Ping

 

Recital

 I have a little ukulele at my desk I like to pluck at in between meetings or when meetings get boring or when anyone but me is talking. It’s a super fun distraction and I’ve learned timeless hits like “Super Mario Bros Theme” and “Sponge Bob End Credits Theme.”

I also harbor a desire to start the Hamann Family Band and travel coast to coast in our trippy school bus playing state fairs and, um, solving mysteries?

The boys, as you know, have been taking piano lessons for years. Which involves ignoring the piano for 6 days and 23 hours and lying to their instructor for an hour a week. 

Since we are all indoor people now, their instructor suggested a virtual recital. Every kid taped themselves playing a selected work and then they were uploaded…somewhere. Presumably a place where we could watch the other kids’ videos. Hahahahahaha.

Luca was up first. I was cameraman. His attitude, like mine, was “let’s get this knocked out while my next video game is loading.” I pressed play, he played his song once, done. Bing bang boom. 

Elijah was a little tougher. He really wanted it to be perfect. He combed his hair and everything. Granted, his song was more difficult than Luca’s, but he kept getting tripped up at the same part. We could see the little musical bend in the road from a mile away, but every time our piano would careen off and into the ravine.  

5 videos turned to 10 which turned to 20. He became increasingly upset. I have one of the videos here for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1Ugqh471IE

I suggested taking a break or running the part a few times or remembering that literally no one is going to watch his recital except mom and me. But every time he would mess up he’d throw himself on the keys or rip at his sweatshirt or toss his sheet music across the room. 

I took the opportunity to work on my cameraman skills. I would zoom in on his fingers or pan across the ivories or slowly follow a tear down his cheek.

After much ado, he made it through. Nailed it. Perfection. He snatched the phone from my hands to see the video.

Now, often times I exaggerate on the blog for comedic effect. But I am being dead honest. 

I did that thing where you press “stop” when you mean “play” and vice versa. Yes, I am a sitcom dad from the 1990s. I am Danny Tanner incarnate. 

Eli burst out laughing. It was the perfect tension breaker and shifted the blame from him to me, where I was happy for it to live. He made it through with no other issues and we uploaded the video into the great expanse of the internet.

COVID Scare

On the day they announced Biden’s victory (see my last, kinda maudlin post), we invited a few people over for drinks and burgers. Yeah, I know we’re living through a deadly pandemic. But democracy! And we’ve been really safe. What would one tinsy little party do? 

Duh.

Yep, one of our party goers got the COVID. Which meant we were officially a super spreader event. The boys and I were able to cut through our terror by placing all blame on Diana, who technically organized the party. We rode her so hard she snapped by mid-morning.

We had to get tested stat. Or stat after a 5 day waiting period.

Our best bet was heading to the urgent care place across town. The only issue? They had a strict “we only test people with symptoms” policy. So I sat the boys down and explained that lying is bad in 99.9% of cases with the one exception of when it is convenient.

Eli was totally on board. Lying is a way of life for 13 year olds. Luca was not on board. Suddenly he became Abe Lincoln. 

“But lying is bad,” He moaned. 

“Do you want to know if you have COVID or not?”

We drive to the urgent care place and I approached the front desk for one of my patented “Dr. Hamann” performances. I told the checker inner lady that we had been exposed and were feeling a little off. You know, oogy. The lady saw right through my lie and sensed Luca was the weakest link.

“Are you sick, young man?”

Luca quietly shook his head. JUDAS! 

I spent the next 24 hours pitching the benefits of lying to Luca. Some of his favorite people lie. The President does it all the time. Lying gets us what we want without having to face any consequences at all!

Finally, he relented and agree to go back to the Den of Dishonesty. Luca spent the entire time with the expression of a person whose last shred of childhood was being snatched by a lazy father.

Long story short, we got the test (very uncomfortable) and the results came back negative. We’re in the clear. We’ve also redoubled our commitment to wearing masks and social distancing. I also explained that from now on, we shouldn’t lie.

In case you are wondering, our friend with COVID is doing fine. He is quarantining in his basement with a new TV and newly acquired golf channel subscription.

Wear a mask, everyone!

 

Thank Goodness

It’s been weird to be a dad over the last three ish years. 

