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!

A busy, productive summer

It's been, um, (mumble-mumble) weeks since I last updated this blog, but I finally have a moment on a Sunday afternoon to catch up on what's been a very busy time.

Life is good in Albuquerque. Kelly's still enjoying her law-firm job after more than six months, and I've written a whole novel since PARTY DOLL debuted in February. Took me 10 weeks to write the first draft of STASH THE CASH, a novel about bank robbers who make a big haul only to have several people try to steal it from them. Lots of rewriting to come, but I expect to finish the revisions over the course of the summer.

My class in the University of New Mexico's Honors Program wrapped up in May, freeing up more time for writing. I had a great semester with some very bright students, and I'm looking forward to teaching "The New Noir: Contemporary Crime Fiction" next fall.

Sales of my e-books via Kindle and Smashwords continue to go well, and I've been experimenting with advertising the e-books through Google's Adwords program. Be interested to hear from any of you who might've seen one of those ads.

Yesterday, I joined Southwest Writers, and Kel and I enjoyed a SWW lecture on creativity by a local neuroscientist. I'm scheduled to speak to SWW next month about the e-book revolution, and I'm giving a similar talk to the local Sisters in Crime chapter on July 24. Also, I've been invited to be on a humor panel in November at the Tony Hillerman Writing Conference in Santa Fe.

One of the other authors on that panel will be Craig Johnson of LONGMIRE fame. Craig and his wife Judy were in town the other night for a booksigning, and we went out to dinner with them. Had a wonderful time. Craig is a natural-born storyteller, and he was a big hit with the standing-room-only crowd at Bookworks. We're looking forward to the TV premiere of LONGMIRE tonight.

June is typically the hottest month in Albuquerque, and we've been getting some smokey skies from that giant wildfire in southwestern New Mexico, but that hasn't stopped us from getting outdoors and going to cookouts, etc. Kel's planting flowers in our yard, and we both try to walk outdoors for exercise nearly every day. Our neighborhood near UNM is great for walking. Lots of trees and quiet streets, and the occasional roadrunner to keep you company.

We're looking forward to Summerfest and other Albuquerque activities over the next few months. But for now, back to those rewrites . . .

You're doing it wrong

Two geniuses in New Mexico have been arrested for starting an 11,000-acre wildfire, sparked by a burning charcoal grill they were carrying in the back of a pickup truck.

The campers loaded the grill into the truck and drove off after being told to extinguish it by park rangers. Flying embers set the men's camping gear on fire, so they pulled off the road and dumped all the burning material off the shoulder. That started the larger fire.

Full story here.

Woodstock?

I look out the patio windows and there in our relatively small in-ground pool is our oldest son, the wandering minstrel with the blond dreadlocks, and five of his equally filthy freak-flag-flying friends, swimming and splashing and having the time of their lives.

I turned to my wife and said, "Hippie soup."

And your taters got eyes

Me to my wife: "Honey, I was out in the container garden just now? And, um, did you intend to grow a big blue bucket full of swamp?"

Ho-ho-ho, Merry August

Back-to-school shopping always seems like a summertime taste of Christmas.

Such a haul. New clothes, new sneakers, new backpack, new lunchbox. Bright yellow pencils and crisp white paper.

For the kids, it's as if Santa came to visit in his vacation clothes. For the parents, though, it can be a nail-biting, heartburn-inducing exercise in breaking the bank.

Small kids demand that all clothes and school supplies come decorated with trademarked characters from Marvel or Mattel or Disney or Nintendo. No matter which character your child loves best, all the goods bearing that likeness sold out last February.

If parents try to inflict anything else -- plain T-shirts, for example, or a notebook decorated with Barney instead of Pikachu -- the children will roll on the floor and howl and kick their little feet.
It's easy to spot those kids' parents. They're the nomads wandering from store to store, weeping and clutching handfuls of their own hair.

If you're lucky enough to stumble upon a hoard of the correct goods, the sticker shock will make your eyes jump out of your head and roll around the floor. Ten bucks for a binder? Thirty bucks for little bitty jeans? Sixty dollars for sneakers?

Holy slide rule, Batman. Before you know it, you've racked up a credit card debt that won't be paid off until the little beggars are off to college.

And for what? Clothes the children will ruin or outgrow by winter break. School supplies that will be lost or destroyed. (Has any kid, anywhere, ever made it through the school year with an intact protractor?) A backpack that produces an odd, musty smell you can't eradicate. And, of course, after a month or two, the kids will decide Pokemon is passe (or so all the parents pray).

By the time Christmas does roll around, it's time to replace everything. And it's hard to fit a new NASCAR lunchbox in a stocking.

I'd like to say it gets easier as kids get older, but that would be lying. Fashions change, but the demands are much the same. Instead of screaming for a pink Barbie lunchbox, your daughter will insist on a pink Paris Hilton crop top. Your son will object to any pants that aren't large enough to house a family of six.

And the sneakers just keep getting pricier.

Some parents of teens simply hand over a credit card and lie down in a dimly lit room until it's over. Others participate in the shopping, but must budget for stress remedies such as bourbon.

There is hope. Eventually, the kids' growth slows, so they might wear a garment more than, say, twice. The household fills up with so many backpacks and lunchboxes and binders, a child might actually re-use one, assuming it doesn't smell too funky.

