Happy birthday to my awesome brother-in-law

and father to my children. Well, technically, they're not MY children but I love them more because I used to buy them candy on the sly when they were much younger because THAT'S WHAT UNCLES DO. Oops ... where was I? Oh, yes: My brother-in-law has helped raise two decent, thoughtful, informed, involved kids (one of whom is co-authoring a play celebrating cultural and human diversities as we speak and the other of whom is in college as we speak studying political science so he can improve our country and world), obsessively power-washed his driveway on every day that ends in y, missed a few big sportsball games on occasion so the rest of us could watch musicals populated with frolicking men in ill-fitting tights as a family, and volunteered to climb the high, scary, pants-wetting ladder so I could stay safely close to the ground on the low, scary, pants-wetting ladder when we painted his house. Most importantly, he has always, without fail or even slightly crumbling resolve, shooed the entire family out of his kitchen so he could do all the dishes -- even after the 14-course state dinner we hosted for Angela Merkel just because we enjoy saying her name -- and thus saved me from having to do dishes, which I hate more than folding laundry or watching Donald Trump do that anus thing with his lips. So everybody call my brother-in-law at work today and sing Happy Birthday in long, fermata-ed whole notes so he can really savor the experience. And buy him gift cards from Michaels because that place gives him hives and I think if he could just buy some dried branches and styrofoam cones without using his own money, it could be like a gateway drug and he could conquer his fears and start making pipe-cleaner snowmen skating merrily on oddly shaped mirrored ponds to give as Christmas gifts or maybe Epiphany gifts for those of you at the end of the alphabet.