First Snow

The sky finally gave it up and covered our yard with a velvety blanket of snow last night. It's still coming down and I know I don't usually write Hallmarky bull hockey like this but it's really nice.

I think what I like the most baout snow is that my yard finally has a consistent, beautiful appearance--one unbesmirched stretch of alabaster instead of a hodge podge of green grass, brown dead grass, old leaves, dead plants, McDonald's litter, and rusted bikes.

My mom is visiting and I got up to make waffles and bacon and coffee and she got up and had her coffee and decided to take a moment at our big windows and take in the snow. She parts the drapes to gaze out at our beautiful snow white landscape and nearl spit her coffee through her nose because staring back at her was a gossamer draped skeleton and a grinning horrid skull glaring back at her through the falling snow.

I left my halloween decorations piled in a corner of the backyard. I'm thinking of finally putting them away but then, it does make for a unique snowman . . .

Second First Day of School Epic Fail

I woke up (from my night of wondering if I'd ever fall asleep) to the sound of my iPhone sawing through my desk. I heard the front door slam, looked out the window, and saw the boy child getting into his mom's car.

That seemed like a perfect thing. He gets to school on time and I get to go back to sleep. Which I did.

I wake up a few hours later to the sound of my iPhone trying to bury itself in my desk to hide from [My Attorney] who is reaching through the phone and beating me to death. I get up. I drive all the way downtown to pick up the papers I needed yesterday to register the girl. I drive all the way home. I make six calls on the way down there and two on the way back all in the vein of: take a frikkin shower so you're all dressed and ready when I get there. All of these answered with SHUT UP DAD I CAN HANDLE THIS ALRIGHT?!

I walk in the door and she's in her room.

"Hey, you ready?"

"No."

"What? Listen, we've got to get our carcass to that school and get you in."

"I don't have any pants."

I just . . I can't . . . I . . .

How does she not have any pants? She had pants yesterday. She wore them for less than an hour. Where are they now? Did they return to their pant overlords and report on the activities of teen humans?

(Pants: SIR WE TRIED TO OBSERVE THE HU-MAN TEENS BUT THEY NEVER GOT OFF THE COUCH SO THERE'S NOT MUCH TO REPORT UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED ON 'ADVENTURE TIME' FOR THE LAST SIX WEEKS.)

I fix this problem. I get her loaded into the car. I get there despite spending all seven minutes fighting for control of the radio. We leap out of the car, race across the field to the office where they tell us they stop registering at 11am, which we missed by an hour and five minutes.

Derp.

I'm so mad. I needed my day of peace and I haven't gotten yet. All the other dads-who-"work"-at-home have called me up trying to explain around the end of their cigar how good their beer tastes while I'm washing bras.

So I threaten her that I'm going to prance across the tennis courts just to embarrass her and she tells me I couldn't prance my way out of a light mist and I swear I can score higher than her on Prance Prance Revolution and we stop there in the middle of the tennis courts at the school she will go to every day but, apparently, never attend, and we shout OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE AN AWESOME GAME!

I am a 17 year old girl.

Do You Feel Lucky, Punk? Huh, Do You?

’m anti gun. Not for you—-for me. I don’t care who else owns a gun. I assume all the retards, rejects, and reprobates already have one. I assume I’m walking among the armed.

But I put myself on the DO NOT EMPISTOLATE list years ago. I’m too likely be looking for a hammer and settle for a .357 magnum. I still get a kick out of guns, no doubt. With adult supervision, I can shoot.

This summer I helped my father-in-law site a scope. We chugged up the mountain to his private hunting reserve, laid a gorgeous 30-06 across the sighting table and started peeling off high velocity brass jacketed hell-yeahs one after the other.

Meanwhile, a gunfight was brewing in my sister’s basement. She was throwing a party for my nephew and though I knew my son was attending, I didn’t know it was a gun-centric occasion.

The guns in question were a kind of sub-paintball-weapon maximized for safety by firing a soft, resilient pellet that is best described as ‘nerfish’. Shoot somebody from more than a couple feet away and they barely feel a pinch. Closer up and it’s just a wicked sting. Point blank? We’ll get to that.

