A couple of years ago, there was a Facebook meme that instructed people to put their iPods on shuffle and list the first five songs that came up. I thought that might be fun to do, especially since my iPod is filled with all kinds of strange music.
And I do mean all kinds. I have reggae and rock, classical and country, ska and salsa (OK, I don't actually have any salsa music, but I needed a musical genre that began with "s" to complete the pattern of alliteration).
Anyway, as I type this, I haven't yet pressed the "shuffle" button, so I don't know what five songs will pop up first. But I'm predicting that Sting and Colin Hay will both be in there, since I have just about everything those two artists have ever recorded. And there's a good chance some Dave Matthews Band and Billy Joel will make the cut, too. Let's see what happens:
(1) "Murder by Numbers" - The Police
OK, this pretty much qualifies as a Sting song since he co-wrote and recorded it as the frontman for The Police in 1983. I love Sting. I have been obsessed with his music for nearly 30 years. I actually met him, too. It was July 1996 and I managed to score a backstage pass with my nephew Mark when Sting was performing at Blossom Music Center. We met him before the show, and he was as nice as anyone can be when they're getting ready to perform in front of 12,000 people in about 15 minutes. He never calls, though...
(2) "Genus Rockus" - SRO
Who? What? There are only about five people in this world who would hear that song title and know what it is. It's a song written by my good buddy Nathan Woods and recorded by SRO, the two-man band that consisted of me, Nathan, and an old IBM personal computer. We recorded one album, titled "Sandlot Tunes," in the summer of 1990. And I'm just vain enough to have my own music on my iPod. Hey, I like listening to it, OK? And I have to say, I turn in a particularly nice tenor sax performance on this song, which we always used as our closer when playing live.
(3) "Moondance" - Van Morrison
I was stunningly ignorant of Van Morrison and his music until I joined a band called Tooney Loons about 13 years ago. I was by far the youngest guy in the group, which played a lot of Eagles, Beatles and Van Morrison stuff. This is one of Van's most popular songs. If I knew how to play the flute, I would join a band again just to play this. What a great tune.
(4) "Cuban Highway" - Dave Koz
Dave Koz is the king of smooth jazz. I realize that's an almost meaningless designation to most of you, but trust me when I say that when it comes to smooth jazz, Dave is The Man. Strangely enough, he's also a good acquaintance of Terry and me. We met him at a benefit concert in 2000, and since then he has always graciously left us tickets to his shows and backstage passes whenever he plays in Cleveland. He's also my favorite Jewish saxophone player, in that he's the only Jewish saxophone player I know.
By the way, I mentioned that I have a lot of different kinds of music on my iPod, but so far we've had three rock-pop songs and a smooth jazz tune. Let's hope we pull off another genre with song #5...
(5) Movement #4 ("Presto") from Beethoven's 9th Symphony - Cleveland Orchestra
Yes! I know it totally seems like I staged that, but this really is the fifth song that came up in my random iPod shuffle. I have just enough knowledge of classical music to be dangerous, and Beethoven's 9th is definitely my favorite of his symphonies. Powerful, emotional, almost mind-bending stuff. Just incredible music from one of the few people in history who truly deserves the title of "musical genius." Give it a listen if you haven't already.
So in the end we have three musical genres and no sign of the predicted Colin Hay, Dave Matthews and Billy Joel sightings. Which is fine. I was scared to death Barry Manilow, Pet Shop Boys or Cyndi Lauper would come up and make you all think less of me...
(Hey, feel free to do the "Top 5 Shuffle" with your iPod and report the results below in the comments!)
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Am I becoming my father? Why yes, yes I am
It's stunning to compare photos of my wife and mother-in-law at similar ages. In some cases, they look almost exactly alike. I mean, we're talking virtual identical twins here.
Terry jokingly refers to it as The Curse. I have my own version of it, though I've never given it a name because I've only recently noticed it.
It is my solemn and somewhat sad responsibility to officially announce, here on this blog, that I am rapidly turning into my father.I don't know when it started, nor do I know how far it will go, but there's no doubt that I am morphing into a 21st-century version of Bob Tennant.
Not that this is bad, mind you. My dad was a great guy. It has been 12 years since he passed away, and I still think about him all the time.
Knowing that I miss him, God very graciously decided that the next best thing to having him around is actually being him. And thus, my transformation has begun.
How do I know I'm becoming my father? Four major clues:
(1) I enjoy dad humor
As my former co-worker Jennifer Cimperman has pointed out, dads tell really bad (painfully bad) jokes. The kind of jokes not even the most down-on-his-luck comedian would ever stoop to tell on stage. And we think we're absolutely hilarious. Seriously, just when you thought society was finally rid of that old joke about people dying to get into cemeteries, a group of dads resurrects it and it lives on. My apologies.
(2) My fashion sense
My father regularly wore, for example, a red t-shirt with purple sweatpants, and I would mock him for it. I gave the eulogy at his funeral and even mentioned it there, for Pete's sake. And now I look at old pictures of him in that outfit and I'm starting to think, "Hey, that's pretty stylin'." (Yes, I say it as if the 'g' didn't exist at the end of "styling.") I may need professional help here.
(3) I have hairs growing in strange places
I'll look in the mirror and notice there's a nine-inch mutant hair growing from my ear. I don't mean from inside my ear, but from the actual outside fleshy part of my ear. What is that all about? I used to laugh at the fact that my dad would have these rogue hairs growing from, say, his nose, and apparently I would think to myself, "That will never happen to ME! I'll be 18 years old forever!" Nature is cruel, my friends.
(4) I have no real idea where anything is in the house
I realize this is a problem that plagues men in general, but I think it was worse in my dad. My childhood memories consist largely of my dad standing in one room and yelling to my mom in another, "KATHRYN! WHERE DID I PUT THE ELECTRICAL TAPE?" And my mom would tell him. Then, six seconds later: "KATHRYN! WHERE ARE THE SCISSORS?" And so on. We've lived in our house for more than eight years, and I still can't tell you exactly: (a) which switches turn on which lights, and (b) where we keep almost any useful item. Without Terry, I would spend most of my time wandering around the house looking for stuff.
I realize this is how life works. Inevitably we become our parents, whether it's in looks, in mannerisms, or in thought patterns (or, if you're really lucky, in all three). And like I said ,that's OK. I just need to figure out whether Wal-Mart or Target would be my best bet for stocking up on red t-shirts and purple sweatpants.
Terry jokingly refers to it as The Curse. I have my own version of it, though I've never given it a name because I've only recently noticed it.
It is my solemn and somewhat sad responsibility to officially announce, here on this blog, that I am rapidly turning into my father.I don't know when it started, nor do I know how far it will go, but there's no doubt that I am morphing into a 21st-century version of Bob Tennant.
Not that this is bad, mind you. My dad was a great guy. It has been 12 years since he passed away, and I still think about him all the time.
Knowing that I miss him, God very graciously decided that the next best thing to having him around is actually being him. And thus, my transformation has begun.
How do I know I'm becoming my father? Four major clues:
(1) I enjoy dad humor
As my former co-worker Jennifer Cimperman has pointed out, dads tell really bad (painfully bad) jokes. The kind of jokes not even the most down-on-his-luck comedian would ever stoop to tell on stage. And we think we're absolutely hilarious. Seriously, just when you thought society was finally rid of that old joke about people dying to get into cemeteries, a group of dads resurrects it and it lives on. My apologies.
(2) My fashion sense
My father regularly wore, for example, a red t-shirt with purple sweatpants, and I would mock him for it. I gave the eulogy at his funeral and even mentioned it there, for Pete's sake. And now I look at old pictures of him in that outfit and I'm starting to think, "Hey, that's pretty stylin'." (Yes, I say it as if the 'g' didn't exist at the end of "styling.") I may need professional help here.
(3) I have hairs growing in strange places
I'll look in the mirror and notice there's a nine-inch mutant hair growing from my ear. I don't mean from inside my ear, but from the actual outside fleshy part of my ear. What is that all about? I used to laugh at the fact that my dad would have these rogue hairs growing from, say, his nose, and apparently I would think to myself, "That will never happen to ME! I'll be 18 years old forever!" Nature is cruel, my friends.
(4) I have no real idea where anything is in the house
I realize this is a problem that plagues men in general, but I think it was worse in my dad. My childhood memories consist largely of my dad standing in one room and yelling to my mom in another, "KATHRYN! WHERE DID I PUT THE ELECTRICAL TAPE?" And my mom would tell him. Then, six seconds later: "KATHRYN! WHERE ARE THE SCISSORS?" And so on. We've lived in our house for more than eight years, and I still can't tell you exactly: (a) which switches turn on which lights, and (b) where we keep almost any useful item. Without Terry, I would spend most of my time wandering around the house looking for stuff.
