O Child O Mine

The gift that keeps on giving

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‘It really is the thought that counts’

First, I must extend my heartfelt apologies to The Child for using that photo up top from a Christmas-morning-in-her-early-teens-when-she’d-dyed-her-hair-an-unfortunate-hue. But it’s the only picture I could find of her actually presenting us with Christmas Coupons. So I simply could not resist.

As for the Christmas Coupons themselves, here’s one I had the foresight to save. Too bad it has, alas, expired.

I don't have a photo of The Child presenting me with this, but she was not a teen, and had normal-tinted hair at the time. I'm thinking maybe 8 or 9

I don’t have a photo of The Child presenting me with this. But I’m betting she was 8 or 9 at the time, with untinted hair and pretty impressive cursive

The Child came up with the idea of Christmas Coupons when she was barely able to scrawl with a Number Two pencil on lined paper. Instead of going to the Ben Franklin store to buy her Mommy a teensy vial of Evening in Paris (like I did for my mom, and which she probably still has), The Child would inscribe small bits of paper with promissory notes, usually for personal services. (Her foot rubs were in great demand, by her Dad anyway; I’ve never been able to let anyone anywhere near my feet.)  Continue reading

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

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‘Practice practice practice. But please don’t fake your practice notes and forge your parents’ signatures’

If there’s anything I’m more tired of than reading about the election, it’s writing about the election. So this week, I thought I’d switch gears and write a story that makes fun of inept people in positions of power. It also involves some lying and cheating.

It’s about the time The Child faked her violin practice notes.

First, I have to say that the whole situation was absurd from the get-go — the fact that she had to take the violin. See, The Child had been playing the piano basically from birth. And playing it very well indeed, I’ll have you know.

The Dude introduces The Child to Mr. Piano

The Dude introduces The Child to Mr. Steinway. She is, oh, two days old here

 

Here she is, actually touching the keys. This piano was in the soon-to-be-pummeled-by-storms teeny-tiny beach house

Here she is, actually touching the keys. This piano was in the soon-to-be-pummeled-by-storms teeny-tiny beach house

She played the piano so well that she played in competitions and gave recitals. She and some of her fellow piano prodigies once played for the residents of a nursing home in New Jersey, where a little boy was startled enough to almost miss a note when he was in the middle of Chopin’s Fantaise-Impromptu and all these oldsters started swaying in unison and singing ‘I’m Always Chasing Rainbows’. Continue reading

What in heaven’s name do kids do at Atheist Camp?

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‘Well, you can bet they don’t sing Kumbaya‘

After last week’s story about The Dude and The Child and Gary the J, I promised to stay away from stories involving politics. So, instead, here’s a story involving religion.

It’s about the time(s) The Child went to Atheist Camp.

First, let me say something about camp. When I was a kid in the Midwest there were two kinds: Church Camp and Scout (specifically, Boy-or-Girl-Scout) Camp. I’ve learned from my Northeastern friends that they had their own two kinds: Day Camp and Sleepaway Camp.

A third kind of camp: 'ing' We did a lot of this when I was growing up

A third kind of camp. With an ‘ing’ on the end. We did a lot of this kind when I was growing up. The picture at the top of this post shows us ‘dining’ while not-Atheist-Camping

These days, of course, there are all kinds of camps, Math Camp and Music Camp being just two I can think of. There’s even Computer Camp. Wait. Isn’t there a danger of getting S’mores on your keyboard? But I digress.

Anyway, this atheist camp was (and is; I looked it up, and it’s still going strong) called Camp Quest. The name ‘Quest’, I learned from its Wikipedia entry, is actually an acronym for ‘Question, Understand, Explore, Search, Test’. Hmmmm. Like ‘LOL’ is ‘Lots O Love’. Continue reading

Libertarian Blonde

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‘Don’t worry. This isn’t going to get (too) political.’

I swore up and down that I wouldn’t veer into political territory. Not in LutheranLiarLand. But there is a funny story that came to mind when I was messing around wasting precious time on Facebook and came across yet another post about Gary Johnson.

