Marta declared it the best summer ever. It was a pretty good one. Noting a few of the highlights for our records. 

Anfer 
Tony attended something called Boys State. It is an eight day experience where a few kids from just about every high school in the state attend. During the week they establish a complete community and government system (I think). Attendees are recommended via teacher referrals so it was a pretty high-caliber collection of young people. Anthony had a lot of fun. What he did not have was a lot of sleep. His first day back, he dropped his bags in the foyer, walked to his bedroom, and slept for fourteen hours. 

Aleo 
Alex was invited to help teach at a weeklong summer program at his university. There were two students from his Film School recommended by faculty. The experience ended up being significantly more challenging than he, or anyone else, expected it to be. Marty and I were both stunned at some some of the situations he found himself in. We were equally surprised by the grace in which he responded to each of them. This poise under duress is an ability he has repeatedly demonstrated in his young life.

Baya 
Bella is working on starting a non-profit (more on that later). While getting things organized, she has been doing a lot of social media work so when she's ready to open the doors, she has a ready group of people to invite inside. The other day, while shopping, someone yelled at her from across a store, “Hey! Yo! Kindness girl!”. She got recognized in the wild! AND she got called Kindness-Girl! It is hard to know which of those two milestones made her beam more.

Marta 
Marty and I took our first trip together without kids since having kids. And it was kinda great. The only bad thing to come of it was when I called my best friend, Bookpimp, to ask if it was ok for Marty to join me on this year’s visit, he replied, “The question is if Marty’s coming, why would we need you?”. In our travels, in addition to doing a record amount of kayaking (in her origami kayak), she did a few new things, namely trail bike riding (through a Michigan forest on dirt pack) and taking up tennis (she has even gotten a coach).

Troy
I’ve been going tent-camping in Michigan every July for the last ten years. Every year, I seemingly go a bit longer. For the last few years, I’ve gone for a month. This year was supposed to be five weeks, but an unexpected Secret Cajun Band concert caused me to delay my departure. When in Michigan I do a good bit of reading, play a lot of tennis, bike a lot of miles, and paddleboard just about every day (that's where I get my baths). Next year I will be adding snorkeling and open water swimming to the list of activities. This year I concluded my Michigan Julys are the summer camps I never got as a kid. I’ve been going to this same place for so long, I now know more people there (other summertime regulars as well as locals) than I do in my home’s neighborhood.

Those are the tippy-top highlights from the Marty-branded best summer ever.

When I run into people I haven't seen in a bit, they universally ask the same question. That question is not, how are you? How is your business? How is your health? How is your life? The number one question I get is, "How are the kids?". While we're making numbered lists here, the number two question I get is, "How is Marty?". And since the moment I had kids or was married, this has been the case. Even my own mother would inquire about my family before asking about me, so please know I'm not judging anyone. Just another of my observations. The truth is I am in aggreement. I too find Marty and my children more interesting as well.

I say all of that to say that since it has been a minute since we chatted, let's just go ahead and get how the kids are doing business out of the way. By now, you all know I am every bit as boastful and gloating of my children as any father. So to enforce some brevity here, I will just pick one recent thing (and by recent, I'm talking about the last two weeks) to say about my kids.

Anfer was recently inducted into the National Honor Society (for the record, both Baya and Aleo also received this distinction). When this happens, the student is asked to select a teacher to present their NHS certificate to them at the recognition ceremony. Anthony chose his social studies teacher, who also serves as his wrestling coach. As the words reveal, this selection emanated not from the classroom but from a odor-rich gymnamsium. When I first read this, I thought of something I've heard Marty express over the years. It typically surfaces after Bella shares some bit of wisdom she picked up in her travels. After sharing her insight and leaving the room, you will often find Marty muttering to herself, "Oh sure, I've been telling you that for seven years, but MARY (and the person's name is always elongated and exaggerated) says it, and now it is part of your life's gospel." 

So after reading the Lemay-lovefest, I felt a tinge of that Marty-hurt. Then after giving it a bit more thought, I concluded the hardest thing I've ever asked Tony to do is mow our backyard with a manual-push mower that has a gimp wheel. Lemay tells Tony to walk onto a mat with a muscle-ridden, half-dressed opponent and engage in six minutes of what, to my eye, appears to be worse than any six minutes I've ever lived in my life. And Lemay tells him to do this repeatedly. And Tony has done it repeatedly. If anything, I think I may need to write a fawning letter to and about Coach Lemay as well. 