I realize this is how life works. Inevitably we become our parents, whether it's in looks, in mannerisms, or in thought patterns (or, if you're really lucky, in all three). And like I said ,that's OK. I just need to figure out whether Wal-Mart or Target would be my best bet for stocking up on red t-shirts and purple sweatpants.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Of hugs, happiness and human connections
So the Brazilians are gone.
After 12 days with us, Paula and Luiz flew back to Washington, D.C., today with their fellow Youth Ambassadors. There they'll meet up with other young Brazilians who spent time in Seattle, Tulsa, Charlotte, and Bozeman, Montana. The full group of 45 will fly back to Sao Paulo on Saturday.
We saw them off with a potluck dinner -- such an American event! -- at the home of the Fortkamps, one of the other host families, on Sunday night. There was plenty of food, a lot of laughter, and more than a few tears.
The tears you can understand from the Brazilians. They're a very open, emotional people to begin with, and when you combine that particular national trait with the fact that they're 15- through 18-year-olds, the waterworks were to be expected.
This was, after all, an intense experience for each of them. They were visiting the United States for the very first time, staying with families whom they had never met, speaking a foreign language and trying something new every day for almost two solid weeks. Seen through teenage eyes, the words "life changing" and "profound" come readily to mind.
But there were also a lot of red-eyed suburban Americans gathered in that basement, which is maybe a bit more surprising. As the Brazilians stood at the front of the room and one at a time expressed their gratitude to the families that had taken them in, there was a lot of sniffling among the natives.
Why is that? It's not like this was a true exchange program in which the students spent an entire school year here. They were here for 12 days. People get less attached to their own relatives in that time.
Well, I was one of those who were teary-eyed as the young Brazilians spoke, especially a very emotional Paula and the normally boisterous but clearly speaking-from-the-heart Luiz. And I have a theory as to why that was.
It stems from the very human need for connection, and specifically connection to people worth connecting to. These Brazilian teens were the cream of the crop. They were 45 selected from a group of more than 7,500 applicants. Each was picked for their character, community service, and (I'm guessing here) the intangible quality that just tells you someone is headed for great things. The "it" factor, if you want to give it a name.
I know I'm better off for having gotten to know Paula and Luiz. God puts certain people onto the earth, I'm convinced, so that the rest of us can benefit from interacting with them. Paula and Luiz are two of those people.
Does that sound melodramatic? Does it seem strange for a 42-year-old man to be gushing over a pair of Brazilian teenagers with whom he didn't even spend half a month? Yeah, probably. But to say that is to miss the value of human connection. And especially those connections that occur when people from different cultures and different circumstances are thrown together unexpectedly.
The thing is, I've lived my entire life in the same city. I've done this by choice, of course, but there are obvious limitations to spending four decades in the same place: Your opinions and attitudes can become static, and you in turn become fairly set in your ways.
When you're forced to confront the "other" -- different places, different people, different perspectives -- you benefit in unforseen ways. This is especially true for Americans, a people conditioned from birth to believe that we are the best and that everyone else wants to be like us.
I've mentioned before that the Brazilians are huggers. They don't always get the concept of "personal space," and that's a good thing. I'm not a natural hugger, but even when I met the other Brazilian kids besides Paula and Luiz, they leaned in for a "hello" hug. It was wonderful way to connect, and it forced me to drop my puritan inhibitions on physical contact between strangers.
Because that's just it: they weren't "strangers." Or at least they didn't think of themselves as being strangers to me. I was a host parent, and therefore I was someone who, to them, was worth meeting. And people worth meeting get hugs from Brazilians. That's just the way it is, and I think it's wonderful. It changed my view of them and their country immediately, and for the better.
There were a lot of examples of these moments when the Brazilian kids caught me off guard. They constantly made me think, made me laugh and -- on Sunday night in that basement -- made me cry a little. And now that they're gone, I'm forced to rely on myself a little more to create those moments where I suddenly realize, "Hey, I think I just learned something." As I get older, I find those moments are the most worth living for, and therefore I chase them all the harder.
I guess it's difficult to convey all this in a rambling blog post, but I have a feeling you know exactly what I'm talking about and have experienced it yourself. They say that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. I say life is what happens when you're standing in your living room watching your kids line dance with two crazy Brazilians.
I guess that's sort of the same thing.
After 12 days with us, Paula and Luiz flew back to Washington, D.C., today with their fellow Youth Ambassadors. There they'll meet up with other young Brazilians who spent time in Seattle, Tulsa, Charlotte, and Bozeman, Montana. The full group of 45 will fly back to Sao Paulo on Saturday.
We saw them off with a potluck dinner -- such an American event! -- at the home of the Fortkamps, one of the other host families, on Sunday night. There was plenty of food, a lot of laughter, and more than a few tears.
The tears you can understand from the Brazilians. They're a very open, emotional people to begin with, and when you combine that particular national trait with the fact that they're 15- through 18-year-olds, the waterworks were to be expected.
This was, after all, an intense experience for each of them. They were visiting the United States for the very first time, staying with families whom they had never met, speaking a foreign language and trying something new every day for almost two solid weeks. Seen through teenage eyes, the words "life changing" and "profound" come readily to mind.
But there were also a lot of red-eyed suburban Americans gathered in that basement, which is maybe a bit more surprising. As the Brazilians stood at the front of the room and one at a time expressed their gratitude to the families that had taken them in, there was a lot of sniffling among the natives.
Why is that? It's not like this was a true exchange program in which the students spent an entire school year here. They were here for 12 days. People get less attached to their own relatives in that time.
Well, I was one of those who were teary-eyed as the young Brazilians spoke, especially a very emotional Paula and the normally boisterous but clearly speaking-from-the-heart Luiz. And I have a theory as to why that was.
It stems from the very human need for connection, and specifically connection to people worth connecting to. These Brazilian teens were the cream of the crop. They were 45 selected from a group of more than 7,500 applicants. Each was picked for their character, community service, and (I'm guessing here) the intangible quality that just tells you someone is headed for great things. The "it" factor, if you want to give it a name.
I know I'm better off for having gotten to know Paula and Luiz. God puts certain people onto the earth, I'm convinced, so that the rest of us can benefit from interacting with them. Paula and Luiz are two of those people.
Does that sound melodramatic? Does it seem strange for a 42-year-old man to be gushing over a pair of Brazilian teenagers with whom he didn't even spend half a month? Yeah, probably. But to say that is to miss the value of human connection. And especially those connections that occur when people from different cultures and different circumstances are thrown together unexpectedly.
The thing is, I've lived my entire life in the same city. I've done this by choice, of course, but there are obvious limitations to spending four decades in the same place: Your opinions and attitudes can become static, and you in turn become fairly set in your ways.
When you're forced to confront the "other" -- different places, different people, different perspectives -- you benefit in unforseen ways. This is especially true for Americans, a people conditioned from birth to believe that we are the best and that everyone else wants to be like us.
I've mentioned before that the Brazilians are huggers. They don't always get the concept of "personal space," and that's a good thing. I'm not a natural hugger, but even when I met the other Brazilian kids besides Paula and Luiz, they leaned in for a "hello" hug. It was wonderful way to connect, and it forced me to drop my puritan inhibitions on physical contact between strangers.
Because that's just it: they weren't "strangers." Or at least they didn't think of themselves as being strangers to me. I was a host parent, and therefore I was someone who, to them, was worth meeting. And people worth meeting get hugs from Brazilians. That's just the way it is, and I think it's wonderful. It changed my view of them and their country immediately, and for the better.
There were a lot of examples of these moments when the Brazilian kids caught me off guard. They constantly made me think, made me laugh and -- on Sunday night in that basement -- made me cry a little. And now that they're gone, I'm forced to rely on myself a little more to create those moments where I suddenly realize, "Hey, I think I just learned something." As I get older, I find those moments are the most worth living for, and therefore I chase them all the harder.
I guess it's difficult to convey all this in a rambling blog post, but I have a feeling you know exactly what I'm talking about and have experienced it yourself. They say that life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. I say life is what happens when you're standing in your living room watching your kids line dance with two crazy Brazilians.
I guess that's sort of the same thing.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Power to the people...or at least to me
This morning I snowblowed the driveway.
GRAMMAR QUESTION: Should it be "snowblew?" And is it two words or one? I need a ruling on this.
Anyway, I realize there's nothing remotely interesting about that. Every day in the winter, millions of people use snowblowers to clear their driveways, sidewalks, etc. But to me it was fun because it meant I got to use a piece of gas-driven power equipment.
See, I work in an office. With a computer and mouse. Nothing I do in the course of my job is in the least bit manly. So there's a part of me that needs to be a lumberjack or a construction foreman or an oil rig worker or something.
This is of course funny in that I have no real mechanical skill. Yet still, I have this inborn drive to play with things that are loud and that push, pull, pump, cut or otherwise destroy other things. That's how powerful this urge is in men...even if you probably shouldn't be trusted with operating these machines, you still HAVE to.
