What is a household chore you do absolutely every day?

My days tend to vary, which I like, but there are two things that happen every morning, virtually without exception:

(1)  I feed our five cats, give them fresh water, scoop out all five of their litter boxes, and sweep around those litter boxes.

(2) I empty the dishwasher (having most likely been the one who loaded and started it the night before).

Unless I am traveling and away from home for one reason or another, these are unchanging parts of my daily schedule.

There is a certain comfort in the routine, I'll admit, though I always feel better having tackled these chores than I do when I'm starting to tackle them.

The one tiny variation with the litter box box thing is that, on Sunday mornings, I sweep a much larger area of the basement, since there are always pockets of stray litter that somehow get transported as far as 30 or 40 feet away.

Other than that, it's the same thing over and over and over. They're jobs that have to get done, and someone has to do them, and it just happens to be me.

How about you? What is on your to-do list almost every day of your life?

Thirty-five years later, asking my wife out was a pretty darn good decision

We took my 1979 yellow Chevy Chevette (much like this one) on our first date

I have a head for dates, to the point that my wife often turns to me when she can't figure out the specific year when some event happened, or the day on which a particular person's birthday falls.

In many cases, the dates that stick in my head are there for no particular reason, and there's no practical purpose to which I can put them. But they're there anyway.

Today, however, is not one of those dates. This one has significance, even if I'm the only one who regularly recalls it.

Thirty-five years ago today, on February 27, 1986, I asked my wife out on our first date. I wrote about the actual date experience here, as there were a few memorable moments to it.

We were 16 years old at the time. Just babies. The fact that she still wakes up every morning and thinks, "OK, I'll give him another day" is borderline miraculous. One of the true divine blessings of my life.

I asked her at the end of the school day as we were both standing at our lockers, which were near each other. I was very nervous. She said yes. I was relieved.

The rest is history and all of that, though I probably should have made a disclaimer at the time. Something along the lines of, "Hey, just so you know, if we keep dating and eventually get married, I'm going to routinely do things that make you shake your head. And I can't fix anything at all. And for a time, I will get irrationally upset at the failure of my sports teams to win games. Are you good with that?"

On second thought, maybe it was for the best that I kept my mouth shut.

Do you feel you were born at the right time?

This is at heart a silly question, because it implies people are either born at some vaguely defined "right" time or they should have lived in another era altogether.

In my opinion, you get what you get and you live when you live for a reason (even if you don't ever understand what that reason is). There is no "wrong" time for you to be here on this planet.

But...I realize many people are convinced they are better suited for living at a different time in history, so for the sake of this post, we'll run with it.

I will go on record as saying I'm perfectly fine with the age in which I'm living, and I'll tell you why.

I listen to a lot of Conan O'Brien's podcasts, and on one episode he said something that struck a chord. He looked at the things he does well and concluded (probably rightly) that in no other era could his individual talents have made him as rich and successful as he is right now in the 21st century.

I get that.

I am by no means rich, and any success I have is much less tangible than Conan's. But honestly, I can't imagine me living in, say, the 16th century.

For one thing, I would have to have a trade, and most trades involve the type of intelligence and/or mechanical and/or manual labor skills that I lack. Badly.

Oh, I know I probably wouldn't starve if I had been apprenticed to a cobbler or mason or anything like that. I would have managed to get to "semi-proficient" in my trade and found a way to support my wife and our 17 children, all of whom would have been living in a hut just outside of London or some such place.

But I never would have been especially good at it.

My skills and interests lie more in areas (writing, communications, etc.) that were the pursuits of a very small upper class until as recently as a century ago. They would have gotten me nowhere when it comes to putting food on the table.

Only here and now, in this age, are there abundant opportunities to put those types of skills to use and generate an income.

So for that reason, I'm thankful I was born in 1969 and not 1569 or sometime in the Middle Ages when my life expectancy would have been (generously) about 35 years.

If you think about it, there's really only a very narrow window in history when knowing the proper usage of a semicolon could earn you a living.

