Aging Reflections

The Kids Of Parenthood Now - Thanks For Making me Feel Old

I felt really old yesterday.  I was cruising around the internet and ran into one of those “where are they now?” sites.  This one had the cast of the Parenthood movie.  This is one of my favorite movies and one of the best things about it were the kids.  The site I looked at yesterday showed a grown Kevin as a middle aged golf caddy and the youngest kid who wore a pot on his head and ran into things as an obese loser (I’m sure he’s not but that was what the picture showed).  I felt I’d lost something by seeing them like this.  I always heard that youth is wasted on the young and as I get older I definitely understand where that “old” saying came from.  I posted a picture yesterday of my son and I where I look like I have this huge head.  I remember thinking the same thing about my father (paternal revenge?).  Time is an inscrutable enemy with no mercy on a guy who still thinks like he did when he was thirty.  I was going to say twenty but we both know better than that.  I was getting into the pool last night for my workout and there were two young ladies to whom I was absolutely invisible to.  That would not have happened twenty years ago (I tell myself that), but again, that was twenty years ago.  Now I see condescending looks from the staff who thinks it’s nice that a gray haired old geezer like me is still trying to work out.  I see younger people who choose a sedentary lifestyle locked behind a computer and think – you’ll have plenty of time to do that later in life.  When you’re young enough you should be out there pushing the envelope, climbing mountains, hiking, jumping over things, enjoying the physical capability that will fade all too soon.  There will be time to watch all those movies when you get older – get outside and be young!  I never had this problem when I was younger because the Army was always ready to ensure I was fully accessing my physical abilities, whatever they were.  As I got older and those abilities began to wane it became obvious to me that it was time to leave the military.  I think I’m giving it a good fight as I descend through middle age and will keep getting out for climbing the odd mountain when I can and hiking, but it used to be so much easier. 

Big Headed old Dude

Sunday Reuniting

Our Hotel - Pass on Future Stays

It was a long day traveling yesterday. We woke up in New Hampshire looking across the river into Maine, so we ended up seeing four of the six New England States yesterday.  I was not impressed with the hotel we stayed at on Saturday night in Portsmouth, the Sheraton.  It had a fantastic location and the staff was extremely friendly but it seemed poorly designed for ease of access.  The cable TV didn’t work, the guy trying to fix it said they installed a new system that was fraught with problems, so we didn’t get to see the Olympics when we returned from the after-party following the wedding.  The clock in the room was also set for Central Standard Time instead of Eastern Standard Time (okay this was more my fault for not noticing).  My wife and I didn’t discover this until my son called to arrange our link up for brunch.  We hadn’t called him yet because we thought it was too early.   We discovered the problem and figured we only had twenty minutes to clean up, check out, and get over to the link up point. This led to frantic showers, make-up (for her), packing (for me), and check out of the hotel in order to make it to the restaurant in time for our reservations. I thought I was just having trouble sleeping but it turned out it was an hour later than we thought.  Kudos to the wife though – I’ve never (and I mean never) seen her get ready as fast as she did yesterday.  I was impressed and now that I know she’s capable of this – Nah – that would be pushing the envelope.  We did enjoy a great brunch with those two denizens of Portsmouth, our son and his Most Excellent Girlfriend.  She had made reservations for us at a restaurant called Radici’s which offered a great brunch menu.  As with most Portsmouth locales it was within easy walking distance from my son’s apartment.  We had a fantastic time catching up with both of them and I really liked the vibe at the restaurant, which was very hip but tolerated my presence anyway.  The wait staff was particularly attentive and the food was awesome.  We retired to my son’s apartment so he could open his birthday presents.  This took some negotiations because he wasn’t fully prepared to let his mother see the state of disrepair his apartment was in.  My wife promised not to judge (huge concession when it comes to cleanliness) and we accomplished the present opening without rancor as well as catching up on some of the Olympics through DVR.  Both my son and MEG looked as tired as I felt and since they had to travel to Boston last night to see Cold Play (birthday present from MEG – again Most Excellent) my wife and I got back on the road to head home.  We had to go first to Rhode Island to retrieve our retriever – Buddy.  He was a little worn out when we arrived, not that his tiredness spared me a truly enthusiastic welcome.  He was tired from patrolling my sister’s house which is located in a much busier neighborhood than his normal country living.  Buddy feels the need to announce his presence to anyone walking by a house and my sister’s house was a target rich environment.  He pretty much collapsed when we finally did reach home after a long day on the road.  I was a little envious because we had a bunch of things to accomplish around the house since we were gone all weekend.  Looking back on it – it was totally worth it, especially the Sunday brunch.  I’ve lost track of how many great weekends in a row this has been; makes it tough for subsequent weekends to live up to.

