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New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on January 5, 2016 by jmarkowski Posted in Family .

I had planned on getting this post out last week, but you know, I kind of broke the internet, so it had to be delayed until today. I’m sure you’ve had your fill of “Year End Reviews” and “2016 New Year’s Resolutions” but I don’t care, this post is solely for me. Seriously, I throw no ill will your way if you want to bolt right now.

I get it.

Get out of here already.

No big proclamations this year and no epic New Year’s Resolutions to report (maybe 1-2 of those, but I can’t talk about them here). Instead, we’ll go with a series of easily attainable items as a means to pump up this serial underachiever. Low hanging fruit if you will.

If I can’t succeed in accomplishing at least 75% of these, there is officially no hope.

I will use this post to track my New Year’s Resolutions progress throughout the year to make sure I am on pace to accomplish my goals and will review them regularly with my supervisor. A mid year progress report will be compiled and shared with you all here.

Without further ado, my 2016 New Year’s Resolutions:

Stop drinking coffee at night – It all started ten years ago as a means to keep awake for the night shift after my daughter was born. It then transformed into a “reward” for myself after the kids were in bed each evening. It is now a full blown addiction and I’ve had enough. How many more times will I read about the importance of sleep and not do anything about it?

Truth is, I am already 4 nights in and no coffee. Instead, it has been replaced by a nightly “Calm” drink which is allegedly giving me my daily dose of calcium and potassium. Thanks Lorraine!

Make my kids watch the original “Star Wars” movie – Yes I know it isn’t close to the same experience I had back in 1977 as a 5 year old, but I owe it to them to at least give it a shot. We’ve tried for years now and they have shown little interest but with the release of the latest movie, now is the time to seize the opportunity. My fear is that what I find so charming now, they will find as poor and outdated technology.

A consolation prize would be if the theme song is added to either one of their playlists on Apple Music. And not this version:

Floss every night – No further explanation required. 2 out of 7 days isn’t cutting it and I’m sick of the dental hygienists giving me that look.

Read one book a month – Like I said, low hanging fruit. I’ve ignored books for years running now as they’ve been replaced by online reading/surfing. Yes, I do read intelligent and informative works online, but it doesn’t replace the book. I want to giggle, cry and cower in the corner with fear by March. No excuses.

Watch one soccer game, I mean match, in its entirety – What am I missing when 90% of the world is scary passionate about a game where .27 goals are scored per game?

Is it the magic of that one pass that is a thing of beauty? Is it the hilarity of grown men feigning injury every other play?

Eat vegetarian for one week – Lofty goals, eh? I’ve been threatening to do this for years and now is the time to see it through. I could give you a number of reasons as to why I want to do this, but for now it is really just to see if I can pull it off. Shouldn’t be too difficult since I grow a ton of veggies in my own garden.

Am I that reliant upon meat in my diet? Will I feel any different?

Cook one meal from scratch each month – I’m really exposing myself as non-evolved with these, damn. I admittedly get a panic attack whenever I ~~cook~~ prepare a meal. Multi-tasking is not a strong suit and it rears its ugly head when I’m in the kitchen. I hate trying to time it all to finish concurrently and the frustration leads to dumb mistakes and missed ingredients.

Maybe if I put together a schedule and prep way ahead of time, I can pull it off. If not, it still makes for great blog fodder.

Call a sports talk radio show – Just so I can say “first time caller, long time listener” and to make my future broadcaster son proud of me.

More videos on this blog – True confession – For Christmas, my wife presented me with a series of books that were basically 6 years of this blog converted into book form. I cried when I opened them. I shit you not. It was a biography of our family, not to mention like 10,167 plants, and the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received. That woman just gets it. Thank the high heavens she looked past my immaturity back in 1990 and agreed to go along for the ride.

So now I need to create more video here to further cement and document our place in this world. Hopefully the kids don’t get all sensitive on me and shy away. Videos of me cooking badly, videos of us training the dog, videos of actual good cooking skills from my wife and other dull everyday events that we’ll be thrilled we captured years from now.

Pretend to be a professional photographer for a day – I have to be honest here, this one has already been fully mapped out. The family is going to Florida in February to spend three days watching the New York Mets during Spring Training. For one of those days, I plan on wearing a homemade press pass around my neck and being obnoxious as I photograph the players doing their thing. Even if it gets me nowhere, I will still be able to provide you with killer pics like this when all is said and done.

At least finalize the “concept” for a gardening book – I have so many ideas swirling around in my noggin and it’s time to fine tune it down to one killer idea.

One more year out in the garden should be sufficient inspiration and if any of you have any great ideas you could always email me on the sly and I can pretend I came up with it.

