I have become subtle about Thanksgiving day, humbly offering prayers of gratitude to the Lord and quietly watching the Lions get annihilated each holiday. Watching the Lions over the decades has helped with my humility. Now I look forward to the strange off Thursday in November when I get to reflect on the goodness shown to me, eat the same amount of carbohydrates as consuming thirty pizza boxes and fall asleep in the yard. Truthfully, that’s a normal Thursday for me, but in this case I get a calendar sanctioned excuse act like a somnambulate ape.

I like the idea of just taking a day with family to ponder all the blessings of the past year. When the older relatives in my family were alive enough to enjoy the annual feast, I spent the days trying to interject some thoughtful vulgarity into the proceedings. At 38, it  isn’t cool any longer to dress up as Ice Cube and recite It Was A Good Day at the table. Likewise, reading Salem Kirban’s 666 aloud and hissing isn’t  fun like it used to be. I merely enjoy the company of loved ones and the blessing of having enough of every good thing in life, smiling in my oddly beatific way. If I do this too much, my family worries that I’ve developed some sort of disorder and they begin to jab me with forks. One recent Thanksgiving, they even carried me to a sofa and put towels over my weirdly smiling countenance. Then they all got in their cars and drove to the movies, leaving me to be thankful alone. I didn’t care. Once gratitude and contentment with one’s life starts, there’s no use denying  it. I am blessed  to have a family that cares about me and the Detroit Lions. Well, I still  have family.

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#666 #7 and 3 Detroit Lions #Detroit Lions #Ice Cube #It Was A Good Day #Salem Kirban #Thanksgiving

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Mostly Teachable Episode 10 Tastes Like Chicken

 

Thanks for reading and listening to Mostly Teachable. This week’s podcast is a nugget of joy about the end of the world through health care, the end of Camelot with Tom and Katie, and (hopefully) the end of people eating strangers. Have a great weekend, and have a peaceful and joyous whatever it is that you do!

 

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mostly-teachable/id526613092?mt=2

 

#Bath Salts #Health Care #Health Care Law Upheld #Katie Holmes #Katie Holmes Divorce #Naked Criminals #Tom Cruise

I don’t expect my blog, or any of its readers, to sort out my various life hang ups. That would be asking a lot from paid professionals, let alone the people who stumble across Mostly Teachable. One mental mutation I recently overcame was refusal to drive anywhere. Other than the mile to work and back each day, I’d park the car and live as a passenger. There was no earthly reason for this. My wife, full of saintly patience, would chauffeur our young daughter Anna and myself from place to place, while I shouted absurdities from the back seat. When Anna was a preschooler  this was fun for her. Like having one’s very own overgrown idiot for company. I’d make up songs, or we’d develop a life for her old dollhouse boy who’d lost his clothes years before. The odd little doll boy enjoyed adventures, such as the thrill of flying a helicopter, or being smashed over the head, while wearing only shoes.

All odd behavior comes to a natural end. If it doesn’t, rifts start to form in relationships. For Anna, the final straw was having her not-quite-all- there companion making up alternate lyrics for boy band songs. Did you know that any Justin Bieber song can be re-written into a show tune with lyrics about teenage male incontinence? Absolutely. She’s over him, partly due to his advanced age, and partly because dad besmirched his bladder control in song. Anna’s moved on to the dark side of rock and roll, but in her Bieber days I was banished from the back seat for singing one non-pee ditty about J.B. entitled “Gravy” (‘And I was like ‘Gravy, Gravy, Gravaay. Gravy you’ll always be mine’). My wife started handing me the keys each time we left the house. “Might as well drive so you don’t annoy her.”  I now pilot, yelling “Don’t make me come back there!” like a normal parent. Sometimes I hum a forgotten song about mashed potato toppings.

#Baby #Don't Make Me Turn This Car Around! #Backseat Drivers #Justin Bieber

  The other night I attended a semi-mandatory outdoor meet and greet at my daughter’s elementary school. The trick is that in return for attending this event, each participant is given an ice cream bar and the chance to meet the child’s new teacher. These events are excruciating for me. While the ice cream social is always well executed and expertly put together, I find myself shuffling and stamping my feet. The kids in attendance have this kind of cool to them. They’ve met this year’s teacher, who is usually a  rested looking woman full of the kind of energy that is reserved for amped up pageant contestants. The students themselves are a bit indifferent to the whole ordeal. They speak casually to each other, smile at their new teacher’s jokes and then inexplicably go and swing from tree branches. Within two weeks, they’ll be staring wistfully out the windows at those same branches and dreading the fact that they were yet again sucked in by the parade smiles of teaching professionals. During the social, though, the kids cling to a last bit of late summer casual and effortlessly mingle in a blase fashion while eating melted ice cream sandwiches in the schoolhouse courtyard.

