Randomosity

I'm taking today and tomorrow off from work to catch up on some much needed rest and playing. So I leave you with the least thought-out post in the history of my 2520 entries. In fact, it's just all kinds of random.

• There's someone out mowing right now. Not ordinarily an issue except it's 7:50. In the morning.

• The best worst show on television has been canceled. Word came down that October Road is done. Dammit.

• And speaking of television, the last CSI episode written by the Two and a Half Men writers was perhaps the worst thing I've ever seen on TV.

• Okay, still on TV, I think I have an unhealthy obsession with both house hunting and house flipping shows.

• Did you know there are porn sites for the deaf? I'm not talking about closed captioned porn. Who need porn's terribly written and largely irrelevant dialog subtitled? I'm talking about actual deaf people doing it while talking dirty using sign language. Look, I don't begrudge deaf people their porn but that's just silly.

• President Bush actually stated that he was showing his solidarity with the soldiers in Iraq - and those who have died in that conflict - by giving up golf. Seriously. To quote, "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal." Don't you think maybe leading the country and telling the truth would be a better way to honor the dead and those serving their country abroad? I've always thought he was stupid. Now I just think he's insane.

• I'm 35 and a dad of two. I take a certain pride in the fact that I played my daughter an acoustic version of Iron Maiden's The Trooper last night.

• I was surfing CNN's site yesterday when I noted a funny little icon next to a few of the stories. So I clicked through and found what is perhaps the silliest most useless thing on the internet - headline slogan shirts. Look -
  
  Can you tell me exactly why anyone would want to own such a thing?
  

Prom Season

Most of the memories of high school have fallen out of my head. I had fun, I just don't remember much about it. Maybe I had too much fun. It was also sixteen years ago (holy shit!). But not too long ago I had to enter my old high school to vote in the Virginia primaries. The hallways were smaller than I remember and there seemed to be classrooms where I'm sure none existed before. It made me feel kind of old. Yet, despite the passage of those sixteen years, I recall several high school institutions fondly - Friday night football games, basketball games in the winter, skipping the lunch period to hit Taco Bell (something I did every day - really - for an entire school year and busted only once), homecoming and, of course, prom.

Without even glancing at a calendar, you can tell when it's prom season. Swarms of limos can be seen on the road, teens in fancy dresses and tuxedos are in bloom, and surprisingly young people trying to look very suave and sophisticated show up in restaurants.

When I was in high school, I actually went to three proms. During my sophomore year, I DJed my prom. Correction. I stood behind a table holding a couple tape decks smoking cigarettes cringing at the really bad Richard Marx and Michael Bolton songs blaring through the hotel ballroom. Aside from that, I remember very little. I was in-between girlfriends when my junior prom rolled around. I went with a good friend (Amy) and her boyfriend (Adam - one of my best friends at the time who went to a different school) and my "date" was a cute private school chick. It was kinda fun. I mean, Adam and Amy were practically on the verge of intercourse all night long but for me there was no pressure and Erin was cool to hang out with (and, I'm not going to lie, kinda hot). By the time of my senior prom, I was dating someone seriously. I forget where we went or who we went with though I seem to recall it was with her older brother who was a friend and classmate of mine. I had a penchant for cradle robbing. But talk about awkward.

So recently when I've seen all these kids, dressed up, in such a hurry to be all adult and shit, it makes me laugh. I mean, first, there's no reason to be in a rush to grow up. You think adulthood will be cool because you can eat all the ice cream you want, go to bed whenever you please, stay out on a school night because really there are no more school nights, and you can legally drink beer. The problem is that its not as cool as you think it will be. Worse, when you get older ice cream makes you fat, it's a bitch to roll out of bed if you've stayed up too late the night before, and too much beer still makes you puke. Second, they just look silly. I'm pretty sure I thought I was hot shit when I was that age, hitting my own prom but they're kids. Not hot shit. Kids.

What kind of prom memories do you have? Come on - spill. You know you want to!

Seven Types of Cheese

Yesterday morning it was raining. It poured all day long but it was especially bad in the morning. Nothing is worse than a cold rainy Monday morning. I parked my car in Monkeytown and trudged to the office avoiding the puddles and cursing the resurgent winter for all it's rain and cold.

Of course that's nothing compared with what the Chinese woke up to. Nearly 10,000 are estimated dead in the earthquake that struck central China . And it's nothing compared to what the Burmese woke up to last week when a cyclone leveled Myanmar. Up to 100,000 may have been killed in Cyclone Nargis.

Yesterday afternoon, I left the office, walked back through the rain and the puddles and sat in traffic on the way home. I turned on the radio and heard the reports from both China and Myanmar. I wasn't prepared to hear the stories about the vast amounts of children who had perished in both disasters. And I just don't know what to do with that knowledge except maybe double-over and cry.

There is nothing more precious to me than my children. I cannot under any circumstances understand or imagine what these people halfway around the world are going through. I don't want to. What I do know without having gone through it myself - and please, that's an experience I don't want to have - is that they're facing the worst thing a person could.

Last night, Mia wouldn't tell us what she wanted for dinner. The only clue she gave us was that it involved cheese. So we ran through every type we had in the fridge - holey cheese (swiss), spicy pepper cheese (pepper jack), pizza cheese (mozzarella), round cheese to bite (provolone), cream cheese, noodle cheese (Parmesan), and yellow cheese that's lost its yellow (organic cheddar). That's seven types of cheeses. Seven fucking kinds of cheese. And then we played Attack Of The Killer Mushrooms (long story) with Mia.

Two observations. 1) Seven fucking kinds of cheese. Some people in Myanmar and China have never even seen cheese. 2) I love my kids. I love to attack my kid with mushrooms. I'm a better person for having become a father and I wouldn't trade that experience for anything in the whole wide world. And I can't imagine how life must be for those with children that were swallowed up by the earth.

Yesterday morning it was raining. It poured all day long but it was especially bad in the morning. But there are things that are much worse than a cold rainy Monday morning. Life is still very good. And I'm a lucky man. Please think about doing something for those less fortunate.

Mother's Day (When We All Fell Down)

In the aftermath of the Civil War, activist Julia Ward Howe thought introducing something along the lines of the Mother's Day celebrated in England might be a good idea. It was first celebrated in Grafton, West Virginia on May 10, 1908. The location is now called the International Mother's Day Shrine (seriously). Apparently, it was a hit. Woodrow Wilson declared National Mother's Day in 1914. Of course, now many people (myself included) consider the holiday the height of commercialism. It's expected that, this year, Americans will have spent $3.5 billion dining out for Mother's Day, $2.6 billion on flowers and $68 million on greeting cards. Turns out that Howe agreed with the whole commercialism argument. In 1923, she found herself opposing the holiday itself.

Yet I'm sure Howe never had a Mother's Day celebration quite as silly as ours.

Yesterday, we hosted a Mother's Day brunch at our place. No easy feat when you have a sore-armed husband, a hyper toddler and an infant with a cold. But we pulled it off thanks to the best mom in the world herself, Beth. We showered her with gifts which Mia was responsible for picking out. No surprise, they included an Elmo DVD and chocolate. Then the grandparents came over and much spoiling and eating was done. After we ate, we had a group sing-along including a rousing, well acted-out rendition of Ring Around The Rosy. Yes, we all fell down. Then Mia dressed me up.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the woman I married turned out to be the best mom in the world. And I'm a lucky guy for it. So are my kids.

What did you do for Mother's Day? And what do you think of the holiday itself - nice, commercial or both?

Haiku For Monday #217

I'm pretty sure The
Bangles wrote Manic Monday
'bout this very day.