book-review

Time Squared

Shirley has been going to New York on trips for a few years now and it all started back when her cousin moved to Brooklyn. Her cousin served as a tour guide for the trips that involved Shirley’s sisters and cousins and Shirley did a good job of romanticizing NYC even though I knew going there to sight see would likely inflict significant PTSD. Well, I finally bit the bullet and planned a trip for the Jansma’s for the weekend after Shirley and Aiden’s birthday (11.13.10 for Aiden and 11.13.?? for Shirley). We flew out of GR and as I was getting ready to board the plane I asked myself are there husbands who ask their wives if they can buy WIFI when they are on a flight together? The idea of asking my wife if I can buy wifi seems almost as ridiculous as asking if I can buy another pair of Airforce Ones (I have four pair currently, my latest edition are white with a pink swoosh, I love them). However, I am sure there are men who do ask, and those men are the same men who have to sit down when they pee.

We flew out of GR at 6pm on Friday night and landed in Laguardia a little after 8. We had roughly five or six miles to get from Queens to where we were staying in Manhattan and it took an hour and a half to get there. The cab driver suggested that any backpacks be placed in the trunk so that they didn’t block the vents but Aiden decided to keep his with him for the express purpose of blocking the vents. It was like the center of the sun in the back of the cab but Shirley and the cab driver were completely comfortable. The hotel we stayed at was quite close to Time’s Square and after checking in we embarked on a trip to go people watching and catch a late dinner. As we neared Times Square I was overwhelmed with the amazing food options, Red Lobster, Olive Garden, and TGI Fridays just to mention a few. However, we wanted to get authentic cuisine and settled on a pizza place to get some of that New York pizza everyone speaks so fondly of. Unfortunately, we made it back to the room in time to stream the Tyson/Paul fight.

Our Saturday itinerary was to begin with a trip to the 911 memorial and then we would play it by ear. We walked around the area and then decided we should hit the observatory at the top of one World Trade Center. It was a sunny day with completely clear visibility and the views were breathtaking. I could have stayed up there for a bit longer but Parker was getting bored so we headed down and decided since we were close to where the ferry was to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, we should probably knock that out while we were over there. In order to get to the ferry you have to endure some hard core soliciting from a number of unsavory individuals. New York hats, sweatshirts, and “fresh” fruit were the primary wares these folks were trying to peddle. Fortunately, I give off a fairly obvious “fuck you” aura so most people leave me alone. However, I frequently wear Lions, Pistons, Tigers or U of M apparel and this makes people think they have some type of in with me and that if they mention the particular team I happen to be wearing I will buy something from them. This couldn’t be further from the case. While I will gladly talk to a perfect stranger about Cade Cunningham’s turnover issues or Jared Goff’s lack of mobility that can be compensated for by his pinpoint accuracy and one of the best offensive l lines ever assembled, anyone who doesn’t genuinely care about my take on any of the sports teams I root for, can fuck off.

Aiden really wanted to get off and tour the area where the Statue of Liberty is but we convinced him otherwise due to the fact that it would have involved disembarking from the ferry and then getting back in line and boarding another ferry to go to Ellis Island where we would have to do it all over again. Ellis Island was amazing and would have been even more amazing if my kids weren’t with me. I have to admit, I got kind of emotional seeing what the immigrants who came to our country went through to get here, what they endured when they got here, and how great of an opportunity it was to be allowed to immigrate here. I was maybe 20% through the first area when my family began calling to inquire about my where a-bouts and tell me to get moving. Eventually I gave into their demands and reluctantly left the wing of the museum to go meet up with them. We had walked miles and miles and decided to return to the hotel for some rest before we met up with Shirley’s cousin at a park near our hotel where they had a Christmas Bizarre going on. The 60 degree temperatures didn’t seem very Christmasy and the throngs of people being herded into the park made the holiday spirit even more difficult to generate. Dinner was at an Italian restaurant that was underwhelming but we managed to locate an incredible gelato place near Madison Square Garden that more than made up for our lackluster dinner. Now the first thing I noticed, and I admit this isn’t normal, was that it would be nearly impossible to run around our hotel. In addition, I try to get some form of exercise in almost every day, walking 12 miles wasn’t exercise in my book but I was too tired when I got back to the hotel on Saturday to go for a run. So, Sunday morning I got up early and made my way over to the East River for a run. It was pretty awesome to run with the Manhattan skyline in view along with the river and various other landmarks. It was relief to get my run out of the way and when I got back to the hotel we decided to head to Central Park. Again, the weather was sunny and in the 60’s, pretty remarkable for mid November. Central Park was incredible.

