Speaking Of ...

I have just finished my time on the lecture circuit. As both of you may remember, last February I spoke to S's 2nd-grade class for career day. It was a resounding success and I'm sure I unleashed dozens of little freelance writers on the world, clad comfortably in robes, slippers and porkpies.

Today, I had the pleasure of speaking at the annual luncheon of the parent teacher organization for St. George's Independent School (people paid $25 a piece just to listen to me! ... and for lunch). I still don't know why I agreed to it. The vice president of the association sent me an e-mail back in February asking if I'd be interested in being the guest speaker. Public speaking is a phobia of mine, but I didn't immediately turn down the offer. Instead, I slept on it, and when I woke up the following morning I wrote 1,000 words to start off a possible speech. That part seemed easy, so I replied and accepted the offer.

I didn't look at what I'd written, or really give the luncheon much thought, until last week when I picked up that draft from more than two months before and read it out loud. Vice President Walker asked that I speak for 25 minutes, yet my hand-written speech came in at a cool 4:55. I would need to write four times what I'd already written.

I sat down and doubled what I had and it was still coming in short, at about 10 minutes, but I was happy with it. I kept reading it and tweaking it, let a couple of others read it, and we all decided it was a good speech.

So today I delivered it. I stood up in front of a room full of strangers out at TPC Southwind and delivered a speech that had them laughing aloud from the get go. It went much better than I'd hoped and everyone seemed very appreciative.

One of the reasons I agreed to do this was because the thought of doing it terrified me. I don't think I'll be scaling the side of a building any time soon, or letting spiders crawl over me, but I'm happy with myself that I could get past this and that it could turn out so well. I was confident in the material, I just wasn't confident in myself.

So thank you to St. George's and the parents who make up their PTA for a great afternoon and a little boost of confidence.

Outdoors

This is how we dine at Casa de Urf!.

Because I Said So

My column in The Commercial Appeal yesterday was about the kids always wanting - needing! - to go someplace other than wherever it is they are at the moment, usually our house. I go on from there to how expensive all of the local attractions are - the zoo, Children's Museum, Botanic Gardens, etc. It's really quite clever.

A couple of interesting items came from that column. Drake & Zeke, on their morning drive-time radio program, said some very nice things about the column, me and my writing. I appreciate that very much.

Today, former mayor of Memphis and current CEO of the Children's Museum called to discuss the column and let me know why any sort of all-city pass to these attractions won't work. Mainly because places like the zoo and Botanic Gardens are a public/private venture while places like the Children's Museum and Dixon Gallery & Gardens are completely private. Makes sense, but I still think there could be some tweaking. I wasn't really looking for an answer, I was just trying to be funny in 500 words, but it was nice of Mayor Hackett to take the time to discuss it with me, it was a very philosophical conversation.

I didn't think about recording the phone call until later, but below is the bit from the Drake & Zeke show. Enjoy!

www.richardalley.com/RJAlley_040110.mp3

C is for Cool

C and I went to a book reading and signing last night at Burke's Book Store in Cooper-Young. At the shop, C shuffled back to the chapter books while I was cornered by the proprietors' 14-year-old daughter who is also a C, a Ch, actually, because if any kid ever deserved an extra letter, it's Ch. She is friendly and outgoing and the word 'shy' is not in her extensive vocabulary. Ch should be a character in a book, and since her father is a prolific writer, I'm sure she will be. We talked for a while about Monty Python while C sat nearby reading, not to be bothered. My own Silent Bob.

After the reading, he and I went to Young Ave. Deli for dinner. C seemed right at home with his longish hair and classic Stax tee, sliding into a booth and slouching against the back wall as though he'd done it a thousand times before. The tattooed waitress with the metal-studded face appeared to find the silent 12 year old more intriguing than his old man with the graying, receding hair and goofy grin on his face that seemed to say, "I will not be helping a 3 year old go potty during this dinner."

Having successfully ignored the book store owners' daughter who never even acknowledged his existence, C coolly waved away the children's menu/placemat and crayons offered to him, and even remained silent when asked what he would like to drink (C, that's when I need you to speak up). I accepted that menu to let him know what his dinner choices were.

