Yesterday I managed to squeeze in a ridiculously beautiful trail run above our kids’ school in Marin. I had about 2 hours to burn between the 2nd grade’s “Did You Know Medicine Show” and a meeting in SoMa that did not involve 2nd graders. Have trail running shoes in trunk, will travel.

Look at that photo at the top of this blog. Are you kidding me? Wow!

Marin Country Day School’s environs are about as bucolic as they come, as the school is nestled in the hollow of Ring Mountain. As Bay Area Hiker reports, “[the] grassy slopes afford fantastic views of Mount Tamalpais, the bay, and San Francisco. Trails wind through rock formations, across tiny creeks, through wildflower-dotted hillsides, and under old coast live oaks and California bays. Petroglyph Rock, near the preserve’s highest spot, has rock carvings created by Native Americans. And the unusual geology of the preserve supports plants that grow nowhere else, most prominently the Tiburon mariposa lily, which blooms in May. All this in a setting just a few miles north of San Francisco makes Ring Mountain a perfect choice for a quick hike, or for more advanced nature study.”

And, I might add, a great place to be stalked by werewolves.

A couple years back, as I bounded around up there from one trail to another, in a “The Hills Are Alive” euphoria, I stopped short. Not easy to do running downhill on whipped quads. I spied a werewolf maybe 25 yards below. That would put him about 150 yards above the Upper School Field teeming with my boys’ schoolmates and perhaps one or both of my boys, as well.

The problem was that the werewolf spied me, and didn’t adhere to the Field Guide etiquette. He didn’t break eye contact, whimper, and run off with his matted tail between his legs. Terrified by my clearly dominant physical presence and superior prefrontal cortex allowing for sophisticated metacognition — I am aware that I am thinking, and the varmin is supposedly not aware of being aware.

The varmin didn’t run. He didn’t budge. More likely, he was computing whether he would eat my sweaty little Clifbar visor along with the sweaty rest of me. I was computing, too, though. My prefrontal cortex foresaw the werewolf ripping me limb from limb. So I picked up a baseball-sized rock with one of those limbs. I was no longer tapping into my superior intelligence; that which allows me to ponder whether the epic blocks on Ring Mountain were squeezed up from miles beneath the Earth’s surface millions of years ago like Playdoh through fingers and/or lay on the Ocean floor at some point. All I knew in my now-Caveman brain was that I needed a big rock I could throw at the Saber-Toothed Tiger so my kids and their school chums wouldn’t be traumatized by the sight of me eviscerated on a bed of purple Brodiaea Appendiculata.

In my half-panicked state, I scraped up several rocks. The photo below captures the moment. I threw the first one. He flinched. I threw another. He ran. I didn’t take any more photos. I was too busy riding my adrenaline down the rock-studded trail back to the safety of my Jeep.

I was appropriate freaked out, however. From my bucket seat, I breathlessly emailed the Upper School Head about my werewolf encounter. I wanted to ensure that MCDS took the proper precautions. Silver bullets, silver walking canes, pretty much anything silver and sharp. Silver lunchroom sporks in a pinch, if that’s all the townspeople could scrounge up on such short notice.

Only I never saw the school-wide email bulletin, never received the school emergency system phone chain voicemail, never even caught a blurb in the weekly digital newsletter. I felt a little miffed. And perplexed. There’s no mention in the MCDS application materials about werewolves running amok just a stone’s throw off campus. There are no references on the school website to the mythic beasts patrolling the area where our kids parade around looking for Monarch butterflies. How could this be?

Curious. Very curious indeed.

This allows for only one logical conclusion: The Assistant Upper School Head is one of them. Matt is a werewolf. I suggest you arm your children with an arsenal of silver sporks, as I have done. I also stuff one in my running sock, whenever I venture back up Ring Mountain. I am fully-prepared for my next encounter with the beast, my pre-frontal cortex and I. I’m ready for you, Matt!

Thanks for reading.

Those cats are no longer fast as lightning.  I am sad to report that my Fitbit died on Monday, April 7, 2014, at approximately 2:19pm.  The cause of death is still under investigation. 

