Month: March 2014

Over the Composting Handlebars.

March 5, 2014composting, Parenting Tips, recycling, san franciscokjbeadling View all 4 comments

I fully buy-in to the recycling and composting paradigm. I have studied the posters showing me what to compost, what to recycle, and what to consign to a faceless landfill for the rest of human history. I pride myself on demonstrating my earth-friendly knowledge at the local Starbucks’ condiment bar, tossing my used cup in the compost and used plastic lid in recycling, with theatrical flair. I may even make a snarky comment if the patron standing there shoulder-to-shoulder with me does not follow suit.

And God help the Lululemon-wearing nanny who absentmindedly flips a ripped Sweet & Low packet into the “garbage.” Gasp. I might just reach down in there, past the coffee grounds and organic milk containers, up to my armpit now, to pluck out the delicate pink paper and pinch it into its proper end through the “compost” circle. Maintaining laser eye-contact with Lulu all the while, even as I politely hold open the exit door for her with a tight smile. I’ve got my eye on you, Lulu.

I’m committed to this.

The saying goes that there are two types of bicycle riders: Those that have gone ass-over-tea-kettle and those that will go ass-over-tea-kettle. Likewise, there are two types of composters: Those that have had a disgusting, nightmare-inducing experience with their compost system and those that will have a disgusting, nightmare-inducing experience with their compost system.

I fall into the former category.

You see that shiny, confidence-inspiring, metallic compost can pictured at the top of this blog? It looks great, right? Fits in on anyone’s kitchen counter. Looks clean, sanitary, sturdy. Not exactly a shiny Tesla, but surely as iconic a symbol of its owner’s intention to save the planet. Well, Teslas, it turns out, will spontaneously combust from time-to-time. And that cute little compost can packed to the gills with food scraps can be equally evil. No good deed goes unpunished, apparently. Probably serves us right for being so self-righteous about saving the planet. But I digress.

Emptying the compost can in our kitchen is perhaps the least-desirable household chore around here. The kids pretend it’s not there. My wife pretends it’s not there. I use the thing religiously, each tossed-in coffee filter, eggshell or garlic skin making me feel like a really good person. Look at me, I’m saving the planet!

I might as well be stuffing gun powder, wadding, and a cannon ball into a cannon. Jam that stuff in there until nothing else could possibly fit. Then jam some more stuff in there.

I don’t usually bring the contents of the compost can down to the green Recology bin in our garage until I absolutely have to. I know what’s been stuffed in there over the past few days. Or weeks. A couple fruit flies spring free when the can’s top is lifted? Not quite ready yet. The compostable plastic-ish bag has fallen down on one edge, the victim of over-stuffing? Reach down and pull it up a bit, like a reluctant dress sock with its elasticity long gone. That sucker is good for at least a couple more days.

But pull off the lid and spy what appears to be a chicken bone dressed like Santa Clause? Yep, it’s time. Particularly if you can’t recall even making chicken for dinner in the last couple weeks. And especially since you’ve read a bit about toxic spores, mold and such. It’s definitely go time.

If you haven’t waited as long as I do, the process of transporting your little green bag of righteousness from your kitchen down the stairs to the large green bin of righteousness in your garage might go swimmingly. Maybe you’re whistling or even humming while you are saving the planet.

But remember that I have gone over the composting handle bars. There is no whistling or humming or thoughts of planet-saving when you’re in mid-air and turning a flip over your front wheel (to stretch the metaphor a bit further).

A week or so after a little Fourth of July get-together (involving the aforementioned, bearded Santa Clause chicken bones), I had my composting moment.

The cute little green bag burst, evidently pulling one “G” too many as I rounded the corner halfway down the garage stairs. The thing exploded like a bomb, spewing stuff that no longer resembled anything I recognized as ever buying or cooking or serving to anyone in our house. It looked like a blood-spattered crime scene in Dexter. The sheer volume of the contents, splashed on the wall, stuck between the railing and the wall, scattered and oozy all over the carpeted stairs, it was staggering. Almost too much to take. I’m a little light-headed and panicky just thinking about it.

Expecting my wife to be home at any minute, I sprang into action; Harvey Keitel’s “the Wolf” in Pulp Fiction. Just like that. Efficient. Precise. All business. I managed to clean it all up, timely, and no one would have been the wiser had I not decided later to tell the story at the dinner table.

I was proud of myself, self-satisfied, clearly embracing this composting thing, despite having now seen its ugly underbelly. Saving the planet.

Then it dawned on me that in my cleaning, I had deployed about a dozen bottles and canisters of completely toxic liquids, powders, and gels. I threw everything I had at the crime scene. Plastic bags to contain the vile stuff, bleach-soaked wipes removing the final traces of the explosion. And all of it was deposited in the shameful, black trash bin.