Write for another blog/publication – It’s no secret, I love to write and I hope it isn’t too late to still try and pursue it as a vocation. Be it sports related, garden related or even cooking related (yeah you heard me), it’s time to stretch the wings even more. The worst someone can say is “No … and you really ought to pursue another line of work but damn you had the cajones to give it a try.”

Stop the PennEast pipeline – Want to feel the blood boil? Read this:

Signing Your Rights Away

I can vouch for it all having seen a copy of a friend’s letter myself. The way this company has operated from day one has been the opposite of transparent and their attempts to swindle people out of their land through purposely vague and deceitful means should piss you off to no end regardless of how you feel about natural gas.

In 2016, we blow their minds and put an end to their charade.

There you have it, my 2016 New Year’s Resolutions.

Grats.

New puppy observations

Posted on December 16, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Dogs, Family .

Yes, it’s only been 4 days with the new puppy, but she has already made quite the impression. Girlfriend loves to love on the whole family but when that snarky side emerges, watch out. The perfect recipe for a dog.

With that in mind, here are ten observations I’ve already made thanks to little ‘ol Mia:

Sleep deprivation will make you do strange things. I remember when we got our first puppy, Casey, back in 1999. We had been married for less than 3 years and only had responsibility for ourselves. When the dog came along, we quickly learned the concept of sleep deprivation. Hosing down the crate outside at 2:00 AM, baths in the sink at all hours of the night, walking the dog barefoot at 3:00 AM all over town in a state of semi consciousness and my ultimate fave, caring for the dog and then showering for work only to realize it was still 2:00 AM.

While Mia has been a decent sleeper so far, I did fall asleep face down in the carpet with my hand stuck in between the grates on her crate last night. What we do …

Witnessing a new puppy brings back floods of memories of our first dog. Our first dog Casey was a senior citizen for what seemed like years, and as she got older it was harder to remember the early years. Watching Mia chew everything in site and play with boundless energy made me miss Casey as a puppy. I hadn’t thought of her in that way for so long but it all came flowing back these past few days. I still miss the hell out of that dog.

No matter how many times you tell them, kids just don’t understand what having a new puppy is all about. I threatened the kids with a contract that they would have to sign before we could welcome a dog into our home. In it would be strict guidelines around their responsibilities/chores and acknowledgment that some of their stuff would get ruined along the way. I never followed through with it because I’m an “empty threat parent” but I really wish I did. While they love the dog to pieces, their faces scream “Will life ever get back to normal?” Yes it will my little ones … in like a year or two. This is what dog ownership is all about.

Working from home with a dog is a fun little challenge. Between us, my wife and I work from out of our home 4 out of 5 days each week. That is great for training a new puppy and hilarious to watch the execution of the multi-tasking. I’ve taken to using the top of Mia’s crate as a work station and conference calls with a 3.5 lb dog curled in one arm is a fun new way to chat with your co-workers.

You kind of can’t go anywhere. And that kind of slows you down around pre-holiday time. Although, there is clearly a lesson to be learned here.

We must keep our eyes to the sky when taking the dog outside. I shit you not, the hawks will snatch her up in no time if we’re not looking.

My voice is capable of reaching octaves previously unknown. The kids have stared at me in awe numerous times already with a look that says “Who is that guy?” And while it can’t be proven, I may have uttered the phrase “Who’s daddy’s puppy wuppy?” in a tone that may destroy all that is left of my street cred.

Time management. When that new puppy is down and sleeping, time to grab that to-do list and get to work.

Pictures of puppies on Facebook trump everything else. Seriously, if I climbed Mt. Everest while juggling lawn darts, I would get fewer likes than a simple picture of a puppy. And people who gave up Facebook last decade suddenly emerge when puppies are on display.

The rescuing of an animal feels better than I ever imagined. That poor thing was stuck in a shelter in South Carolina. And there are so damn many like her. I just wish I could adopt a bunch of them and let them run free here.

Hmmmmm.

Mia

Posted on December 14, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Dogs, Family .

Please say hello to Mia, the newest member of our family.

She is a rescue from North Carolina who made her way up to Pennsylvania this past weekend. We can’t thank the great people of Lulu’s Rescue enough for the entire coordination and unbelievable dedication to these animals. We’ve followed them for years now and always knew they were going to be our source for our next dog.

While we knew we would eventually want another dog (in an ironic and bittersweet twist, we picked her up exactly one year to the day after our Casey had passed) we never imagined it happening this quickly. All it took was one photograph of this little angel and we were in. We saw her on Facebook last Tuesday and made the decision to adopt on Wednesday. Insane move for our not so spontaneous family.

Mia is only 3.5 lbs at 9 weeks old and possibly the smallest dog I’ve ever witnessed live.

