Years – Page 14 – Nutshellcity.com

2020 Nutshells, Childhood

That dreaded fear that is parallel parking

February 12, 2020 No Comments

There were lots of things I feared while growing up. Lightning strikes that could make my fillings pop out. Gingivitis-stricken rattle snakes. A giant oak tree branch falling down on my side of the house, trapping me under its gargantuan branches. Or worse: Destroying my prized Nintendo.

There were smaller things that kept me awake at night, too. Just as worrisome, but not quite on the same scale: A jagged bone left in a chicken nugget that might nick a major artery while I swallowed it. A smaller oak tree branch falling and destroying my prized Nintendo. My white polo uniform shirt turning pink after running with the wrong laundry crowd, and then having to wear it to school the next morning. (Wait, that one actually happened!)

But maybe worst of all, or at least right up there with the worst of them (like being bitten by a rattlesnake WHILE enduring a lightning strike!) was this: Passing the parallel parking portion of my driver’s test.

Oh, mercy, mercy me! Talk about a full-on horror story. Sleepless nights. Sweaty palms. Thoughts of fleeing the country for one of those places that loves bicycles.

2020 Nutshells, Houses, yards and projects, Technology

Attack of the electronic zombies

February 6, 2020 No Comments

Maybe it’s that I had just – that very same day! – read an article about how smoke detectors don’t last forever. Every … I don’t know, I didn’t pay close attention … 9 or 10 years you should replace them, it said. Get new ones because they wear out.

“Hmm,” I thought deeply. “I wonder what I should have for lunch?”

And that would have been the end of it … IF THE DANG-BLAST SMOKE DETECTOR HADN’T GONE OFF THAT NIGHT FOR NO APPARENT REASON!!!

No smoke. No fire. No fine powder floating through the air. No, it was as if …

IT WAS READING MY MIND!!!

Do you have another explanation? Some other plausible reason why such a thing could happen? Just mere coincidence? No way! It’s further proof – I have more, people! – that our appliances are conspiring against us. Up to no good.

2020 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older, Parenthood and Children

Does the mirror think I’m old, too?

January 29, 2020 No Comments

They’re not big numbers. Not on their own. As individuals. Leave them by themselves and people would think you were very young. A pup. So cute. Adorable, even!

But combine them as an age – just like that little gremlin of a daughter did to me the other day – and they sound pretty horrible. Angry. Tired and worn out.

I won’t say the two numbers that when put together mark my years on this Earth. They’re kind of painful.

But she did.

We were riding along, making idle chit-chat. Because she’s 14 and most of the time I don’t know what to say to her, I just pick random things that pop into my mind. Things I think a 14-year-old might find fascinating and REALLY cool. So, I said, “Can you believe it’s almost February?”

“Yeah,” she said, with the enthusiasm of a can of corn. “And you know what else? That means it’s almost your birthday.”

If she had just left it there, it would have been one of those “warm your heart moments.” What a sweet angel. She remembered my birthday is coming.

But … she didn’t leave it there.

2020 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

Lessons from a child going away

January 22, 2020 No Comments

The kid is back. After 5 days, a tremendous amount of cell phone data expended, countless hours on a giant bus and all manner of historic sites explored throughout Washington D.C., my 14-year-old daughter has returned from her middle school trip. In one piece. With all the stuff she left with. (How’d that happen?) Without getting home sick or demanding we come get her. And without getting left behind at a monument when she was supposed to be on a bus, but instead went looking for a pretzel. (How’d that NOT happen?)

To think just a couple weeks ago, my wife and I were worrying about getting her ready, getting her off and then what we would do with our time once she was gone. What it would feel like to be empty-nesters for a week, and whether it would take a psychological toll on us to have our only daughter go away.

Turns out it wasn’t that difficult, or different. There weren’t as many drinking glasses and candy wrappers left all over the house, and I never had to scream, “You had to walk farther to put that wrapper over there than if you just put it in the garbage!!!”

Boy, that was nice.

2020 Nutshells, Family

Coming to terms with some lousy, no-good tennis skills

January 15, 2020 No Comments

What a horrible tennis lesson!

Hold on … let me re-phrase that. Because the guy who gave me the lesson will probably read this and think: “Wait, what?!? Hold on … WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?!? I’m gonna’ find that guy!”

See? My coach isn’t the problem. Let me state that very loud and clear so he doesn’t come beat me up. He shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. HE is innocent. I am not. I’m guilty. Guilty of being a terrible tennis player or tennis learner. And for that reason, it was a horrible tennis lesson.

In my defense, I’ve never played tennis before. My daughter does. She takes lessons and plays on a team and knows how to keep score. I can basically sit there and watch a match and say technical and insightful things like: “Hey! It went over the net. That’s a touchdown, right?” or “Serve that ball good!”