This explains, for example, why motorcycles are so popular among guys. Other guys, that is. A motorcycle is the one manly man item I've never really cared about. But most guys are all about riding motorcycles. They're loud and they go fast. They're the grown-up version of playing with Hot Wheels cars.
Incidentally, as many of my friends and family know, years ago I came up with a three-question Real Guy Test that measures your degree of manliness, and motorcycles are involved. It should be noted that I fail this test miserably. I fall short on all three pillars of guy-ness.
It's a simple test, really. Just three yes/no questions:
(1) Without asking someone else or looking it up, do you know exactly what a joist is?
(2) Do you have -- or do you at least have an intense desire to own -- a motorcycle?
(3) Do you refer to your friends as "buddies?" (i.e., "A buddy of mine runs one of those generators on the back of his truck.")
If, like me, you answered "no" to all three of those questions, you might as well put on a dress and watch "The Notebook." One "yes" answer means there's hope for you, but you're not going to be voted Guy of the Year any time soon. Two "yes" responses show you're solidly manly and should be confident in your male-itude, while three "yes" answers indicate that, should you and I get into fight, even if I outweigh you by 50 pounds, you will almost certainly beat me to a pulp.
Anyway, like I said, despite all of this, nature dictates that I use loud machines from time to time. When we moved into our current house, my favorite part was driving the big UHaul truck. We used to have an old chainsaw and a chipper/shredder that I would mess with. And again there's the joy of the snowblower, which while not exactly brimming with horsepower, throws snow far enough that I feel powerful when I use it.
I understand there are many women who also like to use power tools. The difference is that with females, this is an individual, personality-related trait. In men it's primal. It's a part of who we are and what we do.
If I could make the Tim Allen manly growl sound right now, I would.
GRAMMAR QUESTION: Should it be "snowblew?" And is it two words or one? I need a ruling on this.
Anyway, I realize there's nothing remotely interesting about that. Every day in the winter, millions of people use snowblowers to clear their driveways, sidewalks, etc. But to me it was fun because it meant I got to use a piece of gas-driven power equipment.
See, I work in an office. With a computer and mouse. Nothing I do in the course of my job is in the least bit manly. So there's a part of me that needs to be a lumberjack or a construction foreman or an oil rig worker or something.
This is of course funny in that I have no real mechanical skill. Yet still, I have this inborn drive to play with things that are loud and that push, pull, pump, cut or otherwise destroy other things. That's how powerful this urge is in men...even if you probably shouldn't be trusted with operating these machines, you still HAVE to.
This explains, for example, why motorcycles are so popular among guys. Other guys, that is. A motorcycle is the one manly man item I've never really cared about. But most guys are all about riding motorcycles. They're loud and they go fast. They're the grown-up version of playing with Hot Wheels cars.
Incidentally, as many of my friends and family know, years ago I came up with a three-question Real Guy Test that measures your degree of manliness, and motorcycles are involved. It should be noted that I fail this test miserably. I fall short on all three pillars of guy-ness.
It's a simple test, really. Just three yes/no questions:
(1) Without asking someone else or looking it up, do you know exactly what a joist is?
(2) Do you have -- or do you at least have an intense desire to own -- a motorcycle?
(3) Do you refer to your friends as "buddies?" (i.e., "A buddy of mine runs one of those generators on the back of his truck.")
If, like me, you answered "no" to all three of those questions, you might as well put on a dress and watch "The Notebook." One "yes" answer means there's hope for you, but you're not going to be voted Guy of the Year any time soon. Two "yes" responses show you're solidly manly and should be confident in your male-itude, while three "yes" answers indicate that, should you and I get into fight, even if I outweigh you by 50 pounds, you will almost certainly beat me to a pulp.
Anyway, like I said, despite all of this, nature dictates that I use loud machines from time to time. When we moved into our current house, my favorite part was driving the big UHaul truck. We used to have an old chainsaw and a chipper/shredder that I would mess with. And again there's the joy of the snowblower, which while not exactly brimming with horsepower, throws snow far enough that I feel powerful when I use it.
I understand there are many women who also like to use power tools. The difference is that with females, this is an individual, personality-related trait. In men it's primal. It's a part of who we are and what we do.
If I could make the Tim Allen manly growl sound right now, I would.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
I can't stop listening to this song
The fact that five people are playing the same guitar at the same time is pretty cool, sure. But it's the song itself I can't get out of my head. I bought it on iTunes and have listened to it over and over and over...Maybe it's not your type of music. I just think it's a great song.
(At the beginning, Terry thought they were playing "Baa Baa Black Sheep." And she's right, it does sound like that, along with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and the ABC song.)
Anyway, give it a listen and let me know what you think:
(At the beginning, Terry thought they were playing "Baa Baa Black Sheep." And she's right, it does sound like that, along with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and the ABC song.)
Anyway, give it a listen and let me know what you think:
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Take a chill pill...among others
Every morning I take seven pills. I have one of those little plastic pill containers that divide your pills by day (one compartment for each day).
So not only do I take these pills, I also own a device designed to help those with bad memories remember if they've taken their medicine on a given day.
What am I, 85 years old?
Yes, apparently so.
Let me say, though, that all seven of these pills are voluntary. I don't have to take them the way you have to take cancer meds or something like that, but I have enough common sense to know they help me.
They include:
* Two fish oil capsules: This is for heart and brain health. I like eating fish, but no one else in my house does. So I do the next best thing and take fish oil capsules. Swallow enough of these and you probably won't have a heart attack or stroke, but you will burp up a nasty cod taste.
* Two baby aspirin: Also for heart health. I love the way they taste. It's that awesome chalky orange taste. If they could make these things into a shake, I would drink it.
* One multivitamin: Ah, but not just any multivitamin. It's a MEN'S multivitamin. I don't even know what that means. Does it make me more manly? Is it bursting with testosterone? If I take, like, five of them, will I have an irrepressible urge to go out and shoot wild animals and whistle at passing women? I think this is an experiment worth trying.
* One Vitamin D3 capsule: Those of us who live in northern climates tend not to get enough sunlight, which means we don't get enough Vitamin D, which is apparently important for heart health. You'll notice "heart health" is a recurring theme here. I had a father and sister both die from heart disease. Can't be too careful here.
* One Wal-itin pill: This is for nighttime congestion. I have no idea how or when this started, but I get really stuffed up at night these days. So now I'm addicted to nose drops. Or at least that's what Terry says. But what does she know? I CAN QUIT ANY TIME I WANT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? ANY TIME I WANT! I just don't want to. Nose drops are awesome. Unlike nasal spray, which goes up your nostrils as a fine mist, nose drops are straight liquid. You just suck a few drops up your nose and, voila, you're breathing free and clear for the next several hours. Magic.
The point is that taking these pills makes me feel old. My kids, in their loving and caring way, agree. "You take all of these?" one of them once asked. "Wow, you're old." This is why you have children -- for the love and encouragment they provide.
Anyway, I'm old and I take a lot of medicine. In hindsight, that's probably not the most compelling of blog post topics.
So not only do I take these pills, I also own a device designed to help those with bad memories remember if they've taken their medicine on a given day.
What am I, 85 years old?
Yes, apparently so.
Let me say, though, that all seven of these pills are voluntary. I don't have to take them the way you have to take cancer meds or something like that, but I have enough common sense to know they help me.
They include:
* Two fish oil capsules: This is for heart and brain health. I like eating fish, but no one else in my house does. So I do the next best thing and take fish oil capsules. Swallow enough of these and you probably won't have a heart attack or stroke, but you will burp up a nasty cod taste.
* Two baby aspirin: Also for heart health. I love the way they taste. It's that awesome chalky orange taste. If they could make these things into a shake, I would drink it.
* One multivitamin: Ah, but not just any multivitamin. It's a MEN'S multivitamin. I don't even know what that means. Does it make me more manly? Is it bursting with testosterone? If I take, like, five of them, will I have an irrepressible urge to go out and shoot wild animals and whistle at passing women? I think this is an experiment worth trying.
* One Vitamin D3 capsule: Those of us who live in northern climates tend not to get enough sunlight, which means we don't get enough Vitamin D, which is apparently important for heart health. You'll notice "heart health" is a recurring theme here. I had a father and sister both die from heart disease. Can't be too careful here.
* One Wal-itin pill: This is for nighttime congestion. I have no idea how or when this started, but I get really stuffed up at night these days. So now I'm addicted to nose drops. Or at least that's what Terry says. But what does she know? I CAN QUIT ANY TIME I WANT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND? ANY TIME I WANT! I just don't want to. Nose drops are awesome. Unlike nasal spray, which goes up your nostrils as a fine mist, nose drops are straight liquid. You just suck a few drops up your nose and, voila, you're breathing free and clear for the next several hours. Magic.
The point is that taking these pills makes me feel old. My kids, in their loving and caring way, agree. "You take all of these?" one of them once asked. "Wow, you're old." This is why you have children -- for the love and encouragment they provide.
