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thinking ahead

Hello to the week’s-end.  At the sawmill we called this week “work-week sixteen.”  Well good riddance to work-week sixteen, says I.  Bring on work-week seventeen; I take all comers.

Long-time readers may recall that the sawmill gives us worker-bees an extended piece of paid vacation every so often.  The suits call this a “sabbatical” and it amounts to a three month paid leave, during which you’re free to do what you want.  I had my first sabbatical a few years ago, and think our family did a great job maximizing my time away from work.  In fact, the image accompanying today’s post is a screen-capture of the spreadsheet I used way back then to map and budget our sabbatical goings-on.

The other day at work I spent some time thinking way ahead.  It’s something I do every once in a while.  Try and think five or so years into the future, figure out what major things will happen.  It’s my way of trying to anticipate, any maybe even make plans around, large milestones I know I’ll face way down the road.  Normally, I limit this kind of crystal ball stuff to work or financial subjects… for instance, the project I’m working on now at the sawmill will end in a couple years.  I’ve spent time considering what I’ll do then, and what, if anything, I should be doing now to position myself correctly.  Or maybe I’ll re-run a retirement-readiness check on my investments… something boring and grown-up like that.

Maybe it’s the coming baby, but this time around I also started day-dreaming about far-off family happenings.  Once on the subject my mind turned to thoughts of a second sabbatical.  After some quick (OK not so quick) mental math, I figured our kids will be eight and four when this magical time rolls around again. Eight and four; holy crap.  Keaton twice as old as she is now and in 3rd grade.  Baby #2 as old as Keaton is now and about to start preschool.  A smile came to my face: This could be a magical time for a sabbatical.

One could argue, however, that any time when you’re paid to stay away from work for months on a stretch is “magical.”  Yeah, true.  But I’m talking about the relative ages of the kids.  Having a four year old now I understand what things she’s capable of enjoying, so I have a point of reference I can use in dreaming up travel or activities. I can see our family tromping around the world, stopping in all manner of tropical or exotic locales.

Man, I think I’ll start a new spreadsheet right now.  Never too early to think ahead.

Goodnight.

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the great name debate (or, is it kosher?)

Hey there internet. On a streak this week. Don’t mind the fact that I wrote Monday-through-Wednesday all on Sunday night. In fact, the whole mass-write-then-split thing is becoming a trend for me.

Did you know Sharaun and I are having a “disagreement” about what to name our coming son? Yeah well, we are. Thankfully, no blood has been spilled; no armies rallied; no battle-lines drawn; but there the situation might be best described as a stalemate… maybe even an impasse. You see, Sharaun has her heart set on a name and I, I’m not fully won-over. With “Keaton” we both clicked, but this time we’re having a hard time finding some common-ground.

It’s not that I hate the name she’s smitten with, not at all. In fact, I rather like it. But… for what some may consider “stupid” or “silly” reasons I’m not entirely convinced it’s the right name for our boy. Plus, there are several other names I really like which don’t present me with the same “concerns.” Not surprisingly, Sharaun dismisses those concerns as me being “retarded.” Could be true folks, I’ve had my doubts before…

So what’s the name? And why am I yet to be sold?

Cohen.

She absolutely loves the name Cohen. She has all these crazy criteria the name must satisfy. It can’t be the name of anyone she’s known in life who’s left her with a negative impression (a teacher by trade, there are several names forever stricken because of this one); it can’t be the name of any of our friends’ (although there seems to be some sort of distance qualifier) kids; it can’t be anything “normal,” “boring,” or overly-popular; it needs to sound good with both our last name and used together with “Keaton.” And, finally, to be perfect it should actually be a surname re-purposed as a first-name. Cohen meets or exceeds all these bars. But what’s “wrong” with Cohen.

Nothing. Except… we’re not Jewish. Sorry… let me see if I can explain.

It all started when I Google’d the name Cohen. That led me to a spirited thread in an online forum on a baby-names website. In that thread some non-Jewish person was asking about using the traditionally Jewish surname “Cohen” as a first name for their child. A couple responses caught my eye:

I’m Jewish and I find the name Cohen/Kohen as a first name to be highly disrespectful to the Jewish heritage and in bad taste.

