Episode 130: Snow storms, fire alarms and car sex... Ahoy!

The snowbanks are higher than the baby's head and the snow is seeping through the hallway ceiling. Christmas break is off to a pretty rough start and we are once again trapped inside and left to our vices. For me it is trying not to drink all of the PBR I bought yesterday until the sun goes down. For the baby it is being weened off of glazed munchkins and the kitty store. And I am pretty sure all of us are going to overdose on Blues Clues before the end of the storm.



Christmas was a great time for everyone, especially Av, who was apparently the best behaved child in the world because I now have everything from a mini piano to a rocking unicorn with real life noises taking up space in our tiny apartment. The most rewarding thing, though, is that she won't stop playing with the retro wooden play kitchen that Monica and I bought her. This is only rewarding because it took me four and a half hours to put together. I had to put the hinges on the door. Let me repeat that: I had to put the hinges on the door... of a child's play kitchen. It was literally like building an actual kitchen. So, seeing her tossing around plastic vegetables and pretending that her pot of soup is hot makes that lonely Saturday spent sifting through a pile of screws and efficiently labeled parts a few weeks ago well worth it. And it is much less annoying than the unicorn or the piano.

After Christmas, though, things have started to go downhill. Prior to the storm that hit yesterday Monica and I were treated to a sleepless Christmas night thanks to a very, very motivated and dexterous couple who managed to have sex- and very loud sex at that- in a green Honda Civic for two and a half hours outside of our bedroom window. The unfortunate part is that those two and a half hours were from about 3 -5:30 a.m.

Being woken up by the erotic, lustful screams of what turned out to be a rather large woman, along with the struggled cries of an at least 10-year-old, reclined passenger side seat, is as you can imagine very confusing. The sexcapade woke me up first, and I discovered the scene when I looked out the living room window and saw a big, hairy man ass pressed against the windshield. It was not long after that Monica emerged from the bedroom groggy and pissed off. I would later find out it was because she thought I had for some reason woken up at 3 a.m., gone to the living room and started loudly watching porn. Luckily for me, they kept banging, rather aggressively, for quite some time, proving my innocence. The incident, while both annoying and uncomfortable, raises many questions. First, for one to have sex for multiple hours you have to assume that there was either a lot of blow or a lot of Viagra involved, maybe both. Probably both. Second, I get that maybe you had no place to go, and I get that it was 3 a.m. when you started, but these two were as naked as naked gets. Not even any socks. Just parked in plain sight on a side street in front of about six densely settled apartments where any number of people could see through the windshield and the passenger side window from the second floor. Oh, and did I mention that it was like, 22 degrees? Hardly worth it. Then again, when you're all hopped up on Viagra and blow, you gotta blow off some steam somehow, right? The best part was when I left in the morning to find a frozen pair of boxer shorts stuck to the street where the car was parked. Gross.

The incident was so loud and disturbing that I didn't get back to sleep at all that night. I woke up with the baby, went to Walmart and the grocery store before 9 a.m. and settled in for a relaxing storm day. I went through my entire day watching the snow and looking forward to sleep. Had some tacos, a couple of beers, a little Playstation Jeopardy and tucked in. I was excited. You know how some days going to bed is the best thing in the world? You can't wait. You are like a kid on Christmas Eve. Surely the two feet of snow that was in the process of beating the shit out of our neighborhood would prevent any crazy car sex parties from ruining my sleep again.

Everything was going well until around 2 a.m. when the fire alarms started to go off. Like, all of them. I sprang in to action, throwing on a mismatched set of clothing and running to the basement. I couldn't get the alarms to stop. I ran to the front hallway, I couldn't get them to stop there, either. At no point did I think the house was on fire. Long story short, some water leaked in to the ceiling and shorted out the alarms. No way to turn them off.