Our two teen-age sons show little interest in back-to-school shopping. The older one, who's in the seventh year of his ratty rock-and-roller phase, refuses to wear clothes unless they have more holes than a screen door. The younger one never throws anything out, so his closet is overflowing. They both own relatively new, stink-free backpacks.

So I left the boys at home when I did the back-to-school shopping. I returned with a sackful of composition books and pens and said, "Here you go. You're all set."

I know it's not over. Teachers will demand specialized goods. Backpacks will be lost. Tattered clothing will turn to dust.

But I'm hoping we can hold out until Christmas.

Calling Dr. Poolman

Nothing says "summer" like the sting of chlorinated water in your eyes.

Swimming seems a great way to "beat the heat," which is why so many people make the mistake of putting swimming pools right in their own yards.

Pools have become commonplace in warmer climes. Fly over any Sun Belt city, and you'll be astounded by the number of pools you see in the yards below. It's as if our cities have broken out in bright blue freckles.

But those freckles are not the pristine bodies of water that they seem. Instead, they're vats of chemical soup, a mix of chlorine and pH balancer and algacide and clarifier and -- my personal favorite -- "flocculant." Oh, and some water, if there's any room left.

Who do we put in charge of such hazardous chemicals? The local fire department's "hazmat" team? The Environmental Protection Agency? No, we leave it to the homeowners. We give them little kits with test tubes and dyes and potions, and easy access to all the chemicals needed to purify their pools. (Available right in the supermarket! Near the food!) As for training, pool owners are given a hearty, "You're on your own." Then they're qualified to play Dr. Poolman the Chemist.

It's a wonder we haven't all bleached ourselves to death.

This is not what homeowners have in mind when they decide to take the plunge (har!) into pool ownership. They picture themselves blissfully floating on an air mattress, holding a drink with an umbrella in it, while grateful children paddle around, shouting hosannas about parents who know how to have "fun."

Hahaha on that. I've been a pool owner for years now (since we moved into a home that came with one already in place), and I can tell you that idyllic summer moment happens, um, never.

Yes, the pool's right outside. Yes, it looks enticing. And, OK, yeah, the children do seem to enjoy jumping into it over and over, a jillion times, until all the water has splashed out and killed the lawn. But then there are the negatives:

1) The water is co-o-o-old.

2) The children are never grateful. They don't think we're "fun" parents because we supply an oversized bathtub out back. To them, parents have one role where the pool is concerned: We are targets for "cannonballs."

3) Swimming seems like good exercise until you try it in your average residential pool. You can't swim in a pool that size. All you can do is turn around. Stroke, stroke, TURN. Stroke, stroke, TURN. You'll get dizzy before you burn any calories.

4) There's all that maintenance, including the cleaning of filters and the monitoring of electronic equipment (Water and electricity together. Shocking!) and the handling of chemicals labeled with more warnings than your standard package of bubonic plague virus.

It's so easy to make a mistake.

Not enough chemicals and cleaning, and your pool quickly turns into a green breeding ground for the Swamp Thing. Too much, and the children run round red-eyed and squawling while their hair falls out. Such alarm can make a parent spill his drink.

Let the chemistry get far enough out of balance, and the toxic stew can eat the concrete and leave a headline-grabbing sinkhole.

Then, next time you're on a plane, you can point with pride: "My house? Why, it's right there. The one with the big brown freckle."

School's out

The end of the school year can be a tough time for parents.

In the summer months, we parents no longer have a taxpayer-funded place to store our children for seven hours a day. We must find ways to keep the kids safe, fed and amused while we work. We must transport them from place to place in oven-like minivans. We pay more for summer camp than we might pay for tuition at Yale. We must plan a (gulp!) vacation trip with the kids.

But let’s not focus on the complaints. Let’s take a moment to look at the benefits of school-free summers.

No more pencils, notebooks or other school supplies are necessary in summer. Children (especially boys) tend to lose those items repeatedly during the school year, along with their jackets, gloves and random shoes. Replacement costs go way down until fall, when we must completely outfit the students all over again.

No more books other than those of the children’s choosing. I recommend that kids spend as much time as possible in a nice, air-conditioned library.

No more teachers’ dirty looks. Parents suffer just as much as the kids when misbehavior, failing grades or other bad news require teacher meetings throughout the school year. Sure, the kids might still be little vandals during the summer, but your neighbors can’t force a face-to-face meeting the way teachers can. Just don’t answer the doorbell.

No more calls from the principal. (See above paragraph.) Plus, no more of those automated calls where the principal’s disembodied voice informs parents of minimum days, STAR testing, truancies, emergency lockdowns, etc.

No school means no homework which may mean fewer arguments around the house. Instead of standing over the offspring, forcing them to do their homework, we parents can force them to do yard work.

Summer means lots less laundry. Youngsters need to wear fresh clothes to school every day (whether they like it or not), but in summer they can go around in the same swimsuit, T-shirt and flip-flops for days on end. Swimming puts more towels in the mix, but at least those are easy to fold. Since the kids are home for the summer, maybe you can even get them to do the laundry. (Hahaha. Just kidding.)

School-related fundraising comes to a halt in summer. For three months, parents won’t have to foist band candy, bake sales or raffle tickets on their co-workers, neighbors and former friends.

