Left of the Dial

context

It's so important. 

From the other room, I hear one of my spawn murmur, "oh my god."

Top Management looks up, concerned. "Is everything okay?" 

"Everything's fine," I reassure her, recognizing that precise tone of voice, one the people in the family only ever—but also always—use whenever take their first bite of one of her special dishes, in this case, her fried potatoes.  

Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@maxim_tajer?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Maxim Tajer</a> on <a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/burning-wood-x3S1aGQNgro?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash">Unsplash</a> and not actually an example of Top Management's culinary artistry

 

never understood in its own time

So I'm still halfway through my first pot of coffee when Top Management starts reading a beloved book to the youngest two.

The current chapter opens with "There they were out in the schoolyard—free!"

I immediately mutter, “no one’s really free.”

They all look up at me with…expressions. The Golden Weasel and the Brawn say sternly, “father.”

This is why it's best for all concerned if I go away to drink my coffee. 

What has it got in its pocketses?

In our house, it is the obligation of each person to go through their pockets before putting their jeans in the laundry. I check anyway, almost every time, and if I find money, it’s mine.
(I mean, I’ve never followed through on that, but they don’t know that…for sure.)

But as with many other things, the rules are different for my good lady wife, for a variety of reasons. The first is that she works easily twice as hard as I do, and maybe thrice. and I work, conservatively, 5x as hard as the rest put together. So different sets of standards on different things apply.

Also, I simply love her more than I love them. So.

So. I didn’t expect Top Management to empty her pockets before I washed her jeans tonight, because I’m the one who grabbed them and brought them down. But I went through her pockets anyway.

Did I find money? I did not.
Did I find pens? I did not.
Did I find gum? I did not. (Semi-suprisingly.)
Did I find love letters to or from her to another man, known by our offspring as The New Guy? I may or may not have.

Did I find peanuts? In both front pockets?
I most certainly did.
Quite a few peanuts?
You betcha. 

Why?

Because, of course, she keeps peanuts on hand at all times.

To feed the crow army she’s assembling.

I don't stand a chance. 

year of the lemon pigs

As no doubt every one of my 193,428 readers remembers, we have a long-standing (4-year-old) unbreakable tradition (this is the second time) of creating a lemon pig. It went over huge and made us all very happy until we realized, several months hence, that it had given birth to a few thousand fruit flies but hey omelets, eggses, all that. 

On the bus over a few days ago, The Bean was assaulted by a lemon. Which is to say, one was rolling down the aisle and she picked it up and screamed, "who the hell does this damn lemon belong to?! Answer me now or as the FSM is my witness I was STEAL it!" Shortly thereafter, she arrived with a lemon for our venerated tradition. 

Which we then forgot to do. Until New Year's Day! Which is close enough, I have been reliably informed by absolutely no one. 

The Golden Weasel and I worked together for hours (nearly three minutes) to create this majestic and nigh upon if not quite entirely sacred beast. 

The Weasel decided our photos were not quite capturing the innate power of the lemon pig, despite being between the toaster oven and the butter bell and where else is embued with such gravitas, outside perhaps Weathertop? 

So we spruced up the atmosphere just a tid. 

Satisfied at last, we sent the photographic evidence to the pig's original procurer, who promptly turned around and somehow against all odds did the impossible and made it even better. 

I have never been so excited for a new album to drop in my life. 

The lemon pig, of course, is meant to bring good luck to the year and I now think back upon it, we did the first one just before 2020 and COVID and oh my god what have I done? 

eye of the beholder

So I'm in my office and I realize that as I'm looking at my computer screen I'm murmuring “oh, aren’t you pretty? You are so pretty. [sigh] No. But...you’re just so pretty, though…” 

And then I realize Max has come downstairs and passed by the door and it's possible she heard me whispering sweet nothings. And for a moment I worry before I decide that, yeah, she probably has a pretty good idea of what I'm looking at. 

Of course they're silly and unnecessary. But...but...when I was 9 years old, see...

Sgt Pepper's Bloody Hearts Club Band

Walking through the living room tonight it struck me just how generic our house is. I mean, everyone's is decorated like this, right? 

if you give a mouse some literature

So Top Management is discussing a Mary Oliver poem with the Golden Weasel and the Brawn and, as so often happens, she mentions something Joyce Carol Oates once said about the writings of James Joyce and how that tied in with Virginia Wolfe which led to Marcel Proust and it just goes to show that if you give a writer a poem to discuss she's going to want a cookie. 

three, it turns out, is not always a magic number

So Top Management walks into the kitchen and starts telling The Rose, The Bean and The Golden Weasel about how when we were kids Pop-Tarts came in a box with 8 Pop-Tarts, 4 pouches with 2 tarts each. And how when there were three kids in the family, this meant the tarts didn’t divide evenly and therefore someone was going to get more than the others. 