The kids are still in complete awe of their new sibling and the smiles haven’t left their faces to date.

To say this dog is loving doesn’t do her justice.

It’s only been two full days, but she has shown an incredible ability to run herself ragged, explore every nook and cranny in the house and then melt into the arms of the first person who touches her.

We feel incredibly blessed to have found her and cannot wait to watch her grow up each and every day.

What my daughter has taught me

Posted on December 8, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Family .

My daughter turned ten years old yesterday.

Shit.

I’ll spare you the “It seems like yesterday …” spiel because we all feel the same way. In the blink of an eye we go from diaper changing to evaluating the first potential boyfriend.

We are warned by those trailblazers before us on how fleeting the time really is, but until one goes through it, one doesn’t truly appreciate just how damn accurate that assessment is.

Son of a …

In honor of my daughter’s first decade, here are eight things she has taught me over the years:

Ingenuity – I am not handy at all. My wife knew it from the day we met (I think it was referenced in our vows) and the kids now know it as well. The care and concern is there; the execution, not so much.

I think my son accepted his father’s flaw at an early age and gave up asking for help. Poor guy is destined to carry on the Markowski tradition. Perfect example – his bedroom door has not closed all the way for years now and makes a horrifically loud sound every time he shuts it. Attempts to fix it have been … attempted … and still no resolution to date. He doesn’t even complain any more.

My daughter, on the other hand, doesn’t accept her father’s shortcomings. She calls me out on it when I deserve it. I think dad’s weakness has been used as an impetus to “just do it”. I can remember her fashioning a birdhouse out of cardboard, a coaster out of duct tape (still in rotation to this day) and numerous hats made out of simple construction paper.

We have a tradition of reading “The Night Before Christmas” each Christmas Eve right before the kids go to bed. She loves it but figured why stop there. When I told her books do not exist for the other holidays, she simply created them herself.

Why purchase baseball cards for your brother when you can make them yourself?

Always dream big – Yes, it is easy to dream when you are young and wonderfully naive, but this girl takes it to another level. She uses it as a to-do list. Our goal is to simply stay out of the way. Scratch that, stay out of the way but tag along and maybe learn a thing or ten.

We all need something like this.

And why not tell the world about it while we’re at it.

Don’t let anyone tell you “no you can’t” –

When we were in Vermont a few weeks ago, the boys had planned a big football game against the dads. My daughter insisted on playing even though she had never done so before. You don’t tell her “no”. To say she was our team’s MVP is an understatement.

A sign tells her she can’t ride, she simply sneaks on while hiding behind her brother.

A simple note is quite powerful – This one gets me more than anything else she has ever done. This is not one of those “you should make something for your dad” or a school assignment. This comes from that precious little heart of hers that I pray is never broken by anyone. I will seriously put quite the smack down if that happens.

And it doesn’t end with her parents. She knew how to bring a smile to great-grandma’s face each and every visit.

Feigning interest works – I bought it hook, line and sinker. Killer boots too.

Selfies are always fun – a boring event can become a legendary one with the simple use of a camera phone.

A zest for life is contagious – fun is right around the corner if you simply look for it.

I kid you not, from the day she was born, she would wake up each morning with a smile on her face. EVERY MORNING. She still greets every day like an opportunity for fun and adventure and experience. She even talks about forcing herself to dream positively each night. Where did this girl come from?

Bedtime is a sacred event – We have always been strict about the kids bed times. No staying up until you fall asleep nonsense. Part of the reason is that we wanted to give ourselves enough time to read to them and just slowly shut down the day.

To this day, my daughter still loves it. I carry her on my back up the stairs each and every night and we hang in bed and just chat. No distractions, just an opportunity to allow the night to take over and slowly wind down. When we’re done, my wife comes in and rubs my daughter’s back as a “scratch-a-bye” (guess who coined that phrase?).

Are there times we resist the bedtime routine? Ashamedly, yes. But she holds us to it and damn I love her for that.

Smaller moments captured

Posted on November 30, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Family .

I want to talk about the smaller moments today.

But first, hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and long weekend. I’ll spare you the turkey jokes because I know I’m done with them. We had a great time with our families, ate some damn good grub and enjoyed a nice and relaxed pace for a few days. Just what the doctor ordered.

We took a bunch of photos and I considered sharing some of them here … but then I fell asleep trying to pull it together. No seriously, I literally dozed off in the middle of a photo review. Not that the photos were bad or that supremely dull, but I just find myself more and more disinterested in staged photos. Sure, it’s great to have a shot of the family eating together at Thanksgiving, but I want more than that.

