New Poem on Impolite Literature: Snowman
This past Sunday my girls asked if they could make a snowman. Of course they could. What kind of gobshite would I be to not let children build a snowman? I did not have time to take them to a nearby park, though; I was busy making Double Satanic Deviled Eggs for a family party. They made do with a snowman on the sidewalk in front of my home. They came to the door to ask for things to use for eyes—I did not have coal or carrots, but some almonds and a pecan worked for a face.
I wrote a poem about it, Snowman, which can be found on the Impolite Literature website.
The snowman is still standing guard a few days later, leaning a bit in the sunlight.
Book rescue in Queens and its vortex of unknows
I was cleaning out my motor vehicle, disposing of a handful of parking meter receipts that accumulate on the dashboards of cars in large American cities. As I deposited my trash in a receptacle, an open book nearby caught my eye.
Someone had dropped or thrown a book, and it had landed open against a curbside trash shed outside a co-op. It was an odd place to see a book, and it looked like it was thrown from a moving car or dropped out of bookbag that was being kicked down the street. I retrieved it.
The book, “Who Put This Song On?”, by Morgan Parker, was in good condition considering its rough treatment. Upon inspecting the book further, it bore a label on its back cover that read “FLUSHING HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY.”
Flushing High School is a mile away from where I found the book. I made a note to return it. No book should be homeless, and someone may be looking forward to reading that, or may not be able to afford whatever fine may be levied for losing it.
A host of possibilities flooded my mind regarding how the book came to rest upon the sidewalk a mile away from its library home. Did someone steal it and try to throw it in the trash bin? Was a student carrying this when they were attacked by a kidnapper or serial killer, and the page was open to a passage that would reveal the whereabouts of the victim or give a clue as to the motive of a brutal killing? Am I now a suspect in a kidnapping or murder that has not been made public yet? Or will I be considered a cringeworthy thief, found with a book stolen from a local high school?
I made it my mission to return the book as soon as it was convenient, lest I be unwittingly caught up in these mysteries, but more likely, that the book can continue to be enjoyed by students. I was prepared for whatever grilling I would receive when I brought the book back—I can explain my fingerprints on the book were from finding the book, not stealing it or doing anything untoward to whatever student checked it out.
I set about my task taking a public bus to the high school, arriving in the afternoon after classes were over for the day. I tried to look as assuming and non-threatening as possible while carrying a book clearly geared toward young women.
Flushing High School is on a nice green campus surrounded by the dense vertical sprawl of downtown Flushing, Queens. It’s an oasis of beautiful architecture and calm grass and trees amid the rapid overdevelopment of a city fueled by commerce without a thought for beauty and cohesion. I hope it fights to the death to stay the way it is.
My returning the book was anticlimactic. I stepped into the front entrance of the school and handed the book to a school safety officer behind a desk, who thanked me for returning it. I walked out of school and enjoyed the walk home, having done my good deed for the day and rescued a book from oblivion.
Lotto Dreams
The Powerball lottery game recently reached a jackpot close to $2 billion. Those jackpots spur people who don’t normally buy lotto tickets to shell out for a big win, and I am guilty of being one of those people.
Compared to some of my family and friends, my investment in lotto tickets is pretty low. With that weak justification, I forgive myself for this vice. I am not sure what else $2 will buy you today, and sometimes a hopeless dream can get you through the day.
The odds of winning the lottery are massively stacked against us. Still, I have a go-to lotto buy that I repeat to the tired clerks at my local drug store:
“Two Powerball, two Mega Millions, please.”
They have raised the price on some lottery games recently, so this minor vice is now more expensive. I buy two kinds of lottery tickets because it increases my chances of winning by a minuscule amount and I can pat myself on the back with the illusion of being a smart tactician, when I am really a hopeless dreamer like everybody else.
The news cycle surges around big lotto jackpots have been going on for as long as I can remember. Lotto was ubiquitous growing up in the New York City area in the 1980s, and my parents played it semi-regularly. I remember buying a lotto ticket soon after I turned 18 as a rite of passage, similar to registering to vote or getting your draft card.
When I moved to Georgia in the early 1990s, there was a statewide referendum on the ballot over the question of whether there would be a lottery. I couldn’t believe the lottery didn’t exist in Georgia. What was wrong with these people that they didn’t have lotto? It was a mark of civilization in my mind.
It was actually a close vote; the lottery ballot initiative passed, but barely. Churches and religious organizations had organized against the lottery, and people were divided over the issue.
