family

Sunday Morning Reading

Taking a breath

It’s been a crazy whirlwind of emotions lately. A death in the family. Keeping up with the grandkids. Celebrating my wife’s latest theatre gig. With that, Sunday Morning Reading is on hiatus this week.

Enjoy your Sunday, while I enjoy time with the grandkids. (If they don’t wear me out!)

Thanks for reading. Feel free to subscribe if you want. It’s free. If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.

What A Day! What A Night!

That was some humdinger of a day and night yesterday. First up, we celebrated the grandson’s graduation from pre-school.

We followed that up by taking the grandkids across the state of Michigan to see Hope Summer Repertory’s production of Always Patsy Cline, featuring their “Grandma T” playing Louise. We weren’t the only family there for that evening’s fun and celebrations, as others made their way in from Chicago.

Watching two youngsters (4 and 2) watch their grandma on stage was a delight for this cynical SOB of a grandpa, let me tell you.

It was quite a day. And in many ways, the weekend and the crazy week ahead is just beginning.

Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to. You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

Congrats To The Grad!

Pomp and Circumstances

Congrats to my grandson Sylvester, (we call him Sly) on graduating from pre-school today.

Glad I got to attend the ceremony with his proud parents, and his oh, so skeptical sister. Her time’s coming. Now, on to bigger and better things in kindergarten this fall and beyond.

Looking Back On Simpler Times

Missing what may have never been

As chaos, criminality, and incompetence all in equal parts masquerade as something pretending to be the U.S. Government swirls us around like flotsam in a whirlpool destined to be dragged under, I’m missing simpler times when, upon reflection, I remember there were easier ways to stay afloat.

Life was always challenging, but I was younger then. Girded with the innocence of youth, I still felt like I could overcome whatever obstacles lay in front of me.

Given the higher costs of just getting around currently, I miss those younger days, when I lived in a part of town where I could walk to just about anything I needed to, or hail a cab if it was a longer journey not on a public transit route. Being younger, those trips included far fewer visits to doctors, and far fewer trips to help out older relatives. Again, mostly visiting doctors.

It was nothing to wheel a portable grocery cart a few blocks for a load of groceries and again back home. There also weren’t many thoughts about comparison shopping, as convenience outweighed whatever cost differences there were between competing grocery stores, pharmacies, and other merchants.

If I wanted to get out of town for the weekend, a car was easily rentable. Leaving and returning to the city was never a planning chore attempting to avoid whatever construction currently makes a joke out of the term expressway.

I miss the days when stupidly crooked politicians got their comeuppance if they tried to beat the rap, or had a sense of shame and the good sense to leave office on their own. Yes, things were still crooked. But there was a harmlessness about it, unlike in this moment.

In the neighborhood taverns, sports talk was sports talk. About the sport and real stats. Not about analytics, salary caps, and free agency. A trade was a trade. A hit was a hit, and no one knew the exit velocity.

Talk about politics was actually about the issues, and the political peccadillos certainly. But it all felt harmless compared to the blood sport it is today.

I visited one of those taverns recently. Felt like a stranger in my own town. Perhaps I am the stranger. Maybe I’m just strange. Perhaps it’s not my own town any longer. Today is not yesterday. Tomorrow won’t be either.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.

Bumper Cars and Grocery Carts

We’re an angry lot these days

We’ve been away for a week, so we had a number of errands to run in order to restock the home larder, pick up the dry cleaning, etc.. It’s a Saturday and a sunny one at that. Cooler than I’d like, but reasonably pleasant. Unfortunately, the cooler temperatures and bright sunshine aren’t leading to cooler heads.

An high angle, wide shot of an old black and white photograph captures the interior of a grocery store where shoppers wait in line at checkout stands.

The nice weather means everyone and their extended families in Chicago has decided to get in their cars and drive today. Add to that, the outbreak of road construction sites that have popped up like spring flowers and you’ve got your typical tangled traffic mess.

One of the things that always gets me is how considerate drivers never focus their consideration beyond what’s in front of them. A considerate driver will pause to let another motorist entering from a side street, or trying to change lanes, not recognizing the line of cars behind them that they are holding up by doing so. It can be aggravating.

It’s different in the grocery store. It’s usually considerate to let someone who might have one item jump in front of you if you’ve got a reasonably full cart. But in my experience, that doesn’t happen if there’s a long line of folks behind them. Spatial and situational awareness is a little more acute when you’re not behind the wheel of a car, instead surrounded by other humans.

