New Year’s Eve 2019

Over the last 12 ish years, I set aside poop and pee stories for a heartfelt end of year post, filled with cliché and weepy declarations of love. However, I didn’t bring my computer on vacation for the first time in over twenty years. It was glorious. 

That makes my post woefully late. I’m hoping to trick the Mole People who construct Blogspot out of mud and dung into thinking this is actually December 31^st. If not, I’m sure the four people who actually read this will forgive and forget. 

We were in Mexico, at our usual beachy, surfy spot. But this time we came with our best friends and neighbors. We also randomly hooked up with another fun Evanston family and headed to the nicest restaurant in Sayulita. We utterly miscalculated the exchange rate, so it was lobster for everyone! Sorry, college education.

I laughed and sang and danced, which was not very on brand for me. And went home early with Luca, which was very on brand. The night ended with everyone back home banging pots and pans to ring in the new year. There might have also been some tequila in there.

Okay, now onto the good stuff.

Dear Elijah,

I honestly don’t know how you do it. Every year you get sweeter and funnier, yet maintain your status as the coolest kid on planet Earth. I know you gotta do your own thing, but remember your dad is here to listen to your troubles, or to just sit and watch TV. You’re my favorite chef, my favorite comedian, my favorite Tic-Toc star. I love you, pal.

Dear Luca,

Never in my life did I think I’d have a kid like you. So full of life, so excited, so good at sports. You defied the genetic odds! I’ll always be here to throw the football, or play Xbox or sit in the dark and listen to your secrets. You’re my favorite quarterback, sound effects machine, my favorite philosopher. I love you, pal.

Dear Diana,

My love, you are simply the greatest. You never cease to surprise me with your passion, your heart, your hilarity and your beauty. You’ve built the most wonderful life for this family and I can’t thank you enough. I’ll always be here to cuddle on the couch, eat Cheez Its and ride out the apocalypse. You’re my favorite politico, cheerleader, HGTV star and kisser. I love you, pal.

Dear Grover,

Don’t die.

A Thanksgiving Christmas Post

Shoot. I’m behind on my blogging. Again. I have lots of Christmas stories to tell, but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell the story of our Thanksgiving disaster.

We decided to host at the cabin this year. Our great pals Kitty and Joe and daughter Gigi  joined, along with my brother and his brood.

Joe and I were put in charge of food because I love cooking and Joe used to have a miserable job in fine dining. Joe and I share a deep German Lutheran work ethic and a Clark Griswold obsession with making family holidays perfect, so we had not one, but two meetings regarding the menu and preparation.

I was put in charge of the bird. Because I live in Evanston and am a moron, I bought a local, artisanal turkey which cost more than my first rent in Chicago. His name was Jeff and had been hand fed corn, received daily shoulder rubs and listened to true crime podcasts on his Apple Earbuds. He also was fond of David Sedaris short stories.

Since Jeff was fresh and not frozen (as if), we need to get him up to the cabin the night before Thanksgiving. This would allow him to get acclimated to the slight difference in elevation in Michigan. 

I packed Jeff in a giant cooler filled with ice and filled the rest of our minivan with my children and Steve’s children. I brought the kids because we’re 50% sure our cabin is haunted I was not going to deal with the Corpse Bride of Lawrence all by myself. 

I’m not sure if you remember, but the day before Thanksgiving this year was a weather mess. Wind shoved us all over the highway. Diana called to inform us of reported power outages all over the state. 

I was crawling out of a deep yelling at Elijah earlier in the day hole, so I tried to be the picture of positivity. “Hey gang! If the power is out at the cabin, everything is going to a-okay! If worse somes to worse, we’ll just skip skip skip back on home to Evanston. Sure traffic is terrible and the weather is near deadly, but we’ll sing songs!”

We turned into our driveway and everything was pitch black. But the cabin is in the middle of a forest, so pitch black is kind of the point. I opened the front door and noticed a lack of telltale security system beeps. Maybe we didn’t pay our bill? I slowly, painfully flicked a light switch.

Nada. Jeff began to sweat.

I called Diana and yelled at her because it was all her fault we met and fell in love and got married and had two wonderful children and made a beautiful life together. 

I drove into town and we went to a bar that was untouched by the outage. The Michigan power company website promised our power was almost back on. I couldn’t tell if this message was passive aggressive Midwestern torture or legit. 

I floated the idea of driving back to Evanston to the kids. Steve’s son Finn spoke for the group with a barely audible, “No.”

I couldn’t enjoy my fried perch, knowing Jeff’s time was rapidly running out. And my perfect Thanksgiving was in mortal danger. What would Joe say? 

After dinner, I suggested we head back to the cabin for one last look before the big fun drive back. Finn repeated, “No.”

Once again, I entered the darkened house. This time, I was greeted by the security system, letting me know our power was on and if I didn’t use the right code, the authorities would be there in roughly four hours.

Thanksgiving was saved! The next day was perfect. Family, friends, wonderful wine and laughs and beautiful food.

Jeff ended up pretty dry.

