In 2016, I left my job to start a company. I still vividly remember an exchange with an older guy shortly thereafter.

OLD GUY
Oh. So you started your own company?

TROY
Yeah. I’m a little nervous but more excited.

OLD GUY
Sure. Fun stuff. Being your own boss is great. Want to know the best thing about having your own company?

TROY
Sure. What ...

Now that the kids are older and either moved out or are often out, Marty and I are edging our way into those scary waters where a couple has just one another to talk to. When I was younger, I thought this period would resemble life before having kids. Light. Carefree. Easy. In some ways, it is, but when you have sent children you love more than you thought possible into the world, I think my mind ...

For as long as I can remember, I've been telling Anthony there are two things he should try–debate and wrestling. Debate because he has an unreasonably able mind and wit. Wrestling because when young he spent as much time climbing trees as he did walking the earth. As a result, Anthony sports a collection of striated muscles that would be the envy of even the most committed gym-rat. After every ...

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

I have a standard tennis workout I do when hitting against a practice wall. I will hit fifty forehands, followed by fifty backhands, followed by a hundred mixed single-bounce balls. That's a set. Then I do some pushups and squats and a few other equally dull things in between. I try to do six sets per session, so it is a routine I've become pretty competent at over the last few years.

I was in the middle of one of these workouts and hitting forehands. I found a nice groove and was striking the ball cleanly, which meant each return came right back to me so I could just pivot, prep and swing again. I had hit maybe twenty straight as an older guy, who looked to be in his late sixties or early seventies, came shuffling by on his way to a neighboring court. As he passed, he said, "It looks like you are either really beating that guy or he is really taking it to you. I can't tell which." He then gave a boyish smirk and continued his foot-scraping gait past me to meet his buddies.

I kinda love old guys.

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.

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 ...

marty told me of a new workout trend where you hire people to excercise for you.

yes. you are reading that right. you stay at home. they go to the gym in your name. then they report back to you what they did. and that is your workout for the day.

before you scoff too much, you should know that this approach is getting some traction. i get that at first blush it sounds a bit ridiculous, like SNL-skit ridiculous but as with many like things, there is some logic at work. the tactic, in this case, is you get to watch someone leading a healthier lifestyle than yourself AND see and hear what goes into it. as you watch your sponsor get more fit and attractive, you start wanting that for yourself and because of the daily reports, you have a sense for what it would take to make it happen for yourself. so on paper, it has some merit and is finding some success in practice too.

for me this falls into that oft-cited "if you worked as hard at the thing you're trying to avoid as you worked at avoiding it ..." bucket. but in ruminating on it further, it occurred to me that i have been doing this exact practice for more than ten years. the difference is i don't have a workout proxy. i have proxies for social media and the daily news cycle. i know loads of people hyper-engaged in all of those matters, and i just kick back and watch all their hand-wringing and angst and consternation from afar. and when i see what immersing yourself in those matters does to one's mental well-being and personal fulfillment, i see all i need to maintain a healthy and fulfilled mental state for myself. and this is precisely what the workout sponsor does for someone. so if it is half as effective for them as my system has been for me, then get yourself a gym proxy, like, today.

and all of these mental meanderings have given me an idea for a new company that is connected to (1) my current use of social media and news proxies and (2) my obsession with time management. if you are addicted to being connected and informed and love the way you feel after giving hours of your day to social media and the news cycle BUT want that feeling without giving up all the time to stay "plugged in", hire me, or my new company rather. what we will do is send someone to your house first thing in the morning. upon arriving, they will knock on your door, and when you open it, they will kick you square in the groin, girl and boy alike. they will then toss an invoice at your crumpled frame and as they turn to leave will call out, "see ya tomorrow." that way you can fit all that gut-punch level dread and mental turmoil into your day before your first coffee is even cold, leaving the rest of the day's hours for more fulfilling and meaningful pursuits.