As a parent, there is no cool, even from drippy Eskimo Pies.  We have no casual attitude. Much of what we do is competitive parenting and semi-professional eye rolling.  Mom’s and dad’s have a way of overdressing for these events. Yeah, I think the sequined halter tops and shirt/tie combos are neat, but unnecessary. I have no such desire to be a fancy dad. I can sort of manage to stand around and look like a schlub, before some ancient Miss America teacher slaps my wrist and tells me to stop picking my nose. We’ve spent every day since college looking out the door’s and windows of our workplaces wistfully for a tree to climb. Eventually, as often happens, my blissfully calm daughter will give me some ice cream, tell me to shut up and then smile beatifcally. Future teacher in the making, I suppose.

#Back To School 2012 #Competitive Parents #Eskimo Pies #School #Social Awkwardness

 I recently suffered a midlife crisis and decided to become an accountant. This was no light decision. After wrestling with the questions that I suspect keep many middle-aged men up at night, I decided to throw my cozy, safe family life away and roll the dice on the seedy world of bookkeeping. The last few weeks before making the big leap were pure torture. There are big issues at stake. For starters, I wondered how I’d disrupt my routine of entering accounts payable data and dive headfirst into the unknown jungle of profit and loss statements, balance sheets and recurring fixed expenses. Sexy stuff.

During my line cooking days, one of the  things that my fellow galley slaves and I would do for fun was to try and decide if certain restaurant patrons  were overcompensating in their efforts to keep up with the effects of age. In other words, we stood out back on our breaks and laughed at male pattern haplessness. There was a sort of grudging acknowledgment given to the men who’d conquered time and circumstance. The guys who’d pull up in simple, classic sports cars accompanied by classically simple-minded women. We gave them the nod. No words were necessary. They’d earned silence. The men we disrespected loudly (and often) tended to show up in snazzy Miatas with their kids’ middle school algebra teachers in tow. I never really thought it was a graceful sign of having lived well to grow a greasy gray pony tail and engage in temporary relationships. This holds no appeal to me. No, I’ve felt the call of mathematics, the urge to go and calculate the hell out of something. The male inadequacy industry may tell me that I won’t be happy until I drive an over-sized pick-up truck and make stupid faces at women while drinking overpriced beer. So be it. I’ll have my fun between the spreadsheets.

#Accounting #Accounting as Midlife Career Change #Male Inadequacy #Mazda Miata #Midlife Crisis

When the world is running down/make the best of what’s still around.

(Due to recent bouts of human sensitivity and empathy for the plight of mankind, Mostly Teachable was temporarily postponed. We now return you to our previously scheduled obnoxious, immature blog. Thanks.)

There are two places in the United States that I enjoy driving through for no reason other than the fact that I suffer from stunted brain development. The first is Emlenton, Pennsylvania. The Emelenton Truck Plaza boasts serving the world’s worst apple pie. Pretty much true, but I appreciate the fact that they’ve turned crappiness into a long running tourist gimmick. I plan to change the  Mostly Teachable slogan to “World’s Worst Blog.” That would somehow imply that I care, though. My other favorite destination is Effingham, Illinois. No reason. I just really like spending the thirty miles of nothingness before and after the town shouting about effinham. Which brings me to the completely irrelevant, and yet satisfyingly…irrelevant subject of Spam.

I read an article yesterday by some esteemed culinary schmuck about the rebirth of Spam canned meat products as a result of the ongoing economic downturn. The author provided recipes by  renowned chefs who’ve created solid entrée offerings using venerable old Spam products. My memories of Spam are vivid, but not entirely sepia-toned and fuzzy with warm feelings. There were no culinary offerings that came from Spam that made it a worthwhile product to continue consuming as an adult. Spam was best fried. It came with its own weird, gelatinous meat sauce and invariably curled up in the skillet, as if to die from meat shame. I enjoyed eating Spam, especially on winter nights when it was accompanied by pancakes. I put Spam into the same category as Patrick Swayze movies and Foreigner albums. Hot at the time, yet best enjoyed on the sly as years pass.

