Goin potty with the paper...

Having rolled in off of a 60-hour work week, a failed Cub Scout fundraiser and an all around cruddy week I was in dire need of some R&R. And what better way to get that than with a “Shining” inspired pillow fight?!!

The battle started as many others do. A misunderstanding here, a taunt there, suddenly there were feathers in the air and shouts of “fire the cannons!” Sporadic battles flashed up everywhere. In the kitchen, a mummy roared after terrified fighters catching them in the bedroom where the enraged mummy tossed the children to and fro, whilst tickling them till the puked. One pivotal moment in the textile war was when the children discovered that mummies are secretly terrified of small children growls and cowboy hats.

 Upon making this discovery, the children turned the tide of the battle by both deafening and terrifying their opponent. The inevitable ending was the utter demise of the terrible mummy. This photo was taken at shortlybefore the mummy met his end....

After the terrible battle, the troops were extremely hungry. Rallying in the kitchen, the troops yelled for their Quartermaster (oddly named mommy) and were promptly treated to a champion’s dinner of pizza, gogurt and fruit. At one point in the celebration, the Quartermaster determined that she thought we should all “sing-talk” everything. While the CO initially agreed, the merriment quickly devolved into infighting and riots over the last piece of pizza….all done in chorus of course. 

I'm not going to lie...we love pizza in our house...

As in all things, however, too much of a good thing can lead to bad consequences. Immediately following the battle for the last piece, Madison decided that she must retire and promptly announced she was going to go potty with the paper. And with funnies in hand, that’s just what she did. I love weekends.



SWAGGER WAGON

Pulchritude

I had a blast tonight over at the "Single Dad Laughing" blog, writing a quick rhyming poem utilizing the word Pulchritude. It's a contest and the winner gets a mystery prize. (personally I'm hoping for an stuffed Alf doll.) If you want in on the hot word action click here...http://www.danoah.com/2010/10/pulchritude-poetry-contest.html But you should know that I spent the vast majority of my high school career writing limericks of questionable nature soooo I've got some practice here. Here's what I wrote....

Not many women will go out with this dude

For he is lacking severely in pulchritude

His hair has traveled from his head to his back

His teeth are all crooked and far from on track

The fuzz of his belly

Is green and quite smelly

As he likes to dig in the codswallop of the local deli

Of sandwich based refuse his clothing remains redolent

Causing people to shriek and often foment

The dude’s efforts at washing that very moment

And at the sound of his voice the children run screaming

As the birds fly from the trees streaming

For the smell of his breath would make a dragon cry

And cause small rodents to lie down and die

Save but one runs from his stench

Nay it not be a wench

But an old hound dog with a sniffer that’s broken

Who offers a soft woof as a token

When the dude

Lacking pulchritude

Pats her softly on the head

And throws her the bread

From the codswallop of the deli

That made him so smelly

Put up or shut up...

So for the past couple of weeks I've been posting on here with reckless abandon. Relatively assured that the only people that might stumble upon my rantings are either complete strangers or my wife and a few select friends (both of whom are already aware of my personal defects and are growing used to my sometimes unhinged editorializing.) But last night I was placed in the proverbial "put up or shut up" situation. A friend who runs a successful blog with actual readers invited me to write for her blog......At first I was excited, I mean I would actually be writing for real people (not that my selected friends and wife are not real....they know me though and understand who I am.) To put it another way, I don't have anything to prove to them, they've seen the real me and for some reason or another have decided to stay. To be honest, it's kinda like the time I went to the urologist and discovered the my doctor was a her and not a him. (Although I'm not sure why it would've been THAT much more comfortable for a guy to be there for my disrobing...but I digress.) I am beginning to feel naked here and I realized that, over the years, I've fought to not allow people to see the inside of me. I'm the funny guy, the guy that people want to hang out with when they want a light evening.  But what if, after people unearth the inside guy from the funny guy exterior, people don't like the inside guy? ...................So I guess you're wondering if I'm gonna do it. Of course I am, it's an awesome honor to even be considered and quite frankly I'd be a fool to turn it away.....but I can tell that it's going to be a bit before inside guy gets as much respect in my head as funny guy. And there's only one way to do that....put up or shut up.

