We have lived in our neighborhood for almost 30 years now. There are so many great parts of living here – the weather is spectacular, the beach is a ten-minute walk from our home (we can’t see it, but we can hear the waves in the morning), and we are right up against the beautiful Santa Monica mountains. But the best thing about where we live is the friendships that we have cultivated over the years. We travel with our neighbors, celebrate weddings, birthdays, and holidays with them, exercise with them, and just hang out. It is special. And in all of those gatherings, there are so many spectacular cooks in our group that we always eat very well.

We invited some friends for dinner last weekend, just because. I made eggplant parmesan, and Jill made a salad.

There’s a history in my family with eggplant parmesan. When Ryan was in third grade, he was famished and ready for a great dinner when I served him this delicious dish. He looked at me like I kicked him in the gut when I put it on the table and asked him to try it. One microbite confirmed that he hated it. Fine. I think he ended up eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese that night and loving each bite.

Later that spring, I went to Ryan’s Open House at his elementary school and visited his classroom. I chatted with his amazing teacher and browsed through some of the student work on his desk. Then I heard some laughter from a group of parents standing by one of the wall displays. I looked over, and they were pointing at me. Malibu is a small town, and I knew almost all of those who were pointing and laughing, so I walked over to the group. The teacher had posted essays students had written about their best day ever. But Ryan, being Ryan, hadn’t wanted to write to that prompt, so his was titled, “My Worst Day Ever.” And what was it about? His dad, who was usually a pretty decent cook, had inexplicably chosen to make eggplant parmesan for dinner. Why not regular old spaghetti? Why not Kraft Mac and Cheese? What kind of father would do that to his son? Ryan has always been a pretty persuasive writer, even at that age, and it seemed the other parents were all in full agreement that I had indeed made a horrible parenting decision by serving eggplant parmesan. Many of them were portrayed as conduits of joy in their children’s best day ever essays, so these parents especially enjoyed laughing at my expense. Thanks, Ryan.

Disirregardless of that, I continue to make eggplant parmesan (I have the Ina Garten based recipe in my principalchef.com website) and I still love it. (OK – I know “disirregardless” is not a word, but it’s a word we use in our family as a way of criticizing those who choose the word irregardless, instead of the proper regardless. If you read my blogs, you know that I’m a bit of a grammar snob. Sorry – not sorry. Of course, the English language adapts to misuse, and now if you look in the dictionary under irregardless, you will find that it means the same thing as regardless. As Miriam-Webster states, “Remember that a definition is not an endorsement of a word’s use.” Whatever, Miriam-Webster. If you won’t criticize the misuse, we will, disirregardless of your unwillingness to take a stand!

Anyway, our guests loved the dinner last weekend (take that, Ryan), and then I brought out my TV-inspired dessert.

By modern standards, I’m not very good at watching TV. And I am definitely not very good at the very popular habit of binge watching. I can’t even sit through live sports on TV any more. I record them, then fast forward to get through it faster. I have tried binge watching. My friend Ben insisted that I watch The West Wing, a show I always meant to watch when it was on, but never found the time. I ended up binge watching the seven seasons of The West Wing in . . . seven years. Ben is still disappointed in my lack of TV-watching talent.

But these days I’m actually watching a show that pushed me to binge watch the first season in about 2 months (10 episodes in 8 weeks!), and then we re-binged it at an even faster rate just before Season 2 started. That show is Ted Lasso – and it’s now a part of our Friday night routine. It’s a joyful and positive show that makes us smile and laugh. Jason Sudeikis has created the show, and it’s big. It’s about an American football coach hired to coach a British Premier League football team. I’ll write a future blog on all of the leadership lessons I have learned in watching Ted Lasso, and there’s nothing below that will spoil it for those of you who have not watched it.

One of the fun things Ted does is to start every morning with a “Biscuits with the Boss” appointment, where he barges into the team owner’s office proclaiming, with a mustachioed smile, “It’s Biscuits with the Boss time!” He ignores the scowls of Rebecca, the club owner, along with her protests that she doesn’t have time for these shenanigans, because he knows she loves these biscuits. “Biscuits” in this case is British for shortbread. So, first of all, I love that Ted Lasso insists on making time for small talk and camaraderie in his working day. Truly knowing who you work with, finding time to break bread or biscuits with them, and pausing to talk and laugh about work or non-work topics makes any job a hell of a lot more enjoyable. It’s something I have tried to do in every aspect of my life, and I thank Ted for reminding me about that. Second, I love shortbread, so naturally I sought out the Ted Lasso recipe.

Well, it doesn’t exist. Or does it? Thanks to some super sleuthing by some very observant people with time on their hands (I love the Internet – most of the time), I found a rumored recipe. I tried it, and then, using lessons learned from the first time I made them, I decided to serve Ted Lasso biscuits for dessert that night.  Like the eggplant parmesan, they were a hit, easy to make and super fun. So, I put that recipe on principalchef.com too if you are interested.

And thus, yet another spectacular day with our wonderful neighbors and friends came to an end. To quote Frank the Tank from Old School, “Pretty nice little Saturday really.”

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PS – For those of you who don’t want to fork up $5/month for Apple TV, I get it, but purchasing it now, you could get through the 22 episodes of Season 1 and Season 2 in one month (or maybe less!), assuming you’re normal and a far better binge watcher than I.

