Back to the back-to-school rhythm

Oh, how quickly the summer vibe goes away. That easy-going, relaxed, smooth as a new car’s coat of paint feeling that the mornings had.

“Had,” as in past tense. What your life used to be. Calm. Peaceful. Tranquil. People rising slowly. Birds singing sweetly in the trees. A kitchen all to myself in the morning and no one with anyplace to go, and no hurry to get there.

When you are the only one working during the summer, mornings are absolute bliss. My wife is a pre-school teacher, and my 16-year-old daughter’s only summer responsibility was to see if watching too many shows on Netflix could make her TV to burst into flames.

Nobody got up before 7. Sometimes 8. Who am I kidding? There were days when I didn’t see a soul before heading off to work. This meant I “had” run of the house. Run of the kitchen. Run of the vibe. All the bird singing to myself.

Had!

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The great mystical quest for the license of drivers

They call it a driver’s license. With this license, you are legally allowed to drive. It does not specify in the rules where you can drive. You can drive wherever you want. To the store. To Alaska. Running guns to rebels in Central America. They leave that up to you. The license gives you the freedom to move, as long as you have an instrument of movement. A vehicle.

To get this license, you must first take a test. This test will quiz you on all the keys to successful driving. It is like a mythical quest. It might be the toughest, most demanding, most psychologically grueling thing you ever do. Well, after childbirth, your first day of kindergarten, the SATs, the time you got caught with a cigarette and that time you fit the giant jawbreaker into your mouth and had to go to the ER so they could remove it with surgical tongs.

To pass this test, you must show a mastery of driving, including how to park on an incline. Forget that this seems kind of absurd because you live in a flat state where there hasn’t been an incline since 1952. That’s when someone decided to build a hill. Everyone’s ears popped from the elevation and they bulldozed it the next day. It’s been flat ever since.

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The great end-of-the-year wind down can’t get here soon enough

For millions of Americans across the country, the great end-of-the-school-year wind down has commenced. That time when two great tides of emotion crest simultaneously: the joy, elation and relief of school almost being out and the absolute freakout that comes when you realize how much there is to do BEFORE it lets out.

It’s in full-effect in my house. We are a family ruled by education. My daughter is a sophomore in high school, my wife is a pre-school teacher and I work at a college. If the dog were capable of learning even the most mundane new tricks, it would be the great quadruple. But for the rest of us, we’re navigating choppy and churning waters.

My school year is already over, so I’m pretty chill in comparison. More of an observer to this fascinating world of epic highs and looming lows as the others try to get free of their educational entanglements. The elaborate calendars listing test dates, pickup times, pre-school graduations and dozens of other school commitments. The motivational messages: “Don’t fail. Dad won’t support you your whole life.” The countdown clocks. The books, binders, worksheets and handouts strewn like a tornado has torn through.

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Back on the baby diaper terror aisle

Boy, was I flustered. Already late for a colleague’s baby shower, and here I was at a big-box retailer hunting for something that would enter me into a raffle: diapers!

Bring the future parents some diapers. Win a prize. That sounded cool. I’ve done this before. Piece of cake!

… I thought.

“Mam,” I said, stopping one of the workers. “Can you tell me where the baby diapers are?”

I must have looked forlorn, as she smiled comfortingly and said “certainly” before rushing me across the store.

She was probably thinking: “Poor discombobulated father has a new tike at home and a big poopy mess on his hands. Bless his heart!”

New tike at home!?! Ha!

My daughter is 16. She hasn’t been in anything close to a diaper since … well, I can’t even remember that far back. So far, in fact, that I’ve forgotten where to find the diapers. Not even what part of the store to look in. Over by the bananas? Back with the toys? Electronics!?!

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A Florida kid who ‘got snow’ in North Carolina

“Good morning. Got snow?” my text read.

I sent it to my 16-year-old daughter. She was knee-deep in a ski trip to North Carolina with a youth group from Memorial Presbyterian. They were hitting the slopes at Beech mountain and hunkered down in their cabins the night a winter storm named Izzy pounded the East Coast. It dumped white stuff all across the region, blanketing that corner of the world in snowdrifts and winter scenes that seem like a fairy tale when you’re from a place they call “the Sunshine State.”

Got snow?!? Oh yeah, they got snow.

The weather map in North Carolina showed precipitation levels in colors I had never seen before. In Florida, we gets greens and yellows, and when it’s really bad, reds. But this was a kind of baby blue mixed with some type of neon pink. “Does that mean radiation leak?” I wondered.

No, it means “butt buried in snow.”

