Sam-I-Was

Legend has it that when I was just a young boy in short pants I was a huge fan of Dr. Seuss. And who isn't? So one day my mother, who found her own kids amusing even in a time before blogs, made me a big plate of green eggs using food coloring. If the storyteller is to be believed then I took one look at that plate of emerald embryos and ran shrieking in terror from the room.

One of The Quartet's favorite books is Green Eggs and Ham and I read it to them all the time as part of their Three Books At Bedtime routine. I still enjoy the story and I'm thrilled that the kids do as well, but someone really should address the 800-lb. fox in the box in the room. See, my kids, just like the protagonist, could not, would not, try new foods either. And this isn't lost on them. They realize, and comment upon, the fact that this is the point of the story, that this ... whatever he is ... doesn't like green eggs and ham simply because he's never tried them before. But they won't admit to their own culinary trepidations or that meat and eggs are one of the best sources for irony. They just won't admit that they're all chicken. Chicken nuggets only, of course.

Man Solo

Kristy and the kids just spent a weekend away, leaving me alone with the keys to the car. I should tell you what went on around here but I’m too tired to couch it in a witty story or lesson in raising kids, so you’re on your own with that. I’m just going to list what I did, but with the days of the weekend in bold to make it seem exciting and important. Read on …

Friday: I’m starting with Friday, the day before they left town, because that’s the day I learned that Kate Beckinsale will be coming to Memphis in a month to film a movie, thus hastening the end of my marriage. I’m so excited! That night we went to SAM and The Admiral’s for Cocktail Hour which turned out to be the best yet. There were bloggers and business owners, writers and carpenters, midwives and musicians, boat builders, an archeologist and … gasp … an electrician. Oh, and a bunch of kids.

Saturday: I said goodbye to my family and watched them as they cast off, heading for the faraway lands of east Tennessee. And then I went to work. After work I watched The Good Shepherd and ate chicken parmesan and drank wine. Lots of wine. I did not win the lottery. Again.

Sunday: I cleaned the boys’ room. For five hours. Why did it take five hours? Because it takes five hours to clean my kids’ rooms, that’s why. Afterwards I was exhausted and starving, so I ate turkey and dressing alone at Dino’s followed by a trip to Lowe’s and then to purchase Thelonius Monk’s Solo Monk which, for some reason, I didn’t own already. I watched Woody Allen’s Scoop that night with Scarlet Johansson. She was in the movie, I didn’t actually watch it with her, Kristy, she’s never returned one of my phone calls. Then I fell asleep by 10:30 because once I turned the movie off it was just so very quiet in my house and because that’s how crazy I can get while the family is away.

Monday: I ran the AutoZone/Chik-Fil-A 5k in 28:11 which I was pretty happy with considering I’d trained all week with Hendrick’s and cigars. This was Labor Day which means cookouts and beer and friends and memories, except my family was gone and my friends let me down with the cooking out and the friends and the memories. So I went to Celtic Crossing by myself instead and had a corned beef sandwich and a Guinness, did the Sunday crossword and watched soccer. I also ran into an old friend from the paper, Stephanie H., who was with one of my kids’ teachers who I met for the first time. We discussed … phonics?

Sitting at a bar, watching sports on TV and drinking a beer alone is something I haven’t done in a long, long time. Those few hours alone gave me time to think about how things used to be, years ago before kids and so much responsibility. It gave me time to talk to other adults and not have to worry about whether a child needed to go to the bathroom or was choking on his or her chicken finger. But more than anything it gave me time to think about how much I actually missed my family that weekend. Sure, the house gets quiet, pleasantly quiet, but then when I do or think of something really funny, there’s nobody to tell and impress, and what’s a showman without his audience? He’s usually asleep.

The Cat Is Away ...

Kristy and The Quartet left town 17 hours ago. How crazy can it get around here? The toilet seat has been left up for two hours now.

Born Free

Alright, listen up, people. Our fugitive has been on the run for nine hours. Average foot speed over toys, spilled milk and soiled clothes barring injuries is 1200 sq ft-per-hour. That gives us a radius of six rooms. What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in that area. Checkpoints go up at fifteen feet. Your fugitive's name is Harpo. Go get him.

That's right, the hamster is on the loose. We're not sure how, but his cage door was open this morning and before the search even commenced C was looking to blame somebody. But that seemed counterproductive so he just ate a waffle and watched Curious George instead. The hunt, I assume, will begin in earnest tonight and I'm sure Harpo will be found, whether by sight or by smell, eventually. The Quartet, if they truly care for this thing, better hope I don't find it first.

Overheard In The Living Room

S: Daddy has two big, round circles on his chest.
JP: They're called nipples.
S: You mean like a cow?!

A Lust For Glory And A Tape Machine

At 15 months, GK, just as her siblings before her, has found that her favorite rung on that double helix is the one where vocalizing is kept. Her vocabulary has grown exponentially of late and her favorite thing is to point at your face and say "Mao! Mao!" or "No!" or "Aye!" She has her facial anatomy down. She's very smart, and very cute.

For My Sisters

I don't do the grocery shopping. Or rather, I don't do the bulk of it. The grocery shopping I do is the after-grocery-shopping grocery shopping - stopping on the way home from work to get milk or bread or Ovaltine. I can't be trusted even with this because a cool third of everything I pick up will be the wrong something, the wrong brand, the wrong size, just the wrong thing. If I'm sent for six items then two will be wrong, nine then three are wrong. You get the idea.

Tonight I was sent for three items and, you guessed it, one was wrong. Instead of the usual Kraft Parmesan Cheese which, I suspect, has no cheese in it whatsoever, I picked up actual grated Parmesan. The kids who eat spaghetti in this house eat it with only butter and Parmesan (or, spaghetti cheese as it's called [I know, I know, no red gravy? I'm not really sure these kids are mine.]) So as the pasta with its inferior superior cheese was being refused by little people who don't even contribute to the bottom line around here, I was catching the blame. In my defense I raised my voice with "As long as all these kids are going to eat on spaghetti is butter and cheese is it too much to ask that they eat butter and cheese in a couple of decent rooms and a bath?!" That's right, I channeled George Bailey, which I suppose is better than channeling Jack Torrance.

I do this a lot, actually, channeling this wonderful, indelible movie character. Unfortunately, however, it's not usually the good-natured, optimistic dreamer who longs to help his friends and clients and be the best family man he can. It's usually the George Bailey who trashes his scale model suspension bridge and doesn't understand why they have to have all these kids in the first place. But I'm trying. I hope to be the responsible George Bailey someday, the George Bailey with all the character, and especially the George Bailey who gets all that cash dumped on his table and a peck on the cheek from Violet. Va-voom!

Who Do I Think I Am?

I was suddenly struck by the pretentiousness of my bedside table and thought I might share it with you. It is the duty of The Quartet to keep me grounded, humble, broken, if you will. According to the landscape of this small territory of mine, they are failing, miserably.



The photo above is one of the piece of furniture next to the piece of furniture where all the magic happens. That's right ladies, my bedside table is also next to my desk, where I write most of this witty blog. On the table you can see a copy of Woody Allen's Mere Anarchy, Jazz Modernism From Ellington and Armstrong to Matisse and Joyce by Alfred Appel Jr., a NetFlix DVD envelope swaddling The Dick Cavett Show: Comic Legends: Disc 2, a copy of The New Yorker and the CD Elvis Costello and Bill Frisell Deep Dead Blue Live 25 June 95. I have very intelligent furniture.

Incidentally, the entire rest of the house is full of Pop Tarts, dinosaurs, Legos and lead-based toys from China.

I Made This

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about creativity, about writing mostly, but mixed in there is photography, sculpting and some sketching. But mostly writing. I’ve been reading The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby, one of my favorite writers. This book is a collection of the column he does on reading for Believer magazine, so he’s one of my favorite readers as well. He puts me in the mind to read and he reveres reading as it should be. It’s good to know that there are others out there who get the same rush from a good book, from just the idea of starting a new book, that I get. Recently, too, I’ve spoken with a few people close to me who have encouraged me to write. Not just to write, though, but to write and publish. This is a very nice sentiment and I’m truly touched by their confidence in me. However, it resonates as well as if they were encouraging me to jump off the Sterick Building and fly. Would I love to fly? Of course I would, who wouldn’t? But the jumping is the simple part, anyone can jump. The flying? Well, that’s a whole different matter. Not many have pulled that off.

