The Life Well Loved

“The doctor told me I had ten years left. I said that’s perfect!”

We have just sped vigorously up a mountain highway, tailing a sporty Mercedes SUV as its 70-year-old operator led us to her mountain home, where she spends peaceful stretches in a Chautauqua (I had to look up what that meant). Within moments of exiting the interstate, we’ve explained ourselves at a guard station and entered a world that predates our usual modernity. 

Having delivered her terminal diagnosis in the bounciest way possible, Elizabeth concluded our tour of the house with the presentation of their community book. It would need to be referenced several times that weekend because there are a few interesting rules to abide by. My favorite is that children are not allowed to be anywhere other than snug in their leafy early-century bungalows from the hours of 1pm to 3pm daily. You might be thinking that this sounds like something a group of older people would come up with. That would be correct.

All four Chapmans are present for this trip and Elizabeth has a friend coming Saturday morning. We cover very little of the floor space on offer in this completely renovated beauty that I’m pretty sure used to be a modest hotel. The kitchen is beyond gorgeous but our host prefers to use a counter-top air fryer if she’s cooking. After meeting for a Friday afternoon showing of The Barbie Movie in the nearest town with a theater, I am quickly reminded that my duties are to be the chef and sole male representative for the weekend. 

Thinking ahead, I had pre-assembled a baked pasta with pork slowly cooked in Allison’s family red sauce. All we had to do now was figure out how to work this very french oven. It had industrial handles and knobs that meant business. There was also no way to see your food as it was cooking behind cast iron doors. Let’s just say it took longer than expected to brown that cheese topping.

We catch up on family stories over dinner. Explaining our connection to this hilarious woman can feel complicated at times. She was Allison’s stepmom for a handful of years, during a period that encompassed high school and college. Ex-step-mom doesn’t do the relationship justice, as Elizabeth has stayed close with everyone, even Allison’s mom. They used to get together and roast their mutual ex-husband for a good laugh. More recently, she was a noted saint in helping us manage the decline of Geoff’s health, being the last one to visit him before he passed.

What I love about Elizabeth is she has reached the point in life where she does what she wants. It is a remarkable case study. Her golf cart is whisper quiet when it backs up. One imagines a scene where a technician says “yes m’am” when she tells him the factory-installed safety beeps simply won’t do. Life is here to live and there is a definitive timeline. Might as well enjoy it.

A proud forty years sober, Elizabeth gets down with bridge. We gather from the book of visitors that a handful of weeks a year are intensive sessions with various groups and professional instruction. Her enthusiasm made me want to round up all the neighborhood dads and tell them we’re starting a bridge club. 

As daylight fades, we get a walking tour of the Chautauqua. This whole scene is straight out of Dirty Dancing. Long, ancient-looking wooden footbridges connecting a wide array of forest green buildings one would imagine at camp. Any given night, there could be movies playing in the gym, a kid’s dance in the activity hall or a community potluck drawing folks to a freestanding cafeteria. The pace is slower. So slow, in fact, that the community cop (known predictably as Barney Fife by the locals) regularly nabs anyone enthusiastic enough to go 20 miles per hour. 

The houses in our vicinity all seemed to contain great friends that had known Elizabeth for years. And if they didn’t, she still walked right on in to say hey. Most were relaxing on the kind of porches your grandmother had back in the day. Gentle laughter and the swinging of screen doors would occasionally punctuate the hum of cicadas and sagging fans. 

We put the kids down and our adult triumvirate capped off the evening with a terrifying movie (picked by our host) about a fella who kidnaps young women and sells off their body parts while still keeping them alive. Elizabeth had a personal connection to makers of the film and enjoyed saying “y’all watch this!” in her Tennessee soprano right before another character was hacked to pieces.

The next morning, I awoke early for a quick jog around the community. It’s rare that I go off on any trip without google mapping the hell out of a place, but it simply wasn’t possible here. I definitely got lost for a smidge and it was unclear as to whether a few neighborhood rules were violated in the process of finding my way again.

After treating our crew with some of Chappy’s famous homemade biscuits and a fanciful breakfast spread, I was thrown the keys to the Mercedes. There was a minor drain issue, so as the resident fella it was my pleasure to act as chauffeur slash plumber while we knocked it out. She encouraged me to leg out the AMG all the way to Ace Hardware and back, at least until we were approaching officer Fife’s favorite hiding spot. Some excesses aren’t worth the trouble.