Anyway, I'm old and I take a lot of medicine. In hindsight, that's probably not the most compelling of blog post topics.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
South Americans in the snow!
We're three days into The Great Brazilian Invasion. Let me throw some photos at you:
This is the first significant snow they've ever seen. I have a feeling they're already getting sick of it. It's like they're native Northeast Ohioans!
In other Brazilian-related news:
* We're taking Paula and Luiz ice skating today. It will be the first time on skates for both. Ought to be fun! It's going to be interesting getting the correct skate sizes for them, since the Brazilian system of shoe sizing is a lot different than ours. Luiz, for example, wears a size 43 shoe at home. We were at Kohl's the other night and figured out that's roughly a size 11 here in the U.S. Interestingly, Paula (who stands roughly 6-foot-1) has the same-sized foot as my 11-year-old daughter Melanie. Melanie has big feet.
* Paula and Luiz have different accents when they speak...not that I can tell most of the time, but there are certain Portuguese words where it becomes more obvious. In particular, if it's a word that ends in "s," Paula will say it the same way we do: with a "ssssss" sound. But Luiz makes it more of a "sh" sound. Apparently it's similar to hearing someone from, say, Georgia and someone from New England speak American English.
* Chloe and Chris Dorazio took the Brazilians to a high school basketball game last night. Though the home team Wickliffe Blue Devils lost, they had a great time. Paula even brought home one of the small inflatable basketballs that get thrown into the crowd during timeouts. Luiz, Jared, Melanie and Jack put the ball to good use last night, playing interesting living room adaptations of baseball, soccer, football and volleyball.
More to come this week...
This is the first significant snow they've ever seen. I have a feeling they're already getting sick of it. It's like they're native Northeast Ohioans!
In other Brazilian-related news:
* We're taking Paula and Luiz ice skating today. It will be the first time on skates for both. Ought to be fun! It's going to be interesting getting the correct skate sizes for them, since the Brazilian system of shoe sizing is a lot different than ours. Luiz, for example, wears a size 43 shoe at home. We were at Kohl's the other night and figured out that's roughly a size 11 here in the U.S. Interestingly, Paula (who stands roughly 6-foot-1) has the same-sized foot as my 11-year-old daughter Melanie. Melanie has big feet.
* Paula and Luiz have different accents when they speak...not that I can tell most of the time, but there are certain Portuguese words where it becomes more obvious. In particular, if it's a word that ends in "s," Paula will say it the same way we do: with a "ssssss" sound. But Luiz makes it more of a "sh" sound. Apparently it's similar to hearing someone from, say, Georgia and someone from New England speak American English.
* Chloe and Chris Dorazio took the Brazilians to a high school basketball game last night. Though the home team Wickliffe Blue Devils lost, they had a great time. Paula even brought home one of the small inflatable basketballs that get thrown into the crowd during timeouts. Luiz, Jared, Melanie and Jack put the ball to good use last night, playing interesting living room adaptations of baseball, soccer, football and volleyball.
More to come this week...
Thursday, January 12, 2012
It's sort of like the geek Olympics
Everyone has something they do well that isn't especially useful in everyday life. Some can juggle, others moonwalk, and a few are really good at that trick where it looks like you've pulled off the top of your own thumb (which always creeps me out a little...Who thought of that in the first place? I'll bet it was a guy.)
The people in our family, for whatever reason, are good spellers. Now I know that spelling really is a handy everyday skill, but it's spelling BEES where we really excel. And after the age of about 13, it's not often that you're called to stand on a stage in front of hundreds of people and spell a word given to you by a panel of judges.
Every year, our middle school holds a spelling bee featuring three contestants from each of four grades (5th through 8th). It's kind of a cool thing, and the winner goes on to compete in the county spelling bee, the winner of which goes to the tri-county bee, and the winner of THAT moves on the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.
My kids have won the middle school bee three times, and we have a couple of runner-up finishes to our credit, as well. Elissa won it in 2007 and 2008, while Chloe won last year. Last year's runner-up behind Chloe? Her brother Jared.
And do you know what all of that and 4 bucks will get you? A skinny peppermint mocha at Starbucks.
Oh, and a nice trophy, too. But that's about it. Like I said, spelling itself is a useful skill, but winning spelling bees is an abitrary combination of good luck and years spent reading books, which my kids like to do.
The middle school spelling bee always happens in January, which means another edition is coming up later in the month. Jared qualified for it, and he has a shot at winning...or he could finish last. Seriously, that's how random these things can be. You can know 99% of the words on the judges' lists, but if that one word you don't know comes up in the first round and you miss it, have a seat and thanks for playing. You're done.
Having been a witness to competitive spelling bees for the last several years, I've noticed there are different levels when it comes to spelling prowess. Elissa, Chloe and Jared are good, but it requires a whole other stratum of word geek to win at the county or regional level. And to make it to Washington? You have to be a borderline genius.
We actually have one of those geniuses in our school system. Carly Nelson -- who finished second to Elissa as a 5th-grader -- won the school, county and tri-county bees in 2009 and earned a trip to The Big Time. She didn't win there, but just making it that far was an incredible accomplishment.
The finals of the national bee are televised on ESPN. ESPN! Isn't that something? And I love watching them, because the announcers analyze every word and every contestant like it's the Super Bowl.
Not to stereotype here, but many of the kids who make it to Washington are, well, Asian. They may be the first generation in their families actually born in the U.S., but they know the English language a thousand times better than those of us whose families came to the New World centuries earlier. They're generally very high-achieving kids with stratospheric SAT scores and a list of extracurriculars longer than your arm.
You would hate them all if you weren't so busy rooting for them.
The words they spell are comically difficult. The organizers could just as easily make words up and I would believe they were real. And these kids would still manage to spell them correctly. As I've come to learn, it's not so much that the kids know all of the hard words per se, but rather they know prefixes and suffixes, languages of origin, etc. In other words, they understand rules and patterns, which in turn helps them spell words neither you nor they have ever heard before.
Having done the game show thing myself, I know that people only tend to ask about the things you get wrong. In Elissa's case one year at the county spelling bee, it was the word "wanderlust." She had never heard it, and the MC did an absolutely terrible job of pronouncing it. She clearly said it as "wonderlust," and that's how Elissa spelled it. I don't want to be the bitter parent here, but that woman screwed up.
Chloe's downfall at last year's county bee was "pinafore." She forgot to put the "e" at the end. What are you gonna do?
Anyway, no matter how Jared does or whether or not another Tennant child ever wins a spelling bee, I'll always be very proud of my kids and their accomplishments. Really. If Jared goes out in the first round of this month's competition, he'll only be grounded for two months. We're good parents that way.
The people in our family, for whatever reason, are good spellers. Now I know that spelling really is a handy everyday skill, but it's spelling BEES where we really excel. And after the age of about 13, it's not often that you're called to stand on a stage in front of hundreds of people and spell a word given to you by a panel of judges.
Every year, our middle school holds a spelling bee featuring three contestants from each of four grades (5th through 8th). It's kind of a cool thing, and the winner goes on to compete in the county spelling bee, the winner of which goes to the tri-county bee, and the winner of THAT moves on the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.
My kids have won the middle school bee three times, and we have a couple of runner-up finishes to our credit, as well. Elissa won it in 2007 and 2008, while Chloe won last year. Last year's runner-up behind Chloe? Her brother Jared.
And do you know what all of that and 4 bucks will get you? A skinny peppermint mocha at Starbucks.
Oh, and a nice trophy, too. But that's about it. Like I said, spelling itself is a useful skill, but winning spelling bees is an abitrary combination of good luck and years spent reading books, which my kids like to do.
The middle school spelling bee always happens in January, which means another edition is coming up later in the month. Jared qualified for it, and he has a shot at winning...or he could finish last. Seriously, that's how random these things can be. You can know 99% of the words on the judges' lists, but if that one word you don't know comes up in the first round and you miss it, have a seat and thanks for playing. You're done.
Having been a witness to competitive spelling bees for the last several years, I've noticed there are different levels when it comes to spelling prowess. Elissa, Chloe and Jared are good, but it requires a whole other stratum of word geek to win at the county or regional level. And to make it to Washington? You have to be a borderline genius.
We actually have one of those geniuses in our school system. Carly Nelson -- who finished second to Elissa as a 5th-grader -- won the school, county and tri-county bees in 2009 and earned a trip to The Big Time. She didn't win there, but just making it that far was an incredible accomplishment.
The finals of the national bee are televised on ESPN. ESPN! Isn't that something? And I love watching them, because the announcers analyze every word and every contestant like it's the Super Bowl.
Not to stereotype here, but many of the kids who make it to Washington are, well, Asian. They may be the first generation in their families actually born in the U.S., but they know the English language a thousand times better than those of us whose families came to the New World centuries earlier. They're generally very high-achieving kids with stratospheric SAT scores and a list of extracurriculars longer than your arm.