In retrospect, the church groups and religious activists who oppose lotto raise good points: Lotto preys upon the poor; it exacerbates gambling problems and gets the bulk of its cash from those who can least afford to give it. It promotes a ‘get rich quick’ ethos and encourages the illusion of wealth without work.
My daughters will ask me to promise them things if I win a big jackpot. I have promised them a home where they can each have their own bedroom, a trip to Paris and other travel adventures, and adopting a dog to live in our new house. I won’t make a big announcement, but if you see me wearing a cowboy hat and a fur coat like Dusty Rhodes, I’ve won.
I would spend my days writing and playing music, traveling, and sitting on a lawn to feel my own grass under my feet. I would have time to read all the books I want, see all the movies my friends talk about, take my friends to lunch, and plan my next trip with my daughters.
Lotto is not a viable path to changing our lives, but it’s a chance to dream aloud with the ones we love, and in that it serves a purpose.
Wish me luck.
Embracing the Cringe
Children who call their parents “cringe” today will thank them tomorrow.
My daughters often seek to remind me that I am “cringe.” I may get the occasional compliments for buying the right kind of veggie nuggets or for doing a better-than-expected job with dinner nachos, but unless I win the lottery and can afford Taylor Swift tickets, I’m officially “cringe” for the foreseeable future.
But one thing I have learned about being a good parent, or at least a good father, is to embrace the cringe.
Just as Machiavelli said it is better as a ruler to be feared (respected), than loved, so as a parent it is better to be cringe than cool.
“Cool Dads” are cool only in their own minds; their children exploit their parents’ insecurities while quietly resenting the acquiescing of authority. Children need parents that exhibit mental and emotional strength: calm in their authority and stoic in the face of conflict.
I am older than the average Dad in my children’s grade school, actually older than most of the teachers and administrators there also. I went to a school Halloween party dressed as Groucho Marx and I was crestfallen that no one—not even any of the other parents—knew who Groucho Marx was (I vow to make my children watch Marx Brothers films when they are a bit older). But this awkward incongruity is a secret source of strength.
When you are young, anyone from previous generations just looks “older” or “old.” If you were born in a year that starts with the numbers ‘1’ and ‘9,’ you will never qualify as young in the eyes of my children; sorry. But not to fear, being older has its place, and maturity is a quality that is much-needed in the lives of youth.
Because we are not of these times and do not bend to these times, we are a bulwark against uncertainty. My children were born with many good privileges, but they are growing up in a time of great volatility and fear, and children need their parents to be beacons of soundness amidst chaos. I can be that beacon. I can note that the chaos of our times has been here before and our world has seen much worse.
One of the benefits of parenthood is that your place in the order of this universe is set. You are the parent. By the sheer massive need of responsibility, you know your role. You have to provide, you have to protect, you have to pass on knowledge.
While it won’t be fashionable to acknowledge this for several decades, children are grateful for parents that are uncool and provide stability and wisdom to growing minds. They will benefit from getting the right answer and the right amount of discipline, even if they stay too cool to say, ‘thank you.’
I have not always been the stoic my children have needed. I can be quick to anger when they do something they know better not to do, or show outrageous insolence in vital times. I remind them that I love them often but I do not pretend to be their buddy or their friend. I’m their father and while I listen to respectful arguments, my word is final. They begrudgingly obey, and they’ll thank me later.
The holiday sugar coma of a Kit Kat Cottage
The delirium of social media delivered an appealing idea: instead of building a ginger bread house for the holidays, you can create a small log cabin-like home using Kit Kat bars. The idea on its face was sound: Kit Kat bars are more delicious and are easier to eat than plain gingerbread.
I mentioned the idea to my daughters, looking to incorporate it into our holiday traditions. We can feast upon the Kit Kat Cottage with our eggnog amid the dulcet tones of holiday music. Their agreement was a positive reinforcement I didn’t really need to make additional plans for holiday gluttony.
The kits available online would not be delivered until after the holidays; it was time to buy the raw ingredients and make do. The kits come with larger-size Kit Kat bars, sometimes of different flavors of chocolate to help with variety such as having a roof of a different color.
I did not have the easier work of the Kit Kat Cottage Kit – I had to work with the raw ingredients as they were normally bought in a store. A box of 36 Kit Kat bars from the local BJs (BJs is like Costco or Sams Club and stands for Berkley & Jensen – flashing your BJs membership card will only get you the pleasure of buying in bulk) provided more than enough basic building materials. Regular and white chocolate chips to melt for our cottage cement, and thin peanut butter cups and a small tube of decorative green frosting to make wreaths and we had what we needed.
