Last week, the smoke was from California. This week, it’s from British Columbia. No matter which way the wind blows, it seems that the summer skies of Seattle are hazy from West Coast wildfires.

So far, it’s not as bad as last summer. At its worst last year, a fine dusting of ash landed in Seattle. You could see the normally invisible spider webs, traced in thin gray pencil between the branches of trees. This year, the worst we’ve gotten has been blood red sunsets and sharply reduced visibility.

This afternoon, I took the kids to the beach club. Because of the smoke, you could just barely make out Kirkland on the other side of the lake. With just a little squinting and imagination, you could ignore the far shore and pretend we were at the edge of an impossibly still and vast ocean.

Smoke doesn’t make it any less fun to spend a day at the lake. Patrick and I splashed and swam in the shallow water. (Now that it’s mid-August, Lake Washington has finally progressed from “cold enough to make you question the existence of God” to “brisk and refreshing.”)

Alex was lucky enough to find another knot of rising 7th graders, which means we barely saw him — just glimpses as he tried to balance on the spinning log or as he clambered up to the high dive platform. When Patrick was ready to leave, Alex wasn’t. We left Alex at the beach with his friends, and he walked the mile home by himself two hours later. To be in middle school, carefree, with friends by a lake in the lazy late days of summer… one of the pleasures of parenting is living vicariously through your kids. Today delivered a glorious reminder of the best that summer and youth can bring.

Last year, I bought myself a nice wooden chess set from the House of Staunton for my birthday. It was something I’d wanted ever since high school, but it was too extravagant for a high school student’s budget. One of the perks of middle age is being able to afford the toys that are out of reach to the youth.

In high school, I loved playing the game and got to what I’d call the “strong beginner / weak intermediate” level of play. I read chess books, knew the major tactics, and could use my pieces together effectively in an end game. I had a portable chess board and I played other kids on the bus on the way to school, and I probably had a 50/50 record against other strong math/science brains. While I abandoned the game when I discovered go in college, and then abandoned go as a result of working too obsessively in my twenties, I have a soft spot for chess. As a parent, I wanted my kids to play and enjoy chess too, but beyond teaching them the rules I was never able to pass on the love of the game.

So imagine my thrill yesterday when Patrick said, out of the blue: “Dad, let’s play chess.” We pulled out the board. It had somehow accumulated large boxes of photographs on top of it, which gives you an indication of how long it had been since one of the kids wanted to play. The chess board doubles as piece storage; there’s a drawer on each side that contains each player’s pieces safely nestled in individual felt-lined compartments. The black pieces are real ebony — I’m going to enjoy middle age, darn it.

We set up for the game. Our tradition is I take the black pieces and play without my queen. That’s the only handicap I give him. He may be my son, but I’m still playing to win. Well, mostly. If he blunders in an obvious way I’ll ask him, “Are you sure?” and try to turn it into a teachable moment. But mostly, I’m playing to win.

There are even some real stakes involved. Last year, when Patrick was in the middle of his phase of collecting Yu-Gi-Oh cards, he wanted to teach me to play that game. That sounded pretty miserable, so I deflected: Once he could beat me at chess (a “real” game!), I’d let him teach me Yu-Gi-Oh. That’s a fate I desperately wanted to avoid — so, I play to win. Even with a queen handicap, it was pretty easy to maintain my invincible streak. And thus the chess board wound up buried under photographs.

With the game board set up, Patrick confidently advanced his king pawn two spaces. I matched him with my king pawn. Then I got my first warning that something was different. Patrick said, “I beat the AI all the time now.”

“Wait, what?” I asked.

“The computer. I play on my iPad and I beat the computer all the time.”

I had no idea he’d been playing chess at all. With wide eyes, I looked over to Alex, who’d come over to watch us play. Alex said, “Oh yeah, he played a couple of games on the plane back from St. Louis.”

I looked back at Patrick. I think there was a twinkle in his eye.

Every move he made was solid. Not brilliant, I don’t think — but I’m not at the level of “brilliant,” so can I judge? But solid. In the past, I could just set a trap, wait for him to fall into it, then grind whatever advantage I’d gained into victory. This time, he didn’t fall for any traps. We traded pieces, a huge disadvantage when you start down a queen, and soon he had the initiative, a queen and rook with full command of the center, and he deftly checkmated me. I hadn’t just lost. I’d been crushed.

I’m sure you can imagine his elation as he ran off to tell Molly about my humiliating defeat. First thing this morning, he brought up his Yu-Gi-Oh cards. It’s time for me to learn. So the torch passes, one generation to the next.

I hope you’ll support me this year! You can donate by going to my fundraising page: http://engage.fredhutch.org/site/TR/Obliteride/Obliteride?px=1495872&pg=personal&fr_id=1633. Or, if you’re in the Seattle area (or want to travel here in August!), ride with me! Obliteride is one of the most meaningful things I’ve done. If cancer has touched your life, I bet you’ll also find it rewarding to join this community of people striving for a cure. Reach out to me if you have questions.

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Every week is an education. For example, when I moved into the new home, all I could have told you about the grove of trees across the street in Yesler Swamp was that they were big. Now, I know they’re cottonwood trees, that they thrive in poor soil next to rivers and lakes, and they require full sun. Little cottonwood trees can’t grow near established cottonwood trees (not enough light), so they need to go for distance when it’s time to send their seeds out into the world. I learned all this because for three weeks each spring, cottonwood trees stop being a backdrop for nature and become the main event, shouting their name to everybody and everything nearby. When the trees release their seeds, it looks like it’s snowing and the seeds can pile up in drifts several inches deep.

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It would be purely annoying but for one saving grace: Cottonwood seeds are great food for hungry, growing ducklings. Cottonwood season is also duckling season. Being surrounded by nature is best when it’s adorable and fluffy.

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Image by Moyan Brenn.

Here’s what happened. Don’t read if you’re squeamish.

Our garage is not very big. It fits our car with barely enough room to walk; depending on how well we park, there can be some awkward squeezes to get in and out.

At the back of the garage, a scant 1 or 2 inches from the front bumper of our parked car, was a collection of stuff destined for the dump. We have a dilapidated bookcase with its shelves removed. Sitting in the bookcase, we piled our old car seats; our kids have outgrown them and no charity accepts used car seats. A few weeks ago we got a new kitchen mat, and we rolled up the old one, tied it, and put it in the bookcase resting vertically on top of the car seats. (It’s amazing how long we can keep junk piled up in our house.)

I think I got my first literal whiff that something was wrong on Sunday. A little over a year ago we had a dead rat in the attic, so I’ve learned the “dead animal” smell, and I smelled it walking through the garage. But it wasn’t a strong smell, and “dead rat” isn’t a pleasant memory, so I did the rational thing and ignored it.

When I walked my bike through the garage Monday morning on my way to work, the smell was stronger. However, our neighbor also had a landscape crew in his yard and they were spreading compost right by our garage door. My brain decided to make the pleasant association of the smell with the compost rather than the unpleasant association with “dead rat.”

Tuesday morning, I thought to myself, “Phew, that’s some really pungent compost that Doug put in his yard."

Tuesday evening, though, my brain ran out of ways to suppress the unpleasant memory. When I got home, standing at the garage door (right next to Doug’s composted yard) and typing our entry code into the keypad, there was no smell. Walking into the garage, the stench was unbearable. There was no way to ignore it any more — there was something dead in our house.

The mystery was: What was dead, and where? Remembering the rat in the attic, I looked around the walls and the ceiling for voids where a rat could have squeezed in and died. I couldn’t see anything. There were no rat droppings in the garage itself. The walls, ceiling, and floor of our garage are more solid than the rest of our house and I dreaded the thought that a rat found some way to scurry around unnoticed. I didn’t have much time before I had to leave to take the boys to piano lessons, though, so I gave up and texted Molly, warning her to pay attention to the smell when she got home and that it was probably a dead rat.

Molly was the one who realized the obvious: The rat was probably in or behind some of the junk in our garage. “I’ll love you forever,” she told me when I came home from the boys’ piano lessons, “if you go down and pull the stuff away from the walls."

I really didn’t want to. It was dark out. I wasn’t mentally ready. Won’t she love me forever anyway? Could it wait until the morning?

“I’m worried the car will stink if we wait overnight,” Molly countered.

“Fine. I’ll move the car out of the garage!” was my answer.

When I went to move the car, the garage was pitch black. I don’t know why I decided to use a flashlight to do a quick peek at the stuff around the walls rather than turn on the one bare light bulb, but that’s what I did. As I swept the light around, I still saw no obvious place where a rat could hide.

Then I shined the light into the bookcase and jumped back a foot when I saw a tuft of fur between the rolled-up kitchen mat and the car seat. I found the body.

I still wasn’t mentally ready, so I went back upstairs and told Molly that I found it. It turns out she’d also seen the tuft of fur. However, just as my brain preferred to associate the smell with “compost” rather than “dead animal,” her brain sought a more pleasant explanation for what she saw. “It looked too nice to be a rat,” she said, “so I hoped one of the kids had stuck one of their stuffed animals into the bookcase."