Which now leads to today’s very important message …

The kids love watching old home videos. While it is a pain in the ass to hook up our archaic and bulky equipment in order to play these videos, it is worth the effort just to watch them giggle or hide their face in embarrassment. They are the only movies we can all agree to watch together right now without incident so another reason to throw them on from time to time.

And now I’ll try my best not to cry thinking about them as little ones.

Sniff. Sniff.

We recently had another request to get out the old family films and because we are award winning parents, we obliged. Out came the box of cassettes and the obnoxiously large video recorder machine and we were well on our way. I was given the choice of first video to be played (imagine that) and began to leaf through the options: Christmas 2007, Easter 20006, Jack’s Birthday 2004, First Day of School 2010. As I contemplated my options, I came to a realization that bothered me a bit … and then bothered me a lot.

While we had all of the so called major occasions covered, we were missing the beautifully mundane day to day stuff, the smaller moments.

I wish we had captured, I don’t know, day 26 of the 2009 school year once the morning routine had been established. I have very little recollection of how we operated. I’d even like to know what the kids preferred for breakfast back then.

I wish we had captured the “time to go to bed routine” back in 2007. I vaguely remember needing to find my daughter under a pile of blankets before she was carried upstairs to bed.

I wish we had captured the intense indoor basketball games between me and my son in 2008. I’m pretty sure I dominated him with my array of three pointers.

I understand the need to capture the holidays and all of those key “life moments”, when typically, the entire family is together and everyone is in a joyous mood. But we way underrate the “normal” day to day events. Those smaller moments are so easily lost in our cluttered and aging minds, but they really are the building blocks of our lives. They are times and details I want to vividly remember and in order to do so, they need to be captured by the latest and greatest recording device.

A perfect example of this: since she first learned to walk, my daughter loves to stand on my feet and have me walk around the house. It may now raise my heart rate to dangerous levels since she is so much bigger, but I love it to death. And thankfully, my wife caught it in action without either of us being aware of it.

That my friends, is the perfect photo (and no, not because the camera tricks you into believing I have a fantastic looking beard).

The pic is candid and captures a moment in time that we’ll now cherish forever. No holiday pose or forced “moment”, just a snapshot of my nine year old daughter still enjoying her father’s presence.

Sniff. Sniff.

As I started to piece together this post, I looked back through all of our photos from the past few years and realized I’ve failed miserably in capturing the smaller moments, aka the spontaneous day to day events in our lives. Plenty of plant photos of course, and a ton of vacation shots, but nothing like the moments I’ve just waxed poetic about.

But my wife nailed it a bunch of times because you know, she kicks some major booty.

Here is my daughter still in her dress-up phase from a few years back.

She had no idea this was being taken and I’m so thankful that it was captured on film. Those dress-up days are already in the rear view but we’ll have this reminder forever.

My son had a Minecraft phase a few years back but I’m not sure I would clearly remember this a few years from now. Again, kudos to my wife for picking up on this.

So while we’ll always take those large family shots around the holidays.

I want to make a concerted effort to photograph the fact that I still carry each of the children on my back up to bed each night.

I want to capture the routine of my wife making from-scratch-pancakes each and every Sunday morning.

I want to document the much more subtle and understated celebrations of the kids 1/2 birthdays.

Maybe most of you are more evolved than I am and have been on top of these moments with your respective families. If so, you rock. But for me, I know my goal is to now be mega aware of capturing these smaller moments in time. The kids are 13 and 10 right now and those precious kid years are diminishing way too fast.

Meyer Lemon Challenge

Posted on November 17, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Edibles, Family, Tree .

I take my lemons very seriously.

Is that weird? Actually, allow me to be more specific and less weird.

I take the lemons produced from my Meyer Lemon tree very seriously.

Not so weird, right?

Need proof of this lemon allegiance? Check this out from a few years ago:

A special lemon

Truth is, we haven’t harvested a lemon since that day … but that is about to change … in a big way.

Last year I received a ton of great feedback from readers (thank you!) and from a dude I met on an awesome local gardening radio show I’ve been lucky to frequent over the years. Here is a consolidated list of those tips (all pertain to winter indoor care):

Before bringing indoors, place tree in partial shade outdoors for 2 weeks and then another 2 weeks in the attached unheated garage.
Spritz the leaves with water every other day to up the humidity.
When watering, use warm water.
Place the lemon tree on top of a warming mat.
Keep the tree away from window/door drafts. I close the curtain to my back sliding door whenever possible as a wind barrier.
When in bloom, use a Q-tip and just poke it into the flowers.
Fertilize even if it is the winter.

Now some of these tips may be debatable or unnecessary (based on online research I’ve meticulously conducted) but I cannot complain about the results this year. Currently, I have ten lemons on my tree, including this just-about-to-ripen-monstrosity.

