The Good Man Blog

Hot Chocolate and Another (Undeserved?) Award

2009-11-12T23:41:00.002-05:00

My wife came in here about an hour ago and said in a hushed voice, "How about you go into the kitchen and make us some beverages?"

My first thought was alcoholic kinds, but then I remembered we don't have any. Then I paid closer attention and realized the half-whisper meant something more devious... something the kids can't know about... our secret luxury: hot chocolate.

The kids can't know about it because they're gobblers. If it's remotely sweet or tasty in any way, particularly if its sugary and/or expensive, they gobble it. We have no chance. We, in fact, have a whole list of things at the grocery store that everyone in the family enjoys that we cannot purchase because the kids ruin it by pounding it down within hours of becoming aware of it. Hot chocolate, especially if its something that sounds fancy like French vanilla hot chocolate, is pretty near the top of that list. Luckily, I make pretty much everything from scratch, and the kids have already been taught the oh-so-fun lesson about how bad raw cocoa tastes. Heh heh heh.

The problem was that we didn't have a key ingredient in sufficient quantities. We were essentially out of milk, which would also cut into our romantic morning coffee ritual. Enter the good man: our spectacular homemade hot chocolate would be had!

I went to the grocery store at 10:30 at night to fix this problem, and as anyone who has been there knows, the grocery store after about 8:30 pm is a bizarre place. Santa Claus was there, in fact, tonight, but he wasn't in uniform. He was in green flannel with green jeans, and he couldn't work the self-scanning checkout. Weird place, that.

Then I came home and made it -- a little of the premium, organic cocoa mix my lady picked up a few weeks ago, nice unsweetened cocoa powder, some hippy sugar, and a few chocolate chips found their way in this one. L-o-v-e-l-y. Score 10 good-man points... except that she just went to bed without me while I'm typing this (making this shorter as the seconds go by...).

In other news, since I report things like this and folks seem to like it, I won another little award for my blogging efforts, though I don't know that I deserve it, particularly since I don't play by the rules (and should?). This one is again courtesy of The Readhead Riter and notes that I'm apparently a superior scribbler.
As my friend Jordan says... "everyone's got to be good at something." Thanks!

Becoming My Parents

2009-10-26T12:11:00.003-04:00

The kids are pushing me to become my parents. Despite the fact that I'm 11000 times busier than usual right now, they're every bit as needy and incompetent, and right about equally ungrateful and unappreciative. It's awesome. I am, however, keeping up with (at least) my share of the dishes, which is usually what I find myself doing almost every time I need to take a break from my work or when my wife needs the computer for hers (or for some reason the kids sneak on here to watch Japanese cartoons online...).

Here's a picture of my parenting skills in action. I'm rather happy with this picture, and the parenting skills behind it, although I don't think it would be admissible in a list of techniques for "parent of the year." The picture, at least, is really good, if not indicative of a strange scenario.
I just love how the late afternoon autumn sun is glinting off that lovely hand-crafted and glazed mug out in my yard. The color of the fading grass and the yellow maple leaves, and even the brown ones, all come together with its pale blue and the yellow-gold sun glint to make a rather lovely picture. It only begs one question, I guess: why is this lovely hand-crafted mug in my yard.

Answer: Clueless and Belligerent.

Real answer: I threw it there because I did not want to smash it, although I really wanted to smash it to make a point via going rather psychotic over the children, who are testing my nerves majorly while I'm all extra-stressed from work. C&B managed to leave milk in this mug after she's been told at least 600 times not to leave milk in mugs (she's supposed to wash them, but we're more than happy to concede if she merely rinses the milk out of them). This one didn't even make it back to the kitchen. After I noticed it had been sitting there for over two hours, then noticed that it still had milk in it, and then noticed that C&B was nowhere to be seen near this mug (which was by a plate still smeared with whatever she had eaten off of that plate, all on a table in the living room, which is nowhere near the kitchen sink), I flipped out.

The mug went in the yard after contemplating smashing it (noisily and with a great deal of fuss to make the child believe that maybe I'm a little less stable than she assumes I am when she behaves this way repeatedly) and deciding against it. It was a nice gentle toss. About an hour later, C&B went to get it after I told her she couldn't have anything else to eat or drink until she picked up and washed her dishes from earlier, including the mug, which she couldn't find and didn't remember using. It was rather entertaining watching her go into the yard to get it, but she pointed out on her return that what I did was "obviously unnecessary."

I pretended she didn't say anything and went on with my day, enjoying the lovely meal I spent far too long on so everyone would have something delicious to eat for dinner. This is exactly what my parents would have done, apparently, and to my chagrin, my mom found the story absolutely hilarious when I told it to her today, along with another apology for everything I did as a child, particularly when I was ungrateful for things I was given, particularly lazy, or ignorant of taking care of my mess when I should have known better (and did!).

Another Award and Where I've Disappeared To

2009-10-23T17:01:00.003-04:00

Apparently, even though I've been too busy to post much of anything on here lately, I won another award. Way cool! Thanks to Julia over at Everyday Mom Ideas for the props. I definitely appreciate it! I also like that this award is considerably less girly than the others.
The "Best Blog Award" seems a little over-the-top for what I'm doing here, but I appreciate the nod nonetheless. Everyone that agrees with Julia's taste in my blog should visit hers and check it out.

So... too busy to put anything... doing what? Well, there's autumn yard work -- that's keeping me busy. There's entertaining guests at a friend's birthday party. Then there's work... it's been keeping me a little busier than normal, and then I found out that I get to defend my thesis (finally) in about two weeks. I don't really even have time to be typing this since that seems oh-so-important and I'm oh-so-under-prepared for it. Therefore, with another quick thanks to Julia, I'm calling this one done even though I've got some great stories about the kids to tell. Seriously, my brain almost melted about six times in the last three days.

It Had To End In Disaster: Kids and Expectations

2009-10-15T09:46:00.002-04:00

As soon as my wife started cleaning Clueless and Belligerent's room yesterday, a project that took her around three and a half hours, I figured it wouldn't end well. When she punctuated the activity at it's close with the words, "All she had better say to me about this is 'thank you,'" I expected the worst.

Before continuing with how the day went, I want to add two things: how it came to the point where we would directly interfere in their space and the similar situation with the other child. I'll start with her and then tell how it all started. Sullen and Moody's room is also a wreck. There are a couple of pieces of furniture in there that my wife repeatedly asks her not to cover with her laundry. Those were covered with indeterminably clean or dirty laundry. The floor was covered with scraps of paper and tissues (which is disgusting because that child cannot manage simple tasks like not just throwing her used tissues on the floor or stuffing them in the corner between her bed and the wall and the like, despite the fact that we took all of her belongings away from her for the entire duration of the summer as a punishment for this heavily recurrent problem). My wife, not wanting to get sick (which is what happens every time she cleans that child's room), simply cleared those pieces of furniture and made a pile of "fix this" in the middle of the floor. She also made a list of things to be fixed: clean up the tissues, get the dishes (some of which are growing mold and/or hidden from plain view) out of the room and wash them, hang up the clothing, take dirty laundry to the basket, generally straighten up, and vacuum the carpet (which will eventually have to be removed and probably burned). For how this exciting saga proceeded, stay tuned to the last half of this post!

How did it get this way? Socks. The children both claim that they have no socks. This makes no sense to us because we seem to buy them socks on an almost uncannily frequent basis, like they have some kind of sock-destroying ritual going on although we never see the destroyed socks or any evidence thereof. Their complaining and arguing (when we point out that they should have many pairs of socks, even clean ones) finally pissed us off enough that we decided to have direct intervention. I took care of dishes and kitchen-related cleaning while my wife attacked their rooms, cleaning Clueless and Belligerent's for her spectacularly (like it could be featured in a magazine of how properly trained children keep their rooms) and doing the above-mentioned actions in the disease-ridden other room.

Not surprisingly, my wife found seven pairs of clean socks and five pairs of dirty ones in C&B's room, most of which were near the bottom of piles of cleaned laundry that had been placed originally on the end of her bed with the instructions: please put these away nicely. Those piles were all stuffed in various and sundry places around the room: in corners, partly under/behind the bookcase, partly under the bed, and against the wall. On top of every pile were other things: books, stacks of half-crumpled "important" papers, dirty (and wet) laundry including towels, candy wrappers from candy we didn't give to the child, and general teenage-girl squalor. The only aspect of C&B's room that wasn't magazine-perfect when my wife got done were those socks, which were left out in neat rows on her bed, clean and dirty, as a sort of declaration of her retardation. Surprisingly, she threw very little away, save candy wrappers, and left much of the child's "organizational system" intact, if improved slightly. This presentation was left with a nice note: "I found your socks. They're on your bed, and we'll talk about where they were. Please put the dirty ones, unfolded, in the laundry basket, and put the clean ones away properly. I expect you to keep your room like this from now on. You're welcome. Love, Mama."

Incidentally, a similar scene, sans note, was provided in Sullen and Moody's room with the socks, about a dozen pairs of which were found in her room (without even having to search for them or do a thorough cleaning!) despite her frequent claims that she does not own enough socks because we lose them on her. Wrong.

C&B didn't come directly home from school. She asked to be allowed to hang out with her friends at the park (between the school and our house) for a few hours after school, giving a specific time that she'd be home. In fact Sullen and Moody didn't come directly home either, choosing to engage in her dorky Anime Club, an after-school activity that we're not sure is altogether healthy but that we consent to since she's allowed to have dorky interests (I played D&D as a teenager...). As to C&B, she even called at about an hour and a half until she was supposed to come home and asked to go to her friend's youth group meeting with her, so we said "okay," and expected not to see her until about 8:30 or so.

Meanwhile... Sullen and Moody came home and immediately went to her room. She cried out when she saw it: "My room has been ransacked!" I informed her that it had merely been adjusted in a manner that suggested what the problems were, that there was a note detailing those problems, and that she was to have it fixed in rather short order. She said, "Can I at least take a bath first, or do you think she [my wife] will flip out?" I consented to the bath. Bad move. I didn't take into account that despite her eczema and her knowledge that soaking it in hot/warm, soapy water for long periods of time being bad for it, the child takes obscenely long baths whenever given the slightest opening to do so, especially when stressed out about something or trying to avoid doing something she doesn't want to do. This one lasted two hours to my great frustration (I had to pee), though my wife didn't know anything about it because she was working (preventing me from using our other bathroom, which is in her office). I had somewhere to be and left the house before she got out of the tub... and before C&B came home.

I came home (much earlier than expected) to my wife looking frazzled. I asked her what was up, and she said that she "didn't want to relive it." Sullen and Moody was in her room, door closed, supposedly cleaning it. Clueless and Belligerent had gone toe-to-toe with my wife over the cleanup job and jab about the socks. First of all, somehow, there was a massive argument over the socks because C&B refused to recognize that those socks could have been in her room and insisted that they were planted there in an effort to make her look bad. Secondly, C&B was furious that people had touched her stuff (which makes me wonder what she has to hide). Thirdly, C&B was very upset about her very nicely organized closet and dresser and the fact that her clothes were neatly folded and put away or hung up in an organized fashion on hangers because she "doesn't like her clothes being like that"; she "likes them on the floor." She was told that we don't care what she likes, that her stuff is in our house, and that the socks were indeed hers and were indeed "lost" in her room (so she could stop accusing us of screwing up the laundry and losing all of her socks). She was in our bedroom on the phone, jabbering away, when I got home, but that was only after having been denied it for an hour while she was sent to her room to "stare at it so she'd know what it's supposed to look like."

The bathroom that Sullen and Moody had occupied, like her room, was now a mess. Water was everywhere, so three towels had been wontonly strewn on the floor to deal with the fact that she had splashed water everywhere (the child's idea, ostensibly since she doesn't have to wash the towels). There was an empty soda bottle on the edge of the tub, the shampoo and conditioner bottles were placed precariously along its edge or where they had fallen in the floor also, and there had been no obvious attempt to clean up any of this after herself. She won herself a prize, mentioned below, for her room and this. The bathroom is now cleaned, by our hands, save the soda bottle, which awaits her as a token of her failure and impending doom.

Now, we can fast-forward to this morning. What are the states of the three rooms in question?
Clueless and Belligerent: Some laundry is already piled on the floor, crinkled papers (some blank) are strewn about on top of various piles, and the magazine-perfect appearance of the closet has been destroyed so that a poster of something she was into four years ago (on the back wall of her closet) is visible.
Bathroom: Cleaned properly except the empty soda bottle, which is placed in a locale that annoys me every time I go in there: right where the child left it.
Sullen and Moody: The tissues are still on the floor, the bed is a wreck, the cleared-off furniture is home to some clothes again and the wet towel she dried her hair with after the two-hour bath, the dishes are still there (still molding in some cases) with two extras that somehow went in there yesterday under the radar and never came out, the pile in the floor is still there though it is now covered up with every clothes hanger that the child has in her room (symbol of a project started and not finished?), the vacuum cleaner is in there but has not been used, and somehow about a week's worth of dirty laundry is heaped on the floor, not in her room, but in the room adjacent to the room with the washer and drier in it (the basket is on top of the drier, not in this adjacent room).

The children win some prizes for this, though I don't know how it will go.
1) There is no longer any reasonable excuse short of bleeding for delaying any cleaning project for more than about eight seconds;
2) Magazine-perfection is required with no other activities permitted until it is achieved -- daily;
3) We'd include "dishes don't go in your rooms for any reason," but it's a prize they've already won and ignore because we don't have a good/effective/creative method for enforcing it;
4) They each will wash their own laundry (and socks) once weekly. In fact, we will no longer be washing their laundry under almost any circumstances;
5) Sullen and Moody no longer gets to take baths: showers are required.

Kids. Disaster.

The Cos: Parenting Values and Family Fun With Cosby Show Reruns

2009-10-13T22:10:00.003-04:00

Maybe my wife and I are alone in this, but I don't think so. We definitely feel like better parents after watching a few episodes of The Cosby Show together, and even more so if we do it together with the girls, who love the show as much as we do, if not more.

It's odd to say this seeing as we're basically a family that never watches television, particularly my wife and I (the girls watch it greedily every chance they get at someone else's house). Way back when, soon after my wife and I met, though, we sat down and watched Bill Cosby: Himself with my mom one night and laughed our heads off. Seriously, that's some funny stuff. That, of course, made us want to watch more Cosby hijinks, and so in no time, we had bellied up and bought a couple of seasons of the immortal show on DVD. When there's not much else to do, one of the girls will pop one of those DVD's into the player, and before you know it, family time is happening.

It's great, although I'm definitely not the first person to say this: The Cosby Show is family programming perfection. It's funny for kids; it's funny for adults (for wholly different reasons); it's funny for non-parents; it's funnier for parents; it's funny for teenagers; it's clean; it's non-violent; it promotes being successful; it's family-oriented; it's filled with values; and it gives fantastic advice on how to succeed as any of a parent, child, or teen in a family dynamic. It also comes loaded with an over-healthy dose of 1980's kitsch that makes those of us old enough to remember it either just a bit nostalgic or just a bit embarrassed to have signed on. Of course, explaining the 1980's (particularly the fashion!) to children of today sets up wonderful opportunities to discuss fads and how ugly they'll think their clothing is in a couple of decades or so. The DVD's of course come with the added bonuses of never having to sit through commercials or deal with programming schedules.

The other day, the girls put the videos in, and I came around and discovered that it was on just at one of my all-time favorite scenes. The precocious son Theo (age 13), who apparently has bad grades and is a general let-down in many ways, has been hounded about this kind of thing throughout the entire show. He's in his room at the end delivering a powerful speech to his dad (THE Cos) about how "maybe I'm not going to be a doctor... maybe if you weren't a doctor I'd love you just as much because you're my dad, and so maybe, just maybe, you can love me for who I am, just who I am, because I'm your son."

The audience erupts with emotionally evoked applause at this point and Theo stands silently, trying to look serious, awaiting his loving father's reply and for the live studio audience to calm down. His stance is very "I'm Hamlet and just delivered a moving sillioquy, what have you got to say about it?" Dad stands up. It's very exciting because it looks like he's about to deliver a powerful family-oriented, I-love-you-son kind of response, and then in a very real, very true, very funny way expresses irreconcilable frustration in voice, tone, and manner as he says: "Theo... that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. No wonder you make D's." He continues his tirade with something to the tune of "if you would try instead of being lazy" or something that I don't think I've ever heard because I'm too busy almost pissing myself over the "stupidest thing I've ever heard" part and the "no wonder you make D's."