“You’re right, it doesn’t look like a rat,” I said. “I think it’s a squirrel."

“I want to see the dead squirrel!” Patrick exclaimed, excited.

“No!” I said. “I am not ready to deal with this yet."

Alex wanted to know what would happen if the squirrel wasn’t really dead, but instead had glowing red eyes. “Hmm,” I said. “Maybe it will bite me and give me his powers and I’ll turn into Squirrel-Man."

Molly & I decided we’d get rid of the squirrel after dinner. That gave us time to work out our strategy. When the rat died in the attic, we called the pest company and they carried the carcass out in a ziplock bag. That was my plan: put the squirrel into a ziplock. If it fit. Molly wanted to avoid seeing or dealing with the body at all if we could help it. Since the squirrel was in a bunch of junk we were going to throw out anyway, maybe we could just move it all straight into a garbage bag? No matter what approach we took, what do we do with the body once it’s bagged? Internet research provided the answer. In the city of Seattle, dead animals less than 15 pounds just go into the trash. (Eww.)

In the warmth and light of the kitchen, we decided to prepare for both strategies and decide what to do when we saw things up close. So we assembled our body-disposal equipment: Latex gloves, big black garbage bags, gallon ziplocks, and headed downstairs. The kids followed, excited.

Staring at the bookcase and the fur poking out, I figured out what probably happened. I’m sure the kitchen mat accumulated lots of delicious food smells. Because our garage door is so loud, we frequently leave it open if we know we’d just be opening it again before too long. (For instance, the first one home often leaves the garage door open until the second one of us gets home.) So, during one of those times the garage door was open, a squirrel smelled something good and scrambled in to the middle of the rolled-up and tied kitchen mat, but then got stuck. The mat was still upright with the squirrel body inside.

Assessing the situation, Molly’s plan of “throw everything away” seemed better than “pick up the squirrel and put it in a ziplock.” Tossing the entire kitchen mat would be the rodent equivalent of carrying a dead body in a rolled-up carpet. So Molly got the garbage bag ready, and I tried to twist-and-scoop to move the kitchen mat to horizontal from vertical while keeping the squirrel tucked inside.

This shows I really have no experience with dead bodies. I imagined a squirrel carcass affected by rigor mortis. Stiff, maybe a little dried out. Nope! Apparently, at this stage of decay, there’s really nothing holding the body together. The squirrel ripped in half where its body was poking out from the edge of the mat. The rear half and tail fell to the floor and the front half stayed tucked in to the mat. Maggots spilled out and writhed everywhere.

That was the low point of the night. My memory of the next few moments isn’t that clear. I remember Molly going “eww eww eww” and retreating for a little while into the basement. My brain was in the “well, there’s no turning back, just get this job done” mode. The part of it that controlled “disgust” turned off and I got the mat, the bottom half of the squirrel, and all of the maggots into a garbage bag. Then Molly and I together bagged up everything else that was in the Bookcase of Junk. The bags went into an empty garbage can and out of our house.

The kids’ reactions were interesting. Patrick wanted to know why mom ran away. Alex was happy that he had a really good story to tell his classmates the next day. Me, I’m just glad the whole thing is over, and I’m really glad it was just a single daring, lost squirrel who wandered in through our open garage door and not that rats found some new way into our house.

I’m also glad there were no glowing red eyes and that I didn’t pick up any squirrel powers.

_One of several spiders I’ve seen around our house in the past few days. _

I’m serious. My rule about bugs is I like anything that doesn’t try to eat me or my food. Those criteria put mosquitos, ants, and flies near the top of my “do not like” list. Spiders, however, leave me alone and happily munch on the things that would otherwise be after the items in my kitchen. It’s more than the-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend. With their long, elegant legs and intricate webs… spiders are beautiful. 

So like fall foliage and crisp air, the return of spiders is something to celebrate in the magnificent Northwest autumn.

Or hike on a glacier:

And this year still has a lot of great family adventures to look forward to, culminating in a trip to London. (Which reminds me… time to start planning our trip to London.) 

So, 2016, you will not defeat me! I’ll make sure you end better than you started.

When I heard that the weather forecast, I decided that I’d spend the morning at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which would keep me out of the weather. Sure, it was a fifteen minute walk, but I figured with my new waterproof shoes (purchased so I could walk during Saturday’s rain) and my waterproof hoodie, I could survive a fifteen minute walk.

Here’s what I didn’t count on.

First, waterproof shoes don’t help when you have to walk through standing water that goes over your ankles, like I had to here:

Second, I learned that my waterproof hoodie does not have waterproof zippers. I had a nice wet line along my shirt, and the things in my zip-pockets that I thought would stay dry (like my passport!) all got damp.

The rain was so intense that I stopped halfway through my walk to the art gallery to take shelter in St. Mary’s Cathedral and dry out a bit. I felt like a medieval traveller seeking sanctuary.

By the time I made it to the gallery, my fingertips were starting to wrinkle, like I’d spent too long in the bathtub. The inside of the gallery was not immune to the weather, either. Leaky ceilings forced the curators to remove several paintings from the wall to prevent damage. (The wall in the next picture is not supposed to be empty!) Now that I think about it, almost every building I was in on Sunday had buckets set up to catch leaks from the ceiling (St. Mary’s Cathedral, the Art Gallery of NSW, and the State Library).

All told, the Sydney airport got 6 inches of rain this weekend. Other parts of town got even more. I guess winter isn’t the best time to visit…

My dad wore this ring pretty much every day. He got it from his father, who “borrowed” it to wear at prom from his brother (or uncle? I can’t remember the details of the story). The ornate script inscription on the inside says “From Father 1920."

When I see this ring on my finger it reminds me that my dad is gone. It also makes me think of how much I am like him and about the connections that spread across time and generations. Strange how that works.

Alex still greets every camera with a thumbs-up:

I’ve entered a life stage where I’m living for the weekend. The weekdays are a meaningless blur of routine, and then Saturday morning comes and our latest outdoor adventure begins.

Kids surprise you. Participating in the play was entirely Patrick’s initiative. Not only did he choose to be in the play, he knew which character he wanted to be: Ed, the silly hyena who doesn’t talk. Memorizing his “lines” couldn’t have been easier. He had three: Two _“hee hee hee!”_s and one _“huh?” _He apparently scowled better than the other hyenas. Early in rehearsal, the director complained that the other hyenas were too nice and told them to act more like Patrick.

If he grows up to be the next Rupert Grint, you can say you saw him here first!

This winter, we missed half of the kids’ first cross-country ski lesson because there was too much snow. This was our view for two hours on Saturday morning:

Less than a mile in front of us, the DOT had closed I-90 while they cleared multiple stuck vehicles. It could have been worse, I suppose; yesterday, I-90 was closed for most of the day at the mountain pass because the avalanche danger was too high. Growing up in Virginia, I never thought I’d live in a place where “avalanche danger” would be a phrase you’d hear in traffic reports. Still, snow and bad traffic is still makes for a better Northwest winter than no-snow. If you can’t escape to the mountains, the lowland gray and drizzle is just too dreary after a while.

Skiing has finally clicked with the kids. We did three half-day downhill lessons at Stevens Pass this winter. By the end of the third day, Alex could confidently ski down all of the green runs and was starting on the blues. Patrick’s still on the bunny slope, and he’s good at turning right. With his stubbornness and daredevil attitude, I think he’ll be unstoppable shortly after he masters “left.” Both kids prefer their cross-country ski lessons, though. Cross-country has a lot less waiting around and a lot more lets-play-outside. 

I’m glad this year’s giving us more snow to play in. I just hope we avoid the “too much” snow problem for our remaining weekends!

Patrick’s lost about 7 or 8 teeth in the past year; I’ve lost count. What’s strange is, aside from one of his front teeth, the remainder of his adult teeth seem in no rush to break through his gums. He’s had a particularly gap-toothed smile for the past several weeks. 

Alex, in contrast, has a mouth full of adult-size teeth that look too big for his face. His 4 front top teeth stick out so much it looks like they’re trying to escape.

I don’t think we’ve put enough money in savings to cover the dental bills.

That’s not a goal yet, it’s just a verb. It’s also a verb that required obtaining a new noun and storing it in our basement. That’s not a problem for me. Molly will confirm I’m an enthusiastic fan of any hobby that gives me an excuse to get a new bike… and so Christmas brought another two-wheeled contraption into our house and got me itching to go outside.

I want to mountain bike more in 2016 because it may be an easier hobby to share with the kids than biking on the road. Alex, for one, fell in love with biking in the woods ever since our first trip to Duthie Hill Park last summer. (The #1 thing Alex wanted for Christmas? A full-face bike helmet. He’s a timid biker and doesn’t need a full-face helmet. But he was so insistent I indulged. He’s very happy.)

