That's a Lot of Birthdays!

Thirty-two times now, I've celebrated my wife's birthday with her-- since she was twenty-one . . . and while she appreciated the flowers and the card and the quality chocolates from Birnn, apparently I should have learned that you can't also put the awesome glass lunch and leftover containers that you bought from Marshall's on the table with the other birthday gifts because they do not count as a birthday gift, they are a gift for the house and should be construed as such.

2023, That's a Wrap? Spotify Says Yup

Lord knows why the Swedes at Spotify like to wrap up the year November 29th, but whatever-- it's Spotify Wrapped Day-- and apparently I listen to the same music as people in Burlington, Vermont (Waxahatchee, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and the Grateful Dead) and this year was one of obsessions-- 100 gecs, Waxahatchee, Easy Star All Stars, and-- lately, so the data won't be counted-- Oingo Boingo . . . four of my five top songs were Waxahatchee tracks from the album Saint Cloud . . . I listened to 34 thousand minutes of music and 1500 artists-- and my number one artist was The Brian Jonestown Massacre, followed by Waxahatchee, Easy Star All Stars, perennial favorite The Talking Heads and finally, 100 gecs . . . my main podcast on Spotify was 60 Songs That Explain the 90s and apparently I like to listen to albums all the way through, an unusual trait in this fragmented day and age-- anyway, enough about me . . . how did your Spotify wrap up?

Double Van Key Character Building Bicycle Bonus

This morning at 7:45 AM, minutes before first period and just after I got out of the coach's room shower, my phone rang and my wife asked me if I had both of the van keys and I realized that yes I did have both van keys-- last night I drove over to Rutgers because Alex had mistakenly retreated back to college with my wife's credit card and the van key and when I picked up Alex and Ava- they needed a ride to College Avenue-- he put the credit card in my wallet and van key on my chain for the safe-keeping of both objects and then I kept them there safely until this morning, when I took my wife's car to school because Ian needed a car to go to a job interview and we try not to let him use the nice car, so he was supposed to take the minivan but since I had both van keys, my wife had to bike to work and my son had to bike to his job interview at Birnn chocolate-- and my wife got to work on time and my son got the job, so obviously biking places-- even if it is very cold and windy-- builds character and works out in the end (even though when I walked out of the school building this afternoon, my first thought was holy shit, I would not want to be biking in this kind of cold, windy weather).

Double Birbiglia Bonus

My wife and I just watched two Mike Birbiglia one-man shows on Netflix . . . and though we watched them in reverse chronological order, I think that may be the way to do it-- or else you might be kind of pissed off about The New One, like this NYT reviewer . . . but if you start with the more recent piece-- The Old Man in the Pool-- you'll be better prepared to handle some of the existential gripings in The New One-- because if you've had kids, you've been there . . . and might still be there-- and you also have to remember that while Birbiglia is a stand-up comedian, these shows are slightly different than pure stand-up-- the minimalistic sets both come into play at times and there's more of a character arc to his persona in each-- but mainly, while there are dark and desperate portions of each show, on the whole, they are hilarious, profound, and well worth watching.

Futility and Dog Hair

I vacuum the house and two hours later, my wife asks me if I vacuumed the house-- because our dog sheds so much hair . . . and don't even get me started on the bathrooms-- you clean a toilet and the next thing you know, someone is spraying urine all over it-- I think for a day or two after you clean a bathroom, people should have to urinate out back in the yard.

Dark Black Friday (for the Planet Earth)

I hope people are being mindful of their consumption today and not buying unnecessary goods . . . but I guess nothing dispels Thanksgiving gluttony, overconsumption, and hangovers like buying some useless shit.

Snakes in the Rite-Aid?

