Have you seen those stupid Dish network commercials with the Worst Father in the World and the big Cable Conflict Boxes that float around and menace his family?
Well, in one of them there's a little boy in bed, and it starts out with him yelling "Dad? Dad?" And then he complains about the box, and every time it comes on my flesh crawls and I want to jab my brain out with an ice pick.
Because William has that exact same voice, and he uses it the same way. And it's horrible. Oh, the horror.
It's almost always at night, and I'll usually be doing something like watching TV or sitting down to a hot drink or just laying down, after he's gone to bed, and then I'll hear it:
"DaaaAAAAAaaaaaddd!"
And it's just like that, too, only it's one part zombie moan, three parts banshee wail, two parts ghostly howl, and all parts horribly annoying voice. And I'll come in, my flesh crawling, and he'll be laying there in bed, and he'll look at me, and then what comes next is something that makes me want to immediately go from two kids to one. It's something like:
"Do you know where the spare bullet to my Nerf shotgun is?" or
"What if there's a crocodile in the front yard?" or
"Where does the stuff you flush down the toilet go that's not water?"
You get the picture. And then if I get mad, he gets all hurt and upset, and is all like "I'm just curious" or "you'd answer it if it was Victoria" or "you can't really throw me out of the house!"
I'd probably answer the questions, too, if it wasn't for the voice and the fact that he waits until TEN MINUTES AFTER BEDTIME to ask why Kool-aid doesn't come in water flavor.
And don't even get me started on the whole "did I tell you I have this big homework thing due in two days I haven't started?"
Monday, November 12, 2012
Flying Squirrel Gets Fixed
For all you diving afficionados, I have a special bonus feature for you: diving pictures, plus a story! Because everybody likes stories.
First, a photo of the Flying Squirrel in action. Note the look of incredible focus and concentration on her face, despite being about a foot above the board:
Okay, so here's the story:
Last week there was a meet in <name of town redacted to protect those involved>. At most meets, there are three judges for diving (like shown in the photo above). But at this meet, there were five judges, three from the conference and two who just happened to be coaches on the other team. Because they needed judging practice, I guess.
Everything went pretty well through the first three dives or so. But it soon became apparent that Vic was probably going to cruise to victory, even though she didn't have her best stuff on the night (she attempted two dives I had never even seen her do before).
And then...the strangest thing happened! Suddenly, one of the judges started to score her about a point underneath the other four judges. Now, it is true that this score gets thrown out - in a five judge meet the highest and lowest go out - but it did seem strange that suddenly he was lower than the other judges.
Even stranger, the same judge was suddenly scoring one of the opposition divers 1 to 1.5 points higher than the other judges. Weird, huh? It was completely inexplicable. I couldn't think of any possible explanation for this, but perhaps you can cogitate for a while and come up with one.
So after five dives, without her best stuff, and with the Russian judge actively working against her, the Flying Squirrel came in 2nd place, but about 0.85 points.
Now for the funny part: during the entire 70 minute drive home, she was hot. I mean, raging hot. It took about five minutes for her to speak in something other than swear words, and then another 5 for me to get a word in edgewise. Because she's all sweetness and light until somebody starts keeping score, and then it's all Drago from Rocky saying "I must break you" and doing her best to utterly destroy the competition.
Finally I got her calmed down, and I said "so despite all that, she beat you by less than a point. So what does that tell you if you meet her on a neutral board?"
"She's doomed," Vic says.
And then we ended with her Diving Affirmation. It goes like this:
"Victoria, what is best in life?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their teammates!"
Below the fold, another photo from the diving meet of intense concentration:
First, a photo of the Flying Squirrel in action. Note the look of incredible focus and concentration on her face, despite being about a foot above the board:
Okay, so here's the story:
Last week there was a meet in <name of town redacted to protect those involved>. At most meets, there are three judges for diving (like shown in the photo above). But at this meet, there were five judges, three from the conference and two who just happened to be coaches on the other team. Because they needed judging practice, I guess.
Everything went pretty well through the first three dives or so. But it soon became apparent that Vic was probably going to cruise to victory, even though she didn't have her best stuff on the night (she attempted two dives I had never even seen her do before).
And then...the strangest thing happened! Suddenly, one of the judges started to score her about a point underneath the other four judges. Now, it is true that this score gets thrown out - in a five judge meet the highest and lowest go out - but it did seem strange that suddenly he was lower than the other judges.
Even stranger, the same judge was suddenly scoring one of the opposition divers 1 to 1.5 points higher than the other judges. Weird, huh? It was completely inexplicable. I couldn't think of any possible explanation for this, but perhaps you can cogitate for a while and come up with one.
So after five dives, without her best stuff, and with the Russian judge actively working against her, the Flying Squirrel came in 2nd place, but about 0.85 points.
Now for the funny part: during the entire 70 minute drive home, she was hot. I mean, raging hot. It took about five minutes for her to speak in something other than swear words, and then another 5 for me to get a word in edgewise. Because she's all sweetness and light until somebody starts keeping score, and then it's all Drago from Rocky saying "I must break you" and doing her best to utterly destroy the competition.
Finally I got her calmed down, and I said "so despite all that, she beat you by less than a point. So what does that tell you if you meet her on a neutral board?"
"She's doomed," Vic says.
And then we ended with her Diving Affirmation. It goes like this:
"Victoria, what is best in life?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their teammates!"
Below the fold, another photo from the diving meet of intense concentration:
Monday, November 5, 2012
A Big Loser
I'm married to a great big loser. No, no, it's true. Don't try to convince me otherwise.
Angela entered a contest at work, where everybody put in money and then the three who lost the most weight got a share of the pot. But it wasn't quite clear if it was based on BMI, or inches, or weight, or what. So she tells me this, and I came up with a brilliant plan:
You go to the weigh in wearing a parka stuffed with fishing weights and with big, heavy boots. Then you go to the final weigh-in wearing a skimpy string bikini. Everybody wins! I even offered to drive her to the final weigh-in.
But Angela, being fair-minded and obsessed with "the rules" insisted that she wasn't going to cheat to win. I say, if it's worth winning, it's worth cheating for, which is why nobody in the family ever lets me deal when we play cards.
So anyways, after several weeks, the final weigh-in comes. Angela's lost 8.5 pounds (a little better than one a week) and several inches, so she's all excited about finding out what happens. She insists, all afternoon, that we need to go back to the rec center because on the paper it says the winners will be posted right after the final weigh-in.
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"It's on the paper!" she says, shaking the paper like a totem. "See!"
So we go back, and sure enough, it's not posted. But one of the women there does know that she's the ultimate winner of the contest. And anybody who would know anything more isn't there.
All weekend, Angela's mad. Which I think is vaguely funny, but keep to myself for my own personal health. Every time she walks by the paper, she says "posted that afternoon my..." grumble grumble grumble.
The whole spectacle is pretty funny, at least, it's funny in retrospect because SHE WON SECOND PLACE!
And more importantly, she won cash. Yee-haw! I was very proud of her.
Hot off her victory, she enters a second contest at work, slightly shorter this time, and apparently possessed by a strong case of megalomania, when asked what her goal is she says "Ten pounds!"
When I got home she was trying to hacksaw off her arm. Which is stupid, because the blade on the hacksaw's not going to cut through bone, so I gave her the jigsaw, which is better for such things.
Angela entered a contest at work, where everybody put in money and then the three who lost the most weight got a share of the pot. But it wasn't quite clear if it was based on BMI, or inches, or weight, or what. So she tells me this, and I came up with a brilliant plan:
You go to the weigh in wearing a parka stuffed with fishing weights and with big, heavy boots. Then you go to the final weigh-in wearing a skimpy string bikini. Everybody wins! I even offered to drive her to the final weigh-in.
But Angela, being fair-minded and obsessed with "the rules" insisted that she wasn't going to cheat to win. I say, if it's worth winning, it's worth cheating for, which is why nobody in the family ever lets me deal when we play cards.
So anyways, after several weeks, the final weigh-in comes. Angela's lost 8.5 pounds (a little better than one a week) and several inches, so she's all excited about finding out what happens. She insists, all afternoon, that we need to go back to the rec center because on the paper it says the winners will be posted right after the final weigh-in.
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"It's on the paper!" she says, shaking the paper like a totem. "See!"
So we go back, and sure enough, it's not posted. But one of the women there does know that she's the ultimate winner of the contest. And anybody who would know anything more isn't there.
All weekend, Angela's mad. Which I think is vaguely funny, but keep to myself for my own personal health. Every time she walks by the paper, she says "posted that afternoon my..." grumble grumble grumble.
The whole spectacle is pretty funny, at least, it's funny in retrospect because SHE WON SECOND PLACE!
And more importantly, she won cash. Yee-haw! I was very proud of her.
Hot off her victory, she enters a second contest at work, slightly shorter this time, and apparently possessed by a strong case of megalomania, when asked what her goal is she says "Ten pounds!"
When I got home she was trying to hacksaw off her arm. Which is stupid, because the blade on the hacksaw's not going to cut through bone, so I gave her the jigsaw, which is better for such things.
The Flying Squirrel Flies Again!
As regular readers (all three of them) of the blog know, Victoria is a diver. And once again, diving season has started. Last week there were two meets: one local against another school, and the other an "open".
The two-school meet went really well, and the flying squirrel showed her true colors as she soared to a dramatic victory. More importantly, for the first time in her diving career, she broke 100 points, scoring 103.8! Yay, Victoria! Of course, thanks to a math error they announced 113.8, but it's all good!
At the open, it was a three-dive meet and she didn't fare quite as well, coming in 8th. She was all depressed and unhappy, so I asked her where the next-closest girl from her school came in. "Oh, she was 16th."
"Wait, so there's like how many girls diving?"
"I dunno," she said. "A whole bunch."
Oh, I see. 8th out of a whole bunch is terrible.
Goofus.
This week is three more meets, so we'll see how the flying squirrel does as the season goes on. Can she stay above 100??
The two-school meet went really well, and the flying squirrel showed her true colors as she soared to a dramatic victory. More importantly, for the first time in her diving career, she broke 100 points, scoring 103.8! Yay, Victoria! Of course, thanks to a math error they announced 113.8, but it's all good!
At the open, it was a three-dive meet and she didn't fare quite as well, coming in 8th. She was all depressed and unhappy, so I asked her where the next-closest girl from her school came in. "Oh, she was 16th."
"Wait, so there's like how many girls diving?"
"I dunno," she said. "A whole bunch."
Oh, I see. 8th out of a whole bunch is terrible.
Goofus.
This week is three more meets, so we'll see how the flying squirrel does as the season goes on. Can she stay above 100??
Haunted Awesomeness
I'm not going to bad-mouth Salt Lake City. It's a really nice town - clean, well-laid-out, thoroughly modern, and full of nice people who generally want to help you get what you need. And it's the closest large city to where we live, and it has a Costco.
Having said that, it's not exactly a mecca of excitement. This is okay with me, but sometimes, I'm wanting to do something cool or unusual, and it's often not going to come to SLC. So when Angela announced that she'd found a haunted house in town, I was not really looking forward to it.
I did some research, hoping to find another haunted something to visit during our mini-vacation, and you know what? SLC has a shockingly large number of haunted somethings. Haunted prisons, haunted farms, haunted houses, and at least one haunted warehouse. And they all carried the strong disclaimer: "FOR AGES 12 AND UP!"
