Month: December 2018 (Page 2 of 2)

Another View of Shepherd

I’m in the midst of my annual re-reading of Jean Shepherd’s A Christmas Story. If I’m not mistaken, this is the 10th-straight December I’ve reviewed the collection of short stories that much of the movie was based on.

Every year I think, “I should go back and listen to some of Shepherd’s radio shows or read a biography of him.” Sometime this past year I actually took a look at the one biography there is of Shepherd. It’s surprisingly massive, and seemed a little over-the-top for what I was seeking. I did some searching and found a couple articles about Shepherd that I saved and just read this week.

One is written by Steely Dan member Donald Fagan, who was greatly influenced by Shepherd’s radio show in his teen age years. The other piece contains some clips of a few of his radio bits.

Maybe it’s just me, but it was interesting to hear more beyond the ultra-familiar scenes with Raphie, Flick, and Schwartz.

The Man Who Told A Christmas Story

More Than ‘A Christmas Story’: Remembering Jean Shepherd, Radio’s Great Teller of Tales

Song and Dance

A couple Christmas entertainment links to share this morning.

I had been kicking around the idea of writing about my least favorite Christmas songs. Alexandra Petri decided to take that to a whole other level and rank 100 Christmas songs. A few of these I’ve never heard of and I think she leaves out a few that get played a lot on your local holiday music station. But I dig her point of view.

A ranking of 100 — yes, 100 — Christmas songs

L is the only kid in the house that is still interested in watching any of the Christmas shows. We watched Charlie Brown the other night and, as always, the dancing kids got to me. Seriously, more people need to dance like these fools! I did some digging and found this breakdown of the dancers on 538 from three years ago. It’s solid and I totally agree on the kid they rank #1.

The ‘Charlie Brown Christmas Special’ Dancers You Most Want To Party With

Finally!

Man am I excited to finally be writing this post.

Yep, after six long, painful, frustrating, maddening, inexplicable months, we finally freaking sold our old house! We closed on Friday, so it’s really real this time.

“Wait, what?” I can hear some of you asking. “I thought you sold it already?!?”

Nope. Astute readers should recall that we thought we had a deal the day we moved into this home, but it fell through over some complete bullshit and we had to go back on the market. After that we were pretty disheartened and I decided not to write about that house again until we sold it. Little did I know…

For the past six months I’ve been over there about once a week mowing the yard, maintaining the other landscaping, cleaning gutters, checking through the house to make sure it was ok, and turning lights on and off before showings. That 10 minute drive came to be filled with a lot of bitterness as the weeks and months piled up.

I won’t give you the whole story, but our realtor warned us when we went back onto the market that July and August were always the slowest months. True to his word, we barely had any showings in those months. I remained confident: it was a nice house in a great neighborhood and the market was strong. We would sell. S, on the other hand, was very bitter after the initial offer fell through. Despite our realtor’s warnings, she couldn’t understand why we weren’t getting showings. She would spend her evenings scrolling through listings in our area and watching as other homes dropped off. “What are we doing wrong?” was her constant question. I was there to keep her steady and remind her it would happen eventually.

Our realtor said the market always comes back after school starts. But he did say some years that happens on August 1, others after Labor Day, others not until October. August was barren for us. September picked up a little, but no offers came. The feedback was generally positive, and we know we finished second at least three times over the fall. A lot of folks struggled with the size of our basement – it was small – and the number of trees in our lot, which our realtor told us not to touch. “If they don’t want trees, they can cut them down after the buy it. You can never put them back in, though.”

October rolled around and I was still cautiously optimistic while S was beside herself that we were still sitting on that home. In the middle of the month we had a showing and a week later got feedback that the people had high hopes for it, but were disappointed when they walked through and decided to buy another house in our neighborhood. That other house, to be fair, showed a little better than ours. But it also didn’t have a single update to it, where ours had a new kitchen, new master bath, new kid/guest bath. All the complaints they left on their feedback would cost less to fix than what they would have to put into the house they bought in order to get it to the 21st century.

This is when I lost it. I got pretty angry for a couple weeks. I stopped reading the feedback emails because I couldn’t deal with them anymore. With winter coming soon, I saw us hanging onto the house for a full year with it being empty.

We discussed finding a renter, but decided against that for a variety of reasons.

The first weekend of November our realtor came over to talk strategy. He said if we hit January he wanted us to close the house and winterize it to prevent mechanical issues. When we asked about taking it off the market and re-listing later, he said the home would have to be off the market for 90 days to reset the listing. We agreed that if we hit December 1 without an offer, we would take it off, winterize it, and try again in March.

When he left it was really quiet in our house for awhile. We could not believe we were even having this discussion. Remember, our next door neighbors had listed their house in early May, got two offers in 48 hours, and accepted one over their asking price. We decided to be aggressive on asking price because of that. Between the early fall-through and some other homes coming in the market in that neighborhood quite a bit lower, we ended up dropping our price three times, which was a total bitch.

