Marty turned 50 last year. Her main gift was passports for the entire family. I know that to your average person, that seems like a pretty lame present, but those who know Marty realize it is spot-on. First, she has been talking about getting passports for the kids (and renewing our own) for many years. Second, this has never happened because of the hassle and the expense.
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.
When young, in the weeks before Christmas, after getting home from school, I would walk to the tree and scan the gift-landscape for any new additions. When found, my eyes would zero in on the tag. If it read something other than TROY, I'd give it a scowl and move on. If the festive label had the magic four letters, I'd pull it from the disarray and ha...
The only item that caught us ill-prepared through this shut-in has been toilet paper. After each empty-handed return from a store-run, Marty would ask if people understood the Corona virus doesn't give you diarrhea.
This unexpected plight reminded Marty of an interview she heard a few weeks prior. In it, a recent immigrant to America shared a story that shortly after re-locating here, the state he lived in was bracing for a hurricane, and people stormed the stores in preparation. When he went for his supplies, he paused at the frozen section to take in the throngs of people fighting over a rapidly dwindling stock. After watching for a moment, he continued to an aisle of canned foods. In that aisle was just one other man who was also identifiably new to the country. They exchanged friendly nods, and one commented on the mayhem in the frozen aisle. The other said it seemed the people living here had not been through a recent catastrophe, else they would know there would be no electricity to run their freezers. The other smiled in understanding. They both then shrugged their shoulders and continued filling their carts with canned foods.
Whatever the cause of this bum-rush on toilet paper (;-)), there were a good number of folks about to be greeted to an empty shelf, both in their linen closet and local store.
Marty was unperturbed, like completely. So completely, in fact, part of me thinks she was hoping we would run out. When the kids and I, all visibly unsettled about the situation, asked what we'd do if we ran out, Marty flatly said, we'd just do soapy bottoms. Soapy bottoms are what would happen when the kids were little and complained that their bottom itched. Marty and Marty only need I say it, would tell the child they must need a soapy bottom washing. This ritual involved the child sitting on the toilet seat leaning forward as far as they could to give their mother easy access to their itchy place. When in position, Marty would wash their backside with her lathered-up hands. No cloth. No gloves. No hazmat suit. Just her bubble-coated mitts.
As the table of people aging from 13 to 51 stared back at this woman, she asked how we could not like or even want a soapy bottom washing. She said she'd very much enjoy such lavish treatment. This epiphany led her to ask the big question, who was going to do her soapy bottom when the time came. I don't want to say people actually recoiled, but I'm pretty confident I did hear one person's gag-reflex kick in. At this reaction, Marty reminded the three children that their parents weren't getting younger, and they might want to start wrapping their arms around the notion because it would soon be her turn to climb on the toilet seat and their turn to lather up those hands.
When everyone balked at the soapy bottom plan, Marty calmly said we could go the cloth diaper route. In the event you were not a cloth diaper house, Marty's version of this plan involved wiping with old cut-up socks and then rinsing them in a bucket that would sit beside the toilet. Then when the bucket was filled, those used, soaking socks would be washed, and the cycle would begin anew. As you might guess, plan B didn't get a lot of traction either. I'm not saying people would have preferred soapy bottoms, but rather no one was prepared to call those our only two options just yet.
By the end of the meal, Bella and Alex said they would just take showers after using the restroom. Anthony kept asking why we couldn't just use paper towels. I said I was just going to eat super healthy and exercise religiously so I would have nothing but perfect no-wipers. Marty said anyone was free to use the socks and bucket they would find next to the toilet.
Thankfully, at 6:48 a.m. on Tuesday, April 7th Marty and I found toilet paper at our local supermarket.
Now that we have dodged that near traumatic situation and I had time to study some hard choices, I can say there is a largish difference between CHOOSING to play soapy bottom and HAVING to play soapy bottom.