Today I witnessed that break down. One customer with a line behind him, decided to let another customer with only a gallon of milk, cut in front of him. It lead to quite a loud chorus of complaints from other customers standing behind the gentleman. The considerate customer fired back with a retort and, well, let’s just say verbal chaos ensued. The cashier and eventually the manager got involved.

Obviously the difference between grocery carts and cars is that you’re not protected by metal and other materials that entomb us in cars. You might hear car horns blaring, but you don’t hear the shouts of other angry customers, separated only by the length of a grocery cart or two or three.

When I came out of the grocery store, the argument had continued in the parking lot. Fortunately, the offending gentleman and the most vociferous objector to his consideration were parked in separate parking lot lanes meaning they were headed in different directions once they got in their cars, doors slamming, to depart.

I’ll leave it this way. We’re an angry lot these days. With all of what we’re dealing with as a society, rising prices certainly being one of them, everybody more than willing to express their anger, regardless of whatever armor they may be incased in.

(Image from the Boston Public Library on Unsplash)

Home Again

Grandparent duty

Whew. We’re back home after a week helping out with the grandkids. Good times. Good fun. Crazy exhausted.

Catching them for extended periods about a month in between each tour of grandparent duty, it’s astounding to see how fast they grow. Most of my grandpa tricks don’t work any more. So, I’ll have to pull out a few new ones for the next visit.

Today was one of those family days. It brought good news and tough times. On our way moving my wife’s step-father from one memory care facility to another we got a phone call from our son-in-law telling us he’d just landed the super new job he’d been aiming for.

Black‑and‑white photo of an adult and a small child with long hair seen from behind, standing close together at a window and looking out at a snowy yard and building.

Mixed emotions all round. Tough and tumble rough emotions dealing with the memory care move. Eating at our guts while working my wife’s brain overtime dealing with the mechanics, logistics, and practical necessities of the move that thanks to our government’s health care policies is nothing but unnecessary.

Then the thrill of knowing our son-ln-law was rewarded for his hard work and ambition as he and my daughter’s new family continue building their future and those of our grandchildren.

We wept tears of two very distinct and different tastes all at once during that 20-minute drive. But then, I think that’s why we need to take life one day at a time, one adventure at a time, one tragedy, and one victory at a time, even if they sometimes overlap in strange ways on strange days

It’s Time To Stop Hiding From The Obvious

Too many ostriches among us

During these extended grand-parenting trips to help my daughter and her family move one of the favorite games Grandpa plays with the little ones is Hide and Seek. My granddaughter is very good at the hiding part. She plays for keeps. There were a couple of times we worried we’d lost her.

My grandson on the other hand likes to change the rules mid-game, always to his benefit whether he’s hiding or seeking.

It’s not easy to hide. Especially in plain sight. But that’s what so many have been doing in our country for far too long, pretending that they are as good at hiding as my granddaughter, but hiding the way my grandson does by shifting the rules and lowering the bar to avoid being caught.

Hiding from the reality of what’s happening bears no fruit. Hiding from what needs to happen to bring it to an end yields even less.

There are too many ostriches among us and that needs to change.

The Grandkids Fill The New Digs With Laughter

When you move into a new place one of the things you notice is how sound echoes around an empty house. Especially when there are little ones who love to run at what seems the speed of light, laughing at levels that set off Apple Watch loud enviornment warnings.

Today the movers arrive at my daughter and her famiiy’s new digs. As the place fills up with furniture and the stuff of living, the echoes will diminish, but the volume won’t as the new digs will still be overflowing with the sounds of laughter and life. We’re still mostly on babysitting duty, thus the grandkids first coloring session with Grandma waiting for the movers to do their thing.

Everyone’s excited.

Why It’s Worth Being Angry

The laughter of innocents

Settling in for another out of town stay to help my daughter and her husband with phase two of moving into their new house. Grandma and I got right into watching the kids as their parents are working at the new digs to prep for the movers.

It’s been a rough week. All of the news has hit me hard. Harder than I would have imagined. But I listen to the laughter of these kids (I provoke a lot of it), and I relish the cuddles, and I imagine a better time ahead, yet feel a tightening resolve to make sure that’s possible for these precious innocents. I’d sacrifice anything for this bunch.

I cringe when I think this feels selfish or cocoonish, when I know others are closer to the fire than we currently are. But I hope all across this country that those who are as blessed as our family are also taking stock of what level of sacrifice they are willing to make.

The time has come to stand and be measured accountable.