I think it's good for me to watch that because it doesn't fill my head with B.S. responses to give the girls. I think it's good for the girls to watch it because every kid tries some eloquent speech of that sort at some point in their lives (or several times) and expects the tv-and-movies response of "You're right, son, gosh. Let's get some ice cream!" that couldn't be further from a realistic response in that kind of situation and obviously isn't good for the child because it merely panders to them.

If anyone's curious, my most elegant speech to my mother came off a bit more like an attourney's debating in which I researched and then informed my mother of my Constitutional rights as a citizen of the United States of America and exactly how she was denying those, citing the specific Amendments that she was withholding from me. Her rebuttal was as follows:
"This country is free, and its citizens do have inalienable Constitutional rights. You however," she said, "live in my house, which is a monarchy, and I'm the queen. You therefore have no rights in this house except to do as I say when I say it until you move out, and if you'd like to leave now, I'll pack a bag for you and take you far enough away where you can't find your way back anytime quickly." I think I was seven. Staying at home, under the rule of Queen Mom, sounded like a good idea.

Of course, Bill delivers some wonderful other lines in there too... in another episode is another favorite of mine. Talking with his teenage daughter, Denise (age 16), she clearly decides she has an opinion on something, and Bill asks for it. How he does it is genius (and perfect for precocious teenage girls in my household to watch): "Come on, tell me. I want to hear whatever gems of teenage wisdom you have to spew out." Beautiful.

Another favorite was once when one of the Cosby girls (Vanessa, age 12) gets in trouble for wearing makeup when she was expressly told that she wasn't allowed to (but felt like doing it anyway). Sullen and Moody got really mad that Vanessa got in trouble for that, thinking that the makeup-wearing was minor and shouldn't have entailed the grounding that she got. In fact, she got so upset about it that she bulled up and was very difficult to talk to about it for hours. Finally, after a while, we got out of her that it made her upset because she feels like she gets in trouble for a lot of "stupid little things" like that, which we were eventually able to put into a better perpsective for her (via convincing her that Vanessa, on the show, got in trouble for disobeying a rule, whether that rule was reasonable or not, which is not a "stupid little thing").

If you don't watch The Cosby Show with your kids (and grandkids?), I think the money for the DVD's is well-spent and maybe should be invested. I'm a huge advocate, and as my wife and I say, it very well could improve your parenting skills.

My Wife Is Awesome

2009-10-11T14:00:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, my wife worked her butt off and made a decent chunk of change for the family, and she did it in a situation that was detrimental to herself. Here's it went and how I responded.

She had to work from sometime in the afternoon, three or so, until almost nine she was gone. It was close to an hour each way to drive and the rest of the time was massage, one after another, on lots of (grateful) people. What makes it kind of tough, though, is that she has a slightly injured shoulder, so about three-quarters of the way through, it really started bothering her. I, of course, didn't know this.

I knew she was working long and hard and would be hungry, though, so I started making a lovely meal. This meal was also intended, of course, to feed the children, who were as close to ungrateful about it as they're allowed to be. I guess they don't like mushrooms as much as my wife and I, and I guess I'm not worried about that. She was quite glad about the food when she came home, but almost as soon as I saw her, I realized something wasn't right. It was her arm, which apparently was weak, tired, and killing her from the issue in her shoulder causing some wicked referred pain.

After we ate, she lay on the floor on some blankets and tried to rest, but her arm was apparently really bothering her. Luckily, she's taught me some of her moves, as have some other folks, and I dug my hands into her unhappy shoulder and worked on several of the knots (most of which are actually in the upper branch of pectoralis major, for anatomy nerds out there) and then turned my attention to a more loving, gentle, relaxing massage. I don't know how much it helped, but she seems to think it was pretty good. Then, even though I did all the meal making, since her arm felt like crap (and even though my leg has been hurting for about a month, making standing for long periods not that good), I did the dishes.

So... I took up the slack, I guess, at a time of need. That's how we roll at my house, and I think it's a large part of our success in our relationship.

Awards, Apparently, And Rule-Breaking

2009-10-08T21:10:00.005-04:00

So some lovely ladies out there in Blogland ("blogosphere" is a bit too buzz-word for my tastes now) have awarded me with some very manly looking prizes for my chronicles with my family as husband and step-dad. Here they are, with proper props and thanks:
First, there is the "Lovely Blog Award":
This is thanks to Mesina over at And then there was me, and by her own admission, it comes off as a little bit sissy-looking. I can live with that. I even kind of like rose-petal scented tea, although a teacup full of roses/petals with ribbons around the base has never appeared in my life before now and is unlikely to appear many more times in the future. Sullen and Moody (the older daughter, who just turned 15 and pointed out to me that she's very close now to being legally able to drive a motorcycle... yeah right!) would probably like it if the cup was chipped and there were some black roses in the mix to make it kind of pseudo-goth (she likes to pretend that she's goth). My wife would think it's not very pretty at all, but I'm still glad to have the award, however anti-manly it looks. Thanks, Mesina! You rock for noticing that I rock!

Then there's the "Splash Award":
This is courtesy of the Redhead Riter at her eponymous blog. I'm pretty sure this is a picture of a mermaid that looks like a fairy. I'm pretty sure that neither "fairy" nor "mermaid" is the image I'm trying to give with my blogging efforts, a fact I can now attest to more certainly because my redhead wife just saw this and busted out laughing. I'm thinking someone needs to design some more studly looking awards... again, not that I'm looking a gift-horse in the mouth. I do appreciate the recognition, for sure.

On the other hand, these blog awards apparently carry "rules" or "instructions" that remind me of spam e-mailing. I like the idea of recognizing people for their efforts, but I'm not the avenue for that kind of thing: I'm sort of a withholding praise kind of guy. Both of the women mentioned above have outstanding blogs that are worth checking out and even following, but I'm apparently supposed to nominate some odd number (or prime number?) of other blogs that deserve to have a manliness stamp of each sort placed on them. That's probably not going to happen. Sorry for breaking the rules, but I am who I am.

To balance out the girliness of the above awards, I hereby award myself the "Smashing Tim in the Face and Making Him Fall Down" award. It looks like this:
My wife is still laughing, but not because of how incredibly manly it looks that I'm smashing a guy named Tim down with my fist and an intense look under a very sweaty brow (this happened in London, btw, Mesina!).

Antilogic

2009-10-01T17:08:00.002-04:00

Clueless and Belligerent wins again.

Yesterday, she asked to be allowed to walk home from school with her friend, assuring us she'd be home by 4:30. At about 5:30, I was at the store, buying a baseball -- an interesting story of its own, weirdly -- and my phone rang. It was C&B from her friend's phone.

C&B: "I'm not in trouble am I? I'm on my way home right now!"
Me: "Uh, hi [C&B's real name]. Weren't you supposed to be home at 4:30?"
C&B: "I was, but then my friend needed me for something and then her mom wouldn't drive me home and I thought she would drive me home and she didn't so I'm walking home as fast as I can right now."
Me: "Right. Didn't you just get out of trouble for this exact kind of thing?"
C&B: "I know, but my friend really needed me for something."
Me: "Okay, what did your friend 'really need' you for?"
C&B: "I don't know."

I almost threw my phone. Because I was in the store and couldn't lose it on this nonsense in any socially acceptable way, I told her to hurry on home, which apparently she did. Am I the only one that can't make sense out of this kind of thing? Seriously.

Long Time, No Post

2009-09-30T11:36:00.002-04:00

So it's been a little while since I've put anything on here. That's basically because I was doing ridiculous training and playing assistant-host to a few "dignitaries" that came to visit from Beijing (who were the ones driving the training). Since I had to be out the door by 7 every morning and usually didn't get home until after 10 at night almost every day since last Tuesday, I had to set blogging aside for a week.

I said "almost every day" up there, though, and by that "almost" I reminded myself of some of the nice things I used to do for my wife more often before she was my wife. First, there are the messages. I used to call her and leave messages a lot just to leave her a message, meaning that I'd call during times I knew she wouldn't answer so that I could leave her something sweet to listen to later. I got to rekindle that. I also got the chance to leave her notes in the morning since I would be out the door on some of those days before she got out of bed. Finally, I was reminded of how incredibly special and valuable it is to her that I show her that she's very important to me even when other very important things are going on. The way I did that: coming home early a few nights, specifically forgoing the chance to go eat dinner with my out-of-town friends so that I could come home and do the same with my lady instead.

Today, I'm going to do another favor for her (now that my legs are working almost normally again): mowing -- hopefully for one of the last times of the year.

Teenage Girls: Toilet Paper Eating Machines

2009-09-20T13:32:00.002-04:00

So in case people don't know, teenage girls are apparently toilet-paper-eating machines. Part of my weekend alone with the girls, while my wife is off studying yoga in a nearby city, has included going to the store, as mentioned in my last post, to get toilet paper because we were on our last roll. Remarkably, though not surprisingly to me any longer (which is even more remarkable!), the children needed only about fifteen hours, eight or more of which they were sleeping through, to use the entire first double roll of toilet paper.

For some reason, this is a household issue that drives me crazy and doesn't seem to bother anyone else. I think it's my being male. I can usually make it for a few weeks, on my own, on a single roll of toilet paper. Admittedly, I have fewer reasons to have to use the stuff, but I don't think most of it goes into the toilet with the girls. I just don't know what they do with it (I suspect the younger one mummifies her hand every time she uses it and the older one needs a foot and a half of it every time she needs to wipe her allergy-ridden nose). We average twelve (double) rolls every two weeks here, actually, and it blows my mind.

I consider this to be absolutely amazing. The girls consider it normal. Honestly, one thing I look forward to so far as the girls growing up and moving out is not having to buy the cheap toilet paper any longer!

Mr. Mom, Weekend Warrior Edition

2009-09-18T21:06:00.005-04:00

I think about the movie Mr. Mom a lot these days, although I was so young the last time I saw it (which was when it was still rather new) that I can barely remember any of the details.. if any. I'm pretty sure I live it now, though, with a side of "weekend" warrior. I'm using my title as a double entendre, here, however, because my wife's away for the weekend, as she frequently has been able to be to pursue her love of yoga, and because now that school's back in, I've had to make more of my training a "weekend warrior" kind of endeavor, although I still probably get in close to an hour a day even on the week days.

So, this Friday has been another beginning to a weekend in which I'm watching the girls. I'm currently getting along great with Sullen and Moody, who is neither sullen nor moody any longer -- I need a new nickname for her apparently -- but my battle of wills seems undiminished in the least as far as Clueless and Belligerent goes. Let's just say she knows everything but that everything she knows is wrong.

I'm not really going to talk about her nonsense or my frustrating attempts to deal with it here, though. I'm here more to chronicle my bellying up to the task of supporting my wife's love and interest by taking over the reigns for the weekend. On the one hand, I'm not sure how well I wield them because of my arguments with Clueless and Belligerent and my sliding into the easy pattern of feeding them pizza for most of the weekend (they aren't as huge fans of the fancier cooking I do as my wife is, or at least Clueless and Belligerent isn't). On the other, I did spend most of my afternoon "bonding" with them... time that could have been spent better training or working ahead on my job obligations since I've got a training-related seminar next week that's going to take up almost all of my free time and most of the rest of it too. We went to the grocery store together (mostly to get toilet paper, which they seem to eat or build fortresses out of or somehow otherwise use faster than is mortally possible, but ending up spending $70 on other necessities while we were there). While there, we saw a local celebrity: the "On Fire For Jesus" truck that is just too ridiculous to not show you a picture of, though this isn't my picture of it (my wife took the camera with her):
(Not pictured because it's a little further back on this obviously eco-unfriendly ride: possibly my favorite part -- Jesus, with his hand raised in what might be triumph, riding a white stallion that has white fire leaping from its hooves. I believe it says something awesome there too, but I forget what.)

We came home and continued bonding, after a short break into real life. After I went and ordered the pizza, I did a little work while the kids started watching some cool movies from the Eighties that my mom brought over for them. That's when the real bonding started: I watched the last half of Pretty in Pink and all of The Breakfast Club with them before the obligatory argument between Clueless and Belligerent and I came up, motivating me to go get in a bit over an hour of training before getting on here to tell you the story. Clueless and Belligerent took her happy ass to bed when I stood my ground on the fact that she didn't know what she was talking about but felt the need to run her mouth about it (our typical argument, which usually arises after said running of the mouth starts a similar battle between her sister and she that requires some settling). The older one is watching one of the Harry Potter movies now, and though I might watch some of it with her, I'll probably opt out and try to get in some meditation and an early bedtime. I'm trying to adjust my body to getting up before dawn again, and that requires earlier sleep -- tonight in a lonely, empty bed that I can sprawl all out in and thus will only feel lonely and empty for a few minutes tonight and tomorrow morning.

At least the older child and I have some rocking conversations on this weekends. I really hope it comes around to the same thing with Clueless and Belligerent, but I think she has to outgrow her nickname first.

How I Hear the Children

2009-09-15T20:12:00.003-04:00

My wife and I got up butt-early this morning to do a little meditation practice before the kids got up and crashed our early-morning party with their bumbling and morning-time grumbling and with enough time to have plenty before needing to go to work. Needless to say, it was so early that we ended up falling asleep afterward (while waiting for the children to leave for the bus so as to avoid interacting with them unduly in the morning when they're extra-cranky), but beforehand, it was pretty nice. Meditation is a beautiful practice that's worth just about everybody's time and attention.

I learned at the end of our time sitting there how I hear the children, because until that point, I had been hearing only the crickets outside and the other early-morning noises that precede the birds along with the sound of my breath, which was soft and gentle because of the practice. Clueless and Belligerent was actually the only one that talked. I have no idea what she said, but I heard "Lor, lor, lor... lor... lor, lor, lor, lor," which essentially was like the teacher from the old Peanuts cartoons except sounding more Clueless and Belligerent with a not-so-pleasant tang of griping and miserable. Immediately, I realized I simply assume that whatever that child is saying is incorrect almost as soon as it comes out of her mouth (which might or might not have to do with "the incident" on Sunday). As for the other child, who is only rarely Moody or Sullen now, everything that comes out of her mouth is fantasy land. I've realized that I have to usually ask the children to repeat themselves because I'm pretty sure, based on experience, that whatever is about to come out of their mouths isn't worth listening to, and I'm not sure if that's good or bad.
Ex: With Fantasy Land, at least nine times out of ten, whatever she says is a direct launching into some kind of story or video game without any preface and with the tone that it's something real and important. For a more specific example, yesterday she asked me a few interesting, deep, religiophilosophical kinds of questions, and when I tried to answer them seriously and thoughtfully, she corrected me with, "no, I mean in the world of the Hobbits like Tolkien wrote about." Thanks for specifying, do you mind if I have most of my last ten minutes back now please?

So, that's how I hear them. I wonder what changes this recognition will bring. Since it came up, though, I'll mention Sunday's incident because I'm not sure my life with these people can really be fully appreciated without sharing this kind of stuff.