And then she says, “this shirt doesn’t fit me.”

And holds out this:

The shriek that instantly erupted from three sets of vocal cords nearly shattered every piece of glass in the house.

wrap around dreams

So we're done watching our nightly television show and are just reading quietly. There's been silence for maybe a minute and a half when suddenly Top Management says, “What?!”

I laugh. "Sweetheart, no one said anything."

Without moving, she says, “The Rose said, ‘I’ll start with the good news: bed bugs’ — bed bugs is not good news." There's a very brief pause before she adds, "Dreams are weird. One part of your brain is telling another part of your brain stories and neither part knows about the other or that it's just a story and not real." 

the toppermost of the poppermost

So I say something almost verging on mildly humorous to Top Management, something fully deserving of the patient and somehow still fond look it consequently receives. 

"Ah..." I murmur, "I'm the best." 

"You are!" the Brawn agrees from the other room. 

"Hey hey! You hear that?" I ask my good lady wife. "Your youngest just said that I'm the best! He thinks I'm better'n you!" 

There's a brief pause, and then the Brawn answers, "Mom's better than the best. I thought that was universally acknowledged." 

I no longer worry about him as much as I used to. 

fanmail for some future flounder

A few days ago, as I got up from the table to go downstairs to my office, I made a sound that slightly alarmed The Brawn. Top Management explained that the sound in question was one grownups make when they have to go to a meeting to which they didn’t wish to go. We said we could pretty much guarantee he’d make the same sound himself someday. He was, understandably skeptical, and suggested we check in with him in 10 or 20 years.

So I just sent email reminders to myself to do just that.

So. If gmail’s still a thing in 5, 10, 15 and 20 years, I’m going to get an email from myself with the subject “Brawn reminder” which simply says

Ask him “did you make the noise grownups make when they have to go to a meeting yet?”

It was really, really trippy to schedule an email for October 25, 2027. But not nearly as trippy as scheduling one for October 25, 2042.

And, of course, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll even be around for all--or even any--of them. Will whoever inherited my email account be surprised to get an email from long-gone me? Will the AI which has long been in command of the earth metaphorically nod, now able to check this one thing off its list? 

much achoo about nothing

[I apologize for that horrible yet wonderful joke]

It really is disconcerting when I sneeze and from a different floor, and two rooms away, Top Management texts me "bless you." 

the lament of the young and belovéd

"I am so strong and capable and if my parents cared about me less I could show it off sometimes." — our poor self-sufficient daughter, suffering under the unbearable weight of helpful parents

 

the best medicine, or just what big pharma WANTS you to think

So Top Management mentioned that she'd read a study which indicated that how often a couple laughs together is an excellent predictor of how long they'll stay together. 

"Well, dammit, there's our problem right there," I say. "So all we have to do is..." 

We look at each other. And burst out laughing. 

"Great," she says. "There's another week." 

Now whenever we laugh at something, one of us says, "Great. Now we have to stay together one more week." 

twist

"Hey," I say, heading downstairs. "It's 8:15, so almost time for the boys to get ready for bed, so I can read. Tonight we get to the part where Strider kills Pippin!" 

From behind me I hear girls shriek "Daddy!" in perfect outraged three-part harmony.

It's the little things. 

hard-earned wisdom

It turns out that walking in on The Rose and The Bean adroitly critiquing online parenting advice columns is one of life's hidden pleasures. 

why couldn't I be laundering money?

There are so many people living in our house that just now I started laundry—all pinks and reds, as I pretty much always have so much to wash that I can very strictly separate out by colors—and thought, huh, small load today…because it "only" contained 7 shirts, in addition to a half dozen pairs of socks and about as many underwears, as well as a hand towel, two washcloths, three cleaning cloths and a kitchen towel. 

It's possible my perspective is ever so slightly skewed.  

homeschooling 601

So we're doing Film Club. We've watched several silent films—The General, City Lights, a few others—and Duck Soup. Now we're starting the Westerns section of Film Club, and this in some ways the key to Film Club, given the importance of the western to the history of American cinema and, for that matter, the American contribution to art in general. We're starting at more or less the beginning—I thought about showing them The Great Train Robbery and might at some point but for all its historical importance, it is one incredibly long 12 minutes—with Stagecoach. Great introduction to John Wayne and John Ford and the western; with the benefit of hindsight, it really is remarkable just how many themes and motifs and tropes and even visual standards are introduced in this early classic (including what I swear is a rough draft of the famous framing shot from The Searchers). 

