Andrew Kreider

It’s a rainy Sunday, and I have dragged my adult daughter to an origami class. It is, after all, her birthday; and in our family, we really know how to celebrate.

We have signed up for the beginner class, titled: Family Fun.  Accordingly, we find ourselves seated at a low table with several mothers and an array of squirming seven-to-ten-year-olds.  I feel vaguely unqualified for what we are about to undergo.  One mother looks at me suspiciously, but I just smile back.

We have a lot of speakers in the theater.  Not the lecturing, human kind (although we get our share of those, too).

Maybe it’s the time of year, maybe it’s the colder weather…. But all of a sudden, a number of the people around me have taken a great interest in hot tea.  English hot tea.  What in my family we refer to as a proper cuppa – as in “cup of tea.”

I’d forgotten what it’s like to look for your first apartment. It’s been a week of living in borrowed spaces. Days pounding the pavement, exploring possible neighborhoods. Nights poring over internet ads, contacting landlords, hopes raised and dashed over and over. But finally, she’s found the right place. And today is moving day.

Why don’t the toilets stink at the library?  

It’s been a month of irrational exuberance in our household.

I’m speaking of course of soccer.  And it’s completely irrational.  To be an England soccer fan is not too far removed from being a Buffalo Bills fan, or a Cleveland sports fan before LeBron came on the scene.  Imagine a once-proud population reduced to a litany of almosts and never coulds.  That’s England.

Last year, my grandma died, my dad died, my car died, and my dog died.    Out of all of these, the one I had the most trouble mourning was the dog.  This is sort of surprising, because I never used to be a dog person.  But then we had kids.  And then one of our kids wanted a dog.  And then everybody wanted a dog.  My wife and I were having coffee at Barnes and Noble one night when it hit me.  I said to her, “We’re getting a dog, aren’t we?”  She just smiled.

And the very next week it happened.  April the dog adopted our family.

Did you know it’s possible to kill a cactus?  I didn’t… until I did.  My friends, never trust an Englishman with your cactus.

Last fall, the day she left for college, my daughter decided to buy me a going-away present – a plant for my cubicle at work.  Let’s get you something simple, she said.  How about a cactus?  That should be easy enough for you to take care of.

The Chinese acrobats come tumbling out of their two mini vans, laughing and teasing each other as they carry their equipment onto the stage.  By the measure of some of the troupes we’ve seen at the theater, these guys are a bit older, but they’re still mostly teenagers.  Through the door comes a tall stool, a high wire, a unicycle, various sized rings, plates, sticks, straw hats, giant yo-yos, and what looks like an oversized teeter-totter board.  Then behind the stage equipment comes the kitchen supplies.  Two rice cookers you might buy at any department store, and a large electric wok, to

What would it be like if, at this time of the year, instead of sending each other greeting cards, we were to send each other poems?

In the early 20th century the publisher Faber and Gwyer decided to do exactly that -  commissioning a series of poems from famous writers, to send out in lieu of a Christmas Card.  These poems, the Ariel Poems as they became known, each in its own illustrated pamphlet, numbered thirty-eight in total, appearing from 1927 to 1931.  A generation later, in 1954 a further series of eight poems was released by Faber and Faber.  Each pamphlet is a gem.   

I’ve been thinking a lot about cooking lately.

It’s Monday morning, and I have just survived an entire weekend at downtown Elkhart’s first ever Comic Con.  What’s a Comic Con, you ask?  Well,  it is a comic book convention – thus the name – at which thousands of fans gather to meet celebrities, buy collectibles, listen to guest speakers, watch movies, network with other fans, and dress up as their favorite comic characters.