Anti-social upstairs neighbor was freaking out, pacing through the basement trying to find this mystery master switch. The downstairs deadbeats barricaded themselves in the apartment, probably smoked some opium and drowned out the beeps with Radiohead. I called the fire department. From what I can remember, this was my first experience with the fire department. Before my only knowledge was that most of them were sex perverts who lure women in to their firehouses with their red trucks and bravery and then take advantage of them. Coming out to Roslyn Street at 3 a.m. in the middle of a blizzard was not on their list of things to do, and they made that apparent. Irritated from the start, the three of them sauntered around and essentially solved nothing. One younger gentleman disconnected one of the alarms and the older man said we needed to call an electrician. Good night. Thanks Mr. Fireman, sorry to pull you from your warm firehouse stocked with women. Neighbor and I disconnected everything and he said he would call an electrician. Another sleepless night. The best thing that came of this, though, is that Nugget was so nervous about the noise and the people in the house that she peed on Monica's hand. Awesome and hilarious.

I'm not really complaining, it isn't like I have anything else to do. I should be happy that the snow came early and I won't have to miss a day of work. Hopefully tonight we can make it through without any sex perverts of any kind. Whether it is party animals in a Civic or a trio of firefighters. God Bless America. Christmas pictures and video to follow later this week.

Obligitory traditions abound

Merry Christmas everyone. I'll be back with videos of an exited child tearing open presents in 2011. Until then, be safe and watch out for Christmas streakers. Maker's Mark begins flowing in 5, 4, 3, 2....

Episode 129: Story corner

I am writing this from inside of a poorly constructed couch fort. Av has a small cold and a little bit of a fever, so she is in the midst of a required sick day today. It is about 20 degrees and there is snow everywhere, so we are going to get this one before it becomes a full blown holiday sick fest. So, today we are trapped inside and looking for fun in the form of forts, stuffed guy piles and Ellio's pizza. Oh, and a variety of kid's cable programming, of course.

Right now the baby has piled all of her stuffed friends on top of Nugget, who has essentially just given in to the abuse, and the cat is pathetically whimpering as Av makes a hard, plastic horse dance on her fat, furry, lumpy back. Nugget's back fat is so prominent that the other day Av pointed to it and said 'Nunnie boobs?" Yes, the baby knows what boobs are, sort of. This is not because of me.

We are all very excited about seeing Av go nuts on the first Christmas that she is going to be able to understand and as the day grows closer she has become increasingly exited by lights and flamboyant lawn decorations. That said, there is not much going on that is blog worthy, unless you want to hear a little bit more about kid's shows, and I'm willing to bet you don't. So, today I'll dig in to the archives and pull out another story from my life as a roving community newspaper reporter.

One of the more challenging things about being a newspaper reporter is trying to explain to people the difference between something that is newsworthy and something that is simply just happening. It seemed like every time that I would cover something for a local organization or school I would inevitably spend the next three months hearing about every little thing that they did or were doing, even if it was something as simple as 'we had a few kids go out in to the school yard today to pick up trash, you should come take some pictures.' No, no I shouldn't. They are kids picking up trash, probably their own trash, that isn't exactly news. Most of the time I didn't mind the emails because they worked in helping me fill out the days that I didn't have anything to do and every few weeks I was able to get some good stories out of them. Problems only arose when the people on the other end of the emails began to get upset with me when I would turn them down, thinking that it was their right to have me at the ready to cover any and everything that was happening that particular day.

One such organization was KIPP Academy Lynn, a local charter school that literally, by the end, had become the bane of my existence. KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) is part of a national charter school chain and is extremely controversial as most charter schools are. The majority of their student body consists of children with behavioral problems, immigrants or kids who just didn't do well in school. They take the kids and enter them in to their 10-hour-a-day curriculum and essentially make them do well with discipline and incentives. All of that is fine, except for the part where, since most of these kids were poor, non English speaking or dealing with issues at home, the school seemed to think that it was really, really important every time any of them did anything remotely related to school. Like the time they wanted me to write about a math program that teaches the kids life skills like counting money and paying bills. Oh, so you guys are a school? Neat. I'll get right on that.