We began construction on Christmas Eve, expecting that the house would come together quickly, but it was not to be. We had to glue the normal-size Kit Kats together with melted chocolate so that the pieces would be big enough to create a cottage of respectable size. The regular chocolate chips didn’t melt into a strong enough adhesive, so we had to switch and re-glue everything using the white chocolate chips. Then once those dried we put together the cottage. Time dragged on, especially with the builders having to eat all the spare and broken Kit Kat pieces, both to ensure we were not poisoned and to not leave any crumbs that would attract insects. We had to finish the cottage on Christmas evening.
After a third round of dedicated construction, including the last-minute addition of a chimney and peppermint crunch Andes candies as windows, our Kit Kat Cottage was complete. As a house it is a dilapidated shambles that Willy Wonka wouldn’t piss on, but as a dessert is a commitment to decadent deliciousness. We admired our creation, but it was too late to begin eating on Christmas night.
The day after Christmas my children and I began eating the Kit Kat Cottage. It is taking us longer to do than I had anticipated. Five days later, after several desserts with my children and a few rare solo desserts specifically dedicated to making progress on this thing, we still have a way to go.
We will literally be eating this thing into the New Year. The sugar and preservatives are such that there are no signs of this dessert going stale. I can possibly bequeath the remains of the cottage to my future grandchildren, though by then such foods may be outlawed.
The Kit Cat Cottage is delicious, but it reminds me why I cut down on sweets except for special occasions. I want to make progress and not let this effort go to waste, but my body is not accustomed to eating sweets regularly and I fall into a sugar coma that makes me feel sluggish and useless.
The Kit Kat Cottage may be a tradition that is here to stay. Or it may be a holiday tradition that can be forgotten quickly and succumb to the need for better health. Wish me luck.
Five years a parent
It is five o’clock on a January morning in 2014 and I’m driving a pickup truck on the Grand Central Parkway. My pregnant wife is in the passenger’s seat. It’s dark and the roads are nearly deserted.
“In a few hours we’re going to be parents,” I tell her. “Isn’t that crazy?” She agrees.
This week our older girls, fraternal twins, will turn five. That’s a half decade of parenting in the can. We have three now, the youngest will be three in June, sharing a birthday with one of her uncles.
Having kids is a definite turning point in everyone’s life, and it brings a kind of happiness that is hard to achieve in other places. But it’s not panacea where unicorns and rainbows to replace the regular sturm und drang of life. All the same stresses and difficulties are there, and now they are there with new mouths to feed and diapers to change. Kids won’t turn you into a better person. You’ll still be an angry curmudgeon if you were one before their birth. But as miserable as your life may get from that point onward, your children will be a consistent reason to be happy, even when they are throwing up on you.
I am extremely fortunate that I went into parenthood with a very wide support network, a steady paycheck and a happy marriage. Not everyone has that. When I was born my parents were half the age I was when I had kids. Neither one had a college degree at the time. I started out way ahead; I have no excuses if my kids become serial killers.
Luckily, our kids are great and continue to inspire us to be better people. I see how bright they are and how they enjoy learning and I want them to never stop loving life or the pursuit of knowledge. Despite the many stresses and strains; my wife and I enjoy our molding, shaping and unconditionally loving these impressionable young lives. It’s an awesome responsibility but also one of unlimited potential.
I vowed not to be the kind of parent that gauged someone’s worth by whether or not they reproduced – I faced enough of that before I had children.
“So do you have a family?” someone asked me at a business reception years before I met my wife. They meant to ask if I was married and had kids, but the question seemed like they were checking to see if I had hatched out of an egg. Well I was raised by wolves and since I’m not biologically wolf I can’t track down the pack that raised me by my sense of smell, so no I guess. —was how I should have answered, but I mumbled a simple ‘no’ and noted I wasn’t married and changed the subject.
And while my kids are crushing life, we must refuse to put their accomplishments in place of our own. No one outside a tight circle of family and friends care how awesome your kids are, and having children is no excuse to fall on your face in every other aspect of life. No slacking.
This weekend we’ll be hosting a kids’ birthday party for the twins with pizza, cake and animals. It will be a big, tiring, stressful day but one that will have a happy ending because we get to spend it with our children.
