November 2008 - Posts

• Turkey Day Trauma

  Do you want to hear a funny story? Oh, it’s so funny, ha ha ha! Ok, so last night (the Tuesday before thanksgiving) I’m cooking a casserole in my oven.  My oven has a flat touch screen where you digitally set the temperature, so I set it to 350 and shove the casserole in.  The oven starts to preheat and I watch as the digital temperature rises, rises and rises up to 350.  I set the timer and move on to the next agenda item.  The timer goes off and I pull out the casserole, only to realize that it’s not cooked.  I look and notice that my digital read out thingy is indicating that the oven is off. That’s odd. Darn it.  The kids must have been messing around with it.  So I set it again.  A few minutes later I notice that the oven is off again.  I’m starting to panic. But to be fair, I’m having an off day.  I’ve been a little overwhelmed recently and apparently it’s starting to show.  I pulled in for gas and hopped out to pump without putting the car in park.  Luckily, the van’s gentle rolling backward tipped me off and I was able to hop back in and put it in park before I killed someone. Later I was making the casserole and stored a 1 pound block of cheese in the drawer with the saran wrap before I later found it and put it in the refrigerator.  I also ended up serving a handful of casserole into my water glass before I realized that it wasn’t my plate.  So I’m clearly a little off.  And so I assumed that maybe I had just thought I set the oven. So I set the oven once again and then sat in front of it and watched. The temperature began to climb.  170, 222, 286, 322 and then it hit 350 and poof, the oven turned off. My oven is broken. It will not stay on. THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING! Luckily I’m only feeding 14, so I’m sure we’ll manage.  I can always fry the turkey up in a skillet on the stove and maybe bake the green bean casserole on the grill (no wait!  The grill is broken too!) So, currently it is 6:55 a.m. the day before thanksgiving and I am patiently waiting for the oven repair stores to open so I can beg beg beg someone to bump all their appointments and come out and fix my stove before I have to abandon the several million dollars worth of food I’ve bought and order pizza for everyone. So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving catastrophe, I have imagined several other scenarios that I assume will happen Thanksgiving day to complete the chaos. Scenario 1  The Macy’s Day parade balloon of snoopy will escape from its handlers and blow high into the Manhattan sky.  Unusual North / South winds will carry Snoopy to Maryland where he will begin to deflate, settling across our home.  His nose will become lodged in our fireplace where a cozy afternoon fire will end up setting Snoopy alight.  As the heated air once again raises the now re-inflated Snoopy into the air, my children’s screams will fill the silence as they are forever scarred by the sight of a 200 foot high flaming Snoopy floating above our backyard before his immolated body crashes into the woods igniting a forest fire and forcing us to live in a FEMA trailer for Christmas. Scenario 2 As I am putting the turkey into the roasting pan and sliding it into the (hopefully?) fixed oven, I think I see it twitch.  I ignore it, but moments later as the oven heats up, I hear a banging on the inside of the oven door.  I open the door and the turkey jumps out, risen from the dead, and begins to run around the house, forever scarring the children and resisting all attempts to be marinated. Lest you think that this is a silly horror story, let me point you to the TRUE story of Mike the Headless Chicken. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken In 1945 a farmer went out to kill a chicken, but botched it and didn’t quite get a clean cut.  The head was off, but the chicken was still alive.  The farmer began feeding it by dropping milk into its neck hole.  The chicken lived for two years and earned the family thousands of dollars as a side show attraction.  (favorite part of the story:  the farmer traveled with a chicken head in a jar, but this was a fake head.  The real head was eaten by a cat) So, if a chicken can run around headless, I think it is fully within the realm of possibility to think that a beheaded, befeeted, fully plucked and eviscerated turkey might wake from its catatonic state once warmed by the oven and then crash around through our house in anger.  So there. Scenario 3   Through a printing error, Wal-mart’s thanksgiving sale ad lists its address as our home address.  At 5am, a horde of hundreds is lined up outside our front door waiting to get great deals on TVs, DVDs and lotion gift baskets.  By 5:15, they’re starting to get rowdy.  By 5:30 one of them has broken a window and by 5:45 thousands of people are streaming through our living room window tearing the house apart in search of “blu-ray players for only $99.99”  The house is destroyed, the children are scarred for life and just as a man wielding our 5 year old mp3 player starts yelling “This isn’t an iphone!  Kill them!  Kill them!”  another person screams and shouts “Look!  It’s a headless turkey!”  The turkey, smelling faintly of butter, wine and sage, hobbles into the room, scattering Wal-mart customers like so many cockroaches.  As my son pats the turkey’s back and says “Good headless turkey,”  another scream erupts as the screaming hordes are seen fleeing from what appears to be a giant flaming snoopy balloon. All in all, the irony is overwhelming and as we sit down to our meal of pepperoni pizza and crazy bread, we all say a little prayer of gratitude on this special day of Thanksgiving. Posted Nov 26 2008, 05:45 AM by superdad with 6 comment(s) Filed under: Better off Dad, thanksgiving [Edit Tags]