Scene: I'm looking for the coffee press we had gone to my mom's house the night before to pick up (and ended up forgetting after a lively, fun conversation with my mom). My wife, C&B, and I went. I spent about ten minutes looking around in the kitchen and a few other potentially likely places for said press, and I couldn't find it. That's when I decided to engage C&B. It went like this:
Me: Hey, C&B, did you happen to see your mom bring in the coffee press last night, and if you did, do you know where she put it?
C&B: Yeah. Well, I saw her bring it in, but I didn't see where she put it. I just saw her go into the kitchen with it. (Bold indicates C&B's rather annoying way of talking in which all of the words are spoken essentially as quickly as possible with the exception of the indicated words, which are drawn out and with emphasis that sounds like she's trying to express annoyance).
Me: Okay, thanks.
I proceeded, based on this information, to look for another ten minutes or so for the press, rechecking everywhere I'd looked previously as well as in ridiculous places like under the sink, in drawers, and even in the freezer as I got more desperate. I was clearly missing something. Again, I addressed C&B.
Me: Um, C&B, are you absolutely sure you saw your mom put it in the kitchen? Actually, don't even answer that yet. Do you know whether we left it at my mom's or not?
C&B: YES I'm sure. I'm not an idiot. I saw her bring it home and put it in the kitchen. I don't know where in the kitchen it went.
Me: Alright, thanks. Sorry for asking again, I'm just having a hard time finding it and am actually kind of thinking we forgot it.
C&B: No! I saw her bring it in and put it in the kitchen. Gyah!
Based on this reiterated information, I looked for this thing for another ten minutes, looking in even more ridiculous places like inside the oven just because I knew it was a place I hadn't looked yet. I know my wife well enough to be sure that it would only have been in about one of three places, and it wasn't in any of those. The other child came to help me, kind of stunned at my inability to find something (a game I'm usually far better at than the children seem to be able to understand). Then my mom called because she wanted to pick the children up to hang out with them for the afternoon (THANKS MOM!!!).
Me: Hi Mom. Before you even tell me what you want, I'm going nuts trying to find that coffee press. Do you happen to know if we accidentally forgot it at your house last night?
Mom: Uh, yeah, I do. You did. I thought that was kind of funny when I saw it this morning since it was the reason you came over in the first place.
Me: Right. Thanks. What did you need?
She told me that she was on her way to get the kids and would be at our place in under two minutes. That timing probably saved the child's life/happiness. I went directly to address C&B, knowing better but not caring.
Me: Um, C&B, why did you tell me that you saw the coffee press come into the house and go into the kitchen if you didn't?
C&B: I did see it.
Other Child: Oh God, here it comes.
Me: No, you did not see it because it didn't come in. It's still at my mom's house. Why did you say you saw it when you didn't see it?
C&B: I figured you'd be pissed at me if I said I didn't see it, so I said I did so you wouldn't be pissed, and now you're pissed anyway. I hate how not fair you guys are.
Me: C&B, I asked you because I wanted information. I wouldn't have been upset if you hadn't seen it. That would have been information that didn't tell me anything about my situation, but what you told me was basically to keep looking for something that isn't here. That's now how that kind of thing works.
C&B: SEE! Now you're all mad. You were going to be mad at me no matter what I said. What was I supposed to do?
Me: You were supposed to tell the truth about what you saw because that's what I asked you for.
Other Child: Um, yeah, obviously. Now you're arguing with him, and you're wrong, so stop.
C&B: SHUT UP!
Me: No, you shut up, actually. You're arguing with me, and you know that's not allowed. You're arguing with your sister, and that's unacceptable. You, unfortunately for you, are in the wrong on this one, and I expect you'll do better in the future.
This is where my mom showed up and saved the kid's happiness because I was more than happy to just let her leave and not continue arguing with me any longer.

For what it's worth, after I gave up most of my evening to make a nice dinner for my family tonight (including noodles from scratch again -- like this but with lamb in place of beef), we ate it together. C&B, despite being 13, watched a Pokemon video that was obviously made for the 6-10-year-old range while I cooked, blasting the annoying-ass sounds at a level that certainly was geared mainly at annoying someone (me, though it succeeded in pissing off my wife far more). Anyway, my wife thanked me for the meal near its conclusion and asked the children if they had thanked me (which I didn't care about one way or the other... it's what I do). The older child, Fantasy Land (who had talked about how she was going to find Hogwarts when she grows up and then break in), thanked me readily in Japanese. C&B, on the other hand, said, "I don't know why I should thank him; I thanked him for something yesterday... mutter, mutter, mutter, something about coffee that was unintelligible because of the mumbling, mutter, mutter, mutter." Her mother sent her to her room for rudeness. She said, "Gosh! Okay! I don't know how I was even rude, mutter, mutter, mutter, mutter,..." which trailed off continuously as she went into her room and closed the door behind her. Maybe, just maybe, hearing her the way that I do (simply assuming whatever she's saying is incorrect and probably not worth listening to) isn't so terrible after all.

Girls' Night Out

2009-09-11T23:30:00.003-04:00

So tonight was girls' night out. Since I'm not a girl, I wasn't invited. Since this was a method of going and enjoying herself for my wife, the kids weren't invited either. What's that leave? Me watching them... after I finished mowing.

The kids were remarkably easy tonight, which is well because of late they've been a little more difficult than usual, but my plight or lack thereof aside, I'm happy to report my wife had some much-needed fun out with her friends, something she gets to do all too infrequently because of the eleventy billion things she has to do all the time. Mexican food, margaritas, and, apparently, laughing until their sides and faces hurt were on the menu... and for me: pizza and a quiet night with the girls sitting in the other room debating things in their usual semi-bickering but not really arguing way and then (???) going to bed early without being asked to. I think the younger one is still a bit lost on what to do since she's still grounded.

All-in-all, it was pretty good. I spent most of the evening researching some exercise-related junk I've been meaning to look up for a while, and as with so many things in that field of study, I know absolutely nothing about what I tried to find out except what some manufacturers tell me in hopes that I buy their stuff. I sometimes think there's just not any real, reliable information on almost anything out there. Everything is too much advertising, marketing, and dollars. Then again, I can't really complain about that, at least not fairly.

It's getting late, but it's about time to go spend what little time there is left in the evening with said lovely wife that just got home from her fun time with her buddies just a little bit ago. Guys, take it from me, it's definitely worth its weight (its difficulty?) in gold to get over yourself and let your other take off and have some fun for the evening without getting all riled up about when she will or won't be coming home or what she's doing. Give the freedom you'd expect to be given!

The Saga Continues

2009-09-09T16:51:00.002-04:00

So I spent most of yesterday, despite my post (which I tried to use to bring me up on the situation... which lasted for about twenty minutes), in a rather strong grumpy funk, much to the dislike of my lovely lady. I'm over it today, though, after I talked it out and slept it off.

Anyway, the saga just had to continue, as I predicted it would last night in one of my foul spells. I fully expected that the child, before the term of her grounding expired, would do two or three things: 1) misinterpret the things we've said, 2) construe a way to get around it, and (hopefully not) 3) outright defy it. Numbers 1 and 2 have already come to pass, and my surprise is that I only expected the first to come about this quickly.

Misinterpretation: The first thing Clueless and Belligerent said to me today after coming home from school was "I need to talk to Mama because she said I'd be able to go to the park today, and I'm supposed to meet my friends there to work on a school project that we're doing in groups." I, of course, was highly suspicious of this, but as I hadn't been present when the law had been laid down, I wasn't totally sure. I told her she'd have to wait and talk to her about it. That came, and my suspicions were confirmed: no permission to go to the park were given -- that, in fact, is the main thing she's grounded about. Observe that somehow Clueless was able to misinterpret things on a fairly grand scale.

Construing: A trip to the park to meet up with friends to work on a group project for school, she says? Incredible is the ingenuity of a stricken child! Nice. It apparently cannot be done over the phone because it involves too many people, and it apparently cannot be done via e-mail because "none of the other kids have e-mail" (Um... yeah, right). This is how Belligerent usually operates: indicating ridiculous reasons why things can't be any other way than the way she wants them. It's a classic control-freak technique that she's got down pat. I know, I know... "no computer and no phone" were part of the grounding, but as this is homework, I think some lenience in the situation are permitted, particularly when the child didn't see the opportunity to seize if it was just a ruse.

So, we had to have a discussion and make a decision: homework that violates the terms of her punishment... on the second day of it, no less. Nice. We decided to allot a time for her to be at the park working on the assignment that was too brief to futz around much with her friends (100 minutes out of the house, giving her walk-there time, walk-home time, and roughly an hour with her groupmates). She argued immediately: I don't have any way to tell time. This is a battle in and of itself.

The child has a watch, actually two of them, that were birthday presents last year. One she lost utterly. The other she "lost" but we found after it had gone through the laundry, having been stuck in one of her pockets and left in the enormous pile of dirty clothes that she only digs out from under her bed occasionally or under threat or command. Amazingly, it still worked! We gave it back to her literally less than a week ago. Guess what. When we told her she'd need her watch and to go get it, she informed us that she'd already lost it again. Can you say "screwed yourself?" I can. My wife did.

So, Belligerent roared and made some underhanded comments about how "now we're not just ruining her life by grounding her but we're making her get a zero on a major assignment too," with no mention of the major assignment she just got a zero in a few weeks ago, we got an e-mail about, and which carried the excuse "I couldn't think of something to do, so I just didn't do it" like that's perfectly acceptable in any world whatsoever. Then she mentioned that the grounding was "crap" and she "shouldn't even be grounded." Our tactic: we cut her off and sent her to her room to rethink her wording and tone. That garnished more arguments which we cut off with the exact same request, fast on the path to becoming a demand. It was almost sad and entertaining at the same time to listen to her mutter about why she couldn't have called because "she didn't even know if those people have phones or not," which reminds me of the time we called her out for not flushing the toilet for the 300th time and her excuse was "I didn't know that toilet could flush" because it was the first time she'd used that bathroom (in my wife's newly completed -- at the time -- office). See? "Clueless and Belligerent" is in no way an unfair moniker for the young lady.

She's miserable in her room now, but this time neither my wife nor I are. Our center was in being firm in sending her out of the situation. I think that might be best.

It Doesn't Magically Get Easier

2009-09-08T17:08:00.002-04:00

The title really says it all here, and the "it" that it refers to is the role of parent or step-parent. Luckily enough, I missed the direct-hit on this one, but that doesn't mean that my wife and I avoided spending time and effort talking it over this morning as simply has to be done in the case of parenting.

The younger one, Clueless and Belligerent, flexed both her her muscles this weekend. She decided to go to her friend's house Sunday night to stay over, calling and asking permission to stay, which we agreed to. We figured we were being reasonable in requesting the child's name and phone number, which we had despite the fact that a short argument about why that's important had to ensue first. Through a variety of interesting circumstances, the reality was that she had originally planned to go over on Friday instead of Sunday and had a sudden change of plans, and so we actually had this information written down by the child, at our request before she would have been leaving. Thus, when she called us on Sunday afternoon, we simply asked her where she had left that information and let it go. Here's a lesson: check any information provided by a child, particularly a clueless child. It was a first name and a cell phone number and nothing more.

Well, Sunday passed to Monday, and the hours rolled by. We didn't have an exact time that Clueless would be home, but we figured "before dinner" was reasonable enough. We also kind of figured the other parents would be sick of having extra kids around earlier than that, so mid-afternoon was kind of in our minds' eyes. Three came and went. Four came and went. Five and then six came and went. I left to go train like I do every Monday night at a little after six. Apparently, seven and eight came and went too, as did a series of unheeded phone calls to the provided cell phone number. Just before nine, right when my wife had hit full-stride in "what do I do now" worry mode, the child plodded her way up the driveway in typical lazy, slow, unperturbed, clueless fashion despite the fact that it was well after dark by that point (a point we've already discussed with her a couple of times this summer concerning her sojourns to the park). The plodding, despite that being her normal modicum of walking, was a little surprising, but because of "mom worry mode," it was overlooked at the outset.

My wife is sometimes a real all-star. Here's what my reaction would have been: "You need to sit your dumb ass down in a chair so we can have a talk," in all likelihood. Goodness knows I heard that enough times as a child and am not enough of a child-glorifying hippy to believe that a child acting foolishly shouldn't be told they're being dumb. The kid knows better; we've had that discussion several times already. My wife approached her from a calm, centered position of honesty, gently asking her to have a seat and displaying the honest emotion, concern, as opposed to the reactionary emotion, anger, that I think is probably justified in this situation. They had a talk.

Apparently, the following facts we revealed as justification for this situation (late return, on foot, alone, in the dark, waaaaaay later than is acceptable:

"We slept until noon." (I don't know how this justifies anything, but we're dealing with a thirteen-year-old that I refer to as "clueless," so, um, whatever);
"Her cell phone died and we didn't feel like recharging it." (that explains why she didn't call, I guess, though wildly unacceptably);
"They're poor, so we couldn't recharge the phone." (riiight... if they're that poor, their teenage daughter wouldn't have her own phone -- this was an act of desperation when she saw in my wife's eyes that no one was buying the previous attempt at explanation for the lack of phone calls);
"I didn't see any reason to hurry because every time I come home late you guys just make me go to my room to think about it, so if you're just going to send me to my room, you obviously don't want me around, so I didn't need to hurry." (this is why I call her the Anti-Logic Emitter... way to miss the point of getting sent to your room, kid... and, oh yeah, give me a break!);

To my knowledge, there was no explanation given for why these other parents, if they exist, let some kid walk home in the dark across a distance that was, apparently, "pretty far," which for the lazy child could mean anything from a quarter of a mile to five miles. The park is a little over half a mile away, though, and it's further than that, I think. Perhaps most disparagingly, the child doesn't see why this is a big deal. Teenagers... sigh.

Today, my wife and I set out together to come up with a just punishment... one the child would definitely find to be "not fair" but would suit the situation perfectly. Here's how we roll when we roll best!
Step 1: Honor thy mother and father -- We exchanged stories about what our parents would have done to us in this situation and rapidly agreed upon "it would have started with yelling and a belt." Grounding would certainly have been included afterwards, and so grounding landed on the menu with many a "that child is just lucky she's dealing with us instead of with our parents!"
Step 2: Do as my father diddeth and overdoeth it -- My dad was famous for ridiculous proclamations like "you're grounded until you're 30!" HA! I'm thirty now, Dad! Off the hook! Back to the point, my wife wanted to ground her from all of her little social media outlets (phone and computer, her favorite things in the world, and going to the park or to any friends houses, next in line) for three months. "Whoa!" I thought, but then I remembered how the child deals with punishment, given below because it really did happen, and decided it wasn't that out-there.
Step 3: Do as my mother diddeth and get creative -- My mom invented terrible punishments that were way worse than groundings or beatings. Usually, they were tailored to the crime: make a mess, clean it up; hurt someone, make amends and repayment, etc. We started thinking up all kinds of interesting paperwork that the child will have to provide to go anywhere in the future, and she'd be grounded, per the usual, since it just plain fits.
Step 4: Compromise -- We decided on "grounded for a month" from those things where we were extra tricky about it. We planned to tell her that she was grounded for two weeks, and if she didn't pull her normal stunt, it would stick. When she did (and she did) pull her normal stunt, it doubled to a month. It's a month. The child responded as we expected. Don't forget, if a month sounds like a long time, that this would be the fourth time in four months that this kind of issue has come up. I think the following two months after that month are "probation" in which she cannot be late for any such return home.

She was sat down again after school today to have her punishment laid upon her. "You're grounded from the following for the next two weeks because you...." The child apparently cut my wife off in the middle of this sentence to get to her normal stunt even faster than usual.
"Okay, fine, I don't really care," she blurted, putting on airs of aloofness and nonchalance.
"Make it a month then."
"Okay, fine, I don't really care," she blurted again before launching into some ridiculous explanation about why she doesn't care that my wife refused to try to recreate for me (probably to my lasting benefit -- I deal poorly with the Anti-Logic Emitter that is that child's mouth). Very little arguing ensued because my wife cut her off with a "you don't need to talk in this part" and moved on to the next part of the conversation: finishing the explanation of the punishment and then sending her off to her room to "think about it," which I seriously doubt happened.

To my surprise, the child keeps milling about the house now, looking sullen and angry and shooting us rather dirty looks. Usually when she loses something she wants or can't have instant gratification on it, she goes to her room and disappears for the rest of the day unless forced out, and 100% of the time she's sleeping when that forcing happens. It's like she just gives up because her will isn't happening right now, her way.

So, again, I say it: step-parenting is hard. Luckily enough for us, we heard some rather nice discussions in the last couple of days that indicate that this sort of thing is rather typical of teenagers, particularly girls, and so I'm rather content just letting it be that way. I'm not here to make that child happy, at least not as my first priority; I'm here to help her grow up right. Happiness can follow.

Ah, but again stress creeps in. She knows that I start making dinner between 5:30 and 6, which is now and will happen soon, and she just made herself some toast I'm not sure I'm going to let her eat because she knows better! I better go....