Where we Had Brunch

My Wife and M.E.G. at Radici's

My Son and I on the Other Side of Table

Matrimonial Traffic

My Wife and I at The Wedding

Yesterday my wife and I headed up to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for the wedding of my boss’ daughter.  I thought we had left with plenty of time but traffic ground to a standstill about twenty miles short of our goal.  It took over an hour to cover that last twenty miles due to the weekend traffic of people headed to the beach and Maine vacations.  We pulled into the hotel we were staying at and five minutes later were headed for the wedding following some sketchy directions from one of the bell hops.  We were both laughing because the directions took us right by my son’s apartment.  He was up in Maine celebrating his birthday with the most excellent girlfriend.  The wedding was outside at a country club located right on the Atlantic coast and the views were worth the price the father of the bride probably had to pay for it.  The weather report was extremely troublesome and there were clouds menacing the entire time.  The reverend performing the ceremony mentioned three different times about how lucky they were with the weather which I thought was dangerously tempting of fate.  It was a nice ceremony but it lacked the emotion and whimsy of the NYC wedding from earlier in the summer.  The reception was in a tent right behind the ceremony site and our table was on one of the edges.  There was a tee off spot for one of the golf holes and I was praying that anybody teeing off yesterday was a much better golfer than I was because we were right where I would probably hit a ball.  The open bar helped reduce the trepidation significantly.  My wife and I spent most of the evening out on the dance floor which was a lot of fun.  We were seated with some good friends which also made for a great time.  My wife pointed out another woman about half way through the reception and said that she thought it was scandalous that this woman was wearing a dress where you could clearly see she was wearing a thong.  As this was something I had missed I was truly appreciative of my wife’s perceptive accuracy.  When she saw how much fun I was having with her comments she suddenly realized what she had done and delivered a ringing blow to my arm.  The bride met the groom when he was a singer in a small band and near the end of the reception the crowd coaxed him to sing a song which he did extremely well – a nice moment.  The rain did start about an hour before the end of the reception but the tent held up well.  The reception had to end at 9PM because like most golf courses this one was surrounded by a bunch of houses owned by rich people.  They are of course less than tolerant about people having fun at parties they are not invited to.  My boss was ready with a plan though and had rented the upstairs room of a bar that was a short walk from the hotel.  My wife was showing signs of wimping out so I hurried her out of the hotel room as quickly as possible.  Despite coming from a country where it rains every day for nine months out of the year she hates going out in the rain.  I talked her into an umbrella and we safely made the block and a half trek through the rain to the bar where we discovered we were the only ones to arrive so far.  We sat down and watched the Red Sox finally beat the Yankees and then a couple of swimming events from the Olympics.  After a half hour we were wondering if we were at the right place but then the rest of the wedding crowd showed up and there was scant room to move about.  It was a rainy day but any day I get to spend surrounded by friends and my wife gets to dance to her heart’s content – hard to be disappointed. 


