Vacation chores

This isn't my bathroom. You can tell by a handful of clues:

1) the bricks are on the outside of my house
2) we don't have hardwoods in the bathroom
3) that single sink can't accomodate me, let alone Jocelyn
4) lilies on the sink are considered an impractical luxury around here
5) wrong color scheme
6) see that shower door? I haven't installed it yet.

We have an old shower door that I am replacing today. I can hardly wait. The one that I am installing looks a lot like this one, only with nickel edges. And because no one knocks before they walk through any door in this house, we're getting pebbled glass instead of clear.

Among other things on my to-do list:

1) winterize RV (including oil change)
2) assemble fire pit and place pavers on deck for safety (done)
3) fix hinges on "toy" shed doors so that we have an effective, lockable, "bike" shed (done)
4) finish cleaning my part of the closet (not quite done)
5) pick up leaves (not even started...huge job...be sure to "involve" kids so that we have a little qualilty time)
6) supervise handyman (?!?) when he comes over to replace rotted wood in our back door frame (I have neither the desire nor the tools to do this one myself)
7) find time to take the kids out to the driving range and hit a bucket of balls (we gave them their first golfing lessons a few weeks ago and now Monica won't shut up about it...at least the driving range has heated tees)
8) finish cleaning garage so that I can restart a weightlifting program (the essence of futility, but more on that in another post)
9) and unless I forget, I must complete this shower door project today

So, I spent time on these efforts and other little things yesterday and therefore I didn't post. I was somewhat out of it all day, anyway. I can always tell when I'm not completely present when I read posts a few days later.

You know what I would rather be doing today? Making that drive to DC to visit the National Gallery. That's what I would like to do. That and have a best selling novel pop spontaneously out of my head and into a pre-formatted Word document that I could send unsolicited to various agents only to have a bidding war among major publishing houses and studio executives clamoring for the movie rights.

As it is though, I just hope the box that the shower door comes in fits in the back of the mini-van.

Happy Thanksgiving! (in the USA)

It's late. The tryptophan should be kicking in soon. We're tired and stuffed.

Hope you are, too.

I also hope that you took the time to say out loud what you are thankful for this year. And I hope that included good friends and family.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'll be posting tomorrow with an update on Suzzie and the closet and the garage...er...cleanup. Two "physical" not-so-secret secrets to happiness are going to posted this weekend. Yeah, you should be concerned.

Thank you for reading my writing and special thanks to those of you who have taken the time to comment.

Redeeming her Christmas present, finally

Yesterday, I didn't post early because we had to get the kids off to school and then get Jocelyn to Legends in Carytown.

The kids and I bought her a gift card last year for a massage and a facial. She never scheduled her apppointment. I finally forced the issue, knowing that I would be home this week.

After three hours, I picked her up and took her home. She napped. She had a good day. She looked so radiant after the facial treatment that she had that first trimester glow.

As we walked to the car, Jocelyn kept babbling about the "next" time she goes. Oh boy. Maybe it was a good thing that she put it off for nearly a year.

Gift tip: there is absolutely nothing wrong or unthoughtful about giving your significant other some quality spa time. I've never heard Jocelyn complain about it being a waste of time or painful or anything but blissful. As the giver of the gift, be prepared to shuttle the recipient back and forth to the spa. Depending on the level of service, they probably won't be in shape to drive afterwards.

Expect bodywork to be a secret to happiness soon.

Do you have a spa experience, good or bad, that you'd like to share?

If you like what you're reading, please consider subscribing to the Happiness Notebook.

Date night dilemma - a cry for help

Jocelyn and I need to go out. Alone.

She and I need to unwind. Alone.

But I'm not sure what to do. While we both like movies, we don't want that to be our date night.

And we're not dancers, despite the image (the one on the left, not my personal image.)

She asked Lori, the woman who styles our hair, who is also very knowledgeable about restaurants, night life, and happenings in the area. She recommended a jazz bar in the Shockoe Bottom area of town. We'll see.