So we’re all at part a) of the soirée. We’re playing laser tag (did I mention I’m from Alabama? We’d stir our grits with a gun if it didn't rust) and on the way home, my sister—with a van filled to the eaves with 11 year old boys bristling to shoot something and chattering non-stop about barrels and ammo and calibers and my son, my cute little geek son, is practically drooling—she stops at a regional sports store (ammunition dump) so some of the kids can get more nerf-pellets and her son gets a new gun and my son, wiping the drool off his face, knowing full well my position about firearms, he gives me the sad kitten appeal and just pleeeeeads with me. He is relentless. Ardent. Driven. Finally he hits me with the heavy artillery. He says “You were out shooting guns today!” Crap.

I pride myself on parenting with logic and clarity (and threats of maiming and punitive deletion of cherished electronics) so when he points out the obvious I know he’s got me. I buy him the gun.

On one condition.

I get to shoot him.

“But dad! That will HURT!”

“You’re right. It’s dangerous.” I start to put it back on the shelf. The rest of the assassins are watching carefully because if Roon gets a gun that means he gets to play and THAT means he’s a target and they know he's a little slow on his feet. Roon considers his options and agrees.

So we get back to Dodge City Basement and I line the boys up gauntlet style. Roon runs upstairs and puts on three thick t-shirts. I get my older nephew to play a military dirge-march on the drums, pin Connor to the wall and ceremoniously walk back to my place, point, aim, ask him if he has any last words, then shoot the little bastard in the solar plexus.

He didn’t even feel it.

So later. Two of the gunfighters come upstairs and ask that Connor be ejected from the OK corral. Seems he can’t really tell the difference between STOP SHOOTING, PLEASE STOP SHOOTING, OW OW OW DAMMIT STOP! and OK, START SHOOTING AGAIN and the rest of the boys are about to take away his gun by pulling it through his ass. So I go downstairs and, as I’m standing there, Connor puts his finger over the open barrel and pulls the trigger. There is a distinct, surprisingly loud SNAP and Connor looks at me with a big shit-eating grin on his face. For like one second.

Did you ever see the Grinch That Stole Christmas? Remember when his sourpuss morphs slowly into a beatific smile? Imagine that in reverse. Connor’s grin slides backwards into a howl of pain and he THROWS HIS GUN down and runs upstairs.

He was ok later, even laughed about it. But the gun? Well, let’s just say he’s on the same list I am and the gun is safely out of reach.

Radio Free Winnebagoes!

The bra discussion continued on the air:

Why Men Should Watch Sex and the City

So we're on our way back from New Orleans when [My Attorney] whips out her laptop and asks me if I want to watch Sex in the City.

For a little vacation lagniappe, we used some of our miles to bump into first class thinking it could be a great way to top off the trip. A little bubbly. A little movie. Comfort. First class is statussymbolville, rock star level, pole dancer stewardessing luxury. I wanted the optional foot massage and nude kabuki theater. Instead, I got a crabby stewardess who yelled at everyone. The champagne was crap. My seat was broken. There was GRAFITTI on the seatback.

There was no movie. There were no peanuts.

So when my attorney offered to play a rental on her laptop, I jumped at it. So what if it's Sex and the City? None of my friends were there. The seatbacks (covered in gang tags) were pretty high. So I did it.

I know, you guys are throwing your hands in the air asking How Could You, Man!? I was bored. I needed something. So she hits play and the credits come up and I find myself intrigued. The credits are pretty good and I'm surprised that the lead is actually much hotter than I used to think back in the day when SATC was the rage. And I got to give credit where credit is due--the directors really use a lot of slo-mo hair flips which are nothing more than extended gratuitous boob shots. Yay.

So the show starts and I'm all prepped to crack on the crappy writing but instead I'm asking questions and saying dude, (I often refer to My Attorney as Dude--it's unisexual, I swear), that dude's a loser and what's up her crack? And I'm into it, the story is pretty good, pretty well written, and the jokes are funny as hell. I'm realizing that basically this is just a recurring chick flick, like Roman Holiday on endless repeat, and Mr. Big is Cary Grant and all the other chicks are the quintessential American women: the hot slut, the hot professional, the hot girl next door, and the hot brainy lit chick. They're all perfect and exquisite and they have interesting conversations. About sex. For an hour. Now that's pretty cool and tolerable and yes, you will learn something about the mindset of women and yes that will help you understand your [attorney] better.

