Goodbye, 40. I hardly liked you

I spent a lot of time last year telling myself a lie. “Brian,” I said like a father to a son. “Don’t worry about turning 40. It’s no big deal. Wait until the hair grows out of your ears like tentacles. Then freak out. But this? This will be easy!” Then I turned 40 and spent most of the year staring at myself in the mirror, looking for ear hair tentacles. It wasn’t vanity. It was the realization that it was all slipping away. That of all the things I can control, time is not one of them. I can save up money. I can give up regular beer for carrot beer. I can combine yoga and tai chi with self-inflicted acupuncture, all while dangling upside down from the ceiling. But while it will make me healthier (or kill me!) it won’t slow things down. Forty made me freak out. Isn’t that what those milestone, decade-ending ages do? They usher us into a new, uncharted realm. They dispatch something we were very comfortable with — our 30s, our 40s, our 50s, our 60s. They leave us pondering what it all means, and really, where it all went. But a wonderful thing happened this week: 41 showed up. Oh, wonderful 41. Where have you been all my life? It’s a fresh start. Where 40 was the end of something, 41 is just the beginning. A renewal. A chance to be young again. The baby of the 40-year-olds. Like a new recruit. […]

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A Floridian’s take on the Sochi Olympics? Ice for iced tea

I Floridian. Ice for iced tea. It’s a mantra of sorts. I find myself repeating it each night as I sit down to watch the Winter Olympics. Spills don’t get me. Crashes on the luge? Limbs flying by? I can handle it. But show me a close-up of some ice — of that Sochi winter slush — and I cringe, burrowing deeper into a blanket. “Oh, this is horrible!” I say. “How can they show this in primetime? Children are watching!” I Floridian. Ice for iced tea. I grew up in Tampa. You find record heat inside freezers there. I remember when the NHL first awarded the city its hockey team. My mother was incensed. “How can they play that here!” she demanded. “It’s not right. It goes against the laws of nature. I’m writing my congressman.” We knew little about ice skating. There was a rink at one of the malls we used to go to. As kids, we would fumble around with the other pathetic Floridians, crashing into each other like bumper cars. The rink attendants skated about with a wheel barrow to cart off the wounded. Each session came with a free ankle brace and a coupon for the ER. I went on to marry a woman from Long Island. As legend tells it, she was born in the snow, was strapped into snow shoes and then sent off to the store in a blizzard for milk. Northerners are a hardy breed. She tells stories of the […]

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The great Grandma Evie armadillo hunt

“Oh, darn it,” said my daughter. “I have my armadillo meeting tomorrow and I haven’t done my papers!” “You … um …” I stuttered. “OK, what?” “My armadillo meeting! With Grandma Evie!” Jeez, dad! Don’t you remember anything. You know, Grandma Evie? Your mom? The woman who has been calling here every day for the past week because she says there’s an armadillo in her yard. Digging holes. Eating all the worms. In downtown St. Augustine. Which is more improbable than, say, green alien squirrels mining gold in the Castillo. But there it is. The agricultural extension lady came out, looked at at the holes and said that’s what it was. Or it’s where the alien squirrel mother ship landed. Only at Gandma Evie’s house! “So what’s this meeting you’re having?” I asked. Another dumb question. Eight year olds are a tough crowd. “Seriously?!?” she said. “I’m part of the armadillo staff. I have to do research. I have to look up what armadillos eat. I have to design traps. I have a meeting tomorrow with Grandma Evie. We need to look around the neighborhood. We have to measure the holes in the yard. We have to see if there’s an armadillo under the house. We have to build a trap. That’s a lot of pressure, you know.” “Yes, yes it is,” I said. “Did you say ‘under the house?’ Your grandmother’s not going to make you crawl under there, is she?” “Dad, you don’t honestly think SHE’S going to […]

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No really, I’m not old. I’m just lazy

I’m not old. I’m just lazy. That’s what I told myself. That’s how I justified it. I ran the Matanzas 5K last weekend. First race I’ve run in almost two years. I felt pretty well at mile one. I ran pretty well through mile one. And if they had called the race right there, say for some freak weather event or Godzilla attacking the harbor, I would have done pretty well. Only they didn’t call the race. I kept running. My pace took a slow vacation somewhere south of Cabo San Lucas. It still isn’t back yet. Where are you when I need you Godzilla! Runners know that clocks are cruel. Time pieces snicker as they tick off the seconds while you slowly steam to the finish. They know it sticks the knife a little deeper. Ouch-ouch. Ouch-ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. I finished nearly a minute off my last 5K time two years ago. When I was younger. “Will someone be a dear and go find my walker!” I exclaimed to the race officials. I imagined someone muttering under their breath, “Keep the defibrillator handy for this guy.” Thanks for the confidence, brain! My mother doesn’t pull any punches. If Godzilla does storm our beaches, the mayor will surely deputize her to deal with the situation. And she might. She could talk him to death. She was at the finish line with my wife and daughter. She knew just what to say. “Well, you are getting older, Brian,” were her […]

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