LONGWALKABOUT

Easily the Big Easy

I’ll preface this post with the fact that I am emphatically not a city person. My personal space bubble usually extends to somewhere around half a mile. When someone asks if I would like to go to New York my usual response is, “Why? You haven’t smelled urine and three day old garbage in a while?” Now that you know that, I’m going to hit you with conflicting information. I love New Orleans. I am a contradiction seasoned with inconsistency wrapped in a tortilla.

A few years ago my wife had a conference in New Orleans and on the recommendation of some friends, I decided to join her. Since then we’ve been back two more times. I’ve never had a bad time. In a sea of cities that try to be something they’re not (I’m looking at you Philadelphia) New Orleans is comfortable in it’s own skin. It’s completely unique as an American city, having a slightly European feel without the pretentiousness. In 2019 it was reported that one out of every seven adults in the city had a warrant out for their arrest. I admire this group tactic. Like, “What are they gonna do, arrest all of us?” The place has a vaguely lawless undercurrent that stokes a sense of adventure in those comfortable with it.

A lot of places claim to be somewhere you can go and “be yourself.” In The Big Easy that just might be true. I’ve seen well to do party goers dressed to the nines walking barefoot down Canal Street in the rain. I’ve seen out of towners hammered out of their minds on Bourbon Street. I’ve seen drag queens and families and junkies and millionaires. I’ve seen that one dude who dresses like Darth Vader and dances to Cher and Milli Vanilli. No one pays too much attention to any of them and the reason it all works is because it feels like when you enter the city limits, you enter into an unspoken pact to not take life too seriously.

“Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.”- Rudyard Kipling

The city has preserved a lot of the feel of the old south, mixed with the Caribbean, mixed with the new south. A subtle magic floats in the humid air. The food is amazing. The people are welcoming. But most of all good music is everywhere. It is the birthplace of jazz, a natural home to the blues, which also originated in the deep south, and a welcoming adoptive home to many other genres, and it is around every corner.

If you’ve never been, it should be high on your list. If you have been, don’t you think it’s time to go back?

Click here for the full Bob Dylan quote. It’s worth it.

The Three Most Frustrating Things I’ve Ever Dealt With. (A First World Problems List)

In our time on this earth we’ve all had to deal with a lot of nonsense. State run Motor Vehicle Departments, bags of potato chips that come only one third full, tiny rocks that somehow get into our shoes, people who put those really bright blue headlights in their cars. I could go on and on. Ask my wife. In the interest of time and keeping your attention, here is my personal top three.

Putting in contacts. I almost lost my mind the first time I tried to put contacts in. For decades I trained myself to not let things touch my eyeballs. Then in one afternoon, I had to teach myself to ignore that training. The contacts stuck to everything but my eye. My finger, my eyelashes, the sink when I dropped them. Every time I thought I had it, I didn’t. According to my family I was ranting and raving like a lunatic. I could hear them laughing at me two rooms away where they felt safe.
Pepper stems. The large convenience store chain in my area has decided that they want to prepare all kinds of food for their customers. In fact, they now have a more extensive menu than most diners in my area. I was in there several weeks ago and I swear I heard someone order foie gras. The problem with this is that I’ve always maintained that if your menu is too large it just means that you make a lot of food, not that you make a lot of food well. I knew that this particular chain was going to have problems because back in the day when they mostly made sandwiches, they couldn’t even get that right. Every time I ordered a sandwich it came with at least one pepper stem in it. EVERY. FREAKING. TIME. If you can’t put enough love in a sandwich to remove the pepper stems, I really don’t want you making foie gras.
That liquid in the ketchup bottle. Look. When I reach for the ketchup bottle it probably means I’m already pretty excited. There is probably a plate in front of me that contains french fries or onion rings, maybe a hot dog or a burger. I don’t have the time to clear the ketchup chamber of some mystery liquid before I eat. Some people are probably saying to themselves, “He could just store that ketchup upside down. The bottle is kind of designed for that.” NO! I don’t want to have to put that kind of thought into my ketchup. I just want it to be there at the ready when I need the perfect compliment to my waffle fries.

It was really good to get all of this off my chest. I feel a little better. That will last until I have to pick another pepper stem out of my sandwich after having to eat soggy onion rings which will frustrate me so much I’ll forget to wash my hands before putting my contacts in with pepper fingers. What a day that’s going to be.

Things I Learned While Beating The Coronavirus.

Yes. It is true. I have vanquished the dreaded coronavirus. If we’re being honest here, it never had a chance.

