In Memorium

We’ve been away for two weeks.

While on vacation we boarded the dog at her favorite kennel and Flippers, my daughter’s goldfish, was left in the care of her 6-year-old friend, Anthony. A week or so into our trip, a letter arrived addressed to my daughter in crude handwriting. It was from Anthony.

This is the letter:

Dear Harper

fliprs got kild but the kage is stil ther. Roca [Anthony’s cat] nakt the kage down and he ate fliprs but we are gowing to bie you a nuthr fish.

Flippers, we hardly knew ya.

The Big Red Old Eye

When my daughter was younger I told her that she was born with a third, menacing eye. She called it her Big Red Old Eye. I told her the eye never slept, and stared at people, and because it made us so nervous we took her to the hospital and had it removed before her first birthday.

"You used to lie in your crib and poke at it," we'd say.

She does not believe in the Big Red Old Eye any longer.

"That's really bad for you," she said, confusing it with pink eye.

"No, the Big Red Old eye in the middle of your forehead."

"I never had a Big Red Old Eye. You and mom made that up."

She probably thinks I made up my friend Jonesie, who has a third arm and wears a bird in his top hat, as well.

Getting Ready for the 4th

The cherries are in, and it's a good year. I spent an hour picking yesterday; Lord knows I'll miss thousands of them which hang in large bunches from branches which are too high for my ladder to reach. I have no cherry picker.

The birds have been kind this year. Not as many crows as years past. What few we've had flapping about can enjoy the cherries high up, where my ladder won't reach.

Tomorrow my wife will present her first cherry cobbler of the season. She will also be putting up cherry preserves later this week. My mouth is already watering.

My daughter, six, taught me how to pit them today, and it's a messy business. But I managed to produced a quarter bushel of clean, pitted cherries. More to be picked tomorrow.

Picking is messy business as well. But the Bings are fragrant and succulent. I manage, when I am picking, to taste the ripest, juiciest ones right from the tree.

My daughter, as she does each year, made place mats for the three of us to use on the 4th of July. She does a good job with the American Flag. She's a little artist.

I started the ribs tonight. Thrice cooked. Braised. Baked. And tomorrow, the charcoal grill will finish them off. I can hardly wait.

Sci-Fi Channel is running Twilight Zone around the clock. That always means a holiday has arrived. Happy 4th!

What's for Lunch?

Having complained to my wife that I did not eat lunch yesterday because nobody at home made a lunch for me to take to work, my daughter responded with all the goodness in her heart and prepared for me a most excellent meal, put it on a plate, wrapped it in plastic and sealed it with masking tape.

I am presently seated at my desk enjoying my daughter's culinary efforts.

On the menu:

• one blueberry jam sandwich, extra jam


• red potatoes


• a stick of white cheese


• Capri-Sun grape drink

I recall the last time she made lunch for me. It was another sandwich. Peanut butter and ham.

Mmmmmm.

Oscar the Grouch as a Father Figure?

When my daughter is grouchy we call her the grumpus. When I am grouchy my family calls me, well, grouchy.

But in my defense, I have been taught from childhood that husbands and fathers -- or father figures -- are to be grouchy. It's part of the persona, goes with the territory, it's what's expected. Those men who served as examples for me in my formative years helped to cultivate my inner grouch, and today I would like to honor them.

Fred Flintstone -- the model husband and father, always grouching and mumbling, losing his cool and blowing his top, he demanded his dinner with crossed eyebrows and passed the time by yelling at Barney.

The Skipper -- a father figure to Gilligan and world-class grouch, the Skipper kept control of his charges by yelling and striking out with his captain's hat.

George Jetson -- "Jane! Stop this crazy thing!"

Ricky Ricardo -- always yelling in Spanish.

Darren Stevens -- was there ever a man so constantly grumpy who had such a lovely wife? Everything annoyed this man, from his mother-in-law and her clan to his boss, Larry Tate, and he expressed his irritation and dissatisfaction by complaining without ceasing.

George Jefferson -- demonstrated his authority by shouting at Weezie, yelling at Lionel, harping at the neighbors and constantly griping about the maid.

Archie Bunker -- what didn't he gripe about?

Fred Sanford -- everyone's favorite TV father, Fred G. (the "G" is for "Grouch") Sanford was ever inconvenienced and in a foul mood. Remember how he talked to his son, the "big dummy," and Aunt Ester?

These men were my examples. And all were grouchy to a fault. I don't think I'm doing too badly.

The Week at a Glance

Travel has been brutal as of late, and I am happy to report that, aside from a planned vacation to South Carolina, I don't have any trips planned in the near future.