(Step)-Parenting is Hard

2009-09-06T17:02:00.004-04:00

Mostly as a short note after the last, in which I indicated that I've started a new blog, mostly to just be clear that I still intend to post on this blog as well, I've decided to take a moment to post about the truth that being a (step)-parent is hard. The parentheses there indicate that both parenting and step-parenting is a difficult task, and since I don't get any of the "you're not my dad" crap that I might, I figure it's probably about the same thing save that I was launched into this in the middle instead of at the beginning.

Kids are tough to raise. By their very nature, they're idiots, and yet they're more than intelligent enough to be able to cause all kinds of mischief or to create all kinds of (idiotic, from our perspective) reasons for their foolish behavior. "I just didn't want you to have to be mad at me," I heard the other day as a follow-up to an admission that our signatures had been forged on a detention slip from school. They're needy, dependent, selfish, foolish, ignorant, and complicated people, none of that being their fault, and we, as their parents, are completely responsible both legally and morally for their (proper) development -- half the time in spite of them.

When the kids become teenagers, it seems to get harder. They get "ideas" and want "independence," meaning they come up with things to do, wish for more freedom, and yet want none of the responsibility of actually being independent. It's easy to see, from where they sit, all of the freedoms and privileges of being an autonomous adult, and yet it's equally easy for them to overlook the countless responsibilities that go into having those freedoms and privileges -- many of which happen, to their eyes, behind the scenes. Having to work and earn a living is rarely a reality for children or teens as life and comfort is usually just handed to them or purchased with very little effort and low expectations. It's really a recipe for frustration, I think, on the part of those responsible for them, particularly when their lives are filled with often-difficult decisions and self-discipline that they follow through with for the benefit of the children that are very likely to take them for granted.

Take, for instance, Moody and Sullen, who I'm happy to report is no longer either moody or sullen most of the time. She lives in fantasy land. The only things she talks about are characters here or there, comic books, stories, or drawings. Frequently, she believes these things are real to the point where my wife and I kind of worry whether or not she can distinguish reality from fiction. She just came in here a moment ago in crisis because she needs to use the computer. This wish was almost granted because the child also just found out that she has failing grades in three of her four subjects and a low C in the fourth in school. She had a meltdown about that a few days ago (which is also when she revealed the forged signatures on the detention slip she got for having failing grades at the time of her progress report from school). She's a "changed person" now (yeah, right), and so I figured she suddenly remembered some homework that she had to do, probably forgetting the fact that it's a holiday weekend and thus that she has a little more time for it than she usually would. Nope. She is having a crisis because she's drawing a picture of a character from a video game that she had taken away from her because of her terrible grades, and she cannot remember what that character's shoes are supposed to look like and can't find a picture of them anywhere in the book she just got about said game even though she's not allowed to play it again until she has straight A's, which looks like it might not be ever.

The other child just doesn't make any sense almost ever and is perpetually in a bad mood if not given her way (frequently enough looking sour and claiming that she's thinking about how much she "hates us" because we won't let her do things like go for a walk in the rain or stay out at the park until after dark with no dinner), and these are our daily challenges, or at least small, almost meaningless examples of them. Of course, I've mentioned many times the chores required to keep up with them, the physical and emotional burdens of taking care of them, and the stress that they so innocently (or otherwise!) bring into our lives with many of their decisions. I'm using my new blog to remind myself right now of how to deal with these kinds of stresses, so if you suffer from them, check out what I have to say over there too.

So this is a tribute to parents: parenting is hard, so if you're going out of your way to do it and do it at least fairly well, pat yourself on the back, especially you women that do all that you do and you men that step up and do more than many!

On the other hand, if you're a jackass and making your kid into a little model jackass like yourself, you can get bent!

New Blog Announcement

2009-09-04T23:28:00.003-04:00

I'm starting a new blog: a project on and for myself. I call it Reclaiming Zen, and it discusses how I once was, am now, and will be -- calm, centered, and filled with the enjoyment that life offers. It will also deal with the realistic difficulties in living a "Zen" lifestyle, which is mostly, for me, dealing with the children, although many of the everyday challenges of life and hopefully their brighter sides will also be there regularly. I definitely don't intend it to become a blog about the kids (if I make a blog about them, I'll probably call it "Blame the Children!").

I hope to present not just stories about how I deal with the kids and my life at-large there, but also tips for finding the state I once enjoyed deeply and am aiming to find again. Believe me: there is a good life that can be lived, no matter who you are, once you master perspective. A while back, I managed it, and I believe it is the main reason that I was lucky enough to meet my wife (who is kind of the star of this blog). Though it's a lot of work, and possibly hard work depending on your situation, I remember how I did it and intend to do it again, this time better than ever.

I personally invite each and every one of you to join me on this adventure if you're interested or like what I've got to say. The flavor will be different, but I think the content will be all the richer.

It's Not Just For My Wife

2009-09-04T21:37:00.002-04:00

I really love my wife. Sometimes it's hard to think of things to say for this blog because it all seems so repetitive (as I mentioned before). Most of what I do that makes me a good man around the house and with the family needs doing a lot and often, and so it's the same-old, same-old. That's great for being great here, but it makes for kind of dull reading and reporting. Incredible event-like opportunities only come up every now and then because real life is just that way.

The truth of the matter is that being a good man cannot stop with my family, although it probably should "start" with them. What I mean by that is that I'm as helpful as I have time and energy to be, without some "what's in it for me" bull-crap attitude pretty much wherever and whenever I can be. I do a lot for any organization lucky enough to capture enough of my attention for me to sign on with them, and I do it all almost without expectations of any kind of recompense. I just enjoy helping folks I deem worth helping, which is many, many folks. I also mean that for aspiring good-men or those already well down the path, you're probably not succeeding at being as good as you would like to be or think you are if you're putting all that other crap ahead of your family and household.

So I guess this is a note about good-man priorities: take care of yourself and your family first (putting their needs above your convenience and entertainment but not above your own actual needs) and then extend the same attitude to your friends and community. The trick is to maintain a balance so that you're not spreading yourself too thin, though, because it's easy to let happen to yourself once you become a "helper," particularly if you help honestly, meaning without expectation of payment or reward.

So there it is: be a good man to yourself; be a good man to your household; and be a good man to your community. If you're not a man, then change the word "man" to "person" in the previous sentence and do the same damn thing. This isn't a double-standard kind of picture.

So I Hear I'm Good

2009-09-03T23:05:00.000-04:00

I've been at a bit of a loss for what to talk about on here lately, but after holding out on dinner (and living on snacks and nothing until much later than is probably good), I made dinner for my wife after she came home from teaching a late yoga class. I guess putting myself second, in a way, was a good thing to do because she told me that I had to get on here and tell the world about it.

Go figure!

Soup for My Sick Wife

2009-08-30T22:16:00.003-04:00

My wife has a cold. I gave it to her after the kids gave it to me. Luckily enough, I guess, we didn't have to have it at the same time, so that today, when I realized she really wasn't feeling good, I got up, went to the store, and got the ingredients to start making her some chicken soup -- totally from scratch. It was fun to make except that it took most of the day to make and then led to me burning my tongue so bad that I'm still kind of feeling it several hours later.

The ironic bit is that she was busy and not feeling that well last night too, so I ran to the grocery store to get a few things we needed, but she usually rebounds really quickly from little colds, so I didn't even think about the chicken soup thing... just about being in a hurry because it was late, because she told me to (I totally shop like a woman, which I'm told, in a grocery store, is shopping like a man... but I do it everywhere). I did manage to get all of the stuff for the older child, Moody and Sullen, to hopefully start getting ahead of her eczema (bleach and shower caps so she can take bleachy baths and heal herself up). This is, of course, after I spent almost four hours playing psycholodad to the somewhat weird child because I firmly stand on my belief that her teenage angst and stress is the main source of her unrelenting skin itch -- this while my wife and mom took off to do yoga in another city a couple of hours away for the evening.

The soup was amazing. I'll never be content eating chicken noodle soup from a can again (actually, that was already the case). She ate three helpings over the course of the evening and had to talk herself out of a fourth a few minutes ago. Just seeing the picture of it that we took:
made her growl a hearty, healthy "Mmmmm!" all over again.

Extra Credit

2009-08-26T21:55:00.007-04:00

Obviously, as I've mentioned several times, chores are a good thing to do around the house, particularly if you're a man. Apparently, you get extra credit if one of the chores is cooking, the other chore is doing the dishes, and if you combine them together so that you cook a totally awesome gourmet-ish meal for your family and wash the dishes that you're dirtying while you do it (and while your family sorts out what kind of dressing to put on their little leafy salad).
I submit these two pictures as evidence: the totally awesome gourmet-ish meal on top and the pans I washed while they figured out "ranch or balsamic vinaigrette" below, a testament to the rest of the dishes that got washed along with them.

Apparently, I got extra credit!

It Grows, I Mow

2009-08-24T22:11:00.002-04:00

I'm pretty sure that, judging by the grass growth in my yard, sometime in the recent past this part of the world was actually a rain forest. Mowing today was ridiculous, but, like many things, it had kind of gotten away from us. I had no fear, though, and got it done.

The yard looks much nicer now, and I got my sweat on really nicely (before training, I might add!). Apparently, my wife appreciates the hard work, particularly since mowing today not only meant taming ridiculous, tufty grasses that were knee-high in places, but it also meant clearing up some seriously overgrown, weedy areas that threatened to stall the mower with every pass (some requiring five or six passes to finally defeat -- the stuff in the picture near the bottom of this post has nothing on the mess I mowed today in a few places). Those, by the bye, were overgrown and weedy because they were "random garden spots," where garden-type (food-producing) plants grew unbidden in the yard and were allowed to continue until they produced food for us, some of which we have no idea how we got... like the acorn squash, crazy cucumber, and smoothie cantaloupe that we didn't even plant. Actually, my wife apparently appreciates the hard work so much that the computer is quite boring at the moment, so I'm ending this here. Good for me!

Getting Caught Up

2009-08-23T12:17:00.003-04:00

I think we let too many things go for too long around here sometimes. It's really easy, in fact almost a necessity much of the time, to look at something that needs to be done or to start doing it and then decide that the finishing stages of the project can just wait. Unfortunately, sometimes they wait for days and days or even weeks.

We did manage to get all the junk down to the road, although that took us about four months of putting it off until it was too late to actually accomplish (note: we can only do that in one narrow window per month, so rain or a sudden burst of busy-ness usually stopped it). Usually, because there's so much to do in the living room and kitchen (to keep up with the "little children who can't") that's the site of the halfway projects. Today began for me with dishes (kind of typical), taking out the trash (actually, I made the first child that wandered into the kitchen do it), and taking care of the compost, which is what we let go waaaaaaay too long and was equally waaaaaaay gross. That was my job, being the one that handles most of the gross things.

Another project we've been letting go for too long now (about four days, although I'm not sure when we're going to find time to do it -- one could say that this post is using time that could be used to do this) is replacing our hot water heater. Little did we know a few years back when we bought a highly acclaimed new hot water heater with an excellent energy efficiency rating and mostly glowing reviews that it was a defective model (the Flameguard FG1F4040S3NOV produced by Whirlpool) that would crap out on us long before the warranty expired, although by the time that happened a class-action lawsuit against Whirlpool would have been filed, settled, and expired because we were lucky enough to have it last a little over four years for us instead of the more typical eighteen months. What all that realistically means, according to all I've read, is that it's not worth our time or effort to make a warranty claim, which will only send us a part that will surely crap out on us again in rather short order (and which we'd have to pay to install). Thus, we have to get a new one. Awesome. In the meantime, all of the cold showers have been a fun, growing experience. Actually, they're just an inconvenience: my wife and the kids are going to my mom's house every day or two to take a shower and, since I tend to take cold showers in the summer anyway, I just deal with it, hooting and hollering for the first three or four minutes every time I wash. All I can say is that at least it happened in August instead of January!

Replacing the water heater is goodmanliness outside of my skills set, so now it's just a matter of finding time to go pick one out and get it installed. I have done what I could, though, spending several rather painful hours sitting on this machine trying to figure out which ones are and aren't pieces of crap (which is almost impossible to decipher from the wide variety of reviews on apparently every model in existence) as well as making absolutely double-sure that the model we currently have isn't worth fixing (and learning how to relight the pilot, trying that, and hoping I didn't blow myself or one end of our house up in the process -- luckily (?) it didn't work).

Get in Shape

2009-08-20T18:27:00.002-04:00

Hey guys... you know all those bikini-clad babes you like to see at the beach or the pool or whatever with the great bodies that you like to look at and get in trouble for looking at? Yeah... your partner probably likes seeing people with a good body too. Why don't you get in shape? I do it with a Chinese martial art that I like training, when I'm not doing yoga with my lady. In shape people are often considered quite attractive, which might lead to more of those "benefits" I've mentioned before.

If you do decide to get in shape (for yourself or your other or both), you could do it with that person or alone, but in either case, you shouldn't let it become an opportunity to be a selfish jerk. Your getting-in-shape time doesn't buy your way out of doing your part around the house or with the family, for instance, so this isn't like free "guy time."

As for looking at those people, by the way, looking is usually okay as long as you don't look with any real interest in what you're seeing. The trick is teaching yourself that you don't really have real interest in what you're seeing, no matter how nice it looks. The policy, therefore, that good men live by isn't "I can look but won't touch," it's "I can look but don't care." How do you develop that? Well, it's tough... but it starts with truly valuing, admiring, and appreciating the other that you have right now as that person is. If you can't do that, then I suggest you work really hard at trying to develop it! In the future, I'll try to make a really good post about how you can learn to really admire and appreciate the person that you're with at this very moment, as my wife puts it, "flaws and all."

Tech Support II

2009-08-18T13:35:00.002-04:00

For the second time in a week I had to play tech support. Our internet browsing capabilities, probably due to another virus (thanks Facebook or maybe the children) pretty much crashed yesterday because our DNS was having issues. I found the problem at about 10:30 last night after a late-night, desperate, romantic trip to the grocery tsore with my wife, though apparently she had been frustrated by it for a few hours before that. At first, I just thought I'd probably have to throw my hands up and then spend a good part of today working on it, but then I realized that my wife couldn't access her e-mail, which is pretty important to her business. That motivated me to poke around a little.

I was up until four. I'm very tired and feel vaguely sick today, but it works now. It wasn't fun: after downloading (which was hard because only about one in five websites would actually load for me) and running about a billion different scanners, each finding a few different little things, most of which were nothing to be alarmed about, and then learning a bunch of little commands to type into the command prompt and fooling with all of that, it was still broken. At four, I was running yet another scan, decided to let it do its thing, and went to bed. My wife got up to see that the scan went cleanly, but the internet didn't work much. I had left her a note advising her to just turn the computer off in that event, which she did. When I turned it back on, it worked, albeit very s-l-o-w-l-y at first. The reboot must have done the trick after whatever problems got worked out, I suppose.

I kind of have two things to say about this, so far as relating to the content of this blog goes. First, I'm glad I have the capacity to help out in this way. It turned out that I would have only been inconvenienced by the problem (unless it worsened), but her whole e-thing would have been crippled, this on the heels of her massive website-based issue that took two unnecessary weeks to sort out but eventually got sorted. Second, I don't understand why people make and distribute that kind of software onto computers, particularly through social networking sites in rather insidious ways. Behind good men are good people, and good people just don't do that kind of thing -- instead they try to go out of their way to make things better for others, not more difficult or irritating. Oh well... what can we do?

Tech Support

2009-08-16T11:47:00.002-04:00

I'm not a huge fan of working with computers, and I'm not that good at it. I have, however, faced a fairly huge number of annoying computer problems in my life and spent some time and effort sorting them, so at least some of the time, I can get things going back on track in a little while, usually with tremendous frustration (I believe that only the children and the computer are capable of making me mad, and both are quite good at it in their turns). Ironically, a fair proportion of my work involves computers, including even some programming (GRRRR), which may partly explain why I've gone from being very relaxed all the time to vaguely stressed out most of the time (change in the stress in my life since relaxed time = more computers + teenagers - wonderful wife --- sorry about this nerddom, I'm a mathematician, so I think like this sometimes). Actually, both my wife and I depend on the computer for our work now, and so a problem with it is a serious issue (not to mention the fact that kids these days have to use computers extensively for homework, even their textbooks are online!). I hate being the "tech support guy" for the family, mostly because I don't know what the heck I'm doing, but I win the "most qualified" and "most willing" awards and take it on because it needs to get done.