I checked a couple of websites. These tips made sense, especially the one about entertainment that requires facing in the same direction.

The plethora of suggestions at Redbook were definitely geared to the female. I'm not doing Numbers 8 or 15, though 7 looked good if the night was warm. The suggestions are not all that wonderful for the most part, but they are really meant to get your own creativity flowing.

Over at lovingyou.com they have a large collection of articles divided into 'staying home' and 'going out'. We want the going out choices. Staying home, in a house with our floor plan means no privacy at all.

Our best "dates" are when I stay home during a school day. We can talk about any topic, we can go have lunch at a decent restaurant and we can behave like honeymooners (people that just married each other, not Ralph and Alice Kramden.)

But we need an evening out. A break from the monotony of returning from work, dinner, homework help, prepping the kids for bed, idle chit chat, a little reading and falling asleep.

Suggestions? The problem with a jazz bar for me is that it will be smoky and it violates the entertainment rule of not facing each other when out on a date.

100 nouns for the 100th post

All the stuff I said that I wouldn't drone on about, I will list here without the droning. These are people, places, things, and ideas that I like. We'll cover verbs at the 200th post.

These are in no particular order:

1. Jocelyn - despite the "no particular order" sentiment above, I know who boils the oatmeal around here

2. 1984 by George Orwell (I like the Van Halen album, too, but it isn't going on the list)

3. Nocturnes by Frederic Chopin

4. Views of the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia - even the two looking south from I-64 are good

5. The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

6. Chocolate bars with toffee such as Score or Heath

7. Evil Dead 2 - a campy horror movie from Sam Raimi (he's the guy who brings you the Spider-Man movies)

8. Sweet is the Night - a song by the Electric Light Orchestra from the album Out of the Blue

9. Lavender Mist: Number 1, 1950 by Jackson Pollock

10. State Quarters

11. Cashews

12. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson

13. Arrested Development - a short-lived comedy on FOX

14. Double Stuf Oreos

15. My kids

16. Winning - a song by Santana from Zebop!

17. Beers from Dogfish Head Brewery

18. Glory (the Edward Zwick movie starring Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington)

19. Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan (a Vertigo comic, the final issue, #60, to this entertaining story comes out in January)

20. Bertrand Russell - not that I always agree with his opinions, but I find his books enjoyable and thought provoking

21. Used bookstores

22. The Stand by Stephen King (the magnum opus of his early days)

23. Moonlighting - an old TV show from the 80s starring Cybill Shepherd and a non-bald Bruce Willis

24. A Case of the Stubborns - short story by Robert Bloch, horror-humor perfection

25. Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park - especially the little shuttle bus tour of the ranch; relaxing, informative, poignant; when we there, Lady Bird was home, too (she died this past summer)

26. Rollercoasters - they scare me, but I always feel great after riding them

27. Graceland by Paul Simon, the whole album, never gets old

28. The Lord of the Rings - the trilogy of films, that is, by Peter Jackson...geek alert, it'll get worse as we go down the list

29. Bored of the Rings by the writers of the National Lampoon; classic satire of the original Tolkien books...you will laugh out loud at the journey of Frito, Spam, Moxie and Pepsi

30. The X-Files - we watched it all from the beginning

31. Isaac Asimov was my favorite writer as a kid...I learned a lot of things from reading his fiction and non-fiction

32. Pete Rose - yes, he had (has) serious gambling problems and a not so wonderful personality (though he seems like nothing more than an outspoken confident midwesterner to me) but he represented how you are supposed to play and love the game of baseball; it is a travesty that he will not be in the Hall of Fame until long after he is dead

33. Mt. Rainier National Park - this is one thing that I really miss about living in Seattle: the ability to drive down to the mountain and take a walk in the woods and meadows

34. Convertible roadsters - I had an MGB in Hawaii and Jocelyn had a Triumph TR-6 in Seattle; after kids we gave them up; I'm thinking of getting one back, maybe a Saturn Skye?

