Consider this my official apology for what happened during our super special family Christmas celebration last year. I take full responsibility for the events that led to you slipping on the icy roof, for not catching you when you started to slide down the shingles, and for the way your ankle snapped when you landed in the bush. I further apologize for the bush itself, both its placement and the fact that it wasn’t worthy of catching a 185-pound man in a 20-foot freefall. I’m sorry about the eight weeks you spent in the cast and struggling around on crutches. I’m sorry the hallways in the house I bought before we met are too narrow to use two crutches at a time and that you had to jump around on one foot always feeling like you were on the edge of tumbling back to the ground again. I’m sure that was traumatic. I’m sorry I signed your cast in bright green marker when everyone else used black. I’m sorry my message was sappy and full of my love, but also kind of embarrassing to you in front of your friends. I’m sorry Nancy now calls you Snoopykins.

I’ve spent the past hour and a half trying to get my nephew to let go of the absurdity he claims he saw while walking to school this morning.  It’s not going well at all.

I always have a hard time talking on the phone.  The other person can’t quite understand me, or I mishear something they say.  The other side waits for a second to see if their brain will review the words and come up with some kind of conclusion only to eventually shrug its shoulders and send the command to say something like, “Yeah, yeah,” or laugh in the hopes what was said was supposed to funny.