Friday, October 30, 2020

Winning

My 19 year-old daughter wears her heart on her sleeve. I never wonder how she feels about things, because she tells me, in full (and sometimes graphic) detail. I've learned, for example, way too much about how much she's enjoying college. To the point where I told her last weekend that it wasn't necessary to try to live the entire undergrad experience in one semester.

Her 16 year-old sister is another animal altogether. Most of our conversations consist of me asking questions and getting a grunt or an eyeroll in return. I piece together things about her life from her friends and their parents. For example, I learned recently that she's aggressively woke online, a raging lefty who takes no shit. Had no idea. Good parenting. Some of our best interactions, though, involve music. She loves Harry Styles, and so she likes telling me about his stuff (and the other One Direction fellas). I take what I can get.

So imagine my delight (and emotions) when my older daughter texted me a Spotify link to a playlist called 'cool dad', made by my little one. It's a mix of stuff that's in her wheelhouse (Louis Tomlinson from the aforementioned One Direction, for instance) and stuff that I've turned her onto that I had no idea had penetrated her awareness (The Connells! Wilco! The Clash! Son Volt! The Housemartins! The Avett Brothers!)

It was a good day, y'all. Enjoy cool dad, courtesy of my grumpy youngun.

26 comments:

TR said...

Communicative children are a double-edged sword. A friend with twin boys who are college freshmen also gets ALL the details from the kids. He relays some of them to me. I'm wondering what the etiquette is on asking them for Molly (kidding, sorta).

My 13 y/o doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve, but he did leave the house this morning wearing a black fedora on his head for school. It was one piece of his costume as a "Purger" (I don't get it either). The wife somehow got in his head that he should wear the fedora b/c it would be a fun way to have some of his costume on during school. I asked him if he was sure he wanted to wear it b/c he would be stuck with it all day (no lockers for kids this year). He said yes. The wife gave me the stink-eye for not supporting her. I also reminded him of the Stranger Things episode when the kids all dressed like Ghostbusters for school, only to find out that nobody wore costumes any more.

I just drove my kid to school b/c it was pouring. He waited in the car w/ me for a couple minutes until the school doors were unlocked. About two dozen kids were waiting to get in under a big awning. None had any semblance of a costume. My son looked at me and said he didn't think he wanted to wear the hat. It was 100% his call. I didn't say a word. The fedora is now in my backseat. My wife will find out and 100% blame me. Not even 8 AM and I'm already in a can't win situation. But at least my son is not a kid who thinks wearing a fedora is cool. I couldn't live with myself if that happened.

Danimal said...

Cool, daddi-o. I hope to be so lucky with my two. I have begun the Playlist here in my orifice, office

Danimal said...

sorry...anal kaynel on my mind as my scope, after many postponements, is this monday. trying to find the old alec baldwin snl skit in which he plays a soap opera doc that is unable to pronounced medical terms correctly. in looking for it, it's pretty easy to fall into an alec baldwin wormhole, on snl or otherwise.

T.J. said...

this is a good start to a friday, nicely done littlest squirrel

and danimal, if you don't loudly exclaim "Moooon River" on Monday while it's going down, I don't know why you even bother

rootsminer said...

Fuck your fedora hate TR. I have a couple as part of my 'white guy sings the blues' uniform, and I look rakish as hell in them, thank you very much.

zman said...

zson got sent home yesterday with a runny nose and a cough. I think he faked the cough because he hasn't coughed once in my presence since we got home. He took a covid test yesterday and we get the results tomorrow so he is virtual today and it's killing him--he's missing the Halloween party (his costume is a bowl of instant ramen). So I left him in his room eating gummy worms and watching the party through google meets and a minute later there was a massive BANG and yelps of pain and when I got to his room his chin was scraped all to hell and bleeding. He somehow managed to fall out of his chair and bust his chin on his desk. Apparently he was acting a fool for the camera when this happened. Now he has a massive assortment of bandaids holding his lower jaw together.

rootsminer said...

Sounds like good times at Zhome.

I didn't wake my two teenagers up this morning before I left for work, but my oldest had a 10 am zoom meeting with a teacher. I sent him an email at 9 and started calling about 9:15, then messaged. Called both kids phones, home phone, over and over. No response. At 9:45 I hopped in the car to drive home to wake him up, calling repeatedly as I went. Finally he picked up with an irritable "WHAT?".

I am now pissed off and researching annoyingly loud alarm clocks to put in our hallway. Each boy will also get to have a home phone in their room. Happy Friday!

Squeaky said...

My 6th grader is still into Halloween, so much so, he wore his costume to school. It's my old corduroy Santa suit from the Stumble days. Hope they don't have a black light at school. Bonus prop for him was it is actually snowing here today.

And I finally get to hear one of these embedded Spotify playlists now that I'm on the Spotify bandwagon. Looks like good one.

rob said...

anyone else a little freaked out by squeaky's black light comment?

Whitney said...

Welcome... to Spotify, Squeaker. (Spoken like Ricardo Montalban.)

70 songs, rob, that’s a legit playlist, and the content is definitely our shit. Zoe made me a “dad songs” playlist before she went to college and it was all the songs I used to play the kids back when I was sure I could influence their tastes. It was only 25 tracks. She needs to up her game.

But there are some crossover tunes with cool dad.” Good stuff.

TR said...

Sounds like Rootsy has a lot in common w/ Duke Silver, who makes sonic love to the ladies w/ his sax.

rootsminer said...

You’re goddamn right TR, only I do it with a jug and a kazoo!

TR said...

You know what they say about guys who can play a kazoo...

Whitney said...

I’m not sure I do

rootsminer said...

They have functioning vocal chords?

rob said...

ohhh, yeah

Squeaky said...

... ask Gheorghe Jetson

But that might be the quadruple dry hopped Other Half & The Veil brewing collab talking. Thanks, MRKQ.

Squeaky said...

Just shoveled 5" of snow from the back steps and front walkway. I'm happy for the snow but it's a bit early, even around here.

Danimal said...

My version of that was deciding to wear long pants to work today instead of shorts. Was a bit nippy.

TR said...

That’s harsh, Danimal. I thought you’d be out canvassing for votes in David Duval County. The interwebs say it is a tight race there!

Mr KQ said...

That OH Veil collab is ridiculous Squeaky. And cheers for the Tree House porch bomb! Just had the Curiosity 104, deelish.

rob said...

good news: the little one opened up this evening
bad news: she opened up to tell us she was on her way to steal trump yard signs

very conflicted

rootsminer said...

Conflicted? It’s not like there’s a shortage of those things. It’s rare around here to see a yard that only has one.

rob said...

i mean, it's stealing and all. i'm not supposed to condone that. i wouldn't want her dumb racist schoolmates to steal our biden/harris signs.

Mark said...

Our oldest is in Tallahassee to celebrate Halloween. There’s nothing better than Halloween in a college town. Also, she’s pretty much guaranteed to get infected. I really hate 2020.

On the other hand, my 8 year old is still super into Halloween. So tomorrow will be fun.

TR said...

For a game that ended 45-44 in OT, Maryland v Minnesota was pretty awful to watch.