After Central Park we were toying with either going to the MET or hitting Fifth Avenue where all the famous shopping is located. Shirley wanted to go the MET but since it was also Aiden’s birthday weekend he won out and we hit Fifth Avenue. I had to pee real bad and regretted not hitting the Central Park lavatory on my way out. There was a port a potty near a construction site but it had a lock on it. Locking a port a potty? So, I ended up buying a drink at Chipotle so I could get their bathroom code. As I was about to enter the bathroom some homeless guy was going to enter it, with an entirely different code none the less, but he let me go first. However, there was someone in there when the homeless guy opened the door to let me in. It was some rough looking older women who was spraying something into her mouth but it probably wasn’t breath freshener. I returned back to the Mediterranean lunch place thinking that the Chicken Shawarma bowl that I told Shirley to get me would be waiting. Turns out she ordered me the wrong thing. I lost my shit to a degree but kind of hid it. In my defense, this was way more time than I was use to spending with my family. That Saturday felt like three Saturdays, I remember thinking to myself at 11 am Saturday morning that it felt like 4pm. Not that I don’t like my family, but I am use to doing stuff I like on the weekends that typically doesn’t involve spending time with them. (they don’t really like me either so I don’t feel all that bad about it).

After we had hit our late lunch we went a little further down fifth avenue and ended up touring St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Again, my kids were an encumbrance to truly enjoying the experience. They had a bunch of Saints all over the place and a little bio on them. However, my kids didn’t have the patience for me to read all the bios. I had heard Saint Carl was the Saint of dad’s who are extremely annoyed by their families, and I was hoping to find him. After our Fifth Avenue tour we made our way to a subway stop that would take us back to the hotel so we could recharge before going out for dinner and a broadway show. Initially I had suggested we go to the Knicks Nets game a MSG that Sunday night, but Shirley thought Book of Mormon was a better option. Shirley had gone out to hit the Christmas bizarre again while the kids and I went to Nordstrom Rack by our hotel in hopes of finding some deals on cologne. My kids have somehow gotten into designer fragrances. However, even if we had found the JPG gold fragrance

at a reasonable price, the line was way too long to purchase it. When we caught up to Shirley I told her I needed to pee (poor planning on my part knowing what I knew about the availability of public toilets in NYC) and I looked in the beer garden she was at for some sign of a toilet, but it was like being in the dessert and trying to find water. She said there was some taco place near there and maybe it had a bathroom and then she proceeded to walk around aimlessly while my bladder almost exploded. Eventually I lost my shit and expressed what I believed to be much warranted frustration. Ultimately, I had to buy a bottle of water at a convenience store so I could get their bathroom code to take a wiz. This time there was a person in the bathroom and they had the door locked. Eventually I pounded on the door and the response was “I’m in here” to which I responded “hurry up” the person came out saying “unfucking believable dude!” Not sure why people like to loiter in public bathrooms in NYC, but I’m of the opinion that one should get in and get out. Finding the taco place I immediately nixed it due to the fact that it resembled the chaos that is the Costco cafeteria on a Saturday afternoon but without the organizational structure the best warehouse club on the planet has to offer. We ended up at a sushi place where I was able to watch most of the second half of the Bills/Chiefs game.

The play we had settled on was The Book of Mormon. For some reason we thought our kids would enjoy a broadway musical since it was by the creators of South Park, we were wrong. We ended up leaving at intermission, which wasn’t terrible since Shirley and I had both seen it before. Regardless, I am sure there were some patrons wondering who in their right mind would bring a 14 and 11 year old to this. The answer would be Shirley and I. I don’t even want to get into the movies they have already watched and who knows what kind of shit they are seeing on the internet. If I had the unfettered access they have I would have never left my room, that’s why I am so proud of them for the ten minutes a day they do.

This morning we had to catch a 5:30 Uber to make sure we made it onto our 8am flight. The ride over to the airport was uneventful and the flight was more of the same. When we touched down a little after 10 I nonchalantly asked Shirley if she could bring the kids to school, not letting on to the fact that I wanted to get to MVP for the brunch basketball run followed by a little bit of tennis. It was good to be home.

One Year

Last Saturday Shirley told me that she heard something that made her quite sad. She said that once your kids turn 13, or some arbitrary age around that number of years, you as a parent spend one year with them. I feel like my Mother-in-law is a complete outlier when it comes this alleged statistic. It feels like we have spent at least a decade of our almost fifteen years of marriage with her parents. One year, 365 days, seems like quite a bit of time to have left to spend with your kids upon them turning into teenagers. Obviously Shirley felt that amount of time was insufficient where as I felt like it was more than enough. Are there any children out there that when their parents get old and weird say “hey, we should really spend more time with our parents”? Probably not, especially if the parents live in a shitty place like Michigan. I get it if your parents live in Hawaii or Sandusky Ohio, but other than using your parents to get some nice weather, what’s the point? I guess there is an additional reason to want to see your parents when they get old and weird, to drop your kids off with them. Let’s be honest, willingly spending time with old and weird parents is something that is done more out of obligation and a result of guilt, not because it is an enjoyable experience.