The Power of Labeling

I never really thought about how much my little intro paragraph would affect my writings. Really, I just thought I'd put something interesting in the little box and get on with my postings. But it grew into something that, at first, just kinda bothered me, but then outright blocked me from posting. It was such a presumptuous little paragraph. Offering hope to other dad’s who might be bogged down in the honey-do-lists of life, and then droning on and on about my day just seemed to be conceited to me. I wasn’t offering up designs of space saving shelves or tips on fixing broken hot water heaters, (you will unfortunately be hearing more about this in the very near future) I was merely pontificating about things going on in my realm. So, I changed it. The whole intro paragraph. And POOF I’m a new writer and once again have the freedom to write about…well whatever I feel like.

Awful Falafel

So I take off for lunch today, and I'm mulling over the different options. You know the three main food groups, hamburgers, tacos or pizza. Anyway I'm drivin along when I have a moment of clarity. Today is Tuesday, and Tuesday is Farmers Market day. Farmer's Markets are a freakin joygasms waiting to happen. There's food, fresh veggies and best of all...people. I love to watch people. Not in the strange guy in the corner with a trench coat kinda way, but in a sort of fly on the wall manner. I get to see five minutes of another person or persons' life and from there get to try to imagine what things must be like for that person. Take for instance the old couple I saw carrying a life time's supply of asparagus and beets. (Seriously, I'm pretty sure your urine would burn a hole through the back of the toilet if you ate that much asparagus.) Anyway, I'm munching along on my falafel pocket (more to follow on that topic shortly) and I'm watching this old guy walking with his wife. They're older, like in their 70's, and he's chewing on some treat he bought from one of the stands like a rabid squirrel. (There is something about old guys and chewing. They don't really move their jaws up and down. It's more of a circular motion that seems to grind their food rather than chew it.) Anyway, grandpa is mowing along on his treat and grandma is following along a few steps behind. (it was weird, I didn't even know they were together until he turned around and grunted at her to keep up. Oh to be old and not give a crap if you're never going to be getting any again.) Now grandma looks like she is Kathy Bates's clone from the movie Misery. Honestly, if she had walked up to me and told me she was my biggest fan I would've worn brown on my backside for the rest of the day. So squirrel master and my #1 fan are trucking along with enough asparagus to kill a small herd of sheep and I'm enjoying every moment of it chomping on my falafel. I freakin love the farmers market!

So while we're on this topic, let's pause for a second to discuss the culinary treat that is falafel. I'm not jewish, I don't really even know any jews personally, but I feel like dancing the Hora when I put falafel in my mouth. It's crunchy and moist all in one bite, and the sauce that they put on the falafel is, quite frankly, what I believe to be liquid in its most pure form. If you have never tried falafel, go to the farmers market at the todos santos shopping area in Concord on Tuesdays for lunch. There you will find a small window to heaven known to us mortals as...a falafel stand. It's right next to the crepe stand (don't.get.me.started.) and the Aids Testing table.

Yes I am aware that I just brought up a topic that really wouldn't be what one would think of as a great advertisement for my beloved market, but don't worry, I'm not even sure that they DO any testing there. The whole time I was there eating my lunch I just saw a couple of overweight women talking to a guy that had one of those bluetooth headsets that just screams, "hi I shop for electronics at 7-11!" But the table and its inhabitants are key to my final story about the farmers market. So I'm all done eating (thank the good Lord in heaven) and I'm throwing away my garbage when Hannah the Hacker comes by and crop dusts the open field of my face with her mucus induced spasms. We've all seen people like this. You know the type of person that slept through that video in health class that shows a person sneezing in slow-mo. They walk around like a germy rainbird spraying forth their sickness and plague from one unsuspecting victim to the next, all the while not understanding the protocol of sneezing and or coughing into your arm. I just want to carry around a spray bottle of my own urine and the next time one of these jerks decides to shower me with bacteria I'll spray them back and then when the inevitable WTF?! comes rolling of their tongue, I'll just roll MY eyes at their sissyness and spray them again.

