Everything You Need to Know About This Storm

Here in central Virginia we have been promised a snow storm beginning sometime tonight and lasting through Tuesday morning. As is often the case with winter storms in Virginia, these forecasts come with more codicils and disclaimers than a Hollywood prenup. We are reminded by our intrepid meteorologists that there are many very complicated factors with the storm which could go either way and depending on other equally mysterious conditions, the predicted outcomes could vary widely. So we are left with forecasts designed to give the forecaster lots of wiggle room should his/her predictions wind up being off the mark. I have taken the liberty of combining all the various forecasts in play from the local television stations, the Weather Channel, several weather apps as well as a couple fake weathermen on Facebook, into one overarching forecast that should cover all the bases:

Snow/sleet/freezing rain will start somewhere between 7:00 and 10:00 tonight and continue throughout the night until around 4:00 Monday morning when it most likely will change over to freezing rain/sleet/snow, then inexplicably change over to all rain for a brief period between 15 minutes and 3 hours, before finally switching back over to all snow around noon lasting for God knows how long before finally stopping in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. It should be mentioned that there may be a brief cessation of precipitation of any kind during a devilishly tricky DRY SLOT appearance at some impossible to predict moment. Or not.  Nevertheless, total accumulations of snow/sleet/freezing rain will be in a range between 2-85 inches.

To get ahead of this storm Pam did what all self-respecting Richmonders do when faced with the possibility of instant death brought on by a snowstorm power outage—she went to the grocery store to stock up on all the essentials. This list of must-haves includes but is not limited to: toilet paper, milk, eggs, bread, eye-liner, beans, chicken broth, pot roast, Beano, mascara, bottled water, bicarbonate of soda, Imodium, air freshener, and a bag of cheese puffs. There are very important reasons for each of these items, although I’m not totally sure I know what the eye-liner and mascara are all about. It probably has something to do with the fact that if the storm outperforms the predictions and were to dump, let’s say—12 inches on us, that would mean a walk in the neighborhood with Lucy which would mean pictures would be taken and the last thing you want in snow-frolicking pictures are tired looking eyes, am I right?

Of course the best part of this storm will be the postmortems afterwards. The one meteorologist’s forecast which turns out to be the most accurate will bestow on him/her bragging rights around town until the next storm comes through. We can all only hope that the winner doesn’t wind up being that blowhard facebook clown who was first to introduce trash-talking into the weather forecasting business a couple of decades ago from a computer terminal somewhere in his Mom’s basement. Now he’s turned his shtick into an actual business that people pay money for. Only in American, my friends. Only in America.

So, as I finish this up it’s 6:15 Sunday evening. So far no snow/sleet/freezing rain to report. But we’ve got plenty of toilet tissue at the ready and we got a pot roast planned for dinner tomorrow night. 

Look For the Helpers

So far so good on this retirement thing. What day is it, again? Friday, yes…Friday. I know this because I’m at Hope Cafe, having finished my job of opening the place up. I’m not sure that this first week of my retirement counts since it contained a holiday and I normally would have taken this week off anyway. But there was one sobering event to report.

There’s a website that I have visited multiple times a day, every single day for the past 17 years. It is a site run by my former broker-dealer and on this site could be found every detail of my entire career, every client, every account, and all of the crucial data points required to work them. It also listed every detail of my compensation—what was pending etc…On Tuesday the 31st, I planned to login one last time to check a particular pending case before my access was cut off at midnight. Unfortunately, some eager beaver at the back office had already cut me off. The screen was filled with the sinister phrase—Representative Terminated. And just like that it was over. A website where I had lived for almost two decades was forever closed to me. I have to say that even though it was expected, it staggered me a little, kind of like a weak but effective left jab. The good news is that I recovered quickly. Pam suggested that we go out somewhere for breakfast. We had a lovely morning together and by the time we returned home I had forgotten about the whole thing. Its a small example of the kinds of things that simply aren’t my problem anymore. 

