectly still and content on my knee, and I finished the rest of my empanada and all of the sour green sauce on the table. When I was done, one of the women plucked the baby off of my lap, the owner shook my hand, and I hugged my greasy paper bag all the way to the car.

Here Be Dragons

We had our 12th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, and maybe more importantly, marked the 20th year of being together. Half of my life, that is. Scary. Not the half my life thing, but the fact that twenty years is half of my life, and that it has flown by so quickly. Hard to believe.

After years of trying to outdo each other, we decided to keep it simple. A babysitter, some dinner, a movie… all of that in one night is actually a big deal for us, so I was pretty excited to go. Of course, it’s never as easy as it seems.  About five minutes before we were going to leave Sara gets her phone to see if the babysitter is on her way, and notices a few text messages our babysitter wrote in mid-hurl saying she couldn’t make it.

The funny thing is, it wasn’t that big of a deal. At some point in the past few years, while I wasn’t really paying attention, we built a little life here in Berwyn. I made one call, was putting the kids in the car while the pizza delivery guy showed up and tossed the pizza in my trunk, and we dropped the kids off for an impromptu sleepover down the street (ha! love that we have friends that’ll just take the kids!). So, a minor bump in the road fixed, and we were off. First stop was Alba, where we know the chef and his wife so we always get treated well… and as a bonus, the waiter that we knew there who moved to NY was back in town… which made everything perfect. Since our friend who was watching the kids also decided to drive to our house and walk the dogs at 9:00, we hit the theater afterwards without worrying about getting home - which was peaceful and empty when we got there after all was said and done, being kid-less and all. The next morning, our friends came back with our kids and theirs for breakfast, each one of them bearing a bouquet of flowers as they walked in the door. So we looked around the house for enough vases to fit all of the flowers, ate waffles and bacon, and sat around in our pajamas for most of the day. So what started as a simple night out ended up being something spectacular, thanks to a few of the people that happened into our life in the past few years.

… and in case you haven’t been paying attention, we’re moving on at full speed. Lily started kindergarten – and dove right into it like she was born to go – even though some of us (read: Sara) had a tough time with it… Sam started second grade and has already decided it’s easy… and we bought a soon-to-be gigantic dog, who is mild mannered as can be, most likely because he is too tired from growing. In the first three weeks we’ve had him, he’s gained 14 pounds – and for those of you who aren’t mathematically inclined, that’s an average of 3/4 of a pound per day…  So we’re off and running, most of the time to uncharted territory, it seems, but at least we have friends to depend on along the way.

Sorry

Been a long time, hasn't it? It usually is, I know. Some how I can't seem to get it together as often as I'd like (or as often as my sister does) but I haven't forgotten about this blog. We've done a bundle since the last time I was here... gone on vacation, gotten a new puppy, been through painting and construction, and tried to stop the summer from flying by (which was unsuccessful, by the way). But we're still here. At the moment, unshowered, tired and here.
Basically, I came here just to fill in some space, and promise that there will be more to come. For those of you out of the loop, our last few days have been completely dog. If you haven't had a puppy in the house before, it's a heck of a lot like having a kid... life stops for a while, and everything you do is structured around walking, feeding, training, and rescuing shoes that are moments away from being chewed into bits. On the plus side it doesn't last forever, just feels a bit like it... More reports on us and Madigan's East Jesus Agent Buttersteve to come....

Pour Away The Ocean And Sweep Up The Woods

We drove to Atco, of all places, fifteen years ago to get our first dog Satchmo. He was barely the size of a coke can when we saw him, stumbling around in a cardboard box with three other baby Bostons, and we had no idea what we were doing. We didn’t know how to pick out a puppy, how we were going to find the time to walk him every twenty minutes, how much money we would spend over the years, and how much he would change our house.

Judging by the number I dogs I know named Marley, lots of people have a ‘first dog’ experience. We lived in Philly when he was young, in the center of everything, and he was raised by the neighborhood as much as he was raised by the two of us. Everyone knew him – kids would plop down on the sidewalk to say hello, restaurants would give us leftover bones from osso bucco, and when they built a new playground a few blocks away, the let him put his paw prints in the wet cement and carved ‘Satchmo the Cornchip” above them. For fifteen years he would stretch himself out against my leg to fall asleep, and stand directly over my face, just staring at me, until I woke up in the morning. He was fearless when he needed to be, gentle when he had to be, and next to me whenever he could be.

In the last year or so, he lost a lot of things. His sight, for one, which didn’t slow him down at first. Then one after another, new problems came – his heart, his spleen, his kidneys – then after a while he stopped getting up to see me when I came home, and would wait on his bed till I came over to him. In the last few days he was lost, and wasn’t our dog anymore, and it was like a thick fog rolled over the house… and then, on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago, when we woke up he was barely able to move. I took him to the vet,  she held my hand while we talked about him, and when he stopped breathing I slipped his collar into my pocket and walked down the steps alone.