So there I am feelin like a Ghosbuster fresh off a meeting with slimer and as I begin to wipe the goo from my face I turn to one of the lady's at the Aid's testing table and say (loudly enough for the hacker and all those around to hear) "You don't test for Typhoid too do you?" She just stared at me with all the intelligence of a cow chewing its cud and Hanah Hacker disappeared into the crowed spraying bacteria everywhere she goes. Joygasm, I love the farmers market.

Octoberfest

There's something about the fall that always seems to get to me. Sure winter has Christmas and all the family get together's, but fall is a more personal season. I say this having drank at least 5 beers tonight. I know that that doesn't sound like much, but for me 5 beers is a lot. Not too much, I'm not sloppy, I'm retrospective. Alcohol will do that to a person. Truly it's sorta like looking in a mirror. What you see in that mirror is directly affected by what is going on around you. Tonight I watched a film about a group of brothers that were all Jews during WWII. It wasn't a particularly awe inspiring movie. In fact it was another piece of film in which Hollywood removed any semblance of God and what He can do and made it look like, in the end, men are their own gods and don't need any help thank you very much. But I digress. The film, for me and my Sam Adams alter ego, invoked feelings of (and let it be known that I stared at the keyboard for five minutes trying to figure out how to explain what I feel) the film invoked feelings of missing something. And as I sat struggling to explain that feeling, I realized that I feel like there is something missing in my life. Like there is some mission to accomplish or some quest to complete and then the credits can roll and I can be content. It's a pretty odd feeling. I mean I look around me at the blessings God has given me and I can't help but be overwhelmed with the fact that I have ?may be? too much. And then it hit me. May be the reason I feel like I have too much is because I feel like I need to earn the blessings I have been given. Like, at some point I'll be able to finish something and say, "there you go God, even-steven! I now deserve the wonderful life I've been given with the beautiful family you've blessed me with. Show me the money!" The sad part about that feeling is there will never be a mission or a quest or a task that is big enough to call even-steven with God. So how do I overcome that missing feeling? How do I stop searching for a solution to God's grace and just accept the fact that, no matter how I've screwed things up in the past....he's still blessing me?

All Things Considered...

I had a pretty decent weekend. I ran (by "ran" I mean "walked somewhat quickly while gasping like a goldfish on the living room floor") the Tough Mudder on Saturday. All in all it wasn't a bad little course. They must have left a window open the night before however because for some reason there wasn't any freaking oxygen up there. I'm serious, I was like a fat kid with asthma the whole race. Wheezy doesn't even begin to describe the sounds I made while breathing. I can really only describe it as like a groan/whistle...a gristle. And that's what running up there was like, a big stinkin plate of gristle. But, just like John Candy (RIP) in the Great Outdoors, I ate that whole plate of gristle and came out a better man for it. I wanted to get a tattoo after the race to show that I was not only psychotic but also proud of that fact, but there were six guys in front of me and I didn't have all day. So, I instead paid a ridiculous price for a shirt and hightailed it outta there. On a side note, the after party would've been cool had I been there with friends, but since I have no friends willing to travel three hours one way to eat a plate of gristle, I bailed.

Saturday night I went over to a newly married friend's house with a couple other not so newly married couples to have dinner. It was pretty interesting to see how differently the couples treated each other. But what was REALLY interesting was the fact that the newly wed couple weren't acting all that different than the not so newly wed couples. Reality comes at you fast I suppose.