As each day has passed I am becoming more and more aware of just how much pressure I have lived with my entire career. The absence of it feels strange, there is a lightness to it. Being no longer responsible for all that money and all those people feels a bit disorienting. That sense of responsibility has defined in many ways who I am for most of my life. Now, something else will have to take its place. A friend recently referred to me as a “retired gentleman”. My first thought was, “Hold on, one thing at a time!” But I’m going to grow into this new thing. I can already feel the freedom, sense the opportunities. Once I successfully detox from the pressure withdrawal, I’m set up for flourishing. All the necessary ingredients are there for me. I will need to find new challenges, new opportunities to pursue. In this regard, having a grandson on the way works quite nicely. Incidentally, as of yesterday, he is now the size of a sweet potato.

So, job number one in this retirement business seems to me to be…finding ways to be useful. The goal is to become a helpful presence in the world. In whatever situation I find myself in, I want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Just like Mister Rodger’s said, “when things are hard, look for the helpers.”

I want to be a helper.

“What do you plan to do when you retire?”

“What do you plan to do when you retire?” This question has been asked of me at least a hundred times over the past year. I have struggled with the answer, not because I don’t have any plans, rather, because I don’t know quite where to start. “Whatever the hell I want” doesn’t sound like a mature, thoughtful response, although it does sum up my feelings nicely. The truth is closer to something like—“a million things.” What follows are just a few of the things on my to-do list.

- Paint the mailbox post. For this job, my wife gave me the perfect Christmas present:

- Vacuum the house. This may seem a somewhat pedestrian job in the grand scheme of things, but for the last seven days we have had three golden retrievers loose in this house, so the job of vacuuming up after them is crucial stuff at the moment. Around here I’m the vacuuming expert.

- Spend a long weekend with my boys in Cooperstown, NY at the baseball hall of fame.

- Perfect my uncanny ability to irritate the heck out of Sherri Matthews with Dad Jokes at the worst possible moment.

- Expand my volunteer schedule at Hope Church.

- Lose ten pounds.

- Sharpen my cooking skills.

- Start playing golf again.

- Clean out the garage.

- Clean out the attic.

- Spend a week in the Caymans.

- Replace the lamp post light in the front yard.

- Write a sixth novel.

- Spend more time promoting the one that’s actually been published.

- Continue educating myself concerning the proper grand parenting protocols of the 21st century.

- Buy a new phone and a new iPad—my two are ancient.

- Plan more weekend getaways.

- Find ways to encourage others.

- Follow more of my spontaneous impulses—after I run them by Pam first.

- Become more generous.

- Write letters.

- Try to do something I’ve never done before at least once a month.

- Visit Italy and the Greek Islands.

- Never allow anyone to talk me in to going to the Holy Land.

- Be available for my kids anytime they need me.

- Eventually move to a house with a first floor master bedroom.

- Attend a baseball game at every Major League ballpark in the United States. (I’ve been to eleven so far).

- Be supportive of anyone still working in difficult and important jobs.

- No matter what happens with my health in the future, never stop eating this…

Our Three Christmas Celebrations

It’s been a while since last we visited together at The Tempest, ten days to be exact. Like the rest of you, I’ve been busy. I’ve had a house full since Saturday, all of my kids and three Golden Retrievers. Our celebration of Christmas took three full days which ended last night with all of us collapsing on the floor in a pool of exhaustion. Here’s a recap of all the action…

Christmas Eve served as our family Christmas. The six of us spent the morning unwrapping presents aided in no small way by Kaitlin and Jon’s beast of a dog—Jackson, who delighted in ripping to shreds all of the discarded wrapping paper. Meanwhile, Patrick and Sarah’s pup—Frisco, spent most of the morning trying to wedge himself between his people on a loveseat designed for only two humans. Lucy, as the eldest and only female, was having none of the nonsense and quickly retreated upstairs to the serenity of her own company. We all took a break around 11:00 for breakfast, a special Dunnevant family tradition consisting of bacon, scrambled eggs and orange-glazed cinnamon rolls. Off to the side is a fruit cup, the one unenthusiastic concession to proper nutrition. After the feast we reassembled in the family room to find out what Santa left us in our stockings. It turns out that all six of us wound up on the “nice list” which was probably a clerical error by the old guy’s back office, but no harm, no foul. We spent the afternoon enjoying each other’s company, then headed over to my sister Paula’s house for her Christmas Eve dinner—steaks, smashed potatoes and homemade rolls— and a new tradition, sticky toffee pudding! Then we headed over to Hope Church for the last of their 9 Christmas Eve services. It was delightful and a wonderful ending to a nearly perfect day.

