I am thankful for these things (part 2)

Given that this post should appear directly above part 1 of this series, I am just going to jump into the second half of list.

I am thankful for these things (part 1)

In July, writer Joe Posnanski wrote a blog post about 50 things that make him happy. The concept of the post was to list 50 “non-cynical” things that, obviously, make Mr. Posnanski happy. I enjoyed reading the post a lot. Since imitation is the greatest form of flattery, here is my list of 50 things that make me happy. I am not going to say my happiness is cynical or non-cynical. Cynicism is in the eye the beholder, after all. What I will say, is that these things make me happy regardless of context.  Mr. Posnanski says his things are listed in no order. I suppose that is true for my list too. Mostly because I do not want to have to rate things that make me happy. But, it is fair to say that these things are generally listed in the order that they occurred to me. That may indicate a ranking of a sort. Reader(s)™ might notice that this list does not include many people I know and love. That is because most long-term relationships contain a mixture of emotions, sort of like we see in the movie “Inside Out.” Put another way, if you are not on the list, it is because you were 51.

Wait. . . What?

I really want to share my thoughts on the whole United Airlines passenger removal fiasco, and I have a post about human resources that I think will be better than the subject matter implies (a low bar, but a bar nevertheless). But I am pretty busy at work so those will have to wait because I learned something today that captures the attention in a way that those future posts may not.

Another poor performance by Wisconsin.

In my recent post about how Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker will never be elected president, I mentioned several ways that Minnesota outperforms Wisconsin economically despite Minnesota having fewer people than Wisconsin. Maybe because I am not as big a sports fan as Mr. Torvik, I neglected to mention that Minnesota is apparently also historically better at college football than Wisconsin.

Being the champion and the nature of reality.

Given his love of basketball, I am a little surprised that Mr. Torvik has not already pointed out that our joint alma mater, the University of Minnesota, won the NIT men's basketball championship last night. Some might say that the Golden Gophers are one of two national champions in men's college basketball. Given that the other tournament, run by NCAA, contains 68 teams, others might say this means the Gophers are the 69th best team in the country. It's all a matter of perspective.

Santa Claus is just pretend, but he's real.

I am generally opposed to telling lies, even trivial ones. Partly for this reason, I did not intentionally set out to sell the myth of Santa Claus to my children. When my older daughter was younger, I explained to her that Santa was "just pretend." She nodded knowingly, because this was something she had always known. Only, for her, "just pretend" meant something a little different. There was a "pretend land" where the pretend things actually existed, and sometimes they came to our "real land." So "just pretend" didn't mean "not real," it meant, essentially, "supernatural." She had no problem saying something like, "Santa is just pretend, but he's real."

I suppose that I could have rigorously disabused her of this false notion. But the benefits of her misimpression soon became clear. There was, of course, the behavior modification. She didn't really care about disappointing or annoying me, but the thought of getting on Santa's bad side—the dreaded "naughty list"—could move her to immediate tears. In a pinch, this comes in really handy.

More importantly, this idea of Santa brought her palpable joy. Her fascination with Santa, the North Pole, the Elves, the Workshop, etc., was very endearing, and the visible thrill she got from thinking about getting presents from Santa was just adorable. Eventually she knew that what Santa was purported to be capable of was impossible without magic. So she believed in magic.

It came to seem cruel to disabuse her of this notion. So I let it slide, and her belief has intensified over the years. Big Time.

This might be a big mistake. Maybe when she learns the truth about Santa, and about magic, she'll infer some unflattering truths about me as well—for one, that I'm a liar. I will, it must be said, have some plausible deniability. (I'm a lawyer, after all.) I will be able to say that I told her the truth from the start, and she just misunderstood. But this probably won't convince her.

Just the other day she asked, "You  believe in Santa, right daddy?" And I said, "In spirit, yes." (Lawyer'd.) "But Santa is real, " she said. This was not a question. "Well, in spirit." "No, really real," she insisted. Her grasp of the real/pretend distinction is more sophisticated nowadays, and only magic bridges the gap. She was staring at me, somehow looking down her nose from below. So I relented and agreed.

Then this morning I told an outright lie, and it was awesome. We will be in Madison for Christmas, with the grandparents, but we're going to give our presents to the kids tomorrow. Today I just blurted out, "I got an email from Santa, and he said he's going to drop off presents here tonight."

