Working through the dead zone between Christmas and New Year's

 

Years ago when I would plan my vacation days for the year, the first thing I would block out was the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day. This was mostly to take advantage of the kids being home on holiday break so we could do things together and I could assemble heir toys while cleaning up the mess we had made in the living room opening presents.

Even now, with four older kids having moved out, I still like to take that week off to relax and recharge before returning to work in the midst of the cold and gray of January in Northeast Ohio.

This year, however, I've been working this week thanks to having used up all of my vacation days early.

There were a few reasons for this, the biggest of which was the week I took in March to accompany the Wickliffe Swing Band on its once-every-four-years trip to Disney World.

I wouldn't normally take a week off in March, and truth be told, I wasn't thrilled about burning a week of vacation that included a combined 40+ hours on a bus.

In retrospect, though, I'm glad I did it. It was a fun adventure, and it felt like the least I could do to give back to an organization that has given me so much over the years.

But those were the days I would normally reserve until the end of the year. Throw in the week I took in late June/early July for our family beach vacation, plus another summer week for our annual church retreat, plus the standard assortment of one-off personal days here and there for various reasons, and I found myself essentially out of PTO by September.

I'm whining about a first-world problem, of course, but it makes for an 8- to 9-month stretch between weeks off. That's a long grind, though one that's made easier this week by the fact that (a) I can work from home, and (b) most of my co-workers are on vacation right now, so it's very quiet and I'm getting a lot done.

Still, I do miss the slower, carefree days that normally make up late December for me. I can't do quite as much non-work stuff as I would like this week, though all in all I really shouldn't complain.

I will complain, of course, but I really shouldn't.

Getting your wisdom teeth out: A rite of passage

Depending on which source you believe, upwards of 85-90% of people get their wisdom teeth extracted at some point.

That "some point" is, for most patients, sometime in their late teens. Our son Jack had his out a month ago, marking the seventh and final person in our household to have undergone the procedure.

As "surgeries" go it's a minor one, to be sure, but it does involve general anesthesia, pain meds, and the looming possibility of dry socket, which by all accounts you really don't want to get.

I remember two things about getting my wisdom teeth out in October 1988:

(1) That evening, maybe 6 or 7 hours after the procedure, I went with Terry to watch the Wickliffe homecoming parade. I'm sure I didn't feel 100%, but I was well enough to leave the house for a little while, albeit a little disheveled in a backwards baseball cap and a pair of sweatpants pulled up to my knees, as was the style at the time.

(2) The other thing I "remember" is actually something I don't remember at all. According to my dad, I repeatedly asked what time it was as we drove home and I was still feeling the effects of whatever they used to put me to sleep. There would apparently be long silences broken only by me looking over at him and, my mouth stuffed with cotton, asking what time it was. Over and over. I find this funny.

Indeed, the only really entertaining aspect of wisdom teeth removal is the unpredictable stuff your kids will say or do as they're coming out of anesthesia. For our family, this has ranged from funny questions to unexplained tears.

Being kind and caring parents, we have more than once captured these moments on video and shared the hilarious clips freely through the family text chat.

Having been through (and paid for) so many wisdom teeth extractions, it strikes me that it's an unheralded but very real milestone on the parenting journey. It's not a big deal in the grand scheme, but it's yet another reminder that your child isn't as little as they used to be.

And that you, as the one sharing video of their drug-induced, post-anesthetic verbal ravings, are not nearly as good a parent as you thought you were.

This Commodore 64 Christmas program brings back all the feels

 

I have mentioned before that the greatest Christmas gift of my childhood was a Commodore 64 computer, which my parents gave me in 1982. The C64 taught me to write basic code, gave me hours of gaming enjoyment, and was the machine I first used to go online.

That same year, the Commodore folks created and released the Christmas demo shown in the video above. More than once in '82 I remember walking into a store, going to the Commodore display, and seeing this demo playing. It was the perfect way to showcase the computer's then-powerful video and sound capabilities.

I offer you the chance to watch and listen to it now as a sort of holiday gift. For those my age who remember it, it's a wonderful bit of nostalgia. For those who have never seen it, it's a history lesson in early-80s home computing technology.

Either way, I hope it brightens what is already a bright Christmas Day for you. Thank you for reading this blog, and Merry Christmas!

Putting up the Christmas tree is one thing that brings the kids back home

The day we set up our Christmas tree and decorate the house for the holidays is always a big deal. It often happens the weekend after Thanksgiving, but this year it was the first weekend of December.

And as expected, it doubled our house population, even if only for a few hours.

Four of our five kids have moved out and are on their own, but that day we had two of them home (plus Jack, who still lives with us) to drag out the Christmas stuff, get the artificial tree upright and relatively straight, dig through boxes, hang ornaments, and perhaps most fun of all, reminisce about Christmases past.

When they were little, Christmas tree day was never difficult to schedule. We just picked a Saturday or a Sunday and they would all be there because, until they got to be teenagers, it wasn't like they had especially full social calendars.

Now, however, as is the case when we try to get family birthday celebrations scheduled, there are all sorts of factors that come into play. Vacations, work schedules, commitments with their significant others' families, and general young adult stuff can make it difficult to find a day and time that works for everyone.

This year, for instance, we put the tree up on a Sunday evening, which I'm guessing was a first. Jack was scheduled to work until 6pm, so we delayed the decorating from it's usual early-afternoon slot.

When you have little ones, the idea of a permanently quiet, empty house can be appealing. And believe me, it is kind of nice. But there are still times when you just wish you had your kid/kids at home for a little while, which is where the holidays really come in handy.

We'll see them all again in a few days on Christmas, but I have a feeling that, by the time I'm old and gray and can't see straight, memories of those Christmas tree setup days will be just as valuable as memories of the holiday itself.

My daughter is a master gift giver and this little painting proves it

 

I'm a month and a half late with this post, but with all the gift giving happening five days from now, it's probably still relevant.

Back in October, I posted here about the list of "50 Things Every Guy Should Own" as compiled by the staff at CoolMaterial.com. I made note of the fact that I personally owned maybe half the items on the list.

My birthday occurred a week after that post, and it inspired my daughter Elissa and her boyfriend Mark to give me a few items off the list.

Elissa is, without a doubt, the most thoughtful gift giver I know. When you get something from her, whether it's for your birthday or Christmas, you can be sure it's going to be personal and relevant.

In fact, thanks to their mother, all of my kids are really good with gifts. From her they learned to put thought and effort into a present, and it shows on every family holiday.

Elissa is likely the best at it among all of us, and that's saying something. When I opened the three small packages from her and Mark, they were:

• The painting you see above, which Elissa created herself. It's my view from the press box when I serve as the public address announcer for events held at Wickliffe Memorial Stadium. It checks off the list entry "a piece of art that means something to you."
  
  
• A beautiful Scriveiner pen, fulfilling CoolMaterial.com's directive to own "a good pen."
  
