i try to make my children think creatively or logically as much as possible. one of my tactics for this was to answer their questions with illogical responses. for example, whenever they asked me a yes/no question, i'd answer "sure". i liked watching their faces process the response before saying, "no dad. that's not right." to which i'd say "oh. no thank you." i know, i know, i'm a real party. or at least it's a party until your eight year old takes to responding to all questions directed to them with nonsensical answers, and even to people outside of the family, and even when responding to our host and hostess, and even when this host and hostess are the people kind enough to let our family of five descend upon their home for an entire week—for a third year in a row—wildly disrupting their home's routines and sleeping situations for several straight days. even then, whenever one of these kind people would ask anthony something, he would respond with gibberish. if you're wondering what that looks like, it looks something like this:

how was skiing today anthony?
uhh, oatmeal.

anthony would you like another piece of bread?
pink giraffe (with a nod of his head)

anthony, did you like the show?
doorknob. no, i mean, uhhh, blond hair.

if you're wondering how long this is cute for, it is, as you probably guessed, it is cute about zero times which means that thirty seven times in it is bordering on obnoxious. on the good side, he's having to think a little more than he would by answering 'epic' to everything.

we've had some great dinner table questions as of late. things like:

• if the kids were here home alone, and one of you, let's say anthony or alex, were reaching onto the counter for something and cut the underside of the forearm deeply--like deep where blood was pulsing out of the cut--what would you do?
• what do you think makes someone a good conversationalist? ...
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the dinner table question of the night asked what you would do if someone kept calling your house in the middle of the night. they are definitely dialing the wrong number. you tell them this but they keep calling. i asked the table how they would handle this. as we rounded the circle people had very curteous and patient responses they'd use on the person which in their scenario would solve the problem without difficulty (dreamers). when it got to anthony, he looked up from his plate as if he had only been only half-listening and said he would say, "shut up. it's 1 in the morning in my city." and hang up.

ok fellas. we gotta talk.

i was recently at a reception and sat down with a friend i hadn't talked to in awhile. i asked him what was up. what was new. during our catch-up he remembered something, lifted a finger in the air and said, "oh, get this". he proceeded to tell me a story about how he, needing a computer quick, raised the lid of his teen son's laptop and found something on the sc...

i've said before if i could solve one of life's mysteries, i would research the law of attraction, namely where each of us get our wiring to like who/what we like.

if i could research another topic it would be what happens to the natural joy and enthusiasm for life that our babies seem to be born with. when i drop my boys off at school, i stick around before the final bell rings and the k...

we were at a theatrical production of les miserables in salt lake city. our family sat in the last row of the hale's intimate circular auditorium. this would be my third show at the hale and my family's second. during one particular scene, the necessary prop was lowered from the ceiling. it stood in the center of the round stage as one of the most scant arrangements used through the night containing only a metal gate supported on either side by two stone pillars. in the scene two star-struck lovers stood on either side of the locked gate longing for one another through their drippy sentiments exchanged between the gate's bars. in the middle of the heated scene my seven year old leaned into me for the following whispered conversation:

ANTHONY
dad.

TROY
yes.

ANTHONY
why are they talking through the gate?

TROY
because she is locked in her house and he is on the street.

ANTHONY
but why doesn't he just walk around?

TROY
(muffled laughter)

ANTHONY
i mean, can't they see the fence doesn't go very far and they could just walk around that stone part?

TROY
well, because ...

