Leave the Gun. Take the Cannoli.

Just got a call from YHWH, et al, and the Family Truckster came up lame a few miles from the YHWH Family Compound. Her brother will be along shortly to make repairs so all is well. Flying Leathernecks and Flying Tigers for me tonight. I haven't checked tomorrow's lineup, but I'm thinking of ditching America's heroes for America's Family, the Corleones. I'm going to visit mom's grave and when I get back, I think I'll watch Godfather I and II. And if I have time I think I'll watch Return of the Pink Panther.

It's funny, I was raised on those movies (made by a Tulsa boy) and I can't get one person in my family to watch any Peter Sellers with me. It's pretty much the story of my life, though. Like probably every other kid in the world, I was pretty sure I was adopted growing up. I had nothing in common with anyone in my family and to top it off I didn't look remotely like any of them either. My sister is a dead ringer for my dad's mother and sometimes him as well. Her kids' pictures routine stand up side-by-side with pictures of my dad at those ages. But me, I look nothing like anyone on either side. Someday I may do an Adjective Queen-style post on that topic.

I've been debating about three days on whether to call my dad and see if he wants to go with me to visit mom's grave. It's the kind of emotional tennis I play frequently because I annoyingly care so much about other people's feelings. Ever since my mom died my dad has gotten more and more remote. Almost everyone has told me it's normal because men don't communicate anyway, which I understand, but since I have no other parent, I just naturally assumed he would step up and try to hold the family together. When mom died he lived a couple of hours northwest of here and he stayed up there alone for about a year before selling his business. I called him a couple times a week and went up there to see him every other week or so. I even started following NASCAR and watched races just to have something to talk about. I'd scan TV Guide and make a note when movies he liked would come on so I could call and say, "Hey, did you see Bullitt was on TNT?" SGK was only a couple of weeks old when mom died so I thought maybe that would keep him going since he and mom were hyperinvolved in my sister's four kids. But no, he rarely called and visited even less. I decided that since SGK is an absolute carbon-based copy of my mom that maybe it pained him just to look at her so hard did he take mom's early death. That may be. I never asked - didn't want to make him feel guilty for ignoring his granddaughter. I just take SGK to visit eldies at a retirement home so she can be around grandparent types.

He got remarried about three years ago and moved all the way across the state. Still two hours away, but in another direction. His wife is very kind, but very different, in many ways opposite from my mom. She has two twenty-something children and he has clicked with them very well. He does lots of fatherly things with the son and son-in-law and he's an excellent grandfather for the girl's two children, so it's apparent he's capable of doing those things we're missing around here. YHWH tries to console me by saying she thinks that he needs to be needed and he must perceive that I don't need him. I kind of get that. And, you know, he's very nice and excited to hear from us - when we call him. The totality of it is that he has pretty much cut himself off from his old family and started over completely. And that's what brings me to the difficulty I'm having making this call. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't go to the cemetery anymore and so if I call him and ask him if he's going and he isn't, he'll feel guilty or uncomfortable admitting it to me. And I just hate to make anyone feel bad. Isn't that sick? In my own defense, it's not cowardice or wimp factor 9, I can be very strong when I need to. I'm just far too empathic for my own good. Maybe someday I won't care so much and confront him wielding Don Corleone's verbal blade, "A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man." Of course since I have a blog, Michael would rub me out like Fredo because you, "never tell anyone outside the family what you're thinking."

We're Surrounded - That Simplifies Our Problem

Of the three big summer holidays, I definitely like Memorial Day the most, grave visitation aside. I've never been one of those who likes going to the lake and spending three days of fun in the sun. I've always figured Richard Linklater included my favorite scene in Slacker just for me. A couple wake up one weekend and she announces, "It's a nice day. We should go to the lake." The guy says, "I hate going to the lake! You don't just go to the lake. You have to prepare for it!" Then he goes on this diatribe about how much stuff you have to take - ice chest, ice, beer, food, towels, suntan lotion, insect spray, etc. "Let's just stay here and read the paper," he finally says. Well, that's me. And on Memorial Day, I like to settle in and watch the war movie marathons running on a half dozen channels, salted with a baseball triple header and the Indy 500. And this year is going to be sweet because the rest of the house is going to the YHWH Family Compound. For. A. Week.

But the movies started to-nite and the Super Giant Killer begged to get to stay up to watch Sands of Iwo Jima starring John Wayne as Sgt. Stryker. It was really fun. She kept asking what all the equipment was and why they did this and that. She asked why the Marines didn't strap their helmets on, but I thought it might be too gruesome to tell her that if the concussions from artillery shells blew their helmets off they would take their heads off with them. About half way through she asks me if it's ok to like war. I asked her how does she mean "like war" and she said, "well, it's just so fascinating. I don't mean I like that people get killed, but I just love learning about it." I wasn't really sure what to say since I basically feel the same way. So I just said, "Let me tell you about a great movie called A History of Violence. It has this revolutionary new theory..." It amazes me how she 'gets it' though. The other day she was reading her D-Day book and she said I guess war is mostly about land and who gets to live on it. She said something similar tonight when the general was doing the obligatory large-map-and-pointer scene. And not seconds later, one of the characters says, "That's war - trading real estate for men." She got really keyed up when they raised the flag over Mount Suribachi just like the memorial she saw in Washington this Spring. Finally, she said, "Dad, I really love black-and-white movies. They are so way better than color!" I was kind of bummed she couldn't stay up to watch Sergeant York with me. She's going to be so cranky tomorrow I'll wish I was at the Russian Front.