We were already on pace for a lively morning and then Cornelia arrived with her big fluffy black dog, Molly. It took me a bit to decipher the correct spelling because Elizabeth went for the more efficient and southern “Ca-neel-yah.” By the end of the day, we would be kindly asked to take custody of Molly if Cornelia passed. Not to ruin the ending, but we all got along like thieves.

I enjoyed the dynamic of these two ladies in their eighth decade. Unburdened by the yoke of men, one had taken to farm life outside the city with an exceptional dog and amazing view. The other presided as matriarch over the close-knit suburban family her boys had expanded. They knew one another’s strengths, and, more amusingly, weaknesses as they constantly teased one another for being like they always had.

After a heartwarming game of fetch with Molly, we loaded up on the golf cart and made our first of four trips that day to the Arts & Crafts fair. The ladies were in their element. I always hit up the tables of pickled things and hot sauce first, but we quickly found out that this is how Elizabeth decorates her houses. Vendors hardly knew what was coming. When we finally caught up, our rendezvous was at a booth offering handmade stained glass artwork. I struck up conversation with the proprietors as they sweated in the summer sun. They were spending brief nights at a nearby hotel between marathon sessions onsite here in peak tourist season.

We were asked about a few pieces that had apparently made the final cut for purchase, but not much thought had been dedicated to exactly where they would hang. Thus began a lengthy series of trips back and forth to the house, the final one including the vendors who surely thought they would be headed back to the hotel after the fair shut down for the day.

I began to prepare our meal of burgers and simple sides, feeling like it was well within my wheelhouse. The grill was state of the art and still looked new. The propane tanks, I was assured, had recently been filled. I got the fire going on the first try and walked away for a casual beverage. 

Guests began to arrive for dinner and most inquired out of earshot who the genteel older African American couple was. It took me a few tries before I could explain what was happening without making it sound like our host had taken hostages who were now decorating her house. Without the proper equipment to hang heavier works, Elizabeth had spirited away the gentlemen in the Mercedes down to the Ace Hardware. His wife, still looking spent from a long day out in the sun, accepted our offer of some chilled white wine. That made us all feel a little better in the event the police showed up.

Eventually, everything was in its place and the spent artisans refused an invitation for dinner. I walked out to throw on our burgers and the flames were extinguished. Our primary tank was empty. So was the backup. My mind reeled for a minute with twenty raw hamburgers still sitting on that platter. For all of the grief I gave Elizabeth about her air fryer, it sure did come in handy as we rallied to feed the starving faithful. After the meal, Cornelia asked us all to stand back as she did an impromptu demo of Dawn Power Wash spray on the mountain of beef-fat covered dishes. This blog currently receives no sponsorship, but I’ll be damned if that stuff didn’t work some impressive magic. 

As the night came to a close, I found myself rocking away on the front porch with wives and ex-wives from the neighborhood. They shared various complaints about men, with some offenders being named specifically. It felt like I had been accepted into the fold as their own. First The Barbie Movie, then extreme craft fairing, and now I was gently sipping from a zesty pinot grigio while happily belittling my own kind.

Before we could get too settled, Elizabeth whisked us away to the various evening happenings in the neighborhood. Our girls danced to a DJ who was smart enough to go heavy on Taylor Swift. Faces that were new and fresh one evening previous were now familiar friends. Just like the last night of camp, we were making plans to do it again next year.

On Sunday morning, we collected our things and gathered around the kitchen island for extended goodbyes and promises to keep in touch. Big hugs for Elizabeth and Cornelia. One last game of fetch with Molly. I gave them my number and affirmation that we would indeed add this precious dog to our fold if the moment unfortunately arose.

If I’m seventy and still living with the vibrancy of these ladies, I would count this time on earth as a resounding success. We’re all going to be faced with suffering and situations beyond our control, but wouldn’t you want to be the person who hears they have ten more years left and decides to make the most of it?

We're headed back this July and I can’t wait to get the band back together. Cheers to one more year of living and whatever comes next.

The Summer of Sandwich

Our family likes to play a fun game when we’re all together and rehashing old times. They turn to me with a gleam in their eyes and ask “Matt, what did we eat that day?” This rarely provides a challenge, because my memory bank files everything away as an extended meal. We were simply doing other things in the time between filling our bellies. I’d say it’s my one weird thing, but you’ve probably figured out that’s a rather long list.