I can honestly write that so far as I can tell, I did not knowingly contribute to my Fitbit’s death.  That is to say, scrolling through the Fitbit FAQs and Fitbit Community Health Forums, I didn’t kill my Fitbit.  Or at least not via means foretold by the company that makes and sells Fitbits, nor via any means admitted to by unwitting (former) Fitbit owners.  As an aside, I am struggling to get past Fitbit, Inc.’s use of “Forums” rather than “Fora.”  There is evidently a movement afoot (afeet?) to adopt “forums” as a proper plural alternative to the traditional “fora.”  I’m OK with movements afeet (afoot?), so I will let this slide.

Anyhow, perusing these online channels, I’ve inventoried the Fitbit murderers’ and manslaughterers’ confessions:  Death by washing machine. Death by passing through a pet dog’s gastrointestinal tract. Death by unintentional backyard burial in backyard garden. Death by rubber car tire crushing “accident.”  

I have no such confessions to offer.  I remain nonplussed.  So far as I can tell, fairly wracking my brain, I didn’t do anything other than use my Fitbit Flex as it was intended to be used.

And therein lies the problem.  I think I may have worked my Fitbit to death.  In my well-documented overzealousness and hyper-competitiveness, I neglected to ensure that my Fitbit Flex had fully bought in to my “victory above all else” campaign.  I took my Fitbit for granted.  Over the last few months, I have suffered through blisters on my feet, salt rings on my biking shorts, mini-rivers of sweat trickling in my eyes from my bike helmet, holes in the soles of my neoprene swimming booties from the home-to-Marina Green steps walks, a half-dozen curious harbor seals and sea lions, and a bonk or two.  But ultimately, I am more or less in complete control of all of these to-be-expected maladies.  Cost of doing business. 

Alas, it was all just too much for the little black plastic strap on my wrist and it’s pea pod accelerometer.  And I think I know exactly where my little buddy bought the farm.  For the first time in a long time, I swam in San Francisco Bay on two consecutive mornings.  This is typically to be avoided, particularly during Little League season, which generally entails a throbbing right shoulder for a 5-month period.  And rather than leave the Fitbit at home, I had gotten into the habit of bringing it along for the ride, er, swim.  I assuaged my inner “this is probably not a good idea” thoughts with Fitbit, Inc.’s boast that the “[d]evice is water-resistent, and can be submerged up to 10 meters.” For good measure, I also sealed my Fitbit in a sort of neoprene cocoon, covering it up tightly under my wetsuit sleeve.  Perhaps “neoprene casket” would be a more appropriate term, in retrospect.

That second consecutive swim proved too much to take.  Even though I just did a simple half-hour crawl at the water’s surface, rather than swimming like a frog submerged 30-feet under, the Fitbit’s little imaginary heart gave out.  I’m sorry, little Fitbit imaginary heart.  I didn’t know.  RIP.

And now I’ve had to endure 36 hours of movement data blackout.  Sure, I’ve continued to run, swim, walk and ride.  I managed to pull myself together and carry on.  But my Fitbit is long since gone, lifeless.  No matter how many times I’ve forcefully pecked a forefinger on it’s little noggin, hoping for a miracle.  Some sign of life.  Nothing.  I might as well have watched TV from the couch, fist buried in a bag of Cheetos, slurping Cherry Coke after Cherry Coke.  My sweating the last few days has fallen in the woods, completely silent, completely, gasp, unrecorded. 

Re-reading the last few sentences, this is starting to sound a bit creepy, overly-obsessive.  I’m a man, after all, skin and bones, and bow down to no machine!  Maybe my Fitbit’s death by overexertion is the best thing that has ever happened to me!  I’m free!!! 

Or at least free for another 72 hours — until Fitbit, Inc. finishes processing my warranty claim. 🙂 

Thanks for reading.

Two nights ago, 8 year-old Everett informed his parents over pesto chicken precisely how he expects his body to be handled upon his death: 

“I don’t want to be cremated. Or buried.  I want to be standing up or on a motorcycle.  With sunglasses.”

Oh-kay….

As I have mentioned before, many of Everett’s dinner table comments are out-of-the-blue.  Non sequiturs.  The sort of statements that can make a parent’s fingers loose, releasing a suddenly heavy fork to plonk on a plate, loudly.  Or make a parent’s head snap upwards while driving, to search for Everett’s face in the rear view mirror.  The parent must assess Everett’s facial expression to confirm — savant or psychopath?  Obama or Gallagher (the melon-smashing, bald comedian)?  Maybe all of the above?

