Murder, Cats and Friendship

Five years ago, my family experienced what can only be described as…well, a double homicide.  During a visit, my sister’s dog killed both of my daughter’s hamsters, not by eating them exactly, but by using his teeth to play with them until they were dead.  And though the event traumatized my children (to this day they block out the dog’s picture on our refrigerator with a strategically placed magnet), the murders did provide us with an opportunity, a silver lining, if you will.  We now had a clean pet-slate, the equivalent of using a small house fire as an excuse to update your living room furniture.  We could now purchase whatever family pet we wanted without worry of compatibility for the rodents we’d been keeping in cages (and whose lids weren’t quite as secure as we’d thought).

On a whim, we chose a couple of cute, flea-ridden kittens, to join our family.  They are now full-grown and flea-free, and they are fine additions to the house, except for one thing:

Do you have any idea how many people are allergic to cats?

I didn’t.  But I do now.  Statistics may tell you that about fifteen percent of Americans are allergic to cats, but I’d push that number closer to fifty.  Either that or the Chicago-Metro area is a haven for those allergic to felines. 

These days, when I invite someone to our home, I add, “I should mention that we have cats,” in the same tone I might use to say, “We keep a collection of body parts in the freezer.   Is that okay with you?”  I admit my offense and wait for a response, which is often something along the lines of, “Oh, um…well, I guess I could come in for a while, but I’ll be sure not to sit on your furniture.”

In the modern age of mobility, finding and keeping friends is difficult enough.  I may have 168 Facebook friends, but they don’t laugh when I tell a joke or offer a toast when I open a bottle of wine.  Human interaction is a necessity.  I need more excuses to get together with friends, not more excuses to keep them from entering my home.

Which is why I’d like to offer all of you this sage advice: buy a dog.  Or better yet, a hamster.  Just be sure to secure the lid with a bunch of those plastic zippy things the next time your sister’s dog comes over for a visit.

Ending It All

We Americans sure love our endings.  For as many as we’ve endured lately, it’s a wonder that we manage to function at all. 

Earlier this year, I read Jane Leavy’s biography of Mickey Mantle, and though it was a fine read, its title was a bit overreaching:

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the end of America’s Childhood

If Mickey Mantle was really the last boy, then I want to know who the heck’s responsible for the trail of Legos that lodged into the skin of my big toe last week.  And as for the end of America’s Childhood?  I gotta believe that our Union and Confederate soldiers conveyed that sentiment 150 years ago. 

But we like endings.  Endings sell books, and publishers have taken note.  Type in “the end of” at Amazon.com, and you’ll get a whopping 7700 titles in non-fiction alone. 

Endings are occurring all over the place, and they’re starting to make me just a little anxious. 

America’s aristocracy?  Gone. 

Gender?  Sorry, that’s done too. 

Romance?  Yep, finito. 

And I think the Occupy Wall-Street movement would be disappointed to learn that Wall-Street, has in fact, already ended.  My kids will be happy to hear that anger is no longer, but not so happy to learn about the end of youth.  Our friends across the Atlantic will be distraught to hear about the end of the European Dream, though I suspect a few might get a sadistic chuckle over the end of France.  Our troops will likely be furious to read about the end of Iraq, but I think we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief to learn about the end of old politics. 

Now if we could only put an end to new politics.

And what about this title: The End of Modern History in the Middle East.  Isn’t modern history an oxymoron?  And if not, doesn’t all modern history have to come to an end, inasmuch as it becomes recent history or ancient history?

Now, some endings make sense.  The decade of the sixties, for instance, did in fact end.  But did it really have anything to do with the Rolling Stones’ concert at Altamont, or was it more due to…I don’t know, the calendar changing to 1970?

Don Henley once sang about the end of the innocence.  But we’ve lost our innocence so many times by now, I’m starting to feel a little dirty.  And did it really have anything to do with Disney?  Or was it because of the Kennedy Assassination?  Or Watergate?  Or Vietnam.  Or…Mickey Mantle? 

This whole idea that America’s purity was soiled in the 60s and 70s has been exploited countless times, but bittersweet nostalgia still sells books - at least ebooks - to a generation that believes America’s best years are behind us.