Let me tell you, I have two children, both 12 or younger. So I take such warnings seriously. And one has zombie aversion, so the whole "Zombie-apocalypse themed haunted house" was right out.
I ended up conceding that we'd go to Angela's haunted house. Only it wasn't a haunted house. Or even a haunted block. It was an entire haunted authentic pioneer village.
Many years ago, my brother and I used to run a haunted house out of the basement of our church. We'd have killed for a setup like this place, which was awesome. Several buildings (at least 20) gathered around a few streets, laid out in a perfect order to move people through. Lots of actors. Good sound system to pipe in spooky music.
When I went to buy the tickets, the lady said "we don't suggest this for children under 12."
"Oh, well," I said to William. "You're coming anyways. Try not to wet your pants in terror."
After a brief wait we were shepherded into the Community Center, where they show you the movie that is the setup for this whole event. It centers around a grave robber, who promises to return and feast on the souls of the living. As a whole, the story is a little goofy - grave robbers, even zombie ones, aren't that scary - but it gets bonus points for being true.
After that it's off for a wait in the Social Hall, where you stand in a room that smells of donuts while you wait to enter the Haunted Village proper. And you know what? After thirty minutes of donut stink, you start to get a little nauseated.
The whole time we're waiting, we get to listen to the football team in front of us, a gaggle of 12-15 year olds. We learned three things:
1) They're a football team
2) They ain't afraid of nothing, because they're a football team
3) They're a football team
Time comes to go upstairs. The spooky/tipsy lady watching the door insisted that we sign a waiver. The football team, being a team, all signed it together (I never saw so many X's), but I signed for our family. "Hey, your name isn't Elvis Presley!" Victoria yelled. "Shut up!" I said. "I don't give up my right to sue for nothin'!"
The entry stairway was appropriately festooned with spider webs and whatnot. The football team goes first, followed by the football adults, followed by Little Justin Bieber and his girlfriend, followed by Mr. Awesome and his family (that's me, by the way).
Just as the first football player steps foot on the top step, somebody in the darkness hits a hammer on a board. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! And this entire crew of brave football players screeches to a halt and begins to wail like a bunch of pansies.
For a long moment, nobody moves. Then one of them flinches, the hammering starts again, and they shriek again. The whole scene is just pathetic.
"COME ON, LADIES! HIKE UP YOUR SKIRTS AND GET A MOVE ON!" I yell mockingly, and finally they move. The adults are just laughing their heads off.
They ushered us into a room with a "fortune teller" passed out up front. We're sitting in silence, with the football team up front hollering out mockingly from time to time. "Hey, lady, wake up!" they're saying, and whatnot. I'm sitting in back with my family, just near the exit. I can see what's coming from a mile away.
Finally the "fortune teller" comes to and tells us about how danger is everywhere, we have to be careful, if we see the grave robber we're doomed, and...
SUDDENLY THE GRAVE ROBBER COMES RUNNING IN!
Didn't see that one coming, did ya? Well, neither did the big bad football team, who proceeded to begin shrieking like a nursery school class that ran out of juice boxes. These guys are just freaking out, so we make a hasty retreat out the exit before they trample us.
And then the fun really begins.
We manage to get in front of the football team, which I figure is a good thing, and right behind us is Little Justin Bieber and his girlfriend. We pass the time idly chatting about what to expect, with him insisting that it'll all be okay and there's nothing to worry about (really? I was expecting this to be my last family outing, but if Little Justin says it'll be okay, I guess I can relax). Then after a brief wait to separate the groups, we were released into the haunted village of doom.
First up: the spider-webby building. Nothing serious, no big worries, right? We stroll right on through with red lighting and webs hanging down, and Victoria starts to relax. She skips up on top of a bench and is prancing down without a care in the world when...
BOO! A guy jumps out from behind the only tree within 20', which practically had a big neon sign that said "guy in spooky costume is here don't be surprised when he yells boo!"
Guess what? She was surprised. We had to run and get a defillibrator to get her heart re-started. She's convulsing on the ground in abject terror, with me and Angela trying not to die laughing. When she finally gets up, she is pretty much tattooed to my arm, which is a problem, because William is trying to twist my other hand clean off.
"You know what?" he says. "I gotta pee."
We go on, with a spooky guy now following us, and then another spooky guy comes out of the building up ahead, and the second spooky guy has a sheriff hat on, so you know what's coming next:
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Well, you know, and I know, but Victoria pretty much didn't know, and so she collapsed into a paralysis of terror again. It was good stuff. Thanks to her histrionics, Little Justin has caught up to us now, and he says "since we caught up can we all hang out together?"
And my stupid children are all "yeah, there's safety in numbers!"
And I'm all thinking "only if some of the people up ahead are cannibals who will demand human sacrifice."
So for much of the rest of the haunted village, we are treated to the same repetitive refrain over and over of him saying "no worries, I've been here six times. No worries, I've been here six times. No worries, I've been here six times."
At one point, Angela says "If I put a shoe up his butt, do you think he'll worry?"
And another time, she says "I'm gonna kill him and feed him to one of those prop cows. Do you think he'll worry?"
And another time, I say "Honey, I'm worried if you don't let go of his neck he won't start breathing again."
So then we go through another building, and this one has somebody in it, only we don't know until we're about to leave the building and they pound the door and shriek out in a blood-curdling scream.
Which, of course, sends Victoria over the edge, and if I hadn't caught the shoelace of her ghost as it floated out of her body towards heaven I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have made it.
William looks up at me, and he says "It's official: my pants are wet."
After a few more buildings like this, we get to the "The Moaning Lady." She was pretty freaky because she made a noise that normal people can't make. And she was on a bed reaching for us, and William pretty much tore my arm out of socket dragging me through the room and saying "nothing to see here we need to go let's hurry don't dawdle I was tired of mom anyways if that thing eats her no problem you've got a good job and can find another woman let's go stop dawdling what is your problem I'm in a hurry let's not loiter around any more come on get the arthritis out of your butt and get a move on you old man."
Then, we came to...the statue. This building wasn't all that scary, but there was a figure sitting in a chair with a big old wig on it and I couldn't really figure out if it was a mannequin or if it was a person or what. And we debated it...what was it? William thought it was a woman. Angela thought it was a woman. I thought it was a mannequin.
Victoria thought it was death incarnate. And when, just as we were about to step out of the room and it let out a 462-decibel shriek and I had to check my pants for pee, I was pretty much agreed. Because nobody who can scream that loud should be that small and sit that still in a haunted house. I mean, what is this person in real life? An air-raid siren?
So then we got to the field. And at one end, we go over this little barbed-wire fence to get in, and there's this big, smelly herbivore (cow? bull? llama? sheep? I dunno - go ask a farmer). And it's just sitting there, and I can smell poop everywhere, and I'm worried that I'm getting poop on myself, and that's scarier than anything I saw so far.
Then on the other side, there's this whole group gathered where one of the costumed actors is chasing this woman around, who is giggling and laughing like an idiot. So we cross over, and Little Justin breaks into his patter to yell "hey, dude, we know you need a girlfriend so just ask her for her number!"
Of course, being Little Justin, he continues to yell this. So the spook turns its attention to harassing him. And as we go by, I'm pretty sure that Angela pinched the spook's butt just to get it riled up, because it kept Little Justin back for quite a while.
"Hey, this is a dark corner," Angela says as she picks up a branch. "Let's lay in wait here and murder little Justin. How about it! That's scary, right?"
"No worries, mom," William says as he picks up a rock. "I'll bean the girl."
"Come on, you two," I say. "You're wasting valuable scary time."
"There's not any more scary stuff, is there?" Victoria asks, trembling. "I'm worried that- OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE PLEASE EAT THEM FIRST I HAVE TOO MUCH TO LIVE FOR IT'S A FRANKENSTEIN AND WE'RE ALL DOOMED! PLEASE GOD HEAR MY PRAYERS!"
And with that, she was out again. Bear in mind that Frankenstein was like twenty feet from us, and facing the other direction, and made of crepe paper.
We carried Victoria for a while, and finally she came to. We went by another animal in a field, and I worried about poop. William continued to accelerate, and steadily we were leaving Angela behind. Who goes through a haunted village at a Sunday Stroll pace, I don't know, but apparently she thought "old man feeding ducks speed" was the appropriate velocity for traveling through "deadly killer dark haunted death village town." In case of zombie invasion, I'm definitely not waiting around for her.
So we get to a chain of buildings; me and the kids, anyways. I'm not sure where Angela was at this point; perhaps she was back at the parking lot. In any case, I had no feeling in left hand and William dangling off of it and insisting that next time we will respect the age limitations of the haunted park. Victoria is rambling crazily and asking how old she has to be in order to buy a shotgun.
I'm laughing. Because I'm, you know, tough. And we travel through the graveyard, with open graves and coffins and everything. And it's totally a missed opportunity. There's a cowboy running around dragging a shovel with sparks flying off of it, which is cool. And I'm making fun of the children as I drag them into the hospital, because they're little weenies. I think the conversation goes like this:
"Come on, you two, you know it's only make-believe. Don't be such a couple of- AAAAAIIIIIEEEERRGGH!"
And I pee my pants.
And maybe, just maybe, fill one pant leg with poop.
Because, in a clear violation of haunted house etiquette and my rights under the Geneva convention, there's a dude in a top hat and straightjacket hiding just around a doorway in an asylum, with another dude in clear view who has distracted me, and as I come through the doorway he goes something like "Hello" or something like that.
And I freak out.
When I got to the other side of the asylum, I had William's right arm and a clump of hair. When Victoria caught up, she had a weird-looking bald spot. William was a little cheesed off, becuase he was never scared at all beacuse he saw the dude, and that's the arm he writes with, but I told him his handwriting sucked anyway so he needed a change.
I have no idea where Angela was, but I heard her mocking laughter all around me.
I don't really remember the next few things, because I was busy changing my underwear and copiously swearing. I do remember that the last room was a spooky lady doing something spookily (librarian?). And we ditched Angela, who at this point was walking so slowly that she was literally going backwards towards the asylum in a violation of the space-time continuum.
Victoria, eager to be done with the whole event, sprinted up ahead and was skipping her way down to the exit. Just near the end, she dropped into "Ninja crouch check for danger" mode because she was sure that one last scare awaited her. She was kind of right, because I sneaked up behind her and poked her in the back and yelled "BOO!" and she jumped twenty feet up.
William just laughed and laughed and laughed.
About ten minutes later, Angela arrived.
"Where have you been?" we asked.
"Oh, I was talking to one of the ghost guys." She said. "They're quite nice."
"What did they say?" I asked.
"Well, you guys kept leaving me behind, and then they'd start messing with me, and I'd say I had to catch up because you were ditching me, and they'd go 'oh man, that sucks.' So then we'd chat a few minutes and I'd go on."
So to recap:
-Victoria has a heart condition now
-William is all out of clean underwear
-I have a nervous disorder and a fear of asylums
-Angela got four phone numbers
And that was our visit to haunted village, Salt Lake.
Having said that, it's not exactly a mecca of excitement. This is okay with me, but sometimes, I'm wanting to do something cool or unusual, and it's often not going to come to SLC. So when Angela announced that she'd found a haunted house in town, I was not really looking forward to it.