I’ve taken the bike out three times since Christmas, each time with family. One thing I’ve learned: This will require different parenting habits than I currently have. We’re lucky our two boys (mostly) get along and are pretty close in age/ability/interests. My default weekend parenting mode is to go do something with both kids. That doesn’t work here because even simple mountain bike trails are beyond Patrick’s ability and interest. If I bring both Alex and Patrick, I wind up watching Patrick push his bike through the trees while Alex pedals off on his own, which worries me and isn’t that fun for him. This past weekend, instead of bringing Patrick, Alex and I went to Duthie with one of Alex’s friends (Nick) and his dad. That was a much more fun experience for everyone. (Except for Patrick, of course, who went grocery shopping instead of mountain biking.) So, it remains to be seen how well I can integrate this new hobby into our family. Whatever happens, though, I’m looking forward to spending as much time outside in 2016 as I can.

As Alex and Patrick grew older, they spent less and less time with Playmobil. It’s been at least 2 years since either of them touched one. Last weekend, we decided it was finally time to find a better home for the toys. My idea was to just put everything into a big box and take it to Goodwill, but Molly voted to separate the toys by theme and offer the sets to friends with younger kids. So that’s what we did. As I helped her sort, I came across a little red Playmobil fish. For a few weeks in preschool, Patrick carried this fish wherever he went, wrapped up in his little fingers like a plastic talisman. I rescued the fish from the donation box. It joins the remaining scraps of Alex’s blanket as a memento of life with young kids. 

(Patrick came in while I was writing and looked at the pictures over my shoulder. I asked him if he remembered the fish. He doesn’t.)

I don’t really miss those years. Everything about raising elementary school kids is easier and more fun. Need some uninterrupted Adult time at home? No problem, an Xbox is cheaper than a nanny:

Need to kill time at a bounce house while one kid plays indoor soccer? No problem! I can relax with a book while the kid wears himself out. An added bonus: Having elementary age kids gives a ready-made excuse for reading “young adult” literature. No more Very Hungry Caterpillar for me!

The next generation disappoints me a little. Patrick figured out several months ago that there’s no tooth fairy (though he still puts his teeth under his pillow and expects money in return). Yet he didn’t make the leap from “There is no tooth fairy” to “There is no Santa.” He has been getting more curious, though. Two years ago, Alex asked the questions about Santa. Now it’s Patrick’s year. “I’m just trying to figure out if it’s the parents,” he explained to me on the way to school on Monday after one interrogation session. I have a hard time telling a flat-out lie, so when he asked me, “Are you Santa?”, I just said nothing. Somehow that dodge worked. He didn’t press the issue. I don’t think he’ll be a good investigative journalist when he grows up.

Last night, yet another tooth fell out of that boy’s head. More precisely, Alex the Dentist yanked another tooth out of Patrick’s head. (Alex has pulled almost all of Patrick’s teeth.) While Alex was downstairs telling Molly, my conversation with Patrick went from the nonexistent Tooth Fairy to Santa, and I finally told him The Truth. Watching his face, I could see his emotion quickly change from disappointment to elation that he’d figured it out. I told him not to talk about this at school and he was obviously thrilled to be in on a secret.

Patrick thought we shouldn’t tell Alex about Santa, too. “Would that be fair?” I asked. He agreed it wouldn’t, so when Alex came back upstairs he happily blurted out, “Alex! Mom and dad are Santa."

I think I’ll carry this next parenting memory to the grave. Alex looked at me, confused and trusting. I nodded, confirming what Patrick had said. Alex immediately started crying. A little bit of his soul got crushed right in front of my eyes. While it didn’t take too long to cheer Alex back up (Christmas isn’t canceled, he still gets presents), he was still a little somber when I turned out the light. When he woke up yesterday morning, he lived in a world that still had a tiny bit of magic in it, and when he went to bed that magic was gone.

Today: Molly leaves work early, gets Patrick to the dentist and then both kids to piano practice. I’m waiting for them to get home. The car pulls in at 6:15, the usual time. Alex comes in first. Thus begins the typical question-and-answer.

“How was your day?”

“Good.”

“How was working outside?” (They had a school project today and had to bring good mud boots to school.)

“Good.”

I see where this is going and try to change the pattern.

“Alex, can you tell me something that isn’t good?”

“Well, to start, the Fall Band concert is tonight.”

“Wait, what? Are you serious?”

“Yes! I have to be at school at 6:40.”

“How come we didn’t know about this?"

“I forgot!"

Costumes were also an easy, order-from-Amazon affair. We had a pair of villains this year: Draco Malfoy and Venom.

Now if only we could get rid of the extra candy as easily!

That’s him in the back row, second from the left.

Corky deserves a good chunk of credit for one of my defining characteristics. Brenda and Corky both shaped me into a person who loves to eat and cook. Lord knows I wasn’t that way as a kid! Growing up, when forced to eat salad, I ate it without dressing. When forced to eat a baked potato, I ate it plain. Rolls without butter. (Actually, I still do that last one.) And cooking? Nope.

All of that changed for me in college, and Corky was a big part of that transformation. It started freshman year, when Corky and Brenda made sure my dorm room was stocked with an absolutely ludicrous amount of food. Way more than I could eat by myself, so I shared it. The closet-sized room I shared with Chris Libby became one of the social centers of the dorm. Through this experience, Corky helped teach me a valuable life lesson: There is no better way to make and cement friendships than by sharing food. That freshman experience helped inspire me to learn to cook, and I have many fond Williamsburg memories that revolve around grocery shopping, cooking, and eating. I don’t think things would have unfolded that way without Corky and Brenda’s freshman year push.

Bookending my college years, I remember Corky and Brenda taking me out to dinner my senior year. At an Italian restaurant in a Williamsburg strip mall, Corky taught me about pairing wine with food, and how slurping air through a mouthful of wine will enhance its flavor. Judging by the number of bottles of wine in my basement today, that was another successful life lesson.

Now that I think about it, I may be getting something wrong as a parent of two picky-eater boys. So far I haven’t worried about their one-dimensional diets. I was a picky eater as a kid and I grew into someone who loves food. I’ve been trusting the same will happen with Alex and Patrick, just because they’ll get hungry as teenagers. But maybe they’ll need someone like Corky in their lives to nudge them in the right direction at the right time. I did.

Like everyone, I’m still adjusting to the fact he’s gone. But I’ve got a cookbook full of his recipes in the kitchen, cases of wine downstairs, and lots of friends to eat with. I’ll remember him every day.

Growing up in Virginia, astronomy was one of my things. Thanks to my high school planetarium, I can identify most of the constellations and easily pick out the planets. (“Planet” means “wanderer” in Greek. Unlike stars, that remain fixed, planets wander through the night sky. Once you know the constellations of the zodiac, spotting planets becomes easy. They’re the star-like things that are out of place.) Then I moved to Seattle, the cloudiest major city in the US. That pretty much stopped my backyard astronomy, but still I hope to pass my love of the night sky on to my kids. When I found out that: 1) There was going to be a lunar eclipse, 2) At a little-kid-friendly time, and 3) Seattle was due for clear skies, I knew exactly how I was going to spend my Sunday night.

At sunset, we headed with our friends over to Kite Hill in Magnuson Park for its views of the eastern skies over Lake Washington. It turns out that a good chunk of Northeast Seattle had the exact same plan. The hill was full of kids, cameras, and telescopes. It was a casual astronomy party! Seeing the city turn out for an eclipse in numbers I’d normally expect for the Seahawks made me glow inside. 

However, it’s too early to tell if last night did anything to pass on my astronomy gene to the kids. For them, last night was mostly about running around, playing frisbee, rolling down a grassy hill, flying tiny RC helicopters, and basically acting like lunatics as the sky grew dark. What was happening in the sky didn’t matter at all.

Saturday, Patrick had a playdate with a friend he made at summer camp. I decided to use that time and bring Alex to Duthie Hill mountain bike park. It was my first time there. Neither of us have mountain bikes, but we both have cyclocross bikes, and I heard that was enough for some of the trails through the park. Taking that on faith, we made the 40 minute drive from our house. 

It didn’t look good at first. You start from the parking lot on a short trail, maybe an eighth of a mile, that’s mostly gravel and big rocks. Compared to mountain bikes, our cyclocross tires are skinny and we don’t have any suspension. This part was pretty uncomfortable, and as we rode it I wondered if the idea was a huge mistake. Luckily, the big rocks gave way to a smooth gravel road, which in turn lead us to the forested trail I’d been looking for: “Bootcamp.” This is one of the beginner trails through the park, and it was perfect for our bikes and our skill level. Every time Alex navigated a particularly twisty turn through the trees, he’d exclaim, “Woo hoo!” After watching Inside Out, Alex is also a child psychoanalyst, and he said at one point during the ride, “I think I’m making a core memory!"

“That was fun,” Alex said in the car on the way home. “It would be better if Patrick was here.” (_Aww, _I thought when I heard this. He really does like his brother.)

So, we returned on Sunday, this time with Patrick on his small-but-heavy Trek mountain bike. This didn’t work as well. Patrick’s not as skilled a rider, and the twists that made Alex say “Woo hoo!” got labeled “Crazy turns!” by Patrick. As in, “I’m not going to try that crazy turn!" He wound up walking his bike most of the way through Bootcamp.

The trails at Duthie Hill meet at a central clearing. Patrick and I toodled around there while Alex rode on his own through the woods. Yes, I kept imagining Alex falling and breaking his arm, but that didn’t happen. What did happen? A thunderstorm. If you don’t live in Seattle you don’t appreciate how rare this, which is why I was so unprepared. The storm came with very little warning. The skies had been the stereotypical Seattle heavy gray all day, so there was no buildup of cloud cover to give hint of what was coming. Nope, just a few rumbles of distant thunder while Alex was biking on his own. Then, more or less exactly when Alex returned to the clearing, the storm began in earnest. Heavy rain, flashes of lightning followed closely by loud thunderclaps. We were soaked through in minutes.

We headed back to the car right away, of course. However, we had about a half mile of gravel-then-rock trails to cover, with one biker who wasn’t particularly strong or confident. Flash, boom. I envisioned lightning hitting a nearby tree and taking out the male line of the Dewey family. Flash, boom. The gravel road started going uphill, and Patrick got off to walk his bike. He was crying uncontrollably, scared. Flash, boom. I give Alex the keys and tell him to ride back to the parking lot and get in the car. At least one of us will live!

Patrick cried and walked his bike the rest of the way back to the parking lot. Even when the gravel road leveled off, I couldn’t convince him to get back on and pedal. He was too scared. When we made it to the edge of the parking lot, and the car was in sight, I told him to just leave his bike, run to the car, and get in; I’d come back for the bike. Gratefully, he did that.

Patrick calmed down quickly in the car, and a warm bath at home seemed to make everything all right. We talked a bit more about the trip at bedtime. “I thought it was the end of our lives,” Patrick said.

I think we made more than one core memory this weekend.

Full of energy at the STP start line.

About 15 minutes after we start riding, he quiets down. About 10 minutes after that, he tells me, “Dad, I’m cold."

This is a problem. “Cold” is never something I worry about while biking. I have the opposite concern: Can I avoid overheating? Consequently, I have nothing with me on the bike to provide warmth. The weather forecast is for cloudy skies and temperatures in the 70s, but I know it will be many hours before it really warms up. If Alex stays cold, it’s going to be a long, miserable day.

I tell him the only thing I can think of: Pedal harder. He doesn’t like that.

Appalachian Trail hikers talk of “trail magic,” an unexpected act of kindness on the trip. There must be a similar thing for STP. The kindness of a stranger saved our trip. As we made it to the south end of Lake Washington, another rider in a Blue Rooster Cycle Team jersey caught up to us. His name was Dave, and when he found out that Alex was cold, he said, “I have arm warmers!"

It was the biking equivalent of a mid-air refueling. I kept pedaling our tandem bike. Dave rode alongside no-handed and pulled a set of arm warmers out from his pocket and handed them to Alex, who put them on while I kept pedaling. The arm warmers were way too big, of course, but the magic of elastic kept them on.

Dave rode with us the entire first day, and he saved the trip a couple more times. In the afternoon, Alex mentioned being cold again, and Dave gave him his jacket. When my legs started fading, Dave got in front and let me ride in his draft. And perhaps most importantly, he talked to Alex and kept him entertained. With Dave’s help, we made it to the tiny town of Winlock, WA — our day 1 stopping point, over 120 miles from Seattle — in time for dinner. We returned his jacket and wished him luck as he continued on to the town of Castle Rock.

Alex wears Dave’s jacket.

We camped overnight at Winlock Elementary School. (The STP organizers use a fleet of Ryder moving vans to support the ride, and they drive the overnight bags for thousands of riders to different overnight stopping points. We didn’t have to bike with our tent and sleeping bag strapped to the tandem.) Camping was blissfully uneventful. We ate our spaghetti dinner, Alex played for a bit, and we went to bed early.

Day 2 felt better. Saturday’s clouds had burned away and we rode under clear blue skies. Alex had a sweatshirt from our overnight bag to keep him warm in the morning. Temperatures climbed to the mid-80s by the afternoon, which is when Alex was finally able to ditch long sleeves. 

Alex was the center of attention wherever he went. There were a handful of other kids on the ride, but not many. We met no other 9-year-olds, so Alex stood out even more. People cheered Alex on as we rode and loved talking to him at rest stops. Alex was even a little famous among the other riders. Once, early in the second day, a paceline of three young men zoomed by us. As they did, the first called out, “Way to go Alex!” and gave a thumbs up. The second asked his friends as they passed, “Is that Alex?” The third answered, “Yes, that’s Alex! Way to go!” I don’t know how these riders knew his name, but I know it made Alex feel special.

Molly and Patrick met us at the finish line in Portland on Sunday afternoon. The ride was fun, but being done with the ride was even better. I ate everything in sight and fell asleep at 8:00. While Alex enjoyed the ride, I don’t know if he’ll do anything like it again. Although only 9, he seems to treat this as something on his bucket list. He wanted to do it, now he’s done it, time to move on. But whether or not he does a big ride like this again, I’m sure this will be a weekend he remembers the rest of his life.

This year the kids discovered street hockey. The camp has a set of plastic sticks and foldable net goals set up at the basketball court. Over the course of the weekend we played about five different kids-versus-dads hockey games, and the kids won all but one. (It’s not because we were letting them win, either.) While I think of myself as in decent shape for a middle-aged dad, the sprint-stop-sprint-stop of the hockey games took its toll. I was wiped out when we got home on Sunday. My only consolation is Patrick was wiped out too. On our last morning at camp, I had to wake him up at 8:30, which is the latest he’s ever slept in his life.

More photos at Google Photos.

Because the roots are intact, Alex’s extracted teeth look particularly cool:

I had no idea that roots were so big.

We’re at an awkward stage with the tooth fairy. A few weeks ago, Patrick asked me, “Are you the tooth fairy? Tell the truth.” I have a hard time flat-out lying when asked a direct question, and evasion and silence didn’t work with Patrick. He kept asking me, so I finally told him, “Yes, we’re the tooth fairy.” 

So when Alex brought up the tooth fairy on Friday night, Patrick kept giving me weird looks. He was clearly thinking, “Dad! Why are you letting him go on like this?” After a while, Patrick couldn’t take it any longer and he blurted out, “There is no tooth fairy! It’s the parents!” Molly and I stayed quiet as the younger brother tried to explain to the older brother the ways of the world. Patrick was only half-persuasive. As near as I can tell, Alex now believes that the parents team up with the tooth fairy — the tooth fairy doesn’t have money, so the parents provide that, but the fairy takes the teeth.

That night, both kids put their teeth in special “tooth pillows” that Nana made them. I’m sure Patrick did it because he was thinking, “This is the ritual I have to do to get some money!” But Alex clearly believes: That night, after I left them in their room, he went to the bathroom, took a Kleenex, and on it wrote this note in pencil:

Dear Tooth Fairy,

Can you leave my tooths? I just want them for my collection because I think they are cool and I know we took a picture but, with a picture you can’t feel them. So please let me keep them.

Keep my teeth,

Alex Dewey

Yes, we let him keep his teeth. Molly wrote a return note explaining he can hold on to his teeth for a while, and when he’s done he should give them to his parents for safekeeping. And Patrick? He happily took his money, but then wanted to see where we were keeping all of the old teeth. He wouldn’t stop asking until we showed him the stash we have in our bedroom.

It’s strange having two kids sleeping in the same room but living in different worlds.

This wound up being the Fringe Sport weekend; my time revolved around bicycle road racing and Ultimate frisbee. I know very little about road racing. However, my cyclocross team hosts the Mutual of Enumclaw Stage Race each year, and all team members pitch in and volunteer. This year I helped as a corner marshall on Saturday and doing road race setup on Sunday. 

Sunday, we watched the visiting LA Aviators play the Seattle Cascade in Ultimate frisbee. My college roommate Frankie coaches the Aviators and we had a fun-but-short visit before the game. 

The kids had a blast at the game. While spectating was fun, the highlight was getting to play capture the flag on the field at halftime. 

An awesome weekend overall. I just wish the calendar spread the awesomeness around a little more!

Saturday morning, the boys and I started the weekend on our bikes, of course. We first rode to QFC for bagels, then headed to the Montlake cut to watch the Windermere cup.

Women’s Windermere Cup: University of Washington (far boat) versus University of Virginia (near boat). UW won the close race by 3 seconds.

Alex at his perch by the Montlake cut for the race. The racing didn’t hold Patrick’s attention and he wandered off onto the grass.

When the racing was over, the boys headed over to the “Husky Rock”, a concrete rock-climbing sculpture south of the stadium. The boys confined themselves to the “steeply slanted” concrete instead of the “vertical with tiny, far apart handholds” walls. Climbing the slanted walls was still a challenge, though. It took Alex dozens of attempts to learn how to get to the top, and Patrick never made it (though also never got bored). This was the highlight of Alex’s weekend, and he and I made a return trip on Sunday so he could climb some more.