We sat there, mostly in silence, drinking our lemonade and Guinness while I looked around and he texted. There were a lot of young children at Young Ave. Deli. I fought back the urge to go to each table and announce, "I used to be you! I used to be the hip young parent introducing my toddler(s) to pub grub. I wasn't always the near-40 father who spends his days fussing after the bird feeders and puttering around his garden. And, lady, I see that homemade sandwich in the plastic baggie peeking out of the top of your purse. You're not fooling anybody, now give that kid an onion ring."

C and I did talk. We discussed books and school and plans for the summer. Having dinner out with your kid is cool, no matter their age. Or yours. And as we sat there waiting for our food, he stealthily pulled a nubby little pencil from his pocket to work his way through the children's menu maze, connect the dots and dive into the word search.

He may have finished his entire Guinness, but he's still my little boy.

Urf! Is This Many

Four years ago today I sat down and started pecking out what I thought were funny little stories about what my kids were doing and saying, and what I thought about it all as a new-ish father, right here under the masthead Urf!.

And they are funny, most of them. Just take a look for yourself down there on the right hand side of this page, click on any month from 2006-2008. Last year wasn't so hot and this year isn't shaping up to be, either, as far as consistency goes. This drought is mostly because of what this little blog has spawned, which is something approximating a career. Urf! became, for me, the bi-weekly writing of the column "Because I Said So" in The Commercial Appeal, and that has become more and more freelance writing work (much of this good fortune is also due to Stacey Greenberg and Fertile Ground) which keeps me busy and up to my neck in deadlines.

I always wanted to be a writer. I didn't tell many people that at the time, but since I was about 15 I wanted to write for a living. I went about it all the wrong way. In fact, I didn't really even go about it at all, and I still tell people that I'm lucky and really just fell into what I'm doing by accident.

This blog has archived the growing of my family. Apropos of that, we spent today preparing to grow. We dug and we dragged found materials from the woods behind our house, we shoveled and we planned. The family garden is 193 square feet (so far) of good earth. We have become an agrarian society who will, this year, attempt to reap and sow a cheese pizza.

The past four years have seen many changes. We've become larger as a family over these years, found new interests and focus, worked as any family needs to to maintain order and sanity, and grown richer. Not monetarily, by any means, but in ways that I can't even describe.

I look forward to the next four years. I hope they'll be documented here (if the internet is more than a fad), but if not, I'm sure they'll be written somewhere and I'll try to let you know where.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck around for four years and laughed with me at my children, watched them grow and become interesting little people. Thanks to all of you who came late but have stayed for the party. You've become a part of our lives and we consider you all a part of the Urf! family.

Three Minutes

My friend Amy Ballinger-Cole sent me an e-mail a while back to suggest I enter NPR's Three-Minute Fiction contest. It's a writing contest in which you look at a provided photograph and write a story of no more than 600 words inspired by that photo. The winner was to have their story read on the air.

Here is the photo:



At first I just laughed at the notion of writing for free. HAHAHA! And then I thought, "Well, I do dabble in fiction" and then, "It's short, so it will be easy and quick, and then I can get back to watching The Oprah."

So the next morning, somewhere between sleep and waking, when it seems some of my best ideas come to me, I wrote most of this story in my head. When I first saw the photo, I immediately thought of a racing form. I also figured that 98% of the other entrants would see it as the interior of a coffee shop, so I eschewed that location. In the reflection of the glass, you can just make out a BA, which led to the title, which came out of I don't know where. Probably more sleep than awake.

I like this quick little story. I managed to touch on four generations, at least two states and a couple of countries. I referenced war, death, fear and gambling, and yet got in just a hint of humor. All of this came together to win me naught. Not even in the top 10 or so, although there is the slim, outside chance that my story is referenced in the story about the contest and winner:

"Stories poured in from all over the country — stories about cafes and trains from London to Maine. There were lost loves and lost newspapers, detectives on stakeout, and racetrack bums looking to make one last big score."

Win or lose, I still like the story and it was a fun exercise. And it became like a writer's workshop around here for a day or two with the other writers living in our house entering the contest as well (read the entries from the rest of our round table here: Sassy and SAM).

So here's my story, Basil's Baby, inspired by that photo. It's the sort of thing I do when no one is paying me to write. Enjoy.

