LIFE

Sam and I played the Game of LIFE the other day with two of her friends. She has my old game — the Milton Bradley version copyrighted in 1960 and “heartily endorsed” by Art Linkletter (his face graces the white $100,000 bills). You start with $2,000 and a colorful plastic convertible. If you want auto insurance, pay $500.

From there, you spin the “Wheel of Fate” and either go to college or into business. If you skip college, your salary on all the red Pay Days is a meager $5,000 (but $1,000 more than my dad received his first year teaching college English in 1967).

Go to college and you might become a doctor, with a handsome $20,000 per Pay Day.

The game is quaint — houses cost $15,000, and the car you get at the start is free. And it’s funny too (“Inherit shrunken head collection, pay museum $10,000 to accept it”).

But it’s completely outdated. You can get married but not divorced. And in the end you collect, rather than spend, $20,000 for every kid in your car.

For whatever reason, kids love the game. I did. And so does Sam. (Andy, however, always hated it and can’t articulate why.) Sam and I have played it so many times that I often make dumb choices just to see where I’ll end up. I’ve skipped college and forgone purchasing auto insurance. Wahoo, fun times.

Although the game has been updated since 1960 — in one version, the computer guy gets $50,000 every time the spinner comes off the track or gets stuck between numbers — the world has changed markedly. And I think the Game of LIFE should reflect life. So here are my suggested stops on the 2010 game board.

START HERE. With $2,000 and car. If you want health insurance, pay $5,000.

First space: Transmission blows on your “free” car. Pay $2,000 for repairs.

If you choose the college route: Pay $100,000 in tuition. Take out student loan. Repay 10% of the loan at every Pay Day.

These would be the career choices along the college route:

-Doctor – salary $200,000 (but pay $50,000 for malpractice insurance)

-Lawyer – salary $500,000

-Teacher – salary $60,000

-Investment banker – salary $1,000,000, before bonuses (but pay $2 million in attorney’s fees)

-Journalist – collect $10,000 in unemployment

Farther along the board, you might hit: Find uranium deposit! Collect $100,000, but pay $90,000 for groundwater remediation.

At the “Get Married” space, you would spin the “Wheel of Fate” to determine your spouse (not what presents you receive).

Spin a 1, 2, or 3 – You’ve married a struggling entrepreneur. Pay $10,000 to settle bad debt. Collect no additional salary.

Spin 4, 5, or 6 – You’ve married a teacher. Collect $50,000 extra each Pay Day, and $60,000 per Pay Day after retirement.

Spin 7, 8, or 9 – You’ve married a doctor. Pay off med school student loan of $100,000 but collect $200,000 extra each Pay Day.

Spin 10 – You’ve married a software engineer. Collect $100,000 extra each Pay Day. Collect $10,000 from any player who spins a 10.

After marriage, the next required space is “Buy a House. Spin wheel to determine type.” A 1,2, or 3 nets you a small walk-up for $100,000. Spin 4,5, or 6 and you’ll own a split-level ranch for $150,000. Get a 7,8, or 9, and you’ll be living in an old Victorian mansion for $200,000, plus $50,000 additional for repairs. Spin a 10, and you’ll be living in a gated community for $500,000. Too pricey? Well, you can always take out a subprime mortgage. At every Pay Day, the interest rate increases.

Rather than letting fate decide whether or not you have kids, this would be another route choice on the board. You can have up to 4 kids along the family route. But if you reach the end before you have a child, pay $10,000 to the fertility clinic and add a baby boy. The final space in the child route would say: “Pay $20,000 for a decade of piano lessons, ski school, tennis clinics, soccer camps, dance recitals, horseback riding lessons, and French tutoring.”

Choose the child-less route, and pay $10,000 for a Louis XIV sofa upholstered in cream silk and another $10,000 for a Grand Tour of Europe.

To the collection of sweepstakes winning and “if you have stock” spaces, the modern board must also contain the following:

-Divorce. Lose half your wealth.

-Bail eldest child out of jail. Pay $10,000 if you have children.

-Invest in Ponzi scheme. Lose everything.

-House needs new roof. Pay $20,000.