I would blame my wife for bringing it into our house, but that could be more dangerous to me than the actual virus, so I’m just going to say that I’m not sure where I got it. For four days my body ached, my chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it (not a large elephant, a small, cute elephant), and I suffered from more general malaise than normal. Then, right before Thanksgiving, the worst happened. I lost my senses of smell and taste. Normally I wouldn’t have complained about losing my sense of taste for Thanksgiving. My feelings on the spice quality of Thanksgiving food have been well documented. It is the worst food holiday. I much prefer Cinco De Mayo. But this year we were moving away from traditional “bland Colonial food” as my son calls it. Our menu included eggplant parmesan, spanakopita, pasta, and homemade jamaica juice. I could taste none of it. Don’t get me wrong, I still ate too much. I just chewed and imagined how good it was.

I couldn’t taste it, but I imagine it was awesome.

Three days later all of my symptoms except for loss of taste and smell are gone. You’re probably asking yourself, “How did this guy beat the dreaded virus?” Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you. I must preface this advice by telling you that I am not a doctor, so take it with a grain of salt. I am, however really good at Googling things and as a result I have beaten self diagnosed tuberculosis three times. Anyway. Here is my homeopathic prescription to beat the coronavirus. First, order a pizza topped with hot peppers. This pizza must be ordered from a local pizzeria with an Italian name like Guisseppe’s or Geno’s or Enzo’s. Chain pizzerias are much less effective. It is a scientific fact that viruses hate spicy food. Really. I Googled it. Second, I prescribe one bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. This way you will be attacking the virus with one naturally spicy food and one completely unnatural spicy food. Third, you have to watch Rambo First Blood and First Blood Part 2 back to back, preferably finishing the second one sometime after 1 in the morning. These tasks have to be completed in this order. By no means should you involve essential oils. That stuff doesn’t work, and you won’t be able to smell it anyway.

There you have it. A firsthand account of my battle with the dreaded virus, and how I beat it. Knowledge is power.

How Far Could It Be?

There are questions you should ask before doing things. Then instead of rushing on ahead, get the answers.

Before jumping – How high am I actually?
Before dating someone – How crazy are they?
Before diving in a pool – How deep is it?
Before picking a college major – How will I use this to repay the six figure debt I’m incurring?
Before deciding to walk up a mountain in an unfamiliar foreign country – How far is it really?

Getting the answers to those questions can make all the difference. I know that last one seems a little specific. It’s because that one applies to me.

I may have mentioned before that once in a while I get to tag along with my wife when she travels for work. I try to pick locations that are sunny and warm. This time it was Barcelona.

I spent four days wandering around the city and then set my sights on the surrounding mountains. The highest mountain within Barcelona city limits is Tibidabo. At the peak stands the cathedral del Sagrat Cor and, oddly enough, a small amusement park. I took the subway to the outskirts of the city where a funicular (European for incline railway) was supposed to take me up the mountain.

Unfortunately for me, the funicular was out of order. It was hot so I sat down in a cafe at the base of the mountain, had a Pepsi, and asked myself a question that I should have gotten an answer for. “How much further can it really be?”

When we travel together my wife has one request. That request is that I look presentable. I guess this is because she doesn’t want to be seen being picked up from a work meeting by a guy in shorts, flip flops, and a Homer Simpson t-shirt. I think that would make her seem even more interesting, but that’s just me.

Anyway, I started walking in my khakis, dress shirt, sensible shoes, stylish man bag, and “how far could it be?” attitude. At first it was me and other people. Then it was me and the occasional mountain biker on a dirt road. Oh, and it was hot too. Too hot for khakis and a dress shirt and even sensible shoes.

I did several fun things along the way. Like trying a side trail that looked like it might be a short cut but led back to the same road and refilling my water bottle from a pipe coming out of the side of the mountain.

2.6 dusty miles and almost a thousand feet in elevation later I made it. For 2 Euros you can climb all the way to the top of the cathedral. The view was worth the hike.

Turns out there was a bus to take me down the mountain. Good thing too, because the view was great, but I’m not sure if it would have been worth walking up AND down for.

Things That May Or May Not Have Been Overheard During Our Quarantine.

I was social distancing before it was cool.

I know that most have been caught off guard by the recent events and I sympathize with them. I, however, have been social distancing for my entire life, so this hasn’t been much of an interruption. In fact, for me it’s more or less a normal Thursday.

My wife commented the other day that it’s a good thing that our immediate family gets along so well. This is true, but any time you lock a family of four together in a house for an extended period of time, interesting conversations are bound to happen. The following is a sampler platter.

–

My youngest son upon being asked to help set the table: “What am I, your servant now?”