With my thoughts of creativity, I naturally have thought of my kids, because they always seem to creep up into my thoughts, even when all I want to do is think about myself for just a minute. It’s like when I was growing up and in Catholic school and we were taught that God thinks of us constantly and that if He ever stopped thinking of us then we would cease to exist. That’s a lot to think about and a lot of pressure. What’s to keep God, and all that’s on His plate with making the weather and creating fish and seeing to it that all those R&B singers win Grammys, thinking of a scrawny 10-year-old boy? So I taught myself to juggle and painted pictures and I did a little soft shoe to keep him entertained, to keep me in his mind so I wouldn’t disappear. I became creative. Much like this, my kids do things to stay in my mind. They leave half-eaten food laying around for me to find - I always think of them when I see this. They smear toothpaste around various surfaces of the bathroom, they leave lights on, they yell. They yell a lot. So I never stop thinking of them, and I don’t possess enough faith to think that they would go away even if I did.

I want for my kids to be creative. I don’t necessarily need for them to make a living with their creativity, as far as being an artist or musician, though I do know that there is plenty of call for creativity in business, especially entrepreneurship. I would simply like for them to have the outlet of creating something, something they can take pride in and that will make them happy. A feeling that no one can take away from them.

I can only imagine what each of The Quartet’s talent would be, where their creativity would lie. C enjoys both drawing and writing, but is far too literal for a fine art gig. I see him maybe working for Lucasfilm or Pixar, some place where he’ll be called upon to make a character come to life through the magic of counting pixels and equalizing bandwidth, or however they do that stuff. JP will sing, act and dance. He’ll be on the stage, on the screen and, if it’s at all possible in the future, he will wow Tom Snyder on late night television. JP is our entertainer. S, if she ends up in the entertainment world, will be a studio chief or an agent. I suppose that’s creative. Perhaps her talent will be recognizing others’ talents and then exploiting them for financial gain. I’m cool with that. GK I’m not so sure about, she’s still awfully young and really short. I’d say maybe a model, but the idea of that makes my palms sweat, so we won’t even consider that just yet.

In re-reading what I’ve just written I see that I’ve blatantly paired the kids’ talents with possible careers when I said that all I wanted was for them to be happy doing whatever it is they’re good at. I suppose, deep down, I’m hoping that what makes them happy is making a lot of money with what their good at to spend on me. They’re more than welcome to spend it creatively, too. Shoes, a boat, Caribbean homes, stocks, another boat, trips to New York, whatever it takes to make them happy making me happy.

I come from an inspired family, whether it was drawing, painting, engineering or writing, and I feel that there is something in me waiting to be let out. And while writing this blog is a nice outlet, a release of steam like the valve on a pressure cooker, it’s not the full-on geyser of a novel, short story, the ol’ soft shoe or a painting. I suppose it will come to me one day. One day I’ll have the time to sit down and explore, perhaps I’ll discover it as my kids are realizing their own artistic expressions. It may be right here at this tiny desk, in front of this iBook G4 or, hopefully, on that 46-foot sloop S will buy for me with the sweat from some hungry, struggling actor.

As Seen On The WWW

Some of my people and I can be seen here, here, here and here.

At Thirty-Seven

Things that happened to me yesterday:

• Was given a cake at lunch.
• Received three books and two CDs.
• Had lunch with my sister.
• Friends came to my house to toast me, but there was no toast. They just drank my alcohol and left.
• Received an E-mail from someone who could change the course my life is currently on.
• Ate pizza.
• Talked on the phone to my mother, an aunt, an uncle, my father and my sister.
• Watched The Quartet run around the house playing with Monistat applicators (I was told by one of my editors to explain here that the Monistat was purchased for GK's diaper rash or something, which is why the applicators were unused).
• Decreed that the kids should greet me every day with "Buon giorno, Papa!"

814

Nineteen Seventy
At St. Joseph's Hospital
Mimi kissed the doc

S Is For Spirit

I’ve written here many times, and have entertained friends and family for hours on end, about the toughness of S. She’s mean, she’s stubborn, she can be ruthless. At only 4-years-old she has her brothers, her friends and, at times, her parents walking on egg shells, giving her a wide berth and skirting the jagged edges of her impulsive rage. But here’s something I know: S is not so tough. My wiry little blonde who can’t seem to break 40 lbs. is mostly bark, largely smoke and no fire. Sure, I’ve seen her rain terror down on her siblings, I’ve borne witness to her striking down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy her, and I’ve heard her argue toe to toe with someone 30 years her senior. But I’ve also seen this little girl hide when someone addresses her, been there when her shyness – my shyness – takes hold. I’ve comforted her when her feelings were hurt and she’s curled up in my lap just to be close to her daddy.

S can take care of herself if need be, of that I have no doubt. But tomorrow I send her off to her first day of kindergarten, her first day of real, day in and day out, school. And though I’ve had this first day twice now with C and JP, this is my little girl and I know this will be the most difficult yet. And even as I write this I’m not sure if I’m talking about a problem for her or for me. I’m so familiar with her trigger-like defenses, her prickly veneer and willingness to argue a point until accession, but I also know how she shrinks from attention and of her confusion by authority. Likewise, I have experience in leaving the kids – leaving them somewhere in the mornings has been my dire task for nine years, so I’ve created this persona of myself as a parent who doesn’t really mind leaving his kids someplace, and an image of his daughter as a little girl who, among all of his other children, is a child confident in her own survival skills. But we’re neither all the time. Truth be told, we’re both a little scared. For her because tomorrow is the unknown, it’s School, school with a capital S, with all its homework, schedules and order. As I sit here in the early morning, writing, thinking, sipping my coffee and smoking my cigar while she sleeps somewhere nearby, I realize that my greatest worry isn’t that S is scared of her first day or uncertain about just what is going on, but that tomorrow is the first day for something that will last for at least the next 12 years. And my greatest concern for my little girl is that they will break her spirit with their order and their desks and their conduct grades. That the beast that is the City School System will do what they strive to do best, create a tepid child.

The little girl S is now, with her faults, with her concoction of sweetness and callousness, is the woman I want her to become so that I don’t have to worry about her wherever she may end up, though I know I always will.

Don't Make Me Come Over There

This morning was the first morning back to taking the kids to The Island for the sitter. Today she has all four, God bless her, but next week the older kids will be in school. The morning went fairly smoothly before leaving the house with only minimal crying from GK at her mother not being on hand when she awoke. Rousing the other kids from their late night summer reverie went as well as could be expected with C and S finally waking up just before time to walk out the door. We loaded the car with all the snacks and accoutrement it takes to move these kids from one place to the other and lit out for The Island which, as I've stated before, is nowhere near downtown, though it purports to be.

At the sitter's GK went into full meltdown mode when she realized just what was going on - that Daddy was once again abandoning her. The other kids settled right in on the couch and chairs and, I imagine, are asleep again by now. I like to impart a few words for each new day to The Quartet, something to open their eyes and get their mornings off on the right note. It's what I do. I'm motivational, I'm positive, I'm the kind of person who sees each sunrise as cause for celebration and adventure, but you probably get that from everything you've read here. So this morning I made it a point to get the kids' attention before letting them know "You kids better behave, I'm close by and can be here in two minutes to jerk a knot in you if need be." I think I read that on a poster with a kitten hiding in a basket of yarn or else it was in a book on how to be an exceptional parent. Either way, they went almost immediately back to ignoring me for whatever was on the big screen TV.

We have every confidence in our sitter. We know The Quartet will be safe and reasonably happy and that they're in good hands. And the day will go much smoother for her with the kids knowing that my hands are only minutes away from them.

13 Things

13 things I have yet to get used to as a parent:

1. Sharing a bed with more than one person.
2. Entire meals in the garbage can.
3. Toothpaste. Everywhere.
4. Relentless television viewing.
5. The question "What's for dinner?"
6. The stench of microwave popcorn.
7. The pitter-patter of little feet, followed by heavier footfalls, followed by the sound of a body hitting the floor, followed by crying, followed by apologizing.
8. The demanding of ice cream (but that's from the Mommy).
9. The door opening and closing ad nauseam.
   
10. Plastic cups with traces of milk left in the refrigerator.
11. The question "Where's Mommy?"
12. Random stickiness.
13. My youngest crying when I leave her in the mornings.
    