I for one would like to propose a new rule: an end to books with the word end in them.  That is, unless the title is, The End of Milwaukee’s Wait for a World Series Title.  I’m hoping for that book in 2012.  

What’s a Good Dad to Do? How About Set Some Limits?

Last February Dalton Conley wrote an article for TIME Magazine about the way social media are actually changing our children’s brains.  The 7 hours and 38 minutes a day that children ages 8 to 18 spend on entertainment media have altered the brains to “pay more attention to environmental stimuli at the expense of focus,” thereby damaging their young minds’ ability to perform high-level thinking.

Bummer. 

As a concerned parent–not to mention a member of a society that will one day have to take care of me–the article had my attention.

But then the author made a stunning revelation without even highlighting it as a problem. 

He writes in the first person (as all TIME columnists do these days–a very strange trend indeed):

But I am still concerned about the effect that 24/7 connectivity has on my kids-and on my 11-year-old son in particular...So what’s a good dad to do?  I’ve set some rules that are designed to aid his social and cognitive development: no Facebook during school, and no electronic devices after 9:30 p.m.

Did any of you catch his tacit admission (along with his really lame limits)?

Facebook policy clearly states:  If you are under age 13, please do not attempt to register for Facebook or provide any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible.

Where’s the ambiguity here?  Facebook says, “don’t do it.”  The boy's father clearly allowed him to lie about his age to register on Facebook.  What else will his son lie about in the future, with or without his father’s expressed permission? 

As for the limits the father set for his son, they really aren’t limits at all.  No Facebook at school?  Kind of a no-brainer.  And no electronic devices after 9:30 p.m?  Isn’t an 11 year-old likely in bed by that time?  If not, why not, and can you lend me a couple ounces of your patience? 

Look.  I’m not a perfect father.  If any of you are therapists, my children may one day pad your wallets with stories of irrational outbursts, control, snide comments, moodiness, and a propensity to let a Packers loss ruin the day.

But please.  Let’s be grown-ups here.  We can set limits for our children.  Our 11 year-olds don’t need to lie and get onto Facebook.  They’ll be just fine if made to wait until age 13. 

As for 7 hours 38 minutes of entertainment media a day?  I don't even know how to respond to that, unless it's a Sunday NFL double-header.  Then I get it.

To Cable or Not to Cable - OR - Holy Crap! The Brewers are REALLY GOING to WIN their Division!

A little perspective:

In 1982, my friend John and I sat in the last row of the leftfield bleachers at Milwaukee County Stadium during Game 5 of the World Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals.  We won.  I was 14.

Guess what?  Now I have two fourteen year-olds.  If someone had told me back in ’82 that the Brewers wouldn’t win another division until I had children as old as I was back then, I probably would have become a Yankees fan.  I mean, come on!

But here we are.  It’s 2011.  I have two Freshman in high school, and this is the first time my kids will actually have something to brag about pertaining to the Brewers.

Let’s face it: 2008 was a mess.  The Brewers lost  15 of their first 19 games in September that year, leading to the firing of Ned Yost.  Yes, they won 6 or their last 7, but their final victory of the season, a necessary one, came against a Cubs team that was resting several of its starters.  That and a Mets loss allowed us to get into the playoffs.  True, it gave us a chance, but no one was thinking we could go all the way, even with CC Sabathia. 

This year is different.  As I write this, the Crew is 10½ games ahead of the Cardinals, and though stranger things have happened in baseball, I am confident (and this is big for a guy who’s usually skeptical) that the Brewers will in fact win their first division title since I was a pimple-faced, cocky little punk in 9^th grade at Brookfield East High School.

It’s all so glorious.

But the question remains: do I now purchase a cable TV package?  After all, both the Division and the League series are to be aired on WTBS, NOT one of the 6 or 7 channels we get on our rabbit ears antennae.

You see, in 2000, my family moved back to the Midwest after a 6-year stint on the East Coast.  After the move, other priorities took hold, and my wife and I spent the first month in our new house not worrying about cable TV, and instead we rented a lot of movies and watched what little we could on our antennae. 

Turns out we didn’t miss cable even a little.

Here we are, over a decade later, and probably about $6000 richer than had we gotten cable.  True, my children are considered weird, and their friends discuss shows my kids have never seen before, but they’ve gotten used to it, and we try to rent what few cable shows are worth watching through Netflix.  My "cableless" children seem no worse for the wear.