Five years have gone by fast. Wish us luck on the next fifteen.
College Point discovery: The Poppenhusen Institute
It was a Saturday and we were looking for something family friendly to do with the kids.
For a long time, I studiously avoided anything deemed “family friendly” as it was either specifically for children like ‘Sesame Street’ or something that was toned down and devoid of any of the reality-driven spice of life. But my time as a parent has changed my view and definition.
For us, “family friendly” doesn’t mean for something sanitized or dumbed-down, it means we want to be able to find a place to change a diaper. We are not afraid of adult content corrupting our children except in extreme examples; we’re afraid of adult content boring the crap out of our children.
Case in point: we looked up local events on our local Macaroni Kid and found an Oktoberfest nearby. You wouldn’t normally think that an Oktoberfest celebration would be a place to take children, that it would be nothing but loud, beer-soaked hipsters being dramatically unaware. And maybe in Brooklyn that would be the case, but the Poppenhusen Institute of College Point, Queens proved that wrong. We live not too far from this institution, which is 150 years old now. A center for German culture, it’s evolved to become a lot more without losing sight of its original cultural mission.
College Point is somewhat of an out-of-the-way place by New York City standards. There’s almost a small community village feeling to it as its small businesses have thrived. Driving down 14th Street, where the Institute is, the businesses of College Point Avenue recede and the street is a bit narrower and more residential, until you get closer to the water, where more industrial businesses are. The Poppenhusen Institute is bordered by businesses but in an area which is still largely residential. It’s got a fenced-in property (another bonus for bringing small children) and is a magnificent building that dates to 1868.
Being the day of the fall equinox, the weather was perfect for the outdoor event, which was held in the shaded back yard of the Institute. Decorated with blue and white balloons, we paid $18 admission and that included a lot of free entertainment and an area of games for kids. There was free face painting for children and prizes as well.
On site was an award-winning artist, Brian Lipperd, painting portraits. He produced a great portrait of your youngest daughter and touched it up when she smeared it. This artist formerly worked as a portrait artist in Florence, Italy and has had other prestigious residences around the world and will be teaching art classes at the Poppenhusen Institute. You think they have awesome portrait artists at Chuck E Cheese? Think again.
The Institute was once a village community center for College Point, it even served as a local sheriff’s station and still has two small jail cells that housed town drunks or other minor miscreants. It was the site of the first free public kindergarten in the United States. It has a magnificent performance space as well as an exhibit of early Native American life of the area.
The food was affordable and we bought hot dogs for the kids and my wife and I enjoyed some bratwurst, as it was an Oktoberfest and that felt like the right thing to do. There was traditional German music and men in lederhosen and women in traditional German dresses performed dances. My wife came in second place in a beer stein holding contest, winning a nice beer stein filled with beer.
The Poppenhusen Institute holds painting classes for children and has numerous performances and things worth doing. It is well worth the trip to College Point to visit this cultural treasure.
Fatherly adventures of being your children’s +1
This past weekend I had several hours alone with my three children. Normally we have full family outings on the weekend but it helps keep our family healthy if my wife gets a break from being around children for at least a few hours each week.
There was a Twist & Sprout festival at the Queens Botanical Garden and I decided this would be a good place to take our three daughters. We had been there last year and it was a good time with plenty to offer the kids.
After getting my girls out of the van and dropping off some compost, we set off to explore the festival. Arriving at the Queens Botanical Garden with my daughters is like being a celebrity’s date at an award’s ceremony. Because they are there at least twice a week for the Forest Explorers program, my girls know a lot of the people who work there. One of the teachers at the program recently graduated college and gave my girls big hugs. Other employees waved hello to us from their zooming golf carts or from arts & crafts tables.
There was a puppet show and the puppeteer was the mother of another one of the students at the Forest Explorers program. Other parents stopped to chat with me; they recognized my daughters and asked where my wife was. It was all very friendly, but I was definitely a stranger among them. I was appreciated for bringing my girls there. No doubt they are the better life of the party.
While I pride myself on being a good Dad, the point was driven home that for most hours in the week, I am largely absent from my daughters’ lives. I am out the door to catch a 6:30 a.m. bus in the morning and with afternoon rush-hour traffic I am usually not home before 7 p.m. It is dinner time soon after I arrive home and time for bed soon after that. The weekends are when I try to catch up and cram a lot of living into two days before the cycle starts up again, at least on most weekends (sometimes I have to work on the weekends).
