Playground chalk train tracks

This is what 60-packs of colored chalk are for.

New cheap, ugly sofa

Rather than just declaw the stupid cat, we buy a cheap, ugly sofa every three years to replace the cheap, ugly sofa that the cat has shredded. It works out to a cost of $100/year to have a cheap, ugly, cat-shredded sofa as the focal point of our apartment. But the benefit is that for exactly one week every three years, we have a BRAND NEW, NON-CAT-SCRATCHED, cheap, ugly sofa.

The other options are to have a really nice, plush, leather, cat-shredded sofa that we could only afford to replace every ten years, by which time it would basically look like leather confetti...or get rid of the cat and have a really nice, plush, leather sofa that is infested by mice.

Or, yeah, just declaw the damn cat--my proposed idea, which Jen keeps nixing because she would rather have a shredded sofa than have some anonymous veterinarian think poorly of us.

Anyway, we just got our new cheap, ugly sofa and threw out the old cheap, ugly, cat-shredded sofa. When we took Bailey and Kahlua out for their evening walk, they saw the old sofa sitting at the curb and were so confused that they immediately jumped up on it and sat down to watch TV.

Pessimsim vs. Optimism

 

Ethan: "Mom says I should try to look on the bright side more often. But I don't think it's possible."

Todd: "Well, I guess if you always look at the dark side, you're never disappointed."

Ethan: "That's right."

Todd: "I get it. I was a pessimist too."

Ethan: "Are you still a pessimist?"

Todd: "Nope. One day I became an optimist."

Ethan: "What happened?"

Todd: "I became a dad."

Shakespeare in the Park

We live 800 yards away, but Jen and I have been exactly once--around 1996--and Samuel and Ethan had never been. So when Samuel got an invitation from his classmate, Lindsey, and Lindsey's mom had an extra ticket for me, we figured, "Hey, let's be crazy."

The play was "As You Like It," but it's not like it mattered. The fun part is sitting in an open-air theater in Central Park at dusk with 1,000 close friends watching terrific actors perform just for you. That's what it felt like.

FYI, no photography permitted in the theater. If you look closely you may be able to see security personnel in the background coming to remind us. Luckily we were able to time-travel just before they reached us.

Hey! I'm trying this same experiment!

Personal Trainer Gains 75 Pounds in 6 Months to "Better Understand How His Clients Feel"

Things I saw on my way to work this morning

Samuel, Lindsey, Elyse and their dogs. Central Park near West 93rd Street, where they were having a pet photo shoot for their 8th grade graduation announcement.

Bailey rolling in the grass.

The Central Park tennis courts.

A very cool bridge to the reservoir running path.

Midtown skyline from the north end of the reservoir.

A soon-to-be-filled playground. A grade-school class arrived as I was passing by.

Fruit vendor at 96th & Lexington.

A good start to the day.

It doesn't suck to be Ethan's dad

Tonight as I was trying and failing to revise a manuscript, Ethan came into the office, sat down next to me and started singing "It's a Fine, Fine Line" from Avenue Q.

If you've never heard that song before, it's a very sweet song about love and heartbreak, and without even any curse words.

So I opened my browser to YouTube and typed in "Avenue Q karaoke," and Ethan and I sang songs together until it was way past bedtime.

He still has the sweetest little voice, even at 11. It was fun to sing with him...fun to hear him, to watch him, to see him smile. It's really good to be his dad.

Bonus: our upstairs neighbors and their 6-year-old kids now know every song from Avenue Q--whether they wanted to or not.