I’ve never seen a lemon this big as it roughly the size of a grapefruit. Now I just pray that it tastes as good as it looks.

Some other current day fruit.

And the first set of buds just emerged within the last week.

Color me giddy with excitement.

Back to that first mother of a lemon I just showed you. I am thinking we will pull it off the tree within the next week. And it is clearly big enough to easily split into four decent sized wedges.

With that in mind, I am challenging my family to come up with a creative use for their quarter of a lemon. I have my plan mapped out already and spoiler alert, it involves sun screen and the PennEast pipeline. The rest of the family is now on the clock.

I’ll be sure to dedicate a post to each of our upcoming lemon plans and challenge each of you to get creative with your own lemons.

Is that weird? Who cares, do it already and let me know what you did in the comments.

Sappy holiday movies are the greatest

Posted on November 13, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Comedy, Family .

Before I continue, I must share this with you all first.

Judging by the title of this post, I’m sure you can figure out why I voluntarily stamped my own card. I should have done it a long time ago but I wasn’t emotionally ready to do so until now. I feel so much better now that it is out in the open and thank you in advance for your understanding.

My name is John and …

I love sappy holiday movies.

Take a minute to allow that to soak in …

Pause …

I can’t get enough of the fabulously cheesy holiday fare that is put out by Lifetime and the Hallmark Channel each year.

That’s right, you heard me. Not an ounce of sarcasm either. I’ll put it right up there with listening to the Peanuts Christmas soundtrack, eating cookies and watching the kids open their presents on Christmas morning.

I’ve kept this a secret for years running with the only one aware being my holiday-movie- watching-confidante, Mrs. M. She warned me of the repercussions of this announcement but I went against her better judgment. Even if I’ve influenced only one of you to sit through one of these sappy holiday movies, I’ve done my service for the season.

Starting mid-November each year, we blindly DVR each and every holiday themed movie without reading the description. No initial judgment is passed. Many are movies we’ve enjoyed in the past with a handful of newly introduced titles included. Within days, the DVR is 97% filled and we can kick our plan into motion.

After the kids are in bed, we retire to the boudoir and hit “play” on the very first move on the list. We then agree to give it at least 15 minutes before rendering a decision. If after 15 minutes we’re not feeling it, it gets erased from the DVR and from our memory all together. We don’t take notes for the next year. It is too much fun to reevaluate the same movie again and again for years to come.

If the movie does pass the 15 minute test, we’ll keep watching it and often times it may take three viewings to get through it. Since we initiate the process at a later hour now that the kids are getting older, we often fall asleep during the movie. A joyous falling asleep I must add. It’s even fun to reconnect in the morning and remember the last scene we were still awake for.

“I remember when she hired the fake boyfriend to come home with her at Thanksgiving.”

“And I remember when she found out that her job wouldn’t allow her to travel back home for the holidays and her parents were devastated.”

Fun, right?

How is each movie evaluated you may ask? While it is tough to quantify, here is just some of my criteria (my wife will have to post hers under separate cover):

No supernatural stuff (wishes granted, manger scene coming to life, etc.) unless it is imagining how a different life may have panned out (even if you have to climb through a dryer to get there).

Only a light tone will work. There can be, there must be, a serious message underneath, but I am looking for whimsy.
While all locales are an option, the preferred is to start out in NYC and then work your way home to an unnamed town that looks like it fell out of a Thomas Kinkade Christmas painting.
Anything with Joey Lawrence and I am in (whoa).

An all knowing Santa that doles out sage advice at the local Christmas Tree Farm gets me every time.
I cannot get enough of the aforementioned hire fake boyfriend/girlfriend and then really fall in love arc.

Speaking of preferred arcs, give me bah humbug corporate hack that doesn’t get the true meaning of Christmas until he or she meets a hopeless Christmas romantic every day of the week (especially if she runs a Christmas hat store).

The criteria is ever evolving so I will have to keep this updated as each and every holiday season continues to pass.

And of course when you are a Hallmark Channel aficionado, you reserve the right to be critical from time to time. So if you executives/script writers are listening, here are a few tips, free of charge, from this sappy holiday movies watching veteran:

No more exes running into each other unexpectedly in their hometown without knowing what the other had been doing for years now. It is called Facebook stalking and everyone does it.
Stop with the struggling actor/advertising rep/young writer who lives in even a decent apartment in Manhattan. That one burns me to no end. No one can afford to live in Manhattan, please relocate them to Queens or even Hoboken.
Please up the acting standards for the quirky best friend. There is a fine line between quirky and really freaking annoying. You know the difference.
Less whiny children as well. In fact, let’s eliminate kids completely. My guess is the budget for these movies doesn’t allow for the hiring of kids with much talent so let’s not bring down the overall quality by subjecting people to the little ones’ lack of talent.