But alas, this year is DIFFERENT.  We’re talking MLB playoffs, baby.  If my kids are as unlucky as I, we’ll still be talking about this baseball season TWENTY-NINE YEARS FROM NOW!!  I'll be 72!  Holy crap.

So really, can I honestly NOT get cable?  I think not.

But then I have visions of a three game sweep by Atlanta in the first round of the playoffs, and me stuck with 256 channels of crap for the next twelve months.

But a victory.  A National League Championship Series appearance, or even...gasp!...a World Series.  I would pay a monthly cable fee ten times for that experience.

I’ll be calling Comcast in the morning.

An O'Hare Pick-up Nightmare

It’s an evening in June.  My wife Alice is arriving at O’Hare from the East Coast, but it’s not going as planned; there are bad storms in the area.  The following is a transcription of a text conversation between my wife and me (and my daughters when I’m driving).  You be the judge as to whether texting helped or hindered this process. 

7:18 PM, Alice

I am going to be delayed.  Willing to pick me up?  I am American Flt 4193.

7:19 PM, Paul

No problem.

Things get delayed more, and Alice still hasn’t landed by the time I pick up my daughters from a late summer school class.  I take off straight from there around 10:30PM, assuming by that point that it’ll be a quick in and out at O’Hare.  We arrive at the cell-phone lot and wait for further instructions.

10:50 PM, Paul

We’ll be parked in cell phone lot until you let us know

We wait and we wait.  People are getting tired and edgy, but the girls don’t have summer school the next morning.  No big deal.

11:11 PM, Paul

Getting close?

11:12PM , Alice

Oh goodness.  There is no one here to move the jetway.  I will let you know when I am off and on my way.  3 minutes, hopefully.

11:13 PM, Paul

Ok.

11:19PM, Alice

They are holding us hostage.  Want to head home and I will grab a #*@# cab?

11:22 PM, Paul

Probably good idea.  294 was bumper to bumper going south.  Could b clear but maybe better take Manheim.  If things change for u soon let us know right away

We begin to exit the cell-phone lot and make our way toward Manheim Road.

11:23 PM, Alice

We are getting off!  Can you still come?!

My daughters’ take control of the cell-phone.

11:23 PM, one of my daughters

Yes!!!

11:24 PM, Alice

Yippee!

We begin to make our way toward the terminal pickup.

11:24 PM, one of my daughters

Bottom level

We approach the roadway to get to the bottom level, but it’s bumper to bumper.  Time to call an audible.

11:29 PM, one of my daughters

New instructions…Go upstairs…

Then again, the top level doesn’t look any better.  In fact, it’s horrendous!  Now there’s a certain degree of frustration setting in.  I circle around and make my way back to the parking lot.

11:33PM, one of my daughters

Just kidding…just to get out it would be an hour…We’re parking…We’ll meet you on lower level by baggage claim. 

Unfortunately, by this point Alice has already made her way outside and it waiting at the lower level.  The rising frustration level isn’t confined to the car.

11:34 PM, Alice

No.  I am standing here!

11:34 PM, one of my daughters

Yeah…but to get to u it’d be a long time

11:34 PM, Alice

Up or down?

11:35 PM, one of my daughters

Baggage claim!

11:35 PM, Alice

K.  By Starbucks.  Claim 9

11:35 PM, one of my daughters

Ok!

We park the car, Cubs level, get into the elevator, press down, and exit into the tunnels beneath the pickup area where we’d hoped to be ten minutes ago.  I now have control of the cell-phone, which makes me feel a little better.  Cuz I’m a guy.

11:37 PM, Paul

U can start walking down toward the lot

11:38 PM, Alice

There are 2 tunnels.

(I’m thinking, “Yes, I know there are 2 tunnels, but for gosh sakes, just get downstairs already!”) but I show great TEXTING RESTRAINT and edit myself, a skill I haven’t yet mastered while talking.

11:39 PM, Paul

Here now claim 9

Eureka!  We have visual confirmation!  Hugs are exchanged.  Bags are rolled.  We make it home by midnight (I decide to take Manheim) and tell my wife, “Next time, take a cab.”