It's kind of funny how my last post and this one converge because while I was watching Sands with her, I recalled how many war movies I watched with my dad. My dad always worked no fewer than two and sometimes four jobs at a time and when he was home, he was crashed in front of the TV watching football or buddy movies. So that's where I hung out to be with my dad. It was kind of a silent bond, but it provided a sense of continuity. My social and cultural education basically consisted of watching every war movie ever televised, every Clint Eastwood movie ever made (I can recite the entire list of charges read before Eli Wallach was hung in The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly), and pretty much any movie made between 1955 and 1980 that include a gun from the props department. I saw more pimps with afros and thugs with acetone shirts and leisure suits than was probably good for a kid. And I loved every minute of it. I'm probably not going to watch all that with the Killer, but a few war movies won't hurt.

I have to post SGK's report card. I was so proud of her teacher's comments. She said the two things I most want to hear said about my child.

Review of A History of Violence

A few people have asked me why I gave A History of Violence such a low grade, so here is my attempt to explain that and I guess write a review. Luckily, it has been a few weeks since I've seen it, so I'll be a little more tempered, especially since the Grandmother of Europe liked it and I hate to offend her since we are doing our part to save OKC's air quality.

First of all, I got the movie on Netflix because YHWH wanted to see it as she had heard, "it's s'posed to be pretty good." I guess I had heard the same, from people like Ebert and also Cannes. YHWH didn't get around to watching it, but I went ahead just so I wouldn't waste the rental. I ended up watching it by myself with an usual quietude in the house. Which was good, because many times I laughed heartily outloud at the amateurish dialog and cloying plot devices.

The movie begins with two ice cool killers who swiftly and silently kill a family of motel proprietors, including a toddler, rather than pay their bill. Later, we see them in Everytown, USA where they encounter two high school hooligans who curse at them and threaten them. The killers simply stare coldy back at them in silence and the hoods flee with their tails dragging. Next they enter a cafe at closing time with at least four people in it and order coffee. When they are refused, the elder of the two screams, "I SAID COFFEE!!" That was my first laugh. That was so out of character. I wasn't old enough to remember the Stafford spree here, but I'm betting it didn't go down like this. Anyway, they grab a waitress and it ends in a shoot out with both of them dead at the hand of the owner.

From then on, director Cronenberg trots out cardboard standups from old westerns, film noir, and every high school movie ever made. Yes, the lead character's son is in HS. He has a girlfriend who is the ex of the town bully and they tease him mercilessly. The boy shows great maturity and restraint in dealing with the bully, but after his father becomes Charles Bronson, it subconsciously occurs to him that it's OK if he beats the boy to verge of death. And of course the boys are wearing letter jackets. Letter jackets? Do they even make those anymore?

It turns out the father was not the family man he had been for 17 or so years, but a former mob enforcer who got religion. People from his past show up to reel him back in, but he kills them, too. The wife is angry, boohoo, because he lied to her about his past while he pouts and tried to remain good. That happens in every chick flick ever made - the guy lies to impress her and she's mad when she finds out, but sees the real him after all. That happens here, too, only to convince her, he has to brutally rough her up while they have makeup sex. Huh? I mean what was he supposed to do? Admit to several murders? He reinvented himself, and that is the man she knew. How hard is that to understand? From then on Cronenberg has spliced in parts of all the Dirty Harry movies and all the Death Wish movies. The main character drives to the east coast to kill everyone he knew, but now he has the wife's blessing. I'm really not sure why he felt the need to do that and I don't get where she's coming from. There's a lot of that in this movie.

It's possible I judge this movie more harshly because of the press it got, but I doubt it. The script really is that bad. I'm afraid they got lazy and lifted the storyboard right off the pages of the graphic novel and left the dialog in it. I read lots of GNs and I can tell you they aren't script quality. After I saw this I checked the reviews and it's so sad. It was so vacuous that I'm guessing the reviewers figured since it was Cronenberg he knows what he's doing and since they didn't get it, it must be art. There's all this talk about how American society has all these undercurrents of violence and this film shows the layers of violence we all live with and so on. Really? America is violent? I missed that somewhere. It must have been while I was watching football. Or I was busy writing a theme on cartoons and chilren's television like every kid in America has done at least once. Or I didn't notice that CSI and Law and Order are the biggest shows on TV. And I had somehow not noticed we have troops in Iraq. Oh, I know, I had rap music going on in my iPod and didn't hear the news that America is violent. If you really want to understand the concept of a violent America watch Rocky. That's one of the most artful looks at violence ever filmed.

My final feeling about it is that it's really sad that the director of Scanners and Videodrome and eXistenZ ends up doing a movie like this. Especially after Spider, which was a fantastic movie.

I apologize for the quality of this post. I haven't really ever written reviews, so it will have to take practice.

