THE WEEK BEHIND : Duplass, Sedaris, Norsemen.

Things that are uncountable:
The number of times a week Donald J. Trump lies, throws somebody under the bus, empty-brags, or embarasses the office of the Presidency.

The number of times a week our youngest son commits an act with great forethought and deliberation while simultaneously announcing what he's doing with a repeated series of "Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh..."

Accidents happen.

Speaking of accidents: serendipity was a spelling word on our daughter's test today. So it seemed like we should watch the trailer for the 2001 Kate Beckinsale / John Cusack rom-com. So we did.

Cocaine green.
What does your child salivate over for a snack? Let me tell you about our two boys: separated by six and a half years, united in their hilarious addiction to frozen peas for a snack. Yeah. Frozen peas. The green crack snack.

Halloween happened.
A cowgirl. A teenager trying to act all cool. A panda. Or a cow. Hard to tell.

They made a sugar fortune and have enjoyed little of the bounty; fortunately we do not have a security system effective enough to keep me out of their hard-worked for treasures.

Ejvindr has spent the last two days organizing his candy into various buckets, backpacks, and bags. Over. And over and over and over. It has not been communicated to him that there's candy inside these brightly wrapped little objects. Also, learning what candy is has not been part of his education yet, so he is playing with something and has no idea what's actually inside. If he only knew. I have forbade the children, under penalty of throwing away all candy and frozen peas, that he is not to learn the identity of his toys (i.e. candy). Yet. Not yet. The floodgates will open someday. But not yet.

Also, my little sister the older made some pretty nifty costumes for her fam. Straight from How to Train Your Dragon. Pretty cool, pretty crafty.

Standard time.
The clock changes this weekend. Standard time, I think. Fall back?

Phone numbers have seven digits because - at least in the days when people needed to remember phone numbers - seven is the number of digits that most people can carry in their short- to mid-term memory. That's doable. Know what's hard?

Remembering one thing when there's a total of two options. Like : just take a left at the stop sign.

You start second-guessing yourself. I don't take a left, right? Right is right. Not left, right. 

All of a sudden a simple thing becomes extraordinarily complicated. Such is my life. Complicating simple tasks and simplifying complex ideas.

My mom, two books
Several months ago, my mom gave me two books within a couple weeks of each other.

One is called Like Brothers. It's by the Duplass brothers, who really are brothers and filmmakers. It is inspiring and wonderful and these brothers love each other so much, like I love mine.

The other is called Calypso. It's by David Sedaris, one of my favorite writers, and it is dark and hilarious and he writes about his husband and family and all the love and frustration he has in his interactions with them. Also, he talks about American phrases he loathes, such as : it is what it is.

She gave them to me because she thought I'd like them. She has a knack for that. Giving books that somehow are there when I need them. I needed these ones.

Things I hate
Walking across a kitchen floor in my bare feet and stepping in breakfast cereal that some idiot has spilled.

Things I hate more than that
Walking across a kitchen floor in my socks and stepping in sticky rice that some idiot has spilled.

Things that weren't horrible
A) I didn't tip my riding mower over when I made a poor decision to take it diagonally across a hill.

B) A cloud of particular interest flew by around 11am.

C) My dad called last night and said this:

Joey, find the show Norsemen on Netflix. Just watch fifteen minutes. I think you'll be glad. 

I did so, because he's my dad. And I could tell it would make him happy to know that I'd checked it out. So I did. I watched it, as did Becca, until she fell asleep.

I laughed so good. One of the funniest first-episodes of a show I'd seen. He was so right. I can't wait to watch it with him.

The phrase "Python-esque humor" in television is a little like saying "Beatle-esque sounding" in music. It's so diluted it means little anymore. The reality is, we should agree that pretty much all good pop music and rock and roll owes a debt to the Beatles, in the same manner that pretty much all droll and properly-offending television programmes owe a debt to Terry Gilliam, John Cleese, and the crew.

Norsemen, after one half hour episode, has the Python spirit. Its own tone, its own thing for sure, but a proper entrant in the well-done, played-straight classic telly shows.

D) Becca made a really savory, chunky, spicy soup for Friday supper.
E. Magdelana has been baking up a storm. Pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, all sorts of delicacies.

Things I got worked up about this week and might have given long monologues on as a result

1. The Renaissance. Yeah, the one that started in northern Europe in the 1400s and was a big factor in the ensuing Age of Exploration, for better or worse. Probably worse for the 80-90% of indigenous populations that were wiped out as a result. 
2. How much more I like Hungarian composer Franz Liszt than Hungarian composer Bela Bartok.
3. Prime factorization. I got into a bit of a competition with Magdelana as I got engrossed in one of her lessons. Addicting. Quick: prime factorization of 27. A: 3x3x3 Ready for the next one? Try 428. 
4. Primogeniture. The concept of wealth and land being passed to the oldest son and its impact on Spain and other European countries as they ran out of land and needed to find more somewhere...hello, Americas! 
5. There's other stuff. I get worked up a lot these days. For example, I got worked up during the last two innings of one of the World Series games. That was the only baseball I watched all year, but true to form, Johannes, that precious angelic long-haired lad, wanted to know why I was so obsessed with baseball and why it was more important than tucking him in. 

"I guess you'd rather watch your baseball than lay by me,"

he said as he trudged off to bed.

What a masterful guilt trip. I typically loathe them, but you gotta give props where they're due.

Again: two innings of the World Series. I think the Sox beat the Dodgers. 

I worked this week, on my work days - and nights - in the dungeon.
Because that's where I work. It gets cold, and I saw a lot of rain through my dirty cracked window at the top of our mountain.

Listened to a bunch of Chvrches and a lot of Liszt this week.

We are alive, and there is love. We have love, we have loud music, and we have a lot of art supplies. And each other. So another week in the life ledger.

My little sister, the littlest.
She sent me a text this week in response to something I wrote, and her response included these two lines:

"...reading what you write feels like another way to breathe."

and

"I love how sparingly you use commas."

I love, I love it, I love her and I love that she observes and articulates what she observes. It matters.

It means so much to have someone acknowledge and respond to what you do when you do something that you care about.