• Still, Simply the Best

  So, what did you do last night? Oh?  That’s nice. Me?  Why, thanks for asking.  I went to the Tina Turner concert.  And I have to tell you, it was….AWE-some! Yes, I know that seems a little cornball, but I’ve sort of had a thing for Tina over the last couple of decades.  When I was teaching in Mississippi I got a hold  of a life size Tina Turner stand up from her Legg’s Pantyhose Wildest Dreams Tour.  I put it on my classroom door with a sign that said:  “Room 301 – Simply the Best.”  Of course, since it was Mississippi I had to make a longer skirt out of butcher paper for her.  That much leg was deemed a little indecent in the Bible Belt, So, Tina and I go way back.  Sure, she turns 70 tomorrow, but I got to see her on stage when she was just a spry 69 year old.  What could be better?  So, without further ado, let me share with you some of my observations from the evening.  It will almost be like you were there, but not really. • Tina is 69, but seems like she’s half that age.  Most of her fans are 6o something and several had to bring oxygen tanks.  It was fascinating.  I probably wasn’t the youngest person there, (I’m sure someone brought their grandkids), but I may have been the youngest person who bought their own ticket.  I’d say that the average age in my section was about 60.  But everyone acted like a bunch of kids.  The arena rung with the same cheering, thunder, whoops, and stomping that you might hear from a group of 30 year olds, but everyone was able to get a senior citizen coffee at McDonalds on the way home.   My favorite recollection was a 60 year old woman a few rows ahead of me who may or may not have been Nancy Pelosi.  She gingerly held onto the elbow of a lady, who appeared to be her mother, and helped her stand up.  Then, while supporting her, they both extended their fists and punched the air during Private Dancer. • How do I know the crowd was old?  The last concert I went to was sponsored by Budwesier or Red Bull or something.  This concert was sponsored by Amway and Nutrilife Vitamin supplements.  Before each half of the concert, there was an ad featuring silver haired couples selling toilet paper.  • I may have never been to a concert that had such a wonderfully diverse crowd.  The split was about even between black and white and clearly a good chunk of the crowd had decided to make a night of it.  There were women in furs and sequined blouses, Men in fedoras and suits, but there were also couples in blue jeans and Sears sweater sets and men wearing Tina concert Ts from 20 years ago when they actually fit.  (funny story:  At my first Tina concert 15 years ago or so, I bought this totally awesome, totally tacky t-shirt.  On the front there was a picture of Tina from the waist up.  On the back it was just Tina from the waist down in a pair of cut off shorts showing off  those beautiful legs.  It would be hard to describe to you how much my wife hated that shirt.  Oddly enough it disappeared somewhere around our last move) • The souvenir stand was interesting.  And not just because baseball caps were $40.  In addition to T-shirts and mugs and key chains, they also had earplugs for sale.  I don’t know if they were official TT earplugs, but they were clearly feeding a need.  I know it was loud, but that’s sort of like going to an art show and selling blindfolds.   My other favorite observation from the souvenir stand was watching the lady in front of me choose a shirt.  She asked for a large shirt that was in a babydoll cut.  The cashier handed it to her.  It was maybe 18 inches from top to bottom and about 10 inches wide.  The lady looked at it, looked at the cashier and said:  “Do you have any shirts for a normal large person?” • I am pleased to say that Tina’s singing voice has lost nothing over the last seven decades. Oh, that voice.  That wild combination of raspiness, pinched sound and full throated wail.  Has their ever been another voice like it?    I love how she can absolutely wail in key.  If I wail like that, my voice is shot for the rest of the night.  I love how when she sings Typical Male she gets so fired up that she gets to a point in the song where she can’t even be bothered to pronounce the whole words.  Instead of saying “female attraction,” she just sings “Fe-muh Uh-tra-uh.”  She opened up the second act seated on a stool doing an acoustic set with her band.  She sang a slowed down, emotionally vibrant version of the Beatles’ “Help,” that was possibly the highlight of the show.  It is hard to imagine too many other rock stars being able to still reinterpret songs in a new way as they limp into their seventh decade. • And the girl can still dance.  It’s a bit odd to go to a rock concert by someone who’s half a decade older than your parents, but boy that AARP member can move.  She may have slowed down a hair in the tail end of her 6th decade, but not much.  If she didn’t dance the entire 3 hour show, she made it clear that she still could have if she wanted to.  There seemed to be more songs where she was content to stand behind the microphone and her backup dancers did most of the heavy lifting, but Tina’s not one to stand still.  She seemed practically incapable of singing without at least moving her legs.  And on about every song, she would join in.  It was a joy to see some of those signature dance moves once again.  That bow legged strut kick, the entire Proud Mary series of digging, turning, spinning and diving – all of which is done on a pair of stiletto Manolo Blahniks.  At the end of the show, she ran out on a giant crane arm that extended 100 feet out over the audience.  She hung off the end, she reached down to the crowd.  She did a little jig while walking down the middle of it without any guard rails or wires to keep her from plummeting into the audience and killing somebody’s great grandmother.  It was astounding. • This was her 50th year as a performer and one of the great things about having 5 decades of material to pull from is that you don’t have to sing any clunkers.  A couple of years ago, I went to a concert by a young artist who only had a single album out.  She sang all of her songs, even the lame ones and then spent the second half of the concert playing covers and asking people for requests.  Tina didn’t have that problem.  Every song she sang was a hit.  Every time she started singing, I thought “Hey!  I love this song!”  And she doesn’t have a big chip on her shoulder like stupid Van Morrison who refuses to sing Brown Eyed Girl anymore (let’s be honest, no ones showing up just to hear Moondance, it’s not that good of a song).  She didn’t seem tired of any of her songs, even Proud Mary which she has been singing, dancing, and performing for all 50 of those years.  In fact, she seemed to be having a ball.  Performing to a sold out crowd has to be better than Bingo night in Boca. • The dancing was awesome which leads to me this pronouncement:  It was during the concert that I had what is perhaps the gayest thought I have ever had in my life.  I was watching her 4 female dancers whip themselves into an undulating frenzy during Simply the Best and I literally (sadly) thought to myself.  “Man, I hope that in a future life I can come back as one of Tina’s backup dancers, how cool would that be!”   Yes, my stated goal was to reappear as a 22 year old 110 pound woman  dancing to Thunderdome behind a 69 year old.  If there’s anything gayer than that, I can’t think of it. All in all, it was one of the most fun and joyous nights I’ve had in a long time, which says at least as much about my life as it does the concert, but the point still stands.  It was so much fun to be a part of so many people having so much fun.  (worst written sentence ever).  I got to literally see 20,000 people relive some of their fondest memories from the last 50 years.  Everywhere you went you saw people smiling.  I am not ashamed to admit that at the end I got a little weepy.  There was more than just a touch of melancholy in the air when you realized think that this was the last time you would see Tina spin around at the beginning of Proud Mary.  The last time you would hear her blow one of those giant air kisses:  Mmmm-Muh!  The last time, she would ever dangle over the audience on a crane while yelling “Nutbush!  One more time!” I turned to the person beside me and saw that they were crying too.  I reached out to touch their arm until I realized that they were just putting in eye drops as part of their saline replacement therapy.  But, I’m sure the sentiment was the same.  Tina has another 52 tour dates before April when she will presumably retire for good at age 70.  Apparently Oprah talked her out of retirement this time.  Maybe, if we’re lucky, the big O can work her magic and talk her into coming out of retirement again.  The world may or may not need another hero, but we definitely need a energetic septuagenarian dancing and singing up a storm at the Verizon center.   Posted Nov 25 2008, 09:35 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Music, Better off Dad, concert [Edit Tags]

