Weekend Plans

Heading to Nashville today to spend the Easter weekend with my son. I'll be in the car for 9 and a half hours. At least it's a shiny red CTS and looks awesome. And at least there will be snacks. Still...9 and a half hours. Ugh...

Pam will be in the passenger seat, which is also awesome. She's always there, my wife. We've made lots of these sort of trips together. This is what our life has become, we bide time between weekend trips to visit our amazing children. She will stay busy by flipping through her iPad, and feeding me treats. 

Tonight, we will have my birthday dinner at a place called Mere Bulles in Brentwood, the three of us. I'm thinking either shrimp and grits or the chicken fried chicken. No diet this weekend.

There will be lunch at the Flying Saucer, an awesome beer-lovers eatery. There will be a homemade Easter meal cooked by my wife and my son in his kitchen, and we will get to meet the girlfriend.

Lucy will not be making this trip. We have hired someone to take care of her. She knows something is up. What is it with dogs and their suspicion/resentment of suitcases? I will be plagued by guilt for the first hour or so of the trip. Then, about the time we pass Charlottesville, I'll get over it and not give her a second thought, until we get into the car to head home Monday. Then, she will be all I think about.

Today on Facebook, people will graciously wish me a happy birthday. I will be surprised at how many there are and grateful to have so many wonderful people in my life. 

It will be a good day, a good weekend.

Then it will be time to plan our next trip.

Trying Desperately to Mind My Own Business

For several millennia now, "mind your own business" has been powerful advice. Followers of this admonition have reaped the benefits of a less complicated, less stressful and more fulfilling life. People who practice minding their own business have generally been admired and respected by their peers, sought out for guidance and council, and with few exceptions been highly regarded by society. But in 2015, it has grown nearly impossible to mind one's own business, because everyone else seems determined to get all up in it. This takes several annoying forms.

First, the government seems hellbent on getting tangled up in nearly every corner of my business. From monitoring my phone calls and emails to tracking my social media interactions, even to taking away my God-given right to a Big-Gulp, my government is determined to do for me what my mother did for the first 18 years of my life. My mother's detective-like skills were arrayed against me out of maternal love. The government's oversight and overreach is "for my own good" and for the greater societal good, I'm told by my liberal friends. "Yes, you must buy health insurance Doug whether you want to or not because...well, because we know what's best for you."

But it's not just the government, everyone wants to tell me what to do, what to think and even what I can and cannot say. The growing list of words and phrases that have suddenly been judged to be hurtful or triggering has grown faster than the national debt. It seems like practically every thing that comes out of my mouth anymore can be taken as a micro-aggression by some marginalized group or another. Nowhere is this phenomenon more pronounced than in the tiresome cultural clash between homosexuals and Christians.

Full disclosure...I am a Christian, I am not a homosexual. So, there is a good possiblity that what I am about to say will offend someone. Someone reading this might feel micro-aggressed at some point in the next paragraph or two, so if your constitution isn't sufficiently blessed with self confidence, I would suggest that you stop reading immediately.

When this Indiana law thing broke last week, it caught me totally by surprise. I didn't know the first thing about the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act." So, I had to do a bunch of reading. My opinion coalesced around the notion that the RFRA might very well have been well-intended but might possibly result in descrimination. Still, the response of the gay rights community seemed over the top with hysteria. I mean, come on people. Gay marriage has gone from a pipe dream to a reality in ten short years, the gay lifestyle is celebrated from Hollywood to Academia, gay people are amoung the most successful, high earning demographics known to exist in the free world. But to see them screaming in the streets, you would think that the prospect of being denied a wedding cake by some baker in Gary was about to usher in the Age of Darkness. It's like, the gay rights movement can't take "yes" for an answer. They seem determined not to rest until every single solitary person in America is forced to celebrate them! Instead of organizing boycotts of the entire State of Indiana, how about you try a different baker and let the marketplace punish the knuckle-dragger?

