A Time To Give

Hi everybody. It’s been a long time. How have you been? We’ve been swamped by kids and school. And I’ve suffered from a serious lack of initiative or inspiration (a little bit of both, I imagine) to keep up with my writing here.

But my friend Beth has both of those things in spades. And it’s rubbed off on me just a little during this holiday season. I’m hoping a little might rub off on you as well.

Here’s the deal…

As you can read HERE, Beth has an old friend from her days in New England – a fellow named Nick. Nick has fallen upon some hard times lately. I’m not talking about the “Gosh, I don’t know if we can afford to keep buying lattes” hard times. I’m talking the “I’m not sure if we’ll be able to pay these medical bills, keep our house, or remain even moderately healthy” kind of hard times.

If you haven’t already done so, read Nick’s story. Now.

So anyhow, the long and short of it is that Nick’s family is making progress toward their goal, but still need help. I wanted to extend the message to any and all who read this blog with any interest in the hopes that we might be able to help out in some way, no matter how small.

Here’s an address you can send donations should you not be inclined (as I am not inclined) to use PayPal or other online services that require credit cards:

Nick Masi Fund
Saco Biddeford Savings Bank Inst.
252 Main St.
Saco, ME 04072.

I hope this post finds you all well and happy and enjoying the holiday season. You'll be hearing more from me, Nancy and, of course, the incomparable David and Trinity when the new year starts. Until then...

November 4, 2008

November 4, 2008

Dear David and Trinity,

A few minutes ago, while you both slept in your beds upstairs, Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America. It's difficult to express how monumental this moment is for so many people in this country. It may not turn out to be the case that he is a great president (we sure hope he is, though), but what he represents is surely great. We weren't sure that we'd ever see the day that an African-American would be elected to the highest office in the nation. And, yet, here we are on the other side of history.

We live in troubled times. The world economy is in crisis. We are engaged in not one but two wars in the Middle East. The nation seems more divided than ever over central social and cultural issues: the rights of gay citizens to marry, the environment, health care, etc. And yet, despite this -- perhaps because of this -- we have broken down one of the longest-standing barriers in our country's history. The long struggle for civil rights is still ongoing in many ways. But tonight things just got a little bit better.

You were each born into this world with some cards stacked against you, simply for the color of your skin. But you are the brightest lights in each of our days: beautiful, smart, hilariously funny, kind, and unconditionally loving. Though you can't now know the significance of this night, you are sure to feel it in the very fabric of your lives. Forty years ago, a man had a dream that people would be "judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Tonight that dream came true. The world finally belongs to you, too, and there is nothing you cannot do. Yes, you can.

And so we say this to you: take your lives seriously, live intentionally, love fully, and believe that you can take the world you've inherited and make it a better place.

We're going to bed now. It's late. We'll go upstairs and listen to you breathe the way only the innocent can breathe. We go to sleep tonight knowing that the world has changed for the better (if only just a little) and that this place is a little more hopeful, a little less divided, and whole lot more open to all the possibilities your lives now hold.

Good night, sweet and gentle friends. We love you more than these words can say.

Mom and Dad

Train in the Distance

The sound of a marching band blasts through the mid-morning air, bouncing off the neighbors’ garages. An insistent train whistle sounds its required alarm in the near distance. A beat up, muffler-less, sub-compact barely slows and then belches through the intersection, ignoring the stop signs. Peanut click-click-clicks across the kitchen floor, turning in agitated little circles, whining for a walk.

Meanwhile, David an Trinity are on each other’s nerves, snipping and sniping at each other in a register that makes Sarah Palin sound like Greta Garbo.

Eddie finds his way into my office and begins digging at a cardboard box seemingly without any intention of finally settling in. It’s all about the clawing.

I can’t hear birds for the voice inside my head that keeps listing all the things that need to get done: yardwork, laundry, shopping, grading, reports, proposals…

And so I go outside and start to pull the weeds that have taken over our driveway. The marching bands continue in the background, but the satisfying “rip” and “pop” of roots giving way joins in and suddenly I feel a little better.

Not everybody loves a sound of the train in the distance. Sometimes where you are right now, as maddening as it can be, it right where you need to be.

Guess Who's (Probably Not) Coming to Dinner?

Nancy and I celebrated our 18th anniversary a little early last night. Our actual anniversary isn’t until Monday, but we could get a babysitter for last night, so a-celebratin’ we went, toasting our marriage which is now voting age.

We went out to Stables Steak House, perhaps the best restaurant in Terre Haute and dropped a cool $120 on a couple of steaks (with sides and salads, of course), a couple of beers (for me) and a couple of $12 glasses of wine for Nancy. We realized that this was the first time we had been out together ALONE since we got the kids (27 months ago). We weren’t gone long – a mere 2 hours – but I think the kids wore our babysitter (the heroic Fran) down, nonetheless.

When we got back home, there was a message from one of Nancy’s students who has done work for the Obama campaign here in Terre Haute. Her message indicated that there were 4 tickets to Obama’s Terre Haute visit (scheduled for the next day) waiting for us at the gates to the Fairgrounds. How could we say no?

So, we packed the kids up in the car this morning and headed out to the Fairgrounds. David was a little upset because when we asked if he wanted to go see Barack Obama he said yes, but it turns out that he thought we were going to his house. David loves to se people’s houses. And then he thought that maybe Sen. Obama would come to our house. David loves visitors. But he doesn’t love crowds.

The crowd itself was actually quite small (a few hundred at most) and the setting was intimate (an equestrian ring), but it was still loud and chaotic. And we sat on hay bales near the back. After a couple of brief rallying speeches and an introduction by Sen. Evan Bayh, Obama took the stage.

And while the speech itself was nothing unexpected (lots of stuff about change, you know), when you meet his eye, which I did do at one point, the guy is electric. I’m hopeful that some day Dave and Trin can look at these brief video clips and recognize that they were in the presence of this historic person.





Of course, none of us heard all that much of the speech because were busy wrangling these two live wires we call kids: jumping off the hay bales, chatting up strangers, wanting to talk to state troopers and Secret Service agents (who are nicer than you’d expect), getting obsessed by the ladder behind us, and much, much more. By the time we left, I was sure that I’d been captured on camera by any number of major news organizations in the act of quietly scolding, looking stern, or getting slammed in the face by Trin’s “First Teddy.” Keep your eyes open for that.

At the end of day, I didn’t come away with much new information about Barack Obama – Nancy and I and our marriage will be voting for him come November. But we did learn that the first rule of civic engagement is: get a babysitter.

B, Double-E, Double-R, U, N

This semester I'm teaching the foundations course for my department, Communication and Theatre. I always start the course off with a bit about communication as the deployment of symbols and the construction, sharing, and contestation of meaning -- how we become social beings as we enter into language, but that we must realize that this language is learned and it's relationship to the real world is symbolic and arbitrary.

And now I can use Dave and Trin as examples.