-Dog has hip dysplasia. Pay $2,000 vet fee.

-Youngest child draws on sofa with permanent marker. Pay $500 dry cleaning fee if you have children.

-Child gets cell phone. Pay $5,000 for too many text messages if you have kids.

-Child gets into Harvard. Pay $200,000 tuition if you have children.

-Midlife crisis! Get a tattoo. Pay $10,000 to have it removed.

-Daughter has eating disorder. Pay $20,000 for therapy.

-Eldest crashes car. Pay $30,000 for new one.

-Renovate bathrooms. Pay $50,000.

-Spouse gets face-lift. Pay $5,000.

-Destitute uncle’s wife dies. Pay $5,000 for memorial service.

-Laid off! Lose turn and skip next Pay Day.

But all news isn’t bad, and as in the 1960 game, there are plenty of opportunities to gain money. Such as:

-Sell first novel. Collect $50,000.

-Inherit Louis XIV sofa. Collect $10,000 from Antiques Road Show dealer.

-Apple stock splits. Collect $100,000 if you own stock.

-Investment in college student’s computer project pays off. Collect $5 million.

-Write best-selling iPhone App. Collect $100,000.

-Bonus time at Goldman Sachs. Collect $2 million. Then go to jail.

And if you can survive the game to the end, wouldn’t everyone be a winner? And what other life events am I missing?

Tiger the cat versus Tiger the golfer

We have a large orange cat named Tiger. Since the day after Thanksgiving, this has caused some confusion among my friends.

One day in December, I complained to a friend that Tiger had walked into my office, sat at my feet, and meowed loudly while I was on a conference call. She looked puzzled and asked, “Are you one of his many paramours?”

NO! Tiger, the cat!

A month later, after a long trip to the vet, I told another friend that Tiger had gotten in a fight, had a festering abscess on his face, and was under house arrest.

And then I started laughing. What fun not to specify which Tiger I was talking about. Although they are two different creatures—different species in fact—they also share a few traits.

So with golf season upon us, I present here a list of similarities and differences: Tiger the cat versus Tiger the golfer.

-Tiger the golfer often hits birdies. Tiger the cat catches them.

-Tiger the golfer has earned many trophies. Tiger the cat leaves his on the doorstep.

-Tiger the cat likes to lie down. Tiger the golfer likes to get laid.

- Tiger the cat is fixed.

-Both like to prowl at night.

-Both like to chase tail.

-Both like to be petted and stroked even though neither deserves this much attention.

-When it comes to hunting, neither has demonstrated restraint.

-Despite his behavior, Tiger is a much-loved cat. Can the same be said of Tiger Woods?

Swim Team

I called my parents on Sunday night to let them know that their granddaughter helped win the Vermont State 8 & under freestyle relay title—quite an accomplishment for a kid who, until last Monday, jumped into the pool off the starting blocks (while holding her nose) rather than dive. Once in the pool, Samantha just seems to have a natural ability to swim fast.

And her competitors, ages 8 and younger, weren’t a bunch of dog-paddlers. They could really swim, and do things like flip turns.

But rather than gush forth with congratulations, my father asked, “Why are you making her do this?”

“This” being swim team.

“Uh, because swimming is a good activity for kids,” I stammered. “And it’s really helping to improve her strokes.”

“And her friends do it,” I added when he said nothing in return.

After another pause, I said, “And it’s a good group of kids.” Longer pause. “And she can swim far now.” Pause. “So if she fell out of a boat in the middle of a lake, she wouldn’t drown.”

“Safety is a good reason,” my dad finally said.

Yes, safety is a good reason to learn to swim long distances without touching bottom, or clinging to the side. But his question ate at me the rest of the evening. Why were we making her do swim team? He made it sound like a forced march.

My dad is the smartest man I know—Harvard educated and winner of at least one Latin prize. He has read everything written by Shakespeare and can tell Mozart from Beethoven in just three notes.

But to my knowledge, he has never done anything against a stopwatch (unless he had to list all declensions of the demonstrative pronoun hic, haec, hoc in less than a minute). While he’s active and fit for a 76-year-old—and very competitive on an intellectual playing field—he has never seemed to understand why anyone would enter a race, game, or match.