the holiday season is upon us which means an uptick in our social get togethers. as has been discussed previously, i am always on the lookout for great questions to be asked of people i meet. the safest and most productive question i've ever run across is simply "What are your interest?" versus the american staple "what do you do?" which is one of the worst possible questions for a whole variety of reasons. the "interests" question should get any conversation moving and if it does not, like they say they have no interest, then you know to cut bait (fast) and mingle your way to the next party-goer.

should that fail or you already used that question on someone at last year's party, i've got a new one for you to churn the conversational waters. the question is: what is your most memorable moment from last year?

i've been using this for a bit and it is raw, uncut gold. but brace yourself because this simple query can lead anywhere. expect everything from the mundane (i finally got a promotion i've been wanting) to the fascinating (i dissected a human cadaver) to the tragic (i lost my mother). aside from the mundane, which can usually offer something with some work (do you think there is antying you could have done to get the promotion sooner?), you are assured of avoiding re-hashing people's netflix queues, pop music taste and favorite eateries.

while the cadaver conversation was extraordinary, my favorite detail from this young medical student was about the initial moments of the experience. upon first seeing the body she described the confusing blend of panic and fascination but the dominant memory was hearing a student behind her sobbing as the dissection began. the downside of this new super-question is holiday parties are not long enough to fit everyone in. i could have talked to cadaver-girl for three hours and not have even been close to done and there were twenty more people to get to.

here is an email exchange between best bud and business partner matthew and i in regard to an email he had sent to a client.

---

if that email was a tennis shot, my coach would say "good ball".

well played matthew.

t

---

And if a ball hits the back fence on a fly - what does your tennis coach say to that? Or maybe you have never experienced that?

mcf

---

when that happens he says, "oh, i see matthew is joining us today".

;-)

t

---

Good ball!

mcf

---

there is a handful of humans who think i have it too easy. they believe that the world just opens up before me and provides me undue rewards and riches. these boons come in all sorts of sizes and looks. my assumption has always been that everyone gets these sorts of things. they can be as big as scoring the mother i did and as small as getting the good table by the window. those that don't know me...

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...

if i could have invented one thing made in the past few decades, it would be highway rumble strips. those things are the greatest. so simple. so clever. so effective. can you imagine how many lives they have saved? there is no way it is not in the millions, the tens of millions even.

if you think that number is high, i would guess you have never had your car drift off the pavement into the dirt/grass/stone/whatever at 60 miles per hour (or better). maybe you were just distracted or maybe you had just fallen asleep. either way you would be challenged as hell to recover from the moment because to keep a car on the predictable cement and off the crazily unpredictable terrain next to the cement is what it's all about. once you're in the dirt, life gets real unpredictable real fast (and that tenet applies to more than just driving). and someone figured out a crazy-simple and super-effective way to keep you on that smooth and comfy asphalt. and not only does it let the occupants of the offending car know to get re-focused, the noise made alerts cars around the car floating out of their lane to be on alert for the driver that is droswy, distracted or messing with their phone. great on so many levels.

as far as life-saving goes, that has to be right up there with the most note-worthy medical advances seen over time.

i tried to look up who invented them and closest i got (not that i looked long) is some guy says his grandfather made them, or at least made the machine that makes them. not that receiving credit gets you much, especially if there are no monetary spoils (or you're dead), but it surely would have been satisfying to have divined something that saved, and therefore changed, so, so many lives.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. one percent

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. outfoxed

bella just bought her first car.

where to begin?

i guess with the obvious. it is a 95 volvo sedan.

now for the less obvious. it is a 5-speed manual transmission. yes, bella can drive a stick. i taught her when she was thirteen. i taught alex when he turned thirteen too. and when anthony turns, thirteen, i will teach him as well.

i truly wanted a volvo wagon, ...

