The Frosty Paws 12-Step

So, the dog.

Lola is a six-pound Cuban silk dog, otherwise known as a Havanese, and a not-too distant relative of the poodle. This makes her a perfect fit for the house full of OCD, germaphobic asthmatics that is our family. No dander means easy breathing; no shedding means no mess. The allergies are problematic since we truly are a dog-loving people. Unfortunately, more than five minutes around the wrong breed means two days of popping antihistamines, wheezy breathing and dull sinus headaches.

I don't know many, if any, Cubans, though I romantically choose to believe Lola must represent the culture well. Small, but feisty, with a determination and stubbornness inordinately disproportionate to her size, Lola manages a charming disobedient gruffness that melts most people who meet her. The fact she doesn't mind being handled like an old rag doll doesn't hurt. Perhaps "doesn't mind" isn't the correct assessment. When you're slightly larger than a guinea pig, and much better smelling, you really don't have much choice in the matter. People pick you up.

Being of a diminutive breed, and even runt-size for a Havanese, Lola's stomach can be a temperamental thing, like a supreme court nominee during a hearing except with a strong possibility of puking. (Well, actually, then exactly like a supreme court nominee during a hearing.) It took some trial and error to find just the right brand and size of kibble so we wouldn't revisit breakfast and dinner each day. We also avoid giving her table scraps as a general rule. Cheese is an exception, since she can stomach it, it's a great way to get her to take pills when necessary, and it keeps her distracted for at least five minutes when melted into her kong. She has also discovered an intense fascination with turkey due largely to the one Thanksgiving when, unbeknownst to us, turkey grease overflowed the cutting board and dripped from the counter. Lola happily lapped it off the floor while a steady stream struck her squarely on the head, ruining her coat. She looked like a rescue animal from the Exxon Valdese oil spill for several weeks.

Recently, to celebrate her fifth birthday and our daughter's twenty-first birthday, we bought her a frozen treat called Frosty Paws. To be clear, the dog got the Frosty Paws, not our daughter. We had to choose from two flavors -- original and peanut butter. I suggested peanut butter might be best, only because I wasn't exactly sure what the "original" flavor of a knock-off ice cream dog treat might be. Dog anus? Dead squirrel? Regurgitated breakfast kibble? The prospects seemed endless and potentially horrifying to consider once I started thinking about all the things I've witnessed dogs sniffing, licking or eating during my fifty years on this planet.

After devouring an entire cup of peanut butter Frosty Paws, it quickly became apparent a few spoonfuls might have made for a sufficient treat. Lola's eyes glazed over, she became lethargic and took on the countenance of a college freshman who has imbibed too much beer on his first outing. She limply passed the next hour or two being shuffled like a potentially explosively vomitous hot potato from one family member to another until eventually recovering to something slightly closer to her normal self than a bloated narcoleptic with crusty peanut butter face. Upon waking the following morning, the spring was back in Lola's step and we, though possibly not she, decided Frosty Paws might be the hard stuff our tender little puppy was not built to tolerate.



2018 Mark Feggeler

The Ginger & the Blueberries

Not long ago, perhaps five years, I picked up a small blueberry seedling while doing the weekly grocery shopping. This is not an uncommon thing for me to do. Some people's impulse buys are candy bars, shiny trinkets, or a pair of shoes. Mine are plants, and the cheaper and more impractical the better. A packet of watermelon seeds for only sixty-seven cents? Perfect. I'll take one of those and one of the carrot seeds, too. Do they grow in the kind of sandy soil surrounding my house? Who cares, but it might be fun if they do.

Another good example of this impulse can be found in the gangly remains of wildflowers outside my office window that appear to be nothing more than overgrown, un-plucked weeds. The bag of wildflower seeds found its way into the earth around the same time as the blueberry bush and, due largely to the scorching mid-day sunshine of North Carolina, amounted to nothing more than a smattering of reedy green stalks with yellow blooms. They're nothing to look at, but they make me smile every time I peel my eyes away from the computer screen to gaze outside.

Recently -- after considerable time, effort and expense invested in revamping both the front and side flower beds -- we experienced rousing success with five or six hostas in the front bed. They were purchased from a proper landscaping company and planted in a semi-circle around our best crepe myrtle. The hostas flourished, quickly doubling and then doubling again in size, inspiring us to buy seven more to complete a border across the front of the bed. One week later, our leafy hostas were reduced to lifeless stalks by local rabbits and deer. I've learned two things since then. Miracle-Gro doesn't really work miracles and Repel All gives your plants that extra bit of seasoning critters love.

The blueberry bush has benefited from having been planted out of reach from the larger garden invaders in our fenced-in backyard, in the only spot that isn't laid bare to the unrelenting sunlight of summer. And, since spring in North Carolina has transformed over the last twenty years into a rainy season of tropical proportions, the bush receives plenty of nourishment from good old Mother Nature during that important time when buds appear, develop into delicate bell-shaped blooms, and eventually turn into berries, disappointing the bees and littering the ground with white confetti. That's when you can start counting the harvest you might reap if birds and bugs are kept at bay.

Ever since the plant went in the ground, our ginger-haired son (aka, the German) has obsessively anticipated its annual production. Why? I don't know, because he doesn't eat blueberries, or any color berries for that matter. The only way he might voluntarily choose to eat a blueberry is if you dehydrated it, ground it into a powder and reconstituted it as a chip packed in a canister with other identical chips. Blueberry Pringles. Bringles. Even then, loaded with additives, preservatives and blue dye number eighty-seven, it might still be too healthy for his tastes. Regardless, he watches as the berries develop each year and reports back on their progress.

"There are going to be a lot of berries this year," he'll say in his trademark monotone way. "They're going to be really big, too."

That first year, our little blueberry seedling yielded three edible berries. The next year, maybe twenty. Production has since expanded exponentially. This summer, we can expect to pluck close to one thousand blueberries by the time the harvest is complete, and that doesn't include several hundred from a second blueberry bush we planted this spring. I'm almost tempted to see if any other parts of the backyard are fertile ground for these little fruits.

Our pending blueberry bonanza aside, and even though the side flower bed is doing well, our thumbs remain only middlingly green-ish. Basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme thrive in the same section of yard as the berries, while our tomato-less tomato stalks defy the basic impulses of self-propagation by refusing to yield anything close to fruit. I doubt this concerns the German, though, since tomatoes are just giant red blueberries that he wouldn't eat anyway.


© 2018 Mark Feggeler

Shutting the Shuttle Down

Twenty years. That's how long My Lovely Wife and I have run the shuttle. This September will mark twenty years of transporting the transportationally-disadvantaged to any number of locations within a 20-mile radius of our home for any number of reasons.

• Doctor appointments
• Daycare
• Day camps
• Pre-school
• Gymnastics
• Dance classes
• Elementary school
• Sunday school
• Girl Scouts
• Boy Scouts
• Birthday parties
• Middle school
• Dance recitals
• Sleepovers
• Summer camps
• Church youth groups
• Band camps
• High School
• Band competitions
• Concerts
• Robotics competitions
• Track meets
• College tours

Logging sufficient hours each month to earn a chauffeur's license isn't the half of it. Child safety seats required for small children come equipped with a complexity of straps and harnesses worthy of the greatest puzzle masters. When strapping your first born into a car seat outside the hospital, they ought to warn you to prepare yourself for a buckling system so ridiculously intricate it should come equipped with a flight attendant to guide you through the procedure every time you leave the house.

