I bolt awake at 4 am.

Max has a baseball tournament in Sunnyvale, the first game of which begins at 8 am. Show up time is 7 am. The drive will take an hour. We’ll need to be on the road by 6 am. Raising Max from his slumber will take 5 minutes. Tyga’s “Rack City” is my go-to with Max. Guaranteed to jumpstart his sleepy head and elicit some odd hip-hop moves that I should probably forbid.

Scrambling around the house collecting all the pieces of Max’s uniform will take 15 minutes. (This despite my orders last night to have everything packed, zipped, and ready to go.) Net, net, this all means a 5:30 am wake-up call. It’s only 4 am, but I slip out from under the covers, taking inventory on various aches and pains, exacerbated by a night’s sleep short by a couple hours.

This is how I begin the morning of Hilary and my 17th wedding anniversary. This is what my life has come to.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We’ve had a rough year, of sorts. Family and friends have passed away. I’ve endured several months of being considerably less than 100%. We have weathered a handful of bitter disappointments. Slights real and slights imagined.

All of which has served to give me perhaps the deepest and broadest perspective on my marriage, and on my life, that I’ve managed to conjure up in my 45 years.

The Lemonade–Grandma’s Lemonade–is tasting pretty good. Even with the wooden spoon picked up off the floor, particles of dirt stirred in there. Maybe a long black hair entwined around one of the ice cubes. A few too many lemon seeds in there, one of which tries to ruin my sip by jumping into my thirsty mouth along with a big gulp. Gonna need to try harder than that, seed.

So yeah, I’m feeling thankful this morning, 17 years to the day from when Hilary first showed me how much stronger and tougher she is than I —

She strode purposefully down the red-carpeted aisle, standing tall, clear-eyed, solid.

I, on the other hand, was a puddle. Tears welled up in my eyes rendering me nearly blind, squinting to keep my eyes trained on my approaching bride-to-be. My throat so tight. Had I spoken during her proud walk, Kermit the Frog’s voice would have come out. At best. My head swam. It was all I could do to keep my feet and not topple over.

It got worse during the actual ceremony. My Best Man had the foresight to bring along something should I need to wipe my brow or cough. Unfortunately, that something was a wad of toilet paper. So there I stood, my face dripping sweat into my burning eyes. My eyes overflowing with tears. My cheeks blushing red. Little pieces of toilet paper clinging to my face as I swabbed myself repeatedly, in a desperate attempt to keep my shit together.

In my wretched state, I glance at her. Her eyes hold mine. Her smile so calm and confident. Her right hand squeezing my left just a bit harder now. Pushing her strength into me. I pull through. Depleted, drained, spent, tapped out. I pulled through. But only because of her.

I mentioned it’s been a rough year. But this is when Hilary is at her best, you see. Our wedding day was just my first glimpse of that truth. So during this tough patch, she remains: Unwavering. Loyal. Her hand literally or figuratively squeezing mine. Squeezing allof our hands — my hands as well as those of our sons.

So these are the warm thoughts in my head as I return to Earth and have to sprint across the chewing tobacco-stained and sunflower seed-littered parking lot to catch the start of Max’s 8 am game.

Maybe not exactly the sort of anniversary Hilary had in mind.

Then again, maybe exactly the kind of anniversary she had in mind, because I’m spending the morning with our first-born. His birth was the second time Hilary showed me how much stronger and tougher she is than I. So it seems fitting that today I get to sit and just watch him zip around the field for the next few hours; one of several amazing things, the product of 17 years ago today.

Happy Anniversary, my love. And please keep squeezing my hand. 🙂

Thanks for reading.

Unless you have been living under a rock, you know something is amiss at this year’s World Cup. I just read an interesting re/code article giving us lay folk a glimpse inside Google’s World Cup War Room. They’re in that room crunching scads of real-time search data from real-time Google searches originating from Google searchers all over the planet. One of my main take-aways from said article?

People are fascinated by vampires. “Suarez bite” was evidently disproportionately queried when compared to, say, “flea bite,” “dog bite,” and other more innocuous Google searches about someone or something biting someone or something else.

It got me thinking: Might there be a competitive advantage, in certain settings, to having a reputation as “a biter?” As someone who, under the right circumstances, just might set his or her teeth to work on an unsuspecting–or better yet, suspecting–victim?

My mind goes first to other sports. I could stay with soccer (OK, futbol), but judging by all the sudden, spastic falls to the pitch, there is probably a lot more biting going on there than can be perceived my the human eye. No other way to explain all that writhing in pain, eyes bugging out, he’s-clearly-about-to-expire-out-there that seems to transpire during every match. Someone has to be biting someone, there’s no other explanation. But I will leave that examination to those more qualified and with access to higher-definition slo-mo footage than I can get my hands on.

So, other sports? Hmmm.

If the San Francisco Giants’ MVP catcher bit, say, the Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig, just once, I believe this would tilt the competitive balance in the Giants’ favor, in a statistically significant way, over the course of a long season.

Now, to be clear, I’m not suggesting some big, theatrical, open-mouthed clamp onto Puig’s jugular. The opposite. Just a little nibble. Buster’s head is perhaps a foot or two from the batter’s legs. The batter is not focused on Buster. Buster is the last thing on the batter’s mind. And given that many players are now sporting the pants up/full socks, old school look, those lower legs are prime for the taking.

All Buster would need to do is lean forward for a moment, reach for a pinch of dirt near his feet, then extend his neck for a quick nip of calf between upper and lower canines. Or, a less vampiresque, but perhaps more manageable quick bite between matching incisors.

Quite frankly, Buster wouldn’t actually need to bite Puig at all in order to secure this psychic advantage. He could simply reach out with two fingers, pinch Puig’s calf with cat-like reflexes. Then when Puig flinches and snaps his head down to Buster in the crouch, Buster could look up expectedly. Lip curled up a bit to reveal a tooth or two with (fake) blood smeared there. And Buster’s wild eyes.

What’s Puig gonna do? The rest of the world saw, at most, a friendly pinch from a universally-respected ambassador of the game to the leg of an adversary. Then a friendly smile from under Buster’s mask. No one else save Puig saw the crazy eyes, los ojos, the twitching lip, and the (fake) smear of blood, the taste of which Buster seemed to actually enjoy. No one will give creedence to Puig’s shouts, “El Vampiro! El Vampiro!” as he jabs his gloved forefinger at the still-squatting Buster. The Ump will tell Puig to get back in the box. If asked to investigate, MLB officials will treat Puig as all early-in-the-film characters, first-bitten but never believed until it is too late.

But Puig’s rants, upon returning to his murmuring bench, will unsettle his teammates. Plant the seed. Each will hold in the back of their own minds, when setting their feet in the box during their at-bat, the possibility that a vampire lies in wait just inches away.

Good luck staying focused on Bumgarner’s arm slot with this on your head. “Any moment, Buster could rip the flesh of my calf clear off the bone. C’mon, that’s crazy talk, man. Jesus, keep it together, pick up the ball pick up the ball….Wait, did I just hear Buster shuffle his feet? Is he about to make his move?!?” This is not the stuff of positive self-talk espoused by the sports psychiatrists.

And suddenly, the Dodgers’ bench sees other behaviors and rituals of Giants players for what they maybe, really, are: Pablo’s habitual bat-scratching in the dirt, tapping a certain number of times on his cleated toes, then on his head, a cross carved carefully near his side of home plate. Blanco’s sudden, Gargoyle-like spring into the air from his crouch in on-deck circle. Pence’s refusal to blink during his entire tenure with the Giants. Morse’s always glistening left forearm, his uniform sleeves barely covering what look like warnings or prophecies written in an ancient language.

All this stuff starts to snap into focus. The opposing team’s collective heads begin to swoon a bit. A little light-headed, as all of these observations, foolishly ignored over the years or even–gasp–mocked, come home to roost. Scared eyes catch other scared eyes, shards of sunflower seeds hanging from open mouths and dropping lips, and share a terrifying realization:

The Giants are vampires. And zombies. And Gargoyles.

So yeah, it’s a small sample size, a limited study. But I do think Suarez is onto something. The Giants could use a little of El Vampiro right about now.

Thanks for reading. (Buster, are you reading?)

It’s officially Summer Vacation around here, as of about a week ago.  Seems like every year about this time we go through a transitional period.  Moving from the predictable structure and rhythms of school, to, well, the opposite:  Chaos.  

It takes us — and by “us,” I mean my wife Hilary and I — approximately one week to gather data sufficient to inform the process of planning the remainder of our boys’ summers.  During this week of data-gathering, of limbo, all hell can break loose.  End of the Festival of Samhain-type break loose.  

From the comfort of our bedroom downstairs, we have heard the telltale sounds of Tivo upstairs before the sun has risen.  Someone is clicking willy-nilly from one station to another.  It’s early enough that much of the programming, I imagine, is sweaty people on elliptical trainers.  But also shows about one or another group of nightmare-inspiring vampire people, or maybe a random showing of “Jackass,” sure to incite future hijinks with speeding shopping carts and the like.  I’m much too tired to actually get out of bed and investigate, like a proper parent might do.  

Instead, I weigh the risks.  Run the numbers. Assume the worst:  Our 8 year-old has hacked the Playboy Channel and is watching “Journey to the Nether Regions.”  Or perhaps even at this ungodly hour, some mischievous HBO scheduler is burning “The Shining” into our 2nd grader’s impressionable brain.  If the latter, Everett will never ride a Big Wheel, never agree to stay at a big old hotel again, and probably stop bouncing a tennis ball off the stairs over and over again.  I can live with these possibilities.  In fact the tennis ball thing holds quite a bit of appeal.  So I allow myself to drift back to sleep, even as the Tivo “bloop,” bloop,” “bib-bloop” beckons off in the distance.  

I haven’t exchange a word with my wife lying next to me.  But I am 65% certain she has just done the same calculus in her own head. Maybe even running different worst case scenarios, than I could groggily call up.  Obviously her scenarios, too, weren’t overpowering enough to warrant a trip upstairs to investigate.  Bloop.  Bloop.  Bib-Bloop. 

Another example.  Max and Everett have been using the World Cup as an excuse to wear pajamas all day.  And by “all day,” I mean, every day since school has ended.  If I think about it, I don’t believe I’ve seen Everett wearing anything other than a pair of pajama shorts bearing a pattern of a tropical jungle and the number 29 (or 62, the pattern is a little confusing).  Nevermind why there are bright yellow numbers pasted on top of dark jungle scenes.  That’s probably some subversive shit, too, but I will have to try to wrap my head around that another day. 

And Everett is unapologetic about this.  Completely un-self-conscious.  Belligerent, even.  

We have pointed out that he has worn the same pajamas for, like, a week.  Expecting him to show surprise, an age-appropriate recognition of the prospect of scabies, or embarrassment.  Nope.  Instead, his voice is insistent, the pitch rises.  The vein in his neck pops to the surface and he juts his chin out and upwards.  “Dad, this is Summer!  I’m wearing exactly what I’m supposed to be wearing!”  