Sunday was a laid back day with the famdamily. You need these every now and again. It was one of those days where you know that there are about two billion other things you need to be doin', but only one thing you should do. Seriously, the 20 or 30 minutes I spent loungin on the couch with the kiddos Sunday morning had to have reduced my stress level by easily 50%. It was all good until A announced that it was time for her second breakfast of the morning and requested pancakes. When your youngest daughter pops her thumb out of her mouth and looks at you with her big brown eyes and asks for something with a cute little three year old lisp, you pretty much would rip the arms off a 500lb gorilla just to make her happy soooooooo pancakes it was.

We went to church Sunday morning and then laid around till about 3:30 when the kids and I finally decided it was time to build a dog house. I'm happy to say the house got built and the project cleaned up by 7PM! But that's a story for another day. All things considered, not a bad weekend at all!

Naked Cell Phone

No I'm not talking about cell phone porn, I'm talking about the fact that tonight, in my mad dash to get out the door to a father son thing at T's school, I managed to leave my cell phone behind on the dresser. My first thought when I reached down for that slightly radioactive noise box on my hip, only to discover it wasn't there, was...Oh crap now my wife is going to bag on me because she NEVER answers her phone and this will be the ONE time that she calls and I don't answer. Then I realised I was being an ass and made a mental note to not bust my wife out the next time she forgets to turn her ringer up after she leaves work. Once that myriad of emotions was dealt with it began to sink in that I was all alone in the world. I had no tether to my work, my family and (God forbid) my FACEBOOK! How was I going to know if I got poked? How was I going to poke? What if I missed a chance to throw a witty response out and garner a few "likes!!" I gradually pulled myself together and within a few minutes even managed a small chuckle at the guy in front of me scrambling to turn down his phone during the presentation. His face got all red and, since he was as bald as I am, so did his head. It makes me laugh every time I see someone forget to take care of their phone. What kind of a jerk forgets his phone...

Tough Mudder are you in shape enough?!

In an attempt to somehow regain the glory of my youth, I signed up to drive three hours (one-way), run eight miles through a military style obstacle course annnnnnnndd jump into a freezing lake on the top of a mountian. Perhaps I am merely recapturing the stupidity of youth but hey, there are free tattoos and beer to all finishers! Irregardless, I am excited about the race. It looks like a lot of fun and I think that there is only one thing that may impede my testosterone fueled age-reversal experiment....I haven't really been training. Don't get me wrong, I went and ran 8.37 miles up a hill last Saturday and made it just fine....well, it hurt a little.....ok, ok it hurt A LOT. But the point is that I did it. Unfortunately, the race will take place well above sea level. Try 6500-8500 feet above my current 50 feet above sea level. My obvious out-of-shapeness has even begun to worry my wife. She made the comment that she didn't think I was ready to go. Fifteen minutes later I lay exhausted and sweaty on the couch after having performed many feats of physical strength to prove my readiness. (That sounded way better than it should have, I should of said "fifteen minutes later I lay exhausted and sweaty on the couch because I had been thumping my chest and acting like an ass to prove my worthiness to go die on a mountain in the Sierra Nevada's.) Anywho, I'm pumped and I may not be in peak physical shape, but hey, if I waited till then I'd never go.

Hello World

Well, I suppose that I'm not the first knucklehead to sit down and decide that what I have to say is important enough that others will read it. I'm just the newest, for the moment. I wanted to start this blog for a couple of different reasons. One, I like to write. I've always enjoyed writing about things and (attempting) to be humorous about them. I suppose that the humor is subjective, but I laugh at it, and since I'm the only one reading this right now...I WIN! The second reason I wanted to start this blog is to be able to share my experiences as a dad, a Christian, a builder, a husband, an Operations Manager, a video game freak, a landscaper, a gardener etc...I'm hoping that my experiences might help a noob dad or may be even an experienced dad get through something more quickly and more easily leaving more time for relaxing with the family. This ought to be fun...