Our computer has been having an interesting problem lately, not including the nine viruses the kids got on there by trying to download pictures of Japanese cartoon characters (fixing that was a day of my life traded for tremendous frustration). That problem was with the mouse, and "recent" is a loose term because it seemed to be an intermittent, recurring problem. Basically, the cursor would jump erratically in a vertical direction, making it unusable. Then it would get stuck either at the top or bottom of the screen and just stay there (I assume it was jumping "higher/lower than the screen goes"). After a while, it would settle down and the computer would be usable again. It's done it on the small scale probably two dozen times in the last year, and it did it on the large scale three times in that time period. Each time it went large scale on me, I'd do some research (try researching stuff on the web without using the mouse -- it can be done -- and tell me that computers don't piss you off sometimes, seriously). Interestingly, I couldn't find anything about this problem. Infuriatingly, the mouse would tease me by giving me control of the cursor occasionally while doing this research and then flipping out again just at the instant before I'd try to click anything, like it knew and wanted me to be angry. I'd reinstall the driver (without using the mouse... again, an exercise in raw fury, particularly when it would give instructions that included "click here" when it damn-well knows I didn't have access to the mouse cursor or buttons to click with).

This weekend was large-scale flip-out number three, and I had enough. It is, in fact, why I haven't posted as regularly as usual. I hunted yesterday for information about the problem and, as usual, found nothing helpful. Then, I happened upon some techie forum containing both the nearest description of my problem I've ever seen as well as a very similar troubleshooting path to the one I followed, including the dangerous act of screwing with the registry (which I did, biting my nails the whole time, on the second big flip-out... without steady use of the mouse). Then, at the bottom, the guy included his ultimate solution, which he said was one of the best things he's ever done.

Last night, my wife and I made a "romantical" trip to the store and bought a new mouse. I got it installed and running when we came home, and lo, problem solved (I hope). Thank goodness for that.

We Don't Have a Cat, But...

2009-08-14T17:07:00.002-04:00

...we do have a sourdough bread starter. Actually, I made it from scratch. On top of keeping up with the household and the children, partly because I thought it would be fun (read: "THOUGHT") and partly because my wife loves sourdough bread, I get to keep up with a sourdough bread starter, which is a bit like having a cat, but not really.

See, if you have a cat, you have to feed it every day. You have to feed a sourdough starter every day too. If you want your cat to do something, it seems not to do that. That's how sourdough starters seem to work. Sometimes your cat stinks. Sourdough starter usually stinks. If you feed your cat every day, then your cat poops every day. Sourdough starter is a little different. Sourdough starter just gets bigger every time you feed it. In order for a sourdough starter to "poop," you either have to throw half of it out (want not, waste not; want not, waste not;...) or you have to bake with it. Otherwise, much like what would happen if you didn't let your cat poop for several days, you'd have a massive problem on your hands. For me, right now, I have to use the sourdough starter at least every other day to keep up with it. I know, I know, unlike a kitty, I can put the starter in the fridge and have it on "time-out," but it's not a very mature starter yet, and so I want it to develop first. The problem with that is making loaves of bread every other day (which takes a while).

Tonight, my wife is out doing some promotional stuff for her business and then hitting the store to resupply us (again) with some groceries, hopefully scoring some deals while she's gone. She indicated to me while I was kneading yet another loaf of sourdough that when she gets home she's going to be "starving." Having hummus and sourdough flatbread ready would apparently be a great thing to do. I even put the high-fiber stuff she loves in the bread for her and everything. I just don't know if it will be ready when she gets home.... Time will tell. I'm going to go get in a little me time in the form of a workout while the dough rises and develops that nice sourdough flavor!

Home Ownership Means Work

2009-08-13T19:06:00.002-04:00

I think the biggest stress in my relationship with my wife, if there is any to speak of, comes from the fact that there is a lot to do around here to take care of the house. Part of that is because we're upstanding, good citizens. That means, in this case, that in addition to following laws and whatnot, we're recycling even though our community only semi-supports it (meaning we have to keep our recyclables until we have a chance to drive them over to the local recycling center ourselves). This particular chore is one that I suck at keeping up with and probably just about the only way I drive my wife crazy.

In my defense, there's a lot to do around here. We have a garden: between yesterday and today, I spent two hours in that pulling weeds and picking fruits and veggies that are taking over our kitchen and making it feel more cluttered and messy than it really is. We have ugly bushes that need to go: in the last few days I've been working on cutting them back or down, depending on which ones they are. We have teenagers: in the last every day of my life I've had to do eleven billion dishes, most of which I have to go find, and sweep the floor three hundred times a day (slight exaggerations). We use the bathroom: bleach is needed. We have a yard: mowing takes a while and is sweaty work. We have poison ivy that grows in the yard: herbicide, check, again. We apparently throw away trash that stinks to high hell: I took that out this morning. We compost: every day, hands in the yuck. We etc, etc, etc. Home ownership means a lot of work.

Once a month we have a discussion, which we had this morning and might do something about tonight. Once a month the city comes around and collects junk that can't be thrown away. Pretty much every month, we collect more of this kind of junk (mostly in the form of dead limbs from our trees/bushes -- see above) than we manage to get to the side of the road (a pleasant 200-foot walk away). Of course, there's a very narrow window each month in which that junk can be taken down there, and right now is dead in the middle of that window. The plan tonight, when my wife gets home from working (I'm watching the kids again right now), is to take said junk down there. Thus, while I was working out this evening (I do my exercise out in the driveway, mainly), I took breaks between exercises to start loading up the wheelbarrow and organizing that stuff. Good times. In about a half an hour, I'll be carting it down to the road. My plan is to get most of it down there before she gets home if I can manage it, but with the workout, I couldn't do it while I was loading that thing up and organizing it: it's too hot out. Now that I'm rested up and, more importantly, re-hydrated, I think I can make quite a dent in the pile before I see her!

The Closet

2009-08-11T15:50:00.003-04:00

I believe that there are two types of closets: the kind that is for general storage and is only rarely opened for any purpose other than rare ones and the kind that sees everyday use. The second kind, I think, is a very difficult part of the house to keep neat and organized, partly because it can be a lot of work, partly because it's the very last step in the laundry process (and thus easiest to say, "eh, forget it" to), and partly because you can always just close the door and not see the mess. I'm notorious for creating a messy bedroom closet, mostly because of the second reason and partly because of the third. Because I suck at keeping my side of the closet clean, my wife has sacrificed the neatness of her side to try to keep up with my side for the last several months (not to mention the ridiculous number of hours of chores we seem to do around the house every day, roughly seven combined total, to keep up with the regular stuff, provide nutritious food for the family, and to even make a dent in the aftereffects of the walking disasters that the teenagers are -- I mean, really, does everything they eat have to be on a new plate that they probably won't wash or even rinse and will either leave in their rooms or under a chair or bring to the kitchen and stack on top of things that make the whole situation look twice as bad as it is... and why is milk so hard to rinse out of a cup, seriously?). Today, I decided to settle the score.

Actually, I decided it about two weeks ago, but I haven't had the opportunity to act on it until now. I'm really a good organizer when I can be convinced to try to organize anything. In fact, I'm a bit too good at it, bordering a bit on being o.c.d. when I start projects like this. That's part of why it's rare that I do it. In any case, today I got down to business and started to pull out all of the things that had fallen to the floor, been stuffed in bags, or been hastily shoved in the closet when the room suddenly needed to be used for something that required it to at least look clean (my dad used to call cleaning by shoving things in the closet "putting frosting on s**t," a descriptor that I find apt and hilarious to this day). It took a few hours, but now not only is my side neat and tidy, but hers is too -- her dresses are with her dresses, her skirts are with her skirts, her blouses are with her blouses, her t-shirts are with her t-shirts, etc. I limited my attempt to those things because usually I'd have organized them by colors and style as well, meaning in each clothing type category, they'd be broken down according to style (which is way more complicated for women's clothing than it is for men's) and then each style category would be organized by color so that they all went in the same order (black things, gray things, white things, red things, other warm colors things, green things, blue things, other). Seriously, I'm a bit o.c.d. about organizing when I can be talked into doing it.

What I discovered is that when we switched bedrooms not so terribly long ago, at least one bag or box of clothing seems to have disappeared (I found several socks without matches and I know that the bag/box of clothing that is missing would have been mostly socks). That's interesting enough, but the extra hour I spent searching the house for it and not finding it made it a real curiosity. I guess life has to have its mysteries, even when it's just a box of missing socks.

Oh, and I'm certain that there are many missing socks (not a few from the laundry). I remember entire pairs that just aren't to be found anymore. Maybe the kids ate them or something. Who knows?

For now, I'm going to stop looking and start getting things ready for dinner. I'm making them homemade tomato-basil soup (with fresh tomatoes and basil from the garden) with noodles from scratch and Italian sausage (from the store). It's going to be gooooooooood!

Take That, Mom's Yard!

2009-08-10T17:00:00.003-04:00

Yesterday proceeded much as my post indicated all the way through late in the evening. In fact, by the end of the evening, I had come as close to coming unglued as I have in ten years. Usually, I'm very calm and level, but Clueless and Belligerent spending almost the entire day expounding on how incredibly better it would be if we offered significantly different parenting situations (that essentially always let her do whatever she wanted and always fed her only her favorite foods, etc.). Some treatise she was babbling about last night about how it would be better if we completely ignored her because she could then do whatever she wanted to do finally made me come undone. We had been at my mom's house, and I had to stay outside for over an hour (until almost midnight) before I could come in, and then I was still furious. It took me until this morning to calm down. Thus, my wife and I decided that it would be best if I spent the afternoon at my mom's house again, leaving right before the kids came home from school.

I came over here (I'm here for another hour, in fact) and quickly became rather bored, devoid of my usual methods of entertainment. That made me decide to do something nice for good ol' Mom, even though she was taking the child's side yesterday. I mowed her yard.

This event is significant because I've never done it before. Usually, my mom, who likes to spend money, donates to the funds of the neighborhood teenagers and lets them mow it for cash. When I was younger, we lived on a hill that was crazy hard/dangerous to mow, and so until I was significantly older, I wasn't supposed to mow. Then, when I was old enough, my parents had given up entirely and were already paying someone to mow it. Through whatever combination of my resistance and luck and fate, I had actually never mowed a yard until this year, taking over the job from my wife (who likes the exercise and had done it primarily for that reason before) because she was about to have a minor surgery and wouldn't be able to for longer than it could go. To make this long, boring story short, I took up the mower, found it wasn't that bad, and now try to get to it to spare my wife (and now my mom, apparently) the effort, although if my wife decides she wants the workout, she's welcome to it until she gets sick of it, at which point I'll take over.

So, in the midst of feeling rather like I'm doing a poor job of being a good man (I think I'm being a good man for not intentionally ruining the child's day/life right now), I found and took and opportunity to step up. At least my conscience feels a little lighter now!

Step-Parenting Teenagers: Conundrums

2009-08-09T13:16:00.003-04:00

Again I'm left alone with the children, who are behaving more than characteristically (Moody and Sullen is one, Clueless and Belligerent is the other) and who are now (as of yesterday) both officially teenagers (14 & 13, respectively). Today it isn't so that my wife can go accomplish something that she particularly wanted to do; it's so she can go and work.

A lot of the time when my wife and I are together, we don't talk to the children a whole lot. They kind of stay in their world while we stay in ours except on those occasions when we plan something more like "family time," which usually is a meal (most meals, actually), a movie, or something like that. When my wife leaves, usually I spend a great deal more time with the kids, and we talk quite a bit. Sometimes, that's pretty good. Usually, it's insight into a world I'm pretty sure I didn't want insight into.

For instance, Moody and Sullen got all worked up about this or that, and when the reply that I offered her included the idea that "love" might have been the motivation, she launched into a wonderfully weak, faith-based tirade about how love isn't real, being merely the product of chemical reactions in the mind. She's quite insistent that love is something fake and that all people that fall for that deception are stupid. That's kind of how she thinks, typically, unless she's playing one of her "woe is me" card that constitute about 2/3 of her deck (the rest are "I know everything" and "I hate people"). I talked my talk about how I feel she's mistaken, and it was, of course, to no avail (she's a teenager). I then proceeded to talk to myself (in my head, not aloud) about how it's a phase, she's a sullen teenager with very little experience, and how she's probably, as much as anything, trying to either get attention or evoke some kind of defense mechanism (the truth of almost every card in her deck). I let it go until she pushed it some more, and then I just asked her plainly whether her mother and I are stupid, deluded, or faking it entirely, as well as her commentary on what exactly prompts her to tell me that she loves me (and her mother) several times a day. She kind of froze on the first question and dodged it and then said that she tells us that she loves us because she's supposed to and that she won't do it anymore. Did I mention that I love kids?

Clueless and Belligerent decided this entire conversation had to be punctuated with exhibitions of her drawings of Japanese cartoon characters along with her own opinions on the matter, which she openly admitted are "clueless." See, it wasn't about her, so she was attempting, failingly, to make it about her (that's part of her style). She's even wearing a shirt that she got yesterday that says "it's all about me" on it. Then she decided to take the conversation over with a treatise on how we would treat them if we loved them the way she thinks love should work, which was essentially a pat on the head, kiss on the cheek, Candyland fantasy centered upon the last four or five things she did that got her mild reprimands and how if our love was as real and strong as we say it is for them that we wouldn't have really cared because those things just weren't a big deal. When I pointed out how it was a bigger deal in context of the ongoing situation, Belligerent came to the table and proceeded to argue with me, finally pointing out how essentially they've whined to my mom about it enough to where my mom decided to tell them how I should be handling these things. Clueless and Belligerent literally invited me to become the family disciplinarian (of her, Moody and Sullen doesn't want that) so that I can spare my wife the details of their transgressions (so they don't have to deal with her frustration with them also, I think). I'm not sure what to do on that because I'd be harder on them than my wife is... but I think a taste of what she's ordered is a good idea here, at least for a little while.

Actually, this is what it's like pretty much every time I get left home with the kids. I get this kind of discussion unless I spend pretty much the entire time either ignoring them or making them milkshakes that placate them completely. Of course, the whole discussion comes up because they do something that I notice and then decide to push me when I call them on it (today, Moody and Sullen was blatantly doing something we've told her about 1100 times (no exaggeration) not to do, putting our foot down the day before yesterday... and trying to hide it, poorly, when I saw it and called her on it). Then it was on. Should I just let stuff slide? I don't think so. Not just letting it slide makes things go like this, though. What a conundrum.

Here's the thing... I'm a step-parent.. not a parent. I live in uncertainty of how much discipline I can lay on the kids and with a nagging background fear of the eventual reaction "you're not my dad, so I don't have to listen to you" erupting from one of them (to which, their mother asserts, there will be a volcanic eruption on her part so violent that the children had better run for it). The hard part is that the children just don't listen, and then pushing on them a little seems to make the situation way worse. I don't like this trap....

Then there's the good-man question about it. It really stresses my wife out to come home to hearing this kind of discussion took place, particularly with the kinds of things the kids say. On the one hand, I could keep it to myself, probably, and ease her stress, but it seems like we're not a "team" there, particularly because I'm not properly disciplining the children (because I'm the step-parent, not out of lack of want to do it), i.e. I don't really dole out any punishment and they don't really listen to me if I "suggest" something, even strongly. On the other hand, I feel that parenting works best if my wife and I work as a team, and because she's scarier than I am with the discipline, they actually listen to her (and they resent me later for "telling on them" and feeling like their mother is angry with them more often than not as a result).

I think I'm going about this the good-man way: I address the children's issues, I discuss it with them maturely and directly, I make strong suggestions as to how to modify their behavior or help their problem (depending on which situation it is), and then when there's no change (100% of the time, literally), I bring my wife into it partly as backup and partly to keep her appraised of what's going on in our family. Unfortunately, it stresses her out and seems only to aggravate the kids. I am, however, still glad to do this so that she can go do the things she wants and needs to do, which is probably the most good-man part of the whole thing.