 

Since the boys were born, I’ve tried to impart one lesson. One simple lesson: BE A GOOD PERSON. Be a good person and good things will happen. Be a good person and you’ll win.

 

And then our nation elected the worst person. 

 

Suddenly a very bad person became the most powerful person in the world. And he did bad things. Terrible things. He put people in cages. He cheated. He stole. He bullied. He treated the needy with zero respect. He killed hundreds of thousands of people with his carelessness.

 

Diana and I shook our fists. We marched. We donated. We turned on MSNBC full blast. Our dinner conversation centered around the bad man and his badness.

 

And yet, I worried about the affect this had on Elijah and Luca. Yes, they were vocal opponents of the bad man. Quick with a “Bad man sucks!” whenever we saw him on TV. But I worried about what this was doing subconsciously.

 

Deep down, maybe their developing brains were learning that being a bad person was the way to be successful. A bad person was super rich(or so he says over and over). A bad person was worshiped by millions. A bad person was president. Maybe being a bad person wasn’t as bad as Dad said.

 

Heading into this election, I was petrified. Oh hey kids, be a good person. Unless you want to be the most powerful person in the world. Twice. I needed consequences for evil. I needed The Emperor to get thrown over the railing. I needed the dragon to be slayed. I needed Hans Gruber to fall out of Nakatomi Plaza.

 

What if the bad person won again?

 

Yesterday, we were training Jerry in front of the house. Feeding him hunks of string cheese as a reward for not attacking us.

 

Suddenly, our neighbor Lydie came running out. Tween legs and arms and hair flapping. “Guys…Biden won. They called it!”

 

People came streaming out of their houses, shouting. The good man won. The bad man lost. Diana burst into tears. Later, we walked to the center of town and stood there cheering as cars unknowingly found themselves in an impromptu parade and honked with enthusiasm.

 

I looked at Eli, who banged on a trashcan lid and whooped with glee. I let out a long sigh and let the goodness sink in. For just a minute.  

Blankie

 

If you’re the kind of HamannEggs super fan who remembers Blankie, you would clean up at the HamannEggs trivia night I just invented. “Given to him by his beloved Grandma, Sheila Jacklich, what has Luca slept with every night of his life? A) Cute Little Racoon? B) Blankie? C) Unwashed sheets?

 

Our little Linus simply can’t sleep without her. Yes, Blankie identifies as a “she/her.” There was a period of time that Luca wore Blankie as a wonderful head wrap. I tried it a few times to get a rise out of him, and it’s quite nice.

 

Oh, I forgot to describe what Blankie actually looks like. At one point, it was fluffy and brown white and featured lots of fun, cute animals. Which animals, you ask? I can’t remember. Over the last ten years of love, Blankie is now a threadbare square of whatever material one uses to begin a Blankie project. And riddled with germs.

 

As you can guess, Blankie is important. We’ve had a few close calls over the years. We’ve been forced to have Blankie shipped home from relatives. Housekeeping at a Mexico hotel had to spend an afternoon searching through hundreds of used sheets for it.

 

The other night, as I was set to engage in my nightly Dad Time (Sleeping on the couch with the TV blaring), Luca anxiously told me Blankie was missing. As with most things the boys can’t find, I told him to expand his search area beyond two feet. He came back a little later with tears in his eyes. Blankie was legit missing. 

 

I dragged my bones off the couch and joined in the hunt. Under the couch? Nope. In the couch cousins? No. Within arm’s length of the couch? No sir.

 

Where did you last see Blankie? Can you retrace Blankie’s steps? Did you and Blankie get into a fight? At one point, we calculated whether Jerry could fit Blankie in his stomach, a totally realistic unthinkable scenario.

 

I figured this may be time to end Luca’s longtime relationship with Blankie. As we get grow up, we eventually have to give up our childish things. Says the man who still has a Grover stuffed toy hidden in his bedside table. Maybe this is the universe’s way of telling you it’s time to let Blankie go.

 

Resigned to his fate, Luca asked if I would lie in bed with him. I leapt at the chance to be a Blankie replacement. Or have my kids need me for literally anything. We turned on a nighttime meditation app thingy and I immediately fell asleep. I can only assume Luca follow suit at some point. 