Basil's Baby

I knew which horse to bet on as soon as I opened the racing form. Even before I looked at records or jockeys or lineage, I knew I would bet on Basil’s Baby in the fifth. Betting on a name is probably the worst way to gamble next to horse color, but how could I not? I’d woken my daughter every morning of her two years by calling her Basil. I’m not even sure why or how it started. As a prep cook, I was usually getting home when it was time for her to wake up. Leaning over her, smelling of spice and root, I’d whisper in her tiny ear, “Basil, come on, baby, daddy’s home.”

The truth is, I could have sat at that little red pushpin of a table all day long eating chicken nuggets and staring out the window at people walking past. If that 12-piece box of nuggets I’d gotten had never run out, I never would have complained. But I needed to get to the OTB to get this bet off so I could get back to the hospital. I had to be there when she woke up, the IV clinging to her arm like a parasite, and her so scared.

And I needed Basil’s Baby to come in at those odds so I could pay for it all.

My great-grandmother taught me how to bet on horses. I must have been 7 years old. Her husband had passed away and she decided she needed an escort when going out, so she taught me to look at track conditions and blood lineage. She explained the art of handicapping and how to pick a sure thing. And that there is no such thing as a sure thing. She taught me to never, ever bet on a horse’s name.

Grandma also shared lessons of family and need, and the risk of letting someone close. Love and loss traveled hand in hand for the old woman, losing a son in Korea and a husband so near retirement to an unnamed cancer. The Ballingers moved from Hot Springs, Arkansas, to Memphis to work for the International Harvester plant and it was an envelope with a red IH imprinted on it that grandma would show me when we went back to Arkansas to visit family and the track.

Grandpa’s pension check was sizeable. “Don’t risk it, can’t win it,” she’d say, sitting in a club seat and sipping Crème de Menthe.

Basil’s Baby was slow out of the gate but came on strong on the outside for the last quarter mile. She was beautiful, all silver muscle and mane, even on the little monitor in the dirty corner of the OTB.

I stood in line at the window to collect my winnings and thought how I’d still rather be sitting at that small table pouring over the racing forms, losing myself in statistics and breeders names, and eating chicken nuggets slowly through the afternoon.

My daughter was waiting in that big, white bed, though. Just a little sprig of a girl, my sweet Basil.

I went back to the hospital with enough cash in my pocket for the medicine she’d need. I silently thanked my great-grandmother and the horse I’d just chosen by name only.

Spring Forward

This is a public service announcement from me to you reminding you to move your clocks forward ahead tonight. I reminded the kids this afternoon and JP asked how far ahead, so I told him 3 days. "When you wake up tomorrow, it will be Wednesday," I said.

I love the age when they believe everything I tell them. It doesn't happen to be JP's current age. The older kids haven't believed a word I've said since they were 4 years old. That's the age when they learn to roll their eyes and ask to go ask their mother for the real answer. I still have a couple more months with GK.

C asked how far we move the clocks back in Fall and I told him 3 days. Duh. "So that would also be Wednesday?" he asked.

A reminder again, today is Wednesdaylight Savings Time, so turn your clock forward to the middle of next week.

Or don't and just go ask your mother when you want to know what time it is.

Herb Garden

We spent last Sunday working in the courtyard. These are before and after pictures of the herb garden there. You can see the rosemary right there in front and some sage over to the far right. I imagine there will be some after-after pictures later, when it's full of greens, purples and reds. The rocky area to the left will be cacti and succulents.

This is where I'll spend a lot of time this spring and summer, just sitting and staring with my thoughts until the kids figure out where I am.

Thing 3

S's class celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday yesterday and the kids got to dress up as their favorite character. In our house, S is Thing 3, but for the day yesterday she was Thing 2.

Mr. Dad

For the past couple of months, The Commercial Appeal has dropped the ball when it comes to paying me. Dropping the ball, it seems, is easier than dropping a check in the mail. It has been straightened out, and will be straightened out, but in the meantime I received a bonus the other day that will hold me over.

A couple of weeks ago I went to S's classroom to impress her classmates with my job. It was career day and I feel certain that a whole room full of 7-year-olds now want to do what it is I do for a living. Whatever that is.