Alex climbing the Husky Rock.

Saturday night, the boys & I camped in the back yard. (Molly decided to skip this craziness.) This was mostly a trial run to see if my small, 20-year-old tent still works (it does, although one of the poles shows its age) and if we all fit in it (we do). I’ve been dreaming of doing at least one bike camping overnight trip with the boys this summer, which motivated the gear check.

We spent several hours Sunday working outside at the boys’ school, helping restore/reclaim the unused trails and land that lead from Villa’s hilltop perch down to the lake. I was nervous heading into this. I don’t garden at home, so the idea of gardening at a large scale intimidates me. Luckily, my assigned job was just brute manual labor; it required only strength and not skill. I had to help load and move wheelbarrows full of mulch down the trail to the “sanctuary,” which will be an outdoor classroom space.

All in all about as nice a weekend as you could hope for!

We spent 5 days in Phoenix, Arizona. It was everything we wanted in a spring break trip: Sunshine, swimming pools, and lots of unstructured time. We spent at least two hours a day in the water. I got a lot of pleasure reading done. We shared a hotel room with the kids and wound up going to sleep at the same time they did, so I was _really _well rested at the end of the vacation, too. Perfect.

Because Arizona is a short flight, in the same time zone, and has reliably good spring weather, I bet we’ll be back. 

Every junior high piano dropout started with a simple polka, too.

Time will only tell which camp Alex is in.

(Do not watch this video unless you’re a relative, or prepared to be bored.)

Well, probably because I didn’t view the errandonnée as a challenge, I had only 8 different errands at the end of the 12 days. For posterity, this is my snapshot of 12 days of city-life-with-a-bike:

• I biked to & from work for 7 of the 12 days. (By the rules of the errandonnée, I can only count 2 of those.)

• Kids & bikes go together well! I rode with the kids to school, to a soccer game, to a playground, and to Baskin Robbins.

• Need to run to a store but dread finding parking? Bike! I made two shopping trips (Chrome and Swift Industries).

So, while I may not qualify for a cool errandonnée patch this year, my thanks to the Chasing Mailboxes blog for putting the challenge together. I love seeing people celebrate the practical side of biking.

https://instagram.com/p/0Fn_XjH6PN/

“No,” Alex answered.

These days, I have a hard time writing anything about birthdays (one of the reasons it took so long to write anything at all). The kids’ first few birthdays feel amazing. “Oh my God! I successfully kept this thing alive!” Now things are on autopilot. Alex on March 18 isn’t noticeably different that Alex on March 19. A eight-year-old in the house doesn’t feel different than an nine-year-old in the house. What is there to write about now that our lives just gradually accumulate small changes?

Why pick this day to celebrate out of the steady stream of days?

Well, whatever the answer to that question, Molly planned another great party this year – lots of jumping at Elevated Sportz. The kids all had fun and the birthday boy felt special. Maybe that’s all that needs to be said.

Make sure you look carefully. There are three lions in this photo.

Of course we stopped at the Zoomazium so the kids could play. There, Alex discovered that growing up has its downsides.

BRIAN enters the cafeteria. He’s wearing a stereotypical yellow biking raincoat (wet), shorts that end awkwardly just past his knees, dark striped wool socks, and waterproof shoes. A messenger bag is slung over his shoulder. He grabs a plate of scrambled eggs and walks to a chair by COWORKER, one of the hoodie-clad programmers. He puts his messenger bag on a neighboring chair and sits next to COWORKER.

BRIAN: Hey.

COWORKER: Looks up from his smartphone. Oh, hey.

COWORKER glances back and forth between his phone and BRIAN a couple of times, then puts his phone down and looks fully up at BRIAN.

COWORKER: So, did you bike in today?

BRIAN: Yeah. I ride in almost every day now.

COWORKER: Wow. Isn’t it dangerous?

BRIAN: No, it’s not too bad. I get to ride on the Burke-Gilman trail part of the way. Then I bike down Eastlake Avenue. There are enough other bikers that I feel like drivers know to watch for us. I also try to time my commute for rush hour, because cars can’t park in the right lane then. Bikes get plenty of space.

COWORKER: (Skeptically.) I don’t know… Eastlake, ugh. I wouldn’t bike there.

BRIAN: It’s not too bad.

COWORKER: I know you’re not going to see it this way, but it actually seems kind of irresponsible to me.

BRIAN: Wait. What do you mean?

COWORKER: Well, first, you haven’t convinced me that biking isn’t dangerous. Just that maybe it’s less dangerous than I was assuming.

BRIAN: But how is that irresponsible?

COWORKER: It’s irresponsible because you don’t have to do it at all. You’re choosing a dangerous way to get to work when you could drive or take the bus instead.

BRIAN: Whoa…

COWORKER: And don’t give me any excuses about exercise or the environment. You work at Facebook. You can afford a gym membership. And if you’re worried about the environment take the bus or get a damn Tesla. You’ve got kids, right?

BRIAN: Yes…

COWORKER: Look me in the eye and tell me you’re doing the right thing for the kids. When you’re bleeding on the side of the road, I can tell you both they and you would wish you’d bought that Tesla instead. Irresponsible.

BRIAN is silent for a few moments, and he stares at the ceiling. Then he speaks.

BRIAN: This conversation is nauseous.

COWORKER: Sorry, I didn’t mean to attack you. I just have some strong feelings here is all.

BRIAN: No, that’s not what I meant. Do you know the difference between “nauseous” and “nauseated?”

COWORKER: Umm…

BRIAN: Something that causes nausea is nauseous. When you experience nausea, you are nauseated. Most people use the word “nauseous” wrong their whole lives. This conversation would have been much clearer if we had a similar distinction with the word “dangerous.”

COWORKER: What do you mean?

BRIAN: You asked me, “Isn’t it dangerous?” There’s ambiguity there. Are you asking me if biking causes danger, or if biking exposes me to danger?

COWORKER: I think it was pretty clear in context. Besides, “dangerated” isn’t a word, so I couldn’t really do better.

BRIAN: But I think we’re getting away with some sloppy thinking because we’re not being clear about cause and effect here. Hmm… dangerous, dangerated… wait! “Dangerous” / “vulnerable” captures the distinction. Let’s confine “dangerous” to meaning “causes danger,” and “vulnerable” means you’re on the receiving end of danger.

COWORKER: Okay.

BRIAN: So the question you meant to ask is, “Aren’t you vulnerable when you bike?”

COWORKER: Sure. But I don’t see how that changes anything.

BRIAN: It changes everything! The first, wrong question, “Isn’t it dangerous?” is evasive and incomplete. It’s just like the sentence, “Mistakes were made.” Both leave out the primary actor. With the dangerous/vulnerable distinction, we can now capture cause and effect in the question. The full question should be, “Aren’t you vulnerable to drivers when you bike?”

COWORKER: I still don’t see why this matters.

BRIAN: When we misused “dangerous” and worked with the unquestioned assumption that “biking to work is dangerous (just to a debatable degree),” then one of the obvious choices is to stop doing the dangerous activity. As you pointed out, it seems irresponsible to do anything else. But with the “dangerous” / “vulnerable” distinction, the choices look different. When I choose to bike to work, I am vulnerable. When I choose to drive to work, I am dangerous. What’s the responsible thing to do?

COWORKER: Wait a sec, just being a driver doesn’t make you dangerous.

BRIAN: I try to drive safely, sure. But I’m still capable of causing harm, and that makes me dangerous. All it takes is me being in a rush, or distracted, or tired…

COWORKER: It’s still pretty obvious to me that it’s better to drive. I’ll take steel armor and airbags over a helmet any day, and I know my family appreciates that choice.

BRIAN: That’s fine, and I understand that. However, you didn’t start by talking about personal choice. You said it was irresponsible to make another choice. I don’t think it’s that clear-cut. Maybe choosing to be vulnerable rather than dangerous is the morally right thing to do.

COWORKER: This is crazy. You don’t have any sort of social obligation about how you get to work. As long as we’re playing with words, pretending you’re making the “morally correct” commute decision is the very definition of “smug.”

BRIAN: Puts his head in his hands. Whoa, yeah, I got a little carried away with the rhetoric there. Truth be told, I bike to work because I like to. It’s practical. It’s as simple as that. I feel safe when I ride, but maybe that’s because I’m naive and overconfident. I really haven’t thought about it that much.

COWORKER: You’re on to something with the dangerous/vulnerable thing, though. It’s something I haven’t thought of before. It’s always seemed a no-brainer that, if you can afford it, you’re better off in a car. But I didn’t make the connection that it’s not a free choice. Each new person in a car is one more potential danger to others. Those add up, I guess. This is like that “You’re not stuck in traffic, you are traffic” mind game.

BRIAN: Exactly. If you’re not vulnerable, you’re dangerous. Except for those saints riding busses… they’re doing everything right.

