It's admittedly not very good, but this piano song I taught myself is the definition of, "Well, I did my best"

Terry bought me a Yamaha keyboard for Christmas, and I just love it.

Well, technically, I bought it for myself and we said it would be from her, but the result is the same.

Here's the thing, though: I can't play the piano. I mean, I can figure out simple tunes with my right hand. But actual two-handed songs with chords and such? It's not happening.

I lack the talent, the patience, and the finger length to do it. Plus, bass clef and I simply don't get along.

I have several Facebook friends who are wonderfully talented piano players. I admire (and envy) them. I will never be able to match them.

I mention all of this as context for the personal triumph that is teaching myself to play Beethoven's "Für Elise," a song that requires the use of both the left and right hands.

Now, when I say "teaching myself to play," you have to understand that my definition of that is getting from the beginning of the song to the end without crashing and burning. It does not imply that I'm going to get everything right, nor indeed that the melody I play will really match the original.

The video above of me playing "Für Elise" is full of issues that would make a piano teacher cringe.

For one thing, I know my finger positioning is incorrect. And several times I hit the left hand keys too hard, giving the bass notes far more oomph than Herr Beethoven would have intended.

Then there's the unfortunate pause in the middle of the song as I temporarily lose my bearings and try to get my fingers on the correct keys.

And of course the left-hand note I completely miss near the end of the song.

I also freely admit that the little right-hand-only breaks in the middle of the tune do not match the original. Those for sure don't align with what Beethoven wrote. I'm pretty much just making those parts up.

In short, it's a mess.

But it's my mess, and I learned to do it all on my own.

I know I sound like an 8-year-old who just figured out how to multiply two-digit numbers, but I'm inordinately proud of this recording for two reasons:

(1) The tune is somewhat recognizable. There was no guarantee I was ever going to get to that point...again, especially when you consider my inability to play the left-hand part of almost any other piano song.

(2) I was satisfied with doing my personal best. Normally I can't stand being anything but perfect with any task to which I set my mind, but in this case I learned to be happy with my wonky version of an iconic classical melody (one that any semi-competent pianist can play with ease). I tried, and this is the result...mistakes and all.

I've been informed that I need to stop biting so deeply into my apples that I strew seeds around the house

I love apples. Gala apples. I've mentioned this fact before.

I love them so much that I often eat right into (and sometimes through) the core.

This is potentially hazardous for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it exposes the seeds and allows them to fall out of the apple and onto our floor.

You can tell I've recently been in any given part of the house simply by counting the number of apple seeds on the floor.

I don't leave them there intentionally, but sometimes (many times) they escape my notice.

They do not, however, escape Terry's notice.

She has told me that (a) I can leave a little apple on the core and throw it away when I'm finished, rather than biting into the very middle, and (b) In any case, I need to stop leaving seeds all over the place.

The latter instruction is perfectly reasonable. I'm trying my best to comply.

But leaving even a few molecules of sweet, tasty, Gala apple goodness on the core and tossing it away? That's blasphemy. I will do no such thing.

Marriage is about compromise. But I will not compromise my adoration for the greatest fruit God put on earth for our collective enjoyment.

At some point you have to draw the line.

Having the Atari 2600 back in my life has been a game changer

 

It felt like they were several years late to the party, but in 2023, Atari released an updated version of the 2600 system that revolutionized home video gaming back in the late 70s and early 80s.

The Atari 2600+ looks just like the original console that occupied so many living rooms, dens and basements 40+ years ago. And that is of course by design. Nostalgia is a big part of the way they market products like this.

I, like many others my age, purchased the 2600+ based solely on fond memories of playing the original when I was a kid. I didn't have to test it out to know whether it would be worth it.

I just knew I had to have one.

The new 2600+ makes a few necessary concessions to the modern world of home entertainment. Rather than having the old-fashioned "Game/TV" switcher box on the back of your television, for example, you just connect it to your flatscreen with a standard HDMI cable.

As you might suspect, it looks beautiful on a 65-inch high-def TV.

In terms of power, it doesn't come with anything you can plug into the wall. Instead you're given a USB cable, and it's assumed you have a wall plate or something similar into which you can plug the cable to draw electricity.

But the rest of it is essentially the same as it was when I got my first Atari 2600 for Christmas 1980. It has the same switches on the console, the same joystick and paddle controllers (the paddles had to be purchased separately), and the same cartridge slot, though this one accepts both 2600 and Atari 7800 games.

Actually, the cartridge experience itself is a bit different from what it used to be. The system comes with 10 original Atari 2600 games, but rather than giving you 10 different cartridges, they put everything onto one cartridge. You then access the different games by setting a series of DIP switches on the cartridge case.

It's a little clumsy, but it works. (Original cartridges from the early 80s still work on it, as well. I just bought a set of eight old-school Activision games like Freeway and Kaboom off of eBay and have been having a ball with those.)

One of the first things I did when I set up the system was to engage my son Jack in various games of Combat. Combat was the cartridge that came with most Atari 2600s back in the day, and it is extremely primitive by any modern video gaming standard.

Still, while the graphics and sound are sometimes awkward, there's no denying that Combat (like so many Atari games) is fun. Jack and I engaged in a few tank-to-tank battles, then we switched to controlling little airplanes that flew in and out of blocky, pixelated onscreen "clouds" while we tried to shoot each other out of the sky.

We had a blast. It was especially great playing with Jack, a typical 19-year-old XBox gamer for whom advanced gameplay and design are just expected. If he can enjoy Atari games that are nearly half a century old, anyone can.

Among the games I've been playing a lot myself are Adventure, Missile Command, Yar's Revenge, RealSports Baseball, and Breakout. All are testaments to the talents of old school Atari programmers who were challenged with making fun cartridges within the rigid confines of a low-power system like the 2600.

My skills aren't what they used to be, given how long it has been since I first played these games and the fact that maybe my reflexes aren't (and never can be) what they once were.

But that doesn't matter. Having an Atari again, so many years later, is a wonderful experience. Win or lose, I'm loving everything about it.

Some things are universally fun, regardless of the era in which they originated.

I'm thinking of taking up a new hobby: Napping

From early December through mid-February, I worked five days a week from home while my company's headquarters building underwent some long-overdue renovations.

I wrote here about the ups and downs of that experience. For me, someone who normally goes into the office every day regardless of company policy, it was mostly about the downs. I generally found myself too distracted to be as productive as I am when in the office.

But there was one thing I did enjoy about working from my upstairs office every day, and that was the opportunity to take 10- or 15 minute power naps.

I haven't been much of a napper since I was 3 years old, but I've come to appreciate the value of an occasional mid-afternoon snooze.

