Ian . . . It Is Your Graduation

 

Ian graduated from high school today and the ceremony was lovely-- the speeches were short and sweet, the weather was breezy and temperate, and we had a delicious lunch afterwards with my parents at Wu's Shanghai Dumpling in North Brunswick-- and while the only mishap during the formalities was the fact that Ian tripped on his ascent up the stairs to receive his diploma, my wife suspected this had something to due with his designation as "Class Clown" in the Yearbook-- and she was right, he bet a friend twenty dollars that he would stumble on stage and then he followed through (and got paid) but we also had a minor mishap BEFORE the graduation got underway: Alex drove Ian over to the high school while Catherine and I were getting dressed-- a half-mile drive-- but there was a bunch of graduation traffic and he was trying to squeeze between a truck and a parked car and he hit the parked car's mirror with the van's mirror and broke the other car's mirror-- and he didn't have his license on him and I think there was a bit of conflict between him and the other driver-- but we sorted things out right before the kids walked out in their robes (of course, this guy was sitting right behind us and he was pretty indignant-- with good reason-- but I gave him my information and hopefully it won't cost that much to fix it) and now both my kids have graduated high school . . . but one of them could use another semester of Driver's Ed (and my wife will finally "graduate" tonight from Project Graduation-- she's been working her ass raising money and recruiting volunteers for the all-night event-- once she rides over there and sets things up, she's free at last free at last).

The End is Nigh (Or Is It The Beginning?)

Alex graduated yesterday-- a lovely ceremony on the front lawn of Highland Park High School-- and then he went to Project Graduation (an event at the Woodbridge Community Center from 10 PM to 4 AM) and so he was coming home when I was leaving this morning for early morning badminton-- pretty weird-- and after my stupid penultimate day of school (a random A day with nothing to do until graduation practice) I came home to a million projects-- my wife is getting the house ready for Alex's graduation party on Saturday, so I shouldn't be writing this sentence, I should be sanding or scraping or fixing the bike shed or something (plus I've got to pick Ian up from work-- he started as a tennis instructor today-- we have four drivers and two cars this summer, so that's going to be kind of nuts until we figure out the schedule).

It's Over . . .

The weirdest and worst school year ever is behind us; the graduation ceremony turned out well-- we had a great mother/daughter speaking duo from the class president and the selected teacher-- and Liz was supposed to speak 18 years ago, but she went into labor with her daughter and Brady had to sub in for her, so it was very appropriate that they shared the stage yesterday-- but while the speakers were under a tent, the rest of us were baking in the hot sun on the turf-- pretty much the worst circle of hell for me, having to sit still on a plastic chair for hours in a bright hot place; also, I was receiving work from kids up to the moment I walked out to graduation, which did NOT make me happy at all-- it seems a lot of the virtual kids who got very distracted and did nothing during the semester suddenly wanted to turn in assignments-- yuck-- but now it's all over but the crying; the end of the year party was great (though I didn't win the cornhole tourney . . . my partner was Terry and we wona few games but then he had to leave . . . I didn't know that my normal partner, a cute young lady who teaches special ed in a different school, was coming to the party-- and apparently, she had emailed me to see if we were partnering up, but I didn't check my email . . . that's not my strong suit, it's too chaotic in there-- so then I was stuck partnerless so I picked up Chantal and we beat the reigning champs, only to lose to a drunken juggernaut . . . there's always next year . . . we hope).

Random Idiotic Thoughts

During graduation, while they read the seven hundred plus names of the senior class, you are alone with your thoughts . . . mainly, I thought how strange it was that every speaker had a quote from Dr. Seuss in their speech and that if I ever have to give a graduation speech, I won't quote Dr. Seuss, I will instead quote the Random Idiots song about Dr. Seuss-- you know, the one where the good doctor uses his faux doctorate to open a gynecology clinic and have his way gullible women . . . and that day, of course, will be my last as a teacher.

