Author: Matthew Groff

  • Staying in Remote Learning

    Spring Break is over for the kid, and we are back at it with remote school. When last I wrote about school, it was about the decision that the wife and I have to make about whether we would send our daughter to the school, or if we would continue remote learning. After kicking the idea around for a week, we decided that it would be best for our daughter to stay in her remote class. This is the best choice out of nothing but bad options.

    The main driving force in our decision was consistency. By switching over to blended learning, it would mean that the kid would get two new teachers; one in the classroom, and one that is remote, as this would be an every other day system. Also, NYC schools still have a policy implemented that shuts down the school if two people have positive test results. At any point, the kid could get moved to remote learning until the Department of Education gives an all clear to return. In some cases, that may take up to a week to reopen. Though I just saw on my phone that the Mayor is revising this policy.

    By staying with the remote learning, we will have a consistent teacher, who is the school’s actual kindergarten teacher, and we know, as she has been at the school for over ten years, that she is teaching the kids in the system to get them ready for first grade in that school. This, we feel, gives the kid the best foundation for continuing to succeed at this school. And it is a school that we really like, and tests academically well, so we plan on staying there.

    But, this decision means that our daughter will go this entire school year without having any kid interaction in the school, which is awful. There is all the social interaction with being around kids, learning to communicate, and make friends, and share, and all of that fun wonderful stuff. And also, learning to separate from us and be her own person.

    Like I said, there was no clear right choice. It was a decision that we hope is right, and only time will tell.

  • Sharing Photos with the Kid

    There has been a project that I have been meaning to get started on, which is getting photographs framed, and up on the walls. I have been squirreling away picture frames for some time, because when we go to IKEA, I pick up one or two. (Yes, I have a very unhealthy obsession with IKEA.) With it being Spring Break this week for the kid, I thought this might be fun for us to do together. We went out to our storage space, and grabbed the boxes for pictures and frames, and settled in on this project last night.

    When I started pulling out the pictures from the box, all still in that folder envelope that your pictures would come in after they were developed, the kid wanted to know why they were like that. (She has only lived in a digital world, and will never know that you used to have to wait for your pictures, and even then, you weren’t sure that they would turn out.) The pictures that I had were from Fall of 1995 to Summer of 2006, as after 2006, I used a digital camera, and never when back to film.

    And as I shared these pictures of my early and late 20’s life with my daughter, she had a perplexed look on her face. I remember feeling confused when my parents would show me pictures of their life at Southern Illinois University, or back in their high school days in Kankakee. Little six-year-old me was confused because it was hard for me to fathom my parents had a life before me and my brothers. My parents were fun, but serious, responsible people who ate their vegetables, paid their bills, and went to bed on time. Who were these people with beers in their hands, smoking, captured mid-laugh in photographs? Who were these people?

    The kid looked at the photos of me, with long hair, circle glasses, beer in hand, smoking, and wondered what I wondered when I was her age; who is this guy? Who are these people with Dad? What are they doing? Why is that guy hugging a tree?

  • Personal Review: Batman Movies (1989 to 1997)

    My daughter is very big into superhero movies right now. Not sure how long this will last, but for now, I am happy to indulge her fandom. We have been through all the MCU movies, and we even did Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980), but pretty much fell off from the rest of the DC Universe. Then about two weeks ago, one of the kids at the playground was playing “Batman” and my daughter asked if there are any Batman movies. Well, it was time for my kid to learn about the wild world of Batman from 1989 to 1997; Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin.

    Batman (1989): Out of these four movies, undoubtedly the best, and I would add that without this movie, there would have never been an MCU. It pretty much started the “serious” superhero movie. I will add that Michael Keaton is my favorite Batman. Sure, it might have to do with the fact that I saw this movie three times in the theater over the summer of 1989. The kid liked it, but didn’t get how Batman and the Joker “made” each other. I still have an issue with the Joker being able to shoot down the Batwing with one bullet. Either the Joker is a great shot, or the Batwing has some serious defects.

    Batman Returns (1992): The first question the kid asked as the movie started was if Joker was going to be in this one. I think that bodes well that Jack was a great Joker. For me, it felt like Burton was more interested in the villains than Batman, such as Batman was an afterthought. The kid liked it but wanted to know how Catwoman got her cat powers; magic, tech, or mutant? I’m not really sure. I will say that this movie does have a very slight touch of campy to it, which was a harbinger for the rest of the series.

    Batman Forever (1995):  The kid did not like it. She didn’t understand why Robin was a superhero, nor know who Two-Face was, and why The Riddler became an evil supervillain? Also, she really could not follow what the story was. For me, and I like Val Kilmer, but it seemed like Val was taking the role serious, and everyone else was camping it up. It also had a James Bond feeling of an ending, whereas the good guy goes to the secret lair to defeat the henchmen and the bad guy in a huge set that blows up. The movie was going in several different directions, never feeling like there was a cohesive style throughout. And then there was that “Bat Butt” shot, that my kid picked up on and laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed…

    Batman & Robin (1997): Well… you know. It’s a mess, but we all know it’s a mess. About thirty minutes into the picture, my kid asked me if we had to finish it. Yes, I said, because this will make you a funnier person! Watching the movie, I don’t think there was a single idea that was shot down, everything went in it. And the puns. This movie might be the reason I hate puns so much.

    Now that we are done with these Batman movies, that will be it for the time being. The Christopher Nolan Batman movies are great, but just too adult for the kid right now. She needs to the good guy to win without question, but she is now beginning to understand that some movies are good, and some movies are bad. What I really hope happens next is that she learns to love bad movies.

  • Everyone! Let’s Get That Shot!

    Yesterday afternoon, New York State finally made all New Yorkers eligible for the Covid Vaccine starting on April 6th. Starting today, Tuesday the 30th, all New Yorkers over 30 can get the vaccine. I don’t know what the hold-up was, as every other state had made plans to get the vaccine to everyone… Oh yeah! Cuomo!

    We have been very patient in this apartment, waiting our turn, and trying not to freak out about it. And the wife and I both took turns of freaking out over it. “What if we never get it?” “What if we get sick before we get it?” “What if it’s just too late!”  We freaked out, a little.

    But now we can go get the shot!

    Well…

    Not exactly.

    I thought that since all of this was announced on Monday, that starting at midnight, you could begin signing up. Right? So, I stayed up to midnight only to find out, that the state website hadn’t been updated with this new clearance. Not a big deal, I’d just take care of it this morning.

    Well… Seems like there is no place to get an appointment in Manhattan right now. Actually, I could get an appointment over at the Javits Center for May 28th, with my follow up being June 28th. Preferable, we would like something a little sooner.

    Hence the new game; You Have Access, But That Doesn’t Mean You’ll Get It Now.

  • SPRING BREAK with THE KID

    The kid is off from school, and I had it in my mind that somehow this might be a little vacation for me as well. That was very inaccurate. When there is no school, I become chief entertainer. Now, what can I come up with for this week?

    The park is an easy go-to, and we’ll be doing lots of that, weather permitting.

    Then, I have been putting off a home project of hanging a spice rack in the kitchen. That I think is something that we can do together. You know, a 44-year-old dad and his six-year-old daughter hanging something on the wall; can they do it without one of them getting angry, crying, or saying, “You can help dad by getting him a beer.”

    I also have a family picture project, which is getting up on the wall of the pictures of our family; Aunts, Uncles, Cousins and all. We have boxes of framed family pictures that for whatever reason we never get around to putting up. In fact, as I look at the living room, we don’t have any pictures of the kid. We have like twenty pieces of her artwork up on the wall, but not an actual photograph. Does that say something about us as a family?

    The big project that I want to tackle with the kid is to make a puppet show out of a story she told me about a girl and three friendly ghosts. There is a very fine line I walk with this stuff and her. I would love for us to make a puppet show together, but at the same time, I don’t want to force her to do it. She knows that her dad has worked as a puppeteer before the Covid times, and has every now and then asked me about it, but she doesn’t asked to make a show. And I also don’t want to take her story and make something out of it without her. So, I want to see if I can encourage her to do this with me.

    Either way, we gotta pass the time.