I did some research, hoping to find another haunted something to visit during our mini-vacation, and you know what? SLC has a shockingly large number of haunted somethings. Haunted prisons, haunted farms, haunted houses, and at least one haunted warehouse. And they all carried the strong disclaimer: "FOR AGES 12 AND UP!"
Let me tell you, I have two children, both 12 or younger. So I take such warnings seriously. And one has zombie aversion, so the whole "Zombie-apocalypse themed haunted house" was right out.
I ended up conceding that we'd go to Angela's haunted house. Only it wasn't a haunted house. Or even a haunted block. It was an entire haunted authentic pioneer village.
Many years ago, my brother and I used to run a haunted house out of the basement of our church. We'd have killed for a setup like this place, which was awesome. Several buildings (at least 20) gathered around a few streets, laid out in a perfect order to move people through. Lots of actors. Good sound system to pipe in spooky music.
When I went to buy the tickets, the lady said "we don't suggest this for children under 12."
"Oh, well," I said to William. "You're coming anyways. Try not to wet your pants in terror."
After a brief wait we were shepherded into the Community Center, where they show you the movie that is the setup for this whole event. It centers around a grave robber, who promises to return and feast on the souls of the living. As a whole, the story is a little goofy - grave robbers, even zombie ones, aren't that scary - but it gets bonus points for being true.
After that it's off for a wait in the Social Hall, where you stand in a room that smells of donuts while you wait to enter the Haunted Village proper. And you know what? After thirty minutes of donut stink, you start to get a little nauseated.
The whole time we're waiting, we get to listen to the football team in front of us, a gaggle of 12-15 year olds. We learned three things:
1) They're a football team
2) They ain't afraid of nothing, because they're a football team
3) They're a football team
Time comes to go upstairs. The spooky/tipsy lady watching the door insisted that we sign a waiver. The football team, being a team, all signed it together (I never saw so many X's), but I signed for our family. "Hey, your name isn't Elvis Presley!" Victoria yelled. "Shut up!" I said. "I don't give up my right to sue for nothin'!"
The entry stairway was appropriately festooned with spider webs and whatnot. The football team goes first, followed by the football adults, followed by Little Justin Bieber and his girlfriend, followed by Mr. Awesome and his family (that's me, by the way).
Just as the first football player steps foot on the top step, somebody in the darkness hits a hammer on a board. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! And this entire crew of brave football players screeches to a halt and begins to wail like a bunch of pansies.
For a long moment, nobody moves. Then one of them flinches, the hammering starts again, and they shriek again. The whole scene is just pathetic.
"COME ON, LADIES! HIKE UP YOUR SKIRTS AND GET A MOVE ON!" I yell mockingly, and finally they move. The adults are just laughing their heads off.
They ushered us into a room with a "fortune teller" passed out up front. We're sitting in silence, with the football team up front hollering out mockingly from time to time. "Hey, lady, wake up!" they're saying, and whatnot. I'm sitting in back with my family, just near the exit. I can see what's coming from a mile away.
Finally the "fortune teller" comes to and tells us about how danger is everywhere, we have to be careful, if we see the grave robber we're doomed, and...
SUDDENLY THE GRAVE ROBBER COMES RUNNING IN!
Didn't see that one coming, did ya? Well, neither did the big bad football team, who proceeded to begin shrieking like a nursery school class that ran out of juice boxes. These guys are just freaking out, so we make a hasty retreat out the exit before they trample us.
And then the fun really begins.
We manage to get in front of the football team, which I figure is a good thing, and right behind us is Little Justin Bieber and his girlfriend. We pass the time idly chatting about what to expect, with him insisting that it'll all be okay and there's nothing to worry about (really? I was expecting this to be my last family outing, but if Little Justin says it'll be okay, I guess I can relax). Then after a brief wait to separate the groups, we were released into the haunted village of doom.
First up: the spider-webby building. Nothing serious, no big worries, right? We stroll right on through with red lighting and webs hanging down, and Victoria starts to relax. She skips up on top of a bench and is prancing down without a care in the world when...
BOO! A guy jumps out from behind the only tree within 20', which practically had a big neon sign that said "guy in spooky costume is here don't be surprised when he yells boo!"
Guess what? She was surprised. We had to run and get a defillibrator to get her heart re-started. She's convulsing on the ground in abject terror, with me and Angela trying not to die laughing. When she finally gets up, she is pretty much tattooed to my arm, which is a problem, because William is trying to twist my other hand clean off.
"You know what?" he says. "I gotta pee."
We go on, with a spooky guy now following us, and then another spooky guy comes out of the building up ahead, and the second spooky guy has a sheriff hat on, so you know what's coming next:
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Well, you know, and I know, but Victoria pretty much didn't know, and so she collapsed into a paralysis of terror again. It was good stuff. Thanks to her histrionics, Little Justin has caught up to us now, and he says "since we caught up can we all hang out together?"
And my stupid children are all "yeah, there's safety in numbers!"
And I'm all thinking "only if some of the people up ahead are cannibals who will demand human sacrifice."
So for much of the rest of the haunted village, we are treated to the same repetitive refrain over and over of him saying "no worries, I've been here six times. No worries, I've been here six times. No worries, I've been here six times."
At one point, Angela says "If I put a shoe up his butt, do you think he'll worry?"
And another time, she says "I'm gonna kill him and feed him to one of those prop cows. Do you think he'll worry?"
And another time, I say "Honey, I'm worried if you don't let go of his neck he won't start breathing again."
So then we go through another building, and this one has somebody in it, only we don't know until we're about to leave the building and they pound the door and shriek out in a blood-curdling scream.
Which, of course, sends Victoria over the edge, and if I hadn't caught the shoelace of her ghost as it floated out of her body towards heaven I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have made it.
William looks up at me, and he says "It's official: my pants are wet."
After a few more buildings like this, we get to the "The Moaning Lady." She was pretty freaky because she made a noise that normal people can't make. And she was on a bed reaching for us, and William pretty much tore my arm out of socket dragging me through the room and saying "nothing to see here we need to go let's hurry don't dawdle I was tired of mom anyways if that thing eats her no problem you've got a good job and can find another woman let's go stop dawdling what is your problem I'm in a hurry let's not loiter around any more come on get the arthritis out of your butt and get a move on you old man."
Then, we came to...the statue. This building wasn't all that scary, but there was a figure sitting in a chair with a big old wig on it and I couldn't really figure out if it was a mannequin or if it was a person or what. And we debated it...what was it? William thought it was a woman. Angela thought it was a woman. I thought it was a mannequin.
Victoria thought it was death incarnate. And when, just as we were about to step out of the room and it let out a 462-decibel shriek and I had to check my pants for pee, I was pretty much agreed. Because nobody who can scream that loud should be that small and sit that still in a haunted house. I mean, what is this person in real life? An air-raid siren?
So then we got to the field. And at one end, we go over this little barbed-wire fence to get in, and there's this big, smelly herbivore (cow? bull? llama? sheep? I dunno - go ask a farmer). And it's just sitting there, and I can smell poop everywhere, and I'm worried that I'm getting poop on myself, and that's scarier than anything I saw so far.
Then on the other side, there's this whole group gathered where one of the costumed actors is chasing this woman around, who is giggling and laughing like an idiot. So we cross over, and Little Justin breaks into his patter to yell "hey, dude, we know you need a girlfriend so just ask her for her number!"
Of course, being Little Justin, he continues to yell this. So the spook turns its attention to harassing him. And as we go by, I'm pretty sure that Angela pinched the spook's butt just to get it riled up, because it kept Little Justin back for quite a while.
"Hey, this is a dark corner," Angela says as she picks up a branch. "Let's lay in wait here and murder little Justin. How about it! That's scary, right?"
"No worries, mom," William says as he picks up a rock. "I'll bean the girl."
"Come on, you two," I say. "You're wasting valuable scary time."
"There's not any more scary stuff, is there?" Victoria asks, trembling. "I'm worried that- OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO DIE PLEASE EAT THEM FIRST I HAVE TOO MUCH TO LIVE FOR IT'S A FRANKENSTEIN AND WE'RE ALL DOOMED! PLEASE GOD HEAR MY PRAYERS!"
And with that, she was out again. Bear in mind that Frankenstein was like twenty feet from us, and facing the other direction, and made of crepe paper.
We carried Victoria for a while, and finally she came to. We went by another animal in a field, and I worried about poop. William continued to accelerate, and steadily we were leaving Angela behind. Who goes through a haunted village at a Sunday Stroll pace, I don't know, but apparently she thought "old man feeding ducks speed" was the appropriate velocity for traveling through "deadly killer dark haunted death village town." In case of zombie invasion, I'm definitely not waiting around for her.
So we get to a chain of buildings; me and the kids, anyways. I'm not sure where Angela was at this point; perhaps she was back at the parking lot. In any case, I had no feeling in left hand and William dangling off of it and insisting that next time we will respect the age limitations of the haunted park. Victoria is rambling crazily and asking how old she has to be in order to buy a shotgun.
I'm laughing. Because I'm, you know, tough. And we travel through the graveyard, with open graves and coffins and everything. And it's totally a missed opportunity. There's a cowboy running around dragging a shovel with sparks flying off of it, which is cool. And I'm making fun of the children as I drag them into the hospital, because they're little weenies. I think the conversation goes like this:
"Come on, you two, you know it's only make-believe. Don't be such a couple of- AAAAAIIIIIEEEERRGGH!"
And I pee my pants.
And maybe, just maybe, fill one pant leg with poop.
Because, in a clear violation of haunted house etiquette and my rights under the Geneva convention, there's a dude in a top hat and straightjacket hiding just around a doorway in an asylum, with another dude in clear view who has distracted me, and as I come through the doorway he goes something like "Hello" or something like that.
And I freak out.
When I got to the other side of the asylum, I had William's right arm and a clump of hair. When Victoria caught up, she had a weird-looking bald spot. William was a little cheesed off, becuase he was never scared at all beacuse he saw the dude, and that's the arm he writes with, but I told him his handwriting sucked anyway so he needed a change.
I have no idea where Angela was, but I heard her mocking laughter all around me.
I don't really remember the next few things, because I was busy changing my underwear and copiously swearing. I do remember that the last room was a spooky lady doing something spookily (librarian?). And we ditched Angela, who at this point was walking so slowly that she was literally going backwards towards the asylum in a violation of the space-time continuum.
Victoria, eager to be done with the whole event, sprinted up ahead and was skipping her way down to the exit. Just near the end, she dropped into "Ninja crouch check for danger" mode because she was sure that one last scare awaited her. She was kind of right, because I sneaked up behind her and poked her in the back and yelled "BOO!" and she jumped twenty feet up.
William just laughed and laughed and laughed.
About ten minutes later, Angela arrived.
"Where have you been?" we asked.
"Oh, I was talking to one of the ghost guys." She said. "They're quite nice."
"What did they say?" I asked.
"Well, you guys kept leaving me behind, and then they'd start messing with me, and I'd say I had to catch up because you were ditching me, and they'd go 'oh man, that sucks.' So then we'd chat a few minutes and I'd go on."
So to recap:
-Victoria has a heart condition now
-William is all out of clean underwear
-I have a nervous disorder and a fear of asylums
-Angela got four phone numbers
And that was our visit to haunted village, Salt Lake.
Friday, October 26, 2012
A Father's Love
Someday, this story will be an After-School Special, or perhaps the centerpiece of a Hallmark Movie of the Week:
It was the night before my son's birthday, and I sat down with him on his bed to give him "the talk."
