Hurricane Haiku

hurricane gusts
scatters yard with sticks and leaves
blows summer away

Watch Your Step II

Wishful thinking.

song: Watch Your Step • artist: Elvis Costello

Watch Your Step

Best caution signs ever.

song: Watch Your Step • artist: Elvis Costello

Get Ready

The Tao of my Twins: Lesson #8

Tis better to go out in one's pajamas, than not to go out at all.

song: Get Ready • artist: The Temptations

Blue Bayou

Doesn't anyone remember that we hated the Smurfs the first time around?

song: Blue Bayou • artist: Linda Ronstad

I Can't Drive 55

It's ironic to drive two hours to take your kids to Canobie Lake Park only to arrive and find that the first ride said children want to go on is the Canobie 500 (race cars), and that they are willing to stand in line for a half hour just to (you guessed it) ride in a car again.

song: I Can't Drive 55 • artist: Sammy Hagar

Against All Odds

We picked up our two new mice at the pet store today.
Even though the clerk asked them to send girl mice, it turned out there were boy mice in the shipment as well.
"I'm 95% sure they aren't pregnant." she said.
As far as I'm concerned those are not reassuring odds.

song: Against All Odds • artist: Phil Collins

Reunited

Have fun at the class reunion guys.
If only there were quarter-century superlatives.
I'd vote Rene and Hadley in as "Most Courageous."

song: Reunited • artist: Peaches and Herb

Call Me

Cell phones have rendered obsolete an entire genre of music - the telephone angst love song.

You know the type, either the love-sick caller can't reach his intended because she's not answering (Telephone Line, ELO); or the caller muses over his betrothed with the dispatcher, an employee from MA Bell who, though silent, acts the part of the good therapist (Operator, Jim Croce).

Nowadays not only do you not need a third party to connect you, there's little chance you'll get no answer when you call - at the very least you'll get voice mail.

Surely the outcome would have been different had Dr. Hook been able to talk to Sylvia directly instead of merely to her mother, and if that pesky operator wasn't repeatedly requesting nickels (Sylvia's Mother, Dr. Hook & the Medicine Man).

Then there's the peeping Tom of telephone songs, Wichita Lineman. Get off the line already!

Even the Beatles can't always get through (You Won't See Me).

But it's not as if there's no precedence for this in the music world. 

Witness: In Your Letter, Take A Letter Maria, Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself A Letter, and Please Mr. Postman.

song: Call Me • artist: Blondie

I Saw the Light

According to the Globe, a North Andover mom "wants to leave the earth a healthy place for her three children. But what good is a thriving planet ... if her kids are forced to live in a home lighted by bulbs that are energy efficient but ruin the look of the dining room chandelier...?"
To spare her kids from poor lighting, the mom is hoarding incandescent bulbs in anticipation of their scheduled "fade out" as it were.
Really? Are you kidding? F*ck the chandelier lady, you've got a planet to save!
What will you tell your three kids 20 years from now? "Sorry about the polar bears kids, but look, I've still got some lightbulbs from 2011. Nice shade of white don't you agree? Almost the same shade as a polar ... Oh never mind."
I know, there are some great reasons for wanting to hang on to traditional bulbs. How will kids spike their temperature on a thermometer in order to stay home sick on test day with only a 15-watt bulb? Whatever will they use to melt wax crayons on? Oh the humanity.
This is why we'll never be able to save the planet. Because even though we want to save the planet - and we really, really, want to save it - we just don't want to be inconvenienced in the process. Not one little you'll-have-to-pry-these-incandescents-from-my-cold-dead-hands bit. And saving the planet will be inconvenient. I guarantee it. First we will have to believe in climate change. We will have to drive less. We will have to commute more. There will be wind turbines to contend with. We will have to be accountable for the garbage we create (pay as you go may be here sooner than compact fluorescents) We will have to actually remember to bring all those reusable canvas bags into the supermarket instead of just smugly keeping them in our car. New Englanders won't be able to eat fresh strawberries in January. We'll need to stop buying yearly new wardrobes full of cheap clothing made in China and wear last years fashions instead.
Luckily, on account of the bad lighting, no one will notice.

song: I Saw the Light • artist: Todd Rundgren

Thank You for the Music

The gig.

song: Thank You for the Music • artist: Abba

Teach Your Children

Despite the MFA's written appeals and signage admonishing visitors not to take flash photography or video at the museum, people were flashes cameras and shooting video left and right at the Chihuly exhibit today.
Therefore it's no wonder non-members are still taking to the fields in droves at Coonamessett Farm.
Ignoring rules must be the American Way.

song: Teach Your Children • artist: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Tom, Dick or Harry

C and I saw the final Harry Potter movie today. It was my first time at the cinema pub in town.
I like the concept but it just seems disrespectful to chow down on buffalo wings while Harry is saving the world from the Dark Lord.

song: Tom, Dick or Harry • artist: Cole Porter

One for the Mockingbird

"You ain't fair" I said, you ain't fair." 
"You're real nice, Uncle Jack, an' I reckon I love you even after what you did, but you don't understand children much."...
"And why do I not understand children, Miss Jean Louise? Such conduct as yours requires little understanding. It was obstreperous, disorderly and abusive."
"You gonna give me a chance to tell you? I don't mean to sass you, I'm just tryin' to tell you."
Uncle Jack sat down on the bed. His eyebrows came together, and he peered up at me from under them. "Proceed," he said.
I took a deep breath. "Well, in the first place you never stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side of it - you just lit right into me. When Jem an' I fuss Atticus doesn't ever just listen to Jem's side of it, he hears mine too, an' in the second place you told me never to use words like that except in ex-extreme provocation, and Francis provocated me enough to knock his block off."
•••
"Jack! When a child asked you something, answer him, for goodness sake. But don't make a production out of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles 'em."


