I have spent the latter 50 weeks of 2024 recovering from the first two. Someday I’ll write about that frenetic fortnight, but I don’t have the emotional energy for it just yet. Instead, I’m reflecting on the successful record of those tepid months that served to sand down the edges of a rough-and-tumble world — at least for this medium-build, middle-aged midwesterner. I won’t even call them highlights, as that would do a disservice to the sought-after ambience over these many moons. 

And yet — and yet — perhaps there’s something to be gleaned from my Non-Noteworthy Moments of 2024. 

1. Mortgage. At the beginning of the year, we moved. Exactly one mile, same zip code, same school district, same lawn guy (Mr. Warren). But it was still scary and exhausting and I am never going to move again. 

I can’t say the same for our mortgage. First was 1st Securities, “Your Lender For Life.” A few weeks later, Rocket Mortgage (Home Loan Provider of Charles Schwab Bank) wrote to say, “Thank you for choosing Rocket Mortgage.” Come June, Flagstar assured us that “You’re in good hands.” 

Then we got season’s greetings from Mr. Cooper. Not to be confused with Mr. Warren (lawn guy) or Mr. Cooper from TV’s Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, this Mr. Cooper is the subservicer for Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC. My Mr. Cooper is Nationstar Mortgage’s earnest attempt "personalize the mortgage experience" that I’m sure has nothing to do with the $73 million that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered them to pay some 40,000 homeowners for failing to provide basic operations as a mortgage servicing company from 2012 to 2016.

2. Bagels. The closure of two of the best bagel shops on the planet in 2024 — Detroit Institute of Bagels (Detroit) and Absolute Bagels (New York) — was tragic and newsworthy. This isn’t about that. Nor the triumphant return of Dutch Girl Doughnuts. This is about my breakthrough in freezing and reheating bagels from New York Bagel (Ferndale).

Some people will tell you to slice your bagels before you freeze them, but they can hibernate in tact, indefinitely, and be born again in … the air fryer. I don’t know about these new fangled digital air fryers, but my analog Cuisinart has the option to set the temperature dial to Warm and mode to Air Fry. Ten minutes in the rapidly circulating warm air is less of a reheating than a time machine, transporting your bagel back to the moment it first came out of the oven and into the world that didn’t truly deserve it but might aspire to appreciate it all the same.

3. RCS. You have an iPhone phone and I have a non-iPhone phone. Before, you would text me videos and they would be pixelated beyond recognition. I would send you a picture and the brilliance of my composition would degrade while traveling from my phone to your phone. Over time, we may have drifted apart.

Now we have RCS (Rich Communication Services), a communication protocol Apple adopted after the Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit alleging Apple illegally monopolized the US smartphone market. Now we can resume our dynamic, multimedia relationship without the risk of having to speak.

Lest things change too radically, my chat bubbles will still appear in verdant, vibrant green and I will remain off of 🔥The Rosenswaggers🔥 — my in-laws’ extended family group chat.

4. Not Appendicitis. After approximately 7 hours at the emergency room and a battery of tests, doctors confirmed that Phoebe did not have appendicitis. Her gastroenteritis was almost definitely a memento from the diverse microbial ecosystem in Kalahari (the Sandusky indoor waterpark, not the African desert). 

Relieved that her core was well, we braced ourselves for the bill from Corewell.* But we didn’t get a bill. We got bills, each of which was for a totally reasonable amount of money and easy to pay online without accessing your full account — $33.39, $57.17, $200.76, $30.23. I wouldn’t even mind getting a couple more as long as the total remains a friendly fraction of the $10,637.45 they charged our insurance for her (almost) overnight stay.

Phoebe bounced back in time to go out for Halloween some 14 hours after getting discharged from the hospital. When trick-or-treating brought her friends — in a group costume I reinterpreted as a roving gang from The Warriors — to her grandma’s house, she got got a handful of Costco’s finest candy and a dose of her anti-nausea medication.

*I still call it Pine Knob.

5. Soccer. I started playing soccer again for the first time in 25 years. Actually, I played one game in 2013 and partially/probably tore my ACL. It can be disorienting to squeeze into your kids’ socks and shinguards for a game at 7:00AM on a Sunday. But I find it manageable to avoid thinking about the decades that have passed since I was a competitive athlete by becoming immediately out of breath. Getting a little short on breath sitting here thinking about it.

In my defense, I only was ever any good at defense. The things that made me a contributing member to the 1999 District Champions (Division 4) — kicking the ball very far when I could get to it first and throwing the ball very far when it went out of bounds — are not at all useful for indoor soccer with its constant ricocheting and the relative proximity of other men over 40. Seeking to preserve what remains of my (right) ACL has given me a keen appreciation of how interconnected different parts of the body are, as evidenced by the state of my big toe (left), Achilles (right) and hamstrings (both).

I am grateful that, at my advanced age, I can dust off my boots and play The Beautiful Game — even if there is nothing beautiful about the way I play it. And I was relieved to get an email this morning that our first game of the winter session is January 12th, not the 5th.

6. Fantasy Football. I do not know whether Judah will win his Fantasy Football league and bring home the $400 prize for the first place finisher. I do know that the last place finisher will not be subjected to a punishment involving a large dog crate and the pouring of a variety of liquids. I also can’t unknow that these 10th graders — upstanding young men; a group of friends who genuinely love each other — had initially determined, as a collective, that it would be appropriate to subject one of themselves to crate and liquids based on his failure to field a successful fictional football team.

7. Where They Are Now. Before my SiriusXM trial expired, I indulged in the 90s on 9 enough to repeatedly here a Lisa Loeb segment called “Where They Are Now.” I don’t remember a single update about any of the grunge rockers or Lilith Fair alumni because I couldn’t get past the phrase “Where They Are Now.” 

Where. They. Are. Now. 

This sent me on a where-are-they-now hunt for old episodes of Where Are They Now? (gone) and a brief search to determine whether VH1 or Viacom or some other corporate overlord had exclusive use of “Where Are They Now?” It appears that someone applied for a Word Mark in 2000, but it was abandoned in 2001 for “Failure To Respond Or Late Response,” so I can only wonder where they are now (or were then). 

If it’s any indication of their relative marketability, wherearetheynow.com is available for $4999, whereas wheretheyarenow.com will only cost you (Lisa Loeb) $2888. I would suggest MC Hammer buy both, but I distinctly remember from his episode of Where Are They Now? that he did not manage his money carefully and eventually lost his mansion and most of his parachute pants.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so preoccupied by syntax. They’re just words, after all. It’s just like that song says…

You say, I hear only what I want to
You say, so I all the time talk

8. Tattoo. Like every previous year and probably all future years, I did not get a tattoo in 2024. But I continue to marvel at the rapid mainstreaming of body art and to admire ink like Stefani’s. Maybe I am inching closer to getting a tattoo. I thought hard about how old my kids would have to be for my cool tattoo to have a neutral or deterrent effect. And I am totally certain what my tattoo would say:

Born to Schlep

9. Carpool. Speaking of Born to Schlep, I traded my 6-passenger Ford Explorer in for a 7-passenger Ford Explorer. What it lacks in heated second row seats, it more than makes up for in my ability to drive the entire dance carpool.