You would hate them all if you weren't so busy rooting for them.
The words they spell are comically difficult. The organizers could just as easily make words up and I would believe they were real. And these kids would still manage to spell them correctly. As I've come to learn, it's not so much that the kids know all of the hard words per se, but rather they know prefixes and suffixes, languages of origin, etc. In other words, they understand rules and patterns, which in turn helps them spell words neither you nor they have ever heard before.
Having done the game show thing myself, I know that people only tend to ask about the things you get wrong. In Elissa's case one year at the county spelling bee, it was the word "wanderlust." She had never heard it, and the MC did an absolutely terrible job of pronouncing it. She clearly said it as "wonderlust," and that's how Elissa spelled it. I don't want to be the bitter parent here, but that woman screwed up.
Chloe's downfall at last year's county bee was "pinafore." She forgot to put the "e" at the end. What are you gonna do?
Anyway, no matter how Jared does or whether or not another Tennant child ever wins a spelling bee, I'll always be very proud of my kids and their accomplishments. Really. If Jared goes out in the first round of this month's competition, he'll only be grounded for two months. We're good parents that way.
Monday, January 9, 2012
The miracle of the iPod
I've said this many times before and I still believe it's true: The iPod is the single greatest item that Western Civilization has produced in the last 20 years.
Actually, I should probably use the generic "MP3 player" there, since I think all of these devices are incredible. But like Kleenex and Scotch Tape, the iPod has so dominated the market that its name has come to be used for any related product. So if you own a Zune or a SanDisk or a Sony or whatever, rest assured that you're still part of the club.
We're an iPod family. Everyone but Jack has one, and I don't doubt that he's close to wanting one. The kids have essentially grown up with them, so it's probably difficult for them to imagine NOT having a small, thin, handheld device that holds the equivalent of thousands of 45 RPM records.
That's what I started on: 45 RPM records. When I first got into music round about 1982, you could go to your local record store and sort through racks and racks of vinyl. There were the 33 RPM albums, of course, but I was more interested in individual songs at the time, and those came in the form of 45's. You had to buy the little adapter so that your record player could accommodate the larger 45 RPM record hole, which you did gladly because darn it, how ELSE were you going to hear the latest from Kool and the Gang outside of the radio?
There were also cassettes, of course, and eventually I graduated to those in the mid-80's. With a cassette deck you could make easy copies of other peoples' tapes -- music piracy is no new phenomenon, kids -- AND record songs off the radio. It was perfect! And with the advent of 17-pound boom boxes, it was easy (relatively speaking) to take your music with you wherever you went. At one point I had about 300 cassettes in racks mounted on my bedroom wall.
I received an early version of the Sony Walkman in late 1982 from my brother, who as a member of the U.S. Air Force had been stationed in Korea, where the latest consumer electronics were readily available. The Walkman was cool, and over the next 20 years or so I took a Walkman with me on countless runs and bike rides.
Then came Christmas 1987, when I received my first CD player. The CD wasn't any more portable than the cassette, but the sound! For years we had been listening to dull, muffled recordings, and we didn't even know it. The CD was something.
But like cassettes, you had to keep large supplies of them in your car if you wanted to listen while you drove. Some people had multi-CD changers installed in their trunks. So while we had the sound quality, we still had the hardware problem. This was just something you lived with, and yet it still seemed as if we were living in the best of all possible worlds.
So when Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, it was little short of a miracle. Even the earliest iPod Shuffles could hold hundreds of songs. Hundreds! Without having to trade out CD's or tapes, and without carting endless plastic cases around. And the sound was still great, even with those little white earbuds. Seriously amazing. I didn't get my first iPod until 2005, and it immediately became such an important part of my life that I gave it a name (Bruce. We have a Christmas ornament of an old-model iPod with the name "Bruce" inscribed on it. My current iPod Nano is named Milo. Yes, yes, I know, I'm a freak. Let's just move on.)
My point, I guess, is the same point that countless old men before me have made: You kids don't know how good you have it! You're spoiled, and you're lazy with your digital media players and your iPads and your Chipotle burritos and your zip-up jeans without button flys. When I was a boy, I carted my 36-pound Walkman 8 miles each way to school. And it snowed in September and it was of course uphill both ways and the teachers would hit us upside the head with 2x4's if we so much as looked at them the wrong way. AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY, DO YOU HEAR ME? WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!
Sorry. My point really is that iPods are awesome. I hope I made that clear.
Actually, I should probably use the generic "MP3 player" there, since I think all of these devices are incredible. But like Kleenex and Scotch Tape, the iPod has so dominated the market that its name has come to be used for any related product. So if you own a Zune or a SanDisk or a Sony or whatever, rest assured that you're still part of the club.
We're an iPod family. Everyone but Jack has one, and I don't doubt that he's close to wanting one. The kids have essentially grown up with them, so it's probably difficult for them to imagine NOT having a small, thin, handheld device that holds the equivalent of thousands of 45 RPM records.
That's what I started on: 45 RPM records. When I first got into music round about 1982, you could go to your local record store and sort through racks and racks of vinyl. There were the 33 RPM albums, of course, but I was more interested in individual songs at the time, and those came in the form of 45's. You had to buy the little adapter so that your record player could accommodate the larger 45 RPM record hole, which you did gladly because darn it, how ELSE were you going to hear the latest from Kool and the Gang outside of the radio?
There were also cassettes, of course, and eventually I graduated to those in the mid-80's. With a cassette deck you could make easy copies of other peoples' tapes -- music piracy is no new phenomenon, kids -- AND record songs off the radio. It was perfect! And with the advent of 17-pound boom boxes, it was easy (relatively speaking) to take your music with you wherever you went. At one point I had about 300 cassettes in racks mounted on my bedroom wall.
I received an early version of the Sony Walkman in late 1982 from my brother, who as a member of the U.S. Air Force had been stationed in Korea, where the latest consumer electronics were readily available. The Walkman was cool, and over the next 20 years or so I took a Walkman with me on countless runs and bike rides.
Then came Christmas 1987, when I received my first CD player. The CD wasn't any more portable than the cassette, but the sound! For years we had been listening to dull, muffled recordings, and we didn't even know it. The CD was something.
But like cassettes, you had to keep large supplies of them in your car if you wanted to listen while you drove. Some people had multi-CD changers installed in their trunks. So while we had the sound quality, we still had the hardware problem. This was just something you lived with, and yet it still seemed as if we were living in the best of all possible worlds.
So when Apple introduced the iPod in 2001, it was little short of a miracle. Even the earliest iPod Shuffles could hold hundreds of songs. Hundreds! Without having to trade out CD's or tapes, and without carting endless plastic cases around. And the sound was still great, even with those little white earbuds. Seriously amazing. I didn't get my first iPod until 2005, and it immediately became such an important part of my life that I gave it a name (Bruce. We have a Christmas ornament of an old-model iPod with the name "Bruce" inscribed on it. My current iPod Nano is named Milo. Yes, yes, I know, I'm a freak. Let's just move on.)
My point, I guess, is the same point that countless old men before me have made: You kids don't know how good you have it! You're spoiled, and you're lazy with your digital media players and your iPads and your Chipotle burritos and your zip-up jeans without button flys. When I was a boy, I carted my 36-pound Walkman 8 miles each way to school. And it snowed in September and it was of course uphill both ways and the teachers would hit us upside the head with 2x4's if we so much as looked at them the wrong way. AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY, DO YOU HEAR ME? WE LIKED IT THAT WAY!
Sorry. My point really is that iPods are awesome. I hope I made that clear.
Friday, January 6, 2012
HEY, FOREIGNERS!
Next week, two Brazilian high school students will arrive in Cleveland and spend 12 days living with my family.
Cool, huh? It's part of a cultural exchange program coordinated by the Cleveland Council on World Affairs and the U.S. State Department. In all, eight students (four girls, four boys) and a teacher will be living with host families around Wickliffe for almost two weeks. The organizers had trouble finding hosts for all of the boys, so while we were already slated to take in a girl, we told them to send us a guy, too.
We're crazy that way.
Actually, we're quite used to having foreign visitors. Every year since 2006, we've housed two young British soccer coaches for a week in June. It's in conjunction with Challenger Sports and the British Soccer Camp, which I coordinate for the Wickliffe Soccer Club. Each year we get a different pair of coaches, but they're always Brits in their early 20's and always very nice guys.
Importantly, they're also always native English speakers. Our two young Brazilian friends will, of course, be Portuguese speakers, though we've been assured that all of the kids are fluent in English, as well.
That's good, because there are certain concepts I would be hard pressed to convey to houseguests who had trouble with English.
"THIS IS THE DOWNSTAIRS TOILET! SOMETIMES IT MAKES A FUNNY NOISE AFTER YOU FLUSH IT, AND YOU HAVE TO JIGGLE THE HANDLE TO GET IT TO STOP!"