Both Dave and Trin are now talking up a storm and it never ceases to amaze me just how much they pick up without us even noticing or trying to teach them. Right before our eyes they are becoming social creatures: complex communicators increasingly aware of the rules of both their new language and their culture. When (and how), for instance, did Dave learn that train cars are "coupled" together. How did Trin learn to put a sentence together like, "You're a good Daddy."? Of course, I still can't really understand what they are saying half the time, mostly because they are whining their words or just slurring them together like a couple of drunken college kids at a four-kegger (complete with odd dance moves and unexpected violence).

And so there we were tonight, Nancy, Trin, and I (Dave was already asleep having denounced his nap time on the weekends), waiting for Trin's bedtime to arrive. It was a long day and I really wanted a beer. Not just any beer. One of the two cold Smithwick's in the fridge.

"Man, I really want that beer now," I said.

"Have it, " said Nancy.

"Nah, I have to put Trin to bed in about 20 minutes."

"I guess it depends on whether you're a happy drunk or a mean drunk."

Trinity traipsed over to the fridge and hauled on the door. "What are you doing, Trin?" I demanded.

"I'm getting you a beer," she said as clear as a bell. She gave the door another firm tug. It opened. Trin reached in a came out with one of those nice cold bottles in her little brown hand. "Here, Daddy!"

"Thank you, my love," I said, taking the bottle from he hand and opening it on the wall-mounted bottle opener.

Twenty minutes later, Trin and I went upstairs. I read her "The Saggy-Baggy Elephant" and then sang her a song until she went to sleep.

There are some things about communication that can't be taught - like Daddy needs a beer.

Way Down East

Some things we learned:

1. David will eat as many blueberries as you let him eat...and not get sick.

2. Trinity, under the right wind conditions, will fly approximately 10 feet if she leaps from the swing at the apex of its upward trajectory. She won't be injured in the least, but it will scare the poop out of everyone involved.

3. Tractors are pretty easy to drive.

4. David is one cool 3 year-old. Sample comment to a 4 year-old girl with whom he grew tired of playing:

"You'll have to go when your mommy calls you. It was nice to meet you."

5. It's good to be home.

Filed Under: Too Beautiful to Live

Monday last week started earlier than usual. Trinity had woken up at about 5:00 and had trouble getting back to sleep. I finally got her settled down, but there was no reason for me to go back to bed for another half hour. So I got up, made a pot of coffee and got online to check my email. I also checked in on my Twitter account to see what, if anything, was there. I saw a post from Laura Conaway at the Bryant Park Project that mentioned her affection for Hadlock Field in Portland, ME -- home of the Portland Sea Dogs. I "tweeted" back: "Good morning, Laura C! Nice to see a Portland reference (and Hadlock Field!). We were there for Sea Dogs' grand opening back in '94!"

Laura tweeted back: "You awake?"

"Since 5:00," I responded, thinking she was simply surprised to see someone up and tweeting so early. Laura and I have never met (or maybe we have back in Portland...you never know) so my response was simply informational since I imagined that's what she was wondering. Then I went to the Bryant Park Project blog and saw the following headline: "NYT: NPR is canceling the BPP." I was stunned. The BPP had become part of my morning ritual. It was a smart, funny, well-produced morning show that I got via one of NPR's satellite channels. It was on air only nine months before NPR decided to pull the plug. But it was more than a radio show. It was, by virtue of its multimedia platform (radio, blog, Twitter feeds, video segments), a virtual community, the likes of which I had never really experienced before. Unlike most radio or television programs, the BPP staff opened themselves up to their listeners: they responded to blog comments in an honest (read non-diplomatic) fashion. They posted about their lives sometimes (the birth of Allison Stewart's son, for instance). They talked back to their listeners on air, but not in the manner of call-in shows. Rather, they included their listeners in the show.

And now they were going to be gone.

"Just saw the news....damn," I tweeted back to Laura.

Laura then asked me if I would be willing to be interviewed about the news. Of course I said yes. Not only did I feel that I might have something to say, being a media studies professor, but this was my chance to be even more a part of the show and, well, community that I had come to truly enjoy.

We did the interview and it aired not long afterward. I ended being part of a little blooper when they played my soundbite after introducing it as the thoughts of another listener in Paris. But Laura caught the mistake right away, owned up to it, and then used it. That was one of the pleasures of the BPP: it was human, it was honest.

The last two weeks have been interesting to say the least. The show turned part of its attention to itself and its "immanent demise," a move that a few folks found off-putting and narcissistic, but which played more introspectively and humanely than that. The staffers were clearly coming to grips with the news that literally changed their lives, helping each other cope, and they were, once again, letting their listeners in on the process. For their part, the fans of the show started coming out of the woodwork. The blog post about the cancellation got more than 600 comments of which only a small handful (maybe less than 10) bid good riddance to the show. The vast majority of the comments spoke to the affection and loyalty listeners had come to have for the show. Most expressed utter disbelief that NPR -- so committed to intelligent, forward-thinking journalism and entertainment -- could be so short sighted with regard to the BPP. There was sadness and anger in many of the posts; but there was, more importantly, empathy. Many of the fans reached out to the staffers and took the opportunity to tell them just how much the show had meant to them day to day. And the staffers responded in kind.

You just don't see this kind of thing every day in the traditional media.

There were ideas about how to save the show, of course: format changes, on-line only "broadcasts," "money bombs" to NPR, letter writing, even a plan to inundate NPR headquarters with the fronts of cereal boxes sent as postcards.

None of these things worked, of course, NPR had made up its mind. And so it was that the final day came to pass...today.

Nancy and I took the kids to daycare and, before getting to work on the article that I am finishing, I took time to drive in the car, listening to the last ever BPP broadcast. Gliding through the streets of this little post-industrial mid-western city, listening to a show from New York on my satellite radio, I was struck by the contradictions of the modern media landscape. The old and the new exist together in an uneasy relationship. I cruise past the ugly low-rise storefronts -- the relics of a bygone era in Terre Haute -- pulling in distant signals from space. I conjure up my critical academic distance and think to myself: "There's something to be written about this. It really would make an interesting case study."

And then Alison Stewart, the show's host, introduces the show's editor and (she emphasizes) her friend, Tricia McKinney, who will be presenting the song of the day meant to represent the final stage of grief: acceptance (the show did the five stages over the past five days through songs). Tricia had chosen a song by Dan Zanes (late of the great Del Fuegos) called "Smile, Smile, Smile," because she said it would make a great funeral song, focusing on the good, simple, and happy things about the person -- or, in this case, the people -- we have loved and will miss. These are the things that end up mattering most: the way someone breaks into song at strange moments, the way one eats their toast in the morning, the way someone laughs. It's a cute little song and nicely captured the moment.

But then Tricia started to talk about it and her voice broke. She started to cry. She talked about the love she has for the people involved in the show, how much it's meant to her. Alison Stewart broke in: "You're my friend. You're not supposed to make me cry!" My critical distance failed me. My eyes welled up. Tricia McKinney, a friend of sorts (though we've never met), made me cry: right there, in my car, 1,200 miles away.

And there it was: the power of this show. It had managed to break down barriers that other shows work so hard to erect between itself and its audience. Those pretend points of connection -- called "interactivity" -- that we're all so used to, suddenly became painfully, beautifully real.

And maybe that's why the BPP really was "too beautiful to live."

