Entry 669: Death By A Thousand Cracks

Kinda a shit week, this one, truth be told. For starters, my back hurts. I was stupid and sat in the driver's seat of our car uninterrupted for way too long -- like four straight hours -- driving Lil' S1 to camp, and my back was so stiff when I got out. Just dumb -- sitting for too long, especially in the same position, kills my back, and I know this. All I had to do was pullover and walk around for a few minutes once during the trip, or just have S drive, so that I could shift around and recline if need be. The kicker is that we were stuck in line at Lil' S1's camp for like an hour (I guess we came at a popular time), and even then I didn't get out of the car. Then the next day I went to a strength and conditioning class, because exercise usually helps my back, but it just so happened to be a super back intensive day, and I doubt that dead lifts and kettle bell swings made things better. I probably should've stayed home and did my yoga DVD.

Then, we've just had a bunch of headaches all hit us at the same time. We have a tree in our yard that one of our neighbors sent us a letter about (by certified mail). Apparently, big branches fell on their roof and caused some damage. This doesn't surprise me because big branches fall in our yard too, not from the same tree, but from another one like it, and they're super dangerous. Last big storm, we had a limb fall in our backyard that was so massive it literally would've killed somebody if it hit them squarely. So, I understand our neighbors' concern.

However, doing some Google research into DC law, as best I can tell, it's not technically our problem. They are responsible for branches that grow over the property line, not us. But there is a catch: If the tree is dying or diseased, and we are given warning by our neighbors that it's potentially hazardous, but do nothing about it, then I think we could be held liable for property damage. Probably that's why they sent the letter, as there is a line at the end that says something that effect.

So, we applied for a permit with the city to potentially have the tree removed -- DC is pretty strict about removing big trees -- but the arborist who inspected it told us he's going to reject our permit because the tree isn't dying or diseased or hazardous (at least not enough to be removed). I'm mostly happy about this, as I didn't really want to remove it in the first place -- I just wanted somebody official to inspect it to cover our ass. We also made an appointment to have the tree serviced -- have it pruned, remove loose and dangerous branches and other debris, etc., which seems to be the best we can do.

I wrote everything in a response letter, which I guess I will also send via certified mail. (Waiting in line at the post office might be the worst part of the entire ordeal.) I think I will also call them or knock on their door, though. Tone doesn't always come across properly in the written word, and I really don't want this thing to escalate -- lawyers are not in our budget right now. I want to be friendly and convey to them that we've taken their concerns to heart and done pretty much all we can. Also, I want to make sure they know that they can further service or trim any parts of the tree that hang over into their yard. We don't mind, and I don't think we could legally do anything about it, even if we did.

Moving down the list of headaches...

S and I got into a spat -- a tiff, actually; it wasn't even big enough to be a spat -- about our broken ice makers. We have two fridges and somehow the ice maker doesn't work on either of them. (One broke; one's never worked.) It's something that's just kind of annoying, especially since we frequently pack a cooler to take to the pool with us, so I had a technician come out to give us a quote. It's something like $800 to get them both fixed, so I just said yes, and S got annoyed because she doesn't want to spend that much right now. We have other, more pressing expenses (like tree service), and she hates going over budget and cutting into our savings, even if we can make up for it later. Why didn't you say something about this when I said I wanted to book a technician, or when you saw him in our house assessing our refrigerators? was my argument, and I think it's a decent argument. But S does all the work managing the finances in our house, so I think I just have to concede this one.

As if all this wasn't enough, we noticed today that the glass on the roof of our Tesla is cracked. We have to get it fixed pronto or else water might start getting in or it might start splintering. Lil' S2 and his two friends were climbing on it the other day, and that almost certainly is how it cracked. But the weird thing is that the glass seems to be cracking from the inside, not the outside, as I would expect if it was caused by an outside force. It's possible it's just coincidence -- I know people who've had their sunroofs pop on them out of nowhere -- but Occam's Razor says otherwise. I saw kids climbing on the roof of the car, now it's broken. You do the math.