Summer gives children more free time to climb trees, ride bicycles and skateboards, wrestle the family dog and engage in other dangerous activities. This gives parents the opportunity to get re-acquainted with the family doctor, insurance providers and the staffs at local emergency rooms.

(A parenting tip: Remind your children that “Look, Ma, no hands!” is a boast, not a medical condition.)

Most of all, summer vacation means parents can spend more “quality time” with their kids, aside from the hours spent in emergency rooms.

Take the children on a picnic, take them fishing, go to a ballgame, play games together or spend hot afternoons in air-conditioned matinees. Family activities are where memories are made, and summer is the best time for them. The kids will thank you (someday) for devoting your summer months to their welfare and amusement.

One final benefit: The more time the family spends together, the more eager the children will be to return to school next fall.

Stay-cation

With gasoline prices still steep, many folks must skip the traditional summer driving vacation to some faraway marvel such as the Grand Canyon or Mount Rushmore or Grandma’s house.

There’s always plenty to do closer to home, of course. All areas of the country have their natural wonders and hidden waterholes and Giant Balls of Twine.

But let’s talk really close to home. You can take a mini-vacation without ever getting in your car. A stroll around the neighborhood can feel like a real get-away-from-it-all if you’re in the right frame of mind. Relax and take your time and find a new way to look at the world. If you can think on a smaller scale, your typical suburb becomes a Japanese bonsai garden, carefully designed to please the eye. It helps if you’ve been taking cold medicine.

Here, then, is a little pamphlet I made up:

GUIDE TO HIKING TRAILS AND RECREATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES AROUND MY YARD

Trails are easy unless otherwise indicated. All water is potable except that slimy bucket by the patio. Hikers are warned that a large, floppy dog inhabits the premises; all food should be kept in sealed containers. Also, a big bearded guy sometimes comes out and yells at trespassers, but he’s harmless.

Fig Tree Outlook Trail: An easy hike, but not to be attempted in bare feet because of an expanse of hot concrete driveway. The reward at the end of this walk is a weedy pocket garden with a shredded bark floor. At its center stands a symbol of hope, a small fig tree that’s been in the process of dying for one year. Spectacular.

Transverse Trail: This short stroll can be challenging because of a stretch of thick, sodden lawn. Uphill a few steps, then a slippery downslope the rest of the way, past the Impenetrable Lantana Jungle and the Tangled Trees of Lower Front Yard to the safety of the sidewalk.

Around Back Trail: This strenuous hike involves a couple of squeaky gates and a variety of tricky surfaces, so it’s not for the faint of heart or the bare of foot. For those intrepid enough to tackle it, many mysteries are revealed along the way, including the bloodlike Drips of Red Paint that accidentally got on the sidewalk that time. Past the looming Basketball Hoop stretch the Inexplicable Plains of Sharp Gravel, which cannot be traversed without shoes. Beyond another squeaky gate lies the real prize, a burbling waterfall and scenic pool. (Swimming not recommended -- Department of Health)

“Up Your Berm” Trail: The most strenuous hike on the property, this risky path goes up a steep berm covered in landscaping bark and the occasional decorative boulder. Not to be attempted in sandals. If you can manage it, however, it’s only a few strides before you reach the magnificent Great Wall of Suburbia, a gray concrete marvel that only the tallest of men can see over without a ladder. Beyond that wall, a majestic view of the next subdivision.

As you can see, the world is filled with many wonders, if you set your sights low enough. I urge my fellow armchair travelers and computer addicts to get up and go outside once in a while. Take a fond look at the world around you.

Plan your hikes carefully, and you can be back under the air conditioning before you break a sweat.

Pool for sale

I think I’ll sell my swimming pool on eBay.

My wife’s sold a few things on eBay -- mostly books; we have many, many books -- and my first reaction was: “You can sell things on eBay? I thought eBay only existed to deliver things to our home!”

Once we got past that, I cast about for other household items we don’t use anymore, and I came up with a great idea: I’ll sell the pool.

A very nice swimming pool came with this house when we bought it. The pool has decorative rocks cemented around the edge and a functioning waterfall. I dutifully keep it all clean and chemically balanced.

Nobody uses it.

We keep meaning to go swimming, but the sun is too hot and the water’s too cold and we’ve already done our hair and one does hate to go to bed reeking of chlorine. Whimper, whine.

I’ve reached the age of 52, the Chinese Year of the White Grub, when I am much too fat and pale to go around without a shirt, even in the privacy of my fenced back yard. Last time, NASA complained that the glare interfered with satellite reception.

Our sons use friends' pool because they've got diving boards. Or they just go jump in the lake, usually with a cell phone in a pocket.

My wife’s got no time for swimming. She’s busy watering all her plants, keeping them alive in the summertime heat, moving them around the patio like wilting chess pieces.

So we don’t really need our pool this summer. I wonder how much I could get for it on eBay.

Selling it presents certain problems, the main one being that the pool’s made of concrete sunk into the ground behind our house. Don’t know if the customer would have to dig it out in pieces or airlift it or what to get it out of there.

And we’d have to replace the pool with something. That would have to be part of the deal. We can’t just leave a ragged hole there, like somebody pulled a big old tooth out of the yard!

My sons would prefer some sort of concrete bunker where they could play electrified music really loudly without being overheard by the short-sighted world, which doesn’t understand them and their music. Failing that, they’d take a selection of concrete skateboard ramps.