I put that in all caps because I'm sure I would talk very loudly to them. It's very much an American thing to raise your voice when trying to make yourself understood by someone who struggles with English. As Howie Mandel once asked, how does this help? If someone came up to you on the street and said, "Ooza macuza boogadooga lambada," and you replied with a look of total incomprehension, would it help in the least bit if they said the same thing over again in a louder voice? ("OOZA MACUZA BOOGADOOGA LAMBADA!!!")
Anyway, I'm glad the language thing won't be a barrier. Not sure about food, though. The soccer coaches are generally not picky and will eat whatever American slop you put in front of them. Will the same be true of teenage Brazilian kids? We'll find out. Luckily, Terry is an excellent cook, and everything she makes is good. Seriously, everything. I would weigh about 112 pounds if I were married to anyone else.
Our female Brazilian guest is named Paula (she's 18), and the boy is Luiz (16). They each have something like 28 last names, because that's what Brazilians do. It's one of about 100 things that make Brazilians cool, in my estimation. Another thing is that they're very touchy-feely people. They have no problem sitting right next to someone they've just met, or talking to you with their face 4 inches from yours. I like that (in the most legal and ethical sense, of course).
In addition to having already hosted foreigners, we also have the advantage of living in a state of constant chaos anyway. Throwing two more people into our seven-person house will make almost no real difference in our daily "routine." I use the quotes there because we have no routine. Life is a constant adventure. Paula and Luiz will probably be here for three days before I even notice them.
While the Brazilians will spend their evenings and weekends with us, the rest of the time they'll be running around Cleveland experiencing all sorts of educational, volunteer and entertainment activities. They're going to do more in this town in 12 days than I've done in a lifetime. Frankly, I'm jealous.
I'll let you know how the whole thing goes. In the meantime, how much do you want to bet I'll end up yelling some incomprehensible English phrase to them at least once while they're here? ("THAT'S JACK. SOMETIMES HE RUNS AROUND THE HOUSE WITH NO PANTS ON. PLEASE IGNORE HIM.")
Cool, huh? It's part of a cultural exchange program coordinated by the Cleveland Council on World Affairs and the U.S. State Department. In all, eight students (four girls, four boys) and a teacher will be living with host families around Wickliffe for almost two weeks. The organizers had trouble finding hosts for all of the boys, so while we were already slated to take in a girl, we told them to send us a guy, too.
We're crazy that way.
Actually, we're quite used to having foreign visitors. Every year since 2006, we've housed two young British soccer coaches for a week in June. It's in conjunction with Challenger Sports and the British Soccer Camp, which I coordinate for the Wickliffe Soccer Club. Each year we get a different pair of coaches, but they're always Brits in their early 20's and always very nice guys.
Importantly, they're also always native English speakers. Our two young Brazilian friends will, of course, be Portuguese speakers, though we've been assured that all of the kids are fluent in English, as well.
That's good, because there are certain concepts I would be hard pressed to convey to houseguests who had trouble with English.
"THIS IS THE DOWNSTAIRS TOILET! SOMETIMES IT MAKES A FUNNY NOISE AFTER YOU FLUSH IT, AND YOU HAVE TO JIGGLE THE HANDLE TO GET IT TO STOP!"
I put that in all caps because I'm sure I would talk very loudly to them. It's very much an American thing to raise your voice when trying to make yourself understood by someone who struggles with English. As Howie Mandel once asked, how does this help? If someone came up to you on the street and said, "Ooza macuza boogadooga lambada," and you replied with a look of total incomprehension, would it help in the least bit if they said the same thing over again in a louder voice? ("OOZA MACUZA BOOGADOOGA LAMBADA!!!")
Anyway, I'm glad the language thing won't be a barrier. Not sure about food, though. The soccer coaches are generally not picky and will eat whatever American slop you put in front of them. Will the same be true of teenage Brazilian kids? We'll find out. Luckily, Terry is an excellent cook, and everything she makes is good. Seriously, everything. I would weigh about 112 pounds if I were married to anyone else.
Our female Brazilian guest is named Paula (she's 18), and the boy is Luiz (16). They each have something like 28 last names, because that's what Brazilians do. It's one of about 100 things that make Brazilians cool, in my estimation. Another thing is that they're very touchy-feely people. They have no problem sitting right next to someone they've just met, or talking to you with their face 4 inches from yours. I like that (in the most legal and ethical sense, of course).
In addition to having already hosted foreigners, we also have the advantage of living in a state of constant chaos anyway. Throwing two more people into our seven-person house will make almost no real difference in our daily "routine." I use the quotes there because we have no routine. Life is a constant adventure. Paula and Luiz will probably be here for three days before I even notice them.
While the Brazilians will spend their evenings and weekends with us, the rest of the time they'll be running around Cleveland experiencing all sorts of educational, volunteer and entertainment activities. They're going to do more in this town in 12 days than I've done in a lifetime. Frankly, I'm jealous.
I'll let you know how the whole thing goes. In the meantime, how much do you want to bet I'll end up yelling some incomprehensible English phrase to them at least once while they're here? ("THAT'S JACK. SOMETIMES HE RUNS AROUND THE HOUSE WITH NO PANTS ON. PLEASE IGNORE HIM.")
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Here, please take my life savings
My daughter Elissa is a senior in high school. That means we have been in full-bore College Search Mode for the past several months. This being the first time I've gone through it, I've learned three things from the experience:
(1) It doesn't take long to get past the "sticker shock" of college, so nothing phases me anymore when I see how much it costs. I haven't yet written a single check, but I'm already jaded by the insane numbers. That's not good.
(2) All college tours are the same. Seriously. They're all given by a female junior or senior student who will tell you that choosing to attend this particular university "was the best decision of my life" (You're 20 years old. How many great decisions could you have made by now?) You will see the same things on every tour: the library, the newly refurbished rec center (ALL rec centers are newly refurbished), a freshman dorm room, the science building, the cool statue at the center of campus, the quad, etc.
(3) As near as I can tell, all college students appear to be 15 years older than my daughter, but 50 years younger than me.
Being Daddy Breadwinner, it is point #1 that concerns me most. You've no doubt heard that college is a wee bit expensive nowadays. Maybe you have a college student or two in your family now. If so, you know that the easiest thing to do is simply to give the college or university that your child selects large piles of money on a regular basis and hope they're satisfied. No need to count it, just cart wheelbarrows of cash over to the financial office and give it to the first university employee you see.
That's my strategy, at least. The thing is, Elissa is smart. She's going to get scholarships. And being a single-income family, I know we're probably in line for some need-based aid, as well. But it won't be enough. It's NEVER enough, even at state schools.
The college financial aid people have come up with something called the Expected Family Contribution. This, as you might imagine, is the amount they think you can reasonably be expected to contribute to your child's education. It is derived using a complex formula that takes into account several relevant factors, yet still manages to yield a number at which you will laugh.
Really. You'll see your Expected Family Contribution and you'll literally LOL. Then you'll say to the grim-faced financial aid person, "No, seriously, what's my number?" They will repeat the same figure. You will again laugh. Then you will realize they are serious, and you will cry. This is how the game is played. Generations of parents have done it before you, and generations will do it after. Your job is just to roll with it.
Of course, Elissa will have to take on some hefty student loans and will also be involved in a work-study program, no doubt. But two of the schools to which she has applied -- the University of Dayton and the College of Wooster -- charge in excess of $40,000 a year for undergrads. Even one of her state schools (Miami of Ohio) is in the $20K range. And this is in no way considered excessive.
The private schools, I'm told, generally have a lot of financial aid they're willing to give out, which is good. But unless they're willing to cover somewhere around 99.5% of Elissa's college costs, there's going to have to be some belt-tightening around our house.
I realize there are lower-cost options, such as community college and some value-oriented four-year schools. And we may end up going that route. But the College Propaganda Industry is very good at making you believe that, should your child choose one of these discount schools, they will never get a good job and will live under a bridge for the rest of their lives. I'm just stupid enough to believe this.
And the thing is, I've got five kids to get through college. It's not like we can make some sacrifices for a few years and then be done with it once Elissa graduates. Jack is on target to get his undergrad degree in 2028 (twenty twenty-eight, as most of you would apparently call it). If there's one thing I learned at John Carroll University, it's how to subtract. And according to my calculations, we have 16 solid years of this to go through.
That makes my head hurt. It makes my soul hurt. But I figure if I manage to hold down three jobs and a paper route, it should all be OK.
(1) It doesn't take long to get past the "sticker shock" of college, so nothing phases me anymore when I see how much it costs. I haven't yet written a single check, but I'm already jaded by the insane numbers. That's not good.
(2) All college tours are the same. Seriously. They're all given by a female junior or senior student who will tell you that choosing to attend this particular university "was the best decision of my life" (You're 20 years old. How many great decisions could you have made by now?) You will see the same things on every tour: the library, the newly refurbished rec center (ALL rec centers are newly refurbished), a freshman dorm room, the science building, the cool statue at the center of campus, the quad, etc.