Canned fruit: A blast from the past

As my wife and I were dealing with COVID recently, my wonderful sister Debbie graciously ordered a whole bunch of groceries and had them delivered to our house so that our family could still, you know, eat while we were laid up.

She quizzed us on some of the items we normally buy, while others she simply selected herself and included them with our order.

An example of the latter was a can of Del Monte Bartlett pears.

I don't remember the last time we bought canned fruit, but those pears were delicious. They also put me in mind of the days back in the late 70s and early 80s when I would come home from school for lunch.

My K-6 elementary school was right at the end of our street. Once the noon bell rang, I would sprint out the door and be home in 2-3 minutes.

When I got there, my mom would (without fail) have a TV tray waiting for me with my already-prepared lunch. As I think back on it, I was unbelievably spoiled by this.

The main course of the lunch varied, but more times than not, there would be a bowl of canned fruit included. It would either be fruit cocktail, peaches, or pairs.

As so often happens when we eat a food we haven't eaten in a long time (or smell something we haven't smelled in years), a rush of memories came flooding back as I ate those pears Debbie ordered. It was suddenly 1979 all over again, and I was sitting in front of the TV watching Card Sharks and happily eating my lunch before going back to school.

By the time I was in sixth grade, a big part of lunch time for me was racing back to school so I could play football at recess with the other guys. Why I didn't just pack a lunch and eat in the school gym, rather than having to wolf down my food at home and sprint back to the playground, I have no idea. It would have been easier.

I suspect that, even then, I knew how good I had it. What a great mom I had.

And man, seriously, what I wouldn't give for a can of cling peaches right about now.

Please wish my friend Mike happy birthday, and read about the time I tried to steal vampire blood while he was with me

Today is my friend Mike Ostack's 51st birthday. I have not seen Mike in person in something like 30 years, but the magic of social media has allowed us to reconnect to a degree. At least virtually.

Mike was my best friend in the world from the ages of 8 through 10. He lived down the street and we hung out together a lot. Then he and his family moved to Georgia. He would occasionally come back to Cleveland to visit after that, but eventually we lost touch. It happens.

I found him on LinkedIn a few years ago, which allowed us to catch up. It's not the same as seeing someone in person, of course, but it's better than nothing.

So then, two things:

(1) Happy birthday to Mike. There's something special about an elementary school best friend, and he deserves to have a great birthday.

(2) If you're so inclined, please read this blog post from five years ago in which I describe my attempt to steal vampire blood from the drug store while Mike was with me. Four decades later, it's still a funny story.

I know who Jen Lilley is, which means I know far too much about Hallmark Channel movies

My wife enjoys watching movies on the Hallmark Channel. Many people do, and most of them happen to be women.

Working from home this past year, I've been exposed to far more of these movies than I had been in the past. As I sit in the kitchen on my laptop, for example, Terry will have one playing on our living room TV, which is only 25 feet or so from me, so I can't help but hear it.

My first reaction was to make fun of these films, usually something along the lines of, "Hey, do you think those two will get together by the end? I can't wait to see how it turns out."

You will note that the leading characters in every Hallmark movie get together. Every time. There is always some sort of conflict, but in the end, they get together. And of course they kiss, but only right at the end of the film. That's a pretty strict rule.

After a while I started folding laundry in the living room while Hallmark movies were playing, and I was actually following many of the plots.

Then I graduated to plopping down on the couch next to Terry while she watched, and in some cases I was there for half a movie or more.

Now it's to the point that I've started seeing some of the same actors and actresses appearing in movie after movie. Hallmark has a stable of maybe 10-15 attractive men and women whom they mix and match to crank these flicks out.

One is Jen Lilley, who is pictured above. I don't remember why I know her name, but she's in a lot of these things. I mentioned her recently to Terry, who had no idea who I was talking about.

So there we had it: It had gotten to the point that I knew more about some of these actors and movies than she did. How did we get here?

Well, for one thing, I have to admit: As predictable as they are, these are entertaining movies. They switch up the settings and the essential romantic dilemmas well enough to continually engage you, as long as your expectations for great cinema aren't too high.