Maybe we could replace the pool with a huge planter, so my wife could have even more flora and weeds and bugs to keep her fussing and hopping all day.

To me, the best thing about the pool is the view. I enjoy looking out at the patio and pool from my traditional spot on the sofa under the air-conditioning vent. The “picture” is so lovely and serene, it could be a screensaver. The sight of palm trees always make me feel like I’m on vacation. A few weeds in the foreground, but never mind.

So I’d vote that we put in a low-maintenance mural of a swimming pool. A nice blue David Hockney painting. I could still have my California view, I could turn a buck on the deal and some lucky eBay shopper gets the swimming pool of his dreams.

Extra shipping charges apply.

The noise of summer

Now that warm weather is upon us, we can annoy our neighbors much more than we did in winter.

We spend more time outside. We work in the yard. We throw open our windows to summer breezes. And we share with our neighbors all the ballgame-cheering, door-slamming, music-playing, loud burping and intrahousehold shouting that we'd normally keep to ourselves.

In many neighborhoods, houses are built so close together that residents can reach out their windows and shake hands with people next door. When those windows are open, neighbors hear conversations and spats and other interactions they'd really, really rather not hear.

In such places, you must be careful when you call your children inside for dinner. You can end up feeding every kid on the block.

In my current suburb, there are fences between houses and the facing windows mostly aren't the kind that open. But I remember once, a couple of houses ago, when I thought a neighbor was shouting for help, when she really was hollering at her daughter. Fortunately, I realized my mistake before I dialed 911.

Years ago, when I lived in an apartment, a concerned neighbor knocked on the door while I had friends over.

"Is everything all right over here?" he asked. "I heard screaming."

My answer: "Dude. It's the playoffs."

In such close quarters, you learn which TV shows your neighbors enjoy, what music they like, which teams they root for. Almost always, these tastes will be the direct opposite of your own. If you're considering a relocation, you should ask potential neighbors: "Do you like bagpipe music?" If the answer is yes, immediately look elsewhere.

Those of us who work at home are especially susceptible to these warm-weather disturbances. We're trying to concentrate, trying to conduct business, and all we can hear are the kids down the street shrieking in a swimming pool. Yes, those kids are cute and, yes, that water's cold, but dang, we're trying to work here.

In my neighborhood, many people use lawn services. These services naturally operate during business hours, which is perfect for the residents who go to regular jobs. They never even see their lawn people. They come home from work, and, shazam, their grass is magically shorter and well-groomed.

But we work-at-home types get to hear all the mowers and blowers and weed-whackers. As those old TV commercials used to say, "That's not helping my headache."

Once, I was trying to write when a construction crew showed up down the street to install a swimming pool. The workers spent the day heaving large rocks into the back of a dump truck. Boom, boom, bang. As if that weren't bad enough, one burly worker entertained his colleagues by singing at the top of his lungs all day, and let's just say you won't see him on "American Idol" anytime soon. It was one of those times when I was glad I don't own a gun.

Not that we're guilt-free at my house. My sons crank up the volume when they're playing guitars, and their, um, performances probably aren't to the taste of the neighbors, if you get my drift. We've been known to throw noisy patio parties. And we have the loudest air conditioner in the neighborhood; it apparently wants to be a 747 when it grows up. Fortunately, our neighbors are tolerant types.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go back out to the patio. I'm barbecuing a bagpipe.

Laboring over the perfect party

Ah, Labor Day weekend. Summer's last hurrah. For many Americans, that means it's time to party.

Cookouts to mark the passing of summer have become an annual ritual. We gather around open fires and drink native beverages and tell the stories of our people. Then, as night falls, we stumble into the pool and nearly drown and 911 is called, and the tribe has a new story to recount next year.

If you're planning a party for Labor Day weekend, it's not too late to make it the social event of the season. You can turn your home into a showplace for socializing, a place where your guests will feel welcome and well-fed and entertained.

The key is proper preparation. You want your party to appear fun and effortless, and that means working your butt off ahead of time. Make lists. Stockpile food and ice. Clear away clutter and make sure your house is spotless.

No one will notice -- they'll be too busy falling drunkenly into the pool -- but you'll feel better about yourself and your home and that will make you a better host, one who's relaxed and ready for any eventuality.

But where to begin? Social events are delicate creatures that must be nourished with the right mix of people, food, drink and chlorine. Here are some suggestions:

TIPS FOR HOSTING SUCCESSFUL PARTIES

--You can never have too much ice.

--The same goes for beer.

--Prepare just the right amount of food. You want to have enough so that nobody goes away hungry, but you also don't want them to stay all night. And you don't want a lot of stuff left over. Leftovers can be deadly, particularly potato salad.

--Your tasty dishes can be arranged elegantly on platters and the whole table can be decorated with fresh flowers and aromatic candles. If you take this Martha Stewart approach, you will find that your guests fall into three categories: 1) Those who appreciate how much effort you put into the food and who wouldn't dream of messing up the arrangement by actually eating any of it. 2) Those who recognize how much effort went into it and who hate you for it. 3) Those (mostly guys) who don't notice the effort and wade into the food up to their elbows.

--Go get more ice.

--Spend the days before the party making your house clean and tidy. When you're finished, your home will be sparkling and inviting. Unfortunately, you will be too exhausted to enjoy your own party. And your guests will wreck the place, so you can start all over again.