PARTAY

My mother’s version of a birthday party was to stick my friends in our unfinished basement and hand us a real potato in which to play hot potato. 

Nowadays (hikes up pants and peers down bifocals), parents feel obligated to spend hundreds of dollars to outdo last week’s birthday celebration. Diana and I have largely dismissed this trend and just invited kids over for some cake, a little light chasing and screaming and the occasional potato. Gift bags? Bah. Jump Zones? Bah. These kids should feel honored to be invited to our house.

Luca just wanted to have a couple dudes for a sleep over. His plan was to hide out in the basement and place Xbox. Sounded like a great birthday party to me! The invite list was originally 3 kids. Which turned to 4. And then word got out that Luca was having a sleepover extravaganza and the attendees ballooned up to 10.

Ten boys. Ten stinky, boogery, screaming, destructive boys. Crammed into our basement. I began to seriously worry about the structural integrity of our home. 

I also began to understand why parents spend hundreds of dollars to have parties offsite.

We decided to have the party at a video game bar. Because video games. And bar! The booking guy must have been one party short of his yearly bonus because he was all over me. On Thanksgiving I received four hundred emails from this guy. After some shrewd negotiation, I agreed to pay full price. 

On the day of the party, I conscripted my brother to help cart kids to the bar at 7pm. The bar was filled with people whose mothers had yelled at them to get out of the basement for one night of their lives. There was also a large contingency of Manga cross dressers. I was in heaven.

Per an earlier agreement, I allowed Elijah to pick my one drink of the night. It was a highly alcoholic red flavored base topped with a syringe filled with a bright green gin. I decided the drink was better used as decoration and just ordered a bourbon.

After two hours, five pizzas, one bourbon and three spilled sodas, the party came to an end. We all arrived back home, and the boys were so tired they fell fast asleep at 4am.

TEN

And just like that, I have no more single digit children. Eli is 12. Grover is 98. And now Luca is 10.

Sigh.

In the weeks leading up to his big day, Luca painfully curated his list: One NFL regulation whistle. One NFL regulation referee flag. One NFL regulation football tee. 

I asked Luca about maybe loosening up his list a bit so he could actually be surprised by his gifts. “But then I might not get exactly what I want,” was his reply. Once a Hamann. Always a Hamann.

Elijah, on the other hand, likes to give his gift givers a thousand options, each more expensive than the last.

Soon, Amazon.com boxes arrived containing the exact things Luca asked for. Eli took it upon himself to open every single box to make sure the knowledge of the contents could be used to torture his brother. 

As punishment for said torture, I forced Eli to help me wrap. But anyone who reads the blog knows wrapping presents gives me great, obsessive compulsive joy. Measuring. Folding. Taping. These are almost erotic activities for me. Once Eli started in on his style of wrapping (balling paper around a present like a used tissue) I banished him to watch whatever he wanted on TV.

We agreed to allow Luca to open his presents on his birthday morning, ignoring Eli’s fact-finding efforts’ revelation that Luca didn’t, in fact, leave his mother’s body until 4:44pm ten years ago. 

This posed a few problems. First, it eliminated any chance that Luca would sleep. Diana’s approach to Luca’s sleeplessness was, “Tough Tinker Toys. Get yer butt in bed and stay there.” I, being the official pushover of the house, offered to stay with him until he fell asleep. I embarked on a long journey of watching Luca devolve into a blubbering monster. Shifting from bouts of rage to weeping to total spaz-outs. 

I tried everything to get him to calm down from rage to weeping to total spaz-outs of my own. Finally, I gave up and went to my own bed at 3am. What I failed to remember was Luca knows how to work a door knob and moved his sleepless fits to our bed. Diana wordlessly took her pillow and dog and moved to our guestroom.

Which leads to the second problem. No one told Luca when morning technically starts. He raced around our house at o-dark o’clock, waking everyone, his body oblivious to the previous night. Diana and I melted down the stairs and onto the couch. Eli flat out refused to participate since he already knew what was inside all the presents. 

Luca tore in. One NFL regulation whistle. One NFL regulation referee flag. One NFL regulation football tee. 

I have never seen a child run around a house shouting, “I got a football tee! I got a football tee!”

But then he got to Grandma Connie’s presents. She…gasp…went rogue. No presents from the list. A Bears jersey. A Bears game. Bears books. Cubs books. Bears gloves. Everywhere Luca’s gaze fell, Bears Bears Bears. He was elated. And actually surprised.

After I got ready for work, I found Luca reading his Bears book while sitting on a catatonic Diana, who was laying prone on the couch.

New Job

Sorry I’ve been negligent about the old blog lately. I had a kinda weird couple weeks. Mostly because I changed jobs. 

Bam! HamannEggs plot twist!

I won’t bore you with the myriad of reasons I switched. I am excited about the new move and hope this will be the last time you hear of me switching jobs for a long, long time. Because the little crystal in my hand is going to light up any day now and I’ll have to be Renewed from advertising (“Logan’s Run” – 1976).

