How Do You Not Be "That Parent"?

I am finding it extremely difficult to watch my son Alex's travel team soccer games without "coaching" from the sidelines . . . I think I have coached soccer too long and I have lost my ability to simply be a fan; I'm trying to chat as much as possible with the other parents to divert my attention from the game, but it's a losing battle-- inevitably, I have to disperse some of wisdom I've garnered from nearly twenty years of coaching and so I yell: "Spread out!" or "Relax and pick your head up!" or some other brilliant phrase that will certainly ensure a victory for the Eagles (and I am certainly aware of the irony of yelling the word "relax").

My Wife Is A Terrible Alcoholic

My wife is not a raging alcoholic (and I am thankful for this) but she is an awful alcoholic . . . around dinner time she often opens a beer or pours herself a glass of wine, but she always misplaces it and never finishes it; I usually find it later-- half-full-- on the counter or next to the computer . . . she apparently doesn't know that if you pour yourself some alcohol after a long day of work, then that stuff should stay glued to your hand until you finish it . . . she does the same thing with coffee in the morning: she says that she "likes the idea of having a cup of coffee" but never finds the time to sit and actually finish a mug (I usually find her coffee cup-- hours later and three quarters full-- on a book shelf or next to the TV).

A Psychological Question

I am an introvert and-- for me-- being around people is like drinking alcohol: an initial sugar rush, loss of inhibitions, and the usual giddiness-- but after too much time with people, the inevitable hang-over results and I need time alone to re-charge . . . and I wonder if being an extrovert is the opposite: if time alone, time without other people to interact with, actually drains an extrovert-- the way Bill Compton drains Sookie Stackhouse in the back of Alceide's truck-- and they need to be around people to feel normal, energetic, and grounded again.

A Very Special Episode of Sentence of Dave

In memoriam of the Ten Year Anniversary of 9/11, I'd like to postulate a theory about a fraternity brother and rugby teammate of mine that died that day-- we called him Lud and he was an excellent guy with a habit for butchering idiomatic phrases . . . I recall him saying "blond as a bat" and "all bundled up like Utah Jack" and "kids were younger in those days," and perhaps those who remember him could contribute some others . . . and I am wondering if my wife has been possessed by Lud's spirit, because she has been exhibiting the same trouble with stylistic expressions and cliches-- although Catherine's make a bit more sense than Lud's-- here are a few examples (along with the original phrase): "fly by the handle" instead of "fly by night:";"sun cancer" instead of "skin cancer";" speed ball" instead of "fast ball";"buttons and whistles" instead of "bells and whistles";"summer shanty" instead of "summer shandy" and "living with the fishes" instead of "swimming with the fishes."

Coming Delusions

Once again, I am contemplating writing a novel-- but I'm not going to reveal too much about the plot, because I don't want to get everyone excited over something that I probably won't follow through on-- but I will tell you this: there's a shitload of robots . . . and they're living in the jungle.

Frankly Sookie, I Don't Give A Fang

It's been a summer of True Blood, and while I love the show-- cheesiness and all-- I could care less about Sookie and Bill's tumultuous affair . . . in fact, besides Sookie's mind reading and one-off impression of how Bill says her name, I wouldn't mind if those two were eaten by werewolves . . . I'm much more interested in the minor characters, the sub-plots, the supernatural, and the satire . . . it reminds me of how I felt about Cheers when I was a kid, I was far more invested in the adventures of Norm, Cliff, Coach, Woody and Frasier than I was in Sam and Diane's love/hate relationship.

I Burst A Metaphorical Balloon (Only to See It Inflated By A Kinder Soul)

The Annual Labor Day Rutgers Pool balloon toss ended in a draw, because all the remaining competitors' balloons burst on the final throw . . . and so I declared curtly, "Nobody wins," but the sweet mom next to me smiled and simultaneously declared the opposite: "Everybody wins!" 