  
• A pair of saxophone cufflinks, since I play the sax and the list calls for guys to own a pair of cufflinks. I ordered a French cuff shirt that week just for the chance to show them off.
  
  

One key to successful gift giving, I find, is being observant. Elissa saw that blog post and reacted to it.

I am not a particularly observant person. I don't always pay attention to my surroundings, so I miss even less-than-subtle hints and clues about what a person might want or need. 

Thus, I am probably the worst gift giver in our family. It's my little cross to bear, and I work every year to overcome it.

For what it's worth, though, I'm an outstanding gift receiver. I am excited about anything you want to give me and will make you feel proud of your choice in presents.

And I think that's worth something.

My dad would have loved (and maybe occasionally hated) 2023

This was our living room tech set-up in the 80s, featuring a big old Curtis Mathis VCR and a cable box resting on top of a wood cabinet RCA TV. Displayed on the screen is the 24-hour weather data feed Continental Cablevision used to broadcast. It was a hot, hot day in Wickliffe by the looks of it.

My father was a gadget guy.

He embraced technology, particularly in his later years. Thus, we were fairly early adopters of everything from VCRs to home computers.

Dad hoped to live well into the 21st century, if only to be there for The Next Big Tech Development, whatever that turned out to be. Unfortunately, he died in October 1999, just a little shy of the digital revolution that has irrevocably changed all of our lives.

He would have given almost anything to have witnessed it, I'm sure.

On the other hand, being politically somewhere just to the right of Archie Bunker, I don't know that he would have been thrilled with everything that has happened in the world socially over the last quarter century. And I don't say that judgmentally – positive or negative – but simply as an observation with which anyone who knew him would very likely agree.

As I've mentioned before, we were among the first people in our town to get cable TV in 1980. As I recall, Dad walked a couple of streets over to talk with the Continental Cablevision work crew and find out when they would make it to Harding Drive and what day was the absolute earliest he could sign up.

He bought us a VCR around that same time, and I'm not talking about one of the lightweight, sleek units that would be in vogue a decade later. I mean a big, heavy-duty Curtis Mathis job that could be used equally to watch a movie, record an episode of "M*A*S*H*," or throw at a would-be intruder as a show of deadly force.

We had a home video game system as far back as 1977, when he sprang for a black-and-white Radio Shack Pong console. We also got an Atari 2600 before almost any of my friends. Same with the Commodore 64 and my green-screen IBM XT computer.

The man loved new hardware, and I benefitted from it all as an equally tech-crazy teenage boy.

The first time I used a cell phone was when Terry was pregnant with Elissa in 1994 and I had to be reachable at a moment's notice in case she went into labor. I received the phone on a day I was covering a wrestling match a half-hour's drive away for my then-employer, The News-Herald (which as I recall lent me the phone).

I got into my car, and the first person I called was my dad.

He and I were amazed that we could carry on a conversation while one of us was driving and no CB radio was involved.

Now cell phones are everywhere, and it's sometimes difficult to tell how much of a good thing that really is.

Regardless, if my dad was still around, he would probably own both an iPhone AND an Android.

You know, just in case.

All these years later, I still miss the guy.

I'm prepping for my one and only gig as an audiobook narrator

This would be me recording an audio version of my book if I was younger. And better looking. And had more hair.

Over the years, I've listened to dozens and dozens of audiobooks. I discovered early on that just as important as the quality of the book itself is the quality of the narrator.

My favorite audiobook narrator is the late Frank Muller. I can't think of "The Great Gatsby" or "A Tale of Two Cities" without hearing his voice. He brought those works to life for me.

Which is why, when several people suggested I record an audio version of my book "5 Kids, 1 Wife," I initially balked.

Yes, I'm the guy who wrote it, and yes, having had some experience with a microphone, you would think I'm the ideal candidate to narrate it.

But good audiobook narration requires more than just a decent voice and a knowledge of the text. The best narrators are also actors. They understand inflection, dynamics and pace.

Especially pace. I'm a fast talker. You can't be overly fast when you narrate an audiobook. Then again, you don't want to be too slow, either. I'm afraid I'll be so self-conscious about the speed at which I'm talking that I'll forget everything else that goes into making an audiobook listenable.

Still, despite these misgivings, I'm going to give it a go. It turns out you can record, edit and distribute your own audiobook just as easily as you can self-publish a paperback these days. The folks at Amazon make it especially easy through their ACX audiobook platform.

You do need to know how to set your audio recording software to fit within certain ACX-prescribed parameters to make it sound good, but I think I'm just technically savvy enough to manage it.

My goal is to record the audiobook in January and have it edited and available for sale by the end of Q1 2024. It will go right onto the "5 Kids, 1 Wife" Amazon page, which already offers print and Kindle versions of the book.

All I'm saying is, don't expect perfection. And if I end up talking too fast, you can slow down the playback speed on your device.

With all of these caveats, it's starting to feel like any price point for this audiobook above, say, $2 will be a ripoff.

We grew up in such an analog world that the digital one can be a little jarring

One of my favorite subplots in the Harry Potter series is Arthur Weasley's continuous fascination with muggles (non-wizards). He is forever impressed by how they manage to live their lives without the use of magic.

I feel much the same way about the 1980s and 90s. How, I sometimes wonder, did we ever get by without today's technology?

The answer, of course, is that we did just fine. But there's no denying you and I have lived through – and indeed are still living through – a digital revolution that has transformed nearly everything. What we're experiencing is historic in its speed and scope.

I often think about the everyday gizmos and gadgets with which I grew up that are all but obsolete now. Cassettes, for example, are laughably ancient. So are paper maps. And the clock you kept on your nightstand with the little flippy numbers. And Rolodexes.

None of these things has completely disappeared, but they have mostly been replaced by faster digital alternatives. Whereas the old stuff was solid and physical, now so much is virtual. It "exists," but not in the same tangible way typewriters and landline phones and VHS tapes used to exist.

I often think about the early part of my career when I worked in newspapers. I was a print journalist right up until the end of the era in which editors would draw page layouts in pencil on pieces of paper. They would give these sketches to back shop folks, who would then take long strips of typeset text, run them through a hot wax machine, cut them into strips, and physically paste them onto large sheets of cardboard to match the editor's vision of the page.

That's how your daily newspaper was created. It seems slow and crude, but it worked.

Just as I got out of the business, it all went digital. I can't imagine how much faster and efficient it is now.

Time marches on and things change, of course, but the speed of that change in recent decades has been breathtaking. Day-to-day existence now is in many ways nothing at all like it was just 30 years ago.

To the point that I think our generation's experience of rapid technological change is unique in history.

I'm all for progress, but I do wish it would slow down every once in a while and let me catch my breath.