Perhaps I'm venting too much.... I'm a little stressed though, too. The truth is, I think, that parenting is tough stuff (particularly with two teenage girls)!

A Day Trip... For Her

2009-08-07T19:34:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was a day trip with my wife. Today is a day trip for my wife. The difference: I didn't go today. I was invited, which is fine because I didn't want to go. I wasn't uninvited either, which is nice because excluding each other is a generally bad idea. She went to Johnson City, TN, tonight to go try out "Black-Light Yoga" (link is a .pdf) at Simple Abundance Yoga, a studio owned by one of her friends that she met in Asheville. I stayed home to feed and watch the kids (more accurately, the "teenagers").

It's already been an adventure. Sullen and Moody took a two-hour bath earlier, blocking up the bathroom (which for over an hour of that time was the only bathroom in the house because the other is in my wife's office which was being used). Then she came out and claimed that the experimental bread that I cooked and then fed to her made her stomach hurt (you're welcome) and that she probably needed something sweet to settle her stomach (she's addicted to sugar like a junkie to the point where we took all of the sugar in the house with us to Asheville yesterday to keep her out of it -- she'll sit and eat it with a spoon or put it triple-strength in tea, which she'll then drink like a chain smoker going through cigarettes). I made her eat more bread and then made her some potatoes and green beans. That's about when Clueless and Belligerent showed up....

Clueless is currently in trouble. She's got a really bad habit of being late when we take her places and then tell her when and where we'll be picking her up (90% of the time letting her choose the time, with some contraints). The most recent time it happened, we told her that it wasn't okay and Belligerent spoke up, as usual (note: Clueless and Belligerent are two sides of the same child). Because of that, we didn't let her little friend come over the other day, so she asked if she could walk home through the park and hang out for a little bit with her friend. She didn't wander home until almost 9. That wasn't okay. We told her it wasn't okay. Belligerent told us what she thought. That also wasn't okay. Yesterday went without incident (that we know of... we were gone). Today, she left a note saying that she'd be walking home again (since when is that okay?) with a more reasonable time she'd be back by, and then Stupid was late again (note: Stupid is the same child as Clueless and Belligerent). Oh goodness, what to do. I just pointed at the clock and told her that I'd be talking to her mother about this when she gets back. Belligerent only gave me a look that said the belligerent things she's thinking. I love raising/living with teenagers sometimes....

So tonight, after making bread and doing whatever other chores needed to be done today, I went out and finished mowing the lawn (I only did half of it the other day because my wife was working and the sound would have been disruptive near her office), and took the mantle of handling the children so that she could go do something that she really likes to do in a way she's been wanting to do it for a long while. It should be fun, once the kids settle down into the dynamic (or go to their rooms like usual?), although I hear an awful lot of dishes that are going to need to be washed soon because apparently everything needs its own plate or bowl, and even tea has to be sipped out of a mug using a spoon (I really don't get that). Here's a POV view (self taken) of me mowing the wildly overgrown lawn, which now that I'm worked up about the ridiculousness of many of the things the children do I can think of as a relaxing memory of good, easy times:

This is the kind of stuff that my wife celebrates in me. I do this not only without complaining but actually happily, or at least unphased (even on a Friday night!). She has something she really wants to do, and so I'm glad to facilitate making it possible for her. The favor is returned often enough to where I don't feel shorted (not that I probably would unless it was really unbalanced), and everyone's happy.

Two days give two sides to the coin: supporting each other, like I said yesterday, is sometimes a matter of doing things together to show support and more often a matter of taking up the responsibilities that would otherwise hold us back... and doing it because we enjoy seeing each other grow and enjoying our lives.

A Day Trip... on Her Terms

2009-08-06T22:02:00.007-04:00

I went with my wife to Asheville, North Carolina, today to have a day-trip filled with wonderful things that she loves. First and foremost, my wife loves yoga. She seems to love yoga so much that I would rate it fairly highly on her interests that I do some yoga with her sometimes. That I do. On the one hand, if it's easy yoga, I sometimes do it either for her or because it really does seem to put me back together. On the other hand, if it's hard yoga, I sometimes do it because it will usually entertain her that I find it so freaking hard. One thing that I know she's wanted me to do for some time is to actually take a real yoga class with her. That I did today, driving two hours each way out of our way, with my mom even (my wife's very favorite yoga buddy and very favorite gang-up-on-me buddy), to be able to do it at her very favorite yoga place in the whole world, Asheville Yoga Center.

The class was good, actually, although I'm not sure how romantic the experience was since it was a form of yoga that is deeply personal and meditative, so we both "kind of" forgot that the other was in the room for most of the class. She seemed very, very excited about me going with her on the way in, though, and even more very, very excited about me having done it with her on the way out, so I suspect it was more romantic than I'm giving it credit. Not even mentioning how much better my hips felt after the class, I'm very glad I went and did it with her today, even with all the driving.

Another thing my wife loves is Asheville. I know she's been wanting for me to go with her on a day trip there for over a year, but traveling is not usually one of my favorite things to do. I haven't gone yet (usually, I belly up in another awesome way: watching the kids so that she can go and study yoga there). Today was my first trip there, and I'm sure she had a blast showing me around to all of her favorite places: a fancy-pants grocery store (Greenlife Grocery ), a restaurant all about chocolates (The French Broad Chocolate Lounge), a quick little tour around some of town, and her favorite yoga place ever (see above). Before I go on... a restaurant all about chocolate? Seriously? Oh God yes. We learned something there today: I have a capacity to eat chocolate that trumps both of the women (combined) hands-down. Ha! Actually... I'm seriously a big-time foodie, so I strongly suspect the food-related places were as much for my entertainment as their enjoyment. Then again, my wife is even now still talking about the strawberry-balsamic and double-mint truffles (which blew her mind.. she could distinctly taste both ingredients in both truffles) that she had. I was deeply impressed with my Earl Gray truffle and the little bucket of chocolate that they almost dared me to eat. That place is a good place. All people should go there once or twice in their lives. If you get coffee, they even bring it to you in your own personal little coffee press. I mean, wow. That's the kind of idea I would steal (I mean emulate in homage) if I ever opened my own coffee place.

Guys (and girls!), here's what I think: it's a good idea to support your others in whatever they like to do. Sometimes, that means going out of your way to do it with them. It definitely always means standing behind them, though, and not in their way.

Asked My Wife, Found Out I'm Repetitive, and That's a Good Thing

2009-08-04T15:29:00.003-04:00

I've been trying to think of interesting things to post about on here for a couple of days now. I have a few topics that I'd like to write about eventually on good men in general, but I feel like I've been ignoring the attempt to chronicle my own adventures as a good man and wanted to turn back to that a little. The thing is, most of how I'm a good man is very repetitive. Today I asked my wife if she had any ideas about what I might post about today, and she told me that she didn't. I said, "well, how have I been a particularly good man lately?" and she answered that it would be posting more of the same, which got me thinking.

I could talk about how I went out yesterday and mowed the lawn, getting horribly sunburned in the process, or about how in the past week I worked on the garden, took out the nasty compost (getting ants all over me in the process of covering it up properly because apparently ants made a nest in our compost pile), wrangled the children, cooked about ten delicious meals, did 10000000 dishes, or any of the seemingly billions of things I do around here on a regular basis to make this place one that doesn't make my wife go crazy. The thing is, I've said that kind of stuff before, and I know I'll say it again.

What I realized when my wife told me that earlier is more profound and interesting, and therefore better for posting about. I realized that one of the main, most important parts of being a good man is that a good man has to do a lot of the same things day in and day out, and that's just part of the role. Regardless of a good man's dynamic (provider that earns most of the income and does comparatively less around the house, balanced situation, Mr. Mom, whatever), most of what makes a good man good is that he does things that are helpful to the household/life dynamic consistently. I don't do the dishes and hope for "benefits" (...okay, I might hope, but that's not my motivation!), I do the dishes because they need doing and I have the opportunity. That's what's good about it. It might mean going to a job that sucks because the bills need to get paid. It might mean mopping some crap when you're tired. It might mean getting the holy piss sunburned out of you while you mow because the yard is turning into a rainforest. But it probably means doing it regularly and without ulterior motive or complaint.

Of course, I'm being a bit unfair here. Not every "good man" is caught up in a stable relationship that requires full-time family-style maintenance. There are lots of good men out there that are still waiting to be found (many good men behave in ways that require that they're found, not finding). Those men have to do this kind of thing too, just for themselves. It means the same things about keeping up with household duties, the same thing about keeping up with the job, and the same thing about taking care of themselves as if they are the family unit that they're working for.

Anyway, to close, I think the reason that my wife's eyes light up so much when she sees me cooking isn't because I'm cooking. I think it's because I'm cooking again... I'm taking time regularly out of my life (which could be filled with myriad awesome things instead) and devoting it to us.

School's Back In, and This is a LOT of Work

2009-08-02T18:12:00.002-04:00

Apparently, the school systems out there believe strongly in education: book-learning for the students and an unprecedented level of home-study in web-savvy for the parents. The kids start school tomorrow (seriously? August 3? What?) , and they have their lists of school supplies that the need every year (and routinely destroy every year so that none can be used again the next year... apparently three-ring binders are only meant to have a life-expectancy of around four months or something even though I have several dozen that I've been using for almost a decade). The state hooks us up with a few "tax-free" days to get supplies, which is awesome because our state sales tax is just a hair short of 10%, except it turns out that that day is next weekend. Of course, the kids "have" to have their supplies on the first day, or else they get in trouble, or should I say, "yelled at," to quote the kids (I don't believe that for even a second). Thus, this weekend has been a circus of getting that crap.

The younger child is in middle school. A list was mailed. It's very convenient, although there's a lot of junk on there that probably just isn't going to be purchased because everyone knows good and well that nobody in eighth grade really needs those things and that they're just going to sit around forever (e.g. highlighters) or be used to color pictures of Japanese girls looking like semi-whores (the only thing the children like to draw -- copying the styles of their favorite manga, Japanese comic books). The older child starts high school. No list was sent or mailed or obtained or available. The individual teachers' websites had to be consulted. Unfortunately, the school's website is crap, total crap. The teachers' websites are also not that useful... most included useful statements on course materials like "standard classroom materials" with an expectation that "all appropriate materials must be with the student on the first day and every day thereafter." Crap, crap, crap. Some teachers don't mention their materials lists. Some teachers require things that no student in high school will use, like dividers in a three-ring binder. Organized fourteen-year-olds? SHYeah, right. I'm uber-organized in academic things (I'm finishing my Ph.D. now... I have to be), and I don't use dividers or highlighters. Give me a break. It took me almost an hour and a half and some serious cleverness in using their website to find everything... I can't imagine how long it would have taken the child. What a freaking waste of time.

The children are full of stress over this, which is filling us with stress. It's been a long weekend dealing with it, in fact, because the younger, anal-retentive child is freaking out that she doesn't have all of her things. The older child, who is a walking disaster (think Pigpen from Peanuts... make worse), seems completely unphased except that she keeps making underhanded comments about how she's going to get yelled at, it's going to be our fault, and how she hates how we always set her up for these disasters (Emo, seriously!). I guess saying that she's "unphased" is incorrect. The right thing to have said would have been "unwilling to do anything to help the situation -- unless complaining and taking another unnecessary nap counts as "helping" -- but completely stressed out and moody over it," though I don't know one word that means all of that. Thus, I'm here, making dinner (it's simmering as I type) while my wife takes them to the circus that is the store on the day before school starts. I don't envy her in this exchange, although it's nearly always my job to listen to and diffuse the boiling-over children, so I kind of already had my share of the excitement... that and it makes life at times like this much easier to manage if someone else is taking care of the "feeding us" portion of the list of eleven billion daily things to do when you have teenagers.

I don't mean to make this a blog about ranting and raving about the trials and tribulations of life, but today it is. If I need a "good man" lesson, it's this: at times like these... put aside some of your busy-ness and help out. I'm supposed to meet a fairly serious deadline with my dissertation tomorrow, and it's not happening now, but life goes on; my wife's sanity at times like this is that valuable.

Society Doesn't Want Good Men

2009-08-01T16:50:00.002-04:00

We hear a lot about how society puts all kinds of pressure on women to be this or that, thin or fit or good wives or mothers or what have you, and that in about a bajillion ways, it wrecks them and causes them to be all neurotic and to make ridiculous decisions and be filled with self-loathing and unreasonable insecurities. Guys hate those feelings; women hate feeling them; and it's all very sad and very true. That coin of societal wreckage lands hard on both sides, though... guys are under an awful lot of pressure to be what I'd call jerks or douchebags (that will be a technical term on this blog... sorry if it offends you). The reason is similar to what it is for the women: almost all of the images of what is expected of younger guys is just that, and what we learn as youngsters sticks with us.

Guys, younger guys in particular, are under a lot of pressure to be cool (I get the impression that older guys are under a lot of pressure to wear suits and do suit-wearing kinds of things, but I'm not sure about that because I kind of avoid all of what I'm "supposed" to be doing). I've never liked that. Cool means being a selfish jerk, often enough, and so a lot of guys that would be nice or good guys (or both!) turn out having to be kind of jerky in order to fit an image that they're constantly being fed through their music, television, and similarly brainwashed friends. It really sucks, but I see it going on an awful lot when I watch kids between the ages of about twelve and seventeen... one by one a large percentage of them fall increasingly into being self-serving dumbasses because it's what they think is cool, funny, or "how guys are supposed to be." Unfortunately, I don't think many guys that fall into this crap grow out of it. It's like having societally induced dysmorphic image disorder (as opposed to a dysmorphic body image disorder).

This is a big problem. There are a lot of guys out there that are would-be-good guys that are just caught up in being cool, and there are a lot of partners of those guys that wish they'd just grow up or eventually just kind of get sick of that crap. Society keeps reminding the guys, particularly when things get rocky in their relationships, of how they're "supposed" to be, and so things tend not to get better. Worse, I'm not sure there's an awful lot of awareness of the issue or interest in correcting it. In my experience, in fact, lots of women (particularly younger ones that haven't realized that they don't have time for that crap) say that they want a nice guy or a good guy but then repeatedly go for douches that are nice guys turned cool.

How does it get fixed? I'm not sure, but I suspect it's largely like trying to fix the issue with the public image of women (as compared to the reality of women)... a huge change in how men and women are portrayed in the media at large. Somehow there needs to be a portrayal of women that are actually women and men that are actually good guys (and not in some obviously hokey romantic comedy -- the worst genre of "film" -- that no guy really wants to or will take seriously anyway), and it needs to be massive. I don't know that the change will come about anytime soon, but it needs to.

At least women out there that think about it and see this kind of thing will hopefully realize that they might have a better guy than they think if they have one that has most of the makings of a good guy but seems like he just can't grow up... also that, while the guy is responsible for his behavior, in some ways he's been made into the semi-jerk (or full-on jerk) that he is by a society that overtly urges him to be that way while simultaneously condemning him for it. It's tough to be a guy sometimes.

A Nap

2009-07-31T22:16:00.003-04:00

All day I've been playing with an idea for a post that I want to add to this site, but when it's come to it now at the end of the day, I think the best thing that happened today was that I passed out... at least as far as awesome manliness stuff goes.

My wife and I got up early. Really, she got up early to work, and she read something funny my mom put on Facebook and came in and woke me up with the overwhelming humor of the story, which I didn't think was that funny at the time. I got up with her, even though she left pretty much right away. After talking to the moody, sullen child for about an hour (about weird things, as usual) and doing eleven billion dishes again, she came back. She had more work to do, so as she did it, I finished the last remaining things on my "dissertation to-do list" and officially finished my dissertation, I think (now just to defend it...). She came in from her work and looked crazy tired, and I told her about my accomplishment. Celebration was in order.

We promptly went to the bedroom (this isn't one of those stories) and lay on the bed. The plan was to lay there and enjoy some free time together for a few minutes that ended up turning into an hour-long nap. Passed out. Big time. We apparently needed it. She apparently was very happy that I took the time to do it and labeled it directly in "romantic." Good enough. If I can score points by falling asleep, I'll take them!

