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TO DO TODAY*

1. Call the insurance company and don’t get off the phone until A can see the therapist they need to see.

2. Rewrite EL questionnaire so it’s simpler; what if I can streamline everything for everyone?

3. WTF happened to my Day One entries? Where are they? *Everyday I wake up with ideas of what to do in my day. Most day I forget about them: I get distracted, I get frozen, I get discouraged. I just forget. I can try to write them here, but what if I never come back to them?

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Christmas Vacation 2017

Here’s the thing. If I don’t write it down, I forget it. Yesterday, I took a picture at our New Year’s Day brunch so I would remember what we did on New Year’s Day. I HAVE TO RECORD LIFE OR ELSE I FORGET LIFE.

Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Today we woke up early for Paul and Mark’s arrival. I slept badly, so had a hard time getting out of bed. Laura took all four boys to the YMCA to swim and then out to lunch.

I filled out the Notary Public application so I can become a notary. I also looked up the Guardian ad Litem application and determined myself non-eligible because of my lack of experience in family law. I reviewed my notes on wills and trusts. I want to update my website to include trusts. I am going to work on my new client’s trust as soon as they return their engagement letter.

Later today Laura and I are going to hang pictures around the house, which will include making a million choices about what to frame and where to put it. We also are going to redo the basement with a new couch, which will include going through a lot of books and deciding what to keep or not (I think most of the law schools books can finally go). I am going to have a harder time deciding what to do with all of the CDs. I also predict Laura will ask why we have so many wires and cables and remote controls, and I already do not want to go through them even if I can recognize that that’s dumb. We are also going to buy a couch from Ikea, which Laura’s parents gave us the money for for Christmas.

I also decided to write here, which feels really good.

And Searah just dropped off their hamster as they are on their way to North Carolina to see Jason and Cullen and Daphne, even though Jason will be working and is in rehearsal for a play and Daphne is in school.

Monday, January 1, 2018

We woke up at Pam and Jim’s house after sleeping over with our kids and Searah and Dawne and Asa. Abe had made plum rolls which I glazed with egg wash because he was too busy playing Felix’s PS4 Star Wars game (which I correctly predicted he ask if we could get one for after we left) but then called him up to glaze them. Pam made a baked french toast and Searah had made a chocolate chip round loaf thing. Laura cut up strawberries. Pam made espressos and lattes.

We mostly sat around all day and then Laura, Pam, Miles and Felix went out to get food. Jim and I talked about his job, about his CTO’s stonewalling all complaints and allowing by design their engineer/programming department to be 90% men and almost all Indian/Pakistani when it used to be extremely diverse and 50% women. We also talked about his childhood anxieties in the context of Abraham’s anxieties, like Jim’s food anxieties. I asked him if any adult had helped him when he was a kid, and he said, yeah, right, my dad would have been like you kids are so spoiled and we had to work so hard for our food, and you just eat it. Or something dismissive (or reasonable) like that.

Pam and Laura and Miles and Felix came back with ingredients for seven layer dip and potato chips for me. It was finally dark when we lazily left (we had a ton of stuff -- our air mattress, four pillows, two sleeping bags, two suitcases, bags of nerf guns, the kids’ two bags, and our NYE food stuff including our huge all-clad skillet) and drove to Bill and Suzan’s. It was -2 outside (it’s -6 today) and we luckily found a parking spot on Junior Terrace and went up to their apartment. Bill was watching the Rose Bowl, and the boys joined him. Suzan had made appetizers of shrimp and cocktail sauce, smoked salmon on chives and cream cheese on rye pumpernickel and smoked whitefish spread with rice crackers. I had a beer despite being super tired and wine with dinner, which was homemade mac and cheese (polenta for me), with the pork leftover from our dinner with the Mesics and broccoli. After we finished watching the Rose Bowl, which was a dramatic two overtime ending and went home.

Got the kids to sleep. Laura looked at boots for Miles, and summer rentals for Jackson Hole in July. I wanted to watch TV but was so tired. I went to bed at 10 pm and either couldn’t sleep or slept a little and woke up. Regardless I was up until almost 2. It was awful. Today, I’m very tired.

