Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Jory: And like it.
Sam: Yeah, that’s crazy.
Jory: I’ve also been thinking about getting a motorcycle.
Sam: No you have not.
Jory: Yes, I have. Stop—why’re you laughing? I could ride a motorcycle.
Sam: Go back to the sex, baby, because we still do that best. And over my dead body are you ever getting on a motorcycle, and that goes for everyone who lives in this house.
Jory: What?
Sam: Just go on to the next question.
DEAR JORY:
I have to start talking to my daughter about college, and right now I think she wants to either become a back-up singer for her favorite house band or create a web comic. Help.
Jory: Is your daughter a talented singer? An artist? What is her dream? Whatever it is, you have to support her while at the same time encouraging her to fly. Maybe college isn’t for her.
Sam: If she doesn’t know what she wants to be, you can tell her, while she’s figuring it out, she may as well take some classes.
Jory: But if school is not for her at all, you have to support her out of it as well.
Sam: If she has no concrete plan, college can help her figure it out.
Jory: But going on a journey of self-discovery is good too.
Sam: Don’t be in such a hurry to get rid of your kids. Some of them need longer in the nest.
Jory: But you also have to push them to spread their wings.
Sam: Yeah, but without having them fly so far away.
Jory: Even if they’re far away, they can always come home.
Sam: But without school and they’ve been on a walkabout for five years? No. You have to sit with your kids and find out, what do they want to be? If they for sure want to work for Pixar one day—then maybe it’s art college. If, like my son, being a doctor is where their heart lies, then help them gear up for that. You just have to have the talk. It’s that communication again. Everything begins and starts there.
Jory: Look at you being a fan of the talking.
Sam: Is that what I said?
Jory: It is.
And that’s all for this month. Everyone be safe out there.
APRIL 2018
Hello, all, and welcome to my column. I’m Jory Harcourt, and since I haven’t talked to you all since Easter—which I hope for all of you that celebrate was awesome—I thought I would tell you the whacky turn of events that happened on the Saturday before.
Every year since the kids grew out of the classic egg hunt, I do a treasure hunt instead. So in the morning, there’s a clue on the dining room table that they have to solve to get to the next egg, which has the next clue in it, and so on and so on until they guess the final clue and find their baskets, which are still filled with candy and a gift card. I originally got the idea from a friend of mine who lived in an apartment. She didn’t have her own yard, so she did the treasure hunt instead. So the kids love it, and when Sam helps me, the clues get very Indiana Jones-puzzle-level hard, and that’s their favorite. This year, in the baskets, I wanted to have large decorative eggs as well, because I felt like, at fifteen and thirteen respectively, I was getting to the end of them wanting to do these things with their parents.
Anyway, I found a woman in Bucktown who makes gorgeous eggs on ETSY, and when I contacted her, she said I could pick them up from her on Saturday. I drove over, met her at the Starbucks on Armitage and Hoyne, and she apologized for not bringing them with her but a lot of the beading was still setting—they were supposed to look like Fabergé eggs—so I just needed to grab them from her daughter’s apartment a block away.
I didn’t want her to have to walk back and forth, so I went alone and tapped on the door of the third-floor walk-up. The guy who answered leaned out the doorway, looked right and left, and then waved me inside before closing the door and rounding on me.
“You here to pick up the two?”
I smiled at him. “I am.”
He exhaled sharply. “Good. So many people have been calling about it last minute, and it’s making me nervous. This way I know it’s done.”
I knew how that was. Lots of people had last-minute ideas, and it sucked for nice people like Mrs. Chmiel to have to say no. It was clearly making her son, or whoever the nice young man helping her was, sad to say no.
I patted his arm.
“You’re not at all how I thought you’d be,” he said, flashing me a quick grin before darting into the other room. I stood there, glancing around the small cozy apartment, and he was back in seconds with a brown paper package that looked very well insulated, which was good since I knew the eggs were somewhat fragile. I tucked it under my arm, as there was a loud knocking on the door that turned quickly to pounding.