I don’t love switching jobs. Figuring out the coffee situation, followed closely by figuring out the bathroom situation.  Plus I have to go through the whole process of selecting and viciously beating a weak inmate in the yard.

As much as I dislike changing jobs, Luca hates it a thousand times more. As we were discussing this move as a family, Luca was the lone dissenter. Often bursting into tears at the mere mention of me moving literally 3 blocks down Lake street to do the exact same job.

At night, I would lay with him in his bunk and try to both calm his nerves and figure out the core of his beef with the move. After several hundred “I just don’t like it” responses, I came to discover his real issue boiled down to…

Interior design.

He liked the way my previous agency looked. It was a cool place with bean bags and nerf guns and wacky junk on people’s desks. As a result, it made his father seem cool. 

I assured him my new office would have just as much curated whimsy. I promised him a whole world of knickknacks and funky posters and inside jokes taped to cubicles. But he wasn’t convinced.

In the days leading up to my new gig, Luca did his best to be supportive. By asking me if I was nervous every seven minutes. “Are you nervous, Daddy? Are you nervous? Are you more excited or more nervous? Daddy? Are you feeling nervous?”

“I am now!” I snapped. 

On my first day, I took several digital photos of our super cool office to ease Luca’s anxiety. And my own. The giant eight ball that looks like it crashed into a wall. The “F*ck Yeah” spelled in balloon letters in the kitchen. The inspirational/scary messages painted in huge black letters everywhere.

But then I saw it: The Coke machine. One of those things you find at the movies where you can choose from a million different flavors and fill your cup and fill it again and again until you have the most glorious Diabetes ever.

When I showed this to Luca, his eyes lit up. “You. Have. The. Greatest. Job. EVER!”

Instead of the constant “Are you nervous?” refrain, Luca now asks, “When can I see the Coke machine?”

Baby’s First Humiliating Defeat

I woke up extra early last Sunday to surprise Luca with Bears tickets. One of Diana’s customers hooked us up with two seats and we all know Luca’s stance on sports. I found Luca on the blue couch that serves as his Youtube nest and showed him the digital surprise.

Luca tried his best to feign shock, but he totally knew. On their best day, the CIA can’t come close to our sons’ ability to surveil every pixel that enters our house. “Wow! I totally did not know you had purchased two 200 level tickets in the north end zone approximately three and a half weeks ago, father.”

Whatever, he was still excited. Because we are Hamanns, we left the house at 9:45am for the noon kick off. The day was simply glorious. Sunny, crisp, portending no last second coaching gaffs. We enjoyed a couple ice cold hot dogs before the fans started streaming in.

I’d forgotten the, uh, special disposition of most Bears fans. Luca and I had been to a few Cubs games, where the atmosphere is decidedly more country club-esc. Bears fans seem to communicate exclusively through primal screams. We were also seated among hard core season ticket holders who had been using the section as their personal VFW hall for decades.

After explaining to me he had missed only two games over the last 25 years, one man shouted across Luca to some fellow season ticket holders, “Remember when I stuck that hot dog down your coat? Watch out, ‘cause I am hot dogging you again today. You sonofabitch! You watch!”

The hot dog victim was an unironic cast member of the Saturday Night Live “Da’ Bears” skit. He was double fisting vodka tonics, surrounded by three generations of family. He looked wistfully at Luca, who was wearing a brand-new Bears ski hat.

“I think it’s great that you brought your daughter to the game. We need more daughters here. I’ve been bringing my girl to the games for thirty years. And now she’s getting married to this sonofabitch here. Maybe you will find your husband at the game, little lady.”

Luca immediately began to cry.

I tried to explain that these people were harmless and were going to make the game super fun.

Luca said, “I’m scared.”

I said, “Me too. But the good kind of scared.”

The game started and Luca settled down. And even returned a few fist bumps from the “Da’ Bears” man.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about my absolute favorite person in attendance, who sat directly to my right. He was the spitting image of my second SNL reference of the post, Chris Farley. Red haired and jolly, this man reacted to every positive play by either lifting me into his arms like an infant or sending me sprawling across three or four rows of seats. At one point, he removed a sack of hot meat from one pocket and several tortillas from the other. “Do you mind if I eat some pocket tacos, Richard?” No, I did not. Because I loved him.

If you recall the game from two weeks ago, the whole thing ended with a smattering of coaching snafus mixed with a game losing field goal miss. The whole disaster unfolded at our end of the field, which was exciting. The apoplectic reaction of our new friends was terrifying. Sixty year old women around us were hurling buckets of obscenities onto the field. Luca and I spent the last two minutes of the game exchanging exaggerated, “Oooo, did you hear that swear?” looks.

In the end, Luca loved the game. Almost as much as he loves the stupidly expensive jersey he conned me into buying on the way out.   

Apples

I love our cabin. It’s beautiful, peaceful and allows us to watch TV in a completely different state. TV feels so naughty when surrounded by countless things to do outside. Even Grover, who by all accounts is an animal, prefers to spend his cabin time watching us watch TV from the comfort of our big couch.