So, I don't think that I was out of line when I deleted an email from KIPP asking me to attend a program in the gymnasium two days before Christmas a few years ago. Knowing the school's annoying reputation for forcing me to watch stupid kids do every day things I simply skimmed the email, saw nothing of note and deleted it. Screw you, KIPP, I get three days off starting tomorrow. Later that afternoon my phone rang- which is rarely a good thing when you aren't expecting a phone call, and sure enough, it was Nancy from KIPP.
"Are you coming up tomorrow??! Dan, I think you should. It is a great program. There is going to be a Celtics player there!'

Now you have piqued my interest. Among things in the world that I love, the Boston Celtics are near the top of the list. Right after beer and right before my TV. Surely whatever mundane, idiotic pre holiday assembly you're holding will be made more tolerable if I am able to interview a Celtics player.

"Cool, who is it?" I asked.

"It is a surprise." She said.

Intrigued I decided that this time I would go. By no means did I expect to see Paul Pierce or anyone else from the current team, but maybe it was some recently retired player who I can at least get some amusement out of meeting. Whatever the case, it was going to be better than meeting some half retarded kid from Africa who just passed in his science project like usual.

To be perfectly honest, I have no recollection of what the event was actually for, but I was handed a pamphlet when I walked in the door. On the front was a picture of this old-ass looking dude with a whistle around his neck and a Providence College jersey on. His name was Ernie DiGregorio. I said the same thing you are thinking right now. Who the hell is Ernie DiGregorio? Well, at the time I was not exactly at liberty to look it up, but you can be sure that I did when I got back to the office. A Rhode Island native, DiGregorio was the 1975 NBA Rookie of the Year with the Buffalo Braves. He had a mediocre to terrible career, which ended with the Celtics in 1978, for whom he played exactly 27 games. It is tough to imagine a less relevant "Celtics player." Thanks, Nancy, I should have known.
Like I said, I have no idea what the purpose of the event was, I think it was like, do your homework or something, it doesn't really matter. The point is that the humble looking old man above is some sort of raging lunatic, and his actions that December afternoon salvaged what I thought was going to be a miserable afternoon, and gave me a great story to tell in the process.

Almost immediately it became apparent that DiGregorio's ego could barely fit in the old church basement that the school used for an auditorium. The man who played just four years in the NBA, mostly with the Buffalo Braves, was dressed head to toe in Celtics gear, and constantly spun a basketball on his finger like a Harlem Globetrotter the entire time that he spoke. His young, attractive assistant was very outwardly 'picked on' in that way that old men pick on women that they want to have creepy old man sex with. Most importantly, at no point during his entire speech did he mention why he was there, or anything about the program that he was supposed to be promoting for the school. No, he simply told the story of his stupid, short NBA career, bragged about being rookie of the year and setting the record for most assists in a game by a rookie. Then he made some excuses for why his career was so short and it was over.

The speech sucked. But that isn't the good part. Afterward Ernie decided that
he would indulge the kids in a game of basketball on a tiny, eight-foot hoop that happened to be in the room, probably for some foreign kid lunchtime team building. The premise of the game was a 3-on-1 contest to see how many points middle school kids could score on a former NBA player. Apparently Ernie forgot that he was an NBA player 35 years ago because these little kids were schooling him. He did OK against the girls and uncoordinated kids who suck at sports, but about every third kid was an athletic middle school boy who would just run past his old ass and score. This began to piss old Ernie off.

If I remember correctly, there was some sort of lame prize for the team that won and there was one particular kid that was running circles around everyone else. He had scored on Ernie every time he went to the hoop. Now, it is important to mention that Ernie was not trying so hard, considering he was playing against kids on a tiny hoop, but the kids were getting a lot of confidence, especially this one guy who kept scoring. I was standing next to the photographer the next time the kid came up and he leaned in and said ' I think this guy is getting pissed.' Sure enough, the kid went to the basket and scored on Ernie again, this time celebrating wildly with his friends. So, the adult, former basketball player who was supposed to be there to be a positive influence on the students walked over to the kid and handed him the ball. "Try again." he said.