--More beer.

--If your party is outdoors, make sure there's enough shade available. This may require renting a canopy or large tent. Nothing like the aroma of mildewing canvas to give the proper "air" to a gathering.

--Lively conversation is the key to a successful party. Plan ahead so you'll have spontaneous, non-controversial topics that will keep conversation flowing and drunken fistfights to a minimum. Topics to avoid: Politics, religion, divorce, Microsoft, how much effort went into the food, your guests' sexual habits.

--Did we mention ice?

--Should drunken fistfights erupt, the competent host acts as referee, calming angry guests and getting everyone fresh drinks. If they insist on brawling, the host might try shocking them out of their aggressive mode by pushing them into the pool. Refreshingly cold water can be a welcome distraction when things get out of hand. If that doesn't work, the host should dial 911 from his cellular phone while sprinting away to safety.

--One final tip: Guests like to feel they're helping to make the party a success, so give them things to do. For example, should you run out of ice, send a guest to a convenience store for more. This will help the guest feel like part of the effort. In fact, you might find errands for all your guests. Once they're gone, you'll have your clean house and all that food to yourself.

And that's the way to finish off a summer.

Quaking with joy

As school resumes here in Redding, CA, seismologists report that they pick up actual Richter-scale readings from tremors caused by thousands of parents simultaneously doing the annual Dance of Great Happiness.

Parents rejoice because they know that -- for the next nine months -- their kids will be locked away seven hours a day in the care of others. Anticipating that they'll finally get some peace around the house, parents secretly dance themselves into exhaustion, then collapse in their filthy homes.

Yes, the beginning of the school year always is just cause for celebration. For work-at-home parents like me, it can be the source of outright delirium.

(Not that it wasn't wonderful to have my two sons home all summer. I wouldn't want to make that impression, particularly if the proper authorities happen to be reading this.)

The back-to-school exuberance doesn't last, of course. Eventually, parents must settle down and face the work before them. After a summer of children, the house and yard resemble a trailer court after a tornado. Clutter, clutter everywhere.

Sighing parents pick themselves up from their sofas and start putting away the flotsam of summer -- the swimsuits and the camping gear, the board games and the coloring books, the Game Boys and the baseball gloves. They uncover floors that must be mopped and furniture that must be dusted and Mystery Food under beds that must be disposed of immediately by teams in "hazmat" suits.

It takes a while to accomplish it all, but industrious parents can have the house back in shape around the time their kids bring home the school year's first report cards.

For parents who work in home offices, the beginning of the school year also signals the time to buckle down and get some work done. With the kids gone, we have no more excuses. All the unfinished work that accumulated over the summer must now be tackled.

Parents who allow themselves to be overwhelmed will find they don't get much accomplished. And, whoops, next thing you know, it's summer again.

Here, then, are some basic steps for stay-at-home parents who need to get back to work:

1. Find your desk.
2. Remove all clutter from desk, especially food byproducts and dirty socks.
3. Get organized. (This varies from person to person. Some consider themselves organized when their home office resembles a landfill. Others want to actually be able to find invoices, etc.)
4. Prioritize. Check those projects and deadlines, and categorize them according to which are most urgent.
5. Get busy. Grab hold of that most urgent work and get it done, then move onto the next.
Remember the clock is ticking: The school year won't last forever.

Work-at-home parents who follow these simple steps will find they can return to a productive lifestyle now that the children are safely back in school. They might even find that they make some money as they focus on work without distractions.

And that's a good thing. We parents need money. We've got to buy new dancing shoes.

Back-to-school means work for parents

This time of year, a hush falls over households all across America as the children head back to school.

Not only do the kids go away, taking their noise with them, but parents everywhere fall to their knees and give silent prayers of thanks for their tax-supported public schools.

Most fervent in this gratitude are we millions of parents who work in home offices. As the long, hot summer comes to an end, we might finally get some work done.

Not right away, though. First, we'll need to pull the house back together after three months of round-the-clock kid habitation. That means scrubbing and tidying and fishing the dirty socks out from under the sofa. Putting away the mildewed towels and swimsuits of summer to make room for backpacks and school supplies and winter coats.

But once the house is all arranged, we work-at-home parents plan to jump right into the fray and catch up on those projects that have been hanging fire while the kids were hanging around.
OK, so maybe we'll take a few minutes here and there to revel in the peace and quiet. The kids can be so loud, their noises so random and sudden and disturbing. Just having the home to ourselves again is a blessing we should take time to enjoy.

Solitude is great. No interruptions. No distractions. No dropping everything every few minutes to answer questions or referee disputes. A little alone time is just the ticket. Finally going to get some work done around here!

And if the quiet gets oppressive, hey, we can listen to our own music now. Enjoy some classic tunes without smart-aleck teens making gagging noises in the background. Nothing like an up-tempo soundtrack to help propel a person through a mountain of accumulated work.

When the phone rings, it'll be for us! All summer long, every phone in the house has been tied up by kids. Now it's our turn. We can spend the first few weeks of school yakking on the phone, catching up with our friends and family all around the country. When we're not busy working, of course. That comes first.