• A History of Every Famous Person I’ve Ever Met

  We all like famous people don’t we?  They’re fun, because they’re, you know, famous.  So I have decided to extol you with a list of all the famous people I have met.  For the sake of fairness, I have only included people who I have chanced upon through my own specialness, not because I bought a concert ticket or stalked them outside a theater stage door.  That doesn’t really count.  Nor is it very interesting, except that you can say things like “Tony Bennett is shorter than you’d think.”  Nope, these things are the real deal - people I came across because of being in a special place at a special time.  You know, because I’m special. Timothy Busfield: When I was in High School, Timothy Busfield (you know, that redheaded guy from thirtysomething and the West Wing?  No?  Oh well) was running a theater workshop at the state college down the road.  Apparently he had attended the college before making it big in movies such as Striking Distance and the Skateboard Kid.  He was clearly there for the money and my main memory is him regaling us with stories about the nude scenes in Revenge of the Nerds.  (I did say it was a state college). James Van Der Beek James Van Der Beek attended college with me for a couple of years before he became a teen heart throb on Dawson’s Creek.  We sang in opposing accapella groups (see, I’m just as big a dork as James Van Der Beek) so I didn’t know him real well, but I knew him.  Wouldn’t have guessed he would become a star, though.  I always thought his head was a little big, maybe that plays well on TV and looks more proportional after you add on the 10 pounds the camera gives you. Chris Wallace We’re now into the exciting DC portion of celeb sightings, which ,of course, just means that all the celebs are politicians and boring people.  Chris Wallace is a fox news anchor.  I saw him eating an early lunch at Cactus Cantina one afternoon.  I was with a friend of mine and we spent the whole meal ignoring our children and whispering about him.  He seemed familiar, but neither of us had any idea who he was. “Do you think he’s a congressman?”  “I don’t know maybe.  I think he seems like a reporter.”  “Nah, I don’t think so.” I went home and spent an hour on the web trying to figure out who it was.  I was kind of disappointed when I found out. Sen. Barbara Mikulski I was driving in Annapolis and saw a tiny woman walking with normal sized people in a cross walk.  I realized it was Senator Mikulski and thought about rolling down the window and yelling “Go get ‘em Mikulski!”  But I didn’t.  I was afraid her Amazonian entourage would attack me. Sen.  Joe Lieberman I took my parents to Ford’s Theater one year for Christmas and we sat a few rows behind Lieberman.  This was back when Lieberman was still kind of cool.  I thought about going up and saying something, but some poor 18 year old schlub from the balcony came down and started telling the senartor all about how he had got completely caught up in the Joementum and blah blah blah.  Anyway, Hadassah Lieberman was there and had an expression of “why won’t you people just leave us alone?  Can’t I even go to the damn theater without people harassing us?”  So I decided not to harass them.  In deference to Hadassah. Newt Gingrich I saw Newt Gingrich walking down the street once on Capital Hill.  I was having coffee with a friend and (I just sort of realized that all of these stories make me seem like the laziest guy in the world.  All I do is attend plays, and sit around eating Mexican food and drinking coffee.  Oh well, the truth had to come out some day) I saw Newt walking down the sidewalk intently tapping away on his blackberry.  I poked my friend and said “I think that’s Newt Gingrich.”  “Really?”  “yeah”  and then some frat boy behind us who looked like some kind of Republican office assistant yelled out.  “Hey Newt!  Nice Tie.”  Newt, nodded at him, walked on and then began to cry because he, for the first time, realized he had the stupidest first name on the planet. DC Mayors Up to now, I have just been whetting your appetite for the biggest stories of all.  I have met both of the last two DC mayors.  I know that this puts me into a select group of several tens of thousands of people, but truly, this is all I have in life. My wife and I were at a late showing of a move in Chinatown one Thursday night and after the movie, I went to the restroom.  The theater was practically deserted.  I was standing at the urinal and someone came up beside me.  He looked vaguely familiar and I thought to myself, “Is that Mayor Tony Williams?”  I finished up and then went to the sink.  As I got to the sink I noticed a hulking body guard in the doorway who kind of freaked me out a little.  So I took a good long time washing my hands, trying to look in the mirror and see if it really was the mayor and hoping he would come over and wash his hands beside me.  But he apparently had one of those conditions that those sad little cartoon balls on the prescription medicine commercials are always frowning about and he was taking a long time.  I didn’t want the bodyguard to question my handwashing, so I just left.  It would have been kind of awkward to shake hands anyway.  When I got outside.  My wife said, “Hey I think the mayor just went into the bathroom.”  “I know!” I said.  “I just peed next to him!”  How many people can say that?  (again, thousands) My other story is less exciting.  One of my best friends is principal at a DC Public School (a lovely school that the Obamas could send their kid to if they weren’t suck stuck up liberal “do as I say, not as I do” elitists) and I was at a fundraiser the school was holding.  During the fundraiser Mayor Fenty popped in to auction off breakfast with himself (he’s another one that could stand to send his kids to the schools he is personally overhauling).  On his way out the door, he stopped to shake hands with my friend the principal and then,  awkwardly, looked at me with an expression that said: “I am so very tired, but I need to look energetic, so I’m going to open my eyes as wide as possible.  I wonder if this guy wants me to shake his hand?  He’s not really reaching out or anything, but I don’t want to offend him by not taking the time to shake his hand, so maybe I’ll just reach out and… oh good, he took my hand, otherwise I would have looked like an idiot.  Oh for crying out loud.  How many more people do I need to greet before I can climb into my SUV and down a Heineken?” So, I shook his hand.  I thought about following him into the bathroom so that I could say that I had urinated beside two DC Mayors, but I was afraid that might come off as creepy.  Go figure. So that’s it, my brushes with fame.  I know it’s not much, but I’m a young man.  There are still lots of other famous people that I can spot while enjoying my, apparently, wildly decadent lifestyle.  And of course, there’s that bigger dream.  The dream that one day I’ll hear some young fresh faced kid run out, eyes full of wonder, and whisper to his father.  “Daddy!  Daddy!  I just peed beside a famous blogger!” Posted Nov 21 2008, 05:50 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Politics, Better off Dad, celebrities [Edit Tags]

• The Funniest Joke in the World

  Or at least he thinks so.  It must be the funniest joke in the world, because why else would he use it 4 or 500 times a day?  Are you ready to hear it?  Ok, here it goes: “No, you are!” Yes!  Ha ha.  Get’s me every time. This joke can be used in a variety of situations.  For instance: “Asher, are you poopy?”  “No, you are!” “Asher, are you done eating?” “No, you are!” Oh the fun never stops.  “No, you are”  is always accompanied by this wild eyed grin and devilish laugh which, unfortunately, is fairly contagious, causing me to occasionally grin, something that only reassures Asher that this is, in fact, the funniest joke in the world. And the great thing about this joke is that it can be used in a variety of situations and can be adapted, depending on the question.  For instance “Asher, you need to get your shoes on.” “No, you do!” Ah, comic gold. In addition to this, Asher has developed the habit of changing the lyrics of songs.  Apparently, this is a genetic condition, because I know for a fact that it afflicts Asher’s father, grandfather and great grandfather.  It appears to be passed down through the male side of the family.  Asher’s grandfather’s manifestation seems to come out mainly in songs about women with big feet and unsuitable uses of old protest songs. My current condition compels me to make up randy lyrics to kids songs.  I’m sure there’s an easy psychological explanation for this.  I sing the lyrics to myself, mainly because I can’t get the tunes out of my head and feel like I at least ought to upgrade the lyrical content. Most of the lyrics are not acceptable for public consumption.  For instance, I have a version of the Thomas the Train theme song that involves some inappropriate (ahem) “hook-ups” between several of the trains. I’m sure that’s not healthy.  But at least you know, why Thomas’ little plastic face is always smiling. Anyway, Asher’s affliction seems to manifest itself in the universal boyhood humor of bodily functions. He apparently told my wife a couple of days ago that when we were at church practicing the songs we would lead on Sunday, that we sang the following: “I am a friend of God, he burps for me!” I can assure you those are not the lyrics we practiced. His sister recently got the movie Annie for her birthday and it has become a regular in the car DVD rotation.  Asher has adapted the chorus to read: “Tomorrow!  Tomorrow!  I’m going to give your bottom a spanking!  It’s only a day away!” Another recent addition comes from the movie Kung Fu Panda.  He has taken to singing the hopefully not prescient: “Everybody was poo-poo fighting!” My big concern here is that he’s only 3.  If he’s already poo poo fighting at 3, I can only imagine where this is going to end up by the time he’s 6.  This could lead to some pretty awkward phone calls from his kindergarten teacher. “Hello, I have a concern about Asher.  Whenever we sing ‘the Farmer in the Dell’ in class, Asher sings “The Farmer sure does smell, the farmer sure does smell.  Hi ho and plug your nose the farmer sure does smell!” “Yes, well, you see, he’s got a genetic condition, perhaps we can get him an IEP.” No, I can’t see that conversation going well.  But I do know one for thing for sure, if the teacher tells me that I have to do something about this “problem,” I know exactly what to say to her: “No, you do!” Posted Nov 20 2008, 06:19 AM by superdad with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Asher, Better off Dad, jokes [Edit Tags]

