Coming up for air

Whew, it's been a busy time around our house. I've got a little gap before it gets really busy again, so a quick update.

I've finished the latest draft of my new manuscript, a crime novel called STASH THE CASH, and it's on Kelly's desk now. One more round of editing, then it goes to my agent in New York. Once it's done, I hope to write a short story or two before I plunge into the next novel.

The fall semester at the University of New Mexico starts Aug. 20, and I've got some more prep work to do for the class I'm teaching in the Honors Program: "The New Noir: Contemporary Crime Fiction for Today's Dark Times." Looking forward to introducing a new crop of students to noir stories.

We've had lots of company at our house the past few weeks. A dear friend from California visited for a few days, then both our sons (plus one girlfriend) came to visit and to attend Corona Days, the annual homecoming festival in Kel's hometown. It was great seeing so many relatives and friends there.

Amongst all this fun, I've been busy promoting A BOX OF PANDORAS, my comic mystery that came out exclusively on Kindle at the end of June. It's selling well, and has gotten splendid reviews on Amazon. Click here to see more.

In July, I gave speeches about e-books at both SouthWest Writers and the local Sisters in Crime chapter. Big turnouts, and the talks were well-received.

Coming up: I'm giving a half-day workshop on mystery writing for SouthWest Writers on Sept. 29. Details here. I'm also on a humor panel on Nov. 9 at the Tony Hillerman Writing Conference in Santa Fe. Click here for details. Looking forward to these events!

You bet your halibut

Word here in Santa Cruz, CA, is that the halibut migration that results in hauls of the yummy fish has arrived early this year. I'm no fisherman, but this news did remind me of one of my favorite Home Front columns from a few years ago. Read it here.

Re-reading it made me miss my sons. Hope it makes you laugh.

Still here

It might look as if I've let this blog go dormant, but that's only temporary. It's been a crazy time around here, and some things are bound to get neglected.

We're still down-sizing our household for our anticipated move to an empty nest in Santa Cruz, CA. We've gotten rid of tons of stuff, and still have one shipment of furniture/furnishings going to a consignment store after someone buys our house.

The house has been on the market three weeks now. No buyer yet, but lots of lookers. Fingers crossed.

Amongst all this household tumult, I finished my latest work-in-progress, a crime novel called 'The Big Wink,' and sent it off to my agent. Now I'm learning about Kindle, etc., so I can make my backlist available for e-readers.

I'm still posting my "Rules for Successful Living" at least once a day on Facebook, so if we're not friends there yet, get on board.

More soon.

Have a knuckle-cracking Christmas

"Winter break" provides family units with such a prolonged period of intense togetherness, it's a wonder we don't all kill one another.

The kids are home from school for what seems like 17 weeks. Adults who normally would be busy with work get some free days for relaxing and reveling and gaining weight together. Because it's cold outside, the whole family's under the same roof much of the time.

Everything feels a bit off. Routines are disrupted. Social calendars are full. Thoughts are scattered. The kids are antsy. People keep tripping over the dog. The TV is too loud. What's that smell?

Different energy levels bouncing around in the same space create friction. Some of us are slobs; some want to decorate the Kleenex boxes. Some see a vacation and want to go, go, go, while others see it as time for lying perfectly still. We're like cars on a busy street, all going different speeds. Bound to be a few fender benders.

All the togetherness reminds us that even the nicest people have annoying little habits that could wear on anyone, given enough exposure. Repeated sniffing, say. Clearing one's throat 2,309 times per day. If you're stuck in a house all day with a knuckle-cracker or a gum-snapper or a Twitter user, your thoughts might turn to ho-ho-homicide.

Take something as harmless as a Christmas carol. The song gets stuck in a person's mind, like a jumbo thorn, so he goes around singing it all the time. Except he doesn't really know the words, so it sounds like this: "Joy to the WORLD, la-da, la-DAH." Over and over. For two weeks. Until -- snap! -- someone makes a headline.

Minor vices, such as leaving the cap off the toothpaste or the newspaper in disarray, can be ignored for days, but eventually someone will speak up, and the new year is welcomed with fireworks.

(The Murphy's Law winter break guarantee: Whether you prefer the toilet seat up or down, it will always be the wrong way. Mention this to the others at your peril.)

As the winter days of togetherness wear on, we start to see loved ones' quirks as being intentionally annoying. We start perceiving motives.

"She knows she's doing that," he mutters. "She could stop any time. But no, she keeps doing it, because she knows it drives me crazy. She's just getting even because I--"

From the next room: "What's that, dear?"

"Nothing!"

But it's not nothing. It's the beginning. Pretty soon, the couple is locked in an escalating passive-aggressive loop: If she's going to crack her gum, he thinks, then I can pop my knuckles and sniffle as much as I want. She counters with an impressive symphony of tuneless whistling, trying to drown out his honking nose. Which, naturally, forces him to play Neil Young on the stereo, because she HATES that reedy voice. So she runs the vacuum cleaner. He gets a wrench and removes the toilet seat altogether and--

Whoa, whoa. Take a deep breath there, partner. It's always like this at winter break. It'll be fine once we get out of the house, and we're all exposed to smaller doses of our mutual foibles.

The adults go back to work, where our nervous habits can annoy our colleagues instead of our relatives. The kids go back to school and annoy their teachers. The dog gets some rest.

Soon, we're back in our well-worn ruts. Ready for another year.

Together.

Cooking for one

Sometimes, selfishness can be delicious.

Unless you live alone, you probably cook for more than one person at a time. You’re forced to take into account the others’ tastes and preferences. Sharing the meal means sharing in the compromise that is communal cooking.