And really, who doesn't like a happy ending? You will always get a happy ending with Hallmark. This is what the audience wants, and this is what the production company delivers.

Fun fact about Jen Lilley: She is also a regular on "Days of Our Lives," the only soap opera I've ever watched with any regularity (and this was back in the 90s), and only because my wife got me into it.

That woman clearly has too much influence on my taste in TV and film. And by "this woman," I'm not sure whether I mean Jen or Terry.

The update on my family you didn't ask for

Not long after I launched this blog more than nine years ago, I wrote a post titled "Dramatis Personae" that gave brief descriptions of the various family members and boyfriends who comprised our little family unit.

It was not an exercise in vanity so much as a "who's who" of the various people about whom I was writing, intended for what was then an expanding group of readers visiting the blog.

It's fun to read that post from February 2012, though as you might imagine, much has changed in nearly a decade. Here's the current rundown on the main characters of this blog, which I fully acknowledge you did not request:

TERRY: Amazingly, she has continued to allow herself to be married to me. We have our 29th anniversary coming up in June. She is often tired, as moms/wives are, and devotes whatever free time she can muster to serving as treasurer for the Wickliffe Swing Band (our local high school band, for which I serve as the PA announcer). This is a way, way bigger job than you would think, to the point that it should almost be a part-time paid position, in my opinion. Anyway, she likes Hallmark movies and spending time in her craft room upstairs, and she continues to be the best cook I know. And she's as pretty today as the day I asked her out way back in the Stone Age.

ELISSA: Our oldest child will turn 27 this March. We will write about that when the time comes. Suffice it to say that she no longer lives with us (though she's close...just one city over) and is killing it as a Content Specialist at thunder::tech, an integrated marketing agency based here in Cleveland. Marketing agency life is rarely easy and Elissa expends a lot of professional and emotional energy on her clients, which is what makes her so good. She is also a vegan and lover of giraffes, and will happily talk with you about either subject. She has been with her boyfriend Mark forever and a day, and I can't tell you how grateful we are for that (and for him).

CHLOE: First, she is 24 and married to Michael, a construction engineer who shares my interest in military history. Second, she is officially a first-year doctoral student in Neurosciences, though I always explain that she's working toward her PhD in a research lab focused on swallowing disorders. Third, she is a mom to two cats who have no idea how lucky they are. She lives just far enough away in Stow that it's difficult to see her very often, but she and Michael are looking at houses and may relocate a bit closer to us, which would be nice. The takeaway: Chloe is rocking life.

JARED: My 22-year-old oldest son is a senior at Cleveland State University majoring in sports management. He's a hard worker who currently finds himself serving an internship within CSU's sports information department. He's very good with money, has taught himself woodworking and all sorts of useful handyman skills during the pandemic, keeps himself in a very good physical shape, and occasionally finds me PA announcing gigs, for which I am very grateful. He also brought his girlfriend Lyndsey into our lives and gets extra credit for that.

MELANIE: Mel is somehow 20 years old. I don't know why, but the older she gets, the more amazed I am. She is a sophomore at Cleveland State progressing toward a bachelor's degree in business/marketing, though she earns spending money working in retail and occasionally Door Dashing. Mel is often seen in our living room with Jason, her boyfriend, with whom I love talking sports. They go well together. She is smart and will succeed no matter which direction she chooses, career-wise.

JACK: We recently wrote about Jack, who turned 15 not long ago. He is one of the funniest people I know. He is also a sophomore in high school who runs track and cross country and plays the trumpet, among other things. Terry and I have spent many years attending and involving ourselves with various school activities and events, and Jack represents our swan song. Everything he does in school is a "last" in our family, which is both fun and sad at the same time. Jack is also an avid gamer, though I feel like you can say that about 70% of 15-year-old boys these days. We think Jack may be a hair taller than Jared at 6-1, making him the tallest person in the family, and he has managed to get his weight all the way up to 140+ pounds. So that's an accomplishment.