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I love driving by the stunningly beautiful Pepperdine University campus, located on Pacific Coast Highway overlooking the Malibu coast, especially in early fall.  Just 10 miles from my home, I passed it on my commute twice a day, every day, for about 17 years. The university’s close proximity was a key factor in the decision to earn my doctorate from Pepperdine. Regrettably, the day before classes started, I learned that all of my classes would be offered on an annex campus near Los Angeles International Airport, another 30 miles down the road. A little more research on my part would have been helpful. But I have no regrets, as I had a fantastic experience, and since the year 2000 I’ve been a proud graduate representing the orange and blue of the Pepperdine Waves.

Every September, Pepperdine staff and volunteers start their meticulous project of erecting 2,997 flags, one for each victim of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. There are flags from every nation that lost a citizen on that fateful day. It’s overwhelming and beautiful, especially when the Pacific Ocean breeze is blowing (which is most of the time), and the flags are all unfurled and waving proudly in the same direction. I’m grateful to Pepperdine for giving us this powerful annual reminder that we should never forget.

Like all of us who are old enough to recall our lives 20 years ago, I remember where I was that morning. I was getting ready to start my 30-minute commute to my job as principal of Malibu High School when my mother-in-law called. She told me that planes had crashed into each of the twin towers in New York and that I should turn on the TV. Well, we did not have a TV at that time – I was experimenting to see if not having one would improve my life (it did not) – so we turned on the radio instead. I heard the chaos and I knew I had to get to school. I was almost at Malibu High when the radio announcers gasped as they watched the first tower collapse. It was unfathomable, and it took a moment to process what was happening, as the announcers were truly overwhelmed by the horror of the moment. In retrospect, their reaction and loss for words were the only way to truly convey the tragedy of the moment they were witnessing.

When I arrived at school a little after 7 a.m., I called every employee who was on campus to come to an impromptu meeting. All of us were devastated, a few were scared, and many were in tears. The phone was ringing off the hook with parents asking if we would be open or closed. We made the quick decision to stay open, and we let parents know that we would understand if they kept their students at home. We wanted our campus to be a safe harbor for the children. We agreed that there would be no televisions turned on in the classrooms. That was a lesson we learned back in 1993 when fires ravaged through Malibu. Some teachers had their televisions on during that fire, and a few students witnessed their own homes burning or in danger. We needed to reduce, not increase, the trauma that we were all going through. Our teachers and staff were amazing that day. They overcame their own justified fears and concerns, and provided an incredibly caring place for our students that day.

As the school day was starting, I received a call from the office of one of our elementary schools – their principal was not yet there and they were looking for guidance. I told them what we were doing and sent one of our vice principals to support that site. I called the principal at home, and they told me that they were just too upset from all of the events to go to work. After a short discussion, the principal gathered themself up and came to work to do what needed to be done. These are time when calm, strong, and caring leadership matters the most. We don’t always need to have the answers before we go into difficult situations, but when the challenges are the greatest, leaders need to face them head on.

Not much academic work happened that day at Malibu High School, but we all got through it together. And I know that the same thing happened around the country and the world. But on that day, everything completely changed.

My brother Pat is an incredibly talented artist and had his own reaction to 9-11. Pat was in the process of making one of the greatest and most courageous career moves ever, where he would eventually quit his lucrative and successful job as an architect, and with no promises or guarantees of income, devote his career to creating art. He was in the early stages of that move when 9-11 happened. Like all of us, he was overwhelmed by the stories of heroic first responders and their efforts that day. He set out to buy an American flag that day, and found nothing but sold out shelves. So he decided to paint his own, and thus created his first ever American Flag painting. Pat usually paints landscapes, ranging from cypress trees in the Arkansas wetlands to aspen trees in the Rockies. His typical medium is thick oil paints, resulting in highly textured and layered paintings that change every time the light changes. That painting, which he remembers painting while experiencing a mixture of both anger and pride in our country, was named “American Pride.” On a whim, Pat made 1,000 prints of the painting and began to sell them. After he had sold a few hundred, he reserved 343 prints (one for each of the firefighters who died that day), then flew to New York to donate proceeds from the sales, the 343 prints, and the original “American Pride” painting to the firefighter heroes of New York City’s Engine 4, Ladder Company 54, Battalion 9. He still paints those flags. Pat has sold them to persons in every state, and he has donated many to charitable causes to be auctioned off. Every one of these special paintings honors the heroes who defended us that day, as well as those who continue to devote themselves to protecting us today.

I appreciate all that I have in my life that honors those who died and those who defended us that on that overwhelming day in September two decades ago. Seeing the steel beams from the Twin Towers that comprise the 9/11 Memorial outside of the Manhattan Beach (California) Fire and Police Station always catches my breath. I have a picture capturing the moment of silence in Malibu High School’s remembrance assembly just a few days after the attacks. I have been proud to display print #950 of American Pride in my office for years, and I have the 2,997 flags at Pepperdine. These and so many other parts of our lives give us pause and a way to honor not only those lives lost twenty years ago, but all of those who strive today to keep us safe. So today, twenty years later to the day, let us all resolve once again to never forget.

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