Since then, I’ve started and stopped this post more than a dozen times. What I’ve discovered is that I just can’t write this post well. I could go on for days, and pages, and none of it would be what I really want to say. He was just a dog, after all. Just a dog that somehow over the last 15 or so years managed to steal my heart when I wasn’t paying attention.

Silver Trays

When my grandparents lived on Long Island, life was good. Summer vacations in Center Moriches were heaven for a kid from Jersey, and on days when we didn’t even leave the house we went crabbing on the bulkhead, caught eels, sea robins, and baby bluefish from the dock, watched the phosphorescent jellyfish at night, and had spectacular pizza. Plus, my grandparents were wicked cool. We squeezed a lot of things into the days while we were there, but for me, one of the most memorable things was pulling out of the creek into the bay. My grandparents had a boat – a small one, with a single Evinrude motor on the back – that we would occasionally take out to go clamming or ride over to Fire Island. The creek that they lived on was nothing to sneeze at, it was wide enough for some pretty impressive boat traffic, but while you were still in the creek, you had to go slow enough not to create any wake – so the ride out towards the open ocean was pretty leisurely. Once we hit open water though, my grandmother would gun it. The sensation, especially as a kid, was unlike any other. The bow of the boat would pop up out of the water as the motor kicked in, and the speed pushing you back against the seats combined with losing sight of the water ahead of us as the bow loomed high above the caps of the waves was thrilling and terrifying all at once. Eventually they moved to a house that was a bit more manageable, and my aunt and uncle moved in (which still made for awesome trips), but eventually they moved on too. My last week on that water was heart wrenching - I wasn’t really a kids any more, but it still felt like I was losing something big.

These days, life from my perspective is a little different. Having kids instead of being one (even though our oldest is seven) still feels new to me. I get some time standing at the bow now and then, but rarely have a seat in the stern… and the thrills are different. We go fishing every year, which I love, but watching Sam or Lily catch something is far better than getting one myself. Plus, there’s dad stuff. They need me for things, which is occasionally awesome. The ‘I got a splinter in my butt, can you take it out’ moments suck a bit, and the ‘oh my god, it’s so unfair, you’ve ruined my life’ drama leaves a bit to be desired, but the ‘that’s so cool!’ moments make it all worth while. Plus, kids say some crazy shit. Seriously , I could sit around all day and make up stuff to say, and it wouldn’t be nearly as funny as the things that pop out of their mouths. For example… ah, I can’t think of anything at the moment. Get your own kids.

What I find myself worrying about from time to time, is whether or not they have their moments on the back of the boat. I think they do, we try anyway. We sure as hell cram stuff in, and there aren’t a lot of days that we aren’t running around like loons… and when we aren’t, we have perfected the art of doing absolutely nothing at all (the four of us can make some spectacular ass dents in a couch when we want to). Thing is, I can’t really tell what sticks with them and what doesn’t. One example from an endless list – for the first time, we all had the same spring break week off, and decided to make the most of it (well, Sara did to be honest, since she is the master planner of our relationship). We actually had a good plan, we had some days at home to chill out, some little mini trips planned, a night in NY to see a show, and a night in Philly to roam around. Relaxing, and fun. That was the plan… and it really was, I have to say I had a great week. But in retrospect, the amount of work that went in to the week was staggering – there were tickets, reservations, dog sitters… and an endless number of phone calls, texts, favors cashed in, and friends who moved things around to spend a little time with us. At one point, we were in my favorite hotel in Philly, in an extraordinary corner suite we weaseled our way into, after we got back from a dinner at one of my all time favorite places (in our own private dining room, no less) with some great friends of ours… and after we got home, you know what my kids said the best part was? When we got room service.

Which troubled me. Immensely. Because they had a great time, and happily told anyone who would listen everything we did during the week… but I thought about it, and you know what? It’s all good. I have no idea what hoops my parents and grandparents jumped through for me while I was growing up. I don’t really know the sacrifices or choices they made because of me, but I remember sitting in the back of that boat, I wouldn’t trade that memory for the world.