The burial discussion, though, fell perfectly in context. Not because we enjoy stewing about death over pesto chicken.  Not because we love to insert terrifying thoughts into our kids’ heads shortly before bedtime.  And not because we are, in general, just terrible parents who say whatever the hell we want to at our own damned dinner table, regardless of who the hell is listening and how the hell old they are or are not.

None of that.  At least not in this particular situation.

I started blogging in January, a few days after my 90 year-old grandmother’s sudden passing.  My first post was entitled “Grandma’s Lemonade,” and as you can see if you scroll up a bit to the top of this page, I’ve called my blog The Lemonade Chronicles.  My grandmother (unknowingly) inspired me to always search the bright side in all things (and people), and to start writing about it. My older son, Max, loves to read my blog posts.  Or at least he says he does.  The informed questions he’ll pose from time-to-time suggest that he is at least skimming.  Everett, however, stopped reading my blog when he recognized himself as a recurring character in the narrative.  Unlike Max, Ev has zero interest in the limelight.  My grandmother, who also had zero interest in the limelight, is mentioned regularly in my posts.  When I first started writing, my wife, unbeknownst to me, sent to my mom and her siblings big, antique-looking lemonade dispensers.  This way, they and we could all drink “Grandma’s Lemonade” by the gallon, whenever we wanted. 

And we still talk about all this stuff, mostly at dinner time, at our flat in San Francisco. Including two nights ago, when I raised the subject of what kind of “ceremony” Everett thought we should have when we scatter some of his great grandmother’s ashes in and around San Francisco Bay near our home. So there you have it.  This context fully explains Everett’s seemingly-strange comment about being buried on a motorcycle wearing sunglasses. 

Sort of. 

Because now, his mother and I are left dealing with the consequences of Everett’s instructions.  My wife is an estate planner, so we have to take this kind of thing seriously.  Was there any ambiguity in his directions?  Nope, crystal clear.  Was he of sound mind and body?  Hmm, depends on your definition of “sound.”  If you asked him yourself, I’m sure he’d convince you that you were the unsound one, not he.  Did he propose something illegal?  No, although we don’t own a motorcycle, probably never will, and the powder blue Vespa that Hilary has been coveting for years will most likely not cut it for Everett.  So that means that we may need to “borrow” a neighbor’s motorcycle.  Arguably illegal, I suppose.  The sunglasses we can handle, plenty of those lying around the house.  So yes, we could probably accommodate his wishes, and those wishes might even be reasonable under the totality of the circumstances.

Wait, wait, wait.  I just remembered that he is only 8 years-old.  No judge or jury would force his mother and I to accede to this ridiculous request, clearly made by a 2nd grader with no real sense of what he was saying.  How could an 8 year-old be expected to comprehend abstract notions of death, burial, cremation, etc.?  I’m going to go with this argument for the time being.  And hope that Everett forgets about the whole crazy idea as he gets older.  If he reads this post, he won’t get much farther than the serene photo pasted at the top of our dog swimming in the Bay. 

But just in case he makes it all the way through, and indeed gets this far —

Evie, my boy, whatever you want.  For your final resting place, if you really want to be this guy in the stock photo pasted just below, you got it.  Your wish is our command.  🙂

Thanks for reading.

“Hello, my name is Keir, and I’m a binge-watcher.”

“Hiiiii, Keir!”

And so begins another meeting of Binge-Watchers Anonymous.

“If I think about it, I got my first taste of binge-watching 12 years ago, shortly after the birth of our first son. Few things properly accompany cradling one’s child for hours on end as well as murderous mobsters do. Somehow Hilary and I had managed to miss The Sopranos train. Fortunately for us, Netflix (our first “dealer,” in retrospect) happily stuffed our skinny mailbox with season after season of DVDs.

Odd to play “Baby Einstein” in one room, and hear Tony and Paulie cut down Big Pussy in a hail of bullets in another room? Indeed. And that’s how I got hooked.

Once we made it out of the new baby/nesting phase, we kicked the habit. For a time. We returned to mainstream society, watching our weekly shows as they aired. Curb Your Enthusiasm. The Ali G. Show. Grey’s Anatomy. One week at a time, one episode at the time, for the most part. But the habit had already taken hold, poised to rear its ugly head at the first opportunity.

