Angels watching over

It’s not my habit to snap pictures with my camera phone while driving. Today, though, on my commute into work I recognized a woman I used to work with. One thing led to another and I snapped a picture.

She’s a pattern maker and five or so years ago we worked together on the Nike basketball line. Her name is Ella and she’s Russian, accent and all. We were talking about our children when she surprised me with her feelings toward her only daughter. “She is devil, that one,” she said. “13 years old and becoming 23. I hate her.”

“Hate her?” I asked. And then I followed it up because she seemed so sincere. “Hate?”

“Yes. I do. I hate her. She is devil child.” It was uncomfortable and made me wonder who in the relationship was really the devil.

What surprised me when I saw the car she drove was her apparent turnaround. Notice the bumper sticker, and the Jesus fish, and the license plate surround, "Angels are watching over me."

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Complex what?

Last week Linda and I attended parent teacher conferences for our daughter Gretchen. This was our first experience with junior high conferences, which were set up production style. I had imagined walking from class to class, mirroring Gretchen’s 7 period schedule and was surprised to find the entire teaching faculty spread around the perimeter of the gymnasium. Set back from each teacher about 10 feet was a line of blue tape on the floor along with a music stand. These were the cheap black metal ones typically found in schools and I had no idea of their role in the conferences.

The idea was for parents to find the teachers they’d like to meet with then wait behind the tape line for a chance to hear about their child. Each teacher’s desk held a sign reading, “Please Observe a 5 Minute Limit.” Gretchen is a 4.0 student so the limit really wasn’t at play in any of our discussions. On the last teacher, though, we waited for fifteen minutes while the mother of a boy labeled a troublemaker patiently shook her head. It was a bit frustrating and I would have left but we saved Gretchen’s favorite teacher for last. Mrs. Frost, I’ll call her, and she teaches ‘Language Arts’ which is a fancy name for reading and writing. Linda and I sat down and the conversation began much like the others, “Gretchen is incredible this and amazing that.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I thought. And then she did.

“The thing that’s so tricky about language arts,” Mrs. Frost continued, “Is that each child is at such a different level. I have to make sure each one understands things like complex sentence structures and independent clauses. This is difficult stuff for most 7th graders.”

I’ve been writing this blog for about 4 months now and having a good time doing it. I get the impression most of you enjoy it too. I’m not, however, completely sure what either a complex sentence structure is nor how to identify one. Kids these days, huh?

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Droid Does

One of my brothers celebrated a birthday yesterday. I thought of calling him several times throughout the day and then, like an idiot, entirely forgot to call him till the following morning. “What’d you get?” I asked him. He’s much younger than me but still old enough to feel the pull of adulthood and told me his birthday was kind of nice just to have over. Then added, “I got that new Droid phone, though. It’s sweet.”

The ad line for this phone is, ‘Droid Does’ suggesting there isn’t much it can’t do. My brother began listing a few of the things the phone does that his past one couldn’t. “I really just got it though. I’m still getting familiar with it but overall it’s really sweet.” And then he mentioned a feature I’m familiar with, “It even has a barcode scanner that lets you find products both in your area and online and compare prices.”

About a year ago a friend was over and was explaining this same feature on the original Google phone. His explanation left out the critical word ‘barcode’ claiming only, “This phone has a scanner built into it. I can just point it at anything and it’ll tell me where to buy it.” This particular friend has a lot of energy and began surveying the room for an item to scan. In an effort to help I offered, “Here’s an apple, can it scan that?”

“No, but it can scan pretty much anything but food,” his voice rising with a hint of frustration.

“How about the piano right there?”

And again, “No.” Then he added just a bit louder, “It’s really more for finding stuff you’d buy,” before beginning to move from room to room looking for something to demonstrate this new feature with. I bought both the apple and the piano and wondered what his scanner actually did as I followed him into the kitchen. There he found one of my daughter’s schoolbooks and flipping it over began scanning the barcode only to get an “item not found” message.

Exasperated he simply packed the phone up and left.

Apparently Droid does what G phone doesn’t

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Donald Trump, I Presume?

“So he calls me up and asks me what to do. So I tell him to lower the price. Just a little though, but enough to let them know you’re serious.”

This was the conversation I observed the other day during lunch. The man having it wore a badge around his neck. And I say ‘man’ because his friend did little more than grunt a few times for the duration of the meal. It was a lecture, really, which he gave loudly and was endured by both me and his friend. The badge hung from a clear plastic band, which I recognized as a key card typical to one of the many tech companies in the area. He was dressed in faded navy sweat pants that stretched tight through the hip and thigh region and gathered at his ankles revealing dingy white sweat socks with stripes. Up top he wore a thick blue and gold rugby shirt beneath a black leather bomber jacket that matched his heavily worn loafers. I wondered if this was intentional but guessed not.

