Q&A with the Kids - Part II - Chloe

(NOTE: You always hear from me, so I thought it might be fun to hear from the kids for a change. Today we chat with our 28-year-old daughter Chloe. Dr. Chloe Edmonds, to be precise. She earned her PhD last summer, and she and her husband Michael are expecting their first child in September. Oh, and she also plans to go to medical school. Makes me tired just thinking about it...)

What was the best thing about growing up in a big family?

I think the best thing was always having someone to play with. It was never lonely growing up with so many siblings. Plus, each sibling relationship is so different based upon gender combinations and age differences, so we had a lot of unique relationships.

What things didn't you like about it?

Being #2 of 5 kids can mean some responsibilities that you didn't sign up for. I never resented my little siblings! But you do take on a bit more of a parent role as you move up in the birth order.

What are your favorite memories of things we did as a family?

I loved the "stay-cations" we took, especially when we went to all of the parks in Wickliffe. These were a lot less stressful than full-on vacations, but they still had the full extent of family bonding and fun.

What is something you wish you could have done or had growing up, but you couldn't because you had four siblings?

I think there were times when we had a little less money than Mom/Dad would have liked, and that can possibly be traced back to the number of kids. This meant we didn't get name brand clothes or shoes unless they were hand-me-downs. And when you're in middle school, this seems very important! In hindsight it's not a big deal, but I do remember getting tired of hand-me-downs pretty early on. Also I always wanted a trampoline, but I do not know if we never got one due to our financial situation or other factors, haha! (EDITOR'S NOTE: Other factors. I was too lazy to mow around a trampoline.)

That's Chloe operating on a pig...really.

Do you want kids of your own? Why or why not?

I sure hope so, considering we have one on the way! I think we want 2-3 kids total, but who knows? Michael and I both grew up in families with 4+ kids, and while we had good experiences, we personally think a medium-sized family would be ideal for us.

What was your favorite thing Mom used to make for dinner? Do you ever make it for yourself?

I had all sorts of favorites. One in particular was beef stroganoff. I don't cook super often these days, but beef stroganoff is still a popular one in our household. I also loved her lasagna, but truthfully I've never been brave enough to try cooking that one.

Q&A with the Kids - Part I - Elissa

 (NOTE: You always hear from me, so I thought it might be fun to hear from the kids for a change. We begin our Q&A With the Kids interview series with my 31-year-old daughter Elissa. She is among the smartest, funniest and most interesting people I know, inside or outside of my family.)

What was the best thing about growing up in a big family?

Always having someone to play with/boss around. Never had to worry about finding extra players for a board game. We had enough people to make two sparsely-filled kickball teams. I also feel like the general sense of belonging and love was good. And I got very good at reading in noisy environments because my house was loud 24/7. I have since lost this talent, but people noticed it when I had it. 

What things didn't you like about it?

Four people to play with is also four people to fight with! And you have to share everything: TV time, computer time, toys, parental attention, food, bedrooms, and everything else. I still think I'm terrible at sharing because I got used to hoarding resources as a lifestyle. And I can't eat snacks normally, I have to devour them as soon as they enter the house out of inherited fear I won't get any in time. It scares Mark and he often has to hide junk food from me in various secret cupboards. I also didn't like when I babysat Jack and he threw up on me.

What are your favorite memories of things we did as a family?

I think we had great vacations and staycations. I really liked the week we stayed at home and pretended to have a vacation because Dad took off work, which was very Midwest poor of us but in a classy way. I liked going to Red Robin for birthday sundaes and freckled lemonade and having dinner at Grandma's house on Wednesdays. I liked board game tournaments and family kickball. We did a lot of other stuff like making snowmen and playing Barbies and going to the library and community pool, but not all seven of us at once, so I am not including them here. 

Elissa and me, 1994

What is something you wish you could have done or had growing up, but you couldn't because you had four siblings?

TRAVEL. Before college I had only been to Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Maryland, and Florida. My boss has two kids and they've spent a month in Scandanavia, a month in Italy, a month in Taiwan and Japan, etc. every summer. Those little California worms have no idea how lucky they are. 

Do you want kids of your own? Why or why not?

No! And that is a full sentence requiring no explanation.

Elissa and me, 2013

What was your favorite thing Mom used to make for dinner? Do you ever make it for yourself?