Sunday December 31, 2017

Abraham woke us early for us to start making his bread and rolls for New Year’s Eve, but Laura fell back asleep and we didn’t really get going until 10 or 11. We were making mackerel au sour, a deconstructed version of what we’d had in Venice two years ago, with onions and vinegar and raisins and pine nuts, but Whole Foods messed up our mackerel order and instead gave us red snapper. They fileted it sloppily, so I had to reduce each filet piece by slicing off the fin and bone they’d left on, which left us with only about 2 1/2 oz of fish for each of the 16 people people we were going to be with at New Year’s Eve, which ended up a correct amount.

I made polenta from Henry’s Farm, which was white speckled with red and looked pink when cooking but grey later when it cooled and we cut it to be baked for our dish. Abe made his dinner rolls and breakfast rolls and Miles made a meringue cake. We made two trips to Devon Market, including one just to get parchment paper, which Laura forgot the first time, but still forgot to get stuff, notably including a leek for our dish, which we ended up stopping to get on the way to Melissa and Laurent’s house, with Dawne and Pam in the car after we’d dropped off the kids.

Melissa and Laurent have a new house (which I was their attorney to buy) and Bil and Theo had decorated the long table with candles floating in water and lots of green, including artichokes. It was beautiful. Laurent’s niece Mallory was there, who works for NPR in Washington, and Travis and his boyfriend Cal, Liz (Matt stayed home with Lena) and Seth and Missy. We have the menu which should go somewhere other than in this account. It was a great dinner. I confessed that my favorite dish was the one that Laura and I made, although she says her favorite was Melissa and Lauren’s cumin lamb with squid ink pasta.

Saturday December 30, 2017

I met with new clients to do a trust and power of attorneys for their daughters, which felt like new work which could lead to more work, which I am actively trying to do.

I took the boys to see the movie Wonder, based on the book by R.J. Palacio, which was surprising deep, insightful and moving. Laura made Italian wedding soup for dinner and we tried to play Risk as a family, but Miles dominated, and Abe was too tired and slaphappy to continue. I watched Black Mirror after the kids went to bed.

Friday December 29, 2017

I spent the morning looking for flights for me and Abe to go to New Zealand to visit Jamie. I talked to Jamie on the phone and picked and paid for a flight.

I took the boys ice skating at Warren Park, after spending the morning making a plan for the second week of vacation, trying to schedule when Abe’s friend Paul and his brother Mark (who Miles would babysit) would come over, when Miles would have his sleepover with his friends, what days Suzan would take Abe and Miles separately shopping for clothes, which was among their Christmas gifts. Laura and I had a fight about the scheduling of Paul and Mark.

Bill came over and picked up the boys to take them out to dinner (to Nico Osteria!) and to see Billy Elliott and then have a sleepover. But he showed up early and I told him about the trip to New Zealand. He said he had half a million miles and why didn’t we ask him to help us. I said I had thought about it, but they helped us go to Switzerland, and then help us with everything, and I felt bad. He said that was silly and I should ask him when we need something, and then got on his phone and called American Airlines to see if he could get us a flight even though I didn’t think I could get a refund on the flights I’d bought a couple of hours before. Meanwhile, Laura was on the phone trying to get me a refund and she handed me the phone and whispered “I told them I also bought tickets at the same time, so we double booked and now we have to cancel the ones you bought.” That miraculously worked and I was able to get a refund.

Jeanne and Verd came over for drinks and then Laura and I went out with them to an Ethiopian dinner at Lalibela.

Thursday December 28, 2017

Miles and I went to Bill and Suzan’s to pick up the tables and chairs from Christmas Eve.

In the late afternoon, we all went to the Breakers, which is an old age retirement home in Edgewater where Poppy lives. Rocco was doing a piano recital, and we saw Rachel, Johnny, Jaxson, Atyani, Dave, their boys, Rick, Robin, Andy and Veeta, Arielle and Dietrich and his girlfriend, John and Carla, Beth, Chris and Peggy and Alice, Peggy’s mother. It was nice, but too fast and we had to leave.

We went back to have dinner and exchange Christmas presents with the Mesics. It was snowing.

