we have some new neighbors. they moved in about a year ago and have a young girl who just turned two. the little girl is quite awesome, in part because she thinks i'm about the coolest cat on the block and lights up a big smile every time she sees me. being a young family just getting on their feet, marty and i usually offer them kid-related things we have outgrown and are giving away. one thing we gave them shortly after they moved in was the changing table we used for all three of our kids as our humans had finally (thankfully!!!) outgrown the need for it.
a few days after christmas, marty answered a knock on the door. she opened it to find neighbor jeff there holding a cutting board. after exchanging the usual pleasantries, jeff held the cutting board forward, offering it to marty. before she could say anything he said he would like to return the changing table we gave them. taking the cutting board, marty asked what he meant. he said the drawers in the cabinet broke and while he was breaking it down he noticed the top board was a really nice block of maple, so he cut it down and made an end-grain cutting board for us using the wood from the piece of furniture all three of our children came up on.
i'm not willing to say bella's act of kindness spurred this karma on but i would be comfortable asserting that my neighbor is probably way cooler and more awesome than your neighbor.
bella believes in random acts of kindness. so much so that she occasionally, based on some regimen she follows, schedules a random act of kindness. over the christmas break this kindness was to bake a from-scratch apple pie to give to someone. she gave marty her shopping list and then with the proper ingredients in hand, bella made her pie. once done and somewhat cooled, bella donned her shoes and ...
i've recently stopped spending money. i have my reasons and they are good ones. and because they are good ones, i may have a prayer at rocking this financial fast.
the first and best thing about making a serious declaration to stop spending money is the liberation that comes with it (remember this guy). it frees up like fifteen to forty percent of your mind as you get to simply dismiss all of those little nags that happen through the day in this world of shiny material and digital things, all of which are vying for your attention (and money). now i just get to say "nope, not an option" and move on. as i said, liberating.
marty fluctuates between jubilation and frustration over my new declaration. she's jubilant in that she's been trying to get me to stop mindlessly spending money for better than twenty years. she's frustrated that the answer was as simple as putting the right vision in front of me. i can't be to blame in that though. i've been a vision-centric person since my earliest memory. without an end goal in mind (an end goal i viscerally want), i can't marshall a single neuron to act. i have sixteen years of unimpressive school transcripts to support this trait. a piece of computer generated paper with an A on it held no appeal to me (granted, i lacked the vision of the potential enough of those As held for me and my future-self). but, give me a tantalizing goal on the horizon i would love to possess, and my record, to date, has been perfect.
i heard a talk by a life coach who acutely and succinctly addressed this specific foible. she talked about men who would come to her and say they wanted to get in shape. she would ask them why they wanted to get in shape. they would say so they could be healthy and live longer. she told each and every one of those men she couldn't help them. when they asked why she told them their vision was too soft and she couldn't work with it. she instead needed them to say i want to get healthy so i look hot and girls want to sleep with me. to that response she would say, that i can work with. now let's go get you laid.
it's all about that wanna-have-more-sex kinda drive that makes something happen. and i finally found mine in regard to money.
another family invited us to join them on their family's annual camping tradition, now fifteen years strong. while one of their kids was giving me a paddleboard tour up the coastline (me sitting in the front and her kneeling in back paddling) i asked what she thought of the place. she said she wasn't sure how to answer that--it was like a second home--she had been coming to this campsite and beach ...
alex started middle school this year. for what it's worth, bella started high school, which means we have reached that unenviable milestone where we have three kids at three different schools. we were more than a little nervous towards the end of summer as the days left grew fewer with each sunrise. i don't think it would be a secret to say most of our nervousness was reserved for aleo. there are ...
one of the cousins of the the nephew that just got married recruited the entire family to help with his gift idea.
the young man bought his favorite cousin a bible and then reserved a blank page in the back of the book for each family to craft a message to the new couple.
the following was marty's entry for our family:
Troy and I find ourselves contemplating the journey of marriage that you will begin on January 3, 2015.
