The Not a Christmas Letters, Part 2

This was the second of the Not a Christmas Letters, published to family and friends.

THIS IS STILL NOT A CHRISTMAS LETTER

I am hurtling through the air upside down. I can see the finish line, but I know that I will never reach it. I’m not totally sure what happened – a moment ago I was leading, cruising to victory. Now I’m going to end up third – the daughter has blown me up. She actually hung back in second place so she could blow me up right before the finish line.  Mario Kart Double Dash is the crusher of dreams. There’s probably a metaphor in here somewhere. I expressed incredulousness at Rowan’s newfound cunning to Jan – she just looked at me, kind of rolled her eyes, and said “Dear, she’s been playing with boys”.

Crap.

A couple of snapshots from the year:

vacation

In October, in a shocking display of bad parenting, we took the children out of school to go on vacation to the Caribbean.

“Mr. Walrath, we noticed that Connor wasn’t in school last week – is something wrong?”

“Ummm – he wasn’t feeling well?

“He seems fine. He also seems to be sporting a tan and a puka shell necklace.”

”Ummm…hey, that reminds me – we got you a carved stone stingray and a coconut bead necklace and bracelet set. I really have to run, but we’ll see you at the next conference!”

the difference between girls and boys

On cruises, they make you towel animals at turndown service. It’s one of those weird cruise things, like the over-the-top elaborate Gala buffet, which seem neat in context but which would be incredibly weird in real life.

“Look honey, it’s a scale representation of the Temple of Syrinx carved entirely from radishes!”

“Look dear, they make us a, ummmmm, I think it’s an anteater out of towels!”

Anyway, we finish up with dinner and head back to the cabins. The daughter and the boy run ahead to see what towel animal they got today. They open the door, and….

Daughter: “Ooooh, it’s a bunny!

The Boy: “Soon to be a mutant bunny!”

And then he put nine more eyes on it.

pursuits of leisure

The boy will not ride the bicycle without training wheels. Actually, he’s not so thrilled about riding it with training wheels either. It’s kind of like those Calvin and Hobbes cartoons where Calvin would try to sneak up on the bicycle and it would tackle him – kind of like Snoopy and the lawn chair in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

There has been a lot of dancing this year. The daughter is dancing. The boy is dancing. Twice, I swear I saw two of the cats start to break into a choreographed routine. Up to six days a week are spent at Boni’s Dance Studio and Black Hole of Performing Arts. There are Nutcracker rehearsals and competition dance thingies and lots and lots of emails about the best place to buy purple Lycra bellbottoms and things like that. I now know what a snood is.

I think I have a hotel room booked at the Galleria sometime in January for an assorted dance function. I work down the street from the Galleria – I don’t think I should have to stay in hotels there on weekends too. I’m going to go to the hotel bar while I’m there – I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a bunch of middle-aged guys hunched over their beers, looking slightly downcast, nostalgic for the days when they could just mow the lawn or work on the car on a Saturday or something.

Jan managed to work her way into Mitchell this year by designing and leading a team to do a full-on pirate-decorating theme across five walls at LC5. I think that the hardest part was probably keeping the wretches chained to the wall –apparently there’s a whole bunch of labor standards which apply to wretches. The hermit Kraken was a hit, though.

On the Powell front, she did co-design and set up the stage design in the spring and again in the fall. The tradeoff was as follows – in exchange for countless hours spent on the stages, we got to jettison a whole host of fabric and related materials we had accumulated.

“Dear, where’s the Prince Greatest Hits CD?”

“I think it’s under a pile of fabric.”
”And the cat?”
”Try under the pile on the right. And why do you need the Prince Greatest Hits CD?”

“Ummm…I want to party like it’s 1999?”

Probably one of the stranger moments of the Year in YMCA came at Camp Cullen. The Makah tribe was at dinner, thinking as a group how we could maybe get out of doing a skit at the campfire.

“Maybe would could fake a stomach virus!”

“No, we did that last year”
”Darn.”

