The Airport

Yesterday I was told two seemingly separate, relatively important things. First, I would be able to pick my car up from the shop the next day at around noon. And secondly, I would be driving my friend to the air port at around eight (AM.)

The math didn't line up properly, and so, eight o'clock I found myself walking out into the (quite literally) freezing morning to ride shotgun to the airport in my friend's car.

Mind you, the last time I was at the airport I was in my early teens. I've now managed to avoid it for the better part of a decade. The closest I've come to the runway is driving by the surrounding fence on the way home from a (mind-numbingly) distant interview. My last memory of the drop-off terminal came from the back seat of my mother's minivan.

For those of you who haven't utilized Orlando International in the past ever, the entrance itself is a puzzle of Rubix cube-like proportions. It can be figured out, with time, and a healthy dose of logic (some argue that there is a pattern, that has been planned, but I disagree,) so long as you do not fall pray to using your GPS (despite what it tells you, the south runway is not where you turn right.)

After you've finally figured out where the elusive path that leads to the terminals actually is, you've built up so much nervous energy that finding the correct drop off is nearly impossible. This inevitably forces you back into the vehicular maze for round two, where you place all of your Faith in the belief (and that's what it essentially equates to when driving with me) that eventually you will arrive at your destination.

Then, you (in this scenario the drafted chauffeur to the now worldly-seeming friend) have to find your way back out of the labyrinthine roadways of the airport just to find yourself back on the highway, which is where(any officer of the law or worried mother will tell you) the real problems begin. It's entirely likely that you own one of the various gadgets the electronics corporations (seemingly, in a race to cause the most car accidents in the shortest amount of time) have developed "streamlining" their products. Now we have cell phones that tell us where to go, play our music, movies and books on tape. The only way they could be more dangerous is if they also offered alcoholic drinks and pointed out really interesting bits of passing scenery at very inopportune moments.

Some of you "old pros" (I'm sure) are reading this and wondering exactly how it is I've made it this far in life if I'm having problems with a simple airport trip. Well I can assure you it's not by making rookie mistakes similar, if not exactly like:

Not going to sleep until four AM the morning you're expected to drive your friend to the airport at eight.

Not familiarizing yourself with the directions to and from your destination.

Not familiarizing yourself with your friends car before driving.

Not adjusting the mirrors, seats and various music and air-conditioning settings of said vehicle until you have already thrown yourself headfirst, salmon-like, into the upstream battle that is exiting Orlando International.

Having a nearly complete lack of knowledge of the highways near to your lifelong home.

Making mistakes like these are exactly how one (someone I certainly have nothing to do with and in no way resemble) doesn't make it past his or her twenty-fifth year, so I make absolutely sure I do not to make them.

Grandmommy's Gifts, When I'm Right, I'm Right.

Like most Christmases, this Christmas was over by the 26th, and it now being the 27th means that I only have so long to write about it before it becomes old news, or worse, old fake news.

I don't know why I was so surprised to be exactly right about something, as I so often (Ha!) am--yet again, my grandmother managed to fill up multiple boxes worth of gifts, wrap them in Holiday themed paper, and hand them over to us with a huge smile on her face while she sung out the oh-so-familiar chorus of "this Christmas is the last Christmas I'm doing." I have a feeling that just as she said that last year, and this year's Christmas still arrived with a doting Grandmother in tow, so too will next year's Christmas drag her into the Holiday festivities, kicking and screaming--or, entirely more likely, she will find herself at a garage sale, or in front of a product at a store that she knows one of her grandchildren just has to have, and she will buy that product saying: "This is the only thing I'm buying so-and-so this year. And they can just deal with getting only one gift." She is likely to repeat this process two dozen times (per grandchild) throughout the year until this happens yet again:

You might notice the very practical nature of some of these gifts. I'm relatively sure my cousin got six pairs of scissors. Well, five. I stole a pair. I think she noticed, because she gave me a very questioning look that asked: wait, you actually want one of them? Go right ahead. How do you feel about this whisk?