"Son," I said. "Tomorrow you will be ten years old. Double digits. And I'm going to tell you something that I've been waiting to share with you for your whole life."
His eyes got wide. "Yeah, dad?"
"There's something you don't know about me," I said.
"What's that?" he whispered.
"I'm not who you think I am."
"Who..." he gulped. "Who are you?"
I took his hand, tenderly. "I'm actually a space alien, and I've been fattening you up to eat you, and now that you're ten you're finally tender and delicious enough. So tonight, while you sleep, I'm going to come in here and carve you up and eat you."
And then I raised up his arm and bit him.
"DAAAAAAD!"
I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. And he punched me, which usually I object to, but I figure that's probably a reasonable response to such a discussion.
Then about five minutes later I came back, with a carving knife, and I yelled "Dinnertime!"
"DAAAAAAD!"
And he would have punched me, but I got away.
Then I came in, one last time, and I said "hey, we forgot to pray tonight."
"We did pray!" he insisted.
"Well, let's pray again, just in case," I said. "God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food!"
"DAAAAAAAAD! You're wilding me up! If I'm bouncing off the walls it's your fault!"
"Don't bounce off the walls," I cautioned. "That would be bad."
"It's your fault!" he insisted.
"Yeah, but it'll make you all stringy and tough."
"DAAAAAAD!"
Now that, friends, is comedy.
It was the night before my son's birthday, and I sat down with him on his bed to give him "the talk."
"Son," I said. "Tomorrow you will be ten years old. Double digits. And I'm going to tell you something that I've been waiting to share with you for your whole life."
His eyes got wide. "Yeah, dad?"
"There's something you don't know about me," I said.
"What's that?" he whispered.
"I'm not who you think I am."
"Who..." he gulped. "Who are you?"
I took his hand, tenderly. "I'm actually a space alien, and I've been fattening you up to eat you, and now that you're ten you're finally tender and delicious enough. So tonight, while you sleep, I'm going to come in here and carve you up and eat you."
And then I raised up his arm and bit him.
"DAAAAAAD!"
I laughed, and laughed, and laughed. And he punched me, which usually I object to, but I figure that's probably a reasonable response to such a discussion.
Then about five minutes later I came back, with a carving knife, and I yelled "Dinnertime!"
"DAAAAAAD!"
And he would have punched me, but I got away.
Then I came in, one last time, and I said "hey, we forgot to pray tonight."
"We did pray!" he insisted.
"Well, let's pray again, just in case," I said. "God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food!"
"DAAAAAAAAD! You're wilding me up! If I'm bouncing off the walls it's your fault!"
"Don't bounce off the walls," I cautioned. "That would be bad."
"It's your fault!" he insisted.
"Yeah, but it'll make you all stringy and tough."
"DAAAAAAD!"
Now that, friends, is comedy.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
It's A-MAZING!
Let's talk about awesome, shall we? And is anybody more awesome than me, as patriarch of my small but loyal clan? Nay, no one is. And how, you ask, do I display my awesomeness?
I take my family to a haunted corn maze.
Okay, it's not technically haunted, or at least, it wasn't haunted while we were there. It's only haunted after 7 PM, and we were there at about 1:30. We'd driven down to Salt Lake City on our thrice-annual trip to purchase six hundred pounds of meat and the world's largest box of Goldfish crackers at Costco, and while we were there, we decided to take a mini-vacation to a haunted cornfield located North of Salt Lake City. And not just that: there was a corn maze and a hay ride! Yee-haw!
I knew the day was going to be charmed when we found a parking space right in front of the entrance, despite the fact that there were hundreds of people there. Cool!
Okay, I'll admit that the circa-1960's helicopter giving rides made me afraid, and I may have used Angela's motion sickness as an excuse to skip out on crashing to my death in a fiery ball of fiery death, but other than that, the whole thing was just good, wholeseome fun.
The corn maze had four entrances, and spanned about 10 acres, which is a really good size for a corn maze. And it had a big long list of rules, things like "no running" and "no going off the path" and "no swearing" and all sorts of other rules that are designed to make the whole thing less fun.
If Angela hadn't been watching me, I'd have violated those rules like they were going out of style.
I grabbed a map and, all together, we forged off into the corn maze. It took about six seconds to remind me of why I never take my family anywhere.
"Hey, dad," one of them said. "How come you have the map? You don't even know right from left."
"I'm okay," I insisted. "We just turn right up here."
So we wandered around a little while, and the heckling got worse and worse from behind me.
"This is like watching a mule with a spinning wheel," one of them guffawed. "Nobody knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it!"
"Remember the time he drove all around town to go to a Chinese restaurant next to our hotel?" Victoria asked. "Think this is like that?"
I swear, I was looking for a tractor to lead them under!
About six hours later, we finally came back out of the maze, their taunts and jeers notwithstanding. And I was never, ever, lost! There was just a lot of maze to go look at.
Just as we were getting ready to go back into the maze, Angela's feet started to hurt too much to go on. But there was still one more maze to go! And you know what they say: once you've started a corn maze, you've got to, uh, finish it.
So anyways, me and the bobbsey twins go to the last maze. And this one has something special about it: six million bees. And thankfully, no Angela to make me follow all the rules. Yar! Let's swear and run and swear and stray off the path and swear!
And let's also avoid the six million bees, okay?
When we get into the maze, the heckling starts again: "hey, dad, how do you know where we are without a GPS?"
It's horrible, so I do the only thing a dad really can: I prank them.
Victoria, being a pre-teen know-it-all, is walking about ten feet ahead of us and running her mouth about how lost we are, so I grab William and we just stop. I hear her motor-mouth still blabbing as she goes ahead, and then suddenly, it all goes silent.
"Dad?" I hear from somewhere up ahead. "Dad? William? Where are you guys? Dad?"
Then there's little feet running (breaking a rule!) and she comes tearing around the corner, tears almost in her eyes. "You really scared me!"
Good times. We forge on ahead, and it's William's turn to start up.
"That would never work on me," he says. "You'd never get me with that trick. I'm too smart for it. Too clever. I'm like a ninja! You can't fool me with such things. I have...oonagi!"
That goes on, for like five minutes, so I grab Victoria and we step aside. And sure enough, he almost immediatley turns around. "I knew you'd do that! Give it up, old man. I'm too much for you! Too clever! You're finished! Done! A has-been! A never-was!"
He's keeping up this prattle as we walk, and I slow down, ever so slightly, so he and his sister both get up ahead of me. And they take a turn up ahead, like they've been doing, and I just keep going straight (remember, I have the map).
Victoria, to her credit, sees me do it and circles around to come back to me. Mr. Ninja Never Surprised, though, is so caught up in his victory rhapsody that he keeps going, until he realizes he's alone.
"Ha, ha." He says as he backtracks. "You guys know that trick won't work on me. You're just waiting right back..."
Silence.
"Dad?" Now there's a note of concern. "Very funny. Come out, dad. Dad? Dad? Daaaaad!" Now he's running around, wailing, full of concern and very worried that he's alone in the corn maze.
Victoria then runs off, I'm not sure why, and I hear this conversation and realize that she's very, very evil.
"Vic!" He gasps gratfully. "Where's dad?"
"I don't know," she says. "I haven't seen him!"
"DAAAAAAAAAAAD!" he yells. "WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?!?"
And at that point I bust out laughing, and he finds me, and then proceeds to punch me with his little fists angrily, tears in his eyes.
But I didn't have to hear any more of that "I'm so ninja" crap.
As we made our way out, it's possible that I got lost, and swore, and then cut through a bunch of the part of the corn field that you're not supposed to go through, but I'd never admit that.
Because pranks are fun, Victoria decided to go prank her mother, who was sitting on a bench listening to music. Vic snuck up behind her, and then jumped on her, but her mother never even flinched.
"How did you do that?" Vic asked.
"I saw your shadow," Angela responded.
Now that, my friends, is some mad ninja skillz. We were all in awe. But I still stepped on the heel of her shoe, because I have mad prank skillz.
Once the maze fun was done, we headed over to the hayride. Is it really a hayride without hay? Before we started, one dude yelled out the rules, but nobody but me could hear it.
"What did he say?" Angela yells as the tractor starts rolling off into the pumpkin patch.
"He said that tops are not allowed in the pumpkin patch," I said. "And that you should treat me better. Really, that's what he said!"
Angela just rolled her eyes at me, but the offended woman next to her was hilarious. Listen, lady, I been married to her for twenty years - if she can't handle that, well, it's time to just hang it all up.
Once you get out to the pumpkin patch, a bunch of slackjawed yokels gunning for tips stand around with cutters and try to get you to slip them a buck before they cut the pumpkin off the vine, like skycaps at the airport. None of that for me - I pulled out my keys and sawed the pumpkins off WITH MY BARE HANDS!
It was like I was Arnold Swartzenegger and Edward Scissorhands all rolled into one, without the angst or the mistresses. Or the muscles. Or the money.
(Or the looks, I'm told).
Plus, I got pumpkin barbs all in my hands, but I couldn't admit that because I'd already been savagely abused in the whole maze thing, but that hurt for like three days.
We returned, our pumpkins held proudly aloft (well, not really, but you get the imagery), and then when the tractor returned to the parking lot it was about ten feet from the van, which just underlined my awesome awesomeness.
So yes, I am the greatest father in the history of fatherhood!
(Author's note: it's possible that the entire idea of the pumpkin patch, corn maze, and hayride was from Angela, who found out about it and arranged the whole thing, and packed for us. But it is true that I drove, and I was also instrumental in waking up, and I did make the hotel reservations. And it's definintely true that I wrote this, so I'm just going to take full credit for it.)
((Plus, for the record, they're all weenies for being so difficult in the corn maze, and I should have ditched them, only I really was lost most of the time and just staring at the map and hoping that it looked like I knew where I was going.))
I take my family to a haunted corn maze.
Okay, it's not technically haunted, or at least, it wasn't haunted while we were there. It's only haunted after 7 PM, and we were there at about 1:30. We'd driven down to Salt Lake City on our thrice-annual trip to purchase six hundred pounds of meat and the world's largest box of Goldfish crackers at Costco, and while we were there, we decided to take a mini-vacation to a haunted cornfield located North of Salt Lake City. And not just that: there was a corn maze and a hay ride! Yee-haw!
I knew the day was going to be charmed when we found a parking space right in front of the entrance, despite the fact that there were hundreds of people there. Cool!
Okay, I'll admit that the circa-1960's helicopter giving rides made me afraid, and I may have used Angela's motion sickness as an excuse to skip out on crashing to my death in a fiery ball of fiery death, but other than that, the whole thing was just good, wholeseome fun.
The corn maze had four entrances, and spanned about 10 acres, which is a really good size for a corn maze. And it had a big long list of rules, things like "no running" and "no going off the path" and "no swearing" and all sorts of other rules that are designed to make the whole thing less fun.
If Angela hadn't been watching me, I'd have violated those rules like they were going out of style.
I grabbed a map and, all together, we forged off into the corn maze. It took about six seconds to remind me of why I never take my family anywhere.
"Hey, dad," one of them said. "How come you have the map? You don't even know right from left."
"I'm okay," I insisted. "We just turn right up here."
So we wandered around a little while, and the heckling got worse and worse from behind me.
"This is like watching a mule with a spinning wheel," one of them guffawed. "Nobody knows how he got it, and danged if he knows how to use it!"
