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 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.

A San Francisco fixture I’ve long considered a kindred spirit passed away this week.  Sixty year-old Gregory Jacobs plied his trade with a couple Eucalyptus branches, a low growl, and clever hiding spots in plain sight.  Mostly he preyed (in a good way) on unsuspecting tourists who roam the streets of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf by the millions each year.  Jacobs would conceal himself behind the branches, squatting by a railing or trash bin, then scare the bejesus out of someone who happened to walk next to him.  Tips ensued, the frightened-then-relieved tipper happy to be alive, if still shaking from the quick adrenaline buzz.

I say “kindred spirit” because for as long as I can remember, I too have always relished (maybe not in a good way) giving someone a good scare.  In grade school, I took great pride in how many trick or treaters I could terrorize by launching out from under a pile of orange and red leaves optimally positioned near our Strathmore home’s Halloween candy distribution point.  Don’t get them on the way in, get them on the way out, when they’re relaxed, distracted, and convinced that no one is going to jump out at them at this house. That is the time to achieve maximum effect.  

Before you get too judgy, remember that I was a kid at the time, not a full grown man scaring kids.  Sheesh.

And it wasn’t just limited to Halloween.  My old house had tons of dark corners and alleyways, perfect for frightening my friends, on occasion even triggering a loosed bladder.  My friends would try to return the favor; try to catch me off guard as I had done to them. My friend David once lay in wait around a corner of my first floor stairs.  My unsuspecting father padded up said stairs. My unsuspecting friend was about to jump out at my unsuspecting father (thinking he was me).  I heard a “raaaaahhh!”  then a “SMAACK” of skin-on-skin punctured the air a millisecond later.  David stumbled back down the stairs, defeated, holding his hand to his cheek.  When he pulled his hand away, the red mark left by another hand (my father’s) was clearly visible.  

Loyal readers may recognize this instance as yet another example of my modern interpretation of Slapped Cheek Syndrome, by the way.  

My preoccupation with delivering a good scare has, on occasion, crossed the line.  I once terrified my considerably-younger cousin, Shane, with a midnight “zombie with arms outstretched” performance in his bedroom during a sleepover.  My Uncle Nate (Shane’s dad), rather than scold me, took his revenge the next night.  I awoke with a start at the sight of a zombie that was not me, with glow-in-the-dark, blood shoot eyeballs, no less.  Lesson learned:  Don’t scare kids who are considerably younger than you.  At least not the ones whose dads possess glow-in-the-dark, bloodshot eyeball pieces. 

Another time, I delivered a terrifying performance one evening while attending law school in Cleveland.  I crouched down at the innermost brick wall of our darkened garage, awaiting my guest’s car to pull into the garage any second.  Car pulls in, garage remains dark, I conceal myself away from throw of the driver’s headlights.  Driver steps out of car, unsuspecting.  I don’t just jump out and yell “raaaaah!”  I consider myself pretty good at this.  Instead, I crinkle some leaves.  Just loudly enough for the driver to wonder whether they actually heard something or just imagined it.  Then crinkling a little louder, and louder still, calibrating the volume of the crinkling to the increasing pace with which the driver is first strolling, then walking briskly, now running towards the front door of my rented house in a full panic. I give chase, my identity concealed by the fortuitous lack of a streetlight on our particular corner.  We are both at nearly a full sprint before the jig is up.  At which point I double over in high-pitched giggles, overcome with laughter.  The driver?  Not so much.  Lesson learned:  Don’t scare the young woman who would one day become your fiancee, then wife, then mother of your children.  She will have sixty some-odd years in which to plot her revenge.   

So enamored am I of the art of fright that I once “tried out” for a job as a Haunted House actor.  Sitting in a circle of other applicants, I hit my low point when my turn came to give my prospective employer my “best growl.”  Needless to say, I did not get the job.  Embarrassing still, some 20 years later.  Lesson learned:  Keep it spontaneous.  In the moment. You can’t manufacture a good scare where there is no genuine, good scare to be had. 

Which brings me back to the San Francisco Bushman.  His scare was genuine.  No matter how many times he rolled it out, I reckon each scare felt to him like his first scare.  His victims’ jumps, yelps, raised eyebrows, shouted curse-words — he probably lived for that stuff.  

He certainly caught me on more than one occasion; an amateur scarer shown the real deal by a Master Scarer.  And for a second or two every time he got me, I chuckled, reminded of what it feels like to be alive.  To feel something real, fight-or-flight style.  All the nonsense of the day-to-day stripped away in a moment.  Something that provokes hearty, childlike laughter.  From both parties.  I will miss that man.

The Bushman is Gone, Long Live the Bushman!

Thanks for reading. 

I need a nap. 

It’s only 9:10am and I’m totally exhausted.  Not because I didn’t get some quality sleep last night.  No problem there.  Not because I got up at the crack of dawn.  I didn’t. 

