These days, whenever I read a book, I end up taking a nap (and if I read a book at the end of the day, I take a really long nap and my alarm wakes me up for work).
These days, whenever I read a book, I end up taking a nap (and if I read a book at the end of the day, I take a really long nap and my alarm wakes me up for work).
I finally watched Zombieland last week-- I had been meaning to watch it for years, mainly because it stars East Brunswick alumnus Jesse Eisenberg, who I generally consider to be the poor man's Michael Cera but he's great in this movie, as are Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray; the movie is what happens if The Walking Dead had a baby with Fight Club and then those two movies get divorced and then The Walking Dead gets remarried to Sideways and those two raise the child . . . or something like that, I'll ask my friend Stacey to figure it out (movies having babies is her purview) but anyway, it's funny and entertaining and the whole family loved it: 8 double-taps out of 10 (and apparently there's a sequel on the way).
I finally watched Zombieland last week-- I had been meaning to watch it for years, mainly because it stars East Brunswick alumnus Jesse Eisenberg, who I generally consider to be the poor man's Michael Cera but he's great in this movie, as are Woody Harrelson and Bill Murray; the movie is what happens if The Walking Dead had a baby with Fight Club and then those two movies get divorced and then The Walking Dead gets remarried to Sideways and those two raise the child . . . or something like that, I'll ask my friend Stacey to figure it out (movies having babies is her purview) but anyway, it's funny and entertaining and the whole family loved it: 8 double-taps out of 10 (and apparently there's a sequel on the way).
Yesterday afternoon, I took the dog for a spin around the park adjacent to my house on my new rollerblades and I'm pleased to report that she was very well-behaved-- to celebrate, I stopped back at the dog park for Dog Park Happy Hour . . . while I cannot reveal the name of the park that hosts this Dog Park Happy Hour, for fear that the park rangers might descend upon it, apparently every Friday afternoon (once it gets warm) the dog park crew brings coolers of beer and wine so that they can imbibe while the canines frolic; a retired teacher from Staten Island offered me a Long Trail IPA-- my favorite!-- so I couldn't refuse . . . a few moments later my son Alex called me, asking for a ride home from tennis practice and I told him I couldn't get him for a while, and so he should either start walking or call his mother because someone had given me a beer at the dog park and I hadn't finished it yet; he said: "Dad, they told us in Health Class that you should never accept alcohol from strangers" and I told him that was very good advice (with the exception of Dog Park Happy Hour).
Yesterday afternoon, I took the dog for a spin around the park adjacent to my house on my new rollerblades and I'm pleased to report that she was very well-behaved-- to celebrate, I stopped back at the dog park for Dog Park Happy Hour . . . while I cannot reveal the name of the park that hosts this Dog Park Happy Hour, for fear that the park rangers might descend upon it, apparently every Friday afternoon (once it gets warm) the dog park crew brings coolers of beer and wine so that they can imbibe while the canines frolic; a retired teacher from Staten Island offered me a Long Trail IPA-- my favorite!-- so I couldn't refuse . . . a few moments later my son Alex called me, asking for a ride home from tennis practice and I told him I couldn't get him for a while, and so he should either start walking or call his mother because someone had given me a beer at the dog park and I hadn't finished it yet; he said: "Dad, they told us in Health Class that you should never accept alcohol from strangers" and I told him that was very good advice (with the exception of Dog Park Happy Hour).
While I'll still be writing all my long-form stuff at my new blog, Park the Bus, I think I'm going to resurrect Sentence of Dave for my more mundane (yet still incredibly brilliant) thoughts . . . I figure I owe it to humanity to write down as much stuff as possible before I shuffle off this mortal coil-- so that future generations can use my words live morally, happily, and wisely (especially all my knowledge of Food Safety).
While I'll still be writing all my long-form stuff at my new blog, Park the Bus, I think I'm going to resurrect Sentence of Dave for my more mundane (yet still incredibly brilliant) thoughts . . . I figure I owe it to humanity to write down as much stuff as possible before I shuffle off this mortal coil-- so that future generations can use my words live morally, happily, and wisely (especially all my knowledge of Food Safety).
After I go to the pub on Thursdays and drink beer and laugh with my friends, my habit is to come home, make a snack, and watch Cheers . . . a show where actors pretend to drink beer and laugh with their friends in a pub (and Cheers used to air on Thursday night . . . weird, right?)