Spam will never be the economic savior rising from grocery shelves to put money back into our pockets. For starters, it’s not a reasonably priced product. A 12 oz. can currently retails for $2.48.  My cursory glance at local grocery advertisements revealed chicken breast fillets at $1.87 a pound. Even after trimming as purchased fat/waste, the consumer still saves money on fresh meat. The other, less telling reason is that the calories in Spam are nearly all from fat (a 2 oz. portion is 180 calories, 140 of which are from fat.). Mmm…Crisco. I still live by the old Police line that

Why Spam is still around is beyond me. The economics of fear, or the misty, water colored memories America shares of  childhoods spent eating effin ham, I suppose.

#Bad Economy Spam Recipes #Effingham Illinois #Emlenton PA World's Worst Pie #Police #Spam #Spam Cuisine #When The World Is Running Down

Watching tonight’s episode of Downton Abbey, I was reminded of how much it takes for a wedding to actually take place. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil any of the salient plot points. The episode got me thinking about my own wedding day. I remember waking up on the day Lori and I were married and wondering why everything seemed so calm. Almost surreal. I’d stayed the night before in the hotel where we’d spend our wedding night. This added to the unreal quality of the situation. It was a little weird to be alone in a room with a heart-shaped hot tub. Of course, I’d rigorously tested the tub out. You know the drill. Washed my socks in it, made bubbles, pretended to be the captain of a very small, awkwardly designed boat. Getting to the wedding venue was about like driving the hot tub. I really wanted to eat fried chicken. That morning I awoke in a very clear frame of mind. There were two things I wanted for my future. Fried chicken and to pilot the hot tub some more. First, chicken. I got in the car and drove off in the general direction that chicken might be found and purchased. After a nice winding drive  along some tree-lined roads, I noticed that the road narrowed. Eventually the pavement ended and I was just bouncing along a dirt road in the forest. The day was one in which you could positively savor the sunny, early fall weather and not pay any attention to pressing responsibilities. Like getting married.

The road ended at a padlocked gate and I was forced to quit bouncing along  and turn around. Back then, I drove a vehicle with a sun roof and could climb half-way out of the car and get some perspective on the world. Looking at the world from the top of my Buick, I realized a great truth about my wedding day:  poultry might have to wait. Responsibility kicked into my chicken-fried mind and a second truth occurred to me: my socks were still at the bottom of the hot tub. Now, I’d need to get socks and find chicken. Then I thought about my fiance Lori and reality forced me to sit back down in the driver’s seat and point the car back toward town. I really loved her more than anything in the world and still do to this day. I needed to be at our wedding on time. Love may mean never having to say you’re sorry, at least according to the movies. Arriving late for one’s own wedding is something for which a man will apologize forever. Driving in dust cloud (inside the car, because the roof was open), I made my way to the wedding in time for pictures. On the way I’d found a Popeye’s. When they asked me at the drive-through what I wanted, I was giddy. “You’d better give me two thighs. Today’s my wedding day.”  I don’t know what that means, either.

#Downton #Downton Abbey #Love Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry Love Story #Popeye's #Wedding Day #Weddings

  When I was a strapping, long-haired hippy boy of 25, I was pretty smug about the aging process. At that time, I worked with a muscle-bound gentleman who attributed his physique to dietary supplements. One night, he turned to me and mentioned that he was, in fact 51 years old. Prior to that I had no idea.
“You know what keeps me fit?” he asked, in a way that indicated he was also hawking supplements as a sideline. Before I could answer, he held up a canister of bee pollen and told me how much he put on his shredded wheat every day. I read the canister and managed a “Wow! Well you’re really well-preserved. Keep that up!” The guy rolled his eyes and muttered “Well preserved, my a**.” Life went on and I finally now get the inappropriateness of my response.