And the Christians? Holy overreaction, Batman! Why, we can't make a cake for a gay couple because that would tell the world that we approve of gay marriage. Sure. Just like when you made that cake for the Stein's last week told the world that you approve of Judaism. Or when you baked that three layer beauty a month ago for that hard partying couple from Indianapolis told the world that you approve of heavy drinking and dirty dancing. If providing a product or service to a customer equals moral and spiritual approval of that customer's conduct, then I'm thinking that every Christian business needs to come up with a rather extensive questionaire to give to all potential prospects....

1. Have you ever, or do you ever plan to break one of the Ten Commandments while using this product or service? If so, put this survey down and exit the building.

Not exactly a viable business plan.

Listen, I get the fact that there is a huge divide between homosexuality and evangelical Christianity, one that does not lend itself to quick fixes. There seems to me to be a rather clear scriptural basis for the proposition that homosexuality is a sin and not part of God's plan for his creation. But I find no reason why that fact precludes me from being friends with gays, or doing business with gays. Nobody died and made me judge and jury of other people's lives. I happen to be a sinner who lives in a world full of other sinners. Hell, I'm up to my elbows in sinners here. While I like to think my sins aren't as bad as my neighbors, that's not up to me. It's none of my business, actually. Scripture tells me that the entirety of God's laws can be summed up in two of them...to love God with all my heart, and to love my neighbor as myself. That sounds a lot easier and more fun than organizing boycotts.

Or maybe, we all need to just mind our own business.

April Fools. The Greatest Day of the Year.

Today is the day. It's finally here. All the plotting and scheming is over, all the planning done. Now comes the fun part. 

April Fools Day is simply put, the greatest day of the year. Christmas? Psshhtt! Thanksgiving, July the 4th? Puh-lease. Nothing compares to a day when you wake up and suddenly practical jokes are acceptable behavior, suddenly it is not only ok but expected to hide open cans of cat food in the filing cabinets of your colleagues. For one day of the year, I'm allowed to sabotage the copy machine by slipping random sheets of paper throughout an entire ream with big bold type declaring that BLAIRE IS AN IDIOT. Only on this blessed day am I allowed to fill storage cabinets chocked full of orange ping pong balls, or place cloves of garlic inside the mouth pieces of people's phones. It's difficult to put into words the thrill one gets from watching your buddies losing their minds trying to figure out why their computers keep typing words in Japanese. Watching them go slowly mad trying to find the source of that annoying, shrill BEEP that is coming from somewhere every three minutes. The sound of female screams from down the hall when suddenly my remote controlled mouse scampers out from under their desk is, professionally speaking, about as good as work gets.

So, I better wrap this up and get to work. I don't want to miss anything.

Taxes Are Great!!

There is a famous similarity between death and taxes, but it's the wrong one. Yes, they are both inevitable, but what really unites them is the anxiety that surrounds that inevitability. After all, we only die once, but pay taxes every year. Death at least has the virtue of being final.

As a business owner, I have no taxes, state or federal, withheld from my pay. Instead, I must write a check each and every month for what I "estimate" that I owe. This is over and above both my employee and employer Social Security taxes. Actually, I don't even write a check, rather, I make sure that the amount I owe is in my business account on the 15th of each month for the Feds and the 25th of the month for the State of Virginia, because that's when the eagle swoops in and takes via something called an "automatic debit transaction."

The hard part is the estimating. Basically, it works this way. You start with what you paid last year, then you compare your income from last year and compare it to this year and make adjustments accordingly. Seems straight forward enough on paper. The problem is that it never seems to work out how it's supposed to. No matter how much I pay during the year, I always have to pay more on April 15. It's like an intransigent, immutable law of physics. Of course, the fickle nature of business also plays no small roll in my tax-paying difficulties since cash flow is about the most cruel feature of any enterprise. What happens if the 15th rolls around and nothing is shaking in the receipt ledger? The IRS doesn't care about my cash flow difficulties, all they know is it's the 15th and they are hungry.