S brought home a big card the class made for me that reads: Thank You Mr. Dad. And they all signed it and drew pictures all over it.

I think it's one of the nicest things I've received in a long time. As far as the CA goes, it's one of the only things I've received in a long time. Maybe I'll send this card in to MLGW and see if they are as impressed with it as I am and will apply it to my next utility bill.

Three Little Birds

Our house is square like a doughnut.

That doesn't sound right, but there is a hole in the center of our house. It's a courtyard. In this courtyard there is a crepe myrtle tree and I've noticed some finches sitting in the tree lately and looking around as though they were expecting something.

I like to watch the birds. Sitting on the sofa and watching them alight and look around is soothing to a father of four's nerves. I would even like to attract more and, with this goal, I went to Lowe's the other day and bought a couple of bird feeders and some finch food. I installed these feeders and waited.

And waited.

Eventually the birds showed up despite the new, odd ornaments hanging in the tree, and then they would just as quickly fly away. There is nothing less soothing to the nerves than a bird flying in and flying away, and flying in and flying away, and flying in . . .

Is it the food? I wondered. Were these wild birds so picky that the 2 lb. bag of seed wasn't to their liking and they couldn't be bothered to eat it? Because if that's it then they can starve for all I care. I've got a house full of kids who routinely turn their nose up at well-cooked meals placed on a table, not hanging from a tree.

It's cold out. I thought these birds might appreciate a meal that was easy to get at, free of any predators or dangers.

The predators. Of course. They play Wii, they watch television, they run from room to room to ask questions and tag each other. They aren't predators in the sense that they would ever kill and eat these birds, nothing so productive, so fraught with initiative. Making their own peanut butter and jelly sandwich is so much exertion for them that they'll often choose hunger as an alternative.

But there are large sliding glass doors on three sides of the doughnut hole and as these kids flit past one, then the other, then another, then back again, they must scare the hell out of those poor birds. The cheap food I bought certainly isn't worth all that stress and worry. It's much better to risk life and limb out scavenging for food among the neighborhood cats.

Maybe I'll make the kids start eating out in the courtyard. Hang their pizza and meatloaf from that crepe myrtle and every time they reach for a bite we'll jump out of the doors and scare them. Perhaps seeing these kids nervously trying to have dinner outside will both help them appreciate the food they're given indoors and soothe an old dad's nerves.

On A Roll

I don't know what she's doing with them, and I don't know what urgent need there is for such a thing or where they end up, but 3-year-old GK has got to have a wet paper towel.

And she needs it right. now.

We know a few things for sure: she's not cleaning anything, she's not stanching any bleeding, there is no evidence of her flushing them (yet) and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight of her need for wet paper towels.

Only occasionally will she ask for a dry one after asking for a wet one. I've almost decided to just buy her a package of Brawny for her very own and keep a bucket of water on hand just so I'm not constantly called into service.

"I need a wet paper towel!" The urgency is such that we actually go running for one, thinking something might need to be cleaned or bleeding might need to be stopped.

So far, nothing. Nothing cool, anyway, just a bunch of water droplets all over the floor.

Not even a surprise sculpture of me has turned up - arms outstretched with an empty cardboard tube in each hand - fashioned out of wet paper towels.

Career Day

S has asked me to be a part of Career Day at her school next week. Actually, she asked her mother, but Kristy is a teacher and is at work during school hours. Besides, those kids spend their whole day listening to teachers.

So S turned to me where I stood grinning, expectantly awaiting my invitation, giddy with anticipation.

"Okay," she sighed, "you're up."

How to convey the exciting and glamorous life of a freelance writer to a room full of second graders?

The Presentation: I'm signing up for the 7:45 - 10:20 a.m. time slot, so I figure I'll show up about noon in my bathrobe, mug of coffee in hand. I will then spend half an hour or so on Facebook, read some blogs and tweet. Then, as they all look on, I'll pull out a legal pad and #2 pencil and write 500 words making fun of them all before stretching out on the floor to rest my eyes.

And then I'll eat one of their lunches.

I look forward for the opportunity to mold these young minds into something only slightly more moldy next week. If any of S's classmates' parents read this blog, you may want to consider a "snow day" next Thursday.