"Take the right shoulder strap, feed it through the plastic chest thingy and down between your child's legs. Take the left shoulder strap, feed it through the other side of the plastic chest thingy until you realize you have the chest thingy backwards. Undo the right shoulder strap, reverse the chest thingy, feed the right shoulder strap back through the chest thingy, then the left shoulder strap, and place the two metal tabs at the ends of the straps together. They should fit like puzzle pieces, but they won't snap together because that would be cheating. Holding the two metal tabs together with one hand and picking up your child's fallen binky with the other, press the conjoined tabs into a narrow, invisible groove that lies directly beneath your child's heavily diapered buttocks. Spend the next three minutes struggling to fit the conjoined tabs into the invisible slot while cursing. Once you find the narrow slot and have inserted the metal tabs, press with a force much greater than you believe is safe for your child. If your child is not crying when you have finished, then he or she is probably not securely buckled. Return to step one and repeat the entire process."

It isn't just infants who need car seats. As your children grow, car seats morph like Transformers from back-facing infant seats, to forward facing infant seats, to half-infant/half-toddler seats, to small toddler booster seats, to large toddler booster seats, to the my-child-is-way-too-freaking-big-to-need-a-booster-seat booster seats. If there weren't a cut-off for age, most people I know would be riding with booster seats because the cut-off for height is six-foot-three.

If you're silly enough to have more than two children -- in fairness to us, effective family planning is impossible when they choose to arrive in pairs -- you'll need a vehicle of size, if not two. When our first child arrived, half our fleet was instantly hobbled because the Mazda Miata was not designed to serve as a baby-transporting device. The Miata, itself, is barely bigger than a pram, with almost enough leg room for a tall dwarf and head clearance adequate for a medium-height badger. With the invention of twins, it didn't take long for us to embrace the minivan, and later the minivan with automatic doors. Scoff if you must at the unsexy middle-aging of my family unit, but few things liberate the middle-class American more than pressing a button to eject children into the school drop off line. It's like all the convenience of tossing them out the window, only with a brief stop and the assurance of a soft landing.

Don't think older children are any easier to shuttle. Sure, you can celebrate ditching the diaper bag, bottles and spare onesies, but they are quickly replaced by school bags, instruments, dance bags, and after school club supplies. If children aged without taking on extracurricular activities, which I believe is a perfectly reasonable expectation, then life might get easier, but they don't. Before you know it, you're running each of them in a different direction for a variety of reasons that all begin at the exact same time at locations miles apart, and finish in 30 minute intervals conveniently spread over the dinner hours. Artistic programs such as band and dance are the best, by which I mean the most obnoxious, because there's something about artistic people that instills in them the belief that their programs represent the most important commitments your child will ever make. Every rehearsal and performance is mandatory. Absence or tardiness -- regardless of how many of your relatives just tragically died from powdered sugar inhalation at the donut factory explosion -- results in the stripping of privileges or public shaming. As if you weren't already stressed about managing a multi-stop municipal bus route, now your child is fussing at you to drive faster so she won't have to do push-ups in front of the rest of the kids in marching band.

With one child halfway through college (how the fu-hell did I get that old?) and the twins mere months away from being granted their driver's licenses, it might be possible that M&D Taxi is coming to the end of its days. I say "might be" because we so far have been colossally wrong about each coming stage being easier than the present one. I can not, however, in my wildest imaginings foresee the need for continued shuttle service, at least not on a daily basis, even with the twins sharing a vehicle.

Should the end of the shuttle era truly be at hand, the ramifications will ripple through our personal and professional lives with immeasurable results. My Lovely Wife and I will be able to spend the kind of time together we haven't enjoyed since September 1997. If we're smart, we won't leave the house for a month.



© 2017 Mark Feggeler

The Falafel Fail

Being volunteered for random tasks is an occupational hazard of parenthood. The ability to say "no" is a critically important skill to possess, particularly when you've been granted the luxury of deciding whether or not to accept the gift of having been involuntarily volunteered. Unfortunately, it is not a word of which My Lovely Wife and I avail ourselves frequently enough.

We have served on numerous church committees, band committees, school booster and PTA committees. We have volunteered in school classrooms, Sunday school classrooms, chaperoned field trips, overseen finances, orchestrated parental support, planned and implemented fundraisers, and provided more meals than we care to recall. In almost all these situations, we had the chance to say "no." However, faced with the knowledge no other parents were stepping forward, we stepped up to take part or take charge.

The positive take aways from these experiences are immeasurable. The most significant is a rewarding sense of fulfillment knowing we helped enhance the lives of our children, and hundreds of other children, throughout the last two decades. The only negative is having seen the wizards behind the curtains at many different institutions and events that have lost their magical luster as a result. People are flawed, I get that, but sometimes flawed people are so content to remain flawed that they've no interest in receiving constructive criticism and no ability to learn from it when it's offered. It can be disheartening, causing you to back away from volunteering to regain your naive faith in humanity. It's at times like these -- when you start thinking you're doing too much in too many places and alienating too many people by offering your opinion too often -- your children volunteer you for a simple task you simply can't refuse. 

It's been years since I've been able to help with math or science homework. I've forgotten all formal education back to kindergarten, it seems, so when the twins told us they volunteered to bring homemade falafel to school as part of a Human Geography project, I was excited. Cooking might not be my calling, but I love it, and I had never before made falafel. Here was a challenge I could face with a smile, my boys by my side, as we mastered making this Middle Eastern meal. 

Perhaps mastered isn't the correct word...

We started off on the wrong foot by using canned chick peas instead of dried chick peas and soaking them for twenty-four hours like the recipe instructed. When you have only 48 hours notice, you can't sit around waiting for a garbanzo bean to rehydrate. You take the ones packed in water and chuck them in the food processor.

Next we added the brief list of spices that, despite the brevity of the list, infused such a toxic pungency of Mediterranean aromatics that tasting the raw batter was an exercise in self abuse. It's nearly impossible to determine the proper quantities of cumin and cayenne when your tastebuds have been carpet-bombed into oblivion.

The canola oil I found to deep fry our fiendishly fiercesome falafel batter wasn't much help. The only canola oil in the house had been used once already for frying donuts. Our falafel would set your mouth ablaze and scorch your throat like a barbed jet-fueled ghost pepper, but at least you'll enjoy the subtle hint of cinnamon apple while rolling on the ground scraping your tongue with a cheese grater. 

Fortunately, we never found out. Possibly because our batter was too wet from having used mushy canned chick peas, or possibly because the donut oil wasn't quite hot enough -- or most likely because we're from the Mid-Atlantic and not the Middle East -- our batter entered the oil in tablespoon-size dollops and rapidly dissolved amidst greasy cinnamon apple splatters into thousands of quickly burned falafel particles. We tried a few to similar effect, only to discard the remaining batter and reach the conclusion that hummus and pita chips are a reasonable substitute for a school project, especially since someone else would be making the hummus. 