My wife is an artist at heart. She processes and interprets the world as a vivid color palette, occasionally pausing to accuse me of colorblindness (why isn’t “greenish blue” an acceptable description?). On the other hand, my lens is that of an omnivore. The spectrum illuminating my thoughts is that of deliciousness.  

Meals are one of the most immersive experiences one can have. Not to get too gross, but food makes your acquaintance from first sight, smell, temperature and taste all the way to…the sewer system. I can’t completely review a dinner until I’ve hosted the afterparty. Food is more than just fuel to me, it’s approaching religion.

When something occupies your thoughts to the point of obsession, it can be difficult to manage appropriately. I’ll read through menus like they are holy texts conveying a higher meaning. The thought of a perfectly cooked brisket makes my loins quiver. How then am I expected to behave appropriately at a classy brunch buffet?

That’s really where the rub comes in. I’ve been active since birth, but the aging process has finally caught up with me. My metabolism used to be a thing of pride, but lately has become a real drag. There was a fateful period I refer to longingly as “The Summer of Sandwich” where I really doubled-down calorically speaking on lunch. The bread I homemade with love, but the sheer quantity of meat, double cheese and external coating of mayonnaise (makes it perfect on the griddle) were not great for my waistline. But my word, those were some delicious sandwiches.

At the time, I was hitting my ambitious fitness goals every single day, maintaining an unbroken streak of insanity that lasted for over two years. That is a topic for another article, but needless to say I had absolute proof that you can’t outrun a poor diet. My weight was the highest on record, even as I regularly eclipsed twenty thousand steps a day. As fate would have it, my license, passport and two family christmas cards captured the perfect moment in time where my face achieved maximum squish. People still do a double take when checking my ID.

So what changed? This answer may seem overwhelmingly obvious, but here it goes. How about less mayo-slathered meaty and cheesy sandwiches. Fewer “snack pizzas,” as I like to call my Saturday late night indulgences. Y’all, I’ve never been accused of being a genius.

It took almost forty years to balance a very simple equation. I was just working it from the wrong variable. Turns out you can just eat better and less. Then you don’t have to exercise like your life depends on it. What comes in can simply get burned efficiently because that’s what is appropriate to run this factory. Call it hubris, but many humans (myself included) give themselves way too much credit for a workout when they sit down to that next meal. Our indulgent pat on the back can easily negate the calories we burned. 

When you do the math on processed food and our daily recommendations, it is pretty eye opening what the average American is willfully shoveling into their bodies. Evolved tactics for storing up sustenance in preparation for scarcity never see that lean period our ancestors would inevitably endure. The brain’s preference for sugary input wasn’t tuned to handle an era of thirty ounce soft drinks. 

This might be an odd marker in history, but I can remember when professional golfers were still downing a couple of hot dogs and chips at the turn. These were people doing athletic and mentally challenging tasks with millions of dollars on the line. Yet they were refueling with about the least healthy thing per pound that you can eat. Then Tiger Woods came along and proved the seemingly obvious case that being physically fit and eating strategically gives you a competitive edge, even in the more pedestrian of sports. The next thing you know, even NASCAR drivers are adopting nutrition plans between their swigs of Busch Light. 

I know what you are thinking. These people are rich and their livelihood depends on such a miserable in-season lifestyle. You don’t have the time or money and would be hungry all the time for nothing. I used to be in this camp and thought cheeseburgers would always be worth it, but I found some great advice and it has stuck with me since.

If you contemplate your next potential meal long enough, your vagus nerve and brain will stew on the outcome and reach a logical resolution about how to proceed. It’s the impulsivity that tends to take us down the wrong path. I’ve had stomach issues for years, which have helped refine the “is it going to make me feel terrible” sense, but I was largely ignoring my body. We are at our worst when we act impulsively and outpace that 15 minute delay on our fullness meter. If you start making methodical and informed decisions about what you eat, then that’s step one.

Once I took to eating more salads, nuts and vegetables, my day was less of a rollercoaster. It became easier to find the sweet spot where I still dabble in the less healthy stuff from time to time (you know I had to try that new stuffed-crust Donatos pizza) but the balance is more easily restored.

Growing at least some of my own food has helped a bunch. It’s one thing to toss out some grocery store produce that went bad immediately, and another disappointment entirely to miss the perfect window of freshness from a vegetable you have planted and tended since it was a seed. You tend to work these items into the family menu.