Faithful readers, if you are looking for recommendations, please feel free to email me and I will break them out by category/story arc if you so desire. Thanksgiving movies are very underrated and there are some beauties out there right now.

Or, do yourself a favor and check out some of the movies listed here. It will change your entire outlook on the holiday season.

You are welcome.

From: Your sappy holiday movies expert.

New York Mets 2015 season

Posted on November 12, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Baseball, Family .

The New York Mets 2015 season officially came to an end on November 1st.

It still makes me giddy to say that out loud. Playing baseball in November means you had one hell of a season and were one of the top two teams in baseball. I’ll be damned if I saw that coming before the season started.

This past baseball season was without a doubt the most enjoyable I’ve ever experienced in my 43 years on this planet. Even though our beloved New York Mets just fell short and lost in the World Series, it cannot erase the joy it brought to my entire family and all of the memories we’ll have from this season. Each and every one of us was glued to the TV from April through October and I miss the hell out of it already.

I grew up watching the god awful Mets teams of the 70’s and early 80’s on a small black and white TV with my dad always sitting there next to me. It didn’t matter that the team was horrendous, it was a time to just hang with my pops. We didn’t even have to talk much during each game; the game itself was our conversation with only a telepathic communication needed. If a Met player made an error, a glance towards each other spoke volumes. Even attempts at real conversation would go like this:

“How was school today son?”

“Um, good or whatever, Doug Flynn cannot be our shortstop next year.”

Fast forward to 2015 and my son and I watch the Mets in the exact same manner. Except in high def on a big screen TV, while we are simultaneously tweeting via Twitter and discussing the OPS and BABIP for each hitter. Beyond that it was like totally the same.

This year we kicked it up a notch though. We got into it early. Like as early as humanly possible. We attended Spring Training for the first time ever.

I won’t rehash the story now as you can read about our experience through the following links:

Spring Training Day 1

Spring Training Day 2

Spring Training Day 3

Looking back on it all, it truly was magical from the very beginning. Not only did we get an up close and personal view of the players …

… and endless autographs for my son

Yes, that is the Noah Syndergaard. But he also got his first go round on TV and did not disappoint. To this day, I still get people asking me if it was possible that they saw my son on the TV while they were eating dinner or out with friends.

Hells yeah you did.

Port St Lucie, FL will now be a permanent destination each and every February. And this year we are quadrupling our group by adding friends and family to the mix. It is a must for all hardcore baseball fans.

Allow me to wax poetic even more about America’s past time.

Baseball isn’t for everyone, I know that. It is a slow moving sport and yes, they play 162 games over the course of 6 months. It isn’t the juggernaut that is the NFL and games do lack that “event” feeling, at least up until the playoffs.

But the pace is what makes it so fantastic. It is the background music/soundtrack of spring and summer. It doesn’t ask you to stay riveted to each and every moment. It fits right in with the relaxed and chilled vibe of summer. It is a familiar friend where there is the comfort of knowing you can hang for periods of time without saying a word.

Now having said that, there is a unique drama that only occurs in baseball. Because there are so many games and they are played nearly every day, there is always a new twist or turn to contend with. Especially in larger markets like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles where there are a number of beat reporters who cover the teams on a day to day basis. They need a daily story/angle and do a good job of drumming them up regularly. Why did that guy glare at the manager after his at bat? Why didn’t he run his hardest after hitting that ground ball? Why was so and so benched for a second straight game? Typically not earth shattering stuff, but interesting all the same. Like the kind of family stuff we all encounter on a daily basis. A problem on Tuesday can quickly become a non issue after a good night’s sleep and a successful game the next day.

Baseball is also a thinking man’s game and if I am anything, I am a thinking man. You can debate lefty/righty splits, bunt or no bunt and defensive substitutions all day and night. The depth of baseball stats is overwhelming but completely fascinating at the same time. Some say it ruins the game, others rely solely on stats when debating the intricacies of the game. No matter where you fall on the spectrum, the game is still being debated after the last out is recorded. I love that.

After we returned from Spring Training, we felt a different kind of connection with the team. These were real people who just happened to have maybe the greatest job in the world. We saw them from day one; literally introducing themselves to each other as they took the field; very cool stuff. And because the Mets are a very young team, you got the feeling like you were there when it was all starting. The initial hype was palpable and frickin exciting.

As this season progressed, and the typical ups and downs occurred, my wife and daughter also became attached. We could discuss any aspect of the team and we all knew exactly what we were talking about. They’ve always enjoyed baseball but this was different. We even knew the names of the Mets players’ children. Again, like family.