2017 Mark Feggeler

An Extra Plate

The work day is done and dinner is heating on the stove top when I reach inside the cabinet for plates. Five square ceramic plates clatter on the granite countertop and I head for the silverware drawer. 

Five forks, five knives and five spoons, counted out and placed on the stack of plates in a jumble of clinks and clunks. Five paper napkins follow, each to be folded in half and set on the dining room table to the left of each plate and under each fork. 

I realize something is wrong while folding the first napkin. I don't need it. Four will be enough. Four napkins, four forks, knives and spoons. Four plates. Only four. There is an extra plate.

For the last month, there were five mouths to feed. Five is too many to seat at the small table in the breakfast nook, which is why the dining room table is still set for service. Table pads and black tablecloth ready for five plates and accompanying silverware, along with bowls and trays and serving utensils, glasses and drinks and a game of cards afterward. 

Four fit in the breakfast nook. It's cozier for four and easier than carrying things out to the dining room. Four is an easier number, in general. Easier for setting the table, easier for meal planning, easier for clean up. Four is simpler. Four is quieter and quicker. 

Four still means conversation and games, laughter and delicious meals. Four can be tremendously infuriating or joyously enlightening. There is absolutely nothing wrong with four, with the single exception that it isn't five.

The days of five are numbered. Holiday breaks and summers off from college are now on the endangered species list. At least we have four, for now. 

Aggressive Kong Dropper

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Pretend as though nothing is happening. Avoid eye contact. Do not engage.

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Don't smile. It isn't cute. Don't acknowledge the behavior or encourage the persistent badgering. Like an ignored child throwing a showy tantrum, the unrewarded behavior will eventually be abandoned.

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

The red, rubber kong bounces randomly, knocking ankles and ricocheting off chair legs and kitchen cabinets. It is empty, an objectionable offense if you're a seven-pound Havanese in need of your daily dose of melted American cheese. Pick up the kong with your teeth and launch it where you will.

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

It lands on my shoe. I have to look down. How frequently does your dog toss a toy in the air only to have it land perfectly on top of your shoe and stay there? In doing so, I spot her a foot away staring up at me with the expression of someone having a difficult time explaining a very simple concept to a very stupid person. The kong is empty. She wants cheese. If she were bigger and had opposable thumbs she'd solve the problem herself, but she isn't and she doesn't and she's annoyed at how staggeringly thick I am that I haven't figured out what she's trying to tell me.

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Some people fill kongs with peanut butter, or kibble. We cram it full with American cheese and stick it in the microwave for several seconds. If she's forgotten about the kong, simply pulling open the refrigerator drawer containing the individually wrapped slices of processed cheese-like stuff is enough to bring it top of mind again. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Take out the cold cuts to make the boys' sandwiches for school. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Take out the leftover grilled chicken to make yourself lunch. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Walk through the kitchen in the vicinity of the refrigerator. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Or, perhaps most egregious, sit at the breakfast table eating your breakfast while she is clearly faced with the challenge of an empty kong. 

Bump, bop, bippity, bump, bump, bump...

Avoid eye contact. Do not engage.

2016 Mark Feggeler

Strike Up the (Marching) Band

High school football starts today, which means it's time to get excited about watching kids I don't know play a game about which I don't care so I can enjoy the marching band for fifteen minutes during half-time.

Our Daughter marched in the band during her four high school years. We marched along right behind her, loading trucks, chaperoning special trips, hauling pit equipment onto the field, and volunteering at band competitions across central North Carolina every fall. There's nothing like six consecutive Saturdays eating band competition concession pizza, combined with six Fridays eating football game concession cheeseburgers, to help ensure you won't need a belt to hold up your pants by the end of the season. If the concession food isn't bad enough, then there's all the tailgating.

People don't bring health food to tailgating. You bring five boxes of Little Caesar's pizza and a basket of home-baked pretzels, or buffalo chicken dip and chips, or deep-fried jalapeno poppers. You bring the Colonel's chicken, or Mexican black been taco salad, or bowls of pulled pork barbecue and cornbread. You bring sliders, or pigs in blankets, or cookies and cakes. The family that brings vegan hummus-stuffed lettuce coils in a balsamic chanterelle reduction does not get invited to the next tailgate party because you don't need all that fiber and roughage coursing through your colon when you're facing four-hours of bleacher squatting on a hot night.

Weight gain aside, marching band season is a manic, sleep-deprived time filled with dramatic highs and emotional lows. Instruments will break, uniforms will tear, notes and steps will be missed, and the weather will gradually change from hot and humid to freezing damn cold. Concurrently, awards will be won, routines will be flawlessly executed, camaraderie will blossom, and important life lessons will be learned. The kids somehow manage to keep up with school work while dedicating weeknights and weekends to performing and practicing. The adults somehow manage to make it all happen football game after football game, band competition after band competition, without killing one another or their kids.

Tonight's season opening home football game marks our return to the marching band scene as our sons, both rising freshmen, take up their instruments. The German plays the sax, the Italian the trumpet. By all accounts, the German is loving it and will probably stick with it all four years. The Italian is enjoying himself, but has his eyes fixed on other interests, so this season might be his only marching band experience. Regardless, the two of them have spent the past few weeks immersing themselves in a demanding group activity and developing friendships with kids from all grades.

As the usual suspects gather at the high school auditorium this evening, we will follow the double-line of uniformed marchers to the stadium to take our seats and wait, as we do every year, for the football teams to get off the marching band field.



2016 Mark Feggeler

Sham Shopping Shenanigans

We don't buy things like new bed linens in a simple, straightforward manner.

To begin with, we have a tendency to wait until the condition of any item needing to be replaced is so critical as to suggest the only reason we haven't replaced it is because we suffer from a diagnosable attachment disorder. Such was the condition of the bed linens in Our Daughter's room. The bedskirt was irreparably torn in several places and a corner of the fitted sheet had slowly been unravelling for years. It didn't help they were made of the kind of material that clings to your skin like plastic wrap, sticks to your hair with a death grip, and stores enough static electricity to cause a power surge.

If you've purchased bed linens at any point in your life you must be aware it's significantly more complicated than a quick jaunt to the store to buy a spread. A properly dressed mattress involves the layering of patterns and colors to accentuate the decor of the bedroom. You'll need accent pillows, throw pillows, blankets, throw blankets, duvets, quilts and coverlets. And don't forget the sheets (to include the flat sheet, fitted sheet, pillow cases and shams, just in case shams don't come with your comforter set, or if you have an unsatiable desire to load your bed with pillows stuffed in decorative covers intended never to be used for resting your head on, ever).

Step one in buying new bed linens is to photograph the most colorful object in the room with your smartphone. This object -- in our case a painting inherited from my in-laws that hangs above Our Daughter's bed -- gives you the option of moving in a variety of color directions while limiting you to select hues, values and intensities. For the women in our family, the photograph serves as a color guide. For me it is a tool applied only every fifth time I randomly ask the question: "How about this one?"