Suddenly, a boyish voice – then another, then another. Out of nowhere, they’re singing:

Who woulda thought that a girl like me
Would double as a superstar
You get the best of both worlds
Chill it out, take it slow
Then you rock out the show
You get the best of both worlds
Mix it all together
And you know that it's the best

You get the best of both worlds
Without the shades and the hair
You can go anywhere
You get the best of both girls
Mix it all together...oh yeah
It's so much better
'Cause you know you've got
The best of both worlds

Yes, all of the boys are singing the Hannah Montana theme. I look around and raise my eyebrows. Carey volunteers, “Zachary watches a lot of Disney Channel!” Go figure. They then decide to do, as their skit, as much of a Jesse McCartney song as anyone can remember. They go outside to practice. They’re figuring out their look, their moves - they’re a boy band. They perform the song as their skit at the campfire to applause (everybody) and puzzled looks (me). The following Monday, a girl at Connor’s school asks him if they were really singing that. Sometimes I’m just waiting for the hidden camera to pop out.

Intellectual pursuits

Early this summer I became the proud recipient of the “Why I should get a pet hermit crab for my birthday” essay, authored by the Daughter.  This was followed by the acquisition of a big tank-thing, a lid for said tank-thing, and various bags of loam, pieces of wood, shells, and one potential occupant of said shells. Things don’t always go quite as planned – about a month later, I received the “Dwarf Hamsters” Powerpoint presentation. At least it’s good for her marketing skills. I promised her I wouldn’t tell the vet school admissions people about the hermit crab. Or the frog. Or the fish. It’ll just be our secret – shhhhhh. I know that every 11 year old girl wants to be a vet, but if by some miracle she doesn’t shake the idea, I think she should do large-animal stuff – it seems like they’d be way harder to kill.

Last night was “Read books about dragons stealthily by a concealed light source until 12:30 a.m. and be rather cranky the following day” night for the Daughter. She has been sporadically working on her own literary opus, also about dragons.  She takes this seriously, even doing background research. A couple of months ago I came upon her in the study, clicking through websites and making notes.

“Honey, what are you doing”
”I’m researching dragon facts”

“Ummm…. Okay honey, have fun”

Dragons – so hot right now. They’re like pirates for 2007.

I think that children today are probably two years ahead of where I was in school growing up. I have to constantly think of the Daughter’s stuff as being more like eighth grade than sixth grade work.  Soon, we will come to the point where she asks for help on her work, and when she describes the problem, only wah-wah wah-wah noises will come out, like the adults in a Charlie Brown holiday special. I will then exit the room, clutching my head and mumbling, “I was told there would be no math”. I’m pretty sure she’s already started to make up questions just to mess with me

“Dad, if two trains leave the station at the same time, and one’s in Philadelphia, and one’s in Tucson, and they’re each traveling at the speed of light, what color will they refract?”
”Ummm – turquoise?  Is there an example?”

Please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times,

j.

The Not a Christmas Letters, Part 1

This is the first widely distributed "Not a Christmas Letter"- it was originally sent out to a collection of friends in early 2006 by email. There was a predecessor, but it had an audience of one. I probably like this one least of the four in the series - portions of it seem a little forced. Nevertheless, it's probably worth putting out there.

This is not a Christmas letter, either. 

For one thing, we didn’t send out a Christmas card this year. We have not lost the holiday spirit, we simply looked around and said “What the $%^*! How’d it get to be December 20^th?

I have no clue.

I’ll try to spend a couple of minutes hitting some highlights of the year as I see them, as well as a brief description of some of the characters involved. Some of the names have been changed to protect the allegedly innocent.

In November, everything we owned blew up.

Jan ordered the semiannual HVAC evaluation from Rick, our trusty HVAC guy. He dutifully came out, looked in the crawlspace, and said “Umm, there’s a problem with your heater boxes.”

“What kind of problem?”

“The kind of problem where the insulation starts coming off and it burns your house down.”

“Oh. Rick, is there any kind of really, really expensive pimp heater boxes you could get to match the really, really pimp a/c units you installed which are roughly the size of a Fiat?”

“No problem – we’ll get on that right away”

Actually, it helps to have a seriously pimp HVAC system when you run the heat and a/c on consecutive days. Such is the lot when you live in Houston.

“There’s a cold front coming! No, wait, it’s a warm front! No, wait, it’s not a front at all? Did I hear tornado warning? There’s a risk of Oldsmobiles flying around? Oh wait, that would be Toronados. Darn.”

Anyway, if you ever see a headline that says something like “Woodlands man assaults Weather Channel anchor”, that’s probably me. Just the bald guy, though – not any of the pregnant blonde chicks.