Since 2014 I have been my children’s +1. In theory I could show up at a family gathering without them, but I’d face an extremely disappointed crowd. There’s no substitute for adorable young children.
Case in point: my reception at the Queens Botanical Garden was warm and embracing, which would not have been the case if I had shown up on my own. No one would have treated me poorly, but no one would have known who I was or given me a second glance. When fantastic little girls are your posse, you are a 100% winner wherever you go.
Our children are better versions of ourselves, bright and new to the world with endless possibilities in front of them. When we’re well received based on being with them, it reflects their position in the world and how they’re being raised.
We’re doing something right.
The savage madness of New York City Pre-Kindergarten
Having children in New York City means a life of deadlines and bureaucratic navigation. While every child is guaranteed a public education, it takes immersion into byzantine administration in order to ensure your offspring can access the best schools available, and the grapevine is full of horror stories and cautionary tales of kids being sent far from home to sub-par schools.
My wife and I are waiting to hear where our older girls will attend preschool. Universal Pre-K started several years ago and it’s free to all kids the year they turn four years old. We are lucky in that we live in an area that has good local schools. A lot of younger couples have kids and then find themselves racing a clock to get to a better neighborhood in or out of the five boroughs that has suitable education choices.
I am blessed with a great asset in making sure my kids get into a decent Pre-K: my wife. She was the one who did the research and learned how to traverse the absurdist labyrinth of rules and applications (e.g.: applying to only one or two schools won’t work, if you do that, the system will automatically fill in the other choices for you, so your attempt to limit the choices may backfire big time). She figured out which ones were closest and had good ratings, and came up with a list of preferences that will mean our older girls are likely to be in a good place.
The schools we applied to include both public and private schools close to where we live that run public Pre-K programs.
One of those public/private Pre-K schools is a place called Holy Mountain. This school does not have any religious affiliation that we can discern. It has a mostly Asian student population, but so do most schools in our area (we live in Flushing, Queens, an area known for its large Chinese immigrant population; it has a large Korean population as well).
But the name Holy Mountain will always first make me think of the 1973 Alejandro Jodorowski film, The Holy Mountain, which I first saw projected onto a wall during a punk rock show many years ago. It is an art film filled with strange and bizarre images, even watching the trailer many years later is to step away from reality for a few minutes. One of the most well-known and memorable images of the film include a parade of crucified dogs that have been skinned and disemboweled.
So now whenever my wife and I discuss Pre-K for our kids and we note that Holy Mountain was one of our top choices (it’s nearby and it has high ratings with a Montessori-based teaching style, so what if it has a weird name), all I can think about is my older girls parading down 31st Road in gas masks while carrying crucified dogs.
This week, the results came in: and our girls will be headed to Holy Mountain in September. Mutilated canine parade, here we come! I now need to watch that film again. I’ll have to find a time when the rest of my family is asleep, as I am the only one in my household who has this big a taste for eccentric cinema.
We are lucky to live in an area where such services are available within walking distance. For the value it returns, no investment in public education can be too big.
Doktor Kaboom Drops Science on the Queens Theatre
Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadows Corona Park is not one of the park’s better-known attractions. The iconic Unisphere gets much more attention, and the Queens Zoo probably sees a lot more foot traffic, but the Queens Theatre is a lesser-known gem in the large park.
This past weekend it was the sight of a recent performance by Doktor Kaboom, a comedic science performer who has a family-friendly show that targets impressionable young children and works to give them a love of science.
The good Doktor, with his spiky blond hair and thick faux-German accent, looks and sounds like the love child of Guy Fieri and Angela Merkel (who has a PhD in Physics), but he’s actually a native of North Carolina who lives in Seattle and found a way to combine his love of comedy and science.
The whole family went and we were lucky enough to have extra tickets for a friend and his daughter. The Queens Theatre mainstage theater seats 472 and the rows are on a gradient generous enough to provide decent viewing from all angles.
After a brief introduction, Doktor Kaboom took the stage and we were on our way. The entire show is geared towards children, working to spark an interest in science and there’s no better way to do that than to show them that science allows you to make a mess. Using a catapult to try to help a young volunteer from the audience catch a piece of banana in his mouth, the bit had the stage littered with banana pretty quickly and it was good fun. I vowed to never feed my children bananas the same way again, but I’m not sure I am going to be able to build a catapult fast enough to realize this dream.