I’m totally tapped out because I just spent the past hour or so putting together a Paperless Post invite for my 8 year-old’s birthday party this weekend.  Typically, my wife Hilary has always handled outbound invites like this one.  It appeared so facile, Norman Rockwellian, sweet, when all I had to do was open my copy of the polished emailed invite. 

But now I’ve seen the guts of it, and it ain’t pretty.

First there’s the what the “card” should look like.  I write “card,” because this is all digital now.  No need to kill any trees.  Or more accurately, no need to use any trees that someone else killed.  No need to shuffle down to the Post Office to scrounge up a roll of stamps, even though those auto-stick stamps are WAY better than the older versions with the stale Doublemint “flavor.” 

And of course, we had already decided on a theme. 

What, you say you don’t choose a proper theme for your child’s birthday party?? You say you don’t think your parents even threw you a “party” for all of your own childhood birthdays?? 

Welp, times have changed, and there must be a birthday party.  Every year.  And it damn well better be meaningful.  And impressive. Consider renting a clown or bounce house.  And not some shitty clown and shitty bounce house — the painted, arched eyebrows better be crisp, and the house better not have any duct tape over bloated seams.  What kind of parent are you?? 

This year’s theme (sound of crisp manilla envelope holding major award on stiff card inside, ripping via pointer finger, me wearing black tie standing at the dais) is baseball.  Fortunately for us, a school family friend has just recently opened up a new batting cage facility in the Presidio.  It’s called Batter’s Box SF.  And I believe young Master Everett’s birthday party at said facility with be the first birthday party at said facility.  How ’bout me?  You can keep your clown and bounce house.  We don’t need no stinking clown and bounce house!  At least not this year. 

So we have ourselves a theme.

Fortunately, the theme limits the Paperless Post digital card options.  Otherwise, given that I am given to distraction, I would have been pouring over a few hundred cards in search of the perfect font.  I choose a baseball-looking card, seems reasonable. 

Then comes the grammar and syntax part.  Exhausting.  I went with the default “Fenway” font for the card.  Looked good, but was so frilly.  I’d say 50% chance that I spelled Everett’s first name wrong or our last name wrong.  I’m not sure; I just can’t tell whether that is an “L” or an “i.”  Hopefully our guests will suffer from vision worse than mine, or maybe they won’t suffer from font-obsession if their vision is good. 

Then comes the invite list.  Stressful.  I have to navigate some written rules and some unwritten rules to make sure that I don’t offend (a) Everett’s school, (b) Everett’s friends, (c) Everett’s friends’ parents, (d) my wife, (e) Everett’s basketball team, (f) said batting cages facility, and (g) my own very tenuous sensibilities.  Because I am the world’s best dad, I made sure to have Everett feel involved and engaged in the invite process.  So this morning I had him hand write a list of his invitees.  The list is awesome.  I would love to post a photo of it, but I would be offending at least three of the potentially offended groups above.  His little list is so cute, quaint, Norman Rockwellian (again).

And totally incomplete.  An absolute land mine had I latched onto only that list.  I can’t even imagine the full parade of horribles that would have transpired had I not scrutinized the hell out of his list. 

Instead, I cross-checked, spell-checked, classroom-checked, YMCA hoops team roster-checked, school website-checked, school family directory-checked.  I don’t think I crammed so much research into writing term papers in undergrad. I am not kidding.  Like I said, totally exhausting.  But I managed to come up with a seemingly bulletproof, offensive-proof list.  I think.  I hope. 

My anxiety reached a crescendo when it came to actually having to click on the “SEND NOW TO ALL GUESTS” button.  The button is bright red.  The font actually seems a little more prominent than any other copy on the Paperless Post website.  I felt like I was faced with hitting the proverbial BIG RED BUTTON launching a nuclear attack.  Felt like JFK mulling over a short list of options during the heat of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  At least he had Bobby.  I wish I could show my birthday party invite “preview” and my draft list of invitees to Bobby.  No Bobby for me. 

So here I am.  My right hand is shaking as I try to guide its forefinger to make the “click” on the touchpad.  My vision blurs, heart pounding and pushing blood now with a new squirt or 3 of adrenaline.  I use my left hand, grabbing the wrist of my right, trying desperately to steady my button-pushing finger.  And out of the corner of my eye, you better believe I am very aware of the “delete” button.  Don’t look at it directly.  Ah, shit I just looked at it.  Don’t look at it!  Don’t…Look…At…It!  Must…push…red…BUTTON!

You get the picture.

The (right) button was pushed, I pulled myself back together, and now I sit in fear of an imminent RSVP with a comment about how I misspelled my son’s name or otherwise truly screwed up royally.  The odds of this whole thing not descending into an exercise in complete, catastrophic failure?  Mmmm, 9%.  But I am in too deep at this point. 

Besides, Everett’s actual birthday was in December, so we’ve already messed it up.  Nowhere to go but up!

Thanks for reading.