But sometimes, you get to prepare food just for yourself, just the way you like it, and those are the best meals going, aren’t they?

Take, for example, one of my favorites: A breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and coffee. This is a traditional whole-family meal, partly because it typically occurs in the morning when everyone’s more likely to be home and partly because it’s an easy meal to serve the masses.

But there’s a lot of compromise built into such a breakfast. Some people like their bacon crisp and their eggs runny, while others want just the opposite. (And you know how difficult it can be to make runny bacon.) There’s over easy vs. scrambled vs. sunny-side up. Whole wheat vs. sourdough. Fresh ground coffee vs. that sludge your father used to make.

You have be a regular short-order cook to meet all these demands. Or, you ignore the demands and cook everything however you like, with the full knowledge that this will result in complaints and upturned noses and walkouts.

The true joy of cooking is cooking for one. No one to please but yourself.

There’s no greater culinary moment than getting your eggs, bacon and toast precisely the way you like them, all on the plate together at the same time, still hot. Yum.

There’s no guilt. No backlash. No catering to the whims of a small child who will only eat “jiggly” eggs and dry toast that are not touching on the plate. No complaints when it’s over. Just one satisfied customer, who maybe even got a quiet moment with the newspaper while eating.

The mere thought of it makes me relax, makes my blood pressure go down (even while my cholesterol’s going up). Makes me hungry.

When preparing food strictly for yourself, you can take liberties that aren’t allowed around the communal pot. You can “taste-test” right off the serving spoon. You can use paper plates, or no plate at all. You can lick your fingers. Everyone knows that drippy foods eaten over the kitchen sink contain no calories.

Eating alone allows you to indulge in favorite foods normally skipped because of complaints from family members. Chili dogs, for instance. Marshmallow Peeps. Lard. You can eat a giant bean burrito without worrying about the repercussions. You can make it as spicy as you like. No one’s around to see you sweat.

This self-indulgent freedom is particularly thrilling to guys. Given the chance to dine solo, guys generally go straight to The Forbidden Zone of the worst possible food choices.

I ran into a friend in my neighborhood supermarket recently. This man’s entire shopping haul consisted of a six-pack and two large bags of pork rinds.

Me: “Wife out of town?”

Him, beaming: “How did you guess?”

Of course, it’s easy to fall into a rut if you’re pleasing only yourself. Another friend told me his wife had been out of town for several weeks and, “I’ve been living on ham-and-cheese sandwiches.” Not the healthiest choice, perhaps, but I’m sure they were made exactly the way he likes them. Runny, with extra lard.

Treat yourself to a little selfish pleasure. Whip up a meal for you and you alone. Have it your way.

Caution: Too much self-indulgent food can make you “jiggly.”

Not-so-great room

Like many modern suburban homes, our house centers on a “great room” where the family does most of its living.

It’s an OK room, sure, but doesn’t “great room” sound pretentious? Seems like a real estate gimmick to me, though I suppose it would be hard to sell a house by advertising its not-so-great room or so-so room.

A great room performs the functions previously accomplished by a formal living room, family room, library/den/study and dining room. Today, we mush them all together, preferably open to the kitchen, which in newer homes is the size of a cruise ship.

The great room is a throwback to the “great hall” of the Middle Ages, the huge central room in a castle or manor house, with its feasts and fireplaces and animals underfoot. As homes got more complicated, the great hall gave way to collections of rooms with specialized functions: parlors, salons, drawing rooms, morning rooms, music rooms. This specialization continued until eventually, during Victorian times, there were rooms reserved strictly for fainting.

Today’s one-big-room model is great for entertaining, with easy kitchen access, open sightlines and high ceilings for the escape of noise and hot air, but the rest of the time, it presents problems.

For one thing, you’ve got to keep it clean. A visitor who walks in our front door can see at a glance everything from the living area to the patio to the kitchen. It’s readily apparent if we’ve left dishes sitting out or socks on the sofa. Ours has that “lived-in” look, with shoes and soft drinks sitting among scattered newspapers in the living room, and an array of battered pans on the stove. If we had a reception room or formal living room, we’d never use it and could keep it clean enough for visitors. Maybe.

The high ceiling lends a certain airiness, but all the heat goes up there instead of down by the furniture where we are shivering. And the whole area shares the same mingling aromas, which is fine until someone cooks cabbage.

It’s difficult to arrange furniture properly in an open room. Where do you put the reading lamps? How do you keep from snaking extension cords across the floor? Can you reach the end tables? Homeowners must rely on furniture “groupings,” which is a French term that means “take the long way around the sofa.”

Another problem with such floor plans is that kitchens tend to be too handy. Every time I look up from the TV, I see the kitchen. Look, food sitting right on the counter, just asking to be eaten! No wonder this country has an obesity epidemic. I, myself, currently weigh 723 pounds. At this point, I need a great room. A great big room.

Moms love the proximity of the kitchen because there’s a slim chance they might get help with the dishes if the rest of the family is nearby. At minimum, while Mom’s cooking supper, she can watch TV over her family’s collected heads.

A great room does give the family a wonderful place to congregate, if you like that sort of thing. Family members can multi-task -- cooking, eating, reading, watching TV, doing homework, clicking computers, sniffling, scratching, personal grooming, arguing, drinking, calling the police -- all in the same room at the same time. Until they drive one another crazy.

You can’t beat that kind of togetherness. It’s great.

Monkeying around

Ever notice how households seize upon crazes? Everybody gets the same mania at the same time, a shared insanity, an inside joke.

These family fads can go on for years before something else distracts us, or the kids go off to college, or the family dynamic is fractured by some other tragedy, such as certain people becoming aloof teen-agers.