Once you've scoured the store and located a few decent comforter sets that come complete with bedskirt and shams, and that are on sale for under $100, or were marked clearance (but not if the store doesn't accept returns on clearance items), you can now begin the hunt for twenty more decent comforter sets at all the other stores to expand your options. In our vicinity there are several places to go for reasonably-priced beddings -- Bed Bath & Beyond, Tuesday Morning, Ross's, Kohl's, Steinmart, Walmart, Belk and TJ Maxx, just to name a few. Only when it appears to strangers you might illegally be selling stolen comforter sets from the back of your minivan are you ready to shop for sheets.

Shopping for sheets is a very similar process, except you you might find yourself carrying comforter sets into the store like a directionally challenged shoplifter in order to match colors. Also, I ask "How about this one?" much less frequently because even I know color basics, like how boysenberry purple is NOT a match for Tuscan Sun yellow. Before too long, you're home putting freshly washed new sheets on the bed and arranging shams ever so carefully behind accented throw pillows.

The final step comes the following day when you revisit all the stores to return all the shams, sheets and comforters that didn't pass muster. Of course, I could always just park the minivan in the mall parking lot and hawk my wares:

"Pssst... Hey, buddy! C'mere. You lookin' to score a sham?"




© 2016 Mark Feggeler

Long Journey Home

The privilege to travel to different cities is one I frequently take for granted and often resent. I am a homebody at heart. The call of the open road doesn't resound in my soul the way it does for others.

That doesn't mean the experience is completely wasted on me. This recent trip to Phoenix is a good example. Did I want to travel all day to Phoenix on a Saturday without My Lovely Wife and children? Of course not. Did I want to sit though several days of meetings? Certainly not. However, it needed to be done and, under such circumstances, one can choose to be miserable or one can make the most of the situation. 

Outside the lovely hotel our company booked for us stood a small hill with a reasonably steep climb to the top, from where the intrepid could take in the breadth of the city skyline and the desert mountains beyond. Returning to the bottom following a hasty, gravity-fueled descent, we allowed the momentum to carry us to the open air market of the Aloha Festival a block away. The connection between Arizona and Hawaii was lost on me, but the sun had only just begun beating through the mild morning air and it felt refreshing to wander aimlessly a bit longer amongst smiling, sunburned faces as someone not quite far enough away sang of the many glories of spam. 

After a shower and change it was time to visit the local spring training baseball stadium of the Los Angeles Angels, a team whose name I struggle with because I understand it directly translates to "The The Angels Angels." If one could pre-order a day suitable to an afternoon baseball game, it would be the kind we experienced on Sunday. The sun was hot, a mild breeze provided occasional relief, and the sunscreened crowd was a sea of red caps and jerseys that cheered in unison at every quickly turned play and home run. We exited the stadium with a couple innings remaining to avoid the long lines for the trolley ride back to downtown Tempe that would surely form once the game ended. After another quick shower and change we gathered for the official start of our corporate function, a poolside reception with good company and lively conversation. 

There were other entertaining activities in and around the scheduled meetings of the subsequent days, such as when a small gang of us invaded a nearby dueling piano bar and lost our voices shouting along to one of the best shows for which I've never paid, or watching my coworkers ride a mechanical bull after an evening of cornhole and ladder ball. I managed to avoid the peer pressure being applied to those choosing not to ride the bull by adamantly adhering to the philosophy that I will not participate in any activity requiring my signature on a waiver, particularly when the waiver is handed across by the same guy serving fireball shots. 

All these are pleasant experiences I will long remember and about which I will reminisce with coworkers at future meetings, which is their purpose -- to provide a few common, unifying experiences for people who otherwise are distanced from each other by hundreds of miles or the deafening silence of cubicle walls. Beneath each experience for me, however, is an undercurrent of regret over not sharing them with those who matter most. The kids would have loved the ballgame and the festival. The wife would have loved the hike, the hotel, and the chance to tour a strange new city. 

I've heard it said your loved ones travel with you if you carry them in your heart, but it really isn't the same. From my vantage point, I didn't leave home for an experience without my family. Instead, each experience I've had since leaving was one more task completed before being allowed to take the long journey home to the place and people who hold my heart. 

2016 Mark Feggeler

I Don't Get It

Some things make no sense to me, like thong underwear or Donald Trump. Isn't it the purpose of underwear to serve as a barrier between your butt and your pants and not as crack floss every time you take a step? Doesn't seem to me like a very comfortable way to make it through your day. As for Donald Trump, the only difference between him and Charlie Sheen is it took decades of alcohol and drug abuse to make Charlie Sheen incoherently delusional. Trump comes by it naturally.

I don't understand my son walking across the house flashing cash like a pimp and telling us he's paying us back for games he ordered on his Nintendo DS. He's fourteen. When I was fourteen I was scraping together quarters so I could ride my bike a mile to the local video arcade next to Pathmark to play a few rounds of Centipede or MACH3. Maybe there'd be enough left for a slice of pizza from the storefront around the corner before heading home for dinner.

I'm confused by what's happened to cable television. Fifteen years ago, back when TLC still considered itself The Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel actually cared about science, it was possible to find a fair amount of proper programming to balance out the crap. These days we're accosted twenty-four-seven by inbred rejects and talentless celebutants presenting poorly scripted scenarios so cartoonishly ridiculous they make Gilligan's Island appear Shakespearean by comparison. Somewhere along the way society stopped laughing at these implausible idiots and started celebrating them. No offense, but if your vote in the upcoming presidential election will in any way be swayed by Duck Dynasty or the Duggars, then I'm not sure we're swimming in the same gene pool.

I don't understand why Chick-Fil-A -- probably the most uber-religiously homophobic restaurant chain in the United States -- installed outrageously phallic door handles in its public bathrooms. I can only imagine what Freud would have to say about that. It's as though a set designer from "Will & Grace" went through conversion therapy and found employment in Chick-Fil-A's design & construction department where he unsuccessfully tries to quell his latent-homosexually-inspired design sense. (That actually sounds like a pretty good premise for a television show.) No matter how thoroughly I wash my hands, or how clean the handle appears to be, I can't help feeling dirty every time I open the door. If only their sandwiches weren't so sanctimoniously delicious. 

I'm frequently bewildered by ear and nostril hair. When I was a young man, I had a considerably thick mane of blonde hair atop my head and practically no visible hair in either my ears or nostrils. These days I could braid my nose hair and mousse back the stuff growing out of my ears to cover the ever-thinning areas above my eyebrows. Speaking of which, the eyebrows are getting out of control, as well. Apparently, as traditional top-of-the-head hair abandons us, the ancillary hair areas kick into high gear. I can't wait to see what my armpits and lower back produce as I enter my fifties. 

I don't understand German. Nothing more to say there, really.