In case you’ve been in a cave these last few months (is it only months? feels like years), Gary Johnson is the Libertarian candidate for President of these United States.

Here's Gary. Thinking about his favorite European leaders, no doubt

Here’s Gary. Thinking about his favorite European leaders, no doubt

Now Honest Injun I am not going to get into the fact that I think that voting for Gary — or for Jill, for that matter — is kind of like voting for Santa or the Easter Bunny. (Nope, not going there!) Continue reading

‘The bears are watching a movie’

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‘A getting-into-school back-to-school story’

Out on my walk today, dodging double-wide strollers and long-legged schoolgirls clutching Starbucks pumpkin-spice lattes, I felt a bit of a nip in the air. I’m a person who really hates to see summer end (see last week’s ‘The days are long, but the season is short’ for a nostalgic riff), but even I was getting tired of walking through what felt like hot dog breath — at 6 in the morning.

I was going to write about houseguests. And I still might, though The Child has cautioned me that some of my subjects might recognize themselves. But then again, she also told me that ‘this is my blog and I can write whatever I want’.

But all those schoolgirls — and the nip — reminded me of the story of how The Child got into nursery school. So I decided to tell that one instead. (Besides, I have to go to the dentist in about an hour, and this is a quick story.)

See, here in New York City (and in other Big Cities, too), getting into nursery school is a Very Big Deal. Apparently, if you don’t get your 3-year-old into the ‘right’ one, he or she will miss her (let’s stick with the feminine pronoun, since The Child is a girl) chance to grow up to be a Captain of Industry or a Supreme Court Justice. (Which is the job aspiration to have, not ‘President’; see my ‘Now Let’s play Supreme Court Justice’ for reasons why).

There are books written about getting your child into nursery school. Seriously. Someone tried to loan me one. You should have seen my face as I politely refused. Continue reading

The Days of Wineberries and Roses

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‘Listening to the Warm: sensational summery sounds’

Forget Rod McKuen. It was Henry James who nailed summer. He once famously said that the two most beautiful words in the English language were ‘summer afternoon’. Go on; say them out loud. Better yet, murmur them.

‘Summer af-ter-noon‘. Mmmmmmmmm. You can practically feel that hammock swaying.

Now you’ve already heard me go on about the tastes of summer — I’ve waxed ravenously poetic about such seasonal delights as watermelon and corn and berries-somebody-else-picks and glorified rice and even (yum!) Jello Cake.

But I haven’t talked much about summer sounds. You know the ones I mean; sounds that really say summer. Fireworks. The ice-cream truck. And, for me anyway, that fwap fwap fwap sound that happens when you clip playing cards onto your bike spokes with clothespins and ride home from the Carlyle Municipal Pool gnawing on a frozen Milky Way.

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Out of the mouths of babes

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‘The Child says (and writes) the darnedest things’

Ouch. It’s Tuesday. Which means I’ve got to get a wiggle on and come up with a story to tell. I was going to regale you with tales from my teen years honing my writing (and phone-answering, address-stamping, and odd-job-doing) skills at the Carlyle Union Banner.

I’ve already regaled you with tales of The Dude’s and The Child’s fabulous summer jobs (see ‘They didn’t do this for fun, you know’), and thought I’d give myself a turn, so to speak.

But I just now waved bye-bye to the last of my Fourth of July Weekend houseful, one of whom (The Child, pictured above during a previous Fourth of July Weekend) inspired a completely different bloggy direction.

She and her bevy of beautiful girlfriends and The Dude and I were sitting around post-beach, sipping a few cocktail hour cocktails. (Oh, in case you are horrified at the thought of the pipsqueak pictured at the top of this post having access to a cocktail, rest assured that she and her friends are indeed old enough to vote both ‘yes’ to a drink and ‘no’ to a Trump.)