More than once during my extended work-from-home experience, I would walk away from my laptop and go straight into our spare room, where I would lay down on the bed and catch a little shuteye.

Invariably I would wake up refreshed and go right back to working, feeling much better for having grabbed those 40 winks.

I don't generally get enough sleep in the first place, especially on days when I go to the gym. If I get more than 7 hours in a given night, that's a rare treat.

The result is occasional mid-day fatigue that is best remedied with a nap.

The problem is that I don't usually want to nap, even when my body needs it. Being a task-driven, goal-oriented individual, I'm more about getting things done than I am about sleeping. Given the choice, I would rather knock something off my to-do list than nap.

But sometimes the temptation is too great, and like I said, I now understand the pleasures of a quick 2pm doze to energize myself for the rest of the work day.

Now that I'm back in the office full time, though, it simply doesn't happen like it did before. At least not on weekdays.

Thus, I'm going to make playing the saxophone and napping my official weekend hobbies.

Eventually I hope to get good enough to do both at the same time.

Yes, Ring camera, I know there's a person at my back door because it's me...again

Do you have one of those Ring doorbell camera thingies? The ones that show you who's at your door or walking up your driveway?

Or, depending on how you have it set and the direction it's pointing, when a squirrel runs by or a bee lands on a flower 100 yards away?

We just got a Ring last month. Actually we've had it for quite a while, but it was only recently that my daughter Elissa and her boyfriend Mark came over and installed it for us.

It's not that the Ring is especially difficult to set up, but there was some mechanical work involved, and well...as we've established, it's better if you don't give me tools of any kind.

It helps, too, that Mark is very mechanically inclined. I wasn't there when he got the Ring doorbells mounted outside our front and back doors, but he probably did it in less time than it would have taken me to pull everything out of the package.

He also cooks well and is generous with his time when it comes to helping others. It's disgusting.

Anyway, the Ring has worked out fine, but at first it was more of an annoyance than anything else. It's designed to detect motion and to tell you when a person is approaching your home or a package has been dropped on your porch.

Which sounds great except for the fact that, 99% of the time, the people approaching (or leaving) our house are us.

For days after the Rings went up, this sequence repeated itself:

I would walk out the door, my Apple Watch would vibrate, and I would immediately look at it, only to find a small photo of myself with a notification reading, "There is a Person at your Back Door."

YES, I KNOW, THAT PERSON IS ME.

If I was headed to, say, our mailbox, my watch would again vibrate seconds later. And I would again check it, forgetting that it was going to be another Ring notification, this one telling me, "There is a Person at your Front Door" as I came into range of the front camera.

This has happened over and over, and I have yet to try and figure out how to change the motion sensitivity of the cameras. Eventually I might just turn off the notifications altogether.

Which largely defeats the purpose of having a Ring camera.

But at least I will maintain my sanity.

ATTENTION POTENTIAL INTRUDERS: Yes, there's a Ring camera there, but trust me: I'm not checking it. You're free to enter our home as you please. And don't hesitate to rip the Ring camera off the door frame and take it with you.

Having the "mean" teacher can sometimes be the best thing

 

The woman pictured above is Ruth Schwarzenberg, my teacher for both 2nd and 6th grades at Mapledale Elementary School.

Having a teacher twice in the elementary grades is probably not uncommon. But having the same teacher four years apart (especially after those highly transformative years between 2nd and 6th grade) likely is.

The first time I had Mrs. Schwarzenberg in 2nd grade was, quite frankly, a jarring experience. To that point, my school teachers had been easygoing women, both of whom were commonly described as "nice." Mrs. Janes (kindergarten) and Mrs. Lucci (1st grade) were big reasons why I had really grown to love school.

But then I got to 2nd grade with Mrs. Schwarzenberg, and let me tell you, the days of sunshine and roses ended in a hurry. Most kids described her as "mean," though in retrospect, she was really just strict.

And by that point (again, in retrospect), I needed a good dose of strict. I was used to getting top grades and being a high achiever, but somewhere along the way, you have to realize that you're not going to get rewarded and praised for absolutely everything.

And you have to be pushed to be even better.

Mrs. Schwarzenberg did that for me, but I didn't know how to deal with her at the time. I was honestly afraid of her, and it was a relief when I got sick and could stay home from school from time to time.

It was only later that I came to realize how much I learned in 2nd grade, and how much I gained in maturity that year. I would never have credited Mrs. Schwarzenberg with any of that, though now I do.

When I had her again in 6th grade, our relationship had changed. It felt like she wasn't as strict with us that year, but now I realize she probably was (maybe even more so). The difference was that I was older, at least a tad wiser, and much better positioned to engage with and learn from her.

For years I would tell people that Mrs. Schwarzenberg was better suited teaching older kids than younger ones, but now I think she was probably equally effective with both. I just hadn't encountered anything like her as a 7- and 8-year-old second-grader, and it took time to adjust.

You can only be the A+, never-get-in-trouble Golden Child for so long. Like I said, at some point, you need someone to push you to the next level.

And boy, did Mrs. Schwarzenberg push.

She passed away in 2012. The last time I talked with her was probably in 1988, my senior year of high school, when I performed with our jazz band for Wickliffe Elementary School students and she was still there teaching. I can't remember what I said to her, but I hope I thanked her for everything she had done for me.

Even at age 18 I realized the positive influence the "mean" teacher can have.

My family refers to me as the Noo Noo...and I'm not sure it's a compliment

(NOTE: This post originally appeared here on the blog nine years ago on February 12, 2016. I remain the family Noo Noo.)

I know a lot of people are weirded out by the Teletubbies, the British kids TV show starring Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po. And rightly so. They're creepy, no doubt about that. They're meant to be innocent and fun, but whoever created them was clearly under the influence of a substance of questionable legality.

One of the minor characters on the Teletubbies is a little thing called Noo Noo. Or "The" Noo Noo. I'm not sure which. And I do mean "thing," by the way, because that's what Noo Noo is. It's a little living vacuum cleaner that goes around cleaning up messes. The Teletubbies at least speak, even though it's gibberish. Noo Noo just rolls around making sucking and slurping noises.

Noo Noo's sole purpose in life is to clean, but he/she/it sometimes takes things too far, as in this video:

This, I freely admit, is me. I am Noo Noo, and Noo Noo is me. When I am home, I take it on myself to clean up anything and everything: Stuff on the floor, the dishes, various messes, etc.

I will also freely admit that sometimes I clean up stuff that is not at all intended to be cleaned up.