Alexander Plumbing came to the rescue this morning-- on FaceTime-- we had some work done Wednesday afternoon to stop the leak in our tankless water heater and the plumber also showed me how to rinse off the magnet filter that removes the iron sediment from our water-- but this morning our forced hot-water radiators were cold and winter weather is headed our way and I couldn't figure out the issue-- the hot water was on and the heating pumps were pumping; I bled the radiators but there was no air in them, just cold water-- it was a mystery so my wife gave it a shot and texted the guy who was at our house yesterday and though it was Thanksgiving, he called us back and took a moment to have her FaceTime the various valves around the tankless heater and he guessed-- correctly-- that he forgot to switch both dials back to green that surrounded the filter-- so it was a quick and easy fix and a Thanksgiving miracle that we have both heat and hot water (and no leaks) for the holiday weekend; I then went to play pickleball while my wife prepared several Thanksgiving dishes and when I got home, my wife assigned me one simple Thanksgiving chore-- go get a good bottle of wine to bring to Jim and LouAnne's place (my brother's inlaws) so I went to the Rite-Aid, found a good bottle of wine, and while I was paying I noticed that the young lady behind the register had a serious case of the hiccups and I was tempted to go into my whole "hey, hold still, hold very still, there's a spider in your hair" routine-- which always works on my high school students (and scares the shit out of them) but there were people in line so I went with something more economical and said, "Hey there's a big snake behind you!" which didn't make much sense inside a Rite-Aid-- the only things behind her were cigarettes, vapes, chewing tobacco, and little airplane bottles of liquor . . . so my ploy didn't work and she said said she wasn't scared at all, not even . . . hiccup . . . a little bit.

Tanks a Lot

I brought my son Ian to New Brunswick last night so he could get an MRI on his ankle-- he may have a lacerated tendon-- and when I arrived home, sleepy and ready to watch some TV and fall asleep, I found my wife in the basement, spewing profanity and amazement because not only had she discovered a large and growing puddle of water on our basement floor, but she also discovered the source of this water-- and it wasn't due to the rain storm-- our tankless water heater and the surrounding pipework was leaking from all sorts of places-- so we got the wet-vac and some towels, put a large container under the heater, and got up several times during the night to wet-vac the water from the container and dump it in the sink . . . hopefully we can get a plumber over today, but the lesson here is: just because it doesn't have a tank, that doesn't mean it can't leak.

The Subtle Art of Feeling Stupid

I found the breezily philosophical book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck entertaining (and so did my son) but I probably didn't read it as closely and critically as Michael Hobbes and Peter Shamshiri-- because that's their job on their very funny podcast, If Books Could Kill . . . it's big fun but if they tackle a book you've read and kind of enjoyed, get ready to cringe at the silly stuff your brain will readily consume when it's not paying close attention to the details.

Monday Transforms from Wednesday to Monday

Monday is normally bad enough . . . but I was trying to maintain a positive attitude and think of this particular Monday as more of a Wednesday-- since we have off Thursday and Friday for Thanksgiving so we're already nearing the end of the week . . . but I don't get on the email platform much, and so I found out this morning, just after I resolved to be optimistic, that we had a department meeting after school and then the Monday that I had transmogrified into a Wednesday did a Mr. Hyde and turned back into an ugly and malevolent Monday.

Capitalism . . . 1980s Style

 

Took me a while, but I finally finished this episode of We Defy Augury . . . it is called "Capitalism . . . 1980s Style: Capitalism Sucks (But It Sucks Less Than the Alternative)" and it is my thoughts on capitalism (loosely) based on three novels published in the 1980s: Carl Hiaasen's Tourist Season, Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Martin Cruz Smith's Gorky Park . . . and the special guests include Oingo Boingo, Lloyd Dobbler, Conan O'Brien, and Anthony Bourdain.

There's a New DeVito in Town!

Let it be known: for many many years, the reigning DeVito from Jersey was, of course, Danny DeVito . . . but for one special day (Sunday, November 19th, 2023) Tommy DeVito wears the crown-- in his victory over the Washington Commanders, he threw three touchdowns and his passing rating was 137 . . . more than double his typical passing rating-- and he did this behind the worst offensive line in football . . . congratulations Tommy DeVito for winning the MVD of NJ today . . . Most Valuable DeVito of New Jersey (and I thought I was done watching the Giants this year but if DeVito keeps tossing touchdown passes and quips about living with his parents in Jersey, such as "I don't have to worry about laundry, what I'm eating for dinner, chicken cutlets and all that is waiting for me when I get there" then I'm in for the long haul).