One goofy fad at our house concerned a Christmas gag gift called the Monkey Toy. It’s the simplest of dime-store toys. A round plastic box with a picture of a monkey on it, connected by a wire to a large push-button. When you push the button, the box makes a high-pitched monkey sound: “Oo-oo-ooh-ah-hah!” One of those silly, do-nothing toys that makes you laugh the first 30 times you hear it, even while driving you crazy.

The joy of the Monkey Toy comes from triggering it at inopportune moments, such as during serious discussions of, say, curfews.

Dad: “And that’s the last time I’ll tell you--”
Monkey: “Oo-oo-ooh-ah-hah!”
Everyone: Helpless laughter.

My younger son thinks it’s extremely humorous to hide the Monkey Toy in furniture, with the trigger button under the seat cushion. When a perfectly innocent person sits, it goes, “Oo-oo-ooh-ah-hah!” This is even better than a whoopee cushion, when you consider the possible whereabouts of that monkey.

Just the sort of nonsense that can overtake a family. Pretty soon, everywhere you turn, you’re stepping/sitting/lying/bumping into that button. “Oo-oo-ooh-ah-hah!”

My brother and I spent a large portion of our teen years jumping into my dad’s big reclining chair whenever he left the room. We had a hierarchy of chairs. Dad’s was best, then Mom’s, then the couch. Beyond that, you might as well go upstairs. Every time Dad returned to the living room and demanded his usual chair-that-he-paid-for, it would cause hilarious shock waves in the pecking order.

Sometimes, whole families get captivated by a particular TV show or computer game, so that everyone’s on the same page for a while, hooked on “The Simpsons” or “The Sims” or Yahtzee.
When our sons were small, we lost years of our lives to Pokemon. Once in a while, I still stumble across a card or a plastic figurine, and I’ll remember fondly the way the folks at Nintendo milked us all.

Sometimes, family quirks stick around long enough to become traditions. In my wife’s family, it’s required that you surprise other family members on Christmas Eve, preferably before they’ve had time to wake up properly, by shouting “Christmas Eve gift!” The original idea was that by doing this, you’d entitle yourself to open a gift one day early. Nobody actually opens gifts early, of course. It’s all about saying it, getting the jump on your siblings. Counting coup.

The best family craze I’ve heard lately came from a friend who returned from visiting his grandkids in Texas. They had these popguns that fired miniature marshmallows. Intended for the children, of course, but soon full-grown adults were laughing and running around the house, shooting marshmallows.

With repeated use, he reported, the marshmallows would get gummy, and once in a while, you could make one stick to your opponent’s cheek or forehead. I believe this was extra points.

The visit soon came to an end, so the Marshmallow Wars were settled by treaty and the weapons will end up retired in a toy box.

But something else will come along to jazz the family and bring it closer together. I recommend the Monkey Toy.

At home with the Wisenheimers

A recent conversation at our house:

Dad, muttering and extremely agitated: “I’m going to kill your brother.”

Younger Son, deadpan and without hesitation: “Can I have his room?”

Now, Younger Son doesn’t really want his brother’s room. His own room is the bigger of the two, and his brother’s room is cluttered and dark and smelly. But Younger Son is quick on the draw, and he won’t let a straight line slip by without comment.

It’s not just him, either. At our house, nobody passes up a punchline. If the joke is at another family member’s expense, all the better. To an outsider, our conversation can sound harsher than the lighting in a motel bathroom.

A stutter draws an immediate: “Easy for you to say.” Any mention of having “wit” gets an automatic: “You’re half right.” Never, ever say that your face hurts, or you’ll get a chorus of “It’s KILLING me.”

My wife recently survived a terrible case of food poisoning, and my sympathetic response was, “That’s what you get for eating at a restaurant called Giardia.”

I can’t work among the thorns in the flowerbeds without trotting out this line: “The rosebush bites the hand that weeds it.” Har.

Oh, yes, we’re so very, very clever and annoying, but we can’t help ourselves. In our house, we’ve always placed a premium on laughter. Our sons have grown up with the idea that whoever’s funniest wins. This should stand them in good stead out in the real world, where employers love backtalk and snappy banter.

Do other households suffer from this malaise? Do other families sit around, yakking and yukking it up, always trying to one-up each other? Surely, we’re not the only family that should be named Wisenheimer.

I blame TV. We’ve all consumed a lifetime of situation comedies, in which every lame joke is rewarded by a laugh track.

In a sit-com household, if somebody says, “I’m going to kill your brother,” the smart-aleck child is required to say, “Can I have his room?”

It’s easy to slip into traditional Sit-Com Family roles -- bumbling, cranky Dad; sassy, capable Mom, and 2.6 wiseacre children. Problems arise when we perform those roles outside the household. Out in public, a smart mouth can be downright dangerous.

The other day, I was walking in a store behind a short, stocky man who appeared to be constructed of bowling balls. His round, shaved head sat so low, his earlobes brushed his shoulders.

The line that went through my head: “Hey, buddy. They’re running a sale on necks over on Aisle 6.” This was so funny (to me), that it was all I could do not to say it out loud.

While he was built of bowling balls, I resemble a large bowling pin. And we all know who wins when those two collide.

A sit-com dad would’ve said it anyway. And the audience would’ve gotten a big laugh later over his black eye and plaster casts.

To me, broken bones aren’t that funny, especially when they’re mine, so I zipped my lip and hurried home. Once there, I told everyone about Mr. No-Neck and how funny it would’ve been if only I’d been a little more brave and/or stupid. Because they’re my family and they know what’s really important, they got a big laugh out of what might’ve been.