I got back to Seattle last weekend and my daughter, whom I have not seen much of, wanted a Daddy-Daughter outing. She wanted to go to the Space Needle, a favorite spot of ours. Lunch at the space needle was her specific request. So we dined on clam chowder and Mountain Dew and had a fine time.

Sunday was Father's Day. My parents sent me a Father's Day gift: The Reagan Diaries. ("Getting shot hurts," he writes.) I look forward to the book.

My daughter planned her response to my frequent film-going at the Seattle International Film Festival with her own Father's Day Film Festival. She made passes for the whole family (ones you wear around your neck, like they issue for SIFF), and provided sodas and popcorn for the event. The features we screened were Muppet Treasure Island and Hoodwinked.

It was the best Father's Day I have ever had!

What's On?

At work there was this discussion among 7 of us about our favorite TV shows. As the discussion progressed, I had to admit that I had never seen an entire episode of the shows that came up: CSI, Married with Children, ER, Survivor, Everybody Loves Raymond, Lost, Alias, The King of Queens, Law and Order, Will and Grace.

There is so little on network TV that I watch anymore. In fact, there are only five network TV shows presently running that I have seen start to finish: The Simpsons, Family Guy, Boston Legal, American Idol, and the new Julia Louis-Dreyfus show which I have watched three times but only on an airplane. Oh. Is King of the Hill still running? I've seen that one, too.

I like two shows on the Food Network: $40 a Day and Alton Brown's Good Eats, which I absolutely love.

As for pay TV, I am most pleased with a new channel that's showed up on DirecTV called "Chiller." I am not so interested in the modern horror movies they air, but they do air reruns of both Alfred Hitchcock's television show and Rod Serling's Night Gallery, which I have found was an exceptionally well-written program featuring some of the finest actors of its day. (Spielberg got his start on that show, you know.)

This channel also airs many of the great old (read: black and white) horror flicks and thrillers.

For the record, my favorite TV shows of all time are: The Rockford Files, Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, Star Trek, and The Twilight Zone. The wacky classic Green Acres might have made its way onto my list but Mr. Haney annoys me so much that he has been the cause of several burst blood vessels in the brain.

For now I will stick with the Chiller channel and movies on DVD. Oh, and Boston Legal if I am in a hotel room with nothing to do.

The Life of Reilly

My six-year-old daughter is for some reason enamored with Richard Dawson (and has repeatedly expressed dismay that he is no longer on "Family Feud") and is a fan of "Match Game." Why, I don't know, but she is too young to pick up on some of the innuendo present in many of the questions and answers. I think the fact that the celebrity panel seems to be have such a good time appeals to her.

(And usually the panel was having a better time than the viewers realized. They taped a week's worth of shows in a single day, and if you watch reruns of the show you'll notice as the week progresses the celebrities become more and more "loose.")

While my daughter is infatuated with Dawson, it is Charles Nelson Reilly who amuses her the most. She refers affectionately to him as "Charles."

In Life of Reilly, which we screened at the Seattle Film Festival with director Barry Poltermann, came days after Reilly's death of pneumonia. Charles Nelson Reilly, known best for his stellar run on game shows during the 1970’s, rebuffs the notion that he has been long-dead in this funny and powerful one-man show filmed in 2005. Winner of two Tony awards for his stage work, Reilly easily dispels the notion that he is merely a quick-witted game show contestant.

My family found amusing the tee shirts we received at the screening.

Read more about my adventures at the 33rd Seattle International Film Festival here.

An Update fom the Seattle Film Festival

Today begins my second weekend at the Seattle International Film Festival. Because I had to travel to Chicago, I managed only four films during the past week, all of which were excellent choices.

The Battle of Wits, depicting a siege of a walled Chinese city in the 4th century, B.C., and Never on a Sunday, a dark comedy from Mexico, were worthy fare. But two films stood out as exceptional - Death at a Funeral, from director Frank Oz, and Paris Je t'aime.

Read my thoughts and reviews from the film festival here.

The Road Warrior Returns

It's was early April sometime when I last sat in my office in Seattle. I have been traveling every week, mainly to Chicago, but I had the pleasure of spending the past five days in Palo Alto, California.

One of the positive results of my trip to Palo Alto was having my area of responsibility redefined, and soon I will relinquish my Chicago responsibilities to someone else. I tell people I meet in Chicago that I only work there, but I live in Seattle.

I look forward to spending more time with my family, and more time taking care of business closer to home.

The Seattle International Film Festival began while I was away, so I have some catching up to do. Many movies to see. I also have set aside some time to spend with my family. It is going to be a good Memorial Day weekend.