I'm With You In Rockland

I read Howl in college, and then read it again. And again. Not out of love, any real understanding, or even some sophomoric connection to the beat generation - but out of curiosity. It changed each time. Confusing and enlightening, hopeful, empty. But it stuck, words and verses that pop up when the occasion calls, and sometimes when it doesn't.
About a month ago, in the machinery of the night, I couldn't breathe. Not completely, but just enough to erase every other pain I had at the moment. It went away, and the next day the pain started. It was mobile and sporadic, sometimes worse than others, but always there in the background. For weeks it hung around, surprising me when it came. Sometimes as a dull burn in the background, and others as sharp as a needle, pushing through me in a flash so cold I was left shaken from head to toe. After a while it was like I'd grown a tail - heavy and clumsy it changed how I moved. Waiting for it to show itself again, I was living in slow motion, gingerly moving from one part of my day to the next.
... which led to panic after a while. When there is an endpoint for me, when there is a light at the end of the tunnel, pain settles into a comfortable old foe. Working in the kitchen has its good points - one of them is leaving everything behind when I go home. When I walk in our front door, and everything is finished, I don't carry around the stress of the day like I did with every other job. In return for that luxury, I pay with flesh, sweat and blood while I'm working. Busy days are an assault on my feet, back, hands and arms; and busy days mean we leave with scars and makeshift bandages. But it ends, you just push the pain away, like it was never there. With this I couldn't see the end, and it was terrifying. Each icy needle that would creep into my chest would send me into a panic, and I was scared to be alone... scared I would be driving the kids when it happened, scared that they might need me and I couldn't help, and scared that some morning I wouldn't wake up.
A week ago Sunday I was working alone in the kitchen, then drove out to Lafayette Hill to make a delivery, and I found myself hoping I would make it there. Then hoping I would make it back, hoping I would make it home again, and I couldn't shake it. For an afternoon I was Carl Solomon, without any way to dig myself out of the panic... but I made it home, kissed Sara and the kids, and went to the hospital. Walking through the doors, getting fast-tracked onto a bed, and just being there, was the first time I felt safe in weeks.
They tested, and still are, everything. At first for the obvious things, then for the possible, and now, for the guesses. The panic is gone, but I'm left with hands and a heart that don't feel like mine, and no desire to write a lighthearted post. What I know is that this will pass, and something else - good or bad - will fill up the space that this leaves behind.

Learning To Fish

I had a dream the other day. I was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking down at my feet, slowly swishing them back and forth in the water that was my floor. Inches below the surface my toes rubbed on butterscotch colored rocks, each one smooth and as perfect as the one next to it. Then, ever so slowly, I lowered my feet onto the rocks, putting my weight on one foot, then the other, and stood up. For an eternity, I stared down at my feet and watched the water turn around them, gliding silently over each curve of flesh and stone. When I raised my head, I was fully submerged, and woke up in a panic.
And it snowed. Snowed like mad, for those of you that don't live around here. It snows more in other places, but other places are ready for it. It's like catering in that way. I had a dinner last Friday for 350 people that we could have done in our sleep. It was simple food, a simple set up, and since we had the right people, space, and equipment, I didn't even start working on it till Thursday afternoon. On the other hand, if the party came up out of nowhere, I would have been scrambling like mad... like everyone did around here (myself included) when we got about four feet of snow in less than a week. We ran out of plows, salt, shovels, manpower, and time. So what might have been any other winter in Colorado or Ontario, stopped time in Philadelphia. With the snow came some moments of panic for me too. We watched roads close down as they became impassable, watched it pile up outside, and watched the news of towns around us lose electricity one after the other. During the blizzard in 1996 we holed up in our apartment with a stack of wood for the fireplace and a case of wine, and it was easy. Everything shut down, and we rode it out without a care in the world. This year, things are a bit more complicated. When our lights flickered, I thought about the kids, and wondered where in the world we could take them if the house got too cold. Sara's place in my life, apparently, is to remind me that this isn't the end of the world, and we'll see the other side of this winter when the time comes. What we haven't seen in weeks, is the grass. We're still buried, and the new storm is here, quietly filling in the patches we've managed to clear.
We've managed too, managed to carve our way out and focus on bigger things. We crammed in birthdays, rescheduled some, and put out enough of life's little fires to keep my mind occupied for most of the past few weeks. And then this morning while I was driving Lily to school, I turned a corner onto a street I've seen a thousand times before, and noticed for the first time how the fresh snow in still air rested on every single branch and twig as far as I could see to form a perfect white canopy over the road... and the same drive I take almost every day was for the first time, breathtaking. As trite as it may sound, for just a minute it made all of the hassles of the last few weeks worthwhile. Because no matter how much I would like things to be easy, the easy days are rarely worth my time.

