All Dumps Lead to Roman
I will make a go at typing some words, and we'll see where we end up when time hits. In the business, they call this "on deadline." As this is recreational, I am not on deadline. My last post was closer to 15 weeks ago than 15 days ago, so if there was an overseer of the blog or these posts, they would've demanded something sooner.
Well Strawman Overseer, I've been busy.
Roman Reed, during his first bath
Not a passport quality close up
New Baby
If by some chance, this is your only medium in which you get Sam updates, then you may recall that in May, I mentioned that Leen was pregnant. Super pregnant. I spent months scoffing at her May 27th due date and told anyone who would listen that we would have a baby by May 15th. At the latest. NO GEMINI baby, baby.
Modern medicine: 1, Sam: 0.
Roman Reed Hasler arrived midday on May 24th after a much less stressful and exhausting (though no doubt, still strenuous) birth than his older brother in 2019. Leen was the MVP of the day and also of the past 12 weeks.
Really, and maybe this is a rose-colored glasses thing, but the first few months with Roman have been easy going. He is, by all accounts, a happy, smiley, deep sleeping, properly growing baby boy.
People ask how he is getting on with Eliot.
So far, so good. The first few weeks, Eliot cried when Roman cried, so we did a lot of separating them and just giving small bursts of one another in the other's presence. Eliot has acclimated better recently and will cuddle him, wave at him, and say "Mana" (in-house nickname is Romana) when I ask: Who's that?
Will they be friends? Enemies? Share a passive disinterest in their parent's affairs until middle age? Who knows. Too early to tell. For now, it's working. There are no plans for a third adorable baby at the moment. Yes, we know we "should try again" because we "need a girl." That logic is how people end up with twin boys when they were just trying to get a girl. So no. We're good. Thank you for your suggestions though.
New Daycare:
After nearly four months of Teta—Leen's mom— visiting. She said: I need to go back to Jordan. Who can blame her? That meant four months' worth of cooking, cleaning, babysitting, and just overall support flew away with her. In mid July, when she made the announcement, we started looking for daycares.
We needed a place that both boys could go close enough to home to get to quickly, rain, shine, or snow. We toured one place that was only taking Eliot. Unfortunately, that wouldn't allow Leen an opportunity to get back into the workforce. We were waitlisted at about five different daycare providers around the cities who would, theoretically, take both, if anything ever opened. Daycare waiting lists are no joke. Luckily, we found space for both at the start of August at a provider about a ten-minute drive south of us.
Roman + Eliot
Brothers
The transition, especially for Eliot, has been challenging. Consider that he's spent pretty much every waking minute with Leen or me since March 2020, and you can imagine how time away would seem foreign to him. I think day one daycare drop-offs in the best of times are tricky. Add in Covid, and it was rough.
Didn't make things much easier when on day four, he came down with a fever. People told us to get ready for illnesses and germs. I did not think they meant so quickly!
This sickness plagued our entire family for the last two weeks. This required two urgent care visits, four nose-swab Covid tests (all negative; fun fact: I am the only person in this Hasler foursome to not get a swab, ever! Yes, even young Roman beat me to the nose check.), two doctor's appointments, countless tissues, a ten-day run of amoxicillin, a double ear infection, something called Strider, an 8-day fever, many lost hours of sleep, lots of crying, and general fatigue, frustration and near-constant repetition of the mantra: This cannot go on forever.
It didn't! We seem to be on the mend from that illness (more illnesses pending, I'm sure).
Daycare drop-offs still involve tears, but everyone is getting better. His naps and eating at daycare have been shit, but again: those are massive changes for someone who has slept in his own bed and ate at his own table for many, many months now.
How is Roman doing at daycare?
Amazingly. Being a happy, smiley baby engenders lots of love and admiration.
New Job:
One of the most significant factors in seeking daycare help was my recent decision to leave education and pivot into a new career and field. Someday I'll maybe write a more extended version about my decision, but COVID, Hybrid teaching, a long commute, and lesson planning/feedback all were part of my decision.
In the spring, I went through a series of interviews for a copywriter position. Ultimately, I got the job and started in late June. We work with clients on their loyalty programs. In short, I am writing the email, banner, and ad copy for brands and companies you've heard of to try to encourage you to travel more, spend more, earn more, redeem more, etc.
In a world where we are working from work (I am currently writing from my basement), this commute is a short bus or bike ride downtown to reach my office. This position allows me an opportunity to flex my creative wit every so often. I am working with a team of seasoned writers who mark up most of my suggestions and rewrite my versions entirely, but that's part of the learning curve. My big goal is to use the phrase: "From our mouth to your ears" once in an email. So far, it's been rejected each time.
We still have dreams to raise our children abroad and go back to the Expat way of life. Education is a constant—someone will always need a teacher somewhere. So, for now, this career path makes sense. It means goodbye summer vacation, but hello pay raise. These are the trade-offs people make in their 30s, I guess?
Suppose you ever want to talk to me about my views on education. In that case, I'd be happy to go round for round with you on CRT, school choice, and other hot button issues off-line; just let me know. In the meantime, you can find my writings in your email inboxes. Be sure to pay attention to subject lines. Someone spent hours thinking about a way to get you to open that email and not just delete it immediately.
Other news will come out in the wash or as post links to stories you never read, so I guess I better get onto the real reason you opened this email:
The Dumps
Yes.
Cool. Good read. Saved you A LOT OF TIME on this one.