Anything Could Have Happened

Do you remember that feeling that anything could happen? And I’m not talking about just on Wednesdays, either, but for a full weekend, in the middle of the night to early morning, summer vacation, daydreams. For me, that feeling stopped coming around maybe three or so years ago, and I miss it. I miss it all the more because I’m reminded of its absence almost daily when I see its presence in my own kids. As children, we have that natural wonder, that inborn optimism and we think of what is possible in terms of cities in space, mansion-esque tree houses, flying cars, rescuing people like the Lone Ranger and X-ray vision among the other daydreams of seven-year-old boys. Once becoming a young adult there are promises of a career path to greatness, wealth, writing that novel or that screenplay, or even meeting your true love and having the perfect family. There are days when you wake up and you actually believe that today anything might happen that will set the next stage of your life into motion. I used to have that feeling, maybe it was called optimism, but it’s mostly gone now, eroded over years of responsibility, the headaches of business ownership and trying to get a grasp on a very realistic picture of the future.

Yesterday, though, I witnessed the amazing feeling of possibility first-hand. One of The Quartet had acquired a helium-filled balloon and the other three convinced the owner to release the balloon with a note attached explaining who had let it go. The note began: We are in America. They had such high hopes, literally, for this balloon that they felt compelled to let the eventual recipient know from what country it originated. This sad little, red balloon that was already losing its loftiness is probably in a tree one block over, but as far as The Quartet is concerned it’s in China or Bolivia or the Polynesian Islands, in the hands of some other child who is trying to decipher that note in wonder. And as jaded and pessimistic as I may be now, I’m not inclined to change their minds. I wouldn’t dare. Because I miss the days of imagining that I’m Tarzan or that I might fly with a jet pack one day or that a balloon, released in Midtown Memphis could journey halfway around the world.

Do Not Try This At Home

As readership here at Urf! continues to climb, our attorneys at the law firm of Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga and McCormack require that we periodically remind all of you that Urf! is in no way an expert at child raising. If you choose to have and raise children of your own then you should consult an expert such as J.K. Rowling, The Oprah, episodes of Eight is Enough or any member of Congress. We are simply making it up as we go along and the following photo is Exhibit A in testimony to that fact:


In the above photo you will notice that the junior most member of The Quartet sits unattended three feet up on the counter and within arm's reach of the rum, the gin, the wine and the Angostura bitters. The small orange can you see there is a flea bomb and if you look in the foreground you can just make out the edge of the silver blade of the largest kitchen knife we own. We were using that knife to cut garlic, which we did not feed to the baby. Luckily, in this little playground of hers, GK chose to play with that glass bottle of tonic over everything else. And we'd just used the last of the matches.

So, no, we're no experts. However, I do think I have a certain flair when it comes to parenting, and while I normally don't like to talk about my flair, I do think it's time I begin taking questions from the audience. So, good readers, if you have any questions for me, The Quartet or Big Mama regarding child rearing, schooling, patience or the lack there-of, or any recipe involving garlic and rum, then please address them to urfblog at gmail dot com and I will answer them, if I feel like it, right here on the interweb.

In Triplicate

I made my annual trip to the Shelby County Health Department this morning for copies of my kids' birth certificates because God forbid we should put them in a place where we can actually find them from year to year. Some of you will recall my adventure there at this time last year, and many of you will understand that I only just now finished scrubbing my hands from that visit. The kids need these certificates so they can enroll in the very same school they went to last year. The School System needs proof, again, that they were born. Well, I proved it this morning in just under an hour and a half. The School System is a hungry beast that needs its paper, its forms, to look at and smell, rub all over its body and, I imagine, while no one is looking it sits in its gray-toned cubicle to gnaw on the corners of these forms. The proof is also there by the way, in black and white (at least legally), that I am indeed the father of these miscreants. Dammit.

Now that we're past that stage of the registration process, I've moved on to the school supply lists which can be found online, surprisingly. It seems that my family will be responsible for taking 13 glue sticks to school. Thirteen glue sticks? Seriously? It seems that as much as the School System loves its forms, the school itself relishes its glue. What do they plan to do with all of these sticks of glue, wallpaper their cinderblock building with forms and birth certificates? Use them to keep the kids in their seats? Make school cafeteria pizza?

The insanity begins in earnest next week when Big Mama starts back to work but the kids have another week of vacation. And I'm in charge. I plan to keep the order by having them fill out their own forms for school and, if need be, gluing them all to each other to better control them. Now, if you wouldn't mind picking up 13 14 glue sticks for me, I'll be in the back washing my hands. Again.

Welcome, Vermin

As a kid growing up we had a couple of dogs. We had goldfish when I was really young, two of them - Ernie and Bert - and I wanted to see if fish could sneeze so I put pepper in their bowl, they ate it and died. I had a turtle that ran away. We had a cat for a weekend once, I think. And at some point I acquired a mouse. A little white mouse with red eyes that I managed to keep secret from my mother until one weekend when my sisters and I were at our father's house and she called to let me know this mouse that she hadn't even been aware of had escaped and was running wild in the house. That was the end of that. When I moved out on my own I racked up a menagerie of snakes and lizards, a Great Dane and Weimaraner for a while.

I like animals, I just don't have a lot of time for them now what with all the people that require tending to in this house. But tonight I walked into the house after work and was greeted by JP who was bouncing off the walls because of the newest resident here at Castilo Urf! Harpo is a Teddy Bear Hamster and he lives in the boys' room, in a cage, for now. I'm certain that this is the first in a long line of small animals on our Ark, both furry and scaly. A long line of buried shoeboxes and flushed memorials. But no need to dwell on that now. Tonight The Quartet is having a great time with Harpo and it seems to be doing well. I know it's doing well because the kids are coming in to us every four minutes with updates on what it's doing. They've set stools up in front of the cage so they can sit and watch it as though the hamster and its antics are the afternoon matinee. Poor little guy, scurrying around his shavings, pooping alongside kin one minute, stared at by three giant child heads the next, wondering how hungry they are but not yet realizing that these kids subsist on cheese pizza and Pop Tarts, nothing even approaching hamster meat.

Welcome to our home, Harpo. We'll see to it our kids take care of you as best we can, though we can't really be responsible for their friends so watch out for them. And try to remember that around here it's first come/first served in the bathroom, the volume is always up, the littlest kid may not necessarily be the safest and should someone try to feed you pepper, just pretend to sneeze and then run away.

The Daddy Wears Prada

I picked up my new glasses today. It took the Italian elves two weeks to put them together, which is almost as long as the initial eye exam lasted. They’re Prada frames. There, I said it. I have a designer on my face because I’m just that much of a fashion maven. I just today read in Vogue that nothing goes with cargo shorts and a 5k T-shirt better than Prada specs. I think it was in Vogue, but it may have been in the liner notes to the newest Amy Winehouse album. Nevertheless, I feel like I need to live up to the frames, that the Prada People expect more of me, for me to be chic for the first time in my life. Or like I’m French kissing an architect. Regardless, I need to put my face out there with confidence, yet I feel I’m trapped somewhere between being a strutting, nearsighted peacock and that sixth-grade RJA sliding down in his desk chair when his mother appears at the classroom door with the uncoolest coat ever that he’d “forgotten” at home. This all seems somewhat confusing to me, and even more vain, but I know that what will win out in the end is the price tag. They cost me and Blue Cross/Blue Shield way too much money to not be worn proudly. So look out world because I’m strutting out there and I can finally see where the hell I’m going.

Children Of The Sand

The week at the beach went off without a hitch, mostly. The wild card in this whole trip was the kids, all eight of them. That's eight little wild cards and they're all Jokers. But they did pretty well, considering. They got along well, for the most part. There was some arguing, naturally, but considering the amount of time they all spent together the percentage of time spent defending the territory of the couch, the damn blue chair, The Admiral's lap, a hermit crab, the color orange, a towel, a television station and a juice box, was pretty small. Their skirmishes and their playfulness weren't all that unexpected since these kids spend so much time together in Memphis. In fact, what surprised me the most, I think, was the way all of us adults handled the children and what a wide berth we allowed them. Upon arrival speeches and threats were made that no child was to wander down to the beach and the water without an adult, and that if an adult was already down there then that child was to make his or her presence known to the adult on duty. That lasted about 12 hours. After that, when the kids asked if they could go to the beach then the answer was, "Yes" and then, as an after thought, "Don't get in the water!" And they didn't. They scurried around in the sand collecting shell parts (there were hardly any full shells on our beach), digging holes and tormenting crabs, but they never broached the surf and we didn't lose any of them ... that I know of.