The kitchen sings its siren song, and that can be distracting in its own right. Now that the kids are back in school, we can finally have some snacks to ourselves. We can stop hiding our favorites, as we did during the summer so we had some chance of getting to them before the voracious, growing children scarfed them all. With fewer dirty dishes on the countertops and fewer sticky freckles of Popsicle juice on the floor, the kitchen's a more pleasant place now, a good spot to hang out while we stoke the engines and get ready to get to work.

Here's another thing: It'll be easier to get back in shape. We've got some major working-out to do, as soon as school resumes. Having the kids around is so exhausting, we've had no energy left for climbing Stairmasters or pumping iron. But, hoo boy, we're gonna get after it. Have to balance off that lonely snacking.

Plus, we'll have time to get lots of work done. Did I mention that?

Yessirree, now that the kids are back in school and the house is finally quiet, we work-at-home parents can hear those long-ignored deadlines, tightening around us like anacondas.

Gulp. Anybody for a Popsicle first?

Surviving driving vacations

If you want to experience true family togetherness, then pile the kids in the car and take a long driving vacation. You'll never feel closer, assuming you don't kill each other.

Spending time with your family -- cooped up in a car around the clock -- will remind you why you normally choose to hide at a job eight or 10 hours a day. By the time vacation's over, you'll be rested and ready to return to work -- anything to escape your kids' caterwauling and your spouse's annoying little habits. Plus, after spending the "college fund" on gas, food and lodging, you'll need to hurry back to work to raise some money.

Our family's last driving vacation was a few summers ago, before gas prices went through the roof. We toured Northern California, a truly inspiring land, from its redwood forests to its, um, other redwood forests. My wife and I, our two sons (then 15 and 12) and enough luggage to require sherpas all packed into a minivan and hit the Open Road. For a week. I'm happy to report that we all survived, physically intact, if emotionally frazzled, and ready to vacation together again real soon. Say, once they perfect private space travel.

It's easier to travel with the boys now than it was when they were little and demanding. Now that they're big and demanding, they can at least fend for themselves if they're, say, accidentally left behind in a redwood forest somewhere.

We vacationed with our boys when they were younger -- we've got photo albums to prove it -- but I seem to have blocked the experience from my memory banks. Harried parents know that certain memories (such as diapers) are erased from the mind as time passes. Which explains why couples have more than one child. For those of you out there traveling with kids still small enough to require diapers, all I can say is we'll remember you in our prayers.

The role of older kids on vacation is to appear bored. They're too jaded to appreciate redwood forests and other natural wonders, having seen better examples on TV. Museums make them yawn. Beaches are okay, but there's all that yucky sand everywhere.

The mantra of small children on vacation is the perennial favorite, "Are we there yet?" With teens, it's "Whatever."

This emphatic ennui grates on parents, especially if they're unable to block out that other sound in their heads, the steady ka-ching like a taxi meter, recording how much everything costs.
If we're going to spend this much, the thinking goes, then these kids will by golly be impressed and learn something and enjoy themselves, if we have to strangle them.

We stayed in hotels on our trip, spending the equivalent of two months' mortgage payments for seven nights in hotels. Our kids have reached that stage of maturity (and actual physical size) that we needed suites so everybody would have his own bed. I couldn't sleep for the ka-chinging in the background.

Yes, there are cheaper ways for families to travel. RVs, for example, or camping. But my idea of "roughing it" is four people sharing one bathroom. Trust me, this was rough enough.

But it was worth it. Really. We spent "quality time" together and we made some memories.

I can see myself years from now, when my kids bring their own families to visit:

"Hey, son, remember that vacation we took? Those big trees?"

And he'll roll his eyes and say, "Sure, Dad. Whatever."

Beware: Bad dog days

We've reached that time of year when parents everywhere pause to take stock of how well the children are thriving in the creative, challenging climates carefully constructed for their summer vacations.

Kidding! Here's what parents really are asking themselves: Can we, as a family unit, survive more prickly heat, poison ivy, tedium, laundry, nausea, sunburns, sleeplessness, selfishness, spats, spite, overeating, overworking, over-reacting, underhanded undercutting and underwear underfoot?

Will we make it? Can our pocketbooks and our nervous systems endure the rest of the summer? Will the kids kill each other, or will we have to do that for them, too? And, finally, most importantly: How much longer until school resumes?

This is the hard part, folks. The summer doldrums. That seemingly endless period when parents are reminded just how lucky we are to live in this great country of ours, where the government, dutifully and without complaint, takes our kids out of the house nine months out of the year. Our appreciation of schoolteachers grows immeasurably (how do they do it?) and we count the days until, once again, our biggest worries center around grades and lunch money and after-school activities.

By this point in the long, hot summer, even the kids wish they could go back to school, though they'd never admit it. At school, they could have some fun between classes or on the playground. They could see their friends without worrying that their parents might be somewhere nearby, poised to embarrass them. Even homework would be better than summer ennui.

But no, we still have two weeks to go. Weeks during which the parents will be distracted from their jobs, worrying whether the kids are kept occupied in ways that don't involve felonies. Weeks during which the kids are so overcome by boredom that they can barely drag themselves to the kitchen, where they stare blankly into the open refrigerator for hours at a time. Weeks of excess laundry and innumerable dirty dishes and beach sand ground into car upholstery. Weeks of sibling bickering and tied-up telephones and teen-age eye-rolling.