I didn't pose naked for the cover like Britney, and nine other reasons you should buy my book this holiday season

1. You will laugh, either at the content or at the fact I think I'm so funny.
   
   
2. You will cry, either over the content or over the fact I think I'm so funny.
   
   
3. I will agree not to sign the book for you, thus preserving its value.
   
   
4. It has a beautiful cover with which I had almost nothing to do. The best parts of the book admittedly do not involve me.
   
   
5. I make $3.42 per paperback copy sold, which I pledge to use to buy myself apples. This doesn't really benefit you, but as noted here many times before, I like apples.
   
   
6. You can either buy Stephen King's new book or you can buy mine. I was a contestant on two game shows. Stephen's game show count? To my knowledge it's zero. Advantage: me.
   
   
7. It would make my wife Terry happy. Imagine how good you'll feel making her happy.
   
   
8. My book explains in earnest detail why Chuck E. Cheese plays a vital role in preventing a worldwide revolt among young children. You're not going to get that kind of insight from, say, Britney Spears' memoir.
   
   
9. Speaking of Britney, unlike her, I did not pose nearly naked for the cover of my book, which I consider a great favor to you. The least you can do in return is to buy the book.
   
   
10. In buying my book, you're propping up the economy. I don't want to imply that worldwide financial collapse would be your fault if you choose not to buy my book, but I'm also not saying that's not the case. Just to be on the safe side, you should probably just buy the book.

Click here to purchase the book on Amazon, either in paperback or Kindle/eBook format.

(Since this list likely did more to talk you out of buying the book than anything else, thank you for even considering it!)

The man-boy upstairs

There was a time when seven people lived in our house. It was loud, chaotic, fun, occasionally frustrating, and always exhausting.

Now there are three of us left here: Terry, me, and our youngest son, Jack, a wickedly smart and funny kid.

Or should I say "wickedly smart and funny young man?" Or just "man?" I don't know how to classify Jack. On one hand, he's 6-feet-2 and has had a voice like James Earl Jones since he was about 13. He looks and sounds like a young adult.

But there are times when he seems very much like the 17-year-old boy he is. That's not a knock against him. 17-year-old boys are what they are. Generally speaking, they're not as responsible or as mature as 17-year-old girls, at least in my experience.

Still, Jack has it together in ways I simply didn't when I was his age, and I admire him for that. In other ways, however, he's still trying to figure out a direction in life, which is perfectly fine. He is, after all, only 17.

He's in the process of learning about money and jobs and responsibility and everything that comes with being a legal adult, which again it should be noted he is not yet. Having skipped a grade many years ago, he graduated high school in May at 17 years, 3 1/2 months old.

Given his status as a younger graduate, Terry, Jack and I decided early on that a year of community college would be good for him. If nothing else, it would help him get used to managing his own affairs in a somewhat low-pressure environment before taking on the challenge of a four-year university.

Given his laudable performance on the high school AP Calculus exam, Jack got put into a college calc II/physics class at Lakeland Community College this past fall for which he was not at all ready. He quickly dropped that course and instead enrolled in a regular calc I class, but even that proved challenging for him despite having taken the subject before.

Jack's academic confidence was shot. Like many a smart kid before him, he had never really learned how to study, how to ask for and get help, and how to deal with a daunting academic challenge.

So he dropped both of his community college courses and instead started working to earn some money while figuring out an alternative path for his future. He eventually decided on a career in the trades, and as I type this, he's specifically targeting becoming an electrician.

That's a laudable goal. This country needs tradespeople, and as everyone is quick to point out to him, the money is good.

Is Jack suited to a career in electrical work? I have no idea. I hope he is, because as a parent, all you want is for them to be healthy, happy and fueled by purpose. You can have all three of those things in any sort of career, as they're in no way dependent on exactly how you make a living.

I just wish I could be of more help to him. I wish I could give him better guidance through what I'm sure is an uncertain and perhaps even unsettling time in his life. Whatever he chooses to do, I just want the path to become clear to him.

Jack is in the process of becoming whatever Jack is going to be. As someone who has been down that road already many years ago myself, I think a lot about the emerging man living in the first bedroom on the right at the top of the stairs.

There will come a time when it will all work out for him, I know.

Until then, his dad prays for him a lot.

I've reached the age when, like many dads, I cannot think of anything I want or need for Christmas

Every year until I was well into my 20s, I would ask my dad what he wanted for Christmas.

And every year he would say the same thing: "Case of beer."

He was always just kidding (he gave up drinking in the early 80s), and I always knew that would be his response, but it was like a little ritual we had to go through.

As I got older, this routine of ours got somewhat annoying because I really, truly did need to know what he wanted for Christmas. It seemed so hard for him to come up with something.

Now I get it.

Let it be known that, as I enter my mid-50s, I have no idea what I want for Christmas.

Clothes, I guess. And Amazon gift cards always work. And maybe the occasional classical CD?

The reality is, I have just about everything I could want. I don't have expensive tastes, and any time I want something, I just buy it for myself.

If I were particularly smart, which I am not, I would hold off on these types of purchases from, say, September onward and allow my family to get these items for me.

But of course I forget and just buy whatever I want whenever I want it. Then this time of year rolls around and someone in the family asks what they can get me and I'm stumped.

I suspect something similar happened to my dad all those years ago.

Which is why he always ended up getting the cheap plastic desk set or picture frame I would buy from the elementary school Santa Shop. (Come to think of it, that's probably the stuff he loved the most.)

The point is, I hate making a Christmas list because I don't need anything and I really don't even want anything. Peace on earth, goodwill toward men. I'll take a heaping helping of that, if you can swing it.

Otherwise, I don't know...case of beer, I guess.

Three days in the office, two days working from home = perfect (for me anyway)

Back when I was in high school, the only reason you were ever home at 10 in the morning was if you were sick or if it was a holiday.

Then I had kids of my own, and as time went on I watched as they enjoyed the benefits of increasingly flexible school scheduling. It culminated with our youngest, Jack, spending far more of his senior year in his room than he did in a school building.

COVID was largely responsible for the shift in scheduling philosophies, of course. But I was still amazed at how late Jack would wake up some days and still be at school in plenty of time. He would drive to school, attend one class, and be back home less than an hour later.

When I was a lad many moons ago, I left for high school at 7:10 in the morning and it would be at least eight hours before my parents saw me again. Even longer if I had football or track practice.

Being at home in the middle of the day felt weird.

The same has been true for most of my working life. I came into the professional world in the early 90s, when we still worked in an office five days a week for 9 or 10 hours at a time and only came home sometime after 5pm.

AND WE LIKED IT THAT WAY.

Actually, I don't know that we "liked" it that way, but it was the only way we knew. Our parents had worked the same sort of schedule, so we figured it was just how things were.

Then along came the pandemic, and suddenly those of us in the white-collar world had options. For a period of time we only worked at home. Then, when the restrictions lifted, our employers started bringing us back to the office a day or two each week.

