Family

For five years Laurel and I have been building up to our ultimate nyah, nyah, you're so wrong! retort to Dr. Laura Schlesinger, the advice guru who is fond of reducing complex and mysterious human relationships to simplistic sound bites.Back in 2004 I warmed up with "14th anniversary -- take that Dr. Laura!" I noted that Laurel and I had known each other for about eight months before we got married, and I proposed within four months. A no-no for Dr. Laura, especially since I'd recently ended an eighteen year marriage. I said:One of her oft-heard Relationship Tenets was that…

Kudos to my daughter, Celeste, for defending $350 sunglasses in a comment to my post about her company, Barton Perreira, being mentioned in a New York Times story as being "a brand coveted by aficionados." Another commenter gave me grief for talking about such apparent excess so favorably. Heck, I want some Barton Perreiras. What are my chances of getting a free pair from Celeste if I talk them down? [Note: actually they can cost quite a bit more than $350.] Anyway, I agree with what my brilliant, insightful, well spoken child (a chip off of the genetic block, for…

Since my favorite (and only) child is the sales director for a high-end designer eyewear company, my eyes snapped to attention when I noticed a New York Times story today: "Love Your Sunglasses (Should I Know You?)" I hoped to read that the demand for expensive sunglasses wasn't going the way of expensive homes: down. Reassuringly, the story said that "statement sunglasses are one luxury that consumers are still willing to splurge on." Whew! Good news. Even better was what I came across a few paragraphs further on. "Sunglasses aren't armor anymore — they're not about saying don't touch me,"…

Perfect. This is just the way I feel much of the time, now that I've reached the semi-geezerish age of 59. Like I'm sliding down the hill of life, faster than before, since the descent seems steeper the closer you get to the bottom. So photos of me and my granddaughter, Evelyn, that my daughter emailed today were just what I wanted, Father's Day wise. I sort of thought that Starbucks would offer up a discount on my latte this morning. But no. Disappointed, I cut my tip in half and just clinked a couple of dimes into the jar.…

I'm discovering one of the joys of becoming a grandfather: since I don't bear the responsibility for my granddaughter's ultimate development, I can play with her psyche as much as I want to. When she eventually seeks psychotherapy, Evelyn never will connect her existential angst with the children's book that I read to her over the weekend. Of course, she didn't grasp the deeper aspects of "Ned Goes to Bed" this time around. (When you're not quite a year old, pondering philosophy plays second fiddle to seeing if the pages rip out of a book.) But I intend to keep…

My granddaughter is making her first visit to our south Salem home. It didn't take Evelyn long to figure out how to begin taking it apart. This southern California baby saw her first snow today. Thanks, Oregon. Here she is, a bundle of cuteness, up early with her dad on a chilly morning. I got to push her stroller most of the way around our neighborhood's two mile loop. Of such events are a new grandfather's dreams made of. Llamas aren't all that common in Evelyn's Hollywood environs. She took them in stride, with my daughter Celeste by her side.…

Here it is, world! What you've been waiting for to complete the Christmas season: Laurel and Brian's 2007 Holiday Letter. Download 2007_christmas_letter.pdf Download 2007_christmas_letter.doc (shared in both PDF and Word formats) By "world," of course, I mean the subset of Earth's 6.3 billion people who look forward to the wise, witty, and moving sentiments we express in our annual letter. Not being Christians, I prefer the term "Holiday letter." Yet as a worshipper of Google, whose search engine is attuned to "Christmas letter," I shamelessly have used those words in the title of this post. If you read the letter,…

Whenever I fret too much about modern environmental degradation, I like to think back to the not-so-good old days of the 1950s when the United States conducted over 150 above ground tests of nuclear weapons. Most of these were at the Nevada Test Site. In 1955 my mother, who was divorced, moved with me to Three Rivers, California. Three Rivers is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, on the other side of which lies Nevada. Nowadays people worry over miniscule bits of contamination in our food, water, and air. Back in the '50s it was no big deal…

Well, actually this is a photo of me wearing my Kohlrabi Black Belt shirt back in Oregon. But since I bought it from a quirky creative artist, Larry Steinbauer, at a Champaign-Urbana Saturday market, it counts as an image of Illinois. I love it. I wore it during a visit to the Rantoul Air Museum, and I'm wearing it today – after getting back from the flatlands of America yesterday (I got another Steinbauer t-shirt that says: "Champaign: in the foothills of mount level"). The Kohlrabi shirt's message is from the renowned Turnip Cabbage IV, "Be inwardly strong but gentle…