Or, maybe they were picturing me with black eyes, so they could say to my wife, “Hey, lady, where’d you get the raccoon?”

Yeah, that sounds like us.

Laundry quandary

Here's a typical load of laundry at my house: 17 black T-shirts, all approximately the same size.

My sons wear black T-shirts all the time. My wife wears oversized T-shirts around the house or under sweaters. And me? I work at home. My whole life's built around T-shirts.

I do the laundry around here, and I follow the rules on the detergent box: Wash like colors together. But that inevitably results in one load that's all black cotton T-shirts.

Even under the best conditions (strong light, perfect vision), it's difficult to sort black T-shirts. I do it in the dim laundry room. Because I love a mystery.

Tags might give a clue, except that we mostly shop at the same stores, and a label that says "Old Navy" won't narrow the field much.

The teens' shirts often have insults or rock band logos or both displayed on the front, but the shirts are always inside-out in the laundry. I either have to turn them right, or peek inside to read the logo upside-down and backward. And then remember which kid likes which band.

I end up guessing. Various black T-shirts end up in various wrong drawers, only to cycled through the laundry again later. ("Hey, this isn't mine…")

In this manner, the T-shirts migrate around the house, from dresser to floor to washer to dryer and back again. Our shirts get around more than we do.

This might seem a minor annoyance, and it is. So, naturally, I've arrived at a grandiose solution that requires government funding:

Families should become color-coded. Each person would have a color that's strictly his or hers, and each family member would wear a different one.

Newborns would be assigned a color, and that would be their color forever. If they draw "green," then it's all green for them. Green clothes, green linens, green toothbrush, green everything. You name it. Green.

They don't like green? Tough. That's their color. They're green until further notice. They're green and that's it. They're green until they turn 18, and move out of the house and wear only black like the rest of the college students. But for now, one color per person. No givesy-backsies.

Color-coding would solve many household problems. No more sibling accusations of "stealing my favorite sweater." No more fighting over which toothbrush belongs to which child. No more trying to recall which sheets fit on which bed.

Laundry could be sorted in no time. Anyone (except the colorblind) could do it, and it would be easier to shanghai children into doing their own: "That's your pile there, Greeny. Get busy."

Imagine how cheery family dinners would be, with each person dressed in one bright color head to toe, and using the same color plate and cutlery and place mat. We'd look like the Teletubbies.

The government funding? We'd need a national publicity campaign to "raise awareness" of the simple Family Color Coordination solution. Then government should butt out. No need to take it farther than that. Congress shouldn't dictate that all moms wear blue, or every fourth child must wear yellow or whatever. That would be overreaching. Families should decide for themselves how to best approach color assignments, if any.

I call dibs on black.

Holiday travel lunacy

Over the river and through the woods, to the loony bin we go.

The holiday travel season is in full stride, which means millions of Americans suffer temporary insanity. Why? Because they're trapped in planes, trains and automobiles with their families.

Many of us will travel hundreds, even thousands, of miles so we can be "home for the holidays." We're soon reminded why we live hundreds, even thousands, of miles away. We escaped our relatives: Uncle Floyd with his soup-can spittoon. Grandma Esther, who isn't happy until every forehead bears the imprint of her startling pink lipstick. Drunken cousin Rufus, who thinks a thawed turkey makes one hilarious hand puppet. That one crazy aunt (every family has one) who wears the aluminum-foil hat so the alien rays won't affect her, bless her heart.

Before you ever get to these eccentrics, though, you must travel with your immediate family, the people with whom you choose to spend your everyday life.

Travel is an exercise in too much togetherness. Pecadilloes that, in small doses, seem endearing or amusing -- ice crunching, tuneless whistling, mindless sniffing -- can become the most annoying habits ever when experienced over the course of a three-day car trip.

Add kids to the mix, and travel becomes unbearable. Children get bored and cranky. They're no good at sitting still. The answer to the question, "Are we there yet?" is never the right one.

Irritation and fatigue prompt parents to say things we'd never say if it weren't for the lunacy of traveling together. For example, in the course of everyday life, you'd probably never threaten to abandon your child on the side of the road. But let him misbehave enough during a long trip, and you'll soon hear yourself saying, "Don't make me pull this car over. It's a long walk home."

It's worse when kids act up aboard airplanes. Parents feel the disapproval of fellow passengers crowding them, but they can't threaten the child with "don't make me pull this plane over."

If a child starts shrieking, the mortified parent will do anything short of homicide to shut him up. When the kid does clam up, no one on the plane believes the quiet will last. Passengers faint from holding their breaths, waiting for the next scream.

Once, when our older son was a toddler, he would only stop shrieking if I let him stand on my lap and look out the airplane window. We'd made the mistake of dressing him in cute hiking boots with "waffle-stomper" soles. By the end of the trip, my thighs looked as if they'd been beaten with a waffle iron.

It's easier once the kids get older. Our two sons are now teens, so they're happy as long as they can ignore their parents and/or pretend they don't know us. This is true whether we're in an airport or at home.

My wife made a recent family trip much easier by supplying the four of us with separate headphones and music players so no one had to talk to anybody else. We spent the whole journey bobbing our heads to the sounds of different drummers, which pretty much sums up family relationships.

Aside from headphone isolation, the best survival tactic is to remember that holiday travel is temporary. Once you reach your destination, you'll be in the bosom of your family, gathered around the Christmas tree, laughing and opening gifts and wearing foil hats.

At that happy moment, with gift wrap scattered on the floor and shouts of "Merry Christmas" still echoing off the walls, you can start dreading the trip home.