"Really?" Ivy looked like she was going to cry, and I realized my mistake: (1) this was counter-myth; (2) more importantly, she gets a lot more presents at the grandparents than she gets at our house, so she was worried about an inferior haul. (This is a practical magic she believes in.)

"He's still going to Gaga's house, too, he's just dropping some of the presents here tonight."

"Really?" Now she was very serious, sensing one of my little jokes. "No, daddy: really? This is serious. I need to know the truth."

Now Laura chimed in to back me up, which is important because she can be counted on to dispel my little jokes.

Convinced at last, Ivy jumped up and down and began making plans to leave cookies and milk. It really made my day.

Lesson: the more brazen the lie, the better the results. There's going to be a lot more lying to the younger one.

Merry Christmas, Reader(s)™.

The Grudge Match is Alive!

For the first time since 2010, the football teams for the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin will take the field to determine whether Mr. Torvik (Wisconsin) or I (Iowa) is the superior blogger.  Or maybe they play for the Heartland Trophy.  According to Wikipedia, the teams have played 86 games.  Two of the 86 games ended in a tie and Iowa and Wisconsin have each won 42 of the other 84 games.  As a result, one team will leave having made their team a winner in this year's rivalry game and also in the all-time rivalry.  Whether either coach is using this tidbit as a motivational tool is unknown.

A rude return

I returned from vacation to learn that Cosmo Allegretti, better known to millions of Captain Kangeroo fans as Dennis the Apprentice, Mr. Moose, and Bunny Rabbit, has died. The New York Times has Mr. Allegretti's obituary here.

"Traveling from place to place, esp. working or based in various places for relatively short periods."

When the headline to a review of a play includes the word "peripatetic," the critic is not doing a good job of telling your readers whether the play is any good.

I guess the White House doesn't have interns anymore.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has a story about President Obama vowing to take action regarding the IRS and protecting diplomats.  This picture accompanies the story and was taken by Charles Dharapak for the AP.

What about bearded Spock?

Matthew Yglesias ranks the best of everything Star Trek.  His list of best episodes contains a startling omission.  As the saying goes, opinions are like ears, everyone has a couple.  Whether Mr. Yglesias's are worthy of your consideration given this omission is a different matter.

Rivalries and rankings

As March Madness descends upon the land, the folks at Extra Mustard have ranked the "coolest person" at all 68 schools playing in the NCAA mens' basketball tournament.  Mr. Torvik and I were left off the list.  The University of Minnesota's coolest person is Ron Pearlman.  Some might find the selection odd given that Bob Dylan attended there.  Or some might find the selection of Mr. Pearlman odd given that Iowa's State's coolest alum is George Washington Carver.  If scientists are cool, then it is hard to see how the coolest person to attend the University of Minnesota is someone other than Norman Borlaug. 

Recreational reading

Shortly after we started this blog we did some posts about Neil Gaiman.  Mr. Gaiman just put out a collection of 12 very short stories called A Calendar of Tales.  You can download/read it here.  I read the January story this morning.  It was pretty good. 

R.I.P. Evan S. Connell

According to the Washington Post, Evan S. Connell has died.  Mr. Connell's book Son of the Morningstar: Custer and the Little Bighorn is fantastic.  Actually it is Fan-flipping-tastic.  In any event, buy it check it out from your library now.

The greatest gift of all.

For at least one 4-year-old in 1970, it was this:

Rooting for laundry

The university I received my undergraduate degree from beat the university where Mr. Torvik earned his at men's basketball yesterday.  Other (possible) Gillette-Torvik grudge matches were discussed here and here.  This might be more satisfying if I actually cared about basketball.  Mr. Torvik's twitter account is strangely silent about this news.  Perhaps he cannot tweet through the pain.

Cursive will disappear in our lifetimes.

I have horrible handwriting.  Actually, calling my handwriting horrible is probably not accurately describing the awfulness of my handwriting.  I may have the worst cursive handwriting in the world. 

The single most important question of our lifetime.

Given the existence of graham cracker pie crust, why are other pie crusts still used?

The future is getting closer.

When I was a kid, the future contained two big promises.  First, that we would have jet packs.  Second, that the weapon of the future would be lasers (or possibly phasers).  Since jet packs were featured on the intro to the Wonderful World of Disney, it seemed like the public would get jet packs first. 

Something completely different.

I was in northwest Iowa this weekend and attended mass at Sacred Heart Church in Spencer, Iowa.    As anyone familiar with the Catholic mass knows, there is a part of the first Eucharistic Prayer that  states,