That Was Only Monday?

Full on Monday today . . . as a model narrative, I told a story in Public Speaking I haven't recounted in a while-- the time Catherine and I took a bus from Damascus, Syria to Cappadocia, Turkey-- a twenty-hour ride for only seven dollars?- but the bus broke down at the border and the driver escorted us (and the dozen or so other passengers) to a decrepit mosquito-ridden gas station waiting room and then some other guy drove the bus into the darkness behind the building-- it was 3:30 AM-- and it was quite cold in the gas station waiting room so I told the driver my wife and I were cold (in my caveman Arabic) and that I wanted to get our jackets and he said the bus was broken and I couldn't do that but I finally got fed up and walked into the darkness around the back of the building and I found our bus and there were some guys inserting tubes into various hidden plastic containers in every nook and cranny of the bus-- even under the walkways inside the bus-- and then I realized why the tickets were so cheap-- this bus wasn't for transporting people, it was for smuggling gasoline over the border-- gas was subsidized and cheap in Syria and more expensive in Turkey, so after the guys had filled all the containers and canisters with gas, the bus was "fixed" and we headed to Goreme National Park-- but the bus dropped off on the main highway road sixty miles short of our destination-- the driver said a minibus would come along eventually, but instead Catherine stuck her thumb out and a truck driver picked us up and brought us all the way to our destination-- definitely one of the most scenic places we ever visited-- houses and Byzantine churches carved in the soft stone and labyrinthine underground cities to explore. . . and I told this story because I have some Middle Eastern kid in my first period class and I thought they'd enjoy it-- which they did-- but they informed me that, coincidentally, last night there was a terribly powerful earthquake right at the border of Syria and Turkey, right where our bus stopped-- so that was weird-- and then I covered PE class second period-- and I had what I now call "jailhouse" PE . . . first the kids walk in a circle and then I covered a split class of ping-pong and weight-lifting, so three premier jailhouse activities-- then another Public Speaking class, then down to the Library . . . excuse me, Media Center . . . for peer-editing, then an endless faculty meeting with an extensive presentation on the dangers of substance abuse . . . and wow, according to this lady, kids are really abusing all sorts of substances: THC, Delta 8, edibles, nicotine vapes, fentanyl, etcetera . . . drugs are easier than ever to get, hide, ingest, and abuse and she had all kinds of horror stories from the local emergency rooms-- but apparently vaping is horrible for you, vaping ANYTHING . . . heavy metals, weird particles, deeper lung penetration, unregulated chemicals and dosages-- scary stuff-- and kids are eating huge doses of edibles (or even dosing their classmates) and exhibiting some nutty behaviors . . . but perhaps we'll sort all this out on Tuesday.

Good (Dog Defecation) Deed

Today at the dog park, when this older guy's dog Max pooped in the far corner, I went and picked it up and disposed of it-- and I didn't even mention this to the dog's owner, a nice older gent named George, so this was a true altruistic act, a true good deed for which I received no credit . . . so it is now likely that upon my deathbed, I will receive total consciousness (or some such comparable benediction).

Uh . . . Wow . . . TV?

The third episode of The Last of Us-- the HBO show based on the video game with the same name-- is some very ambitious, very emotional, very amazing TV . . . the episode is really a film unto itself (it reminds me of the Station 11 episode Baby Boom in that respect) when the show takes a worthy detour in time and place to show us Nick Offerman as a survivalist prepper bizarro-world version of his most beloved character, Ron Swanson, with a compelling twist (the other fabulous cameo appearance is Murray Bartlett, another great actor who absolutely stole the show as Armand in White Lotus).

How to Get a Seat at Salt

After many fruitless attempts, my wife and I finally got a seat at Salt during happy hour; Salt is an upscale seafood joint in New Brunswick with a small bar and an excellent (but very short) happy hour: it only runs from 3 PM - 5PM . . . perhaps we were able to get a seat because it was bitterly cold and windy-- we barely made it across the bridge with getting frostbite-- but it was worth it, delicious oysters and tuna and rock shrimp and fish tacos . . . and they make some excellent drinks, as well. 

Dave Educates the Youth?

