The Middle Ages: Chris Erskine’s ‘Middle Ages’ columns

We’re cruising aboard an ugly duckling trawler that has been varnished like a violin.

Shucked some sweet corn the other day, first of the season.

TONOPAH, Nev. — I’m toeing the abyss, and the very edge of civilization, here in Nevada, on an adventure that reminds me why I adore a good road trip — the endless possibilities, the greasy grub that sometimes tastes like pavement, the last slice of steamy-warm Americana.

These mothers and their meals ….

For me, retirement will be a verb.

I wish that I could paint.

It’s 5 a.m. and something hairy and heated is atop my chest, gnawing at my mouth. Slurp. Slurp.

There’s been a super bloom of birthdays, of comings and goings, of grand parties and intimate dinners of three or four.

I needed to curl up with a good nook. And not just any nook.

Someone recently warned me not to cook when you’re in a bad mood, because you can taste the hate in the food … a bitterness, an acidity.

I do that “dad thing� where I insist my son let me finish out the Dave Brubeck song during carpool, instead of immediately tuning the radio to the drivel and crud he prefers.

They follow me, a man with a snowy mustache and credit problems, deep into the Sierra.

We’re exactly a year removed from our eldest son’s sudden death, and if we seem made of Roman concrete, that is a misconception.

I was at a luncheon in San Clemente, one of the best beach towns in all the world.

I try to do the right thing, but I don’t let the concept consume me. Nor should you.

CHICAGO — I’m standing at the arrivals curb at O’Hare on a night of deep and brutal cold, counting down how many seconds I have left to live: 10, 9, 8 … In midwinter, Chicago looks like it’s being held at gunpoint.

I warm these winter days with a dark drink, a flickering fireplace and a favorite book.

Bought something new at the grocery store the other day: orange chicken, heat and serve.

She sits backlit by the sun — on purpose, you know, because legendary actresses just seem to know the right way to slide into a restaurant booth.

“I hate tech!�

We tried to extend the potted poinsettias by replanting them in the front flowerbed, near the new mailbox my wife liked.

The holidays are pretty much over.

I think Napoleon would do well. From all accounts, he had the gravitas to host the Academy Awards.

We put a new roof on the house last week, so I expect it never to rain again.

The church was packed and our hearts were hollow.

She used to buy me eggnog; I never had to ask.

We all need that one thing — whether it’s libraries or gin joints, pickle ball or chess — that brings us a measure of comfort.

Stacking logs and fattening the calves for the onset of winter.

The sun comes up big and orange, like a harvest moon.

In our last installment, I was self-soothing with banana cream pie, a gateway drug, and hikes into the foothills with White Fang, our demi-dog, who’s about the size of a sheep yet produces much more quality wool.

There is no coincidence in our house, only irony.

We are enjoying one of those crisp, pumpkins-on-the-porch October mornings, enhanced by the leaf blower next door, crazy loud.

Life is the greatest novel. That notion came to me while jogging the other morning.

There’s a lot of fall in those faces, a lot of October in those shiny cheeks.

Life is tiny bursts of joy scattered willy-nilly across various time zones.

It’s not a bad house; it’s not a great house. It’s just a house, and it keeps us safe and warm.

Into the scrapbook of failed good intentions falls another lost week.

My muse most days is an 80-pound dog that might be a wolf that might be an angel.

Step 1: Over-marinate the meat. Step 2: Char it till it screams. Don’t press me for details.

There are trace amounts of autumn in the air — pixie dust, or maybe that’s just garden grit.

There’s an old baseball glove in my bed and a pond where our pet wolf was licking her paws – giant puddle, like London in April.

We’re chomping on cheeseburgers and fries – Anglo-Saxon soul food – in a dark bar on a very bright day.

We’re back at the Hollywood Bowl. “Ugh,� you’re thinking.

My buddies have been asking whether I miss working downtown, and I tell them that I miss the clatter of hooves and carriages, the bustle of the urban core, the stench of the sidewalks, the occasional knifings and felony busts.

Giving shape and form to my somewhat diaphanous life are these two dogs, one deaf and the other afraid of cats.

We quit being invited to cocktail parties recently after I mistook a conch shell for a napkin and ran it across my face like some sort of tribesman.

July is… Homemade berry pie split across the top.

For our family vacation, we go off in search of a place with old brick and creaky floors, which leads us here to New Orleans, a colorful gumball machine of a city.