Blogging As A Thirtysomething

For the past few months, I've been waiting for my midlife crisis. Hoping, even. Unfortunately, I couldn't buy a Ferrari even if I wanted to... but I thought at the very least I would freak out at some point and wake up hours later in the middle of a pile of KFC buckets. So far, nothing. I've thought a lot about turning forty though. For those of you who are past it, it probably doesn't seem like that remarkable of an occasion, like turning thirty seems to me now - just another day. For me, at this moment in time - with or without my midlife crisis - turning forty seems huge. But for the life of me, I haven't quite figured out why.
In retrospect, my thirties were like one long class in college - as they zipped by I learned a few things, towards the end I was cramming, and the past few weeks have been like an all-nighter. Maybe, in a way, this is what my midlife crisis is supposed to be. The past few weeks have been filled to the brim with work problems, kid worries, a few surprises, and just life in general... and a week ago, a friend of ours gave us some news (that I won't talk about here) that shook me to the core. For a few days, Sara and I circled the wagons. We stayed up after the kids went to bed and talked - about us. About how we started things twenty years ago, about how we've changed and stayed the same. About where we've been, where we're going, and why we're going there... and since then I've been trying to focus on the fact that whatever happens, sometimes the grass is greener on our side of the fence. But trying to keep a lid on everything has made me feel remarkably old... because, I guess, I am.
One of the things that suffers, as you may have noticed, is this blog. I promised myself that I'd write a new post before I turned forty - and here I am, only hours away, completely spent. I had planned to go out and spend my last night as a 39 year old pretending I was 21 again so I would have something worth writing about, but by the time the day started to wind down what I wanted to do most was just be here, with everyone safe at home. I know, I'm old. But at the moment there is nothing I'd rather do than be right here... and when all is said and done, when I wake up in my forties, I'll be the same. Bone, blood, and name. What I hope does change, with a little bit of sleep, is my ability to write a post worth reading...
Oh, and one last thing - a long overdue note to my wife's co-workers who read this blog. You're right, and don't let her fool you into thinking otherwise by telling you how grouchy I am in real life. I love her more than anything. To borrow a line - for the past twenty years, the best part of me has always been her.

Now Is The Time On Sprockets When We Cook

I have this thing with magnolias. Don’t know why, or where it came from, but I just adore them, and I’m not really a tree guy. Or a plant guy, for that matter. A couple of years ago a curly maple we had in the front died, so there was an open spot, and I drove way the hell down to this nursery I found on the Internet to get a Sweet Bay Magnolia for the front yard. It’s still tiny, but getting there. At the moment it looks like a couple of dead branches sticking out of the snow, but when the spring rolls around and the leaves come out, it’s the first thing I notice when I walk out the door. Every leaf is a thick deep green with a muted blue underbelly, perfectly oval, and defies the wind while the leaves of our other trees flutter helplessly. It blossoms on it’s own schedule, symmetrical and creamy white, with a delicate scent I can pick up before our house is even in view. On perfect summer days, even though our porch is slowly disintegrating and I routinely forget to mow the lawn, having it there makes our house majestic. Which, as you might have guessed, is where my wife and I differ. We agree on lots of things, disagree on plenty too, but are pretty much on the same page. I’ve never really talked to her about the tree, but I imagine she would give me the same look as I do when she insists on making the bed. Never quite understood the point of that…
Point being, I also love a good pan. I have accumulated a lot of them, and like all good things in my life, most have a back story. I have crepe pans from Cordon Bleu and Dehillerin, a frying pan Sara and I bought in Montepulciano, Havard from an estate sale in California, nickel plated copper from Morocco, and on and on. A month or so ago I bought some heavy copper pans made in the 1800s, well used, beat up, and re-tinned at least once judging by the tin slop on the sides. The sauce pan has jagged dovetail marks on the bottom, the Windsor has hammered initials on the side, both are slightly misshapen and crumpled on the edges from over a century of being banged with spoons, and both are exquisite. Having good pans wouldn’t do too much for me without being able to cook in them though, and once I had them I let them hang quietly on the rack for a while while I mulled over my options. Since they are deliciously heavy and spectacular, I needed to re-tin them so I could use them because there was copper showing on the inside. Didn’t just want to. Needed to. I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. The biggest problem was, now that I had them, I didn’t want to send them to just anyone… so I emailed, called, and read reviews and chat boards of every place that re-tinned copper I could find. Finally, I called Rocky Mountain Retinning in Colorado and talked to Dieter. I knew. I knew in the way you can tell if someone will be a good babysitter or not. I knew he would take care of them.
This morning, while I was sitting down at the dining room table, sore from shoveling two feet of snow and lamenting the fact that Lily is stuck at home with strep three days before Christmas, they came. In the same box I packed them into three weeks ago, they came. When I pulled them out, they were ice cold and perfect. Still dented and misshapen, but heavy and full of potential energy, like they came back to life.