I tried to console myself. It was the best effort I could muster in the moment, so consumed with all the dry heaving, swearing and sweating.

Still, I had probably undone a year’s worth of planet-saving composting and recycling activities with those 15 ill-conceived minutes of toxic remediation in my garage stairwell. Oh, if Lulu could see me now.

So like I said, there are two types of composters, and your time is coming….

Thanks for reading.

Overextended

March 4, 2014Parenting Tipskjbeadling One comment

This time I may have gone too far.

Email authors who could once be counted on for “C’est la vie” notes of support now verge on vitriol. The iconic “no worries” response is a thing of the past, apparently. I cringe, nowadays, when the auto-preview beneath the subject line populates with words that will bring a pit to my stomach. Yet another disappointee.

I need one of those big McDonald’s signs — “Over 300,000 People Disappointed!” instead of cheeseburgers served.

When it comes to my kids, I am a firm believer in holding doors open for them as long as humanly possible, until they are able to choose the doors to keep open themselves. I think my job is to give them options, to preserve their opportunities.

I am using every hand, elbow, foot, knee and chin to keep the doors from slamming shut. Sometimes I have to throw one open wide, pulling it with everything I have, then turning open another before the first swings shut again. Sometimes I am running down the hall at a full sprint, yanking on door knobs, shirt tails billowing, like some overdone dream sequence.

This seems most apparent when it comes to the sports my kids play. My 8 year-old Everett is just winding up his soccer and basketball seasons. I coached the latter, as I always have. But this past season I was physically present for perhaps only half of his games and practices. I’m not sure that made for a fair outcome for Everett, for the other players, or for our other coach.

I felt good about making it to their last practice last night. Managing to run a scrimmage and a few drills that maybe showed some objective improvement from the season’s beginning. There were quite a few smiles on the court, even.

Of course, in order to harvest those 8 year-old smiles with missing teeth, I had to short-change my older son.

Max is playing on a travel baseball team based in Marin County, across the Golden Gate Bridge from our home in San Francisco. The team practices three times a week. This frequency is actually new to our family. And I have heard of far worse schedules. Still, I haven’t quite mastered the art of being in two places at once. So I had to cobble together: A different school bus route than Max has ever taken in 8 years. A pickup at an unfamiliar bus stop in Marin. By a babysitter Max had never met before (nor had I). Who works with a (very generous, thankfully) family from Max’s new baseball team whom we barely know, and vice versa. A pre-game play date with said family’s son, one of the players on Max’s new team.

This all starts to feel like a convoluted game of Clue. The plan worked out fine, if fine is physically delivering Max to the appropriate field at the appointed time. And allowing me to coach Ev’s final YMCA basketball practice. Maybe the last such practice I will ever coach for Everett, since my basketball coaching bona fides are extremely thin.

And of course, Max had to miss his Little League practice that was being held across San Francisco Bay at the same time as he was running around on wet turf in Kentfield. His Little League coach (I am one of the assistant coaches) was understandably irked by Max’s absence. So I managed to disappoint Max and his coach with one fell swoop. Probably disappointed Everett, too, who complained that he got fouled a lot during his scrimmage and why didn’t I make the offending player cut it out.

My wife Hilary returned home that evening from an overnight work retreat. Typically I handle getting dinner ready for everyone. I’ve learned to relish this, turning myself into a decent cook over the years rather than viewing this as an unwelcome chore. But last night, given that Max’s baseball practice runs late, Hilary and Everett resorted to eating leftover pizza and birthday cake. The leftover pizza and birthday cake that we had served at Everett’s birthday party on Saturday.

That could have been a nice, uplifting point to end on. Save for the fact that Everett’s actual birthday was on December 6th. Saturday was March 1st. Three months later.

So like I said: Overextended.

Thanks for reading.

I Killed Jiminy.

March 2, 2014Parenting TipsChapuline, crickets, Jiminy Cricket, La Urbana, Murderkjbeadling One comment

Well, technically, I didn’t kill him. And technically, he wasn’t known as “Jiminy” at the crime scene. He ran by the handle, “Chapulines,” or rather, he was one of the Chapulines. And truth be told, I can’t really be sure that the victim was, indeed, actually Jiminy Chapuline. It could have been just about any Chapuline that met his or her maker last night. I don’t know that I or anyone else can distinguish one Chapuline from any other Chapuline. They all look the same. Sorry, Diego. Lo Siento.

While I didn’t kill Jiminy, I did eat him. He was already dead when I popped him into my mouth, his head squeezing out some sort of bitter juice in one final act of defiance, protest.