Occasionally, though, we do like to at least attempt to visit the surrounding area to justify the drive.

Diana and Luca selected apple picking as opposed to our usual activity: admiring the junk people throw into the creek.

I had never been apple picking, so I was rather excited to get dressed up in my best Autumn Man outfit and do Autumn things. I was a little confused about the whole process. Do they let you just grab apples off the bushes or trees or wherever apples come from? What about worms? Do you get to keep those? Would there be a charming fire? And what about the whole hayride business?

Diana selected an orchard near a town with a restaurant she hoped was worthy of us leaving our TV (it was not). It seemed charming enough. Lots of barns and cinnamon smells and people wearing plaid. However, the entrance featured a giant “for sale” sign. Did that mean seasonal fruit picking isn’t a Fortune 500 business?

We skipped down the road, arm in arm, and were met at the entrance by a man in a gigantic, bushy white walrus mustache. He gave us the basics. Buy a two cent bag for three dollars, pick some apples, take your Christmas card photo and be on your way. Cool. Seemed simple enough.

Before we left him, he smiled brightly. “Now. I want to make a few things clear.” He bent down to Luca and said, “I noticed you threw a rock on your way down here. If I see you throw another rock, I’ll kick you out. If you throw an apple, I’ll throw you out. If you climb a tree, I’ll throw you out. If you do anything I don’t like, I’ll throw you out.”

Was he joking? His smile was so bright. But his words were so dickish. The “For Sale” sign was starting to make sense.

We shuffled past him, confused. It definitely darkened out picking. I, ever the rule follower, spent the entire time agitated. I barked at Eli and Luca not to touch that. Don’t eat that! You’re gonna get us kicked out! Stop that.

Luckily, the family ignored me and had a great time. They picked many apples, took many photos. We even visited the big barn to explore their antique rest rooms.

All in all, it was a successful trip outside our cabin’s walls. As a bonus, we saw a couple doing a naked photo shoot just off I-94 on our way home.

Competition

When my brother and I used to play tennis, our games would last hours and hours. We’re both so anti-competitive that we’d each try to let the other twin win. All lobs. No kill shots. I mean, what if there were hurt feelings? How could we survive?

In fact, I’ve gone most of my life not really caring if I won or lost. I’m a people pleaser. I get more joy out of Diana’s brother destroying me at Trivial Pursuit than if I had collected all the little pie thingies myself.

Which brings me to football. Digital football. As you recall, Luca and I negotiated the purchase of the Madden 2020 game a few weeks ago. Luca held up his side of the bargain: picking up Grover’s yard leavings. I’ll admit, I’ve secretly picked up some poop here and there because Luca likes to wait until the yard is brimming with doo doo before he does his job. But it’s working out.

However, I’ve found that this game has released a demon in me. A competitive, obnoxious, jerkface who wants nothing more than to destroy his children.

At the beginning, it was pretty easy. The boys were a little slow on the strategic side of the game, so I would beat them handily. During one game, Elijah accidentally used all his time outs and I let time expire while never losing eye contact. When Luca raged at his losses, I would lecture him about sportsmanship and dared him to get good enough to beat the old man.

Which took about six hours.

Luca now absolutely demolishes me in the game. The scores are embarrassing. 14-48. 7-602. And because I am an adult who knows losing a video game is meaningless, I act like a total baby. I throw controllers. I scream at the screen. I accuse Luca of cheating. I threaten to never play the game again and throw the X-box into the Lake Michigan.

At first, this used to scare/bum Luca out. After my rages, I explained to him that I’m not mad at him, I am mad at myself. And Carson Wentz’s terrible accuracy when scrambling.

Now Luca takes sick pleasure in making his mild mannered, placid father into a raving lunatic. He taunts me. He screams, “Let’s GO!” when he scores, which he knows I hate because it’s what Tom Brady shouts. And worst of all, he patronizingly pats me on the head and murmurs, “Good job, Daddy” when he runs up a 0-364 final.

In order to keep me from having a heart attack, we’ve agreed to adjust our match ups. I always play the best teams in the league and Luca happily chooses the Dolphins to disembowel his old man. But at least the games are close.

I can still beat Eli, though. And that makes me half happy.

F

When I was a kid, my dad used to say, “I don’t care what grades you get, just so long as you try your hardest.” I took this as instruction to stress myself into a decades long panic attack. With the boys, Diana and I are attempting to reduce the Hamann inclination to make mountains out of scholastic mole hills.

We may have been a bit too successful with Elijah.

The other night, he and I were playing video games and Eli casually said, “So, Dad. I’m doing pretty well in my classes. All A’s and B’s. But I missed one measly assignment in LA (Language Arts) and I have an F. But I’m turning it in tomorrow, so I’ll be fine.”

This was genius, because he knew I wouldn’t have the brain power to pay attention while I was trying to destroy him in the digital Super Bowl.

I believe my response was, “Yeah yeah yeah. I don’t care something something just so long as you try hard or something. Damn it! What button is for tackling?”