The kid, boasting a smile, went at Ernie like he had four times before, only this time instead of letting him score, Ernie blocked his shot. Tossed it Shaq style across the room with anger and authority. The room went silent, the teachers all looked at each other and the kid put his head down in shame. Then Ernie said something about how it was harder to score when someone is playing defense. It was at this point that the assembly ended and the principal awkwardly thanked Ernie and sent him on his way. Then he came up to me, apologized, and asked that I please not mention how angry Ernie was in my article. I obliged.

So maybe that story wasn't as good as it was to actually watch, but I hope that the vision of an old man talking trash to a 12-year-old brought you some joy today.

Episode 128: Is this man your worst nightmare?

He probably should be. This is Mr. Noodle. He has to be the most unsettling character on children's television today. I don't even know where he came from, he just showed up one day outside of Elmo's window on Sesame Street and never left. Now he is a reoccurring character and I can't for the life of me understand why. I mean, the guy is just creepy. Look at him. Creep. He doesn't even talk, he is like a mime without face paint. And he can never figure anything out. He's always putting hats on his feet and shoes on his head and trying to throw baseballs with his mouth. Idiot. Anyway, this post isn't really about Mr. Noodle, he is just a jumping off point.

Today I finally convinced the baby to watch Sesame Street. After months of Barney and Zaboo and Blues Clues, all shows that came on after my childhood prime, I got her to give in and give it a try. Up until this point she has completely shunned it, but today it happened and it was a success. She finally realized that the characters on that show are entertaining and strange, and she learned what most kids learn early on. Sesame Street is just nothing but educational fun all of the time. This is another step in my efforts to relive all of the things that I liked from my own childhood, something I have been subconsciously doing for a long time, but just realized. I am not sure why this is. Perhaps it is because I just want her to enjoy all of the things that I enjoyed, or maybe I am just trying desperately to relive the simple, carefree days of my youth. Whatever the case, I am definitely turning this kid in to a mini me, and in the process, making her kind of a weirdo.

I was recently visiting my dad and I found myself in his attic looking at a bunch of old crap from when I was a kid. Most of it was stuff I didn't have any attachment to, like old books and trinkets, and the worst record collection I have ever seen ( I went through the whole thing and came out only with Don McLean, Chicago's Greatest Hits and Huey Lewis and the News), but I did find a few things that took me right back. The biggest one was this old cookie jar that we used to have. It was a wrinkly-faced old monk who is holding a scroll that says 'Thou shalt not steal (cookies)." Awesome. He was a fixture on my counter tops for my entire childhood until my parents got divorced and both moved about seven years ago. I loved that guy. Well, I found Mr. Monk and much to my delight he was in perfect condition. Needless to say he is now living in between our coffee maker and dish rack in the kitchen. This, by the way, does not make Monica happy. I don't care, that guy is awesome and he is now always stocked with fudge striped cookies. It wasn't until I found the monk that I realized how much being home with Av has made me kind of inadvertently cling to my own childhood.

As a kid I had two things that I did almost exclusively when I was home. First, I played with matchbox cars. A lot. Second, I had a ton of stuffed animals. These were my interests as a young child. I created little worlds with all of them and I obsessively kept track of everything, making sure that I knew where everyone was at all times. With the Matchbox cars I would collect them in a giant bin and take them out each morning to transport the imaginary people in my imaginary world. Accuracy was key, the more it looked like an existing street-legal vehicle the better. Probably about 8-9 months ago I realized that Av had taken and was enjoying playing with some toy cars at Monica's parent's house. I saw this as a fantastic opportunity to share my own enthusiasm for that particular toy and I began picking up a few toy cars here and there. The good thing about that is they only cost a dollar, so it is a fun and easy thing to just pick up when you are at Target. At the time I don't think I realized how much I was tapping in to my own childhood love for the cars, but now it is becoming apparent. As was the case 20 years ago, accuracy is key. At first, I would get service vehicles, like a garbage truck and a school bus, but soon that expanded in to whatever I felt were the coolest cars at the store that particular day. Now that we once again have an organized bin, I realize that my obsession has returned and I have reverted back to my youth. As long as I don't go back to standing in the toy car aisle at the store for an hour trying to pick out which one I want we should be ok.