Wednesday December 27, 2017

I don’t remember.

Tuesday December 26, 2017

Miles went with Katy and Laurie and Augusta to the Adidas store, and then they dropped him off at Bill and Suzan’s. Laura, Abe, Suzan and I went to see the Nutcracker at the Joffrey Ballet, which was Abraham’s Christmas present from Danny.

After the ballet, we went to the Pinsofs’ for dinner which was leftover chicken and fennel from Christmas Eve.

Monday December 25, 2017

Christmas at our house. Kids opened presents and we had coffee and cinnamon rolls. Bill and Suzan came around noon for breakfast of eggs and sausage and fruit. Then we went for a walk to the lake with Searah, Dawne, Asa, Becca and her boyfriend Seth. Caitlin showed up with her dogs after our walk and we did presents. Then we sat around and critiqued Christmas Eve, which made Caitlin upset. Then we made a beef roast and potatoes and green beans and George got sick in the dining room and in Miles’s room and then fell down some stairs and Caitlin left. I made a joke that at least I got one family picture before everything happened.

Sunday December 24, 2017

Laura and Abe and Miles worked on the dessert for Christmas Eve and Abe worked on his baked presents for Christmas.

Christmas Eve at the Pinsofs, with Jeanne and Verd and Thea and Kisten and Danny and Judy and Judy’s daughter, and Jean, and Jacob and Ben, and Brian, and Les and Donna and Hallie. We picked numbers for the gift exchange and then had chicken with fennel and orange, unbelievably good wild rice and amazing white and red burgundies. WHAT KIND?

Saturday December 23, 2017

I went to the Pinsofs with Miles to help them set up for Christmas Eve. I washed and chopped a lot of herbs and fennel.

We had kids’ Christmas at our house with Searah and Dawne and Asa, Pam and Jim and Felix, Seth and Missy. We had caviar and Laura made mushroom soup and Searah made cheeseballs.

Friday December 22, 2017

We went to see the new Star Wars!

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Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Woke kids up and got them ready to school

Drove Abe to school

Called the Alderman

Called the bank

Called Six Flags five times to inquire about Miles’s phone

Drove to Six Flags to get his phone

Drove to Evanston to pick up my old saxophone

Started this blog

Picked up Abe from school

Today I woke Miles up at 6.10 am for his first day of school, went back to sleep, woke back up, helped him get ready, including putting together his school supplies (e.g., slicing open the packages of college-ruled looseleaf paper and 5-tab divider sets and doling them out equally between four binders) that he hadn’t done yet despite their being in his room for the last two weeks and despite him not having done that last night when I reminded him and he said I’ll do it in the morning, even though there was getting dressed, tooth brushing, contact lens insertion, hair styling, breakfast eating and lunch making all scheduled for the morning.

I did not participate in his breakfast or lunch, but did retrieve his backpack from the basement, where it was in the dryer because Laura washed it out last night after I’d forgotten (and forgotten earlier that I’d put it in the basement sink last week because for some reason Miles had peppers in his bag that rotted and oozed all over the fabric, which also said in those European laundry symbols that are not immediately apparent do not wash, dry or iron) to do that myself even though I promised to when Laura was up half the night finishing her work for today and I was cleaning up the kitchen and putting the kids to bed (and Miles doing his homework, and obsessing about his phone and then arguing about putting together his school supplies), and then I just was deleting email on my computer (or maybe reading the New York Times) until I was over-exhausted and got into bed, where Laura woke me later to ask something about this morning which I don’t remember now. (I also woke up at 2.47 am because I heard the bathroom door creak so maybe some kid got up to go to the bathroom).

Miles and Laura left at 8 am (five minutes late because I was running around getting Miles a ruler, and graph paper, and post-it notes and highlighters to add to the binders I had already made) and I went upstairs to where Abraham’s radio alarm was blasting at maximum volume. He wanted to stay in bed and have a kiss and hug from me, but I asked him to get up. He came into my office in his underwear and pretended to fall down limp as I hugged him. “I’m so tired,” he said.