Commencement Anxiety

The high school where I teach holds their graduation ceremony down in Trenton, at the Sun National Bank Center, and every year I forget how long a drive it is to get there and how much traffic piles up around the arena . . . this year I actually did an illegal u-turn over a grass divider when I realized that was the way to avoid the long line of cars trying to make a left off of Hamilton Street . . . but though I ineptly timed my trip to the arena, once I got into my robe and sat down to listen to the names of seven hundred and fifty graduates, I improved: as the enunciators started their arduous task, I took a few samples, made some back of the envelope calculations-- without an envelope!-- and added my figure to the current time posted on the large red digital clock hanging from the arena ceiling . . . 46 minutes plus 12:04 . . . and I announced to the students around me that the reading of the names would be done at exactly ten of one . . . and forty-six minutes later, the last of the students lined up at the foot of the stage, waiting to be called, and I started getting nervous . . . it looked like I might be right . . . my palms started to sweat . . . one of my students said, "I think you're going to hit it on the nose" and the other students in my vicinity starting saying things like "Hurry up" and "Come on" and, though there was nothing on the line, I really, really wanted my prediction to come true . . . but, alas, there must have been some small flaw in my calculations, because the last student was announced at 12:51 . . . but the kids were nice about it and one consoled me: "That was still a really good guess."

Summer!

Summer is here and it's already been fairly epic;

-- me, the boys, and my brother attended my cousin's father-in-law's massive 25$ a head random draw cornhole tourney and while my kids and brother-- all good players-- got knocked out early, my partner and I almost went the distance . . . my partner was decent but had an odd throw, especially since he was a young athletic 6-foot five-inch black dude-- you'd think he'd be muscling it in, but instead he gripped the beanbag delicately by pinching a tiny scrap of fabric at the corner and then flicking it up high-- sometimes it swooshed right into the hole, but it was also buffeted by the wind . . . we were beaten by my cousin Keith and his partner in the finals-- I held Keith's partner at bay but my "little" cousin Keith, who's now in his mid-thirties, came up big-- but still, my partner and I won 100$ each . . . Keith and his partner won 250$, quite a pot for chucking a beanbag;

-- I made all my appointments: dentist, physical, knee, and even got one out of the way-- the eye lady had a cancellation so I went and my eyes are fine . . . I'm also a new patient now, apparently I haven't been to the doctor since 2016

-- I finished mastering a song, called "Asymmetrical Warfare" and it sort of sounds like I want it to sound, but mixing and mastering music will always be a mystery to me;

-- Monday night, I did the 12:30 - 4:30 AM shift for our town's project graduation event, it was at the Woodbridge Community Center and I was impressed at how a mentalist guessed three times in a row what number I chose on a die (but perhaps the die was Bluetooth or something?) and I learned that if I play basketball at 2 AM then my knee really starts to hurt and I also learned that a school bus full of teenagers that have stayed up all night smells really really ripe at 4:30 AM . . . yuck).

Dave's Community Service Finally Pays Off!

Once again this morning, I did my community service shopping and delivery for my old dude. Pineapple chunks, Italian Wedding soup, chicken franks, bananas, apple sauce, two-liter diet lemon/lime soda, etc. I'm getting pretty good at his list. As I loaded the bags into the car, it started to drizzle.

When I pulled into the apartment driveway, there was something new. A cute blonde woman-- wearing lasses and probably in her late twenties- sat in the trunk space of her Subaru. She was working on a computer, using the hatchback as an umbrella. I had seen her briefly in the apartment once before. I asked her if she was related to my old dude and she said, "No, just a roommate. Apparently, there are a couple of small apartments on the top floor." Then she complimented me on my good deed and we talked for a good thirty minutes. She once was an elementary teacher in Arkansas and now she's on a research grant at Rutgers. She was in the midst of collecting data from schools in Brooklyn when the virus hit. Now she's busy finishing up her research and applying for new grants. We talked a lot about how school might look in the future, the way this pandemic will pull back the curtain on income inequality and its effect on education, prom, graduation, my wife trying to teach math to elementary students remotely . . . all sorts of topics.

I think she found me charming and funny, though I was dressed like a homeless person and I haven't shaved in a while. And we were far enough apart that she couldn't smell my morning coffee breath, which wasn't particularly pleasant (I know this because I was wearing a mask in the Stop&Shop, which amplifies and exacerbates coffee breath). This is the kind of credit you should get when you do community service-- I think this would make a great commercial for the program, a guy drops off he groceries for an old dude and then gets to chat with a cute, intelligent chick. 

I'm sure she will tell her cute graduate school friends about me, and they will all be there next Friday to laud my good deeds.