But that's not why men should watch Sex and the City.

Dude, you should watch Sex and the City because, dude: you get to watch hot naked women have sex--with your [attorney].

I saw more skin in three episodes of SATC than I ever did watching Serena Williams play tennis. It's like the Sopranos only instead of a really satisfying lurid payback assassination, you get one of the women topless. WITH YOUR [ATTORNEY].

So get comfy and plop yourself down on the couch and make occasional comments like yeah, that guy's a turd, or wow, she changed her hair. And every time they have one of the xtra-hot main characters revealing their most bankable options, say Oh that's gratuitous. Say it like you mean it.

13 Bad Headlines for NASA's Admission to Sex Training For Mars Mission

A NASA adviser recently battled the president of Virgin Atlantic for the title of "most purposefully misquoted official" after they discussed how co-ed Mars Mission astronauts---stuck together in tight quarters for three years--- might, um, think about, um . . . probing. Read the whole story here.

1. Astronauts Train For Bumpy Ride!
2. The Eagle Has Landed! (um, that's not my Eagle . . .)
3. NASA Talks to VIRGIN About SEX!
4. Asked to Extend Boom, Astronauts Giggle Uncontrollably.
5. Virgin Atlantic Adds "NOT!" to Logo!
6. Probes No Longer Limited to Aliens!
7. Uranus Begs for Name Change!
8. Cigar Shaped Object Not Cigar!
9. Howard Stern Heads New Apollo Mission!
10. Mile High Club Extended by 100 Miles.
11. Cape Canaveral Worker Fired for T-Shirt: "I Got Yer Right Stuff Hangin!"
    
12. NASA Relocates to Miami Beach, Opens Club.
    
13. New Space Suits Designed by Trojan.
    

13 Things About Swine Flu that (hack-cough-wheeze) Suck!

You try to save. You scrimp. You deprive yourself. You go a day or two without high end sushi. You order a 2004 Chateau Neuf des Papes instead of the Rothschild 1998. You suffer.

Finally, you save up just enough loose change and hedgefund windfall to send your son to computer camp at Lake Forest College, a place that makes Hogwarts look drab, a place where he will hone his burgeoning skills as a World of Warcraft modder to the point where some ten year old kids treat him like a God, a camp that costs more than the GDP of Lichtenstein, and the little snotty fartknocker goes and gets Swine Flu.

And now we're all confined indoors like we've got the consumption. Our neighbors have painted PIG in big red letters on our front door (I'm pretty sure that's related) and guys in forced-air Hazmat suits are staking a perimeter with red tape and bio-hazard signs.

So there's only one thing to do—well, 13 Things! (About Swine Flu That Suck)


1. Having it.
2. The really cool kids all have Bird Flu.
3. Too sick to play Wii, not sick enough to puke on your sister.
4. Sudden aversion to Bacon.
5. There's no medicine so you actually have to stay sick for a week which in modern times is like having your leg amputated with a hack saw.
6. After a few days, Gatorade looks the same going in as it does coming out.
7. Worrying that #4 might last forever.
8. Can't taste your Bacon Double Cheese Burger (without bacon).
9. Snot.
10. Leaving your Xbox at camp because you can't go back to get it until you don't have the flu so you're stuck at home without your game system.
11. Ditto for your Ozzie CD.
12. Friends keep texting you "Oink" and "Bacon".
13. Your dad thinks it's funny so he blogs about it. That ^%$#@!!

I Might Have Been Mentioned Somewhere . . .

Like in ChicGalleria.com, an online magazine unafraid to run my picture. Their bravery is singular and you should visit their site IMMEDIATELY!



Here's some sample comments, in case you're busy or you're just too moved for words. Just cut & paste:

1. My GOD that's a good looking man!


2. The writing in this book is so  eloquent and smooth, like he's not even, it's like -- words fail me.


3. Is this a how-to book?


4. Are there recipes?


5. Isn't this a woman's magazine?


6. That guy called his dog gay. HE CALLED HIS DOG GAY! His dog isn't gay, it's just a Border Collie. They can't help it. They're prancy!