About a week after that conversation we had a good run of showings. Our realtor was out of town but sent us a message one Saturday that he expected an offer on Monday. We had a showing scheduled for Sunday, so S and I went over for our fall ritual of blowing leaves and cleaning gutters. While I was running the mower in the side yard, I saw a woman with a stroller come up and talk to S for about 10 minutes. That was a little weird; it was 10:00 on a Sunday morning, it was about 33 degrees, and the lady had parked down the street. When she left S came over and told me the woman had said they were looking at houses in the neighborhood and decided to come take a walk around and ask people questions. S told her how long we had been there, how we bought it with no kids and moved out with three, how our girls loved the ‘hood, how safe it was, etc. We wondered if she was the showing later in the day.

Monday rolled around and I was hopeful to hear something from our realtor. But when I hadn’t by noon I figured once again the interested party had decided to go a different direction.

About an hour later he sent the offer over. And it was from the woman who had talked to S. She and her husband had been in the house three times that week, including the Sunday showing! We did some back-and-forth and agreed on a price on November 13 with an expected closing date of December 14. There was some excitement in our house that day! The girls knew we had an offer and were negotiating. C was first to get in the car after school that day and asked, “Did we sell the house!?!?” I held up a finger and waited for M and L to get in. Then I told them. They all screamed, C high-fived me, and we had a really good moment. Remember, these were the three girls who were in tears the day we moved out of that house.

Of course, we sweated the inspection, since that’s what blew up our first deal. Shockingly all the gigantic red flags the first inspector threw up did not come up this time. Asshole. We did have to fix some things, but that was to be expected in a 27-year-old home. The deal was on and the buyers were asking to move closing up. “Hell yes!” was our response.

So Friday I went in to sign away the home. Unfortunately the buyers had to reschedule and came in a couple hours after I did, so I was unable to meet them. S really liked the wife from her 10 minutes talking to her that morning in November. We took our girls over to the old neighbors’ Saturday morning to make Christmas cookies and they had met the couple the night before and confirmed they seemed really nice. That gets lost a little in these things, since you end up being so focused on the money. But it made us feel good to sell to some people who seem nice and will fit in with the people who love who still live around them.

So Friday afternoon was fun. I rushed home from doing my signings and called the utilities and insurance companies to officially untie us from that home. Our realtor rolled in just after 4:00 with a nice check. We finally owned just one home! We took the girls out for dinner that night and started making a list of the places we want to travel now that we no longer have a summer home or a second house we’re trying to sell.

Just in time for Christmas, too!

Listen, we are very, very fortunate in that we were able to handle the financial impact of trying to sell a house for six months, and then having to accept a lot less than we had hoped to sell it for. So I don’t want to make our situation seem dire or worse than people who have real problems.

But it was an incredibly stressful six months. I think S and I did a good job of balancing each other, and picking each other up when we got down. But I shamefully admit there have been a lot of shitty, “Not until we sell the other house!” responses to both the girls and other family members who have asked us about making big purchases, planning trips, etc. There were a lot of nights where we looked at each other and wondered what the hell was going on and what the hell we would do if we couldn’t sell that house. Thank goodness that immense weight has been lifted. Now we can go back to only yelling at our girls only because their rooms are complete disasters or someone broke a brand new glass without telling us rather than our anger stemming from being stuck with an extra piece of real estate.[1]

So that’s our Christmas miracle for 2018. Hmm, I said I wasn’t going to share the whole story, didn’t I? Apologies. But it is 11:53 on Sunday night and I’ve had a Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale and a rather tall glass of Buffalo Trace.


  1. Yes, someone broke a brand new glass, left it in the cabinet, and did not tell us this weekend. All in an effort to get to the Christmas candy that was next to it. Candy they failed to re-seal making it obvious what happened. No one admitted to it so we’ve banned Christmas candy and cookies for a week.  ↩

Friday Playlist

“Hire” – Girlpool. I don’t know much about this band. This song made Steven Hyden’s November Mixtape, and he says they make lots of perfect songs, so I may need to check them out. This track has a heavy Elliott Smith vibe to it.

“It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You) – The 1975. I’m not sure that there’s a more polarizing band out there right now than The 1975. Some folks love them. Some folks love trashing them. Others love arguing why people who fall into one of those camps should feel exactly the opposite. All that nonsense has kept me from ever listening to too much of their music. Their new album got tremendous reviews, so I gave it a shot. Conclusion: they’re not really my bag, but I also do not hate them. But this song is a jam that I can get down with.

“Superman” – The Clique. I never knew that the R.E.M. version of this song was a cover of this track from 1969.