Cheaters

I took C to get a physical yesterday so he can try out for the soccer team at school. I took him to the Take Care Clinic at Walgreen's because I figured that would be the quickest way to get him in and out of what would be a routine check-up.

It was not quick at all, nor was it so routine. He failed the physical.

It seems he can't see. It was the first test of this routine procedure and the doctor climbed her way up the chart until she got to 20/60 before stopping and calling an optometrist she knows to see if he could fit C in last night.

The whole ordeal was unnerving. It's not bad that C is going to have to wear glasses. I wear them, plenty of his friends and our friends' kids wear them. It was just unexpected to stand there and hear him say wrong letter after wrong letter when he's never once said that things are blurry or that he's having trouble with his vision.

On the short drive home, I was faced with having to discern whether the sulking lump in the seat next to me was upset because he may not get the chance to play soccer (in true House of Urf! fashion, we're waiting until the last minute to get all of this done - tryouts are on Monday) or because he just had to stand there while a stranger at the Walgreen's told him something is wrong with him.

Now, again, it's not any big deal and Dr. Stranger didn't put it in those words, but we're dealing with a 12-year-old, a boy on the awkward and uncomfortable precipice of adolescence where everything seems just a little larger than life. And then, suddenly, he was dealing with having to wear larger-than-life rims on his growing face.

We had been sitting in the tiny waiting area for nearly two hours (again, not a quick visit) with me telling him that once he gotin to see the doctor, it would be really quick because this was all just very routine and "pretty silly when you think about it." So, maybe he was slouched down in the passenger seat thinking about what an idiot I am for saying all of that. He is 12, so that's always a possibility.

Not knowing C couldn't see so well and the likelihood of him not trying out for soccer because I waited too long to take care of this all feeds into the guilt I feel as a parent on a daily basis. Which is what my column is about today! Be sure to put on your reading glasses and read 'Because I Said So' in The Commercial Appeal.

There is also a brand new 'Because I Said So' fan page on the Facebook, so stop by there if you're a Facebooker. And, really, why wouldn't you be?

See you in the funny papers.

The Right Note

C wrote a note this morning and left it in S's lunchbox for her to find during the day.

It read: Hey, honey, I love you. He signed it from "Mommy."

S thought it was funniest, most clever thing she'd seen all day so, of course, she took it to its next, illogical step and has already penned a note to him and put it in his lunchbox for tomorrow.

It reads: Don't come home stupid. She signed her own name.

However, she misspelled her name at first, crossing out an errant "w." Further, she had to ask me how to spell "stupid."

Everybody has the right to be fascinated by the simple, and kids certainly have the right to make mistakes, but don't commit them to paper and pass them along to your older sibling. That's just stupid.

Mathketball

The temperature this weekend was high enough to drive us all outside to enjoy the fresh air and the basketball goal that Santa brought last month. Because there is no need to introduce any more competition into our kids' lives due to the sometimes violent and aggressive nature of the loser, and because the kids - and by kids, I mean S - have little concept of taking turns, I had to invent rules for them to shoot hoops.

These rules involved some math.

Each child gets to shoot until he or she makes a basket. If a basket is made within the first three shots, then two shots will be added to those first three. Therefore, if you make a basket on the first try, then you get four more shots. If it's made on the third try, you get two more. If a basket is not made within the first three, we found, then upwards of 248 shots may be made until that rock drops.

I also incorporated a spelling lesson and C quickly learned how to spell HORSE. He was a gracious loser.

I taught the kids how to throw a football this weekend, too. As is typical for the House of Urf!, everyone begins reading early, yet learned to to throw a football well into their grade school years.

And as is typical for JP, I showed him how to hold and throw the football, he threw a perfect, tight spiral, and then ran off to do something else.

C and I spent a while tossing the football back and forth. It took him a few passes, but he was doing really well in no time. It was a good way to spend an afternoon that ended a week in which those first signs of adolescence, of a verbal distance that is the harbinger of coming times, showed itself.

C hasn't been himself lately. Or, rather, he's been who he will be when he fully morphs into a sullen teen. These will be years when I know I'll have to make a special effort to connect with him, to get him to open up to me and tell me if there are problems, fears, hopes or questions.

