So the other day I watched my son Alex mule kick his younger brother in the privates, and when I made the mistake of trying to get the bottom of the incident, this is what I learned: Alex claimed he was retaliating because Ian punched him in the face and Ian said he punched Alex in the face because Alex said he was "never going to be friends with him again" and Alex explained that he said this to his younger brother because he-- Alex-- had put a Lego set on his Christmas list and then Ian copied him and put the same set on his Christmas list and Alex told him to erase it because there was no way that they were going to get two of the same Lego set and that he had claimed it first but Ian refused to erase the Lego set from his list and so that exchange caused the chain reaction which resulted in all the hitting and mule-kicking and I would love-- just once-- to give my kids nothing but coal on Christmas, so that they think there is some credibility to this whole "naughty and nice" list . . . because it's obvious that no one is checking this thing "twice" for accuracy.
Grammar Lessons and Musical Confessions
Looks Can Be Deceiving . . . Or Can They?
Several weeks ago we had an unseasonably warm day and so I took my stand-up paddleboard (or SUP, to you paddleboard aficianados) out on the Raritan River for a final trip before I deflated it for winter storage-- and I assumed the water would look the same as it does from the banks-- brown and murky-- but once I got out there, it was more shallow than I imagined, and I could clearly see the stones on the bottom; this was a pleasant surprise, because my friend Connell was sure that I'd get a case of giardia or worse from tooling around on the Raritan, but, aside from a piece of garbage here and there, the water appeared quite clean . . . but my reverie was ruined when I ran into a dead seagull, rotting and bloated, and then a flock of twenty seagulls took off, and once they took flight, they crapped en masse, and their crap landed on the water and spread in an oily slick, which lapped against dead and rotting seagull, and that is the image I carried with me for the rest of my trip.
An Almost Awkward Moment of Dave
Regular readers may be familiar with the many Awkward Moments of Dave . . . and fans of this recurring feature will appreciate how this incident was almost The MOST Awkward Moment of Dave: before I went running on my free period at work on Monday, I changed my clothes in the women's staff bathroom-- which is next door to the men's staff bathroom and has a similar layout, a square room with a sink and a toilet, but no stall or other feature . . . and both these bathrooms open right into "B-Hall," a busy thoroughfare with many classrooms-- and the reason I use the women's bathroom is because there is furniture: a chair and a bureau-- and so while I am changing, I can put my clothes and belongings on the furniture instead of the urine soaked floor of the men's bathroom; it was cold Monday, and so I decided to wear spandex and while I was slipping out of my boxers, I was simultaneously fooling with my iPod and my underwear tangled around my ankles as I tried to flick it off with my foot and I fell, and because my hands were occupied, I fell hard and nearly hit my head on the toilet-- I was just able to break my fall with my left hand-- but if I didn't, and I knocked myself out, then the discovery would have been horrendously embarrassing, especially if it was between classes . . . a half-naked male teacher lying unconscious in the women's bathroom, with a pair of '90's style headphones tangled around his head . . . I was inches from infamy.
Costco: Highs and Lows
I went to Costco yesterday to stock up on booze and produce and it was a roller-coaster ride . . . at first it was all highs, they had Menage a Trois wine for 8.79 a bottle-- five dollars cheaper than at our local store-- and then-- even better!-- they had cases of Guinness for 28 dollars a case . . . and they hadn't stocked Guinness for months and months . . .but I did not realize that stacking those two cases of Guinness in the undercarriage of my super-sized cart would be the apex of my bulk-shopping happiness, I was cranked up as high as I could go . . . my plummet began when I couldn't get around some very old and very slow Asian ladies, and when I finally spotted some open space and was able to race by them, I got swept up in a giant crowd of people and found myself in the check-out line though I hadn't finished shopping-- but what could I do?-- so I waited and paid, and then while I was packing my goods into the provided boxes-- which, I should add, were all missing a side-- I launched a gigantic Costco sized bottle of balsamic vinegar over the top of my cart and onto the concrete floor, where it shattered, forming a large, amorphous, blood-colored pool . . . and though I wanted to slink away from the mess I had just made, one of the employees was "nice" enough to send a doddering old man for another bottle of vinegar, so I had to wait next to the giant mess I created-- in shame-- while the antediluvian errand boy waded through the maelstrom of shoppers and fetched a replacement bottle for me, and the store started to smell like a salad and everyone who passed me had to take a guess at what I spilled, and so I had to endure comments like "Soy sauce?" and "Is that wine? Should we get straws?" but, of course, I deserved these remarks-- that is how I paid for the extra bottle of vinegar-- and next time I will forgo the treacherously incomplete boxes and bring bags from home.