After I go to the pub on Thursdays and drink beer and laugh with my friends, my habit is to come home, make a snack, and watch Cheers . . . a show where actors pretend to drink beer and laugh with their friends in a pub (and Cheers used to air on Thursday night . . . weird, right?)
I've been recently appointed the King of Food Safety in my household. This is because I am the only person in the house that knows The Golden Rule of Food Perishability. I have it memorized.
Last Monday we decided to have tacos. But Monday is a very busy night for us. Soccer, tennis, zumba, etc. So two of us had to eat at 5:30 PM and two of us had to eat at 8 PM. This was a food safety dilemma fit for King Solomon. I had to figure out what to do with the meat between the split feedings. Someone not versed in the Golden Rule of Food Safety would have left that stuff out, allowing it to become a Petri dish of multiplying bacteria. But I know better. And I was in charge. I refrigerated the meat and then reheated it for the second mealtime.
Safety first.
I have also been designated as The Biggest Hypocrite in our house, and I have something to report an that front as well. Even though I am the King of Food Safety, I do not subscribe to Divine Hygiene. I recognize that I can make mistakes (and I reflect upon them).
Today, when I got home from school, I conducted a thorough investigation of our dog's "hot spot." Do not be confused. She is not a sexy dog. This is canine terminology for a raw sore that won't heal because of incessant licking. She has one of these "hot spots" on her groin, she licked it raw during the doldrums of the recent rainy days.
Here it is:
Lola's festering sore
My investigation was both visual and tactile, and I am pleased to report that the spot is no longer oozing pus-- or maybe just a slight bit of pus, but it's certainly not festering-- and the sore mainly felt dry to the touch. So it's healing.
I was so pleased with her progress, that I grabbed a celebratory bag of potato chips, sat down in the good chair, put on a podcast, and started chomping away. After I few minutes, I realized I hadn't washed my hands after sticking my fingers in her raw sore. So I got up and washed my hands (though I realized it was too late, far too late).
I do this belated post haste handwashing all the time (and I'm sure my readers do it as well). I replace the ballcock assembly in the toilet, go downstairs, toss the old ballcock in the garbage, see a cookie on the counter, eat the cookie, and then realize I haven't washed my hands. Then I rush to the sink and wash my hands, like the washing can retroactively remove the bacteria from the food, though I've already swallowed it.
This is medieval logic, similar to the belief that if you rub a special ointment on a dagger that has caused a wound, you will heal the wound. I will keep you posted on the consistency of my diarrhea.
The English teachers in my department have been arguing about Game of Thrones minutia all week-- some people aren't happy that Daenerys finally exercises the nuclear option with such cavalier disregard for civilians-- but I think she's just making the best of things. She realizes she has no allies, and decides that inspiring fear is her best course of action. It's the utilitarian ethics of Hiroshima, and while it's horrific (and depicted as so) she does it so that there will be mercy “toward future generations who will never again be held hostage by a tyrant.”
Perhaps Winterfell will be Nagasaki?
And if you don't want to think Realpolitik, then there's also the fact that John Snow wouldn't kiss her . . . hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
All this conspiracy and betrayal and loss has is enough to flip the coin of her madness switch. There's enough of an objective correlative for her to behave the way she does. She is down to her last dragon.
So let's stop arguing about a fantasy saga, and open our eyes to reality. Winter is NOT coming. And Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is making the best of it.
Like Daenerys, he's exercising some rather sketchy utilitarian ethics, but no one in my department is losing their shit over what he said: "“Steady reductions in sea ice are opening new passageways and new opportunities for trade . . . this could potentially slash the time it takes to travel between Asia and the West by as much as 20 days.”
Summer is coming.
And Pompeo is loving it. He made these remarks at a summit of the Arctic Council, which is comprised of eight representative countries bordering this region and several indigenous groups that live there. He was NOT preaching to the choir. There was no alliance. For the first time ever at the Arctic Council, there was no joint declaration. These countries and peoples aren't really interested in the upside of global warming. They're too close to the hot zone.
Pompeo wouldn't mention climate change by name, of course, but his point was: if the climate is changing, then let's make the best of it. Some future generations will live in devastation and epic floods, but others will enjoy economic prosperity. Smooth sailing through ice-free polar seas. It may take something apocalyptic to achieve this, but future generations will get their plastic goods from China even faster.