Like, for example, there will be a glass of water on the kitchen table, and my instinct is to remove it before one of the cats knocks it over. But the person who owns the glass of water has just stepped out of the room and their cold beverage has been dumped in the sink and the glass deposited in the dishwasher. All in the space of 17 seconds while they were gone.

My bad.

On Christmas morning, I have one primary job: I walk around with a garbage bag and collect all wrapping paper, discarded bows, tissue, packaging, etc. If you don't proactively give me the paper you tear off a gift, I will come over to you and snatch it. THERE WILL BE NO MESSES ON CHRISTMAS MORNING, DO YOU HEAR ME? NO MESSES!

I don't mean to annoy anyone, but I really, really prefer having a clean house whenever I can. It makes me happier. And if you're someone whose mess-making detracts from the cleanliness of the house, I will rectify the situation post-haste.

Compare me to a Teletubbies character if you must. I proudly wear the Noo Noo badge.`

For someone who grew up in a family of card players, I don't play a lot of card games

Image downloaded from Wikipedia. By J Wynia from Minneapolis, United States - Afternoon cribbage on the patio., CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=102255562

When I was a kid, any time we held a Tennant family reunion, my dad would inevitably end up at a table with some combination of his brothers (he had a bunch of them) playing a game called Oh Hell.

Oh Hell was/is one of the large genre of trick-taking card games in which you look at your hand and decide how many "tricks" you can take based on the strength of your cards. In that sense, I think it's a lot like Euchre or Whist.

I never understand the game when I was little, but even I could see how much fun the brothers would have playing, talking, making fun of one another, and generally enjoying each other's company.

When he wasn't playing Oh Hell, my dad would sit in our kitchen for hours on end playing solitaire. As I've mentioned before, the sound of Dad shuffling the cards on a Saturday morning was in some ways the soundtrack of my youth.

It's not that I dislike card games – far from it – but I don't think I got the card playing gene. I'm not a poker guy, and I've never once played any sort of card-based table game in a casino.

We do play cribbage in our family, though, which I like a lot. I don't win all that often, but it's fun. If you don't know cribbage, it's the game pictured in the image at the top of today's post.

When my kids were little, I also played a lot of War and Go Fish with them.

And that's about it. I never learned Gin Rummy, Pinochle, Bridge, Hearts, Spades or any of the countless other games of which Americans (particularly of my generation and before) seem to be so fond. Or if I did learn any of them, I don't remember.

I have a feeling card games may eventually go the way of the horse and buggy, or at least "manual" card games will. Digital versions are likely to live on on our phones and other devices.

But even I (a playing card dabbler at best) know there's no cyber equivalent of a freshly opened pack of cards dealt around a table of friends and family intent on beating one another...and loving one another just the same.

Here's what I will tell you about my wife after 39 years of being together

For the record, those are shadows behind my head. I did not in fact have a mullet for our wedding. Or any time before or since.

Some years ago, I remember being in our kitchen with Terry and an older woman who was at our house for some sort of business reason. Maybe something to do with insurance? Or a mortgage refinance? I can't recall, but I know she was there because we had to sign some papers.

Anyway, at one point, this woman said to me, "Your wife has left the room twice, and both times when she came back, your eyes lit up. When she talks, you look right at her. I thought that was lovely."

I didn't realize I did either of those things, but I suppose she was right. The fact is, I really, really like being around Mrs. Terry Tennant. I always have.

Well, since 1986, anyway. That's when we first started dating.

When you're in a relationship that's pushing four decades (or five, six, seven or more), you don't spend every day telling the other person how wonderful they are. It's just kind of understood.

Truth be told, our days are spent laughing and making fun of each other more than anything else. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And that's all you need to know. I could go on and on here telling you all of the great things about Terry, but that's enough right there. I love that she's there when I wake up in the morning and there when I go to bed at night.

And all of the in between, of course.

It's a bonus that she tolerates me.

Happy Valentine's Day to Terry T., and to everyone out there who is blessed to have a Someone in their lives.

Whether or not we feel we deserve it.

Who else has had a terrifying dream about Abraham Lincoln? Just me?

 

President Lincoln didn't look like this in my dream,
but he might as well have.

Today is the 216th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, which reminds me of the time I thought he was going to kill me.

Well, to be clear, I was dreaming when this happened, which makes sense considering President Lincoln died 104 years before I was even born. Nonetheless, I was pretty sure the 16th president of the United States was out to get me.

I must have been 8 or 9 years old when I had this dream. And I seem to remember it being one of those vivid, right-before-you-wake-up dreams.

The only thing I remember from it is that I was lying in my bed and Abraham Lincoln opened my bedroom door and peeked in.

That was it. Just Honest Abe cracking open up the door, leaning in, and staring at me for a few seconds before closing the door and leaving. Presumably to go back to his full-time job of winning the Civil War or whatever.

It was not an especially terrifying sequence, other than the whole thing of Lincoln being dead, but I was paralyzed with fear.

I immediately woke up and found myself with a fast-beating heart and taking very deep breaths.

Understand, this was not some demon version of Abraham Lincoln like the image at the top of today's post. This was normal, bearded Abraham Lincoln in his black frock coat wearing his trademark stovepipe hat.

Unless you lived in the Confederate States of America in the 1860s and were fed a stream of propaganda about Lincoln being Satan in the flesh, you are not inclined to be afraid of be-hatted President Lincoln.

But I was. And, if I'm being honest, I still am, somewhat.

For what it's worth, around that same time of my life, I also remember laying in my bed in fright one early morning because of a repeated sound coming from the hallway outside my bedroom door. Over and over again I heard this strange metallic sound, like a thin wire being plucked.

Once I had worked up sufficient courage, I sprinted from my bed and into the safety of my parents' room to tell them about the ghostly sound in the hallway.

Mom got out of bed, went out to the hallway, and informed me the sound was just our smoke alarm signaling that its battery was low.

It was not, in fact, President Lincoln or one of his hell minions coming to kill me.

I was admittedly neither the bravest nor the smartest child you'll ever meet.

The shock of nice weather in the middle of a Great Lakes winter

Terry and I have made a habit of traveling to Florida in February and March to visit our son Jared and his girlfriend Lyndsey. We just did it last week (Terry is still down there, as a matter of fact).

This is usually a pretty good time to get out of Northeast Ohio with its wind, snow and ice and spend some time in St. Petersburg with its sunshine, blue skies and...more sunshine. And this trip was no different, as temperatures reached about 80 degrees every day I was there.

When we arrived at the Tampa/St. Pete airport on Thursday and went outside to wait for Jared to pick us up, I immediately felt like I always feel when I fly to a warm place in the middle of winter: Pale, haggard, bloated, and more than a little disconcerted.