By July/August, the Mets kicked it into high gear and we were riveted. Every game was must watch TV. This young and up an coming team was maturing right before our eyes. We knew good things were coming, just not this quickly.

By the time the playoffs started, we all had our assigned positions on the couch. Every ball and strike was the end of the world. As much as I like the slow pacing of the regular season, the playoffs are a different animal. It is insane and all consuming and worth the stress.

I’ll never forget texting with my wife and son from a bar during a game while I was in Florida for work.

I’ll never forget my father-in-law calling my son after every big home run by Daniel Murphy.

I’ll never forget waking up my daughter at 12:30 to allow her to see the Mets celebrate their first trip to the World Series since 2000.

I’ll never forget having my parents over on Halloween night and the highs of the early lead in Game 4 and the absolute agony of losing the game late.

I’ll never forget watching the last minute of commentary after the Mets lost the World Series and the last camera shot of the empty stadium.

I’ll never forget realizing that I will miss it all dearly once the kids get older and leave the house.

Thank you for the New York Mets 2015 season. I dare you to top it all in 2016.

Receiving therapy in Vermont

Posted on November 9, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Comedy, Family .

If I asked you “When are the two best times to visit Vermont?”, what would you say? I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest it is “Fall Foliage” season and “Skiing” season, am I right? If I think this through, that most likely covers all of October for foliage and then maybe the last two weeks of November through early May for skiing, correct? And you really can’t go wrong the remainder of May through September either as summer in Vermont is kind of gorgeous as well.

So only a visit during the small window of the first few weeks in November would be kind of silly, right? A dead zone if you will. If I apply some math to this we are looking at a 49/52 or 94.2% chance that your visit to Vermont is going to be all sorts of awesome.

Well not for this non-foliage enjoying and non-skiing brood. That is not how we roll. Give us a small window of nothing going on and we are so there. This past weekend we apparently arrived in Vermont during the peak “brown foliage”time or “stick season” as we came to learn from the locals.

Truth be told, our 4 day trip to Stratton, Vermont was phenomenal. Even the post-peak foliage season is stunning.

We have friends who recently purchased a townhouse in Stratton and even if they were initially all like “Seriously, you want to visit us now?” they were still gracious enough to host us non-skiers without hesitation.

Speaking of non-skiing … I had some unresolved issues with skiing that bubbled to the surface this weekend and I’m proud to say I kind of think I worked through them.

Some necessary background:

During my senior year of high school, I joined the ski club. I had yet to ski at that point in my life, but thought joining the group would:

a)look good on the high school resume (don’t ask)

b)provide an opportunity to do something I had never attempted before

c)be a fun hang/social opp.

Makes sense right? Well it turns out I never had the chance to take advantage of the experience.

Since I was on the high school varsity basketball team during the winter sport season, we were not allowed to ski, at all, for fear of sustaining an injury. Now shockingly, none of us when on to basketball stardom in the NBA, let alone the NCAA, but that was the rule and we had no choice but to abide. That included #50, power forward extraordinaire.

Still, I was not happy.

It all came to a head one Friday night in January, 1990 when we had a basketball game against our rival, Waldwick High School, which coincided with the one huge ski trip for the ski club. As an immature yet awesomely mulletted 17 year old, I was super pissed off. I was missing the social event of the year. A chance to chill with the ladies … OK, “chill” may not be the right word since I had less than zero game, more like a chance to hang in the vicinity of the ladies and hang with my boys. But no, basketball was apparently more important.

By tip-off of our game, we had like 10 fans in the crowd. Our home court was filled with the visiting team’s fans and my anger level reached an all time high. It was my senior year dammit and not only was I missing a friggin life changing event, but our last rival game was going to suck as well. The woes of a teenager.

The suckage level peaked even higher when the scoreboard clock read “0:00”. I remember it like it was yesterday. We had what was supposed to be an insurmountable lead at 51-39 with 3 minutes remaining in the game. Somehow we managed to not score again. We ended up losing 52-51 when their point guard literally fell backwards at the foul line and threw up a desperation two handed overhead shot that somehow managed to go in. The crowd went berserk, on our home court, and I was f’n crushed.

I carried that anger for a long time after the game had ended. And I took it out on all of the “skiers”. Just the sight of a ski tag on a CB jacket pissed me off.

Because truth be told, I always envied/was annoyed by those who skied. There was a coolness factor that came with skiing and since I fell towards the other end of the cool spectrum, I was easily annoyed at anything close to “cool”. Without ever giving it a whirl, I knew I would fail miserably at skiing. Leg coordination was not my thing. One attempt at surfing and I knew to stay away from the leg/feet sports. To this day, I have no ability to kick a soccer ball.

Ski trips/vacations also always held this special luster in my mind.