I'm bewildered by what's happened to the Republican Party. It sold its soul to the ultra-right-wing lunatic fringe back when the Tea Party movement rose to prominence and has never been able to buy it back. Rather than saying, "Thank you, Tea Partiers, but you'll need to run along and do your own thing somewhere else," Republican Party establishment embraced the upstarts and allowed them to corrupt what it means to be Republican. They even misrepresent the party's patron saint Ronald Reagan, misquoting him at every turn. In 1981 Regan wrote: "Illegal immigrants in considerable numbers have become productive members of our society and are a basic part of our work force. Those who have established equities in the United States should be recognized and accorded legal status." That sure doesn't sound the Republican message I've been hearing lately. I wasn't sure I would live long enough to witness a major political party being torn to tatters, but now I feel certain the Republican Party has only an ugly, lingering death in store. That's okay, though. Our country wasn't always divided into Republicans and Democrats. Some of our past Presidents belonged to the Whig Party, some to the Democrat-Republican Party, one to the Federalist Party, and George Washington didn't belong to any party.

I don't understand why, when only four people presently live in our house, there always are at least seventeen filled water sippers chilling in the refrigerator. I'm all for hydration, but it's gotten a little out of hand. To drink that much water on a daily basis would require mandatory catheterization. And, they leave precious little room for leftovers and other food items, which are the reasons we own the refrigerator in the first place.

Mostly, I don't understand where the years have gone. With one child in college and two preparing to take driver's ed this spring break, I'm having to come to terms with the fact that fart jokes and cartoon voices no longer make me a cool Dad. Our kids are turning into adults before our eyes and they're doing it without my permission. As their father, shouldn't I have some say in this matter?

© 2016 Mark Feggeler

Turkey Dog

So, the turkey was carved and we all were seated at the dining room table to feast on Thanksgiving dinner. And feast we did, over-indulging the way one can on a national holiday when gluttony and subsequent self-loathing are strongly encouraged. 

You tell yourself you're going to take only a small portion of this and a taste of that, saving plenty of room for dessert, during which you intend to take only a sliver of that and maybe a modest spoonful of this. When all is done you might as well have been competitive eating. What started out as manners ("Please pass the potatoes!") has devolved into greasy-fingered gestures and grunts ("Ugh... Give... More..."). You really don't even want dessert, but you cram it down regardless because you feel morally obligated. After all, everyone went to the trouble of baking. 

Somewhere during the early stages of dinner: phase one, I heard a strange noise coming from the kitchen. It might have been the dishwasher running, only we hadn't yet loaded the first dish. It might have been the kitchen faucet running, only it wasn't. Instead, it turned out to be the frantic lapping of our six-pound Havanese, Lola. 

The problem wasn't really Lola. Lola was simply doing what any dog would do if turkey juices were flowing freely from the carved carcass on the countertop. The problem also wasn't the cracked cutting board that allowed the turkey juices to escape and flow to the floor. No, the problem was the fact of turkey juices hitting Lola square on the head as she stood there in her own little tryptophan-laced Thanksgiving celebration.

In case you've never soaked you hair with seasoned turkey grease, let me assure you it has some staying power. Three baths later the savory aroma of thyme, rosemary and tarragon continued to waft from Lola's head and her usually toussled top lay heavy between her ears. Try as we did over the next few days, it wasn't until the professional groomers got hold of her several weeks later that all was set right.

The New Normal

There’s no point counting down anymore. The time has come to let go the apron strings, loosen the heart strings, and watch Our Daughter and her best buddie roommate recede in the rearview mirror as we drive away from her college dorm.

Not long ago, or so it seems, she cried at the thought of leaving home for college. She practically made us promise never to send her away.

Sure, she was a kindergartener at the time, but what has that got to do with anything? Just because she has managed to maturely accept the concept of living on her own and is eagerly looking forward to the sundry, looming freedoms awaiting her doesn’t mean I can’t hyperventilate every now and then.

Or openly weep.

In public.

While picking out strawberries at Walmart.

Somewhere along the way, and without any regard for my wishes, she changed from a happy, if slightly insecure, little girl to a confident young woman. Play dates have been replaced by plans to meet up with friends. Preschool in Pinehurst has given way to Pre-Dental studies at UNCG. I don’t recall ever giving permission for any of this to happen.

This is the same kid who once blew out a diaper so badly we spent thirty minutes washing poop out of her hair. She’s the same girl who ate so many fish crackers she ended up projectile vomiting all over her mother and the surrounding fifteen square feet of shag carpet. This is the girl who spent the better part of nine years learning how to ride a bicycle. She’s the one who got on the bus for the band trip to Disney without remembering to pack her instrument, and we’re going to trust her to manage her time wisely and, at some point in the not-too-distant future, drill holes in people’s teeth?

And, yet, it is happening, regardless of all my concerns, fears, trepidations and unwillingness to see her as anything but that cute little bundle with the puffy cheeks and tremendous brown eyes we brought home from the hospital nearly eighteen years ago.

Her bedroom has been raked over in search of treasures to either bring with her or pack away, and to make way for her twin brothers to finally have their own rooms. There’s a large pile of stuff in the basement – linens and clothing, textbooks and small appliances – waiting to be packed in the van tomorrow night in preparation for the journey to their new home in Greensboro. And there’s the girl herself, in limbo, struggling with short-timer’s disease, eager to gleefully leap into her studies with familiar wide-eyed enthusiasm, waiting for the next exciting phase of her life to begin.

In a few months, possibly even just a few weeks, it will all become the new normal. We will eventually stop calling it her bedroom. We will adjust to dinners at the smaller table in the kitchen nook instead of the big table in the dining room. The dog will stop searching the house for her and we will accept the fact she is capable of moving on without us into the life for which, if we have been even a faint semblance of the perfect parents we like to think we are, we have prepared her. She will be fine, and so will we.

However, you might want to avoid the strawberries at Walmart for a little while. They might be a bit salty.

2015 Mark Feggeler

Reclaiming the Valley of Death

Ten years we've lived in our house and all that time I've lovingly referred to our backyard as the Valley of Death.

The way my backyard once looked.

(NPS photo)

It wouldn't be fair to say nothing grows in the Valley of Death. There's sandy soil with good drainage. Half the yard is shaded by tall pines sprinkled around the periphery of our property. A few lonely bushes planted by the builder in 2005 had managed to muscle through.

Not the azaleas, mind you. Azaleas and I have never been able to reach a common understanding. My record of killing azaleas is second to none in North Carolina. In fact, if reincarnation is real, then all those poor azaleas I've tortured over the years must have committed some egregious sins in past lives for which they needed to atone.

In the interests of full disclosure, most things I've planted in the Valley of Death have withered and died primarily because I've consistently chosen the wrong kinds of plants. I would find myself roaming the garden section of Lowe's or Walmart, see something colorful and think:

"This looks pretty. I'm going to bring it home and watch it grow." 

Then I'd get it home, plant it, and watch it burn to a cinder in the high heat of summer because I neglected to read the informational card telling me the plant needs 17 hours of shade, several gallons of water, morale-building pep talks, and deep-tissue leaf massages three times a day. After years of this behavior, I finally learned to read the labels and, unknowingly, moved to the opposite end of the spectrum. Only those plants capable of tolerating full sun and requiring little to no water started making the trip home with me. It no longer mattered if they were pretty. The question I asked when wandering the garden section became:

"Can it survive equatorial solar radiation, desert droughts, and the occasional fire ant infestation?"