We had a talk with Lil' S2, but we're going to have to bring his friends into it too. The three of them fuck shit up every time they're together at our house -- rip open a pack of canned seltzer so that a bunch of them roll off the counter and bust open on the floor; spray water all over the floor with the sprayer in the sink; open up a box of my personal stuff and spread it all over the place; etc. They don't listen very well either when we tell them not to do things.

They're all really sweet kids actually, but they just don't behave well when they're together. I might have to talk to their parents, but I have to play it tactfully. Lil' S2 spends way more time at their house than they do at our house, and I value that, both for his sake and mine. So, I don't want them to think that we're sloughing our kid off on them but don't want their kids here. I want them here. I just don't want them cracking the roof our Tesla.

So, I guess it's a weekend of awkward conversations with neighbors for me -- sweet.

Until next time...

Entry 668: Fifth Grade Promotion

S was out of the country for work again this past week, so I was single-dadding it for a few days. It was not a great week for that, as I had (and still have) a lot going on at work, and it was the kids' last week of school before summer break, so schedules were different and chaotic. Actually, it was just Lil' S1 who had me running around, and it wasn't really his fault. His teachers kept telling him things about the schedule, but there was nothing official announced, so I didn't know what I was actually supposed to do. Like, on Thursday (the last official day) he was insistent that fifth-graders didn't have to go to school and that his teacher told him not to come. But there was nothing announced to the parents, and I had to work and didn't need him bothering me about screen time all day, so I was like forget that, you're going. So, I took him, and he told me later he was one of only three fifth-graders there, and they had to sit in with the fourth-graders. I assured him there are worse things in life.

I'm pretty sure what happened is that the fifth-grade teachers set their own schedules for the week and didn't see any point to the kids coming in after their Promotion Ceremony on Wednesday afternoon, but they can't officially announce this, because DC law requires a minimum number of school days, so they just informally told the students. Something similar happened on Wednesday when I tried to take Lil' S1 to school at the normal time (about 8:30), and he was in tears telling me that he wasn't allowed to go until 10:30 because his teachers had to set up for the ceremony. Again, no announcement to the parents, because, again, I don't think you can legally delay school like this. This time, however, I relented, and took him late, because the two hours didn't seem worth the fight. Although, it did mean I had to go back and forth between school and home five times: once to drop off Lil' S1; once to drop off Lil' S2; once to attended Lil' S1's promotion; once to pick up Lil' S1 after his promotion;* once to pick up Lil' S2. We only live about three-fourths of a mile from the school, but still that's a lot of trips, when you all you want to do is figure out why that damn algorithm you wrote keeps failing.

*If you are wondering why I didn't just take him back with me when I left the promotion, it's because there was still two hours left in the school day, and I didn't know they were allowed to leave early. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't announced. They also called me and gave me grief about him walking home, even though we designated him as a "walker" at the beginning of the year, and he walked home most days. I could have sent them an email to grant permission, but it was kinda raining anyway, so I just picked him up. 

I like Lil' S1's teachers, and I'm mostly pro teacher, but all this did kinda cause me to give them the figurative side-eye. Honestly, I've become a little less prone to give teachers the benefit of the doubt over the past few years. It's the COVID shutdowns that did it. I was quite rankled by how reluctant teachers were to come back to teach in-person, even with mandatory masking and other safety precautions in place. They got to go to the front of the line for vaccines in early 2021, but still repeatedly dragged their feet, so that schools didn't open full-time until, like, ninth months later and only after immense pressure from the city. (And, by the way, DC teachers are among the highest paid in the country; the average annual salary is around $92K.) I know that it's the job of unions to advocate for their members, and individual teachers might not even agree with leadership, but still, it's going to take a little while until I totally trust DC teachers again. Maybe that's not fair, but it's how I feel.