The adults were as relaxed as I've ever seen us. And, while there was plenty of imbibing, it never got out of hand, the youngest people were never in danger. However, there was the epiphany on one of the last nights that if we were to get out of hand, if we were to pass around the Benadryl for one night of peace (this never happened) then the worst the Department of Human Services would do is take the kids from us. Take the kids from us? As punishment? Hang on, let me just pack a few things for them. Now remember, they require 12 hours of exercise a day, 18 hours of sleep and they feed mostly on cold cuts and hermit crabs.

If any of The Octet are able to take any memories from this trip - C will, but the others may be too young and are possibly already confused why there is sand in their crevices - then I hope those memories are full of salt and sand, juice and chocolate, fire and late nights, sun and smiles.

Happy Birthday, Uncle Johnny

I need to squeeze this in under the wire here because I just looked at the calendar and realized it's my Uncle Johnny's birthday, so I wanted to say Happy Birthday to him. And how apropos that it would come just after a post about having fun, because who better to learn to have fun from than Johnny? He has taught me how to hit golf balls, drive on ice, build things, watch movies, bet on horses and play craps, cook shrimp, be a terrific father and, I hope, a good man. Over the years he's taken me to Chicago, St. Louis, Florida, on a bike ride across the city, to many casinos, an OTB and hunting. He first piqued my interest in sailing. He was there for me at my Confirmation and at my wedding. He did a lot of this when he was a much younger man and I was a much younger boy. A teen, in fact, and who wants to spend their time with an obnoxious teenager? He did. He is the big brother I never had and for that I'm grateful and I hope he's having a wonderful birthday.

One Funky Bunch

Being home sucks. We returned home from our trip to the beach an hour and a half ago and the Post-Vacation Funk has set in in a big way. It is now 9:30 p.m. and at 9:30 p.m on the beach for the past seven days I’ve been sitting down to dinner with friends. That’s right, dinner at 9:30, with drinks, yelling at kids to control themselves so we could eat, and some delicious food. After that? We burned stuff on the beach. After that? It probably won’t be blogged about. The point is, it’s 9:30 in Memphis and I don’t know what to do with myself. I’m having a beer. I guess I could go out on my deck and drink it, but there’s no sound of the surf, just a dog a couple houses down and the train. It’s getting to be FedEx plane landing time, so I guess I could pretend that’s the sound of the surf. There are no friends here, though, no sand, no cool Gulf breeze. And I’m wearing way too many clothes. The Funk didn’t begin for us as we pulled into the driveway, though, as we walked into our stale-smelling, one-week-vacant house. No, it started as we pulled away from Beach Walk West and drove down that long highway to reality. That’s when I looked over and saw the tears running from behind Kristy’s ever-present sunglasses. You see, it’s more than just Post-Vacation Funk for Team Urf!, it’s Post-Beach Funk, and that’s a whole different level of depression. It’s the very feeling in our bones that led us to move to Florida only six weeks after a vacation there just after we were married. That’s all I’m going to say about that, it’s the very. same. feeling.

I realize this isn’t the post you’ve all been looking for. I’ve been away for a week and the descending stair-steps of my stat counter tells me you’ve stopped expecting new posts. Perhaps you were expecting daily posting on the activity of a houseful of bloggers and their kids on the beach. Well, Alabama has the beach, the sun, the surf, copious wood to burn, alcohol, kids, but apparently no internet. And you know what? I didn’t miss it one bit. I don’t think any of us did. We even turned the clock on the microwave off because who cares what time it was? We were as far from reality as we could get.

There’s plenty more to be said here about the week, it was a blast. But right now there’s a pall on our homecoming because, well, we’re home, in the real world, and I’m not at all sandy, way too sober and overdressed. Now, if you need me, I’ll be in the backyard hunting for crabs alone with just my key chain (inside joke!).

One Night Of Peace

Strange evening. Tomorrow we head out for the Gulf Coast, where six adults will desperately try to keep eight kids’ cracks mostly sand free. Tonight, however, seems to be the calm before that storm. Kristy took the kids to the nerdfest for Harry Potter, which means I’m home alone. Just me, Billie Holiday and a glass of wine. This is the quietest time I will have for the next eight days. It is bliss. Not that I’m not looking forward to our trip, mind you, but the quiet, it’s so … quiet. So peaceful. Except for earlier when I took care of a mouse. A rodent came into my home, where my children sleep, but this evening it met with the business end of a Louisville Slugger so our house is vermin free. Completely free of pests – no mice, no kids. Just quiet. Listen … here that? Me either.

I’m going to go now and enjoy the nothingness that I’m ensconced in. The next sound you hear will be the sound of a car engine turning over, followed almost immediately with the first of many, “Are we almost there?” Stay tuned …

Wait, Am I The Diva?

Lindsey, over at theogeo, is also a guest blogger on iDiva. She references Urf! in her latest column as a way to introduce her own memory of a lovely childhood trip. She remembers a lot more than I do of mine, but hers happened in 1987 when she was six, which means she wasn't even born when I took the trip I wrote about. But I'm okay with that. I'm comfortable with the fact that I'd just started dating my future wife while she was waiting on line at Space Mountain, a pair of mouse ears perched haphazardly on her head. I read theogeo daily and so should you. If you like blogs that update regularly then this is the one for you, she updates it several times a day, either with cool photos or a glimpse into her day and life. I worked in editorial at The Commercial Appeal about nine years ago, though she didn't work there then. She was barely even born at the time. We've never met but I thank her for the mention, and I know she'll appreciate that I'm drinking a nice pinot noir and toasting her now.

The Good Foot

As many of you know, I'm being trained in the sweet science by Uncle Toby (you can read more about that here). As we get more into it, and now that the crunches, the hip-ups and the barrel rolls are, or close to, second nature, we've progressed into more actual punch-throwing and footwork. What I've found is that boxing is very much like dancing in its movement. And I don't dance (you can read more about that here). It's not that I can dance, but choose not to, it's that I can't dance. I simply can't make my legs and arms move in any sort of combined fashion that is not completely embarrassing to me and my family, and this is a hindrance when on the heavy bag or, like tonight, in the ring. I'd like to dance. I'd like to be able to move as gracefully as Ginger Rogers across a ballroom floor or a canvas-covered platform. How many times have I wished to take my bride by the hand and move with her to the sultry sounds of Mel Torme? But my legs, hips and torso just don't want to work with me, which is why Uncle Toby, just like Kristy, has his work cut out for him. I may not ever vie for middle-weight champion, or whatever weight class I am, or King of the Tango, or whatever title the dance world offers. I might actually never be a contender. And while I may not be able to glide like Ginger Rogers, with the ab work and strength training, along with what punches and footwork I have been able to pick up, I'm fairly certain I could whip her ass within three rounds. Or, maybe four.

You Either Surf Or You Fight

In 1975 or 6, I went to Florida with my parents, my sister and a bunch of aunts and uncles. I would have been 5- or 6-years-old so my memory of it isn’t clear but I, instead, have a sense of the trip. I remember riding a long way in a hot car, I remember a pink stucco house with scrub and sand in its front yard, and I remember we had to walk to get to the beach. I learned how to shuffle cards on that trip. I may have tasted a beer. My memory is a patchwork of photographs, stories everyone has told about the trip over the years and paintings my sister has done from photos. It’s a good and familiar memory, if that is what it is.

At the end of this week, Team Urf! is taking part in something that is part family vacation, part reality TV show and part social experiment. We are traveling to the Gulf Coast with two other families, all of whom you’ve read about here, to live in a house on the beach for one week. There will be six adults and eight kids, the youngest will be four-weeks-old, the oldest is 9 1/2. At the end of the week we will all either be closer and more of a family or we will not be speaking to each other. There’s just no way to tell.