Two Good (But Dark) Stories

I recently finished two horrific stories-- one fiction and one true-- and both tackled systemic corruption, immorality, and overreach . . . 

1) the first is quite fun and I highly recommend it: the Netflix mini-series The Fall of the House of Usher . . . which reimagines the gothic world of Poe through the sepia-toned lens of the filthy-rich Fortunato family and their opiate empire; 

2) the second is the new Serial production: The Kids of Rutherford County . . . a fine piece of journalism that uncovers incredible and absurd legal overreach in Tennessee-- Rutherford County juvenile court was illegally jailing children for over a decade, mainly due to a conservative judge, Donna Scott Davenport, who decided to run juvenile justice by her ethical tenets instead of the actual laws on the book . . . and it's also the story of the two underdog lawyers who challenge this insane but entrenched system and finally get some retribution and resolution for these much-maligned children . . . but you'll have to decide if it's enough retribution for the shit that went down.

Note to Self: Take a Break

At the start of this week, I played 6:30 AM pickleball Monday morning-- a healthy and vigorous start to the week-- and then the weather turned balmy . . . what was once known as "Indian Summer," a term with ambiguous origins that the historian Daniel Boorstin believes originates from the "raids on European colonies by Indian war parties that usually ended in autumn”-- but because of the genocide perpetrated on the indigenous tribes of North America by the European settlers, there is no worry of raiding parties taking advantage of warm weather and scalping me and my family, so it's quite safe to play pickleball late at night at Donaldson Park, where the Lenni Lenape once roamed-- so I played Tuesday night with my adult friends (and my wife) and then figured I would rest my knees and ankles, but Wednesday I got a text from my young pickleball friends-- these 23-year-old pharma and med kids who switched from high-level tennis to pickleball, so I went out and played with them for a couple of hours Wednesday night-- I played until 9 PM! . . . which is pretty much midnight for me-- and then the weather got even warmer so I played again Thursday night-- the first time I've ever played pickleball four days in a row, and by the end of Thursday, I pretty much couldn't move-- my ankles hurt, my hips hurt, my knees hurt-- so even though the weather is beautiful today and everyone (including my wife) are down on the courts, I'm drinking some beer and taking it easy, because my game really deteriotates once I can't hustle.

Note to Self: Lisa!

There is a window of opportunity to learn a new colleague's first name and then, abruptly, that window slams shut-- and even if you see this person every day for a few minutes, it's still tough to pry that window open, and make the required effort to relearn the name that you immediately forgot after perfunctory introductions-- but today-- months into the school year-- with the help of another colleague (thanks Liz!) and her ability to access a list with the names of every teacher in the school on it, alphabetized, I smashed that window open and climbed through, and while I my brain may have gotten a bit bloody and abraded during the process, I'm now going to prop the window open by calling this lady that I share a homeroom with "Lisa" tomorrow-- although I hope I remember her name tomorrow, as I can't think of a good mnemonic device for the name "Lisa," as it's a fairly plain name and not epiphanic, like the "Dolores!" moment in Seinfeld . . . I suppose she looks more like Lisa Lisa from the Cult Jam than she does like Lisa Simpson, so I'll have to go with that . . . the idea that our homeroom is chaperoned by Lisa Lisa and the Dave Man (not that I'm going to tell her any of this).

What Does Dave's Dog Think?

Every morning, my dog anxiously watches me retrieve her can of food from the study, pour it out, use a fork to scrape out the last few chunks of food from the can, add a little dry food, and then serve it to her-- after she sits and gives me a paw . . . which has evolved into an enthusiastic leaping high-five-- so does she think she's eating all her meals at one of those open-kitchen restaurants where you can watch the chef prepare every step of your meal?