Then came Breaking Bad. The irony of binge-watching a show about methamphetamine was not lost on me. But I couldn’t help myself. In Jessie’s strung out periods, I saw myself. His floor was littered with drug paraphernalia. Mine was littered with iPhone and iPad charger cords, twisted with earbud cords. Both of us junkies. Mercifully, the show’s producers released their hold on me. Walter White kicked the bucket.

The Game of Thrones producers show no such mercy. They have delivered unto me a substance more addictive than anything I’ve experienced before. So mind-bending as to render me senseless, ending my sentences with prepositions, even.

The “Red Wedding”? Fuhgetaboutit. I was in a funk for a week.

Somehow, I pulled myself together, took a breather after the end of last season. Got back on the wagon. Cleaned up.

But now I see that the new Game of Thrones season premieres this weekend. I glimpse each new piece of advertising–Facebook posts, tweets, YouTube trailers–knowing that I won’t be able to resist the urge to binge once more. Fortunately for me, I’m all caught up on GOT. I have resolved to blend in with the “normal people,” watching the Imp and Littlefinger in bite-sized pieces. One episode at a time.

But I know that sooner or later, my binge-watching will get the better of me. Winter is coming.”

[Sound of clapping as my fellow addicts applaud my honesty, and bring another meeting of Binge-Watchers Anonymous to a close.]

Thanks for reading.

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What, you mean to tell me you don’t have “Karaoke Song List” as one of your iPhone Notes?  

Even if you don’t relish the karaoke mic as I do, believe me, at some point you will wish you had such a list of your very own. Assign this list to the highest priority, too, right up there with your earthquake preparedness kit.  Statistically speaking, you are way more likely to suffer severe, negative consequences from not having a Karaoke Song List than to experience a quake requiring you to crack open those iodine tablets.

So why is the Karaoke Song List so mission-critical?  Allow me to elaborate…. 

Reason #1:  The Karaoke Song List will save you from the worst karaoke nightmare:  The dreaded song out of one’s range.  There are few experiences promising long-term emotional trauma that can compare with finding yourself onstage, mic in-hand, with five minutes remaining on your hastily-selected “Bohemian Rhapsody” rendition.  Nothing good can come from this.  Nothing.  Freddy Mercury’s voice was ridiculous; out of this world.  If you had Freddy Mercury’s singing voice, you wouldn’t be up on that stage right now with your feet sticking to the floor from spilled PBRs.  Let me save you this ignominy — get thee a Karaoke Song List.  

Note:  If for some reason you scoff at this Reason #1, and find yourself in the middle of this particular rock opera, the lyric is “Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango?”  Still, good luck with that.  

Reason #2:  A corollary to Reason #1, Reason #2 will develop and refine your song-selection palate such that you will be well-armed in a game of “Karaoke Roulette.”  This game has several iterations, but my favorite version is a simple one.  I agree to sing any song you pick for me, and you do the same.  My advantage is the years of hard-earned research sunk into my Karaoke Song List.  You see, by identifying those songs that I can actually sing in karaoke, I have learned which songs neither I nor anyone else (save Freddy Mercury) has any business singing.  I have a keen sense, now, for which songs offer the maximum potential for spirit-crushing embarrassment.  

Want a taste?  “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover” (Sophie B. Hawkins) and “Rock Me Like A Hurricane” (Scorpions).  When the karoke DJ announces one of these songs and beckons your karaoke roulette challenger up to the mic, your challenger will be feeling pretty good.  At first.  They’ll be thinking to themselves, “Hey, I know this song, I don’t even need the prompter for the words.  I love this song.  This song is awesome!  I am going to crush it!!”

No.  They’re not going to crush anything.  You are going to do the crushing.  

When it suddenly dawns on them how God-awful these songs are to sing.  In front of complete strangers.  Who think that your challenger deliberately chose that song to sing.  To complete strangers.  Imagine the hushed silence and stares from those strangers as your challenger exits the stage, sweating, red-cheeked, thoroughly humiliated. A far cry from shouting the melody while listening to the radio in whatever car they drove in the 80s or 90s, eh?  

Congratulations, your Karaoke Song List just made you the victor.   