It always takes me a day or so to adjust to wearing shorts and a t-shirt outdoors.

On Saturday, Terry and I took a short morning walk with Jared around a nearby lake. (Also on the walk was Jared and Lyndsey's cat Salem, whom Jared carried in a little kitty container hung around his neck.) The conditions were perfect, with low humidity and temperatures right around 70 degrees.

It was so nice that I started wondering – as I have before – what it would be like to live in a place like Florida. A place where it rarely snows. A place where the sun doesn't disappear for weeks at a time. A place where outdoor activities are in play year-round.

From time to time, Terry and I have mused over the idea of someday moving south, or at least spending significant time there. It wouldn't happen for another decade, if at all, but the thought never quite leaves our minds.

Then I begin to consider the drawbacks. And there are several.

For one thing, it may hardly ever snow down there, but hurricanes and tropical storms are a thing. While Tampa/St. Pete doesn't get hit as often as other areas of Florida do, Hurricane Milton did force Jared and Lyndsey to evacuate south to Miami last fall.

Then there's the day-to-day weather. Not the winter weather, the summer weather. It gets hot in June, July, August and September. Really hot. Hot and humid. To the point that you don't really want to be outside.

There's also the simple fact that it isn't home. Having lived in one city and one city only, I have deep roots in my hometown. I know where things are located. I know lots of people. I understand how things work around here.

Would it be worth turning our whole world upside down in exchange for more pleasant winter and spring days? I don't know. I really don't.

Right now, it all depends on when you ask me. At the moment, having just spent time outside with Jack shoveling heavy, icy snow off our driveway, I'm feeling very pro-Florida. In a couple of months when it starts to warm up around here? Maybe not.

To be continued...

Zillow is great for stalking houses in which you used to live

I grew up here.

Including the house Terry and I currently own, I've only lived in three places my entire life.

And all three of those places are in the same city.

I grew up at good old 1807 Harding Drive, living there from birth through age 22. Then I moved into 1913 East 300th Street, our first house after we got married. We lived there for 11 years before moving up here to Miller Avenue in beautiful Wickliffe Heights.

For my local friends, it should be noted that while "Wickliffe Heights" is not a true political entity, it is the real name of the subdivision on and around Rockefeller Road in the southern part of the city. It even says "Wickliffe Heights" on our house deed.

Anyway, the point is, there was a time not long ago when, once you moved out of a house, your chances of ever seeing the inside of it again were pretty slim. You would have had to sell it to someone you know, or at least someone who was willing to let you back in if you would randomly swing by years later.

Nowadays, however, real estate listings are easily accessible online, and they often include copious photos of the inside of the house.

Take the Zillow.com listing for 1807 Harding, for instance. While it doesn't contain a "copious" number of photos, there are still five shots of the interior of the house that bring back a flood of memories.

There's the living room with the big front window looking out onto the porch. The one and only bathroom in a house that at one time contained six of us. The small but peaceful fenced-in backyard.

I love being able to look at these images whenever I want. My parents moved into that house 62 years ago this month, and it still holds considerable sentimental value.

The Zillow listing for 1913 East 300th offers much more in the way of photos, many of which reveal significant upgrades to the house since we moved out in 2003.

The enclosed front porch is familiar enough, but that deck in the backyard? Yeah, we didn't put that in.

Nor did we rip out the island in the kitchen or make the dining room look so fancy.

(In our defense, we spent most of our 300th Street years having and raising babies. We were a bit preoccupied.)

This shot of the kitchen?

You could have shown me that photo and asked if it looked familiar, and I would have said no. I spent more than a decade eating breakfasts and washing dishes in that room, but it's almost unrecognizable to me 20+ years later.

They say you can't go home again, and that's usually true. But you can at least see what home looks like now, which I think is pretty cool.

I forego a comfortable sleeping position so that our cat Molly can slumber peacefully on our bed

 

Having grown up a dog owner, I find cats to be very quirky. Or at least the ones we have are.

Take our kitty Molly, also known as "Fat Molly," "Floofy Molly," "Fat Floofy," or any number of other names that describe her two defining physical characteristics:

• She is somewhat obese.
• She is also a longhaired feline, with an emphasis on "long."

Molly is, like the cat in the stock photo above, colored black and white. But she's much larger than the cat pictured there, which means she tends to take up a considerable amount of room wherever she decides to park herself.

This is a significant fact for me, because as it turns out, Molly often likes to sleep near me.

What happens is that Terry and I will get into bed and spend a few minutes scrolling on our phones before turning out the light (which I realize you're not supposed to do, but I never seem to have much trouble falling asleep). Molly will often jump onto the bed and plop herself right on top of me as we do this.

She will then proceed to knead my belly with her front paws while suckling the bedspread, as if she were a kitten nursing from her mother.

We got Molly when she was very small, and the assumption has always been that she was separated from her mom much too early and has thus carried mommy issues with her to this day.

Anyway, getting to one of Molly's quirks, once we turn out the light, she will immediately jump from the bed and leave the room. I don't know why she does this, but at some point during the night she usually returns and jumps back onto my side of the bed.

Terry says she often wakes up in the middle of the night and sees me with my legs hanging off the side of the bed so as not to disturb Molly, who is sleeping where my feet would normally be.

I don't do this consciously, but apparently it's important to me that any cat who wants to sleep on or next to me not be disturbed.

Which is fine except for the fact that it diminishes the quality of my own sleep somewhat. I would very likely sleep better if I kept my legs under the covers with my body straight, rather than curled almost in an "L" shape because God forbid I nudge Molly and she leaves.

That cat really should appreciate everything I do for her, which includes not only accommodating her preferred sleeping spot but also giving her fresh food and water every day and cleaning up the litter boxes after her. Then there are the pets I give her throughout the day along with occasional tasty food scraps from the dinner table.

She loves me, I know, but I'll be honest and say I still don't think Ms. Chonks is being sufficiently grateful for all of this.

Stop yelling at sports officials (says the guy who used to yell at sports officials)

There is a story that comes up regularly in our family about the time my son Jared was playing high school soccer and got run over (like, literally run over) by a member of the opposing team.

Jared had fallen and was down on the field, and this kid – I want to say "this punk," but I'll restrain myself – just ran right up his back and stepped on his head as if Jared was part of the turf.

It was reckless, dangerous and blatantly unsportsmanlike, yet no foul was called on the play. The athletic trainer came out and tended to Jared, then escorted him off the field to rest and recover.

I was livid about the whole thing, especially about the fact that there would be no consequences for the kid's actions. So I started yelling some not-so-nice things at the officiating crew from my seat in the stands.