Bella met a young woman at an event recently. They started chatting, Bella implementing her get-to-know-you protocol. After a few minutes, the woman interrupted Bella to say, "Boy, you ask really great questions!". Bella smiled, thanked her, and confessed it is something she works hard to do well.

The woman went on to say she never really gives that compliment to people, at least not many people. She explained that she was a Thought Consultant, which means her entire job is pretty much about asking questions of people and trying to get them to ask better questions of themselves. By my estimation, getting this compliment from this human is akin to Tom Brady saying he likes your throwing motion.

The bad news here is that this is yet another achievement my 23-year-old daughter has beaten me too. When I had kids, I knew it would be emotionally trying. I just didn't expect it to be professionally debilitating as well. And I gotta ask, how the heck to you get this dang title? I once asked my boss if I could be a Technology Evangalist. As I walked away from his laughter, he suggested I start with Technology Comedian and work my up.

A professor asked Alex if he would be his Teaching Assistant for a class in the coming year. Aleo was surprised at the request as he had never had the professor. It turns out that another professor, whom Alex did have, recommended Alex to the man. 

I was only ever asked two things by my university when in college.
1. To ask fewer questions in class.
2. To return my library books on time.

And that is not the end of interest in Alex's skillset. He's already turned the head of a few professionals before even completing his second year of film school. Oh, and Alex also turned 21 last week.

I know of multiple married couples who are starting that empty-nester phase of their life. In a troubling number of cases the prognosis looks bleak. To combat this, many are entering couples therapy to help them in their post-children lives. I see therapy in my future too but it is not the marital/couple type (though Marty may report something different). My therapy is going to focus on repairing my abused self-esteem as I watch my kids and their young successes where I cannot help but compare it to my faltering early years.

Given our trajectories, and their needing us less and less every day and us passing them on that scale where we may one day need them more, I feel compelled to remind them, that I changed their diapers when they were little. Well, ok, so Marty changed their diapers but there were times I didn't leave the room when it happened. That's gotta count for something, no?

For most of their lives my children didn’t know a website existed that chronicled a great number of the things they did and said. Upon learning of it, their...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. Don't do that

Bella just got her first post-college, big-girl job. It is at the same university I worked for until 2016. It is an idyllic starting professional experience for both her and her employer. For her because she is going to learn a lot about the future industry she intends to occupy, and for them, because they just landed a young woman obsessed with what their group does—event production.

...

Bella and Abdi (her multi-year boyfriend) were in Chicago for a long weekend. After parking their car on a congested neighborhood street, they stood back, assessing if their park job was okay given the signs and curb paint. They stopped two guys passing by and told them they were visiting town and asked if they, the guys, thought their parking was alright. The two fellows gave it a thumbs up. Afte ...

Last year I shared that Bella was graduating college and that she was throwing herself a party and that there would be speeches.

For those who might not have been invited or who were invited but could not attend, above are the speeches that happened at Baya’s self-thrown graduation party.

We all have Aleo to thank for the excelle...

Alex recently came to Marty and asked if she was ok. She was and said as much. He asked again, seemingly not believing her first answer. She repeated she was fine and asked why he was asking. He said that he noticed that she had not made dinner on two of the three nights this week. Marty took a moment to recall the week, and yes, because of some atypical evening events, we did not have our usual f...

For years Bella wanted to be a waitress. I believe this began after she heard, "waitresses make bank!" After working a few counter-service jobs, she got hired at Red Lobster. They said she couldn't serve tables because she had no experience, but they would start her as a hostess and get her waiting tables in time. That never happened, and after a half year or so, Bella gave notice.

She t...

I recently, to Marty, compared Anthony to Bella saying that something he did reminded me of her. With zero pause, Marty quickly corrected me with the following.

Bella will graduate from college in December 2022. She will receive a degree in Public Policy & Administration. We, her parents, are doubly grateful as her college experience got off to a faltering start, mostly because she didn't want to go. She wanted to volunteer at a woman's shelter in Nepal straight out of high school. Marty and I deemed attending college a non-negotiable, at least for the fi...

A friend of mine wrote a musical. I knew he'd been working on it for a few years. I mainly knew because he asked me to go to some recording studio and scream into a microphone for a demo reel. After a few takes, they thanked me for my time and sent me home. Not a soul was surprised. I'm a writer, not a yeller.