Moustache Fights

We've been getting a flurry of packages at our doorstep lately, almost every day they'll be something waiting on the porch when I get home, and I have to admit it's a little exciting. Granted, I know what most of them are, since they are either Christmas-related, or something I've ordered to replace something that has stopped working in the house - a little sidebar for you... everything we own has broken. I think it's a bad karma thing. Our stereo stopped working, so I brought the one I was using in the basement upstairs, and that one broke. My car has a 'service soon' light that won't go away, the screen on my laptop died, Sam's knee stopped working (which landed him in the hospital), our microwave tray stopped rotating, the water dispenser on our fridge, etc., etc....
Anyway, we've been getting packages, which rocks. My favorite so far was Sara's Christmas present to me, which came in a clearly marked box from the manufacturer... so unless she's reeeeeeeeally crafty, knew what was in the box before I even walked up the porch steps. Ha! Even though we live on a little side street, everything gets here without a hitch, unless it's sent by DHL. For some reason, they just can't seem to find us. I get a DHL package about once a year, and every time the delivery date comes and goes, and I have to call them up and explain that there is indeed a street named Woodbine, I'm calling from there right now, and we're not just driving our house around trying to avoid them. Yesterday, they did it again. I got a tracking number, and then an email saying they were having delivery problems. Since we're getting so many little things delivered, I had no idea what it was or how important the contents were, so I called as soon as I got the message. In typical DHL fashion, the woman who answered the phone was useless. "Is this the right address?", she asked, " Can you spell it for me?"... And best of all, "Are you sure you're in Berwyn?". So we went back and forth for a while. Her "google wasn't working", she said, and asked me for directions and cross streets. Then, to add insult to injury, she said they would TRY to deliver it.
Since I hadn't slept much, and was annoyed that everything in the house had decided to self destruct at once, I was a little pissed. To sum up, I said to her in one long sentence without any pause or hint of punctuation, that the post office, UPS, FedEx, and even our 16 year old pizza delivery kid can find the house without any problems and I'm not paying any of them for express delivery and maybe she should get someone on the phone that can find my house since it's a large stationary object or give their drivers maps that weren't written in squid's ink on papyrus in the early 1800s so that they can bring me my fucking package before they send it back to whoever the hell its from or maybe find a person that could write me a check for the delivery charges I paid since they were intent on driving everything I order all over Pennsylvania instead of bringing it to my house which is in the same fucking place it was when they haven't been able to find it every year for the past seven years. Or something like that.
Anyway, a few hours later a DHL truck pulls up to the house, the driver gingerly rolls his antique map up into a scroll, and brings me my package. We chatted for a second because he seemed like a nice enough guy, and when I got inside I eagerly tore the envelope open to see what my little outburst had saved from being returned... and there they were, in all their glory, the 120 fake moustaches I had ordered for our holiday party. Sam chose the 'bandito' style to wear around for the rest of the night, and I decided not to wear one just yet, but to savor the sight of the 119 moustaches left scattered across our dining room table. I just love the holiday season...

Breathe Deep The Wild Air

For those of you who have been following my long series of illnesses, most of which are allergy related, we may have reached the final chapter of this ongoing saga. I had my annual check-up at the beginning of September (by annual I mean every eight years) and my doctor suggested I see an allergist. Apparently, I am an ass to everyone around me for a good chunk of the year, and she thought there might be a solution...
She suggested her top allergy guy (who is apparently everyone's top allergy guy, since it takes two months to get an appointment) who I finally got to see last week. After talking about my issues for a couple of minutes, we got down to the testing stage of the appointment, which was a lot of fun. Not. Before I even got the results, I learned a little something about myself - I'm not a little pain person, I'm a big pain person. In case you haven't been tested before, here's the scoop. First, they do a skin prick test, which means they put a drop of an allergen on your skin, and then scratch you with this sharp little needle. If you're allergic to whatever the thing was, you get a little red itchy spot where they scratched you. Unfortunately they tested me for about 40 things, waited, didn't see anything, decided to try some intradermal tests to be sure, and then proceeded to inject me with allergens in a bunch of different spots instead... which led to my "little pain, big pain" theory. I cut my pinkie knuckle off once while I was boning a duck - one misplaced flick of my new filet knife, and I could feel the blade grab onto the bone in my finger. Cut my leg once too, so badly that I left a trail of blood from the kitchen of the Ritz Carlton through the main lobby, down the pristine marble steps, and on the floor of the taxi that took me to the hospital. Burned part of my left arm once so badly there was a strip of crispy black skin, skewered a lobster tail and the palm of my right hand together, broke my right big toe while working the line at a jazz bistro, and once had to discard an entire bowl of perfectly sliced Spanish onions because I somehow chopped off my entire fingernail into the bowl. And you know what? Every single one of those things sucked, but I'd do them all again before sitting through another allergy test. There's something about the little pricks and scratches, over and over, that just drives me out of my mind. Every little injection was like torture... on the other hand, when you put a knife through your thigh you get that warm flood of dopamine and endorphins going, and it's not that bad. The clean-up sucks, but at least you don't have someone picking at you for twenty minutes. Eew.
Anyway, I bit my lip and waited while they prodded away, and then sat on the table all itchy while I waited to see what which spots would turn into welts. Everything looked pretty good except for one angry little spot with the number '14' written in red marker next to it on my left shoulder. One spot, I thought, can't be that bad. After all, they tested me for everything on the face of the earth, so one thing should be pretty easy to fix. "Did you say you have two dogs?" the doctor said when he walked back in, "because number 14 is dogs."
So after all the prodding and poking, I'm stuck. I would sooner live in a cardboard box than get rid of the dogs, so I'm back to square one - or so I thought. I'm not really a big drug-guy these days, don't really take anything unless I need to, and a was a little sceptical when he suggested I try fexofenadine.. but you know what? Love it. Feel like a million bucks and I can type really fast. I wasn't even logged on to the internet 20 seconds ago, and here we are, four paragraphs in. Wee! I'm on fire.... think I might build us another house this afternoon...