It might sound improper, or even borderline rude, to complain or joke about a gift, and sometimes it is, but in all seriousness, I have a paring knife sitting at the bottom of my shorts drawer, that has been sitting there since I was twelve. It's not that we don't like the gifts, it's not even that we don't need them. What it comes down to, in truth, is that she gives me and my cousins these incredibly useful packages, for that mythical day she just calls "the day you own your own home." While it may be a buyers market, none of us are, or anytime soon will be, in the market for an actual house. And yet, each and everyone of us are now the proud owners of a fully stocked and decked out gourmet kitchen, even if the kitchen itself is (and for the near future, is like to remain) entirely imaginary.

We all love these gifts, we always have and always will, and seriousness, that paring knife will find use someday, maybe even in paring, if I ever figure out what that is. It's almost impossible for us to even consider not getting "grandmommy's boxes."

The only problem with my grandmother's gift giving system (outside of the obvious storage issues that inevitably occur) is what I've come to call "the Favre Effect." Brett Favre has long been one of my favorite players in the NFL, however, it is widely known that the man throws a put ton of interceptions. When you hold the record for touchdowns, and passes thrown, it's logical that you'd also at least be "up there" on "picks" as well. My grandmother has come across this same problem, in regards to her own unique sport. Each year, every one of her many giftees receives somewhere around a half-thousand individual presents. Statistically, not every gift will be a hit. And even if the gift is perfect, it might not be entirely applicable. For example, take one of the pictures above. It is widely known that I am an avid gamer. I enjoy the video games. However, I do not now, or have not ever, owned a Zelda game. Despite my love of that particular platform, I haven't ever owned a system with that series even on it. My experience with Zelda comes entirely through friends and their respective experiences. And yet, this Christmas Eve found me the proud owner of a Zelda strategy guide. (Strategy guides being one of the five great gamer sins non-withstanding) I had no way of using this. But throwing it away, or giving it away, seems somehow wrong. Plus, I find it entirely too cute that I got a video game guide from my grandmother. She clearly had the thought process of "He plays video games. So he plays this video game." But beyond even that, the cutest thing of all (or most insulting, depending on where you sit) is that she thought, well, if he plays video games, he probably needs help. And so I came into ownership of a guide, for a game I've never touched.

However, the awesome reality of it all still remains: I'm overjoyed that my grandmother continues to think of me, it's great to know that someone does, that there is a veritable wall of love always lurking, looming, somewhere in the distance, ready to shower me with gifts and mixed statements about what I should be doing with my life and who I should vote for in the next election, with a pinch of "I love you" thrown in for good measure.

The New Big Three and Orlando's Big Deal

Today, like most days, I woke up to a barrage of text messages. Don't take that as me unabashedly telling you about how popular I am. Take it for what it is, an indication that I go to sleep when everyone else is waking up. I'm smack dab in the middle of my first REM cycle when my first wave of text messages (normally the ones asking about lunch) hit.

The messages today led me directly into a conversation that we all love to hate: sports, or more specifically, the viability of the current Miami Heat lineup, and the moves that the Orlando Magic made in the past few days.

Sports fans will say what they will about the Heat--and haven't stopped doing so since the first day LeBron put on his floaties and jumped out of the sinking ship that was (and is) the Cleveland franchise, and paddled his happy way into the warm waters of South Beach--but the Heat are proving to NBA fans and ESPN Sports Analysts alike that three superstars can play together and win games. I, personally, am still holding onto the belief that having three players of that caliber on one team will be detrimental to their overall chances at success. Regular season games are won by thirty point scores, but playoff basketball requires the complete team, it requires a solid bench--something the Heat are distinctly lacking.

The biggest problem for the Heat lies in the expectations. James, Bosh and Wade all expect a Championship, the Organization expects a Championship, and the fans not only expect one, they need one, if only to justify the soaring prices of regular season tickets in Miami. The investment (and therefore strain) that Miami, emotional and financial, has placed in (and on) these three players is extraordinary, and the requirements the players are demanding of themselves more so--if they don't turn out a Championship this season, or at the latest, next, we might see trade rumors and a talks springing up like the Huns in Mulan.