One of which, of course—though not unique to the western, by any means—is the Hooker with the Heart of Gold. And indeed Claire Trevor is wonderful as Dallas, the woman run out of town at the beginning. There are so many good characters, quickly sketched, superbly acted. And the vistas—good lord, but some of those Arizona panoramas can just rip your heart out with their majesty. 

But there are a lot of characters and the audio was sometimes a wee bit dicey, so I checked in with the youngest two a few times, just to make sure they were following. And with the exception of understandably not knowing what a whiskey drummer was, they did great. 

Except for one key bit. 

"Why are they all being so mean to her?" The Brawn asks. Referring, of course, to Dallas. 

"She's a woman of low reputation," I say. I get a blank look in return. 

"She's a lady of ill repute," I say. More blankness. 

"She a prostitute," I say. 

"Oh," he says. "What's a prostitute?" 

"Someone who has sex for money." 

"Oh," he says. And turns back to the screen. 

Welcome to the Peterson Homeschool. Come for Film Club, stay for Intro to Sex Work 101. 

feeling not so much seen as read

I send this tweet to my good lady wife:

She laughs. "That's funny," she says. 

"Is it?" I ask. "Is it though? Or does being with such a person simply make it impossible for the, say, husband to ever win an argument against, say, his good lady wife? I'm asking for a friend." 

(Editor's note: he has no friends.) 

She smiles. "Oh, I'm sorry. I meant that's fun." 

cymbolic

So the Golden Weasel and I have, on several occasions, watched videos such as this:

Apparently, being in the room while something like this is happening is an astonishing experience, as one feels as much as hears the sound. It's sometimes called a sound bath or, more specifically, a gong bath. We have expressed how very much we'd like to experience something like this in person. 

So when this ad went up on Craigslist the other day, I showed it to her. "I found the perfect present for your next birthday," I said. 

She looked at my phone and gasped. "Yes!" she hissed. 

Naturally, the Brawn was nearby and, naturally, he was intrigued. "What is it?" 

I started to angle my phone so he could see. Before his eyes could even focus, she quickly added, about the hypothetical future gift which is never actually going to be acquired, "you're not allowed to touch it." 

a bit assaulty?

Today I Learned someone in my family apparently has a bit of a battery phobia. 

character identification

So The Brawn and I have been making our way, slowly, through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, one of several projects the various spawn and I have started as a way to get through the pandemic. We're now up to the greatly underrated Doctor Strange and, as if more proof of his intelligence were needed, The Brawn absolutely loved it, justly reveling in its visual sumptuousness. 

But that wasn't the only thing that resonated with him. During a scene during which the magnificent Chiwetel Ejiofor questions another character's morality, the titular hero argues, "She was complicated."

Beside me, from the darkness, I hear a voice quietly respond, "Aren't we all." 

tear drops rolling down on my face

I grab my cup of coffee and head down to the basement to get to work. The Bean is lying on the sofa, curled up under a blanket, in a shaft of sunlight, reading. It looks so cozy I am moved to say for perhaps the first time in my life, "Bean, I have thought about it, and I think you should know that I love you." 

"Yay!" is the perhaps somewhat expected but still gratifying response. 

I take a few more steps and then hear: "I'll get back to you on how I feel." 

one of these things is not like the others

I am luckier than most parents in that most of my kids are pretty unpicky when it comes to foods. The problem is that there are so many of them, so that some will love a given meal, some are okay with it and at least one dislikes it. And because I am the most sensitive of souls, I try to avoid making my children unhappy. I fail. I fail every single day, many times. But I try. (I just hide that I try.) 

Which inevitably leads to scenes such as this:

I like to think it's a bonding moment. Because what brings kids together like sneering at a sibling who's being good? 

when in Rome

Top Management and I step outside the house for our daily walk, or our Daily Staff Meeting, as we refer to it. (And which it kinda is.) It's a lovely day, mid-50s, cloudy, only the tiniest hint of a breeze. 

Suddenly, the clouds disappear and we find ourselves in blazing full-strength sunlight, not a shadow in sight. 

"What the hell's with the sun?" I say, shocked. 

Top Management laughs. "That's the most Portland thing I've ever heard."