But the ceremony was super cute. It's too bad S couldn't go because it's right up her alley -- all the little kids dressed up, singing songs, saying rehearsed monotone lines. I recorded some of it on my phone, but it's not the same. (In fact, is there a bigger downgrade in experience going from live to recorded than a little kid event?) I only took a short video of him walking in because I hate being that parent who holds their phone up the entire time. It's kinda obnoxious, and it's not enjoyable for me to watch it through a lens. I mean, the whole purpose of going to a live event is to watch it live, no? A short video or a few quick pics as mementos, sure, but that's the extent of it.

So, it's on to middle school next year for our oldest. But first we have another milestone: sleep-away camp. We're driving him out to Camp Who Knows Where, Virginia tomorrow, and he's going to stay there for a week. S is really nervous about it; I'm not. I get anxious about a lot of things, but this, weirdly, isn't one of them. I'm just assuming he will be fine. I guess we will know for sure next weekend. I'll keep you posted.

Until next time...

Entry 667: Back-Up Blog

I had written about half an entry before I deleted it to start this one. It started getting really heavy and political, and I just didn't have it in me to finish it. I saved it, so I might complete it and post it at some point in the future, but for now it's like... it's Father's Day weekend, it's a quasi-long weekend, the weather is sunny and warm, and I just want to keep things light. So, I'm just going to do some bullet points on whatever non-serious thoughts enter my head and call it a post. It'll be whimsical.

• I say it's a "quasi-long weekend" because it's a long weekend for seemingly everybody but me. Monday is Juneteenth, which most people in the District get off ever since Biden declared it a national holiday way back in 2021. But it's not as commonly celebrated in Maryland where my office is located, so it's not one of the holidays we get off. I thought about working from home so that I can attend a neighborhood block party in the early evening, but S scheduled the cleaning ladies to come on Monday, and I hate working while they are here. I have to tiptoe around them, and the smell of the cleaning solutions irritates me. First world problems, I know.
  
  
• We watched Terminator 2 tonight with the kids. It's pretty violent, but it's mostly machine-on-machine violence, so it's appropriate for kids. One I thing I noticed is that Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature lines are actually very understated in the movie. They're just dialogue, and it's not clear to me why they became culture memes (before memes were even a thing). "I'll be back," for example, isn't even a standalone line. He says, "Stay here. I'll be back." Why is the latter so famous? It reminds of the "It's not tumor" line, which I've mention before on this blog. I think it's because Arnold is such a common target of impersonation, and sometimes we conflate impersonations of celebrities with the celebrities themselves. In my head, for example, George H.W. Bush doesn't sound like he really did, he sounds like Dana Carvey pretending to be him.
  
  
• Two other things I noticed about the movie is that Danny Cooksey is not the same child actor as Jared Rushton, and Dean Norris (Hank in Breaking Bad) plays one of the SWAT team members. That was a pretty good pull by me, as I recognized him through a gas mask in like a three-second scene.
  
  
• We've started playing Settlers of Catan literally everyday as a family. It's pretty fun. I would say I win about two-thirds of the games (build cities early), and then S wins the rest with a few wins by Lil' S1 sprinkled in there. I think Lil' S2 has won at least once before, but he usually can't maintain focus long enough to seal the deal, even when he gets a lead. The other thing he does is he announces whenever something good happens, even if, strategically, he should keep it a secret. Actually, Lil' S1 does that too. He's even worse, as he just straight-up tells us what his plans are. I'm going to try to get to the 2-to-1 sheep port, and then I'm going to start build roads to try to get longest road, and then... We bought the seafarers edition, and it took us like 45 minutes just to set it up. We didn't even play; we just left it in place for tomorrow.
  
  
• There was a sonic boom in the DC-area a few weeks ago, and I heard it. It sounded like somebody banged on the windows, but nobody was around but me. If I were less of a skeptic, I might have thought our house was haunted. Instead I thought, Whoa, that was weird; I wonder what caused it. And then later that night I saw randomly on the news that there was a sonic boom, and it all made sense.
  
  
• I started watching MrBeast videos with the kids, and I gotta say, I'm now a MrBeast fan. I think his detractors are straight-up wrong. If I could earn millions of dollars making inane YouTube videos, I would give it all away too.
  