Thanks folks! And to you all, I raise this virtual toast.

Make 'em Laugh

We're in a transitional phase around here. The tried and true bedtime routine has fallen apart and we must now find new ways to fool the kids into thinking that sleeping is a good thing. And, frankly, it's hard to argue with them when their waking life is filled with moments like this:




By the way, just so you know, Nancy thought that painting would be a good pre-bath activity to get them starting to calm down from the day. One thing we all love about Nancy is how (sometimes blindly) optimistic she is.

24 Hour Potty People

WARNING: This post contains language and subject matter that may be unsuitable for adults or anyone with refined sensibilities. Just watch:



Yes, poop is the theme of the day. Why? Because as the parents of two toddlers, and the owner of a cat and a dog, it's perhaps the defining feature of our lives right now.


We'll begin with "The Tale of the Blue Bucket" in which Nancy established herself as the Goddess of Jobs Too Revolting For Me To Do. As the title suggests, the latest job involved an old plastic blue pail
with a cover that served as the depository for all the plastic bags of dog poop from Peanut's daily walks. Well, we sort of forgot about the pail at one point. And then it started to rain. And it rained, and it rained, and it rained. In the meantime, the cover of the little plastic blue pail had fallen off. It rained some more. And then we remembered the little plastic blue pail full of dog poop. "What are we going to do about that?" asked Nancy. "I'll take care of it," was my non-committal reply. Finally, Nancy could stand the thought of it no longer. She went outside with a pair of latex gloves, a thick green garbage bag, and the hose.

When she finished the job she returned to the house, visibly shaken. "That was worse that cleaning the decomposed possum off the car port." And yet she ate lunch not long afterward.

I think her sturdy constitution comes -- at least in part -- from an early experience on her parents' dairy farm in Alaska. Apparently, she was riding her tricycle inside the barn where they housed the cows during the winter months when one of the back wheels caught the edge of the trough into which the cows' excrement flowed. Down she went in her little snowsuit: a little ray of sunshine in a small sea of shit. Luckily, her parents were in the barn at the time and fished her out. Her mother hosed her off and that was that.

I've had nothing so traumatic in my life, and so I am a little bit of a wimp when it comes to the dirty little realities of the human experience. But I soldier on.

Every couple of days, I go into the upstairs bathroom and begin the process of changing the bag in the diaper pail. It's a dirty job, one that requires me to breath through my mouth as I tie the opening of the old garbage bag up and replace it with a fresh one. I keep breathing through my mouth all the way down the stairs and out to the driveway where I deposit said bag into our nice new 90-something gallon Republic-issued trash can (complete with rain-proof cover).

I can't wait for the diaper days to be over and done with.

We're getting there. Thanks to a new comfy Dora the Explorer toddler toilet seat and a tasteful dish
filled with M&Ms (2 for pee, 4 for poop, 1 for the old college try), both Dave and Trin are well on their way to being diaper-free.

Of course, they are often diaper-free if left alone for more than a few seconds in the back yard. The new trend is for both kids to whip their clothes and diapers off and immediately pee on the plants. It's lovely. Really. Even better, on two occasions, Dave has come running into the house to tell us that Trin has pooped. Sure enough, on both occasions, Nancy and I were reduced to picking up after Trin in the same way that we might for Peanut.

Basically, we're living like animals at this point. Any hint of respectability is a mirage when dealing with toddlers.

And yet others seem to manage pretty well. We recently came upon a new (for us) band called Mates of State: a husband and wife combo with two small kids and a growing music career. Check out this video which features their kids (one in costume at the end, the other in utero it seems).



You can find out more about them at their fun blog: Band on the Diaper Run.

They remind me of my former grad school colleague, and all-around impressive guy, Jake Smith who, along with his very talented wife Freda (former drummer for the Blake Babies and Some Girls, among others), fronts Mysteries of Life, leads a successful academic life, and has raised two kids. How do they do it?

Beats the shit out of me.

Finally, I would be remiss were I not to include in a blog entry about poop, a clip of one of my heroes, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Triumph's existence is made possible by the likes of the great George Carlin, whose passing has left the world without its most accurate bullshit detector. But here's Triumph sniffing out the excrement in the most poop-laden profession in the world: the professional spin doctor.

Enjoy!

Life With Father

The recent storms here in the midwest did a number on the trees in our neighborhood. Everywhere you turned there were large fallen branches, and there were even a few sizable trees that came down all together. One of these -- a big elm in a neighbor's backyard -- took out a power line that served all the houses on our side of the street. When the city trucks rolled through alley to clear the tree and restore the power, they cut down anything and everything in their way and dumped it in our backyards.

And so it was that I fired up my chainsaw yesterday to cut up the large branches in our yard as well as that of our neighbor, Robin.

It made me feel like a real man.

Of course, it did take me two days to get the damn thing started after it had been sitting dormant for at least 8 months in our shed. I followed the directions exactly, but to no avail. I was ready to take it to a repair shop (I'd even called to verify that they were open and could, indeed, fix my brand of chainsaw). But then I just decided, "To hell with the directions. I'm just going to keep pulling that cord until it starts or my arm falls off, whichever comes first." And wouldn't you know it, 10 pulls later and I was off and running. I have no idea about the cause of the initial recalcitrance or why it finally started.

What I haven't told you yet is that before calling the repair shop, I had seriously considered calling my father, freshly returned from a two-week trip to Scandinavia with Mom. But we had just talked the day before, and I imagined they were tired still. Plus, I reasoned that the possible solutions to the problem were not within my powers as a mechanic. So I decided to spare him the call.

The point is that I am 41 years-old and I still think to call my father first when something goes wrong or if I have a "what's causing this phenomenon" sort of question. And it doesn't really matter what the category -- automotive, electrical, mechanical, nuclear, land-based, or on the water -- the dude knows his stuff. Want to know how to change the oil in your car, bleed the brakes, repair a distributor? Call Dad. Want to know how to solder, why your pipes are leaking, how to re-wire your house? Call Dad. Want to know how turbines work, what kinds of gears are best suited for different types of jobs, the physics and mechanics of a pulley system? Call Dad. Want to know how to remodel the basement, pour a concrete foundation, build a brick patio, repair a hold in the wall, hang a door properly? Call Dad. How it works, why it works, what it's for? Call Dad. Do you need to know about torque? Trouble with sine and cosine? Got a question about why a cup plunged upside down in water does not fill up with water? You know where to go.

And it's not just handyman stuff. There's a depth to his knowledge that goes beyond mere physical ability or experiential knowledge. We're talking theory and history here. For example, do you know what a "Hemi" is? After seeing enough Dodge commercials to convince me that this was an important thing to have, Dad told me that this was simply a term for a Hemispherical Combustion Chamber and that it's neither new nor necessarily desirable, and why. He knows more about a range of subjects that interest him than I do about the thing I do for a living. And I have a Ph.D.

He's a master sailor, plays piano, knows how to smoke a pipe, and can paint, too. He grills a mean steak. And he can win a Pinewood Derby.