He’s so passionate and self-righteous about these crispy pajama bottoms.  He is very likely to send the whole inmate population into a frenzied coup if I were to provoke him any further.  The balance is that delicate.  Razor’s edge.  So I back down.  Practically handing him the Tivo clicker, with lowered eyes and bowed head, right after I navigate down the Tivo on-screen guide to highlight the Playboy Channel’s “Foursome: Walk of Shame.”  Ultimate show of submissiveness on my part.  Had I taken a different tact, reasserting my authority, this whole place would erupt into something of Attica-like proportions.  By this point, Everett has almost certainly seen that movie during one of his 6 am Tivo sessions. So this is no exaggeration.  

Then came the Popsicles.  

Over the course of the last week, we have entrusted the boys at home on their own for a few hours here and there.  Hilary is at work.  I’m working with some new consulting clients or running errands.  Max knows where the fire extinguishers are.  He is adept at texting, even if the texting more involves his mother or I trying to interpret what a red-faced, tribal-looking emoji totem pole icon is supposed to mean.  And Max probably does not really want to kill his brother.  At least not intentionally.  The same could not be said of Everett, but our 8 year-old is probably not quite up to the challenge of physically overpowering our 12 year-old.  At least I think I could make such a statement in a police report with a straight face.  

I returned home one afternoon this past week to find both of my sons wearing their could-stand-up-on-their-own pajama bottoms. Ensconced in one of the World Cup games played by teams whose official initials I could not decipher.  A quick scan of the room did not reveal any evidence of wrongdoing.  The dog’s eyes did not betray abuse.  If anything, in retrospect I saw enthusiastic conspiracy in those brown-red eyes.  I think the dog may be the happiest life form in our house when she and the boys are alone. But that is a blog post for another day.

I only began to get suspicious when the boys started whispering to each other in the midst of fake-looking wrestling.  The kind of wrestling you do to get close enough to your partner-in-crime’s ear, such that a whispered phrase sounds only like labored breathing and grunting to the casual, unsuspecting observer.  

But I am neither casual, nor unsuspecting. 

After an hour or so, both boys happened to wander outside of the living room, leaving me alone.  I used my brief seconds of solitude to investigate. Scanning the room in earnest for anything even remotely incriminating.  Without their guilty eyes watching mine, poised to destroy evidence via some distracting ruse or another.  I’ve fallen victim to several such ruses, and those are only the ones I know about.  

I turned my gaze behind my back on the couch, where no fewer than 5 pillows were piled.  Seemingly a perfectly legitimate stack of pillows to angle one’s head perfectly towards the TV.  The better to comfortably take in hour after hour of World Cup play.  In fact, I had been happily, comfortably leaning my own head against this pile for the past hour or so.  

I pulled one pillow off another.  My pace quickened as I began to feel I was on to something.  I felt keenly aware that the inmates would be returning to their cell within moments.  At the bottom of this innocuous-looking pile, I found the contraband.  

A box of Popsicles.  Completely empty.  Eviscerated.  Flattened.  Several plastic wrappers ripped open and empty.  Sitting under my head for the last hour.  Basically hidden in plain sight.  Brilliant. 

I felt certain that neither Hilary nor I had purchased this box of Popsicles.  Quite certain.  So I placed the box on the living room table in full view. Smack in the middle, on display.  It could not be missed.  

Everett returned to the living room first, immediately saw the box, and turned his body away from mine, fake-watching the World Cup game.  No doubt his mind spinning, panicked.  Waiting for his older brother to come in and save the two of them somehow.  His face flushed red, praying that I didn’t say anything, start shouting about trust, responsibility, and teeth falling out.  I’m sure his little brain ran his own little set of numbers: Maybe the box was there all along, and Dad still hadn’t seen it?  Maybe Dad saw it, but mistakenly thought Mom bought the Popsicles, or that the Popsicles were somehow Mom-approved.  Maybe Dad just didn’t assign a high-level of importance to this particular transgression?  

Then, Max shuffled back into the room, and the jig was up.  

Both boys fessed up to their roles in this particular fiasco.  Max copped to sneaking down the street to Safeway to make the illicit purchase. I nearly choked on my own spit when I learned that the box didn’t hold, say, 6 or 8 Popsicles.  It held 12!  And these sneaky little bastards had eaten all 12 in one sitting!  The two of my boys had sat happily, stickily on the couch devouring these Yellow Number 5 bombs.  As to the brilliant hiding spot, Everett confessed that he had hastily hidden the evidence under the pillows when he heard my car pull into the driveway.  Guilty, guilty, guilty. 

The punishment?  Absolutely nothing.  At least none handed down by Hilary or me.  We figured those 12 little sticks of colorful nastiness would take care of that for us.  While there is no dosage warning on the side of a box of Popsicles, there probably should be. Twelve Popsicles are their own punishment. 

Thanks for reading. 

No, not the constitutional right one. The disease one.

Fifth Disease.

Little kids get this from time-to-time, where it usually goes by the name “Slapped Cheek.” Sounds cute, right? Almost like something every child should want to have.

As an adult, I might argue they should tweak it to “Mule-Kicked Cheek.” That would make me feel a little better about being knocked sideways for weeks by something that is best known for adding a touch of color to 2nd graders’ cherubic faces.

Allow me to elaborate —

“Really? ‘Slapped Cheek’?? Isn’t that, um like Chicken Pox or a paper cut or something? Have you tried a couple of those Gummy Bear vitamins? Maybe the grape-flavored ones? I bet that would take care of it, and maybe a nice glass of warm milk.” (This might be followed by a pat on the top of my head.)

