This year we were excited and honored to have author and illustrator Heather Ross do the portrait and hand lettering for our 2011 holiday card. Half of our daughter's dresses are made from Heather Ross fabric and we have admired her illustrations for many years (so it was a special thrill to have her create this card for us). For the subject, Heather chose our annual trip up to Eastern Market to get a tree. My wife says, "Somehow, each new Heather Ross fabric seemed to perfectly match our daughter's interests. It started with her mermaid line, then unicorns, and then, most recently, playing with horses. For her birthday I'm making a quilt from the latest line, and I hope that years from now, when our daughter has nearly forgotten how she played with toy horses on the floor of her room for hours at a time, she'll look at this quilt and remember. Heather Ross captures the magic of childhood." I'm so glad my wife convinced Heather to do the card (left to my own devices, I might have asked this guy to do it).

Every year I get more and more excited about this tradition; I love the idea of having new artists with completely different styles capturing our family each year and I love the results even more (here are 2009 and 2010). Happy holidays, everyone.

There's usually a point during our evening walk where I let my dog off his leash to run around an empty park. He's a birddog---either a Braque français or a German Shorthaired mix---and he has all the energy and instincts of his breeding. On Friday night, we were alone out in the darkness (the lights in this city park haven't worked in years) when I saw the dog suddenly stop circling, stand still and point at what appeared to be a white plastic grocery bag wavering in some tall grass. Then I saw the plastic grocery bag sprout white wings as wide as a man's arms; it looked like an angel was unfolding itself from the earth in front of me. I was afraid I was going to have to talk to some dopey angel all night about how Bob Cratchit deserves more than fifteen bob a week. The dog did his duty, standing his ground and pointing at this celestial creature. When I approached I saw the face: the furrow of its brow, the rust-colored crest and the unmistakable golden eyes and beak of a large bird of prey.

I ordered the dog down and got on the phone to tell my wife to hurry out with the kids: there was a huge hawk in the park and it might not be there long. My daughter showed up a few seconds later and stood reverently by my side, eyes wide. I still expected it to fly away, thinking it was just there protecting some prey, but it didn't move. It occurred to me then it was badly injured, and we were scaring it. We stood still for a minute, snapping cell-phone cameras, and I realized this bird had now become my responsibility.

* * * * *

My son and I were killing time a few months ago, driving around a once-posh neighborhood on the east side when we came across a house and its yard covered in artfully-placed trash. We slowed to gawk at the clothing, stuffed animals, and riding toys slung across a huge fallen tree when an old man came rushing out of the house right up to the window of our car. He wore crocs, spandex leggings, and a hoodie. There were tubes or wires sprouting from a hole in his throat and he spoke to us with his hand against them. His lips moved but his voice came from somewhere else, amplified through an old-fangled artificial larynx. He said his name was Miko. He said something about how the bank was taking all his money. How he needed a lawyer. He wanted to know if I knew any lawyers. I could see the desperation in his eyes. Even the artificial larynx couldn't synthesize away his anguish. He told me I could have his house if only I could help him with his money. He kept spitting on the ground: long globules of clear drool. I knew we were in the presence of someone who was dying. My nerves were on edge. I sensed I wasn't completely safe. He was scaring my son. Still, I might have helped him. Instead I just handed him what was in my wallet and drove away.

* * * * *

I circled the hawk looking for any visible injuries. It Linda Blaired its neck to keep those yellow eyes on me. After a while I just stood there staring into those eyes, and I was probably imagining it but I was sure that bird was preparing to die. It had chosen the one place in the park where the grass was taller than everywhere else. This was its last stand hill. Its Alamo. The temperature was below freezing and the bird couldn't move. It was a very meditative moment. I remembered being a kid out in a forest after an ice storm and watching a huge tree crack under the weight of the ice and lean against another as it fell, taking almost an hour to get to the ground and nearly taking the other tree with it. I almost felt like I could have sat out there and watched that beautiful hawk die. I am no hero. I am not overly-sentimental about animals; I don't want to save every feral dog I find. I would hunt the pheasants. This wasn't just a house sparrow or even a little Cooper's hawk or some pigeon-eating falcon. I had seen this hawk drag away winter-fattened squirrels. In its shadow, neighbors feared for their Yorkies. If our positions were reversed, I have no doubt it would have torn my guts out and left the rest of me to steam on cold stalks of grass. I respect the raptors, aloof and freewheeling killers that they are. I could not let this one die. Not because I'm a good person (obviously). But because it was awesome.