Mmmmm

Ok, I know some of you have seen this already, but I just felt like spreading it around. Man, that was delicious...

Generic Post #103

Oh, it's been so long since I've written. So much has happened, I don't know where to start.
The kids are great, and impress me with everything they do. They're both playing soccer, doing well in school, are exceptionally funny and polite, and are collaborating on an experimental vaccine for malaria the can be made from discarded coffee grounds. Sam is in first grade, so he's reading on a pretty advanced level, using computers and doing math in class, and fills in his afternoons running a charity organization he's started which trains squirrels how to help the elderly open child-proof lids on prescription bottles. Lily is in Pre-K, so she's just getting a handle on writing the alphabet and is still only a stand-in at the Bolshoi Ballet.
My wife is still crazy and has been working ridiculous hours this month, so we haven't seen her all that much. It's a pretty difficult life around here when she's gone for weeks at a time. For one, I feel bad that she's stretched to her limit, and that the kids miss her when she isn't here. Plus, being a single parent is pretty freaking hard. A few days at a time is a breeze, but after a few weeks things really start to falls through the cracks, and I quickly got lost in a sea of laundry and school forms. Not to mention the fact that she is the morning person in our relationship, and having to be the morning person and then not being able to fall asleep at a reasonable hour really made me wish I had a meth lab in the back yard just to get me over the hump.
On top of that, busy days at work for me inevitably lead to the carpal tunnel thing, and it's been hard to do anything, much less come home and type. Back in the day when I first heard of carpal tunnel I thought it was office workers complaining because they were a bunch of pansies... unfortunately, I was wrong about that. I can usually fend off the onset of things by wearing my wrist braces and icing my arms down, but every once in a while it hits me anyway. For those of you who are lucky enough to have avoided it, every heartbeat makes your arms burn from the first joint in your thumbs all the way up to the back of your neck, and there's no way of forgetting about it because it's there, day and night. Unless, of course, you manage to burn the side of your face with a big wave of bacon grease - which I did - and then it's hard to focus on your arm pains. Plus, I look like an idiot who lost a monkey knife fight. And while I'm on the subject, if you haven't been in a monkey knife fight, I would avoid those too. They're smart, and don't have any qualms about going for your crotch or throwing poo as a distraction.
So there you go, you're all up to date. I'm off to ice things down once again, and will fill you in as soon as I can type without the assistance of a bottle of Advil.

Well That Was Fast...

Ok, here's a quick update after the last post -
On Saturday night we had some friends of ours come over for dinner, and just as they arrived and I was getting some food together, the phone rang... and yeah, you guessed it, it was a guy from Friendly's named Steve.
Steve, it turns out, was a pretty nice guy... and it turns out the spoon does have a higher purpose - it turns out that the spoon clips on to the Friend-z blender, and after they put the ice cream and toppings in the cup, the spoon is the thing that does the actually blending. When it's all mixed, they just unhook the top of the spoon and leave it in the cup. Apparently, it's an easier and much more sanitary way to make the things, because the machine is sealed off and the only thing that ever touches the ice cream is the spoon that they give you. Who knew.
Anyway, Steve seemed to gather by the sound of raucous children and margaritas being blended it wasn't the best time to talk, even though I told him I was thrilled to get a call (at home on a Saturday night, wtf?) from Friendly's with an answer.
"Thanks for your letter and for the nice things you said about Friendly's, I really enjoyed reading it," he said, "and I sent it to our CEO Ned Lidvall and the GM, so next time you go in make sure to let them know who you are."
Mmm, Friendly's fame. Sweet.