Just as I thought I had gotten it out of my system and started to sit back down, I quickly stood back up and aimed a very unkind remark at the center referee, who was somewhat heftier than soccer officials normally are.

(Because we're friends, I will tell you that my exact words to him were, "And lay off the donuts!" I will also tell you that I was immediately embarrassed and ashamed I said it, though it delighted our friends the Pugh family to no end. It still gets brought up whenever we see them.)

I mention that story to establish the fact that I am a hypocrite when I tell you we all need to stop yelling at officials, especially those working youth and high school games. I'm not in a position to make this demand of you.

Yet I'm doing it anyway because I hear people do it all the time when I'm working as a public address announcer at various local schools.

There was a game recently at my home school of Wickliffe involving an opponent whose fans are generally very nice and pleasant, but that always seems to have a contingent of screamers. That obnoxiously vocal minority was horrible to the three referees working our boys basketball game.

Just as I was embarrassed by my own comments years earlier, I was embarrassed for them. They set a bad example for the kids in the crowd, and they represented their school and community poorly.

They also cast themselves as a big part of the problem when it comes to why we have such a shortage of officials to work youth and scholastic sports in this country. Loudmouth parents/fans make it an entirely unappealing experience.

What people like me and like them fail to realize is that the job of a sports official is hard. It's insanely difficult to catch every infraction and to find the right balance between keeping athletes safe and making sure they as referees are not disrupting the flow of the game.

You wouldn't be good at it, no matter how highly you think of yourself.

So – and I say this as politely as possible and with no more conviction than when I said it to myself after the Jared soccer incident – you need to shut up. Seriously, don't make things worse. Just keep your mouth closed.

You won't change the call, but you almost certainly will be a shameful example for everyone around you. And you'll make it less likely that anyone with any common sense will ever want to become an official.

Thank you for understanding, and for restricting your comments only to those words that positively support your team.

And even if you're not a hefty soccer official, it's not a bad idea to lay off the donuts every once in a while, either.

We go to a lot of hockey games, often more for connections with family and friends than the actual hockey

We have been full season ticket holders for all 18 seasons the Cleveland Monsters hockey team has existed.

While the Monsters are a minor league team (playing in the American Hockey League, which in baseball terms is equivalent to the Class AAA level), they play in a major league facility in Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, and they put on a major league game presentation.

Even when the team itself isn't playing so well, the experience of going to the games is still fun.

What I've come to find out during these 18 seasons, though, is that while the hockey game is the focus, the benefit has a lot more to do with human relations than anything else.

For one thing, it has given Terry and me plenty of one-on-one time with our kids. We've always had two season tickets, so for years it was usually the two of us going together or one of us plus a child.

Nowadays, with the kids all grown, they often take the tickets themselves and attend with their significant other or a friend.

Still, we have lots of great memories of attending those games and cheering on the Monsters together.

Beyond our family, we've also bonded with the great group of fellow season ticket holders (officially "Monsters Hockey Club members") who sit around us in section C108.

Right next to us is Mike, a retired anesthesia tech who is always quick to laugh and takes genuine interest in what's going on with our family.

Behind us are Dave and Karen. Dave is a retired postal worker, while Karen is an artist whose talent amazes me. Like me, Dave is a fountain of random (and generally not entirely useful) knowledge, and we often trade baseball trivia questions while watching the hockey game.

To Mike's left is Perry, one of the most genuinely nice and hilarious people you will ever meet. Perry survived a medical scare a few years ago, and we're all grateful to have him with us on game nights.

In front of us are Anthony and his family, who like us have used Monsters games as fun nights out together over the years. To their right are Scott and Dart. Scott spends a lot of time in Las Vegas these days, so we don't see him as much as used to, but Dart is a regular and a graduate of Brown University, so he's both smart AND funny.

I only see these people at hockey games, but it's like we're old friends. Anyone who has ever been a long-term season ticket holder for any sport knows what I'm talking about.

Whether or not the Monsters win on a given night, the time spent with family and friends is always a victory regardless.

Three random things I can do, but probably not as well as you

(1) I can snap my fingers, but I use the wrong ones
When you snap your fingers, you probably use your thumb and either your ring or middle finger. I don't. I use my thumb and my first/index finger. This is partly because I have short, stubby fingers, and neither the ring nor the middle finger reaches well enough to the thumb to get a good pop. Plus neither one "feels" right, whereas using my index finger does. So I go with what (at least partially) works.

(2) I can whistle with just my mouth, but I can't do that loud whistle people do with their fingers
Again, something to do with my fingers fails me. I can whistle pretty well through my teeth or using only my lips. But that thing some people do when they stick their fingers in their mouth and produce a loud, piercing whistle? Can't do it. Never understood it. Not even sure how it's supposed to work.

(3) I can back into a parking space, but rarely am I perfectly straight
I don't know why it is, but when I back into a parking space and think I'm far enough back and positioned perfectly between the lines, I almost never am. I'll get out, look at the car and realize I'm turned slightly to the left or the right. Again, not sure why, but I lack the ability to judge my car's true orientation while I'm sitting in the driver's seat. And I'm the one who has largely taught each of our kids to drive, which does not bode well for them.

Our youngest is n-n-n-n-n-nineteen today

If you recognized the reference to Paul Hardcastle's song "19" in the headline, you're either hardcore Gen X or a big fan of mid-80s electro pop. Or both. Nice job.

Why are we talking about the number 19? Because our youngest, "little" Jack, turns that age today. That photo of us above was taken last summer when we visited Toronto.

Jack is still at a point in life where every birthday is a milestone, regardless of whether it brings new legal privileges. Most kids when they hit 19 come to the startling realization that they've entered the home stretch of their teen years, and it can be jarring.

What they don't realize, of course, is that it sometimes affects their parents even more. Terry and I have had a nonstop string of teenagers in our family since 2007. This time next year, they will all be in their 20s and 30s.

Time, in addition to being undefeated, is also unstoppable.

I love having Jack living at home with us. He's funny, extremely smart, persevering, and one of the most likeable people you'll ever meet. He makes me laugh at least twice a day, and I enjoy watching him navigate the process of becoming an adult. He's doing great (with a little help from Mom and Dad from time to time).

Happy birthday, Jackie T. I hope you have the best time being n-n-n-n-n-nineteen.

Three hilarious things my mom did that make me miss her

That's my mom with Jared and me at Jared's graduation party, 2017.

My mother was one of the sweetest, funniest, most genuine people you would ever want to meet. Everyone loved her, from her kids and grandkids to the many people for whom she sewed during her 57 years living in Wickliffe.

She also had a tendency to make the occasional verbal gaffe, which only served to make us love her that much more.

