Category: family

Mercy rhyme

Bethany, the sweetest and most vivacious of Archer’s many sweet, vivacious preschool teachers, was in a terrible car accident near Salt Lake City over the holidays and has been in the hospital for months, recovering slowly but steadily. I’m happy to report that she’s no longer in intensive care, where she spent a very long time; but the road ahead for her is still, alas, a long one.

We are sending our love in the direction of Utah, hoping that the rest of her recovery will be speedy and complete. To help focus our love beams on their intended target, we also recently sent in the direction of Utah a love-beam receiver — in the form of a box of goodies and a card “from Archer” with the following poem.

We love and miss our friend Bethany
So we wrote this poem for Bethany
We said, “Let us send something to Bethany
That will bring a big smile to Bethany.”

A poem’s what we chose to send Bethany
But at once we ran into a Bethany
Problem: no words rhyme with Bethany
Except for her own name (“Bethany”)

It’s easy to come close to “Bethany”
With near-rhymes like aborigine
And names such as Anthony, Stephanie
But these do not bear too much scrutiny

So come back to us soon, please, Bethany
For as much fun as it is to rhyme “Bethany”
It’s much better to say, “Hello Bethany”
In person to our dear friend Bethany.

Let’s Go

In 2001, when we learned that Andrea was pregnant with our first child, among my first reactions — not my first one, mind you, not my second one, not even my third or fourth (I’m not that hopeless), but among the first — was, “At last, in a few years I’ll finally have someone to play Go with!”

Go (also called wei-qi and baduk) is a two-player board game along the same lines, distantly, as Chess, but more ancient and more interesting. It’s huge all across Asia but virtually unknown here — possibly because, like jazz, it’s too abstract for most Americans. You may have glimpsed the game in movies about mathematicians: Pi and A Beautiful Mind. Mathematicians, of course, are better equipped than anyone to reason about and enjoy abstractions.

The appeal of Go lies in the dichotomy between the extreme simplicity of its rules and the unbelievably rich complexity of the gameplay to which they give rise. Its stark aesthetics are striking too: the ideal Go board is a thick block of beautiful blonde wood, its playing surface a grid of thin black lines (laid down with the edge of a katana dipped in ink!), and the playing pieces contrasting circular “stones” of black slate and white seashell that jostle each other as they make intricate patterns on the Go board.

I first encountered Go when I worked on the Andrew Project at the Information Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University in the late 1980’s. A handful of staff members were devoted players and often played at lunch in the ITC lounge.

As simple as the rules of Go are, I could barely follow the games that I watched at the ITC. This is typical for newcomers to Go and demonstrates one of the really interesting things about the game: from the rules come patterns of play; from those patterns come meta-patterns; and from those, meta-meta-patterns. Two experienced players of comparable skill can wordlessly agree to disregard entire areas of the board by virtue of recognizing ahead of time what would happen if they did play there.

This was perplexing to me at the time. Watching the skilled players at the ITC, I was like a child who had just mastered the alphabet, trying to use it to understand grammar.

Eventually I played a few real games and quickly started to get the hang of it. As I did, I could feel my brain changing. I had played chess before; this was different. It felt like gameplay stripped to its bare essence. The pieces weren’t anthropomorphized as in chess (“kings,” “bishops,” etc.), there was no need of dice to insert an element of randomness as in backgammon. Every point on the grid was the same, every playing piece was the same. It was all about patterns and nothing but. Insofar as pattern recognition is the essence of human intelligence, playing Go felt like setting aside all the unimportant stuff in my brain and exercising just the good bits.

I played Go just a few times at the ITC, mostly because my skill level matched so poorly with that of the other players there. But I was hooked, so for years I tried to interest friends and family in Go, with extremely limited success. I played a few games against faceless strangers via Internet “Go servers” and the occasional game against the computer, but they just weren’t the same — in large part because the appeal of the physical board and stones were missing.

So when we learned we were going to have a baby, I remembered having once read that in Asia, families teach their children Go from around age 5 (with supposed benefits to their overall intelligence) and figured that, when the time came — sooner rather than later — I would teach Jonah and hopefully hook him the way I got hooked. If I can’t find a good Go opponent, I can damn well make one! And this week, that’s just what I did. At age almost-5, Jonah’s mind shows unmistakable signs of having an analytical bent, perfect for Go. I used the “Capturing Game” teaching strategy. He and I played three games in a row of “Capture,” spending far longer than I expected his attention span to last. It was fantastic — the intellectual enjoyment of Go together with paternal pride at Jonah’s burgeoning brainpower, wrapped up in the serene happiness of spending quality time with my son.

