I Really Couldn't Argue with Allie

Breakfast

I was sitting on the sofa when Julia walked up to me and handed me a Cheerio. I popped the Cheerio in my mouth and while I chewed I said, "Thanks, Sweetie."

"I poisoned it."

Subconscious or not. . .

Allie and I went for a long walk after dinner. Instead of the usual exploration of our neighborhood we made our way toward Main St. The street was blocked by squad cars. As pedestrians, we were allowed through to watch the fire department take care of a fairly nasty car fire. No ambulances (thank goodness). Just a smoldering black hunk of late-model something or other.

As soon as the car fire was behind us we talked about a book on medical mysteries that Allie is reading. She would tell me about one of the diseases in the book and I would come back with whatever gross medical problem I knew something about. The more we talked, the more Allie wanted to hear. This meant each disease had to be more gruesome than the last. After Ebola I wasn't sure where to go so I wound up describing syphilis to my ten year-old.

She asked how syphilis is spread after I began describing how the disease could lead to lesions that would sometimes cause peoples' noses to rot off. The timing of the question was coincidental in that, as of today, Allie is learning about human sexuality in health class. So when I told her that syphilis is sexually transmitted she had all the information she needed.

As I type this I'm really not sure if my subconscious response to Allie's health class was to plant the notion that the consequences of sex can sometimes lead to your nose falling off.

Subconscious or not - I'm pretty sure it was the right thing to do.

You see, there was this dog. . .

I was filling up the car when I noticed the van next to me had a dog sitting in the driver's seat. This dog looked like the dog I have in my head when I think about what kind of dog I'd like to have as a pet.

I barked at the dog and it came over to the passenger seat to check me out. I waved. I made faces. I marched around. The dog was more interested in whether or not its owner was coming out of the convenience store than it was in me. This made me try harder. All the way to the point where I was sitting in my car gesticulating wildly to try and make this dog love me.

I'm not sure why I hit the brake as I pulled away from the dog in the van. I'm going to say Jesus told me to stop because I hadn't removed the pump nozzle from the car. Half a second more and I would have ripped the hose from the pump and gas would have spewed everywhere. With my luck it would have ignited, blowing up everything that surrounded my car and the cool dog in the van.

Following my close call I thought about how I would have explained the lost lives and thousands of dollars in property damage I might have caused to Deb. 

You see, there was this dog. . .

One of the Many Reasons

Riding home this evening we were talking about new kids at Allie and Julia's school. One of the new kids in Julia's class is named Brook. We asked Julia if she knew what a brook might be (aside from a first grader who's new in town). We told her that a brook can also be a small stream like a creek or a tiny river.

"No. That's not what a brook is. It's one of those things," she said.

After we made a couple of weak attempts to convince her that we weren't lying she said, "A brook is what they use to make buildings."

"Um, that's a brick."

"That's what her name is - Brook."

"But you said, brick; not brook."

"I said brook, like what they use in buildings."

"A brick."

"Yeah. A brook."

This could have gone on for the entire ride home but instead Julia told us about the abalien kid at school. "He's teaching us to speak abalien," she told us.

We asked her if she meant Albanian. She said, "Yeah, abalien. He's really poor. He said that he only has a hay ball to play with."

For some reason hay ball meant I had reached some kind of tipping point and started laughing until I couldn't breathe. When this happens it's not really laughing it's just some kind of gurgling sound I make as I try to catch my breath. This time my hysterical gurgling really pissed off Julia.

"Stop laughing! It's not funny! Don't laugh at my friend!"

"I'm laughing at you, Julia"

"Stop laughing at me!"

Julia sucked all the funny out of the moment. I sat there, sullen because I'd been scolded by my six year-old. Like she knows it's not polite to laugh at little kids who only have balls of hay for toys. She doesn't know the difference between a damn brook and a brick. She's telling me I shouldn't be laughing at this poor boy's toy?

Yes. I felt guilty. That said I've stopped typing this post twice to cover my mouth so I won't laugh at thoughts of the little abalien boy unwrapping the new hay ball he got for Christmas.

This is one of the many reasons why people tell me I am a bad person.

Technical Difficulties

If you poke around this site over the next few weeks you may find a number of broken links and missing content. I'll do my best to try to restore the site but the fact is I don't spend a lot of time here anymore.

Don't get me wrong - I'm no Dwayne. I'll still post from time-to-time and much of the missing media (particularly videos) will probably pop-up on Flickr and YouTube. I'm just not too keen on spending time trying to reconnect all the wires that are about to be severed.

If for some strange reason you can't get to something you access here on a regular basis (motorcycle oil changes, the post on Esteban's fingernails and the tornado video seem to get a lot of action) let me know and I'll send it to you. That said I'm supremely confident I won't be hearing from any of you regarding lost content. I just thought, for some reason, I should offer.

I'll be sure to post again soon so this message doesn't read like a farewell.

I'm not going anywhere. . .

Cold, Dead Hands Touching My Feet

Allie came downstairs with a book in her hand. "I can't sleep because this book scares me," she said. I gave her a slow blink and asked her to show me the passage that freaked her out. Once she found it I read it aloud to demonstrate how silly she was being.

The part of the book that panicked Allie featured a girl who watched a scary movie about a disembodied zombie hand. The girl in the book (also named Allie) was worried the zombie hand was in her attic.

I told Allie (not the one from the book) she was being ridiculous and that there wasn't anything in her book that should scare a girl her age. She gave me a second kiss goodnight and went back upstairs to try and fall asleep.

Suffices to say I'm completely freaked out and I'm certain dozens of zombie hands are gathering under my bed as I write this. They're going to grab my feet before I can leap into bed. I'll jump, the bed will jiggle and Deb will ask, "What's your problem?"

