My Life with Mister Shmoo

  I am certainly not the first person, nor will I be the last, to view the story of David and Goliath as a metaphor for the incredible impact of surprise; when someone behaves differently from what you expected. For those who don’t feel like trying to remember the story: Goliath was a giant, armed to the teeth, and full of bad intentions. He was chosen by the Philistines to fight the Jews. After all, he was their strongest warrior, and he was willing to fight to the end to establish who was boss. The Jews didn’t have anyone even close to Goliath’s size and power, and nobody wanted to volunteer to fight him. Then along came a skinny little shepherd, with no hidden weapons except for his intelligence. He was sent to fight with a few rocks in his backpack, and with all the area’s bookmakers predicting a quick victory for Goliath. David, however, surprised Goliath, and their audience, and, using only five stones and a ton of shrewdness, hit the giant’s forehead and cut off his head (gr...

Hard to believe, but even this year we survived Thanksgiving.   We spent it in our little cabin in Becket, in the Berkshires, with Dan’s family. It was great to finally hang out all of us together. I hadn’t seen my two nieces in a long time; Matt’s mother, my American stepmom, passed away in mid-November, and I couldn’t wait to give my brother-in-law a big hug.   The bird was huge, made slightly heavier by the small pouch of turkey innards that Dan had left in its cavities before sticking it in the oven. Shit happens. As always, Shmoo spent the day in his room with an enormous bowl of pasta, no pants and with some stolen, stale goldfish he found, who knows where. But, despite the nice day on Thursday, a few things happened during the vacation that made my heart a bit heavier than usual.   Two days before Thanksgiving, for example, I hit a magnificent male deer in my car, when he decided to cross the empty, dark, and isolated road I happened to be driving on. Of course, I’...