“Christmas in Antarctica – The Minus 5 featuring Ben Gibbard. I haven’t liked anything that Death Cab for Cutie has made in a long time. But on this song, Gibbard sounds like he did back when I liked everything DCC did. 

“Do They Know It’s Christmas” – Band Aid. Probably sometime next week I’ll write about the overall level of Christmas spirit in our house. Spoiler alert: as kids get older, the Christmas spirit goes down. Surely a sign of that is how they all mock Bono’s infamous line every time we’ve heard this song this season. As a long-time DTKIC apologist, I’ve tried to explain that he’s not speaking for himself. He’s speaking for the masses Midge Ure and Bob Geldof were writing about, people who were more concerned about themselves than people halfway around the world who were facing famine. Sadly, my girls are not buying it. 

Reader’s Notebook, 12/6/18

Although we’ve been in the new house nearly six months now, and I’ve read over 20 books over that span, I don’t know that I have a favorite reading spot. Or at least I didn’t until about a week ago. We have a sunroom that had been my spot, but it’s also just off the kitchen and you can hear the TV from there, so while very comfortable and well lit, it doesn’t always have the privacy I want when I’m really diving into a book.

A couple weeks ago the recliner we ordered for the office finally arrived. It took me a few days to get everything situated the way I want, but I believe I have my perfect reading spot now. The chair is very comfortable. I can pull the office doors shut if I want privacy. I have a little side table that has a perfectly placed reading lamp on it and room for a drink.[1] During awake hours I can play music on the Mac across the room. In the evenings, I can prop my iPad against the side table and play music loud enough for me to hear but soft enough not to disturb C in the bedroom above me.

Probably not a coincidence I ripped through two books in about 10 days after getting this setup in place.


The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between – Hisham Matar
This is a gorgeous and mesmerizing book that won the Pulitzer for best memoir last year.

Matar was born in New York, the son of a Libyan diplomat at the UN. His family was forced to flee Libya in 1979 when his father’s opposition to the dictatorship of Muammar Ghaddafi put them all in danger. The family’s home base was in Egypt, but they traveled throughout Europe. Hisham’s older brother was once forced to flee his Swiss school late at night when a team of hitmen were discovered outside its gates. Matar’s family was lucky. Other Libyan dissidents in Europe during that time were captured and tortured, others were blown up in their cars, while some were simply shot. It was a crazy way to grow up.

In 1990 Matar’s father was abducted by Egyptian security agents and taken into secret custody. It took years for the family to discover that the Egyptians had immediately turned him over to Ghaddafi and he had been languishing in the dictator’s political prisons. From time to time the family would receive letters from their father that had been smuggled out. But in the late 90s, these letters ceased.

The book, then, takes us on Matar’s journey after the Libyan revolution of 2011. He returns to his homeland for the first time in over 30 years and connects with family and friends, including many who had spent decades in Ghaddafi’s prisons as well. He writes of the strangeness of meeting people he had heard about, exchanged letters and phone calls with for years, but never seen face-to-face as an adult. He sees their pain as they see his father’s features in his own. He rediscovers the beauty and promise of the land his father fought to make free again.

His biggest mission is to discover what happened to his father. Some believe he was killed during a prison revolt in 1996. Others claim to have seen him as late as 2002. Eventually Matar meets with Ghaddafi’s son, who promises to uncover the truth of Matar’s father’s fate. What follows is a year of frustration, as the junior Ghaddafi teases, stalls, lies, and eventually fails Matar. While suggesting that the senior Matar is dead, he never shares when, how, or why he died, or what happened to his remains. When the book ends, Matar and his family still have no confirmation of their father’s fate.

It’s a terrible story told beautifully.


Beartown – Fredrik Backman
This book just about floored me. I began it sometime Sunday and finished it early Tuesday afternoon after racing through the final 150 pages in a marathon session that day.

It takes place in far northern Sweden, in a small town on the edge of the woods that is slowly disappearing. Factories are shutting down, which hurts other businesses, which forces the population to flee to cities that still have jobs. Where there were once three schools, there is now just one. People see a future not too far down the road where the last factory and school close and nothing is left.

For now, though, one thing keeps the town together: hockey. After going decades with weak teams, the town’s junior squad finally has a chance for greatness thanks to a once-in-generation talent, a 17-year-old named Kevin. Following a win in the national semifinals, Kevin hosts a party at his home while his parents are away. During the party he rapes a 15-year-old girl who is the daughter of the team president. The daughter hides the rape from family and friends until the following weekend, just before the championship game.

Soon the town that was barely holding on is tearing itself apart.