(3) As near as I can tell, all college students appear to be 15 years older than my daughter, but 50 years younger than me.
Being Daddy Breadwinner, it is point #1 that concerns me most. You've no doubt heard that college is a wee bit expensive nowadays. Maybe you have a college student or two in your family now. If so, you know that the easiest thing to do is simply to give the college or university that your child selects large piles of money on a regular basis and hope they're satisfied. No need to count it, just cart wheelbarrows of cash over to the financial office and give it to the first university employee you see.
That's my strategy, at least. The thing is, Elissa is smart. She's going to get scholarships. And being a single-income family, I know we're probably in line for some need-based aid, as well. But it won't be enough. It's NEVER enough, even at state schools.
The college financial aid people have come up with something called the Expected Family Contribution. This, as you might imagine, is the amount they think you can reasonably be expected to contribute to your child's education. It is derived using a complex formula that takes into account several relevant factors, yet still manages to yield a number at which you will laugh.
Really. You'll see your Expected Family Contribution and you'll literally LOL. Then you'll say to the grim-faced financial aid person, "No, seriously, what's my number?" They will repeat the same figure. You will again laugh. Then you will realize they are serious, and you will cry. This is how the game is played. Generations of parents have done it before you, and generations will do it after. Your job is just to roll with it.
Of course, Elissa will have to take on some hefty student loans and will also be involved in a work-study program, no doubt. But two of the schools to which she has applied -- the University of Dayton and the College of Wooster -- charge in excess of $40,000 a year for undergrads. Even one of her state schools (Miami of Ohio) is in the $20K range. And this is in no way considered excessive.
The private schools, I'm told, generally have a lot of financial aid they're willing to give out, which is good. But unless they're willing to cover somewhere around 99.5% of Elissa's college costs, there's going to have to be some belt-tightening around our house.
I realize there are lower-cost options, such as community college and some value-oriented four-year schools. And we may end up going that route. But the College Propaganda Industry is very good at making you believe that, should your child choose one of these discount schools, they will never get a good job and will live under a bridge for the rest of their lives. I'm just stupid enough to believe this.
And the thing is, I've got five kids to get through college. It's not like we can make some sacrifices for a few years and then be done with it once Elissa graduates. Jack is on target to get his undergrad degree in 2028 (twenty twenty-eight, as most of you would apparently call it). If there's one thing I learned at John Carroll University, it's how to subtract. And according to my calculations, we have 16 solid years of this to go through.
That makes my head hurt. It makes my soul hurt. But I figure if I manage to hold down three jobs and a paper route, it should all be OK.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Actual conversation that just happened in my kitchen
ELISSA: Ewwww! Jared just rubbed the cheese slicer on his face!
JARED: You should try it. It feels good.
JARED: You should try it. It feels good.
An announcement, plus four random thoughts
I've very much enjoyed doing this whole blog thing over the past 3 1/2 weeks. I hadn't maintained a blog in years, and I forgot how much fun it could be interacting with readers.
But here's the thing: Time management is an issue here. In order to maintain an updated-every-24-hours sort of blog, I have to purposely carve out time in my daily schedule to write, and that's not something I think I can do long term...or maybe I'm just not willing to do it.
In any case, the effect is the same. But I want to keep the blog going. So I think the best compromise will be to post once a week. That I can handle. Is everyone cool with that? I still have it set up so that new entries will be automatically posted on Facebook and Twitter, so if you're interested in reading, the links will be there. Or, as always, you're welcome to visit www.theystillcallmedaddy.com whenever you'd like to check for new posts and/or browse old ones.
OK? OK.
Four things that may be of interest only to me:
But here's the thing: Time management is an issue here. In order to maintain an updated-every-24-hours sort of blog, I have to purposely carve out time in my daily schedule to write, and that's not something I think I can do long term...or maybe I'm just not willing to do it.
In any case, the effect is the same. But I want to keep the blog going. So I think the best compromise will be to post once a week. That I can handle. Is everyone cool with that? I still have it set up so that new entries will be automatically posted on Facebook and Twitter, so if you're interested in reading, the links will be there. Or, as always, you're welcome to visit www.theystillcallmedaddy.com whenever you'd like to check for new posts and/or browse old ones.
OK? OK.
Four things that may be of interest only to me:
- I like jazz music. Love listening to Coltrane, Miles Davis, Branford Marsalis, Louis Armstrong, etc. But apparently being a jazz lover means having to adopt the jazz language. Talking to jazz devotees entails referring to other guys as "cats," and to any particular piece of music you like as "a gas." I read Downbeat magazine -- the unofficial jazz Bible for decades -- and suddenly I feel like Fred Flintstone in that episode where he became "HiFi," the hipster.
- Toilet paper should be hung so the paper goes over the top, rather than coming out from underneath the roll. Why are we even debating this in the 21st century?
- Why must some people with whom I grew up here in Cleveland and who later moved away to warmer climates feel so smug and self-righteous when the snow arrives in Northeast Ohio? Like they figured out some incredible secret ("Wait, what if I move to Florida? Then I don't have to deal with the cold weather. I'm a genius!") while the rest of us are sitting here winter after winter wondering how we could possibly escape. News flash: I like living here. I choose to live here. The fact that you're a snow wuss in no way reflects on me. I should note that this only applies to a small/select group of annoying people, not to the likes of Kevin Buchheit and most of my other desert and tropical friends.
- The other day I installed a new battery in my car AND went out and bought and installed a new fuse that was needed for it. I'm still walking around like I'm Mr. Goodwrench.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Eight animals, plenty of poo
The other day I was trying to figure out whether I've cleaned up more animal poop or human poop in our house over the years. Ultimately I decided it was probably animal poop, but only by a narrow margin.
We have eight pets among our seven family members. This is in part because of the tradition whereby each of the kids gets a pet when they turn seven. The idea is to teach responsibility and all of that, and to some extent it works.
Still, I feel like I end up doing more than my share of fecal-related sanitation management, mostly in the form of cat waste. But I have to say, the kids do a halfway decent job of taking care of their animals. It could be a lot worse.
(NOTE: This is like the third time in three weeks I've referred to the fact that I clean the cat litter boxes. Why am I obsessed with this? I guess because it's a part of my daily life, but I never really think about it until I sit down to write).
I grew up in a dog house, with the extra-special bonus that I never had to clean up the doggy bombs in the backyard (my mom spoiled me, what can I say?) So to me, dogs were fun and virtually maintenance-free. Terry is and always has been a cat person, and from the time we were married, we've always had cats. I don't mind cats. I actually like the ones we have. But if I could somehow get the same sort of poo-free deal I had circa 1981 with dogs, I'd go out and get one in a minute.
Here's a rundown of our zoo:
CATS (3): Fred, George, Charlie
Fred and George are brothers. Very pretty snow-white cats. We refer to Fred as "Fat Fred," since he's noticeably larger than his brother and that's about the only way to tell them apart. Fred was the alpha male until Charlie came along 15 months ago. Charlie was a stray and a kitten, two factors that immediately endeared him to the women in my house. Terry found him in the backyard. Now he dominates everything and Fred hates him. George, meanwhile, is mentally handicapped. Seriously. And he's sort of creepy, too. But he tries.
CHINCHILLA (1): Percy
Chincillas are cool. They're big fluffy balls of....well, fluff. Percy is very friendly. He lives in a big cage in the living room and will always park himself next to the bars if he senses that you're willing to reach in and pet him. Elissa, his owner, says he's an attack chinchilla. As far as I can tell, the only thing he attacks are his yogurt treats.
RAT (1): Ginevra Elizabeth
If you're a Harry Potter fan, you'll notice that all of our pet names so far are taken from the Weasley children. It seemed like a good idea at the time...Anyway, yes, we have a rat. And believe it or not, she's about the most lovable thing you'll ever see. Just a nice little creature, though no amount of "nice" can overcome the fact that she's a rat and has that rat tail. That's creepy even for those who love her. Ginevra belongs to Elissa, who apparently has a thing for strange pets.
GUINEA PIG (1): S'mores (aka, Muffins)
This one is Melanie's. Mel named her S'mores, but her roomate, Chloe, insists that the rodent is named "Muffins," which Chloe believes is a better name. I tell Chloe she can't randomly rename her sister's pet, but as you might imagine if you know Chloe, this in no way deters her. Actually, I think Mel and I may be the only ones who like the name "S'mores" better. Poor Mel.
ROBO DWARF (1): Roger
Speaking of Chloe, she's the proud owner of Roger, a female robo dwarf hamster. That sentence begs two questions: (1) Why is a girl hamster named Roger? (ANSWER: Because Chloe is Chloe); (2) What's a robo dwarf hamster? (ANSWER: I don't know. Here's some Wikipedia help.) Roger is small. So small, in fact, that I don't even notice her in her tiny cage when I enter the girls' bedroom. Therefore I forget Roger exists. I'll bet it has been a good month or so since I've seen Roger.
