Small Wonders

This is the last in a three-part series: Marguerite doesn't pray for snow anymore. "Let's just say for the past 25 years, the only time I pray is when I'm taking off or hit turbulence in an airplane. " It took years for Marguerite to reconcile the conflict between her feelings and her faith. In the end, faith lost. "I'm not sure what that higher power looks like, or if it only consists of finding the higher power within my own being. I may fall somewhere into the agnostic category these days.

“…whether you're a 50-year-old or an adolescent, you're on some kind of hormonal rollercoaster in those two age groups. So I'm not quite sure if it's serious comedy or funny drama.” — Geoffrey Rush When I was 12 years old, my mother took us to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire for a day of medieval role-playing fun. If you've ever been, you know what a seminal experience this can be for a lad in the grips of puberty (pun only vaguely intended)....

I 've been a little tense lately. Could you tell? Maybe it's being home with the kids too much. Maybe it's finances or wondering when I'm going to figure out who I really am. "The Office," "30 Rock" and "Modern Family" are all in reruns, and everything else on TV gives me agita. I don't care why, how or when Lindsay Lohan is in court and wonder what ever happened to real news reporting. I'm sick of hearing people argue and blame each other, right, left and ambidextrous.

It's easy to feel alone when the world sets you back. A few weeks ago, I wrote about reaching the one-year mark of being unemployed and asked to hear your stories. I wouldn't exactly call my situation misery, but I do love company. And it was heartening to hear about this life change from other people's perspectives. The most common affliction of the unemployed was the toll on their self-worth. It's tough believing in yourself when it seems no one else does. "The hardest thing to deal with is what my children think about me not working and not providing," Nick told me. "My oldest boy still remembers the days when I was away from home at work for days at a time.

Keeping the kids entertained is a parent's primary job. It ranks higher than feeding and cleanliness. In the throes of a good time, hunger and head lice are but minor annoyances. With a free day, where could the wife and I take the kids without passports, plane tickets or extended lines of credit? Hollywood. At least we wouldn't need passports or plane tickets. A day trip to the entertainment capital of the world is a perfect way to kill a few hours so long as we return with both girls.

Chapstick. Classic flavor Chapstick. It's one of those things that transports me back to an exact moment in life. When I smell it, I am a wide-eyed child, uneasy and excited — curious about the man giving it to me, comforted because he was my father. It was the flavor I always remember him carrying in his pocket. I had some in my pocket last weekend as we made the long drive to Sequoia National Park, where we were taking Thing 1 and Thing 2 for their first camping trip. When I applied that waxy moisturizing protection to my lips, I was a 10-year-old sitting in the passenger seat as my father drove us on one of our camping trips — Simon and Garfunkel softly singing in the background of a bygone time as we made our way up steep mountainous grades in his heavily laden truck.

It's not that I didn't want a puppy. Just that I was reluctant, concerned about the responsibility and nightly barking. And available space in our ever-shrinking house. And the mess. And what would happen if it ever got out the front door and into the big, scary world on its own. Yet we've somehow managed to survive human children despite these same fears. Besides, I am outnumbered in my home, three to one. So last spring during a temporary parental vacation from sanity, we brought home not one, but two, puppies; the thresholds for love and pain being sides of the same coin, who's counting?

I 've been feeling like one of those oil-covered sea gulls on a beach in Louisiana. Every morning I get up and take a look at the newspaper. I glance at the headline, usually in dismay, then automatically flip to the bottom of the page to see who died. It's morbid, I know. But it's just habit. And you probably do it too. On Monday it was former Dodgers pitcher Jose Lima's picture at the bottom of the front page. He was only 37 years old, five years younger than me. That's hard to swallow.

N o Father's Day is complete without at least one of the following: A #1 Dad mug, a new tie, shirt or barbecue apron, a silly card about Dad's underwear or bathing habits and anything made of construction paper, Elmer's glue and uncooked macaroni. To this I would add, a trip to the hardware store. A few years ago for Father's Day, I made a pilgrimage to the hardware store, intent on buying a self-standing hammock. With visions of wasting my much-deserved day cradled in blissful repose, I would warmly reflect upon my father, my children and my own accomplishments as a dad. All while listening to Vin Scully on the radio.

"When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better." — Maya Angelou According to the American Cancer Society, almost 1 in 8 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime Rose Marie Hunt had beaten breast cancer once. But when it came back, and metastasized to other parts of her body, Jessica Cribbs knew her mother's prognosis wasn't good.