35. Thunderstorms

36. Fried chicken, especially Popeye's spicy

37. Prayer of St. Gregory - a short work for trumpet and strings by Alan Hohvaness

38. Chex Mix

39. Beers from Brooklyn Brewery

40. William Steig - writer and illustrator of children's books, including Shrek and, one of my favorites, The Real Thief

41. Mark Rothko - see my post on the Rothko Chapel

42. USS Arizona Memorial

43. A Parliament of Whores by P.J. O'Rourke, humorous look at politics in America

44. Lucifer, a Vertigo comic written by Mike Carey; the story of the fallen angel who owns a piano bar in Los Angeles; he would like to be left alone, but he is forced to take on the Heavenly host, among others (3 issue mini-series, a special issue "Nirvana", and a 75 issue run)

45. Styx - my favorite rock band as a kid; saw them last summer, adequate, but I missed Dennis DeYoung

46. Irish Wolfhound - this is the breed of dog I've always wanted to own but we have an English Setter

47. Candles, lit, but not so many that it looks like a chick flick or a slasher movie

48. Agnosticism: I don't care to argue about this, just know that I have the same problem with atheists as I do with theists; there are more important things to argue

49. Flannel sheets in winter

50. Pixar Animation Studios - they haven't missed yet, not even with Cars

51. Bailero by Joseph Canteloube from his Chants d'Auvergne

52. The right tool for the right job

53. Spaghetti with either a butter sauce or mizithra cheese (or both)

54. The Wizard of Oz - book and movie

55. Kennedy Space Center

56. Ambient music, you know, New Age

57. Casino Royale, (2006) the best Bond movie ever...so far

58. Pears, see POTUS

59. Beers from Rogue Ales

60. Modern Pentathlon, an Olympic sport

61. Lost, and it never has frustrated me, I trust Lindelof and Cuse

62. The Onion, America's Finest News Source

63. The National Gallery of Art, the whole thing, including this

64. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, a family tradition since 1989

65. The Story of US, 10 volumes by Joy Hakim; she is also writing a six volume history of science

66. Lactase tablets, see this for the reason

67. My extended family, including my siblings, parents, and in-laws and their children

68. The kid's recitals

69. The kid's sports competitions

70. Cincinnati Reds - especially the Big Red Machine of the 70s

71. Cincinnati Bengals: given these last two, I am a master at being content with not winning

72. Baseball/Softball - playing, not watching

73. Darts, especially if no one is taking it too seriously

74. The old Montana speed limits: "reasonable and prudent" during the day

75. A. Whitney Brown, a humorist who isn't getting much love these days, but I like him; one of my favorite lines (adapted for the current world): There's six billion people in this world, so if you're a one-in-a-million type person, that means there are six thousand others exactly like you

76. Heated seats

77. Indoor plumbing, that works properly

78. Hot showers, with the right shower head, of course

79. Yellowstone National Park

80. Merit Badges, I'm fascinated with them; and Life Badges will pick up soon

81. Backyard volleyball

82. Soft-serve ice cream (with #66)

83. Babies, infants just make me happy, they cannot behave badly or be spoiled, and they're easy to return to their parents

84. Isn't It Time by The Babys from Broken Heart (the baby thing is coincidental, I swear)

85. Sports commentary that is intelligent and honest: Chris Collinsworth and Jason Whitlock immediately spring to mind; I don't think it's happened with political commentary, maybe Charles Krauthammer

86. Rushmore, the movie and the soundtrack

87. Chips Ahoy! like #14, I like them with a big glass of water (not milk, see #66)

88. All of Star Trek, except for Deep Space 9 and Voyager

89. The first Star Wars trilogy, except for any scene featuring an Ewok

90. The film music of Ennio Morricone, especially The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and Once Upon a Time in the West