The thing is, though, Av loves playing with them, too. We will devote entire segments of play time to cars and she is constantly carrying them around with her and in to the bathtub. It isn't like I am making it up, they are fun to play with. She thinks it is most hilarious when you drive the car around on someone's leg or arm. Funny stuff.

As for the stuffed animals, I am pretty sure every kid loves those. I mean, what is cooler when you are a kid than a whole collection of soft, lifelike animals. However, I don't remember having as much of a variety when I was little. The baby has everything from sheep to elephants to monkeys. And we have about 600 stuffed dogs. The favorite game with these guys, other than me creating voices for them and putting them in to strange relationships and imaginary social situations, is when she piles them all up on the ground and leaps in to them. Something that I also always did when I was a kid. Although, I was kind of an aggressive spaz so I would usually tackle one of them and things would get out of hand. I had this huge Yogi Bear rip off guy for a while. I used to kick the shit out of him. Girls appear to be more loving.

Speaking of making up odd relationships and social situation, I have really gotten in to it during bath time lately, too. Bath time at one point was the most boring part of the day. She literally spends hours in there sometimes. But ever since the cars have been added and some more non traditional bath items have turned up in the water I have started having a bit of fun with it. I, again, have created a whole world where anything is possible. There is Grandpa Turtle and his magical powers, the frog barbers who make sure that everyone's hair gets washed and, of course, Mayor Hippo. Oh, and Dora the Explorer is dating Ralph Wiggam from the Simpsons. She got him a job at her dad's tow truck company. This kid has no shot.

Revisiting Barney

A few weeks ago I mentioned that the baby has decided to love Barney and it is slowly sending me on the path to mass murder. Well, it hasn't gotten any better, especially since Comcast still has the same damn four episodes on demand, so I pretty much have every song and dance memorized. Including the rock rap, which I inexplicably can't find a Youtube video of, but features such gem lines as 'If we had instruments I guess you could say that we were in a rock band hey hey hey' and 'I wonder if a rock could grow some hair, that's a silly question, but we love rocks, hey hey hey.' That sound you here is my soul slowly blackening.

Anyway, one character that is not involved with the camp episode is Derek, our slow, 'can't read so good' friend from such classic episodes like 'all about bugs.' Derek is typically a silent character, but when he does talk he sounds like that kid that had to leave your regular class around lunch time to go spend some time with the 'resource teacher' in that tiny classroom next to the bathroom.


This is a man who calls himself 'Gifted That Go- Gitta.'

Look familiar? Take a look at the previous picture again. Yes, this Dallas-area rapper is none other than slow, silent Derek himself, all grown up, chasin' hoes. I actually don't know what sort of rapper he is. He looks like the 50-cent gangsta all of my songs are about sex and shooting people type but let's not type cast him right away. He could just be dropping knowledge like Talib Qwali. Although, I doubt it. Here is a Youtube video I found. Just in case the full body of this information hasn't set in, I remind you of two things. 1. He has named himself 'Gifted That Go-Gitta.' 2. He once wore fake butterfly wings and danced slow kid ballet in the classroom in which Barney and his friends trespass. Have a nice day everyone.

Episode 126: Are children's laughter and holiday spirit making me soft?

It is December, which means that most of you are probably stressed. Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice and whatever made up science fiction holiday that Scientologists celebrate are all stressful in their own way- unless, of course, you are a child. This is typically the time of year where my seasonal depression kicks in and my anxiety rises. Buying gifts for people and visiting family is a lot of pressure. When you are a kid you don't have to worry about any of that. You get a week off from school, people give you stuff and changes to your routine are widely accepted as a good thing because you get gifts, you can sleep in and you don't have homework. Not when you are an adult. Adults not only have to worry about gift giving, which for some reason is an incredibly hard thing to do, but also appeasing all of their family members and creating the illusion that they still closely follow the traditions of whatever religion they choose to believe- at least while their grandparents are around. Don't even get me started on this whole 'including everyone from other cultures and beliefs' crap, either. I don't ask Jews to put up a Christmas tree, don't make me put up a menorah. Also, don't make me put the 'Christ' back in
Christmas. Abbreviating doesn't make me an atheist. It means I don't have enough room or energy to write out a nine letter word. Sorry for ruining your birthday, Jesus. I'll get larger Post-it notes sometimes.

