On the first day of second grade my daughter said to me: “I liked my teacher, but she asked me to stop raising my hand so much.” Now my curiosity was piqued. “What were you saying to your teacher when you raised your hand Beth?” “Well, one time I told her I liked her shoes.” It was like the fog cleared from the shore and I could see for miles. The image of Beth…
So how was your Friday? I got a call from Cheryl on Friday afternoon saying the termite inspection turned up some bad news. I was just getting over digesting that lump of coal when she called back to say the termite guy saw something wrong with the a/c unit in the attic.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The end of the work day did not bring a reprieve. I get home and the…
The other day I overheard a conversation about politics, and it led to some self-reflection. Why am I a partisan hack? Why do I so often use this space to spew left leaning politics?
Here’s why.
1. As I see it, the Democratic party is the party of equal rights, and the government’s essential role in protecting those rights.
This may turn out to be a bit of an oversimplification, but…
“John, did you clean off the stove when you cleaned up after dinner?”
(John is currently responsible for lots of domestic duties, not just because his wife is incapacitated with child, but because he is a swell guy.)
“No.”
“Why not. You know that this is part of the agreed upon dinner clean-up procedure.”
“Well Cheryl, I’m an imperfect man living in…
I’m looking out the window that someone at my salary level has no right having. I’m looking at the sun peaking out from between the clouds, and it’s like being smacked in the face with a metaphor. This morning, unlike the mornings of the last three weeks, was a ’50s sitcom morning. The only missing image was me in a suit and tie. The only mismatched image was Cheryl’s…
Something very strange has happened to me this morning. I had settled down into what had been a pretty typical rainy workday morning. I was peacefully plugging away at my desk, quietly jamming to the output of my too cool iPod, when suddenly, and inexplicably, I find my desk eerily barren. My pile of emergencies is gone. My low priority problem pile has similarly vanished. My shelf of garden…
It was a relationship that survived the milestones of young adult life. We got together in the fall of 1989, my first semester at the University of Florida. We shared countless drives across the state, traveling home from UF and back again. We were together through graduation from UF, a move to a new city and the first real job, and a marriage. We rode in the car together when my first child came…
Alternate title: the shopping curmudgeon strikes back.
Vision statement: we hold these truths to be self evident, that retail, in general, sucks.
Hypothesis: the lowest form of humanity in the “new releases” section of the evolutionary ladder is Homo Sapiens Salesman.
The evidence: a phenomenon we call “Acute Idiopathic Phantom Price Shift”, or “AIPPS”…
Beth is a tough nut to crack, but she’s even harder to read. The lead into the new school year had all the emotion of a new pair of socks. (What do I have against socks? Why am I picking on socks in general? As a child, I was permanently scarred by the cruel and unusual gift of socks on Christmas morning.) It was so unlike my experience. I remember the first day of elementary school with all…
When my mood is getting in the way of productivity, I owe it to my employer to engage in a little root cause analysis; and by golly I think I’ve got it! Set your way back machine to yesterday night, around eleven p.m. I had just given myself a serious case of the giggles, recalling my exploits in church earlier that day. I was committing it all to the internet ether, so that others may take…