I'm Back, Back in the Sisyphean Groove

The futility of reality has rudely interrupted my idyllic summer: after bailing Hurricane Irene induced sewer water from 2 AM until 7AM, we finally got the basement dry . . . but then a deluge sprang from the shower drain, and despite our bucket brigade, we could not lower the tide, and so all our previous labor was worthless . . . we had to admit defeat and carry my mother-in-law's furniture and belongings upstairs; the next day, while we were cleaning up, my back neighbor-- who lives at the bottom of the ivy covered hill behind my house-- motioned me over and very nicely explained that her husband thought that my stone-henge wall project was slightly over the property line and asked if I could move some of the rocks in case "they wanted to build a fence in five years" and though I was extremely pissed off at this, for reasons I will explain shortly-- I remained civil (I knew her husband-- who I've never talked to-- put her up to it) and I never mentioned that I had to tear out our original wood fence because their ivy engulfed and destroyed it, despite my attempts to trim it from our side, and I also didn't mention the countless cases of poison ivy I endured clearing out their weeds and vines and jungle-growth-- for the last six years, without even a "thank you"-- and despite the fact that my stones are clearly on the original fence line, which -- I checked the deed-- was build a bit inside our property line, and despite the fact that the rocks are to: 1) keep the hill from eroding 2) hold my mulch and top-soil in place 3) provide a beautiful border for the row of arbor vitae I've planted-- of which they will get a better view than me-- and 4) these stones will provide some physical buffer that will block the spread of their ivy, a buffer that I can stand on so I can do their yard-work because they have NEVER weeded this ivy bed or trimmed the ivy, despite this all this, and despite the fact that all my mother-in-law's furniture and household goods from the flooded basement were on our porch being dried and cleaned, despite all this, I decided to be diplomatic and roll a few of the giant rocks a up the hill a bit to assuage them . . . though as soon as I find some even bigger boulders, I'm stacking them atop the ones I have so that they slowly slide down and crush their ivy . . . and in truth I'm actually glad for all this pointless labor, because it is mentally preparing me for the endless waves of essays that my students will soon be handing me, from which there will be no respite until next summer.

The Waitresses Do NOT KNow What Boys Like (But I Do)

I wish my boys liked getting lost in a good book on a hot summer afternoon, but that's not the case . . . and The Waitresses have got it all wrong, they don't want to touch (or have anything remotely to do with) girls; I thought my son Ian liked winter, because all summer he kept telling me that he couldn't wait for the cold and the snow, so that we could have a snowball fight . . . but sometimes you don't know what you like until you try it . . . and when I saw my boys try it, then there was no question as to what boys like, and I am certain of this because I learned it empirically, through my powers of interview and observation: BOYS LIKE TO JELLYFISH FIGHT . . . last week at Midway Beach, my boys collected buckets of jellyfish and then hurled them at each other for over an hour, and I've never seen them happier . . . and my six year old son Ian explained why: "Jellyfish fighting is better than snowball fighting because a jellyfish doesn't hurt as much as a snowball when it hits you in the face."

P.S. Bucket of Jellyfish is a good name for a trance-band.

This Is Different Than It Sounds (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That)

The other night at the Park Pub, one of our regular gang tried to explain what was going to happen at the Rutgers Pool on Labor Day Weekend . . . apparently the staff was going to throw a "greased watermelon" into the deep end of the pool and then you could do "some wrestling" for the aforementioned greased watermelon with the "buff lifeguards," and we thought this sounded like a rather odd event to happen at a family pool, but he insisted that not only were their no erotic overtones to the event, but that it was a manly pursuit . . . and now that  I know of what he speaks, I can attest: it is a manly pursuit; the event works like this 

1) prior to the event one of the pool employees coats a watermelon with petroleum jelly 

2) the willing adults and teenagers (no one under thirteen allowed in this melee) are split into two teams 

3) the watermelon is tossed into the deep end 

4) no goggles are to be worn 

5) each team is trying to maneuver the watermelon to their side-- which is indicated before the event begins-- and then raise it above the water and out of the pool 

6) the head life-guard asked us not to be too violent, which proved impossible . . . for the first few minutes I was clueless as to where the watermelon was-- as there were thirty adults treading water and diving for it-- in fact, I dove down once to grab the melon, only to find it was the pool drain-- but then someone near me had the melon and I stripped it from him and turned over, and-- like an otter places a clam shell on his belly-- I balanced the watermelon on my stomach and started kicking for dear life . . . I advanced the melon nearly to the wall and kicked a few friends in the ribs before it slid away from me, but luckily one of the buff lifeguards that was on our team (Team Two, baby!) retrieved it and lifted it over the edge of the pool and spiked it down, breaking the melon and ensuring that we did not have to play another round, which was best for all parties involved . . . so the lesson here is that if a buff lifeguard asks you to wrestle around with a greased watermelon, don't get too excited because it's going to be extremely ugly, not hot and sexy.