There will be plenty to keep the kids entertained: building sand castles, surfing, burying each other in the sand, swimming, screaming, crying, jumping, laughing, sleeping?, watching a different TV, drinking juice boxes, asking questions, complaining, searching for the last kid they buried in the sand, playing games, watching Le Tour, counting stars, gambling. As for the parents, well, it will be a week of sitting. Sitting and staring at the water. At least that’s Team Urf!’s way. Kristy and I have spent a lot of time at the beach and we’ve spent most of that time sitting and relaxing. Perhaps reading. Maybe having a drink or two. Is the whole idea insane? Of course it is, but this is our first real vacation in several years and we are giddy with an excitement that is clouding our judgment, which is how we ended up with four kids in the first place.

This trip reminds me of the trip I took with family over 30 years ago. And maybe I don’t have all the facts right. Maybe as many people as I think didn’t go. Maybe we were closer to the beach or that house wasn’t pink. But what I take with me is the memory of spending that much time with family, and I remember the laughter, and that’s what this week will be. It will be great fun and great memory for The Quartet and the other kids, as well as their parents.

Oh, and the house we’re staying in is a duplex, so whoever is on the other side, I’m really sorry, in advance, for … everything.

Water, Water Everywhere

My kids have survival instincts only when it comes to certain things. They monitor the television for hours on end for any breaking news involving world catastrophes, terrorism or The Simpsons movie previews, the boys can and will pee outside, sliding down a slide head first is still taken very cautiously and only after hours of slide observation, wind sheer vectoring and the employment of an actual slide rule. And then there’s water. At home, The Quartet wants milk, chocolate milk, tea, Coke and the occasional juice, if it’s in a box. But get them out of the house and they want water, lots of it. When we go to the park they need a water bottle, yet rather than run around, swing and calculate slope and speed first, they want to drink that bottle of water until it’s dry. Why? Because it’s there. It’s there at home, too, but so are too many other choices, I suppose. Yesterday, we were leaving to go sailing with friends and before the Mazda MPV pulled away from the curb here at the Castilo they were asking, nee demanding, a bottle of water. You know, just in case we became shipwrecked on the way to the ship. Their world – Midtown and Downtown Memphis – must still be a strange landscape to these young people and the fear of being stuck somewhere without hydration is still too great. So if you come across these four out in public and they look a little parched, would you mind terribly if they drink all of your water?

And because I can’t laugh at them without laughing at myself, as The Admiral and I were bringing down the rigging, tying and untying lines and stowing away sails yesterday after the outing, my survival instincts, or lack of, led me to step on someone’s (no names mentioned) lit cigar, thus bringing my running career to a grinding halt … for now. Ironically, there wasn’t any water left for me to pour on the burn.

Dixon Dinner

We just now returned from a dinner at the home of Click, M, and The Brain, with Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Toby, and I can't thank them enough. As much as I'd like our house to be the house of gatherings, I'm afraid The Dixons have beat me to it. Tonight, around a hand-painted table full of some sort of wonderful sausage, rice and watermelon/blueberry concoction, we discussed children, childhood, parenting, mustaches, art, frozen bananas, travel, McCoy Tyner, soccer, food, careers and many, many other topics. Click and I damn near polished off a bottle of Tanqueray and I dare say we'll achieve this next go round. And I hope there is a next time. I hope they'll have Team Urf! over again, if not for dinner, then to move in. The futon in the office looks quite comfy, there's plenty of Super Chewies in the backyard and the doorframes account for hours and hours of fun. We'll bring the milk next time.

Steady As She Goes

In the course of day-to-day life, with the pressures at work and the stress of raising a family of four kids, it’s easy to lose focus and appreciation of the good times that are happening right in front of our faces. Events come along, daily if you’re looking for them, that will make you stop and smile, remembering the very reason you wanted children in the first place. For me it has been a series of moments this week. GK has become more comfortable walking to the point that it is her main mode of transportation. It turns out that laughing at my kids is the reason I’ve had them, and have kept them around, because there is nothing funnier than watching her toddle around the house like a drunken sailor on deck and then fall down. And then get back up and keep going. I know there’s a more emotional point of view to be taken here with our last baby growing up and becoming more independent, and that this is only the beginning of more milestones that will accumulate to make a little person who retains only a slight resemblance to the baby we once held in our arms. But really, right now, it’s just funny. It’s like having a tiny Dean Martin stumbling around, holding her arms up to maintain balance while trying not to drop whatever it is she might be holding – remote, baby doll, toothbrush, highball. If you listen closely you’ll hear me in the background encouraging her, praising her, but mostly laughing, not with her, but at her.

Is This Better Than This?

I went to the eye doctor today for the first time in nine years. Eye doctor offices have changed a lot since the last time I passed the Craftsman tools and plaid shirts to get to the optometrist department at Sears. Walking into the Eclectic Eye in Midtown is like walking into a nightclub in South Beach with its black-clad staff, clean open spaces and thumpy techno music. I half expected for my shorts and T-shirt to get the once over and then be escorted from the premises with all the other tragically unhip. But the good Dr. Weinberg and his team of attractive Igors did a wonderful job taking care of and doing a number on me once they got me into their little room with all its evil devices. There were pupils dilated, my chin and forehead were forced into place and air forced into my eyeballs, and bright lights shined into my irises. And then there were the questions: Is this better than this? Is this clearer? Can you read the top line? Second line? The whole situation, from the iron maiden they had me sit in to administer the exam to the interrogation, was like the Spanish Inquisition, if the Inquisition had taken place in a Miami night club.

All went well, though. No glaucoma, no macular degeneration, no blindness. I currently have the first pair of contact lenses I've ever had on and a pair of stylish new frames on the way. I know I shouldn't wait so long to visit the doctor and I should have regular exams, and I know there are those of you who think that my priority should be more urologist than optometrist, but today was the day I tended to my eyeballs.

Maybe next time I'll take The Quartet for their first exams, if they can get past the velvet rope, and see how they like being questioned repeatedly with a white light shining in their eyes while trying to dance to a funky beat.

Do NOT Wake The Baby

GK and I found ourselves alone last night, which was quite a shock, actually. I came out of the bathroom to find GK sitting on the couch with the remote in one hand and a Tab in the other and no one else around. She informed me that Big Mama had taken the other three kids and Satchel to see a movie, but that she hadn’t felt like going, though she did expect me to entertain her for the evening. Great. So I did one of the only things I know to do with a one-year-old, I took her to the park. Usually there are other moms at the park for me to chat up, but not last night. No, just two other dads and that’s no good. Once we were sufficiently bored by the other dads, their kids, and the swings, we headed out east to the bookstore. GK fell asleep before we were a block from the park.

I’ll admit something here because I’m not ashamed. I am scared of babies. Not sleeping babies, mind you, they’re harmless and funny looking. But when they wake up and I’m in charge of them, they cry. As long as they’re sleeping, though, then everyone is happy, until somebody finally pokes them with a stick or something to wake them, then the good times come to a screeching, sobbing end. So I drove out to the bookstore anyway, thinking that once we got there I’d ease her out of her seat and carry her in and then, if she awoke, at least she’d have colorful toys to taste. But once we got out east I just couldn’t bring myself to possibly wake her and I just kept driving. I drove all around neighborhoods out there and then I meandered back to Midtown where I made the mistake of going through a Burger King drive thru. That’s a mistake on several levels, but I was hungry and was more than willing to spend $30 in gas to keep this kid asleep. However, I looked in the mirror and saw her big, brown eyes looking at me in wonder at what it was I was requesting from that little box, and what she was going to get out of it.

We went home and she cried from eight until just after nine when Kristy got home, with only intermittent dozing when the exhaustion was too much. It’s not the crying, specifically, that gets to me, though it does get irritating. It’s more the fact that I can’t soothe her, that my kids cry because I’m not their mother. I’ve never been able to quiet any of The Quartet. And it’s not just the nursing, though that is certainly a big part of it, they just want to be held by her more than anyone, more than me. You’d think I’d be used to it after four kids and nine years of parenthood, but you never get used to your baby crying uncontrollably and the helpless feeling that comes with it.

Last night’s frustrations were still on my mind this morning when I got to work and realized that GK’s mood is easily attributed to her giddiness for the start of the Tour de France, which began today in London of all places. After a year of waiting, she just couldn’t control her excitement and anticipation and it manifested itself as deafening screeching and tears. With today’s time trials and the soothing voice of Phil Liggett, I’m sure she’s as calm and silent as only a true cycling fan in the arms of her mother can be.


Photos courtesy of Elizabeth.