• Where Crotchety Old Men Come From

  I have developed a theory – a theory about what turns normal young men and women into grumpy senior citizens who sit around throwing back shots of Metamucil and complaining about how the world is going to heck  in a hand basket and hasn’t been any good since MASH went off the air. Here’s what I think happens.  When you’re in your 20s the world is yours.  Everything is marketed to you.  Your kind of music is played on the radio and your perception of what is right about the world is generally set.   You probably don’t recognize it at the time, but life is pretty easy.  Sure, you share a rat infested apartment with three other people, eat ramen noodles for dinner three times a week, and drive a 14 year old Toyota corolla with hand crank windows, but you don’t care.  You’re free.  You’re young.  You’re about as good looking as you’re ever likely to get and the possibilities of the world lie before you. Then as time passes, you settle into a job, you get married, you have some kids, and you buy a house and a minivan.  Life is different and harder, but things are still pretty good.  You’re still happy.  But somewhere in your 30s things start to change. For some inconceivable reason, they start playing absolute crap on the radio.  I mean, who writes this stuff?  Commercials stop making sense to you.  (What’s a body spray?  How is it different from cologne?  Shouldn’t you just be using deodorant?  Why is that guy spraying it all over himself like insect repellant?)  The world is no longer about you.   The world is changing, but you, unfortunately, are still happy with how the world was 10 years ago. So you start taking note of these changes.  You begin to make a mental list of things that are changing and how you don’t like it.  Most of the time, the changes are small.  They don’t really affect you that much.  But over time, it adds up.  “Whadya mean they don’t have fried apple pies at McDonalds any more?  Only baked?  But this tastes terrible!  It’s like eating cardboard!  What is the world coming to?”  (ed. Note.  You can still get delicious fried apple pies at McDonalds in Europe.  It is worth the trip) Eventually enough of these little things add up that your perception changes and you feel like the whole world has changed while you weren’t looking.  Everything is worse.  Nothing is as good as it used to be.  So, you sit around the house, listen to your 8 track tapes and yell at the tv. And the things that changed are almost always insignificant.  I suspect if you asked the average grumpy 70 year old what was wrong with the world, he would trace it all back to when they changed the designated hitter rule and started replacing sweet and low with equal. So that’s my theory.   That’s the secret to why old people are so whiny and grumpy. I developed this theory last week.  I was having a difficult couple of days and found myself getting grumpier and grumpier.  Lots of things were ticking me off.  • They stopped renting free strollers at the mall.  Now you have to pay $5.00.  Cheap B****rds • The new James Bond movie isn’t any good.  He never even says, “I’ll have a martini –shaken not stirred.”  Why would they do that to me? • The stupid power company cut down a bunch of 50 year old trees on our road and I had the depressing realization that I would be dead before they grew back to their original heights. • Starbucks changed their gingerbread latte to a gingersnap latte and now it has these little bits of chewy crap floating in it that I keep sucking up and choking on. I was at the grocery store last week and they were playing Christmas music over the loudspeakers.  I got really upset - unnaturally so.  I started having these thoughts run through my head that went along the lines of: “What are they thinking?  This is exactly what’s wrong with America!  Everybody knows that there is a clear line of demarcation for Christmas music.  It is legally allowed the day after Thanksgiving and not a second before!  Haven’t we sacrificed enough?  It used to be that Christmas music didn’t start until a couple of weeks before Christmas and now it’s only half way through November and they’ve rolled Bing Crosby out of his grave and begun poking him.  What’s next?  If someone doesn’t put a stop to this we’re going to be hearing “silver bells” on Halloween.  I’ve got to do something!” I found myself waiting in line at the customer service desk ready to launch into an incoherent rant about Christmas music and martinis and why the heck can’t Starbucks leave a good thing alone; when it hit me.  I was about 30 seconds away from turning into Walter Matthau.  I was about to go up there and start blathering to some meth addled 17 year old clerk who was going to stare at me wide eyed before calling security. I took a deep breath and stepped back.  It was clearly more than just the music.  But what was it really?  A policy change at the mall?  A poorly written movie?  Starbucks for crying out loud? It was change, pure and simple.  And I didn’t like it. And I voted for Obama! I had the sudden realization that I was one menu change at Chili’s away from growing jowls and wearing my pants up above my bellybutton. Wow. And this is where my theory came from.  And I believe it is 100% true and I invite some young whippersnapper to write his doctoral thesis on it. It truly isn’t the big things in life.  I think we all deal well with the big stuff.  It’s the little tiny insignificant stuff that we start to realize our life is, so delicately, balanced on.  That realization that the world continues to change and is no longer changing to meet your needs, but rather the needs of those silly 20 year olds who dress so poorly, listen to lousy music and like chewy bits of stuff floating in their coffee, is devastating. It’s a difficult revelation to come to terms with.  But I’ve decided to try.  My mom has a pin that says “I will not grow conservative with age” (which would probably explain why she’s started burning her bras.  Very awkward at parties).   So I’m trying to roll with it.  I’m just going to try to accept that the world is different but not necessarily worse.  • I’m going to try that new Chicken bowl at KFC = the one with the chicken on top of the mashed potatoes and corn and covered in gravy even though I think that it’s probably nasty.  • I’m going to hum along happily to frosty the snowman while I pick out my kids back to school clothes next year • I’m going to start calling Beyonce, Sasha Fierce because even though I think that sounds unbelievably stupid, that’s what she wants.  And that’s Ok. • I’m going to order the ginger snap latte and just ask them to hold whatever that nasty bits o’ stuff is that they put in it. • And I’m going to just bring my own stroller to the mall and smile blandly at the people who got cheated out of $5.00 But I swear to Pete!  If they try to change the recipe to Dr. Pepper or start baking McDonalds fries, I’m going to go all Statler and Waldorf on their butts.  A man has to take a stand sometimes. Ouch.  I can feel my jowls growing just thinking about that. Posted Nov 19 2008, 05:57 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad [Edit Tags]