The next day, when my brain was firing on all cylinders, I received an email from his LA teacher that said Eli was, in fact, getting an F because he had “several” missing assignments. Several? Several? What does “several” mean?

At the same moment, Diana texted me, “Ooh. Eli is in trouuuuuuble.”

I emailed the teacher back in my best Dad Voice. I used words like “unacceptable” and “post haste.”  

When I arrived home later, I simply held out my hand for Eli’s phone. He knew he was busted. No screens until I had written confirmation from his teacher that all his assignments were in. Plus, a punishment to be determined once I conferred with his mother.

Eli is such a sweet kid. I felt bad for being so hard on him. But I worried if we didn’t discipline him, he won’t eventually become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (Ref: “The Simpsons” season 4, ep 6).

Eli went to his room to sulk, not even coming down for delicious calzones made by our amazing babysitter, Vince.

He later showed me electronic evidence that all his assignments were in, but I held to my demand that his teacher confirm everything in writing. Apparently, his teacher isn’t addicted to her phone like the other 99.999999% of the planet, because we didn’t hear back from her most of the weekend.

Non-screen hands are the devil’s workshop. Eli spent the weekend requiring our undivided attention. But not in a cute “I wuv you” kind of way. His attentions were more punitive. And poor Luca was on the receiving end of almost constant brotherly abuse. At one point, Eli ran up from the basement demanding as many towels as he could carry.

Eventually, his teacher emailed me back assuring me that Eli was back in her good graces, with the subtext that maybe I should lighten up a bit. He got his phone back and gobbled it up like a man who hadn’t eaten in months.

His other, longer punishment is to clean the dishes every night for the foreseeable future. He does this with much clanging and banging, disturbing Diana and my obsession with the show “Succession.” So, I usually end up telling him to leave the dishes for me.

Lawyer Up

Remember my ode to neighbor Paul a few weeks ago? One of the things I love about him is his utter okay-ness with my son and his son destroying his lawn with sports. Over the summer, they carved out a baseball diamond in his poor grass. Rather than punish them (like I would), Paul nailed up a Wrigley Field “Watch for foul balls” sign on his garage.

But as the air crisps and the leaves change, the boys have switched their attention to football. The sport of kings? Sure. I discovered this by way of the makeshift goal posts clamped to our fence, constructed from PVC pipe.

Luca is now in 100% football mode, or as the early 2000’s would say, Beast Mode. He even joined his school’s flag football team (more on that in a later post). And with this change, his video game tastes have changed.

Over dinner with the cousins a few Saturdays ago, Luca broached the subject of buying the newest Madden Xbox game. He was a little gun shy, because all Xbox games are obscenely expensive and he was entering the time of the year when “Your birthday is coming” is the way I, uh, punt those conversations away.

Luca asked if we could come to a deal to get the game early. Little did he know, I was enjoying a tasty bourbon and was lubricated enough to buy him anything.

I offered the game in exchange for picking up Grover’s poop for the rest of the year. Luca began crying because he felt he was being dealt a bad deal.

“No no no, you don’t understand. That was my opening offer. Now we negotiate. You and I go back and forth until we have a deal.”

Luca wasn’t quite sure what to do, so cousin Finn offered to act as his proxy. Finn was a tough negotiator because the idea of picking up dog poop sickened him on every level.

Elijah stepped in for me. I was happy because Eli once negotiated me into buying him 4 pounds of candy from Amazon.com.

The kids went ‘round and ‘round, eventually landing on poop clean-up for the next eight weeks, with harsh penalties for skipping doodie duties. I wasn’t really paying attention, as I was deep in my own negotiations with my brother over whether a second bourbon was a terrible idea or an awful idea.

Deal done, we went home and bought the game. Eli did us the favor of writing up a completely un-legal document. If you look closely, you’ll see Luca purposely misspelled his name in case we have to go to court.

Skunks

The purpose of this blog is to give Elijah and Luca a semi exaggerated snapshot of their lives growing up. It makes sense that 99.9% of the posts are related to them and their bodily fluids. Occasionally, I like to expand the aperture a bit to include neighbors, friends and other bedroom community silliness.

This is one of those silliness…es.

We hit the jackpot when it comes to neighbors. Our northern border is occupied by our very best friends, Lexa and Chris and their daughters, whose names I refuse to learn how to spell correctly. The fact that Lexa drives Diana to get her eyeball shots every single month sums her up perfectly. Chris is the mellowest, yoga-est instigator you’ve ever met. His laid back, dulcet voice recently convinced me to ride a skateboard for the first time in my life, down Evanston’s largest hill. More on him later.

Our neighbors to the south are a hive of the cutest humans on the planet. The children sing gleeful songs on their back porch at 6am. I have never seen mom Kelly frown once. Ever. Paul is a dad from a bygone era. If I look over the fence, he is either building something for his children or teaching them how to throw a perfect spiral. He’s almost flawless. Almost.

Paul harbors an unnatural hatred for our local skunk population. Every skunk in the Chicagoland area got the message that Evanston is filled with pacifists, so hundreds of them strut across our yards nightly with Pepe Le Pew like abandon.

