The 43

As this life progresses, I'm continually stunned by things that occur annually, with the last occurrence not seeming so long ago when, in fact, an entire year has passed. My annual summer solstice blog post is an example of this. First days of school, last days of school, big swim meets, Independence Days, vacations, Halloweens -- the days that make lasting impressions burn into the memory, so the next occasion seems sooner than it actually was. However, there are the less significant events that feel so recent but were actually a year ago. I wrote about one of these moments in 2009 , and I'm guessing we approach the first anniversary of the COVID-19 lockdown, I'll be marveling how the weeks and months zipped by (the year of coronavirus is a topic for another post).  Every January, I experience the expedited passage of time in something not so monumental and, really, should be mundane: taking down the Christmas tree. We wait to get a tree every December until after Michael...

As a condition to play sports while preventing the spread of COVID-19, all high school athletes in Utah must be tested every two weeks. After a fall in which seasons were canceled because of unchecked cases and rumors surfaced of coaches telling their players not to get tested if felt symptoms, the state clamped down by instituting this testing protocol. So far, it's worked out well -- the message is getting through to athletes that they need to be smart or risk ruining the season for their teammates, and the rate of positive tests for these students has been low. The boys have been tested three times, including twice via the rapid testing their school is offering. This morning, they needed to go in at 6 a.m. to be tested -- in order handle about a hundred students in a couple hours (and allow them to practice after school), the school had to start early. So far, we've heard of no positive tests -- at least nothing that would cancel Michael's games this week or force a quar...

Lori and I started dating in 1993, and that first fall and winter, I usually had Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights off. Although we weren't planted in front of the television during all our free time, naturally, we watched some TV. Amid "Seinfeld" and "Frasier" episodes, we gravitated toward "Mad About You." I had watched episodes off and on during the show's first season, and I thought it was OK. As a single person, it didn't quite resonate yet. That changed when we started watching NBC Thursday nights together. I must admit, Lori brought me around to appreciating and enjoying "Mad About You." She saw something I had yet to realize: Paul and Jamie Buchman felt a little like us, in that they were a young couple navigating a new relationship, albeit a few years ahead of us.  The episode that really struck a chord with Lori told the story of how Paul and Jamie may have encountered each other as grade schoolers. It reconfirmed for...

Snow fell yesterday and today in Salt Lake City, and outside feels more like January than November. I took the dog on a long walk tonight, and I'm already yearning for spring.  Rather than write about warmer seasons, I'll tell a wintertime story that doesn't have anything to do with winter other than it occurred in December. In 1980, Mom, my sisters and I, along with some neighbors, attended a kids' Christmas party thrown by a women's or seniors' group in our Oriole Park neighborhood. The event was held at the Oriole Park field house in the gym, and for a 10-year-old who didn't believe in Santa anymore, it was boring. A middle-aged (at least) woman dressed up as a boy from the 1930s and sang "I'm Getting Nothin' for Christmas." Santa made an appearance. All the kids got books for presents. For my age group and gender, I received The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn by John Bellairs. It was a mystery about a kid who stumbles into puzzle left ...

By my calculations, from the first day the lockdown began in earnest and the reality of the impending pandemic became inescapable , today is Day 240. Eight months ago, I figured we would be out of the crisis by now.  We aren't. As I write this, an alert came over my phone that Utah's governor is holding a press conference in a little while to announce new restrictions. The state has been spiking for weeks, but in the last week, it spiked really badly -- almost 3,000 new cases on Friday. We weren't getting that many in a month back in the spring. A combination of apathy, pandemic fatigue, politicization of the crisis, poor planning, and young people not giving a crap if they get infected has got us to this point. I can't say that if I was in my 20s I'd be as much of an asshole as the youth of today are being, but much of the latest fuel to this fire, at least locally, was people hanging out at Halloween parties. The biggest rate of spread in Utah is in the 15-35 age ...

YEAR: 2020 AGE: Turned 50 ... today! LOCATION: SLC, Ramona Avenue CUBS' RECORD: 34-26 SONGS I LIKED: "Somedays (I Don't Feel Like Trying)" by the Raconteurs; "Letter to You" by Bruce Springsteen TV SHOWS I WATCHED: "Schitt's Creek"; "Brockmire" MOVIES I SAW (STREAMING ONLY): "Onward"; "Palm Springs" I'm starting my 2020 post with an event from 2009. That November, Michael was in kindergarten, Ben was in 3-year-old preschool, and I was writing a book . National Novel Writing Month is a project that encourages and inspires would-be writers to pen 50,000 words of a book during November. The idea behind NaNoWriMo is that all those people who want to write a book but never seem to get around to it just need some structured support, tools, advice, and constant reminders to get to work. I was one of these people. Working at a newspaper, my days and weeks were filled with writing or fixing other people's w...

YEAR: 2019 AGE: Turned 49 on Nov. 6 LOCATION: SLC, Ramona Avenue JAZZ'S RECORD: 50-32 SONGS I LIKED: "Alligator" by Of Monsters and Men; "Africa" by Weezer TV SHOWS I WATCHED: "The Good Place"; "Game of Thrones"; "The Mandalorian" MOVIES I SAW: "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"; "Avengers: Endgame"; "Toy Story 4"; "Midway"; "Ford v Ferrari" After 48 posts, I wanted to write something unique about 2019, something not necessarily about parenting, childhood, moving, work, school, courtship, vacations, music, cars, games, sports, holidays, parties, weddings, or how fast time flies. So, I'll write about the dog. First, a 2019 primer: The year was surprisingly normal. We all traveled a great deal -- my year included trips to Denver, Missoula , Las Vegas , northern Wisconsin , Chicago , and San Diego . Michael started his sophomore year and Ben began eighth grade. We encounter...