Reason #3: If you find a handful of songs that you can actually sing, that don’t require “Ice Ice Baby” enunciation, that don’t last longer than a couple minutes, then you have found your karaoke sweet spot.  This list above has never failed me, for example.  I’m safe. I’ve learned to control the fight or flight response triggered by hearing the DJ say my name. I’ve learned to stare into the beast’s eyes, confident that my Karaoke Song List will protect me. 

Provisos:  Now, to be perfectly candid, there a few provisos of which you should be aware, even if you have decided to cultivate your very own, bulletproof Karaoke Song List at my urging….

Proviso #1: The Karaoke Song List will not protect you against group performances.  Unless you have a group song on your list, do not do it.  Those never work out.  And for God’s sake, do not get involved with any spontaneous choreography.  That will only make it worse.  Stick to your list.  A proviso to this proviso:  If your wife begs you to do a “Journey” duet, just do it.  Not because it’s part of my Karaoke Song List theory.  No.  Because you want to stay married.  Marriage trumps the Karaoke Song List.  “Don’t Stop Believin'” will be painful.  It will hurt.  You will want to deliberately fall backwards off the stage, feign a grand mal seizure, anything, to get out your piece of this song half way through it.  Stick it out.  And then get right back on the horse — your Karaoke Song List. 

Proviso #2:  Know your audience.  The audience is comprised not only of the people who will heckle or embrace you, but also of the people that will sing right after you do.  For example, if you happen to notice an all-male a capella group in the audience, put away your Karaoke Song List.  You are not going to sing tonight.  I don’t care how badly you want to sing tonight, how desperately you want these people to love you, to marvel at your Karaoke Song List.  No. You want to live to fight another day.  

Now, if you have some self-destructive urge to ignore this particular proviso, know that your mistake will set you back years with your karaoke confidence.   So please, scan the audience before you fill out those little pieces of paper.  Your Johnny Cash is no match for the a capella magic dropped on me, I mean, um, you, by Tufts University’s “Beelzebubs,” or whoever the hell that was on that dreadful night last summer.  

So there you have it.  Now get working on your very own Karaoke Song List!  You’re even welcome to borrow a few from my list. Although, can you really be sure that I haven’t popped a couple in there from my Karaoke Roulette List??

Thanks for reading. 

Half-eaten, gluten-free Gorilla Munch, organic banana slices (also half-eaten), Trader Joe’s multigrain O’s (half-eaten, too), all swimming in a small puddle of organic, reduced fat milk.  

This is what a Yuppie Hunger Strike looks like.  

Our 8 year-old son, Everett, apparently feels he doesn’t have much power around here.  His older brother is a force of nature.  His mother is a high-powered law partner wearing pants suits and working in a downtown high rise.  His father traffics in a prodigious collection of curse words, some of which seem like they might be made up, but Dad is ready, willing, and able to drop them on anyone at even the slightest provocation.  Even our black lab (ish) puppy, barely a year-old, now outweighs Everett and tries to eat Everett on occasion (in a puppy-like way).

The roles of Governor, Warden, Prison Guard, Cell Block Boss — these are all taken.  Whatever authority or power Everett wants around these parts, he has to take with his own two hands.  Or not take them, as the case may be. 

You see, Everett has been quietly stringing together what I’m now realizing could arguably be called a Hunger Strike.  He has been weaving this tapestry for years.  Short of pooping his pants–which I’m sure is a weapon he is holding back, the “nuclear option,” if ever called for–Everett’s sole means of exerting control is what he puts in his mouth and what he refuses to put in his mouth.  

Sidenote: Everett doesn’t often read these blog posts; particularly the ones in which he is featured.  He shuns the spotlight.  But just in case he does stumble on this particular post — Hello son.  Before you start seriously exploring the “nuclear option” I mentioned earlier in this paragraph, I would encourage you to Google “mutually assured destruction.”

Everett eats what he wants to eat.  At his own pace.  Regardless of his parents’ (apparently hollow) threats about what will happen if Everett leaves a half-eaten bowl of cereal at the breakfast table just one more time.  His big, round eyes hold mine, giving me the certain impression that he understands what horrible consequences will come his way.  I am convinced that, this time, he will leave no banana slice behind.  

But he has proven himself a master of deception.  Professional magicians are expert at distracting their audience with a theatrical wave of one hand, while dropping a quarter down a sleeve with the other, unseen.  Everett has perfected the same technique.  But rather than outstretched fingers swiping the air, Everett deploys all manner of infuriating, stalling techniques that serve to drive his parents into a blind rage as we try to get him and his brother to the morning bus stop on time.  