A Kohen is is a Jewish priest who is a direct descendant of Aaron from the bible; a very important part of the Jewish religion with a range of responsibilities and restrictions and the surname comes from their title. It has never been a first name such as Sara or David and should not be put in the same category.

Unfortunately it is NOT just a name. I realise that you don’t think it’s a big deal which is presumably because you don’t understand the profound importance that this title has for Jews.

Whoa.

Now look, I realize that internet message boards are not exactly representative of majority opinion (in fact, it’s probably the opposite…). Sharaun is also quick to point out that the internet is “full of retards,” and that I shouldn’t care a whit about what some crotchety Jew thinks of the name. (Man, Sharaun really likes to denigrate the mentally challenged.) Maybe she’s right. Maybe I’m being silly by letting that one comment in that one thread bother me.

So I did some more research, and found more interesting commentary. I also asked a few friends, a subset of whom replied simply, “Isn’t that a Jewish name?” None of this helped me take a firm stance one way or the other, however.

So friends, help me. Am I being silly? Should I just get over this whole Jewish thing? I do like the name. Let me also state that I have no aversion to a kid with a Jewish name, or a Hindu name, or even a kid named “Mullah” for that matter… it’s the whole “offensive, ignorant, and insensitive” bit that bugs me. Should it?

Goodnight.

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awww dang…

When’s the new iPhone come out again?

Dropped this on the ground from pocket height this past weekend.  The thing is still 100% functional so I guess I’m going to use it like this until Jobs and crew release some new hardware.  It’s a little rough on the fingertips but I tried to get rid of any loose shards by rubbing it on the carpet.  How the “touch” part still works is a mystery to me.

Goodnight.

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man’s men

Wrote this entire thing Sunday night along with the thing you might have read yesterday. I know already it’s going to be one of those weeks and I might not have a ton of evening time to write. I figure I should take advantage while the wheels are turning.

This year for Easter some friends of ours from church invited us to come eat with them at their folks’ place. Or, rather, their folks invited us to come eat at their place – one or the other. Their place is what we call “up the hill” around here; since we’re right at the feet of the foothills anything east qualifies. Easter Sunday was rainy, wet, windy when we set off up into the foothills following behind as neither of us had been there before. Half an hour or so later we wended our way around a few final wooded turns and climbed a steep driveway to stop in front of their place.

Oh man their place.

I was immediately transported back to my childhood. When we lived in Southern California my grandparents lived about an hour away on top of a mountain in a log home. No joke. A straight-up log cabin built from stacked timbers right out of a Lincoln Logs set. I used to love going to my grandparents’ place. It was quite literally “on top of a mountain,” and the inside was right out of a hunting lodge. Logs for walls, broad-mantled fireplaces made of rough-hewn rock and mortar, bearskin rugs, leather furniture, a poker table, and taxidermied animals at every turn. Looking back on it now, being a married homeowner myself, I can’t imagine what husband would have a wife accommodating enough to let him deck out a place with such testosterone. My grandfather, though, was a man’s man (for as much as I got to know him in my youth). A scholar, a hunter, a drinker, and an avid outdoorsman. He had that place appointed just how you’d imagine. Anyway, all this and more went through my head before I’d even stepped out of the car, just looking at their place.

Their place.

Fashioned of logs thicker and lighter in color than those that comprised my grandparent’s place, it was similar enough from the outside to evoke memories. Stepping inside, however, sealed the deal. Three mounted antelopes, what looked to be a bobcat, two birds in still flight hanging from strings, and in the corner a massive detailed installation featuring two brown bears locked in a frozen fight over a deer carcass. The rugs, the furniture, the old-fashioned knick-knacks attached to the walls (they had farm tools, my grandfather had gold pans) – it was like stepping into a facsimile of their place. No, it wasn’t a perfect match; this place had more of a woman’s touch evident in the decor while my grandparents’ place, at least in my memory, was all man.