The next Corona-development for us was having all the schools go online. This held a double-impact in that we have three school-age kids and a parent that teaches high school. I fall into that lucky camp where my pre-Corona life looked quarantinesque already, so aside from a fuller and noisier home, my days saw little change.
My initial reaction to this news deemed it a non-issue. Fact is, I thought it would be nice to have Marty working in the room next to me. And I could also sleep longer or start work sooner since I didn't have to help get kids off to school in the morning. Then our first shared work morning took place. I had been at it for an hour and falling deeper into some code updates. Things were starting to hairy-up, and the world outside of my screen fell away. In the background, I heard Marty start her day by recording her first video lecture. After saying hello to her students and acknowledging the curious times, she described the day's lesson. A few sentences in, she warned that the vagina would be making an appearance at the 7:43 mark of the video, so anyone not wanting to see the vagina should prepare to look away a bit before then.
I assume my wife's vagina would not be the one winking hello at 7:43. But, Marty does few things half-genital. This is just to say I would not have bet twenty dollars on this fact. What I can tell you with twenty-dollar bet certainty is my coding productivity was not what it was three minutes earlier. Admittedly, this can in part be attributed to the fact that a vagina wasn't scheduled to be on my computer screen until early afternoon.
bella does a good amount of house and dog sitting. she has for years. just about anytime she sees someone walking a dog she approaches them, asks if she can pet it, and strikes up a conversation. most of those talks end with the following sentence -- "if you ever need someone to watch your dog and you hire bella's bright dog-sitting business, the future will be bright for you and your pets!"
<...
we were driving home from our michigan camping trip. marty had bella and anthony in the van and alex was with me in my car. alex and i had just eaten dinner and were about 60 miles west of indianapolis.
as we were driving and talking i noticed a car had pulled up on my left and was driving steady with me. after a few moments, i looked their way. there was a college-aged guy in the passen...
my uncle tim died in october. this was my mom's older brother and he died nine years to the month after my mom, his sister. i always described uncle tim as my favorite uncle. at his funeral lots of people described him as their favorite fill-in-the-blank. a contributing factor to this was my uncle tim was a prankster. never malicious. never hurtful. but also never off-duty. he seemed to always hav...
PART 3 - keisha earns a second chance.
working with keisha was tough sledding from minute one. we saw gains but they were infinitesimal and the kids zeal for the true rehab work at hand was waning given the small returns they were seeing in return. after several months, the guy who placed dog with us, andy, brought us a second dog that was part of the same rescue. he apologize...
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...
PART 1 - mom hates dogs
i have been quite happy about the childhood i was able to make for my kids with one exception--pets. having pets in the home is one thing i always imagined for my children but was never able to make happen. readers of the site know the main road-block here has been marty. fact is, marty and all six of her siblings are famous pet-haters. granted, it is h...
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 does a lot of house and pet sitting these days. this summer she spent more nights sleeping in other people's homes than she did in ours. and their homes have pools, multimedia systems and lavish bathrooms which is a bit of a bonus, particularly when you are being paid to be there. through this work and her other pursuits, she has become a competent manager of her time and juggling multiple r...
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 ...
Family Scrapbook: still white-knuckling that zip code (2019)
i'm pretty sure this is why we don't live in wyoming, or colorado, or utah, or, and especially, montana.
one of the most often told origin stories of the marty/troy relationship deals with where we live. when people learn that i grew up in colorado, the first thing they ask is why we don't live in colorado now (versus st. louis).
of all the couples that live in st. louis, 90% of ...
anfer has a new nickname at school. it is "ol grandpa anthony back at it again withe the new kycks" (anthony tells me the spelling matters, like a lot).
this came from a conversation where anthony and some classmates were talking about going back and playing minecraft again for nostalgia sake. anthony said, if he did, his username would be "ol grandpa anthony back at it again withe the n ...
aleo just got his driver's permit and has begun learning to drive. as with bella he is learning on a manual and like bella i taught him how to do it when he was thirteen. this means his first time out instead of just teaching him how to drive a stick-shift we could get right into the rules of the road and other next-level skills.
i took him to the same place i took bella and where lots o ...
there are two things you need to know for this story.
the first thing is that one of my best friends, bookguy, turned 50 six months before me. i have always basked extra-overtly in these six-month spans where he is older than me, with a lot of tired and sad jokes about old men and the like. these adolescent quips roll off him as easily as you'd expect with his knowledge that i am a few s...
in addition to the box of awesomeness (yesterday's family gallery), the weekend/week of my 50th was delightfully decadent and had multiple exceptional moments that blew me away.