• The Name is Bond, Lame Bond

  Ok, let’s just begin with the important stuff.  I am a Bond fan.  Ever since I first saw that cool looking white sports car drive off the dock into the ocean and turn into a submarine, I’ve been hooked.  I mean, who wouldn’t be?  That car was awesome.  I don’t think there was a kid alive who saw that on ABC’s movie of the week and didn’t want one. I grew up with the Roger Moore Bond and have always enjoyed his throwaway charm and mild goofiness although I can certainly see the appeal that Sean Connery has in so many people’s minds.  But for my money it’s hard to beat Pierce Brosnan.  I always thought he had the quintessential combination of daring, charm, humor and steeliness.  (Timothy Dalton sucked and don’t even get me started on George Lazenby.  They might as well have hired Mr. Bean), As an adult I have looked forward to each new Bond movie.  I’ve got nothing against the new Bond, Daniel Craig, but the new movies have left me lacking.  They’re big on action and anger and revenge, but light on humor, flying jet packs and bald villains.  We just saw the latest, confusingly named movie: Quantum of Solace and I’ve got to tell you I miss my old goofy Bond.  This guy is too serious.  Too angry.  I think they wanted to make the Bourne Identity movie but with Bond.  But that doesn’t make any sense.  If you want to make a Bourne Identity knock off, make a Bourne Identity knock off.  But don’t use 007 to do it.  That would be like doing a new back to the Future movie but deciding you wanted it to be like the Fast and the Furious because, you know, they both have cars.  So here is a list of things I have missed from the most recent Bond movies: The Music Bum didda bum bum, buh dah dah, Bum didda bum bum, buh dah dah.  Bum didda bum bum, buh dah dah, Bum didda bum bum, buh dah dah DAH DUUUUUH!  Dah Du DAAAH! Oh, that song.  It just gets you excited and makes you want to go stand in the outline of a white circle and shoot someone.  It’s got to be at least half the reason the Bond movies are so popular.  But in Quantum of Solace, the first time you heard those notes was over the closing credits.  That was particularly horrible, because I had just sat through the whole movie thinking how it wasn’t really the Bond movie I had expected and then at the end it felt like they were mocking me.  I almost cried.  But then the lights came on so I had to man up. The One Liners  Bond movies used to be funny.  I don’t know if anyone remembers this, but once upon a time, they were full of puns and groaners and all matter of silliness.  In some ways it was counterintuitive to the action, but it was also what made the movies so unique.  Bond would do something like shoot someone with a harpoon gun and then turn and say, “Well, I think he got the point.” Hysterical! Actually, it’s not the least bit hysterical, but it’s fun.  It’s the kind of ridiculous joke that makes you groan and chuckle all at the same time.  If it came out of your grandfather you’d roll your eyes (and wonder why your grandfather just shot someone with a harpoon gun) but coming out of the suave and debonair Bond, it’s sort of endearing. The Name is Bond, James Bond Maybe this line wasn’t in every single Bond movie, (sort of like “Marsha, Marsha, Marsha” was really only said once), but it should have been.  Part of what makes Bond fun is the campy way in which certain things always pop up in the films.  He always orders a martini, he always flirts with foreign agents, he always says “the name is Bond, James Bond.”  Why would you give that up?  If they make a Different Strokes movie, you know that Arnold is going to say “Wachoo talking about, Willis?”  Bond is just like Arnold.  (Editor’s note:  this is in no way an endorsement of the idea of making a different strokes movie.  That would be a terrible terrible idea).   Xenia Onatopp, Dr. Goodhead, Octopussy, Plenty O’Toole These are the names of Bond girls.  They have ridiculous, over the top, double entendre names, always wear bikinis and tend to be kind of, well, easy. There was a Bond girl named Pussy Galore, for crying out loud.  I’m not saying it’s classy, but it’s what’s supposed to happen in a Bond film. Do you know what the girl in the new movie is named?  Camille.  I don’t even think she had a last name.  And if she did, it certainly wasn’t something fun like Opheliaop. Camille?  I went to high school with a girl named Camille.  What sort of fun is that supposed to be?  Do you know how many girls I went to high school with named Octopussy?  None!  Plus, Camille never even wears a bikini in the movie.  What’s happening to good old American values?  The sexiest thing she wears is a black dress.  That’s only exciting for middle school boys who get their kicks out of drooling over the mannequins in the windows of the Ann Taylor Loft (can I just say that when I was looking up the names of Bond girls, the website I was using had pictures of all the girls, but the ad was for a non profit that was helping starving kids in Africa.  So next to a picture of Mary Goodnight is a sad little hungry kid staring at me – I don’t need that.) Gadgets Watches with lasers, pens that shoot darts, cars that do whatever you want them to, a horse that turns into an airplane.  You’ve got to love the gadgets. To be fair, at times they have been over the top.  I remember watching one movie where an invisible car was driving through an ice hotel, shooting missiles and thinking, “this is a bit silly.”  I also remember, even as a child, thinking that the turbo powered gondola that could drive on land was maybe a hair over the line, but in general that’s what makes a spy a spy and not just some guy with a gun.  A man with a watch / grappling hook is a spy.  A man with a gun is my creepy neighbor down the street. And while we’re on the topic, whatever happened to Q?  The gadget guru was the comedic center of the films.  He was Bond’s foil.  As soon as you saw him on screen you smiled because you knew something funny and charming was about to happen.  I suppose Bond just stops off at a pawn shop on the way to Istanbul and gets a gun nowadays.  He probably even has to fill out the forms for the waiting period.  Sheesh! Villains Oh, the good old villains of yore.  Goldfinger who dipped people in gold, Ernst Blofeld who tried to bury Bond in an avalanche.  And what about Jaws with the metal teeth, or Odd Job with a hat he could throw at people to kill them.  When was the last time we had a villain with a throwing hat? And these villains had great schemes too.  Radiate the gold at Fort Knox, start World War III, destroy the world and repopulate in space.  These are villains with dreams, villains with quirky henchman, villains with secret lairs under volcanoes and on the top of swiss alps.  What was the latest villain?  A mousy guy named Dominic whose plan was to steal water.  Water?  Really?  Maybe next he can steal dirt, or junk mail.  I know we all need water, but I can only assume that all the other villains laugh at him at their secret villain conventions. The biggest problem with this latest Bond movies, though, is this:  Growing up, every male in America went through a phase of wanting to be James Bond.  The cars, the gadgets, the women – traveling to exotic destinations, defeating notorious villains, and making snarky comments along the way.  Who wouldn’t want to be that guy? But the latest Bond?  He spent 20 minutes in the last movie getting his naughty bits beaten with a giant rope.  I don’t want to do that!  Who wants to be that guy? In previous movies, Bond was happy.  He had a dream job and he knew it.  He was on top of the world.  This new guy is horribly depressed and is just doing the job out of vengeance, obligation, and I assume, because he still hasn’t paid off his student loans.   He spent half the time driving around in a Ford Festiva and the only gadget he got to use was a Bluetooth earpiece he stole from a bad guy.  At one point he had to use a payphone for crying out loud.  The man can’t even get a track phone? James Bond, 007 is a dream.  He is an impossible figure and that’s why we love him.  This new Bond?  He’s just a depressed government employee with a drinking problem.  If you want to see that you can just take the orange line to Farragut West and watch everybody go to work. Bond needs to return to his roots.  This whole new Bond needs to be shaken up.  And I do not mean stirred. Posted Nov 18 2008, 07:45 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad, pop culture, movies [Edit Tags]

• Yes, West Virginia, There is a Santa Claus, and Boy is he Packing on the Weight

  Hoo Boy!  I have just read the article to end all articles.  It’s about a state I dearly love.  A state that is often unfairly maligned (sometimes by me).  A state that is so fat…. (how fat is it?)   It’s so fat that when it bends over, we enter daylight savings time. Ok, I don’t even know what that means.  I just saw it on a website and thought maybe it was funny.  Oh well.  The point is West Virginia is fat. I know, I know.  You’re saying,  “That’s not true.  Saying such things only promotes unfair stereotypes.  Despite, what comedians like to say, West Virginia is not fat, is not poor and DOES have all of its teeth thank you very much.” Well, actually…. I came across this headline recently: WEST VIRGINIA TOWN SHRUGS AT BEING FATTEST CITY The article also has the saddest / funniest subtitle I think I’ve ever seen: HUNTINGTON CHARACTERIZED AS OBESE, TOOTHLESS AND POOR IN RECENT REPORT http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27697364/?GT1=43001 Apparently the Centers for Disease Control collects data on America’s healthiness each year and releases a report which, among other things, rates the health of cities.  Huntington, WV came in last – by a long shot. Over 45% of Huntington’s citizens are obese.  And that is just the percent characterized as “obese” it doesn’t even include the percent characterized as “overweight.”  Also 48% of senior citizens do not have any teeth: None. Can you hear the banjo strings? That’s the problem with stereotypes.  Sometimes they turn out to be true.  “hey, ha ha, West Virginian, your grandma don’t have any teeth.  Ha ha….. Oh what?  Seriously?  None?  Oh, man, I’m sorry, I had no idea.  Dentures you say?  That’s terrible.” I know that newspapers try to sensationalize these fluff pieces a little bit, but this article may be a wee bit over the top.   This is the first paragraph: “As a portly woman plodded ahead of him on the sidewalk, the obese mayor of America's fattest and unhealthiest city explained why health is not a big local issue.” Let me translate:  “As a fat person waddled down the street, the fat mayor of fatty town said he didn’t think folks seemed all that fat.” Come on MSNBC.  Don’t you think that’s a little over the top?  You shouldn’t be making fun of people in news articles.  That’s my job. The article really is about the funniest thing I’ve read in a long time.  You really ought to go back and read it.  It contains nuggets such as this: “The economy needs to pick up "so people can afford to get healthy," said Ronnie Adkins, 67, a retired policeman, as he sat one recent morning on the smoking porch of the Jolly Pirate Donuts shop on U.S. 60.” That’s just mean.  Funny, but mean. The article also notes that the city of Huntington has more pizza places than the entire state has gyms. The best part of the article is how local politicians and businessmen try to explain away the issue.  Some tie it to a culture that does not include exercise.  Some explain that it has to do with education, explaining (a bit harshly I think) that: “"The undereducated don't know the value of (exercise). They don't have the drive for it. There's a reason you're successful, you've got drive. The same is true for exercise." One guy, grasping at straws a bit explains that it’s because the sidewalks are crumbling and people don’t like to go jogging on them. Uh… right. I was telling my wife about this article (“fat poor and toothless”) and she commented that she really wanted to see what response the chamber of commerce put on this to try to spin it.  Well, the chamber has not released anything, but the local paper did, as you might expect, run a nicely defensive article about the study. http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/x766440539/Area-labeled-as-nations-unhealthiest They point out rightly, that the study is a little misrepresentative because it only focuses on cities.  West Virginia isn’t even the fattest state.  That distinction belongs to good old Mississippi.  It’s just that Mississippi doesn’t have enough urban areas (that and they have most of their teeth).  One guy notes, that “the Huntington area is not in such bad shape by West Virginia standards.”  He points out that the very rural, coal mining counties in the south of the state are even worse. Yes, that must be of great comfort.  Know what else is of great comfort?  Twinkies.  (ok, I need to stop) The Herald Dispatch goes on to unconvincingly argue that the CDC’s study is flawed, by poor data collection and the subtle dig that all the really fat people are out in the county, not in Huntington proper.  The least convincing, but funniest, argument the article makes is that maybe lots of residents in Huntington didn’t take the CDC’s phone survey because “a lot of people they call, might be out working out.” Again. Uh… right. I find this all personally depressing because we used to live in West Virginia.  We were about 45 minutes from Huntington  and we really enjoyed it there.  We even considered buying a house and raising our kids there. At the time, the only Starbucks in the state was in Huntington and when we got desperate for fanciness we used to drive out there, just to get coffee.  We’ve been to Huntington’s chilifest and toured the art museum.  We’ve also visited the world famous Blenko glass factory just outside of town several times and spent at least one Christmas giving everyone blenko gifts.  (Because the only other stores are pizza places) The thing that makes this ranking all the more odd, is that West Virginia has lots of really skinny people too.  The whole state either comes in deep fried chunky or smokes too much scrawny.  There’s really nothing in the middle.  I know that West Virginia has a lot of problems but, as much as it amuses me, this article kind of depresses me too, because WV has a lot going for it.  It is one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been and Jennifer Garner was born there.  I even dated a girl from WV and she was neither poor, fat nor toothless.  So, it’s a little depressing to see the mountain state reduced to a stereotype (although one largely of there own creation).  And while I admit to laughing while I read the article, I also have to admit to feeling bad for all those poor fat, toothless folks. I regret that this will do nothing to reveal West Virginia to be the beautiful, lovely, personable place I know it to be.  But I mainly regret that, while we were in Huntington, we never went to the Jolly Pirate Donut shop.  It sounds totally awesome.  Posted Nov 17 2008, 07:03 AM by superdad with 1 comment(s) Filed under: WV, Better off Dad, Mississippi [Edit Tags]