I have managed to get something, though. While cutting through branch after branch of fallen timber, and feeling so Totally Useful, one phrase kept going through my head: "It's good to be a little afraid of power tools." Wisdom to live by. Thanks, Dad, for the continued existence of all my digits. And while we're at it: thanks for the entrance to the staircase that can now handle a box spring; thanks for the new plumbing all through the house; thanks for the new wiring; thanks for the garbage disposal; thanks for the new bathroom floor upstairs; thanks for liking Nancy and the kids; thanks for coaching my baseball teams; thanks for hanging a basketball hoop in our driveway in Chula Vista; thanks for worrying about when and how I was getting home; thanks for having such a fondness for little things, like a good bottle of cola, or the "goop" that you put on your hamburgers; thanks for sticking up for Peanut when I threaten to take her tags off and leave the gate open; thanks for being interested in all sorts of things.

Thanks most of all for just being a damn fine example of a father.

On The Town

We had our first real adventure in babysitting last night. We've been meaning to try it out for a while now, but until our hand was forced we always found an excuse to stay home. Last night, however, was an exception. Nancy was awarded the Arts Educator of the Year award at the Bravo Awards, sponsored by Arts Illiana, the major community arts organization in the Wabash Valley. So we went.

We struggled over who should babysit. Fran would be at the ceremony, so she was out. Julio and Sandra were game, but Sandra's back was out and we didn't want to inflict our wild things on her in that condition. Students are, well, students. So we asked the great "Miss Lisa" from daycare and, to our eternal gratefulness, she agreed. Dave and Trin heart Miss Lisa in a big toddler, jump up and down, hug your leg, do a little dance kind of way. Plus, she's a childcare professional. How much better could we get? The kids were so excited to see her when she arrived at 6:00 that they had to show her everything in the house. They were eager to show her everything in their world outside of daycare: Peanut, Eddie, the porch, the playroom. And so we left them in the more than able hands of Miss Lisa and headed off to the awards ceremony. I wore a suit.

Nancy had attended several of these ceremonies in the past and they were all pretty much the same: dinner followed by the quick presentation of awards -- a brief encomium by the executive director, announce recipient, receive award, shake hands, sit down. This year, however, there was no dinner -- just hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar in the lobby of the art gallery. The award ceremony itself took place in the recital hall across from the gallery and all the award recipients had to sit on the stage. Worse still, they were expected to give a brief speech after being introduced and then getting the award. Poor Nancy; she hates public attention in general and public speaking even more. And they hadn't told her about this new devlopment, so she didn't have anything prepared. The good news is that she handled it all with the grace and charm that we've all come to expect from Nancy. Check it out for yourself (thank you Mike Kelsay and his Flip video camera!):



(That's me at the end making the Chad Lowe reference. Unlike Chad, though, I did not cry).

We promised Lisa we would be back by 9:00, and so we were. The kids were still up (we told Lisa not to worry about bedtime) and Very Excited to See Us. Apparently, they were well behaved, save for a bit of impromptu nudity in the backyard. Also, we apparently forgot to tell Lisa that we had a cat, so Eddie's sudden and swift entrance into the kitchen from the porch took her by surprise. We overpaid her and the kids kissed her goodnight. Trin was so tired by now that she simply sobbed all the way through her (very short) bath and the lotion-diaper-pajama process. She was asleep within seconds of putting her in bed. Even David went to bed relatively quickly.

But now it's one day later. It's 9:50 and Nancy is still trying to coax Trin to sleep. David went off early, but awoke at about 8:45, saw that it was light-ish out, and decided it was morning (a prospect about which he was none too happy). Nancy finally convinced him that he could go back to sleep. And now Trinity has decided that she must have Mommy tonight. Maybe it's the increased humidity that's keeping her up, or the bubble bath that may have made her oh-so-sensitive skin itchy.

Or maybe it's because she's been caught unwittingly in the glow of Nancy's greatness and radiant charm. I know it keeps me up at night. I'm just glad other people are starting to see it, too.

All About My Mother

Another Mother's Day is here and it's another year that I have failed to get a card. I always call, of course, and Mom says it's OK -- it's better to hear in person, etc. -- but, still. It's not that I haven't been thinking about getting a card for the last couple of weeks ("This is the year," I say) but then, like getting a haircut, it just doesn't happen quite in time. And then Sunday arrives...

So, thanks, Mom, for understanding that I'm forgetful and a bit of a procrastinator, for always treating me like what I had to say was important, for telling me I have a nice singing voice, for being a good storyteller, for always having treats of one kind or another on the counter, for not being overly concerned about things like watching television, for telling me to look words up in the dictionary, for having an excellent sense of humor, for being concerned instead of mad when I did something really wrong, for loving Nancy and Trinity and David even though I have a habit of not introducing you to future family members until the deal is done, for riding with me on the go-karts when I was too small to go alone, for letting me listen to all that loud music when I was a kid, for recognizing that the trumpet was not my instrument, for recognizing that the drums were, for singing "Happy Birthday" on the phone every year, for sandwiches in brown paper bags, for Easter baskets in semi-hidden places, for a trip across the country in a station wagon, for putting up with absolute goofiness, for being devout (and being understanding about the fact that I am not), for being consistent, for being a little goofy yourself, for liking a good stiff drink every now and then, for modeling moderation, for being complex, for being good, for being kind, and for being unconditionally devoted to your family.

There's a lot more things I could say, of course, but I have to save something for that card I'm going to get you next year.

Happy Mother's Day from the gang in Terre Haute:

I feel the earth move under my feet/I feel the sky tumbling down

I served this semester as a reader on an Honors Scholar thesis for a creative writing student. One chapter of her project was titled "First Memory" and in it she detailed her memory of huddling in bed with her mother during an earthquake in southern California. I did the math: she was born in 1985 (according to the account she had written of her birth) and her first memory would likely be of something that happened when she was, say, two or three. That would make it 1987 or 1988, provided she was telling the truth. So, I asked her:

"Was that story about your first memory based in reality?"

"Yes."

"And you lived in L.A., right?

"Orange County."

"I think we have something in common," I said. "I think we experienced the same earthquake. I think that was the Whittier earthquake of 1987."

"Yeah, I think so."

----------------------------------------------------------------------

It started at about 7:30 in the morning on a bright autumn day: October 1, in fact.

I was scheduled to be at work at 10:00. I worked at 20/20 Video, the biggest video chain in L.A. prior to the rise of Blockbuster. I was asleep in the one-bedroom apartment on Napa Street between Reseda and Lindley. Noel was already off to work at Solly's Deli.

It wasn't one of those rolling kind of quakes -the ones that build slowly. This one started with a bang and was at full force. I jumped out of bed and ran to the front door. We lived on the second floor of one of those quintessential L.A. apartment buildings: two-stories around a central swimming pool. I threw open the door and heard screaming. I looked down and saw the pool below spilling over on all sides. In a half-sleep still, I remember taking off for the front entrance of the complex.

I don't remember the sprint down the outdoor hallway, or descending the stairs, or even opening the double doors out onto Napa Street. I do remember, though, the sudden realization that I was still in nothing but my boxer shorts. And I remember the workers across the street laughing. Luckily, I hadn't shut the doors and I could slink back to my apartment and get ready for work.