I started to go gray late last year and my Pauly Walnut hair wings are starting to sport a kind of nice, even pewter tint. The term I’ve always heard to describe the gray-haired man is “distinguished.” This might be true if one was Roger Sterling, rich and able to do…the things that fictional character Roger Sterling does. There are great perks to the arrival of the gray age and the change in my appearance. For instance, Cialis ads are starting to make sense. I’ve asked my wife if we can get a couple of claw foot bathtubs for the backyard. Those commercials are shot through the cracked lens of societal expectations, though. Cialis is built on the 55/35 myth. The ads feature a man of middle age with a much younger woman. Not that I care, because I just really wants some indoor style antique plumbing for sitting around outside in. The Viagra man is an even less realistic expectation for the aging male. Those ads don’t even feature women. What are we now, the Marlboro Man? We ride, we rope, we start fires with rocks. There is the idea of companionship at the end of each commercial, but the time before that is spent alone with animals and cars. This is what it means to be the distinguished man. We can start fires and then go home and…I don’t know. The commercials haven’t explained that part. I may be older, and supposedly distinguished, but the virility supplement and pharmaceutical industries need to really paint by numbers for me. Distinguished my a**.

#Cialis Ads #Distinguished Middle Aged Men #Gray Hair #Roger Sterling #Viagra ads

I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

Yesterday was supposed to be one of those grand and glorious half-marathon days. I’d run the summer out and planned to enter fall with a PR for the half. It never happened. Two weeks ago arthritis and age kicked me to the curb to the point that I called it a season. Whiffed and missed. I awoke to the sound of crappy weather and thought about all of those times that I’d relished running in rain and muck. As I got up and started moving, my swollen knees told me “Thanks, you old fart. Let’s go have some eggs and toast.”

I brooded for a few minutes by watching some TV. ESPN’s 30 for 30: Jordan Rides The Bus was playing.  I continued to mope until I caught the message within the short film depicting Michael Jordan’s early retirement in 1994 from the Chicago Bulls, and his brief stint as a minor league baseball player. One of the central tenants of his decision to leave basketball and play for the White Sox farm club was that he wanted to live the life of no regrets. Had he not taken the opportunity to pursue baseball, Jordan might have forever regretted what might have been. Life is full of might of “might have beens.” I am at least temporarily sidelined from running, but now is the time to live without regrets. I don’t regret running marathons. I want to see what else there is to pursue and conquer in life. The possibilities are varied and endless. Jordan read a great statement in a 1997 Nike advertisement, which I wrote in my journal as I waited for a plane in Charlotte, North Carolina after my left knee failed me during Marine boot camp that same year. I don’t ever regret going to boot camp, but consider it one of life’s great adventures. The statement from the commercial?

No regrets. Life is good. If I can’t run, I’ll find a new way to challenge myself. Success is in getting up when you’re not able to run and walking to the next challenge.

#1/2 Marathons #ESPN #ESPN 30 for 30 #Jordan Rides The Bus #MIchael Jordan #MIchael Jordan I''ve Failed Quote #Running

Today the doctor told me that I can start a regular running program again. This announcement hit in much the same way that the news of pitchers and catchers reporting to baseball training camps does each winter. I looked out the window at the wind blowing snow through the tree branches and clucked “Reeeaaallly?” It didn’t take long to start to embrace the idea of running. The current temperature may be a whopping 7° degrees, but in my mind it’s always summer and I’m perpetually careening across people’s lawns with my tongue hanging out. On some those occasions I’m actually running, as well.  Heading back to work, I was in pretty good spirits. Never mind the weather, I was planning core strengthening and treadmill workouts. I basically returned to work from the doctor’s office with the car travelling sideways, because of the wind, but…whoo hoo, running! The car has a nifty feature in which the back hatch doesn’t close. In high wind the hatch acts as a sail and propels the car in unusual directions. Merrily I sailed to work, clouds of exhaust fumes making snowflakes dance around the car. The magic of winter in Michigan mixed with the early stages of asphyxia.

Returning to work was a good Up-With-People training for my not-always positive self. The furnace that heats our kitchen and offices had blown the last of its furnace-y cache of good will and left the staff cold. Even Blodgett ovens aren’t enough to heat a subterranean hash house during the single digit days of January. I, like most of my ancestors before me, dress for work in the traditional garb of the ancient clan of Poindexter. This means that even if the outdoor temperature is in the low nothings, I wear a short-sleeved, pocketed dress shirt. That’s okay, ‘cuz their snazzy.  I may freeze at my desk, but it will have been done proudly in the garb of a food service accounts payable nerd. Alas, all of this will one day lead to running. Fresh air, sunshine, freedom. A time when I can ascend the stairwell from my basement office, remove my short-sleeved dress shirt and run. Or at least wallow in the sun. If my predictions are right, this could happen as soon as six months from now. Yippee!

#Postaday January in Michigan postaday Running

5 Podcast Episode 1: The Phantom Dentist