My wife in a calm tone that would scare anyone in their right mind: “You must be joking.”

–

Me: “Honey if I die before you, don’t remarry.”

My wife: “Hey. I told you that you should remarry if I die because I want you to be happy.”

Me: “Yeah, well you’re a better person than I am.”

–

Me to anyone who will listen: “Being a huge college sports fan is like being a huge fan of minor league baseball….. You know I’m right.”

Everyone else: (Uninterested silence)

–

Our dog: “Why won’t these people leave me in peace?”

–

My teenage son: “I think I’m going to get something to eat.” (Repeated roughly every hour and forty five minutes.)

–

Me: “This is only an emergency if I run out of parmesan cheese.”

–

My teenage son: “I really need to focus on my schoolwork.”

Me: “Then you probably shouldn’t play video games so much.”

My teenage son: (Regretful silence)

–

My youngest son: “Do you want to eat dinner and watch Master Chef?”

Everyone else: “Yes.”

–

Me: “I think the neighbors are using premium birdseed. They seem to get more birds on their feeder.”

My wife standing next to me at the window: “Birdseed elitists. Their birdseed brings all the birds to their yard.” (fist bump)

–

Me staring out the window talking to myself: “Pennsylvania was low on my list of preferred places to die. Above New Jersey and all countries ending in stan, but well below New Mexico and Louisiana.”

–

My teenage son at 11 pm: “Where’s the sewing kit? I want to put some patches on something.”

Me: “Uhhh. Like right now?”

Him: “Yeah.”

–

My wife: “You don’t care care if this ever gets back to ‘normal’ do you?”

Me: “Only for sports and concerts. Otherwise. No.”

Kids and Dads and Sports (Part 2)

Almost four years ago I wrote about inducting my boys into the brotherhood of sports fandom. I have to admit that it has been an uphill battle. When I manage to pry them away from video games they usually resort to their second favorite pastime of going on YouTube and watching people play video games. Recently I have had some breakthroughs though. Much to my surprise, both my boys sat down with me and watched one half of one quarter of an NFL playoff game. One of them turned to me and said, “Dad, I can see why you like this so much.” PROGRESS.

My youngest has taken to ice skating. This Christmas I bought him an NHL game for the Xbox which has helped him learn the rules of the sport. (Not to brag, but we recently won the Stanley Cup.) He even watches a little hockey with me once in a while. So, when I recently asked him if he would like to go to a hockey game and he said yes, I did the logical thing and pulled him out of school and drove to Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is an unpretentious town. We arrived. Swam in the hotel pool. Had four slices of surprisingly good pizza and a drink for less than eight dollars, and made our way to the arena to join the friendly throngs waiting for the doors to open.

The NHL has made their product much more kid friendly. Sure there is the occasional fistfight, but how is that different than most work places? Seriously, though, there isn’t nearly as much of that as there used to be. Prior to every game most arenas let you take your kids right down to the glass for the pregame skate, no matter where your seats are. It’s a really unique experience to be mere feet away from some of the best athletes in the world while they show off their skills. My little guy ducked as pucks hit the glass in front of his face and marveled as players juggled them on the blades of their sticks.

After the pregame skate we made our way to our seats, and for the next three hours my son and I participated in time honored traditions. We chanted. We booed the refs. We ate food that no athlete would be caught dead eating. The game went into overtime and when Jake Guentzel scored the game winner we leapt out of our seats and hugged and cheered……. and then the guy behind us fell on us because the drunk guy behind him had fallen on him. After we all disentangled, my son provided me with the highlight of my night. He said. “That was AWESOME.” I couldn’t have asked for a better first game experience for him.

It was a whirlwind of a trip. Thirty six hours. Six hundred and nineteen miles. One tired dad. But now I have two boys that will even ask me about scores and standings from time to time. The fun is just beginning.

POLAR VORTEX? REALLY?

My dislike of cold weather has been well documented here on this blog as well as on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, in angry letters to Al Gore about the climate not warming as fast as he said it would, and once in a while by me yelling at the sky in my backyard. At home I don’t use the word winter. Instead I refer to the cold months as the devil’s season.

My wife says that I am dramatic when it comes to the cold. I’m willing to keep an open mind, but I don’t think I’m dramatic,,,,,, I just think that low temperatures are inherently evil. The truly dramatic people when it comes to weather are your local meteorologists. They’ve turned the nightly weather report into a parody of itself. It’s almost as if the weather people got jealous of the regular news anchors who got to report real news. Stories full of life and death and real human drama. They thought, “We can make weather just as exciting as everything else.” And they were off to the races.