When I was kid, and we reached the summer doldrums, my parents responded to my every complaint with instructions to go play outside. I try this now, with my two sons, and they look at me like I'm crazy. Outside? It's hot out there. And, besides, there are no computers or telephones or TVs outside. How are kids supposed to entertain themselves?

We parents try to be camp counselors and organize activities for the kids, but it rarely works out. An example: One summer, I spent more than hour sweatily changing out wheels on in-line skates so my sons could go free-wheeling around the neighborhood. They were back in five minutes. All done. Ready to return to the sofa and the TV. I hadn't even finished cleaning the grease off my hands.

If we parents don't provide activities to distract them, if we leave it up to the kids to entertain themselves, they pick unwholesome ways to waste their summer days, such as playing computer games while simultaneously yakking on the phone and hogging the Cheetos.

When they get bored, the kids turn on each other, fighting and snapping and snarling, forcing parents to intervene. I often think I should wear a striped shirt and a whistle.

These everyday frustrations mount (along with the grocery bills and gas money and water-park fees) until we parents think we (and our wallets) can't take it anymore.

But hang in there, parents. Just a few more days. Because the doldrums will pass.

And then it will be time to shop for school clothes.

Summertime foods

I've sworn off cooking, at least for the summer.

It's too danged hot to eat big, wholesome meals, much less cook them. Why heat up the kitchen when the whole family only wants Popsicles anyway?

I tried to keep my family on the nutritious path. I sweated through every evening, cobbling together healthy food-pyramid meals. How did my family react to such culinary enterprise? I don't know. I couldn't get them away from the cooler vents long enough to come eat.

On those rare evenings when we did gather for the traditional family dinner, my traditional family proved to be ingrates. Picture this: I'm setting out a big dinner, one that features boneless pork chops that, admittedly, hadn't browned up very well. As I sweatily present this anemic tour de force, my two sons say, in unison: "Pork -- The Other Gray Meat."

This sounded suspiciously rehearsed, one of their little jokes, but at that moment I received an epiphany. Here's what it said: Stop cooking.

My wife, who thinks it's a sin to turn on the oven between Easter and Thanksgiving, heartily agreed with this plan. We stocked the house with picnic food -- fruit and snacks and lettuce and cold cuts and ready-made potato salad. We eased the rules about gathering for communal meals. Summer, we announced, was now a food free-for-all. Everyone fends for himself.

The result? Our house has become an around-the-clock, all-you-can-eat buffet.

There's always someone eating around here. Always someone preparing food. Always someone else (me) cleaning up afterward. We've become a production line of consumption, working around the clock to keep the food coming. I'm thinking of installing a conveyor belt in the kitchen.

Partly, this is the result of having two growing boys in the house all day during the summer. They eat non-stop to fuel their ever-expanding engines. I'm twice their size, but they consume twice as much as me, then complain there's nothing in the house to eat. We buy so many groceries, the supermarket clerks send up a cheer when they see us arrive.

We can keep up with the shopping -- barely -- but there's no way I can prepare meals fast enough to keep the boys sated. Not if I ever plan to work or sleep again. So my sons have been preparing most of their own food this summer, eating only when they're hungry (an estimated 22 hours a day) and falling into a pattern of perpetual grazing.

Nutrition experts tell us it's healthier to eat this way, noshing several mini-meals throughout the day rather than sitting down to one or two big honking grubfests. This, no doubt, is an evolutionary mandate. Our caveman ancestors hunted and gathered all the time, just to scrape together enough calories to live another day. Our bodies still haven't adapted to caloric abundance or the availability of TV dinners.

I suspect our caveman ancestors didn't bother about sitting at a table or cleaning up after a meal, and our sons have adopted that pattern, too. Food consumption no longer is confined to the kitchen. If you're eating on the fly, what's to keep you from flying around the house?

The natural consequence is a house littered with crumbs and paper cups and apple cores and Popsicle wrappers. All the time I've saved by not cooking goes into clean-up. Somehow, I got demoted from chef to busboy.

But at least I'm not standing over a hot stove.

FAQ on BBQ: Call 911, go to ER

Any fool can hurt himself in a modern kitchen, but to really get some third-degree burns, you need a barbecue grill.

Summertime is cookout season. Time to go out in the yard, stand under the broiling sun, and char some artery-clogging meat. Create a mushroom cloud of oily smoke that'll have your neighbors dialing 911. Enjoy the sizzle of spattering grease hitting your howling dinner guests.

For eons now, since the day our humble ancestors discovered fire, people have used open flames to turn simple animal flesh into crunchy, bleeding, chew-proof repasts. Cavemen squatted around fires on the ground, but we've come so far since then. Now we have barbecue grills, which stand on legs, putting the flames even closer to your face and other anatomical regions that react poorly to burning.

The barbecue grill was invented by the ancient Romans. In fact, the word "barbecue" comes from the Latin "barbecus," which translates to "my apron is on fire." Those fun-loving Romans knew nothing makes a meal more enjoyable than watching the host prance around in flames.

In contemporary times, cookouts have become synonymous with summer, as American as apple pie and fireworks and paper plates. When it's already 100 degrees outside, why not go out and start a big, hot fire? Heat stroke is a good excuse for steaks that are poorly cooked.

