friday offered many firsts for me.

on friday i skied down a mountain slope with my entire family for the first time.

on friday i skied down an intermediate blue run with my boys for the first time.

on friday i visited the first aid center of a mountain resort for the first time.

on friday i was told i didn't dislocate my shoulder or break my collar-bone (and only experienced a blunt-force trauma to my shoulder) for the first time.

it turns out tuesday has a first or two in store for me as well. like, having to lift my hurt arm onto my desk with my good arm to type the sentence you are now reading.

and i reckon tuesday will also involve a concerned call with my mancation partner who i'm slated to ski with in two weeks.

we're staying with friends this week. one post-skiing afternoon we were strewn about the house recovering in different ways. as alex passed through the kitchen he noticed a large industrial grade pencil sharpener with eight different sized pencil openings and a sizable shavings bin had appeared on the counter. it turns out, our hostess, had brought it home because one of her third grade students had lodged a stubby pencil in one of the holes, a hole not large enough for the pencil crammed in its space. a mechanically curious alex examined the new object (i can just imagine him sizing it up, taking it in from various angles and depths). alex's keen eye quickly spied the stuck object. without thought, he went to his bag for his swiss army minichamp, returned to the kitchen and carefully extracted the pencil from the slot with the scissors attachment on his knife.

later in the day, alex mentioned to me what he did. i asked him if he talked to anyone about it and he said no, no one was around. i considered chastising him for messing with other people's stuff and that until he knew what the deal was, he should leave things alone but chose to hold my tongue until learning more (seasoned parent at moments and all ya know).

over dinner my friend, our hostess, looked at the sharpener, sighed and commented that she has a student in her third grade class that breaks something every day and this day he broke her favorite, super-awesome pencil sharpener. i told her that alex may have fixed it and i hope it was ok that he messed with it because he didn't ask. her face brightened. she asked if she heard me right. i told her how alex had noticed there was a pencil stuck in there and was able to get it out and i'm sorry that he messed with her stuff. she exclaimed, "mess with my stuff? mess with my stuff? he just made my day!!!"

the next time alex passed by she scooped him up without warning and gave him the giantest hug and loud-smacking cheek kiss i think his small frame has absorbed in quite some time. and so goes the quiet but impactful existence of our wild-haired child aleo.

anthony dashed through the kitchen wearing only his new under armor ski tights. he shook his bottom around a few times before running out. the next time he passed through he was completely naked. he ascended the stairs and once at the top screamed "i'm sexy, i'm so sexy" to which you heard a horrified bella scream "Noooooooo!" as if someone were about to dash a kitten against a rock.

it's hard to imagine days ever being nearly as interesting as when you have small humans making their unscripted contributions to your world.

while walking out of a gas station, anthony grabbed the handle on the door and pulled. the door didn't move. marty said the sign says PUSH anthony. he did and we exited the store. as we walked to the car anthony, our six year old, asked, "why would anyone put a handle on a door you have to push?"

marty and i exchanged silent expressions and she said, "i don't know anfer. i don't know."

now before we celebrate a mind as keen as anfer's just yet, allow me to share this second conversation.

TROY
look, there's church butte road.

ALEO
church butte road. ohhhh!

ANFER
yeah, does that mean there's like a church with a giant butt?

MARTY
it's not that kind of butt anthony.

ANFER
oh! then it's the kind of church that butts in line in front of other churches.

we're out west right now for spring break. in planning the trip, given the distance we were looking at, i assumed we would fly but two things got in the way. the first arose when i booked our flights and was asked to select seats. as i scanned the small craft (as that seems just about all that leaves our once mighty airport anymore) for open spots a thought surfaced: now that everyone is using these smaller planes, what happens when a family of five gets bumped from a flight. i thought back to times my flights got cancelled and how desperate and flimsy the search for new arrangements typically seemed. and that was for one human. one human that doesn't completely crumble emotionally when deprived of their proper bedtime. the thought of finding a new route home for five people left me staring at the screen in a paralysis of sorts.

the second hurdle of merit was the pricetag. once i'd selected the round trip option and the litany of fees (seriously!) were added, we were looking at about a three grand burn before even leaving the zip code. i knew this would tax marty's ability to enjoy our ambitious adventure and rightly so since we just recently re-entered the ranks of dual-income homes and have a bit of digout to go yet from our single-income decade.

the morning after i uncovered this travel dilemma, bella and i were waiting for the bus. sensing my distraction bella asked what was wrong. after apologizing for my stupor i explained the above two things to bella. with barely a pause for thought she began:

BELLA
why don't we just drive?

TROY
uhh. because it would be like twenty hours in the car.

BELLA
so.

TROY
so, i didn't think anyone would want to spend that much time in the car.

