Relaxing summer so far: the kids take the cars to their various job so all that's left for me to do is pull my training sled up and down the hill by my house, work on my podcast, watch Wimbledon, bike to the pool, swim a few laps, pass out with a book in a lounge chair, then bike home (my wife seems to have a bunch of other stuff she's occupied with, but I try not to let it interrupt my focus).
Trip to Possumtown!
My wife and I took a road trip to the Possumtown Firehouse last night for what I thought was going to be a two hour CPR class-- I need to update my certificate for coaching-- but the course also included First Aid and the lady running the class was a bit disorganized and a bit tangential, so we were there from 6 PM until nearly 10 PM, learning about tourniquets and nosebleeds and impalements and all kinds of things that make me dizzy-- luckily there was a large couch in the very comfy Possumtown Volunteer Firehouse (the lady's dad was the chief) and this place really had small town firehouse character: a big TV and a kegerator and a soda machine that you could just open and take the soda out and a fish tank with some big fish in it (I watched these fish when the videos got too graphic about blood) and the class was quite intimate, just me, my wife, and a young dude-- it was kind of stream-of-consciousness, with lots of anecdotes from the teacher's EMT experiences and the main thing I learned-- which no other class was so blunt about-- was that you don't need to worry about breaking someone's ribs when you're doing CPR because they are CLINICALLY DEAD . . . once she put it that way, it assuaged a lot of my fears about pressing too hard or whatever, you're literally trying to resurrect someone when you're doing those compressions (and we always have an AED nearby when I coach, so hopefully that machine will do the trick . . . although if someone like me goes down, you'll need the razor in the accessory kit top deal with my excessive chest hair).
Youngsters are Cute . . . But F%$% 'em
Youngsters ARE cute-- as evidenced by the baby raccoon that Lola and I saw cavorting in a tree at the park-- and they the future, of course, but I was still happy to see Novak Djokovic come back from two sets down against the young Jannik Sinner and watch Nadal finish off Taylor Fritz, who is more than ten years his junior . . . I've talked to quite a few people who are sick of seeing those old pros win over and over (with the possibility of a Federer return?) but I'm rooting for them-- because when they start losing, it means we're all that much closer to obscurity and death.
Impressive Stuff
Impressive amount of people at the Rutgers pool yesterday for Fourth of July; impressive amount of meats served, not so impressive performance by Alec and I in the balloon toss (I blame the overfilled balloon), very impressive amounts of lantern fly nymphs on the trees, tables, and one old guy; impressive amount of fireworks on display from Connell's back deck-- perhaps we could see displays from North Brunswick, South Brunswick, Milltown, Sayreville and Somerville but it was hard to tell . . . Cat and I returned home stuffed and tired and I was glad to get back to the routine today: I went to the gym, then biked to the pool-- which was empty-- did some laps, passed out on a lounge chair while reading my book, woke up and biked home (I don't understand how people bike enormous distances-- my butt hurts when I ride a few miles).
Right on the Note
No irony at our town fireworks display last night: they blasted Katy Perry's song "Firework" as the shit blew up-- and some nine-year-old behind me remarked, "this song is perfect for this."
Sort of Relaxing Saturday
It could have been a relaxing Saturday . . . but I got up early and did some work on my new podcast-- it's called We Defy Augury, I'm looking for guests, and it's up and running-- you just have to read something you've read and talk about what the reading makes you think about-- and then I played 90 minutes of two-on-two basketball with my older son and a couple guys at the Piscataway Y, and then I collapsed on the couch-- ostensibly to relax and watch some Wimbledon . . . but the featured match was Nick Kyrgios vs. Stefano Tsitsipas and it was NOT relaxing-- I was really rooting for Tsitsipas and he was trying his best to deal with Kyrgios's antics but Kyrgios spent the entire match bickering with the line judge and talking to himself like a lunatic and playing at a breakneck pace (and serving the hell out of the ball) and while Tsitsipas had his chances, he just couldn't break Kyrgios's menacing serve.
The Joy of Joy
I'm starting to understand Joy Williams a bit more-- I just finished The Quick and the Dead and her fragmented moments and motifs are starting to make sense; Annabel, Alice, and Corvus are three precocious girls linked by grief-- all of them have lost parents to terrible tragedy-- and they wander through a nameless desert town-- volunteering at a grim nursing home, forging strange relationships with older people, navigating a big game hunter's taxidermy museum . . . and all through, the living and the dead interact, and man and nature push against each other in strange oppressive ways . . . once again, the world is on the verge of something apocalyptic and these girls realize this more than the adults who are blinder by their petty thoughts.
Victory . . . But At What Cost? At What Cost?
I beat Dr. Michael Atkin today at tennis 7-5-- it was a grueling match and I rarely get the best of him (he's the quickest 40 year old this side of the Raritan) and then I had to bike home from the match (because Ian took the van to work) and I saw my wife's car parked on the road but she wasn't in the house or the yard (though the shed was open) and I yelled around to see if she was home, but she wasn't inside-- and then a few minutes later she poked her head in the house and said, "You really didn't see me painting the front porch? You biked right past me? RIGHT past me!" and she was correct-- I didn't see her, or the entire painting set-up-- the match took away all my noticing skills (and I don't have many to begin with) and if the police would have interrogated me I would have swore up and down, on my grandmother's grave, that my wife was NOT in the driveway-- and that's why I don't believe anything anyone says they saw or didn't see because while people may be great at seeing and hitting a bouncy yellow ball, they're not so great at seeing other stuff.