Anyway, after that, I was sitting peacefully in the driveway, replacing non-functioning BMW parts, when Jan walks up. “What are you doing?”

Jan sits down on the tire. I’m done explaining, yet she’s not leaving.

“What?”

“Sparks just shot out of the stereo receiver and it’s not making any sound now – is that bad?”

Did I mention I’m really not a huge fan of November?

Actually, that was balanced out somewhat by Camp Cullen – Connor and Rowan both attended this year again. This was not the plan – I was only going to take Connor, but Rowan was so excited about Cullen I couldn’t say no. Classic Y camp stuff – archery, riflery, crafts, poker after the kids go to sleep… This was definitely the last shot for her for Cullen, though – the older girls have some more opportunities planned – stay tuned. As Rowan gets older, I am shifting more of my focus to Connor’s group with the YMCA Parent-Child program – Rowan’s had her shot, right?  I’m kind of kidding but it is difficult balancing the demands of two groups – fortunately, I couldn’t as for a better bunch of guys – the campouts have become like mini-vacations to me.

Rita

We stayed in town for Rita – after much agonizing, and watching the storm to see if it would turn North, it did. It was amazing to see the number of people who were leaving the city – I drove out to the freeway and looked South on that Thursday – it was stopped cars as far as you could see. Everything was shut down – no food, no gas, no water – we had a good deal of stuff on hand so we would have been okay either way. Probably half of the neighborhood evacuated, and maybe two or three houses put boards up. For the rest of us, the preparation consisted of pacing nervously and wondering whether we should cut out. Fortunately, my mother and brother were in San Angelo, so they just stayed there. We never lost power during the storm but were subject to rolling blackouts afterward.

Vacation

This year we went to Disneyland for the 50^th anniversary. I went to Disneyland every year from about 1967 to 1990, and it was always a high point for me. The trip was always ostensibly for my father’s birthday – it never clicked until I was much older that it was something he did for us, rather than the other way around – and even in the 70’s when no one had any money, we always went, we never had any restrictions on what we could eat, and we always got a souvenir.

This time around we stayed on the property, at the Disneyland Hotel – the whole crew went, including my mother and brother. I would recommend staying there if you go – having everything in the room, even down to the wallpaper, be Disney-themed really adds something. Everyone had a good time, even if we were somewhat sleep-deprived at the end of the stay.

Vacation 2

Jan turned forty (40) years old in October. She started groaning about it about a year ago. I’ve tried to be sympathetic but I genuinely not understand the fascination with age and numbers. It’s not like something magical happens on your birthday, you go from being a nubile young maiden to an old crone in an instant.

“Dude, what happened to her – I saw her last week and she was hot, like smokin’ hot.”

“Yeah man, she turned 40 last Friday”.

“Bummer.”

Anyway, to ease her pain, I took her on a 4-day cruise to Cozumel. We slid between the storms and were probably some of the last people to see Cozumel in a somewhat intact configuration. On our out trip, we rented a Jeep, drove to San Gervasio, and hung out for the rest of the time at a beach club and ate ceviche. Driving in Mexico is always an experience. On the way through San Miguel there were families of nine on a single moped dragracing us at stoplights, and on the way back we followed what I can best describe as the only trash truck driven by a WRC driver. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve seen a trash truck in a 4 wheel drift at 65 kph. Oh, and if you ask a Mexican policeman for directions in Spanish, he will courteously give you a detailed answer – also in Spanish. You will not understand them.

Random Connor

This summer, Connor caught a bass in the pond in the adjacent neighborhood – it was pretty good sized. Connor always pretty much acts like the world should come to him, and it pretty much does. It’s never a surprise when he catches a bass on the first cast or wins the free Coke by looking under the cap 4 times out of 8 purchases. He is in Kindergarten this year – his good nature and imagination make him kind of a favorite. He’s been hanging around Powell since he was 2, so this year he pretty much walked in like he owned the place. He seems adept at mathematics but has resisted reading with any degree of facility – I fear he will eventually become an engineer. He’s kind of a big kid, but not really chunky or lanky – he basically looks like a scaled-down 15 year old.  He also possesses a rather quirky sense of humor. On an unrelated note, Connor’s birthday party was delayed this year because of Rita, and he would not admit to being 6 until he had his “friend” birthday in October – “okay, who’s six here?”