See what I mean?

That’s how the cocktail conversation goes. (If I were actually up to going to any cocktail parties or even to a single cocktail hour. Or cocktail half-hour, even.)

I need something stronger, more impressive-sounding, more awe-inspiring, to explain my slight Quasimodo hunch, quivering upper lip and pained facial expression in these moments. I can’t have Mrs. Jones going home to Mr. Jones and reporting that Keir’s little cheek was apparently slapped, the poor thing, so Keir said he won’t be able to go on that bike ride with you next week. And he just can’t bring himself to meet you and the boys for that drink tonight, either.

Danger. Danger. Danger. Very real jeopardy of transgressing Man Rules due to this thing, and having to endure the consequent hazing (of the emasculating variety) for literally years to come. Maybe for the rest of my life.

Envisioning how this scenario might play out (poorly for me), I might try to turn things around:

Well, it is, apparently a disease, after all.” I lean in slightly towards the ear of my cocktail party partner, maybe even a bit of Dudley Moore jauntiness now perceptible in my slightly arched eyebrow, my lips pushed out a bit for emphasis. I re-take the upper hand with this. Now not merely cheek-slapped. Now wracked with pain by a disease!

And, what’s this? Look how nobly I manage to keep the beast at bay, while my body is being absolutely ravaged by this insidious force inside me. Now my Quasimodo tilt takes on the air of a swagger. A Civil War General. With a slight sway when he stands due to the remnants of a cannon ball still lodged in his hip. Yet still able to regale the room with war stories, one after the other, those around him doubled over in raucous laughter. And all this while the courageous, war-worn General manages to spill not a drop of his julep. Probably has one of those decorative field swords right there hanging at the ready, too.

Yeah, that’s me.

Until one of two things happens: First, my confidante effects a stage whisper, “a DISEASE?!?” The entire party then turns EF Hutton-style directly towards me. The grotesque figure standing center stage, all hunched over and feverish-looking. My attempts to backpedal, to sugar coat, to assure my listeners, “Oh, I’m l-o-n-g past the communicable stage,” — both a complete waste of time, and completely stripping myself of all that imagined battle-field glory.

Knocked right back down to “you know, the guy whom somebody slapped.” Now with the appropriate response, “Well, he probably deserved it.”

I am pretty sure this is how infamy of the variety that haunts generations is born. Of these moments.

On the other hand, if by some strange twist of fate, my cocktail companion does not recoil in horror at my admission, if he or she returns my sotto voce with their own sotto voce, there is another scenario that plays out:

“Oh my, a disease! You poor thing. But you seem to be so “chin up” about it. So much courage, you, even to be here.” I begin to hear the triumphant, Civil War-era battle hymns, faintly, off in the distance. Puff up my caved chest a bit. I may just be able to salvage some dignity here after all. Things are looking up!

Or not….

“If you don’t mind my asking, what disease is it that you suffer from, kind sir?”

“Well, it’s called Fifth Disease.”

And the vinyl record scratches loudly to a sudden halt. The room falls quiet. I catch a faint whiff of disgust in the air.

No one gets medals, wins awards, is the subject of glowing press releases or the recipient of honorary degrees, for finishing fifth. Fifth! How serious could this “disease” truly be, if it not only lacks a “real” name, but it’s only the fifth disease?? Four other, far worse maladies stand in line in front of it!!

Probably I couldn’t even get a military draft deferral by scrawling “Fifth Disease” onto my clipboarded GI paperwork. And I would have to write the words in, rather than check a corresponding box off for it. There are only four boxes for the first four diseases. Mine, the fifth, doesn’t even merit its own box.

So at this point, I quit. I toss my drink over my (good) shoulder, and march towards the exit careful not to make eye contact with any other guests. Defeated, but almost oblivious to the defeat since the mind-numbing aching in my shoulder has just taken hold again. The guests’ last view of me is vigorously shaking a plastic bottle of Advil into my mouth like Tic-Tacs, in a blind and wild search now for my heating pad.

I plead the Fifth.

Thanks for reading.

“I’m coming back in…and it’s the saddest moment of my life.”

– NASA Astronaut Edward Higgins White, II, first American to “walk” in space  

Edward White’s emotional state bent and twisted like a molten steel rod 49 years ago today, as the astronaut traveled at 17,000 miles per hour, separated from his ship.  The first American to perform a spacewalk, White experienced something so sublime — the culmination of years of Draconian training and innumerable sacrifices along the way — that he just could not bring himself to return to the relative safety of the Gemini spacecraft.  He did not want to come back down to Earth.  Back to reality.  It took increasingly stern orders from Gemini 4 Commander James McDivitt to bring White back in to the relative safety of the 4-ton capsule. 

For the past several months, I’ve had the incredibly good fortune of teaching 24 young men about baseball and life.  I’ve logged perhaps 250 hours crouched behind batting cage L-screens, standing at the ready in my chalked 3rd base coach’s box, and doling out modernized  tidbits from Aesop’s Fables with a steering wheel, fungo bat handle, or black folded piece of cowhide in my hand.  My teams’ seasons always follow an intriguing, predictably unpredictable arc.  

If I am lucky, I will have figured out how to reach each one of the 2nd graders and 7th graders on a deep, individual level.  I will try to curate, ideally without the curation being noticed, some singular experience for each player that I hope he just might remember for the rest of his life.  Maybe even pass something like it along to his kids, his players, his students.  