As a child, Christmas was always a time when it seemed like the entire world stopped, but as an adult you realize that, despite all of your obligations for the month, life does not, in fact, stop in any way. You still have to go to work, you still have to pay all of your bills and no one gives you any extra money to buy all of these gifts you are supposed to buy. Unless of course you have a 'good' job that gives you a 'bonus' every year in which case, screw you, I don't want to talk to you.

The point is that typically I dread this season, except for the copious amounts of whiskey drinking, but this year I am feeling a bit different. I am still experiencing the seasonal depression, mostly because I hate, hate, hate cold weather, but I am starting to enjoy the holiday festivities simply because I get to see Av get excited. I don't think that she really gets what is going on or why, but she knows that Christmas is fun and there is a lot of decorating and a lot of symbols that she is supposed to care about. I am also pretty sure that she knows she is going to get gifts at some point, too. I can honestly say for the first time since I was like, 13, I actually looked forward to getting a Christmas tree this year. Usually Christmas tree day is the worst day of the season. Trees are outrageously expensive, then you have to carry them upstairs and in to your house, leaving a trail of pine needles every where you go, and not just for that day, there are pine needles everywhere for like, three months. Once you get the tree inside there is the pleasurable task of having it fall on your head 56 times while you try to get it to stay in the stand, and the inevitable trip to Family Dollar to get yet another strand of lights because the ones from last year are either missing or broken. I hate Christmas tree day.

That said, this year I was actually kind of looking forward to it. The baby talks about Christmas trees every time we see one, and we really hyped it up for her enjoyment. I even let us get the tree like three weeks earlier than I normally would, just because she was excited. See, I am getting soft.
Here is a shot of her helping to pick out the tree. She really had a good time with the whole thing and it completely eliminated any stress that I may have had seeing how excited she was. I think what makes it funnier for me is that she acts like a little adult all of the time. Like, she was walking around, checking out the trees, talking nonsense like she was trying to imitate me. Then she cried because she didn't want to leave the tree yard, even though it was about six degrees out. Even putting up the tree went a bit more smoothly this year. That is not to say that it didn't fall on my head, because it did, like three times. But I only dropped a few f-bombs and managed not to throw anything against the wall, even after I randomly opened the fridge to grab a beer after one particular head-falling incident and found soy sauce spilled all over everything. In most cases I would have probably had to take a walk to calm down, but I held it together. Even Family Dollar was pretty empty when I had to go in and buy this year's string of lights. Good deal.

Decorating the tree has gone on for about three days, as she is pretty much just taking everything off and throwing them around like they are balls. I don't really care about this, although I am pretty sure that she has ingested an unhealthy amount of glitter and artificial ornament paint. It's cool, her body has to be immune to her eating foreign objects at this point, especially after I caught her chewing on the brush end of a paint brush the other day. My life is a constant uphill battle against crap like that.

Now that the tree is up I even find myself looking forward to Christmas morning, just so I can see her get excited at finally getting all of the toys she has been yelling about for months. Yes, I think fatherhood has made me some sort of softy. I don't even get annoyed when she sings, and I hate the sound of children singing. I guess I shouldn't complain, anything that makes the Christmas season more enjoyable is welcomed. I just hope she is always cute and excited on Christmas and doesn't become one of those snotty, pretentious little jerks who complain about their gifts and ask for outrageous things every year. I don't shop at whole foods or drive an Acura, so this should be avoidable, but you never know.

...

My late year resolutions are coming along well. I have already had one cooking excursion, which I will share with you later this week once I upload the photos to my computer, and I have been making an effort with the ukulele. The problem that I am having is that I am finding it difficult to keep my high quality, $8 instrument in tune, which according to Pineapple Pete's ukulele instruction website is damning to any potential ukulele master. I think I may need to tighten a few screws.

This song is badass