And honestly? We should. LeBron needs to be the star of the show for the chemistry of any team he's on to be right. The same could be said for Dwayne Wade, who is, in my opinion, the most underrated of the NBA superstars. The reality very well may be that the newish "Big Three" might be a little too big.

The biggest sports buzz of the week though, for any of us who still call Orlando home, lies in the Orlando Magic's series of rapid fire deals. There was some excitement, and a lot of general puzzlement, about the Vince Carter trade (you know, the one that got rid of Courtney Lee) in the first place. Now we've dished Carter to get Hedo Turkoglu (a name that only a Magic fan could pronounce with any accuracy) and Jason Richardson (a 20 points a game player.) We also traded away Gortat to Pheonix, effectively swapping three fifths of our team for thee fifths of the Suns' teams in what NBA analyst of yore call "ye ole Swaparoo."

On top of the "you take mine, I'll take yours" trade that Magic President Otis Smith worked out with the Suns, he also sent Rashad Lewis (my favorite overly-capable, under-performing professional player) for Gilbert Arenas, the troubled all-star from the more troubled Washington Wizards franchise.

I've been a huge proponent of the "We (the Magic) need a 30-point a game scorer" argument. Then, Smith, in his wisdom, waved his magic wand and made it so. Arenas alone gives the Magic a very solid chance at a legitimate playoff run, taking nothing away from the near Championship of 2009 where for a reason unknown to me, good old Skip-to-my-Lou was taken out for a fresh from injury Jameer Nelson. Picking up half of the Suns' roster and dealing the "Glass Ankle" known as Vince Carter can only be considered a bonus, even if we did lose Gortat, another famously underrated player, in the deal.

Of course, I would rather have a superstar who hadn't brought a gun into a locker room, or faked an injury to get a fellow teammate game time (although that one doesn't sound too bad.)

It's alright, it's just the Magic keeping in line with the new Orlando (and Cincinnati, if the Bengals have a say) tradition of hiring people with checkered pasts (a la George O'Leary) and minor criminal infractions.

I mean, it was just a gun. In a locker room. Well, so long as he scores thirty points a game, I'm alright with it. After all is said and done, I won't be in the locker room anytime soon.

Grandmommy's Gifts

My mother is talking to me about my Grandmother again. Or more accurately, talking to my Grandmother when I'm around (which in this case translates into the same thing.) Grandma is upset (again,) my older sister took some things (things that were also gifts) from my younger sister, and my younger sister gave them willingly. I would understand Grandma’s issue, if she were a normal person, that gave a normal amount of gifts.

But she’s not normal. She’s Grandmommy, and she is what I have come to call a "thriftaholic." She shops for deals, at garage sales and thrift stores, if it's cheap, she’s interested. My Grandmother personally kept the Salvation Army afloat from ’83-Modern Day. The day Grandma stops shopping for deals is the day we take away her car keys, her money and her cell phone (my aunts and mother are enablers to their cores.)

Don’t take this all negatively—it worked for her, a little too well. When I was five years old, I would sit down on her multi-colored carpet in front of the Christmas Tree, next to one of my cousins, and open a box I could fit my bed into (suffice it to say this was not a typical Christmas present.)

The children would spend the rest of the evening digging through our presents, trying to catalog what we got, a task, I might add, we nearly always found to be impossible unless we got incredibly general. “This is a box full of gifts,” one of us (the cousins) would say. And the rest of us would look on and say “She is wise, mine is also a box full of gifts.” Without this very political approach you could quite easily spend the rest of the year opening one Christmas gift.

I have a theory that somewhere in her house, is a secret room with about twenty or so cubbyholes, with my family's name tags taped across the top. Each one is filled to boiling over with random toys, books and gadgets. Each year, sometime in November, I imagine she goes down those stairs with as many boxes as she feels she needs, and just reaches in and pulls out whatever it takes to fill each one. She no longer has an inclination to even look at what she’s giving to whom.