• Oh Stuckeyville, Where Art Thou?

  We were up in Vermont a couple of years back and I fell in love with the state.  It was beautiful and so ridiculously quaint that you wanted to start whittling something the moment you crossed the state line.  We had a lovely time traveling the winding roads, ogling the beautiful fall foliage and sighing contentedly at the sight of sheep grazing next to country churches while little old ladies knitted socks right off the backs of the sheep. Very quaint indeed. We visited one little town that may have been the cutest damn place I have ever been.  The houses were all immaculate, the streets were all clean, and the leaves had been trained to change colors and then fall directly into neat piles.  While we were petting a baby lamb, a mother came outside of a nearby house, rang the dinner bell and the kids who had been playing on the playground all scattered off to enjoy their organic dinners.  It seemed like a little slice of heaven. We literally looked at housing brochures on the way out of town and every few months, if I’m feeling a little depressed, I’ll look up the real estate page for the town and dream about how all of our problems would be solved if we just moved to this sweet little corner of Americana. I’m not naïve though.  I know this would not be a perfect place.  It would have its downside.  For instance, it is my understanding that it gets very cold in Vermont.  Plus, the diversity of the area seems minimal.  On the state census form, the categories are “white and downhill skis” and “white and cross country skis.”  You’re not allowed to be both.  Very strict. So, here’s my problem.  I have developed this dream of living in some kind of New England / Ohio / Small town America / Utopia.  Oddly enough, I think this dream mainly comes from Hollywood.  Growing, up I must have seen a dozen shows where everybody lived in these cute little towns with a central courthouse and giant oak trees and everybody knew your name (whoops, wrong show). And all of these towns were full of quirky, interesting people.  You know, the kind of place where the barber stands outside the shop and waves to you, where you’re constantly running into friends while walking down the street and where you have to duck into the pie shop to hide from crazy old Mrs. Glowerstein who is trying to get you to head up the Church Christmas pageant.  Again! I think the visual representation that most sticks in my mind is from a show I used to watch a few years ago called Ed.  It was about a big city lawyer who left the big life to return to his cutesy home town and pine after his high school crush.  (ok, now that I write that out, the premise sounds really really hokey.  But it was good!  I promise!) The town was called Stuckeyville and the thing I loved about it was that it was very cute and old fashioned, but it was also very progressive.  It was friendly and smart and diverse and there was a coffee shop right on the town square that served good coffee, and half the scenes involved characters walking down the street with their half caff double whip no foam mochachinnos running into neighbors with fun interesting problems. “Oh Ed, my husband has decided to run off and start a rock band with his old war buddies.  They want to play in the local battle of the bands, but I’m afraid they’ll just embarrass themselves.  Can you help me?” “Sure Mrs. Johnson.  Let me see what I can do.” And then Ed runs off and learns that Mr. Johnson is just sad because he had always wanted to be in a band as a teenager, but his Dad died, so they never had enough money to buy a guitar and Mr. Johnson had to work double shifts after school at the family soda shop just to make ends meet and this is his last chance to try to reclaim some of that lost youth, but the band needs a drummer becuase old Mr. Blackstein just fell and broke his hip and can’t play and now they’ll never be able to play “Runaround Sue” at the battle of the bands. So Ed agrees to be the drummer and they all play at the concert and they don’t win first prize (this is reality after all) but they win a special prize for being the oldest band members in the competition and then Mr. Johnson sings a love song to his wife that was the very first song they had ever danced to back at the high school prom and she thought he had forgotten all about it, but how could he, because he loves her that much.  End scene.  Roll credits. Wouldn’t that be a great place to live?  I would love to live there.  But here’s the catch, Stuckeyville doesn’t exist.  In fact they filmed it in (brace yourselves)  New Jersey. Aaarrggh!  You don’t have to spit on my dreams, you can just tell me no! So, intellectually I know that this vision of an American town isn’t real.  But I still harbor a secret dream and every once in a while I’ll pass a place that seems to remind me of this perfect little microcosm of all that is good and just in the world.  I’ve seen towns in Vermont, and Michigan and Massachusetts and New  York and West Virginia that all seem to evoke this bucolic wonderland, but when I investigate closer, I usually find that things aren’t as perfect as they seem.  There’s a bunch of sketchy foreclosed houses on the back side of town, the old factory is leaking leather tanning chemicals into the river, the quirky people you meet on the street are usually just meth addicts, half the perky teens at the high school are pregnant, the local church only has 6 old bitter regular attendees, most of the town’s adorable homes are just summer cottages for unpleasant people in Manhattan, the klan used to be very active in the area but no one likes to talk about that, the nearest available job is 20 minutes away at the saw mill with “Stubby” Jenkins and there’s an annual average of 14 feet of snow and a median winter temperature of -67. So once again my dreams are crushed.  There is no local candy shop, the only coffee available is Sanka and old Mr. Wilkins, the barber, has been bought out by the Hair Cuttery.  I have learned to keep my dreams in check, to experience those magical New England towns with a grain of salt and to be happy with the perfectly lovely place that I live now.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t keep an eye out for my own little Stuckeyville.  I know one day I’ll find it.  And maybe I’ll even be asked to be in a band.   A boy can dream can’t he? P.S.   Today (11-14)  is Customer appreciation day at Haagen Dazs.  Everything is half off.  I recommend the Bailey’s shake Posted Nov 14 2008, 06:48 AM by superdad with 2 comment(s) Filed under: travel, Vacations, Better off Dad [Edit Tags]