It's an age-old question with as many answers as there are muffin-topped men afraid to talk about their feelings wandering the barbecue aisle at Home Depot on Saturday: What to do for Father's Day? So here to aid, abet and entertain you is "The Perfect Father's Day" as imagined by yours truly (if time, money and gastro capacity had no limits, of course). Awake from a predawn dream of being in my wife's arms to find myself in her arms. She grumbles, disappointed, as I leave for the bathroom.

A letter to my daughter upon her promotion from elementary school: You done good, honey. I can't put into words how proud we are of you. Seeing you onstage on your last day of elementary school was a new emotional high for your mother and me. Sorry if I embarrassed you when I was the lone parent standing to applaud as they finally presented "the Fifth Grade Class of 2013. " Some day you'll understand what it feels like to care so much for someone else you don't care what you look like.

Don't venture under the bed lightly. More than wild things await you there. I looked under my bed not long ago and got more than I expected. Among the picture frames, lost socks and dust brontosaurs, I came across a collection of cassette tapes. Remember cassettes? Before CDs and after eight-track-tapes? Those things that, once warbled and snagged in the player, were tossed from car windows in streams of festive, brownish-gray ribbon to line the freeway in a symbol of urban angst?

Dear Home Seller, Thank you for allowing us in your home during yesterday's open house. Our Realtor suggested we include this personal letter with our bid to set us apart from the 83 other offers you're likely drooling over right now. I'm supposed to tell you how thrilled we'd be to spend the better part of $1 million to be the next proud owner of your 1,200-square-foot, depression-era fixer-upper. We hope you find our bid of $75,000 over asking price pleasing. I fancy myself a writer, but I've got nothing on the wordsmith who drafted the listing for your "quaint California bungalow.

We Californians like to point out that we lack for nothing in our great state. Beaches to frolic or laze upon, mountains to hike, bike and ski, deserts with their stark beauty. Every shade of urban sprawl. Small-town living slow as molasses, big-city skylights and everything in between. The arts of every sort, sports, entertainment, culture and ethnic diversity. But on our recent spring-break road trip through Arizona, I discovered something we don't have. Something that 42 other states have kept secret from us for more than 40 years.

I'm pretty diligent when it comes to my taxes. And by diligent, I mean that in November, I make an appointment for February with my tax guy, which is unlike those co-workers in your office asking around in April if anyone knows a good accountant. That's like trying to get face-value Super Bowl tickets on game day. To coin an overused phrase, a good accountant is like a good pair of shoes: The best ones give you comfort for the long haul and are worth the cash outlay. Bad ones may look nice for the price, but are painful and need replacing too soon.

He was pretty good up there yesterday. But to be honest, I don't know what he was thinking. I can't imagine what would make a man do that. And for what? Now he's dead, and he's left others to piece it together. Most haven't done such a good job. A legal execution. Some called it murder. But he didn't even put up a fight. That's what makes it so strange. Baseless charges, most agree, and he let them do that to him as if there was no other way. All that work helping and feeding and lifting up others, and faced with his own demise, he wouldn't even help himself.

Damon's just isn't the same. It's not worse. Not necessarily better, either. Always great. Just not the same. Which shouldn't mean anything, really, when you think about it. What is the same? I'm not. And unless you're Joan Rivers, neither are you. It's just that every time I go to Damon's Steakhouse, something is a little different - which can be unsettling. Kind of like seeing a new lawn gnome in front of your childhood home. We had dinner last Saturday at Glendale's most famous eatery.

It's hard to take a place seriously that bills itself as “the hoppiest place on Earth.” But when it comes to keeping my preteen daughters happy, entertained and out of prison, I'll take anything seriously. I am all about high culture and stuff like that. So a few weeks ago, I decided to introduce them and a couple of their friends to some of the more highfalutin' sites near us. But since we're on the restricted list at most of the traditional museums - who knew the caveman diorama at the Natural History Museum wasn't scratch-and-sniff?

Three miracles happen each day: the sunrise, the sunset and a third you need to discover in between. Each day offers the chance to see something rare and beautiful. Usually, you have to seek it out. But sometimes, if you are lucky, it visits you. I'm no bird watcher. Yet I've written in this column about herons and mallards in the L.A. River, emerald parrots making cacophony overhead and omen-inducing ebony crows on the street in front of my home. Even a myna bird from some real or imagined childhood memory.