This is just off the top of my head:

• One time she was introduced to a guy named Stan Barwidi. Upon being told his name, Mom very politely said, "Well hello, Stanbar!" She apparently thought his name was "Stanbar Widi." (There was also the time she mixed up another guy's name, but I don't know whether his real name was Al Filidoro and she called him "Phil Alodora" or the other way around. Either way, it was a classic Mom move.)
  
  
• In the same vein, she once referred to the Paul Simon song "Kodachrome" as "Polaroid." Close. Sort of.
  
  
• Then there was the occasion when my sister Judi had a friend, Larry Mathay, come to our house. Larry arrived at our front door, at which point our dog Trixie started barking loudly. Coming into the living room to let him in – probably while cooking dinner and trying to take care of toddler me – Mom tried to diffuse the noisy chaos by shouting, "Larry, shut up! Trixie, sit down!" As you might suspect, she meant it the other way around.

That's not to mention the time she whacked me in the head with a loaf of Italian bread when I wouldn't stop teasing my little nephew Mark, or when she couldn't understand a friend's thick Southern accent and tried repeatedly (and hilariously) to decipher what the woman was saying.

Oh Mom, I wish you were still around.

I am simply no good at being sick

I don't know what the AI Blog Post Image Generator
did to this guy's right eye...

Last month I was sidelined for close to a week with some sort of bug. Not sure if it was bacterial or viral or what, but I generally felt crummy, spent a few days with heavy congestion, coughed a lot near the end of it, and passed my days sitting around gaining weight and being bored.

And that, you see, was the problem. Whereas many people I know would welcome the excuse to take it easy and watch TV, I can't stand it. I am the world's worst relaxer. I much prefer to be on the go, getting stuff done and being active.

My patience wears thin very quickly on those occasions when I come down with something. After a day or two I end up annoyed that I'm still sick. Which I realize is unrealistic, BUT I HAVE NO TIME TO BE SICK.

I don't become sterotypically pathetic and whiny like a lot of men do when they get sick. I become angry and whiny. Why is this happening to me? Why?? Why now?? This cold or flu or whatever it is needs to go away RIGHT NOW.

But of course it never goes away until it chooses to go away. Which is usually days later than I would have preferred.

Last month's sickness (again, whatever it was) spanned a weekend, and I spent that Saturday on the couch with Cheddar the cat on my lap watching "Forrest Gump," "Apollo 13," a few episodes of "Law and Order: SVU," and portions of the Army-Navy football game.

Sounds like a nice day, right?

I hated it. Hated almost every minute of it. I was antsy the whole time, but I couldn't deny that I felt much better staying on the couch than I would have if I had gotten up and tried to do household chores or whatever.

The previous evening I had served as the PA announcer at our local high school for a girls basketball game, which in retrospect was not smart. My voice was cracking from the start, and by the end of the game it had devolved into a barely discernable rasp.

I should have called off.

But calling off would have meant acknowledging that I was sick, and I didn't want to be sick, so I simply ignored reality and risked passing my nasty germs on to others in attendance.

Which was selfish and dumb.

Here's the thing: One day I will die, and so will you. As Sally Field says in "Forrest Gump," death is just a part of life. When it happens, I pray it will be quick and easy, because I lack the mental fortitude to lay in a hospital bed declining for weeks or months on end.

It's more likely I will die in our bathroom, having just cleaned the sink and toilet.

But at least I'll die happy.

That time I was invited to the presidential inauguration and didn't go (though I WAS on the Channel 8 news)

This is what the set of the WJW Cleveland newscast looked like in 1977 when they aired a little segment about me.

(NOTE: This post originally ran on the blog on October 7, 2021. With today being presidential Inauguration Day here in the U.S., I thought it was a good time to bring it back.)

One day in 1976, I walked into the living room and announced that I was bored.

My dad, knowing the kinds of things that interested nearly-seven-year-old me, suggested I write a letter to a famous person like the president.

I was intrigued by this idea, but I did him one better (or thought I did): Rather than writing to President Ford, I would write to Gov. Jimmy Carter, who was running for the presidency against Ford.

I don't remember what I wrote, but whatever it was, I'm sure it was done in pencil on one of the yellow legal pads I kept in my room.

(You may wonder why a six-year-old had yellow legal pads. I do, too. It was a long time ago.)

Anyway, I remember getting some sort of form letter response a month later from Gov. Carter, who went on to win the election by a fairly narrow margin.

That was enough for me. I thought it was pretty cool.

But then, in early January of '77, a large envelope showed up at our house. I think it came via registered mail. It was an invitation to President-Elect Carter's inauguration in Washington, D.C.

At the time I don't think I understood the significance of it. All I knew is that we weren't going to attend.

I don't remember why this decision was made, but I think it had something to do with the fact that we would have had to supply our own transportation and would have been small faces in a crowd of many thousands.

There may also have been something to the fact that both of my parents were Republicans, and they wouldn't necessarily have been thrilled to go and celebrate the inauguration of a Democratic president.

Whatever the reason, I don't remember being too put out.

Fast forward a couple of weeks to mid-January. I'm in gym class at Mapledale Elementary School, where I'm a first-grader. A local TV news crew shows up and talks to my gym teacher. Then they start walking in my direction.

It turns out they're there to film me. I am incredibly confused by this, though the on-air reporter, legendary Cleveland television newsman Neil Zurcher (who just recently passed away), explains it's because I received a personal invitation to the presidential inauguration.

They get me on camera doing some rudimentary tumbling, as we were in the midst of a gymnastics unit. Then we go to our classroom, where I sit at my desk and they interview me. I don't remember any of the questions or any of my answers.

They tell me it's going to air as part of the 6 o'clock news on WJW Channel 8, which is exciting.

However, at some point that day it started snowing. And it kept on snowing. All day. Lots of snow. A real blizzard (almost exactly one year before the epic Cleveland Blizzard of 1978).

As a result, all planned stories for that 6 o'clock newscast are shunted aside in favor of weather-related coverage.

Somehow we find out that my piece will now probably air during the 11pm news later that evening. I think my sister Judi was the one who called the station to get this update (as I recall, she was also the one who called them about me in the first place).

At that time of my life, I went to bed every night at 9pm, almost without exception. I rarely stayed up until 11.

I remember laying down that evening on the couch, intending to stay awake until the news came on. But I don't think I even made it to 10:30.

The next thing I knew, my mom was shaking me awake. She pointed my attention to the TV, where I saw myself talking. I was still half-asleep and missed most of the segment.

This was, you will note, a few years before the VCR era began, so we had no way of capturing the moment. There is no existing record of this interview, which is too bad.

I would like to see myself doing that somersault in gym class.