Daenerys has a better build for the hot weather than Pompeo, but you have to admire the both of them: optimistic and inspired, even in the face existential defeat.
I am certainly a hypocrite. There's no question about that. But I'm still entitled to my thoughts and opinions, even if they contradict my actions. Sometimes a compelling idea outstrips the operating system of the brain that tries to install it. So you get some cognitive dissonance, some contradictory behavior. And it's not unbecoming. It's not annoying. It's inspirational.
I occasionally eat pizza that's been left on the counter overnight. Despite this, I still believe I am an inspirational figure. A figure who has done some reading, checked his sources, and just wants to pass on that information. But it's information no one (especially my wife) wants to hear. She may be able to shut me up on this topic in the house, but she can't stop me from blogging about it.
I can find nothing to contradict this Golden Rule of food safety. Despite this, I am BANNED from discussing this topic in my house. Censored! The Danger Zone!
For the record: it's not a sin, it's not a waste, it's not a criminal offense. If food has been in "the danger zone" for more than two hours-- and the "danger zone" is defined as 40 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit-- then you should toss it. Your food has become a Petri dish of exponential orgiastic bacterial procreation. The bacteria population on this food is doubling every twenty minutes.
No one wants to hear this. Including my wife. Everyone wants to "pack up the sandwiches" that have been sitting out for five hours (slathered in mayonnaise) because it would be "a waste" to throw them away. And no one wants to read (or hear) about exponential bacteria growth. And you can't smell bacteria, even when they're hastily copulating.
Bacteria going at it . . .
Though I know this rule, I admit I'm a bundle of contradictions. I eat food off the floor; I double dip chips; and when I'm at a barbecue, I certainly eat food that's been sitting out too long. But when I do this stuff, I do it with the knowledge that I'm rolling the dice. And I know what the result might be. My wife should know as well. We lived in Syria for three years, where food safety is not a priority, refrigeration is poor, human excrement is used as fertilizer, the water is not particularly potable, and fly-covered meat is often displayed hanging in the window of the store.
Some Syrian meat just hanging out . . .
We suffered every kind of intestinal distress in the book. I got giant intestinal roundworms. We had frequent bouts of diarrhea. But those memories have faded from my wife's mind. I have included some bonus photos of Syrian butchery and meat at the end of this post (they are not for those with a weak stomach) to show you how lucky we are to have such hygienic food in America. I doubt my wife will look at them or take them to heart.
My wife thinks it's strange that I'll scoop out some yogurt into a bowl and then realize I have to feed the dog, so I'll put the yogurt into the fridge for the few minutes that it takes to feed the dog. I don't want the yogurt to to get warm while I'm doing the chore. She thinks I'm insane. I think I just truly appreciate the miracle of refrigeration. In the good old days, people used to die from drinking milk.
The people in the English department are split on this. Some people are grossed out by food that has been left out. Stacey just doesn't care. She'll eat fried chicken that's been sitting on an end table all night (being licked by her dog). Her opinion: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I get it, but I need to do more research on public opinion. I need talk to some of the science and health biology teachers and see what they think.
But like I said, I'm a hypocrite. I'm not afraid of being critical of other people who I think are behaving too obsessively about food safety.
The Illustrative Anecdote
Thursday night, a bunch of us were sitting outside at Pino's, quaffing beer and bourbon, eating gourmet chips ( provided by the Deatz . . . thanks Deatz!) when a woman walked up to the table and offered us fresh baked cookies. They were leftovers from a political function happening inside. You shouldn't take candy from a stranger, but this woman seemed trustworthy.
Everyone grabbed a cookie. And then things got embarrassing. My friends were just bonkers for these cookies. Grown-assed men, giggling over treats. It was weird and sad and silly. Pathetic, really. Especially because when I bit into my cookie, I realized those dark blobs weren't chocolate chips, they were raisins. It was the most deceptive (and disgusting) of cookies: oatmeal raisin. Yuck.
But everyone loved them. I couldn't harsh the buzz. I couldn't criticize the cookies. The guys were writhing in ecstasy while stuffing chunks of raisin-laden oatmeal into their pie-holes.
