Studying Kids

Both Edith and Atticus are periodically involved in various studies at Ohio State -- usually they are regarding cognitive development and involve playing a few computer games. They get some stickers and a small Target gift card. I get what basically amounts to an hour of free babysitting while I read a book in the waiting room.

Occasionally Atticus has taken part in a longer, more in-depth study. Last week was one such. A few weeks ago we were visited by someone from Ohio State for some preliminaries, and then last Monday we visited Nationwide Children's Hospital for two hours for the bulk of the study. It, too, involved some computer games, but this time Atticus got to dress up like a robot.

Atticus is very cooperative, and I often wish I knew more about how he did or what they learned from him. The studies are quite fun -- the kids always look forward to them -- and I hope they do some good, too.

Photo Friday: On the Oval

July 9, 2016

Photo Friday: Ohio License Plate Map

In Ohio State's student union is an interesting map. Each county is represented by a different license plate from the state. Wish I had this in my living room!

Odds and Ends Around Ohio State

When Sarah (my former college roommate) and her sister visited for a couple of days earlier this summer, I took quite a few photos during our walk around Ohio State. Although I've made it back to campus many times, both when we lived in New York and since we moved back to Ohio, I still find it interesting to see how much has changed.

I've highlighted (or will highlight) several photos in my "Photo Friday" series, but here are a few more odds and ends.

Inside the main library.

Looking out over campus from the top floor of the library.

Columbus skyline from the top of the library.

From the Little Donut Shop.

Doors to the student union.

Photo Friday: Edith and Ohio Stadium

Football fan in the making? View from the top of Ohio State's main library.

The Summer I Think I Became an Adult

I graduated from Ohio State eight years ago today -- specifically, on Friday the 13th -- which means I could have gone to college twice more in the meantime.

I remember thinking at the time that I couldn't wait to get into the "real world," to actually apply the skills I'd honed. How idealistic. (And if I think that about myself now, I can't wait to look back in 8 more years. Or 58.)

Many people would say that adulthood starts that day, or perhaps when you graduate high school. I've always considered my entrance into adulthood, however, as starting midway between those two points, exactly 10 years ago this summer.

June 2001 was the first summer in which I didn't return to Defiance. Instead, I scanned the classifieds for a room to sublet and moved in with a handful of girls I had never before met. The 12th Avenue house just east of OSU was charming in a grungy sort of way. My tiny furnished room on the third floor was small, with an even smaller window overlooking the back. The acts at the nearby Newport Music Hall drifted into my bedroom all summer.

I had just made my largest purchase to date -- $2,000 to my parents for the 1987 Buick Century my sister Katie nicknamed "Smurfette" for obvious reasons once you saw the color. Katie and I had both driven it throughout high school, and I wasn't likely to get a better deal for a set of off-campus wheels.

Four days a week -- 30 hours a week -- I worked as a page at the Ohio Statehouse, specifically in the Clerk's Office of the House of Representatives. That's where I met Paul. We started dating a few weeks later.

Of course, if you define adulthood as paying all of your own bills, I wasn't quite there yet. It was around this time or perhaps the school year that followed that I started paying an increasing amount of my own rent, food and housing expenses. And when I visited home, Mom and Dad were always sure to send me back to Columbus with a full tank of gas. So I suppose my slide into adulthood was more like a kiddie coaster than Millennium Force.

By that September, I had found an apartment for me and three roommates to live in over the next year, Paul had left for 10 weeks in Mexico and, a few days after that, two planes flew into the World Trade Center.

Summer was over, I was 20 and I was no longer a kid.

Rooting for the Reds and Buckeyes from Afar

I never thought I'd say this, but here it goes:

I miss watching sports on TV.

It's not that I don't have options. The Mets and the Yankees, the Jets and the Giants -- they're all on TV. But who I really want to see are the Cincinnati Reds and the Ohio State Buckeyes.

In Ohio you could barely escape from them. Sure, not every Cincinnati game was on TV, but it was rare if you couldn't catch at least one game in a series. And sure, not every OSU game was on a channel we could get at home, but we could at least catch part of it on the radio. Even the grocery store I went to in Columbus played the game over the loudspeaker.

This year I consider myself lucky. Already the Ohio State-Miami football game was broadcast on a channel we get. And, of course, tonight I'll be able to watch the Reds on the road to the World Series -- even if the game will be more than half over by the time I get home from work.

I'm certainly not a sports junkie. Just an Ohio fair-weather fan.

Why June Makes Me Sad

My least favorite month by far is February. Cold, snowy, dreary. I firmly believe that the creators of the Julian calendar hated it as much as I do. Why else would they have made it only 28 (or 29) days long?

Each year I look forward to the day I can open up the windows and leave my coat behind. I love May. But in June, the rising mercury isn't enough to pull me away from looking back.

I'm a little too sensitive when it comes to these things. After all, I'm not old enough to reminisce! But this year I got nostalgic for last year's high school reunion. (Then again, maybe that isn't so strange. I probably enjoyed the reunion more than I did all of high school.)

In any case, every June I dig out my rose-colored glasses. I graduated from high school 11 years ago this month. I met Paul 9 years ago this month. I graduated from college 7 years ago yesterday and started my first full-time job three days later.

I think about all of the friends I've made, so many of whom I've lost touch with.

Yes, good things happen in June (see above, meeting Paul), but I tend to think of this as a month of endings.

Being a Buckeye Fan from Afar

It's a blast being a Buckeye fan in Columbus when times are good.

But when times are bad -- like last Saturday, when Ohio State was unexpectedly beat by Purdue -- I'm happy to be 500 miles away.

After all, when you're several states from the scene of the crime, it's easy to pretend it didn't happen.

In Ohio, we would have been met by commentary of the soul-crushing defeat at every turn. Here, it's only on ESPN. Sure, news of the pounding was in the New York Times -- buried in the sports section. In Columbus? If it wasn't on the front page of the Dispatch, I'm guessing it at least took up a good portion of the front page of the sports section, above the fold. Probably both.

Call me a fair weather fan. Maybe I deserve it. But I don't like my mood for an entire day, entire weekend, entire season to be dictated by something so totally beyond my control.

Good or bad, the results are hard to ignore in Columbus. But when the times get tough, in New York I can stash the Buckeye necklace in the deepest corner of a drawer for a few days and hope for better times and less talented opponents.