The backyard on a perfectly balmy January afternoon, I found, was the perfect way to set that play in motion.

Spaced Out

JP has found a wormhole, a break in the space-time continuum, whatever that is.

When the kids come home from school and walk in the door, they file past my office without a word of hello and into the living room. Not a minute later I'm in there with them to say hello, ask how their day was and pester them. JP will inevitably be changed out of his uniform and on the couch with blankets pulled up and the TV on. C will be sitting in a chair, still in his uniform with his backpack at his feet, slackjawed at the antics of Sponge Bob. S stands next to him, still in uniform, backpack still on and staring at the TV.

JP somehow manages to turn on the television from the front porch, change clothes somewhere in the hallway, drop his backpack in a separate room and make himself comfortable on the couch in the blink of an eye.

Unless he's been there all day.

Maybe the JP that files in after school is a future JP. Or a past JP. Or a JP from another dimension . . . it's really just a string theory right now.

(I'm not a science fiction guy.)

No Snow Day

Is there anything more disheartening than watching three children trudge off down the driveway on their way to school, snow underfoot? Only the sight of their mother, a school teacher, shuffling off to work.

They promised us snow. They promised it since last weekend and they delivered, sort of. In a sick, twisted way we had snow fall last night. Some schools are closed, most are not. Ours are not.

I know people from the north who read this and are laughing that anything at all would be made about, what a friend wrote this morning, having " ... snow like a New Orleans beignet has powdered sugar, if that," but I like that a little snow slows everything down, if not stopping it altogether. The anticipation, planning for snowmen and snowball fights, fires and hot chocolate, can take any adult back to childhood and is the stuff my kids' memories will be made of.

How miserable it must be to live up north, get eight inches of snow, and still be expected to show up everywhere. That's no fun.

Three-year-old GK is home today anyway due to a slight fever yesterday. She has wild plans to eat snow. To hear her tell it, she may eat all of the snow that fell in the city last night. I plan to stay inside and drink coffee.

She also hopes to talk all day long by the sound of it. I don't think she's stopped since waking and she shows no signs of slowing, or quieting, down. It will make work difficult for me today. It will make drinking coffee and watching Dora very easy, however.

Hope you all are staying warm and arrived at your destinations safely this morning. I'm sorry there had to be any destination at all.

My Quiet Days of Auld Lang Syne

I find myself this week at the end of another year, another decade.

It’s the time of year, these days between Christmas and the new year that there is a general melancholy and wistfulness in the air, when sentimentality is the order of the day. This feeling stems from those purgatorial days as a kid that I loathed, when family would pack their things to return home, leaving me in a wake of torn red paper, tattered bows and a discarded tree at the curb. It was a return to real life that was like a wintry cold slap in the face.

I’m not one to greet January making resolutions for the new year as the clock ticks out. There will be no list beginning with the hopeful and specific “lose weight” and ending with the lazy and blasé “be a better person,” though both would be on such a list at any time of the year.

Rather than look ahead, this is the time I tend to look back. Not necessarily at 2009 or at the decade it ends, not at any set frame of days, weeks and months, but simply backward. Thoughts, conversations, actions, dreams, hopes, mistakes, music, friends, stories, fears, loves, hates … it’s all in there, everyone and everything that has come to make me who I am over the course of my four decades.

These are days when I look out the window to see the trees sketched in black against a bright blue winter sky while reflecting on the sun-dappled leaves of spring, and I carry around Somerset Maugham’s “The Summing Up” and my old friend Jim’s, creased and coffee-stained copy of Salinger’s “Franny and Zooey,” pilfered and treasured after so many moves together so many years ago. I carry them from room to room the way Franny carries her volumes and I recite passages to myself the way she repeats the Jesus Prayer over and over to herself. It’s a way for me to feel close to the past, to old friends and to become reacquainted with the language.

There is no list for the upcoming year, but there is an outline, a vague notion with Roman numerals and bits and pieces of alphabet, of what the year ahead might bring. Something I’ve been working on for the past year should be finished in 2010. I’m not saying it will be published (any increase in optimism would be further down a list, were there to be such a list), but I will finish it if only because I’ve become intimate with its characters and their stories, and I need to know how and where they all end up, how they fare from the troubles I’ve given to them and the obstacles I’ve selfishly placed in their way.