Tale of the Toenail

There was a sharp piece of exposed metal extending from the bed frame in my hotel room, an instrument by which one of my toenails was cruelly severed off. And this was one of the toes of my broken foot, the shy neighbor of the piggie which had been abruptly twisted and mangled six weeks ago. My sock was becoming a recovery ward for piggies.

This toenail business caused me a delay of perhaps a half hour in getting out to dinner, and I still had a stop to make along Michigan Avenue. I found that my pronounced limp (which in the past week had all but disappeared) had returned with a vengeance, primarily because the severed toenail, which I had carefully reattached using two Band-Aids, was shifting as I walked and scraping against the raw underside of my toenail.

(When I related the accident to my daughter over the phone, her first question was, "Behind the toenail, is it gooey?")

I phoned down to the front desk and asked for the name of the manager on duty, stating that there had been an accident in room 2103. I made an appointment and rode the elevator down to see him.

I was taken to the manager's office and was surprised to find there a young man extending his hand and saying, in a fake English accent,"What's all this then, laddie? Accident in the room, you said?"

I told him what happened.

"Not minding your piggies, eh? Terribly sorry, old sod. What can I do to make it better?" He pronounced it beh-tah. Fake.

"You could have someone remove the bloody towels from the floor," I said, hoping my statement might levy some kind of visible emotional impact, sympathy, or offers of cash and freebies.

It did not.

"Will bring round fresh towels right away. How about a wheel chair, what?"

"Absolutely not."

"Right-o, then. Ring down if you need anything."

I hobbled up Michigan Avenue to a bookshop and bought a Richard Scarry book for my daughter. I joked to the young clerk that I was going to teach myself to read tonight, and she asked why I was limping."I severed off a toenail about forty-five minutes ago," I said, and she responded with a grimace. Our transaction continued, but the clerk had terminated our conversation. Which was fine. She had been speaking in a fake Long Island accent and I was annoyed with her anyway.

Fake English

Every so often I cross paths with someone in the service industry whom I think is faking an English accent. Walk into a nearly empty restaurant and the too-thin twenty-something host with platinum highlights gestures dramatically and says, “Cheerio, gov’nuh...table for one?”

I am not sure why someone in the service industry would fake an English accent, but I suspect that there are a few extroverted and theatrical hourly-earners out there that do so on a regular basis.

And these people annoy me.

Often a suspected linguistic fraud is a waiter or porter. Yesterday it was an effeminate hotel clerk who spoke in what sounded like an English stage accent. It was good, but not perfect. His skill level at performing an English accent was more or less on par with my own, and having once or twice faked an English accent myself (but never on the job), my fake accent radar went into red alert.

He was answering a question about the history of the hotel I was staying at while I glared dubiously at him. He seemed taken aback, most likely because he suspected I doubted the information. But what I doubted was the accent.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“From? Ah. Merry old England, ‘course. Manchester. Cheerio. God save the queen and all that, mate.”

Uh-huh. Sure. Manchester. All the fakes are from Manchester, ever notice that? I took consolation that morning in the fact that at least my cab driver's accent is genuine. No deception there. I couldn't understand a word he was saying.

With Apologies to My Mother-in-law

My wife and daughter were visiting my mother-in-law in Denver. I spoke with my daughter over the phone. She told me that her uncle and his girlfriend were coming over for dinner.

ME: Are you having anything special for dinner?

HARPER: Meatloaf. Nothing exciting. A hamburger loaf, that's what it is. Tastes like bread. I'm not too excited.

Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007

My friend Michael Homer once asked me at a lecture given by Kurt Vonnegut at the University of South Carolina, "This guy is a communist and an atheist, and you're a conservative and a Christian, so why do you admire him so much?"

I admired his mind, and his astonishing ability as a storyteller, as a writer of science fiction.

A grad student, who identified herself as a literature major with aspirations to teach high school Lit, asked him, "What books should I include on my students' mandatory reading list?" He responded dryly, "If you don't know the answer to that question at this point in your education, you're in the wrong field."

In an article about literary style, Vonnegut railed against the use of the semi-colon (never use one) and preached writing simple, clear sentences in order to communicate.

He believed that society's ills were the result of the collapse of the extended family, and theorized that if the government were to reassign everyone in the country to an extended family, we would all be much better off. He was a believer in the love and support net an extended family provides for the individual.



He is among my three favorite novelists, along with Thomas Hardy and John Irving.