I won't answer.

Allie's Stop Motion Theater

We've been sick - too much time locked up in the house. This is what we do to keep us from torturing the cats (and each other).

It's Time for Lunch with Julia & Allie

Julia was watching Julia Child on TV and said she wanted to do a cooking show. After that I just set up the camera and they did the rest.

Boo

This year 278 visitors came to our doorstep begging for candy. We ran out of treats this year and had to shut down 30 minutes early.

P.S. Claudette, you can find the message you erased from your voicemail here.

She Wasn't There This Morning

Once, maybe twice a week I see her watching me fill up my car. From the second story of her apartment building she sits in her brass-backed chair and watches everyone as they pump gas. I always look for her and I try to make eye contact with the woman. I never wave because I’m never sure she’s actually looking right at me. Although, it always feels as if this very old woman is ignoring everyone else while I’m there. She sees me scrub the bugs off my windshield. She watches as I try to convince the pump to dispense precisely 12 gallons of gas into my tank. She knows when I’m bad and duck inside the store for a doughnut and a chocolate milk.

On the mornings when she’s not in the window I worry about her. On Mondays, I think she has died and it makes me terribly sad. On Wednesdays I think she’s sick and too weak to sit up on her own. If it’s Friday or the weekend I think she’s sleeping in because she’s too old and too tired to bother watching. Regardless of the day, I never like it when I see the shiny brass back of her chair. I want her up there, in the window, prepared to call the cops if I get mugged or an ambulance if I spill gasoline on my pants and catch fire. I want her up there so I know she’s okay.

She wasn’t there this morning.

It’s Monday, so I’m pretty sure she’s dead.

UPDATE: Two people have asked if I've seen the old woman lately. Yes. The last time I filled-up she was sitting in the window and it appeared as if she had pen and paper. It might have been a crossword or maybe it was something more like, Dear Diary - The pudgy guy is getting gas again across the street. He is staring at me again. . .

East Si-Eeed!

Deciphering the skill hierarchy of recreational badminton is simple:

The good players all congregate to the west side of the gym. The bleachers on that side of the building are where the people with serious attitudes and the best equipment rest between matches.

I sit on the east side of the gym. That’s where you’ll find the players who wear “I LOVE BEER” T-shirts and depend on the loaner racquets provided by the rec. department.

If you need more clues about which set of bleachers is for you just look at racquet manufacturers:

• Yonex: The best players have not one, but two or more of these $150+ beauties packed in nice, thermal bags to preserve the integrity of the string tension.
• Weird: These players can keep up with the best players, but they never quite win. Their racquets are from companies you’ve never heard of and unless you live in Malaysia; you probably never will.
• Wilson: These are the decent players who have elevated their games beyond backyard barbecue proficiencies. Every now and again they have some really great games but the Yonex players make them look like they’re still at the barbecue.
• Black Knight: These are okay racquets from Canada, but they’re the loaner racquets used by the program so most people with them in their hands are wearing “I LOVE BEER” T-shirts.

As for me, I’m sportin’ a $30 HEAD racquet that came all the way from a business park in Montreal. It got quite a bit of attention from the Black Knight players looking to upgrade; particularly when they found out it was only 30 bucks.

I like recreational badminton. I’ve been having fun. I depend a lot on whatever muscle memory remains from my tennis days. This actually has served me fairly well as I have been able to keep up in matches with the Yonex crowd. For the most part, though, I roll with the east side posse. We seem to smile and laugh a little more easily when we miss a shot which means there's a lot of laughing.

Thanks for the Reminder, Richard

I got an email letting me know that I've been signed up for another year of Wired. The email told me the subscription was from Richard Springman.

Richard Springman. That name makes me think of a lot of things like:

Beer bread
Coats from the 70's with fur-trimmed, tunnel hoods
Weight lifting
Chili
Drill weekends
Donuts
Moving furniture
Hagen Das
One o'clock shadows
Glasses
An overrated British band with a name that rhymes with bowling cones.
Annoying Sesame Street toys
Tuxedos
School
Friends
Family
A Family who likes your friend more than they like you
Wired Magazine

Icky

I wanted to complete my State Fair experience today by having a corn dog. We skipped the $6 version on the midway and settled on a stand in the carnival area that was selling them for $4.

I walked up to the window and told the guy I wanted a corn dog. As he wrapped it up for me he smiled, "Everybody loves these. Everybody wants these. I know why."

I smiled at him mainly because he didn't have any teeth and I was having a hard time understanding him so I leaned in.

He asked me, "Do you want to know why I know?"

I told him I wanted to know and he said, "Because I know what's in 'em!"

He had already handed my corn dog to me and I know that despite my grinning I had a look in my eyes that said, "You're going to tell me your seminal fluid is in the batter, aren't you. . ."

"I know what's in 'em because I make 'em. Do you want to know what the secret is?"

I hadn't eaten the thing yet so I was confident he wasn't going to spring anything too horrible on me so I asked, "What's in them?"

"Sprite. Half a cup of sprite. It gives the corn bread a sweeter taste."

Half prepared to hear that rat's milk or strained hydraulic fluid from the Tilt-a-Whirl was his secret the only comment I could manage was, "Awesome!"

The corn dog with Sprite in the batter was good. The chocolate covered bacon was not. It made me nauseous. I'm a huge bacon fan but I couldn't manage the chilled melange of greasy, salty, porky sweetness. It wasn't a nightmare. I can actually understand why someone in a very self-destructive mood might even enjoy this treat. But for me, on this day, it was just icky.

There are much better things out there to eat on a stick.