No Sense Makes Sense

It's weird how some days at the Do-Nothing Desk the questions run in streaks. As reported, I'd kind of been on a really helpful roll there for a couple weeks, and last week was pretty fun as I got a long run of good old fashioned reference questions like the longest river, the population of Dallas and Cincinnati, the date of the land run, and when was Price Tower built. I hope today is not the trendsetter as we had at least three of what I call AFLACs. You know the AFLAC commercials where people are trying to think of the name and the duck keeps squawking out, "AFLAC!" These are ones where you're trying to give them the answer and they just don't get it no matter how you explain it to them. My first question of the day was a guy who came to the desk and his opening salvo is, "Where can I find out how many books were published?" I sputter, "Uh, uh, do you mean, ever? Like since the printing press?" "No," he says, "just for a year." Inside I say whew, Bowker Annual can handle that. But I press on and he says, no, he wants to know how many of one title were published. Ok, I think, CBI can handle that.We don't have it, but it can be located if the year is right. So I press on, what year? What book? 1987 he says and The Hobbit. 50th annviersary edition. Ok, I say, that may be hard to find out, thinking a book like that will have had a billion printings. Why do you need it, maybe there's another way of going about it. Eureka! He wanted to know what it was worth. So I gave him a book collectors' price guide, but told him that old axiom, "It's only worth what someone will pay for it." If you want to know the market price, let me look it up in Alibris or ABE and get a retail price. "Oh! Onliiiine," he says. "They don't know anything." Well, I said, the collectors stores are disappearing, everyone's online now. He wouldn't have it. I didn't know what I was talking about. So he takes his collectors' guide and saunters off with it, hoping it had the answer. It didn't.

Then the Grandmother of Europe had this really funny one where every step of her reference interview got a broader and broader response. "Where are the novels? You know, like memoirs?" "Uh, well, do you mean nonfiction, like true stories," GOE asks. "Yeah." "OK, well whose memoirs do you want?" "Just anyone," he says. "Where's the general section?" "They're all over. By subject," GOE counters. "Is there a particular type of person you want to read about?" "An American," is the reply. "OK, an American who did what kind of work; or when did they live?" GOE is really stretched now. She gets no answer. "20th Century maybe? You know, the 1900s," she tries again. He finally nods tacit approval and the best she can do is take him to 973.9 and let him browse with a promise of more help if he needs it.

After work, the Killer wanted to show me her folder for the year. Mercifully, her teachers keep the best work throughout the year and provide a nice folder at the end so you don't have to keep every little drawing and fingerpainting and risk scarring them by having to throw it out later. The best item was from her first day of school. It was a little train which each child would put up on a bulletin board. Hers said: My name is: Super Giant Killer. My favorite color is: Blue. I like to: Be left alone. Oh, man, I died laughing.

She and I also started a new project. She wanted to create what I guess you might call a natural history of Pluto. I'm not sure what you would call it. First we had to draw a Pluto globe and then I was supposed to draw the continents and oceans and she started in on the flora and fauna. Oh, and she also did the minerals. She had a list of all the properties of each plant and rock and what continent they could be found on, etc. She had just read a book on Pluto and I guess she figured what was good for us was good for Pluto. I didn't have the heart to bring up that it's a cold and dark rock. It was fun, though. And further proof that a monkey could've written Lord of the Rings. Maybe I'll scan in some of our work sometime.

Is It Because I Lied When I Was Seventeen?

I donated platelets again today, but thankfully Mr. Garden Clogs wasn't there. There was an equally annoying gal in there, though. If you've ever given blood you know the drill. You're up on this gurney thing and you can't move your arm, etc. Well, I settle in after the big needle is inserted and neatly taped snug to my arm and try and mentally prepare for the drip. If you haven't given platelets before, it's different than the kind at a blood drive. They take your blood out, remove the plasma and platelets and then put the red stuff back in. This process takes forever. You could literally drive to Tulsa and back before they get what they want out of you. And since I have the universal blood type and such a high platelet count, they want all of mine they can get. So I have to be there for two and a half hours. I have to get psyched up to do it because I just can't sit still that long. They do have TV, which helps some, but not much. Well, anyway, today there was a woman two beds down from me and out of the very corner of my peripheral vision I pick up this movement. And it doesn't stop, so I turn over to look and she's bicycling in the air - she's on her back and her feet are up in the air and she's aircycling. And she goes on for an hour like this, including pounding her feet on the padding like she's running in place. The nurses kept going by and asking if her circulation was bad, or did she need to go to the restroom; they were getting really worried she was going to knock the needle out, but she just let out a guffaw and said, "No, I'm just distracting myself." I wanted to say, "No, you're distracting everyone else!"

To compound my agony, the nurse had given me the remote to the TV. I really wanted to turn it over to ESPN, but I left it where it was because I assumed Lance Armstrong over there wouldn't want to watch Around the Horn. So I suffered through Judge Hatchett and an hour of Judge Judy. I spent most of the time mentally and spiritually kicking my own ass for being so concerned about the feelings of others. I felt like one of Asimov's androids in I, Robot, unable to do harm to humans. The only solace I could find was in what I call Koestler Moments. Ever read Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler? If not, you should. It's very applicable to real life. I figured that while it was true I did not deserve this fresh hell (I did not copy you, Queen, I got it from Dot herself), I must have done something at sometime and gotten away with it and this was fitting punishment for that. At the very least, I figured doing volunteer work ought to hurt at least a little. Don't want the Lone Cricket stalking me...