Geoffrey Scheldenfeld

I knew this guy once named Geoffrey Scheldenfeld. Geoffrey’s situation was that at certain times, once he was holding an object, he would feel the urge to continue holding that thing for anywhere from two hours to four days. He never felt compelled to pick something up and carry it around, but rather, upon lifting something, whether it be the TV remote, a dirty glass, a briefcase or sack of potatoes, some part of his mind needed him to hold that thing for a while before setting it down. And once he set that thing down, it was squarely in the center of his kitchen table, where it would remain for anywhere from two to five days before he could then pick it back up and put it away in its proper place. He all but stopped buying produce at the grocery store but, if he did, he usually just left it in the bag on the kitchen counter if he was lucky enough to put it down immediately at all.

This made life awkward for Geoffrey, as you can imagine. He had to be very picky about what he lifted. He eventually refused all requests from friends to help move, not wanting to be caught in the awkward situation of holding a lamp or one end of a sofa for three days. When traveling, he usually asked the cab drivers and bellmen to carry his luggage as far as possible. He was never quarterback or receiver in our pick-up games of football and, when he finally, six years ago, got married, he had to wait a day and a half past the night he was planning to propose to hand the ring to his fiancée, and even then she had to get it herself from the center of his kitchen table.

The point is that we never know what we or our kids are going to be inflicted with, whether it’s depression or hives, left-handedness, some mild form of OCD causing your kid to ask what time it is every three minutes or something more severe like poor Geoffrey Scheldenfeld’s case. God forbid there should be blindness, deafness or something dire enough to send a child for a stay at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Kristy and I have been very lucky at our house and we realize this every day. Geoffrey Scheldenfeld is none of my kids, he is not me. What we do have is GK and something called Breath-Holding Spells. These spells hit her during fits of crying when she’s so upset that everything seems to stop for her, both the crying and the breathing. The internet assures us it is not harmful, certainly not fatal. The child will always begin breathing again on her own within a minute and the greatest concern seems to be that she will pass out, though only momentarily, and fall, so we have to watch that. She may also turn blue, though again, no great need for worry.

Breath-Holding Spells is just something else that you don’t prepare for as a parent. Who could? No parent wants to think of his one-year-old being so upset that all animation ceases for a few seconds. It’s a scary thing to watch, but something we just have to be ready for. It will go away, if it keeps up at all, within the next couple of years. Until then it’s just something that we and GK have to carry around with us. Like poor Geoffrey Scheldenfeld. Last time I saw Geoffrey he was getting off a trolley downtown to get some lunch. He was carrying a brand new toaster oven. That seems like a bad decision.

A Week Of Non-Blog

I guess I have things to say. After a week away from Urf! there seem to be people who want to know what we’re all up to. So I ask myself, What are we up to? Well, beginning with Tuesday of last week, we’ve welcomed someone new to our circle of friends, I saw the fourth installment of Die Hard, I jogged through the Evergreen neighborhood with StephChockleyblog, JP turned six, Pops turned … older than six, the country turned 231, I ran my best time ever in the Firecracker 5K, ate homemade mojito ice cream and nearly wiped out my whole family (except JP) with undercooked chicken, took The Quartet to see the Fantastic Four movie, began watching HBO’s Rome series, ate Mexican with friends and Italian with family, witnessed an iPhone, found it necessary to learn about breath-holding spells thanks to GK, began Michael Chabon’s new book, drank some wine, tried to counsel C on the proper way to light fireworks, pictured my own mother cringing as my 9-year-old lit the fuse on those fireworks, smoked a new cigar with Uncle Toby on his deck, made a little love, did a little dance, mistakenly introduced The Quartet to Hong Kong Phooey, had inappropriate conversations in front of in-laws from Michigan, listened to my first podcast, E-mailed Brooklyn Dan, cheered JP as he rode his new bike, read a friend’s newest short story, and planned a trip to Las Vegas next year with The Admiral. And, probably, a little more.

How to best sum up this week? I believe the young lady working the register at Buster's Liquor did so after the Firecracker 5K. I was wearing the T-shirt from the race and she pointed to it and said, "Is that from today?" "Yes it is," I answered, "I just ran it." She lowered her eyelids halfway and said, "That's awesome."

Awesome, indeed.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled program …

Are You Ready To Do This Service For Your Don?

There is a rite of passage at Castilo Urf! that most of you are not aware of. In fact, none of you should be aware of it unless you live here, which you very well may as there are so many people underfoot that I've lost count. This rite doesn't involve a party or circumcision or scarification of any kind. It doesn't involve religion, drinking or sex. This tradition concerns each child of mine, me, grapes and the greatest film ever, The Godfather. When I feel each kid is ready, and there are grapes on hand, I take two of those grapes, stuff them into my jowls and, in my best Brando voice and grieving expression, implore them to "Look what they did to my boy." It would break your heart to see the look on my face, hear the sorrow in my voice. Kristy has seen it and she said it made her want to cry. I'm not an actor, or extrovert, by any stretch of the imagination and this is the only impression of which I'm capable as far as I know, and only five people in the world have seen it. Yesterday was GK's day to witness Daddy as Don, and as she gazed upon me from her seat on the kitchen counter it was difficult to tell if the look in her eyes was one of recognition, elation or gas. I may be done with the routine now since we're out of kids or I may be called upon by The Quartet to repeat it over the years, a tradition which I will gladly uphold, for no father can deny any request of his child when all alone and in the presence of fruit.

The Movies

I just returned home from a showing of Live Free or Die Hard with Uncle Toby. There are many things we as a people want out of life - a solid future for our kids, peace in the world, happiness and comfort. Judging from the reaction of the crowd at the theater this evening, though, what many of us desire is for John McClane to kill some more people. Another life lesson to pass on to The Quartet.

Sketches Of GK

GK and I watched Sydney Pollack's Sketches of Frank Gehry tonight. Here is what GK had to say:

I don't get it. He draws these formless, awkward sketches on paper, then takes those sketches and designs awkward looking structures from them. The buildings look like mistakes, or as though some office intern picked up a discarded model to rush to the client for approval. And that client was drunk, or high on bathtub crank, and approved it. It seems that Mr. Gehry is a very talented sculptor and I would love to have a piece by him on our coffee table, if we had a coffee table, but I wouldn't want to live or go to work every day in one of his sculptures. I'm afraid I would become sea sick.

After GK wrote this critique in longhand with a pencil on a legal pad, we watched Three Days of the Condor while I transcribed what she'd written onto the internet and she took a brand new roll of aluminum foil from the drawer, tore off sheet after sheet, and littered the room with tiny little Frank Gehry-like structures. She then pooped in her pants because she's only a year old.

Late Night Visions

Some time back, Castilo Urf! was having trouble with its high speed internet connection if you can imagine that. We went almost two weeks without the internet (I found that it’s difficult to validate your existence these days when you can’t get online) and then Comcast, in its infinite wisdom, sent us a letter explaining that their rates are going up, but if we agreed to get the most basic cable package, along with their internet service, then our bill would actually go down by $2. We haven’t had cable television since before C was born over nine years ago, and I wasn’t really looking to get it, but who can deny the savings of eight bits every month? Not us! So last Friday Mr. Comcast came out and bestowed the most basic cable package ever considered upon us. And it is basic. In addition to the network channels that we had before, though with much better reception now, we have our choice of a local library channel, a handful of channels that seem to broadcast nothing but old men in their pulpits breathing fire and brimstone and asking for donations, more home shopping channels than I knew existed, TLC, which runs continuous programming about midgets and clothing, and the All-Ultimate Fighting All The Time channel, among others. I’m not sure how we’ve made it this long without all of this brain candy.

Last night I was walking through the living room, heading to bed around 11:30 and C was up watching Vision Quest on ESPN Classic. I don’t like him staying up so late at night, and he doesn’t during the school year, but the fact is I can’t outlast him. Once I’m asleep then he has free rein to sneak the car out, drink, look at porn on the internet or watch Vision Quest on ESPN Classic. We’ve told him before that we don’t have a problem with him staying up late as long as, after a certain time, he reads instead of watching TV. I can’t remember what that particular time was right now, I can’t seem to stay up that late.