Lots of snow. Where they measure accumulation in inches, or even feet. When the roads are impassible, and you open your cabin door to be met with the giggly white stuff just beckoning you to dive in and bathe in it.

A sea of it. As far as the eye could see. And because you’re a 16-year-old kid who doesn’t have to worry about how to get home or whether you’re going to have to eat frozen woodland critters to survive, it’s the most glorious thing ever.

Ah, so lucky. Got snow!

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Happy birthday to the not-so-little one

Happy birthday, little one!

Nope … hold on … something’s not right …

Happy birthday, kid!

No, check that …

Let’s try: Happy birthday, short stack!

That’s definitely not it. She’s almost as tall as me.

Maybe: Little missy? Or Strawberry shortcake? Wee widdle one? Precious peanut? Ye’ who spent all my money on diapers? Baby boo-boo?

Oh, no. None of them are right. None of them work for a daughter who turned 16 today. Sixteen! Can you imagine such a thing? About the only one that works – the only possible option! – is the unthinkable one. The one I can’t fathom saying. The one that curdles the lips and twists the tongue into knots. It will crumple my soul to hear it out loud. Can I even say it, this crime upon the ears?

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Trying to be a better ‘meat’ eater

“Hmm,” I said, the half-eaten meatball dangling from my fork. “It KIND of tastes like a meatball. Maybe one who is having an identity crisis. Or schizophrenic. Or maybe just mad at the world.”

“Yep,” my daughter agreed. She was probing her own meatball with her front teeth, nibbling off a little bit, like she wasn’t quite ready to fully commit. Or let her tongue touch it. “I would agree with that.”

“But the texture is not quite right. It’s kind of like … um … what is it? Oh, wet gym sock! That’s it.”

“Yep,” she replied. “I would agree with that.”

Nibble, nibble, nibble.

So went our first experiment with meat-less meatballs. The vegetarian – or maybe they were vegan? – meatballs. Balls of something that weren’t meat. Some kind of vegetable imposter trying to be meat. Compressed into a ball and told to impersonate Italian ground beef. Trick them. Get them to believe you are something else. Maybe give out a little “moo” once in a while.

Only, I wasn’t quite convinced.

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Experiencing all the joys of standardized testing

And now for some REAL fun at the dinner table, it’s time for …

SAT Vocabulary Flash Cards!

Because you don’t know how to suck the marrow out of life until you sit down with the entire family for a nice, nutritious meal, and then proceed to show how little you grasp about the English language.

Now, that’s what you call living, kids.

It’s been all about gearing up for the PSAT the past couple of weeks in my house. The PSAT stands for “Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test.” It is a practice exam for high school sophomores like my daughter, and it has one simple objective: Scare the living daylights out of you so you go back and prepare for the real SAT. Because the SAT, as we all know, is the mother of all standardized tests – the T-Rex of its class. It is widely used for college admissions, and guaranteed to have fewer than two questions that are actually relevant in the real world. (Plus, you get to show your skill at filling in bubbles with a No. 2 pencil.)

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A New York City getaway where the rats steal the show

It was a heck of a knock to the ego. A trip to New York City full of Broadway shows and cultural attractions, shopping and good food, lots of lazy strolls through the most exciting city on the planet. But what makes one of the highlights for my 15-year-old daughter?

Semi-befriending a rat in Central Park.

What does that say about my planning? My inability to create the perfect fall getaway to Manhattan?

Or maybe it says something more about her big heart. Her inability to look down on any living creature.

It wasn’t one of those subway rats, it should be noted. More of a country rat. It wore overalls and could have passed for a squirrel if only it had a bushy tale. But it was a rat all the same, and you don’t drop this kind of cash to stare at vermin!

Either way, it’s part of what makes New York such a unique experience, no matter what you do or where you go.

There’s always some adventure to be had. Like when we saw a bunch of New Yorkers in the park frantically chasing a brightly-colored flying insect. One of them had pulled off a shoe and was screaming, “Quick! Kill it!”

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Piecing together the back-to-school puzzle

Does anybody have any idea how any of this is supposed to go?

You know, back to school. Back to work. Back to the fall routine.

Back to the manic morning shuffle. The back-to-school puzzle. How all the pieces fit together, interlocking in a chaotic ballet of furious activity and utter panic.

When people scream, “Oh, the humanity!”

And someone else screams back, “There’s no time for ‘humanity!’ Forget your shoes and get in the car. Your school will be fine with bare feet.”

Amidst this madness, I often think to myself that this must have been what it was like when the meteor took out the dinosaurs. Only, that was calmer.

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