Now remote work is the norm. Or I should say "hybrid" work is the norm, with many (most?) professionals working some combination of days each week in the office and other days from home.

For those of us at Materion Corporation, our in-office days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Which of course leaves Monday and Friday as work-from-home days.

Again, maybe it's just the world in which I grew up, but I find this to be an almost unbelievable setup. On Mondays and Fridays, I can be productive working from my upstairs home office while having the flexibility of doing laundry, emptying the dishwasher, running a quick errand, etc.

Then I can see, interact, and generally bond with my co-workers in person during those mid-week in-office days.

Two days a week I'm home when "The Price Is Right" comes on and I don't even have the flu. That's mind-boggling for a card-carrying Gen X-er.

Having experienced so many five-days-in-the-office years, this balance of two days home and three in the office feels ideal to me. Some of my younger co-workers think the ratio should be flipped, or that we should be four days (or even fully) remote.

And maybe they're right. All I know is that Jack's wacky school schedule seems less and less bizarre to me as we get deeper into the Age of Remote Work.

I must be getting older and softer when it comes to the extended celebration of Christmas

For many years, I stuck to a hard and fast rule whereby I would never, under any circumstances, listen to Christmas music before December 1st.

I wasn't being a Scrooge or anything. I just felt the tendency to extend the celebration of Christmas back into November (or, in some cases, even starting in October) kind of cheapened the holiday. I have a lot of great memories from Decembers past and didn't want to water down future memories by making Christmas two months long.

If that makes sense.

Now, however, I'm not so strict. I've been listening to Christmas music since Thanksgiving Day. I haven't minded seeing decorations go up "early" on houses and in stores. And I've generally been much more OK with a somewhat longer holiday season than I was in the past.

So what changed? What switch flipped?

I hate to say it, but I think it's an age thing. Not that I'm ancient at 54, but there are a lot fewer things on which I'm "hard and fast" than there used to be.

If people want to listen to Christmas music in October or November – or July, for that matter – where's the harm?

Heck, if I want to listen to Christmas music any time of year, who cares? Christmas is what you make of it, and a rousing chorus of "Sleigh Ride" six weeks before December 25th will only negatively affect my experience of the holiday if I allow it to.

Granted, "Jingle Bells" in mid-summer still feels a little strange to me. But hey, you do you.

I have Chapsticks and reading glasses stashed everywhere

It feels like a very middle-aged person thing to say, but no matter where I am or what I'm doing, I'm never very far from a pair of reading glasses or a tube of Chapstick.

I make sure of this by keeping glasses and Chapsticks everywhere I'm likely to be, from my nightstand and PA announcing bag to the glove compartment in my car and the top desk drawer in my office.

Reading glasses are a relatively recent must-have, but my dependence on Chapstick is longstanding. My lips chap easily, or at least I've always thought they chap easily, which is really the same thing.

I use the word "dependence" intentionally, by the way, since a quick Google search suggests there's no such thing as lip balm "addiction." Yet I wouldn't have been surprised to find it's a real thing.

If I go, say, 3-4 hours without applying Chapstick, my lips always start to feel a little raw and irritated. Chapstick solves this problem almost immediately, so I stock up and carry it around as if my life depended on it.

Which, again, it doesn't. It's more a habit than an absolute physical need.

As for reading glasses, well, I've covered this topic before, and there's no denying the need is there. Until my early 50s, I could read just about anything unaided. Now, however, you'll constantly find me holding books, menus and other printed material at arm's length to get the words to come into focus.

So pretty much everywhere I keep a Chapstick I also keep a pair of cheap reading glasses. The magnification I require is pretty low, as these things go, but I know my current 1.5x prescription will creep higher and higher as the years go on.

As far as I know, there's simply no avoiding it.

So I'm trying to embrace it. Chapped lips I've never embraced, but blurry words on a page? That I can (mostly) live with.

It's the silly stuff your children and grandchildren will remember about you

I'm typing this just hours after we held my father-in-law Tom's Celebration of Life service at our church. It was a wonderfully fun and emotional time as we remembered a man who played such an important role in each of our lives.

As we heard stories about Tom from his children and grandchildren, what struck me was the kinds of memories they chose to share.

Some were about the important life lessons Tom taught, but more often than not, it was the silly stuff that stuck in their minds.

Like how, when the kids rode in a car with him and things got too quiet, Tom would suddenly yell. Out of nowhere he would let out a scream, causing everyone in the car to jump and then laugh.

Or the way, when my sister-in-law Chris and brother-in-law Dave were little, they would hide from their dad under the kitchen table when it was time to go upstairs for bed. He would playfully try (and intentionally fail) to reach down and grab them as they slithered away from him under the table, all while giggling, of course. Finally he would "catch" them, tickle them, and put them up on his shoulders to head for their bedrooms.

Or how funny he thought he was when he would greet my youngest son with a hearty "Hi Jack!", followed by a sly grin and a hastily added, "You shouldn't ever say that on an airplane."

No one thought Tom was funnier than Tom did.

The point is, your kids and grandkids may or may not remember the serious, weighty stuff you tell them – though I hope they do – but they'll almost always retain the stuff you said and did when you were just being Mom, Dad, Grandma or Grandpa.

If you're still blessed to have young ones in your house, or to be their grandparent, that's not a bad thing to keep in mind as the years roll by.

Holy cow, I'm the oldest person in this meeting

I don't know exactly when it started, but these days I regularly experience work meetings in which I am the oldest person in the room.

I find myself surrounded by young professionals – smart, talented professionals, mind you, but undeniably young – who never worked in an office without email. Who never had to fax press releases to journalists. Who never typed something on a green monochrome computer screen and sent it to a gigantic dot matrix printer shared by 60 people.

I really like my co-workers, but yikes, some are younger than the pair of gray sweatpants I have kept in my closet through six presidential administrations.

I knew this would eventually happen, of course, but I thought it would be more of a gradual thing. And maybe it has been gradual and I've simply not been paying close attention since 2003.

I remember being the young guy in the office back in the 90s. I was the one with the fresh ideas, I was the one explaining technology to the old folks, and I was the one experiencing all the young guy milestones (marriage, first house, first baby, etc.)

There's no reason I still can't be the one supplying fresh ideas and teaching technology to anyone who needs to learn it, but the young guy milestone days are without question well behind me.

Apart from the specter of ageism, there's nothing wrong with being among the most seasoned people in the office, either. You bring a perspective others lack. You have "been there, done that" experience that can help others avoid nasty pitfalls. And you apply lessons of history your team members simply haven't had the opportunity to learn quite yet.

Still, the first time you realize most people sitting at the desks around you are half your age, it's disconcerting. No one can explain why your company is suddenly hiring 12-year-olds. You lack common cultural touch points with them. You have kids who are almost as old as (and in some cases decidedly older than) them.