My daughter does not allow me to come to her matches anymore.

2020 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children, Travel

Planning for the empty-nest middle school trip

January 8, 2020 No Comments

So, let’s see. She has: Gloves. Scarf. Raincoat. Snacks. Toothbrush. Spare toothbrush, for when the first one falls in the toilet. More snacks. Compass. Notecard reminders to floss. Notecard reminders to set alarm clock. Notecard reminders to wake up for alarm clock. Notecard reminders to get on the bus. More snacks.

There’s a lot that goes into prepping for a week-long middle school trip to Washington D.C. That’s what my house has been undertaking for the past week or so: Setting up my 14-year-old daughter for a big bus trip to the nation’s capital.

There she will journey to some of our country’s most historic sites and museums: the White House, Mt. Vernon, the National Archives for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, a side trip to Philadelphia for Independence Hall and, of course, the Medieval Times restaurant and jousting show.

If that doesn’t scream, “America!” I don’t know what does.

2020 Nutshells, Animals, Holidays

The ailing kitty and the happy new year

January 1, 2020 No Comments

Because, why not? I mean, what better way to start the New Year than dealing with a cat who not only has a urinary tract infection, but also hyperthyroidism. And for at least the near future will need two different pills administered with her food. A cat who is already so picky about eating. To say that she looks disdainfully at food she doesn’t like would be an insult to the word “disdain.” An old cat, set in her ways. Stubbornness is hard-wired into her DNA.

The cat – Tea Grass – is up there in years already, and she had started losing weight. Pretty dramatically. Suddenly skin and bones. We thought she was just picky. Because she is picky. The kind of picky that says, “Hey, I’ll sooner starve to death than eat this slop you’re serving.”

And she’s not even our cat.

Only, I need to get past that. She IS our cat. Our adopted cat who is probably 15 or 16 years old, and with her fella’, Sunburst, was in need of a home when her owner passed away. We just happened to have a front porch perfect for them. And when I said, “sure, they can take up residence there,” I pictured going out each morning and pouring some food in a bowl and calling it a day. “Porch cats are fed,” I would proclaim to the world. “Normal living may resume with no impediments to enjoyment, regular routines or mental sanity. Hooray!”

Ah, that would be the life.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Holidays

Arrival of the holiday puzzle dork

December 24, 2019 No Comments

Is this who I am now? A holiday puzzle master? Or puzzle dork? And an injured, hobbled, doubled-over one at that.

The things we find ourselves doing over the holidays …

I’m not normally a puzzle kind of guy. But it had been raining. My daughter was getting over being sick. We were all cooped up in the house a couple days before Christmas, watching so much television that I could literally feel my brain cells snapping like popcorn.

“We need to play a game,” I finally said.

But there are only so many times that you can be beaten by a 13-year-old kid before you either resort to bourbon or throw in the towel.

So my wife offered a suggestion in her chipper way: “How about a puzzle?!?”

And that was when it all started to spiral out of control. When I was swallowed deep, down into the belly of the beast. Consumed by a monster. Overtaken and addicted to the thrill of fitting all those oddly-shaped bits of cardboard together.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older, Health, Holidays, Parenthood and Children

Little Christmas traditions, even through BLANGITY sickness

December 18, 2019 No Comments

She really should have been in bed. After spending the day throwing up in dramatic fashion – you know, like all over the car after getting picked up early from school – she should have been tucked under the covers. Resting. Trying to sleep.

“I threw up nine times today, dad,” she told me at one point. Whether it was a cry for sympathy or a badge of honor, I wasn’t quite sure.

But I did know she needed to be in bed, and I had told her this about 94 times that evening. In about 94 different ways, all escalating in seriousness and frustration and meanness. “GO … TO … BED, BLINGITY-BLANGIN’-BLANGIT!”

And on the 94th try, I thought I had done it. She trudged off to her room.

2019 Nutshells, Holidays

The over-the-top Christmas gift-giving guide

December 11, 2019 No Comments

If you’re like me, you’re terrified by the calendar. Aware that we are already deep into December, but have few, if any, holiday gifts for people under the tree. Forget the tree! You don’t even have IDEAS, and time is running short. Worse still, all the Christmas gift-giving lists you read have nothing but practical, realistic and affordable gifts that lack the wow factor that you’re really gunning for. I hear you.

Christmas should be about what’s most important: Impressing family and friends with trendy presents that scream, “I’m hip and you’re not!” You know, the Christmas spirit. So, I’m here to offer you my 2019 “I’m-Hipper-Than-You” Christmas Gift Guide with the best things to buy:

• Anything with the word “Smart” in front of it. You can’t go wrong here. Just get on Amazon, type it in the search window and buy everything that comes up. Smart watches. Smart home devices. Smart fitness gear. Smart kitchen gadgets.