Midlife Meditation

Coming soon to the Disneyland: the Scariest Animatronic President yet. First the disclaimer: I did not watch Donald Trump's Congressional address. I had better things to do: moan and groan over the previous day's root canal and, 24 hours after the damage was done, finally feel the Vicodin kicking in. Then I watched some TV with Amy ( Jane the Virgin  and an extremely disturbing episode of Girls ), before retiring to the bedroom to write yesterday's blog post. Everything I know about the speech I gleaned from Slate  and the New York Times. And here's what I learned: Trump stuck to the teleprompter, dutifully reciting the words he had paid someone to write for him, only straying once or twice from looking and sounding presidential. Although the content of the speech was boilerplate Trump (vague promises about replacing the ACA with something that covers everybody just as well, but for less money; nonspecific admission that racist and anti-semitic incidents are ...

  I called it my single parenting midterm: leave after church on a March Sunday in 1996, drive halfway, spend the night in a hotel, then drive the rest of the way the next day to camp in the Disneyland campground. The following day--Tuesday--we'd have early admission at the park by virtue of staying at an official Disney facility. We'd make the most of it, riding everything appropriate to two small children and their still divorce-shell-shocked father (the papers had only been signed six months earlier), until the park closed at dusk. The following day, we'd drive to Yosemite National Park, spend the night in a cabin, then tour the park for a day. The day after that, we'd drive all the way home. Along the way, we ate many of our meals out of a cooler. This was Spring Break on the cheap. And I mostly pulled it off. It was a simpler time in many ways. Sean and Sarah were 3 and 6, respectively. Their main concern in the car was who got to ride in the front seat next to...