The fact that he was watching Vision Quest, though, could actually be a help to me. At his age he’s curious, he has questions about himself and life in general and his watching this movie could save me that awkward conversation where I have to explain bad 1980s cinema, jocks with mohawks and hand size relativity to him. And there are certain things that he would probably be more comfortable learning about on his own, like high school wrestling and Linda Fiorentino. What I can’t explain to him, what I can’t quite grasp myself, is why Vision Quest was on ESPN Classic. And why anyone would want to watch a reality show about how to dress a midget.

Walk On The Mild Side

It’s happening. My little girl is growing up. Yesterday, at the library, GK stood up and took a few steps all on her own. And then last night, with a house full of friends, she toddled from chair to couch and back just to prove that she could. How fitting is it that her first real steps would be at the library? Probably tired already of Beatrix Potter and Cinderella, she decided to stand up and walk over to where they keep the Fitzgerald, the Twain, the Vonnegut and, her favorite, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

What drives this urge to walk, this need in us to be bipedal? Is it as base as food gathering, hunting, the simple desire for sustenance, survival and independence? Or is it to bring me things? “GK, bring me the remote. GK, grab a beer from the fridge on your way back in here. GK, walk over there, smack C on the back of the head and tell him, again, to chew with his mouth closed.” Yeah, that’s probably it, she wants to walk at a year old to start on errands for me. It’s perfect timing, too, because the other three, while they’ve mastered walking and talking and are potty trained, have also learned a certain amount of reasoning, acquired much free will and seem to be understanding just when and how to ignore me. So I need a new one, one that is so enamored with mobility that she will be willing to do and go almost anywhere her newfound powers will take her and for any reason.

GK has been a very good baby. A good last baby for us and I believe it is bittersweet for her mother to watch her take these first steps and hear her saying her first words. These are memorable occasions, and they’ll be the last for us. No more first steps, no more first laughs, no more first words. I do not share this bittersweetness. I need things done. I need the trash taken out, the lawn mowed, the kitchen painted, and a new alternator put in the Volvo. And I need most of that done tomorrow, so GK better find her sea legs but quick because there’s a short amount of time, I’ve found, between those first, unsteady steps, and the first instance of insubordination.

Whites

I need to say, without going into too much detail, that little boys' underwear should never come in white. They should all be black or a very dark blue, or dark brown.

Body By Toby

For two years The Quartet's Uncle Toby has been involved in boxing training. He’s gone once a week to be put through the ringer by a medieval trainer and he recently began showing me, or inflicting upon me, what he’s learned. For the last three weeks he’s been training me in the sweet science just as he has been. Working out with Toby is like exercising with a grizzly bear. He’s my Louis Fyne, but with a voice like Burgess Meredith and the docile patience of Mr. Miyagi. Let me say this to any of you who may think that Toby is out of shape: he is not. He can out sit-up me, out jump rope me, out shadow box me, and I’ve got the aches to prove it. And if we ever get into the ring and actually spar, I’m afraid he may kill me. And, oh, the exquisite pain of his medicine balls. I credit him with my times in the last two 5ks I’ve run, times that have surprised me, due to the core strengthening from his workouts. I know he’s got more moves in his arsenal and, frankly, it scares me, though I also look forward to them because I know that each time I leave the gym with him my back is just a little bit sturdier than before and that I’ll be able to run a little bit further than I did the week before.

I’m thinking about having him train The Quartet next, his own mini-camp of mini-people. C has been interested lately in running 5ks with me but I’m not so interested unless he can keep up. JP could use the core strengthening to help him reach new heights while climbing the Crepe myrtle in our front yard. S is as scrappy a street fighter as there is, but could use some discipline. GK’s footwork is just sloppy, that’s all there is to it. This could be the perfect second career for Toby if he ever found himself in need of one. He could train whole families to fight. Little armies with little, furious fists and abs of steel.

The best part? You want to know what The Quartet will take to the most with their boxing training? Vegas, baby. Las Vegas.

Home Delivery

A very dear friend of ours is just seconds away from going into labor, that ball-peen hammer should begin mercilessly pounding her skull at any moment if it hasn’t already begun. She’s having this baby at home. I could fill up this post with commentary on just that aspect itself and how I’m opposed to it, but it’s not my fight this time. It’s none of my business. I’m sure everything will go perfectly anyway with a boat builder, two Mid-Western horse wranglers, a needy three-year-old and a Mastiff, as midwife, on hand.

Not being a woman, I can’t speak to this sacramental feel that apparently comes over you during childbirth, this primal snap in the female psyche. What I can speak to is fatherhood and the last great and exciting thing you get to do before a newborn enters your life and sucks all that out of it. I’m talking about driving your pregnant wife to the hospital. Quickly. When each of my four kids were on their way I raced across town like a madman to get Kristy to the hospital. Even with C, who was a planned induction. Nobody was going to take that away from me! The others began the process in the middle of the night, so with barely any traffic and Kristy next to me letting me know again and again that there was plenty of time and no need for me to run red lights, I burned up the miles like I was Steve McQueen. With S, I wasn’t even sure where I was going and turned left when I should’ve turned right, necessitating a cool, full-speed U-turn in the middle of Germantown Parkway. It’s all we have in those final few hours with no screaming, pooping, needy human to take care of. As boys, we never think of childbirth until it’s upon us. We don’t dream of that day, prepare for it, but what we do know is that when the time comes we will be called upon to drive very, very fast, and we cling to that scenario.

I feel for The Admiral. I’m sure S.A.M. will go into labor in the middle of the night and the only thing that will be required of him is to roll out of bed and possibly make a pot of coffee for the midwives, or the Mastiff. No acceleration, no screeching tires, no – I get giddy at the thought – police escort. Nothing but a slow trundle out of labor & delivery, due north with no off-ramp, no construction zone to negotiate, and into the next room, the kitchen.

Labor

I’ve been thinking lately about going into labor. I’m not going into labor, thankfully, but I have witnessed labor four times, though I don’t claim to be an expert on it having never gone through it myself, again, thankfully. And it’s not so much the long-term aspect of labor I’m thinking of, the hours upon hours of contractions and complaining and whatnot. I’m thinking more specifically about knowing that you’re about to go into labor, that at any moment the worst pain you’ve ever experienced could just begin as though flipping on a light switch. With the ability to estimate the day of arrival – or the start of the arrival – I figure it must feel like walking around with someone following you with a hammer poised over your head and at any second that person will begin hitting you with the hammer. And that pounding may stop in a few hours or it may not stop for 24, you just don’t know. Sometimes, too, the hammer person may give you a whack or two in the weeks leading up to the full-time whacking, just to make sure you’re paying attention.

I’m not sure I could live with that kind of stress. Raising the eventual kid is stressful enough, I don’t need to be scared of the very moment it all begins, whenever that may be. Is it starting now? Or … now? Just the thought of it makes me want to beat my own head with a hammer.

Yesterday

Yesterday never got any better. It got a bit worse, in fact, because the Volvo? She’s dead. I’m fairly confident she can be brought back to life. Reasonably confident. About as confident, anyway, as I was that I could replace her water pump, that I could effortlessly repair our toilet, that no one would come into our yard in the middle of the damn day to steal a 9-year-old’s bicycle and that there was no way this week could get any worse (this all eludes to previous posts on Urf! that I’m just not interested enough in linking to, but which you could browse for and research yourself though, as I told Brooklyn Dan, I wouldn’t recommend it). So now I get to find out what it takes to install a new alternator in a 1991 Volvo 740 wagon. Replace the battery, too, though that seems simple enough, even for me. I’ll probably be doing this on Father’s Day, which only seems fitting since I got Big Mama a water pump for that very same vehicle last month for Mother’s Day.

It took me nearly two hours to get home from work last night with the gracious help of Aunt Elizabeth who lent me her Jeep to boost my car and then came to retrieve me a half-mile later when it quit. She then stayed with me through several more attempts at jumping and various other pokes and prods under the hood. Eventually we abandoned the Volvo and she drove me home. I returned a half hour later with my neighbor, the Mechanic Savant, and a battery borrowed from one of his many vehicles. We did a quick, jerry-rig installation (the posts were opposite what they should have been for my car) and five minutes later I was on the way home. The Mechanic Savant has a case of cold Milwaukee’s Best coming his way. The victory was bittersweet, of course. I retrieved the car without the aid and expense of a tow truck, but she’s just sitting out front now, immovable, like a giant Swedish paperweight.