BLOWN AWAY I
my celebration began officially at 3:30 on friday, or birthday-eve if you prefer, with a massage. the masseuse asked if i needed something specific worked on. i said not really. she asked why i was there. i told her that i always get a massage on the last day of the decade of my life so i was there to close out my forties. she said fair enough and we got underway. at the very end she said something really cool but i was so comatose i can't remember precisely what she said but it was something like "i hope this marks the end of one great decade and the beginning of an even better one". i loved the touch and thought she gave to the moment (pun for anthony).
i left there and went to one of my favorite meals in the country, stuffed atlantic salmon from mccormick and schmick's (originally Jake's Seafood in portland Oregon and still #2 on this list).
then i headed home to meet up with the family for an a cappella holiday concert. we have been going to this event, run by a friend, for almost two decades and it has always been conveniently scheduled near my birthday. on this day, due to the massage and dinner, i was running late. because of this marty went out to pick up some other people who were going with us, friends of the kids, and said she'd swing by the house to get me after getting them. i got home and knowing we were now pinched for time, watched for the car. when marty pulled up, i trotted towards the car. as i approached alex, through a cracked window, said i would have to drive. so i ran around to the driver's side. i opened the door ready to apologize to marty for being late but instead of seeing marty in the passenger seat i found one my best friends, bookpimp, from north carolina. *
i should add, our being late did not derail the evening as our friend had roped off a section of seats for us. so our party of eight was able to arrive at a packed auditorium minutes before showtime and slide into a protected run of third row seats. thanks e-lo!
BLOWN AWAY II
the weekend was a lock after that and we enjoyed the concert and then some lion's choice and capped the night off with some ted drewes custard.
the next morning bookpimp and i went to southwest diner for some mexican breakfast burritos and then spent the rest of the december day in front of a fire trading stories and one-liners. for dinner we went to my favorite eatery in all the land and where i spend every birthday dinner, cafe natasha (still #1 on this list). they were totally full up and i failed to make a reservation (we rarely go on uber-busy saturday nights). the hostess was about to shuttle us out when the owner saw us. she came over and gave hugs and the situation was explained. she told us to wait while she checked things out. she returned and said if we could wait ten minutes she would take care of us. so i got my syrian kabobs after-all. there were two other birthday groups there, one of which was a table of about twenty people who turned out to be some sort of choir because when they sang happy birthday to their person they lit the room up with a rendition of happy birthday fit for a royal. later when the owner surprised our table with a piece of candled-birthday pie and started singing happy birthday, the twenty person choral group joined in and it was a most lavish moment.
BLOWN AWAY III
we then went home, re-stoked the fire and gathered round for presents. anthony got me a mug that said essentially that i only urinate glitter and defecate gold, something i may have been known to say around the house a time or two--anthony felt it only right to commemorate my personal position in ceramic form. aleo made a video for me where he modified the opening credits to calliou (pronounced kigh-you) to instead say troy-you as i had always told the kids that show was about me but i wouldn't give them the rights to my name which is why they had to call it calliou but it was originally named troy-you and every time the song played i would replace the word accordingly, much to my childrens' agitation (i also may have told a very young bella that high school musical was about my life--that time i let them use my name because it was cooler than some whiney cartoon kid with a perfectly round head). bella gave me a "missing-bella" kit to help me after she leaves for college (it included a generous quantity of her hair which she had cut a few weeks prior in support of this gift).
then marty closed the affair with her mic-drop box of cards (discussed yesterday).