My Daughter: Pukezilla

My wife’s first job involved testing water. It often found her flung to the furthest fields of Florida horse country, which is how I ended up in a hotel room with my infant daughter watching Kung Fu movies and bitching.

Since she got per diem and a hotel room, we’d turn her jobs into mini-vacations. Occasionally a job would land her in Miami or Fort Ladida which were always luxurious and ended with us staggering back to our hotel room at 3 am exuberantly inebriated. (Therefore: children.) But most jobs had her working an abandoned gas station where walking the baby involved diesel fumes and broken glass.

So there I am, watching A-team reruns while Sarah is rolling around on the bed. She can’t even sit up yet. She’s new and fragile, like highly animated pudding. I have no idea what to do with her. I make faces, cute noises. All I get is disdain and dirty diapers.

Around the time Mr. T is welding giant teeth on a golf cart, Ra starts grousing. The grouse turns into a kind of rarefied staccato, like someone trying to jump start a Dr. Seuss car, then escalates into full blown screaming horror. Her little face is crimson. She’s squirming to beat hell. And I’m deeply panicked. It's the kind of stupid fear confusion that makes a guy put on one shoe, a hat, and no pants before running out into the parking lot to jump up and down, scream-crying “somebody call 911”. Not me—I didn’t do that. Hell, I’d write about it if I did.

So I’m in this hotel room (not in the parking lot, pantless, jumping up, and down scream-crying) with le enfant hole shite when suddenly she stops. She stops and she stares at me and her eyes start to widen.

Now imagine this part in slomo.

I pick her up, my hands under her arms, and I get real close because I think that since she stopped screaming that things have gotten even worse, that something inside her, something internal, has gone horribly wrong. Before I can blink, she opens her mouth and horfs in my face.

When I say horf, I want you to understand we’re not talking a little tartar sauce on the shoulder. We’re talking serious fluid dispersion. Hurrlcane Katrina.

You ever see those nature shows where they’re filming the seashore and the ocean, like the entire ocean, pounds itself through a tiny hole in a rock and spews foam thirty feet in the air and knocks live birds out of the sky and sinks ships? It was like that, only chunky.

Sure, I saw it coming; but I was holding her—-what could I do?! I managed to wang my head sideways to avoid the initial sluice but Sarah had morphed into Pukezilla and there was no avoiding it. Against the known laws of physics, she had a limitless supply of fetid, lactatious, effluvium and—-again, we’re in slomo here—-was trying to see it as it came out of her. She’d never hurled so she was checking it out, or trying to, but as she’d cock her head to dig the unending jet cascading out of her mouth it would whip around like a psychotic cobra. She’s squirming, craning her neck, trying to take it all in as she gets it all out. She was an Exorcist-level 360 degree panoramic vomit volcano.

I can’t put her down because I think she might choke and I can’t turn her away because I’ve been slimed and I can barely hold on-—I’m afraid I’ll drop her-—so I just take it. Head to toe.

I’m not such a wimp anymore. If this happened now, after dropping both my kids more than once, after seeing them drive their foreheads, temples, jaws, eyeballs, and nearly every other soft part of them into various corners, mortises, baseball bats, pocket knives, handlebars, terrazzo floors, and each other, and still get As in math, I’m a little less likely to give a crap if they fall down. Now if Sarah yells “I hurt myself!” from the basement my first response is “Are you bleeding yet?” If Pukezilla attacked now, I’d toss her slimy ass on the bed and take a shower.

So she finally finishes. The bed is a foamy lake of alabaster chum. There’s a trail of it across the floor, across the TV, and splattering the lampshade. I look like someone dumped a barrel of cottage cheese over my head.

I look down at my Pukezilla, who’s squirming again and I expect another gusher, I resign myself to a life covered in goo, I set my jaw and steel my demeanor.

She’s laughing.

Not giggling. Not chuckling. She’s shaking with unalloyed, from the toes, ‘look at you, you horf covered dick’ guffaws.

Thirteen years later, she still thinks it’s funny.

------------------------

Please save me: my children are trying to kill me.