Bargain buys = big bucks

I went to the supermarket for a gallon of milk and spent $90.

How does this happen? Why does every trip to the market result in huge expenditures of money and time?

Here's how it went that day: I announced to my family that I was headed to the store for milk. I asked (and here was my first mistake) whether anybody needed anything while I was there.

Everyone shouted at once. They needed ice cream. They needed toiletries. We were out of the favorite brand of sugary cereal. We had syrup, but no waffles. Mom needed items (olive oil!) that Dad never remembers.

It was too much too fast. I had to make a list. But I sternly kept it short. This wasn't the weekly shopping trip that always results in an overflowing shopping cart and exultant cheers from the checkout clerks. No, this was a quickie store run. Just milk. And a few other items. But mostly milk.

One look at the list told me I'd need a shopping cart (my second mistake). Soon I was rolling up and down the aisles, searching for the items on the list.

Which is exactly what the supermarkets want us to do. Go up and down each aisle. Take our time. Browse. See something omitted from the list. Spot a special on strawberries. Discover that a favorite brand of coffee is on sale.

Pretty soon, my cart was full. Not piled-up full, not so full that I'm leaving a trail of dropped Pop-Tarts in my wake. But pretty danged full. Ninety dollars full.

All because we were running out of milk.

What is it about supermarkets that cause this behavior? The impulse buys. The stockpiling. Something about all that brightly packaged bounty prompts us to spend, spend, spend.

We wouldn’t do other shopping this way. For instance, you wouldn't go out shopping for a new car and bring home a yacht and a Sherman tank. (Picture telling your spouse: "Sure, hon, we don't really need a tank, but they never spoil, and they were on sale.")

When it comes to food, we feel entitled to stock up, particularly if there are teens in the household. It'll all get eaten eventually, we tell ourselves, and you can never have too much microwave popcorn at hand.

This stockpiling mentality is the fuel behind the success of giant warehouse stores like Costco. Buy in bulk, this philosophy goes, and save money. Sure, you've got enough toilet paper to last until 2037, but what the heck, it's on sale.

I refuse to shop at Costco and its imitators. My feeling is: You should never go impulse shopping in a place where there are forklifts. If you find yourself buying a "bargain" that's so large it won't fit in a standard shopping cart, then you should reconsider.

Who's got that kind of storage space? Every Costco shopper I know has stuff stacked to the rafters in their homes. Yes, you can save money by buying 200 rolls of paper towels at once, but if you have to rent a warehouse to hold them, you've reached the point of diminishing returns.

To buy nothing more than a gallon of milk, it might be safest to the take the opposite route -- go to a convenience store. Run in, run out, avoid the temptations of the supermarket.

But have you seen how much they're charging for milk at convenience stores? (Not $90, but too much.) And there's still the problem of impulse buys.

How much beef jerky does one family need?

Stalking the wily teen

Teen-agers can be an elusive species, slipping through dark corners of the house in surly silence, sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

Biologists who study homo sapiens adolescensis tell us that teens' nocturnal habits and avoidance of adult company make them among the most difficult research subjects, second only to Bigfoot.

Many parents go weeks without meaningful interaction with their offspring. These parents have difficulty even confirming that their teen-agers exist. Some must resort to using credit card receipts to prove to the Internal Revenue Service that they're entitled to tax exemptions because teens occupy the household.

You might have teen-agers skulking around your home right now and not even know it. Perhaps you thought your teens had gone off to college. Suddenly, you find evidence that they're still around -- loud music playing in empty rooms, open milk cartons sitting out on kitchen counters -- and you follow these clues to determine that, in fact, your home has been converted into a frat house.

Fortunately, modern science has established a set of protocols for determining whether teens occupy a particular habitat. If you think your home may be infested with teen-agers, check for the following indicators:

--The phone line is always busy.

--The television plays 24 hours a day, even when there's no one in the room to view it, and it's set on channels you'd never, ever watch, such as MTV.

--Groceries disappear from your kitchen in amazing quantities. Teens are particularly keen on sweets and junk food. Sometimes, such treats vanish before you can even get the groceries in from the car. Veteran parents know that if they themselves might eventually want, say, a cookie, they must lock up the Oreos with the liquor.

--Computers run all night, downloading viruses and bad music, and casting their eerie electronic glow throughout the home. Scientists have found that, if a parent catches a teen actually using a computer, the screen instantly goes dark. Suspicious? We think so.

--The refrigerator door is standing open.

--Music constantly emanates from radios, stereos, MP3 players, computers, garages, even showers. Researchers tell us this is a sure sign that teens are present, their version of leaving a trail of bread crumbs. Sometimes, parents will search high and low for the source of apparent whispering, thinking it will give them a glimpse of their teens, only to find unoccupied headphones chattering away.

--Strange-looking people, wearing thrift-store clothes and headphones and many, many tattoos, show up at your door, asking about your teens, intimating that they are "friends." (Greet these strangers with extreme caution. It could be a trap.)

--Piles of dirty laundry, much of it decorated with the logos of rock bands, mysteriously appear, mostly strewn about the floor.

--You find yourself tripping over giant sneakers left scattered about. Or, you notice a foul, locker-room aroma and trace it to such shoes.

--All the settings on your computer, TV, VCR, microwave oven or cell phone have been changed, often in ways that render them unusable.

--You find yourself bankrupted by bills for items you don't remember purchasing.

Any of these clues may be signs of adolescent habitation. If you fear your home has been infested, conduct this test: Set out some food, preferably cookies or pizza, and keep watch from a safe distance. This bait may lure the teens out of concealment. Then you can confront them, and maybe even conduct a conversation, if you can overlook the resultant sighing and eye-rolling.