COWORKER: Now that I think about it, I want more people out of cars and on bikes. Those stupid traffic-weaving law breaking bikers? I definitely don’t want them driving. Stay on bikes, please!

BRIAN: And reckless asshole drivers? We’d all be better off if they traded in their car keys for some U-locks.

COWORKER: Amen. Okay, maybe I’m coming to terms with a vision of a city where people can choose to bike without being crazy. I want to keep driving, though. I’m safe, and I’m not ready for your granola lifestyle.

BRIAN: Laughs. Fine. But please just remember, when I choose to ride my bike to work, I’m not doing something dangerous. I’m choosing to be vulnerable.

COWORKER: Yeah. Slowly: And I choose to drive, so I choose to be dangerous. Whoa. This gives me something to think about on the drive home.

BRIAN: Just please don’t it distract you!

BRIAN and COWORKER compost their breakfast plates and exit offstage.

THE END.

I was an awful driver as a teenager. Here’s just one of many cringe-inducing moments. Parents teaching kids to drive is one of the most painful things ever, so my cousin Doug let me practice in his truck one weekend in the parking lot of West Potomac high school. On the wide-open blacktop, I made awkward turns and jerky starts and stops. Then Doug said I could drive his truck back to the house. On the two-lane road in front of the school, I faced oncoming traffic from the driver’s seat for the first time. I had no idea how much space the passing car needed, I had no feel for how big the truck I was driving was, and though a teenage boy would never admit it, it was all kind of scary at the time. I gave the passing car space. A lot of space. In spite of Doug continuing to tell me, in a very calm voice, that I should just keep going straight… I gave that passing car too much space. The next thing I knew, the truck was on its side in the ditch by the road. I don’t think Doug has driven with me since then.

A series of unrelated decisions mean I’m not living the life that my teenage self expected. I gave up physics after one class in college. Picking the University of Washington for grad school brought me to the West Coast, and meeting a girl and a job at Microsoft kept me here. Forget the countryside. I live in the middle of the fastest-growing big city in the United States. For a few years of my Microsoft life, I would go weeks at a time in the winter without going outside at all. Molly and I would get into our car in the garage, drive to the underground parking lot of our building at Microsoft, and then drive back to our garage at home. We’d never see the sun (boo) and never feel the drizzle on our faces (yay).

But one thing has remained constant from my teenage years to today: Thanks to my formative experiences, I hate driving. For fifteen years I lived with cars as a necessary evil to get to work and to get the kids to daycare. (Though thanks to thirteen years of carpooling with Molly, I wasn’t driving for most of that time in the car.) Two years ago, I discovered how practical it was to bike to my new job at Facebook. There are many reasons people ride bikes: To get excercise, for the thrill of racing, to save money, to help the planet. Mostly, I pedal to keep my butt out of a car. I love it like I never loved taking the bus downtown, and I think I’ve finally figured out why. Yes, I live in a city, but I now spend at least an hour a day outside. And it turns out Seattle has plenty of trees and water around; I just needed to get out and enjoy them. Because biking is work amplified by a simple, understandable machine, I even spend more free time contemplating casual physics: force, mechanical advantage, angular momentum. Biking connects me to those dreams I had in my youth. I had abandoned them without realizing it, and now I have them back.

Seattle, with a bike, some of its abundant water, and hints of the trees.

To support these goals, I ordered a new bike in December that finally arrived this past week: A Co-Motion Periscope tandem. I can easily adjust the height of the rear seat for either kid, and in theory the bike will handle two adults. (I haven’t tried yet.) Everybody got to ride the bike this weekend, and it gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from both children.

We do have one problem, though — the number of bikes in the house has officially crossed into “ridiculous” territory. I counted this weekend and we have nine working bike saddles in the basement and only four butts in the house. I suppose the first step is admitting I have a problem…

The second milestone was just two days ago. Every now and then the boys try to pick me up, and of course it never works. It didn’t work two days ago, either… until both kids tried at the same time. Standing on opposite sides, they each grabbed me around the waist, counted to three, and lifted at the same time. To my surprise, they lifted me about a foot off the ground. They couldn’t hold me up that long — probably only a second — but the fact I moved at all made both kids extremely happy.

Alex learns to make a “W” with his fingers at the basketball game. Yes, the stadium was mostly empty for the game.

Then, last week, I chaperoned on a field trip to the Museum of History and Industry. The kids had an hour to work on a scavenger hunt, answering various questions about Seattle history. After, they worked in groups to identify various historical artifacts. Alex’s team had to identify a sextant. I don’t know how they did it, but they correctly knew that it was from the age of explorers and that we’d use a GPS for the same function today… but of course none of the kids knew how a sextant would be used. But I bet none of the adults in the museum knew that either.

The age of explorers.

But the most fun Seattle experience happened by accident this past weekend. We decided to go to the Seattle Bike Show by bike. While I’m used to biking everywhere, I’m still a little timid riding with the kids beyond the couple of miles around our house, especially when either kid is riding his own bicycle (as opposed to being pulled by me). The Bike Show was at CenturyLink Field, south of downtown… _waay _beyond my usual bike-with-kids stomping grounds. I don’t think I would have done it if there hadn’t been an organized family bike ride there. Riding in a big pack with other families showed me that it’s both easy and fun to get to downtown Seattle by bicycle… as long as you have the time to do it at a kid pace.

Our route to and from downtown. Riding at Alex’s pace, it took two hours each way.

Our bike route wound up being an impromptu tour of Seattle’s industrial history. We went through trainyards and shipyards. We rode by an enormous ship picking up its cargo of grain at Terminal 86. We took the time to stop at Fisherman’s Terminal (“Home of the North Pacific Fishing Fleet”) and look at the memorial to those who lost their lives at sea. It was a way more fun and scenic way to get downtown than just driving on I-5, and I’m so glad we took the time to do it.

Bike trip selfie at the Fisherman’s Terminal. Patrick rode with us to the stadium on our cargo bike, but he phoned in a rescue for the way home: Molly came to pick him up. Alex and I did the return trip alone.

I decided to check in with Patrick. I was pulling him along on a tag-along bike. If you haven’t seen one, it’s basically a third wheel that clamps to the seatpost of my bike. Patrick gets his own seat and set of pedals, but I get to help with balance and speed. I called over my shoulder to him. “Patrick, how are you doing?"

“Good.” He sounded chipper.

“Do you think you can finish the ride?"

“Yeah."

I turn right for the full Chilly Hilly route.

“OK. I was just checking because there we just passed the shortcut. If we took it, the ride would be 10 miles shorter."

“I want to take the shortcut!"

“What?"

“I want to take the shortcut!"

“We just passed it!"

“Can’t you stop and turn around? I want to take the shortcut!"

“Patrick, you said you were doing good! Can’t we keep going?"

“Turn around!"

I spy a driveway ahead, and I pull the bike over so I can easily talk to Patrick instead of shouting over my shoulder. I shouldn’t have told him about the shortcut, I think. I’m disappointed but I try to keep it in check. I’d been looking forward to doing this ride with Patrick, and the shortcut feels like giving up. But you can never tell when kids just run out of gas, and I don’t want Patrick to be miserable just because Dad wants to do the whole ride.

“Patrick, what’s wrong?” I ask.

“My hands hurt.”

“Are they cold?"

“Yeah."

Uh oh. This had been a problem earlier in our ride. Patrick’s wearing some too-big, thin gloves that aren’t up to the task of keeping kid fingers warm for hours of 40-degree weather. A little bit before the ride’s halfway-point rest stop, I had to pull over to warm up Patrick’s hands. I used the trick I learned winter camping back in college: If you need to warm up a companion’s fingers, have them put their fingers on your stomach. There is no truer expression of parental love than letting your child put ice-cold hands up your shirt. I let Patrick do it again, and I also give him a piece of chocolate. The kid probably needs energy, I think.

As he eats, I talk to him. “Patrick, you get to choose. If you want to take the shortcut, we can. But you’ve been looking forward to this ride for a long time. Are you still having fun?"

“It’s fun, but my hands hurt."

“Okay. Take a minute to think about it. We’ll do what you decide."

He finishes eating and climbs back on his saddle, but he doesn’t say anything. He scrunches up his eyes like he’s fighting back tears. Several heartbeats pass in uncomfortable silence.

“Patrick? What’s wrong?"

“I don’t know what to do.” 

I don’t answer him. I let him wrestle with this dilemma on his own. Finally, he says, “Keep going."

“You don’t want to take the shortcut?"

“No."

Relieved, I pull out into the next break in the never-ending stream of bicycles and resume pedaling. I don’t know what made Patrick decide to keep going — probably his stubborn streak — but I’m happy so I don’t question his decision. 

The geography of Bainbridge Island slaps us hard in the face for thinking “going on” would be easy. Not even a minute after our decision to keep riding, we turn a corner and come to Baker Hill Road, the route’s longest climb. I stare at the line of bicycles in front of me stretching up the hill like they’re biking into the sky. I hope Patrick doesn’t have a change of heart. I repeat the mantra I’ve told him on each of the earlier hills: “OK, slow and steady. We’ll make it to the top."