Here are some traveling tips from a couple who embarked on our journey 17 years ago:
The path of your journey will be unique.
Always be mindful of your "magnetic north" (the relationship you wish to have). Check your compass often to ensure you are still on your path.
Know that the skies won't always be blue and the paths won't always be flat. Storms and mountains are part of every journey.
There will be days you won't be able to carry your pack and there will be days you will have to carry both packs.
All travelers have different strengths and weaknesses. Knowing yours and your partner's is important.
There is no discrete destination so remember to enjoy the miles every day affords you.
Don't compare yourselves to other travelers. People's public presentation is often not indicative of the whole story (so don't compare your complete picture to someone's public persona).
Never forget you are fortunate to be on this journey. It is not a blessing all people get nor is it a blessing all people remember they have.
regarding #7 marty would not let me add "except in the case of marty and troy whose private existence far exceeds the public's perception". she's always plays spoil-sport.
Q: What would you do in Ferguson that a standard reporter wouldn't?
A: I'd do a special on race, but I'd have no black people.
Q: Well, that would be much more revealing.
A: Yes, that would be an event. Here's the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
Q: Right. It's ridiculous.
A: So, to say Obama is progress is saying that he's the first black person that is qualified to be president. That's not black progress. That's white progress. There's been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. If you saw Tina Turner and Ike having a lovely breakfast over there, would you say their relationship's improved? Some people would. But a smart person would go, "Oh, he stopped punching her in the face." It's not up to her. Ike and Tina Turner's relationship has nothing to do with Tina Turner. Nothing. It just doesn't. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let's hope America keeps producing nicer white people.
Q: It's about white people adjusting to a new reality?
A: Owning their actions. Not even their actions. The actions of your dad. Yeah, it's unfair that you can get judged by something you didn't do, but it's also unfair that you can inherit money that you didn't work for.
the boys were each in an after school program. anthony was in a mad-science session and alex was at his robotics club. in coming back from the bathroom alex found anthony sitting on the floor outside the mad-science room. he stopped and asked if he was ok. anthony said that there was a bully in the session today and he didn't want to be in there. alex suggested he just ignore him so he didn't have to miss the class (as both the boys always love the mad science curriculums). anthony told alex that's what he usually did but today he didn't have the energy or patience for it so was just going to sit in the hall instead. if you forget or are wondering, anthony is in second grade.
after returning to his own classroom alex explained his brother's situation to his club leader and asked if anthony could come sit in their room. the leader said of course and anthony was invited to the fifth graders space. they set him up with some drawing gear and anthony spent the remainder of the time drawing and coloring pictures.
in hearing the re-tellings of this tale from the various parties, i'm not sure which of my boys i'm more impressed with. my eight year old for having the sense to remove himself from a toxic and un-winnable situation or my eleven year old for supporting his brother both as a counselor and protector. for as great as all the laughs and cuddles and tickle-wars with your kids are, seeing moments of empathy and compassion and maturity from them warms the heart more than one might be prepared for.
a full week after this event when dropping the boys off at school a classmate walked by waving at anthony. once he had passed i asked anthony if that was the bully. he looked his way and said, "him? no. he's not a bully. he's just a liar."
marty had parent teacher conferences so i was solo with the kids. whenever a parent is gone, the family drops into team effort mode. i left work early to pick up the boys. bella put the finishing touches on the dinner marty got going in the crockpot that morning.
the dinner table is also a very different affair when we're down a human. most surprisingly, conversation seems much more effo...
as i unpacked my bag after arriving at work, i found a card tucked between my book and my lunch. it was from bella and was a remarkably thoughtful card. that night when i saw bella, i mentioned my discovery to her.
oh yeah. that. i got it for you for father's day but then thought how you and mom don't celebrate anniversaries and stuff like that and thought it might surprise you if i gave it to you some other time when you weren't expecting it.
well it worked. it worked quite nicely. aside from the part of it almost making me cry in my office.