ANTHONY
then they wouldn't have to talk through those bars.

later in the show when they brought out a grown up and highly decorated Cossette, anthony quietly asked why little bo peep was in the show. this one caused laughter by a small circle of seats surrounding him.

so, if you ever want to make a high-brow show more entertaining, i reckon for the right price (some sweets from the intermission stand) you could have anthony accompany you and ask the questions that need to be asked.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. cool and sophisticated

over the summer marty found herself catching up with an old girlfriend for a few days. during their visit our dishwasher saga got shared. the moment marty concluded the roller coaster of woe the girlfriend, anne, said, "it's your refrigerator". i wasn't there but in my mind i heard marty correct her saying "no, not my refrigerator, my dishwas...

part three is over here

a few years ago i asked my students to attend a talk given by a special guest visiting our school. the man speaking was an alum of the university and now the ceo of a large investment firm. he stressed, emphatically, the importance of excellence and making sure that all of your work and all of your interactions were thoughtful and nothing short of outstanding. in the class i teach, excellence in your work served as a cornerstone, if not the entire point, of our lessons and we were deep enough into the semester that my students knew being excellent and thoughtful took time, like a lot of time (e.g. to make a good, passable twenty minute presentation can take four to five hours, but to make a great, memorable presentation you're looking at more like like fifteen to thirty hours, depending on how soon the inspiration comes). to this principle one of my students asked the man, "i understand the importance of being excellent but can you speak to how one is to find the time and energy to be excellent all of the time?"

to say i wasn't proud and impressed by my student's cogent question would be a full-on lie, especially next to the other ridiculous questions being wasted on this guy. unfortunately the man's answer kinda just stuck to the rallying cry of there is no rest for the successful and they are always working and they are always excellent which was a mainstay of his overall talk.

the next day in class we discussed the talk. someone commented that they felt his answer to the girl's question was lacking. i agreed but then defended him saying that it's hard to have a bulk of questions fired at you, moments after completing a talk, and get all of them perfect (which unfortunately soils his be excellent all of the time argument). i told them given his experience and how thoughtful his talk was if he were given a few minutes to properly ponder the question he might have said something like: fact is, i wouldn't have been surprised to see this man clap his knee while in his first class seat home as he thought of a better answer to the young, eager girl's question. he might have even mumbled audibly as he realized the missed opportunity to have been excellent.

part five

part two is over here

in leading up to the interview with my uncle, i started practicing my questions on random folks i was hanging out with. before going to pennsylvania to meet my uncle, we spent a week at a beach with a few families. while out in the breakers one morning, i asked one of the dads, also a man who has had a markedly successful professional run thus far, if he ever received any advice that made a difference. he thought through a few rolling breakers and then lit up. to add support for his claim i learned he was a ski instructor in oregon while in grad school. i asked where he skied as i knew he grew up in the midwest. he said he hadn't skied. the obvious next question dealt with his 'ski instructor' credentials. the story goes, he was told a resort or school (i can't recall) was looking for a ski instructor. after talking to them (and telling them he could do it) he went to the mountain, got outfitted with some skis and started skiing working his way to the challenging terrain and skiing it until proficient. when it came time for class he proved ready and everyone came away happy. in the end i guess it's as my father-in-law said in regard to parenting "you just have to be smarter than your kids". perhaps the same holds true of teaching.

to add another important detail here, a mutual friend of ours, e-love, has also said of chris, the "say you can do it" guy, that he is the most extraordinary natural athlete he has ever seen. to support e-love's claim, after chris creamed us in tennis i asked when he, chris, learned to play and if he played in college. e-love interrupted the answer saying, "you don't want to know the answer to that question troy". of course i pressed on and e-love was right, i didn't want to know that the guy who just annihilated me in tennis and has the form of a former division 1 athlete, started playing a year ago and for the most part just pretends he's trying to hit a baseball.

part four

part one is over here

the day after chatting with my uncle jerry about business, i had lunch with a cousin of mine, also named jerry. cousin jerry is also a bit of a business savant (these two jerrys perhaps being the best businessmen in my entire family). i told him of my uncle's advice. he smiled and said, "yeah, that's good". i then turned the question to him and asked if he's had any advice he lived by. his reply.

COUSIN JERRY
i have two business rules i live by. first, i'd never buy a horse from an amish man and second, i'd never buy a hotel from a pakistani.

TROY
hah. i bet they're not teaching those lessons at wharton. can i ask why or how those rules came about?

