Family – Page 7 – Nutshellcity.com

2020 Nutshells, Coronavirus, Family, Travel

The over-the-top packing expedition

June 28, 2020 No Comments

Sometimes, the packing is the real expedition. Forget the trip. The trip isn’t the issue. The trip isn’t even the adventure. In fact, the trip is the vacation you need just because of all the packing and the planning and the getting it to fit in the car.

Especially in a pandemic. When, after several months of social distancing in your house – venturing out only to buy groceries and see if the sky is still blue – you decide to take the family away from home. To a rented house in the North Carolina mountains. Easy to get to. You can take everything you need. You know the area. And you can spend all your time socially-distanced on trails and out-of-the-way places where hopefully no coronavirus will show its face … because of bears.

But … sometimes, the packing is the real expedition. Sometimes, getting ready is so exhausting that you need an extra day just to recover from it all. Before you can go out and try to enjoy yourself. You need that time to recover from the planning. The loading. The fear that it would burst your car at the seams. Carrying it all in.

All so you can do it again a few days later … after you’ve used maybe 2 percent of everything you brought.

But I’m a planner. A worrier. A planning worrier. I’m so obsessive-compulsive that I keep detailed lists in order to manage my proliferation of detailed lists. That was certainly the case for this short, four-night trip designed to limit grocery store jaunts or anything that would take us out of the comfortable wilds and into the unknowns of civilization.

To achieve this feat was relatively easy. All I had to do was pack our entire house, plus our dog, into the back of our Toyota RAV4.

2020 Nutshells, Animals, Family

The dog-walk kitty shuffle

June 17, 2020 No Comments

“DON’T … EAT … THE … KITTY!”

I don’t know if you have ever had to utter these words. If you have, then you know how strange it sounds coming out of your mouth. Like you’re in the midst of some Grimms’ Fairy Tale. Having to warn about witches in candy houses or the dangers of poison apples or other gruesome dangers.

Like … EATING … THE … KITTY!

Because that would be bad.

But there I was. Trying to explain it to a dog. A dog who was maybe 1/3 of my weight. So, fairly big bugger. But looking at me, with her soft brown eyes, actually paying attention, she seemed to be taking it in. Trying to understand. “So … let me get this straight: Eating kitty … bad?”

Yes! Eating kitty bad!

It was my brother’s dog. He calls her Ella. I call her “Meat Chunk.” She is what you would get if a bored scientist crossed a dog with a bag of concrete.

2020 Nutshells, Coronavirus, Family, Parenthood and Children

And then I guess we’re off to high school …

May 13, 2020 No Comments

Hold on! Let’s just hold on one minute!

Because I need to get this straight. I need to consult the calendar. I’m not sure it has totally sunk down into the recesses of my spongy brain, where actual working cells still live and breathe. I don’t think – as many times as my wife has told me … and she has told me a lot! – this fact has completely registered with me.

So, hold on … let’s work this out: We’re somewhere in the middle of May … haven’t fully figured out when, but somewhere. May is, if memory serves, traditionally the end of the school year. My daughter’s middle school has said this last week was it for new assignments in their online-learning environment. And this next week, which is when exams would have been if not canceled, is kind of the last week. At least, I think … scratching my chin … if I heard all this correctly.

Anyway, forget the details and complex calendar-ing. My point is this: The end of my daughter’s eighth grade year is upon us.

Which really means: The end of her middle school CAREER is just days away.

2020 Nutshells, Childhood, Coronavirus, Family, Parenthood and Children

Finding some freedom in a socially-distanced kayak excursion

April 29, 2020 No Comments

I knew I made a mistake when I sent the text.

Ever do that? Write a text or email, hit send and then think to yourself, “Wait a minute! What the heck did I just unleash!?!”

It was to my brother. The text read: “So what are you all doing this weekend? Amelie is wondering if a canoe expedition might be possible.”

The reply was immediate: “It is. Would you be rockin’ The Sea Eagle or did you grab an aluminum canoe?”

Mind you, I don’t have any flotation devices. “The Sea Eagle” is his inflatable kayak that is pretty easy to haul around, sturdy and can be blown up on short notice. But in my brother’s parlance, the name is less a brand or product, and more like Mel Gibson yelling, “FREEDOM!” in “Braveheart.” He talks about “The Sea Eagle” like it’s another family member – like they hangout and share a beer while discussing politics and manly things; like they peered into each other’s souls and formed a union.

My daughter had been asking about doing this for a while. Trying to get us all together. Trying to get me to buy a canoe. Trying to get us to go on one of these expeditions that my brother cooks up with his 6-year-old son, Striker. She’s gone on a couple as they traipse through the woods looking for old, forgotten railroad lines or “artifacts” along the Intracoastal that could be ancient Native American pottery, or maybe petrified poop. It’s kind of a hit-or-miss thing.

2020 Nutshells, Family, Getting old ... er ... older, In the News

When the ‘angries’ come to roost

March 12, 2020 No Comments

Don’t you round up my age, mama!

Boy, that makes me angry. And I was already a bit perturbed.

I had just canceled a trip to New York for a conference over concerns about the coronavirus.

I was reporting this to my mother, who thought it was for the best. For once in my life, I agreed with her … until she said something I wasn’t ready for: “You know, Brian, you’re 50 now, and they’re saying older people are at higher risk.”

Wait a minute … WHAT did you just say?!?

Fifty!

FIF-ty!

FIF-@%$&#-TY!!!

Hold on for just 47 seconds, because … I AM NOT 50. I am 47 years of age. Just turned 47. A whipper-snapper, when measured against the age of the galaxies. If you carbon date me – I dare you to try … I fight like a 17-year-old! – I wouldn’t even register. Well, maybe back to caveman days, but still pretty darn young.

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.

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.