Outdoor grilling has become the province of men. Big, sweaty guys who wouldn't be caught dead whipping up something in the kitchen will push others out of the way to get to a barbecue grill.
Why? Because of the element of risk involved. There's something manly about poking and prodding among roaring blazes. Men bring their charred offerings to the table, their chests puffed out, the hair singed off their arms, and they feel they've proven something. They've proven they can produce a meal without setting the lawn on fire -- this time.

At our house, my wife has taken over the grilling chores. It's part of our whole role-reversal thing, plus it gives her the opportunity to cook burgers that don't come out like hockey pucks. This resolves a conflict that has plagued us through our married life: I like meat well-done to the point of inedibility, she wants rare, rare, rare. Her idea of cooking a steak is to show an unlit match to a live cow.

I don't feel usurped now that she's the one sweating over the grill. Better for me to sit in a lawn chair a safe distance away, swilling beer and offering advice such as: "Hon, your hair's on fire."

There may be those among you who haven't yet savored the joys of cooking outdoors. What follows is advice on properly using a grill. Take this advice seriously. I'm a barbecue veteran, and I've got the scars to prove it.

Choosing a grill

Barbecue grills come in a vast array of sizes and styles, from the big Cadillac models with side burners and aloe vera plants, down to the lowly "hibachi," (from the Japanese for "my kimono's on fire.") When selecting your grill, the main question will be: charcoal or gas? Gas grills are easier to use, but they're essentially just outdoor stoves. Charcoal gives meat a wonderful smoky flavor, and the risk is high. Ask any impatient cook who's decided a little more charcoal starter should be spritzed onto the sputtering coals. Nothing's as satisfying as the whoompf of sudden flames 20 feet high.

Cleaning your grill

You're supposed to clean them? Haha, just kidding. A wire brush does a nice job of removing ash and blackened meat bits. Don't worry about cleaning the outside of the grill. Just leave it outdoors over the winter and let Mother Nature do the work. Once it rusts out, it's time to get a new one.

Grill safety

Surely it's clear by now that "safe grilling" is an oxymoron. You want safe, you should go to a restaurant. Tell the waiter you want your steak just like you eat them at home: Black on the outside, bloody on the inside, covered in ashes and bugs. While you're at it, see if you can get him to set his apron on fire.

The noise of summer

At the end of every school year, we who stay home with the kids face one certainty: It's about to get a lot louder around the house.

In summer, homes fill with round-the-clock chatter, along with the shrieks and threats of sibling interaction, soon followed by the crashes and "uh-ohs" of the latest spill. It can be distracting, but we work-at-home parents carefully tune out all these sounds while we concentrate on our calendars, counting the days until school resumes.

Noise radiates off children the way heat waves rise from car roofs. Kids can't help it. They're easily excited, and there's so much to be excited about. To them, the world is a brand-new place, full of wonder and adventure and siblings who'll squeal when you pinch them. All these discoveries mean that kids have a million things to say, and it's the parents' job to listen, no matter how inane the topic.

But what if the parent is distracted by money woes or job humiliations or a persistent itch? Or, God forbid, the parent is trying to work? A rambling lecture on the various super-powers of the characters in "Dragon Ball Z" -- complete with sound effects -- can be difficult to track even when you're paying attention. When you've got a lot on your mind, it's hard to focus on a child's prattle. And, let's face it, we all have a lot on our minds. Always.

We parents learn to pretend to listen, to yawn with our mouths closed, while the children go on and on. And the kids learn this and begin to use it, slipping in outrageous requests while Dad is in his "mm-hmm" mode. Pretty soon, Dad has agreed to send the 13-year-old to Cancun for the next nine spring breaks, if he can only get some quiet around here.

Some parents just give up and buy earplugs for the summer, but others try to manage the sound level of the children. At our house, I enforce a rule called "No random noise." Our two sons know that when I say, "That's random noise," they should stop whatever tapping, rapping, snapping, popping, cracking, shrieking, screaming, stomping, snorting or gibberish-spewing they've been doing for the past 20 minutes. When Dad mentions "random noise," it means the noise is getting to him and he could blow at any time. My sons know they should move a safe distance away and take up some other noise-making activity until the next warning comes.

Funny thing is, when no kids are around, it's too quiet. When they're in school all day, I often make random noise of my own, just to fill up some of the overwhelming silence.

I talk to myself all the time, even though I never listen. I give myself tons of perfectly good advice, then ignore it all in heat-of-the-moment, knee-jerk responses that blow asunder my well-laid plans and make all my self-advice a big waste of air. But I keep talking, trying to get through to myself, leaving a trail of mutter through the house. Sometimes, I address my remarks to the dog, just so I can pretend I'm not crazy.

Other times, I'll catch myself humming or whistling, even singing snatches of songs that have gotten wedged in my head, just to break up the quiet around here. In this manner, home-bound adults can produce entire soundtracks for their workdays, complete with the occasional "ta-da" or "voila" to mark an accomplishment. Sure, it's random noise, but we can get away with it because we're alone.

Now the kids are home for the summer, bringing with them the seasonal Wall of Sound, the random noise and the sibling-pinching, and it won't be silent again until fall. I'll go back to arising before dawn, just to get a quiet hour in which to work. And, through the long summer days with the boys, I'll work a little here and there, whenever one of those momentary silences falls over the house.

I'll still talk to myself, but now I won't have to pretend I'm talking to the dog. Instead, I can pretend to talk to my sons. And they can pretend to listen.