Where I merely request aloud they refrain from spraying our geriatric dog, Paul fights them with every tool in his arsenal. His yard is littered with lemons and limes, rumored to be a deterrent. Given how fat they all are, I assume the skunks are using them to make pies. Paul also purchased a gigantic flashlight to scare them off, powerful enough to illuminate Saturn from his back door.

Because we are bored and our children no longer want to hang out with us, Chris and I have made it our mission to torment Paul, skunk-style.

A year ago, we bought a stuffed skunk and placed it in the middle of Paul’s yard after dark. With the help of Kelly, we filmed Paul attempting to scare off the inanimate critter. Hilarity ensued.

Okay, time out. Yes, I know there are real problems in the world. Yes, I know it’s only because of our upper middle-class privilege that we can engage in such stupidity. But please let me have this.

When this year’s skunkvasion hit, Chris wanted to up the ante. A stuffed skunk no longer gave us the same thrill.

So we purchased two adult sized skunk costumes and stood in Paul’s yard dressed head to toe in hot black fur. When Paul looked out his back door, he saw two six foot tall rodents drinking bourbon and playing croquet. Why bourbon? Why croquet? Partly because Chris is a poet. Mostly because we hatched the plan while drinking.

Paul reacted the way anyone would: by pelting us with lemons and limes.

Now, when Paul points out skunks to his youngest (and more adorable) daughter, she responds, “Those aren’t skunks. Skunks are Rick.”

The Greatest/Worst Cub Game Ever Pt2.

Sorry about the delay. I took most of the week off and have been passionately doing nothing.

Where were we? Oh yes, Luca and I had finished our psychological warfare all resulting in a couple tickets to the Cub game. Once there, we settled in to our great seats (Thanks again, Gary).

We watched the parade of ceremonial first pitch thrower-outers. Some corporate guy! Twin girls! Country Western star Frankie Ballard!

It just so happened that Country Western star Frankie Ballard had seats right in front of us. His band was an amazing collection of knuckle tattoos, long beards and dusty snap button shirts. Some didn’t even drink beer, so you know there was some dark stuff in their pasts.

Although his publicity shots are of a clean cut, lanky, pompadour pretty boy, Frankie was wearing a white Cub’s hat and jersey, gold rings and pair of Elvis sunglasses. So, I’d appreciate it if you’d read any future Frankie dialogue with an Elvis voice.

I made my typical dad small talk. “So, first pitches, huh? You really zipped it over the plate, there.”

“Thank ya. Thank ya very much.”

From the moment the game started, Luca could not stop chattering. Stats, anecdotes, possibly made up details of every plater.

Frankie leaned over his chair and addressed Luca. I though he was going to tell him to shut up, instead he said, “Hey little man. You sure do like baseball, huh? You ever see yourself a real Major League baseball?”

Luca shook his head.

Frankie tossed him a ball. “That there is a genuine first pitch baseball. I want you to have it, man.”

Luca began levitating a few inches off his seat. Luca thanked him profusely and I shook his hand like an 80 year old man.

Frankie went up to do the 7^th inning stretch and I suggested to Luca that we have Frankie sign the ball when he came back and I’d buy one of those plastic cubes for displaying. 

Frankie was flattered that Luca wanted his autograph and his bandmates gave him some good natured ribbing. Ball signed, Luca put in its display case and held it gingerly. The ball promptly fell out of the case and rolled out of sight.

For a second, Luca looked as though someone slapped him in the face. Then huge tears fell from his eyes as he completely lost it. One of Frankie’s bandmates raced to buy a new ball and Frankie quickly signed it.

Luca heaved, “It’s…not…the…first…pitch…ball!”

I knelt down and grabbed Luca by the shoulders. “Luca. You gotta get it together. Frankie got you a new ball. It’s almost as good. Maybe even better. Don’t do this. Take a deep breath.”

Luca heaved, “It’s…not…the…first…pitch…ball!”

Frankie leapt out of his seat. “I recon we can find that there ball. Let’s go, boys!”

Frankie and his band spread out across the section. The Cub fans were more than happy to let half drunk honkytonk boys reach between their legs among the hot dog wrappers and nacho cheese.

Suddenly, Frankie held the ball in the air. “I got it!” Perfection.

Luca hugged Frankie and Frankie whispered in his ear, “I love baseball almost as much as you, kid.”

All was right in the universe.

The Greatest/Worst Cub Game Ever Pt 1.

This is another two-parter. Stay with me. It’s worth it.

All summer, Luca begged to come to work with me. Sure, you can come. Next week. Next week. Next weeeeeeeek.

Suddenly, I was looking down the barrel of a promise with only a few days left of summer break. I had a pretty clear Friday, so I decided to bring the little guy in. I also tacked on a surprise Cub game, you know, to distract from the lateness of my…everything.

I texted Diana to let her in on the plan. I also explained to Eli why I didn’t love him enough to take him to the game (This was actually to even out the Youtube concert I took Eli to earlier in the summer. It’s a great blog post).