Next we got up and ran errands for all of the first half of the afternoon, most of which were hers (I rode to be good company). Then we got more coffee, which was my errand because, disasterously, the coffee I got the other day ran out. We were in the terrible state of not having any again, and we had to have some because that's a romantic staple in our day (and because I was only worth half a damn without it). It turned out that our whole area flooded in the crazy rain that woke us up crazy early (before the alarm's warning of my wife's crazy-crazy-early work requirement today), so we had a romantic little walk down at the park where we stared in amazement at our normal path being a couple of feet under the rushing waters of normally dinky little stream.

Things went well all day after that nap, so apparently, taking that time was a good idea. Like I said... if I can get points by simply laying down near someone and passing out, I'll take them all!

Seriously, What are You Jealous About?

2009-07-30T14:57:00.002-04:00

Jealousy is a nasty, wasteful emotion that keeps the door closed on many a would-be good man. I know many very nice men that would definitely qualify as a good man if they weren't kind of scary jealous, which is well within what people think is normal and strangely enough their others seem to want or at least appreciate.

Here's how it goes with me and my wife: she does what she wants, I do what I want, and we don't get in each other's way. It's really quite simple. I trust her (obviously I do or I wouldn't have signed up to marry her!), and so I figure she can do whatever she wants. That's reciprocated to me, and honestly, I think of all of the things my wife appreciates about me, she appreciates that I extend her that trust (with no strings attached) without questioning or having to think twice about it.

She's a massage therapist, and I have a few friends that are either massage therapists or with them. Many of the guys in these relationships seem to think that it's rather inappropriate (or unsafe!) for the ladies in their lives to be working on men. I think they're primarily uncomfortable with the idea of the guys that would be getting massages being mostly or completely nude and touched by their ladies, which in that sentence sounds kind of weird until you stop and remember that it's a professional massage. My wife doesn't want other dudes, and if she did, she'd go get them whether I tried to prevent it or not. Why should I be jealous? It really works out like this: I can be jealous (which is not fun to be and does awesome things like cause fights that increase the likelihood of infidelity) and she can choose to betray my (lack of) trust or not, or I can not be jealous and she can choose to betray my trust or not. That means that I can have it one of two ways: unhappy and in a particular boat, so to speak, or happier and in the same boat. The choice is clear.

Listen would-be good men: learn to trust. My wife is free and welcome to go do her own thing, and she absolutely celebrates that freedom. Not once has she given me any realistic reason to doubt her, and so not once have I had to rethink my position. She gets checked out, and that's fine. Guys sometimes come up to her and ask her out. She says no, and I think it's kind of funny (note: I don't get all pissed and want to show that guy what's up).

Listen would-be others of good men: don't take their trust of you as a sign that they don't care. Nothing says "insecure" to me more loudly than someone that tells me that they think I should be jealous. If you need to get my attention that way, then you've got another thing coming. It's way easier than that to get my attention, and it won't involve irritating me. Then again, I'm a good man, so I go out of my way to give my lady attention on a regular basis. Perhaps that strengthens the foundation of trust that our relationship stays happy upon.

Everyday Romance: It Doesn't Have to be Elaborate

2009-07-29T16:16:00.002-04:00

I think a lot of guys think of being romantic as something that's going to take a lot of effort on their part, and so they don't do much of it. Listen guys, some of that is a good thing. I do some of that, but not as much as I probably could: I mean life happens. There are kids, there are jobs, there are chores, and there are much-needed moments of sitting around and not having to do something. That's all important and should all come up. There are also times to suck it up, get dressed up, and go on a date like "back in the day." There are also times where you go places to get away from it all... except not to get away from each other. There are also times where you turn your attention to the lovey stuff like cuddling and kissing, both of which will be featured here in the "it doesn't have to be elaborate part." Still, there are hundreds of opportunities every single day that romance can sneak in without becoming a major operation or project.

We all end up standing in front of a stove, sink, or something at some point in the day (maybe it's sitting in front of a computer instead). Paying attention (that's almost always first and very important) to when the timing is good: i.e. they're not totally engrossed in something important like boiling oil or some-such, and then coming up behind and touching your partner is everyday romance that takes approximately... um, 5 seconds of your day. People appreciate that attention. You can do it too much, but it's kind of hard to as long as you're not being all clingy or weird about it (or obviously trying to get into someone's pants or shirt every time you do it). Little kisses on the neck or shoulder are nice, a little hug is good, and I like to play the game where I walk by, draw a little heart on my wife somewhere, and then walk off. Romance done: two seconds. Check. Guess what. She likes it!

Other things that are small and easy include actually going out of your way to do something together even if it's nothing big. "Hey, I'm going out to take a look in the garden or get the mail; would you like to walk around with me while I do it?" It's really easy because it pretty much just comes down to showing another person two things: 1) I like you; 2) I like spending time with you. Not hard. Invite them along.

I've mentioned this before, I think, but offering to make or get something for your peeps is a great little thing to do. You can do it sometimes when you don't want something but are getting up. You can do it sometimes when you're getting something for yourself. You can even do it sometimes when you want something but need extra motivation to get off your butt and do it: hmm, I might think, I'd like some coffee or something, but that seems like some effort would be required... oh well... "HEY WIFE, would you like some coffee?" Yes? Okay! Win-win. Seriously. Now watch this: "we could take a break, if you have the time, and drink it together." Then guess what... you can go back to whatever you were doing before.

These are lots of small ways to be everyday romantic. Some people like flowers, and so you could pick some up (with some groceries) on your way home (my wife prefers the practical, so that gallon of milk I grabbed is way more romantic). You could just think of favors you're pretty sure you might get asked to do and do them before you're asked. For bonus points, you can answer the thanks you get with "well, I was just thinking about you and realized that...." Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

Maybe the best little thing I ever got in the habit of doing is writing and strategically leaving little notes that say something nice to my wife. They're usually only a sentence long, and sometimes they're more funny than anything but always bent toward the "this is why I like your or am thinking about you" theme. They take fifteen seconds to write and ten more to stick somewhere, and my wife keeps every freaking one of them. Don't tell me that's not a sign.

Remember, a thousand little things together is a big thing. On the other hand, zero little things is also a big thing.

So It Begins: School

2009-07-28T08:42:00.005-04:00

Being a good man often enough means doing stuff that kind of sucks because it needs to be done (like taking out the compost that I had to deal with yesterday... ew). All kinds of really cool opportunities are coming on to win some good-man points because the children start school on Monday (August 3 seems really early for that, but I'm not crying about them having somewhere to be for half the day and something more to do than lay on their beds and make messes that I get to clean up with my wife -- everyday romance?). The older of the two, who should be named "Angry Moody," starts high school, in fact, so today she had orientation. Of course, the school offered a bus service, being awesome, but didn't actually provide any notice of when the busses would run (or, for that matter, that orientation was going to happen; we found out luckily through the grapevine). We got up butt-early to get the child up from her normal nocturnal state at around dawn (which is her usual cue to head for bed), I started doing the dishes from last night which were an immense pile (without the half dozen more crusty ones I found in the child's room or left somewhere else in the house that she sat down and apparently lost too much energy to care about taking them back to the kitchen, rinsing out, or -- heaven forbid -- washing). The child wandered out to wait for the bus way earlier than necessary, just in case (mark one point for her prudence, which she'll lose later in the story if the dishes didn't already have her in the negative). Adorably, I checked every couple of minutes to see if she had been picked up yet, and then, while I scrubbed for about ten minutes at one point, she seemed to disappear. All was right with the world.

Wrong. The child came into the house about two minutes later: "The bus driver looked right at me, looked away, and kept on going." The bus driver has pulled this stunt several times. Of course my double-secret club "Blame the Children First" leads me to believe that the child has given up and is sitting somewhere that's not-at-all obvious to anyone so far as waiting for a ride is concerned. Still, the bus driver has pulled this stunt a few times, today included. So... I finished the dishes and drove the child to the school, which was a circus, of course. Here's my favorite part: a lot of kids had their parents going in with them. I said to the child, "would you like it if I went in with you?" The child somehow had already passed out of the door to the car, which was locked (magical powers might have been involved) and was running away before I got the question all the way out. I heard "bye" trail back from her amid enthusiastic "I'm in high school" giggling/squealing. I'm pretty glad I didn't go in.

I came home to find out that in the rush to make herself duly pretty for high school (she looked a bit on the wearing-enough-makeup-to-stand-on-a-corner-somewhere side of things, actually, but we let her be her own person), she had taken my wife's little jar of cosmetics and cosmetics accessories, dumped it out to get at some little brush or something, and left the dumped-out pile all over the shelf in the bathroom closet. There goes that point. Of course, her room looks literally like a rat's nest, there was that mess, the dishes-thing hasn't been forgotten, and she somehow had time to sit in a chair and draw a picture of a Japanese woman with a cat while bitching about how the bus drivers make her so angry that she could cuss them out while all of that mess sat there waiting for us, not her, to find it. Let's retally, then: one point for prudence, minus ten for all that bullcrap puts her right about at normal: nine points in the red, and it's still butt-early.

On a happier note, I got all of the dishes done, had romantic cappuccino with my wife, and got an earlier start on what looks like it's going to be a busy day for me as well.

Learn To Cook

2009-07-26T19:12:00.003-04:00

I've mentioned it before. I love to cook. In fact, I like to cook so much that I do most of the cooking in my household as well as blog about the things I cook. Even loving to cook, sometimes I just don't want to cook. Inspiration runs dry, work runs long, training takes precedent, life happens, or I'm just tired, and I'd rather not. That happens to me, and I really like doing it. I imagine that if I didn't like cooking or felt like I sucked at it, that situation would only be worse. Let me tell you, though, that I think I get more good-man points in my house by cooking than by almost anything else I do (even more than taking out the trash, which apparently is "easy" and not worth many points). Every time my wife comes into the kitchen or in from working and sees me preparing food (or better, finishing preparing food), there's excitement and appreciation in her eyes that cannot be expressed quite as fully in words. Life here is good when I'm cooking, even when the kids are completely grossed out by the inclusion of things like vegetables and "healthy stuff," which is pretty much always.

So, good men out there, if you're not doing it already, start cooking. Maybe you're like my dad. He's so bad at cooking that we'd beg him not to as kids; he'd even wreck Kool-Aid, which is essentially impossible. I too used to be pretty bad at cooking, but then I did what many guys do really well: I watched a lot of tv (not a good way to earn good-man points unless you're following these instructions): Food TV. For a few years, I watched that channel all the time (well, as much as I could), and then I tried to do the things I was seeing. It's really not that complicated, it turns out, and there's no need to turn all gourmet. If tv isn't your route, then you could take a cooking class or even get some books. Really, the fundamentals of good cooking start with replicating recipes, grow with paying attention to what works and what fails, and then capitalizing on the successes. Eventually, you even start to understand things like fat-to-acid ratios and the balancing of sweet and salty, and then you can just start making stuff up as you go... making up good stuff as you go. Before you know it, even within just a few tries, you can even whip up some date-style food for you and your partner and do some serious impressing. Romance, check. On a day-to-day basis, you get everyday-romance, check. Win-win. Seriously.

Of all of the things I do around the house, cooking is probably the most treasured. I know other guys that do a lot of cooking too but that aren't the main cook, as I am. They get massive credit for being able to take up the hearth, so to speak, when their other is kind of on the burn-out, really busy, or tired. All I can say is... it's a good thing that they learned to cook!

If you think it's lame, then you're missing that cooking involves hot things, fire (frequently enough), experiments like chemistry only without the bad grades or poisonous fumes, boiling oil on occasion, and lots of cool tools and gadgets, many of which are very closely akin to power tools for obliterating food and turning it into the kind of mush that every boy loves to play with. Plus, making certain things (like meat or bread) just feels studly when you're doing it.

Nice guys who are too hands-to-yourselves to have an other yet, talk about opening doors for you.... Learn to cook. Guys with others, talk about opening doors for you.... Learn to cook!

Helping a Friend Move

2009-07-25T22:55:00.003-04:00

Today's been a long day. I started out by making cappuccino and breakfast for myself and my lovely lady, and then I went off to teach some kids karate (I do that on Saturdays). After that, I ran home, wolfed down some melon, a glass of milk, and a lovely pb&j sandwich (fancy French fig j in there, yum!) and took off to meet up with my good friend to help him move, even though most of the moving happened while I was teaching karate. My wife had plans with my mom for the day, so all was well in the world as far as coordinating schedules went.

My friend has a heavy table, but we got it moved (that's all we had to move) anyway and did some catching up, which was good because we're a bit behind on it because our busy family situations have kept us both extra busy lately. Then I started to head home, starving and bent on going to the grocery store so I could start my new project tonight, which I still haven't gotten around to starting because I was too excited to talk to my lady about my day and hers for the whole time since I got home. I got a bunch of goodies at the store because we're running low and to save her the trip. You see, this time I called before I went instead of making the mistake where I went while she was out, came home all proud of myself with my surprise... to an empty house, and then found out that she had gone to run some errands, ending with a trip to the grocery store whereby we acquired, essentially, double groceries. Oops! It turns out to be a good thing that I called too because there was stuff we needed that I didn't know we needed and she was planning on heading there herself when she got done doing things with my mom (and so we probably would have repeated the "why didn't we call each other" story again). In any case, sending me to the grocery store hungry, alone, and hungry (I did that on purpose) usually costs us about a million dollars, which she feared, but I prevailed and was good and spent only a normal amount buying myself only one treat, which really took the edge off of the hunger.

After acquiring many beautiful groceries, I came home and put everything away and finally got to spend some time with my lady. We did some cleaning and folding laundry together and then sat down and chatted merrily about our days, which is how days like this should end up.

Five Simple Things A Good Man Does Around the House

2009-07-24T13:24:00.004-04:00

There are simple things that a good man should be doing around the house to help out, even if he's busy. Their contribution may seem small, but really, they're very valuable things that do not go unnoticed.

1. If You See Something Small That Needs Doing, Do It
This really isn't complicated, and it doesn't have to take a lot of time. If you happen to go into the kitchen, for instance, and see that the counter looks pretty disorganized, take a few minutes to move some things around into more proper places. A particular couple of favorites of mine are to put away some or all of the cleaned dishes or to do some or all of the currently dirty ones (there are always dirty dishes because we like to eat, eat often and small meals, and have teenagers that randomly deposit filthy things they've been sleeping on for days at at time). Other things might include pulling up some weeds around the driveway or walk as you walk down the path toward the house. Literally, this can take you fifteen seconds or less and still be a great little thing to do to help out. For instance, a huge one at our house is putting the toilet paper on the little roller thing. The kids suck at this and use TONS of toilet paper, so it pretty much always has to be done.

2. If You're Making Something For Yourself, Ask For Company
If I'm about to make myself a cup of tea or a snack, I almost always invite my wife to join in. "Would you like some tea?" or "Can I get you anything while I'm up?" are some really great lines to practice, use, and follow-through on. Honestly, I love it (and you do too) when someone goes out of their way to serve you like this, so return the favor.

3. Handle Gross Jobs Immediately
If something's gross, it usually only bothers me slightly, but it drives my wife freaking crazy. I've earned some major "good man points" by seeing something gross going on and taking care of it before it gets out of hand. Examples: leftovers doing naughty things, making sure leftovers get into the fridge, ooh God that trashcan stinks, I don't think those are my hairs on the toilet bowl but..., are all of these fruit flies coming from the compost bowl?, etc. Most of these are <2-minute jobs also, so get on them.

4. Shoulder Rubs
If I see my wife sitting at the computer or at the kitchen counter not looking overwhelmingly busy (look carefully first) or looking particularly stressed, I usually don't hesitate to give her a little shoulder rub. I can do this for like three minutes and become a household hero. Score.

5. Do Some Cooking
Granted, I do most of the cooking in my house. That means I know how awesome it is when sometimes I don't do the cooking. If the situation is the same for you, then keep it up. Keep cooking and being awesome like that. If the situation is the other way around for you, meaning someone else does most of the cooking, then step up and do it. Find something relatively easy to make that looks rather nice (use a recipe if you can't cook -- the internet is FULL of them), get the stuff, and make it. Announce that you're making it ahead of time, even, so the pressure for the other person to cook dissolves completely. This usually goes quite well. If you think you can't cook at all, take note that essentially anyone can make a good B.L.T. and essentially everyone loves them.

