This morning when I was biking home (on my wife's bike because mine got stolen, probably because my younger son left it out in front of the house, unlocked) I saw my younger son working for our neighbor Gwen, doing some digging; he was wearing his brand new tennis shoes, so I told him to go home and put on his boots, as his tennis shoes were for tennis only and he was ruining the soles-- plus it's much better to have hard soles when you kick a shovel into the dirt; he took the bike home, I chatted with Gwen for a bit, and then he came running back and I was like "where's the bike?" but he had left it in the backyard, so I walked home and when I entered the house, it was full of shit-- Ian had tracked a bunch of dog shit into the house on his tennis shoe-- so I had to clean all that up, he ruined a carpet and scattered shit on the various floors, and he had left out the taco meat, the cheese, and the salsa-- total mess; so I cleaned the carpet and his tennis shoe and did my best to find all the shit and wipe that up as well; then I noticed there were several large flies in the house, and when I went upstairs I noticed (after chastising Ian for have three-- three!-- wet towels on his bedroom floor) that my older son not only had his window open but the screen as well-- I think this was so he could see the bird nest more clearly below his window, but he never closed it . . . there's no moral to this sentence, nor a resolution or ending, because this shit is just going to keep on happening, over and over and over.
Dave Has Some Reading to Do . . .
All the books in my queue appeared at the library today-- so I've got some serious reading to do . . . feel free to join my book club-- I'm hoping to finish four of the six before they need to be returned.
Hybrid . . . Ugh
I'm having a tough time selecting a hybrid bike (my bike got stolen) as I have to sift through a myriad of models and features and price points, and I'm also having a tough time with hybrid teaching-- I've gotten to the point (as have most teachers) where I genuinely loathe the virtual kids-- for various reasons, some founded and some unfounded: they don't turn their cameras on, they ghost, they lag, they restart their computers, it takes a million clicks to interact with them, there's no reason for them to be home anymore, they take forever to answer questions, they disappear, they don't give off any energy or body language . . . it's nice to have some kids in person, they're usually fun and energetic-- or at least annoying in the normal teenage ways-- but having kids in class makes it that much harder to care at all about the little student icons on the tiny laptop screen . . . it's time for this year (and hybrid instruction) to end.
I Get It, I'd Jump Too
We had some coastal flooding in Donaldson Park this weekend, and the surging brackish tide left some fish in the park, which expired and baked in the sun yesterday-- my dog and I stumbled on one of these gape-jawed horrific dried fish today on our walk and Lola, who was blithely sniffing along, nearly jumped out of her skin when she was suddenly confronted with a dead-fish face . . . which I totally understand.
Heart Attacks and Stolen Bikes
Over the course of this rainy Memorial Day Weekend, the boys and I watched the weirdest Seinfeld episode ever-- "The Heart Attack"-- I truly do not remember having seen it . . . Larry David makes a cameo in a B-movie, wearing a spacesuit and screaming the line "flaming globes of Sigmund!" and George turns eggplant purple after drinking some herbal tea, and-- much more unfortunate-- my venerable Cannondale mountain bike was stolen out of my backyard, from the bike shed . . . or that's what we think-- unless Ian left it in front of the house . . . but he's 110% sure that he put it back in the shed-- and we were home all weekend (except yesterday we went to a bbq) so it must have been stolen yesterday when we were out-- but we left the back door open so Lola could go in and out . . . it's truly weird, I can't imagine someone coming all the way into the backyard and finding the bike shed unless they knew about it-- totally weird-- but the police are on the case, so if you've got any leads, let me know.
Do You Live in Fantasyland?
The Shape of Water
Watching Grass Grow is Like Watching Paint Dry
The Dreaded Pusher . . . or Seven of Them?
Disaster in the state tennis tournament yesterday, my kids' team got ousted in the first round by Florence, the seven seed (Highland Park was the two seed in Group 1 Central Jersey) and the entire team played the moonball/pusher style of tennis, which works pretty well on a hot day when you're under pressure; our doubles teams figured it out and won, but Alex and Ian lost and it all came down to Boyang in the third set-- he played valiantly (especially since Alex and Boyang rushed over from the AP Lang test and started playing without warming up. . . they both lost their first sets) but he lost in the final windy moments before the thunderstorm; the kid Ian played never hit a passing shot or an overhead-- all lobs and dinks, and while he had a decent first serve if he missed then he quickly did an underhanded drop serve-- as did the rest of the team; they all played this up-the-middle lob style-- it's a strategy like parking the bus in soccer, it works but it's ugly-- and they also made some questionable calls (another advantage of this style, as you don't play any shots near the lines and you wait for your opponent to either hit it out, or nearly out and then you call it out) so I have to play Ian and Alex all summer using this totally annoying tactic so they learn to disrupt it-- it's not easy, you can't hit side to side as you finally go insane and hit balls out, you have to hit drop shots and dinks, draw the person to the net and lob them, or go halfway to the net and take weak shots out of the air . . . this was a sad end to a good season and certainly a frustrating learning experience-- this moonball tactic exists and needs to be reckoned with (but wow is it borning and ugly).
You'll Never Leave the Woods
In the Woods, Irish mystery author Tana French's first novel is one you will never forget-- it revolves around two separate mysteries regarding dead children, a deeply dysfunctional and traumatized detective, and a number of fascinating relationships . . . and while it can be bleak and dark and frustrating, the writing and the memories of childhood are beautiful-- it's a dense book, in that way it reminds me of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but the narrator's absolute mental disintegration and his candid description of exactly that make this book something special: nine trowels out of ten.