"Remember the time he drove all around town to go to a Chinese restaurant next to our hotel?" Victoria asked. "Think this is like that?"
I swear, I was looking for a tractor to lead them under!
About six hours later, we finally came back out of the maze, their taunts and jeers notwithstanding. And I was never, ever, lost! There was just a lot of maze to go look at.
Just as we were getting ready to go back into the maze, Angela's feet started to hurt too much to go on. But there was still one more maze to go! And you know what they say: once you've started a corn maze, you've got to, uh, finish it.
So anyways, me and the bobbsey twins go to the last maze. And this one has something special about it: six million bees. And thankfully, no Angela to make me follow all the rules. Yar! Let's swear and run and swear and stray off the path and swear!
And let's also avoid the six million bees, okay?
When we get into the maze, the heckling starts again: "hey, dad, how do you know where we are without a GPS?"
It's horrible, so I do the only thing a dad really can: I prank them.
Victoria, being a pre-teen know-it-all, is walking about ten feet ahead of us and running her mouth about how lost we are, so I grab William and we just stop. I hear her motor-mouth still blabbing as she goes ahead, and then suddenly, it all goes silent.
"Dad?" I hear from somewhere up ahead. "Dad? William? Where are you guys? Dad?"
Then there's little feet running (breaking a rule!) and she comes tearing around the corner, tears almost in her eyes. "You really scared me!"
Good times. We forge on ahead, and it's William's turn to start up.
"That would never work on me," he says. "You'd never get me with that trick. I'm too smart for it. Too clever. I'm like a ninja! You can't fool me with such things. I have...oonagi!"
That goes on, for like five minutes, so I grab Victoria and we step aside. And sure enough, he almost immediatley turns around. "I knew you'd do that! Give it up, old man. I'm too much for you! Too clever! You're finished! Done! A has-been! A never-was!"
He's keeping up this prattle as we walk, and I slow down, ever so slightly, so he and his sister both get up ahead of me. And they take a turn up ahead, like they've been doing, and I just keep going straight (remember, I have the map).
Victoria, to her credit, sees me do it and circles around to come back to me. Mr. Ninja Never Surprised, though, is so caught up in his victory rhapsody that he keeps going, until he realizes he's alone.
"Ha, ha." He says as he backtracks. "You guys know that trick won't work on me. You're just waiting right back..."
Silence.
"Dad?" Now there's a note of concern. "Very funny. Come out, dad. Dad? Dad? Daaaaad!" Now he's running around, wailing, full of concern and very worried that he's alone in the corn maze.
Victoria then runs off, I'm not sure why, and I hear this conversation and realize that she's very, very evil.
"Vic!" He gasps gratfully. "Where's dad?"
"I don't know," she says. "I haven't seen him!"
"DAAAAAAAAAAAD!" he yells. "WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?!?"
And at that point I bust out laughing, and he finds me, and then proceeds to punch me with his little fists angrily, tears in his eyes.
But I didn't have to hear any more of that "I'm so ninja" crap.
As we made our way out, it's possible that I got lost, and swore, and then cut through a bunch of the part of the corn field that you're not supposed to go through, but I'd never admit that.
Because pranks are fun, Victoria decided to go prank her mother, who was sitting on a bench listening to music. Vic snuck up behind her, and then jumped on her, but her mother never even flinched.
"How did you do that?" Vic asked.
"I saw your shadow," Angela responded.
Now that, my friends, is some mad ninja skillz. We were all in awe. But I still stepped on the heel of her shoe, because I have mad prank skillz.
Once the maze fun was done, we headed over to the hayride. Is it really a hayride without hay? Before we started, one dude yelled out the rules, but nobody but me could hear it.
"What did he say?" Angela yells as the tractor starts rolling off into the pumpkin patch.
"He said that tops are not allowed in the pumpkin patch," I said. "And that you should treat me better. Really, that's what he said!"
Angela just rolled her eyes at me, but the offended woman next to her was hilarious. Listen, lady, I been married to her for twenty years - if she can't handle that, well, it's time to just hang it all up.
Once you get out to the pumpkin patch, a bunch of slackjawed yokels gunning for tips stand around with cutters and try to get you to slip them a buck before they cut the pumpkin off the vine, like skycaps at the airport. None of that for me - I pulled out my keys and sawed the pumpkins off WITH MY BARE HANDS!
It was like I was Arnold Swartzenegger and Edward Scissorhands all rolled into one, without the angst or the mistresses. Or the muscles. Or the money.
(Or the looks, I'm told).
Plus, I got pumpkin barbs all in my hands, but I couldn't admit that because I'd already been savagely abused in the whole maze thing, but that hurt for like three days.
We returned, our pumpkins held proudly aloft (well, not really, but you get the imagery), and then when the tractor returned to the parking lot it was about ten feet from the van, which just underlined my awesome awesomeness.
So yes, I am the greatest father in the history of fatherhood!
(Author's note: it's possible that the entire idea of the pumpkin patch, corn maze, and hayride was from Angela, who found out about it and arranged the whole thing, and packed for us. But it is true that I drove, and I was also instrumental in waking up, and I did make the hotel reservations. And it's definintely true that I wrote this, so I'm just going to take full credit for it.)
((Plus, for the record, they're all weenies for being so difficult in the corn maze, and I should have ditched them, only I really was lost most of the time and just staring at the map and hoping that it looked like I knew where I was going.))
Thursday, October 11, 2012
How not to open Corned Beef
While we were shopping last week, I happened to stroll down the canned meat aisle looking for something to supplement my steady diet of vienna sausages and beef jerky. I'm trying this diet (think of it as Atkins-like) where carbs are restricted and I can eat all the meat I want. It's good for me - I like meat.
Lest you call me crazy, I've lost 5-6 pounds since I started eating like this.
So anyways, I'm looking for something to eat when I spy it: a can of Corned Beef.
Many questions come to mind immediately: do I like corned beef? What is corned beef? Does it have corn in it? Is it cornish? Why is the tin a non-symmetrical shape?
But what sealed the deal for me was that the tin had a key on it to open it. You know, like an old timey can, which I thought was awesome. It didn't matter if I liked corned beef or not - I was gonna buy this and eat it. Yee-haw!
Angela's deathly ill this week (she may not make it), so I had to make my own dinner tonight, so I went to the pantry and brought out - you guessed it - my corned beef. Excitedly, I read the directions, which said "punch hole in top of can and twist key clockwise" with a picture and everything.
Punching the hole was no problem, and in seconds I had a ventilated top.
Next I put the key on, and started twisting. And the stupid key snapped in half. Right in half!
No problem, I thought. I grabbed a pair of pliers, and in a second I had ahold of the little metal tab on the side of the can. In a few seconds, I had...ripped the rest of the tab off the side.
With my loving family laughing and pointing, I had no choice but to grab the can opener and open the can manually. No problem, right?
WRONG! I got the first side of the can open, but as I was navigating the angle on the can top, there was a very loud CRACK and POW and the handle of the can opener exploded and sent plast shards everywhere, including into Angela's face (which is not good for your marriage).
The can opener had been destroyed.
I went and fetched a screwdriver, a hammer, and all my best cursewords, because there was no way that I was going to allow this can to beat me. And five minutes and six thousand swear words later, I had the can of corned beef open, and I plopped it out onto my plate.
"Gross!" said one child. "It looks like dog food!"
You know what? It didn't really. Dog food looks much more appetizing. Probably tastes better, too.
That stuff was disgusting.
So to sum up: after one destroyed can opener and a lot of time, I discovered I don't like corned beef, and I still don't know what it is, and I also feel kind of queasy.
I think I'm going to stick to the vienna sausages, whose pop top always works.
Lest you call me crazy, I've lost 5-6 pounds since I started eating like this.
So anyways, I'm looking for something to eat when I spy it: a can of Corned Beef.
Many questions come to mind immediately: do I like corned beef? What is corned beef? Does it have corn in it? Is it cornish? Why is the tin a non-symmetrical shape?
But what sealed the deal for me was that the tin had a key on it to open it. You know, like an old timey can, which I thought was awesome. It didn't matter if I liked corned beef or not - I was gonna buy this and eat it. Yee-haw!
Angela's deathly ill this week (she may not make it), so I had to make my own dinner tonight, so I went to the pantry and brought out - you guessed it - my corned beef. Excitedly, I read the directions, which said "punch hole in top of can and twist key clockwise" with a picture and everything.
Punching the hole was no problem, and in seconds I had a ventilated top.
Next I put the key on, and started twisting. And the stupid key snapped in half. Right in half!
No problem, I thought. I grabbed a pair of pliers, and in a second I had ahold of the little metal tab on the side of the can. In a few seconds, I had...ripped the rest of the tab off the side.
With my loving family laughing and pointing, I had no choice but to grab the can opener and open the can manually. No problem, right?
WRONG! I got the first side of the can open, but as I was navigating the angle on the can top, there was a very loud CRACK and POW and the handle of the can opener exploded and sent plast shards everywhere, including into Angela's face (which is not good for your marriage).
The can opener had been destroyed.
I went and fetched a screwdriver, a hammer, and all my best cursewords, because there was no way that I was going to allow this can to beat me. And five minutes and six thousand swear words later, I had the can of corned beef open, and I plopped it out onto my plate.
"Gross!" said one child. "It looks like dog food!"
You know what? It didn't really. Dog food looks much more appetizing. Probably tastes better, too.
That stuff was disgusting.
So to sum up: after one destroyed can opener and a lot of time, I discovered I don't like corned beef, and I still don't know what it is, and I also feel kind of queasy.
I think I'm going to stick to the vienna sausages, whose pop top always works.
Fun with Studying
Let's pretend that you have a daughter who is obsessed with getting good grades, and to whom getting an A- feels like failure. Now let's pretend that this daughter receives an assignment from a teacher to do the following:
"Go home and take a bunch of sticky notes and write out facts about Mesopotamia on them, and post them in areas all around the house so that wherever you go you are reading key facts about this ancient empire."
Now let's imagine that you're a dad, and you get bored, and you're sitting here looking at sticky notes posted all over your house (even on the milk and on the toilet!) and so you decide to do the only real logical thing: you append a bunch of little-known facts to the bottom of the cards.
You know, things like "Ancient Mesopotamains were invaded by the Hittites, the Assyrians, and Gloria Gaynor." Or "Common medicines were roots, herbs, and Disco Globes."
And of course Emproer Sartan founded the BeeGees.
Here's what happens: your daughter gets mad at you and says that if she gets a bad grade it's your fault. And you get to laught maniacally and quote old disco songs until she stomps off angrily.
It's all in good fun!
"Go home and take a bunch of sticky notes and write out facts about Mesopotamia on them, and post them in areas all around the house so that wherever you go you are reading key facts about this ancient empire."
Now let's imagine that you're a dad, and you get bored, and you're sitting here looking at sticky notes posted all over your house (even on the milk and on the toilet!) and so you decide to do the only real logical thing: you append a bunch of little-known facts to the bottom of the cards.
You know, things like "Ancient Mesopotamains were invaded by the Hittites, the Assyrians, and Gloria Gaynor." Or "Common medicines were roots, herbs, and Disco Globes."
And of course Emproer Sartan founded the BeeGees.
Here's what happens: your daughter gets mad at you and says that if she gets a bad grade it's your fault. And you get to laught maniacally and quote old disco songs until she stomps off angrily.