To me, the Los Angeles Times building has always looked like a gigantic tombstone.

The jet age really changed everything … how quickly we get from here to there, obviously, but our sense of personal well-being as well.

Mother’s Day is sort of astral, all violins and choirs, fancy brunches and armfuls of flowers.

More and more, Esquire magazine disappointments me, joining movies, pop music, the NFL, the DMV and casinos as American institutions that have completely let me down.

As I’ve noted in the past, my wife and I have a mixed marriage. She’s Italian, I’m Irish.

I rub my hands across my face, hoping to squeeze out some of the tension. Pat it like pizza dough.

Consider May a moment. It’s a month of milestones — grads, moms and Memorial Day marching bands.

We seem to be seeking some sort of equilibrium in our lives.

We are a house of half-done things.

When she barks, her voice cracks.

With tender hearts, we appreciate the little things more than ever. A field of wild flowers.

“Life must go on; I forget just why,� to borrow from American poet and playwright Edna St.

I am grateful and a little overwhelmed by the outpouring of kind words from readers in the wake of my older son’s death on March 4.

Our daughter Rapunzel is in the bathroom teasing her little brother about his “Johnny Bravo hair,� like high surf, a perfect wave.

We lost our oldest son to a car accident early March 4.

We had this thing going on the other day, Peterman and I, where all he wanted was regular cream for his coffee, and all he had to choose from at the diner were little plastic depth-charges of Irish cream or peppermint caramel.

My teenage son’s life would be so much easier were someone to follow him around, reminding him to pick up dirty socks, put the cap on the toothpaste, turn off the sink … flush.

In front of me is a wobbly rental truck, the most lethal vehicle we’ll ever know.

Our youngest son shaved last week for the first time, with a real razor, though I told him the scratchy side of a kitchen sponge probably would’ve done the trick.

In January, a house is a million little things. The kettledrum thump of the furnace kicking on.

I spotted a cloud the other day.

We’re easing out of the holidays, one ornament at a time, one fugitive sprig of Oregon fir swept into a dustpan, one eggnog glass forgotten in the dishwasher.

So there we are, playing touch football with a world-class assortment of misfits and malcontents, achieving a level of snarkiness rarely seen outside of big-city taverns and newsrooms.

The 300-pound beagle is in the yard as we speak, howling at the universe.

This Christmas I’m giving bitcoin to everyone on my list.

Half the outdoor lights don’t work. That’s OK, since I’m only half motivated to put them up.

It’s hardly a cowboy’s life, hitting plastic buttons all day and plugging in various devices.

A few thoughts on grilling a steak … This rib-eye might be smarter than I am.

They say the first real rain is on the way. We’ll see, we’ll see.

As I’ve explained before, our house used to be one of those little drive-through huts where you could buy smokes and gum.

Back in Santa Monica, where the men are mostly metro and the women all look like breadsticks.

So, we’re at the pediatrician the other day for the little guy’s annual physical.

As we were saying at work the other day: It’s fall; eat a little.

Leadership certainly has its drawbacks.

I don’t even know what dreams I have left.

We held a tailgate the other day, in the shapeless hours of early autumn — a garden party in the shadow of our beloved Rose Bowl, over here on the scrappy side of town.

The other day, we were fondly remembering the time when one of our daughters used to blow-torch all the food.

There really are no limits on the thoughtfulness of children. “Dad, I burned my bagel. You want it?�

We’re recovering from vacation — a form of detox — where we reluctantly wash the ketchup stains off our T-shirts and stuff the suitcases away till Christmas.

In our last installment, I’d been pantsed by the TSA, fleeced by the rental car company, and nearly hammered to death by mosquitoes in the hometown I hadn’t visited in five years.

We are just off the plane when things start to get complicated.

All these vacation photos on Facebook are really starting to fry my bacon.

My 26-year-old niece is moving here soon, so I’ve made a few notes for her about life in Los Angeles: Dear Amy, looking forward to your arrival.

I like the homegrown tomatoes on the windowsill, the way the sun catches their sunburned smiles.

Dear beach friends, Great trip yesterday. Trust everybody got home OK.

These dog days of summer are marked not so much by a general listlessness, for I deal with that always, but by dogs themselves.

My first suggestion for surviving summer: Avoid any and all sports tournaments.