I used to think that culinary happiness was a dish that had to be served with heaps of butter, sugar, fat and salt (with a dash of hot sauce). Once you wean your taste buds off of that boisterous ride, then the subtlety and nuance of natural flavors start to shine through. Raw pecans are flippin delicious. Sweet peppers are my jam. Believe it or not, leafy greens do have taste under that mountain of ranch and bacon.

There’s meaning to be found in everything we do, but I can’t find a more meaningful idea than cultivating a more conscious consumer of our only energy source. Until we can biohack our bodies for photosynthesis, we’re stuck eating and drinking our way to survival. How many of us lose countless hours of sleep worrying through the myriad ways we and our loved ones could meet an early end, meanwhile the prime suspect is sitting in front us three-ish times per day if you are living in the United States of America (Anthony Bourdain would have added “greatest country in the world, by God.”).

I’m quite jazzed about building new food memories that start all the way from a tiny little seed that my daughters and I planted together. We’ll share colorful plates and lively conversations, all while being more rooted to the world around us, even if I grew that salad in my bathroom.

Living in a House Full of Ladies

I like to plan things. Meals, trips, conversation topics, most efficient driving routes, you name it. Some things, however, are beyond my control. Family planning, for instance, was a bit of a crapshoot. But in an ideal world, I wanted two girls.

So here I am, a father to two lovely ladies of 5 and 3. Every day is a joy. There’s glitter everywhere.

As I tackle year five of being wholly outnumbered, it’s time to offer up my findings. The sample size, at this point, has produced many insights that are rooted in factual observation, and hopefully won’t get me exiled to the basement. The time has come to hand in my report on what it’s like being the only dude in a house full of ladies.

Exhibit 1: So Much Hair

You know you have reached peak hair when every shirt you throw on has a dangly one in the sleeve. This is an unbelievably consistent occurrence and ever since Maggie grew a head full of curly locks to match her mother, this is my life. Drains, floors, and stray toothbrushes lay fully at their mercy.

To top it off, I have no idea how to style and/or arrange the two small heads that have been presented to me. WTF is a barrette and what are they good for!? I pick up at least 10 per day off the floor, so maybe they are simply fun to play with.

When Allison goes out of town, I consider it a success if my girls return home from school with any implements I stuck on their head still intact. Corralling a fidgety child’s hair into a reliable ponytail still feels like throwing darts, but I’m trying.

Exhibit 2: Music

Taylor Swift isn’t terrible. There, I said it. 

Music is one of those things that I hold reasonably sacred. I was a radio DJ in college at WEGL, played in a band* and have a decent record collection. Once I married Allison (for mostly not her taste in music) it was already assumed that I would have to make some playlist sacrifices. 

We have a family agreement that a song can’t be played twice on the same car trip. Rules exist because they were, at one time, broken to an egregious extent. I’m warming up to that T-Swift, but a man can only take so much. Once you hear your 5 year old belt out the line “In the middle of the night…In MY DREEEAMS…You should see the things we do, BABY!” then you start to reign it in a bit.

The Frozen movies actually have some pretty solid jams, and Trolls is a musical triumph. Over time, my critical mind has opened a bit. I’ve embraced music that would have gotten me fired from the radio station, but rest assured I’m still racing to connect my Spotify library first when we get in the car.

Exhibit 3: Dairy Products (mostly cheese)

Lord have mercy the cheese. I can’t say that my single days ever involved a cheese board, but here we are. That fondue pot we thoughtlessly registered for is now a staple in the pantry. Needless to say, my dairy product paradigm has shifted on its head.

 Allow me to  recite the inventory of our refrigerator at this exact moment: Cottage cheese, 2 packs of string cheese, cheese dip, cream cheese, muenster slices, 2 lbs of grated parmesan, 2 blocks of mozzarella, havarti slices, shredded cheddar, feta, pimento cheese, ricotta…I’m tired of typing, and I bet you get it by now. I never knew the genre could be so versatile, for the whole of breakfast, lunch and dinner.

When I heard of the dairy industry’s recent decline, I slept well knowing that we are doing our part to supplement the demand curve.

Exhibit 4: Pee Pee Shame

I thank God every day for having a penis. It is a much more convenient and efficient lifestyle. Getting ready in the morning, packing for trips, and purchasing clothes are all very simple undertakings. So, understandably, I was rattled a bit once the shaming began.