To aid me in my tax dealings, I employ an accountant. He has prepared my tax returns for over thirty years now. He knows more about my financial life than anyone on earth, including me. If he were to suddenly die of a heart attack, I would be lost. I give him all of my records in February every year and then the waiting begins. Sometime in early April, my tax return arrives via FEDEX weighing in at close to two pounds. My hands tremble as I pull the little rip chord thing at the top of the package. At the top of the pile is a cover letter which starts, "Doug, please find your 2014 tax returns enclosed. Sign the e-file authorization and fax it back to my office. Make a check payable to the U.S. Treasury in the amount of....."

Each year my heart sinks as I read the number. Each year I can't believe it. I was so careful this year, how could I possibly owe this much? For a minute I think that there must be some mistake, but there never is. He's right, my accountant. So, I write the check. Sometimes, I first have to take an advance from my line of credit, THEN pay the tax, but it always gets paid. Then I find his bill for professional services further down in the pile of forms. I pay that too.

Years ago, I used to get angry. I used to feel put upon having to write such ridiculous checks. I would rail against government waste and corruption being at the root of this unfair shakedown. But ultimately, that way lies madness. Our Rube Goldburg tax system simply is what it is, and whining about it is wasted energy. So instead, several years ago I changed my thinking. What if I turned this horrible negative into a positive? Suppose I made it my goal each and every year to pay MORE in taxes than I had the year before? After all, if my tax obligations are rising every year, there's a good chance that my income is as well. Success is the greatest revenge, I'm told. 

Yes, yes it is.

My Birthday and the Mess in Indiana

Today begins the "week of my birthday." That's right, one day isn't enough. It's more like a festival of celebration. The highlight of the week will be Wednesday, April Fool's Day, the one day all year where my default personality type is in vogue and my behavior is acceptable. 

 57. Such a large and foreboding number. Can I even say that I'm in my "middle fifties" anymore? The weird thing is that some times I feel better than I ever had. For one thing, I'm in better shape than ever what with all of my working out. But other times, I can feel the years. It's a mixed bag.

On the actual day of my birth, Friday, Pam and I will be hitting the road to Nashville to spend the long Easter weekend with our son who we haven't seen since Christmas. It's on these long car trips when I feel the years most acutely. When I get out of the car after a nine hour road trip, my hips feel like they are made of concrete. But it will be worth it to see my boy.

I suppose I should have something to say about this business in Indiana. The "religious freedom restoration act" is the sort of story that makes me want to sell everything and move to New Zealand. The problem is that I can easily see both sides clearly. I have sympathy with the proposition that religious expression should not be dictated by law. If we keep going down our present path will the government some day force a Catholic priest to perform a gay wedding ceremony? But on the other hand, why must a conservative Christian baker or florist feel compelled to deny services to a gay couple? Do they feel equally compelled to deny those services to formerly divorced couples or atheist couples? It's all a terrible mess.

It seems to me that if I were a baker and a gay couple asked me to bake them a cake, I would be grateful for the business. Agreeing to bake the cake no more suggests that I endorse their lifestyle than agreeing to bake a cake for a bar mitzvah suggests that I'm Jewish. Imposing personal belief boycotts is part of what has gone wrong in our country over the past twenty years or so. Political, social and religious differences have suddenly prohibited us from being nice to each other. If we have big, important disagreements on big, important issues, this does not give us the right to forget our manners. If a gay couple gets turned down by a florist, something tells me that there are dozens of gay-friendly florists out there who would love the business. And if a gay couple walks into a baker and wants a wedding cake, would it kill the Christian baker to thank them for the business, bake the best cake ever, and wish them well? Must a literal "federal case" be made out of everything?

In 2015 the answer is, yes...yes it must.

A New Arrival??