I had children for the same reasons most guys do, so I’d have someone to play catch with for the rest of my life.

“Dad, I love you,� one of the kids said the other day. I thought to myself, “Yeah?

I found a stray sunflower seed in my dress shoe the other day.

Apologies from the children’s table near the practice green. We were a little loud the other night.

I’ve pretty much had it with women and children.

If you’re hard up for a Mother’s Day gift, just wrap this ragged column in a box or slip it into an envelope with a crisp new $5 bill.

Know what’s really helpful? When your daughter gives you driving tips.

Generally, we do what we need to do. For instance, I’ve been working with the new puppy.

When the kids were really young, we used to have the best Easters.

I was telling Thomas, the little guy’s teammate, that I don’t really understand a lot about life, despite being 390 years old and sometimes pretending to have all the answers.

For dinner, I’m prepping some Balkan-style small plates.

Always looking for ways to improve myself, I was happy to learn the other day that I open the front door “a little too aggressively,� in the words of my younger daughter.

In last week’s sermon, we discussed how I’d fallen out of bed, banged my head on the Old Testament and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, before landing on the carpet that the 300-pound beagle had ruined over the years.

“We’re hanging in there,� is what I tell people when they ask.

Friends keep asking, “What do you guys need? What do you guys need?�

Of all the popular poisons, chemo is my favorite.

Usually, the Saturday section finds columnist Chris Erskine offering up one-liners and occasional words of wisdom.

Amid the emotional chaos, there are signs of normality.

Routine day. Used the last of the Christmas stamps to pay some bills. The mortgage, for one.

Tell me, what’s the statute of limitations on Christmas pajamas?

My mustache is the color now, as I turn 60, mostly associated with the outdoors.

January is a mother of a month, leading up to our most-sonorous holiday, the Super Bowl.

Dear Santa, Please let me explain … We’re still processing exactly what happened, the emotional flare-ups, the snitty fits, the fights over petty stuff that happened in the third grade.

I’ve been writing now for 40 years, not long.

I can’t stand the Eagles or freeway traffic, yet I have managed 26 mostly glorious years in “The City of Angels,� which I quickly learned was meant ironically.

I’m stuck writing this column at a stopped L.A. intersection, solid as a block of ice.

I’m getting a little tired of taking the blame for all my screw-ups. The Camaro, for instance.

Challenging times. We can barely afford lunch, and along comes Christmas.

Driving down into the city at dusk, into that rosy quilt of L.A. lights.

On a November day dusted in cinnamon, on a field that looks like leftover salad, we gather again for football.

We’re close to cutting a deal on my plan to buy an old hunting lodge that’s been on the market in La Cañada Flintridge and turn it into an orphanage for peculiar children.

A father is an eternal flame. Even when he’s gone, he’s not really gone.

You can’t see the answers because there is A.1. steak sauce all over his homework.

My internist, Dr.

I miss small children — loud ones, shy ones, peculiar and precocious ones.

Floating around somewhere is a video of me performing an Australian party game at Saturday’s tailgate, which turned into a lollapalooza of laughter and leftovers.

So we’re getting into the new school year routine, and it’s going very well.

It’s late August and the dog needs a bath. Actually, he needs three baths.

This will probably go down as the summer of enlightened parenting.

My life hasn’t been the same since Letterman left.

I used to write with music playing in the background till I realized the rhythms were interfering with my work.

For a beagle, barking is yoga and eating is sex.

At night, we’ve started experimenting with keeping our youngest son in a crate.

None of our kids would be what you would call “the most reliable.�

I think we found Dory. The kids tried to eat her, of course.

On a lazy morning at the library, we discovered that you can check out an astounding 50 items at once, which pretty much should cover us for the rest of the summer -- an item a day, a novel, a biography, a classic Jimmy Stewart flick.

The cricket ran off the other day. That’s the kind of summer we’re having.

My goal this summer is to get the little guy to listen to one Harry Chapin song.

It’s summer, all right. If you don’t grab the paper off the driveway by 8 a.m., it begins to bake.

Our younger daughter broke into the house again the other day, the way wayward children will.

We’ve decided to bar mitzvah the little guy, to provide him the bridge to manhood a 13-year-old boy requires at this critical stage of his life.

There’s a cricket behind the fridge. He chirps all day. He chirps all night.

I’m not so good with words.

Someone had a funny line the other day about barking dogs.