Allison and I are constantly reminded that there is no privacy in this house. A locked door or missing parent is simply an excuse to raise more hell and bust down the barriers between. Unless they are deeply unconscious, there’s a very good chance our poops, showers, and mommy/daddy special time will be interrupted.

It was Maggie who hurled the first insult. As detailed above, my visits to the restroom are seldomly uninterrupted, so Maggie took an opportunity to examine my unorthodox standing method and deem it “super gross.” Her feedback included commentary on “peeing out of (my) front butt” which was obviously hilarious. She quickly got Libby onboard with her hate mongering, so now the mere sight of me taking a leak elicits all kinds of chastization from the duo. With a few months of therapy, I’ll get beyond it. 

Exhibit 5: Toilet Paper

When you get married, there are compromises to be made. Two people will never perfectly align on every single thing, so you meet in the middle…except in those areas where you totally don’t. In the early days of my life with Mrs. Chapman, I wondered where all the toilet paper went. Then I helped create two more females. What used to last me a week will barely survive one day. It’s uncanny. Call me frugal, but even a big situation is likely a 10 square commitment. Somebody report back and let me know what the deal is. I tried to ask one time but was growled at.

Exhibit 5: Feelings

Historically, I would classify myself as “emotionally challenged.” The Chapman method, which has served to give several of us hypertension, is to internalize your feelings. I can recount many instances where my mother incurred serious wounds or was presented with really heavy situations, and just got on with it. The most I ever remember Brenda crying was when she backed into my sweet ‘95 Ford Mustang (a gift for my 16th birthday) and dented the fender. She was so upset that I got an aftermarket spoiler added at the body shop.

Fast forward to February 2015. Allison and I are hosting a Superbowl party at Chapman HQ. Maggie is 3 weeks from debuting on the scene. Toyota’s commercial that year featured a father and his daughter through the years. When the flashback ends, dad is crying in his Camry while dropping his adult daughter off at the airport. She is waving goodbye and departing for her assumedly dangerous military posting. Y’all, I totally lost it.

These days, it doesn’t take much. Old photos of our children, commercials featuring Sara McLachlan and sad puppies, Queer Eye reveals - all guaranteed to make me well up.

Yet, even with this heightened sensitivity, I still manage to hurt little baby feelings on a daily basis. My children’s responses to adversity and what I consider to be proportional reactions are usually way off. Therefore, I am often called  “mean” or generally accused of lacking the appropriate amount of empathy. My snuggles are also apparently second rate.

Last week, our family was at the pool. For Maggie, the time had come to offload her floatation aids and swim like a big girl. It was a goal we had pushed her to take on, and things were going well in the shallow end. Then, she slipped off a raft in an area where it was just deep enough to scare her a bit. Maggie was rescued immediately, but that didn’t keep her from elaborately expressing her dismay to the entire pool-going audience. 

Her immediate intent was to find the nearest exit and retreat in embarrassment, screaming dramatically with a face full of tears. But the gates were child proof and after the first one failed to yield, she furiously tugged on it like someone auditioning for the part of “desperate prisoner.” Over the next minute, she made a full circle of the facility, applying the same over-exaggerated theatrics to each locked gate and the distance covered between. Each failed attempt only brought out more emotion. It was made so much worse that we couldn’t help but laugh at the silliness of it all.

Here’s the thing, though. That same child came back the next day with a vengeance. She established her own training regiment, setting increasingly more challenging goals along the way. By the last day, she was swimming like a fish, having conquered her fears and the deep end. I couldn’t have been prouder. 

And that’s why having a family full of ladies is pretty great.

*Gooch was an influential house party band formed by my roommate and I. We were terribly awesome

Distractions in the Time of Quarantine

It is a weird time to be alive. Whatever your perspective on the current happenings, we can all agree that 2020 has been challenging. With so many days of the same, everybody is looking for ways to get outside of the bubble and try something different. Our family has embraced this idea to the fullest, so I thought it might be fun to share our distractions. Chronicled below are my efforts to maintain sanity and keep things interesting around the Chapman house. 

Costco Bacon Bits

Love is a hard thing to explain, especially when it is between you and a very large package of meat crumbles that are somehow perfectly safe at room temperature. 

My introduction to this wonderful product came at the Chili Cook Off. Playing to the potential needs of the crowd, our team stocked up on the Costco double pack of bacon bits, as they complimented our southwestern chicken chili. The stinging disappointment of going home award-less wore off quite quickly when I was sent home with 5 pounds of unused bacon bits.