So I palmed my half-eaten cookie, reached into the gourmet chip bag for a chip, and left it behind. Voila! Now I didn't have to explain why I didn't finish my cookie. It was hidden in the chip bag. The chips were pretty much finished. Everyone's hunger was sated. No one would ever find me out. I didn't have to go on some weird rant about expectations and raisins. I could let the party continue, unimpeded by my grouchiness. Like a child slipping vegetables into his napkin and then surreptitiously tossing the napkin into the garbage, I had-- rather immaturely-- disposed of something I found unappetizing, without causing a scene.
The guys went inside to hear the band, leaving Paul and me at the table. We chatted for a bit, and then Paul reached into the gourmet chip bag for a chip and he pulled out my half-eaten cookie. He was disgusted. Appalled. I had contaminated the entire bag of chips! It was like I put my whole mouth in the bowl!
I mocked him for his squeamishness. We were at the pub! It was men's night! We were drinking and eating! It was my half-eaten cookie, not some random, unknown entity. Me! My mouth germs were fine!
Paul wasn't having it. And while I continued to berate him, I understood his position. Because I am a hypocrite.
Bonus Photos
Proceed at your own risk . . .
Eid al-Adha in Damascus
The next day, the flies came in droves . .
It's hard to find fresh camel head in Jersey
How long can you leave a cooked head at room temperature?
The long and short of this post is that I recorded a new song. Here it is:
And here is the story behind the music . . .
A few weeks ago, I was strumming Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" on my back porch, as is my right as an American citizen. I got to this portion:
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway;
we're the best of friends,
insisting that the world keep turning our way . . .
and our way, is on the road again
Willie Nelson
These lyrics struck me as an incredibly upbeat, romanticized, and optimistic description of the road. What could be more fun than going on tour with Willie Nelson? You'd hang out with his band of gypsies, getting drunk and stoned. You might invent the Willie Nelson joke. Perhaps you'd even get so fucked up that you'd miss a show. No worries. Just be cool to the fans. Normally the road can be a tough place for a touring musician. Rock and pop stars really do die younger than other folks. Willie Nelson (85 years young) is a pickled anomaly.
And so as I was sitting on my back porch, singing about Willie Nelson's yellow-bricked road to good times, I remembered Cormac McCarthy's take on this. His brutal father/son novel The Road. And I wondered if I could combine the two. If I could write a moderately upbeat song about a dystopian journey on a road both real and allegorical, a road symbolic of the difficulty of escape in our technological surveillance society, but with the possibility of outlaw friendship and salvation.
No zany band of gypsies on this road . . .
I knew I wasn't breaking new ground. The road is one of the most common metaphors for life's journey. It's been used variously: Frost's two roads that diverge in a yellow wood. Tom Cochrane's hackneyed "Life is a Highway." Jack Kerouac's rambling adventures of infinite possibility. Steinbeck's more mundane Travels with Charley. And Ray Midge's absurd and existential road trip in The Dog of the South.
I hope my Willie Nelson/Cormac McCarthy-inspired-mash-up twists and turns differently than those roads that have come before, but in the end it doesn't matter. I enjoyed the journey of recording the song (despite the fact my studio is a bit of a mess right now . . . we're preparing for a massive garage sale, but after we clean things out I'm really going to get organized down there).
This is where the magic happens:
Abbey Road it's not . . .
I was also inspired by my buddy John, who just finished recording an entire album. If he could record all that, I figured I could get one song done, despite the mess. Here's one of his Aloha Salvation tunes. His music is in stark contrast to mine (and not just because it's good).
The Road, Again . . . Lyrics
When you run don’t look behind you, We will be hot on your trail.
You can hide but the flies will find you. We have spies in the atmosphere.
And you can cut the ties that bind you, But you can never prepare for the road . . . On the road, you will grow lonely and old.
On the road again, on the road . . . No band of gypsies to help shoulder the load, On the road.
Go rogue, but let me remind you: Our eyes are everywhere.
Parallel the life you once knew Cultivate a dead eyed stare
And you can break the chains that confine you, Annihilate the traits that define you, Eliminate the things that remind you, But you better prepare for the road
On the road, you will abandon your code On the road again, on the road . . . Some kindly soul could take you into the fold on the road.
My family recently watched two coming-of age movies: Jonah Hill's Mid90s and Bo Burnham's Eighth Grade. They both capture the lonely awkwardness of middle school (the former from a female perspective and the latter from a male perspective).