That's when you have to step back and say those inspiring words to yourself:

"I may be older, but I am just as creative, just as innovative, and just as valuable as anyone at this company. And man, my back hurts..."

Remembering those who won't be around the Thanksgiving table tomorrow

This isn't that long ago (Thanksgiving 2007, I think), but it seems forever since I've seen my Mom and my sister Judi. That's little Jack on the left.

I am, by almost any measure, someone whose cup overflows with blessings.

I have everything I could possibly need and then some. While I've done nothing to deserve it, God has seen fit to grant me love, health and a ridiculous abundance of material wealth compared with much of the rest of the world.

I am, in short, spoiled.

I am so covered in blessings, in fact, that I seldom think about the rain that has fallen in my life. Granted, there hasn't been much of it, but there have been moments of sorrow along the way. Most have centered on the loss of loved ones: my parents, my oldest sister, my in-laws, etc.

Many people have suffered far worse loss than me, which is why I don't tend to complain about any of it. Death is the final destination for us all. There's no reason to expect it will somehow spare my family.

Still, it's hard not to feel a bit empty the day before Thanksgiving when I consider the unoccupied chairs around our dinner table tomorrow.

There was a time when Terry and I split our Thanksgiving days between my family and hers. We would do our best not to gorge ourselves in the early afternoon at my mom and dad's house so that we would have room for more turkey, stuffing and fixings at her parents' later in the day.

It was exhausting, especially the years we lugged around babies and little kids, but there's not much I wouldn't give to experience just one more of those loud, hectic, food coma-inducing Thanksgivings of years past.

For whatever reason, we humans are hard-wired not to fully appreciate what we have until the time comes when it inevitably goes away. Which is a shame, really.

On the other hand, it makes me that much more grateful for the people who are still around and who will be joining us tomorrow afternoon for food, fellowship and fun. The sadness of those we miss is made somewhat more bearable by the presence of those we love here and now.

If nothing else, that's what each of us should probably take away from the holiday we call Thanksgiving.

I hope yours is filled with blessings, with light, and with love.

Having your cake and eating it, too: The hard-to-control mental aspect of weight gain and loss

My relationship with the bathroom scale isn't especially complicated, nor is it especially healthy.

I pay lots of attention to the scale when my weight is down. I step on it nearly every day to bask in the glow of the number I apparently believe to be some reflection of my own worth.

But during those times when I know the number is going to be above what I want it to be, I actively avoid the scale.

Right now I am in one of those phases where the scale and I are not friends. This is unfair to the scale in that the number it reports is entirely a product of my own negligence and lack of discipline, rather than anything the scale itself has done.

A few weeks ago I weighed myself and discovered I had gained quite a bit of weight over the previous nine months. And it's not the first time this has happened.

I reported a similar significant gain in June 2015. In fact, if you search for the word "weight" here, you will find I've written a lot about the subject over the years.

I never thought much about my weight until I graduated from high school, when I gained far more than the standard "Freshman 15" (try the "Freshman 40"). I ballooned up in a hurry in my early 20s once my metabolism and genetics caught up with my admittedly sub-par eating habits.

Over the years I have gained and lost different amounts of weight. In fact, I associate certain years with particularly memorable weight fluctuations.

There was The Great Gain of 2012, The Big Loss of 2013, The Sneaky Blow-Up of 2015, The Even Bigger Loss of 2016, The "How Did That Happen?" Gain of 2018-19, The "This Is The Last Time I'll Go Through This" Loss of 2022, and now I guess The "I'm Not Very Good at This Weight Maintenance Thing" Pound-Packing of 2023.

Here's what I don't get: Once I make up my mind to lose weight, it's never particularly hard. And the initial phase of maintaining a healthy weight doesn't feel that difficult, either.

But then, without even noticing it, I lose interest. Other things attract my attention and, before I know it, the weight I lost becomes the weight I found.

I have already begun losing weight (again) since that disappointing trip to the bathroom scale in October, and I don't doubt I'll get back to where I should be, health-wise.

But then what? There's a mental/emotional aspect to food that repeatedly trips me up. I'm not even sure what it is, which makes overcoming it that much more difficult. How do you master something you can't even identify?

When I'm eating healthy, I love eating healthy. When I'm not eating healthy, I love not eating healthy.

Much of it goes back to my all-or-nothing personality. If I can't be perfect, then I revert to being perfectly imperfect. I slip up a few times and decide I might as well eat whatever I want, because I'm clearly incapable of maintaining a sound diet and a reasonable weight.

I can do the physical part of weight loss. It's my brain – prone to extremes as it is – I need to get under control.

With the pounds already dropping off (again), the scale and I will very likely rekindle our friendship by this spring. But I need to start working on my mental approach now because the time is coming when I'm going to be confronted by the same old challenges.

I have yet to conquer them, but I keep trying.

I know very well that striving for perfection inevitably leads to failure, but I do it anyway.

I know something has to change in my head if I'm going to keep the rest of my body in good working condition, but I'm not quite sure what it is.

What's that old saying about being your own worst enemy?

The smell of dinner cooking in the late afternoon takes me back 40 years

Several weeks ago, my beloved Wickliffe Swing Band performed in the front yard of one of its drum majors. The drum major's mom had bought the winning ticket for Band on Demand, an annual fundraiser in which the winner gets to have the band play outside their home.

The kids did their usual bang-up job, after which I walked down Wickliffe's Maple Street and Elm Avenue on the way back to my car. Just as I took the left turn from Maple onto Elm, it hit me.

It was the unmistakable smell of someone cooking dinner. I don't know exactly what they were making, but it was that combination of savory aromas familiar to anyone who has ever walked a suburban American street at 5:30 in the afternoon.

I hadn't experienced that smell in years, and it immediately took me back to Harding Drive in the late 1970s and early 80s.

Most of the kids with whom I grew up ate dinner with their families. You would play together all afternoon, and at some point you each had to go home for dinner with parents and siblings. Then you could meet up again afterward to continue doing whatever you were doing before soup was on.

Those dinners were almost invariably prepared by moms. More than once I remember heading home for my own dinner and along the way smelling the entrees and side dishes the mothers of Harding were preparing that particular day.

It was a different time. I don't know that it was ultimately any better or worse than now, but it was most certainly its own unique time.

People still cook dinner, but they don't eat together as often as they used to. And far more frequently than was once the case, it's often a dad doing the cooking.

Like most people, I infuse my childhood with a degree of romanticism it probably doesn't deserve. But smelling that dinner cooking somewhere near Maple and Elm reminded me how blessed I was to grow up when and where I did.

The perils of doing the household laundry

On the surface, doing the laundry seems like a harmless enough task. When you live with other people, however, and particularly when you're married, there are pitfalls you would never have anticipated.

I do our laundry – and by "our" laundry, I mean Terry's and mine – once and sometimes twice a week. I always do it first thing in the morning on Mondays when I work from home. Then on Fridays, when I'm also working from home, I'll wash anything Terry wasn't able to get to the previous day.