Keeping Ahead of Chores

2009-07-24T13:15:00.002-04:00

Let me tell you something: if you have teenagers living in your house, then you have a mess that is hard to manage. Since I decided that I'm kind of chores-boss around here, meaning I do a huge proportion of them not that I direct people to do them (the kids being told to do a chore means dragging them out of their rooms, asking them, getting lip, yelling at them, watching them suck at it, getting attitude, and then, after three times as much time as I'd need to do the chore has passed, having to redo the chore myself because of their lack of care, attention to detail, coordination, and general ability -- no thanks, I'll just wash the freaking dishes myself), I did a huge amount of chores yesterday, failing only in the yard work category (I worked on my injured arm muscles while my wife did some picking and weeding in the garden). I even did the laundry without having been asked to do the laundry!

I decided that keeping ahead of the chores would be one of the only ways not to lose it (though lose it I nearly did as I finished the dishes and the children wandered in with what appeared to be almost as many dishes as I had just washed, almost all crusted over with some crap they left on there for days, tucked safely somewhere like under their beds or just in the middle of the floors in their generally toxic rooms). That built up a lot of momentum that I used to get a lot of things done and to be very helpful around the house. If you're curious, yes, there were benefits beyond having a nice, clean house. It's probably the best way that I can help out, and it seems to keep the overall stress level of my wife considerably lower than when the chores start piling up.

I'll probably run to the grocery store (unbidden?) in a little bit and get some stuff for us to eat, since other than melons, we're running low on just about everything that can be used as a staple.

Doing Chores

2009-07-22T13:39:00.004-04:00

A good man should be doing plenty of chores around the house. I try to do that playing to my strengths: I do lots of cooking, plenty of yard work, and a bit more than half the dishes, usually, while only doing a mediocre (needs improvement) or bad job on general cleaning, trash, recycling, and laundry. It's even getting to be well-known that doing chores around the house might confer benefits that even not-that-good men would find attractive.

As for my experience, doing chores isn't really a chore. It's kind of my way of feeling like I contribute to the household and help it function, particularly in the kitchen. I love to cook, so I cook. That makes a mess of the dishes, and so I frequently wash them. The tough part about chores is continuing to feel positive about them, particularly when there are people in your house (children, for instance) that are not so good at doing their share (or anything else for that matter) and tend to frustrate you by making far more than their share of the mess even under threat of destruction of most of their belongings (some of which have been acted upon still to little or no effect!). It's all a matter of mindset really... which can be helped tremendously by picturing the children growing up, moving out, and living in squalor until they figure it out and then do as I do with my mom: call and apologize for something I did as a child (which happens at least weekly, I think).

So, men out there, you can prove your worth and earn some serious good-man points by doing some basic chores, particularly once you're living together. It's really not that hard. If you feel like there's just not time in the day for that kind of thing, you can do what I did: turn off the tv (for good). :-)

A Good Man's Reward

2009-07-21T14:28:00.000-04:00

Thanks to my training in an awesome Chinese martial art, I'm frequently sore. I trained last night after mowing the hard half of the yard (the part we've been neglecting...). Luckily, I'm a good man to a good woman, and even more luckily, that good woman is a massage therapist. This post is mostly to thank her for the wonderful work she did on my poor, wrecked legs early this afternoon. I feel soooo much better.

There's a moral here, I suppose. If you're a good man to a good woman, then that good woman will take good care of you when you need it.

Hands To Ourselves

2009-07-20T23:21:00.004-04:00

Many good men are nice guys that grow up into a relationship. Nice guys are almost as hard to find as good men are, but they're probably hardest to find specifically because they kind of live under the radar. I didn't get the moniker "Just Friends Jim," which came with a sincere apology from the girl that gave it to me, in college for nothing. Incidentally, this girl was not one that I was trying to date: she was engaged to a great friend who she's now married to and who just so happens to be a good man on his own.

Nice guys probably have been taught to keep their hands to themselves at some point or another (thank their mothers?). While this is unlikely to be true universally, it's usually a fairly good sign that a man that you're dealing with is a nice guy if he seems to be waiting for something (like permission) before he makes any moves in a dating scenario. For me, I was taught to respect other people's personal spaces, and I've never really seen why that should be violated because of dating or other silliness. In fact, here's a short list of behaviors that you probably won't see a guy that gets the "nice guy" label:

Touching you in a new or more adventurous way without either a lot of build-up, liquid courage, or a direct invitation;
Grabbing at you in an embarrassing way;
Grabbing at you and trying to play it off as an accident;
Grabbing at you and calling it flirting;
Moving in for a first kiss unless he's absolutely certain that you want him to;
Similar stuff of the sort.

The reality is that nice guys, many of whom will become "good men," want to flirt with you, but many of them are going to respect you and your personal space too much to be quite overt with you. They'll often feel very daring and adventurous to do tiny things like brush your hand or touch your shoulder when it's more than appropriate. For me and many other really nice guys I know, it comes down to the idea that if you want us to touch you, then you'll make that clear. For me and many other really nice guys I know, it's come down to a great girl moving on to a jerk because we refused to accept anything but a completely overt invitation, and sometimes the most "obvious" clues aren't enough.

So, if you're looking for a nice guy that will probably treasure you and try to grow old with you with the notion that every day is filled with the same magic and romance as when you first started dating (or, really, more because he's probably kind of shy), then you might want to pay attention to this and kind of kick him in the right direction. Of course, if you're a "nice girl," which is probably what he wants, you're probably in the same boat, waiting for him to take the lead that you're too respectful and nervous (like he is) to take. That, of course, is speculation. I'm not a nice girl.

Romantic Weeding

2009-07-19T21:40:00.003-04:00

Weeding the garden sucks because of the unequivocal, number-one garden pest in the whole world: grass. The grass is stupid and very difficult to extricate from our lovely patch of happiness. Thus, after a lovely dinner, my wife and I went out for some romantic weeding of the garden. More or less, it sucked, but it was still very romantic and therefore "fun." Perhaps the words "bonding" and "moderately successful" are more appropriate, as is the word "sucks."

We pulled up a lot of grass together and had essentially no conversation. That's what we call partner meditation in motion. The most important part is that we were together and working on something that we love. The second most important part is that my wife is an awesome massage therapist and can fix my back now that I wrecked it pulling up ten thousand tufty rye grasses.

The moral here: a good man sucks it up and does stuff that sucks... sometimes for his woman and sometimes with her.

My Mom is Awesome

2009-07-19T14:55:00.001-04:00

My mom volunteered to take the kids to see the new Harry Potter movie yesterday, which she followed up with taking them to her house and feeding them dinner. That opened a door for my wife and I to go on a date without the slightest bit of regret that we would be "ditching" the kids for it. Neither of us dressed up for the affair... it wasn't that kind of date, but we did go to a restaurant together that we enjoy and then to a fancy upscale grocer together so that we could get lovely things we probably don't really need. It was quite fun.

These are the kinds of things that make our relationship work, I think, though. Sometimes there's the big dress-up dates, and most of the time there's the kind of "date" where I cook for the whole family, usually while she works or gets something done in the garden. Most of the time, though, there's regular everyday romance that we get to enjoy because we put romance into them. How? It's pretty simple. We just decide that during that time, we're going to focus on enjoying each other's company and not be bothered or distracted by a bunch of other crap. Instant romance without the fuss (which, I stress, still should come up from time to time, like often enough).

So, I have to stress again how awesome my mom is. A good man should love his mom, which doesn't necessarily mean he's a momma's boy (my mom drives me slightly crazy, honestly, but I think the world of her anyway). Chances are, in fact, that a good mom stands behind many a good man, particularly when she volunteers to take the children for a while.

Oh no!

2009-07-18T12:06:00.001-04:00

My wife and I got up this morning with excitement in our hearts and disappointment in our future... we remembered that we ran out of coffee yesterday and had decided against getting any more last night. Really, we ended up having to go to a function and then to a much needed, highly "romantic" trip to the grocery store (we call essentially all of our trips together "romantic" even if they're completely pedestrian). Then, since her arms have been bothering her substantially ever since doing a rather incredible job weeding the garden and because she wants me to get even more practice in case I ever become a bodyworker alongside her, I gave her back, shoulders, and arms quite a little massage before we commenced our new nightly ritual of putting our legs up the wall (a yoga pose) together just before bed.

Completely lost and half confused, I wandered out into the world this morning to get coffee. We're lucky in that we have pretty good, locally roasted coffee here courtesy of the Vienna Coffee Company, and they sell it at the local produce markets. I got two wonderful flavors and a couple dozen lovely cage-free farm-fresh eggs (for only a few dimes more per dozen than the totally cheap-o eggs at the grocery store) and came home, managing to break one of the eggs when I clumsily got into my car. Nice... but I wasn't all with it because it was early morning on a Saturday, and obviously, I had had no coffee. When I told the lady at the market why I was there, she even said, "well bless your heart; it's amazing you made it here." That is an interesting commentary on our society's dependence on those little beans, but that's neither here nor there.

When I came home, I cooked the eggs and helped my wife finish the cappuccino, my wife told me I have to post the story on this blog, so here it is. Soon, I intend to start putting some posts about what makes a good man a good man, besides this anecdotal evidence, what makes a man not a good man, where to find us, and how to treat us. For now, I'm enjoying telling the story of my day-to-day existence in which I go out of my way to make the entire home-life situation better for all of us instead of just for myself.

The Garden

2009-07-17T10:12:00.001-04:00

My wife and I are gardeners, or at least we're trying to become that. Our garden this year is apparently testifying to us because its bounty is plenty. A plentiful garden intermixed with work responsibilities and running a household with two teenage girls in it (that still don't get the concept of cleaning up after themselves) is a wonderful, slightly stressful addition to our home. Like our feelings for the children, we love the garden, but sometimes we're just kind of over the responsibility of it all. I think my wife felt that way yesterday (as I did for almost the entire "harvest" season last year).

That's where I, as a good man, snuck into the picture. I didn't even really have to sneak because she was off working. First, I went to the kitchen and did another huge pile of dishes that the children made dirty in the roughly two hours since the last time I had done that, most of which were sullied probably days before since one used those intervening hours to mine her room for all of the dishes she "forgot about." That's when I noticed our compost bowl was way overfull, and so I decided to take that out. On a whim, I looked at some bags and grabbed one, figuring I could do a little harvesting for us while I was out there. Man... I was wrong.

A little harvesting would have been nice. By the time I was done, I was dripping sweat from almost every part of my body and had become the local mosquito buffet counter. I also hauled in close to thirty pounds of fresh-from-the-garden produce that I'm not sure how we're going to be able to use (spaghetti sauce suddenly seems to be on my cooking agenda for the day...). It took a long time, almost an hour, I think, which is I'm sure why my wife was stressing out about it. Well, that and if I were to say now "but at least it's done," we all know I'd be lying. There's certainly going to be more to harvest today. The plenty is high, and the plenty is good, and the plenty is a lot to keep up with, particularly on days like today when my sweet lady has a particularly heavy schedule with work.

Luckily enough, a little cappuccino is in order in about half an hour, and that almost always makes the going a bit easier and more fun (especially if I sneak guarana into the blend!).

Cappuccino Recipes

2009-07-16T12:55:00.002-04:00

Here's our basic (vanilla) cappuccino recipe, in case anyone is interested:

Nota bene: We don't have an espresso machine or a milk frother. We have an Aeropress and a blender. They work wonderfully and are far cheaper than the real equipment.

Four scoops (tablespoons, I think) fresh, good-quality, freshly ground coffee beans of whatever kind we're in the mood for;
One tablespoon of nice sugar (turbinado typically), split into two equal piles -optional, of course;
A 12 oz. coffee mug full of water, boiled;
A 12 oz. coffee mug full of whole milk and half and half (lighter milk could be substituted, but not in my kitchen); and
A splash of good vanilla extract.

To make it, we boil the water, heat the milk in a small saucepan with half of the sugar and optionally the vanilla, put the coffee into our "Presso" and then place it over a cup with the other half of the sugar, add water up to the "4" on the press, and make the espresso. We then put the hot milk in the blender, blend until frothy, and pour it on top of the espresso, which we've split into two cups. That's it.

We fool with the recipe sometimes by adding herbal things to the coffee or a different flavor to the milk. Here are some examples:

As discussed in the previous post, replacing the vanilla and sugar in the milk with a tablespoon or so of caramel syrup is a good thing;
A dusting of cinnamon in the bottom of the coffee cups is a nice touch;
A half-teaspoon of good-quality unsweetened cocoa to the standard milk recipe makes a mocha that's not overbearingly chocolately;
A little roasted chicory in the coffee grinds gives a nice New Orleans Cafe du Monde taste;
A little reishi mushroom powder in the coffee grinds is fairly pleasant and is quite healthy;
A little powdered guarana seed in the coffee adds a stronger kick;
Grinding a little green cardamom with the coffee makes a spicy brew that's apparently popular in the Middle East and is reminiscent of chai made with coffee; and
Adding a double shot of presso to a cup of proper chai is rather beautiful and oh-so-caffeinating.

Happy brewing!

Romantic Cappuccinos

2009-07-16T11:53:00.001-04:00

Cappuccinos together with my wife have become a standard part of our day, a little piece of commonplace romance between us that we can share and look forward to. Of course, the cappuccino itself isn't romantic, and neither is the way in which we have it or make it. It's really the fact that we decidedly take the time to drink it together each time that makes it something special for us.

Sometimes, like today, I make it. Sometimes, she makes it. Most often, though, we make it together, each of us taking turns with the little jobs that make the cups and then that clean up afterward, and chore though it is, this little piece too contributes to the little romantic ritual that we enjoy essentially every morning and typically once in the afternoon (though I know cappuccino isn't an afternoon beverage and go right ahead completely unfussed about it).

Today's brew was particularly special, sort of, because it was something new for us. Usually, we flavor our cappuccinos lightly with a splash of good vanilla extract, added to the milk before we froth it, and a touch of sugar, some in the milk and the rest in the coffee. Today, though, we had French caramel syrup to add, so it was very exciting. Essentially, yesterday I went to run an errand to the post office and decided to spin by T.J. Maxx to see if they had any good deals on vanilla, which we're out of. They didn't. In fact, they didn't even have any vanilla. In my search for a hidden bottle of the good stuff, I saw this syrup and decided to take a chance on it. It turns out to be quite good, though I had been nervous since most of my experiences with caramel "enhanced" coffees have been abysmally bad (read: cloying to the point of nauseating).

It made for a good start to our day... something to share together while she talked to me about yoga and gardening and I told her about my adventures with a friend yesterday evening. Now I'm looking forward to another round in an hour or two.

We Exist!

2009-07-15T09:54:00.001-04:00

I have a friend that we’ll call Jessica that until very recently wasn’t sure that good men existed at all. Luckily enough for her, she met an old friend of mine who just so happens to be one and then decided to ask me about him, thinking him too good to be true. This made me realize that a lot of women out there, smart women included, have no idea that actual good men exist in this world, having been jaded for any number of reasons that largely center on the fact that the average person tends toward being a jackass, guys being no exception to this, of course, an in fact possibly are moreso that than women. So, as Jessica now knows, we, meaning good men, exist. I’m one example, or so I have it on the authority of a surprisingly large population, mostly of women, not least my wife, who tells me so daily. As I happen to be a mathematician, I can stand firm in the statement that a single example is sufficient to prove existence. Realizing that I’m barely anything special, I’m happily ready to assert to the world that I’m not alone in being a good man.

Here, I want to offer examples of how a good man lives… the things he thinks, the way he goes about his business, and what exactly makes him so “good.” With this, I hope to entertain and educate because I like to believe that a lot of guys out there really want to be good men if they can just get out of their own way. I also want to reach the women out there because as Jessica convinced me, not only to women not really know of our existence, but it seems that women also need some schooling in how we operate, something of a users manual to guys that aren’t losers. We’re simple creatures, really, and finding and keeping us isn’t nearly as tough as you might think it is (or as dull as the bad-boy image might make us seem).

So, for Jessica and for anyone who wants to read a little about the everyday existence of a gold-star guy, this is for you. I hope you enjoy it!