Once More unto the Breach, Teach

Teaching is a weird job-- sometimes it feels like it's all introductions and conclusions-- and when the year ends and you wave good-bye to the seniors, you're not thinking about the fact that you're going to do it all over again next year . . . but you are (we were especially cognizant of this today because after sending the seniors off to graduation, we went out in New Brunswick to watch the demise of Messi and we saw some students that graduated last year wandering up Easton and they seemed so old, so far removed, though they were only a year out) and the only memories that might differentiate this year from all the others are the annual hand-drawn mural of all the department happenings and a fantastic picture of your doppelgänger for a day.

No Time Like the Present

I got my seniors amped up for graduation today by reading them an excerpt from Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time-- a book connects perfectly to both Hamlet and their own lives, as it points out that though we want the universe to be comprised of things on an orderly timeline, it is actually composed of relativistic occurrences and events, in constant fluctuation and change . . . a war is not a thing, it's a long sequence of events; a cloud is not a thing, it's a bunch of condensation in the air; even things are not things, they are only semi-permanent perturbations of quantum forces, and-- of course-- a person is not a thing, though we are under the illusion that we are a character, an entity, a static personality but we are actually a sequences of events and circumstances with some distorted memories that connect us to the past events that were experienced by a few of our molecules (but not most of them, as they are constantly regenerating) and so while Hamlet starts the play with the ultimate ambition: "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite that I was ever born to set it right" he ends the play realizing that "we defy augury" and that there is no sorting out time and the universe, because-- as Rovelli explains-- the time is always out of joint-- time is different in every location and just a construct designed to give us some idea of the constant flux and change in the universe . . . Hamlet know this by the end of the play when he says "If it be now, tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all" and that is the attitude the seniors must adopt, high school is over, all is change, flexibility is paramount, and "the readiness is all."

Weekend Review

I went out with the pub crew Thursday night to Steakhouse 85 and Alec leaned too far forward on his bar-chair, so that he was leaning on two legs, his elbow resting on the bar, and the chair legs slid backward on the polished wood floor and the long-legged chair went skittering backward-- horizontally-- and Alec's body suddenly dropped vertically, down below the bar (and luckily, he didn't hit his face on the rail) and though the chair skittered back eight feet or so, toward the host stand, no one was injured; then Saturday Catherine and I drove all the way up to Foxwoods in Connecticut for my cousin Nick's wedding-- and I remarked that you don't hear much about the state of Connecticut-- it's an under the radar state-- and now I know why-- the fucking traffic is terrible-- we stopped in Clinton at Liv's Dockside Grill for some seaside seafood-- and once you get off the highway, Connecticut is lovely-- it looks kind of like Cape Cod-- Clinton is near the end of the Long Island Sound-- you're looking across the sound at East Hampton and Montauk-- but then you have to get back on 95 and it's two lanes and white knuckle driving-- Foxwoods is a wild place, a little bit of Vegas in the middle of the Mashantucket Pequot reservation-- the wedding was lovely but we split the very expensive hotel room with my brother and his (soon-to-be) wife and my brother had a sinus infection and was snoring and making a lot of noise so we got up at 6 AM and hightailed it home-- much better drive with no traffic, but still a long fucking way-- and then I played some pickle-ball, practiced tennis with Ian, and went to a graduation party where I drank a bunch of Corona beer-- great for the day after a wedding-- and Alec and I dominated at corn-hole-- even over the recent college graduates, who were surprisingly bad . . . I asked one college student what the leisure sport of choice was at Reed college-- darts, frisbee golf, corn-hole, spike-ball, beer pong?-- and he said they don't play anything . . . I guess they just go to class and learn stuff . . . kids these days.

The Usual Bullshit

Things pretty normal around here . . . or what passes for normal these days:

1) my older son Alex made my wife and I see the movie Barbie . . . and it was actually pretty good: visually appealing; often funny; surreal; great outfits; got a little preachy at times, but not overwhelmingly so . . . and I really loved all the "Ken" stuff-- especially how he lost interest in the patriarchy when he learned it wasn't all about horses;

2) Ian slammed the van into a pole at the gas station, trying to avoid a truck with a trailer-- so now there's another dent, another white streak of paint-- from the pole he hit-- and a black streak too-- but nothing a rubber mallet and some duct tape couldn't fix and at least no one was hurt and no insurance was necessary-- but this car's monetary value has certainly dipped into the negative;

3) once again, I am very sore from the stupid kick-boxing class-- probably because I followed up the class with an hour or so of applying primer to the hard to reach areas of our back deck -- so that Cat can paint it before Ian's graduation party this weekend . . . 