It's all in good fun!
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
The Scariest Hallowee Decoration...EVER!
Here is this year's Halloween decoration. I like to call it "Scary Monster in a Coffin." And lest you laugh - I challenge anybody reading this to do better!
The pictures don't do it very good justice, but here's what it looks like as seen from my yard. We start with a closed coffin:
So you might notice that it glows quite convincingly, thanks to several layers of Glo-Paint (by Krylon!) and my handy-dandy black light. The red lights up above are candelabras that flicker quite convincingly. The Gothic cross is, by the way, my own handiwork. And you can't hardly even tell that the cross isn't quite straight or centered that well. And even if you could, that'd just make it spookier!
So as you watch, thinking there's nothing to worry about, suddenly it moves! You see that strange blur in the upper right corner? Yeah, that's...
A SKELETAL HAND!
And suddenly the coffin bursts open, and you see that it contains a horrible monster! But you breathe a sigh of relief as the coffin slams shut again, trapping the monster once more, until it begins to OPEN THE COFFIN AGAIN!
It's pretty rocking.
Now, I'm not going to take full credit for this. I cut out the coffin, did the artistry, and made the monster, and put sixty-five layers of glow paint on a horned ram demon skull, but I did have somebody else do the motorwork that makes the lid open and closed. He also made something called a "cam", who I thought was just a quarterback, but it turns out it's also something that makes coffin lids open and closed.
Who knew?
So here's the machinery that makes it all go:
Pretty sweet, huh?
Who knows what kind of craziness I'll get up to as Halloween goes on?
I don't want to give it away, but it involves pumpkin spiders and sunken heads...
The pictures don't do it very good justice, but here's what it looks like as seen from my yard. We start with a closed coffin:
So as you watch, thinking there's nothing to worry about, suddenly it moves! You see that strange blur in the upper right corner? Yeah, that's...
A SKELETAL HAND!
It's pretty rocking.
Now, I'm not going to take full credit for this. I cut out the coffin, did the artistry, and made the monster, and put sixty-five layers of glow paint on a horned ram demon skull, but I did have somebody else do the motorwork that makes the lid open and closed. He also made something called a "cam", who I thought was just a quarterback, but it turns out it's also something that makes coffin lids open and closed.
Who knew?
So here's the machinery that makes it all go:
Who knows what kind of craziness I'll get up to as Halloween goes on?
I don't want to give it away, but it involves pumpkin spiders and sunken heads...
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Believe it...or not
Do you know what separates us from the animals? Our ability to solve problems.
For instance, let's say that you like to eat peanut butter on your celery. After you cut the celery in half, and then smear peanut butter on it, you can have up to two dirty knives (one sharp one to cut the celery, and a butter knife for the peanut butter).
So I solved that problem using a typical human ingenuity: I just tear the celery apart and then dip it right into the peanut butter jar. See, this is why animals are in zoos instead of people.
Now now, before you judge me, let's just realize a few things about celery: it has no taste at all, it's mostly water, and it's already straight, like a vegetable knife (the cords in it are also just like floss).
Of course, there are some people (ahem: ANGELA) who think this is wrong. I don't really know why; I think maybe it has something to do with her general apathy towards progress. But at any rate, this is how she chose to express her displeasure with me at dinner tonight:
"Have you been sticking the celery directly in the peanut butter?"
I mean, how do you respond to this? So here's what I said: "No, why do you ask?"
"Because I almost threw away the jar today because I thought it was moldy," she said. "But then I saw it was hard, and not soft."
"Some mold is hard," I said. "Like cheese."
"Wrong road, dad," said William.
"This wasn't mold, it was celery," she said.
"Did you notice how nice the swirl design was in the peanut butter?" I said "You can't get designs like that with a knife. Wasn't it nice?"
"Wrong road, dad," said William.
"If you're going to do that, could you please make sure you don't leave any celery behind?"
"I don't think I did it," I said. "It was probably the children."
"Don't drag us into this," Victoria said. "You're on your own."
"I promise to be more careful in the future," I said. "Do you know where the celery is?"
But the joke's on her. I never did admit to biting the celery off of the stalk before I dipped it into the peanut butter, which really is gross. Not that I did that.
For instance, let's say that you like to eat peanut butter on your celery. After you cut the celery in half, and then smear peanut butter on it, you can have up to two dirty knives (one sharp one to cut the celery, and a butter knife for the peanut butter).
So I solved that problem using a typical human ingenuity: I just tear the celery apart and then dip it right into the peanut butter jar. See, this is why animals are in zoos instead of people.
Now now, before you judge me, let's just realize a few things about celery: it has no taste at all, it's mostly water, and it's already straight, like a vegetable knife (the cords in it are also just like floss).
Of course, there are some people (ahem: ANGELA) who think this is wrong. I don't really know why; I think maybe it has something to do with her general apathy towards progress. But at any rate, this is how she chose to express her displeasure with me at dinner tonight:
"Have you been sticking the celery directly in the peanut butter?"
I mean, how do you respond to this? So here's what I said: "No, why do you ask?"
"Because I almost threw away the jar today because I thought it was moldy," she said. "But then I saw it was hard, and not soft."
"Some mold is hard," I said. "Like cheese."
"Wrong road, dad," said William.
"This wasn't mold, it was celery," she said.
"Did you notice how nice the swirl design was in the peanut butter?" I said "You can't get designs like that with a knife. Wasn't it nice?"
"Wrong road, dad," said William.
"If you're going to do that, could you please make sure you don't leave any celery behind?"
"I don't think I did it," I said. "It was probably the children."
"Don't drag us into this," Victoria said. "You're on your own."
"I promise to be more careful in the future," I said. "Do you know where the celery is?"
But the joke's on her. I never did admit to biting the celery off of the stalk before I dipped it into the peanut butter, which really is gross. Not that I did that.
Revenge of Lucas
Although our grandchild might have gone, he left behind a powerful legacy, and not just the 94% that Victoria earned taking care of him. He also left behind a powerful urge to earn extra credit in some fashion that did not involve handling a howling electronic tether.
It involved the dreaded Empathy Belly.
If you've never seen one of these things, what they do is they take fat suit, fill it up six barbells, then they punch you in solar plexus and put it on you. Then they tell you that's what pregnancy feels like.
Back in my day, when Angela was pregnant and I said "so what does it feel like?" she just kicked me in groin. Repeatedly. With boots on. Angrily.
But I got the last laugh: I told the doctors she didn't want any painkillers when our children were born. Who's laughing now?????
So anyways, they put about sixty five pounds on Victoria, and she of course folds up like an accordian at the laundromat. So they took out some weight (about 60 pounds), and strapped her up, and away she went. All day the poor girl was waddling around school, huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf at a Piggy Convention, only she had to go to the bathroom a lot, so it was more like Big Bad Wolf with Bladder Problems at a Piggy Convention with Inconvenient Toilets.
On the upside, it got her out of a day of flag football, so the Empathy Belly wasn't all that bad.
She has reiterated her desire not to have children any time soon, but I told her the big payoff was that when you're really pregnant you get to feel the baby kick and move around, like when I used to feel her kick me through Angela's stomach, and then Angela would be all "that hurt!" and I'd be all "but the baby kicked my head so you have to feel sorry for me!" and then the kicking would start again, only this time Angela would join in, and I would wake up about an hour later and the house would be all dark and stuff.
It involved the dreaded Empathy Belly.
If you've never seen one of these things, what they do is they take fat suit, fill it up six barbells, then they punch you in solar plexus and put it on you. Then they tell you that's what pregnancy feels like.
Back in my day, when Angela was pregnant and I said "so what does it feel like?" she just kicked me in groin. Repeatedly. With boots on. Angrily.
But I got the last laugh: I told the doctors she didn't want any painkillers when our children were born. Who's laughing now?????
So anyways, they put about sixty five pounds on Victoria, and she of course folds up like an accordian at the laundromat. So they took out some weight (about 60 pounds), and strapped her up, and away she went. All day the poor girl was waddling around school, huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf at a Piggy Convention, only she had to go to the bathroom a lot, so it was more like Big Bad Wolf with Bladder Problems at a Piggy Convention with Inconvenient Toilets.
On the upside, it got her out of a day of flag football, so the Empathy Belly wasn't all that bad.
She has reiterated her desire not to have children any time soon, but I told her the big payoff was that when you're really pregnant you get to feel the baby kick and move around, like when I used to feel her kick me through Angela's stomach, and then Angela would be all "that hurt!" and I'd be all "but the baby kicked my head so you have to feel sorry for me!" and then the kicking would start again, only this time Angela would join in, and I would wake up about an hour later and the house would be all dark and stuff.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
More Vegetables I Don't Understand
I don't know why there are so many different kinds of edible plants. You really only need three kinds of edible plants:
1) Poisonous ones to feed your enemies
2) Ones you can put peanut butter in (like celery)
3) Bananas
But for some reason, there are like sixty gazillion kinds of edibile plants. And I don't know how to eat but about four of them.
Into this confusion steps Angela, who has joined this "Fruit and Vegetable Basket of the Month" club, which means that every other week she orders a big basket of edibile plants. Only, she doesn't get to pick the plants, it's completely random. And by random, I mean "there's one thing you recognize and bunch of other stuff that only vaguely looks edible."
Even worse, she orders 3 baskets, and gives two away. What kind of person gives stuff away that they don't even know what it is? It sounds communist, if you ask me.
(addendum: Angela would like it stated for the record that she sells them. Probably at a loss, like all good commies.)
This weekend is a good example. Here's what I thought we got in our basket:
1 Bananas (which is good)
2 Tomatoes (which I will suffer)
3 Celery (which goes great with peanut butter)
4 Avocado (which is poisonous, I think)
5 Apples (funny story: I used to be able to eat apples with no problem, but now when I eat them my eyes swell up and itch and I don't feel quite right, which I think means I'm allergic to them, and one day when I went all Quasimodo my boss told me he would fire me if I ate another apple at work, and I'm kind of always at work, so I stopped eating them)
6 Lettuce
7 Pears
8 Sweet Potatoes
9 Melons
10 Strawberries (which she got 83 pounds of, but that's okay because we love strawberries)
11: Fifteen limes (which you have to drink a lot of Cerveza to go through)
12: Carrots
I actually felt pretty good about this basket: unlike some weeks, I at least recognized all the edible plants in it. I could eat most of them, too.
In order to be supremely efficient, I gave away the avocado right off the bat. Then, I swapped all the apples for a melon with another person. I was so proud of myself, that when Angela came out, I bragged "I got rid of all those apples in exchange for a melon! See, now allergic reaction for me!"
She looks at me and goes "I'm not allergic to apples, and I like them."
D'OH!
Then she says "The children aren't allergic to apples, either."
DOUBLE D'OH!
Everything's good after that: we get home, I make a salad, it's tasty, I eat a lot of peanut butter and celery (which I think is why God created peanut butter: to go inside celery), and we have plenty of delicious strawberries.
Then tonight, she pulls open the fridge and she goes "hey, look, this is Collard Greens."
"You need a Chlorox Wipe?" I ask. "You know, to clean it up?"
"No, these," she says, holding up the lettuce. "They're Collard Greens."
"That's lettuce," I say. "I ate some yesterday. I ate some today. It's lettuce."
"Look at the label," she tells me. "It says Collard Greens."