  
• One of my favorite random running songs is "Turn the Beat Around" by Gloria Estefan. The original (Vicki Sue Robinson) is probably better overall, but the cover is better while exercising because it's a little bit more hype. Both versions have the same lyrics and there's one ingeniously bad verse:
  
  Flute player play your flute 'cause
  I know that you want to get your thing off
  
  A bunch of other musicians are mentioned throughout the song, in the context of what their instruments add to the song (cause when the guitar player start playing with the syncopated rhythm, with the scratch, scratch, scratch) but with the flute player, it's like, just play it -- nothing special. I don't know why, but it makes me laugh every time I hear it, and the fact that you can hear a flute in the background during this part only adds to my amusement.
  

Alright, I can see it's time to go. Until next time...

 

 

Entry 666: Happiness and Other Topics

Rainn Wilson has been doing the podcast circuit promoting his new show, Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss, and apparently I'm in his target demographic, because I've heard him interviewed like three times already. The show sounds pretty interesting. I don't know if I'll get to it, because I have a massive "to consume" content list (61 movies, 10 TV shows, 15 podcasts, and 49 books), but it's intriguing. It's something I think about often -- bliss, or it's more fraught cousin happiness. I'm typically a happy person. I feel the entire gamut of emotions, of course -- I'm a human being, after all -- but my default setting is one of happiness, of contentment, of satisfaction. And that's true regardless of my circumstances. Sometimes things happen that propel me out of my mostly happy state, but I always rubber-band back, even if the forces that made me feel unhappy are still in effect. I chameleon it.

This is mostly a good thing. I have so many friends and family members who are the opposite, and who struggle with depression and despair, so I know how terrible the other side can be. Well, I mean, I don't know, but I know enough to know that it's good that I don't know. But being "default happy" has some drawbacks too. A lot of times, for example, I think that I get too complacent in life and don't push myself enough. I've compiled a pretty decent list of accomplishments, but it's all stuff that, truthfully, came relatively easy to me. I work at things, because I enjoy things, so I get good at things, and achieve things, but I never really go for it, you know?

I was content to be a good wrestler in high school but not a state champion; I did fine on the SAT but didn't even practice; I went to state university even though my computer science teacher told me I belonged somewhere "more prestigious"; I learned how to do math and write computer code very well and found a perfectly cromulent job, but I'm not, like, running Silicon Valley or anything; I've written two books that are maybe pretty good,* and I've never tried to publish or market them in a serious way. There are so many times in my life where I feel like I had an opportunity to do more, but I didn't, because I didn't really feel like I had to. I was fine where I was.

* I like them, but I'm biased in favor of me.

To take this to the extreme, one of the story arcs in Succession involves a guy obsessing about the possibility of going to prison, and while watching this I had the thought: You know, I bet I would be fine in prison -- exercising, reading, classes -- I bet I would be okay. To be clear, however, I have absolutely no desire to test this hypothesis.

Anyway, listening to Rainn Wilson (and Eric Weiner who wrote a book influencing Wilson's show) talk about happiness on The Gist with Mike Pesca, I was reminded of a different interview I heard recently, also on The Gist, with Pesca and a fat acceptance advocated named Virginia Sole-Smith. The contours of the discussions are largely the same: To what extent are we bound by genetics and biology? To what extent is society responsible? Can we change our condition through behavior? Should we do so? What role should medical treatment play? Etc.

I don't have any answers to these questions. I just thought the parallel was interesting. Actually, I do have some answers. I'm going to tell you three keys to living a happy and healthy life. I'm not saying that these are sure-fire guarantees for everybody or that there aren't a myriad of other confounding factors. But I am saying that if everybody did these three things consistently, I feel very confident we would be a much happier and healthier society.

1. Exercise vigorously
2. Get off social media
3. Establish/maintain meaningful human relationships

Basically, you need to do the exact opposite of what "the future" has in store. Are we going to get to a point where the only happy people are the ones who don't have $3,500 to spend on an Apple VR headset?

Alright, a few quick hitters and then I'm done.