Later, Kristy, GK and I were lying in bed watching disc 3 of season 3 of Rescue Me and, though Denis Leary’s sarcasm and Marisa Tomei’s tomeis were doing their best to distract me from the day’s stresses, my mind would invariably wander to transportation problems, finances and bike thieves. And then GK became very animated and she pointed at me and said, “Dada,” and then to herself and said, “Baby,” and finally to her mother to say, “Mama.” And I smiled, which is something that has been difficult for me these past six days.

After Rescue Me, and after GK fell asleep, I was reading an article on Paul McCartney in the June 4th New Yorker. McCartney’s three grown children are a fashion designer, musician and potter. How wonderful, I thought, to be in the position where your kids could do whatever they wanted without concerns for financial stability or economic success. What I would love for my own children is for them to be able to follow their own dreams and passions regardless of the monetary rewards or the necessity to sustain themselves and their families with those pursuits. But I know they’ll never be in that position, that I will never get them there. And then I wondered what they want for us. I don’t think they want me staying up late at night worrying about bills or me unsmiling and tense because the car or the air conditioning is broken. I remember, as a kid, wanting my father to be an artist. He was just that, though he worked for a major corporation, and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just stay home and paint all day long. I was sure he’d be happier doing so and that’s how I wanted to remember him. I wanted my mother to tend her plants all day. That’s all. Just take care of my siblings and me and spend the afternoons spritzing her house plants with that little brass watering can.

Obviously those memories of childhood can’t sustain a family of six, but I’m becoming ever more aware of how my weekday life is affecting my weeknight life as the tension follows me home to seep into the fabric of this family. The irony of me working so hard to take care of our home and these kids just to have all of that work and worry make me inaccessible to them later on is overwhelming. It seems that big changes need to be made, some hard questions need to be answered, and I’m just wondering if it’s perfectly sane to take career advice from a group of one- to nine-year-olds.

Weekend Roundup

Every Monday my sisters and I have this thing we do where we E-mail each other a description of what we did over the weekend. It’s a way to keep in touch and keep each other included on what we’re up to with our families. I’ve never done it here because I can’t imagine anyone really caring. I can’t imagine my sisters caring all that much, either, but they seem to. This weekend was so good and, yet, so awful that I feel like sharing. Perhaps writing about the bad will be cathartic, or perhaps I’m just hoping someone can tell me when it will all end.

I have to start by telling you that beginning last Wednesday afternoon it started hitting the fan here at work. Just a couple of small things, one after the other, that made me think, “Well this day is ending badly.” It wasn’t just that day, though, because the next day it got progressively worse – the work stuff I won’t bother you with, but you should know that our air slowly began going out at home. In June. In Memphis.

Things at work began turning around a bit by Friday evening when I ran in the Gibson Guitars 5k and posted an official time of 29:06. I say "official" because the start of the race was so poorly organized that I feel it cheated me out of at least a minute, which would explain why I was over my time of 28:20 the week before in the Harbor Town 5k. But it was a good race and a lot of fun and afterwards we went with S.A.M and Miss M to Fresh Slices to eat an overpriced meal while GK crawled all over the table and the kids complained about various aspects of their food. Then we went back to our un-air conditioned home to lie very still in an effort to stay cool.

Saturday morning I got up early to work on the air. It was the only chance I’d had to do it since it began going out. I thought I knew what needed to be done, and I planned to take the unit apart and clean it out thoroughly as I’d done in the past when it began freezing up. I did just that, spending more than an hour and a half inside the Goodman package unit. And when I was finished and had put it all back together, I turned it on and … nothing. Nothing. No cool air circulating throughout the house, just frost on the pipes. So I resigned myself, mostly, to waiting until Monday to call an air guy and find out how many gold pieces it was going to cost to fix this whole mess. I decided to take C on a short bike ride before Rock-n-Romp started. He had been out riding his bike earlier and was eager for us to ride together. As I got my shoes on he came in and said, “Somebody took my bike.” I went outside to find an inferior bike lying on the sidewalk in front of our house and C’s bike gone. Some piece of crap had come into our yard and taken his bike. So I jumped in the car and drove through the two neighborhoods I was sure this piece of garbage had ridden the bike in to. For half an hour I drove around and it’s probably a good thing I didn’t catch him because had I caught him within that first half hour I would probably be in jail right now. But I was angry and I went home and took it out on various things in the garage because everything that had happened since Wednesday afternoon was piling up on me until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. But I did breathe, and I eventually relaxed and I took the rotted seat and rusted gas tank off the Rebel to help me feel somewhat productive. Then I had a beer. And then we went to Rock-n-Romp since I had the day off, and had a good time talking with friends while the kids played. Afterwards we went to S.A.M.’s where The Admiral grilled out for us and we discussed strategy for the next day of sailing. Later, we went home to lay very still in an effort to keep cool in our still un-air conditioned house.

Sunday morning I woke up and ran six miles. Six miles. I haven’t run that far at once since before my surgery. But I had a Forrest Gump thing going on and I just wanted to run, and keep running. Later in the day we met The Admiral, S.A.M. and Team Greenberg-Oster at beautiful Arkabutla Lake in Mississippi to christen The Admiral’s sailboat he’s been building since last year. The christening was an actual ceremony he’d planned and that’s when we learned that she would be called Nevinston. And then we all went sailing and the winds were good. He even taught me to sail and let me take the tiller and control of the main sheet and I learned what it means to be "close to the wind." It was the best part of the weekend, though surprising that I didn’t sink that vessel to the bottom of Arkabutla Lake with the week I’d been having and everything I’d touched turning to crap. We boated and swam and grilled out and then we went home to lie very still in an effort to keep cool in our still un-air conditioned house.

This morning, Monday morning, I came in to work and parked in the lot but then decided to move my car. The Volvo wouldn’t start. And so it goes.

I realize this is a very long post, and I would have broken it up into various posts, but the brain trust at Comcast has pushed the wrong button or pulled the wrong lever so we haven’t had internet access at home since Thursday. Or maybe I did something wrong and broke it, which seems just as likely.

Happy Anniversary

Thirteen years ago today I was standing in the living room of the small house I rented in Midtown in nothing but my underwear and a starched, white shirt. It was hot and I was putting on the first suit I’d ever owned one layer at a time, standing in front of a straining window air unit. The suit was wool. I was 23. It was my wedding day.

Kristy and I were married in Fisher Gardens on the Rhodes College campus where I’d attended her graduation from that school not a month before. Our reception was held in the room above Zinnie’s East and we spent the night at the Crowne Plaza, now the Marriott, in downtown Memphis. The next morning, wedding loot in hand, we took a train to New Orleans, spent a few days eating and drinking there; flew to Miami to lay on the beach for a few more days; then back to New Orleans to catch the train home.

We arrived home with $8 in cash to a house full of wedding gifts, a Great Dane and a Weimaraner. Kristy and I have moved houses and locations several times over the years, each time filling our home with more things – books, furniture, art, dishes and, of course, children. We’ve also filled each house with enough love to keep us going for 13 years, and for many more to come.

Happy Anniversary, Kristy. I love you.

12 Minutes

Kristy and I went out to dinner last night without The Quartet. We met our friends (obligatory link, link and link) on the patio of Bosco's for food, drink and merriment, and there was plenty to go around. Almost too much to go around, really. I'll spare you the details of the conversations because those details are still a bit fuzzy (I believe someone slipped something into that drink I had) and because grandparents read this blog. Right now I just need to drink some water, get ready for the party we're throwing here in five hours, and try to remember where it is we left those kids last night.

Harbor Town 5k

Time: 28 minutes, 20 seconds

I Was Running

Today marks my triumphant return to competitive running, so you won't have to concern yourself with this now. And by "competitive," I mean "running towards a finish line clock with a large group of people." It's the Harbortown 5k. It's only 3.1 miles, not a big deal, but a year ago at this time, after back surgery to remove a ruptured disk, I never thought I'd be doing anything like this again. Yet here I am with a one-inch scar on my back and a partially numb right foot. I have no designs to win, of course, but am hoping merely to finish. To finish within 35 minutes, 38 at the most. Regardless, I've put 40 minutes worth of music on the iShuffle, so I can't go over that. So I suppose my real goal is to cross the finish line before the music runs out, and before Click, who is running it with me. It should be a lot of fun either way, with friends and family out for a festive evening on the river to cheer me and all the other runners on. Thanks in advance to all of you.