One night last week, Tex brought over a birthday gift for The Killer. I have to tell you, Tex, she has gone crazy over it. She had already memorized the monthly birthstones from her almanac and she was carrying the new book around church asking everyone their birthday. And then she'd tell them, not all emeralds are green y'know...

Le Booga Bag c'est accompli.

Even When the Sun Is Shining, I Can't Avoid the Lightning

Well, this weekend was a benchmark, hallmark, watermark, whatevermark one around here. No, wait, milestone is what I mean. Friday night, The Self attended her first big social/dance. A black number in the style of Stevie Nicks was the chosen attire. Those of you who know her can draw your own mental picture of what those legendary very tight curls look like hanging straight down to the middle of her back. Emphasis on straight. Marsha Brady straight. No curls. Or I'll see if I can get a picture. There are plenty of them with her in the center - they all pack digicams or cell cameras these days and are constantly holding them at arms-length snapping away at themselves with an attrition rate rivaling Grant's at Cold Harbor. Trawl through myspace for any amount of time and you'll see hundreds of pics of teens with big heads and bulging eyes with a slightly asphyxiated look on their faces. She seemed to have had a good time and actually danced with her boyfriend which she described as spasmodic. She and her friend said that the DJ only played rap and hip-hop all night much to their consternation, so they did satirical hip-hop dances in response.

The other milestone is that Super Giant Killer got her first pet - a betta. It's a lovely blue color and is named Harry S. Truman. The whole time I was gathering the fishbowl, food, net, and psychedelic gravel, I was in a complete daze. It was like I was channeling the lives of the millions of fathers preceding me. I could see it all before me and I was powerless to affect a change in the course of events. One morning very soon I will walk in to her room and there will be a floating morass formed from half a can of fish flakes. Every week I will fight with her about cleaning the bowl amid whined protestations such as ick and gross and the words, "I used to wipe your butt!" will form unheard on my lips. I could also hear YHWH's telepathic voice in crystal tones asking me what I was thinking. "I...I just...wasn't," I said aloud, causing heads to turn. And one day I will walk in and he will be floating on the surface and we will bury him in some corner of the yard in a lavishly decorated box rivaling anything the Byzantines ever thought of crafting. I saw all this happening to me, I made the 'you have to take care of it speech', I heard the superlative assurances, saw the beaming look on her face, and nodded my assent. SGK burst into the house and held Harry high in triumph and YHWH looked straight at me with an expressionless face - the face of a fishbowl cleaner - and I just held my hands up in mea culpa and said, "Everyone deserves a crack at it, hon."

Killer's second loose tooth came out today. She still doesn't want to give them to the tooth fairy. After her first one came out, she hid it so well from the tooth fairy, we couldn't find it. This one she put in a ziploc snack bag and wrote 'SGK's Tooth' all over with red and green Sharpies and put it with her homecoming blanket from the hospital.

She and I made our usual Saturday morning outing. We went to Ingrid's for bagels. Then I had a hankerin' to check out some pawn shops, so we visited two or three and I had to explain the complicated nature of short term cashflow problems to a fascinated Killer. She spent most of her time trying to differentiate between garage sales, thrift stores and pawn shops.

I leave you with the poster for the new movie about my life (thank you Grandmother of Europe for pointing it out to me and thanks to The Cinema Trade for the image - hope you don't mind my borrowing it).

Wedding Cake For No Reason

After dinner, YHWH and I began what I hope will be our new walking regimen. From last June thru November I walked like a house afire, but then all the stresses and just plain hassles of moving threw me out of my riddim and I became a recidivist. So I'm trying to get back into it. Unfortunately exercise is the only way for me to control my weight. And like millions of others I hate every second of it. So anyway, The Killer went with us for a walk (she rode her bike) around the neighborhood. After a while YHWH stopped to talk to a gardner and Killer and I pressed ahead and she talked nonstop the whole time. One of the things she brought up was that she wanted to have a family fun night tonight. I told her it was already too late, but asked what kinds of things she wanted to do for next time. Play Twister (yes my life flashed before my eyes at the thought of me doing anything requiring flexibility). Dress up (since there are no tiaras and gowns for me to dress up in, being the only male, I get to just paint my nails). Play Trivial Pursuit. Get a wedding cake for no reason. We could all pretend we are geologists and look for really cool rocks. God love her, she is just the biggest nerd and I love every bit of it. And the little snot rode her bike three miles!