4) a lady and a little kid showed up at our door today and handed us Ian's wallet-- which she found on a path while they were geo-caching-- very nice of them-- Ian didn't even know his wallet was missing;

5) and this is the summer of girlfriends-- both boys are spending a lot of time with their respective chicks-- interesting.

Summer Begins?

This morning was going to be the official start of summer relxation for Catherine and me-- school is over, Alex's graduation party successful and complete, the clean-up of Alex's party also successful and complete, plenty of leftover food from the party so no reason to cook, both kids heading out the work at their respective jobs . . . all good stuff, but when I was going down to my study at 5:30 AM to do some recording, I noticed a crazy sound coming from the basement-- I thought it might be coming from an open window in the basement, but it was actually coming from the freezer-- and the freezer door was left WIDE open . . . as wide open as possible, and the condenser fan was frozen and most of the food had defrosted-- and there was a bag of peanut butter squares (leftover dessert from the party) on the counter and the only person who had been down there to eat them was Ian . . . so I had to wake up my wife and wake Ian up and we went into freezer crisis mode-- we filled a cooler with ice, threw what was still frozen into the cooler with some ice, made Ian cook the rest of the defrosted stuff: some ground beef, some ground turkey, and some sausage-- and we'll be having shrimp for dinner tonight because those were totally defrosted-- and then we unplugged the fridge and let the ice melt-- hopefully it will start working again-- and then we settled in to some serious college financial budgeting-- yuck-- and we made a hard decision and canceled HBO MAX (that fifteen dollars a month is really going to help?) but we did not cancel YouTube TV because there are too many upcoming sporting events (and what else are we going to do since we can't go out to eat or go to bars or live events or go on vacation or go shopping or pretty much do anything except pay for college).

Vacation Jumbled Run On

Too many trivial vacation moments and so little time— I’ve got to prep the salad for meatball night— but last night was Jack’s college graduation party, which featured Mexican food and lots of life sized cut out pictures of Jack— which were placed on the deck and then nearly everyone lost their shit today at some point because when they saw these cut-outs from the beach, they looked like actual people lurking about . . . a few people waved to the 2-D Jacks and I thought someone was creeping around— then this morning my brother and I went to the advanced open play pickleball at the Avalon courts and we crushed a few people and then played the top dogs on the challenge court— a 4.6 duo with experience playing together, and my brother and I won the first game against them, then lost the second— I was so fatigued and dripping with sweat I could barely move— and then we took a break while they beat another contender 11-0 and then we played them in the rubber match and while I’m normally the best player in my intermediate level games, in this game they were targeting me because they knew I had less experience at this level than my brother, but I held on and we won the rubber match 11-8 and then we got packed up for the beach and the whole crew donned all the bathing suits and shirts with my father’s face on them and the boys pushed my dad to the beach in one of those beach wheelchairs with he giant rubber wheels— it’s all about those wheels— and my dad had a great time at the beach and also enjoyed seeing his face plastered all over thirty pieces of attire— which we ordered from China at a reasonable price— but the sizing was a bit weird— I’m a 2XL in these shorts and my brother is a 3XL . . . anyway, a great beach day and now it’s time to get ready for all the cousins and Catherine’s Meatballs.

Famous Last Words (Dave Does Risk Assessment)

You're going to want to read the entirety of this rather long-winded sentence, if only because if I die, then you can say "I told you so"; this week in Composition class, we prioritized and classified our worries and anxieties, and then we took a look at the evidence and determined if there was any logic behind our assumptions; this is a good assignment for high school seniors, with graduation and the real world looming in the immediate future-- and how the students order the things they are concerned about makes for entertaining debates (such as the girl who was more worried about shark attacks than the possibility of never finding true love); to get this going, first I review some basic probability, and then we use specious sources from the internet to do back-of-the-envelope calculations, and, finally, we place our topics in one of three categories (Harmless, Don't Panic, and Red Alert); we learned that the chance of being killed by an meteorite is phenomenally low; same with bee stings and lightning; if you apply to more than five colleges, it's fairly certain that you will get into one; and if you're a guy, there's one thing to be concerned about: passing a kidney stone . . . the project also helped me out with one of my anxieties, a thick tree branch has partially cracked off a tree in my yard-- my neighbor had to point it out to me, as the dangling log is very high up (so I can't use my usual method to take it down: tossing a football with a rope duct-taped to it over the limb and then yanking . . . I did get to explain this feat in class and show my students this awesome picture) but after I did the math, I learned to stop worrying and love the log: there are 1440 minutes in a day, and the children and I probably spend three of them (if that) under the exact spot where the log would hit the ground-- my kids play at the park more than in the yard, and if I'm watering the plants in the yard, then I make a point not to stand under the "death spot," so the chance of one of us being hit by the log on any given day is miniscule . . . 2/10ths of a percent-- to put it in perspective, it's less dangerous than something else I worry about: me or one of the kids getting injured while we are skiing/snowboarding-- the chance of that happening is 6.97 injuries per 1000 visits, or 7/10ths of a percent every time you go to the mountain.