I went home to get a cardboard box. I'd exchanged my wool coat for a thick leather jacket, and all I could think about were my thin gloves and Napoleon Dynamite's voice asking, "does it have sharp talons?" I didn't know how I planned to get the bird into the box; perhaps I imagined it would go willingly. I could only think of a few creatures on this planet that would go willingly into a box, and without the promise of cheese or a paycheck I doubted this hawk would. I tried to get in touch with my friend who catches and tags owls on the Puget Sound, but nobody was answering phones that night. A trusted neighbor I was able to reach came out and agreed the bird was too vulnerable on the ground and should be rescued.

I dropped the box over its head and tried to scoop it up; after a few tries it worked, and before I closed the cardboard flaps I saw the hawk lying on its back; either its talons could find no purchase or it was in such shock that it didn't even care about being comfortable. I have no experience with caring for birds but it turns out closing one inside a cardboard box is exactly what you're supposed to do when you find an injured raptor. I was worried it was hungry or thirsty so I cut translucent slivers of frozen chicken breast and defrosted them in warm water, offering them to the bird with chopsticks. It devoured them greedily while my kids watched in fascination from the other side of our screen door (it turns out feeding it was the wrong thing to do, as all the websites said not to feed an injured raptor anything).

Anyone who has "liked" this website's facebook page followed this saga all weekend; on Friday night I was able to turn to those hundreds of people and ask for advice about what to do and where I might take the hawk considering that all the animal rescue numbers were going straight to voicemail at that hour. I am so grateful for that help. I was able to get in touch with several helpful DNR-approved raptor rehabilitators. They advised me to bring the bird into the house and hide it away in a dark place, far from our unsuspecting birddog.

So we went to bed with a red-tailed hawk in our basement. I was sure it would be dead by morning, even if my kids had already given it a name: Snowflake Bonecracker.

* * * * *

The night after we met Miko I could hardly sleep. I told myself I would go back the next day without my son, maybe look at his paperwork and see if I could help. He'd asked me if I knew a lawyer and I hadn't been able to tell him that I had once been one, in some other life. That would have made me responsible for him, pulled me inextricably into his predicament. There are thousands of Mikos in Detroit. It occurred to me that all that garbage draped across his house wasn't just outsider art. It was his cry for attention. It was something he did so cars would slow down and maybe one of them would bring help. It was Crusoe's signal fire. The spinnerbait above the hook. Would I bring help? I told myself I would.

I never did.

* * * *

I had trouble sleeping the night we had a red-tailed hawk in our basement. I would wake up with visions of how we'd dispose of the body; a burial in the park, maybe. I wondered if I could resist the urge to keep a few of its feathers (a federal crime). My daughter woke at dawn full of questions about Snowflake. I wondered if its yellow eyes would be open in death or covered with the eerie blue membrane that stretched over them when they blinked. I prepared my daughter for any possibility and went to check.

As I approached the box on the shelf high above our washing machine, I heard a tiny flutter from inside. It might have echoed in my heart.

Inside the box, Snowflake Bonecracker was standing and alert. The hawk no longer looked like some dying thing. There was blood all over the shredded newspapers I'd placed in the box, and upon daylight inspection I saw dried blood all over the beak, with a green substance around the mouth. I thought this might be some sort of infection, but later learned that Snowflake Bonecracker was still a fledgling, probably born this year, and that fledglings always have green around their mouths and beaks. More importantly, I learned that morning that Snowflake Bonecracker was a she. It turned out her worst injury was a cracked beak.

I spent the morning texting with rehabilitators and e-mailing pictures. The first raptor rescue folks I spoke with were busy rescuing an eagle in western Michigan, but they put me in touch with a nearby facility willing to take the hawk.

Before I left I wanted to transfer her to a bigger box with a towel on the bottom so she'd be more comfortable on the 40-minute drive. I opened the box so the kids, my wife and mother-in-law could all quietly gather round to take one last look at this incredible creature.

She chose that moment to show us she could still fly.