Today was another real doozie at the Do-Nothing Desk. I spent the first hour simultaneously trying to track down a TV/VCR for a meeting and taking calls from one of our regulars, The Sigher. This guy is the guy they used on those 16mm films they showed in high schools in the 1950s to illustrate someone who had absolutely no interpersonal skills. He may also have been the model for Goofus in Highlights Magazine. I had to keep giving him the number he wanted and he would lose it or write it down wrong or something and keep calling back. It was redeeming, though. He told me, "You know when I call 411, they don't tell you any of this stuff. And if they can't find it, they just tell you they can't find it." I kept waiting for him to say thank you or librarians are great or something, but no dice. I just accepted his realization of it as an affirmation. Later I had to help a guy who wanted to know whether they irrigate in the Australian desert. Talk about starting from zero, I had no idea. I did learn one interesting thing - that desert isn't very hot - the max temp doesn't get much over 95 or so. Shoot, that's a beautiful Spring day in Oklahoma. Anyway, it was nonstop all day long like that.

Well, I jinxed the Tribe. They are already 7.5 games back. And since the White Sox have someone to play with in Detroit, they will likely continue to chug along like the annoying locomotive they are. Dem Bums are making me proud, though. They have suffered injuries to most of their best hitters - Repko, Kent, and Mueller - and are hanging in at only 2 games back. Their problem has been the dang bullpen which has blown 8 saves so far - even if they just had four of those back, they would be two games up in the division. Once we get Gagne and the others back from injury, I believe we will roll to victory. But just the division.

Emptiness Is Nothing You Can Share

BananAppeal: Let us bless them everyday

Yesterday was an odd Ides of May, I guess. An hour after reading Adjective Queen's funeral post, I get home from work, check the mailbox, and our neighbor comes walking over with the Super Giant Killer and says, "I think she needs to be home for awhile". Of course, I start thinking what did she do this time as she has a certain notoriety for intensity. The household next door consists of an elder and her two single adult daughters. Their granddaugther/niece is the Killer's age and lives down the street, so she spends a lot of time next-door and plays with the Killer a lot. So, the neighbor says she just came home from work and everyone in the house was crying. Apparently the Killer was thinking of her Gram and began to miss her very much and she started to tell stories about her. Then Annie, the little friend, started to miss her recently departed grandfather, and by this time Grandmother began to miss her dead husband and their old house and began to tell stories about him. Annie remembered the old house and started crying about having to move and then the Killer started missing her old house. So, when our neighbor walked in from work she was met with weeping and gnashing of teeth and sent both girls home to grieve in their own fashions. So, what does the Killer do? She attacks her consoling mother about our moving and wanting her old house back.

Another weird thing happened to the girls yesterday. After dinner they went to Big Northwest Side Library and as they approached the circ desk, a boy rushed in shouting , "Help! It's an emergency! I need to use the phone!" Apparently he had been running and was shirtless and presented himself quite a spectacle. He claimed a man was after him and he needed to call his mother. Apparently no one seemed to know what to do and soon an adult male in apparent possession of his shirt came in and tried to coax him back outside, but he wouldn't go. Unfortunately, The Self became so distressed that they had to leave so I don't know the final outcome of the event. I'll try and make a call and get the scoop. Self thought he was being abducted and YHWH thought he had some mental problems. I just don't think an abductor would stick around that long and let a crowd of people see his face, but then I don't deal with this everyday. For some reason, The Self was bothered by this all night.

UPDATE
I checked with personnel at Big Northwest Side Library and the report is that the librarian handled it just fine and the boy's mother came and picked him up.

There's a Billion Odd People Better Than Me, But You Don't Know Them

I hate this. I am in knitting paralysis. I am in desperate need of a 10-1/2" circular needle to start YHWH's Booga Bag and I have only a 9" and 13" on hand. Michael's hasn't caught on that people knit anything other than scarves and baby blankets and thus don't carry much in the way of supplies and Hobby Lobby is in bed with Chick-Fil-A in enforcing their theocratic intentions on everyone by not opening on Sunday. Probably think Mothers' Day is a religious holiday anyway. Tex isn't home so I can't lean on her. I received AQ's foot pattern yesterday - thanks for wearing socks Queen - but the only sock yarn I have on hand is mint green and I'm not sure if she'd like that. She's not home either. By the way, Queen sent either a scan or a photocopy of her feet. How in hell did you do that, Queen? Did you climb up on a really high chair and put one foot on the copier or something? I keep getting these images of you at Kinko's hiking up your skirt and scaling the Canon while screaming at Lego Guy to hurry up and push the button. I also had a couple of visions of you shattering the glass, shredding your foot before it's electrocuted by all the wires inside. I also have this mental picture of you standing on the copier at work when your boss walks in. All this to say that since you said your socks are currently ill-fitting it really doesn't help me to have an imprint of a socked foot. I need you to stand flat-footed on a piece of paper and have one of your men trace around your bare foot. So, anyway, I really wanted to knit this morning and I have made five African baby hats this week and I don't think I can do another.