COUSIN JERRY
sure. if an amish man is willing to part with a horse it means that horse is no good because that's the only way an amish man would let a horse go and if a pakistani can't make a hotel work, i'd wager there's no one around that can because you know that paki has tried everything under the sun to make a go of it, and if he can't make it, i'm pretty sure i couldn't either.

these answers are for-sure every bit as colorful as my cousin. further, i'd put cousin jerry up against any mba you could find to solve a business problem. in part because at the end of the work day and after dinner, i bet your mba wouldn't be sliding back in his car to go work a few repossessions before bedtime (see 'and then some' in part 1).

the interested in boys switch got thrown on bella recently. both before and after the switch a few boys have shown interest in bella. obviously since the switch, bella has shown interest in a few boys. also obviously, bella has been asking when she can start dating. the short answer has been "not yet". her repeated and consistent reply has been "then when?". marty is inclined to say something like...

the brother of a girl i know was in a car accident. his injuries proved quite severe, namely below the waist damaging a hip and mangling one of his feet. after a few days observation his doctors presented his options in regard to his pulverized foot:

1. replace the heel and rebuild the foot as best as able. this would be followed by a year, and probably more, of intense therapy. in the end, the procedures and subsequent therapies might prove a failure.
2. or, amputate the foot and learn how to use a prosthetic device. end to end this would take less than a year and almost certainly have a more positive outcome.

what would you choose?

i'm a bit of a commencement address junkie. i reckon i've admitted this before. last year my employer put forth one of the best of the year. remarkably, they've come through again with what i'd say, even though others aren't, is again one of this year's strongest offerings. and i'm told by someone on the stage during the talk, the man didn't have a single note or scrap to reference through his thirty plus minute address. remarkably good.

each year as i spin through the selections i'm struck by how good the good ones are (and surprised that the bad ones aren't better--c'mon people, if given the platform you gotta get your obsess on).

some have asked about the reference to the line "marty had the best answer to this" from last week's gallery posting about our dinner-time questions. i intentionally did not include it there to give folks some time to think about what they might do.

to repeat the posed question: if you wish to think on this a bit further, stop reading. if you want to hear marty's solution, read on.

the kids answers involved repeating the series of numbers and running home as fast as they could. i confessed that i'd surely bumble the string so instead would take a rock and scratch the number into the hood or fender of a car, run home, get a pad and paper, run back (hoping the car hadn't driven off or the police hadn't been called) write the number down, and leave a note on the windshield for the car owner to call me. marty, after scolding me for giving the boys bad ideas about scratching things into the paint jobs of cars produced the most elegant answer saying she would place rocks, twigs, grass or anything she could collect and count into her pockets. the first number would be high on her body, like in a shirt pocket and the numbers would travel down her body. so if the first number was five she'd put five pebbles in her shirt pocket. if the second number was seven, she'd put seven pebbles or twigs in her front pocket, working her way down and around her body to her shoes or even her socks if she still needed counting receptacles. upon arriving home, she'd empty her pockets, inventorying the contents, make the call, and collect the jack. i thought it an ingenious answer, even deeming it superior to my "buy a new hood or fender" option.

we enforce a nightly family dinner. we eat at six and everyone needs to be in attendance and wearing a shirt (for logic i don't fully understand, pants seem optional). there can be no toys, books, or other distractions (e.g. phones, handhelds) at the table. being a family that sits down together at the end of the day and communes as a group was one of marty's few non-negotiables about how her fami...

when i was in college i used to tantalize people, usually late at night and amongst sleep deprived humans, with a fanciful wager. the challenge was this. i claimed that if given X amount of time i could begin a new religion with Y number of followers for a reward of S amount of money. Y to be determined by both X and S. people, all people, quickly dismissed my claim and confidently launched into t...

the dinner question of the night was 'if you could be anyone else in the world, who would you be?"

while most were naming inventors, explorers, and celebrities (12 year old girl and all), when six year old anthony's turn came up he answered "the saddest person in the world".

the whole table looked at each other surprised at his reply. certain he misunderstood the question, we restated it. casually, he said he understood the question just fine. when asked why he would then choose what he chose he replied, "so the person who was the saddest person doesn't have to be that anymore. and then the world would be a better place."