Now we have all kinds of ridiculous weather terminology. It can no longer be said, “Atmospheric conditions are going to make the moon look abnormally large early this evening.” NO. Now we have to say, “Hey everyone, there’s going to be a SUPERMOON tonight! Tell your friends!” We also have this new phenomenon whenever there is a cold snap. Instead of saying “Temperatures are going to dip along with the jet stream”, we have to call it a POLAR VORTEX. Everything is a SUPERSTORM or a MEGABREEZE or an EXTREME DRIZZLE. It’s all kind of absurd.

In addition to real, measurable weather statistics, we also have completely made up things like “wind chill” and “real feel temperature.” My wife likes the wind chill “stat.” I tend to be old school I guess. If you give me a temperature and a wind speed, I can pretty much guess what kind of jacket I’ll need. I guess other people like “wind chill” reports too because we are always assaulted with new made up weather metrics. It wouldn’t surprise me if I heard something like this tonight. “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we are going to add a new stat to the weather report. It will help us describe to you how it feels outside so you will never have to leave your cozy living room. Imagine if you will, that you were outside, soaking wet, and completely naked. Well if that were the case, the current temperature would feel like negative one hundred and twenty three degrees. We are going to call this the “Nude Feel” temperature and we will be bringing it to you nightly. You’re welcome. Watch for the Supermoon tonight.”

I just looked at the ten day forecast and despite what the groundhog says, I see no end to the devil’s season. By the way, next Tuesday the Nude Feel temperature will be negative eighty seven.

Locked Out

Pictures from the actual beach taken on the actual day of the event.

There really is nothing like locking yourself out of your car. You stand there helplessly staring at the keys sitting on the seat or hanging out of the ignition, pulling on the door handle for the twentieth time in the last minute like maybe the next pull will be the magical one that, despite all practical laws of engineering and mechanics, lets you back in. Then you have to call Triple A or your delinquent friend who stole cars as a youth to try to get back in. You know what’s even better? Locking yourself out of your car while it’s running. I know this because I’ve done it,,,,,,,,, more than once……… In fact,,,,,,, three times. Because I’m so experienced in this area, I can confirm that no matter how many times you pull on the door handle, It Will Not Open! So, when this happens to you, don’t bother. Search for other solutions right off the bat.

The first time I did this, the car was in my driveway. My delinquent friend came over and we handled the situation.

The second time was at work. Triple A was very helpful.

The third time. Well. That was a doozy. Three months after my first son was born, we took him to see his great grandparents in Puerto Rico. My father-in-law traveled with us. We introduced the little guy to all necessary tropical experiences. Sleeping under mosquito nets, sweating while doing no physical activity at all, going to the rainforest, and most importantly, going to the beach.

Forty five minutes from where my wife’s grandparents lived there was a beautiful, isolated, state park beach. Because I’m introverted to a fault and couldn’t bear the thought of sharing a public beach with, gasp, other people, we headed to that isolated slice of heaven. It was a beautiful day in the tropics. The sun beat down, the breeze was onshore, and the surf was knee high. Two hours ended up being the max time for a baby on the beach, so we pack up and headed back to the car.

I reached the car first and thought everyone would enjoy getting into a car that was already air-conditioned, so I started the car, put the air on full blast, and shut the door, feeling pretty proud of my good idea. Of course, when everyone else arrived I discovered that the car was locked up tighter than Enfamil at a Walgreens.

Picture if you will a slightly befuddled guy trying to figure out how this happened, an angry new mom, and a frustrated grandpa holding a baby in a carseat, all standing in the shade of a cactus next to a running car in the middle of nowhere. I glanced at my little son and he stared back at me with a calm look that said, “From the conversations I overheard while I was in the womb, this is pretty much what I expected dad.”

Cell phone service was nonexistent, so we were on our own. Luckily I had watched a ton of Macgyver as a child, and as a young adult, and as an adult, so I had an idea. I took one of the spokes out of our beach umbrella, pulled on the top of the car door, and slid it down between the door and the car frame. If I could just hit the unlock button. Thirty minutes later, I had come close, but had no luck. (You’d be shocked at the kind of dirty looks a new mom and a new grandpa can give while they stand in ninety degree heat with a baby.) Then the park rangers showed up. They joined the circus and we all tried for another half hour. Then the cops showed up. And we all tried for another half hour. Eventually one of the cops hit the button and became everyone’s hero. We thanked them all profusely and got into our car which was roughly the temperature of the freezer at Seven Eleven. As we headed back to the house everyone agreed that getting into a hot car was better than doing this again. The baby just looked at me judgmentally, like he knew I’d end up doing this all over again.