The night before, Diana told me that Luca knew everything, since he monitors all her communications like the CIA group tasked with catching Jason Bourne. However, he wanted to give me the pleasure of surprising him, so he was planning on playing possum.

There is nothing more delightful than a child lying to you all day. Rather than let him off the hook, I spent the day turning the knife.

I suggested he wear his Cubs jersey to work, you know, to look nice. Luca and I locked eyes. I knew that he knew. But did he know that I knew that he knew? Luca suspiciously dressed. Yes, you can dress suspiciously.

I was living in a 1980’s sitcom.

On the commute in, Luca kept up the act. “I can’t wait to spend the day at your work. The WHOLE day.”

I named fictional restaurants we could visit for lunch. “Maybe we can go to Michael Jackson’s steakhouse. They have great burgers.” So…many…other…jokes.

My co-workers dropped by to help in my psychological warfare (and suck up). They’d marvel at his Cubs jersey and ask if we were going to the game. They’d even offer to score us tickets. Luca would sit silently, confused as to if this was all part of the plan. It was.

I had a few dumb meetings and then it was time to spring the trap. I glanced at my tickets (Thank you, Gary Doyle) and realized WE WERE LATE.

After that whole build up, I quickly packed my junk and said, “Look. I know you know what’s up. Let’s skip this charade and get to the game.”

Luca said, “Yay!” Everyone wins.

And then we met a celebrity, snatched a ball, lost it, found it, cried, laughed, hugged and many other things, all to be revealed in pt 2.

Stay tuned.

A Caterpillar I Guess?

It’s no mystery how I come up with HamannEggs stories. Something strange or funny or sad or poop-filled happens to or near me. Then I mentally think, “Blog post!” One to seven weeks later, poof, a couple hundred words appear online. Complete with at least three proofreading errors.

Sometimes the HamannEggs come fast and furious. They get stacked up and I have to hustle to get them out before I forget.

Other times, there’s a H.E. drought. Where the boys just kind of live their lives. They watch YouTube without getting accosted by Trolls. They play Fornite without smashing our TV. They go on Pokemon Go hunts without getting kidnapped even once.

It’s kind of glorious. But man, it’s bad for the Blog business.

Last Saturday, Luca asked to go on a Pokemon hunt and I thought, “Don’t you mean a Blog material hunt?” I prayed for rain so I’d have something to write about.

We made it a block from our house when a dude started calling after us. A-ha! A scoop! The man looked like he could engage us in a lengthy conversation about his manifesto. You know, five percent stabby. It was a risk I was willing to take.

Fortunately or unfortunately, he just really wanted to show us a caterpillar. It was big and bright and creepy. Not exactly front page material, but it was something.

I suggested we take the caterpillar home and confine it in a jar. Maybe it would turn into a beautiful butterfly. Maybe it would die. Either way, I could fill my HamannEggs quota.

Luca was very concerned about keeping the caterpillar alive. Okay, fine. We filled a Mason jar with grass and sticks and some water. We invited the cuter than cute neighbors over to help us name it. Their suggestions were hardly blogworthy. Come on. “Greeny?” Sheesh.

We set the jar outside and I mentally reminded myself to check on it the next morning. Maybe I’d get to write a funny caterpillar funeral story.

Diana came home from work and made us set the creature free. Her reasoning was something anti-Trump. We tipped over the jar and the little guy crawled out, definitely not to be immediately eaten by a raccoon.

So, yeah. Caterpillars are neat, huh? School starts soon, so maybe one of the kids will fall in love or have a bathroom accident.

D&D

When Elijah and Luca were away at camp, I was in Germany to attend some meetings during an intense heat wave. I learned two things: 1. Germans do not believe in air conditioning. 2. At exactly 94 degrees, I begin to smell like a dumpster poured into a sewer.

After one such meeting, I was enjoying a comically large German beer while chatting with a delightful client. This client is the type of guy who wants to start a metal band called “German Blade Factory” after hearing the phrase in an ad about shaving supplies.

During one of our competitions about whose kids are the weirdest, he mentioned that he and his kids had recently bonded over the game Dungeons and Dragons. I blurted out, “What the hell are you talking about?”

D&D is still a thing? People actually play it? Better yet, children will actually do something that doesn’t involve Fortnite and/or Youtube?

Yes, German Blade Factory said. His kids loved it. They use their imaginations and solve problems and don’t fight each other.

You can tell by my excitement that I was a lonely, underweight child growing up. Despite not playing in over 30 years, I immediately purchased waaaaay too much Dungeons and Dragons stuff online. So much stuff that Diana accused me of drinking and shopping the next day. She was right.

I arrived home from Germany to an empty home and too much time on my hands. Which means trouble. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to entice the boys to play D&D with a pile of books and the recommendations of German Blade Factory.

I did what any idiot would: I threw more money at it. I visited not one, but two role playing game stores. I had many dorky conversations and purchased many maps and figurines and dice. So many dorky conversations.