Other than a single “Whoa!”, Patrick shows no signs of discouragement. It could be because I do most of the work getting us up the hills. I gear down and start huffing and puffing my way up. Riders passing us offer words of encouragement to Patrick: “Good job pushing your dad up the hill! Way to go!"

“Dad, why do people keep talking to us?” Patrick asks.

One advantage of hills: They warm you up. When we finally reach the top, I’ve overheated in my jacket and I pull over to unzip it. That’s when Patrick whispers to me, “Dad, I have to go potty.” Luckily trees abound on the island. Patrick hands me his gloves and disappears. When he comes back, I hand him the gloves back, but he says, “No, I don’t want them.” I guess Baker Hill Road removed the last of Patrick’s chill, too.

We finished the ride an hour and fifteen minutes after the fateful decision to keep going. The scenery for the rest of the ride was among the best of the trip — miles biking along the water, the inland routes spruced up with plum blossoms. Even Patrick remarked on how pretty it was. We were both in good spirits for the rest of the ride, and I think Patrick was proud of himself when we finally coasted down to the big green “Finish” sign. I was proud of him, too.

Sweat? Never.

When I chose to start commuting by bike, I had to give up on that ideal. I know many commuters who wear special bike clothes on their ride and shower as soon as they get to work. I’m not one of those. I wear my normal clothes on my bike, and when I arrive at work I go straight to my desk and start working. I know that by being sweaty around other people, I’m violating one of the Crowley’s taboos, but this decision makes biking to work practical. If the thought of showering and changing every day keeps you from choosing an active commute, you should consider breaking this taboo, too. After all, we like to laugh at Downton Abbey’s outdated standards of clothing, class, and rigid propriety… why don’t we make its views on sweat equally outdated?

Taboo aside: I’ve learned a few things about staying comfortable when sweat is part of everyday life again.

• I dress like it’s 10 degrees warmer than it actually is: I’m cold when I start biking, but I’m always warm when I’m done climbing Ravenna Boulevard. If I was warm when I started, I’d overheat on the way in to work. 

• Two shirts are more comfortable than one. Merino t-shirts are awesome because they don’t feel clammy next to my skin, then a cotton shirt over that pulls moisture further away from my skin. 

• I’ve fallen in love with biking caps. They soak up sweat; when I peel the cap off at the end of the ride, the sweat comes off with it. 

• Bandannas are awesome. I always have one with me.

The single most important thing I’ve learned: Sweat dries. Try it… you’ll see.

Patrick asked to ride his bike every day this weekend. He got his first scraped knee on Monday. Four-year-old Patrick would have been inconsolable until he’d gotten a Band-Aid, but six-year-old bike-crazy Patrick just got back on his bike and kept pedaling. Hills still challenge him — he walks his bike up and down anything steep — but he rides surprisingly well on the crowded Burke-Gilman trail. He zoomed along the three mile flat stretch from our house to Magnuson Park this weekend, his longest ride to date.

As we rode to Magnuson Park, he told me, “Biking is my favorite thing to do in the world. Sometimes it makes my legs tired, but it’s worth it."

On the positive side: Once Patrick is motivated to do something it’s almost impossible to stop him. Recently, his motivation has been about biking (which obviously warms my heart). He really wants to ride his own bike to school, so last weekend we did a practice run to figure out: 1) Is it even possible (he’s only been riding for a few weeks) and 2) how long it will take. He’s a new enough biker that he can’t ride the quarter-mile downhill from our house to the bike trail — he can’t keep his speed under control. No problem! He happily walked his bike. Then, at the end of the flat bike ride along the Burke Gilman trail (where he did very well, by the way), he faced The Hill. It’s a short, steep uphill to his school, and Patrick really wanted to be able to ride the whole way. (After all, his brother can!)

Well, of course a 6-year-old who’s only been biking for a few weeks and who’s riding a bike that weighs half as much as he does can’t ride all the way up that steep hill. Patrick made it about a third of the way up, though, before he couldn’t go any further. He panted a little, looked at me, and then said, “I want to try again.” And he did: He walked his bike back down, turned around, and tried again. He got a little further in his fight with gravity, but gravity won. “I want to try again.” A little bit further the third time. 

The three attempts exhausted him. There was no 4th attempt, and his poor legs barely had enough gas to get him home after that. But I have to admit I’m really proud of his attitude and his effort. He’ll eventually conquer that hill.

On the other hand, we got contacted by the Lower School Director (think “School Principal”) yesterday. Patrick apparently got into a small wrestling match with a Kindergarten student at recess, and he’s going to be spending his recess with the principal one day next week as a consequence.

As I said: We need to teach him to use his powers for good, not evil.

One of my quiet pleasures of biking-as-transportation is figuring out my favorite way to get my stuff from point A to point B. I mean “pleasure” literally and not in the sarcastic look-here’s-a-problem-I-wouldn’t-have-if-I-drove-my-car sense of the word. I like trying and using different bags. I can change the entire vibe of my ride by changing how I carry things. It’s like being able to transform my car from a Miata to a Highlander just by swapping my laptop bag. It’s fun. And for whatever reason, I form these warm-and-fuzzy emotional attachments to my favorite bike bags. (Maybe I need help.)

My one non-negotiable requirement for my commuting bags: They must be waterproof. The main thing I have to get back-and-forth is my laptop. This is Seattle, and water and electronics don’t mix. Other than that, my preferences have evolved over my two years commuting. I started with with panniers. My experience with panniers taught me my second criterion for evaluating a bike bag: How well does it work when off the bike? My commuting bag holds my stuff when I’m at my desk at work and when I’m at home, and it’s got to schlep my stuff to and from my bike as effectively as it carries my stuff when I pedal. All of the panniers I tried were awkward off the bike.

Next up were the backpacks. Backpacks taught me another thing: I hate using velcro as the primary mechanism for keeping the bag closed. I used a Chrome backpack with a velcro-fastened roll-top for a while. It’s incredibly secure and it’s the best way to build a waterproof bag, but the _rrriiippp _each time I wanted to open the bag got on my nerves, especially in an otherwise quiet office.

Next I got a buckle-fastened roll-top backpack: The Chrome Barrage. I love this backpack. Simple, durable, waterproof, carries tons of stuff, looks cool… and no velcro! I used it every day for months until I discovered its fatal flaw. I was in our basement one weekend playing my least favorite game of “where’s that cat pee smell coming from?” when I discovered the smell was coming from my backpack! It turns out the foam-padded panel they use to make the backpack comfortable when resting on your back soaks up sweat like a sponge. Nine months of sweating into it every day turned that padding into a stinky bacteria colony. It took me several washes to get the smell completely gone. I still have the backpack, but I’m afraid to use it as a daily commuting bag.

It turns out there aren’t many “bike commuting backpacks” without padded foam back panels. So reluctantly I turned to messenger bags. Unless you were an actual bike messenger, using a messenger bag struck me as choosing style over practicality. Backpacks are easier to get on and off (you don’t have to lift them over your head), and the two straps hold the weight more securely while pedaling. But, messenger bags aren’t built with absorbent foam padding. I gave them a try.

I went back to my panniers while I researched different messenger bags on the Internet. I narrowed it down to two: The Mission Workshop VX Rummy and the Defy Vicious Cobra. Both of these bags indulged a preference of mine: Given a choice, I’d rather have a metal buckle than a plastic buckle. The Internet consensus is the Mission Workshop bag is the best, most refined messenger bag you can get. The Internet consensus on the Defy bag: Nothing. it’s too new and the brand’s too small. As I write this, there’s not one real review that shows up in the first few Google pages of a “Defy bags vicious review” search. The sane choice, clearly, is to go with the Mission Workshop bag. However, a happy combination of events lead to the typical Brian Dewey solution: I got both. (Specifically: I stumbled on a killer deal on the Mission Workshop bag and a super-cool-impossible-to-resist limited edition of the Vicious.)

So, as a favor to The Internet, here’s a real user’s comparison of the most refined messenger bag on the market to the unknown newcomer.

Top: Mission Workshop VX Rummy. Bottom: Defy Bags “Vicious” Cobra.

Hardware: Straps, closure, velcro. The Mission Workshop bag is just perfect — beyond the gold standard. Platinum standard? The strap can go on either shoulder. The Mission Workshop bag has a metal “quick adjust” system on the strap instead of a “quick release” system that works effortlessly. And the metal VX closures are also simple and effective. Also, while the Mission Workshop bag has a velcro roll-top, it’s completely optional. If you use the bag in its “flap-down” configuration, the only time you have to interact with velcro is using the accessory pockets, and I found that much less annoying than velcro over the main compartment.