Christmas Day started with cooking and ended with turkey sandwiches. In between was the Dunnevant family Christmas celebration at my sister Linda’s house. There was a sit down meal for 25 at tables in two different rooms. The food was amazing, the fellowship inspired. Then…it was time for that time-honored staple of American life during the holidays—the family photograph. The job of getting 25 members of any family properly posed for a portrait is fraught with peril, but getting the Dunnevant tribe organized for a picture requires a combination of patience and forebearance seldom seen during Christmas. Predictably, this photograph took over twenty minutes to stage, and was filled with anxious moments. The thankless job of taking this keepsake fell to Matthew Hawkins, husband of my niece Jenny and father of two, who’s attention to detail is impeccable..

Matthew: Ok, Becky..could you scootch over to your left three and a half inches? And Jon, could you lean forward until that shadow that’s covering the last third of your nose goes away? Oh, and Mimi—your makeup could use a bit of freshening…and Aunt Paula, is there anything you can do with your hair??

After the great picture gauntlet, we spent the afternoon opening presents and laughing at and with each other. Then there was the great gender-reveal gingerbread cake cutting which resulted in robust cheering and mayhem as Kaitlin and Jon announced that they will be having a _____. What? You think I’m going to reveal that before they do? I only look stupid.

Finally, yesterday was day three of the birth of Christ extravaganza, when the White clan descended on our hastily-cleaned house for a soup supper and a white elephant (no pun intended) exchange. Pam made chili and this amazing Tuscan spinach and sausage soup which was devoured as if the White family was a group of trail hands who hadn’t eaten in two days! It was delicious and the dessert table was divine with no fruit in sight. It was only 15 of us so it was not as unruly or as cramped. It was a wonderful evening that nobody seemed anxious to bring to a close. The gender reveal was greeted with enthusiastic hollering and an outpouring of love. A beautiful night.

So, there you have it. Three days and three days of celebrations. A ton of work was done by a lot of people to pull it off. But when the last guest drove away last night Pam said to me, “And that’s why I do this…what a joy it was to be together.”

The Very Best News

So, I’m going to be a Grandfather. We got the news over a month ago and have been sitting on it ever since waiting for Kaitlin and Jon to announce it to the world. It’s been a whirlwind, so many changes coming in our lives, first retirement and now this! The child is due on June 5th and we are counting the days.

For the last few weeks I have been Googling pregnancy sites and the expansive baby internet trying to educate myself, get the lay of the land, that sort of thing. What I’ve discovered is that the way Pam and I did things over three decades ago was all wrong. Not just wrong but criminal, and in some cases potentially deadly! Laying a child on their stomach in a crib? What were we thinking?! Did you know that car seats have an expiration date? Apparently my go-to make a kid laugh game—“ride a horse to Boston, ride a horse to Lynn, be careful little baby that you don’t fall in!!”—is a non-starter. It might do damage to their spinal column!

So, I’ve got a lot to learn about being a Grandfather. Luckily, for the past ten years or so I have been in training with the Garland kids next door. We have watched the three of them, ages 13, 11 and 9 grow up. We have fed them treats, bought them presents, terrorized them with my leaf-blower and watched them drive their parents crazy. It’s been a wonderful apprenticeship. But we are ready for the big leagues now.

We will discover the sex of the child this weekend. I don’t care whether it’s a boy or a girl. I was very much invested in this sort of thing back when we were having kids, back before I realized just how miraculous any new life is. I’ll be over the moon either way.