Dave Does NOT Break New Educational Ground (But He Thought He Did)

I've been reading three classes worth of Rutgers Expos synthesis essays-- the kids can take the class at my high school and I made the mistake of teaching three sections-- and it's brutal, most of the first attempts are awful, mainly because they don't synthesize-- they don't use evidence from BOTH texts to support an argument-- they summarize one text and then summarize the other text and then call it a day-- so I reminded them that to pass the Rutgers Rubric, EVERY synthesis paragraph needs evidence from BOTH texts and a kid asked me if you could get an NP (Not Passing) if you DID use text from both sources in every paragraph and I said, "Yes you could" because I had a student alternate summaries of the texts within the same paragraph-- no connections or argument-- and then I saw some dry erase markers on the ledge of my whiteboard and I had a brilliant idea-- and it worked out perfectly . . . there was a red marker, and I said this represented the Jia Tolentino text and there was a blue marker and I said this represented the Anand Giridharadas text-- and I did not not mean to assign stereotypical gendered colors, but subliminally I did just that-- and then there was also-- serendiptously, miraculously- a PURPLE marker-- so I drew an essay that had a blue paragraph and a red paragraph-- and then I drew an essay that had alternating blue and red sentences and then I told them that those essays would not pass and to do synthesis, the paragraph had to be purple-- you had to blend the texts and make a new color of your own-- and you could control the darkness or lightness of the purple by how much of each text you used-- that was the artistry of the synthesis and then I felt quite accomplished with my spur-of-the-moment color-coded metaphor so I told the ladies (Stacey and O'Grady) and they laughed and laughed and laughed and told me they had been doing this activity for years-- and they had been telling ME to do it for years-- but I had ignored them-- they always had their kids color code their essays so they could see how much text they were using and then I told them I didn't do it as an activity-- I showed them after they finished and I was grading and they both concurred that I was an idiot (and they also said that telling the kids about shades of purple right after the first essay was way beyond them) and so I am going to pay more attention to the ladies because it seems they have some good ideas (but I still had a really good time in class, especially when I saw that there was one purple dry erase marker and I remembered that red and blue make purple and I still think my diagrams were spot-on).

Watch Your Step

Two teachers I know have fallen and broken limbs (both elbows, I think?) at school this year and I've heard these things come in threes so I'm watching my step (unlike Arvin and Josh, who hit the deck hard several times this morning during pickleball-- I'm of the mind that there's no reason to dive in pickleball unless you're going to hit a winner-- which rarely happens-- because the speed of play is so much faster than tennis . . . you're not going to have a chance to get back up and hit another shot, so why bother diving in the first place?)

Do You Know Your Dog's Date of Birth?

Another beautiful day in the Catskills-- and we ended where we began our vacation, at the Mud Puddle Coffee Roasters & Cafe-- we took a hike out of New Paltz and then got some delicious coffee and breakfast sandwiches (I recommend The James: 2 EGGS, BALSAMIC ONIONS, BACON, GOUDA, ON FRENCH PEASANT ROLL . . . it's the best fucking breakfast sandwich I've ever eaten) and then we hauled it on home because Lola has a UTI and she needed some antibiotics but to save time we had our vet call the prescription in to our local pharmacy so we didn't have to drive to Sayreville but it turns out that in this ever-changing world in which we're living when you try to save time, you might well create a chaotic imbroglio-- so I ended up spending a good hour at our pharmacy today, calling the vet, pacing the vitamin aisles, trying to recall my dog's birthday?-- because you need to give the date of birth to pick up a prescription-- but our vet couldn't get through because they called the wrong number but then when they called the right number-- which I provided-- it was busy and then-- after many phone calls to the vet by me . . . and-- I'm proud to say-- no losing of the patience-- I never lost my patience, I kept it on my person the whole time because my pharmacy was doing a great job and the ladies at the vet, well . . . they were far away and on the phone and I had to be very diplomatic with them-- but in the end, after the pharmacy had to call the vet office to confirm some handwriting and some other shit-- I finally got my ten dollars worth of Sulfamethoxazole and I also had a lovely conversation with the fourth pharmacist I spoke with-- because I spoke with all the pharmacists-- about how to get dogs to swallow pills . . . but seriously, do you know your dog's birthday?