Losing weight is in the outline as well, though as a subset of exercising to better manage stress and patience levels. Spending more time – one on one – with the kids, cooking more, travel and reading more and better are all in the outline to varying degrees. Spending less time online is in this ephemeral plan of the new year, slipping off the grid for days at a time could help with a boost in productivity being the idea. Even becoming a better person is there, buried, possibly not even written and, if so, lightly in soft lead pencil because it’s something that’s been worked on for so many years to some success and some failure.

There are people in my life who make it possible for me to make a living, both through words of encouragement and financially since it isn’t much of a living, really, at something I love. Their willingness to read, to consider and to impart criticism, and then to understand when I skulk off and pout due to that criticism, is invaluable. Part of being a better person, a subset of that subset, is making sure they know that I do appreciate it. A kind of everyday, ongoing and informal dedication page.

Another wish for the new year is that you will all stick around, pass me around and share my thoughts and family with each other. Stop in any time, both literally and figuratively, here, in the newspaper or wherever I may end up. We’ve left the door open, the welcome mat in place and a cold drink waiting on the bar.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we'll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Wishing for a bright and happy New Year from my family to yours.

Christmas morning

We all settled on the couch last night for our annual Christmas Eve viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. The kids, older now by a year, seemed to grasp a little more of what was going on than in years previous, though there were still inane, constant questions such as "Who's he?" every time George Bailey appeared on screen.

As the movie wound down, however, and George began his frantic search through Pottersville for Martini, his mother, Mary and, ultimately, Clarence, the kids quieted down. They became rapt with attention at the drama unfolding on the screen and there even appeared to be a collective sigh of relief when George's mouth started bleeding again, ZuZu's petals reappeared, the bank examiner was found to be waiting at home and Uncle Billy finally came through the door with a big basket full of cash.

Whether the kids understood the message or not, I'm not sure, but they were at least focused enough on the outcome to not notice their father sitting in the dark with only the glow of the tree lights to spotlight that he, once again, couldn't keep it together when Harry Bailey toasts his brother.

I say "we all" settled in but, actually, JP didn't stick around long. As he is wont to do, he announced that he was really sleepy and asked if he had to stay for the movie. I told him to go to bed whenever he was ready, so he trotted off with visions of sugarplums and root beer in his head ... only to announce he was still awake several hours later.

Unable to sleep, and fidgety with excitement, it seems he lay in bed for hours imagining the possibilities. Sleeplessness at night is so foreign a concept to JP that it actually scared him when he wasn't able to drift off. He kept C awake with his worry and C, being the alternate parent he is, came in to let us know.

Kristy and I, of course, were busy as elves.

So, for the first time in 11 years as parents, we were disturbed while performing our Santa Claus duties. This was never a problem for all those Christmases we spent in a 1,200 square foot house. No, we had to move to one three times that size to have these kids up and wandering around looking for us at 1 a.m. on Christmas Eve.

I think the real problem was that JP knew there was a Wii in the house. Of course he hadn't seen it, wrapped and under the tree since his Nonna sent it to him, but he could sense it. He could smell that game console over the Christmas cookie aroma, through the wrapping paper and from two rooms away. He vibrated with the knowledge that something in the aura of the house had changed and it kept him awake, the Miis quickly outnumbering and overpowering the sugarplums for real estate in his electronically-wired mind.

So, that's right, the kids got a Wii this morning. For those of you who know us, you know how big that is. You understand why JP's head exploded when the paper came off, leaving bits of wishfulness and hopefulness that had been harbored there for so long all over the walls, the decorated tree and my bathrobe. Life, as the kids know it, is complete. To show just how surprised they were, they named their Wii console, when the opportunity was given to do so, Miracle.

Welcome to the family, Miracle.

And thank you, Nonna, from your Memphis grandchildren.

My column in yesterday's Commercial Appeal was all about managing expectations and I think we did a pretty good job of that this year. Our kids wanted a lot, we told them there was no way they'd get it all, they expected less and then got more than they ever could have imagined.

Another holiday season in the bag. Merry Christmas, everyone.