BELLA
dad, it's vacation. we go on vacation to be together right. and when we're in the car we're together. and, we don't have any distractions like work or school. isn't that what vacation is about.

so we drove. and i gotta say, it was beyond awesome.

yesterday i mentioned a ritual i do with the boys to end the day. there is another ritual i've been doing with bella first thing in the morning. after she gets on the bus, and drops into her seat, always the same one, i pantomime something as the bus drives off. my four second skits have included things like pretending to pick up poop (when we're dog-sitting and i'm about to walk the pup), or downhill skiing (when we have a pending ski trip), or struggling to pull up tight pants (when she had to pull half-dry pants out of the dryer), or doing an animated singing solo (when she has a choir performance in the day). the reward for me is to see her brightly look out the window before the bus starts moving for her day's mini-show. then seeing her throw her head back in a hearty guffaw at the daily choice as she slides out of view is more meaningful to a father from his daughter than would be a standing-o from a packed carnegie hall.

and please note, that while she would never admit it, she too is tickled by a good poop joke. the difference between she and her brothers is she has a one a day limit, or week even, where the boys would gladly take one a minute for a week.

the boys and i started a new bedtime game, especially after we've read shel silverstein. what i do is as we're approaching bed, i take a random sentence they say and then try to make a shel-esque poem out of it. as you'll see from last night's sample, the more bodily fluid and organ references that can be made, the better. the one below had them in hysterics (not the smartest pre-bed move) so much so they demanded a re-telling before they would go to sleep.

each year before exiting from marty's birthday brunch i say a few words to marty and the guests. the first year, if memory serves, i shared how important marty was to me and i knew how important all of the ladies in the room were to her so it made perfect sense to devote a day to all of these people who are special and meaningful to one another.

this year held more of a "we've been here before - you know the drill" vibe that went something like: later that night after the kids were down and the day was minutes from done, marty thanked me (again) for the day and said.

MARTY
i liked your speech today.

TROY
speech? it was like three sentences long.

MARTY
well, it was a good three sentences.

TROY
that may be the first time a speech that included the words 'smeared feces' ever received such a praise.

i botched marty's 40th birthday. i forget why but i'm sure any excuse i could recall or fabricate would be poor and baseless. a year later i attempted to redeem myself. for this, i arranged a surprise brunch that included her mother, her three sisters (one from new york and one from chicago), and her closest friends. i took care of all the food and once the guests arrived i packed the kids in the van (and the three kids of one of the friends) and ushered them out to my dad's place in the woods for the day. for all the kudos and praise i received from the girlfriends, the hateful sentiments i received from their spouses balanced any over-inflation that may have happened for my good deeds.

yesterday, i repeated the birthday brunch. i was less careful about protecting the surprise and less lavish with the eats and this year i plotted a better day for the kids and i (oz movie, skating at rollercade, and then dinner out). but even though marty had a notion what was going down and i didn't catch a tear of emotion like last year, i do think she and the ladies had a famous afternoon.

and, a sign of the good karma i earned, there were still some cinnabons left when the kids and i returned home. that's some good and right living there.

happy birthday walt.

all,
i fear i'm up against it once more and being one who tries to subscribe to the if you can't do it well, don't do it philosophy, i need to step away for another moment.

i will plan to return on march 11th.

best.

troy.

anthony knows the d-word. and he knows how to use it. mostly he says things like, "i really wanted to say the d-word then but didn't. but if i was still a baby i would have just shouted it over and over ... but babies don't know the d-word which is a good thing because then they might have just laid there in the crib shouting it out when they weren't supposed to."

but when anthony loses his cool he has been known to let the d-word fly loose and wild through the air. and like a master craftsmen with a single, fundamental tool he gets good milage out of this swear staple. there are the expected and surprisingly accurate uses of the word where he'll blend it with something expected, like "head" but there are also advanced combinations, like "face" or "nose", that show the boy's potential. and just when you think you've seen his range, he'll surprise you with inspired uses, coupling the one-syllable weapon with "ear" or "back" or "belly" that leave you wondering if you're seeing a mind touched with a gift or addled by simplicity.

MARTY
that stove is going to look bare one day without your kettle on it.

TROY
where's my kettle going?

MARTY
when you die.

TROY
that's a lovely morning thought to get my day off to a booming start.

MARTY
i do what i can.

shortly after marty and i began dating, in one of those early relationship questions, i asked marty if i died how long she thought it would be before she would date someone else. she thought for a few moments before saying, in a fully seriously tone, "i'm sure it would be at least a week."

a week! a week! now i'd be the first to admit the three years i wished she would say might have been a touch ambitious but a week. in seeing my startled response she quickly adjusted, saying, "not a week -- longer than a week" and then as if bracing for a firecracker to pop added probingly, "like a month -- three months". marty is pragmatic even in matters of the heart, even in matters of new love. but without this cut to the bone approach, marty wouldn't be marty.

she did pay for her cruel offense by shouldering six months of jokes about trying to pick up guys at my funeral and if it would be gauche to invite cute fellas who didn't know me to the funeral just so she could get a jump on the replacement relationship.

several years later when our path together looked a bit more certain, in a quiet moment marty said out of the blue, "ok. so maybe i'd need more than a week before taking up with some new guy." nicer words were never said to my young, longing heart.

an excerpt from a bookguy email about a comment made by his seven year old daughter.

on a saturday night a few weeks back, we had a beautiful snow fall through the night.

on sunday, i built an igloo with anthony (one big enough for him to climb into) and then went sledding with alex (where we'd race down the hills and crash into each other if able).

on monday, i consumed an inordinate amount of ibuprofen.

i really wish they'd work on a drip mechanism i could clip into at work so i wouldn't have to groan each time i got up to get more pills.