-Connor, not raising his hand

“Connor, come on, put your hand up”

“Mom, I’m not 6 until I have my friend birthday party”

In honor of his 6-ness he has adopted the appellation Con6nor.

Random Rowan

Rowan started middle school this year. When I was growing up, there was no such thing as middle school – 5^th and 6^th were just the highest elementary school grades. Best I can figure, it’s kind of a junior version of junior high school – you have a locker, and rotate between different classrooms, but it’s all on the same hallway. I guess you have to train for two years to go to junior high school for two years. So far, the largest single benefit of middle school is that Rowan got to take the class guinea pig – “Senor Pablo” – home with her. We celebrated by buying $50 worth of accessories for its 2 ½ week stay. It turns out that guinea pigs love cilantro – he just hoovers it up by the bunch. Other than that, his main tricks seem to be

a)    walking through a length of pipe, and

b)   looking kind of furry

This seems to be enough for Rowan, though, so I guess it’s good enough for me. We do have a new Y camp coming up in late January – Camp Hamann Ranch – and a few other things to do together. Oh – she was outed this year as a dancer since this was a show year and she did the Nutcracker -  she can no longer keep the fact that she’s been dancing since she was 3 a secret. She always looked kind of dancy just standing there; now she’s actually trying – her instructors seem pleased. Since she is a 10 year-old girl, everything is cuuuuuuute! The first time I heard the high-pitched squeal, I thought that perhaps something heavy had fallen on her. Nope – turns out they all talk that way. Go figure.

The PTO Mafia

Jan would tell you about this herself, but the first rule of the PTO Mafia is that you don’t talk about the PTO Mafia.

Let me put it to you this way – last spring, they sold me six seats and a parking space at a free school event – the fourth grade graduation – for nearly two hundred dollars. I’ve probably said too much already.

From my totally disinterested and detached observations, I can say the following:

a)    It takes a lot of time

b)   They do a lot of stuff  - including, this year for the first time, mentoring another PTO in CISD

c)    Starbucks would go out of business without their continued patronage

She also serves as an academic room mom for Connor’s class.

In short, she spends enough time at Powell that she has her own access badge, and there are a lot of people who would be surprised to find out that she does not work there.

The rest of her time is spent trying to prevent me from buying more cars, or at least from modifying the ones we have.

“You know, I think the BMW would look good slammed on bags”

“No, it wouldn’t”

“Okay……..how ‘bout just a really big stereo, then?”

 

Interlude

Rowan and Connor are currently eating lunch and arguing about who has a better memory. If I remind them of this conversation tomorrow, they will have no recollection of it.

More random stuff

Jan volunteered me for a band this year. Keep in mind I had essentially not played for 15 years. I have asked her to refrain from volunteering me for anything else I used to do. “Oh, you need someone to climb an 800 ft, 5 pitch vertical wall with you? I’m pretty sure Jer’s free this Saturday!”

Anyway, we played a pretty successful neighborhood party, then they played a pizza place without me when I was at Cullen with Rowan and Connor. I spend a lot of time during practice saying things like “you know, if I threw in an excerpt from the Peanuts theme instead of the guitar break, I think that’d sound really cool”. They spend a lot of time looking at me funny. Art is representational by its nature anyway.

I also mostly shuttered my practice to go in-house with a client in the fall in a Business Development position. Some of you may be saying “What would he do in a business development position? He was a psychologist before he was an attorney.”

To you I say “Shhhhhhhh!”.

Move along, nothing to see here

I hope that your 2006 is at least not boring. Sometimes, that’s the best we can hope for.

j

A Sort of Homecoming

I wrote this almost a year ago. It seems disingenuous to say I don't know why I didn't post it, because I know exactly why  - I am a shark in the water, and I must keep moving forward or die.

A Sort of Homecoming

"Miles Davis and the Cool’ was playing when I got to the airport," she says. "I think it was kind of appropriate." It was. It also seemed like an incredible coincidence that it should be on the airport PA - mostly it's just announcements about things that were misplaced - relatives or luggage or dignity.  It turned out that the song was just on her iPod.

The song says "Don't wait too long to come home, my how the years and our youth pass on." Very true, of course.  I have been thinking lately how few homecomings lie ahead.  It sounds downcast, but that's just the way of it.  I'm just glad she recognizes it too.