i began the dinner question-ritual in hopes of stimulating thought and reason in my children, yet time and time again, i find i'm the one challenged and bettered by the exercise.

the lady who cuts marty's hair had a friend whose family kept next to their toilet something they called "the poop knife". the moment marty mentioned this to me in passing was the moment the story became the tale i was most disappointed to not hear first hand in 2012.

what i mean by this is i quickly overwhelmed marty with a flood of questions. what did it look like? was it a proper knife or a tool that looked like a knife? was it taken from a kitchen drawer or a basement tool chest? was it bought special or re-purposed from something already in the house? was it a lame toilet or a giant-sized bowel? was it one bowel or a family of prolific defecators? if the toilet, why not get a new one (or maybe it was one of these new 'efficient' models that started it all)? was the same person, like the mom or dad, always responsible for hewing a fecal mass down to bite-sized chunks or did it follow the 'who dealt it deals with it' philosophy? who had the realization a full-time instrument was required? did they clean it? where did it sit? did they hide it when company came over? is it still used? do you know where it lives? can i go there and ask to see it?

i couldn't have been more astonished to find marty possessed not a single answer to my generous serving of questions. this led to one last question, "however does the phrase "poop knife" pass before you in conversation where the next forty minutes isn't dedicated to discovering everything there is to know about a family who conjured, procured, and put to routine use something called a 'poop knife'.

saddened.

i forgot to mention something regarding my alex/anthony conversation about finding me unconscious. later that same morning at work, i told a few co-workers about the discussion given i was still tittering at the highlights of anthony jumping on my head and aleo performing vcr on me. a few days later one of those co-workers told me my proactive chat inspired her.

she has a seven year old son. he's an only kid and looks at my tree-climbing, rough-housing brood with wide and admiring eyes (being a sedate, only child myself, i certainly recognize this sort of covetous sibling-home worship). the mother found herself in a quiet moment with her son and re-called my Q & A with the boys and thought it a prudent conversation to have, morning exercise ritual or not. she called for his attention saying, "so jack, what would you do if you found mommy sleeping and couldn't wake her up." the boy not expecting anything of this like, said, "what?". the mother re-presented the question. jack's face began to melt in emotion and when he began his response he labored to speak through choked sobs, "well ... i'd ... i'd go tell dad ... that i thought ... i thought ... i thought ... you were dead." my co-worker spent the remainder of her morning, and early afternoon, trying to calm her son down and profusely apologizing for asking him such a terrible and ill-spirited question.

oops. sorry about that.

i skipped out on a super bowl party this year to watch the game at home, alone. when marty returned from the party she said a conversation took place about my absence, namely that no one thought i cared about either of the teams enough to need to be alone and found it curious i didn't join marty and the kids at our good friend's party. marty confessed ignorance to my thinking and confessed it be just another one of her husband's quirks that isn't interesting or relevant enough to investigate further (in other words, there's lower hanging and better tasting fruit to be had).

after marty told me of the conversation i explained that i had come to a realization about super bowl parties. i likened them to going to see a really good movie, say like The Godfather, for the very first time, and for this viewing you're going to a public space to watch it with a bunch of other folks but the catch is this -- only half the people in the room are potentially interested in watching The Godfather. see the problem? a good football game, like a good movie, has the high potential of being a special, spectacular even, experience, and i like to reserve the right to jump and shout and swear like it were real life footloose in my study.

and yes, i do know this adds to the theory that i'm a peculiar and priggish ass.

but what makes me less of a priggish ass is that i'd love to share in dinner conversation with anyone in attendance, especially since i heard i missed a conversation about spanking (partners not kids) that i'm sure i would have thoroughly enjoyed ... just not when the super bowl or godfather is playing.

and, something else many could probably guess about me if asked. my favorite commercial ... the god made a farmer spot. i love me some thoughtfully blended words and imagery (i'm torn if i love the impassioned reading or the picture of the busted up thumbnails more -- too close to call).

kudos to the for sure QB killers of the 2012 playoffs -- luck, manning, brady, kaepernick -- no small line-up for the ravens. and as for my rooting for the ravens. my first nfl love is the pittsburgh steelers. my second is some fundamental and head-strong AFC-style defense.

and how amazing was it that kaepernick's interception was the first interception ever thrown by a 49ers quarterback in a super bowl. and that would be in six super bowl appearances by the team. montana and young were quite the butt-cuttin' studs, no?