91. The Carol Burnett Show, I miss watching that on Saturday nights

92. Dennis Brain, I have nearly everything that he recorded in his short life, he played horn and someone had the common sense to roll tape a few times when he performed

93. Cincinnati-style chili - cheese coneys or a three-way preferred

94. Kauai has always been my favorite island

95. Pomegranates - fruit you have to work to obtain

96. Unabridged dictionary - one of my favorite books

97. Stadium seating at movie theaters - no more hats or big hair getting in the way

98. Roy Steele - my grandfather (and my grandmothers, too,) but Roy had a big influence on my life, he trusted me with responsibilities when I was very young...I didn't let him down while he was alive

99. A comfortable bed with an acceptable pillow

100. Happiness, suggested by Gabe, approved by me

Not exhaustive by any means, but a pretty nice start...we'll look at it again after another hundred posts.

Testing our responsibilities

We will not be traveling this weekend. There are no field hockey games. There are no parties.

The family will be sorely tested, including me.

We need to put away all the Halloween decorations, do another round of leaf pickup, clean up the RV and decide on winterizing it or not, and clean the bedrooms. If there is time, we need to clean up the small shed (for bikes and outdoor toys) and clean out the garage.

Do we have the energy? Will the kids' homework take huge amounts of time? Will last minute invites to an event get in the way? Will they talk me into going to a movie? (I haven't been in a month or two. I'm normally good for about two per month.)

Will I keep my cool? Will I be tactful? I tried that last weekend and failed miserably. Why is it so difficult to be tactful with family? Looking at it from an outsiders' perspective, I'd say we were pretty rough on each other.

We're not the most organized family. Jocelyn takes care of stuff around the house until I sense that she's gonna blow a gasket, then I do a few things to ease the pressure. If things start to bother me, then I do things like sweep, mop, dust, etc. So, I'm fairly certain that Jocelyn and I can tackle our share of the workload.

But I'm not so sure about Monica and Gabe. They treat school like it is a job. So, they feel that after homework is completed, they've earned their downtime. I think we haven't given much effort into instilling a sense of responsibility for the common aspects of sharing a home. This weekend will be a real test.

I get the added bonus of quality attic time when we put away the Halloween decoration containers. While I am up there I can look over the green and red plastic Christmas bins, just waiting for Thanksgiving weekend, when I get to bring them downstairs for the next major decorating effort.

Anyone else having issues getting everyone to pitch in to keep the house maintained? Or does the responsibility fall on one or two people? (Now, I know some of you live alone and you do all the work yourself, but then you were the only person making any messes, right?)

Why do I dread this? Think how happy I will be when the house feels open and clean...we will be happier. We will. We must.

Socrates! The Musical

I've been dying to wax philosophical on this blog. I'll get all dreamy, drowsy and I'll think: hey, i bet everyone wants to hear what I think about the impossibility of comprehending the "moment". Yes, yes, we can "live in the present" but we can't comprehend it. When we do, it is, by definition, already passed. It's kind of like an Uncertainty Principle for living. You can't know and do at the same time.

This is why some people drop routine flyballs in baseball. They're thinking about it, instead of just doing it. That's why people get "in the zone" in sports or work or life, because they are not thinking about it, they're just doing it.

But I don't think you want to hear my pseudo-philosophical musings.

You want to hear about the future Tony Award winning show: Socrates! The Musical. It's the story of, who else, Socrates, and his crazy zany life as the gadlfy of Athens.

Here are some highlights:

It opens at Socrates' famous hangout with the song, I Like It Here (in the Symposium) performed by Socrates, Phaedrus, and Alcibiades. [Because I'm not a composer, I've based my songs on existing tunes such as America from West Side Story.]

Alcibiades also sings of his brotherly love for Socrates with I Could Have Talked All Night.

Featuring his long-suffering wife, Xanthippe, singing the powerful Don't Cry for Me, Peloponnesus.