“Everett, you can’t wear that sweatshirt for the 7th day in a row!  Wait, did you sleep in that sweatshirt instead of wearing pajamas last night?! Again?! Everett!!”

“Everett, there’s no way you brushed your teeth.  No one could possibly ‘brush their teeth’ in 10-seconds as you just did.  I don’t think anyone could claim to have brushed even one tooth in that time.  Get back upstairs, Mister, and brush your teeth!”

“Everett, where is your homework binder?  What do you mean, you ‘don’t know’?  How could you not know, didn’t you need the binder in order to do your homework last night?  You did do your homework last night, didn’t you?! Everett!”

“Everett, you cannot wear that beanie again today.  You just can’t.  I haven’t seen your actual hair in weeks.  Your teacher keeps sending home pictures of you from class wearing that hat, which is no longer so subtle.  This is “No Hat Tuesday,” anyhow, remember?  Everett, don’t you stuff that beanie in your school bag!  If I see that in the class pictures emailed to me this afternoon, you are in big trouble!”

Everett masterfully stirs up this swirl of chaos, lathers us all up into a fervor, knowing that we will temporarily lose our minds in a desperate, panicked attempt to make it to the bus stop on time.  We are fairly terrified of the shame associated with missing the bus.  We can’t bear the stigma.  So we are laser-focused in the time between 7:40am and 7:43am on only the bare necessities;  Principally, delivering our youngest son to the bus stop with no justifiable basis for a visit later that day from Child Protective Services.  

Everett knows this. 

Hilary waves “goodbye” to the bus, jogging the dog back to our house, then shooting off to work in the Financial District.  I get back to the business of whatever my day brings.  We both breath a sigh of relief, impressed with ourselves.  Once more, we haven’t missed the bus.  Everything is in perfect order, and we are in control.

Just then, Hilary begins replaying in her mind the funny little smile on Everett’s lips, barely perceptible behind the dark window at his seat towards the back of the bus.  Why was he smiling that smug little smile?  Her suspicion grows.  At exactly the same moment, I am turning the corner in the kitchen, catching sight of the breakfast table for the first time in 10 minutes.   

“Damnit!”  

He got us again.  In all the excitement and yelling, Everett had managed to leave behind a subtle reminder of who is really in charge around here:  The cereal bowl pictured above. 

The Yuppie Hunger Strike continues, Day 3003.

Thanks for reading.  

Turns out that orange radar blurb marks a very cool spot to swim in the Bay. Most interesting swim I can recall in a long time. We didn’t draw it up that way, and that’s probably perfect.

First thing we noticed was legitimately crashing surf onto the beach at Crissy. The surf never crashes at Crissy. In fact, no one would ever refer to the beach conditions in this particular spot as “surf” at all, for that matter. The beach at Crissy looked very much like Baker Beach. No one swims at Baker Beach. There is a reason for that. Baker Beach is better known for pulling people and pets out to sea with its strong rip currents. Not a good spot for a swim.

So for Crissy to look like Baker Beach — that was the first indication of some odd juju.

The second indicator was the swell energy in the water further out, more like the heaving seas of the open ocean. The rolling waves would gurgle to a peak, even, in certain spots. Like when they pushed up against that cement channel marker about 150 yards off the beach. Waves are not supposed to break there, ever. There shouldn’t even be ribs of swell rolling through this far into the Bay. Fort Point? Absolutely. Off the Warming Hut? Once in a blue moon. Off the beach at Crissy? Never.

Fortunately, the Bay’s frigid winter temperatures are in the rear view mirror now, replaced by 57s, 58s, and 59s. If this were January, I’d like to think we wouldn’t venture out into conditions like today’s. A little extra time than planned in 48-degree water is not something to be trifled with; the difference between “my toes are cold” and “look at that beautiful mermaid, she’s beckoning me, I’m going to go with her and we will make a life together!” So it’s good that cold water wasn’t really a factor today.

But rapidly changing and extreme weather conditions were definitely at play.

Magic.

The shallower spots on the Bay floor pushed the swell up and rolled us around a bit. Maybe a bit like swimming in a big washing machine. Probably nauseating if we weren’t somewhat accustomed to the sensation. The sudden and dramatic darkening of the skies overhead, followed by pelting rain — pretty awesome display of nature.