The inhabitants hearkened too… our friends, her dad, he reminded me of my own grandfather in some way. A man’s man for sure; felled every piece of game that now decorates his homestead. Maybe not anywhere near as outspoken or hedonistic (on some counts, I suppose) as my grandfather, and certainly more God-fearing than he – yet still there were certain similarities. The thing that cinched it, though, for me… was this past Sunday morning at church. One full week after we’d been over for Easter dinner and this man walks up to me in church, shakes my hand firmly, and says, “David; I have to apologize to you for that dry chicken I served last week. I left it on the grill too long.” I chuckled, a real laugh, and replied, “Aww don’t worry about it. I stuck to the drumsticks and they were actually fine.” “Yeah, well,” he went on, “I’m awful sorry it was so dry. I apologize.”

Only a real man’s man takes his barbecuing so seriously that he’d seek another man out in church a week later and make it a point to offer a heartfelt and truly ashamed-sounding apology for the dry chicken.

Goodnight.

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canadian love affair

A cold and rainy Sunday spent indoors playing with Keaton while Sharaun nursed another pregnancy migraine.  Saturday I finally got the bike out and did the first real ride since Spring started, clocking in a chilly seventeen miles around town – I love the trail system here.  A good weekend, overall.

In the late 80s my family packed up and moved from Southern California to Central Florida.  At the the time Florida seemed to me to be about as far removed from California as was possible (I guess I wasn’t entirely wrong, after all).  I had just finished the fifth-grade when we left and would spend most of that summer before my first year of middle school living in a condominium on the beach while my folks looked for a new house to move our family into.  The condo one of many in a large multi-floor building which was laid-out similar to an apartment complex.  It was literally right on the beach and had a large shared pool.  My brother and I spent every waking moment in the water, going back and forth between the beach and the pool from sun-up to sun-down seven days a week.  Neither of us knew a single soul in Florida, and so that summer we were each other’s best friend.

I suspect if one was born inside Disneyland and lived his whole childhood there that even such a wonderful and seemingly ceaselessly fun place would eventually become boring.  This weakness of human nature is what found my brother and I, even in the midst of our ocean-side paradise, looking for “something to do.”  We’d jump from the first floor landing into the grass; we’d use the elevator as a mechanical plaything; and we’d run around ringing doorbells and ditching.  That last one was one of our more enjoyed time-killers.  We’d have to each be at the door when the bell was rung, and then we’d both hightail it down to the elevator and try and get away before anyone could catch us.  It quickly became a close third to the pool and beach in terms of activities from which we derived enjoyment.

Around the time we started playing our regular games of ding-dong-ditch, we also began noticing a couple new kids around the complex.  I myself on the cusp of that particular brand of sixth-grade manhood was quick to notice that they were both females, and neither too hard on the eyes.  I judged them both a little older than me.  We quickly learned that their condo was near dead-above us on the floor above ours.  Some evenings we’d see them out on their porch hanging their feet through the railing and talking to each other.  We sit below on ours and listen, watching their legs swing in time.  They spoke some foreign language and laughed a lot.  Oh, and they knew we were down there listening, too. Once we realized our cover was blown we went for broke.

The girls’ condo became our favorite doorbell-ditching target.  We’d hit it at least once a day, maybe more.  We almost got caught several times and the girls were definitely on to us.  We’d see them around the pool and down at the beach and they’d smile and point and laugh.  We’d pretend not to notice but, at least for me (maybe not my younger, female-indifferent, brother), it was all some terribly exciting one-upped game of chase-around-the-playground.  After a while we became truly friendly, hanging out together as  a group of four.  They were from Canada and spoke French primary but both had excellent English.  Our folks met their folks (they were cousins) and our families struck up a real friendship, even joining each other for dinner at times.  When we finally found a house and their vacation’s-end saw them headed back north we exchanged addresses and promised to write.

And write I did.  Except… the passing time and my sixth-grade hormones made seemed to warp my memories.  I remembered our relationship in some 60%/40% mix of fantasy and reality, and wrote letters that were embarrassingly hot and heavy.  I’d send Penthouse Forum -esque missives detailing the, ahem, things we would do when we saw each other again. I don’t think I ever got one response back during my campaign of written sexual assault, and I can only remember writing three or so letters to begin with.  Then, maybe two years later my dad told me that our Canuck friends were going to be back in town, in the very same condo, and they’d invited us over for dinner.  Now a few years younger, but not a whit more experienced, I was embarrassed to death at the thought of facing the girl.