Sometimes the kids come home when they're sick and it's just like the old days

It should be noted that my sick daughter looked far better than this virtual woman cooked up by the AI Blog Post Image Generator.

Last month my daughter Melanie woke up with a 103-degree fever, chills and a generally rotten sick feeling. She texted Terry, who went and picked her up and took her to the urgent care.

After being diagnosed with an unknown virus, Mel came to our house and spent the rest of the day (and night, and much of the next two days) on our couch.

Terry waited on her and made her feel as comfortable as possible. I felt so bad for Mel, but I'll admit it was nice having her around.

I was working from home, and at one point in the afternoon I came downstairs from my office to find both Melanie and Terry fast asleep on the couch. The last time that happened was probably 2001 when Mel was a baby and an exhausted Terry would nurse her there.

It was a very sweet and nostalgic scene.

You want your kids to grow up and move out and be independent, but you inevitably miss them when they do.

So these little visits – even if they result from less-than-ideal circumstances – are kind of nice.

And the best part? Mel got better, and the only person who caught whatever she had was me. (Well, Terry eventually got sick and blamed me, so maybe this wasn't "the best part" for her.)

A win-win for Jack, at least.

When the only thing separating you from a fun hobby is motivation and effort

Until recently when I sold them, I owned three saxophones: an alto, a baritone, and a 100-year-old C melody. I kept them in my office/computer/music room upstairs.

I loved playing them, but I never actually did.

I also have a telescope in our basement storage room that I've used to observe the craters of the moon, the rings of Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter. I'm always amazed at what I see through the viewfinder, but I haven't brought it out in probably two years.

This is not to mention the shelves full of books I don't read or the running gear that sits unused in my closet because all I do these days exercise-wise is lift weights and walk.

What unites all of these activities is the fact that (a) I enjoy them, and (b) I never seem to do them.

And the only reason I don't do them is because I can never seem to drum up the motivation.

Not that any of them requires extraordinary motivation and effort. The worst thing with the saxophones, for example, was getting them out of the case, putting them together, and warming them up so I could play music.

This isn't difficult, but it was apparently a barrier to entry for me because whenever I thought about playing, I would instead decide that another game of solitaire on my phone was preferable to, you know, actually walking up the stairs and pulling out one of my horns.

The telescope is even easier to use. Just bring it up from the storage room, go out in the driveway and point it at the sky. I know how to find stuff from there, but...well, I'm on the couch petting the cat, you see, and that's a whole lot easier.

I'm realizing that life would be more fun if I could force myself to give the slightest effort whenever I'm not working or engaged in some household chore.

Is this because I'm 55 years old? Am I stuck in some sort of rut? Or has my iPhone turned me into a slug?

The answer is probably yes to all three.

Here's the good news, though: I'm very close to buying myself a nice, intermediate-level alto sax from my instrument repair and sales guy, Jon-O. And when I do, I plan to play it regularly. At least once a week.

Really, I will.

Of course, the saxophone requires a lot of air and mental energy, neither of which my phone's Yahtzee app requires of me, so...you know...maybe it's still kind of a toss-up.

In the bleak Ohio midwinter

It has been mentioned here (more than once) that my wife and I have lived in one city our whole lives.

We've traveled to many places, but we've never really wanted to live anywhere else.

Still, no place is perfect, and Northeast Ohio has its flaws. Like the weather, for instance.

More to the point, the weather in November through March (and some years October through April).

We live a few miles away from Lake Erie and are often recipients of the dreaded "lake-effect snow." Our town is right on the edge of the Snow Belt, meaning that if Downtown Cleveland gets 2 inches of snow, we are likely to 6 or more.

And even when the snow isn't piling up, it's still unfailingly gray, dreary and cold this time of year.

Indeed, January is not Wickliffe, Ohio's best moment, and we're entering the heart of it. These coming few weeks are historically some of the worst our area has to offer, weather-wise.

So we collectively grit our teeth and get through it.,

The reward is a beautiful late spring and summer that, to me anyway, is unlike anything you'll experience elsewhere. It's more than enough of a payoff for the unchanging bleakness of the winter months.

But we have a long way to go before that comes, so onward we push.

Not that it's all misery around here in January, February and March, mind you. Our basketball team is pretty good right now, as is our minor league hockey team.

And if you're into skiing or other outdoor winter sports, you could do worse than Northeast Ohio.

I just...well, the older I get, the less patience I have with Old Man Winter.

He needs to get his butt in gear and shuffle on out of here so that this "sunshine" we hear about from our friends to the south is once again less myth and more reality.

My brother-in-law's birthday reminds me of a time when slow-pitch softball was all the rage

You can't really see it, I know, but when I was with the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1991, I wrote this feature story about my brother-in-law Jess and some of his longtime softball buddies. Jess is the guy standing in the very middle of that group of seven players.

Today is my brother-in-law Jess' birthday. He was married to my oldest sister Judi from 1972 until she died very unexpectedly in 2009. I was only 2 at the time of their wedding, so Jess has always seemed a part of my life.

Jess was an accomplished athlete at Benedictine High School, and he kept his sports career going through the 1970s and 80s and into the 90s as a slow-pitch softball player in the Cleveland area.

You wouldn't know it nowadays, given the relatively low participation numbers, but when I was growing up, softball was a thing. Every city had a league, and many people played on multiple teams.

When I started my career as a newspaper sports writer in the early 90s, my colleague Scott Kendrick and I were put in charge of The News-Herald's weekly slow-pitch softball coverage. This section took up several pages in the Saturday paper, and I was once told it accounted for hundreds – maybe 1,000 or more – in extra copies of the newspaper sold.

People loved seeing their names and their friends' names in the statistics we would publish. We also printed league standings, a weekly ranking of the top area teams (the "Sweet 16"), and a notes column that Scott and I co-wrote.

We in the newsroom also played the game ourselves. Because we worked weird night shifts, though, we weren't available to play in the regular city leagues, which scheduled most of their games on weekday evenings.

Instead, we played in the Ohio Day Men's League, which as I recall had its games on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. As you might imagine, the teams were made up of guys who did night work...policemen, fire fighters, third-shift factory workers, etc.

And us.

I always looked forward to those weekday morning games, which were relatively early (9:30 and 10:30am) for those of us who had stayed in the newsroom until the first papers came off the press some 8-9 hours earlier. But they were always so much fun that it was worth losing a little sleep.

Anyway, Jess played softball at a very high level for some of the best teams in Northeast Ohio. He was primarily a pitcher and first basemen.

He let me serve as bat boy for a few of those teams, and man, I felt like king of the world walking out onto the field several times a game to retrieve the team's bats and take them back to the dugout.