After a moment of total panic, it was one of those things where everyone instinctively did what they had to do. The hawk was suddenly up in the air and everywhere at once. Pandemonium. Chaos. Tumult. The womenfolk dragged the kids out of the room away from the raptor's claws and erratic flight while I tried to contain it. The bird shot a 12-guage spray of white uric acid across the parquet, thinking she was going to head right through the floor-to-ceiling windows (following standard raptor procedure of taking a dump before they take to the air). She hit the glass once and tried again. The highest she got was the top of the Christmas tree, and after knocking down a few ornaments she fell to the floor to pace on front of the window, staring right into unachievable freedom. Crap, there's a large, angry red-tailed hawk on the loose in my house.

Better take a picture.

I called the raptor lady. "Um. . .she seems to be doing much better. She's loose and flying around my house. Should I open the door to let her out?" If I did, she said, the hawk would just end up back on the ground in shock, unable to eat. I had to pick her up before she caused any more damage.

Lifting that huge bird with my bare hands. . . drawing its wings in with my fingertips on its keel. . . seeing her turn to give me a look of stoic resignation: that was one of the coolest things I have ever done.

* * * * *

The diagnosis came an hour or so later. The beak would need a few months to heal; she wouldn't be able to feed herself until it did. There was also a fracture in one wrist. She probably crashed into a building. She would have died in the grass. Instead she'll spend the next few months with four other injured red-tailed hawks in a rehab aviary before being released back into the urban wild this spring.

This blog post is not sponsored by anyone. It seems like half the blogs in my reader are doing sponsored posts half the time these days, and as much as I'd like a little more pocket money I am glad I decided to stop doing those. I hated bending over backward to avoid looking like a total sellout (which only made me look a sellout stuck in some stupid yoga pose). Sponsored posts pay really well (which is why it is so hard to turn them down). Whatever. It's just unfortunate that the toy store doesn't accept smugness as a form of currency. Looks like I'll be whittling the Christmas presents this year.

Another bit of meta-nonsense you probably don't care about: some time ago I ended up on all these mommyblogger e-mail lists and I get at least 200 e-mails a day addressed "Dear Mom Blogger." I always respond like this:

Dear [marketer who just called me a mom],

I have a penis. 

This has had little effect on the number of these e-mails I get every day, but it does make me happy to know I've made all those marketing drones think about my penis. One time some marketer from a sex store in Berkeley offered me a free "mommy's playdate with vibrator demonstrations, cocktails, cupcakes, complimentary goodie bags and the chance to win a sexy starter kit!" This was my response:

Dear [marketer who just invited me to a playdate with vibrators],

Consider this my RSVP for the upcoming Mommy Playdate.

BTW, I have a penis (hope that's okay!).

I was sadly dis-invited to the mommy vibrator playdate. Stupid penis: I really wanted to attend that "after-hours mixer with like-minded moms who want to put the spice back in their sex lives." The marketer was a peach though; she still let me enter the drawing for the sexy starter kit (didn't win, sad trombone).

These marketing e-mails get really bad this time of year, with dozens arriving every day to suggest items for my holiday gift guide. I didn't even realize I was planning to write a holiday gift guide! I am probably the least qualified person on earth to write a gift guide. I hate pretty much everything. Do these marketers really think I am going to put something on a gift guide because they sent me an annoying e-mail about it? I wouldn't torture Al Qaeda operatives with your CGI Chipmunk Blu-Ray Release, assholes. I don't even understand what a Blu-Ray is. Is it like X-Box but not just for porn? Clearly, none of these marketers remember that I subscribe to the The Sacajawea Theory of parenting. A few years ago I decided I would never buy (or recommend that anyone else buy) anything that I learned about from an annoying, unsolicited e-mail. Happily, that means I basically don't have to buy anything ever. I began to wonder what a gift guide put together by me would actually look like, and realized there were only about six things in the world I can wholeheartedly recommend to anyone.

