The Middle of Parenthood

My daughter Mia turned nine years old a few days ago.

My wife jokingly said "we only have another nine years to go!" I smiled. In another nine years, Mia will turn 18, technically an adult. Do I really have that little time left with my daughter as a "child"?

Sometimes I find myself staring at her. How did that little baby we had nine years ago become this big girl? I look long and hard at her face, picking out my features, my wife's features. I watch her while she reads or plays video games or sits at the computer, and I think I can see her adult demeanor. I hear Mia talking and I think I can hear her all grown up. I hold her hand, and I imagine it the size of mine.

Mia has an interest in the adult world. We drive by the middle school and high school. When we go into town, we point out where Jenn went to college. She's been to my office. There's a very interesting future waiting for her, and she seems up for it.

Maybe this is the middle of parenthood. A fond remembrance of the baby she was, but an eagerness for the adult she will become. Nine more years. It almost seems too short.

Discovering Sudoku

I first noticed Sudoku puzzles a few years ago. My father had started doing them. When he would visit, he'd find the unfinished Sudoku puzzle in my newspaper, and work on it. One time I remember him bringing a book or magazine full of Sudoku puzzles, and he would diligently work on them. He looked content solving them.

Somehow I stayed away. I didn't "get" how to solve Sudoku. Or maybe it was the Dad factor, as in "my Dad does old-school Sudoku, but I prefer new-school Wii."

Earlier this year, I bought one of those PennyPress puzzle magazines. My daughter had wanted to do some Word Seek puzzles. She asked me about some of the harder puzzles in the magazine, and I went to the PennyPress' website for some help. While meandering the site, I eventually found "How to Solve Sudoku" (PDF).

I was somewhat surprised that there was a logic to figuring out Sudoku. All this time watching my Dad, I thought it was largely guess work. I was wrong! I skimmed the document, fascinated that there were names for the "deductions" used to solve Sudoku (things like "X-Wing", "Locked Candidate", and "Naked Pair"). The descriptions for how to solve the puzzles plus the charts got me excited, and I downloaded a Sudoku game for my iPod.

The first puzzle took me almost an hour to do, but after finishing, I knew I had found a new habit. It's a satisfying feeling solving a Sudoku puzzle. I "get it" now. My brain feels like it's been exercised. I sent an e-mail to my Dad, telling him about my recent discovery with Sudoku, and he was glad.

Of late, I've taken to solving my newspaper's Sudoku puzzle. Solving these on paper is a delight, but they do get progressively harder, the most difficult being on Friday. I'll have to remember to save that one for my Dad next time he visits.

Best Movies Watched in 2009

I watched 47 movies in 2009.

My favorite movie from 2009 was District 9, followed by The Wrestler and The Hurt Locker. All three I saw in the theater. My favorite movie on DVD? The Dark Knight.

Thanks to my daughter, I plunged into some great animated movies, including Kung Fu Panda, The Iron Giant, Madagascar, and Monster House. All of these feature child-friendly entertainment with plenty of "only adults will laugh" humor.

One other movie deserves special mention: It Might Get Loud. This is a loving documentary about playing guitar, featuring three quite famous guitarists: Jack White (of The White Stripes), The Edge (of U2), and Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin). Watching Page play the air guitar is worth the price of renting this superb film. Each of the three meditate on playing, on creativity, on their motivations. It's a special film: go see it.

• Best DVD Commentary: Bottle Rocket
• Favorite Male Acting: Orson Welles (The Third Man)
• Favorite Female Acting: Catherine Keener (The 40 Year Old Virgin)
• Finally Glad I Watched: American Splendor, Shooter, City of God.

Best Books Read in 2009

My Previous Best Books: 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.

I read 37 books last year. I attribute the increase due to my current project, which has me on an airplane pretty regularly, reading some genre fiction.

My favorite non-fiction book from last year was Tube: The Invention of Television. I've always had a fascination for television, and how it works. This was my first book on the history of TV, and it was fascinating. I did follow up this book with Defining Vision (Joel Brinkley), which provided a recent history on the "invention" of high-definition television.

Honorable non-fiction mentions: God Is Not Great (Christopher Hichens), Three Weeks in October (Charles Moose), Fatal Vision (Joe McGinniss). (The last two got me started on the "true crime" genre.)

My favorite fiction book from last year is between The Dying Earth (Jack Vance) and The Blue Hour (T. Jefferson Parker).

I've already written about why The Dying Earth captured my imagination. The Blue Hour is your basic police procedural. The detective in charge is a woman named Merci Rayborn. She's assigned a new partner, Tim Hess, and they have to investigate a string of grisly crime scenes and abductions. I really enjoyed the characters in this book. Merci jumps off the page as a law enforcer with a too-gruff personality. Tim's just perfect as the old cop who mentors her. I felt swept up in this basic cops-chasing-bad-guys book.

Honorable fiction mentions: Shoedog (George Pelecanos), The Assistants (Robin Lynn Williams), Diary of a Mad Old Man (Junichiro Tanizaki), The Enemy (Lee Child). (The last one was recommended to me by my youngest brother, and it starts me off on the Jack Reacher series.)

Books and Movies from 2009

A belated Happy New Year, although it feels old to me already. I did something different with my book and movie lists from 2009. They're now on Library Thing and IMDb, respectively. I watched 47 movies, and I read 37 books in 2009. I'll have my Best Of Lists in a few days, I hope!

Merry Christmas

I hope everyone's Christmas Day was filled with joy and peace!

Stream of Gratitude

i was in the car going for take-out and enjoying some music i can buy music anytime i want i'm not rich but i have enough to buy nearly any piece of music within reason and i can put that on my iPod and on there i have four days of music "best of pantera" is what i'm grooving too nowadays but Marc from my office clued me into wolfmother so i bought the cd i've been working hard the past few months traveling back and forth to ohio and this coworker is from ohio and i'm glad for his musical recommendations and i'm grateful to be employed even though i grouse about work almost non-stop to my wife who cooked a great thanksgiving meal, preparing the turkey by a technique she picked up reading some cooking blog i don't cook i'm very grateful that my wife leads the way here cooking many many dinners and baked goods and snacks and other treats lately including bagels and whole wheat bread on which i make sandwiches only one i guess i'm on a diet and i'm grateful for losing all this weight though i sorely miss my care-free eating days i should be exercising more but with winter the ice rink will open soon and i'm grateful to know how to skate i miss my friend Paul but good thing we're connected on facebook and maybe he'll attend our twentieth college reunion though i'm not as sentimental or wistful about the past as i used to be because i have a daughter and she's focused only on her present and future and doesn't really care about my past which is how it should be and i'm glad she's doing well in school but has to take an h1n1 flu shot and thank goodness we live in an age and an area where we have the medical care that we need though we don't need a lot except this summer i did have that stomach thing which i'll blog about what's cool is that i can blog and i can twitter and people can read or follow me i don't care but someday i will finish Ulysses but i've been reading lots of great mysteries and i recently finished "Three Weeks in October" and now i'm hungry for pumpkin pie and maybe i'll watch some movies tonight my brother lent me some but then i lent my father some too and i'm glad my whole family is alive and well i don't see them too much but i love them and my dad gave me a Yankees hat and that's ok i hope the Patriots get into the playoffs but we'll have to wait and see and in the end i'm most grateful that i have things to look forward to small and big like getting on an airplane, eating sushi and playoff football it was raining the past few days subdued mist glasses streaked wish i had wipers for those but a cap would have shielded the rain but the bottom of my tee shirt can clean them i once wore contacts i'm glad i tried that those days were fun i have my present