Family – Page 9 – Nutshellcity.com

2019 Nutshells, Family, Travel

Looking for luck of the Irish … on the road

June 5, 2019 No Comments

I’ve driven some pretty wild roads. Mountain roads where boulders the size of houses look ready to crush you. Roads with snow higher than the car. A road that had a wolf jogging alongside it. You want a bad omen for a road? How about a WOLF trotting next to you! That one screams, “Buddy, you’re going to die and I’ll to be there to eat you.”

But after a week of driving my family around Ireland – mostly along the Wild Atlantic Way on the western coast, where the rocky shore line meets the cold, raging ocean – I’ve found roads that redefine the meaning of “wild.”

Not wild in any traditional sense – the kind of roads where you might plummet off a towering cliff and people stand with mouths agape saying, “Did you see how the smoke spelled, ‘Holy crap!’ right before it exploded?”

2019 Nutshells, Family

Hey mom: A few ground rules for calling at work

May 9, 2019 No Comments

Dear mom,

First off, happy Mother’s Day! Wow, it’s been 46 years and you’re still there for me, continuing to “parent” me and tell me when to put my napkin in my lap or how to properly chew my food. Am I the luckiest son in the world, or what?

Anyway, I wanted to say I’m sorry I got mad at you for calling me this week … at work … in the middle of the day. It’s just that it’s work, and it was the middle of the day, and I recognize that there are emergencies when you need to call me, but I just didn’t feel that a bird flying into your house and perching itself on the fireplace qualified.

Why? Well, for starters, you left the screen door open. That was just a pure invitation to neighborhood wildlife that they had every right to come in and take a look around. Secondly, the bird willingly flew back out, causing no damage, inflicting no violence on your or your cats and generally breaking no laws, aside from trespassing, which most lawyers will tell you is going to be exceedingly hard to prove in court.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

Coming to terms with a daughter’s ear adornment

May 1, 2019 No Comments

She brushed her hair back in a flourish … over her ear. Something glimmered. And sparkled.

Gasp! Are those …

I do notice things, even though I’m just an oblivious male, the type of species that has gone hours before recognizing its own body parts are on fire. Hey! It was easy to miss. There was a basketball game one!

But I had noticed this.

Are those … Are Those … ARE THOSE … EARRINGS!?!

2019 Nutshells, Family, Florida, Running

Liberating running … or a bunch of idiots lost in a swamp?

March 13, 2019 No Comments

“Did you get good grades in college?” my daughter asked. “I don’t mean any offense, but here you are, this accomplished guy. You go to conferences in New York. You win awards. You have a good job. But you did these really dumb things like swam across marshes … in your running shoes … without a phone … without a coach … with a guy who almost drowned! So, I mean …”

Well, that certainly didn’t go as intended.

I had been trying to explain the joy of running. And more importantly, running long distances. How it’s freeing. And fun. And when you run with really adventurous (stupid) people – like I did in college – it becomes an experience you can later tell at the dinner table … where your daughter will question your IQ.

2019 Nutshells, Family, Houses, yards and projects

Kitchen projects and volcanic family interactions

February 6, 2019 No Comments

I think of myself as a mellow guy. Pretty calm and polite. Not a hot-head. Someone who tries to be patient and understanding. And when I see my doctor every year, never once has he questioned my sanity or worried about my mental stability.

Which is why I can’t figure out why, when I’m around family, I absolutely lose my mind and turn into a sputtering volcano of acid and fiery … volcano nuggets? (I don’t know, what do volcanoes spit out?)

But what is it about family that makes relatively mild-mannered, easy-going people crazy? That we turn into monstrous versions of ourselves? That we lose all patience and say things that we will inevitably regret? Like this: “MOM!!! I’m gonna’ take a moment to go outside and spit!”

2019 Nutshells, Family, Parenthood and Children

How to survive a teenage slumber party

January 23, 2019 No Comments

Part of my mission in this column is to help you, the loyal reader, better navigate the tricky twists and turns that is this life we live. So this week I will provide tips on how to survive a teenage slumber party. My daughter, who turned 13 last month, just had one and I learned some very important lessons:
• Invest in a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones. It is the only hope you have of getting sleep.
• Don’t worry about setting a “lights out” rule. In fact, don’t worry about setting any rules. None of them will be followed, and inevitably the whole group will stay up until 3 a.m., eat pizza on the sofa and quite possibly order $1,000 worth of (insert something ridiculous and unnecessary here) on the Internet.