Six Christmas Gifts Recommended by a Skinflint Erstwhile Stay-at-Home Dad Curmudgeon Who Hates Gifts

1. Grandpa's Wonder Pine Tar Soap

We've already discussed at great length the many virtues of Grandpa's Wonder Pine Tar Soap. But have you bought a bar for your husband yet, ladies? Why not? Don't tell me you still prefer him smelling like those 87 bars of Irish Spring Atomic Permafrost you bought at Costco six years ago?  If he's some kind of pansy who wouldn't want to smell like a fire at ye olde Slim Jim factory, they do make slightly-less manly soaps that smell like Witch Hazel and Indian Corn. But get him the pine tar. It will make all his other stocking stuffers smell like you rescued them from someone else's burning house, and he will admire your resourcefulness.

2. Vintage Old Spice Gift Set

I don't really shave, but I totally might if my kids were able to score me a sweet vintage Old Spice box set on eBay. Sure, you can still get these new at any Walgreens, but Old Spice aftershave---like a Grand cru Burgundy---only improves with age. Plus the old ones came with soap-on-a-rope. SOAP ON A FUCKING ROPE. See also: English Leather.

3. Filson Merino Wool Socks

There are few objects in this world I love as much as my Filson socks. They are expensive (about $20 a pair) but worth twice that. They do everything a good wool sock should do: they keep your feet warm, they soak up sweat without making your feet stink, and they never shrink in the wash. I've had mine for years and wear them year round (the lighter weight in the summer and the medium in the winter). Made in the USA.

4. Mason Jars (Pint)

The best drinking glass ever invented. Better than tupperware for leftovers. Great for coldbrewing coffee. Stores nails, screws, nuts & bolts. Of course, also useful for jams and pickles. $10 a dozen. Made in Muncie, Indiana, USA. Do you know how much an Ancient Roman patrician would have paid for a single Mason Jar? When one of his slaves accidentally broke a crappy glass goblet, Publius Vedius Pollio got so angry he threw the poor fellow into a huge pit of hungry lampreys. We live in a time of technological wonder, people.

5. Union Suit

In the olden times, men would wear the same union suit continuously all winter long, performing all necessary bodily functions through the conveniently-placed holes. The ones that started out undyed were usually a yellowish-orange by April. I think that's why they started making many of them red.

The gift of a union suit is basically a wife's way of saying, "Honey, I love you no matter what."

6. Das Boot

I was going to recommend actual boots (because no man over the age of 30 should wear sneakers unless he is actively participating in some kind of athletic contest), but I thought I should have at least one extravagant item on this list. You can get a glass boot on eBay for like $5.99, but the real gift is when you deliver it to your man full of Bitburger while wearing a dirndl. Dankeschön, honey!

This is not a post I ever wanted to write, but I feel it would be somewhat irresponsible for me not to. I tend to be relentlessly positive about this city and all of the things we're able to do here, and that's probably annoying and unrealistic so I feel compelled to follow up on a couple of ongoing stories to give the full picture.

First, one of the stores that I wrote about in the old "But where do you shop?" series has gone out of business. R. Hirt Jr. weathered the 1887-88 recession, the Panic of 1893, the Panic of 1896, the Panic of 1907, the Panic of 1910-11, the Great Depression, the early 1980s recession, and our current economic crisis only to be felled by a family squabble. The family member who owns the building didn't let the one who operates the store to renew the lease, but promises to open a new cheese store in the space under a new name with new employees.

This wasn't just a store to our family, it was a weekly ritual. After picking the kids up at school, we'd stop in to pick up our weekly supply of milk, pasta, cheese, yoghurt, sausage, and whatever else we needed. The kids would always beg to climb three stories to the toy department, and I'd hold their hands as we climbed the creaky 118-year-old steps and we'd always tell the same stupid joke about the pile of hay above the steps ("Hey! Hay!") and when we got to the third floor full of wicker baskets and holiday decorations I'd let them run over to the toys where they'd spend twenty minutes looking at each one before picking out some small $1 or $2 trinket to bring home. My daughter in particular always had a difficult time choosing a toy, and the kind ladies who filled out our handwritten bill must have watched a hundred times as I got down on my knees on those old plank floors and tried to reason with her that she didn't have to feel nervous or ashamed for wanting something. A few weeks ago they told us the bad news: they'd been given pink slips, and the toy department was liquidating even before the rest of the store. One of them broke into tears, talking about how they've watched my kids grow up and soon my daughter started crying. It took her almost an hour to recover.