My Boss Escorting the Beautiful Bride

Our View of the Fantastic Setting

The Happy Couple Beating the Rain

The Reception - Thong Woman in Purple

My Boss Enjoying the After Party

Fiery Friday Wakeup



Thursday Night in Charlton

All That Was Left Friday Morning

Yesterday morning I was taking the trash down to the curb in the early morning when I noticed a helicopter hovering about a mile away across a nearby lake. The town I live in is normally very quiet so this left me wondering what was going on.  I guessed it was some major accident on the Mass Turnpike which runs through the town at about the same location.  As I was eating breakfast the news came on the TV and the lead story was a huge mill fire in my home town.  Apparently this large old mill (New England has a million of them) that I drive by every day started burning the night before and was totally destroyed.  There was a series of loud explosions and the fire burned throughout the night.  Our town is very small so firefighters from over twenty other local towns were called in to help control the fire.  Five of the fire fighters were injured but thankfully they are reportedly all fine.  Kind of strange because I slept through the whole thing, even more strange, so did Buddy, I guess the wind was blowing in the other direction.  It was kind of jarring to drive by and see this pile of smoking debris where a large building stood the day before.  Yesterday was otherwise a very slow day for me, not so much for my wife.  She and her friend who have been visiting all week spent the day running around getting manicures, shopping, and calling me to report their progress.  We treated the friend to one of the mystical Zorbas Friday night pizzas.  I then had the onerous task of ferrying Buddy down to Rhode Island where he is spending the weekend while my wife and I attend a wedding up in New Hampshire.  My sister and brother in law were out on their date night so Buddy was greeted by my nephew who is very good with animals.  Buddy usually is on high alert when I drop him off and gets seventeen kinds of crazy when I leave.  He must be finally used to the process because he couldn’t even be bothered to say goodbye.  There must have been some interestingly exotic smells in the backyard because he didn’t even notice when I left.  I felt kind of disrespected.  As I journeyed back home I tuned in to listen to the Yankees dismantling the Red Sox.  All of the earlier optimism for my beloved Sox seems to have been misplaced, this team lacks character.  The biggest surprise was when I got home and the ladies were not watching the Olympics opening ceremonies.  In a truly puzzling move they wanted to watch both Hangover movies – counted this as a win.


Buddy and Nephew - You Haven't Left Yet Dad

Best Friends

Now They're Posing

Night of Knight

On Wednesday date night I escorted two beautiful women, my wife and her friend, to see the latest Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises.  It was, in a word, fabulous.  I’m probably one of the few that didn’t think The Dark Knight, the second movie in the trilogy, was a transcendent movie.  I did enjoy it but never elevated it to the pantheon of movie excellence most fans seemed to have placed it.  Heath Ledger was riveting as the Joker but the movie didn’t connect with me.  I actually liked The Dark Knight Rises much more because it allows Bale to complete the arc of his Bruce Wayne/Batman character instead of making illogical but well meaning decisions as he did in the second film.  The supporting cast in this newest movie was incredibly strong, a hallmark of this series.  There were a couple of issues with the middle third of the movie, ad hoc spinal surgery in a 3^rd world prison to mention one and a bizarre battle plan for the climatic confrontation as another.  The movie also wastes Tom Hardy who is unrecognizable and completely masked as the villain Bane.  Hardy is a really good actor but his part could have been played by a stuntman because of the mechanical voice and face covering breathing mask – complete waste of talent there.  Hathaway on the other hand, who reminds me so much of my daughter, is pitch perfect as Catwoman.  I absolutely loved this movie and could not believe how fast the 2+ hours sped by.  A fitting conclusion to this iconic trilogy, well done.  I also finished another short novel by Terry Brooks in the Shanarra world yesterday (that Amazon recommendation function for the kindle is spectacularly effective).  This novella, Indomitable, picked up the story from the original trilogy and allowed some of the lesser used characters their moment of glory.  It was a fast read and a bit nostalgic revisiting characters and plots that were almost thirty years removed for my reading memory.  There was another series of thunderstorms last night so Buddy was revving up to full panic mode.  I read some articles online about helping dogs deal with the fear of thunder because Buddy seemed to be getting worse with every storm.  The most consistent advice was not to react to the dog’s panic, not to reinforce or validate the behavior, which of course we were doing by trying to comfort him whenever he entered the panic state.  I blew off my nightly swim workout to spend the time with Buddy as the storms arrived.  It actually seemed to work.  When he realized his frenzied anxiety was being ignored he calmed down.  Of course this was after trying to burrow into the couch directly below where I was sitting but overall it turned out to be good advice.  I’ll offer some good advice of my own – go see the Dark Knight Rises.

Happy Birthday Big Guy!!!