After many adventures around the city, Socrates is arrested and brought to trial for corrupting the city's youth: Once in Love with Ganymede (sung by Socrates) and I've Grown Accustomed to His Questioning (a young Plato sings this.)

The emotional finale takes place around Socrates' death bed. There is a dance sequence driven by the song One Sip of Hemlock (think One Night in Bangkok from Chess.) Socrates drinks the poison and dies as the cast quietly sings, building to a crescendo:

When humanity questions big ideas
And the answers are hard to find
We take the first steps to happiness
By trying to free our minds

This is the dawning of the Age of Philosophy
Age of Philosophy
Philosophy!
Philosophy!

All right, all right, I'll stop.

But if you have other Broadway songs that I could fit in here, I'd love to hear them.

This weekend I will be tactful

When I really concentrate, I can be tactful. But mostly, I'm a fairly dry sarcastic person. While I try to be playful with it, sometimes it must be downright annoying. So this weekend, I'm attempting to be completely tactful.

Millions of jokes and stand-up routines have been written over the years regarding tact. They usually start with a line like this: "My wife says to me, 'Honey, does this dress make me look fat?'" Immediately we recognize an opportunity to crack wise about the dress, the wife, the situation, the punishment for the smart remark. This can be milked for a lot of laughs. In a comedy club, we expect the sarcasm.

But in real life, if a situation like this presents itself, we have a golden opportunity to display tact. How would we do that though? Some would say just keep your mouth shut. That works if the question isn't too important. You can redirect the conversation. You have to be careful with that technique because people will assume the worst if you ignore the question.

Probably the best thing would be to answer honestly and helpfully. Be sincere and be careful about hurting them.

I like lists, so let's do a list. To be tactful, I will:

1) consider my words before I utter them
2) make that tough decision about keeping quiet or speaking
3) bite my tongue when that cutting remark bubbles up from the depths of my cruel mind
4) think about how others are feeling
5) think about how I would want to be treated in a similar situation

So, no shooting from the hip with my first thoughts or opinions. If I see something that irritates me, I'll either keep quiet or calmly explain what is bothering me with an eye toward fixing the problem. I have no desire to upset anyone, so I'll behave accordingly.

Anyone have ideas on how to develop the habit of tact? Anyone else have a problem with sarcasm?

Dealing with our limitations

I love cookies. In order to enjoy them, I eat them with big glass of...water. If I have them with milk, then I need to take a bunch of lactase pills. Like many people, my body doesn't produce enough of the enzyme and I cannot digest lactose very well.

All of the stuff pictured here is off limits, unless I prepare myself.

But sometimes, I say, "I don't care" knowing that I will suffer within a few hours. I trade immediate pleasure for future pain. And this isn't a gamble either. This is guaranteed future pain. Why do I do that?

Why does anyone do that?

Are we equating the immediate pleasure with happiness?

We do this all the time in our lives. (I am not hectoring or lecturing here, just discussing, because I am as guilty as anyone of this.) We have to watch the game, even though we need to take care of something around the house. We over indulge in food or spirits knowing we will feel terrible later. We skip the chance to play with the kids and then they are grown up. We drive too fast to arrive on time to make up for leaving unnecessarily late. We raise our voices in frustration or anger in a cathartic release of emotion that only transfers our negative feelings to others. We succumb to temptations, knowing the consequences, because of the immediate good feelings they will produce.

Just one more hour at the office, one more drink before bed, one more last word in the argument, one more little fib to get by, one more day of procrastination, one more empty pleasure, one more glass of milk...

and then I'll do the right thing next time. Yeah, sure.

I don't want to feel wrong anymore. I want to feel right. The right thing might not make me feel immediate pleasure. I might not like it at all, but at least I know I'll be a better, stronger, happier person.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. If you don't want to share them publicly, then feel free to email me.

Launching Life Badges

I am nearly 44 years old. I am happy.

But I am restless.