Individuals Tending Towards Savagery Is A Great Name For A Punk-Rock Band

 Sentence of Dave has often discussed risk assessment . . .  it's difficult to decide what to worry about in a world where so much unfiltered information is so readily accessible . . . and so I will place you on the horns of another anxiety-filled dilemma: should you worry more about Individuals Tending Towards Savagery, a radical Mexican anti-technology group that praises the writings of Ted Kaczynski and recently bombed two Mexican nano-technology professors at the Monterrey Technological Institute, or should you worry about their prediction: that nanotechnology research will result in the creation of nano-cyborgs, which will be able to self-replicate automatically without the help of humans and eventually form an exponentially increasing "gray-goo" that will smother all life on earth?

How Much Better is 1493 is Than 1491? It's Two Better . . .

Charles Mann's new book 1493: Uncovering The New World Columbus Created is worth the price of admission simply for the chapter on malaria, but my favorite section covers the phenomenon of the quilombo-- a fugitive slave town established in the forests and jungles of South and Central America . . . of the millions of slaves imported to the Americas, countless thousands escaped the horrors of the cane fields and silver mines by vanishing into the jungle to establish communities "protected by steep terrain, thickly packed trees, treacherous rivers, and lethal booby traps" and these settlements-- often built in conjunction with the natives, who were also targeted for slavery-- endured for decades or even centuries (El Salvador's quilombo Liberdade has a population of 600,000 and is said to be the largest Afro- American community in the Western Hemisphere) and Mann's country by country history of these off-the-grid villages, towns and cities, which (to an untrained eye) were often indistinguishable from pristine jungle and which existed in surprisingly close proximity to the white settlements, with the expected consequences: the denizens of the quilombos waged guerrilla warfare, engaged in diplomacy, and traded with the ruling Spanish, Dutch, and Portuguese; the Europeans usually gave up on the fight and negotiated because they were laid low from jungle diseases that the natives and African Americans were immune to . . . and because Charles Mann enlightened me on so many new topics in such a detailed and engaging manner, I am giving this book the highest honor that The Sentence of Dave can bestow: it scores 1493 points out of a possible 1491 and I am replacing Mann's previous book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus with the sequel on my list of 105 Books to Read Before You Die . . . congratulations Charles Mann, I can imagine how proud you are to make The List.

The 9 Billion Sentences of Dave

In Arthur C. Clarke's short story "The Nine Billion Names of God," a group of Tibetan monks-- aided by Western computer programmers-- seek to list every name given to The Almighty, which they believe is the purpose of mankind . . . and monks also believe that once this enormous list is complete that God will bring the universe to an end, and though the programmers are skeptical of the eschatological prediction of the monks and leave just before the listing program finishes-- because they don't want to be around a bunch of disappointed mystics-- as they ride their horses through a mountain pass they notice that "overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out," and though I do not claim any such grand plans for The Sentence of Dave, there are times when I think that if I get the right words in the perfect order that something magical will happen and I will blink out of existence just like the stars in the

Forces of Nature

I recently learned several lessons about the power of nature: 1) the earth will shake when it wants to shake 2) a hurricane can ruin your basement and your vacation . . . 3) you can build a sand castle monolithic enough to survive the incoming tide, but it will never be a match for the destructive force of a cute baby (and if the baby is cute enough, as this one was, then it's impossible to admonish said baby and instead, all you can do is watch the destruction). 

What Does Mandatory Mean?