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.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. boyfriend

sadly, the one thing marty wants, needs and covets most, seems to be the slipperiest target of them all -- ample sleep.

one day, in the future, marty and i will again taste the luxury of plentiful rest but when that time comes i fear we will then desire what we have in surplus now -- time with our kids --- and then be equally unable to conjure enough of it. i liked how marty's aunt put it ...

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.

a few years ago i made the switch from being a stay-up-late guy to a get-up-early guy. i lucked into this being a really fortunate life-change because when marty went back to work, my days, quite abruptly, needed to begin at 6:30 am. surprisingly, one of the hardest facets of this hours transition dealt with my exercise. for about twenty years, i've done distance biking and more than ninety five percent of those rides, rides that were between twenty and forty miles, happened in the night, anywhere between ten p.m. and 2 a.m. there are many reasons i prefer biking at night but obviously i couldn't roll in from a bike ride at one in the morning, wash up, wind down, sack out and get enough sleep in before a six thirty alarm chimed. so, no more night rides which means i have to do my sweating in the morning.

because i've always exercised at night, a well published bit of medical knowledge never concerned me. i've read multiple times that more heart attacks happen in the morning hours than in the after lunch window. now, as i would pump and strain on my stationary trainer in the basement twenty minutes out of bed (no time for distance rides before work), this medical tidbit would appear and take a leisurely stroll around my mind while i logged my intervals. this repeated finding proved so convincing in fact, that there were times i'd back off my level of effort now and again out of fear of over-taxing my pre-coffee ticker.

one morning after one of these haunted workouts, i stood in the kitchen still shiny with sweat and in my biking bibs while the boys ate breakfast. i found myself imagining the scene of alex or anthony coming upon me collapsed by my bike. i wondered what they'd do, how they'd respond. so, while they ate their muffins and yogurt i asked them what they would do if they found me downstairs in the morning and i looked to be sleeping but they couldn't wake me up. i asked anthony to answer first.

ANTHONY (6)
well, i'd tell you to wake up and if that didn't work i'd jump on your head.

TROY
jump on my head???

ANTHONY
yes. jump on your head. you said you wanted me to get you up didn't you? and if that didn't wake you up i'd call the hospital.

TROY
how would you call the hospital. what numbers would you push.

ANTHONY
911

TROY
and what would you tell them?

ANTHONY
i'd say you are sleeping and i jumped on your head but you still didn't wake up.

TROY
and where would you tell them to come?

ANTHONY
i'd tell them to come to my house.

TROY
do you know where you live? what street?

ANTHONY
yes. (says street).

TROY
what about the house numbers?

ANTHONY
uhhhm. (thinks for a moment). i would go out the front door and look at the numbers on the front of the house.

TROY
nice anthony. good answer. i think i'd have a sportin chance if you did all that. now how about you alex? what would you do?

ALEX (9)
i'd try to wake you up. if i couldn't i'd slap you. if i still couldn't get you awake then i'd do VCR on you. and if that didn't work i'd call 911.

TROY
wow. very nice answer. although i might suggest calling 911 before starting your VCR on me.

i must say i was oddly relieved to hear how my fellas would react. that said, let us hope that's the last time they ever have to visit the matter.

marty walked into the bathroom as i was blow-drying my hair. the second the door swung open, i turned the dryer off and held it by my side while she grabbed her need and left. when she closed the door i turned it back on and resumed my work.

when she next saw me out of the bathroom she confessed to thinking i was doing something bizarre to myself with the hair dryer. while tempted to run her down a dim and twisty rabbit hole, i admitted that i turned it off only because she opened the door and the dryer is loud and the boys were still sleeping.

i could have sworn she looked more disappointed than relieved. i mean, you don't think she was privately hoping for something like this, do ya?

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. a hole

marty and i were in bed, just waking up. the quiet of the house said the children were still tangled wildly in their sheets and blankets. marty leaned against two pillows reading. i had not yet come that far along achieving nothing more than sliding her way, pressing my naked back against her bare skin, in a when-you-think-about-it odd show of intimacy. eyes still closed but too awake to fall back...

i have two deadlines in the coming weeks and rather than subjecting you to quarter-cooked thoughts, i'm going to make the mature choice and step away for the month.

as to not totally send you from the doorstep empty-handed, i'll share the most salacious bit of conversation i enjoyed over the christmas break. i don't recall how it began but i surely liked how it slipped and tripped about.

see you in february.

best.

troy.