Can you be happy and restless at the same time? Doesn't restlessness mean that something is missing? Wouldn't that indicate a state of unhappiness?

Not at all.

Happiness is the lens, the frame, the perspective. An unhappy person would feel restless and then despair about what to do to alleviate the unease. A happy person feels restless and leaps at the chance to do something about it. Restlessness is just a signal that it is time to do something. Happiness means you're capable of answering the challenge.

What does this have to do with Life Badges? What is a life badge?

A Life Badge is something I made up. It represents things that I will learn about or learn to do (or revisit from years ago.) To make it simple, I decided to base it upon the Boy Scouts of America merit badge program. This is not intended as disrespect to scouting.

I explain most everything in the introductory posts at my Life Badges blog where I will chronicle my quest to earn every badge from American Business to Woodwork.

Go check it out and let me know what you think.

Innocent laughter, or the giggles

There are only a few sounds that can bring an immediate feeling of well-being to me, independent of my current situation. By that I mean that even if I am feeling blue or angry or even fear, these sounds can snap me out of it.

One of these sounds is the innocent laughter of a child. When a toddler or preschooler gets the giggles you are witnessing pure happiness. It is a real manifestation of joy.

Erin, the daughter of a friend, is giving us a giggle demonstration in the photo. She has an Ariel costume (the Little Mermaid from Disney, not the fairy from The Tempest) for Halloween. According to her mother, she loves donning the wig and having a little fun. That is a wig and not her natural hair. She put this thing on all by herself. Even I need help with wigs. But I have a gigantic head so it is more difficult for me.

My point, however, is that Erin epitomizes what is wonderful about childhood. We don't have to be self-conscious. We can have fun doing nearly anything. We can laugh and smile and show we're happy and never have to explain ourselves.

I miss being a kid. That could be why I laugh so much. But my laughter has lost its innocence. I try to find humor in situations, real or made up (maybe it's my sitcom training as a youth, even today when I see a M*A*S*H rerun, I can see my mannerisms as copies of Alan Alda's.)

I can't recall the last time I laughed for the sake of laughing. I can imagine that people would think I was crazy for doing so.

What gives you the giggles? Can you make them happen on your own?

What other sounds trigger a profound feeling of happiness and well-being for you?

Let me know in the comments or send me an email. And, if you like what you're reading, consider subscribing--links are on the right.

Help wanted: The Happiness Notebook Mixtape Project

I need your help.

We all have songs that make us feel good. We all know songs about happiness, contentment, celebration and relaxation.

So, let's catalogue them. Let's build a mixtape library of happiness. But I need your help or it will not work.

If you're like me, you probably are really knowledgeable on songs from a certain period, like, in my case, the 70s or the early 80s. This is a severe limitation when trying to build a happiness repertoire.

Another limitation is our personal preferences for musical styles. There are so many genres and sub-genres of music and most of them have possible works that we would include in the happiness category.

This cannot be a one person effort.

We need song nominations.

Here is how we'll handle it:

1) Each Sunday, I will post a solicitation for your nominations.
2) Let's set a personal limit of two nominations each week per person.
3) Nominations are made in the comments only. Emailing me will not make it a nomination.
4) Positive discussion on the merits of the nominations also takes place in the comments.
5) On Wednesday, I will post a slate of songs that up for inclusion in the Happiness Mixtape.
6) We vote, in the comments, on those we want to include. Voting will end on Friday.
7) On Saturday, I will post the latest additions. We'll keep a list on the right side of the blog.
8) This in no way, affects the irregular posting of hair metal videos. That is a separate effort that keeps me happy.
9) I'll act as the final arbiter. However, even if a song doesn't make it the first time around, it is still eligible to make it in subsequent voting. It just needs to be renominated and make the slate of potential entries.
10) Let's keep this light and fun. Also know, that if you don't participate, then the mixtape is going to be full of late 70s and early 80s pop rock songs...ahem.

My nominations will also appear in the comments.

Start nominating!