I am seriously considering becoming a right-wing jingoist. I try to subtly nudge my girls into being selfless-thinkers-of-others (without being doormats), thinking liberals, progressives, or any combination of the above. But I want them to get there on their own rather than becoming left-wing ideological automatons that sputter and spout whenever certain keywords are mentioned. I bad mouth Wal-Mart, 24-hour news channels, reality TV, and a host of other things while giving examples of better alternatives. I even admit I'm wrong sometimes. Well, anyway, last night we were eating dinner and I brought up how if I had it to do over I would seriously consider becoming a doctor so I could work with Medecins Sans Frontieres or I would give a couple of years to The Halo Trust clearing mines. YHWH and I talked about landmines and the work of MSF for awhile and the whole time The Self is staring away blankly, bobbing her head to George Harrison. The worse part is she has no riddim and the head-bobbing was way out of sync with the music. The problem is that it's not an isolated incident, she pretty well spends most of her time working on nerve-attenuation and mainlining from Rupert Murdoch. By the way, I'm not pushing them into doing something dangerous. I'm not pushing them into anything at all, just trying to raise consciousness. As Boris Pasternak said, "We weren't put on this earth to be happy. We were put here to do great things." Anyway, I've read a few editorials lately that talk about how evangelicals have a higher birthrate (why do the obsess over sex so much?) than their ideological foes and theocracy will ultimately triumph especially if you factor in that the rising Hispanic population is pretty conservative. I love this because as a self-described historian I look at the most recent radical time in our past, the 1960s, and those radical kids had famously conservative parents. And looking at it personally, I was raised in a right-wing jingoist environment and it backfired on me, so I'm considering giving it a go. I think it will be fun. I mean my opinions and actions really got on my dad's nerves, but for me it will be rewarding watching the girls react to my philosophy. Now were did I put that subscription card for The Weekly Standard?

Ahh...Tex just called...she has the needle I desire...

...The Way The Floor Fell Out Of My Car When I Put The Clutch Down

Today was a pretty good one overall. To start with I didn't have to make my morning tour of the outer loop. Yes, I begin each morning by spending the first hour and a half in the car. It's doubtless some sort of a karmic sting for some past sin - I move from outer suburbia to just inches outside the inner loop to help save the environment, ease America's addiction to oil and instill a sense of community in my kids; but before I can see the fruits of such a labor, I must spend four months driving The Self back up to her school which used to be so close she walked every day. But there are only two more weeks of school left and YHWH is going to do the last two, so I'm free! Took me seven minutes to get to work today - sweet. Soon I may range into the black on the karma ledger as The Grandmother of Europe and I have undergone preliminary discussions on carpooling. I'm kind of skittish, though, because even though I adore my Wagon Queen Family Truckster, she is getting up in years and the seats squeak a little and on the warmest days the AC does need a little coaxing.

Also I just finished a big thingy I have been working on at work and it was nice to put it to bed yesterday. And today I began to think about an oral history project I'll be co-working on soon (but I'm part of the Do-Nothing Caste, so it's not much). So I was in that sort of mulling mode most of the day, thinking about oral history, when I see three books on writing and telling your family history stacked at the reference desk with a post-it note stating that they belong to one of our regulars. We commonly check books out to people who have difficulty returning things and keep them behind the desk for them to use when they make their visits. Anyway, this stack belonged to a regular visitor who has told us on more than one occasion that he is a vampire. Grizzled and unkempt, he's the friendliest guy you'd ever want to meet. He looks and sounds like a Marlboro Man put out to pasture and I get the impression he fancies himself a ladies man owing to the amount of time he spends at the circ desk and the special rapport he has with my co-worker, The Grandmother of Europe. When he comes in he will tell you he's nice now, but you wouldn't want to see him at night when he's a "vam-par". So I realize since he's reading these books on life stories, I have to get him to do an oral history. His voice has to be recorded for all time. I'll let you know how it turns out.

We went over to our friends The Shades of Gray for dinner to-nite. We had to bring SGK along because The Self was to watch her for us, but she, being The Self, made other plans. Killer was a pretty good kid, though. I guess the Shades would have to have the final word, but considering how she can be quite an attention-seeking pest in a group of adults, I think she did really well. She sat on the couch and read the Guinness Book of World Records for 30 minutes; not bad. We had a really great time and had some excellent chow. Mrs. Shades raises the bar on homecooked meals, I must say. Mr. Shades requested I review some of the items I've seen and read along the sidebar and I may just do that - at least for the ones I feel most strongly about.

YHWH has spoken. The next knitting project will be the Booga Bag. Hers will be in black and gray striations, not the colors in the link above.

Going Forward

The next time you are having a conversation with someone and they ask themselves a question and then answer it, please ask them to stop. Ask them to stop being a part of the problem and become part of the solution. I'm also looking for the name and address of the savvy spin doctor who came came up with this technique; I have some words for him.

Have you noticed this trend over the last half dozen years or so? A reporter stands there with a mike and the interviewee asks and answers his own questions. Here's an example from one of the masters, Donald Rumsfeld:

Q: So you expect this will be the tipping point, then?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't know. Am I hopeful? Yes. Do I think there are more positive things taking place than negative things? You bet I do.

That is brilliant. I mean he knows that there are only two and a half minutes alloted to his interview and if he can ask his own questions, he can also control his answers and how long he takes to answer them. And he therefore controls all of the soundbites. I actually don't blame the spin doctor who came up with this. I really blame what passes for journalism. Edward R. Murrow would never let some hair-brained politician ask his own questions.

I'm resigned enough to know this is normal for politics, that this how they do what they do, but I am seeing this turn up in corporate communiques and local news and god-in-heaven, even stupid athletes are now incorporating this into their daily drivel. I keep a baseball bat by the TV for the day I hear Kelly Ogle work this into 'My Two Cents'. I'm also hearing it in conversations. So please, people, stop this before it's too late.