LEOPARD GECKO (LIZARD) (1): Allie
The coolest thing about Allie is that she eats crickets. Live ones. Terry goes out and buys two dozen of them at a time. She or Jared -- technically Allie is Jared's -- will dump a bunch into Allie's cage, prompting Allie to go into Hunting Mode. Whenever a cricket moves, Allie creeps over to it, sizes it up, and strikes. She catches the cricket in her mouth and casually chews it, which makes the whole thing a fun spectator sport while undoubtedly being unpleasant for the crickets.
I just learned that Elissa has staged an intervention and has taken custody of Allie away from Jared. I don't believe Jared knows this yet. Elissa says Jared isn't taking care of Allie, but she is graciously giving her brother visitation rights. It's going to be interesting when Jared finds this all out. Given that his powers of observation rival those of his father, I predict this will happen sometime in 2015.
We have eight pets among our seven family members. This is in part because of the tradition whereby each of the kids gets a pet when they turn seven. The idea is to teach responsibility and all of that, and to some extent it works.
Still, I feel like I end up doing more than my share of fecal-related sanitation management, mostly in the form of cat waste. But I have to say, the kids do a halfway decent job of taking care of their animals. It could be a lot worse.
(NOTE: This is like the third time in three weeks I've referred to the fact that I clean the cat litter boxes. Why am I obsessed with this? I guess because it's a part of my daily life, but I never really think about it until I sit down to write).
I grew up in a dog house, with the extra-special bonus that I never had to clean up the doggy bombs in the backyard (my mom spoiled me, what can I say?) So to me, dogs were fun and virtually maintenance-free. Terry is and always has been a cat person, and from the time we were married, we've always had cats. I don't mind cats. I actually like the ones we have. But if I could somehow get the same sort of poo-free deal I had circa 1981 with dogs, I'd go out and get one in a minute.
Here's a rundown of our zoo:
CATS (3): Fred, George, Charlie
Fred and George are brothers. Very pretty snow-white cats. We refer to Fred as "Fat Fred," since he's noticeably larger than his brother and that's about the only way to tell them apart. Fred was the alpha male until Charlie came along 15 months ago. Charlie was a stray and a kitten, two factors that immediately endeared him to the women in my house. Terry found him in the backyard. Now he dominates everything and Fred hates him. George, meanwhile, is mentally handicapped. Seriously. And he's sort of creepy, too. But he tries.
CHINCHILLA (1): Percy
Chincillas are cool. They're big fluffy balls of....well, fluff. Percy is very friendly. He lives in a big cage in the living room and will always park himself next to the bars if he senses that you're willing to reach in and pet him. Elissa, his owner, says he's an attack chinchilla. As far as I can tell, the only thing he attacks are his yogurt treats.
RAT (1): Ginevra Elizabeth
If you're a Harry Potter fan, you'll notice that all of our pet names so far are taken from the Weasley children. It seemed like a good idea at the time...Anyway, yes, we have a rat. And believe it or not, she's about the most lovable thing you'll ever see. Just a nice little creature, though no amount of "nice" can overcome the fact that she's a rat and has that rat tail. That's creepy even for those who love her. Ginevra belongs to Elissa, who apparently has a thing for strange pets.
GUINEA PIG (1): S'mores (aka, Muffins)
This one is Melanie's. Mel named her S'mores, but her roomate, Chloe, insists that the rodent is named "Muffins," which Chloe believes is a better name. I tell Chloe she can't randomly rename her sister's pet, but as you might imagine if you know Chloe, this in no way deters her. Actually, I think Mel and I may be the only ones who like the name "S'mores" better. Poor Mel.
ROBO DWARF (1): Roger
Speaking of Chloe, she's the proud owner of Roger, a female robo dwarf hamster. That sentence begs two questions: (1) Why is a girl hamster named Roger? (ANSWER: Because Chloe is Chloe); (2) What's a robo dwarf hamster? (ANSWER: I don't know. Here's some Wikipedia help.) Roger is small. So small, in fact, that I don't even notice her in her tiny cage when I enter the girls' bedroom. Therefore I forget Roger exists. I'll bet it has been a good month or so since I've seen Roger.
LEOPARD GECKO (LIZARD) (1): Allie
The coolest thing about Allie is that she eats crickets. Live ones. Terry goes out and buys two dozen of them at a time. She or Jared -- technically Allie is Jared's -- will dump a bunch into Allie's cage, prompting Allie to go into Hunting Mode. Whenever a cricket moves, Allie creeps over to it, sizes it up, and strikes. She catches the cricket in her mouth and casually chews it, which makes the whole thing a fun spectator sport while undoubtedly being unpleasant for the crickets.
I just learned that Elissa has staged an intervention and has taken custody of Allie away from Jared. I don't believe Jared knows this yet. Elissa says Jared isn't taking care of Allie, but she is graciously giving her brother visitation rights. It's going to be interesting when Jared finds this all out. Given that his powers of observation rival those of his father, I predict this will happen sometime in 2015.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Once and for all, how do we pronounce these 21st-century years?
Welcome to 2012!
Now tell me: When you read that first line, specifically the year "2012," did it sound out in your head as "twenty-twelve?" Or as "two thousand twelve?" I need an official ruling here, and I'm nominating our little blog group as the Global Committee on Year Pronunciation. Whatever we decide will apply to everyone in the world, so let's think this one through carefully.
For the past several years, I didn't think this was an issue at all. It seemed pretty universal that people would say "two thousand," rather than "twenty." I don't look at a date from 2005 and think, "Oh, that happened in twenty-oh-five."
But over the past year or so, ever since we entered the second decade of the century, the "twenty" people have been gaining traction. I always referred to the past year as "two thousand eleven," but more and more I'm hearing "twenty eleven." And everyone seems to do it more often when they refer to future years like "twenty fifteen" and "twenty twenty."
Let's lay out the arguments for each approach, using 2015 as our test year:
THE CASE FOR "TWENTY FIFTEEN"
The people in this camp base their argument on two main points:
(1) PRECEDENT: Back in the 20th century (remember way back then?), the years always started with "nineteen." I was born in nineteen sixty-nine, not "one thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine." If it was good enough then, it's good enough now, the argument goes.
(2) ONE FEWER SYLLABLE: Saying "twenty" is shorter than saying "two thousand." Easy enough to understand.
THE CASE FOR "TWO THOUSAND FIFTEEN"
Again, there's also some precedent here, since we all spent the past 10 years saying "two thousand." That began right on January 1, 2000, when no one was going to call the new year "twenty zero zero" or anything like that. Why do we suddenly change 10 or 11 years into the century? You might also argue that "twenty" just sounds different than "nineteen" -- better, really -- and that we can't apply a 20th-century pronunciation paradigm to our current time.
I have to say, I'm in the latter camp here. My vote is for "two thousand fifteen," rather than "twenty fifteen." BUT...I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
I'll leaving it to you, genius readers. What say ye on this matter? Feel free to comment below.
Now tell me: When you read that first line, specifically the year "2012," did it sound out in your head as "twenty-twelve?" Or as "two thousand twelve?" I need an official ruling here, and I'm nominating our little blog group as the Global Committee on Year Pronunciation. Whatever we decide will apply to everyone in the world, so let's think this one through carefully.
For the past several years, I didn't think this was an issue at all. It seemed pretty universal that people would say "two thousand," rather than "twenty." I don't look at a date from 2005 and think, "Oh, that happened in twenty-oh-five."
But over the past year or so, ever since we entered the second decade of the century, the "twenty" people have been gaining traction. I always referred to the past year as "two thousand eleven," but more and more I'm hearing "twenty eleven." And everyone seems to do it more often when they refer to future years like "twenty fifteen" and "twenty twenty."
Let's lay out the arguments for each approach, using 2015 as our test year:
THE CASE FOR "TWENTY FIFTEEN"
The people in this camp base their argument on two main points:
(1) PRECEDENT: Back in the 20th century (remember way back then?), the years always started with "nineteen." I was born in nineteen sixty-nine, not "one thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine." If it was good enough then, it's good enough now, the argument goes.
(2) ONE FEWER SYLLABLE: Saying "twenty" is shorter than saying "two thousand." Easy enough to understand.
THE CASE FOR "TWO THOUSAND FIFTEEN"
Again, there's also some precedent here, since we all spent the past 10 years saying "two thousand." That began right on January 1, 2000, when no one was going to call the new year "twenty zero zero" or anything like that. Why do we suddenly change 10 or 11 years into the century? You might also argue that "twenty" just sounds different than "nineteen" -- better, really -- and that we can't apply a 20th-century pronunciation paradigm to our current time.
I have to say, I'm in the latter camp here. My vote is for "two thousand fifteen," rather than "twenty fifteen." BUT...I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.
I'll leaving it to you, genius readers. What say ye on this matter? Feel free to comment below.
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