Diet Soda, Beer . . . It's All the Same in the Catskills

We did several scenic hikes today and had a good meal at the Truss and Trestle but my favorite moment was when we were having a beer at the Creekside Bistro and a lady came in and sat adjacent to us at the bar and asked for a menu-- this was around 1 PM-- and when the bartender asked what she wanted to drink the lady said "a diet soda" and then, without skipping a beat, she said, "but what do you have on tap? Any Oktoberfest? Actually, I'll have a Smuttynose brown ale" and it made me wonder what turn her day was going to take because she switched from diet soda to beer.

 

Must Have Made a Wrong Turn at Albuquerque

This morning, my wife and I drove on some winding mountain roads to a winding hiking trail that looped around Onteora Lake-- and along the trail, we stumbled on an old car wreck-- there really should be a plaque explaining exactly what the hell happened.

Self-aware Dave Distracts Annoying Dave

I'm writing this sentence so I don't stress my wife out while she's packing for our trip to the Catskills . . . I tend to pack fast and loose and finish well before her and then I want to get in the car and get going! traffic is building up! I don't want to eat lunch at 2 PM! I want to go on a hike! it gets dark early now!-- but she's a bit more methodical than me (which is why we make a great team).

Dave Redefines Refrigerator Blindness

Like many men, I have difficulty finding things in the refrigerator and on our pantry shelves and I often require assistance from my wife to locate what I'm looking for-- but today at school, I took "refrigerator blindness" to an unprecedented level-- on my off period, I drove over to Mancini's and got two slices of pizza to-go and by the time I had driven back to the school-- the two slices riding shotgun, filling my car with delicious scents of brick-oven baked crust and sweet marinara sauce-- I was salivating and ravenous (I played 6:30 AM pickleball this morning and probably showered in raw sewage-- because did they really flush out the shower in the coach's room?) and so I entered the school with my slices and made a beeline for the English Office, grabbed a seat, and inhaled my pizza-- and then I heard someone mention the word "fridge," which is a sore subject because the administration confiscated all of our department mini-fridges and microwaves over the summer (because of a toaster fire) and I said, "Are we getting a fridge soon?" and the other five teachers in the room stared at me in disbelief and then I followed their collective stare to the utterly gigantic white refrigerator looming right next to the doorway that I had recently barged through with my pizza slices and my boss Jess said: "You know how men can't find stuff in the refrigerator? Dave can't even find the refrigerator!" and she was right.

Things I Learned After It Was Too Late Volume 427

When you're making a pizza, you need to inspect the cheese for mold before you enthusiastically toss it all over the sauce-covered crust-- tragic loss of a pizza-- but here's something I learned late in life (today, actually) but not too late . . . I just read on the internet that when you have a light coating of dry fallen leaves on your lawn, you should mulch them with the lawnmower instead of raking them-- and shredding leaves with an electric mower is far more fun than raking and bagging them.

90% Pleasant Bike Ride

Yesterday, to end our week of virtual teaching with something joyful, a few of us decided to head over to On the Border, a cheesy Mexican chain on Route 1 that offers a happy hour of cheap beer and free chips (no pay) and it was such a beautiful day that I decided to bike over-- and as the crow flies (if I had a kayak and some cliff-climbing gear) the restaurant is right across the Raritan River from my house-- less than a mile-- but to bike there I had to do a more circuitous three mile trip: I biked across the Albany Street Bridge to New Brunswick, then through Boyd Park-- along the river and south on Route 18-- and that section of the ride was quite lovely, then up the big hill to the Route 19 crossing into the Cook/Douglass section of Rutgers, where things got a little dicier-- there was the usual "you're not driving? fuck you" section of road where the sidewalk and the bike path disappeared-- but on the whole, it wasn't too bad-- there were a fair amount of college kids around, so plenty of pedestrians, and the cars weren't going too fast because of this-- but then things took a turn-- I wanted to head across the old Sears parking lot-- the quickest way to the restaurant, but I had forgotten that this was now a massive construction zone-- they are building an enormous mixed-use complex of town-homes, apartments, a grocery store, and shops-- but that was my only way to get to On the Border-- unless I looped around and biked on Route 1-- which would be suicidal-- so I followed a dump truck down a dirt road into a chaotic maelstrom of dirt piles, concrete and steel building frames, and construction equipment-- to my right an enormous metal plate floated in mid-air, held there by an enormous crane, and to my left were some completed town-homes . . . I was able to make my way across this site without being forcibly removed and then I went over a little temporary bridge that spanned a culvert and took my son's bike (a commuter bike, not a mountain bike) across a jagged rock field and finally I was able to enter the back of the On the Border parking lot-- I locked up my bike with a U-lock . . . I figured I might leave it there and pick it up the next morning because there was no way I was biking drunk through that site in the dark-- but luckily Catherine came to meet us, so I was able to throw the bike into the back of the Mazda and get it home safely-- and happy hour was a blast, it was nice to see Chantal, Terry, Liz and Stacey in the flesh and we all talked about how we had COVID-school flashbacks and would forget that the rest of the world was open while we were virtual teaching-- then once you got off the computer you'd realize . . . oh, the gym is open and we're not in a pandemic, our school is just a decrepit shithole.