Somewhere in Orange County a little girl and her mother were climbing out from under the sheets on the bed where they had taken refuge.

When I got to the store, everything was off the shelves and the four ceiling-mounted tv monitors were hanging by their wires. We fixed the monitors and started to clean up. My boss, channeling his darker side, found a copy of Earthquake and put it on. He played it all day.

When I returned home after my shift, the apartment managers, Bonnie and Frank (later found to have worked in cahoots with Steve, the ex-marine on the first floor at the end of the building, to burglarize several of the apartments in the complex), spotted me and asked me if the sky was falling. Apparently, they had seen my streak to safety.

Noel was probably drinking a beer when I walked in. He had been driving at the time of the quake and said he hadn't felt a thing.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Three days after asking Maddison about her first memory, I awoke to the sound of Peanut barking loudly downstairs. "Damn dog," I thought, unhappy about the prospect of getting up to let her out.

Trin was in the bed with me; David was in the other bed with Nancy (this kind of musical beds happens a lot these days in our house). Before I could get up, I heard the bathroom cupboard doors start the rattle. The wind? A train? And then the walls started to shake and I heard that unmistakable sound of everything moving.

"Jesus, we're having a earthquake," I said to myself. "Come on, Trin. Let's go."

I picked up Trin, still sleeping, and walked over to where Nancy and Dave were. "Nancy, we're having an earthquake," I said, still in a little bit of disbelief. "You should get up and get to a doorframe." The house kept rumbling longer than I expected and I suggested we get downstairs to a stronger doorway. "This is nothing so far, but who knows where it could go?" I thought.

We got downstairs and listened to the cupboards rattle for another 20 seconds or so, and then it was calm. I looked at the clock. It was just after 5:30. We went back upstairs. The kids were still mostly asleep.

Neither one of them will likely remember this.

Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

The crocuses and daffodils are popping up all over the neighborhood, but there is frost on my windshield. Spring is here. Spring is full of promise.


Spring means birds. Trinity stepped outside with Nancy yesterday morning to get the paper and was treated to the sounds of robins and starlings and cardinals and sparrows. Our normally wiggly girl sat perfectly still, listening. Nancy asked her if she liked the birds' singing. "Yeah," she whispered. This bodes well for Trinity who has a grandmother in Maine who says things like "I heard a Veery in the woods today."


Spring means playing in the yard. Walking through the backyard this morning, I can see what Peanut has been doing back here all winter; and now I can start to clean it up. (Dave and Trin have already taken a couple of forays into the minefield and come away clean, but that luck is going to run out soon enough.) Frankly, nothing really says Spring like the sight of a little boy playing with his trucks and tractors in the dirt, or running around the yard being chased by his dog. David, by the way, is in L O V E with Peanut, following her around and hugging her and singing little songs like "Peanut, Oh, Peanut/ Rinky Dinky Doo."



Spring means riding bikes. We took Dave and Trin out for a spin around the neighborhood last Saturday and had our picture snapped by a photographer from the newspaper. And there we were on Monday morning: the kids looking sporty, and me looking like I weigh about 300 pounds. They say the camera adds about 10 pounds, but this is ridiculous. Dave is a monster on his bike. He's 100% mobile now, except when her veers off the sidewalk and into the mud; then he's 100% helpless. Trin can't push the pedals of her bike hard enough to get going and so she must be pushed. This wouldn't be so bad, if she would steer. She CAN steer but chooses not to. She's a gazer like my great aunt Helen who, legend has it, was so fond of looking in people's windows as she drove by that she was always in danger of driving off the road.


Spring means new sneakers. Trinity's ready for the basketball court or an all-girl pop band (maybe called "Sugar Stick"!) with her new high-top pink plimsolls!

Spring means birthday parties. Both David and Trinity celebrated birthdays this month: David turned 3 on the 24th; Trinity turned 2 on the 14th. We've been eating cupcakes ever since. The cupcake recipe that Nancy used comes from Amy Sedaris. You can find the recipe here:

http://www.amysedarisrocks.com/recipes.htm#amy

David's birthday was almost solely a Thomas the Tank Engine affair. He got new tracks and lots of new trains and t-shirts, and conductor's overalls, and a hat. Trinity's was a little more varied, since she doesn't show a marked preference for any particular kind of toy. The big present was a dollhouse. Of course, David likes to play with it more than she does. And, sadly, Nancy and I like it maybe even more than either of them. It turns out that Trinity's toy animals fit almost perfectly into the dollhouse, presenting us with an irresistible opportunity to create miniature scenarios depicting things like potty training among the woodland creature set.

Spring means baseball and softball. While the real athletes report to camp and negotiate unfathomable salaries, increasingly soft-in-the-middle used-to-bes like me struggle into our cleats for another season of slow-pitch home-run derby, complete with lumbering.

And, of course, Spring means Summer is coming, which means more time to spend doing the things that Spring always promises, such as...

The Philadelphia Story (or why going away to a conference sounds like fun, but isn't always)

Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference, 2008. Philadelphia, PA:

I woke up on Thursday morning feeling like something was not quite right. My lungs felt a little tight and tickly; the first cough was just a little painful. It was early – 5:00. My flight for Philadelphia was scheduled to leave at 9:18 and I needed to be out of the house by 6:30 in order to make the hour drive to Indianapolis, park the car, get ticketed, and get on the plane. “Just what I need,” I thought. “I’ll get sick just in time to be stuck at a conference.”

The morning went smoothly. Trinity had made it through the night with only one bout of complaining. Nancy got up at 5:30, and both kids got up in time to see me off (I had worried that David at least would sleep through my leaving). I got to Indy, parked the car, got my tickets, and got on the plane without a hitch. The flight was smooth and uneventful – as it should be (one take-off, one landing). I met a friend at the public transit station and we rode the train into Center City together. I met my friend Amanda at the hotel and we grabbed a nice lunch at El Vez, finishing just in time to get me back to the hotel for my presentation.

I was first up on my panel and as I stepped up to connect my computer to the projector, I noticed that there was no audio cable. After a couple of minutes searching in vain, I gave up. No clips. “OK,” I thought. “I can wing this.” So, I gave my talk without the help of my very carefully and painstakingly prepared clips, opting instead to simply describe them. Something was lost, I think, in the translation, but I did my twenty minutes, people clapped politely, and I was done.

I felt that little tickle in my throat return. My cough had settled in my lungs, which felt very tight.

At 4:00, I went by myself to get a cup of coffee. On the way out, I ran into my friend, Bob, who was supposed to be presenting at that time. He told me that he had to step out because he was feeling a bit nauseous. We talked for a couple of minutes and then I let him go about the business of getting some fresh air. There is a Starbucks across the street from my hotel and so I went there. The line at the counter was at least 30 people long: film and television scholars, every one. I spun on my heels and headed for a little coffee shop I noticed on my way back from lunch earlier. It was just a few blocks away. I sat and had a nice latte and an almond croissant. I saw Bob walk by.