Anyway. The Child tells her friends that I make the best gin and tonics. I modestly reply that, shucks, I’ve just had plenty of practice. Then I go on to say, “Speaking of which, once when you were little, like two*, you were rattling a couple of toy blocks around in a plastic cup. When I asked what you were doing, you said ‘I’m playing Gin and Tonic.'” Gosh. Maybe I’ve had a little too much practice. Continue reading

What’s in a name?

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‘The story of a girl (almost) named Zeus’

Our Memorial Day tradition is to have our two super-adorable grand-nieces (yup, grand-nieces), Miss Just-Two and her older sister Miss Almost-Five, come down from the Boston area to help us celebrate the first official weekend of summer. Oh, okay. Their parents get to come too.

Last night we were polishing off our umpteenth bottle of wine (with the parents, not the adorable grand-nieces) and got to talking about how kids get their names. I guess things have changed a bit since we named The Child, because these parents confessed that Miss Almost-Five went four days without a name. Even more startling (to us, anyway) was the fact that Miss Just-Two went nameless for four whole months. During this time, she was known to all and sundry as Baby Girl. Or, for officialdom, as Baby Girl Last Name.

The Dad (The Dude’s older brother’s son) said he finally had to give in and name Baby Girl because, without a name, she could not get a social security number, and without a SSN, she sort of, well, didn’t exist. So, name her, they did. At least they didn’t let her name herself, which was Picabo Street’s parents’ genius idea. (Poor Picabo didn’t have a name till she was three years old.) Continue reading

Pi are round

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‘And other hilarious tales of math and memory’

Me, I’ve never been such a great shakes at memorizing stuff. I mean, I can rattle off a bit of verse. (My go-to poem: ‘Listen my children and you shall hear…of the midnight ride of Paul Revere’. Impressed?) And I am of the generation that was pressed to learn (by heart) the preamble to the Constitution (a practice I highly recommend to any and all presidential candidates). But. Memorizing pi? I’m not so sure I even knew what ‘pi’ meant when I was a kid.

Pi comes to mind because yesterday was March 14. Which is, in some circles, known as Pi Day. That’s because ‘pi’, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter (yes, I had to look that up), is commonly given as 3.14. And March 14 is commonly given as 3.14. Get it?

Anyway. Pi Day is sort of a Big Deal. And not just among the Pocket-Protector Set. Pi Day got amazing coverage, not only in The New Yorker, but on Facebook. Yesterday, in fact, it seemed that posts about Pi Day outnumbered those about Donald or Bernie or Hillary. (Um, well maybe I’m just mathematically wishfully thinking here.)

A sample of side-splitting Facebook Pi Humor from yesterday, Pi Day, 3.14

Sample of side-splitting Facebook Pi Humor from yesterday, Pi Day, 3.14

The other thing about ‘pi’, the thing that gets everyone all atingle — well, maybe not everyone — is that pi is infinite. Again, according to my handy online source, mathisfun.com (hmmm, if you have to say something is fun, then is it?), pi is equal to 3.14159265358979323846. And that’s just for starters. See, the digits go on forever, and without repeating. This is like catnip to Math Nerds. Every year on 3.14, they get all excited and try to outdo each other reciting pi to as many places as they can. Seriously. Contests are held. Records are broken. Egos are threatened! Continue reading

‘Now let’s play Supreme Court Justice’

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‘The job that’s way better than being President.’

When The Child was really a child, well-meaning adults liked to ask her what she wanted to be when she grew up. Having stumbled over this very question when we were small (‘teacher’? ‘rocket scientist’? ‘cowboy’? What did this grownup want to hear? And how on earth could we be expected to make a career decision when we were only four?), The Dude and I decided to provide her with a good answer she could spit out without hesitation when required to do so.

True, a little (or perhaps more than a little) brainwashing came into play, but we like to think it was of the benign kind. Besides, we got a kick out of watching her grownup griller’s response when she’d squeak out ‘Supreme Court Justice’ in her baby-duck voice. Her questioner would be highly amused. ‘Don’t you want to be President?‘, he or she would counter. ‘Nope. Supreme Court Justice is a better job.’ Continue reading