2. A Pair of Stories About Dad-Fashion
In the first text, "It's Time to Bring Back Cargo Shorts," our writer makes an impassioned plea to make Cargos cool again. He points out that as a 33-year-old man, there are countless photos of him wearing cargo pants with nothing in the pockets from the early 2000s. Cargos, he states, we're ahead of the trend. You didn't really need cargos for your flip phone and wallet. But now, in 2021, with phones getting bigger, headphones requiring carrying cases, masks, vaccine passports, keys, wallets, and whatever else you take with you every time you leave the house, it's time to use the functionality of cargo shorts/pants.
I think the simple fix is to carry a man purse or fanny pack, but I see his point. The guy doesn't even have children yet, so add in a pacifier, pacifier case, random snacks, booger wipes, a pepper your brother gave you when you ran into him on the street, and who knows what else you might need. He links to a few versions of "well done" and "stylish" cargo options. It's about as compelling as an argument as I've heard on the subject. I'm still not sold, but I at least can see the functional benefits of more pockets. Maybe pants are like kitchens in that you can't really have such a thing as too much storage.
Part II features a missive on Dad-hats. You may not know dad-hat the same way you know mom jeans or boyfriend shirt, but dad-hat is chasing dad-bod for the most commonly used dad-related hyphenate (not counting step-dad). In the LA Times, author Dave Schilling writes about the ubiquity of dad-hats, somehow, without mentioning balding. My hat collection has steadily gone up as my hair levels have gone down. Typically, these hats have large logos and are otherwise totally bland pieces of fashion that cover our heads during the sunny hours. There is no "must-have" dad-hat," but Yahoo just wrote a story featuring 13 of their favorites to sport this fall. If you're not a dad, maybe you already have the hats but were too afraid to wear them. Fear not, Chalamet's been wearing dad-hats for years. It's cool now.
3. A Mixed Media Playlist, aka A podcast with music.
Last night I had to take out the recycling. It was a balmy 90 degrees, so I opened a Festbier and my box cutter and started cutting. Recycling only gets picked up every other week in Minneapolis, so we typically have about 27 cardboard boxes of various sizes I need to break down to get them in or near enough that my recycling can gets emptied without a passive-aggressive note from the driver.
As I was beginning the process, I sought something to listen to during my travails. Out of podcasts to consume, I saw something on Spotify called Bandsplain, which, if nothing else, has a clever name and premise.
Spotify doesn't want to call it a podcast because it plays full versions of songs (unlike, say, if you listened to their Dissect pod) and features the host and guest talking about the music and bands. Typically these bands are "cult" or misunderstood bands that you probably have an opinion on but haven't listened to. When I scrolled through the past episodes (pod launched in Feb), I saw lots of bands I've heard of but not heard. So I decided to start my listening experience with the My Chemical Romance episode. It featured poet Hanif Abdurraqib as the guest brought on to explain MCR. I left the hour-long show with more knowledge about the band and heard four songs I'd never heard before. I started the Red Hot Chili Peppers ep this morning and saw that there was a 4-hour U2 pod if that's something you could get into.
The host is a bit dismissive and nonchalant at times but still an interesting way to consume music in a post-radio world. Other bands include: Wilco, Kate Bush, Green Day, Dire Straits, ICP, Phish, DMB, The-Dream, and more.
If you are listening to the radio, maybe you've heard my favorite song of the moment:
Grubstreet is out here reporting on what's happening in the world of food and drink. Their breaking news today is that "mylks" aka-- the alternatives are dead, and whole milk is making a triumphant return to its spot atop the "what we pour in our coffee" mountain.
Driven by what one restaurant manager calls the "Goop Industrial Complex," consumers selected almond and nut and soy and coconut and hemp and whatever else because they were told, probably inaccurately, that it was healthier for you, your skin, your sex life, etc. So now, driven by WORD OF MOUTH, "hot girls are ditching the alternatives" and choosing whole milk and half-and-half.
5. Bob Ross doc
My personalized Spotify and Youtube algorithms have recently become less tailored to my whims and pleasures and more focused on what makes Eliot smile with delight. Specifically: I listen to and watch the Wheels on the Bus over and over and over. Sometimes it's adults singing to children, others are animals singing to other animals. Occasionally it's a bus singing to a puppet or a puppet singing to a child. Any way you slice it, the wheels are spinning, the doors are opening, and the algorithms are fucked.
So far, Eliot's flights of fancy have not come for my Netflix queue. So I am excited that the new Bob Ross documentary popped up this AM when I was scrolling through my feed. In Qatar, I used to put The Joy of Painting on whenever we had company over. I'd mute the show, but naturally, people would wander over to the tv, transfixed by the man with the excellent fit and the squirrel in his pocket. Silently he turned blank canvases into seascapes and forest vistas, and for a little bit, everyone was happy. Eventually, I'd turn the sound up because watching Bob is soothing in silence but truly transformative with a bit of volume.
The trailer for the documentary is a bit ominous. You may fear that Bob Ross is about to get canceled. So I did some digging, and it turns out that the doc features a story of what happened to Ross's image posthumously. Should his legacy be in the hands of his business partners or his child? That's sort of where the doc is heading, so fear not.
If you want to know more, read this Vanity Fair piece with a clickbaity headline: Unhappy Little Trees- The Dark Legacy of Bob Ross
If you watch, please let me know what you think. I'll have thoughts soon enough.
That's five pieces of info consumed over the past few months. I hope it helps get you through the week. Keep in touch.
Have a good weekend!