This may seem like a very efficient system, but she has caught herself in what I think of as the “Thriftshopper’s Spiral of Doom that Leads into the Penny-Pincher’s Abyss." It's a Working Title. You see, she buys more than each family member needs in a year, so she is essentially buying in advance for years to come. This would work swimmingly, if she—at some point—stopped buying. But she doesn’t. Ever.

So each year, she buys half again what she actually gives each of us. So what’s the end result? Run-on gifts. You get gifts in 1994 that you were supposed to get in '93, and so on, until eventually you're getting gifts you were supposed to get three of four years previously.

So here we are, adults in our twenties and beyond, getting boxes full of action figures, Mr. Potato Head and friends-with a few priceless gems mixed in. When I was twenty, I got my older cousins gift. A ceramic vase, printed with roses and an actual gold-enameled rose. There were recipe books for women being in shape-and a small sweatshirt. Grandma claimed she didn't mix it up. I still have the vase, it holds my favorite pens.

It’s hard to say I have any actual complaints about her system. Every Christmas for 24 (and counting) years I’ve been getting a box that outweighs me (And this is no small feat! Hah! Puns!) of some of the coolest gifts you can believe. Grandmommy's boxes are always a joy to open, it’s the grab bag of Christmas. A recipe book about only PB&J, why not? A ceramic rose? Sure. The first model of camera Kodak ever made? Every year Grandma’s boxes serve as a reminder, firstly that my Grandmother is still alive, still bringing happiness to our family, and secondly that there is no such thing as a bad gift. We’ve been told since we were children, by every Christmas movie ever made, that it’s the act of giving that counts, the spirit of the Holiday. My grandmother is the pinnacle of this feeling, the epitome of what we should want to be during the Christmas—or whatever you celebrate--season.

I hope my grandmother keeps bargain shopping for the rest of her life, it's good to know someone's out there, thinking about me. And out-shopping the average Costco Corporate buyer on her slow days.

Shepard's Pie

Tonight I discovered a conundrum. One that has (most likely) been around for centuries. Mother's who can cook well, but also like to spend time with their children face it everyday, and we, the ignorant masses, never know of it.

I'm not sure if they do.

Let's take Shepard Pie Night on any old day before today: Shepard's Pie? Boring. It taste like cheese, and beef. It's like a taco, in a pot, only instead of spicy sauce, you go the A1 route. Tonight? I don't know what, exactly, it was we ate, but it was fantastic.

It tasted like I imagine most meals in Heaven, or Emeril's, taste like. It needed no extra flavors, it had vegetables and starches, meats and dairy.

It was the perfect meal. And it has been missing from my life, these many years.

And I think I know why.

Let's rewind the clock a few years. My brother and I are at the dinner table. We are both exhausted, mentally and physically. Football practice and school have tapped us out.

We sit down to the table where our little sister sits, at her smaller place, with her smaller cups and plastic plates, pouting because she thinks shes a big girl now, and she knows she deserves a bigger plate. Even though she too hates Shepard's Pie.

My brother and I will do anything to avoid eating this. But, with our father and mother looking on, we know it's impossible. We are doomed to this meal, and we know it. But, if we're going to be forced to eat it, well...they (our parents) are going to be forced to stay here far longer than is needed.

And that's how, after forty five minutes of fart jokes and name dropping high school girls and the all the drama implied, my mother would finally concede and say "Eat a few more bites."

To which we would of course respond, "Do we get desert?"

What we didn't know was that my mother? She was winning. Not only were all her children spending more time with her, but we were actually conspiring to do so.

Tonight's meal was fantastic, it was perfection topped with cheese. And took all of five minutes to eat two helpings of. She spent two hours making it, we spent 1/24th of that time eating it. And with a simple "Thanks, Mom." we were off, back to our respective dwelling or studying places.

Then again. We're older now, we're still her babies, but we aren't her babies. We're old enough to where she knows she doesn't really like us all that much.

So now, she makes the better food, knowing it will get us out of her sight faster.

Smart play, Mom. Smart play.