My plan is working…

Prescription from the happy hippie family

As a fundraising gimmick, Jonah’s preschool sells bricks that you can have inscribed with a brief sentiment, your family’s name, etc., and that are then set into the pavement in front of the school. Like good soldiers we bought a brick a couple of weeks ago with the names of both kids (Archer will be attending this preschool in the fall), but as the deadline for buying bricks drew near, we realized, why not be great soldiers and buy an additional brick?

Having dispensed with our need for familial self-memorialization (say that ten times fast!) we were free to consider witty or inspirational inscriptions. I liked Andrea’s first suggestion: “SMILE,” which had the virtues of extreme simplicity and near-infallibility (i.e., it would make people smile). She liked my suggestion that we use our family motto, “Always do everything” (Latin: Semper fac omnia — thanks, Vicky). We also considered the phrase, “Know the what / Understand the why,” which popped into my head the other day as a kind of update of Benjamin Franklin’s saying, “What signifies knowing the names if you know not the nature of things?”

In the end we chose “Make someone smile” as a more broadly prescriptive variant of Andrea’s original idea — it should make the reader smile and make the reader make someone else smile too.

To Andrea

A love poem for my wife, in Shakespearean sonnet form.

An anniversary comes once a year
But we prefer to celebrate our love
More often than those other days appear
It’s menseversaries that I speak of

One menseversary each year bestrides
A day already all about sweethearts
It’s Valentine’s and monthly fête besides
And so we need a name that has both parts

So: “Valentersary”? No, that’s no good
For where’s the “mense” in that made-up word?
And “mensevalentine,” it’s understood
Omits the “versary,” which must be heard

But “mensevalentersariney” has
Precision and colloquial pizzazz

OK, so it’s long on cleverness and short on romance. But she knew what she was getting into when she married me.

Spinoff the old block

For the record, we definitely did not have Star Trek: Enterprise on the brain when we named our son Archer.


Captain Archer,
not the same as…

Captain Archer


Hershey bar(f)

[Continuing an unintended run of anecdotes from the 90’s.]

In the spring of 1992, Alex the dog (who was then just four years old) and I were newly transplanted to California, where I’d moved for my first real job in the private-sector, writing software at an e-mail startup called Z-Code. Andrea had not yet followed us from Pittsburgh. To help us get settled, Z-Code’s founder, Dan, let me and Alex live with him for a couple of months.

One afternoon I came home to find the shredded remains of a Hershey’s “Big Block” chocolate bar wrapper on the floor. It had been on a table and Alex had obviously reached up and devoured it.

I knew that chocolate is poison to dogs. I grabbed the Yellow Pages and looked up the local veterinary emergency number. They told me that I needed to induce vomiting. To do so, I needed a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a plastic syringe to squirt the stuff into Alex’s mouth a bit at a time.

A big drug store was three long blocks away. I ran. The day was quite hot, and by the time I got back to Dan’s house, panting, gasping, and sweating, I was ready to vomit.

There was Alex, looking perfectly happy, completely unsuspecting of what was about to happen to her. I took her onto the back deck with the peroxide and the syringe, sat her down, and squirted some into her mouth. She obviously hated it. When I came near her for another squirt she tried to slink away and I had to grab her in a headlock. Then again. And again. She seemed no nearer vomiting (or dying from chocolate, for that matter), but she was increasingly unhappy about the situation. For my part, I was completely miserable: torturing my sweet pup under the blazing sun, already wiped out from my dash to and from the store, sweat pouring off me, cursing because Alex won’t stay put. I took a break from feeding peroxide to Alex and we retreated to opposite corners like prize fighters. I waited for any signs of imminent vomiting but there were none, so I picked up the syringe again and resumed.

Twenty long, hot minutes later Alex’s face finally began screwing up in the familiar grimace that signals an upcoming barf — but she was still not quite there yet. I didn’t have the heart to keep pouring that stuff down her throat — I hadn’t for a long time by this point — but I forced myself to continue on the purely intellectual knowledge that responsible dog ownership required me to. (Any emotional sense of alarm I initially felt was long gone.)

Finally Alex backed away from me; her sides heaved a few times; she pointed her mouth at the ground; and out it came. Not much, and I saw no sign of chocolate in it, but I had no idea whether I should. I didn’t know if more vomiting was to follow, so we had to wait outside, the late-morning heat making everything worse. One thing was certain, I decided: whether or not Alex threw up more, I was done with the peroxide. I went inside for a big glass of water, brought it out, and drizzled it over Alex. She seemed grateful.

After a while she recovered. We both went back inside and cooled off. I hung out with her and made sure she knew I still loved her. That afternoon, by way of an apology, I took her for her first-ever visit to a dog park, the then-brand-new, trailblazing Remington Dog Park in Sausalito.