the recent news that microsoft was looking to buy mojang's minecraft had the elementary playground in a frenzy. at one point a kid ran up to anthony, shouted the news in his face and when anthony didn't really respond the boy grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him and screamed that he was totally under-reacting to the news. alex and i had a timely dad-lunch scheduled later that day. our entire hour was filled with talk of the sale.
after going over the perils of tinkering with something at its peak (never mess with a winning game) i asked alex what he thought Notch, the rumored hold-out owner should do. without much of a pause alex said, "well, he seems to love what he does and given how many people play minecraft i guess he has enough money to pay for his house and live, he should probably not give up the thing that makes him most happy."
to my emphatic retort of, but alex, it's a billion dollars.
his reply.
but what if he can't find another thing that he enjoys as much as this. then he traded something he loved for something that he doesn't.
i'm often struck at how quickly kids can boil down adult decisions.
after a little more digging into the story we learned that while Notch loved the creative and creating side of his minecraft project, he very much did not love the business side of things, so the release of the project made more sense than initially thought.
when the news of the sale finally hit, every minecrafter i knew, young and old alike, were visibly pensive at what was in store for their beloved technology in the hands of an organization known for fumbling easier slam-dunks than this.
while sitting in the car the other day waiting for the boys to get in, i noticed our neighbors had a walk-out deck above a first floor sunroom they had. the porch had a brick wall surrounding it that came up between the knee and thigh. the weather this particular day was crazy-lovely and i was thinking how neat it would be to have a setup like that where on nice weather nights, you could sleep outside in the night air and looking up at the night sky through gently swaying tree branches (akin to this experience). when the boys got in the car they noted my reverie.
ALEX (11)
whatcha lookin' at dad?
TROY
that porch. see over there. look above that room. you can walk out on there. do you see it?
THE BOYS
yeah.
TROY
i was thinking on nice days like today, you could pull a sleeping bag out there and sleep outside. because you're high up no one could see or mess with you. doesn't that seem like it would be cool?
ALEX
yeah it does.
TROY
i would sleep out there all the time if we had one of those.
ALEX
you should have one built on the back of our house.
TROY
yeah. i was kinda studying that thinking if we could.
ANTHONY (8)
but dad. if you did that, that would be like a thousand cuddles.
TROY
what?
ALEX
if you and mom built one of those on the back of the house, we would lose a thousand cuddles because you'd be busy.
TROY
you know anthony. i think you're right. that does look to be about a thousand cuddle project.
in giving this some thought i don't think we have nearly enough CUDDLE-ACCOUNTING in our society or personal lives as we maybe should. every life commitment (e.g. home improvement, continuing education, job change, home upgrade) should have a new line item added to the ledger sheet that reads LOST CUDDLES.
what follows is a talk my friend sam gave at a gave developer microtalk event. the talks of the night, expectedly, dealt with coding and development and the act of creating. mercifully batting cleanup, sam's talk, generically lableled PROCESS, blew the lid off the tenth floor of a twenty-five story building.
I still have a viola, purchased in a sprint of optimism two year...
while beautiful as heck, the girl is awfully hard on a set of dishes
marty believes that if you make it fifteen or twenty years in marriage you should get to have a second wedding shower namely to replace the things you received the first time because after a decade of use, many of them are starting to wear out or are broken or are way out of style. while i chortled at her suggestion when she initially floated out there, holding one of the struggling items up in example as she spoke, i must confess the notion has been rolling around by brain long enough now that it has nice rounded edges and the sheen of a glassy marble, which is the look all our best thoughts take on in time—in my metaphorical world at least.
granted this time through i think marty would kindly request to swap any suggestive lingere purchaces for a more practical set of wool socks. and sad as it is to report, i would support the request. you would too if you ever had her ice-cold feet graze against your calf at 2am on a winter's night.