A Word To The Wise About A Word
This sentence is about a word that I learned you should NOT to call your wife on a Friday afternoon . . . to explain: my vocabulary lesson began Friday third period, when Eric recommended the movie Super 8 to me-- explaining that it was in adventure in the spirit of The Goonies-- and so I asked him if it was okay for my kids to watch (they are 6 and 7 years old) and he said, "Absolutely," and though he has no kids, he does have a baby on the way, and he once was a kid . . . so I trusted his review and went to the local Redbox and got a Blu-ray copy and proceeded to get my children all amped up for movie night-- a movie that not only would they enjoy, but that mommy and daddy would enjoy as well! and we would order food! and watch the whole thing!-- and then my wife came home and I told her my awesome plan-- to order some food and watch this movie that the entire family would not merely tolerate, but actually enjoy, and she said, "Super 8? I don't think that's for our kids . . . I think that's too scary for them," and Alex, Ian, and I claimed it was NOT too scary and that Eric had recommended it, and when my wife pointed out that Eric didn't have kids, we ignored her logic, and then my wife-- who was already feeling a bit sensitive as a parent because that afternoon my mom and some other teachers gave her a guilt trip about our kids not believing wholeheartedly in the whole Santa myth-- looked up Super 8 on the internet and found some reviews that said the film was a bit scary and inappropriate for young children (perhaps that's why it's rated PG-13) but I found a review by Roger Ebert that said it's like The Goonies and then I called my wife a word that I should not have called her . . . I called her a "buzzkill," which she did not take kindly . . . but because we (meaning all the boys) were adamant that the movie was going to be great, we sat down together and watched it . . . and it really is an excellent film, but it is also mildly inappropriate for young kids: there's an F-bomb (Alex turned to Ian and said, "That was the F-word") and there's some drug use and some major violence and suspense and a fair bit of cursing-- all of which Eric remembered when he was reminded about it, but skipped his mind when he offered his endorsement-- and due to this content, Alex claimed it was "the greatest movie ever" and Ian concurred-- though he hid under the blankets during one scene . . . and every time there was an inappropriate part I had to suffer the withering stare of my wife and her sarcastic, "So I'm a buzzkill?" refrain . . . and though I've banned the use of sarcasm in the house, I let it slide this time because I certainly deserved it.
Something For The Moral Relativists
In his new book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker traces the decline of human sacrifice, and suttee in particular (the now illegal practice of a Hindu widow "willingly" cremating herself on her dead husband's funeral pyre ) and this was British Commander Charles Napier's brilliant retort to this custom: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows . . . very well . . . we also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them . . . build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows . . . you may follow your custom, and then we will follow ours."
The Causal Pathways of Johnny Cash
I am slogging my way through Steven Pinker's new and very thick book called The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined and it's worth the slogging; for example, after a densely statistical section on the civilizing influence of women in the Wild West, Pinker sums up with this bon mot: "When they held constant all the factors that typically push men into marriage, they found that actually getting married made a man less likely to commit crimes immediately thereafter . . . the causal pathway has been pithily explained by Johnny Cash: Because you're mine, I walk the line."
Well Duh . . .
So this is annoying: for a week, I didn't drink beer and ate only healthy food, and I felt great . . . I had lots of energy, didn't have any flatulence, slept well, woke up early, started recording music again, had more patience with my kids, more energy in the classroom, and lost some weight . . . but I'm thinking it's just a fluke and doesn't indicate anything at all, so I'm going to return to my normal eating and drinking habits.
Long Live Dave's Butt
In a Feature That You Hope Will Never Recur, I take a long and hard look at my buttocks: once upon a time I was strong enough to "press the stack" on many universal weight machines in the gym, but those days are gone; now the only complete stack I can press with ease and for multiple repetitions is on the glute machine . . . my butt is the last castle standing in a once great kingdom.
My Son Thinks He Is A Hedgehog
It's impossible to remember what it's like to be a kid . . . your body lives in a world of a different scale and your brain, though ignorant of much of the world, is flexible and free; case in point, last week I was watching my kids play tag, and my youngest son Ian, who is six, was running along, just behind a pack of kids, and without breaking stride, he flung himself into a forward roll and then-- in one motion, reminiscent of Sonic the Hedgehog-- he popped out of the roll and continued running along . . . and now this has become his signature move while running-- his bit of flair-- but when he was teaching his brother Alex (who is only a year older) how to do the move, Alex looked like he was going to break his neck-- and so I gently told him that he might need to practice on a mat in gym class before doing it like Ian at full bore, and Alex, surprisingly, agreed . . . and he rarely agrees with anything-- but even he realized that he was getting older and not quite as indestructibly creative as his younger brother.
Wisdom About Carrying Groceries
As I've gotten older, I have learned that it is usually best to take two trips.
