Sick Days

Originally published by my friends at Stridepost.com.  Re-printed here with permission)

(Today’s article is brought to you by random viruses, and Children’s Tylenol and Chinese herbs.)  

So my daughter caught a bug.   She misses most of them, and is generally pretty healthy, especially when compared to many of her peers.   But… stuff happens. Sick days are not nearly as fun as snow days, but they are just as unavoidable. And today it’s my turn to hang out at home with her while my wife sees patients.   My wife, who, in the name of full disclosure, is way better at this than am I.

I found myself vaguely anxious about the logistics of her being sick, because, with my wife’s schedule, she’s the one who primarily takes care of it. Did you know it’s really easy to call your child off from school? I assumed, but now can report it to be so, with confidence.

And we worked out an agreement where she can keep her nightgown on all day, but had to add leggings or sweatpants so her legs don’t turn into icicles and fall off.

And she’s almost finished her orange juice.

Can Dad of the Year award be far behind?

The decision to keep her home, one we all struggle with on occasion, was easy this time. Fevers tend to cut through the decision-making clutter. While there’s a ton of gray area when it comes to coughs and colds and headaches, fevers are far more black and white. Vomiting helps with ones’ decision-making paradigm, too.   Insert “Clears the head” joke here.

So today’s a day of forced inactivity for me, and the 3^rd such day in a row for her. It remains to be seen who cracks first.

I know there will be lots of reading of books, and some artistic pursuits. Depending on how she’s feeling in a bit, perhaps a trip to the pediatrician. I hear tell that he’s relocated to a different office in the same building since I last was with her. I expect there’s s directory on the wall there that will help me find my way…

As the evening draws to a close, I can add the following to what I wrote earlier:

There WAS a directory.  Seems they don’t want to actually hide from their patients. I wish we had soup in the house, but we did have lots of Lemon Zinger Tea and honey, so….Win some, lose some.

My daughter’s far more adept at the Xbox game that we play, than am I. But she was patient with me, which is nice. Not doing a lot can be exhausting. She’s heading off to bed, and tomorrow will be another day. I don’t get to spend a ton of one on one time with her, and wish perhaps I had tried to accomplish less, and just hung out on the couch with her a bit more.

So, remember, like with snow days, when circumstances outside of your control dictate you call off work and stay home with your child…. focus on the upside.    We don’t get a lot of days like these.

benefits of gardening

My friends at Stridepost have allowed me to re-post the columns I wrote for them,  for posterity as much as anything else.      

-( Originally published @ stridepost.com, re-posted here with permission) 

So, my daughter wants to have a little piece of the yard for her very own garden this year. This, from the young lady who suffers dramatically from the experience, whenever her mom has tried to get her to help weed the existing garden, in summers past. But we’re willing to create a small space for her, as she requested.

We’re happy enough to do it, because there are plenty of benefits to be derived from having kids in the garden, beyond the increase in fresh flowers and veggies for this season. Can’t go wrong with a positive bonding experience with her Mom and I; improved chances of developing a life long interest in growing her own food; and an increased respect and love of nature and the environment.

“I was determined to know beans.” – Henry David Thoreau

Besides the obvious benefits associated with her being able to spend quality time with me and her mom, we’ll establish her little garden in a way that will involve her reasoning and analytical skils. We’ll work with her so she can figure out if there’s enough light for what she wants to grow, when to plant, how much water, etc. (She doesn’t know I’m going to do this yet, so if you could keep it on the down low…. Thanks.)

And it can be a tool to help them develop empathy. I read that somewhere…

“When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Historically, I generally put a lot of work into the garden at the beginning of the season, and then leave it largely to my wife to manage from there.   I’ll till and rake and dump and rake, and turn the compost pile and till some more, and help plan what we’ll grow, and then…. I tag out.

“There is nothing pleasanter than spading when the ground is soft and damp.” – John Steinbeck

This year, I’m planning to be more involved throughout the season, as we plan to grow both early and late season vegetables, and expand it a bit. If I’m going to encourage my daughter to follow thru on her request for her own garden space, I can’t very well NOT participate more fully now, can I?

And we lament the space we do not have, and how much more we’d like to be able to grow, that is just not realistic for us. And this is an important point, when encouraging kids in the garden.  Make the most of the space you have, and be content with it. Even if it’s a bean plant on the window ledge above the kitchen sink, or a single tulip bulb, the act of growing something is still worthwhile.

Turns out, my daughter doesn’t want to grow vegetables in her little garden. She wants to grow flowers. But…but…you can’t eat flowers…. Except sometimes, you can…. So, in whatever capacity you’re able, seriously consider getting your kids in the garden growing something this spring.