BLOWN AWAY IV
then on sunday bookpimp and i drove to central illinois for a horseshoe at d'arcy's pint and then on to the video game museum in mclean illinois for some 80's arcade ambiance. after a good number of quarters we made the two hour drive home. the four hours we spent in the car magically felt like twenty minutes which bookpimp astutely called amazing and terrible at the same time (amazing how time magically passes and tragic that it seems to end so soon). we returned home for sunday dinner and some more fire time.
in the morning i drove him to the airport and he was off. for the record bookpimp made a surprise visit twenty years earlier for my thirtieth birthday.
BLOWN AWAY V
two days later i drove back to the airport to pick up my other best friend, bookguy, also from north carolina, who flew in for a quick visit and we shared a lovely day together. that i have two friends of this caliber at this point in my life (three if you count marta) is not something lost on me.
marty, my children and my closest friends went to great lengths to make me feel special and valued by them. at the end of my birthday, in front of a warming fire i told the people circled around me that they would never know what their love and support meant to an only, adopted child who lost his mother eight years earlier. short of having my mother as part of that circle, i can't imagine a better way to greet one's half-century mark.
* when i say "one of my best friends from north carolina" i'm not saying that that is my, like, best north carolina friend and i also have a best pennsylvania friend and a best ohio friend in some bubba-gump shrimp sorta way. i was simply saying this is one of my best friends and he lives in north carolina. i see that it reads a bit funny. though to be comprehensive here, it is equally curious that my other best friend also lives in north carolina. so my two best friends in the world both live in north carolina a few hours apart, for reasons that are in no way connected (neither grew up there). and for further curiosity my mother's best friend also lives in north carolina and is situated perfectly between my two best friends. so on my road trip east every summer, sometimes referred to as the best friends tour, i visit my first best friend, then my mom's best friend and then my other best friend. that they all clustered themselves so conveniently close just ups their best-friend stock all the more.
the above screen shot shows a web page i look at nearly every day. it is part of a collection of webpages i use to motivate and remind me of things important to me. i originally made the above page to look at before leaving the office to help me shift from work mode to family mode. when i first made it, the day count in red had thousands of days. now it has hundreds of days, and barely so.
View in Gallery >>>
four years ago i received word that they were going to replace the college football stadium that was near my childhood home. while i wasn't a season ticket holder, i did have a respectable number of memories in the place, most notably sneaking in on weekend nights with my friends to play hide in seek in the sprawling facility under a moonlit sky, well, play hide and seek until we were chased out by security which was admittedly part of the sport and appeal. upon hearing the news, i made immediate plans to see one last game there in the last year the CSU Rams would play in the storied Hughes Stadium which butted right up against my Fort Collins foothills.
so i made a proper trip of it, and bookguy joined me, and we met up with boyhood pal snake and had some great laughs and panhandler's pizza and bookguy, and i biked a century up through estes park and into rocky mountain national park. in short, it was a lovely and memorable weekend.
then the next year i returned to fort collins to take in a game at the new stadium. no bookguy this time as he was out of the country but snake and i shared time, and i made the estes ride up the big thompson canyon solo. it was again a lovely and memorable weekend.
then this year snake reached out and asked if i would be coming out for another CSU game. i countered saying i thought those couldn't be very exciting for him since they were in his backyard and suggested he pick a game somewhere in the country he would like to see and we could meet there. he said he would get back to me. a few weeks later he sent a note outlining the following weekend. a few days of golf followed by a historic SEC matchup, Tennesee @ Auburn. then on sunday we would travel an hour north and take in some nascar at Talledegha. right away i could tell i should have put snake in charge of planning our weekends years ago.