My Superman

Last night I went to see the latest Batman movie which I will talk about tomorrow.  Today is the birthday of one of my true super-heroes – my son.  You’ll have to excuse me if I gush a little bit but I am so proud of both of my kids who have turned into these remarkable young people despite having me as a parent.  I clearly remember the day he was born.  I was a young captain and my wife and I had decided we would only have two children so he would be my last child.  We didn’t know whether he was going to be a girl or a boy but since we already had his sister we were hoping against hope for a boy.  I’ve always been under some pressure to carry on the family name since my father’s family ran heavily to female offspring and they’re just a few of us with the surname.  He was delivered via C-section at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, DC around 10am in the morning.  The nurse escorted me into what I thought was a waiting room and then said – “there’s your baby” pointing to this tiny little being under a heat lamp.  He was lying on his stomach so I immediately asked if he was a girl or a boy and the nurse looked at me strangely because there was evidence of his gender readily apparent.  I guess I just wanted confirmation that my dream of a son was reality.  He was so different in temperament than his sister, our first child.  He was always thoughtful and quiet and at the same time extremely outgoing.  I was extremely tough on him growing up – making demands on him that I thought would prepare him for life but in retrospect were not always the smartest or best way to go.  Despite this, my repeated absences due to military deployments, and dragging him all over the world, to include three different high schools, he has grown into a superb young man that I could not be prouder of.  He was a scholar athlete in college (my alma mater also) setting 9 school track records and graduating as a civil engineer.  He’ll probably get PO’ed at me for saying this but I am most proud of his capacity for caring.  He really does “get it” and that’s a rare commodity in today’s world.  As I watch him evolving into the man he has become I often compare myself to him at the same age and find myself lacking.  He’s one of those singular individuals that makes you feel important to him, even if you’ve just met.  I love him.  Happy birthday to my “big guy” and the best man that I know.

He Used to Copy Military Salutes

College Graduation Day

Buddy is a Big Fan Also

With M.E.G.

Always So Good with his Mother

Tuesday Cake and Reacher

Heaven on a Plate!

Last week my wife spent time down in Virginia with one of her closest friends.  Last night the other member of the “Tres Musketeros” arrived at our house for a visit.  This friend lives up in Maine now but she, my wife and their friend down in Virginia all met when I was first stationed in Washington DC back in 1984.  They were all young Latino gals who had just moved to the US and became inseparable friends.  These two friends really helped my wife adjust to the US because when they met my wife spoke no English and was married to a guy (me) who was working 15 hour days.  They’ve maintained that friendship over the years and I’ve always enjoyed when they get a chance to get together just to see how happy my wife is.  I really enjoyed this visit because she showed up with a chocolate cake for me!!!!!!!  She makes cakes professionally and even made the cake for my daughter’s wedding – so the cake was in a word –AWESOME!  The best part is that the calorie Nazi (my wife) cannot object to my consumption.  I just have to get this thing down range before she figures out a way to give it away to the neighborhood kids.  On Monday I finished an interesting read, another Amazon recommendation, called Don’t Know Jack, by Diane Capri.    You all should know by now of my obsession with the character of Jack Reacher in the sublime series of books by Lee Child.  Reacher has inherited the mantle of my favorite fictitious hero from Travis Magee of the John D MacDonald’s novels of the 1960’s and 70’s.  How much did I love Magee – I named my son after him.  This new book was interesting because Capri received permission to write a novel where Reacher is a background character and the plot revolves around a search for him and involves several characters from Child’s first novel about Reacher.  I avoid detective novels authored by females because they don’t have the same pace and focus on action than their male counterparts.   This is a conversation I’ve had a few times with my sister who shares my passion for reading in this genre.  Female authors, in my view, take way too much time exploring the emotions and the need to know what everybody is thinking versus moving the plot along.  I know more than a few people are now revving up their feminist engines to accuse me of misogynistic propensities so just take a deep breath and remain calm.  There are a number of female authors that I love reading – just not in the action thriller genre.  Capri is guilty of this in this book as her lead character, a female FBI agent, spends a great deal of time exploring what other people are thinking about her and what she’s feeling instead of moving the plot along.  This book suffers greatly when you compare it against one of the real Reacher novels but I have to admit she finds her pace about half way through and I really enjoyed the book.  It’s obvious she is setting this up as the first in a series of novels with these characters because she included a number of potential tangents without fully exploring them.  I look forward to the next one.  If you like Reacher you’ll like this book, if you’re a female Reacher fan – you’ll love it.  Now I have to go find a way to protect my cake from neighborhood distribution.

The Third Musketero
Cake Maker Extraordinaire!

My Wife Refused to Have Her Picture Taken (bad hair day)
So Here she is Last Week In Virginia

Definitely Worth the Read!