“We’re going to Vail this weekend. We’ll ski all day and hang in the lodge at night.”

That sounded uppity and a place where all the cool kids would hang out. Even after that was done, you could wear your ski tags all winter on your jacket and people would look at it like a badge of honor.

“Where did you go? Aspen, right on bro, we just got back from Killington.”

Even the ski locales had sick names.

So you combine my skier jealousy with the fact that skiing deeply impacted the most important basketball game of my career and I can see why I subconsciously avoided a visit to Vermont during its best time of year. Who knew there was a psychological aspect of “skiing avoidance”? I think I just invented it.

But I’m proud to say I may be over it after this weekend. Thank you J & A for the therapy session. And yes, it is OK that you are all avid skiers. And that your 6 year old son is not only more athletic than me, but can no doubt ski circles around me. I can accept that now.

Thank you for selling our family on the benefits of snowshoeing and tubing. While I may feel like the kid who can’t leave the shallow end of the pool, it is progress. Hopefully my kids will avoid the dreaded ski envy and join you all one day. Maybe I will even set foot on the slopes … and get to wear kick ass looking goggles and get a ski lift ticket of my own.

One can dream.

Some other ditties from the weekend:

I love a saloon. I love the term and the connotation. We went to one for dinner on Saturday night and it rocked. Local, pretension free and solid food and drink. This was not a bar, it was a saloon. Very different in concept. The only things missing were a set of swinging doors upon entering.

And the patrons staring at us with that “You ain’t from these parts” look.

Also, a shot tossed down the bar from the bartender would have been a nice touch.

Kids loving hanging in bars. At least that is what we learned as our collective four children loved playing pool and feeding quarters into the jukebox while the four adults enjoyed quiet dinners sans children. I think we could agree this wasn’t a parenting highlight, but it is amazing how much easier it is to justify a decision when you have other parents involved in the decision making process. It’s as if we each said to ourselves “Well, if ‘blank’ says it is OK and we kind of trust their judgment then it must be OK.”

Vermont makes the greatest beer. This is now my new favorite beer in existence.

I have crossed that threshold where any physical activity has a 90% probability rating that it will result in injury. The kids planned, practiced and obsessed over a football game against the adults. In the past, this was a fun charade where, because we are nurturing parents, we allowed the kids to win without them realizing it. However, within 2 minutes of this football game, we realized times, they are a changin’. The kids were smart enough to implement a “wear the dads out” game plan that was genius. We were quickly down 21-0 when I decided to temporarily put them in their place. I returned a kickoff for a touchdown prancing along the way like a young Deion Sanders. That is if Deion had just about ripped his groin apart and couldn’t really walk right the remainder of the weekend.

I’d be plenty fine with hitting the “pause” button on the aging process for all of the kids right now.

Tune in next time when my family visits Washington DC right before the cherry trees are in bloom and then as we head on down to New Orleans the week after Mardi Gras.

A few ditties

Posted on August 17, 2015 by jmarkowski Posted in Family .

While I was driving my 9 year old daughter to summer camp this morning, I overheard her say to her friend “I’m pissed off …”. I have no idea what she was pissed about and it didn’t matter. She said it with such ease as it naturally rolled off of her tongue. It was wonderful. It was passionate. It was heartfelt. And I love her for it. I hope she maintains that same passion and zest for life as she gets older. She is a welcome addition to our pacifist family. And maybe she can channel that into fighting the next pipeline that will be scheduled to come directly through our family room in 2019.

I just found out that my 13 year old son sent a letter to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in opposition to the Penn East Pipeline. I haven’t read it but hope to do so soon and publish it here. Will Christie read it and does he give a rat’s ass about this pipeline? You be the judge?

Irregardless (and I use the word in anger because it doesn’t really exist) my son has such a gift for words at a young age. He communicates best through the typed page and oh how I can relate. It is fascinating to observe the drastic differences between my two children and we love the hell out of them for those differences.

Getting old alert – This is a difficult one to admit, but here it goes: My work ~~wife~~ buddy and I walked the mall today at lunch so we could up the number of steps on our Fitbits. That much I will admit. However, there is no truth to the reported rumor that we were wearing matching pure white walking shoes and fanny packs. Although I will happily admit that I dominated in Bridge later that day. Maybe I should take a little breather from fighting this pipeline? It is aging me rather quickly.

I may have been a little premature in my garden obituary from last Friday. We had family that we hadn’t seen in a long time over at our abode for a barbecue yesterday and they were exceedingly complimentary on the “landscaping”. When someone actually touches a plant and sighs with pleasure, I get a little verklempt. Yes I planted that and yes I could tell you its backstory for hours on end. And yes, I will create a garden for you wherever and whenever you want it.

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