Then one day years later, he mentioned, in passing, that his musical was being...

Bella didn't want to go to college. Like at all. Instead, she wanted to volunteer at a Nepalese orphanage slash womens' shelter. Do you know how hard it is to convince your child, or anyone, to not give their energy and support to people that desperately need your child's, or anyone's, energy and support? For me, it makes my top twenty list. But I did argue against my child going and helping these...

Out of nowhere, Bella asked if I would walk a marathon with her. Now this was not an organized event. It was just a leave your house and walk 26 random miles event. Without giving it a whole lot of thought, I said sure. Honestly, a large part of me didn't really expect it to happen so it felt like one of the safer shows of support I had ever given one of my children.

Then a few weeks later Bella started asking if this day might work for our marathon-walk. Oh. Uhh. Yeah. Sure.

Then the day before the day, Bella told me that Anthony (age 13) would be joining us. His participation may have surprised me more than the fact that this walk seemed to be happening.

And when the day came, Bella and Anthony were out of bed and lacing up shoes and Marty was loading up the Camelback. Within the hour we were out the door and logging our first mile.

I originally considered mapping a walk but realized there was little point to that. We just needed to walk. It didn't really matter where we went. We each had a tracker. Bella used her phone. I used my vivofit 2 (wearable pedometer), and I gave anthony my bike computer (which works for walking as well). We are fortunate that we have all sorts of beautiful cityscape and neighborhoods and one of the largest city parks in America surrounding our home so we just sort of wended our way around our community.

I spent the first part of the walk trying to understand Anthony's interest in this. It didn't take me long to find my answer. In my mind I understood that this would be an all-day march. I learned neither Bella or Anthony fully did the math on it. After the first hour, we saw a neat little bench and decided to take a quick break. Then we stumbled upon this adorable public garden and decided to sit in there for a bit and enjoy the view. Then an hour after that, we came upon a park and took another break. When Anthony looked at our distance and saw that two hours' effort bought us five miles, the unasked question was asked--So, just how long is this going to take?

After I broke the news he confessed that he thought we would be done by noon. Feeling sympathetic for this miscalculation I designed a route that would take us by home at the midway point for lunch and bathroom breaks. In addition to being kind to our bladders, I thought this provided Anthony an easy out for the second leg given he misunderstood what he signed up for (though I never told him that is why I took us back home). After we ate and rested for a bit, Bella and I (and Leta) started prepping to head back out and when we met in the foyer, Anthony was there too. I expressed surprise that he was going back out. He said he had come this far, he might as well finish it. Proud, proud, proud.

During the walk, Bella made these phone updates after every mile. I didn't fully understand what was happening with them and I thought it might get annoying. But it proved to be a nice way to tick the miles off and show our progress. When she shared the finished product with me, I thought it was super cool. Anytime I re-watch it, I'm totally transported back to the day and I have all sorts of memories surrounding the short clips. Fun, fun stuff.

This happened in June of 2020. Bella and I have since talked about doing another marathon walk. Anytime the subject has been raised, Anthony has always raised a hand to say that once was enough for him. Though, just a few nights ago at dinner, he might have been heard to say that he would be open to doing a half-marathon. So, perhaps in another six months, he might be good for the full-boat again. And next time, I think we might get Marta to join us.

In other news, Bella got a dog.

We have been fostering dogs for a few years now. This was how Bella tricked us into kinda having dogs. But it turned out to be a pretty nice setup. We got the experience of having dogs, we got to help out some dogs in need and be part of them finding permanent homes, and we got breaks from dogs when we needed them. Leta came to us when we were on one of our fostering breaks. The rescue we work with called and asked if we could help them out as the local operations got overrun by a situation that unexpectedly brought in over forty dogs at once. Leta had just had surgery and needed a quiet place to recover. We are this rescue's go-to "quiet" place.

When we first got her, she acted more like a deer than a dog. This was for a couple of reasons. First, she looked a lot like a miniature deer. Second, the situation she came from had some semi-feral qualities so she wasn't accustomed to a proper home situation. This meant when we let her out, she would look for quiet hidden places and essentially bed-down like a young deer. She was super uncertain about people but took to other animals quite well. Whatever her story, she was a unique animal for us (most of ours were puppy-mill recoveries). And her quiet and gentle ways had Bella pretty done for, pretty quickly.