At one point I held up the palm of my hand above the water, convinced I would feel the sting of hailstones. My hands were numb, as is usually the case, so I couldn’t distinguish between hard rain and hail anyhow. But the notion of swimming in the Bay — probably the only 2 people swimming in the Bay at that moment, judging by the Coast Guard helicopter hovering curiously nearby — hailstones splashing into the Bay all around us? Surreal.

We didn’t want to get out of the water. The land could offer nothing even remotely close to what San Francisco Bay had just unexpectedly delivered up. Reluctantly, we stumbled back onto the beach, presumably looking like Creatures of the Black Lagoon to the couple dogs that “greeted” us at the water’s edge. A dog bite would have taken the swim in a different karmic direction altogether.

I grabbed one last photo of the stormy skies as they rolled on down the Bay, passing over Alcatraz now (posted below).

I haven’t had a swim like this in the 15 years we’ve lived here; and it’s possible I won’t ever again. I suppose that’s part of the reason I can’t stop thinking about it.

Thanks for reading.

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These are three Instagram-filtered photos I took on my iPhone over the course of about 24 hours this past weekend.  The photos don’t look so hot enlarged beyond the confines of my mobile screen.  They are deliberately out-of-focus, save for the digit on the boy’s jerseys.  I deliberately put that apostrophe in the preceding sentence between the “y” and the “s,” as well.  “Boy’s” in the singular possessive rather than “boys'” in the plural.  I know my way around an apostrophe, you see, as I am the product of two long-time, and now long-retired elementary school teachers.  

One boy, several jerseys.  Not three boys with three jerseys. All in a 24-hour timeframe.  This eldest son of mine is now officially a living, breathing experiment subject.  The hypothesis:  It is a good idea for a single child to participate in four sports at a single time. In laymen’s terms:

It’s so wrong, it must be right. 

This is mostly all my doing.  Whatever prison psychiatrist down the road is assigned to Max will surely point a crooked finger back in time straight at me, Max’s dad.  Or more accurately, at Max’s dad’s curious obsession with piling on, at leaving all the doors in a hallway swung wide open, at flirting with overscheduling disaster, at jamming 36 hours into a 24-hour day, the zippers threatening to come unzipped at both ends and spilling their contents all over the pavement.

This Spring, Max has committed to travel soccer, travel baseball, travel lacrosse, and Little League.  Arguably, he did not so commit under duress; this was all done of his own volition.  His coaches have sized me up, looking for a clear indication that I am bent.  Crazy.  Some uncontrolled twitch at the corner of my mouth, perhaps.  Or a sudden, Hyena-cackle laugh, totally out of proportion with the rest of my affect, maybe even in reaction to nothing perceptible.  Out of the blue. “The guy’s lip was twitching like mad, he laughed like a maniac, and there was nothing even remotely funny at the time.  I’m telling you, he is clearly crazy!  No right-thinking person would put his first born through this.”  This is how I imagine the coaches’ side of the phone conversation with League officials that my actions might trigger.  

I myself am a coach, and have been one for a long time.  If a parent told me they had committed their child to all of this stuff, I would also be on the lookout for a telltale twitch.  I might even effect a citizen’s arrest.  This must fall under one or another definition of “child abuse,” no?  

I grasp at any seemingly-objective support that might justify this overcommitment.  A real-life and Facebook friend shares a blog post espousing the benefits associated with children participating in multiple sports rather than specializing in one.  I avert my eyes at the blog post’s title:  “The Race to Nowhere in Youth Sports.”  The blogger can’t possibly be talking about me, after all.  I practically jump up and down, clapping my hands too quickly, when a coach of older boys or a former professional player of one sport or another tells me that Max should play as many sports as he can for as long as he can.  

And this really isn’t about me.  At least I don’t think so.  Although I do indeed wish I had played more sports rather than focus on just baseball, I really can’t begrudge baseball.  That sport helped raise me.  I’m still passing along both long-established and newly-discovered lessons to my young players, by the bushel.  I don’t feel any phantom pain where “the larger meaning of sport” should be.  I do, on occasion, think about whether my great grandfather, who was apparently a world-class sprinter, passed genes on to me that I somehow managed to let slip through my fingers along the way.  Then again, those thoughts prove helpful in the belly of the beast of a long run or ride.  The notion–real or imagined–that there just might be something inside me that is a little different, a little secret sauce, that will enable me to run one final 7-mile lap around this lake in the moonlight.  Hey, whatever works.