• Matters of Size

  There is a lot of focus in our society on size: SUVs, skyscrapers, stretch limos, houses.  On some base level, I think that we all somewhat succumb to the bigger is better model of living, whether this is in portions at Applebees, the size of our bank account, or, if you’re in Jersey, the size of your hair. To quote an Australian philosopher “You call that a knife?  This is a knife!” But where does this obsession with size and the presumed value of such come from?  Is this something we are born with, or something that the American advertising complex forces upon us?  Well, if you’re curious, I think I have the answer for you. It appears to be somewhat innate.  And I’ll tell you how I know.  My 3 year old Asher was talking with my wife recently and pointed at Micah, our one year old.  Then, out of the blue, said: “Micah has a little tiny penis.” Um, ok.  He then continued. “And I have a great big penis!” Ok, first things first.  This is not actually true.  In fact, I would say that in general the two boys are far more similar than different in this specific area.  Secondly, where did this come from? True, Asher is obsessed with being a “bog boy” now.  He will practically break down and cry if I insensitively say something along the lines of “come on little boy.” “I’m not a little boy!  I’m a big boy!” Apparently in more ways than one. You don’t have to be Freud to start drawing conclusions about guys who drive Hummers or own really long rifles, but what about toddlers? When Asher plays with his Thomas Trains he does like to make really long trains of 10-15 cars and pull them through the tunnel (hmmm, maybe I should take that tunnel down).  And he does like to take our swiffer and straddle it. Of course, I think a lot of that just comes from little boys (and heck, big boys) wanting to be bigger, stronger, faster and smarter than everyone else.  Asher runs around all day long calling himself superdash, or shooting fake lasers out of his hands at strangers (that was a hoot at airport security).  I think little boys just want to be superman.  They want to be able to leap tall buildings, lift huge objects and best their little brothers in the bathtub. As kids, teenagers, and then adults we just go through the painful and depressing process of realizing that we are not the strongest, fastest, smartest, or (thank you middle school swim class) the biggest. So let Asher think highly of himself for a few more years.  Soon enough, the realities of life will set in and he’ll start shopping for an Expedition.  I’m still going to take away that tunnel from the train table, though.  You can’t be too safe. Posted Nov 13 2008, 06:01 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Asher, Better off Dad, Micah [Edit Tags]

• Getting to the truth … the Jack Bauer Way

  11:00 Boop… Beep… Boop… Beep 11:03  The setting:  an open staircase.  A brass chandelier hangs perilously low on a metal chain.  At times you could almost reach out and touch it.  11:07 A cabal of 6 and 7 year olds has begun to gather around the chandelier.  You can tell from the peanut butter stains on their old navy shirts that they are up to no good.  The once raucous group become quiet…. too quiet.  A hand reaches out and touches the chandelier.  It moves. 11:12 A group of parents has gathered in the kitchen.  They talk in low voices so as not to be overheard.  The tone is serious.  Each of them relates stories of recent terrorist activity in their homes.  A spilled cup of grape juice here, a torn book there.  Individually it doesn’t add up to much, but put together, a pattern starts to emerge.  A deadly pattern. 11:17  A child rushes in, whispers something to one of the parents and then disappears as if he were never there.  Like windshield wiper fluid, he squirts out his information and then is wiped away leaving no trace except a cleaner world. 11:22 “We have a problem,”  says the parent.  “My spy has informed me that the terrorists are planning an attack on the hall chandelier.”  A gasp rises up from the gathered parents.  Everyone leaps from the table, cremora  and bagel crumbs scatter everywhere.  As one, the team rushes to the alleged terrorist site.  But will there be time?  There are only seconds before the attack. 11:27 Boop… Beep… Boop… Beep 11:31 It’s too late.  A crash erupts from the hallway.  When the team arrives there are little tiny lampshades rolling like tumbleweeds and shards of glass everywhere.  Before anyone can react, a scream pierces the air.  The parents look up.  Above them, their gangly legs hanging between the poles of the railing, are terrorists.  There must be dozens of them in this cell, a look of horror on their faces as they finally realize what they have done.  But that horror only lasts for a moment, within seconds they are running, scattering to the left and right like cockroaches revealed in the light.  “Freeze!” screams a parent.  But the plea falls on deaf ears.  “I’ll take the stairs,” says another.  “I’ve got the back entrance.”  All is chaos.  “Man down!  Man down!”  screams another parent.   A fisher price fire truck cleverly booby trapped to trip the pursuers has claimed another victim.  Screams and crying fill the air as one by one, the terrorists are cornered, subdued and captured. 11:39 Setting:  A cell somewhere in deepest, darkest Maryland.  The children sit side by side along the fireplace.  Each one shouting a different version of the story.  Each one claiming innocence and blaming others.  It is not unlike the Republican Party on Nov. 5.  “Enough!” screams one parent.  “Now tell me what happened.”  Again the room erupts into cries, pleas and accusations.  The fetid odor of lies fills the stale air.  “What do you want to do?” asks one of the moms.  A stony silence falls over the group.  The leader turns, “Do whatever you have to, but get me the name of whoever did this.” 11:43 One of the terrorists has been whisked away, separated from the group.  “Hey, don’t worry about what’s happening to those other kids.  Save yourself.  Tell me what’s going on.  I can help you,” the parent begins.  “If you tell me the truth, I can see to it that you get a light sentence, but if you lie, you’re going right back in there with the rest of them.  Come on, I can only help you if you help me.”  The terrorist looks left and right, anywhere except to make eye contact.  The good cop routine is working, you can see that she’s starting to break from the pressure.  A scream goes up from the other room.  The petite terrorist can only imagine what’s happening in there.  She looks down at the glass still littering the floor and begins to cry.  The interrogator picks up her cell phone and dials a number.  “I think this one’s going to crack,” she says quietly 11:48 Boop… Beep… Boop… Beep 11:52 Back in the pit, the parents still circle the group of children, hands on hips, eyes narrowed.  “That’s it!” shouts one.  No more talking, any of you.  We’re going to go through this one at a time.  We have ways of getting to the truth”  Another parent walks into the room, sharpening a knife.  She gingerly starts to peel an apple, delicately filleting its skin.  “Wh.. what are you doing?” asks one of the terrorists, “what are you going to do with that knife?”  The mother smiles deviously before biting an apple slice off of the knife blade.  “Until someone tells the truth, no more potato chips, no more cookies, no more french fries – only apples for snacks.  “Noooooooo!” 11:54 The good cop stares down at the small child.  “are you ready to tell me what happened?”  The child wavers, but then she hears it, a blood curdling scream slicing through the air, “Noooooooo!”  “Ok, ok!”   She sobs.  “I’ll tell you everything!  First we started pushing the chandelier with our feet and then it started swinging more and more and I got scared.  I told everyone to stop, but they wouldn’t.  They just kicked it harder and harder.  It was swinging faster and farther out.  And I panicked.  I know I should have tried to stop them, but I was scared, and there were so many of them and…. and… and…. 11:57 Back in the holding pen, the kids are all desperate to avoid punishment.  “it was her fault!”   “She kicked it.”  “I only kicked it a little bit.”  “I didn’t do anything.”  “That’s not true!”  “Yes it is!”  No it’s not!”  “yes it is!”  “Mommy!” 11:59 The good cop re-enters the pit.  “That’s enough!”  she yells.  “We have all the answers we need.”  One of the moms turns to the other interrogators.   “What do you want to do with them?”  They exchange glances….. meaningful glances.  They all know, that as far as playdates go,  freedom comes with a price. 12:00   Boop… Beep… Boop… Beep Posted Nov 12 2008, 08:18 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad, parenting, playdate [Edit Tags]