One of the best parts of the show was when the good Doktor implored the kids there to have confidence and faith in themselves. He said that at a previous show a 10-year-old kid said that he was a failure, even though he was a bright young man who could speak three languages. That base level of self respect is sadly missing from a lot in our society.
Unfortunately, some basic theater manners are also lacking. The Doktor had to remind the audience to refrain from using mobile phones, which is Theater Manners 101. Lack of civility as well as a dropping aptitude in the sciences are general signs of societal rot and sad to see, but at least there’s one guy out there fighting the good fight. That guy wears old-fashioned goggles, a bright orange lab coat, and shoes with flames painted on them.
But that didn’t slow down the show. There is a lot of safety instruction in the Doktor Kaboom show, even though the worst you may be exposed to is high-velocity banana and some soapy residue. He manages to use some optical illusions to trick your mind in ways that even jaded adults will find fascinating, and he takes time to explain what is happening in terms that children can understand. There are also plenty of under-the-radar jokes for adults as well.
There were no loud explosions as the Doktor Kaboom name might imply, but fear not. The show is well worth the time and has a big impact.
Navigating the winter wonderland of the Queens Zoo
When the weather is bad, our family goes to the zoo. Our logic is this: Many of the indoor spaces will be overcrowded and the zoo will be sparsely populated. When you’ve lived in the city long enough, avoiding crowds is more important than avoiding pneumonia.
So this past weekend’s snowfall made our planned trip to Westchester unwise, but made a short drive to the zoo a piece of cake. The parking lot on 111th Street that is a chaotic mess and a graveyard of public parking dreams during the summer had plenty of spaces. I pulled into a space right near the ramp we would need for our youngest daughter’s stroller.
One of the goals for this weekend was to help give my wife time alone at home to prepare our home for Christmas. I was on my own for several hours with three children all under four years of age, and found myself pushing a stroller through a moderate snowfall in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park on our way to the Queens Zoo. There was a small group of teenagers having a snowball fight when we got there, and one cyclist pedaled past us and shot me a strange look is if to be amazed he came across someone crazier than he was out in the snow.
While the children were equipped with proper hats and coats, one pair of mittens was inevitably quickly lost and our youngest got wet and hungry very fast. The snowfall was not bad. It was only one or two inches in the city and the snow did not stick to the streets very well. A few runs of a plow with some sand and salt made things OK. But cold kids make for cranky kids and herding three youngsters through the wet and cold is a chore with an additional distraction (snow) that is also a physical obstacle. The front wheels of the stroller would stop cutting through and spin in a sideways fashion, gathering reels of snow around themselves like some perverse cotton candy machine. Otherwise they would stop moving completely and I’d be essentially be operating the world’s most ineffective snow plow.
The Queens Zoo is a perfect place to bring kids because it’s relatively small compared with its larger and more famous counterpart The Bronx Zoo. It can be done thoroughly in a morning or afternoon. Arriving at the zoo after a snowfall revealed a hushed atmosphere covered in a gorgeous layer of fresh white powder that proved perfect for making snowballs. It was one of those days when you look around and can’t believe you are in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world. A few times you would hear the rush of the highway or the sounds of people playing in the park outside the zoo’s fence, but it was desolate and beautiful and well worth the soggy feat and cold hands.
The zoo posts the times of the sea lion feeding and I had to hustle to get us there in time. When we got to the sea lions, there was one other couple there. This couple were the only other non-zoo employees we saw during our entire stay. They huddled under an umbrella while two of my daughters climbed a snow-covered rock and declared it their mountain and the other sat on the wet ground to have a better vantage point to scream her undefined infant rage at the world. That’s right, normal couple at the zoo: my children are many times tougher than you and earned the grudging respect of the animal kingdom.
We had an up-close view of the sea lion feeding up close but cut it short because we were all hungry. The Sea Lion Café offered a warm, dry refuge and sold hot coco and coffee among its souvenirs and snacks. We took our time eating before we bundled up again, only go head to a restroom where it was necessary to take coats off again. We easily killed 20 minutes in the restroom, making sure everyone either used the toilet or had a diaper change. Then back out into the snow.
The girls enjoyed looking at the animals but probably enjoyed handling the snow and stomping on puddles more. Even though my wife had packed more than adequate snacks for us, “snow burgers” became a much sought-after treat, and there was no keeping my young charges from indulging in them, only trying to police the color and source of the snow (only white snow, not from the ground).