They were a revelation. The days following were certainly a “where have you been all my life?” honeymoon. Omelettes, salads, sandwiches, pizzas - you name it. Bacon, if you haven’t figured it out yet, goes well with just about everything. Easily accessible bacon that you don’t have to cook is a full-on heart attack enabler.

After about a month of delightful overindulgence, we had a family intervention after my children demanded a side of bacon bits with their dinner.

Making Bread

For the record, I was cranking out Sourdough weekly before it became the hobby du jour for everyone who was stuck at home with nothing to do. Rather than bore you with how fulfilling it is to bake homemade bread, we’re going to talk about what I do with it: create some amazing sandwiches. 

Alton Brown is a saint for many reasons, but his directive of applying mayonnaise to the outside of the bread was a particular game changer for me (and my waistline). It’s way better than pan frying with butter. Precisely at 11am, nearly every weekday, I bounce up the stairs and make a variation of the following.

I slice off some thick rounds of my honey sourdough and apply mayo to one side of each while an array of delicious deli cuts (usually smoked turkey + ham) and cheese get cooking in the pan. As the cheese starts to melt, all of the contents are folded together in order to mirror the shape of the bread.

At this point, both pieces of bread are added, mayo side down, to the pan. Working quickly, I pile the meat/cheese party onto one of the slices, topping with banana peppers and mustard. Once the naked slice of bread starts to brown a bit, you complete the sandwich and turn everything over to cook for a few more seconds. Slice that sucker in half, enjoy, and report back with how much I’ve altered your sandwich worldview.

Excessive Pacing

After reading the previous two sections, you must be wondering how I’m still alive. After all, we’re on month four of this lifestyle and I appear to be consuming a wild amount of saturated fats. I’ve found that the counterbalance for an iffy diet and 4pm happy hours is NEVER SITTING DOWN. In the last week, I’m averaging well over 10 miles per day on my feet…and it’s almost entirely in circles around our living room. Frankly, I have no idea why Allison hasn’t killed me yet. Our house isn’t huge (100 laps ~ mile) so you can hear every stab reverberate across the floorboards. This 717 mile challenge seemed daunting at first (average of 5.2 miles/day) and then I realized I go completely bonkers when cooped up inside all day. 

Planting Things

This hobby had all my attention for the first two months of shut-in life. We were going to live off the land. I was reading up on local chicken law. Much was accomplished in the days of clearing hillsides, filling up planters, and germinating seeds. It was all good fun for our entire family. But then we got to the part where we’re just watching it grow. Can’t they grow any faster!? I was beaming with pride when our first potato popped up…and then some cherry tomatoes appeared…a little bit of lettuce…yeah that’s about it. With any luck, we’ll have two ears of corn by 2021. Hey, at least I’ve got a sweet compost pile going that occasionally occasionally wafts the worst smell in the world onto our back deck.  

The oddest part of this whole experience is that my oldest child, who would prefer to live her life on French fries, has taken to making daily snacks out of the herb garden. I like cilantro, basil, oregano, mint and rosemary in my food, but handfuls of the raw stuff wouldn’t be my preference.

This could potentially be a potato I put in the ground and forgot about.

Purchasing New Friends

COVID-19 has made us so bored with one another that we needed someone else to play with. We are officially cat people now, because there are two of them. They outnumber the dog, who is less than pleased with her current situation. Petrie McFluffins Chapman made his debut almost three weeks ago now. He’s already slacked my entire company, played music through my headphones while I was on a call and decorated himself with a pink marker.

Cultivating Fungi

I’m filing this under its own section, simply because it was a separate (and stranger) operation. When you tell someone you have a box of mushrooms sprouting in a basement closet, their mind usually doesn’t go to Portobello. But here I am, giving a daily spritz to a musty cardboard box full of dirt. Unlike my outdoor farming efforts, I had detailed instructions with this kit, and it was basically dummy proof. Once the little white nubbins started appearing, they got huge in a hurry. Did they taste amazing and fresh, you ask? A mushroom is basically natures death sponge, so I’m having a hard time picturing the freshness. It was pretty excellent popping some of my homegrown sautéed mushrooms onto a super delicious sandwich, though.