The baseball stuff takes care of itself.  By now, I can teach a shortstop to truly “feel” where the batter’s swing is likely to send a struck ball at this moment.  Our catchers will come to understand the importance of their posture, the shape of their glove, and the strength of their own conviction when framing a pitch.  And hopefully our batters, who showed up at our first practice swinging from out of their cleats, have at least begun to grasp the notion of a shorter swing with a laser-focus on contact.  It’s the big-picture, life lessons stuff, though, that I reflect most upon as the season winds down.  

Except the season never “winds down.” It always comes to a crashing halt.  Cruelly. 

Of course, I know that this will happen.  I know that my own sublime spacewalk can’t last forever.  That I will have to return to Earth.  And I have known for years now that one day would be the last day that I would ever have the privilege of coaching my oldest son, Max. Twelve now, but just a 5 year-old kindergartner when I brought him into baseball (and he brought me back to baseball). 

I just didn’t think it would happen so quickly:  Last night.  

My head swam during our team’s final, bent-legged, post-game meeting in the left field grass.  Moving at what felt like 17,000 miles an hour, I replayed 8 years of Little League in my mind, then lifted my gaze to meet Max’s eyes.  He had an inkling of my emotional state.   My heavy-hearted gratitude for my own sublime trip.  For the honor of coaching his teammates.  The honor of telling him after every game how much I loved to just watch him play.  And he saw my reluctance to rise up from my now wet and grass-stained knee.  Standing up would represent the end of it, the end of standing on the same field with my first-born as his coach.  

I know I have to come back to the ship.  To come back to Earth.  I am coming back in.  And it’s the saddest moment of my life.

Thanks for reading.   

I stumbled on this scene yesterday along Crissy Field in the midst of a slow afternoon run.

The run was my first in nearly 3 weeks. For the past 40 minutes, I had been shuffling along distractedly, constantly evaluating my body’s feedback. Can I pull off this race in 10 days or not? Has this sneaky virus robbed me of the training I dutifully banked in recent months? Or did I have enough in my account to avoid being overdrawn on race day? If the latter, I could probably still grind through the day. It would just be more painful than I had originally bargained for, most likely. But I hadn’t felt that sort of “make you want to quit after the next step” pain in over 10 years.

That’s a long time. Perhaps too long. I once knew exactly when to expect the pain, or at least recognized the early signs of its headlong rush in my direction. Could steel myself for what was about to come, confident that I could manage the suffering. Maybe even welcome the suffering. Pass through it on the other side and be on my way.

So these were the types of self-absorbed, myopic notions with which I was wrestling when I came upon the ducks.

I stopped in my tracks at the sight of them. Quite a scene. Mama duck with a half-dozen fuzzy ducklings at her webbed heels. All the inconsequential thoughts about an upcoming triathlon disappeared from my mind. Replaced in a heartbeat by an out-of-place duck and her kids zig-zagging right in front of me. And of course I didn’t just see ducklings.

I saw Beadlings. My Beadlings.

The ones that started out as these little ducklings did, fast on my heels, trusting my every move, every choice. Going wherever I led them, serpentine, through the formative stages of their young lives.

If I sneak a quick look behind me, Everett is still there in my wake. So long as he doesn’t expect me to sneak that look. If I telegraph it, I will see a seemingly older boy, walking casually with his flat brim capped-head down, hands stuffed firmly into his pockets, choosing his own path. Nevermind that his path happens to be in the shadow of his dad’s. That’s just coincidence.

My older duckling, Max, is not such a duckling anymore. When I glance back, he’s not there. He’s followed me just about as far as he’s going to. Splitting off now at a curl, investigating a broader path than the one I’ve thusfar led him down.

On two occasions this past week, I caught myself staring at Max from a close distance. Both times I hadn’t seen him all day. The image of him burned into my mind’s eye did not match the young man now standing before me.

The piercing blue eyes remained, the same ones that have always unsettled adults since they give the impression that the adults are looking into the eyes of another adult. But now he’s a bit taller, his face taking on a new angularity, his body language giving off the air of being comfortable in his own skin and silently encouraging me to do the same. I see now the young man he is becoming, and it steals my breath away.

The suddenness of this. The realization that he is on his own path now. That hopefully the initial trajectory we set will propel him in the right direction, if only slightly. All of our Herculean pushes and pulls seem to have only amounted to releasing him into space. Moving in slow motion now, beyond our gravitational pull. Hopefully capable of navigating his way.

“Dad, why aren’t you talking?” This is how Max jars me from my trance, a subtle hint that I’ve been staring at him again. I say, “Sorry, son, I just saw very clearly the young man you are becoming. Right before my eyes.”

That might be a bit deep for a still-12 year-old. Could even be categorized as goofy, reminiscent of my 7th grade self being at a loss for (intelligible) words to woo a young lady into a “moonlight skate” at the indoor rink. Disco Ball spinning overhead, Little River Band’s “Reminiscing” flowing through the overhead speakers. I feel those same butterflies now, when I see Max after not seeing him for a full day.

So thank you, world, for not stepping on my little ducklings underfoot. One is now off on his own little trail. The other, I think, is still right behind me. Just don’t tell him I know he’s still there. Make way for Beadlings.

Thanks for reading.

Yesterday I got a haircut for the first time in maybe four months.  I just generally object to the whole practice.  If my teeth ache, I go to the dentist.  That seems logical.  If my shoulder hurts, I visit my doctor.  Of course.  If the Prius inexplicably refuses to start, I call AAA.  Naturally.

But when my hair grows for too long, I need to pay an expert to fix it?  Really?