If You Live In Jersey (and Teach) Check This Out
Holy shit . . . my wife saved us a boatload of money by switching from Liberty Mutual Insurance to Teachers Insurance through Plymouth Rock-- she actually thought it was some kind of scam (but it turns out it's less than half the price for the same specs . . . nuts).
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).
What the Hell is a Harrow?
Reading Joy Williams is like scrambling up a muddy embankment . . . but there is no top of the cliff, it's all scrambling; Harrow is set at a cryptic boarding school with strange slogans and then the school closes and then the main character Khristen-- if you could call her that-- finds herself in an odd post-apocalyptic world, a world that has gone beyond the "verge" that we've been at for so long and falls into a slightly more chaotic state-- there are strange episodes at a bowling alley, where a cake with a depiction of Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son offends a youngster, and then a long strange section about seditious geriatrics living around a toxic lake, plotting revenge against ecologically corrupt humans . . . but these plans come to naught, raising the question: why aren't old people more violent and rebellious? they've got nothing to lose, right? . . . I think Joy Williams might be a modern-day Kafka, and she refers to him-- I don't think this book is her best work-- I was more compelled by The Changeling and now I'm making my way through The Quick and the Dead and that one has some roots and rocks in the mud to hang on to, but it does feel a bit like reading Pynchon, except the vocabulary is right there and easier to ascertain and comprehend-- each sentence a little masterpiece, but how do you connect them together . . . or should you?
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!
People Dreamed of Ohio
I read David McCullough's The Pioneers: The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West on my Kindle, in dreamish fragments, late at night when I could not sleep-- and this dreamlike state is appropriate for a place that stern New Englanders warned about-- they didn't want folks to fall prey to "Ohio Quixotism," but according to McCullough, after some initial despair and violence and death-- due to war between the settlers and the Native American tribes-- things settled down and became heroically civil, especially in Marietta-- the center of the narrative-- and education and experimentation and agriculture and society ruled the day, and all this without slavery, and eventually, the trains and the riverboats connected Ohio to many other parts of the country but this is a great reminder of what occurred before these modern technologies-- and while McCullough doesn't focus on this, also what civilization was lost when the settlers moved in and displaced the indigenous people . . . the book really does get across what an epic and wild and life-changing adventure it was to travel what is now a day's journey by car-- back then it was a place from which you might never return.
Softball Drivers
There's a big softball tournament in the park by my house and some softball parent from South Jersey passed out at the wheel of her Jeep, barrelled through the wood barrier in the parking lot, and knocked the community garden fence down-- and she was headed straight for my wife's garden!-- luckily, her car stopped and a county employee ran over, turned the car off, and got her out of the vehicle . . . apparently she didn't eat breakfast.
Still in the Ending Mode
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).
A Great Father's Day Weekend
Saturday was the big $25 dollar a head random draw cornhole tournament at my cousin Tim's father-in-law's house in North Brunswick and while I was hoping to win two tournaments in a row, it was not to be-- I thought my partner, Manny, might have some potential but after the first round, he couldn't put a bag on the board, but the tournament turned out well anyway, especially for Father's Day weekend-- as both my kids were playing (I subsidized their fee, with the promise that they would pay me back if they won money) and they ended up placing second and third-- Ian was playing with a guy named Chad, who was a North Brunswick alum a year younger than me-- and they eventually lost to Alex's team-- Alex drew the same partner as last year (who might be Manny's brother?) and while he was a disaster last year, this year his guy figured out how to put a few on the board and Alex was on fire-- I had to square off against him and we lost a tight one, which was fine with me, because then Alex and Ian had to play in the semi-finals and they had a close match but most importantly-- the best Father's Day gift-- they were totally civil and didn't get into a fist fight-- so they both made some cash and I got $50 of the $75 I laid out for all of us to play, a win/win, and then I had a wonderful Father's Day-- the kids gave me a framed picture of the tennis team, perhaps the last time I coach both of them together (although we've been playing some pick-up basketball at the park and I still have to tell them where to go) and this is all a reminder that I'm a very lucky dad, with a beautiful loving wife and two athletic healthy kids (and a fairly well-behaved dog) and I've got to remember to enjoy that.
In the Money
Another fabulous EBHS end-of-the-year party: the Victory beer was free, the pool was warm, and Kristyn and I finally won the corn-hole tournament-- we usually make it to the finals, and then-- because we have over-served ourselves on free beer-- we collapse . . . but not this time!
Two Things I Learned Late in Life
Here are two things I learned very recently:
1) leftover wings are delicious if you reheat them on the grill;
2) when you're in the shower and you depress one nostril with your index finger and shoot snot out the other nostril, even if you aim for the drain, the snot might end up on your body so if you don't spray yourself thoroughly after you do this, you might get out of the shower with some snot on you.
It Took A While
My brother, an accomplished jazz pianist, has always sung the praises of Steely Dan, but I never got it-- until today, in the car . . . I put on "Aja" and I really dug it, so you never know when your taste will change (and unless you go back to stuff, you'll really never know if your taste changes).
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