It might seem not seem like such a big deal; the space is going to re-open with a new retailer from the same family. It will still have cheese, but not the toys. The faces behind the counters won't be the ones we've come to count on as friends. Over the last few weeks of business, our weekly visits grew more frequent. I became a bit more magnanimous with the toy allowance. One or another of the ladies in the Hirt sweatshirts would always end up crying after we started talking. They'd lost the only jobs they'd had for decades. It was pretty emotional.

On Saturday we stood outside the store and watched the last people coming out. I recognized my daughter's emotions as partly my own. I think she was beginning to fully understand the idea of memory; that our experiences in that store with those people had become part of an inaccessible past, and there is something profoundly sad about that. And that when something exists only in memory you have to fight to keep from forgetting it. Yesterday morning she pulled this out of the closet and insisted on wearing it to school:

Over on the sub-page, I created a little photo essay: The Last Days of R. Hirt Jr., 1887-2011.

* * * * *

The second piece of lousy news is that the little garden we spent all summer building was torn out so the property could be used as a parking lot (I wrote about the Busy Bee Garden Project here and here, for some background). The garden went from this:

To this:

Construction of a new jail in a huge vacant lot closer to downtown where many football fans used to tailgate has pushed the market for game-day parking out much further that it has ever been before, and this year the vacant lot next to our garden was leased by some group that swoops into the city's vacant lots and charges for parking during Lions football games. Even though the small, trash-strewn vacant lot where we built our garden had stood unused for a generation or more (with weeds and inches of soil covering whatever had been there before) it caught the eye of the parking company and they approached the owners of the lot (Busy Bee Hardware) and offered to lease it for parking. And they agreed.

Here is where I accept responsibility for my naivety: I am entirely at fault for trying to do something positive on land that wasn't mine, and I don't for a second think I have any standing here. I was stupid and put my faith and trust where it didn't belong (mostly in the belief that it would be safe to grow some food and flowers in a trash-strewn vacant lot that no one had wanted anything to do with in decades). The Busy Bee folks were unapologetic and told me that this was actually a good thing, that whatever this company was paying them would help pay for the taxes on the property and in the end it would help the hardware store. And because I obviously have an interest in not seeing their business go the way of R. Hirt Jr., I have to be able to see their side of it. That doesn't mean it still didn't hurt.

On Saturday, with my daughter distraught over the closing of her favorite store (see above), we encountered the parking guys who were tearing out our garden. My wife took the kids home while I went over to take some pictures of the destruction and see if I could save some of my neighbor's perennials. The parking guy ordered me off the land and told me to stop taking pictures. "Take a picture of THIS," he said:

I believe his exact next words were, "Wanna take a picture of my dick, too?"

Jeez, all I did was ask him if he was a Joni Mitchell fan. I was kind of grateful to that guy for being such a jerk, because it allowed me to get angry at "EZ Parking" rather than crying over spilled Brussels sprouts.

At least my kids had one thing to be thankful about, ba-da-bum. Speaking of the kids, I still haven't let them see what's happened to the lot. After all the time we spent there and work we put into it, I really don't feel like trying to explain why somebody thought it would be better as a place to park cars for a few hours two Sundays a month, four months of the year:

I thought they were only going to be able to get about ten cars in there, but they tore down the fence in between the two lots and managed to squeeze in fourteen at ten dollars a car. That's $140 per game, and with four games left this year what they'll squeeze out of the lot won't even come close to the cost of the materials, soil, plants, and labor that we spent to build the garden.

I was a little annoyed watching people park their cars on our garden when I noticed that there was a vacant lot (see above) about 25 feet away that hadn't been a community garden where no one was parking cars, as well as a fenced-in lot next to it owned by Stroh's, the same company that leased the other lots to the parking company. I guess they wanted to keep the lots contiguous, so they would only need to pay one guy to take all the money. These two lots---which are actually closer to Ford Field---sat empty while the others filled up.

* * * * *

The real story here isn't the epic fail of some douchebag's neighborhood beautification project, but the reality that despite all the good that's happening in this city, it's still a place where vast swaths of the downtown area are only used a few hours a week for people to park their cars. A friend on facebook recently linked an article that rang true: "Parking lots are the best possible way of destroying a city’s soul. They are gruesome, lifeless places."

