Post-Christmas Saturday
the girl
The Dog and the Game
The kids played with the dog a bit this afternoon -- a good thing, because the pup, when neglected, pouts. And a pouting pup does things like dig massive holes in the backyard, run uncontrollably once inside, bark incessantly inside or out.
Afterward, another evening over the board. This time, possibly the most luck I've ever experienced in the silly game. Everything with buildings on it -- I owned. I made my own son cry when he landed on New York Avenue with a hotel and had to pay $1,000. He literally fell into the floor and began sobbing.
"Buddy, calm down. It's just a game. I'm lucky this time." No help. Then I had an idea: "If you can pull yourself together, I'll give you a surprise." I was planning on giving everything I had to him and letting him finish L off, but her turn was right after mine and she landed on Tennessee Avenue (See that? It also had a hotel.) and had to pay $950 one turn after she'd paid me something like $600. She had nothing left: she gave me her little bit of cash and all her remaining property with a pout and said, "You win."
Boxing Day 2019
I’ve never really been a fan of Monopoly. After about the age of ten or eleven, I determine that there was too much chance involved, and I just found it frustrating. I never played it after that.
As an adult, though, I’ve come to recognize that there is a fair amount of chance in life that just sucks money from one’s bank account. Medical emergencies, car repairs, accidents, home issues, and the like — all unplanned, all expenses.
When the Girl got Monopoly for Christmas this year, I knew I’d end up playing it with the kids. I didn’t realize how much fun it could be as an adult who can simply look at it as a game that is a fairly accurate reflection of the frustrations of adulthood and, more importantly, as a game that can provide lessons to kids and time together as a family.
We played twice today. The first time, it was just the kids and I. It only took a moment for me to realize the value for a seven-year-old. He had to read, to count money, and occasionally make change.
L dominated us, and the Boy was hemorrhaging cash to a degree that he declared he was going to quit. We talked him down, but then K returned home and we set about to preparing and eating dinner.
Afterward, the kids wanted to play again, so we sat down as a family and began. I had a little strategy in mind that I wanted to test: quality, not quantity. I bought a bunch of properties quickly, then traded at exorbitant cost to myself three or four properties for the final street to make the orange set:
New York Avenue- Tennessee Avenue
- St. James Place
I then set about to building them up to two houses each as quickly as possible. The result: I was getting a couple of hundred bucks every few cycles of the board.
The Boy took a similar route: he ended up with all the railroads and soon was rolling in money.
Poor K was getting hit left and right: bad luck with Community Chest/Chance cards, bad luck with the dice (she must have landed on the luxury tax four or five times), and soon she was down to little cash and few unmortgaged properties.
Then I bought one more house for each of my properties and drawing $550-$600 from every poor player who landed on one of them. K finally landed on one, and it just about wiped her out.
Her reaction: she laughed. Our reaction: we laughed with her.
On our walk this evening, then, we were able to help E see that the most important thing in a game like that is just to have fun. “It’s just a game!”
13
Today we became parents of a teenager.
I sit and look at that word in wonder. “She’s thirteen,” I said to myself multiple times today. “Thirteen!”
She’s no longer interested in getting toys of any kind for her birthday. She’s no longer interested in watching cartoons. She’s no longer interested in so many things that once meant the world to her.
Now she watches Grey’s Anatomy and advises K on make-up brands. She picks apart K’s and my words, looking for semantic loopholes — “But you said…” — and no longer turns up her nose at movie recommendations coming from me.
She’s as tall as K now, as stubborn as anyone we know, as sweet as a thirteen-year-old can be (and that age can be incredibly sweet — I wouldn’t have worked with thirteen-year-olds for as long as I have if it weren’t for that). She’ll stay up as late as we allow (probably later), sleep as long as we let her, and fuss at the silliest things — just like a teenager, I guess.
She’s more beautiful than we could have expected, more aggravating than we would have wished, funnier than we deserve, and often sweeter than honey.
Except when she’s not
Which means she’s officially a teenager.