I yearn for the brief periods of nirvana — every 5 years or so — when my wife tolerates my getting a buzz cut.  Down to the nubs.  Bar of soap for shampoo.  No bed head.  No hair products.  No need to pay a hair expert.  I have accumulated a small arsenal of store-bought clippers that work just fine, thank you very much.  I buzz my own hair, re-buzz it myself for as long as the haircut is tolerated, and skip giddily past all the haircut experts on Chestnut Street.  Big smile on my face.  “Sorry, no, won’t be handing over $50 today for you to work your black magic sorcery on my locks.  All good!”

Eventually, though, the look evolves from Aryan Brotherhood to Little Lord Fauntleroy to Hugh Jackman’s “Wolverine” to Jackson Teller.  When the parents of the Little League kids I coach start scanning the parking lot looking for coach’s Harley — he must have one — that’s when I know it’s time to return to the hair expert.  

Fortunately for me, by now, my hair has grown out so much that said hair expert could not possibly remember me as the skin-headed weirdo blissfully skipping past their storefront.  Repeatedly. 

So, I act like I come here all the time.  I absolutely cannot have my cover blown.  Absolutely must avoid having done to me whatever hair experts do to non-believers like me. I fall in line with the regular people, like the time I took Communion to impress my high school girlfriend’s parents.  Ignore the fact that I am not now, nor have I ever been Catholic (or anything else, really).  Desperate times.

So there I am sitting in the black, faux-leather swivel chair.  Pungent scent of vinegar in the air.  Clumps of dark hair clippings scattered on the tile floor. I’ve managed to avoid suspicion, just a regular among regulars, my ongoing pedestrian chit-chat preserving my cover.  “Oh, same as last time, I guess.”  “Just a little trim.”  “How have you been?”  “The place looks great.”  “Your son sure has gotten big.” That type-deal. 

Settled in now, I glance in the mirror at the true believer sitting to my left.  At first glance, I identify that she’s quite old, has likely had one of those space helmet hair dryers on for some time, and is now having metal or foil clips plucked from her hair, one at a time.  Her lips are pursed, not in an unpleasant way, but in a way that indicates this is old hat for her.  She comes here all the time, probably has for years.  And is treated by the hair experts with deference.  Respect.  As if they were tending to royalty, even.  

My first reaction is, wow, I’m not sure this place has the right kind of hair experts for my particular needs.  What the hell am I doing here? That’s a pretty broad skill set, after all — primping an elderly woman’s ‘do for the second time this week and then evening out a haircut I’ve been giving myself for the past few months as if I had been living in the deep woods.  None of the Yelp reviews said anything about this. And I start to spiral downwards.  Feeling foolish for giving in to the hair expert’s siren song. For not just opening up my back of clippers in-need-of-a-charge at home.  For a moment, I even entertain faking a phone call, manufacturing a phony emergency to extract myself from this ill-fitting situation before I end up under the space helmet. 

And then I return my glance in the mirror, eyes angled back to the chair on my left. 

My second reaction, after studying the familiar-looking face a bit longer, is the spirit-lifting realization that she is alive!  Our former landlord of 13 years is sitting right next to me.  Her husband, a former New York Yankees shortstop whom we met only once, passed away 12 years ago at the age of 91.  We met the sprite, twinkling-eyed gentlemen on just one occasion.  We still talk about that visit.  

Fifteen years ago, Hilary and I slept on the bare wooden floor of our flat (their flat) on our first night here.  Duraflame log crackling in the fireplace that did not yet have a screen.  Chewing on our first of many Pizza Orgasmica pies cradled on bent paper plates.  Thrilled to have found this modest flat as a start to our new lives out here.  Heads fairly spinning with what the future would bring.  

Hilary went into labor with both of our boys in that flat.  Our oldest’s first month at home sadly coincided with the horrors of 9/11.  We cradled him on the living room couch while buildings fell down on the other side of the country and everything changed for every side of the country.

Memorable Thanksgiving feasts, Christmas mornings, gatherings of life-long friends and new friends, and birthday cakes bearing one more candle than last year.  Countless games of backyard catch.  Max demanding that I toss fly balls to the very edges of our ridiculously narrow lawn, allowing him to make spectacular leaping catches just before landing in a patch of flowers.  (His younger brother now demands the same, but in a different backyard venue.)  

All of these things swirled around in my head as I stared at our former landlady in the mirror.  I was still watching these images on “play” in my mind’s eye when she stood up from her chair with a some ceremony.  Grabbed a metal handle and whipped it only slightly such that gleaming black plastic segments snapped together magically with a “whew-CLICK” into a sturdy walking stick.  Same pursed lips and dignified look of indifference during this particular trick, by the way.  

She passed behind my chair, on a mission to whatever was supposed to be next on the agenda that day.  She looked so…graceful, humble, experienced, satisfied.  I was dumbstruck, trying to calculate her age now, while also trying to figure out whether and how I could get her attention to say “hello” without interrupting her elegance.  It almost seemed wrong to insert myself.  

I managed to croak, “Mrs. Crosetti?  Norma?” a couple times as she passed, oblivious.  I began to lose hope, until her hair expert tapped politely on Norma’s shoulder and pointed to me in the mirror; the man with another hair expert’s fingers stuffed in his ungainly tufts of hair.  I’m sure I surprised her.  As I’ve mentioned, this is probably not the kind of place a lady like her would expect to see a gent like me.  

But a couple quick prompts from me, and a hint of recognition lit up her marbled eyes and the corners of her mouth tilted up just a bit.  She asked if we still lived in the neighborhood. I answered, “We sure do, on the same block!”  Somehow, I thought she needed to understand how much we valued our neighborhood.  Her neighborhood.  And that we will continue to raise our family here and take care of the neighborhood as she had.  “That’s nice.  Nice to see you.”  