Once this scourge has ended, I can then start on the newest strain of public vacuity - the use of 'going forward' as a replacement for 'in the future':

- Jackson says. "Going forward, we're not going to tolerate it.
- Do you think this is a real concern for developers going forward?
- It is a fact of life going forward that your husband will continue to be reassigned.
- So, going forward it is our intention to utilize our core skills of development.
- He's able to establish the right kind of relationship with the press that we need going forward," Bolten said.

Do you see how insidious this is. That's just one page of Clusty returns. Please. Just say no. Just use the word 'future' or 'ahead'. The world does not need the superfluity of gerunds being inflicted here. I still haven't made up my mind about Toyota's new slogan 'moving forward'. I mean it is referring to cars after all, but it is perilously close to 'going forward'.

While I'm waiting on the recipients of the next three projects in my knitting queue to decide what they want, I have made three more hats for African babies. I make these for a hospital in Kenya. Yes, they need stocking caps in Kenya; they have high mountains where the hospital is. The first dozen or so I sent were all pastel pinks and blues and they thanked me very kindly, but asked if I could please make them in bold colors so as not to show dirt so much. So here they are:

The Ones That Love Us Best Are The Ones We Lay To Rest

I am currently in my annual May unsettlement. Starting around the last week in April every year I begin to ruminate on when I am going to make my annual pilgrimage to my mom's grave. I hate going. May is the month because I have three target dates - her death date, Mother's Day and Memorial Day. Her death date is movable, so it's rarely the day unless it falls on a weekend, but I can always count on Mother's Day and Memorial Day to stick in my craw. It's not fair to my family, I tell myself. Mother's Day should be YHWH's day and I should spend Memorial Day with friends and family. And this year gas is so expensive. And of course, what really nags at me is the knowledge that if her grave were in town, I'd probably go all the time; weekly or at least monthly. I'd bring seasonal flowers, leave some birthday cake, have a picnic once in awhile.

I realize that it sounds crass and heartless to look at it as a chore, but frankly, I have simply never seen the point in visiting someone's grave. Her grave is in a rural area and it takes two hours to drive out there and when I get there I'm like Clark Griswold taking in the Grand Canyon. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I never cry. No way am I going to carry on a conversation. I lay down some flowers, pick a couple of weeds, kick some dirt, and sit on the nice granite bench my dad made. That takes about five minutes. "Now what?" I ask myself. I'm a doer. I can't just sit. In the evenings, I may sit down to watch a baseball game, but I'm doing laundry and knitting or doing a crossword at the same time. In church or class where I have to sit still and be quiet I have to furtively make lists or draw maps or I won't make it.

This year I had my date all marked out. It was going to be last weekend. We were going to take the Super Giant Killer to the Okeene Rattlesnake Roundup (her snake fascination is a whole 'nother post) and then swing over to the cemetery a couple counties away while we were out there. Then the Thursday before that weekend YHWH announces we're going to see her family that weekend on the other side of the state. I was going to protest and even thought about whining and making a big issue out of it, but then I realized, who was I fooling? I didn't even want to go out to the cemetery.

As it happened, though, I started talking to Family Chronicler, a co-worker, about it and she didn't think I was all that bad for feeling that way. She even had some ideas of things Killer and I could do to commemorate. One thing was to have Killer write a letter to Grammy and affix to a ballon and let float up, up, and away. Another one was to find an old grave around here that doesn't seem to have anyone taking care of it and adopt it; kind of a goes-around-comes-around sort of thing. Or on her death date we can tell stories and look at photos so SGK doesn't forget what she doesn't remember (mom died a month after the Killer was born). I'm a doer, right? I can do that. I'm not sure if it will hapen, though. When I brought it up with SGK she said, "Maybe later, dad." Crap, she's already a teen.

Aardvarks to Zebras

I had the day off of work, so I let The Killer play hookey and hang out with me. We started out at Panera for bagels and she of course had to have a USA Today to read. She got used to reading it during all those stays we made at Holiday Inn Express where we got it free every day. Then we went to the Zoo which is always dicey this time of year and sure enough we pulled up and there were 16,000 school buses there from all over the state. One of my great annoyances. I have never understood the mass field trip. It seems like 30 kids visiting the inner workings of the zoo would get so much more out of it than beleaguered teachers letting thousands of them loose at the zoo gate and standing at the entrance figuring if they cover the exits it will all work out. Besides, I thought the school districts were strapped for gas money. It was such a sea of humanity that even SGK was daunted, so we went over to the Omniplex instead.

It was pretty quiet in there, but the elderly volunteer there assured it wouldn't last the hour. The Omniplex is every parent's nightmare. Even if you aren't germphobe, you're always uneasy because with 10,000 hands-on exhibits and 10,000 kids, the only thing your kid learns is a lesson in public health. The Big O is a sad old institution anyway. Most of the exhibits have been in there since the late 70s and they look it. And, although it's not entirely their fault, there isn't much science going on in there. The initial wave of small-town school buses struck about a half-hour after we got there and all the boys ran through the exhibits frantically pushing buttons and turning dials while the girls huddled around in groups of three in any available corner and waited for there turn at the Best Friends Forever photobooth. None entered the air and space part or the art galleries. It just seems like such a waste. I'm not an old fogey; I know it's a field trip and firld trips are supposed to be fun. But just take them to Frontier City or Celebration Station or something.