We were in Sea Isle City when the "mandatory evacuation" for Cape May County was signed by the Governor, but apparently mandatory means different things to different men-- despite the mandatory order to evacuate, we hung out on the beach Friday with a number of other stalwart vacationers, as the weather was beautiful (the weatherman said, "DO NOT BE FOOLED!") and the water wasn't particularly rough . . . I went for a swim and then Alex and I were skim-boarding when a lifeguard in a sand vehicle informed us that there was a mandatory evacuation and the beach was closed . . . but when I asked him if we had to leave the beach, he told us we were free to stay, and then another lifeguard talked to us while we were skim-boarding, and after advising us that there was a mandatory evacuation, he said that surfers were allowed to surf but people weren't allowed to swim (and, of course, I had already deflated my paddle-board) and then the next lifeguard we saw told us we couldn't skim-board and advised us that there was a mandatory evacuation and suggested, because of traffic, that we "stay the day and enjoy the beach," and then he told us we could go into the water ankle deep but that he was "going for a swim because he could," and he hated to bother us except that his boss was right over there, and for the rest of the day we watched the lifeguards cruise up and down the beach, busting people and not busting them for various infractions (Alex skim-boarded a few more times, but then got busted again) and, finally, we packed and "evacuated," which actually felt more like driving home in some traffic than an actual evacuation and I think next time they either need to get some people with bullhorns-- because that's what I imagine when I hear the word "mandatory"-- or else say we "strongly suggest" that you leave town.

Headline: Hurricane Prevents Heart Attacks!

So our communal beach vacation was going to culminate on Friday night in a frenzied bout of much anticipated frying (Michelle brought a deep fryer) and all week suggestions were made about what to deep fry-- Dom called these suggestions "fry-deas"-- and items such as watermelon, frozen Snickers, Oreos, Twinkies, bacon, and maraschino cherries (which are not as toxic as legend suggests) were all slated for the oil, but lucky for our arteries, Hurricane Irene rolled into town and saved us from this orgy of saturated fat.

Next Time . . .

Since I use this blog as a back-up for my rather faulty memory, here are the things I need to remember for the next hurricane 1) get a small generator to power the pump in case the power goes out (lucky for us it didn't) 2) set an alarm so we can check the basement shower stall because a flood, unlike an earthquake, is quiet and easy to sleep through 3) set up the wet-vacuum ahead of time in case my mother-in-law sleeps through the flood and doesn't turn on the pump 4) get some sand-bags 5) buy several more submersible pumps, because one pump is no match for a hurricane 6) forget numbers one through five because it's all futile and no human can withstand the surge . . . all our bailing and pumping was for naught . . . but three pumps will empty the basement 7) do not attempt to build a Stonehenge type monument with giant boulders in the yard the morning before a hurricane strikes because you might have to repeatedly carry a full wet-vac up the basement stairs in the middle of the night and you should save your energy for this (and I think what really did me in was when I wheeled my largest boulder into place and tipped the wheelbarrow, only to see the boulder bounce over the intended spot and roll all the way down the hill into the middle of my neighbor's yard . . . I was so angry that I ran down the hill, picked up the boulder, and sprinted up the hill with it in my arms-- this is a great work-out but not recommended before a hurricane).

Where Were You When You Didn't Feel The Earthquake?

I missed my big chance to feel the earth shake to the tune of 5.8 on the Richter scale because I was in the ocean supervising five children in a melee on an inflatable turtle . . . and when I got out of the water and my wife told me her beach chair shook for ten seconds, I didn't believe her-- because I didn't want to believe that I was gypped out of my big chance to feel a genuine earthquake . . . but at least I got some taste of disaster week: I bailed water all night from my flooded basement.

Didja Know #3 (Brought To You By Charles C. Mann)

Honeybees are from England . . . there were none in America until someone traveling to Jamestown brought some over . . . and before this European plants, vegetables, and trees couldn't thrive, but the European honeybee will pollinate anything, so this "English fly" is what really allowed outside plant species to take off int eh New World . . . and I am sure everyone knows some plant or creature that was part of the Columbian exchange . . . chile peppers and pineapples and sweet potatoes and potatoes and tomatoes and chocolate all came from the New World, and the llamas were quickly replaced by European horses, goats, cows, and pigs . . . the idea of the nomadic Navaho Indian did not exist until the Spanish brought them horses, which made it easy to raid villages on the plains, before that they lived in cities and had to walk.

Didja Know #2 (Brought To You by Charles C. Mann)

Didja know that you can live healthily on potatoes and milk-- the potato provides every nutrient except vitamin A and D-- and so Irish workers often lived solely on potatoes (12 pounds a day) and milk . . . you also might not know (but the Andean Indians do) that if you leave potatoes outside to freeze and thaw repeatedly-- which ruptures the cell walls-- and then squeeze the water out of them and cure them in the sun, that you have produced squishy blobs that when cooked in stew resembles gnocchi.