The Defy bag gets its cachet from the expensive and trendy Cobra buckles it uses on the strap and flap closure. These buckles look cool and I smile inside each time I hear them click closed. However, I’ve found them to be a little finicky to open. You can’t open them while under load, so the “quick-release” buckle on the strap is particularly tough to use. When I first got the bag, I wasn’t sure the quick-release buckle worked at all it was so hard to unfasten when I was wearing the bag. It took a lot of practice to perfect my little hop-grab-fidget-unfasten maneuver I do now. The Defy bag also has no quick-adjust mechanism at all. While the Defy bag looks cool, the Mission Workshop quick-adjust is so much nicer.

The Cobra quick release on the strap, plus the optional Cobra stabilizer. The Vicious doesn’t need the stabilizer to stay put on my back, so I never use it.

The Cobra buckles that hold the flap down are much easier to operate than the strap buckle — the flap isn’t under load the way the strap is. Here the hardware is as nice as what’s on the Mission Workshop bag. I have only one complaint about the Defy flap closure: Velcro! I don’t know why you design a bag with two awesome, expensive metal buckles to hold the flap down and also have velcro that I have to _rriiippp _open when I get to work. I solved this by ordering some two-inch industrial velcro from Amazon. I use it to completely cover the velcro on the inside of the flap so it no longer sticks to the bag body. Problem solved.

Design. The Mission Workshop bag is straight and narrow. Access to the main compartment is surprisingly high on the flap — the design reminds me of a brown paper lunch bag. This provides great protection from water, even when you use the bag “flap down” rather than “roll top,” but the flip side is it feels kind of constricted to get into that main compartment. The accessory pockets are a great size and shape.

The Defy bag, in contrast, is wide and tapered. When you flip that flap over, the main compartment yawns open at you. It’s incredibly easy to get to everything. I understand now why some non-messengers have been lifelong fans of the messenger bag; the ease of access is a revelation. While this design looks less waterproof than the Mission Workshop bag, in practice I’ve had no problem with water entering any of the compartments on my commute. The Defy bag also has lots of well-designed pockets to help organize smaller items. 

The real advantage of the wide-and-tapered design comes when wearing the bag. I find the Defy bag much more comfortable to wear; I think it’s because it’s distributing weight over a larger area of my back. And for some reason, the Mission Workshop bag always wants to slide down when I ride my bike — the extra stabilizer strap is a requirement for that bag. The Defy bag, in contrast, stays put. I don’t know if it’s the surface area, or the taper (the taper makes it feel like the bag hugs my back), or some other magic, but “stays put” is a huge advantage.

Comfort on the bike, incredibly easy access to stuff when off the bike, no foam padding to absorb sweat: I grab the Defy Vicious for my daily commute. It’s not as refined as the Mission Workshop bag, specifically with the strap hardware, but for me it’s advantages outweigh its disadvantages. If you’re considering the Defy Vicious, just be willing to learn the hop-grab-fidget-unfasten dance and you’ll have a great bag.

Bonus: The Defy Vicious comes in Model T black. While I’m a fan of muted colors, I feel safer with something reflective on my bags, so I usually trick out my bags with reflective tape. Even when bags have “reflective details,” I put on more reflective tape. I like living, and I grasp anything that increases my visibility on the road like a talisman. I planned reflective tape with the Vicious.

What I ordered, however, was a limited edition called the “Sabbath.” I don’t know how many they made. I might have the only one. I grabbed it because the white stripes looked cool. When the bag arrived, I was shocked. Those aren’t “white stripes,” they’re “reflective stripes!” This is by far the most awesomely reflective bag I own, and it looks cool in the daytime too. It’s the first commuting bag I’ve owned that I haven’t added my own tape to. I have no idea why this was a limited edition: It should be a standard offering for the bag. There’s nothing else like it in the market. (Defy: If you want to make a limited edition, make it with red reflective stripes rather than silver, and use your standard red lining. I’d buy that!)

So reflective! I love this. Why isn’t this a standard offering, Defy?

Wednesday morning, I volunteered in Patrick’s classroom. It was my first time this year, and I wasn’t sure when his teacher wanted me there. That was an easy problem to solve: Instead of just dropping the kids off, I’d walk them in so I could ask Patrick’s teacher what time I should return. We got there a few minutes before the bell, so I walked with the kids to wait on the patio.

And that’s when it happened.

As we walked, Alex asked me: “Dad, can you wait with Patrick instead?” I’m now officially an embarrassment to my children. (To be frank, I was wearing one of my more comfortable, practical, yet ridiculous-looking bike-to-work outfits. I can’t really blame Alex for not wanting to be seen next to the dude rockin’ the manpris.)

“Yeah!” Big smile.

Alex’s playing has changed over the past few games. He’s decided he’s best at defense and asks the coach to play that position. There’s no more lollygagging around the field. He hustles to get in and make plays. He still needs to work on ball control and endurance… but playing defense on this team means he’s going to get lots of practice. He’s trying to get better.

I’ve never been a “sports person” and I tend to roll my eyes when sports people talk about all of the life lessons they’ve learned from the game. But maybe there’s something to it. I’ve been thinking a lot about something a younger former coworker of mine asked on Facebook recently. He said he wasn’t good at work politics and asked for book recommendations to improve. He said he was disillusioned with the concept of “meritocracy” at work. I didn’t like the jump from “there’s no meritocracy” to “I need to get good at playing politics to get ahead,” but I couldn’t find the words to explain my thinking. It turns out 3rd grade soccer captures my perspective well. Consider this:

• If meritocracy exists anywhere, you’d expect to find it in sports. Individual performance is public and easy to measure. But even my limited experience “coaching” youth soccer showed me you look for more in your teammates than just raw ball handling skills. For example, on an earlier team, there was one kid who was great whenever he got his foot on the ball — quick and in-control, he could zoom past the other team’s players. But he was uncoachable. He didn’t listen to what he was supposed to be doing on the field. His contribution to the team fell way short of his raw talent.

• Sports isn’t a pure meritocracy… but clearly we shouldn’t react by teaching Little Timmy how to kiss up to the coach to “get ahead.” Youth soccer isn’t about “getting ahead.” It’s about enjoying the game and improving. I view my career the same way. I want to enjoy what I’m doing and I want to keep getting better.

• For some people, “winning” (or at least a reasonable shot at “winning”) is an important part of “enjoying the game.” There are youth soccer leagues in Seattle that are way more competitive than the one Alex is in, and I suspect “what do we have to do to win?” permeates the culture of those teams more than Alex’s. The NFL showed us this year that there are leagues where it’s acceptable to push or break the bounds of ethics in the name of winning. But this isn’t an important part of Alex’s personality. And that’s fine! Alex can choose the league to play in. We’ve got a league and team that matches what he values: Having fun and getting better. The same goes with work. There are professions, companies, and industries where politics, backstabbing, and other zero-sum “what do I have to do to get ahead?” questions permeate the culture. But just like a 3rd grader, you can choose which league to play in. If your company doesn’t support you and your values, choose another company.

When it’s my turn to come off the field and meet my maker, I don’t think he’ll ask, “Did you win?” Nope, “Did you have fun?” seems the right question for soccer, your career, and life.

• If you live here, you’ve heard the complaints… where’s the snow in the mountains? Our plans to do cross-country skiing lessons with the kids this winter are now on permanent hold.

• The flip side is the weather has been great for biking. Patrick’s gotten remarkably secure remarkably fast. In the fall he got to the “balancing at constant velocity” stage. If he ever needed to stop or turn, he fell. For months, we couldn’t interest him in practicing any more. But something changed in the past two weeks that made him more interested in riding again. Two weeks ago, he mastered stopping without falling, but turns were still a challenge. Last week, Molly took him to Bryant elementary, where he mastered turning and rode ten consecutive laps around the play field. Then yesterday, he finally got confident enough to start pedaling without a parent holding him. He ended yesterday with a 2 mile ride on the Burke Gilman trail.

• In the fall of 2013, Patrick and I planted some bulbs in our back yard. They’re back!

Sunday I also discovered a new family bike formation that works much better for us. In the past, we always rode with Alex in the front, and I’d follow with Patrick on the cargo bike. I felt confident in this formation because I could keep an eye on Alex as we rode. When we rode to Gas Works on Sunday, though, we had to navigate several detours on the Burke Gilman trail. Rather than call out instructions to Alex to make sure he went the right way, I simply said, “Follow me!” and rode in front. It was a little nerve-wracking at first because I couldn’t see him, but the longer I rode the more I became convinced this was the better way to ride. Not only was it easier to guide Alex through turns and intersections, I also got to set a consistent pace — a skill he hasn’t mastered. This way of riding was also more entertaining for both kids. Patrick wound up sitting backwards on the deck of the cargo bike, facing Alex, so it was easy for the two of them to talk to each other as we rode. We must have made quite the sight on the trail.

Monday was the last day of nice weather, so we biked to and from school… something we haven’t done since the darkness of winter descended. All told, that means we went more than 48 hours without putting the kids in a car. Not bad for the middle of winter. I’m sure we’ll beat that streak when good weather comes in earnest.

Patrick climbing at Gas Works.

Nice weather on a Sunday at Gas Works? Of course there are people wearing armor and fighting!

Getting ready to bike home.