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. questions

my father dined with us saturday night. he brought a lady friend, miss jackie, along he's been seeing for a few months now. over dinner my father joked how he and jackie don't like any of the same things. she likes it hot. he likes it cold. she eats this. he eats that. she sleeps in. he's up early. he drew several illustrations of how none of their likes matched up. after my dad stopped speaking, and a brief pause in the conversation anthony, age six, broke the silence.

ANFER
grandpa.

GRANDPA
yes anthony.

ANFER
do you like living?

GRANDPA
uhhh. well. yes, i like living.

ANFER
miss jackie.

MISS JACKIE
yes anthony.

ANFER
do you like living?

MISS JACKIE
ohhhh! yes anthony, i like living very much. it's wonderful.

ANFER
so you were wrong grandpa.

GRANDPA
what?

ANFER
you were wrong about you and miss jackie not liking any of the same things. you both like living.

a long silence blanketed the table as we all looked at anthony who barely looked away from his plate to ask his questions. my father turned to me as if for an explanation. all i could think to ask him was how it felt to have an argument so easily picked apart by someone seventy years his junior.

alex spent the day at a friend's house. near supper time marty called over to ask about the plan. the lady said they had no particular ideas in mind and the boys were still playing strong. marty worried alex would be upset if we ate without him so had the lady ask him what he wanted to do.

FRIEND'S MOM
alex. i have your mom on the phone. she's wondering what you want to do about dinner.

ALEX
uhhh. what is my mom making?

FRIEND'S MOM (she asks marty)
pork and green bean stir fry.

ALEX
uhhhmm. what are you making?

FRIEND'S MOM
i think we're going to have eggs.

ALEX
well. i do like pork and green bean stir fry more than eggs but will stay here and keep playing.

note:
while assessing his choices might come off as a tad rude, his choosing the lesser option to stay in the woman's home may make up for any prior slight.

at our nightly dinner table, i try, hard, to have a question at the ready to ask my family over our meal. sometimes the question turns a quiet and distracted group into a lively, engaged one. sometimes a question is not needed because the table is already full of life and vigor. sometimes the kids remember before me and ask if i have a question. and some days we all forget about the dad question like it never existed at all. back in november, one of the nightly questions was "this time next year what is something you hope you can say have accomplished or completed?". i added that it should be something that you think would make you proud or happy to be able to say. as some people struggled to settle on just one thing, the question was modified, probably by a challenge-thirsty bella, so each person had to list three things. for reasons i haven't fully figured out or intended, something about this exercise escaped the stigma of a new year's resolution (which i feel is good and helpful). in typical form, i quickly recorded everyone's answers in my next moment alone.

ANFER

1. ride a 2-wheeler bike
2. swim lessons
3. learn how to roller skate (w/ dad and alex)

ALEO

1. piano lessons
2. goto water world (in denver, colorado)
3. learn how to rollerblade (w/ dad)

BAYA

1. renovate back yard (making if dog-ready)
2. singing lessons
3. goto horse camp

MARTA

1. camp at onandoga
2. install new french doors
3. ???

TROY

1. learn how to roller blade
2. restore the everyman
3. do a 100 mile, 2-canyon (poudre & big thompson) bike ride in colorado

one excluded answer from anthony's list was "pee on dad's eye".

the hole in marty's list is quite typical for her. such list are near impossible for people who are genetically blessed to be content and fulfilled with they things they have attained and achieved. secretly, i couldn't be more envious of the serenity she and others like her quietly possess.