When I finished my latte, I went back to the hotel, went up to my room, and relaxed for just a while on the chaise lounge in my room overlooking Market Street. I was starting to feel pretty rotten and wasn’t sure what to do about dinner. I went downstairs after about an hour and met up with Amanda, Tim, and Serra who were on their way out to dinner. They were kind enough to invite me along. By this time, my voice was pretty much gone and I was getting the aches. I had taken some Advil, though, and it kicked in eventually. Despite my better judgment, I had a couple of beers with dinner. We had a great time and called it a night at about 10:00.

I slept like crap. My general malaise had turned into something with a fever. I kept waking up, unsure of exactly where I was, and unable to get comfortable. My head was pounding.

By the time I finally got up and out of bed this morning, I was sure that I was running a high fever. I got in the shower, got dressed, hunched my shoulders against the chilly air and walked the three blocks to the CVS, whereupon I bought a thermometer. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t have a fever to speak of. I walked a few more blocks to a less visible Starbucks and got a coffee, some coffee cake, and the New York Times. I had a leisurely breakfast, and then went back to the hotel in time to see Amanda’s presentation (which was excellent).

Next I had to chair a panel on television aesthetics, featuring some of the bigger names in the field. I was a little intimidated being the person in charge of telling them when their time was up. It didn’t help that by this time I was sounding more than a little like “Froggy” from the Little Rascals. But the presentations were great, the panelists were nice, and we only went five minutes over.

But my Advil was wearing off, my headache was back with a vengeance, and my voice was all but gone.

My friend Jon called and we made plans to go to lunch along with Jim, Nathan, and Bjorn. We went to this the very popular and very crowded indoor market where they have just about any kind of food imaginable. The crush of people was a little too much so Jon, Jim and I opted for the first hoagie stand we saw; Bjorn and Nathan missed the turn and we lost them in short order. There was absolutely no place to sit in the market, so the three of us walked back to the hotel. There was no place to sit there, either, so we sat on the floor of the lobby, unwrapped our sandwiches and had a nice lunch. It was made even nicer by the fact that Bjorn returned and Tim showed up with some food of his own. I still don’t know what happened to Nathan, though.

Even long lost Chris Dumas appeared. He informed me that Bob had, indeed, thrown up.

I’m feeling like that’s an apt metaphor for the conference. Philadelphia is loud and dirty. The hotel is nearly impossible to navigate efficiently. I feel like crap. But at the same time, it’s great to see friends and have time to catch up with lots of really smart people with similar interests.

Unfortunately, my condition has forced me to cancel my plans for an evening with Bjorn, Sherra, and Lori. I am up in my room now: alone, quiet, and ready to call it a night. I’m a little disappointed, but I’m looking forward to the peace and quiet, too.

Tomorrow's another day.

Sugar Stick

Eddie has bolted to the back door and is begging me to let him out. Peanut is nowhere to be seen. Nancy and David are sequestered in the playroom pretending not hear. I am in the kitchen – the front lines – bracing for the next salvo.

She smiles, cocks her head to the side, twists at the hips, and spins on one foot. She falls to the tile floor midway through the clumsy pirouette, laughing uproariously. She clambers to her feet, grabs a balloon in each hand and leaps into a toddler cheerleading routine. “Hooray!” she shouts, one fist in the air. I duck as the plastic weight on the end of the balloon string in her raised hand hurtles toward my face.

“Sugar Stick” is on the loose.

We found ourselves at the mall too late to get home in time to make a proper dinner and decided to find a kid friendly place to eat, settling on the T.G.I. Friday’s in the mall. Sure enough, they were ready with paper placemats, crayons, and booster seats, all in a room clearly designated for the dreaded “families with kids.” The kids’ menu was right there on the placemats and we ordered Dave the Chicken Fingers with Fries, and Trin got the Mac and Cheese with Fries (it was either that or carrots, and we knew where the carrots would end up). They also got slushies to drink.

Just after the slushies arrived, Dave started to melt down about a Thomas toy he’d seen in the music store, and Nancy decided to take him for a walk. They were gone for a while and Trin pounded her slushie like it was her job. The nice waitress brought her a refill and she started in on that one, too. Nancy arrived back with David just before the food arrived. Dave decided he didn’t like his slushie. Nancy took a sip and said, “Wow. That’s sugary!” I took the lid off Trin’s and looked inside. My heart sank. It turns out what I assumed was actually a “Raspberry Lemonade” over crushed ice was actually a cup of ice with “Raspberry Lemonade” FLAVORED SYRUP (aka pretty much straight sugar) poured on top. She’d had two of these toddler 8-balls and would have had a third had Nancy not taken that fateful sip.

She’s asleep now. Her alter ego, “Sugar Stick” crashed sometime after slapping me across the neck with bubbles from her bath, all wild-eyed and wiggly.

I wonder if she’ll remember any of this tomorrow.

So You Think You Can Dance?

David got sent to “time out” the other day. This happens a lot because he is both almost three years old and a boy. But on this particular day, instead of howling and writhing on the floor, he jumped on to his bed, grabbed hold of the railing, and started bouncing up and down, chanting “One, two, cha-cha-cha!” I had planned not to look him in the eye until he apologized, but I felt like this little Marx Brothers routine deserved a glance and a smile.

It put me in mind of my own childhood – sixth grade to be exact – when I, along with many of my friends form school, were signed up for ballroom dancing lessons with the esteemed Mr. Benjamin on Monday nights. The lessons were held in a small building out by the Willow Street bridge (I think) and required all of us to dress up in our best clothes: dresses for the girls, shirts and ties for the boys. Once there, we were divided by gender and stood in a line along opposing sides of the room. Mr. Benjamin would then take us through the basic steps of the dance for the evening; Fox Trot, Waltz, Rumba, Cha Cha, etc. First, he would roll up the left leg of his trousers and instruct the boys to watch him (and especially that left leg) closely. The he would repeat the same for the girls, asking them to watch the right leg. Once he finished with the basic instruction, he would head over to a small record player, pop on a 45 of some recent top-40 hit in the correct meter and tempo, and then the boys would have to cross the room, find a partner, ask politely for this dance, and then practice the steps…making idle conversation all the while. Mr. Benjamin would circulate around the room checking on our steps as well as our conversation. When the song ended, we were to part and applaud.

Lessons in decorum and the workings of polite society.

Oh, if Mr. Benjamin could see David, naughtily trashing the Cha Cha, I wonder what he’d say.

Monkey Business

David and Trinity started tumbling classes last week. We've noted for a long time what beautiful summersaults they both do, David especially: he tucks his head under and rolls forward with his legs straight and together. It's like watching a seasoned diver go into a tuck from the high dive. Trinity's summersaults are a little more like head stands with an added bonus (and she can't do them on the hard wood floors because the' 'fro doesn't create enough friction, but we do get some much needed sweeping done when she tries!). We've also taken note of just how house bound we feel in these cold winter months. And so we made the decision to get the kids out of the house and maybe build some athletic skills while we're at it.

Trinity has taken right to it. She is focused and enthusiastic. She's in love with the bar that they have set up about 2.5 feet off the ground and from which she can hang. Her other great love is the trampoline, and then comes getting thrown into the gigantic pit of large foam squares. In fact, the very idea of tumbling came from Trin's talent for crib jumping and general rolling about. Check her out:**



David, on the other hand, mostly wants to see what other people are doing. These other people are mostly girls between the ages of 8 and 17 who are flip-flopping all over the place at great speed, and he usually wants to get close to the action. Poor guy: at the rate he's going, he'll be trampled by a group of girls in leotards before his third birthday.