I wanted plants with a Dungeons and Dragons constitution score of 18, plus three for magical potions (fertilizer). The trouble with that line of thinking is you end up with a yard full of plants and shrubs that look scraggly, twiney and neglected even in the best of health and at full bloom. It's difficult to take pride in showing off a garden full of purposefully planted weeds and sticks that would make Georgia O'Keeffe long for the lush greenery of the New Mexican dessert.

Lately, it seems, I have managed to strike a balance between aesthetics and sturdiness. It all began with a blueberry bush.

I can't recall if I bought the bush or it was given to me as a gift. However it came to me, I planted it in the backyard in the one shady spot where things seems to grow. After all, I like blueberries. I like eating them. I enjoy baking with them. I wanted the bush to have the greatest chance of survival, and planting it where I did paid off. The bush produced approximately one dozen berries that first year, a few dozen the next, quite a few dozen the following year, and presently is poised to yield several hundred berries in the coming weeks.

I fully realize one bush does not the Garden of Eden make, but any sign of success was encouragement. So, this spring, I decided it was time for the Valley of Death to meet its maker.

My next project -- a simple, under-
stated water feature.
(NPS photo)

At present, there are five knockout rose bushes, the blueberry bush, two rosemary plants, several new crepe myrtles, two wildflower patches, two butterfly bushes (which were already there, but which appear to have sensed the enthusiasm), two lovely camellias (thanks Mom and Dad), one spindly grassy thing with long spikes topped by purple blooms, and a rapidly growing grape vine. I hadn't really intended to grow grapes, but Aldi had a rack of mismarked plants ("Grape Bush") near the checkout counter and I simply couldn't resist. Even the oregano I ripped out last year has sprouted anew.

With all this new growth boosting my confidence, perhaps it's time to take the yard to the next level. I've often thought it might be fun to install a water feature. Nothing too intricate, just a simple, understated cascading waterfall with mossy boulders surrounded by a fully matured natural pine forest. Piece of cake...



© 2015 Mark Feggeler

In the Spirit!

It’s Spirit Week at the middle school and our boys have been participating whole-heartedly, which is just one of the many differences between my children’s educational experiences and mine. I never learned to embrace school, or extracurricular activities, or sports, or band, or homework, or clubs, or girls.

Apart from a few good friends, my K-12 education consisted of navigating from one class to another, one year to another, while calling as little attention to myself as possible. Just a few steps shy of pathologically uptight, I avoided anything I saw as a potential threat or danger, which meant the last time I used a school bathroom was that day in fifth grade when a sixth grader popped open the door to my stall and stood there laughing. Why was it funny? I have no idea, but I never stepped foot in another school bathroom again. Perhaps the only thing of real lasting value I learned from school was how to hold it until I got home.

Needless to say, I didn’t go to many (okay, any) parties, I didn’t join any clubs, and I didn’t participate in Spirit Week, if we even had them back then. Dressing in school colors might be too conspicuous. What if the green I wore wasn’t the correct shade of green? And Pajama Day? Not likely. I was one of those kids who inhaled half a can of Aqua Net to make sure each and every hair conformed to the code of the mushroom helmet. I might not have had any style, but my lack of style – from my dad jeans, to my tucked-in shirt, to my old man sneakers – was immaculately represented every day. There was no way I was going to spoil it by wearing plaid pajamas to school.

The great thing about time passing is how effectively it can mellow you. Somewhere between 18 and 25, I began to allow many of my more diagnosable inhibitions to fall away. The result was wonderfully freeing. If one of my coworkers were to announce tomorrow is dress like a baby day, I’d be the first to run out and buy adult diapers and a giant baby rattle. Pajama Day? Please. These days you’d be lucky if I didn’t overdo it and wear women’s lingerie.

And in the interests of overdoing it, there are several new Spirit Week themes I would like to recommend that I believe would prove beneficial to the young people of today. After all, kids can wear school colors any old day, and pajamas would be a step up from most of the clothes kids choose to wear. My Spirit Week themes would forego such silliness in an effort to teach adolescents practical life lessons, such as the benefits of cleanliness and proper hygiene.

• Monday: Dress Like You Brushed Your Teeth Without Being Reminded Day
• Tuesday: Take Your Gritty Shoes Off Before Entering the House Day
• Wednesday: Wash Your Hair Properly (Like, With Shampoo) Day
• Thursday: Deodorant Is Your Friend Day
• Friday: Your Bedroom Really Shouldn’t Smell That Way Day

Or how about the hazards of chemical dependency?

• Monday: Dress Like Snoop Dog and/or Rush Limbaugh Day
• Tuesday: Bring Your Parents’ Secret Stash to School Day
• Wednesday: Dress Like Your Favorite Incarcerated Former Politician Day
• Thursday: Dress Like Your Favorite Overdosed Celebrity Day
• Friday: Dress Like the Kid Who Sells Weed In the School Bathroom But Hasn’t Been Busted Yet Day

Or even general responsibility?

• Monday: Dress Like You Own a Mirror Day
• Tuesday: Don’t Back Out of the Driveway at 50 MPH Day
• Wednesday: Dress Like You Own More Than Just Your Favorite Shirt Day
• Thursday: If Your Homework Says “Show Your Work” Then Show Your Work Day
• Friday: Dress Like You’re Not an Under-Aged Stripper Day

The possibilities are endless, and certainly more educational and entertaining than silly old Pajama Day.




Copyright 2015 Mark Feggeler

Little Puppy Is Lonely

Little Puppy has been lonely lately. So has his friend, Hoot, and his cousins, Giraffy and Brownie.

Not too long ago, this gang of plush playthings were as essential to a good night's sleep as the bed itself, or pajamas. The world simply was not spinning in proper rotation unless the Italian had Little Puppy and Hoot tucked up under the covers with him, and likewise for the German with Giraffy and Brownie.

When you're a parent of three young children, the fact each child has his or her essential nighttime toys can be both endearing and infuriating. A forgotten or lost toy can be the difference between harmony and hell when you're ready to call it a day. Like the time we were cruising and couldn't find Squirrelly. Squirrelly wasn't even a first string player; he was back up. Squirrelly was one of those substitute toys you brought on trips because, should something untoward happen to Squirrelly, life would go on. He eventually was found under a mattress, but bedtime suffered a delay and his temporary misplacement caused some small measure of emotional duress for the German.

In Our Daughter's time, there were dolls Shu-Shu and Miranda, in addition to dogs Dottie and Bernie. It became second nature to grab one or all them on the way out the door the way you grab your wallet and keys. She has long since outgrown them.

When she was just four or five years old, Our Daughter heard about college. The concept of leaving home to live and study in a strange city panicked her to tears. I assured her she wouldn't be going anywhere for a very long time. That very long time has now come and gone like the flickering of a candle.