We ended up having a nice time, though. For one thing SGK like the stuff upstairs so we were able to do that in relative museum peace. She liked the mock AWACS mission and running the trains and we spent about 45 minutes in the photography exhibits. Then we went to the gardens in the back. They have really gone downhill as well. There were hardly any plants outside and the greenhouse and mini-arboretum were empty. But when we went out there we looked over at the zoo and noticed the herds were being driven back to the buses. So we went next door and made the rounds. I asked SGK what she wanted to see first and she said she didn't care; she likes animals from aardvarks to zebras. The little snot wanted to see everything and so we we did. Spring is quite the season at the zoo - we saw flamingoes copulating and giraffes necking; they really did; they entwined their necks around each other. Between the two places we were on our feet for six hours and she never complained.

The Doctrines of an Afternoon

Just sitting here waiting on the big t-storm to strike. Should be any minute now. It's probably going to be pretty loud because that line has held together perfectly straight since Pampa, Texas. Prolly no tornadoes, though.

Oh, man after Monday night's drubbing of the Indians I was ready to dust off Bart Giamatti's "Green Fields of the Mind" with it's famous line (because I know you won't read the whole thing): "It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart." Both of my teams have been hanging in there really well despite major injuries at key positions. I, of course, dutifully picked them each to win their respective divisions, but on Sunday the Dodgers blew a 5-0 lead in the bottom of the 9th and lost 6-5 in 10 innings while Cleveland blew a 4-0 lead in the 6th and lost 8-4 at home. I just know that's how it's going to be all season. But then today C. C. Sabathia comes back from his month-long injury and throws five innings and allows one run for the win. In the rain. Against the White Sox. Very nice. "Hope, the anchor, bites and takes hold where a moment before it seemed we would be swept out with the tide." We're definitely winning it all, now. And since almost everyone I know who reads this thing hates sports all I can say is too bad; the Indians and Dodgers will be in the World Series and you will have to hear about it. You'll thank me later. And anyone who mentions Cleveland's mascot gets their url blocked.

Ok, it's dark green on the radar all over the top of us and I'm not hearing anything. That is so annoying when these big storms come up to our big heat dome and run off with their tails tucked between their legs.

Father of girls. I have no idea what I'm doing. I spent the evening witnessing the meltdown of a teen shopping for a birthday present for her boyfriend. Everything in Target falls into two categories: that's retarded and he'll think that's retarded. I tried to think of everything I had received at that age as a means of suggestion. When I was a pre-driving teen I would take virtually anything. Girls bought me stuff all the time - candy, shirts, little toys, sports stuff. We ended up with a t-shirt with something on it he likes, but he will hate it because it is the wrong size and wrong color for him. I promise he won't he even notice. Oh, and a mix CD. But he won't 'get it'. I am proud of her for not going way overboard.

On the other side of the planet Super Giant Killer is threatening to take over the family business. The other day she got to pick out some books with our special discount at Barney Noble's. She scoured the whole store and picked out a DK World Atlas, the Book of Firsts, and D-Day Landings. Check out the condition of her World Almanac for Kids, from which we are regaled with facts launched from the backseat of the car:

This book is three months old. I hope it last until the 2007 edition comes out.

He's A Cerebral Assassin On The Mound

Finished the Kidlet Tank last night. Pictured at left. Annoyingly, it only took one skein of yarn and about 10 yards of the next. So essentially I just added a big chunk of yarn to the lagniappe stash. I'm toying with the idea of spending all summer making small things to reduce the stash. It really bothers me knowing there is a growing fuzzy monster in the closet. Next up is a black felted bag for YHWH, a brown felted bag for YHWH and then some sox for Adjective Queen.

Had a nice afternoon with the Queen yesterday. We grilled hamburgers, and played baseball. Well, she didn't play baseball. I, SGK, Lego and Sport played. Sport's confidence is pretty amusing. When he got there I asked him if he had watched the NFL Draft. I told him his favorite team took a player from Tulsa and he says he will probably get drafted to the Patriots and make about $10 million a year. Every catch is a touchdown worthy of a dance and of course it goes without saying he is definitely faster than his brother. I hope he never loses that.

Also got to talk to Lego a little about airpower. He's going to join the Air Force. You've got a couple of heroes in the making there, Queen. Make sure Lego gets to see the Hindenburg video and listen to the famous Herb Morrison radio call. It's really cool if you can sync them together. Bet Overcoat can do it. I learned something about the ol' Hindenburg. I learned that I was among millions who think that the fateful last voyage of the 'burg was it's maiden voyage. It actually had flown over one million miles. One million! Also learned that airship travel is the safest available. But since nearly everyone in the civilized world saw the fiery totality of the crash, it killed mass airship travel for good.

I'm still trying to figure out what YHWH meant by comparing me to Tony Soprano.