You might want to photograph this event. The IRS requires proof.

Pack up all your cares and woe

Psychologists tell us that moving is one of the leading causes of stress, right up there with divorce or the death of a spouse or having your beloved daughter announce that she's marrying a biker named Snake.

Those other stressors may occur only once or twice in a lifetime, but moving can happen repeatedly and stress results each time. Whether you are moved by professionals or by your drunken buddies who own pickup trucks, getting all your stuff from one location to another can strain your nerves.

Beyond the act of moving itself, there's so much to be arranged. You must set up new utility connections and bank accounts and lawn services. You must find new doctors and dentists and barbers and bartenders.

There's a huge learning curve when you move. Things you took for granted at your old address -- the all-night convenience store, the crazy neighbor, the location of the light switches in your house -- all change when you move. You have to find a new store, learn which switch turns on the kitchen light and which one grinds the garbage disposal, identify which of your new neighbors is the fruitcake.

Plus, you must find new places to store all your stuff. At your old house, you knew exactly where you kept, say, the toolbox. In your new home, the tools will be hidden away inside one of 743 mislabeled boxes in your garage. Good luck if you need a screwdriver.

All this arranging and learning and locating generates stress, so much so that moving can result in a "domino effect" of other stressors such as divorce or the death of a spouse.

Because my family has endured relocation without a divorce or anyone getting killed (so far), I now feel qualified to give you the following Helpful Tips for Surviving a Move:

--Lower your expectations.

Many of us approach a move with unreasonable expectations that all our stuff will arrive intact and will fit into our new homes. Instead, think of moving as a Darwinian experience. Survival of the fittest. If your favorite antiques are destroyed and/or lost in the move, then it was "their time to go." You can replace them with a new generation of furnishings. Perhaps something in stainless steel.

--Recognize that moving is stressful for the whole family.

Sure, the adults feel it the most. They're the ones who must pay for the move, get the new utilities hooked up, etc… But we must remember that kids suffer stress, too, and it may cause them to act out. Adults should be gentle with their children during these times. Otherwise, the kids might start entertaining proposals of marriage from bikers, just to escape the new, stress-filled home.

--Take care of yourself physically.

Eat right, get enough sleep, don't push yourself too hard. Above all, don't overexert while doing unaccustomed physical activity. When a couch potato starts tossing around 50-pound boxes of books, injury is sure to result. Remember this tip: You know the box you're lifting is too heavy if you can see your face getting red . . . from the inside.

--Keep your sense of humor intact.

Laughing your way through stress remains a good survival technique. Try to enjoy the absurdity of the situation. For example, all of us who have used professional movers have stories about how they carefully wrap and pack full ashtrays or trashcans containing smelly garbage. If you keep your sense of humor in such cases, there's less chance that you might go after the moving men with a box cutter.

During our last move, my moment of mirth came while I was unpacking my home office. I found in one box, carefully wrapped in layers and layers of protective packing paper . . . wait for it . . . a ream of typing paper.

This discovery caused me to roll on the floor, laughing until tears sprang from my eyes and drool dotted my shirtfront.

Yeah, I know, it doesn't seem so funny now. But it was just the dose of hysteria I needed at the time.

Must've been the stress.

Fazed by phases

Otherwise sane adults enter parenthood feeling they can manage the child, that they can shape that newborn bundle of protoplasm into a functional adult who will bring good to the world.

Soon, however, sleep-deprived parents recognize that babies are around-the-clock need machines who bring into the world only one thing: dirty diapers. And it just goes downhill from there.

The central problem of parenthood is that the child's needs and expectations often are in direct conflict with the needs and expectations of the parents. For instance, a toddler expects life to be full of fun and freedom and adventure; the parents expect the child to stop sticking his tongue to electrical sockets.

Many such conflicts occur because parents don't understand the Stages of Child Development. As children grow, they go through "phases" in which certain behaviors are exhibited. Parents will find each of these "phases" to be "weird," but wise parents know that, if they just wait the child out, soon the aberrant behavior will be replaced by something even weirder.

Let's look, then, at the Stages of Child Development. For simplicity's sake, we'll break down childhood into the following categories: Infants, Toddlers, those of elementary school age (hereinafter known as "Kids"), and Teens. Each of these general age groups display certain universal behavioral traits, though individual deviations are common. Your mileage may vary.

Question: What do children want most from parents?

Infants: Around-the-clock attention.
Toddlers: A chance to get away with something.
Kids: A ride somewhere.
Teens: Money.

Question: What will interest the child most at various stages?

Infants: Mom's face.
Toddlers: Electrical sockets.
Kids: Armpit noises.
Teens: The opposite sex.

Question: Children tend to insert things in their mouths. What items are most typical?

Infants: Toe.
Toddlers: Everything.
Kids: Candy.
Teens: Foot.

Question: What are children's methods of communicating their needs?

Infants: Crying.
Toddlers: Crying.
Kids: Crying.
Teens: Sullen silence.

Question: What are children's favorite modes of transportation?

Infants: Mom's arms.
Toddlers: Dad's shoulders.
Kids: Anything that has wheels and an element of danger.
Teens: Their own car, dammit.

Question: What's the favorite form of amusement at each stage?

Infants: A mobile over the crib.
Toddlers: Inane television shows.
Kids: Setting small fires.
Teens: Talking on the phone 24 hours a day.

Question: How do children regard normal bodily functions?

Infant: Fascinating.
Toddler: As topics for public conversation.
Kids: Hilarious.
Teens: "God, you're so embarrassing! Can't you just leave me alone?"