Duh
My son Alex solved an easy version of this famous riddle today: Alex wanted to go to tennis practice early to practice his kick serve with his friend, but he usually drives his brother Ian-- but Ian wasn't home from school yet (Ian goes in-person, Alex is still remote) so Alex was going to ride his bike to the park but bring his set of keys to the van and I was going to drive Ian to the park and put MY bike in the back of the van-- so then when I got to the park, I could bike home and then Alex could throw his bike in the back of the van and drive himself, his bike and Ian home . . . but then Alex thought of an easier way; Alex rode MY bike to the park, then I drove Ian to the park, then I got on my bike and rode it home.
Stacey Turns Forty
Getting old is knowing when to drink five beers instead of ten (and the ladies at the engagement party we saw at The Homestead in Morristown had NOT learned this lesson yet).
Spring Means Extra Samaras
Kids Think of the Best Shit
My wife teaches fifth-grade math and she takes lots of outdoor mask breaks with her in-person students and one of them noticed that the purple ball with little spikes that she brought to school resembles the novel coronavirus and so now during mask breaks the kids play a dodgeball gamed called "covid," and if you get pegged with the purple spiky ball, then you've got covid and need to be vaccinated.
You Might Want to Read the Latter . . .
Klara and the Sun, by the masterful Kazuo Ishiguro, is a profound (and profoundly melancholy) take on obsolescence and AI . . . if you want a funny, poignant and upbeat version of this story, try Set My Heart to Five by Simon Stephenson.
Stop Badgering Badgers
"Badgering" someone isn't behaving like a badger-- it's behaving like a dog during the sport of "badger-baiting," when the dog badgers the badger to death . . . according to this episode of Short Wave, badgers aren't particularly tenacious or annoying, in fact, they live together in communal warrens for generations-- badger "setts" have many rooms and dozens of entrances and denizens that live there . . . the sett can take up hundreds of meters; there's also a segment in the podcast about "badger butter" which I will not detail, too gross.
Dave and Cat Reopen NYC!
Catherine and I went to the city for a couple of nights to celebrate 21 years of marriage-- we didn't do much for our 20th Anniversary because of the pandemic-- but (thanks to the vaccine) NYC is open for business and now is a great time to visit:
1) hotels are cheap, we stayed at the Arlo Soho-- great location and a hip rooftop bar;
2) we hiked the entire lower Hudson River Westside Pier and park system down to the Battery and Stone Street . . . this is NOT the NYC of my youth-- they are gentrifying and constructing one pier after another, shade and courts and fields and chairs and trees and a little island! . . . you could walk the High Line across to the water and then make your way down along the river for a great day;
3) NYC is the right amount of crowded right now . . . not too many tourists, but lots of rich and beautiful people running and walking and hanging out . . . people that just did not look like normal people, no wrinkles, very skinny, very good looking, fashionable dressed . . . everyone looks sort of famous in this section of the city;
4) we went to two Greenwich Village comedy shows-- the upstairs of the very famous Comedy Cellar and the Comedy Store . . . both were fairly intimate because they're not packing people in and both shows were great, five or six comics getting up and doing ten to fifteen minutes each . . . superfun;
5) we ate outside and inside and drank at bars both outside and inside . . .
6) hiked around the perimeter and then cut through the city to get back to SoHo;
7) we ate a cronut . . . it was kind of gross;
8) and ate some vegetarian buffalo wings made of cauliflower at The Underdog, which-- surprisingly-- were not gross;
9) and lucked out with the weather . . .
10) the kids didn't destroy the house while we were gone, so that was a win;
11) we saw an actor we knew but we couldn't identify him, nor can we remember what show he is from . . . so we'll never know who he is . . . I thought he was Steve from Coupling;
12) the only odd moment of our trip was when a dude was grifting on the train headed back to Jersey and the door's closed before he could get off and he had a meltdown next to us . . . I was about to tell him to just go see the conductor but decided he wasn't really rational when he started yelling "MOTHERFUCKER!" and punching the seat, so I just continued to read my book and he got up and I think he got off in Seacaucus.
Tennis Notes/Sibling Notes
My boys had a tough match today-- they were playing Wardlaw Hartridge, an undefeated private school with a very good team, but it was a match that they had an outside shot of winning-- very outside-- and Alex (at second singles) was up 5-2 in the first set against a kid who was a better player than him and Ian (at first singles) was playing one of the better players in the county . . . and Ian was down 3-1 but hanging in and Alex took a look at the other matches and told Ian that he "had to win"-- because they play next to each other-- and Ian and Alex started bickering and there may have been some profanity . . . which the kid Ian was playing thought was directed at him . . . but it was directed Alex-- so then there was an awkward stoppage while all this was sorted out and it did not help Alex or Ian-- Alex ended up squandering his lead and losing his set in a tiebreaker . . . Ian lost the first set but then came around and led most of the second set before losing 7-5-- I was really proud of him for making it a match, and both my kids learned a valuable lesson; tennis is an individual sport and you can't be concerned about what's going on next to you . . . you've just got to focus on your match and see how it all turns out once you're done (they get another shot at this team on Monday, it would take a miracle, but maybe they'll figure it out and win).
The Wind Got in My Eyes
I'd love to write a sentence but I can't concentrate because my dishwasher is too loud.