Chicago - Parenting and Relaxation

My last stop in the Chicago area filled my quota of child time, as I stayed with two of my favoritest people in the world and their four children (ages 6, 4, 21 months, and 2 months). We've known each other for over 10 years, as he and I joined the same firm simultaneously and they were introduced to each other almost immediately afterwards. It's difficult for me to believe that they each once had entire lives as separate individuals since I've only known them as a couple and I can't imagine a world in which it was otherwise. They're also two of the most attractive people I know -- how she still makes it look so effortless is a wonder -- so their eldest child being a daughter (their second is as well) fits the theory that attractive people have a higher probability of having a daughter as a first child. I guess that because of the time I've spent with my nephew, it's definitely not as challenging for me to be surrounded by children as it used to be. Still, I have much to learn as I need to acquire more stock questions to ask children when interacting with them, somewhere between "what's your favorite color" and "how do you think redistributive income policies affect the credit crunch at the core of our economic malaise". I had to fend for myself for a few minutes at breakfast when my friends took a phone call together; let me state that staring down 3 children (the youngest was asleep) is no cakewalk. It's really not that stressful taking on a room full of senior executives, as I've never had to do so without being very prepared; I feel no such assurance when facing little ones. Fortunately, they had each other for company in this instance and did not end up requiring much in the way of interaction from me. While I am not accustomed to families of this size I can certainly see the appeal, as watching the 3 mobile children play together over the course of a morning yielded a string of ridiculously cute events, from all 3 excitedly cramming themselves into the same office chair to watch the eldest register her Webkin online, to the 2 older daughters gleefully burying the 21 month-old up to his neck in stuffed animals. Still, the flipside may be a bit challenging -- I'm grateful to not have seen any flipside during my visit -- and I really can't conceive of having to tend to so many short agents of chaos on a day-to-day basis. Frankly, I'd consider myself fortunate to handle one child with the grace and surehandedness with which my friends handle four.

I really love golf. My buddy and I discussed how the world simply doesn't exist when one is on the range or on the course, so the act of playing golf can be amazingly restorative. For the uninitiated and blissfully unaware, the act of hitting a stationary ball squarely is surprisingly difficult and requires total concentration just to have a chance of getting the ball to go where one wants and how one wants. Golf is a cruel and taunting mistress, constantly finding new ways to make things go awry. Witness some of the colorful vocabulary devoted to describing how things can go wrong with a golf swing: hook, slice, fat, thin, pull, push, early, late, open, closed, inside, outside, quick, slow, flat, vertical, disconnected, too much wrist, not enough wrist, overly strong grip, overly weak grip, shank, duff, block, hitch, insufficient lag, and Charles Barkley. But once in a while, all of my swing flaws balance each other out and something beautiful is produced which feels good, sounds good, and looks good flying through the air. Rare as they are, those shots more than make up for the ugliness I usually produce otherwise. The following video is definitely otherwise, especially since I hit the very bottom of the ball, sending it sky-high about 120 yards downrange. On a scale of 1 to 10, it rates about 0.7. But as my not-very-visible-online-but-very-apparent-in-HD smile in the video indicates, sending balls downrange in an unintentionally random fashion while getting ribbed by an old friend rates as a mighty fine way to pass a Saturday morning.



Having begun to fall behind on blogging, I apologize that I don't see that as a particularly bad thing, as I hope to spend more time doing rather than blogging. I promise that the food descriptions will return, and St. Louis included a particularly excellent time.

Miles driven (Chicago, IL to Naperville, IL): 30 / 745
Ratio of golf balls hit well / hit poorly: 7 / 218
Putting competitions lost by the narrowest of margins: 1
Putting competitions evened out with a final double-or-nothing shot: 1
Taunting remarks made by the person who lost the putting competition to a superior golfer but still wanted to get his licks in: 52