Got the wonderful news yesterday that I'm going to be blessed with a Grandchild soon. Now, before one of my siblings reads this and becomes apoplectic with rage at having to learn about this on my blog, I am referring to the fact that Kaitlin and Jon just put a deposit on an English Creme Golden Retreiver who is due to be born next week and delivered into their possession the first week of June. So, I suppose that the more accurate term would be "GrandPuppy." This would also make Lucy an Aunt. In this, Kaitlin and Jon are following directly in our footsteps since we got our first Golden, Murphy, exactly one year after getting married. Apparently, the apple didn't fall very far from the tree.

This is wonderful news because having a dog provides practical training for ultimately having a child. Many of the skills required in parenting are also needed in the care and maintenance of a dog. One must learn how to manage unwanted bowel movements and bladder accidents in either case. There are other similarities as well. Learning how to manage your time is essential, a dependable, predictable feeding schedule is a must, and they always, ALWAYS, cost more than you think.

They are already trying to pick out names. The finalists seem to be Jackson, Deacon, and Dougie. If my daughter ever hopes to have a profitable place in my last will and testament, she will NOT name her dog after me. I have no problem with the other two names since they both lend themselves well to shortened nick names. Jack, Jax, Apple-jacks, Jackie...Deak, Demon-Deacon, Deacon Doodles, Diddly Deak etc... Both names also can be easily shoehorned into the lyrics of famous songs, an always crucial factor in name choices...."Deak Deak a Do-Deak, banana-banna boo beak, a fe fi foo feak, Deacon!"

Hopefully, Lucy will be a positive roll model for the new arrival, or at least maybe little Jackson will shame her out of being afraid of EVERYTHING.

House of Cards. A Review.

I've been on a diet for the past couple of weeks. Actually, it's more like a mini-diet. Pam is the one on a real diet, I just eat the stuff she fixes. However, I have eliminated snacking between meals. So far, it's been a raging success. I've lost 5 pounds. On the down side...I'm starving to death. We sit down to dinner while watching "House of Cards", more on that later, and eat a perfectly delicious meal that Pam has prepared. As soon as the last morsel has been devoured we look at each other with an expression that practically screams, "Wait...is that it??" Last night I was reduced to scarfing down 6 dill pickles for dessert. I'm drinking water all day just to tamp down the hunger pains. Brutal.

House of Cards. We just finished season two last night, so if my analysis of the show seems incomplete, keep that in mind. It's a truly brilliant show, wickedly good writing, acting, and direction. It is also fascinating and terrifying. Although I'm sure its depiction of the business of politics is overly dramatic and its characters overly evil, it's still close enough for government work, as they say. Let me rephrase that, I HOPE it's overly dramatic because if politicians are as evil and manipulative as Frank and Claire Underwood...we are totally screwed.

Every single character in this show is mortally flawed. There isn't one person in Washington with an ounce of moral character. Well, at one point early on I thought that Frank's loyal assistant, Doug Stamper, possessed a glimmer of humanity. The appeal of the show is in the thorough rottenness of it's characters. It's absolutely fascinating to watch openly horrible people plying their trade free of guilt and shame. Pam and I are torn as to which character is our favorite...Frank or Claire. Kevin Spacey's Frank Underwood is delicious to watch especially when he turns to the camera and entertains us with his pithy asides, full of wit and cruelty. He is the Majority Whip with an insatiable appetite for power. Robin Wright's Claire is even better. She's the beautiful, perfectly poised ice queen, every bit as power hungry as her husband but with far more subtlety. She manages to plot her evil schemes with an angelic smile, perfect manners and practiced faux-sincerity. 

Even more fascinating is the mind-blowing absurdity of their relationship. Infidelity is not only tolerated but encouraged, even threesomes if the timing is right. It's bizarre to see this type of  lascivious deviance in a marriage that features such a small-town southern accent.

By the end of season two Team Underwood has finally slithered their way into the oval office, three dead bodies in their wake. Can't wait to see how they manage to hold on to power so ruthlessly obtained.