When you're 8 or 10 years old or whatever I was, getting to sit on the bench with a bunch of great athletes (all of whom were very nice to me) was a real treat.

Like I said, though, softball has waned in popularity over the years. And, now in his early 70s with the battle scars of decades of competition to prove it, Jess isn't playing these days anyway.

But like me, he still has his memories. And I hope they're good ones as he celebrates another trip around the sun today.

Happy birthday, Jess, and thanks for sharing some of those glory days with your little brother-in-law.

I just remembered something my dad used to do for me that I loved

Earlier this week I had a post here describing how I used to play board games by myself as a kid whenever my friends weren't around.

It reminded me of another gaming activity I used to do solo that was a lot of fun, and it was thanks to my dad that I ever did it in the first place.

Like a lot of sports-minded kids in the late-70s, I owned the Mattel "Classic Football" electronic game pictured above. It was extremely primitive compared with the Madden football video games of today, but to us it was great and I never tired of playing it.

One time my dad drew up a bracket involving all 28 NFL teams (at the time) in a single-elimination tournament. He did it by hand on a sheet of paper. I can still picture his distinctive left-handed writing in which the various first-round match-ups were laid out (Dallas vs. New England, Minnesota vs. Houston, Cleveland vs. San Diego, etc.)

My job was to play each game of the tournament on the Mattel device and write down the result on the tournament bracket. Over the course of a few days I could play all of the games and determine a "champion."

Being a budding Cleveland sports fan, I wanted desperately for the Browns to win the tournament, so I would admittedly play a little harder whenever I was representing them.

But just like real life, no matter how much I tried, some other team always won out in the end. It was never my guys.

Dad created similar tournament brackets for me on several occasions, and it infuriated me once when, despite my best efforts, the hated Pittsburgh Steelers won my little electronic simulation.

To my credit, though, no matter how much I didn't like it, I always accepted the result of each game however it turned out. No do-overs or anything like that.

Now, from a distance of 45 years, I realize not only how much fun I had playing out these tournaments, but also how enjoyable it probably was for Dad to set up the brackets for me whenever I asked. 

It was a time-consuming task, I'm sure, and he would have been perfectly justified to say he simply couldn't do it. But he never said no.

What a great dad he was to me. I miss him.

My wife thought it was sad when I told her I used to play board games by myself as a kid

I received the Happy Days board game one Christmas in the late 70s. More often than not when I played it, I was by myself.

Growing up, I had a core group of friends with whom I used to spend a lot of time. In the summers, especially, we did a lot of stuff together.

But even when you're 9 years old and your options are somewhat limited, there are still times when you're not with your friends and you have to figure out how to amuse yourself.

The child psychologists call this "independent play," my oldest daughter informs me, and it's a skill I developed pretty early as the youngest (by far) of four siblings. I was rarely bored.

One of the things I used to do was to take one of the several board games I owned down from the shelf in my room and play it by myself.

Even if the game was designed for four players, I would put four pieces on the board, roll the dice, and take each piece's turn individually.

Amazingly, I never told Terry about this until recently. I say "amazingly" because I've known the woman for nearly 39 years and figured I had absolutely exhausted my childhood stories (and adulthood stories, for that matter) with her.

But apparently this had never come up before. When I mentioned it, she at first laughed, then she got a pitying look on her face, which was worse than the laughing.

She even took to our family text group chat to let the kids know their father had been a sad, lonely little boy who was forced to engage in multiplayer board games by himself for lack of friends.

But as I explained to the kids, it wasn't like that at all. It was just one of the things I did to amuse myself whenever Matt, Kevin, Jason, Todd, Mike or any of my other Harding Drive/Mapledale Road compatriots were unavailable.

The sad thing is, I now appear to have lost this ability. I'm typing this blog post on a Saturday night in our living room, only because I have completely finished today's (and most of tomorrow's) to-do list and wasn't sure what to do with myself.

Maybe it's time for a little solo Monopoly!

Someone needs to be in charge of restocking paper products in your house. In our family, it's me.

Every house has a variety of jobs, big and small, that over time fall on the shoulders of one occupant or another. As comedian Paul Reiser once observed, these are often jobs that nobody especially likes, but one of you happens to hate it a little less than the other, so the job goes to that person.

Among my many assigned duties at 30025 Miller Avenue are two tasks I take seriously. They are in no way onerous, and I actually enjoy them both.

One is changing the clocks twice a year whenever Daylight Savings Time begins or ends. With so many of our time-keeping devices now fully digital, this isn't nearly the job it used to be, but there are still clocks that need to be manually adjusted (the stove, the microwave, the coffeemaker, Terry and Jack's cars, etc.)

The other is making sure we have paper towels in the kitchen and plenty of toilet paper in each of our bathrooms.

Ideally, you should never get to the empty cardboard tube inside the paper towels or a roll of toilet paper without a replacement readily at hand.

Thus, I'm always glancing into the kitchen and various bathrooms to gauge current supply levels and the precise moment when I will need to go to our basement storage room to procure fresh stocks.

Running out of paper towels isn't a national emergency or anything, just inconvenient.

But running out of toilet paper when it's urgently needed? That simply cannot happen.

And it rarely does, though I will admit there have been times when I haven't been quick enough with reinforcements and someone will yell for help from the bathroom.

I would submit that, if you're planning to do something in the bathroom that will require toilet paper, you should first determine if there is sufficient paper on hand before you begin. But I know that sometimes you're simply in a hurry.

Overall, though, I am probably the best choice in our family for this job, as I am detail-oriented and generally very conscientious, even when it comes to things about which you probably don't need to be especially conscientious.

No one appreciates the toilet paper guy until they're in desperate need. Then, and only then, he becomes the most important person in the house.

I only want one thing from 2025

I used to come into every new year with a list of things I wanted to accomplish and/or have happen in my life.

Some were achievable, others were probably unrealistic.

Never did I manage to check every one off the list. Not once.

So now I'm paring down my list of demands, mostly because I am in no position to demand anything. It's more of a plea, I guess.

All I want this year is for everyone I love who is alive and well on January 1st to still be alive and well on December 31st.

This is a lot to ask, I know. It's unfair to ask God that I experience no pain or suffering when you consider the amount of pain and suffering experienced every day by most of the 8 billion other people in the world.

But I'm asking anyway. While I haven't lost an inordinate number of family and friends to this point in my life, I've lost enough that I would like to keep the ones I still have as long as I can.

So, if it's all the same to 2025, I would appreciate it if the people in my life can just get through the next 365 days healthy and happy. Or at least vertical and breathing.

Really, it doesn't feel like that much to ask.