I suppose I hope that Max will come to realize that there is something special deep inside of him, too.  I hope that he won’t have to draw on a family legend of a man who raced on dirt in thin leather shoes to earn a living 100 years ago.  I hope that Max will be able to draw on his own resources when he needs to.  I hope he will be able readily to call up memories of his own resiliency, of thriving under pressure, of experiencing genuine physical or emotional pain, and pushing through it.  Whether all these jerseys, wearing all these numbers, shouldering all this gear, gets Max to this place?  I honestly have no way of knowing at this point.  So for the moment, I’ll keep twitching, cackling, and repeating my mantra:  

It’s So Wrong, It Must Be Right.  

Thanks for reading.        

At least one of these three ingredients in my title does not mix well with the other two.

I know what you’re thinking: “Stupid point, how could ‘goat brains’ mix well with anything?!?” That is probably the correct answer in most situations.

Just not in this particular situation.

The good people at Philadelphia’s Dock Street Brewing Co. set me up. Unintentionally, I’m sure, but set me up nonetheless. I just stumbled on a Business Insider tweet reporting that Dock Street has concocted “smoked goat brains” beer in tribute to a zombie show on cable TV. I haven’t read it, but Business Insider says the brewer’s accompanying press release touts the brains “to infuse a subtle, smoky flavor into the beer while the cranberries provide tartness and a pale redness reminiscent of blood.”

OK, so that’s sort of interesting, you might say. Beer made of goat brains. Provocative. Different. Probably won’t displace the spot on my fridge shelf reserved for Racer 5. Thanks anyway, though. In short, so what? Why am I reading about you reading about this?

This for me is another in a long line of cautionary tales that I have proven myself constitutionally incapable of absorbing. No, not putting stuff in food that probably shouldn’t be in there, and not eating things that probably shouldn’t be eaten. This is not another crickets story.

Nope. This is more of a “look before you share a Twitter link” type-deal. A modernized “look before you leap,” digital parable.

If you are like me, and have accumulated a, shall we say, “broad array of substantive content” streaming into your Twitter feed, please mind the gap, beware the pitfalls. Don’t be a dumbass.

The articles about dogs’ instinctual pooping in alignment with the earth’s magnetic fields, a group of jellyfish affectionately known as “the smack,” vitriolic rants about one college basketball team or the other, and now the goat brains beer? Those are barely palatable to me, mainly because I hit “Follow” somewhere along the line and have only myself to blame.

Those articles do not need to be sprayed out willy nilly, just because you (and by “you” I mean “I”) think they are interesting and must be shared with someone immediately.

Ease up with the “immediacy” part, would you? (And by “you” I mean “I”). Sharing at a full sprint can be dangerous.

Case in point: Within about 15 seconds after reading (OK, scanning) the Business Insider goat brains beer article, I forwarded it along to the founders of a different beer company. Fairly recent friends of mine whom I respect and apparently feel a burning need to impress. My thumbs danced across my iPhone keyboard, eager to share this bit of inspiration. I even added a personal note — “Saw this just now, made me think of you” — lest they think I share Twitter articles with just anybody.

What I intended to communicate was that there is a beer company-specific crowdfunding platform, or community, and that that might be interesting to my beer company friends. We had been exploring crowdfunding together over the past few months.

What I had intended to communicate is that this beer-focused crowdfunding platform’s Twitter handle is @crowdbrewed. CrowdBrewed, you see, just happened to tweet the goat brains beer article. In my haste, said goat brains beer article was the only content that found its way into my beer-making friends’ inbox courtesy of yours truly. Nothing about crowdfunding at all. Hard to send a more seemingly-bizarre email if you tried.

Fortunately I caught my error, though of course only after sending the “Hey guys you need to make beer out of goat brains!” initial email. That is the only way to describe the substance of my first email. What a dumbass (and by “dumbass” I mean “me”).

I hope that my follow up email explaining my folly restored whatever thin thread of credibility I still have with the brewers.

Or at least caused them to re-think filling out the Police Department paperwork required to apply for a restraining order. It was an honest mistake, Your Honor.

Thanks for reading.

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