These are tough movies to watch, especially if you've got a genuine awkward middle schooler living in your house, enduring these very particular struggles (and we do). Middle school was a long time ago for me, but these films (and my son) remind me that it's a tough age, odd and half-baked. There's this inchoate desire to want to be something and want to belong to something, before you've become anything. Before you know what that something is.
Eighth Grade begins with a video: Kayla's advice vlog. But it's really self-help. No one is watching. Kayla mainly lives inside her phone. Her forays into the outside world are awkward and ugly. She encounters traditional mean girls, who are more adept at living in the real world-- mainly because they are better looking-- but even the mean girls still shield themselves from the ugly reality of middle school with technology.
Kayla has several unpleasant confrontations with people in meat space: a middle school crush who turns out to be a pervert, a creepy senior boy, and a couple of bitchy girls. She handles all of the situations with as much grace as she can muster, and learns that there's a bigger (and possibly better) world just ahead, in high school (that will have it's own perils and pitfalls, digital and analog).
Ostensibly, Mid90s is the more hardcore movie of the two. It certainly hearkens back to the gritty documentary feel of Larry Clark's Kids.
Eighth Grade begins with Kayla's amateur video . . . because with the advent of the cell phone, amateur video is ubiquitous. Mid90s ends with a video, and it took some time and work to make. This symbolizes the difference between the two worlds.
Fourth Grade-- who aspires to be either a film director or work at the DMV like his dad-- diligently compiles footage for the length of the film. The video takes hard work and complete dedication. Fourth Grade is the only one filming. The rest of the gang lives out their life on the streets, and they live large. There are no cell phones to disappear inside, to buffer reality. They do it all in public: skate, trespass, drink, do drugs, party, evade the police, fight, and bond.
Stevie, the twelve year old at the center of this story, frequently gets beaten up by domineering older brother. Stevie takes some hard hard falls. He gets hurt, he recovers. He gets hurt for real.
Both films are about that protean time when you might be anything, anyone. And which is the better place to experiment and explore (and possibly get hurt). Reality or social media?
Which is worse? Which is better?
Should youngsters develop their identities in digital space, like Kayla does? There are so many scenes in Eighth Grade where she's so terribly alone. Her dad tries to help and understand, but it's like he's talking from another planet. Her emotions are real, but she's in no actual danger. We know she's going to pull through and flourish in high school (but that's not the case for everyone . . . social media has been linked with depression).
Mid90s abounds with real danger. Some of these kids are not going to make it. But they're having a helluva time skating and partying. And some of them are learning lessons. Ray goes straight-edge and decides he is going to make it out. He's got aspirations and has given up on the drinking and slacker nihilism. Fuckshit, not so much. And Stevie is a coin toss. But they're all going to have amazing memories of a wild time when they skated, hung out, partied, and seized life by the balls. And no one remembers anything from the internet.
Maybe I'm making too much of this. Maybe social media is just another teen fad, like skateboarding. The rest of us old people, searching for eternal youth, have appropriated it. Maybe we'll all wake up in a few years from this fever dream of posting and liking and trying to go viral, and think: what the hell was that? And the kids will lead the way out. They'll start doing something else. VR sports. Massive holographic sculptures. Levitation.
Or I could be totally wrong. Maybe social media really is the crucible where future generations will form their identity. And what is the role of adults in these worlds? We know what to do when kids are skateboarding and drinking and doing vandalism. We yell at them, call the cops, run them off. It's easy enough. The kids scatter and go somewhere else to hang out.
But the internet is too big for that.
Maybe when this generation sees the effects of the social media lifestyle-- the vacuous distracting time-suck; the lack of concentration; the depression and loneliness and FOMO; the lack of anything substantive, memorable or insignificant-- they will change. Most of us have learned by now that if the internet was a book, no one would buy it or read it. Case and point: this shitty, half-thought out post. It's self-help, like Kayla's video, but putting it online gets me to think harder. It helps me work through it. But does the rest of the world need to see it? Probably not.
So things might change. People might wake up. I have hope for that. What gives me the most hope?
Crack cocaine.
Crack gives me hope. Or the lack of crack. Because the social media environment of the internet might be like the rise and fall of a heavily abused drug. Which particular drug? It doesn't matter. The podcast The Uncertain Hour has been doing a detailed history of the opioid crisis. They began with an episode about the crack epidemic of the 1980's.
What happened to crack?