I've heard it said that these parking companies bring money and jobs downtown, but then again so does crack cocaine. I can hardly imagine an industry that has less of a positive impact on a city than these parking operations. I don't see the money or the jobs staying in the city. Basically a bunch of guys with accents and orange safety vests show up in the city for a few hours on the eight Sundays that the Lions play in Detroit and charge people $10-$30 to park in surface lots, many of which sit completely empty the other 357 days of the year. On the day of the football game, the individual in charge of all parking operations near our garden was a Pakistani gentleman driving from lot to lot in a luxury SUV. I saw him drop off a black woman in her 50s near our garden and hand her an orange flag that he told her to wave on the side of the street to attract customers. She told me she "was just trying to get out of town" and he "picked me up at the bus station" and "didn't even give me enough time to take a shit." I asked her if she was being paid minimum wage and she laughed, "Nobody earns $7 an hour in Detroit." Those are the kind of exploitative jobs these companies bring to the city. 

I started asking people why they parked there, pointing out that there were three free street parking spots less than twenty feet from where they handed the guy $10, and all three people told me that they didn't want to get their cars broken into during the game.

* * * * *

Luckily, the Busy Bee folks were able to salvage our wooden boxes, tools, and rain barrel before the parking guys threw them on their lovely trash pile with the bricks, plants and flowers. We were also able to save the bees and give them a new home thanks to Greg at Brother Nature Produce.

I'm already scouting out locations for a new garden next year, and I've got a couple of prospects that could prove to be way better. When we started this I said, "My interest in this project was less about gardening or growing produce, but teaching my children the responsibility that comes with caring for plants." The hundreds of hours we spent up there were not wasted, and this year when we get those boxes set up in a new lot with new seedlings soaking up the sun I'll be teaching them about stubbornness, and perseverance, and maybe even a little but about naivety.

So with Thanksgiving tomorrow and another fourteen cars destined to park their cars on a little spot where we built a garden that made our summer so wonderful (before the Lions play on national television) I am thankful that we had that summer, even if our garden has now become a memory: part of an inaccessible past. The kids are already thinking about the future.

According to the Detroit Free Press, some lunkheads have already set up tents at a suburban Best Buy, even though they don't yet know what the Black Friday deals are going to be. “A Best Buy employee said it was going to be great this year, the best in five years, so we will see what kind of deals we get."

I think this means I have participated in my first internet meme. Next up: lolspeak.

I woke up feeling really good yesterday, which is almost always a sure sign that trouble lies ahead.

Ever since the end of Daylight Savings Time, it's been a lot easier to get the kids to school on time---or even early---allowing me to experience what it feels like to be a responsible father. Yesterday was one of those days where the kids seemed to wake up already dressed for school and I had their breakfasts on the table on time and nobody left the house with cream cheese smeared across their cheeks or melted M&Ms in their hair. We were absolutely poised for something to go wrong.

I am in an interesting stage right now where my daughter is in school full time and my son goes a couple days a week. Any free time I gain is so often taken up by petty errands and extracurricular school business that I still sort of have an excuse to avoid looking for a real job. During my "free time" I also like to procrastinate doing freelance jobs by cleaning the house. The other day I started refinishing the hardwood floors, so you know I must have had a particularly annoying deadline. I recently made the wildly-insane decision to cook a family dinner almost every day so we can all sit down at the table in daily recognition that my wife and I spawned two persnickety brutes who prefer banging their fists against the tabletop chanting for macaroni and cheese and Halloween candy every night rather than consume a healthy, well-balanced meal. I am gunning to become the first male winner of Michigan's Top Homemaker Award, you see, but I just won't feel comfortable nominating myself until I can get my kids to eat my pot roast.

If I'm not running errands or cleaning or cooking while the kids are at school, sometimes I just like to sit on a chair without having anyone scream at me.

My son has been a lot better about accepting that he must attend preschool this year. Last year I frequently had to peel him off me and rush away to the sound of him screaming, but this year he has a little pack of buddies and runs off with them as soon as we get to school without so much as a glance over his shoulder. Yesterday was different. Yesterday he decided he didn't want to go to school, and it took 45 minutes of intense negotiations just to get him to let go of my coat. Several times I was walking to the car when he ran up and latched on to my leg. Whatever, I mean we all want to be loved, but come on kid, there's a chair waiting for me in a silent, empty room. Eventually I convinced him to walk into class with his buddies, and as I stood there in the satisfying glow of watching him go I reached into my pocket and realized I didn't have my car key.