Update - we have realized that the box, with its second growth of nubbins emerging, is starting to attract a large quantity of flies. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

Rock Crystals

Our first “how the hell are we going to distract our children?” impulse purchase was a rock crystal growing kit. This sounds fancy and scientific, but it’s basically some volcanic rocks and a sugar solution that grows in different colors on each. Gratification was nearly instant, as the colorful crystals sprouted almost immediately. Being our first family project of the quarantine, it was prominently featured on our countertop. That is, until I decided to touch a few crystals (after telling my kids not to). They crumbled all over the place. Daddy ruins all the fun.

Cup of Caterpillars

Gotta love this concept. Company ships you a cup with 5 tiny caterpillars and enough food to get by. Until time comes to take the top off and prop up their attached cocoons, you and your children simply stare at this cup of caterpillars on the counter. What they didn’t show us in the promo picture was the unbelievably gross web of poop that envelops these little creatures gorge themselves. It got to the point where the cup was disallowed from dining areas. Anyone that caught a glimpse of the mini poop factory was guaranteed to lose their stomach.

Our girls were quite interested from the start, and we were a bit distressed to leave the chrysalises dangling from their stand as we left for a quick getaway to the lake. Not one to let 5 emerging butterflies loose in a cat-populated house, I left them to break free on the back porch. When we returned, they were all gone. Having not actually seen any butterflies matching their description as of late, they either took off on a migratory path somewhere else, or they made for a nice bird snack. I guess we’ll never know.

Hope you find plenty of enjoyable new distractions in this interesting time. I’m off to load up an Amazon cart full of bird watching accessories.

Getting Spooky in the Suburbs

Growing up in the middle of nowhere, you have the occasional eerie experience. With the absence of humans and a lot of overgrown nature, it gets very dark, and very quiet. Howling, rustling, crickets and the occasional train compose a nightly soundtrack. Probably not a coincidence that both Pet Sematery 2 and The Walking Dead were filmed in our little country town south of Atlanta. So, it comes as a bit of a surprise that a moment in our suburban back yard last year gave me the worst case of the willies I’ve ever had.

To set the stage, I have to backtrack a bit first. On September 16th of 2018, we had to put down Artimus, who was a dear cat friend and a true legend. Because I grew up in the aforementioned boonies, the only way I know to handle the aftermath of this situation is to dig a hole in the back yard. I wrapped the little guy up, covered gently, and let the girls put flowers on top. For good measure, I found a large rock to mark the spot. Then I had a few too many beers because it was still 90 degrees outside in September and the only other dude in our household was gone.

His resting spot was up on the hill behind our house, along one of the main paths. Going up to the shed in the weeks that followed, I would usually stop and pay respects. We got a new cat (although he was frequently called Artimus), and life progressed.

Fast forward to the night before Halloween. Those of you that know me are well aware that I have an impressive costume collection. I was on the hunt for accessories to fit with our Jurrassic Park-themed family ensemble, so off to the shed I went with flashlight in hand…but something was different.

ARTIMUS WAS GONE. No doubt about it, either, because the stone was moved. Nothing left but an empty hole in the clay. Walking back into the house (after acquiring the perfect matching handkerchief), Allison could see the disturbance in my wide-eyes. Out of little girl earshot, I told Allison what I saw. “What do you mean he’s gone!? How is that even possible!?” Needless to say, I didn’t sleep super well that night.

I awoke with a million questions. First, we blamed the dog. Lucy is admittedly still bitter about us having kids and all. She fought with Artimus on occasion, but it seemed more playful than anything. Hard to believe she would stoop to that level. Plus, it would require physical exertion, which her tubby butt is wholeheartedly against. That was the sum of our suspects.

Being Halloween and all, we donned our costumes for the neighborhood celebration. We really do it up right, with a parade, occasional adult refreshment stations, and a strategically circular route. A handful of us adjourned back to Chapman HQ for some pizza and more breathable attire. It wasn’t until Joe and I were hanging out on the back porch that we heard suspect(s) number two: coyotes. 

One isn’t used to hearing a lively pack howling on a Wednesday night in the middle of suburbia. With the lack of a physical barrier between us, my skin start to crawl as I started piecing the mental puzzle together. The local stories and footage that started to pop up in the community in the hours that followed certainly did not help.

After considering all of the facts at hand, there is only one explanation for the vacant tomb. As far as I’m concerned, Artimus was Kitty Jesus. He died for the innumerable sins of his kind, rolled away the stone, cast away his robes, and sitteth up there chilling.