I love Mom's homemade granola. Her beef stroganoff and London broil really stand out to me, too. And obviously her pizza. I've been vegan for 8 years now, so while I still have her pizza with vegan cheese and veggies, it's not as easy to veganize a flank steak for London Broil. I make my own beef stroganoff recipe now with Beyond Steak Tips and Kite Hill cream cheese, and I make my own granola with whatever grains and seeds I have in the cupboard!! 

Here's what I'm doing to prepare to become a grandfather

Nothing. I'm doing nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited my daughter Chloe is due to give birth to our first grandchild in 4 1/2 months.

It's just that, in the grand scheme of things (haha, "grand"), Grandpa is the most fun and easiest job ever. My assignment, once this little one is born, will be to love him, play with him, and teach him stuff.

I can absolutely do that. All of it. Bring it on.

There's no manual to read in advance. I don't have to strip wallpaper and paint nursery walls like Terry and I did back in the 90s when we started having kids. And speaking of Terry, she is already in the process of preparing our house for a baby. My input there is minimal.

The only thing I have to do as Grandpa is to avoid doing the one thing my own dad, an otherwise outstanding grandfather, did when Elissa was a toddler.

Elissa was at my parents' house eating lunch, I think. Terry was there, too, and specifically said Elissa couldn't have any potato chips until she ate some of her healthier food.

But my dad – always one to spoil his grandchildren – gave Elissa those chips anyway. Just handed her the can of Pringles, right there in front of her mother.

Terry fumes about it to this day.

Note to self: If Chloe says the child cannot have or do something, no matter how much I want to spoil him, honor his mother's wishes.

Unless I want her holding a grudge against me 30 years later.

A little self-doubt can actually be the greatest motivator

I try not to write too often about my sports public address (PA) announcing side hustle, as it's a pretty niche little world and not all that relevant to most people.

However, I sometimes learn life lessons from announcing that are worth sharing. One such instance occurred last month.

By way of background, I am the PA guy (i.e., the person whose voice you hear over the loudspeakers in the gym, arena or outdoor stadium during sporting events) for just about everything that gets announced at the Wickliffe (Ohio) Upper School, formerly Wickliffe High School.

That means I get to be the voice of the band, football, volleyball, boys and girls soccer, and boys and girls basketball. I also step in during the winter and spring months to do Senior Nights for "non-announced" sports like swimming, tennis, baseball and softball.

In addition, I do quite a bit of work at Perry High School (basketball, soccer, track) and University School (soccer, hockey), along with regular substitute PA announcing work at Cleveland State University (soccer, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse) and other local schools.

Altogether, I announce more than 100 events every year, and I enjoy all of it. It's a fun hobby.

I worked for several years to secure my ongoing announcing gigs, but there has always been this expectation that I would keep trying to move up to the next level, whatever that might be.

I've never presumed I have the chops to announce for any of the big three sports teams in Cleveland: the Browns, Guardians or Cavaliers. But our region's minor league teams have always seemed obtainable, as has a permanent gig for one of Cleveland State's higher-profile programs like men's basketball at the Wolstein Center.

In the past couple of years, I've had three opportunities to audition for minor-league PA spots.

The first was for the NBA G League Cleveland Charge in early 2023. I had a tryout for that job and didn't make the cut. The guy who got the gig, David Kammerman, absolutely deserved it. He's good!

The second was for the Class AA baseball Akron RubberDucks earlier this year. I sent in an audition video, but I wasn't even selected as a finalist. Guess who got that job? Dave again, and again, he deserved it. The man has pipes.

When Dave took the Akron job, I messaged him a note of congratulations, and he mentioned how his previous baseball employer, the Lake County Captains (the high Class A affiliate of the Cleveland Guardians), would now be looking for a PA replacement. At his encouragement, I reached out to them.

The Captains ended up having an open public tryout for their PA announcing position, as well as for the roles of on-field host, mascot and drummer. They were expecting 40 people to come in that day, and from what I could tell, most were trying out for PA announcer.

My voice wasn't in peak shape, as I was still recovering from a cold, but I went anyway and gave it my best shot.

I came in assuming I didn't stand much of a chance. Two reasons for that:

(1) What many professional teams are looking for when it comes to a PA guy is someone with that naturally deep, bass/baritone voice. You know what I mean. It's the voice you hear advertising monster truck rallies on the radio ("SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!") I simply don't have that. My voice is an octave higher, more in the tenor-to-baritone range. I describe my style only half-jokingly as "congenial white guy TV host."