A Sort of Homecoming Pt. 2

36 hours. One viewing of The Lego Movie. One attendance at the Nutcracker Tea to see the boy perform. One birthday party. One very sleepy ride back to the airport on Sunday morning.  

I spent the rest of the day trying to stave off the thought that at least we had 36 hours of being complete again.

Me and the ACA down by the schoolyard

The following is not an endorsement or condemnation of any particular policy - this is simply my experience.  

As my firm provides health insurance to full-time employees, we met with our insurance adviser  to discuss our annual renewal . The result - a 32% increase in the bill.  I've been both anticipating and dreading this meeting, but I have been primarily interested in what would happen to our premiums due to the insurer's response to the Affordable Care Act.

This is where it gets interesting - our insurer, a major carrier, uses individual rates for all enrollees rather than leveling the premiums after a certain number of enrollees. So, I can see how it breaks down.  Here's what happened:  

The rate for our youngest male enrolled employee more than doubled.  The rates for the rest of our male enrolled employees under 40 increased markedly, although not quite doubling.  In contrast, the rates for our oldest enrolled male employees stayed pretty flat.  The rates for the female enrolled employees stayed pretty flat too. 

So what happened? Did some of our staff members suddenly get way more likely to get sick? No,  it would seem that the culprit is the ACA mandate that gender can't be considered.  And, it's pretty well-settled that females use more healthcare dollars than males. So, rates for the younger males go up, but the rates for the females do not come down by a corresponding amount - they stay flat.  This means that the present state of the world is as follows -  the rates are individual in the sense that we get a different one for each of our staff members, but they are no longer individual in the sense that each rate reflects the person's likelihood to avail themselves of medical care.  The actuarial tables are out the window.

Ultimately, as the (co-)employer, I only care about the fact that the check we have to write is 32% larger.  And, because we foot the entire bill for the premium for full-time employees, they don't really have to care either.  If, however, I was a 30 year old male who had to pay some portion of the premium under an employer-sponsored plan, and my share suddenly doubled, I'd be more than a little cranky, and maybe not really be so enamored of the brave new world where political mandates override statistical realities.

Preview of the senior ad for the recital program.

Playing Tennis at a Chess Match

So this is year 3 of competing a ballet duet for the boy, and I think it’s the last. Why, you ask? Let me tell you -  I’ll try to keep it G-rated. Actually, the MPAA would probably rate it PG – since they started giving PG ratings based on things like “intensity,” I’m pretty sure that The Apple Dumpling Gang wouldn’t even get a G rating these days.

 I’m only in this for the art. I like beautiful things, and I like to be challenged.  This is exactly the opposite of what dance competitions reward – the judges go for engaging and accessible. There is essentially nothing wrong with this – if you’re looking for a nice steak, then I could put the best sushi roll in the world in front of you and you wouldn’t be into it.

 Basically, the ballet world has nothing to do with the competition dance world. I’ve had breakfast with people who followed their kids across the country to a summer intensive with a ballet company, and listened to them talk about how they might have to move to get in with a certain company etc. All of which sounded vaguely insane, since we were discussing 12 year-olds.

 In contrast, the competitive dance world is all about presentation. It’s about the dancers, and their relationship with the judges, and the audience. Think about when you went to see Giselle – you think the dancers cared what you thought? Not so much, right? Now think about the all singing, all dancing revue you saw? The dancers all exuded a “love me, love me” vibe all the way through, right?

 I think that ultimately, the ballet numbers don’t resonate with the judges because the judges are not really necessary – it’s not about them.

 But for the dancers, it’s like playing tennis at a chess match – no matter how well they play, it’s just not what the enterprise is about.

Beautiful anyway. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Conversations about roadkill

So the daughter and I are driving home from one of the interminable dance competitions, and she sees a dead something in the road.

"There seems to be a lot of roadkill right now."

"Well yeah honey, there are a lot of juvenile animals who have never seen a car. So basically, the smarter ones that have an innate knowledge of math and physics will see the car, estimate the speed it's traveling, gauge the distance, and be able to figure out about when the car will arrive so they can get out of the way. The dumber ones won't be able to do the calculation, and they'll die - it's natural selection."

She nods.

"In a few generations, the squirrels will be able to do calculus"

She laughs.

"I don't know why I even have these conversations with you"