Clue 1: the horizon is really flat. And there's lots of corn. Not only at this Champaign-Urbana farmer's market, where the corn is stacked as high as a child's eye, but also stalking in the fields – along with soybeans aplenty. Clue 2: when the husband of your wife's sister, Jerry (reaching out for corn in the photo above) tells you that a subdivision is going to replace a corn field near their house, and you say, "But isn't that zoned farmland?," after which he smilingly reminds you that you're not in Oregon anymore, which still has some good land…

I flew from Portland to Hollywood yesterday to see my (one and only) granddaughter for the first time. The plane trip took two hours. Along the way I lost a lot of years. All the way down to Evelyn's age--one month. Maybe not in rock solid reality, since I'm still able to put up a blog post on an unfamiliar computer, and Evelyn doesn't do much but sleep, cry, poop, pee, eat, and look around in an unfocused fashion. Still, we've got a lot in common. Don't you see the resemblance? This grandfather can. In his "the circle of life…

Grandpa Brian. A new aspect of my persona, thanks to Evelyn Elizabeth Vos. She was born Thursday to my daughter Celeste and her hubby, Patrick. And their first "child," who looks like a feline plot is in the making. I'd keep the cat away from the baby for a while, Celeste and Patrick, until you know what's going on in that furry head (as if you ever will). Speaking of furry heads, Evelyn looks a lot like Celeste did when she was born: hirsute. People said Celeste looked like an Eskimo, though I'm pretty sure nobody who said that had…

My daughter, Celeste, finally has shared some pregnancy photos. She's due April 10, so she's really pregnant. We talked by phone this evening. Celeste said, "There's nothing cute about being pregnant." Hey, this grandfather-to-be begs to differ. Patrick, her hubby, and she are Hollywoodish cute here (which fits, since that's where they live). And this shows more than the belly of the demure mother-to be. Who, I'm told, is eminently ready for Baby Girl ______ to make her appearance. They're down to three potential names, but won't choose the winner until they see their child and know that the name…

Hot off my laptop is Laurel and Brian’s 2006 Holiday Greetings, a.k.a. our Christmas letter. I ponder my incipient grandfatherness and speak of dog walking, colonoscopies, Tango, land use activism, and why blogging beats book writing. PDF and Word versions are available: Download 2006_christmas_letter.pdf Download 2006_christmas_letter.doc My complete 1995-2006 Christmas letter oeuvre may be perused in “Collected Christmas letters.” I like to say that a man's soul is revealed through his Christmas letters. Well, if God rewards humor, cynicism, and blatant self-promotion, my salvation is in darn good shape.

I’ve gotten the go-ahead from Celeste to start my grandchild blogging. She told me the big news, that she’s pregnant, shortly after she picked Laurel and me up at the Burbank airport last Friday. But she asked me to hold off on tooting my grandfatherly horn over the Internet until she’d told her boss. Which now has occurred. So here’s the first public photo of my daughter’s child. Isn’t he or she cute? Celeste sure thinks so. She kept cooing over this ultrasound image as I struggled to make out any identifiable human (or even quasi-human) features. Well, that’s mother…

It was worth being woken up from my Sunday nap to get a terrific Father’s Day present: a phone call from my daughter, Celeste. Our connection was all the way from urban hip Hollywood, California to rural laidback Camp Sherman, Oregon. Today I felt that I’d earned a nap after rousing myself enough to take my bike into Sisters and get a flat tire fixed. After talking with Celeste I felt like I needed another nap. Listening to her passionate 34-year old plans for the future with my lethargic 57-year old psyche was a vicarious energy drain. And also, hugely…

A man who doesn’t have any grandchildren yet, but who looks forward to telling bedtime stories one day, needs to be prepared. And dream… “Grandpa Brian, tell me the Tale of Two Toothpastes. Oh, please, I love your stories so much!” “Dear Grandchild, I just told you this story last night. Are you sure you want to hear it again?” “Yes, yes, yes! I could hear it every night and never, ever get tired of it. Grandpa, I love your stories of the old days. And especially, especially about what you used to write about on your blogs. Did I…

Finally. Destiny has lifted her skirt and permitted me a peek into her shadowy secrets. For now I realize what karmic impulsion, way back in 1972, led my ex-wife and me to name our one and only daughter Celeste Jeanne Hines. At the age of 34 she has become a DJ. And, naturally, she is known as “DJ CJ.” Friday was her coming out, after several weeks of DJ school in the back room of a Hollywood-area record store. With her husband off on a business trip, and her birthday the day before, this was the perfect time for her…