some people recently learned marty still didn't carry a cell phone. as most, they pushed her on this doing little to hide their incredulity. her response.
next issue.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. too sharp

as bella worked her way towards her teens, numerous people warned us of our pending doom, advising us to enjoy our little girl while it lasted. not having navigated the waters yet, marty and i found it hard to make a qualified defense to the assertions. so instead we kept saying and believing that it didn't have to go that way. the other night after reading to the boys for bed, i sat down at my computer to tend to the day's email. filling the screen was an open word document. it read:


regarding these "inevitable" fights, i believe i have come upon a secret weapon which can mitigate both the frequency and volatility of these altercations. i call it, blandly, the twenty minute rule. the twenty minute rule states that if you ever see a family member, especially a child, coming off the rails you need to evacuate the area, isolating the failing human as quickly as possible for approximately twenty minutes. most typically, once a reaction begins, there's no preventing it. thinking you can steer around it would be like thinking you can stop yourself from projectile vomiting by holding your hand over your mouth. so evacuate the building. don't look the infected human in the eyes. move everyone out of the blast radius and quarantine the affected human so that when they do blow there are no innocents within shrapnel range as this can lead to chain reactions, sometimes bringing a whole home into emotional ruin.

guided meditations often point out that just like with weather, there are always blue skies overhead. it's just that sometimes we can't see them because a cloud front has moved in, blocking the view. the thing that makes the twenty minute rule work is that the systems are always in motion and if unprodded will typically move past just as swiftly as they rolled in. but if they are provoked they will grow in size and temper. give them space, they will move on and before you know it, you'll be looking at blue skies again. this is one of the advantages of an ever-changing universe and understanding that in the time it took you to read this sentence the world about you is forever changed and never to again look the way it did when you read the first word of this sentence. so let it change. embrace the change. and when you see dark skies, seek cover because oftentimes the storm clouds will move out as swiftly as they moved in.

also, i've learned this technique also applies with adult, professional relationships but for reasons both obvious and nuanced, the window is more like 24 hours instead of twenty minutes. the classic example here is not sending that angry email at the peak of your angst, but waiting until the next day, re-reading it, and seeing if you think it would be sensible to send it on. rarely have i looked at that email after a night's sleep and thought, yes, this is the push in the shoulder that's going to make this human act more civily towards me.

here you can see the twenty minute rule taking form several years back.

our favorite moments of the kansas MS150 ride. it turns out this is one of the biggest ms150, attendance-wise, rides in the country. thousands of riders and lots of hoopla and fanfare and organization. bella's jaw was agape for much of the weekend at the participation and energy of the event which i reckon was her favorite part. my favorite part took place shortly after the above photo was taken a ...

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.

the dinner table question of the night asked what you would do if someone kept calling your house in the middle of the night. they are definitely dialing the wrong number. you tell them this but they keep calling. i asked the table how they would handle this. as we rounded the circle people had very curteous and patient responses they'd use on the person which in their scenario would solve the problem without difficulty (dreamers). when it got to anthony, he looked up from his plate as if he had only been only half-listening and said he would say, "shut up. it's 1 in the morning in my city." and hang up.

marty works with a guy who is trying to lose weight. he happily reported losing five pounds the week before. marty said she was trying to gain weight. reasonably astonished he asked whatever for. her reply -- because all the cute clothes on ebay were larges.

to give a further taste to the challenge that is raising/educating anthony (referring to), i share the following story which happened just yesterday.

last weekend anthony lost a tooth. sunday night marty helped anthony place the tooth under his pillow. then after he was asleep marty came to my office looking for a dollar bill. she plucked one from my wallet and made the trade. the next morning when anthony woke up, marty asked him if anything had happened. remembering the tooth, anthony looked under his pillow and found the dollar. he held the unfolded bill in his hands, studying it, then cried foul.

ANTHONY
hey. this is one of dad's dollars.

MARTY
uhh. what?

ANTHONY
this dollar. it's dads.

MARTY
what do you mean it's dads? why do you say that?

ANTHONY
because it has this notch right here. all of dad's money has a notch right here because of that clip he keeps it in.

MARTY
uhhh. well. maybe the tooth fairy has a wallet like dads.

ANTHONY
really mom.