Open Letter To A Restaurant That Is Friendly

To Whom It May Concern:
After a lovely meal at one of your restaurants yesterday, my son and I ordered ice cream - he decided on mint chocolate chip (he’s a sucker for the classics), and I got vanilla blended with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. When our ice cream arrived, his looked normal enough, but I was given a cup and the most mysterious spoon I have ever seen.
As a chef and a lover of soups, I’ve seen a lot of spoons in my day. On top of that, I know the extraordinary power that flatware can have. I’ve seen my cousin burst into tears by the mere presence of a runcible spoon on the table, and been enchanted by the haunting sound of a toothless man playing the spoons in rural Arkansas. But nothing comes close to the spoon I received yesterday.
Since I am unable to attach a picture of the spoon into the ‘Contact Us’ section of your website, I’ll describe it – It’s plastic (so I brought it home, I hope you don’t mind), and the bowl, or ‘action’ end of the spoon is normal in every way... but here’s where it gets odd... I can’t figure the handle out. It’s rectangular and hollow, with two ventilation holes along the run of the handle, and it has an odd hook at the end, as if it wants to be attached to something. The hollow handle looks like it should be stacked with other spoons, but I can’t see any way that one spoon would fit inside another without cutting off the business end, and the air holes suggest that it might be used as a wee little straw – although I can’t see how this would be practical since you would have to immerse the entire length of the handle to get any suction. Plus, lets be honest with each other, if you immerse the entire spoon your face would be all the way down there anyway, and you might as well just drink it. I must admit, it did remind me of the brief time I spent in a Ninja training camp where we were taught to hide just below the surface of the water and breathe through a short length of hollow reed. I can’t imagine this was the spoons intended purpose however, because I think that your enemy would become suspicious if they saw the bowl end of a spoon sticking out of the water. So much for the element of surprise... foiled by a spoon.
The hook is another matter all together. It’s not really a hook per se, by itself the spoon wouldn’t really hang on anything, and it seems to be more of a clip – as though something would lock into place when it was inserted all the way down the shaft of the spoon handle. Since I can’t imagine that each individual spoon is locked securely into place until someone orders a Friend-z, I’m wondering if our server might have neglected to give me some mysterious spoon attachment. A game perhaps? A tiny ball and string that you have to attach to the spoon and swing into the cavity? Maybe you should consider, if you haven’t already, including a survival kit inside of the spoon’s shaft with one of those little wire saws with metal rings on each end, some matches, and a tiny foil emergency blanket. I would totally buy one of those. What a great stocking stuffer too! Emergency spoons for everyone on my list... Plus if you could modify the hook end a bit so you could fish with it, you might really have something, I’d never leave home without my Friend-z spoon.
I would be happy to send along a picture of the spoon if you’re not sure which one I’m talking about, or if you are at all concerned our server might have slipped in some rogue spoon that was never intended to be served with a Friend-z. That being said, our meal was delicious, even though I am haunted by your flatware. Please let me know as soon as possible what the higher purpose for this spoon is so that I can return to my normal life, unburdened by the mystery of your Friend-z spoon.

(Letter was submitted on 7.30.09... I'll let you know as soon as they answer. Until then...)

Spoons and Barns

Since we moved into this house about seven years ago, Sara has been on an endless quest to turn it into a home. I’m the sort of person that would rather stay here than move, so I’ve been making an honest effort to improve the place little by little. Just to give you some perspective, on any given day she will see a for sale sign somewhere and make a list of the reasons we should immediately move before someone else gets the house – and on any given day I consider all of the reasons that would make me leave this place... Decaying front porch? No, I can deal with that. Water in the basement, stinkbugs in the attic, and mice in the crawlspace? No problem. Crackheads moving into our spare bedroom and poltergeists in the closets? Maybe they can contribute, after all it takes a village to raise a child...
On rare occasions, our desires intersect. When they do, and we are powered by a collective covet, it’s best to stay the hell back. Since we’ve had an actual dining room (and perhaps fueled by pictures in every cooking magazine I’ve ever read that show elaborate dinners attended by quirky & beautiful guests sprawled out over expansive tables) I’ve always wanted a table as a centerpiece. The dining room table we were using had history on it’s side – it’s the table I grew up with, eaten countless meals around, instigated and resolved a lifetime of arguments, and sat behind while I’ve told and heard every story worth telling. What I’ve always wanted was something to make our own history with, a table worthy of countless friends, and a new lifetime of arguments, jokes, and a shitload of food. When Sara said (out of the blue) that she wanted a farm table, I was electric.
One thing you have to do in our house is seize the moment. Plans we make tend to get swept under the rug unless they're fought for, so I started fighting. For the next few days I looked everywhere - furniture stores, eBay, and on websites of carpenters and companies from Vancouver to our front door - and as luck would have it, I happened across Stable Tables about 20 miles away from us. John, it turned out, was exactly the guy we were looking for. His place was like Christmas morning - piles of barn wood, salvaged floor joists, and wide planks of birch and red oak strewn across the workshop pulsing with potential energy.
We talked for a while, looked at wood and finishes, had lemonade, played with his dog Butch, and without any pause, I wrote a check. Behind the scenes John started working, and within a couple of weeks he was lugging it into our dining room.
Before I go any further, I know it's just a table, and a lot of you might not really care what your dining room table looks like. It's ok, I don't play golf. I don't give a shit about college basketball, I don't work on my car, and think the movie 'Mamma Mia' sucks. To each his own. But my table... ahh, my table. Perfect. Perfect because of its imperfections. It's rough and uneven, like reclaimed wood should be, full of character from a past life... and this morning, with my some of my family here, it was just what I hoped for... somewhere I wanted to stay and watch the kids dig through plates of fruit and waffles while I'm planning the next meal, and listen to the same stories my parents have told a hundred times. Most of all, a place where I can close my eyes, hear Sara and the kids, and know that I'm home. Sappy, but I don't care, I don't golf.