Breaking silence. And stuff. Don't get too excited.

Just saw a headline that someone broke their silence... 
About something that happened... 24 hours ago.   

Seeing it more and more, in this age of sloppy internet journalism and sensational headlines.... 
And it rubs me, every time. 


"Seriously?   what's the matter with you?"  I hear you mutter, under your not-so fresh-breath.

And yeah, maybe...

But...

Think about it.  Let your mind drift, and you realize you've read it or heard it on Tee-Vee an insane amount of time.

Not "@#whateverjeezusstop" #'s,  or any sentence containing "annihilated" and "on twitter",  but top five, easily....  


You still with me?
Why?

Random pop star broke her silence about the twitter feud with.... other, random pop star.  She was not noticeably silent up to that point.  Twitter... It's public, loud, feuding...

The one that made me realize that everyone's breaking their silence, every day?

Chris Cornell's estranged-or- whatever mother in law breaks her silence. 
(3 days after he passed, if I recall) 
Huh?  
Historically, someone broke their silence about something, a LONG time after the... something.  You need a lengthy period of time of NOT discussing something in public, before you break that silence by... talking about something... in public. 

Dominatrix-turned-cop breaks her silence | New York Post

Google it.  "Breaks her silence".   96 Millon results.   and I rounded down.

That's a lot of people you didn't know were attempting silence, about a lot of... somethings, but.....c'mon.....



Thanks for stopping by.   @#iappreciateit

Facial hair as metaphor - Shit, I just spoiled it.....

I'm on a break from my paying writing gig at the moment. 
We haven't broken up or anything, we're just on a break. 
It's not you, it's me... 

Which means I'm writing for no other reason than I enjoy it. 

And today I'm going to write about.... my beard. 

"Finally!", you exclaim, drawing odd glances from the other folks in your office, home or coffee-serving establishment. 

I know!   
These ARE exciting times.   

Except for a couple of brief periods, I've had a beard of some kind since my honeymoon, 22+ years ago.   Goatee, chin beard, raggedy-ass full beard... 

The lengths I go to to NOT look like the wanted posters that may still be up in the post office on St. Thomas, AVI.....   

And I've realized, over time, that it's never, ever been.... right.  Even, balanced, same width on one side as the other, straight along the bottom..... 
You'd think, after so much time and effort and practice and maintenance, that I'd have it all figured out by now.   
Nope.     

Every day, or at least every day I shave, I'm focusing a bit more...here,  and letting the mistake I made earlier in the week grow back over... here..... 
And I wonder if all the other guys with beards, at least the ones that haven't just let 'em grow wild and out of control, have the same problems, or if it just comes easier for some of them. 

There've been costly mistakes with the trimmer, when I've not been paying attention.   
They go away, eventually, but until they do, the outcome makes me self-conscious.     


And yet I soldier on, doing the best I can with the facial hair I have.  Some days I look in the mirror and say "Close enough! Good job!", and other days I realize I've some little bits that need fixing. And sometimes I just take a few days off, without really worrying about them, and thoroughly enjoy the decadence of it, before getting back into the shaving routine.... 


Yep.   This IS just one big-ass metaphor.     

I knew you'd get there, eventually! 

My facial hair has become a metaphor for adult life, at least mine. 
I know, right?!?!   
Go ahead and re-read the parts above now, you'll be dazzled. 


My daughter, the other night, told me that when you look really close, my whiskers are like a herd of caribou.   I can only assume she's thinking "as viewed from an airplane...". 
Other times, she's told me my chin's soft and fuzzy, like a bunny. 

Like life.   

Good fences make good neighbors.

A favorite poem of mine, studied in depth in a high school literature class, is The Mending Wall 
by Robert Frost....