Question: What clothing options are suitable for a child at each stage?

Infant: Six billion diapers.
Toddler: Armor.
Kids: Anything the parents didn't pick out.
Teens: The same stupid bellbottoms you wore when you were a teen.

Question: What philosophical questions are indicative of each stage?

Infants: Who am I?
Toddlers: Can I eat it?
Kids: Why not?
Teens: Can't a person get any privacy around here?

Question: What patterns of disturbing behavior can parents expect?

Infants: Shrieking at 2 a.m.
Toddlers: Throwing up at 2 a.m.
Kids: Raiding the fridge at 2 a.m.
Teens: Needing bail at 2 a.m.

Question: What are the typical ambitions of a child at each stage?

Infants: To become toddlers.
Toddlers: To escape their parents' control.
Kids: To someday drive a car.
Teens: To escape their parents' control.

Question: What are the biggest challenges for the parent at each stage of the child's development?

Infants: Sleep deprivation.
Toddlers: Ensuring a safe environment.
Kids: Public embarrassment.
Teens: Controlling homicidal impulses.

Now that you have a firm understanding of the Stages of Child Development, you can be better parents. Remember: Each of these stages is merely a passing phase and, eventually, the children will grow up and move away.

And then, finally, you can get some sleep.

TV or not TV, that is the question

Parents often ask themselves: "Are the children watching too much television?"

The answer is a resounding "Yes!" If there is a TV anywhere in your home, then the children are watching it too much.

I believe this not because I'm one of those hard cases who thinks any television is too much, or even because my own two sons have become TV zombies. No, this opinion is based on what I hear children say.

An example: Recently, my boys were playing with some electronic toy that began emitting a horrific noise. Did they run screaming from the room? No, they did not (though I did). Did they believe the toy was irretrievably broken? No.

Instead, one of them calmly said: "You've activated its 'special feature.'"

Where would they hear such a thing, except on TV? Where, but on TV, would an it-must-be-the-end-of-the-world noise be considered a good thing?

Listen to children on a playground and you'll hear non-stop references to Pokemon and Bart Simpson and Britney Spears and other cartoon characters. Kids act out their favorite episodes of such outlandish fictional fare as "X-Men" and professional wrestling. They sing advertising jingles while swinging on the monkey bars.

My 10-year-old does dead-on impersonations of the voices from a cartoon called "Ed, Edd and Eddy." The fact that this cartoon depicts three morons with bad teeth disturbs me. (Could be worse. At least he's not doing "Beavis and Butthead.")

My 13-year-old is a dedicated viewer of sitcoms aimed at teens, all of which seem to center on who's most popular in school (the cute, shallow kids) and who's a dweeb (dads and other authority figures). He's apparently gleaning important tips on socializing and family life from these programs. (Again, it could be worse. He could be watching "The Osbournes.")

Children's brains are like sponges. They absorb and retain everything they see and hear (except for dutiful parental instructions and admonitions, which seem to go in one ear and out some other orifice). Television, with its flashing images, thunderous volume and catchy advertising slogans, is designed to infiltrate their brains and permanently set up camp there.

Don't believe me? Then try, right now, to sing the theme song to "Gilligan's Island." You can, can't you? Even if it's been years since you've heard it, that song is still with you. And, you can probably recall specific episodes as well. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

For three or four generations now, parenting experts have warned that too much television will make children fat and stupid. If you're a Baby Boomer, you probably can recall how your concerned parents tried everything to keep you away from the TV. Were they successful? Sing it with me now: "Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip... "

The harsh truth is that parenting is such a demanding, 24-hour-a-day job that most parents simply give up at some point and resort to the "one-eyed babysitter." We know TV's not healthy for the children. We know they're exposed to things they should not see. We know kids should be doing something creative and intellectually stimulating instead. But we're busy, we're tired and, besides, we're trying to find a quiet moment to watch our own favorite show.

But parents should keep trying to limit TV's effects on their kids. Pull the plug occasionally. Set specific boundaries on how much they can watch and which programs are age-appropriate. Tell your kids too much TV will give them "square eyes." Engage them in family activities that last longer than a "commercial interruption."

Your children will ignore this advice and sneak around and watch shows that are bad for them, just as you did when you were young. But maybe, if you parents exert enough effort and demonstrate enough patience and perseverance, you can steer them away from reruns of "Gilligan's Island."

(Editor's note: Now that my sons are all grown up, TV viewing is no longer a problem. They're too busy watching YouTube.)

The war at home

If the conflict in the Middle East sometimes resembles a bickering family, that's because of our frame of reference: Most of us have more experience with bickering families than we do with international diplomacy and suicide bombers.

Every family has its emotional ups and downs, its times of tension or outright war or uneasy détente. Skirmishes flare between siblings. Generational warfare erupts. Relations grow tense between busy spouses, requiring third-party mediation and eventual property settlements.

Even happy families have moments when the stars are crossed or the biorhythms are off or everybody just gets fed up with everybody else. Sharp words are exchanged. Voices rise. Feelings are hurt. The survivors are forced to draw up a new clause for the ongoing treaty negotiation that is Family Life, one more item for the list: "Stuff We Shouldn't Have Said in the First Place and Will Never Bring Up Again."

Resentment over such exchanges can grow with passing years until family members become like international neighbors -- suspicious and fractious and quick to react. Family life can become a "cold war" with long periods of silence interrupted by sudden fighting in which all old wounds are avenged.