We marveled at how close the sea lions and the bison came to us, and followed with a mad dash to get to a restroom again. By the time we finished there and thought about returning to glimpse more animals, security guards looked to be closing the zoo for the day. It was just as well, my girls were showing signs of fatigue and by the time I got them back to our van and buckled in, they slept soundly for two hours while I went on a coffee-fueled road trip from Corona to Flushing and Bayside.
I returned home with three tired children to a home in much better order. Mission accomplished.
Looking to snap out of a slumber
It wasn’t too hot when I had a few minutes to catch up with a friend I hadn’t seen in a year. We brought our kids to Francis Lewis Park, where there is a playground with a sprinkler and a view of Flushing Bay and the Whitestone Bridge.
“I don’t know how you own three of these things,” he said as my two older girls played with his son. Our youngest is only a year old and he and his wife have a three-year-old son.
“I don’t either.”
Having children is something that everyone is terrified of but no one regrets. Spending time with your kids is a great thing and you’ll regret not getting in every minute with them. But when they are as young as ours are, it leaves you too tired to do anything else. Many a night began with great plans and ended with me falling asleep on the couch at 10:15 p.m.
At the park our children go different ways in the playground. I don’t mind staying back and sitting down and watching the kids from a distance. You can’t be hovering over them all the time. But the world being the way it is, you don’t want to let your kids out of your sight for too long. A few times I lose sight of one of the girls and I start to get worried looking for her and just before I break out into a fearful disaster sweat she’ll come into view. This happens a few times and it wears you down a bit further.
My friend and I talk music, mutual friends, and the itch to be creative and make music. His son wants to go down to the water, to where there’s a great view of the Whitestone Bridge and a miniscule beach at the end of a small boat launch. I and my two older girls accompany them. We are disappointed by the amount of garbage on the beach and in the water but the view of the bay and the bridge, makes up for this.
One of my girls isn’t wearing any shoes since she was running through the sprinkler in the playground and I don’t think anything of it until we get to the boat launch and see some broken glass there. I curse myself for letting her come down here with no shoes on. On further inspection this turns out to be sea glass—glass that’s been in the water long enough that it’s been made smooth. Sea glass makes for a nice collectible and I tell the girls I will take this home for them to enjoy later. New York City will disappoint you and impress you in quick succession.
A lot of my friends also have kids but I also have many friends who are smart, creative people, the kind of people who should be doing more reproducing, but aren’t. I highly recommend having kids, though I realize it’s not for everyone.
My friend and I talk a bit more, discuss doing music again, what our schedules will look like later this year, and how we have the itch.
The itch, the need to produce art in some form, it never goes away and is a call that has to be answered. Children, jobs, the multitude of tasks one has to perform just to keep a roof over one’s head and the bills paid on time, these will slow you down, but they can’t kill whatever fire drives you to create.
Celebrating independence with friends and explosives
The Fourth of July every year brings with it many great traditions: hot dogs, fireworks, partying to excess with friends and family. And every year I have partied with high school friends in a way that embraces all of these observances.
My high school friend Steve and his wife Paige put on a great 4th of July party that brings in friends from far and wide.
Steve is the center of our social circle among most of my Connecticut friends. When we were in high school, his mother’s house was our central meeting place, and Mrs. Q was a second mother to a lot of us. She is missed. Steve and Paige’s house has become a second home to many. They have helped many friends and relatives who have needed places to stay. Even friends with perfectly good homes of their own nearby wind up spending a lot of time at Steve and Paige’s house.
The day of the party, circumstances delayed our departure until after 2 p.m. Driving on I-95 in Connecticut is its own special hell, and a Saturday on a holiday weekend it was an infernal misery of traffic. A two-hour drive became a three-hour drive, and since our kids had already napped at home, they screamed and cried for much of that three-hour drive. When we finally pulled onto our friends’ property, it was after 5 p.m.
I didn’t have time to make the stop for fireworks like I normally do. The forecast called for rain.
Once we got there, it was great to be among friends again.
Steve is a very handy person. He turned his one-story house into a two-story home and constructed his own out-buildings to keep farm animals on his property. He got me into hunting, gave me good advice on how to move about the woods, and helped me field dress my first deer. He also introduced me to the works of Arthur Schopenhauer and we’ve debated both the immutably dark nature of human existence until the wee hours of the morning.