We got her just before the 2019 holidays and adopted her on Bella's 19th birthday (in March). This coincided with the covid spool-up so in that regard it could not have been more perfectly timed. We slowly gained her trust and she is now a comfortable member of the family. The greatest evidence of this is she even likes Marty and more telling is, Marty even likes her.

Meet Leta

The above two photos, from a 2018 ski trip, were taken moments apart. And when I say moments, I'm talking like less than a 180 seconds from one to the other. I imagine Anfer and I were laughing from trying to match Baya and Aleo's runway stares.

Question is which side of the table would you rather be sitting on (or looking at)? ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. brick-dumb

bella kept the first hat she ever knitted in her car. this was not for ornamental purposes like a graduation tassel but a functional part of her car's toolkit like an ice scraper or flashlight. being her first full project it had some pretty obvious flaws so she felt it didn't merit a routine rotation, nor was it worthy of proper donation. but it was perfect to help fight a morning chill until her ...

PART 4 - bella saves the day
after the front-porch moment, i told the family that even though keisha and baker weren't turning out the way we hoped they might, they did think of our home as their home and we shouldn't give up on them just yet. i sensed the others in the family weren't as moved by keisha's voluntary return as i was, even after my dramatic re-telling of the morn...

PART 2 - bella finds a loop hole
bella missed her curfew. i was never destined to be one of those parents who world ignore these adolescent mis-steps. i had the wrong mother for that. so when she was three minutes in default i texted her asking why she wasn't home. her reply came immediately. "sorry dad but i can't come home right now because i'm holding sleeping, day-old pupp...

bella and i were having one of our, what she calls "red-leather chair chats". these happen when she and i are both around and have twenty open minutes. she will ask if we can meet in my office. this is a request i have rarely, if ever, said no to. once settled into our respective chairs we catch up with each other's life. these largely replace what used to be our dad hours which haven't happened for bella too routinely since, honestly, she began middle school. i blame this largely on me no longer being able too pull her out at lunch time for our father-daughter lunches like i used to in elementary. problem in both middle and high school is their lunches are not long enough for me to sneak them away and get them back in time for their next class, which is a bit bizarre to me.

on this day, after getting me up to speed on her life she asked what was going on in my world. i shared that we had just started a new marketing outreach campaign and i had to call about twenty people a day to see if they were interested in our service.

BELLA
why do you sound so unexcited about it? that is unlike you.

TROY
i don't know. it just hasn't been turning out the way i thought it would and i'm a little discouraged by it.

BELLA
how long have you been doing it?

TROY
two days.

BELLA
two days! that's it?

TROY
uhh. yeah.

BELLA
and who are you calling?

TROY
law school registrars.

BELLA
dad. you can't give up after two days. i mean you're still getting your script worked out. it took me weeks before i had my approach down at club fitness. AND the people you are talking to are professionals. they can't even be mean to you. has anyone hung up on you.

TROY
no.

BELLA
six or seven of the people i call every day just hang up on me. don't even say a word. just hang up.

TROY
i guess i didn't think of it that way.

BELLA
you can't quit after two days. it's not the dearmitt-way.

the next day i made ten calls. seven people answered. and all of them were pleasant and helpful. when i was done for the day i may have even thought to myself--well, that was kinda fun, but i would never tell bella that.

in case my level of joy at how things played out wasn't clear enough yesterday (ref), allow me to submit the following. i think bella's emotion is a bit more fear-based in that she is less than ninety minutes from her first college class. mine is pure elation that i get to see my girl off for another first day of school from the same spot i have for the last fifteen years.

do good baya as you always have and you always will.

there is something in the dearmitt-world that merits a bit more discussion. those paying super-fine attention will have noticed that my days-left-with-bella counter (REF) started displaying negative numbers last week. no one dreaded that moment more than i. 

i've talked a little bit about bella and college but let me hit ...

bella merits one more shout-out this week. earlier i had talked about bella reaching one of her high school goals but there were a few more i didn't mention. shortly after starting her freshman year, bella learned that at her school there were a few service awards presented every year to the senior class. she immediately pointed to the s ...

last week bella achieved a long-term goal she set several years back--to pay for her own college education (or more plainly, to exit college debt-free). she has been saying this since she was in the sixth grade. and every time she did i would essentially pat her on the head and tell her that was not something she had to worry about because i worked at a university and one of my benefits was having ...