Turns out the French in the Canadians extends beyond language alone, as one of the dinner table topics were the torrid letters I’d sent years earlier.  The adults seemed to get a great laugh out of it all – while I was able to brush it off surprisingly well considering.

I can’t remember ever seeing her again.

Goodnight.

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let’s hoist one

Hey Friday, good to see you again… feels like a long time.  Let’s hoist a drink to putting a point at the end of a fine week.

Again my days, each one, were overripe; swollen with work and not-work, stretching and bulging and going soft in spots.  In the end, though, things were good.  Work was rewarding in a way it seldom is, with several pieces of outright praise and formal acknowledgment; the kind of stuff that can keep a worker motivated for half a year or so (not to mention the kind of stuff that can give a worker a God complex and therefore needs to be basked-in cautiously).  Outside-work was evenings filled with activity… not a one left wanting for something to do (also something that can be a blessing and a curse).  Anyway, I expect the whole thing will lead to an exhausted collapse of a Friday.

Wednesday night Sharaun and I hit up the Black Eyed Peas show she won tickets to over the weekend.  While they’re not my favorite act by any stretch, I can dig a few of their more melodic dancey tracks and have enjoyed seeing them live a couple times before.  In fact, the last time we saw the Black Eyed Peas Sharaun was pregnant with Keaton.  We joked that both of our kids will have “seen” the Black Eyed Peas in utero.  The show was OK but the free radio tickets were in the nosebleeds and the sound was sort of echoey and bass-heavy by the time it bounced its way up to our ears.  Plus the couple sitting directly in front of us had brought their kids, a ten year old and maybe a five year old, both little girls.  Seeing the little one out so late covering her ears and looking all mopey and bored while her mom bounced around ignoring her made me sad.

Goodnight.

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an orange afterglow

Work continues to press close, choking out most of the day and leaving an orange afterglow around my mind well into the evenings.

Today at work I decided to limit the iPod’s shuffle to all Velvet Underground. Sometimes, the alternate fey and noisy qualities of their “heroin rock” is just what the doctor ordered. As I indulged I remembered back to my first experience with the Underground. I imagine I was introduced to them in much the same way that most folks my age were – by picking up the soundtrack to the 1991 biographical movie about The Doors. Remember the scene where Morrison meets Warhol at the party? The song “Heroin” is playing in the background and, at the time, it was an odd a piece of music as I’d ever heard. I can remember it playing a large role in my pre-drugs teenage romanticizing of drug use. The song seemed to flaunt the fact that it was made to hear while one was wasted… and I felt like I was missing out. Anyway… it’s more than drug music, and it was a good backdrop to my hectic day.

Tonight after putting Keaton to bed she called out from her bedroom, “Mom, when I get older and I’m a mom, what will you be?” Sharaun chuckled and answered, “When you’re a mom I’ll be a grandmother. I’ll be your babies’ grandmother.” “Oh,” she replied thoughtfully, “Then I’ll have to cook food!” Sometimes I wonder what thoughts spur these kind of questions. She must really be laying in there thinking about the things that’ll happen to her when she grows up. Earlier that night she told me that her friend Jake was her “best friend” because when she grows up she’s “going to marry him.” I can remember being a kid and looking at adulthood as something so foreign; purely incomprehensible from my then standpoint, like trying to imagine what it’s like to be dead or a monkey or a woman. It must be super abstract to a four year old.

The baby growing in Sharaun’s stomach is a super active one. She says he’s moving and turning and punching and kicking and doing all sorts of comfort-impairing things inside her all the time. Keaton has grown quite attached to her swollen belly, kissing it and resting her hand on it and even talking into it to her coming baby brother. Sharaun and her have “decided” on a name they like and have adopted using it even in utero. I, on the other hand, am yet to be 100% convinced of the viability of the name and thus am the sole detractor amongst the family. This puts me in the “stubborn” category as far as Sharaun is concerned… but I’m not on the same wavelength this time around. “Keaton” was a slam-dunk, and I’m kind of hoping for repeat in finding another name we both immediately gravitate to. We’ll see.

Goodnight.