A student of mine is a former competitive gymnast, and while talking to her and her father about tumbling and gymnastics, I realized that I don't think I want either one of them to *really* pursue it. The combination of high cost and unholy hours, not to mention ghastly injuries for micro-miscalculations, and long-term ill-effects (my student tells me she can't bowl, for instance, because her arm pops out of it's socket on the backswing), leaves me less than enthused. Still, it's great to see them getting some focused instruction and having a blast at the same time. Plus, I would love for them to be able to do those high-speed handspring jobs that cover about 50 yards by the time they're done.

Frankly, I would love to be able to do that myself....just to change things up and develop a few tricks that would make an impression...maybe spice up the teaching routine.

Classes started for me last week and I have to admit to feeling a little less than enthused right off the bat. For one thing, I'm teaching three courses that I've taught many, many times before. I change things up as much as I can, just to keep myself interested, but there's only so much you can do sometimes. And each first day of class does tend to bring the same array of questions. Here are some of my favorites -- the ones that drive me batty:

* On the syllabus, if there is a reading listed on a certain day, does that mean we should have it read by that day, or do it on that day? (Honestly, I just don't understand this one.)

* My parents are flying me to London at the end of the semester. I leave on the day of the final, and that's the only flight they could get. Can I take the final early? (I'm always amazed just how poorly parents and their travel agents anticipate the final exam schedule).

* Will you tell us what is going to be on the quizzes? (My reply: "Questions that you need to answer.")

* Is there going to be extra credit? (My reply: "The fact that you are already preparing for the possibility of needing extra credit is a bad sign.")

And my all time favorite....

* Do I need to buy the books? (To which I typically answer, "I don't know. Do you?")

I probably sound like an ogre. I'm not. And I usually follow snarky responses with a smile and then I give them a real answer as if to say, channeling my hero, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog,
"I kid! I kid!" (though Triumph would likely respond first by saying: "That's a good question.....TO POOP ON!").

Don't get me wrong: I have mostly bright and thoughtful students. But when I get questions like these, or I see that group in the back with their laptops open "IM-ing" each other (I can usually tell because they are typing away in short bursts even at times when I'm saying nothing particularly noteworthy...and sometimes they LOL, and I'm not that funny), I feel like one of those toy monkeys banging its little cymbals together, chattering and smiling like a fool.



** "Trinity is Covered in Bumblebees" (music by JNP, orchestration and arrangement on GarageBand by NNP).

As Time Goes By

My very earliest memories are of living in Navy housing in Annapolis, MD. And even those are merely scattered moments -- just a few snippets here and there without chronology or context:

Taping string to a plastic baseball bat hoping that it would sound like a guitar.
Watching a light snowfall from the upstairs window.
Losing a tricycle race to Bobby Orlosky.
One of the neighbors running from her house with a bee in her blouse.
Hiding under a blanket while watching an episode of Star Trek that I found too scary.
A guy tossing me a baseball (I found out later that it was one of the Oakland A's).

Two years and this is all that remains. Nothing monumental here -- just the flotsam and jetsam of the everyday. But why these moments and not others? What was it about these things that made an indelible impression? Or do I remember these things because they fit most closely with the person I am today? Do I select them from a larger array of possible memories because they reaffirm certain things about me?

Actually, there are other memories, but I'm not sure they are really mine. Instead, they're more like narratives that I have constructed from hundreds of snapshots in shoeboxes and funny stories repeated around the dinner table over the years.

I like to tell stories; it's something my family does. Nancy makes fun of me sometimes because she's well aware that the stories I tell about my childhood have changed over time. She recognizes that I've sacrificed the facts in many cases in order to offer a better narrative with structure and coherence, even though lived experience rarely possesses either of those things.

I've been thinking lately about David and Trinity and what they will remember, not only of their early days with us, but of their lives before us. And I wonder what kinds of stories they will tell about themselves. For Trinity, of course, there's not much there before us: just four months with the McBrides, her first foster parents, who got her two days after she was born. But when we ran into Jean and Ken a few weeks ago at a restaurant, Trinity climbed into Jean's lap and snuggled in like not one day had passed since she was in her care. There's something there, no matter how faint. And there probably always will be.

For David, though, the story is different and far more complicated. He spent his first five months with his birth parents until he was badly injured in their care. His next eight months were with a really large foster family. In Spring of 2006, they decided they needed a break from foster care, and the kids were re-placed. David came to us when he was 14 months old: handed off at a shelter in Collette Park. There was no fanfare, no official documents signed on site, no instruction manual -- just a quick and slightly teary goodbye from his first foster mom, and then there we were. We'd met him only once before for about 15 minutes.

What does he remember about that day? What does he remember about his life before he met us? What will he choose to remember as time takes him farther from the experiences themselves?

We recently received an envelope full of pictures of David just after he was born and up to his first birthday. Everyone looks so happy; it's a family just about like any other. But now his family looks completely different. He'll see these pictures, of course. And when he's old enough to begin to understand, we'll explain to him what happened. We don't want to keep things from him, because it's his story and he should be proud of it; it's who he is. But, strangely, though it's his story, we'll be the ones framing it. And we don't know all the details.

And as time marches forward, and we begin to forget details, or reconstruct them into a more satisfying narrative, what happens to the truth about his experiences? There are documents that he could seek out in order to piece it all back together, and they might run counter to his "memories." So what is the function of our memories? Should we strive for clarity and exactitude about the painful, mundane, or chaotic truth? Or is it better to construct a story that exists somewhere between fact and fiction: something we can live with, something that gets better with time?

I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement

Last night I went down to the basement to put a load of laundry in the washer and fold the clothes that were waiting on top of the dryer. Nancy was upstairs with the kids. Suddenly, I got this feeling that something was wrong, or that I was being approached from behind. All of my basement-related nightmares started coming back to me. I turned around but saw nothing and nobody.

And then she appeared, smiling ever so slightly as she descended the last treacherous step and put her bare foot down on the very hard concrete floor of the basement.

Trinity: the girl who, not more than a year ago fell ALL THE WAY DOWN the much longer staircase from the bedrooms upstairs to the main floor of the house (and did so without getting a scratch, I should add, but a singularly terrifying moment, nonetheless). She knows she's not supposed to get on the stairs by herself, especially descending.

So, I swept her up and marched her back upstairs.

And then it hit me: I had the feeling that someone was approaching me before she was down the stairs. And with the washer running, there's no way I could have heard her footfalls. I didn't hear her approaching...I felt her approaching.

Nancy says she had many instances during her teenage years when she would suddenly think of a meal while she was at school only to find out upon returning home that they were having that very meal for dinner.

There's something to be said for being so in tune with someone, or so alert to a situation, that you can anticipate future actions. But then there are those experiences that can't be explained by mere coincidence -- those moments when you have to at least entertain the notion that there's something else going on: something mysterious and uncanny.