Breaking Nose!

I know many of you have been following my attempts to turn off my phone alarm using my nose with bated breath-- wondering if my Android screen could disregard the "grease, sweat, and snot" on the tip of my nose and register an intentional touch-- and the answer is a resounding and miraculous YES! . . . but you can't "bop" the phone with your nose, you've got to squish your nose into the STOP button-- but that's not the big news of the day . . . the big news of the day is that black is white, up is down, and the deer in my neighborhood no longer behave like deer; on my way back up the hill from Donaldson, just after I successfully turned off my phone alarm with my nose, I noticed a few deer standing halfway down the hill-- and this is always the perfect scenario for my dog Lola-- I let her loose and she chases the deer down the hill into the park and then loops back up the hill to me and we walk home-- and she's always quite proud of herself for driving off the deer-- but we've had so many weird encounters with intractable and obdurate deer blocking our path that when I let her loose, she jogged ten yards up the sidewalk, towards our house . . . in the opposite direction of the deer . . .  she was like: no fucking way am I dealing with these insane creatures-- so that is the big news: the deer, they have no fear and they have effectively reversed the order of the natural world.

A Proboscis Endeavor

If you're walking the dog in the cold-- with lightweight cotton gloves on-- and your phone alarm goes off, if you press the "STOP" button while wearing your gloves the phone won't recognize your fingertip . . . and, as I found out this morning, the phone also won't acknowledge the tip of your nose-- and I must have looked pretty stupid, repeatedly bonking my phone into my nose, trying to press that button-- before I finally took my damn glove off and silenced the stupid thing (maybe Apple phones recognize nose tips?)

Virtual School + Halloween Candy = Nap Time

Another wonderful day of online teaching-- accompanied by a proliferation of Halloween candy, which is an unavoidable temptation when you're talking to a screen-- but there was one highlight and I thank my colleagues (and the candid and comical WhatsApp English teacher chat) because they warned me that admin was popping into virtual classes . . . and they weren't popping in at the beginning of class, when they could catch us setting up creative lessons; making Channels and break-out rooms and other virtual groups; communicating instructions clearly, and all that good stuff-- they were popping in for the last five minutes to see if teachers were ending early or teaching online until the bitter end of class . . . so I was prepared and told my students, that had some work to do in the Channels, to come back to the General meeting with five minutes left and-- lo and behold-- an administrator showed up in the waiting room and I let him in while I was teaching the most English teacher thing in the universe in the chat-- MLA format citations and punctuation-- and kids were asking questions on how to cite oddball situations-- quotes within quotes and all that-- and I was demonstrating all this in the chat . . . it was a great moment in American education-- because generally, whenever an administrator walks in your room, virtual or not, even if you've just executed the best lesson in the world, they come in at some weird awkward moment and you get all pissed off that no one ever sees you teaching properly . . . anyway, virtual school still sucked but at least there was one nice moment, and once it was over, I ate a bunch of Halloween candy and took a nap, and now I'm off to the pickelball scouts for my third day in a row-- I miss early morning basketball and I can't believe we did this kind of shit for over a year, I think I've erased most of it from my memory (but luckily it lives on the blog!)