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.'  I could say ‘Elves’ to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself.  
I recall arguing at length what it meant that good fences make good neighbors.  On the surface, it would appear that fences, as boundaries, is what makes good neighbors.  Your apple orchard on your side, my pine trees on my side...
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
But in my more liberal way of thinking, I argued that the annual repairing of the fence brought the two men together, possibly the only time all year it happened.   And for the duration of the time spent putting the stone wall back together, they were... neighbors.  Working together toward a common goal...
If memory serves, my argument did not hold much water, in the narrow mind of my lit teacher.
This morning, as I was mixing up waffle batter, my wife and I heard a loud thump outside.  Looking out our picture window, we saw the remains of our and our neighbor's mailbox, and the frame for it, strewn the length of our front yard.    A few minutes later, while my wife was outside surveying the damage, and the tire tracks a good 3 feet from the street, also the length of your yard, a beat up chevy Blazer with a busted passenger headlight and white paint and a dent slowed way down in front of your house, until the driver saw her, then he gunned it and sped off...
It's not elves, exactly.... 
Just an asshole driving recklessly down our road at 8a on a sunday morning....       
The neighbor's house is owned by a guy down the street, 80 year old farmer who owns the land around and across from my house, and who used a lot of it, for many years, for dairy farming.  He told me awhile ago that 30 or so years ago he realized his kids weren't interested in taking it over, and he was tired of looking at the back end of cows, so he sold the 80 head or so he had.  
Anyhow, I called Dan to let him know what happened, and that his tenants would need a new mail box.  We made plans to get together earlier this afternoon, and build a new frame, install new boxes, etc.   
Dan's an interesting guy, with lots more life experience, and a very different kind, than I.  And I figured out awhile ago that listening a lot and not talking too much is the way to go when I'm around him.    
"You want to come with me over to the barns and see what wood we can use?"
Yes!
Good fences make good neighbors.
So we're sorting through scrap wood, in the buggy room, where the old horse drawn buggy is still in residence.  He said, in passing, that it had been in the family for over a hundred years. 
Then it was through the door to the old milking room, which is where he keeps all of his power tools now.   He explained how it all worked, how they'd line up 8 cows, 4 on each side of the pit, and they'd stand down in the pit and attach the milkers to the cows, and then bring in 8 more.... And over there's where the gate used to be, to ensure the cows stayed sorted, so that they wouldn't hook a cow up that had already been milked.  80+ cows looked quite a bit a like, I reckon... Then through the next door where once stood a 2000 gallon milk tank, which they'd fill every two days, and right over... there... is the small little door where the milk guy would run his hose through, and empty the tank into his tanker, and drive it down to Kalamazoo, where it would then go... elsewhere.   Probably to the east side of the state.   He probably didn't think much about it, at this juncture, but I found it all fascinating.  
Good fences make good neighbors.
And for the duration of the time spent putting the stone wall back together, they were... neighbors.  Working together toward a common goal...
He had all the wood we needed, and a high end impact drill. I had some of the right length and type of screws and the necessary drill bits and an electric hand saw. I had already started digging the new post hole, and we took turns until it was about 30 inches deep.  Dumped half bag of quick concrete I had left over from a previous project down the hole around the post, and 45 minutes later... project completed.     And the big, new, crazy sturdy frame will do even more damage to the next jack ass who takes it out, driving recklessly down our road.....   It's not elves, exactly....
It was fun, even though I'm sore everywhere and feel like I'm dying.   I expect Dan will just stop by for no reason when it's warmer out, and we see each other in passing more often, and we'll be just that much more comfortable around each other..... 
Good fences...  you get the picture. 

Yeah, so... That Happened.

Yeah, so... That happened. 

And everyone was shocked and surprised and caught unaware and.... whatever. 

And today his very own team are all "Well...uh... gosh, we've got a steep learning curve ahead of us."  Because that's what we, as a people, deserve. 

We voted for the guy that doesn't actually know what he's doing, and has showed little interest thus far in learning.   

A lot of folks voted against the other candidate, riding a wave of false equivalencies and lack of critical thinking.  
Because we've been told for decades that she's bad and a liar and evil and murders people and eats babies and.... some of us just kept lapping that nonsense up, mmm....this is so good....yum yum yum yum

Top notch!     

Facts have become partisan, and fact checkers are just liberals trying to trick all of you into believing their spin.     Even when the facts are supported, and notated.   They're not to be trusted.

Two words.
Critical Thinking.  
A lot of us stopped doing this, and we've not benefited as a people.   Many are no longer are able to distinguish lies and hypocrites any longer, without being told.  Usually by a media company that spends lots of air time reporting on the shortcomings of... media.  But not them.  Everyone else.

mmm....this is so good...yum yum yum.......

Hopefully we'll all be alive and solvent in four years, and some of the geniuses who decided "shaking up the foundation of our society is the way to go! " will have realized that this plan was a titch hasty and short-sighted.

Like the millions of people in England who voted for Brexit, and AFTERWARDS went on-line to find out what, exactly, they just voted for.   This is a fact, by the way.   



Know what else is top notch?    finding the person with the very worst reputation, and the super high "untrustworthy" and "unlikable" scores, and saying "This is the one!  And we'll make sure she's going to be the one!  We'll make history!" 

Yep, you surely did make history.  Way to go!  


For the last 18 months, you keep hearing about how hate was underestimated.   Jeb Bush's failure in the primaries?  "We underestimated the hate." 