ALONE TOGETHER

Solitude is underrated. I spent my fifth semester of college in virtual solitude at a school where I knew no one. I lived with a family out in the country, but they were out of town half the time. For work, I cleaned a lumber mill at night, by myself. There were times when my girlfriend would call me and it was weird for me to hear the sound of my own voice. Sound lonely? Well, yes. But it was peaceful. It gave me time to read and think and listen to the radio. Learning to be comfortable alone is a useful skill.

This past summer I decided it would be nice to enjoy some solitude, so I planned a river trip and loaded my wife and two boys in the car so that we could all be alone together.

The West Branch of the Susquehanna River in northern Pennsylvania cuts through some of the most isolated country in the state. One twenty-two mile stretch in particular is not accessible by any road. That’s where we went. We shoved our kayaks into the water around noon on Thursday, and watched our last connection to anyone else for a while recede behind us. For the next twenty-two miles we were more or less on our own. Cell service would go more than come, so it was a bad time to start wondering if I left the garage door open. Eleven miles later we made camp on the bank of the river. We swam. We cooked dinner over an open fire. We drank camp coffee out of an aluminum mess kit bowl because I forgot my cup. My family retired to the tent as dusk was falling. I stayed by the fire and read for a while. Then I sat in the dark and thought about how it would suck to be attacked by a bear. Then I wondered if I should have brought my family, or if I should have come alone. I decided it was better for the family to be there with me, because when that bear came to get us my wife could surely talk him out of eating us. She would make him feel horrible about not being properly prepared or stealthy enough to even think about carrying out a bear attack at all. Eventually the bear would apologize to her and we would all pass around the ceremonial coffee bowl while my kids lulled him to sleep with stories of watching people play video games on YouTube. No longer worried about a bear attack, I went to bed.

The next morning dawned with only the sounds of nature. We cooked breakfast and had another bowl of coffee before continuing down the river. When eventually we saw another person (at mile 21 of the 22 mile trip), I was kind of disappointed. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of being alone and self-reliant. In an age of almost constant connectedness, it is refreshing to be able to cut the ties that bind us to everyone else and feel like Daniel Boone, if even for a little while. It’s nature’s reset button.

By the way, if you are wondering about the paddling limit for an eight-year-old boy…… It’s almost exactly twenty miles. For the last two, you will have to tow him while he constantly asks “How much farther?”

If you would like to take this trip, the folks at McCrackens Canoe can provide you with a shuttle, boats, information, and all types of gear.

Thoughts On Used Leather Pants

Just some dudes in leather pants.

I was in the thrift store the other day. It must have been a Monday or Thursday because those are the sale days.

(Right now 75% of you are thinking. “What a cheapskate, he only goes to the thrift store on sale days.” The other 25% are thinking. That guy really knows how to shop.” Well. You’re all correct. But I’m probably only going to be friends with the 25% because my feelings are a little hurt by all of you who called me a cheapskate.)

Anyway. I was in the thrift store the other day and I ran into one of the more unusual items I have seen there. That’s saying a lot for a thrift store. There is no shortage of odd stuff. I was sorting through the pants and what did I find but two pair of leather pants. This begged some important questions. Were these donated by the same person? I’m just going to assume that they were. If so, why? Why would someone who made the significant investment of buying two pair of leather pants, just give them away? Did they gain too much weight to wear them? Did they convert to veganism and feel overwhelming guilt whenever they put them on? Were they ironically killed running with the bulls in Pamplona? Or, perhaps saddest of all, did they finally give up on their rock star dreams?

No matter the answer to any of those questions, the fact remained that I was staring at two pair of leather pants that were a terrific deal. Especially on sale day. I stood there and imagined myself fronting my own rock band. Never mind the fact that I have no discernible musical talent. That doesn’t seem to stop a lot of lead singers. Rock n roll is more about attitude and looking good. Hence the leather pants. But could I actually wear used leather pants? The answer is no. I feel like leather pants are a one owner kind of item. Like underwear, or athletic cups, or q-tips. No matter what you do to them, it seems to me that leather pants are still going to contain some of the soul, and other residues, of the original owner. I just couldn’t get past that. In my mind those pants contain less of the cow they are made from than the person who first wore them. I mean. Imagine the sweat. (~SHIVER~)

So I walked away. I left the pants hanging there with the used khakis and sweatpants and the ghost of their owner. When I returned on the next sale day, the pants were gone. Some brave, cheap, aspiring rock star had picked them up and is probably at this moment sweating in them in his garage while he and his buddies play a barely passable cover of Stairway To Heaven. Rock on my unhygienic friend.