It’s been awhile since I practiced criminal law, but I believe my actions make me an “accessory” to Jiminy’s undoing:

An accessory is a person who assists in the commission of a crime, but who does not actually participate in the commission of the crime as a joint principal.

Uh-oh, this sounds like I may be in trouble.

Moroever, an accessory must generally have knowledge that a crime is being, or will be committed.

Well, I did see “Esquites with “Chapulines” on the menu. And although I took a ton of Spanish in high school and at Duke, I honestly don’t recall every learning “cricket” in Spanish. And I certainly never conjugated any verbs, ever, regarding which a cricket was the hapless victim. So I have some wiggle room there.

A person with such knowledge may become an accessory by helping or encouraging the criminal in some way, or simply by failing to report the crime to proper authority.

Yeah, this is definitely not looking good for me. There did come a time (The Lemonade Chronicles‘ first post, anyone?) when Jiminy and his jumbled ramekin of forelegs, midlegs, hind legs, and chewing mouthparts all akimbo, was set down at the center of our table. At that moment, it’s true, I did not shoot to my feet, table legs humming across the wood floor with a loud rub, and scream, “Take that away! I will not be a party to this!” Nor did I yell, “Call 911, someone has been murdered up in this piece!”

I will reserve the option of “reporting the crime to the proper authorities” once I have finished with this blog post. I once dropped a dime on an axe-wielding Soul Train dancer. I am not afraid to drop another on the ambitious–but morally unhinged–restauranteurs at La Urbana.

This blog post and its self-destructive admissions will not look good to the jury. Nor will the fact that I just referred to the blog post, the jury, the admissions, within the blog post. Damnit, I just did it again. Walk…away…from…the…keyboard.

It gets worse. The assistance to the criminal may be of any type, including emotional or financial assistance as well as physical assistance or concealment.

There is no getting around this one. I did indeed contribute to our portion of the check. I did not say, “We will gladly contribute to our half of this bill, subtracting the price of the murdered Gryllus Pennsylvanicus, regarding which we will not provide financial assistance.” My wan smiles at the friendly waitress, who repeatedly checked in with our table to see how we were holding up after the Chapulines? That could be interpreted as emotional assistance. And as if all that weren’t enough, by chewing up and swallowing poor Jiminy, I’m fairly sure we can check off the “physical assistance or concealment” boxes.

I’m done for. No reasonable jury in its right mind could possibly ignore the overwhelming weight of this evidence against me. My children will be left fatherless. Motherless, probably, since my wife Hilary was right there with me the whole time, and I’m pretty sure she tasted at least one piece of Jiminy’s thorax. I’m not throwing her under the bus, mind you, but I am open to turning State’s evidence for a more favorable sentence. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Every Chapuline for him or herself. I mean, this is bad.

I hope they have WordPress at San Quentin.

Thanks for reading.

All Mimes Should Know How to Moonwalk.

March 1, 2014Parenting Tipskjbeadling View all 2 comments

I am in love with my 8 year-old’s mind. I am frequently agog at the observations and proclamations emanating from his maw. His brain works differently than mine does; maybe different from any other brains I have encountered.

Take this morning. In the midst of an embarrassingly harried sprint out of our home to a soggy lacrosse game in Mill Valley, Ev chimes, “Every mime should know how to moonwalk.”

Say what?

Believe me, this commandment was completely and utterly out of the blue, unprompted, nothing to do with anything. I’m replaying the prior 30 minutes in my head right now, and there were zero hints. No Michael Jackson YouTube videos circa his blazing-scalp Pepsi commercial days. No Marcel Marceau biographies lying about the house. Nothing.

Where does he come up with this? I haven’t the slightest, and that’s the beauty of it. What other ideas are rattling around in there, to be popped out like the next bingo ball?

He has done this for as long as I can remember.

A few years back, around the time of President Obama’s first election victory, we were espousing the virtues of that historic development, in a high-minded NPR devotee type of way. You know, where you catch yourself speaking as if you were 30 years older, totally boring, out of body experience but you can’t help yourself. As we, or maybe I, continued prattling on, Ev brought his singular point of view to bear, instantly putting our preachy speech into perspective —

“Maybe I could be Obama,” he proclaimed from the backseat.

From his car seat in the backseat. I remember this clearly because that precocious comment caused me to snap my eyes up to the rear view mirror to discover just who the hell had just said that. I half-expected to see my still baby-ish son with different colored eyes, possessed by some older presence.

Nope, it was all Everett.

I can’t wait ’til the drive back home from this soggy lacrosse game in Mill Valley. God knows what’ll come out of his mouth next. I don’t want to miss a syllable of it.

Thanks for reading.