• Lil' S2's soccer season ended today. I'm glad I was the coach, but I'm also glad it's over. The team wasn't great -- too many kids who just weren't into it -- and that can make it rough at times. You really have to strike a balance between not being too overbearing (their only 7, after all), but also not ruining the experience for the kids who are into it and want to take it somewhat seriously. After the game today, an elderly woman came up to me and said, "I'm a grandma of a kid on the other team, and I just wanted to say, I thought you did a great job today." That's a good way to end the season -- well, that and popsicles.
• I got poked in the eye -- very hard -- doing Krav Maga, and now my eye is all bruised and bloodshot. It was my training partner's fault -- he did exactly what the instructor said not to do in a drill. It's annoying (and painful), but I can't really blame him too much. People make mistakes, and if you sign on to do a contact sport, you are consenting to the possibility of one of those mistakes being made at your expense.
• It is particularly bad timing, though. We were supposed to get nice family pictures taken tomorrow morning, and we can't do it with my eye looking all fucked up. ("No amount of makeup can make that look good," is what the photographer texted when S sent her a pic.) We were supposed to do it last month for S's birthday, but the photographer got sick, and so now we've set up another appointment next month. Third time's the charm, I guess.

Until next time...

Entry 665: TV Time

I'm trying very hard to catch up on my TV watching these days. I botched the timing with Succession. The move is to get caught up so that you can watch the finale in real-time with everybody else. That way you can be part of the cultural moment and you can avoid spoilers. If you miss that window, it's probably best to just put it out of mind for awhile and then binge watch it months or even years later. You might think you're more likely to encounter spoilers the longer you wait, but I found the opposite to be true. Spoilers come fast and furious for a week or two after the end of a big series, but if you don't know anything about the show they often don't mean anything to you even if you hear them. They go in one ear and out the other. So, you're usually safe coming back to it later. I've never seen Mad Men, for instance, and although I'm vaguely familiar with the characters through the myriad references I've consumed about the show via newspaper articles, podcasts, party conversations, etc., I have no idea about plot twists or big reveals or anything like that. So, if I do watch the show (and I probably will at some point), it will all be pretty fresh for me.

But I timed it perfectly wrong with Succession, which aired it's final episode last week. I just finished the second of four seasons, so I know all the major characters and plot lines, so the smallest hint of a spoiler can be revealing. And they are everywhere right now -- even on baseball podcasts because one of the main characters has the last name Wambsgans, and there was a shortstop named Bill Wambsganss who turned an unassisted triple play in the 1920 World Series. So, there was all this speculation going into the final episode about how this was an important Easter egg for viewers, until one of the show's executives poured cold water on it and said the baseball connection was completely coincidental. Anyway, I think I know who comes out on top, but I'm not 100% sure, and the journey is still fun, regardless.

That's the thing about spoilers. I do try to avoid them, but I think I'm much less militant about it than the average person. Sometimes knowing where things are going can even be more interesting to me because it's like: How are they ever going to get there? It's a fairly common storytelling technique actually. Think about how many shows/movies start with the end and then tell the story via flashback. Private Ryan is in fact saved at the end of Saving Private Ryan -- knowing this doesn't ruin the film. Also, some people have too broad a definition of a spoiler. I remember a few people on social media getting mad about spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and I was like, uh... yeah... that one got spoiled in 1977.

In other TV news, S and I finished Ted Lasso. I've basically been hate-watching that show since the end of last season, but I legitimately enjoyed the final episode, perhaps because it was, in fact, the final episode. The first season was really good -- it felt like something different, and it was satisfying, in the midst of the pandemic and the social unrest, to watch characters who weren't cynical, awful human beings. My theory is that there was probably no way to keep this going for an extended period of time no matter what direction the show went. I think it was destined to fizzle out no matter what. It should have only been one, maybe two, seasons, in my opinion. But it was such a big success (one of the few for Apple TV) that the powers-that-be felt compelled to stretch it out as long as possible. Whenever this happens, the meat of the show gets pulled thinner and thinner, and the creators overcompensate by adding more story lines and more characters until the entire thing turns into an incongruent mess -- and boy did that happen with Ted Lasso.