Greatest hits: Alex FAQ

I just unearthed this e-mail to my dad from 1995. He was coming to visit me and Andrea but was wary of staying under the same roof as Alex, who was then a very energetic dog. My dad and dogs — not so much. (Actually, once upon a time, me and dogs not so much, but Alex worked her doggie magic and changed me. As it turned out, she did the same for my dad.)

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Alex

1. When Alex charges at me, should I cringe? Is she attacking?

No — she’s giving an enthusiastic greeting. If you cringe or block her, you’re telling her in clear body language, “I have no desire to become acquainted with you.” This is in direct opposition to the purpose of nearly every dog: to make friends.

If instead of cringing, you kneel down to greet her and give her a few moments of attention, she’ll be satisfied. Otherwise… well, imagine how you’d feel if someone came into your house and, every time you held out your hand and said, “Hi, I’m your host,” you got a cold shoulder?

2a. When Alex barks, is it because she hates me?

Not at all. When you’re accustomed to communicating only with humans, the language of dogs can be bewildering and misleading. There are only two words in the dog vocabulary that mean “I don’t like you”: a low growl (I don’t trust you, keep your distance), and a teeth-baring snarl (I am preparing to attack). Neither can be mistaken for the series of loud, repeated barks that is Alex’s customary way of greeting newcomers to the house. It usually takes about five minutes until Alex is all barked out.

2b. So if barking doesn’t mean she hates me, what does it mean?

Any or all of the following: “Welcome to my house!” “This is my couch!” “I seem to remember your smell!” “Maybe later we can play!” “Check out how impressive I sound!” “Bob and Andrea sure seem excited to see you!”

3. Why, when I try to make nice with Alex, does she keep her distance?

It’s because she’s afraid of you. You’re so much bigger than she is! When you heave your massive bulk in her direction, naturally she retreats.

The proper way to put a dog at ease is to make yourself small, either by kneeling or by sitting. Permit the dog to come to you. Remember, the dog is nervous and can only be reassured by (a) smelling you and (b) trusting that you won’t exploit his or her vulnerability. This means staying put while the dog checks you out. After you’ve been given a once-over, you can reach out your hand to pet the dog. But again, simply reaching out your hand can be misinterpreted, so before you go to pet the dog, hold your hand out for inspection — palm up, under the dog’s chin, never over the dog’s head.

4. Those teeth! Those claws! I’ll be torn to shreds!!

No, you won’t. Even when I play rough with Alex — where the object seems to be for Alex to immobilize one of my hands between her teeth while we’re both swatting at each other’s faces — I get nothing more than a few red marks and tooth impressions on my skin. In seven years there’s never been even a drop of blood, and there’s been plenty of roughhousing. The worst that’s ever happened is, we’re tumbling around on the floor and Alex’s head comes up under my chin and gives me a solid uppercut, knocking my jaws together and making my ears ring. Ow.

In fact, when on occasion I feel our playing is becoming too rough, I’m always able to tell Alex to take a breather, and I make sure she knows it’s all fun and games by asking her to give me a kiss, which she never fails to do.

So don’t worry.

I run rings around you logically

[Moblogging from New York, where my mom is now getting decent care and is doing well.]

Andrea reports this exchange between herself and Jonah (age 4 3/4) yesterday, while waiting for Jonah’s friend Kenzo to arrive with his family for a playdate:

Andrea: If I were you, Jonah, I would clean up all of your markers before Kenzo arrives.
Jonah: No, if you were me you wouldn’t, because I am not doing it.

Legalistic and airtight! I am so proud.

A travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham

First thing in the morning yesterday, on the advice of her doctor, my mom reported to the emergency room at New York Hospital Queens. (Under its old name, “Booth Memorial Hospital,” it’s where she gave birth to me and my sister, Suzanne. I wonder how Booth would feel about its new name, whoever he was.) She was promptly evaluated and admitted to treat an infection complicated by diabetes. The treatment plan called for intravenous antibiotics, no surgery. Suzanne waited with her to be assigned a bed. And waited. And waited.

As of 2pm local time today she was still waiting in the emergency room. All day and night — and day — a procession of doctors and other hospital staff professed their shock at her treatment, promised to rectify the situation, and vanished. Meanwhile, just a short time ago a surgical resident happened by and re-evaluated her, opining that she does in fact need surgery. It’s Kafkaesque.

I’m going to New York shortly to help my family (especially my saintly burden-shouldering sister) with the situation, and maybe kick some medical ass.

Lightweight

A few nights ago I was in my study while the kids were jumping around in the bedroom, playing “pirates.” The sounds of mock swordfights filled the air… until suddenly they didn’t. All was silent for several moments. My parental Spidey-sense tingled and I got up to see what they were up to. I found Archer lying prone and smirking on the bed, Jonah leaning over him. Jonah looked up and explained to me, “He drank too much rum.”