Here is the bad news for Shirley. I am already weird and once the old part kicks in, our kids are not going to want to be spending much time with me. I guess that doesn’t really impact her all that much since I am not really around that much anyway. However, if she thinks I am helping out with the grandkids if we are around for them, she has another thing coming. I don’t get what the big fuss is about grandkids? While on the subject of how much of an inconvenience kids are, Shirley had to go to Indianapolis for a work related endeavor on Tuesday afternoon, she told me about this roughly around Tuesday afternoon. When our kids were younger this was a bit more problematic, in that it curtailed my ability to engage in my early morning activities. However, my kids are old enough now that I don’t have to be around early in the morning. Ok, let me restate that, I shouldn’t have to be around. Unfortunately, Shirley has basically ruined our kids, as most parents these days do, by coddling them. The bus stop is about a quarter of a mile from our house, that is one time around a standard size track for those of you who have no concept of distance. Every single morning up until this morning, the kids, who get on the bus at 6:25am, have been driven by one of us up to the bus stop. Yesterday morning the plan was to have them go on their own to the bust stop but they called an audible as they were going to bed and asked me to take them in. I agreed to this so I could play basketball but did have to leave ten minutes early to make sure they weren’t late for school.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are tennis days and it is nearly impossible to get tennis in in the morning and chauffeur the kids to school before it starts. So, I told the kids they were walking up to the bus stop this morning. While the pack of wolves, pit of snakes, and moat filled with crocodiles on the way to the bus stop make it a risky proposition, I figured they could handle it. However, I did half expect a call at 6:30 from them, while I was warming up for tennis, informing me that they had missed the bus. (no such call came in and when I arrived back home only Max and Murphy were waiting for me). The reason Shirley is down in Indianapolis is to engage in some executive coaching. Last night as I was leaving pickle ball I received the following text “will you and the kids text me some things you think I am good at?” Talk about putting your husband and kids on the spot. I didn’t respond promptly for a number of reasons, one being the hope that she would forget the request and I wouldn’t have to do it. Another reason is that she doesn’t really do a lot of stuff most wives do, I do pretty much all fo the cooking, a lot of the laundry, (although she is an incredible folder due to her stint working at Abercrombie & Fitch prior to law school) and a myriad of other things that a traditional wife would do if she was a stay at home mom and her husband actually worked a lot.

Shirley sent out the following text “Hi everyone. I am in Indy with my executive coach (humble brag) for work. She asked me to poll my family about what I am good at. My family (Jason and kids) are not responding. Would you mind please sharing what you think I am good at.Please just text me directly so no pile-on or sarcasm….Appreciate and love you!!!” What Shirley should know after almost 15 years of somewhat wedded bliss with me, is that I am not good at telling people what they are good at. Telling people what they are good at is similar to complimenting someone and I was raised in a Dutch CRC family where compliments were almost as much of a no no as premarital sex. As I prepared dinner I thought about how I should respond and finally texted this: “You are good at: Staying calm, not over reacting, thinking things through, analyzing problems and finding solutions.”

“Are you serious about staying calm? That is something I said I need to work on”

“Yes, you do a good job of that. I don’t count how you deal with the kids, no one should count that.” (if someone is calm dealign with their kids I figure they are either autistic or a serial killer)

“Well, I almost never feel calm”

“I do a lot of dumb shit and you seem to handle it well”

Mid way through grilling smash burgers I received a face time call from Shirley, I was on the fence about answering it but did, she wasn’t crying so I took that as a a sign that she appreciated what the kids had to say or that it was at the very least somewhat benign. She went into how she watched a reality show about some people dating without actually seeing what the other person looked like and when they met in person the chick picked apart the guy. She said she talked about how she picks me apart with her “executive coach” and feels bad about it. Not bad enough to stop it obviously as evidenced by the “are you serious about staying calm?” She was picking apart my list of things she is good at for crap’s sake! She does pick at me but one of the things I am good at is not listening to people or really giving a shit what they have to say when I am actually listening. The other thing I am really good at, which doesn’t have much practical value, possibly none what so ever, is getting extremely angry and acting irrationally when I lose at something.

I do think the best response, obviously as a joke, to her question about what she is good at would have been “not blow jobs, due to their infrequency” which leads me as I close to something that transpired on the Florida trip that I left out of my last blog, at least I think I did, that last blog was way too long for me to read again to see if I had already mentioned this. One of my buddies had texted me about borrowing our corn hole set right after we landed in Florida. I texted him back and we were in an exchange most of the afternoon. Upon leaving lunch I gave Shirley my phone to get directions to our beach resort, upon doing so my buddy texted “are you guy’s banging yet?” She actually took it in stride and thought it was funny. That being said, one thing she is really good at is being married to me, because it sure takes a certain acumen to put up with this guy for as long as she has.