Like Caddyshack, Except With Children
Parents: you might not have time to read this really long, excellent article on raising kids (All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting) because you are probably busy carting your kids to soccer or to the doctor, or changing over winter clothes or a dirty diaper, or washing out bottles or dirty ears, and so I will summarize the thesis for you: you might not be happy about raising children until you are on your death-bed, but until then it's up in the air . . . and this reminds me of what Carl the Groundskeeper reveals about his golf match with the Dalai Lama in Caddyshack . . . the Lama attempts to "stiff him" on their bet but Carl stands up to him and demands some kind of reward for his victory: "Hey Lama . . . how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know and he says, 'Oh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your death bed, you will receive total consciousness,' so I got that going for me, which is nice," so-- all you parents out there-- we've got that going for us, which is nice.
Ring the Bells, Ring the Bells . . .
Let is be known that on the eleventh day of the twelfth month of the eleventh year of the Third Millenium Anno Domini (that's right, it is the third Millenium) I scored 101 points on the Thirty Second Blitz mode of Tiger's super-awesome game Bulls-Eye Ball (and my wife and kids thought this to be a super-excellent score, but they need to check out the dude in the video . . . he uses both hands!)
Natural Beauty At Hacklebarney
Last Sunday was absolutely beautiful-- as sunny and warm as a December day could be-- and so Catherine and I took the to Hacklebarney State Park for a hike, and on the way down the ravine we took the low road, clambering over rocks so we could get near all the tumbling waterfalls and when we popped our heads over the crest of a large boulder we saw something unexpected: a girl in a skimpy blue bikini at the base of the falls (pictured above) and I immediately thought: Polar Plunge! but then we noticed a guy with a camera and another guy with a tripod and I thought: Hot Model in a Photo Shoot! but upon closer inspection the "model," sported a couple of ugly tattoos above her flat and rather untoned posterior, and though she was buxom, she also had a protuberant beer belly . . . not that she was hideous or anything . . . but when you see someone doing a bikini photo-shoot in December, you expect her to be a professional; so the question is, why were they taking these photos and how will they be utilized?
Poison Ivy, Jesus, and Leprosy
I'm not a regular church-goer (or even an irregular church-goer) but in preparation for Christmas I do break out our children's Bible and read it to my kids at bed-time, and we were just getting to the verse where Jesus heals the leper when I thought of a way to make this a bit more real for them, so I pointed out that my wife's horrible case of poison ivy was similar to leprosy (perhaps leprosy-lite?) and that it would be nice if Jesus was around to lay hands on mommy and heal her suppurating wounds and then I read them the story and their reactions were ridiculously close to my own thoughts and certainly show that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree: Ian said, "That's not real, that's fake, that couldn't happen," and I told him that we can't be sure because the story is very old . . . but it does seem rather unlikely, and then Alex-- who has never heard me utter these words-- said, "I don't really like stories about crazy diseases because then when I go to bed I start thinking about them and how I might have them," which is exactly how I feel about such stories and the reason I don't read books about medicine . . . but I told him that he doesn't really have to worry about leprosy these days and that poison ivy is a far more pressing matter.
Let's Get Our National Priorities Straight
Once again, my wife has contracted a serious case of poison ivy and I am wondering what the hell our government is doing about this stuff-- which grows everywhere in New Jersey and inspires far more terror in me than any other threat I can think of . . . I can't walk in the woods without feeling paranoid that I'm going to get it, and shouldn't our great nation-- which is determined to fight the good fight against terrorism-- be working hard on a cure or inoculation or something for this incredibly toxic urushiol oil, which is so potent that it only takes a quarter ounce to give everyone on earth a rash (according to this, it only takes one nanogram to give some people the rash, and it is the most common allergy in the country) so let's take this stuff seriously and either try to eradicate it, cure it, or weaponize it . . . who is with me?
Where's Johnny?
Catherine's 40th Birthday Bar Crawl went wonderfully . . . and though we only crawled to three bars (Doll's Place, The Golden Rail, and The Corner Tavern) a good time was had by all-- plenty of conversation, beer, darts, pool, and fake mustaches and some first-timers got to experience the Rutgers Grease Trucks (who knew you could order a BLT?) and the only hitch in the evening was when we realized we had lost Johnny G. somewhere between eating grease-truck sandwiches and walking past the train station-- we assumed Johnny was with Marls and Sarah, trying to catch the last train . . . but when they came down from the platform there was no Johnny-- but after a cryptic text to Whitney, he was able to flag a cab down and beat us home-- and Whitney and Jenny had already broken into our house because they couldn't muster the energy to make the walk back and had also flagged down a cab . . . perhaps I will organize a bar crawl with more peregrinations for my 42nd Birthday, which is coming up in March: just enough time for me to recover this crawl.
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