Steve and I were both financial journalists for a while. After being laid off and being without a regular job for a long time, Steve began working in shipbuilding by helping to renovate the historic Amistad. He has since began working on boats in Newport, Rhode Island. More than a year ago, he told me he could not go back to working behind a desk. At the party he said he hated having to be away from his family for so long for his job, but that he loves his job. He wakes up every morning and looks forward to going to work. It was something I had heard about but didn’t think I’d see.
A man who loves his job today is rare. I expected to see Bigfoot or get kidnapped by a UFO before one of my friends told me they loved going to work every day. Even though he loves to play the part of a curmudgeon, he looked sincerely happier than he’s been in the past. It was great to see and I can’t think of someone who deserves that more than Steve. He brings a lot of good thoughts and much-needed perspective to a lot of his friends. I know I’ve been better for having had long conversations with him and I’m far from alone.
He’s been writing a lot of good poetry lately as well and posting his poems online. He’s getting to see new things, and be inspired by his work with ships. “In so many ways, sailing is freedom like most of us can’t even understand.” He messaged me at one point.
A while into our time at the party, I found Steve sitting on a lawn chair in the back of his pickup truck. With him was our friend Jay. The two were perfectly content to sit with their beer there and observe the party from their perch. But they soon began to attract a crowd. Everyone wanted to stop by and enjoy the conversation. In between searching for and wrangling my children and stuffing my face with food, I discussed poetry with Steve.
We agreed that two men sitting in the back of a pickup truck was good fodder for a poem and we decided to each write a poem with this as the theme.
The party continued and despite my not being able to contribute to the supply of ordnance, there were still plenty of fireworks. My twin girls asked to be brought inside and skip the rest of the barrage after getting a bit too close to the pyrotechnics. Inside Jay was making his outstanding jambalaya, and we got a peek at the culinary genius at work.
We stayed late and got on the road for home after 11:30 p.m. Someday we’ll stay overnight in a tent on our friends’ lawn like my wife and I did before we had children.
It was a great way to celebrate Independence Day. The national politics evolves and devolves, and no matter your perspective, it’s easy to become discouraged. The strength of our country lies in the bonds we form with friends and neighbors, and at Steve and Paige’s house, a strong community thrives on its own.
Drive time solitude amid the slumber
I was put in the terrifying position of watching over all three of my young children on my own for several hours. My wife does this every day as I commute to work in Manhattan and back. But she was doing food demonstrations for Flushing C.S.A. at an event at the historic John Bowne House recently and I was on my own with our three girls.
I had not planned what to do but my wife convinced me that taking them to the New York Hall of Science would be good. She was spot on. If you have young children and if it’s convenient to get to, the New York Hall of Science is a great place.
We stayed as long as we could but after about four and a half hours there, our three-year-olds had clothes that were wet from one of the water exhibits and it was time to start heading home. We had arrived before it was open but we left around 2:15 p.m. and I made a bee line straight for home and kept up conversation with the kids as best I could, hoping the motion of driving would not put the girls to sleep, but it did.
Kids napping in the car is a double-edged sword. On one hand the kids are guaranteed to take a nap at the same time. On the other hand that nap will not be that long and you will be stuck in your vehicle for an hour. Sometimes that’s fine but sometimes that doesn’t work at all. You can’t go on a long trip because the kids could wake up at any time and start crying and you’ll need to take them home quickly. If you have to go to the bathroom, you are out of luck and may have to improvise.
I realized less than a mile from home that I was now going to be spending at least the next hour or more in the minivan. I was at peace with that.
Drive time can be a time of much-appreciated solitude. Quiet solitude is remarkably achievable even when you’re living in a city of millions of people. The size of New York gives its citizens a certain degree of anonymity. During my drive I passed by thousands of people, had close encounters with maybe half dozen drivers down narrow two-way streets, and did business with one fast food worker. I could give you the basic pedigree information about the fast food worker but nothing else, and I doubt anyone I encountered during that hour and a half could tell you anything about me.
When you spend most of your days without any peace and quiet, you learn to appreciate any small moments of quiet solitude you can get, and these drive times with napping children can be very valuable. They are something that takes the edge off of the frantic pace of the city, that gives us a moment to enjoy the sights and sounds of our own corner of this metropolis without interruption. The same can be said of walks in the park or even walking anonymously down city streets.
Our teeming Gotham demands much of us and part of the thrill of living here is to embrace the breakneck pace of life. But when you get a chance for an hour of respite, no matter how diluted, grasp onto it and enjoy every minute.
Matthew Sheahan 
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