Everyone Should Be So Lucky

What a week this has been.

It was spent wrapping up the last remnants of my active participation in my 42 year occupation, several last minute investments had to be made. Ironically, my last actual appointment turned out to be a Zoom call, an unimaginable concept when I started four decades ago.

Our office Christmas party was held on Thursday night. As usual it was great fun as we all ate delicious food as the insults and jibes flew around the room. We held our gift exchange. I got a bag of full of candy, the kind that few people over the age of 12 like, which seemed appropriate somehow. I make no apologies for my love of Nerds and Airheads. You find a good thing you stick with it, right?

Then something amazing happened. A wonderful lady at my office presented me with a gift that astonished me to the point where I couldn’t form words to properly thank her. She had spent no telling how long making me a quilt filled with all the things I love—scenes from Maine, writing, and my dog Lucy.

The ironic thing about this lavish and beautiful gift was the giver. When she first came to work for us she seemed like the kind of person who might not get along well with my particular brand of hijinks. Of course that didn’t stop me from introducing her to my shtick the first day she arrived. To put it mildly, it was a hard sell. She wasn’t a morning person and that’s my favorite time to pester my victims. After a while I finally was able to coax a stray smile out of her with one of my Dad Jokes which only made me double down on my pestering. I do love a challenge. Then she suffered the sudden and unexpected loss of her husband. Through her grief she soldiered on at work, and although I probably should have lightened up on her—I didn’t. Every morning I was over at her office trying in my clumsy ham-fisted way to cheer her up. Some days were better than others. So…for her of all people to make this quilt for me seemed like some kind of miracle. You just never know.

The next day, as fate would have it, was the day that I had promised the girls that I would clear out my office. There’s a lot of shuffling offices to come after my exit and they wanted to get to it before the end of the year. I had not been looking forward to this part of the deal. But, I made it through without incident. I threw away lots of junk, but held on to other things that I really won’t need in the future, but didn’t have the heart to discard. At one point it became painfully obvious to me just how childlike and immature I can be. One would think that a man who survived and prospered for over 40 years in such a grown up and deadly serious business would have collected more adult memorabilia…

Unfortunately, Cluck my beloved rubber chicken who I used to randomly stuff in people’s filing cabinets, didn’t survive my entire career, having disintegrated from overuse during COVID. I might have observed a moment of silence…

Then Saturday morning came. I had asked a friend with a pickup truck to help me move some furniture out. When I arrived at the office there was a letter folded on the top of my empty desk. I sat down and read through it and for the second time in three days I had tears in my eyes and was again speechless. One of the sisters who are buying my business had typed the most heartfelt letter I have ever read. Reading such an emotional letter alone in your empty office might have been an occasion for great sadness. But for me it felt different. I was overcome with a wave of gratitude that I have been surrounded by so great a universe of people, people who understood me, people who got me, and somehow loved me too.

Everyone should be so lucky.

Advertising is the Worst

One of my favorite television shows over the past ten years or so was Mad Men. One of the reasons I liked it was because it confirmed something I had always believed—that the advertising business is a giant con filled with the worse people on the planet. This time of year is filled with tons of examples of the absolute worst of the worst. I am bombarded with them every time I open my computer, use my cellphone or go to the mailbox. Here’s one of my all-time favorites…

What in the name of Estée Lauder is going on here? I mean what the actual hell am I looking at?! No freaking wonder this stuff keeps selling out! This 50-something year old woman on the left apparently has been transformed into a 21 year old by rubbing some miracle wrinkle cream on her face, if this advertisement is to be believed. And it has to be true, right? They wouldn’t be able to claim this if it weren’t true, right? The inventor of this wrinkle cream must have won a Nobel prize for this, so how come I’m just now discovering this miracle?

With the obvious exception of political advertisements, this is probably the most audaciously dishonest ad I’ve seen in years. Now that a significant percentage of Americans seem to have endorsed the assassination of CEO’s of unpopular companies, I wonder how long it will be before some violently disappointed 60 year old Karen turns up on Madison Avenue waving a Glock around?