He wrote many books and stories. Many were very funny. He was a humanist, most of all, and though our philosophies and beliefs are quite different, he made me laugh, made me think, and inspired me to find worth in my fellow human beings.

Dateline: New York

I am in New York a couple of days this week for an event at the NASDAQ. The company I work for was invited to sound the opening buzzer.

The event was exciting and memorable, and I am glad I was given the opportunity to attend the event.

At this moment I am in Queens, just off the Van Wyck. My cab driver had to stop for fuel on the way to JFK and seems to have disappeared. He is one of those maniacal ones who uses the horn with great liberality, then apologizes to his fare for his inability to run some out-of-state rube off the expressway.

I am sitting alone in the cab at the pump of a BP station. It is quiet in here. I cannot hear the noise from the Van Wyck. I find myself in the most curious of circumstances. The keys are in the ignition. If the Cabbie does not return perhaps I could take the cab onto the airport. I could abandon it there and catch my flight.

But for now I wait.

B.C. R.I.P.

Johnny Hart, the outspoken and sometimes controversial author of the B.C. comic strip, is dead at age 76.

Happy Easter!

Peppermint Patty: Well, Marcie, I'm really sorry. Here it is Easter Morning, and we don't have any colored eggs.

Marcie: I'm the one who's sorry, sir. I guess I'm not much of a cook.

The Easter weekend is thus far much as I remember it as a child. Dying Easter eggs on Saturday, before watching "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" on television. Only two of the twelve eggs were broken, but we got them right from the get-go: no eggs roasted, toasted or waffled. No egg soup. (Poor Marcie just couldn't get it right!) Our eggs are hard boiled like they're supposed to be, in the shell, and colored to perfection with Paas tablets dissolved in water and vinegar.

It's after nine, and The Ten Commandments serves as background as we prepare for Easter Sunday. We'll enjoy a 10 pound ham after Easter services. Then we'll spend the afternoon participating in an egg hunt organized by my six-year-old. This is usually a pretty big production as my daughter has grandiose ideas when it comes to egg hunts.

I've got to get back to the TV. Charlton Heston has returned to the Israelites as a slave. Happy Easter!

Dinner with Nan

My business travels brought me to Raleigh recently and though I was in a lot of pain and wearing an inconvenient apparatus on my right foot (which I had recently broken in an embarrassing home accident) I managed to drive to Columbia in order to have dinner at the home of my sister and her husband. My grandmother attended.

It was great to see Nan. She had recently moved from her lifelong home in Greenville to Lexington, where my sister lives, and I was able to spend two days with her before flying back to Seattle.

Pictured with me are my parents, my sister and Nan.

Lots of Books!

“You are supposed mark the books you have read, want to or again and again if it’s one you keep reading.”

I saw this on my friend Rick's blog. I wish I knew how these books were qualified for this list, but I don't. I marked the ones that I’ve read in blue. 34 -- that's a third. Of these, I will most likely read the Tolkien and Hictchhiker's books again some day. The ones I want to read or are planning to read are in green.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) Sadly, this is my wife's favorite book
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. 6. 7. The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter 1 (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter 2 (Rowling) Two chapters only; left the book on a plane
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter 3 (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter 4 (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) Rick introduced me to this one in 1983
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett) Really liked this book
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) My pastor is big on Russian literature
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter 5 (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) Love the title - know nothing about it
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75.The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) Started this one once...
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) This paperback has been in my stack for 10 years
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) My Uncle Ron turned me on to Ludlum many years ago
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) Did not like this one
100. Ulysses (James Joyce) ...or this one, either

Wardrobe Malfunctions

My wardrobe is a mess.

All of my recent clothing purchases have come as a result of packing errors and missed flights.

And I've been buying my clothes now at Eddie Bauer, a place I'd not shopped before last year. It's not because I like their merchandise (I guess I do, but that's not why I shop there). I shop at Eddie Bauer because it's on Michigan Avenue around the corner from my Chicago hotel.

I am adding to my wardrobe items not chosen to compliment what I already own. Thursday night I bought a blue shirt comfortable for wearing on a flight the following morning, a clean undershirt and new socks. I had missed my flight hours earlier and it was rescheduled for the following morning; I had nothing clean to wear.

I arrived in Chicago on one trip back in the fall, and when I got to my hotel I found a notice in my suitcase that informed me TSA had inspected by bag. And wouldn’t you know it – all of my pants were now missing! And I was in Chicago for four days. Talk about being inconvenienced by our country’s present security measures!

So I pressed on, as I usually do, only to find three pairs of slacks hanging on the doorknob of my study, where I’d failed to pack them beforehand.