He has called athletes such as Michael Phelps and Roger Federer genetic anomalies and does seem to enjoy watching them compete. But us mortals? There are better things we could be doing. Winning a freestyle relay—or the Leadville 100, or the local tennis club round robin—won’t solve the world’s problems (not that the Latin prize will). Winning—or even participating in sports—doesn’t give us a better understanding of the world, although international competition does give us a small window into other cultures.

But what I’ve realized over the past 30+ years of competing in everything from rowing to alpine skiing (and not terribly well in any of them), is that athletic competition, and the rigors of training for it, gives us a better understanding of ourselves.

Yes, sports make us fit and allow us to eat as many cookies as we want, and they offer a chance to single-mindedly pursue a goal—usually among friends.

But there’s more to it than this. When we push to our physical limits—and beyond—it strips away all the superficial layers of our personalities, all the barriers we have constructed, and exposes who we really are. I’ve learned more about myself—and more about what parts of my character need shoring up—by being dropped by Olympic cyclists Jeanie Longo and Rebecca Twigg than I ever did holed up in the computer lab writing a masters thesis on the bio-denitrification of drinking water.

I learned what hard work really is, because while we can hide our grades behind the veil of confidentiality, we can’t hide crossing the finish line five minutes down on the leaders, or getting “bageled” in a tennis match (losing a set 6-0, the zero being the round bagel). The scores and times are there for all to see.

And when we do win, we can hold our heads high—higher than we can if we win the spelling bee or math tournament … or Latin prize. In face, it’s the opposite reaction. I have vivid memories of hunching my shoulders up to my head, as if I were a turtle trying to hide, after winning spelling bees in grade school. Athletes are heralded. Smart kids are teased. Thick glasses and general lack of hand-eye coordination doesn’t help.

Next time my parents call, I will tell my dad that Samantha did swim team because she’s good at it. And in the future, if kids taunt her because she wins the math quiz bowl, or because she can spell ‘floccinaucinihilipilification,’ or because she drops a pop-fly in a P.E. softball game, she can remember that she is the Vermont State freestyle relay champion, or at least a quarter of it.

And should she pitch over a sailboat’s gunnels or capsize a canoe, chances are, she’ll make it to shore.

Home Theater

On Mother’s Day, Andy walked into Best Buy to purchase a battery charger and walked out with two Samsung speakers.

“I saved $45,” he stated, as I walked up to him at the cashier’s desk.

“They’re too good a deal to pass up,” echoed the cashier.

“I bought the same ones last week,” chimed in a salesman standing behind the cashier.

I glared at the salesmen, then looked back at Andy. “What are you going to do with them?” I asked.

Since we became parents almost nine years ago, we only seem to listen to music in the car or when we’re at the gym. And the last time Andy purchased speakers — or rather, a “soundbar” — he installed it underneath the gigantic TV, which he purchased two years ago when I was away on business. I found out about it when Samantha squealed into the phone, “Guess what, Mom? I got to ride in the front seat of the car today!” She was 6, and the TV filled the whole back of our Toyota Highlander with the rear seats folded.

“What’s wrong with the TV’s built-in speakers?” I asked Andy when he purchased that soundbar a year ago.

“Nothing,” he said. “This will just improve the audio experience.”

Audio experience? I never thought of TV as offering an “audio experience.”

After installing the center soundbar under the TV, he was intrigued that only the TV voices came out of it, while the rest of the noise emanated from the TV’s built-in speakers. I couldn’t tell the difference. But he seemed happy.

Surround sound is another matter though. I have always been opposed to it. It feels like a home invasion. I don’t want Jon Stewart to sneak up behind me or feel as if I’m in the front row at American Idol. And with one speaker high on the mantelpiece, which happens to be near the stairs leading to our bedrooms, I knew the TV noise might waft upstairs and keep Sam awake.

“You’ll like it,” he kept insisting. Just like I like the 42-inch HD TV, he said. OK, so yes, we can see the tennis ball when we’re watching Wimbledon … and the fact that Maria Sharapova has acne scars on her chin.