“Why don’t you go get dressed and brush your teeth and then let’s go downstairs to make breakfast and your lunch. We have to leave in 45 minutes.”

“Ok, dad.” First day excitement, not to be repeated.

He said since it’s the first day of school, can I have Dutch baby? But instead I made him bacon and scrambled eggs (I burned the bacon! Who does that?) and he made himself a ham (complained that Grandpa didn’t buy summer sausage because he apparently thought ham and turkey were fine), cheddar cheese and lettuce sandwich on a pretzel bun (no mayo because of the cheese), grapes, pretzels (complained that Grandpa didn’t buy pretzels because he apparently thought corn chips were a good substitute), two granola bars (best ever because they’re covered in caramel), watermelon, and a pack of seaweed snacks.

When we were ready to go, I opened the cabinet to get my keys and remembered that I didn’t have a car key because over the weekend, my inlaws Bill and Suzan had borrowed our car while they were taking care of the children because we were at Lara and Bobby’s wedding in Becket, Massachusetts, and they had lost (misplaced) the key. So I had to call Laura who had already been at work for 45 minutes because it was also HER first day of school and ask her to drive home to give me the key.

Abraham and I waited outside for Laura to arrive, chatted with Robert across the street and said hi to Leo and Jean. Laura dropped off the key and noted that we were going to be late. We got in the car and I plugged in Waze to see how long it would take-- it said we would arrive 3 minutes after the latest time we could arrive, at which point parents and kids are asked to wait outside for 15 minutes until Morning Meeting is over. Luckily, they were flexible on the first day and even though Morning Meeting was going as we arrived and Abe changed into his school shoes from his street shoes, we were allowed in.

On the way home, I called the Alderman to tell him about our lease and ask him to be on alert, ready to help and also ask about contacting planning and development. Then I called the bank but had to leave a message. When I got home, I had received an email from Six Flags saying they found Miles’s phone which he lost on his very first ride on Sunday when my inlaws took him and Abe to Great America. But Miles proved to be a sleuthing and persistent follow uper and managed to connect with Deborah at Lost and Found, and they found his phone. But I called and called and nobody answered and I didn’t want to drive an hour out to Six Flags if I couldn’t get the phone (I knew from the website that the park was closed today). I finally got hold of someone at about 11 and they said that I couldn’t come until September 16, but I asked if I could talk to someone else and then she said one of her co-workers was saying something to her, and she patched me into Security, who said they had the phone and I could come and get it.

I packed chips and mozarella cheese and grapes for the two hour ride and drove to Gurnee, Illinois, right under the wooden Goliath coaster in the employee parking lot and rolled up to the Security booth, where Keith was working and I said I was picking up a phone my son had lost, and he said is his name Miles? and he had his iPhone right there in the booth, making me realize that Miles getting his phone back was kind of a big deal because Deborah had told me last night that there were ten bags of stuff turned in, and yet this was just sitting waiting for me in the Security booth as if there were not a lot of people driving out today.

Then I drove back and went to Evanston where almost two years ago (for real), I had dropped off my Bundy alto saxophone (which had been a rental in 4th grade from Alto Music in Suffern and which at some point my parents had paid for, and I still have it) which I had brought in to get new pads and a tune up of sorts. They charged me $600, which was more than the sax is worth and more than they had quoted me, which was between $400 and $500. The guy behind the counter, Eli, who also had cool tattoos and gave me the name of his tattoo artist, called the repair person who said that $600 was too high and to do it for $500. Eli threw in a strap and a box of reeds, which was probably worth about $50. So.

Then I went home and started this blog. (What do you think? Isn’t it pretty? I just wanted a place to post about daily life so I picked their standard). Went to pick up Abraham. Waited outside with Doug and Andrea and we talked about my mom’s death, death with dignity in general, and carpools. Got Abe, negotiated ice cream as first day of school treat, drove home. Waited for Miles, worked on this post.

Then we went out to George’s for ice cream, missed the afterschool back to school special, spent $9 and won four games of Connect Four in a row against the kids, went to Blaze for dinner, and now Abe’s in the shower. I’m  missing band tonight because Laura has to work and it didn’t feel right to leave the kids alone.

That’s a day.