i had lunch with a friend. we talked about many things. family, both immediate and extended. the generational divide in belief and approach. he talked about how disengaged his parents were with his children. he went on to add that he shouldn't be all that surprised because they weren't all that engaged with him when he was young. now rolling in his deconstruction of the relationships he said the following, and i'm paraphrasing here:
my girls are the only two people i will know for every minute of their lives. i mean i saw them enter this world. i held them moments after. i cleaned maggie off minutes later. and i've seen every moment since. i get to witness them experience the world for the first time and am watching them turn into adults before my eyes, and get to help mold and direct that. i mean how f'ing amazing is that. how could you not want to be part of that if you're fortunate enough to have the chance?
when he paused i complimented his beautiful verbalizing of the experience, confessing i had never thought of it in just that way—that as a parent you get to experience nearly every facet of a child's experience in this world and how that isn't going to happen anywhere else, like ever again, except for maybe as a grandparent if you're lucky enough to have grandkids and live long enough to see it but even then you will spend much of the time in the next room, thus making your parental run all the more special. then, selfishly, i expressed my dismay at not verbalizing that sentiment before he just did (and me over-thinking just about anything kid related that can be ruminated on).
i'm sure by now you've all seen this video, but still...
this strikes me beyond the well done sentimentality as it points to a gaping hole in my screen policing philosophy, a hole my children are just beginning to discern. the loophole is this: i will allow my children immense access to technology in the name of active creation. and i will restrict, with equal vigor, the time they use technology for numb consumption.
as for my criteria of what is creation, they are broad. i'm indifferent if you're plotting out a website, writing a short story, shooting a video or even trying to make a wonky maze in minecraft—if that's the plan, plug in and hack away. conversely, if the agenda is to troll other people's websites, read the stories they crafted, watch their video-making achievements, or play a wonky maze someone else made, time is up, log off, go outside and get dirty.
bella is the first to begin to glean this paradox in her father because even while on restriction from screens, she's noticed any kid with a plan in hand gets greenlit to the machine of their choosing. before you start picking at my methonds, please know one needs more than a fanciful vision to get past the logon screen. outlines, sketches, mockups are the sorts of keys that can make the doors swing wide. lacking that level of planning, a child will be sent off to better collect their thoughts. if they can't get the plan on paper they either weren't serious or they weren't ready.
and if you gave me ten years, i don't think i could have transformed this belief with anywhere near the payload this apple ad achieves in a mere ninety seconds. fully ridiculous. holy smokes are their people good (ahem, creators).
as for me i think i've done about all the creating i've got in me for 2013 so i'll be stepping away to relax by the fire, smile at the dinner table, and tell animated stories with friends and family while lazing on comfy furniture next to lit trees. may your next weeks be rich with laughter, contentment and liesure while we all get a societal kitchen pass to spend time with our friends and families.
see you on january 6th.
p.s. speaking of creating, after entering this post into the database, i noticed that it is the 2,001st entry in the monorail blog. things, good and bad, do have a reliable way of accumalating on us. it's the quiet beauty of the slow drip.
i heard of the greatest christmas tradition this week. the husband of a woman i work with, since the year they got married, has saved a section of the stump from their family christmas tree. he dates the wooden discs, adding significant detail(s) from the year in his custom scrawl. the end result is a rich and personal presentation on their family mantle. this discovery snuck in just before year's end as the idea i most wish was my own. the man to credit for this excellent bit of creativity and foresight is one joe erker. in case it is not apparent, i couldn't be more envious of the thoughtful gift he has made for his family and the future generations it will surely touch.
and, if that large centerpiece stump with the single word POP on it doesn't elicit emotion from you, wether you personally know who pop was or not, you are not properly wired (or you haven't yet lost one of the most important people in your life). powerful stuff. as the movie says, life is beautiful.
i participate in a reading program at the university i work for. the program instructs all incoming freshmen to read a book, a book chosen by a committee of folks. the book is meant to stimulate thought and conversation about a range of topics. on the day before classes begin the freshmen attend a discussion group with around fifteen of their new peers. the talk spans one and a half hours and is l...