2018 Nutshells, Family, Holidays

How to juggle family and friends during the holidays

December 12, 2018 No Comments

Very often the biggest downside of the holidays is trying to seamlessly fit together countless visits with family and friends so everyone goes away happy. It takes a master planner, a lot of patience, a quantum computer with next-generation calendar software and praying to multiple deities. Even then, your sanity will need to be sacrificed for it to work. Over the years I’ve become something of a pro at it, and I thought I would share my 10-step process for making your holiday season juggling merry:

1. Know that no matter how dire and impossible it might seem, in the end it will all work out and everyone will be happy. Keeping a positive attitude at all times is incredibly important. So is having a well-stocked bar.

2. When family and friends call to tell you their plans, it is wise to actually pay attention. Maybe even take notes. Because just like school, there will be a quiz later. And unlike school, your wife or significant other will not give you partial credit for answers like, “Uh … I think they’ll be here probably sometime this month … or possibly next … but definitely not February.”

2018 Nutshells, Family, Holidays

When Christmas decorating gets dangerous

December 5, 2018 No Comments

It was NOT one of those moments when your life flashes before your eyes. Those cinematic moments when all images and memories dramatically play out in your mind in a fraction of a second. No, there wasn’t time for that. Rather, this was one of those near-death experiences when all you recognize is the sound of your own cursing, the feeling of weightlessness as you desperately try to regain your balance and the knowledge that you will definitely make national news if you expire while carrying a box of Christmas decorations down the stairs. When did decorating for Christmas become so dangerous?!? “I told you to be careful because there was stuff at the bottom of the stairs,” my wife told me, after remarking at how masterfully I saved myself (even if I did wet my pants.) “Yeah, but I thought that meant don’t crush the baby Jesus in the manger or step on some glass ornaments. Next time try, ‘There are lots of boxes and you probably will die if you trip on them.’”

2018 Nutshells, Family, Technology

Is there anything more exciting, or terrifying, than a new computer?

November 28, 2018 No Comments

There are few things more exciting, or more terrifying, than a new computer. Exciting because, think of the possibilities! The old one used to creak along. Just opening a simple document or a Web page could be a long, arduous task. My geriatric machine would emit a loud groan and mutter under its breath, “Seriously! Didn’t we just do that two weeks ago?!?” Documented fact: Today’s cutting-edge computers become slow, antiquated dinosaurs by the time you get them out of the box, and scientists measure computer speed using a highly technical measurement system known as STFPSLUM. It stands for, “Slower Than Frozen Poop Sliding Up a Mountain.” My old machine was pretty high up on the STFPSLUM scale. In fact, it had stopped registering on it. Scientists would actually classify my computer as … a rock. But with no functioning calendar. So, it was time for an upgrade. That was pretty exciting. And when it arrived and I took it out of the box and plugged it in, it was like a breath of fresh air (mixed with some kind of weird, metallic smell that surely took three years off my life, but think of the speed!)

2018 Nutshells, Animals, Family, Holidays

Giving thanks … for the little things

November 21, 2018 No Comments

Thanksgiving. Little known fact: Some historians have argued the holiday was started when the Pilgrims got together to give thanks for their turkey defrosting in time. Their microwave was on the fritz, and there was great concern they wouldn’t be able to pry loose the little bag of frozen giblets. (Boy, do I know that feeling!) But too often we forget it’s not just the big things (health, frozen giblets, employment, Powerball, that our children haven’t been incarcerated for Bitcoin scams) that we need to give thanks for. No, sometimes it’s the seemingly inconsequential things that we often take for granted, and forget deserves our thanks, too. So, this week I’m taking a little time to give thanks for a few things that don’t always register on the big chart, but that I should show gratitude for all the same: • I’m thankful for my dog. And I have to remind myself of that sometimes. Because she sheds more hair than, frankly, she has on her body. Which could only mean that she is collecting other dogs’ hair, bringing it home and scattering it around the house in some kind of weird K-9 ritual. But my daughter has been playing videos of dog owners catching their animals doing pretty naughty things and videotaping it. (Real examples: “Lenny, did you eat the entire sofa down to the springs?” or “Petunia, did you poop in the refrigerator AGAIN?”) Yowza! My dog sniffs too much on walks and it makes me cranky. Whoop-de-doo! […]