It seemed he rubbed elbows with a large scale developer who had called desperately seeking advice on unloading what the genius before me referred to as, “A few properties he just couldn’t get a read on.” “He’s like that, you know? He and I have been friends a long time and he’s never been able to see the forest for the trees. You know what I mean?” he asked his lunch mate. “So he calls me up and I set him straight,” he continued as he described a condo here and a home there, all suffering from lackluster features and poor locations. “I mean you can’t fix the location, right? That’s not changing no matter what, so I pointed that out and then we moved on to what he could do. You know, I mean, if he wanted to take my advice and actually move anything.”

Normally I spend my lunches reading and will often move to another table if a particular conversation becomes too distracting. But Baby Trump here was too good to pass up. I was hooked.

“I told this developer friend of mine, listen, with a nice coat of paint in the right color, his properties would practically sell themselves,” he continued. “And don’t use the cheap stuff either, I told him. The ladies can see the difference and they’re the ones you gotta sell. Trust me.”

He continued with his lesson for a bit, describing the difference between a good paint and a poor one, but I began to lose interest. Besides, I had what I needed - a coat of paint in the right color, don’t cheap out, something about location, location, location and keep one eye on the ladies. NBC's The Apprentice here I come.

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Brotherly Love

So I was in Costco the other day taking care of a bit of business. The stalls there are enameled grey and stop about 7 or 8 inches from the floor. Next to me was a young kid who was spending his time divided between beating a rhythm out on our shared wall and talking to his younger brother who was playing in the sinks. From what I could tell the younger brother was bored, passing the time by systematically turning on each of the automatic faucets.

It was the older one, though, that confused me by calling out, “Hurry up Danny.” Danny replied that he was hurrying and for his brother to be patient.

“I am hurrying, John. I’ve got to get it right though so just be quiet or I’ll leave.” This was answered by more vigorous wall pounding.

A few more seconds passed and then I noticed a tightly balled up paper towel roll under my door, landing just on my side of the wall between our stalls. A small hand quickly reached under and grabbed it. “Oooh thanks Danny. And it’s a warm one!”

“Told you,” replied Danny.

I have three brothers. I love each of them. I have three brothers-in-law on my side and four on Linda's side. I love each of them. I will never, ever do this for you. Ever.

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Last Laugh?

I’ve never been a big fan of doing things backwards. Sure I procrastinate from time to time and might even be guilty of pure stupidity every once in a while, but I like things in a certain order. You know, the cart before the horse.


Similarly, I’ve never been a fan of Kris Kross the teenage wrap duo from the early 90's popular for wearing their clothing backwards; so you can imagine my surprise when I saw an 80 year old man walking through Costco with his polo shirt on backwards. I was running a few errands the day after Thanksgiving and noticed the old guy being led by the hand through the crowds by an equally elderly woman. Presumably his wife, but what do I know? If the roles were reversed and it was me, stooped and half out of my mind, I like to think Linda would at least mention the shirt thing. “Oh that’s just terrific Christian,” she might say, “You’ve gone and put your shirt on backwards - again!” Or at least, “Hey Bozo, you might want to look in the mirror before we leave.” I like to imagine 40 years from now she’ll at least give me that much.

I wondered if maybe this guy was a complete jerk to his wife through 62 years of marriage and this was her passive aggressive way of paying him back. She might say something like, “Your elevator might not make it past the 2nd floor anymore, Honey, but I’ll be damned if you won’t look like a complete idiot every time we go out in public.”

I really have no idea but as this wizened old couple passed I swear I caught the tiniest of smirks on the old guys face, a sort of last laugh perhaps?

Be good to those you love.

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Airsoft

“Corn. What’s up?” This is how I begin pretty much every conversation I have with my younger brother Graham. He begins the same way with me. Conversations used to begin with “cornhole” which was an abbreviation of “cornholio” and that, somehow, came from the days of Beavis and Butthead mixed with the fact that Graham’s middle name is Thorne. So Thorne became Corn and it’s just stuck.

“Corn. I need a new airsoft gun; something more powerful than the spring-loaded one I own now. I’m looking at either CO2 or Gas powered.”

I’ve been researching airsoft guns lately in preparation for the upcoming holidays where a bunch of friends and I get together with some of the teenagers from my church and spend an hour or so shooting each other in a darkened gymnasium. It’s a nice opportunity to take a bit of aggression out on the punks I attend service with and since Graham is into this sort of thing, I’ve been calling him a lot lately for advice. He and our brother Trevor run an online knife company and I also figured with their connections they might be able to help me out with a deal.


It’s Trevor’s company and though they work together, sitting a few feet from one another all day every day, to an outsider they appear almost as independent contractors and if I’d never visited I would have imagined they worked in completely separate offices. My phone calls with either one tend to go like this, “Well, is Trevor there right now? He is? Well then why don’t you just ask him for me?”

“Just call him,” Graham will say.

“Really?” I’ll ask. “But he’s right there. Like 4 feet away.”

“Yeah, just call him.”

So this is what I’m up against if I’m hoping to score a deal on a new gun. I’ll keep you posted.

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