(2) I had already fallen short in my two previous professional auditions. I was thus somewhat resigned to the idea that I was not of the caliber to work for a pro team.

The Captains audition was on a Tuesday. The following Friday afternoon I received an email from the team offering me a position as one of their PA announcers.

Imagine my surprise.

There are three of us sharing PA duties for the Captains this season. One is an established veteran named Wayne, while the other is an up-and-coming younger guy named Mitch. Both are fantastic PA pros.

To date I've only done a few games, but the fact is, against my own expectations, I got the gig.

In retrospect, I think the self-doubt worked to my advantage. I went into that audition vowing I would just be myself, come what may, and that's exactly what I did. I read in my normal announcing voice without trying to be SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! guy. That's not me, and I'm not going to pretend it is.

You're better off just being yourself in almost every situation, personal and professional.

I also came in with a bit of a chip on my shoulder. Subconsciously, I thought, "I'll show these people." That put a bit of an edge and some energy into my tryout reads.

In the end, I achieved my goal because a large part of me didn't think I could.

Does that make sense? I'm not sure it does.

All I know is, mission accomplished. Long-hoped-for PA announcing milestone achieved.

And I couldn't be happier.

A man's got to know his limitations. I have many.

The list of subjects about which I can confidently say "Oh, I know a lot about that" is exceedingly small.

This comes as no surprise to my friends and family. They'll tell you my knowledge tends to be extremely focused and not altogether useful.

Which I suppose would be OK if I hadn't spent the past 50+ years expecting that at some point, through some unknown process, I would come to understand a wide range of things.

But it hasn't happened. I have very little wisdom and even less common sense. I continue to be mystified by how appliances in my own house work, for example.

It also bothers me that I write every day for both personal and professional reasons, yet I'm not confident I can fully explain the proper use of a comma.

And a semicolon? Forget it.

I am, in short, stunningly ignorant on most topics.

This is one reason I have very few opinions, especially when it comes to politics. Someone will explain their point of view to me on an issue and I'll say, "Well, that sounds right to me." Then another person with an opposing viewpoint will explain their perspective and I'll say, "You know, that sounds right, too."

Maybe I just don't understand the nature of opinions. I'm looking for 100% black-and-white clarity when instead I should be looking for the perspective that seems to carry at least a little more weight. You can, I guess, acknowledge that a person brings up some valid points and still overall disagree with them.

Now, I don't want you to think I'm entirely useless as a human being. There are subjects on which I'm a pretty reliable source. Or at least you could do a lot worse than me if you have questions.

Here is the complete list of those subjects:

• The Australian band Men at Work's full discography and song lyrics
• The 1979 Cleveland Indians
• World War I battles on the Western Front, 1917-18
• Oatmeal: Is it just for breakfast? (THE EXTENT OF MY KNOWLEDGE HERE: "No.")
• Rolling a 300 game in Wii Sports Bowling
• Ottawa Senators goaltenders, 1992-present
• Choosing the correct container size when cleaning up after dinner and storing leftovers

And that's probably about it.

Oh, I'm also pretty good when it comes to Flintstones trivia. Call me the next time someone asks you what Barney Rubble did for a living.

I think of our cats as tiny humans, and I constantly have to remind myself they're not

Ever since Cheddar the cat entered our lives a year ago, this scene has played out hundreds of times.

Cheddar (the orange cat above, lower right) will be sitting in the living room minding his own business, when suddenly calico Ginny, one of our two girl cats, will come charging at him. The two will tussle for a few seconds, hisses will be exchanged, then order will be restored.

When this happens, I give Ginny a stern talking-to. "Why would you do that?" I demand of her. "Stop being a bully. Leave Cheddar alone! You're mean."

Then I pause for a second and realize a few things:

• Ginny does not generally understand English, outside of the word "treats" and her own name.
  
  
• Ginny is acting on instinct. She is not "mean" by nature.
  
  
• These lectures of mine never seem to have an effect, and she is likely to repeat this behavior an hour later.

NOTE: Cheddar is not entirely innocent in all of this. Maybe it's because he's fed up with being attacked, but increasingly, he is the aggressor when he and Ginny or he and Molly square off.