The same will hold true for the twins. Before we know it, thirteen will have turned to eighteen and it'll be their time to tour college campuses and complete scholarship applications. Just around the corner are the dissolution of bedtime rituals and the packing away of the silly toys of early childhood. Our recent housecleaning over the holidays offered proof these days are coming. The ease with which they let go of things that were, only last year, must-keep essentials was equal parts freeing and frightening.

So, what will become of Little Puppy?

For now, he sits atop the dresser overlooking the bed he once occupied. He might end up in a bin under the bed, or a drawer in the closet. Rest assured, there will be an intervention before his well-being is ever in jeopardy. Maybe Little Puppy will end up on the shelf in my office. Whenever I look up to give my bleary eyes a break from staring at the computer screen, I'll see Little Puppy and be reminded of the words from the Paul McCartney song "Little Willow."

"Bend little willow,
Wind's gonna blow you
Hard and cold tonight.
Life as it happens,
Nobody warns you.
Willow, hold on tight."

It's a song I sang hundreds of times to the children when they were babies and toddlers. I wonder, sometimes, if I was singing it to them or to myself.


© 2015 Mark Feggeler

Merry Eating Day!

The holidays are here, which means it's time to bloat the twenty extra pounds I normally carry around with me to a seasonally appropriate thirty. It also means massive quantities of food must be prepared in order to provide at least five pounds per plateload, regardless of whether we're talking about a salad plate, a dinner plate, or a dessert plate.

Yesterday (Christmas Eve-Eve) was primary cooking day for our Christmas day celebrations. In two days, we will feed a total of eight people -- the five who live under our roof, plus my parents and Brother Tom. Naturally, then, we browned three pounds of sausage, rolled eight pounds of beef and pork into meatballs and browned them, then tossed all of that browned meaty goodness into a vat of homemade sauce.

Next came cookies. Simplicity was the motto of the day, so we kept it to one kind of cookie -- the ubiquitous peanut butter Kiss cookie -- that could be easily thrown together and baked without distracting too much from the browning of the meatballs and sausage. Fresh from their morning meat-rolling calisthenics, the kids helped roll out four trays of peanut buttery deliciousness, in addition to shucking several dozen Hershey's Kisses.

After a brief break to clean a pan, or seven, it was time to experiment with something new -- cinnamon pumpkin roll with chocolate mascarpone ganache.

I've baked many things, but never a finished cake that had to be rolled. It seemed like an awful lot of work to go through just to create a delivery method for getting pumpkin cake and chocolate ganache to my mouth, but I was game. Besides, Giada de Laurentis and the Food Network wouldn't steer me wrong.

To Giada's credit, both the cake and the ganache are amazingly delectable, however rolling the pumpkin spice cake might not have been my finest culinary hour. I passed the first test, flipping the pan and dropping the cake onto a towel dusted with powdered sugar. Trouble is, my definition of dusting is slightly more aggressive than Giada's. The cake landed with a satisfying plop and shot powdered sugar up and out like a Christmas-tinged mushroom cloud full of elf fairies and pumpkiny aromas. The next bit, actually rolling the cake without breaking, mangling, tearing, shearing, or otherwise causing traumatic damage to said cake, was less messy but much more sketchy. In the end, I manhandled it into something that roughly resembles a rolled cake.

Today continued with more baking. After all, you can't serve seventeen pounds of meat and sauce without homemade Italian bread, and where one loaf might suffice, two certainly will provide that measure of overkill necessary for a proper holiday feast.

Oh, did I mention the cannoli? Yeah, I bought twenty pre-made cannoli shells (half of them covered in chocolate, because they were there) and prepped two pounds of filling so we can stuff them on Christmas day short before we sit down to eat our six-and-a-half pounds of meat, sauce, pasta and bread each. That way, the cannoli can set up in the fridge without getting the shells all soggy. You have to plan ahead for these things, you know.

The end result is that, by the time we tuck the kids into bed tomorrow night, I should have gained almost the entire extra ten pounds. I'll leave a tiny bit of space for that last cookie before bed.



© 2014 Mark Feggeler

Progeny Perfected

You might think your children are special, but mine really are.

I know all parents believe their kids are beautiful, handsome, smart, talented, witty, mature and precocious. Problem is, only one pair of parents can believe that and actually be correct. My intent here isn't to tramp muddy footprints all over your dreams of being the perfect parent. You've tried exceptionally hard to raise perfect children and your kids genuinely appreciate your efforts. I'm here to point out the simple fact that our kids make yours look like they came from the reject bin at Big Lots. No offense.

Take the Italian, for example. The Italian has read more books this year than I have in my entire life, which really isn’t much of a comparison, because my reading skills loosely match those of an underdeveloped Gibbon monkey.

He's also a blossoming computer whiz. The Italian's idea of light entertainment is to prepare point-by-point comparisons of this year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference to last year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. He’s thirteen. When I was thirteen, I was more concerned with which episode of Gilligan’s Island would be on after school than I was in getting the inside scoop on the latest advancements in world technology. When I was thirteen my brothers and I were content with playing Dig Dug off five-inch floppy discs on our Commodore 64. The Italian has been breaking out the laptop each morning to teach himself HTML coding over breakfast. And, well, why wouldn't he?

Then there’s the German. The German is sweet natured to a fault, he's an ace hockey goalie, and he plays saxophone as soulfully as a sixty-year-old in a smoke-filled night club. And he enjoys practicing. When I was his age, I recorded myself playing the trumpet for ten minutes and hit play twice to fill out the rest of the half hour I was supposed to be practicing.

The German also is our Lego master. I’m not talking about the 30-piece police car Lego set we got for Christmas forty years ago that I'm still trying to figure out how to put together. I’m talking about 2,000-piece movie prop replicas that are half assembled before the wrapping hits the floor. I’m talking about sitting at a laptop to program code for a WiFi Lego robot that recognizes different colors, utilizes touch sensors, and performs complex tasks.

Between the two of them, the twins have the necessary knowledge and access to technology to hack our online banking and transfer our assets to offshore accounts, all while holding us captive in our own basement with a robotic Lego army.

The ring leader of our perfected progeny is Our Daughter. If I even attempted to maintain half the busy schedule Our Daughter keeps on a daily basis, I would have been dead three-and-a-half years ago. I can count on one hand the number of clubs I joined during my K-12 years, yet this girl's resume reads like an alphabetical listing of every possible extra-curricular activity available.

She's also taken more AP classes than I have clean pairs of underwear. I'm lucky I know how spell AP. She wants to graduate with honors, get a bachelor's degree in biology, a master's degree in dentistry, and ultimately become an orthodontist. At her age, my only goal was to pass the next test and avoid anyone at school who might be interested in giving me a wedgie. Our Daughter has the next ten years of her life planned out whereas my long-term goals include gassing up the car and making sure I leave enough time after getting out of bed each morning to reach the toilet before I wet myself.

I'm certain many of you reading this are making all kinds of mental notes in preparation of a rebuttal of my assertion that my children are better than yours. You're wasting your time listing out your childrens' grade point averages, academic accomplishments, personal triumphs, and tallying the number of times they've been Snapchatted or re-Tweeted. Please, if it makes you feel better, go ahead and launch a well-prepared defense of your children. So long as you're prepared to eventually acknowledge the unquestionable superiority of my kids, we won't have any trouble.



