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 Our Man of the House, Chris Erskine, has moved to Saturdays along with the rest of the Home section. On Thursdays, we give you a teensy peek into his fevered, suburban brain:
It’s raining steadily -- in the key of B-flat –- the drops pinging against the windows and burping down the downspouts. Honestly, I don’t know how much more of this winter weather I can take.
“What’s that sound?” the little guy asks.
“A nor-easter,” I say.
“Dad, we live in L.A.,” says the little girl.
“We do?”
Love the rain. Without fail, the first real rain of the year comes just after I clean the skylight or wash both cars. For dads with a god complex -– and that’s most of the ones I’ve ever met -– washing the skylight is a surefire way to take complete control of the nation’s weather systems.
“I think,” says Posh, with a shiver, “that I’ll put a fire in the fireplace.”
Spreads heat everywhere she goes, that woman. Bad enough she’s started wearing sweaters again, in broad daylight, with children around.
She’s my Bond girl. My muse. My very best pal. When she puts on a sweater and starts a fire in the fireplace, it’s almost more romance than I can accommodate. “What do you want for dinner?” she asks.
Yarn! That sweater! You!
“How 'bout hamburgers?” Posh purrs.
Can't wait to read the rest tomorrow? Try cooling your heels in the Erskine Archive.
Our Man of the House, Chris Erskine, has moved to Saturdays along with the rest of the Home section. On Thursdays, we give you a teensy peek into his fevered, suburban brain: Let me describe this little soccer team. They seem to be constructed of spare IKEA parts, the stuff left over after you assemble the new coffee table. Most of them still have puppy breath, which they exhale through their mouths and ears. Some of them breathe through their butts. Trust me, if you’ve ever been in a huddle with a bunch of 5-year-old soccer players, you know what I mean.
“Men, we have the potential to be a great, great team,” I say.
“We do?” asks one.
“Yes, we do,” I say.
They nod and smile, not sure what to make of me, their coach, their Moses. I am older than most of their houses. I smell of cheap Dominican cigars and apparently give myself my own haircuts. My clothes don’t fit so great. My face is always flushed. To them, I am not unlike the clowns who entertain at birthday parties.
“Your dad is so funny,” one player tells my son.
“I know,” the little guys says. “Some people don’t like that.”
Can't wait to read the rest on Saturday? Then dip into the Erskine Archive.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Our Man of the House, Chris Erskine, has moved to Saturdays along with the rest of the Home section. Today, we give you a teensy peek into his fevered, suburban brain: It’s only September and our kids have already broken out the Christmas mugs, guzzling big vats of hot chocolate, sometimes laced with coffee for added energy, sometimes laced with other stuff to calm their jangled nerves. Parenting tip No. 1: Lock the liquor cabinet. Swallow the key.
"You been drinking?" I ask the little guy the other morning before kindergarten.
"Dad?"
"Huh?"
"You think anybody could live here sober?" he asks.
Well, those weren’t his words exactly, but that’s the drift. He’s had his frustrations lately with home and school. Kindergarten is so regimented. The lines of authority too rigid.
So we now walk him into class each morning, forgoing the carpool line and hoofing it to that shimmering schoolhouse on the hill. In the first week, we discovered that if you don’t walk him personally to the kindergarten door, that he will somehow wind up down at the local supermarket, ordering deli food.
Can't wait to read the rest tomorrow? Try cooling your heels in the Erskine Archive.
-- Veronique de Turenne
Here it is, our weekly sneak peak into the fevered brain of Chris Erskine, our Man of the House: For two months, we have been getting these big yellow pumpkin blossoms but no gourds. What gives?
“I read on the Internet ...” Posh says.
Here we go again. More witchcraft from the Internet. Posh goes on to explain that, since there is a shortage of bees, it is left up to us to cross-pollinate the pumpkins.
Who says married people have no sex life?
According to the Web, pollinating the pumpkins involves identifying the male blossoms and the female blossoms and shaking pumpkin pollen from one to the next. Sort of like detasseling corn, I guess. Or chaperoning a seventh-grade dance.
This feels very god-like, even for an Alpha Dad like me. But I’m game. If this is what it takes to get pumpkins pregnant and save Halloween, then so be it. I’ll be bottling pumpkin wine before you can say....
“Um, we’ve got a problem,” Posh says after checking out the pumpkin blossoms.
“Just one?”
“They’re all boys,” Posh explains.
Read Chris' columns each Saturday in our Home & Garden section. And here's his full archive.
Our Man of the House, Chris Erskine, has moved to Saturdays along with the rest of the Home section. On Thursdays, we give you a teensy peek into his fevered, suburban brain. Today, we pick up with our hero still on a visit to his mom in the Midwest: By the second day here, your eyes were the color of root beer. You smelled of musty pool towels and bug spray. You filed for divorce that day — from me, your father.
Really, it wasn’t my idea to try to teach you golf. You wanted to learn, remember? You took to the sport right away, heaving your club about 15 feet in frustration. You hail from a long line of guys who threw their three-irons a lot farther than they were able to actually hit their three-irons. When I said we are generally a happy people, I meant everywhere but the golf course.
I tried to save the relationship by taking you fishing. You liked that better. We dug worms in Grandma’s backyard then headed to a nearby pond, where we sought out the mighty sunfish, one of the greatest sports fish to ever laze about a shady pier.
The first sunfish had to go 4 ounces, easy, and nearly pulled you out of your flip-flops. After that you seemed to get the swing of things. With your Uncle John’s help, you were Hemingway. You were the Young Man and the Sea.
For the column in full, see Saturday's Home section. For past columns, check out the Erskine Archive (stop laughing) right here.
-- Veronique de Turenne
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Our Man of the House, Chris Erskine, has moved to Saturdays along with the rest of the Home section. On Thursdays, we give you a teensy peek into his fevered, suburban brain: