Author: Matthew Groff

  • 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.

  • Our Dog

    We got our dog right before the pandemic hit last year. It was February, and we had promised the kid we’d get a dog someday, and it just seemed to make sense that now was the time to get a pet, as, sadly, our cat, who my wife had for over 19 years, had recently died. There was a void in the family with not having a furry animal around, and the wife found a rescue agency that was looking for good families. Which, sure, that’s us.

    And the dog was a good fit. She is great with the kid, and likes to curl up under the desk, or right next to you on the couch. She’s also great with new people: neighbors in the building, and people we meet on the street. She’s even great with kids who like to get close to her.

    But our dog hates all other dogs. And I mean, she goes ape shit trying to get after another dog to rip its face off. When I walk the dog in the morning, I have started to notice that other people with their dogs are avoiding me. I don’t blame them, really. My dog wants to kill their dog.

    Yes, we need to socialize the dog, or take her to obedience school, or hell, find a video on YouTube.

    But we haven’t done any of this. I mean, there is a pandemic going on, and remote school, and unemployment.

    But… I have another, sadder, lazier, and more evil idea, and before I say it, yes, we will get the dog trained…

    Our dog who hates other dogs, that seems like par for the course for us as a family. I mean, we can’t have a perfect dog, right? There has to be something wrong with her, because that’s how real-life works. A flawed dog makes life more interesting.

    Or at least this is what I am telling myself.

  • Overhead Projector: I Miss My Friends

    It’s Thursday morning, which means all of the building’s supers are putting the trash out. I know this because when I walk the dog on Thursday mornings, I try to make sure the dog doesn’t root in the trash bags, or pee on them. In a very voyeuristic sense, it’s interesting to see the boxes that are being thrown out, which give a glimpse of the lives in that building. Boxes for huge TVs and strollers, and frozen microwave dinners. Some days there is a well-worn out couch on the sidewalk, or a mangled bed frame which makes you wonder what happened there.

    Today, I saw an object that I hadn’t seen in a very long time; an overhead projector. For most people, I think their interaction with overhead projectors comes from school and college, teachers presenting information, or writing math equations. The dim classroom, and the hum of the fan from the projector was such a potent sleeping pill in high school, lulling me to a nice, lite nap in class.

    But, when I saw that overhead projector this morning, it reminded me of all my puppeteer friends who I have not seen in almost three years. You see, an overhead projector is a very powerful tool in many of the puppet shows I have worked on. It can be used not only for projecting images across a stage, but a light source for shadow puppets. I have learned how to switch out lamps in these projectors, and how to use the focus control as an effect, as well as using a water bowl to create a waves over a stage. The hours I have spent, hunched over with friends, working with these projectors.

    It made me miss my friends. I miss my creative, funny, silly, open, supportive friends.

  • Returning to In-Person School for NYC

    Outside if NYC, I don’t know how many of you have heard, but today starts enrolment for remote students to return to blended in-person classes. As we are a remote learning family, we have from today to April 7th to decide if we will stay remote, or move over to in-person blended learning. Also, according to Department of Education, this is our last opportunity to make this change.

    What will we do?

    We have a great remote teacher for our daughter, and our teacher is actually one of the two main kindergarten teachers for the school we are in, or would be in if Covid hadn’t happened. So, we know that what she is teaching our daughter is in line with what is needed to move up to 1st Grade in that school, and the system at large in the whole school. Also, being that our kid is actually thriving in this not quite normal environment, makes us think she has the right teacher she needs.

    But, it is remote learning.

    And in remote learning, she is not getting the personal attention she needs from a teacher, nor is she getting any social interaction which is very necessary at this age.

    But, moving to blended in-person learning means that she would get another new teacher, which would be her third for the year. It would be another set of kids that she would be introduced to. And that change means that there will need to be another adjustment period, which could slow down her progress. And it still wouldn’t be five days a week classes, as it would be every other day. That doesn’t sound like that would be the best for her either.

    Yet, I had been hoping, really hoping, that the kid would start back to school so I could get a jump on all the things that I want to do, but can’t because, well, I spend all of my time with the kid when she is awake. I feel very selfish and guilty for saying this. I have enjoyed, and treasured this time that I get to spend with her, and I know that it has been a planet’s lining up fortuitus achievement that I have been able to help her learn how to read and write, which is something that would have never happened if not for Covid and getting laid off…

    But…

    I want to get a jump on my career again, but not at the expense of the kid.

    We’ve got two weeks to figure this out.

  • Two Mass Shootings, Again

    Two mass shootings happened in the span of a week, and only now, for me, is it sinking in what has happened.

    I am not proud of this fact, but it felt normal.

    The poor guy in Boulder, CO standing outside of the grocery store saying that he feels like no place is safe pretty much sums it up. No place is safe, and we are all fine with it.

    Asian-Americans have been saying for over a year that they are being scapegoated for Covid-19, but did anyone listen? People had been pointing out for a year that the rhetoric that Trump and his supports were using was hurting Asian communities, but it was blown off. In fact, I saw a conservative friend ask why it was okay to “UK Variant,” but why couldn’t he say, “China Virus?”

    It doesn’t register for most people anymore. Even when it turns violent. Even when the inevitable AR-15 or whatever semi-automatic people killing gun is used, it doesn’t matter.

    Apathy has won.

    Most Americans see the hate, see the use of guns to kill large numbers, and they shrug because we have given up. There will be another racist attack. There will be another mass shooting. And we give up.

    We give up because it will turn into a debate about free speech and the 2nd Amendment.

    But it’s not about that. It’s about hate and fear. And are we going to do something? When will it be different? Or when will I blog about this same thing all over again?