Jaselka 2019
The Polish community in the area has a mass on the last Sunday of every month, but just before Christmas, there's a special mass. We've done it every year for ten years now.
So much has changed.
Families have moved into the area and out. New families have moved from Poland; old families (at least one -- perhaps more that I don't know of, but the plural sounds better) have returned to Poland. The kids to put on the Christmas pageant in those early years are now in college; many of the kids performing now weren't even born then. We parents are all a little older, slower, wiser (?); some more cynical, some more devout; some rounder, some not. The world is a different place; our city is a different place.
Yet the pre-Christmas jasełka-centered Sunday has held steady through it all.
I count myself among those in the "more cynical" list, at least about the whole Catholic/theistic enterprise. I find myself moving more and more back to my old skeptical position, the animosity I felt toward religion returning.
Yet at its best, this is what religion provides: markers by which we can measure our lives, strengthen our communities, and share with friends.
And who could deny the beauty of the opłatek tradition?
Previous Years
Jasełka 2017
Jasełka 2016
Jasełka 2015
Six and Jaselka
Jasełka 2013
Jasełka
Performance
Jasełka
First Club Tournament
The girls had a tough day: lost everything but one set.
A learning experience, especially for L, who might have gotten a little too used to winning after an undefeated season.
Confidence
It’s a perfect set: high, gently arching. L approaches, plants her feet, throws her body into the air, and comes down just below the ball, swinging ineffectually at empty air. She jumped too early.
Timing for beginning hitters is everything. Absolutely everything. And when they get that timing perfectly, the rest of the hit becomes just that much more effective, just that much faster, just that much more forceful and intimidating. When it’s off, the hit is anything but a hit: a swat, a push, a shove, an empty swing.
The coach sees L miss so completely and shakes his head ever so slightly. He’s as frustrated as she is.
It’s moments like this that experience and confidence takes over. The truly good hitters are not put off by a miss. Something goes wrong – they shake it off and keep going. They swing as hard the next swing as they did the last swing. If the last ball goes into the net, if the last ball sails a mile out, if the last ball fell pathetically to the ground, she swings the next time as if nothing happened, as if the last hit were a blistering kill, a spike so powerful and fast that it was a mere blur of white.
The setter gives the next ball to L again. She approaches, plants her feet, throws her body into the air, and gives it a nice gentle swing. It’s deliberate yet sure to go over the net. No heat, no sting – just get it over the net. And this is where her lack of experience shows.
A few more sets come her way. The club coach has, after all, made her an outside hitter, so she’ll be getting the majority of the sets, but tonight, at this moment, it feels like targeting – the best kind of targeting. The kind that will build her confidence as she swings and swings and swings. Finally, everything aligns and the Girl takes a big swing. The ball shoots across the court and pops the floor with a bang just inside the line.
She smiles. Is that a bit more confidence I see in her smile?
Concert
Ms. R was the children's choir director for our parish for a long time. Most of L's time in the choir was under her direction, and like all the other (mostly) girls, she loved Ms. R. When she had her third child, she decided it was time to call it quits.
Shortly after that, L decided to call it quits with the choir.
Now Ms. R is back to help the girls prepare some Christmas music. This evening, they were hired to give a concert in a swanky downtown hotel...
Outside Lighting
K and I decided we were going to forego the usual outside decorations this year and try something new. With two trees in the front yard, there seemed to be only one thing to do: transform them into Christmas trees.
"It should be faster than putting up the icicle lighting," K said.
"Should be," I agreed.
So while K was running her first open house as a real estate agent, the kids and I set about wrapping some 344 feet of lights (8 lines of 43 feet each) around our crape myrtles.
I wasn't sure how it would turn out because of the random places we had to string a line from one branch to another, creating a strange horizontal bit in an otherwise verticle orientation.
In the end, I think it turned out fairly well.
"How long did it take?" asked K earlier this evening.
"About as long as the icicle lighting."
Maybe next year we'll do both...or neither.
Volleyball Practice
I swear, it looked better on the phone…