Let the Games . . . End

Like most American families, mine was glued to the television for the Beijing Olympics. It was special for us, because even though we are all proud Americans, only two of us were born in the USA. My daughters, Molly (8) and Abby (6) were born in China and each lived there until they were eight months old and we were able to adopt them and bring them home. Fortunately, we avoided any intra-family, international incidents as we really were united in our support of the USA athletes. The girls and their mother liked Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, almost as much as I loved the rain-drenched women's beach volleyball final (hooray for white outfits!).

But just as the games themselves were not without controversy, neither was our viewing of them. As we watched the womens' gymnastics floor exercise, I mentioned that I thought one of the Chinese gymnasts was really cute. Molly looked up at me and said, “What do you mean she's cute, Daddy? How can you tell? They all look exactly alike.” First of all, I'm not the most PC cracker in the box, but I'm pretty sure that's something you're not supposed to say. Secondly, its just not true. If it were, the Chinese wouldn't have Milli Vanilli-ed the “not-so-cute” seven-year-old singer in the opening ceremony. Bottom line though, I had a situation that needed to be dealt with. Fortunately there are times in parenting when your kids say or do something that demands a response and you somehow know exactly how to handle it. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times.

"Uh, Gee, Molly. You really shouldn't . . . um, I mean that's not . . . oh boy." Molly just looked at me and laughed as my tongue fumbled at words as if they were batons in a USA 4 x 100 qualifying heat. That's when Abby decided to step in. "No Daddy. She's right. Look at the girl on TV now, she looks exactly like me." It wasn't the save I was looking for, but it did give me a legitimate reason to stop my ridiculous attempt at a reprimand long enough to glance at the TV. The girl was Chinese, but she didn't look like Abby. Sure, they appeared to be the same age, but that's where the similarity ended. "No, she doesn't look like you." Cool, I actually completed a sentence. Unfazed, Abby continued to look at the TV and said, "Well you're wrong; she really does." Meanwhile, Molly was still cackling at my discomfort. I then spouted off a little trite drivel about racial equality and sensitivity. Then I think I finished with some quote from "Blazing Saddles."

So after my less-than-gold-medal performance, I'm back in training; hoping to better handle whatever inappropriate comments my daughters are sure to make about Canadians in 2010.

The Big Four Ohhhhhhhh!

Here’s a partial list of who turns 40 this year: Will Smith, Mary Lou Retton, Owen Wilson, Gary Coleman, Ashley Judd, me, Parker Posey, Sammy Sosa, the cubicle, Naomi Watts, and Daniel Craig. Of those listed, can you guess which two have never detached from the corporate teet? Hmmm . . .

Surprisingly, for someone who usually mainlines anxiety like I do, turning 40 hasn’t been too troubling. Sure, there’s been some nagging internal dialog along the lines of “why haven’t I done anything with my talents; has anyone ever done less with less than me?” But that’s been relatively and thankfully infrequent. That is, it was relatively infrequent until I found out that the cubicle, like me, was conceived during the summer of love. I can only guess from an unholy union between a checker board and total despair. Yes, the middle-class, modern-day version of the gilded cage is exactly as old as I am.

To understand why this finding has some stank on it; we have to go back a few years. I’m in the third grade and our class is taking a field trip at Hallmark Cards (one of the first companies to adopt the cubicle). I remember leaving Kaleidoscope, and then going on a tour of the workspace. The juxtaposition between the two was stunning, even to a kid like me who wasn't aware of much beyond The Superfriends. Kaleidoscope was all about expressing your creativity. There was art everywhere, bright colors, crayons, paper, glue sticks, the works. It was pulpy and beautiful. Then we went into the employee workspace and I saw nothing but antiseptic, neutral colors and a field of cubicles. It was as sterile as I ended up being. The weird part was, that when I saw the cubes I was immediately repulsed. I remember stopping, looking, and vowing, “I will never work in a place like this!” Apparently, my resolve is not quite that of the iron variety (is there such a thing as "yogurt resolve?") because we fast forward 32 years and I find myself occupying one of roughly 14,000 cubicles in a huge corporate campus. It’s not the cubicle that bugs me so much. I really don’t have to spend too much time in it. What bothers me is the fact that I made a promise to myself and didn't keep it. Here's a list of some other promises I made myself but didn't keep:

• Washboard abs
• Millionaire by 30
• Living in the mountains
• Creation of a flying suit capable of repelling bullets
• Playing for the Chiefs

Ok, some of these may seem far-fetched. But not working in a cubicle is pretty doable; at least a little more so than say, making a bullet-proof flying suit. In any case, I think 40 is a good time to start keeping promises to myself. I'll keep you updated on my cubicle progress, but for now I'm off to the gym to wail on my abs.