One theory is that the reason the abuse of certain drugs rise and fall is that it takes a certain amount of time to see the devastating effects of addiction to that drug. Crack was supposed to destroy our nation, but people saw the effects: crack babies and crack dens and crack addiction, the drug was stigmatized. Crack still exists, but it's not an epidemic, not even on the radar. The same with acid. People saw the effects and most stopped. Hopefully, the same will happen with heroin, fentanyl, and oxy. People will get educated, get woke, and move on.
Could the same thing happen with the internet? Will some future generation collectively shut off the screens, dust off their skateboards, and head out into the world? Recognize the banality and stupidity of flicking through tiny images?
My older son was certainly inspired by Mid90s. But he was already a skateboarder, with his own rig. The film was preaching to the choir. He likes to film himself doing tricks. He rides around without a helmet. He lets our dog pull him while he's on his board. It's totally dangerous and he's going to get hurt. He's already been hit by a car, and he wasn't even on his board. It's scary, so I don't watch. But I still think it's probably better than living inside a phone. The trouble inside a phone is more abstract, but the emotions are real. And stuff posted on the internet can go viral, it can get amplified. And it has the potential to be permanent. A broken arm heals, but you never know on the internet. Some of that stuff never goes away.
Still, I'm not sure where I stand on this. Doing stuff on the internet can be fun and creative and rewarding, just as doing stuff in meat space can be the same. There's potential and danger in both zones. And both zones often bleed into each other.
One of the best takes on this is the Atlanta episode "The Woods." Check it out. If adults struggle to navigate between reality and social media, how are middle schoolers supposed to figure it out?
Analog and binary and the stuff in between. Mainly, we are left with questions.
Which is a safer space for kids? Which one is healthier and more relevant? Which space is better a place for experimentation? A better place to form your identity?
Are these even our questions to ask? Maybe not. The kids will figure out. I hope I'm around to see what evolves, but I know my understanding will be biased. I'm too fucking old to get it.
I had an English department meeting after school on Monday, and so it was my younger son Ian's responsibility to hustle home from school and let our dog out. She's only a year-and-a-half and it's a long day for her. Ian is in middle school (8th Grade) and his school lets out at 2:50 PM. I would be stuck in the meeting until 3:30 PM and then have to drive home
As the meeting was nearing its conclusion, I texted Ian to make sure he had gone straight home and let Lola out to do her business. I received this short video (without any textual explanation) as a reply.
The synopsis: a view of a ladder from above, the camera pulls back to show an open window, and then the camera pans around and there's an ominous shot of an empty room . . . no dog, nothing.
I interpreted this video in the worst possible way. In my mind's eye, Ian came home from school and saw a ladder next to the house. The window above the ladder was open, indicating something nefarious, and when he went inside, he found that the dog was missing, along with all our most valuable possessions.
I called him, frantic.
"Ian, are you okay? Did we get robbed? Is Lola gone?"
"Hey Dad. Everything is fine. I forgot my key and the secret key wasn't out back, so I found a ladder in the backyard, threw it over the fence, and broke in through the bathroom window so I could let Lola out."
"Wow . . . okay, awesome. Great. I'll talk to you when I get home."
EXT: Ladder Below Small Window
When I got home, I commended Ian for his ingenuity, agility and strength. The ladder was wedged alongside our deck and it's heavy. I'm was impressed that he could lift it and toss it over the fence. And he really had to squeeze through that tiny window, headfirst. He said he grabbed the sink and then leaped onto the toilet. It was something only a wiry 13 year old could pull off.
Then I criticized his filmmaking, particularly his shot selection.
"Ian, the end of that movie doesn't indicate that YOU broke in the house. You needed to show the dog . . . or you smiling . . . or something to indicate a happy ending. Not a weird desolate shot of an empty room! That says something bad happened!"
"Dad, I would have called the police if something bad happened."
While I was impressed with Ian's grace under pressure, I was not impressed with his ladder safety. As you can see from the photo below, he did fully extend nor did he lock the ladder's spreaders. The American Ladder Institute would not approve.
Yikes
I hope this won't happen again. We put a key back into the secret location in the yard (which I obviously can't reveal here on the internet . . . though if anyone tried to break into our house, Lola would definitely lick them to death) and I'm going to be especially didactic about shot sequences and visual resolutions the next time Ian and and I watch a movie.