Is that a kind of lettuce? Is it poisonous? Does that explain why it tasted weird? What the heck?
I reiterate: there are too many kinds of fruits and vegetables. There should be less. I shouldn't have to read to know what I'm eating!
1) Poisonous ones to feed your enemies
2) Ones you can put peanut butter in (like celery)
3) Bananas
But for some reason, there are like sixty gazillion kinds of edibile plants. And I don't know how to eat but about four of them.
Into this confusion steps Angela, who has joined this "Fruit and Vegetable Basket of the Month" club, which means that every other week she orders a big basket of edibile plants. Only, she doesn't get to pick the plants, it's completely random. And by random, I mean "there's one thing you recognize and bunch of other stuff that only vaguely looks edible."
Even worse, she orders 3 baskets, and gives two away. What kind of person gives stuff away that they don't even know what it is? It sounds communist, if you ask me.
(addendum: Angela would like it stated for the record that she sells them. Probably at a loss, like all good commies.)
This weekend is a good example. Here's what I thought we got in our basket:
1 Bananas (which is good)
2 Tomatoes (which I will suffer)
3 Celery (which goes great with peanut butter)
4 Avocado (which is poisonous, I think)
5 Apples (funny story: I used to be able to eat apples with no problem, but now when I eat them my eyes swell up and itch and I don't feel quite right, which I think means I'm allergic to them, and one day when I went all Quasimodo my boss told me he would fire me if I ate another apple at work, and I'm kind of always at work, so I stopped eating them)
6 Lettuce
7 Pears
8 Sweet Potatoes
9 Melons
10 Strawberries (which she got 83 pounds of, but that's okay because we love strawberries)
11: Fifteen limes (which you have to drink a lot of Cerveza to go through)
12: Carrots
I actually felt pretty good about this basket: unlike some weeks, I at least recognized all the edible plants in it. I could eat most of them, too.
In order to be supremely efficient, I gave away the avocado right off the bat. Then, I swapped all the apples for a melon with another person. I was so proud of myself, that when Angela came out, I bragged "I got rid of all those apples in exchange for a melon! See, now allergic reaction for me!"
She looks at me and goes "I'm not allergic to apples, and I like them."
D'OH!
Then she says "The children aren't allergic to apples, either."
DOUBLE D'OH!
Everything's good after that: we get home, I make a salad, it's tasty, I eat a lot of peanut butter and celery (which I think is why God created peanut butter: to go inside celery), and we have plenty of delicious strawberries.
Then tonight, she pulls open the fridge and she goes "hey, look, this is Collard Greens."
"You need a Chlorox Wipe?" I ask. "You know, to clean it up?"
"No, these," she says, holding up the lettuce. "They're Collard Greens."
"That's lettuce," I say. "I ate some yesterday. I ate some today. It's lettuce."
"Look at the label," she tells me. "It says Collard Greens."
Is that a kind of lettuce? Is it poisonous? Does that explain why it tasted weird? What the heck?
I reiterate: there are too many kinds of fruits and vegetables. There should be less. I shouldn't have to read to know what I'm eating!
Lion Illustrated - Catch It!
Did you know that William is a publisher?
No, don't worry, readers, he's not publishing some sort of horrible "Grade School Confidential" newsletter. And he's certainly not publishing some kind of inappropriate material. And so far as I know, he hasn't written any fart jokes on the wall of school restrooms.
But he did once draw a nasty charicature of Victoria, which he titled "Butt Hed." To this day, we still call her "Butt Hed." In fact, we don't even remember why he thought she was a butt hed, but it seemed so correct we've kept it as part of our family. It's like the Waltons, only with more potty humor.
So anyways, William is a publisher. His magazine is called "Lion Illustrated." He has published five so far, four regular issues and one "Special Issue" with a guest star. I would tell you who the guest star was, but occasionally this character appears on a channel which is well known for it's litigiousness and I don't want William to get sued and end up having to work in the bowels of Disneyland cleaning up vomit from Space Mountain.
Wait, was that too specific?
Anyways, there are two things about Lion Illustrated that make it really special.
#1 - It is full of corny jokes. For example, what do you call a Lion with a copy machine? A copy cat!
#2 - At the end of each issue, it says "Watch for more Lion Illustrateds and they'll come!" Which I think is great. I mean, unless you sit there and stare into empty space waiting for more to come, technically if no more come, then he can say "you just weren't looking for them." Which is beautiful. I figure he's got a great future in advertising ahead of him.
So if you want to see any of his work, just let me know and we'll send a copy. He's distributed them before and had good reviews on them.
He tells me that the price is 3 acorns, plus a $62 shipping fee. A subscription is 30 acorns (that's two issues free!).
No, don't worry, readers, he's not publishing some sort of horrible "Grade School Confidential" newsletter. And he's certainly not publishing some kind of inappropriate material. And so far as I know, he hasn't written any fart jokes on the wall of school restrooms.
But he did once draw a nasty charicature of Victoria, which he titled "Butt Hed." To this day, we still call her "Butt Hed." In fact, we don't even remember why he thought she was a butt hed, but it seemed so correct we've kept it as part of our family. It's like the Waltons, only with more potty humor.
So anyways, William is a publisher. His magazine is called "Lion Illustrated." He has published five so far, four regular issues and one "Special Issue" with a guest star. I would tell you who the guest star was, but occasionally this character appears on a channel which is well known for it's litigiousness and I don't want William to get sued and end up having to work in the bowels of Disneyland cleaning up vomit from Space Mountain.
Wait, was that too specific?
Anyways, there are two things about Lion Illustrated that make it really special.
#1 - It is full of corny jokes. For example, what do you call a Lion with a copy machine? A copy cat!
#2 - At the end of each issue, it says "Watch for more Lion Illustrateds and they'll come!" Which I think is great. I mean, unless you sit there and stare into empty space waiting for more to come, technically if no more come, then he can say "you just weren't looking for them." Which is beautiful. I figure he's got a great future in advertising ahead of him.
So if you want to see any of his work, just let me know and we'll send a copy. He's distributed them before and had good reviews on them.
He tells me that the price is 3 acorns, plus a $62 shipping fee. A subscription is 30 acorns (that's two issues free!).
Monday, September 17, 2012
Grandparents!
We are pleased to announce that we are now Grandparents! Our grandson, Lucas Roland Terrence Allauze, was born on Friday, September 14, 2012. He weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces, and had shiny, glossy plastic skin and a synthesized voice box. His proud mothers were Victoria and her friend, J.
Here's the deal: for some reason our daughter, who had never until this point in her life shown even the slightest inclination to have anything to do with any babies at any time, decided that she wanted to take Infant Care. She was really excited about the whole "we get to bring home a robot baby and keep it!" thing.
You know those things: they're the ones that they give troubled teenagers to convince them that they don't want to have children too early. You see them on top-flight shows like Oprah or Maury Povich, and occasionally they're used as weapons on Jerry Springer (God rest his smutty soul).
It occurs to me that we had a live infant in our house once, one that she was even related to, and she did exactly two things during his infancy to help: diddly and squat. So where this feeling came from, I have no idea.
So on Friday the girls stayed over at J's house, and then on Saturday they came over to spend the day with us. I immediately noticed two things:
1 - Lucas was a handful, much as I remember our infants being (when I wake up in a cold sweat from one of my many nightmares that we've had a third). He cried for no reason, and was difficult to comfort. Except for the stink, and the fluid discharge, they pretty much nailed what it was like to have a baby.
2 - Victoria is a father, because she spent a lot of time watching J work, or saying "you do this because you do it better" or saying "you take care of it because I have to go to the bathroom." So apparently she was paying attention when her brother was a child, which makes me proud to have passed on some of the knowledge I picked up from my old man.
The best part of Lucas was that we weren't allowed to help - they had these ID bracelets that they had to scan him with before they helped him, which meant that as much as we might like to step in, we just had to watch dotingly as they struggled to succeed, like any good grandparent. Or at least, that's what I remember my children's grandparents doing (kidding!)
Want to see two pre-teens freak out? Have their electronic baby suddenly stop while they're fiddling with it, and when they wonder what's wrong, suggest "maybe you just killed it." Man, that was hiliarous. They spent about thirty minutes hovering over it, wringing their hands, until finally it cooed and they were so happy it was alive they forgot all about their desserts, which means I got three helpings.
On Sunday, William and I escaped to church, leaving a very exhausted group behind at the house (Lucas needs to be fed at 5 AM). I have never seen him more spiritually engaged - he asked if he could be baptized and then ordained and then if we could "shop around" to see if any other churches met during Sunday afternoon. But alas, eventually we had to go home, and then J had to go home, leaving us...
ALONE!
On the up side, after a day alone with Lucas, Victoria is not in any hurry to have children. I caught her looking up "sterilization" on Google, actually, and I had to intervene in hopes that I might be able to have grandchildren again someday. I think I've back-filled the damage, but I probably won't know for certain for another 2 years or so.
On the down side, man can that kid cry. I think he's got plastic colic or something.
This morning, after Angela finally dynamited Victoria out of bed, she laid back down fully dressed "just to rest for a second." Thirty minutes later Angela had to drag her out of bed again by the hair, and the only reason that Vic ever actually got up was that William threatened to flush Lucas down the toilet, and if he went down the tubes Vic would get a bad grade, and taht's a fate worse than death for her. So up she got.
That, and once she got to school she could put him in "day care" which meant that he wouldn't be with her any more. I'm pretty sure all my grandchildren will be latch-key kids, or at least raised in my attic.
So now he's over at his other mother's house, and our house is empty, and he's not coming back. I think we're all glad. But at least we got a picture:
ps: Victoria wants to know if, having had the first great-grandchild, she's now in line for a larger portion of the will. How about it, great-grandpa?
Here's the deal: for some reason our daughter, who had never until this point in her life shown even the slightest inclination to have anything to do with any babies at any time, decided that she wanted to take Infant Care. She was really excited about the whole "we get to bring home a robot baby and keep it!" thing.
You know those things: they're the ones that they give troubled teenagers to convince them that they don't want to have children too early. You see them on top-flight shows like Oprah or Maury Povich, and occasionally they're used as weapons on Jerry Springer (God rest his smutty soul).
It occurs to me that we had a live infant in our house once, one that she was even related to, and she did exactly two things during his infancy to help: diddly and squat. So where this feeling came from, I have no idea.
So on Friday the girls stayed over at J's house, and then on Saturday they came over to spend the day with us. I immediately noticed two things:
1 - Lucas was a handful, much as I remember our infants being (when I wake up in a cold sweat from one of my many nightmares that we've had a third). He cried for no reason, and was difficult to comfort. Except for the stink, and the fluid discharge, they pretty much nailed what it was like to have a baby.
2 - Victoria is a father, because she spent a lot of time watching J work, or saying "you do this because you do it better" or saying "you take care of it because I have to go to the bathroom." So apparently she was paying attention when her brother was a child, which makes me proud to have passed on some of the knowledge I picked up from my old man.
The best part of Lucas was that we weren't allowed to help - they had these ID bracelets that they had to scan him with before they helped him, which meant that as much as we might like to step in, we just had to watch dotingly as they struggled to succeed, like any good grandparent. Or at least, that's what I remember my children's grandparents doing (kidding!)