Like that.   

I read someone's defense of the new pres. elect this morning, and she started with "I don't hate _____" and then there was a but, there's always a but... and then she showed how much she hated.  And everyone was all "Uh...that sounded kinda hateful" and I'm sure she was deeply offended by their response.   Because she SAID she didn't hate, so....

You know what would be a really awesome, spectacular thing?   

If we overestimated hate, and were pleasantly surprised.  It's been awhile since we've been pleasantly surprised. 

That would be awesome.   

But since hate's been empowered and legitimized... I will remain ever hopeful, while not holding my breath.    

out of pocket

So, I was on-line checking out hotels in Mackinaw City.


For those that don't know, The proximity to the Mackinaw Bridge, numerous historical sites, and Mackinaw Island makes this small, rather boring town a very popular vacation destination.  
You don't really go there just to hang out in town, in other words.  Not a foodies paradise (jesus no), not a golf and fishing destination.

A jumping off place....
While camping nearby, was there for the day a couple weeks back, at several of the afore-mentioned historical sites, and I had noticed a hotel, which was right next door to one of them.

On the water. 

It had the most spectacular views of the bridge and the straits, better than any other lodging option (there are dozens and dozens) in town. 

it caught my eye, in part, because it was not a chain.  It looked kinda quaint, hearkening back to hotel stays I enjoyed as a kid.  it looked, in my always-thinking-in-terms-of-story, like the kind of place you'd stay after the season's over,  going to sleep with the bridge lit up outside your window, getting up in the morning, stepping outside with a hot cup of coffee on a cool morning, to walk the beach, barefoot with your jeans rolled up a bit. 

I could, in that moment, taste it, smell it, hear it....... 


Anyhow, being the glass-is-half-empty kinda guy that I am, I was checking out the very few negative YELP reviews of the place, when I came across one that really stuck with me. 

Whomever this person was, gave the hotel a one star rating.  Not because service was bad, room was unclean, air conditioning / heat was not exactly what they wanted it to be. 
Nope.   

Main complaint was the fact that this family run hotel did not offer in-room WIFI.   Not even for an upcharge, let alone for free. 

"So much for getting any work done during my trip." 

I don't know this person, nor her situation.   Which makes it easy to take her complaint and run with it anyway I choose. 

Woot! 

So many questions, and thoughts, just by that one sentence. 

Ultimately I end up with this. 

You don't drive from wherever you are, to Mackinaw City, to GET WORK DONE!


You may THINK it's a compromise, you going off for the weekend with your loved one(s), but still being able to get work done, but... it's not.   You're not fully engaged. 

You short those that you are with, and your heart's not in the work.  Everyone loses!

yay!!!!
You go there to jump off to other wonderful adventures, OUTSIDE, walking, biking, hiking swimming, boating... 


Another, positive review nails it.  "Who goes to Mackinaw City to spend their time in a hotel room?" 

Review's 4 years old, old enough to have been posted before every single one of us carry a computer in our pocket. 
I would hope that the reviewer's life and priorities have changed to the point where they're no longer worrying about getting work done when they should be worrying about quality time spent with those who are important. 
if not, they're somewhere right now, holding their Iphone up above their head, bee-yatching about not getting a signal, with their husband / boyfriend/girlfriend/ children standing around, not getting the best of them.

To quote Bill Maher, there's a reason why Fred Flinstone yells "yabba dabba doo" when the workday whistle blows.     

Work day ENDS, rest of life is enjoyed.   
Balance, people. 

I've got no big complaints at the moment, with that balance, though I've certainly struggled with it more in previous positions.   
I do struggle with the electronics, though.     

I spent 45 years NOT plugged in, NOT having the world at my fingertips, in my pocket, wherever I go, and I likely did not suffer from it.   
It's hard to be truly "out of pocket", with your phone and computer IN your pocket.   

We used to have to provide the name and phone# of hotel where we were staying, if we wanted phone calls.   

I find myself amused to find hotel rooms still have phones in them.   

Perhaps the way to go would be for a hotel to offer a phone lock up service when you go to stay.  

I started writing this a week ago, and was prompted to finish it just now, as I fell further down the electronics rabbit hole.  Was looking at alternatives to the crappy, restrictive hot spot contract I have for my house, that just completed.    Hey, I can get a portable one, better than the one bolted to my house, and carry it with me wherever I go. in addition to my iPhone.... 
Geezus..

Because smartphone's not enough!!!    

Might still get it, as it sounds like a decent option for home wifi use, but won't take it with me.  Gotta draw the line somewhere...