I tried to communicate with my own eyes and a perhaps-overdone smile of my own a sense of appreciation for her long life, and gratitude for the role she played in my own family’s life.  Whether she picked up on that, I don’t know.  She was already in motion towards whatever item was next on her agenda.  

When I asked a couple minutes later, one of the hair experts told me Norma is 100.  “One hundred,” I gasped.  And still living in this neighborhood.  Still living on her own.  Still moving with so much dignity.  With a presence well-earned from 100 years of walking this earth.  

“Does this mean I’m not even halfway to where I’ll end up?” I thought to myself.  

A half-century from now, will I be roaming the streets of my neighborhood with a snap-together walking cane, too? Will Hilary meet me for a coffee?  Or will I be alone, our coffees over with, as Norma and Frank no longer share coffees?  Children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren scattered about?  Or maybe even close by?  

Who knows.  

But I do know that I’m grateful for my serendipitous meeting with Norma.   Maybe I need to visit the hair expert more often.  

Thanks for reading. 

Game of Thrones delivered up another blog-worthy scene in its most recent episode.  The manipulative and compassionate “Imp” let fly a raging rant against, well, pretty much everyone — 

I saved you. I saved this city. All your worthless lives. I should’ve let Stannis kill you all. Yes, father. I’m guilty. Guilty. Is that what you want to hear? No, of that I’m innocent. I’m guilty of a far more monstrous crime. I’m guilty of being a dwarf. Oh? Yes I am. I’ve been on trial for that my ENTIRE LIFE! I did not do it. I did NOT KILL JOFFREY BUT I WISH THAT I HAD! Watching your vicious bastard die gave me more relief than a thousand lying whores! I wish I was the monster you think I am. I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you. I would gladly give my life to watch you all swallow it. I will NOT give my life for Joffrey’s murder, and I know I’ll get no justice here so I will let the Gods decide my fate. I demand trial by combat!

I know how he feels.

Not the unappreciated city-saving part, the scornful father part, nor the years of persecution part.  Just the diffuse anger and rage part.  The reason for my own, current anger management problem is admittedly not the stuff of an HBO episodic series.  Nevertheless, when I saw Peter Dinklage’s character go off on this psychotic bender the other night, I saw myself.

Some sort of virus or another has been having its way with me for about a week or so.  This truth is of course heavy with irony, given that I’ve written so dismissively of Slapped Cheek, Meningitis, Chicken Pox, and the rest.  Turns out those bad boys don’t take well to being openly mocked on a WordPress blog.  My bad. 

How could I have been knocked sideways by something so random, something that more than likely found its way to me via a sick child?  Or more specifically, cough droplets from a sick child that ended up transferred over to me?  My kids haven’t been sick in weeks; maybe months.  I don’t work in an office.  I am outside in the fresh air constantly, never cooped up on a MUNI bus eyeing my warm grip on a germ-slathered strap-hanger’s pole. How in the world did I end up on the wrong side of the game of virus roulette?

Yep, whatever locked on to me has a vicious sense of irony.

My risky behavior, my undoing — and here comes the second dose of irony — was most likely Little League baseball.  More specifically, my Norman Rockwellian insistence on post-game hand shakes and high-fives has come home to roost, apparently.

Let’s do the math:  First, each of my Little League teams is comprised of 12 boys.  That’s 24 potential Typhoid Marys whose hands I grip, slap, or bump in a closed fist at least three times each week.  That’s 72 weekly roles of the dice right there, at minimum.  And I should probably add in a multiple here, seeing’s how the high fives are rarely a one-time thing.  I’ll connect hands with my players, each of them, probably several times during each practice, each game.  I’ve even, gasp, encouraged my younger team to hold a high-five contest with their teammates, in a contrived attempt to gin up some good sportsmanship on our own team.  And yes, I myself have participated in said contest(s), racking up points for each hand slap in a loud voice!  Bragging about it, even — “One! Two! Twelve!  Fifty Seven!”  

Oh the hubris. 

That hubris probably gets me 500 rolls of the viral dice weekly, and that’s just from my own guys.  Add in all the games we’ve played over the past couple weeks, and the exposure potential balloons exponentially.  I count approximately seven to ten games within my “catch and incubate” window.  Now we’re up to thousands of little hands, unknowingly passing a small infectious agent around that will ultimately set up shop in me.  

And of course, I write regularly about how much I swim, run, ride, yada yada.  Look at me, such a physical specimen! Well, my immune system has evidently been feeling the strain of trying to jam that extra mileage into an aging body so as to survive the upcoming Escape From Alcatraz Triathlon.  I suppose this marks the third heavy dose of irony here. That small infectious agent had me and my shaved legs in its little viral cross hairs, just rubbing its fuzzy little infectious claws together, hardly able to contain his excitement at the prospect of tossing me around for a week or so, slamming me cartoonishly from one side of the ring floor to another.  Bam! Wham! Bam! 

The chronic and barely manageable pain in my head, neck, shoulder and chest over the past week has not brought out the best in me.  Particularly by the end of the day, when my neck has had enough of supporting my head all day, when my shoulder wants to remind me that I’m not supposed to be throwing batting practice or hitting ground balls, when a pedestrian sneeze feels like a battering ram to my chest, I become a Monster of Impian Proportions.

I rail against whomever thought that “Horsehead Kid and baseball into the ump’s nuts” Giants television commercial is a good idea.  I have wished that person dead, aloud, from a prone position on my living room floor, head propped up with a boiling heating pad, popping Advil from the plastic pill container always within arm’s reach.  