 

The next day, Blankie was located in a completely obvious place: in the dog treat bin. She was returned to her rightful place atop Luca’s head. 

Meat

 

 

I recently stopped eating meat. Why? First and foremost, I have terrible blood pressure. The self imposed stress from a career in advertising has taken its toll on my ticker. Who knew 20+ years of panic attacks were not good for you?

 

Plus, I get to inconvenience everyone! Oh, you’re making chicken? I guess I’ll just eat this piece of bark. What’s on menu? Pork? Oh…I don’t eat that. I’ll just subsist on my sense of self-satisfaction. 

 

The other night, Elijah offered to make us dinner. Which is…wow. He found some recipe on the internet that involved goopy cheese stuffed inside a burger. With a side of Propranolol and fries. He did me the favor of also buying some fake burger meat. Improbable burgers or Inconceivable burgers or something.

 

I went upstairs to go ride our stationary bike slash soft-core pornography device. When I came down, the kitchen was in peril. Eli struggled with the recipe and had created a massive pile of ground beef and cheese roughly the side of Jerry’s head. I tried to explain that his creation was not only not going to fit on a bun, it may never cook through and give everyone (except me) COVID.

 

I put him on grill lighting duty and got to work making his mound into actual burgers. I wasn’t grossed out by touching meat because I haven’t ascended to the pariah level of vegetarian yet. YET. In just a few minutes, I had constructed an actual meal and threw them onto the grill.

 

Oh crap! The Intolerable meat was still frozen. I screamed into the kitchen for someone, anyone to microwave my fake protein. 

 

After I cooked the family burgers to exactly medium rare (I’ve noticed people who don’t eat meat love to show how great they are at grilling) I ran inside to get my Implausible burgers.

 

Luca was standing over a bowl of goo. The protein, having been radiated by gigawatts of modern convenience, was a pile of David Cronenberg dreams. Luca stuffed his fists into the goo, which made a bodily noise. “I love this,” he said dreamily.

 

Then I got to engage in my favorite part of not eating meat: martyrdom. I made a little pile of nuts and seeds and pecked at it like a bird while the rest of the family moaned at how amazing Eli’s cheese stuffed burgers tasted. Seriously, dad. These are the burgers anyone ever made. Ever.

 

While Diana’s back was turned, I ate a bite of Luca’s burger. It was the greatest thing I’ve ever tasted.  

 

p.s. Jerry got his testicles removed this week.

E-Learning

Hey gang, I’m sorry I haven’t written much lately. Sitting at my desk all day looking at Twitter instead of doing my work is exhausting. Sometimes the prospect of looking at Twitter instead of writing a HamannEggs is just too much.

 

But I am totally motivated today. 

 

E-learning started a week ago. It’s depressing and boring and isolating. But Elijah and Luca are resilient kids and understand its either this or be exposed to something far worse: Republicanism. BAM!

 

We positioned Luca in the basement. He’s a Hamann through and through (anxiety ridden) so we know he’ll do his work. We positioned Eli in the living room because he is a little motivation deficient. I am able to check on him in between my meetings. I’ve only busted him watching “Greys Anatomy” on his phone during class once.

 

E-learning gives me the opportunity to pay the boys back for interrupting me for the last six months. There is nothing more inviting to my children than their father presenting ideas to an important client. Oh, you are having a tense conversation about a million dollar campaign? This seems like the perfect time to ask if we can get Chipotle for lunch. The camera is on you while you are pitching a new commercial? Let me take this opportunity to stroll by in nothing but a Bears Stocking cap.

 

Quick story: I was in a meeting with the camera on, and Diana walked in completely naked to hand me the phone. Naked. Nude. Sans underpants. The CMO asked, “Was that your kid?” Yes. Yes it was.

 

Yeah, so it’s payback time. I appear behind both of them like a 47 year old ghost while they are presenting their schoolwork. I do TicTok dances in the mid background. I shout, “I am going to the store, do you need any more diarrhea medicine? For your diarrhea? In your butt?”

 

This is all met with the proper amount of screaming and hatred. And then I shout, “This is payback for all the times you ruined my calls! Haha! I’m an adult!” 

 

We’ve come to an agreement not to bomb each other’s calls anymore. Now they just crawl into my office and shout-whisper their daily request from the floor.