Scott Nagele's Blog, page 21
July 30, 2015
The children’s menu cut & paste game
Whenever we take the kids out to eat, I feel like I’m playing a game of culinary Tetris, rearranging the meals to fit the appetites of children with varying tastes. If Big Brother isn’t going to eat the fries that come with his cheeseburger, that means Buster and I can share them, which means Buster […]
July 16, 2015
Hay still smells good, but Daddy’s done with cows
For some strange reason, it smelled like a haymow on the second floor of my building yesterday. It’s not the kind of space that should smell like hay. Maybe somebody was just wearing an extra dose of Barnyard by Calvin Klein. Whatever the reason, it sent my mind reeling back to the 1970s. The images […]
July 9, 2015
“I wanna do it!”
Whenever I go outside to do some man work, which hasn’t been often lately, I find an eager huddle of young helpers circling my ankles. You’d think we keep these kids chained in the basement for all their enthusiasm about going outside to dig a hole. Over the July 4th weekend, I planned on doing […]
July 2, 2015
Doctor say it bleeding
The boys were a dream over the weekend. Unusually well-behaved and full of imagination, they provided several snippets worth remembering. It began Thursday night, at the book release party my wife threw for A Housefly in Autumn. There were other events at the venue, with lots of people in fancy clothes attending them. As he […]
June 25, 2015
Our usual boyhood shenanigans are interrupted for this important announcement
It seems like it’s taken forever, but it’s finally here. I can now hold in my hand a copy of A Housefly in Autumn that doesn’t have the word PROOF stamped in bold letters across the last page. This is the real deal. The book is live. Now all I have to do is sell […]
June 11, 2015
Where have you hidden my manhood this time?
These days I have a devil of a time laying hold of that six-inch long piece of equipment that constitutes my manhood. I suspect I’m not the only husband and father with this trouble. I bet lots of men roam their houses, in desperate frustration, searching for the TV remote. Just as he needs a […]
June 4, 2015
An old dog’s new trick: asking for help
I’m not good at asking for help. I’m much more comfortable helping than being helped. I don’t know why; it’s probably some kind of pride thing. Or stubbornness. Who knows? This self-publishing biz has taught me there are some things you can’t do alone. Writing is a fine thing to do alone, but writing sometimes […]
May 28, 2015
Always play safe in Thunderdome
The boys’ uncle sent them a trampoline for Christmas. Memorial Day weekend is the perfect time to build outdoor toys. The weather is finally warm enough to play outside; enough months have passed since Christmas to make it seem like a brand new gift; and parents have an extra day to recover from the trauma […]
May 20, 2015
Let’s just move to Alaska so we don’t have to go to bed at all
It’s hard not to want to welcome the arrival of spring. This is especially true since my winters hold a lot less skiing than they used to and a lot more shoveling. Now that winter is more about searching for lost mittens than a quiet trail through a beautiful woods, there’s not much left to […]
May 9, 2015
What Mommy does
Big Man (formerly New Baby) – Age 1 Mommy feeds me and keeps me clean, but those aren’t the most important things she does. Hell, even Daddy can do that, although clean becomes a relative term when he’s in charge. Mommy is a part of me like no one else in the world is a […]