It's hard to be analytical during such periods of stress and pain, so why not take a moment now, while presumably you're not in the middle of an argument, to take an objective look at your family's emotional health:

How would you rate the overall happiness of your family? Do you often find yourself blindsided by your spouse's mood swings, especially those that occur during playoff games? Do your neighbors complain about all the screaming at your house? Are there one or more sullen teen-agers on the premises?

If you answered "huh?" to any of the above questions, then you should pay better attention. Your family relations already may be so strained that it's too late to salvage a workable peace.
First, examine the causes of strife. You'll find they resemble the issues that lead nations to square off against each other.

--Territorial encroachment. Part of being the American nuclear family is that we're all stuck under the same roof. We claim certain territory as our own and defend it against all intrusion. Does the phrase "stay out of my room" ring a bell?

--Outside agitators. In-laws. Need we say more?

--History. If they can still fight reruns of the Crusades in the Middle East after nearly a thousand years, then why should you expect everyone to forget the way you acted like a jerk at Uncle Joe's wedding?

--Inattention. As happens with stewing international feuds, Americans can be taken off-guard by flare-ups of emotional upheaval. Family members can get so caught up in domestic issues, such as playoff games, that they ignore the simmering tensions until it is too late for anything but all-out war.

We propose, then, that families adopt a warning system similar to one developed by the Homeland Security Advisory System to alert Americans to terrorist threats. Different colors -- green, blue, yellow, orange, red -- could be posted around the house to indicate the overall mood and the risk of firefights.

(This is not to make light of the terrorism threat or of the important work of the Homeland Security Office, which consists of scaring the bejeebers out of us every few days. But let's face it: Most of us are in far less danger from terrorists than we are from our own spouses, particularly if we can't remember to put the cap back on the toothpaste.)

A color-coded warning system could make sure the whole family is at the same stage of readiness. Say the wife in a particular household posted an orange alert. The kids would know to tiptoe around until the warning lifted, and the husband could say to himself, "I don't know what I've done, but this appears to be a credible threat. Maybe it's time to turn off the TV and go sit at the negotiating table."

This way, evasive action can be taken before the household goes to full red alert. This is an advisable course of action. Those red alerts can scare the bejeebers out of you.

Be prepared

In this time of global heebie-jeebies, loyal Americans find themselves worrying about all sorts of potential disasters: terrorist attacks, anthrax letters, plane crashes, power grid failures, fire, flood, famine and/or car trouble.

That's why it's important to be prepared for any and all emergencies. Home preparedness not only can be key to your survival, it can also provide that elusive quality known as "peace of mind."

The main component in such preparation is the Emergency Survival Kit, and no home should be without one. But how, you might ask, can one assemble such a kit? What does every home need in times of calamity?

Ah, that's where we can help. We here at Home Front headquarters have spent literally minutes on Internet research and have consolidated that vast array of information into the following list of emergency supplies.

You should run right out and buy all this gear and carefully store it in a cool, dry place, such as a bomb shelter or root cellar. Doing so assures that you'll never need any of it. Just assembling an Emergency Survival Kit virtually guarantees that you'll never have an actual emergency. It's a matter of karmic talisman, and it's the reason we always carry jumper cables.

However, while creating your Emergency Survival Kit, you should pretend that you'll actually need this stuff someday. Remember: In the case of an actual emergency, you'll be cooped up with your family for days or weeks. You'd better have enough food/water/medicine/batteries/Game Boys to keep your family safe, happy and amused until the "all clear" signal sounds.

In other words, it'll be exactly like a long car trip with the kids, except without the scenery.

THE EMERGENCY SURVIVAL KIT

--Canned or dried food

How much? It depends on how many family members will be tapping the supply, and how long they would prefer such food to, say, fleeing into the nuclear fallout. In the case of canned goods, you should stockpile enough for a week or two. With dried food, maybe three days' worth.

--Can opener

Duh.

--Water

Our Internet sources say you should have three liters of bottled water per person per day. But since we don't know how much a "liter" is, we'd simply recommend that you store "a lot" of water. Water's not just for drinking. You'll also need it for washing, which becomes increasingly important in the close quarters of a bomb shelter.

--A grill or hibachi

You'll need some way to heat that canned food. Dried food makes good fuel.

--First aid kit

This should include all the usual first aid items. Go heavy on the headache remedies, especially if there are children in the family.

--Flashlights

--Extra batteries

--Candles and matches

In case a "romantic evening" breaks out in the old bomb shelter.

--Radio

--More batteries

--Toilet paper

Lots. In case things go really wrong, toilet paper makes a dandy turban.

--Pet supplies

Don't forget about Rover or Fifi. They won't eat dried food, either, and they'll want their usual chow. Remember, if times become desperate enough, a well-fed pet can become "lunch."

--Toys, books, handheld video games and portable stereos

It's tough to stay amused when you're waiting out nuclear winter. Stock enough of these gizmos so that every family member can stay busy singing along with their favorite songs or playing their favorite games.

--Way more batteries

--Earplugs

So you don't have to listen to your family members sing along.

--Basic tools

Can't ever tell when you might need a hammer. For example, if your relatives refuse to stop
singing . . .

--Blankets or sleeping bags

--Copies of important documents and medical records

When the government starts going door-to-door, searching for terrorists, you'll want some ID handy.

--Personal hygiene items, such as toothbrushes and deodorant

Trust us.

--Emergency clothing

This includes rain gear, sturdy shoes and warm clothes you can wear in layers under your "hazmat" suits.

--Did we mention batteries?

Once you've assembled all these items, you'll find that they fill your designated shelter to the brim. There'll be no room in there for actual people. But, given enough warning, you can quickly construct a shelter out of whatever's handy. We suggest using dead batteries.