When the boys arrived home from camp, I had all my newly purchased D&D stuff displayed on the dining room table. “Huh? Huh? What do you guys think? Huh? Swords. Ooh…look at that dragon. Oh! A Bugbear! Huh? Pretty cool, right?”

In unison, the boys unenthusiastically said, “Coooooooool.”

After some threatening and bribing, they agreed to join me in one game of D&D Sunday night. I even convinced Diana to join because she is a woman prone to pity. Out of nowhere, our neighbor girls joined in because their mother is prone to pity.

I turned off the lights, lit every candle in the house and adopted an ill-advised British accent that I couldn’t maintain. And man, I tried my best. I tried to weave a world of magic and sorcery and danger. I made sound effects. I acted out Goblins and Dwarves and scruffy, sword wielding vagabonds.

I knew I was in trouble when Diana silently stood up, poured her wine into my glass and patted me on the head before heading upstairs to her trashy novel. The neighbor girls decided “flirt with him” was their best move for any battle. Eli could barely keep his head off the table.

My only ally was Luca, who was utterly enthralled and begged to continue as the game disintegrated.  I told him we needed more than 2 people to play the game and he suggested we go to one to one of the dice stores to recruit members. But I couldn’t do that to him.

The next day, I found all my D&D stuff packed away in a sad little box. I packed the box away in my special Rick area in the basement, next to the canned goods, bottled water and other emergency supplies.

I figured D&D would be the perfect way to pass the time during the apocalypse.

CAMP

It’s been a little tough filling my HamannEggs quota because the boys have been at sleep away camp the last two weeks. Two loooooong weeks. The house has been disturbingly quiet without the pitter patter of screaming little feet. It’s been compounded by the fact we receive almost zero communication from Elijah and Luca, except for THE WORST CAMP NOTE IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Which I’ll get to in a bit.

The days leading up to camp were fairly easy. I was on packing duty, which I realized was my calling in life. Checking off lists? Folding? Placing things in bags, and then putting those bags into larger bags? I find myself getting a little aroused just writing about it.

Elijah was pretty Elijah about leaving for camp. Floppy haired and easy going. That’s his way. However, dark clouds approached in Lucaland. Those nervous, anxiety ridden genes I donated 9 years ago cracked their knuckles and said, “Let’s do this.” 

The night before drop off, Luca couldn’t sleep. He was too nervous. That about the swim test? What if his cabin mates were jerks? What if he got ticks? What if the food was bad? What if he couldn’t sleep? What if an asteroid hit the camp? WHAT ABOUT THE SWIM TEST?

I tried my best to calm him using bits and pieces I’ve picked up in my search to calm my own gurgling anxiety. Little bits of Psych 101, A smidgen of Zen, a little talking it out. I gave him all my tools except Bourbon, which we all know is the real secret. Eventually he drifted into a fitful sleep.

We decided to wake up extra early because camp drop off is a nightmare. 4 million kids cramming into 7 buses with no rhyme or reason. And 8 million parents getting in the way. Luca took one look at this chaos and his lower lip stuck out in an uncontrollable and exaggerated pout.

I grabbed Eli by the shoulders. “You HAVE to help your brother. I know he drives you nuts, but he’s scared and sad and you need to step up and big brother this. Your goal is to sit with him on a bus, any bus. Even the ‘Peanut Free Bus.’ There is a zero percent chance Luca will get bullied on the ‘Peanut Free Bus.’”

Eli immediately got separated from us.

We finally got everyone back together and to a bus entrance. Luca was in near hysterics. Tears streamed down his face. His little lower lip quivered and he kept turning around to hug Diana and I to cry. My emotional system completely shut down and I stood there muttering, “Everyone…on..the..bus. Busses…on…get.”

Once we reached the bus entrance, the helpful camp counselor cheerfully said, “Bus is full everybody! Go find a new one!” This reminded me of John Candy’s character in “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” “Sorry folks. Park’s closed. The moose out front shoulda told ya.”

We got into the next bus line and once we made it to the front, another cheerful counselor said, “Sorry folks. Park’s closed. The moose out front shoulda told ya.”

By the time we got to the third rejection, Luca had lost all pretense of keeping his sh*t together. He just went into full panic mode. He approached the fourth bus like a cat being thrown into a tub full of ice water. Eli dragged him on with look that said, “Gee thanks Mom and Dad. I can’t wait for this 5 hour drive sitting next to a plate of Jell-O.”

Diana and I went home and immediately wrote to Luca. There’s a little portal where you can type and email and the campers respond with a hand written note. We expected a note back saying, “Hey Mom and Dad! Camp is great. I have lots of friends. I’ve been voted King of Camp. I am now proficient in archery, wallet making and have gotten to first base twice.” Nope. His note, written in the hand of a hostage, spoke of sleepless nights, crying, fear and loathing.

To make matters worse, he refused to write us back after several pleading attempts from Diana. He also received all my passive aggressive DNA.

Eventually, we got a note that revealed he was, in fact, having fun. Thank the Camp Gods.

We also received a note from Eli saying he would not be writing us notes.

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