• Another Barrier Not Broken

  For all of the talk of Obama’s accomplishments, and how he will change the country, there is a part of me that regrets his win.  For a brief moment our nation had the chance to break down a different barrier, another wall of prejudice, and yet we did not. No, I’m not talking about electing a woman to the Vice Presidency.  Big deal, I think everyone believes that we’re probably going to have a woman president in the next couple of election cycles.  Heck, we could have a Clinton / Palin contest in 2016.  No, I’m talking about a far more difficult barrier. For the first time in our nation’s history, we were going to have a Stay at Home Dad residing in the Vice President’s mansion.  We were going to break the glass basement as it were.  But this opportunity has been lost to history and who knows when it might come again. This first came to my attention a few months ago when one of the Republican SAHDs in our group (I know, doesn’t make any sense to me either  - plus he has 4 adopted black kids, a lesbian babysitter, and supports gay marriage.  Why his membership card hasn’t been revoked I’ll never know) jokingly said, “so how exciting is it that Todd Palin might start coming to Dad’s group?” Initially this seemed silly, but then it occurred to me how right he was.  We were going to have a new stay at home dad in the region, and surely he was going to want to make connections with his fellow SAHDs. I imagined us meeting at the mall for coffee and sitting around while the kids played.  I’m sure our conversations would go something like this: ME: “Hey Todd, how’s it going?” TP: “Not bad, we’re almost unpacked.” ME: “I know how that is.  We’ve still got pictures we haven’t gotten around to hanging on the wall.” TP: “Yeah.” ME: “How are things with the wife?  Still busy?” TP: “Yeah, she’s been gone a lot, flying to Sarajevo and the country of Africa for meetings.” ME: “That’s hard.  Sarah had to go to Birmingham for 3 days last week to work on a case.  It’s hard on the kids.” TP: “Yeah.  How are you doing Dave?” Dave: “We’re doing all right.  Money’s been tight lately.  My wife keeps going on these shopping sprees and buying more than we can really afford.” TP: “Tell me about it.” I think he would fit right in.  I’m sure his problems would be a lot like ours.  I can easily imagine swinging by the Naval observatory to pick him up on the way to the zoo.  We’d pull in and load the carseats for his son and grandson into my van (we’d probably car pool since I have a zoo membership and parking is expensive).  We’d stroll around the zoo.  He’d talk about working in the Alaskan oil fields and winning a snow mobile race and I’d talk about teaching 3rd grade in Detroit and once renting a jet ski.  He’d joke about how in Alaska they call polar bears “the other white meat” and I’d joke about how in the real America we call Alaska “that place where they filmed Northern Exposure.” Good times. I’m sure there would be some differences.  As the husband of a Vice President, his role would be a lot different than the husband of a lawyer.  Actually, I suppose being a Lawyer is a lot like being vice president, except you have actual responsibilities. Oh how we would joke around. Yes, I regret that Todd isn’t going to be here to join our Stay at Home Dad group.  He could bring a lot of attention to the SAHD movement and I’m sure all of it would be positive.  So, if this whole Obama / first black man in office thing doesn’t really work out, maybe we’ll still have a shot at our first SAHD in the white house.  Our time is coming America, prepare for the revolution.  It will be a revolution in denim with messenger style diaper bags, but a revolution none the less. Viva La Padre! (I think that might be like 3 different languages mashed together, but I’m not so sure) Posted Nov 07 2008, 05:44 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Politics, SAHD, Better off Dad [Edit Tags]

• The World is Running Out of Everything

  I don’t know if you heard, but yesterday they ran out of newspapers.  No really, it was a national news story (not that anyone could read about it).  Apparently so many people wanted to get a paper (or 10) with the headline “Obama Wins!” to give to their grandkids, save in their hope chest, or, more likely, put in their attic and forget about until it rots from the mildew, that our nation’s paper supplies were completely decimated. I was a little surprised that the newspapers didn’t see this coming, but I guess they’re better at reporting the news than predicating it (here’s a little hint for ya Mr. New York Times.  You might want to print a couple extra papers on Jan 21 too.) Well, this mildly interesting, politically tinged story would have been pretty forgettable in and of itself if it wasn’t for something that happened to me on Tuesday.  School was out and I had some friends and their 50,000 children coming over to play, so I decided to drive through Dunkin Donuts and get some munchies for the advancing hordes.  My conversation with the Donut guy went something like this: “Hi, I’d like a dozen donuts please and a box of munchkins.” “Uh, we’re, uh, kind of low on donuts,” said some guy who appeared to still be coming down from last night’s meth party. “What do you mean you’re low on donuts?” I asked and stuck my head out the window to make sure that the sign didn’t say “Dunkin Cheeseburgers.” “Yeah, all we’ve got left are, like, 2 lemon cream, one strawberry cream, 2 strawberrry cream with sprinkles, 1 blueberry cake, 1 sourcream with chives, 1….” “Look, do you have 12?”  I asked, getting a little impatient with the non donut possessing donut store. “Yeah.” “Great.  Just take 12 of them and throw them in a box.” “Ok.  Is there, like, anything else you need?” (sigh)  “Yes.  I need a box of munchkins, please.” “Um.  Actually, we’re, uh, kind of low on those.” For crying our loud!  Did that creepy looking guy who always has to get up at 3am to go make the donuts just not come in today?  Did he forget to adjust his clock for daylight savings time?  What’s the deal?  It’s not like I’m coming in at 7pm and complaining that they don’t have any donuts left.  It was 9:30 in the morning.  That is well within the acceptable time range for donut acquisition. This also would not have been a big deal if it was not for another situation I recently experienced ( I swear this is all true). I was driving through Kentucky Fried Chicken a couple of weeks ago, because the Mississippi kids had been complaining that I don’t deep fry enough foods.  I believe the exact quote was: “How come you don’t like fried chicken?” So, I decided to satiate their craving for greasy wings and thighs and pick up a KFC family mean with those powdered mashed potatoes and that neon orange macaroni and cheese.  So I drove through KFC at about 5:00 in the afternoon. “Hi, I’d like a 12 piece family meal with mashed potatoes and….” “We’re out of chicken!” someone shouted at me through the speaker in an overly aggressive and completely dismissive tone. “What do you mean you’re out of chicken?” “We ain’t got none right now!” “But that’s the only thing you serve.  Your restaurant is called Kentucky Fried Chicken.” “We got cole slaw!” “I don’t want cole slaw, I want chicken.” “Yeah?  Well, we aint got any chicken!” So here’s my theory.  I think that the world may be running out of everything.  I know this is a crazy conclusion, but when The Washington Post doesn’t have any papers, Dunkin Donuts doesn’t have any donuts and KFC is just KF, I think it’s the only reasonable conclusion you can draw.  I know capitalism if failing all around us as our government takes over all the banks and, especially now that we just elected a terrorist socialist for president, but if Dunkin Donuts can’t predict that they need to make donuts, I’m not so sure that capitalism deserves to survive.  And it’s not just here.  In Tennessee a few weeks ago, gas stations were running out of gas, and a friend told me that last time she was in Babies R Us, they didn’t have a single baby for sale.  Honestly, I was starting to get very panicked about this whole predicament.  If the whole world no longer had stuff, what were we going to do?  But then I discovered something interesting.  I was at a gas station recently, and much to my surprise they had plenty of chicken and donuts for sale.  At the gas station! I can only assume that KFC has just received a giant delivery of 87 octane and that Dunkin Donuts has been busy sprinkling powdered sugar all over a stack of the New York Post. Perhaps this isn’t it.  Perhaps it’s more than just a delivery mix up and we really are about to experience a shortage of everything.  Maybe McDonalds will run out of hamburgers, Baskin Robbins will have nothing available but sprinkles and Utah will be completely bereft of Republicans.   Who knows? I could write more, but right now I’ve run out of things to say. Posted Nov 06 2008, 06:13 AM by superdad with no comments Filed under: Better off Dad [Edit Tags]

• The Race

  Obama always made it clear that his candidacy was not about race.  He often seemed at pains to avoid the issue or dismiss its impact, while all along the country was whispering about it.  But for many people the fact that Barack Obama is black is extraordinary.  It may not be the reason people voted for him, but it is a reason that people celebrated last night. I watched the election returns surrounded by my wife and the three college students that are staying with us.  These three teenagers grew up in a small town i