It used to be that I folded all of the clothes I washed. Then Terry requested I just leave hers unfolded because, honestly, I couldn't figure out which of her clothes went where in the closet, and therefore she was constantly searching for things I had misplaced.

I'm sure she also didn't like the way I folded a lot of it, as I'm not exactly an expert in that department.

That's all fair enough. I would love to be more helpful, but her system of clothes storage baffles me. And seeing as how Terry has put some of my clothes away in the wrong place over time, I get it.

Recently, though, I stepped on another laundry land mine.

Terry often deposits clothes she has worn on the bathroom floor. In another attempt to be helpful, I was scooping up those clothes on Monday and Friday mornings and taking them down to be washed.

But, as it turns out, Terry often wants to re-wear these discarded garments. A few times she walked into the bathroom to fetch one only to find it had been taken away for undesired laundering.

So now I leave the clothes on the floor. I had to learn the hard way.

All of this is on top of the times I haul a basket full of clothes to the laundry room and quickly discover that Jack is doing his laundry, and thus both the washer and dryer are unavailable for use.

Laundry is a chore I actually enjoy doing, but even with the best of intentions, there have been times when it would have been better for Terry had I simply not done it in the first place.

You live and learn.

My wife is a puzzle person. I am not.

Terry recently completed a 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and I can only assume she used some sort of voodoo magic to do it.

Never, not in a million years or for a million dollars, could I do a 2,000-piece puzzle. While we're at it, I should mention that 1,000, 500, 250, 200 and even 100 pieces are also out of the question for me.

One time, as a test, Terry gave me a 25-piece puzzle to complete, just to determine exactly how inept I am. Let the record show I did eventually get those 25 pieces to fit together, but I'm embarrassed to say how long I needed to complete the task.

It should take a reasonably intelligent adult 2 minutes – maybe – to do a 25-piece puzzle. It took me longer than 2 minutes. One might say "considerably" longer.

My complete lack of spatial sense and awareness prevents me from ever being a puzzle guy. Which is too bad, really, given how much fun puzzle people seem to have.

I know you're supposed to pull out the border pieces and put those together first, but...well, even with a straightforward, time-consuming, trial-and-error approach, I just can't visualize how connecting pieces are supposed to join up. I can't look at the knob on one piece and easily see how it fits into the slot on another.

It's just not how my brain works, which is one of many reasons I didn't choose carpenter or engineer as my profession.

As you might suspect, this mental shortcoming also makes it difficult to put together even the simplest home furniture or children's toys. Don't get me wrong, I get the job done. But you wouldn't believe the time and effort it takes for me to understand exactly how Tab A fits into Slot B.

On the other hand, I am masterful in my use of semicolons. They're about as practical these days as jigsaw puzzles, though, so maybe I shouldn't go around bragging.

The lawn guy is going to clean up our leaves this year, and now I'm having a crisis of identity

The AI Blog Post Image Generator did a better job with this fake photo than it did on Wednesday's post, but I still question this AI-generated landscaper's facial features.

Many years ago when I worked at the Cleveland Clinic, I had frequent opportunity to interact with Dr. Roger Mee, a world-renowned pediatric heart surgeon. In addition to being very good at his job and a nice man, he was also quite wealthy.

Or at least wealthy enough to own one of the finer homes in our area, located in what is often referred to as the "tony" Cleveland suburb of Gates Mills. The house happens to be situated along the route we take to and from church each Sunday, so we pass it constantly.

Quite often when I drove by during my Clinic years, I would see Dr. Mee on a small riding mower cutting the grass. You have to understand, this stately home is located on a very large lot. There are acres of grass there, and from what I could tell, Dr. Mee would cut all of it himself.

One of the best pediatric heart surgeons in the world, who commanded a commensurately high salary, was out there for hours at a time mowing his lawn.

This always amazed me, and one time I asked him about.

"Dr. Mee," I said, "I see you on your riding mower all the time. Do you always cut the grass yourself?"

He said he did.

"How long does it take you?"

"About 5 or 6 hours."

"Wow, is it a stress reliever?"

"The first 3 hours are. The rest of it is just a pain in the ass."

Yet there he was, week in and week out, keeping that grass trimmed even though I'm sure he could easily have afforded a landscaper to do it for him.

That has always impressed me, particularly since I now pay someone to mow my much-smaller lawn.

Nick, our landscaper, does an excellent job. Like Dr. Mee, he's very good at what he does. If I was going to hire someone, I'm not sure I could have made a better choice.

But as I mentioned in a post here a few months ago, having a lawn guy (not to mention a snow plow guy) takes some getting used to.

I spent 30 years cutting my own grass. Even when I really didn't feel up to it, I always took some pride in doing the job myself.

Then I started earning extra income as a PA announcer, and suddenly the luxury of having someone else out there in the yard sweating instead of me became a real possibility.

Hiring Nick has turned out to be a good move, at least when I'm not questioning my own masculinity for turning the job over to him. I can never quite shake the feeling that I'm shirking one of my key responsibilities as husband/dad.

Now, with the advent of fall, it gets even better...or worse, depending on how you look at it.

Over the next couple of weeks, Nick is going to collect the leaves in our half-acre lot and deposit them near the street for the city to pick up. None of us will have to touch a rake or pull a tarp laden with leaves. He will handle the whole thing, and being Nick, he will handle it well.

It will be more than worth the cost to have him do it.

Still...I can't help but look at those as my leaves piling up in my yard. Part of me still believes it's my job to gather them up and haul them out of there.

I'm sure I'll get over this feeling in time, but honestly, how do rich people who weren't born rich adjust to having gardeners and nannies and such? I can't imagine.

Not that I'm aching to go outside and fire up the lawn mower or the leaf blower, mind you. But I'll admit, I'm still adjusting to the concept.

Here's how we're adjusting to having no kids in school

It has very little to do with the topic of today's post, but I wanted to show you this photo, the result of me prompting an online artificial intelligence blog image generator to create a graphic depicting "parents of older kids." This is what the AI image generator returned. None of these are actual people, but I do feel bad for #4 and #5 and whatever led to their, um, unique facial features. Clearly some online AI tools are better than others. Let's move on...

Our youngest, Jack, graduated from high school nearly six months ago. This is the point at which we're supposed to be missing it all and figuring out what our new normal looks like.

Which I suppose is what we're doing, but it's somewhat different for Terry and me.

For one thing, I'm at Wickliffe High School (sorry, the Wickliffe Upper School...or the Campus of Wickliffe, if you prefer) just as often now as I ever was. My PA announcing hobby/side business has me showing up at the school dozens of times a year for football, soccer, volleyball and basketball games, along with Wickliffe Swing Band performances.

So it's not like I don't still see the place with some frequency.