Other than the occasional nose scratch, no one ever gets hurt in these confrontations. But I always feel like Cheddar, a cat who was plucked from the mean streets of Wickliffe by our daughter Melanie, deserves some peace and quiet.

Then again, he's an animal. Does he even know what "peace and quiet" is? Isn't he built to handle this kind of thing?

Regardless of how much we love them, the fact is that our cats, as domesticated as they are, are cats. They have instincts that make them act in ways that, while unpleasant to us, are perfectly natural to them.

Overall, they seem pretty happy with their lives.

This tendency of mine to treat them like people also extends to their facial expressions. Or at least what I interpret as their facial expressions, because again, I read their faces the way I would read people's faces.

Which is also a mistake. Cheddar, for instance, has what Terry calls "Resting Sad Face." He always looks like a forlorn little human child, but he looks that way even when he's sitting on my lap purring and is clearly very content.

So while I still don't like it when the cats fight, as I said, no permanent damage is done and they all seem fairly happy with their lot in life.

Of course, I would know for sure if they stopped being so stubborn and learned to speak English.

Which is the best (and the worst) day of the week?

Supposedly, early "Garfield" cartoons like this one from the mid-1970s were not copyright protected, meaning I can post it here without threat of punishment. Or maybe that's made up. We'll see.

Every once in a while, my son Jared will text our family group chat with a set of "power rankings" in which he rates a group of items from his favorite to his least favorite.

Like, for example, he has previously sent (always randomly, always out of the blue) power rankings of the cats in our family and various breakfast cereals.

These lists are always cause for much discussion and debate within the group chat.

Recently, Jared sent his rankings of the days of the week, from the best (in his opinion Saturday) to the worst (in his mind Tuesday).

It immediately reminded me of a similar list I posted here on the blog way back on July 5, 2013. I figured I would revisit that list and make changes based on 12 additional years of life experience. Surely I don't look at the days of the week the same now as I did when I was 43, do I?

It turns out I do. Following are my days of the week power rankings, which ring as true for me now as they did back in 2013. (Oh, and for comparison's sake, Jared's list from best to worst went Saturday, Friday, Thursday, Wednesday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday.)

#7 - Tuesday

Tuesday is the worst day, hands down. Maybe because it lacks an identity. It's not only the middle of the work week, it's early in the middle of the work week. Few good things happen on Tuesdays, as far as I'm concerned.

#6 - Thursday

"I could never get the hang of Thursdays," says Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And I agree. Some people choose to go out and party on Thursday nights. I don't even go out and party on Saturday nights, so that's definitely not for me. Thursday lures you in with, "Hey, the weekend is right around the corner!" But it's not, because Thursday ends and you still haven't arrived at the weekend. You can't fool me, Thursday, you temptress.

#5 - Monday

This is higher than most people would slot Monday on any day-of-the-week ranking list. But Mondays do have some redeeming value. They always hold out the promise of a solid, enjoyable week ahead, and I always start them well. Sometimes they really are the vanguard of a happy five days. But sometimes they aren't. So you never know what you're going to get with Monday, which is why I can't trust it with a ranking any higher than #5.

#4 - Sunday

It is with a guilty conscience that I rank Sunday in the middle, because Sunday is when we go to church and that's supposed to be the highlight of my week. Sunday morning definitely ranks right up there for me, but Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening? All I do is think about my responsibilities and appointments for the week to come, which really defeats the purpose of a weekend. Sunday is lucky I put it as high as #4 on this list.

#3 - Wednesday

That Geico commercial about a camel on Hump Day makes me laugh. And that's all I really need to say about Wednesdays.

#2 - Saturday

I realize Saturday is the calendar equivalent of Nirvana for most people, and I like it, too. But you know what happens to me around 6 p.m. every Saturday? I start thinking, "Oh man, the weekend is already mostly over and I haven't accomplished anything. And tomorrow is Sunday, which means I have to spend it getting ready for Monday." *SIGH*." It's a sad, lonely existence I lead, really.

#1 - Friday

I would never force you to listen to that "Friday" song by Rebecca Black, but I do offer the option of a link, should you choose to subject yourself to it. Fridays are life-defining for me. I am, for whatever reason, hugely productive at work on Fridays. I enjoy almost every Friday night one way or another. And my standards have fallen so far that I actually thrive on the experience of wearing jeans to work on "Casual Fridays." There is virtually no downside to Fridays, which is why I crown it The Champ among days of the week. For what that's worth.