I spent two hours retracing my steps around the playground in a serpentine Family-Circus dotted line, trying to remember where my son's wildly flailing arms might have knocked it out of my hands. I scanned the playground covered in oak and maple leaves and dug through wood chips. A concerned parent reported to the principal's office that a deranged lunatic was wandering the school grounds. Eventually I gave up, abandoning the search (and the car) to make my way home and get the spare key.

* * * * *

Two Practical Jokes My Mother Played on My Father When I Was a Child:

1. My father restores antique cars for a living, and he often had to order parts from sellers in other states which were delivered via UPS. One guy in California was giving him a really hard time over a part he really needed and he complained bitterly about unkept promises and shipping delays. The next day my mother found an old beat-up muffler by the side of the road and threw it in a battered cardboard box with a fake shipping label and set it where the UPS man always left his packages. We watched from the window as my dad emerged from his body shop to joyfully find the box and then discover its contents and nearly explode with rage.

2. My father had a $5-a-week Super Lotto habit but would frequently forget to watch the TV when the numbered ping pong balls rolled into slots for the winning numbers. He would ask my mom to call some lottery hotline to get the winners, and she would dutifully write them down on a slip of paper so he could compare them to the five random numbers he'd chosen that week. On one Saturday with a particularly-big jackpot, she peeked at the numbers on his ticket and later wrote down one full set of his numbers as the winner, casually handing it over with a bowl of microwave popcorn in her other hand. She sat there munching on popcorn, watching nonchalantly while his eyes darted from his ticket to the "winning" numbers, filling with visions of the sudden, unimagined wealth now within his grasp while his throat groped for the syllables to express his excitement. Unable to contain her laughter, his reverie dissipated right then like any other working man's dream.

* * * * *

Last night my wife got home from a grueling day at work. She was in the office all weekend and has had early mornings and late nights as she prepares for a long-planned trip to Mexico, but last night she was tolerant enough to listen to me gripe about losing all my "me" time over a lost key, and the $265 replacement cost and the need to drive to some flat suburb with Heights or Hills in the name to find a dealership that could do it. I don't know where or how she found that key, but when I put my coat on this morning, it was the first thing I found when I reached into my pocket: a pocket I checked and emptied a hundred times in those desperate hours the day before. I even emptied that pocket before going through the metal detector at the courthouse. But this morning there it was.

My daughter blames elves. Or gremlins. I blame my wife, because the only other option is that I'm losing my mind. I don't care if I am a deranged lunatic or just the victim of a cruel jape, I'm just glad I could spend today sitting in a chair in a silent room rather than at some car dealership out in Farmington Heights.

This year my six-year-old daughter wanted to be a ghost for Halloween---"but definitely not just a sheet ghost." We've been reading a lot of Victorian ghost stories and I think this led to her vision of "an old-fashioned ghost." Unlike past years' efforts, this turned out to be an incredibly simple costume and she was able to do a lot of the decision making herself. We started browsing the pre-1930 (Victorian 20s) category on eBay together for dresses that looked spooky (and would fit her), settling on a large Christening gown with an elaborate lace collar. We bought it now for $19.99:

 

We picked up some elbow-length white gloves, a few pieces of tulle, and some white face paint. After putting on the gown, we draped the tulle over her head and we were pretty much done. We did sew some of the tulle to her gloves so she would appear more ghostly when lifting her arms, but that's really all the work that we needed to do. She was skeptical that she still looked too much like a "sheet ghost," so we did a test run the other day and I took some pictures to prove to her how spooky she looks in this costume (in the image at the top, I may have even done a bit of clone-stamping to make her look see-through). 

I also found her a  spooky Victorian candle lantern that I rigged up with an LED-flame, but we forgot it for this test run at Elmwood Cemetery and Belle Isle. The lantern will be great for trick-or-treating tonight.

Nothing all that complicated, just a spooky old-fashioned ghost. But we sure had a lot of fun making these photos!