Standing at the cashier’s in Best Buy, I let loose with a volley of teasing: “Ah, nice battery charger” … “Happy Mother’s Day to me” … and “I thought we were cutting back on big-ticket items.”

He grew defiant. “I’ve wanted this for years, and I’m buying it,” he declared.

OK, then.

I didn’t speak much at dinner. I was quietly fuming about why I never felt like I could saunter into a furniture store and purchase new sofas — granted $200 speakers are a far cry from the cost of new living room décor.

In our 11 years of marriage, the only furniture I have purchased is a $29.95 ottoman at Bed Bath & Beyond. It sits in front of a musty leather chair from Andy’s Great Uncle Harry.

Andy isn’t bothered by our mismatched, musty furniture. It’s well-built furniture, he insists — better than what we could buy at the local Sofas-N-More. Left to himself — with no wife or child to accommodate — he could live in a cave, as long as it had a big-screen HD TV, cable, one comfortable chair, a refrigerator, the fastest Internet connection available, and a shower the size of a locker room. Oh, and a bed. With a Tempur-Pedic mattress and pillow.

And home theater.

Of all his tech-y purchases, this one just hasn’t worked for me. Watching baseball the other night, I kept thinking I heard a cat fight and hit mute to see where it was coming from. It took three tries before I realized it was the fans at Fenway cheering from the mantelpiece. Then, watching the Grey’s Anatomy season finale, I heard a droning sound that was either a helicopter overhead or the furnace about to explode. Mood music, I realized, the second time I hit mute.

And yes, Sam has asked us to turn down the TV so she can sleep. At that low volume, I can hear the droning and the cat-fight-like sounds, but not any words being spoken.

Mostly though, I’ve kept my complaints to myself. Without Andy’s tech savvy, I would own an unreliable PC infected with viruses, a 10-year-old cell phone with no texting or email capabilities, and a 25-year-old TV with 13 push-button channels and no remote.

Instead, I have a new MacBook, an iPhone, and that HD TV with four remotes.

And home theater.

If sofas came with built-in speakers, would I have new furniture too?

Ex-Palined

Writing an article today, I mis-typed the word 'explained.' It came out 'expalined.'

I kind of like it. It describes the current state of the GOP.

What a waste

Taxes are due soon. Should I skip the IRS as middleman and just make a check out to Edward Liddy at AIG? Or maybe Merrill Lynch's ex, John Thain, would like to freshen up his living room using more taxpayer money.

Tell you what, Mr. Thain. I'll send you two lovely sofas, upholstered in what I call a midsummer-night's dream (deer leaping through flowered trees against a dark navy background), and you can send me a couple of those $87,000 guest chairs. 

I'm sure you'll love these fine sofas that currently clash with everything else in my living room. For they were purchased 30-odd years ago by the man who once held your job, and who, when times were tough for the company, refused to let his son make copies on the office Xerox machine. It would be a waste of paper and toner, he said, and those cost money. 

That same son asked if he could have the sofas when his parents downsized from the house where they raised five kids to a smaller condominium. Why waste them? They're comfortable and well-built. They're just out of style and hideous.

What happened to executives who didn't like to see waste--guys who thought more about the bottom line than buying $1,400 waste cans? Or is fiscal responsibility as outdated as leaping-deer-print upholstery?

A modest proposal: Family Class

When Samantha was 18 months old, we made the mistake of flying from Albany, New York, to Las Vegas — nonstop. It was like traveling with a chimpanzee. Contained in a metal tube for six hours with no understanding of her personal space, or anyone else’s, she wanted to run up and down the aisle and screamed when we tried to distract her with all the toys we had lugged on board.

When we did walk up and down the aisle with her, she grabbed the other passengers’ drinks off their tray tables before we knew what was happening. She giggled and shrieked and tried to climb into other peoples’ rows. And at one point, she escaped my grasp and beat on the cockpit door. It was only six months after 9/11, and I expected a couple of F-14s to force us down in Wichita. And then I expected Congress to pass a bill forbidding children under the age of 5 who are mobile to fly on commercial aircraft.

Read more ...