© 2014 Mark Feggeler

Spreadable Nightmare

I've made many sandwiches in my lifetime.

I can spread peanut butter, jelly, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, horseradish and many other primary sandwich ingredients and condiments like nobody's business. I've plated up everything from basic, slapped-together sandwiches, to tremendous Dagwood specials that could choke a horse (but that did not choke me).

What I'm trying to say is, I'm no novice at this task, and neither is My Lovely Wife. We have three kids. We've been making sandwiches for seventeen-plus years without any difficulties. Until recently.

Some months ago, our children discovered the joys of Nutella. If you've never experienced Nutella, please stop reading. Not only can't we be friends, I really don't want to have anything to do with you. Stop reading this post immediately, go to the store, buy some Nutella, and eat an entire jar by the spoonful. Return here only after you've digested the delicious chocolaty hazelnut glory of Nutella and accepted that your parents didn't really love you, because if they had they would have introduced you to Nutella years ago.

As scrumptious as Nutella is, however, if you've ever tried to make a Nutella sandwich, you very likely know that it puts up a serious fight.

The first sign of trouble is when you plunge the knife into the jar and it stops dead in its tracks. If NASA were to measure the force required to drag a butter knife through a jar of Nutella, it probably wouldn't register on any existing equipment. Nutella should come with an elbow brace and a sling, because you're going to need them by the time you extricate knife from jar.

The second sign of trouble is the massive damage caused to the bread when attempting to spread the Nutella. Not only didn't this stuff want to leave the jar, now it clings to the butter knife with a death grip, shredding the slice of white bread like a savage animal in the process. You've got two options at this point:

1. Hold the bread down with your fingers and spread around them. You might not end up covered in Nutella to your third knuckle, but don't count on it. You'll probably need a shower.
2. Press down hard enough with the knife to ensure spread vacates knife. You might not completely destroy the integrity of the bread, but don't count on that, either.

I strongly encourage method number one. It's definitely messier, but the chances of success are far greater. Plus, you get to lick your fingers for the next hour.


And if spreading Nutella weren't already an impossible task to achieve, everyone knows the best accompaniment for Nutella on white bread is marshmallow fluff. Unfortunately, the only substance less easily spreadable than Nutella is marshmallow fluff. It's like an overwhelming, sandwich-themed, cosmic joke.

By the time both ingredients are sufficiently applied, the bread sufficiently mangled, and your nerves sufficiently shot, you might have achieved a final product resembling something close to a sandwich. But trust me, one bite is all it takes to prove the final product is worth the struggle.



© 2014 Mark Feggeler

Red Sock, Blue Sock

A tribute to Dr. Seuss, or a glimpse of a day in the life of a busy family? You decide. All I know is we had two mismatched socks and my daughter was cranky (really!), so I wrote a poem. I'm warning you now that this isn't a very good poem, but then I never have liked poetry. You can blame Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" for that. Anyway, here it is:

Red sock, blue sock, one, two, three.

What's up with the day’s laundry?

There’s one sock here where two should be.

Red sock, blue sock, one, two, three.

Sleepy, sleepy, one, two, three.

My daughter’s cranky as can be.

She threw a banana muffin at me.

Sleepy, sleepy, one, two, three.

Inside, outside, one, two, three.

The dog won’t make a poop or pee.

I walked her 'round the block with me.

Inside, outside, one, two, three.

Nagging, nitpick, one, two, three.

The twins are passive aggressively

Sniping at each other incessantly.

Nagging, nitpick, one, two, three.

Red sock, blue sock, one, two, three.

Really  laundry – seriously?

The machine is eating my BVDs!

Red sock, blue sock, one, two, three.

Turn the clock back, one, two, three.

Our daughter looks like a young lady.

She’ll always be a little girl to me.

Turn the clock back, one, two, three.

Check my heart rate, one, two, three.

The dog just scared the heck out of me

By barking at something I cannot see.

Check my heart rate, one, two, three.

Open the window, one, two, three.

The twins’ room smells adolescently,

And now they’re starting to play hockey.

Open the window, one, two, three.

Growing older, one, two, three.

Spend a few moments leisurely

To enjoy the kids before they flee.

Growing older, one, two, three.

© 2014 Mark Feggeler

Please Stop...

We had a great vacation last week.

Pennsylvania is lovely and the countryside surrounding the city of Lancaster particularly so. Over the course of seven days, we managed to visit historic Philadelphia, HersheyPark, the Julius Sturgiss Pretzel Factory, Luray Caverns, and we even found time one morning for breakfast at IHOP. Incidentally, blueberry cannoli pancakes should be permanently emblazoned on every IHOP menu from now through the end of eternity. If you haven’t tried them yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

For some reason, the soundtrack to our family “Road” movie included quite a bit of Journey. 

Turn on the radio and there’s “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” Pull into a gas station and get greeted by “Wheel in the Sky” from overhead speakers. Sit down in a restaurant booth and you’re tapping along to “Any Way You Want It” before you consciously acknowledge the song is even playing.

Now, if Journey had never formed as a rock band and later devolved into a lightweight video power ballad band my life wouldn’t be any the lesser for it, but I am not a Journey hater. I don’t hold a grudge against Carlos Santana for suggesting to Neal Schon that he start his own group, and I don’t harbor ill will toward MTV for the thousands of times it replayed the horrifically horrible video for “Separate Ways.” 

I freely admit to enjoying the group’s music. Show me any person in his or her forties who claims to never have attempted to match Steve Perry’s wailing voice in “Faithfully” while sitting alone in a car and I’ll show you a big fat liar.

Regardless of my enjoyment of the bands numerous hits, there was one Journey song that kept popping up round every corner during our trip, most especially during our two days at HersheyPark. You couldn’t hide from it, shut your ears to it, or put it out of your mind because the song, continuing its rise up from the ashes of clichéd eighties pop culture, refuses to die.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” -- apart from being one of several song titles that suggest Journey had a passionate distrust of the letter “G” -- is one of the more commercially successful covers by the cast of Glee, a show single-handedly responsible for convincing teens around the globe that all high schools have the budgets and technical ability to stage professionally choreographed karaoke competitions. This has led to all cover bands everywhere, even Death Metal cover bands, adding the song to their portfolios of musical butchery.

There was the Dueling Pianos show at HersheyPark that featured the song. Three talented pianists in bright suits who worked it into their 30-minute performance of piano-based pop tunes. Passable.

Fifty feet away was the all-girl cover band, Patty and the Peppermints, that featured the song. Six or seven young women in dire need of a properly functioning sound board and at least one band member with the ability to tune an instrument. Mildly annoying.

Then there was the roaming street trio that attempted the song. Three aspiringly disengaging waifs with instruments on loan from the Toys ‘R Us throwback collection. Intolerable.

At this point, I’m just happy to be home where I have more direct control over the soundtrack of my life. Until, of course, Our Daughter hops in the shower and cranks up the teenage tunage. What are the chances that’s actually Journey singing "Don't Stop Believin'?"

© 2014 Mark Feggeler