As for Terry, she maintains close ties to the Swing Band. If she's not at the school itself, she's texting or visiting with her friends from the Wickliffe Band Boosters.

On one hand, none of our kids are Wickliffe students anymore, so we've been getting used to that part of it.

But Wickliffe being Mayberry and all, we couldn't entirely extricate ourselves from the school system if we tried.

I can't speak for my wife, but I will say I feel a little pang of nostalgia nowadays when I see other people's pictures from homecoming, band concerts, sports awards and the like. That used to be our life and now it isn't. We're not the first to transition away from it, nor will we be the last.

On the plus side, our family calendar is much more open than it used to be, and there are undeniable benefits there. I don't entirely miss the days of rushing around to get the kids wherever they need to be.

There's also a "been there, done that, no need to go back" aspect to it. We put in our time and now there are new adventures ahead, which is exciting. I've never been one to want to return to the "good old days," as I've always felt I'm living the good old days now, at every moment of my life.

In sum, while our case may be a little different from others, we're still getting used to not having kids in the local school system. Like anything else, there's some good, some bad, and a whole lot of in-between.

Half a year into this phase of life, we're doing OK.

I have no idea how the book business works, so I can't explain why my book is being sold in these strange places

Does anyone here speak Danish??

As I've mentioned more than once (I apologize if it's getting annoying), I recently wrote a book. Like this blog it's called "5 Kids, 1 Wife," and it's a compilation of some of my favorite posts since 2011.

I published the book through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), which means it is available for purchase through Amazon. Between that and any copies I sell directly to people I know, I figured that was the extent of my potential sales channels.

But then, within days of the book coming out, it mysteriously showed up on BarnesandNoble.com. I couldn't explain how that happened, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Then I found the book popping up online in a dozen or so other places, many of which I wasn't even aware existed.

That's when I remembered I had agreed to take part in KDP's Expanded Distribution program, which they promise will "make your book available to distributors so booksellers and libraries can find your book and order it."

Here's what a simple Google search turns up:

• My book is more expensive on "Thrift" Books ($18.06) than it is on Amazon ($16).
  
  
• On the other hand, it's significantly discounted ($12.88) at Alibris.com.
  
  
• While we're on the subject of pricing, please please PLEASE do not buy it from this eBay seller for $30.82. If you find yourself tempted to do this, call me and I will give you a copy in order to save you from yourself.
  
  
• On the fun side, while the book is only available in English, you can buy it on websites on which the primary language is Danish, Swedish and German.
  
  
• There's a classical guitarist named Scott Tennant of whom I've been aware for several years. Authorship of my book is credited to him in a few places, including this site.

A question worth asking – at least as far as I'm concerned – is whether and how I get paid if someone buys my book from any of these people. Other than the eBay merchant, I'm assuming the other sites have some sort of arrangement through which they buy the book from Amazon/KDP and I still get my standard royalty, which is an admittedly small but symbolically important $3.42 per book.

I have no way of tracking this or confirming it's truly how the whole thing works, but I'm going to trust Andy Jassy (the president and CEO of Amazon) and his team to treat us small-time authors fairly.

Of course, as I describe in the book, I also once trusted a local panhandler named Maurice to pay back $80 I gave him, so this could be another case in which my enduring faith in humanity proves to be foolish.

Those mundane home movies of yours are immensely valuable

Like most families, we have gigs and gigs of digital videos of our kids as they were growing up.

While home movie cameras have been around for more than half a century, the digital era has made it exponentially easier to chronicle your family history and share it with everyone (whether they're interested or not).

Lately, having watched some of our videos from the chaotic mid- and late 90s, I've come to realize the importance of these personal archives.

I had forgotten, for instance, just how crazy those days were for us. Logic suggests having four (and later five) little kids in the same house is inevitably going to generate some degree of mayhem, but it had slipped my mind just how fun and crazy it all was.

The short clip above is a scene from our family Christmas 1998, and a quieter account a week later of little Jared eating baby cereal for the first time.

Nothing earth-shattering, yet there is so much to enjoy in those two minutes:

• The tumult of voices that punctuated every family Christmas
• A shot of my mother-in-law and father-in-law, now both gone, as their granddaughters Courtney and Elissa present Grandpa with a gift (a weather rock, as it turns out)
• Hairstyles I had forgotten about, and a long-since-faded hair color (dark brown) for me
• Jared's little Cleveland Lumberjacks hockey bib
• Jared's less-than-enthusiastic reaction to his first taste of something that wasn't breast milk (I believe the cereal was mixed with breast milk, but after a few spoonfuls, it didn't seem to help)
• Scenes from our old house on East 300th Street

As I said, none of this is life-changing or especially significant to anyone but us. Yet I can't get over how wonderful it all is.

As time goes on and your children inevitably grow up and move on, you forget the small moments that made up the fabric of life. The big events are great, of course, but your existence is mostly the everyday stuff, the memory of which brings back feelings you forgot you ever had.

Thank God for digital video.

My TV viewing is mostly snippets of whatever my wife is watching

This is a common scene in our house:

Terry will be taking a break from one of the million tasks, large and small, that comprise her day. She often does this by plopping down on the couch with a cup of coffee to watch television.

She will be happily watching something when I come wandering into the living room. The screen catches my eye. I stand there for a few minutes watching with her.

I become sufficiently interested that I will ask her a few questions about the characters and the plot. Then I either stand and watch some more, or else I head off to do whatever it was I had intended to do in the first place.

Then it happens again in a day or two. Sometimes I will actually sit down and watch for 10 or 15 minutes. More often than not, though, I stand. Dads often do this and I don't know why. Maybe we simply don't want to commit.

Anyway, over time, I become familiar enough with the show that I can pop in six episodes later and quickly catch up on the action.

Sometimes it's a Netflix series, other times it's a competition show like "Dancing with the Stars." Either way, I never watch the whole thing with her, but rather just enough to establish a baseline level of knowledge that allows me to ask educated questions like, "Are those kids on 'The Fosters' still making bad choices?"

I don't think of myself as a TV guy, and it's not because I have any objections to TV. Nowadays, there's far more good writing and acting on TV than there is in movies.

It's just that, for the most part, I don't have time for it. I choose to fill my non-working hours with other things that aren't any better or worse than TV. They're just other choices.

But Terry has good taste in onscreen entertainment, so quite often when I shuffle through the living room, I see something interesting. I know I should be tackling a particular chore or getting ready to leave for a PA announcing gig or something, but I can't seem to look away.

So I end up watching maybe 15% of a multi-season series through a string of 10-minute (or smaller) chunks of viewing.

If there are important bits I know I've missed, YouTube will more often than not have those scenes and I can use that to fill in my knowledge gaps.

It's not the recommended way to enjoy high- (or low-) quality television, but I can tell you it works.

The deer on my morning walks are not at all impressed by me

I spend so much of my morning walks this time of year worrying about skunks that I sometimes forget about the deer.