Here are a couple of my favorites.

Back in the early '90s,when Nancy and I had an apartment in Portland, ME, my parents had come to visit. At this time, Nancy was cultivating an interest in growing her own herbs. Being apartment dwellers, however, we didn't have any garden space. So, my father offered to build Nancy a big table on which she could construct a mini garden lot, and over which we could hang a grow-light (no, she wasn't growing pot in her closet). As we began to prepare for the construction, we realized that we needed a long extension cord for the circular saw. I didn't have one and so Dad and I took off for the nearest hardware store, which was within walking distance, down the hill and on Commercial Street. As we started to descend the hill toward the store, we noticed a scraggly looking fellow coming up the hill toward us. As we got near to him, he stopped and asked us the following question:

"You guys interested in an extension cord?"

He produced exactly the thing we were on our way to get, albeit not a new one. But still...

Without hesitating, or really even breaking stride, both my father and I replied, simply, "No, thanks."

When we got a few steps farther, we both started laughing, perhaps a little nervously. I always wonder what would have happened had we taken that extension cord from him.

A couple of years before that incident, Nancy and I had taken a leave from responsible living, and set out across the U.S. on an open-ended road trip. We worked in Yellowstone for a few months, went to San Francisco to see old friends of mine (attended Beth and Hugh's wedding!), visited my folks in San Diego, went to Graceland, etc. When we got back to Maine we were, of course, unemployed so we lived for a few months with Nancy's folks and worked temp jobs as a way to save some money for the security deposit on an apartment down in Portland.

One of these temp jobs was a two-week gig at an L.L. Bean overstock sale. Bean's rented a huge abandoned shell of a department store (formerly an Ames, I think) in Bangor, trained a couple dozen of us in the ways of the Bean, and stuffed the gigantic space with everything they had been unable to sell otherwise (plus some nice things, too).

Early on in the two week run, I contracted a nasty flu bug: bad cough, horrible aches, and a fever over 102. I was out for a few days until the fever broke. When I came back, I was still a bit shaky on my pegs, so they told me to just work the floor, replacing items that had been abandoned on the ground and helping people who had questions.

At one point, I was in the middle of the store and saw a man who looked just like Redd Foxx. Now in Bangor, ME, you don't see a lot of older African-American men hanging around the L.L. Bean sale; it's just a demographic reality. The fact that he looked just like Redd Foxx made me go get Nancy to show her that there was a celebrity among us. I was gone about a minute. When I came back to the spot with Nancy, he was gone. Not just in another area. Gone. There's no way he could have navigated the clusters of clothes racks to get from the middle of that enormous space to the doors and out in the time that I took to get Nancy.

"Weird," I thought. "I wonder if I just imagined that in some still fever-addled part of my brain."

Nancy went back to work.

When we got home that night, I turned on the 11:00 news. A few stories in, the anchor said something like the following:

"And sad news out of Hollywood tonight. Comedian and actor, Redd Foxx passed away today."

I looked at Nancy, she looked at me. "Now, that's creepy," she said.

Frankly, I'm kind of flattered by the thought that Redd Foxx might have chosen to reveal himself to me in the afterlife.

Just so long as he stays out of my basement.

The Defiant Ones

Friday morning at 4:13 I awoke to the all too familiar sound of Trinity fussing in her crib. She had most likely shed her three blankets during the inch-worm routine that she does in her sleep, leaving her exposed to the too-cold upstairs air despite the cozy cotton footy pjs she's wearing; she's a true princess, in the pea under the mattress sort of way. As usual, I hauled myself out from under the two comforters and shuffled over to her crib, mumbling something about needing sleep. "It's four in the morning, Trinity. Go to sleep," I said as I returned the blankets to their rightful place and patted her on the back in a perfunctory sort of way.

"No."

"You're not going back to sleep?" I asked, a little miffed, a little amused.

"No," she whispered in her best sleepy Lauren Bacall voice.

And so it was that Trinity and I, after about a half hour of increasingly tense negotiations, ended up downstairs, first in the recliner foolishly hoping for sleep, and then in the playroom watching "Teddy Bear Jump" (aka "A Pocket for Corduroy") until Nancy stumbled down and took over at 6:00.

More and more these days it seems that our requests and demands are met with that staple of toddlerhood: the simple and defiant "No." More often than not there is an exclamation point attached to the end. Sometimes, it precedes my name (in rare instances, Nancy's): "No, Daddy!" Other times it's hurled between the two of them. All too often, it seems to come out as a verbal tick: a go to response to hold the place of the real response while the request is being decoded and scored for desirability. Hence, the question, "Do you want a cookie?" is often met initially with "No" followed closely by "Cookie! Have it, cookie!"

Of course, every parent in every country in the world in every epoch has experienced what I'm talking about. It's nothing new. But David and Trinity have a better trick up their sleeve. It's the thing that my brothers and I weren't allowed to say without penalty, and I never understood why until now. It's the simple, straightforward, and really annoying, "Shut up." Of course, in their mouths it comes out more like, "Shuuup!" but it's no less grating and rude. And the maddening thing is that David KNOWS it's not a good thing to say, but he just can't seem to stop himself. And when he gets started, it turns into a chant. He's even trying out different inflections: loud and disobedient, or sometimes with a smile (stated almost like a question), or long and drawn out, or short and to the point.

But no matter what, and unlike most of the other things these kids do, it's never cute or charming.

Nor am I cute and charming when the kids are acting up. I try desperately to be patient and understanding. "They're only almost 2 and 3," I tell myself. And then I get hit in the head with a Hot Wheel, or someone gets bitten, or I get told to shut up, and I dissolve into Mr. Frederickson, my cranky seventh grade PE teacher, whose angry and impatient bellow we all swore must have risen out over Otay Lakes Road like a thunderclap, reverberating all the way down to Bonita Road, causing shoppers at Big Bear to stop dead in their tracks.

But then the sound of my voice -- denying, correcting, chastising -- echoes back to me and I start to wonder who it is that is being truly defiant.

This morning on the way to daycare, as we sat in the usual left turn lane, waiting for the usual green arrow, to go over the usual overpass and into the usual parking lot, David said, "No, Mommy, go this way." He was pointing to the right and up Wabash Avenue heading east.

"No, honey, we have to go see Miss Vicky at daycare."

"No, Mommy, this way."

"David, we have to go to daycare."

"Mommy, this way."

The light turned green and we turned left (as usual), etc., etc.

Perhaps ninety percent of the requests that the kids make are met with a quick and definitive veto. We've got things to do, places to be, and indulging the whims of two wild toddlers is not going to get us there any faster. So we deny them.

We deny them sweets, television, opportunities to climb the stairs by themselves, hot dogs for breakfast, the dog's water, and so on, and so on.

Of course, our job is to teach them how to be responsible and respectful individuals -- and to keep them healthy and as injury free as possible. But I also worry that we are also teaching them (or me at least -- Nancy is way more fun than me) that there's very little time or place for simply seeing where this road will take us, or finding out what dog food tastes like, or how it will feel to jump from the coffee table onto the couch, or what this button on the television does.

"No. No. No. No. No. No!"

No wonder they want us to shut up.