Sometimes I feel guilty that when I read, I mostly read for pleasure. Sometimes that pleasure is in a work of fiction and sometimes it's in a work of non-fiction, but rarely does it take the form of a parenting book.
"You're with them all day - why would you want to read about them at night," the devil on my shoulder whispers into my ear. "You might get some helpful ideas or gain some insight into how your kids are feeling," counters my inner angel.
But low and behold - sometimes you can have both - great literature and great parenting advice.
It's a funny thing. I've read To Kill A Mockingbird at least three times now but only once as a parent and until I became a parent I never noticed that it's full of stellar parenting directive, though none perhaps that jumped off the pages as much as these two passages.
I wonder what pearls of wisdom I stand to glean from my next read, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?
After all, Ichabod Crane was a schoolmaster.

song: One for the Mockingbird • artist: Cutting Crew

One Burbon, One Scotch, One Beer

Rather than the front yard, usually I steer my kids to the backyard to play. The reason being that it's easier to look out the back windows to see what they are up to, plus, this time of year some percentage of the four of them is bound to be in some stage of undress.
The other day I could hear the sounds of noisy children emanating from the front yard. I wondered to myself who the heck was visiting Dave and Jeannie's house only to realize minutes later than it was my own kids.
Yesterday at 11:30 AM Ken wondered out loud if it was too early for a beer.
"Your naked kids are running through the sprinkler in the back yard," I told him. "You might as well drag the couch into the yard, sit on it beer in hand with your shotgun in your lap."

song: One Burbon, One Scotch, One Beer • artist: George Thorogood

Let the Music Play

There's been some discussion surrounding the performance of two plays on the library lawn next week though not the kind of discussion the organizers of the play had hoped to inspire.
The discussion is over whether or not the plays are suitable to be performed outside in a public space where people passing by, especially families with children, might be disturbed by the intensity of the drama.
I have never seen the plays in question and it sounds as if there are other issues surrounding them than just their appropriateness for children who might be in the vicinity; but as to that one objection I'd like to relate the following observations from experience as my oldest boys, ages 8 and 6, have seen a fair amount of live theater.
Live theater, though it may be intense with its action happening right before one's eyes, is by the same token made less scary because the action is happening right before one's eyes. No matter who is rumbling (West Side Story), changing into an evil alter ego (Jekyll and Hyde), committing suicide (Carousel) or cutting the throats of his customers (Sweeny Todd), my children are well aware that the action isn't real and that the actors, even the recently deceased ones, will all take the stage for a bow when the show's over.
Contrast this to television viewing where sometimes the action is real (the news, reality shows) and sometimes it isn't (movies, dramas, sitcoms). It's much harder in these situations for children to discern what's real from what's not and there's no curtain call at the end to help them sort it out.
This is the beauty of live theater. It's big and thought provoking and sometimes in your face, but it's not usually so horrific that you have to hide behind your playbill or shield your kids from it.
As for the screaming. Kids are natural dramatists anyway. People are screaming in my house all the time.
If there's screaming at my house it means that either someone's wife accidentally gave them a poisoned robe - or someone dropped a cookie on the floor.

song: Let the Music Play • artist: Shamur

Black Water II

Always be careful of what you wish for.

I was secretly hoping for a day off from swim lessons but thought it would come in the form of rain and not a high bacteria count.

song: Black Water • artist: Doobie Brothers

Lightenin' Strikes

Everything I learned this week I learned because of my kids.

1. The reason fish don't get killed when lightening strikes the water is because the fish are all under the water while an unfortunate swimmer or shellfisherman is breaking the surface of the water while the electricity is going across.

2. Cooties are real - and you really can catch them. 
3. The singular of mice is mouse. The singular of lice is louse.

song: Lightenin' Strikes • artist: Lou Christie

The End

Seems like no coincidence that the final space shuttle flight and the final Harry Potter movie are taking place less than a week apart.

The space shuttle is the ultimate Firebolt and the earth merely a snitch.

song: The End • artist: Doors

Early in the Morning II

Another summer season starts and so begins the jockeying for good parking spaces at Megansett.
This year I plan to arrive early enough for a coveted space along the perimeter of the lot.
I don't know why these spaces fill up first but I do know that parents who don't get to the beach early enough to secure one and have to park instead in the less desirable middle spots are pretty much lame losers who don't love their children enough to make an effort.

song: Early in the Morning • artist: Vanity Fair