Here's what I think went wrong with the show. (Spoiler alert!)

Characters Popping Into and Out of Existence Like Matter and Antimatter

I liked Zava. He was funny, and he served a purpose in the show, motivating Jamie to get better and providing a contrast between "hero ball" and the team style that Richmond would learn to play. But he was the only halfway decent new character. (Actually, I liked Barbara too.) Shandy was terrible; Jack was terrible; and there was no reason we needed to see Ted's mom, Rebecca's mom, Rebecca's psychic, Sam's dad, Jamie's mom, etc.

Boring, Unrealistic Story Lines for Main Characters with No Payoff

The Keeley story line is the epitome of this. She was probably my favorite character in the first two seasons, and her love triangle with Jamie and Roy was one of the main drivers of the show. I have no idea why the writers felt the need to effectively slice her off from the rest of the main cast and then put her in a lesbian relationship for half the season. It didn't work at all, and I think the writers recognized this because it just ended at some point and wasn't discussed ever again.

The Nate-heel-turn arc felt equally half-assed. It's like they needed a big cliff-hanger to end Season 2 but didn't want to actually commit to it in Season 3. It was one of the weakest redemption stories I've ever seen, and it didn't help that Nate was motivated largely by a nothing girlfriend (does she say more than three lines of dialogue in the entire series?), or that it was so unrealistic. If he really was the "Wonder Kid" of the English Premier League, he would've found another job right away, or he would've just finished the season and gone somewhere else the next year. Even the worst EPL managers make over a million dollars a year, and they depict him on the show as being super successful, making him in line for, like, a $10 million salary. Is anybody really giving that up to become a waiter at a restaurant and then an equipment boy? The whole thing somehow felt simultaneously super contrived and completely half-baked.

Then there were some lesser versions of this with the Colin-comes-out-as-gay story line and Sam shut-up-and-dribble episode. The former was a good arc (it gave Trent some purpose), but it made no sense that Isaac was so mad at Colin for not telling him about it earlier. It felt like the writers wanted controversy but didn't want any of the players on the team to be unsupportive, so they had to invent a bullshit reason for Isaac to be upset. The latter felt like they were out of ideas, so they just cribbed something almost exactly from the news, made an episode about it, and then never mentioned it again.

Melancholic Ted, Blah Roy

In a lot of ways, Ted felt like an afterthought this season, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but he was too in his feelings when he was on screen. As for Roy, I liked his bromance with Jamie, but overall it felt like the actor who played him, Brett Goldstein, had one foot out the door already. "Surly Roy" started to feel more and more stale (a beloved character becomes a caricature -- common TV problem), and, again, there's no real explanation as to why he broke up with Keeley in the first place. (I did like how they left it ambiguous as to whether or not she gets back together with him or Jamie or neither or, my favorite scenario, both.)

Filler Comedy Bits That Fall Flat

The strings around the penises was just weird, as was Dani intentionally breaking Van Damme's nose, as was the pillow fight in the hotel in Amsterdam. There were definitely still some moments that made me laugh -- Jamie answering the door with no pants on, Will pretending to be Beard, the short shorts coach -- but overall it just wasn't very funny. Actually, it was never really that funny, but it had a certain ineffable charm in its early days. Once that charm wore off, there just wasn't much left.

Like I said, however, I enjoyed the final episode, and I thought it was cool that they ended things by playing Cat Stevens' "Father and Son" followed by The Flaming Lips' "Flight Test." It's a little Easter egg unrelated to the plot of the show. They dropped a lot these throughout the series, and I always appreciated them when I noticed them. 

Alright, that's all for now. I have to finish up Succession and then move on to The Last of Us (convinced by my brother-in-law to see it through to the end) and then to the new season of I Think You Should Leave. Actually, I might do those last two in the other order -- get a comedic pallet cleanser in there between the two "serious" shows.

Until next time...