Deer are very common where I live (they may be common where you live, too). This is a significant change from my years growing up in a suburban neighborhood with closely packed houses. Back then, deer sightings were real events. I remember deer roaming onto our street maybe three times during the 22 years I lived there.

Now, with the deer population in Northeast Ohio generally rising, and with us living in a somewhat more rural (though still decidedly suburban) area, deer are as common as dogs. Or at least it seems that way.

Being out on the road walking/jogging five mornings a week, I come across the various deer families in our neighborhood quite often, especially in the fall.

I see them in the spring and summer, too, but for whatever reason they seem more prevalent in October and November. On one recent morning I came across four different groups/families during my 2.3-mile jaunt.

Their fur is darker this time of year, and I never knew why until I just looked it up. Apparently the darker coat helps them better absorb the warmth of the sun ("solar gain") during a season when sunlight becomes a decidedly iffy proposition around here.

The males also have antlers now, of course. And while I've never had one act aggressively in any way toward me, I give those spiky-headed bucks a wider berth.

For their part, the deer react to me in one of two ways. They're either skittish and run away at the first sign of me. Or, more commonly, they eye me warily but stand their ground as I pass by.

Some seem genuinely interested in figuring out exactly what I am, but mostly I'm just a momentary distraction. As long as I'm not a threat – and it usually takes them about three seconds to realize I'm not – they don't care about me that much.

Which I suppose is the way of things.

I would happily pet them if they would let me, but they have no real interest in coming closer...even the ones who aren't scared of me.

So I confine my animal petting to our two cats, Ginny and Molly. To their credit, those girls do appreciate me, maybe because I'm the one who provides them fresh food and water every day, as well as being someone who is always willing to give them a scratch behind the ears.

It helps that neither has antlers. The power dynamic in our house would change noticeably if they did.

Helping your spouse through the death of a parent

My father-in-law Tom passed away a month ago, and as you might imagine, his three kids have had a rough go of it.

My wife has reacted exactly how you would expect my wife to react if you know her: She was very emotional upon hearing the news at the hospital, but while she has inevitably been teary-eyed several times since, for the most part she has kept it together.

Terry is not a crier. It takes a lot for her to cry, but that doesn't mean she is unfeeling. She loves intensely.

Having been married to her for 31 years, and having known her for nearly 38, I know there is very often more going on underneath the surface than others might realize. That's why I've tried my best to support her through this rough patch, the likes of which most of us have to endure at one point or another in our lives.

When my own dad died in 1999, Terry was wonderful. I don't think I ever told her this, but she made the whole experience much, much easier by doing the small stuff that helps others grieve.

Here are three things I learned from her and from others who have had to help their spouses deal with the death of a parent. If/when you find yourself in the same situation, maybe these suggestions will be useful:

Your primary job is to listen
You can offer words of comfort, of course, but you're mainly there to lend a sympathetic ear and a supportive shoulder. Many of us – Terry included – need to talk our way through the grieving process. Even when we're not sure what to do or how to deal with a particular emotion, we're generally not looking to you for a solution. We'll get there on our own. What we need mostly is for you to listen as we talk about what we're feeling and share our memories of Mom or Dad. (SIDE NOTE: Your spouse may tell you the same story or anecdote several times without realizing it. That's OK. Let them repeat themselves. Just keep listening.)

Whatever your spouse needs, you're available
This is easy in the hours after a parent passes away and even for the first week afterward. It's such an emotional time that you'll do anything for your significant other on the strength of nothing more than love and adrenaline. It's the weeks and months after that, when you may naturally be trying to get back to something resembling your "normal" life, that your partner will still need your support. Whatever it is, from running an errand to hauling stuff out of your in-laws' now-vacant home, you need to do it. You may have other real-life responsibilities to attend to, but your spouse takes priority. Whatever they want or need, do it.

Give them (and yourself) a little grace
No one grieves "perfectly," just as no one is perfect at being the supportive partner of a grieving person. You need to know that you'll probably make mistakes, and that's just fine. You also need to remind your husband/wife there's no set process for grieving. They should go at their own pace. Just be there. Just listen. In everything you do, be motivated by love. That will be more than enough.

I own maybe half of the 50 things every guy is supposed to have

 

The folks at a website called CoolMaterial.com put together a list of "50 Things Every Guy Should Own." I stumbled across it recently and went down the list counting how many of the suggested items I actually have.

It was difficult to come up with an exact number because, in many cases, we have an item, but it's either more Terry's than mine or it's not really exactly what they're talking about.

Suffice it to say I only own about half of the stuff they think I should own.

Here's the complete list. I've bolded the items I have.

1. A plain white t-shirt (I have plenty of plain white t-shirts, but they're talking about the kind of plain white T's that cost $50...I get a 6-pack of Hanes for 20 bucks.)

2. A suit

3. A navy blazer

4. A tie (I have several)

5. A bathrobe (as Jim Gaffigan once said, "A robe? What, are we about to shoot a porno?")

6. Slippers

7. Dress shoes

8. Sneakers (I grew up calling them "tennis shoes," but same thing.)

9. A watch

10. A gray hoodie (I have gray hoodies, but not a plain one like they're talking about.)

11. Denim jeans

12. Boots

13. A leather belt

14. Good sunglasses (I have a prescription pair. Is that "good?")

15. A pair of cufflinks

16. A pair of work gloves

17. A backpack

18. Tote bags

19. Suitcase and/or carry-on

20. Headphones

21. Refillable water bottle

22. A deck of cards (We have decks of cards. It's just that none are mine.)

23. A pocket knife (I had one when I was 9 and a Cub Scout, but that doesn't count.)

24. A lighter

25. A leather wallet

26. An umbrella

27. A toiletry bag

28. Bottle opener/wine key

29. Kitchen knives (These are Terry's, not mine.)

30. Proper glassware (same)

31. Your favorite coffee mug (my black Cleveland Orchestra mug)

32. A dedicated coffee maker (It belongs to both of us, but it was a Christmas present for me.)

33. A secret ingredient you use in dishes to impress guests (Good idea, but I don't cook.)

34. Your favorite bottle of whiskey (Yeah, not a spirits guy.)

35. A cast iron skillet

36. A versatile cookbook

37. A grill (We have one, but I'm rarely the one using it.)

38. A good office chair

39. Stationary (I didn't realize we were living in 1947.)

40. A good pen

41. A notebook/journal

42. A camera

43. A toolbox (So, yeah...we of course have one, but I'll admit it's way more my wife's than mine.)

44. Power tools (same)

45. Exercise equipment

46. A piece of art that means something to you (Man, I did way better on the first part of this list than I'm doing on the second.)

47. A copy of your favorite book (I have many!)

48. A quality coffee table book (I feel like I would need a coffee table first.)

49. A bike

50. A passport (A good way to end. This makes me feel a little better.)