We had our first "Show and Tell" session with the new Creative Writing kids today-- they read something from the world that they find interesting and things took an odd turn in pop music history; the first student read the bit from American Psycho where Bateman chats about Huey Lewis and the News (and then murders Allen with an axe) and the second student read some lyrics from a Pantera song . . . none of the other students knew either of these bands, of course, so I had to "educate" them-- we took a gander at Huey Lewis's feathered hair in the "Power of Love" video and I showed what the next level of metal looked like in the 1990s . . . "Cowboys from Hell" . . . anyway, a weird and wild start to this Show and Tell session-- what will this wacky kids bring in next week?

Groundhog Day (on Groundhog Day)

It's mid-year . . . mid-terms are over and it's back to the repetitive grind; I did "first day of school stuff" in my three semester classes: learned a bunch of names, went over the rules-- no cell phones!-- and did all the icebreakers and such; covered several classes, including a couple of PE classes (one class was abysmal at ping-pong, leading me to lecture my College Writing classes about the sports they need to learn how to play before they go away to college: darts, pool, ping-pong, corn-hole, volleyball, and spike ball) and generally felt like we are on infinite repeat . . . no snow days, no breaks in sight . . . but soon enough we'll be over the hump (and it is getting sunnier in the mornings).

It's February!

Get busy, pack it in and compress yourself-- it's February, you sons of bitches, and you've only got 28 days to get it done this month . . . unless it's a leap year, is it a leap year?-- then you get an extra day and things aren't so dire.

Less Cheese Please

We stopped buying bags of pre-grate cheese (mainly because they have weird chemical additives to prevent clumping) and this had two good outcomes:

1. we eat less cheese;

2. when we grate a block of cheese by hand, the cheese tastes better.

Riley Sager, You Give Genre Fiction a Bad Name

 

Wow . . . this new Riley Sager book The House Across the Lake is a hot mess . . . but it certainly inspired me to think about the rules of genre fiction and lent itself to an episode with many special guests: Bart and Lisa Simpson, Marty and Rust, Steve Martin, God, Alec Baldwin . . . so my advice is DO NOT read this book, listen to my podcast instead: "Riley Sager, You Gives Genre Fiction a Bad Name."

Highs and Lows

I was quite pleased with myself (for a few minutes) at indoor soccer this morning-- the first two games were zero-zero ties (no wonder Americans don't watch soccer) but in the third game, I scored two goals to give our team a definitive win . . . and the winning team stays on; in the next game I was trying to send a ball up the line, and I was near where we stash some of the stray gym equipment-- so after I kicked the ball, my foot connected with a protruding wheel on a volleyball net base-- OUCH!-- the sound resounded throughout the gym and I really nailed my big toe (and ripped my sneaker!) and then I was not so pleased with myself, although I was able to play a few more games (after I shook it off) and now my foot and toe hurt . . . stupid wheel.

Sarcastic Tone Implied

I'm not very good at sarcasm-- I don't have the voice for it-- so I've got to broadcast it . . . here it comes: you know what's fun after teaching English to high school students all week . . . helping your son on Saturday with all the AP English assignments he neglected to complete while he had COVID.

AM Record

An EB AM record . . . nineteen people at Friday morning basketball today-- pretty wild, we had an upstairs game and a sub-gym game-- and the winner of the sub-gym game (after 11 minutes of play) walked up the stairs and played the winner of the upper gym game . . . and it only took three games for my shot to warm up, but when it did . . . it was pretty spectacular (for 7:15 AM in the morning).

Two Profound Questions

Here they are:

1. Why is it so hard for me to get a pair of socks on without ripping them?

2. Why have I gotten so into listening to The Brian Jonestown Massacre lately?

Dave is Not a Doctor

I'm not a medical doctor (though I often play one in my home, when I'm diagnosing my children and telling them various remedies: try the NetiPot, take some ibuprofen, you need to ice that, go take a shower, take some Tums, etcetera) and I learned yesterday that sometimes it's beneficial to go see an actual medical doctor because they know a bunch of stuff and you don't end up down a WebMD rabbit hole; anyway, my son Ian has been experiencing some gastrointestinal distress and he had to stay home from school yesterday so he could be near a bathroom, and this is the second time this has happened recently, so I took him over to our pediatric doctor and we told her the deets-- he had COVID two weeks ago and lately he's been having stomach pains and diarrhea and she asked if he had been drinking sugary drinks and the answer was a resounding yes-- Ian works at the local bubble tea place so he has access to free delicious sugary drinks all the time-- and he had three Tuesday during his shift, and a bunch of lychee fruit-- and she said that after COVID or any viral infection, your GI is screwed up and can't handle sugary juice or drinks, and it gives you the runs, and then she asked if he had any dairy-- cheese, milk, etc-- and the answer was yes and she told us that after COVID people are generally lactose intolerant for a week or two, while certain bacteria is returning to their GI tract, so mystery solved and now we know the culprit and what to do to remedy his discomfort . . . that young lady really knew her stuff!

Why I Don't Own a Gun

When I play pickleball, I get great joy from hitting my opponent square in the chest with the ball-- if they pop up a "dink," this is perfectly acceptable behavior (when you're playing with guys) and when I play badminton, if someone doesn't hit their shot deep enough, and they are near the net, I take great pleasure (as do the rest of the players in my badminton crew) in nailing the person in the head, chest or stomach with the shuttlecock-- last week, I even took aim at someone who had just dove and was on the ground-- I hit a man while he was down!-- and though I behave like this while competiting, I consider myself fairly civilized . . . but if you take this basic human (male?) desire to hit other people with fast moving things and then you toss 400 million guns into the mix, something bad is going to happen on a daily basis . . . and it does, day after day in America-- and this is why I don't own a gun!

Let's Play Duck Duck Oil Sands

 

Kate Beaton's graphic memoir Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is heavy viscous stuff . . . I get into it in my new episode of We Defy Augury-- the gist is that if you reverse the male fantasy of being stranded with a large group of bored and sex-starved women, if you reverse that ratio and make it fifty men to every woman, it becomes Kate Beaton's nightmare.

Where Art Thou, Snow Day? Wherefore, No Snow?

Another gray, kind-of-mild winter day . . . where is the snow? 

Moral: Eat at La Casita!

Yesterday at early morning basketball, we had sixteen players so we had to run a pair of four-on-four games across the gym-- while this was fun and very tiring, it was also dangerous, as when you run games this way there is very little space between the end line and the bleachers-- and one row of bleacher seats were protruding s when I barreled in for my patented hook shot, which involves a fair amount of contact-- think bowling ball and bowling pins-- after I made the shot my momentum carried my into the bleachers, where the one protruding row took me out at the knees and I scraped my elbow against the recessed bleacher wall-- but, aside from a scraped arm, I was fine . . . although by the time the school day was over, I was looking forward to a mellow evening-- the wife and I went to La Casita and drank a few beers and ate mole and sopes and a gordita-- and we had the place to ourselves, which was nice but kind of sad-- if you live in town, PLEASE support this place . . . it has great food and it's cheap (which is very unusual for food these days!) and it would be a great loss if it closed.

Real Night Court Takes Longer Than 22 Minutes

I hope my son learned his lesson yesterday at night court-- my lawyer buddy Jay got his violations knocked down to two points (and a stern lecture from the prosecutor) but it was still a long, rainy, costly evening . . . and we saw what COULD happen-- the kid in front of us got his moving violation knocked down to two points as well, but he was doing 60 in a 25 so he lost his license for ten days (and you have to go BACK to the DMV and get a new license, a punishment in itself) and that youngster gave Alex a lecture as well and said that Alex should be thankful that he has a supportive father who accompanied him to court, because his dad -- a truck driver-- was so pissed at him that he didn't want anything to do with the matter; anyway, I hope he slows down, I hope our insurance doesn't go up too much, and I hope Ian learns his lesson (by proxy) as well.

The Joys of Fatherhood

It would be a perfect Thursday afternoon to relax, take a nap, perhaps have a beer or two and avoid the ugly weather, but instead, I'll be accompanying my son and a lawyer friend on an excursion to Woodbridge Municipal Court to take care of my son's (three) moving violations-- because, in the parenting domain, while grades and school and medical stuff seem to be my wife's purview, illegal activities are my jurisdiction.