Behind The Green Door

On the heels of our trip to Puerto Rico, Satchmo hasn't been doing that well. For the past year or so he has aged really quickly, and a few weeks ago he collapsed. It's not as dramatic as it sounds though - I came home, he woke up and got really excited, and then just sort of fainted. He was down for about a minute and when he came to just seemed to walk it off. We took him to the vet anyway, and instead of finding out why he passed out they found a tumor on his spleen about the size of a peach. To add insult to injury, this seemed to have nothing to do with his collapse, and now we had two problems to figure out.
Since then we has been back and forth from different vets, and some of the news has been better than we expected. The tumor which at first they thought could burst at any moment, seems to be stable at the moment, and even though it needs to be removed doesn't seem like the sort of thing that is immediately life threatening.
Today Satchmo and I went to the cardiologist to see if we could figure out the deal with the fainting, and after he had an ultrasound we found out that one of the reasons might have been the fact that he has pulmonary hypertension. Which, to be honest, sort of pissed me off. Granted, I don't have the hardest life, but I'm stressed. Kids, work, money, life in general - you name it, and I'm stressed about it. Satchmo, on the other hand, has to decide which room to fart in... and that's pretty much it. On top of that, the way you treat pulmonary hypertension in dogs is by giving them Viagra.
Seriously. And now I'm really pissed. You know what good drugs I get? Nothin. I'm creeping up on forty and have new and surprising ailments all the time, and you know the kind of things my doctor suggests? Fish oil. But Satchmo passes out and he gets Viagra - and not only that, but there is a pharmacy in New Jersey that makes Viagra in a liquid form with beef flavoring! Fuck. I wouldn't be surprised at all if his post surgery treatment included bacon flavored cocaine... but god forbid I have a heart attack or something, I'll probably get a brussels sprout salve.
On the positive side, I'm sure his social life will improve. Plus, we might be able to make some extra money by letting him do some porn. Seriously, he's pretty cute, and since he won't be hindered by any sort of moral code, I think he might really enjoy it. I already have a mental list of porn movie titles going...

Up And Away

Finally back from our trip to Puerto Rico, and thought I should share a few things. First of all, it was a spur of the moment thing, and even though we were trying to make it a vacation of sorts for the kids, it wasn't really a vacation for us. We found out we had to go on Tuesday, and by Wednesday we were having lunch at our hotel and had the kids sunscreened up and raring to go.

Luckily, there were plenty of distractions from the task at hand, and right away we were chasing iguanas around the pool and trying to convince Lily that the slide wasn't too scary. If you haven't been, it's an odd sort of paradise down there. Outside of the back doors by the beach the rest of the world melts away. The trees and ocean are beautiful, and it's hard remember what life is like back in the real world... outside of the front door (in San Juan, anyway) people are driving like the world is on fire, and the inner city and resorts fighting for space in a sort of haphazard tangle.

Our drive to the second hotel in Ponce was much of the same - stunning hills and valleys, homes jutting out randomly from the hillsides, and cartoon roadsigns reminding you not to fire your guns into the air at Christmas. You know, for the safety of the kids... and the Hilton was an oasis nestled behind some road construction and an overpass, like it was plunked down without regard for the neighbors.

Sara was gone for most of the next couple of days, catching up with her family and managing her way through her father's funeral, so the kids and I spent the days in an awkward peace. Even though we were trapped at the hotel, the kids were worn to the bone by the time bedtime came around from all of the swimming and running from one activity to the next, which made things a bit easier for all of us. It was odd though, because as beautiful as it was, and as good as the food was (and some of it was really, really good) at the end of every day I was ready to go home - and though she didn't let on, even during downtime at the pool or walking around at night listening to the Coqui, Sara seemed like a shadow of who she was a week before. We were back in San Juan by Saturday, and our last day before the flight home was spent trying to pretend we were ourselves again... plus we got to feel our way though our neighborhood, from the Ritz Carlton to the cockfight ring outside of our bedroom window. And by Sunday night, with the kids fast asleep in the back of the car, we finally made it home, and if I had the energy I would have kissed the ground when we arrived.

I didn't know Sara's father all that well. Aside from the few times we met, most of what I know is stories about what kind of man he was... and from those stories, what I know most about him is the amazing qualities he passed on to his kids. That, and he gave me the best gift I could have ever asked for, my wife.