part of the itinerary was influenced by snake's brother tommy and their long-time friend paul (who was the nascar guy). they have been golf buddies for lots of years. since i'm not a golfer, i said i would meet up with them on friday for the saturday game and sunday race. so i had a lovely drive down to alabama on friday. i imagine it has been said before, but i love driving. part of it is i love my car, a 91 bmw 318i (or an E30 for those in the know). i became its second owner in 1998, and it has brought me an unreasonable amount of joy since then. a slight problem i have is i have not driven to work for more than twelve years AND i live in a community where i can walk to nearly everything i need which means i can go long stretches without ever rolling it out of the garage. but another thing i love about driving, distance driving particularly, is the simple act of unplugging from the daily firehose (simple to do, hard to make happen). these cross-country treks are highly therapeutic and meditative for me. on these day-long drives, i cover lots of desolate mentalscape that rarely sees travelers pass through.
a quick aside to address the number one question people ask when they see my nearly 30-year-old car, how many miles does it have? i can't really tell you because the odometer broke about six years ago. when it stopped merrily rolling along, the dial read 130k miles. i reckon since i don't drive a whole lot locally, i could count up the trips i've taken and get you a respectable ball-park number, but those sorts of things don't really tickle me like some. it's like the price of gas. whatever it is isn't going to keep me from buying some, so i don't bother giving it any of my precious neurons.
back to our story. i put myself fully in their hands and was told just to show up as they would take care of all of the arrangements, right down to our lodging. marty will attest to my excellence on being able to follow that sort of plan and my travel day went off without a hitch, and i pulled into the hotel parking lot five minutes before the fellas returned from their double round of golf and the weekend was off and running.
tommy got us the football tickets and had us in the second row of the end zone facing their mega screen and just to the right of the visiting band. it there was a better seat in the house, i'm not sure where it might have been. tommy and i struck an immediate over/under bet on how many times the tennessee band would play Rocky-Top (not as many as he wagered by far more than i would have ever imagined). it was an excellent day with lots of blue skies and belly laughs. and i didn't learn/recall until after the day began that it was snake's 50th birthday. by my math, it would have been challenging to dial up a better celebration than what we were in the midst of.
paul was in charge of the nascar tickets as he had family in the south who were regular patrons. shortly after meeting paul i said i heard he was a nascar guy. he said nothing but held up a finger instructing me to hold that thought, went to his bag, rummaged a second and then turned, holding to his chest his very own ricky bobby wonder bread race suit. with my mouth still agape, he turned to his bag again, this time announcing that if you didn't want to be ricky bobby you could always wear his race team partner cal naughton's old spice suit which he held before him with equal flourish. yeah, i guess he'd fall into the nascar guy column.
but, it turns out snake had some nascar connections of his own and was able to get us passes into pit row. this is the racing equivalent of scoring backstage passes to your favorite band. while the race was going on and paul was texting with friends telling them where he was right now, his phone almost caught fire from all the envy and hate being sent in reply.
the only downside to this mega-weekend is what in the heck could we ever do to follow it up. and/because it will be followed up as i'm hoping to make this trek to some college rivalry/experience a new annual tradition. too many interesting places and cultures in this country to not stick your head in the room at least once and soak it up.
there is a young man i visit with once a month. i met him through my former employer where he is a rising star. this ascension, by my estimation, is largely connected to a number of things: he is capable at his craft, his has a very likable nature, a unique upbringing, an obsession for improvement, and possibly most of all, he has a wildly energetic and engaging way of communicating. if you picked...
Bella DeArmitt
Ms. Gray
African American Literature ACC
August 20 2018
The Impact of a Tradition
My family holds great value for traditions: Sunday mornings are reserved for cuddling in my parents' bed, winter breaks are spent holed up with our favorite action heroes--my family will take Jason Bourne and Lieutenant Ripley over the Grinch and Frosty the Snowman any yea ...
my uncle tim had two grandpas. one was a minister and one worked the train lines.
when tim went to the minister grandpa's house as a kid, the three children in the family (tim, my mother and their sister) would sit stone-still while the adults caught up. i remember my mom telling stories about how tim, the family prankster, would try to get the girls to make noise. he would whisper funny...