I caught myself spitting venom, almost literally (the spitting part for sure), when the Giants’ young shortstop Ehire Adrianza struck out looking, leaving the bat on his shoulder.  Pop another Advil.  

My wife and children, even my dog, now step warily around me.  Avoiding direct eye contact (not just the dog).  Steering clear of anything even remotely resembling a provocative comment.  Quickly leaving the room in a jog, high-stepping from their heels with a nervous giggle if the Monster begins to gurgle up some sort of bile-laden rant.  Same technique used when walking by a frothing, growling Doberman behind a fence.  “Tee hee hee, nice doggie,” while stage-marching it the hell away from there.  

The cute little birds in our neighborhood, protecting their cute little babies in their cute little nests?  When they wing themselves in my direction while out for a dog-walk, I grind my teeth and imagine them all vaporized.  Neighborhood lore has it that a neighbor once ended an unreasonably loud crow with an expert pluck of the crossbow.  I want a crossbow, and I want it now.  Now, I said!

Yeah, it’s been like that.  

I should probably apologize to everyone with whom I’ve had any contact of any kind over the past 7 days.  On the other hand, I think I have a couple days left with this.  A few more days of swinging my wrecking ball with abandon.  Hulk SMASH! Probably best to wait until the full extent of my pain-induced frenzy has run its course.  Free of my tiny infectious tormentor, I can then lift  my head among the smoldering ruins, survey the damage, do a quick head count, and begin the business of apologizing. 

Until then, I empathize with the Imp. 

Thanks for reading. 

I had some blood drawn yesterday at my friendly, neighborhood lab.  I was greeted by a very pleasant woman with an angelic smile, standing at a podium aligned perfectly with the entrance door.  As if she’d been expecting me for days, knowing everything there was to know about me.  But would keep all those things a secret between us.  That kind of smile.  Changing the bend of her smile slightly, she gently advised me that I’d be waiting 25 minutes before my name was called.  No problem, I thought, scanning the crowded room for a seat least likely to bear Legionnaire’s disease cough droplets on the armrests.  

Within two minutes of finding my little sanctuary and settling in, another lab worker stepped to the center of the room, cleared her throat, and announced my name.  Her own cherubic smile strained at one corner by the effort of attempting to pronounce my name properly.  I have learned to recognize that look before I even hear my name, often popping to my feet with my own smile, granting instant clemency to my obviously relieved, new friend.  This time, though, I’m not feeling great, and couldn’t spare the energy to save her.  I don’t remember what she said, exactly.  I think I heard at least one “s” although there is no “s” to be found in my name save for my middle name.  And if she had announced my middle name, I probably would have snapped to attention, marched towards her like an automaton, and reached out for a diploma while wincing in anticipation of a flashbulb flashing.  

This second lab worker was not the maître d’ at the podium, who continued masterfully to welcome each new patient through the door.  Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates, you might say.  This second woman’s role was to ensure the lab has all of my information entered into the lab’s database, before the lab does any actual work on me.  The second worker — I wish I remembered her name — was equally lovely.  Laughing generously at my weak attempts to break the mundane, digital form filing out with dark humor.  At the end of our time together, she let me know that this was just her 3rd day on the job.  So perhaps her laughter was genuine.  Or perhaps she, like the others, knew exactly how to handle me so that I would leave the lab chest puffed out.  Thinking I’m damned funny.  Probably the most handsome man to grace that lab in quite some time, too.  Fully expecting the lab workers to make little  necklaces carrying a drop of my blood in pebble-sized capsules around their necks; a memento of that afternoon in May when that otherworldly being (me) graced their presences.  

But I digress.

In the midst of my polite interrogation at the hands of Angel Number Two, Angel Number Two asked, “Do you have a religious preference?”  Given the nature of the questions previous to this one, I assumed she meant my preference as to the religious affiliation of my blood-taker, not my own religious preference.  I said, “You mean the religion of the person who will be sticking a needle in my arm and taking my blood?”  Expecting her to giggle at my misunderstanding and correct me, I got the giggle but not the rest.  “Yes. It’s just something they want us to ask.  Some people do have a preference.”  

Even in my achey state, this sent me off on a bit of a riff:  “I hadn’t thought about it, no.  But now that you mention it, are the people who follow a particular religion better than others at this?  You would know, right?  You can tell me.  Let me guess:  Catholics, right?  It has to be Catholics?”  

A few questions later Angel Number Two asked if I wanted to provide an emergency contact.  She asked this question with the most solemn look she had mustered to this point.  Sitting here now, I wouldn’t be surprised if the text of Question Number 17 pulled up on her computer screen was followed by a parenthetical stage direction —

(Note: effect solemn look on your face, make deep eye contact with your interviewee, consider dropping the frequency of your voice a half-octave and reduce its intensity (volume) by one-half).

If those were the directions, she followed them perfectly.  

I froze in her gaze only momentarily, though, still emboldened by my real or imagined comedic success in this venue; the faux-wooden booth we had been sharing for the last five minutes.  “You mean, in case I choose the wrong religion and the person bleeds me out back there behind those curtains??  Now I really really need to know which religion to pick.  C’mon, this is serious business now, you just raised the stakes!”  I lean in a bit, lower my own voice’s frequency and reduce my own voice’s intensity halfway to a whisper:  “It’s got to be Catholic, right?!?” 

I survived the blood-letting…er…blood-taking.  And I honestly do not know whether my blood-taker practiced Catholicism, Hinduism, Shintoism, or whatever else there might be to choose from in there.  It turns out I am agnostic when it comes to my phlebotomist.  To each his (or her) own.

Thanks for reading.