It's Not Just Me

Before this year's graduation ceremony, while I was milling around with the other educators, I posed this Final Jeopardy! question and then we got on the subject of the capital of Canada . . . and apparently, nobody knows the capital of Canada-- teachers, administrators, students . . . they were all stumped; I also asked this at a July 4th get together and my favorite answer was: "What? Canada has no capital!"

The Slow Decay of Summer Begins!

We had a successful graduation party for Alex yesterday-- Catherine did SO much preparation-- salsa bar, three kinds of taco meats, gorditas, chorizo-stuffed peppers, centerpieces, photo decorations, Rutgers decorations, lots of tables and chairs-- and it was the first time we've seen both her brothers in the same location for quite a while . . . a good time was had by all and Alex and Ian were wonderful, social and helpful and appreciative (even though Alex has some kind of sinus congestion and feels like shit . . . they were much better than I was at those kinds of events when I was in high school-- in fact, they're probably better than I am now) and now we can stop cleaning the house and fixing stuff and let the slow decay of summer begin!

SOMEBODY in These Photos Knows How to Party . . .

Ian's graduation party was a great success: the food was fantastic and it ALL went . . . the brisket, the special kielbasa, the pulled pork, the bbq chicken, the baked beans, the mac and cheese, the stuffed hot peppers . . . pretty much zero leftovers, which made clean-up easy; we did a good job on the alcohol as well, but if you'll notice in these pictures (one of which is NOT from this party but fits thematically) there is one person who knows how to party, photo be damned.

 

Nice Boognish!

I was walking the dog in the park this morning, slightly dazed from Ian's graduation party, when the mirror-shade-wearing, long-haired park employee covered from head to toe in tattoos yelled from his moving maintenance vehicle, "Nice Boognish, man!" in reference to the Ween-style Boognish tattoo on my ankle-- and then he rolled to a stop and we talked about the Ween discography, Gene Ween's drug problems, the possibility of one last album, the weirdness of the last album, John and Peter's Place in New Hope, his interactions with Dean Ween, the Asbury Park concert we both attended, and other Ween-related topics . . . and then I recommended he check out 100 gecs, of course . . . so the moral is: tattoos, they connect people, all sorts of people.

I'm Too Tired to Party (Because of All the Party Prep)

After a LOT of prep (including painting the deck) we are ready to roll for Ian's graduation party-- Catherine just told me that my list is DONE-- and we were lucky enough to get one of the nicest day of summer for the party . . . the decorations are up, the food is ready (pulled pork bbq, pulled chicken bbq, beef brisket, stuffed peppers, mac and cheese, and some authentic Polish kielbasa from the weird little European provisions store on the Old Bridge Turnpike) and the house is clean; we had a to borrow quite a few tables and chairs from our friends-- I'm not looking forward to returning them tomorrow-- but everyone should have a place to plant their butt today (as long as they don't weight more than 225 pounds . . . as Alec's folding chairs have a weight limit tag on the back).

 

Wait A Minute . . . Who Is An Idiot?

We were playing the "Can You Help Me Figure Out Who I Just Had A Conversation With" game in the English Office the other day, and we were really getting close to figuring out who I had just talked to in the stairwell about Busch Gardens, were were closing in and everyone was doing their best to help me solve the puzzle, and then the light-bulb went off in my brain and I said, dramatically, to get everyone's attention, "Wait a minute," and then I asked my question, a question-- that if anyone knew the answer-- would crack the case, a question so incisive and clever that someone wrote it on the whiteboard . . . and here is what I asked: "Who spoke at graduation last year?" and my friend Liz stared at me for a long awkward moment . . . then realized that I was earnest and waiting for a serious answer, and finally said: "You did!"