Backman hits a lot of big themes in the book. There is the meaning of sports in our society: how much importance we place on them, how many of us gain our identity from following sports teams, how we coddle athletes, and how the culture within sports affects how athletes behave away from games. He hits sexual politics. He hits how gender roles have changed, and how more rural areas are reluctant to accept changes that have taken place elsewhere. He hits immigration. He hits sexual orientation. He hits on how the changing global economy affects the far reaches of the most modern countries. He hits how fast information, true or false, can spread in our hyper-connected age.

After the rape accusation becomes public, Backman zeros in on every character and relationship in the book, showing how the all change and the decisions behind those changes. It’s a fascinating section.

Nearly every chapter made me stop and think about issues beyond and bigger than the book. As the father of a 14-year-old girl, with two close behind her, the sections about rape had me thinking even longer about how to protect them, how much to tell them about the dangers of being a young woman, and how much not to tell them lest I make them fearful of trying to lead normal relationships. As wonderful as most of the book is, there are long sections that are very difficult to read.

Beartown is powerful, emotional, chilling, thought-provoking, smart, and, most importantly, entertaining. There are some moments when Backman may push a little too hard, and I’m not sure I loved his final chapter. Most importantly, though, he kept me stuck in my seat and turning pages.


  1. I’m 47 with shitty eyes. I’ll be honest, the light is probably the most important part of the equation.  ↩

D’s Notes

It’s been one of those weeks, so far. Nothing big going on, but lots of little things. Each time I pause and think, “I should really post something to Ye Olde Website,” I either don’t have time to sit down and focus or I’m at a loss for topics.

Thus time for a reader-favorite D’s Notes posts!

GHWB

Four years can be a lifetime when you’re young. When George Bush was elected as president in 1988, I was 17 and unable to vote. I likely would have voted for him had I been able. Four years later, when I cast my first presidential ballot, I voted against him. Things change quickly when you’re still young.

I kind of hate how we whitewash former presidents’ faults when they die. I mean, I understand that speaking ill of the dead isn’t cool. But when someone was president, and had such profound impacts on the lives of so many people, I think it’s ok to made an honest assessment of their lives instead of ignoring their weaknesses and failures and boiling it down to the standard platitudes.

But George Bush did seem like a decent guy. As many others who are on my side of the political spectrum have noted, it would be nice if there were still prominent Republicans like him. He was fiercely loyal to his party but also understood that politics wasn’t about forcing your views on others. He believed in service to country and that government can make a difference in people’s lives. He was willing to work with those who opposed him to bring about positive change. He would rant and rave about the Democrats when needed. But he also understood they were humans deserving of respect, who had the same right to express their views that he did, and that fighting in the political realm didn’t mean you had to hate people outside those ropes.

I disagreed with many of Bush’s political views. I voted against him because I thought he was a goofy, out-of-touch candidate of the past. But he seemed like a decent man whose core trait was kindness. We could use a lot more people in government, from all perspectives, like him.

Udoka

Ahh shit. Udoka Azubuike went down with a nasty ankle injury early in KU’s win over Wofford last night. At first glance it looked like his ankle was going the wrong way and he might be done for the year in December for the second time in his career. Today they’re saying that it was just an ankle sprain and he should be back on the court in a month or so. I have to think it’s going to be hard getting that rehabbed when you’re as big of a dude as he is.

Fortunately Bill Self is used to playing with limited big men after the past two seasons. In fact, KU looked as good as they’ve looked all year in the last 10 minutes of the Wofford game when he unleashed a bevy of athletic 6’5” guys that created havoc on defense. The only problem is this year he has one shooter, where last year he had at least three. And I’m not sure many KU fans have a ton of faith that his one shooter will be as effective over the entire season as he was for a four-game stretch before last night. The going small and spreading the floor thing can still work without 3-point assassins. But it is much easier if you have guys all around the arc who can punish the defense for letting them slip free.

Kid Sports

Both M and C had their first volleyball practices of the year earlier this week. The season does not begin until late January, and the school gym to scheduled very tightly. So they’ll only practice one more time before the holidays open up gym time a little. But they were both excited to get on the court again. No winter sport for L this year. We will look into some kind of individual soccer training for her in the new year, though.

House Stuff

We’ve moved on to phase two of filling the new house, with the focus being the basement. I have a big TV coming Friday. S found a great sectional on sale that we ordered a few weeks ago. It arrived yesterday. And it didn’t fit down the stairs!

Crap.

We only measured the opening to the stairway, not the space at the bottom. And the largest piece was too large to get in. We’re exploring whether the basement windows can be removed easy enough to drop it down the window well, but I’m thinking that might be too expense if it is possible. For now we have a very nice sectional sitting in our garage. And I’ll likely be watching KU games on a bean bag or something for awhile.

Yes, we feel stupid.

Stats

November 2018

  • Eliza Shaddad – 62
  • Middle Kids – 39
  • Bing Crosby – 34
  • Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever – 24
  • Carl Broemel – 22

Complete stats available at my Last.fm page

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