Want to see two pre-teens freak out? Have their electronic baby suddenly stop while they're fiddling with it, and when they wonder what's wrong, suggest "maybe you just killed it." Man, that was hiliarous. They spent about thirty minutes hovering over it, wringing their hands, until finally it cooed and they were so happy it was alive they forgot all about their desserts, which means I got three helpings.
On Sunday, William and I escaped to church, leaving a very exhausted group behind at the house (Lucas needs to be fed at 5 AM). I have never seen him more spiritually engaged - he asked if he could be baptized and then ordained and then if we could "shop around" to see if any other churches met during Sunday afternoon. But alas, eventually we had to go home, and then J had to go home, leaving us...
ALONE!
On the up side, after a day alone with Lucas, Victoria is not in any hurry to have children. I caught her looking up "sterilization" on Google, actually, and I had to intervene in hopes that I might be able to have grandchildren again someday. I think I've back-filled the damage, but I probably won't know for certain for another 2 years or so.
On the down side, man can that kid cry. I think he's got plastic colic or something.
This morning, after Angela finally dynamited Victoria out of bed, she laid back down fully dressed "just to rest for a second." Thirty minutes later Angela had to drag her out of bed again by the hair, and the only reason that Vic ever actually got up was that William threatened to flush Lucas down the toilet, and if he went down the tubes Vic would get a bad grade, and taht's a fate worse than death for her. So up she got.
That, and once she got to school she could put him in "day care" which meant that he wouldn't be with her any more. I'm pretty sure all my grandchildren will be latch-key kids, or at least raised in my attic.
So now he's over at his other mother's house, and our house is empty, and he's not coming back. I think we're all glad. But at least we got a picture:
ps: Victoria wants to know if, having had the first great-grandchild, she's now in line for a larger portion of the will. How about it, great-grandpa?
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Attack of the 50 ft Seagull
When we recently visited San Francisco, we did the usual itinerary: go to the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman's Wharf, Alcatraz, Union Square, etcetera. It was all fun and we had a great time. As the only member of the family who had ever visited, I was the "expert." I am also committed to scheduling our vacation to the minute. No, to the second. Because everybody knows that to maximize family fun, you need to rigorously follow a schedule.
The plan for our last day was pretty clear: Catch boat to Alcatraz at 4:30, be back at the city at 6:00, drive out by 6:30, catch dinner on the way, grocery shop from 8:00 to 8:15, and arrive in Yosemite at 9:30. Easy peasy, right!
After we visited Alcatraz (which was awesome), we were strolling down the street when the children decided to totally jettison my schedule. It didn't help that everybody was all "our feet hurt" and "we're hungry" and "why haven't you let us pee for three days" and whatnot.
So they start with the "we want to eat" bit. Sigh. So we stopped at one of the many roadside carts that sells food, because nothing says "quality food" like a guy selling fried stuff on the side of the road. Our choices were:
Me: Sourdough chili bowl
Angela: Nachos
Victoria: Nachos
William: Big Hot Dog, slathered with Ketchup (or Catsup, if you prefer)
Being the most awesomest dad ever, I sent the family around the corner to a bench while I paid. Which is why I missed...the attack!
William had eaten about half of his hot dog (this estimate is controversial - he says he ate just one bite, while Angela estimates it was half; I go with Angela's estimate because this is the boy who often says he had to wait thirty million seconds for something), and was holding up his dog to take another bite, when a shadow fell over the entire group. As they began to look up, horrified, while time slowed and onlookers began diving for cover.
The thing, which I scarce can call a Seagull, for such expresses adequately neither its girth nor malice, dove with all force into the boy, battering him aside and seizing his hot dog and nearly his fingers with it. Cackling with malice, it then tore off into the sky, knocking over an old woman and battering aside a tour buss with the gale from its wings.
Angela, ever courageous, gave chase in an effort to deliver some sort of retribution to the horrid gull (this, actually, was an error, for if he'd had an accomplice she would have lost her food as well, but this gull was so evil that none of his ilk would work with him). Alas, all she could hit the gull with were curses.
The boy, understandably, was devastated. I, understandably, was devastated too: that hot dog cost $23, and to buy him another one would cost similarly (okay, I may overstate San Francisco food prices, but not by much).
I bought him another hot dog, and after much sorrow we finished our meal. Then, as we began our long, sad, stroll back to the cable cars, we found our first piece of evidence:
We were further up the road, debating the size of the thing, when William espied one waddling in the gutter and said "it was that big!"
"No," said Victoria. "It wasn't that big."
"Wait a minute," Angela said. "Is that ketchup on its beak?"
"I think it's pronounced catsup," I said.
"It is ketchup!" William said. "That's the gull!"
Once again, the chase was on! I, being fleetest of foot, quickly outpaced the others. Angela once again could only hit it with curses. But I did better: I got a picture:
If you zoom in on his vile beak, you see the telltale catsup:
And then I spit on it. Because no gull steals from my boy and gets away!
The plan for our last day was pretty clear: Catch boat to Alcatraz at 4:30, be back at the city at 6:00, drive out by 6:30, catch dinner on the way, grocery shop from 8:00 to 8:15, and arrive in Yosemite at 9:30. Easy peasy, right!
After we visited Alcatraz (which was awesome), we were strolling down the street when the children decided to totally jettison my schedule. It didn't help that everybody was all "our feet hurt" and "we're hungry" and "why haven't you let us pee for three days" and whatnot.
So they start with the "we want to eat" bit. Sigh. So we stopped at one of the many roadside carts that sells food, because nothing says "quality food" like a guy selling fried stuff on the side of the road. Our choices were:
Me: Sourdough chili bowl
Angela: Nachos
Victoria: Nachos
William: Big Hot Dog, slathered with Ketchup (or Catsup, if you prefer)
Being the most awesomest dad ever, I sent the family around the corner to a bench while I paid. Which is why I missed...the attack!
William had eaten about half of his hot dog (this estimate is controversial - he says he ate just one bite, while Angela estimates it was half; I go with Angela's estimate because this is the boy who often says he had to wait thirty million seconds for something), and was holding up his dog to take another bite, when a shadow fell over the entire group. As they began to look up, horrified, while time slowed and onlookers began diving for cover.
The thing, which I scarce can call a Seagull, for such expresses adequately neither its girth nor malice, dove with all force into the boy, battering him aside and seizing his hot dog and nearly his fingers with it. Cackling with malice, it then tore off into the sky, knocking over an old woman and battering aside a tour buss with the gale from its wings.
Angela, ever courageous, gave chase in an effort to deliver some sort of retribution to the horrid gull (this, actually, was an error, for if he'd had an accomplice she would have lost her food as well, but this gull was so evil that none of his ilk would work with him). Alas, all she could hit the gull with were curses.
The boy, understandably, was devastated. I, understandably, was devastated too: that hot dog cost $23, and to buy him another one would cost similarly (okay, I may overstate San Francisco food prices, but not by much).
I bought him another hot dog, and after much sorrow we finished our meal. Then, as we began our long, sad, stroll back to the cable cars, we found our first piece of evidence:
Guuuuuulll!
Aha! The gull had passed this way, for only William's hot dog would have had such a ketchup-soaked rag around it! For some reason, the finding of this wrapper made everyone happy, though I didn't quite know why: if it had eaten the wrapper, perhaps it would have choked, saving a small child from the fate of losing a finger. Plus, we might could have stomped on its body (from a safe distance, of course, in case we dislodged the paper and it sprang up and attacked us).We were further up the road, debating the size of the thing, when William espied one waddling in the gutter and said "it was that big!"
"No," said Victoria. "It wasn't that big."
"Wait a minute," Angela said. "Is that ketchup on its beak?"
"I think it's pronounced catsup," I said.
"It is ketchup!" William said. "That's the gull!"
Once again, the chase was on! I, being fleetest of foot, quickly outpaced the others. Angela once again could only hit it with curses. But I did better: I got a picture:
If you zoom in on his vile beak, you see the telltale catsup:
And then I spit on it. Because no gull steals from my boy and gets away!
Why This Blog Exists
You know how sometimes people want you to put up pictures? Like grandparents, and cousins, and friends, and the FBI? And you always mean to, but you never do? And then one day you finally do it, and everybody's all like "why don't you just join Facebook" only you don't want to join Facebook because you think it's a communist plot to track your whereabouts?
That, and you can't figure out where the dot button is on your computer?
That's why this blog exists. I meant to start doing something like this when the kids were born, and now that they're in Junior High I've finally gotten around to it.
But I have to generate content, because grandma is recovering from bunion surgery so she'll be checking this every day in a desperate attempt to have some contact with the outside world, and if nothing is here she'll be all depressed, and never heal, and it'll be my fault.
This blog is just way too much pressure.
Anyways, that's why it's here.
That, and you can't figure out where the dot button is on your computer?
That's why this blog exists. I meant to start doing something like this when the kids were born, and now that they're in Junior High I've finally gotten around to it.
But I have to generate content, because grandma is recovering from bunion surgery so she'll be checking this every day in a desperate attempt to have some contact with the outside world, and if nothing is here she'll be all depressed, and never heal, and it'll be my fault.
This blog is just way too much pressure.
Anyways, that's why it's here.
Stuff We Like: Gravity Falls
Have you seen this show? It's awesome! With a capital AWESOME! The best part is that it's full of little inside jokes and puzzles and stuff. Like this guy:
Who flashes by in about 0.2 seconds at the beginning of the episode so fast you have to pause it to see. And at the end of each episode there's an anagram puzzle that you have to decode! Since we're a family of nerds, we have of course decoded each one.
The latest episode (Fight Fighters) ended up being "Sorry, Dipper, your Wendy is in another castle." Which is a reference to Mario Brothers, which of course we knew right off (not Angela, of course, since she doesn't play cool video games, only things like Farm Frenzy, but now I digress).
So if you are a fan of Gravity Falls, huzzah for you! And congratulations for being on the bleeding edge of coolness. Or nerdiness. Which together are nerolness, which sounds like some kind of strange disease that ends badly.
FYI: The alphabetic code for the last few episodes is just the reverse (A=Z, B=Y, etcetera). It was a different code in the beginning, if I recall it was something like using the letter 3 slots back (D=A, etcetera).
Who flashes by in about 0.2 seconds at the beginning of the episode so fast you have to pause it to see. And at the end of each episode there's an anagram puzzle that you have to decode! Since we're a family of nerds, we have of course decoded each one.
The latest episode (Fight Fighters) ended up being "Sorry, Dipper, your Wendy is in another castle." Which is a reference to Mario Brothers, which of course we knew right off (not Angela, of course, since she doesn't play cool video games, only things like Farm Frenzy, but now I digress).
So if you are a fan of Gravity Falls, huzzah for you! And congratulations for being on the bleeding edge of coolness. Or nerdiness. Which together are nerolness, which sounds like some kind of strange disease that ends badly.
FYI: The alphabetic code for the last few episodes is just the reverse (A=Z, B=Y, etcetera). It was a different code in the beginning, if I recall it was something like using the letter 3 slots back (D=A, etcetera).
The First Post Ever!
This is our new blog. We used to have an old blog, but I can't seem to access that one any more. Google would let me in but they want my credit card number, despite the fact that they never had one before. It's not that I don't trust Google, but I don't really trust Google, so I think that I'll just skip giving them anything and start a new blog.
I mean, it's free, right?
This is really just a test post, though, so don't get all excited.
I mean, it's free, right?
This is really just a test post, though, so don't get all excited.
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